Brian Krebs brings us a fascinating look at the inner workings of a site that sells stolen credit card numbers to fraudsters; the site is structured like a bizarro-world PayPal, with soft come-ons, hidden fees, and lots of upsell pressure.

The trouble is, the minute you seek to narrow your search using the built-in tools, the site starts adding all these extra convenience fees (sound familiar?).

Tony Smith from the Starshipsofa podcast sez, "Hugo winners for the umpteenth time Fred Pohl and Jack Vance talk to StarShipSofa, itself a Hugo winner about past conventions and what it feels like to win a Hugo at their age. — Read the rest

Mike Mitchell describes this lovely bit of duchampery "a quasi self portrait of my formative years."

1985

(via Super Punch)

Writing in the Atlantic, my friend Biella Coleman, an assistant professor at NYU, describes the syllabus for her wonderful Anthropology of Hackers class. I met Biella when she was doing her fieldwork, part of which involved volunteering at and interviewing the staff and supporters of the Electronic Frontier Foundation. — Read the rest

Anonymous Lurker Nobody sez, "The interminable Sam Starbuck, who writes incredible fiction of both the fan- & original- variety, has written what is both a beautiful homage and hilarious send up of T.S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. — Read the rest

The MPAA has updated one of its more ridiculous pro-censorship arguments; five years ago, they were telling lawmakers that blocking P2P would help block child pornography. Now they've presented at an information meeting in Mexico on ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret, far-reaching copyright treaty that contains provisions for China-style censoring firewalls for every country. — Read the rest

Like you all, I got a good chuckle out of the Insane Clown Posse's "Do You Believe in Miracles" video. And, like many of you, I interpreted it as fundamentally anti-science. Which, to be fair, wasn't so much interpretation as a literal reading of lines like, "Fucking magnets, how do they work?/ — Read the rest

The official Tea party website, teaparty.org, has apparently been compromised by los del 4Chan. The "Photos" section of teaparty.org currently links to this url, which (duh, 4chan!) now contains lots of porn and racist/shock visual jokes.

Boing Boing reader CJC says: "Just when you thought the world was full of selfish bastards… A young boy in Kingston, Ontario wanted to have a headstone on his father's grave, but the family couldn't afford it, so he decided to hold a yard sale to sell his toys. — Read the rest

Clint Eastwood wants to cast Joaquin Phoenix as J. Edgar Hoover's boyfriend, Clyde Tolson, in the upcoming movie Hoover. I don't really see the resemblance, but I'm sure with a bit of makeup and hairstyling it would work.

With a script by Milk screenwriter Dustin Lance Black, Hoover explores the two men's complicated relationship; neither man ever admitted to being gay, and Hoover was known for hunting down and intimidating those who dared questioned his sexual preference while he was alive.

I love this music video by Walter Robot for the song "Slippin" by Quadron, a band out of Denmark.

In fact, I love the video so much, we've arranged with the directors to feature it on Boing Boing Video's in-flight channel on Virgin America airlines. — Read the rest

A policeman kills two girls in a car crash. He was texting someone while driving 125mph. He gets paid leave. He pleads guilty. He's convicted. He gets probation. Then, he files for workers comp. Yay, America! (via Ryan Singel)

With Republicans in the US Senate voting unanimously to block debate, the Senate has voted down a major military bill that included a provision allowing the repeal of the "don't ask, don't tell policy" regarding gay soldiers. "The fight against freedom remains strong in the US," says Boing Boing reader blorgggg.

During my lifetime, I've consumed about 500 cans of Copenhagen Snuff. Man, did I ever love the stuff. But I quit many years ago. Even so, I still dream about Copenhagen frequently. This piece of folk art erotica from the 1940s (which sold for $25 at auction) seems like something that would work its way into one of my dreams. — Read the rest

The latest episode of the Memory Palace Podcast is called "Soldier Frum," and is about the formation of the Vanuatu Cargo Cult religion.

From Wikipedia:

The religion centering around John Frum arose in the late 1930s, when Vanuatu was known as the New Hebrides.

BB pal Orli Cotel, who by day works with Sierra Club on their radio show and other outreach, and Brianna Cayo Cotte launched a new non-profit called Swap For Good! Congrats! She says:

Swap for Good is a new non-profit project to encourage people to host clothing swaps as a way to help raise money for domestic violence shelters.

If you are in NYC this weekend, you could attend both Maker Fair NY and Horizons psychedelics forum!

Horizons is an annual forum about psychedelics held in New York City.  Its goal is to open a fresh dialogue on their role in science, medicine, culture and spirituality.  



For two decades, Chris Rainier has traveled around the world photographing body art — from tattoos to piercings to scarification — in a variety of cultural contexts. He's visited LA gangs, hill tribes in New Guinea, the Mentawa of the Indonesian island of Siberut, and countless other locales to understand how and why they modify their flesh, and document the processes and results. — Read the rest

Jim Woodring has created the infinite HAR in the form of a Moebius comic strip whose joke wraps back upon itself in a fractionally dimensional feat of comedy. Click through for animation and video.

Moebius strip comic by Jim Woodring (video, photo, animation)

(via Make)