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Posted Traffic cameras used to harass and limit movement of peaceful protestors to Boing Boing
Britain is full of license-plate cameras, cameras used to send you tickets if you're caught speeding, or driving in the bus-lane, or entering London's "congestion-charge zone" without paying the daily fee for driving in central London. And because of Chekhov's first law of narrative ("a gun on the mantelpiece in act one will go off by act three"), the police have decided to also use these cameras as a surveillance tool, to "catch terrorists" (and other bad guys). So any police officer can add any license number to the database of "people of interest" and every time that license plate passes a camera, the local police force will receive an urgent alert, and can pull over the car, detain the driver, and search the car and its passengers under the Terrorism Act. And, of course, police officers are less than discriminating about who they add to this list. For example, "Catt, 50, and her 84-year-old father, John" were added to the list because a police officer noticed their van at three protest demonstrations. And now Catt and John get pulled over by the police and searched as terrorists. Environmental activists tend to be pretty forgiving of license-plate cameras, because they're a critical piece of congestion-charge systems that charge people money for driving instead of using public transit. This kind of regressive tax (the £10 charge in London is a pittance and no disincentive to the wealthy, and is crippling to the marginal and the poor) is also much beloved by the law-and-economics crowd, who assume that rational consumers will all be equally disincentivized by a little friction in the system. But congestion charges require license plate cameras, and license plate cameras are an enormous piece of artillery to hand to the world's police, who are increasingly pants-wettingly afraid of any sort of public protest -- including environmental protests. I support reducing driving as much as the next green, but environmental change will require lots of protest, and that protest will get exponentially harder with the growth of the traffic cameras that are absolutely integral to congestion charge schemes. The two anti-war campaigners were not the only law-abiding protesters being monitored on the roads. Officers have been told they can place "markers" against the vehicles of anyone who attends demonstrations using the national ANPR data centre in Hendon, north London, which stores information on car journeys for up to five years. Senior officers have been instructed to "fully and strategically exploit" the database, which allows police to mark vehicles with potentially useful inform-ation such as drink-driving convictions. The use of the ANPR database to flag-up vehicles belonging to protesters has resulted in peaceful campaigners being repeatedly stopped and searched. Documents released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal Kent and Essex police deployed mobile ANPR "interceptor teams" on roads surrounding the protest against the Kingsnorth power station, in Kent, last year. Activists repeatedly stopped and searched as police officers 'mark' cars (via Beyond the Beyond) (Image: control, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Secret London's photo stream)...
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Posted Owner of trendy Manhattan restaurant Paradou plumbs new depths of evil bad-bossitude to Boing Boing
Vadim Ponorovsky, the owner of the restaurant Paradou in trendy Park Slope Manhattan's meat-packing district, sent his employees an email in which he called them "lazy motherfuckers" because they failed to extract enough email addresses from their customers (he has a spam list and he makes it his servers' duty to get email addresses out of diners). Ponorovsky went on to call his employees "fucking lazy disrespectful assholes," "fucking children," and said, "Effective immediately, any server or host who fails to collect at least 20 emails per week, will be fined $100. Anyone failing to collect at least 20 emails for two weeks in a month will be fired immediately. No matter what. No matter who you are." He also threatened to fire his entire staff, saying, "I have absolutely no respect for any of you," and "Go find another place to work." And now, he's sent along a followup to the trade press, saying that this is just the way he talks, that "if you talked to anyone who ever worked for me, I could say without any sense of self-aggrandizement that they'd say I was the best boss they've worked for." In support of this he cites the fact that he's never missed payroll (e.g., he pays his employees the wages they earn), that he lets them work for him again after their vacations, and that they get to eat for free at the restaurant where they work. He also declares himself to be a Reaganite and villifies anyone who disagrees with his treatment of his employees, who can only become wealthy if he gets rich first, through the magic of "trickle-down." "If my staff has the ability for self-reflection and seeing the big picture, they should ask, 'Why would one of us fuck the rest of us so badly by damaging our ability to make money?" Ponorvosky says. "The first casualties of this will be the people who all of these protesters are 'defending.' No thought is given to 'the trickle-down,' to use Ronald Reagan's favorite expression." As for the people who are vowing to shut Paradou down, Ponorvsky says, "These people have no sense of rightness or goodness." Paradou Owner Says Tirade Against Staff Was a Restaurateur's 'Howl' Restaurant Owner's Email to Staff Belongs in Tyrant Hall of Fame (via Making Light) (Image: New York City - Paradou Brunch, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike image)...
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Posted Crucifix multi-screwdriver to Boing Boing
Designer Michiel Cornelissen laser-sintered stainless-steel crucifix has screwdriver bits cut into each tip, turning it into a screwdriver that repels vampires. a bit cross (via Make) Previously:Boing Boing: Electronic crucifix broadcasts Lord's Prayer Boing Boing: Mobile phone antenna disguised as a churchtop crucifix Boing Boing: Programmable screwdrivers...
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Posted Lego hole-punch for paper-meets-Lego projects to Boing Boing
Muji's going to start selling hole-punches that knock out patterns that can be threaded between two Lego bricks. They go on sale in a week, and open up many possibilities for crafty Lego extensions. LEGO for MUJI Paper and Block Sets (via Make) Previously:USB devices stuffed into legos -- Boing Boing Gadgets - Boing Boing Frank Lloyd Wright Lego -- Boing Boing Gadgets - Boing Boing Patching ancient walls with legos - Boing Boing Lego arms-dealer - Boing Boing...
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Posted 3D scanning with a plain webcam to Boing Boing
Coming soon to a science fiction plot near you: with the right software, a plain-jane webcam can be a 3D scanner. It's a project from Qi Pan, a PhD candidate at Cambridge University Engineering Department. ProFORMA: Probabilistic Feature-based On-line Rapid Model Acquisition (via Futurismic) Previously:Homemade 3D printer goop made from maltodextrin costs 1/50 of the ... Baby brain scanner photo - Boing Boing Live nude supermodel scanning online: Naomi Campbell - Boing Boing Boing Boing: More live 3D Naomi Campbell on Mon. Jan. 29...
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Posted Glowing bacteria that finds landmines to Boing Boing
Edinburgh University engineers have a plan to use genetically engineered bacteria that glow in the presence of explosives to detect landmines. The project is student-led, overseen by Alistair Elfick. The bugs can be mixed into a colourless solution, which forms green patches when sprayed onto ground where mines are buried. Edinburgh University said the microbes could be dropped by air onto danger areas. Within a few hours, they would indicate where the explosives can be found. The scientists produced the bacteria using a new technique called BioBricking, which manipulates packages of DNA. Glowing bugs could find landmines (via Futurismic) (Image: Landmine in ground, Cambodia, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Kyle Simourd's Flickr stream)...
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Posted Toy truck craps out domino runs to Boing Boing
Brando's Auto Domino Building Truck is a battery-powered toy truck that shits bricks -- that is, it poops out dominos standing on end at the correct intervals to make a domino run. Or so the manufacturer says -- I haven't tried it yet. But I have a vision of setting this thing down at one end of an airport concourse and creating a mile-long run. I love that the dominos load in via a magazine that sticks out of the top like a banana-clip on an automatic rifle. The Auto Domino Building Truck (via Red Ferret)...
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Posted Trompe l'oeil back-garden sink-hole to Boing Boing
This trompe l'oeil back-garden uses painted lines to make it appear that the tree is disappearing into a sink-hole: Deformscape is an outdoor extension to a private dwelling in San Francisco. Situated in a tightly packed urban neighborhood, this limited space outdoor sculpture garden inherits a large tree, and uses this sole arboreal presence to establish a gravitational pattern of grooves that are focused towards the tree's centroid. This asserts the valued presence of the carbon-absorbing tree and its green canopy overhead, while allowing for a maximum of usable surface area below free of other vegetation. To generate the resultant pattern, a 3-dimensional bulge is formed around the tree, and its distorted wire-grid projected onto a 2-dimensional surface. Taking into account appearance effects created by perspective views from inside, the resultant planar surface appears sink around the tree. DEFORMSCAPE (via JWZ) Previously:Trompe l'oeil ski-toilet mural - Boing Boing Trompe-l'œil video projection on building facade - Boing Boing Funny trompe l'oeil costumes - Boing Boing Porn trompe l'oeil - Boing Boing In trompe l'oeil stripper ads, lampposts are strip poles - Boing Boing Rooms painted to create 3D trompe l'oeil effects - Boing Boing...
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Posted Ballad of the Monster Manual to Boing Boing
Mixel Pixel's song "Monster Manual" is a loving tribute to the most exciting AD&D hardcover, the one with all the beasties in it. And Dan Meth's animation is just the perfect accompaniment. Monster Manual (via Neatorama) Previously:Presidential candidates as Monster Manual monsters - Boing Boing McCain's D&D character stats - Boing Boing Steampunk D&D Beholder sculpture - Boing Boing Origami D&D miniatures - Boing Boing...
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Posted Competition and Google Book Search to Boing Boing
Fred von Lohmann, the chief copyright counsel at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, has been doing an amazing job of analyzing the latest draft of the Google Book Search settlement, really making the legalese clear for the rest of us. In the latest installment, Fred looks at the competition implications of the settlement, and talks about how the settlement could be structured to make the marketplace as competitive as possible. Nobody likes this "only-for-Google" aspect of the settlement--in fact, Google has said that it would support orphan works legislation that would empower the Registry to make the same deal (or even a better deal) with others who want to use these unclaimed works. (Where the claimed books are concerned, in contrast, the Registry will likely ask the rightsholders to appoint it to license companies other than Google. But that still leaves all the unclaimed books out.) The settlement agreement even has a provision that makes it clear that the UWF can license others "to the extent permitted by applicable law"--what amounts to an "insert orphan works legislation here" invitation. But absent some legislative supplement to the revised Settlement 2.0, it still seems that any other company would have to scan these books, get sued, and hope for a class action settlement. That, of course, is the kind of barrier to entry that any monopolist would envy. ...But we shouldn't be satisfied with antitrust law here. This is not just a simple market transaction between commercial entities. Google is building an enormously important public resource, a task it can only undertake with the blessing of a federal court. The public deserves a solution that is not "barely legal," but that instead encourages real, robust competition. As written, without some modification or legislative adjunct, Settlement 2.0 does not do that. Google Books Settlement 2.0: Evaluating Competition Previously:Google Book Search and privacy for students - Boing Boing Magical short story podcast about Google Book Search, data ... Google Book Search sells books - Boing Boing UMichigan Prez to American Publishers: Save Google Book Search ... Boing Boing: Sloan Fndtn. funds "open" alternative to Google Book ... Scans of Google Books with fingers in them - Boing Boing George Dyson on Google book scanning: "The Universal Library ......
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Posted Origami hats for the faces on the money to Boing Boing
Make blog doesn't know where these origami money-heads-in-hats come from, but they want to. So do I. This looks like the best currency mod I've seen in ages. Money hats Previously:Dollar bill origami animals - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Currency origami -- strange bodies and familiar faces Creative things to do with junkmail - Boing Boing...
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Posted Hamster Hotel lets you live like a rodent to Boing Boing
A hamster-themed hotel in Nantes, France, offers rooms and layouts inspired by hamster-cages. Rooms have hamster wheels, the food is all grains and seeds, the water comes out of hamster bottles, etc. At French hamster hotel, live like a rodent (via Making Light) Previously:Hamster on whether organic food tastes better - Boing Boing Woman lives like hamster - Boing Boing Boing Boing: BBC's hamster reporting Buzzball human hamster toy - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Giant hamster-ball for humans Hamster's Lunch now available online - Boing Boing Toy car powered by a hamster wheel - Boing Boing Grownup-sized inflatable hamster-ball - Boing Boing...
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Posted Britain's new Internet law -- as bad as everyone's been saying, and worse. Much, much worse. to Boing Boing
The British government has brought down its long-awaited Digital Economy Bill, and it's perfectly useless and terrible. It consists almost entirely of penalties for people who do things that upset the entertainment industry (including the "three-strikes" rule that allows your entire family to be cut off from the net if anyone who lives in your house is accused of copyright infringement, without proof or evidence or trial), as well as a plan to beat the hell out of the video-game industry with a new, even dumber rating system (why is it acceptable for the government to declare that some forms of artwork have to be mandatorily labelled as to their suitability for kids? And why is it only some media? Why not paintings? Why not novels? Why not modern dance or ballet or opera?). So it's bad. £50,000 fines if someone in your house is accused of filesharing. A duty on ISPs to spy on all their customers in case they find something that would help the record or film industry sue them (ISPs who refuse to cooperate can be fined £250,000). But that's just for starters. The real meat is in the story we broke yesterday: Peter Mandelson, the unelected Business Secretary, would have to power to make up as many new penalties and enforcement systems as he likes. And he says he's planning to appoint private militias financed by rightsholder groups who will have the power to kick you off the internet, spy on your use of the network, demand the removal of files or the blocking of websites, and Mandelson will have the power to invent any penalty, including jail time, for any transgression he deems you are guilty of. And of course, Mandelson's successor in the next government would also have this power. What isn't in there? Anything about stimulating the actual digital economy. Nothing about ensuring that broadband is cheap, fast and neutral. Nothing about getting Britain's poorest connected to the net. Nothing about ensuring that copyright rules get out of the way of entrepreneurship and the freedom to create new things. Nothing to ensure that schoolkids get the best tools in the world to create with, and can freely use the publicly funded media -- BBC, Channel 4, BFI, Arts Council grantees -- to make new media and so grow up to turn Britain into a powerhouse of tech-savvy creators. Lobby organisation The Open Rights Group is urging people to contact their MP to oppose the plans. "This plan won't stop copyright infringement and with a simple accusation could see you and your family disconnected from the internet - unable to engage in everyday activities like shopping and socialising," it said. The government will also introduce age ratings on all boxed video games aimed at children aged 12 or over. There is, however, little detail in the bill on how the government will stimulate broadband infrastructure. Government lays out digital plans (Thanks, Lee!) Previously:BREAKING: Leaked UK government plan to create "Pirate Finder General" with power to appoint militias, create laws Brits: send a message to Mandelson and fight "three strikes ... Brits: sign petitition to kill proposal to disconnect accused ... Open Rights Group forum on proposal to cut British households off ... Brit business secretary promises to punish accused file-sharers ... UK govt proposes idiotic two-strikes-and-you're-out Internet ......
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Posted DRM-free top-flight horror novels to Boing Boing
Brett from small-press horror publisher Chizine sez, "ChiZine Publications (CZP) is an independent publisher of weird, surreal, subtle, and disturbing dark literary fiction hand-picked by Brett Alexander Savory and Sandra Kasturi, Bram Stoker Award-winning editors of ChiZine: Treatments of Light and Shade in Words. You've seen us mentioned recently here for books such as Lavie Tidhar & Nir Yaniv's The Tel Aviv Dossier, Robert Boyczuk's Horror Story and Other Horror Stories, David Nickle's Monstrous Affections, and Robert J. Wiersema's The World More Full of Weeping. Now those books, along with our whole catalogue, are available as low-cost DRM-free downloads, the full list of which includes: - Brent Hayward's Filaria (novel) - Robert Boyczuk's Horror Story and Other Horror Stories (collection) - Lavie Tidhar & Nir Yaniv's The Tel Aviv Dossier (novel) - Daniel A. Rabuzzi's The Choir Boats (novel) - Robert J. Wiersema's The World More Full of Weeping (novella) - Claude Lalumière's Objects of Worship (collection) - David Nickle's Monstrous Affections (collection - which recently garnered starred reviews in both Publishers Weekly and Quill & Quire!)" ChiZine Publications - Publishers - Digital Editions - Horror Mall (Thanks, Brett!) Previously:ChiZine party at WorldCon Montreal next week - Boing Boing Small sf press rallies despite recession - Boing Boing Todd Schorr's art book: American Surreal - Boing Boing...
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Posted Free legal assistance for bloggers and online media creators to Boing Boing
The Online Media Legal Network is a project from Harvard's cyberlaw center the Berkman Clinic that works with partners to hook up bloggers and other creates who are under legal threat with lawyers who can help them solve their problems. The Online Media Legal Network (OMLN) is a network of law firms, law school clinics, in-house counsel, and individual lawyers throughout the United States willing to provide pro bono legal assistance to qualifying online journalism ventures and other digital media creators. Online Media Legal Network (via JoHo)...
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Posted Cataloging the lies in Palin's "Going Rouge" to Boing Boing
The Huffington Post is collecting blatant lies (and arguable mistruths) from Palin's new memoir, "Going Rouge." Here are a couple for feel: "Palin boasts that she ran her campaign for governor on small donations and turned back large checks over conflicts of interest. In fact, she relied heavily on large donations and political action committees and took $1,000 each from a couple whose offices were raided by the FBI," and, "Palin says her team overseeing a natural gas pipeline set up an open, competitive bidding process. An AP investigation found they crafted terms that favored only a few companies and ultimately benefited one with ties to her administration." Send Us Your Palin Falsehoods! (via Memex 1.1) (Image: DIY Sarah Palin Mask, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike image from Billypalooza's Flickr stream) Previously:Goldwag: The Sarah Palin Conspiracies - Boing Boing Sarah Palin's legal team doesn't understand DNS - Boing Boing Vlad and Boris: Love Song for Sarah Palin, our Alaskan Neighbor ... La Pequeña Sarah Palin (Thank you Jesus) - Boing Boing Computer-Generated Sarah Palin Interview - Boing Boing HOWTO Put a hidden radio-prompter on Sarah Palin during the debate ......
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Posted BREAKING: Leaked UK government plan to create "Pirate Finder General" with power to appoint militias, create laws to Boing Boing
A source close to the British Labour Government has just given me reliable information about the most radical copyright proposal I've ever seen. Secretary of State Peter Mandelson is planning to introduce changes to the Digital Economy Bill now under debate in Parliament. These changes will give the Secretary of State (Mandelson -- or his successor in the next government) the power to make "secondary legislation" (legislation that is passed without debate) to amend the provisions of Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1988). What that means is that an unelected official would have the power to do anything without Parliamentary oversight or debate, provided it was done in the name of protecting copyright. Mandelson elaborates on this, giving three reasons for his proposal: 1. The Secretary of State would get the power to create new remedies for online infringements (for example, he could create jail terms for file-sharing, or create a "three-strikes" plan that costs entire families their internet access if any member stands accused of infringement) 2. The Secretary of State would get the power to create procedures to "confer rights" for the purposes of protecting rightsholders from online infringement. (for example, record labels and movie studios can be given investigative and enforcement powers that allow them to compel ISPs, libraries, companies and schools to turn over personal information about Internet users, and to order those companies to disconnect users, remove websites, block URLs, etc) 3. The Secretary of State would get the power to "impose such duties, powers or functions on any person as may be specified in connection with facilitating online infringement" (for example, ISPs could be forced to spy on their users, or to have copyright lawyers examine every piece of user-generated content before it goes live; also, copyright "militias" can be formed with the power to police copyright on the web) Mandelson is also gunning for sites like YouSendIt and other services that allow you to easily transfer large files back and forth privately (I use YouSendIt to send podcasts back and forth to my sound-editor during production). Like Viacom, he's hoping to force them to turn off any feature that allows users to keep their uploads private, since privacy flags can be used to keep infringing files out of sight of copyright enforcers. This is as bad as I've ever seen, folks. It's a declaration of war by the entertainment industry and their captured regulators against the principles of free speech, privacy, freedom of assembly, the presumption of innocence, and competition. This proposal creates the office of Pirate-Finder General, with unlimited power to appoint militias who are above the law, who can pry into every corner of your life, who can disconnect you from your family, job, education and government, who can fine you or put you in jail. More to follow, I'm sure, once Open Rights Group and other activist organizations get working on this. In the meantime, tell every Briton you know. If we can't stop this, it's beginning of the end for the net in Britain. Previously:Brits: send a message to Mandelson and fight "three strikes ... Brits: sign petitition to kill proposal to disconnect accused ... Open Rights Group forum on proposal to cut British households off ... Brit business secretary promises to punish accused file-sharers ... UK govt proposes idiotic two-strikes-and-you're-out Internet ......
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Posted Demonstrating TSA futility by stabbing dead pigs with pens to Boing Boing
An article in The American Journal of Forensic Medical Pathology entitled "Use of a pig model to demonstrate vulnerability of major neck vessels to inflicted trauma from common household items" describes all the ways you can stab people with stuff you're allowed to take through airport security, like pens and plastic knives. Commonly available items including a ball point pen, a plastic knife, a broken wine bottle, and a broken wine glass were used to inflict stab and incised wounds to the necks of 3 previously euthanized Large White pigs. With relative ease, these items could be inserted into the necks of the pigs next to the jugular veins and carotid arteries. Despite precautions against the carrying of metal objects such as knives and nail files on board domestic and international flights, objects are still available within aircraft cabins that could be used to inflict serious and potentially life-threatening injuries. If airport and aircraft security measures are to be consistently applied, then consideration should be given to removing items such as glass bottles and glass drinking vessels. However, given the results of a relatively uncomplicated modification of a plastic knife, it may not be possible to remove all dangerous objects from aircraft. Security systems may therefore need to focus on measures such as increased surveillance of passenger behavior, rather than on attempting to eliminate every object that may serve as a potential weapon. Use of a pig model to demonstrate vulnerability of major neck vessels to inflicted trauma from common household items. (via Schneier) (Image: TSA Security Checkpoint, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo from BillyPalooza's Flickr stream) Previously:The TSA Does Not Like Your Luggage - Boing Boing HOWTO make a weapon out of a newspaper - Boing Boing TSA responds to The Atlantic's article on airport security ... TSA screener who smuggled a gun into the airport is still on the ... TSA puts commercial pilots on no-fly and terrorist watch lists ... TSA detains woman over infant's sippy cup -- I feel safer! - Boing ... Boing Boing: Penis pump mistaken for bomb at TSA airport screening...
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Posted MAKERS tour ends this weekend at Philcon near Philadelphia to Boing Boing
This weekend, I'll be wrapping up my US/Canada tour for Makers, my new novel, with a weekend at Philcon, near Philadelphia. I'll be signing books, doing a reading, giving a speech, and appearing on several panels. Hope to see you there! Important note: I had previously announced a couple of readings tomorrow at the Philadelphia Free Library. It turns out that these are not open to the public (they're for school groups, which no one told me until last night). Sorry about this, folks. Philcon: Nov 20-22 The Crowne Plaza Hotel, Cherry Hill, NJ US/Canada Tour...
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Posted Opium dens of 1889 San Francisco in photos to Boing Boing
Jeff sends us these 1889 opium den photos, noting, "Unlike some guerrilla photogs of the era who would barge into dens with their new-fangled flash tech, snap a shot, and flee, these shots were taken by someone who had clearly established a connection with the users." San Francisco Opium Den Photos circa 1889 (Thanks, Jeff!) Previously:Afghanistan: Poppy Palaces and "Narcotecture" - Boing Boing Drug dealer vintage tax stamp - Boing Boing...
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Posted Chumby One: handsome successor to the cutest computer ever to Boing Boing
The Chumby One -- the successor to the incredibly innovative Chumby device -- is just about ready to ship, and is available for $99. Chumby is a cute, squeezable hand-held device that is wide open -- everything from the circuit board designs to the software is open-licensed and freely downloadable. The idea is to produce an adorable, versatile device that any hacker, anywhere, can improve, so that all Chumby owners can get more out of it. I have a couple of them at the office and I love playing with them. The new version looks amazing. In addition to being about half the price of the original chumby, the new device added some features: it has an FM radio, and it has support for a rechargeable lithium ion battery (although it's not included with the device, you have to buy one and install it yourself). There's also a knob so you can easily/quickly adjust the volume. But I don't think those are really the significant new features. What really gets me excited about this one is that it's much more hackable. The most significant improvement is that the firmware is stored on a microSD card. The microSD card isn't replaceable from the outside -- this is to prevent non-hackers from pulling it out and wondering why the device isn't booting anymore -- but if you take the back panel off (screws this time, no glue seals), it's fairly easy to access. The key here is that no longer do you have to worry about bricking your chumby device: if you screw up the firmware, you just pull it out, mount it on your dev box, and dd a new image onto it. Also, microSD is a "managed" NAND device, unlike our previous generation device which used a raw NAND device. This means that we don't have to rely on a MTD layer for the filesystem, and instead we can directly drop ext3 onto the device. While we still mount the root partition as read-only to harden the device against accidental damage, unlike our original cramfs implementation, you can trivially remount it as read/write and modify the linux on the device. Also, our OS image takes up only a small portion of the total device capacity, so there's actually over a gigabyte of extra space on there for you to load extra applications and libraries. chumby One (Bunnie Huang's blog) Chumby Store Previously:Chumby kits for sale in Maker Shed - Boing Boing Chumby hackers go to town - Boing Boing Chumby ships to early orderers - Boing Boing Chumby chairman interview: squeezable, open bean-bag computer ... Bunnie Huang's blog-series on Chinese manufacturing - Boing Boing Xbox hacker free talk at USC next Tuesday - Boing Boing...
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Posted EFF analyzes the legal creepiness of ACTA, the secret copyright treaty to Boing Boing
The Electronic Frontier Foundation's international policy crimefighting duo, Eddan Katz and Gwen Hinze, have published a scholarly article analyzing the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in light of US law and policy. Called "The Impact of ACTA on the Knowledge Economy," it was recently published in the Yale Journal of International Law, and constitutes a fantastic, reference-heavy resource for understanding just how creepy it is that the Obama administration is sneaking around behind Congress's back (not to mention the backs of the American public) to create a privacy-invading, internet-breaking trade agreement that the US will be bound to bring into its law. In brief, the ACTA process has been deliberately more secretive than customary practices in international decision-making bodies to evade the debates about intellectual property (IP) at established multilateral institutions. The Office of the USTR has chosen to negotiate ACTA as a sole executive agreement. Because of a loophole in democratic accountability on sole executive agreements, the Office of the USTR can sign off on an IP Enforcement agenda without any formal congressional involvement at all. But the negotiations do not have to be secret, and the sole executive agreement process does have mechanisms for oversight: they have not been used in ACTA, but can and should be. The excuse for using sole executive agreements is that ACTA will be fully respectful of U.S. law. But the constraint of coloring within the lines of US law, as one anonymous trade official described it, is a fragile linchpin upon which the weight of public trust and democratic legitimacy is bearing down. Stopping the ACTA Juggernaut Previously:New ACTA copyright treaty dodges the UN, poor countries and ... Petition to Obama government to disclose secret copyright treaty ... Obama's transparency commitment makes secret copyright treaty ... More on secret copyright treaty: your kids could go to jail for ... Everything you want to know about the scary, secret copyright ... EFF sues Obama administration for promised access to secret ... Meet the former Time Warner exec the US govt has put in charge of ... Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad. - Boing Boing...
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Posted Maricopa deputy steals defender's paperwork during a court case to Boing Boing
DayPortPlayer.newPlayer({articleID:"25073",bannerAdConDefID:"35",videoAdObjectID:"34",videoAdConDefID:"11",playVideoAds:"true",autoPlay:"false",categoryID:"3",accPos:"CCTVI.VIDEO.LOCAL",accSite:"KNXV",playerInstanceID:"79E9B438-E8FF-FFD4-61AC-E88644E2C20B",domain:"knxv.dayport.com"}); Tom sends us video of a Maricopa County Sheriff's Deputy named Adam Stoddard stealing a public defender's paperwork, during a court proceeding, in front of the court's security camera. Tom adds, "The local news clip is really worth seeing, if only for the reporter's incredulous lead-in: 'The Maricopa County Sheriff's office backing one of its deputies after he takes away a lawyer's paperwork in court.' If you live in Arizona you're subject to the daily outrage from Sheriff Joe Arpaio. It's a bit like Philadelphia during the Rizzo years." The deputy claims he wasn't stealing the paper, he was searching it for contraband. H's been found in contempt of court, and the judge has ordered him to apologize: Those conditions are: 1) On or before November 30th, 2009, at a time convenient for Ms. Cuccia, a news conference to take place in the plaza on the north side of the central court building where he is to give Ms. Cuccia a sincere verbal and written apology for invading her defense file and for the damage that his conduct may have caused to her professional reputation. 2) If at the news conference, Ms. Cuccia does not state that the apology is sufficient, Stoddard will report to the jail on December 1, 2009 and be detained until further order upon a finding that he has complied with the purge clause. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio responded to the ruling early Wednesday, saying Superior Court judges do not order his staff to hold press conferences. MCSO officer who took lawyer's paperwork might go to jail (Thanks, Tom!) Update: Dan Gillmor points out that the Heat City blog has done great work on this, breaking the story. Previously:Maricopa County Sheriff's Department burn down a house and kill ... Sheriff Joe Arpaio -- the - Boing Boing New reality show "Smile, You're Under Arrest" - Boing Boing Prison food convention video - Boing Boing Sheriff Joe Arpaio arrests newspaper owners for complaining about ......
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Posted SFPD cops from imaginary anti-dance-party squad steal laptops to Boing Boing
Autumn sez, "DJs at local underground parties have been losing their laptops to police raids - even when they're not DJing. They're being told that they'll lose their laptops - and often their livelihood - for an indefinite period of time, with no information on when or how to get their property back. The EFF has taken on the defense of several local DJs, but this is having a huge effect already on the local dance scene." Over the past six months, music fans who have been spinning records -- or even just attending friends' events -- claim their laptops, soundboards, and mixers have been taken by the cops in police raids. The busted gatherings include an illegal dance party, an artist fundraiser, and a private Halloween bash. While it's unclear whether the lack of official permits was enough reason to close down all these parties, the bigger question is why the police are seizing and holding private property that DJs and attendees use as valuable tools for making their art and living. Mike Holmes, aka DJ White Mike, was a recent victim of an SFPD sweep. On Halloween night, he DJed at the Beauty Bar and then hit a friend's costume party at a SOMA loft. He stored his bag, which held his laptop, in the DJ booth to prevent it from getting swiped. Ten minutes later, around 2:30 a.m., he says the police arrived and announced that they were taking all the laptops in the warehouse space. "I tried to explain that I wasn't even playing at the party," he says. Nonetheless, his computer was seized by a cop who identified himself as part of a "task force," who told him that he shouldn't expect to get his laptop back "for at least three months." Other DJs at the party claim to have received similar warnings -- as well as threats of jail time, if they were seen DJing at warehouses again -- from officers who said they were part of a task force.(The SFPD claims it does not have a specific task force looking at underground parties, but it does routine checks in the SOMA area, sometimes with other agencies such as the California Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control, for permit and other violations.) S.F. cops may have gone too far in seizing DJ gear at underground parties Stop the War on Fun (Thanks, Autumn!) Previously:Boing Boing: MUNI cops and SFPD enforce non-existent ......
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Posted Exploded human skull in a bell-jar to Boing Boing
Spotted today in the remarkable, newly renovated upstairs gallery at the (amazing, wonderful) Evolution Store in Soho, NYC: this exploded human skull, in a bell-jar. I covet this -- I'd settle for a replica, too. Anyone with a 3D printer want to knock one up and stick it on Etsy? Exploded Skull photos The Evolution Store Previously:Replica skulls of early hominids for sale - Boing Boing Skull-trafficking ring busted - Boing Boing Chocolate cast from real human skull - Boing Boing Carved skull - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Skull Project book Curator of human oddities museum remembered - Boing Boing...
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Posted Papercraft mecha: Metabots to Boing Boing
EnjoyMobil's Metabots are incredibly detailed poseable papercraft mecha robots that you assemble (and then decorate) from $10 kit books. Man, I can't wait until my kid's old enough to build these with. Metabots Previously:Screaming papercraft robot - Boing Boing Papercraft motorized robot - Boing Boing Papercraft robot toy with rotating head - Boing Boing Papercraft Wing Commander spaceships - Boing Boing BBtv - My Steampunk Papercraft Commodore 64 MMORPG Identity Crisis ... Structure of the Sun papercraft - Boing Boing...
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