Thanks, TechnoGeek, but of course, that means that the moment I mentioned it, someone has spontaneously gone back in time and made a whole webpage about it, maintaining the cycle of my never having had a truly original thought... Trust me, I'll find it!

You could record 20-30 minutes of audio on the CD, which burns from the inside out, and then put the grooves for the phonograph from the outside in, just taking care not to overlap and to make sure the final cut on the phonograph side won't cause the needle to skate across the rest of the disc.

I remember reading in some Australian magazine a few years ago about someone who had found an old record cutter in his attic and tried to use it, but before the put the cutting weight on (which was laid flat in the bottom of the box), the recordings sounded like dragging barbed wire across a flagpole.

Kennric: There is the story from an AOL survivor support chat room... A new filtering policy was put in place and suddenly they couldn't hold normal conversations. The policy was eventually lifted, but not before they got *really* tired of calling it "hooter cancer".

I am almost ashamed to say that I have a relevant comment for this discussion... The artist Voltaire has a set of 4 songs on an album called "Banned on Vulcan" and the first track is called Worf's Revenge. An excerpt: "'cause my head's not the only part of me that's got ridges"
There's also the entire song of "The Sexy Data Tango" to make every bit of Trek jargon into a dirty word. I disagree with his characterization of Tasha Yar, however.

Bah, if only I had backed up and deleted those files and installed sooner, I could have been a contender. The prize is totally sweet, too. If anyone happens on later, I might just be on. Haven't played anything online since about Quake 3, though, so I might be a little rusty.

#4, My first thoughts were of the same thing, but wikipedia points me to archive.org:

It may not be a perfect copy, but http://web.archive.org/web/20070221233757rn_1/e-sheep.com/spiders/

Brilliant story, not yet completed, but Mr. Farley says that he has some big stuff going on in his life, so I can only hope it means good stuff, and eventually he has the time to complete the story. I'd pay for it if I could find how.

I have (and am happy with) my VR3 unit. Supports SD, USB and CD, with either MP3 or WMA (although I've not tested the WMA-ness yet). Detachable faceplate, convenient AUX input, and even a remote control. I installed it myself without setting the car on fire, which was nice. All this, for only about $80. Yeah, I'm cheap.

http://www.roadmasterusa.com/vr3_auto.html

I currently have the VRCD500SDU but I had the VRCD400SDU in a previous car. The VRCD500SDU shows up very briefly in the movie Superbad, but I think I may be the only person in a 100 mile radius who noticed it.

If I remember properly, these low power FM stations were opposed by the large radio stations, saying that they would interfere with their super-high-power broadcasts, even though the licenses wouldn't be issued if the spectrum was too crowded and the current commercial stations are already more crowded than having a low-power station in the mix. Additionally, the low power FM idea was opposed by PBS stations because they provided a much more 'local' experience (and associated pledges) when compared to the high-power commercial stations, and that would be threatened by the community supported (and funded) stations. You can't get too much more local than a community center or church.

Also, I think you may need to close a tag or two so the formatting of the last lines goes back to standard.

I still find it amazing that, even though the replica had to be built with CAD/CAM that would not have been possible without the computer revolution it spawned, the original machine was never completed. The metaphor of the grain mill (input, output, storage, processing) is still relevant and useful. Again, amazing!

One of my teachers in high school had one of these made for her birthday by her fellow tormentors, I mean teachers. She seemed to be a fan of the cake, although I suspect she was also a good target for practical jokes. An earlier year, she got an icing-covered styrofoam cylinder which did a great job of trapping the knife used to cut it. After her momentary confusion and trying to remove the knife with the least amount of sugary disaster, the other teachers brought out the real cake.

Yeah. High school was strange.

Well, if it is CGI creepy heads you are looking for (and have an nVidia 8800 Ultra or so), you can check out this head demo: http://www.nzone.com/object/nzone_humanhead_home.html
Or if you have a more, ahem, realistic video card installed, you can always find someone else who has made a video of it by searching for 'nvidia human head demo' and being amazed and/or creeped out.

How did the Colombian National Planning Department (DNP) get this maximalist copyright idea in their collective head? While it may look like a good idea when observing how other nations use their IP as wedges and hammers in trade negotiations, the end result tends to be that their own citizens get bullied around as well.

This is another example in my own personal theory of how democracies can be effectively subverted by a small group (sometimes as small as one person) pushing a directed agenda.

This sounds like it would make the basis for a great radio ad for Fallout 3!

Then again, those that will stay away for it being "Not Black Isle Studios" or "Not Van Buren" will likely be overwhelmed by those that will buy buy buy because it is Fallout and/or Bethesda, so maybe it doesn't really need any advertising.

I suppose the lube wouldn't be needed for stickers, but could you seriously apply all the stickers in less than a minute, let alone 9.18 seconds?

Then again, I don't know if this kit would be too much use to me, I'm still trying to get my time under 4 minutes.

@Antinous: How dare you criticize my cache-clearing hygiene! Actually, the addresses expire from the quick-complete list quick enough that even the typo'd names clear out with enough regularity not to bother me.

If seized, my computer would probably have to go through rehabilitation and physical therapy before it was well enough to be interrogated.

It looks photorealistic to me. Is it not supposed to look like a photo of a papercraft head?

I remember a few TV ads for the Pontiac Torrent where they had changed the original ad to include a white Google screen with "Pontiac Torrent" in the search field. I had assumed that this was because people were typing in Torrent and getting lots of links for Bittorrent instead.

Honestly, if you are typing site names into a search box, just put it in the address bar once and be lazy afterwards by just typing the first few letters and clicking or using arrows and hitting enter. I can give lots of lessons on being lazy with the Internet.

Heck, I'm sending myself on a field trip tomorrow!

#3: The way things are going, the better phrase might be "20 minutes into the future..." It seems like the only people making money on this are those who are buying up the severely beaten-down (but possibly still overvalued) companies whose stock has trended towards zero.

The better question is what commodity should we buy with our declining dollars that will hopefully maintain some reasonable value during the possible upcoming collapse? My money is on, or rather in, bottle caps.

Just imagine if the wrong person says the wrong thing about China and the Olympics and China decides it doesn't really want to own quite so many dollars. The whole thing makes me wish I had threatened to move to Canada and then actually followed through.

Seriously, just send the voting machines to me if IWood doesn't get to them first. I'm no Ed Felten, but I'll poke around and see if I can Hax0r teh Franklin, or whatever pop culture name signifies the superlative voting machine.

It would be really, really nice if this story made it to TV and didn't live solely on the Internet.

If it would be against the license for state election officials to send him a machine, then it follows that the state did not buy them, since they clearly do not own them in a traditional sense. What if a machine was provided to Felten without any software, and it was evaluated on a purely physical basis? Would that break any license?

It seems like the right of any citizen and voter to request a review of the 'machinery of democracy' regardless of license. I had misread the letter before, and while it is still puzzlingly worded, I was going to suggest that if the election officials couldn't do it, then some regular citizen could do it. Now that I believe I understand the letter, the only answer I can come up with is "So?" Sequoia is informing Felten that if officials send him a machine, the officials are breaking their license with Sequoia, and that certain mysterious unknown things may happen to persons unrelated to the contract with Sequoia, and that they are prepared to execute these mystery actions.

I also love the dirtiness of the phrase 'non-compliant analysis' coming from the company that names this voting product 'Advantage', like some sports drink that allows competition-crushing results. Perhaps I am very, very accurate.

I don't always have downloads with nearby hosts to test this out, but there is a plugin for Azureus called Ono that attempts to 'identify nearby peers and potentially accelerate downloads.'

http://azureus.sourceforge.net/plugin_details.php?plugin=ono

I don't know if I exactly trust this alliance between Yale and Verizon...

In this instance, I am quite glad that someone beat me to the punch. Ask any of my meatspace friends and they will certainly tell you that I have uttered that same well-worn phrase: "The plural of Lego is Lego." Had I been more vigilant at noticing when the comment system came back online, I might have even been timely.

Still, absolutely amazing. I like how it is a fairly stout shape, yet still detailed. The stance speaks of directed, forceful action.

It is so stylish, though, the owner/pilot might want to think about making it available for birthday parties and weddings...

The first thing that came to mind after reading 'subvocal' was schizophrenia. I remember reading that sometimes when schizophrenics hear voices, they are actually speaking the voices subvocally.

What if I get really good at using this voiceless microphone that I can't switch off? I might think I'm talking to someone but I'm really not, and then I might have to talk to myself. Then again, I can talk to myself whether someone is there or not.

"We don't want to reveal our hand or tip our sources."

Shouldn't it be 'tip our hand' and 'reveal our sources'? Maybe Assistant Special Agent in Charge Gregory Fowler needs a spokesperson.

Regardless, the amount of money spent and the eventual result, even including these fabricated terriers, demonstrates a very poor cost-benefit ratio. Billions spent to catch how many? In the mean time, all manner of the rights of citizens are diminished and the rights of the government (the executive branch in particular) are increased.

Maybe put some of that money into education, instead? Can we get some funding to stop the terrorizing of evolution and science in general?

Curses! Devophill, you have beaten me to the proverbial punch, although I did feel smart for the 30 seconds between decoding and clicking the comments link. Personally, I would include the spaces, as there are some areas of white space between the letters.

I like the design, the colors and placement, although I will say that the large lowercase 'a' in the font is a little ... different.

Also, I *love* the multicolor LED effect they used to illuminate the item. I wonder if they made it themselves or if they got help from this mysterious 'area man' who sells them. It looks almost like a store display, and if they are that expensive, maybe they do need a fancy eye-catching display case.

The school has a CEO? (2:52)

What is the result of punching a gallon of milk with a regular fist? I've dropped a gallon from about waist-height and the 'explosion' made quite a mess.

I prefer to use a knife to make cole slaw, though.

Solution to the mythical lexan detector: Make it out of ice!

I sense a unicorn presence inside those walls...

#6: Prescient? You may even be too optimistic.

Slightly off topic, but a nice bit of analysis on how we got to this point. I had heard an interesting analysis that went sort of like this:

Enron is related to the foreclosure/ mortgage/ credit crisis. When the Enron share price collapsed, it caused the banks to lose a lot of money, as well as prompting a lowering of the federal interest rate to try and get things moving again.

Since the banks couldn't make as much money on their loans with the lower rate, they started to come up with some other ways to make money. One of these was to create exotic mortgages and offer them to people who would not have qualified/ been considered too risky in the past.

This strategy was working out so well that the brokers started fudging things and getting people more house/ mortgage than they needed. Things were going fine for a while. Then two things happened: the banks decided to roll these mortgages into 'mortgage-backed securities' and start trading them around.

When the rates started adjusting and people started defaulting, the value of these mortgage-backed securities became slightly... unknown. They certainly weren't worth more than they were before the defaulting, and the banks aren't going to be able to trade a security if they don't know the value. Crash, boom, bang, the securities aren't worth as much (it would be lucky if anyone knew what they are worth at all), credit gets harder to come by, massive MASSIVE transfer of wealth away from the people who were given these mortgages (and who likely could least afford it) and the result is the situation we find ourselves in today.

While it doesn't seem to have been publicized much, the FDIC issued a clarification about their policy for determining the insurance value of a failed bank and has been increasing its personnel lately, just in case something happens...

According to this document http://www.aci.net/Kalliste/Jpar14.htm the name was changed from Dianetics (a cross between Diana and cybernetics) to Scientology for tax reasons.

That, and I get to tie into a previous BoingBoing post about Jack Parsons :-)
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/07/11/book-review-strange-.html
and again more recently, comment #8: http://www.boingboing.net/2008/02/19/paranoia-magazine-in.html

Sometimes, I love the Internet.

The problem with allowing certain ISPs to block certain websites is that it gets them in the position of control to block or impede whatever they want. Sure, there aren't too many steps between simple network management and excising a host from that ISPs accessible 'internet', so I would be more comfortable with the solution of not encouraging them to take those few steps.

I am going to reject the idea that the market will decide if it wants 'filtered' network access because the consumers are oblivious in large enough number to allow the market to choose the most profitable path without regard to extra-market concerns like open access and content-ignorant common carrier operation.

Gosh, it almost sounds like I'm advocating for some form of regulation...

Roughly stolen from a slashdot sig:

When evidence points out holes in evolution, evolution is wrong.
When evidence points out holes in the Bible, the evidence is wrong.

The half-plate method works out pretty well for me, and sometimes things are actually better the second day, after whatever spices they put on it have another chance to mingle. This does pre-suppose the discipline to carry through with the plan, but that part is working out pretty well, too.

The half-plate method also saves money, since the lesser-portions served at certain crap-nailed-to-the-walls (even if they are in a state of post-crap) will charge more than half the price for the smaller portion.

Also, the proper term is clearly waitron.

Not to spoil the fun, but I believe this may have also been included in the program EffecTV (or was it FreeJ?)

Still, this discussion provided plenty of information that I was not aware of previously, like that fancy Photoshop trick...

@6 / Takuan: We are the Boing, prepare to be unicorn chased?

I thought the game was plenty of fun, and I was quite impressed by the facilities that sprung up to massage that data into something useful. I remember a Shockwave/Flash app that would read an xml file of coordinates and then render them on a map, with the geographic imagery taken from Terraserver. I found out where my nearest 'Axons' were, and did my duty to pick up the randomly ringing payphone. I never did meet anyone else until the meet-up in NYC. The ARG part was great.

My only complaint about the final event was that I didn't actually get to play because there were only 5 Xbox consoles for an entire theater full of people. I and my friend basically got there at exactly the right time to be seated in the middle of the theater and not get to play when the event was over and they kicked people out.

The perfectness of this scene makes me suspect there is actually a third child that refuses to participate in such familial costumery, regardless of its eventual awesomeness quotient.

Clearly, SHMOO has bested me in clever and obscure military acronyms.

Hopefully we can enjoy the eclipse tonight and have some news of the satellite in the morning.

Operation Misplaced Boulder

Operation Invisible Pedestrian

Operation Sky Fry / Fry in the Sky

Operation Golden Mosquito

Operation Windshield Decoration

Operation Speedbump

Operation Capricious Rationale

Operation Eclipse Distraction

Operation Brilliant Blunder

Operation Tacit Undertaking

The design reminds me a good deal like the Mattel(?) JuiceBox. Hopefully, with the focus on being a study aid as well as being an audio player, as well as being inherently computer-connected, will help it gain some traction. A color screen would have been nice, yes, or maybe some e-paper so you can take it outside, but it looks like a nice little device.

I think this is required if you are a Bond villain. Just don't expect tiny ninjas to try to storm it.

Can't sleep, clowns will eat me.
~
What does this button do? Oh.
~
Should have bought Wal-mart, Exxon, Berkshire.
~
Packed spare parachute? Maybe next time.

A long time ago, on a computer far, far away, my computer teacher showed us a video called "The Wizard of Quick and Time". I had not been able to find it for the longest time. Why is it titled as such? Because it was a demonstration of QuickTime v. 1.0 Stop motion and live motion mixed together. The wall-walking is my favorite part, and the only thing I really remembered well when I first saw it.

And... just because I remembered, I searched for it one last time, and here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6U1Xthk9dA

Remember the Camp Delta operating manual?

[part of the new arrivals process]
"Styrofoam cups must be confiscated if prisoners have written on them, apparently because prisoners have used cups to pass notes to other captives. `If the cup is damaged or destroyed, the detainee will be disciplined for destruction of government property,' the rules say."

I guess they don't get Starbucks in those styrofoam cups, though.

As great a band name as Heather Mills Leg is, if it were my band (but not my name), I'd change it to Lenin, but maybe I have a soft spot for publicly embalmed government leaders.

A third annoyed voice on 'orientated'...

Will removing the burning scent portion make them less healthy? Less tasty? If they do the same for garlic, will it still be able to ward off vampires?

If you can bear the exposure, make a conical cut into the top of the onion and remove the portion that surrounds the stem, where it would have poked up through the ground. My understanding is that this is where the most eye-stabbing chemical resides. Cut it out and chuck it in the trash, leaving you with about 2/3 to 3/4 of the onion still left to chop up.

Against all odds, imagine that this passes, then some other possibly unrelated bill to pass that would redefine a food serving establishment and end up banning serving food to an obese person in your own home. I can just imagine the police using heat detecting cameras and busting down the door to keep that next home-made cheeseburger out of my, I mean, a citizen's mouth.

Introducing a bill to make a statement can be dangerous. What is the statement being made? That we need government to regulate even more individual public interactions? Will there be a government contract for rotund-o-meters? Will every restaurant need a bouncer, and will they be able to eat anything during their lunch break? Who gets the punishment for the 'crime', the obese or the obese-er?

This comes off as a joke. I'm glad there aren't any other legislative issues affecting the Mississippi Public Health and Human Services committee.

(also, two P in Mississippi)

@Xadrian: I actually read a short sci-fi story in some post-chemical-war setting, I'm almost certain the title was "The Giftie Gie Us" (apparently a Robert Burns quote) where one character has half his face deformed due to a leak in his gas mask, and another character who can only see through the eyes of other people if they are close enough. I thought it was a great story, but I was considerably younger and thought most sci-fi stories were pretty cool.

Over 700 comments, you say? I count only 422 on the first post. Are you sure you didn't mean to say 'memory hole' or 'secret detention' or 'no fly list'? There are other posts with other comments, but I don't know how long they are going to bother keeping this blog up, with how cheerful they have to be in contrast to the comments they are receiving.

There's a delightful message from 'anonymous' that offers a multiple-choice quiz in which the correct answer seems to be 'Muslim male extremists mostly between the ages of 17 and 40' and seems to have been copied verbatim from a forwarded email (they neglected to remove the antivirus banner from the end of the text).

Certainly a fun adventure in government communication. Why they aren't using their own servers instead of hosting comments on blogger, I don't know.

Well, Ben & Jerry's commissioned that sonic refrigerator (the chamber looks kinda like a bowling pin), so why wouldn't this work? Maybe the sound is pushing the water through holes or something and the friction is causing the heating.

http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2003/01/57063 (I feel old, I thought this was much more recent than 2003...)

Johnny Mnemonic, anybody?

It is my duty to spread the word of Concerned: http://www.hlcomic.com/

The creator of the comic used Gary's Mod to stage the scenes, with a little photoshoppery. If there wasn't enough to remind me of the comic in the clip above, using the same character model as the comic helped. Also, each panel typically has some notes in it, too.

His name is Gordon Frohman. He's really bad at making purchase orders. He's not quite a member of the resistance...

"The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws." - Tacitus

I carried both a leatherman tool (non-locking, standard size) and a Swiss army knife pretty much everywhere I went in high school. It was never an issue, I didn't take something out unless I needed to use it, and they came in quite handy many times. What seems suspicious is that the last time something ridiculous (note spelling, #18) like this came up, it was also an honor student, 'disciplined' for a kitchen knife that fell out of a box, in her car, in the parking lot. True, two examples do not a conspiracy make, but my healthy respect for the limits of authority make me feel like they were being 'knocked down to size' for achieving.

The video was great, I wish I had a band around to greet people who visit my house or my cube. That, and yell "Boing Boing!" just for the sake of it.

I, too, would like to see how the rest of the interview went. It was definitely a courageous stance to take, I wish these statements were made more often by more people, and more often than never made it into the general 'mainstream media' discussion. Still, if wishes were fishes, I'd probably never go hungry. The easiest solution is for all of us to be those people who stand up and say something.

Will they be looking out for terriers? What about Bariffs?

I'm not really sure what I can add to the discussion that hasn't already been said, but a while back, when I was researching a Wheatstone Bridge (Ohmmeter is a link in common), I came across the E-Meter, which then took me to Free Zone... This absolutely blew my mind, that there are people and groups of people practicing Scientology outside of the Church of Scientology. They sell cheaper E-Meters, for one thing, but they also seem to have a more open point of view:

A November 2004 press release published by the International Freezone Association cited what it says was a command written by L. Ron Hubbard himself: "... before you go, whisper this to your sons and their sons: 'THE WORK WAS FREE. KEEP IT SO.'" (capitals as in press release).

If you are at all curious, check out the "Origin of the term 'Free Zone'" section.

This reminds me of a previous story I read about femtosecond laser pulses that sort of did a similar thing, only maybe not quite as ordered. http://www.rochester.edu/news/show.php?id=2701
There doesn't seem to be too much information available to actually compare these two methods (zapping vs building) but the cause of absorption is similar.

I'm with #32 (Stickarm) and #27 (eclectro), slap a tailfin on those cars and be done with it!

How about shots of only the interiors and engines of the vehicles, as those wouldn't be the shape or outline of the car, but I'm sure they are asking for more than just the shape. Do they own pictures of third-party spare parts, too? Technical manuals? Drawings?

I like the idea of a solution involving cooperation between the racing, PR, and enthusiast departments. This way, the car company can actually increase goodwill, perhaps by a donation of license to use the 'distinctive shape' of the cars as well as a few choice bits of hardware. Everyone involved gets to promote their design and engineering expertise, and all parties win. It is usually more fun to negotiate than litigate.

Aside from the Lone Gunmen episode, there was also an episode of the show Level 9 referred to as either "Through the Looking Glass" or "Terror in the Skies" that involved a computer-controlled plane (and, for plot purposes, stolen codes for controlling it). If the hijacker's demands are not met, the plane will be ordered to crash. I still really wish I could get the entire show on DVD, but this episode in particular was quite exciting.

http://www.tv.com/level-9/through-the-looking-glass/episode/4840/summary.html?tag=ep_list;title;2

Aired November 10, 2000

They have these not just at Wawa, but at some Quick Chek locations as well. I think I was more astounded by the process (and choosing which frozen block of slush-to-be) to notice the taste too much. It was cold and hinted at chocolate, is that not enough?

I have heard it described in a puzzle, thusly:

In Kleptonia, the postal service is prone to theft. There is no guarantee that your mail hasn't been opened and any things of value removed (or added, I suppose). Thus, locks on packages are very popular.

Bob wants to mail a ring to Alice, but of course, doesn't want it stolen. Alice and Bob both have locks (and keys!), so how do they make a secure exchange?

Bob puts the ring in the box and locks it with his lock, keeping the key. He mails it to Alice, who puts her lock on it and mails it back to Bob. When Bob gets the package, he removes his lock and mails it back to Alice, who is then able to unlock her own lock and open the box. At the end of the exchange, each participant regains possession of their locks, and neither have ever lost possession of their key.

The lock-and-key pair are analogous to a public and private key, respectively. While in the story, the first lock could technically have come from anyone who is not Alice, in this form of cryptography, you can use the public key to verify the sender. (At the very least, you can know that the two keys make a pair, or that the sender has the other half of the key, whoever they are.)

I still don't quite understand the mechanics of the actual cryptography, is it just a bunch of large primes multiplied in a certain order, with the other large prime factors in the other key?

Just staring at the picture, I am almost waiting for a Great Glass Elevator to come bursting out of the top. Then again, this building wouldn't be very good for testing elevators that also go sideways.

I wonder if they could be stackable... Maybe a few pillars in between the plugs, tilted up so they wouldn't impede the insertion, and then they could be placed on top or twisted into a locked position. Perhaps even a 1 cm clear plastic layer on the base, so you could see which in the tower are plugged in.

I guess then it would be more like a Tower of Power...

#9, Arjunatwombly: it's OK, I spent a few minutes trying to find the page before giving up on the search engine and hitting Random a few times and then going to Previous. Only after I located the strip (was it really time wasted?) did I think to check the comments on the original post.

Of course, the first comment on that post is a link to http://xkcd.com/285/ which is the first thing I thought of when I saw this.

The only answer? XKCD controls the universe.

#11: What is to stop someone from reverse engineering the protocol and just setting up a transparent proxy to do the packet manipulation for them? Admittedly, it is easier to just patch the game, if it is possible.

#12: You are almost right in this case, the Xbox 360 and PS3 are sold at a loss by their respective manufacturers, but last I heard, every Nintendo Wii sold is generating a profit for the company.

Mostly, I want some homebrew apps because af all the awesome things being done by Johnny Lee. For the most recent awesomeness, view his head tracking demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jd3-eiid-Uw

Maybe the concrete guy just wanted someone to dance with. Interestingly, the cadence reminded me of the entertainment 'holograms' from THX 1138. My favorite effect is still the airline baggage claim that crawls over the walls.

This, as well as the previously-mentioned Orangina commercial appeared on jwz's blog a while back. Some weird, wild, wacky stuff there.

#3, where's the woman/women of any kind? I personally very much liked Kim Murphy's character "Margaret 'Sosh' Perkins" from the 2000 show 'Level 9', because everyone could use a little social engineering (hence her nickname). That, and I liked her enthusiasm when asking a former special operative if he can kill someone with a spoon. I wish that show would made its way to DVD.

I don't remember who it was that made this point, but consider the Do-not-fly lists in an abstract sense. Consider that these list contain people who are so dangerous that they cannot be allowed on a plane. Have you firmly grasped that concept? Now consider that these same people are not nearly dangerous enough to arrest or detain. Someone too dangerous to let fly but not dangerous enough to prevent them from arriving at the airport.

There are some very good points in the other story about the TSA and their security theater, so I'll not repeat them here.

Sorry, Moderator, about mentioning H.R. 1955 / S. 1959 in another post on another entry, but yes, H.R. 1955 has been passed already. It all fits together like dovetail woodwork. If you want some prior examples of legislative or executive documents relating to mass detentions of citizens and others, perform a search for REX-84 (Readiness Exercise 1984), and then flash forward and also know that there was a contract put up by Homeland Security for 'temporary' detention centers, which has already been awarded to Haliburton / Kellog, Brown & Root.

What I want to know is when I became such a conspiracy nut...

#11, #22, I'll see your HUAC and raise you a H.R. 1955 / S. 1959 aka the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_House_Resolution_1955

Passed through the House 404 to 6. I hope you aren't planning to tell anyone about your plan to become a vegetarian political guitarist! That's just too extreme. Planning on organizing or attending a protest? Don't even think it! Literally!

Here is the definitions section from the passed House bill:

(1) COMMISSION- The term `Commission' means the National Commission on the Prevention of Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism established under section 899C.

(2) VIOLENT RADICALIZATION- The term `violent radicalization' means the process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change.

(3) HOMEGROWN TERRORISM- The term `homegrown terrorism' means the use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.

(4) IDEOLOGICALLY BASED VIOLENCE- The term `ideologically based violence' means the use, planned use, or threatened use of force or violence by a group or individual to promote the group or individual's political, religious, or social beliefs.

Good article, great illustrative image.

As for the blockquote, how about modifying the existing CSS and changing it to use the :before and :after psuedo-elements? They are already in the code, just not doing much. Maybe change the "quotes:" element instead?

Example, instead of using the background property:

blockquote:after {
content: url(http://www.boingboing.net/mtimages/blockquote.gif)
}

Actually, I think it is for aerodynamic stability during excited peeling sessions.

Alternately, it could be used to dig out small blemishes, for example, bumps or eyes in potatoes.

You could probably also use it to pick up a newly-sliced piece of cheese and present it to a willing cheese recipient.

Looks like this entry gets posted just in time for Slashdot to pick up the original story...

If anyone remembers seeing this object a number of months (years?) ago, did they not also have a contest for creating non-concave objects of a certain shape that would similarly be completely self-righting, with a bonus for the least number of sides. I remember seeing a shape similar to this one in connection to the contest, but I don't know if this object displayed here is the same or the product of evolution or the contest. Can anyone else shed some light upon this, or am I making up some crazy fantasy?

The YouTube comments say it is 'Alluda Majaka' or as it is in IMDB, 'Alluda Mazaaka...!' from 1995. This does look like quite a special film.

Also, what legitimate purpose do those metal baskets on the ends of the tires serve? Although, I'd say being able to send muddy water flying into your enemies' faces while turning donuts in a flooded field is reason enough.

Wow. I didn't realize I was translating from German as well as HTML entity in my head. I honestly would not have noticed that had #1 not pointed it out.

OT, but I actually pulled this video a few weeks ago from Azureus Vuze, an interface built on top of the regular Azureus bittorrent client. While it is no Miro, it works pretty well, and keeps a library of what you've downloaded as part of the completed torrents section.

If you buy 2 Zune, you get a Zune travel kit ($99) for free. Zune? Zunes? Zunum?

As I thought, jdsu is JDS Uniphase, doing fiber optic test and measurement stuff. One of the tech stocks that went sky high during the boom, and then went ka-boom during the bust.

I was actually totally unaware of their foray into the consumer pigment and eye candy market. I wonder if these things will work for DIY on a larger scale than just nail polish.

Team bOING bOING is currently at position 11 for recent credit and 36 for total credit, with 102 members. Not bad for a few days' work!

I have the Belkin Nostromo n50 and it was great for Tribes 2 and Quake 3. The D-pad was good for strafing, and the buttons easily map to things like jump, use item, etc. This is certainly cheaper than the zboard solution, and looks cooler, anyway.

I was tempted to buy the n52, with some improvements, but I wasn't playing FPS games as often when it came out. The no-skid feet on the bottom were good enough, and if I really needed to move it, I could easily just curl my fingers around the palm rest and pick it up.

It appears as a regular 10-ish button joystick, I never used the included software to switch to a different profile, though. At some point, I was going to turn it into a chorded keyboard, but I decided playing games with it was more fun.

I want to say that the cover design is great and simple, although it probably doesn't win any subtlety points from more jaded observers. Also of note is the praise quote by the one and only Cory Doctorow. Does it mean you've arrived when you get published on other people's books?

Slightly off-topic, but I couldn't help thinking of the Penny Farthing bikes that were the standard logo of The Prisoner TV show. I don't know if money plays any central part in the books, and I've just realized that the name of the bike may come from the relative sizes of the wheels being similar to the sizes of the Penny and Farthing (1/4 penny) coins. A good picture of the coins is at the bottom of this page.

Why stop with privatizing military support services? Why not privatize the military itself? There's Blackwater and a whole bunch of other mercenary security forces just waiting to help your conflict.

"In fact, there's an index called the Guns-to-Caviar index, which for seventeen years has been measuring an inverse relationship between the sale of fighter jets and executive luxury jets. And for seventeen years, this index, the Guns-to-Caviar index -- the guns are the fighter jets, the caviar are the executive jets -- has found that when fighter jets go up, executive jets go down. When executive jets go up, fighter jets go down. But all of a sudden, they're both going up, which means that there’s a lot of guns being sold, enough guns to buy a hell of a lot of caviar. And Blackwater is, of course, at the center of this economy."

link to full transcript of Naomi Klein from Democracy Now! taken from a speech illustrating her new book The Shock Doctrine

For a better combat comic, complete with "Nintendo warfare", I would recommend Spiders, an alternate history of the US war in Afghanistan. Who said video games and IM would never accomplish anything?

Still, this comes off as flashy war glam. "Zoom!"? "Kablam!"? Really. I love the idea of talking unmanned aerial vehicles, though. I can't really think of a legitimate audience for this work, although the X-47B is apparently used by the Navy (unless I am reading it wrong and the program was canceled).