A gin cart pusher would need to operate in a community of alcoholics who value the service highly enough to ensure his safety.
What is this about the "only" thing society could do! A society drinking itself into a stupor may be the highest achievement possible! For example, Koala bears seem to be pretty happy eating fermented eucalyptus leaves all day...

"I have seen very few instances of anyone changing their mind...""I change my mind constantly...""When one realizes that one's own opinions might change with the morrow, blah, blah blah"
When different opinions are expressed, others may suspect you are talking, on the morrrow, out of your butt! I believe Ben Franklin said that, or maybe it was Jesús.

"copyright(and patent) exists is to encourage _publication_ of those creative efforts... which is also why these rights time out; after the artist/inventor/craftsman/whatever has taken a fair profit from their work, we want it to continue to be generally available to society." YES, but note that these legal protections PRIVILIGES, NOT, in the stricter sense, "RIGHTS." life+70 years is really stretching that privilege past "motivation" and I think beyond fair profit! In the US in particular, There should be an office protecting and promoting Public Domain properties. The US tax supported language learning "tapes" from FSI http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/default.aspx should have been used in school textbooks, not left to gather dust until Mr Fellows gathered them.

I don't think the recently disabled are included in "unemployed" stats- or people who don't qualify for unemployment benefits: working part-time and seasonal jobs. I don't think the US government would produce unemployment figures at all, if financial markets didn't demand it.
As it is, they provide a very misleading measurement. There's an army of Paulson-types selling a "goldilocks" economy to Americans, constantly.

Maybe that last reference was too obscure. I've just finished: James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon by Julie Phillips Great biography about a really interesting woman.

Was Bestor's book an inspiration for Phillip K. Dick? And isn't PhD in "Cognitive Science" a pretentious way of a saying doctorate in Psychology? The more I think about this project, the more it bothers me to think a statement of protest and rebellion is co-opted for the most harmless and traditional of past-times. What's next? A corset with embroidered George Orwell quotations? Do I hear James Tiptree Jr rolling in the grave?

Philosophy and Psychology are 100, Religion is 200. Although Occult in my local library is spread out in these two sections, its easy to find titles. I would also say its a rather large, healthy collection compared to the number of mainstream Psychology and Religion books. The number of "Occult" books, including astrology, published each year probably dwarfs the psychology books that insist on scientific peer review, and mainstream religious books which mostly defer to religious authority of some sort.
So I'm supposed to sympathize with nutters who can't get off their butts and find "Divination by Fishbones" on the shelf? No way.

H. Lovecraft
Dunwich, Massachusetts

Thanks Antinous, but I live in Boston! Famous for making books bestsellers by banning them! Does the licensing mean one can't sell a Kindle with downloaded content included? Are there other hurdles to overcome selling or giving away a Kindle or Sony ebook? Can't I give it to a sibling, for instance? I don't know why I'm asking though, I still borrow books from my local library (and many of the books I do buy are used, withdrawn books sold by public libraries)

I know of no cost-effective cure for book mold-- Throw away or at least isolate any moldy book! Book Mold Spreads!
Is it nearly cost effective to print out the average paperback yet? (purchasing your own paper and ink) In the foreseeable future?

Recently I saw a documentary on Frank Frazetta-- also an athletic guy who also illustrated many science-fiction book covers. The "Conan" publishers found provocative artwork can sell a book (Franzetta did a lot of muscle-bound men and scantily clad women-- it is admittedly well-done eye-candy, if not high-brow) As a kid, it really bothered me that these sci-fi and fantasy covers did not truly represent the writing. Unfortunately for both the visual artists and the readers, the marketplace doesn't respect the "purity" of any medium, so we takes what we can get.
Perhaps a notable thing for boingboing readers is that with the availability of the internet for reviews for books (judging by cover was necessity back them) and graphic novels competing for those readers deliberately seeking visual art, the end of mismatched sci-fi cover art may be ending.

"if we decided to spend more money on domestic technology,... and less on bombs, we would have less cool technology? How so?"
I'm afraid surveys of the history of tech reveals this to be the case. The biggest problem is that funding sources of non-military tech is short-sighted by nature and always has been. Investment standard is (historically) profit in an annual food crop. Military investment has been a reliable longer term investment. What isn't for "domestic" defense can still be sold to other countries. Some may have thought modern post-cold war tech might be different, but...

"check out the history of cocaine, heroin, LSD and mescalin...became illegal when the addiction problems became apparent.
LSD and mescaline are not addictive. No chemical dependence and repeat abusers are likely to have an underlying mental illness and are trying to self-medicate, or to relieve withdrawal from other drugs.
Adderall is illegal in just about every country except the U.S. Even in Mexico Adderall and Ritalin are tightly controlled and require a script from a Mexican physician. Oxycontin is highly addictive and many times more expensive than morphine-- although DEA actively investigates prescribers of morphine than oxy. You will find drugs are outlawed and controlled for Political reasons more often than Public Health. "Mari Jane" and its non-psychoactive hemp is exhibit #1

as a teen, after playing D&D for a few years, I used to wish "I would love to roleplay on my Apple II, instead of having games degenerate into craps+'feed the dungeonmaster's giant ego.'" DMs always seemed vulnerable to wheedling and cajoling, sometimes just confused and overwhelmed.
Now you rotten kids can play Warcraft over the 'net and yet some are still nostalgic for the endless number of bad 80's roleplaying games. It sucked. We're better off without them.

Been dumped? One could drink poison (moderately slow-acting) from it and symbolically break the cup. Poetic- although one should use something that leaves a relatively good-looking corpse. Drain cleaner is out.

Here's my end-of-the-year retrospective on the term "steampunk!" Maybe I can use enough recursive, "meta-", worn cliches to create an infinitely regressing nostalgia time warp. ;) "Steampunk" is an awful term on several counts, but its also meme that has an organic quality and coming up with alternative terms is bad karma. Boingboing readers might as well propose breeding platapii to grow propellers. An ironic reference like "Faux handcrafted" is too depressing and cynical. "Jules Verne style" brings to mind Disney movies rather than the author himself. Actually analyzing any style of escapist fantasy is pretty depressing. I'm going to stop myself right now...

Ooops. Turns out that it actually follows the humorous and often cynical form of Japanese Senryū poetry, not Haiku. Damn you public radio for exposing me as a psuedointellectual!

RAID
KILLS BUGS
DEAD
Its claimed that it was the Beat poet Lew Welch who came up with the advertising slogan "Raid Kills Bugs Dead" while working at agency Foote Cone & Belding. Although many have noted that it is needlessly repetitive (can one kill bugs undead?) It also forms a beautiful mini-haiku.