This is a fire tornado that emerged from a brush fire on Sunday near Hawaii's Mauna Kea volcano. National Geographic posted a gallery of amazing shots of these strange blazing whirlwinds. "Fire-Tornado Pictures: Why They Form, How to Fight Them"
70% of US federal spending reports don't add up
Nicko from the Sunlight Foundation sez,
Today the Sunlight Foundation launched analysis that reveals more than $1.3 trillion in federal reporting data from 2009 is broken. These data inaccuracies account for 70 percent of the total $1.9 trillion in government spending data reported last year. Clearspending offers a critique on the reliability of data from USASpending.gov, across three metrics--consistency, completeness and timeliness--and covers spending from 2007, 2008 and 2009.Clearspending (Thanks, Nicko!)While there has been an increase in the number of programs reporting to USASpending.gov in the past three years, the reported data suffers from an abundance of errors, as well as problems with the data's timeliness and completeness. Findings from Sunlight's Clearspending show that a significant portion of the government's data is unreliable and that USASpending.gov has not fulfilled its legal requirement of providing the public access to accurate, timely and detailed information on how federal agencies fulfill their spending obligations.
David Pescovitz at 9:44 AM Wed 
The US Department of Agriculture is bombing Naval Base Guam with dead mice stuffed with generic Tylenol and transponders. Their aim is to kill off the non-native brown tree snakes that are killing off the island's birds and also become ensnared in power lines causing black-outs. From CNN:
Since scientists discovered that the household pain reliever was deadly to the brown tree snakes, they’ve been trying to figure out how to get it to where many of the serpents live in the canopies of the island’s forests, according to a report in Stars & Stripes. The Tylenol-loaded mice are attached to two pieces of cardboard joined by paper streamers that snake exterminators hope will catch on tree branches, providing deadly snacks for snakes at those heights, according to the Stripes report.Tylenol-loaded mice dropped from air to control snakes (via Submitterator, thanks rkachowski!)The aerial attack on the tree snakes is designed to augment current trapping systems, which are placed around ports and airports to prevent the snakes from hitching rides to other Pacific islands such as Hawaii and causing the same ecological nightmares they’ve been responsible for on Guam...
If the current the experiment works – scientists will know because they’re also packing the dead mice with radio transmitters for the snakes to ingest – death from above will be coming for snakes at the island’s Anderson Air Base next year, according to Guam Newswatch. Success there could see the program expand island-wide.
The Brown Treesnake on Guam (USGS)
The joy of the Digital Comics Museum
Now that I'm set up with an iPad (protected by a Moleskine-like Dodocase), Comic Book Pad, and the free Digital Comics Museum, there's really no good reason for me to buy anything else ever again.
Above, Sparky Watts No. 9, from 1949, by the great Boody Rogers.
How a wristwatch works - film from 1949
UPDATE: I changed the embed code to the Prelinger Archives version, which is higher quality and complete.
A 1949 film that reveals the inner workings of a wristwatch. They use a giant watch to demonstrate the function of the various parts. (Via onfocus)
What parents worry about, what parents should worry about
From NPR, a list of 5 common parental worries that are extremely unlikely, and the top five risks for kids: the gap between the two is the source of much anguish, bad policy, and danger:
Based on surveys Barnes collected, the top five worries of parents are, in order:5 Worries Parents Should Drop, And 5 They Shouldn't (via Schneier)1. Kidnapping
2. School snipers
3. Terrorists
4. Dangerous strangers
5. DrugsBut how do children really get hurt or killed?
1. Car accidents
2. Homicide (usually committed by a person who knows the child, not a stranger)
3. Abuse
4. Suicide
5. Drowning
Login screens from Penn and Teller BBS, 1987
HappySmurfday has dug up and scanned some printouts of the login screen from Penn and Teller's circa-1987 BBS, Mofo Ex-Machina. They are nerdgasmic and glorious.
Mofo Ex-Machina (Thanks, HappySmurfday, via Submitterator)
- Penn and Teller make thousands of bees appear out of "nothing ...
- Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread: lost comedy magic special ...
- Teller and the neuroscience of magic
- A tour of magician Teller's house
- Penn Jillette's video rant show
- Penn Jillette on artistic satisfaction and magic
- Long-lost Penn and Teller videogame for download
US federal IT spending: a wasteland of misbegotten contracts
Here's another barn-burner of a speech by rogue archivist Carl Malamud, addressing the Gov 2.0 Summit 2010. Carl sez, "Washington, D.C. has become a vast wasteland of computer contracts. The U.S. government spent $81.9 billion in 2010 on information technology and much of that money is misspent, crippling the ability of government to do the jobs with which it has been entrusted. How can we deal with a global environmental crisis or a renegade financial industry or rescue the vast works that lie fallow in our national libraries when the basic machinery of government does not work?"
The Currents Of Our Time (Thanks, Carl!)
- Yes We Scan! Carl Malamud for Public Printer of the USA
- Carl Malamud, rogue archivist, in Wired
- Carl Malamud's "10 Government Hacks"
- Malamud's "By the People" - stirring history of the Government ...
- 10 Rules for Radicals: Lessons from rogue archivist Carl Malamud ...
- Watch America's public domain video treasures, rescue the public ...
- Watch America's public domain video treasures, rescue the public ...
- Public Resource demands the source code to America's operating ...
Ukrainian salt mine therapy for asthmatics
From Wired's Raw File, a gallery of a creepy Ukrainian salt mine that has been converted into a convalescent home for recovering asthmatics. It's something called Speleotherapy: breathing in salt-saturated air as a means of soothing respiratory problems: "Kuletski describes the atmosphere among patients as 'calm and relaxed' despite the 'appallingly unsafe conditions. ... The presence of kids wearing safety helmets and cheap plastic sheets to protect them from dripping water from the ceiling makes being there even more surreal,' says Kuletski."
Eerie Ukrainian Salt Mines House Convalescing Asthmatics
(Image: Kirill Kuletski/Wired)
Last year, Boing Boing reader Cory Dodt responded to my request for a bookmarklet to make it easy to add attribution information for Creative Commons-licensed photos from Flickr. When Flickr updated its layout, the bookmarklet broke, but Cory was good enough to update it so that it works -- and now it's better than ever, with links to the relevant Creative Commons license text. Thanks, Cory!
— Cory • Comments: 2
Michael Geist writes in with more analysis of the recently leaked draft of ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a secret treaty being negotiated among rich countries whose entertainment lobbyists have decided that the United Nations is too open and balanced to be used for future copyright negotiations.
I posted yesterday on the updated Internet chapter in the latest version of ACTA, which features a major change on secondary liability [ed: e.g., holding ISPs and web-sites liable for copyright infringement if they don't surveil and censor their users] and the U.S. attempt to clawback on recent domestic DMCA changes by arguing against linking circumvention and copyright infringement [ed: that is, the attempt to broaden the reach of the US law that prohibits breaking "copy-protection" even if you're doing so for reasons that don't violate copyright, such as loading unauthorized software onto locked mobile devices like iPads].ACTA's Enforcement Practices Chapter: Countries Reach Deal as U.S. Caves AgainWhile there remains a number of issues to be determined in that chapter (and a great deal to be addressed in the other IP enforcement chapters on criminal provisions, civil enforcement, and border measures), the rest of ACTA has largely been decided. As in the Internet chapter, where compromise was needed it was the U.S. that did most of it, as it becomes increasingly apparent that the USTR is willing to agree to almost anything in order to bring home an agreement before the next round of elections in November.
Most interesting is the U.S. decision to cave on border issues. The U.S. had sought a provision requiring that each party shall adopt and maintain appropriate measures that facilitate activities of custom authorities for better identifying and targeting for inspection at its border shipments that could contain pirated goods. The article then specified a range of activities including consultation, information exchange, and a mandatory audit power. Moreover, there was an additional article on information exchange between customs authorities. All of that has been dropped, leaving only a provision where a party may consult with stakeholders or share information.
- New ACTA leak: It's a screwjob for the world's poor countries ...
- ACTA "internet enforcement" chapter leaks
- Delusional EU ACTA negotiator claims that three strikes has never ...
- Biggest-ever ACTA leak: secret copyright treaty dirty laundry ...
- ACTA leak: Now we know who is against transparency - USA, Korea ...
- Secret ACTA fights over iPod border-searches
- Secret copyright treaty leaks. It's bad. Very bad.
- ACTA goes public
Apple's autumn iPod harvest: hands-on with new Shuffle, Nano and iPod Touch
As predicted last week in the Boing Boing agricultural almanac, Apple this week releases three new varieties of iPods for the fall crop.
All three bear improvements over earlier generations of this familiar fruit, but some of the new additions—and in some cases, what's missing—may surprise you. Following are snapshots of the new iPod Shuffle, iPod Nano, and iPod Touch, with taste-test notes.
You can find them all in your local farmers markets soon, or order them now at the online Apple store.
The beauty and wonder of a squid's eyeball
Look at this squid's eye. Just look at it. See anything eerily familiar?
Squid, along with the rest of the family Cephalopoda, haven't shared a common ancestor with us vertebrates in some 500 million years—long before the evolution of our camera-like eyes. And yet, there the cephalopods are, flagrantly swimming about with eyes that use a lens to project an image onto a retina. Call it Squid Eye for the Vertebrate Guy. So, how's it work?
Convergent evolution, my friends. Convergent evolution. We happened to hit on similar solutions to the same problem of sight, even though the eyes of vertebrates and cephalopods evolved separately, in very different ways, at different times. Today, we can see that legacy in cephalopod and vertebrate fetal development. With vertebrates, the eyes grow on stalks, reaching out from the brain. In cephalopods, the eyes start as a clumping of cells on the surface of the skin and reach backwards, into the head, to make brain contact. Similar destinations. Very different road maps.
This lovely illustration—featuring dissections of the head, funnel, mantle and eye of a Thaumatolampas diadema—comes from The Cephalopoda Part I: Oegopsida and Part II: Myopsida, Octopoda Atlas written in 1910 by zoologist Carl Chun following a German expedition to the Indian, Atlantic and Great Southern oceans.
You can see more of Chun's detailed, passionate illustrations at the BibliOdyssey blog.
Image: Some rights reserved by peacay
HOWTO make shotgun shell candles
Here's Instructables user Sunbanks's simple HOWTO for making candles out of discarded shotgun shells, just the thing for your William S Burroughs-reviving seance!
Shotgun Shell Candles (via Make)
- Marine accused of exposing self, waving shotgun, shouting white ...
- Shotgun expert shows his stuff
- Shotgun shell shot glasses
- Fully Loaded chair made of shotgun shells
- Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Dice edition Gadgets
- Cheney shoots 78-year old lawyer with shotgun, story ...
- William Burroughs Shotgun painting at auction
Print and fold envelopes lined with Google satellite maps
Here's a service that takes Google maps satellite views and converts them into print-and-fold envelopes you can use for your correspondence, creating a kind of handsome, 21st-century stationery.
MapEnvelope (via Make)
I find this site, full of coloring-book images of dinosaurs altered into pretentious cool kids, incredibly charming.
Thanks to the awesome Ashley Stubblefield!
Xeni Jardin at 3:52 PM Tue
(via BB Submitterator, thanks Antinous!)
Xeni Jardin at 3:34 PM Tue
An assortment of 1970s cover scans from the motorcycle magazine Easyriders.
Articles included: "How to Get Rid of Your Woman," "Trouble With Twats," "Why Men Wear Beards," and then: "Positive Prison Reform Plan."
Above, the cover art for an issue which contained a feature article titled "How to Select a Good Ol' Lady." Apparently, the courtship ritual involves strangling her. Then, meth!
Some of the images on the aforelinked link are not work-safe.
(Submitterated by MikeOliveri)
I, for one, welcome the dawn of our new Frankensalmon overlords. (via LA Weekly) — Xeni • Comments: 21
The Virginia Court of Appeals ruled today that law enforcement should have the right to track criminal suspects with GPS, even without a warrant: "In a case that prompted warnings of Orwellian snooping by the government, the court unanimously ruled that Fairfax County Police did nothing wrong when they planted a GPS device on the bumper of a registered sex offender's work van without obtaining a warrant." (via @EFF) — Xeni • Comments: 25
I was going through my photo archive and came across this sign for funnel cakes that I photographed in Austin a couple of years ago. Doesn't it whet your appetite?
The ACLU today announced that together with the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU), and the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, it has filed a lawsuit "challenging the [US] government's claimed authority to search, detain, and copy electronic devices -- including laptops, cell phones, cameras, etc. -- at the country's international borders without any suspicion of wrongdoing." — Xeni • Comments: 7
This video of a cruise ship in heavy seas is intense, and the Rod Stewart soundtrack doesn't make it any less so. I bet it was quite scary for the folks onboard. (Thanks, Mathias Crawford, via Dangerous Minds!)
Lennon-killer Mark David Chapman will remain in prison
Mark David Chapman, who murdered John Lennon in 1980, has again been denied parole. From CNN:
In their written comments, the commissioners told Chapman they had concerns "about the disregard you displayed for the norms of our society and the sanctity of human life." After considering the action he took in 1980, they concluded Chapman's "discretionary release remains inappropriate at this time and incompatible with the welfare of the community.""John Lennon's killer is denied parole for the 6th time"
The beta test period for Makers Market has come to a close and we're bummed to announce that the doors are closing on the Market and our Boing Boing Bazaar. There is some terrific stuff in the BB Bazaar and we encourage you to reach out to the sellers directly and seek out their merchandise via other channels. Thank you to all the makers, the buyers, and our great partners/friends at MAKE! We learned a lot from this experiment and are currently exploring some new ways to create a curated catalog of wonderful things. More on that soon. The official message from our partners at MAKE follows.
Why all beverage bottles aren't shaped like pigs is beyond explanation. (Thanks, Rob!)
A Morose and Downbeat Woman is My Co-Pilot
Clifford Nass is the Thomas M. Storke Professor at Stanford University and director of the Communication between Humans and Interactive Media (CHIMe) Lab. Corina Yen is editor-in-chief of Ambidextrous Magazine.
For the first century of the automobile's use, passengers were always people or pets. However, in the past decades, automobiles have begun to carry a new "passenger": a voice-based computer agent used to give directions, warn of problems (e.g., "your oil is low"), control entertainment (e.g., "you are now listening to KQED"), and make suggestions (e.g., "the closest Starbucks is 2.3 miles away"). As a social scientist who studies human-technology interaction, I've guided my design of and research on these "virtual passengers" by studying real passengers. By leveraging those attributes that make passengers likeable and non-distracting, one can then make GPS systems, voice-activated controls, and other voices in the car more desirable and effective. For example, we've found that people adjust their way of speaking to match the situation in the car: when the driving is dangerous passengers unconsciously shorten and simplify their sentences. There are now GPS systems that do the same. Similarly, when BMW found that German drivers wouldn't take directions from a female voice and had to have a product recall, they found a voice that better matched their brand: a male "co-pilot."
One of the most important issues to address in car interfaces is how to deal with upset drivers, as negative feelings are among the primary causes of accidents on the highways. Unfortunately, there is little known about effective strategies that passengers can use when dealing with an upset driver. In particular, should a passenger -- real or virtual -- in a car with an upset driver sound happy and upbeat or depressed and morose?
There's still time to reserve a free ticket to see Boing Boing's screening of the much-talked-about documentary CATFISH at the Landmark Theatre on Pico blvd. in Los Angeles.
Exclusive free BB event in Los Angeles: screening of Catfish documentary
Just a reminder: A great way to view the posts on Boing Boing is by tapping the j key to move down the page to the top of each post (and k to move back up). It sure beats scrolling! — Mark • Comments: 30
New York World Maker Faire 2010
I hope to see you at World Maker Faire 2010 in New York on Sept. 25th and 26th!
A family fun festival to MAKE, create, learn, invent, CRAFT, recycle, build, think, play & be inspired by celebrating arts, crafts, engineering, food, music, science and technologyNew York World Maker Faire 2010ROCKETS & ROBOTS • DIY SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY • ARTS & CRAFTS • BICYCLES • ELECTRONICS • ARTISAN FOODS • URBAN FARMING • SUSTAINABLE LIVING • WOODWORKING • CIRCUIT BOARDS • MAKER SHED • ALTERNATIVE ENERGY VEHICLES • FIRE ARTS • LIVE MUSIC • ART CARS • TESLA COILS • ARDUINO & KITS • AND SO MUCH MORE!
Neighbors angry about man's massive tree
Neighbors want David Alvand of Plymouth, Devon, England to cut the lovely leyland cypress tree in his yard. In 2003, Alvand almost went to jail over a 12-foot concrete privacy wall that he ultimately was forced to remove. From The Guardian:
(Neighbors) have launched a formal complaint under antisocial behaviour legislation to force him to cut back the vast leyland cypress trees completely filling the front garden."Giant leylandii in suburban front garden incense neighbours" (via Fortean Times)Planted in 1991, shortly after the 66-year-old moved into the area, the famously fast-growing trees – better known as leylandii and the source of countless previous neighbourly disputes, some turning violent – are now more than 10 metres tall.
As well as completely obscuring the front of Alvand's home, their higher branches overhang his neighbours' roofs, as well as the pavement.
One neighbour said: "That wall took years to sort out. It's been a nightmare. Now the trees are an eyesore – they block out sunlight and make the street look bad."
Mind-controlled Moog from Apples In Stereo
Robert Schneider of excellent psych-rock group Apples In Stereo hacked a Mattel MindFlex game, which measures brain waves, into a controller for his Moog analog synthesizer. He calls his mind-control interface The Teletron. If you'd like to make your own, here are Schneider's video instructions, "Teletron for the Populace."
Bahrain: blogger Ali Abdulemam arrested
Ali Abdulemam, a blogger in Bahrain and contributor to Global Voices, was arrested this weekend by Bahraini authorities on charges that he spread "false news" on BahrainOnline.org, a top pro-democracy online media outlet in Bahrain.
The arrest takes place during "the worst sectarian crackdown by the government in years, and accusations of a purported 'terror network' involving several political and human rights activists."
Mohamed el Gohary at Global Voices writes:
The BahrainOnline portal is censored in Bahrain. He sent an email earlier today mentioning that he got a call from the Bahraini national security just before his arrest, then arrested him and alleged that he was trying to flee.Read more about his case at Global Voices.
Here's the news announced on Bahrain's official state news agency.
Honoring the death of a civil rights pioneer
Fifty-three years ago, Jefferson Thomas joined eight other black teenagers in integrating Little Rock Central High School in Little Rock Arkansas. The reaction against them was immediate, pervasive and frequently violent. White mobs spit and screamed at Thomas and the other Little Rock 9 when they showed up for school. The state's governor tried to use the Arkansas National Guard to keep the black students out, saying that following the federal mandate would only result in social disruption and that integration would have to wait until some unspecified time. And Thomas' father was laid off, probably as punishment for his son's decision.
Through it all, friends say, Thomas kept his sense of humor and used it to boost the spirits of the other Little Rock 9. He took his inspiration from a hymn, "Lord, Don't Move My Mountain, Just Give Me the Strength to Climb."
"It seemed that overnight, things stopped being so bad," he said. "The same things were happening, but they didn't hurt me as much. I didn't feel like I was a failure. I felt victorious because I made it through the day."
Thomas died last Sunday, from pancreatic cancer, at the age of 67. He is the first of the Little Rock 9 to pass away. Little Rock Central High School has since become a National Historic Site. The photo of Jefferson Thomas—along with classmates Minnijean Brown and Thelma Mothershed—is from their online archives, where you can also listen to oral history recordings, read about the lives of the Little Rock 9, and get a deeper understanding of the events surrounding public school integration. Personally, I like this shot because it shows Thomas and his classmates in a candid moment, looking like normal teenagers, rather than people from a history textbook. That reminder, that historic figures are people, is important to keeping their experiences—and the lessons we ought to be learning from those experiences—fresh and real. History isn't just facts for a quiz.
Responding to an unexpected flood of user complaints about the recently-relaunched Digg, founder Kevin Rose's approach may remind some of a certain Cupertino CEO's terse emails circa "antennagate." Next: will cranky users demand free Digg bumpers? Watch video, via TC — Xeni • Comments: 12
Help Wanted: Youth Media International/Youth Radio
I've posted before about my friends at Youth Media International/Youth Radio, an Oakland-based non-profit that helps underserved young people learn the tools of media creation. You may have heard their excellent contributions to NPR or read their journalism at the Huffington Post and other places. Right now, Youth Radio has two very rare job openings that are killer opportunities for the right people.
First, they're looking for a "Managing Editor" to helm a new online news service and media property for young people. Rob, Dean, and I have all been consulting on this at varying levels, and it's a really groundbreaking, worthwhile project. Managing Editor job description
Also, the organization recently won a MacArthur Foundation competition to launch a "Mobile Action Lab" to build six online/mobile apps "that serve real needs in youth communities." Are you a developer who can run the lab and collaborate with young people to make the apps? Developer-In-Residence, Mobile Action Lab job description
- Oscar Grant: Youth Radio's magazine about the aftermath
- Youth Radio remixes Maker Faire
- Youth Radio "Brains and Beakers": Tom Zimmerman and Pesco - Boing ...
- Youth Radio "Brains and Beakers": Eric "Instructables" Wilhelm and ...
- Gay fashion is the new straight fashion in "the hood"?
- Digital Literacy's New Moves: The View from a Youth Newsroom ...
- Youth Radio: Condomless sex is new "engagement ring"?
danah boyd: Craigslist's "Adult Services" takedown actually hurts victims of abuse, sex trafficking
In a Huffington Post op-ed, danah boyd argues that pressure to censor Craigslist, which recently resulted in the company's removal of its "adult services" section for users in the United States, actually "helps pimps, child traffickers and other abusive scumbags."
Read the entire essay here.As a victim of violence myself, I'm deeply committed to destroying any institution or individual leveraging the sex-power matrix that results in child trafficking, nonconsensual prostitution, domestic violence and other abuses. If I believed that censoring Craigslist would achieve these goals, I'd be the first in line to watch them fall. But from the bottom of my soul and the depths of my intellect, I believe that the current efforts to censor Craigslist's "adult services" achieves the absolute opposite. Rather than helping those who are abused, it fundamentally helps pimps, human traffickers and others who profit off of abusing others.
Star Trek: book of gorgeous images
Star Trek: The Original Series 365 is a lovely new hardcover book ripe with full-color images/illustrations (365 of 'em!), original series episode summaries, and interviews. For more samples, check out the post at Wired.com and the book page at Abrams. The book is just $20 from Amazon. Star Trek: The Original Series 365
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Death in Space
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Tom the Dancing Bug: True Tales of False Romance
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Brian McCarty's book of art toy photos
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My quest to recreate one of the best things I've ever tasted: omusoba
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Comic book autobiography of a teen girl's life with braces
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Aeropress: fast, portable, cheap, easy, delicious espresso
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Even Monsters Need Haircuts: kids' book full of great monsters
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Read free sample chapters from my new book, Made By Hand.
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Latest novel: For the Win
[Donate a copy to a library or school]
Australia: World Science Fiction Convention/Melbourne Writers Festival, Sept 2-5
Germany: Little Brother tour, Sept 13-23
Netherlands: PICNIC/Bits of Freedom (Dutch Makers launch), Sept 23-25
Xeni
Check out Boing Boing Video's YouTube channel, full of video goodness.
Rob
