Link. Previously on Boing Boing:

TSA apologizes to "blogesphere" for arbitrary gadget screenings

Arbitrary TSA requirement: all electronics out of your bag (cables, too)

US Customs confiscating laptops

The TSA has a blog

TSA's new forbidden item: >2 gm lithium batteries

Moment of TSA surrealist zen @ LAX: Xeni

All of us here at Boing Boing idolize David Byrne -- so reading this post today on his blog is, for us, like a rainbow unicorn delivering a giant vanilla cupcake with a million sprinkles of awesome on top.

Mr. Byrne wrote:

There’s free Wi-Fi at the Denver airport, which is a nice, sensible touch. But to my surprise, one of my habitual surfing sites has been blocked. I’m not totally shocked that alleged nudity might be blocked (if there is nudity on the Boing Boing site it’s pretty rare and likely to be arty or ironic), but I’m perplexed by the implication that all blogs and wiki sites are suspect!

Back in NYC however, Danielle explains that not all blogs and wikis are blocked, just those filtered by Secure Computing’s web censorware product called SmartFilter. According to Boing Boing co-editor Xeni Jardin,

“[…]SmartFilter isn't very smart. Secure Computing classifies any site with any nudity — even Michaelangelo's David appearing on a single page out of thousands — as a ‘nudity’ site, which means that customers who block ‘nudity’ can't get through." (see blog post here)

Turns out, Secure Computing and other similar companies have sold their products to government-controlled monopoly Internet providers in places like Kuwait, Oman, and Sudan to name a few, effectively blocking access to filtered sites — like Boing Boing — for entire countries. Xeni wrote an op-ed in the NY Times on the issue, which you can find here.

Link. (thanks, Danielle Spencer)

WFMU has a third post (part one, part two) about bands that made songs that sounded like (or attempted to sound like) The Beatles. This time it's The Manchesters versus The Beatle Buddies. Even though these songs are much worse than anything The Beatles did, I still enjoy listening to them.

We have a second skirmish prepared, in which, once again, you can listen and choose between two related Fab Four deception records tooled to cash in on that whole British Invasion "fad," this time released on the cheapjack Diplomat label. (You may be familiar with what these rip-off albums look like: The cover either sports four — or sometimes three or five [!] — disenscalped wigs, or else a similar number of guys imitating the iconic Robert Freeman Meet the Beatles! half-shadow cover pic.)

This second Fake Fabs Fight, unlike the preceding one, draws its combatants exclusively from the human species, yet with a Battle of the Sexes twist: The featured clash is between the Manchesters and the Beatle Buddies; in other words, Fake Beatles vs. Fake Lady Beatles!

Link

(Click on image to biggify)

You'd be forgiven for mistaking the Hamster's Lunch as a lunch for hamsters. No, it's intended for human consumption. You can buy a box at Coco's in Los Angeles, where nearly every product on display includes a helpful explanatory note.

Hamster's Lunch $4.45
Rice crackers and a hyper realistic, mercilessly charming hamster figure.

Note: We would like to thank Microsoft Windows Mobile for sponsoring mobile posting on Boing Boing. In the coming weeks, we'll be using the system to post audio, images, text, and video.

Aditya "Romeo" Dev, just 2-feet 9-inches tall, is said to be "the world's smallest bodybuilder." The 19-year-old, who lives in Punjab, was honored by the Guinness Book of Records in 2006. From The Telegraph (portion of photo by Barcroft Media):

While most dwarfs have large heads compared to their bodies, Romeo is perfectly proportioned, and despite his diminutive stature has triceps, biceps, calves and thighs that would make many a full-grown man blush...

"I've been training as a bodybuilder for the last two years and by now I think I must be the strongest dwarf in the world," said Romeo.

Romeo is famous in his home country, and his father has spoken of his pride in his son's determination to overcome any difficulties in his path. "He has never been bothered at being so small. He has no inferiority complex. He is the jewel of our family."

Link (via Neatorama)

I listen to podcasts every day. Here are four I've recently subscribed that I really like:

Alan Watts podcast. I enjoy the late Alan Watts' playful descriptions of eastern religions, which were utterly incomprehensible to me until I began reading his books. "Alan Watts is one of the most widely read philosophers of the 20th century. In addition to his 28 books, Alan Watts delivered hundreds of public lectures and seminars the recordings of which have been preserved in the archives of the Electronic University, a non-profit organization dedicated to higher education. For the past two years Alan's eldest son, Mark Watts has reviewed and cataloged these talks to prepare them for public broadcast."

The Casbah. "An eclectic rock & roll and rhythm radio show featuring surf-instrumentals, garage, blues and more! The show airs Saturdays 7-9pm Central Standard Time on KSYM 90.1 FM in San Antonio."

NY Times Front Page. "James Barron, a reporter at The New York Times, summarizes the top headlines every weekday morning."

New Yorker: Fiction. This is my favorite new podcast. Each month, the New Yorker's fiction editor asks an author to read one of his or her favorite stories by another author from the archives of the magazine. After the reading, the editor interviews the author. "This month, T. Coraghessan Boyle reads Tobias Wolff’s short story 'Bullet in the Brain.'"

Feel free to share your favorite podcasts in the comments.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Five favorite podcasts

The Unwise Microwave Experiment guy shows how to melt a beer bottle in a microwave oven. You have to prep the bottle by using a blowtorch to make a red hot spot on the bottle.

Stick around for the end of the demo to hear his explanation of how it works.

In this video, a cat tries to enjoy her meal, but she's interrupted several times by a brazen but peaceable raccoon who believes he's entitled to a share of the food. (Via Neatorama)

Michelle of CRAFT magazine blog says:

Craftster member Rockstarcrafter posted before-and-after photos of her Hitchcock-inspired Psycho bathroom. It might not be for everyone, but it is definitely one way to go for crafty film buffs.

Link

Scot Hampton converted the sturdy iPhone box into a handsome and effective pinhole camera, the iHole. From his build notes:

I tried to keep it simple and the only external items I used were tape, tinfoil (for the lens), a piece of foam, and a leftover screw and tightener from an old ikea desk. Oh, I also used a black washer for the cover of the lens but that was purely cosmetic. I used the cardboard lining that was on the inside of the original box to construct the film holders on the back. I even left the serial numbers intact, so if my roommate ever needed to return it he could ...I’m not switching until they work on other networks...

I suppose it might have been symbolic to take the first pictures of an actual iPhone, but that’s so cliche.

Link

Baltimore police officer Salvatore Rivieri was suspended yesterday after a YouTube video turned up showing him roughing up a teenage skateboarder. The unknown boy, who claimed to be 14, was apparently skateboarding in a no-skateboarding zone. The police department has launched an internal-affairs investigation into the incident. From the Baltimore Sun:

On the video, the officer... puts the boy in a headlock, pushes him to the ground, questions his upbringing, threatens to "smack" him and repeatedly accuses the youngster of showing disrespect because the youth refers to the officer as "man" and "dude."

At one point, Rivieri, a 17-year veteran of the force, says:

"Obviously, your parents don't put a foot in your butt quite enough, because you don't understand the meaning of respect. First of all, you better learn how to speak. I'm not 'man.' I'm not 'dude,' I am Officer Rivieri. The sooner you learn that, the longer you are going to live in this world. Because you go around doing this kind of stuff and somebody is going to kill you."

Link to Baltimore Sun, Link to YouTube video

The citizens of Bluefields in Nicaragua (population 50,000) enjoy a high standard of living thanks to the weekly (or sometimes daily) bales of cocaine that drift ashore. The cocaine comes from Colombian traffickers who throw it from their boats when the US Coast Guard pursues them. Law enforcement in the city doesn't do anything about it, and the drug is traded openly in the streets and even in supermarkets.

"They throw most of it off," says a Lt Commander in the US Coastguard. "I have been on four interdictions and we have confiscated about 6000 pounds [2720kg] of cocaine, and I'd say equal that much was dumped into the ocean."

Those bales of cocaine float, and the currents bring them west right into the chain of islands, beaches and cays which make up the huge lagoons that surround Bluefields on Nicaragua's Atlantic coast.

"There are no jobs here, unemployment is 85 per cent," says Moises Arana, who was mayor of Bluefields from 2001 to 2005.

"It is sad to say, but the drugs have made contributions. Look at the beautiful houses, those mansions come from drugs. We had a women come into the local electronics store with a milk bucket stuffed full of cash. She was this little Miskito [native] woman and she had $80,000."

Hujo Sugo, a historian of Bluefields, says the floating coke has created a new local hobby.

"People here now go beachcombing for miles, they walk until the find packets. Even the lobster fisherman now go out with the pretence of fishing but really they are looking for la langosta blanca - the white lobster."

Link (Via Digg)

The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal upheld a lower court's ruling that the smell of burned marijuana is not enough to allow police to arrest someone and conduct a warrantless search.

"The smell alone can't constitute the grounds because the smell of burnt marijuana -- as opposed to raw marijuana -- gives an inference that the material is gone, it's dissipated into the atmosphere. So how can you say you're in possession of something that doesn't exist?" said Ronald Piche, Janvier's lawyer.

"There may be suspicion that the person is in possession of marijuana but that's not enough to base an arrest."

The Crown appealed the decision and the trial judge's decision was upheld.

Link

Since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Turkmen weavers have woven "war rugs" that depict machines of war, battle maps, and even 9/11. Interestingly, the rugs depicting the planes crashing into the Twin Towers are based on images from US propaganda leaflets dropped on Afghanistan. The new issue of Smithsonian explores this incredibly interesting art form. From the article:

These rugs, principally woven by women of the Turkman culture, often include red or yellow hues and are peppered with large weapons, military vehicles and English phrases such as "Hand Bom [Bomb]," "Rooket [Rocket]" and "Made in Afghanistan."

To many, this script is a firm indication of the rugs' intended audience: Westerners, and in particular, Americans, who funded the Afghan resistance—the Mujahadeen—during the Soviet occupation. "The rugs are geared for a tourist market," says Margaret Mills, a folklorist at Ohio State University who has conducted research in Afghanistan since 1974. "And they verbally address this market." Sediq Omar, a rug merchant from Herat who dealt in war rugs during and after the Soviet occupation, agrees. "Afghanis don't want to buy these," he says. "They're expensive for them. It's the Westerners who are interested."

While this may be true, it's likely that the first "hidden" war rugs from the early 1980s were meant for fellow Afghanis, according to Hanifa Tokhi, an Afghan immigrant who fled Kabul after the Soviet invasion and now lives in northern California. "Later on, they made it commercialized when they found out that people were interested," she says. "But at the beginning, it was to show their hatred of the invasion. I know the Afghan people, and this was their way to fight."

Link

Previously on BB:
• Afghan rugs depict Twin Towers Link

Curious Expeditions has posted a gallery of photos taken at Istanbul's Kapalıçarşı, or Grand Bazaar. It has been in existence since the 1400s.

Swinging platters holding steaming cups of tea zoom past us. Mustachioed men give us their best sales pitch, trying at least seven different languages; “Hallo! Guten tag? Bonjour? Buenos Dias? Konichiwa?” We wander past the slipper-merchants, mirror-merchants, leather-merchants, past the carpet-merchants, pipe-merchants, lamp-merchants, fur-merchants, gold-merchants, and then we find it. The store we didn’t know was there, but once we saw it, knew we had been looking for.

The Grand Bazaar, or Covered Bazaar (Kapaliçarsi) in Istanbul is a magical city within a city. With over 60 streets and more then 4400 shops, the world’s first mall is a buzzing hive of activity, catering to the shopping whims of the some 400,000 people who might visit it on a given day. It also must meet the needs of the 25,000 shopkeepers who attend to them, and a couple of small mosques can be found tucked in between the many shops.

Link

John Kricfalusi provides examples that show how the quality of Yogi Bear depictions has kept pace with a general decline in the quality of Western culture over the years. (From left to right: 1960s, 1990s, 2000s) Link

Paleontologists recently discovered a fossilized "mini pterodactyl" in China. The reptile, scientific name Nemicolopterus crypticus, was about the size of a sparrow and lived 120 million years ago. From National Geographic:

Pterosaurs, which had wings formed of skin rather than feathers, first appeared about 215 million years ago and are believed to be the first flying vertebrates...

A team of Chinese and Brazilian paleontologists found the N. crypticus fossil preserved in the fine siltstone of an ancient waterway in northeastern China.

The tiny pterosaur was a small, toothless reptile with curved foot bones that are similar to those of birds.

Link

Sean Bonner discovered this outstanding specimen of internet phenomenology. And if you wanna bump, let's go bitch, 'cause I ain't scared of you mufukkin azz and if you got somsaytome you can say it to.... mah face.

Wired Danger Room contributor Sharon Weinberger met a guy in Israel who sells sonic weapons, so she did what any respectable blogger would do -- asked him to point it at her and turn on the switch.

Last week, I was sitting in a hotel bar in Jerusalem when a fellow passenger on my tour told me there was a guy with us selling a supposedly less-lethal weapon.

"It works with sound frequencies," he said.  "It'll make you a sick."

A puke ray? An honest-to-God puke ray? Right here in Jerusalem?

Well, more like a sonic blaster. Dr. Maurice Goldman, a retired dentist, is the U.S. managing director for Inferno, a line of products that markets itself as a "sound barrier." The primary effect of the device, which sounds like a loud siren, is to force people to leave the protected area, he says. However, if the intruder doesn't leave immediately, Inferno's effects include "vertigo, nausea, and pain in the chest."

Link (thanks, Noah Shachtman!)

Related:
* NPR "Xeni Tech": Focused Sound 'Laser' for Crowd Control
* Sonic Weapons in Iraq -- and now, US cities

Dave Park says,

Amplive made a remix of Radiohead's 'In Rainbows' and was planning to release it without the band's permission leading to a cease and desist order on December 18. Today it was announced that both parties had since met and Amplive was now given permission to release the album. Downloadable MP3s are now available.

Link

What happens when a young elven hero goes on a hellacious drug binge and high tails it out into the desert? Today's installment of Boing Boing tv's 8-Bit Cinema provides a possible answer, melding the three worlds of Rad Racer, Legend of Zelda, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. RIP, Dr. Thompson.

In part two of today's episode, "Sometimes I Feel Like This:", an animated short by Eric Henry.

Link to post on Boing Boing tv, with discussion and downloadable video. If you dig this, feel free to Digg it.

Channel 4 has a documentary series called Living Doll: My Fake Baby, about women who keep ultra-realistic dolls, known as reborns. They dress them up and take them out shopping and for walks in strollers.

In the comments section, Fee provided a very nice summary of the documentary:

There were a few women featured in the documentary. One was very sad, someone who had looked after her grandchild as a baby due to his mother's illness, and then had lost him because her daughter recovered and went off to New Zealand with the baby. I could understand why she wanted a grandson subsstitute, but it made me sad that there are so many families around who could do with an adopted granny with real children that she could hug, and instead of finding them she found a rubber baby.

One of the women was as mad as a box of fish, and had multiple fake babies because the real thing might make a noise or ruin its clothes. She made me very glad that she could have rubber babies and not the real thing. While most real parents hate that whole lugging around the pram and bottle and nappy bags thing, she loved all that - for a pretend baby. I think the truth is she is still a little girl at heart, and couldn't bear not to be the focus of everyone attention. If she takes her fantasy too much further she may find herself the centre of everyone attention - down at the local psychiatric ward.

Another woman who briefly appeared seemed to have a toy show in her house, hundreds of babies in cots crammed into a room. That seemed a bit obsessive compulsive really.

I think some of them are fantastics works of art in the realism, but I agree with others that the more real they are, the more creepy. In general, although I am a woman, I found the men's reactions to them most normal... nearly all regarded them as disturbing and macabre.

Link (Thanks, Phil!)

Snip from the latest essay on Kevin Kelly's Technium blog, which for me has become a must-read RSS feed:

I wrote a book, Out of Control, heralding the immense power of bottom up systems. You know: smart mobs, hive mind, web power, amateur hour, decentralized webs, network effects, and collaborative work. Twenty years ago Out of Control made a wide-ranging and exhaustive case for the remarkable things which decentralized, out-of-control systems can accomplish in biology, technology, and cultural realms. Two decades later I'm still keen on the untapped potential of emergent bottom-up systems.

But throughout my boosterism I have tried to temper my celebration of the bottom with my belief that the bottom is not enough for what we really want. To get to the best we need some top down intelligence, too. I have always claimed that nuanced view. And now that crowd-sourcing and social webs are all the rage, it's worth repeating: the bottom is not enough. You need a bit of top-down as well.

The reason every bottom-up crowd-source hive-mind needs some top-down control is because of time. The bottom runs on a different time scale than our instant culture.

Link.

Spotted in this Washington Post article about terror suspects interrogated "under duress at secret prisons":

The Bush administration announced yesterday that it intends to bring capital murder charges against half a dozen men allegedly linked to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, based partly on information the men disclosed to FBI and military questioners without the use of coercive interrogation tactics.

The admissions made by the men -- who were given food whenever they were hungry as well as Starbucks coffee at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba -- played a key role in the government's decision to proceed with the prosecutions, military and law enforcement officials said.

Emphasis added. The NYT's The Lede blog digs deeper, uncovers an In These Times article, and reminds us that there's also a "Starbucks, a McDonalds, a combined Subway-Pizza Hut, a Wal-Mart-like big box store called the Nex and a gift shop" on the Guantanamo base.

Photo: "Un Buen Cafe," by Victor Nuno, found on Flickr.

Spotted on Warren Ellis' blog.

Previously on BB:
* Boing Boing tv (Vlog) Xeni - Anonymous vs. Scientology

Yoko Ono, widow of former Beatles member John Lennon, is suing singer-songwriter (and Suicide Girl) Lennon Murphy for alleged "tarnishment" of John Lennon's name.

Ms. Murphy's band is called Lennon, and she is attempting to register that band name as a trademark.

Here's a PDF of the court papers, here's a snip from Lennon Murphy's response on her MySpace page.

Getting Sued by Yoko
Current mood: angry
Category: Music

Yesterday I received notice that Yoko Ono had filed a law suit against me, asking for a cancellation of the trademark that I own for the name "Lennon." This could very well mean the career that I have worked so hard at, the one you all have believed in, may come to an end. I wanted to address the situation to all my fans because without you I am nothing and it's not fair to everyone who has believed in my music not to be properly informed of this pure bullshit.

When I first started playing music at 14, I was known for the most part as "The Lennon Murphy Band". Not a name I was very fond of, no one could ever agree on anything so it made sense. A few months later some of the shows started being marketed using my full name as well as some that just using "Lennon." There was never really any consistancy but there was well enough to justify stating that "Lennon" had been used in fact since 1997. When I signed with Arista Records in 2000 at the age of 18, a marketing decision was made to continue being known just as Lennon. In all honesty, I didn't care. I was just happy to sign a record deal, make an album, and pay my bills.

Lennon is my first name by birth and I am regualarly asked if I was named after the Beatle, having always replied no. My mother named me after "John Lennon that wrote songs, painted, and baked bread with his son". She named me for the man, not the pop star.

Coverage links: TMZ, Fox, NME.

Julian Lennon, who is the son of John Lennon (and the former Beatle's first wife, Cynthia) also responded to the situation on his MySpace page. He's totally cool with the singer using her name, which also happens to be his father’s name, and says "She has My full support."

I just bought a copy of Victrola Favorites: Artifacts from Bygone Days, a lovely two-CD compilation of old wax and vinyl recordings from the 1920s-1950s. The collection is exquisitely packaged by Dust-to-Digital in a clothbound, full-color book of beautiful record label artwork, archival photographs, listening instructions, postcards, and all sorts of old timey music ephemera. The music on the CDs is a delightful and eclectic trip around the world: Persian folk, American jazz, Delta blues, Chinese opera, Korean flutes, Japanese bamboo xylophones, Burmese electric guitar, and a slew of other enchanting genres. Victrola Favorites is not one of those CD purchases that's ripped and then relegated to the storage box in your garage. It's an exquisite objet d'art more suited for the coffee table than for the iPod. I only wish I had the opportunity to hear these recordings on the media they were made for. Link to buy Victrola Favorites, Link to Dust-to-Digital's Victrola Favorites page

Aubrey de Grey, founder of the Methuselah Foundation ("dedicated to the defeat of human aging") did a nice job of explaining rejuvenation research on the Colbert Report last night. (Via Gerry Canavan)

The Comics Reporter has a nice obituary about comic book writer Steve Gerber, who died Sunday at the age of 60. He's best known for creating Howard the Duck.

Steve Gerber's role as one of the best and emblematic writers of his generation can't be overstated. He was a crucial figure in comics history. Like some of the all-time great cartoonists of years past, Gerber carved a place for self-expression and meaning out of a type of comic that had no right to hold within itself so many things and moments that were that quirky and offbeat and delicately realized -- except that Gerber made it so. His Howard the Duck comics remain amusing when read today, perhaps more poignant now, laying into their broad targets in a way that communicated a kind of critical consciousness into the minds of many devoted superhero comics readers, fans that simply wouldn't have been exposed to those kinds of ideas any other way, the concept that media might lie to you, the notion of absolute self-worth in the face of a world that seems dead-set against it. Steve Gerber's superhero books were a tonic to the over-seriousness of most of their cousins, and his horror-adventure books were frequently classy and reserved in a genre that tends to reward the blunt and ugly. No creator save Jack Kirby has as a cautionary tale and a living example saved so many creators the grief of turning over their creations without reward or without realizing what they had done. Few creators in the American mainstream were as consistently fascinating as Steve Gerber. Even fewer have been as outspoken and forthright, or in that way, as admirable.

"I wouldn't describe myself as fearless, but I think you have to accept the possibility of failure if you want to achieve anything, in any field." -- Steve Gerber, 1985

If you are unfamiliar with Gerber's work, the Essential Howard the Duck is a good place to start. Link