The Latest from Boing Boing

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• HOW TO Make time lapse
• Graveyard for gadgets in Ghana: Pieter Hugo
• Feeding Objects
• Fingerprints, please: 24 Hour Fitness introduces biometrics
• Ages of Consent: mnemonic ditty to remember legal age for sex in each state
• Fan Conventions: Getting Through the Hype
• "The U.S. has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials"
• Cannabinomics--The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point
• Irreverent Ramadan e-cards
• Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School has over 100 branches around the world
• Hungry deer near Kyoto
• Bacon or Beer Can?
• The Art of David Yow (Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid)
• Oracle suing Google over Java in Androids
• Time to get a dog at the office? Or maybe a hamster?
• How to engineer a viral web hit: just add "Mormons, Mullets or Maniacs"
• Terrific 180-square-foot shack houses family of four plus dog
• Happy Friday the 13th!
• New Levi's ads for ladies who got junk in they trunk
• Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (vintage nerd humor)
• Yoga pamphlet with excellent illustrations
• The world's largest tidal turbine about to be installed in Scotland
• Unsuck it: translate douchey business jargon into normal language
• New art from Liz McGrath and Edward Walton Wilcox
• The "30 Mosques" guys visit "The Ground Zero Mosque"
• Kenk: graphic novel humanizes Toronto's most notorious bike-thief without apologising for him
• Print your own journalism warning labels

HOW TO Make time lapse Posted: 14 Aug 2010 05:14 AM PDT Timelapse photography is, basically, a type of stop-motion animation. Thousands of shots, taken over a long period of time, and then spliced together and sped up—flip-book style—to create the sensation of flowers blooming in seconds or herds of wildebeest running madly around the plains as though the Benny Hill theme were part of their natural migration patterns. This video—which has some great behind-the-scenes/how-they-did-it clips—serves as an introduction to a whole gallery of timelapse videos*. Once those have inspired you, check out this handy guide to creating your own timelapse photography using a digital camera, some kind of interval timer (either built-in, or rigged), a tripod and a backup external battery supply (motorcycle batteries are suggested!). Plus, get tips for improving your timelapse game from a BBC Earth photographer. *Not all the videos are viewable outside the UK, but I found several that I could watch in the U.S. Don't give up! BBC: Wildlife Finder Timelapse Gallery (Via madge)

Graveyard for gadgets in Ghana: Pieter Hugo Posted: 13 Aug 2010 09:57 PM PDT The New York Times has published "A Global Graveyard for Dead Computers in Ghana," a stunning series of images by South African photographer Pieter Hugo documenting life and work in an Accra slum. Here, "adults and children tear away at computers from abroad to get at the precious metals inside."

Feeding Objects Posted: 13 Aug 2010 09:36 PM PDT Via the BB Submitterator, reader a47danger points to this "Odd website where people photograph themselves feeding food to inanimate objects." Link: Feeding Objects

Fingerprints, please: 24 Hour Fitness introduces biometrics Posted: 13 Aug 2010 09:38 PM PDT Fitness chain 24 Hour Fitness is the center of some controversy after quietly introducing fingerprinting as an alternative to ID-card swipes at Northern California locations. News reports: ABC San Francisco, Santa Cruz Sentinel, KCRA Sacramento. [via BB Submitterator, thanks somewhatnifty]

Ages of Consent: mnemonic ditty to remember legal age for sex in each state Posted: 13 Aug 2010 08:11 PM PDT Have a hard time remembering the age of consent laws in each state? Uncle Merv put together this handy mnemonic ditty that perfectly combines learning and queasy discomfort. (Thanks Allan!)

Fan Conventions: Getting Through the Hype Posted: 13 Aug 2010 06:04 PM PDT Photo: Shannon Cottrell/LA Weekly from Comic-Con 2010 There's a lot of hype surrounding conventions. If you've been to one of the larger events, you know cons are often the place where big studios make big announcements. They can also be the place where companies choose to flex their marketing muscle with street team campaigns, can't-miss booths, swag, and exclusive merchandise. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, they're just taking their products directly to the customer. But often, what you hear or read about after the con focuses on this—and not the fans who make the con happen. After Comic-Con, I wrote about trying to find "authenticity" at such a massive, hype-crazy event. It's definitely there, but it's sometimes buried under the advertising and glut of announcements. The fan moments are always the best part of the convention, whether it's a massive gathering of cosplayers paying tribute to the same characters, or a simple conversation at a tweet-up where you don't feel socially awkward after dropping an obscure pop culture reference among strangers. There might not much flashiness surrounding those moments, but that's when we see the real community within the cons. Link: "Ever Get the Feeling You've Been Conned?" (LA Weekly)

"The U.S. has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials" Posted: 13 Aug 2010 05:33 PM PDT "The United States has the cyber capabilities to prevent WikiLeaks from disseminating those materials. Will President Obama order the military to deploy those capabilities?" LOL, as if! Did you backtrace it? That Washington Post op-ed by former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen is best read in Mad Dad Voice. Yes, this is the same nutball columnist who effectively argued for arresting or assassinating Wikileaks frontman Julian Assange a couple weeks ago (Raffi Khatchadourian's response in the New Yorker is a must-read). There is no "off" switch for the internet in America. But even that reactionary fantasy misses a critical point: the encrypted "insurance" file which was posted earlier this month by Wikileaks pre-emptively negates any draconian, linear response that the state might consider: unlock the file with a key (or keys) that could easily be tweeted, emailed, or otherwise shared by Assange and colleagues, and the next Big Dump would be laid bare for all to read. As nutty as Thiessen is, his rant reminds me of something I've heard friends and folks I follow ask aloud lately: could "The Wikileaks Problem" be the excuse our government needs to rally support for new curbs on 'net freedom? Just as child porn was the internet menace no one could argue against in earlier decades, perhaps the national security panic sparked by Wikileaks will be the bogeyman, this time around. (via) Update: Kevin Poulsen at Wired News on the "cyberwar against Wikileaks" crazytalk: good luck with that. Reporters Without Borders: Wikileaks set "a bad precedent". Wikileaks Afghan war data visualized with open source apps: "stop ... Wikileaks volunteer detained Iraq: Wikileaks video of US military killing journalists Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to keynote 2600's HOPE conference ... Wikileaks releases classified Afghanistan war logs: "largest ... Wikileaks megadump reveals US pays local Afghan media to run ... Wikileaks: Q&A with Jacob Appelbaum on "The Afghan War Diaries ... Xeni on Rachel Maddow Show: Wikileaks and "Afghan War Diaries ... Should Wikileaks join the press corps? Wikileaks source suspect Manning transferred from Kuwait to ...

Cannabinomics--The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point Posted: 13 Aug 2010 02:44 PM PDT Ted Balaker of Reason.tv sent me a link to this video interview with Christopher Fichtner, author of Cannabinomics: The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point. Christopher Fichtner is a psychiatrist and the former mental health director for the state of Illinois. In his new book, Cannabinomics: The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point, Fichtner predicts that marijuana policy is about to change radically. As Fichtner points out, three public policy trajectories are converging: The medical marijuana movement is gaining momentum. People are increasingly waking up to the fact that drug prohibition creates more public health problems than it solves. And, in the same way that the Great Depression caused people to reprioritize how we spend our public dollars, the current economic crisis has got people thinking that bringing the biggest cash crop in the US out into the open might not be such a bad idea. The Marijuana Policy Tipping Point: A conversation with author Christopher Fichtner, M.D.

Irreverent Ramadan e-cards Posted: 13 Aug 2010 02:28 PM PDT My friend Nishat Kurwa found these funny Ramadan e-cards.

Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School has over 100 branches around the world Posted: 13 Aug 2010 03:03 PM PDT Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, a festive figure-drawing jam session, now has over 100 branches around the world. Artist Molly Crabapple founded it in 2005 in a "dive bar in Brooklyn." From illegal flashmobs to the Museum of Modern Art, Dr. Sketchy's has brought artists a rule-breaking cocktail of dames, drinking and drawing. Whether you're an artstar or a scribbling newbie, Dr. Sketchy's is the perfect place to get your fill of life-drawing." Bob Self, founder of Dr. Sketchy's Los Angeles, says: I am pleased to announce that there is now a hub for all Dr. Sketchy's branches worldwide. 100+ branches. 1 web site. Woo! Dr. Sketchy's presents amazing figure-drawing spectacles in 16 countries on five continents... all unified through the Anti-Art School's brand-spanking-new global web site. Find the branch nearest you, or  learn how to start your own local branch. Don't make excuses... make art! The only two continents without a Dr. Sketchy branch are Africa and Antarctica. If you live there, you are invited to start a branch! Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School (Dr. Sketchy's - Bettie Page Tribute Session from William Zoe FitzGerald.)

Hungry deer near Kyoto Posted: 13 Aug 2010 04:53 PM PDT (In July, I went on a family vacation to Japan. Here are my posts about the trip: The Ghibli Museum | Watermelons in the shape of cubes, hearts, and pyramids | What happened to the Burgie Beer UFO of Melrose Avenue? | Shopping in Harajuku | A visit to Iwatayama Monkey Park in Kyoto Japan.) As soon as you buy a stack of round crackers from one of the vendors at Nara Park, the deer descend on you. I barely had a chance to sample the cracker (pretty tasty!) because I was instantly surrounded by hungry deer, ominously nudging me with their antlers to feed them. The city of Nara is a short train ride from Kyoto, and it's famous for its large park populated by 1,200 semi-wild deer, and also for Tōdai-ji, a Buddhist temple that has the largest wooden building on Earth and contains a 50-foot bronze statue of Buddha. More photos and remarks after the jump. The manhole covers are beautiful pieces of art depicting deer in the park. I noticed lots of attractive manhole covers everywhere I went in Japan. Now, it was probably a mistake to show this video to my wife before we left on our family vacation to Japan. I had to spend quite a bit of time assuring her that our kids wouldn't be attacked by an enraged doe. Then she saw this sign at the park, and she got nervous all over again. Fortunately, the deer were gentle and no one got hurt. The deer keep a sharp eye for people buying crackers from the vendors. I wonder why they don't bother the vendors? Maybe the vendors swatted them on the nose to train them to keep their distance. The deer like to eat and walk toward you at the same time, causing you to back up as you feed them crackers, which they gobble with surprising speed. The deer congregate around anyone with a cracker, just like pigeons flock to people with breadcrumbs. Once you are out of crackers, they don't want anything to do with you. This squat fellow was hoping that my camera was a cracker. Leaves are a poor substitute for crackers, but they will nibble on them if offered. They don't mind being pet. They don't seem to enjoy it, either, at least not as much as this tapir at the LA Zoo did. This one kept his mouth open, ready for a treat. At the far end of the park we saw Tōdai-ji, a Buddhist temple with the largest wooden building in the world. Inside, sits the largest bronze Buddha. This Art Nouveau vase caught my attention because the butterflies had cartoony faces. The bronze Budhha. Here it looks to be about two feet tall, but it's actually 50 feet tall. The large wooden guardians ridiculously, mind bogglingly, almost horrifyingly large wooden guardians (much like everything else at the Tōdai-ji Temple) looked like they were alive and ready to pounce. (Thanks, bfarn!) I don't know what this is, but it reminded me of a Balinese deity, like this one. The hole in this column is the same size as Buddha's nostril. If you are able to crawl through it you will achieve enlightenment in your next life. Jane was the only one who made it. My other family members and I have some work to do. This statue sits outside the building. Visitors with ailments rub the body part of the statue corresponding with the part of their body that needs fixing. It reminds me of the insane laughing animatronic lady above the door to the fun house at Lakeside Amusement Park in Denver. I wish I had a picture to compare the two.

Bacon or Beer Can? Posted: 13 Aug 2010 01:51 PM PDT Link. Related: "I wanted the seltzer, not the salsa!" [via Robert Popper, thanks for the history, Andrea]

The Art of David Yow (Jesus Lizard, Scratch Acid) Posted: 13 Aug 2010 01:22 PM PDT Serial noisemaker David Yow, best known as the charismatic frontman of such bands as Scratch Acid and Jesus Lizard, is a visual artist. He has a show opening this weekend in Los Angeles over at The DIY Gallery on Sunset. Image: LN, Mixed media and collage on wood, David Yow.

Oracle suing Google over Java in Androids Posted: 13 Aug 2010 01:07 PM PDT Oracle has filed a lawsuit against Google claiming the search giant is infringing on patent and copyright through the use of Sun's Java technology in the Android operating system. (Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun earlier this year). Google denounces the lawsuit as baseless. This is no David v. Goliath, more like two overfed sumo wrestlers going at it.

Time to get a dog at the office? Or maybe a hamster? Posted: 13 Aug 2010 12:55 PM PDT In two small trials, having a dog around seemed to lower tensions during group collaboration and increased solidarity between people playing The Prisoner's Dilemma. The results seem to fit with preponderance of evidence that presence of animals is calming. One glaring problem, though: Both trials compared dog vs. nothing. Could you get the same benefits from an animal that slobbers less?

How to engineer a viral web hit: just add "Mormons, Mullets or Maniacs" Posted: 13 Aug 2010 12:47 PM PDT "Couch potatoes don't matter on the Web, crazy people do." Buzzfeed founder (and former HuffPo-er) Jonah Peretti's talk slides on how to craft viral hits read like an Anarchist's Cookbook for traffic-monkeys; a sort of SEOnomicon. This is the single most interesting thing I've read all week. It is evil, and it is true. What struck me as most interesting is Peretti's assertion that the best way to engineer "viralness" is to appeal to your target's pathologies: for instance, the self-obsession and narcissism one might associate with HEYLOOKATME YouTube vloggers, or the sort of rigid fixation on rules and standards often written off as "aspie-think" (hello, Slashdot forums!) I grew up thinking of journalism as a profession that served a high, noble purpose: the pursuit of truth, and knowledge, and making the world a better place. But Peretti rightly nails a disturbing fact about the "post-journalism" world of web publishing: if maximizing traffic is your primary goal, you'll be more successful if you instead focus on feeding the dark beasts of human id. I'm lookin' at you, Jenny Whiteboard. Here are the slides as a gallery on Scribd. Spotted via Peter Kafka at All Things D, who wraps up the slideshow in thinky contexty content stuff 'n' stuff. (via @pkafka)

Terrific 180-square-foot shack houses family of four plus dog Posted: 13 Aug 2010 12:23 PM PDT Tammy and her husband John built this fantastic 180-square-foot shack on Gambier Island, British Columbia. They spent about $7,000 in materials. Tammy wrote a great article about it at Apartment Therapy, which includes the mistakes they made. But as you can tell from the photos, it's bright and happy, and filled with just the right amount of furniture and other neat stuff. Before I get started with this tour, I cannot emphasize this enough: My husband and I are not rich and we are not particularly handy. Heck, we're not even all that smart. This latter fact was probably the driver behind why two people with little money and even fewer skills would even attempt to build a cabin on an isolated island with no amenities. But armed with a hacked $25 shed plan and an incredibly generous friend with actual skills, we gave it a shot. Four People (and a Dog) Living in 180 Square Feet

Happy Friday the 13th! Posted: 13 Aug 2010 12:26 PM PDT Do you suffer from triskaidekaphobia? If so, today is your holiday! This is the only Friday the 13th of the year, so be sure to celebrate by walking under ladders and smashing mirrors. I honor of Friday the 13th, National Geographic takes a look back at the superstition's secret history and the mathematics of the calendar. From National Geographic: (Donald Dossey, author of Holiday Folklore, Phobias and Fun,) traces the fear of the number 13—aka, triskaidekaphobia—to a Norse myth about 12 gods having a dinner party at Valhalla, Norse mythology's heaven. In walked the uninvited 13th guest, the mischievous god Loki. Once there, Loki arranged for Hoder, the blind god of darkness, to shoot Balder the Beautiful, the god of joy and gladness, with a mistletoe-tipped arrow. "Balder died, and the whole Earth got dark. The whole Earth mourned. It was a bad, unlucky day," Dossey said. Thomas Fernsler, an associate policy scientist in the Mathematics and Science Education Resource Center at the University of Delaware in Newark, said the number 13 suffers because of its position after 12. According to Fernsler, numerologists consider 12 a "complete" number. There are 12 months in a year, 12 signs of the zodiac, 12 gods of Olympus, 12 labors of Hercules, 12 tribes of Israel, and 12 apostles of Jesus. In exceeding 12 by 1, Fernsler said 13's association with bad luck "has to do with just being a little beyond completeness. The number becomes restless or squirmy"—not unlike some folks with triskaidekaphobia today. Some people are so paralyzed by Friday the 13th superstitions that they refuse to fly, buy a house, or act on a hot stock tip, for example. "It's been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do," said Dossey, the historian, who is also the founder of the Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute in Asheville, North Carolina. "Friday the 13th Superstitions Rooted in Bible and More" (CC-licensed image from queenie13)

New Levi's ads for ladies who got junk in they trunk Posted: 13 Aug 2010 12:08 PM PDT American garment maker Levi's launched a new jeans line for women this week, Curve ID, with a Wieden+Kennedy ad campaign bluntly declaring that, "All asses were not created equal," and "hotness comes in all shapes and sizes." This revelation is not entirely new. Related: I would like to see a pair of the Levi's jeans mud-wrestle it out with the GAP's "Beyond Skinny." [ * disclosure: I was once paid to speak at a W+K event.]

Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (vintage nerd humor) Posted: 13 Aug 2010 11:44 AM PDT In a caffeine-starved state this morning, I was reminded of this relic of vintage nerd humor from 1998: Hyper Text Coffee Pot Control Protocol (HTCPCP), a protocol for controlling, monitoring, and diagnosing coffee pots. [thanks, poeslacker]

Yoga pamphlet with excellent illustrations Posted: 13 Aug 2010 12:03 PM PDT Over at our Submitterator, Zawelski points us to scans of a wonderfully-illustrated booklet titled Fundamentals of Easy Raijyoga, acquired from the Godly Museum in Mysore, India. "Illustrations in Raja Yoga"

The world's largest tidal turbine about to be installed in Scotland Posted: 13 Aug 2010 11:48 AM PDT This is a photo of the Atlantis AK1000, a 130 ton, 74-foot-tall tidal turbine that will be installed underwater off the cost of Scotland. It is designed to supply electrical power for 1,000 households. Sea water, which is 832 times denser than air, gives a 5 knot ocean current more kinetic energy than a 350 km/h wind; therefore ocean currents have a very high energy density. Hence a smaller device is required to harness tidal current energy than to harness wind energy. Tidal current energy takes the kinetic energy available in currents and converts it into renewable electricity. As oceans cover over 70% of Earth's surface, ocean energy (including wave power, tidal current power and ocean thermal energy conversion) represents a vast source of energy, estimated at between 2,000 and 4,000 TWh per year, enough energy to continuously light between 2 and 4 billion 11W low-energy light bulbs. Both the U.S. and the U.K., for example, have enough ocean power potential to meet around 15% of their total power needs. Good: The World's Largest Tidal Turbine, Unveiled

Unsuck it: translate douchey business jargon into normal language Posted: 13 Aug 2010 11:19 AM PDT Unsuck it! [thanks to the many readers who suggested this]

New art from Liz McGrath and Edward Walton Wilcox Posted: 13 Aug 2010 11:31 AM PDT Boing Boing pal Liz McGrath has a show of her lovely and odd watercolor paintings opening at Seattle's Roq La Rue Gallery. Liz is best known for her marvelously strange faux-taxidermy sculptures. These paintings are also exquisitely odd but are decidedly more... delicate. (Top: "Madge," watercolor on paper, 5" x 5.5"; "Werewolf Torn," watercolor on paper, 4" x 4.5".) Also showing at the gallery is Edward Walton Wilcox, creator of grand, luminous paintings informed by medievality, the Renaissance, science fiction, and humor. (Above: "Ponter's Hall," bitumen and tempera on canvas, 34" x 60".) All of the art in the show is also viewable online. Liz McGrath drawings Edward Walton Wilcox paintings BBtv Vlog: David Meets Artist Liz McGrath. TV Liz McGrath art show in NYC Liz McGrath art show in NYC Liz McGrath show in Los Angeles

The "30 Mosques" guys visit "The Ground Zero Mosque" Posted: 13 Aug 2010 10:17 AM PDT Former Boing Boing guestbloggers Bassam and Aman (who've been working on a documentary film in Pakistan) hit the road for Ramadan, on a new "30 Mosques in 30 Days" trip around the United States. First stop, the so-called "ground zero mosque" in New York City: Dude, it's just a mosque. Bassam and I walked into Park 51, the site of the so called "Ground Zero Mosque," expecting to feel transformed, knowing the fact that I was praying inside the place that's practically been mentioned in the news every 20 minutes. But all it felt like - was praying inside a mosque. The Domestic Crusaders The Edhi Ambulance: first responders in Pakistan (photo essay ... For Your Friday - The Spoon Box by The Books Eid Mubarak! Welcome to the guestblog, Bassam Tariq and Aman Ali! It's Gadhafi Mania! 30 Mosques Gets 1-Up'd Pakistani Ghazals, Aik Alif Two Muslim guys photo-blog 30 NYC mosques in 30 days Aziz and her dignity (a guest-dispatch from Pakistan ... The Pakistan Blogistan

Kenk: graphic novel humanizes Toronto's most notorious bike-thief without apologising for him Posted: 02 Aug 2010 01:22 PM PDT Richard Poplak and Nick Marinkovich's Kenk: A Graphic Portrait is a journalistic inquiry into the life of Igor Kenk, Toronto's notorious stolen bike peddler, told in comic form. I've known Igor since I was 18 years old, and truth be told, I found him confusing, likable, maddening, hilarious, charismatic, criminal, and even honourable after his own fashion. The Slovenian entrepreneur and bike-mechanic was a packrat (Kenk implies that he is a pathological hoarder, and I think this fits) and a seamy, rough-and-ready type who seemed to have stepped out of the pages of a Bruce Sterling story. He occupied a succession of shops at the western end of Queen Street in Toronto, long before the neighbourhood became fashionable, back when it was a depressed and seedy little strip in the middle of nowhere. Igor used to fix my bikes (and very well, too, at reasonable prices -- and even on credit when I was broke), and inevitably a simple repair would turn into hours of conversation out front of his shop or back in its jammed interior, sandwiched into the tiny clear spaces between the mountains of bike-junk and refuse harvested from sidewalks and garage sales and dumps. I traded in my bike for a better one, paying the difference with cash, just before he was arrested in the early 1990s, charged with selling stolen bikes. Among the bikes that the police seized as stolen property was my old bike, which I had owned for 15 years and had traded in fair and square. I concluded then that no matter what Igor was up to, he was also being railroaded by the authorities. That bike I bought from Igor? It was stolen later that month. The day after it was stolen, I went down to Igor's shop to get a replacement (on credit -- I was skint), just as two guys showed up to sell Igor the bike I'd just had nicked. I was inside the shop and Igor came in and said, "Go out there and pretend you're a mechanic, look the bike over, I think it's yours." I did, and gave Igor the nod. Before he could say anything, the two guys took off -- one riding his bike, the other riding mine. Without saying a word, Igor grabbed a bike from his stock and chased them down. A few minutes later, he rode back with my bike in tow, and charged me $10 to replace the fenders the thieves had stripped. I knew -- everybody knew -- that Igor was dealing in stolen goods. Every second-hand merchant does (I was working in a used bookstore at the time and I'm certain that some of the books we accepted for cash or trade were hot, though we could never have proved it or readily distinguished them from the legit product). But Igor seemingly played by the rules: when he bought a bike, he recorded the seller's name and the bike's serial number, held the bike for the required period, and if no one came to claim it, he sold it. But Igor also dealt in enormous volume, and bought bikes from guys who were so sketchy that it strained credulity to believe that they were just keen-eyed pickers who found yard-sale bargains and arbitraged them to Igor for resale. And indeed, in the end, Igor was arrested after he was caught instructing some of these suppliers to take a pair of bolt-cutters and steal a particularly nice bike. The resulting arrest revealed a trove of over 3,000 bikes in various states of repair. More than 500 of them were claimed by Torontonians, who rose up in ferocious anger over Igor, whom the press characterized as the kingpin behind Toronto's epidemic bike thievery. On blogs and vox pops, Torontonian cyclists howled for Igor's blood, and the world's press picked up the story, calling Igor the world's biggest bike thief. And perhaps he was. But whatever he was up to, he wasn't your average bike-stealing junkie or a mobster who dealt in industrialized theft as part of a criminal empire. Igor was a character. In Kenk, Igor is a character in an engrossing, well-told journalistic account of his life and times. The author and illustrator worked with footage from a documentary on Igor by Jason Gilmore, using stills from footage from the year before his arrest, along with roughed-up, xerographic reproductions of newspaper stories, blog screenshots, framegrabs from newscasts, and found objects. Through this odd documentary style, the creators build up a picture of a complex, dysfunctional, philosophical pathological case. Igor's early years as a kid in Soviet Yugoslavia and then as a cop in the Slovenian police force set the stage for his move to Canada, and the beginnings of his practice of hoarding all manner of consumer junk picked at markets, fleas, yard sales, and dumpsters. Igor is brought to life in his vehement ramblings about the wastefulness of Western society, the instability of economics, and the author and illustrator perfectly capture his fractured eloquence and epic Soviet grouchiness. But while Kenk's authors humanize Igor through their tale, they don't apologize for him. Having read Kenk, I'm more convinced than ever that Igor really was a hub for Toronto's stolen bike trade, and that he knowingly nurtured it even as he decried dishonesty and waste. The act of humanizing Igor makes him both more and less culpable. More culpable because it's clear that this intelligent and thoughtful man was deliberately choosing not to bear responsibility for his choices, using elaborate, self-serving justifications for his deeds. But more forgivable, too, because his real kindness and generosity, his humour and passion are all also on display, making him more than the criminal kingpin caricature that appeared in the press at the time of his arrest. I've felt ambivalent about Igor since the conviction; the last time I saw him was a few months before the arrest. He admired my daughter, ribbed me about having read about me in the press, and was, all in all, the same guy I'd known for more than half my life. Nevertheless, I couldn't deny the depraved indifference to suffering that accompanies complicity in the theft of peoples' mode of transport, nor excuse it. In Kenk, Poplak and Marinkovich manage to express empathy for Igor without excusing any of his misdeeds. Kenk: A Graphic Portrait

Print your own journalism warning labels Posted: 13 Aug 2010 07:38 AM PDT If I were a journalism professor (a particularly surly and possibly drunk journalism professor) I might be tempted to use this lovely set of journalism warning labels, designed by British comedian Tom Scott, as a teaching tool—encouraging my students to go through various media sources and slap these puppies on the worst offenders. Or—in a moment of deep misanthropy—using them as grading stickers on assignments. However you wish to use them, the stickers are pretty fabulous. Helpfully, Scott provides a PDF link that will allow you to print off a set super easy. (Via Ferris Jabr)

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