The Latest from Boing Boing

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• RIP Satoshi Kon
• SPECIAL FEATURE: The Last Hospice
• Samsung announces 7" iPad
• Report: After Katrina, New Orleans police authorized to shoot looters
• Hundreds of women systematically gang-raped by armed rebels in DRC
• Gentleman with bullet in skull can't remember being shot in the head
• Photos of pimped up private jets that belong to African dictators
• Facebook: "Just Say Now" marijuana ad kerfuffle is a tempest in a pot leaf
• Conventions and Art
• My kid just found an 1856 coin stuck in an old piece of furniture
• Cat-trashing lady outed by internet in less than 24 hours
• Problem-solving flow chart
• Enter the YIMBYs
• Man vs. Brain cancer
• Woman suspected of dumping cat in trash can under police protection
• Photos from China's 10-day long traffic jam
• NYT debunks allegations of Pentagon "dirty tricks" behind Wikileaks rape scandal
• Christina Hendricks: "Mad Men" star, Etsy model
• Robot to pair socks!
• Justice Dept. hiring "Ebonics experts" for drug enforcement spying operations
• Secret mob messages sent via TV show
• Facebook says no to "Just Say Now" marijuana legalization campaign ads
• Kodak 1922 Kodachrome Film Test

RIP Satoshi Kon Posted: 24 Aug 2010 09:36 PM PDT Over on the Submitterator, Boing Boing reader "gnp" pointed us to UK Anime Network's report that famed anime director Satoshi Kon (今 敏) has died. He was 47. I wrote about Kon's sole TV creation, the short, but brilliant series Paranoia Agent, for LA Weekly's Style Council. Twitter has been abuzz regarding the sad news. There have been some lovely tributes to Kon across the social media network. Here are a few: "Satoshi Kon has passed away at age 47. He created Paranoia Agent and Paprika. He was the Fellini of Anime." —@TheHeartSleeves "It's not that anime will never be the same with Satoshi Kon gone. It's now much more likely that anime will always be the same."—@jbetteridge "You shall be missed, Satoshi Kon, but more than that, you shall be remembered."—@tehnominator " RIP Satoshi Kon. One of the greatest anime directors of all time. A man who had an infinite amount to say, and no time at all to say it."—@ Zhirzzh "RIP Satoshi Kon. The maker of films we aspire to make."—@AWFstudio

SPECIAL FEATURE: The Last Hospice Posted: 24 Aug 2010 10:44 PM PDT I'm a volunteer at Maitri, the only remaining AIDS hospice in San Francisco. Once a week, I hang out with its 15 residents, run errands for them, and — sometimes — sit at their bedsides as they go through the process of dying. I do it because I like to face my fears, and death is the one thing that I fear the most. Read the rest

Samsung announces 7" iPad Posted: 24 Aug 2010 11:08 PM PDT Behold! Samsung's Galaxy Tab. It's an iClone with a 7" display and looks lovely: shown off in the video are Android 2.2, voice calling and a camera.

Report: After Katrina, New Orleans police authorized to shoot looters Posted: 24 Aug 2010 09:59 PM PDT From an extensive Pro Publica report released today: In the chaotic days after Hurricane Katrina, an order circulated among New Orleans police authorizing officers to shoot looters, according to present and former members of the department. It's not clear how broadly the order was communicated. Some officers who heard it say they refused to carry it out. Others say they understood it as a fundamental change in the standards on deadly force, which allow police to fire only to protect themselves or others from what appears to be an imminent physical threat. The accounts of orders to "shoot looters," "take back the city," or "do what you have to do" are fragmentary. After Katrina, New Orleans Cops Were Told They Could Shoot Looters (a ProPublica story reported by Sabrina Shankman and Tom Jennings of Frontline, Brendan McCarthy and Laura Maggi of The New Orleans Times-Picayune and A.C. Thompson of ProPublica) Image: This was taken by freelance photographer Marko Georgiev. "There is no police report describing what happened in this photo."

Hundreds of women systematically gang-raped by armed rebels in DRC Posted: 24 Aug 2010 09:45 PM PDT United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon is sending a senior aide to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), after reports that approximately 200 women were raped during a four-day rebel assault of a town a few miles from a UN peacekeepers' base. Aid group IMC reported that nearly all of the women were gang-raped by between two and six armed men, while their children and husbands were forced to watch.

Gentleman with bullet in skull can't remember being shot in the head Posted: 24 Aug 2010 06:39 PM PDT Have you ever been so drunk you can't remember being shot in the head? Yeah, me neither. [Submitterated by mneptok]

Photos of pimped up private jets that belong to African dictators Posted: 24 Aug 2010 06:01 PM PDT Brighton's international photography festival has Nick Gleis' photographs of "the pimped up private jets that belong to African dictators and other heads of state." The interiors of these planes are the last word in understated sophistication.

Facebook: "Just Say Now" marijuana ad kerfuffle is a tempest in a pot leaf Posted: 24 Aug 2010 04:50 PM PDT Earlier today, I blogged about claims by marijuana legalization campaign "Just Say Now" that Facebook's decision to not run their ads was a form of censorship. My post included the group's arguments as to why they believed this to be the case. Andrew Noyes of Facebook tells Boing Boing that the decision was, in fact, in line with Facebook's stated ad policies—and that the visual element of the hemp leaf was what crossed the line: "We don't allow any images of drugs, drug paraphernalia, or tobacco in ad images on Facebook. 'Just Say Now' can continue to advertise on Facebook using a different image."

Conventions and Art Posted: 24 Aug 2010 04:44 PM PDT Photo: Shannon Cottrell/LA Weekly, Alex Pardee painting at San Diego Comic-Con 2010 One of the reasons Shannon Cottrell and I love covering fandom conventions is because the events provide a space for artists at all stages of their careers. Our first convention report focused on the young and talented artists we met at Anime LA 2009. Since then, we've come into contact with many more people who have brought their work to conventions. Sometimes we spotlight something we saw in the exhibit hall, like animator Michelle Reese's student film "Paper Animals." Other times, we ask questions about the con experience. Recently, comic creator Chandra Free described her first Comic-Con panel for us, while Meredith Yayanos and Zoetica Ebb of Coilhouse talked a little about finding inspiration at the Con. As we've gone to more conventions, I've become more curious as to how the events affect artists. Do they have an effect on the creative process, in addition to being a good way to promote one's work? If you have any insight, please share in the comments.

My kid just found an 1856 coin stuck in an old piece of furniture Posted: 24 Aug 2010 04:42 PM PDT A few minutes ago my 7-year-old daughter called me into the kitchen. She showed me a tiny gray metal disk that she found wedged in the crack of an old wooden hutch that belonged to my mother-in-law. I looked at it with a magnifying glass and then googled "six-pointed star US tiny coin." It's a silver three-cent piece from 1856. As you can see, it's in crappy condition, so I'm sure it's not worth more than a buck or two, but my daughter is really excited about her new treasure. She's now looking in every nook and cranny of the hutch with a flashlight, hoping to find more.

Cat-trashing lady outed by internet in less than 24 hours Posted: 24 Aug 2010 02:56 PM PDT ...and when I say "Internet" I really mean 4chan, and when I say "4chan" I really mean /b/. But we all knew this would happen, right? Yesterday, Mark posted a disturbing video of a middle-aged woman petting a cat and then throwing it—alive—into a trash bin. Mark today posted an update that she's now under police protection. What hasn't been talked about yet on Boing Boing is what happened between those two posts. 4chan happened. Often dismissed as little more than a gang of anonymous bullies, there is some truth to the notion that the site is simultaneously the best and worst of the internet, and that when they put their collective minds together, there is no stopping them. Sometimes they dun goof up, other times they emerge as victorious white knights on a quest from Ceiling Cat. Almost immediately after the video started making the internet rounds yesterday, the 4chan legion set out to find this woman and destroy her life. I don't know exactly how long it took, but within a few hours she was identified as Mary Bale, 50, of Coventry (England). But there's more: they also found out where she worked. They posted the phone number and name of her boss. They found out where she lived, and posted a Google map of that address. They found her Facebook profile. And because of what some suggested should be done with this info, the local police stepped in and helped her hide. Probably not a bad idea. This isn't the first time 4chan has come to the defense of a cat seen being tortured in a web video. Early last year they tracked down 15 year old Kenny Glenn who posted a video in which he called himself "The Animal Abuser," then beat the crap out of the family cat Dusty. The authorities stepped in then, too, but only to rescue Dusty the cat. They left Kenny for his parents to deal with. All this from one video! One lesson here is that people can pretty much find out anything they want to about anyone these days. But the greater lesson is that Anonymous loves cats, and if you mess with cats in their neighborhood (that would be the whole wide web, duh) they will find you. And as for this incident with Lola the trashed cat? Pool's closed. Middle-aged woman, unaware of video camera, drops cat into trash ... Woman suspected of dumping cat in trash can under police protection

Problem-solving flow chart Posted: 24 Aug 2010 03:02 PM PDT It's a little swear-y, but I like it. Via Amy Vernon Flowchart: Is it f*cked up? What to do, if so.

Enter the YIMBYs Posted: 24 Aug 2010 02:40 PM PDT From nuclear waste to the opium poppies grown to produce legal morphine, potentially problematic things have to go somewhere. Meet the countries that say, "Yes, In My Backyard, Please!" (Via John Pavlus)

Man vs. Brain cancer Posted: 24 Aug 2010 02:39 PM PDT So here's a great quote. "In the first decade of the 20th century, Harvey Cushing became the father of effective neurosurgery," the medical historian Michael Bliss wrote in Harvey Cushing: A Life in Surgery. "Ineffective neurosurgery had many fathers." The New York Times has an amazing account of Cushing's life and work, explaining how this pioneering surgeon managed to save victims of brain cancer at a time when anesthesia meant a localized dose of Novocain (if that), there were no antibiotics, and it was even impossible to know where his patients' tumors were located before he opened their heads. Perhaps most amazing is a little fact buried down in the meat of the article—in the fight against brain cancer, Cushing's advancements were a sharp, quick spike in successful treatment that—new technology aside—we haven't really been able to duplicate since. Indeed, comparatively little progress has been made since Dr. Cushing's time in actually prolonging life in brain-cancer patients. "It is fascinating how far we've come in terms of technology but not really in terms of progress for most malignancies," Dr. Spencer said. "Everything we've done in the last 100 years has changed the progress for malignant brain tumors very little, extending life maybe eight months to two years." Slightly unrelated: I love this photo—taken from Cushing's collection of patient photographs. Mainly because it illustrates how shaving someone's head can suddenly make them look much, much more modern. This woman dates to somewhere between 1902 and 1933. And yet, with a shaved head, she looks like somebody I saw at the coffee shop last weekend. New York Times: Collection of Cancerous Brains Helps Show Neurosurgury's Rise (Via dosmonos)

Woman suspected of dumping cat in trash can under police protection Posted: 24 Aug 2010 11:42 AM PDT Police officers are on protective duty outside the house of Mary Bale, the 50-year old bank employee who is suspected of nonchalantly tossing a cat named Lola into a trash can. (Video here.) A Facebook page set up by Lola's appalled owners Stephanie Andrews-Mann, 24, and her husband Darryl, 26, showing footage of the attack attracted thousands of comments demanding justice. James Barratt wrote: "I thinks we should spray her with BBQ sauce and throw her into a den of lions at the zoo." Other comments suggested various violent fates. Bale contacted cops after reading the comments. Officers agreed to stand guard at her home for her own safety. The Sun: Cruel woman filmed dumping a cat in a wheelie bin has been named and shamed today

Photos from China's 10-day long traffic jam Posted: 24 Aug 2010 09:19 AM PDT On Monday, the BBC reported on a 62-mile traffic jam in China, northwest of Beijing, where vehicles had been almost at a standstill for nine days. Naturally, the internet was fascinated. Doctor Who references were made. Personal commutes seemed less terrible by comparison. According to that BBC story, Chinese state TV reported that everything had already returned to normal. This does not appear to actually be the case. Unless, of course, you consider "normal" to be "truck drivers playing cards underneath their immobile rigs". The Associated Press sent a couple of Chinese correspondents out to the traffic jam Monday afternoon, and they returned with some great photos, tales of local residents gouging drivers on food and water sales, and the downright heartwarming fact that there have been no reports of road rage incidents. Some drivers reported having been stuck in the traffic jam for five days. I wish the correspondents had been able to tell the story of how they got into and out of the jam themselves. I'm imagining a dirt bike was involved. Sadly, it doesn't sound as though that impractical-yet-awesome-looking mega-bus on stilts would even be of much use in alleviating a traffic jam like this. Most of the vehicles involved aren't passenger cars, but shipping trucks, many hauling coal from Inner Mongolia. The photos taken by the AP are incredible, but you'll have to follow the link to view them, as the AP tends to believe that fair use isn't and goes after blogs re-posting any of their content, even when it's praising them and pushing the links.

NYT debunks allegations of Pentagon "dirty tricks" behind Wikileaks rape scandal Posted: 24 Aug 2010 08:51 AM PDT This New York Times article by John Burns (who is no stranger to warzones) suggests that the "CIA Swedish Sex Trap" conspiracy theories around the recent Julian Assange rape allegations may be unfounded. Assange himself claimed the rape charges were part of a political smear campaign, and suggested black ops. A Swedish friend of the Wikileaks founder is quoted: "This wasn't anything to do with the Pentagon. It was just a personal matter between three people that got out of hand." The women aren't named in the NYT piece, but some commenters in the thread accompanying this post believe they've identified one of the parties involved. Swedish prosecutors will decide on the molestation charges today.

Christina Hendricks: "Mad Men" star, Etsy model Posted: 24 Aug 2010 08:32 AM PDT Voluptuous Mad Men star Christina Hendricks has been moonlighting as an Etsy model. As a male friend noted, this may be the first time the website, known for offbeat crafts and lumpy hand-crocheted scarves, has managed to give so many men a boner.

Robot to pair socks! Posted: 24 Aug 2010 08:05 AM PDT Remember the fantastic video I posted in April of a robot folding laundry? The UC Berkeley researchers behind that breakthrough are now attempting to teach a robot a new chore: pairing socks. "The PR2 is presented with two socks. It then classifies each sock as either "inside" or "outside" and flips accordingly. Once both socks are in the proper orientation, it pairs them." (The video is sped up 15x.) The "Sockification" team have just won $5,000 for that effort from robot Willow Garage, makers of the PR2 robot seen in the clip. Be sure to also check out the other videos in the Willow Garage PR2 Quick Start Contest! (Thanks, Pieter Abbeel!)

Justice Dept. hiring "Ebonics experts" for drug enforcement spying operations Posted: 24 Aug 2010 12:36 PM PDT The US Department of Justice is looking to hire (and I quote), Ebonics experts, to help monitor, translate, and transcribe the secretly recorded conversations of persons who are the subject of narcotics investigations. The Smoking Gun has details, and scans of the original documents (a detail is shown above). Understandably, there is much outrage over the use of the word "Ebonics" in the ad. The term became a flashpoint for racially-charged ridicule a little over a decade ago: the Oakland, CA, school board caused national uproar when it proposed teaching some students in Ebonics. Here's an interesting quote from Linguistic Society of America member John Braugh, from an ABC News article. He believes the choice to use the word "Ebonics" may have been ill-advised, but that African-American English has an important place in American cultural history: While African-American English may seem like a uneducated form of traditional English to some, Baugh said it has roots in the slave trade, when Africans with no access to education were forced to find a shared language. Slave-traders, he explained, would often separate groups of slaves who spoke the same dialect, leaving the men and women with no way to verbally communicate. So they learned a rough version of standard English together, without the help of formal education or literacy skills. "To say that it's a bastardization is cruel," he said. "The reality is that the linguistic consequences of slavery are greatly misunderstood." [via BB Submitterator, thanks Inconsequentiallogic]

Secret mob messages sent via TV show Posted: 24 Aug 2010 07:54 AM PDT Italian mobsters are allegedly sending messages to their bosses in prison via the ticker of text messages streaming during a popular soccer TV talk show. From ANSA.it: ''The messages often seem ordinary but in reality they hide important service notes to the bosses'' (said prosecutor Enzo Macri reporting to the parliament's anti-Mafia commission.) Indeed, one of the coded messages used read simply: ''Everything's OK, Paolo''. Macri' said the show's producers were unaware that their programme was being exploited in this way. "Mafia messages sent via top soccer show"

Facebook says no to "Just Say Now" marijuana legalization campaign ads Posted: 24 Aug 2010 04:53 PM PDT [ Update: Since this post was originally published, Facebook has responded to Boing Boing with further clarification on their existing ad policies. A Facebook rep tells us the ad in dispute crossed the line because it contained an image of a pot leaf, which current policy prohibits. ] The people behind the "Just Say Now" marijuana legalization campaign (oft-Boinged Salon contributor Glenn Greenwald is one of many political thinkers on their board) want Facebook to back off its decision to pull their ads from the social networking service. Advisory board member Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake tells Boing Boing, In a nutshell, they allowed us to serve our ads for 10 days (38 million impressions) then suddenly reversed their approval and told us we could no longer show the image of a marijuana leaf. They said they decided to reclassify it as similar to tobacco, but we said we weren't trying to encourage people to smoke marijuana, we were supporting a change in US drug policy. They report that Facebook's communications rep Adam Noyes said, when asked for Facebook's decision in writing: It would be fine to note that you were informed by Facebook that the image in question was no long acceptable for use in Facebook ads. The image of a pot leaf is classified with all smoking products and therefore is not acceptable under our policies. Let me know if you need anything further. But the group points out that Facebook's ad policy doesn't ban "smoking products," just "tobacco products." Also, Facebook does permit alcohol ads, even ads featuring images of alcohol products and packaging, though alcohol ads that make alcohol consumption "fashionable," "promote intoxication" or that "encourage excessive consumption" are banned. Just Say Now calls Facebook's action censorship. They're running the ads on political blogs both right and left starting today, and Google has told the campaign they'll accept the ad. As with every pressing social issue of our time, yes, there is a Facebook group for this controversy. Why bother with all of this? Here's their mission statement: Our nation's prohibition about marijuana has cost the country billions, resulted in a massive increase in incarceration rates, funded criminal syndicates, yet failed to stop people from using marijuana. It is a failed costly and misguided policy that must end now. We are a group of all individuals of all ages, backgrounds, and political leans that share the simple conviction that the marijuana prohibition must end. That is why we are promoting the legalization and sensible regulation of marijuana through grassroots organizing and direct democratic action. More about the Facebook ad controversy here at Firedoglake. A related item is now up at Huffington Post.

Kodak 1922 Kodachrome Film Test Posted: 24 Aug 2010 07:07 AM PDT Video link. These beautifully composed and lit motion portraits are kind of a mashup between our recent 1906 color photo feature and Flickr long portraits. (Thanks, Gwen Smith!)

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