The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Tim Wu on the new monopolists: a "last chapter" for The Master Switch
• Parasitic bike pump steals air from car tires
• Man at San Diego airport opts out of porno scanner and grope, told he'll be fined $10K unless he submits to fondling
• Hurray for copying 1: Myron's Discus-Thrower
• People riding an elephant attacked by rhino
• Aung San Suu Kyi released by Burma's military regime after years of detention
• Just look at this awesome inflatable banana-case.
• Twitter users re-tweet Paul Chambers' "bomb threat": #IAmSpartacus
• Reddit's uncanny altruism
• MAKE: now available as PDFs

Tim Wu on the new monopolists: a "last chapter" for The Master Switch Posted: 13 Nov 2010 06:58 PM PST I reviewed Tim Wu's great history of media consolidation and regulatory capture The Master Switch earlier this month; now Tim says, "This piece I wrote for the Wall Street Journal is an important one. It is like a last chapter for my book." We wouldn't fret over monopoly so much if it came with a term limit. If Facebook's rule over social networking were somehow restricted to, say, 10 years--or better, ended the moment the firm lost its technical superiority--the very idea of monopoly might seem almost wholesome. The problem is that dominant firms are like congressional incumbents and African dictators: They rarely give up even when they are clearly past their prime. Facing decline, they do everything possible to stay in power. And that's when the rest of us suffer. AT&T's near-absolute dominion over the telephone lasted from about 1914 until the 1984 breakup, all the while delaying the advent of lower prices and innovative technologies that new entrants would eventually bring. The Hollywood studios took effective control of American film in the 1930s, and even now, weakened versions of them remain in charge. Information monopolies can have very long half-lives. Declining information monopolists often find a lifeline of last resort in the form of Uncle Sam. The government has conferred its blessing on monopolies in information industries with unusual frequency. Sometimes this protection has yielded reciprocal benefits, with the owner of an information network offering the state something valuable in return, like warrantless wiretaps. In the Grip of the New Monopolists Tim Wu to chair Free Press media reform org Tim Wu on Net Neutrality/Google-Verizon betrayal The Master Switch: Tim "Net Neutrality" Wu explains what's at ...

Parasitic bike pump steals air from car tires Posted: 13 Nov 2010 04:37 PM PST People who enjoy getting mad will enjoy getting mad at Instructables user Aleksi for making this emergency parasitic bike pump that steals air from car tires.

Man at San Diego airport opts out of porno scanner and grope, told he'll be fined $10K unless he submits to fondling Posted: 13 Nov 2010 04:22 PM PST Johnnyedge checked the TSA's website and learned that the San Diego airport had not yet implemented its porno-scanners, so he went down to catch his flight. When he arrived, he discovered that the TSA's website was out of date, and the naked scanners were in place. He opted out of showing his penis to the government, so they told him he'd have to submit to an intimate testicle fondling. He told the screener, "if you touch my junk, I'll have you arrested." After faffing around with various supervisors and supervisors' supervisors, he opted not to fly, collected a refund from the American Airlines counter, and started to leave the airport. But before he could go, the supervisor's supervisor's supervisor told him he wasn't allowed to leave the checkpoint once he entered it, that he was already in for up to $10,000 in fines, and that he would have to return and allow the man's minons to palpate his genitals before he'd be allowed to leave the airport. After he objected, he was left cooling his heels for a long time. Finally, he asked if he was under arrest, and being told that he wasn't, but that he would be sued for $10K if he tried to go, he said, "you bring that suit" and left. Most of the incident was recorded on his phone, and has been posted to YouTube. TSA encounter at SAN Naked scanner reveals airport screener's tiny penis, sparks steel ... Naked airport scanner catches cellphone, misses bomb components ... Airport worker caught photographing screen as female worker passed ... When, not if, will full-body "naked scans" become mandatory in the ... Creepy "naked scanners" violate child porn laws in UK Feds admit to storing tens of thousands of images from naked ... Feds admit to storing tens of thousands of images from naked ... More TSA "grope vs porno shoot" tees What the TSA's new body scanner images look like

Hurray for copying 1: Myron's Discus-Thrower Posted: 13 Nov 2010 05:03 PM PST The current amount of importance placed on "originality" is a fairly recent phenomenon which I will discuss at some point. Back in the day, by which I mean Roman antiquity, imitation was indeed the sincerest form of flattery. Thank goodness, too. Because the Romans admired the Greek aesthetic, talented artists spent a great deal of time creating hand-made replicas of notable Greek art, particularly sculpture. In some cases, the originals are now lost to time, and the only reason we know what they look like is because of the talented copyists of old. Perhaps the best-known example is the Diskobolos by Myron. The bronze original was remarkable enough to be discussed by a number of ancient playwrights and historians who saw it first-hand, but what a shame it would be if their descriptions were all we had to go by. Image: scaled bronze replica of Myron's Discobolos photographed by MatthiasKabel (via Wikimedia Commons)

People riding an elephant attacked by rhino Posted: 13 Nov 2010 12:21 PM PST On Assignment: Kaziranga 2008 from gabe deloach on Vimeo. The rhino's mouth is scary.

Aung San Suu Kyi released by Burma's military regime after years of detention Posted: 13 Nov 2010 07:38 AM PST Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and leader of the fight against military dictatorship in Burma (Myanmar), was today released after seven and a half years of house arrest. She has been detained for 15 of the past 21 years of her life. It is unclear whether she will accept conditions the government is likely to impose on her freedom. A live blog about her release at the Guardian. At the New York Times, Nick Kristof suggests that the human rights hero should rethink her position on sanctions against Burma—they haven't worked.

Just look at this awesome inflatable banana-case. Posted: 13 Nov 2010 07:14 AM PST Just look at it. Just Look At This Awesome Inflatable Banana Protector Previously: Just look at this awesome laser-cut banana. Boing Boing Just look at this zombie banana. Boing Boing Just look at these awesome banana-sticker design contest winners. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana shoe. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana boat. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana skateboard. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana Viking helmet. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome slow-moving performance artist whose face has been covered with exploding bananas. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome EU banana curvature regulation. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome anti-banana-ripening bag. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome Korean banana-ripening facility. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana peeler. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana peeling simulator. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana slicer. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana saver clip. Boing Boing Just look at this awesome banana bunker. Boing Boing

Twitter users re-tweet Paul Chambers' "bomb threat": #IAmSpartacus Posted: 13 Nov 2010 07:12 AM PST Paul Chambers is a Briton who, on hearing that his local airport was shut and that he'd miss a flight to see his girlfriend, tweeted "Crap! Robin Hood airport is closed. You've got a week to get your shit together, otherwise I'm blowing the airport sky high!" Whereupon his house was raided by police who arrested him for making bomb threats. Chambers' case has been a cause celebre around the world, which watched in horror as two UK courts upheld Chambers' conviction for saying something that no reasonable person could possibly take as a serious threat. Now Twitter users are re-tweeting Chambers' fateful words, with the hashtag #IAmSpartacus, inviting law enforcement to arrest them, too, for their "threatening" behavior. Meanwhile, Stephen Fry has offered to pay Chambers' fine. Twitter anger over bomb tweeter (via /.) (Image: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek - The Oath of Spartacus, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from govert1970's photostream)

Reddit's uncanny altruism Posted: 13 Nov 2010 07:02 AM PST This roundup of the altruism exhibited by Reddit users is truly heart-warming; from a suicide-prevention hotline to silly, mass-scale Secret Santas to countless small and large acts of fundraising, technical assistance, and general niceness, the author makes a good case for Reddit as a kind of real world Callahan's Place, the bar featured in Spider Robinson's wonderful series about a science fictional bar where all problems are solved. What's clear to me from the article is that it's just as possible to build a society on social norms of mutual aid, compassion and whimsy as it is to build one on juvenile, meanspirited trolling and cynicism. 5-year-old Reece loved helping on his parents' produce store and sharing his ideas about running the business, and fruits and vegetables in general. One day in 2008, he told his parents about an idea he had to get his classmates more excited about trying new fruits and vegetables: to let them on the delivery truck and give them free samples of foods they wouldn't get to try at home. Just a couple of months later, the family was involved in a devastating car accident that left Reece with a brain injury and unable to speak. Then, nearly two years later, while Reece struggled in therapy 5 days per week, the Pepsi Company announced their new Refresh Grant program, wherein the company would be awarding grants to fund projects that could benefit local communities. Reece's dad, Redditor "stinkeye", immediately thought of his son's idea, and posted it on the grant application site. Stinkeye then posted the whole story on Reddit and asked the community to make his son's idea a reality by going to the Refresh Grant website and voting for Reece's idea. Within days the idea had jumped to the #1 place on the Pepsi site. It was subsequently approved by Pepsi and awarded a 25K grant to make it happen. Reddit's Astonishing Altruism (via Reddit) Or does it explode?: Reddit collection of laboratory disaster ... FBI file on Aaron Swartz, US court-record hacker Wired acquires social news aggregator Reddit

MAKE: now available as PDFs Posted: 12 Nov 2010 04:20 PM PST This is exciting news: Today, we started offering all issues of MAKE magazine (I'm the editor-in-chief) as downloadable PDF files. The price $9.99 a copy. If you want to go completely nuts, you can buy the PDF version of all 24 back issues (and our two special issues) for $199.99. (Naturally, there is no DRM.) Make: eBook Archive

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