The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Perma-Lift Brassiere: when women were women and breasts were pointy
• Saudi Arabia sends counterrevolutionary goons to Bahrain
• Libraries after the Japan quake and tsunami
• Japan: terrifying eyewitness video of tsunami destroying an entire town
• Owsley Stanley, LSD pioneer, RIP
• NASA takes over Japan's portion of ISS control center, following evacuation
• Japan: US carrier crew exposed to radiation; helicopters near reactors coated with radiation particulate
• Japan: Explosion at Fukushima 3 nuclear reactor, March 14, 2011 (video)
• Dead tree book kills copyright lawyer; he blames "the internet"
• 60 million-strong Hindu paramilitary org dumps leather shoes
• Self-pwning cars: the future of automotive rooting
• Report: State Dept.'s Crowley out, days after criticizing Manning treatment as "counterproductive, stupid"
• Japan: cooling system pump has stopped at yet another nuclear power plant
• Philosophy majors what done good
• Daylight Savings campaign poster
• Largest Wisconsin protests ever: 85,000+ people in Madison's streets
• Junkyard Jumbotron: join all your screens into one big one, no software install needed
• "Atlantis" found in Spain
• Help Japan poster
• Lost civilizations
• $60k damages awarded against blogger who reported truth

Perma-Lift Brassiere: when women were women and breasts were pointy Posted: 14 Mar 2011 12:01 AM PDT This undated two-page spread Perma-Lift Brassiere ad glorifies an "ideal" conical breast-shape that has long fallen by the wayside. OW! MY EYE!

Saudi Arabia sends counterrevolutionary goons to Bahrain Posted: 13 Mar 2011 11:55 PM PDT Saudi Arabia will split its security forces, lately much occupied with suppressing protest at home, and will send them to Bahrain to help put down the popular uprising there. Witnesses said security forces surrounded the protesters' tent compound, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at the activists in the largest effort to clear the square since a crackdown last month that left four dead after live ammunition was fired. Activists tried to stand their ground yesterday and chanted "Peaceful, peaceful" as the crowd swelled into thousands, with protesters streaming to the square to reinforce the activists' lines, forcing the police to pull back by the early afternoon. At Bahrain University, Shia demonstrators and government supporters held competing protests that descended into violence when plainclothes pro-government backers and security forces forced students blocking the campus main gate to seek refuge in classrooms and lecture halls, the Associated Press reported. Saudi Arabian forces prepare to enter Bahrain after day of clashes   Glued to events in Libya, Yemen and Bahrain - Boing Boing Music download analysis reveals mood of Bahrain 'Triumphant ... Bahrain: anti-government protests continue despite brutal ... Bahrain: in protest crackdown, regime appears to have tightened ... Bahraini army murders peaceful demonstrators - Boing Boing

Libraries after the Japan quake and tsunami Posted: 14 Mar 2011 01:28 AM PDT Here's a heart-breaking saddening collection of photos showing earthquake and tsnuami damage to Japanese libraries, apparently uploaded by Japanese librarians and library workers. 図書館の被害画像（2011年東北地方太平洋沖地震）Earthquake Damage to Libraries 新規 (Thanks, Thrind, via Submitterator) (Image: Popongap)

Japan: terrifying eyewitness video of tsunami destroying an entire town Posted: 13 Mar 2011 10:19 PM PDT James MacWhyte, a US citizen who lives in Tokyo, is reported to have shot this six-minute video of the Japan tsunami destroying a town in the northern part of the country. While I cannot yet independently confirm that the video was shot by Whyte, or the location shown, various observers have ID'd the site as Kesennuma, in Miyagi Prefecture. (thanks, Sean Bonner, via Reddit, also seen on Gawker)

Owsley Stanley, LSD pioneer, RIP Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:58 PM PDT Augustus Owsley Stanley III, AKA the "Bear," died in a car crash in his adopted home of Queensland, Australia today. He was 76. Between 1965 and 1967, Stanley homebrewed more than one million doses of LSD in the San Francisco Bay Area fueling a revolution in consciousness, music, art, and the counterculture. The recipe came from a copy of the Journal of Organic Chemistry he found in the UC Berkeley library. The Grateful Dead's first sound engineer, Stanley also pioneered several technologies for live sound. From the National Post: The police raided his first lab in 1966, but Stanley successfully sued for the return of his equipment. After a marijuana bust in 1970, he went to prison for two years. "I wound up doing time for something I should have been rewarded for," he (said in a rare 2007 interview). "What I did was a community service, the way I look at it. I was punished for political reasons. Absolutely meaningless. Was I a criminal? No. I was a good member of society. Only my society and the one making the laws are different." "Psychedelic icon Owsley Stanley dies in Australia"

NASA takes over Japan's portion of ISS control center, following evacuation Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:48 PM PDT Discovery News reports that NASA has taken over Japan's portion of the International Space Station (ISS), and is managing the Japanese cargo ship docked at the orbital outpost, after Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) center in Tsukuba was evacuated following the earthquake and tsunami. (via @Miles O'Brien)

Japan: US carrier crew exposed to radiation; helicopters near reactors coated with radiation particulate Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:42 PM PDT William Broad reports in the New York Times that crew members on the US aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, sailing in the Pacific, "passed through a radioactive cloud from stricken nuclear reactors in Japan." Crew members got a month's worth of radiation in about an hour. US helicopters flying missions about 60 miles away from the stricken nuclear reactors "became coated with particulate radiation that had to be washed off." Officials say the radioactive plume currently poses no risk to the US.

Japan: Explosion at Fukushima 3 nuclear reactor, March 14, 2011 (video) Posted: 13 Mar 2011 10:08 PM PDT [Video Link] Above, video of the second explosion at Japan's Fukushima Daichi (No. 1) nuclear power plant since the 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami devastated the country. This apparent hydrogen blast involved the plant's troubled No. 3 reactor. A similar explosion happened at the No.1 reactor at the same plant on Saturday. Both blasts tore the roof off of the affected structure, but are believed not to have damaged the reactor core. Authorities again urged residents in a 20-kilometer radius around the plant to evacuate. The IAEA confirms that the explosion occurred at 11:01AM local Japan time, roughly two hours prior to the time of this blog post. Here is a related overview/update from the IAEA about the status of Units 1, 2, 3 and 4 at Fukushima Daini nuclear power plant. From Japan's Kyodo news agency: Chief Cabinet Secretary Yukio Edano said the plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Co. confirmed that the 11:01 a.m. blast did not damage the container of the No. 3 reactor, allaying concerns that the explosion may have caused a massive release of radioactive substance. TEPCO said three workers, including its employees, were injured by the blast. All of them suffered bruises. ''According to the plant chief's assessment, the container's health has been maintained,'' Edano told a press conference. ''The possibility is low that massive radioactive materials have spattered.'' Here is a related report on the incident from Japan's NHK network which says a total of six workers were injured. Related reading: Boing Boing Science Editor Maggie Koerth-Baker's "explainer" on how nuclear power plants work, and what is going on at the Fukushima sites. Nuclear energy 101: Inside the "black box" of power plants Japan: Explosion at Fukushima nuclear plant (video) Japan: radiation leak fears at nuclear power facilities after quake Japan: New meltdown fears at second reactor; how much radiation? Fukushima: What's the worst that could happen? Nuclear experts explain. Japan: Fukushima operator built nuclear plants to withstand only up to 7.9 quake Japan: cooling system pump has stopped at yet another nuclear power plant Japan: "Why do we need nuclear power?" Japan: Radiation leak confirmed, meltdown fears, evacuation

Dead tree book kills copyright lawyer; he blames "the internet" Posted: 13 Mar 2011 05:07 PM PDT Zick Rubin is a copyright/trademark lawyer who used to teach psychology. His work was notable enough to be cited in the The Penguin Dictionary of Psychology . Unfortunately, that book listed him as having died in 1997, as shown above. Wikia, the for-profit wiki farm, has a Psychology Wiki entry for Rubin which included his death date, citing the Penguin book. Rubin, still very much alive, was doing a little vanity Googling when he learned of his death. He sent a note to Wikia's Angela Beesley, who corrected the article, only to have it reverted. Rubin then wrote a New York Times piece blaming "the internet" for trying to kill him, currently one of their most e-mailed stories. The New York Times loves stories claiming the internet is full of dopes who generate misinformation when they aren't stealing from others (see the epic Bill Keller/Arianna Huffington beef this week). Psychology Wiki, like the unrelated Wikipedia project, requires a reliable source for any disputed fact, but that is one of those things that's very hard for people outside of wiki-world to understand. Wikipedia's policy is verifiability, not truth. This simple rule is a cornerstone policy, one of the five pillars. The editor who reverted Angela's change was following policy, though it would have been better to go the extra step and find one of the many reliable sources stating that Rubin has been above ground since 1997. The good thing about the internet is that these changes can be made quickly and easily. So I wrote him a nice proper Wikipedia article today, citing his Times Op-Ed and putting that content into the Creative Commons. So Psychology Wiki is corrected, he has a new Wikipedia entry, and the Penguin dictionary is... still floating around with its misinformation. Can't blame "the internet" any more.

60 million-strong Hindu paramilitary org dumps leather shoes Posted: 13 Mar 2011 12:21 AM PST Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a paramilitary Hindu nationalist group with 60 million members is eliminating its traditional leather belts and shoes and replacing them with synthetics, in a nod to Hindu purity: "Many of our members have strong views on slaughtering of cattle from where raw material for leather belt comes and it was natural that we take cognizance of their feelings."

Self-pwning cars: the future of automotive rooting Posted: 13 Mar 2011 10:49 AM PDT Security researches at UCSD and UWash have been looking at advanced ways of making mischief with computerized automotive systems, from messing with Bluetooth to inserting malware into the diagnostic tools. The most baroque and interesting attack they've demonstrated, though, uses a malformed MP3 that exploits a bug in the sound system (I'm assuming some sort of buffer overflow). Once they're in, the researchers have been able to control the car's locks, speedometer, brakes and engine. They found lots of ways to break in. In fact, attacks over Bluetooth, the cellular network, malicious music files and via the diagnostic tools used in dealerships were all possible, if difficult to pull off, Savage said. "The easiest way remains what we did in our first paper: Plug into the car and do it," he said. But the research shows how completely new types of automotive attacks could be on the horizon. For example, thieves could instruct cars to unlock their doors and report their GPS coordinates and Vehicle Identification Numbers to a central server. "An enterprising thief might stop stealing cars himself, and instead sell his capabilities as a service to other thieves," Savage said. A thief looking for certain kinds of cars in a given area could ask to have them identified and unlocked, he said. With hacking, music can take control of your car (via MeFi) (Image: Even technology needs it, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from pnglife's photostream)   Car immobilizers cracked due to crappy proprietary crypto - Boing ... Ford demos car-to-car networking for traffic-shaping: can you ... Burgers, Fries, 'n' WiFi: The first Los Angeles area Wardrive-in ... Tales of a bike messenger / acid head - Boing Boing Prediction of the Automotive Future [UPDATE] [UPDATED] - Boing Boing Working Medeco high-security keys can be whittled out of plastic ...

Report: State Dept.'s Crowley out, days after criticizing Manning treatment as "counterproductive, stupid" Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:50 AM PDT CNN reports that P.J. Crowley, State Department spokesperson, has left (or been sacked) just days after widely reported comments critical of the Defense Department's treatment of accused Wikileaks source Bradley Manning.

Japan: cooling system pump has stopped at yet another nuclear power plant Posted: 13 Mar 2011 10:58 AM PDT (IMAGE: Before and after shots of structures that house nuclear reactors at the Fukushima power plant in Japan, where an explosion occurred on Friday—blowing the roof off the building shown at right. This is one of four nuclear power plants in Japan now in trouble, after a devastating 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami.) Kyodo News service, Japan: "The Fire and Disaster Management Agency said a cooling system pump stopped operating at Tokai No. 2 Power Station, a nuclear power plant, in the village of Tokai, Ibaraki Prefecture." Related: Japan's nuclear safety agency says the Onagawa plant that reported higher than normal radioactivity levels is said to be "functioning properly." The increased levels are believed to have been caused by leakage at nearby Fukushima. An updated NYT overview of the rapidly unfolding nuclear crisis here. A total of four nuclear plants in Japan are in crisis, and the government reports that up to 141 people are confirmed to have been exposed to radiation, three of whom have radiation sickness.

Philosophy majors what done good Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:26 AM PDT Here's a giant list of famous and accomplished people with philosophy degrees, just the thing to show the parental units when you choose your major. I want the comparable list of successful underwater basket-weaving majors. (via JoHo)

Daylight Savings campaign poster Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:24 AM PDT Welcome to Daylight Savings Time (AKA the week when I screw up all my overseas phonecalls while I wait for the UK clocks to spring forward, too). As this poster attests, messing with the clocks has always aroused passions. Time is on Your Side, Yes it Is! (via Super Punch)   Obama might ought to get rid of daylight saving time - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Daylight savings time tied to global warming? Boing Boing: Anti-Daylight Savings drive-in ad from the 50s Kid wrongly imprisoned for bomb threat - error due to Daylight ... Arthur C Clarke fights Buddhist monks over Daylight Savings Time ...

Largest Wisconsin protests ever: 85,000+ people in Madison's streets Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:20 AM PDT If WI governor Scott Walker hoped that sneakily passing his union-busting bill would diffuse the energy of the protests that have rocked Madison, he was sadly mistaken. This weekend saw the biggest protests to date, with 85K-100K people in the streets, accompanied by donkeys, manure spreaders and tractors as the state's farmers joined the crowds. "This is so not the end," said protester Judy Gump, a 45-year-old English teacher at Madison Memorial High School. "This is what makes people more determined and makes them dig in..." All 14 Democrats later marched around the Capitol, trading chants of "thank you" with protesters who ringed the sidewalks. When the senators made their way to a stage, they promised to shift their energies toward recall drives already under way against eight of their GOP colleagues. "Now ... we trade in our rally signs for clipboards and we take to the streets to recall the Republicans," Sen. Chris Larson of Milwaukee told the cheering crowd, "and in one year we recall the governor that refuses to listen." Wisconsin Protesters Refuse To Quit (via Reddit) (Image: IMG_6250, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from keegstra's photostream)   Wedding reception on the Wisconsin protest line - Boing Boing Wisconsin protests--now with farmers (and tractors) - Boing Boing Voices and pictures from Madison, Wisconsin, protests - Boing Boing Wisconsin protests to be memorialized in the Smithsonian - Boing Boing Nerd power at Wisconsin protests - Boing Boing Wisconsin capitol bans recording, flags, reading, balloons, chairs ... Wisconsin cops for the win - Boing Boing

Junkyard Jumbotron: join all your screens into one big one, no software install needed Posted: 13 Mar 2011 09:14 AM PDT Here's a demo of the Junkyard Jumbotron, created by Rick Borovoy at MIT's Center for Future Civic Media. It's a cool app to allow you to gang up multiple screens (phones, tablets, flat panels), running any OS, and turn them into a single, joined display. It's very clever: you arrange the screens as desired and then display a web-page with a QR code on each of them; snap a picture and send it back to the server and the server takes any image you feed it and splits it across the screens. No client-side software needed, apart from a browser. Junkyard Jumbotron (Thanks, Akwhitacre, via Submitterator!)

"Atlantis" found in Spain Posted: 13 Mar 2011 08:40 AM PDT A research team reports evidence of an ancient ringed city, 60 miles inland on the Spanish coast, which they hope is Atlantis. National Geographic screens a TV show about the research this evening.

Help Japan poster Posted: 13 Mar 2011 08:16 AM PDT James White made this poster, which you can buy at the Signalnoise store. All profits go to the relief effort.

Lost civilizations Posted: 13 Mar 2011 08:19 AM PDT A brief history of civilizations that mysteriously vanished. [Flooby Nooby]

$60k damages awarded against blogger who reported truth Posted: 13 Mar 2011 08:32 AM PDT A blogger must pay $60,000 after reporting a link between a local community leader and mortgage fraud. From the Star Tribune: The jury awarded [Jerry] Moore $35,000 for lost wages and $25,000 for emotional distress. The civil verdict culminated a nearly two-year legal scuffle between John Hoff, whose blog, The Adventures of Johnny Northside, has 300 to 500 readers daily, and Moore, former director of the Jordan Area Community Council. Because the story was true, according to the Star Tribune, Moore (who was fired after the report) sued not for libel but for 'meddling' in his employment.

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