Space Invaders playing cards Iran blocks TOR, TOR unblocks itself later that day UK Labour Party wants journalism licenses, will prohibit "journalism" by people who are "struck off" the register of licensed journalists Wikipedia recursion madness EasyJet founder set to launch EasyJet competitor Epic Dubstep Dude is Epic Facebook tracks your activities online, even when you're logged out of Facebook Mexico passes law outlawing use of social media to disrupt public order Why the FCC must rule against BART in mobile network shutdown Occupy Wall Street: "Mace-in-the-face" officer named in 2004 protest abuse claim In 60 Minutes feature on NYPD anti-terror arsenal, top cop claims ability to "take down a plane" Doritos inventor cashes in his chips at age 97 Talk on the privacy bargain, big data, and human sensors versus human barcodes #OccupyWallStreet (photo) Julian Assange and "porcine anarchy" in the British countryside Nevada and the state of secrecy Native protests in Bolivia violently repressed by police Woman lights fracking-polluted tap water on fire Photos of smuggler caught with hummingbirds in underwear Lego pipe Google brings the Dead Sea Scrolls online China Communist Party official who kept sex slaves in basement loses job More than 11,000 CA kindergarteners skipped a vaccine in 2010 because of parents' anti-vax fears More posters for girls by Amanda Vissell DNA clears Virginia man of rape, but court balks at full exoneration How seasonal affective disorder works Spider in the grass Richard Dawkins iPad app for "The Magic of Reality" Damon Runyon's wife recommends frankfurters Smithsonian: Top 10 Books Lost To Time 
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Space Invaders playing cards
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 27, 2011 11:00 am Art Lebedev's Space Invaders cards use different arcade game sprites to denote the suits, and have a great, heavily aliased 8-bit design for the card-backs. (via Oh Gizmo)
Read in browser Iran blocks TOR, TOR unblocks itself later that day
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 27, 2011 09:54 am On September 13th, the Iranian government began blocking The Onion Router (TOR), a system for evading network censorship. On September 14th, the TOR project changed its code so that it wasn't blocked anymore. Yesterday morning (in our timezones — that evening, in Iran), Iran added a filter rule to their border routers that recognized Tor ...
Read in browser UK Labour Party wants journalism licenses, will prohibit "journalism" by people who are "struck off" the register of licensed journalists
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 27, 2011 09:44 am The UK Labour party's conference is underway in Liverpool, and party bigwigs are presenting their proposals for reinvigorating Labour after its crushing defeat in the last election. The stupidest of these proposals to date will be presented today, when Ivan Lewis, the shadow culture secretary, will propose a licensing scheme for journalists through a professional ...
Read in browser Wikipedia recursion madness
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 27, 2011 05:52 am The disambiguation page for "Disambiguation". (via Kottke)
Read in browser EasyJet founder set to launch EasyJet competitor
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 27, 2011 05:19 am Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of EasyJet, is set to launch a new airline to compete with his old company. The new airline will be called FastJet. Stelios sold controlling interest in the business ten years ago, and has been operating under a non-compete agreement with the new owners, but he claims that they have breached the ...
Read in browser Epic Dubstep Dude is Epic
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 27, 2011 03:22 am [video link to the latest from WHZGUD2, dancing to a track remixed by Butch Clancy.] via @pourmecoffee.
Read in browser Facebook tracks your activities online, even when you're logged out of Facebook
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 27, 2011 03:18 am It's not enough to simply log out of Facebook: web tracking cookies persist until they're explicitly deleted from your browser. (via @newtonmark)
Read in browser Mexico passes law outlawing use of social media to disrupt public order
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 27, 2011 03:16 am The State Assembly of Veracruz has created a law that makes it a crime to use Twitter or other social networks to undermine public order. "It is the first law of its kind in Mexico, but most likely not the last." Damien Cave has more in the NYT. (via @markwschaefer)
Read in browser Why the FCC must rule against BART in mobile network shutdown
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 27, 2011 03:11 am Susan Crawford in Bloomberg on why the FCC should find BART in the wrong: "As far as anyone knows, no government agency in the U.S. had cut off general-purpose communications before BART took this step. The question before the FCC is whether BART's action violated the Telecommunications Act of 1996, which prohibits discontinuing or impairing ...
Read in browser Occupy Wall Street: "Mace-in-the-face" officer named in 2004 protest abuse claim
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 27, 2011 02:24 am "The Guardian has learned that the officer, named by activists as deputy inspector Anthony Bologna, stands accused of false arrest and civil rights violations in a claim brought by a protester involved in the 2004 demonstrations at the Republican national convention."
Read in browser In 60 Minutes feature on NYPD anti-terror arsenal, top cop claims ability to "take down a plane"
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 27, 2011 01:52 am Last night's edition of the CBS News program 60 Minutes included an extensive feature on the anti-terror capabilities of New York City's police. In the segment, Commissioner Ray Kelly told Scott Pelley that NYPD has "some means to take down a plane"—a claim clarified and kind-of-debunked by Wired's Noah Shachtman, and at the Christian Science ...
Read in browser Doritos inventor cashes in his chips at age 97
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 11:59 pm Retired Frito-Lay executive Arch Clark West has died at age 97. The marketing man (shown at left in a family photo) is credited with having invented Doritos, the best-selling American snack chip. "His family plans to sprinkle Doritos at his graveside service," the Dallas Morning News reported. There's a Masonic connection, according to this WSJ ...
Read in browser Talk on the privacy bargain, big data, and human sensors versus human barcodes
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 26, 2011 11:45 pm Here's the video from the talk I gave last week at the O'Reilly Strata conference on "big data" in NYC. The talk is called "Designing for Human Sensors, Not Human Barcodes," and it talks about the philosophy underpinning the "privacy bargain" we strike online when we trade personal information for access to services.
Read in browser #OccupyWallStreet (photo)
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 11:36 pm Photo by Boing Boing reader Steve O., shared in the Boing Boing Flickr Pool: A protester facing off with NYC's finest. Because of some obscure law protesters are not allowed to wear masks when protesting so they wear them backwards. After seeing the NYPD's actions today such as pepper spraying non-violent protesters and arresting people ...
Read in browser Julian Assange and "porcine anarchy" in the British countryside
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 11:26 pm Quote of the year? "Julian messed with my pigs." That's from the lulziest life-on-bail profile yet of Julian Assange, penned by the NYT's David Carr. Ellingham Hall, as it happens, is a working farm. "Assange decided to use the pigs to make a film about the credit card companies that have denied him the means ...
Read in browser Nevada and the state of secrecy
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 11:22 pm Oh, this'll end well. From Reuters: "The presence of former felons in the business of creating businesses is an extreme example of vulnerability in corporate America. Nevada has spawned a thriving industry of consultants who aid companies seeking to avoid liability and disclosure, at a time when Washington is calling on other nations to enforce ...
Read in browser Native protests in Bolivia violently repressed by police
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 10:28 pm A native Bolivian from the Isiboro Secure indigenous territory and national park, known by its Spanish acronym TIPNIS, clashes with police as he and dozens of others break away from police custody to block the airport runway as they were being forced to board a plane and return towards their homeland in Rurrenbaque September 26, ...
Read in browser Woman lights fracking-polluted tap water on fire
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 10:03 pm In the Wall Street Journal today, this extraordinary photograph of a Pennsylvania woman lighting water on fire as it pours out of her kitchen sink faucet. State regulators have attributed the contamination to natural-gas drilling. Full WSJ story here (site reg/paywall). Via Pro Publica, which has much more on the topic here.
Read in browser Photos of smuggler caught with hummingbirds in underwear
By Mark Frauenfelder on Sep 26, 2011 07:54 pm Look at these cute photos of hummingbirds in a smuggler's underwear.
Read in browser Lego pipe
By Mark Frauenfelder on Sep 26, 2011 07:52 pm Here's a marijuana pipe made from legos and aluminum foil.
Read in browser Google brings the Dead Sea Scrolls online
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 07:37 pm Just in time for Rosh Hashanah: "The Dead Sea Scrolls are now online; a project of The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, powered by Google technology." Vide Link.
Read in browser China Communist Party official who kept sex slaves in basement loses job
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 07:36 pm A man who is accused of holding six women as sex slaves in a dungeon for two years and killing two of them has been terminated from his government post and stripped of his Communist Party membership.
Read in browser More than 11,000 CA kindergarteners skipped a vaccine in 2010 because of parents' anti-vax fears
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 07:26 pm AP: " More than 11,000 kindergartners missed at least one vaccine in 2010 because their parents decided to forgo inoculation." That's the state's highest rate of declined vaccines since 1978, the year before the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine was required.
Read in browser More posters for girls by Amanda Vissell
By Mark Frauenfelder on Sep 26, 2011 07:18 pm Amanda Vissell says: "This is round 2 for posters for girls. I got down to basics a little more this time, imagining what we all need to see when we wake up in the morning. To know its not just okay to be who we are, but when we are ourselves we shine."See Round 1 ...
Read in browser DNA clears Virginia man of rape, but court balks at full exoneration
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 07:03 pm John Schwartz in the New York Times writes about the case of Thomas Haynesworth (shown at left), a Virginia man wrongly convicted of multiple rapes in the mid-1980s and recently proven innocent by DNA evidence. I must share a personal aside here: I lived in Richmond, Virginia, during those years, and experienced a life-changing and ...
Read in browser How seasonal affective disorder works
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 26, 2011 06:41 pm Winter is coming. And Scientific American's Bora Zivkovik has a detailed explanation of the biological basics behind seasonal affective disorder.
Read in browser Spider in the grass
By Maggie Koerth-Baker on Sep 26, 2011 05:35 pm This amazing photo, by Cambridge biological sciences professor John H. Brackenbury, is a highly-commended runner up in the British Wildlife Photography Awards. Via Alex Wild, who thinks Brackenbury was robbed of first place. Can't say I disagree.
Read in browser Richard Dawkins iPad app for "The Magic of Reality"
By Xeni Jardin on Sep 26, 2011 05:34 pm [Video Link] A new iPad app for "The Magic of Reality," Richard Dawkins' new book about fact-backed, science-based, worldly wonders, is out today in the iTunes store. The book in digital and paper form is also now out in the UK, and hits the US next week. Screengrabs from the app are below. In short, ...
Read in browser Damon Runyon's wife recommends frankfurters
By Cory Doctorow on Sep 26, 2011 05:32 pm When you're trying to figure out what to eat for dinner, why not eat like Damon Runyon, who specialized in documenting rounders, con-artists, hustlers, show-people, and loan sharks? Apparently, that means frankfurters. Hot dog!
Read in browser Smithsonian: Top 10 Books Lost To Time
By David Pescovitz on Sep 26, 2011 05:25 pm Smithsonian posted a list of "The Top 10 Books Lost To Time" by authors like Shakespeare, Homer, Melville, Plath, Hemingway, and an unknown monk explorer. Inventio Fortunata In the 14th century, a Franciscan monk from Oxford, whose name is unknown, traveled the North Atlantic. He described the geography of the Arctic, including what he presumed ...
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