The Latest from Boing Boing

Europeans! You've got 48h to contact your MEP and demand a free, open and fair Internet! Posted: 04 May 2009 01:08 AM PDT If you live in the EU, you have 48 hours to contact your MEP and urge her or him to vote for the "Citizens' Rights Amendments" to the Telecoms Package. These amendments will keep the Internet neutral, restrict censorship and spying." Jeremie Zimmerman sez, Threats to citizens' basic rights and freedoms and to the neutrality of Internet could be voted without any safeguard in the EU legislation regarding electronic communication networks (Telecoms Package). EU citizens have two days to call all Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) to ask them to vote for the "Citizens' Rights Amendments", in the second reading of the Telecoms Package. These amendments include all the safeguards that were removed in the "compromise amendments", as well as provisions protecting against "net discrimination" practices and filtering of content... URGENT: Ask MEPs to adopt Citizens' Rights Amendments on May the 6th. Information on contacting your MEP (Thanks, JZ!)

Toons in fine art photoshopping contest Posted: 04 May 2009 12:38 AM PDT Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: Cartoon Ren, toons in fine art. Cartoon Ren 3

Art student creates invisible car with cool paint-job Posted: 04 May 2009 12:36 AM PDT Sara Watson, an English art student, turned a car "invisible" with a lovely trompe l'oeil paintjob: Sara Watson, who is studying drawing at the University of Central Lancashire (Uclan), took three weeks to transform the car's appearance. She created the illusion in the car park outside her studio at Uclan's Hanover Building in Preston. The car is now being used for advertising by the local recycling firm that donated the vehicle. Art student's car vanishing act (via Bioephemera)

Visit to a smouldering coal-fire ghost-town Posted: 04 May 2009 12:33 AM PDT Sumana sez, "Keith Allison visited Centralia, Pennsylvania, a mostly-evacuated town whose coal mine caught on fire in 1962. He took pictures and tells the tale." There was no mining to be done after that, though there was plenty of fire fighting going on. The mines were flushed with water. Chunks of flaming coal were excavated. Shafts were backfilled and redrilled, but the fire refused to be tamed. In 1983, as the fire continued to spread, an engineering study was released that stated the fire could very well be burning for another hundred years or more and consume an underground area of roughly 3,700 acres. This spelled pretty dire news for the town of Centralia. Living on top of a raging mine fire was generally considered to be bad for the locals. Smoke, steam, and toxic fumes crept up through the soil. Water became contaminated. Trees died in droves and sat in barren patches of blackened, smoking soil that made the whole town look like it ought to be criss-crossed with trenches full of German and British troops locked in a Western Front stalemate. And then the sinkholes and fissures began opening. One nearly swallowed a young boy whole, and people started thinking that maybe Centralia was a lost cause. Fire Down Below: Centralia (Thanks, Sumana!) Can't see the video? Click here

RIP: A Remix Manifesto is now a pay-what-you-like download Posted: 04 May 2009 12:31 AM PDT The celebrated "open source documentary" RIP: A Remix Manifesto has found a progressive, forward-thinking distributor that is making the film available as a download on a pay-what-you-want basis (alas, the offer is US only, due to the insanity of the film industry): It's been a peculiar road to get to the point where we could release the film as a download, because obviously this is something we wanted to do right from the get go. But since we have so many partners that helped us make the film, including theatrical and television distributors, it was a delicate balancing act to make sure the good faith they showed in making the film would be rewarded, that we wouldn't undercut their efforts to promote and recoup on the film by giving it away. So we waited a while before launching the various online permutations. The National Film Board [of Canada] put up a chaptered version during our U.S. premiere at South by Southwest in March, and we embedded calls to action into each chapter. Around SXSW, we partnered with two American partners -- Disinformation for our DVD release, and BSide for the theatrical side of things. And at the first meeting I had with them, it became clear that we needed to go down this road. We knew the film would appear on file-sharing networks immediately and we knew the audience for the film wanted and expected it to be online. So knowing that, we wanted there to be a method for those who wanted to pay to do so. RIP Remix Want a Remix Manifesto? Name Your Price, Says RiP Director Previously: Boing Boing Video's Remix of "RiP: A Remix Manifesto" - Boing Boing Open source copyright doc wants you to remix footage - Boing Boing Looking for copyright criminal mugshots - Boing Boing

Warner Music to Warner Music: You are pirates! Posted: 04 May 2009 12:25 AM PDT Stephen sez, Over on the Sire Records web site, they have a big page full of music videos from all their artists... Except that if you actually click on any of them to play, they've *all* been taken down for copyright infringment... by Warner Music Group, Sire's parent company. Their long arm of the law has stretched all the way around the internet to spank themselves in the ass. Hilarious! Coincidentally(?), if you go to Warner Music Group's YouTube channel, the first many pages of comments are just angry users lashing out about deleted videos. You'd think Warner'd be more receptive to people sharing and spreading advertisements for their artists. But they're in such a panic about infringment they've gone so far as to ban even the official videos. Amazing. Sire Records (Thanks, Stephen!) Previously: Warner Music claims Lessig is a pirate, has his presentation taken ... Warner Music Group artist has her own videos taken off YouTube by ... Call Warner Music and complain about lawsuits and DRM - Boing Boing Warner Music sues paralyzed stroke victim - Boing Boing Warner Music, Universal Music, EMI & Sony-BMG voted worst ... PearLyrics shutown: EFF's open letter to Warner Music - Boing Boing Warner Music CEO: Price-fixing is for iTunes, too - Boing Boing

Free Range Kids author says: Raise kids without fear! Posted: 04 May 2009 12:20 AM PDT In honor of the publication of her book Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry, Lenore Skenazy conducts a great, reasoned interview with Salon about child-rearing without fear: David Finkelhor, the head of the Crimes Against Children Research Center, has discovered pedophiles don't want to waste their time just flipping through MySpace pages or Facebook pages. It's as futile as trying to call up random numbers from the phonebook and trying to get a date. It's just a waste of time. They would rather go for the low-hanging fruit: young people hanging out in sexually suggestive chat rooms presenting themselves in a sexual way -- "Oh, I wonder what that's like" or, "If only somebody would buy me an iPod and a lollipop, I would be a very happy girl or boy." If your kid is just texting his friends, or posting pictures on Facebook or AIM'ing, it's no more dangerous than them talking to each other as they walk down the sidewalk, or at the mall. Stop worrying about your children! Free-Range Kids: Giving Our Children the Freedom We Had Without Going Nuts with Worry Previously: New York Sun column: "Why I Let My 9-Year-Old Ride the Subway ... Free Range Kids, blog for raising kids without being freaked out ... More Resistance to Free Range Kids Free Range Kids book: introduction online free

Photos of food and their sugar-cube equivalent Posted: 03 May 2009 11:26 PM PDT SugarStacks.com has photos of different kinds of food (both processed and natural) showing how much sugar is in the the food by displaying a stack of 4 gram sugar cubes next to the item. (Via Presurfer)

Kimchi contest, Saturday May 9 in San Francisco Posted: 03 May 2009 11:00 PM PDT Phil Ross says: Please come to the first annual CRITTER Kimchi Contest! All are welcome to submit their favorite version of this spicy pickled delicacy and taste the competition. The people’s choice will win $100, second wins $75, and third will get $50. Bring 1 quart of your best Kimchi to CRITTER on Saturday May 9th at 1 PM. Tasting opens at 2PM. All varieties accepted! There will be ongoing demonstration of how Kimchi is made, and plenty of palette-cleansing white rice available. So even if you don’t have a favorite recipe for Kim Chee, or you’ve never tried it before—here’s a chance to try the best Kimchi at CRITTER.

So Long, Farewell, Adieu Posted: 03 May 2009 06:21 PM PDT Maggie Koerth-Baker was a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine. Today is my last day guest blogging, and I just wanted to drop a quick note to say thank you and let you all know how much fun I've had over the past couple of weeks. Y'all have been a great, thought-provoking crowd to share my book and my random ramblings with--almost like having coworkers again! Enjoy the rest of your weekend, and may your Monday be less than hellish. Until the nude animal revolution comes, I leave you with these adorable photos of a hairless rat, and a hairless cat. Cat pick from The Pug Father, via CC. Rat pic from jurvetson, also CC. P.S., a couple people have asked how to keep up with me post Boing Boing. Best way is via Twitter, where I will point you toward various writing projects occasionally and try to be entertaining and informative (within a limited word count) in the in-between time. Thank you again. I hope to return to Boing Boing in the future. Can't see the video? Click here

Druid named "King Arthur" to be arrested over Stonehenge protest Posted: 03 May 2009 10:19 AM PDT A modern druid who calls himself "King Arthur Pendragon" faces his arrest for his refusal to quit his protest vigil at Stonehenge: Shortly after the deadline expired today, he said he had no intention to leave. "We have opened a bottle of mead and we are drinking to Stonehenge. I have done a short ritual and spell of protection, calling on the kings of old. "I am still here so I am in breach of the order as they see it but I have as much right as anyone else to be here. I am not blocking the byway; other tourists park along there. I am not going to go, I am battening down the hatches and continuing my lawful right to protest and my equal right to religious practice." Pendragon started protesting with consent from the Council of British Druid Orders after last year's summer solstice. The government scrapped plans to remove fences around Stonehenge, build an underpass and grass over the A344 in 2007. Stonehenge protester King Arthur Pendragon defies eviction order

Remix Lessig's work, win prizes! Posted: 03 May 2009 10:11 AM PDT Frances from Bloomsbury sez, To celebrate the Creative Commons release of Lawrence Lessig's latest book, Remix, Bloomsbury Academic are hosting a competition called REMIX THE REMIXER. Prizes include a 'remixed' book signed by Cory Doctorow, a copy of Remix signed by Lessig himself and £200 (about 300 USD) worth of any books from Bloomsbury Publishers. Here's how the competition works: Find any video, interview, or written work of Lessig's, mash it up with another piece of Lessig's work and create something new. It can be a video (3 min max), photo or text. Just remix any of Lawrence Lessig's existing work and create something that is new, unique and creative. Bloomsbury Academic will be hosting the competition on their Facebook fan page. All you need to do is search for the event (Remix the Remixer) on Facebook, submit your remix on the event's wall, and you've entered the competition. Submission deadline is the end of May, after which public voting will begin. Remix was shortlisted for the Financial Times/Goldman Sachs Business Book of the Year award and according to the Guardian 'Lessig...is a lawyer who gets things changed not for the benefit of corporations but to unleash the creative potential of ordinary people in a digital age.' Remix is published by Bloomsbury Academic in the UK, priced at £12.99. Bloomsbury Academic is committed to putting its research-led publications online on CC NC licenses. Remix the Remixer (Thanks, Frances!)

Britain's secret spy-on-every-call-and-email plan already well underway Posted: 03 May 2009 08:57 AM PDT Glyn sez, "The UK government has already spent several hundreds million pounds installing a secret mass internet surveillance system at the same time as the home secretary has been telling the public they would not do it and instead would consult on internet monitoring. The program is called 'Mastering the Internet' MTI the kind of name you would expect and an evil genus to come up with. MTI is a major part of the government's Interception Modernisation Programme (IMP). Lockheed Martin has already be awarded contracts worth £200 million and Detica has also won a contract while GCHQ has been allocated a budget of £1 billion over three years. So it is well past the planning stage. The Regulation of interception powers act allows for the inclusion of such interception 'black boxes' - but the order has to be laid before Parliament and approved by a resolution of each House. If this has not happened - and it hasn't - then any ISP installing a 'black box' will be acting illegally." Spy chiefs are pressing ahead with secret plans to monitor all internet use and telephone calls in Britain despite an announcement by Jacqui Smith, the home secretary, of a ministerial climbdown over public surveillance. ... The £1 billion snooping project - called Mastering the Internet (MTI) - will rely on thousands of "black box" probes being covertly inserted across online infrastructure. ... Jacqui Smith announced that she was ditching controversial plans for a single "big brother" database ... However, she failed to mention that substantial additional sums - amounting to more than £1 billion over three years - had already been allocated to GCHQ for its MTI programme. Just this morning, I was saying to myself, "I wonder if a journalist asked Jacqui Smith, 'Is there anything that you believe the public has the right to keep private from the government?" whether her answer would be "No." Seriously, I believe that Jacqui Smith believes that it is proper and good for the government to know literally everything about every person in Britain. And I bet she'd admit it, too, if pressed to name stuff that she things isn't the government's business. Jacqui Smith's secret plan to carry on snooping (Thanks, Glyn!)

Underground Fun: European Edition Posted: 03 May 2009 11:08 AM PDT Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine. A team of archaeologists, architects and computer scientists have put together the first fully comprehensive three-dimensional images of Rome's catacombs, using laser scanners. Which is both cool, and reminds me of a couple of underground adventures in Rome that I wanted to tell you about. The Golden Palace of Nero As you may or may not know, the Emperor Nero pissed a lot of people off. However, to use the words of noted archaeologist Andrew Wallace-Hadrill, Nero also "gave the best parties, ever." The Domus Aurea is sort of a testament to both aspects of the Emperor's public persona. Built purely as a pleasure palace (Nero actually lived elsewhere), the entire complex is thought to have encompassed anywhere between 100 and 300 acres. Gilded within an inch of its life, the Domus Aurea also featured tons of marble, intricate mosaics, frescoes, and an artificial lake. Basically, the Domus Aurea was where the magic happened--the hippest party pad this side of "Cribs". Then, after some particularly bad press that ended in a coup, Nero killed himself in A.D. 68. Photo of interior from the Domus Aurea via Sarah Goldsmith under Creative Commons. Over the next 1400 years or so, the Domus Aurea went from being a symbol of that guy everybody hated; to a sort of proto-Home Depot/scrap yard for less-reviled construction projects to pick over; to a completely forgotten ruin buried under layers of other buildings. Despite sitting on a hillside overlooking the Colosseum, nobody knew it was there until the 15th century, when artists discovered a weird "cave" filled with beautiful works of art. The Domus Aurea ended up becoming the inspiration for many of the Renaissance-era churches of Rome. In fact, there's period graffiti in the Domus Aurea signed by the likes of Michelangelo and Raphael (and, also, incidentally, the Marquis de Sade). Still in the process of being excavated, the Domus Aurea is open to tourists, but on a limited basis. Baker and I went through it in 2007. Besides being an amazing experience (you wear hard hats and the in-English tour is led by an archeologist), it's also a great insider-y feeling thing to do as a tourist. You can't just walk into the Domus Aurea whenever you please. Hell, you probably wouldn't know it was there if you weren't informed. Instead, to get a tour, you have to call ahead to order advance tickets for a specific time slot. I think there's only something like 5 per day. If you're in Rome and you want the tour, you can call 06.39967700, which is the current ticket request number according to The Beehive, my favorite hostel in Rome. The Basilica of San Clemente On the surface, San Clemente looks a lot like many of the other ornately decorated churches of Rome. Dating to the 12th century, the interior is gorgeous, but, if you're an average tourist who's spent two or three days church-hopping in Rome, somewhat unremarkable. Photo of 12th century basilica interior courtesy Juan Desant via Creative Commons. What makes San Clemente special is what lies beneath. Take the stairs down from the 12th century church, and you'll find yourself in a previous incarnation of the Basilica that dates to the 4th century. The light is bad down there, but below you can see a crappy, but passable, picture I took from that level of the church. But you know what's even cooler than an old church with an older church underneath it? An even older building underneath that. You can actually go further down, and further back in time, to the ruins of 1st century AD Roman buildings, which were likely the location of a temple to Mithras, a sun god whose mystery cult some scholars think may have heavily influenced early Christian ritual and belief. It's pretty badass. Unfortunately, the lighting really sucks down there. I've got no photos from that level and I wasn't able to come up with creative commons shots from other sources, either. Although the church's official Web site has some neat renderings and a few pics that you can see. I didn't get a guided tour of the Basilica, so I know less about its history. But it's definitely worth a peek if you're in Rome and love old, underground things.

Wasting Time for a Good Cause Posted: 03 May 2009 07:52 AM PDT Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine. I may regret this. Last night, I started playing Foldit, a free computer game that's rapidly becoming every bit as addictive as, say, Crayon Physics Deluxe, which is, to say, dangerous. Very, very dangerous. On the plus side, I will at least be losing productivity for a good cause. Released about a year ago, Foldit is a puzzle game that harnesses the power of human putzing to help scientists unravel the mysteries of protein structure. Long chains of amino acids folded in on themselves like a biochemical game of Twister, proteins do most of the heavy lifting around your body; moving and storing important molecules like oxygen and iron, controlling your growth, making your immune system work ... they're kind of a big deal. Scientists know the genetic sequence of proteins, as well as many of their functions, but still don't know a lot about how and why the amino acid chains twist and turn into their complex shapes. That's where Foldit comes in. Computer programs could calculate all the possible protein shapes, but it would take far longer than the average researcher's life span. Instead, the University of Washington team that developed Foldit is hoping that human game-players can figure things out faster. After playing a series of practice challenges that teach the rules--basically the laws of physics as applied to protein structure--players are then set on tasks that use their natural 3-D problem solving skills to pin down the best structures for certain proteins. The hitch: Game developers don't know what the "best" answer is, so you can't get any hints. And points are awarded not by how close you're getting to the known solution, but by how much energy would be needed to hold a real-life protein in the shape you've created. The real challenge comes from competing against other players to make the highest-point-collecting version of a specific protein. Researchers hope to use the game play to make better protein structure prediction software, based on gamers' strategies; to have players figure out the mysteries of proteins that don't yet have a known structure; and to create challenges that let players design new proteins that could fill some real-world needs---like disabling a specific virus. All of which are fine and noble answers for you to toss out there when your boss asks what, exactly, you're doing fiddling with a computer game on company time. Many thanks (I think) to Mun-Keat Looi, the Twitter friend who turned me on to Foldit.

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