A nice way to end the week. Congratulations to Boing Boing pals Sean Bonner and Tara Brown. (Some related tales of love and photons in this cute WIRED item.)...

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In Alaska, a legislative panel investigating vice-presidential Sarah Palin has issued a report which finds she unlawfully abused her authority as governor by firing the state’s public safety commissioner. Also, remember that hacked Yahoo Mail account she used to hide correspondence from subpoenas? Snip from NYT: In another setback for Ms. Palin, a judge on Friday ordered the state of Alaska to preserve any government-related e-mail messages that Gov. Sarah Palin sent from private accounts. The ruling, by Craig Stowers ...

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Yesterday, I blogged about Neil Gaiman's Graveyard Book hitting number one on the New York Times young adult list. Neil read the entire book aloud, a chapter at a time, on his book tour, and uploaded a nightly video, so that when it was done, his reading of the whole book could be viewed for free as a series of video streams. Coincidentally, I also finished listening to the HarperCollins audio edition of Neil reading The Graveyard Book yesterday, and ...

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Ars Technica's Julian Sanchez takes a long, investigative look at the entertainment industry's claim that piracy costs the American economy 750,000 jobs and $250 billion and discovers the truth: they made it up and repeated it until they forgot they had made it up. With Customs a dead end, we dove into press archives, hoping to find the earliest public mention of the elusive 750,000 jobs number. And we found it in—this is not a typo—1986. Yes, back in the ...

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A fifteen year old girl in Newark, OH faces being labelled a "sex offender" for sending naked cellphone photos of herself (a minor) to other minors. If convicted, she'll spend the next ten years on public registries, classed as a producer of child pornography. No word on what compensation she (as the victim of the crime) will be able to get from herself (as the perp). According to Ohio law, 2907.323(A)(3) states anyone possessing material that shows a minor in ...

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Ars Technica's Frank Caron plunges into the stormy seas of terrorism recruitment video games, reviewing such modern classics as Night of Bush Capturing, Quest4Bush, War on Americas, and Rescue The Nuke Scientist ("the player is an Iranian soldier seeking to rescue two Iranian nuclear experts who were kidnapped by U.S. forces. The game was designed in response to an American-made game called Assault on Iran that featured almost exactly the same situation, but in reverse"). Bottom line seems to be ...

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Sydney, Australia-based photographer Keith Loutit creates lovely tilt-shifted time-lapse short films. His aim, he says, "is to present Sydney as the Model City, and help people take a second look at places that are very familiar to them." You can see more of his films on the Keith Loutit Vimeo page. Previously on BB: • Cranford Rose Garden tilt-shift timelapse...

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Harvard architecture student Bryan Boyer redesigned the US Capitol building for a grad school project. His motivation is that the US House of Representatives stopped growing in 1911 simply because the building couldn't hold any more seat. As a result, he says, "the US Capitol changed from monument to memorial." More interesting than the elevations and photo illustrations though are the souvenir plates and $50 bill that Boyer designed to support his big vision. Over at the Sceptical Futuryst, Stuart ...

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Jesse Thorn says: This is the new project from the guys who invented "Look Around You," Robert Popper and Peter Serafinowicz. It's a religion/television program called Tarvu. They're working on an Adult Swim series right now. Say 'Hebbo' to Tarvuism!...

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Russian biker busted for driving a non street legal bathtub. Shots from the life of Road police service from Russia and other post Soviet countries....

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(Video: Interview with former Alaskan Independence Party chairman Mark Chryson) Esther Kaplan, Investigative Editor for The Nation Institute, says: While the McCain camp continues to hammer home Barack Obama's ties to a former '60s radical, the press corps has yet to report on how far-reaching Sarah Palin's ties are to contemporary radicals -- specifically, the paranoid anti-government figures behind the Alaskan Independence Party. Reporters Max Blumenthal and David Neiwert found that AIP activists played a critical role in Palin's election ...

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Leah of Current says: I thought you might get a kick out of this literal animated remake of Aha’s "Take Me On." (It was a pet project of some of our talented animators of SuperNews.) Take On Me: literal video version...

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I was Googling to see how people used the word "subterranea" and I stumbled across the fantasitc Subterranea Britannica, the Web site for a 35-year-old society "devoted to the study and investigation of man-made and man-used underground places." Here are some of the categories of underground sites that interest them: Adits, Air Raid Shelters, Cave Dwellings, Chalk Wells, Control Cenres, Earth Houses, Fougous, Funicular Railway Tunnels, Mines, Mushroom growing, Priest Holes, Sallyports, Secret Hiding Places, Show Caves, Souterrains, Subways, Underground ...

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My wife just ran into the office and excitedly told me about this new video that Eric Wareheim of "Tim and Eric Awesome Show -- Great Job!" fame directed and posted on his Facebook page this morning. "It's really trippy, dude. I think Boing Boing readers will love it." I think she might be right. Check out this amazing video for "The Youth." (Thanks Tara McGinley!)...

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Kristin Baker is a hypertalented New York City-based artist who paints incredibly dynamic, energized abstractions influenced by her passion for Grand Prix auto racing. She uses acrylic to paint on mylar and PVC. If someone decides to make an animation of JG Ballard's novel Crash, I nominate Baker to be the art director. Seen above, Big Bang Vroom (acrylic on PVC cm, 243.8 x 304.8 cm). Kristin Baker (Thanks, Kelly Sparks!)...

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Video Link, via DLISTED. Previously on BB: the original, and another, and another, y la ultima. But a request: The world NEEDS a La Pequeña Sarah Palin. *Needs.* WHYYYYYY? WHYYYYY doesn't this episode exist yet? Por favor, Felipe Avello, te pido con toda mi corazon. (thanks Susannah!)...

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I love the illustration for Christopher Hitchens' Vanity Fair story, "America the Banana Republic." It's based, of course, on the beautiful Jack Davis poster for Woody Allen's Bananas from 1971. Hitchens' piece is well worth reading, too. I was very struck, as the liquefaction of a fantasy-based system proceeded, to read an observation by Professor Jeffrey A. Sonnenfeld, of the Yale School of Management. Referring to those who had demanded -— successfully -— to be indemnified by the customers and ...

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After announcing that they'd be shutting off their DRM servers and nuking their customers' music collections, Wal*Mart has changed their mind. Now they've told their customers that they'll be keeping these servers online indefinitely -- which means that they'll be paying forever for their mistaken kowtowing to the entertainment industry's DRM mania. All those companies (cough Amazon cough Apple cough) that say they're only doing DRM for now, until they can convince the stupid entertainment execs to ditch it, heed ...

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Ari Cohen says: "We have started a blog of our own that documents street style and fashion of the mature and wizened. Our aim is to take photos of elders with a unique sense of personal style that has developed with age. We noticed so many amazingly dressed older people in New York and are having a great time getting to know them, hearing their stories and capturing a bit of their style to share with others." Advanced Style...

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Mark sez, "Colin Jackson is a well-known IT consultant in New Zealand and former President of InternetNZ. Colin attended a meeting with the Minister in charge of copyright on Monday to talk about a proposal to kick people off the internet on the basis of three unsubstantiated accusations of copyright infringement, and she lost her temper and yelled at them." The meeting was set down for 45 minutes from 3:45. When it opened, Judith Tizard spent 30 minutes telling us ...

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