Below are 20 journal entries, after skipping by the 20 most recent ones recorded in Boing Boing's LiveJournal:

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Thursday, April 4th, 2013
9:34 am	Indiegogo campaign for Latino superhero comic http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/snG5ErJfCNU/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222969 Bruce Logan, a director/cinematographer who worked on Tron, Star Wars, Batman Forever, and many other projects, and Richard Soto, an actor/teacher/storyteller, developed a new comic book about a Latino comic book artist who draws to entertain the kids in the barrio. The star of the comic-within-the-comic is an Aztec superhero, El Lobo, who protects the barrio from the neighborhood gangs. Guess what happens next… El Lobo comes to life! Right now, Logan, Soto, and artist Albert Morales (Fantastic Four, The New Avengers, etc.) are trying to fund the completion and publication of the comic with an Indiegogo campaign. Their hope is that the comic will set the stage for an eventual feature film. The Legend of El Lobo (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)
7:37 am	Behold the grim future of a 1980s boombox ad http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/7VdiabqO1v8/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222922 The city of the future is imprisoned by feathered mullets, dry ice, and the synthesized orchestral hits that result when anyone opens their eyes. [↚ @joeljohnson]
Wednesday, April 3rd, 2013
11:54 am	Homophobic, player-abusing coach sacked http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/CPgVdTS6640/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222860 Rutgers University somehow didn't get around to firing its abusive, homophobic, slur-spewing basketball coach until months after someone filmed him at it.
2:43 pm	Parents in danger of having six-year-old daughter taken away for letting her walk to their local pos http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/1vKwK0GGk9Y/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222808 A reader of Free Range Kids is in danger of having his six-year-old daughter taken into protective services custody because he let her walk a few blocks to the post office in their Ohio town. The kid, Emily, asked for a little independence, and was given permission to take some unsupervised, short walks. Neighbors and cops freaked out, detained her, detained her parents, sent CPS after them, and has made their life into a nightmare -- one that's just getting worse and worse. Day 41: We are served with a complaint alleging neglect and dependency. The County wants to take Emily into “protective supervision” or “temporary custody.” The complaint contains many factual errors and inaccuracies. There is also a motion for “pre-dispositional interim orders.” As I understand it, this is a mechanism by which CPS can intervene even before the merits of the case against us for neglect are even heard, but less decided. It is scheduled to take place more than a month before the hearing on the neglect charge. It asks the court to force my wife and I to “allow ______ County Children Services to complete an assessment with the family. This is including allowing the agency access in the home, allowing the agency to interview the children, and participate openly in the assessment process.” In other words, they want to search our house, interrogate the children, and force us to testify. We are trying our best to raise Emily to be responsible, curious, and capable. We have chosen to include teaching her about using the library, navigating the neighborhood, and mailing letters as elements of her homeschooling. Needless to say, this entire ordeal has been quite distressing for the entire family, and we view it as a threat to our homeschooling her, our parental rights, and both my and Emily’s civil liberties. Since our family is being threatened by legal action, I have tried to confine my comments to a dispassionate statement of known facts. As Lenore Skenazy notes, this shouldn't deter you from letting your own kids move independently about their towns: "I am posting this story NOT because it is common and we should all worry about being hounded by CPS if we let our kids go outside. I am posting it in utter outrage at the idea that a child on her own could be considered neglected or in danger when she is so obviously, clearly, and indisputably neither." They're looking for pro bono legal assistance. 6-y.o. Who Walked Alone to Post Office May be Removed from Her Home
2:54 pm	Cory's HOW I WORK interview http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Acd3xXr7Xfs/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222870 I did a How I Work interview for Lifehacker, where I talked about the tools I use, and how I use them: What apps/software/tools can't you live without? Ubuntu and the suite of GNU tools in any robust Unix system. A good text editor (currently Gedit)—I keep all of my working files at .txts. A robust, highly configurable browser (Firefox/Firefox for Android). A fast RSS reader (presently Google Reader, likely to be Newsblur next). A tetherable mobile connection—I use EasyTether for Android to circumvent tether-blocking as deployed by some of the carriers I use around the world, especially Rogers in Canada. AirDroid for moving files on/off Android devices in my life. An external USB battery (currently PowerGen 5200mAh External Battery Pack). A rugged, roomy, weatherproof backpack (currently a Bagjack Skidcat). A moneyclip. A small, six-card credit-card wallet. LibreOffice spreadsheets for bookkeeping. GPG, cryptsetup, and TrueCrypt for information security. A high-performance mailer with functional scripting engine (currently Thunderbird with a ton of rules and a huge black-listed kill file and white-listed address book). A titanium Widgy keychain prybar (pictured at right)—useful as a pocket knife but flies (heh) under TSA/BAA radar. No-name, easy to replace earbuds with integrated mic for phone. Exeze waterproof MP3 player for swimming. AquaSphere Seal swim goggles—I swim everyday for about an hour and listen to last night's CBC's As It Happens news podcast. Exeze + Aquasphere are a reasonably priced, reliable goggles/MP3 combo. GoToob silicone bottles for shampoo/soap for the pool—these have strong, reliable suction cups that stick them perfectly to the shower wall. A no-name, cheap mini screwdriver set—I get these confiscated about six times a year by airport security, especially the jerks at Gatwick airport, but it's worth buying a new set every time. Catering-sized sachets of Tabasco—these don't show up as liquid on airport scanners, unlike the mini bottles. I put Tabasco on everything. I'd use it for contact-lens solution if I could. Aeropress—the single most versatile and reliable way of making coffee, especially on the road. Perfect when paired with a Porlex hand-grinder. I’m Cory Doctorow, and This Is How I Work
3:51 pm	Pat Robertson: "simple, humble" foreigners get miracles because they aren't corrupted by education a http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/64LlUhgwkeg/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222811 Pat Robertson scores a "Christ, what an asshole" prize here, in which he explains that the reason that "simple, humble" Africans and other foreigners experience miracles is that they are free from the sin of over-education. As Charles Johnson has it, this is "the wingnut trifecta... anti-intellectual, anti-science and patronizingly racist." Pat Robertson: Simple Africans More Likely to Experience Miracles Than Over-Educated Americans (via Skepchick)
7:59 pm	Rare footage of Walt Disney playing with backyard trains in 1948 http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/Bzr5eONfFIU/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222819 Amid sez, I recently finished a biography of Disney animator and director Ward Kimball, which the Disney Company's lawyers have gone to great lengths to keep from being published, but that's another story. In the process, I uncovered lots of interesting materials in Ward's personal collection, including this unseen home movie footage of his boss, Walt Disney. Tomorrow, it will be exactly 65 years since this film was recorded (April 4, 1948). In it, Ward and Walt Disney visit the home of Dick Jackson, a wealthy businessman who operated a scale-railroad in the backyard of his Beverly Hills home. I believe this to be the first time that Walt Disney personally operated a scale-railroad. It's amazing that the footage still exists. Exclusive: Unseen Home Movie Footage of Walt Disney
9:20 pm	Vixen Motorhomes http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/vUfHMGoTUi4/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222879 I saw a Vixen RV yesterday! Then I saw this incredible video advertisement. I was stunned! The opening pitch of this video is over-the-top awesome! The words innovative and unique are over used. Slapped on so many cookie cutter imitations that the words have lost their meaning. So, if you have become numb to all the plain vanilla vehicles that call themselves innovative and unique, Get Ready. They just hammer home how incredible and amazing this vehicle is! How is it there were only 587 made? Learn more about the Vixen RV.
5:56 pm	What walled gardens do to the health of the Web, and what to do about it http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/iVL9U3AhJsI/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222815 David Weinberger took great notes from what sounds like a barn-burner of a talk by Anil Dash at Harvard's Berkman Center on what has happened to the net, and where it's headed: “We have a lot of software that forbids journalism.” He refers to the IoS [iphone operating system] Terms of Service for app developers that includes text that says, literally: “If you want to criticize a religion, write a book.” You can distribute that book through the Apple bookstore, but Apple doesn’t want you writing apps that criticize religion. Apple enforces an anti-journalism rule, banning an app that shows where drone strikes have been. Less visibly, the laws is being bent “to make our controlling our data illegal.” All the social networks operate as common carriers — neutral substrates — except when it comes to monetizing. The boundaries are unclear: I can sing “Happy Birthday” to a child at home, and I can do it over FaceTime, but I can’t put it up at YouTube [because of copyright]. It’s very open-ended and difficult to figure. “Now we have the industry that creates the social network implicitly interested in getting involved in how IP laws evolve.” When the Google home page encourages visitors to call their senators against SOPA/PIPA, we have what those of us against Citizens United oppose: now we’re asking a big company to encourage people to act politically in a particular way. At the same time, we’re letting these companies capture our words and works and put them under IP law. A decade ago, metadata was all the rage among the geeks. You could tag, geo-tag, or machine-tag Flickr photos. Flickr is from the old community. That’s why you can still do Creative Commons searches at Flickr. But you can’t on Instagram. They don’t care about metadata. From an end-user point of view, RSS is out of favor. The new companies are not investing in creating metadata to make their work discoverable and shareable. [berkman] Anil Dash on “The Web We Lost” (via Beyond the Beyond)
4:58 pm	Attacks on punks and goths are now hate crimes in Manchester http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/WPNxwFUmZFA/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222873 Manchester, England has expanded its hate-crime laws to include attacks on the basis of dress or an "alternative sub-culture identity." The expansion follows on the fatal 2007 attack on Sophie Lancaster, whose attackers chose her because of her goth identity. "People who wish to express their alternative sub-culture identity freely should not have to tolerate hate crime," Assistant Chief Constable Garry Shewan said. Manchester police said the change would enable officers to give more support to victims of anti-punk or anti-Goth crime. But it won't necessarily mean tougher sentences. Although British judicial guidelines call for people convicted of hate crimes to receive tougher sentences, the Manchester decision has not been recognised nationally. Manchester police to record attacks on goths and punks as hate crimes [Guardian/AP] (Image: Lancashire Police)
6:10 am	Iain Banks terminally ill http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/jR90z5TZTNM/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222763 One of my favorite authors, Iain Banks, announced that he has less than a year to live: "It looks like my latest novel, The Quarry, will be my last."
Tuesday, April 2nd, 2013
11:29 pm	Lecture on stone-wall building, with miniature stone wall built http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/JKYXSlrQLcE/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222756 Brian sez, "My library hosted Kevin Gardner, a New Hampshire native and builder/restorer of traditional New England stone walls. He talked about the history of stone walls in New England, and how they shaped - and were shaped by - the landscape and circumstances of the region and country. I thought BoingBoing readers would be interested in the talk alone, but the bonus is that the entire time he's talking, he's also building a miniature stone wall from rocks he brought in two five-gallon buckets." Chelmsford Library Anytime: Exhibits and Videos (Thanks, Brian!)
10:21 pm	Deus Ex Arca: apocalyptic, absurdist science fiction about a box that does anything and everything http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/l8LkaPaKqNo/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222752 Here's "Deus Ex Arca," a beautifully told, absurdist science fiction story about a terrible, wonderful box, by Desirina Boskovich. Desirina was one of my Clarion students about five years ago, and was extremely promising then. When I saw her name on a new story today, I was sure it would be beautiful, and wonderful, and haunting, and I was not disappointed. Miss Amelia gazed in shock at where her table had been. “Well, I never,” she said. She bent over to pick up the box . . . . . . and turned into a giant celery stalk. Where there had been Miss Amelia, there was now something else, and that something else was a column of celery, measuring approximately five feet and five inches, its limpid green fronds rustling gently in the breeze. The box sat beside it. Lightspeed Presents... "Deus Ex Arca" by Desirina Boskovich
9:06 pm	Podcast to mark centennial of Marc Davis, co-creator of Haunted Mansion, Pirates of the Caribbean http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/VMzk2rlcTD8/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222744 Jeff Baham from HauntedMansion.com sez, "March 30 marked the centennial of the birth of Marc Davis, one of Walt Disney's "Nine Old Men" who was responsible for both the creation of some of Disney's iconic characters (Tinker Bell, Maleficent) and iconic theme park attractions (Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted Mansion). The Mousetalgia podcast is noting the life and work of Davis with a special episode dedicated to his career, including a never-published interview with Davis himself and a recent conversation with his widow and fellow Disney Imagineer, Alice Davis. Of special note are Marc and Alice's recollections about Marc joining the Disney Studio in the '20s, where he worked on Snow White." Mousetalgia Episode 230: Remembering Marc Davis with Alice Davis MP3 link (Thanks, Jeff!)
6:56 pm	Curiosity rover dresses http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/T7jYTVRsq4o/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222730 Etsy seller Shenova (who also does some nice-looking, science-y leggings), makes these $135 Mars Curiosity rover dresses to order: This super special space chic fashion forward dress has a real NASA image from the Mars Curiosity Rover, also with a rover "track" print on the other side. It it made from custom printed non-fading, durable Lycra stretch fabric with a cotton stretch black backing for a lovely slimming effect. There is also a cute silver strap detail at the top. Very comfortable fabric, easy fitting. The Curiosity lettering is hand studded with crystals for extra fanciness. You'll surely impress your friends with this one! Hem is 32" but can be adjusted if you add a note. NASA Mars Curiosity Print Rover Dress Space Chic (via IO9)
7:34 pm	Autonomous sensory meridian response - self-diagnosed neurological condition/superpower that makes y http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/OBHPXpFDxuQ/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222648 In Tribes, this week's This American Life podcast, a woman with "Autonomous sensory meridian response" describes her curious neurological condition. When she hears boring, whispering voices, she experiences pleasurable, relaxing "brain shivers" that are so nice, she finds herself watching the Home Shopping Network for hours (and hours!) at a time. There's a whole YouTube subculture of ASMR videos in which (mostly) women whisper quietly as they narrate their jewelry condition, or role-play giving you a shave. There's not much science on ASMR (yet), but a Sheffield university prof doesn't discount the possibility that it is real. ASMR subculture feels like something out of a very good recent William Gibson novel, and it's apparently real.
6:27 pm	Queen goes on austerity footing, receive mere £5M pay-rise from the taxpayers http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/-LxrN4j7EhM/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222643 At only £36.1M from the public purse (up £5M from last year), the poor Queen is positively underpaid. After all, she was divinely chosen to be monarch. God will be angry.
5:00 pm	Toronto Public Library's Fahrenheit 451-themed alternate reality game http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/S1KC6Q4wZZI/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222736 Jim Munroe sez, "We've just launched KTR 451, a game I developed for the Toronto Public Library. Drawing on the themes and characters in Fahrenheit 451 (the TPL's One Book this year), it's a simple alternate reality game -- part scavenger hunt, part audio drama -- and people in Toronto can play it by calling (647) 931-1585. There's three missions, one per week, until a live event on April 22nd." If Jim's name sounds familiar, that's because he's behind the Ghosts With Shit Jobs movie, as well as co-producing the controversial oil pipeline game. Take Your Seashells Out of Your Ears!
11:51 am	Obama and DARPA want to map the human brain like we've mapped the human genome http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/VeSTCP9fZ4Y/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222684 Here are a couple different perspectives on the big news out of Washington this afternoon — an ambitious Obama Administration proposal to appropriate $100 million to begin a project to "map the brain". What's that mean? We have a lot of good data on single neurons. We have a lot of good data on what happens in the brain, as a whole, during certain tasks. What we don't really understand is how those individual neurons work together as networks or what activity in the brain really means on the level of causality and processing. That's what this project would be aimed at understanding. At LiveScience, Stephanie Pappas puts the project into scientific (and financial) context. At Nature News, Meredith Wadman writes about why some scientists are wary of this plan.
11:42 am	Thursday: Pesco hosting art/tech panel at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/CCmlX9u-c0o/story01.htm http://boingboing.net/?p=222685 On Thursday evening (4/4) at San Francisco's Contemporary Jewish Museum, I'm moderating a panel titled "A State of Technology" at about art, technology, culture, and the Bay Area. Much more interesting than me though are the fascinating folks on the panel who are likely familiar to you if you are a regular Boing Boing reader! UC Berkeley professor Ken Goldberg is an artist/engineer whose art has appeared at the Whitney Biennial, Pompidou Center in Paris, Buenos Aires Biennial, and the ICC in Tokyo. Ariel Waldman is the founder of Spacehack.org, a directory of ways to participate in space exploration, and the global instigator of Science Hack Day. Amy X Neuburg is composer and performer of “avant-cabaret" for voice, electronics, and chamber ensembles! Amy is going to play a short set at the start of the evening's program! Admission to our event is free with entrance to the Contemporary Jewish Museum, a very compelling space in itself. The event is 6:30pm-8pm. I hope to see you there! "A State of Technology"