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Roq La Rue Gallery's "Lush Life 2" group show opens in Seattle this Friday and it's a tour-de-force of Pop Surrealism and contemporary painting and sculpture. The show includes new work by: Joe Sorren, Chris Berens, Marion Peck, Kris Kuksi, Travis Louie, Brian Despain, John Brophy, Martin Wittfooth, Ryan Heshka, Michael Brown, Charlie Immer, Mandy Greer, Gail Potocki, Laurie Hogin, Boomer, Madeline Von Foerster, Ryan Heshka, and Andrew Arconti. Above is Berens's "Stage One" (mixed media: ink, paint, photopaper on panel, 40" x 40"). The thread running through the show, according to curator Kirsten Anderson, is "an opulence or richness, either in subject matter or technique." Lush Life 2 runs until May 7 and all of the art is also viewable online.

Victor Pineiro put a lot of work into a funny, popular post about the "top ten geek anthems of all time." Shortly after, CNN ran an extremely similar article, which replicated many of Victor's picks and had extremely similar copy. But the CNN article didn't credit Victor with the inspiration.

Victor doesn't think that this is a copyright violation (I think he's right), but it does smack of plagiarism and intellectual dishonesty. It's possible that CNN was inspired to write the extremely similar piece at the same time, but the more likely explanation is that CNN just ripped Victor off. Victor couldn't find any contact info for the author and when he posted a question about it to the article's comment thread, it was rejected.

We often hear big media companies talk about how bloggers rip them off by posting fragments of their articles, but there's a well-developed practice of linking and crediting in blogging that often doesn't go the other way, and it sucks that media companies don't play nice in link economy.
Had the article I'd penned been something more general or topical, I wouldn't have batted an eye. But I'd researched the topic before writing the post, and found almost nothing on geek anthems- and no articles at all in the past few years. It was a niche I was excited to fill. The post I wrote did well, getting picked up by Veronica Belmont and BuzzFeed among others, and garnering close to 20,000 visits at last count. Not Gawker numbers, but for our young blog it was a nice spike that's resulted in substantially more regulars. CNN's article, however, stopped the post's momentum dead in its tracks.

Talking over my discovery with a prominent journalist buddy, she told me it was a common occurrence. More and more she noticed big media borrowing unique topics and ideas from viral blog posts in the hopes that they'd go unnoticed. With all the recent search-term omniscience being developed, it's getting harder to hide that sort of thing. And what about the little guy?

The real issue here is search rank. For young blogs hoping for traction, SEO is king, and knock-off articles pose a much greater threat to scrappy bloggers than old media. We scramble to find topical/SEO niches and plant our flags with posts like "Top Ten Depressing Songs" or "How to Prepare For a Steampunk Prom", using each as a foothold to climb higher up Mt. Blogosphere. But a copycat article by one of the big guys immediately supplants that flag, and incinerates it with the ensuing ripple effect. In this case, CNN's article wrested the top "geek anthems" search spot from mine, and the flood of blogs linking to it filled up the rest of the first page. Copycat Articles Trample Bloggers: PWND By CNN (Thanks, Victor!)

Twine is selling these magnificent vintage rotary phones, retrieved from the British General Post Office where they were never used. They ain't cheap though: $210. Tellies (Thanks, Kelly Sparks!)

Haiti, Chile, Turkey, Chile (again). There've been a lot of earthquakes lately. But scientists say there haven't been more earthquakes lately. Tremors are, and have always been, common. On average, per year, you can expect one 8.0 or above quake, 17 quakes between 7 and 7.9, and 130-odd quakes between 6.0 and 6.9. One thing that has risen: Death tolls. But scientists say that increase has more to do with economic conditions that drive people to pack into mega-cities and live in cheaply built (and quick-to-collapse) homes.

Tor Books, the US/Canada publisher, has two hundred advance copies of my next young adult novel, For the Win, available for free to young (19 or younger) gamers who are interested in reviewing the book on their blog or school paper. The book is about gamer kids all over the world who use multiplayer games to organize and fight back against abusive employers: In the virtual future, you must organize to survive

At any hour of the day or night, millions of people around the globe are engrossed in multiplayer online games, questing and battling to win virtual "gold," jewels, and precious artifacts. Meanwhile, others seek to exploit this vast shadow economy, running electronic sweatshops in the world's poorest countries, where countless "gold farmers," bound to their work by abusive contracts and physical threats, harvest virtual treasure for their employers to sell to First World gamers who are willing to spend real money to skip straight to higher-level gameplay.

Mala is a brilliant 15-year-old from rural India whose leadership skills in virtual combat have earned her the title of "General Robotwalla." In Shenzen, heart of China's industrial boom, Matthew is defying his former bosses to build his own successful gold-farming team. Leonard, who calls himself Wei-Dong, lives in Southern California, but spends his nights fighting virtual battles alongside his buddies in Asia, a world away. All of these young people, and more, will become entangled with the mysterious young woman called Big Sister Nor, who will use her experience, her knowledge of history, and her connections with real-world organizers to build them into a movement that can challenge the status quo.

The ruthless forces arrayed against them are willing to use any means to protect their power--including blackmail, extortion, infiltration, violence, and even murder. To survive, Big Sister's people must out-think the system. This will lead them to devise a plan to crash the economy of every virtual world at once--a Ponzi scheme combined with a brilliant hack that ends up being the biggest, funnest game of all.

Imbued with the same lively, subversive spirit and thrilling storytelling that made LITTLE BROTHER an international sensation, FOR THE WIN is a prophetic and inspiring call-to-arms for a new generation If you're under 19 and want a free early look at the book for review on your blog/paper/whatever, send a note with your address to torpublicity@tor.com with "FTW" for the subject-line. Also include the name of your blog or school paper. For fun, also share a game you enjoyed recently and why.

We did this with Little Brother a couple years back, on the grounds that books for young people should be available for young reviewers to write about, rather than just adult reviewers who try to figure out whether young people will enjoy them. It was a real success and I'm happy to be repeating it.

This is being launched in honor of the American Library Association's Teen Tech Week, and is open to Canadians and Americans. I'm working on a similar offer for the UK edition, for Britons, Aussies, South Africans and Kiwis, and will post about it as soon as I have details.

What the hell, planet earth! Chile was just slammed by a 7.2 aftershock, as inaugural ceremonies for right-wing billionaire president-elect Sebastián Piñera began in Valparaiso. Chile was devastated by an 8.8-magnitude quake on Feb. 27.

Last week, the UK LibDem party was thrown into scandal when two of its Lords proposed an amendment to the Digital Economy Bill that would allow for national web-censorship, particularly aimed at "web-lockers" like Google Docs and YouSendIt. Now a leaked document from the British Phonographic Institute suggests that the amendment was basically written by the record industry lobby and entered into law on their behalf by representatives of the "party of liberty."

This weekend, LibDem members who attend the national convention in Birmingham will have the chance to vote on an emergency measure affirming the party's commitment to an open and just Internet, repudiating this disastrous measure. If you (or someone you know) is attending the convention, please support the "Save the Net" emergency measure and help rehabilitate the party's reputation on fundamental freedoms in the information society. Parliamentarians need to recognize that copyright touches everyone and every technology in the digital age. It is no longer a question of inter-business regulation and deals. Getting copyright wrong has the potential to mess up our freedom of speech, prevent us from getting the benefits of new technologies, and damage society in other very profound ways.

It is therefore deeply inappropriate for such fundamental proposals to have been introduced by both the government or the opposition parties at the behest of one side of the debate. That applies just as much to disconnection, which Mandelson introduced in the summer at the last minute under pressure again from the BPI and other rights holders. BPI drafted the Lib Dem / Conservative web blocking amendment Previously:

• LibDem rank-and-file make emergency motion for net freedom - Boing ...
• Brits: tell the LibDem Peers not to bring web-censorship to ...
• Guardian column on LibDem proposal to block web-lockers
• Brits: tell the LibDem Peers not to bring web-censorship to ...
• LibDem Lords seek to ban web-lockers (YouSendIt, etc) in the UK ...

Recently-exiled latenight talk show host Conan O'Brien will be headlining the comedy stage at the annual Bonnaroo festival. Wonder if he'll pick a random person out of the crowd to befriend and bestow insta-stardom? The date is part of Conan's cross-country comedy tour, also just announced today.

I feel a great disturbance in the public utility, as if millions of bladders cried out, and were suddenly silenced.

Pats Papers: What If Everybody in Canada Flushed at Once?

(Thanks, Christina!)

Dick Burger has been hailed by fandom as the greatest comic book creator since Jack Kirby. Unlike Kirby, however, Burger retained ownership of his characters and became a media tycoon, complete with a private jet furnished with a hot tub and a mansion in Los Angeles. He is also an insufferable bastard.

Leonard Bates is a North American journalist who is conducting research for a biography of Burger. When he travels to Hicksville, New Zealand to visit Burger's childhood home, he discovers that no one in the village wants to talk to him about Burger. For reasons unknown to Bates, they are downright angry at him for even mentioning his name. They are delighted, however, to give Bates access to the town library, which contains the greatest comic book collection on the face of the earth (including several copies of Action #1 which they casually pull from the shelves). It turns out that everyone in the village is connoisseur of comics and they'd all read Bates' earlier biography of Kirby. What is going in here? wonders Bates, and what's the big mystery about Burger?

That's the setup for Hicksville, an absorbing 250-page graphic novel by Dylan Horrocks, and republished Drawn & Quarterly with a new introduction. Horrocks does a fine job of weaving the medium of comics into the comic without making it obviously self-referential. I grew up reading Kirby and later was involved in the minicomics scene, and this book resonated with me. Hicksville was awarded "Book of the Year" by The Comics Journal, which described it as "a sweetly told love letter to the comics medium." It was also was nominated for two Ignatz Awards, a Harvey Award, and two Alph'Art Awards.

Buy Hicksville on Amazon.com

Boing Boing partner John Battelle was on a WiFi-enabled flight last night, and wanted to say bedtime-goodnight to his kids using videochat. Lots of parents tuck their kids into bed over video when they're far from home. What gentler, more loving example of the power of the internet could there be? Nope. A United Airlines flight attendant told John that this was prohibited because terrorists could use this to coordinate attacks. So what's a curious guy to do? To the Internet! Which is exactly what I did. Responses starting pouring in. Including one from a pal at the State Department, who echoed my basic goal: To use video chat to tuck my kids into bed isn't a crime. Or at least, shouldn't be.

The flight attendant just showed me the United policy manual which prohibits "two way devices" from communicating with the ground. However, the PLANE HAS WIFI. To combat this, not unlike China, United and other airlines have blocked Skype and other known video chat offenders. Apparently, they missed Apple iChat. Oops. An FAA guidebook says inflight video chat is to be discouraged because it can be annoying to seatmates, but that's very different than banning something because it's a terrorist weapon.

Read: Video Chat on the plane illegal? (battellemedia.com)

Mississippi's Itawamba County school district has cancelled a prom after Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old student, asked permission to bring her girlfriend as her date. The student planned to wear a tux. The school district's bureaucratic non-excuse for the cancellation is that it's "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events." The district appears to be tap-dancing around the reason for the cancellation in an effort to avoid openly saying "We are scared of teh ghey," since that would open them up to legal liability. The ACLU isn't buying it. They've told the school district that they've got until Wednesday to change the policy or else. "A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this, so in a way it's really retaliation," McMillen told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson. Calls to McMillen by The Associated Press late Wednesday went unanswered...

The ACLU said McMillen approached school officials shortly before the memo went out because she knew same-sex dates had been banned in the past. The ACLU said district officials told McMillen she and her girlfriend wouldn't be allowed to arrive together, that she would not be allowed to wear a tuxedo, and that she and her girlfriend might be asked to leave if their presence made any other students "uncomfortable."

McMillen said she feared she would be thrown out of the prom because "we do live in the Bible Belt." Miss. school prom off after lesbian's date request

ACLU Demands Mississippi School Allow Lesbian Student To Attend Prom With Girlfriend

(Thanks, Steve!) Previously:

• Prom dress store changes photo of dress
• Teen in skimpy dress denied prom entrance
• Lesbian prom king causes turmoil!

Photo: John Perivolaris / DrJohn2005 Recently out of Virginia's public school system, youngster James Stephenson writes in to say that being a kid sucks. So what's new? A gauntlet of cameras, invasive searches and authoritarian security theatrics that don't make schools feel safer—but do tempt administrators into privacy abuses such as Lower Merion's recent webcam-spying scandal. Special feature: "Seen Not Heard: How obscure security makes school suck."

To coincide with South by Southwest, journalist Scott Kirsner is making his 2009 book Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age available free, in digital form, for the duration of the festival. You can download it here. Lots of folks you've seen at SXSW are featured in the book, including artist Natasha Wescoat, pioneering videoblogger Ze Frank, singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton, Burnie Burns of "Red vs. Blue," comedian Eugene Mirman, documentarian Curt Ellis, DJ Spooky, and plenty more. And, if you're at SXSW this year, Kirsner will be conducting a "fireside chat" with Ze Frank on Saturday. Scott Kirsner's "Fans, Friends & Followers" (PDF) mirror site if the link above is slow or cranky

Everyone from Malcolm McLaren to Paul Simon heard something in South Africa's Boyoyo Boys that they wanted to appropriate. Their '80s records are lively and surprising, both original and emblematic of their time. You can hear where whole chunks of popular American music, from Graceland to Vampire Weekend, were born and raised. After listening to "Back in Town," you'd have broken a UN boycott to work with them, too.

Something Awful's Steve and Zack have an excruciating look at the artwork and rules from the original, 1974 version of Dungeons and Dragons, which appears to have been drawn by a hyperactive 12-year-old during an extremely boring math class. I remember seeing these not long after getting my first set of the AD&D hardcovers and thinking that they looked intriguing, if a little thin. I also produced an enormous amount of artwork that looked like this for the dungeons I created.

The Original Dungeons & Dragons Previously:

• Exclusive Gallery: Dungeons and Dragons 4.0's "D&D Insider ...
• Dungeons & Dragons 4.0 Makes Remote Pen-and-Paper Play Easier ...
• Ultimate D&D-playing dungeon. And I do mean "ultimate."
• Flowchart: How D&D is a gateway drug to every flavor of nerdiness ...
• No D&D for US prison inmate serving life
• Election 08 as a Dungeons and Dragons campaign
• Writers describe the positive impact of D&D on their lives
• D&D on multi-touch table

Animator/composer Cyriak just posted this surreal video featuring infinite giant teddy bears climbing out of the sea at the Worthing shore and crossing the road. You'd think that this would be thin gruel for three minutes' worth of animation, but you'd be wrong: it turns out that the number of variations on the themes of pigeons, people, teddies, cars and shore is a lot greater (and weirder and funnier) than instinct would suggest.

Cycles (Thanks, Arthur!) Previously:

• Fiorina's latest political video featuring furries!
• Giant space-chicken movie progressing nicely
• Alma: Animated short is "equal parts Pixar and The Twilight Zone ...
• Jack Chick, animated: "Somebody Goofed," by Syd and Rodney - Boing ...
• Chris Ware: This American Life animation

Magician Mat Ricardo writes in regarding this morning's post showing a motorcycle (seemingly) pulling the tablecloth out from beneath a very long table's-worth of place settings: "Here's what I do - for 20 years-ish I've been finishing nmy cabaret act by putting the tablecloth back on the table, underneath all the stuff. Took me years to invent, and I'm the only person in the world performing this trick. Maybe I need to get out more, but what can I say - it's a living!"

You can see the gag around 2:15 in the video, but it's well worth watching the whole thing. I was gutted to learn that I missed Mat last weekend when I took the kid down to Covent Garden in London to see the performers, but I'm looking forward to catching his act next time we head down.

Mat Ricardo showreel (Thanks, Mat!) Previously:

• Magic and Showmanship: Classic book about conjuring has many ...
• Magic teaches us about human cognition -- UPDATED
• Nature Neuroscience article on neurological basis for magic, co ...
• Penn & Teller's Invisible Thread: lost comedy magic special ...

Researchers at Australia's Deakin University have published a paper in the British Journal of Nutrition showing evidence that human beings can taste fat -- that is, they can distinguish between two flavourless solutions in which one has more fat than the other.

I believe that this is true -- and that fat can offset bitterness the same way that sweet can. For example, raw cacao nibs mixed with cashew nuts taste sweet and chocolatey. "We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes -- sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock)," Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.

"Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste -- fat."

Researchers tested 30 people's ability to taste a range of fatty acids in otherwise plain solutions and found that all were able to determine the taste -- though some required higher concentrations than others. Australian researchers say fat is 'sixth taste' (via Kottke)

(Image: Beale's Open Kettle Rendered Pure Lard, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Steve Snodgrass' photostream) Previously:

• "This Is Why You're Fat" photoblog
• Brown fat makes you thin
• Science and carbs - A big fat lie revisited
• Does Animal Fat Get a Bum Rap?
• How bad is animal fat?
• NYT fingered in fat photo fracas

A former TSA analyst has been indicted for computer crimes after being allegedly caught tampering with various terrorist watchlists (his work duties involved keeping these databases up to date). He'd been given notice that he was being fired before the incident. The article doesn't explain what he's suspected of doing, though the possibilities are interesting: adding enemies to watchlists? Taking people off of watchlists? Douglas James Duchak, 46, was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday with two counts of damaging protected computers. According to a federal indictment, Duchak tried to compromise computers at the TSA's Colorado Springs Operations Center (CSOC) on Oct. 22, 2009, seven days after he'd being given two weeks notice that he was being dismissed. He was also charged with tampering with a TSA server that contained data from the U.S. Marshal's Service Warrant Information Network.

He "knowingly transmitted code into the CSOC server that contained the Terrorist Screening Database, and thereby attempted intentionally to cause damage to the CSOC computer and database," prosecutors said Wednesday in a press release. Former TSA analyst charged with computer tampering (via /.) Previously:

• TSA adds 16500 people to terror watchlist for forgetting ID, then ...
• Mail-art odyssey earns artist spot on TSA watchlist
• US terrorist watchlist now has more than 1000000 names
• CNN reporter says bad things about the TSA, gets hassled every ...
• TSA puts commercial pilots on no-fly and terrorist watch lists ...