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Xmaspunk raygun

Andrew Colunga's X-maspunk Ray Gun is a whimsical and wonderful device for conquering the universe and defending Santa's sleigh from marauding Martians. X-maspunk Ray Gun Previously:Robert Rankin's badass homemade raygun - Boing Boing Atomic Disruptor Raygun: steampunk gun made from radios and ... Superb ray-gun junk sculptures - Boing Boing Ray gun pen -- Boing Boing Gadgets - Boing Boing Weta's new cheaper, delightful, detailed plastic rayguns Boing Boing Mindbogglingly cool toy raygun - Boing Boing Mini Weta raygun - Boing Boing...

Media Meltdown: a media literacy comic for kids

Orca Books sent me a review copy of Media Meltdown, a graphic novel about media literacy for kids, written by Liam O'Donnell and illustrated by Mike Deas. The premise of Media Meltdown is to teach kids how to question the media they get, and to make their own. It follows the adventures of a group of kids who have discovered that the local monster-home developer is up to no good, and is getting away with it because he's a heavy advertiser with the town's only media company, which owns the newspaper, stadium, and TV station. Working together, they break the story on their own, using the Web, and along the way they learn to analyze the media they receive, to use that analysis in making their own media, and to work with others to get their message across (there's also a surprise appearance of this blog, which had me laughing aloud). Media Meltdown is a good mix of instructional and narrative comic, using the medium's strengths to illustrate how media is made, and giving kids the tools they need to research media-making for themselves. The mystery plot is simple, but has some good tension and twists, and the resolution is really sweet. Understanding how media gets made and learning to make your own media are critical skills for kids, and this is a great starting-point. Media Meltdown MediaMeltdown.net -- more resources Previously:Media Literacy Week Canada: kids learn to remix - Boing Boing How kids use the net now, from danah boyd - Boing Boing MPAA to teachers: don't rip DVDs, just record your television with ... Irene McGee's radio show - Boing Boing...

Phreak/hacker history comic now a free download

The first two volumes of Wizzywig, Ed Piskor's wonderful graphic memoir of the early days of the BBS/hacking/phreaking scene, have been posted online. Mark and I both reviewed Ed's comics last year, and we both really enjoyed them -- great to have them online now, and Ed tells me there's a third volume in the mail to me. I'll post a review here once I get a chance to read it. Wizzywig is the story of Kevin "Boingthump" Phenicle, a fictional hacker who's part Mitnick, part Poulsen, and part mythological. Boingthump is a preternaturally bright, badly socialized kid who discovers a facility for technology that's egged on by his only pal, "Winston Smith," a would-be Abbie Hoffman who is obsessed with the potential to use Boingthump's discoveries to monkeywrench the machine. But soon enough, their roles are reversed, as Kevin's relentless pursuit of knowledge and power scares Winston so much that he tries (without success) to put the brakes on Boingthump's crazy ride through the phone system and the nascent Internet. The story blends fiction and fact, dropping in a Blue Box-selling Jobs and Wozniak (Boingthump picks the trunk-lock on their car and steals a Blue Box) and Cap'n Crunch, along with plenty of fictional BBS scenesters and grumpy computer-store owners. The backgrounds are filled with nostalgia PCs -- Atari 400s, Apple ///s -- and old Bellcore manuals. The illustration and storytelling style reminds me a lot of Harvey Pekar (with whom he's collaborated on American Splendor), jumping backwards and forwards in time, switching points of view, going inside and outside of the characters' heads. The first two volumes are PHREAK and HACKER, with two more (FUGITIVE and INMATE) planned. Piskor prints and sells the comics himself (the books are quite handsome) and he's got extensive free previews online. At $15 each, with all the money going straight into the creator's pocket, what's not to like? Wizzywig Volumes 1/2 (ZIP archive) (Mirror) Wizzywig volume 1: PHREAK, WIZZYWIG VOLUME#2: HACKER (Thanks, Ed! Previously:Boing Boing Gift Guide 2009: comics/art books! (part 6/6) Boing Boing Wizzywig: nostalgia hacker comic - Boing Boing The Beats: A Graphic History -- unflinching and wonderful history ... Graphic novel about phone phreak history - Boing Boing...

America can't make things because managers all learn finance instead of production

In a provocative New Republic article, Noam Scheiber proposes that the collapse of American manufacturing is due to a general shift in management to people who have MBAs, and to a shift in MBA programs to an emphasis on finance instead of production: Since 1965, the percentage of graduates of highly-ranked business schools who go into consulting and financial services has doubled, from about one-third to about two-thirds. And while some of these consultants and financiers end up in the manufacturing sector, in some respects that's the problem. Harvard business professor Rakesh Khurana, with whom I discussed these questions at length, observes that most of GM's top executives in recent decades hailed from a finance rather than an operations background. (Outgoing GM CEO Fritz Henderson and his failed predecessor, Rick Wagoner, both worked their way up from the company's vaunted Treasurer's office.) But these executives were frequently numb to the sorts of innovations that enable high-quality production at low cost. As Khurana quips, "That's how you end up with GM rather than Toyota." Upper Mismanagement (via Making Light) (Image: Venn Diagram - Happiness in Business a Creative Commons Attribution image from budcaddell's photostream) Previously:MBAs: Most Bloody Awful, Aussie radio documentary on the problem ... The MBA/B.Eng Rosetta Stone - Boing Boing People more prone to lie in email? - Boing Boing...

World's worst endangered animal smuggling kingpin

Marilyn sez, "Bryan Christy writes in the Jan issue of National Geographic about a notorious animal smuggler. It took the undercover unit of the US Fish & Wildlife Service five years to track down Anson Wong, the world's most wanted smuggler of endangered species. But he got out of prison in 47 months, during which time his wife kept the business going full force. And when Wong got out of prison he set his sights on a 'new wildlife venture, a zoo that promises to be his most audacious enterprise yet' -- smuggling tigers. Christy tells the story of how the Fish & Wildlife Special Ops team set up a sting operation to capture Wong, who boasted of having horns of Sumatran and Javanese rhinoceroses, both forbidden Appendix I animals. He talked openly about getting shahtoosh, the 'king of wool,' from the Tibetan antelope. He had access to extraordinary birds, including the Rothschild's mynah, whose wild population was estimated to number fewer than 150. He bragged about his Spix's macaws, a bird now believed to be extinct in the wild, claiming he'd recently sold three. The black market rate for a Spix's macaw was $100,000. His expanding list of astonishing illegal rarities included panda skins and snow leopard pelts." While no one knows exactly how large the illegal wildlife trade is, this much is certain: It's extraordinarily lucrative. Profit margins are the kind drug kingpins would kill for. Smugglers evade detection by hiding illegal wildlife in legal shipments, they bribe wildlife and customs officials, and they alter trade documents. Few are ever caught, and penalties are usually no more severe than a parking ticket. Wildlife trafficking may very well be the world's most profitable form of illegal trade, bar none. Asia's Wildlife Trade (Thanks, Marilyn!) Previously:The Endangered Japanese Giant Salamander: a Real-Life, Gentle ... Natural cork's disappearance hurts endangered species - Boing Boing Strange and endangered wildlife - Boing Boing Endangered shark found. Eaten. - Boing Boing Guy in polar bear suit arrested during Greenpeace protest - Boing ... SWAT team raids orchid grower for fudging import paperwork - Boing ... Last Galapagos Pinta turtle finally knocks up a mate's eggs ... Sympathy for the Lamprey - Boing Boing...