Underclothes That Display The 4th Amendment When X-Rayed by TSA

4th Amendment Wear is a series of underclothes that have the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution printed on them with metallic ink that so that it will show up when worn through a TSA X-Ray machine.

The clothes are designed as a silent protest against the new reality of being searched to the point where we’re basically naked. We don’t intend for this to be anything more than a thought-provoking way to fuel the debate about safety vs. civil liberties. If we sell a few items, great. But the main intention is to open more dialogue. It’s more of a conceptual piece than anything else.

via Laughing Squid

Jem Melts Rock Using Sunshine

Jem Stansfield travels to the Solar Furnace Research Facility in Southern France. He witnesses the incredible power generated by highly concentrated sunlight.

Cookie Monster Auditions To Be Host of Saturday Night Live

But Who Is Going To Setup Their Own Email Server?

From The Old New Thing:

Many many years ago, back in the days when Microsoft's email address had exclamation points, an internal tool was developed to permit Microsoft employees to view and update their Benefits information from the comfort of their very own offices. Welcome to the paperless office!

One of my friends noticed an odd sentence in the instructions for using the tool: "Before running the program, make sure you are logged onto your email server."

"That's strange," my friend thought. "Why does it matter that you're logged onto your email server? This tool doesn't use email."

Since my friend happened at the time to be a tester for Microsoft's email product, he tried a little experiment. He created a brand new email server on one of his test machines and created an account on it called billg. He then signed onto that email server and then ran the tool.

Welcome, Bill Gates. Here are your current Benefits selections...

"Uh-oh," my friend thought. "This is a pretty bad security hole." The tool apparently performed authentication by asking your email server, "Hey, who are you logged in as?" The answer that came back was assumed to be an accurate representation of the user who is running the tool. The back-end server itself was not secured at all; it relied on the client application to do the security checks.

My friend sent email to the vice president of Human Resources informing him of this problem. "You need to shut down this tool immediately. I have found a security hole that allows anybody to see anybody else's Benefits information."

The response from the vice president of Human Resources was calm and reassuring. "My developers tell me that the tool is secure. Just enjoy the convenience of updating your Benefits information electronically."

Frustrated by this, my friend decided to create another account on his test email server, namely one corresponding to the vice president of Human Resources. He then sent the vice president another email message.

"Please reconsider your previous decision. Your base salary is $xxx and your wife's name is Yyyy. Would you like me to remind you one week before your son's tenth birthday? It's coming up next month."

A reply was quickly received. "We're looking into this."

Shortly thereafter, the tool was taken offline "for maintenance."

Conan O'Brien Pale Whale by Yiying Lu

In honor of premiere of Conan tonight, “Fail Whale” artist Yiying Lu created a special “Pale Whale” illustration.

Sir Ian McKellen Reenacts The Bridge of Khazad-Dum

My Photos & Video from The Rally For Sanity

Below are a bunch of selected photos that I took today during The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear which took place on the National Mall from 12:00 - 3:00. At the bottom is a slideshow of all the images I took.

You may also want to check out a few photos my wife took from a different vantage point during the rally.

Before I get to the photos though, here are two short videos I shot during the event:

During the pre-show portion of The Rally For Sanity and/or Fear on the National Mall in Washington DC on October 30, 2010. The Mythbusters appeared on stage and conducted several experiments using the crowd to help. I recorded the first and third experiment, The Wave and The Jump.

Update: Comedy Central now has the entire video of the Mythbusters posted if you care to see it from the vantage point of the stage:

This movie is comprised of three short clips. The first is a 360 degree pan of the crowd before the rally got started, just to show the size of the crowd. The second is a bit of Jon Stewart at the beginning of the show (didn't think to start filming until after he came out - sorry about that) and the 3rd clip is just after Stephen Colbert started coming out of the stage in his faux Chilean miner rescue capsule.

Update: Comedy Central now has video posted of the hilarious duet Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert sang, entitled "I'm More American Than You":

And finally, Jon Stewarts moving speach at the end of the rally:

Awesome Jawa Halloween Costume