Reader geoffrobinson notes an AP story on a new initiative by the police in Beijing to put a visible police presence on the screens of Chinese citizens. Starting Sept. 1, little animated cop figures will wander across the displays of users of a baker's dozen of Chinese Web portals. The program is set to expand by year's end to all sites "registered with Beijing servers," according to the report. The point of the anime-like figures seems to be to remind citizens that their Web usage is being monitored, not to actually implement any further monitoring themselves.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

About a year ago we had the story of a candidate for state school superintendent in Oklahoma who was advocating that textbooks be made with bulletproof covers as a method of protecting students in the exceptionally unlikely event of a school shooting. This seemed like a bizarre idea, especially when you way out the costs vs. the likelihood of any such event (and the actual protective ability of a bulletproof textbook). Of course, it appears that others have been thinking along the same lines, as one manufacturer is now selling bulletproof backpacks for your kids as they head back to school. Assuming you're worried that your kid goes to school in a warzone, feel free to pick one up -- but just imagine the protective power of one of those backpacks stuffed with bulletproof books?

Dotnaught sends us to InformationWeek for news of the latest lawsuit by Polaris IP, which holds a patent on the idea of responding automatically to emails. The company has no products. It brought suit in the Eastern District in Texas, as many patent trolls do — though the article informs us that that venue has been getting less friendly of late to IP interests, and has actually invalidated some patents. The six companies being sued are AOL, Amazon, Borders, Google, IAC, and Yahoo. All previous suits based on this patent have been settled.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

John Joseph Adams sez,

I've just launched the website for my forthcoming anthology Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse, which features stories by Stephen King, George R. R. Martin, Boing-Boing's own Cory Doctorow, and many others.

The site has quite a lot of information about the anthology, the stories, and the contributors. You can read the header notes for the stories, the introduction to the anthology, excerpts for most of the stories, and three stories can be read in their entirety.

Link (Thanks, John!)

From Boing Boing Gadgets: "Haiko Hebig's photography of abandoned or decrepit industrial machinery and its control rooms." Link, Discuss on BB Gadgets

An intrepid Wikipedian named Nikola Smolenski has calculated how much paper it would take to print out the English entries in Wikipedia and produced this handy chart showing the relative sizes of the pile of paper and an adult male. This doesn't include the History or Discuss pages, which would make it a lot less useful than electronic Wikipedia (nevermind the lack of a search interface!). I think that Wikipedia is one of those documents that is inherently electronic.

Here's Nikola's assumptions: "Using volumes 25cm high and 5cm thick (some 400 leaves), each page having two columns, each columns having 80 rows, and each row having 50 characters, ? 6MB per volume. As English Wikipedia has 4.4GB of text (October 2006) ? 750 volumes. Note that this is conservative estimate, as it doesn't include images, tables etc. which take up more surface than the text which describes them." Link (via Digg)

Craftster user Blueblythe created this incredible felt replica of a vintage Underwood Noiseless typewriter. This was the first typewriter I ever owned -- I got a 1920s-vintage model from my Dad, who'd rescued it from the offices of the Communist group he belonged to, where it had been used to publish a Trotskyist news-sheet -- and I never forgot the incredible heft and solidity, and the industrial gravitas of the machine. I also loved the hubris of calling a machine that loud a "noiseless" typewriter.

Blueblythe notes: "It took me several weeks of non stop sewing to finish. The felt is hand dyed and the details are embroidered. I added some real screws that I tarnished in vinegar. The roller rotates so that a piece of paper can be added with some typed words on it." Link (via Craft)

A study by sociologists from George Mason University and North Carolina State University concludes that unmarried couples that live together divide housework more evenly than married couples.

According to Davis, the key finding of the study is that it suggests the institution of marriage changes the division of labor. Couples with an egalitarian view on gender--seeing men and women as equal--are more likely to divide the household chores equally. However, in married relationships, even if an egalitarian viewpoint is present, men still report doing less housework than their wives.

"Marriage as an institution seems to have a traditionalizing effect on couples--even couples who see men and women as equal," says Davis.

While the researchers did not follow cohabitating couples over time to see if their division of housework changed after marriage, their study provides a "snapshot" in time of couples all over the world.

Link (via Collision Detection)

The UK-based Sleep Council warns that teenagers who fall asleep with the TV, music, or computer on suffer from "junk sleep" -- poor-quality rest that doesn't get into the depths necessary to scour away the day's stress -- and suffer as a result:

And although many adults claim that they fall asleep more easily with the TV on, it doesn't always work the same way for kids. One in five of all the teenage boys surveyed admitted that leaving the TV or computer on was affecting the quality of their sleep.

The teens aren't exactly bouncing back from the poor quality sleep, either. 40 percent of the group reported feeling tired in general each day, with 15- and 16-year-old girls doing even worse. But despite this realization, only 11 percent of teenagers surveyed felt that quality of sleep was important. "I'm staggered that so few teenagers make the link between getting enough good quality sleep and how they feel during the day," Edinburgh Sleep Centre's Dr. Chris Idzikowski said in a statement. "Teenagers need to wake up to the fact that to feel well, perform well and look well, they need to do something about their sleep."

Link

In honor of comic legend Jack Kirby's 90th birthday, the NY Times has a great little feature on him.

Mr. Kirby did a lot more than just draw. As the critic Gary Groth so ably put it in The Comics Journal Library, "He barreled like a freight train through the first 50 years of comic books like he owned the place." He mastered and transformed all the genres, including romance, Westerns, science fiction and supernatural comics, before he landed at Marvel.

He created a new grammar of storytelling and a cinematic style of motion. Once-wooden characters cascaded from one frame to another -- or even from page to page -- threatening to fall right out of the book into the reader's lap. The force of punches thrown was visibly and explosively evident. Even at rest, a Kirby character pulsed with tension and energy in a way that makes movie versions of the same characters seem static by comparison.

Link (Thanks, Ape Lad!)

Forbidden Planet's Joe Gordon sez, "A number of us in the British comics community have been excitedly awaiting Comics Britannia, three one-hour shows on BBC4 due this September which are going to explore the history and culture of British comics, from the kids comics of the 30s through to today. Andy Hall from the BBC just sent me this link to a website the Beeb has put up to support the series (it also includes details of more comics shows in their season including on on Steve Ditko) which has details, picture galleries and some video clips of interviews from the series with Alan Moore and Leo Baxendale (one of the godfathers of Brit comics). Andy tells me more content will be added as they go along because they see this as a cultural resource as well as show - isn't it terrific to see comics culture being treated so well?" Link (Thanks, Joe!)

China's capitalistic missteps are ablaze in the headlines lately. Tales such as those about poisonous toothpaste and counterfeit Harry Potter books strike fear into our hearts that our most favored nation may be going too far when embracing the very capitalist ideals that we have been trying to instill in them since the cold war. China has been painted as a nation of unscrupulous money grabbers, eager to make a quick buck without concern for any consequences. However, let's not be too quick to judge, lest we forget our own past. China's brash brand of capitalism is merely a normal step along the way of a developing capitalist economy -- a step that the US also went through in the 19th century. It wasn't long ago that American businesses ran amuck without regulation. Candy was found to contain arsenic, custard laced with lead, and as made famous by Upton Sinclair, lard contained traces of the occasional human. Back then, counterfeiters were notorious, giving rise to the term "snake-oil salesmen." There is a silver lining to this story, of course. Just as the US was able to grow out of this adolescent stage of capitalism, so will China, but, kids will be kids, and they need to get a few bumps and bruises along the way before they learn their lesson and change.

Lucas123 writes "Apple's share of the laptop market has grown over the past few years and the company is now beating Gateway in sales, according research firm NPD Group Inc. in Port Washington, NY. 'Their sales are continuing to grow faster than the rest of the marketplace,' the firm stated. In June Apple was responsible for 17.6% of laptops sold (at retail) in the US and is now in third place behind HP and Toshiba."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Howtoons -- the comic strip for kids that explains how to build cool stuff -- has just launched on the Web. Howtoons runs in Make Magazine, and it's always one of my favorite departments. This is the kind of thing that I ate up when I was a kid -- for me, it was Doctor Zed in Owl Magazine, but Howtoons is a hundred times hipper and more fun. Link (Thanks, Robbo!)

Luke Skywalker’s original Jedi lightsaber will be carried into space by NASA astronauts aboard space shuttle Discovery this October. Bonnie Burton says:

To commemorate the historic event, Star Wars characters visited the Oakland International Airport where Chewbacca handed the lightsaber over to NASA’s Space Center Houston during a special ceremony on Aug. 28, 2007. Arriving by Escalade and Hummer stretch limos (the Falcon’s in the shop) Boba Fett, Jango Fett, Princess Leia, Luke Skywalker, X-Wing pilots, Jedi and stormtroopers (from the Golden Gate Garrison of the 501st Legion) accompanied Chewie for the fun-filled press event which took quite a few travelers and tourists in baggage claim by surprise. NASA’s Space Center Houston Director of Marketing Roger Bornstein greeted the intergalactic guests and warmly thanked everyone’s favorite Wookiee for bringing him Luke’s lightsaber.

Link to story, here are more photos on Flickr.

An anonymous reader writes "After 15+ years as a code monkey, mostly doing back-end systems design / development, I was surprised by recent developments at my workplace that have resulted in my being transitioned into a dual architect / managerial role within the next few weeks. While I am somewhat confident at this point in my career in my experience and training for an architect-type position, I have serious concerns about being able to properly fulfill the role as manager. Aside from 'Become a manager in 2 days' type books, what resources would you recommend I look to for guidance in this transition?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Copro Nason Gallery in Santa Monica is exhibiting a "Krampus/Devil" themed painting show on September 8. I was invited to be in the show, and I titled my painting "Hot Stuff." Other artists include Tim Biskup, Gary Baseman, Ron English, Shag, and a bunch of other well-known painters. More details at the Blab! Show site. Link