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I usually go on and on about ebooks, and I do most of my reading on my iPhone these days, but I also love me some finely-crafted codices.

I learned of this British deluxe edition of Cory Doctorow’s Little Brother by accident, almost—Voyager Books advertises on Tor.com, and I was mangling some newsletter copy related to a giveaway they’re having, which happened to mention the publication of this edition. Anyway, long story short: it looks beautiful, with a simple and elegant slipcase—I love the ‘security-cam-as-gun-to-the-head’ stamp—it features illustrations by Richard Wilkinson, and I want it very badly. Wilkinson’s modern linework combined with older-looking colours and textures echo the essence of the book: a modern take on Orwell.

My inbox overfloweth with WIN today. Christopher Beaumont, one of the recipients of the Little Brother print I made (inspired by the eponymous book by one Cory Doctorow) created this kickass papercraft model of Camerahead, one of the characters in the print. He will be posting has posted a downloadable printout on his site, Cubeecraft.com, later on today, so that you can make your own.

Go check out Cubeecraft, they’ve got a busload of cool papercraft figures for your crafting pleasure. My favourite (aside from this one, of course)? Why, Rusty Venture, hands down.

Those luminaries at the TSA strike again:

Late Monday, the Transportation Security Administration had announced that a laptop containing data on about 33,000 travelers who had applied for a national airport security fast-pass card was believed to have been stolen from a locked office at the San Francisco Airport in late July.
Early Tuesday, however, the computer was found in the same company office from which it was supposedly stolen. . . .

As a person who has never, ever, in my nearly thirty years on this planet, misplaced so much as his wallet or house keys, let alone his laptop, let me say this:
You fucking idiots. You total, complete, ridiculously inept retards.
(Now, watch me lose my wallet, my keys, and my laptop in a perfect trifecta of hubris-inspired Murphy’s Law chicanery)

But wait, it gets better. When asked about the contents of the laptop, a Senior VP for the private contractor hired by the government to do its job for them run the screening program says:

“Yes, it was sensitive privacy information, but not the stuff that was most sensitive,”

Ooooh, ok. So it was just the reuglur seekrit stuffs, not the sooper dooper double seekrit stuffs. I shall sleep better tonight. Oh yes.

Cory Doctorow alerted me to some pics he snapped at the University of Washington Bookstore of this badass cosplay costume based on the print I made, which was inspired by Cory’s latest Tor book, Little Brother. To paraphrase Irene Gallo, I’m digging the creativity that’s coming off of this book. This is so, so awesome. Click through for Cory’s photoset, wherein he plays the role of Marcus, complete with slinghshot!

Today the U.S. Senate votes on the amendment to the FISA bill, which, in essence, guts the fourth amendment to the Constitution, thus enabling the U.S. Government to eavesdrop on regular citizens without a warrant from a judge. Additionally, the bill grants retroactive immunity to telecom companies who have been aiding the Bush administration in their illegal wiretapping program. Let’s hope the Senate has a little more spine than the House, which passed the bill not too long ago.

Check out this interview by Tim Ferriss with Daniel Ellesberg, who released the Pentagon Papers back in the 1970s. In it, Ellesberg explains why the proposed legislation is so dangerous, and why it’s so important that the Senate votes this bill down.

What Every American Needs to Know (and Do) About FISA Before Wed., July 9th from Tim Ferriss on Vimeo.
EDIT: The Senate has decided to postpone the vote until tomorrow, because they want to honor some old, southern racist who croaked.

This is the final iteration of my Little Brother piece. I’ve re-worked the Camera-Head, and added some more detail to its blazer. In the end, as soon as I realized that I was designing a poster (for myself) as opposed to a mass market book cover (for the particular needs of the mass market), I decided to leave the idea of a textural background aside. For similar reasons, I’ve also replaced the Neil Gaiman blurb with the book’s tag-line, and integrated the arphid graphic from the spine of the cover design.

I’m diggin’ it.

Tomorrow, I’ll go get myself some ink and figure out the separations. I’ll get the seps printed on Friday morning, and hopefully will be in the print shop at Pratt by mid-afternoon. I’m itching to get back in there—it’s been way too long. . . . 

Cory Doctorow has released his fantastic new YA novel, Little Brother as a free, Creative Commons-licensed download. Go, go get it now. Read it, enjoy it, and share it, especially with the younger ones. I can’t stress this enough. This book is generating a whole lot of buzz, and for all the right reasons.

The folks over at Instructables have started an rss feed with instructables based on the contents of Cory Doctorow’s forthcoming new book, Little Brother. According to Cory, on his Craphound blog:

….[the instructables crew] were really inspired by all the ingenuity demonstrated by the book’s heroes, so they’ve made a series of HOWTOs in the voice of M1k3y, the techno-guerrilla who tells the story in Little Brother.

Little Brother goes on sale in something like ten days. It has been generating a lot of buzz, particularly at Comic Con this past weekend. It is one of those wonderfully subversive books that inspires, educates, and informs, all while geared towards a YA audience. I read an advance copy a few months ago, enjoyed the hell out of it, and recommend it wholeheartedly to anyone who even halfway asks, especially to kids. 

I’ll be following this feed closely. The first entry is, appropriately enough for me, the photo-emulsion screen printing process! Print geeks, unite!