I don’t know about you, but I get about as much spam in my real mailbox as I do in my email inbox. One questionably-ethical guerilla tactic for getting back at the mailbox spammers is using their own business reply cards against them. Every ounce you send using one of these cards will cost the offending company twenty cents and ounce. We don’t recommend this except maybe for the worst offenders (cough… Chase … cough).

Speaking of which - you can politely unsubscribe to Chase’s insane amount of mailbox spam here. They seem to be by far the worst offender at my house, even though I am not one of their customers.

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Since I don’t use paypal, and I’m not sure about pound-to-dollar transfer, is anyone else brave enough to buy this piece of renegade DIY loveliness? If you are, please read it, do a couple of projects, submit a review, or at least post a couple snippets from the text (only after you buy it… no downloading!), so we can have an adequate view of whether or not we can shamelessly plug the material. It may say “survival” on the cover, but that may just be a clever ruse, like the Anarchist Cookbook. Anarchy isn’t about bombing stuff, and we didn’t find any food recipes in there either, unless you eat napalm for breakfast.

DIY Survival Guide!

[note!] Meanwhile, here’s the pdf format version, for free, technically. But that’s cheating! Let’s get some funding for these mom-and-pop DIY enthusiasts! Hooray for the little guy.

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Sniggle n. - Trolls, Hoaxes, Culture Jamming, Poetic Terrorism, Media Hacks, Frauds, Impostors, Spoofs, Counterfeits, Fakes, Pranks, Scams, Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds.

In this intro to subversion site, everything kind of ”snigglery” is discussed. We never advocate illegal things, but this is a very entertaining spot in the web, and it discusses the desire to change the consumer culture we’re all trying to get away from by living the DIY dreams of people who don’t have the resources to do so!  

More updates on this later!

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Here’s a great way to sabotage political campaigns and keep the mud off your back at the same time. As it turns out, the material used to make those “Vote for Jethro ‘78!” signs in people’s front yards is good for all sorts of stuff, including making your own bicycle fenders. These fenders are light, cheap, and work really well. If you’re careful with how you cut your fenders out, you can even endorse your favorite candidate while you ride!

Political Sign Fenders.

Technorati Tags: bicycle, bike, mud, cleanliness

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Once upon a time there was a book out called “Steal This Book.” Presumably due to too many people taking the book up on it’s moniker, you don’t see this book around too much anymore. Fortunately for us, some nice chap has decided to “steal” it in the digital-copyright sense and publish it online for all to enjoy. The greatest thing about this project is that it is published in Wiki format, encouraging users to update it’s content to reflect more modern information.

Steal This Book is all about how to live off the fat of the land. Much of the book suggests illegal activities like stealing and changing your identity, but much of it also is about living frugally and taking advantage of things that are out there for you that you might not know about. [via and via]

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The jury is still out on this one, so you gotta take it with a grain of salt. Apparently this mosquito noise is finely tuned to only be audible to ears of the younger generation. It is used as a teenage deterrent in some shops because it is annoying and doesn’t bother the older, paying generation because they can’t hear it.

So using this sound, you can either annoy the crap out of kids OR make a ringtone for your phone that only you and other youngin’ types can hear. There is some question as to whether a phone’s speaker can actually reproduce the ~18Khz tone or not, but it’s worth a try.

Personally, I’m 25 and hear nothing but some kids chattering in the background, but let us know your age and what you hear in the comments.

The sound that repels troublemakers.

Direct MP3 link of the sound in question.

Edit: I can hear the sound on my computer speakers at work, I guess my Macbook Pro just can’t reproduce the sound.

Speaking of Macbook Pros, I guess this explains why they emit high pitched sounds and Apple won’t fix it - they’re a bunch of old farts who can’t hear it!

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Bre Pettis recently covered the TV-B-Gone on the Make Video Cast. I recommend watching it (especially the end for a $5 coupon for make subscriptions).

The TV-B-Gone basically scans through known television codes to turn whatever TV you’re pointing it at off. We ran into a kid at the Maker Faire who had combined the TV-B-Gone with an infrared security light, basically making a super high range TV-B-Gone that can work from incredible distances.

He demonstrated it to us by turning off the Yahoo booth’s televisions and we verified it worked with our infrared camera.

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Here’s an interesting form of activism:  So maybe there’s some place in your town or city that has been neglected and has ugly landscaping and it looks, well… crappy.  Don’t wait for the city to take care of it, relandscape the area with some friends!  Obviously the area needs to small enough to manage with just a few people but you could really make things look better for everyone.  Guerilla Gardening is the perfect way to alter your environment. (via)

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For those who don’t live in L.A. or San Francisco and want to make an awesome bike ride with a bunch of people, here are simple directions to follow to gather the masses and have a rockin good time!

(And yes, i’m sure other cities have cool rides too, I just thoght of those cities first)

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So if your small LED projector isn’t getting your message across, here’s a great way to get a lot of people to see your message: Freeway Blogging. Freeway Blogging involves making signs out of cardboard, normally with black and white paint, and posting them in a very conspicuous location near a freeway.  You can also push a bunch of styrofoam cups into a chain-link fence to write words out. Pedestrian overpasses work great. Often times the signs don’t last too long but they don’t really need to, think of how many people are on the freeway during rush hour!

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What type of graffiti is temporary you ask? Light Graffiti. Using a camera that can take long exposures you can tag without the fear of police brutality. Just hold the shutter open and tag away with any light source (i.e. small flashlight, or laser pointer) then set off the flash at the end to reveal the tagger. Attach a light to a spray can to be authentic.

This technique is called light painting.? Check out some photos using this technique here, here, and here on GThing’s flickr page.

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No, this isn’t about that kid who made a nuclear reactor, this is about cycling! Critical Mass is a huge bike ride that most major cities in the US have every month. A lot of cities do them on the last Friday of every month but check your city’s page to be sure of place and time. Sometimes the rides will have a theme and sometimes you’ll just have a good old police intervention, either way, fun will be had by all… well, sort of. (There are lots of Critical Mass sites, this is just one).

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