The Hyperlogos

Less than 12 hours after opening, the Obama administration’s “virtual embassy” in Iran was blocked by Tehran’s digital gatekeepers on Wednesday. [...] White House spokesman Jay Carney condemned the blockage in a statement Wednesday evening, saying the Iranian government had “again demonstrated its commitment to build an electronic curtain of surveillance and censorship around its people.”

Unfortunately, he was a terrible hypocrite who, if there was any justice, would have seen his tongue fall out of his mouth.

The United Nations envoy for freedom of expression is drafting an official communication to the U.S. government demanding to know why federal officials are not protecting the rights of Occupy demonstrators whose protests are being disbanded -- sometimes violently -- by local authorities.

The US federal government has mandated the use of several standard typefaces (or "Alphabet"s in their terminology) which must be used on road signs. Collectively, they are the Standard Alphabets for Traffic Control Devices, or SAFTCD, and are colloquially known as "Highway Gothic". Unfortunately, there are only really two implementations of the full set of type faces: there is a "roadgeek" set which is free for noncommercial use and there is a set which costs around $800.

This project seeks to provide an implementation of all currently-documented SAFTCD typefaces placed in the Creative Commons. They are free for all uses, and may be freely modified, so long as my original copyright message stays in the font info.

If you want a road sign font, you can pay $800 (for the full set) or you can make your own. You also have several other options like Blue Highway or the roadgeek fonts, although the latter is often criticized for being poorly put together (badly authored.) The creator of that set simply traced the existing fonts. I have no idea why, because you can download the "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices" which contains all the outlines.

The US DOE (Department of Energy) released this report (PDF) on how it should be economically feasible to produce biodiesel from algae by the time US diesel fuel prices reached $3 per gallon.

Below are some choice excerpts from the report.

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One of the hottest trends on the internet today is online gambling. Chances are that you or someone you know plays or has played some game online for money - usually poker, which is by far the most popular game to play on the internet. But the USA has instituted a ban on internet gambling sites which actually operate within its borders, claiming that the sites will simply be money-laundering factories and, of course, will promote the degeneracy of the American people.

As per itworld (by way of Slashdot) the ACLU's case challenging the constitutionality of COPA, the "Children's Online Protection Act" is to begin next monday. For those who haven't been keeping up (from the fine article):

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