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Wednesday, October 31, 2001

ReplayTV has set itself up

ReplayTV has set itself up to be the Napster of digital TV recorders. Not only does it record 320 hours of programming, it also edits out commercials (semi-)automatically and allows you to send your favorite shows to up to fifteen "TV buddies" over your Internet connection. Their latest device is due to ship shortly, and, of course the TV networks are suing them pre-emptively, trying to keep the devices from ever hitting the shelves. While this device sounds like tonsafun -- and while I wish like stink that I had one sitting on my media totem -- I can't understand how ReplayTV thought they'd be able to get this product to market without being crushed by the nets' fixers.LinkDiscuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:01:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

There's a new Ultima Online

There's a new Ultima Online in the pipes, designed in collaboration with Canadian indie comix magnate cum collectibles magnate Todd McFarlane, who is ensuring that there will be a plethora of purchasable Ultima Online schwag.

The new game will take players into a dark world, where they will meet more than 30 powerful new characters created by McFarlane. The central character in the new game, Lord Blackthorn, has been featured in previous installments of Ultima Online, but he has now been transformed into an evil half-human creature in charge of an army of other fearsome monsters. The game will include new artificial intelligence, a new interactive storyline, and a new virtue system that rewards and punishes players based on their choices and behavior during the game.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:18:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Giant Robot, one of my

Giant Robot, one of my fave zines, devoted to all things cool, quirky and Asian, has opened a store in Los Angeles, for the display, perusal and vending of fantastic Asian popcult detritus, from t-shirts to stickers to DVDs. Discuss Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:15:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google's playing with the idea

Google's playing with the idea of displaying thumbnails of the pages that come up in search results. The more I think about this, the better I like it. Sure, it'll slow down load time (I imagine they'll let you switch it off if you want), but thumbnails'd be a great visual cue about the nature of a link, a way to identify sites that are too banner-laden or otherwise pointless to visit.Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:12:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I've archived all 24 episodes

I've archived all 24 episodes of "Artificial Life," a comic strip I did for newmedia.com a couple of years ago. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:50:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ScotiaBank's 12 tons of gold

ScotiaBank's 12 tons of gold and 30 million ounces of silver, buried beneath the WTC, have been recovered and are being convoyed by Brink's trucks to another location. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:52:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The island nation of Tuvalu

The island nation of Tuvalu is disappearing under the sea, thanks to global warming. Its 11,000 residents will have to be evacuated. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:20:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Aussie g-men debate whether to

Aussie g-men debate whether to kill 20,000 koalas on Kangaroo Island to relieve population pressure. They say that the koalas are eating themselves out of house and home, and besides, the little buggers aren't as cutencuddly as you might think.

...[T]he image of Kangaroo Island could one day show that "virtually every tree was dead and lying underneath those trees were the carcasses of koalas that had starved to death".

Link Discuss (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:02:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Set phasers to "defrost." The

Set phasers to "defrost." The Air Force Research Laboratory has developed a crowd dispersal weapon that heats people's skin using microwaves. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:04:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dave sez: "The best and

Dave sez: "The best and brightest lego enthusiasts had a Halloween-themed building contest. Check out the winners! I love the hearse!"LinkDiscuss (Thanks, Dave!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:36:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Here's my latest obsessive project:

Here's my latest obsessive project: Plotting visitor patterns to BoingBoing over time. The Excel spreadsheet linked below covers the last twenty months of visitors, and calculates the precentile change in visitation from month to month. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:23:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An Aussie hacker is busted

An Aussie hacker is busted for manipulating local sewage control systems and flooding the parks, a hotel and a river with raw sewage. No info on why he did it, though I imagine that there's not much he could say that would mitigate the mess. LinkDiscuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:38:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cleaning the Fucking Kitchen for

Cleaning the Fucking Kitchen for Dummies is a profane and high-larious illustrated guide for sloppy roommates who live in the faery world where plates left in the sink somehow magically get cleaned up without any human intervention.

Pizza and takeaways die

A little-known fact is that eating half of a takeaway kills it. The pizza may have arrived at your door on its own, but once you eat half of it, it's dead and it won't actually go away on its own. It doesn't matter if you hide it somewhere like some sort of demented squirrel, it will stay there. Unless someone throws it away. That means you, if the world is just, which it plainly isn't.

The sofa is not magic

Contrary to popular belief, putting items under the sofa means that they are still there. Just because nobody can see the burger carton, it doesn't mean that it's gone. Usually people master this at the age of fucking two, but it can apparently escape some.

If this is confusing, try thinking about this obvious counter example to the "under the sofa, it's not there" theory. What do you think that smell is? It's your fucking detritus under the sofa, mate. Things that aren't there don't attract flies and start to smell. Got that?

LinkDiscuss (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:31:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

  Here's a mind-blowing new

 
Here's a mind-blowing new image-processing paradigm (yes, I hate that word too, but this really is a new paradigm). Researchers at the NYU Media Research Lab have built a trainable image filter. You give it an original image (say, a photo of a pear) and a "filtered" image (say, a watercolor painting made from that photo), and it analyzes the steps it needs to take to transform the original to the modified version. Thereafter, you can give it any image and it'll "filter" it according to its derived rules. This is the ur-filter, the self-modifying code that learn from any example you present to it. Wow. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:23:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Toronto embarks on a Big

Toronto embarks on a Big Construction folly that approaches Boston's Big Dig for madness and hubris. The plan for revitalizing the waterfront calls for burying a giant eyesore of an elevated highway, while bulldozing the warehouse where I live when I'm there. I've got 50'x40'x20' of stuff crammed into that loft, and I've got no idea what I'm going to do with it all, nor when I'm going to cope with it. But the funding for the project's been approved and it's only a matter of time until they knock down my home to make way for a park. I'd had hopes that with the economy collapsing, the City would be reluctant to drop a couple billion on a big earthworks project, but I was wrong, alas alack. Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:47:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hoaxbusters from snopes.com interviewed on

Hoaxbusters from snopes.com interviewed on Salon this morning:

Part of it is a lot of these are just really great stories; they're horrifying, they're titillating, they're funny.

But legends that we tell are an expression of what's going on in society's heart at any given moment. They're not just random bits of lore that get dropped in here and there. It's amazing because the stories we tell, although they generate spontaneously, end up through the process of natural selection becoming a very finely honed body of lore that reflects current society's concerns, fears, apprehensions, morals.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:25:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Streaming audio excerpt from Harry

Streaming audio excerpt from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban on today's Salon. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:21:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Good story on laid-off dotcommer

Good story on laid-off dotcommer volunteerism with the Peace Corps, and the changing perspectives wrought by the Current Situation. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:17:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, October 30, 2001

In addition to having a

In addition to having a cool domain, nevertrustanyonewodoesntlikegarlic.com has a cool concept: Writing to "celebrities" (Jimmy Walker, The Professor from Gilligan's Island and the guy from Frankie Goes to Hollywood) and getting testimonials to the bulb that stinks and refreshes from 'em. Link Discuss (Thanks, Hutch!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:18:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Internet pharmacies are getting busted

Internet pharmacies are getting busted for bootlegging Cipro without a license or a scrip. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:38:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

This is a strange little

This is a strange little project: Comic-strip fanfic about the WTC disaster that actually pulls off some semblance of respectfulness. Link Discuss (Thanks, crow!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:18:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Here's a great roundup of

Here's a great roundup of the best of Internet gossip and rumor sites. I'd heard of a bunch of these, but there are some nice and novel gems here, too.Link Discuss (Thanks, James!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:40:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Leonids aren't the only

The Leonids aren't the only noteworthy upcoming celestial event. Tomorrow, we'll have the first full-moon Hallowe'en since 1955, and the last one until 2020. Link Discuss (Thanks, Dave!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:53:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Meathead: The ultimate

The Meathead: The ultimate Hallowe'en hors d'oeuvre! Start with a plastic skull, add red jello, coldcuts, some strategically placed egg yolks or pearl onions, and serve! Link Discuss (Thanks, ali!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:21:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"In the wee morning hours

"In the wee morning hours of Sunday, November 18, the Leonid meteor shower might intensify into a dazzling meteor storm, with 'shooting stars' continuously blazing trails across the night sky. Viewers across the United States are perfectly positioned to take advantage of the storm, which could be among the most spectacular sky events of the 21st century according to the latest scientific predictions. Use this nifty online app to calculate the Leonid shower activity from your your location. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:26:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steven Levy reports on Bill

Steven Levy reports on Bill Gates's reaction to the new Apple iPod:

He spun the wheel, checked out the menus on the display screen and seemed to get it immediately. "It looks like a great product," he said. And then he added, incredulous, "It's only for Macintosh?"

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:34:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Here's a poignant note from

Here's a poignant note from the proprietor of Adventures in Crime and Space, a wonderful science fiction bookstore in Austin, TX. ACS is on the verge of bankruptcy -- two weeks away! -- and they're desperate for their many customers to come on in and spend, spend, spend.

That's the basics of the situation. We have, as best as I can tell, TWO WEEKS to turn this around. If we don't find $6,000 by October 31 then the store may have to close. That's our time frame. If you like the store, we need you in there NOW buying something! I don't really care what you buy, but we need the funds NOW! If everyone on our email list buys just 2 paperbacks, we can cover past dues and order books for Christmas. I don't like to beg for your business but you guys are our extended family, the ones we chose rather than the one we were born into. We need your help, so we are asking for it.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Steve!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:28:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, October 29, 2001

Some publishers have instituted new,

Some publishers have instituted new, fear-of-terrorism policies that will make for even greater delays in the handling of unsolicited manuscripts. I woulda said that the life of a hopeful, unpublished novelist couldn't get any more pathetic, but I was wrong. Send an ms to an editor at HarperCollins, and you've no guarantee that it (or any of your query letters) will ever be opened.

HarperCollins, owned by the News Corporation, has been asked by management to modify its submission policy as a result of an anthrax scare experienced by the New York Post in the same corporate group. As before, unsolicited submissions sent to the general HarperCollins Children's Book department will not be considered, but effective October 15 they are being discarded instead of returned. Also any mail received without a return address will be discarded by the mailroom immediately. Mail, including unsolicited submissions, addressed to a specific editor will be delivered to him or her. Whether editors open it if they do not know the sender, however, will be left to their individual judgment. That policy is to be reevaluated every month or so, and any changes will be reported as soon as possible.

(From a listserv) Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:26:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The new Mindjack has a

The new Mindjack has a great editorial on the theory and practice of the DMCA, one that exhaustively convers the history and consequences of one of the worst, oscially damaging American laws since Jim Crow.

For those of us teaching cybercultural issues, an area of content is also blocked: the realm of problematic digital copying itself. Although the DMCA insists on several occasions that its enforcement shall not abridge freedom of speech (such as 1201(c)(4)), at other points its language prohibits not only unauthorized copying but any discussions of how such copying works. This provision exceeds analog equivalents, since one may buy, sell, read, and own texts describing in vivid detail many means of illegal activities, from illicit xeroxing to homicide. In practice, would not teaching the history and culture of software piracy not fall foul of the DMCA? Assigning the current issue of 2600, the leading hacking journal, would also include students reading how to violate eBook protocols, for example. Lecturing about the popular disregard for freeware timelimits would also fall under the ban. Webbing notes on encryption techniques, a staple of computer science, should be a DMCA violation; merely linking to Web sites that contain such information can be a DMCA infraction. Section 1201(g) makes provisions for "Encryption Research" - so long as such work is "necessary to identify and analyze flaws and vulnerabilities… [and] if these activities are conducted to advance the state of knowledge in the field of encryption technology". Given this year's legal challenge to Professor Felten, it's clear that that section has ample room for interpretation. As Siva Vaidhyanathan points out, the entire discipline of new media studies - an evolving, growing field - might lose the bulk of its subject matter.13 Could Keith Winstein's January 2001 MIT seminar, "Decrypting DVD", be prosecuted, or outlawed?14 In short, the Act might criminalize and restrict what can be researched and taught in American classrooms, a plain violation of academic freedom.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Lisa!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:43:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

2308 items for sale

2308 items for sale at a giant upcoming dotcom bankruptcy auction in Sunnyvale. Dozens of Sun servers, Aeron chairs, and gobs o' pagers.

HP OMNIBOOK 4150 P-III 450MHZ; 128MB; 12GBHD W/AC & DVD & FLOPPY
IBM THINKPAD CELERON 500MHZ; 64MB; 5GBHD W/AC
BACKUP TAPE LIBRARY ARRAY
DELL POWERVAULT 705M
DELL POWEREDGE 2450 P-III 2 X 733MHZ; 512MB; 4 X 17GBHD
CISCO CATALYST 4006
APPLE IMAC
VIEWSONIC 21" MONITOR

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:45:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A self-professed "rude and sarcastic"

A self-professed "rude and sarcastic" Christian site offering some pretty considered advice for Xtian alternatives to Hallowe'en.

* The bible teaches that all people are going to Hell if they don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. (Sorry- it's not my fault. I'm not making this up. It's really what it says!)

* You're not going straight to Hell because you dress up your sweet little girl as a ballerina on Halloween and have fun. You are going to Hell if you don't have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It's a completly different reason you're going to Hell.

* Going to Hell has nothing to do with being good or bad, but only on your relationship with Jesus.

* The Bible actually has a few other verses in it beside that one that everyone seems to know about, "Love your neighbors". (Have you seen a bible lately? They're really thick.)

Link Discuss (via The Ultimate Insult)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:52:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NASA is researching boredom. They've

NASA is researching boredom. They've asked a group of volunteers to spend 30 days in bed, tilted head down, playing card games and watching TV to see how space travel will affect astronauts on long, confined jaunts. Volunteers get $11/hour! Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:55:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dammit, I got outbid on

Dammit, I got outbid on this deck of Tarot cards themed after the Disneyland Haunted Mansion and Nightmare Before Christmas. $71+ for 24 bits of cardboard that came off the presses a couple months ago? Even I'm not that obsessive and lacking in perspective. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:43:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The perfect Xmas gift

The perfect Xmas gift for the mystical nihilist who's got everything: Plush Cthulhu dollies! Link Discuss (Thanks, Tobias!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:35:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A Brit set the world's

A Brit set the world's record for toy-balloon flight yesterday, climbing 11,000 feet in a harness attached to 600 toy helium balloons. Check out the amazing photo, meditate on the mystery of Bugs Bunny. Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:22:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Funny -- if repetitive --

Funny -- if repetitive -- zombie jokes!

Q: What's the zombie's favorite kind of ice cream?

A: BRAAAAINS!

Q: Why did the zombie cross the road?

A: BRAAAAAAAAINS!

Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:19:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

For years, the US Army

For years, the US Army has used off-she-shelf commercial videogames to train their people. Now, they've started commissioning the production of custom gameware that really and truly suits their needs, and they're recruiting upon famous game-producers to run the show. Once the custom stuff is done, they'll be releasing their games commercially -- though whether that's to recover costs or to insidiously create a generation of pre-trained Nintendo warriors (a la "The Last Starfighter" and Ender's Game) they're not saying. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:08:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, October 28, 2001

Aaaaaaaaaah! THEY CLOSED THE

Aaaaaaaaaah! THEY CLOSED THE CAROUSEL OF PROGRESS!

The very finest Disney attraction to be retired to the Parks after the 1964 World's Fair, gone without a trace. Disappeared off of the guidemaps and chalk-boards. Gone, gone, gone. I guess that now is no longer the best time of our lives, and there is no great, big, beautiful tomorrow shining at the end of this day.

For my money, there is no better place to while away half an hour on a muggy Orlando afternoon that seated in the revolving theatre, watching a robot pimp the benefits of GE's gizmos. Repeated viewings of this ride likely account for my gadget obsession, as GE's paeons to the wonders of technology were burned right into my brain.

A couple years ago, they renovated the Carousel at WDW to restore it to something very like the original World's Fair show, and added a pre-show with video of Walt and songwriting gods the Sherman Brothers singing the theme, "There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow!" Alas, they didn't restore Progressland, the giant diorama of a prototype city of tomorrow that Walt later proposed to build in Florida (that vision was stripped down and turned into Epcot Center and the planned community Celebration).

Here's some of the choicest dialogue from the Progressland voice-over:

[Mother]
Everything you see in Progress City is possible today in any city. Even where you live. We have all the latest all electric ideas to help cities look better. And to make them better places to live and work in.

[Father]
Take our transportation. It's a coordinated electric system.

[Mother]
I just love getting around in my own little transporter.

[Father]
And we have other electric vehicles. In fact the heart of Progress City's transportation is our rapid transit system that's controlled by computers. I get to work in half the time on a high-speed electric train. Sure beats traffic jams.

[Dog]
Growwwl!

[Father]
Take it easy, Sport.

He's complaining because electric vehicles are so quiet.

[Mother]
Going shopping is simply a breeze too. And getting there is only half the fun. Today our whole downtown is completely enclosed. Whatever the weather is outside, it's always dry and comfortable inside.

[Father]
General Electric calls it a climate controlled environment. But Mother calls it...

[Mother]
A sparkling jewel. Now far off to your right, we have a welcome neighbor...

[Father]
Our GE nuclear power plant, dear. And next door, is Industrial Park which really looks more like...

[Mother]
Like an attractive city park, thanks to beautiful lighting and landscaping.

[Father]
And speaking of parks, outdoor lighting has added hours to our recreation time. We have night lighted stadiums, ball fields, golf courses, we even have our own amusement park.

[Mother]
It's not exactly Disneyland, but it is clean and bright and lots of fun.

[Father]
Mother, it's time for Grandma and Grandpa to take off.

[Mother]
That could be their jet now, dear.

[Father]
Look at it go! And imagine how convenient air travel will be in the future. Maybe then...

[Mother]
Maybe then, we'll do the traveling.

[Dog]
Growwwl!

[Father]
Now calm down, Sport. We'll always come back to Progress City. And we hope you folks will come back too. But right now, it's time to go. Remember...

[Mother]
Everything you've seen here in our all electric city is really possible today. 

Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:59:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Harry Potter Lego kits.

Harry Potter Lego kits. It was inevitable, I suppose. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:21:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I was over at my

I was over at my friend Lori Ann's place yeterday, and noticed a poster over her bookcase: It's Like Porno, But With Kung Fu Instead of Sex. It was a promotional for thekwoon.com, an online series of comedic martial arts short movies. Just finished watching episode one, "Mummy Dearest," which involves so many of my favorite things, I can't even begin to express my joy:

• Tai Chi vs. Kung Fu
• The Rosicrucian Egyptian Museum in San Jose
• Slapstick nipple-twisting
• Witty dialog delivered by wooden, ass-kicking actors
• Comedic belching

Sure, it's 120MB, but it's well worth the download. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:37:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tim Earnshaw, a British sf

Tim Earnshaw, a British sf writer, wrote to me a couple weeks ago and basically ordered me to buy some of his stuff from Amazon UK and read it and tell people about it. I finished Godbox last night, and boy, it was a way spiffy book. Like Ben Elton meeting James Morrow meeting Elmore Leonard. Godbox is about a sleazy Hollywood wannabe who discovers a shoebox full of God, which magically transforms those who look into it into Good People, so he takes it upon himself to represent the box, as the God's agent. The book is hilarious. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:50:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I am a compulsive neat-freak.

I am a compulsive neat-freak. I can't abide crumbs on the counter, books off the shelf, laundry on the floor. I'm convinced that one out-of-place item is the top of a slippery slope that leads to filth and misery. Consequenty, Squalor Survivors gives me the fantods. It's an online support group for people who've allowed their lives and homes to descend into animal putrescence.

First degree
You are getting behind in tasks that you would normally manage, like laundry and dishes. You are not the tidy person you once were. Little piles are starting to emerge and your disorganization is starting to affect your life and inconvenience you. Things are just starting to get out of hand and become unmanageable. A sign of first degree squalor might be that you are embarrassed for other people to see your mess...but you would still let them in the house.

Second degree
Now things are really starting to get out of hand. Signs that you have reached second degree would include losing the use of normal household items like your bed, table, television or telephone, because the piles have expanded to cover the items up. You start to develop new methods of moving around your house, as normal movement is impeded by your piles of stuff. You might start making excuses to discourage people from entering your house.

Third Degree
At this stage, you have all the above, plus you have rotting food and animal faeces and/or urine in the house, and this is the rule not the exception.You cannot cope with the growing mess. Essential household repairs may not be done, because you are too afraid to let a tradesperson see your house. Just the thought of someone seeing your mess causes you great stress.

Fourth degree
At fourth degree squalor, you have all of the above, plus you have human faeces in your house that is not in the toilet.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:29:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Emulator heaven! Erik writes "Dude's

Emulator heaven! Erik writes "Dude's running OS X.I, I mean, 10.1, on a 466 iBook. He's got the Xfree86 rootless port, so's he's got the dock on the left, and the IceWM taskbar on the bottom. He's using X to run an Mac Emulator, running System 7.6. Meanwhile, OS X is running Virtual PC, and *that's* running Windows XP. (OSX running X running System 7. That's not right. That's not even wrong.)" Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:30:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

From Squalor Survivors: A before

From Squalor Survivors: A before and after photojournal of a house that was rendered basically unlivable by out-of-control messiness. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:21:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hometown Favorites is a retailer

Hometown Favorites is a retailer of vintage "comfort" snack brands, like Candy Buttons, Franco American Au Jus Gravy, Krusteaz Scone Mix, Pappy's Sassafras Concentrate, King Vitamin Cereal, Chef Boyardee Spaghetti Dinner Kit and Ah-So Chinese Rib Sauce. Link Discuss (via Bento)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:03:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

This site contains photos

This site contains photos of the worst commercially available Hallowe'en smock-and-mask costumes from my boyhood days: Baretta, Chuck Barris, Chiachi, Flipper, Rubik's Cube, Tattoo, Atari Asteroids, and, of course, Mr. Kotter. Link Discuss (via Memepool)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:33:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A hacker hobbyist reverse-engineered the

A hacker hobbyist reverse-engineered the software that ran his Sony AIBO, a robotic dog that costs more than a laptop. Then he generated a bunch of cool AIBO warez, like "Disco AIBO," and posted them to the his site, so that other AIBO enthusiasts can have great AIBO experiences. Instead of featuring the AIBO warez on the official site and sending the coder a letter of thanks, Sony sent him a nastygram, threatening legal action under the DMCA -- because he had to reverse-engineer the AIBO software before he could write his own, and because he made the original software (which can only run on an AIBO in the first place) available on his site, in case you wrecked your pet with his software and wanted to restore it. He shut his site down. Link Discuss (via Slashdot)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:15:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, October 27, 2001

It's time to welcome our

It's time to welcome our next Guestbar blogger, Stefan Jones. Over the next week or so, Stefan will take over the miniblog in the bar on the right. A million thanks to Pat York for her excellent stint as the inaugural Guestbar editor! Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:02:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"National Novel Writing Month is

"National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 200-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:25:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Paul Di Filippo reviews my

Paul Di Filippo reviews my pal Peter Watts's new novel, Maelstrom on Sci-Fi.com. Maelstrom is the sequel to Starfish, a gutsy heller of a book. Can't wait to get a copy of Maelstrom!

Like the endlessly mutating and recombinant digital/wetware entities that live in Peter Watts' online Maelstrom, his fiction itself exhibits a wonderful Darwinian adaptability. Internalizing the lessons and modes taught by cyberpunk and fusing them with the Bear/Benford pedigree of hard SF, Watts has bred a robust, streamlined, snarling kind of science fiction which achieves both a sharp-edged verisimilitude and visionary exuberance. From such innovative, catchy neologisms as "head cheese" (the term for gel-based AIs) to the scrupulous research on a dozen fronts which Watts, a marine biologist himself, catalogs in an appendix, these two novels are state-of-the art SF. And best of all, Maelstrom does not merely repeat the successes of Starfish but extends them into new territory, thus giving hope that Watts is no mere one-hit wonder.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:04:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Great first-person account of a

Great first-person account of a tour of The Raven's Grin Inn, a spook-house in Illinois. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:39:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The author of an Abbie

The author of an Abbie Hoffman bio recounts the day that the Yippies took over Disneyland in 1967 (it's way down on the page -- search on the page for "Disney").

The people who had gotten off these first two rafts--that's about what it was, it was two raftloads of people--decided to march down Main Street in Disneyland, singing various odes to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll, and marched on down to the city hall of Main Street, Disneyland where they have the American flag on a flagpost. And there was an empty flagpost. Someone pulled out a so-called Yippie flag, red and black with a green marijuana leaf, and started to raise it on the flagpole, OK? And some Orange County redneck came storming up to them and said how dare you raise that flag next to the American flag. And someone else went to the other flagpole as this guy was trying to rip down the Yippie flag, and said "If you rip down our flag we'll rip down your flag."

Link Discuss (Thanks, Steve!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:35:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xmas Gift for the nerd

Xmas Gift for the nerd who's got it all: Translucent, iMac-style TiVo replacement remotes. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:20:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, October 26, 2001

Well, this is probably a

Well, this is probably a hoax, but it's a damned cool one. This page purports to be a leaked document from Apple's staging server announcing their next Big Thing, the "G5 Sphere," a round computer with no wires at all. Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:11:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Foreigners in the US on

Foreigners in the US on work-visas (ahem) will soon have to provide authorities with biometric data (retina prints, hand geometry, etc) and can be imprisoned, well, forever, without cause or trial, thanks to the USA Act. Colour me nervous.

Section 412 of the final version of the anti-terrorism legislation, the Uniting and Strengthening America By Providing Appropriate Tools Required To Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (H.R. 3162, the "USA PATRIOT Act") permits indefinite detention of immigrants and other non-citizens. There is no requirement that those who are detained indefinitely be removable because they are terrorists.

Link Discuss (Thanks Sonia!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:05:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I've been enjoying the hell

I've been enjoying the hell out of a CD I picked up in Toronto a couple weeks back, Girls in the Garage Vol 9: Oriental Special. It's a compilation of 60s Chinese girl cover bands whose rare novelty tracks were discovered in Singapore flea markets and remastered for CD. My favorite is a singer who called herself "Nancy Sit" and covered Nancy Sinatra songs in Cantonese. Although there's no beatin' Rita Chao singing a "Yummy Yummy Yummy" in Chinese. It's the original Cantopop! Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:53:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rumors that Google is going

Rumors that Google is going to start charging subscriptions fees for specialized versions of its search-tool are spreading. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:42:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hello, Police State! "A Sacramento

Hello, Police State! "A Sacramento journalist is taken into custody by police and forced to destroy photos by an over-zealous National Guardsman." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:54:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hello, Police State!Stewart Baker, an

Hello, Police State!

Stewart Baker, an attorney at the Washington D.C.-based Steptoe & Johnson and a former general consul to National Security Agency, said the FBI has plans to change the architecture of the Internet and route traffic through central servers that it would be able to monitor e-mail more easily.

Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:41:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anyone ever see this flick,

Anyone ever see this flick, The Giant Gila Monster? It stars a guy who plays the banjo-ukulele, so you know it has to be great. Listen to him play an ultra religious song to his sister! Be sure to read the accompanying article about the movie too. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:06:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Does baseball strike you as

Does baseball strike you as meaningless in the stark reality of the Current Situation? Can't bring yourself to collect baseball cards any longer? Topps has a new way to while away the hours and demonstrate your patriotism: 9.11 trading cards, with pix and stats for Dubya, ObL, and flags, flags, flags. Link Discuss (Thanks, Brian!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:11:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Despair.com -- the Demovitvator people

Despair.com -- the Demovitvator people -- have secured a trademark on the frownie :-( in a bit of play with the USPTO, and are now issuing funny press releases in which they threaten to sue anyone who uses 'em in their email or on the Web. Link Discuss (Thanks, Dave!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:14:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Since 9.11, governmental websites have

Since 9.11, governmental websites have been pulling sensitive information offline. Now, Google is combing its cache, purging copies of the info in question. Link Discuss (Thanks,Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:02:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The mother of a dead

The mother of a dead university student got fed up with the brick-thick bureaucracy of the loan office, who wouldn't beleive that her son was dead. So she sent them his ashes. Which they mistook for anthrax. Link Discuss (via Ribbit)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:55:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Afraid of getting stuck in

Afraid of getting stuck in a high-rise disaster? The world's entrepreneurs are on the job. You got yer parachutes, you got your escape tubes, and you got your levitating hover platforms.

The plans, drawn up by David Metreveli, chief designer at DM AeroSafe Group based in Ashdod, Israel, have been developed into a working prototype called the Eagle vertical takeoff and landing aerial rescue platform.

Four ducted fans arranged on the corners elevate the Eagle alongside a building and can operate for five hours without refueling.

Link Discuss (via Particular Damaged)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:45:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Can't afford to buy out

Can't afford to buy out an NYC heiress's digs? How about a 2100sqft loft in Union Square?

$6800/month...Must be pre-qualified (earn 40x rent or have co-signer who generate 80x rent)

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:39:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Location3. The heiress to the

Location³. The heiress to the Band-Aid fortune's modest, $62.3 million digs, spanning three storeys of the Trump Tower, is a real-estate dog. She and her hairdresser boyfriend have had it on the market for yonks, but it just won't sell. So she's subdividing.

"The space is going to be rebuilt for spring 2002," explains a broker. "And we have a variety of layouts [a maximum of six] subject to what somebody might want." The largest potential layout - which comprises the entire 51st floor - is available for $41 million and would have 17 rooms with 7 bedrooms and 10-and-a-half bathrooms.

Man, these notcom billionaires and their irresponsible spending! No wonder the economy is vanishing down the terlet. Link Discuss (via Particular Damaged)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:36:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Blather's all-purpose, recyclable coverage of

Blather's all-purpose, recyclable coverage of new product releases from Apple:

Apple has introduced a new {insert product here}. Analysts hailed its impeccable design, but wondered whether its feature set justified its relatively high price. "I just don't know whether a new product can get traction in the {insert market segment} at a price of {insert price}," said {insert analyst} of {insert firm}. "Still, the {insert holiday} season is coming and Apple users are famously loyal. This could end up being the Palm of the {insert market segment} or it could end up being the Newton. We'll just have to wait and see."

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:29:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Remember when the RIAA tried

Remember when the RIAA tried to get all criminal and civil liability for hacking your computer to protect copyright suspended under the new anti-terrorism laws? Well, now they're strong-arming Billboard over its coverage of the story, insisting that they were misrepresented and demanding an apology.

In their letter to Billboard, they say "RIAA never lobbied Congress to give us the ability to hack into PCs, plant viruses, destroy MP3 files on people’s computers, or anything resembling such actions... The true story here is that the Senate drafted its anti-terrorism bill privately. When it was made public on October 5th it was discovered that one of the provisions would have had an unintended effect on anti-piracy measures that are lawful under current law," and "We were asked to propose language to avoid the unintended effects on our industry. We did so – based on suggestions from the Department of Justice and Senate staff."

So, 'splain me Lucy, if all you were doing was ensuring that your legal countermeasures weren't inadvertently criminalized, and you don't intend to ever plant virii or delete files from a distance, then why did you feel the need to insert language that immunized you from criminal and civil penalties in the event that you stuck a virus on my drive or deleted my files? Huh?

Methinks the lawyer doth protest too much. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:17:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kenneth Branagh -- just cast

Kenneth Branagh -- just cast in the Harry Potter sequel -- reads C.S. Lewis's The Magician's Nephew in streaming MP3 on Salon. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:31:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, October 25, 2001

Speaking in Spamlish: Hello. I

Speaking in Spamlish:

Hello. I only send this simple mail, for show this very very good auction site. The site is www.123vende.com, and is free international auction site with multiple language support !! Is really wonderfull. Only check. Belvime i no send this mail for make spam, but is really wonderfull site, and is free ! Another sites have very expensives fees, with 123vende.com you can sell buy and never pay nothing ! Please check the site, and tellem what you think Best Regards, Latoya Merino

Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:18:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"The American Logo Museum" is

"The American Logo Museum" is a gallery of news graphics about the war on evil-doers. They way they are all collected here is stunning. Each page is grouped by category: "America Fights Back," "America Responds to Terror," etc. You start to get the feeling that there's this guy named America, and he's going through some heavy shit right now. Link Discuss (Thanks, Paul!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:55:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

See BoingBoing circa 1998, courtesy

See BoingBoing circa 1998, courtesy of the Internet Wayback machine. We had an eToys banner? Wow! Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:50:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A Scottish surgeon is growing

A Scottish surgeon is growing a patient a new nose, made of skull and rib, in her arm. Nose bone's connected to the wrist bone... Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:42:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A TV psychic will attempt

A TV psychic will attempt to contact the victims of 9.11 during sweeps week. Link Discuss (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:42:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Despair.com, your one-stop shop for

Despair.com, your one-stop shop for demotivational goods.

DEMOTIVATION: "Sometimes the best solution to morale problems is just to fire all of the unhappy people."

Link Discuss (Thanks, Trish!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:34:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Check out this amazing WWII

Check out this amazing WWII Disney propaganda toon, "Education for Death." It's a 10-minute short, executed in high Disney Studios style, in which the indoctrination of the children of the Third Reich is exposed in order to inspire nauseous dread of the enemy's zombie soldiers. Link Discuss (Thanks, Marc!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:24:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Neckties with patterns based on

Neckties with patterns based on disease microbe photographs for sale! (Anthrax tie shown here.) Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:11:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Grinch Project: a French

The Grinch Project: a French developer is working on a Playstation 2 emulator for the Mac, hoping to get a license from Sony. The emulator would require a hardware dongle, so presumably Sony'll be a little happier with this than with other PS2 emulator projects. Link Discuss (Thanks, George!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:50:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, October 24, 2001

This is a great

This is a great "photoblog" of pix taken with a tiny, cheapo digital camera. Makes me wish I'd kept up my eyemodule journal! Great UI. Link Discuss (Thanks, Dave!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:02:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A forgetful guy inadvertently brings

A forgetful guy inadvertently brings a loaded pistol onto an Southwest airplane out of New Orleans, realizes his mistake, smacks his forehead and turns the gun over to the stew. Tell me again about the efficiency of privatized airport security? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:34:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The MacArthur Foundation has handed

The MacArthur Foundation has handed out this year's $500,000 Genius Grants. Once again, they passed me over. What do I have to do, tapdance?

They include a Harvard physicist who can stop light, a Las Vegas art critic focusing on Western culture and a real estate entrepreneur who restores historical buildings for homeless adults.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:27:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

This weblog has been running

This weblog has been running reports of daily life in Saudi Arabia seen through the eyes of a Canadian couple. It's a must-read!

In the past weeks I have sensed a much higher level of animosity towards foreigners from the local population. Little things that are still quite unsettling. Glares in the street, being given "the finger" from passingcars...and this was before the air strikes. Sue and I stay more or less glued to the media and in constant touch with the Canadian consulate. Not sure how any evacuation would proceed but if the airport is not an option,we are equipped to follow our GPS and take our chances in the desert along with a few other 4WD equipped expats. Praying it will never come to that but, at the same time, having to be ready for any eventuality.

Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:10:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I don't know if this

I don't know if this is apocryphal or not, but I like it:

Former heavyweight boxing champ Muhammad Ali visited the ruins of the World Trade Center on Thursday. When reporters asked how he felt about the suspects sharing his Islamic faith, Ali responded pleasantly, "How do you feel about Hitler sharing yours?"

Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:37:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory mentioned this Disney cartoon

Cory mentioned this Disney cartoon about a kid who uses the "Free Jackster" network to steal files. I'm shocked that freejackster.com is still available! How many more hours will it last? Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:03:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pass the salt, I need

Pass the salt, I need to take a grain. Apparently, Saddam Hussein has answered a Yanqui engineer's email pleading for pax after 9.11 with a rambling personal note.

I may give you an explanation to what happened to the two towers, and made America mourn, and inflicted pain and sorrow on others, because such an event has been inflicted on other people in the past, including Arabs and Muslims, in many cases.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:31:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The next Fort York Auction

The next Fort York Auction is coming up again in Toronto. God, I miss Toronto. Look at this awesome crap! Mark Jaffe, the Fort York auctioneer, is a gifted motormouth who runs his tongue 95mph with wit and wild abandon. The prices at these auctions are incredible, too. Oh, Toronto!

nice clean arts and crafts desk ... banana yellow formica kitchen set ... vintage store fixtures from long established Kingston Rd. smoke shop incl. art deco Nielsen candy display, very large display cabinets ... early vaudeville promo photo, guy in drag

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:16:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

It's an excellent time to

It's an excellent time to revisit cartoonist Basil Wolverton's 1950s drawings of the end of the world. (For some of Wolverton's happier drawings, go here.) Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:34:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I'm not much of a

I'm not much of a sports fan, but I would be sure to catch an Afghan "goat grabbing" competition if ESPN broadcast it. The imbeciles at Peta would love it. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:11:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The USPS is irradiating the

The USPS is irradiating the mail.

Gamma rays are used to irradiate food and sterilise medical equipment. They are known to damage DNA in anthrax spores, says Williams. But he thinks electron beam technology would work faster. "Anything that's done with gamma rays you can do with electron beam, but in a fraction of the time," he says.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:45:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Gaydar" -- a pocket-sized lovegetty-style

"Gaydar" -- a pocket-sized lovegetty-style wireless device that lets gay people recognize each other via signals in the aether. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:42:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

We may be down later

We may be down later this afternoon for a couple hours. Gotta move the server about 10'. Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:36:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Good column, as usual, by

Good column, as usual, by the San Jose Mercury News' Dan Gillmor about Microsoft's sleazy alliance with the even sleazier entertainment industry.

Hollywood and the record companies would like the Internet to be a ``read-only'' medium, where the only interactivity consists of you and me clicking on a button that says ``Buy this.'' The multi-directional Web is a threat to that online-TV vision. (In the irony-free zone of entertainment companies, it may escape notice that the First Amendment, which could easily take a hit in this new fear-ridden era, protects the industry's very existence.)

Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:26:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I just heard from my

I just heard from my old pal Jonny -- turns out he was staying with friends in NYC on 9.11, and it took him six days to get out of the City. He tried to rent a car, but discovered that the local car-rental agencies -- Hertz and Avis -- were gouging, charging $350/day despite advertised rates of $65/day. A little profiteering never hurt anyone, huh? Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:12:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Woohoo! Microsoft Office for OSX

Woohoo! Microsoft Office for OSX will ship on Nov 19. Not only will this amazing office suite provide solid interoperability for MacOS X users, but it also includes Entourage.X, the hands-down greatest mailer in the history of the universe. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:43:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Totally Kid Carousel in

The Totally Kid Carousel in uptown Manhattan looks incredible. To keep to a budget, the designer eschewed elaborate carved animals, electing, instead, to have local schoolchildren draw bulbous, simplified animals, which he then contructed ridable versions of out of foam and fiberglass. Link Discuss (Thanks, Suzanne!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:37:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excerpts from Harry Potter and

Excerpts from Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, in streaming audio on Salon today; the first in a series of downloadable readings. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:54:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Another lede I hope to

Another lede I hope to be able to write some day:

A Zambian man divorced his wife after he found a frog in a cup of tea she gave him

Link Discuss (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:03:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I pray that some day

I pray that some day I will be able to write a lede for a story like this:

Tonga lost millions of dollars in a trust fund scandal run by the kingdom's court jester by gambling on the early deaths of 16 Americans, according to revelations by a magazine and a securities watchdog.

Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:03:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Identify the source of these

Identify the source of these quotes: the Bible, the Koran, or Mein Kampf?

We will drive the guilty to hell thirsty.

He that believeth not shall be damned.

As for these towns, we destroyed them when they acted unjustly, and we have appointed a time for their destruction.

Almighty God, bless our arms when the time comes; be just as thou hast always been; judge now whether we be deserving of freedom; Lord, bless our battle.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:56:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Someone has implemented Zork in

Someone has implemented Zork in Java(script?) and turned it into their 404 page. Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:19:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bill Gates does a Frasier

Bill Gates does a Frasier guest-spot in an episode due to air during sweeps week. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:18:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More news about the upcoming

More news about the upcoming Dracula theme park opening in Romania.

"He was renowned for stopping highway robbery and murder," Tescula said. "There are accounts of a fountain in the middle of nowhere with a gold cup that no one dared to steal. For Westerners, he's a man of darkness. But for Romanians, he's a model of justice like Washington or Jefferson."

Luminita Untanu runs the Casa Vlad Dracul restaurant in the yellow-stuccoed house where Vlad was born in 1431. She's counting on Dracula Park to ease some of her fellow Transylvanians' many hardships.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:20:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

And here's the official

And here's the official word on iPod, straight from Apple. It's not a PDA, but it's a really swell MP3 player, superior to all others in many respects:

• Form-factor: this is just a really pretty piece of gear
• Battery life: My Creative Labs jukebox gets 2h or so, the iPod gets 10h
• Two-way file-transfer: Virtually every other MP3 player has had its design bowlderized by the music industry, made incapable of moving files off its drive to stop people from sharing their collections; with the iPod, Apple has shipped a device that works as a drive, a swapper, and a player
• iTunes: This is the best-designed app of any description that I've ever used, and it's the native control-app for the iPod
• Firewire: Way, way faster than USB and the iPod can draw its power from the Firewire bus and recharge itself while it's getting loaded up with music
• UI: The UI for this thing is a billion times better than the Sony and Creative Labs players, which are so badly designed as to be essentially unusable

I've already ordered mine. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:01:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Well, here's the actual specs

Well, here's the actual specs on the new Apple device, called the iPod. No Airport, but otherwise killer-diller.

Apple's special event began slightly after its 10:00 am anticipated start time with Steve Jobs recapping Apple's digital hub vision. Jobs then introduced the iPod, a digital audio player with a 5GB drive, 20-minute skip protection, a FireWire port, and an advanced Lithium-polymer battery with up to 10 hours (and fully charges in just over an hour). The portable device is the about the "size of a deck of cards," with a backlit LCD display, and offers support for playlists, ID3 tags, and iTunes. The portable device fits in the palm of your hand (about the size of a credit card and less than an inch high), has a backlit LCD display, and offers support for playlists, ID3 tags, and iTunes.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:03:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sony is shipping a Linux

Sony is shipping a Linux kit for the Playstation 2. The kit lets you turn your settop console into a Linux-based server and workstation. Of course, hackers have been running Linux on the PS2 for ages, but here's an example of a company that is capitalizing on the efforts of its hackerish userbase. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:57:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A good Business 2.0 story

A good Business 2.0 story neatly demystifies JXTA, Sun's P2P initiative. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:49:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The UK's new anti-terror laws

The UK's new anti-terror laws require ISPs to maintain records of every Website visited and newsgroup read by their subscribers for 12 months. The storage costs will likely bankrupt many ISPs. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:37:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Here's a sneak peek at

Here's a sneak peek at the Apple iWalk, the PDA to be released this morning at 10AM. Rumor has it that it's a PDA about the size of a pack of cigarettes, with 802.11 networking, a modem, a stripped down version of OSX, primarily built to play MP3s off of hard-drive or network storage, but with regular PDA features, and dictaphone functionality. 9h of battery life, too! Let's hope the real deal is as cool as the rumors! Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:25:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, October 22, 2001

Cross-stitch a dung-beetle! Link Discuss

Cross-stitch a dung-beetle! Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:20:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kevin Mitnick, haxor-turned-actor, is playing

Kevin Mitnick, haxor-turned-actor, is playing a CIA stooge in his first role. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:11:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Proud Family, a Disney

The Proud Family, a Disney cartoon, recently aired an episode where the characters learn that participating in file-trading Is Wrong.

All weekend she was sitting at the computer, downloading music from EZ Jackster. Finally, Dijonay comes over and asks what she was doing over the weekend. Penny asks Dijonay if she can keep a secret, knowing that she can't. Penny tells Dijonay to tell everyone she knows about EZ Jackster. Her telling everybody about EZ Jackster has a ripple-effect all around the world. From India to Africa to Suga Mama! But rap singer, Sir Paid-A-Lot is threatened by this because he got a five-cents salary instead of his million-dollar salary. But suddenly, after wrestling, the news interrupted the nex

Disney is one of the biggest supporters of the SSSCA. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:28:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Remember the letter full of

Remember the letter full of anthrax that was sent to Microsoft's Reno office?

Further testing by the CDC determined no anthrax was present, Bortolin said. He declined to say what the letter actually contained

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:00:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Residents of Anthrax Street, in

Residents of Anthrax Street, in Fayetteville, NC, want to change the streetname. The question is, who came up with that name in the first place? Link Discuss (Thanks, Dennis!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:19:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Library of Congress has

The Library of Congress has terabytes of data that it wants to preserve. Up until now, the LoC has relied on converting its files to a modern format every couple of years, so that they don't have to rely on obsolete computers to read in the data. The problem is that conversion isn't exactly preservation, since each conversion changes the file somewhat.

So the LoC has a new strategy: It is commissioning the creation of emulators that will allow modern computers to simulate their antique cousins, and so run the original software and read the original files.

Here's where my uninformed, hysterical speculation begins: The SSSCA -- the new antipiracy bill -- seeks to stop digital piracy through hardware certification. Hardware vendors and copyright holders will create standards for computers and components that will prevent the unlicensed copying of files, and it will be illegal to sell uncertified equipment. One of the first things on the certification chopping-block is surely emulation, since emulating a "secure" computer inside a general-purpose computer is a sure-fire way to circumvent its copy-protection. What will happen with the LoC and the SSSCA meet in the middle? How will the LoC preserve our digital human culture henceforth without emulation? Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:38:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Northwest Airlines has stopped carrying

Northwest Airlines has stopped carrying sweeteners and powdered creamer on its flights so that passengers won't mistake 'em for anthrax and freak out.

Passengers won't be prohibited from bringing their own sweeteners or powdered creamers aboard, although Ebenhoch said the airline would prefer that they not do so.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:33:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

When spam blacklists are outlawed,

When spam blacklists are outlawed, only outlaws will have blah blah blah. Now that MAPS, an anti-spam blacklist, has been effectively shut down in an out-of-court settlment with one of their blacklistees, a new generation of blacklisters have cropped up. The new generation is fast, somewhat indiscriminate, offshore, and far more dogmatic than MAPS about what constitututes a blacklistable offence and which obeisances demonstrate sufficient contrition. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:20:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A British DoCoMo subsidiary has

A British DoCoMo subsidiary has just appointed a Head of Adult Services to make sure that Britons can get all the cellular porn they can eat. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:11:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The British Labour Whip comes

The British Labour Whip comes across as a lying, weaselling jackass in this transcript of a secretly recorded conversation with a Labour MP who has taken such infuriating positions as waiting for UN approval before staging military interventions in Afghanistan.

PM: That is outrageous. You won't even give us a free vote on whether we go to war - it is an issue which should be a matter of conscience.

HA: War is not a matter of conscience. Abortion and embryo research are matters of conscience, but not wars.

PM: Are you seriously saying blowing people up and killing people is not a moral issue?

HA: It is government policy that we are at war. You astound me. We can't have a trusting relationship if you keep talking to the media without permission.

Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:32:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Shrouded in mystery, the nominators

Shrouded in mystery, the nominators of the MacArthur Fellows program glide silently through the creative world, looking for geniuses to give $500,000 to, no strings attached.

Recipients are chosen for their potential to make exceptionally creative contributions to their respective fields. We believe that highly motivated and talented people are in the best position to decide how to allocate their time and resources. By adopting a “no strings attached” policy, we provide the maximum freedom and flexibility for the recipients to use the fellowship in ways that most effectively facilitate their future work.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:58:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, October 21, 2001

Twin women fabricate ~4,400 tiny

Twin women fabricate ~4,400 tiny ceramic cats in civil-war uniforms and recreate the battle of Gettysburg in tiny, obsessive feline detail. Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:04:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Crackpot theory that the Bert

Crackpot theory that the Bert and Osama poster was a deliberate, coded message signalling the beginning of biowar. Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:25:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Feds have run out

The Feds have run out of patience with four held 9.11 suspects, who they have been unable to bribe or cajole information out of. Now they're thinking about more extreme means. They've ruled out torture, but they're still thinking about truth drugs and, possibly, extradition to a country where beheading is still practiced. Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:18:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, October 20, 2001

Clash of the titans' lawyers.

Clash of the titans' lawyers. First, Adobe nastygrammed Macromedia, claiming that Adobe owned a patent on tabbed palettes. Now, Macromedia is filing suit on Adobe, claiming that Photoshop violates a bunch of their patents. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:05:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Just got the Cabela's Christmas

Just got the Cabela's Christmas Hunting Catalog in the mail. I have no idea how I ended up on their mailing list, but I am, as always, thrilled and delighted to flip through their literature. In this issue: camoflage sofas (!); person-siized, fish-shaped, silkscreened pillows; and "jackalopes" -- stuffed and mounted bunny-heads with antlers stuck on 'em. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:26:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New jargon, via the WELL:

New jargon, via the WELL: "Thraxed" -- Dosed with postal anthrax, i.e., "Didja hear? Sam Donaldson's office got thraxed yesterday!"Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:32:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pavement gear: Photo gallery of

Pavement gear: Photo gallery of clothing found on the side of the road. Where does all that clothing come from? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:03:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

From Filepile: It's crude,

From Filepile: It's crude, but funny, and better than I expect from the Post. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:01:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A 1991 Atlantic article details

A 1991 Atlantic article details the history of biological warfare.

All the soldiers who ate of the honeycombs lost their senses, and were seized with vomiting and purging, none of them being able to stand on their legs. Those who ate but a little were like men very drunk, and those who ate much, like madmen, and some like dying persons. In this condition great numbers lay on the ground, as if there had been a defeat, and the sorrow was general. The next day, none of them died, but recovered their senses about the same hour they were seized; and the third and fourth day, they got up as if they had taken a strong potion.

Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:46:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stop Policeware! Your one-stop shop

Stop Policeware! Your one-stop shop for info and resources in the battle against the SSSCA, the act that would make Von Neumann machines illegal in the service of defending copyrights. BTW, isn't "Policeware" a nice bit of new jargon? Link Discuss (Thanks, Cindy and Fred!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:19:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thomas is the Library of

Thomas is the Library of Congress's legaslative Website. Here, you will find the full text of every law and bill. Go ahead, search for the text of a law at Google, and it should return a link to Thomas.

But it doesn't.

Google doesn't search Thomas, neither does any other search engine. They stay away from Thomas because the Webmaster there has created a robots.txt file -- a file that every search engine's spider checks to see what parts of the Website it should visit -- that reads like this:

     User-agent: *
     Disallow: /

Here's the human translation: All search engines, get lost.

There's no earthly reason to exclude search engines from Thomas's guts. Thomas's pages have static URLs that can be easily indexed, and Thomas's maintainers keep search-engine friendly directories of laws. US Law is free from copyright, so they can' t be worried about copies being made. Thomas isn't supported by banner-ads, so sending visitors directly to the appropriate page isn't a problem -- if anything, it cuts down on bandwidth costs.

I may be paranoid, but it seems to me that there's only one reason to keep search engines away from Thomas: To keep people away from Thomas.

Here's a project that was created for the purpose of democratizing the law, putting it in the public eye. But instead of shouting Thomas's presence from the hills, its Webmaster has ensured that Thomas will be consigned to the most obscure corner of the Internet, known only to civil-rights cranks and Beltway insider-nerds. What's your theory? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:04:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, October 19, 2001

Nice interview with Douglas Coupland

Nice interview with Douglas Coupland about his forthcoming novel.

When you're born, you're version 1.0. But every time you're given a new technology you're given a significant upgrade, so we learn to speak and go to 2.0, then you learn your irregular verbs and it's version 2.1 and so on.

"I'm 39 so I must be version 164.4.0.3. With every significant upgrade, some new aspect of your personality which you might never have known existed is manifested."

Link Discuss (via Camworld)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:25:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Way, way cool Indian

Way, way cool Indian educational chart artwork -- there's a whole book of this stuff coming! Link Discuss (via Scrubbles)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:46:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

This MSN Tech Support transcript

This MSN Tech Support transcript makes me want to ring up Joseph Heller (or dig him up if he's dead) and collaborate with him on a high-tech, CRM-based redux of Catch 22. Link Discuss (via CamWorld)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:37:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tor Senior Editor Patrick "Electrolite

Tor Senior Editor Patrick "Electrolite blog" Nielsen Hayden interviews John M. "The Last Hot Time" Ford in the WELL's public conferences. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:00:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Making the rounds in email,

Making the rounds in email, a gag warranty card for a McDonnell Douglas Fighter Plane.

6. Please check how you became aware of the 
McDonnell Douglas product you have just purchased:
        __Espionage
        __Heard loud noise, looked up
        __Store Display
        __Recommended by friend/relative/ally
        __Political lobbying by Manufacturer
        __Was attacked by one

Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:33:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Clay Shirky has published an

Clay Shirky has published an excellent article on what Web Services can and can't do, and whether the twain shall meet.

As an analogy, take English and Danish. They have almost identical alphabets but are nevertheless different languages. An alphabet is a limited set of characters that can represent an unlimited number of words through recombination. XML is an alphabet, not a language. It provides the primitives for describing larger concepts, and it works by allowing an unlimited number of semantic concepts to be encoded using those primitives. Any XML parser should be able to declare any given XML document structurally valid -- analogously to the way native speakers can tell if a word is or isn't part of their native tongue -- but that says nothing about whether the contents of that document will be comprehensible to the recipient.

At best, XML makes it possible for businesses or developer groups to share data, provided they agree on the semantics of that data in advance. This is not to say XML is not an enormous advance. It plainly is. However, its advance lies in aiding data interoperability where shared semantics can be assumed. It does nothing at all to create semantic interoperability.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Scott!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:07:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A request from Negativland: If

A request from Negativland:

If you've had your own weird and strange dreams in the wake of 9/11, please send them to Negativland. Real dreams only, please, don't make stuff up. The more detailed, the better. Assuming we get enough good ones, we'll post the best on our website. Send dreams to - mark@negativland.com. Our website is www.negativland.com.

Here's the full text of the request, including Mark from Negativland's dream: Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:46:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A year ago, when there

A year ago, when there was more money than deals, VCs went out of their way to court entrepreneurs. Now that the tables have turned, they're organizing humiliating game-show style events where those in search of money have five minutes to make their pitch before they're gonged off the stage. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:45:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An anonymous hacker has broken

An anonymous hacker has broken the encryption in Microsoft's latest music-file copy-protection scheme. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:46:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

When Neil Godfrey, a United

When Neil Godfrey, a United passenger out of Philly, went throught airport security, they searched his bag and found a novel about environmental revolutionaries, and detained him, but eventually allowed him on the flight. Later, a United Flight Attendant informed him that he'd been barred from flying. Yes, that was just about the stupidest, most outrageous thing I'd ever heard of, but then:

Godfrey scurried back to the airport, leaving the Abbey novel at home. He exchanged it for a seemingly benign novel, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

When Godfrey arrived at the airport around 1:15 p.m., his luggage was again searched. But as Godfrey passed through the metal detector, a police officer recognized him from the commotion just a few hours earlier. The cop pulled Godfrey aside and made a few phone calls. Ultimately, he declared that everything checked out fine. But a National Guardsman standing nearby vetoed that decision.

"This time, they took my Harry Potter book and about four people studied it for 20 minutes," Godfrey says.

Again, United refused to allow him to fly.

When I went through Soviet customs in 1984, they took a look at the cover of the novel I was carrying, Larry Niven's The Patchwork Girl and spent some time considering whether to allow me into the country with it, but eventually decided that it was just a novel, what the hell. Amazing to think that the National Guard is more censorious of popular literature than machinegun-toting Stalinist soldiers on the Finnish border were. Link Discuss (Thanks, fom!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:36:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, October 18, 2001

$500 gets you a

$500 gets you a 50lb cement bust of a famous movie creature from master monster-maker Tom Savini (obligatory Xmas gift plea here). I own a cement Tom Savini life-mask of Vincent Price -- it's incredible. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:36:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Remember when margarine's big pitch

Remember when margarine's big pitch was its indistinguishabillity from butter? Now, it's being sold on its own merits, packaged as brightly colored oleaginous goo in squeeze-tubes.

The ConAgra Foods Inc. unit said it plans to roll out in November ``Electric Blue'' and ``Shocking Pink'' margarines in easy-to-grip 10-ounce bottles designed to be kid-friendly.

Link Discuss (via Ribbit!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:50:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The world's knitters find themselves

The world's knitters find themselves looking for something to do with their idle hands during long flights now that their sharp and deadly instruments are banned on airplanes.

Still, she's mulled the potential danger of the dull-tipped tools. "You'd need something to pound it in with," she says. "And it would be a slow death."

Link Discuss (via girlwonder)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:26:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Paul Frees is best known

Paul Frees is best known as the voices of Boris Badinoff, and Ludwig von Drake, but he was also the Ghost Host from Disneyland and Walt Disney World's Haunted Mansion. Along with Vincent Price and Orson Welles, Frees had one of the most distinctive theatrical voices I've ever heard. Today on FilePile, you can download an MP3 of an eight-minute demo reel assembled by Frees's agent, in which Frees shills for Wang Computers, sci-fi movies, zoos, pest-repellents, Carnegie Hall and others. Link Discuss (Note: You must have or create a free FilePile account in order to download this file)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:04:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TiVo won an Emmy last

TiVo won an Emmy last night! Link Discuss (Thanks, jbrewer!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:40:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Here is the Yes Men's

Here is the Yes Men's commentary on their Textile Prank. Link Discuss (Thanks, Rod!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:32:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rod sez: "...[T]hese activist/pranksters called

Rod sez: "...[T]hese activist/pranksters called the "Yes Men" run a WTO parody site (www.gatt.org). The organizers of this textiles conference mistakenly sent an invitation to this spoof site, asking if a representative of the WTO would like to deliver a speech. One of the Yes Men accepted, and delivered his own subversive speech, in part commenting on how the economics of globalization are so much more efficient for businesses than the economics of pre-Civil War slavery. The speech was strongly received; the Master of Ceremonies praised it three times during the day. The Harper's site being so thin, I doubt they'll put it online, but here's the full text of the speech on the Yes Men's site." Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:26:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Watch the entire video of

Watch the entire video of William Shatner's infamous spoken word interpretation of "Rocket Man" at the 1978 Science Fiction Film Awards. I have to think that he did this with a wink--not as if ironic distance would have made it any less embarassing of course. Link Discuss

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:08:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Enquirer has a new

The Enquirer has a new edition out in which they find a silver lining in the darkest of clouds, giving themselves a "world exclusive" on their own bout with Anthrax.

"Bio-terrorism: The Florida anthrax attack on Enquirer headquarters." There is also a front-page disclaimer: "This paper not printed in the state of Florida."

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:28:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gag pacifiers. How is it

Gag pacifiers. How is it that no one ever thought of this before? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:43:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

You know Billy "That Goddamned

You know Billy "That Goddamned Singing Fish" Big Mouth "Please, Don't Set It Off Again" Bass? Well, you can make it slightly less annoying, and significantly more leet by installing a third-party, embedded Linux microcontroller and hackin' it up. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:12:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sony will incorporate TiVo into

Sony will incorporate TiVo into their consumer electronics for the next seven years. Yeah! Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:03:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A new British anti-bigotry law

A new British anti-bigotry law bans religious comedy. Mr. Bean freaks out as he imagines a future without humorous Bishop-with-a-speech-impediment impressions, but the PM's office reassures him. Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:33:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

British author Ken Follett spent

British author Ken Follett spent 2,200 pounds at auction for the right to appear as a character in Terry Pratchett's next novel. Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:29:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A prototype Oracle National ID

A prototype Oracle National ID card. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:19:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wired News warns of a

Wired News warns of a flood of tainted heroin as sneaky terrorists seek to demoralize the United States by poisoning its junkies. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:06:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

This is a very strange

This is a very strange way of reporting that a local councillor has been accused of two felonies. Kiwi humor, I guess. Link Discuss (Thanks, Grim!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:01:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A World Tribune editorial blasts

A World Tribune editorial blasts open WiFi networks, calling them "Communist." At least come up with some modern slurs, you jackass. "Communist" stopped being a dirty word a decade ago. This guy can't even distinguish between bandwidth and throughput.

In all seriousness, one such network engineer in urban San Francisco has said that he has gotten to know his neighbors much better now that they are siphoning off of his high-speed Internet. CNET News quoted one member of the Bay Area Wireless Users Group as saying that his neighbors are very happy with using his Internet access free of charge. "Occasionally, they bring me pies and things like that." Yeah, I’d have no problem giving up the occasional pastry to my next-door neighbor if it meant I could save $50 a month on my cable modem bill. This is no different than bringing a cupcake over to your neighbor’s house after you’ve hooked up your garden hose to his faucet so you could water your lawn everyday for the past month. Also, there are probably seventeen other neighbors and uncounted passers-by that have used this guy’s water for the past month free of charge without giving him anything.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Cindy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:37:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, October 17, 2001

Remember PROMIS? It was developed

Remember PROMIS? It was developed in the early 1990s to be used by federal prosecutors to manage cases, but the creators of the software claim that the federal goverment stole it from them and turned it into software to monitor spies and enemies. A journalist investigating the case died under mysterious circumstances. Here's a Wired story about it: Link. (Try searching Google for "PROMIS" and "Conspiracy" for more information).

Now the scandal-ridden PROMIS software has reared its head again. This time, it looks like former FBI agent-turned-spy Richard Hanssen was responsible for getting PROMIS into the hands of Osama bin Landen:

FOX SPECIAL REPORT WITH BRIT HUME eMediaMillWorks, Inc

Date: October 16, 2001

Time: 18:00 Tran: 101601cb.254 Type: Show Head: Political Headlines Sect: News; Domestic Byline: Brit Hume, Bret Baier, Carl Cameron, Brian Wilson, Jim Angle Spec: Terrorism; Military; Afghanistan; Diseases; Government; World Affairs BRIT HUME, FOX ANCHOR: Welcome to Washington. I'm Brit Hume. The Pentagon now says the Taliban has been, in effect, gutted as a fighting force, as the war over Afghanistan has clearly entered a new phase. The bombing over the last 24 hours has been up close and powerful, with lethal weapons not previously used, brought into play.

. . .

EXCERPT

. . . HUME: All right, Bret, thanks very much.

There's now a disturbing indication that Robert Hanssen, the FBI man accused of spying for the Russians in what officials said at the time of his arrest was a massive security breach, ended up helping Osama bin Laden.

As correspondent Carl Cameron reports, Hanssen sold the Russians an extremely sensitive piece of U.S. technology, and the indications are that they, in turn, sold it to bin Laden's Al Qaeda terrorist network -- Car.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

CARL CAMERON, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT

(voice-over): Fox News has learned that government officials suspect Osama bin Laden may have highly sophisticated U.S. government software, that has been used by several governments, including the United States, for classified intelligence and law enforcement information.

Bin Laden allegedly purchased it from Russian sources, after Russia got it from convicted spy and former FBI agent Robert Hanssen, who was nabbed earlier this year.

Hanssen lived in a quiet Virginia neighborhood outside Washington until his arrest. Sources say to avoid the death penalty, for what some have described as the worst U.S. intelligence breach in decades, he confessed to giving Russia vast amounts of information, including, sources say, a software program developed by the Inslaw company in Washington.

The software program is called Promis. Sources tell Fox that U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies have used and constantly modified Promis software to manage caseloads, track and store classified information, and keep it secure for decades.

But the concern is that bin Laden or Al Qaeda could get on-line and use it to monitor the worldwide criminal investigation and hide themselves, to monitor the worldwide financial investigation and hide their money, or monitor government operations of the governments that use the software.

As a senior agent in the FBI's counterterrorism bureau, sources say Hanssen was tasked with helping allies like Germany and England with the installation and use of their versions of the Promis program. Numerous countries now, however, are tightening their cyber security. Germany stopped using Promis software just last week. Great Britain began closing it down just a few months ago. Canada has actually investigated potential tampering with its Promis programs, and Israel has used it on and off for years, too.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CAMERON: And the United States has been constantly updating the encryption and coding of its software for a number of months. And after the Hanssen case, the FBI, the Justice Department and various different intelligence operations all say, Brit, that they took a wide array of steps in order to improve the security of the information.

It's interesting to note that shortly after the attacks, when the U.S. crackdown on bin Laden's finances began, bin Laden in Afghanistan granted an interview to a near eastern journalist, and he was talking about the efforts to freeze his money. And he said -- quote -- "Al Qaeda's youths are highly educated and are as aware of the cracks in the financial and the computer systems of the world as they are in the lines in their hands."

HUME: What does that mean?

CAMERON: Well, it means that bin Laden is believed to have access to his money, even with the international effort to freeze it. And as for U.S. intelligence information, all we can get from the U.S. government is that they are no longer using Promis software. But they won't not say exactly when they stopped it, though it's presumed, right after the Hanssen case.

HUME: Well, in order for al Qaeda or Osama bin Laden to do anything with this software, they have to have some sort of an Internet connection, and they have to be able to hack their way into U.S. government and other databases, in order to get contemporary data for the software to be of any value, correct?

CAMERON: So as soon as the U.S. government stopped using Promis, presumably, that made it virtually impenetrable by bin Laden. But the idea that he would be in a cave and not able to log on doesn't necessarily apply, because we know that there are al Qaeda operatives around the world who could log on.

HUME: All right, Carl. Thanks very much.

Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:15:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Apparently, President Bush has the

Apparently, President Bush has the power to issue letters of marque, which means he can issue licenses to private individuals that allow them to kill foreign enemies and take their loot. Of course, the leaders of foreign countries can issue the same letters against US citizens, too. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:40:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

All things considered, this is

All things considered, this is probably not the right time for Publisher's Clearing House to be sending powdered detergent throught the mail. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:39:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Shadowy rumors about a new

Shadowy rumors about a new Apple home-stereo device/Internet appliance shipping next week. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:00:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Spiders is an online

The Spiders is an online comic about the current war in Afghanistan with a science fiction twist. Part one is up now, parts two and three are forthcoming. Pay close attention to the last two panels. I missed it the first time around. Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:49:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"A leading bioterror expert said

"A leading bioterror expert said on Tuesday people who feel panicky about opening their mail amid the anthrax scare can use a hot steam iron and a moist layer of fabric to kill germs." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:33:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sock Monkey is a ShockWave

Sock Monkey is a ShockWave cartoon that plays like Winnie the Pooh filtered through Edward Gorey. Based on the spectacular Maakies strip. Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:21:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A great rant from Release

A great rant from Release 1.0 editor Kevin Werbach on "Postmodern Knowledge Management."

Enter postmodern knowledge management. Postmodernism holds that our concept of reality is always warped by the lenses of individual subjectivity and group power dynamics. Therefore, postmodern KM can't be about management at all, because management implies external control of some definable resource. Its goal is simpler yet deeper: leveraging people. Postmodern KM operates within and on the basis of existing behavior patterns, mining conversation streams and relationships automatically to incorporate structure and context into the information human users already manipulate. It fosters human intelligence and interaction rather than trying to replace them.

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:15:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How America's kids switched from

How America's kids switched from milk and water to soda, and what it means.

The United States already spends about $14 billion to treat osteoporosis--a cost that is likely to soar if the Pepsi generation and its children continue to consume ever-increasing amounts of soft drinks. But osteoporosis isn't the only illness with a link to a poor diet and nutrition. The empty calories in soft drinks contribute to obesity in children, and obesity rates among children ages 6 to 19 have doubled in the last 20 years. Obesity often signals cardiovascular disease and diabetes down the road. During the last 30 years, the marketing machines of the soft drink industry have pumped billions into flashy advertising campaigns to get kids to drink their beverages instead of such alternatives as water, fruit juice and, of course, milk. The industry has reached deep into the schools, targeting financially strapped districts with "pouring rights" contracts--exclusive deals to serve and promote one company's brand. In return, schools get money for band uniforms, books, scoreboards and other items that they may have trouble covering out of their normal budgets.

Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:36:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The handwriting of an

The handwriting of an anthrax terrorist. Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:31:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Unnovations Catalog is a

The Unnovations Catalog is a catalog of mythical, futuristic and worthless artefacts, capturing exactly the sort of technology that we can expect to see today's Roncomeisters and spam-artists pumping out tomorrow. Liink Discuss (via MemePool)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:20:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The traditional, copyrighted London Tube

The traditional, copyrighted London Tube map is a wonder of information design, one that shows the relationship of the lines clearly and concisely. But it's a conceptual map, more about navigating the Tube than about understanding the geographical relationship between the stations. This new Tube map from QuickMap explores both the geographical and the systemic relationship of the tube, with equal concision. Link Discuss (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:14:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Funny and thought-provoking Salon story

Funny and thought-provoking Salon story on Current Situation-related spam and merchandising.

But does that mean that wartime entrepreneurs are all snake oil salesmen, or that they should be tried for treason -- an idea favored by Tom Geller, executive director of the anti-spam SpamCon Foundation? Or are they actually a vital part of the post-Sept. 11 mosaic, a clue to understanding our collective psyche? Every popup ad pushing American flags or e-mail spam offering an anthrax antidote is another piece of the picture. One could even argue that the rush to capitalize on terror's aftermath and the corresponding rush by consumers to purchase goods are quintessentially American: This is how we grieve, how we connect amid catastrophe.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:05:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A new edition of Two-Fisted

A new edition of Two-Fisted Science, a graphic novel that explores and dramatizes the history of science, has shipped. This is one of my favorite funnybooks, and along with Dignifying Science, a companion volume focusing on the great women of science, it's one of the great and inspiring volumes on science. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:30:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mozilla is nearing 1.0, and

Mozilla is nearing 1.0, and the head of the project has released a manifesto that explains what he's looking for before he slaps the 1.0 label on the project. This is an amazing piece of propaganda, something stirring and smart, and it has to be. Most of the Mozilla contributors are volunteers, and internecine struggles between various factions could kill the project. The author of the manifesto has made this technote into an appeal to nerd integrity, talking about the need for standards compliance, stability, and triage on bugs. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:25:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

AT&T Labs' text-to-speech demo is

AT&T Labs' text-to-speech demo is better than any I've ever heard. I mean, the Bay Area's NPR affiliate has announcers who don't sound this natural. I'm willing to believe, on the strength of this, that this time next year, I may be making "audiobooks" out of a bunch of Web clippings and ASCII and just running them through a TTS widget like this. Link Discuss (Thanks, Elias!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:50:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, October 16, 2001

My favorite Tourist Guy

My favorite Tourist Guy shot to date: Co-inventor of the Apple ][+! Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:20:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stephen Hawking predicts the death

Stephen Hawking predicts the death of the human race by viral outbreak in the next millennium unless we take to the stars, and calls for the creation of Warp Drives to alleviate the boredom of centuries-long trips between solar systems. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:58:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kodak has paid to put

Kodak has paid to put an ad on the International Space Station. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:56:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

This rather meanspirited article traces

This rather meanspirited article traces the history of the CueCat, a barcode scanner that accounted for hundreds of millions in investment dollars without amounting to much. The weird thing is that the article doesn't pay any due to the legion of CueCat hackers who reverse-engineered their devices and made themselves free barcode scanners and had a good deal of good fun with it, and the company's braindamaged legal response to all this. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:51:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The USPTO has granted a

The USPTO has granted a patent for, well, any html-creation tool, up to and including Blogger. Jackasses. How could they possibly have missed all the extant prior art, from PageMill on?

A software tool is provided for use with a computer system for simplifying the creation of Web sites. The tool comprises a plurality of pre-stored templates, comprising HTML formatting code, text, fields and formulas. The templates preferably correspond to different types of Web pages and other features commonly found on or available to Web sites. Each feature may have various options. To create a web site, a Web site creator (the person using the tool to create a web site) is prompted by the tool through a series of views stored in the tool to select the features and options desired for the Web site. Based on these selections, the tool prompts the web site creator to supply data to populate fields of the templates determined by the tool to correspond to the selected features and options. Based on the identified templates and supplied data, the tool generates the customized Web site without the web site creator writing any HTML or other programming code. Based on roles-based, multi-level security, certain users of the web site may have access to certain information and others may not.

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:46:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The RIAA is planning to

The RIAA is planning to sabotage P2P filetrading networks by creating slow, corrupt nodes that act as "honey pots," capturing incoming requests and returning garbage, or even launching attacks against download-attempters.

"We referred to it as the 'license to virus,'" said one congressional staffer. "It would have given them the incentive to employ lots of hackers trying to figure out how to stop (MusicCity), Morpheus or Audiogalaxy."

An RIAA spokesman said the group was simply trying to protect its existing tools, not expand them.

"We have a legitimate concern that the measure currently being debated could unintentionally take away a remedy currently available to us under law that helps us combat piracy," said RIAA spokesman Jano Cabrera.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Fred!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:09:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The MIT Media Studies department

The MIT Media Studies department has created an excellent archive of the Internet's coverage of 9.11. Link Discuss (Thanks, Ellen!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:04:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Open Informatics Movement is

The Open Informatics Movement is petitioning governmental funding agencies that are giving bioinformatics research grants to require grant-recipients to release their software under Open Source or Free Software licenses.

The first obvious benefit of mandatory software source release is a speedup of software development. Rather than "reinventing the wheel" by duplicating the work of other software projects, researchers will have a pool of publically developed software to build from.

The longer-term benefit is that the software can be studied and reviewed in the same way as the other parts of scientific research. Software flaws can cause as misleading results in the same way as sloppy protocols or faulty math. Exposing all the scientific process to peer review can only lead to better science.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Rick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:58:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

We've added a new feature

We've added a new feature to BoingBoing: The Guestbar! That bar on the right hand side is now a separate blog, guest edited by a new person every week. The inaugural guestblogger is Pat York, Nebula-finalist author of "You Wandered Off Like a Foolish Child to Break Your Heart and Mine." Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:38:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Handspring announces the Treo 180,

Handspring announces the Treo 180, a PalmOS device-cum-phone, with an integrated keyboard (I'm not thrilled about this, frankly -- using a RIM and a Cybiko have convinced me that teensy keyboards are a bad idea) and a real, GUI browser. Unfortunately, they've left off the SpringPort, so you can't snap a camera into the device and shoot a pic, then email it to someone else. A dah-dah-dah. Link Discuss (Thanks, Eli!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:26:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FilePile is back online! Get

FilePile is back online! Get your user accounts here. Let us never speak of this dark day again. Link Discuss (Thanks, Timo!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:53:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The electronic last words of

The electronic last words of the victims of 9.11 -- voicemail messages and greetings, emails, etc -- are being preserved by ISPs and cellular providers as a memorial.

The e-mail to his buddies was sent from the 93rd floor of the World Trade Center. The subject line: "Tuxedo for wedding." The time stamp: 8:41 a.m., Sept. 11, 2001. In the brief note, Peter Christopher Frank reminds them to get their measurements taken for the upcoming event.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:34:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FilePile is full. No new

FilePile is full. No new users are being allowed, and unregistered users can't open files from the file. Rats. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:25:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mike Harris, the miserable son-of-a-bitch

Mike Harris, the miserable son-of-a-bitch who, as Premier of Ontario, has presided over the systematic dismantling of its world-beating social services network, the sinister rejigging of its electoral districts, and the shoddy privatization of its government offices (privatized health inspectors missed the e-coli outbreak in the water supply in Walkerton, and several died), is resigning in a huff, terrified by poll and by-election results that indicate that Ontarians are ready to steamroller him come election time. Bye, bye, Iron Mike. Hope you get hit by a bus. Yes, this is schadenfreude. He is pond scum. Which of us is worse? Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:55:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stephen Hawking is writing a

Stephen Hawking is writing a kid-friendly version of "A Brief History of Time" with one of the Star Trek writers. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:38:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, October 15, 2001

Terrific and terrifying rant describing

Terrific and terrifying rant describing the extraordinary powers granted to the Office of Homeland Defense.

What does this do? It not only suspends habeas corpus, but it does so on a virtually unlimited basis. Even during the Civil War, when Lincoln suspended habeas corpus, there were still some rules. For example, you could not hold somebody for more than 90 days without charge. With this new agency, not only do they act ex post facto vis-a-vis habeas corpus, but there aren't any limits being imposed. They could literally detain people for years - for as long as they wanted. There is no limitation. When people talk about the suspension of habeas corpus, they talk about when Lincoln did it during the Civil War, or when Franklin Roosevelt did it on a limited basis during the Second World War.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:24:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A Delta flight out of

A Delta flight out of Charlotte was delayed because some of its passengers couldn't tell the difference between two Orthodox Jews praying and terrorist activity. And they say multiculturalism is dead. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:04:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pop-up ads work. Crap. Link

Pop-up ads work. Crap. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:56:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Any military intervention in the

Any military intervention in the middle-east naturally raises questions about motivation and oil concerns. After all, we've seen oil and motor companies dismantle American public transit systems, send out death squads to execute protestors in Nigeria, and promulgate the notion that massively toxic spills in the fragile Arctic are "mousse." Are oil concerns interested in Afghanistan? Most assuredly. Mother Jones has broken the story of Unocal's support of the Taliban as they attempted to build a Caspian pipeline. Sure, they're a lefty mag with an agenda, but they're not making this stuff up -- check out this Congressional testimony from Unocal's VP of International Relations: Link. Link Discuss (Thanks, Pat!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:11:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Daily .WAV: A daily

The Daily .WAV: A daily non-sequitor audio-file, drawn from such diverse sources as RHPS, The Ghost and Mr Chicken, Aliens, and Phantom of the Paradise. Link Discuss (Thanks, Allan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:56:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Osama bin Laden's satellite phone

Osama bin Laden's satellite phone number:

Even now, as US forces move in for the kill, bin Laden's satellite phone has not been cut off. But calls to the terrorist leader are going unanswered. His international phone number - 00873 682505331 - was disclosed during a trial, held in New York earlier this year. Callers to his once-active satellite link now hear only a recorded messages saying he is "not logged on".

Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:41:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

IBM's senior VP of R&D

IBM's senior VP of R&D has decided that the way to reduce the complexity of managing computers is by making them autonomous -- giving them the tools to extend and repair themselves. He's announced fifty new R&D projects to be funded at various Universities, and written a 40-page whitepaper on the subject. Link Discuss (Thanks, ronks!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:02:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

After massive hype and handwringing

After massive hype and handwringing over steganography -- the practice of hiding messages inside of seemingly innocuous files, like porn pictures, MP3s and b_bl_uo_yg  e_cn_ot_kr_ei_!e_!s -- someone has finally located an actual, no-foolin', in-the-wild stego image. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:40:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Email that's making the rounds:

Email that's making the rounds:

TALIBAN TV GUIDE

MONDAYS:

8:00 - "Husseinfeld"

8:30 - "Mad About Everything"

9:00 - "Suddenly Sanctions"

9:30 - "The Brian Benben bin Laden Show"

10:00 - "Allah McBeal"

TUESDAYS:

8:00 - "Wheel of Terror and Fortune"

8:30 - "The Price is Right If Osama Says Its Right"

9:00 - "Children Are Forbidden From Saying The Darndest Things"

9:30 - "Afganistans Wackiest Public Execution Bloopers"

10:00 - "Buffy The Yankee Imperialist Dog Slayer"

WEDNESDAYS:

8:00 - "U.S. Military Secrets Revealed"

8:30 - "When Northern Alliance Attacks"

9:00 - "Two Guys, a Girl, and a Pita Bread"

9.30 - "Just Shoot Everyone"

10:00 - "Veilwatch"

THURSDAYS:

8:00 - "Matima Loves Chachi"

8:30 - "M*U*S*T*A*S*H"

9:00 - "Veronicas Closet Full of Long, Black, Shapeless Dresses and Veils"

9:30 - "My Two Baghdads"

10:00 - "Diagnosis: Heresy"

FRIDAYS:

8:00 - "Judge Laden"

8:30 - "Funniest Super 8 Home Movies"

9:00 - "Captured Northern Alliance Rebels Say the Darndest Things"

9:30 - "Akhmeds Creek"

10:00 - "No-witness News"
Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:36:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ernest Lilley did a Route

Ernest Lilley did a Route 66 roadtrip for Byte, testing out his gear's ruggedness on the tough truckstop-and-motel-six circuit.

The Rim Blackberry replaced it. No, it couldn't play my "Secret Agent Man" MP3 like the iPAQ, but it could show me what time the Johnny Rivers concert was (I timed my pass through Albuquerque to coincide), and I got to hear it by the original artist instead. I opted for the Model 850 in its beeper-style format because the keyboard is a tad wider (though no wider than the iPAQ) and because it runs for weeks on a single AA battery. I was out of e-mail range for days at a time, as the Motient network doesn't reach many rural cities, and none of the desert, but when I pulled in range it buzzed cheerfully with mail from my gal in the Navy out at sea, missives from my Outlook Out of Office Assistant back at work, and other contacts from my world.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:45:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

From The Modern Humorist: How

From The Modern Humorist: How Friends will handle the Current Situation:

JOEY

When did this happen?

RACHEL

Apparently last month.

MONICA

They're gonna need some help cleaning up. (Grabs a mop) Who's with me?

CHANDLER

Could you BE any more of an anal neat freak?

MONICA
(annoyed)

How about if I withhold sex? Am I anal then?

Link Discuss (via Snarkcake)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:26:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thinking Putty is a tradename

Thinking Putty is a tradename for a Silly Putty clone (it's actually all Dow Corning 3179 Dilatent Compound). The Thinking Putty people are bulk retailers, dealing in imposing globs of the pink stuff rather than Binney and Smith's anemic little tablespoon-sized eggs. Their puttyworld site has some amazing video of cool putty tricks, including firing putty out of a cannon! (Cement mixer, putty putty) Link Discuss (Thanks, Elizabeth!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:11:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The strange world of job-interviews

The strange world of job-interviews in the Japanese porn industry.

After a fairly strenuous interview process, the wheat is sorted from the chaff with the most physically demanding task assigned to the applicants. Clad only in their pants, the girls must run throughout the network's studios while carrying huge satellite dishes. The reason behind the erotic exercise is not made clear, but perhaps it could have something to do with the fact that among the applicants is somebody who'll play a major role in carrying the satellite station's future.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:58:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

One of the things I

One of the things I miss most about my old iBook, now that I've got an iBook2 (AKA IceBook, iBook Dual USB) is the original's built-in handle. Being able to carry your iBook by a securely affixed handle was a boon I'd never expected to love, but I grew addicted. Now, Cyber3 has shipped a $40 retractable handle that doubles as a tilt while you're working, which allows for the free passage of air under the machine and gives the keyboard a nice, ergonomic angle. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:41:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The latest girl-gang plaguing the

The latest girl-gang plaguing the streets of Toyko call themselves Ogyaru -- polluted girls. They loll about all day, gabbling on mobiles and accumulating their trademark filth.

"Of all those who visit a urologist during the day, most are high school girls or male office workers in their early 30s. Most of the girls are the type you'd called ogyaru. They're incredibly unhygienic and riddled with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) like chlamydia," a gynecologist tells Vacca. "The guys are ... seeking help for venereal diseases, too."

Link Discuss (Thanks, Dennis!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:28:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Phatom Menace ships tomorrow

The Phatom Menace ships tomorrow on DVD, as a two-disk set, chock-a-block with interactive content. Unfortunately, that interactive content requires Windows to run. Sorry, Mac users. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:22:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Loose lips sink ships! Here're

Loose lips sink ships! Here're the US Army's employee guidelines for the keeping of secrets.

Conditions that could raise a security concern and may be disqualifying include:

Any service, whether compensated, volunteer, or employment with:

a. A foreign country;

b. Any foreign national;

c. A representative of any foreign interest;

d. Any foreign, domestic, or international organization or person engaged in analysis, discussion, or publication of material on intelligence, defense, foreign affairs, or protected technology.

Link Discuss (via Memepool)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:07:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I got email from Leonard

I got email from Leonard Pickel this morning, editor of the excellent dark-ride trade mag Haunted Attraction (Link), urging members of the "Hallowe'en Community" to donate a portion of the proceeds from this year's spook houses to WTC-related disaster relief. The enclosed royalty-free art says it all: Hallowe'en for America: Helping America Heal. I love this, 'cause it's just what we need: the permission to have fun, even in the face of disaster. Also, I love spook-houses. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:56:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Profiteers who attempted to sell

Profiteers who attempted to sell WTC merch at massive markups on eBay after 9.11 were eventually shut down by eBay itself, but while eBay deliberated over whether it would take down the auctions in question, a posse of eBay users created false IDs en masse, entered false winning bids on the items and disappeared, making it impossible to sell anything WTC-related on eBay. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:48:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The RIAA drafted an amendment

The RIAA drafted an amendment to the USA Act -- the sweeping antiterrorist bill that's just passed into law -- that would allow them to break into your computer and erase your infringing MP3s. The amendment would also immunize them from liability if they inadvertently erased critical files from your drive, even if you'd never infringed upon anyone's rights. Unfortunately for them, their lobbyists weren't able to convince lawmakers that such an amendment had anything to do with fighting terrorism, nor that granting vigilante powers to the gentle souls of the recording industry would further the ends of peace, justice and the American Way. Is there any other industry in the world that fears and hates its customers more than the music industry? Maybe the insurance industry, I guess. Maybe. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:30:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, October 14, 2001

Can you tell differentiate among

Can you tell differentiate among the quotations of Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and Osama bin Laden? I scored a six. Link Discuss (via AltText)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:33:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bruce Sterling makes some predictions

Bruce Sterling makes some predictions for the future of the Current Situation.

The Empire Formerly Known As NATO. The US bears the blunt of blame for its clumsy handling of the global conflict, which relied so fatally on the so-called strength of America's arrogant and untenable free-market ideology. The defeated Alliance splits up much like its former mirror image, the Warsaw Pact. Without Persian Gulf oil, the American economy and its war machine both collapse. Severe discord and disillusionment ensues, with crime and corruption skyrocketing. Desperate Russian women leave the streets of every capital in the world and are replaced by desperate American women.

Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:34:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Dysfunctional Family Circus --

The Dysfunctional Family Circus -- a collective effort in Internet comedy, in which the audience coins their own raunchy captions for otherwise sappy Family Circus cartoons -- is back! Spinn, the mastermind behind the site, took it offline last year after contacting Bil Keane (FC's creator) and coming to an understanding with him. Anyway, one of Spinn's co-editors had an archive of the DFC kicking around, and has put it back online. Go get your yuks in before it goes offline again! Link Discuss (via Scrubbles)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:13:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

John Norman is the author

John Norman is the author of several sf books set on the mythical, bondage-and-domination-themed world of Gor, long out of print. He volunteered his services as a panelist at the last World Science Fiction Convention, but they declined his offer. Now, Norman is convinced that the programming committee is part of a sinister, "monothink" conspiracy to keep his liberatarian views out of the public eye, and is penning open letters in order to expose their villainy. Link Discuss (Thanks, Mark!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:46:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Joey "Thrilla from Manila" deVilla's

Joey "Thrilla from Manila" deVilla's proposed tasteless themesong for the proposed (and even more tasteless) CBS comedy about the WTC.

Here's a story
Of a bereaved lady
Who lost her husband during nine one one
Terrorists with hearts of stone,
Like bin Laden,
Made sure the deed was done.

Here's a guy
Trying to get laid-ee
Because he had problems of his own
His wife was
In the South Tower
Now he was all alone.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Joey!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:39:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

CBS is considering a new

CBS is considering a new sitcom -- a screwball comedy about a couple who meet in the wreckage of the WTC. This is the sound of me boggling: <boggle> Link Discuss (Thanks, Joey!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:36:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I love audiobooks, especially unabridged

I love audiobooks, especially unabridged audiobooks read by the author. Since I haven't been innundated with offers to adapt my stories to audio, I've taken it upon myself to record my own work. I've just posted the my first effort, a reading of my story "To Market, To Market, the Branding of Billy Bailey," which ran in last September's Interzone. It's an 11.4 MB MP3, but if you've got a DSL or cablemodem connection, give it a try!

Billy kept his head up as he left for school the next day, for Barbara and Buford Bailey's benefit. But once he'd turned the corner at the end of the block, he slowed down, dropped his gaze to his loafers, and fretted. Billy's brand had been established early on, in the first month of kindergarten. He'd been the first in the category -- he'd defined "heel" for his classmates. Sure, there'd been heels in the upper grades, but they had no interaction with his class.

Billy had been _the_ heel. When others followed the trail he'd blazed, pitching spitwads or putting the boot in during a game of British Bulldog, their behaviour had been compared to Billy's. More than half of the endorsement dollars that flowed into the sixth grade went straight into Billy's trust account.

As well they should. If you were a sixth-grader looking for a risque t-shirt, nine times out of ten it'd be a shirt that Billy had worn that week. If you went to see a violent movie, it'd be one that Billy had presented a book-report on. If you wanted a PDA with a shotgun mic attachment for cross-playground spying, what better model than the one that Billy could often be seen holding up to his ear, grinning mischievously?

In the minds of the consumers of Pepsi Elementary, Billy owned the word "mischief." The immutable wisdom of the ages said that nothing Billy could do would change that. It would be like trying to sell Evian Brake Fluid. A brand-killer.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:08:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

IDEO has a new concept-cubicle,

IDEO has a new concept-cubicle, the Steelcase Q, which looks like a futuristic motorbike simulator crossed with a workstation. Link Discuss (Thanks, Eli!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:07:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Discount stores of the 1960s

Discount stores of the 1960s remembered.

To earlier generations raised solely on shopping trips to the "five and ten" or the traditional stately department store, these sprawling monsters were either a boon to thrifty one-stop shopping, or a garish monument to stuff that was "cheap" in every sense of the word, sold by inexperienced high school grads. But to MY generation, they were the stuff of baby boomer dreams. Shopper's World. Shopper's Fair. GEM (some locations called GEX). Atlantic Mills and Spartan, which later merged. Community Discount World. The Giant Store. Ardan. Arlan's. Gulf-Mart. French Market. Two Guys. T G & Y Family Centers (which grew out of T G & Y Variety Stores). White Front. Zayre. Zody's. All doing good business. All thriving and surviving. All making for much-anticipated destinations during a weekend drive around the metro area, at a time when the big car was more or less king of the road, and it cost less than five bucks to fill the tank.

Link Discuss (via GMT+9, thanks, Owen!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:04:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

High-larious condom ad on FilePile

High-larious condom ad on FilePile today! Link (Direct link to video) Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:50:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

David Mamet has written a

David Mamet has written a charming tribute to Shel Siverstein in today's New York Times. Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:43:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Polaroid files for Chapter 11

Polaroid files for Chapter 11 -- put out of biz by low-cost, cheap-ass digital photography. A bad weekend for atoms, with major blows to print photography and the postal system. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:37:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steven Levy explains how anthrax-tained

Steven Levy explains how anthrax-tained postal matter may the be final shove that puts USPS out of business.

Let’s try a thought experiment. What comes in the mail that you absolutely, positively can’t get electronically? If you’re connected to the Internet—and, duh, you wouldn’t be reading this if you weren’t—probably your e-mail-to-snail-mail ratio overwhelmingly favors the former. What’s more, it comes instantly, allows you an infinitely easier means to reply, and can be stored in a fraction of a second, in a place that’s much easier to find than in a pile of papers on your desk or entrance table. The bulk of my own workplace mail consists largely of press releases, most of which go straight to the circular file. At every turn I ask PR agencies to send me e-mail—no attachments, please. I get invitations to events in the mail, but many come in e-mail as well, and while I like a nicely printed invite, I can do without. Yes, a lot of e-mail is unwanted spam, but that can be deleted in the blink of an eye, and doesn’t have to be physically carted away—or ripped up and shredded, as in the case of credit card offers that identity thieves might use to get plastic in your name.

Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:31:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, October 13, 2001

It's Winnie the Pooh's 75th

It's Winnie the Pooh's 75th birthday! Silly old bear! Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:40:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cousin Couples: Everything you need

Cousin Couples: Everything you need to know if you intend to marry your cousin. Link Discuss (via Memepool)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:37:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An idiot got on an

An idiot got on an AA jet in LA and wrestled the intercom mic away from the Flight Attendant and tried to lead the whole plane in prayer. They threw him off the flight. Link Discuss (Thanks, Dennis!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:30:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Global newspaper front pages from

Global newspaper front pages from 9.11. Link Discuss (Thanks, Pat!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:05:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Collaborative, interactive fiction at Zoid

Collaborative, interactive fiction at Zoid City. It's an online choose-your-own-adventure that anyone can contribute to. Link Discuss (Thanks, Cristy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:03:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Happy Trails is the

Happy Trails is the one truly fun shop on the otherwise moribund Haight-Ashbury shopping strip. Their online store is chock-a-block with hard-to-find tiki crap, girlie cocktail glasses, and cowboyana. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:01:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I used to have a

I used to have a Fright Factory. You could make all sorts of creepy scabs and extra eyes and warty tounges to stick on your head. Ah, the smell of Plastigoop cooking in the tray... Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:07:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

10 rules for bad science

10 rules for bad science fiction!

Remember that technology introduced at the start of the story always causes everyone's problems, while technology introduced in the middle or at the end of the story always solves everyone's problems.This could be referred to as the "If-Only-I'd-Invented-It-Ninety-Minutes-Later" Conundrum.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Pat!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:05:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tourist Guy -- the guy

Tourist Guy -- the guy from the photo that purports to have been taken seconds before a plane hit the WTC -- AKA Waldo, AKA Tourist of Death, has his own page. Mahir redux! Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:12:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, October 12, 2001

Still struggling to find

Still struggling to find a belated birthday gift for me? How about this casting of one of the queue-area stantions from Disneyland's Haunted Mansion? A mere $500 and it's yours -- er, mine. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:30:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

While not as aesthetically pleasing

While not as aesthetically pleasing as hyperdetailed ball-point portraits, these Etch-A-Sketch pictures surely deserve extra points for the ephemerality of their medium and the contstraints of the two knobs. Link Discuss (Thanks, Patrick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:19:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

John Fluevog Shoes has visited

John Fluevog Shoes has visited our little discussion board about their Open Source Shoe Design contest, and have come up with an eminently rational and reasoned response, including rewriting the fineprint on their submission form and adding a page of links to Open Source initiatives. I love cluefulness in action!

Thursday morning, having gone over your comments, we had a lengthy discussion and reviewed the basics of our just - launched "Open Source Footwear" programme. In its development, a key concern was the issue of design ownership. This might seem, on first glance, to be the popular scenario of Corporate Behemoth Extorting Treasure From Defenseless Innocents. In fact, we had to address ownership to avoid situations where we might be liable for designs we considered to be in the public domain. The main idea we've presented is that the customer designs the shoe but we've made it clear there are also other courses of development. What actually happens after the initial sketch can result in something that might be nearly spot on or might look nothing at all like the original. For instance:

1/ Two people submit similar sketches, but one's better. We make that one, but the other person thinks it's their design. Whose is it?

2/ We combine different parts of several sketches, maybe adding our own ideas - who designed the shoe?

3/ We produce a shoe on the understanding that the design is safely in the public domain. The customer isn't quite as clear on this, however, and when the shoe appears in our stores, the lawyer appears at our door. Oh boy. Court. Multiply this one by the number of people who might be a little vague and everything disappears into a black hole.

These are only some examples of the potential rat's nest we faced. It goes on and on. The only effective measure is to make everything airtight from the beginning. But now, it appears the definition of "airtight" may be more flexible than we'd originally thought.

Once we began getting your emails and reading your discussion board, we asked ourselves, in light of it all, what would really be the worst case scenario, if we were to simply shift gears right now and be completely open with all designs. It immediately became a forehead smacker for us - all we'd have to do is be equally clear that any submitted design was public domain. This is, of course, also more correctly in line with true Open Source philosophy.

This email by no means addresses all of your points and we do have further thoughts on those, which we may post later. However, we wanted to respond quickly, both with this email and, more importantly, with actual changes to our promotion. We look forward to your comments. Thanks again for helping us simplify things.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:43:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland

The Haunted Mansion at Disneyland has been redecorated by Nightmare Before Christmas's Jack Skellington. There's a big Hallowe'en event scheduled, too (tickets were being auctioned for hundreds on eBay). Ain't It Cool News has a whack of cool photos of the decor. Mark, you gotta got and see this, dude. I wish I was in LA. Link Discuss (Thanks, vemene!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:28:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A Jupiter report confirms that

A Jupiter report confirms that flashy websites suck:

* Only 20% of respondents would visit a site more often if it had rich media enhancements.

* 40% of respondents would visit a site more often if the pages would load faster.

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:50:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A British company has shipped

A British company has shipped a swizzlestick that changes colour if the drink it's stirred in has been spiked with date-rape drugs. Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:43:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ZeFrank is full of cool

ZeFrank is full of cool little ShockWave toys -- I normally don't have a lot of patience for this kind of thing, but these are really entertaining. They put me in mind of cool old HyperCard stacks. Link Discuss (Thanks, Adina)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:51:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

supermanspaljimmyolsen sez: "Insanely detailed drawings

supermanspaljimmyolsen sez: "Insanely detailed drawings done with ball point pens on paper." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:10:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cooking with Bigfoot is a

Cooking with Bigfoot is a funny shockwave cartoon series. (Where do people get the money and/or time to make these things?) Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:00:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Good article from Gene Kan

Good article from Gene Kan on the theory and practice of Open Web Services -- network resources that are shared by private concerns with the commonweal.

Your set-top box will run an Open Service whether or not you know it. It will cooperate with other set-top boxes in your locality to provide video-on-demand services for your neighbors. Obviously, this reduces the buildout necessary to enable video-on-demand. So, Open Services can work for Big Media too.

Open Services are growing in popularity because they make sense for so many different types of applications. Plug in an 802.11b hub, share that recipe for fried spam, and leave your computer alone so it can help us find our intergalactic friends.

My favorite part of all this is that none of it happened at Stanford.

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:29:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The NYT have tracked down

The NYT have tracked down the printer who made the Bert-and-Osama posters that Bangladeshi protestors carried earlier this week.

Mostafa Kamal, production manager of Azad Products, the Dhaka shop that made the posters, told the AP he had gotten the images off the Internet.

``We did not give the pictures a second look or realize what they signified until you pointed it out to us,'' he said

Link Discuss (Thanks, Elder Shunn!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:26:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An immodest proposal for battling

An immodest proposal for battling the Taliban: the pornbomb.

These 'bombs' are made up of the Western civilization's best skin and muff shots ever put into print. Imagine millions of pages of XXX porn carpeting the rugged Afghan terrain. You've seen what the women over there are forced to wear. When the Taliban forces get to see what they are missing, they will be too distracted to fight. They won't be polishing their rifles, they will be too busy polishing something else.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Joey!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:21:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The W3C, the standards-setting body

The W3C, the standards-setting body that guides the Web's future, has made quite a stir by proposing the inclusion of patented technology into its standards. This would mean that parts of the lingua franca of the Internet would be locked up in patents, the licensing of which could require cash outlay or be curtailed altogether by vindictive parties who don't want their competitors using their intellectual property. Now, Apple computer has published a coherent and cogent statement explaining why this is a bad idea.

The promise of the Web is a common framework for exchange of information, with open access for a diverse pool of developers and users. Realization of this promise demands a licensing model that is likewise open and unencumbered by private rights. We believe that W3C membership should involve not only collaboration to develop standards, but also collaboration to ensure that those standards are, in fact, open and available to diverse users without charge.

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:11:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Larry Ellison's back at it,

Larry Ellison's back at it, thumping the tub of national ID databases -- based on Oracle products, no doubt -- as a means of nabbing terrorists. Sure, Larry, but will your magical technology also scan our brains? We've got a counter-offer from another megarich high-tech loon, you know. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:04:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An anonymous friend recently posted

An anonymous friend recently posted this terrific list of complaints about Oracle, his co-workers, and the hassles of adminning boxes at Exodus. I love this kind of ranting. Warning: Justifiably foul language at this link.

Other things that SUCK:

• Sun in general for being bastards
• The people who adminned the E4500s before I did who upgraded SOME of the PROMs CPU boards in the E4500s but not ALL of them
• Those people in general
• Those people SPECIFICALLY for not ever bothering to make sure that ANY services come up when you reboot the machines
• Those people for running some kind of anti-portscan tool that prints 4 lines of text to the console every time anyone tries any kind of connect to the machine. 10/10 for security awareness, -1000000000000 for not thinking that the time when you are working on the console is exactly the LAST TIME YOU WANT TO SEE SCREEN AFTER SCREEN OF MEANINGLESS ERROR MESSAGES

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:00:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Adbuster-buster-buster-buster. Various firms release ad-filtering

Adbuster-buster-buster-buster. Various firms release ad-filtering browser plug-ins. A German company releases software that blocks visits from people running filters. An Aussie html jock writes a script that circumvents the blocker. The German firm releases 2.0, which blocks circumventers. Prediction: It will all end in tears. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:18:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sun CEO Scott McNealy is

Sun CEO Scott McNealy is as bad as Oracle's Ellison: "Absolute anonymity breeds absolute irresponsibility. We need a thumbprint Java card in the hand of everybody in the country." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:58:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Band-names gone bad. The heavy-metal

Band-names gone bad. The heavy-metal band Anthrax is worried that it's name will cross over from ironic to offensive in the near future. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:13:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

In three days, SirCam --

In three days, SirCam -- the "I send you this file in order to have your advice" worm -- will go into phase two, randomly deleting files from infected users' hard drives. I figger that if you're still infected by now, chances are that all your important files have already been emailed to your addressbook, so you've got a backup, right? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:11:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"My new fighting technique is

"My new fighting technique is unstoppable" is an excellent political/social comic strip. Far superior to "This Modern World," which is the same joke over and over and over again, and wasn't that funny the first time around. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:46:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Test your terrorist knowledge at

Test your terrorist knowledge at www.terroristornot.com. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:30:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, October 11, 2001

While searching Google for "Wild

While searching Google for "Wild Blue Yonder" (I wanted to see if it was "Off we soar" or "Off we roar") I decided to see what other colored yonders where on the Web. Using the colors of the rainbow, plus black, white, clear, and invisible , here are the results:

Wild Red Yonder: 3
Wild Orange Yonder: 9
Wild Yellow Yonder: 0
Wild Green Yonder: 97
Wild Blue Yonder: 12,400
Wild Indigo Yonder: 1
Wild Violet Yonder: 0
Wild Black Yonder: 104
Wild White Yonder: 28
Wild Clear Yonder: 1
Wild White Yonder: 0

(Obviously, I'm on deadline with a story.) Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:51:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Paul Boutin, a senior editor

Paul Boutin, a senior editor (er, my editor) at Wired, contemplates flying to Afghanistan to get into the action, then reconsiders.

To be honest with myself, I know I won't be going. Remove all the lame excuses (job, marriage, bills, etc) and there's still my health, which makes it hard to get to the corner store sometimes. One can only imagine me in a desert combat zone without my asthma meds.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:37:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Memorial to New York firefighters

Memorial to New York firefighters carved from a giant pumpkin. Link Discuss (Thanks, supermanspaljimmyolsen!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:21:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Adobe has released a new

Adobe has released a new version of its "secure" e-book reader (Dmitry Skylarov showed that the last rev of this product was based on spectacularily bad tech, and is facing 25 years in prison for his trouble). Adobe claims that this version is really secure, but they're not saying what it is they changed to make it so. I guess they figure that stiff prison sentences will be enough to shut up critics who expose their sloppiness, and so need not be explicit in their claims. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:43:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A retired IBM patent attorney

A retired IBM patent attorney holds a 19-year-old patent for pre-emptive multithreading, one of the building blocks of all modern code. He's suing Microsoft (of course), for infringing on his patent with virtually every application they've ever shipped. Link Discuss (Thanks, BentoG!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:40:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Horrorfind is a horror search

Horrorfind is a horror search engine, allowing you to search 5,000+ horror movie, lit, and fandom sites from a single searchbar. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:31:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thrift trumps terror. Discount travel

Thrift trumps terror. Discount travel sites are doing even more biz than they did pre-9.11, as cheap fares and newspaper campaigns lure spooked travellers back into the sky. Link Discuss (via Meekat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:28:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Another poignant letter to the

Another poignant letter to the writer's younger self.

Do not look at Patricia and Cara as they extend their tongues at you. Ignore Zachary Booth’s explicit hand gesture. Forget you weigh sixty-nine pounds; stop wanting breasts so badly. So what if you wear glasses? So what if your skirt is not Calvin Klein? For this one moment you have no hangnails, no bony knees; and there is a secret between you and Eric Cassio. When the others clear the floor, look him square in the eye and share that secret. The secret is, you know he likes to dance. It goes back to the day when you were punished together for being tardy, when you had to transplant all the hybrid peas from the small white plastic pots to the big terra cotta ones. Your hands touched, down in the bag of potting soil. When you got cold he gave you his green sweater. Later, as you were cleaning up—the water was running, no one could hear him—he told you he liked to dance. Remember these things.

Link Discuss (Thanks, mcexample!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:13:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The amazing story of Walt

The amazing story of Walt Disney and Salvador Dali's aborted collaboration.

Almost by chance, (Disney avoided Hollywood parties, preferring to don an engineer's cap and chug around his estate on a scale-model railroad) he was introduced to Salvador and Gala Dali by Jack Warner at the movie mogul's home one night in late 1945. The Dalis were staying with the Warners while the surrealist superstar painted their portraits. Somehow, Walt Disney, who had founded an empire based on wholesome, Midwestern family values, and Salvador Dali, who once vowed to "spit on the portrait of my mother," hit it off, and a peculiar friendship of long standing was begun.

The match might not have been as odd as it at first seemed. For all his wholesomeness, Disney had been fascinated by avant-garde techniques and began experimenting with them in 1939. Critics praised Fantasia's toccata-and-fugue sequence as reminiscent of Kandinsky and Miro. Hench supervised this sequence using abstract images for the first time in a Disney film.

Link Discuss (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:09:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tofu is the new cashmere:

Tofu is the new cashmere: all-soya-fibre fashion show! Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:04:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

There's been a lot of

There's been a lot of stilted relief coming from science-fictional quarters in the wake of 9.11. No one in the SF world -- whose publishing hub is in NYC -- was seriously injured in that date's events. I know hundreds of New Yorkers, all unscathed. In a statistical, six-degree-of-separation world, this seems profoundly odd. How did so many of us escape personal tragedy, or even tragedy at one or two removes? This Slate story explains it.

If the average American knows 290 people, then the World Trade Center victims would seem to know about 1.8 million Americans (and vice versa: about 1.8 million Americans would seem to know a victim). But there is overlap in the networks of the victims. Someone who knew one victim at, say, Cantor Fitzgerald is very likely to have known two or more. Some poor souls lost dozens of friends. The authors account for this with an estimated "lead-in factor"—essentially a measure of non-randomness. The lead-in factor helps adjust for the fact that people who worked at the World Trade Center are likely to travel in the same social circles because they work in the same place, live in the same city, and have similar kinds of jobs.

Link Discuss (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:58:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

When shopping baskets go awry!

When shopping baskets go awry! Easynamelist is a domain-reseller (they buy and sell registered domains). For some reason, their "purchase" screen has the option to buy multiple quantities of a given domain -- in other words, they'll let you buy the same domain hundreds of times. Why? Link Discuss (Thanks, BentoG!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:48:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Brian Elroy McKinley, age 40,

Brian Elroy McKinley, age 40, has written a letter to Brian Elroy McKinley, age 12. This is a recurring fantasy for me -- not just the possibility, of, say, retyping Neuromancer and submitting it under my own name when I was 12 years old, or buying MSFT at a buck a share, but stuff like being a better pal to some friends who died or went astray, avoiding some terrible gaffes and lapses in judgement, taking better care of my spine, and so on. What would you tell your 12 year old self?

Oh, and while I'm trying to help remove some bad things from your life, I want to tell you that Jimmy Carter is not the Anti-Christ. In a few years a speaker at church will try to convince you that the president at that time, whose name will be Jimmy Carter, is the Anti-Christ. And without knowing any better it will scare the hell out of you. Don't let it.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Joey!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:40:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Aw, crap. MobileStar, the WiFi

Aw, crap. MobileStar, the WiFi provider that turned every Starbucks and Admiral's Lounge into a wireless ISP (I'm typing this in a Starbucks in Washington, right now) has hit hard times, having laid off "virtually everyone" and announced that its assets are for sale. I've had excellent MobileStar technology experiences aplenty, checking vital factoids and email on the road from virtually anywhere (you're never far from a Starbucks), but my experiences with the company itself have been uniformly abysmal (it took six tries and an email tantrum just to get a receipt from them). Link Discuss (Thanks, Mike!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:31:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Computer Immunology is a mind-blowing

Computer Immunology is a mind-blowing (if elderly) white paper on how computers can protect themselves from virii and other malware.

With the rise of worms like Nimda and CodeRed -- I was basically offline for a week in Toronto because Nimda did such a number on the routers at TorEx, the main interchange for all of Toronto -- and theoretical superworms like the Warhol Worm and the Flash Worm, ideas like this need to be reexamined.

I'm especially worried about worms in the context of P2P networks and Web services, which create persistent addresses for machines that are only occassionally online (viz. Passport, Napster, AIM), use proxies to route to computers that have nonroutable, private IPs (viz Napster, Morpheus, .NET firewall protocol), and run common services on multiple platforms. Superworms depend on tables of all vulnerable computers, and the combination of directory services, routability and common services seems ideally suited ot superworm deployment. Scary.

Imagine what the world would be like if humans were as helpless as computer systems. Doctors would be paged every time a person felt unwell or had to do something as basic as purge their waste `files'. They would then have to summon the person concerned in order to perform the necessary dialysis procedures and push pills into their mouths manually. Fortunately most humans have self-correcting systems which work both proactively and retroactively to prevent such a situation from arising. Not so computers: it is as though all of our machines are permanently in hospital.

Link Discuss (Thanks, David!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:05:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The entire Book of Revelations,

The entire Book of Revelations, written in a lisp.

1:1  Thith ith the Wevelation of Jethuth Chwitht, which God gave him to show to hith thewvanth the thingth which mutht happen thoon, which he thent and made known by hith angel to hith thewvant, John,

Link Discuss (Thanks, unutterable!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:47:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Virtual Pinball is a tool

Virtual Pinball is a tool for designing playable, 3D pinball games. Be sure to click on the "Tables" link to see user-generated emulations of classic pinball tables. Link Discuss (Thanks, supermanspaljimmyolsen!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:44:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Screamscape, the guide to Theme

Screamscape, the guide to Theme Parks, Rollercoasters, New Attractions, Rumors and Industry News, has taken note of the fact that I've sold Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, a science fiction novel set in Walt Disney World. Yes, I know, no one cares but me. Sue me. Link Discuss (Thanks, Steve!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:32:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, October 10, 2001

Email debate between "Brain fingerprinting"

Email debate between "Brain fingerprinting" advocate Steve Kirsch (co-founder of Infoseek) and Thomas C. Greene, a Register.co.uk reporter. Greene to Kirsch: " Your proposal is embarrassingly optimistic, like the product of a child's imagination. So long as you persist in promoting this idiocy, I will persist in criticizing it in print." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:35:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bangladeshi bin Laden supporters sport

Bangladeshi bin Laden supporters sport signs feature ObL standign with Bert, of Sesame Street, having indiscrimintately cribbed bin Laden photos from the Internet to make their signs. Update: Michael has mirrored the original image on his site (Link). The site of the original link eventually cropped out poor old Bert. Link Discuss (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:09:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Fantod Deck is a

The Fantod Deck is a tarot deck featuring the illustrations of Edward Gorey. Get an online reading and interpretation! I'm in for hard times, according to the site. Link Discuss (Thanks, Pat!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:03:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

From today's Onion: Freedoms Curtailed

From today's Onion: Freedoms Curtailed in Defense of Liberty.

"Remember, under the oppressive Taliban regime, people live in constant fear of an oppressive order to which all must submit," Rumsfeld said. "Under their system, it is illegal to practice a different religion or support a different political system. It is against the law for women to work or leave their homes without their faces covered. There is no freedom of speech, press, or assembly, as dissent of any kind is not tolerated. It is even forbidden to smile or laugh in public, and all who fail to unquestioningly obey are punished with reprisals of brutal violence. We must not allow such a regime to threaten our great democracy. We must stand for something better than that."

      "It is therefore urgent," Rumsfeld continued, "that all Americans be quiet, stop asking questions, accept the orders of authorities, and let us get on with the important work of defending liberty, so that America can continue to be a beacon of freedom to all the world."

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:54:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Almost all of MIT's course

Almost all of MIT's course materials will be made available for free, online. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:42:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, October 9, 2001

The National Enquirer has closed

The National Enquirer has closed its Florida offices due to the anthrax outbreak there. It's quite horrible, but there's some species of interesting irony at play here, when a tabloid headline can shut down the sine qua non of tabloids. Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:11:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excellent and in-depth NYT piece

Excellent and in-depth NYT piece recounts the history of security cams in the UK and analysis of secam and facial recognition tech in the US. Link Discuss (Thanks, Steve!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:59:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

John Lilly, RIP. Link

John Lilly, RIP. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:34:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why songs get stuck in

Why songs get stuck in your head.

Although all songs contain repetitious elements, some rely on the technique so heavily that they might cause the brain to echo the pattern automatically, Kellaris suggests. Examples: "Follow the Yellow Brick Road," Queen's "We Will Rock You" and the theme from "Mission: Impossible."

Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:37:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, October 8, 2001

Rush Limbaugh has gone deaf.

Rush Limbaugh has gone deaf. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:47:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

James Lilek's daily column, "The

James Lilek's daily column, "The Bleat," has become a must read for me. Today, he writes about his misadventures trying to remove some tiny screws in his laptop so he can install some memory chips, and his reaction to the military strikes in Afghanistan. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:49:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The LA Times on the

The LA Times on the "new, nuanced patriotism."

Perhaps this increased understanding explains the sort of scene that keeps unfolding nationwide. Last Sunday, for instance, on the dusty Taos Pueblo reservation in New Mexico, a native American in traditional garb clambered up a tall pole as part of an autumn ceremony. Lightning flashed in the surrounding mountains and a crowd of local Indians and tourists watched, transfixed. When this member of what may be the most abused ethnic group on the continent reached the pinnacle, he stood and unfurled an American flag.

It's not likely this patriot did so because he thought America was perfect. More likely, he had seen the Pentagon in flames, watched the World Trade Center collapse and felt the resurgence of a deep, protective impulse, dormant in this nation since World War II. Suddenly it hit: Democracy and freedom are not just afloat in a sea of equals; they are the ideals to which repressed and downtrodden people worldwide aspire, and when the best hope for ever achieving them is assaulted, nuanced solidarity becomes a rational form of self-defense.

Link Discuss (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:52:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Crackpot theories about Lord of

Crackpot theories about Lord of the Rings:

• Balin emerges from the depths of Moria, claiming he "fell asleep in the tub"
• The Shire, mobilized by Merry and Pippin and now hungry for vengeance, annexes Bree and slaughters "the big folk".
• Orc-slaughter competition between Legolas and Gimli becomes so fierce, they take to killing some of the smaller, uglier men of Gondor.

Link Discuss (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:47:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

From FilePile: The coolest proposed

From FilePile: The coolest proposed skyline I've seen to date. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:35:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hardware hackers have posted in-depth

Hardware hackers have posted in-depth (and scary!) documentation explaining how to overclock your iBook2 to 600MHz with a 100MHz bus-speed. I'd love to try this, but given all the hardware problems I've had with my iBook2, I'm too chicken to attempt it. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:04:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, October 7, 2001

Here's Jim Leftwich's brilliant response

Here's Jim Leftwich's brilliant response to the Fluevog debacle: Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:35:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A little knowledge is a

A little knowledge is a very dangerous thing, especially in the hands of marketdroids. John Fluevog, makers of extreme, clubby footgear, have a new promotion on: an "open source" shoe design initiative. Here's how it works: you design a shoe, they build it and sell it, and you give them exclusive rights in perpetuity to the shoe, which they don't share with anyone. Of course, this has nothing to do with open source -- it is, in fact, the opposite of an open license. Here's the clickthrough agreement:

The submitting party understands and agrees that submission of this design to John Fluevog Shoes Ltd. constitutes transfer of all ownership of the design solely to John Fluevog Shoes Ltd., who will retain exclusive rights for use in any form and in all media

I've sent email to their marketing department, inviting them to respond here. We'll see. Link Discuss (Thanks, Joey!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:48:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nielsen has a new contract:

Nielsen has a new contract: measuring Web traffic in China.

Once up and running in China, Nielsen/NetRatings will focus on "who's online, where they're going, what banner ads they're viewing and clicking on and how much time they spend," the press release said.

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:29:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Patents are supposed to encourage

Patents are supposed to encourage innovation, right? So why is it that a Federal Appeals court just overturned a lower court's decision to toss out Xerox's claim against Palm over Graffiti (Palm's alphabet for data-entry). Xerox PARC apparently patented any data-entry method that uses single-stroke characters. Nevermind obviousness -- Xerox has never, ever developed a tool that uses this technology; they're just using their patent to stop others from doing so. Link Discuss (Thanks, JimWICH)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:24:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An anonymous photographer took these

An anonymous photographer took these incredible shots of ground zero, until he was stopped by an NYPD officer who asked to see his authorization to shoot. The photog didn't have one, but the cop's supervisor said it was OK. The cop erased all the pictures from the digital camera's flash-card anyway. Lucky for the photog, he was able to restore them using a file-recovery tool. Link Discuss (via Electrolite)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:49:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Here's a site that helps

Here's a site that helps people get rid of "scumware" -- software that gets installed along with another application, usually without your permission, whose job it is to turn certain, paid-for words on every Web page you see into a paid link. In other words, every time the word "car" appears on any Website you visit, it will be a link to, say, GM's site.

Now, there are lots of reasons to object to this kind of software. It usually installs itself without forewarning. It has extremely limited utility as an information resource.

But that's not what the site's authors are up in arms about. They're upset because scumware "changes your site content without your permission." This is a terrible argument against it -- it's the same argument that people used against ThirdVoice (which allowed people to leave public annotations about any page they see, so that visitors to your site could discuss its content among themselves). Trying to limit others' ability to share their opinions about your material is a hopeless and immoral cause.

Now, that's not what scumware does. Scumware adds links to your site. I'd rather that any links added to BoingBoing were useful ones, and context-sensitive, and chosen by the reader. If you were a German learning English, you might get a browser plugin that link every word on the site to a German translation. If you were a blogger, you might have a plugin that added links to other blogs' discussions of any link that appeared here. The point is that it would be reader-driven. You would choose how you want your page rendered. Mozilla's got a ton of tools that do this already, letting you apply your own stylesheets to a site.

So scumware may be a bad idea -- but only because its users don't choose to install it, not because it "hijacks" people's Web-pages. Link Discuss (via EvHead)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:44:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, October 6, 2001

Carl, our beloved sysadmin,

Carl, our beloved sysadmin, told me that the webserver for boingboing.net is likely to go out of service intermittently for the next few days. If you sign up for the mailing list (see form in the right column) we'll let you know what's going on in case Boing Boing goes on the blink. Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:23:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Allegations that the Rak Thai

Allegations that the Rak Thai Party is trying to win Thai heartzenminds by giving free cellphones to village headmen and other prominent citizens. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:55:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The SETI@home project is running

The SETI@home project is running out of radio-telescope data. S@H passively collects radio-telescope data in bulk by piggybacking on more mainstream radio astronomy projects. When the project started, they had so much data that it appeared that it would take thousands of years and millions of dollars to sift through it all and look for telltales that might indicate distant intelligence. Facing budget-cuts that would have severely limited their number-crunching capacity, the project's leaders opted instead to produce one of the world's first ad-hoc distributed computational projects, writing software that you and I could run on our desktops, software that would download pieces of raw data and do the bulk of the required computation on it. The project has been such a huge success that they're in danger of exhausting their data, and still people sign up to give their idle computing time to the project. Now they're increasing their data-set twentyfold -- how long do you think it'll hold out? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:44:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More idiocy watch: the founder

More idiocy watch: the founder of the Traditional Values Coalition wants breavement benefits and support denied to gays and lesbians who lost a partner in the 9.11 attacks.

Groups such as the Red Cross "should be first giving priority to those widows who were at home with their babies and those widowers who lost their wives," Sheldon said. Assistance "should be given on the basis and priority of one man and one woman in a marital relationship."

Link Discuss (via Electrolite)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:34:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The New Republic has started

The New Republic has started an Idiocy Watch, in which they are collecting the stupidest, most offensive things said in the wake of 9.11. Check out TNH's blog (Link) for some stunning examples Link Discuss (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:31:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, October 5, 2001

Great weird art by

Great weird art by Japanese artist d'Holbachie Yoko. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:38:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A new system for entering

A new system for entering data into phone keypads: Hand-jiving. Each finger has its own sensor and its own relationship to each key and... oh, it gets all complicated.

 The technology does seem best suited for typing on a cell phone, though. With MultiDigit’s technology, users will only have to hit a key once for any given letter. For example, instead of having to push the number 7 on the dial pad four times to get the letter S, users can now use only one finger. Touching 7 with the thumb would type the letter P, the index finger would type the letter Q, the middle finger the letter R, and the ring finger would type the letter S.

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:16:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A collection of images of

A collection of images of prototype Macintoshes and MacOS devices. Droolmaking vaporware, ahoy! Link Discuss (Thanks, JimWICH!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:08:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Naiomi Klein, writing in a

Naiomi Klein, writing in a Scottish newspaper, exposes Robyn Mazer, an opportunistic copyright advocate in DC who is trying to link bootleg t-shirts with bin Laden and use the Current Situation to crack down on intellectual property violations around the world. Let's put Mazer and Larry Ellison together in a room and they can duke it out to see who gets the right to exploit the deaths of thousands.

It seems we are facing a much more complicated scenario than the facile dichotomy of a consumerist McWorld versus an anti-consumer Jihad.

In fact, if Ms Mazer is correct, not only are the two worlds thoroughly enmeshed, the imagery of McWorld is being used to finance Jihad.

Maybe a little complexity is not so bad. Part of the disorientation many Americans now face has to do with the inflated and over-simplified place consumerism plays in the American narrative.

To buy is to be. To buy is to love. To buy is to vote. People outside the US who want Nikes -- even counterfeit Nikes -- must want to be American, must love America, must in some way be voting for everything America stands for.

Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:39:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The largest outbreak in history

The largest outbreak in history of Haemorrhagic Fever has taken root in Afghanistan.

As one doctor put it, a patient suffering from haemorrhagic fever "literally melts in front of your eyes".

Link Discuss (via Kottke.org)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:32:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Grand Royal, the Beasties' pet

Grand Royal, the Beasties' pet label, is going out of business, and they're having a firesale. Lots of cool bargoons. Link Discuss (via EvHead)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:28:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, October 4, 2001

The new Tickle Me Elmo

The new Tickle Me Elmo has a hella cool Easter Egg. On January 9th, some unspecified number of TMEs will wake from their unholy slumber and inform their owners that they have won the great TME sweeps. The grand prize? A computer, a VW Beetle, a free collitch education and $200,000 worth of house. Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories For Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:54:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Remember the guy who found

Remember the guy who found a severed human penis in his soft drink? It wasn't a penis, it was a penis-shaped fungus. I'll never call a circumcision "the mushroom treatment" again. Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan and kolacky!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:50:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Link) has posted a series of Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) false-color pictures of the site of the former Twin Towers. Link, Link, Link Discuss (Thanks, Erik!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:09:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Afghan government's official site

The Afghan government's official site is gone, replaced by a message from its ISP asking the owner to call them ASAP. Link Discuss (Thanks, Dennis!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:00:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, October 3, 2001

This Salon article on bioterrorism

This Salon article on bioterrorism makes me want to move to Rarotonga. But, maybe, as the author of this article points out, we all aready have smallpox and anthrax but just don't know it yet. (I have a sore throat.)

University of Iowa microbiologist Mary Gilchrist, generally credited with establishing the National Laboratory Network for Bioterrorism Detection, takes issue with those who say dissemination obstacles make germ warfare unlikely. "Someone can carry a small bag of material that can infect hundreds of thousands of people," she told the AP. "You can carry that bag through virtually every airport security system I'm aware of. It won't attract attention from a drug-sniffing dog, either ... I think it could happen at any time."

Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:02:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Australian composers copyright every possible

Australian composers copyright every possible phone number as a touch-tone tune, in order to lampoon international copyright laws -- dialling a phone number, any phone number, violates their copyright. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:42:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

One of Infoseek's founders has

One of Infoseek's founders has proposed that terrorism be stopped with his new brain-scanning technology, which would root out the terror-minded through their very skulls. Wackadoo, wackadoo, wackadoo. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:27:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cool/Creepy Mark Ryden print. $600

Cool/Creepy Mark Ryden print. $600 framed. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:01:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mugshot of Baywatch actress Yasmine

Mugshot of Baywatch actress Yasmine Bleeth after her arrest for drugs. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:44:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Winners of the Ugly Couch

Winners of the Ugly Couch contest. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:41:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stefan sez: "Fisher-Price's "Rescue Heroes"

Stefan sez: "Fisher-Price's "Rescue Heroes" toy line has a new addition . . . a special FDNY version of "Billy Blazes," a Fireman. The Rescue Heroes are supposed to be a non-violent alternative sort of toy line, but Billy looks ready to personally kick the shit out of the Taliban army." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:29:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

David Keeps forwarded this to

David Keeps forwarded this to me: "Re: Osama bin Laden....how about this approach? Killing him will only create a martyr. Holding him prisoner will inspire his comrades to take hostages to demand his release. Therefore, I suggest we do neither. Let the SAS, Seals or whoever covertly capture him, fly him to an undisclosed hospital and have surgeons quickly perform a complete sex change operation. Then we return 'her' to Afghanistan to live as a woman under the Taliban." Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:31:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thetweedlebob sez: "I think we

Thetweedlebob sez: "I think we can safely say this will be shoved under the carpet for the length of the Bush administration." From Inside.com: "The much-anticipated 'recount' of almost 200,000 disputed Florida ballots from the presidential election -- commissioned by an unprecedented consortium of major news organizations -- has been put on indefinite hold because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, journalists involved in the effort said on Monday. The material was to be released to the participating news organizations a week ago Monday and would have been embargoed until yesterday." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:04:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Incredibly high-resolution (9,000 x 9,000,

Incredibly high-resolution (9,000 x 9,000, 14MB) sat photo of the site of the WTC. For the first time, I really, viscerally understand the scale of this disaster. Link Discuss (Thanks, Erik!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:25:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

This thirty-page interview with VR

This thirty-page interview with VR pioneer Jaron Lanier is a mind-blower. Lanier tackles AI, real I, terrorism, global warming, vision systems, Prozac and more. I disagree with a whole lot of his conclusions, but there's hardly a one that didn't make me think hard about my own position. Wow. Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:35:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Remember the hoax "photo" that

Remember the hoax "photo" that purported to be a shot taken seconds before a flight crashed into WTC? The world's photoshoppers have been monkeying with it, and have produced an astonishing, All Your Base-esque collection of variations on the theme, placing "tourist guy" in a number of other great historical moments. I think the assassination of Lincoln in my favorite. Link (Alternate Link, via Memepool) Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:42:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The new 'N Sync CD

The new 'N Sync CD is copy-protected, which means that it can't be played or ripped from a PC. Works fine on a Mac, though. Does this mean that the Mac is a circumvention device and illegal under the DMCA? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:53:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A leaked memo from the

A leaked memo from the RIAA lays out a strategy to sue Kazaa, MusicCity and Grokster into oblivion. The plan is to turn MusicCity against the other two by offering it a break in the suit. The RIAA is calling on its members to dig deep to fund expensive litigation against every P2P filesharing network it can lay hands on. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:50:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An interview with the author

An interview with the author of Copyrights and Copywrongs: The Rise of Intellectual Property and How It Threatens Creativity, in which he discusses the way that free speech has been chilled by draconian and ill-informed copyright law. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:53:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Geography department at UC

The Geography department at UC Berkeley is liquidating the majority of their map collection in favor of computerized maps. Show up on November third for the map sale of the millennium: topo and theme maps, aerial and sat photos, wall maps and map cases! Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:27:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, October 2, 2001

The city of San Francisco

The city of San Francisco bans Internet filterware/censorware in public libraries and other public spaces. This is a rare example of intelligence in government, as the city-parents decide that filters let bad stuff through and keep good stuff at bay. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:27:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The US Military wants hackers

The US Military wants hackers to come and work for Uncle Sam, but servicemen caught hacking are drummed out of the corps. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:21:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

It's a PDA and it's

It's a PDA and it's a personal massager! The latest Visor module includes a couple of electrodes and the power to pump rhythmic electrical impluses through your corpus in any combination of squeezing, chipping or tapping modes. Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:34:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Alberta Chu's Electrum is a

Alberta Chu's Electrum is a documentary covering the construction and installation of the world's largest Tesla Coil. I saw a preview in San Francisco a couple weeks back and was gobsmacked -- Chu has footage shot from within the coil as it discharges long seeking fingers of wild lightning! Bay Areans, take note: Electrum will air on October 3 at midnight, on KTEH San Jose. Don't miss it. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:16:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Uh oh. Google's home page

Uh oh. Google's home page is starting to suffer from function creep. Remember when it used to have just a logo, a entry field and two buttons? Now there are 12 links. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:16:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kazaa and Morpheus -- popular

Kazaa and Morpheus -- popular P2P filesharing applications -- have changed their network to exclude third-party, open source clients. Link Discuss (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:52:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An effort is underway to

An effort is underway to encourage writers to send signed copies of their books to servicemen who are shipping out to the Middle East (potentially offensive covers will be removed), and to victims of 9.11. Link Discuss (Thanks, Shane and Jack!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:45:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Slate is running a series

Slate is running a series of editorial cartoons about women and the Taliban by Ann Telnaes. Link Discuss (Thanks, mthomas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:07:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Starchy comfort-food consumption is at

Starchy comfort-food consumption is at an all-time high as Americans compulsively eat away the terrror of the Current Situation.

Gretchen Stagg, a 31-year-old single mother from Mill Valley, says that since the attack, she is suddenly deluged with invitations to eat. "Dinner parties, hot apple cider parties, hot chocolate and cookie parties--way more than normal," she said. "My daughter's godmother came over and picked her up this evening. They're over at her house baking a cake."

Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:47:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dubya's spokesmodel warns the press

Dubya's spokesmodel warns the press to "...watch what you do, watch what you say." The transcript edits out the "...what you say" part, but it's clearly audible on the Real file of the session. Trascript Link, Real Link Discuss (Thanks, Erik!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:42:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

There's a 50-50 chance that

There's a 50-50 chance that BoingBoing will be down for a few hours this afternoon (PDT), for installation of a new RAID card on the server. 50-50 because FedEx may or may not arrive with the card. You have been warned. That is all. Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:24:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ken wrote to me and

Ken wrote to me and asked me to check out his illustration portfolio. I almost bailed when I saw that the images were wrapped up in gargantuan Flash downloadables, but I'm glad I didn't. There's some really, really cool art here. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:16:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RINI -- The Real Internet

RINI -- The Real Internet News Initiative -- is a terrific newsblog that somehow has escaped my attention until today. It's definitely going into my daily rotatation! Link Discuss (Thanks, Pat!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:04:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

This is why I subscribe

This is why I subscribe to Salon: forget first-hand accounts from the Taliban's secret policemen -- Salon has a haunting and inspiring first-hand account of life under the Taliban from a member of RAWA, the underground women's organization that has been fighting the Taliban since before they took power. This is an incredible story. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:46:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An application whose time has

An application whose time has come: Freecell Solver is a 100% ANSI C program that automatically solves games of Freecell .Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:17:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Salon has an MP3 excerpt

Salon has an MP3 excerpt of the excellent audiobook adaptation of Neal Stephenson's Hugo-award-winning novel, "The Diamond Age." Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:05:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Applied Digital has announced that

Applied Digital has announced that they'll ship a 1.5 volt battery that charges itself with body heat, contains no harmful chemicals, and will never need replacing. Perpetual motion, anyone? I have five rechargeable devices that I shlep around regularily (phone, pager, PDA, laptop, Cybiko) -- I'd love one of these. Link Discuss (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:44:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Mousetrapping" is the practice of

"Mousetrapping" is the practice of writing popup ads that, when closed, spawn more popup ads that in turn spawn more pop ups, ad infinitum. John Zuccarini is a master mousetrapper, having registered over 5,500 domains whose names are misspellings for common words and Web-sites, and each one is a mousetrapper. Now, the FTC is suing him -- if only they can find him. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:38:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, October 1, 2001

What's become of all that

What's become of all that tech legislation since 9.11? Well, for the most part, it's been scrapped. Bye bye, P3P, see ya E-Government, Broadband Deployment, and all your little brothers and sisters. Link Discuss (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:44:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Walt Disney World's Hall of

Walt Disney World's Hall of Presidents reopens this month. They've moved the ClintonBot back into the wings and set up a DubyaBot in its place. Clinton was the first President to record his bot's spiel, and Dubya will be the second. The Imagineering team is also matching DubyaBot's motions to those of the real Dubya. They tried that with the Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln bot in Disneyland, using historically researched gestures, but larded gesture upon gesture until the Rail-Splitter appeared to have Tourette's. In science fiction workshops, we call this over-researched material "I've suffered for my art, now it's your turn," as when a writer drops 100 pages of Sumerian mythology into the middle of a great cyberpunk thriller. Link Discuss (via Exciting Monkeybum Stories for Boys and Girls)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:26:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bruce Schneier's new Crypto-Gram has

Bruce Schneier's new Crypto-Gram has a terrific, commonsense analysis of the new airport security measures, and why they're uniformly pointless.

...[W]hat is the threat, and how does turning an airplane into a kindergarten classroom reduce the threat? If the threat is hijacking, then the countermeasure doesn't protect against all the myriad of ways people can subdue the pilot and crew. Hasn't anyone heard of karate? Or broken bottles? Think about hiding small blades inside luggage. Or composite knives that don't show up on metal detectors.

...The real point of photo ID requirements is to prevent people from reselling tickets. Nonrefundable tickets used to be regularly advertised in the newspaper classifieds. Ads would read something like "Round trip, Boston to Chicago, 11/22 - 11/30, female, $50." Since the airlines didn't check ID but could notice gender, any female could buy the ticket and fly the route. Now this doesn't work. The airlines love this; they solved a problem of theirs, and got to blame the solution on FAA security requirement

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:17:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Patent awarded for a spherical

Patent awarded for a spherical robot soldier.

A small armored sphere rolls swiftly across a craggy landscape. It comes to a sudden stop, perching on three telescoping legs and sprouting a long neck with an eye that can swivel around 360 degrees. The enemy opens fire, but bullets merely ricochet off the sphere's exoskeleton as from yet another opening there emerges a gun, which-- sensing heat and motion -- takes aim and fires.

Link Discuss (via Meerkat)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:01:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Today is Grey Day, the

Today is Grey Day, the day when "people who create content for the Web" replace their work with plain grey pages to protest "rampant copyright infringement."

Look, I'd rather people not repurpose my material without asking me (or at least telling me) first, but I also think that "educational" efforts like this fail to ask any of the interesting, meaty questions about the role of copyright in the post-scarcity digital world, where everything is infinitely reproducible. This isn't a dialogue, it's a reaction. Too bad. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:57:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Good overview of the new

Good overview of the new reality of consumer aviation, and the sort of problems that air travellers are facing today. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:43:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury finally takes

Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury finally takes note of the Current Situation. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:04:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Today's This Modern World: "We

Today's This Modern World: "We must dismantle our democracy in order to save it." Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:59:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

People are paying thousands in

People are paying thousands in eBay auctions to acquire virtual weapons and armor and characters for massively multiplayer games (I broke this story in Wired about two years ago, but it's nice that Wired News has noticed!) Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:57:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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