posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:08:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Search for music by humming?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:16:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mobile-phone position data to fight traffic-snarls

The nation's transport ministry is running pilot projects to find out if signals sent from drivers' mobile phones to base stations can be used to time trips along popular routes.

The signals will help the transport ministry work out where traffic jams are building up and warn drivers of impending delays.

Using mobile phones could be a cheap way of gathering useful information because the phone network already covers the entire country.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:56:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Volunteers needed to fix the DMCA!

Anti-circumvention lets rightsholders rewrite copyright law. Even though you may have the right, under copyright law, to make some use of the work you buy (say, resell it to a friend), rights-holders need only implement an access-control system that makes this impossible without circumventing, and they can take away your rights. No one is allowed to give you a tool that would let you get your rights back. What's more, the access-control doesn't even have to be very technically good (CSS, the system used to control use of DVDs, was broken by teenagers in a day), because the law forbids your crossing the line.

The Copyright Office wants comments from people who tried to do something legal and useful but were locked out by access-control, because they are considering making exceptions to the anti-circumvention rule. EFF is recruiting volunteers to contribute to this:

• People who have had bad experience with access-controls, to write comments
• Editors, who will put the comments into the format the Copyright Office requires
• Law-students, who will check the comments to make sure that the phraasing speaks directly to the questions the Copyright Office is asking

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:44:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Toronto is Namerica's most multiculti

Nearly one in five people living in Toronto and Vancouver have been in the country less than 10 years. And more than a third of the people in those cities are members of visible minorities.

But other cities have also opened their doors to immigrants who are not Caucasian. We are "starting to see larger numbers of new immigrant groups going to places like Calgary, Ottawa, Kitchener and Windsor," Mr. Norris said.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:42:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Meshbox: Meshing WiFi hardware

Now, Locustworld has released the full Meshbox: a standalone 500 MHz (fanless) PC, suitable for installation in any living room next to the audio equipment.

Its simplest form is with a single antenna, which works on WiFi (802.11b) standards anywhere in the world, and provides shared access to the PC, but also looks for other Meshbox installations in the neighbourhood. There's a second option; an additional, long-range antenna, which you can mount on the roof of your house, to pick up signals from other Meshboxes further away - across the village, perhaps.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:28:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

War-correspondant kidnapped in Colombia

Some of Pelton's adventures include breaking American citizens out of jail in Colombia, living with the Dogon people in the Sahel, thundering down forbidden rivers in leaky native canoes, plowing through East African swamps with the U.S. Camel Trophy team, hitchhiking through war-torn Central America, and completing the first circumnavigation of the island of Borneo by land," his bio says. But that only begins to scratch the surface of Pelton's remarkable life.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:44:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cranky-chic chemo-caps

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:40:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NetLogo: Cellular automoata environment

NetLogo is a programmable modeling environment for simulating natural and social phenomena. It is particularly well suited for modeling complex systems developing over time. Modelers can give instructions to hundreds or thousands of independent "agents" all operating in parallel. This makes it possible to explore the connection between the micro-level behavior of individuals and the macro-level patterns that emerge from the interaction of many individuals.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:31:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jennifer Government and Nation States

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

Mobile Home: Causari's cool laptop and PDA cases

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:08:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, January 21, 2003

Chris Pirillo up for a bloggie!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:23:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on social mobiles from IDEO

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:05:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Origin of spam

But most people used MUDs to chat, and to play around and impress one another with objects they created. They were at first a highly evolved successor for the chat room.

The term spamming got used to apply to a few different behaviours. One was to flood the computer with too much data to crash it. Another was to "spam the database" by having a program create a huge number of objects, rather then creating them by hand. And the term was sometimes used to mean simply flooding a chat session with a bunch of text inserted by a program (commonly called a "bot" today) or just by inserting a file instead of your own real time typing output.

There are confirmed reports as well that the term migrated to MUDs from early "chat" systems. Rich Frueh believes the term originated on Bitnet's Relay, the early chat system that IRC was named after. When the ability to input a whole file to the chat system was implemented, people would annoy others by dumping the words to the Monty Python Spam Song. Peter da Silva reports use in early 80s chat on TRS-80 based BBSs, but feels since they imported other Bitnet Relay customs, the term may have come from there.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:00:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Do plants know math?

For more than three centuries botanists and mathematicians have marveled at the complex and beautiful spiral patterns that form as plants develop. As they generate leaves around a stem, or seeds or flowers in a blossom, plants as diverse as broccoli, pinecones, artichokes and water lilies create intricate spirals that follow a well-known mathematical sequence of numbers.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:58:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sky-Hook: Goofy jogger apparatus

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:56:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Unfair rhetoric

I KNOW BETTER:
A clever and socially acceptable way of denying what someone has said by claiming to know more about what the other person thinks or feels than they do. Believe it or not, this technique is quite commonplace and effective.

"That's a cruel thing to say, and I know you don't mean it."

"You've made that point well, but: (1) I know where your heart is... (2) I sense that you're not comfortable with what you're saying... (3) I know what kind of person you are deep down, and that you cannot continue to hold this position and maintain your integrity."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:53:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Recording industry needs collaborative filtering

This is all part of the Big Flip in publishing generally, where the old notion of "filter, then publish" is giving way to "publish, then filter." There is no need for Slashdot's or Kuro5hin's owners to sort the good posts from the bad in advance, no need for Blogdex or Daypop to pressure people not to post drivel, because lightweight filters applied after the fact work better at large scale than paying editors to enforce minimum quality in advance. A side-effect of the Big Flip is that the division between amateur and professional turns into a spectrum, giving us a world where unpaid writers are discussed side-by-side with New York Times columnists.

The music industry is largely untouched by the Big Flip. The industry harvests the aggregate taste of music lovers and sells it back to us as popularity, without offering anyone the chance to be heard without their approval. The industry's judgment, not ours, still determines the entire domain in which any collaborative filtering will subsequently operate. A working "publish, then filter" system that used our collective judgment to sort new music before it gets played on the radio or sold at the record store would be a revolution.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:49:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Automated vanity-googling

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:46:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYT ethics guidelines

Staff members may not hold public office or wear campaign buttons or attend political rallies. Members of the culture staff who collect objects of art must annually submit a list of their acquisitions to the associate managing editor for news administration. Reporters and editors can't own individual stocks that might pertain to their beats, and editors who determine the placement and display of business and financial news cannot own individual stocks at all (other than New York Times Company stock, of course). The same goes for editors and writers on the editorial page. The stock holdings and political activities of husbands and wives can also create serious conflicts of interest, or, worse, the appearance of them--as Article 2 states, "Our first duty is to make sure the integrity of the Times is not blemished during our stewardship"--but the rules on spouses are vague. (Generally, you get the impression that it would be best not to have one.) There is also this, about free food: "A simple buffet of muffins and coffee at a news conference, for example, is harmless."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:46:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monobrow gallery

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:11:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dance Dance Revolution masters in Tokyo, caught live on tape

This page has insane video of Dance Dance Revolution masters from Tokyo scoring perfect games on the hardest setting with crazy/insane insane/crazy moves. They're the cup stacking girls of Japanese arcades. I recommend the third video, Take getting 10 Greats/3 Misses on Maxx Unlimited Reverse Stealth.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:58:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ISP must reveal name of subscriber accused of "sharing hundreds of songs"

UPDATE: Declan McCullagh has posted the court docs here (PDF), and his CNET news story is now online here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:24:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mandatory microchipping of pets in Singapore?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:56:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Haunted Mansion ringtones

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:16:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, January 20, 2003

"America's Army": 3D shoot-em-up game from US Army

"America's Army: The United States Army, with Americas Army: Operations being heralded as one of the largest and best first person shooter games, is proud to bring to the gaming community the ability to rent their own servers running on state of art high performance computing technology through goamericasarmy.com. It is with great pride that we bring yet another first from the United States Army in enhancing the community and their gaming experience."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:07:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Swedish dirty book cover image gallery

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:34:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cafe WiFi facing "invisible competition"

Bucks, the famous Silicon Valley breakfast haunt of venture capitalists, had two Wi-Fi providers as early as March 2002. Both wireless ISPs, Airwave and Wi-Fi Metro, have since exited the WISP business or failed entirely. So the owner of Buck's, Jamis MacNiven, decided to provide free access to his well-heeled clientele. MacNiven says, "I pay $60 for 1.5 mps signal which I need anyway. Charging for the online usage would be, for me, like charging for salt and pepper. It is a tiny cost of doing business and we are glad to give it away. I can't see how the wireless providers will make money in public places...."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:23:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WiFi car-stereos

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:18:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Court rules that X-Men are "nonhuman creatures"

In her chambers at the U.S. Court of International Trade, in New York, the judge examined Prof. X and the rest of his band of X-Men, all of them little plastic figures at the heart of a six-year tariff battle between their owner, Marvel Enterprises Inc., and the U.S. Customs Service.

Her ruling thundered through the world of Marvel Comics fans. The famed X-Men, those fighters of prejudice sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are not human, she decreed Jan. 3. Nor are many of the villains who do battle with Spiderman and the Fantastic Four. They're all "nonhuman creatures," concluded Judge Barzilay.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:14:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Snailmailboxes" for meatspace lovers: analog messaging nostalgia

The Snail Mailbox, designed by Boym Partners, is a beautiful example of an old-fashioned concept made new all over again. Made from sturdy, powder-coated steel and available in cream and silver, it's an ode to utilitarian chic that'll dress up your abode while protecting your precious snail mail. For apartment dwellers, it makes a great indoor accessory -- perfect for storing your whatnot (keys, TV remotes, dog leash) or just showing off your excellent taste. We don't know about you, but we've yet to find a Hotmail inbox that can do all that. Available [in L.A.] at Homework, 1153 North Highland Avenue, between Santa Monica Boulevard and Fountain Avenue (323-466-1153).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:57:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Venezuelan blog day

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:36:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SBC's patent-shakedown: website navigation

We recently observed several useful navigation features within the user interface or your site www.museumtour.com. For example your site includes several selectors or tabs that correspond to specific locations within your site documents. These selectors seem to reside in their own frame or part of the user interface. And, as such, the selectors are not lost when a different part of the document is displayed to the user - see screen shots from museumtour.com enclosed. By sperating the selectors from the content, Museumetour has truly simplified site navigation and improved the shopping experience for its users.

As you review the Structured Document Patent you will notice that the above-discussed features appear to infringe several issued claims in our patent. In light of Museum Tours presumed respect for the intellectual property rights of others, we are pleased to offer you a Preferred Rate license under the structured Document Patent - see enclosed rate schedule.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:19:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, January 19, 2003

Coppola adapting On the Road

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:11:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Robbie Williams: "'Piracy' is great"

"I think it's great, really I do.

"There is nothing anyone can do about it.

"I am sure my record label would hate me saying it, and my manager and my accountants."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:08:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Socially sensitive mobile phones?

For example, the first phone, called SoMo1, gives its user a mild electric shock, depending on how loudly the person at the other end is speaking. This encourages both parties to speak more quietly, otherwise the mild tingling becomes an unpleasant jolt. Such phones, the designers suggest archly, could be given to repeat offenders who persistently disturb people with intrusive phone conversations. (...)

SoMo4 replaces ringtones with a knocking sound: to make a call, select the number and knock on the back of the phone, as you would on somebody's door. The recipient of the call hears this knock (cleverly encoded and relayed via a short text-message) and decides how urgent the call is. How you knock on a door, says Mr Pullin, is freighted with meaning: there is a world of difference between tentative tapping and insistent hammering. SoMo5 has a catapult-like device that can be used to trigger intrusive sounds on a nearby user's phone, anonymously alerting them that they are speaking too loudly.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:03:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ween's unreleased Pizza Hut jingle

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:58:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Digital Mona Lisa: This is not a computer picture

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:46:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

CafePress to do books

He does, however, tell me CafePress has exciting plans to expand into publishing in early 2003: The company's media-services division will offer print-on-demand books, audio CDs and DVDs. Using the same general principle, it'll produce, to order, your novel, album or film with glossy covers and jewel-box inserts, a move that has revolutionary possibilities. And though self-publishing already exists on the Web, CafePress has honed the production-and-fulfillment process to make it far more viable.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:50:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Over 50,000 downloads of Down and Out!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:38:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video of SF anti-war march

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:20:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Open Spectrum FAQ

Should the military and/or emergency services have their own protected frequencies?

First, we believe that the frequencies that the military uses for communications, radar, etc. would be as secure and interference free as any other set of frequencies in a world with Open Spectrum. This is a question that needs to be argued on its scientific merits, free of scare-mongering.

Second, assigned frequencies have their own vulnerabilities. One of the basic technological enablers of the Open Spectrum approach is some form of "frequency hopping" that opportunistically moves transmissions into the most accessible bands. This approach was invented during World War II (and, surprisingly, Hedy Lamaar is one of the two names on the initial patent) to get around the fact that a radio-controlled torpedo could be jammed if its assigned frequency were detected. If the military wants to own its own slice of spectrum because allowing others onto it might cause "interference," what would keep terrorists from purposefully causing the problem?

We have all been learning, across the board, that open, distributed networks are far more secure and robust than hard-wired, centralized ones. That lesson applies to spectrum as well.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:10:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Banned in Canada: History of Underground Comics

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:57:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, January 18, 2003

Civil liberties in gamespace

Therefore this document holds the following truths to be self-evident: That avatars are the manifestation of actual people in an online medium, and that their utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions should be considered to be as valid as the utterances, actions, thoughts, and emotions of people in any other forum, venue, location, or space. That the well-established rights of man approved by the National Assembly of France on August 26th of 1789 do therefore apply to avatars in full measure saving only the aspects of said rights that do not pertain in a virtual space or which must be abrogated in order to ensure the continued existence of the space in question. That by the act of affirming membership in the community within the virtual space, the avatars form a social contract with the community, forming a populace which may and must self-affirm and self-impose rights and concomitant restrictions upon their behavior. That the nature of virtual spaces is such that there must, by physical law, always be a higher power or administrator who maintains the space and has complete power over all participants, but who is undeniably part of the community formed within the space and who must therefore take action in accord with that which benefits the space as well as the participants, and who therefore also has the rights of avatars and may have other rights as well. That the ease of moving between virtual spaces and the potential transience of the community do not limit or reduce the level of emotional and social involvement that avatars may have with the community, and that therefore the ease of moving between virtual spaces and the potential transience of the community do not in any way limit, curtail, or remove these rights from avatars on the alleged grounds that avatars can always simply leave.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:25:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bernstein's patent-policy work-to-rule

The invention is a Soap Saver Dish. The Soap Saver Dish is a plastic holder for soap. It has several prongs reaching up out of a tray. Soap can sit on top of the prongs, while soapy water collects in the tray. The prongs reach higher than the edge of the tray, so that water collected in the tray does not touch the soap.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:20:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How to convert a Unitarian

Secular humanists are basically atheists who deny the very existence of a personal living God. Therefore, arguments for the existence of God prepare the UUA heart for evangelism. It is very difficult to apply John 3:16 to the life of someone who rejects the very existence of a God who loves the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son. There are several compelling arguments for the existence of God, but space does not permit us to look carefully at them here. The two most common evidences for the existence of God are the very existence of the universe itself, and the intricate design of the universe. These arguments are called the cosmological and the teleological arguments respectively. Basically, the cosmological argument argues for God on the basis of the presence of the universe. If there is a universe, then there must have been a Universe Maker, God. The teleological argument argues for God on the basis of the design of the universe. If the universe looks like it has been designed, then there must have been a Universe Designer, God. Please consult the appropriate FAITH training materials that dedicate sessions to apologetic arguments for the existence of God.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:16:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ecommerce refugee supplies

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:13:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Designer of "I fucked [star name here]" shirts sued by Gisele?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:13:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Spectacular 1" scale sixties boy's bedroom

The room is electrified with an overhead light and a working "Buck Rogers" desk lamp. It matches the Buck Rogers toy chest at the foot of the captain's bed. The chocolate lab wallpaper is a fabric remnant I found at my flea last year. The carpet is a buff wall-to-wall. Baseboards and cornices are stained in a dark early American. Scott has already begun a life-long hobby of as you can see from his movie poster collection...

The 1" Batmobile is patterned after the one from the 1966 TV series...as was the original Aurora Model kit of that year. The original Batmobile was built by a custom car specialist/designer named George Barris. In 1955 an experimental car called the Lincoln Futura made quite a splash on the auto show circuit. Barris bought that very car and is the one he was commissioned to customize by the Batman TV show's producers. He tricked it out, painted it black, added exhast pipes behind the passenger seats and gave it it's sleek "Bat" look. The mini in my setting is a MicroMachine of the Lincoln Futura. I customized it to look like the Barris Batmobile. It is actually a tad larger than a real scale one would be as the Aurora model is only 6" long..but it was so close, I had to use it :) Plus, it was fun to do my mini auto customizing job! :)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:11:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Madrid street artists' online gallery

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:53:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Road Calls Me Dear: finally in print!

Within a month of my taking over, the river Junque had provided me with a whole new wardrobe. I sold off anything that didn't fit, and what was left might have been tailored for me. It was pretty mismatched, coming from all over the world, bright and shiny and with designer labels. If I wanted to, and I did, I could wear a new high-fashion outfit every day. The only thing that stayed constant was the big jacket; I'd pulled it out of the river thinking it was a joke or something. But no, it was an exquisitely tailored blue sharkskin sports coat that was made for a man at least seven foot tall, and as big around as a beer keg. I had to roll up the sleeves, and the tails hung down almost to my knees, but I liked it anyway. The pockets were big.

Then it was time to open up. I dragged the sandwich board out to the river-bank and propped it up so that it faced the road: MR CORNUCOPIA'S BAZAAR OF EXQUISITE JUNQUE IS OPEN FOR BUSINESS!!! TOYS! CLOTHES! ELECTRONICS! GIMCRACK AND GEWGAW SUPPLIER TO THE STARS! BY APPOINTMENT TO HIS EXALTED MAJESTY, THE KING OF ZAÏRE! I didn't know that Zaïre had a King, but it didn't matter; I liked the sound of it.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:39:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Haunted Mansion trailer online

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:25:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Credit card with integrated breathalyzer

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:48:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Guide to video from MIT spam-conference

Session 1

0:00:30, Teodor Zlatanov, spam.el Maintainer, "Gnus vs. Spam"
0:10:00, Bill Yerazunis, MERL, "Sparse Binary Polynomial Hash Message Filtering and The CRM114 Discriminator"
0:32:30, Jason Rennie, MIT AI Lab, "Adaptive Spam Filtering"
0:52:00, John Graham-Cumming, POPFile, "The Spammers' Compendium"

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:07:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Danger hiptop with color screen to debut in Europe

In related news, Danger won mad props this week at the Wired Magazine Rave Awards in San Francisco (where Cory and I were both in the house). PR blurb on their award here.

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:08:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mobile phone-tossing: new sport in Latvia?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:42:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Slow-weights:Cardio :: Low-carb:low-fat

"Muscles are like an investment in the bank, earning you money," Mr. Cruise said. "Fat is like a job you go to and once you leave, it stops paying. Once you get off that treadmill, you stop burning calories, whereas muscle keeps burning all day long..."

"By moving heavy weights at a slow pace, you eliminate any momentum that might help get the weights up faster and make it easier on the muscle," said Mr. Hahn, who owns Serious Strength, a gym on the Upper West Side.

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

Eric Eldred Act: A bookkeeping change that would feed the public domain

What should I do if I like this idea?

Three things: First, you should write your Congressman or Congresswoman about it now. Second, you should send money to organizations that support the idea. Check here for a list, or paypal to free.mickey@foobox.com. And third, you should talk about it, best in weblog space, but anywhere would be great. This will only happen if people push Congress to do something about it.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:53:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Great 802.11g primer

One of 802.11g's big advantages over 802.11b is that it better handles the inevitable signal reflection. Radio signals bounce off different pieces of matter--floors, metal, even the air around you--at different angles and speeds. A receiver must reconcile all the different reflections of the same signal that arrive at slightly different times into a single set of data. 802.11g (like 802.11a) slices up the spectrum in a way that enables receivers to handle these reflections in a simpler but more effective way than 802.11b.

Because 802.11a has 12 distinct channels that can be used without interference in the same place, it offers an advantage for scenarios in which avoiding interference is important. Likewise, the four channels reserved in the upper end of the 5 GHz band for 802.11a outdoor, point-to-point use can employ higher power levels, which may provide a better throughput than 802.11g in the same circumstances.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:16:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

International movement to reform copyright terms

Everyone except for lobbyists and corrupt congress-critters understands that this is insane. This is therefore an excellent cause to rally around and to test our political power. This is something that we can actually agree to change! No matter where we stand on copyright per se, no matter where we live, we should all join forces and fight insane copyright terms, world-wide.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:53:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Trash-houses: a baby's crib coated in gray mold...

Inside, flashed up in the projector's illuminating beam, is a baby's crib coated in gray mold. Beneath it, scattered across the carpeted floor, are boxes of breakfast cereal--Wheaties, Life--and a pile of snagged lingerie. "Conception," Staffenson says, nodding at the next slide, "believe it or not, occurred here," on a stained mattress covered over with crumpled newspapers. "This was the home of a young couple who'd left the farm. The husband couldn't make it there--this was the late '80s and the economy was pretty rough for some. They came down to the city and he couldn't get work. She was 16, 17 maybe, pregnant, and just couldn't keep up with things. This is the toilet"--click--"past full, spilling over, so they just shut the door and started using a bucket in the kitchen. The nurse who drove out to the house went in the backyard and puked before she called me."

We spend another hour in the dark, tracking cases whose addresses no longer matter much. The particulars inside, after a while, appear like set objects in a series of still-lifes: the industrial strength garbage bags, the spoiled food, the buckets, the stacks of newspapers. Broken glass and a toddler with bleeding feet. Wrung-out diapers drying on a radiator. Kerosene lamps. Captain Crunch. Fly-paper. Aluminum cans. Cat litter trays made from detergent boxes. Coke cartons. TV Guide. The Eggert house, with a hide-a-bed buried four feet deep in trash, its sheets still on. The kitchen of another house where a 70-year-old man, living alone, was found in the middle of winter frozen to death, surrounded by junk mail and pet-food cans, with his feet stuck in the oven.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:48:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Compulsive squalor: animal "collectors" and trash houses

To me, the most striking feature of the animal hoarder's psychology is their state of complete and utter denial. This is not your usual "Your father never did that, you don't understand what he was going through, and why do you insist on only remembering the bad things?" kind of denial. This is world-class craziness. Hoarders insist there's no problem, the house is just a little messy, and their critters are fine--even when the feces are literally a foot deep, animals are dropping dead and other animals are cannibalizing them, or the poor beasts have chronic infections that leave them with masses of scar tissue instead of eyes. If it weren't real, it would be unbelievable:

Irene Holmes, a District Attorney who has assisted in the prosecution of a number of collector cases throughout the United States, ... states that collectors have a "death grip on denial." She gives the example of a woman who was shown a photograph of one of the dogs that was seized from her care. The photo shows a Weimaraner, so starved from lack of food that it was literally shedding its intestines and rectum. Holmes relates that when the woman who owned the dog looked at the photo, her only comment was "I guess it did seem a little ill."

Their recidivism rate is close to 100%.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:45:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nationwide day of protest against war in Iraq

Becker said people from 220 cities nationwide have committed to attending the demonstrations, which are slated to begin on Washington's National Mall at 11 a.m. EST.

Demonstrators will converge at the Capitol and march to the Washington Navy Yard, a military installation in Southeast Washington.

In San Francisco, California, where organizers predicted a turnout of about 50,000 protesters, the day's events begin at 11 a.m. (2 p.m. EST) with a march from the waterfront down Market Street in the heart of the city to the Civic Center.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:34:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, January 17, 2003

LA spoken word event: Reverse Cowgirl reads fiction this Sunday

"this Sunday evening, the 19th, i will be reading my fiction at Spoken Interludes Vanguard. that's at the Tempest Supper Club, located at 7323 Santa Monica Boulevard in Los Angeles. the buffet dinner, likely served sans burgers and weiners, begins at 6pm and the reading itself starts at 7:15pm. it costs $25 whole smackers to get in. fellow fiction readers include Tori Morsell, Dan Roberts, Eve Wood, Hal Ackerman, and Dani Klein.

i will be reading Hey Doll. i may or may not be saying the word 'penis.'"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:28:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SpaceBrothers: inflatable aliens tour the world

I decided to do this in furtherance of my belief that the best thing about the Web is THE UPLOADS, not the downloads. It's the =users= contributions that make this medium so much more than a fat pipe for more Hollywood "product." The stories and pictures we have online are funny and scary, cute and puzzling -- especially since mystery inflatable aliens are turning up in places we never sent them! They highlight the diverse creative approaches that highlight the special qualities of the Web.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:52:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Los Alamos eggheads stash nuke-waste in a shack

"Although there were no immediate radiological consequences, unanticipated events (could) have caused unanalyzed and significant exposures to workers and to the public," Linton Brooks, the acting chief of the National Nuclear Security Administration, wrote in December in a letter to then-Lab director John Browne.

"PF-185 basically provides a weather-shield and airborne monitoring, but little high wind, missile, or seismic protection," Dr. Charles Keilers, the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board's representative at Los Alamos, wrote in a memo to colleagues. "Many of (PF-185's) containers (would likely) fail in a fire."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:47:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Congress pleads for its Crackberries

The problem is that RIM, a Canadian company, has been convicted of infringing on a bullshit patent held by an American competitor. Ironically, RIM's own bullshit patent ("small QWERTY keyboards") has been used to extort money from Palm and Handspring.

The chief administrator of the House of Representatives has asked RIM and its Yankee competitor to settle up nice and quiet, lest they deprive the gubmint's net-addled stress-feeders of their always-on email appliances.

Eagen wrote that Congress has invested nearly $6 million in BlackBerry technology, including issuing 3,000 of the black, wireless handsets, in part because of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Eagen's worry stems from a federal court jury verdict in November that the BlackBerry infringed on patents held by NTP Inc., an Arlington holding company...

"This is a sorry state of affairs," Wallace said. "The U.S. Congress is defending the continued use of foreign technology that is determined to be operating unlawfully." He has told Congress that he would not seek to shut BlackBerry down until a suitable alternative was in place.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:42:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday Web Zen: Surreal

(1) Strindberg and helium
(2) Recursive (dramamine recommended)
(3) Maltese dog goes under the sea and swims with fish
(4) Ballad of Bilbo Baggins, performed by Leonard Nimoy
(5) Celebriducks
(6) Dream Anatomy
(7) Mona Lisa
(8) and a classic: Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:39:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

First-hand review of in-flight WiFi on Lufthansa Frankfurt-to-D.C. flight

Link (via IP)

Update: Frank Boosman writes:

The report on this on NPR's Marketplace the other night was cool. The reporter recorded his report as an MP3 and uploaded it during the flight. The encoding at this link is low-grade, but on the radio, the report sounded fine. According to the host, the report was a 4.7MB MP3 file that took 17 minutes to upload, which implies an upload speed of 37.8 kbit/s -- not too bad considering how many journalists on the inaugural flight must have been using that link simultaneously."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:04:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYT Editorial on Eldred: The Coming of Copyright Perpetuity

Artists naturally deserve to hold a property interest in their work, and so do the corporate owners of copyright. But the public has an equally strong interest in seeing copyright lapse after a time, returning works to the public domain -- the great democratic seedbed of artistic creation -- where they can be used without paying royalties.

In effect, the Supreme Court's decision makes it likely that we are seeing the beginning of the end of public domain and the birth of copyright perpetuity. Public domain has been a grand experiment, one that should not be allowed to die. The ability to draw freely on the entire creative output of humanity is one of the reasons we live in a time of such fruitful creative ferment.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:43:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eastern Standard Tribe cover!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:50:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mad Professor on Inkwell.vue

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:08:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Online street-level photoguide to Barcelona

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:05:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Britons slashdot Parliament, hamstring national ID card

When you left us last Friday: Lord Falconer, minister in charge of ID cards, was claiming that his consultation was showing a 2:1 majority in favour of them. By Monday, thanks to your mails via stand.org.uk, the ratio must have been more like 2:1 against. At time of writing, with over 4000 new responses in one week, we'd estimate it's now something like 80% anti, 20% pro. David Blunkett, who was tipped to announce growing public support for the project at a conference on Wednesday, instead talked of cabinet splits, and "not wanting a revolution" over the proposals. Isn't it always a surprise when you log in to check your inbox after the weekend?

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:42:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The snakebots are coming

Snake-like robots already exist in rudimentary forms. But Choset's creations push the envelope. Small and very strong by design, Choset's snakebots measure just five centimeters (two inches) in diameter. The use of beveled gears around their circumference, allows the serpentine robots many more degrees of movement than conventional robots--including the ability to move efficiently in three-dimensional space. Choset's machines use complex mathematical algorithms that enable them to autonomously sense and respond to obstacles and variations they encounter while navigating across landscapes.

Living snakes move by cyclic forms of locomotion, or "gaits." Adapting these gaits to the mechanical snake enables it to maneuver effectively through three-dimensional terrain. Choset's current snakebot prototype is constructed from many separate pieces connected with hinges. Eventually, the device will look much like a real snake, with a smooth surface "skin" possibly made of piezoelectric polymer materials that hold special electrical properties. This skin would help to propel the snakebot by expanding and contracting as it is alternately charged with electric current. The resulting motion, which would resemble that of a real snake, would help the snakebot move safely in cluttered spaces.

Link to National Geographic story, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:49:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hacking the vacuum-robot "Roomba"

"Our first attempt yielded vaulable information about the internals of the Roomba. It is evident that iRobot's engineers have gone through a great deal of effort to minimize the cost in order to make the Roomba affordable. We shall have 802.11b controlled robots roving around any day now."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:39:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cruelty to Analog: the effort to plug the analog hole

The group, called the Analog Reconversion Discussion Group (ARDG -- pronounced "Argh!") is hewing to the secretive principles that kept the Broadcast Flag negotiation out of the public eye. The press may not attend its meetings or sit in on its phone calls. However, anyone not working for the press with $100 and a plane ticket to LAX may attend the meetings and report on their proceedings.

So EFF has started a new blog to chronicle the negotiation, called "Cruelty to Analog." The blog will be updated with reports from each of the ARDG's meetings, its draft documents and position papers -- all the news that's fit to blog. These people are engaged in a horse-trading exercise with your fair-use and free-speech rights. If you can't make it to LA for the monthly meeting, shouldn't you at least be keeping track of what they're doing to your rights? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:19:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Three-line WiFi Theremin

This means that the 802.11 card can function as a rough proximity sensor for your hand. This evening I realized that that means you can make a wireless card into a sort of poor man's theremin -- you just need to map the signal strength to a tone, play the tone, and move your hand. You'll be able to play several discrete pitches or scales, although with much less precision than a real theremin.

I wrote a three-line shell script which implements this idea (using Linux setterm, all on a beta test version of the LNX-BBC, it so happens), and later improved it a little bit with a small C program which wraps the Linux KIOCSOUND ioctl. It works just fine -- you can easily bring the tone up and down by moving your hand back and forth. That's a lot of fun. The most obvious problem is the discreteness of the whole thing. A real theremin is plainly an analog device. (The analogy is between the pitch level and the position of your hand.) This system is very obviously quantized, at best like someone playing a poor piano scale (and it's distorted sine waves rather than piano strings with their nice harmonics).

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

Play-by-email games rock

Laser Squad Nemesis is a free download. With the download, you get three training scenarios. But to play the game for real, you must "subscribe," at the rate of $25 for six months of unlimited play. When playing, you use the client software to plan your moves, then submit them to the server, via email. You have one opponent; when the server receives both your and your opponent's moves, it resolves them, and sends off a file with the new gamestate, also via email. You receive the file, "replay" the turn to see what your opponent did, and what happened during the last turn--and plot your next turn's moves.

In other words, you might wind up playing a turn a day--or a turn every fifteen minutes or so, depending on how frequently your opponent submits moves, and how frequently you want to do so.

Each player controls a squad of futuristic ground troopers-- human space marines, Mechs, or Spawn (with additional races to come). Each "turn" represents ten seconds of realtime. You plan your moves by selecting troopers, telling them where to go, and ordering them to fire at a particular target, at any target that appears in view, or just to lay down opportunity fire in case an opponent appears. You can "test" your move, seeing what your men do--and whether, say, they get in each others way, or whether you actually can get a grenade through that window from this angle. Indeed, to play effectively, you need to test your move several times and refine it, until you have a well-coordinated plan of attack

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:06:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Orange breaks MSFT SmartPhones with new anti-user "patch"

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

Thursday, January 16, 2003

Berkeley DRM conference Feb 27-Mar 1

Music is being released on copy-protected CDs, movies on encrypted and region-encoded DVDs, and Congress is considering the mandate of technological protection for digital television. The next generation of information distribution will be defined by the purchase of rights to receive digital content for a set of defined and controlled uses. Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems are the technological measures built into the hardware or software of home computers, digital televisions, stereo equipment, and portable devices in order to manage the relationships between users and protected expression. As technological solutions increasingly interact and even supersede the laws of intellectual property, privacy, and contract law, it is imperative for everyone from lawyers, technologists, and policy-makers to artists and consumers to keep up with the changes.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:26:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wil Wheaton in I, Robot?

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:18:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Airplane scrapyard pics

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:43:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

An entire house, rendered in wireframe

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:26:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TV biz jargon watch

ANTICIPOINTMENT (n) What viewers experience when you fall short of their expectations after over-promoting a story or show.

INGEST (v) To file raw or feed video into a server. "Quick, ingest that tape!"

PREEMPTNITION (n) The feeling you have when you realize the story you've worked on for a week is about to get bumped from the show.

BINGO (n) When an aircraft reaches the point of having to return to refuel. "We're 10 minutes from bingo," radioed the chopper pilot to the assignment desk.

Link to their entire list of TV jargon to date, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:32:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Patriotic Traitors

Did you know the difference between "Patriot" and Traitor" is just two letters? Not surprisingly, those letters are "PR". Here are some examples:

We know that Saddam Hussein has Anthrax, as well as botulism and bubonic plague, because the Reagan Administration GAVE him the starter cultures. The emissary on that mission? None other than Donald Rumsfeld. Don't believe me? Type "Rumsfeld" + "Anthrax" + "Iraq" into your search engine.

Boy that Dick Cheney sure is a patriotic guy - he'd never give aid and support to our enemies, right? Think again. As CEO of Halliburton, he went around the UN embargo by using foreign subsidiaries Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser Pump to rebuild Saddam Hussein's oil infrastructure just three years ago. Not only did he seek to do business with Mr. Hitler-with-a-bigger-mustache, he actually broke the law for the privilege! Estimates of the deal vary from between 23 and 78 million dollars, but Cheney's take amounted to approximately thirty pieces of silver (adjusted for inflation from 33 A.D.) Need proof? Type "Halliburton" + "Iraq" into your search engine.

Admiral John Poindexter, recently put in charge of going over your e-mails and credit card receipts, is a convicted felon who sold Stinger missiles to the Iranians, used the profits to fund an international terrorist organization, and then lied to congress about it. Along with the Stinger missiles, Poindexter also delivered to the Ayatollah a Bible and a key-shaped cake. Go ahead and and call us democrats as unpatriotic as you like, at least we didn't bake any cakes for the Ayatollah.

Too young to remember this? Keywords are "Poindexter" + "Iran".

Worried that you or a loved one may have to serve in the Persian Gulf? Take a tip from the President: "George Bush" + "AWOL"

To put all this in perspective, remember that Bill Clinton was hounded for six and a half years by the GOP over a two-bit Arkansas land deal where he actually lost money. Throughout his presidency, Bill Clinton was accused of practically every crime in the book except the one he was actually guilty of: not being a member of the Republican Party.

Let's face it, if any of these clowns had been democrats, the GOP wouldn't be putting them into high office, they'd be putting them to death. For their own sake, please encourage your local democratic party representatives to grow a spine. Quickly. Failing that, here's some advice from Billy Bragg: "Start your own revolution and cut out the middleman."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:15:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World's first truly artificial life-form created

The bacterium makes an amino acid that no other organism uses to build proteins. The work is being hailed as "a very great accomplishment" and the technique promises to open unique avenues for manufacturing drugs.

Amino acids are the fundamental building blocks of life, making up the proteins which constitute all living cells. The DNA of every organism on Earth contains three-letter codes, known as codons, for 20 such amino acids. Now, a team led by Peter Schultz of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla has managed to coax E. coli bacteria to produce a 21st amino acid and use it to make a protein, using only natural food sources such as sugar and water.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:37:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Street-level walking photoguide to London shops, bars, restaurants

Here's an idea so obvious you wonder why it hasn't already happened: areas of London have been photographed from street level, and the streets reconstructed and indexed on a map. Now, when you're looking for that bar you can't remember the name of, by the map shop, around the corner from the deli, you can actually find it by trawling this site. Oh, and you can usually link to their website from here too.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:11:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Magnetic fields and mind-control (tinfoil beanie not required)

Invented in 1985, modern-day magnetic stimulators charge up to a whopping 3,000 volts and produce peak currents of up to 8,000 amps - powers similar to those of a small nuclear reactor. That pulse of current flowing from a capacitor into a hand-held coil creates a magnetic field outside the patient's head. The field painlessly induces a current inside the brain, affecting the electrical activity that is the basis for all it does.

The promise of TMS as a scientific tool seems similarly powerful. And it has generated a range of intriguing practical effects as well, from improving attention to combating depression, that have been published in reputable, peer-reviewed journals.

''From the point of view of cognitive neuroscience - understanding how brain activity relates to behavior - it is, in a way, a dream come true for all of us, because it provides a way to create our own patients, as it were,'' said [Dr. Alvaro] Pascual-Leone, director of the Laboratory for Magnetic Brain Stimulation at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. ''You can create a very transient disruption of the brain. For a few milliseconds, it is as if those cells were not there. So you are able to ask questions about what role a particular brain part plays in a particular behavior.''

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:53:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bananas in danger of extinction?

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:46:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

5.8 GHz a load of Gigahype?

There is nothing inherently superior in 5.8 GHz to the older 2.4 GHz or 900 megahertz (MHz) cordless phones. The range isn't greater, the clarity isn't enhanced and there's no added support for special features.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:33:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bangladesh gets unwired

"In the future, we hope to provide low-cost connections to local hospitals, schools and non-profits groups as well," he says...

Mr Rahman says the wireless technology will be hugely beneficial for the people who live in rural areas and on remote islands that have no telephone facilities.

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

Dashboard cig lighter for your PC tower

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:00:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lufthansa pilots airborne wireless

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:57:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Apple insists that iCommune cease

Uh oh... I just received a "Notice of Breach and Termination of License" letter from Apple, stating that I violated my license to the Device Plug-in API which iCommune uses. For the time being, I'm making the download unavailable, while I try to sort things out with Apple. Sorry about this folks. Any good lawyers in the house?

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:54:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lessig: Whither the Supremes' Constitutional commitment?

One friend offered a reason in an email of condolence. Those 5, he said, save their activism for issues they think important. They apply their principle to causes they think important. Protecting states is a cause they think important. Protecting the public domain is not.

By what right? By what g.d. right? These five justices have all the right in the world to have their own principled way of interpreting the constitution. Long before this case, I had written many many pages trying to explain the principle I thought inherent in the decisions of these five justices. I have spent many hours insisting on the same to ever-skeptical students. But by what right do these 5 get to pick and choose the parts of the constitution to which their principles will apply?

This sounds so amazingly naive, I know. But I have spent my career staring down the charge of naive, insisting on something more. Think the poster on the X-Files -- "I want to believe" -- but with the Supreme Court, not UFOs, in the background. Yet here I am, more than a decade into my job, just where most of my professors insisted I should have been more than a decade ago.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:48:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, January 15, 2003

WiFi-SciFi: My open spectrum fiction on Salon

Akwesahsne was just the sort of woods that the CogRad gear thrived in. Within a week, the entire rez would be unwired at 500 megabits/second, enough connectivity to move whatever data they could find a use for. The Warriors were resentful at first, but they came around.

Lee-Daniel went out with a crew that Elaine was leading, up on the northern border of the Sovereign. She had two junior surveyors with her, all of them loaded with positioning gear that tied in to Galileo, the European GPS network -- the Galileo gear cost a fortune, but they'd found that their American GPS kit often mysteriously stopped working when they were working on projects in the territorial USA. They'd ordered the Euro stuff from a bunch of anti-globalization activists who'd found that the same thing happened in any city hosting an economic summit. Europeans were more likely to treat infrastructure as sacrosanct, while the U.S. was only too happy to monkey with GPS for tactical reasons. The Series A man hated the expense of the Galileo gear, hated paying off crusty-punk Starbucks-smashers for critical tools, hated the optics of looking like a bunch of anarchists instead of a spunky start-up.

The surveyors and the Warriors kept their distance as they set out, one Warrior leading and one bringing up the rear. Elaine called for a break every five or ten minutes to check her location against the map and to hammer down an RF beacon that would serve to measure the drop-off over the terrain as they hiked. She used binox with an integrated laserpointer to check the distance and clarity to remote points, and a squealing handheld brick of oscilloscope gear to measure the crossover of the other beacons on the hill. All the while, she muttered down her cellphone's headpiece with the other crews, making sure they weren't overlapping or diverging too widely, keeping everything squared with the maps on her screens and in her head.

The woods had a high canopy, which was good news. When they started out, they'd focused on getting above the leaf line, since leaves badly scattered RF signals, but they'd ended up with networks that were only reachable by people who were twenty feet off the ground. They'd blown a fortune downlinking the relays to ground-level stations with omnidirectional antennae.

But then Lee-Daniel had had a brainstorm -- build the network below the leaf line. Heavy canopy starved out any foliage that grew below the treetops, leaving a clear line of sight (modulo the tree trunks, which were largely RF transparent) on the forest floor. That pushed CogRad from a theoretical project to a real success.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:30:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Walt Disney understood the value of the public domain

Who got robbed? You did. I did.

Who won? Endlessly greedy media barons will now collect billions from works that should have long since entered the public domain.

Like public lands and the oceans, the public domain is controlled by no one -- a situation that infuriates people who believe that nothing can have value unless some person or corporation owns it. The public domain is the pool of knowledge from which new art and scholarship have arisen over the centuries.

The Constitution talks about granting rights to creators of ''science and useful arts'' but only for limited periods. After that, the works can be used freely by anyone.

Walt Disney understood the value of the public domain, and used it precisely as other great artists had done. He updated an out-of-copyright character to create Mickey Mouse, for example, and launched an empire.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:23:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gawrsh! Another 20 years in copyright jail!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:21:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mickey, trapped in copyright forever

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:17:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Melancholy Elephants: infinite copyright = infocalype

"Good answer," she said. "Remember that. But for all present-day intents and purposes, you might as well say that art is a little over 15,600 years old. That's the age of the oldest surviving artwork, the cave paintings at Lascaux. Doubtless the cave-painters sang, and danced, and even told stories—but these arts left no record more durable than the memory of a man. Perhaps it was the story tellers who next learned how to preserve their art. Countless more generations would pass before a workable method of musical notation was devised and standardized. Dancers only learned in the last few centuries how to leave even the most rudimentary record of their art.

"The racial memory of our species has been getting longer since Lascaux. The biggest single improvement came with the invention of writing: our memory-span went from a few generations to as many as the Bible has been around. But it took a massive effort to sustain a memory that long: it was difficult to hand-copy manuscripts faster than barbarians, plagues, or other natural disasters could destroy them. The obvious solution was the printing press: to make and disseminate so many copies of a manuscript or art work that some would survive any catastrophe.

"But with the printing press a new idea was born. Art was suddenly mass-marketable, and there was money in it. Writers decided that they should own the right to copy their work. The notion of copyright was waiting to be born.

"Then in the last hundred and fifty years came the largest quantum jumps in human racial memory. Recording technologies. Visual: photography, film, video, Xerox, holo. Audio: low-fi, hi-fi, stereo, and digital. Then computers, the ultimate in information storage. Each of these technologies generated new art forms, and new ways of preserving the ancient art forms. And each required a reassessment of the idea of copyright.

"You know the system we have now, unchanged since the mid-twentieth-century. Copyright ceases to exist fifty years after the death of the copyright holder. But the size of the human race has increased drastically since the 1900s—and so has the average human lifespan. Most people in developed nations now expect to live to be a hundred and twenty; you yourself are considerably older. And so, naturally, S. '896 now seeks to extend copyright into perpetuity."

"Well," the senator interrupted, "what is wrong with that? Should a man's work cease to be his simply because he has neglected to keep on breathing? Mrs. Martin, you yourself will be wealthy all your life if that bill passes. Do you truly wish to give away your late husband's genius?"

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:13:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michael Moore on the Daily Show

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:11:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PBS' "NOW with Bill Moyers" to tackle public domain v. private control

Public libraries embody the American ideal that anybody can read, watch or listen to just about anything they want to. With publications and broadcasting delivered free by the Internet directly to homes, is the information revolution making libraries obsolete? As more people can access this content, the copyright owners -- in many cases large corporate publishing entities -- are looking for ways to charge fees. A growing chorus of lawyers, librarians, and educators fear the implications of losing free access to information for everyone. "Our information and communication infrastructure is so central to everything we do," says former American Library Association president Nancy Kranich. "But what's really underlying that is the free flow of ideas which is essential to democracy." Jim Griffin, president of the music company Cherry Lane Digital adds, "...Eleanor Roosevelt dreamed of a world of libraries where we could borrow any book we wanted to read, any movie we wanted to watch, any record we wanted to listen to..equalizing access to knowledge is one of the hallmarks of a civilized society."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:04:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Keep your technology out of my analog hole

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:14:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why the DMCRA is the right answer to the theft of the public domain

Opponents of the DMCRA argue that if we allow circumvention to make noninfringing use, it will make it easier to circumvent the same technologies for infringing use. This argument ignores the obvious: If copyright holders limit their technologies to the prevention of infringing use, then no one will need to "pick the lock" in order to make noninfringing use. Consider timed-out copied, for example. It is never infringement to listen to a sound recording an infinite number of times. It is never infringement to rent lawfully made copies infinite times. An access control technology that times out a lawfully made copy so that the lawful owner or lawful renter of that copy has to pay the copyright holder to gain access is the same as a technology allowing copyright holders to charge a toll to cross the Brooklyn Bridge. It is ludicrous for the illicit toll-collector to argue that if people can learn how to cross the Brooklyn Bridge without paying the illicit toll, then legitimate toll collectors will be at risk.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:12:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Unloved Christmas trees

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:08:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New ACLU report: "Growth of an American Surveillance Society"

This report grew out of our sense here at the ACLU that in order to make progress on the privacy issue, we have to shift the terms of the debate. When viewed in isolation, many new privacy invasions seem harmless to many Americans, who don't see why they should care that (for example) someone is recording the date and time that they drive through a tollbooth. To understand the privacy issue one has to look at the big picture to understand that each new piece of information collected about us, no matter how seemingly harmless, is increasingly being added together with thousands of other data points to create an extremely intrusive, high-resolution picture of our lives.

The need to shift the terms of the debate on privacy to focus more on the big picture was made a lot easier by the breaking of the story of the Pentagon/Poindexter Total Information Awareness program and that story has provided the perfect opportunity to try to spark a broader discussion of how we are going to handle all the intrusive new technologies that are being developed, and what we are going to let this country turn into.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:07:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

We're all gonna die. In 500 million years.

"They said that when compared to a 24 hour clock, the planet is currently at 4:30 am after about 4.5 billion years of existence. At 5:00 am, the University of Washington professors write, animal and vegetable life will end after one billion years on Earth. By 8:00 am, the oceans will have vaporised and at midday, after 12 billion years, the Earth will have been absorbed by the Sun. By that time, the Sun will have become huge, destroyed any sign of the human presence and dispersed atoms and molecules across space.

'The disappearance of our planet is still 7.5 billion years away, but people really should consider the fate of our world and have a realistic understanding of where we are going,' said Brownlee."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:53:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Baby sleep aid says: "I hate you"

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:12:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eldred opinions online

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:17:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Harry Potter out in June, will enter public domain in mid/late 22nd Century

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:39:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Supreme Court rules against Eldred, Alexandria burns

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:33:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, January 14, 2003

Another sf novel online for free

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:37:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vintage topo maps online

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:24:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference open for registration

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:13:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lisa Palac sex (writing) workshop at Esalen!

"It's my first time teaching this class on the West Coast. I've taught it several times at the Omega Institute in upstate New York, and it has always been a pretty amazing experience for everyone involved.The workshop is for writers of all levels who have a sexual story to tell. Other creative writing classes often make you feel like a big weirdo for wanting to explicitly discuss and explore your sexual life. In my class, of course, such topics provide the foundation and we build from there. Through writing, reading and discussion, we'll spend the week working toward a more complete essay, focusing on both craft and content. You might end up with a stand-alone piece, or a chapter of a larger memoir. Then again, maybe what you're left with is simply the experience of doing the kind of writing you've always wanted to do against a backdrop of one of most beautiful places on earth."

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:41:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Happiness = P + (5xE) + (3xH)

E stands for Existence and relates to health, financial stability and friendships.

And H represents Higher Order needs, and covers self-esteem, expectations, ambitions and sense of humour. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:13:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Clinton masturbates in the sinks," and other quotes from Ann Coulter

This is old, but I just saw it: A Washingon Monthly Article about the "Wisdom of Ann Coulter." She's one funny lady!

"[Clinton] masturbates in the sinks."---Rivera Live 8/2/99

"God gave us the earth. We have dominion over the plants, the animals, the trees. God said, 'Earth is yours. Take it. Rape it. It's yours.'"---Hannity & Colmes, 6/20/01

The "backbone of the Democratic Party" is a "typical fat, implacable welfare recipient"---syndicated column 10/29/99

To a disabled Vietnam vet: "People like you caused us to lose that war."---MSNBC

Link Discuss (Via Die Puny Humans)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:02:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Playing with Traffic Waves

This guy writes about how he can single-handedly change the nature of entire traffic jams by altering the way he drives.

Once upon a time, years ago, I was driving through a number of stop/go traffic waves on I-520 at rush hour in Seattle. I decided to try something. On a day when I immediately started hitting the usual "waves" of stopped traffic, I decided to drive slow. Rather than repeatedly rushing ahead with everyone else, only to come to a halt, I decided to try to drive at the average speed of the traffic. I let a huge gap open up ahead of me, and timed things so I was arriving at the next "stop-wave" just as the last red brakelights were turning off ahead of me. It certainly felt weird to have that huge empty space ahead of me, but I knew I was driving no slower than anyone else. Sometimes I hit it just right and never had to touch the brakes at all, but sometimes I was too fast or slow. There were many "waves" that evening, and this gave me many opportunities to improve my skill as I drove along.

I kept this up for maybe half an hour while approaching the city. Finally I happened to glance at my rearview mirror. There was an interesting sight.

It was dusk, the headlights were on, and I was going down a long hill to the bridges. I had a view of miles of highway behind me. In the other lane I could see maybe five of the traffic stop-waves. But in the lane behind me, for miles, TOTALLY UNIFORM DISTRIBUTION. I hadn't realized it, but by driving at the average speed, my car had been "eating" traffic waves. Everyone ahead of me was caught in the stop/go cycle, while everyone behind me was forced to go at a nice smooth 35MPH or so. My single tiny car had erased miles and miles of stop-and-go traffic. Just one single "lubricant atom" had a profound effect on the turbulent particle flow within the entire "tube."

Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:50:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rapsnacks: Hip-hop + junk food = one dope-ass, high-phat lovechild.

Who let Dr. Funkenstein loose in the snackfood factory? DailyCandy reports:

"Back in the day, athletes hogged the Wheaties box. In the hip-hop era, there's a better way to get your snack on. Time to represent. The marketing geniuses at Universal Records have created Rapsnacks, slapping their artists (Nelly, Master P, and Lil Romeo, among others) where they've never bling-blinged before: on snack bags. (Making Chester Cheetah look like a punk-ass bitch.)

Bar-B-Quing with My Honey and Red Hot Cheddar potato chips are not for carb-obsessed lightweights, but they sure do pack serious flava -- double meaning intended. Yes, yes, y'all. On the serious tip, Rapsnacks are printed with positive messages like Stay in School and Respect Your Elders. Addictive? Maybe. Just don't call us when you find yourself on the mike raving about your love for Back on the Ranch."

Shown at left: Master-P platinum barbecue chips. Boo-ya!

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:52:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geoffrey Litwack 2002 Annual

Geoffrey sez, "I've put together a collection of stories and journal entries in the spirit of comic book year-end annuals; I call it the Geoffrey Litwack 2002 Annual, and it's free to distribute thanks to a Creative Commons license." Link Discuss (Thanks, Geoffrey!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:10:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lava lamp as tourist destination

The town of Soap Lake, WA, is building a 60' lava lamp to promote tourism. Link Discuss (Thanks, Zed!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:09:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monitor spanning in iBooks

The late-model dual-USB iBooks have the technical capacity to do "monitor spanning" -- plugging in an external display and showing different windows on each screen -- but they ship with the feature disabled. Not coincidentally, the higher-end Titanium laptops have this feature and use it as a selling-point. Anyway, a little judicious hackery-pokery will turn it on in your icebook, and "Hello, monitor-spanning!" Link Discuss (via Raelity Bytes)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:32:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tiki apartments opening in LA

A tiki-themed, four-apartment rental building is opening soon in downtown LA. Link Discuss (Thanks, Chris!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:34:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Picturephones banned in locker-rooms

Hong Kong health-clubs have banned the use of camera-phones in locker rooms. Link Discuss (Thanks, Bryan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:48:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Freezing to death while waiting for MSFT phone to boot

A ZDnet UK columnist found himself stranded in the Scottish Highlands over the holidays after a skiing accident. No problem -- he had a brand new, sexy Microsoft-powered mobile phone. However, the MSFT interface is so tortuous that he nearly froze to death while trying to figure out how to get the device to turn its radio on.

The next time I looked at the phone it appeared to have turned itself off -- so I tried switching it on again. When it eventually came to life I could not get it to dial -- a closer examination revealed the legend 'Radio off' displayed very legibly on the SPV's excellent screen. No amount of menu searching let me find anything that would turn the phone's radio back on. At this point I remember making a few comments about the dubiousness of Bill Gates' parentage. I eventually managed to flag down a passing skier who let me use her Nokia phone (which switched on immediately) to call for help. Later analysis revealed that the problem arose because of the SPV's implementation of the ON/OFF button. It needs to be depressed for a couple of seconds to function as an on/off switch. If pressed and released briefly it summons a 'QuickList' menu -- where one of the items lets you turn the radio -- presumably to let you watch movies on the thing when airborne on something more reliable than two planks of wood.

Link Discuss (via Oblomovka)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:23:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIAA opposes the Hollings Bill

The RIAA is reportedly changing its tune on the Hollings Bill, legislation that would require new technologies to be approved by entertainment companies before they were allowed into the marketplace. The WSJ is reporting that they've joined Intel and the Business Software Alliance in opposing the bill.

The UK Inquirer's coverage of this suggests that Intel opposes this kind of thing generally, but while Intel's senior management team has been quite critical of technology mandates, Intel itself has been an active agitant for and ringleader of the Broadcast Flag issue, and their efforts have been instrumental to bringing this terrible idea -- which accomplishes the same ends as the Hollings Bill -- to the FCC, WIPO and Congress. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:14:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, January 13, 2003

RIAA refund: Send it to the EFF!

You've all applied for your refund from the RIAA, right? Well, SendItToTheEFF is a project to coordinate a big <nelson>haha</nelson> to the music industry by encouraging people to donate their refunds from the cartel to the EFF and make a note to that effect on the the checks. Link Discuss (Thanks, Dav!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:12:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stills from Pirates of Caribbean movie

Ain't It Cool News is featuring leaked concept art from the upcoming Pirates of the Caribbean movie. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:09:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Seditious State of the Union

Brilliantly, seditiously remixed State of the Union address video. (6.9MB QuickTime) Discuss (via Joho the Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:26:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Artbots" Robot Talent Show: entries now accepted for July, 2003 event

Artbots is back, with autonomous vengeance! The second annual international "ArtBots: The Robot Talent Show" happens at EYEBEAM Gallery in Chelsea, NYC in mid-July. Deadline for entries is March 1st. Gentlemen (and ladies), start your bots. Snip from the project website:

"Artbots is the international art exhibition for robotic art and art-making robots. No firm rules exist on the types of work that can be submitted; if you think it's a robot and you think it's making art, then it's an art-making robot. About fifteen submissions will be selected for participation in the show. The show will run for two days (saturday and sunday) with all artists in attendence. Selected works will remain installed during the rest of the week as part of EYEBEAM's summer robotics festivities."

Visit the archive site for last year's show here. At left: The audience interacts with "Roving Walter Walter" at last year's show, by mxHz.org (lahaag and chip.kali). Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:56:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scans from the golden age of science snake-oil

Karl sez: "I just posted an article and some scans on my site from a pile of old Mechanix Illustrated magazines I got from my father. These are the articles I grew up with: flying cars, nuking the arctic to moderate the weather, space platforms, etc. etc. The one I've been unable to locate so far is the 'Robots in your home by 1965!' piece, which I used to have but have mislaid." Link Discuss (Thanks, Karl!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:59:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cuboro: stackable marble-run blocks

Cuboro is a system of 5cm^3 stacking wooden blocks with channels and dropouts that you use to make marble-runs. This looks like a lot of fun. Link Discuss (Thanks, Rainer!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:56:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Drug-war ads' hidden meaning

David Weinberger has hilariously deconstructed a drug=terrorism PSA, uncovering its roots as a parable for Bush the Elder's stern oversight of the coked-up Prez.

...we see a young-ish businessman having a meal in a fancy restaurant with another businessman in the next generation up. The young man thinks the relationship between drugs and terrorism is "very complex." The older man sighs Gore-ishly and lowers his eyelids in exasperation, as if he's talking to a slow-witted child. He patiently explains in one-syllable words how drugs and terrorism are connected. The younger man gets a Jeff Spicoli look as he processes the information and then concedes defeat...

Rich, callow, shallow, stupid, drug-using young businessman? Hmm, I wonder who that could be. And he's being advised by a man his father's age who patiently explains what his position should be? Lemme think, lemme think! And the young man changes his mind on an issue of international importance within 5 seconds?

Link Discuss (via JOHO the blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:51:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

GI Joe meets MST3K

Nice collection of GI Joe public service announcements dubbed over with slightly raunchy, bizarre vocals. Link Discuss (Thanks, BB!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:48:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

16-year-old's homebrew browser kicks azz

A 16 year old boy has won a science fair prize by turning in a 780,000-line broswer called XWEBS that benchmarks 400% faster than competing browsers. Link Discuss (Thanks, Zed!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:44:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Trent Latte: black coffee and steamed milk in separate but equal portions

Michael sez: "Kramerbooks, a bookstore/eatery just off Dupont Circle in Washington DC, is selling a new coffee drink, the Trent Lotte: A glass of black coffee, and a glass of steamed milk, in separate but equal portions." Link Discuss (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:42:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hax0rs claim to 0wn the Internet on the RIAA's behalf

Check out this creepy, improbable Vichy-nerd screed from someone who claims to have seized control over the Internet at the behest of the RIAA:

It took us about a month to develop the complex hydra, and another month to bring it up to the standards of excellence that the RIAA demanded of us. In the end, we submitted them what is perhaps the most sophisticated tool for compromising millions of computers in moments.

Our system works by first infecting a single host. It then fingerprints a connecting host on the p2p network via passive traffic analysis, and determines what the best possible method of infection for that host would be. Then, the proper search results are sent back to the "victim" (not the hard-working artists who p2p technology rapes, and the RIAA protects). The user will then (hopefully) download the infected media file off the RIAA server, and later play it on their own machine.

When the player is exploited, a few things happen. First, all p2p-serving software on the machine is infected, which will allow it to infect other hosts on the p2p network. Next, all media on the machine is cataloged, and the full list is sent back to the RIAA headquarters (through specially crafted requests over the p2p networks), where it is added to their records and stored until a later time, when it can be used as evidence in criminal proceedings against those criminals who think it's OK to break the law.

Our software worked better than even we hoped, and current reports indicate that nearly 95% of all p2p-participating hosts are now infected with the software that we developed for the RIAA.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Pat!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:39:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-copying technology is *not* anti-piracy technology

Dan Gillmor's column yesterday sounds a note of hope -- after seeing all the very cool devices on the floor at CES, devices that pay "lip service to the cartel's wish for absolute control over how copyrighted material may be used," he concludes that, "tomorrow is not on the side of the copyright control freaks." I share some of his optimism, but, as I wrote to him:

A good point to reflect on is that since any anti-copying tech can be broken by technically sophisticated users (if by no other means than by redigitizing the cleartext output from analog AV outputs), anti-copying measures *can't* stop "piracy." These measures won't slow down organized gangs of Ukranian counterfeiters, or even college dormnet traders. The *only* people these measures are proof against is average, non-sharing users. IOW, these measures only effect legit uses -- like making a copy for the car, cottage or kids' room -- and have no effect on sharing.

What shakes out of this is that the nods made by CE companies to Hollywood are still supremely anti-customer. They will *not* slow down "piracy," but they will enforce the entertainment companies' desire to force their honest users to buy the same product again and again, rather than format- or space-shifting.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:36:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Suicide Machine v3.0

"A doctor whose prototype suicide machine was seized as he left his native Australia to attend a euthanasia conference says his U.S. supporters will help him rebuild the device." Like Kevorkian's second-generation suicide machine, this machine kills you with carbon monoxide. But while the Kevorkian contraption required compressed carbon monoxide (hard to get and tough to transport), this prototype creates the killer gas on demand. Link Discuss

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:28:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Welcome Andrew Zolli to the GuestBar!

Andrew is a forecaster, design strategist and author, working at the intersection of culture, creativity, technology, and futures research. He's the lead partner of Z + Partners, a forecasting and design company. He also edits the Z + Blog, which tracks the future of design, branding, sustainability, and other emerging issues. His most recent project was editing The Catalog of Tomorrow, a book that examines more than ninety critical future trends and technologies, and explores how they will shape our lives, our society and our planet in the next 20 years. Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:32:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Smelly people banned from buses

A new rule in Bend, OR, bans spitting, smoking or stinking on buses:

The regulations ban anyone who "emanates a grossly repulsive odor that is unavoidable by other Bend Extended Area Transit customers" from being in the bus station or on a bus.

Link Discuss

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

Wicked-cool non-keyboard text-entry

Dasher is like a video-game for rapid text-entry without a keyboard. The animation on this link does a better job of explaining it than I can. The idea is that you tap the first letter, then all the legal letters that could follow it zoom up under your stylus. Choose one of those and the legal follow-ons zoom up, and so on. Looks really fast. Link Discuss (Thanks, Matthew!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:58:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Credit-card-sized WiFi detector

The WiFi sniffer is a credit-card-sized device that detects nearby WiFi signal, sparing you the pain and embarassment of hauling around your laptop. Wishlist: distinguish between open and closed nets, allow for an external antenna, log with GPS co-ords, check for DHCP leases and attempt to route a packet on every detected network. Still, it's cool enough that I'd buy one. Link Discuss (Thanks, Jong!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:53:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lie detectors are a lie!

Antipolygraph.org is a site devoted to debunking the idea that polygraphs can actually detect lies.

On this website, you will learn that polygraph "testing" is:

* Theoretically unsound and is not a valid diagnostic technique.

* Entirely dependent on the polygrapher lying to and deceiving the examinee.

* Biased against the truthful, resulting in many honest and law-abiding people being falsely accused each year.

* Easily beaten. The common notion that only sociopaths can beat the lie detector is nothing more than a myth. In fact, simple-to-learn techniques enable anyone to beat polygraph "tests." A full explanation of how to perform these techniques is provided in chapter four of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.

Link Discuss (Thanks, George!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:47:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

All your moblog are belong to Danger

Danger has launched Hiplog, a site that makes it easier for HipTop (phone, PDA, camera, browsers, etc) users to "moblog" -- blog on the go. This sounds like a tremendous idea, except the bottom of ever post reads: "Copyright 2002 Danger, Inc. All rights reserved." As Dav Colemant so eloquently puts it:

This is what I think of your terms of agreement [pictured].

I prefer to retain copyright on everything I produce, and give it away as I see fit (most likely through a Creative Commons license or donation to the public domain).

Link Discuss (via EvHead)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:43:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, January 12, 2003

Will mass-market robots come from Evolution's new "VSLAM" technology?

Southern California-based Evolution Robotics announced several new developments last week during CES, one of which is a new navigation technology it claims is cheap enough to bring robots to the mass market. Story snip:

"Evolution Robotics said its ['visual simultaneous localisation and mapping,' or VSLAM] technology that lets a robot determine its position relative to its environment is based on wheel sensors and a Web cam that cost less than $50. That's a fraction of the cost of current robot navigation systems relying on laser range finders, which can cost $5,000, the company said. The company asserts that its relatively inexpensive system 'will result in a new generation of products that were previously inconceivable.'"

Evolution also announced that toymaker giant Bandai will license its software platform to develop a new personal robot product modeled on the popular "Doraemon" character. Other Bandai toys include Power Rangers, Tamagotchi, Gundam and Digimon. The cat-like robot will be developed by 2005 and targeted as an "edutainment" personal 'bot for families in Japan and Asia. Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:27:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYC's best dive bars: the definitive guide

My pal and former Silicon Alley Reporter Magazine colleague Wendy Mitchell's new book is out! New York City's Best Dive Bars: Drinking and Diving in the Five Boroughs is now available online at Amazon.com, Barnes&Noble.com or igpub.com. Why should you buy it? Wendy sez:

(1) The book features bar histories, drinking stories, and more, not just some "Zagat-like" quotes that "all sound the same." And some very cool photos.
(2) Couldn't the alcoholics in your life use a nice present?
(3) There's a chance I've written about YOU in the book, so you'd better read it to make sure.
(4) Because I may need the money to buy myself a new liver. Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:12:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Play-Doh + Cheese = Fun snacks

Combining Play-Doh playsets and soft cheese makes for amazing, formed Pikachu hors d'oeuvres.

The Hasbro company manufactures a device for extruding Play Doh (TM) into two piece molds in a variety of forms. Approximately 20 CC of an extrudable dough-like material is placed in a cylinder, and a lever piston forces the material into a two-piece mold. (see illustration 1)

While the proprietary material Play-Doh (TM) is the intended substance for this device, the researchers experimented with a variety of cheesy comestibles, with the intent of creating an attractive and unusual party appetizer.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Scott!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:27:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UK test-card gallery

Terrific gallery of old UK TV test-cards. Link Discuss (Thanks, Jeff!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:23:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ground broken on Hong Kong Disneyland

They've broken ground on Hong Kong Disneyland. Let's hope that none of the in situ subterranean unexploded WWWII ordinance goes off! Link Discuss (Thanks, Slowhand!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:20:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hugo nominations ballot online

If you attended last year's World Science Fiction Convention in San Jose, California, or pre-registered to attend this year's convention in Toronto, you're eligible to nominate people, stories and books for the 2003 Hugo Awards. (Shameless plug: my stories 0wnz0red and Jury Service are both eligible in the Novella category) Link (64k PDF) Discuss (Thanks, Derryl!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:31:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thousands of Brussels navels

Amazing gallery, spanning four years of one man's obsessive photographing of strangers' navels in Brussels. He also invites the public to send him their own navel-pix for adding to the site. Link Discuss (via Geisha Asobi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:55:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, January 11, 2003

Minority English mooshes against majority French in Montreal

Interesting CBC piece about Montreal's hybrid French/English mix.

"It's so special because it's the only major city in North America where English is a minority language," says Boberg.

A Montrealer, for instance, might say she's looking for "a three-and-a-half close to a depanneur" instead of a "one bedroom apartment near a corner store." Or another might talk about going to a "guichet" for money, instead of an "ABM" (automated banking machine).

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:05:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

iTunes playlist sharing

iCommune: the iTunes plugin I've been waiting for all my life. Now, all it needs to do is collaboratively filter my playlists and iTunes ratings with the pals on my network.

iCommune is a plug-in which extends Apple's iTunes software to share music over the network. Your friends' music libraries appear in the iTunes source list. You can browse their collections, and choose to download or stream their music. It also allows you to make your own music library available to others.

Link Discuss (via Wasted Bits)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:42:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Costikyan's amazing game-design blog

Greg Costikyan, award-winning game designer and author who is reponsible for classics like Toon and Paranoia, has started a blog on game design theory. It's fabulous.

But to get back to the criticism: Games are flashy, degraded, violent little entertainments for adolescent boys. Right?

Hardly. Go to the Interactive Digital Software Association site, and download their demographic information. Most gamers are over 18. PC gamers skew even older than console gamers. The average age of gamers increases year by year. I'll talk about why in another essay, perhaps. And almost 50% of games are bought by women.

That doesn't mean that 50% of the people playing games at this very instant are women, of course; some female purchasers are doubtless buying games for the men (or boys) in their lives. But women do play games--more than half of the people playing on sites like Pogo.com or Uproar are female, for instance. Something like 30% of the players of massively multiplayer games are women. And virtually all of the players of Pern MUSHes are female.

Games aren't just for teenage boys any more.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:19:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sign up to sell out: astroturf net marketers

Jed sez: "Faux-grassroots marketing! This isn't exactly a new idea, but I've never seen it done quite this blatantly before. It's an organization that teaches fans of the TV show _Alias_ how to become 'online tastemakers'":

"If you enjoy spending time on the 'Net, you can be part of the ALIAS 'Digital Street Team.' We'd like you to visit newsgroups, message boards, chat-rooms and any other on-line communities to help spread the word about ALIAS. We will guide you through the entire process and let you know where to go to make the buzz happen."

I couldn't tell at first whether this was a grassroots campaign or an underground ad campaign. Then I read a couple of the other pages on the site and discovered that it's run by the Hype Council (http://www.hypecouncil.com/), a company that apparently specializes in this sort of campaign.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Jed!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:00:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Leafnet: Smartmob your neighbors and kill the UK's national ID card

Thomas sez:

The idea is simple - if something like the National ID Card needs a groundswell of public support, then we post a leaflet on our site and - using e-mail, blog forwards, and links from other similar sites - we get people across Britain to print out the leaflet and pass it round their neighbourhood.

If we get a thousand users each giving an hour of their time to post leaflets through doors in their area, then one leaflet can reach a quarter of a million households - probably almost a million people. That's a pretty big groundswell.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Thomas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:05:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Down and Out on Wired News

Wired News has posted coverage of the release of my novel:

Doctorow's fans aren't surprised to find his book online for free. The plots of his most recent short story, "0wnz0red," involves digital rights management, or how files are protected from sharing and copying.

Moreover, Doctorow is known outside science fiction circles for his prolific, passionate posts about digital rights issues on the BoingBoing weblog and other forums, as well as his work with the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

"I don't believe that I am giving up book royalties," Doctorow said about persuading his publisher, Tor Books, to make Down and Out available digitally for free under the new Creative Commons licensing system.

"(Downloads) crossed the 10,000-download threshold at 8 a.m. this morning," Doctorow said Thursday, "which exceeds the initial print run for the book."

Doctorow said he thinks the marketing buzz from those downloads will be worth more than any lost book sales. "I think that the Internet's marvelous ability to spread information to places where it finds a receptive home is the best thing that could happen to a new writer like me."

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:42:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, January 10, 2003

FCC Chairman: TiVo is "God Box"

Today at CES, I heard Michael Powell, Chairman of the FCC, talk about everything in an interview conducted by Gary Shapiro, the CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association. Powell was generally right on -- surprisingly so, in fact -- and made quite a splash when he called TiVo a "God Box" and said that he wished it could do things like share shows with his sister. This is, of course, a feature that the competing ReplayTV device already has, one that's getting them sued by the Hollywood studios. Powell's at least half a geek: he owns and uses a WiFi access-point, three or four game-consoles, and a TiVo. In related news, TiVo is getting network utilities for sharing media. Link Discuss (Thanks, Ernie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:30:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

What's wrong with Internet policy today

Commenting on a NYT report of the growing trend to replace skippable commercials with unskippable product-placement in TV shows, Bob "VisiCalc" Frankston nails it in one:

This is just one example of responding to the new realities and loss of control. Those who refuse to adapt to the new realities of the marketplace will indeed suffer as it becomes more difficult to maintain control over content. As this story demonstrates, we needn't sacrifice our ability to create new technologies and new economic value simply to preserve a particular business model that is under threat.

Unfortunately, many of those who claim to be most pro-business really don't believe in the marketplace and view business as a static, not a dynamic process. There is no shortage of new entrants ready to seize upon the opportunities provided by change. Listening only to the demands of those who are most threatened is not just a poor way to set policy, it actively discriminates against those who can bring us the most innovation and the most new value.

(emphasis mine) Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:27:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beijing blocks BlogSpot

The Chinese government is using the Great Firewall of China to block access to all BlogSpot sites. Link Discuss (Thanks, Greg!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:38:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bar Monkey: automated Linux drinks-mixer

Students at Harvey Mudd College have invented the Bar Monkey, an automated bartender that mixes drinks based on recipes stored on an embedded Linux system.

Using these 16 ingredients, a total of 188 different drinks can be made, with the included ability to add ounce increments of each ingredient to customize (or create) a drink. The drink database is easy to update and nearly infinitely expandable.

Customers of legal age sign up for a user account, for which they are assigned a unique, 5-digit, hexadecimal PIN. The account is debit-based, with each drink charging the customer at cost for the drink they are purchasing, automatically deducting from their account balance.

All told, the project took about 3 months and $235 to complete. It is worth mentioning, however, that the LCD (the most expensive single component) was donated (approx. value: $100+), and various other components were otherwise acquired for free. The Bar Monkey was graciously funded by West Dorm HMC, even though we were overbudget by $85. Continual maintenance and occasional improvements are still always a concern...

# Runs a program written in C by Dustin Cooper, in Linux.
# Bartop is approximately four feet above the ground.
# Holds approximately 1.75 liters of each ingredient.
# Uses 16 windshield washer pumps run by a 12V adaptor. Pumps are connected in parallel and run sequentially by the program.
# Dispenses an 8 oz. mixed drink in less than 10 seconds.
# Currently has 30 registered user accounts, with expected rapid growth as people cease being broke.

Link Discuss (via JWZ's LiveJournal)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:35:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hoax museum

Great online "museum" of real-world and cyberspace hoaxes.

California's Velcro Harvest
Explains the reasons for the decline in California's important velcro crop. Reminiscent of the Swiss Spaghetti Harvest hoax of 1957.

Canadian World Domination
Demonstrating to the world "that Canada is the final and ultimate power."

CarpSoft
A send-up of corporate jargon-speak. CarpSoft offers "goal-orientated corporate solutions." Beyond that, it's difficult to figure out exactly what they do. A creation of John Hopkin, also author of 'Britain for Americans,' 'British Stick Insect Foundation,' and 'Sellafield Zoo.'

Link Discuss (Thanks, Jeff!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:35:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Manga is fuelled by infringement

Lessig explains how Japanese infringement-festivals are making the manga market strong:

Forty percent of publications produced in Japan are comics, which provide 30 percent of Japanese publishing revenue. But the comics, or manga, market in Japan is divided into two types: one is purely (or as pure as one can get) original work; the other is "amateur" or copycat comics, which develop the work of original artists in different and unauthorized ways. This second kind of comic, called dojinshi [doh-GIN-she], is a huge and growing market in Japan. Dojinshi conventions are among Japan's largest mass gatherings, drawing more than 450,000 fans and 33,000 artists each year. And as comics move online, through the increasing penetration of online games, the dojinshi market is only expected to increase.

In an article published in the Rutgers Law Review this fall, Temple Law professor Salil Mehra puzzles over an aspect of the dojinshi market that would stump most copyright lawyers. Put most simply, dojinshi is illegal

Link Discuss (Thanks, Steven!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:06:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cool archive of odd clippings, photos, roadsigns

Extensive online archive of scanned-in newspaper clippings, photos, and pics of road signs. Includes wacky but real classified ads such as:

RAT Terrier Pups, born w/college education

and

BEAUTIFUL antique armchair. Over 200 years old. Made from "macaroni" noodles. Arms, legs and seat not available.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:12:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Britons: reject the national ID card and slashdot Parliament!

The UK is planning to institute a national ID card. Britons, speak your minds! FaxYourMP/The Stand is running a campaign to slashdot Parliament and let them know how HM's subjects feel about this latest intrusion into their lives. Danny writes:

So the UK government has been proposing what they call an Entitlement Card - a universal ID card for every man, woman and child in Britain. Every government seems to propose this the moment they get into office, and ever since 1952, the voters have rejected it. It's one of those things that civil servants like to slip into the "TODO" list while the Minster isn't looking.

The usual way of stopping it is to complain that there's no mandate. The present government are getting around this by holding a "Public Consultation", where they write a 13MB PDF document (here's an HTML version we hacked up) talking about how great ID cards would be. They then solicit comments. The government is very pleased with this scheme. Lord Falconer, the government's ID card point man, keeps talking about how the majority of responses have been positive (they've had over 1500 so far).

I'm not so sure that's true. NTK subscriber Dan Blanchard emailed them to complain about the proposals, and got a nice mail back saying "Thank you for your e-mail in support of the introduction of an entitlement/identity card scheme.". Whoops.

Link Discuss (via Oblomovka)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:53:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Four-line poem about potential Iraq war sparks a very big fuss

Interesting LA times piece about the front-page brouhaha sparked over a 30-word poem by British Poet Laureate Andrew Motion. Causa Belli (cause for war) "questions the motives of American and British leaders, particularly President Bush, for the anticipated war against Iraq."

"They read good books, and quote, but never learn
a language other than the scream of rocket-burn.
Our straighter talk is drowned but ironclad:
Elections, money, empire, oil and Dad."

Link Discuss (thanks, Jim!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:16:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ACLU's new online gallery of "civil liberty art": Freedom, illustrated.

The ACLU just launched an online gallery of freedom-of-expression themed art:

"Artists have always been at the forefront of the global fight for free expression. Recently, they have pricked the nation's conscience in the face of Government assaults on individual rights in the name of national security. Beginning this month, the ACLU will present civil liberties issues online through the eyes of political cartoonists and other artists. This rotating feature will change periodically, and will cover breaking news on the full gamut of civil liberties issues.

Our inaugural presentation is of an art show that first appeared in June 2002 and continues to tour the country. Entitled "USA Patriot Art: Cartooning and Free Speech in War Time," this updated collection of 43 provocative and powerful cartoons has stirred up plenty of controversy. Some cartoons never got published. One cartoonist lost his job. The ACLU has received generous permission from the show's curators to present it online."

Above: an item featured in the ACLU's new gallery from the always-brilliant Lalo Alcaraz.

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:51:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Army working on food-patch for battlefield use

The military is developing a "Transdermal Nutritional System," -- a nicotine patch for food. Coming in a decade or so. Link Discuss (Thanks, Noah!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:48:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: I know. It's only rock-n-roll.

Rock 'n' roll zen:

(1) 100 albums
(2) thrift store finds
(3) vinyl museum
(4) daily song
(5) 78rpm
(6) the tarot
(7) publicity photos
(8) karaoke
(9) elvis
(10) glam rock
(11) roadies

Link Discuss (Thanks, Frank!)
(flame-retardant disclaimer: some of the items in weekly Web Zen roundups may have appeared previously on BoingBoing.)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:38:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Game design primer

My pal Greg Costikyan has a fantastic primer on game-design-theory up -- it's old, but I hadn't seen it until today.

In The Art of Computer Game Design, Chris Crawford contrasts what he call "games" with "puzzles." Puzzles are static; they present the "player" with a logic structure to be solved with the assistance of clues. "Games," by contrast, are not static, but change with the player's actions.

Some puzzles are obviously so; no one would call a crossword a "game." But, according to Crawford, some "games" a really just puzzles -- Lebling & Blank's Zork, for instance. The game's sole objective is the solution of puzzles: finding objects and using them in particular ways to cause desired changes in the game-state. There is no opposition, there is no roleplaying, and there are no resources to manage; victory is solely a consequence of puzzle solving.

To be sure, Zork is not entirely static; the character moves from setting to setting, allowable actions vary by setting, and inventory changes with action. We must think of a continuum, rather than a dichotomy; if a crossword is 100% puzzle, Zork is 90% puzzle and 10% game.

Almost every game has some degree of puzzle-solving; even a pure military strategy game requires players to, e.g., solve the puzzle of making an optimum attack at this point with these units. To eliminate puzzle-solving entirely, you need a game that's almost entirely exploration: Just Grandma and Me, a CD-ROM interactive storybook with game-like elements of decision-making and exploration, is a good example. Clicking on screen objects causes entertaining sounds and animations, but there's nothing to 'solve,' in fact, no strategy whatsoever.

A puzzle is static. A game is interactive.

Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:33:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, January 9, 2003

Over 20,000 downloads of Down and Out in one day

24 hours after launching the site from which you can download my novel for free, the book has been downloaded over 20,000 times. It's been Slashdotted, blogged to hell and back, and I've done a number of press interviews about it. What's more, the title is currently sitting at #304 in the Amazon Sales Rank. Let's call this one a success. I could not be more stoked. Damn. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:26:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Buy this personal strap-on aircraft on eBay -- but don't fly it.

Starting Friday 01-10-03, you can bid on a personal aircraft called the "SoloTrek XFV Exo-skeletor Flying Vehicle," to help its designers raise funds for future research. There's a catch, though -- the winning bidder on eBay must promise not to use the device. Story snip:

“Nobody has ever done anything like it,” said Michael Moshier, chief executive of Trek Aerospace, the company that designed the machine. “It is the first aircraft that you can strap on your back and allows you to fly around like a bird.”

He says the compact SoloTrek XFV can hover for more than two hours at a time and is easy to fly.The machine stands about 7 feet tall (2.1 meters), weighs more than 300 pounds (136 kilograms) and is a somewhat bizarre-looking contraption with its two overhead engines above the tripod frame that holds the pilot. It can hold a pilot and gear weighing up to a total of 240 pounds (108 kilograms). The aircraft is still in the developmental stage, but Moshier envisions a day when the sky is full of people dashing across town in the flying machines, which operate much like a helicopter.

Update: So where's the aforementioned eBay auction? It's Friday. Either it's not happening, or I just can't find it. Auction is here.

Link to story, Link to the Solotrek site, Discuss (image: Michael Moshier, CEO of Trek Aerospace, next to the SoloTrek XFV Exo-skeletor Flying Vehicle. Jan., 2002 AP file photo, Julie Jacobson.).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:10:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WiFi FUD debunked

I did an interview earlier this week with Mitch Wagner for InternetWeek about the reason that WiFi alarmism is just plain FUD. The story's up, along with a poll on the subject.

The one kernel of truth in all the controversy: Wi-Fi network users can eavesdrop on clear traffic going over the network, Doctorow said. But that's not a Wi-Fi problem, since any network where text is moving in the clear is susceptible to the same kind of eavesdropping. That's a security problem in all types of networks, not just Wi-Fi.

"The problem is firewalls, which don't work, haven't worked and aren't going to work," Doctorow said. "Firewalls are bankrupt technology predicated on the idea that everyone on one side of the firewall is trustworthy, and no one on the other side of the firewall is trustworthy." But in fact, criminals often gain access to the network from the inside. In past months, authorities have arrested several people accused of making criminal use of network access gained by virtue of being present or former employees of the companies they were charged with stealing from. And firewalls aren't the only source of troubles: Many Internet service providers are still transmitting passwords in clear text over the network.

The solution is not to limit Wi-Fi, but rather to install personal firewalls on each computer, and encrypt all traffic going over the network, Doctorow said.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Mitch!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:45:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dan Gillmor defines "We Media"

Dan Gillmor's latest piece in the Columbia Journalism Review extends his Journalism 3.0 thesis ("my readers know more than I do") and talks about "We Media:"

Interactive technology -- and the mostly young readers and viewers who use and understand it -- are the catalysts. We Media augments traditional methods with new and yet-to-be invented collaboration tools ranging from e-mail to Web logs to digital video to peer-to-peer systems. But it boils down to something simple: our readers collectively know more than we do, and they don't have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves. This is not a threat. It is an opportunity. And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:35:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

802.11g access-point for $139

Linksys has shipped a $139 802.11g access-point that interops with 802.11b. Link Discuss (via dealmac)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:20:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Quark CEO reveals his contempt for his customers

The CEO of Quark told a room full of customers at an executive briefing "that 'the Macintosh platform is shrinking,' and that 'publishing is dying.' He suggested that anyone dissatisfied with Quark's Mac commitment should 'switch to something else,' although he insisted that making the move to Adobe's long-Carbonized InDesign package is 'committing suicide.'" As Merlin wrote, "Yeah, so all you dumbasses that talked your boss into shitcanning PageMaker in favor of our hard-to-use, never-upgraded software a few years back: Psych! So long, suckers!" Link Discuss (via Kung-Fu Grippe)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:16:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sidekick down to $50

The T-Mobile Sidekick (phone/pager/camera/browser/PDA/notepad/games/AIM) is down to $50 at Amazon. Link Discuss (via Megnut)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:16:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Police kill friendly dog in front of owner, caught on video

"Police video released Wednesday showed a North Carolina family kneeling and handcuffed, who shrieked as officers killed their dog -- which appeared to be playfully wagging its tail -- with a shotgun during a traffic stop." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:14:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interior design trendwatch: hotel room a-go-go

The latest $1500-a-night Vegas hotel room amenity? Strobe lights and stripper poles, as evidenced by recent makeovers to some suites at the Palms casino-resort:

Las Vegas is a hotbed for bachelor and bachelorette parties and we just wanted to create a unique place where guys and girls could have fun," Palms owner George J. Maloof Jr. said Wednesday.

Maloof said he visited several strip clubs to ensure that he selected the right pole. "It's just like the real thing," he said. "They are slick. It's going to happen in the room...You might as well accommodate them."

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:47:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pyro paradise: online store for fireworks-makers

Black snakes, booby traps, pistol poppers, and punk: buy 'em all here, along with "books, videos, chemicals, pyro tools, fireworks tubes, fireworks shells, end plugs, end disks, end caps, and other paper and plastic supplies for pyrotechnics."

Link Discuss (Thanks, Wedge!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:26:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Alien abduction dog-tags for humans

Dogtags for human would-be alien abductees. Parody? Mmmmmm..... could be:

"Picture yourself lost in the galaxy...UFO sightings and Alien Abductions are on the rise...Will you return to tell the story? In case of alien abduction these dog tags may save your life. The crucial data an alien will need to get you back to Earth is die stamped into these dog tags.

The design is based on NASA research for the Pioneer 10 Space Mission that used a gold plaque attached to the craft to inform any Extraterrestrials of it's Earthly origin.

Money back guarantee! Should you ever be abducted by aliens and not returned back to earth, you will be entitled to a full refund... "

Link Discuss (Thanks, Dale!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:09:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interview with me on Creative Commons

I've done an interview with Creative Commons about Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom in which I go into some depth about the motivation for releasing the book online, gratis.

Well, in some ways, this novel is a parable about Napster, and about the reputation economies that projects like Ringo, Firefly, Epinions and Amazon hint at. In a world where information is nonscarce, the problem isn't finding generic information -- it's finding useful information. There's an old chestnut in online science fiction fandom that the Internet "makes us all into slushreaders." ("Slush" is the unsolicited prose that arrives at publishers' offices -- a "slushreader" wades through thousands of these paste-gems looking for the genuine article). This has always struck me as a pretty reactionary position.

Nearly every piece of information online has a human progenitor -- a person who thought it was useful or important or interesting enough to post. Those people have friends whom they trust, and those friends have trusted friends, and so on. Theoretically, if you use your social network to explore the Web, you can make educated guesses about the relative interestingness of every bit of info online to you. In practice, this kind of social exploration is very labor-intensive and even computationally intensive, but there's a lot of technology on the horizon that hints at this...

Scarcity is, objectively, worse than plenty. When you've got lots of some useful object, you're richer than when you have less of it. When there's more than enough to go around, the economic value tends to plummet, but the utility is just as high. Think of oxygen: on the Earth's surface, we're well-supplied with breathable atmosphere. Aside from a few egregiously West-coast "oxygen bars," it's hard to imagine paying money for O2. But in Heinlein's sf novels set on the moon, there's a thriving trade in oxygen. In both situations, air is highly useful, but dirtsiders are richer in air than their loonie cousins.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:08:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Automated cut-ups of Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom

Modesty has used a cut-up engine called Alice -- named for Jeff Noon's brilliant Automated Alice -- to slice and dice Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom into a bunch of random, interesting chunklets. It's damned weird stuff and it warms my cockles.

"Honk!" she said, after a short queue of older men, then there was no way of mirrors and into hers as we stood by the time alternately moping, drinking, and plotting terrible, irrational vengeance on Debra for killing me, destroying my relationship, taking away my beloved (in hindsight, anyway) Hall of Presidents over for a couple glasses from the Bitchun Society didn't need to convert its detractors, just outlive them. The first time I debarked for the patchy red welts from the computer where it disappeared into the discussion. If I needed to do that, too." Was I really advocating being more like you and start playing. Others would pick up their own jokes, and even though he blew his spiel about half the time. "Lillian," he said, cautiously. "Doctor Pete is a couple of days, starting the rehab is a terrific attraction, and it's going to live, I'd like to have a backup made before she did.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Modesty!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:46:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kottke's quest to marry Sherlock and Safari

Jason Kottke has been gripped by a vision of Apple's Sherlock web-services application being married to Apple's Safari web-browser, and he won't rest until someone builds it.

Figure 4 shows how Safari's Google search box could be extended (a la Andre Torrez's Nutshell). The default search would be Google, but you could select other searches as well, either web searches or searches using the Sherfari apps. Selecting "Google News" and then doing a search would load the results page from Google News into the browser window. Selecting "Movies" would load the Movies app into the window with that movie selected.

This keeps all the activity commonly referred to as "web browsing" in one place. Assuming Apple would also add the capability for tabbed browsing, the Safari/Sherlock combo would be a powerful one. The generic web browser part would allow people to load up any old web page while the applications would allow them to quickly take care of frequent tasks through custom interfaces without the need to load potentially heavy or hard-to-use web pages.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:45:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIP Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van, Billy Van

Billy Van, star of the cheese-horror Canadian TV classic "The Hilarious House of Frightenstein," has died of cancer at 68. Link Discuss (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:26:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Great online kids' library!

JC sez, "Gorgeous project: cool search feature puts the book covers in an array, so you can either pick out the cover you recognize (useful for kids who know it's "the yellow book") or see how beautiful childrens' book covers look as a quilt of images. Search by genre, or languge." Link Discuss (Thanks, JC!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:23:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Life in Antarctica blog

Great, anonymous blog about life in Antarctica.

You are staying in the most luxurious accommodations on station. If you weren't a Congressman, you would be staying in a room where the sounds of lurching sex and vomiting firefighters groaned beyond the paper-thin walls. If you weren't a Congressman, you would be housed according to Ice Time, a point system that awards status according to months in The Program. It works like this: if you have less than 36 months Ice Time, you add up your months and multiply them by .125. If you have more than 36 months, you multiply by .25. The resulting calculations are then added to your job points. Job points vary, but most people get two or three, managers get ten or fifteen, and you get three or four thousand. You have thus earned the most comfortable quarters on station. Perhaps this is because of your engaging personality and your energizing conversation.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Melvis!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:12:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom webring

My pal Bill Shunn -- a hell of an sf writer and top-notch geek -- has started a Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom webring for fansites devoted to the book. I am beside myself.

I anticipate a desire among fans of the book to visit the sites where it (took/will take) place, sort of like hitting the Stations of the Cross in a Catholic cathedral, and snap photos proving they were there. Hoping to be the first to do so, and maybe thereby accumulate some whuffie of my own, I present the "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom Whuffie Ring," a web ring to let people link up their Down and Out fan pages.

So go ahead. Travel to Florida. Visit Liberty Square, the Hall of the Presidents, the Haunted Mansion. Get your picture taken with one of its 999 happy haunts. You loved Disney World when you were a kid--you know you did. Now's your chance to show the world you love what it could someday be.

Below is my own humble Down and Out album. Now let's see yours.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Bill!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:35:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is out!

My first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom is out! Yee-haw! I'm not a patient person by nature, and my Internet-immersion has foreshortened my already highly attenuated sense of forebearance, so you can well imagine how incredibly painful it's been to wait for years for this book to hit the stands.

As I promised, I've released the complete text of the book (in ASCII text, HTML, and printable PDF) under a Creative Commons license. Download it, share it, email it, post it to your site, drop it in your P2P file-sharing cache!

I've also prepared a list of meatspace and cyberspace booksellers around the world that are carrying the book. Please email me if you can suggest good indie bookstores that are carrying the book -- I'd like to mention as many as possible.

All the info about the book -- reviews, news, signings, etc -- are gathered up on a Movable Type blog that Mena and Ben were kind enough to design and set up for me. I'm completely taken with how cool the site looks, and how easy it's been to get content into. Blogging tools are great CMS.

So, that's my big news for the day. I'm in Vegas today, attending CES for work, but I'm hanging onto my SideKick, so g'head and bombard me with your brickbats and laurels.

I sure hope you like my book.

Why am I doing this thing? Well, it's a long story, but to shorten it up: first-time novelists have a tough row to hoe. Our publishers don't have a lot of promotional budget to throw at unknown factors like us. Mostly, we rise and fall based on word-of-mouth. I'm not bad at word-of-mouth. I have a blog, Boing Boing, where I do a lot of word-of-mouthing. I compulsively tell friends and strangers about things that I like.

And telling people about stuff I like is way, way easier if I can just send it to 'em. Way easier.

What's more, P2P nets kick all kinds of ass. Most of the books, music and movies ever released are not available for sale, anywhere in the world. In the brief time that P2P nets have flourished, the ad-hoc masses of the Internet have managed to put just about *everything* online. What's more, they've done it for cheaper than any other archiving/revival effort ever. I'm a stone infovore and this kinda Internet mishegas gives me a serious frisson of futurosity.

Yeah, there are legal problems. Yeah, it's hard to figure out how people are gonna make money doing it. Yeah, there is a lot of social upheaval and a serious threat to innovation, freedom, business, and whatnot. It's your basic end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenario, and as a science fiction writer, end-of-the-world-as-we-know-it scenaria are my stock-in-trade.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:00:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, January 8, 2003

Downloadable kids' records

Here's a great gallery of artwork-scans and MP3 rips of classic kids' novelty records, including Dr. Seuss's wonderful "Gerald McBoingBoing!" Link Discuss (Thanks, Will!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:19:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Do hip-hugger jeans cause nerve damage?

Clive sez: "Possibly so -- according to a doctor in Timmins, Ontario. In a letter to this month's Canadian Medical Association Journal, he described symptoms of 'tingly thighs' caused by women wearing the oh-so-of-the-moment hip-hugger jeans:

"I recently saw 3 mildly obese young women between the ages of 22 and 35, who had worn tight "low-rise" trousers (also called hiphuggers) over the previous 6 to 8 months. All presented with symptoms of tingling or a burning sensation on the lateral aspect of the thigh (bilateral in one case). The results of a physical examination were unremarkable, except for mild local tenderness at the anterior superior iliac spine in 2 patients. These 2 patients also had Tinel's sign, whereby a reproducible tingling sensation was elicited when the lateral femoral cutaneous nerve was stimulated by finger-tapping close to the anterior superior iliac spine. One of the women was concerned about multiple sclerosis and requested MRI but was reassured by my explanation of the origin of her symptoms. In all 3 patients, the symptoms resolved after 4 to 6 weeks of avoiding hiphuggers and wearing loose-fitting dresses."

Link Discuss (Thanks, Clive!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:14:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Airport Extreme can mesh and chew gum at the same time

Glenn Fleishman reports that Apple's new Airport Extreme wireless access-point (which simultaneously runs the older 802.11b protocol as well as the new 802.11g protocol, which is 500% faster) is capable of running in both bridge and access-point mode simultaneously.

Practically, this means that if you have an Internet connection in location A and you want to make it work in location B, you can drop Airport Extreme devices with external antennae in both locations, and the one in location B will not only slurp in the Internet connection from location A, it will also retransmit it for wireless-equipped laptops whose antennae aren't studly enough to get a clear signal from location A. And since there's a spare Ethernet port on the Airport Extreme box, you can also connect a wired LAN to the device.

This sound like the start of a beautiful mesh network. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:50:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

3D printers = Napster fabbing?

Great New Scientist piece about 3D product printers that lay down successive layers of substrate and circuits by way of actually "printing" nearly complete gadgets.

Instead of creating a casing and then laboriously filling it with electronic circuit boards, components and switches, the plan is to print a complete and fully assembled device.

The trick is to print layer upon layer of conducting and semiconducting polymers in such a way that the circuitry the device requires is built up as part of the bodywork.

When the technique is perfected, devices such as light bulbs, radios, remote controls, mobile phones and toys will be spat out as individual fully functional systems without expensive and labour-intensive production on an assembly line.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:43:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gallery of "Gadgets for God"

Thus spake Jed, and lo, it was good:

"Pointers to kitschy religious stuff. In the "New Gadgets" section, for example, they have a Bible that spits fire when you open it, and a Martin Luther Bobble Head Doll. And a place that will PhotoShop images of your dead loved ones into a picture of Jesus in the clouds (for a fee, of course). And so on."

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:30:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bacterial reproduction of Small World lyrics

Scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory in Washington State have successfully encoded a message in bacterial DNA and retreived it later after several million reproductions. Best part: the "message" that was so mulifariously encoded was my favorite repititious doggerel, the lyrics to "It's a Small World." Link Discuss (via Robot Wisdom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:51:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

There: immersive Metaverse game

There.com is a new, immersive multiplayer game that's just launched its public beta. It reminds me of The Sims Online. Dan, who's at the launch, sent me this in email from his pager: I don't know Sims Online, but this is first person immersive. Another run at the metaverse fence. I don't think there's any computer controlled AI either, just real people." Link Discuss (Thanks, Dan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:12:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How valuable are you in the Googleverse?

Aaron Bailey and Jeff Jarvis have come up with a sweet GoogleHack: using the pricing for Google's text advertising to "price out" how valuable you are in the infosphere:

Yesterday (below) I asked Google to let us query its database of queries to find out what the people want to find out, to do our own zeitgeist, about anything, anywhere, anyzeit. Aaron Bailey at 601am did the ingenious thing and used Google's adwords calculator to do almost that.

He found:
: Glenn Reynolds: 0.2 clicks/day
: Jeff Jarvis: 0.2 clicks/day (wow, I'm tied!)
: Sex: 16,000 clicks/day (oh, well)

: I think this leads to a new Google game: Zeitgeist yourself. How many people look for you or your hot topics per day?

(You have to go through the pain of creating your own ad and then putting in keywords but it doesn't take long. Tips: calculate on all languages, all countries and up the cost-per-click or else anything having to do with sex will go off the charts.)

"Cory Doctorow" is worth $0.05 a click, while "Boing Boing" is $0.07. Link Discuss (Thanks, Jeff!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:06:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, January 7, 2003

Wireless Commons: new project to build an unwired world

I'm part of a new umbrella group for organizing advocacy for and inter-connectivity among community wireless projects, called The Wireless Commons. The project is still forming up, but you can head over to the site and see the manifesto and the definition we're working with.

We have formed the Wireless Commons because a global wireless network is within our grasp. We will work to define and achieve a wireless commons built using open spectrum, and able to connect people everywhere. We believe there is value to an independent and global network which is open to the public. We will break down commercial, technical, social and political barriers to the commons. The wireless commons bridges one of the few remaining gaps in universal communication without interference from middlemen and meddlers.

Humanity is on the verge of a turning point because the Internet has transformed the way humans relate with one another. All communication can be traced to a human relationship, whether it's lovers exchanging instant messages or teenagers sharing music. The Internet has given us the ability to communicate faster and more cheaply than ever before in history.

The Internet's value increases exponentially with the number of people who are able to participate. In today's world, communication can take place without the use of antiquated telecommunications networks. The organizations that control these networks are limping anachronisms that are constrained by the expense and physical necessity of using wires to build their networks. Because of this, they cannot serve the great mass of people who stand to benefit from a wireless commons. Their interests diverge from ours, and their control over the network strangles our ability to communicate.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:57:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Protest info for INS detainees

Lisa Rein's pulled together an amazing site with resources for people interested in protesting the plight of the law-abiding immigrants who presented themselves voluntarily to the INS to complete their new immigration paperwork and instead found themselves jailed and sent on a nightmarish Orwellian journey through the American post-legal system

The detainees, who represent wide segments of society such as business owners, scientists, and engineers, were handcuffed and shackled as they were transported across several western states before they ended up in San Diego.

There were several reports of inhumane detention conditions such as the collection of 17-40 people in a freezing 8-by-10 cell with one toilet and two pieces of paper each for "hygienic" purposes. One detainee was told to drink from the toilet after he asked for water.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Lisa!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:53:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why WiFi will kick the telcos' asses

Clay "former guestblogger" Shirky's posted a great editorial about what happens to businesses that fail to distinguish a product from a service:

Putting a fax machine in every FedEx office would radically reconfigure the center of their network, thus slashing costs: toner would replace jet fuel, bike messenger's hourly rates would replace pilot's salaries, and so on. With a much less expensive network, FedEx could attract customers with a discount on regular delivery rates, but with the dramatically lower costs, profit margins would be huge compared to actually moving packages point to point. Lower prices, higher margins, and to top it all off, the customer would get their documents in 2 hours instead of 24. What's not to love?

Abject failure was not to love, as it turned out. Two years and hundreds of millions of dollars later, FedEx pulled the plug on ZapMail, allowing it to vanish without a trace. And the story of ZapMail's collapse holds a crucial lesson for the telephone companies today.

Link Discuss (via The Happiest Geek on Earth)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:36:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HomeRF alliance disbands and WiFi competitor dies without a whimper

The HomeRF Alliance, a groupd dedicated to replacing high-speed, open WiFi networks with proprietary, expensive, craptacular fake-wireless ass-networks, has disbanded. Don't let the technology hit you in the butt on the way out.

HomeRF is basically dead in the water. It has been dead commercially for a while now, but with no governing body behind it, it's really gone.

Link Discuss (via Wi-Fi Networking News)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:26:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

IBM punch card = DMCA circumvention device?

Larry J. Blunk asks:

Can an IBM punch card qualify as a circumvention device under the DMCA? I've translated Tom Murphy's "embed" program from C to a short Perl script. Agfa Monotype claims that embed violates the anti-circumvention provisions of the DCMA (the programs clears the 16-bit "embedding" flags field of TrueType files). At 76 characters, this script will neatly fit on an old IBM punch card. Given that punch cards are machine readable, would this qualify as a DMCA circumvention device?

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:55:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canadian programmers in San Jose jailed five days for no reason

By way of politech:

You may be interested in the story of Faramarz Farahani and other high-tech workers in California who, trying to do the right thing on the advice of their lawyers, went to clear up immigration paperwork. Farahani is a Canadian who was born in Iran, as was another man.

In his case, he had overstayed his visa by 2 days. When he went to the INS, they were too busy, and rather than having him come back when they didn't have so many people on staff, they jailed him, sending him on a Con Air junket, eventually to a San Diego jail, where, in the holiday spirit, he had to sleep in a crowded cell on a concrete floor while INS agents woke them every 15 minutes to ask questions.

Only because he had help from his silicon valley employer and because he had good English did he make it out after only 5 days of fun. Welcome to America!

Story is here, and more via Google News here. Posted to politech by Brad Templeton. Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:18:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Reminder: Disinformation author at LA bookstore tonight

As Mark blogged here last week:

Richard Metzger, co-founder of disinfo.com, will be signing copies of his new book, Disinformation: The Interviews, and showing scenes from his TV series of the same name. If you come, draw a green dot on the back of your hand, so we can recognize one another.

Event starts 7:30 pm at the West Hollywood locatoin of Book Soup, 8818 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood CA 90069. Free parking behind the store via Nellas Street. Phone for more info: (310) 659-3110 or (800) 764-BOOK.

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:58:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The music industry STILL owes you $20!

Man, this is disappointing. Every US resident who bought a CD in the US between 1995 and 2000 is entitled to up to $20 from the music cartel as part of a court-mandated settlement over the labels' illegal price-fixing, which is one way that the music industry has ripped off the public.

All you need to do is sign up at this site, and the RIAA will mail you a check. If so many people sign up that the settlement ends up getting spread too thin, the RIAA will mail charitable organizations the checks instead. You can't lose!

Unless you don't sign up. Despite notices of the settlement in TV Guide and throughout blogistan, the cash remains unclaimed. What are you waiting for? Claim it! Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:30:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prank-victims sue reality TV producers

Victims of nasty televised pranks pulled by reality TV shows have begun to seek redress for their injuries in the courts.

James and Laurie Ann Ryan's Las Vegas vacation last January was more exciting than they would have liked. Soon after they checked into the Hard Rock Hotel, they found a body in the bathtub. When they tried to leave, hotel security guards and a paramedic detained them...

Both incidents were practical jokes, manufactured by television shows. But the Ryans and Mr. Zelnick were not amused, and they have sued the producers...

Bob Banner, who produced "Candid Camera" in the 1960's, said he could not recall a lawsuit against that show.

"We never tried to embarrass people or put them in a precarious situation," Mr. Banner said. "We did much gentler things."

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:39:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

South Asia Social Forum as fanzine convention report

My pal Adina is in India, working as a volunteer on sustainable technology projects. Her report from the South Asian Social Forum is quite sharp, and reminded me of Patrick Nielsen Hayden's description of "the conquest of the world by the social customs and artistic forms of science fiction fandom," namely that these missives are "recognizably fanzine convention reports."

Keep walking. When you stop, even to sit for a moment and consult your schedule, you will be surrounded by male university students, snapping your photo, asking for your email address and interrogating you about globalization and neo-liberalism.

Even if you walk slowly or are engaged in conversation with someone else, passersby will get a look of urgency on their face, interrupt you, and say: "You are coming from which country?" or simply "which country, please?" You will also get a ASF burlap bag's worth of flyers and 10RS pamphlets each day on everything from Indigenous Farmer Trade Unionists to Dalit Feminists Seeking Solidarity against the Hypocricy in Education. Everyone will have an awesome cause. Everyone will be wearing it on their sleeve. They will communicate it to you with intensity and unwaverign eye-contact. This will happen several times an hour. You will need to lie down for a couple of hours and miss that lecture you wanted to see because you are unable to string together a sentence and you begin to feel dizzy. You will feel like you want to attend everything and nothing. You will remember you have not had a real day of chilling since you got to India...

You will decide not to go back to the lecture when you meet some funky Fulbright Scholars. They will talk to you about India and their cool projects like working in Gujarat for self-employed women artisans or writing a surrealist novel while teaching in Hyderabad. One guy from Alabama just came out of the closet aftern an encounter with a Jaipurian in Delhi and is very hyper about it. You will go for beer with all of them and a Parsi poet who has put together an anthology of gay Indian writers. He will be a total queen who loves to dominate the conversation. One of the scholars will tell you she is hitting on you. It will be way-flattering. A few beers later, you will discover she knows Krista/Thea from the Twin-Oaks commune in Virginia. She even played with Jonah Raspberry. The world is a small place, made up of small encounters.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:22:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jon Johansen acquitted!

Jon Johansen, the Norweigan teenager who helped develop DeCSS -- a piece of software that allowed him to watch the DVDs he'd bought in France on the DVD player he'd bought in Norway -- has finally been acquitted. Pending appeal.

The three-member Oslo City Court found Johansen, now 19 and a household name as DVD-Jon in Norway, innocent on all counts in a unanimous 25-page ruling in the latest setback for the film industry's drive to prevent film copying.

``I'm very satisfied. We won support on all points. I had figured that we could win, but it can go either way,'' said Johansen after the verdict was read out.

The prosecution said it would decide in the next two weeks whether to appeal. Johansen said he expects another round because this is the first such case in Norway...

Prosecutors had called for a 90-day suspended jail sentence, confiscation of computer equipment and court costs, all of which were rejected in the ruling.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Jim!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:16:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disney parks go crazy Broadway-style

Disney is commissioning Broadway-style musical theater pieces for its theme-parks:

Ms. Hamburger has also commissioned a Disneyland "Snow White" musical from Dara Cloud, a playwright, and Eric Schaeffer, artistic director of the Signature Theater Company in Arlington, Va., who recently completed the Sondheim Celebration at the Kennedy Center in Washington.

In addition Ms. Hamburger said Disney was producing a new parade for Disney World's Epcot Center in Orlando, Fla. Its creators are Andrew Jackness, who recently designed the set for "Mourning Becomes Electra" at the Long Wharf Theater in New Haven, and Candice Donnelly, who designed the costumes for "This Thing of Darkness" at the Atlantic Theater Company in Manhattan.

Although its magic carpet indeed flies, this "Aladdin" leans toward old-fashioned theater, with painted backdrops. "The whole philosophy behind doing this is to take it up a notch, so theme-park entertainment is on a par with Broadway entertainment," Ms. Zambello, the director, said.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Gary!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:12:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LOTR as written by Hemingway, Twain, Lovecraft, et al

Participants in The Straight Dope message boards rewrite Tolkien in the style of past authors:

Smeagol writhed in corruption, his lifelong attempts to collectivize the Hobbit economy had twisted his soul and body and brought ruin to the Shire. "Precious," he muttered. "Precious colective good giving according to need." He shuddered at the thought of the unbroken individual standing proudly over a conquered plain with the Ring, and felt jealous that the wholesome power could not be his.

-Lord of the Rings, by Ayn Rand.

Link Discuss (Thanks, David!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:08:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

High-definition, low-functionality audio formats suck

The new high-definition audio discs (DVD-Audio, Super Audio CD) coming soon are being engineered to be as useless as possible. Specifically designed never to be integrated into a PC, sporting proprietary digital connectors that will not talk to any general-purpose, open device, though these haven't been developed yet so early adopters will have to make do with analog-only outputs.

Yet both kinds of discs, despite being developed in the 'Net-head late '90s, are odd throwbacks to the pre-PC era. Most obviously, they're the same size as the original CD. Can you name any other digital device that hasn't shrunk in 20 years? The players for them are bulky, closer in size to Sony's first CD decks than to Apple's iPod, which holds 400 albums rather than just one.

Flip one of the players over, and you'll find another retro sight: analog output jacks. To prevent buyers from running off bit-for-bit copies of the new discs, gear-makers have agreed not to put digital ports on either DVD-A or SACD players. Yet old-fashioned analog connections erode pristine digital sound and are prone to interference from televisions, lights, and computers--the objects they'll be placed next to in modern homes.

The real deal-breaker is that a stand-alone player is the only kind available. By manufacturers' consensus, there won't be any network ports on the players, nor will there be any DVD-A or SACD drives available for computers. Some makers are promising a digital link from the player to a home-theater console, but it'll be deliberately incompatible with any of the jacks on a computer. In bringing the CD up to date with the PC, the music industry is also trying to split the two technologies asunder again.

It's no wonder that gearheads who buy the latest, greatest everything have ignored DVD-A and SACD in favor of MP3 players and CD burners. Computer-friendly music formats let you archive hundreds of albums on a laptop, create custom playlists that draw from your entire collection, and download them to portable players smaller than a single CD jewel box. Today's fans want their music in a form that fits the pocket-sized, personalized, interconnected world of their computers, cameras, phones, and PDAs. Asking digital consumers to give that power back in exchange for a better-sounding disc is like offering them a phonograph needle.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:57:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, January 6, 2003

Gibson has a blog

William Gibson -- long gun-shy of setting up any kind of personal Internet site -- has dived into the net with both feet forward, setting up a fantastic blog.

Google me and you can learn that I do it all on a manual typewriter, something that hasn't been true since 1985, but which makes such an easy hook for a lazy journalist that I expect to be reading it for the rest of my life. I only used a typewriter because that was what everyone used in 1977, and it was manual because that was what I happened to have been able to get, for free. I did avoid the Internet, but only until the advent of the Web turned it into such a magnificent opportunity to waste time that I could no longer resist. Today I probably spend as much time there as I do anywhere, although the really peculiar thing about me, demographically, is that I probably watch less than twelve hours of television in a given year, and have watched that little since age fifteen. (An individual who watches no television is still a scarcer beast than one who doesn't have an email address.) I have no idea how that happened. It wasn't a decision.

I do have an email address, yes, but, no, I won't give it to you. I am one and you are many, and even if you are, say, twenty-seven in grand global total, that's still too many. Because I need to have a life and waste time and write.

I suspect I have spent just about exactly as much time actually writing as the average person my age has spent watching television, and that, as much as anything, may be the real secret here.

Link Discuss (Thanks Stefan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:55:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cool satellite photo of massive warplane boneyard

Ernie sez:

"I was reading on mefi about the surplus US aircraft boneyard when someone posted this link to beautiful Terraserver satellite photo of the place. It's like a bizarre art piece or something!"

Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:10:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Answers published for EDGE.org's 2003 "World Question"

For the 6th Annual edition of Edge.org's "World Question," John Brockman posed the following imaginary query from George W. Bush to the Third Culture mail list:

"What are the pressing scientific issues for the nation and the world, and what is your advice on how I can begin to deal with them?" - GWB

Answers are now online from respondents including:

Ian Wilmut * J. Craig Venter * Steven Pinker * Ray Kurzweil * Gino Segre * Stephen Schneider * Oliver Morton * Rodney Brooks * Seth Lloyd * Denis Dutton * Freeman Dyson * Philip Campbell * Kevin Kelly * Lawrence Brilliant * Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi * Paul Davies * Robert Shapiro * Jaron Lanier * J. Doyne Farmer * Colin Tudge * Marvin Minsky * George Dyson * William H. Calvin * David Gelernter * Janna Levin * Howard Gardner * Martin Seligman * Richard Nisbett * David Lykken * Alison Gopnik * Marc D. Hauser * Eric R. Kandel * K. Eric Drexler * James J. O'Donnell * Michael Shermer * Daniel Goleman * Richard Saul Wurman * Andy Clark * John Horgan * Roger C. Schank * Nancy Etcoff * Gerald Holton * Judith Rich Harris * Brian Goodwin * Karl Sabbagh * Joel Garreau * Susan Blackmore * Leo Chalupa * Jordan Pollack * David Myers * Ernst Poppel * Lisa Randall * Stuart Pimm * Eduardo Punset * Lee Smolin * Rafael Nunez * Timothy Taylor * Mike Weiner * Leon Lederman * Bart Kosko * Adam Bly * Randolph Nesse * Terrence Sejnowski * Mary Catherine Bateson * Alan Alda * Cliff Barney * Douglas Rushkoff * Donald D. Hoffman * Steve Giddings * Lance Knobel * Piet Hut * Robert Aunger * Christine Finn * David M. Buss * Beatrice Golomb * Rupert Sheldrake * Delta Willis * Clifford Pickover * Eberhard Zangger * Steven Quartz * Keith Devlin * John McCarthy * Gary F. Marcus * Justin Hall * Stephen Reucroft & John Swain

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:48:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Postal experiments with odd materials

High-larious write-up of various attempts to push the envelope of materials that may be sent by postal mail (the helium balloon is great, they argue that the USPO should pay them "negative postage" because it will make the payload lighter!).

Letter with stamp placed at top left corner (incorrect stamp location). Formal business-style letter, to formal business name, in high-quality envelope. Days to delivery, 21. The stamp was crossed out by hand; the top right corner of the envelope was stamped with the following: EVIDENCE POSTAGE WAS AFFIXED, ONE RATE OK'D.

$1 bill. Sealed in clear plastic, with label attached with address and postage. Days to delivery, 6.

$20 bill. Days to delivery, 4.

Football. Days to delivery, 6. Male postal carrier was talkative and asked recipient about the scores of various current games. Carrier noted that mail must be wrapped.

Pair of new, expensive tennis shoes. Strapped together with duct tape. Days to delivery, 7. When shoes were picked up at station, laces were tied tightly together with difficult-to-remove knot. Clerk noted that mail must be wrapped.

Link Discuss (Thanks,