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Thursday, September 30, 2004

MSFT's FAT shakedown suspended by Patent Office

Congrats to Public Patent, a patent-busting org that targetted Microsoft's bogus patent on the FAT file-system. Today, the Patent Office revoked disallowed claims in MSFT's patent, which means that Microsoft can no longer shake down technologists who want to make tools that use FAT (like digital cameras and USB card-readers).

Relying predominantly on evidence provided by PUBPAT when the reexamination was requested, the Patent Office made multiple rejections of the Redmond, WA based software giant's patent. Microsoft has the opportunity to respond to the Patent Office's rejection, but third party requests for reexamination, like the one filed by PUBPAT, are successful in having the subject patent either narrowed or completely revoked roughly 70% of the time.

"The Patent Office has simply confirmed what we already knew for some time now, Microsoft's FAT patent is bogus," said Dan Ravicher, PUBPAT's Executive Director. "I hope those companies that chose to take a license from Microsoft for the patent negotiated refund clauses so that they can get their money back."

Link (via Lawgeek)

Updated: Paul Hoffman sez, "Only the claims were rejected, and even that is probably temporary. Most patent applications have some or all of their claims rejected; the applicant then goes into a game of footsie with the examiner, coming out with either fewer claims or the same number of claims with a narrower focus. Sometimes the examiner simply says 'oh, you're right' and un-rejects; sometimes the examiner says 'no, you're actually hosed', but that is much less common than it should be.

"If Microsoft is left with a single claim out of the four, even if it is narrowed, they will still most likely be able to flog it against anyone using the FAT filesystem. Narrowing claims is only interesting in cases where someone makes something *like* the patent; then they hope that the claims are narrowed to less than what they are possibly infringing on. In the case of FAT, unless the claims are somehow narrowed down so far that you can implement FAT and not infringe on what Microsoft might end up with, PubPat's effort is not useful to the folks who want to implement FAT."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:23:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Strangerhood: Sims 2 sitcom from Red vs Blue creators

The Strangerhood is a new machinima sitcom from the creators of the brilliant Red vs. Blue (a series of comedy shorts made by adding synch audio to screen movies of characters in the Halo video-game running around onscreen, AKA "machinima"). Strangerhood is based on the Sims 2 engine, and the video clip of the credit-reel looks fantastic and witty as Red v Blue. Can't wait for this one to start. Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:26:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Court trashes fair use

A court in St Louis today ruled against EFF in the "BNETD" case, in which we were fighting for the right to write and use your own game-servers that run with the games you buy. We're appealing, but this sucks: it's not much of a leap from this to deciding that tools used to tweak a game's performance for creating machinima (see below) is also a crime.

BnetD is an open source program that lets gamers play popular Blizzard titles like Warcraft with other gamers on servers that don't belong to Blizzard's Battle.net service. Blizzard argued that the programmers who wrote BnetD violated the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions and that the programmers also violated several parts of Blizzard's EULA, including a section on reverse engineering.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), co-counsel for the defendants, argued that programming and distributing BnetD was fair use. The programmers reverse-engineered Battle.net purely to make their free product work with it, not to violate copyright.

EFF Staff Attorney Jason Schultz said, "Consumers have a right to choose where and when they want to use the products they buy. This ruling gives Blizzard the ability to force you to use their servers whether you want to or not. Copyright law was meant to promote competition and creative alternatives, not suppress them."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:53:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Neiman-Marcus's 2004 gifts for squillionaires

The 2004 Neiman-Marcus Christmas Catalog is out, and with it comes this year's crop of insane multi-million-dollar gifts (say, a $10MM, 230'-long zeppelin, or a $1.5MM bowling alley -- real-estate not included). This stuff isn't even drool-over material; there's no world in which I would buy a bowling alley, even if I were richer than god. No, the attraction here is more about finding out what the retail cost of building a bowling alley from scratch is, or what the zeppelin manufacturers are charging these days. Like idly looking up the cost of a hundred-mile run of suboceanic fibre-optic or a Rosicrucian mummy (one of the mummies in the San Jose Rosicrucian Museum came out of an old Neiman-Marcus Christmas Book). Link (Thanks, Mia!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:50:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EFF kicks Diebold's ass

Diebold, the slimeballs whose faulty voting machines threaten the basis of US democracy, tried to silence its critics, a group of activists who were publishing leaked memos detailing the company's malfeasance, by falsely claiming that they were violating Diebold's copyright.

Now a court has ruled that Diebold knowingly abused copyright and the DMCA when it sent nastygrams to the activists' ISPs, and has awarded the activists damages and court costs.

EFF represented the activists' side here. Man, we're winning some important cases these days. I love my job.

In his decision, Judge Jeremy Fogel wrote, "No reasonable copyright holder could have believed that the portions of the email archive discussing possible technical problems with Diebold's voting machines were proteced by copyright . . . the Court concludes as a matter of law that Diebold knowingly materially misrepresented that Plaintiffs infringed Diebold's copyright interest."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:29:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sony ditches DRM CDs

Sony -- which recently added MP3 support to its walkman devices -- has abandoned publishing music on DRM-laden CDs. They say that it's because of an "increase in awareness by music consumers," which Engadget interprets to mean "they’ve succeeded in educating everyone that copying CDs is a bad thing."

But I took it differently: I think they mean that their customers have grown aware of what abad deal these DRM discs are and don't want them anymore. IOW, we complained loud and hard and Sony blinked. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:20:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canadian Creative Commons licenses launched

Congrats to the Canadian Creative Commons project on launching its license today! Now Canadians have an easy way to license their works so that others can re-use them, share them, and improve on them.

The only fly in the ointment for me is this: I really wish they'd set up the licenses so that they constituted a blanket waiver of Moral Rights, but I can't fault them for making it optional.

Still, if you're Canadian and you're CC-licensing your work, please consider the moral-rights waiver; otherwise, people who use your work run the risk that if you take it into your head that they've offended you, you could force them to destroy the new art they've made with your stuff.

By the same token, I will never, ever incorporate a work with a "moral rights asserted" clause into any of my works -- it's not worth the risk to me.

A lot of the world's copyright systems have the concept of author's moral rights -- I really hope that waivers of these rights become the norm in international CC licenses. Link (via Michael Geist)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:17:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Review of Typeit4me

Mark Hurst of Good Experience reviews a very useful-sounding OS X application called Typeit4me. Basically, it lets you create shorthand for any text phrase. When you type in the shorthand (such as "bb" for "Boing Boing") and hit the trigger key (such as the space bar), the shorthand will be replaced by the full text. The important thing is that it works in any application.

Types in HTML phrases: I've defined "ahr" to yield "". Whether I'm in BBEdit, or in a TypePad form within a Web browser, I can get these key HTML strings out quickly and error-free.

Types short phrases: This is great in e-mail. I've set it up so that "tf" becomes "thanks for"; "tfy" becomes "thanks for your"; "tvmfy" becomes "thanks very much for your"... and so on. You can be as polite as you want, and optimally efficient, at the same time.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:32:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SpaceShipOne's second Xprize flight set for Monday, Oct. 4

The Ansari XPrize foundation just announced that the scheduled time for SpaceShipOne's second launch is now confirmed for on October 4th, 2004, at 7:00am. If this attempt goes as well as yesterday's, Burt Rutan and Paul Allen's team will win the $10 million global competition. Link to announcement.

Image: on-ship footage from yesterday's launch -- webcast link. Previous BoingBoing posts: Xeni's NPR report, and snapshots.

Spaceblogger, infojunkie, and BoingBoing reader Brad Neuberg was part of the X-Prize volunteer team. I met him at the launch, and he's been doing a terrific job of blogging live from the event site. Keep your eyes on his blog Monday, I'm sure he'll do more. Link . And here's another live XPrize blog maintained by an event volunteer: Link to Mike Taht's blog. BoingBoing reader Susan Kitchens also attended, and posted some cool photos and details about the festive "X-stock" scene around the airfield, here: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:16:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Reuters hires psychic to write about debate hours before it starts

The person who wrote this photo caption can see into the future! "U.S. President George W. Bush shakes hands with Senator John Kerry (D-Mas) at the start of their first presidential debate, at the University of Miami, September 30, 2004." Link to screen capture

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:05:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

George Soros' speech about President Bush's disastrous Iraq adventure

The neocons paleocons have worked hard to portray George Soros as a fiendish international drug dealer*, which means they're afraid of him. And they should be. He's stupendously wealthy and he spends his money on promoting democracy in the world, instead of earning the hatred of the world by pretending to promote democracy as a cover for nefarious plots. Soros just published this lucid, easy-to-understand speech about the President's reckless invasion of Iraq, and why it is so important to vote him out in November.

We went to war on false pretences. The real reasons for going into Iraq have not been revealed to this day. The weapons of mass destruction could not be found, and the connection with al Qaeda could not be established. President Bush then claimed that we went to war to liberate the people of Iraq. All my experience in fostering democracy and open society has taught me that democracy cannot be imposed by military means. And, Iraq would be the last place I would chose for an experiment in introducing democracy - as the current chaos demonstrates.

Of course, Saddam was a tyrant, and of course Iraqis - and the rest of the world - can rejoice to be rid of him. But Iraqis now hate the American occupation. We stood idly by while Baghdad was ransacked. As the occupying power, we had an obligation to maintain law and order, but we failed to live up to it. If we had cared about the people of Iraq we should have had more troops available for the occupation than we needed for the invasion. We should have provided protection not only for the oil ministry but also the other ministries, museums and hospitals. Baghdad and the country's other cities were destroyed after we occupied them. When we encountered resistance, we employed methods that alienated and humiliated the population. The way we invaded homes, and the way we treated prisoners generated resentment and rage. Public opinion condemns us worldwide.

(*If Soros really was making money off the sale of illegal drugs, why is he pushing to decriminalize them? That would destroy his profit margin. Did bootleggers try to overthrow prohibition?) Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:58:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ResFest in San Francisco this week

The amazing RESFEST Digital Film Festival comes to the Bay Area starting tonight with an opening program of shorts and a reception featuring a performance by the group Midnight Movies. (Click the image for a better view.)

"RESFEST 2004 kicks off with a survey of state-of-the-art storytelling that mixes animation, live action and graphics-oriented work, giving viewers a taste of the festival's unique blend of filmmaking techniques. See the retelling of the tragic fate of Oedipus in luxurious cinematic splendor redolent of '50s era epics--with a case of vegetables. See what happens when the inexorable thrust of time slows, then stops, allowing three characters to transcend their destinies in Daniel Askill's visually stunning philosophical mindbender WE HAVE DECIDED NOT TO DIE."

...and so much more eye/braincandy tonight and over the next few days. Of course, if you're not in the Bay Area, RESFEST 2004 is hitting more than a dozen other cities around the globe before the year's end. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:20:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stop buying food -- become a "freegan"

Chris sez: "There's an interesting article over on newsday.com regarding the 'Freegan' Movement. The idea is basically this: Instead of paying for food, a group of individuals have decided to get their nourishment from that which would have otherwise become waste. These urban scavengers troll the garbage bins of health food stores and other eating establishments in urban areas in an effort to not only reduce the amount of society's wasted usable resourses, but to also benefit from that which you throw away. One Freegan, Luna Tic, even took the concept a step further and converted his car to run on cooking oil discarded by restaurants (he says he gets 12 miles to the gallon). Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:05:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ABC news reports on "debate" that hasn't happened yet

The rules for tonight's poor-substitute-for-a-debate are so restrictive, and the sound-bites that will come out of the mouths of both men are so easy to guess, that ABC news was able to file a story about the results of the "debate" several hours before it takes place. Link Story removed by ABC, but you can find copies here. (Thanks, Certron!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:11:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scientists review films

This summer, the American Chemical Society's Chemical & Engineering News magazine started running movie reviews. From their critique of The Day After Tomorrow:

"To a scientist, the film is interesting because it compresses everything that could happen under an abrupt climate change scenario (and much that could not happen) into a few days, rather than the more realistic decades. A collapse of the thermohaline circulation is a low-probability, but high-impact event. If it did occur in the early 21st century, it would have a huge impact on weather.

Some data suggest the thermohaline circulation has already begun to slow. Certain parts of the Greenland Ice Sheet are shrinking 10 times faster than they were a few years ago, losing an average of 10 meters of elevation annually, in contrast to the previous 1 meter, and reducing the salinity of the North Atlantic."

Today's New York Times has a feature about C&EN's new "Reel Science" section. Link (registration required)

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:54:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cosplayer photo gallery

Mainichi Shimbun has a collection of 260 cosplay photos from this year's Tokyo Game Show. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:49:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Solar gear jacket

SCOTTeVEST announced a solar-powered version of their sporty mobile gear jacket. Global Solar's thin-film photovoltaic cells on the back of the jacket charge a small battery pack that provides juice to MP3 players, phones, cameras, and other devices stashed in more than 30 hidden pockets. The coat is outfitted with a "Personal Area Network" of wires running through the lining. Link (Thanks, Mark Riedy!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:33:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Music of the sphere

A mysterious low-frequency hum emanating from the Earth is likely caused by ocean storms. First discovered by Japanese seismologists in 1998, the vibrations have a frequency between two and seven millihertz, inaudible to humans. UC Berkeley scientists propose in the journal Nature that the hum is produced by interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, and seafloor. From a BBC News report:

The daily release of energy required to generate the hum is equivalent to a magnitude 5.75 to six earthquake, say Junkee Rhie and Barbara Romanowicz of the University of California, Berkeley.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:54:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on NPR: report from SpaceShipOne launch at Mojave

On today's edition of the NPR program "Day to Day" , I report from the Mojave airport spaceport on yesterday's launch of SpaceShipOne. The craft was funded by Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen and designed by Burt Rutan's team at Scaled Composites.

"SS-1" is the top contender in the race for the Ansari X-prize, a global competition to build the first viable commercial spaceship. The winning team will receive a $10 million award. For SpaceShipOne, that amounts to only half of the $20 million or so Allen invested -- clearly, the competition is about more than a cash prize.

Jason DeFillippo joined me and Day to Day producer Nihar Patel for the trip to Mojave -- Jason took some absolutely terrific photos of the launch, flight, landing, and the surreal scene around the airstrip. Link. In this photo, I'm one of a number of silly-looking reporters all squinting intently at the sky and holding their hands against the sun. We were trying to catch a glimpse of a distant SpaceShipOne during its ascent. Vetern tech and space journalist John Schwartz from the New York Times is there in the blue shirt (here's his story: Link). Right about then, Nihar yells out, "HELIOS, THOU ART MY LORD" really loud, which made everyone crack up because we really did look goofy. Like we were participating in an ancient sun-cult ritual, or at least a Planet of The Apes episode.
Link to archived radio segment: NPR Day to Day "First X-Prize Flight a Success for SpaceShipOne", with some of Jason's photos. Link to previous BoingBoing post on yesterday's event, and Link to more of Jason's awesome images.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:53:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WSJ reporter confirms authenticity of her letter to friends about horrific conditions in Iraq

Farnaz Fassihi, a Wall Street Journal correspondent in Iraq, confirmed that a widely-redistributed letter she emailed to friends about the nightmarish situation in Iraq was indeed written by her. Too bad the WSJ doesn't allow this reporter to write these kinds of stories for the paper.

Iraqis say that thanks to America they got freedom in exchange for insecurity," Fassihi wrote (among much else) in the letter. "Guess what? They say they'd take security over freedom any day, even if it means having a dictator ruler." And: "Despite President Bush's rosy assessments, Iraq remains a disaster. If under Saddam it was a 'potential' threat, under the Americans it has been transformed to 'imminent and active threat,' a foreign policy failure bound to haunt the United States for decades to come.

...Making clear what can only, at best, appear between lines in her published dispatches, Fassihi concluded, "One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle."

Link

(Note: there's an advertisement for the University of Phoenix on the right column of the page featuring a scary looking unshaven man with a blinking problem who starts TALKING VERY LOUDLY after the Flash file loads, so you might want to mute your computer's speaker before clicking on the link)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:41:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

P2P usage stats you can rely on

Cachelogic has posted a very good, in-depth study of network traffic using data gathered from a variety of large ISPs. They conclude that P2P use has not dwindled; that P2P systems are the main use of bandwidth today ("the killer app for broadband")l that P2P is used to move lots of kinds of files, including ones that are noninfringing (strong market-demand for symmetrical connectivity); and that P2P's impact on ISP bandwidth charges are largely the result of anti-detection design choices that make it hard for P2P systems to efficiently use bandwidth. So much for the salutory effect of extreme copyright laws, lawsuits and "eduction" campaigns. Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:47:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Half the men on small island charged with rape

Pitcairn Island is a tiny, remote island off the coast of New Zealand (thanks to everyone who pointed out that Pitcairn isn't close to NZ at all) with only 46 people living on it. Seven of the men there -- more than half the adult male population, including the mayor -- have been charged with over about 100 counts of sexual assault, including the rape of a five year old. The charges arose after a British policewoman visited the island and met some of the girls, who told her what had been going on. This blog entry has links to articles from various news-sites on the trial.

The residents of the island are descendants of the mutineers from the HMS Bounty and the local Polynesian population in 1790.

Link (Thanks, Cyrus!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:46:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Industrial nations to WIPO: less IP, more global well-being

Thiru Balasubramaniam from the Consumer Project on Technology is taking notes at the General Assembly of the UN's World Intellectual Property Organisation. Yesterday was the opening, and it kicked off with a bang, with a group of nations (comprising the 15 original European Community states, Japan, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland and some others) excoriating the Organisation for pursuing IP Rights over the other goals of WIPO such as fostering creativity and transfering technology to the world's poorest nations.

...believe WIPO's work should help support the multilateral development of intellectual property, not as an end in itself, but as a means to help achieve the economic, social and cultural well-being of individuals and societies across the planet. In that light, we are pleased to see paragraph 6 of the Secretariat's Performance Report emphasize that "WIPO's strategic goals should also be viewed in the larger context of the UN Millenium Declaration adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2000, placing the eight Millenium Development Goals at the heard of the global agenda."

Link (Thanks, Thiru!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:18:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Voter Information Guide by Kottke and co

Kottke and his blog-readers have been assembling a Voter Information Guide, which they've been turning into one-page handouts and outher interesting and useful forms that explain how to register and vote in the upcoming election.

- 1-page PDF version by Trevor Filter
- HTML version suitable for printing by Ryan Brill
- text-only version by Chuck Welch
- an audio version by Ben Yates

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:55:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google Answers: Is Google on fire?

Danny's wife, Quinn, drove past Google HQ yesterday and noted smoke rising from the building. She rang Danny, who leapt into motion, going to Google Answers and posing this question:

Is Google HQ on fire right now? My wife drove your campus and saw smoke. Are you guys okay? I can probably get a ladder if you need it.

The question remains unanswered. Silly Danny -- Google Answers staffers work offsite! Link (via Oblomovka)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:54:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ASCII movies of the Bush SotU addresses

ASCII Bush has ASCII-mation videos of both Bush I and Bush II's State of the Union addresses as Quicktime files. Filthyape sez, "The basic goal of this project is to make art from the debris of our culture by recycling these dreadful and painfully long presidential oration. The speeches are not edited--just digitally filtered. And like I said, they are very lengthy. ASCII BUSH is definitely boring enough to be interesting!!!" Link (Thanks, filthyape!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:50:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, September 29, 2004

SpaceShipOne / Xprize snapshots, part 3

SpaceShipOne pilot Mike Melvill gives the universal sign for a successful flight after today's touchdown. Link to full-size. Link to another snapshot of Mr. Melvill standing on top of the craft, speaking to reporters.

The X-Prize webcast of today's flight includes some incredibly beautiful footage from an on-ship camera -- this must be what Melvill saw, gazing out of that little round window. A giant blue dome below, and a black sky with bright stars above. I'd sure like to see the snapshots he said he took up there. Anyway, go ahead and skip through the hoo-ha and just stream the good stuff -- but there is definitely some good stuff: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:08:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SpaceShipOne / Xprize snapshots, part 2

The whole thing felt a little like Burning Man with more money and fewer naked hippies. Squint through the dust (which at times almost blew as hard as it does on the playa), and those big sponsor signs could almost pass for theme camp tents. Instead of bad trance music blaring in all directions, we heard bombastic symphonic overtures on the PA system every time SS-1 was about to do something important, like lift off or move from climb mode to glide mode.

The craft is fueled by nitrous oxide and rubber. I suppose this proves what many Hollywood clubbers have known for years -- that with a little latex and laughing gas, you can get to heaven.

Here, Scaled Composites' Burt Rutan and Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen sit in the back of a pickup truck towing SpaceShipOne along the runway, after pilot Mike Melvill's successful flight. Mr. Melvill is still inside the craft. This sight made me laugh. I mean -- come on. A pickup truck towing a spaceship. Garage geekery, grand goals. Link to full-size image. Link to a snapshot moments later, in which Melvill addresses the crowd on the ground, while Rutan and Allen grin widely.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:08:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SpaceShipOne / Xprize snapshots, part 1

Just got back to LA from the Mojave Airport -- er, spaceport -- where Scaled Composites' SpaceShipOne completed the first of two flights that may result in its developers winning the $10 million Ansari X Prize.

Today's successful flight included a dramatic series of unplanned rolls during ascent. Developer Burt Rutan attributed them to known engineering problems that caused excessive dihedral effect (the way an aircraft reacts when wind hits it from the side). That corkscrew-spiral flight pattern on the way up looked terrifying from where I stood-- as if SS-1 were about to suddenly spin out of control to disaster at any moment. Judging from the gasps I heard in the media corral, others agreed.

Regardless of how risky that portion of the flight may have appeared, or indeed was, pilot Mike Melvill later said the rolls "felt cool" from where he was seated some 337,500 feet above the earth. He said he could see stars above, once he departed Earth's atmosphere. There was enough of a pause at the top for him to take a break from piloting, peek out the windows, and take some snapshots with a little camera he'd stowed on board.

I've been up since 230am today, and there's still work to do on tomorrow morning's NPR "Day to Day" report about today's flight. So for now, just a series of quick snapshots I took at the event. Here, SpaceShipOne at dawn: Link. Here, SpaceShipOne taxis out pre-flight, attached to White Knight: Link. Here, White Knight takes off: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:43:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nigerian spam used as Quicktime soliloquy

Dylan sez: "A movie clip of someone doing a Nigerian email scam monologue - complete with mispellings and bad grammar. It's a hoot." Link (via Good Experience)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:18:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gallery of drug paraphernalia from 1970s men's magazine

Here are some scans of neat-looking drug paraphernalia from a 1970s issue of Oui magazine. Link (via PCL Linkdump)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:29:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

CBS News: Bush's top ten flip flops

Personally, I think flip-flopping is a sign of intelligence and shows a willingness to learn. But since the Republicans think flip-flopping is worse than torturing people or invading countries that don't pose a threat, here are President Bush's top ten flip flops.

President Bush: "We found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories."(May 29, 2003)

President Bush: "I recognize we didn't find the stockpiles [of weapons] we all thought were there." (Sept. 9, 2004)

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:08:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Penn Jillette's "Sock" references collected

Penn Jillette, half of the magnificent magic/comedy duo Penn and Teller, has recently published a first novel called Sock, told from the PoV of a sock-monkey. The book is chock-a-block with pop culture references, especially song lyrics, and David has undertaken to catalogue them on this site. Link (Thanks, David!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:07:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Asimov's magazine on ebooks

My pal and teacher James Patrick Kelly is a Hugo-award-winning sf writer who does a column about the Internet for Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine -- this month's, about ebooks, is very good indeed (especially given the generally dismal approach of the sf field to electronic text).

should say here that I have long been one of those saurians who disliked reading for pleasure from a computer screen. But a couple of months ago, for reasons too boring to mention, I popped for a personal digital assistant (PDA) , mostly to keep track of appointments and addresses when I was away from my desk. As it happened, shortly after I made the buy, I went to Florida to attend the International Conference on the Fantastic and to soak up some rays. On a whim, I loaded some ebooks into my new gadget. By the time I got off the plane in Fort Lauderdale I’d fallen in love with my PDA as a reading device. Yes, the screen is smallish but I can change the font at will. Maybe it isn’t exactly ideal for the beach because direct light washes out the backlit screen, but my days of sunbathing are over and this thing is made in the shade. Often as not it’s my book of choice for bedtime reading. And if my wife wants to turn in, we can douse all the lights and I can read from that cheerily lit screen.

Link

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

Scans of GOP "Bible to be banned" scare-literature

Kyle sez, "I called the Arkansas Kerry headquarters and managed to get some scans of the GOP flier that's making the rounds, declaring that the Bible will be BANNED if the liberals win. Same-sex marriage, of course, will be ALLOWED. Thought folks might like to actually see the pics that everyone's talking about -- I haven't seen 'em anywhere else yet." Link (Thanks, Kyle!)

Update: Luke sez, Washington Blogger/journalist Steve Clemons had a better scan of the 'Liberals Will Ban the Bible' GOP scare-flyer last week. Clemons's scan is bigger and has the front and back of the flyer (which includes another BANNED Bible)."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:38:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Can suing customers save the record companies?

Fred von Lohmann's law.com op-ed asks the music question: "Is Suing Your Customers a Good Idea?"

Unfortunately, the evidence thus far suggests that the RIAA litigation campaign has had little, if any, effect on P2P file-sharing. Companies like Big Champagne and BayTSP that track the online P2P population have found that the number of U.S. file-sharers continues to grow. The global file-sharing population, moreover, is skyrocketing. A survey of Internet users undertaken by the Pew Internet and American Life Project did show a marked decline in file-sharing in the months following the highly-publicized first rounds of RIAA lawsuits, but Pew's follow-up reports have documented a rebound in the months since.

In the face of evidence suggesting that the lawsuits have been ineffective at curbing P2P music-swapping, the RIAA responded that "lawsuits are an important part of the larger strategy to educate file-sharers about the law." Well, the "education by lawsuit" of American music fans is also off to a rocky start. Awareness of copyright law is certainly up. For example, an April 2004 survey revealed that 88 percent of children between 8 and 18 years of age understood that P2P music-downloading is illegal. Unfortunately, the survey also discovered that 56 percent of the children surveyed continue to download music anyway. So while many music fans are aware of the "stick" of lawsuits, they seem relatively unintimidated by it.

Link (Thanks, Fred!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:35:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Internet bubble's blessings

An interesting rumination on what the Internet stock-bubble got right:

The aspect of the Internet Bubble that the press seemed most taken with was the youth of some of the startup founders. This too is a trend that will last. There is a huge standard deviation among 26 year olds. Some are fit only for entry level jobs, but others are ready to rule the world if they can find someone to handle the paperwork for them.

A 26 year old may not be very good at managing people or dealing with the SEC. Those require experience. But those are also commodities, which can be handed off to some lieutenant. The most important quality in a CEO is his vision for the company's future. What will they build next? And in that department, there are 26 year olds who can compete with anyone.

Link (via EvHead)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:32:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geniuses of the year

The MacArthur Foundation has announced this year's winners of the "Genius" grant for $250k $500k for outstanding achievment in the field of outstandingness. Pretty amazing cross-section of artists, scientists and thinkers here:

Marine Roboticist building multiple, miniature, autonomous underwater vehicles that mimic the behavior of schooling fish...

High School Debating Coach changing the landscape of opportunities within urban schools...

Inventor cobbling sophisticated, life-enhancing devices from inexpensive materials for people in areas with little access to technology and even fewer resources to obtain it.

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:31:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WiFi walled-gardens suck

Mike sez,

This overview from Techdirt covers the disturbing practice taken by some providers of free WiFi hotspots: restrictive content filtering. In my book, Wi-Fi Toys, I discussed how network operators can build a free Wi-Fi hotspot and share their Internet connection with a wildly useful free program called Nocat.

Unfortnuately, hotspot gateways like Nocat can also give owners the ability to block sites and restrict surfing to a "€œwalled garden" of accepted destinations. The walled garden idea was meant to give site owners the ability to create a sort of free preview of the Internet where you can perhaps check the weather, read the iHop menu, the local paper, or other casual internet destinations without having to register or sign on to the network.

I suggest people log off and take their business elsewhere.

Link (Thanks, Mike!)

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

ACLU and EFF strike down part of PATRIOT Act

EFF has helped the ACLU overturn one of the worst elements of the USA PATRIOT Act, the "National Security Letters," which were secret warrants that the Justice Department could write for itself without judicial oversight and then bind the recipients to indefinite silence. That's right: secret, no-oversight warrants with perpetual gag-orders. The ACLU brought suit against the DoJ on this one, and we filed briefs on their side, and today, a federal court struck down this part of PATRIOT as unconstitutional. BooYAH.

"Today's ruling is an important victory for the Bill of Rights, and a critical step toward reigning in the unconstitutional reach of the Patriot Act," said Kurt Opsahl, EFF staff attorney. "The Court recognized that judicial oversight and the freedom to discuss our government's activities both online and offline are fundamental safeguards to civil liberties, and should not be thrown aside."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:54:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's DRM talk in French

"Botoxsmile" has done a "quick and dirty" translation of my Microsoft DRM talk into French. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:48:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-Bush shirts for kids

Lowercase Tee sells funny anti-Bush T-shirts for kids. Perfect for watching the upcoming fake debates. (According to this story in the LA Times, President Bush's handlers wanted the auditorium temperature to be 70, in order to make John Kerry break out in a sweat.) Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:27:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lore on new Star Wars game

Lore "Brunching Shuttlecocks" Sjöberg reviews Star Wars: Battlefront, a new shooter-game, in today's Wired News. Nutshell: it's more cool than it is fun, with lots of opportunities for Star Wars truefen to blow away Jar Jar and get down with their lucas-envy, but not a lot of gameplay.

You can look up at towering AT-ATs or look down from them as you blast the rebels to smithereens, evil cackle optional. You can zoom through the trees of Endor's moon on a speeder bike, see your buddies get pulled into a Sarlacc pit, and dogfight above Bespin. More cynical fans will welcome the ability to give Ewoks and Gungans a good spanking, blaster-style. Not only are the arenas exciting enough to pull you in, they even manage to make the prequels look good.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:22:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free iPod for Air France business class passengers

Fly first business from the US to Europe, get a free iPod Mini.

Air France is offering customers of its "l'Espace Affaires" business class service an opportunity to get a free iPod mini; all they have to do is purchase a ticket from now to Nov. 15, 2004. Tickets must originate from any Air France U.S. gateway for travel to any European destination, and travel must be completed by Jan. 15, 2005. Additional restrictions apply. Once travel is completed, passengers mail their information to an Air France address, and the airline then sends them an iPod mini within six to ten weeks.

Link (via Engadget)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:07:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Best French sf you never read

Kirk McElhearn has translated and posted two chapters from Pierre Bordage's novel The Warriors of Silence. Bordage is one of the best-selling non-English-language sf writers in the world, with 20 novels to his credit, widely translated into languages other than English. McElhearn hopes that in posting these chapters, he'll stir interest in the US and UK for Bordage's work:

On the planet Two-Seasons, a rumor kept returning, as often as the rain, suggesting that the wet season was coming to its end.

Slumped in a chair so old and dusty that the light of its tubes merged with the half-light of the agency, Tixu Oty, originally from the planet Orange, watched the heavy drops fall with the look of a divine cow contemplating an antique rocket train.

During the five, maybe six standard years that he had been on Two-Seasons, Tixu Oty had slowly changed into a shaggy, lifeless mass, soaked through with alcohol and boredom. A sickening stench oozed from his crumpled uniform, which had once been light green, and its pungency was reminiscent of the giant river lizards of the rainy season.

Link (Thanks, Kirk!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:36:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

IPAC: a PAC for IP issues

My pal Ren is starting a political action committee to pressure lawmakers into doing the right thing on copyright, trademark and patent issues:

Most of today's legislators think very little about intellectual property. When they do, it is often at the behest of an entertainment industry lobbyist. As a result, America's intellectual property policy has become a one-way ratchet of expanding entitlements for rights holders. The public's rights to use and benefit from intellectual property have steadily declined in the last century, and the forces behind that decline grow more powerful every day.

Yet in recent years, the public's awareness of these changes has sharply increased. Much of that increase can be attributed to the work of people like you. This awareness is vital, and IPac hopes to provide an outlet for it in the electoral system. IPac is dedicated to supporting candidates who will fight for balanced intellectual property policy. Specifically, we intend to:

* Fund the campaigns of elected officials who support IPac's principles
* Publish voter guides to help citizens make informed choices about their elected officials based on their handling of IP and technology issues
* Fund issue-based advertising
* Encourage legislation that aligns with IPac's principles

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:58:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, September 28, 2004

Catalogue of the Kleptones' samples

Waxy has undertaken a collaborative project to identify and catalogue all the samples in the Kleptones' brilliant new illegal mashup album, A Night at the Hip-Hopera. He's done such a good job that he's managed to source samples that the Kleptones themselves had lost track of the origins of, according to this email interview Boogah undertook with Eric Kleptone ("They even pin-pointed samples that we couldn't remember where they'd come from. My hat comes off to those guys.")

15 - Break.mp3
- Queen, "I Want to Break Free"
- Aaliyah w/Timbaland, "Try Again" (intro sample)
- Beastie Boys, "Shake Your Rump"
- Beastie Boys, "Body Movin'"
- Beastie Boys, "Alive"

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Yes Men pranksters documentary trailer

The Onion's AV Club has the trailer for a new documentary on legenday political pranksters The Yes Men, who pull stunts like impersonating officials with the WTO and show up at international trade conferences and propose a "market for human rights abuses" and "auctioning votes to the highest bidder." The doc looks fantastic -- can't wait for it to open here in London! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:38:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Apple owns up to 15" Pbk display bug

I blew through three screens on Apple's original 15" Aluminum G4 Powerbooks, which were prone to a design flaw that caused huge, distracting white blobs to appear on the screen. Apple insisted that there was no such design flaw and offered no official replacement beyond their warranty service (which replaced bad displays with new bad displays with the same flaws!).

Finally, Apple has admitted to shipping a lemon, and has extended the warranty period for people who want to get their bum displays replaced:

Users have been complaining about the issue since last fall, launching online petitions and other efforts designed to get the Mac maker to address the problem.

In October, Apple said people with the problem should contact its AppleCare service, but the company had been handling problems case by case under its standard warranty. In December the company posted more information to its support Web site, an Apple representative said.

"Last year we advised customers whose 15-inch PowerBook G4 displays exhibited faint white spots to contact AppleCare," Apple said in a statement. "To ensure that our customers are well taken care of, we are extending the repair period on these systems to two years from the original date of purchase."

Link (Thanks, Riana!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:35:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Uncovered: War in Iraq torrents under CC license

Gary sez, "In a follow-up to the release of interviews from Outfoxed under a Creative Commons License, Robert Greenwald has also agreed to release the interviews from Uncovered: The War on Iraq." Get your torrents here: Link (Thanks, Gary!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:32:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vintage Disney hotel logos as vector art

Michael found some retro Disney World hotel matchbooks with the crumbling original logos for the Polynesian Village and Contemporary Resort hotels in all their 1970s avacodo-and-harvest-gold glory. Inspired, he reproduced them in Illustrator as vector-art files, which are now online on his site for you to download and render out at arbitrarily high resolutions -- I'm thinking of a wall-sized mural of the Poly logo. Link (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:29:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ShmooCon: new hackercon in DC this Feb

ShmooCon is the first conference put on by the high-larious hacker clade The Shmoo Group, who brought you such fun projects as the HackerBot and the WiFi sniper rifle. Coming next February 4-6 to DC's Wardman Park Marriott Hotel.

"Break It!" - a track dedicated to the demonstration of techniques, software, and devices devised with only one purpose in mind--technology exploitation. You will bear witness to some of the most devious minds, source code, and gadgets on the planet that focus their energies on breaking the technology we mindless sheep keep on buying. Baaaaa.

"Build It!" - a track that showcases inventive software & hardware solutions--from distributed computing or stealth p2p networks to miniature form-factor community wireless network node hardware or robotics even. Let loose your inner geek, and feel free to gawk. With all the neat stuff, it's important to take notes--that way we all have evidence to shoot down some sleazeball patents 5 years from now.

"BoF It!" - a track that promotes the open discussion of critical information security issues in a "birds of a feather" format. From lightning open source code audits or wireless insecurity discussion panels to DRM rants or anonymity & privacy strategies--it's down and dirty, with plenty of controversy for folks who like hashing it out with fellow hackers. Feel free to throw your Shmooball here, but no fisticuffs, please. Settle your differences at Hack-or-Halo in the evening, instead.

Link

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

Wired: South Park's Puppet Regime

In this month's issue of Wired Magazine: an item I wrote about the forthcoming film Team America, due in theaters next month.

While the rest of Hollywood obsesses over the next CG blockbuster, the creators of South Park are playing with puppets. For their latest film, Team America: World Police, Matt Stone and Trey Parker eschew computer graphics for wooden dummies and WYSIWYG garage geekery. "I hate what CG has done to movies," says Stone. "Filmmakers too often substitute technology for a good story. There's something so much more exhilarating about watching stuff that's real."

Real 22-inch-tall marionettes are what you get in this $20 million send-up of bloated action epics. Due in theaters October 15, Team America tracks a special task force that must save the world from terrorists armed with weapons of mass destruction. The film stars 90 puppets, including knock-offs of John Kerry, Michael Moore, and North Korean dictator Kim Jong II.

Puppeteers manhandle wires and rods to move the characters using the same supermarionation technique employed in the '60s cult TV series Thunderbirds. But Stone calls his method "supercrappynation" because the wires remain visible and sophisticated articulation is replaced by jerky verité.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:47:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disneyland history travelling exhibit

There's an upcoming touring exhibit on the creation of Disneyland -- I really hope I get to see this!

The Henry Ford in Dearborn, Michigan, will research and develop a traveling exhibit celebrating the 50th anniversary of Disneyland. The exhibit will be created by The Henry Ford in association with Walt Disney Imagineering and The Walt Disney Company.

In an unprecedented agreement, Walt Disney Imagineering, the creative design organization behind Walt Disney Parks and Resorts, will loan The Henry Ford up to 500 pieces of original artwork, models, construction drawings, ride vehicles and media materials relating to the architecture and design of Disneyland.

Link (via The Disney Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:26:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

E-Voting activist meeting: San Fran, Oct 12

BayFF -- a Bay Area discussion group for civil liberties issues -- is having an important meeting on Tuesday, Oct 12 at 7PM in the 111 Minna Gallery to discuss E-Voting:

Democracy is government by the people, and the right to vote is critical to determining what each of us wants of our government. Nearly one quarter of American voters - more than 35 million people - will exercise that right using electronic voting (e-voting) terminals in this election. Unfortunately, due to equipment that has been hastily developed and poorly tested, your right to vote is in greater jeopardy than ever before. There are widespread reports of voting terminal failures, and growing concern about the (in)security of these machines is fueling fierce debate over how to ensure the integrity of our elections. EFF is working to ensure that votes are verifiable and to train poll workers about what to do when the machines fail. Come listen to our team leaders talk about the latest developments, and share your thoughts on how we can make sure that every vote is counted.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:21:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free Software, circa 1889

Former BB guestblogger Johannes Grenzfurthner of Austrian art collective Monochrom says:

"Leo Findeisen, a member of Monochrom, wrote an interesting text and we published it on our server. He compares the 'old codes' of natural languages to the 'new codes' of today, which are programming languages. To help us understand the mechanisms through which new codes originate, grow and thrive (or do not), he examines the history of two natural languages that developed through an open source mechanism: Volapük and Esperanto."

Called "Some Code to Die For," the dense-but-engaging essay is available in English, German, and, of course, Esperanto. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:21:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Where to find malware on a Windows box

Here's a good guide to all the places in a Windows installation that a worm or virus can hide itself.

2. REGISTRY. Windows executes all instructions in the "Run" section of the Windows Registry. Items in the "Run" section (and in other parts of the Registry listed below) can be programs or files that programs open (documents), as explained in No. 1 above.

3. REGISTRY. Windows executes all instructions in the "RunServices" section of the Registry.

4. REGISTRY. Windows executes all instructions in the "RunOnce" part of the Registry.

Link (via Red Ferret Journal)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:20:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Worst jobs in history, via Baldric

Tony Robinson, who played Baldric on Black Adder, is doing a new TV show called "The Worst Jobs in History" in which he undertakes to perform history's vilest tasks every week.

And there's no more powerful alkaline solution than two-week old human urine – and it's free!

I tell you, after two weeks it doesn't smell like wee, it smells like burying your nose in uncooked liver.

For the show I used our crew member's wee – and the job involves dancing around in it bare foot for two hours per length of cloth.

Link (Thanks, Mark!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:18:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Angry judge berates lawyers in opinion

A Texas judge has handed down an high-larious, scathing opinion in which he lambastes the attorneys before him for squabbling like children:

The Court simply wants to scream to these lawyers, “Get a life” or “Do you have any other cases?” or “When is the last time you registered for anger management classes?”

Neither the world’s problems nor this case will be determined by an answer to a counterclaim which is four days late, even with the approval of the presiding judge.

If the lawyers in this case do not change, immediately, their manner of practice and start conducting themselves as competent to practice in the federal court, the court will contemplate and may enter an order requiring the parties to obtain new counsel. In the event it is not clear from the above discussion, the Motion for Reconsideration is DENIED. SIGNED this 21st day of July 2004.

Link,/a> (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:13:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

3D printer art

Computer scientist Gershon Elber of the Technion Israel Institute of Technology used 3D printers to create marvelous physical models of MC Escher's artwork. 3D printers, like those from Z Corporation, squirt out powdered plastic and binder layer-by-layer based on a CAD model. Link (via Reality Carnival)

UC Berkeley computer scientist Carlo Séquin also uses 3D printers to produce beautiful abstract sculptures. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:44:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Iraq visual language survival guides for military personnel

A friend who recently returned from Baghdad brought me an unusual souvenir: a "visual language survival guide" used by coalition soldiers. It's a sort of show-and-tell folding map intended for both soldiers and private contractors working in Iraq -- with lots of little pictures you can point to in front of an Iraqi person to say things like "is the improvised explosive device hidden under the dead goat?" and "was the bomb maker planning manual or remote detonation?"

A company named Kwikpoint makes them, and the military hands them out to personnel. The guides help English-speaking personnel communicate with prisoners, would-be-detainees, interrogatees, and so on. Don't speak Farsi or Iraqi Arabic? Need to tell a prisoner to drop trou and get horizontal beneath your boot, pronto? Point to the infographic.

Visually, they're unsettling. The images are functional icons, like highway signs or web UI buttons, so they reflect a simplified aesthetic -- like early childhood storybooks. The subject matter is violent, but the look is "see spot run" or "happy Lego people at play." The most surreal one is a two-part diagram in which a man is asked to remove his toupee so the interrogator can determine whether or not weapons are stashed beneath (shown in thumbnail here).

Civilians can buy the Iraq guide online for $11 each: Link. Scanned lo-res excerpts: part one, part two (jpegs, about 200K each). Remix possibilities boggle the mind.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:10:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kevin Sites' Iraq blog: Behind Blast Walls

Blogger and NBC combat correspondent Kevin Sites is stationed in Iraq, and has added a pair of new posts to his blog today.

But behind these blast walls meant to protect us, our spirits wither. All of us who cover conflict on a regular basis got into this kind of journalism because we wanted to be immersed up to the eyeballs in our stories. Most of us have given up the communities, comforts and relationships that are the staples of more "natural" lives. To live and work like this is an anathema to our normal rhythms. So when our interpreter/producer Ashraf brought the video of his wedding to the bureau -- we all crowded around a tiny three-inch mini dv player -- like it was a crystal ball.

We watched us our colleague made the commitment of his lifetime to a stunning, young Iraqi woman -- dressed in a splendid royal blue gown, sprigs of white baby's breath in her hair. The camera moved around the room, allowing us to meet his family and friends -- some of them other Iraqi colleagues we knew -- but had never seen outside of work in this kind of setting, being themselves, full of smiles, the seriousness of newsgathering melted away for a few hours.

And then they danced. Mostly the women, moving like Bedouin princesses under the desert sky. A tiny glimpse of beauty in a place where it seems to become a bit more rare with each passing day.

Link to "Blog Smog," Link to "Behind Blast Walls."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:05:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DARPA loves trash

Noah Shachtman writes:

U.S. bases of the future are supposed to be self-sustaining. But, right now, they produce too much junk -- more than 7 pounds per day, per soldier. And a whole heap of "personnel, fuel, and critical transport equipment are needed to support the removal and disposal" of that waste, the Pentagon notes. So Darpa, the Defense Department's far-out research arm, has just given a Menlo Park, California "gene synthesis" company a grant to give the junk a second life, by turning the plastic waste into fuel.

"Plastic packaging waste has energy content that can approach that of diesel fuel, Darpa notes. "Diesel fuel has lower heating value of 43.9MJ/kg and hydrogen content of 12.5 weight percent. Plastic heating values can range from 26-43MJ/kg with a hydrogen content of 5-14 percent. If energy content of the waste is optimized for secondary use as a fuel source, at today's level of packaging being discarded, a military unit could achieve well over 100 percent self-sufficiency for their generator fuel needs."

Professor Richard Gross, at Polytechnic University, New York, thinks he has a polymer that can get the job done. It'll have "properties similar to polyethylene and will be prepared from renewable resources with a cost comparable to current commercially manufactured plastics," he claims. DNA 2.0, Inc., out of Menlo Park, will produce the enzymes needed to make the designer material for Darpa's MISER (Mobile Integrated Sustainable Energy Recovery) project.

Link to Defensetech blog

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:10:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Al Gore's new cable network hiring vloggers and untrained, would-be digital reporters

INdTV, the media company founded by President former Vice President Al Gore and entrepreneur Joel Hyatt, is hiring talent. It looks like they're specifically trying to recruit "young adults" with or without any experience -- but with an affinity for low-budget digital production, and a desire to learn. Video-bloggers or would-be correspondents comfortable with the idea of indie soup-to-nuts newsmaking will write, shoot, and edit their own segments.

Last May we acquired an existing television network that is currently available in almost 20 million U.S. homes. In 2005, we will debut a new network, a network featuring programming created by and for young adults INdTV is seeking emerging creative, journalistic, and production talent to join the network as Digital Correspondents (DCs). DCs will think, write, shoot, edit and potentially appear on-air. They will work in a fast-paced, competitive environment, alone and in teams, out in the field and traveling the world. They will work with some of the best programmers, producers and editors in the business. And some of the content they produce will become a part of our network programming.

Conceptually, it's interesting stuff -- indie blog culture merging with big media. But as Dan Gillmor astutely points out, the network's plans to hire "young adults" with little or no pro journalism experience also "sounds like a great way to save on wages and health insurance." Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:10:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Online video interview with BBC Iraq blogger Stuart Hughes

Chuck Olsen of Blogumentary has just published a 24MB Quicktime movie profile of BBC journalist, Iraq blogger, and amputee Stuart Hughes. "Stuart began blogging when he was dispatched to northern Iraq in early 2003," says Olsen, "His life, and his blog, spiraled through tragedy and transformation in the weeks and months that followed." (Link to related BoingBoing archive post)

Link to Blogumentary video interview

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:05:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wacky Japanese toilet product ads featuring hygenic plushy creatures

On this site, a number of Japanese TV commercials promoting bathroom accessories. Shown here, screenshot for some sort of disposable toilet seat thingy, which is replaced periodically by dancing penguins. Or, as Babelfish's auto-engrish explains, "You just exchange automatic washing!" At the bottom of the page, another ad in which a young woman gazes in wonder at an unusually-designed toilet. She's sitting in a rad Vitra Panton chair, not hawked by penguins. Other forest creatures make guest appearances. Link (via Warren)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:01:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, September 27, 2004

Plush FM radios

These plush boomboxes contain functional FM radios. Sorry, wholesale only. Link (via Red Ferret Review)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:44:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Daily Show viewers smarter than O'Reilly Factor viewers

Bill O'Reilly interviewed Jon Stewart of the Daily Show and called Daily Show watchers a bunch of "stoned slackers." It turns out that Stewart's audience is better-educated and better-informed that O'Reilly Factor viewers (surprise, surprise!).

Viewers of Jon Stewart's show are more likely to have completed four years of college than people who watch "The O'Reilly Factor," according to Nielsen Media Research...

Comedy Central also touted a recent study by the University of Pennsylvania's National Annenberg Election Survey, which said young viewers of "The Daily Show" were more likely to answer questions about politics correctly than those who don't.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Zuckerman: Wikipedia needs to cover non-nerdy subjects

Ethan Zuckerman, who founded the GeekCorps org that works to help bring tech to Africa, has created a call-to-arms for the free, collaborative Wikipedia encyclopedia to address its systemic bias towards subjects of interest to white, Anglo-American nerd-boys, expanding its net to cover things like the Congo Civil War, nursing, and agriculture.

Wikipedia is biased toward over-inclusion of certain material pertaining to (for example) science fiction, contemporary youth culture, contemporary U.S. and UK culture in general, and anything already well covered in the English-langauge portion of the Internet. These excessive inclusions are relatively harmless: at worst, people look at some of these articles and say "this is silly, why is it in an encyclopedia?"

Of far greater (and more detrimental) consequence, these same biases lead to minimal or non-existent treatment of topics of great importance. One example is that, as of this writing, the Congo Civil War, possibly the largest war since World War II has claimed over 3 million lives, but one would be hard pressed to learn much about it from Wikipedia. In fact, there is more information on a fictional plant

Link (via Many2Many)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:38:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photoshopped apocalypse cities

Today's Worth1000 photoshopping challenge is to create the ruins of cities that are still standing. Some tasty post-apocalyptic visions here. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:35:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ian Clarke: UK govt should scoop up INDUCE Act refugees

Ian Clarke, the creator of the P2P Freenet system (an anonymizing, attack-resistant system designed to let dissidents speak without fear of retaliation) has written a letter to the UK Home Secretary. Ian urges the British government to make arrangements to accomodate the flood of INDUCE Act refugees that will wash up on Britain's shores if the US enacts the terrible law, which would make it a crime to produce technology that "induces" copyright infringement (e.g., selling an iPod with the capacity to store more songs than most customers have in their libraries).

Clarke himself left the US in the wake of the PATRIOT Act (as did I), realizing that the US had created a system of law that routinely fingerprinted and photographed visa'ed immigrants, and subjected us to secret arrest without counsel or charge, said arrests possibly leading to indefinite detention.

My question is whether the UK government has made sufficient provision for displaced American innovators to migrate here given the hostile environment they may soon face in their own country. It is my belief that the United Kingdom can only benefit from the influx of talented software engineers from the United States, and should minimise any barriers to their migration here.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:33:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Win2K-based air traffic control b0rks 800 planes in the air

Southern California air-traffic systems were migrated from stable, Unix-based systems to commodity PCs running Microsoft Windows-based operating systems in the past three years. These systems required regular reboots -- and when a tech failed to perform the reboot correctly, the systems died and wouldn't come back up, stranding 800 planes in the skies over Lalaland.

The servers are timed to shut down after 49.7 days of use in order to prevent a data overload, a union official told the LA Times. To avoid this automatic shutdown, technicians are required to restart the system manually every 30 days. An improperly trained employee failed to reset the system, leading it to shut down without warning, the official said. Backup systems failed because of a software failure, according to a report in The New York Times.

Link (Thanks, Isara!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:28:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO make a legal P2P system

If you're a P2P developer looking to understand the law, the best paper on the subject has been my cow-orker Fred von Lohmann's "IAAL*: What Peer-to-Peer Developers Need to Know about Copyright Law." It's been out of date for a couple months, though, ever since Fred won the Grokster case, legalizing an entire class of P2P networks at a stroke. Now, Fred has revised the paper to reflect these new freedoms -- have at it!

n other words, a copyright owner has to show that you had knowledge of infringement when you could have done something about it. StreamCast and Grokster (like vendors of photocopiers and VCRs) never had knowledge of a specific infringement at a time when they could have prevented it. The critical factor was the decentralized architecture of the Grokster and Morpheus software. The software gave the defendants no ability block access to the network, or to control what end-users searched for, shared, or downloaded. Accordingly, by the time the defendants were notified of infringing activity, they were unable to do anything about it (just as Xerox is not able to stop infringing activities after a photocopier has been sold). In the words of the court: "even if the Software Distributors closed their doors and deactivated all computers within their control, users of their products could continue sharing files with little or no interruption."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:25:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PornoPoliticalPolo-shirt Kerry fundraiser

NYC-based fashion designer Rachel Comey created this polo shirt to raise funds for Downtown for Democracy, a group organized to mobilize support for Kerry within the creative communities. $40.00 via the perenially hip online mag Hint. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:29:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Breast-enlarging ringtones

Pete Rojas from Engadet says,

Anyone catch that story that was going around last week about a ringtone that's being sold in Japan that supposedly will enlarge your breasts just be listening to it? Well, we were dying of to hear what such a ringtone would sound like (purely for research purposes, of course), so we convinced Engadget's Tokyo correspondent to download the ringtone to his phone and record it for us as an MP3 so we could heard what it sounded like. I expected something at least vaguly ambient or new age or whatever, but it actually sounds like some dude playing a wicked solo on a guitar. Supposedly the ringtone is selling like crazy (not sure whether I believe that), but the company behind it also has plans for ringtones that'll cure baldness, make you more attractive to the opposite sex, and quit smoking.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:20:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WTF is an interrobang‽

Marc Laidlaw sez: I have a new favorite obscure puncutation mark:  

In 1962, the interrobang (‽), was introduced by the New York publishing establishment as "a twentieth century punctuation mark". The interrobang combined the functions of a question mark and an exclamation point. It received some attention at first, but never caught on, although for a brief period during the 1960s it was added to some typewriter keyboards.   Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:49:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tim Berners-Lee interview in Technology Review

I wrote the cover story for October's MIT Technology Review magazine: an interview with World Wide Web inventor, Tim Berners-Lee.

Technology Review: Is there an existing application that shows how the Semantic Web can form such connections?

Tim Berners-Lee: If you want to play with the Semantic Web, you can make a friend-of-a-friend file. In a FOAF file [the data component of a personal home page, formatted in a standardized way], you can publish stuff about yourself, your organization, your publication, places, or photographs. You can have a pointer that says “this is a photograph about me” and other data about the photograph, such as who else is in it.

To create a FOAF file, you must fill out a form, such as the one at www.ldodds.com/foaf/foaf-a-matic.html. From this information, a Semantic Web–readable text file is generated that you can add to your personal website. There are semantic websites that will pull that data up and give you things like a list of photographs linking you to somebody else. I’m three photographs from Frank Sinatra because I’m photographed with Bill Clinton who’s been photographed with one of the Kennedys who’s been photographed with Frank Sinatra. That’s a silly application, but it really shows the power of the reuse of information.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:24:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Little Archie anthology due any day

Little Archie was a comic book that started in the 1950s, featuring the characters from Archie comics as little kids. The earlier stories were written and drawn by Bob Bolling, and they're regarded by people who know and love comic books as some of the best stories in comic book history. Some people claim Bolling's work is better than Carl Bark's Uncle Scrooge or John Stanley's Little Lulu. Some people say he's the best comic book writer/artist that ever lived. The original comics are hard to find, but there's a new anthology coming out, The Adventures of Little Archie, that reprints Bolling's earlier stories. I bought my advance copy, and I can't wait to read them with my daughter. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:08:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pez-dispenser USB

This is a pretty cool idea: USB keychains built into Pez dispensers. Wish they were around now! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:43:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Victorian sex cry generator

File under "old memes worth a revisit." Here you'll find such lines as, "You have carried me to a new-discover'd sphere of Venus, I am melted into a softness that can refuse you nothing!" and "I am inflamed beyond the power of modesty!"
Link (thanks, Siege)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:57:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Six grand for asking Bush "How many times have you been arrested?"

John sez, "Remember the cash reward for asking a certain question of George W. Bush -- which now stands at over $2300? Now there's more. A lot more."

If you get the President to answer the question (before Nov. 1st, 2004), you'll get another $1000.00 from me (again, proof is needed). If you get him to answer in a news media covered forum, and his answer gets mentioned by ANY of the major news networks during primetime (for this, I consider major to be any of the big 4, ABC, NBC, CBS or Fox), you'll get an additional $4000.00. One more thing. We already know he's been arrested at least ONCE and fined $150 and temporary suspension driving privileges for driving under the influence of alcohol (Wikipedia). IF HE GIVES AN ANSWER OTHER THAN "ONLY ONCE" I'LL PITCH IN ANOTHER $1000.00!

Link (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:13:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jewelry-encased USB keychains

eGem is selling hand-made "digital lockets" -- basically, USB flash-drives in enclosures made from precious metal. They're very pricey ($250-$500) and carry a disappointingly small amount of memory (why do people who make bespoke, high-priced electronics enclosures insist on using 64MB dollar-store boat-anchors as the technical core?).

As much as I admire the aesthetics of these things, I wouldn't buy one even if I had the money. It's something like a sin to buy a beautiful work of handmade art that is intended to cradle a bit of technology that will be obsolete in six months. Three months. It's like those gorgeous limited-edition Bang and Olufsen Bose (Thanks, Andrew!) 20th Anniversary Macs -- a work of art surrounding a piece of junk.

Now, OTOH, if someone were to mass-produce cheap, gigeresque enclosures for high-cap memory sticks, the kind of thing you don't mind showing off today and won't mind throwing out tomorrow -- *that* I'd buy in a second! Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:07:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mobile India Barbie

BoingBoing reader Russell Buckley says, "Toymaker Mattel has launched a Barbie doll in India, impeccably dressed as always, but also with her own must-have accessory - a mobile phone. But this is no toy - the mobile works. Barbie's owners can Instant Message Barbie and friends who have a Barbie too. Plus the look of the phone can be changed to match her clothes. It's priced at R 1199 (USD 26)." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:20:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Richard Branson's space tourism foray -- "Virgin Galactic"

BoingBoing reader Jonathan Wrigley says, "Combine the chutzpah of Sir Richard Branson with the smarts of SpaceShipOne designer Burt Rutan (a bit of of Paul Allen's cash helps too), and you've got Virgin's latest venture - VirginGalactic. Suborbital space tourism for the rest of us!" Link

Shown here: Branson holds a model of the Virgin-licensed spacecraft. Five of these "spaceliners" will be built in the US by Mojave Aerospace Ventures, the team behind SpaceShipOne (which makes a go at the Ansari X-Prize this Wednesday morning -- I'll be there, with a crew from NPR). Provided that the venture meets regulatory approaval, flights will begin in 2007 at about $170-200K US per person, with plans to reduce price by half over time. What a news-packed month this has been for aerospace!

Virgin Galactic coverage: UK Telegraph (Link), and BBC News (Link) (Thanks also to Ari Kolbeinsson, Peter Flint, Daen de Leon, John Hoke, and other readers!)

Update: BoingBoing reader Stiv says, "Interestingly, Richard Branson did a promotional spot for the SciFi Channel's "I am Sci Fi" campaign which featured him piloting a Virgin-branded spacecraft (of course, the design differs from the one he's pictured holding on today's edition of Boing Boing). You can view the clip (in all it's craptacular Real Player glory) online." Link

And Ben Adair, formerly of NPR's show The Savvy Traveler, says: "I saw your post about Branson and thought about a disturbingly accurate Branson parody we did on the NPR show I used to run. Not that we scooped you, but it is pretty hilarious: Link. Scroll down to 'An interview with Richard Branson'."

Reader Kevin T. Keith says, "Regarding your BoingBoing post on Virgin's announcement of space tourist flights, recall that Pan Am famously announced - on a break-in live call in the middle of the Apollo 8 TV coverage! - that it would be starting tourist service to the moon, and offered membership in a "First Moon Flights Club" from 1968 to 1971. (Ronald Reagan held one.) TWA also followed suit. Obviously, nothing ever came of it. A brief review of the period (including an image of a Pan Am moon-flight "certified club member's card") can be found here: Link. I'll believe Virgin's claim when I see it happening (though it's obviously on a better technological footing than Pan Am's)."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:04:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prescription trips

In Wired News, Kristen Philipkoski reports on FDA- and DEA-approved clinical trials of psychedelic drugs. For example, psylocibin is now being tested to treat obsessive-compulsive disorder and cluster headaches. Meanwhile, a proposal for studying MDMA's effectiveness as an anti-anxiety treatment for terminal cancer patients is undergoing review at Harvard. Paging Dr. Leary! Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:40:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Money can't buy happiness

A new scientific study reveals that (shocker!) a nation's economic fortitude is not as tied to the well-being of its citizens as previous believed. The results of the study--prepared by researchers at the University of Illinois and University of Pennsylvania--appeared in the latest issue of Psychological Science in the Public Interest.

"It has been assumed that money increases well-being and, although money can be measured with exactitude, it is an inexact surrogate to the actual well-being of a nation. In a 1985 survey, respondents from the Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans and the Maasai of East Africa were almost equally satisfied and ranked relatively high in well-being. The Maasai are a traditional herding people who have no electricity or running water and live in huts made of dung. It follows, that economic development and personal income must not account for the happiness that they are so often linked to."

Instead, the authors propose that a population's "engagement, purpose and meaning, optimism and trust, and positive and negative emotions in specific areas such as work life and social relationships" should be considered when measuring the strength of a nation. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:20:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canadian-funded research should be available to Canadians

Writing in the Toronto Star, Michael Geist argues that when Canada gives public money to scientific researchers, that it should require that the research be made available to the public through open-content publishing, rather than locked up in expensive journals that require Canadians to buy the research they've already paid for.

Late last month, a group of Nobel prize winners in the United States (which faces the same dilemma) issued a public letter calling on their government to link public research funding with public dissemination of the results. Canada should jump at the chance to adopt a similar model that would tie free, public dissemination to all publicly funded research. Such an approach would still leave room to commercialize the research results, while providing Canadians with an unprecedented innovation opportunity and a more immediate return on its research granting investment.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:02:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Feral Files

Following previous posts on Sunjit the Chicken Man and Andrei the Dog Boy, several BB readers emailed me their favorite references to wild children raised by animals. For example, this site talks about France's Wild Boy of Averyon, "a remarkable creature (who) came out of the woods" in 1800. The text comes from a great book called The Forbidden Experiment: The Story of the Wild Boy of Aveyron, by Roger Shattuck. Here is one naturalist's observations of the Wild Boy:

"When he is sitting down, and even when he is eating, he makes a guttural sound, a low murmur; and he rocks his body from right to left or backwards and forwards, with his head and chin up, his mouth closed, and his eyes staring at nothing. In this position he sometimes has spasms, convulsive movements that may indicate that his nervous system has been affected. There is nothing wrong with the boy’s five senses, but their order of importance seemed to be modified. He relies first on smell, then on taste; his sense of touch comes last. His sight is sharp; his hearing seems to shut out many sounds people around him pay close attention to. Nothing interests him but food and sleep."

BB reader Andy Scudder also points us to a transcript of a NOVA documentary called "Secret of the Wild Child." And then Alberto Gaitan sends us to FeralChildren.com a comprehensive clearinghouse of information on "isolated, confined, wolf and wild children." Perhaps it's time for a big screen remake of the 1977 TV series Lucan?

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:50:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Works Progress Administration posters

I love the design of this vintage anti-vandalism poster. (Click on it for a larger image.) According to this site, it was part of a series printed after WWII by the Works Progress Administration. Here's more on the WPA Posters from the Library of Congress's "By the People, For the People" exhibit:

"The By the People, For the People: Posters from the WPA, 1936-1943 collection consists of 908 boldly colored and graphically diverse original posters produced from 1936 to 1943 as part of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal. Of the 2,000 WPA posters known to exist, the Library of Congress's collection of more than 900 is the largest. These striking silkscreen, lithograph, and woodcut posters were designed to publicize health and safety programs; cultural programs including art exhibitions, theatrical, and musical performances; travel and tourism; educational programs; and community activities in seventeen states and the District of Columbia. The posters were made possible by one of the first U.S. Government programs to support the arts and were added to the Library's holdings in the 1940s."

A reprint of this Result poster is on eBay right now, but of course I'd rather have an original. Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:59:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, September 26, 2004

Filesharing-savvy CD promo strategy for Green Day

BoingBoing Matthew Hawn says, "The band Green Day is selling pre-printed CDRs with the artwork of their last 5 major-label albums. You can buy the pack for $7.99. The band is coyly suggesting that these are for people who buy music digitally but file-sharing fans should rejoice that their CD don't have to look home-made. Nice gesture from the band to their fans... and a clever marketing ploy by their label, Warner Bros." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:17:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIP, Nest interior design magazine

BB reader Mister Jalopy says, "John Water's favorite - and perhaps the finest domestic design magazine of all time - has called it quits. At least for the print edition as they have some sketchy plans for a web version. It seemed too good to be true." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:12:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lawn Chair

BoingBoing reader and furniture afficionado Fun Furde says, "The eco-friendly Terra is a lawn chair made out of your own lawn. You can grow your own for just $115, plus some dirt and grass seed." Link

Reader CJ Cramer says, "It looks like all that Nucleo is selling is the idea and the cardboard form for your dirt. Why not build your own form? ReadyMade Magazine had their take on this idea some time back." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:08:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Big Honkin' Mushroom

BoingBoing reader Michael says, "Looks like they found the world's largest mushroom in Switzerland, according to the BBC -- 'Found in the Malheur national forest in Oregon, that fungus covers 890 hectares (2,200 acres) - making it the largest living organism ever discovered.' Anybody else want a Mushroom Omlette?" Link

Correction BoingBoing reader Charles says, "I don't think swiss scientists discovered a huge mushroom in the US (Oregon) :) The story excerpt to which Michael points appears to have been a reference point for the largest mushroom in EUROPE, which the swiss discovered (86 acres). Still a honkin' piece of stir fry!"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:06:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Crude Dick

Kevin Reynen says, "I've added a photomosaic of Dick Cheney to go along with War President, Porn Ashcroft, and Abu Rummy. Crude Dick is made up of SUVs and oil wells." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:03:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Andrei the dog boy

Police in Siberia have allegedly found a seven-year-old boy they believe was raised by an elderly dog.

A spokesman said: "He was running about on all fours and growling. They thought he was playing at first but the house is miles from anywhere and is little more than a ruin, and he was really dirty and naked, so they realised something was wrong. "When they approached he growled and snarled and tried to bite them when they tried to pull him away from the old dog."

Link (via Fark)

UPDATE: BB pal Alberto Gaitan points us to the New Zealand News' much more detailed account of Andrei the dog boy's fantastic feral life. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:27:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO Handshadows from 1859

Hand Shadows To Be Thrown Upon The Wall, originally published in 1859, is a lovely little Gutenberg Project book, illustrated with these great woodcuts of what passed for fun in the era of gaslight and corsets. Link (Thanks, Asthmatic!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:04:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, September 25, 2004

Twinkies goes tits up, part two

BoingBoing reader Mike says, "Your Twinkies Goes Chapter 11 post reminded me of this classic site I haven't visited in years, The T*W*I*N*K*I*E*S Project." As the website explains, this acronym stands for "Tests With Inorganic Noxious Kakes In Extreme Situations." Link

Shown here: A Twinkie radiation research subject (left) next to a control Twinkie (right) immediately after the conclusion of an experiment.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:29:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Spanish-speaking bloggers who blog in English

Jose Luis Orihuela says, "This list of Spanish-speaking bloggers blogging in English will be the base for an aggregator." The idea here (explained in mode depth at the link below, in Spanish) is to extend the reach of hispanohablante voices throughout the largely English-centered blogosphere. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:24:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Two new security op-eds from Bruce Schneier

A pair of thought-provoking op-ed pieces from Bruce Schneier, who says,

This New Haven Register piece looks at the security and privacy issues surrounding a police "gun" that automatically scans licence plates. It's an example of "wholesale surveillance" -- something only possible with modern computer technology -- and as such requires new thinking about privacy protection. Link

This San Jose Mercury News essay discusses how the tighter U.S. immigration policies affect foreign students and professors at U.S. universities, and how that in turn affects security. The more we isolate U.S. academia from the rest of the world, the more technological progress suffers. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:19:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of Zero-G zeitgeist

An off-color web cartoon about Zero-G pleasure flights that suggests exactly what you'd expect from an off-color web cartoon about Zero-G pleasure flights.

Link to cartoon, and Link to related BoingBoing posts on Zero-G Corporation's parabolic joyrides. (Thanks, Rob O)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:54:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bic as picklock, continued

A couple of weeks ago, Mark posted about a guy who picked his Kryptonite bike lock with a ball point pen. Apparently, the story worried another man who recognized that the design of the bike lock was similar to the one on his Stack-On Products gun cabinet. He called Stack-On and was assured that his arsenal was safe from a pen pick. He proved them wrong.

"...the man went to a Staples store to buy a box of the Bic pens that were specifically cited as the break-in tool. He pulled the ink cartridge out of a pen and widened one end of the barrel slightly by scraping it with his pocket knife, just like a Web site instructed.

 “I had run home for lunch and was in a hurry,” he said. “Within 30 seconds, I was into the safe with that pen.”

Link (via Fark)

Update: BB reader Seanessy Sommerfeld points us to news of a class action lawsuit brewing in British Columbia over the Kryptonite vulnerability. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:09:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MP3 goggles

Oakley's new MP3 goggles come with built-in storage, headphones and a USB cable on the arms. Not cheap, though: $400 for 256MB! I think I'll wait for the cheap knockoffs... Link (Thanks, Doug!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:23:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, September 24, 2004

Lazyweb request - I need a hiss filter for audio recordings

I'm looking for a cheap (under $50) Mac OS X program that will filter the hiss out of an interview I recorded on a cassette tape. If you have a recommendation, please email me!

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:21:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SPIT: New Internet acronym!

Spam over Internet Telephony -- SPIT -- is the pending-Internet-disaster du jour. Nice acronym! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:55:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SkyEar

Several months ago, I wrote an article for TheFeature about artists using wireless telecom in their work. One of the artists, Usman Haque, was planning to launch a network of instrumented helium balloons in the air. Equipped with mobile phones, LEDs, and sensors that measure electromagnetic radiation into the air, the cloud of balloons would act as a SkyEar.

"As police radios, television signals, distant storms, and other radio transmissions alter what Haque calls the "local hertzian culture," the cloud flickers in response... Of course, calling a particular phone alters the "hertzian topography" in that region of the balloon cloud, affecting its glow. "You can enter into something like a conversation with the cloud," Haque says."

Ten days ago in London, SkyEar had its second flight. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:50:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Insane Phil Remix

Eric read this post about a answering machine message left by an angry gentleman named Phil and decided to do a Garageband remix based on it. Very funny. (Full of swear words) Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:14:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Dating Zen

brutally honest personals
the week in craig
pick up lines
cuddle party
smittens
things my girlfriend...
break up form
rejection line
paper napkin
break up news
Image: "smittens." So cute they make me yearn to hurl. web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:48:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video mashup of Russ Meyer + Hoodoo Gurus / Persian Rugs

Following up to this week's sad news that sexploitation auteur Russ Meyers has passed away (Link), BoingBoing reader Richard Crepeau says, "Thought I'd spread the word about a Hoodoo Gurus side project called the Persian Rugs. One of their videos uses Russ Meyer clips from Mondo Topless. A nice hybrid between garage rock and camp."

On their website, the band says:

"Music and sex go very well together. For proof, just take a look at the video for the Persian Rugs' new single 'Be A Woman'. The band and director Todd Sheldrick have created the perfect setting for the band's 60's Punk-inspired Primal Rock: strippers and cavemen collide in a 21st Century psychedelic garden of eden. (...) The Rugs got in touch with famed 60's director Russ Meyer, the maker of such films as 'Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!'and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls' (the latter a direct influence on the Austin Powers movies) and asked for permission to incorporate footage from one of his cult classics, 'Mondo Topless', into their new filmclip. Russ asked to hear the song first, [and] loved it (...)

Link to "Be a Woman" *.asx video in low and hi-res, contains megadoses of kitsch nudity (and shots of vintage '60s electronic equipment). How did those ladies make their humongous breasts do that stuff on rhythm? Weighed down by all that eyeliner, no less?

Update: Reader Rob says, "If you have a fink installation on your mac, you can install asfrecorder from fink unstable packages and record the Russ Meyer/Hoodoo Gurus--Persian Rugs thing."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:38:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video mashup of Half Life 2 + Oakenfold

BoingBoing reader Mike says, "I just posted a new screenshot / electronica mash-up video: "30 Scenes in 30 Seconds." Link to blog post (video is DivX).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:59:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sims in Sims 2 can play Sims 1

The new version of The Sims, called "The Sims 2" allows your sim-people to play "The Sims" in-game. Recursion-licious! Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:38:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's Sunburst acceptance speech

Nalo Hopkinson sent me this photo of my pal and collaborator Karl Schroeder accepting the Sunburst Award (presented by Michelle Sagara) for my short story collection, A Place So Foriegn and Eight More on my behalf at last night's ceremony at Toronto's Merril Collection sf library. Here's the speech he read for me:

It is a cliche to note that receiving an award conveys an honour upon its recipient, but this is a stupendous honour and I would be remiss if I failed to tell you all how mightily chuffed I am. I am deeply sorry that I am not able to be there tonight: I am with you in spirit.

The list of people who deserve to be thanked for this is long indeed: the friends and colleagues; the fans and readers; the editors and critics; the collaborators and the writers who inspired me -- and the jury, them too! My most sincere thanks to all of you.

No writer is an island, no idea is original, no effort is a solo effort. We stand upon the shoulders of giants, we collaborate with our colleagues and with the immortal words of our dead literary ancestors. Literature -- indeed, all human endeavor -- is dignified and uplifted through collaboration and cooperation. We sit atop a great erected infrastructure of human invention and effort, all of it embodied in the bricks and boards that surround us, and, most importantly, in the traditional knowledge that allows each generation to improve upon the bricks and boards of the last one.

The writer is engaged in dialog with the world and with posterity. Our words go on to form a layer of the substrate of human creation. Those who tell us that our words, our art and our posterity are best served with strong locks and high fences are *not on our side*. No writer could pen a single word but for the rich humus of public domain effort with which we garden our notions and conceits.

So thank you all, and thanks most of all to our ancestors, the bringers of fire and the inventors of the wheel, the Judith Merrils and the Phyllis Gotleibs, the Gilgameshes and the golems, the Turings and the Teslas. Thanks to the brave pirates who continue to preserve our posterity in the face of outrageous insult to creation. Thanks to the readers and to you all.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:31:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Universities offering classes inside of MMOs

Second Life, the Massively Multiplayer Online world where end users can design and trade their own game-artifacts, is offering free accounts to university profs to disburse to their students for the purpose of conducting in-game classes.

In order to help teachers bring their classes to Second Life, Linden Lab donates accounts for each student, as well as an acre of land in the metaverse for the teacher and students to work and build on. Afterward, anyone wishing to stay a member can do so at half price.

To date, in addition to Delwiche and Beamish, professors from San Francisco State University, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Vassar College have used Second Life in their courses.

Link

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

TV channel subs videogame-hockey for the real thing

With the hockey labor dispute leaving an on-air void where televised hockey used to sit, G4TechTV is broadcasting virtual hockey games played using video-game engines:

All 1,230 regular season games originally slated for the 2004-2005 NHL season will be played, with results of each video game match-up available to fans who tune-in daily to "Sweat." Up-to-the-minute scores, stats, teams and player profiles will be online at www.g4techtv.com.

Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:01:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Presidential fright-mask sales as election-predictors

A manufacturer of rubber presidential fright masks says that their sales figures during election-year Hallowe'ens successfully predict the winner of the upcoming presidential election. Unfortunately, at the moment more people are signing up to buy Shrub funnymasks than Kerry, but it's still early times.

In 2000, due to the popularity of political masks, BuyCostumes.com began publishing statistics on each Presidential Candidate's mask sales. It was soon apparent that the mask sales were as good a resource as the polls being published by major national media groups. Seeing the similarities, BuyCostumes.com then looked into some data on political mask sales in election years. Not only did they ask five different mask manufacturers, they also spoke with 12 national stores about their sales history all the way back to 1980. Their findings were astounding and right every time....

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:14:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lucas put malicious Xbox trojan on Star Wars DVD

The new Star Wars bonus DVD erases elements of your Xbox's firmware without informing you or giving you a chance to decline. This is apparently deliberate, as part of an "anti-piracy" effort aimed at punishing people who play the Star Wars DVD bonus disk in a modded Xbox.

The 'StarWars Trilogy DVD' (video/movie DVD) has an 'Extra Special Features Disc'. If you try to launch this on your Xbox it will automaticly update your dashboard ... NO confirmation will be asked. The bonus disc has extra features including a documentary on the star wars saga, footage from the making of all three films and a preview demo of the new 'StarWars Battlefront' Xbox game (that's why there's a default.xbe, dashupdate.xbe and update.xbe on the disc).

This information can be important for some people with older bioses (booting xboxdash.xbe), people using exploits or simply those who don't want their dash upgraded.

Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:45:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HHGG text-game on the Web

The old Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy text-based Infocom adventure game has been tarted up with some new graphics and re-released as a little Flash app by the BBC. Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:42:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cancer-sniffing dogs

Scientists report that dogs can smell disease in the urine of bladder cancer patients. In the study, published in this week's British Medical Journal, the canines successfully identified a cancer patient's urine sample placed among six control samples 41 percent of the time, far better than the 14 percent expected by chance. From an Associated Press article on the research:

"Perhaps the most intriguing finding, though, was in a comparison patient whose urine was used during the training phase. All the dogs unequivocally identified that urine as a cancer case, even though screening tests before the experiment had shown no cancer. Doctors conducted more detailed tests on the patient and found a life-threatening tumor in the right kidney."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:41:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bugs photoshopped into everyday objects

Today's Worth1000 photoshopping contest: turn everyday objects into insects. Naked-Lunch-tastic! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:40:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Art/culture of computer viruses

BB friend Alessandro Ludovico of Neural.it magazine points us to "I love you (rev.eng): The Aesthetics of Computer Viruses," an exhibit he's involved with that premiered in Germany and is now on view at Brown University in the US:

"I love you [rev.eng]" is divided into four investigative areas - political, cultural, technical and historical - and focuses on the controversial positions of security experts and hackers, of net artists and programmers, of literature experts and code poets...

What can visitors to the "I love you [rev.eng]" exhibition expect?

- Force computers to crash with "Sasser" or "Suicide"
- Experience a global virus outbreak in real time via a 3D world
- View security concepts and methods for preventing global network attacks
- Witness computer viruses as works of art like "biennale.py" and "The Lovers"
- See films by hackers on their subculture
- Learn about programming languages as the material for contemporary poetry
- Juxtapose experimental literature and code poetry

Link (to Brown exhibition details) Link (to Wired News article)

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:46:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prelinger Archive gems

Rick Prelinger, who curates the Prelinger Archive (the largest video archive in the world, comprising thousands and thousands of "ephemeral films" like VD shorts, industrial training footage, and other great mix-and-match material -- all licensed under Creative Commmons licenses), sends us three fantastic links to material in the Archive:

PANORAMA EPHEMERA (2004, 89:35 min., color and black and white) is a collage of sequences drawn from a wide variety of ephemeral (industrial, advertising, educational and amateur) films, touring the conflicted landscapes of twentieth-century America. The films' often-skewed visions construct an American history filled with horror and hope, unreeling in familiar and unexpected ways.

PANORAMA EPHEMERA focuses on familiar and mythical activities and images in America (1626-1978). Many creatures and substances that we hardly notice because we feel so used to them take center stage, including pigs, corn, water, telephones, fire, and rice. At first resembling a compilation, it soon reveals itself as a journey through the American landscape over time, and the story begins to emerge between the sequences. Link, Torrent Download Link

And:

This site contains theatrical trailers for feature films. What, another movie trailer site? Well, this is a special one -- SabuCat Productions specializes in collecting, preserving and distributing high-quality 35mm materials, and the trailers in this collection are unlike anything you're likely to see online. Top titles: "5000 Fingers of Dr. T," "Amazing Transparent Man," "Conquest of Space," and of course "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman." Link

And:

Growing collection of educational films originally targeting so-called "GenXers." Like Prelinger Archives films on the same site, but made for younger audiences in the Open Classroom era. Memorable titles: "Last Prom," "Why Doesn't Cathy Eat Breakfast," and "If Mirrors Could Speak: Self-Image Film." Link

(Thanks, Rick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:52:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Strange Horizons: Hugo-nominated sf webzine

Jed sez,

Strange Horizons is a Hugo-nominated online speculative fiction magazine that pays pro rates for fiction. We've published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry every week for the past four years, and other material (including art) a couple of times a month. Almost everything we've ever published is still available for free in our archives, including the wildly popular April Fools article about Installing Linux on a Dead Badger, as well as our Author Focus week on Cory.

We're funded entirely by donations; most of our budget goes to paying for the material we publish, 'cause all 30 of our staff members are volunteers. We're currently in the middle of our twice-annual fund drive -- the model is a lot like public radio, except that we don't interrupt our content to ask for money. We're a 501(c)(3) literary nonprofit, so if you pay taxes in the US, your donation is tax-deductible. We'll take donations in any amount; I'd love to see the magazine funded entirely by hundreds of $5-$10 donations. A donation of any size gets you a chance to win one of our fund drive prizes. Larger donations get you a spiffy membership card and other premiums.

So if you'd like to stop by and help us out, we'd appreciate it. But even if you don't want to donate, come take a look at the magazine. Enjoy!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:48:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Assemblage sculpture/clock of surpassing gorgeosity

Roger Wood, my pal the genius assemblage-sculptor clockmaker, has been on a tear lately, as is evidenced by his latest mailing-list update, shown here. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:46:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, September 23, 2004

Boris Mandel nudes

A tranquil little online gallery of female nudes shot by Tel Aviv-based web designer Boris Mandel. Link (contains nudity, duh -- via indienudes)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:59:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos of fossilized '80s Russian Space Shuttle knockoff

BoingBoing reader TabulaRasa in Germany says,

"In the late 1980s, the Russians tried to develop their own Space Shuttle. Well, actually -- one even ended up flying into space just one time -- Buran. After this flight, the hangar where it was housed in Baikonur collapsed and destroyed the craft.

"This is an online photo gallery of Buran 002, another prototype that was sold to an Australian businessman named David Hammer. During the Olympic Games in Sydney, the prototype was part of an exhibition. Then it was sold to a company in Singapore, and was shipped to Bahrain, where it became stranded somewhere in the desert.

"Eventually it was sold to a German museum, and will soon be shipped one last time -- to become part of an exhibition. Some things are still working, as you can see from the photos in this online image gallery. Guess I'll have make a visit to this museum when the shuttle has arrived!"

Link to image gallery from Der Spiegel magazine (text in German)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:26:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bushism DVD out

Bushisms the book is now Bushisms the DVD -- hosted by comic uber-genius Brian Unger of The Daily Show. The DVD features Al Franken and others commenting on nucular-strength malapropisms from the presidentiary such as:

# "War is a dangerous place."
# "Karyn is a West Texas girl, just like me."
# "Rarely is the question asked, is our children learning."

Link (Disclaimer: I'm proud to be Mr. Unger's colleague/co-contributor on the NPR show "Day to Day").

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:09:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Hal Robins book: The Meaning of Lost and Mismatched Socks

Hal Robins is a wonderful cartoonist and a delightfully peculiar guy. He's from the past and future, and the distant present all at once. I wish you could hear his grandiose speaking style and high pitched voice. He's also got a new book out, The Meaning of Lost and Mismatched Socks, which John Shirley reviews in his blog.

Hal Robins (in the guise of Pedale) has discovered--and the very amusing, detailed drawings he's put in this slim volume from North Atlantic Books illustrate--that while the mysterious appearance of Unknown Socks in your drier (and the mysterious disappearance of the socks you expected to find) may be  conventionally explained, deeper, darker explanations can be found by looking farther than the interior of the drier mechanism: “It has long been thought that life  must also exist on other planets. These life forms most likely have appendages for the purpose of locomotion. It follows then that such beings have a practical need to keep these appendages warm, hence alien footwear. . .As we employ rebellious machines, which from time to time  squirt our stockings into the abyss of space, so do they. And as we receive theirs, it follows that their sock drawers must also receive ours. Even as you read these lines (relativistically speaking), some alien eye or eyes, perhaps set in chitinous, horny lids, are perplexedly scanning one of a pair of argyles which you lost last Tuesday. Some unthinkable thing may be fingering, with its spatulate claws, in the reddish light of a giant sun, a missing unit of your support hose...”

Link

UPDATE: Simone sez: "Lovely to see Hal's book boingboinged. . .you might also let your readers know that the utterly stupendous Ask Dr. Hal Show can be see every single solitary week (except when they don't feel like it) at the Odeon Bar at Mission and Valencia (yes they do) in San Francisco.

Hal and Chicken sit up onstage and are bombarded with sealed envelopes containing questions from the audience. Chicken opens and reads the question, and Hal answers the question in his inimitable Hal way.

If the necessary honorarium included with the question is sufficient, the audience is treated to a Bardic Recitation of Hal's Choice. Once someone gave fifty buck and Hal recited, in its entirety, The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, from memory, with all the voices, bringing the bar to a shrieking collapse upon his completion.

Anyhow the show is every wednesday around Nineish pm at The Odeon Bar; On the First Wednesday of every month Chicken gets the bus out and we all go bowling after the show. We pretty much just load the entire bar into the bus and take off for Daly City. It's great.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:29:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fave music site: Oddio Overplay

Todd Lappin sez: "The Oddio Overplay website is one of the true jewels of the Interweb. Dedicated to odd, obscure, and out-of-print music, the site is packed with free, downloadable retro-themed mp3s. The special compilations are a hoot, and exploring the links to other free music sites is an activity that's guaranteed to gobble up hours and hours of otherwise productive work time. The latest Oddio find made my day: A downloadable LP of the in-store background music played in S.S. Kresge five-and-dime stores during the early 1960s. It sounds like a perfume counter. And it makes me want to spend money!" Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:22:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Funny post office label hack

Mike Essl sez: "This guy takes USPS stickers, runs them through his printer and prints 'USPS does not acknowledge the authority of the Bush administration.' and then puts them back in the rack at the post office." Link to Quicktime movie

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:13:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Police charity" telescammers' creepy implied threats

Jason Powell sez: I've had a rash of telemarketer calls in the last few days for "Police" or "Sheriff's" charity organizations. In the past, I've always just said "take me off your list" and hung up--problem solved. However, this latest call troubled me on new levels. I'm not sure I'd call it intimidation, but some of the comments did have a hint of something just slightly less than that. For example, the caller made several references to my home address..."how's it going out there on Elm Avenue today?" I guess the intention is to play on the fear that if I don't donate, I can expect trouble (“we know where you live”). The only thing that troubled me about that is the idea that they're using this tactic on others who would fall for it.

Suspicion of these callers led me to Google for answers, and I wasn't too surprised by what I found. While some of these calls are outright scams, the other, more "legitimate" callers do little to nothing for the groups they claim to represent--in most cases, the telemarketing company working on behalf of a police charity give as little as 15% of the "take" to the charity.

Below are some links I found of interest. I also ran accross the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement site’s page that warns specifically about fraudulent charitable organizations: "They also call claiming to represent police or firefighter organizations. They typically ask victims for donations to help police officers buy equipment or to assist families of officers disabled or killed in the line of duty." Link

Additional links:
The Attorney General's site concerning charity telemarketing (Includes a list of what the caller must/can do according to law).

The FTC site concerning charities (Includes information on how to check up on an organization before you donate).

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:48:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dorothy Gambrell pie charts Google's "necessary" things

Dan sez: If you enjoyed glancing over the Google results for 'necessary' (from your earlier item), you might like to know that author Dorothy Gambrell of the webcomic Cat and Girl tackled the same subject a little while ago and breaks it all down in helpful/surreal chart-and-outline format in the current installment of one of her side projects, I Have No Superflous Leisure. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:37:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on NPR -- Kaiju Big Battel

On today's edition of the NPR program "Day to Day" -- snip:

Old-time professional wrestling fans nostalgic for the days when camp was king and characters like Junkyard Dog and Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka ruled the squared circle have a whole new set of heroes to cheer for -- on the Kaiju Big Battel wrestling circuit. Think of Kaiju Big Battel as the horrific spawn of Japanese monster movies and the WWF ("Kaiju" means "monster" in Japanese). It's a tongue-firmly-in-cheek contest of "athletes" wearing patently silly costumes, looking to give their opponent a solid (and likely pre-ordained) smackdown.

In the mythology of Kaiju, the matches are part of the balance of the universe, where earthly forces of good counter evil creatures invading our planet, bent on world domination. Or something like that... Day to Day technology contributor Xeni Jardin recently infiltrated this underground wrestling circuit, filled with far-out science-fiction characters with names like Silver Potato, Gomi Man and Louden Noxious. She was witness to the coming-out party of Kaiju's rising star: Dr. Cube, a "human-genius-turned-quasi-monster" who, with his evil army, continues his quest for world domination.

Link to archived audio: NPR Day to Day "Kaiju Big Battel: Wrestling Meets Godzilla". Link to previous BoingBoing post.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:17:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of Jimmy Swaggart Zen

During a recently broadcast sermon in which he discussed his opposition to gay marriage, evangelical telepreacher Jimmy Swaggart said:

"I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm going to be blunt and plain: If one ever looks at me like that, I'm going to kill him and tell God he died."

Link (via Warren)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:08:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIP, Twinkies, Wonder Bread, Ho-Hos, RingDings...

Interstate Bakeries files Chapter 11. And with it, an era of American pop gastronomy may meet its end. To die, to sleep; To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the carb; For in that sleep of death what Twinkies may come, when we have shuffled off this mortal Ho-Ho, must give us pause; there's the respect that makes creme-filled treats of so long life.

Link to Business Week article. But Newsday wins the best hed award: Twinkies Maker Out of Dough. (Thanks, Jim OConnor)

Update: Reader Kate says, "I read your post on the bankruptcy of the Interstate Bakeries, alluding to the fact that Twinkies have now met their end. But Chapter 11 bankruptcy is not about ending a company or specific product lines, but rather re-organizing a companies debts (Link to explanation). Although its possible that twinkies, ho-ho's and hostess pies may be gone in the near future, it is just as likely that they will remain. So in short, reports of Twinkies death have been greatly exaggerated."

Staci Kramer agrees. "It's not RIP quite yet. The company is reorganizing -- not liquidating -- and, according to the same Business Week article mentioned in your post, 'Interstate spokeswoman Maya Pogoda says the outfit plans to continue operating the rest of its bakeries and distribution centers.' I just don't want to write off Twinkies and other delicacies like orange Hostess cup cakes and Devil Dogs too soon. It would tilt the time-space contiuum."

And reader Stephen A. Kupiec says, "Twinkies have an infinite shelf life! They cannot die! Whoever speaketh of Twinkies shall remember that he but seemeth dead, he sleeps, and yet he does not sleep, he has died and yet he is not dead, asleep and dead though he is, he shall rise again. Again it should be shown that

That is not dead which can eternal lie,
and with strange aeons even death may die."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:30:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hurricane Ivan, arguably

From the National Weather Service Tropical Prediction Center:

"AFTER CONSIDERABLE AND SOMETIMES ANIMATED IN-HOUSE DISCUSSION OF THE DEMISE OF IVAN...IN THE MIDST OF A LOW-PRESSURE AND SURFACE FRONTAL SYSTEM OVER THE EASTERN UNITED STATES...THE NATIONAL HURRICANE CENTER HAS DECIDED TO CALL THE TROPICAL CYCLONE NOW OVER THE GULF OF MEXICO TROPICAL DEPRESSION IVAN. WHILE DEBATE WILL SURELY CONTINUE HERE AND ELSEWHERE...THIS DECISION WAS BASED PRIMARILY ON THE REASONABLE CONTINUITY OBSERVED IN THE ANALYSIS OF THE SURFACE AND LOW-LEVEL CIRCULATION."

Link (Thanks, C-Lo!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:29:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kevin Sites blog from Iraq: Hilla SWAT

NBC combat correspondent and blogger Kevin Sites is back in Iraq, and posts a new dispatch with some amazing photos on his blog today.

We've been up since 3am--waiting for Hilla SWAT. It's now 4:30. Despite their annoyance--the Force Recon squad from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit seems extremely patient--at least around Kuni Takahashi, a photographer for the Chicago Tribune and me. Instead they look at their watches--bullshit each other about their individual depravities--like masturbating in sweat socks. Typical life details at a military FOB or forward operating base in Iraq.

These marines at FOB Kalsu still sleep in tents, shit in porta-johns, live in the dirt. This is no Camp Victory green zone paradise with guys chilling in air-conditioned trailers and eating at the Bob Hope Dining Facility--a zeppelin hangar of a building just down the road from Baghdad International Airport. Everyone here has heard the stories--or maybe, been on a convoy through the green zone, briefly glimpsed the way that other half lives. They piss and moan about it--but don't denounce its existence. They are, after all, Americans--it's about aspirations--still believing that hard work and perseverance may someday get you to the Promised Land.

Link, and link to Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:18:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

XPrize remix: SpaceShipOne is Farked

In this Photoshop contest, Fark members bling out Burt Rutan and Paul Allen's SpaceShipOne. The craft, which had a successful and historic test run in June, is scheduled to make a go for the $10 million Ansari X-Prize next Wednesday in the Mojave desert. I'll be there, covering the presumably unphotoshopped event for NPR.

If Snoop does indeed show up with "Space Shizzle One," as one Farkster creatively visualizes here, well -- goodbye planet earth. Look for me on the mothership, baby, for I will be gone.

Link (thanks, Susan Kitchens)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:03:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Schwarzenegger signs bill requiring email addresses for filesharing

California governor Arnold Schwarzenneger -- a man who found considerable fame and fortune in Hollywood -- signed an MPAA-backed bill into law Tuesday that requires anyone sharing a file that goes to more than 10 people outside their immediate family to provide a valid email address and title of the work.

California file sharers who trade songs or films without providing an e- mail address will be guilty of a misdemeanor, under the first-in-the-nation measure that could make it easier for law enforcement to track down people who illegally download copyrighted material. The bill is the latest attempt by film and music trade associations to combat the hard-to-police use of file-sharing software.

The signing was hailed by the bill's sponsor, the Motion Picture Association of America, whose president, Dan Glickman, noted in a statement that Schwarzenegger had "a unique understanding of the powerful impact of piracy.'' The governor remains a member of the Screen Actors Guild, which supported the bill.

Link to SF Chronicle story, link to SB 1506 bill text. (thanks Michael Parenti, Matthew Mills, Andy, and others)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:53:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sony will support MP3 in portable digital music players

Sony confirmed yesterday that it plans to add native MP3 support to digital music players, in a move that will likely help the products compete more effectively with more popular competitors like Apple's iPod. Until now, the Sony devices were designed to only play files encoded with Sony's proprietary Atrac music file format.

The shift from reliance on its proprietary format will begin with flash memory-based players, the electronics giant said, but plans are still being finalized on how and when products will add MP3 support. CNET News.com affiliate ZDNet France first reported of the change in Sony's strategy for the European market. U.S. representatives said the company is making similar plans here.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:43:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

KQED on Blogs: Forum Archive

Gary Peare says, "Yesterday, Dan Gillmor and Orville Schell were on KQED's Forum show discussing the impact of blogs on mainstream media news in light of the Dan Rather/CBS memo incident (aka 'Rathergate'). This page has a link to the audio archive for the segment." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:16:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sign onto the Geneva Declaration, change WIPO!

Last weekend, I represented EFF at a meeting in Geneva of several disparate activit and non-govermental orgs, working to draft a joint doc called "Future of WIPO," (or, more formally, "Geneva Declaration on the Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization"). This doc is a call to arms to orgs that would see WIPO revisit its role in the world, to take into account the public interest when formulating and promulgating IP policy. The doc has been finalised and is online -- we're collecting signatories for it, and you're invited.

Humanity faces a global crisis in the governance of knowledge, technology and culture. The crisis is manifest in many ways.

* Without access to essential medicines, millions suffer and die;

* Morally repugnant inequality of access to education, knowledge and technology undermines development and social cohesion;

* Anticompetitive practices in the knowledge economy impose enormous costs on consumers and retard innovation;

* Authors, artists and inventors face mounting barriers to follow-on innovation;

* Concentrated ownership and control of knowledge, technology, biological resources and culture harm development, diversity and democratic institutions;

* Technological measures designed to enforce intellectual property rights in digital environments threaten core exceptions in copyright laws for disabled persons, libraries, educators, authors and consumers, and undermine privacy and freedom;

* Key mechanisms to compensate and support creative individuals and communities are unfair to both creative persons and consumers;

* Private interests misappropriate social and public goods, and lock up the public domain.

Link to declaration, Mailto link for signing on (via Copyfight)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:34:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The morphine in all of us

German scientist Meinhart Zenk at Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg has proven once-and-for-all (?) a long-held theory that the human brain naturally produces morphine. Kristen Philipkoski reports on the findings in Wired News. Zenk's claim is supported by other recent work by neuroscientist George Stefano of the State University of New York at Old Westbury. Stefano believes that doctors could eventually teat a patient's pain by providing a precursor to morphine instead of the drug itself. From the Wired News article:

The discovery could also explain why some people are more susceptible to addiction -- they may have a morphine deficiency.

"All of a sudden," Stefano said, "(morphine-deficient individuals) take this compound (and) it really makes them feel not only good but normal."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:24:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Insect Origami

These origami insects and arthropods are incredibly beautiful. This 5" Acrocinus longimanus (Harlequin beetle) was folded from a single uncut square of paper. Master origami artist (and "origami mathematician") Robert Lang explains how it's done in a series of books. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:55:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Relaying rat brainwaves for search and rescue

Researchers from the University of Florida are outfitting trained rats with neural implants and a wireless radio so that the rodents can scurry through collapsed buildings searching for survivors. The electrodes are implanted in the rat's olfactory cortex, motor cortex, and reward center. When a rat--trained to seek out the smell of human--finds its target, the "aha! moment" can then be wireless transmitted back to headquarters. From a New Scientist article about the DARPA-funded work:

The researchers trained the rats to search for human odour by stimulating the reward centre when it found its target smell. Once the rats were trained, they were set to forage for the target smell, while electrodes recorded their neural activity patterns. This allowed researchers to identify the brainwave patterns associated with finding that smell. They were also able to train the rats to sniff out the explosives TNT and RDX – key after terrorist attacks that may leave buildings harbouring unexploded bombs.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:23:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A prison for non-human primates

The Chicago Tribune ran a fantastic article about a state pen in Punjab, India. The inmates are lifetime offenders, mostly nabbed for stealing, assault, and vandalism. Even the murderers are safe from capital punishment though. That's because in India, it's forbidden to kill monkeys.

Monkeys have invaded government ministries in New Delhi, ridden elevators and climbed along windowsills. Monkeys slapped students inside a girls school in a south Bengal suburb. A gang of monkeys in the city of Chandigarh ripped up lawns, broke flowerpots and yanked sheets off beds.

Some monkeys, mostly loners, have bitten people, injuring and even killing small children.

"Monkeys are very furious," said Ujagar Singh, the Patiala district spokesman.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:06:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, September 22, 2004

More propaganda remix posters

New additions to a previously-Boinged online gallery featuring brilliantly modernized versions of old propaganda posters. You can buy the retweaked graphics on sporty messenger bags, t-shirts, coffee cups, and -- well by golly, even a thong or two. Link (Thanks, Squiddo)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:16:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Online casinos can't stop pokerbots

Ed Felten's posted a fascinating rumination on the impossibility of excluding bots from online poker games, and what that means for online casinos:

By reiterating their anti-bot and anti-collusion rules, and by claiming to have mysterious enforcement mechanisms, online casinos may be able to stem the tide of cheating for a while. But eventually, bots and collusion will become the norm, and lone human players will be driven out of all but the lowest stakes games.

But there is another strategy. An online casino could encourage bots, and even set up bots-only games. The game would then become not a human vs. human card game but a human vs. human battle between bot designers for geekly mastery. I'll bet there are plenty of programmers out there who would like to give it a try.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:11:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tooth Tattoos at 99-Cent Only Store

Billy Hayes sez: Mark, Thanks for the cool post on the 99 cent cartoons. I bought a whole grip of them this evening. While I was in the store my wife and I walked around looking at all the other stuff. I spoted some tooth tat 2's. I read the package but couldn't bring myself to buy them. I checked out the web site from the back of the pack but it timed out. I did however fid a site that sells the tat's. Crazy Stuff at the 99 cent store. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:36:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A visual history of spam (and virus) email

A BB reader sez: "Raymond Chen has kept every single piece of spam and every virus-laden email which he has received, while at Microsoft, since 1997. He has taken the data regarding numbers and file size, and plotted them out on a graph. It makes for an interesting, and informational, read."

Spam went ballistic starting in 2002. You could see it growing in 2001, but 2002 was when it really took off.

Link (via The Spam Weblog)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:20:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

American Conservative Union's Anti-INDUCE-Act Ad

An ad from the, ah, very right-wing American Conservative Union protesting the INDUCE Act. The ACU calls out Republicans for kowtowing to Hollywood against their principles. Ad ran in the Washington Times, Wall Street Journal and Weekly Standard.
Link (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:54:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Necessary" reading on Google

Yoda sez: "I was just using Google to spell check the word necessary, you know to make sure I had it right, and the results were interesting! Nearly every result was a worthy read, with Hiroshima leading the pack." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:32:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kevin Kelly's True Films reviews

Kevin Kelly has compiled a bunch of reviews of documentaries on his Cool Tools site. I want to go out and get every one. He just sent out the latest batch to subscribers to his Cool Tools mailing list, which he hasn't put on his site yet. I'm sure he'll get around to it soon. In the meantime, here's an excerpt from one of his latest reviews (for Colonial House):

The premise is somewhat familiar now. Take a hopelessly modern family and stick them in the past, as authenticated by historians, and make them live with only the tools and resources available centuries ago. In this case, the modern Americans are sent to live in the summer of 1628, on a forested island off of Maine. Their task: build a new world colony that can both survive and pay back its investors in England. ... Cameras record every detail as the pudgy newcomers scrounge for food, learn how to farm Indian corn and build with the most rudimentary tools, all the while wearing appropriate clothes, slowly starving, and assuming appropriate roles such as indentured servants with astounding ease. Who knew how easy devolution was?

(You can subscribe to the Cool Tools mailing list here. It's free, but you have to send him one review for Cool Tools to get on the list!) Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:06:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIP Russ Meyer

Russ Meyer, the filmmaking legend responsible for such sexploitation atrocities masterpieces as "The Immoral Mr. Teas", "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!", and "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls", has passed away at age 82. He lived a long life, full of glamour and boobies. All of us should be so lucky. Fleshbot, naturally, has more: Link. Rest in peace, Mr. Meyer.

Some timeless quotes from "Faster, Pussycat!":

(The climatic finale)
Linda: I killed her - like she was an animal! Like she was nothing!
Kirk: She was nothing - nothing human!

(Billie throws Rosie a can of beer to calm her down.)
Bille: Here Rosie baby, pop the top before you blow your own!

Tommie: What's the point?
Varla: It's of no return, and you've reached it!

(thanks also to Caines, Jean-Luc, and others who suggested).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:14:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lenny Bruce CD retrospective

Newsweek's Brian Braiker writes about a newly released collection of work by the groundbreaking comedian Lenny Bruce.

If a comic gets onstage and tells his audience "I am not a comedian," he'd better say something important -- or really damn funny. Lenny Bruce -- the hepcat who took his act from L.A. strip clubs to Carnegie Hall, redefining stand-up in the process -- did both. Now, nearly 40 years after a fatal drug overdose, a dizzyingly complete six-CD collection of his trailblazing routines has been released.

"Lenny Bruce: Let the Buyer Beware" spans his career from his promising first performance in 1948 to the ravings of a haunted, hunted man the day before his death in 1966. The warts-and-all portrait includes hours of previously unreleased material and chronicles Bruce as he tilts against hypocrisy ("Censorship on the Steve Allen Show"), racism ("How to Relax Your Colored Friends at Parties") and religion ("Religions, Inc.").

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:56:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Life-sized model railroads

Live Steam enthuthiasts are guys who build large working models of steam and diesel trains and then ride them around gigantic layouts in their yards or in parks. This is dorky and irresistably cool. How fun would it be to spend a weekend with these retro-tech adventurers? Let the nerd flag fly high. I love them. They use wireless technology and stay up all night in tag teams to break new records in continuous train ride duration. Rock on, steamer man. Link (Thanks, Paul)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:48:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Doom creator, astropreneur John Carmack weighs in on weightlessness

BoingBoing reader Andrew Gray says,

Since you've been covering the commercial zero-G flights of late, you might be interested in John Carmack's comments on his flight yesterday (with various Armadillo & ID people). Only a Usenet post, unfortunately, with a couple of linked pictures; but still interesting (and jealousy-inducing, damnit)

"A couple of us were doing low gravity judo throws, and I took a shot at the worlds first flying armbar in zero gravity (didn't work out too well)." (I dare not imagine...)

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:38:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cool technical resource for artists

Earlier this year, I posted the story of Amy Jenkins, a video artist who had been invited by the Salvatore Ferragamo company to create an artwork inspired by their 5th Avenue store. The store deemed Jenkins's completed artwork "distasteful" and refused to display it because it showed her baby daughter breastfeeding. Amy wanted to show the video somewhere else but it was made for a widescreen display that she couldn't afford to buy. Today though, I received the following email from David Gilman, a Brooklyn-based production manager with experience in sound and video engineering:

"I wanted to let you know that thanks to that post, Amy now has my 60" plasma screen in her studio. And in October, I'll be bringing it up to Boston so she can show her piece at a gallery there.

So, Go Internet!

I also wanted to point you towards Art Answers, a website I started after my initial meeting with Amy. While I can't lend every artist in the world my equipment, I can try to help them get the information they need. My dream is that one day Art Answers will have a storefront with reference libraries, on-staff experts, and a tool lending library. In the meantime, people can email or call with their art creation questions, and I'll try to get them answers."

Go David! Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:05:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

History of blogging video

Chuck sez, "I thought I'd let you know about a little quicktime I just posted fast-forwarding through the history of blogs. It starts in 1999, spins around and flies back to 1660 and 1776, kareens through the 20th century and lands back in current blog-time." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:49:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Building with wood is eco-friendly?

A new research report shows that wood is one of the greener materials that can be used to build homes. According to the report, prepared by the Consortium for Research on Renewable Industrial Materials, the environmental impact of fabricating building materials and actually constructing a home is more intense than most people realize. And while the industry has slowly moved away from wood, the use of dead trees may actually be better (well, less bad) than other products and techniques. From a press release about the report:

The research showed that wood framing used 17 percent less energy than steel construction for a typical house built in Minnesota, and 16 percent less energy than a house using concrete construction in Atlanta. And in these two examples, the use of wood had 26-31 percent less global warming potential...The growth of wood in renewable forests works to "sequester" and remove carbon from the atmosphere, and fewer carbon emissions are created in the processing needed to produce wood products than their steel and concrete counterparts.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:06:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Quebec Free Software Week

Robin sez, "The autumnal equinox marks the middle of the Semaine québécoise de l'informatique libre, something like the Québec Free Software/IT Week. The web site has the full program, > 25 events in at least 6 cities all accross Québec between September 18th and 26th." Link (Thanks, Robin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:38:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Secret Soviet plans for a lunar military base

Thirty years ago, the Russian military allegedly developed plans to build a base on the Moon. According to MosNews, the Novaya Gazeta weekly got the story from the project-deputy general designer of the General Machine Building Design Bureau (KBOM) who was directly involved in the project.

"Soviet scientists considered the Moon to be a very good place for a strategic headquarters as nuclear strikes on its surface would lose most of their destructive force. As the moon has no atmosphere, no shockwave could spread there and the radioactive dust would immediately fall out back on the surface without an atmosphere to carry it.

The designer also said that the USA had also developed a lunar base project and the Soviet scientists had been aware of these plans."

The source, Aleksandr Yegorov, said the Soviet plan was scrapped because... (surprise!) it was too damn expensive. Link (to the MosNews article) Link (to a history of Russian lunar base programs)

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:38:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ScienceMatters@Berkeley

In this month's issue of my research digest ScienceMatters@Berkeley...

* Flipping the Switch on Cancer: Improving the effectiveness of Cancer drugs one molecule at a time.
* Think Molecularly, Act Globally: Studying the atmosphere from a converted spy plane.
* Quantum Computing's Magnetic Attraction: A new spin on magnetic atoms.
* The secret history of Vitamin B-12

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:05:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

STOP BUSH graffiti postcards

These guys are selling picture postcards of STOP BUSH graffiti around New York, and donating the funds to the Democratic party. Link (Thanks, Eric!)

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

LED light-sabers in candy colours

These AA-powered light-fixtures are lit with candy-coloured LEDs and bear a striking resemblance to light-sabers. Link (Thanks, Hary!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:58:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, September 21, 2004

Lessig launches UK CC licenses in London, Oct 4

Larry Lessig is coming to London on Oct 4 to launch the UK Creative Commons licenses!

Professor Lawrence Lessig, Stanford University Law School

12-2pm Monday 4 October 2004

Edward Lewis Theatre, Windeyer Building, UCL, Cleveland Street, London W1

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:43:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interstellar sugar cloud: not Atkins-compliant

An enormous cloud of high-carb, life-giving frozen sugar has been discovered at the end of the Milky Way.

Molecules of a simple sugar, glycolaldehyde, were detected in a cloud of gas and dust called Sagittarius B2 about 26,000 light years away.

Observations indicated large quantities of the sugar frozen to a temperature only a few degrees above absolute zero, the point at which all molecular movement stops.

Link (via Futurismic)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Computer industry to entertainment industry: we lied (right on!)

This amazing open letter to the entertainment industry, signed by the computer industry, is a nigh-perfect expression of what constitutes a successful approach to Internet technology. And it made me laugh my ass off.

We lied to you. In the golden 80s and 90s we told you micropayments and content protection would work; that you would be able to charge minuscule amounts of money whenever someone listened to your music or watched your movie. We told you untruths which we well knew would never work - after all, we would've never used them ourselves. Instead, we wrote things like Kazaa and Gnutella, and all other evil P2P applications to get the stuff free.

We told you these things so that you would finance the things we really wanted to build, not the things that you wanted to be built. We knew all along that DRM schemes do not work, and we knew that whatever we create can be broken by us. We don't care anymore, because your money made us bigger than you.

Look at us: every year, we churn out more computer games than your entire industry is worth. You know how we do it? We like our customers. We don't treat them like potential criminals, and try to make our products do less. We invent new things like online role-playing -games, where the money does not come from duplication of bits (which cannot be stopped, regardless of your DRM scheme) but from providing experiences that the people want.

We saw that you were old and weak. So we took advantage of it: told you things that you wanted to hear so we could kick you in the head in twenty years. Some of us told you that the future is going to be interactive - what did you do? You started to think how to make interactive movies (CD-I, anyone?), which is not what it really means, while we wrote games and tried to understand the new mediums, not how to bolt it on onto old things.

We lied to you. And we apologize for that, but it was for the greater good. So we're not the least bit sorry.

Signed: The Computer Industry

Link (via Blackbeltjones)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:40:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gravity Lamp -- lighting design concept

The "Gravity" lamp reclines and goes to sleep when you're not in the room. When you enter, it awakens, stands up, and turns on.

Fun Furde says, "The Gravity is equal parts cute and creepy. Cute because it's sort of like a pet that's happy to see you when you come home. Creepy because it's a lamp that moves by itself! No idea if they're actually going to make this or how much it will cost if they do. Or how they keep the lightbulb from smashing when it hits the ground."

Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:05:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Plane diverted over former Cat Stevens as security risk

BoingBoing reader Greg says, "I thought that the No-Fly list was scrapped, but it turns out it was just renamed."

A plane bound for Washington from London was diverted to Maine on Tuesday after passenger Yusuf Islam - formerly known as pop singer Cat Stevens - showed up on a U.S. watch list, federal officials said. One official said Islam, 56, was identified by the Advanced Passenger Information System, which requires airlines to send passenger information to U.S. Customs and Border Protection's National Targeting Center. TSA was then contacted and requested that the plane land at the nearest airport, the official said.

Link to AP news story. John Battelle comes up with an infinitely better hed for this post than I: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:00:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Zapping the brain's fear center

Researchers at New York University claim to have located the part of the brain that "extinguished fear."

In their experiments, the researchers presented the subjects with either blue or yellow squares. One color was associated with a mild electric shock. Using this method, the subjects acquired a fear of the colored square associated with the shock.

Phelps's team then extinguished the fear response by presenting the colored square associated with the shock, first with a gradually reduced shock and then with no shock at all.

Link (via Futurismic)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:18:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Comic Art #6 on sale

I picked up issue #6 of Comic Art magazine last week. What a treat. There's a long article about Seth (creator of Palookaville) with plenty of pictures, including a cardboard city he built (seen on the cover) and a page from his sketchbook (which I scanned here -- incredible! Click on thumb for enlargement). Unfortunately, no pictures of Seth. I've only seen other people's drawings of Seth. (He's always wearing a vintage hat and suit and chain smoking when people draw him.)

There's another article about Virgil Partch (aka "VIP"), a delightfully wacky cartoonist from the 40s and 50s. If you look closely at the hands on VIP's characters, you'll notice that they have more than five fingers. Sometimes they have as many as 12 fingers on a hand! He did this because he used to work at Disney, where he was forced to draw four-fingered characters. The extras fingers were his way of evening the score.

The price of Comic Art is $9, which is a good deal, because it's glossy color throughout. Link

UPDATE: Aaron sez: In response to Mark's post on Comic Art #6 where he mentioned never seeing a photo of Seth, I figured I'd point him over to the NYTimes article from July 11th. Along with a great interview of Seth, Joe Sacco, Chester Brown, Adrian Tomine, and Art Spiegelman, there's a nice photo of them all together. Seth is in the top right of the photo. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:07:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eddie Campbell interviewed in The Graphic Novel Review

Great, long interview with Eddie Campbell in The Graphic Novel Review.

One problem, for instance, is that when a paper like Publishers Weekly does a spread on the graphic novel, they need to justify it with some advertising. And who can afford that kind of ad? DC of course, so the image of the latest Batman paperback will dominate the page, and any blather we spout about the serious intent of the graphic novel will be somewhat wasted.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:39:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Zombie apocalypse novels serialized

Wireless Ink is offering two serialized science fiction novels called Monster Island and "Monster Nation".

Monster Island is a 60 chapter serial novel published to mobile phones under Creative Commons license by David Wellington (an indie author) about a Zombie Apocalypse in New York City. Monster Nation, the second novel in the trilogy, will be available in September 2004.

Mobile Link (Also available at winksite.com under "Featured Sites.")

UPDATE: Jef sez: [Here's] the full webpage for David Wellington's "Monster Island". The mobile phone serial concept is dandy, but the winksite pages contain very little content per click, which is necessary for mobiles, but frustrating if you want to read it online or cut/paste to upload to a PDA.

UPDATE: David Harper of Winksite sez: "Great point about reading Monster Island from the desktop. Let me explain a bit on what is going on. When you point your browser to Monster Island (http://winksite.com/monster/island) you are presented with a version appropriate for your mobile phone or PDA. The version that pops up when you enter that address from a PC is intended to emulate/demo the mobile experience. We certainly would not expect or suggest anyone to read the novel from their desktop in that manner.

The mobile version of Monster Nation, the prequel to Island just launched today at http://winksite.com/monster/nation and can be reached from your desktop at http://www.brokentype.com/nation/. Chapters are posted every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Over the next couple of weeks feeds of each of the novels will be made available for syndication. In addition, as each novel in the trilogy is completed, a downloadable PDF version will be made available under Creative Commons license.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:29:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UPS wants its shirt back

Darren sez, "A month or so ago, you guys referenced an entry about my UPS shirt. I though you might be interested in this follow-up.

"The blogosphere giveth, and the blogosphere taketh away. UPS got wind that I had one of their shirts, and they called and want it back. Here's my description of the first call. And here's my explanation today of why I'm giving it back.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:51:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Weinberger: "free access to every work of creativity in the world is a better world"

David Weinberger, author of the brilliant and seminal Small Pieces Loosely Joined, has posted a draft of a great speech on copyright that he's giving at the World Economic Forum in NYC tomorrow:

[F]or one moment, I'd like you to perform an exercise in selective attention. Forget every other consideration — even though they're fair and important considerations — and see if you can acknowledge that a world in which everyone has free access to every work of creativity in the world is a better world. Imagine your children could listen to any song ever created anywhere. What a blessing that would be!

...We publish stuff that gets its meaning and its reality by being read, viewed or heard. An unpublished novel is about as meaningful and real as an imaginary novel. It needs its readers to be. But readers aren't passive consumers. We reimagine the book, we complete the vision of the book. Readers appropriate works, make them their own. Listeners and viewers, too. In making a work public, artists enter into partnership with their audience. The work succeeds insofar as the audience makes it their own, takes it up, understands it within their own unpredictable circumstances. It leaves the artist's hands and enters our lives. And that's not a betrayal of the work. That's its success. It succeeds insofar as we hum it, quote it, appropriate it so thoroughly that we no longer remember where the phrase came from. That's artistic success, although it's a branding failure.

Link (via isen.blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:34:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Globe and Mail site jumps the shark

Misha sez:

The Toronto Globe and Mail has totally re-jigged their web site.

1) You need to register to see just about anything

2) Worse: From a quick glance, most of the feature writing, editorials, columns, etc now requires a *paid* subscription. They want $14.95/month for access to this. Even if you already subscribe to the print edition, they want you to pony up an extra $6.95 a month for full access to the web site.

Ah well, one more reason to get your news elsewhere. Link (Thanks, Misha!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:11:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Elvis Costello disclaims antipiracy warnings on his own CD

Elvis Costello's new CD "The Delivery Man" is plastered with obnoxious FBI anti-piracy warnings. Over these is this legend: "THE ARTIST DOES NOT ENDORSE THE FOLLOWING WARNING. THE FBI DOESN'T HAVE HIS HOME PHONE NUMBER AND HE HOPES THAT THEY DON'T HAVE YOURS. Link (Thanks, Gary!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:33:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO defeat Pentagon censorware and cast absentee ballots

The Pentagon is blocking websites that help overseas military personnel cast absentee ballots in the upcoming Federal election. The Verified Voter Foundation has initiated a program to create a distributed mirror of absentee voting info and to provide anonymizing proxy services to defeat the military's unconstitutional censorware.

The International Herald Tribune reported on September 20th that "the Pentagon has begun restricting international access to the official Web site intended to help overseas absentee voters cast ballots." Pentagon spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Ellen Krenke confirmed that a number of Internet service providers worldwide had been blacklisted "to thwart hackers." Such measures are generally recognized to be ineffective against hackers while blocking legitimate users.

Apparently, the Federal Voting Assistance Program (FVAP) website is now blocked to civilians overseas trying to find out how to obtain absentee ballots in at least 25 countries--including Japan, France, Great Britain, and Spain--although military personnel overseas have other mechanisms for requesting absentee ballots.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:30:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's DRM talk as a print-centric PDF

Change This, the org that publishes manifestos on the Web as print-centric, beautifully laid-out PDFs, has republished my Microsoft DRM speech as a printable, laid-out, typographically sophisticated and pretty PDF. How cool! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:16:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ETCON call for proposals closes in a week!

The O'Reilly Emerging Technology Confernece call for participation closes on Sept 27 -- just under a week from now. ETCON, held annually in San Diego (this year's dates are March 14-17, 2005) is the best tech conference on the planet. I've averaged more mind-blowing experiences per ETCON than at any other event I've ever attended. I'm proud and honoured to sit on the conference jury, and we're now gearing up for the selection process -- looking forward to seeing your proposal on the list!

The theme for this year's ETech is "Remix," encompassing those nexus points of iterative hacking and large ideas that have a way of transforming technology:

* The phone has become a platform, moving beyond mere voice to smart mobile sensor—and back to phone again, by way of voice-over-IP.

* Geolocation, once the provenance of government and geologist, provides a sense of "there" and facilitates ad hoc group forming with feet in both the virtual and physical worlds.

* Peer-to-peer brought us the concept of the average PC as "the dark matter of the Internet," even more applicable to the mobile devices in our pockets. These devices, networked in a mesh, are starting to behave more like colony creatures than stand-alone devices.

* The grand unimaginative vision of web services as B2B EDI replacement has given way to recombinant data services and syndicated e-commerce for the rest of us.

* Geeks with screwdrivers are risking "letting the magic out" of their computers, game consoles, and other assorted gadgets, discovering instead that there's even more magic to be had when you've taken the screws out.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:16:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory speaking in London, Terre Haute this month

Just a reminder that Cory will be at two conferences in the coming weeks:

* I'm the evening's guest at the British Science Fiction Association meeting in London, this Wednesday, 5:30 - (The Star Tavern, 6 Belgrave Mews West, London, SW1X 8HT, 020 7235 3019)

* I'm a speaker at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology WWW@10 conference in Terre Haute Indiana, Sept 30 - Oct 2

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:36:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cool government pubs blog

CoolGov is a new blog devoted to interesting documents discovered on governmental websites.

From the "Explaining Barbeque to the World" desk at the State Deparment Bureau of International Information Programs: BBQ is a "method of cooking meat very slowly over coals was adopted by the early European settlers in North America and called barbecue. When it is done, the tender meat is chopped or shredded, topped with sauce that varies from region to region, and often made into a sandwich with a soft roll and some cole slaw. As with so many cooking methods, there is great debate among purists over what constitutes real barbecue, but none over its stature as a delicious and uniquely American dish."

Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:55:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Burning Man payphone stories and build-notes

Brad Templeton deployed a ruggedized WiFi/VoIP-based phone booth at this year's Burning Man -- here are build-notes, photos, maps of call-destinations and so forth.

A considerable number of folks invited to use the phone said they didn't know the phone numbers of any of their friends. Today, many people keep all numbers in their cell phone's address book, and never dial the numbers directly. Many of them called their own voice mails since they knew at least that number, and often exclaimed in amazement at just that. (Alas, many of the voice mails they left themselves will have been somewhat garbled due to the internet traffic issues.)

Link (Thanks, Brad!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:53:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google building custom Moz browser?

Some compelling evidence that Google is developing its own Mozilla-based browser; besides the registration of gbrowser.com, there's the annotations in the Mozilla bug-tracker like this one: "this is a duplicate of a private bug about working with Google. So closing this one." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:47:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Blogs and politics timeline

David Sifry's put up a Wiki to collaboratively edit a timeline of "when weblogs had a significant impact on politics." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:45:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Feds defend secret law with secret brief

Bill sez, "The Justice Department continues to demand the right to file a secret brief in Gilmore vs. Ashcroft, a case that involves secret law. In response to a September 10th ruling by the 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals that rejected DOJ's attempt to file their arguments in secret, the DOJ filed a motion asking the Court to reconsider its decision." Link (Thanks, Bill!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:44:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

San Diego's hacker con returns next weekend

ToorCon, San Diego's excellent hacker convention, is returning next weekend for its sixth year. I was a guest at this last year and had a great time -- the nerd sports were awesome, like the You 0wn It, You Own It contest, where anyone who could attain root on old *nix boxen got to take them home. Other highlights included the amazing party at the Dachb0den hacker loft, the hackerbot that would roll up to your feet and display all the cleartext passwords you'd sent over WiFi on its LCD, and the tech presentations on poisoning, sniffing, hacking, cracking, defending and fighting back (check out my photo gallery for more) (I'll never forget staying at the apartment that contained one of every Unix system ever, as part of a massive project to create a single shell script to close all non-essential services on any/every flavor of *nix -- the sound of all those fans and the heat made it like sleeping in a softly glowing jet engine!). Link (Thanks, Boogah!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:37:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Little Pony Borg

What a great mod: converting a My Little Pony into an element of the Borg. Link (Thanks, Biz!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:30:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why some paintings' eyes follow you

A psych prof at Ohio State has used computer graphics apps to determine why some paintings' eyes appear to follow you around the room:

"When observing real surfaces in the natural environment the visual information that specifies near and far points varies when we change viewing direction," he said.

"When we observe a picture on the wall, on the other hand, the visual information that defines near and far points is unaffected by viewing direction. Still, we interpret this perceptually as if it were a real object. That is why the eyes appear to follow you as you change your viewing direction."

Todd said people may be surprised by this phenomenon because of the unique perceptual aspects of viewing a picture. We perceive the object depicted in a painting as a surface in 3-dimensional space, but we also perceive that the painting itself is a 2-dimensional surface that is hanging on the wall.

Link (Thanks, Ernie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:28:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UK take on Creative Commons

Becky sez, "My piece on Larry Lessig and the BBC Creative Archive was published in the New Media Guardian today. The in-depth article discusses copyright in the digital age and the Creative Commons project.

"Unfortunately, to read the article you need to register." Reg Req'd Link, use "feeshfeeshfeesh@hotmail.com/feeshfeesh" (Thanks, Becky!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:08:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Publishing-scam vocabulary

Teresa Nielsen Hayden's latest blog-essay on publishing scams explores the vocabulary choices that tip off the likelihood of a sleazy publishing scam:

This is a segment of a larger piece, the working title of which has been "Ambient Misinformation about Publishing and Writing, and the Cultivation of the Reader Mind: A Rant I Didn't Get to Deliver at Noreascon." It has occurred to me that I could write about this one for a very long time without exhausting the subject.

Certain words and phrases are like little genetic markers for scammers. Here's a non-exhaustive list, non-exhaustively explained:

1. "Giving new writers a chance." Also: "Helping new writers."

While agents and publishers frequently do just this thing, they don't talk about it in those terms. For them, it's always a specific new book, a specific new author. Making judgements about which book and which writer they're going to work with is the heart of their job. When you hear someone talking in an indiscriminately general fashion about giving a chance to new writers, there's something wrong.

Same goes for "helping new writers." There might be legitimate projects aimed at helping new writers as a class, but the business they're in isn't agenting or publishing.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:05:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anime murals in Montreal redux

Here are a couple more cool anime murals in Montreal, including one that was defaced by the addition of an obscuring McDonald's billboard. I'm now officially bored with this subject, so there's no point in sending in more Montreal anime mural links (but thanks for the ones you've sent in so far!). Link 1, Link 2 (Thanks, Jeremy and Mark!)

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

First Belgian book released under CC license

Stefan sez, "With Antwerp named as World Book City in 2004, residents and visitors were being invited to create a biography of the city by SMS. On the 19th September, a selection of the submitted impressions have been compiled into a booklet combined with the focus on the different text points and giving an alternative view on Antwerp and its districts. The booklet (in Dutch) is available for download in PDF, plain text and a special version for iPods. By the end of October a complete English translation will be available under the same license: Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0"> Link (Thanks, Stefan!)

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

Sterling engines for space

NASA-funded scientists are designing Stirling engines, first invented in 1816, to power long-range spacecraft that travel too far from the Sun to use solar power. Decaying plutonium heats up helium until it starts a chain reaction of contraction and expansion, producing sound waves that fire a piston.

"Inside the engine, the acoustic pressure is high enough to pop your eardrums," (Northrop Grumman researcher Mike) Petach told New Scientist. "It's louder than a thunderclap." He adds that the sound does not escape the engine, so the device could be used to produce electricity for submarines, which must glide undetected beneath the ocean's surface.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:35:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Villette Numérique in Paris

The Villette Numérique digital art extravaganza starts tomorrow in Paris. It's an intense two-week program of international tech/culture exhibitions, performances, workshops, concerts, and films.

Dozens of artists including Atau Tanaka (image at left), JoDI, Greg Niemeyer/Chris Chafe, and Maclej Wisnlewski will present new work in the "Zone de Confluences." BB's Parisian liaison Alexandre Boucherot and his colleagues from Fluctuat.net are acting as mediators of the media art, providing insight into the pieces for visitors to the exhibition. I'm also looking forward to Sigur Rós's Odin's Raven Magic, an adaptation of Icelandic sagas backed by a full orchestra. Tomorrow night, experimental musicians Scanner and Simon Fisher Turner will twist knobs in a planetarium, and this weekend we'll catch a performance of Stockhausen's Mantra.

If you're in the vicinity, now is a good time to catch an easyJet flight. Hit the Villette Numérique site for background on all the artists mentioned above and plenty of more information worth a look even if you can't make it to Paris. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:15:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Julie Verhoeven

My wife Kelly really digs the work of Julie Verhoeven, an avant-garde fashion illustrator for magazines like The Face and Dazed and Confused. In 2002, her work appeared on the runways in the form of illustrated handbags by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton. She also created cartoons for a performance by electrocrash band Fischerspooner and the cover for Primal Scream and Kate Moss's "Some Velvet Morning" album. Verhoeven has her own fashion brand, Gibo, with boutiques in London and New York. We bought her new monograph, published in Japan by Gas. Now we really want her first book, Fat-Bottomed Girls. Link (to Channel4 article) Link (scroll to the Fat-Bottomed Girls article and click "more images")

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:26:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, September 20, 2004

Are you a Copyright Criminal?

BoingBoing reader Robert Daeley says, "Came across this picture on the wall just behind a copy machine. All the hackers I know wear ski masks when they commit their crimes. Oh, and big thick leather gloves are great for typing."

Link to blog post with pointer to full size image. Mwuhuhahahahaaaaaaa.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:14:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Upset gentleman leaves angry phone message

Max Mitchell sez: Tim is a guy I know. He was helping some guy with his website. The guy owes him £400, so Tim stopped helping him.

This is a cellphone message left by the guy where he starts ranting and raving. Swearing and telling Tim he's going to go crazy if Tim doesn't call.

A minor version of Winnebago man. Nice bit of swearing with a London accent. Link (NSFW unless you are wearing headphones.)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:11:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michael Jackson Halloween mask

This Halloween mask of entertainer Michael Jackson is pretty creepy. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:00:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Architectural monstrosities in Beijing

raul gutierrez sez: "When hanging around Beijing, one can't help but be impressed by the staggering number of recently built architectural monstrosities. Now there's a site that collects them all in one place."

(I'd take the three kings building over a Gehry "crushed beer can" any day.) Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:57:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Baby swaddling how to video

Glenn Fleishman sez: As befits a new dad who loves technology, I've made a small movie (with my wife as videographer) of two quick ways to swaddle a baby: using regular receiving blankets and with a special garment called the Miracle Blanket. Swaddling is supposed to help babies be calmer when they're upset and to sleep better. And, holy cats, it worked for us. When I got a good swaddle going and added some hairdryer noise (recorded and burned to CD), my wife and I started sleeping at night quite a bit, only two weeks into his young life. Link (and when baby gets a few months older, I recommend that they ferberize him.)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:53:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Petals Around the Rose logic puzzle

This looks like an interesting problem. Lloyd Borrett writes:

Take up the challenge of "Petals Around the Rose". Also read what happened when Bill Gates was introduced to Petals Around the Rose in June 1977. How he tackled this brain teaser is an interesting insight into the man at the helm of Microsoft.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:45:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora -- upcoming book

I'm waiting to get my copy of "The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora," a new book coming out from Fantagraphics. Flora was a record album cover illustrator in the 1940s and 1950s. I discovered him about 15 years ago when I bought a Benny Goodman record with a Flora cover at a garage sale for $1. Finding this illustration reconfigured my brain.

Here's a good description of Flora's style (from the back cover of the book):

Vintage music buffs have long been bedazzled by bizarre, cartoonish album covers tagged with the signature "Flora." In the 1940s and '50s, James (Jim) Flora designed dozens of diabolic cover illustrations, many for Columbia and RCA Victor jazz artists. His designs pulsed with angular hepcats bearing funnel-tapered noses and shark-fin chins, who fingered cockeyed pianos and honked lollipop-hued horns. In the background, geometric doo-dads floated willy-nilly like a kindergarten toy room gone anti-gravitational. He wreaked havoc with the laws of physics, conjuring up flying musicians, levitating instruments, and wobbly dimensional perspectives. Yet Flora's wondrous, childlike exuberance was subverted by a sinister tinge of the grotesque. As Flora confessed in a 1998 interview, "I got away with murder, didn't I?"

There's a nice Flora art gallery online, which is maintained by Irwin Chusid, who compiled the book for Fantagraphics.

Fantagraphics also published a book by one of my other main influences, Gene Deitch, called The Cat on a Hot Thin Groove. He did the covers for a jazz fanzine in the 1940s, called The Record Changer. In the '60s, Deitch was the art director for UPA, the cartoon studio that produced Gerald McBoingBoing. ABout 10 years ago I had the pleasure of visiting Deitch in his San Francisco home (He lives most of the year in Prague). He drew a great picture of his jazz character, The Cat, for me and presented it to me. I interviewed him for the print edition of bOING bOING, but I never got around to transcribing the tape. I hope I still have it.

One of my other big influences, Disney Artist Mary Blair, got her own book this year too! (Illustrator Bob Staake has a couple of pages with Blair's art.)

Now, all I need to round out my library of illustrator-gods are books about the work of Tom Oreb and Ed Benedict.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:43:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of Buzz Aldrin/Emmy Awards Zen

Following up on last week's series of Zero-G posts on BoingBoing, Matt Fraction says:

My favorite Buzz thing-- aside from the time he busted that guy in the chops for asking him if the moon landings were fake-- was when Letterman was sending him out and about in the world for a while. He went to the daytime emmys in his astronaut suit and did red carpet interviews.

Which would go like this:

Buzz: Hi there! Who are you?
Soap Star: I'm Mr. Soap Star, and I'm nominated for best hooha in a thingy.
Buzz: That's great. I walked on the moon.
(very awkward silence)

Image: Floating in lunar gravity with Dr. Buzz Aldrin, on the Sep. 15, 2004 debut of Zero Gravity Corp.'s parabolic flight service. Before this moment, the last time Dr. Aldrin had experienced lunar gravity was when he walked on the moon with Neil Armstrong on July 20,1969. Image: Jim Campbell. And if any BoingBoing have pointers to online archived footage of Dr. Aldrin's moment of Emmy zen, do tell.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:05:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Reverse Casemod

BoingBoing reader D says, "Have an old computer case? Or, perhaps you're doing a casemod for your computer, so you don't need your old case. Enter, The Reverse Mod; turn your old computer case into a bookshelf!" Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:44:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Virtual autopsies

In the new issue of Popular Science, Jessican Snyder Sachs has an interesting and well-written article about virtual autopsies as a permanent record for pathologists. Michael Thali and the Virtopsy research team at the University of Bern, Switzerland use computed tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to create full-body scans of murder victims.

Besides being a bloodless approach to an otherwise messy job, the digitally preserved bodies of the Virtopsy Project have the added benefit of permanency. “Murder victims have the unfortunate habit of decomposing,” Thali notes.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:08:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New York Times on the avant-garde

Margo Jefferson, the NYT's Pulitzer-winning culture critic, has launched a new occasional column dedicated to "avant-garde" art. (I've always loved that term and I'm happy people are bringing it back into fashion.) Jefferson's introductory column is insightful, smart, and, most importantly, she doesn't take herself too seriously. I look forward to the next installment!

When you hear the phrase avant-garde 1)You flip through your intellectual file folder looking for examples (Dada, 12-tone music, modern dance, underground films, the Beats, theater of the absurd, electronic music).

2) You experience a certain dread. (You ask yourself if you are the only one in the gallery not getting the artist's joke, or worry that you can't finish that book said to challenge narrative conventions so boldly.)

3)You rage, "Where's the vision today, the energy?" You think back longingly. Paris, 1913: Diaghilev's Ballets Russes hurl Stravinksy's "Rite of Spring" at a shocked public. New York in the 1940's: Bird, Diz and Monk lead the charge for the music that would be known as bop. The 1960's and 70's: lofts, galleries, parks and churches shelter free jazz, new music and every kind of performance. What does it take to bring artists together to make brave new works?

I've felt each, and I'm about to start writing about the avant-garde in occasional essays and pieces of criticism. Which brings up another question: If an avant-garde is written about in a major newspaper like this one, doesn't that prove that it has moved to the culture's prosperous Midtown?

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:15:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Aya Takano

My friend Stella just turned me on to Aya Takano, another one of the young Japanese illustrators in Takashi Murakami's Kaikai Kiki artist collective. I've never been a big anime fan, but this post-manga style that Murakami dubbed "superflat" a few years ago continues to really grab me. Link (to Takano's bio) Link (to a Flash animation work) Link (to Takano's monograph Hot Banana Fudge)

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:46:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Small world

Scientists have set a new record in atomic resolution imaging. In the journal Science, researchers from Oak Ridge National Laboratory reported using a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) to create this direct image of a silicon crystal with .6 angstrom resolution. (An angstrom is one ten-billionth of a meter, the approximate diameter of a single atom.) ORNL researcher Stephen Pennycook:

"It's always better to see what's what. For the materials, chemical and nano sciences, you want to see what is going on at the atomic scale--how atoms bond and how things work."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:03:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wikipedia breaks 10^6 articles

The free/open Wikipedia encyclopedia project just posted its 1,000,000th article.

The Wikimedia Foundation announced today the creation of the one millionth article in Wikipedia, its project to create a free, open-content, online encyclopedia (Wikipedia.org (http://en.wikipedia.org)). Started in January 2001, Wikipedia is currently both the world's largest encyclopedia and its fastest-growing, with articles under active development in over 100 languages. Nearly 2,500 new articles are added to Wikipedia each day, along with ten times that number of updates to existing articles.

Link (via Joi Ito)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:30:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Creative Commons Byrne/Gil benefit webcast

Tomorrow night is the eve of the enormous David Byrne/Gilberto Gil benefit for Creative Commons in NYC, sponsored by Wired Magazine. At the last minute, Smartley-Dunn and Apple have ponied up the technology to host a free webcast of the whole thing. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:24:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, September 19, 2004

Che/Star Wars Stormtrooper shirt

These $20 "CheTrooper" tees are everything an ironic t-shirt should be: black, large, moderately priced and funny as hell. Link (Thanks, stx!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:21:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Calvin and Hobbes slipcased complete collection coming

There's a complete Calvin and Hobbes hardcover archival collection (a la the totally stunning $100 Far Side box set from last year) coming out, priced at $150 (yowch, but man, how totally cool to own one of these!). Link (Thanks, DigDoug!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:42:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cool-hunter detective story

I just finished Scott Westerfeld's "So Yesterday," a novel about cool-hunters working for Nike who stumble upon a shoe that's so amazingly cool that they can't figure out why it bears a red-circle-slash No Logo modifier. Nor how said cool anti-shoe relates to the mysterious disappearance of their boss, the head cool-hunter wrangler. The book is a fast-paced, smart-talkin', trivia-spoutin' mystery thriller that I read through in about a day and a half, laughing aloud time and again. I mean, how can you resist a book with passages like this one:

The guy riding in the truck's elevator was muscular and lean, very dark. He was wearing a trucker cap and cowboy boots, jeans and a mesh shirt that showed off his muscles. In a friendlier context I would have pegged him as a gay bodybuilder doing an ironic take on NASCAR fandom. But alongside the other two, he looked more like one of the many hopefuls sent down by central casting to try out for the part of THUG #3 in a hip new thriller.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:34:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Afro-Punk offices burned, donations sought

The makers of a groundbreaking documentary film exploring racial identity within the punk scene -- Afro-Punk: the "rock n roll nigger" experience -- were hit with an unexpected disaster last week. Friends are reaching out to coordinate donations of space and gear to help the filmmakers get back on track. From an e-mail sent to friends and supporters:

On Monday Sept. 13th at around 2pm the building that houses the afro-punk offices was set on fire. Apparently, the first floor failing clothing store owner, in an act of desperation, set a phone book on fire and took a little walk. Meanwhile Afro-Punk's director James Spooner was two flights up discussing his upcoming panel on music as a tool for black liberation with a colleague. "We heard the bell ringing and a lot of screaming and yelling" says James. The guilty store owner, alerted James and his friend of the blaze below. Thinking quickly James ran back into the office unplugged his Mac tower, which houses the documentary and hobbled down the stairs through the smoke and flames . "Man, maybe it was stupid, but this film has effected too many people for it to all end here, let the rest burn, I had to save it!"

Luckily fire fighters acted quickly on the scene and were able to stabilize the fire. Flames never reached our office but the NYFD destroyed the place trying to make sure the fire wasn't in the walls or ceiling.

After the smoke literally cleared they were allowed back up to access the damage. All in all it could have been worse. The Afro-Punk computers and camera are still working, the 200 hours of footage afro-punk was cut from seems to be okay and the work for our next film is safe. We did lose some furniture, a monitor and some vcrs from our dubbing station, but most tragic, we lost our donated office space.

Link to the Afro-Punk website, link to paypal donation site, and e-mail the group for a list of non-cash donations they're seeking -- including office space, office supplies, and electronic equipment (VCRs, monitors, CD-Rs, DVD-Rs, and the like). (via pho list and Bob Davis of Soul Patrol)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:24:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Oedipus. The Movie. Starring Vegetables.

Jason Wishnow, creator of two infamous Star Wars documentaries -- Tatooine or Bust and Star Wars or Bust -- has a new short out. An eight-minute rendition of Sophocles' classic tale of Oedipus, performed by fresh produce.

"Sex, violence, and cauliflower abounds!", says Jason, who tells us the film is "Performed by vegetables -- In the tradition of BEN-HUR. See a potato as it was meant to be seen, 15 feet tall!"

It's screening at fests all over the place over the next couple of months, including September dates in SF and LA. You can also download production stills and other goodies on the project's website. I haven't seen it, but it sounds great. And low-carb. Billy Dee Williams does voiceover for the "handsomest of all bell peppers." The production notes crack me up.

"We shot the Senate Plaza with a handful of real olives then digitally expanded the scene to a cast of thousands. True to the spirit of 1950s cinema, we racially profiled our extras. Green olives play soldiers, black olives play slaves, and the citizens are Greek olives."

Question 1: If animation with clay figures = claymation, and marionettes on steroids (a la Team America) = supermarionation, then what's this? Vegemation? Question 2: Do male lead broccoli stalks carry SAG cards, or "certified organic" stickers? Question 3: If a scene shot with edible characters needs finesse, do you rotoscope or rotisserie?

Link to Oedipus The Movie. (also spotted on Calacanis' blog earlier this year)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:40:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

CXT monster truck: fantasy bumper stickers

Responding to yesterday's post about the grotesquely supersized Hummeroid vehicle known as the International CXT, Bruce Bortin says: "'Exactly what statement would that be?' -- I submit the following response," in the form of a handily printable bumper sticker shown at left. Link to sticker.

Perhaps an alternate approach might be the last lines of Radiohead's Exit Music (For a Film). Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:21:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Colorado's Renewable Energy Amendment

BoingBoing reader Kenneth says,

This is the site of the pro-amendment 37 campaign in Colorado. The amendment would require utilities in CO to purchase a percentage of their electricity from renewable sources, getting to 10 percent by 2015. The utilities are, of course, very opposed to it. It may be that the only way for non-CO residents to legally contribute to the campaign is through the cafepress shop they have and buy a t-shirt. But, IANAL, so I really don't know that.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:42:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More Ramones related bits

The Black Block boutique at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris is selling a French artist's series of Photoshopped takes on various rock album covers. I snapped this shot of a c.2003 altered version of the Ramones' self-titled debut. As we know, it's sadly time for an update.

In other Ramones news, here's an NPR interview with filmmaker Michael Gramglia about End of the Century, the controversial Ramones documentary. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:39:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Che/Michael Moore mashup schwag MoveOn fundraiser

Kevin sez, "This is the t-shirt site with the Che Guevara/Michael Moore shirt. We're announcing a fundraiser for MoveOn.org where we donate funds from shirts and buttons to the MoveOn PAC from now until election day. For the first hundred shirts we donate a dollar, the second hundred two dollars, and after that, we'll donate five dollars for every shirt sold.

"We're excited about this - we're a company of roughly three people so this feels like a way that we can actually help. I don't know what kind of response we're going to get to it yet, but who can predict? We're preparing for anything!" Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:19:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PK Dick on reality, Disneyland, and authentic humans

Great (if over-long) Philip K Dick essay on the nature of reality and science fiction:

But I consider that the matter of defining what is real -- that is a serious topic, even a vital topic. And in there somewhere is the other topic, the definition of the authentic human. Because the bombardment of pseudo-realities begins to produce inauthentic humans very quickly, spurious humans -- as fake as the data pressing at them from all sides. My two topics are really one topic; they unite at this point. Fake realities will create fake humans. Or, fake humans will generate fake realities and then sell them to other humans, turning them, eventually, into forgeries of themselves. So we wind up with fake humans inventing fake realities and then peddling them to other fake humans. It is just a very large version of Disneyland. You can have the Pirate Ride or the Lincoln Simulacrum or Mr. Toad's Wild Ride -- you can have all of them, but none is true.

In my writing I got so interested in fakes that I finally came up with the concept of fake fakes. For example, in Disneyland there are fake birds worked by electric motors which emit caws and shrieks as you pass by them. Suppose some night all of us sneaked into the park with real birds and substituted them for the artificial ones. Imagine the horror the Disneyland officials would feel when they discovered the cruel hoax. Real birds! And perhaps someday even real hippos and lions. Consternation. The park being cunningly transmuted from the unreal to the real, by sinister forces. For instance, suppose the Matterhorn turned into a genuine snow-covered mountain? What if the entire place, by a miracle of God's power and wisdom, was changed, in a moment, in the blink of an eye, into something incorruptible? They would have to close down

Link (Thanks, Condour!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:17:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tribute to Fortune Red, Disneyland's fortune-telling pirate

Randall sez, "Showcasing the now-extinct shooter arcade that once graced the exit to Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean attraction, The Pirates Arcade page offers your chance to have Fortune Red, the fortne-telling pirate machine tell your fortune. Click on the "Fortune Red Has This To Say..." button, and one of the 20 possible fortunes will be delivered in a popup window. Most fortunes make reference to one Disneyland attraction or another, including the long-gone Mine Train Through Nature's Wonderland." Link (Thanks, Randall!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:15:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beating Bible-bashers with showtunes

A New Yorker on a subway car grew tired of the homophobic Bible-thumping preachers, and retaliated by singing show tunes until they shut up:

Me: "If you all don't lower your voices and cease calling me Satan, I will have to sing show tunes."

The other straphangers look at me with stony faces.
I begin to sing.
"Its very clear, our love is here to stay. Not for a year, but forever and a day…"

Preacher lady and the Jesus police start mumbling and beseeching G_d to strike me down and boil me in molten tar. (I look better in silver.)
The train reaches Wall Street. Confused subway riders check out the scene. I begin swaying and feeling the music.

The slamming Bible man looks like he is going to pop a blood vessel. "I cast ye out, Satan."

I go into jazz dance crouch and then spring up to belt out, "THAAAAAAT OLD BLACK MAGIC, HAS ME IN A SPELL…"

Bible man has to get off the train as I wriggle and shimmy. "That same old witchcraft when your eyes meet mine!"

Bible man exits. SHOW TUNES 1, FUNDAMENTALISTS 0.

Link (via Oblomovka)

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

Saturday, September 18, 2004

Anime mural in Montreal

Found in this morning's Flickr RSS photostream of pix of graffiti, a three-storey building in Montreal covered in a beautiful blue anime mural. Link
Update: Andre sez: "Today's Flick image image is not the only anime-inspired mural in Montreal. Check out this one."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:13:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

iPatch

The only accessory you need for Talk Like A Pirate Day, September 19. The site's creator, Grant Henninger, says:

"Let me present t' you t' iPatch! It really has no purpose, but it was a fun site t' build. Hope people get a good harty-har-har out o' it."

Arrrrrrrrrr!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:06:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Great DVD cartoons at 99-Cent Only stores

I'm stopping at my local 99-cent store today. As reported in Cartoon Brew:

Rivaling Fleischer studios with their abstract rubber-hose animation style and hot jazz musical scores, the RKO Van Beuren Tom & Jerry cartoons (1931-1933) have become classics for their sheer surrealism. Currently in distribution at 99 Cents Only Stores is one of the greatest bargains I've ever seen: a dvd of nine Van Beuren TOM & JERRY cartoons! That's 11 cents per cartoon! And if that's not enough for you, it comes with a free 10 minute phone card inside the package!!

(Semi-related aside: Many moons ago, I wrote about a trip to the 99-Cent Only store for the print edition of bOING bOING) Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:23:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Olde tyme 3D photos presented by blinking

Here's a fun way to look at a bunch of old stereoscope pictures without the stereoscope. The images are blinked. Move the mouse up to increase the blink rate. Link (Thanks, Mark!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:47:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Sky Captain" opens

Stephen Holden of the NY Times reviews Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, which opens this weekend nationwide.

If nothing else, "Sky Captain" is a landmark in computer-generated imagery. Its actors cavort through an entirely synthetic, computerized retro-styled future world that fuses Art Deco, Futurism, Fritz Lang's "Metropolis" and the spirit of the 1939 World's Fair into an all-purpose eve-of-World-War-II environment extrapolated into a science fiction limbo. Its cheerfully ominous scenario of a planet invaded by robots that systematically set about stripping the earth of its natural resources resonates in any number of ways without seeming strident or promoting a political agenda.

But the visual elegance of the movie, which opens today nationwide, comes at a price. If its ethereal evocation of a pulp fiction future-past eclipses almost any other sci-fi franchise in subtlety and imagination, its shadowy washed-out color is a far cry from the robust hues of a movie like "Raiders of the Lost Ark." The monochromatic variations on sepia keep the actors and their adventures at a refined aesthetic distance, and the bleached, tinted face of Mr. Law is simply not as real a screen presence as the ruddy, flesh-and-blood Harrison Ford. At times the film is hard to see. And as the action accelerates, the wonder of its visual concept starts giving way to sci-fi cliches.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:27:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Waiter, there's a microchip in my pork butt

Over a thousand pounds of pig flesh processed at a Sioux Center meatpacking facility was recalled over fears that a missing microchip could be embedded in the meat.

The Sioux-Preme Packing Co. recalled 110 pork shoulder butts -- about 1,100 pounds of meat -- that could contain the metal devices used to measure scientific data in hogs.

Pass the tofurkey, please. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:41:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Commercial Extreme Truck: Adventures in Waste

Speaking of energy and excess: The International CXT, short for Commercial Extreme Truck, can haul six tons of dirt and tow a 20-ton yacht at the same time. It's 9 feet high, 8 feet wide, 21 feet long, and weighs 15,000 pounds. Ergo, about 2 feet taller x 4 feet longer than the honkin' Hummer H2. Which, btw, it could tow along with that yacht, if need be. I'm using the word "need" loosely here.

"International built the CXT to make a bold statement," said Rob Swim of International Truck and Engine Corporation in a prepared statement announcing the CXT's launch. Exactly what statement would that be?

Link to CXT debut site, and Link to press release announcing launch.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:37:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saving Energy Without Derision

BoingBoing reader George W. Maschke says,

Saving Energy Without Derision (5 mb PDF) is a new (and free) e-book by former Sandia National Laboratories senior scientist Dr. Alan P. Zelicoff. This book is intended to be a real-world, no-nonsense, thoroughly documented collection of easy-to-implement recommendations to help the average thoughtful person to pick the "low-hanging fruit" of conservation and renewable energy. The author is after the easy 75% of actions we can all take (but almost uniformly ignore) that most certainly make a difference in energy costs (after all that's what most people care about) and adjuring a bit of unnecessary adverse impact on the environment (which a few folks actually think is important beyond the mere dollar valuation).

The author (who welcomes comments at zalan8587@qwest.net) intends to continuously update the book (consistent with readership interest) and address many new topics. For example, next on his list is an analysis of the economics and scientific basis of fuel-cell vehicles powered by hydrogen. (Bottom line, he maintains, is that it's a cruel hoax and energy disaster, and far less useful than, for example, heavy hybrid automobiles that get about 50 - 60 miles on an electric charge alone -- which accounts for more than 85% of driving in the US and elsewhere on a daily basis -- and which are available now.)

Link Looks like the link's overloaded with traffic for the time being, but a short preview is available for d/l here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:15:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sex and Science: Boyling Hot Love

Newsweek's Brian Braiker interviews T. Coraghessan Boyle (image: AP), author of The Inner Circle. The interview is a terrific read, and I really can't wait to read the book.

Like Boyle's "The Road to Wellville," "Circle" is a fictionalized account of a historic figure. Instead of John Harvey Kellogg, Boyle this time tackles Alfred C. Kinsey, the Indiana University professor who jump-started the sexual revolution with the 1948 publication of "Sexual Behavior in the Human Male." The novel is narrated by John Milk, a naive researcher at the center of Professor Kinsey's, or "Prok's," inner circle. Kinsey -- who would have abhorred the euphemism "adult film" -- proposes that poets have had 2,000 years to tell us about romance and love, and now science ought to tell us about the physiology of sex, without regard to emotional content. (Kinsey is also the subject of an upcoming biopic starring Liam Neeson.)

And boy, is the professor ever interested in sex. He charms his researchers into bed, encourages them all to swap wives and generally get it on as much as possible -- all in the name of science, of course. Because the intent behind the sex is clinical, the steady stream of graphic episodes in the novel becomes numbing, unsexy and, well, clinical. But things get sticky when Milk, a married man with a bit of a Stockholm syndrome infatuation for his mentor, fails to disentangle his emotions. Milk is in love with Kinsey. He's in love with Kinsey's wife. And he's in love with his own wife, Iris. In the end, the novel is a meditation on family, on marriage, love and sexuality.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:14:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free WiFi, VoIP at X-Prize launch on Sept. 29

So cool. BoingBoing reader Inder says,

I want to let boingboingers know that WanderPort will be providing a free wi-fi network at the launch of SpaceShipOne for the Ansari X-Prize in the Mojave Desert September 29th through to the second launch. If any bloggers are attending the launch and want to have a mac address pass-through to make sure they can file, just send us an email info@wanderport.com and we'll make sure they can get their blogs posted. We'll also be providing a few WISIP phones for free North America phone calls.

Link to Ansari X-Prize home.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:07:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Update on Harvard Primate Neuroscience Lab chimp-Dubya morph

Following up on yesterday's post about an apparent bit of political humor on the Harvard Primate Neuroscience Lab's website, one BoingBoing reader wrote in to tell us that a relative worked at the lab -- and confirmed that indeed, the chimp-to-Dubya morph was no accident. Also, BoingBoing reader Chris Holland says:

That "image" at the top-right corner actually is a scaled-down display of a bigger quicktime movie ... for a more dramatic effect. Now if I could only dig out that morphing I did when I was a kid of Claudia Schiffer and Cindy Crawford.

Link to chimp-Bush-mov. Whoahhhh. If anyone has the url for a chimp-to-Dubya-to-Claudia-to-Cindy morph mov, dude -- send it to us before Fleshbot gets their greedy (and well-lubed) little hands on it.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:02:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Deaf children in Nicaragua create new language

BoingBoing reader Prodigal Tom says, "This is a fascinating article about deaf and totally neglected children in Nicaragua inventing their own sign language. I was also psyched because I learned there is an actual job called a psycholinguist! There's also a great point about how the language has evolved, so the younger members have a slightly different version than the originators." Link to Reuters synopsis, and Link to Science Magazine article, which appears to be available only to paid subscribers. (Thanks also to Mike Oliveri and others who pointed us to this item)

Update: BoingBoing reader jd says, "This story is a fascinating one - but it originally hit the mainstream media world back in 1999 in the New York Times. Here's the story (featuring Noam Chomsky, as well!) -- A Linguistic Big Bang (Link)."

Update 2: Reader Paul Camp of the Spelman College Department of Physics in Georgia says,

Yet another update: this story is way older than either of your current sources. I remember reading about it in The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language by MIT psycholinguist Stephen Pinker (which you and everyone else should read), published in 1994.

In fact, Pinker makes a case that this mechanism is how pidgins become creoles generally. Pidgins are work languages without significant grammatical structure, created by adults who speak different native languages. But children have a critical developmental period when they are learning language and imposing what appear to be innate grammatical structures on the language-like things in their environment (Chomsky's Universal Grammar). Pinker describes several examples of the process, including the Nicaraguan children as well as American Sign Language, and several verbal creoles.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:55:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Barnaby Whitfield's new Web site

My friend Barnaby Whitfield is a pastel artist in New York City. He's listed in the prestigious White Columns Curated Artist Registry and is represented by the 31GRAND gallery in Brooklyn. Barnaby's work is incredibly beautiful and deeply twisted. I'm proud to know him. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:15:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rembrandt's vision problem

Harvard scientists report that Rembrandt may have suffered from stereoblindness. The neurobiologists believe that many of Rembrandt's self-portraits show his eyes focused assymetrically. From the New England Journal of Medicine:

Stereopsis is an important cue for depth perception, yet it can be a hindrance to an artist trying to depict a three-dimensional scene on a flat surface. Art teachers often instruct students to close one eye in order to flatten what they see. Therefore, stereoblindness might not be a handicap — and might even be an asset — for some artists.

Link (to Boston Globe article)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:03:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wang Du's Mixed Media

Last night, we visited the Palais de Tokyo to see the work of Wang Du, a Chinese artist living in Paris. Du creates massive sculptures and installations that manipulate and deconstruct mass media and pop culture imagery. In "Oarribeancom," surreal graphics from a Japanese erotic Web site are recreated in a collection of much larger-than-life resin models like the one pictured here. (Click on the photo for a larger version.) Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:24:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, September 17, 2004

Worst interface ever: car self-destruct switch

Spencer sez: Tognazzini has a great column up from July about what he calls "The Worst Interface Ever":

For $1500, you can equip your luxury car with a genuine self-destruct switch. Once it’s in place, you must remember to flip it whenever you shift from driving your car to not driving your car. Forget once or do it wrong, and your engine and transmission will self-destruct. “

Ah, a fictitious switch,” you say, but no, it is all too real and all too destructive.

The switch is hidden under the hood, where you cannot visually inspect it. To increase the sport, it's not only left unlabeled as to function, its two positions are unlabeled, too— -- make a mistake and, boom!, no more engine.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:39:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Zero G: Xeni's Wired News and NPR reports

In today's Wired News, a report I filed on my experience in zero gravity earlier this week. Also, on today's edition of the NPR show "Day to Day," I speak with host Noah Adams and share sounds from the weightless joyride. In space, no one can hear you squeal.

Image: floating with other passengers, including Dr. Buzz Aldrin and Zero Gravity Corporation founder Dr. Peter Diamandis, on board G-Force One. Shot by Jim Campbell.

Link to Wired News story.

Link to NPR Day to Day: "Zero Gravity Flight" audio and images.

More images: Alan M. Ladwig, former NASA Assoc. Admininstrator, now COO of Zero-G Corp, coaches me and others into weightless backflips -- Link (image: Jim Campbell). Passengers assume seated pose during the heavy-g "pullup" period prior to a weightless parabola -- Link. (XJ) NASA astronaut and space celebrity Dr. Buzz Aldrin is superman -- Link. (JC) Dr. Aldrin hovers -- Link. (JC) Flight attendant and CalTech researcher Loretta Hidalgo gives pre-flight emergency safety instructions -- Link. (XJ) "G-Force One" in hangar before liftoff -- Link. (XJ) Interviewing passengers for NPR while floating -- Link. (JC) Landing after a parabola, guided by Mr. Ladwig. -- Link. (JC) ABC News reporter Judy Muller levitates, while Dr. Aldrin flies -- Link. (JC) Xeni flies -- Link. (JC) Floating with Dr. Aldrin -- Link. (JC) Dr. Peter Diamandis, Zero G Corporation founder, greets passengers exiting "G-Force One" -- Link. (JC)

Link to previous BoingBoing posts -- "Xeni flies zero-g." For the record, I did not blow donuts.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:10:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Art Car Fest in SF Bay Area this weekend

BoingBoing pal and former guestbar resident Todd Lappin says, "FYI, comrades... the 2004 Art Car Fest will be in the Bay Area this weekend. On display outside the San Jose Museum of Art on Saturday, then parading on the streets of Berkeley on Sunday." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:02:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Yarrrr! 'Tis Pirate Zen 2004!!!

talk like a pirate day
pirate info
pirate bath 1
pirates and pivateers
capn crimson
which pirate are you?
spooneye! the card game
pirate bath 2
pirates of the bahamas
pirate flags
pirates of penzance
pirate supplies
yar! pirate zen 2003
and for a limited time...
david byrne's pirates
(this will disappear on 09.20.04)
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:00:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wired + Creative Commons benefit show with Byrne + Gil on Sep 21

The Wired Magazine / Creative Commons benefit concert with David Byrne and Gilberto Gil happens next Tuesday at Town Hall in NYC. It appears that tickets are still available, and it looks like it's going to be an awesome event. For those (like me) who can't make it to NYC then, a live webcat will be offered on September 21st, 8pm EST. Link to webcast info, Link to event info, and link to ticket site.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:56:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Radio bicycles in Colombia stream indigenous news

BoingBoing reader micah says,

On Monday, September 13th the Nasa indigenous people of Colombia launched a big three-day march. Included in the march is a low-power FM radio station, broadcast from a radiocicleta (an adapted bicycle equipped with a radio transmitter and antenna that will accompany the march). The signal will be picked up along the route by different indigenous community radio stations and then streamed on the internet. It is likely no coincidence that on Friday Septemer 4, the indigenous community station Radio Nasa was shut down by the government of Colombian president Alvaro Uribe. The indigenous groups, composing tens of thousands of people are marching to protest against the war, neoliberalism, the FTAA, and constitutional counterreforms planned by the government. The Colombian Indymedia has ongoing coverage of the event.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:48:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mark Cuban, DVD killer

Dallas Mavs and HDNet owner Mark Cuban has an interesting blog entry today on the future of DVDs and PVRs:

I love looking for ways to screw up conventional wisdom. Right now in the entertainment world, the conventional wisdom is that both sides on the HD DVD vs Blue Ray DVD will battle it out and a standard for HD on DVD will emerge. No one is trying to rush to a compromise because the big media companies want to squeeze as much money as they possibly can out the current DVD business cycle.

Good. The longer it takes, the less chance any format of DVD has of having a place in the future of home entertainment. Don’t look now, but the price and size of hard drives have fallen like a rock, while capacities have soared, with no slowdown in site.

Which leads to the question — What is the best way to distribute content? DVDs which will be limited in capacity to 9.4gbs on a single DVD for another year, and then after that 50gbs on a single disk for years to come after that, or rewritable media that can hold 2gb already in a device half the size of a pen, or in a hard drive that can hold 200GBs plus in a drive the size of your cell phone?

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:45:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Harvard Primate Neuroscience Lab has sense of humor

BoingBoing reader Theron says, "Somebody's at Harvard's having a little fun at George W.'s expense. Check out the Bush to monkey morph in the top right. No idea if this is a subtle hack, or really the Harvard PCNL having some fun." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:40:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cool Tokyo ferris wheels

This stunning photo of ferris wheels at Odaiba, Tokyo came into my RSS reader today via my Flickr Tokyo photo watchlist. Gibsonoid and pretty-shiny! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:39:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Spam subjects printed on custom tees

SpamShirt is a service that will print and mail you a custom t-shirt with a subject line from a spam message on it -- this is the one I just ordered. You can also add your own favorite spam subjects if you care to. This is so awesomely perverse. Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:35:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Remembering π

In March, a savant in England recited π from memory to more than 22,000 decimal places. Still, he wasn't even halfway to the world record set by a Japanese man in 1995. This article in Plus magazine describes how these amazing memory feats are accomplished and how to improve your own remembrance of numbers past.

"Like most people, you have probably had the odd experience of smelling, say, an old piece of furniture and being reminded of something that happened to you in the distant past. Smell has a particularly strong connection with memory, perhaps because the part of the brain that deals with smell is close to the hippocampus, which is where it is believed long term memories are formed. If you deliberately surround yourself with a particular smell when trying to memorise something, that smell is likely to help trigger the memory later when you need to recall it."

Link (via Reality Carnival)

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:59:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TSA OKs airport crotch-mauling

The TSA has decided that it will catch more terrorists by giving airport screeners the authority to maul your crotch.

Currently, they concentrate mostly on arms and legs. Now, they'll be able to pat other areas if they look suspicious. TSA spokeswoman Yolanda Clark would not elaborate, citing security.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:54:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Robo-roach

How do animals walk without falling over? A multi-university research effort led by UC Berkeley will try to answer that question by studying a small robot that imitates cockroach locomotion. Berkeley biologist Robert Full's insights into animal movement have informed the design of other robots as well, including the wall-climbing Mecho-Gecko. By simultaneously studying the cockroach-bot and various insects, the researchers hope to identify the muscular and neural networks that result in the whole-body motion of a wide range of animals, including humans.

"The robot has to operate in the real world, like the animal does, so we can use it for testing hypotheses," Full said. "We know, for example, that the body's center of mass bounces along like a pogo stick, which is embodied in the robot, but we don't know how its parts - its legs, feet, actuators or muscles - sum up to give that remarkably general pattern of movement. Now we can ask questions like, 'What if you had a more compliant leg? What if you had two joints in that leg, what does that give you versus one joint?'"

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:42:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

REAL reason Sony pulled Kung Fu Hustle from Toronto Festival

A friend working at the Toronto Film Festival has this scoop: "At the Toronto International Film Festival each film gets two screenings. The highly anticipated action film Kung Fu Hustle by Stephen Chow from China screened last night Sept 15th, and was supposed to get its re-screening today. However, the distributers: Sony/Columbia Pictures Film Production Asia/Beijing Film Studio of China Film Group Coorporation/Huayi Brothers & Taihe Film Investment Co. Ltd./The Star Overseas Ltd., did not feel that security was adequate and did not like the number of digital cameras etc in the audience. Audience members are allowed to bring cameras/recorders into the screenings to record the talk backs with the stars and directors that go on before and after the film. Feeling this was too risky Sony pulled the film's second screening, this is unheard of at the festival. The official reason from The Festival Staff is that the print was damaged in the first screening, could not be repaired and was un-showable . All tickets for the cancelled screening had to be refunded. The public does not know about the cover up. This kind of corporate paranoia is very bad, if distributors get all freaked out about possible bootlegs what will happen to the festival?" Link (Thanks, Anonymous Tipster!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:24:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

D&D rarities sold off by terminally ill TSR illustrator

A reader writes, "Many in the industry have been saddened to learn that David C. Sutherland III, one of the first well-known TSR artists, has a terminal illness. An auction of Sutherland's gaming collection is currently being held on Ebay to help pay for his medical bills and supplement his estate for his remaining family. From the original Monster Manual and Dungeon Master's Guide to the incredible castle map in the original Ravenloft module, and a fair amount of game development besides, many gamers are sure to be familiar and fond of Sutherland's works. Have a look at the auction and see some of the gaming treasures you have a chance to bid on, and help the Sutherland family out at the same time." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:14:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Haunted Mansion castmember's remembrance

Here's the first-person account of a summer student intern at Walt Disney World who got the killer assignment of working at the Haunted Mansion (what a dream gig!):

I hated being told I wasn’t scary. I hated being made fun of for my deep Southern accent. I hated the fact that I was a southern happy blonde with pigtails stuck in a dark damp Mansion. Then I gave it a chance. I realized I was lucky to have such a highly coveted position. I slowly let myself fall into the role and was thrilled the first time I actually scared a guest. I learned that many of my fellow cast members weren’t as rude and sarcastic as they seemed, they just really took pride in their job. And I found my spot in the Mansion crew. I was the one that lost children were taken to because I was probably the least scary. I was the one that parents turned to for an encouraging word to convince their children to try the ride. The first time a six year old boy came running out of the Mansion with a huge smile to give me a hug before getting back on the ride, I finally felt like I had a place at the Mansion.

Link (via The Disney Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:11:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, September 16, 2004

Guitar solo tab for "I Wanna Be Sedated"

Here is Johnny's guitar solo on the Ramones' "I Wanna Be Sedated":

E-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-|0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0|-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0
B—————————————————|—————————————————|—————————————————|——————————————
G—————————————————|—————————————————|—————————————————|——————————————
D—————————————————|—————————————————|—————————————————|——————————————
A—————————————————|—————————————————|—————————————————|——————————————
E—————————————————|—————————————————|—————————————————|——————————————

(Via Crooked Timber)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:23:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunburst Award ceremony in Toronto, Sept 23

My short story collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More, won the Sunburst Award for the best Canadian sf book of the year. There's a ceremony commemorating the event on the 23d of September in Toronto, at the Merril Collection. I (really!) wish I could be there, but I'm committed to speaking at a UN meeting on Free/Open Source Software in Geneva on that day, so Karl Schroeder, the brilliant author of Permanence and Ventus, will accept on my behalf.

SUNBURST AWARD CEREMONY
September 23, 2004  7-9pm
Merrill Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation and Fantasy, Lilian H. Smith Branch of the Toronto Public Library
239 College Street, 3rd Floor, Toronto
for more info: (416) 393-7748
The event is open to the public and free of charge. Refreshments will be served.

Link (Thanks Peter!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:19:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excellent article about Fantagraphics

Comic book and book publisher Fantagraphics is an international treasure. I love their books and comics, and I love their production values. On those days that I feel that life is not worth living, I remember that Fantagraphics exists and I cheer up tremendously.

...Fantagraphics is more like Sub Pop—a well-known, highly regarded, but still relatively small publisher, most of whose best sellers wouldn't sell enough to stay on a major label for more than an album or two. For Fantagraphics, being put in charge of The Complete Peanuts is akin to Sub Pop being handed the Beatles' master tapes for reissue. And Fantagraphics has done the strip right, with gorgeous design (the art director is Palookaville artist Seth, aka Gregory Gallant, whose style was deeply influenced by Schulz) and ambitious outlay (Fantagraphics is planning two a year for the next 12 and a half years, 25 volumes covering 50 years of weekly strips, including Sundays).

Link (Thanks, Kirsten!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:10:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rosh Hashanah humour

It's been years since I lived in Toronto (near my grandparents), and consequently, it's been years since I've celebrated Rosh Hashanah -- the Jewish New Year that rang in last night. Maybe that's why it took me a minute to get the punchline of this screamingly funny Rosh Hashanah cartoon -- and why I laughed so hard once I did. Link (via AccordionGuy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:08:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Use Amazon to reserve a book at your local library

43 Folders writes about a great little bookmarklet maker that lets you request the book you're looking at on Amazon.com from your local library.

I’ve combed through my Amazon wishlist over the past month and have been able to find almost 20 books I was going to buy—all of which have since been shuttled from SF’s many branch libraries to the cozy little outpost just beyond my front yard.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:09:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Johnny Ramone (RIP)

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:08:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mars telecom goes optical

NASA scientists are developing a laser link from Mars to Earth that's ten times faster than current radio frequency systems. According to an article in New Scientist, the laser will transmit up to 30 million bits per second at a lower power and mass compared to traditional wireless approaches.

"That leap in capacity is due to the different wavelengths of light carrying the data. The laser will use infrared light with a wavelength of 1.06 microns, which is thousands of times shorter than radio waves. Since all light travels at the same speed through space, shorter wavelengths carry more information in the same time."

Of course, clouds present a problem for optical communications. The beam will also be a few hundred kilometers wide and very faint by the time it reaches Earth, making the signal tricky to pick up. Still, a fully-functional system is expected to make a trip to the Red Planet in 2009 on board the Mars Telecommunications Orbiter. Maybe Xeni can ride along too. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:42:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Maggot Band-Aid

First used centuries ago to treat battlefield wounds, maggots are proving to be a useful treatment to prevent post-operative infections. Maggot debridement therapy (MDT) calls for maggot dressing to be applied to wounds twice a week for up to 72 hours each time. From the press release about a recent study on MDT in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases:

"Debridement, or the removal of contaminated tissue to expose healthy tissue, can be done surgically. However, maggots that have been disinfected during the egg stage so that they don’t carry bacteria into the wound have their advantages. The larvae preferentially consume dead tissue (steering clear of live), they excrete an antibacterial agent, and they stimulate wound healing--all factors that could be linked to the lower occurrence of infection in maggot-treated wounds."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:31:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Smog-sniffing Sensors

My latest article for TheFeature is about the Urban Pollution Project, a big research effort in the UK that uses bike-mounted carbon monoxide sensors and bluejacking to rate the air we breathe.

"Mobile sensors that are geographically tracked could... give a broad and dense picture of how pollution affects urban spaces and the people within them," says Urban Pollution investigator Anthony Steed, a computer science researcher at the University College London. "If you have several hundred or thousand sensors, you could give them to commuters and they'd make a map of the city's pollution."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:22:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dream Machine

Scientists may have identified a region of the brain instrumental in the creation of dreams. Neurologists at the University Hospital of Zurich studied a 73-year-old woman who suffered a stroke in her occipital lobe, known to be the brain's vision processing center. The patient predictably lost her sight for a few days, but she also lost the ability to dream. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:14:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Quake 4 screenshots

ID Software allowed a gaming magazine to publish some screenshots from Quake 4 -- here's the scans. Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:09:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Earthlink posts P2P app, manifesto

Earthlink has released a new file-sharing tool based on SIP, the protocol underlying Voice Over IP and other systems for peer-to-peer connectivity. What's coolest about this is the manifesto they posted along with it:

EarthLink believes an open Internet is a good Internet. An open Internet means users have full end-to-end connectivity to say to each other whatever it is they say, be that voice, video, or other data exchanges, without the help of mediating servers in the middle whenever possible. We believe that if peer-to-peer flourishes, the Internet flourishes. SIPshare helps spread the word that SIP is more than a powerful voice over IP enabler --- much more. SIP is a protocol that enables peer-to-peer in a standards-based way.

Link (Thanks, Clay!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:03:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

AdBusters sues for right to air anti-ads

AdBusters is suing Canadian broadcasters for refusing to air their anti-ad ads.

Activists concerned with almost every social issue -- from the environment, worker rights, electoral politics . . . you name it – have had their messages rejected by media corporations. If you walked into your local television station today and tried to buy 30-seconds of airtime, you would likely get the same response we continually get. Boiled down, the refrain goes something like this: We will not accept your money. We will not accept your messages. We're in the business to sell ads, not spread your ideas.

Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:03:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Duetsche Welle adds Klingon to supported languages

Dave sez, "Deutsche Welle, a government-funded radio and television network that broadcasts mainly for German expatriates and Germany enthusiasts, added Klingon to the 30+ languages on its site, in celebration of the site's 10th anniversary (in Earth years). 'The dialogue of cultures does not end at the edge of our solar system,' Deutsche Welle director Erik Bettermann said in a statement." Link (Thanks, Dave!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:02:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, September 15, 2004

Xeni Flies Zero G #10: goodbye, gravity

Remember dreaming you could fly? It's exactly like that.

Before you move into weightlessness, between parabolas, g-force is about double what it is on earth. Suddenly you're 300 pounds, and it pushes your hair to your skull to your spine to your tail to the floor and the meat on your body is suddenly stone. They tell you not to look back, to keep your head still and aligned when the pressure starts. Anything to avoid vertigo, because where there's vertigo there's vomiting.

Waiting, your face becomes newly dense. You're a chipmunk carrying cheeks full of bullets. Your blood strains. Your veins are streams carrying too much silt.

And then, when the weight is worst, the invisible hands cramming your spine into the plane's padded floor lose interest and lift away. What was concrete becomes cotton. The hands reach beneath you, and lift you up into nothing, and you float. And all there is to do when this happens for the very first time is to laugh. Because it's impossible. Because it's unnatural.

But the joke in your bones is that it feels perfectly natural, like all your life you were intended to float. After all, just before you came into the world, that's what you were doing in liquid. And when your life ends and you leave, there you are again, becoming vapor. Breaking down from matter to dust to air. Floating.

Last week, a friend said, "You'll tell children and grandchildren when you're old, over and over again. Your family will be totally sick of you explaining how awesome this felt the first time." He was only half right. The grandchildren won't need my explanation. They'll know it better than I do now. These zero-g joyrides will seem as crude and dated to them as Model T Fords or ink-ribbon typewriters are for us. They'll be floating plenty.

As I sit here, I can still feel it in my body. It comes in waves. I want to hit "post," shut the application, close the laptop lid. Then bend my knees a little and shove off, push up into the air above my desk. Do the superman. Do a backflip. Bust a "crouching tiger hidden dragon" move, karate-chop martian foes mid-air. And float away into bed. It's natural now, and will remain that way forever. I miss it already.

Images: (1) A weightless photo from today (Link to full-size). (2) Floating with Dr. Buzz Aldrin in a zero gravity moment during today's preview flight. While we crouched on the floor waiting for that parabola to hit, Dr. Aldrin, one of the first two humans to touch the moon, told me that today was the first time he'd experienced weightlessness since having felt "the real thing in space" -- not counting scuba diving, which he does often because he gets homesick for floating. (Link to full-size image). Both images courtesy of Jim Campbell, Aero News Network.

Previous BB posts: 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

Also: here's the Zero Gravity Corporation's patent listing for "A system and method is provided for rapidly reconfiguring a jet aircraft from a cargo or passenger configuration into a parabolic flight configuration." Link (Thanks, Jason)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:41:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Panic inducing airline emergency information card

Paul sez: "Handy advice (from one of those airline folders in the back of the seat) on what to do if your Tajik Air flight is hijacked. Apparently, it has a great deal to do with fondling space aliens, mutant airplane doors that eat people, but definitely not drinking. I'm guessing from the pictures. Last few lines of each section are in English. Sort of. Do not express you angry, do not wipe in voice, our cough. Close your eyes and do not stir them. "Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:10:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Make newsletter

Here's the first issue of the Make email newsletter. I'm the magazine's editor-in-chief. To sign up for the email newsletter go here.

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MAKE NEWSLETTER 01

September 14, 2004

http://make.oreilly.com

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Thanks for signing up for the Make newsletter! Since announcing the magazine at the O'Reilly ETech Conference in Portland in July, we've been busy creating the first issue, which will be published in January. We've also received many suggestions about how we can make Make a great magazine.

There's still time for you to give us your input. We want Make to be a reader-created magazine, and if you're interested, here are some ways you can join us in the creation of the world's greatest technology-project magazine:

1. THE MAKE WORKSHOP. Imagine somebody took all your tools away and handed you a $100 gift certificate that you could spend on hardware at Home Depot and Fry's. What are the essential things you'd buy? Now, up the price to $300 -- what would you outfit your workshop with? How about $750?

2. WHAT ARE YOU USING THESE DAYS? In each issue of Make, we'll run reviews of stuff. We're not interested in assigning things to be reviewed. We're interested in hearing about the things you already use and love. Tell us about your favorite new (or old!) tool, magazine, book, instructional video, gadget, web site, etc. in a 300-word email. If we decide to run it, we'll pay you.

3. PROJECTS. Do you have an idea for a technology-related project? It doesn't matter if it's large or small. Tell us about it. If we like it, we'll ask you to write it.

4. WHAT IS THE NAME OF THIS NEWSLETTER? Finally, we need a name for this newsletter! Please send us your suggestion by Tuesday, Sept. 21. The winner will get a book of his or her choice from the O'Reilly Hacks Series (http://hacks.oreilly.com).

Thanks, and we'll see you in January!

Mark Frauenfelder

Make Editor-in-Chief

markf@oreilly.com

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:01:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Collector's Mint profits from 9/11 tragedy

Becky sez: "Plumbing the depths, in terms of profiting from 9/11's victims: these people are selling coins made with silver they say they got from Ground Zero. I guess they couldn't get their hands on any human remains to use."

The silver used in each gleaming dollar coin is from Ground Zero! You see, when the Twin Towers fell on September 11, 2001, a bank vault full of .999 Pure Silver bars was buried under hundreds of tons of debris. After months of salvage work, many of the bars were found. Now, the same silver that was reclaimed from the destruction has been used to create the magnificent 2004 “Freedom Tower” Silver Dollar.

On its website, National Collector's Mint asks: "How many would you like to order today?" Here's the company's email address so you can answer that question. Link

UPDATE: Here's a link to a Daily Show segment about this coin. (Thanks, Dan!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:42:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mobile phones to get magnetic sensors

Here's an article I wrote for TheFeature about plans to put magnetic sensors in mobile phones as navigation aids.

The most exciting mobile application for magnetic sensors is the capability to map an online "Yellow Pages" on top of the real world, allowing users to point their phones in the direction of a building or other public area and get information about it. For example, say you're driving down the street and see a bookstore you'd like to visit later. You could simply point your phone at the store and press a button on your phone, sending the GPS coordinates and direction information to a service that returns the operating hours and additional information about the store, along with a coupon for 10% off your purchase. If you point it at a restaurant, you could get the Zagat rating, the menu and the opportunity to make a reservation.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:18:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kite Aerial Photos from foo camp

Charles Benton took some kite aerial photos of foo camp this year. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:08:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Concealable weapons photo gallery

Amazing FBI photo gallery (89 pages in PDF format) of concealable weapons. The item to the left is a knife and handcuff key disguised as a regular door key. Link (Via the must-read Crypto-Gram)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:51:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Outfoxed interviews .torrent for remixing

The interviews from the awesome anti-Fox documentary Outfoxed have been released under a Creative Commons license, for you to remix. Here's the .torrent: Torrent Link (via Lessig)

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

ArtBots this weekend in NYC

It's time again for the annual ArtBots Robot Talent Show in New York City, September 17, 18, and 19. Orchestrated by Dorkbot founder Douglas Repetto, Mark Tribe of Rhizome.org, and Hunter College film/media professor Mary Flanagan , the free ArtBots show will feature 20 artists and groups from seven countries (including Leonel Moura's ink pen-wielding ArtSBot, left).

"The show celebrates the strange and wonderful collision of shifty artists, disgraced engineers, high/low/no tech hackers, rogue scientists, beauty school dropouts, backyard pyros, and industrial espionage that has come to define the emerging field of robotic art. Participants include robots that sketch, carve, float, wiggle, hum, ring, grow, wander, and sing, as well a number of works the form and function of which are not yet well understood"

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:59:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bubblegum Alley

For forty years, people passing through this narrow alley in San Luis Obispo, California have stuck their chewing gum on the walls. A pleasant stroll through Bubblegum Alley followed by a night at the Madonna Inn sounds like a perfect SLO vacation to me. Link (via RealityCarnival)

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:43:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UK music-downloaders are getting scr0d

The UK Consumers' Association is petitioning government to do something about the fact that Apple gouges UK customers, charging them far more than their US counterparts.

The CA has written to the UK Office of Fair Trading (OFT) explaining the situation and highlighting that the current position is possibly in breach of European law. Under Euro law all consumers in all member states should enjoy the same benefits that the single market brings - it's like if citizens in Seattle had to pay more for their iTunes music than the rest of America. Clearly with a differential between iTunes UK (79p, 1.15 Eu) and Germany & France (0.99 Eu, 67.7p UK) there is not a level playing field. Those UK citizens who understand that they can use either the French or German sites to order directly on find they are charged the UK price if they are not able to supply as an address in either of these countries.

Although the CA campaign is focused on iTunes, perhaps because of the mainstream press attention it has attracted, Apple are not the only service overcharging UK consumers. The differential on Napster UK is even greater when comparing UK pricing at 99p (1.44 Eu) against 99c Eu (67.7p UK). This becomes even more distorted when US prices are used as a comparison 99c US = (55.4p). Clearly albums bought on the services multiply the differential by a factor of 10 as the albums cost ten times a much as single tracks.

Link (Thanks, Simon!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:30:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, September 14, 2004

Gamers in the wrong time-tribe

Alice is starting to really get somewhere in Star Wars Galaxies, but she's on the horns of a dilemma. She was a Brit early adopter who joined the original US server, and amassed a some moderate game-wealth -- but found the game to be high-latency and sparsely populated because so many of the American players were asleep when she was online. Now SWG is offering to relocate her to the European server -- which will be faster and better-populated -- but she has to leave her game-wealth behind.

[T]he SOE team are now offering account transfers - as a premium purchase. 30 bucks to move your character to a different server, but all assets (my bike!!) would remain behind. So I could move to a European server and have better luck at finding people awake, or I could stay in the US and play with the hardcore.

Link

Update: From the above-referenced post's message-board, "Hi, saw the post on boingboing and showed it to my Husband who plays onthe Infinity server. He says the SOE trade forums regularly have people who are willing to swap credits between servers, if that's any help!" How cool.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:25:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni Flies Zero G #9: You are now free to float about the cabin.

In about 12 hours, I'll be heading into freefall. Before I go, some sage advice for first-time weightless flyers from BoingBoing pal David Rich, a researcher at the UC Berkeley Microgravity Combustion Labs. WTF are Microgravity Combusion Labs? Glad you asked. David says,

"The focus of our work is flammability behavior of materials that could be used for the construction of space craft or facilities on the moon or Mars. We generally look at composite materials like carbon fiber or fiberglass since these have seen increased usage in spacecraft design owing to their high strength and light weight. Unfortunately these materials burn more readily than metals. They also have different burning behavior in zero gravity than on the ground. For these reasons, an understanding of their behavior under conditions found in space craft is important. [Research missions aboard the NASA KC-135 "vomit comet'] allow us to simulate those conditions for short periods and gain some understanding of material flammability behavior. I've been on two previous campaigns and I'm scheduled for an aditional set of flights in October. We are scheduled to send this project up on the ISS in 2007."

And for those about to float, David says:

"Sit with your back against one wall of the aircraft with your head completely motionless for the first few parabolas. Each time you enter the low gravity period you will float up the side of the aircraft so have something to grab and stabilize yourself. Many people find the 2g pullup period to be the nausiating part so continue staring at the opposite side of the aircraft well into the pullup period.

After a few of those you can start moving around but no sudden head movements especially during the pullup. Try not to get your head into an orientation of looking at your feet or above your head, and no rapid head movements.

NASA provides participants with Scopolomine (an anti-nausea medication) and Pseudoephedrine (a stimulant to combat drowsiness resulting from the Scopolomine). I took more than the flight MD's recomended on the first day to play it safe. I strongly suggest you take these medications.

Some frequent fliers eat ginger snaps on the morning of the flight. I ate a light breakfast of yogurt and granola with green tea and that seemed to keep my stomach calm.

If you get sick, don't get discouraged, just sit against the wall for a few more parabolas until you feel better. If you really have a problem, they will get you back to a seat and things should improve. Above all, don't get too stressed about the prospect of getting sick, being relaxed is very helpful."

While the combo of Scopalamine and Dexedrine are a popular measure against "protein loss" (we're talking spacespeak for heave, hurl, keck, lose it, puke, regurgitate, retch, ruminate, spew, spit up, throw up, upchuck), I'm not taking any scopedex speedballs tomorrow morning. In part, because Zero-G Corp.'s "adventure travel" flights seem to focus more on creature comfort -- they're designed for maximum fun, in contrast with the NASA flights, which function more as research missions. It's my understanding that the parabolas will be shorter in duration, and fewer in number (15-20, instead of 30-40) than on the KC-135 flights. These and other factors may reduce the likelihood of lost lunch. Then again, maybe not.

But instead of amphetamines and belladona derivatives (not that there's anything wrong with 'em) I'll be packing ginger chewing gum at the recommendation of NPR "Day to Day" host Noah Adams, and a fist full of Jolly Ranchers I received from the elderly Italian lady who lives next door. She said they always calm her stomach mid-flight. I think she's been holding out on me. All along, I had her pegged as a mild-mannered, arugula-growing, opera-loving, pistachio-cake-baking WWII refugee from Palermo. Secretly, lo these many years, she's been logging those frequent zero-G flyer miles behind my back. That's the thing about experienced space-travelers (Swift Float Veterans for Truth?) -- you just never know. Until they hit you with the secret handshake.

Finally, a moment of sigfile zen. Snipped from the contrails of David Rich's emails:

Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end.
HENRY DAVID THOREAU
Walden, 1854.

Image: 1957 ad for "Rid-Jid" ironing tables -- Link to more background on the ad.

Previous "Xeni Flies Zero-G" posts: 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:40:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Scannerz" toy mixes monsters and bar codes?

Mark Hurst says,

"If i'm not mistaken, this handheld electronic toy -- Scannerz Commander -- uses everyday bar codes as inputs to create a tribe of monsters for the user to play with/against. If that's right, very inventive toy..."

Link Update: BoingBoing reader Rob Greene says, "It seems very reminiscent of a toy I had about 10 years ago called Barcode Battler. Maybe they've improved on it, as I seem to remember I had an awfully hard time getting anything to scan properly. You can read about it here: Link."

Reader Geoffrey Litwack points to this alternate url for Barcode Battlers (Link), Thomas Williams finds another (Link), and John Harris points to yet another (Link), and adds -- "The Monster Rancher games for Playstation (if memory serves, I may have gotten the title wrong) use a similar technique by reading audio CDs and using those as raw data for similar game purposes." Dave says, "Skannerz were here in the US 5 or 6 years ago: I bought one at the local supermart/department store. You can still find the toys on eBay (link)."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:38:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni Flies Zero G #8: Dude, where's my zenith?

Before I first blogged that I'd be heading up on tomorrow's west coast launch of the Zero-G adventure flights, I had no idea so many friends, acquaintances, and BoingBoing readers were already weightless oldtimers -- they'd had similar experiences on board NASA's "vomit comet," which is not offered as a commercial service to the public. Discovering this has been kind of cool. It's like learning that all of these people walking around in your life have some secret extraterrestrial superpower they'd never shared with you before. I feel like I'm about to be initiated into their clandestine little fez-wearing society or something. One of those veterans of freefall was Wired Magazine editor Adam Rogers, who says,

"I flew the Vomit Comet at Johnson Space Center a few years ago. I vomited. But it was supercool. Unsolicited advice: remember the Ender lesson. In a weightless environment, down is whichever way your feet are pointed at the time. Don't orient off the floor of the plane. That way lies upchuck."

And reader Kenny says,

"Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) wrote a good account of taking a ride on a vomit comet with Billy Gibbons (from ZZ Top)." Link to Learning to Fly, Strip, and Vomit on a 727

Previous "Xeni Flies Zero-G" posts: 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:38:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hurrican Ivan phonecam snap from New Orleans

BoingBoing pal Jonno, who lives and works in New Orleans, phonecams us this mobile snapshot of a lunch spot in the hurricane path. The blue plate special today? Po'boys and bravado.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:24:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Opening a pricey bike lock with a plastic ball point pen

Over at Bike Forums, some guy posted a video clip showing how he opened his Kryptonite U-Lock with a plastic ball point pen. Uproar ensues on the board. Link (Direct link to movie clip, and here's another movie with a different lock.) (Thanks, xavii!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:28:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World's best bathrooms

The Discovery Channel's got a cool web-slide-show up highlighting the world's 10 Best Bathrooms. Gosh, but I've got to pee. Link (via ftrain)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:13:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Copyright reformers != Communists

Dan Hunter's written a really interesting academic paper bent on refuting the notion that the copyright-reform movement is Marxist, and in showing that there are Marxist tendencies in the free/open source software movement.

The Marxist-Lessigist movement has provided the signal benefit of identifying theproblems that occur with the relentless expansion of intellectual property interests. Without muscular social welfarist protection of the public domain intellectualproperty industries will never voluntarily reduce their expansionary claims. As we've witnessed time and time again, intellectual property rights-holders have always soughtwider property grants, longer terms, and stronger enforcement mechanisms. And these additional private interests are almost always extracted from the public.72 Wesimply cannot expect those who are granted property interests to reduce their entitlements to accord with social policy. Yet without such limitations the expansionof intellectual property must eventually lead to a kind of intellectual and cultural paralysis. There was once a libertarian political theorist called Andrew Galambos,whose philosophy revolved around property, especially intellectual property.73 He represents the logical endpoint of intellectual property expansion. Galambos thoughtit wrong to use anyone's ideas without permission and compensation: he believed, for example, that the inventor of the wheel was due a royalty on every automobile sold.74He presented lectures advocating this (and other libertarian ideas) and demanded that his listeners promise that they would never use "his" ideas without his permission. Asone commentator mused, this may be why you've never heard of him.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:10:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Evil geeks

Danny "Evil" O'Brien has written an hilarious column in (mock) celebration of the world's most evil geeks:

How do you work out who the movers and shakers are in the free software hacking world? For most of them, there's no income to be appraised, there's no stock market valuation to watch. What value can you give to these contributors, who work without care of reward, except maybe all those groupies hanging out at the stage door of the Sourceforge ftp servers?

Well, I guess you could review their software or something. Sadly, I suffer from a debilitating illness (which I shall not mention here) that tragically precludes me from doing actual research. So, instead, I have decided to evaluate those involved in our so-called industry in terms of what we all, I think, see it as.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:52:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Special Creative Commons license for poor countries

The Creative Commons project has launched a new license today for poor countries: the Developing Nations license allows "copyright holders to invite a wide range of royalty-free uses of their work in developing nations while retaining their full copyright in the developed world." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:49:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Roy Disney demans Eisner's resignation, testicles, still-beating heart

Hot on the heels of Michael Eisner announcing that he wouldn't resign from Disney for two more years, Roy Disney and Stanley Gold have written a blistering open letter to the Disney Board, calling for Eisner's nuts on a platter:

Michael Eisner's announcement that he intends to remain CEO for the next two years forces you to make a critical decision. Will you choose to let the Company drift for two more years - allowing the pall Mr. Eisner has cast to continue to drive the most talented and creative people away from Disney, erode the morale of current employees, and prevent the Company from attracting the strong, dynamic, and creative leader it needs? Or will you reject Mr. Eisner's brazen attempt to usurp your responsibilities as directors by stage-managing the appointment of his anointed successor and instead tangibly show your commitment to best corporate practices by immediately initiating an expeditious and broad search for a world-class CEO?

We understand and appreciate the difficult position in which Mr. Eisner has once again placed you. As those instrumental in bringing both Michael Eisner and Frank Wells to Disney in 1984, we know how close some of you are to him personally. But there is no acceptable solution that includes Mr. Eisner's continued leadership at Disney for the next two years - let alone any longer than that. Regardless of whether he serves in a diminished capacity during the next two years as a "lame duck" or continues to manage the Company, the changes necessary to restore Disney's luster will simply not be made.

Link (Thanks Bill!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Erdos-Bacon numbers

Ben Rosenbaum is one of the best new sf writers in the field. Last weekend at the WorldCon, he came up with the idea of finding a conversion function for Erdos numbers (the numeral scietists use to count the number of peer-review paper co-authors between them and Paul Erdos) and Bacon numbers (the number of movies between any actor's co-stars and an actor who co-starred with Kevin Bacon). Here's the answer:

As it turns out, the preliminary work has already been done. Brian Greene, for instance, has an Erdös number of 3, and a Bacon number of 2. Thus, my proposed conversion function (allowing edges in the unified Bacon-Erdös graph to represent two people either appearing together in a movie or coauthoring a paper) is as follows:

Finding: an actor with a Bacon number of N has, at most, a Baconized Erdös number of N+5. Similarly, an academic with an Erdös number of M has, at most, an Erdösinated Bacon number of M + 5.

(My initial lines of research, proposing to go through Dolph Lundgren or Natalie Portman, would surely have yielded much less powerful results.)

The emphasis of previous Bacon-Erdös research, however, has not been on unification, but rather on those individuals with authentic claims to both direct Erdös numbers, through actual academic coauthorship and to direct Bacon numbers through actual screen acting. Thus the canonical Bacon-Erdös number is the sum of an individual's separately earned Erdös number and Bacon number, and this --we learn -- is what is devoutly to be sought. The aforementioned Brian Greene and Dave Bayer are tied for the world-record lowest Bacon-Erdös sum of 5.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:38:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EFF asks UK govt to midwife the BBC Creative Archive

I've written here before about the BBC's Creative Archive project, an ambitious undertaking meant to put everything in the BBC's vaults (we're talking about stuff from the earliest days of radio up to Dr Who and so on) online, with a Creative Commons license allowing Britons to download, trade and remix the TV shows they paid for with their TV tax.

I just wrote some testimony on EFF's behalf for the governmental committee that's reviewing the BBC's charter, urging them to adopt the BBC's request for a mandate to produce the Archive:

It's the dawn of a "creative nation" -- a Britain which, like many other countries around the globe, makes use of the new tools to actively participate in media, a nation of recasters and reworkers, folk artists and appreciators of folk art.

The raw material of that creative nation need not be British. Substantial parts of it will not be: Britain is a land of many cultures, and the fusion of the art and culture of other lands is a progressive step in Britain's ongoing multiculturalism.

But what if *none* of the materials of this new British folk culture is, indeed, British? What if the creative nation relies upon material from abroad as the raw ingredients for the popular new medium?

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:35:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Blogger co-founder quits tech, becomes chef

Meg Hourihan, the co-founder of Pyra, the company that invented Blogger, has retired from technology to become a chef:

So last night I ended my sabbatical and began my new career doing something I've always felt passionate about: cooking. I'm working in the kitchen of a restaurant called Fifty-Six Union (mentioned at the bottom of thisFeasting on Nantucket article) here on Nantucket. Yesterday at 3 PM I put on my black chef's clogs, my black pants and white t-shirt, pulled my Red Sox cap over my hair and got to work peeling and deveining shrimp. Seven hours later, sweatily scrubbing the kitchen floors, I was still smiling.

I've learned a lot this summer during my sabbatical but it all can be summarized in three words: follow your heart.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:32:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Get Gmail accounts without an invite

Graye sez: "These days, GMail invitations are ubiquitous, and people like me are starting to get annoyed with people offering to give away invites. Well, some folks over at Isnoop.net have went and designed an automatic GMail invite spooler.

"People with available invites send them to the spooler's address (gmail@isnoop.net), and it automatically adds them to an available pool. People who need addresses can then get invites from this pool, as necessary.

"It's a good place to dump those excess invites, and anybody who needs a GMail invite can pick one up there, easily. Saves time for everybody, really." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:35:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flickers of David Woodard

Last year, I linked to an Orange County Weekly article about David Woodard, an eccentric artist and musician in Lon Angeles. A friend of William S. Burroughs, Woodard handcrafts Dreamachines, the hallucinogenic flicker device invented by Bryion Gysin and Ian Sommerville and popularized by WSB. New World Disorder has republished an interview with Woodard that first appeared last year in the UK magazine Headpress:

"In college, I found the Dreamachine would cure my own writer's block. When I mentioned this to Burroughs, he concurred. That is the extent of what I know about his use of the machine for that purpose. In 1997, when we were both living in Lawrence, Burroughs tended to use his two Dreamachines together as a postprandial ritual along with a marijuana cigarette. He would write the following morning.

I think the Dreamachine's most distinctive property is its (potentially insidious) subtlety. The machine is similar to absinthe, in that both create a residual language-oriented delirium of which the user tends not to be aware. Fortunately light pulses do not yield the additional effect of Syphilis-like rotted brain stem."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:48:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tree of death

Capsula Mundi is a design for a biodegradable coffin made from starch plastic that holds the deceased in a fetal position. The stunning artwork was created by Italian designers Anna Citelli and Raoul Bretzel:

"Capsula Mundi is planted in the earth like a seed. Above it, to signal the presence of occupied space, is a shallow concave circle dug out of the ground. In the center of which, a tree is planted, the essence of it chosen in life by the dead one, the care of this tree is the responsibility of everyone. The aim is ecological burial, literally a more natural way to decay.

The cemetery will, then, acquire a new look. No longer the overpopulated urban environment with congested architecture, it will be a natural one in contact with the earth, enveloping expansive areas, entire hills consecrated to the cult of the dead. Summarizing, it is a different landscape devoted to the worship of our ancestry: a sacred forest."

Link (via Aeiou)

Update: BB reader Jacob Schnickel points out the striking similarity between the Capsula Mundii and Frida Kahlo's painting of Luther Burbank. (Link)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:21:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni Flies Zero G, #7: Remaindered particles, radio waves

Come on -- you saw this one coming. BoingBoing pal and resident Obscure Smut Scout Vann Hall says,

"I'd been holding off on sending this in hopes someone else would beat me to it -- right now it looks as if my most enduring legacy will be as "the person most-often thanked on BoingBoing entries having to do with sex" -- but to no avail. There's an adult title from 1999 -- "The Uranus Experiment: Part 2," from Private -- that included a brief scene filmed in zero-G, supposedly onboard what had previously been a Soviet counterpart to the Comet. It also received a somewhat tongue-in-cheek (he says, somewhat tongue-in-cheek) nomination for the 2000 Nebula Awards, which led to the following coverage: Link 1, Link 2."

BoingBoing reader Gary says,

"I assume, of course, that when Xeni has completed her mission she will want to purchase all of the official Zero G swag. I particularly like the Break the Law t-shirt: Link. Not to be confused with this Think Geek T-shirt that the rest of us poor folks will have to make do with: Link."

Reader Chris says,

"I wanted to point out that there is a less expensive way to experience the feeling of a parabolic flight. go and rent a helicopter. you should be able to get a seat small one (like the R22 or R44) for 75-150 bucks. ask the pilot to gain speed and climb at the same time, then after 30 seconds to push it down. you will be lifted out of your seat for a good second, if done right. nowhere near a parabolic flight (where you will be weightless for much longer) but it's the feeling alright."

And on today's edition of the NPR program "Day to Day" show, I speak with host Alex Chadwick about all of the weird pieces of zero-g-prep advice that well-meaning friends and neighbors offer when they hear you're about to float on a weightless commercial joyride. Link to archived audio for today's program, available after 12pm PT.
Previous "Xeni Flies Zero-G" posts: 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:14:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bluetooth motorcycle helmet

"Born to be unwired"? Motorola and Italian design firm Momodesign teamed up to create a Bluetooth-enabled motorcycle helmet. Something about the combination of bluetooth and motorcycles sounds really scary. Snip from the press release:

Built on the award-winning design of Motorola's popular HS810, the wireless helmet headset is the latest addition to Motorola's leading portfolio of stylish and innovative Bluetooth products. (...) The helmet is stylish and open-faced, its design draws inspiration from air force pilots helmets, with anti-scratch visor and carbon fibre details for fashion conscious people with a modern approach to travel and city life. Whether chatting to friends or work, the Motorola / MOMODESIGN helmet means riders will no longer get tangled up in awkward wires getting on and off their bikes. Taking and making calls is easy as all functions (answer, end, redial, voice dial and volume) can be made from the cover on the helmet. An essential accessory for urbanites who demand to stay in touch at all times, whether in the car, on a bike, in the office or at home. The Motorola / MOMODESIGN helmet offers you seamless communication due to the unique headset module. There need be no break in the conversation when you get off the bike -- just remove the headset module from the helmet, attach it to the neck loop and continue talking -- no one will even know you've changed location!

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:13:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saatchi CEO waxes poetic on anti-piracy publicity campaigns

BoingBoing reader Becky Hogge says,

Here's my report of a UK media event last night where the CEO of M&C Saatchi discussed publicity campaigns to promote the anti-piracy message and sunk his teeth into a couple of current campaigns, recently blogged on BoingBoing. The communications guy from the BPI was there to debate possible campaigns with PR and press people . He had the crowd in fits of nervous laughter as he admitted the US lawsuit against a twelve year-old filesharer "was not a bad thing".

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:57:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Illinois Considers "Official State Beverage"

New York City is making $126 million in a deal to sell Snapple in public schools, and now -- the state of Illinois is considering licensing the rights to its name on an official state beverage. Why stop there? "The Big Apple" shouldn't be the only metropolis with a snack food nickname. Maybe Illinois should be, like, the "fruit roll-up" state. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:51:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Updated: Crap auction this Saturday in Toronto

Mark Taaffe is the funniest, most engaging auctioneer I've ever met (he appears in thin veneer in my story Craphound). His old weekly junk auctions in Toronto were a high-point in my life there -- the bargains were incredible, matched only by Mark's florid description of his wares. Now he's back at it, with a really promising-looking estate auction in Toronto next Saturday (dig those lists of lots!):

Saturday, September 18, 11 A.M.

26 Bernice Ave., Sunnylea

(off Prince Edward Dr., south of Bloor, Etobicoke)

Large contents/estate auction for Mr. Eric Belzar, 50 year resident at this address. Antique furniture, numerous collectibles, vintage tools, taxidermy items, etc.

Furniture to include 9 pc. walnut dining room set c. 1930, incl. china cabinet and buffet, in good cond.; Stanley upright quarter sawn oak piano, good cond.; nice old tea trolley w. glass insert tray; waterfall/classic glazed china cabinet; 9 well maple filing cabinet; armoire door; grain painted organ stool; rock maple platform rocker; 1960s moderne black vinyl and zebra stripe couch and chair w. end tables; cloverleaf walnut occasional table and other small occasional tables; kitchen table and chairs, orig. vinyl, formica top; mission style desk; oak bureau w. mirror and harp; oak lamp table; beveled hall mirror w. cast iron hooks; lg. oak beveled mirror, old; 2 refinished 9 pane mirrors, pine frames; 1920s wall clock; pr. Spanish revival table lamps w. lustres; deco area rug; also double garage packed w. complete and partial furniture items, legs, tops, chairs, and handyman specials.

Collectibles to include vintage Scot. canvas hip waders; German military helmet; Kilman's Red tricolour neon bar sign; vintage scrap books 1945; rustic oil by Etobicoke artist D. Staffin; spelter elk statue; moose hoof ashtray; 2 sets antelope horns; stuffed baby crocodile; powder horn; veterinary syringe; some vintage fishing lures and bow hunting accessories; cheese barrel; a few vintage radios; lg. 10 gallon glass lab quality carboyle; brass printers rule w. agate points; Vict. ornate sheaf clip; vintage tins, cigar boxes, bottle, crates, etc.; beer steins; asst. glass, china, serving pieces incl. iris and herringbone bowl; some cutlery; 2 Vict. ewers, terra cotta w. enamel transfers and the other pewter mounted lid; 2 nice log cabin quilts, other linens, textiles, drapings; carved animals and wildlife themed décor; household and kitchen items, box lots of knick-knacks and great flea market stuff.

Tools to include 14" General band saw; 2 bench vices, 1 XL; hand held electric grinder and reciprocal sander; 6 vintage block and steel planes; Stanley USA line level and #71 ½ plane (partial?); tons of hand tools, all sorts; crate of natural burls; asst. vintage hardware. Tons more still to be sorted and pulled out of shadowy corners! Also free kittens to good homes!

A full contents sale, high end stuff and tons of box lots too! House sold, no agents please. Terms: cash only. Auctioneer: Mark Taaffe. Inquiries 416-998-5992.

Update: Amber sez: "just thought I'd point out that in your auction blog post, you mention 2x that the sale will be happening on Sunday, but then in the actual 'clipping' of the auction article, it says Saturday the 18th."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:31:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni Flies Zero G, #6: Like prom in your brain

Creative genius and zero-gravity veteran Matt Fraction says,

This is gonna be like prom in your brain.

Like, one of those things you're never, ever gonna forget. You'll tell your kids about it and describe it to people you meet for the rest of your life.

I went to Space Camp. Shut up. I rocked that flight suit, goddammit. Anyway. So, you get -- or got, i dunno if they do it any more -- to sit in this weirdo chair device that looked like a giant C-clamp. [Ed. note: The consumer-oriented space joyride I'll be taking on Wednesday includes no such device; the Zero-G Corporation sells an entertainment/adventure travel experience different than the research-oriented NASA space camp Matt attended.] So you sit in the C-Clamp, with the bottom curl of the C running between your legs like a saddle, and the curve of the C at your back. The top and back of the C were connected to the ceiling by bungee cords and an elaborate weight and pulley system. Now, the bungees were connected to some sort of wheel-strut-track thing thing, like the cars on a roller coaster track, only the track was bolted to the ceiling. And the track went straight forward for about 10, 20 yards or something. Got it?

Okay, so, the important part was the weights. See, the weights, when in cooperation with the bungees, would replicate moon gravity on your body which, if my geek remains on, is 1/6 earth weight? Something like that. So, you'd walk-hop the length of the track in moon-weight with earth muscles. You could leap 15, 20 feet straight into the air and control your fall back down, span yards with every step, and basically kick it Armstrong style until it was the next kid's turn.

It was unlike anything I've ever experienced. It's one of those things that i'm just gonna take with me to my grave, probably the closest I'll ever come to space, in its dippy space camp way, you know?

Anyway. Ever since -- and it's been 15 years now -- my dreams are plagued with strange gravity situations, somewhere between flight and swimming, all because of those five little minutes in that tourist's chair. In my dreams i'm a whirlygig, i'm a helicopter, i have invisible bungee cords connected to god and I can move like superman.

It happens a lot, and my life, waking and sleeping, feels richer and stranger and better because of it.

My fingers are, like, triple-crossed for you. And, hey, not *everyone* throws up on the vomit comet. Oh, and If you want to be, like, totally hardcore, you should bring an iPod (or whatever mp3doohickey you have) and listen to the Ramones. In ZERO-G!

Previous "Xeni Flies Zero-G" posts: 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:51:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wavefront Coding for phonecams

A new type of lens may make blurry phonecam snapshots a thing of the past:

A specially shaped camera lens and processing method to ensure images are always in focus has been developed. Physicist Dr Andy Harvey said it was a "simple system with a simple lens" which uses an optical encoder so that no information in images is lost. Developed primarily for military night vision cameras, the technology could find its way into camera phones.

Link (thanks, Siege)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:50:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday is INDUCE call-in day

As my colleague Cory blogged last week, Tuesday September 14 is "Save Betamax National Call-in Day."

Why Save Betamax? The short version: We're organizing a call-in day to Congress on September 14 to oppose new legislation that would undermine the Betamax decision (INDUCE Act). Here's why: The Betamax VCR died more than 15 years ago, but the Supreme Court decision that made the Betamax and all other VCRs legal lived on. In Sony vs. Universal (known as the Betamax decision) the Court ruled that because VCRs have legitimate uses, the technology is legal—even if some people use it to copy movies. Of course, the movie industry was lucky it lost the case against VCRs, because home video soon became Hollywood's largest source of revenue. And the freedom to use and develop new technology that was protected by the Betamax decision set the stage for the incredible growth in computer technology we've seen in the last few decades.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:10:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Warren Ellis blog essay: The Candidate

BoingBoing reader Don Whiteside says,

Today, author Warren Ellis' blog has what he calls a "One-day DPH rent-party" looking for donations to cover bandwidth costs. It's a little essay that any fan of his Transmetropolitan will recognize as being written by his alter-ego, Spider Jerusalem. It's a thinly disguised bit about Kerry and flat-out hysterical. Dunno if a non-Transmet fan will find it as awesome -- but if they do, they should go get the graphic novels.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:10:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni Flies Zero G #5: Hungarian Zero G Rhapsody

BoingBoing reader Peter says,

"I was reading about your upcoming adventure with considerable envy when I realized i'd seen something similar in june or so and sure enough, a Hungarian online mag has a first-person account of such a flight right here in budapest. a 20-year old soviet-built Antonov 2 plane is used for the stunt, apparently flown by one of hungary's top fighter pilots (this part is not clear). it's all in hungarian but check out the pictures. it's groovy."

Link

Update: Péter Kelemen says, "Well, the pilot is Gyula VÁRI (former squadron leader), the article says nothing about him being one of Hungary's top fighter pilot. But he is the President of the Hungarian Aeronautical Association. (Link). The flight itself is about 20 minutes in 1000-3000m altitude while having 10-12 weightlessness-sessions of 7-10 sec each. G changes between 0-3 during the flight."

Previous "Xeni Flies Zero-G" posts: 4, 3, 2, 1.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:09:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, September 13, 2004

NPR "Day to Day" -- Don't Diss the Gap Band

During the "iPod Beemer" episode I did last week on the NPR show "Day to Day," I played a couple examples of the kinds of tunes you could rock out to in your iPodified BMW convertible -- one of them was "Early in the Morning," by legendary '80s R+B icons The Gap Band. During that episode, host Noah Adams inadvertently dissed the Gap Band. When he heard that segment air, my D2D colleague Brian Unger vowed to settle the score of funk: he challenged Mr. Adams to a duel, and here is the result. Listen to Brian's segment "Don't Diss The Gap Band" -- Link

Update: BoingBoing reader Mike Ransom of Tulsa Oklahoma says, "The GAP Band was named after three streets here in Tulsa: Greenwood, Archer and Pine. That's the same Greenwood and Archer mentioned in the archetypical Bob Wills Western Swing tune, "Take Me Back To Tulsa". Here's a further bit of trivia about one of those streets -- Link. The story above is done in the style of Paul Harvey, a Tulsa native. Here is a morph I did of Paul Harvey from his high school yearbook picture -- Link."

More Gap Band trivia, including the Greenwood, Archer, and Pine reference (an historic black business and commerce hub in Tulsa) here: Link

BoingBoing reader Greg says, "One thing I think your readers may find interesting is that the GAP band isn't named after just any three streets in Tulsa, but the center of what was once called "The Black Wall Street". In the 1910's it was one of the most affluent African-American communities in the country. In 1921, it was also the location of one of the worst acts of violence in American history. While dubbed the Tulsa "race riots", they more closely resemble a military assault. Here's a post I wrote about it: link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:57:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bush's excellent sneer and Cheney's terrific "quizzical grin"

Here's a picture of a young George Bush slugging a rugby opponent in the face. That's a cool sneer the young Bush has. With that sneer, he could have gotten the part of a juvenile delinquent in a 1950s teen exploitation movie.

The president's smirk no longer gives me the entertainment value it once did. He needs to come up with some new facial expressions or else people are going to tire of him.

Cheney's sneer is good, however.

Cheney also has, as one reporter so aptly described it, a "quizzical grin." His facial expressions are so good I'm thinking of voting for Bush/Cheney, so I can see them on TV for another four years. So far, Kerry and Edwards have only displayed fake smiles. They aren't very funny.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:18:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

(Gilmore vs. Ashcroft) 9th Circuit to DOJ: No Secret Justice

Score one for John Gilmore, who is suing the Justice Department because it has secret laws requiring people to show ID when flying on a commercial domestic plane. Ashcroft tried to file a secret brief to keep the secret law a secret, but the court said no secrets allowed.

Bill sez: "The 9th Circuit US Court of Appeals rejected a Department of Justice attempt to file a secret brief in Gilmore vs. Ashcroft, a case that involves secret law.

"In a one page order, the Court denied DOJ's motion asking the Court's permission to file their arguments in secret, allowing only the judges to read their full brief. A DOJ motion to suspend the briefing schedule was similarly denied." Link (Here are previous BB posts on the subject)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:09:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NatGeo photographer spanked by editors

Gilles Nicolet, a photographer for National Geographic borrowed some old elephant husks from the Tanzania Department of Wildlife, and then had hunters pose with them as if they'd be taken from a freshly fallen elephant. He was busted after observant readers noticed ID numbers on one of the tusks. It turns out some of his other photos were staged, too.

(It makes you wonder if this story, by the same photographer, is a tale tale: "French photographer Gilles Nicolet reports that angry bees penetrated his protective, modern gear and stung him on the nose, lips and forehead, and left two stingers in the eye he was using to peer through the viewfinder of his camera.") Link (Thanks, Eye-Imagine!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:22:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Obituary of anti-flyer fanatic

The LA Times has a wonderful obituary for a bit actor named Steve Wayne (Bedtime for Bonzo, Dragnet, Cisco Kid), who died at the age of 84. For the last quarter century of his life, Wayne was monomaniacally focused on tearing down fliers that were posted on walls and buildings.

Over the last two decades, Wayne tore down thousands of illegal fliers tacked on fences, traffic lights and utility poles. His quest was endless, like trying to wipe out gnats one swat at a time...

He began climbing up poles and clawing at the unwanted ads with a garden rake, or going after them while perched on the hood of a moving car with an accomplice at the wheel. But as fast as he tore them down, new ones would replace them...

In 1980 he was so upset by the proliferation of handbills for the Roxy, Troubadour and Whiskey a Go Go nightclubs that he spray-painted "Keep L.A. Clean" on the outsides of the famous establishments. He was arrested on suspicion of malicious vandalism, a charge that could have brought jail time and a steep fine...

He kept at it nearly up to the day he died, stopping to rip down signs "even when coming home from his chemo appointments," his daughter, Cathy Wayne, said in an interview.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:08:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New York City art opening: Eric Paulos

BB pal Eric Paulos has work in Passage of Mirage, a group exhibition opening tomorrow night (9/14) at Manhattan's Chelsea Art Museum. Paulos and the Experimental Interaction Unit will debut Limelight, an ambient display that illuminates our culture's anxieties about terrorism, disaster, and other potentially-catastrophic threats.

"Limelight is a personal tactical system that removes the burden of anxiety associated with our continuous worry of emerging global and local threatening conditions. Using a collection of embedded sensors, local measurements of radioactivity and RF signals are continuously scanned for hostile patterns. Similarly, remote precursors of threats such as the appearance and frequency of specific keywords and discussions by various military, news, and independent sources are continuously monitored. The collected data is carefully analyzed and summarized as a visual output where various threats are mapped across a spectrum of illumined and pulsing colors."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:07:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's next novel pre-sales at Amazon

Amazon's put up their sell-page for my next novel, "Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town," offering a 32% discount off the cover-price of $24.95 ($16.97 in total). The book's out in Februrary, and coincidentally, I just a couple hours ago overnighted the final version of the manuscript to my editor in NYC.

Someone Comes to Town is longest thing I've ever written -- longer than Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom and Eastern Standard Tribe put together. It's a kind of "Little, Big"-meets-"Crypotonomicon" story, a contemporary fantasy about free, unlicensed wireless networking, set in Toronto's bohemian Kensington Market.

I'm going to be posting the full text of this one under a Creative Commons license again when the time comes, and I've got some beautiful supplementary artwork to go with the gorgeous Dave McKean cover; McKean provided five digital paintings to Irene Gallo, Tor's brilliant, award-winning art director, and he's kindly granted me permission to use them all on the book's website when I ship it.

In the meantime, there's an excerpt or two online already. Enjoy! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:13:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Space Moot Court

The Space Moot Court is an annual "moot court" (a theoretical exercise in which real lawyers and judges debate a fake issue to see where we're at) held to debate potential future issues in space-law. It's judged by the three sitting Judges of the International Court of Justice. Link (Thanks, Denise!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:13:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cows against public indecency

The mayor of the Dutch town Spaarnwoude has invited a herd of cattle to graze in a nature reserve to deter people from having too much splendor in the grass:

"Visitors experience great annoyance from people having sex in public, and apparently the presence of the cows turns people off having sex," she said.

Most people, anyway. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:02:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Space probes pulled in weird ways

The Guardian reports that the old Pioneer 10 and 11 probes are being subtly tugged around by mysterious forces as they hurtle beyond our solar system.

"Some researchers say unseen 'dark matter' may permeate the universe and that this is affecting the Pioneers' passage. Others say flaws in our understanding of the laws of gravity best explain the crafts' wayward behaviour."

And still others suggest that the probes' weird trajectories may just be the result of gas leaking from the fuel tanks. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:52:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, September 12, 2004

Foo Camp 2004

I just got back from O'Reilly Media's annual foo camp, held in Sebastopol, California. I met a lot of people I knew only by name, and saw old friends I hadn't seen in years. Some of the people brought interesting projects with them to share. Here are some pictures I took. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:32:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni Flies Zero G, part 4: zero gravity toilet

Will they have one of these on board Wednesday's flight? As your trusty spaceblogger, I vow to phonecam it for you if they do. Zero-G Corporation's commercial weightless flights are intended for fun, unlike the NASA KC-135 flights, for which the primary purpose tends to be research. At $3000 +/- per ticket, discriminating fans of weightlessness should expect all mod cons. Link to Zero-Gravity Toilet Instructions, from the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Previous "Xeni Flies Zero-G" posts: 3, 2, 1.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:07:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TIME Magazine Goatses America

Check out the cover of this week's TIME. (Insert Beavisoid laugh) If you're unfamiliar with the term "goatse" -- it is the very definition of NSFW. A particularly abhorrent image which has become a sort of sick internet in-joke over the years. Search Google and ye shall find. But only if you're prepared for irreversible eyeball scarification. Or, for an eyeball- and work-safe answer, try wikipedia's entry.

Link to TIME Magazine's goatse tribute cover. Larger image here. (Thanks, Brad, and Boogah)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:02:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Online surreal/comic short film: Beautiful

A disturbing new online art short from LA-based blogger, performance artist, and filmmaker Kitty Bukkake. Begins like a laudanum-induced Christina Aguilera karaoke hallucination, then u-turns into Carrie meets Karen Finley meets a back-alley psychosexual nightmare. Link, non-worksafe to the max.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:00:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni Flies Zero G, part 3: Superman Moves

New York Times reporter John Schwartz took a flight on NASA's zero-gravity "vomit comet" earlier this year, and wrote a terrific first-person piece about his experience. You have to pay $2.95 to read it at nytimes.com, but I found a helpful site in Turkey that coughs up the complete text gratis. Yay for Turkish websites!

For the first few parabolas, I did as the flight surgeon, Dr. James Locke, told me. Lie back in my seat with the seat belt unbuckled, holding the ends. When the plane rounded the top of the first curve, I felt a momentary dropping in the pit of my stomach and then gravity simply went away. I floated up from the seat. Thirty seconds later, my body pressed down against the seat once again, but with twice the normal weight as we slammed upward.

After growing used to the sensations through a few cycles, I pushed out of the seat and floated toward the ceiling, grabbing the canvas straps along the wall to move around. Dr. Locke told me that I was bouncing around a little too tentatively.

"Try the Superman move!" he said, stretching out his arms in an imitation of comic-book flight. I did, and gave a gentle kick against the wall and sailed to the other wall, slower than a speeding bullet, but nonetheless fulfilling childhood desires I had forgotten I had.

Link to John Schwartz: "Mild-Mannered Reporter Gets a Superman Moment." Link to full-size image from this gallery of space-themed children's publications from 1961-1974.

T minus 72 hours to liftoff. Previous posts: Link to part 2, and Link to part 1. Speaking of Turkey, Bruce Sterling says: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:50:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Copyright proposal INDUCEs worry

In Wired News, a report on Thursday's recommendation by copyright officials that US law be amended so that companies that rely on copyright infringement to make a profit can be held liable for their actions.

The U.S. Copyright Office delivered its recommendations to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which had asked for advice in developing proper language for the proposed Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (SB2560). The initial version of the bill, which would hold technology companies liable if they make products that encourage people to infringe copyrights, generated a firestorm of criticism from technology and consumer groups alike.

But while the copyright office -- which released its recommendations publicly on Friday -- clearly made a good-faith effort to address the concerns of the music and movie industries, technology companies and consumers, critics said the bill would take copyright law in a dangerous direction.

"The copyright office is now suggesting the exploration of a new and radically unprecedented approach to copyright law," said Bob Schwartz, counsel for the Consumer Electronics Association and the Home Recording Rights Coalition. "It would not require that a defendant in a copyright suit have any knowledge of infringing conduct, any relationship with a particular infringer or any intent to commit a violation of the law."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:22:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mystery explosion in North Korea

In North Korea earlier this week: an explosion, a giant crater, and a "peculiar cloud." Both the South Korean government and the US government say they don't believe North Korea conducted a nuclear test.

The event took place on the day of North Korea's most important national holiday. September 9, 1948, is the day on which the Democratic People's Republic of Korea was founded.

President Bush and his top advisers have received intelligence reports in recent days describing a confusing series of actions by North Korea that some experts believe could indicate the country is preparing to conduct its first test explosion of a nuclear weapon, according to senior officials with access to the intelligence.

While the indications were viewed as serious enough to warrant a warning to the White House, American intelligence agencies appear divided about the significance of the new North Korean actions, much as they were about the evidence concerning Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles.

Some analysts in agencies that were the most cautious about the Iraq findings have cautioned that they do not believe the activity detected in North Korea in the past three weeks is necessarily the harbinger of a test. A senior scientist who assesses nuclear intelligence says the new evidence "is not conclusive," but is potentially worrisome.

Link to Reuters report, reg-free Link to New York Times story

Update: News reports are now saying the blast may have been related to a dam-building project, or some similar public work.

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

Comic strip sendup of MPAA "respect copyright" ads

Remember those in-theater MPAA ads blogged here, here and here on BoingBoing? Boondocks lampoons them this week. Link (Thanks, Patricio!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:47:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sneaky look at Boeing Surplus

Tom sez, "I took some photos at Boeing Surplus today. It's a store that Boeing operates in Kent, Washington, about twenty minutes south of Seattle. They sell all sorts of weird and strange stuff, from gear used in the construction of jet liners to office chairs to old employee nameplates. Photos and cameras are strictly prohibited, so I was lucky to make it out with these photos that give a small sense of the place." Link (Thanks, Tom!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:20:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

REM's Peter Buck: enthusiastic pirate!

Thomas Hawk sez, "Recently REM's Peter Buck was reported to have given iPods full of music (probably around 10,000 tracks, if really full) to every single person who worked on REMs latest album, even reportedly engineers who he had only known a few weeks."

While Stipe and Mills have developed other interests in their adult life beyond the band and music, Buck hasn't. He recently filled up the iPods of everyone who worked on REM's new album with songs that he thought they might like - and considering iPods can take up to 10,000 songs, this was a Herculean feat of downloading. "He's become obsessed with it," says Stipe. "He has done this for everyone who worked on our new record, including the engineers, who he had only known for a couple of weeks. What's interesting is to discover what he thinks we should be listening to. Mike got entire albums by Miles Davis, for example, while I only got the greatest hits. It must have taken him weeks, but he really isn't interested in anything apart from his family and music," adds Mills. "He reads books, and plays music, and hangs out with his family. That's it. So he loves the iPod because it gives him a chance to go through thousands of records that he hasn't played for the last 20 years.

Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:20:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SF writers on the future

Former BB Guestblogger John Shirley interviewed me, Pat Murphy, Kim Stanley Robinson, Norman Spinrad, Bruce Sterling and Ken Wharton, as science fiction writers, about the future. It's just showed up on Locus's website:

Cory Doctorow doubts the efficacy of big control and again sees information as the key: "The Stasi — the East German version of the KGB — had detailed files on virtually every resident of East Germany, yet somehow managed to miss the fact that the Berlin Wall was about to come down until it was already in rubble. Tell me again how a centralized government makes us more secure? September 11th wasn't a failure to gather enough intelligence: it was a failure to correctly interpret the intelligence in hand. There was too much irrelevant data, too much noise. Gathering orders of magnitude MORE noise just puts that needle into a much bigger haystack, while imposing high social costs. Fingerprinting visitors to the US and jailing foreign journalists for not understanding the impossibly baroque new visa regs makes America less secure (by encouraging people to lie about the purposes of their visit and by chasing honest people out of the country), not more."

Bruce Sterling speculates that big global government might take new shapes: "I had a brainstorm about this very problem recently. What if there were two global systems of governance, and they weren't based on control of the landscape? Suppose they interpenetrated and competed everywhere, sort of like Tory and Labour, or Coke and Pepsi. I'm kind of liking this European 'Acquis' model where there is scarcely any visible 'governing' going on, and everything is accomplished on the levels of invisible infrastructure, like highway regulations and currency reform."

Link (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:20:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, September 11, 2004

Polyclothery: online social networking service in-joke in S, M, L

Nothing says sxxy nrrd like T-shirts with "FLAG PROFILE AS MATURE" on the front, and the Tribe.net logo on the back. I think former BoingBoing guestblogger Karen Marcelo is behind this, but I'm not sure. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:17:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni flies Zero-G, part 2: word to the weightless wise

In a few days, God willing, I'll be floating around on one of the first ever commercial weightless flights in the USA. Friends, colleagues, and astro-nerdy strangers have been offering all sorts of advice ranging from scientifically substantiated to silly.

Some have even suggested some crash-course reading over the weekend. Lloyd Fonveille says that Air & Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of Movement by Gaston Bachelard is a must: "Dense writing but amazing stuff about flying and flying dreams... he argues that images and dreams of flying are the highest state of the imagination, and emblems of the mental place where all real creativity happens."

As I prepare for Wednesday's adventure, I'll share some of this microgravity advice here on BoingBoing. I'll start with insights from experienced zero-g flier Raffi Krikorian of MIT (and O'Reilly).

I rode on NASA's KC-135a a few years ago (I was running a series of experiments to determine whether the brain's ability to localize sound was affected by being in a microgravity environment -- the anwer is that it is, but I digress), and it was an awesome experience.

NASA requires a lot of pre-training before they even allow you to get on the plane (a series of lectures about what to do if your sinus collapses, a hyperbaric chamber ride to have you experience what happens in the case of a rapid decompression of the cabin as the KC-135 is a single hulled plane), and going through that type of training is quite exhaustive. You spend a day in the classroom, then you spend a day learning how to work the emergency equipment and how to breathe through a reverse pressurized mask.

When the day of the ride comes, everybody tells you a few pieces of advice
1. bring jolly ranchers and gum
2. eat bananas and muffins for breakfast (extra credit for eating food coloring) [Ed note: I suppose this way, everything will look super-pretty and colorful IF YOU HURL IT ALL OVER THE FUCKING PLANE]
3. don't look out the window when flying.

As we were climbing for our first drop, I was chewing my gum like mad. The common advice is to get your mouth a little wet and to distract yourself of what was going to happen next. And then, all of a sudden, you lift right off the floor. I, personalily, was terrified on the first drop. I flailed around trying desperately to grab hold of something. I grab onto the floor, and it must have been amusing to see me hanging upside down, trying to pull myself down.

After that, it gets a lot easier. You just float around. Pushing yourself off the walls, and just bounce around. I was busy running an experiment, but it seems as though you will have time to play around.

What they don't tell you is that you will experience portions of negative gravity where you are pulled for the roof. Those freak you out. You're hanging out, chillin' in the air, and then all of a sudden you are rocketing towards the ceiling and pushing yourself off from it. Enterprising people invert themselves at that point, and go walking around up top. But, if you manage to close your eyes and somehow end up upside down, your brain will be convinced that you are right side up. You'll see people who are the other way from you. And then. Oh no. You puke.

The interesting thing about puking (or playing with any liquid) is its fascinating to watch it ooze around. Try it. Squirt some water into the air while you're floating -- it's gorgeous to watch these bubbles float around. and you can poke at it. Catch them. I'ts amazing. If you have a chance also, light a match. The flame makes a perfect sphere. Things you never think you'll see.

Image: photograph of a balloon full of water exploding in zero gravity on NASA's vomit comet (the KC-135 which Raffi discusses above). Link to full-size. The experiment was part of an Imaging and Photographic Technology project between NASA and the Rochester Institute of Technology: Link

Link to previous post: Xeni Flies Zero-G, part 1

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:04:26 PM permalink | Other b