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Friday, December 31, 2004

New Year's Eve QTVR panos from around the world

QTVR panoramas from celebrations in Dubai, Zermatt, Lisbon, and other cities. At the time of this post, photographer Jook Leung's annual shot of Times Square in NYC isn't yet posted -- but will likely be up by the time you put down your champagne long enough to click here: Link. Feliz año nuevo, y'all!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:53:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Happy New Year

I thought I'd make my last entry of the year a picture of the miniature donkey we would have bought if it hadn't bitten me on the leg.

Best wishes to everyone in 2005!

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:21:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Justice memo redefines torture

The US Justice Department has released a new memo that revises and broadens the definition of torture, replacing a 2002 memo that justified its use to protect national security.

The 17-page document states flatly that torture violates U.S. and international law and omits two of the most controversial assertions made in now-disavowed 2002 Justice Department documents: that President Bush, as commander in chief in wartime, had authority superseding U.S. anti-torture laws and that U.S. personnel had several legal defenses against criminal liability in such cases.

"Consideration of the bounds of any such authority would be inconsistent with the president's unequivocal directive that United States personnel not engage in torture," said the memo from Daniel Levin, acting chief of the Office of Legal Counsel, to Deputy Attorney General James Comey.

Critics in Congress and many legal experts say the original documents set up a legal framework that led to abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at the U.S. prison camp for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. After the Iraqi prison abuses came to light, the Justice Department in June disavowed its previous legal reasoning and set to work on the replacement document to be released Friday. The Justice Department memo, dated Thursday, was released less than a week before the Senate Judiciary Committee is to consider President Bush's nomination of his chief White House counsel, Alberto Gonzales, to replace John Ashcroft as attorney general.

Link to CBS News story (thanks, Scott Hille), Link to NPR (audio) coverage, WaPo, Guardian.

Here is the actual memo document, via the BBC story: Link to PDF(Thanks abi). Choice words in the final graf:

"There is no exception under the statute permitting torture to be used for a "good reason." Thus, a defendant's motive (to protect national security, for example) is not relevant to the question whether he has acted with the requisite specific intent under the statute."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:08:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Concrete TV

Ripped from the headlines over at Fleshbot:

Concrete Ron describes himself as "perhaps the greatest video editor of all time", and anyone who's ever caught Concrete TV on Manhattan public access television over the last decade or so probably wouldn't argue: a typical episode incorporates vintage porn movies, 80s aerobics videos, car crash footage, Hong Kong shoot-em-ups, old commercials, beefcake reels, pro wrestling smackdowns, cheesy B-movie moments, sex education films, random explosions, wet t-shirt contests, and plenty of "raw emotion, euphoria, physical collision, glee, fantasy, despair, and discomfort" in one noisy, violent, sexy, and brilliantly edited pop culture/infoporn mashup. If we ever had to show visitors from another planet what's going on in our collective brains at any given moment, we'd make them tune in here.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:53:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on Exeem

Following up on this previous BoingBoing post, reader Pseudonym says, in a rather hushed voice:

Whois shows the crowd behind Exeem are in fact a company by the name Swarm Systems Inc. that are in fact located in Saint Kitts and Nevis, so would presumably be free from prosecution and lawsuits like Sharman Networks.

And another anonymous reader (my, you're a sneaky lot) says,

Just wanted to let you guys know that exeem IS compatable with torrent files, you can load them up just like any other client. The ads sloncek was talking about are just ads not adware. The reason there isnt a mac or linux version is cause the program is still in beta and chances are that eventually there will be mac and linux versions. Here are some screenshots of it. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Keep in mind that these are shots of the private beta so the public beta will probably be different since it has changed a lot sinse version 0.1.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:41:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ix-nay on the b-word

Not long ago, NY Daily News gossipist Lloyd Grove decreed his column a Paris Hilton-free zone, announcing that only if "she discovers a cure for cancer, wins the Nobel Peace Prize, launches herself into outer space - or even gets her high-school diploma" would the shark-jumping heiress appear again by name. Well, I've been guilty of a similar sin in 2004, and I hereby pledge to go cold turkey on the word "blog" for, oh, at least the next 72 hours. Today, there's news that dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster named "blog" the "Word of the Year," and that just feels like the last fucking straw. It's time for at least a temporary autokibosh. There. Hear that? The sound of the b, l, o, and g keys on my key**ard hittin* the **tt*m *f the trash can here in my *ffice. F*r a few days, anyway. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:28:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYE drug of choice for Burners

This New Year's Eve, Burning Man devotees homesick for Black Rock City are drowning their yearnings in the finest intoxicant earth has to offer: lines of playa dust. Twice as sweet as sugar, twice as bitter as salt. And if you get hooked, baby, it's nobody else's fault. Link to (snort) full-size image. (Thanks, Rusty!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:12:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Home made tank tears through old shed

This home made tank reminds me of the wireframe tank in Battlezone. Watch this video of it as it tears through a field and knocks over an old shed. I could without the lame music in the background. They should have used "Teddy Bears' Picnic" if they really wanted to enhance the mood. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:46:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sleek looking old car mod

Henry Covington made eight of these jetsonian cars (custom bodies on Renault frames) in 1958. He called it El Tiburon (The Shark). A guy in Riverbank, CA bought the last remaining Tiburon body from Covinton's widow for $800 and put in on a Porsche frame. This Modesto Bee article has more photographs.

(Check out the cover of the 1960s Mechanix Illustrated near the bottom of the page, too. The articles sound great: "ICE CUBES MADE WITH FLASHLIGHT BATTERIES," "NEW ARMY COMBAT VEHICLE 'WALKS' LIKE A MAN", and "WEEGEE TELLS HOW TO MAKE THOSE WEIRD PHOTOS." I'd buy that magazine for 25 cents.) Link (Via Mookie)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:27:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fun with home made bomb

Windows media video of some guys in the Netherlands blowing up a bomb beneath a freeway overpass or a subway tunnel. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:13:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

$6 stapler doesn't use staples

Treehugger reports on a cute-as-a-button stapler that doesn't use staples.

Instead of using the tiny pieces of metal that add up to lots waste, this ingenious little device joins your papers by punching a small, neat hole in your documents and folding the remaining flaps together for a secure binding.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:00:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

High altitude kites for beating the peak oil problem

Well, probably not. But this is an interesting idea: using a kite "laddermill" (as opposed to a rigid, ground-based windmill) to harness the high-speed wind blowing at 30,000 feet and convert it to electricity. Link (Via Mirabilis)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:55:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ABC World News Tonight "Bloggers" segment video online

Archived video of last night's ABC World News Tonight segment about bloggers as "people of the year" is now online: Link WMV, 4MB. (thanks Mike!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:01:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tsunami Reconnect Project: Update

BoingBoing pal Mike Outmesguine gives us an update on the blog-driven project to provide free wireless communication services to areas cut off by the disaster:

Here's a rough update. Smartbridges located in Singapore has pledged 5 access points to begin with and more as specific needs arise. They can be used to connect remote locales over a distance or to create coverage in a local area.

Individuals have pledged spare antennas and radio bridges. Several people have volunteered their time and expertise, including volunteers from the US and Europe prepared to travel to the area to help set up the equipment.

I have been asked specifically to help rebuild communications from people in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and an island near the epicenter without any telecom connection to nearby Sumatra.

We are now working in coordination with the efforts of the Wireless Comm Association International, and I will be attending the Jan. 13th disaster relief meeting in san jose. Other wireless activists and group leaders have contacted me about working together, which I am thrilled to do. I am in touch with companies that want to help, but are working with us to determine what specific models we could put in use.

Bloggers without Borders has pledged 10% of current donations will go to socalwug for this effort.

Donations can be made to socalwug via paypal (through my account at mo@transstellar.com) or credit card. Equipment can be sent to me to redistribute or may ship directly from the manufacturer to the site if practical (as in SmartBridges case from Singapore.)

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:58:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tsunami media bubble: a trickle or a flood?

Choire Sicha deconstructs wildly contradictory headlines related to the Asian disaster. "I'm all for opinionated reporting and interpretation, but this I find this actually quite disturbing and very sad, particularly when one gets a whiff of agenda in the headlines." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:53:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scientific data on Earthquake and Tsunami

Comprehensive collection of materials related to the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, including animations, charts, links, and seismograph recordings, and helful explanations on how to read them. Link (thanks, Ben)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:35:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

William Gibson interviewed by Moira Gunn

IT Conversations has an 18 minute audio interview with William Gibson, from Moira Gunn's Tech Nation program. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:15:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Suit-productivity tips for nerds roundup concluded

Merlin Mann has concluded his end-of-year roundup of his attempt to port the excellent-but-suit-oriented productivity book Getting Things Done to a system that suits geeks who rely heavily on computers and related devices to organize their lives.

I doubt that I'm the only GTD nerd who now has faster and more ubiquitous access to the internet than back in 2001, when Getting Things Done was first published. Just as one data point, I work primarily on internet-related projects from home on a 1.5Mb DSL line and house-wide wifi: "@online" is virtually all of the time for me. So, the GTD contexts associated with my work demand more subtlety to be useful (or even worth the bother of maintaining them).

Take me and multiply it by an order of magnitude for students with Hiptops, full-time AIM access, and a completely wifi campus with unlimited, lightning-fast bandwidth. I suspect that this desk-free, under-25 crowd are a group worth Davidco devoting some avid attention to.

Link

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

Bar code bust

Two couples in Nashville were busted this week for printing out their own UPC bar codes and slapping them on products in Wal-Mart and other stores to lower prices. Allegedly, they were part of a larger ring in 19 states that over the last decade would buy the, er, "discounted" items and later sell the goods or return them in exchange for gift cards that they'd also peddle. Authorities say that the scheme defrauded Wal-Mart alone of $1.5 million. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:42:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Animals escaped tsunami

While tens of thousands of people along the Sri Lankan coast were killed by the tsunami, wildlife officials say that they haven't found any dead animals. The waves swept inland to the island's largest wildlife reserve but none of the elephants, tigers, jackals, crocodiles, or other animals drowned. From the BBC:

Debbie Marter, who works on a wild tiger conservation programme on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, one of the worst-hit areas in Sunday's disaster, said she was not surprised to hear there were no dead animals.

"Wild animals in particular are extremely sensitive," she said. "They've got extremely good hearing and they will probably have heard this flood coming in the distance. There would have been vibration and there may also have been changes in the air pressure which will have alerted animals and made them move to wherever they felt safer."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:16:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gaming Hacks, comprehensive, fascinating and eclectic

I just finished reading Simon Carless's Gaming Hacks, one of the latest O'Reilly Hacks books, and I can't remember when I've had more engrossing fun with a technical book.

Like all the hacks books, Gaming Hacks is arranged around 100 "hacks" -- tricks you can use to get more from gaming. They proceed from the simple to the hellishly complex, so there's something here for everyone.

That's even more true than is usual in the Hacks series, though, because of Carless's incredible, comprehensive, eclectic view of the kinds of hacks that might interest a gamer. Here are some of my favorites:

• How to hack an old Atari 2600 controller: rehabilitate your old paddles without WD40, then splice them into a modern PC (also: how to download, play and write "homebrew" games for the 2600 and other boat-anchor platforms that are produced by console aficionados who enjoy the challenge of programming for 8-bit, minimal-RAM game environments)
• Roll your own "machinima" -- movies made by recording the action taking place in a game environment, then dubbing in studio-recorded voices
• Learn to read enough Japanese to play grey-market games imported from Japan
• Create your own scripts for automating repetitive "grinding" tasks in massively multiplayer games
• Etiquette for joining adventuring parties in MMOs
• Detect and foil cheaters in networked first-person shooter games
• Build a killer home theatre audio setup to maximize your game platform's 3D sound
• Build a portable device out of an old console, like the NES
• Overclock your console
  

This gives you a flavor for the book's subject-matter, but it doesn't convey wonderful prose style: Carless writes like a great, fetishistic geek, like the Car Talk guys or the folks on The Screensavers, like someone who's really, really enthusiastic about his subject matter and wants to wise you up to all the truly awesome wonders awaiting you.

Combine that with a stupendous introduction by sf-writer-turned-game-writer Marc Laidlaw, who wrote the Half-Life series for Valve, and a slew of highly knowledgeable co-authors who contributed various tips, and you've got the perfect mix of informative, enjoyable and fascinating. This book is staying on my shelf. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:01:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, December 30, 2004

5ives: funny lists of five things

Merlin Mann is an amazingly funny guy. I've mentioned his "5ives" site here before -- it's where he keeps very, very funny lists of five things. I found myself needing a chuckle this morning so I revisited 5ives and by the time I got to this entry, I was actually laughing aloud:

Five things I'll be doing while you're at Burning Man

1. carefully stewarding my pallor
2. repeatedly watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on the TiVo
3. defecating indoors--copiously, often, and without queueing
4. not tongue-kissing a sweaty Java programmer in clown makeup named "Shanti"
5. wearing clothes--lots and lots of square, capitalist, heinous-body-covering clothes

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:47:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on ABC World News: People of the Year -- Bloggers.

ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings has been doing some terrific tech-related work in their 2004 year-in-review coverage. While I can't disclose details, tonight's WNT episode features a technology-related "person of the year" segment in which I am a participant. I'm not a "person of the year" -- just another loudmouthed blogger who always has something to say about whoever is. Details and local air times: Link.

Update: The "People of the Year" ABC featured here -- bloggers. Link to segment transcript. The ABC News piece closed with a screenshot of this Photoshopped "fantasy" cover of what some thought a more deserving candidate for Time's "Person of the Year" issue. The image pays homage to Dan Gillmor's essential book, We The Media.

Update 2: Link to video: WMV (4.19 MB) (Thanks tons, Mike O!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:35:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amazing microscopic photography

Nifty gallery of microscopic nature photographs. Shown here: cross section of a lavender leaf. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:29:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Surnova resurrected, eXeem launched

Popular torrent-helper site Suprnova has re-launched, sans torrents. And BoingBoing reader Derek says,

After a few days of having a teaser on their site, Suprnova's Sloncek did an interview with NovaStream.org about a new P2P app and network called eXeem that will be released for download in a couple of weeks. It's being developed by a new, unnamed company, which asked Sloncek to be a representative for them.

It will be Windows only, with no Mac or Linux versions planned at this time. It will be ad supported, and not just banner ads either. It will be full of adware, most of which you can opt out of, according to Sloncek. Some of the less intrusive ones will be required for the application to function though.

Apparently eXeem is based off of BitTorrent, but is different enough that it can't be called a BitTorrent client, and I assume it won't be compatible with BitTorrents either. The application will be downloadable from eXeem.com in a couple of weeks.

Link to details, and here's a link to a .zip of eXeem Beta 0.16. Pseudonym sez: "It won't actually work because of a lack of a working beta code but if ye are curious to have a look at the program then by all means do..."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:24:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Winner: Most shockingly tasteless tsunami-related headline award

"Tsunamis shatter celebrity holidays," CNN. Link (Thanks, Realish). Gawker has others: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:20:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on porting suit-productivity to nerds

Merlin Mann has posted part two of his year-end roundup of his project to port Getting Things Done, a productivity book aimed at suits, to nerdy types whose life is organized around technology.

I have had the worst time setting up a single, integrated workflow that works for me. I've flitted endlessly between text files, Entourage, Mail.app, vim, online RSS-based calendars, all-in-one apps, paper planners, Moleskines, index cards, and more in search of the right combination. Each tool and habit has its benefits, to be sure, but I never seem to land on a really satisfying set of apps and practices that feels like it has exactly the right "flow" to it. Most corrosively, I often (really often) blow tons of time ramping up to some new bauble only to ultimately discover it lacks some critical piece (export, reminders, etc. etc.). Bad habits for someone who ostensibly wants his work life to be more productive and waste-free.

Of course, I can write some of the time and effort down to "research" and the fact that part of my work involves learning about new productivity widgets, but I can't avoid the fact that I still don't have a method of handling all my information (and actual work) in a way that I find satisfying and intuitive. Plus I have to admit to some terrible habits surrounding my ongoing search for "The Perfect System(TM)."

Link

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

Documentary filmmakers get screwed by copyright clearance

Thomas sez, "Untold Stories: Creative Consequences of the Rights Clearance Culture for Documentary Filmmakers: A pair of researchers documented increasing barriers to documentary film production caused by the high cost of obtaining rights clearances from IP holders."

The study explores the implications of the current terms of rights acquisition on the creative process of documentary filmmaking in today's marketplace, and from them makes recommendations to lower costs and promote creativity. It focuses on the lived experience of independent documentary filmmakers who work primarily within a broadcast environment (sometimes with a theatrical "window"), in coping with the creative challenges created by acquiring and granting rights. Click here to read Untold Stories.

Independent documentary filmmakers were selected because their work regularly requires them to interact with a wide variety of rights holders, from archives for photographs and stock footage to musical performers to other filmmakers. This is especially clear when it is a historical documentary or one that comments on commercial popular culture, but it is an issue for most documentary filmmakers, no matter what the subject matter. When a trademark appears on a baseball cap, or a subject happens to be watching television, or a radio in the background plays a popular song, or a subject sings "Happy Birthday," rights clearance becomes a professional and creative challenge.

Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:37:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amazing card-stacking photos

Kevin sez, "Bryan Berg is famous for stacking playing cards. He is the Guiness record holder and tours the world stacking cards. The web site for him is sweet and simple and lets outstanding photography tell the story." Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:34:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Win DRM hides malicious trojans, RIAA deploys infected music on P2P?

According to PCWorld and TechDirt, Windows DRM contains a flaw that allows for attakcers to create music files that contain trojans that attack your computer when you play them, and moreover, the music industry has hired a company called Overpeer which is flooding the P2P networks with infected fake music files.

Overpeer is the same company that the recording industry has hired in the past to dump fake versions of songs on file sharing networks. What the article doesn't answer is whether or not the industry hired Overpeer to dump spyware on the network as well, but it's likely they're pleased either way. Overpeer defends their actions by saying that anyone obviously deserves what they get because, obviously, they were looking for unauthorized files. It's not clear that everyone would agree. Sneaking malicious files onto someone's computer because "they deserved it!" doesn't seem like a very good justification. What may be even more important to this story, however, is the revelation of just how easy it is, thanks to a huge loophole in Microsoft's copy protection technology, to include a malicious file with an audio or video file. Basically, because Windows DRM needs to look for a license, all anyone needs to do is point that license to a website that loads malicious content and off you go. Thank you Microsoft, for creating a huge loophole that will probably make sure millions of new computers are loaded with spamming, DDOSing trojans shortly.

Link (Thanks, Alex!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:30:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tsunami account from Burning Man gate manager

More than 115,000 are dead. Pearl, a gate manager for Burning Man, was in Thailand when the tsunami hit -- he survived.

This is Pearl. I am currently in Bangkok waiting for a flight I have cajoled my way onto. I am one of the survivors. With only scratches, briuses and infections I am fine. Everything I own (almost - a small plastic jesus doll made it through!) is gone. My house was wiped out, as were 3000 hotel rooms, around 600 other resident/vacation homes and almost all the business' in the area.

Our house was 150 feet from the beach, that is THE hardest hit beach in Thailand. As water rushed into our house and then ripped open the second story wall, I leapt off our second story roof and swam and swam and swam, riding the wave deep into the jungle, as it destroyed building after building, ripping up trees and spinning diesel trucks into the air. All this with me in the center of it clinging to anything that floats and swimming to avoid the standing buildings or trees that crushed and impaled many others. The wave deposited me, a small swedish girl and a 60 foot poilice cruiser (medium sized steel patrol boat - around 20 tons) 1 kilometer from the beach - in the jungle.

For the next 5 hours i set up a triage center and cared for dead and dying foreigners. Finally we got helicopters in, and I made my way back towards the main town. I found Karin (my girlfriend) and collapsed. We had both assumed each other dead as the destruction was so massive. She had climbed a coconut tree, wrapped her arms and legs and held on. The water kept pullng the tree and her under, but it and she survived. That day I saw around 100 bodies. The next day, another 200, and the day we left there were cattle trucks full of rotting corpses being taken to Phuket.

After days of no news, dwindling food and water - a group of divers virtually kidnapped a driver to take us away. Every few hours someone had created a rumor that another wave was coming, or there was a gas explosion, or the Muslim rebels were attacking. None were true, but it caused massive panic and killed many more people. We were already under massive psychological strain, and this just made it insane. We ran.

My town is gone. There are probably 2% of the original buildings in a recognizable form. I am very lucky to even be making my way home. The U.S. goverment offered me a phone call, a toothbrush, a paperback book and a temporary passport. No hotel, no food, no flight home. I was told that I could take out a loan if I could list three people who would vouch for me at home. The process would only take a few days. I was alone, injured (superficially - but I sure did look bad), no possesions, no money and my government offered my a book.

I don't know who or what to acknowledge for my presence. That will take a lot of soul-searching. I am certainly among the luckiest people in Thailand right now. According to local news it looks like my town had a SURVIVAL rate of 60%. Please think of what you value. Look around, have you given a hug to someone recently? Anyone? If everything you had were taken away, who would you turn too? In the end it is each other, not the things, that make the world spin. I won't ever forget that.

(via Wayne Correia)

Update: Una traducción en español del recuento personal de Pearl está aquí. (gracias, edmz)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:26:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tsunami update: Microsoft responds, bloggers organize, video torrents

A quick roundup of items related to the tsunami disaster. Image: mannequin in pile of wreckage in Thailand, shot by blogger and NBC correspondent Kevin Sites who is on assignment in Asia covering the story. (Link)

*Following up on a previous BoingBoing post, an anonymous Microsoft employee says:

Responding to this: "Reader J. Hahn says, "I am particularly impressed with Amazon.com's Red Cross donation counter that proves Americans are not 'stingy.' Also, as a Mac user, I was proud to go to the apple.com site and see not one product ad on their front page - just links to aid and donation sites, and Microsoft had not one mention of the disaster."

Most of Microsoft's efforts regarding Tsunami relief is focused internally. MS offers a dollar for dollar charitable donation match to all FTE, and is doing everything it can to expidite the process of trying to get the money to where it will do the most good.

* Tsunami Outreach: Bloggers Without Borders' first international project launched last night. Link (Thanks, Sean)

* BoingBoing reader Nicholas Bentley says,

"Hello Xeni, We thought you might be interested in passing on the news of one person's great efforts for tsunami relief. We wanted to donate to a tsunami relief effort with our funds in a PayPal account but had difficulty finding an agency that took PayPal. Eventually we found Kevin McDonald's site where he is doing a fantastic job of collecting PayPal contributions and passing them on to AmeriCares (AmeriCares disaster relief has a 4-star rating from Charity Navigator.) Kevin has even persuaded AmeriCare's webmaster to see about accepting PayPal transfers direct in the near future."

*BoingBoing reader Chris Cummer says,

Family members of a close personal friend of mine are still missing in Thailand. Her father and brother have flown there to try and find them, as this Globe and Mail article details, but the help of the blog community would also be greatly appreciated. I've posted a request for help on my blog at Missing in Khao Lak, Thailand. Hopefully someone might have some information for a Canadian family that's been living on the edge of grief for five days now.

Related: see this "missing persons" wiki page (Link), and a blog devoted to linking missing persons with their loved ones: Link. And the Red Cross has launched a "Family Links" web page where family members can search for missing relatives’ names: Link. "The information is not verified or tracked by either the ICRC or the American Red Cross but is offered by the ICRC as a stand-alone internet tool for inquirers to use on their own."

* Reader Roberto says, "Every year at this time, I empty my jar full of loose change. But this year I discovered I could donate to the Red Cross (among other charities including UNICEF) from a Coinstar machine at my drugstore. And big kid that I am, I had fun playing with the machine." Link.

* Reader Chris Holland says,

I stumbled upon Austin's Blog who's done a fine job of gathering more videos. So earthlink homepage servers don't get creamed, I've created this torrent gathering 5 of the videos from his blog that weren't already covered in the previous torrent which is still available here. Remember, the more people click those torrent links, the easier and faster it is for everybody else to download them too. And try to keep the torrent opened for as long as possible even after you're done downloading. Big Kudos to prodigem's very easy-to-use torrent service. Link

* Andy Carvin says,

I've just set up a tsunami news digest using the news aggregator Kinja.com. The page contains latest news feeds and first-person blogs related to the tsunami disaster from around the globe. I'd like to see others add their own tsunami-related feeds to the site. If you have a news feed or blog that's focusing on the tsunami, or are reading one that you'd like to add to the digest, please visit the website and log on with the following info: login: tsunami-info / password: southasia. Once you've logged in, you can add a news source to the digest by pasting it into the "Add a Favorite" form field in the right column. Or, you can follow this shortcut.

* Among the many first-person accounts appearing on blogs: Sanjiva is an IBM employee from Sri Lanka, who is trying to build information systems to aid in locating missing persons, and help with medical resource logistics. Link.

* Stuart Ian Burns tells BoingBoing:

This del.icio.us tag is offering good links to information about the Tsunami. There is also a tag at flickr: Link. And The SEA-EAT blog have begun a profile to collect photos of the missing: Link.

Link to related BoingBoing posts.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:25:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of sex tech patent zen

US Patent Office - US 6,751,348 B2 - Automated detection of pornographic images. Or is it, "automatic detection of erogenous zones"? Link (spotted also on Fleshbot)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:49:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

McDonalds China website 0wned over politics

McDonalds' official China website was hacked by someone identifying themself as "Chinese Hacker," evidently a mainland nationalist upset with the fact that the website identified Taiwan as a separate nation. Link to news story (thanks Yi)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:48:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ohio election grok-helper

Lisa Rein just posted a helpful article that attempts to simplify the Ohio election/voting fraud situation: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:20:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cryptozoology and the Tsunami?

Leading cryptozoologist Loren Coleman tells BB:

"Everyone wants to talk about the tsunamis, and so yesterday a reporter contacted me to ask about what impact all this would have on cryptozoology. Questions about cryptozoology in the midst of a global disaster? I frankly was shocked. But then I saw this as an opportunity to emphasize humanitarian efforts, first and foremost, and stressed zoological awareness would be an objective far down the priority list."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:04:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scientists love $89 toy microscope

Digital Blue's RX5 computer microscope for kids is a big hit with scientists, according to this Wall Street Journal article.

Andrew Westphal, an astrophysicist at the University of California at Berkeley, says he was recently able to examine some microscopic dust from outer space with the help of the RX5's plastic lens. That is because a conventional microscope's glass lens would have suffered from the hydrofluoric acid used to separate the particles from other elements. "Had it not been for the toy, we would have been at a loss," he says.

Meanwhile, patients suffering from Morgellons, a rare type of skin disease, have been getting medical information by using the microscope in sending images of their lesions to Morgellons Research Foundation in McMurray, Pa.

Link (Thanks, Mister Jalopy!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:55:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jet pilots complains about laser

A commercial airline pilot said that a laser beam entered the cockpit of his plane for several seconds on Monday, while it was 8,500 feet in the air. Air traffic controllers determined that the source of the laser came from a neighborhood in Warrensville Heights, near Cleveland. The FBI is investigating. And in September, a Delta pilot's eye was injured from a laser beam while he was landing a plane in Salt Lake City. Here's the LA Times article about this.

I'm wondering if the idiots who are doing this are using lasers like the ones sold at Lasershoppe.com. Wow: I just went to lasershoppe to read more about the $600 lasers the site sells (which can burn holes through plastic cups, and I learned that they are no longer selling lasers because they don't want to have anything to do with people who would use their lasers maliciously. They link to a CNN article that says six commercial jets have had their cockpits illuminated by laser beams in the last four days. (Photo by Phillip Torrone)

UPDATE: Patricio Lopez sez: A while ago the Ask the Pilot colum at Salon dealt with the whole lase threat issue. Excerpt:

For the record, even a well-aimed laser would be highly unlikely to cause a crash. Hitting both pilots cleanly in the face, through a refractive wraparound windshield, would require a great deal of luck, and even a temporarily blinded crew would still have the means to avoid disaster. Do not equate the results of a laser strike with, for example, having to drive sightless through a busy intersection. Maintaining a jet's stability would be challenging under the circumstances, but not impossible.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:47:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

University of Pseudoscience

One of the Florida State University professors protesting against a proposed chiropractic school at the college created this spoof campus map. Apparently, seven professors have threatened to quit if the chiropractic school happens.
From the St. Petersburg Times:

The threatened resignations...reflect a belief among many in the medical establishment that chiropractic is a "pseudo-science" that leads to unnecessary and sometimes harmful treatments...

The list of critics include FSU's two Nobel laureates - Robert Schreiffer, a physicist, and Harold Walter Kroto, a chemist - and Robert Holton, the chemistry professor who developed the cancer-fighting drug Taxol, which has brought FSU tens of millions of dollars in royalties. In recent weeks, more than 500 faculty members have signed petitions against the chiropractic school, including about 70 in the medical college, said Dr. Raymond Bellamy, an assistant professor who is leading the charge against the proposal.

Link (via Fark)

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:32:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cryptozoological commemorative stamps

This site of stamps commemorating cryptozoological creatures is fantastic. I want to collect them all! Link (via MetaFilter)

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:03:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wallet Essentials

Touch of Ginger sells an interesting line of gimmicky "Wallet Essentials," credit card-sized "necessities" like emergency cufflinks, ice scrapers, bottle openers, guitar picks, and shirt accessories (pictured here) that you punch out or fold up into functionality. It would be fun, albeit expensive, to get these printed as business cards. Link (via Sensory Impact)

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:58:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Genetic music

Genemusik is a project that "takes fragments of conventional Western melody and sequences them as DNA that is subsequently ‘bred’ and ‘mixed’ within bacterial cultures." The system is being developed by Nigel Helyer at the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences at the University of Western Australia. I have no idea what this will sound like, but it "sounds" interesting. From the project description:

DNA extracted from these cultures may then be re-sequenced, translated to musical notation and interpreted as new musical forms.It is anticipated that the first public manifestation of GeneMusiK will be a series of elegant body adornments that contain ‘musicalised’ synthetic DNA sequences. Each item will be accompanied by a certificate of authenticity and an audio CD of the musical sequence. Subsequent editions are envisioned that will contain DNA sequences hybridised within bacterial cultures, together with installations of living ‘musical low-life’.

Link (via Near, Near Future)

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:46:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

HOWTO Make high-quality recordings from an iPod

Phillip Torrone's article on Hack-a-Day explains how to trick out your iPod to get it to record audio really well, bypassing the crippling restrictions imposed by Apple:

apple cripples recording on an ipod so belkin and griffin then have to sell us add-on devices for over $50 that can only record at 8khz, which is all pretty shitty. apparently (the rumor is) apple does this so people don’t use their ipods to record stuff they think we shouldn’t, like concerts, whatever.

but don’t worry, there’s a way around it and you can record at high quality, all for free.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:38:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geek lessons learned from suit-productivity book

Merlin Mann's 43 Folders weblog is a site where he's been chronicling his efforts to adapt the lessons of the stupendous productivity book Getting Things Done (I've bought and given away 10 copies since reading it earlier this year) to a technological workflow: in other words, he's porting suit productivity to geek lifestyles.

He's just posted part one of a roundup of his lessons learned from a year of pursuing the lessons of Getting Things Done (more to come tomorrow). It's really good stuff, and it's helped me make sense of my last decade's work.

In a previous life as a producer and project manager for some good-sized web projects, I once approached my work with a completely baseless optimism and sense of possibility that I had absolutely no business feeling--let alone foisting off on others as way to guide big projects. Especially given how extravagantly long-range I now realize most of those projects' aspirations really were. Yikes. Simpler times.

The reality is that projects change, and projects break; that's what they do. It's their job. The smaller your project is, and the shorter the distance there is between "here" and "there," the less likely you are to have to chuck it and start over for reasons you couldn't possibly have foreseen when you were knitting up them fancy GANTT charts for Q3/2007.

You know how it works with The Big Plan. Projects kick off, a series of heavy documents with 4-color covers is produced and distributed, everyone gets pumped for a week or two, and then somewhere, somehow, along the way, changes start to rain down, and the pretty, pretty plans for the next 3/6/9/12 months go completely to hell, often taking team morale and productivity right along with them. Say what you will about the volatility of go-go dotcoms and the nature of venture IT projects, but two bald facts won't wipe away: things always change, and Big Project Plans make great door stops.

Since picking up GTD, I've gotten more comfortable with employing informal, "back of the envelope" planning to derive very short-term goals and actions. Clients in particular seem to really like this. It helps them keep a handle on the tab, plus they all enjoy seeing one piece of the work rolling out every month or so. All without the need for endless commitments, rosaries, or finger crossing.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:34:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Defense fund for Bit Torrent indexer

LokiTorrent is a BitTorrent indexing site -- like the lamented Suprnova -- that has been threatened with legal action by the MPAA for telling people where to download torrent files that allow them to download video and other large data-objects. Unlike some of the other Torrent indexers that shut down last week, LokiTorrent is mounting a legal defense. They're trying to raise a legal defense fund of $30,000, and they've made $11,500 in the first 12 hours. Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:30:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Go-faster tweak for Firefox

Here's a great go-faster tip for Firefox, the free, rock-solid, secure browser from the Mozilla Foundation:

1.Type "about:config" into the address bar and hit return. Scroll down and look for the following entries:

network.http.pipelining network.http.proxy.pipelining network.http.pipelining.maxrequests

Normally the browser will make one request to a web page at a time. When you enable pipelining it will make several at once, which really speeds up page loading.

2. Alter the entries as follows:

Set "network.http.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.proxy.pipelining" to "true"

Set "network.http.pipelining.maxrequests" to some number like 30. This means it will make 30 requests at once.

3. Lastly right-click anywhere and select New-> Integer. Name it "nglayout.initialpaint.delay" and set its value to "0". This value is the amount of time the browser waits before it acts on information it receives.

If you're using a broadband connection you'll load pages MUCH faster now!

Link (Thanks, daede!)

Update: Ole sez, "Enabling pipelining in Firefox can speed up complex page retrievals, as you note, but it can also break Flash.  This is a Macromedia thing not a Firefox thing but that’s why the app defaults to pipelining disabled."

Update 2: Gav sez, "There are reasons why Firefox isn't configured like that out of the box. Asa at Mozilla.org explains why.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:27:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Crafty crackhead Powerbook made from garbage bags

There's a big-city hustle that goes like this: a hustler comes up to offering to fence you some stolen big-ticket electronics item, still sealed in its box -- say, a video camera. You can heft that box all you like, but no opening the shrink-wrap, as that would lower the resale value. Once you give the crackhead $20 for this boss $1000 camera and tear off the shrinkwrap, you discover that you've just bought a brick in a camcorder box. Basically, it's what happens when you combine crackheads, a supply of fresh consumer electronics boxes, and a shrinkwrapping machine.

Here's a modern twist on an old favorite: buy a Powerbook for a double-sawbuck. What's in the black, sleek Powerbook box?

"A fake laptop made of gray garbage bag and cardboard, spray-painted platinum silver and finished with A HAND-PAINTED APPLE LOGO DONE IN WITE-OUT."

Oh, man, that's some Martha Stewartoid crackhead creativity. Link (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:24:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Barlow: Amelia takes a fall

On his blog, John Perry Barlow writes about a serious accident that his daughter Amelia just survived -- and the sense of hope that, paradoxically, experiences like this can bring. Hope that transcends the personal, encompassing the global. Our best wishes for Amelia's safe and speedy recovery, Barlow. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:31:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video -- Xeni on ABC World News: Google Guys

In case you or your TiVo find yourself in front of the TV tonight (Wednesday, December 29), I'll be appearing on ABC World News Tonight with Peter Jennings in a segment about Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google, whom ABC count among the "people of the year" from the tech world. Link. Local air times: Link

Update: Here's an archived video file of tonight's ABC News segment on Google, in WMV. Offers to convert or torrent welcomed with thanks. Link to 3.4 MB file (Many thanks, Mike Outmesguine!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:50:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tsunami Help Wiki

Wikinews just launched a Tsunami Help page to collect links to relief effort resources including aid agencies, missing and found people, confirmed deaths, news updates, and helpline numbers. The emergency database was created by contributors to the SEA-EAT (Tsunami Help) blog. (Thanks, Rohit). Link to related BoingBoing posts.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:38:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jim Flora in the New York Times

I've written about my favorite illustrator, the late Jim Flora, several times on Boing Boing. I'm happy to see that the New York Times has an article him, and his influence on today's artists.

"I came across his work in 1993," said Michael Bartalos, a San Francisco-based illustrator who was among the first to locate Flora. "Our styles were very similar - strangely similar, actually - but after I met him I was even more influenced." Among the other prominent artists and illustrators today who are strongly influenced by Flora's art are Tim Biskup, Gary Baseman, J. D. King and Melinda Beck, who all wrote appreciations for Mr. Chusid's book, each praising his effortlessly jazzy spirit. Gene Deitch, a contemporary of Flora's, admits that through the 40's and 50's he was "brazenly imitating his style."

Link (Thanks, Erin!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:19:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Indigenous tribes at risk of extinction after tsunami

Some of the indigenous ethnic communities on Andaman and Nicobar islands could be on the verge of extinction after the tsunami disaster.

The remote cluster of more than 550 islands, of which only about three dozen are inhabited, is home to six tribes of Mongoloid and African origin who have lived there for thousands of years. Many of these tribal people are semi-nomadic and subsist on hunting with spears, bows and arrows, and by fishing and gathering fruit and roots. They still cover themselves with tree bark or leaves.

"They are a vital link to our prehistoric past. If they are lost, India and the world lose a bit of their glorious heterogeneity," said Ajoy Bagchi, executive director of the People's Commission on Environment and Development, India, which has worked with tribal groups in the region for years.

"Even a small loss in any of these groups, barring the more numerous Nicobarese, could seriously endanger their survival. We need to immediately do a count on how many of them are alive."

Link. Previous BoingBoing posts: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:21:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on bloggers and tsunami aid efforts

The total number of dead is now believed to be more than 80,000, and rising. In some places, one in every four citizens have lost their lives. Many of the areas hit were extremely poor to begin with, and some 1/3 of the dead are children. Following up on previous BoingBoing posts about fundraising and relief efforts kick-started in the blogosphere:

Scott Hanselman proposes that Google allow bloggers that use AdSense to donate ad proceeds to tsunami relief. Link (Thanks, Peter Provost).

Andy Carvin at Digital Divide Network says, "In response to this week's devastating tsunami in the Indian Ocean, the Digital Divide Network has created an online community workspace on disaster relief and emergency preparedness: Link. The virtual community can be used for posting online resources, documents, news, and articles about tsunami relief efforts. Users also may take advantage of the site's Web bulletin board and post their own blog entries."

BoingBoing reader Andrew Falconer proposes that folks who've received holiday gift cards convert them into donations to a tsunami relief charity. "I've emailed Home Depot, Wal-Mart, Best Buy and Swapagift.com regarding gift card donations directly to tsunami relief charities. Amazon.com has already implemented the ability to donate via their One-Click system."

Reader J. Hahn says, "I am particularly impressed with Amazon.com's Red Cross donation counter that proves Americans are not 'stingy.' Also, as a Mac user, I was proud to go to the apple.com site and see not one product ad on their front page - just links to aid and donation sites, and Microsoft had not one mention of the disaster."

Previous BoingBoing posts: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:11:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Indian numeric systems for dummies

Alex Steffen says,

Hey -- If, like me, you are a non-Indian, find reading Indian new sources valuable (especially during this disaster), but don't really know your lakh from your crore, and find the placement of commas in Indian numbers utterly baffling, this guide to the Indian numbering system will prove helpful: Term / Figure / No. of zeros / In words
lakh (lac) / 1,00,000/ 5 / Hundred Thousand
crore / 1,00,00,000/ 7 / Ten million
arab / 1,00,00,00,000/ 9 / 1 billion
kharab / 1,00,00,00,00,000 / 11 / 100 billion

Link to Wikipedia tutorial

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:59:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amateur video footage of tsunami on blogs, torrents

Waxy.org has been collecting amateur video footage, here's a roundup post: Link. Punditguy has more: Link

Chris Holland says,

I've used prodigem to create torrents for the South Asia tsunami videos. The more people use this torrent, the faster everyone else will be able to download the videos. See also this page to make it easy for people to put an amazon donation badge on their sites.

Link

Previous BoingBoing posts: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:12:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kevin Sites blogging from Thailand

Blogger and NBC combat correspondent Kevin Sites was in Southeast Asia on a break from reporting duties when the tsunami disaster took place. He's now in Thailand, reporting -- and back on the blog again, dispatching photos and first-person accounts. Snip:

One-hundred and fifty-nine pine coffins have been stacked in the garage -- many of them big enough to hold refrigerators -- built to accommodate the now bloated and rapidly decomposing bodies inside.

Thai soldiers, wearing surgical masks, race against time to arrest the process -- before the bodies become impossible to identify.

In a well-choreographed drill -- they use hammers to smash square blocks of dry ice, carrying the shards on sheets of plastic and dumping them inside the coffins with the remains. They work at a very high tempo -- almost as if they were trying to rescue the living -- rather than preserve the dead.

On the sides of the coffins are photographs of the deceased as they were found, special attention paid to jewelry or tattoos, anything that can help in identifying who they once were.

The pictures are grisly -- bruised, blackened, bodies misshapen from the ferocious force of an angry ocean and all that travels with it. Old, young, small, large, South Africans, Australians, Canadians, English, Thais –- all victims of the earth's unrest on a day when she seemed to have precious little mercy.

Link.(Photo: Coffins bearing digital photographs of the deceased. image: Kevin Sites.)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:54:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYT, Fox News, others on blogs and tsunami disaster

John Schwartz wrote an insightful piece for the New York Times this week about the role blogs play in covering and responding to the tsunami disaster. I was interviewed for the piece, but the people who really have something interesting and valuable to say are the ones over there, on the ground -- and the folks rolling up their geek sleeves to assist.

From relaying first-person accounts (like Sanjay/Morquendi's SMS reports in Sri Lanka), to kick-starting relief efforts (tsunamihelp.blogspot.com, and the Post-Tsunami Reconnect project), to questioning media coverage (Ethan Zuckerman's post about Myanmar), there's a lot going on here The amateur-shot image shown here ran in the NYT story. Snip:

"At sumankumar.com, Nanda Kishore, a contributor, offered photos and commentary from Chennai, India: 'Some drenched till their hips, some till their chest, some all over and some of them were so drenched that they had already stopped breathing. Men and women, old and young, all were running for lives. It was a horrible site to see. The relief workers could not attend to all the dead and all the alive. The dead were dropped and the half alive were carried to safety.' His postings included a photo of a body on a sidewalk with a buffalo walking by. 'It now seems prophetic," he wrote, "for according to the Hindu mythology, Lord Yama (the god of death) rides on a buffalo.'"

Link to story.
Fox News did a segment on this subject yesterday. I spoke with anchor Jon Scott about some of the blogosphere reports we've been pointing to from BoingBoing in recent days. Here are video clips of the Fox News segment: Real, Windows (Many thanks, Mike Outmesguine, for TiVoing and kindly hosting.)

There have been a number of related stories out in the past 24 hours in the Wall Street Journal (Link, sub required), Libération (France) (Link), the Inquirer (UK) (Link), and AP (Link). (Thanks to BB readers including Jean-Luc for pointers).

Previous BoingBoing posts: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:43:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory responds to Wired Editor on DRM

Chris Anderson, the Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine, has responded to my blog-post in which I take issue with Wired's latest product-review magazine, which breathes hardly a mention of DRM even as it reviews devices that are all crapped up with studio-paranoia-generated restriction technology.

Chris takes a "middle ground" position that I've heard described as "radical centrism" -- his position is that the EFF's opposition to DRM is "idealistic" and that there is therefore a practical "reality" that is better suited to the world. I think it's a false dichotomy, and I'd like to have a little go at Chris's post here and see if I can show why:

Consumers want more content, easier-to-use technology, and cheaper prices. If some form of DRM encourages publishers, consumer electronics makers and retailers to release more, better and cheaper digital media and devices, that's not necessarily a bad thing. This is just being realistic: much as we might want it to be otherwise, content owners still call most of the shots. If a little protection allows them to throw their weight behind a lot of progress towards realizing the potential of digital media, consumers will see a net benefit.

This is the crux of the argument. It starts out by saying that DRM is protection. And protection makes Hollywood comfortable. And a comfortable Hollywood will release more material. And the more material there is, the cheaper it will get.

But all of those propositions are materially untrue. Start with "DRM is protection." DRM is not protection. There has never been a DRM-covered file that was kept off the Internet. Ever. DRM has never once in the history of the field kept a file from appearing online, or from being booted by organized crime pirates. Despite its rhetoric on this, Hollywood is perfectly aware of how bogus the DRM-is-protection claim is; any entertainment exec you put on this spot on this will retreat to a badly-thought-out mantra to the effect that "DRM is a speedbump, it's not meant to keep files off the Internet, it's meant to 'keep honest users honest.'" As Ed Felten has pointed out, keeping an honest user honest is like keeping a tall user tall. DRM may keep a naive user from buying a cheap DVD abroad and bringing it home, and it may make it possible to charge you for things that you used to get for free, like format-shifting, but it won't ever keep an honest user honest.

DRM isn't protection from piracy. DRM is protection from competition. If you believe that "much as we might want it to be otherwise, content owners still call most of the shots," then you believe that the guy who makes the record should get a veto over the design of the record player. That the film studios should be able to ban the VCR. That the recording industry should have been able to shove SDMI down all our throats and make MP3 disappear.

This is a profoundly ahistorical proposition. Never in the history of media from the dawn of the printing press right up to the invention of the DVD have we afforded this kind of privilege to incumbent rightsholders. Quite the contrary: at every turn, brave entrepreneurs have engaged in "piracy" of copyrighted works (through devices like the record player, radio, cable television and VCR) and kept at it until the law caught up with the technology.

It's different with the DVD. With the DVD, the electronics companies completely wimped out. They traded their customers to the studios for two packs of cigarettes, and the result has been a decade of stagnation in DVD players. There's no indication that movies are being released sooner or more cheaply on DVD than they were on VHS; and in fact, the release of movies on VHS was preceded by incredible, absurd hyperbole about the video-cassette's inevitable destruction of the film industry and the complete impossibility of a movie ever being released by a studio for viewing on your VCR.

If you believe that "content owners still call most of the shots" then you believe that the studios will make movies and just not release them, they will amass a great pile of unreleased material in their Hollywood vaults and sit before the doors, arms folded, glaring at the world until it arranges itself into a more accomodating configuration. It is ridiculous. DRM hasn't convinced the studios to put new material online -- the offerings that the studios have put online are a pathetic shadow of the material one can download from the P2P networks. The studios have all the DRM in the universe at their disposal, but they're not using it to bring new material to market.

Nope, they're using it to sell you the same crap for more money. Chris loves his Microsoft Media Center PC, "essentially a DVR on steroids" -- at least, he loves it so far. That's because he hasn't been bitten on the ass by it yet, like this guy, who bought a Media Center PC so that he could catch the Sopranos and burn them to DVD. When he bought the PC, it was capable of doing that. Halfway through the season, the studios reached into his living room and broke his PC, disabling the feature that allowed him to burn his Sopranos episodes to DVD. And if you got suckered into letting your cable company give you a "free" PVR, you've got a nasty shock coming this season: your episodes of Six Feet Under will delete themselves from your hard drive after two weeks, whether you've gotten around to watching them or not.

If you want to watch all the Sopranos or Six Feet Unders in a row at the end of the season, you'll have to do it on Pay Per View. You'll have to buy what you used to get for free: the right to record a show and watch it for as long as you'd like. You get less, you pay more. And the studios can change the rules of the game after you've bought the box and brought it home: the only way you can protect your investment is if you can somehow ensure that no studio executive decides to revoke one of the features you paid for back when the box was on the show-room floor. Remember, these are the same studio execs who are duking it out for the right to limit how long a pause button can work for.

Chris likes the iTunes Music Store, calling it a success, but it's got the same problems as the Media Center and all the other DRM devices. The record labels can demand that Apple selectively break your music player, removing features based on secret negotiations, long after you've made your purchases. Apple will even force "updates" on you that remove features that you've chosen to add to your device, shutting you out of listening to your own music on the player you shelled out good money for.

The problem is that once your device vendor sells you out to the studios, they're 0wned. The studios' protection racket lets them demand practically anything from a device vendor -- check out "selectable output control" for some truly heinous world-domination horseshit.

So, Chris, that's why I disagree with your "realistic" notion:

• There's no reason to believe that DRM makes more content available
• There's no reason to let the studios "call the shots" -- we haven't before this
• There's no reason to believe that DRM makes media cheaper, quite the contrary
• The features that make your "reasonable" DRM palatable to the market today can and are rescinded tomorrow

If I were in Chris's seat, I would be sure that every single review of a DRM device carried the following notice: WARNING: THIS DEVICE'S FEATURES ARE SUBJECT TO REVOCATION WITHOUT NOTICE, ACCORDING TO TERMS SET OUT IN SECRET NEGOTIATIONS. YOUR INVESTMENT IS CONTINGENT ON THE GOODWILL OF THE WORLD'S MOST PARANOID, TECHNOPHOBIC ENTERTAINMENT EXECS. THIS DEVICE AND DEVICES LIKE IT ARE TYPICALLY USED TO CHARGE YOU FOR THINGS YOU USED TO GET FOR FREE -- BE SURE TO FACTOR IN THE PRICE OF BUYING ALL YOUR MEDIA OVER AND OVER AGAIN. AT NO TIME IN HISTORY HAS ANY ENTERTAINMENT COMPANY GOTTEN A SWEET DEAL LIKE THIS FROM THE ELECTRONICS PEOPLE, BUT THIS TIME THEY'RE GETTING A TOTAL WALK. HERE, PUT THIS IN YOUR MOUTH, IT'LL MUFFLE YOUR WHIMPERS. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:40:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Backyard disaster bunker

Jim Leftwich writes about US Bunkers, which manufactures a nice little pod to cozy up in when the peak oil crisis-induced food, water, and energy riots commence. Load it up with plenty of guns, ammos, water, food, and antibiotics and ride out the catastrophe. Don't open the door until the population drops by 90 percent. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:29:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

In Sri Lanka, animals seem to have survived

Strangely, amid massive loss of human life, there seems to be little or no dead wild animals in Sri Lanka. Snip:

Sri Lankan wildlife officials are stunned -- the worst tsunami in memory has killed around 22,000 people along the Indian Ocean island's coast, but they can't find any dead animals.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:17:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tsunami blogs launched for help services, missing persons inquiries

The group responsible for tsunamihelp.blogspot.com have launched two new collaborative blogs: tsunami enquiry, with numbers for emergency help services in affected areas, and tsunami missing persons, which aims to assist people in connecting with loved ones.

Previous BoingBoing posts: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:15:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dori Smith debunks Dvorak's anti-Mac column

Backup Brain's Dori Smith obviously had fun eviscerating John Dvorak's latest anti-Macintosh diatribe. She points out glaring problems with Dvoraks first two sentences, which is all you need to know to realize that Dvorak's column is a joke.

Dvorak: "The Mac platform is essentially stagnant. That becomes obvious when you look at the declining market share numbers -- not from research firms, but from the W3C, which monitors online activity."

Smith: "[Those statistics] show that the number of Mac users online (or at least visiting the W3 Schools site) has gone from 1.8% in March 2003 to 2.3% in December 2003 to 2.7% in December 2004. But noting that the number is increasing would completely destroy Dvorak's premise, so he doesn't mention it." Link (Via Scoble)

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

Post-Tsunami Reconnect project

Author and wireless geek Mike Outmesguine announces a disaster relief project aimed at bringing connectivity to tsunami victims cut off from communications services by the disaster.

I am working to organize a disaster relief effort to help those affected by the Indian Ocean tsunami. I'd like to send wireless equipment and expertise to damaged areas to help reconnect the people. I'm still working out the details and will update you as more develops. It will be organized with folks from the Southern California Wireless Users Group, SOCALWUG and other wireless groups that wish to participate. I started calling it the Post-Tsunami Reconnect.

Xeni Jardin mentioned the effort today on Fox News Channel during an interview about bloggers and the tsunami. I will have a video excerpt available soon. Here is a statement I sent to the Center for International Disaster Information about the effort:

"We are a Southern California based user community of experts and advocates of wireless data communications. Wireless community members supplied technical expertise and wireless equipment for the Florida hurricane relief efforts and to military personnel stationed in Iraq. We would like to organize, collect, and deliver wireless data equipment to disaster relief workers and others in the affected region to help maintain a high level of communication and internet access ability. We would also be able to send engineers into the area to help bring connections online."

For more information or to discuss a donation of funds, equipment, or your expertise, contact Mike Outmesguine by email "mo at wifi-toys.com" or voice: +1-818-889-9445 ext. 102

Link

Previous BoingBoing posts: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:04:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Earth is spinning faster as a result of quake

The massive undersea earthquake that caused the tsunami gave a boost to our planet's spin. As a result, days will be a fraction of a second shorter from now on.

Richard Gross, a geophysicist with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, theorized that a shift of mass toward the Earth's center during the quake on Sunday caused the planet to spin 3 microseconds, or 3 millionths of a second, faster and to tilt about an inch on its axis.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:02:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rudy Rucker explains how to get high on cellular automata

Rudy Rucker sez, "Here's an interesting blog entry about conotoxins, cellular automata, and the new drug Prialt."

So I’m going on about cellular automata all the time and you’re thinking, “Yes, but can CAs get me high?” I’ll say! Stephen Wolfram’s mascot is the textile coneshell, famous for having a one-dimensional CA wrapped around its shell.

Link (Thanks, Rudy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:04:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More CC-licensed banjo manuals

Patrick sez, "'A Book Of Five Strings' is another Creative Commons banjo book- you guys posted a link to my first CC project, 'The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo' back in September. 'Five Strings' was released a few weeks ago and it's already selling pretty well. Going CC actually boosted sales for my first book so I figured I might as well do it again." Link (Thanks, Patrick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:58:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Incredible Beatles mashup mixes 40+ different tracks

Hank sez, "Where ordinary mash-up mixes mix two or perhaps three songs, this mix is made up by appx 40 Beatles songs, with sometimes five different songs playing at the same time. A must hear!" I concur; this is mind-blowingly amazing. Man, all these Beatles mash-ups this year are really making me yearn for my old Beatles vinyl. I especially love the juxtaposition in this track of the old skiffle-Beatles with the later psychedelia. Soo-poib. 5MB MP3 Link (Thanks, Hank!)

PS: I am reasonably certain that this server will be shortly overwhelmed. If you've got a mirror, email me and I'll post a link to it. However, I have no such mirror, so if you find yourself unable to get a copy, don't look at me!

Update 1: Ian Clarke, the co-author of the awesome P2P tool Freenet, has graciously offered to distribute this file through Dijjer, his new (still pre-beta) P2P content distribution tool; here's the Dijjer Link

Update 2: Brian Arnold offers this more conventional mirror

Update 3: David Chin was good enough to make and seed this Torrent for the file (though I have my doubts about BitTorrent's efficacy with a file of a paltry five megabytes)

Update 4: Guillaume Champeau sends in these links you can use to get the file over P2P nets: eDonkey/eMule Link, Gnutella (Limewire, Bearshare, Shareaza...) Link

Update 5: Phil Nelson provides this old-fashioned Web mirror

Update 6: Jeroen Sangers also has a traditional Web mirror

Update 7: Andre Nantel invites us to consume her/his "20,000 megs of unused bandwidth for this month," via this link

Update 8: Doppeljr has this mirror on offer

Update 9: Matt Lyon has an archive for your downloading pleasure

Update 10: If a dijjer link isn't obscure enough, how about a Red Swoosh link, courtesy of Travis Kalanick?

Update 11: Scott Lawrence's mirror promises unlimited bandwidth!

Update 12: Everett Guerny provides another .edu mirror.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:32:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tsunami charities rated

Benjamin sez, "I did a little digging into a few of the major charities mentioned on Google's page and on the tsunami blog, and have posted ratings and links from Charity Navigator, the Better Business Bureau, and the American Institute of Philanthropy for the top few." Link (Thanks, Benjamin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:33:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Obesity and oral contraceptives

A new study from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center reports that women on birth control pills who are categorized by their body-mass index as overweight or obese are 60 to 70 percent more likely to get pregnant than "normal" weight women who also take the pill.

One possible explanation is increased metabolism. "The more a person weighs, the higher their basal metabolic rate, which can shorten the duration of a medication's effectiveness," she said. Another possibility is that the heavier a person is, the more liver enzymes they have to clear medications from the body, causing a drop in circulating blood levels of the drug. A third theory is based on the fact that the active ingredients in oral contraceptives – the hormones estrogen and progesterone – are stored in body fat. "The more fat a person has, the more likely the drug is sequestered, or trapped, in the fat instead of circulating in the bloodstream," (epidemiologist Victoria) Holt said.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:12:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Asimo in motion

I love this video of Honda's new-and-improved Asimo robot running. He moves like a cute old man chasing a bus. From the press release:

"The combination of newly developed high-response hardware and the new Posture Control technology enables ASIMO to proactively bend or twist its torso to maintain its balance and prevent the problems of foot slippage and spinning in the air, which accompany movement at higher speeds. ASIMO is now capable of running at a speed of 3km/hour. In addition, walking speed has been increased from the previous 1.6 km/hour to 2.5 km/hour."

Link (Thanks, Matt!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:57:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dicing with Dragons: BBC Radio doc on D&D

Gavin sez, "On Wednesday, BBC Radio 4 broadcast a documentary called 'Dicing with Dragons', which explored the origins of Dungeons and Dragons, including its introduction to the UK by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, authors of the Fighting Fantasy books and the founders of the current Colossus of non-electronic gaming, Games Workshop. The documentary also explores the literary inspirations for DnD material, including Tolkien, Robert E Howard and Michael Moorcock, and also the writers who've been inspired by it, like China Mieville. You can listen to the documentary in Real Audio format on the BBC's website. Great listening." Real Stream Link (Thanks, Gavin!)

Update: Daniel sez, "You might want to amend your article to say that the Steve Jackson interviewed is not the Steve Jackson of the famous RPG company Steve Jackson Games, makers of G.U.R.P.S., Toon, Ogre, Car Wars and other RPG classics along with the popular trading card game, Illuminati: New World Order."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:41:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Space Invader shoe

Anonymous French guerilla artist Invader surreptitiously installs tile mosaics of classic video game characters in high-traffic spots all over Paris and other cities around the globe. In fact, I can see one from the window of my apartment! Now he's released a limited-edition sneaker with a space invader character raised in the tread, enabling the shoe to be used like a stamp. Each step in sand, mud, water, paint, wet tar, etc., leaves an imprint, scoring you points in the ongoing invasion. Link (via Cool Hunting)

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:39:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's PopSci column: How Hollywood broke DVD

I've begun writing a regular column for Popular Science magazine, about technology and policy. The first one's just hit the stands, called "Go Ask Hollywood: Why can't you back up your DVDs? Because entertainment execs don't want you to."

They set up a cartel in 1995, now called the DVD Copy Control Association (DVD-CCA), to dole out these licenses. Anyone making players without one is breaking the law. A Fox Studios executive told me, "It's a polite marketplace." Sure, if polite means stagnant.

Think of all the things you can do with a track from a CD now that you couldn't do 10 years ago: rip it to your laptop, turn it into a ring tone, send it to your friends, burn a mix. Many of these capabilities are illegal, and the recording industry has tried to stop them all, but they're out there, challenging the old rules and feeling their place in the market. Innovators have tried to enable the same flexibility for the DVD. Last year 321 Studios released software that let you back up prerecorded DVDs, but the MPAA sued it into bankruptcy before a court could rule on whether or not the product was legal.

Just last month, this magazine gave a Best of What's New award to a $27,000 movie jukebox from Kaleidescape, praising the maker's efforts to appease Hollywood by locking down content on the device so it can't be shared. Kaleidescape thinks the product is within the boundaries of its DVD-CCA license, but my Deep Throat on the cartel says the group disagrees and is currently deciding how the company will be punished. Penalties range from a stern warning to fines to lawsuits. (When I called the DVD-CCA for an official line, I got this reply: "I've been asked to tell you we have no comment." "Who asked you to tell me that?" "I can't tell you.")

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:05:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

Myanmar's govt suppressing tsunami news?

GeekCorps founder Ethan Zuckerman has astutely noticed that there is almost no news about the effect of the tsunami on Myanmar (formerly Burma), which was surely in the disaster's path. It appears that news of the tsunami's effect has been supressed by Myanmar's military dictators.

There's two possible explanations for this story. One is that Myanmar, with 1930 kilometers of coastline, numerous fishing villages and huts on stilts along the coast, and a common border with Thailand - where over 1500 are reported dead - miraculously escaped the effect of the tsunami.

The other explanation is that Myanmar's famously secretive military government hasn't wanted to reveal the extent of the tsunami damage to the outside world... and especially to their own citizens. (As in many represive regimes, it's easier to to get news from outside the country than news from within it.)

Link (Thanks, Alex!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:43:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BitTorrent write-up in Wired

This month's Wired Magazine features a long article on Bram Cohen, the creator of BitTorrent, written by BB pal Clive Thompson. It's a very good piece, and Bram gets some great licks in; the only place I took issue with it is where Clive talks about Microsoft DRM being useful to "keep content out of pirate hands" -- there is not a single piece of content in the history of the universe that has been "kept out of pirate hands" (i.e. kept off the Internet, or prevented from being stamped out in pirate CD factories abroad) by DRM. It's a weird kind of Big Lie strategy by the DRM people to talk about how DRM can prevent "piracy" when there has never, ever been an example of this happening.

Wired seems to be a little soft on DRM these days; the recent Wired spin-off, Wired Test, featured page on page of reviews of music players, media PCs, and PVRs with hardly a mention of the fact that all of these devices were fundamentally crippleware, and all controlled by entertainment companies who can and do arbitrarily remove functionality from them after they have entered the marketplace, so that the device that you've bought does less today than it did when you opened the box. If you're publishing a consumer-advice magazine, it seems like this is the kind of thing you should be noting for your readers: "If you buy this, your investment will be contingent on the ongoing goodwill of some paranoid Warners exec whose astrologer has told him that your pause button will put him out of business and must be disabled."

There's a strong tie here for the use-case for BitTorrent. I bought a Sopranos Season Three DVD set for a friend's Christmas this year. When the friend opened the gift on her Christmas holiday in France, the discs wouldn't play in her hotel's French DVD player; nor would they play in the on-site English PowerBook -- because the discs had DRM. At that point, the rational thing to do would have been to sell the discs on Amazon and just download Season Three using BitTorrent -- the studios have rigged the game so that you get a superior product (e.g., something you can actually watch) when you download bootlegs from BitTorrent, and they actively punish customers who buy their products instead of downloading them.

Which brings me back to Clive's casual note that Microsoft DRM can keep media "out of pirate hands." It's a statement that's so categorically untrue, it seems to come from a parallel universe with different laws of physics and economics. BitTorrent proves the futility of DRM as surely as DRM turns honest customers into studio-hating downloaders.

Cohen knows the havoc he has wrought. In November, he spoke at a Los Angeles awards show and conference organized by Billboard, the weekly paper of the music business. After hobnobbing with "content people" from the record and movie industries, he realized that "the content people have no clue. I mean, no clue. The cost of bandwidth is going down to nothing. And the size of hard drives is getting so big, and they're so cheap, that pretty soon you'll have every song you own on one hard drive. The content distribution industry is going to evaporate." Cohen said as much at the conference's panel discussion on file-sharing. The audience sat in a stunned silence, their mouths agape at Cohen's audacity.

Cohen seems curiously unmoved by the storm raging around him. "With BitTorrent, the cat's out of the bag," he shrugs. He doesn't want to talk about piracy and the future of media, and at first I think he's avoiding the subject because it's so legally sensitive. But after a while, I realize it simply doesn't interest him much.

He'd rather just work on his code. He'd rather buckle down and figure out new ways to make BitTorrent more efficient. He'd rather focus on something that demands crazy, hair-pulling logic.

Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EW picks Grey Album for best of 2004

Entertainment Weekly's Album of the Year is DJ Danger Mouse's The Grey Album, an album made by mashing up Jay-Z's Black Album and The Beatles' White Album. The resulting disc is very good, and also illegal, at least in the eyes of EMI, the Beatles' publisher, who pursued legal action against Danger Mouse for making the disc. Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:23:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photographs from the Arkansas State Prison 1915-1937

In 1975, documentary artist Bruce Jackson found a bunch of old prison photos in a drawer in the Arkansas penitentiary.

The people being photographed have no interest in the photographs being made; the people making the photographs have no interest in the photographs they have made. 

Link (Via Sensible Erection)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:09:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Duck and Cover: The Citizen Kane of civil defense films

Boing Boing friend Ken Sitz sez: "My CONELRAD project just received a holiday gift from the Library of Congress in today's announcement that DUCK AND COVER is being inducted into the National Film Registry, thus guaranteeing its perservation. We launched a campaign last March to rally our readers and interested parties to support our official nomination and we just published the first production history of the film." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:50:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Virgin Mary toast on demand

Matthew is auctioning a grilled cheese maker that toasts the Virgin Mary's likeness onto a slice of bread. He sez: "I'm working on a super cheap wifi telecommunications project for the Pacific island of Bougainville. The sandwich maker is art experimant and half a hair-brain fund raising effort for the project." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:37:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mutant snowflakes on Jimwich

Good news: Jim Leftwich has started blogging again! And to re-kick it off, he's assembled a gallery of non-six-sided snowflakes he's found in advertisements. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:31:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Harry Potter parody choose-your-adventure game for iPod

The Brunching Shuttlecocks once featured an hilarious choose-your-own-adventure game based on Harry Potter, by David Neilsen.

It turns out that iPods have a "museum" mode where text notes and audio clips can be combined so that museums and other venues can hand out iPods to patrons, who trigger narration by clicking the iPod's button based on signs at each exhibit. This is also well-suited to Choose-Your-Own-Adventure games.

So here's a choose-your-own-adventure Harry Potter parody game for the iPod -- wow! Link (scroll down page to 3/25/04 entry)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:38:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rare Rucker 1st edn auction to benefit tsunami victims

Bill sez, "I have a treasured first printing of Rudy's (out of print) short story collection that's been with me since college. It's a book full of mind-expanding (and funny) stories. I'm auctioning it off on eBay, and the proceeds will be given in the winner's name, to Oxfam America's relief efforts in area devastated by the 26 December earthquake and tsunami." Link (Thanks, Bill!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:30:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How people destroy technology

Technology Review covers Kent Norman, "a cognitive psychologist who studies how people destroy their technology -- sometimes on purpose, but oftentimes out of frustration."

"Struck mid-size tower with car going 25mph, propelling it 15-20 feet forward. This causes damage to car but troublesome DVD drive finally ejected jammed disc upon contact with pavement. Still worked but HDD reported errors, and case wasn't attractive. Sold on eBay (with new case and HDD). Beware of this computer if you find it on eBay."

"Slammed keyboard with fists hard enough to pop most of the keys off. Lost the 'A' key and the top row of characters stopped working. Threw keyboard into the swimming pool. Kinda nice watching it sink."

"Smashing boards and plastic bits with a hammer is satisfying. Stomping on things that make a nice "CRUNCH" noise is even more satisfying. "

"I once shot a computer with a .50 cal BMG sniper rifle."

Link (Thanks, Brad!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:29:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web based Apple 2 emulator

Virtual Apple is a library of old Apple 2 applications that you can run from the emulator on website. Unfortunately, you need Windows(!) and IE to run it. I checked -- they have Wizardry available -- the game that convinced me to buy my first Apple 2e in 1985. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:12:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Before and after hi-res satellite images of tsunami zone

Amazing, amazing images of beachfront in Sri Lanka before and after the tsunami hit. Also, hi-res satellite images of the tsunami itself. Snip:

"This is a natural color, 60-centimeter (2-foot) high-resolution QuickBird satellite image featuring the southwestern coast of Sri Lanka. Imagery was collected at 10:20 a.m. local time, slightly less than four hours after the 6:28 a.m. (local Sri Lanka time) earthquake and shortly after the moment of tsunami impact."

Link (Thanks, WW!).
Previous BB posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:07:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Craigslist takes $50 million from newspapers' classified ads

Classified Intelligence, a consulting firm has released a report that says craigslist.com has seriously hurt newspapers' classified ad revenue.

Craigslist - now partly owned by eBay - beat out the papers by being more customer friendly and by being quicker to act than its rivals. Other papers around the US should take notice of Craigslist' Bay area success, as the site continues its march into new cities.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:55:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Brotherton's Star Dragon sf novel under CC license

JeremyT sez, "Mike Brotherton has released a free downloadable version of his first science fiction novel, _Star Dragon_ on his website. Mike's first novel, published by Tor last year, is a great read. Star Dragon is a hard science fiction novel detailing a scientific expedition to investigate strange life forms living inside a star's accretion disk." This is great news -- Tor is my publisher, too and it's wonderful to see them experimenting with CC licenses for their other authors.

Unlike most first-time visitors entering the world headquarters of Biolathe, Inc., Dr. Samuel Fisher didn't pause at the moist cloying air that moved across the building’s threshold like breath. If anything, his pace increased; he threw his shoulders forward and his streaker-clad feet rushed as if to prevent a fall, sinking into the plush rose ruglings with each step. Unlike the sunlit diamond and gold, seemingly mandatory in corporate buildings, this lobby throbbed pink and organic. The entire building was alive. Despite the omnipresence of biotechnology, walking inside it rather than sitting on it still made most hesitate.

Not Fisher -- he was in the middle of five major projects. He didn't believe his life would be as transformed by the upcoming presentation as the Biolathe agent had hinted. He charged ahead, glancing about the nearly empty lobby for signs to guide him. What was this? He’d been here six seconds already! There was never enough time to waste any of it. He decided there was one thing he would hesitate over in the future: being talked into a physical meeting.

In the middle of the cavernous chamber Fisher stopped abruptly, brought up short by a bipedal mobile with wrinkled gray skin attached to the wall by a pulsing umbilical.

Link (Thanks, JeremyT!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:19:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The legend of lost Disney porn

Following up on last week's BoingBoing post about a vintage, X-rated, Disney-inspired comic for auction on eBay (Link to post), BoingBoing reader Mercutio writes:

An entry on LJ prompted me to look at Boing Boing entry concerning the sale of Disney parody/porn on Ebay. Thought you'd appreciate knowing that Disney animators actually made an orgy scene using characters from Snow White.

I once worked at Facets Multimedia, an art movie house in Chicago. During the mid 1980s, I attended a lecture by famous animator Seamus Culhane. Mr. Culhane had worked for Fleischer, Disney and Warner Brothers at different times. And he was an animator on Snow White. (Mr. Culhane was fired by Walt Disney for trying to organize an independent union - but that's another story.)

During his talk, Mr. Culhane was asked if there had ever been any porn created that was like the famous picture from The Realist [Ed. Note: the "Disney porn" image auctioned last week on eBay]. He answered that, yes, the work was so long that the animators got bored and created very explicit orgy scene sketches and cells. He further said that when Walt Disney heard what was going on, he personally hunted down and burned all of the objectionable material.

Thought you'd like to hear this story. I don't know if Mr. Culhane or any other animators were ever quoted in a new source about this episode in Disney history.

As any regular reader of this site knows, my blog-colleage Cory Doctorow is BoingBoing's resident guru on all things Disney. Browse the results of this Google search string for some of his previous posts on ephemera from the mouse-o-sphere.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:24:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chillits DJ sets online

Chillits is an ambient music outdoor festival that takes place every fall in Northern California. It's sort of a scaled-down version of the UK's Big Chill. All of the DJ sets from Chillits 2004 are now online for our, er, blistening pleasure. The mixes by my musical mentors, San Francisco's Nick Philip and DF Tram, are just stunning. And yes, the Brian Behlendorf who also spun a really beautiful set is in fact the co-inventor of Apache. I have Brian to thank for turning me on to post-Eno ambient when we both interned at Wired in 1993. What DF Tram says about his own set pretty much applies across the Chillits board: this music is "best enjoyed horizontally." Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:31:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Inflatable bounce-house pub

From the people who brought you the inflatable church, an inflatable pub with inflatable fireplace and even a dart-board. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:53:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FDA: Give dying cancer victims Ecstasy

The FDA has approved research into whether Ecstasy should be used in palliative care of terminal cancer patients to ease their final days.

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a pilot study looking at whether the recreational hallucinogen can help terminally-ill patients lessen their fears, quell thoughts of suicide and make it easier for them to deal with loved ones.

"End of life issues are very important and are getting more and more attention, and yet there are very few options for patients who are facing death," Dr John Halpern, the Harvard research psychiatrist in charge of the study, said.

The small four-month study is expected to begin early next spring. It will test the drug's effects on 12 cancer patients from the Lahey Clinic Medical Centre in the Boston area. The research is being sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a non-profit group that plans to raise 250,000 (-184,816) to fund it.

Link (via Fark)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:20:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Smartass kids slamming classic video games

Child's Play is EGM's recurring feature in which kids who play video games are sat down in front of game classics like Tetris and Adventure and Donkey Kong, then encouraged to deliver scathing hilarious commentary on the general suck of yesteryear's treasured games as compared to today's offerings.

Bobby: I've played this on my cell phone.

EGM: [Pointing to the humans on the ground] What do they look like?

Parker: They look like those little characters in the game Life, the little people you have to stick in your car.

EGM: Before this came out in compilations, we used to put quarters in arcade machines.

Parker: You wasted quarters on this?

EGM: Yeah.

Parker: That's so sad.

Link (via Foe Romeo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:25:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How to Be Creative -- the book

Back in August, I blogged about Hugh Macleod's "How to Be Creative" project. Hugh draws cartoons on the backs of business cards and works in advertising; his How to Be Creative is a meditation on creativity, individualism and commercialism, and it's full of pithy, clear, no-nonsense advice.\

Now Hugh has expanded the piece into a short book, which is online in its entirety. He's found an agent and the agent is shopping the book -- I'd certainly buy a copy!

Chaos can be a positive thing. Chaos is inherently part of the creative act. To embrace creativity means you must also embrace chaos. Things don't happen when everything is neat and "just so". Creativity is all about distruption. The people who tell you that creativity is pain-free are liars. The people who tell you they've got a plan are liars. There is no plan. There's just you, God and the need to invent. And this uncertain world is what most of us now find ourselves entering, willingly or otherwise.

Creativity equals chaos. Chaos equals creativity. Embrace it or die. I've already done so. I know all about it. It almost cost me my liver but like I said, education is expensive.

The Creative Age is upon us. The Chaotic Age is upon us. We are scared. Damn right, we should be scared. But out of the terror comes the amazing opportunities for us to expand both on the material and spiritual level. The fewer safety nets there are to save us, the less choice we have to be anything other than ourselves, the less choice we have besides doing what is meaningful to us. And finding ourselves, doing what matters, becoming the person we were born to be, this is what God put on this earth to do.

We live in amazing and interesting times. If we're lucky, while on this earth we can do a damn good job proving i

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:57:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RFID Chip Chips

Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology could soon be embedded in casino chips and tables. Casino supply company Shuffle Master recently shelled out $12.5 million for two patents on gaming-related RFID systems. Shuffle Master president Paul Meyer presents this scenario in Gambling Magazine:

"Say I sit down at a black jack table and I have a player's card. I place it and a $100 bill on the table. My card is swiped which places me at that table," explained Mr. Meyer. (A player's card is another way for casinos to track frequent gamblers. They earn points on the card for free meals, or other rewards.)

Without RFID, "as I play over time, the only way the casino can estimate the kind of player I am, is by using pit boss estimates. That's a pretty rough estimate. That's where table tracking comes in. Every chip is associated with me and is tracked using a reader. Exactly what I'm betting and losing or winning is tracked automatically. Without tracking, they (casino) don't know what I'm betting." In other words, the reasoning behind RFID utilization is that the casino will know what every player is doing at every table.

"Say you move away from one table with $500 in chips. You now go to cash in those chips. Those RFID chips can be read at the cage and associated with you. In your moment of generosity, you give a cocktail waitress a $25 chip. When she cashes it in, we know how generous a tipper you are."

Link (via The Wireless Weblog)

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:25:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dangerous Things on your desk

Kaden Harris builds exquisitely-crafted "Dangerous Things" for your desktop, such as miniature working guillotines, catapults, and the Hypnodisk (pictured here), a staple of evil mythical masterminds. Sensory Impact interviewed Harris about his "antiques from a parallel universe":

"I did a prototype of a ‘pitching machine’ sort of thingie powered by 2 sewing machine motors that was supposed to fire anything from pencils to Sharpies, but it turned out to be insanely over-powered…workplace murders would have gone through the roof if I’d brought it to market. I have a newfound respect for 2H pencils these days."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:17:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

China Mieville's Socialist Review Christmas story

Award-winning science fiction author China Mieville has written a wonderful Christmas story for the Socialist Review. It concerns itself not with the commercialization of Christmas, but with the privatization of it, with an era in which observing Christmas requires extensive license payments and agreements with the entities that hold the copyrights and trademarks in holiday traditions.

Don't get me wrong. I haven't got shares in YuleCo, and I can't afford a one-day end-user licence, so I couldn't have a legal party. I'd briefly considered buying from one of the budget competitors like XmasTym, or a spinoff from a non-specialist like Coca-Crissmas, but the idea of doing it on the cheap was just depressing. I wouldn't have been able to use much of the traditional stuff, and if you can't have all of it, why have any? (XmasTym had the rights to Egg Nog. But Egg Nog's disgusting.) Those other firms keep trying to create their own alternatives to proprietary classics like reindeer and snowmen, but they never take off. I'll never forget Annie's underwhelmed response to the JingleMas Holiday Gecko.

No, like most people, I was going to have a little MidWinter Event, just Annie and me. So long as I was careful to steer clear of licenced products we'd be fine.

Ivy decorations you can still get away with; holly's a no-no but I'd hoarded a load of cherry tomatoes, which I was planning to perch on cactuses. I wouldn't risk tinsel but had a couple of brightly-coloured belts I was going to drape over my aspidistra. You know the sort of thing. The inspectors aren't too bad: they'll sometimes turn a blind eye to a bauble or two (which is just as well, because the fines for unlicensed Christmas™ celebrations are astronomical).

Link (Thanks, Gavin and all the others who suggested this!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:08:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Replacing Peace-Keepers with System Administrators

Jamais sez, "WorldChanging interviews Naval War College professor Thomas Barnett. It's a lengthy, wide-ranging discussion of the differences between the 'Core' nations and the 'Gap' nations, the role of globalization in causing and fixing failed states, the need for a 'sysadmin force,' and the role of environmental collapse as a driver of conflict. You may not agree with all of his conclusions, but he makes a strong, insightful argument." This was a really thought-provoking peace; there's a seductive logic in the idea of replacing international Peace-Keepers with international System Administrators.

Well, it would be what I call the System Administrator Force. It would be a people-intensive, UN-peacekeeping-plus approach that could defend itself -- could do counter-insurgency, could fight and not be some ineffective, pussy UN force where you shoot at them and half of them run away. It would be a tough force. You shoot at these guys, or start committing atrocities in their presence, and they would stop you, and if necessary, kill you. It could not only keep the peace, but enforce it.

It would also have a highly-trained civilian component. You'd have international, inter-agency teams. It'd look like the Casbah bar scene in Star Wars -- you'd want to see loads of uniforms from all sorts of countries, and you'd want to see civilians from all sorts of NGOs and aid agencies: you'd want the whole package, acting in a Great Depression, FDR sort of mode, where the first order of business (after enforcing the peace) would be to get everybody busy. The government that would be there would be some sort of transitional organization, an international reconstruction fund, with the goal of getting things stabilized, an economy working and laws written.

Link (Thanks, Jamais!)

Update: Angus sez, "there's a tremendously compelling (albeit in .rm) presentation by Barnett at the CSPAN site that I watched a couple days ago. He's tremendously insightful, not just on military issues, but the nature of globalization the networked world."

Update 2: Jesse sez, "Here is an MP3 of Barnett's talk at poptech."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:03:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thank Poland for saving Europe from software patents

For years now, the forces of good in Europe have been fighting against reforms to EU patent laws that would allow software patents to be filed in Europe. Software patents have existed in the US for some time now, with disastrous results -- rather than encouraging innovation, these patents have been used by companies who produce nothing except lawsuits to shut down whole classes of technologies or to extort money from them.

There's no reasonable explanation for bringing software patents to Europe. The American experiment has been such a complete and utter failure, it's crystal-clear that software patents in Europe would be just as bad.

And the Euro-activists have won again and again, every battle, and the greedy jerks who support patents have strong-armed and cajoled the European Parliament into breaking its own rules to overturn the victories of the activists.

But at the very final moment, the Polish Undersecretary of State at the Ministry of Science and Information Technology stepped in and blocked the Patent Directive, taking it off the EU agenda (for now, anyway). It was an incredibly brave and important moment, one that will keep the European technology industry and the citizens who rely on it free and safe.

ThankPoland is a site that is collecting thank-yous for the Polish Undersecretary of State, particularily from the EU, but also from around the world. We owe him a debt of gratitude and it's an honor to thank him today. Link (Thanks, Crosbie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:43:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, December 27, 2004

SMSes from Sri Lanka, and a call for help with live blog

Earlier today, we posted a first-person account from tsunami eyewitness Sanjay (aka "Morquendi"). He's a blogger and TV producer who lives and works in Sri Lanka, one of the areas hardest hit by the disaster. Throughout last night -- as he participated in emergency rescue and relief efforts -- Sanjay text-messaged live observations to his co-editors at the collaborative blog ChiensSansFronteres. Snip:

# I'm standing on the Galle road in Aluthgama and looking at 5 ton trawlers tossed onto the road. Scary shit.

# Found 5 of my friends, 2 dead. Of the 5, 4 are back in Colombo. The last one is stranded because of a broken bridge. Broken his leg. But he's alive. Made...

# ..contact. He got swept away but swam ashore. Said he's been burying people all day. Just dragging them off the beach and digging holes with his hands. Go..

#..ing with gear to get him tommorrow morning. He sounded disturbed. Guess grave digging does that to you.

Link (Thank you, Rohit Gupta)

UPDATE: Mumbai-based blogger Rohit Gupta from ChiensSansFronteres tells BoingBoing,

"We now have two bloggers on the ground in Sri Lanka. Morquendi/Sanjay is recruiting more bloggers for us. Sri Lanka is mobbing. India is not. No reports from Anadaman and the south so far, but that's probably because traditional media already has access. Here's the latest SMS post from Sanjay in Sri Lanka:

There's 1600 bodies found by the LTTE in Mullaitivu, in the Eastern Province, so far. They are not allowing any journalists in till rescue operations are done.

I'm going absolutely insane with the mail that's pouring in. I need more hands and ears and eyes, preferably attached to a human being. BlogVolunteers invited to help us.

Rohit's blog-mate Peter Griffin says:

For anyone volunteering to blog at tsunamihelp.blogspot.com (help the group post information), contact Rohit Gupta (fadereu@gmail.com), Dina Mehta (explore@vsnl.com) or me (zigzackly@gmail.com). And on ChiensSansFrontiers (http://desimediabitch.blogspot.com/), we've got first person accounts going from Sri Lanka at the moment. Anyone else who'd like to provide first person accounts from anywhere in the region is welcome. Mail Rohit or me.

Among the eyewitness reports on this group blog, "Lastnode" in the southern city of Matara in Sri Lanka writes:

Just thought I would present some snapshots for the rest of the world to see the real situation in the south. The State run media (if you can even call them media anymore) is presenting a rosy picture of a Government coping well with the issue. Here are snippets from my notebook.

27th November 2004 10:30 AM, Matara Fort / Town: Two men carry a body in from the now calm sea. Hundreds of locals swarm around, trying to identify the boy. Wearing dark blue shorts and a faded red t-shirt, he can't be more than four or five years old. His eyes glazed, he stares at the onlookers. His left skull is fractured, but there is no blood running. The crevice stares ominously at me, a reminder of the untamed power of the sea.

In the Fort, the courts complex is in pieces. Cops stop us as we try to enter the Lawyer's quarters. They're scared as well. Confused. Just orders to sit and guard the place from looters. Former Minister and UNP MP Mahinda Wijesekara's room is gutted, tangled sea weed hanging on his name board. A sign perhaps of the inactiveness of all Politicians. Sure, they're doing something. But, IT'S NOT ENOUGH.

(...) At the mass graves, we watched as bodies were lifted out of vans. No records of death. Only one Policeman on duty. No law. No order. Just people burying the dead. Body after body. Shovel after shovel. All along the Galle Road the destruction just made me numb. The media footage delivered by our FREE media brothers and sisters out there tell the truth. But they don't do the real carnage justice. No, not at all. You have to see with your own eyes bodies by the road. Unknown bodies. Stinking so much you feel the need to wretch. You have to see with your own eyes vans stuck on trees. Trawlers on the main road. Broken bridges. You have to see the power of your sea. And you have to be humbled.

Previous BB posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:17:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Garbage disposal installation made simple

My parents are staying with us for the holidays, and today my father and I installed a garbage disposal in the guesthouse kitchen sink. My father did 90% of the work, since he's a lot better at this kind of stuff than I am, but I had to pitch in for certain parts, because one of his hands is out of commission. He has a rare condition called Dupuytren's contracture -- thickening of skin tissue in the hands that makes it impossible to open them. It's a genetic condition that seems to affect people with Viking ancestry. He had a "palmar fasciotomy," a surgical procedure to cut the bands of thickened tissue. So his right hand is all bandaged up. (Click thumbnails for enlargement).

We saved a few hours installing the garbage disposal by using this great wireless switch purchased at Home Depot. It cost $18 and has a range of 100 feet (we mounted it just a few feet from the disposal, of course). I'm wondering what else I use these things for. What a terrific idea!

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:51:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tsunami blog coverage: updates

Rohit Gupta, Jon Lebkowsky, and Dina Mehta at the Worldchanging.com blog have just published a roundup of first-person accounts, aid site urls, and news reports related to the tsunami disaster in Asia. They say this post will be updated regularly, so you can bookmark and return for fresh info as it comes. Link. Joe Gandelman posts another comprehensive roundup here, on his "Moderate Voice" blog: Link.

Wikipedia is also maintaining coverage in a richly linked, well-organized web page with ongoing updates. Link. And Wikipedia Commons offers related media (photos, data animations, and the like): Link (Thanks, Nick Douglas)

Loic Le Meur tells BoingBoing, "On Philsland, a French blogger writes of having been alerted by e-mail three hours before the tsunamis hit the coasts. An earthquake alert was issued by the USGS center three hours before it hit -- we could have saved thousands of people's lives if information had moved faster. This blogger was informed by the alert (Link, in French), and I also talk about it here (Link, in English)."

Image: snapshot from Phuket. Link. Another gallery of "citizen photojournalist" images here: Link.

Previous BB posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:12:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MoblogUK adds full Creative Commons licensing wizard

Alfie sez, "We have always urged users to use Creative Commons licenses at moblogUK, but we now have all combination CC licenses available to be embedded in users moblogs, using our CC licensing wizard." Link (Thanks, Alfie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:45:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Utne Reader story on Whuffie and reputation economies

I was interviewed for an article on reputation economies in the current issue of the Utne Reader -- the piece is online now!

In the 2003 science fiction novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, author Cory Doctorow imagines a society where all of life's necessities are free, and market laws such as supply and demand cease to exist for everything else. Instead of trading in a hard currency, citizens living in this "post-scarcity economy" measure their wealth with an ephemeral, reputation-based currency called "Whuffie." Doing something that benefits the community, like baking a cake or writing beautiful poetry, increases a person's Whuffie, while causing a traffic accident or publishing clumsy prose can temporarily put you in a virtual poorhouse. Everyone is wired into the Internet via brain implants and can routinely view and modify others' standing instantly (and free of charge), ultimately making one's status the subject of majority opinion.

Link (Thanks, Brendan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:40:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Next Harry Potter on July 16

Graham sez, "The Leaky Cauldron has info on J. K. Rowling's announcement that the sixth Harry Potter book has been completed. Publication date to be announced within 24 hours. Very exciting for some of us."

So now you know! Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince will be available from July 16th 2005 (and I do hope you consider it a decent birthday present, Delleve-who-posts-at-the-Leaky-Cauldron... not that I was watching the fansites on Monday night or anything...)

Link (Thanks, Graham!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:38:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Christian ACLU lawyers sought to prove coherence of Jesus and liberty

John Scalzi says, "Someone I know and love said to me today that she believes that there are no lawyers at the ACLU who are Christians -- because her received (and incorrect) knowledge of that organization is that it hates Christ and all those who seek salvation through him. Naturally, because this is someone I care about, I can't let this perception stand. So I'm asking lawyers who are Christian and who work/have worked for the ACLU to come forward to refute my correspondent's assertion, by leaving a message in the comment thread at my site. To encourage participation, I hereby pledge $1 (up to $200) to the ACLU for every one who does. And if they want to explain how working for the ACLU relates to their relationship with Jesus, so much the better." Link (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:36:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MMO character run by nine profoundly disabled players

Wagner James Au sez, "Second Life resident lilone Sandgrain, who IRL manages a large group of severely disabled people in a care center, recently convinced her bosses to give her nine clients an SL account of their own, to share. Since then, she's been slowly introducing them to the world. (And vice versa.) Avatar customization, online flirtation, and object creation take on new meanings, when they're conducted by a group of nine disabled people with wildly varying backgrounds from their wheelchairs."

"How did we decide on what we would look like, and our gender? We formed the man avatar first, because that day, we had more men in the group. We always wanted a female one, but we haven't taken the time to create her yet. Mary and Johanna would like that very much. We decided on how wilde would look first by starting with skin colors. We have both black and white in our real life group, and didn't want to have those because neither is better than the other. So we picked orange...

"Micah and Charlene could use the mouse," lilone replies, when I ask her if it's possible for each member of wilde to enter Second Life directly, perhaps with their own individual accounts. "John and Nichole could, but wouldn't alone. Micah can't read. Charlene has one hand, but can read." She shrugs. "None of them, really."

Their solution, for now at least, is lilone effectively acting as their interface: she sits at the keyboard, with the wilde group gathered in a semi-circle in a cramped care center room, peering over her shoulder and into the monitor, at the world inside...

Link (Thanks, James!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:33:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kevin Kelly's True Films book

Kevin Kelly has self-published a book of his documentary recommendations and is selling about 75 copies on Amazon.

This thin book (50 pages) is overpriced at $15, but if you'd like to purchase one, order it fast because I won't be reprinting this version. Once they are gone, they are gone. (You can always get all the reviews online).

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:17:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prayer shawl for gay orthodoxim

The Rainbow Tallis is a prayer shawl for the gay Orthodox in your life. Link (via Heeb)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:16:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Audiobook of Cory's DRM talk

Telltale Weekly has recorded a 53 minute audiobook of my Microsoft DRM Talk, which they're selling for a dollar, with 20 percent going to EFF. You can get it as an Ogg, MP3 or AAC! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:42:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

AFH and Worldchanging launch India, Sumatra, Sri Lanka aid funds

Cameron Sinclair from Architecture for Humanity says, "We've set up a reconstruction fund specifically to deal with rebuilding issues. As with all our disaster relief operations we are commited to zero overhead/admin. costs. All services are being donated pro-bono and we are partnering with locally based NGO's that will use locals in the rebuilding process." Link

Previous BB posts related to blog coverage of the Asian quake and tsunami: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3, Link 4, Link 5, Link 6.

Update: World Changing and AFH have just announced a new, joint fundraising appeal. The goal: raise $10,000 for reconstruction projects in the Sumatra, Sri Lanka and Indian regions affected. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:26:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Animations of tsunami's path

BB pal Mike Outmesguine says, "This animation shows the wave of the tsunami moving outward from the island chain north of Sumatra. Remarkably, it travelled the 750 miles to Sri Lanka and Eastern India in only 100 minutes. Spotted on the USGS page mentioned earlier on BB: Link."

Also, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration offers a 3D quicktime animation of the Indonesian tsunami here: Link (3.5 MB) (thanks, Rob)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:24:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Surfing a Tsunami

Rogier sez: "Most people would do anything to get out of the way of a tsunami. But daredevils with a death wish would like to RIDE one, and they're keeping their surf boards ready. Officials in Hawaii are still a bit freaked out by the memory of 400-plus surf enthusiasts showing up on the beaches of Oahu ten years ago, trying to catch a killer wave. To prevent a repeat, a public-safety DVD has been distributed through Hawaiian surf shops this fall.

"The message is sure to get lost on this guy, who was caught on film riding a monster wave that would give mere mortals heart attacks (though from the looks of it, it isn't nearly on the magnitude of the walls of waters that wiped out tens of thousands of people in South East Asia yesterday). Link

UPDATE: Peter Orosz sez: "Professional big wave surfers can ride waves that are taller than normal tsunami waves (the biggest wave ever ridden was in Hawaii on January 28, 1998, when Ken Bradshaw rode a wave with an 85-foot face on the North Shore of Oahu at Outside Log Cabins). Natural big wave spots like Waimea Bay in Hawaii, Teahupoo in Tahiti or Mavericks in California can produce waves 50-80 feet high, while yesterday's tsunamis were no higher than 30 feet (as far as I recall from CNN's report). The destructive power of tsunamis result from the immense amount of water in motion: the earthquake sets the entire ocean moving. In many places, a tsunami is not an actual wave but a rapidly rising tide that surges inland.

"Apparently, it's quite difficult to measure waves and there are several methods. According to Surfline, Bradshaw's 1998 wave was "a 45-foot wave with an 85-foot face", whatever that means. Billabong has a contest called XXL with a cash award going to the person who rides the biggest wave of the season, and according to their site, the world record holder is Pete Cabrinha with a 70-foot wave ridden at Peahi/Jaws on Maui this April. This page gives a guide to estimating wave height and describes the different methods used."

Nick sez: "I think (though I'm not 100%) that this is referring to the fact that waves have both crests and troughs. The "height" of a wave should be defined as how high the crest reaches above the standard ocean level, while the "face" of a wave should be what one sees when one looks directly at it, namely the entire distance from trough to crest. If ocean waves were shaped like perfect sine waves then one would expect the trough to be as deep as the crest is high, so a 45-foot wave would have a 90-foot face. Of course they're not but a 45-foot wave with 85-foot face would seem to make sense."

Christian Anthony (Video Editor, Surfline) sez: "The link you have under the 'Surfing a Tsunami' story to the big wave video is misleading.

"It's labeled as 'Surfing Hurricane Ivan Waves' but Hurricane Ivan was on the East Coast and did not produce waves of that height, nor are there spots on the East Coast that break like that. That video on the site has been ripped off from the Billabong Odyssey movie and is from Hawaii, specifically a break called Peahi (or Jaws).

"Last week there was a really big swell that hit Peahi and all the professional big wave riders were on it. You can see the video here."

Alberto sez: "You know about Laird Hamilton, cross-board virtuoso? He's invented the foilboard, which he uses to surf the huge swells that cross the oceans for miles. Although at the reported 450 mph of the Sumatra 2004 tsunami, I'm not too sure even he'd be able to catch-up. (He also surfs monster waves once they break on shore, but with a more-conventional surfboard.) He has a bare-bones website that offers a couple of DVDs of his jaw-dropping exploits (Flash interface alert, with and unkillable soundtrack of wave sounds)."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:58:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Arthur C. Clarke on tsunami

On his website, author and inventor Sir Arthur C. Clarke -- who lives in Sri Lanka -- says:

Thank you for your concern about my safety in the wake of Sunday’s devastating tidal wave. I am enormously relieved that my family and household have escaped the ravages of the sea that suddenly invaded most parts of coastal Sri Lanka, leaving a trail of destruction.

But many others were not so fortunate. For hundreds of thousands of Sri Lankans and an unknown number of foreign tourists, the day after Christmas turned out to be a living nightmare reminiscent of The Day After Tomorrow.

Link to complete text of message (thanks, Brian), and link to Wikipedia entry on Sir Arthur Clarke.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:39:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Toilet night-light motion-sensor glows red if the seat is up

The Arkon LavNav is a nightlight that clips onto your toilet seat. It senses your approach in the night and glows gently (no blinding 100w bulb at 2AM) -- green if the seat is down and red if the seat is up. Link (via Wired Test)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:21:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Updates on Tsunami from bloggers in India and Sri Lanka

Rohit Gupta writes:

The picture here is taken from the southernmost tip of India, where until today there were hundreds of tourists trapped at the Vivekananda Rock Memorial, off the coast of Kanyakumari district. In an amazing display of humanitarian collaboration and bravery, the local fishermen saved roughly 500 of the 600 trapped people, while the role of relief agencies was severely limited by the breakdown of communications and bad weather. Even as I write this, most local media can only offer conflicting figures. Link.

A majority of the deceased from the mainland were local fishermen who had gone out in the sea, to net their nightly catch. Throughout the day and night, and the following day, small boats and catamarans, perhaps too small to brave the violent sea, were plying up and down the strait that divides the island from the Indian mainland. While the Indian Air Force kept dropping food and medical supplies, it is the fishermen who've kept the Kanyakumari death toll (524) as low as it is. Most of the saved were not locals, but tourists, including a Supreme Court judge. There were no riots or cases of civic indiscipline reported in that district, nor in any other part of India, during the rescue efforts. Thankfully, the Indian media has taken due note of the effort. Also, Dr. Manmohan Singh, the Prime Minister of India, has offered extensive aid to Sri Lanka, and at least four Indian Navy ships have already carried medicines, food and water to Galle, one of the most affected areas in Sri Lanka.

Rohit Gupta says, "One of my media friends is a TV show host in Sri Lanka, and is writing live accounts of the frenzy on our community blog while rushing around in search of loved ones. Morquendi writes..."

A part of me wants to say fuck you to being a journalist and go out there and get involved in the aid work. Carry bags of food to the people who need it. But another part keeps saying my work is here. Making calls and making sure people stay informed. Seen things today I never thought I'd see. Seen things I don't ever want to see. How do you ask a question from a father who saw his 4 year old child being dragged off into the sea and be sensitive about it? Do you say sorry? Does that cut it? 2 friends dead. They were on a romantic beach holiday. I like to believe they died holding each other's hands. 2 more missing. Presumed dead. Find a vehicle in about an hour and head off down South to look for them, or identify their bodies. If anyone had told me the day was going to be like this maybe I'd have stayed in bed.

Alex Steffen points us to another first hand report on the worldchanging.com blog: Link. In Mumbai, blogger Dina Mehta is also covering the disaster: Link. Dina is also participating in the collaborative tsunamihelp.blogspot.com, which is shaping up to be something of a central clearinghouse for blog updates on the aftermath and relief efforts.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:02:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bloggers in SE Asia cover quake and tsunami disaster

Image: Screencap of TV coverage in Bangkok -- Buddhist monks chanting for the souls of those who died in the disaster. At present, the international death toll stands at nearly 24,000. Ron Morris in Thailand says, "Since the first tremor from the Sumatran quake was felt in Bangkok over 36 hours ago, we have been blogging the latest news about the disaster. Includes screen grabs from Thai TV and links to locals who took photos of the wreckage after the tidal waves." Link

Cameron Sinclair of the nonprofit group Architecture For Humanity tells BoingBoing, "Two members of the WorldChanging.org crew live close by the Tsumani disaster and are reporting on whats going on: Link. As for reconstruction issues, a page is being set up at Architecture for Humanity to cover this: Link."

Here is a photoblog maintained by a man named Fred in Sri Lanka, with snapshots of the destruction in Jaffna, where he lives and works: Link. Here's another Sri Lankan blog maintained by "Zeus": Link. See also this livejournal maintained by a man named Ernest who was in Phuket when the catastrophe hit. Link. Here's a personal blog maintained by a person in Malaysia, with posts related to the event: Link. Blogger Rezwan in Bangladesh posts about a near-miss here.

BoingBoing reader Dav asks how he and other displaced Western tourists can help.

"Just since I know you guys are at the nexus of a lot of information: I'm here in Thailand on holiday, been staying on the island of Koh Samui on the east side of Thailand. We had been planning to go to Krabi (one of the places hit hard in southern thailand) in a couple of days for a psy-trance party. Now we're thinking of keeping the flight tp Krabi and trying to volunteer to help however we can. Any ideas on how to find out if any organization would want volunteers and where/what? I tried a few sites like Red Cross, etc but didn't notice any info on emergency volunteering and the net connection is so slow it is difficult looking around."

Pointers to other blog coverage welcome, submit sites here.

Update: Alex Steffen of worldchanging.com says,

"Some South Asian bloggers, including a couple of my colleagues from Worldchanging, have set up a blog tracking relief efforts and how folks can contribute: tsunamihelp.blogspot.com. We're also going to be posting more throughout the day on Worldchanging. This is not "just" one of the worst disasters of the decade, one where every bit of help will be needed to save lives and rebuild, it's also a call to change the way access to basic science is shared on our planet. Most of the tens of thousands of people who died yesterday might have been saved with better scientific, communications and warning systems."

And here are more eyewitness blog accounts from bloggers in Phuket, Thailand: pleloup, Andrew Sutton: Link 1, Link 2, and the French Photojournalism Association: Link. (Thanks, Jim Basman)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:06:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Track UPS via RSS

Jason sez, "You had a link some time ago to a post that converted Fedex tracking information into RSS format. I have created the same thing for UPS, and I directly linked to the post where I explain it." Link (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:38:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Zoom through an hypnotic series of paintings

This Flash app allows you to soom through a long series of illustrations, looping one after the next. The effect is hypnotic and genuinely beautiful, like disappearing into a series of paintings. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:35:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US customs wants a loyalty oath from DVD importers

MBF imported a video from Italy and discovered this disclaimer in the packaging -- apparently, you can get a parcel through customs with more ease if you recite a hollow loyalty oath and promise that you're not sending in any footage that advocates treason. Link (Thanks, John!)

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

EFF helping produce anonymizing software

I have the coolest job: my employer, EFF, is now officially doing development on Tor, an anonymizing network tool that lets people use the Internet without being snooped upon:

Your traffic is safer when you use Tor, because communications are bounced around a distributed network of servers, called onion routers. Instead of taking a direct route from source to destination, data packets on the Tor network take a random pathway through several servers that cover your tracks so no observer at any single point can tell where the data came from or where it's going. This makes it hard for recipients, observers, and even the onion routers themselves to figure out who and where you are. Tor's technology aims to provide Internet users with protection against "traffic analysis," a form of network surveillance that threatens personal anonymity and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security.

Traffic analysis is used every day by companies, governments, and individuals that want to keep track of where people and organizations go and what they do on the Internet. Instead of looking at the content of your communications, traffic analysis tracks where your data goes and when, as well as how big it is. For example, online advertising company Doubleclick uses traffic analysis to record what web pages you've visited, and can build a profile of your interests from that. A pharmaceutical company could use traffic analysis to monitor when the research wing of a competitor visits its website, and track what pages or products that interest the competitor. IBM hosts a searchable patent index, and it could keep a list of every query your company makes. A stalker could use traffic analysis to learn whether you're in a certain Internet cafe.

Donations to EFF are tax-deductible -- you've got a week left to knock some bucks off your tax bill and do some good for the whole Internet! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:29:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vienna's best holy water

The awesome Viennese net weirdo artists at Monochrom have identified the best sources of holy water in Vienna and are offering them for sale at reasonable rates:

monochrom.at has, therefore, obtained samples of Holy Water from ten selected Viennese churches. These samples have been mixed in correct proportions, purified from pathogens through distillation and osmosis, and then bottled in handy portions. monochrom.at therefore feels confident that they are offering not only the best Holy Water of all Vienna (city average) but the most aseptic Holy Water in the entire world.

monchrom is offering 20 vials (signed, dated) for sale, each containing 0.125 liters of purified Holy Water (city average) for E 44.95 per vial.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:25:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

London Underground sources obsolete spare parts on eBay

Parts of the London Underground are so old that they can only be serviced with parts acquired on eBay from speciality collectors.

Tube Lines has bought computer cards, old chips and other equipment which are now out of stock.

Company bosses said they had to use the internet because some of the signalling systems on the Tube were so old.

Link (Thanks, Nick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:18:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Use SFX to make your own Dr Who theme mix

The BBC has posted a mixer that lets you make your own version of the Dr Who theme, adding from a long list of SFX with names like "Scottish Hamster" and "Party Popper." Link (Thanks, Gene!)

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

Bill of Rights free MP3 audiobook

For free on TellTale Weekly, a website that produces high-quality audiobooks from public domain texts: an MP3 reading of the Bill of Rights. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:12:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fan-magazine picks a different average person for every ish

Each issue of Re-Magazine pocks a random, average person and uses her or him as the basis for an entire magazine's worth of articles and photo-spreads -- pictured here is Marcel,a 44-year-old sales rep from Wavrin, France. Link (via Salad With Steve)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:11:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Themepark maps from history

ThemeParkBrochures collects historical brochures from theme-parks, decades of park maps from such thrill-lands as India's EsselWorld, Busch Gardens, and a 1977 Six Flags map. Link (via The Disney Blog)

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

Lemmings' suicide myths started by Disney nature photogs

Lemmings are widely considered to be suicidal beasts, throwing themselves en masse off cliffs. It turns out that this isn't true, but rather a legend begun through some unethical trick photography executed by Disney nature photos in the fifties.

The myth of mass lemming suicide began when the Walt Disney movie, Wild Wilderness was released in 1958. It was filmed in Alberta, Canada, far from the sea and not a native home to lemmings. So the filmmakers imported lemmings, by buying them from Inuit children. The migration sequence was filmed by placing the lemmings on a spinning turntable that was covered with snow, and then shooting it from many different angles. The cliff-death-plunge sequence was done by herding the lemmings over a small cliff into a river. It's easy to understand why the filmmakers did this - wild animals are notoriously uncooperative, and a migration-of-doom followed by a cliff-of-death sequence is far more dramatic to show than the lemmings' self-implemented population-density management plan.

So lemmings do not commit mass suicide. Indeed, animals live to thrive and survive. Consider a company like Disney, where one rodent, namely Mickey Mouse, was Royalty. It's rather odd to think that Disney could be so unkind to another rodent, the lemming..

Link (via The Disney Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:03:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Legal uses for P2P catalogued on Slashdot

The Supreme Court have agreed to hear the appeal on Grokster v MGM, the court case that EFF won, legalizing P2P networks. To help save the Internet's bacon, Slashdot users have clubbed together to catalog noninfringing uses for P2P networks.

Durring the beginning of the Iraq war, I used P2P to get video and pictures that were censored from the US. The instant I hear about pictures, recordings, etc. on another network they can't show in the US, I go find them on P2P. Along with that search, I also found pictures that solders had taken along the way. Then I found gunship video (de-classified and classified because it had altitude/other readings) showing people walking into a building. The order came, and they leveled the building. Then started firing on anyone leaving the scene. You could actually see the men get thrown around after getting hit with munitions. On, and this video just happened to show one man running into a mosque so he was let go. (sure it wasn't leaked on purpose)

Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:01:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Double-Screen cartridge ripped

Someone has ripped a game-rom from a Gameboy Double-Screen cartridge -- next step, double-screen ROM images for MAME! Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:58:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kids superhero Xmas LPs as MP3s

Check out these MP3s made from old kids' superhero Xmas records!

01 - Superman Christmas Story - Light Up The Tree, Mr. President
02 - Batman Christmas Story - Christmas Carol Caper - Part 1
03 - Batman Christmas Story - Christmas Carol Caper - Part 2
04 - Wonder Woman Christmas Story - The Prisoner of Christmas Island

Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:56:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boing Boing makes Now Magazines' 2004 top ten

Now Magazine, my hometown free entertainment weekly in Toronto, has picked Boing Boing as one of its top-ten blogs for 2004! Link (Thanks, Rannie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:55:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disneyland ride scheduler uses historical wait-time data to cut queuing

This Win-only app uses historical wait times and a "scheduling algorithm" to help you plan your day at Disneyland to minimize your wait-times and maximize your rides.

RideMax allows you to specify the attractions you wish to ride during your visit, then uses a sophisticated scheduling algorithm to order your attractions so that the amount of time you spend in line is minimized.

Using historical wait time statistics for each attraction as a foundation, RideMax analyzes millions of different ride sequences in order to create a minimum-wait-time itinerary. This schedule is tailored to the expected crowd patterns on the day of your visit, for the attractions you want to ride!

Link (Thanks, Alex)

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

Destruction-testing NES games through overclocking

These guys are overclocking their tired old Nintendo Entertainment Systems, cranking them up so that the games go all non-linear:

Super Mario Bros.
This game ran fine up to about 4.0 MHz when the graphics went insane. It maintained stability no matter what. I couldn't get it to crash except going past that.

Super Mario Bros. 3
This also ran nicely, but the graphics went nuts around 3.6 MHz. It maxed out around 4.2 MHz, but wouldn't crash unless pushed further.

Kirby's Adventure
This game lags like mad all the time, so the gameplay is actually noticably slower at the stock speed. Using the abilities like Fire and Spark, especially around enemies using them as well, can grind the game to a halt. At 3.0 MHz or so the lag was pretty much entirely removed, and gameplay smoothed out tremendously. Around 3.4 MHz however, the graphical corruption became very, very bad. The status bar at the bottom of the screen started to rise up onto the game area. The higher the clock, the higher it went, blocking out my view of the game. Then the topmost sprite layer started to go insane around 4.0 MHz. The game kept running stably in the background though. ;)

Chip'n'Dale's Rescue Rangers
It's very hard to find lag in this game, but there are a few distinct points. These were smoothed out at 2.3-2.6 MHz, but the game ran stable up to 4.4 MHz. Past 4.0 MHz however, the sprite layer went nuts like the other games, with random tiles flashing everywhere. No crashes however!

Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:50:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Detecting proximity over the Internet and other dumb DRM notions

One of the recurring themes in the DRM negotiations I sit in on is figuring out how far away two different computers are from one another, so that an entertainment company can enforce crazy, paranoid "business models" like, "Buy a movie for viewing on as many PCs as you'd like provided that they're all within 10 feet of one another."

My cow-orker, EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen, has posted a little blog entry about the inherent failings in all the DRM vendors' systems for determining "proximity" of two devices over the Internet.

...DRM vendors are falling back on other tricks. One you hear a lot about is "IP TTL" (a part of the Internet Protocol specification where routers are supposed to subtract 1 from a header field, to prevent a misaddressed packet from floating around the Internet forever). That doesn't provide evidence either, though, because (1) IP headers like TTL are under the minute control of end-users wielding firewall software, and (2) "bridging" software doesn't subtract 1 from TTL in the first place because conceptually it is not acting as a router.

So the last resort of people trying to use TCP/IP and get evidence about locality or proximity has been to measure latency -- how long it takes for one device to communicate with another. Latency is harder to tamper with because there are physical limitations like the speed of light. For example, you can never get any message from New York to Paris in under 19.5 milliseconds because that is how long it takes light to go from one to the other. If you're using a satellite in geosynchronous orbit, there is a magic number around 250 milliseconds (depending on your latitude) because geosynchronous orbits can only occur at one particular altitude and it takes light about 250 milliseconds to cross that entire path. (Geosynchronous orbit is far away!) So some systems have been adopting rules about not sending some programming to devices that take more than a certain number of milliseconds to answer you when you say hello and ask them for acknowledgment, on the theory that devices that answer really quickly plausibly are on the same local network, whereas device that answer more slowly probably are not.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:46:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Spherical paintings

Artist Dick Termes paints amazing scenes onto spheres that magically seem to draw you into entire enclosed universes. In Science News, Ivars Peterson profiles Termes and explains the optical illusion behind the art:

"Termes takes a unique perspective in his art. In effect, he imagines crawling inside a transparent ball, then looking out with one eye in all directions from a center point. He then transfers what he sees onto the outside of a sphere.

Suppose, for example, that the ball he's inside is in a starkly geometric, cubical room. The room is defined by three sets of parallel lines. From his perspective inside the ball, these lines lead to six vanishing points. And the lines are curved. This six-point perspective, with the six vertices of an octahedron serving as the vanishing points, becomes the basis of his spherical paintings.

In essence, Termes geometrically translates the view from inside a sphere to the outside of one."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:33:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Deanne Cheuk's Mushroom Girls

Deanne Cheuk is a NYC-based fashion designer and illustrator, art director for Tokion magazine, and publisher of her own tiny 'zine called Neomu ("No words, no advertising, just inspirational images, photographs, and graphics"). Cheuk's own paintings and drawings from her Mushroom Girls Virus series are spectacular. I can't wait for her forthcoming monograph! Link (Thanks, Anne Sanger!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:15:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fun on Flores

National Geographic Traveler has an article about how the Indonesian island of Flores may become a hot travel destination based on the discovery of our fossilized friends Homo floresiensis, the one-meter-tall humans.

Flores has generated headlines before, but not the kind that attract tourists: famines in the 1960s and natural disasters in the '70s and '90s. Economic crisis hit in the late '90s, followed by political problems in East Timor and Bali. By 2000 tourism had plummeted from 35,000 visitors a year to just 10,000.

This year, however, the Flores Tourist Authority reports that travel to the island has already rebounded by 21 percent, probably due to fossil-related media coverage.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:25:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Data alert network could have helped in Asia tsunami

India and Sri Lanka, the two nations with highest death tolls from yesterday's devastating tidal waves, are not among the group of 26 countries that comprise the International Coordination Group for the Tsunami Warning System. Had they been part of the alert system, say scientists -- lives could have been saved. Snip from NYT story:

Although waves swamped parts of the Sumatran coast and nearby islands within minutes, there would have been time to alert more distant communities if the Indian Ocean had a warning network like that in the Pacific, said Dr. Tad Murty, an expert on the region's tsunamis who is affiliated with the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg.

Within 15 minutes of the earthquake, in fact, scientists running the existing tsunami warning system for the Pacific, where such waves are far more common, sent an alert from their Honolulu hub to 26 participating countries, including Thailand and Indonesia, that destructive waves might be generated by the Sumatra tremors.

But there was no way to convey that information speedily to countries or communities an ocean away, said Dr. Laura S. L. Kong, a Commerce Department seismologist and director of the International Tsunami Information Center, an office run under the auspices of the United Nations.

Link to NYT story, and Link to USGS data on the "great earthquake" at magnitude 9.0 which occurred off the west coast of Northern Sumatra Sunday.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:09:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ToS for Universal's free movie screenings -- Update

A bit of nerd ephemera. Following up on this earlier BoingBoing post, reader Jeff "Koganuts" Koga says, "Here's a ToS for Universal's free movie screenings. I was finally able to scan in the invite I received for the first advance screening of Serenity (which won't be out in theatres until next September)." Link to scanned invite: side one, side two.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:00:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Crocheted Lorenz attractor

"Dr Hinke Osinga and Professor Bernd Krauskopf, of Bristol University's engineering mathematics department, used 25,511 crochet stitches to represent the Lorenz equations." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:54:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Death Churches of the world, part 3

Many readers wrote in to follow up on recent BoingBoing posts on churches and tombs built from human remains (one, two). Here are some of your suggestions.

Reader Brennen says, "I stayed in Prague for a few days this summer, and blogged about a day-trip to Kutna Hora. The cathedral is spectacular; the ossuary is just weird. One skull might be shocking - several thousand used as decorative elements are bizarrely mundane. Incidentally, I'm told that a portion of the recent Dungeons & Dragons flick was filmed at Kutna Hora." Link

RLD says, "Here are more photos of the Sedlec Ossuary. Very interesting." Link.

JPA in Portugal writes, "After reading your entries about the churches in Poland and near Prague, I should mention that in Portugal we also have a couple of those. The most famous is called Capela dos Ossos, or Bone Chapel. It is smaller than the ones you mention, but no less interesting." Link

Joe Goldberg says, "Saw your post on the Kostnice bone ossuary, and I have a few images of it as well, that capture the scale of what 40,000 dead dudes look like. See: Link, Link, And a coat of arms made of at least one of every bone in the human body: Link."

BoingBoing pal Quinn says, "Even I have a set of pics from the ossuary outside of Prague, with a couple of shots up on flickr: Link."

Mark Gallagher says, "I used to live near a cathedral in Germany that was situated on the narrowest point of the Rhine river. This area was a pretty popular spot for armed conflict throughout the ages even as recently as WWII, when Patton made a fuss about pissing in the river there when crossing on the way to Berlin. Anyway, the story goes that the local cathedral always had kind of a shortage of hallowed ground for burying people due to all the medieval bloodshed, and at one point just resorted to warehousing a lot of the fallen soldiers to make way for more traditional burials for VIPs. I can't seem to find my own photography, but here's a link to a good one. I'm going to say that it looks a lot more impressive in person, but here it is: Der Beinhaus in Oppenheim."

And reader Zizkov in the Czech Republic writes, "Read about the ossuary on BoingBoing. I visited it last year and found it macabre and grotesque, though perhaps not quite as grotesque as the gambolling snaphappy backpackers (mainly American) who were there at the same time. I'm not exactly an ancestor worshipper but I found the general visitor behaviour, uh, distasteful. As I recall, entrance was 35 Kc and a photo pass the same, that is, around $2.50 all in. Many individual opinions available at virtualtourist.com (search keyword: ossuary). For those interested in ossuarys, here is another in Rome: Link. 4,000 Capuchin friars (I passed this one by when in Rome). Merry Christmas -- or whichever festivity you may be celebrating."
Thanks to all.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:00:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ACLU solicits feedback on airport "pat-down" searches

Snipped from Declan's politech list -- ACLU Technology and Liberty Project Director Barry Steinhardt says,

A September 2004 TSA directive granting airport security screeners broad leeway to conduct "pat-down" searches has led to numerous reports of sexual harassment and abuse.

Victims -- particularly women-- are reporting that they are not being offered private searches or searches by screeners of the same sex, and that "private" searches are being conducted behind screens that provide no privacy. Passengers are reporting rough, rude, and humiliating manhandling and groping of their breasts and crotch areas, demeaning sexual comments, and being forced to remove business jackets in full view of crowds, despite the fact that it is a widespread convention in our society for women to wear only bras or other undergarments underneath such jackets.

The ACLU is assessing possible responses to this policy. In doing so, it is extremely helpful for us to gain a sense of the kinds of abuses that are taking place. If list members have experienced a problem with pat-down searches at airport security, they can help us end this problem by reporting their story here. For more information on the abuses, Politiech readers might want to look here, where we have collected many of the news stories.

Link to ACLU website.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:55:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Holiday Leftovers

tijuana christmas
santa's lil' gimp
hp holiday cards
typeflake
carnation x-mass jukebox
champion of cheer
carol maker
penguin diving
Image: typeflake. Links: web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:50:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

What if Osama released albums, not videos?

This Fark Photoshop contest offers a multitude of possible answers. Link (Thanks, Scott)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:39:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More fake Mexican songsters -- from Poland

Following up on an earlier BoingBoing post about 1950s Yu-Mex mashups from behind the iron sombrero, reader Mzimu says,

Slavic Mexicans were not limited only to former Yugoslavia - they were also playing in communist Poland during 60s. Nearly everyone here was subjected to torture of listening their biggest hit "Pamelo, Aegnaj" ("Farewell, Pamela"). Some of them are playing to this day - check out Tercet Egzotyczny (or, translated, "The Exotic Trio"). MP3s (unfortunately, only from their recent and not-so-great period - well, they are elderly people now!) and tour dates are available here. If you want to check them out they are playing in US and Canada soon. And yes, they are *very* cheesy.

Link. Borzoj says, "The '60s fake mexican music in Poland is neither only from the 1960s nor only Mexican. Mitch and Mitch, who released their first album around a year ago, are first genuine polish country & eastern band. Very *cheesy*!" Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:33:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

William Gibson short: Cyber-Claus

On William Gibson's blog, a holiday-themed short which was originally published as "Cyber-Claus", in The Washington Post Book World in 1991. Snip:

In the night of 12/24/07, though sensors woven through the very fabric of the house had thus far registered a complete absence of sentient bio-activity, I found myself abruptly summoned from a rare, genuine and expensively induced examples of that most priceless of states, sleep.

Even as I hurriedly dressed, I knew that dozens of telepresent armed-response drones would already be sweeping in from the District, skimming mere inches above the chill surface of the Potomac. Vicious tri-lobed aeroforms that they were, they resembled nothing more than the Martian war machines of George Pal’s 1953 epic, “The War of the Worlds”.

And while, from somewhere far above, now, came that sound, that persistent clatter, as though gunships disgorged whole platoons of iron-shod mercenaries, I could only wonder: who? Was it my estranged wife, Lady Betty-Jayne Motel-6 Hyatt, Chief Eco-Trustee of the Free Duchy of Wyoming? Or was it Cleatus “Mainframe” Sinyard himself, President of the United States and Perpetual Chairman of the Concerned Smart People’s Northern Hemisphere CoProsperity Sphere?

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:30:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Can you copyright a typeface? BB readers debate.

[NSFNLG warning: Not Safe For Non-LawGeeks.] A recent post on BoingBoing sparked debate among some readers about whether or not U.S. copyright law makes it possible to protect typefaces. Digital music guru Jim Griffin maintains that the answer is no. He points to Volume 37 of the Code of Federal Regulations (Link) as one of several portions of US law that back his assertion. Snip from the text of the law, with his comments:

"The following are examples of works not subject to copyright and applications for registration of such works cannot be entertained: (...) typeface as typeface" 37 CFR 202.1(e).

House of Representatives report accompanied the new copyright law when passed in 1976: "The Committee has considered, but chosen to defer, the possibility of protecting the design of typefaces. A 'typeface' can be defined as a set of letters, numbers, or other symbolic characters, whose forms are related by repeating design elements consistently applied in a notational system and are intended to be embodied in articles whose intrinsic utilitarian function is for use in composing text or other cognizable combinations of characters. The Committee does not regard the design of typeface, as thus defined, to be a copyrightable 'pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work' within the meaning of this bill and the application of the dividing line in section 101." H.R. Rep. No. 94-1476, 94th Congress, 2d Session at 55 (1976), reprinted in1978 U.S. Cong. and Admin. News 5659, 5668.

It's also in accordance with a court case that has considered the matter: Eltra Corp. V. Ringer, 579 F.2d 294, 208 USPQ 1 (1978, C.A. 4, Va.).

The U.S. Copyright Office holds that a bitmapped font is nothing more than a computerized representation of a typeface, and as such is not copyrightable:

"The [September 29, 1988] Policy Decision [published at 53 FR 38110] based on the [October 10,] 1986 Notice of Inquiry [published at 51 FR 36410] reiterated a number of previous registration decisions made by the [Copyright] Office. First, under existing law, typeface as such is not registerable. The Policy Decision then went on to state the Office's position that 'data that merely represents an electronic depiction of a particular typeface or individual letterform' [that is, a bitmapped font] is also not registerable." 57 FR 6201.

BoingBoing reader John Todd, formerly of Emigre Inc., says:

In the late 90's I worked for Emigre Fonts in Sacramento. Emigre is the developer and publisher of some of the worlds best known typefaces. While I was there we became very agressive in protecting Emigre's type, on the internet and elsewhere. I refer you to this link, where you can see that in 1999, Emigre and Adobe sucessfully sued a software publisher, preventing him from selling fonts based on Emigre and Adobe Designs. The press release reads:

"Defendants Paul King and Southern Software agreed to have judgment entered against them in each case for copyright infringement and intermediate copyright infringement of more than 1,100 Adobe font software programs and 35 Emigre font software programs, and agreed to have permanent injunctions entered against them barring them from distributing the font programs they created by copying Emigre's and Adobe's font software programs. The permanent injunctions also bar defendants from creating or distributing any font software which copies or extracts the points in an Emigre or Adobe font software program."

And BoingBoing reader Rob Myers adds,

My understanding is that you cannot copyright the design of the font, but you CAN copyright the PostScript program or TrueType data that draws it. Copyright a font design: no. Copyright program, data or other "writing": yes, even if it draws a font. So you can make your own fonts that look the same as another font without infringing copyright, but you can't copy another program or dataset that draws the font. IANAL, but I've worked in design and repro.

Link to previous BB post.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:27:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lessig announces Code v2

BoingBoing reader Alex says,

On his blog, Lawrence Lessig has announced a new experiment for his first book Code and other Laws of Cyberspace. He's going to post version 1 (that's the original published version) to a wiki under a Creative Commons license. Updates and corrections will then be supervised by "chapter captains", and around June time Lessig will take the contents of the wiki, and mould it into Code v2. All royalties from the book will be donoated to Creative Commons, and the wiki will live on 'for ever'. He has an email address up if you have expertise and are interested in volunteering to be a "chapter captain".

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:26:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Art from old weapons in Cambodia

Organizers of Peace Art Project Cambodia describe their venture's three main goals:

"Introducing Young Cambodian Artists to new artistic methodology and materials and training them in metalwork skills, producing, exhibiting and selling sculpture made from de-commissioned weapons & promoting a Weapon-Free Society and Young Cambodian Artists in Cambodia and internationally... These sculptures are political art at its most powerful - relics of a violent past transformed into expressions of hope for a more peaceful future."

Link (Thanks, Reevo)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:24:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More kitschy Star Wars holiday vinyl

Following up on this previous BoingBoing post, reader Sewer Urchin says,

The Rebel Force Band isn't the only rare Star Wars music out there. As scary as it may sound, there was a Star Wars Christmas album, and as you will hear, it's probably the worst holiday music ever recorded.

With songs like "What Can You Get A Wookiee For Christmas (When He Already Owns A Comb?)" and "R2-D2 We Wish You A Merry Christmas" performed by a pre-fame Bon Jovi, your ears will be begging for mercy. The force was definitely not with the creators of this album.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:38:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, December 25, 2004

Happy holidays from BoingBoing.

Image: Xeni's family tree.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:22:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, December 24, 2004

East LA Xmas tamale pilgrimage

Phonecam snapshots from a family pilgrimage to the best tamale shop in Los Angeles, Tamales Lilianas, on First street near Cesar Chavez. We passed some beautiful makeshift Christmas altares in the street, big murals of la virgen de guadalupe all decked out with tinsel and fake pine wreaths and Hello Kitty and blinkie Snoopy lights. And guys on the street were selling pirated CDs of of Mexican holiday pop music. Cheesy carols from Los Bukis and stuff, bootlegged, on blankets. I love the street in East LA this time of year.

Tamales are an essential holiday tradition in Mexico and in every place where Mexico is felt. Christmas without them is like going tree-less. There's always a long line at Lilianas if you wait until Christmas Eve to go pick them up, but the longest of lines is a small penitencia to pay for that fragrant corn vapor that fills the car on the drive home. If there is a perfect scent, this is it. I sat in the back seat, with the bag pulled up around my face like I was huffing glue. Maybe Liliana sneaks a little crack into the masa or something. Me intoxican. De dulce, de rajas con carne, de pollo con chile verde, y sencillo, de elote. Irresistibles.
Larger phone-snap images: Steaming hot bag of fresh tamales, La Virgen on Cesar Chavez, and long line outside Lilianas.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:06:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Merry Geeksmas

Image: Holiday nude shot by tech law journalist Declan McCullagh, founder of the awesome tech news list politech.

Link to full-size.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:37:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MP3s of Yugoslavia's Fake '50s Mexican Songsters

Amazing site with MP3s, artist info, and background on Mexican-themed entertainment from Yugoslavia in the 1950s.

BB reader Dan Berkes says, "Meet the Slavic Mexicans! How a Cold War lover's quarrel resulted in one Eastern European nation's adoption of Mexican music and movies. Does this make Tito the father of the mashup?"

In 1948, the Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito (May 7, 1892 - May 4, 1980) broke up with the Soviet leader Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (Dec. 21, 1879 - March 5, 1953) and Yugoslavia was on the brink of war with the Soviet Union. There were tanks on both sides of the border and Tito's regime imprisoned many Soviet sympathizers (real or just suspected). Russian films were suddenly not so popular anymore.

Yugoslav authorities had to look somewhere else for film entertainment. They found a suitable country in Mexico: it was far away, the chances of Mexican tanks appearing on Yugoslav borders were slight and, best of all, in Mexican films they always talked about revolution in the highest terms. How could an average moviegoer know that it was not the Yugoslav revolution?

Link. I'm a big fan of Mexican popular music from that same period, but this is pretty mindblowing. Behind the iron sombrero.

Update: BoingBoing reader meeroh says, "Naturally, the Yu-Mex mashup was parodied, with the parodies often far better than the originals. One of my favorite parodies songs is here (MP3), and the somewhat poorly transcribed lyrics are here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:15:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chewie the Rookie Wookie

BB reader Isaac says,

"Remember the days before George Lucas so tightly controlled the Star Wars franchise? The days when there could be a Star Wars Christmas Special on TV? Cleaning out my garage, I found an old 45 RPM record from 1977: The Rebel Force Band, performing "Chewie the Rookie Wookie" (sort of Motown) and "May the Force Be With You" (imagine a lounge singer doing a version of "Sunrise, Sunset" - that's what it sounds like). Of course, nowadays something like this would never get off the ground; it's just not as sophisticated as Ewoks, Jar Jar Binks, or that Jake kid."
Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:00:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bad Type

Cool work from a graphic designer who loves typography. Link (thanks, Siege)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:54:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dutch eDonkey site owners released

Snip from the Register:

Seven people arrested last week by Dutch law enforcement officials for offering links to allegedly copyright-infringing content have been released. The group shared thousands of movies, games and music files through eDonkey and BitTorrent files.

Dutch lobby organisation BREIN remains likely to start criminal procedures against the site owners. BREIN believes that warez group DVD Europe Team, which shares illegal copies of movies as soon as they are released in cinemas, is part of the group that hosted the files.

Link (Via DMCA-Discuss)

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

Gingerbread Kama Sutra

These desperate amateur cookies will do anything to stay warm. Site includes recipes. Link (Thanks, Rose).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:32:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EPIC's New Year Privacy Resolutions

Chris Hoofnagle from EPIC says, "Marc Rotenberg and I came up with this list of ten privacy resolutions for 2005. Don't just try to lose weight next year, try to lose the data brokers too." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:29:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Space Station sightings

BoingBoing reader Uncle Horn Head says, "I heard on NPR this afternoon that in the coming days it will be possible to see the International Space Station with the naked eye. NASA has posted a massive list of world cities with optimal viewing times."

That spot was a chat between Ira Flatow and Alex Chadwick on the NPR program "Day to Day," to which I'm a contributing tech correspondent. Here's the audio for that segment: Link

Reader Philip Downey adds, "The site heavens-above.com tells you when ANY satellite is going over anywhere in the world. One neat feature is going back a day in time to figure out what you saw last night."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:27:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Taco grease eco-bus update

BB reader Chris from Bay Area Vegetarians says, "It was cool to see the earlier post on boingboing about the bio diesel busy. A friend of mine is actually on board and part of the team. They have a blog documenting the trip. It's full of cool photos!"

Link

And reader Eric Case says, "Over at the BiodieselBlog, I posted about something similar back in April: Link. They're using the oil left over from fish processing as biodiesel: Link."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:23:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BoingBoing stats under construction

A quick housekeeping note: We're taking our web stats offline for a bit, while we dig into some technical considerations to ensure maximum clarity. We'll make them public again when that's complete.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:14:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New bluetooth phone virus

BB reader moblog kid says, "A new mobile virus disguises itself as the game metal gear solid, disables all antivral software, and sends the cabir/sexxxy.sis virus to anyone in bluetooth distance. What i dont get is why there is no payload!" Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:07:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Insight into ocular mod

Following up on my earlier post today about JewelEye, Shannon Larratt of the excellent Body Modification Ezine points to his wife Rachel's personal account of Cosmetic Extraocular Implantation. Shannon says Rachel was the first American to have the procedure done. And I was very wrong in my original post: self-installation is clearly not an option. Rachel writes:

"The procedure itself involved injecting a liquid to elevate and separate the layers of the eyeball, which helps the surgeon with the placement of the implant under the conjunctiva (in old age, many people build up calcium deposits in this area, so our eye is actually designed to handle material stuck there). A small flap is cut, and the implant is inserted. After it was in place, they began suctioning out the liquid that was used to elevate the layers. After a few weeks, the liquid will dissipate and the implant will become even more visible."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:46:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Public Record

BB pal Terre Thaemlitz, who created my personal directory page Web site, just designed the new "Public Record" archive for audio activist ensemble Ultra-red. It's faxtastic. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:15:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Iranian graphics

Last week, my wife stumbled upon a small monograph of the work of Iranian graphic designer Reza Abedini. Arabic Farsi Arabic (!) script is naturally beautiful, and I think Abedini's compositions, with text often a central graphic element, are incredibly fresh and emotional. Today, my friend Anne Sanger sent me a link to a great "Who's Who in Iranian Posters" page with links to even more information about the country's happening graphic design scene. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:28:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ocular mod

Developed by the Netherlands Institute for Innovative Ocular Surgery, the 3.5mm Cosmetic Extraocular Implant (brand name: JewelEye) is available in various shapes and apparently can be self-installed.

"Earrings, make-up and more recently tattoos and piercings are accepted forms of body cosmetics. Surprisingly, no jewelry is available for the organ that is most important in social interactions, the eye."

Link (via MetaFilter)

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:45:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, December 23, 2004

Starbucks email prank

Read what happens when a new Starbucks corporate office employee gets into a bizarre email exchange with a prankster pretending to be the CEO / president.

I know this may seem petty, but Ms. Crisholm should have told you how we feel about goatees or facial hair in our corporate offices. While I realize they may be considered stylish and acceptable in our Starbucks outlets, we ask that men refrain from wearing them in our corporate offices as we are trying to uphold a certain image. That includes earrings and other piercings on men, which I do not tolerate at all. Unfortunately, there's little we can do about the appearance of our counter people no matter how much we try. I certainly wish this weren't the case, because most of them have absolutely no loyalty to our brand, and they have done nothing but tarnish our image. I hope you understand our position. Please have it removed by Monday.

Link (Thanks, Scott!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:12:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Babes in space

Fun gallery of old science fiction pulp covers featuring babes organized by category: Babes with Blasters, Babes in Bondage, Babes of Myth, Alien Babes, Babes with a Grip, Robobabes, Babes in Charge, Experimental Babes, Babes under Glass. Link (Thanks, Avi!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:59:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pulp Xmas

Video mashup of Pulp Fiction with vintage Rankin-Bass holiday animation. Link (Thanks, Perry E. Metzger, also spotted on Adam Fields)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:56:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eco-bus runs on taco grease

In Mexico City, a group of ecologists are wandering from taqueria to taqueria in search of waste cooking oil to fuel an old school bus for an environmental awareness tour from California to Costa Rica.

The bus, which ran on avocado oil during a week-long drive down from the U.S. border, is being used to prove that vehicles can run on recycled fuels that pollute less than gasoline as it chugs around oil refineries, factories and eateries collecting vegetable oil.

"We're running low, we have to score some oil today," said environmentalist Zak Zaidman as crew members called around the greasiest-sounding eateries in the city's phone directory.

Link to Reuters story, Link to Tucson Citizen article. (Thanks, Isaac)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:39:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

1965 Ski Mask HOWTO

If your grannie knits you one of these, run like hell, then call the cops. Excerpts from a "roll your own ski mask" article from a mid-'60s issue of McCall's Magazine. You know, they have fetish websites for this sort of thing nowadays. Link. The horror. The HORROR. (thanks, Cameron)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:30:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of pirated Chinese DVD zen

Image: the cover of a pirated "Kill Bill" DVD in China with the headline "HERE COMES THE BRINE." BoingBoing reader Jon Rahoi says:

I'm living in mainland China for a couple of months. The dearth of English TV and the terrible quality of Chinese shows made me set out, on my very first day, to a local DVD store.

They're on every street. These people must listen to and watch a fair number of movies and CDs. But since the average wage here is, very roughly, US$150 a month, and the average DVD costs about US$15 back home, how can they afford it? Do they get a continental discount?

I walked in and got right to the discount rack. Dozens of American and foreign movies were on sale for 6RMB, about 75¢! The full-price ones ranged from 12-18RMB ($1.50 - $2.25.) Obviously, these are copies, fakes, pirate booty. But how good are they? For the sake of journalistic thoroughness, I bought 35 of them.

(...) The DVD cases are works of pirate art. They are all made in the same style from hard glossy cardboard. Cheaply made, but professionally graphically designed. They're so uniform, you can tell they almost all come from one maker. What makes them art, though, are the mistakes: made by a genius dyslexican who flunked the TOEFL. English literacy here is almost zero. A Chinese person picking up a movie to buy would not read the title, the quotes, the description, or the credits if they were in English. But any American movie case has to have English, right?

Here's a report on Jon's blog, Link, and here's another entry on the in-theater experience -- "To The Chinaplex": Link

BoingBoing reader Charles Lin adds,

I lived in China for a short while, and the pirated DVD's tend to have OCR errors. How they got "brine" from "bride" is a horrid mistake, but especially when it comes to recognizing movie blurbs and the blocks of credits on the back, most of the errors don't appear to be typing transcription errors, but OCR errors from a scanner. Much of the box art doesn't look like the American version because it's scanned in from foreign posters for the movies, which often are of a slightly different design.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:32:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Battelle's tech predictions for 2005

John Battelle gazes knowingly into a crystal ball, and reports "things that I believe have a reasonable chance of occurring in 2005 with regard to the intersection of media, technology, and search." Really good stuff here, consider it required reading. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:20:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

J-Pop Van-Mod

Spotted in Japan: Vans tricked out with flares, ground effects, and crazy paint jobs that serve as mobile shrines to J-Pop megastar Ayumi Hamasaki. Link (Thanks, Fungus Mungus).

Update: BoingBoing reader Jim Appleton says, "The incomparable Masamania has at least two whole galleries of these vans. Masa's [warning: Engrish] indifference to Ayumi herself is typical Masa: 'Sorry but I am not fan of her, because breast problem.'" Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:17:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Call of Cthulhu silent film nearly done

BoingBoing reader Malcolm says,

The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society have nearly finished making a 1920s/30s style black and white silent film of "The Call of Cthulhu", and they've put a quicktime trailer on their site.

It looks really bizarre: they seem to have done quite a good job of mimicking the visual style of films of the period, particularly the horrifying rituals of the cultists.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:11:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The 8 bits of Christmas

Holiday-themed chiptunes from 8bitpeoples: 8 classic carols performed on 8 different videogame consoles and home computers. Link (Thanks, Marc)

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

Death Church in Poland

BoingBoing reader Kamil Antosiewicz says,

"Reading the BoingBoing post about mass tomb in Kutna Hora near Prague, I realized that here in Poland we've got a similar sacral place. It's located in a village called Czeremna, near a famous spa center called Kudowa Zdroj in lower Silesia. About 24 thousand human skulls are gathered there (3000 in a main hall, the rest in a cellar). A priest named Waclaw Tomaszek dig them out in during the XVIII century, and the chapel itself was built in the 1780s. The human remains mostly date from the 30-year war (1618-1648) and epidemic disease which killed thousands of people in that period. You can check out some pictures here: Link (the text is in polish but the pics are clickable), as well as here: Link."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:02:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World's smallest baby

When Rumaisa Rahman was born 15 weeks before her due date at a Chicago hospital, she weighed just 8.6 ounces, less than a can of soda. Three months later, she now weighs 2 pounds 10 ounces. Rumaisa's twin sister Hiba is slightly larger and may leave the hospital this month. Doctors expect Rumaisa to stay for a few additional weeks, but fortunately the prognosis is very good. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:44:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Meat-scented air fresheners for your car

Link (Thanks, Jonno)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:07:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why blood banks shouldn't use SSNs for ID

Snip:

100,000 California donors receive identity theft warning after a single laptop is stolen from a mobile blood bank. It was being used to register donors. "The blood bank will no longer require Social Security numbers from its donors, and has revised procedures for handling computer hardware and other sensitive equipment."

Link (via Declan McCullagh's politech)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:07:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Building Better Batteries

My latest article for TheFeature is about new battery designs for mobile devices, from an onboard nuclear trickle charger that harnesses radioactive energy to a microbattery made with the same techniques used to fabricate computer chips.

"In late 18th century, Italian physicist Luigi Galvani shocked the public by demonstrating that an amputated frog's leg twitched when touched with certain metals. Galvani was convinced that energy stored in the frog's leg caused the jerk. He called the accumulated juice "animal electricity." Galvani's friend Alessandro Volta called it nonsense. To prove that the energy came from the metal, not the flesh, Volta eventually made a sandwich of silver, moist cardboard, and zinc. His device also spurred frogs' legs to spasm. In the end, Volta won the intellectual battle and also invented the battery. Two hundred years later, the technology hasn't changed much."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:37:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Backyard mecha

Carlos Owens, a 26-year-old steelworker who lives near Anchorage, Alaska is building a "mobile suit gundam," a robotic exoskeleton, in his backyard. From a CNET report:

"This is a concept that's been around for a long time," Owens said in a telephone interview. "But I'm not going to wait for the other guy to come out and make it when I've got the capability to do it myself."

When completed, the idea is for the pilot to be able to strap himself into a central, padded compartment, and then control the mecha with the motions of his own body. When the pilot walks, the mecha walks. Raise an arm and open a hand, and the mecha does the same, with 46 possible movements planned.

Owens said he can't afford top-of-the line equipment, like infrared sensors and electronics that would govern the motion. Instead he's using a hydraulic system to transfer the motion of his limbs to the larger structure, and a gas engine mounted on the back to generate the power needed. In all, the system can exert about 3,500 pounds per square inch, or more than enough to set his ton and a half creation in motion, he said.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:37:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photomicroscopic Winter beauty from Clayton James Cubitt

A Winter Beauty story shot by Clayton James Cubitt for the December 2004 issue of Metropop Magazine. Link to gallery of photographs. Photomicroscopy snowflake images based on the photos of Kenneth Libbrecht, snowcrystals.com.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:13:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Overheard in Hollywood during the holidays

"You go to war with the parents you have... not the parents you might want or wish to have." 10:32pm, woman speaking into cellphone.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:09:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scary bathroom interfaces of India

Reader Anil Kandangath says, "Here is a glorious journey through bathrooms in India. I found this hilarious since I've actually seen bathrooms like these." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:07:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, December 22, 2004

PlayStation knockoffs made by Chinese prisoners

Sony recently cracked a network of manufacturers, subcontractors, and factories in China that collectively produced over 50,000 black market PlayStation and PlayStation 2 consoles and controllers per day. Most of the labor was produced by prison inmates, according to Engadget's item: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:11:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Clunky vintage accessories for mobile phones

Technokitschy vintage accessories for your cellphone from "Mockia."

The BRICKIA, DESKIA and POKIA all plug into your mobile and work as a headset (although hardly hands free) The BRICKIA is a genuine vintage 80s mobile phone converted into a plug in headset. (...) The DESKIA is perfect for any office environment. Take calls from your mobile on the big chunky 60's 70's and 80's phones. There is nothing like holding a traditional earpiece close to your head to maximize your telecom pleasure. The POKIA is a vintage telephone handset in a selection of fine colours and styles...

Link (Thanks, Mason)

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

Blogging death

My friend Jen Collins runs a blog under the pen-name Kitty Bukkake -- an online diary, in the purest sense of the word. A first-person documentary. Her mom recently passed away from cancer, and Jen blogged about this, too, with that same raw voice. Link to the post she wrote the day after. (Thanks, Susannah)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:59:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos of Mass Tomb near Prague

BoingBoing reader Alex says,

Sedlec is a small suburb of Kutna Hora, which you can get to in about an hour on the train from Prague. Just off the main road into Kutna Hora, there's a small chapel, set in a very green graveyard. There is a statue of a Saint outside, with a halo of stars made from gold metal. There's a low-key, local restaurant opposite. The church-yard is quiet. The church itself has spires, and at the top are skull and crossbone motifs.

Sedlec is not actually a church - it's an Ossuary: a tomb. Inside, it contains the remains of about 40,000 people. They have been used to decorate the building: their skulls cover the walls, their limbs hang from the ceiling as a massive chandelier and their bones form a huge coat of arms on one wall. I spent an afternoon in the place and have loads of creepy photos up on my site.

Link

Update: Reader Lucas Emery says, "I was excited to see your post about the Kostnice bone ossuary. I first heard of it in a Smithsonian magazine article when I was in, like, the eighth grade and over the spring I was lucky enough to finally get to see it up close and personal! I've got a few cc licensed pictures up on flickr for the curious. My next dream travel destination is the Capuchin catacombs in Palermo. Spooky!" Link.

Reader Darren Barefoot says,

"Here are two photos I took when visiting that creepy place last winter: Link, and Link 2. The latter one won me a free point-and-shoot camera from Backpacker magazine. Another interesting note about the ossuary is that if you want to take photos, you have to pay an additional fee. This is presumably to mitigate the postcard and poster revenue lost from their tiny giftshop. The fee, in my recollection, was nominal. I figured it was a reasonable compromise approach to the thorny issue of photography in tourist attractions. If you should find yourself in Kutna Hora (a small town near Sedlec), don't miss Church of St. Barbara. It's my favourite European catheral."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:36:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

CD cover art for Bollywood MP3 roundup

Following up on an earlier BoingBoing post (Link) about an exxxcellent website offering MP3s of Bollywood film songs (and a helpful primer on Bollywood appreciation for newbies), reader Rick Elizaga says:

"Inspired by David Boyk's excellent Bollywood mp3 compilation Bollywood for the Skeptical, I slapped together some printable album art to accompany it. Available in PDF format on my site, for free, of course.
Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:20:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disney porn for sale on eBay

Fleshbot's got the downlow on a vintage, X-rated, Disney-inspired comic for sale:

Here's your chance to own a piece of art/porn history: the original printing plate for legendary illustrator and comic artist Wally Wood's "Disneyland Memorial Orgy" went up for sale on eBay this week. Wood, an EC Comics artist and one of the original illustators for Mad Magazine, produced the work in 1967 for The Realist, Paul Krassner's seminal counterculture journal; Disney chose not to sue Wood for his depiction of dozens of its signature characters in naughty (though not explicit) positions, but a subsequent bootleg poster edition of the image prompted Disney to file a lawsuit, which was later settled out of court.

Link to auction, and Link to Fleshbot item which contains pointers to other locations where you can buy copies of the print -- as well as auctions for vintage copies of The Realist.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:12:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hello Kitty Xmas tree in Hong Kong

Snapshot of a Hong Kong Christmas tree trimmed head to toe in Hello Kitty. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:05:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mayor of Bogota uses mimes for public behavior control

This is brilliant. A March article from the March 2004 Harvard University Gazette has a great profile of mayor of Bogota, Colombia. He's a former academic and has been using mimes to encourage people not to jaywalk or behave irresponsibly in public.

Another innovative idea was to use mimes to improve both traffic and citizens' behavior. Initially 20 professional mimes shadowed pedestrians who didn't follow crossing rules: A pedestrian running across the road would be tracked by a mime who mocked his every move. Mimes also poked fun at reckless drivers. The program was so popular that another 400 people were trained as mimes.

Link (Thanks, Sid!)

UPDATE: Octavio Isaac Rojas Orduña sez: "Antanas Mockus was Bogota's mayor for the 2001-2003 period. Luis Eduardo Garzón is in his place now. So, this news originally took place during 2003."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:35:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mark Dery's Wunderkammer

Author and culture critic Mark Dery has launched a blog called The Gilded Hack. Mark says he'll "be writing occasional, desultory screeds about unpopular culture, unnatural history, weird sex, fringe science, media pathologies, Xtreme theory, bottom-feeder subcultures, and whatever else catches my fancy." Mark's writings have always engaged me, frequently informed me, sometimes confused me, never bored me, and almost always made my head spin with delight. Full disclosure: In his opening post, Mark paid Boing Boing what I consider to be the ultimate compliment. He likened our site (and others) to a postmodern cabinet of curiosities, my own personal meta-obsession.

Some of my favorite blogs reclaim the radical promise inherent in the notion of an online journal, letting casual passersby eavesdrop on a stranger’s innermost thoughts, see the world through another mind’s eye. Call it the Being John Malkovich effect. The cultural critic Julian Dibbell had it just about right when he theorized the weblog as postmodern wunderkammer—an idiosyncratic jumble of found objects (in this case, ideas and images, facts and fictions scavenged from the global mediastream) that “reflects our own attempts to assimilate the glut of immaterial data loosed upon us by the ‘discovery’ of the networked world.” Some of the most consistently enlightening and entertaining blogs are the inscrutable products of borderline obsessive-compulsives. Like the baroque “wonder closets” invoked by Dibbell, blogs such as bOING bOING, The Obscure Store, Kottke.org, and Die, Puny Humans are omnium gatherums, overstuffed with anything that catches the fancy of their eccentric curators.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:50:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Merry Capitalism! God bless us, every cent!

"E-Z bake bankruptcy," or "How Chase Bank One stole Christmas." Snip from WaPo story:

Somewhere in China, frantic factory workers cannot make enough toy automatic teller machines for clamoring American children.

"I wish every kid in America could have an ATM," says Michael Searl, the onetime stockbroker who created the Youniverse ATM Machine, a highly evolved piggy bank that receives and dispenses real cold cash, not that fake play stuff. "Why wouldn't I want every kid to have one?"

Tweens and beyond can insert the supplied ATM card into the silver machine, punch in their PIN, be greeted by name on the electronic display, peer into the pretend security camera and wait for that seminal capitalistic moment -- when crisp bills miraculously appear, ripe for the plucking. Unlike in a real ATM, a cash drawer opens in the toy ATM, allowing an avaricious child to grab every last cent and run. What do you want for $24.95?

Link (Thanks, John Parres!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:47:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Non-Asians eat crazy gross snack foods, too

Following up on today's earlier post about Wacky Asian Soft Drinks, and an earlier BB item about Korean BBQ chrysalis, we now direct your attention to "Steve Don't Eat it," a blog that chronicles grossout food experiments conducted by a dude named Steve.

I'm pretty sure that Urkel-O's and pickled pork rinds trump those cans of basil seed drink by a food fear factor of fifty. Japan and Korea do not have a monopoly on icky snacks and soft drinks. Link (Thanks, Dogzilla)

Also, an update on that chrysalis snack story (gag). Reader Kyungjoon Lee says, "You said they were caterpillars, but I think that's a little misleading. They're silkworms. The only chrysalis we eat in Korea are from silkworms. The chrysalis is what the silkworm becomes when it finishes spinning its cocoon. We boil the cocoon, unravel the silk, and eat what's inside. It's not *that* popular, but you can see chrysalis vendors at national parks or hiking trails."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:41:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wardriving Maui

You can take the geek out of the hotspot, but you can't take the hotspot out of the geek. Author, wireless tech guru, and all-around super nice guy Mike Outmesguine recently took a vacation in Hawaii, and spent much of it wardriving for wireless networks. If that ain't nerd cred, I don't know what is. Snip from the blog account of his journey, and his technical findings:

The night was humid.  With the air conditioner on high, I drove North towards Kahului.  The laptop sitting on the center console continuously pinging at the networks being discovered.  “Man, there’s a lot of wireless around here,” I said.

Which shouldn’t have surprised me.  The island of Maui in the state of Hawaii is a popular tourist destination with hundreds of hotels and time-share condominiums supporting over 2 million tourists a year.  Haleakala, the dormant volcano reaching to 10,023 feet, is home to ”Science City”, a research facility and observatory.  Maui fosters a strong technology community boasting state tax incentives, a modern research & technology park for industry.  And Hawaii is the hub of the Southern Cross Network, a submarine fiber optic network capable of providing 1.2 terabits of bandwidth from Hawaii to mainland US, and 480 gigabits of capacity to Fiji, Australia and New Zealand.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:31:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Battelle looks back on 2004 predictions

John Battelle -- who, among other things, is BoingBoing's Ruben Kincaid -- looks back on a bunch of predictions he made for 2004 on this blog post. Compare what panned out with what fizzled out, and read the results of John's tech prophecies on search, software, IPOs, RSS, and more. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:22:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Custom-painted Bollywood posters

BoingBoing reader Alex says,

In case you didn'ts know this type of service, a french studio offers a nice service : "Limona Studio offers you the opportunity to commission your own hand-painted movie poster on canvas. From your pictures, the best artists of Bollywood selected by Limona Studio, will create a very unique and colorful painting in Bollywood style." Watcha !

Link, and Link to post on Alex's blog.

Update: Shahrukh sez:

I'm a regular Boing Boing reader from India. Guess that makes me know a little more about Bollywood than the westerners. Love ur coverage on the stuff, but the pic shown in this post isn't exactly Bollywood. "Bollywood" refers to the HINDI film industry rather than the entire Indian film industry. That's because they're made in Bombay (now Mumbai) hence B-ollywood. Get it? There's also Tollywood. The Bengali film industry which is located in Tollygunge, which is Calcutta (now Kolkata), in India. See they're all still part of the Indian film industry but not "Bollywood. That pic is from the "South Indian" film industry and isn't "Bollywood".

Thanks, Shahrukh!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:04:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World's largest solar power site goes live

The 30-acre installation was installed in Germany recently by Powerlight, a company based in Berkeley, CA.

PowerLight's three Bavarian solar parks, consisting of 57,600 silicon-and- aluminum panels, will generate 10 megawatts of electricity -- enough to power 9,000 German homes. The amount of electricity produced is much less than power plants fueled by coal or natural gas, but with very low operating costs, the solar project is expected quickly to turn a profit while emitting zero pollution. Schroeder's left-of-center Social Democrat-Green coalition has turned Germany into the world leader in renewable energy since it took office in 1998. Billions of dollars have been spent on wind and solar projects, and Schroeder, in a politically risky move, has sharply increased taxes on petroleum products in an attempt to reduce consumption of conventional fuels.

Link (Thanks, Wayne)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:49:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cheese Steak Ninjas

BoingBoing reader sputnik says:

Tony Luke's is an infamous steak & hoagie joint in South Philly, patronized by Judge and Mobster alike. I was looking at their site today, and came across the TONY LUKE'S flash VIDEO GAME.

It's SERIOUSLY cheesy, and completely South Philly, starring the owner, Tony Luke Jr. You shoot blonde haired ninjas running amok at a South Philly wedding hall, trying to thwart the plans of the EVIL DR. MONELLA, who has stolen the Tony Luke's recipe disk! Man. It doesn't get better than this.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:40:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beyond torrents

BoingBoing reader Adam Fields says, "I wrote a piece somewhat in response to Mark Pesce's bit about trackerless torrents (Link to previous BoingBoing post). I think P2P is the content industry's worse nightmare... to date. But there's other stuff coming. What happens when the entire music library of the human race fits on a card that's cheap and small enough to hand out with a cup of coffee?" Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:36:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Taste-tests of crazy Asian drinks

Comrade Todd Lappin says, "A friend just sent me this link to a site that offers hilarious taste tests of unusual Asian canned drinks. Take, for example, this review of basil seed drink (which, BTW, I happen to enjoy, despite the fact that it is indeed sort of like drinking sweetened tadpole larvae)."

"Basil Seed Drink with Honey may just be the epitome of non-thirst-quenching drinks. Mmmm... very sweet, with nary a bit o' liquid. Instead, the tongue is met with an onslaught of slick gelatin capsules that, through a nefarious mixture of slipperiness, honey, and yes, sheer numbers, forcefully override the throat's core instinct not to swallow tadpoles, or chilled vomit. And yet, I can't say it wasn't fun. Yes, yes I can."

"Though I don't always agree with their evaluations," Todd says, "I am personally grateful to the intrepid souls who compiled this resource, if only for their candid review of Grass Jelly Drink, which even I have not yet mustered the courage to sample." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:32:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hyperreal beach resort

While Japan demolishes one of its famed indoor "outdoor" simulacradomes, a Zeppelin hangar in Brandenburg, Germany is transformed into a massive indoor beach resort. From The Guardian:

"On the night of Tropical Islands' gala launch, the transformation from airship hangar to island paradise is nearly complete: there are still a few coiled up hoses about, and the rainforest plants look a bit dusty, but most things are in place. The sand along the lip of the Balinese lagoon is a pristine white. Round the other side of the rainforest, the island in the centre of the tropical sea - a body of water about the size of four Olympic swimming pools - is set for the premiere of what will be a nightly stage show. The scale of the operation puts one in mind of Willy Wonka's chocolate factory, or a Martian colony, or other things that don't exist in real life. They have trucked in 30,000m cubed of soil and 500 plant species for their rainforest. The speakers which broadcast insect noises are shaped like rocks. And the building itself, it goes without saying, is extraordinary, the biggest inside of anything you will ever see. It makes your head spin. This place doesn't just have a climate. It has weather. As the place fills up, the extra moisture in the air condenses on the roof. It starts to rain a little bit."

Link (via Near, Near Future)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:36:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Twin helps twin escape jail

I like it when prankster twins conduct fun social experiments. This is a great one. Twins in Sweden swapped clothing so that one could just walk out of the jail where he was incarcerated. The problem is that the twin who agreed to be locked up quickly decided the plan wasn't fair. From the Associated Press:

Faced with the prospect of spending the night in jail, his brother admitted the ruse to prison guards.

"We knew there was a certain risk of a mix up, so we took some measures," said Lars-Aake Pettersson, the warden for the jail. "But this was apparently not enough. They managed to dupe us."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:29:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ScienceMatters@Berkeley

In my new issue of ScienceMatters@Berkeley:

* Synthetic biology that could cure blindness

* A flare-up in solar physics

* The fly guy and the genetics of Drosophila

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:17:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bollywood Torrents

This site offers a similar service to the recently-killed Suprnova.org and Torrentbits -- except this one's 100% Bollywood. Movies, music, stage dramas, TV shows. Link. And if you dig that, you may also like desitorrents.com: Link. (Thanks, Anil Kandangath)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:35:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, December 21, 2004

Motherlode of free Bollywood MP3s

Sweeter than a mouthful of jalebi. David Boyk says:

"While I was supposed to be studying for finals, I made a mix CD to introduce dubious Westerners to Bollywood. That didn't waste enough time, so I also made a big web site that has all the tracks from the CD, plus some more, and a lot of other information to explain Bollywood movies and music, and also to help a bit with language."

Far from a waste of time, David's terrific site includes a "bollywood for dummies" primer, and a very helpful list of common Hindi words you'll encounter. As for the MP3s, man -- there are some serious gems in here, in particular the rockin' 1960s numbers. This may not be the largest Hindi MP3 collection online, but it's a terrific place to start.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:48:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

It's the torrent, stupid

Mark Pesce rants about the recent shutdowns of BitTorrent supersites Suprnova.org and TorrentBits.com.

Hey, Hollywood! Can you feel the future slipping through your fingers? Do you understand how badly you've screwed up? You took a perfectly serviceable situation - a nice, centralized system for the distribution of media, and, through your own greed and shortsightedness, are giving birth to a system of digital distribution that you'll never, ever be able to defeat. In your avarice and arrogance you ignored the obvious: you should have cut a deal with SuprNova.org. In partnership you could have found a way to manage the disruptive change that's already well underway. Instead, you have repeated the mistakes made by the recording industry, chapter and verse. And thus you have spelled your own doom.

It's said that the best sequels are just like the original, only bigger and louder. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for one hell of a crash. This baby is now fully out of control.

Link (via waxy)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:34:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Planned Parenthood's "Pledge-a-Picket" program

This is a funny idea. The more protesters who picket in front of a Planned Parenthood office, the more money Planned Parenthood gets.

Once a week, PPCT puts a sign outside its clinic that says, "Even Our Protesters Support Planned Parenthood." To date, the Pledge-a-Picket program has raised $18,000 for PPCT. While not a significant chunk of its overall revenues, Pledge-a-Picket contributes greatly to PPCT's patient assistance fund, which helps clients who don't have resources get the care they need.

Link (Via Sensible Erection)

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

Tijuana Christmas MP3s from hell

El amigo de BoingBoing moblog kid dice:

"Tijuana Xmas! Aaaaaaahahaha! the cheesiest christmas songs, straight outta Tijuana! these are going straight onto a christmas cd to terrorize my family."

Link to Christmas MP3s from "The Border Brass." Link to image of front cover, Link to back.

Link to the label behind the album, part of a series of xmas releases. (Thanks, Shawn)

Reader Bill the Splut says,

"As the owner of scores of freakishly anti-Christmas albums that have been used to abuse my friends at this time of year, I was excited to buy "Tijuana Christmas" for a dollar. But I never used it. The reason isn't that LP isn't cheezy enough, but because the joke is too subtle. As an actual, admitted lifetime fan of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass, Tijuana Christmas is brilliant. They aren't just Xmas tunes--every one is a parody of a TJB hit. For instance, note how track 3 mimics A Taste of Honey. The rest of the tracks have similar musical jokes.

"And people would've caught those jokes. Remember, the TJB was a huge success before the Beatles came over. Anyone who was an American kid in the 60s had parents with most of Herb's LPs. Why else do you think that you find so many copies of Whipped Cream and Other Delights in every stack of used vinyl?"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:41:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sandbag shelter wins architecture prize

Karim sez: "We often don't think of temp shelters getting prestigious architecture awards - but this project out of California won a prize from the Aga Khan Award for Architecture. Cool design and sustainable and easy to make." Link

UPDATE: Derek sez "Just saw the Sandbag Shelter link you dropped on the Boingx2 site. If you click over to the indicated page, check out the 4th pic on the top of the page (listed as photo 6 at the bottom). Its the one with the completed huts. Look in the background about 2/3 to the right. You'll see (what appears to be) an airplane about half a second from a ground smashing explosion. The smoke trail looks to start in the upper left then you see it headed straight down and the plane is just above the mountain horizon when the pic was snapped. Bizarre timing, eh?"

UPDATE:Hayes sez: "It's a piece of string or rope hanging from the line that you can see in the left side of the picture."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:14:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Phonecams = kiss of death to Bollywood stars' privacy?

BoingBoing reader Kevin Slavin says,

I just got back from Mumbai yesterday, and it's true about the scale of the Baazee uproar -- it's front page full-width headlines, first the scandal, then the arrest, then the arrest scandal, etc.

Worth noting is the echo to it, also front pages over there -- a phonecam snap of some Bollywood celebs kissing in public. It provoked a series of suprisingly fierce newspaper debates over Public Displays of Affection in India overall.

There's a funny logic behind that, considering that almost no one saw the event itself, and that the real Public is the viewers of the news networks which broadcasted the image. The distributed image was considered the documentation of public-ness, rather than a further expression of it.

Link to "Why the phone camera may be kiss of death to secret lives for Bollywood stars: A snatched image breaks a taboo and horrifies India's screen giants" in the Times Online (UK)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:06:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

India freaks out over amateur teen sex phonecam video

Snip:

The [oral] sex clip was recorded weeks ago and passed on by the bragging schoolboy to three of his friends and eventually made its way to video disc sellers in New Delhi. It did not draw much attention until an engineering student at a prestigious Indian college listed it for sale on [eBay's Indian subsidiary] Baazee.com... it's the talk of urban India, an obsession of newspapers and talk shows. (...)

Of greater concern to many in the business community is [Baazee.com exec Avnish] Bajaj's arrest under the Information Technology Act of 2000. The law makes a criminal offense of "publishing, transmitting, or causing to publish any information in electronic form, which is obscene." But it also says an Internet provider or Web site manager can't be held responsible if he acted diligently to remedy an electronic offense after learning of it. Baazee.com maintains it yanked the sex video listing as soon as customer service managers noticed it, and Bajaj had traveled to New Delhi to cooperate with authorities.

Pawan Duggal, a cyberlaw expert, said Bajaj's arrest has serious implications, especially when Internet usage in the country is rapidly growing and foreign investors are increasingly looking to India for e-commerce opportunities. "Ultimately we have to see bigger picture. We want to increase Internet penetration. All this will only happen if you allow service providers the freedom," he said.

Hehehe. He said "increase penetration." Link (via unwired, thanks John Parres, and Prion)

Update: Fleshbot picked up an interesting/creepy angle on the story as reported by Agence France-Presse: the incident is reportedly being followed at the "highest levels" of US government as well. Fleshbot's editor asks, "Yes, the manager of Baazee.com is an Indian-born US citizen, but still. Is this the sort of case the US State Department usually gets involved in? We'd have thought they were busy with other things, like ... oh, war and stuff." Link

And reader John McCarthy says, "According to today’s Salon, Condi’s on the trail of the India phone sex scandal."

[Condoleezza] Rice is understood to have telephoned the U.S. ambassador in India, David Mulford, about the case. The Bush administration's national security advisor and future secretary of state has let it be known that she is furious about Bajaj's humiliating treatment. He is, after all, a U.S. citizen.

Link. "Appropriately enough," says John, "I had to watch a premercial for a Verizon videophone to read the full text."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:18:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Better quality audio for Mind Hacks interview

Here's a BitTorrent file for a much better-sounding version of my interview with Matt Webb of Mind Hacks. (Here's the original entry). Link (Thanks, Torrentocracy!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:27:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kids' space books through the decades

Great directory of kids' books about space and space exploration from 1950s to 1970s. (Image shown here from The Big Book of Space). Link (Thanks Armand!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:09:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Long Tail" from Chris Anderson to become book, blog

Wired Magazine's editor-in-chief Chris Anderson says:

I've signed a deal to do The Long Tail book with Hyperion (in the US--Random House will be publishing it in the UK and others TBA elsewhere). I should be turning in the manuscript next fall for a spring 2006 release. Following John Battelle's great example, I'm starting The Long Tail blog to help me preview my book thinking and research in public and to tap the wisdom of crowds on this rich subject.

Link to thelongtail.com, also available in tasty, lean RSS. Link to online copy of original Long Tail essay which appeared in Wired Magazine.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:03:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

M$ sells Slate to WaPo

Microsoft will sell the online publication Slate to the Washington Post. No editorial changes anticipated. Link (Thanks Steve Portigal)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:51:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kevin Scanlon's heavy industry photography

Photographer Kevin Scanlon has spent the last thirty years chronicling the elegance of railroads, steel mills, and heavy industry throughout the country. He shoots steel mills -- active and silent -- West Virginia coalfields, and the dwindling railway systems in America. As the gallery intro says, "His images capture an important historical era that spans the end of the twentieth century into the new millennium." He loves this world, and chronicles it with a sense of belonging.

He's also my uncle, and he is the person who first taught me to love photography -- and appreciate the grace of machines. I've enjoyed his work since before I could walk, and I'm overjoyed to see it online now, where the rest of the world can find it more easily. I'm a biased critic, but I really love my uncle's work. He says:

"I am still a child. I have always been fascinated with big things, especially big machines. My photography has tended toward industrial subjects. In the 1970s I started photographing steel mills as a documentary project. Over the years I found that I was reacting to the mills, especially the blast furnaces, more from an emotional than a documentary viewpoint. Something about their tremendous size is both scary and attractive, and ultimately magnificent."

"Standing near an operating blast furnace is like becoming that child again watching a robot monster movie on Saturday afternoon. The mill looms above. The men working around the bottom move cautiously and wear protective clothing. There is a constant roar from the blast stoves, the unique smell of hot metal-and there is the light. Molten iron emits a glowing light that is mesmerizing. You want to reach down and scoop up a handful of this flowing strand of light."

Image: Sunrise, Edgar Thomson Works. Link to gallery home, Link to steel mill photos (these are my favorite!), link to Pennsylvania railroad photos, Link to Appalachian railroad photos.
Merry Christmas, Uncle Kev, and thank you for capturing the soul of endangered machines.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:27:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scared of Santa

A photo gallery of terrified children. Link (Thanks, Yi)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:10:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Meet the Beastles

A mash-up that was bound to happen sooner or later. Link (Thanks, Vincent!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:11:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Science News of the Year

Science News have selected what they consider to be the most important science stories of the year. To read the full texts of their articles about the topics, you need a subscription. Also of interest though is the list of the most popular articles that are freely available online as determined by the number of visitors to the Web pages.

The most widely viewed news article described bias in a heads-or-tail toss of a coin. The most popular feature looked into the physics underlying a new generation of yo-yos. Other top articles reported on:

* DNA differences among various breeds of purebred dogs.
* Stone Age human relatives that were surprisingly small.
* Psychology investigations of how, and how well, people recognize lies.
* A Martian chemical that hints there was once life on the Red Planet.
* A gene mutation that resulted in a superstrong toddler.
* Technologies developed to mimic ocean animals.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:55:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Treasure hunter

In the December issue of my favorite print magazine Smithsonian, my old friend/Wired editor Michael Behar has a great article about Robert Graf, a treasure hunter seeking a centuries-old pirate's booty. The multimillion-dollar treasure might be hidden in a stone vault now underwater in the Seychelles. Then again, it might not be.

When I arrive on Mahé, it's easy to spot Graf in the crowd at the airport. He's the only guy wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the classic pirate ensign—a skull and crossbones. Tanned and fit, the treasure hunter seems relaxed—hardly what you'd expect from someone who has spent a third of his life obsessed with a long-dead pirate. Yet Graf is no laid-back islander. He's in-your-face intense right from the start. I'd barely heaved my suitcase into the trunk of his rusty compact car when he launched into a breathless retelling of how he'd voyaged some 10,000 miles from his Colorado home, married a Seychellois hotel reservations manager and spent more than $450,000 of his own money looking for a treasure that others have failed to find here for nearly a century.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:34:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Engineered spider web

Scientists at Jerusalem's Hebrew University used synthetic biology to crank out spider web fibers in the lab. They introduced certain genes from garden spiders into a virus that was used to infect caterpillar cells. Spider fibers then formed in the cultured cells.

"The research enabled us to determine the close connection that exists between the sequence, structure and functions of the proteins," said (researcher Uri) Gat. "From a practical viewpoint, mass production of fibers, whose diameter is one-thousandth of a millimeter, is likely to be useful in the future for manufacture of bulletproof vests, surgical thread, micro-conductors, optical fibers and fishing rods; even new types of clothing may be envisioned."

Link (to original press release) Link (to CNN article)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:24:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, December 20, 2004

Subway robot paints to Rush tunes

Gizmodo editor Joel Johnson shares this snapshot with BoingBoing -- he says it depicts:

"A guy with his hand-made robot playing songs for change at the Bedford L (subway) stop (in New York City). It was so understated. The robot was an art project from the guy, who said he wasn't really into robotics. Sort of like, Yeah, that's my goddam robot. Like the robot was trouble or something, or he had inherited it -- even though he'd made it himself."

Link

Update: reader Joshua Dickens says, "In reference to the robot from Bedford Ave post, I actually encoded a video for the robot-creator in question and am hosting it on my web site: Link. The robot paints to [the music of the 30-year-old hair band] Rush.

Oh, and maybe someone can torrent the video in case my site gets slammed!"
I am bleeding through my eyeballs I'm laughing so hard right now. Email Josh if you want to help with the torrent: Link

And reader Ben Seigel says, "A correction: Rush is not a '30-year-old hair band,' but rather, a 30 year old progressive rock band. Please don't lump them together with Ratt and Poison." Ben, I thank you, and mea maxima prog-rock culpa.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:20:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sexy Dead Singles and 11-year-olds want to meet you

Following up on this previous BoingBoing item about "Good word algorithms gone bad," one reader suggested that I type the word "dead" into Google. I did, and received this interesting AdWords recommendation (Link to 70k GIF screenshot, sweartagod it's not altered):

Sexy Dead Singles
Free photos, personals and hot
profiles of local singles.
www.infobert.com

Emboldened by this success, I searched for the missing weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and sure enough, eBay had 'em! Why didn't those pesky world leaders look here? Link to screenshot of the text ad suggested for a Google search on "WMD.".

Wmd
Brand new and used. No bidding.
Buy Wmd at eBay! (aff)
www.eBay.com

Reader Matt Baume says,

I enjoyed your post about the apocalypse and devasation on ebay. Thought you might like to know, i've stumbled across two other unsettling algorithmic hiccups: searching for "11-year-olds" gets you ebay ads for children, and searching for "ringworm" results in "sexy ringworm singles." i've got screenshots of each on my blog: one, two.

I attempted to repeat Matt's results, and got even worse returns on "11-year-olds" from Google. Not only did AdWords suggest "Great deals on new and used 11 year olds now!" from eBay, but "7 Year Olds at Amazon.com" were also indecently proposed in the same breath as "Sexy Adult Personals" and "Photos of Hot Local Women Who Want to Find Sex Partners." Link to screenshot. Well then.

Reader Larry Swanson says,

Couldn't resist playing along. These are all actual AdWords results from today:

Famine
Find Everything You Want at Ebay
It's Fun, Quick & Easy to Buy! -aff
www.eBay.com

Find Drought
We have what you're looking for.
Drought & much more! www.eWoss.com

Vomit
600+ Popular Stores - One Website &
One Simple Checkout - Shop Now! SHOP.COM

Lint
Lint for sale. aff
Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:15:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Snapshot of postal kiosks with built-in camera

BoingBoing pal Mike Outmesguine says, "A while ago on BoingBoing, I read something about Postal shipping kiosks taking your picture. There's one of those at my post office so I got some pics of its beady little eye for you guys if you want. PS: I hope I don't get jacked up or sued under RICO or DMCA for taking pictures of publicly accessible computer equipment." Link to photos: one, two, three, four.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:55:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Give blogs for Christmahannukwanzafestivus

Blogs for Christmas is a cool new service for giving the gift of -- well, blogs. Send "specially-wrapped" blog packs or a mix of categorized rss feeds to friends and loved ones for the holidays. Get whuffie-enhanced "virtual eggnog" in return. Made by the same good folks behind Participatory Politics Foundation and Rolling Resistance (formerly Internets Vets for Truth). It's free. And Chappy Chanukah. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:22:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bespoke M&Ms

The M&Ms website includes an online service for ordering your very own personalised M&Ms. The printing dos and don'ts are a fun read, though -- don't even think about mentioning landmarks, or other terms that might raise copyright issues for the candy maker. Certain dirty words are prohibited -- some variants of BUTT SEX IS AWESOME in the "Classic Wedding Blend" color palette returned null results. Other offensive terms were just fine. Damn you, chocolate censors! But high carb free speech prevailed when I chose the message shown here in the "Especially for Her Blend" color scheme. Link (Alex)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:04:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tokyo's Nakagin capsule tower

BoingBoing reader Juergen says,

In Japan we don't only have capsule hotels. No -- we also have capsule buildings. At the outskirts of the posh Ginza district stands the now almost forgotten Nakagin Capsule Tower, the world's first capsule architecture built for actual use.

Built from 1970 and opened in 1972 the Nakagin Capsule Tower was a innovative masterpiece by architect Kisho Kurokawa. Kurokawa developed the technology to install the 2.3m x 3.8m x 2.1m sized capsule units into a concrete core with only 4 high-tension bolts, making the units detachable and replaceable. The capsules were designed to accommodate the individual as either an apartment or studio space, and by connecting units they could also accommodate a family. Complete with appliances and furniture, from audio system to telephone, the capsule interior was pre-assembled in a factory off-site and then hoisted by crane and fastened to the concrete core shaft. Today the Nakagin Capsule Tower is in rather bad condition and most capsules are rented out as mini-offices for a monthly fee of about 70,000yen each.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:00:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Samsung debut's world's biggest plasma screen

Korean electronics manufacturer Samsung unveiled a gigantolicious plasma screen display today -- it measures 102 inches diagonally, making it the largest such display in the world according to Samsung. Out mid-2005. Link (Thanks, Isaac)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:22:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ToS for Universal's free movie screenings

BoingBoing reader Steve Portigal says, "I received a free pass for a preview screening of the new film In Good Company and thought the warning info at the bottom might be of interest. Sure, we've heard of this happening, but I don't know if anyone has offered the actual text of the "agreement":

This pass is the property of Universal Pictures which reserves the right to admit, revoke admission or refuse access to the theatre at the discretion of an authorized representative. Please arrive early! Seats are not guaranteed, are limited to theatre capacity and are first-come, first-served. EXCEPT FOR MEMBERS OF THE REVIEWING PRESS. CHILDREN ARE STRONGLY DISCOURAGED. NO ADMITTANCE ONCE SCREENING HAS BEGUN. This theatre is not responsible for seating over capacity. This Ticket Is Not For Resale.

NO RECORDING

This screening will be monitored for unauthorized recording. By attending, you agree not to bring any recording device into the theatre and you consent to physical search of your belongings and person for recording devices. If you attempt to enter with a recording device, you will be denied admission. If you attempt to use a recording device, you consent to your immediate removal from the theatre and forfeiture of the device. Unauthorized recording will be reported to law enforcement and may subject you to criminal and civil liability.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:16:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coke Machine Hacks

HOWTO doc on hacking Coke vending machines by way of the drink selection buttons on the front display. Link (Thanks, Jason Sutton). Mirror one, Mirror two, and Google cache (Thanks, Dan, Jackson Baker and Scott M.)

Update:: Reader Chris Vincent says,

Just thought I'd point out that most of the content on those sites (including the Coke machine article) is verbatim from the Anarchist's Cookbook, a legendary collaborative document that can be found all over the internet. Everything from social engineering to fun explosives to (obviously) Coke machine hacks can be found there.

Another interesting bit of information, this time about Pepsi machines (not from the cookbook, just something I found out about last week):

New Pepsi machines have a "code", a special sequence in which you can push the buttons on the face of the machine, which causes the LED screen to report the number of cans sold and the total cash value. I'm not sure what that code is, and it may be configurable on a per-machine basis. I'm sure somebody out there can shed more light on it than me.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:11:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

IP address leads to pregnant woman's killer

BoingBoing reader Steve Portigal says,

It's probably not the first time that an IP address had led police to capture a criminal but this is certainly a high profile mention of such a technique - and it seems like they moved awfully fast given that it was a regular non-cyber crime.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:09:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Drive-Thru Supergrocery

Coming in late 2005: the world's first drive-in mega grocery store. Think Sam's Club/Costco meets McDonald's. One less reason for America to get up off of its increasingly fat ass!

Among the more than 17 classifications of products and services that AutoCart said it will offer at the proposed supercenters are grocery, pharmacy, banking, movie and game rental, bakery, office supplies, florists, photography development, dry cleaning, liquor, and lottery sales.

Link (Thanks, Marc Nathan)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:54:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nifty online PDF conversion tools

BoingBoing reader Peter Orosz says,

Adobe has this service where you send your PDF to pdf2txt@adobe.com and they reply with an ASCII copy of your PDF attached. Very cool, as all PDF viewers I'm aware of lack this feature. The catch: Adobe "may occasionally access the content you submit" so this is probably only safe for stuff like ebooks.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:50:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boing Boing audio interview with Mind Hacks editor Matt Webb

I'm starting to get interested in podcasting, so I interviewed Matt Webb, the co-editor of the new book, Mind Hacks, just published by O'Reilly. It's 25 minutes long, and I even created a cheesy Garageband theme song for what I hope is the first of many interviews.

Note: Matt wrote me with the following info -- "This is the McGurk video I was talking about. Just proving that I'm nothing without my notes, I incorrectly remembered the McGurk sounds! It's a visual 'ga' and an aural 'ba' that combine to the perception of 'da.' No 'va' at all (that's a variation on the experiment)."

The Mind Hack's weblog is here.

Link to BitTorrent file of my interview with Matt Webb.

Link to BitTorrent stats. (Thanks, Chuck!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:31:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Da Vinci (Legal) Code

I randomly happened to read Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code right when it came out. When I told my pal Vann Hall about the novel, he said the basis of the plot sounded like a non-fiction book from the early 1980s called Holy Blood, Holy Grail. A few months after Da Vinci Code hit it big, I noticed that Holy Blood, Holy Grail had also made it to the bestseller lists, more than twenty years after it was first published. Now it seems that the Holy Blood, Holy Grail authors are suing Dan Brown for ripping off their research. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:04:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nintendo surgeons

"Traditional academic surgeons look at what I do and thumb their noses," said James Rosser Jr., director of the Advanced Medical Technologies Institute at Manhattan's Beth Israel Medical Center. Rosser was speaking at the first ever Video Game/Entertainment Industry Technology and Medicine Conference, a symposium he helped organize to discuss interfaces between medicine and entertainment technology. The conference was sponsored by the US Department of Defense's Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center. From a Reuters report:

Surgeons who play video games three hours a week have 37 percent fewer errors and accomplish tasks 27 percent faster, (Rosser) says, basing his observation on results of tests using the video game "Super Monkey Ball."...

More than 5,000 people, from schoolchildren to surgeons, have done training exercises on a system Rosser calls "Top Gun," designed to train laparoscopic surgeons, doctors who use minimally-invasive techniques to repair injuries.

Link (via Near, Near Future)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:15:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Poodle-robics

And speaking of fine films: Link (via Adam, thanks Kelly Sue)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:34:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

La Mala Educacion / Bad Education

Run to the theater and see this film. I find it impossible to write anything about Pedro Almodóvar's movies, particularly this one, without resorting to hyperbole, ALL CAPS, and liberal use of the expression "OMGOMGOMG." That is because he is the greatest living director, and save your emails, this is not a point I care to debate. All I want to tell you is that this is a spectacularly beautiful, nuanced, and mature work. It's technicolor film noir. It is so good, you walk out of the theater glad to be alive because film exists, and it is possible for someone to make one so fine that it really does capture a little chunk of human soul. Also, Gael García Bernal plays a trannie.

La Mala Educación / Bad Education: Link to website, Link to trailer, Link to IMDB listing, Link to reviews and US showtimes. OMGOMGOMG.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:45:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Squeeze Box Hot Tub

Jackola says, "Brad Fitzpatrick, LiveJournal's founder, installed a Squeezebox in the gazeebo of his hot tub. Imagine playing the music stored on your computer through WiFi to your hot tub!" Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:32:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dunk mug not all that hot, says teatime guru

BoingBoing reader Alistair says, "Saw your post on the dunking cup on boing boing. I sent the link to Nicey from nicecupofteaandasitdown.com (the web's primary site for tea and biscuit culture). His response, which I can't take to be anything other than Gospel Truth was a bit dissapointing.

"They are a bit crap really, not enough tea capacity and the biscuit compartment is too limiting. I used them for pouring old bacon fat into. "

"Shame, really." Link to previous BoingBoing post on Dunk Mug (via Gizmodo), and link to previous post on nicecupofteaandasitdown.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:30:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photographs on Grass

BoingBoing reader Bhoarl says, "Heather Ackroyd and Dan Harvey exploit how the chlorophyll amounts in grass respond to light variation to produce monochrome images. Hack the planet? Link to gallery, and here are two other sites that deal with work from this duo: Link one, and Link two." (and thanks, Terry Towery)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:29:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Giant map of Reagan's inauguration parade route

A photograph of the gigantic, room-sized map used to plan President Bush's inauguration parade through DC. (The General standing on the map was the man at Mrs. Reagan's side during the state funeral for her husband.) Link. Related WaPo article: Link (Thanks, Alex Rosen)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:22:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Exorcism seminar

A Vatican university will teach a seminar for Roman Catholic priests on satanism and exorcism. The Regina Apostolorum, an esteemed pontifical school, is holding the course entitled "Exorcism and prayers of liberation."

The courses, starting in February, will deal with demonology, the presence of the notion of the devil in sacred texts, and the pathology and medical treatment of people suffering from possession.

"The seminar will conclude with the testimony of two exorcists who will explain how to distinguish between someone who is ill and requiring medical care, and one is 'possessed by demons,'" (university teacher Carlo) Climati explained.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:13:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lego Thriller

This shot-by-shot recreation of Michael Jackson's Thriller video using Legos is magnificent.

Due to our strong personal convictions, we wish to stress that this film in no way endorses a belief in the occult.
Michael Jackson
Philipp Lents
Miriam Lents

Link (via MetaFilter)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:24:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, December 19, 2004

How nuts is Gollum?

This medical journal article treats Gollum as a subject in a scholarly analysis of his disorders:

There is no disorder of the form of thought. He uses neologisms such as "triksy" and "hobbitses." Gollum has nihilistic thoughts, believing that he is a murderer, liar, and thief; although there is some basis in fact for this and he shows little guilt or remorse. He is preoccupied with, and deeply desires, the ring. He has obsessive thoughts but no compulsions, though he would do anything for the ring. He is hostile towards Frodo, the current owner of the ring. He has paranoid ideation about Sauron ("the eye is always watching") and about Samwise Gamgee ("the fat hobbit... he knows"). Gollum has difficulty controlling his thoughts and actions, exacerbated by prolonged contact with the ring. As Gandalf and Frodo have similar symptoms in the presence of the ring, we can attribute this somatic passivity to the ring. There are features of dissociation. Smeagol has separated his personality and is now Gollum as well.

Link (via Oblomovka)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:10:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Forensic video-cameras included in next-gen stun-guns

Two stun-gun manufacturers will add video-recorders to the next generation of their guns, for forensic purposes.

The video cameras will essentially record whenever a person is hit with one of the guns, which immobilize a victim by shooting massive amounts of electricity through them. The electricity does not kill or permanently damage a person hit, according to the companies, but being hit hurts quite a bit.

Link (via Engadget)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:08:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Print 3D models to cut-and-glue paper models

Jason sez, "Knowing how crazy Boing Boing readers are for origami and paper models, I thought you might be interested in Pepakura Designer, which lets you print out plans for paper models from objects designed in common 3D modelers... The demo has the save featured disabled, but you can still print your objects. It works with objects from 3D Studio, Lightwave, AutoCAD and a few others." Link (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:56:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video store agreement claims your soul

Douglas sez, "Although I've spent a fair bit of law school debating various aspects of what people can (or should be able to) bind themselves to with clickwrap and shrinkwrap licenses, the one fact that everyone acknowledges is that nobody ever reads the fine print. Here's some truly classic fine print on the receipt from my local video store, circa last Halloween." Link (Thanks, Douglas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:39:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Custom creatures

A couple months ago, I posted about the Minnesota Association of Rogue Taxidermists. One of the members, Sarina Brewer, is a taxidermy artist with a wonderful sense of the curious and surreal. Her exquisitely executed "gaffs" (fakes) range from various siamese siblings to winged cats to enchanting renderings of the classic Feejee Mermaid. And her prices are quite reasonable. From Sarina's bio:

Her lifelong obsession with biology often focused on genetic mutations. Study of these deviations of nature eventually led to the the discovery of circus sideshows and "freaks." This influence, as well as a slightly warped sense of humor, manifest themselves in her strange cryptozoological creations and each peculiar artifact she creates. Now incorporating her past formal art education with her passion for biology and the bizarre, you are invited to peruse the culmination of nearly three decades of the study of art and the natural sciences in her eccentric works.

"I call it art, you can call it whatever you want."

Link (Thanks, Moblog Kid!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:46:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, December 18, 2004

Fortean photography

I love Fortean Times's online gallery of strange photos and illustrations. Along with antique spirit snapshots, stigmata statues, Bigfoot, and dervishes, they have a nice selection of "simulacra photos." In Fortean terms, simulacra photos depict "spontaneous or natural figures or images. These can occur in nature as well as in the chance conjunction of artefacts." For example, the seed capsules of snapdragons in this photo. Readers are invited to send in their own shots to the print magazine's Simulacra Corner. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:34:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Warhol's Interview box set

7L is fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld's imprint at art book publishing house Steidl. I was just at the 7L bookshop in Paris and one of the many objects of desire I encountered was Andy Warhol's Interview: 35 Years of Pop, a seven-volume boxed "best of" collection of the magazine's first (and arguably best) decade. Each book has a different theme: The Covers, The Pictures, The Interviews, The Andy Warhol Interviews, The Fashion, The Directors, and The Back of the Book. There's also a facsimile of the entire first issue from 1969 and the 35th anniversary issue published in October. The whole shebang weighs 88 pounds, but fortunately Lagerfeld brilliantly outfitted the box with wheels and a handlle. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:31:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saving the World with Hostess Twinkies

BoingBoing reader Isaac says,

"I was going through some old comics from the 1970s, and I stumbled upon a series of ads that I had forgotten about - Marvel and DC both had full-page ads in which their superheroes shilled for Hostess Fruit Pies, Twinkies and more! (Holy Flaky Filling, Batman!) There are links to ten different ads I've scanned and posted."

Link. See also the extensive Seanbaby archive of kitschy Hostess goodness: Link (thanks, Chris and tgr!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:29:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jack Chick creationist comic "Big Daddy"

BoingBoing reader Tommy York says,

Recently, at a school rally of mine here in San Francisco, I came across the booth of the Christian club at school, AGAPE. I decided to pick up a few little comics of theirs, and I came across this one - one the denounces evolution, procedes to denounce the whole theory of the "atom" too, and by disproving evolution, of course, shows that the only logical alternative is that Jesus is the creator. Propaganda like this in public schools seems a bit off to me.

Link to page-by-page photos of "Big Daddy" creationist comic book. I can't help but wonder what the whole thing would sound like read in the voice of Mr. Slave from South Park. I mean, "Big Daddy"? The unshaven monkey with the banana on the cover looks vaguely Tom of Finland. Oh jesusth christth, Jack Chick!

Update: Reader Lance Simmons says, "There's a much better copy of Big Daddy at the publisher's site." Link. See also these previous BoingBoing posts on Jack Chick's Christian comix: Link, and Link 2.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:02:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Greek geeks: The Antikythera Mechanism

BoingBoing reader Rafael says,

This is a link to an article written for the American Mathematical Society's website back in April 2000 on the function of the Antikythera Mechanism (the world's oldest example of a mechanism with gears dating from 87 B.C.). The discovery of the mechanism surprised scholars because it was not believed that ancient Greeks possessed such technology. The article goes into a lot of detail and has working Java applets!

Link to part one, Link to part two.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:02:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mower-mod

BoingBoing reader Chris Ruzin says,

"I wrote about my uncle's heavily modded Husqvarna lawnmower and threw in some pictures. I'm not sure how many people spend as much time and money on their mowers as my uncle, but it can't be too many people."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:00:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Art if I want

De L'art Si Je Veux is the latest work by Nicolas Clauss from the digital arts group Flying Puppet. It is comprised of statements about art from young people whom the world might not expect to be experts on art.

The paths of contemporary art are so numerous and sometimes so radical that it is amazing, if not useful, to wonder how a naive audience views it; this instance, adolescents from a working-class area. Beyond any cultural references, all genuine interpretations teach us a great deal.

For several months, the young participants were surrounded by significant works of the 20th century. They then gave expression to their impressions through film, interviews, surfing the Net, creating their own images, reflecting a world that might appear inaccessible. The gamble was to create a work of art from this happy undertaking of demystification, this dream factory. Using photos, videos and sound, these young people share with us, through interactive creations, their impressions and their own relationship with Art and the artists they chose.

Link to De L'art Si Je Veux ("Art if I want"), requires Shockwave plug-in.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:59:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MP3 of Ukrainian pro-democracy zeitgeist

BoingBoing reader Kristiyan in Varna, Bulgaria says:

You can really feel the people of Ukraine, they want democracy! This is an mp3 file, amateour journalism recording of audio experience. The situation is the city of Lutsk - an Ukrainian city. The recording shows a walk of a fellow there, people screaming, "Yushchenko!" The music of the gathering party, the crowds, the street traffic. The students, the people of Ukraine demanding their democracy. A non-CNN, non-CBS, non-BBC, citizen report.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:48:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

When good word algorithms go bad

BoingBoing reader Kevin Kelleher says,

Why Is eBay Selling the Apocalypse? I was using Google to spell-check "disastrous" (I know) and came across some interesting results on the sponsored links. eBay and Amazon wanted to sell me a disastrous, whatever that might be. Intrigued, I typed in "apocalypse" and found the following:

Apocalypse
Low Prices on Apocalypse
EBay is Fun, Quick & Easy! -aff
www.EBay.com

Dear overworked folk in eBay marketing: Take another look at those sponsored-word algorithms. I was tempted to click on one of these links, but I remembered a time when I was using eBay to find a CD of Christmas music and I accidentally clicked on the "Buy It Now" button for a Hanson Brothers Christmas album, and what would happen if I accidentally "Bought It Now" with the apocalypse? (Come to think of it, it couldn't be much worse than the Hanson Christmas CD). I got similar results with all kinds of grim language:

Find Devastation
We have what you're looking for.
Devastation & much more!
www.eWoss.com

Searching for Misfortune?
Find it on eBay! Free registration.
Misfortune & much more (aff)
eBay.com

Pestilence at Amazon.com
Amazon.com/music

Sexy Cataclysm Singles
www.infobert.com

and on and on. My personal favorite:

Find Apocalypse at Snap
Don't search for Apocalypse,
find it at Snap!
www.snap.com

Funny, I thought snap.com had found its own apocalypse about 4 years ago.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:02:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, December 17, 2004

Jewschool Hit With Nastygram for Jesus Tee

Mobuis sez: "I run a popular Jewish blog called Jewschool to which Douglas Rushkoff is an infrequent contributor.

"I've recently found myself enmeshed in an IP controversy surrounding a parody I was hawking on Cafepress of the uber-trendy "Jesus Is My Homeboy" t-shirt, and am currently debating the issue with the original shirt manufacturer's lawyer. Check out the link for the legal hijinks." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:06:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sony forced to rethink Librié concept

Andreas Bovens sez: On July 2, 2004, Boing Boing reported about the Sony Librie e-book reader, which sports an awesome e-ink display, but is full of restrictive DRM bloat. In a desperate (?) attempt to boost sales of the Librié, Sony recently started offering downloads for converting your own documents to the Librié's BBeB format, meaning that you now can read Project Gutenberg or Aozora Bunko books on your Librie! (As far as I know, reports so far are only in Japanese, hence a link to my own blog entry about it.)"

Now all it needs is a backlight and the capability to sync with a Mac, and I'll buy one no matter how much it costs. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:27:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More parking hijinks

The folks at LAist purposely parked a car in ways that inconvenienced others, just to find out what kind of angry notes people would slip under the windshield wiper.

At Virgin Megastore (Sunset Boulevard), parked in two spaces because said car was so precious, we couldn't risk being near any car at all: "Take your head out of your ass and realize there are other people who need to park -- asshole! If I had time to wait for you I would then I'd kick your ass for being so greedy!!!!

Bedford drive, in Beverly Hills neighborhood: "Don't ever park in front of my driveway again or I will call the police. The police will be notified. The police will tow your car. Don't ever do this again!!

Link (Thanks, cathy!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:55:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ELLEJAE is naughty car parker

My friend and editor Chris Null snapped this photograph of a car occupying two handicapped spaces. Why should its owner care if someone dinged it? It's one of the ugliest cars I've ever seen. A scratch or ding would only improve its appearance.

I hope Santa doesn't bring you any presents, ELLEJAE. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:25:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:12:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dunk mug

Handy hot drink mug with a shelf beneath for storing snackables. Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:40:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Year in Cryptozoology

Noted cryptozoologist Loren Coleman provides his list of 2004's top stories in the field of mysterious or "hidden animals." His top pick is no stranger to regular Boing Boing readers.

The Discovery of Homo floresiensis
The story is as remarkable as the finding of the first coelacanth, the 65 million year extinct "living fossil" found off Africa in 1938. The biggest story in anthropology for 2004 may become the event of the decade within cryptozoology. The editor of Nature, Henry Gee, in an editorial entitled "Flores, God and Cryptozoology," wrote: "The discovery that Homo floresiensis survived until so very recently, in geological terms, makes it more likely that stories of other mythical, human-like creatures such as Yetis are founded on grains of truth....Now, cryptozoology, the study of such fabulous creatures, can come in from the cold."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:34:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nerdy-craftsy Xmas projects

This blog-post rounds up some amazing, craftsy-nerdy Xmas decor and sweet novelties, like this gingerbread motherboard.
Also on offer, this gingerbread laptop,
and this tree decorated with motherboards. Link (via Engadget)

Update: Juan sez, "The PCBs depicted are NOT motherboards as cory states, but are in fact memory modules, and a CPU as star."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:55:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geeking out over Gehry Organ at LA's Disney Hall

Last night, I crawled out from behind my laptop to go hear Handel's Messiah at the Frank Gehry-designed Walt Disney Concert Hall, with a few friends. The performance was beautiful, the architecture of the space was beautiful, but the coolest part of the evening by far? Geeking out over the awesome, gigantomongous, french-fry-esque pipe organ at the back of the hall. It's comprised of more than 6,000 pipes, only a portion of which are visible. Some are conical and made of metal, others are shaped like long, slender boxes and are made of wood. The pipes range in size from ballpoint pens to palm trees.

The organ wasn't played last night, but I'm told that when it debuted privately to a group of pipe organ professionals earlier this year -- they all removed their shoes so they could feel the deep bass vibrations in the floor. A couple friends mentioned that when the LA Phil played Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra" (opening theme to 2001: A Space Odyssey) a while back, this thing emitted gut-liquefying bass notes that remind you why that piece of music was selected to open a sci-fi film in the first place. That uber-low opening note doesn't kick you in the innards on a recording the way it does from a huge pipe organ in an acoustically rich venue.

Oh, also, it even smells cool! Many different fine woods were used to construct the pipes, so it emits a magical, cedary sort of fragrance that reminded me of incense in a Catholic mass.

Image: a phonecam snapshot I took of the organ, while standing beneath its tall, sonic stalagmites: Link to full-size.

Here are some wonderful photos, Link, and an Organ FAQ, from the LA Phil's website: Link. NPR did a cool segment about the organ's construction and sound, here: Link. And Link to a San Diego Union-Trib article. Here are upcoming organ performances at the WDCH: Link (thanks tons, Shawn Sites, and Michael and Cynthia Perry!)

Update: BoingBoing reader Bill B. says,

"I live in the Kansas City area, and have been to a concert at the huge Latter Day Saints Church in Independence, Missouri. The organ is unbelievable there as well but not designed like the one you reported on. I have been an afficiondo ever since seminary when I was a radio host for the 'Organ Hour'. One note: with organs like the one you described, you don't just feel it in your feet but all through your body. The harmonics will literally vibrate your insides when the proper notes are played. Now I must make plans to come and hear the one out in LA."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:36:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wired News hiring a new Ed-in-Chief

The fine folks at Wired News have an immediate opening for Editor in Chief in San Francisco. Wired News, not Wired Magazine as some misunderstood upon first glance. Details here: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:29:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Desk and chair from one sheet of plywood

Ingenious plan for making a computer desk and chair from a single sheet of plywood -- geometry rules! Link (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:29:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mailing list goes away

The Boing Boing mailblog has always been a humongous pain to manage and run, and we spend an awful lot of time tinkering with it. As a result, we're gonna kill it (for now, anyway -- maybe in the future we'll have the bandwidth to take it up again). Thanks -- and sorry -- to all the subscribers who hung in there while we tried to make it work!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:29:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Holiday Zen

a wonderful life in 30 seconds | xmas weebl | xmas beatles | holiday saw music | santa mosh | hooray for santy claus | christmas remixed | holiday 2004 sampler | beckham nativity | smores nativity | advert calendar | 10 least successful holiday specials | holiplay | polar rescue | snowball fight nyc | unsilent night | alek's christmas lights | harbin snow and ice festival | 12 leaves of festivus | how to dispel the myths of hanukkah | and from the archives: holiday zen 2003 | holiday leftover zen 2003 | winter zen 2002
Image: still from "It's a Wonderful Life in 30 Seconds re-enacted by bunnies." web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:29:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cuba places torture billboards in front of US diplomatic HQ

Rough translation from the Spanish language original:

HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuba unfolded two gigantic billboards on Friday in front of the United States diplomatic headquarters in the island, with photographs of the tortures in the Abu Ghraib prison of Iraq and the word "Fascistas" together with a Nazi swastika.

The images were put up after Cuba demanded that the United States Interests Section in Cuba take down a Christmas billboard with a shining ornament that says "75," in allusion to the dissidents imprisoned by the Cuban government in 2003. The billboards unfolded by Cuba show Iraqi prisoners bleeding and hooded during torture by soldiers in Abu Ghraib with a caption that says "Made in Usa" in the middle of the high-traffic Malecón of Havana.

Three days ago, James Cason, chief of the US Interests Section in Havana, declared that president Fidel Castro was threatening the diplomatic office with reprisals by saying that "there would be consequences" if they did not take down the billboard referring to the imprisoned dissidents. Reuters observed on Friday morning the work of unfolding the billboards in front of the North American Special Interests section

Link (Thanks, Ned Sublette)

Update: More info in English: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:28:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

IE + Moz/Firefox use tied among BoingBoing readers

BoingBoing's sysadmin extraordinare Ken Snider says, "IE has only a 1.6% lead on Moz/Firefox for BB readers now on BoingBoing.net. Check out the stats: Link. Add up Moz and Firefox. And if you include the 1.6% from netscape, which also uses the Gecko rendering engine (so is the same as Moz/FF really), they're exactly tied."

November: IE 38%, FF 30.6%, Moz 5%, Netscape 1.8%
October: IE 38.2%, FF 28.6%, Moz 5.6%, Netscape, 1.9%
Going back 6 months (June): IE: 41%, FF 12.7%, Moz: 7.4%, Netscape: 2.2%

Reader Frank Hecker says,

Two points re your post regarding Mozilla/Firefox use by BoingBoing readers. First, "Netscape" in your statistics may include Netscape Navigator 4.x (or earlier). If so, then it's not strictly speaking correct to count all of the 1.6% Netscape share toward the total percentage share for Gecko-based browser; you should count only the Netscape 6 and 7 share.

Second, note that Camino is also a Gecko-based browser, so its 0.2% share should be added to the figures for Firefox, Mozilla, and Netscape 6/7.

With these corrections, the Gecko-based browser share based on the current statistics (Link) is something between 35.9% and 37.5% depending on the relative breakdown of Netscape Navigator 4.x or earlier vs. Netscape 6 and 7. (31.1% Firefox + 4.6% Mozilla + 0.2% Camino + 0-1.6% Netscape.) Given that MSIE is at 36.9% I think it's fair to call this a virtual tie.

BB Sysadmin Ken sez: "This page shows the full breakdown, by browser version: Link."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:28:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Journey Thru Innerspace CGI recreation DVD

Ernie Miller sez, "As mentioned a year ago (Recreating Gone Disney, the Atom Mobiles fan site has been recreating a 3D version of the famous "Adventures Through Inner Space" ride that used to grace Tomorrowland. Well, they've finished it and it is now available for purchase on DVD (though they can't guarantee Christmas shipping). Kevin Yee of Miceage says, " words are too cold to fully capture the magic on this DVD. The ride-through was a transcendent experience for me. I found myself exclaiming 'Ohmygosh! I forgot all about that!' constantly while watching the video. I cannot possibly imagine a single theme park collectible, video, or book ever encapsulating the Disneyland experience as much as this one DVD." If anyone wants to send me one as a belated Christmas present ..." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:28:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Revolving condos

Mr Jalopy sez, "The revolving restaurant is the pinnacle of civic achievement. I am a sucker for overpriced drinks, terrible appetizers and the line of stationary/rotating demarkation as long as I get a full 360 degrees with never a decent view. But a rotating apartment? Kick ass." Link (Thanks, Mr Jalopy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:23:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why false security is bad

A frequent defense proffered for feel-good, nonsensical, expensive "security theater" (like taking away air travellers' nail clippers) is that it can help us all to "feel secure." Bruce Schneier just blogged these thoughts on "feeling secure" from Bill Mason, a jewel thief.

Nothing works more in a thief's favor than people feeling secure. That's why places that are heavily alarmed and guarded can sometimes be the easiest targets. The single most important factor in security -- more than locks, alarms, sensors, or armed guards -- is attitude. A building protected by nothing more than a cheap combination lock but inhabited by people who are alert and risk-aware is much safer than one with the world's most sophisticated alarm system whose tenants assume they're living in an impregnable fortress.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:54:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vibrateroid women's razor products from Gillette

Gillette announced yesterday the launch of two new products in its "Venus" line, including "The Venus Vibrance," a (cough, cough) round, pink, battery-powered women's shaver.

The company will roll out a battery-powered Venus Vibrance shaver, similar to its men's M3Power, that sends little vibrations to the skin to raise the hair for a closer shave. It also will add Venus disposables. In a product category where women's products generally are priced higher than men's -- on the assumption women will pay more for personal care -- the suggested retail prices for the Venus Vibrance will be $9.99 to $11.99, equal to the new lower price the M3Power gets next month

Just like women's clothing, personal care consumables like shampoo, and -- heck, car repair services often cost more than the equivalent for men, because there's a (correct) assumption that women will bear a higher price burden than men for each. Hey, feel fucked in more ways than one! Link (via pell thanks Jbat!)

Reader Adam Fields says

Two things:

1) You missed that the story indicates that the women's line won't be priced higher because Gillette is giving up on the "women will pay more for nothing" attitude. Commendable!

2) You also missed (or at least didn't mention) the unfortunate turn of phrase 'Our testing indicated that there is an upside potential to penetrate more razors at a slightly reduced price.' Ya gotta love that.

Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:51:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Donate to EFF, send a lump of coal to MPAA and RIAA

A reader writes, "Downhill Battle made this page to encourage people to donate to copyfighters over the holidays. They're going to one lump of coal to the RIAA and MPAA for every $100 donated to EFF, Public Knowledge, and IPac."

For every $100 given to these groups in the month of December, Downhill Battle will send one lump of coal to the RIAA and MPAA. This is not a joke-- we are literally going to look up their addresses and send them coal.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:48:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

65MB of vintage random numbers from 1965

Dano sez, "In 1955 the RAND Corporation published a book of computer generated random numbers that is again in print and available as a downloadable PDF. (Beware, it's over 65MB.) They needed it for their research when using Monte Carlo simulations, and like most all of their research it is freely available to the public." Link (Thanks, Dano!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:47:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Trunk Show

Make love to the camera, my ten-ton baby. A fashion shoot comprised of pouting, prancing, pachyderm models photographed by Bruce Weber for Style.com. Complete spread appears in the January 2005 issue of W magazine. Link (thanks, Susannah)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:42:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kids like to listen more than look

Cognitive scientists at Ohio State University report that infants and young kids, unlike adults, are attracted more to sound than visuals in their environment:

(Vladimir) Sloutsky, who is also associate dean of research for the university’s College of Human Ecology, said children probably pay more attention to sounds because of their temporary nature.

“If you don’t pay attention to sounds, they disappear,” he said. “On the other hand, many visual stimuli are stable and stationary. This preference for sounds makes sense in the case of learning language. If infants and young children didn’t favor sounds, it is difficult to explain how they could pick up language.”

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:23:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Madness and genius

New Scientist interviews John Nash, the Nobel Prize-winning mathematician and subject of the film A Beautiful Mind. Nash discusses his research, the film, insanity, and his son's schizophrenia.

Do you still hear voices?
I was a long way into mental illness before I heard any voices. Ultimately I realised I am generating these voices in my own mind: this is dreaming, this is not communication. This is coming from an internal source, not from the cosmos. And simply to understand that is to escape from the thing in principle. After understanding that, the voices died out. My son hears voices, but I haven't heard any for a long time.

So was there an element of rational decision-making involved in dealing with your symptoms?
There's a lot of choice in this, I think. I know this is not the standard point of view. The standard doctrine is that we are supposed to be non-stigmatic in terms of these people: they are constitutionally, necessarily, schizophrenic. But I think there is an element of choice. A person doesn't pass into insanity when their situations are good. If their personal life is successful, people don't become insane. When they're not so happy, when things aren't so good, then they may become clinically depressed, and then maybe schizophrenic. Wealthy people are less likely to become schizophrenic than people who are not wealthy.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:12:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Barlow's trial blogged

My cow-orker Seth attended John Perry Barlow's trial this week -- Barlow was arrested for possession of drugs after they were allegedly discovered during an airport security search; Barlow argues that security screeners don't have any remit to be searching passengers for drugs, which are not a security risk to airplanes. Seth's commentary on the proceedings are a must-read, a really eloquent and learned dissection of the absurdity in the courtroom.

The Federal government lawyer sat right behind the People's lawyer and objected every single time that the defense asked anything about screeners' training or procedures, or about statistics, history, trends, equipment, techniques, or anything substantive about the roles of different law enforcement agencies. And the judge essentially always granted the objections on "relevance" even when they were made on "privilege". For example, the defense asked things like whether x-ray machines beep and whether they have two-dimensional displays, and the United States objected. The United States does not want you to know whether x-ray machines beep, or whether they have two-dimensional displays.

Intermittently, I found this hilarious, because much of the alleged "SSI" could be discovered immediately by a passenger or a journalist. (I am still working on a piece that will describe vulnerabilities in vastly more detail than almost all of the information the United States objected to at the People v. Barlow hearing. I intend to describe not only the security procedures used by specific airports and airlines, but a good deal of detail about how they can be circumvented, in the hope of showing that many of these measures cause privacy harm for no benefit. All of those descriptions derive solely from my experiences as a passenger on a single recent commercial aviation trip. That does not prove that the government is legally wrong to say that people within the system are forbidden to talk about equivalent things, but it suggests that there's not much true security benefit at stake in forbidding them.) The security culture is reflexive, or, one might say, knee-jerk -- the Feds are totally dedicated to idea that it is never appropriate to permit anyone within the system to disclose SSI to the public. It would be bad for national security, the theory goes, if screeners could tell people whether x-ray machines beep. Never mind that Federal law enforcement agencies themselves publish detailed information about how to conceal weapons to carry them aboard aircraft, what various kinds of concealed weapons look like under x-ray, which ones appear more suspicious than others, and where you can buy them!

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:31:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Richard Stallman will record an answering machine message for you

If you sign up three people to donate to and join the Free Software Foundation, geek hero/Free Software inventor Richard Stallman or FSF copyfight lawyer superstar Eben Moglen will record an answering machine message for you to use:

After we agree on the text for the message, Stallman or Moglen will record it in a free digital format that you can play as a whole on your preferred media, be it your voice mail, web site, blog, VOIP system, answering machine---you'll have the file, so you can move it around as you please. We can personalize them for whomever you like, so you can make them gifts for friends and family.

Link (via JWZ)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:22:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

1959: When random numbers were cool

This paper from 1959 describes a method for constructing an electronic random-number generator. 2.1MB PDF Link (via Schneier on Security)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:19:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WiFi detector shows name, WEP and strength of discovered networks

The Canary Wireless Hotspotter is a $50 WiFi detector with an LCD readout that shows the name, WEP status and signal strength of the 802.11g and 802.11b networks it finds. This is what's been missing from traditional WiFi detectors (which only light up to indicate the presence of 2.4GHz radio emissions, which can also come from microwave ovens, cordless phones and walkie talkies). I'm not sure how sensitive the antenna is in this thing -- antenna sensitivity is key: you don't want an overly sensitive device that shows you networks that are not in range of your laptop's WiFi, but neither do you want an weak antenna that misses networks your WiFi card could use. Link (via Red Ferret Journal)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:16:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chow Yun Fat in next two Pirates of the Caribbean movies

Chow Yun Fat will star in the next two sequels to Pirates of the Caribbean, playing "the famous 19th century Chinese pirate Cheung Po Tsai."

Chan said both the movie's producer and director contacted Chow's management company in the U.S. two months ago and director Gore Verbinski flew to Hong Kong last week to discuss the screenplay with Chow. "The director was very sincere about it and specially flew to Hong Kong and discuss the script with Fat Gor (Chow's nickname) ... but we cannot talk about the details until we sign the contract," Chan was quoted as saying.

Link (via The Disney Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:04:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Olympus camera laid bare and annotated

Steve Jurveston has just posted this astounding photo of a caseless Olympus camera to Flickr. Already, Flickr users have begun to use the photo-annotation tool to mark up the pic with technical details on the exposed components. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:02:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chaotic crochet

Bristol University mathematicians Hinke Osinga and Bernd Krauskopf have crocheted a representation of the Lorenz equations, nonlinear differential equations that are used in chaos theory. Their crochet pattern appears in the latest issue of the journal Mathematics Intelligencer. From a BBC News report:

The idea for the "Lorenz manifold" model came about during the Christmas break two years ago.

Dr Osinga, who learnt to crochet when she was seven, was relaxing by crocheting some hexagonal lace motifs.

Prof Krauskopf asked her: "Why don't you crochet something useful?"

Eighty-five hours of work and some supporting steel wire later, they had something almost a metre across which looks not unlike a big Christmas decoration - which is what they are using it as.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:38:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Science fiction society HQ is tax-exempt

A reader writes, "News site relating a ruling Wednesday that the science fiction society's headquarters qualifies for a property tax exemption, and that its activities and programs have legitimate educational value."

The issue revolved around the definition of "educational purpose." To be eligible for property tax exemption, nonprofit organizations have to show that their properties are "used exclusively for a charitable or educational purpose to promote the general welfare of the people of the state," according to the tax code.

The Court of Appeals took account of the society's annual young writer's competition. In addition, the society holds writing workshops, has a library for its members and runs an annual convention where science fiction novelists and scientists discuss their work. Judge Alan Wilner, writing for the majority, wrote that those initiatives serve an educational purpose, making the society eligible for the tax exemption.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:03:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free-to-implement designs for solar-powered PCs

Avi sez, "SolarPC manufactures (and licenses) low cost, energy efficient (12 volt DC) PCs that have no moving parts except the electrons! These will be a pleasure to have around when the next oil shocks hit!"

SolarPC manufactures high quality Mini-ITX computers for home, business, educational, mobile and industrial applications. All SolarPC Systems utilize efficient 12 volt DC power and small aluminum cases that run quiet and cool...

A no cost license to manufacture SolarPC designs is available for educational and charitable groups participating in the Global Education Link project. Please contact SolarPC for additional information.

Link (Thanks, Avi!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:58:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, December 16, 2004

Yarn Porn

Sexually explicit DIY projects for pervy knitting fanatics. For every body part, there is a woolen warmer. Shown here, "crochet crotch." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:12:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Yahoo video search, o how I love thee.

Let me count the NSFW ways. Fleshbot opines:

"[T]he real reason why it's already generating a lot of interest [is] to save you from having to enter all those search terms over and over again (or until Yahoo! gets around to posting that "Jenna Jameson" button, as suggested in the Slashdot thread)."

Yahoo! Video Search: "Anal" · "Ass" · "Blowjob" · "Boobies" · "Bukkake" · "Cock" · "Fuck" · "Gay Porn" · "MILF" · "Orgy" · "Porn" · "Pussy" · "Suck" · "Threeway" · "Tits"

Getting to the "adult" stuff may require sign-in to a Yahoo! user account, and turning off "safe filtering." Image -- still shot from you-know-what.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:40:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amazon's new "user-added" image feature

This may not be news to those of you who are frequent Amazon shoppers, but I just noticed this new feature -- customer-added-images for listings at the online shopping site. Link to example. Seems like there's a huge potential for abuse or inaccuracy, but, interesting move nonetheless. (thanks SusannahBadMammaJamma)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:30:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kiddie record bonanza in 2005 on Basic Hip

Maybe you should ask for a new hard drive for Christmas:

In 2005, Basic Hip Digital Oddio will feature an entire year of albums from the golden age of kiddie records, lovingly transferred from the original 78s and encoded to 192kbps MP3 format.  That's one a week for 52 weeks!

We believe people from around the world and of all ages will be delighted to hear these records.  Not many folks these days play 78s or share this type of recording online.  Chances are you've never heard them and if you have, it's been a long, long time.  They are nostalgic, entertaining and just plain fun.  The colorful covers are beautiful works of art. 

Link (Via Oddio Overplay)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:57:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Psychology of stock market suckers

Good Slate piece that briefly goes over several aspects of human nature that lead to bad investment decisions, including "Self-attribution Bias," "The Gambler's Fallacy," "Prospect Theory," "Conservatism Bias," "Confirmatory Bias," "Overoptimism," "Outcome Bias," "Buffett's Rearview Mirror," and "Hindsight Bias."

Outcome Bias: We tend to evaluate decisions based on outcomes instead of probabilities. Thus, we congratulate ourselves for stupid choices that happen to turn out well and vow to never again make smart choices that happen to turn out badly. Our errors get reinforced, and our wise decisions rejected.

Link (Via Paul Boutin)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:49:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Several comic book related stories

Eric Reynold's of Fantagraphics sent an email today with a list of good comic-book related things to read:

Jaime Hernandez is cover-featured in this week's issue of L.A. CITY BEAT newspaper. The feature includes a handsome new cover by Jaime, so those of you in So. Cal. might want to grab a hard copy.

Jaime's new book, LOCAS, is the lead review on Salon.com today and includes a lengthy interview with the man himself. The "ultramercial" you have to sit through to read the full article is brief today, so check it out.

Also, for the Chris Ware fans among us, Chris has new strips in both the current issue of ESQUIRE and the new issue of THE NEW YORKER. That's six all-new Ware pages, not to be missed.

Finally, today's PEANUTS strip made me laugh out loud.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:18:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Must TiVo TV: Weird U.S.

The History Channel has a series called Weird U.S. I haven't seen it yet, but MrBaliHai's review has prompted me to create a season pass for it on my TiVo.

I happened to catch Weird U.S. on the History Channel last night, and I must say that it looks very promising. Yesterday's episode dealt with the bizarre case of the Wallet Man, french immigrant Antoine LeBlanc, who was executed in 1833 for murder, and subsequently skinned; his tanned hide was used to make wallets, purses, lampshades and book jackets!

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:23:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Other Music

Whenever I'm in NYC, I blow a ton of cash at Other Music in the East Village. A visit to this CD/record boutique is like a transgenre tour of the finest music you've probably never heard. From glitch hop, Krautrock, and global pop to afro-beat, folktronica, and vintage psychedelia, OM only sells the choicest cuts. They also have an excellent Web site and weekly email update with RealAudio samples of the records they review. OM's Year End Recap--a "best of" culled from the weekly updates--is a great port-of-entry into the staff's exquisite taste. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:07:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US will shut down GPS to "fight terrorists"

If your rely on GPS to get you to work, out of the bush, back to shore, or anywhere else, it's time to stop. The Bush administration is paving the way to shutting down GPS in the event of an "emergency" so that "terrorists won't be able to navigate." Nice one, George: why not shut down the fire-departments, too, so that "terrorists won't be able to survive fires started by careless smoking?"

The president also instructed the Defense Department to develop plans to disable, in certain areas, an enemy's access to the U.S. navigational satellites and to similar systems operated by others. The European Union is developing a $4.8 billion program, called Galileo.

Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:40:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Firefox ad in today's NYT

Back in October, we ran a post on the effort to raise funds for an ad in the New York Times promoting the superb Firefox browser, a spin-off of Mozilla that has now been downloaded over 11,000,000 times. Today, the ad -- a two page facing spread -- ran in the Times. w00t! Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:38:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Post office is sneaking pix of you

The Electronic Privacy Information Center have ucovered the fact that everyone who uses a post office kiosk gets her or his picture snapped and retained for 30 days. If the picture can't be taken (because the camera is covered, say), the transaction fails.

EPIC FOIA Request Shows Postal Machines Take, Store Photos. Documents (pdf 1.9 MB) obtained by EPIC under the Freedom of Information Act show that new Postal Service self-service postage machines take portrait-style photographs of customers and retain them for 30 days on a Windows XP platform. One document reads, "Camera required by FAA. Privacy Office is requiring a notice for customers, advising that photograph may be taken during the transaction." For more information, see the EPIC Postal Service Privacy Page. (Dec. 9)

Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:35:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vintage science fiction radio play MP3s

R Bryan Rumble sez, "this site has a great selection of some older radio shows and it includes the classic 'X minus 1' series that ran from 1955 to 1957 on NBC radio. All are considered public domain and are free to listen to. 'X minus 1' was a forerunner of the 'Twilight Zone' and 'Outer Limits' TV series, and featured radio adaptations of stories by Robert Heinlein, Ray Bradbury, etc." Link (Thanks, RBR!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:31:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Meat-scented air fresheners for your car

Link (Thanks, Jonno)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:07:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lend me an ear

The Tissue Culture & Art Project used human cells to grow this quarter-scale replica of performance artist Stelarc's ear. In October, I posted about a tiny skin jacket they produced in vitro.

"The ear is cultured in a rotating micro-gravity bioreactor which allows the cells to grow in three dimensions. Stelarc's recent projects and performances are concerned with the prosthetic. The prosthesis is seen not as a sign of lack, but as a symptom of excess. Rather than replacing a missing or malfunctioning part of the body, these artifacts are alternate additions to the body's form and function.

Extra Ear 1/4 Scale is about two collaborative concerns. The project represents a recognisable human part. However, it is being presented as partial life and brings into question the notions of the wholeness of the body. It is also confronts broader cultural perceptions of 'life' given our increasing ability to manipulate living systems. TC&A are dealing with the ethical and perceptual issues stemming from the realization that living tissue can be sustained, grown, and is able to function outside the body. Stelarc, ultimately, is concerned with the attachment of the ear to the body as a soft prosthesis. Extra Ear 1/4 Scale is partial life form – partly constructed and partly grown – waiting to become a soft prosthesis."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:54:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Curious hobbyists of Russia

Russian magazine Moskovsky Komsomolets is running a contest called Amaze The Country to honor the region's most interesting hobbyists. From The Moscow Times:

...The votes for this week's three semifinalists were being led -- perhaps rather fishily -- by an entrant who "studies the secrets of hermetic science" and makes amber pendants that cure headaches and heart problems. Coming from behind was a man from the Siberian town of Chernogorsk who has crafted an 18-meter crocodile and a life-sized Mercedes in topiary. One of those through to the semifinals is Vladimir Aniskin, a specialist in microminiatures, who has crafted a caravan of camels in the eye of a needle and written "Peace to the World" on a human hair...

Some of the most colorful entries come from the Russian Club of Records, or "Levsha," a Moscow organization that publishes a book of national records and submits information on local feats to Guinness World Records. Among the 50 or so members featured are an Altai schoolteacher who can play Ludwig van Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata while lying with his head under the keyboard and a man who has collected all his nail clippings for the last 35 years.

Link (via Reality Carnival)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:13:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Killer weed

Cops in Oklahoma busted two truck drivers after discovering 610 pounds of marijuana stuffed into coffins they were hauling. From Reuters:

An attorney for one of the men said his client was unaware there was marijuana in the caskets and was only delivering them.

"He didn't check inside the caskets for drugs -- would you?" attorney Donn Baker said.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:46:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ever been in a turkish prison?

Oliver Stone has apparently apologized to Turkey for possibly exaggerating the nightmare of Turkish prison life as depicted in Midnight Express. From The Guardian:

"It's true I over-dramatised the script," Stone told reporters in Istanbul before holding talks with Turkey's culture and tourism minister, Erkan Mumcu. "But the reality of Turkish prisons at the time was also referred to ... by various human rights associations"....

Echoing the view of diplomats who said that, if anything, foreigners were often treated better than locals in Turkish jails, Stone said that the country had improved greatly since 1974, when a brief visit to Istanbul had given him the impression of being in a "very Ottoman" place.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:42:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sitarsploitation records

Here's a gallery of old pop music LPs featuring sitar music. Unfortunately, the MP3s are just sound clips, not the whole songs. What gives? Link (via PCL LinkDump)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:26:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Imadeit: kids' furniture kits

imadeit sells furniture kits for kids to make. Link (via Core77)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:09:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bruce Sterling's design talk in streaming video

Here's an amazing streaming video of science fiction writer and design professor Bruce Sterling presenting his views on the future of design and technology, revolving around RFIDs, rapid prototyping, and cradle-to-grave design for zero-emission disposal, from his talk at Germany's "Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet Muenchen" Link (Thanks, Stefan!)

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

Advertising techniques that Web-users hate

This month, usability guru Jakob Neilsen's AlertBox column addresses the Web's most hated advertising techniques. The finding I'm most satisfied by there is that audio in an ad is viewed as being offensive on par with popups. I totally loathe any auto-playing audio on websites (sez one of Neilsen's subjects, "IF ANYTHING COULD BE WORSE THAN POP-UPS, THIS IS IT. I HATE THIS AD. HATE HATE HATE.") Link (via Pirotcar)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:04:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, December 15, 2004

Keith Weesner hot rod art

Keith Weesner is a background animation illustrator and a painter. I like the simplicity and mood of his work. Link (via The Cartoonist)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:58:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MP3 of US Army phone spam

Following up on a series of BoingBoing posts related to allegations of spammy recruitment tactics by the US Army (posts: one, two, three), reader Mark Miller says,

After the response from the previous BoingBoing post, I now have a recording of the call I received from the Army. I think it sums up the feeling by listening to it than any words can convey...

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:16:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fifty years of Disneyland souvenirs

Fifty Years of Disneyland Souvenirs features pictures and commentary on Disneyland souvenirs from 1955 to the current day, grouped by year. Link (via The Disney Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:45:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Paper digital clock uses heat to change display on