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Sunday, July 31, 2005

Gmaps hack shows effects of high-yield explosive detonations

Here's a haunting Gmaps hack: "The High Yield Detonation Effects simulator maps overpressure radii generated by a ground-level detonation; these radii are an indicator of structural damage to buildings. No other effects, such as thermal damage or fallout levels, are included in this tool. Note that the displayed rings are "idealized"; that is, no account is taken of terrain, urban density, ground type, weather conditions, and so on." Link (Thanks, Eric!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:37:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Apple to add Trusted Computing to the new kernel?

People working with early versions of the forthcoming Intel-based MacOS X operating system have discovered that Apple's new kernel makes use of Intel's Trusted Computing hardware. If this "feature" appears in a commercial, shipping version of Apple's OS, they'll lose me as a customer -- I've used Apple computers since 1979 and have a Mac tattooed on my right bicep, but this is a deal-breaker.

I travel in the kinds of circles where many people use GNU/Linux on their computers -- and not only use it, but actually call it GNU/Linux instead of just "Linux," in the fashion called for by Richard Stallman. Some of these people give me grief over the fact that I use Mac OS X instead of GNU/Linux on my Powerbook, because the MacOS is proprietary.

I've been an Apple user since 1979. I've owned dozens -- probably more than a hundred -- Macintoshes. When I worked in the private sector, I used to write purchase orders for about a quarter-million dollars' worth of Apple hardware every year. I've stuck with the machines over the years because the fit-and-finish of the OS and the generally kick-ass hardware made them the best choice for me. I've converted innumerable people to the Mac (most recently I got my grandmother's octogenarian boyfriend to pick up a Mac Mini, which he loves). Hell, I even bought half a dozen Newtons over the years.

When my free software companions give me grief over this, I tell them that I'm using an OS built on a free flavor of Unix, and that most of the apps I use are likewise free -- such as Firefox, my terminal app, etc.

Here's the important part though: when I use apps that aren't free, like Apple's Mail.app, BBEdit, NetNewsWire, etc, I do so comfortable in the fact that they save their data-files in free formats, open file-formats that can be read by free or proprietary applications. That means that I always retain the power to switch apps when I need to. That means that if the vendor changes their policy in a way that is incongruent with my needs, or if they go out of business, or if they treat me badly, I can always go across the street to another vendor, or to a free software project, and switch. This acts as a check against abusive behavior on the vendors' part and it is, I believe, partly responsible for the quality and pricing of their offerings.

The Trusted Computing people say that they intend on Trusted Computing being used to stop the unauthorized distribution of music, but none of them has ever refuted the Darknet paper, where several of Trusted Computing's inventors explain that Trusted Computing isn't fit to this purpose.

The point of Trusted Computing is to make it hard -- impossible, if you believe the snake-oil salesmen from the Trusted Computing world -- to open a document in a player other than the one that wrote it in the first place, unless the application vendor authorizes it. It's like a blender that will only chop the food that Cuisinart says you're allowed to chop. It's like a car that will only take the brand of gas that Ford will let you fill it with. It's like a web-site that you can only load in the browser that the author intended it to be seen in.

What this means is that "open formats" is no longer meaningful. An application can write documents in "open formats" but use Trusted Computing to prevent competing applications from reading them. Apple may never implement this in their own apps (though I'll be shocked silly if it isn't used in iTunes and the DVD player), but Trusted Computing in the kernel is like a rifle on the mantelpiece: if it's present in act one, it'll go off by act three.

It means that the price of being a Mac user will be eternal vigilance: you'll need to know that your apps not only write to exportable formats, but that they also allow those exported files to be read by competing apps. That they eschew those measures that would lock you in and prevent you from giving your business to someone else. I'm pretty sure that apps like BBEdit and NetNewsWire won't lock me out, as their authors are personally known to me to be wonderful, generous, honorable people. But personally familiarizing yourself with the authors of all the software you use doesn't scale.

So that means that if Apple carries on down this path, I'm going to exercise my market power and switch away, and, for the first time since 1979, I won't use an Apple product as my main computer. I may even have my tattoo removed.

My data is my life, and I won't keep it in a strongbox that someone else has the keys for.

* We've discovered that the Rosetta kernel uses TCPA/TPM DRM. Some parts of the GUI like ATSServer are still not native to x86 - meaning that Rosetta is required by the GUI, which in turn requires TPM. See the forum topic here.

* After much careful analysis of the files from the new Intel-based Macs, it would appear that SSE3 enabled processors are required to run the GUI. We are still testing this theory, though - nothing has been proven conclusively. Check out this forum thread for evidence and discussion.

* Check out some of our members' earliest work - using Darwin and the "mactel" leak.

Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:20:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New CC licensed CD

Tryad is a new band who've just released their first CD, "Public Domain," under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license. Link (Thanks, John!)

Update: Another CC licensed recent CD

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:20:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DefCon WiFi shootout champions crowned: 125 miles

Four young amateur radio operators from Ohio were again dubbed world champs of long-distance wireless networking at the annual DefCon WiFi Shootout. These guys more than doubled the 55.1 mile record they set last year. Way to go!

SoCalWug co-founder Frank Keeney says,

All day Friday and through the night Team PAD braved rain, lightning and winds over 30 mph to setup and test their equipment at their mountaintop base outside of Las Vegas, Nevada. On Saturday July 30 at 11am they successfully made a 125 mile link using 802.11b and ran network applications with their remote team in the mountains West of St. George, Utah.

Mike Outmesguine adds,

This possibly qualifies them for a new Guiness record as well.

Frank's company provided the Wi-Fi gear to Team PAD. He tells me they used the VCom 325hp+ PCMCIA cards running at a built-in power of 300 mw on each end of the link. The cards were connected to one 12 foot and one 10 foot diameter satellite dish (see photo) on each side of the link. The computers they used were running Linux. And their link quality was so fantastic that they got 12 ms ping times, ran ssh shell commands, and even used vnc remote desktop.

He also said that Team PAD may use the same gear to attempt smashing our old Bluetooth record of 1.08 miles.

Link to team photo and a graphic display of estimated link locations.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:44:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tornado Intercept Vehicle: car mod for stormchaser use

Sean Casey is a storm-chaser and an IMAX cinematographer. He transformed a long-wheelbase 1997 Ford F-450 diesel dually pickup into what he calls "TIV" (Tornado Intercept Vehicle), for driving into tornados. Every inch of detail was planned for the purpose at hand: there's even a turret for the IMAX camera! I've seen art-cars in Black Rock City that looked similar, but all they did was blast trance music while transporting bodypainted hippies from one rave to another. This mod's made for workin'.

Occupants peer out through prison-window Lexan portals. "It’s so ugly! It's just a big mobile tripod for the camera," Casey says.

Link (Thanks, Joe)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:33:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The art of WSJ illustrator Noli Novak

Noli Novak's instantly recognizable stipple portraits go a long way in giving The Wall Street Journal its distinctive look. Novak's also a clever collage artist, using torn out pieces of magazines to create watercolor like works of art.
Link (via growabrain)

Update: Novak is one of several artists who create the stipple art portraits for WSJ. Others include: Thaddeus Chambers, Nancy Januzzi, Hai Knafo, and Rachel Pak. There may be others, as well.

Update: Nolui Novak says: Thank you very much for mentioning my work in your blog.

However, I would also appreciate if you could make some corrections.

I'm not sure how you got an impression that I'm the only person doing the hedcuts at the Journal. It would be pretty impossible for one person to cover such a large volume of art needed on daily basis (it takes on average around 5 hours to do one hedcut).

Full time illustrators are Hai Knafo, Nancy Januzzi, Laura Levy and me. We also use a number of freelance illustrators (4 to be exact) trained in this technique when needed.

Thaddeus and Rachel are both Journal employees, but don't have anything to do with our department.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:16:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Snopes's funniest questions

Internet urban-legend-busters Snopes have published a list of some of the funniest questions they've been asked:

Is there any truth that if you choke on the candy Peeps, that it hardens in your throat and even with the heimlich maneuver you can't be saved and you die? Let us know.

My younger sis heard: in order for a cologne/perfume/fragrance to be compatible to one's body chemistry, spray a sample and then lick it. If the taste stings the tongue, it is not suitable; no sting — it's a good match. Please advise before I test the handful of colognes I've been using!

HOW CAN I GET THE SUCTION BROKE WHEN THE CONTACT IS STUCK TO EYE

Link (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:27:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Transcript of Cory's Second Life interview, new illos from Someone...

Last week I did a virtual book-signing of my novel Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town along with an interview in the massively multiplayer online world Second Life. All last week, Hamlet Linden, the game's embedded reporter, has been running the transcript of the interview in the Second Life blog, New World Notes. Now the whole thing is online.

On a related note, Damon Wallace continues to add to his amazing collection of fan illustrations of scenes from my novel, including Alan's tiny thumb, Marci in the family cave, a sketch of Davey and a wicked-creepy Davey attack on Alan. These illos are just gobsmackingly wonderful.

HL: [Audience member] Jarod Godel asks, "A lot of the backstory and universe in Someome Comes To Town was left open; was this done on purpose, trying to encourage fan fiction to fill in those gaps?

CD: Not to encourage fan fiction per se, but the human imagination has a lot higher polygon-count than prose could ever have. Leaving most of the world in shadow lets readers fill in very high rez pictures where you don't have the throughput in the printed page. That said, if fan fiction emerged that filled that in, I'd be mightily chuffed.

Beginning of Transcript Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:16:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Homeland Security radio-tags foreign visitors

Starting this week, three US border crossings will begin to tag visitors to America with wireless RFID-cards, which contain visitors' personally identifying information and can be read from 12 yards away. The only exempted visitors are Canadians who are not on a US business visa or engaged to an American. If this program is "successful" (who the fuck knows what constitutes a "success" here -- maybe Homeland Security has a divinating machine that can tell it whether fewer terrorists have entered the country this quarter than last?) this program will go live at every border crossing, in addition to the current practice of fingerprinting and photographing visitors (incidentally, the fact that the DHS had started to fingerprint me when I came home to San Francisco played a major role in my decision to abandon my US work visa and move to the UK -- friends don't fingerprint friends).

They’ll have to carry the wireless devices as a way for border guards to access the electronic information stored inside a document about the size of a large index card.

Visitors to the U.S. will get the card the first time they cross the border and will be required the carry the document on subsequent crossings to and from the States.

Border guards will be able to access the information electronically from 12 metres away to enable those carrying the devices to be processed more quickly.

Link (Thanks, Anne!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:53:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, July 30, 2005

Cracking down on predatory tow truck companies

The New York Times reports that tow truck companies in Los Angeles are out of control, towing cars illegally and then charging exorbitant fees before owners can get them back.

In one case here, a church's pickup was towed from its own parking lot; in another, a 4-year-old boy was towed away in his mother's car after she went inside her apartment for a few minutes to drop off groceries and a younger child.

And a man who ran alongside a tow truck, pleading to get his vehicle back after it was towed from a fire lane, died when he slipped and was run over by the truck and then his own Chevrolet Suburban.

Link (Previous Boing Boing coverage of criminal tow truck drivers)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:13:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pix from today's photog-mob at the unphotographable 1 Bush St building

Jane, writing about the response to this week's incident where Boing Boing pal Thomas Hawk was strong-armed for shooting photos from the sidewalk of a San Francisco office tower, sez, "I've created a Flickr set from today's photo flash mob at One Bush Street. (http://www.multipledigression.com/bush) This set documents the 20 folks who showed up at noon today to exercise our public photography rights! We also took photos at 343 California, 555 California and the Transamerica Building. CBS News showed up to cover it; there are some meta photos of me photographing CBS photographing a flash mob photographer photographing One Bush Street!..." Link (Thanks, Jane!)

Update: Sean notes that the onebushstreet Flickr tag has tons more pix from the day.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:47:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's interview on the copyfight and international development

Alex Steffen of Worldchanging has posted a great interview with me about WIPO, the copyfight, and international development.

WIPO -- the World Intellectual Property Organization -- is the UN's most captive agency. WIPO was originally a stand-alone organization, essentially an industry consortium for rightsholders' interests, and they got brought in under the umbrella of the UN thirty or so years ago, with the understanding that they would change their practices to make them consistent with other UN instruments like the Universal Declaration on Human Rights -- humanitarian instruments -- and that it would become a humanitarian agency for development.

Which makes sense. Information goods are a critical piece of the development picture. Every successfully developed country made use of free information goods. More accurately, they all went through a stage when they were a pirate nation. America spent a century as a pirate nation, ripping off the intellectual property of every country around it, and in particular, of Britain, because when you're a net importer of intellectual property, signing on to multilateral copyright and patent agreements is signing on to exporting your wealth off-shore. When you're a net exporter of intellectual property, it makes economic sense.

The choice is not simply one of piracy or monopoly. There is a whole rich middle ground of public domain and open information regimes which could give developing world countries the tools they need to serve humanitarian purposes, while protecting the legitimate interests of authors, performers and inventors. WIPO could have created a global knowledge goods regime which protected both the commercial and the humanitarian fairly.

Link

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

Mike Lynn presentation mirrors and legal fund

You-all have come through with many, many mirrors for Mike Lynn's controversial Black Hat presentation in which he quit his job, described critical vulnerabilities in Cisco equipment and got sued by his employer, the candyasses at ISS. See the end of the post for lots of links -- the paranoid among you can verify mirrors via this MD-5 hash: 559942447c88086fa1304c38f9d0242c.

There's a legal-defense fund for Lynn that's gearing up now. Paypal your donations to Abaddon@IO.com. Money that is collected and not used will be donated to EFF. Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, Link, eMule Link (Thanks, Anniqa, Andrew, Brad, Aaron, CiscoLover, Brian, Bruce, David, John, Steve, Marie, David, Gregory, aab3w, Stephen, Foofango, Adam, az, John and others!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:31:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Defcon, Makezine, kegbot

Boing Boing reader Paul Short says, "The annual hacker conference DefCon in Las Vegas this weekend has spawned some pretty innovative stuff, not the least of which is the Kegbot. DefCon attendee Phillip Torrone of Make Magazine writes: "

"One the coolest projects I've seen so far at DEFCON was the kegbot, a linux based keg that dispenses beer as long as you have an iButton key. The system keeps track of who you are, how much you're drinking and in team mode- where you rank. the Kegbot crew built and deployed a kegbot on site at DEFCON, we were lucky enough to get there and document the building of it!"

More pics and instructions on building your own Kegbot at the Make Magazine web site.

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

Things to do in SF when you're dead: Zombie Flashmob today

Jake Appelbaum writes,

I received a message from the brain eating master today: "We're trying to create a self perpetuating Zombie Mob in the streets of San Francisco on Saturday (Saturday, July 30th). A seed group of zombies will start at St. Mary's square, and as we march up Market St. we'll attack Willing bystanders, converting them and giving them ingredients to make more zombies. We'll end up at Union Square, Eat tourists, then eventually hop a train to Colma for a Picnic in the Cemetary. There's a reception afterword at Launchpad with Blood Wrestling and Zombie Olympics, then Movies and Music. See eatbrains.com to get involved."

Link (Thanks also, Scott Beale and Sean Bonner!)

UPDATE: The event is done, brains were eaten, photos were taken, and all the links you need are here

Avidd says:

I thought you might get a kick out of the videos from our mob last weekend- one is an attack on market street, and the other shows 50 of us invading the apple store!

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:14:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BB reader phots: Rancho Obi-Wan, bombs, squash, lo-fi carmod

Boing Boing readers are a shutter-happy lot -- you send us links to your online photo sets each day. Try as we might, it's hard to keep up with you guys! Here are four picks from this week's heap o' submissions:

Bonnie Burton says, "Here at Lucasfilm, it's well known that if you find a Star Wars collectible, chances are Director of Fan Relations Steve Sansweet already has it in his museum aptly titled, 'Rancho Obi-Wan.' Steve's museum is home to not only endless Star Wars toys, costumes, model kits, action figures and posters, but also classic film artifacts such as speeder bike and snowspeeder models, pieces of the krayt dragon skeleton, Mos Eisley Cantina creature masks (made from the original molds) and a Han Solo stunt pistol, to name just a few. It was an honor to be let in to his amazing toy habitat, and thankfully this time I ventured in with my camera." Link

Thomas Hawk says, "There was a bomb scare that shut down Market Street and the Embarcadero MUNI/BART station in San Francisco yesterday during rush hour from about 4:00pm to 5:00pm. The City remains on high alert and this is the third time in the past few weeks that transit stations have been shut down over suspected bombs. Turns out the suspected bomb was just a trash can. I took photos of the shutdown that include a close up of one of the bomb robots as well as an officer in bomb gear checking out the suspected bomb." Link

John Ulaszek says, "Here is the aftermath of a semi trailer load of squash hitting a overpass in Pennsylvania. I saw this while I was on a road trip two weeks ago." Link

Kurt says, "I saw this Dodge Diplomat low-end DIY car mod on the streets of West Los Angeles yesterday. The spoiler on the back is a wooden board attached to the trunk and painted blue to match the peeling body color. Perhaps it's a prototype." Link 1, Link 2.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:55:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, July 29, 2005

Yamaha adds rare animal menagerie to papercraft offerings

Yamaha has increased its downloadable papercraft offerings to include dozens of "rare animals of the world" and "rare animals of Japan" as well as "the seasons" and the traditional highly detailed paper motorcycle models. Link (via Paper Forest)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:22:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Collision on Disneyland's California Screamin' coaster

Yesterday, there was a low-speed collision on the California Screamin' roller-coaster at Disneyland's California Adventure park, hospitalizing 15 of the 48 riders. From The Disney Blog:

The Purple train ran into the back of the red train that sits to the right of the image. They are in a braking zone. The railing on the right of the track is an emergency unloading zone if a train has to stop in a braking area. From what I can tell this is the next to last braking zone before the train enters the station. Trains entering this braking zone would not generally come to a full stop. But they would if there was a train ahead of them waiting to enter the station.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:19:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Potemkin East Village coming to Vegas

A Vegas developer is creating a 44-acre East-Village-themed shopping center:

...Las Vegas developer Mark Advent's "East Village" retail complex plan, complete with faux Washington Square and an entertainment zone called the "Meat Packing District." But ever since stumbling across this ultimate show of hubris we've been hungering for more. Other than calling it the East Village, what will make the 44-acre commercial playground identifiable as such (CBGB hasn't packed up for there, yet)? Well, if this promotional electronic pamphlet is to be believed, it's a Ray's Pizza, a traffic cop, a hot dog cart and some roadside banners.

(via Kottke)

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

American Airlines gets profitable, thanks to its workforce

American Airlines just posted its first profit in five years -- thanks to working with its union to find ways to cut costs. Only a few years ago, its workers (who'd made huge wage concessions) were ready to go on strike over the fact that management had handed itself fat bonuses and protected its pensions from creditors, but now that the old guard was turfed out and replaced with a CEO who works with labor, the company is turning a profit.

Two American Airlines mechanics didn't like having to toss out $200 drill bits once they got dull. So they rigged up some old machine parts - a vacuum-cleaner belt and a motor from a science project - and built "Thumping Ralph." It's essentially a drill-bit sharpener that allows them to get more use out of each bit. The savings, according to the company: as much as $300,000 a year.

And it was a group of pilots who realized that they could taxi just as safely with one engine as with two. That was instituted as policy has helped cut American's fuel consumption even as prices have continued to rise to record levels.

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:08:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Toronto's Quick Boy Movers: incompetent and bullying

Back in June, Joey "AccordionGuy" DeVilla got a blog-comment about a moving company in Toronto called Quick Boys Moving, in which the commenter complained about the dreadful service he'd received from them.

Last week, someone from Quick Boys tracked Joey down on his work phone. They tried to intimidate him with legal threats into taking down the comment. At the time, the comment was the second result on Google for "Quick Boys Movers." Joey took the comment down temporarily and contacted the poster, a friend of his, who confirmed the story. Then he reinstated the comment and wrote a long entry explaining that Quick Boys is not only unqualified to help you move house, they're also thugs who try to censor their critics.

Joey's an engaging writer and many people are linking to his post, which has now risen to the number one spot for "Quick Boys Movers" on Google. There's a moral in there, somewhere.

Me: And you say that this comment is not true?

FV: It is a lie. Let me put my boss on the line.

Gruff Male Voice with Eastern European Accent: Remove that comment. That's all I'm going to say. (click)

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:54:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michael Lynn's Cisco vulnerabilities presentation taken offline at lawyerpoint

Richard Forno had been hosting the Black Hat presentation on Cisco's massive security vulnerabilities that Michael Lynn had to quit his job at ISS to deliver, since his candyass employer, a "security firm," sold him out to Cisco, who would rather bully researchers than fix their errors.

Now Forno has replaced the presentation with a cease-and-desist letter from the aforementioned candyasses at ISS, in which they whinge about the "misappropriation" of their "intellectual property" (that would be the presentation that they tried to suppress). Please send links to mirrors of Lynn's presentation and I'll put 'em up. 204K PDF Link (via Schneier)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:46:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

To do in SF: Pirate (arrrr!) ship (arrr!) invasion

A slew of tall sailing ships cruise in to the San Francisco Bay this weekend. Rides, tours, and battle re-enactments will be offered. Stick an eyepatch on, stuff some bootleg DVDs in your pants, and join the pirates here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:01:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hello, Planet X

NASA announced today that astronomers have found a tenth planet -- which is larger than Pluto -- at the edge of our solar system. Link

A SF Chron article states:

Informally, the astronomers have been calling it "Xena" after the television series about a Greek warrior princess, which was popular when the astronomers began their systematic sweep of the sky in 2000. "Because we always wanted to name something Xena," Brown said...

XENA? <sigh>. Aw, c'mon guys! Where's the love? So close, and yet one vowel away.

Reader comment: John Parres says, "Water ice in crater at Martian north pole! Cool pic, check it out! Where there is H2O there is life." Link

Aki Zeta-Five says,

It's confusing, but they've actually discovered /two/ planets this week: 2003 EL61 and 2003 UB131.Link 1, Link 2. And a moon. And here's some orbital diagrams: Link 1, Link 2.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:39:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nightmarish statue at The National Bowling Stadium in Reno, NV

My friend Dan went to the National Bowling Stadium in Reno, NV and got freaked out by a statue in the lobby depicting a family hell-bent on hitting the lanes.

It is a statue with a title something like "Family Goes Bowling" and it is a group of 7 foot high family members running at full speed getting ready to bowl. However, in their mad dash to go bowling, the young boy is being left in the dust. The aging dad is being pushed back and looks like he is falling, while his bowling shoes are flying. The mom looks like she partially insane the way she is smiling, running fast and staring into space. And the freakiest one is the little girl who is running ahead of the rest.

She has the horrific look of gleeful uncontrolled frenzy on her face as she runs with her cheek romantically pressed against the bowling ball. Her eyes are fixed straight ahead, I assume at the bowling lane she is running towards, but in her eyes there was a sense of almost possessed evil. It was as if nothing could get in her way of going bowling. She pushes her own dad down out of the way, she leaves her little brother behind, nothing matters to her. All that mattered was that she would bowl and she would use violence if anyone tried to get in her way.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:16:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Unicorn urls that require unicorn chasers

There are many bad things in the world. Here are two. Not worksafe, contain explicit material. Don't click, and please don't click this either (Thanks Chris, and others!).

Previously on Boing Boing: Unicorn porn, And now, we pause for a unicorn moment.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:59:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prehistoric woman-targeted gadgets

Here's a great article on the early days of women-targeted gadgets: "From 1928 to 1933, Kodak manufactured several colored and deco-styled cameras that were designed to attract women. Among the camera kits designed was the Vanity Kodak Ensemble outfit, which included a color-coordinated camera, lipstick holder, compact, mirror and change purse in a fitted case." Link (via Shiny Shiny)

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

Happy sysadmins' day

Today is Systems Administrators' Appreciation Day. A moment for our virtuoso sysadmin, Ken Snider, the kickass geek who fires off emails like this one now and again:

Allow me to geek out for a moment.

Cory's post today on how to disable the Microsoft GA program was the first real slashdotting I believe BB has had since the move to the new server.

The old server could handle 500 simultaneous connections at once, and we only very rarely reached that cap.

I had (somewhat conservatively) set the server to handle 750 connections, and, to date, we'd used about 450 max at any one time.

Before it even left the Subscriber-only status on /., the server was 100% pegged, all 750 slots used. So, I kept raising it until it could meet demand.

It's now running *1500* slots for connections, and the traffic rate is holding steady at about 1200 simultaneous connections at once. This is *three times* what the old server could handle, and guarantees instant page load times on our part (ads notwithstanding, hopefully Indieclick can keep up!).

Anyway, I thought that was mighty impressive, and thought I'd share. :)

Link (via /.)

Update: The Systems Administrator Song from Three Dead Trolls in a Baggie totally kicks ass. (Thanks, Jesse!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:39:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EFF's trusted computing guru sums up MSFT's lockware strategy

Donna sez, "Seth Schoen, EFF's trusted computing guru, attended this year's Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) to find out. In a four-part series of updates on Microsoft's security and lockware strategy for Windows, Schoen looks at how the latest developments will affect your ability to stay in the driver's seat of your own PC."

Part 1: Microsoft Trusted Computing Updates

Part 2: The Dangers of Device Authentication

Part 3: Protected Media Path, Component Revocation, Windows Driver Lockdown

Part 4: Microsoft Sells Out the Public on CGMS-A

Link (Thanks, Donna!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:02:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WWBRD?

In light of recent NASA woes regarding the Shuttle program, and new questions about its future, some suggest a "WWBRD" sticker campaign:

What Would Burt Rutan Do?

One Boing Boing reader provides this interpretation.

(Thanks, Lisa Julie/Doug Humphrey)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:37:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYT on HD Radio

Glenn Fleishman said (Ed: yesterday -- I'm a bit slow!),

In today's New York Times, I wrote about the revolution already in progress for AM and FM radio: IBOC (in-band, on-channel) digital radio, known by its trademarked named HD Radio.

With IBOC, the analog signal is undisturbed and digital audio nestles in the protected side bands. It's a surprisingly huge phenomenon--among radio stations. At least 450 stations are already full-time HD Radio broadcasters, and possibly more than 600. The reason? Digital AM sounds good--remarkably good.

But the real excitement is in FM. With digital FM, stations can choose to multicast. Public radio is funding a huge HD Radio supplement so that its member stations could, for instance, have an all Spanish format or serve other niche audiences that they can't offer enough programming to as part of their regular schedule.

There's only a few tens of thousands of receivers out there, but the tabletop boxes are coming. I was told the chips that drive HD Radio cost $65 for the radio makers now, but the price should drop by 2/3rds when quantities pick up, and then we'll see $100 to $150 radios instead of $260 to $600 units.

Link

Reader Comment: Bill Kirkpatrick @wisc.edu says:

"It's worth pointing out that HD radio came largely at the expense of low-powered FM radio. We could have had thousands more LPFM stations, but large broadcasters objected to these microstations being shoe-horned into the spectrum. Why? So that there would be more room for IBOC. Commercial broadcasters effectively double or triple their spectrum, and non-commercial community broadcasting gets shut out.

There's a great article in Social Policy that explains all this in detail. I can't find it on the web, so I have quoted a relevant excerpt below."

From INTERFERENCE AND THE PUBLIC SERVICE: THE HISTORY AND IMPACT OF LOW-POWER FM , By: Spinelli, Martin, Social Policy, Fall 2000, Vol. 31, Issue 1

While arguments about existing station placement and economics are relatively easy to grasp, perhaps the most significant stumbling block for LPFM is more complex. IBOC-DAB (in-band, on-channel digital audio broadcasting) is left out of reports of the LPFM fight as often for its politics as for its difficulty. One could be forgiven for thinking that digital radio, when it happens at some point in the distant future, will be in a different radio spectrum than the one currently used. But "in-band," in fact, means in the existing FM radio frequency band on the same radio channels or stations that we listen to today ("on-channel").

The way IBOC is being promoted and tested by large broadcasters represents a kind of giant squatters' rights movement on the FM band. The current IBOC configuration, described as "saddle-bagging," would have a station broadcast a digital signal in the side channels immediately to the left and to the right of its analog signal. If two-channel separation standards were to be maintained, there would be far less room for other stations like LPFMs. Of course, if LPFMs are shoehorned into the bandwidth before the establishment of IBOC, there will be much less room for IBOC. The NAB, in seeking to stop or slow LPFM by calling for more engineering tests or trial periods, would buy its members enough time to rush the IBOC proposal through the FCC and establish digital broadcasting saddle-bags.

It is not surprising that LPFM opponents would not give prominence to the DAB objection in their complaints against microbroadcasting. If the IBOC saddle-bag system is established, existing stations will be given, in effect, three times the bandwidth for which they paid, while the consuming public, which has not indicated its desires or needs, will have a technology foisted on it--especially if, as it is being currently tested in the Washington, DC, area, it will be simply another means for existing stations to replicate their analog signals.

Incidentally, the existing IBOC saddle-bag tests are showing no interference to the mother channel to which they are immediately adjacent; consequently, the NAB has called for a loosening of the clear channel requirements for IBOC. This is further evidence that interference is not a genuine issue. It can thus be argued that existing commercial broadcasters do not actually object to LPFM because such stations might interfere with any of their existing signals but because their imminent presence would lessen the space available for their future digital broadcasts.

H.W. Duncan in Seattle says,

I'm a former broadcast engineer who has followed IBOC. Several Seattle FM stations use IBOC and I can't tell any difference between the "Spread" of their signal and the spread of the "normal" Seattle FM stations. And because Seattle was an IBOC-FM test market, a lot of people with experienced ears have been listening closely for problems. Many broadcasters are voluntarily investing big dollars in IBOC-FM.

This is not true with IBOC in the AM band, where the digital signal generates sidebands that tend to cover up the stations on the two adjacent channels. The problem is so bad that IBOC-AM cannot be used at night and as far as I know, nobody but Clear Channel stations are rushing to IBOC-AM. And, of course, Clear Channel owns a piece of the IBOC business.

I have been told that IBOC was broadcasting's answer to a European direct digital system, they were opposed because that system gives all area broadcasters an equal voice - power and dial location no longer matter. This was poison to those who want to sell their radio stations for lots and lots of money.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:30:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why do you stay up so late?

A lovely Flash-poem. Link (Thanks, Susannah Breslin)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:29:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geeks: provide technical assistance to lawyers working for freedom

Are you a geek who wants to help keep technological liberties alive? EFF is starting a mailing-list pool for geeks willing to render technical assistance to lawyers working on worthy cases:

Over the years, EFF has connected hundreds of tech-savvy lawyers with potential clients through our Cooperating Attorneys listserv. This has worked so well, we thought we'd provide the same service for those who need technical assistance on litigation and civil liberties issues.

Here's how the Cooperating Techs list will work: Attorneys needing technical assistance on cases will contact us and let us know what kind of help they need and whether they can pay. After we receive the request and determine if it is appropriate for our list, we'll post a note to the list with a basic description of the project. (For example: "CA attorney needs a tech familiar with Microsoft Exchange servers to assist in recovering allegedly deleted email messages needed for lawsuit. Can pay reduced fee.")

If you're on the list and are qualified and interested, you contact us, and we'll connect you to the attorney. That's it. EFF won't investigate or vouch for either side -- we don't have those kinds of resources. We'll simply provide the connection.

Interested in being an Cooperating Tech? Send a note to cooptechs@eff.org, and we'll try to help you find someone.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:14:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hearing aids re-imagined: "hearware"

The V&A museum in London is currently running an exhibition of "hearware" -- hearing aids reimagined by designers and interaction firms from around the world. "The display will show how fashionably designed 'hearwear' can be as desirable and accessible as 'eyewear', and will change the way people think about hearing." Link (via Shiny Shiny)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:45:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gamers pictured alongside their avatars

The Faces of WoW site allows World of Warcraft players to upload photos of themselves, sometimes accompanied by photos of their in-game avatars. It's hard to say what's more interesting -- the people who look just like their avatars, or the ones who look totally different. Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:39:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ten thousand superballs rolling down a San Francisco hill-street

These photos document the release of 10,000 small superballs at the San Francisco hilltop corner of Filbert and Leavenworth. Wow. Pic 1, Pic 2 (Thanks, Umgrue!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:31:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michael Lynn's controversial Cisco security presentation

Here's a PDF that purports to be Michael Lynn's presentation on Cisco's critical vulnerabilities ("The Holy Grail: Cisco IOS Shellcode And Exploitation Techniques"), delivered at last week's Black Hat conference. Lynn's employer, ISS, wouldn't let him deliver the talk (they'd been leant on by Cisco), so Lynn quit his job, walked onstage and delivered it anyway. (See yesterday's post and Scheneier's take for more). 1.9MB PDF Link (Thanks, Richard!)

Update: Seb sez, "Cisco, Michael Lynn and ISS have all come to an 'arrangement'. It would seem all material pertaining to the flaw, the exploit and the talk are to be handed over to Cisco, who will presumably lock it all up and throw away the key. All videos of the presentation are to be handed over as well, and Lynn has been forbidden from talking at Black Hat or Defcon."

Michael Lynn, a former ISS researcher, and the Black Hat organisers agreed to a permanent injunction barring them from further discussing the presentation Lynn gave on Wednesday. The presentation showed how attackers could take over Cisco routers, a problem that Lynn said could bring the Internet to its knees.

The injunction also requires Lynn to return any materials and disassembled code related to Cisco, according to a copy of the injunction, which was filed in US District Court for the District of Northern California. The injunction was agreed on by attorneys for Lynn, Black Hat, ISS and Cisco.

Lynn is also forbidden to make any further presentations at the Black Hat event, which ended on Thursday, or the following Defcon event. Additionally, Lynn and Black Hat have agreed never to disseminate a video made of Lynn's presentation and to deliver to Cisco any video recording made of Lynn."

Update 2: Randi, a reader who claims to be an ex-coworker of Lynn's, and the girlfriend of Lynn's roommate, says, "A settlement with Cisco has been reached, but ISS is still pursuing criminal charges. The press doesn’t appear to know yet that the FBI is performing an investigation now, starting with seizing equipment from Michael and his roommates. On a happy note, Mike has received quite a few job offers, including from some places you wouldn't expect."

Update 3 Courtesy of James, Wired News's coverage of the FBI's investigation of Michael Lynn

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

Machinima film-festival announced

The 2005 Machinima Film Festival has been announced for November 12, 2005, in NYC:

The Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences (AMAS), an organization that provides advocacy, education and community for Machinima (filmmaking using real-time 3D game technology/virtual reality), today announced the 2005 Machinima Film Festival and the call for entries for the 2005 Machinima Awards (the Mackies). Sponsored by NVIDIA and the Independent Film Channel (IFC), the third annual festival will be held Saturday, November 12th 2005, at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.

The one-day event will include screenings of Machinima films, workshops hosted by Machinima filmmakers, special presentations, talks with award-winning independent filmmakers and seminars about Machinima production techniques. The event will culminate in an awards ceremony where some of the best Machinima filmmakers will be recognized for their creative artistry in this new and powerful entertainment medium that's set to revolutionize the worlds of filmmaking and animation.

Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:29:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canada bans copying CDs to iPods

Michael Geist sez, "The Canadian Supreme Court today declined to hear a case involving the private copying levy and its application to the Apple iPod. While some are celebrating, the decision effectively renders copying CDs onto an iPod unlawful in Canada. I've posted an additional perspective that challenges the recording industry's decision to welcome the decision. I argue that it signifies an escalation of its war against its own artists."

But opposing the artists on private copying takes this strategy to new heights. CRIA today claimed that artists will make up private copying levy losses through the marketplace. The truth is that artists and rights holders lost $4 million today, the amount collected from the iPod and digital audio recorders during a fairly brief period. Longer term, they lost tens of millions of dollars of potential compensation. These are not the nickels and dimes that CRIA derides. If anything, for Canadian artists the levy represents a potentially important revenue stream that will not be easily recouped.

Today's decision also likely means the end of a private copying levy that CRIA spent 15 years fighting to get. The system is clearly broken and policy makers will either drop it completely (perhaps supplemented by a fair use doctrine that will permit copying such as store bought CDs to personal iPods) or expand the levy so that it resembles a European approach that extends to both audio and video, while providing even greater compensation.

Link (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:35:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, July 28, 2005

Rule breaking cow

Alan Clifford says: "It's just a cow tethered and grazing under a no tethering and grazing sign. It amused me."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:27:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gallery of bizarre public signs

Swanksigns collects public safety and information signs from around the world. This one is creepy. It shows what can happen to you if you get into an elevator with a trash can and neglect to pull the can all the way into the elevator car. Ouch! Most of the signs on the site are not as nightmarish -- they're funny and/or perplexing.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:33:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Roadside Taiwan

Dan Bloom sends this photograph of a bus stop in Taiwan shaped like a giant watermelon.
Link

UPDATE: Dan Bllom says: "A Taiwanese surfer in Taipei with keen eyesight noticed that the bench in front of the bus stop has some words written in Japanese and concluded that the bus stop could not be in Taiwan and that item submitter 'Dan Bloom' (who now has egg on his face, among other things!) made an innocent but big mistake by wrongly telling boingboing.net that the watermelon bus stop was in Taiwan.'

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:21:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

No taking pix of San Fran building from the sidewalk?

Frequent Boing Boing contributor Thomas Hawk sez, "Shooting the One Bush building (at the intersection where Bush meets Market St. in San Francisco) a building security guard told me he was going to have me arrested and literally followed me around the building trying to put his hand in front of my camera from the public sidewalk.

"I've been hassled and harassed many time in the past for shooting photographs in privately owned public spaces (Starbucks, PF Chaings, Toys 'R Us, the new burger spot on Sacramento St. at Drumm, Tosca, Grand Central Terminal in New York, etc.) but yesterday was the first time I've actually been harassed on a public street over photography." Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

Update: Mat sez, " Everyone in San Francisco needs to go get a picture of this building. To encourage that, I'll give one person a $10 iTMS gift certificate for snapping a picture of One Bush. Take a picture sometime in the next week. Post it online (and link to it in my comments so I'll see it). I'll choose a winner at random."

Update 2 Erik sez, "I'm organizing a get-together this Saturday to walk through downtown S.F. taking pictures of buildings and whatever else strikes our fancy, starting at noon at 1 Bush St. Fun, artistic, and full of Free Speech goodness."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:55:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Microsoft "Genuine Advantage" cracked in 24h: window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all'

AV sez, "This week, Microsoft started requiring users to verifiy their serial number before using Windows Update. This effort to force users to either buy XP or tell them where you got the illegal copy is called 'Genuine Advantage.' It was cracked within 24 hours."

Before pressing 'Custom' or 'Express' buttons paste this text to the address bar and press enter:

javascript:void(window.g_sDisableWGACheck='all')

It turns off the trigger for the key check.

Link (Thanks, AV!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:22:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hollywood Plots End of Film Reels

I filed this story for Wired News about an announcement from Hollywood's six major studios that they have agreed on technical specs for digital distribution and display of movies. Digital Cinema Initiatives, the group founded in 2002 to bring studios, theater owners and tech manufacturers together in planning an industrywide shift to digital cinema, released version 1.0 of its requirements and specifications yesterday.

Here's the doc -- PDF Link. out of all 175 pages, nearly half are devoted to antipiracy measures.

AES 128-bit encryption of each digital movie file is part of the security prescription, as are DRM provisions. During the spec unveiling at the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, panelists representing studios, theater owners, and cinematographers sat onstage, flanked by giant gold Oscars statues. Some described the shift to digital as the "biggest technology upgrade in Hollywood since talkies."

Walt Disney Company SVP of Media Technology Bob Lambert characterized the antipiracy approach for d-cinema as "military- or defense-grade," even stricter than protections designed to keep consumer DVDs off filesharing networks. "Because this is a plan for securing a B2B system," said Lambert, "The cost can be higher and the measures stronger."

I asked a few tech experts outside of Hollywood for their take:

Security provisions in the DCI spec deal mostly with what happens in theaters, and detail an open security architecture that allows a variety of tech vendors to compete and hone their technologies over time. The system proposed by DCI relies on digital rights management, watermarking, content encryption and key management. Digital movie files are to be encrypted for transport and receipt by theaters, which then would use decryption keys to unlock the content. The system is also designed to generate a data forensics bread-crumb trail, with the intent of tracing piracy incidents after the fact back to the theaters in which they occurred.

Outside Hollywood, analysts' opinions on the feasibility of the DCI security specs were mixed. "The devil is in the details," said security analyst Bruce Schneier, "and this document doesn't contain the details."

"Tracking it to the theater won't help, because attackers with camcorders could just make their visits to theaters random," said security analyst Jacob Appelbaum of LogicLibrary. "It means that the camcorders just have to fit into the crowd, and then the theaters have a reason not to adopt this. It's already against the law."

Studio representatives acknowledge that the DCI security specifications do nothing to prevent in-theater copying of movies, which remains a top piracy method. "These technical solutions won't solve internal theft by camcorders," said John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners. "But we're working on human-resources solutions and incentives to help address that part of the problem."

Others cited the difficulties involved in the plan's "forensic watermarking" provisions. "There's no such thing as a watermark that is both invisible and hard to remove, because by definition, a watermark that adds no perceptible information to a signal leaves no perceptible change behind after it is removed," said Cory Doctorow, European-outreach coordinator for the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Link to Wired News story.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:43:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kiwi hotel made of plane, hill and train

This awesome New Zealand hotel built out of a hillside, and a defunct train and plane has three sleeping options:

"Sleeping inside a 1950's Bristol Freighter Plane refurbished into 2 beautiful motel rooms.

"Sleeping inside a 1950's Rail Carriage 3 room motel unit, which sleeps six.

"Sleeping like a Hobbit--underground with a circular window." Link (Thanks, Mark!)

Update: Jon sez: "This reminded me of a relic of the Iran-contra affair that was converted into a restaurant/bar in Quepos, Costa Rica." How cool -- I used to live pretty close to Quepos in a squatter/refugee village on the Nicaraguan border and the locals had lots of stories about disused Contra airstrips in the bush.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:02:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Homeland Security's covert surveillance truck

This is a photo tour through a Department of Homeland Security covert surveillance truck. Site includes links to details of many other DHS vehicles. Link (Thanks, Bill!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:59:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's Worldcon schedule

Next week, Glasgow will host the Interaction, the 63rd World Science Fiction Convention. I'll be attending and doing a number of program items, including some stufff on Creative Commons and a reading from my new novel-in-progress. Here's an overview of my program items:

Friday August 5:
10:00am You've Plugged _What_ into It? Hardware Hacking is an increasingly popular pastime. Also the advent of computer control has revolutionised many hobbies, e.g. amateur astrophotography. (with Martin Hoare amd Jordin Kare)

Noon: Clones, Children or Countless Lives If everyone lives forever, or is endlessly reincarnated, where do we put them? And can anyone reproduce in any other way? (with Simon Bradshaw, Anne K. Gay, Richard Morgan and Eric M. Van)

5:00pm: Is Genius Gendered? One lone genius and an attractive assistant (fill in the genders) save the world. Our panel gives media and literary SF examples, and discuss how changing the gender might change other things. (with Sean McMullen and Connie Willis)

Saturday, August 6:
2:30pm: Signing at the Borderlands Books table

6:00pm: Fannish Currency: Whuffie, Egoboo and Chocolate (Fandom has for a long time had a potlatch economy, where you give things away in the expectation of egoboo, or fannish kudos. How does this translate to the Internet Age?) (with Christina Lake, Mike Scott and Suzanne Tompkins)

Sunday, August 7:
10:00am AI: the Aliens We Make? Aliens and AI are both Other, but where one comes from Out There, the other lives Down Here. Are they really the same thing -- and either way, what difference does it make? (with David Gerrold, Ian McDonald, Charles Stross and Tricia Sullivan)

Noon: Creative Commons 101. A Primer for the Interested

2:00pm Reading

Monday, August 8:
10:00am: Standing up for our (Copy)rights Contrasting views on the benefits and hazards authors see in sharing (or having their work shared) online. (with Andrew Adams, David Cake and Christopher Priest)

Hope to see you there! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:48:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Costikyan's jeremiad against the video game industry

VIrtuoso game designer Greg Costikyan (Paranoia, Toon, VIllains and Vigilantes, many others) has posted a PowerPoint deck from a presentation ("Death to the Games Industry! Long Live Games!") he gave to an indie games conference in Melbourne, Australia. It's an excellent, inflammatory jeremiad against the status quo in the video game industry, where spending is going up, profits are doing down, and diversity is withering on the vine. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:19:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Economics of used books

Here's a fantastic NYT article on the economics of the used book market. Many writers' orgs are freaked out because Amazon features used and new books alongside of one another, worried that used books will displace new book sales (there's also a lot of hoo-ha about review copies, publishers' rejects, and copies stolen from the printers, but even added up these account for an insignificant proportion of all but the smallest, most specialized book-runs). But economists understand that a market for used goods fuels a market for new goods -- would you pay nearly so much for your next car if you knew you couldn't sell it as used when you wanted to buy your next one? (this is one of the hidden, but gigantic downsides of DRM -- by prohibiting the market for used iTunes and other virtual goods, the sellers devalue their own products).

According to the researchers' calculations, Amazon earns, on average, $5.29 for a new book and about $2.94 on a used book. If each used sale displaced one new sale, this would be a less profitable proposition for Amazon.

But Mr. Bezos is not foolish. Used books, the economists found, are not strong substitutes for new books. An increase of 10 percent in new book prices would raise used sales by less than 1 percent. In economics jargon, the cross-price elasticity of demand is small.

One plausible explanation of this finding is that there are two distinct types of buyers: some purchase only new books, while others are quite happy to buy used books. As a result, the used market does not have a big impact in terms of lost sales in the new market.

Moreover, the presence of lower-priced books on the Amazon Web site, Mr. Bezos has noted, may lead customers to "visit our site more frequently, which in turn leads to higher sales of new books." The data appear to support Mr. Bezos on this point.

Link (via O'Reilly Radar)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:40:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rap translation of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Barney sez, "A rap artist has translated some of the best known works of poet Geoffrey Chaucer into hip-hop to make them appeal to schoolchildren."

Orig:
And up they stirte, al dronken in this rage,
And forth they goon towardes that village
Of which the taverner hadde spoke biforn.
And many a grisly ooth thanne han they sworn,

Rap Version:
When he'd said his piece
The rest agreed, and the three friends hit the streets
And went to seek their destiny and provoke a confrontation,
In a drunken rage hoping Death would come and face them.
Their intoxication made them sure of their purpose

Link (Thanks, Barney!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:29:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, July 27, 2005

Scientist photoblogs own brain tumor removal

David LaPuma is a grad student scientist at Rutgers who is battling brain cancer had a benign meningioma. He documented his own surgery in snapshots, and explains:

I guess putting it all on(the)line was partially my way of dealing with it, and also a way that I could share the experience with both the people I know and those I don't know (but who might be considering a similar procedure). The whole experience has been quite amazing, and I really feel fortunate to be recovering so quickly.

Link to photo set. Contains graphic images, unicorn chaser advised. Get well soon, David. (Thanks, Jake, and I see Mindhacks has a related post. Thanks for the clarification, David!.)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:58:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Futuro Houses: prefab space kitsch

Here's a terrific article in the New York Times about Futuro houses.

The circular house, 11 feet high and 26 feet across, was designed by Matti Suuronen, a Finnish architect, in 1968. A hatch door in its lower half opened down to reveal steps, like the door of a small airplane, and led into a room outfitted with six plastic bed-chair combinations and a central fireplace slab, as well as a kitchenette and a bathroom. Photographs from the time make the house look like a place where the Teletubbies might live, with Barbarella as a frequent houseguest.

Mika Taanila, a Finnish filmmaker who helped start the Futuro revival with his 1998 documentary "Futuro: A New Stance for Tomorrow," said he became interested in the houses because they seemed to represent the mood of the late 1960's so precisely. They reflected the era's "economic boom and optimism about the future," he said in a telephone interview from Finland. "Suuronen could not have come up with the idea 15 years earlier or 10 years later."

Part of that optimism was about the potential for plastics and prefabrication to radically lower the cost of housing, in the revolutionary spirit of 1968. The Futuro, which was made of polyester plastic and fiberglass and which sold in the United States for between $12,000 and $14,000, was one of many experimental plastic houses at the time. It came in 16 pieces that could easily be moved by truck or helicopter and set up in a couple of days.

Link to story. Image above: a Futuro house owned by Richard Pisani -- who uses it as a home theater. Shot by Peter Thompson for the NYT.

Here's a review of the book Futuro: Tomorrow's House from Yesterday, by Marko Home and Mika Taanila. You can buy it here.

Previously on Boing Boing:
Futuro House: better living from the Gernsback Continuum
Relocation of Futuro-House

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:25:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's story in current Adbusters

The current July/August 2005 issue of the amazing magazine Adbusters includes a reprint of my story "To Market, To Market, the Re-Branding of Billy Bailey," which was originally published in the British sf magazine Interzone. It got a lot of favorable critical attention when it was first published -- it's a comedic story about junior-high students who create and market personal brands, accepting street-crew sponsorshipd from various companies. You can pick up the current Adbusters at most decent newsstands and bookstores.

Billy and Principal Andrew Alty went all the way back to kindergarten, when Billy had convinced Mitchell McCoy that the green fingerpaint was Shamrock Shake, and watched with glee as the little babyface had scarfed it all down. Billy knew that Andrew Alty knew his style: refined, controlled, and above all, _personal_. Billy never would've dropped a dozen M-80s down the girls' toilet. His stuff was always one-on-one, and possessed of a degree of charm and subtlety.

But nevertheless, here was Billy, along with the sixth-grade bumper-crop of nasty-come-latelies, called on the carpet in front of Andrew Alty's massive desk. Andrew Alty was an athletic forty, a babyface true-and-through, and a charismatic thought-leader in his demographic.

Hormones. They were the problem.

Billy Bailey was the finest heel the sixth grade had ever seen -- a true artisan who kept his brand pure and unsullied, picking and managing his strategic alliances with the utmost care and acumen. He'd dumped BanginBumpin Fireworks (a division of The Shanghai Novelty Company, Ltd.) in the _fourth_ grade, fer chrissakes. Their ladyfingers were too small to bother with; their M-80s were so big that you'd have to be a lunatic to go near them.

But sixth grade was the Year of the Hormone at Pepsi Elementary. Boys who'd been babyfaces since kindergarten suddenly sprouted acne, pubic hair, and an uncontrollable urge to impress girls. Their weak brands were no match for the onslaught of -osterones and -ogens that flooded their brains, and in short order they found themselves switching over to heel.

As a result, the sixth grade was experiencing a heel glut. Last year's Little Lord Fauntleroys were now busy snapping bras, dropping textbooks, cracking grading computers, and blowing up the girls' toilets.

Hormones. They made Billy want to puke.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:13:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Richard Branson claims to own all uses of "virgin"

Catherine sez, "Bazillionaire Richard Branson of Virgin Enterprises is suing little guy Jason Yang, proprietor of Virgin Threads for trademark infringement. Yang, whose sole source of income is the site, and who supports a young family, is fighting the lawsuit, arguing that no one should be able to trademark a common word. Classic David and Goliath story."

Virgin Enterprises filed a federal lawsuit against VirginThreads.com and several others using virgin* domain names, accusing them of trademark infringement, dilution, and cyberpiracy. All for using a word that's been in the English language for far longer than mogul Branson has been using it as a trademark for his businesses. As David Bollier asks in a CNN Money story on the subject, "If anyone can lay claim to that word, shouldn't it be the Catholic church?"

m Traditional trademark law, concerned with consumer confusion, finds infringement when one use of a mark tends to deceive consumers about the source of goods or services they're buying. Dilution goes beyond that to allow the holder of a "famous" mark to bar use that "causes dilution of the distinctive quality of the mark," even outside the trademark holder's realm of goods. Dilution is a big gun, and one rightly limited to distinctive coined terms and actual harm, as the Supreme Court ruled when it held that "Victor's Little Secret" did not dilute "Victoria's Secret."

Link (Thanks, Catherine!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:05:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michael Palin's travel books online for free

Former Python Michael Palin has made a name for himself lately as a brilliant travel-writer and the host of a series of excellent travel documentaries. He has put the full text of all of his amazing travel-books online for free. They're spread out across multiple html pages, unfortunately, so they're not suited to downloading for reading on your phone on the Tube in the morning, but man is this ever a step in the right direction.

READ THE ENTIRE BOOKS FROM EACH SERIES HERE:

Around the World in 80 Days
Pole to Pole
Full Circle
Hemingway Adventure
Sahara with Michael Palin
Himalaya

Link (Thanks, Chris!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:56:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Six-shooter BBQ weight 2 tons, is 10' long

Courtesy of the BBQ Report, this home-made Texan (natch!) BBQ in the shape of a giant six-shooter: "The barrel is 10 feet long and 8 inches in diameter, and the entire rig is over 15 feet long. The pistol's grips, which cover the firebox, are made of red oak. When cooking, the barrel acts as the grill's chimney. It took over two years and 1,100 hours to complete, and used more than two tons of red oak, stainless, and carbon steel." Link (Thanks, Duane!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:50:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pieter Hugo's photos: Hyena people of Nigeria

The thought that popped into my head when I first saw this incredible photo was, "next time you're overcome with delusions of badassitude, remember this and say -- no you are not tough. This is tough."

Pieter Hugo's photo series "Hyena People of Nigeria" is the result of a ten-day trek the South African photographer took with a group of wandering minstrels and their animal companions: three hyenas, two pythons and four monkeys. Shown here: "Mallam Mantari Lamal with Mainasara, Nigeria, 2005"

Here's a snip from a "making of" interview with Hugo:

‘Last year I saw a picture on a website that was taken from a car window in Nigeria,” says Pieter Hugo. “It showed a man with a hyena on the streets of Lagos.”

Seated on a restaurant balcony overlooking Cape Town’s city bowl, the tall, athletic photographer says it was this crude photograph that motivated him to visit Nigeria. “The caption said he was a debt collector,” he continues, a glass of wine and salad placed in front of him. “The photograph really intrigued me.”

Through a local researcher Hugo was introduced to Adetokunbo Abiola, a Nigerian journalist who emailed him to say he knew of the men (there were more than one) in the picture. A few weeks later Hugo nervously exited Lagos airport on his first visit to the country."

Link. See this post on Clayton Cubitt's blog for a slew of additional links about Hugo's work.

Previously on Boing Boing: Hyenas and baboons for pets

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:49:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Security researcher quits job and blows whistle on Cisco's fatal flaws

Michael Lynn is a security researcher who worked at the security firm ISS until yesterday. Now he's under a restraining order from Cisco, arising from his disclosure of critical flaws in Cisco's routers that threaten the world's information infrastructure.

Lynn had found a buffer overflow exploit that lets an attacker take absolute control over Cisco routers. He sent the details to Cisco in April, but they still have not fully repaired the vulnerability. Since many of the world's key routers are supplied by Cisco, this means Cisco's foot-dragging places large parts of the world's information infrastructure at grave risk of collapse.

Lynn proposed to disclose this vulnerability at Black Hat, the respected Las Vegas security conference. Cisco threatened to sue, claiming they were defending their "intellectual property."

The conference and Lynn's employer agreed to yank the presentation, and Cisco employees spent eight hours ripping Lynn's research out of the printed program books before they were handed out to attendees. Lynn agreed to give a different talk.

Then, fewer than two hours before his presentation, Lynn announced his resignation from ISS. He got up on stage and delivered his original presentation. Cisco went ballistic and got a restraining order against Lynn and the conference forbidding them from further discussing this.

This SecurityFocus article is amazing -- the gutsy quotes from Lynn in particular are inspiring. This guy is my new hero.

"I feel I had to do what's right for the country and the national infrastructure," he said. "It has been confirmed that bad people are working on this (compromising IOS). The right thing to do here is to make sure that everyone knows that it's vulnerable..."

Lynn outlined a way to take control of an IOS-based router, using a buffer overflow or a heap overflow, two types of memory vulnerabilities. He demonstrated the attack using a vulnerability that Cisco fixed in April. While that flaw is patched, he stressed that the attack can be used with any new buffer overrun or heap overflow, adding that running code on a router is a serious threat.

"When you attack a host machine, you gain control of that machine--when you control a router, you gain control of the network," Lynn said...

"It is especially regretful, and indefensible, that the Black Hat Conference organizers have given Mr. Lynn a platform to publicly disseminate the information he illegally obtained," [CIsco] said in a statement. "We appreciate the cooperation we have received from ISS in this matter. We are working with ISS to continue our joint research in the area of security vulnerabilities..."

In the latest case, ISS and Lynn contacted Cisco in April to report their process for using a vulnerability in IOS to run a program on a Cisco router. The networking fixed the vulnerability in the operating system, but did nothing to prevent attackers from running programs on the devices using the broad techniques Lynn described, the researcher said.

During his presentation, Lynn outlined an eight step process using any known, but unpatched flaw, to compromise a Cisco IOS-based router. While he did not publish any vulnerabilities, Lynn said that finding new flaws would not be hard...

"What I just did means that I'm about to get sued by Cisco and ISS," Lynn said, joking later that he may be "in Guantanamo" by the end of the week...

"What politicians are talking about when they talk about the Digital Pearl Harbor is a network worm," he said. "That's what we could see in the future, if this isn't fixed."

Link (Thanks, Pablos!)

Update: James sez, "I am a source close to Mr. Lynn.

"Things to note: Lynn and ISS contacted Cisco about this vulnerability in April and it was fixed. Vulnerable versions are no longer available from Cisco. Cisco and ISS both initially support Lynn's presentation at Black Hat. Cisco had, initially, commited to sending a representative to corraborate Lynn's findings. Lynn had been planning to give this presentation since then, which was months in advance, with the consent of both ISS and Cisco.

"On Monday before the conference Cisco and ISS decided to pull the presentation with vague reasons given. This prompted the actions by Lynn on Wednesday, resignation and release.

"It is important to note and propogate that Lynn did go through the corrrect channels for release: he contacted the vendor, the vendor issued a fix. At this point, normally, public release would be allowed and expected."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:43:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fourth amendment apparel

New Yorkers who don't like the recently implemented random searches on subways might dig these t-shirts and bags bearing the text of the Fourth Amendment and "I do not consent to this search!"

Not your thing? Then check the related undies that state "I consent to this search," and solicit random acts of person-parts seizure.
Link to "nosearch" store. (Thanks, Michael)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:14:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Simnuke art show in SF Thursday 28th

The Simnuke project's art show opens tomorrow in San Francisco, promising "two powerful evenings of art and activism commemorating the 60th anniversary of the atomic bomb." Rx Gallery, July 28th - Aug 25. Link to event details.

While you're at it, check out cellist Zoe Keating's website (and CDs). She performed a song called "The Legions" (QuickTime video link) during the recent Simnuke event in the Nevada desert at which 400 gallons of recycled restaurant grease exploded in 20 seconds to create a simulated nuclear mushroom cloud. The song was lovely. Zoe says, "I layer the natural sound of the cello to create rhythmically dense musical structures. Other than sampling and repetition, I do not manipulate the sound of my acoustic cello in any way."

And Boing Boing reader Rick Abruzzo, who also participated in the desert event, says, "Here are PDFs of the posters I made for Simnuke 'cheerleaders.' If anyone wants high-resolution PDFs suitable for framing, let me know [rick at thoughtpolice dot com]." One of these graphics is shown at the top of this post. Links: PDF 1, and PDF 2.

(Thanks, Camron Assadi)

Previously on Boing Boing:
Xeni headed to Simnuke
Simnuke: snapshots
Xeni on NPR -- SIMNUKE: Having a Blast in the Nevada Desert

Reader comment: Darin says,

When I was in the US Army (mostly during the 80s and early 90s), they used a nuke simulator composed of 20 lbs of C4 and a 55 gallon drum of smoke oil. The resulting mushroom cloud accurately represented the size of a tactical nuclear weapon. Supposedly it had a real-world kill radius of a quarter mile. Not any fire, but a huge cloud of grey and white smoke. Very impressive to see. I was a casualty of this type of 'simnuke' at Ft. Chaffee, Arkansas and Ft. Irwin, California.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:13:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Shuttle makes spooky-cool Prandtl-Glauert condensation cloud

Reports say Space Shuttle Discovery's July 25 liftoff generated a Prandtl-Glauert condensation cloud (the mysterious "now-you-see-it-now-you-don't" formations sometimes observed in relation to jets in transonic flight). Link
Shown here, one such cloud on a transonic F-18A aircraft (image: US Navy, details on photo here).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:12:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Online auction for brain mapping gizmos

Positively electroencephalicious! A St. Louis-based cosignment shop is selling an electroencephalograph and a BEAM (Brain Electrical Activity Mapping) system on e-Bay. Bidding starts at $9.95, and at post time, there have been no bids for either.
Link (Thanks, Vann Hall)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:08:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Young man allowed to keep his amputated foot

Doran says: "You know someone with a name like Ezekiel Rubottom is a person to watch. Described in an E&P article as a "21-year-old artist, occasional hip-hop emcee, and recovering methamphetamine addict", Mr. Rubottom was born with a club foot.

"This summer, upon advice from his doctor, he had the foot amputated. But instead of letting the hospital dispose of the body part, he took it home and stuck it (along with a can of beer and a porcelain horse!) in a bucket of formaldehyde on his front porch.

"When a neighborhood kid told one of his parents about seeing the foot, they called the police, who in turn confiscated the foot pending an investigation. As it turns out, it's perfectly legal to keep your own body parts, so the foot was returned to Mr. Rubottom, who's already planning on giving a couple toes to friends."
Link (Link to original story)

Reader comment: Fannie says: "I wouldn’t necessarily call this a custom amongst sane people, but in some areas of the South it’s not uncommon to keep various parts that have been removed from the body.  My Aunt Sara, for instance, has an entire medicine cabinet set aside for such items as her teeth, my uncle’s teeth, his gall stones, and some other bizarre bodily items that have been around since before he died in 1984.  And I know loads of other people who do it, too, who have no history of mental illness, so I can’t just chalk it up to one kooky aunt.  No amputated parts are cruising around the family homes that I’m aware of, but it really isn’t so bad to keep a jar full of your own teeth for the kids to find and yell 'gross!' at, is it?"

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:38:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

62 year old woman found guilty of assaulting a federal aviation security staff member

Traveling Salesman says: "62 year old ex-school teacher and member of the community in a sleepy Wisconsin town, Phyllis Dintenfass was just found guilty of assaulting a federal aviation security staff member. She squeezed the breast of the security person after she claims the security person had done the same to her.

"She claims that she had made repeated verbal efforts to tell the security person that she didn't want to be felt up. When the security person said that she wasn't feeling Phyllis up, Phyllis responded, "My husband has been feeling me up for 40 years, I know what its like to be felt up".

"But...maybe the security person was right. Lets consider the other possibilities:

"1.) Phyllis was horny. she likes breasts. We all do. She saw the opportunity and she went for it.

"2.) Phyllis is a terrorist. This really seems to be the most likely scenario. The homeland is now secure thanks to the fine judgement of our people in airport security.

"I'm sure the federal prison inmates are quite worried about the threat Phyllis will pose to their safety."

[F]ederal policy required that Phyllis Dintenfass undergo a body search. As a result, she now faces imprisonment and financial ruin because of her understandable reaction. This does nothing to protect the public from terrorism, but a great deal to reinforce the idea of illimitable federal power – which is, apparently, the entire point of the "war on terrorism."

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:19:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Charles Platt in Makezine.com

Charles Platt is one of my favorite writers (Do a search on his name in the Wired magazine archives for some excellent articles he's written over the years). For Make Vol 3, Charles visited the home laboratory of Ed Storms, a retired Los Alamos scientist who is conducting cold fusion experiments in his garage. For Make's website, Charles wrote a wonderful essay about his fascination of extreme science. (Disclaimer: I'm editor-in-chief of Make)

I have an interest in "extreme science," by which I mean research at the edges of plausibility. Of course, there's a lot of self-deception and wishful thinking among researchers who are serious about, say, human cryopreservation or unconventional energy sources. On the other hand, I don't think it's wise to refuse to examine anything that stretches or violates our ideas about the way the universe works. The chance of finding a new Einstein may be as small as the chance of winning the lottery; but if you don't play, you can't win.

When MAKE asked me to write a profile, I immediately thought of a man named Ed Storms, a chemist who worked at Los Alamos for several decades before taking early retirement and setting up a garage workshop in which to study low-energy nuclear reactions, or LENR — a generic term for the field that began with so-called "cold fusion." I wondered what Ed was doing now, so I gave him a call.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:03:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Logos desafortunados

Reven says: I've found a very unfortunate logo! I've published it on my blog. It's a "Frankfurt" bar (you know, like german hotdogs...) logotype. Or is it really? Enjoy.
Link

Reader comment: Alex S. says: "Reading your post on the unfortunate logo for Amadeus frankfurters, I thought I'd point out an unfortunate road sign I came across yesterday while searching Google images for a suitable background design for a website I'm trying to piece together...looks kind of like a jugglr who fell out of a plane over the ocean and is crapping a brick before he hits the water."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:40:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New way to read on Mobile Devices

My latest column for Mobile magazine is about "rapid serial visual presentation" (RSVP for short, which displays text one word at a time on a phone or handheld screen.



When I first tried RSVP reading, I felt overwhelmed. The words flashed on the screen to the beat of an unheard drum. I felt out of control. I couldn't pause and reflect after reading a sentence. But after five minutes or so, I got used to the ocular assault, and my mind seemed to shift into a different gear. By letting go, the words started flowing smoothly into my head. Because my eyes weren't shifting back and forth as they normally do when reading, everything but the words themselves faded away, and I found that I was actually enjoying the experience.

Link

Reader comment: Chris says: "Saw your posting regarding RSVP reading on BB and thought you might find this interesting.  RSVP is a standard type of presentation used by cognitive psychologists (I'm at UCLA doing work like this).  One interesting phenomenon revealed by RSVP is repetition blindness: decreased memory for a second presentation of a repeated item (e.g., in the sentence: They wanted to play sports but sports were not allowed) in an RSVP stream at rapid rates (usually about 150 ms/word or faster).  I don't know the rates in the messaging systems, but it seems that this type of presentation creates interesting possibilities for miscommunication."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:53:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIAA: We didn't take down RPGFilms.net

Regarding this post, RIAA Director of Communications Jenni Engebretsen sez, "The RIAA has not initiated any communication or legal action against RPG Films. It appears as though someone may have found and copied an old RIAA notice and filled it in with RPG Film web site information -- regardless, the link included in this posting is not an authentic RIAA notice."

I called Jenni and asked her a few questions about this:

Q: Are forgeries like this common occurrences?

A: I can't really say -- I'd have to speak to our folks to see if this happens with any frequency. As I stated in my email, we haven't initiated any legal action of any kind.

Q: Do you plan to pursue the forgers who sent out the bogus takedown in your name?

A: I need to check into that, that's all the information I have at this point.

Q: Will you pursue a claim against RPG Films for the use of your member-companies' copyright music in the films they host?

A: We have not initiated any communication or legal action against them. Forecasting future actions is not something we do.

Q: Do you have an institutional policy on the use of your member companies' music in noncommercial fan-films made from video-games?

A: I need to check on that.

Q: That's great, thanks. I'll post this and update the post when you get back to me. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:23:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Transsexual Shaving Cream

Todd Lappin recently bought a travel-sized can of Gillette shaving gel. "Being a discriminating consumer, I was drawn to the product by its burly packaging and subtle-yet-masculine scent," he writes. Imagine his shock when the label came off the can a few weeks later, revealing the true nature of the product. See the photos for yourself. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:31:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excellent papercraft blog

Paper Forest is an excellent blog devoted to papercraft models and automata. Shown here, a working paper pipe organ that reads piano-roll-style punch-tapes. Link (Thanks, Jaime!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:18:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fastfictions -- stories based on illustrations sent in

Kevin Spenst asks people to send him illustrations and he's write a short stories inspired by them. Last week he asked me to send him one of my drawings and he wrote a story titled "Decapitated Daydreams."

"I mean we put up these ads with little robotic armed kids holding hands with Sue the Tooth or Gee-Whiz I Don't Have a Body Giraffe, but the root of all this is suffering. When I saw the Godfather and there was the scene with the decapitated horse I almost pooped my pants. I knew that I could have a whole line of animals without bodies. You zoom onto stuff like that and you'll strike it rich."

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:15:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Doll can be changed from "very slim to obese"

Designer Cristina Bisland invented an inflatable polyurethane doll called the GO-DO. Kids can inject the doll with a liquid to change the doll's body shape and size.

Today, even though they are larger than their counterparts in the 50s, children are still given 50s shaped Barbie dolls to play with. If given the opportunity to decide whether their doll was to be slim or fat, which would they choose? Would they want their doll to look like them? Should we give a child that choice?

The doll is manipulated through the injection of a liquid into its hollow body, which changes its shape from very slim to obese (and vice-versa).

Link

Reader comment: Conor says: "The linked text refers to the 50s Barbie body shape -- in fact, Barbie had a major re-do in 2000 (and thus the body is called "B2K") and today the doll is proportioned like a tall, slender woman vs. 50's bullet-boobed fembot."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:10:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photo caption contest at World of Wonder

World of Wonder is asking for readers to submit a caption for this photograph of life sized Asian dolls stacked on shelves. Note the human peeking through the shelves on the left.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:02:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

In-car pizza-oven

This in-car pizza oven is probably intended for camping trips (mmm, outdoor pizza), but I prefer to think of it being used on cross-country road-trips, as the passenger/navigator kneads, throws, dresses, and cooks a fresh, hot pizza while the driver keeps the car's nose pointed at the horizon. Link (via Red Ferret)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:06:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hello Kitty chess

Sanrio is selling an official Hello Kitty chess-set, for those of you who can't get enough kee-yoot in your intellectual pursuits. Link (via Shiny Shiny)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:56:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fan documentaries on classic theme-park rides

The Extinct Attractions Club makes fan-documentaries about classic and extinct theme-park attractions and sells them on DVD:

America Sings
historical DVD featuring interviews with Alice Davis, Marc Davis, and Jeff Burke. (History of America Sings with interviews and a look at Carousel of Progress)

The Haunted Mansion Story Vol. 1
historical DVD featuring interviews with Disney legends: X Atencio, Thurl Ravenscroft, Alice Davis and Rolly Crump on this DOUBLE DVD

Natures Wonderland (Mine Train) -Big Thunder MTN. DVD
featuring a interview with the voice of Natures Wonderland and Big Thunder as well as Alice Davis discussing the never built Western River ride and Tony Baxter on Thunder Mountain.

Mission To Mars / Flight to the Moon DVD
ride history and ride through with Alien Encounter! Plus bonus audio and more!

Link (Thanks, Patrick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:48:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

File-sharers buy more music than non-swappers

A British research outfit has determined that music file-swappers buy more music than their non-infringing peers:

Digital music research firm The Leading Question found that they spent four and a half times more on paid-for music downloads than average fans.

Rather than taking legal action against downloaders, the music industry needs to entice them to use legal alternatives, the report said.

According to the music industry, legal downloads have tripled during 2005.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:46:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steven "Everything Bad" Johnson on GTA/Hot Coffee

Steven Johnson, author of the book Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, has an open letter to Hilary Clinton about the whole GTA controversy in today's LA Times. Snip:

Dear Senator Clinton:

I'm writing to commend you for calling for a $90-million study on the effects of video games on children, and in particular the courageous stand you have taken in recent weeks against the notorious "Grand Theft Auto" series.

I'd like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids — a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.

I'm talking, of course, about high school football."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:06:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Manhattan's rugged wilderness

Brandon sez, "This blog entry from Brooklynite Charles Star details his recent adventure hiking along the rugged terrain of NYC's abandoned High Line elevated freight train line along the west side of Manhattan. The blog entry includes a link to a Flickr photoset of the views along the hike."

The current High Line is a remnant of a much larger elevated freight rail system, and it has been out of use since 1980. The trackbed provides a glimpse of what New York would look like if it were abandoned and turned over to nature.

The High Line starts at 33d Street and 12th Avenue near the MTA's Hudson Yards and runs to Gansevoort Street and Washington Avenue in the Meatpacking District. I have wanted to walk the line for years and it was exactly as much fun as I thought it would be.

Link (Thanks, Brandon!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:21:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, July 26, 2005

Digital cowbell -- HOAX? HOAX.

The Rad Monkey VLC800 is a digital cowbell that simulates the sounds of 12 popular analog cowbells through a high-quality digital signal processor. Link (via Red Ferret)

Update: A couple people have written in to claim that this is a hoax. Certainly the dealers page is suspiciously blank. (Thanks, Alex and others!)

Update 2: FZ sez, "It's indeed a hoax. It's hilarious, if you get the joke. The page with the detailed description of the modeled cowbells is a clever parody of the user manuals of Line6 products, a company that produces digital guitar amplifiers. They're downloadable at line6.com if you're curious, and double as pretty great primers of the history of electric guitar amplification."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:55:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Drawing on kerbside trash

This UK artist is tagging and doddling on kerbside garbage, creating impromptu, ephemeral illustration exhibits. Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:30:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Santorum on the Daily Show

Here's a Windows Media Video file of Senator Rick "Wingnut Homophobe" Santorum getting a remarkably cushy treatment on The Daily Show.

Santorum: No, no. Again, what's society's purpose in marriage? Society's purpose - the reasons civilizations have held up marriage is because they want to establish and support and secure the relationship that is in the best interest of the future of the society, which is, a man and a woman having children and providing the stability for those children to be raised in the future.

Stewart: Wouldn't you say though and with that same thing and I completely agree, although I always thought the purpose of marriage was a bachelor party but that's beside the point. (laughter) But wouldn't you say that society has an interest in understanding that the homosexual community also wants to form those same bonds and raise children and wouldn't a monogamous, good-hearted, virtuous homosexual couple be in society's best interest raising a child rather than a heterosexual couple with adultery, with alcohol issues, with other things, and by the way, I don't even need to make that sound as though a gay couple can only raise a child given failures in other couples.

Link (via Salon)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:28:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canadian telco that blocked union websites is breaking all kinds of laws

Following up on our post about one of Canada's largest telco/ISPs blocking access to sites put up by its striking/locked-out (depends on who you ask) union, Michael Geist has posted an excellent legal analysis of all the different rules, regs and laws that Telus -- the telco/ISP in question -- is breaking by cutting off access to websites that criticize it:

The Telecommunications Act contains at least two provisions that appear relevant. Section 27(2) provides that "No Canadian carrier shall, in relation to the provision of a telecommunications service or the charging of a rate for it, unjustly discriminate or give an undue or unreasonable preference toward any person, including itself, or subject any person to an undue or unreasonable disadvantage." It seems to me that a compelling case could be made that Telus is unjustly discriminating against this particular website, which puts the site at a disadvantage. In fact, Telus argued that this is precisely what the provision does during the CRTC's VoIP hearings. As part of the CRTC analysis on whether it should prohibit packet preferencing, it notes that Telus argued against a prohibition, submitting to the CRTC that it "retained the subsection 27(2) prohibition on unjust discrimination." Moreover, Telus "submitted that it had committed not to do anything to deliberately degrade the service experienced by an end-user of any access-independent VoIP service."

Section 36 is even more on point. It provides that "except where the Commission approves otherwise, a Canadian carrier shall not control the content or influence the meaning or purpose of telecommunications carried by it for the public." This appears to directly address the current situation as Telus is in fact controlling the content carried by it for the public.

Link (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:14:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Citizen's guide to refusing NYC subway-searches

Chris242 sez, "With the heightened paranoia-- er I mean security in NYC, people with large bags or packages are now being told to submit to random searches in order to use the MTA public transit system. This site has a flyer which tells you what your rights are, and gives advice on how to refuse a search safely."

Again, it is illegal for police to search, detain, or question you just because you refuse a search. But if the police proceed to detain, search, or arrest you despite your wishes -- do not physically resist. You may state clearly but non-confrontationally: "Officer, I am not resisting and I do not consent to any searches."

Link (Thanks, Chris242!)

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

Damning Sony payola memos: "I'm a whore this week"

Paul sez, "60-page PDF of letters and emails among major labels and stations negotiating pay-for-play deals of the sort for which Sony agreed to pay a $10M settlement yesterday. Highlights: Epic lists exact payouts for 75 spins based on size of market. Quotes: 'I'm a whore this week, what can I say?' 'Get a power rotation commitment before we commit.' 'Don't want to position Duran Duran with an 80's club ... they are still just as relevant in 2004.' And of course the inevitable 'Sent from my Blackberry Wireless Handheld.'" It's awesome: this lists DJ after DJ who accepting paltry little tchotchkes in exchange for their integrity and mortal souls. They're not just whores, they're cheap whores. 1.1MB PDF Link (Thanks, Paul!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:09:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIAA shuts down machinima site -- UPDATED

Update: The RIAA claims that the takedown notice was forged.

RPGFilms was a website that hosted tons of machinima videos made with video-game engines. One popular machinima genre is the music video, in which a machinima artist synchs action recorded from a game to a piece of popular music.

Now the Recording Industry Association of America has had RPGFlims shut down because they argue that these "songs files" (not MP3s you understand, but humorous videos made by fans who in no way substitute for purchasing the songs) infringe their members' copyrights.

Under the US fair use doctrine, a court can find a use fair if it can be shown that the use doesn't interfere with the rightsholder's income. I think that's pretty clearly the case here: no one who downloads a machinima video of a bunch of Wookies getting down to "Surfin' Bird" is going to say, "Well, hell, now that I've got this, no need to buy the CD."

The use of music in fan-films can only be beneficial to the rightsholder's interests, and permitting that use can only be beneficial to society. Watching the RIAA commit slow, spectacular suicide by taking down the fan art that celebrates, advertises and raises awareness of its members' products, well, it's flabbergasting.

What a bunch of tools. Link (Thanks, Nick!)

Update: Michelle sez, "An MMORPG player has started a petition against the RIAA for shutting down rpgfilms. 451 people have signed it so far."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:56:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Phil Zimmerman to debut VOIP encryption tech Thursday

At the Black Hat Briefings event in Vegas this Thursday, PGP godfather Phil Zimmerman is expected to present a prototype system for encrypting VOIP phone calls:

Like PGP and PGPfone, which he created as human rights tools for people around the world to communicate without fear of government eavesdropping, Zimmermann hopes his new program will restore some of the civil liberties that have been lost in recent years and help businesses shield themselves against corporate espionage.

Here's the Wired News story, Here's the CNET piece.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:13:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Shoot someone? Not Smith & Wesson's fault. Copy a movie? Grokster's fault

Good stuff from Daily Koz.

Regarding Grokster:

"We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties," Justice Souter wrote.

Regarding guns:

Senate Republicans on Tuesday moved the National Rifle Association's top priority ahead of a $491 billion defense bill, setting up a vote on legislation to shield firearms manufacturers and dealers from lawsuits over gun crimes.

"The president believes that the manufacturer of a legal product should not be held liable for the criminal misuse of that product by others," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan.

[Senator Larry] Craig said such lawsuits are "predatory and aimed at bankrupting the firearms industry," unfairly blaming dealers and manufacturers for the crimes of gun users.

Link (thanks, Earl!)

Reader comment: Paul says: "I have to point out that: The actual point in the Supreme Court decision quoted in the recent post 'Shoot someone? Not Smith & Wesson’s fault. Copy a movie? Grokster’s fault' is in fact the text that isn’t highlighted with a bold typeface.

"It would be tragic to give people the impression that what was quoted is in any way negative by using ctrl + b on two sections of text, because the classy way to do such a thing, and the usual way to detect purposeful neglect, is to simply remove what you don’t like with an ellipsis.

"The ignored and obviously overlooked part reads 'with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement.' Relate that to gun manufacturers and we would hope, and pray, that anyone who sells a gun that is advertised (promoted) as '… well suited for killing your cheating spouse…' would be liable for any one using it for the purpose of killing some one, and if Ford advertised a F150 as 'Great for getting away from the cops after robbing a bank' they would be liable as well. We could add such obviousness to nearly anything: 'our pillows are designed to be 25% more efficient in smothering some one!' or 'Our toilet paper is much better for toilet papering some one’s house!'"

Cory replies: Paul's comments on the Inducement doctrine for Grokster are a little incomplete. The inducement doctrine handed down by the court attaches liability to someone who advertises a technology for a purpose that is later to be held infringing. There's no way to know, a priori, whether a use will be held to be infringing. Therefore, any technology that is advertised for a use that has not previously been litigated has massive liability under Grokster. For example, Sony advertised the VCR as useful for both time-shifting and librarying: the court only found that time-shifting was legal. If librarying is found to be illegal -- say, in a case that's litigated next year -- it makes Sony and everyone else who's advertised librarying as a feature liable under Grokster. Current technologies that advertise uses that haven't been found to be noninfringing include the Slingbox ("space- shifting"), the Promise TV (capturing the entire multiplex and buffering it for 30 days), mythtv (commercial skipping), iTunes/ WinAmp/Windows Media Player (ripping CDs), and many others.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:36:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New photos of kids from 1971 Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory

Orin says: "The link included is to a weblog of my friend Jason:"

I came across a Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory fan site today which featured scans of polaroids taken of the five children from the 1971 film, all grown up.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:45:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The future is here.

Link to an image which may require a unicorn chaser. (via Warren, NSFW, unsuitable for readers with impressionable retinas).

Reader comment: Shannon Larratt says,

That photo is actually a BME picture, although Davelog appears to have edited out my logo/URL/copyright note. He has a bonus gallery on BME/HARD... The person in that photo is a very cool guy that's just posing like that for a lark. He is however into some very kinky play in real life (deep chest play piercing, sometimes even deep enough that the needle rested against his heart and shifted with his heartbeat) and is interviewed in my new book (probably be out in January).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:19:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Logogle.com creates Googloid logos instantly

Here's what "BoingBoing" looks like after the Google-fying website has had its way with our character string. Link
(Thanks, Pete Quily)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:24:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ron Jeremy reality TV show coming to ABC?

ABC is said to be exploring the possibility of a reality television show with adult film star Ron Jeremy, according to this AVN article. Link (via Warren Ellis)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:38:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google Maps hack: Cell Phone Tower Search

FCC registration information on cell towers plus Google maps equals a searchable, interactive map of cell tower sites to answer the question, "Why can't I get better reception at my house?" Link (Thanks, Scott)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:37:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ice cream cups cash in on Toilet Bowl restaurant craze

Dan Bloom says: "You've read about the toilet-bowl theme restaurant in southern Taiwan, reported widely around the world by the news services a few weeks ago.

"The restaurant was so popular among Taiwanese diners, young and old, that the owners opened up a second joint in what they hope will become an islandwide chain, with some franchises eventually in Hong Kong and Japan. Los Angeles or New York? Never!

"Now comes eyewitness news of a small operation in one of south Taiwan's night markets in Chiayi City, where a pretty woman runs a "squat toilet cup ice cream" dispenser on one of the main shopping streets in town. Passersby have their choice of chocolate or vanilla soft ice cream that is dispensed into light-green squat toilet-shaped plastic cups, seen here, all for a very affordable NT$25, which comes to about 75 cents in American money."
Link

Previous mentions of Toilet Bowl restaurant here and here Reader comment: Dan Bloom says: "MORE ice cream toilet pics."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:25:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interview with Rocketo creator Frank Espinosa

Here's an interview with Frank Espinnosa, the creator of the Rocketo comic book I mentioned (but have not yet seen) a couple of days ago.

Newsarama: The main character's name is Rocketo Garrison. Issue #1 starts at his small beginning as a young boy. Can you tell us what he's like?

Frank Espinosa: Before his compass lights, Rocketo is much like any other young boy, except that he has this incredible genetic gift that makes his natural sense of curiosity ten fold.. So he reads tons of books on old myths and explorers, he asks tons of questions, and loves to explore the small Island where he is born.

We get to see how he spends his time with his parents, and how he gets to learn certain values that will help him later on in his Journeys. Because the Rocketo series is a long saga of this explorer's life, I wanted to start with his youth and work my way to Rocketo as an older man. The last journey, called Rocketo: Journey to ULTAMO takes place when Rocketo is in his late fifties, maybe even a bit older. So I wanted the audience to understand this character from start to finish. As the stories progress there will be more flashbacks to his youth and his friends on the island where he grew up. Right now it's broad strokes to get him moving and ready for Journey to the Hidden Sea.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:18:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fourteen ways to die in Shanghai

English translation of a controversial, internet-propagated map that lists places and methods for bumping yourself off in Shanghai.

# Huichunji pharmacy sells sleeping pills.
# Suzhou Creek is uncovered.
# The #57 bus goes directly to the zoo. You can jump into a tiger’s mouth and die.
# Cars under the Yan’an Road viaduct drive very fast. Accidents happen often.
# Fuxing Park — hanging yourself is simple among the tall, close trees.
# Wang’s Tofu Stand — crush yourself with a piece of tofu.

Link (Thanks, Joe)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:15:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy

I'm probably biased because Leonard Martin is both a ukulele player and Max Fleischer fan, but I consider him to be one of the most intelligent and trustworthy movie reviewers around. I didn't think to look for Maltin's website, Movie Crazy, until I read about it on Cartoon Brew. The "Leonard's Picks" page has reviews of his favorite current films, newly released DVDs, and books about movies and cartoons. When you see his DVD and book choices you'll quicklu realize Maltin loves old Hollywood, which is another reason I like him so much.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:00:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Erotic photog Nitke loses legal fight against Ashcroft / CDA

Fleshbot says,

Bad news from the front lines of the War on Pornography, at least where our side is concerned: after a nine month trial in which New York-based fetish photographer Barbara Nitke and the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom attempted to challenge certain provisions of the 1996 Communications Decency Act, a federal appeals panel yesterday ruled against the plaintiffs and “refused to find unconstitutional a law making it a crime to send obscenity over the Internet to children”, according to the Associated Press (as if forcing her material onto children over the internet was part of Nitke’s agenda in the first place).

Link. Image: Athena Starr in Piggies, Barbara Nitke

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:37:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Space Shuttle launches successfully

Space shuttle Discovery climbed from Earth to space today, launching seven humans on NASA’s first orbit mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster. Space.com is among the many sites offering coverage, and here is a story from the New York Times' John Schwartz: Link.
Image: Reuters, Charles W. Luzier

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

Tom Forsythe's Food Chain Barbie Photographs

Link to a gallery of photos by Tom Forsythe which feature nude and de-limbed Barbies in a variety of food-related tableaus. These images were the subject of a legal battle between Forsythe and the doll's maker, Mattel, which ultimately left the photographer free and thankfully not "saddled with over $2 million in battle costs," according to a statement on his website:

"That's how much legal tender it took before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote a scathing opinion that called Mattel's case against me potentially ‘unreasonable and frivolous.' From the time Mattel sued me on August 24, 1999 up until that December 29, 2003 decision, the case always seemed unreasonable, while the difficulty was finding a way to prove that in court without going bankrupt. Not that Mattel, who uses attorneys who send mock hand grenades to potential clients with the tag line ‘we'll go to war for you', would actually use that as a legal strategy..."
(thanks, Violet!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:54:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More interesting condom ad graphics

Slacker sperm, remixed Maoist propaganda, and this macabre reminder of what unsafe sex can lead to are among the images you'll see in this collection of unusual condom ads. Link (Thanks, Stanley/sexoteric blog)

Boing Boing reader M.C. adds,

You may also be interested in my favorite brand of Taiwanese condom, O'Mr. Skin Chapeau, with a charming illustration of a coupla swingin' 8 yr olds on the package.

Previously on Boing Boing: Japanese condom packaging art

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:46:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Make your own Game of Life out of paper

If you have the time, patience, and ability to understand Japanese, you can make your own Game of Life out of paper by downloading the PDF cut-outs from this Japanese site.
Link (via Bibi's Box)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:04:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

John Lennon and Yoko Ono on Mike Douglas Show in 1972

In 1972, John Lennon and Yoko Ono had a stint as guest hosts on the Mike Douglas Show. Rhino released a DVD box VHS tape set of the episodes in 1998. Here's an excellent review of the shows from WFMU's beware of the blog.

Chuck Berry is famous for not using a touring band and hooking up with different ad hoc local groups everywhere he plays. And sometimes the results are less than inspiring– like the jumped up mess that was heard that day on the set of the Mike Douglas show. Lennon and Berry seem to be singing in different keys, the band sounds like it’s playing another song. Instead of a great rock moment, it’s three and a half minutes of atonal boogie.

But what makes watching the video of this performance so wonderful, and what has led me to watch it over and over again, is Yoko. During some random boogie moments Yoko grabs a nearby microphone and lets loose with some spirited Yoko-style caterwauling. It’s SO wrong that I almost can't believe it’s going to happen again every time I watch the video. A few times Mr. Berry’s eyes almost pop out of his head as his roots rock classic is injected with kooky downtown performance art on national television. One online critic describes the look on Berry’s face “as if somebody just poured an ice-cold beverage down his pants.” It’s that good.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:55:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Game-modder rips into anti-modder US politicos

A game-modder has published a stirring broadside about the public outcry over the pornographic sequences that could be viewed in Grand Theft Auto: San Adreas using the Hot Coffee mod. From the title ("The Founding Fathers roll over in their graves as a new witch-hunt against the First Amendment is launched") on, it's a rip-snortin' read:

The primary difference between the retail version of the game and that of the modded version is that the above content has simply been rearranged and intensified by the consumers. By using the logic that this content was illegally "hidden", one could just as easily claim that any R rated movie has covertly crossed the limits of decency because the end-user could very well pause their DVD player on a scene containing nudity, thus exceeding the length of such scenes by which the MPAA decides whether a film is to be classified as R or NC-17. The same could be said of even a PG-13 rated movie which contains brief nudity.

Perhaps what is most absurd about the accusations against both Rockstar Games and the gaming industry, is that those making the allegations seem to have no idea how the technology they're condemning works. Had they done even a moment's worth of research, they would discover that the online mod community for GTA:SA (and many other PC games) is not only capable of recycling various fragments of game code and art to create new scenes for the game, but we do it all the time. If Senator Hillary Clinton, Leeland Yee, Dr. David Walsh, et al, were to give even a cursory glance at the websites which published the Hot Coffee mod, they would see that it is but one of thousands of modifications made by users which create new game play scenarios using the existing assets. Given the very nature of the interactive digital medium, an industrious "modder" could within minutes create things far "worse" than Hot Coffee if they so desired simply by swapping a few items and lines of code about. Then, on top of just shifting around pre-existing assets, it is also quite easy and common for players to create entirely new content from scratch.

Link (Thanks, Gavin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:52:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Homebrew model Star Wars ships that ACTUALLY FLY

These radio-controlled aircraft hackers have modded a bunch of home-made Star Wars spaceship models so that they actually fly. Pictured here, a flying Millennium Falcon. Also on the site, build notes for X-Wings, TIE fighters, and numerous other space-ships. Link (Thanks, Morgan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:27:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geekiest comic strip ever

Everybody Loves Eric Raymond is a funny, geeky comic strip sitcom about a group apartment in which, inexplicably, Richard Stallman, Linus Torvalds and Eric Raymond are all roommates. The jokes are ALL free/open source software in-jokes, but they're often very funny, and the idea gets tons of bonus points for being so stupendously weird and well-executed. Link (via AccordionGuy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:23:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Californians: Support appropriate limits on RFIDs in state ID!

California's Assembly is considering a bill called the Identity Information Protection Act (SB 682) that would limit the use of radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags in state-issued identification. The bill is very sensible: it doesn't reject RFIDs in ID, but it does require that they be limited to transmitting encrypted identifiers, that they be under the user's control, and that the owner of the ID be informed about the risks of RFID-enabled identification (there's a good explanation of this on the ACLU's factsheet).

Numerous California civil liberties organizations have formed up behind the bill, including EFF and the ACLU, and the bill passed the senate with flying colors. But now a bunch of industry types who hoped to sell their RFID technology to the state are lobbying hard in the Assembly to kill the bill. We're looking for California residents to send letters to their state reps expressing support for the bill as well.

The alternative is pretty Orwellian: imagine a state full of ID cards that can be read without your knowledge or permission, containing arbitrary facts about your identity and personal life. I like knowing that my ID stays in my wallet unless I take it out -- don't you?

Would the government want to know where you are at all times? Would an identity thief or a kidnapper be interested in the personal information contained in your driver's license or your child's school identity card? Unfortunately, the same technology used by businesses to track inventory could be used by the government to track people in California.

"Tag and Track" devices known as RFID's (Radio Frequency Identification tags) are being considered for use in government documentation like drivers' licenses, K-12 student ID cards, medical cards, benefit cards, and library cards.

Fortunately, The Identity Information Protection Act (SB 682), authored by Senator Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto), would prohibit the inclusion of RFID tags in these mass distributed identification cards. It will also ensure that any other state-issued cards that contain RFID tags use strong encryption and authentication, and broadcast very little personal information.

EFF Action Center, ACLU Action Center (Thanks, Nicole!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:19:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hi-tech cop: cantennas are illegal to possess -- UPDATED

In this scare-mongering article from the Sacramento Bee about people who use open WiFi networks, a cop from the Sacramento Valley Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force makes a remarkable statement about homemade WiFi antennas:

Last month in Elk Grove, a high-school student faced eight felony computer-theft charges for allegedly hacking into his school's computer system and changing his grades.

When police searched his home, they found aluminum-lined, cylindrical potato-chip containers that some hackers use as crude antennas to help them intercept wireless signals.

Known as "cantennas," they consist of a Pringles can and some hardware worth $5 to $10 but can be used to amplify a wireless signal several miles away.

"They're unsophisticated but reliable, and it's illegal to possess them," said Lozito of the Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force.

Then the reporter goes on to note:

It's also illegal to access wireless networks that aren't public. In other words, if you've ever been pleasantly surprised to open your laptop, pull up your browser and have Internet access, that likely means you've just intruded into someone else's unsecured network — and really aren't allowed to be there.

Huh? I'm not sure which law-book these two are reading, but this is simply not true. If there are cops from a "Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force" in Sacramento who think that making your own WiFi antenna is illegal, I think the Bee and other papers should be covering it, to be sure, but not because it's true: because it's a shockingly stupid and dangerous thing for a cop to believe, especially one who is billed as some kind of high-tech specialist.

Likewise, I'm not sure who told this reporter that accessing an open wireless network is illegal, but again, it's not true. There are certainly circumstances where doing so is illegal, and others where it's perfectly legal (for an unambiguous example of the latter, consider what happens if both you and your neighbor have a network called "linksys." When you're in the front of your house, you're closer to your AP than his, so your laptop connects to your AP. When you go to the back bedroom, your computer seamlessly and transparently flips to your neighbor's network. This isn't lawbreaking: it's standards-compliant behavior.)

I hope the Bee does a followup on this story where civil liberties get their due. Link (Thanks, Owlswan!)

Update: I just had a brief phone conversation with Lt Lozito of the Hi-Tech Crimes Task Force. He's a pretty reasonable guy. He says he doesn't remember if he said that cantennas are illegal, but he affirms that he doesn't believe that they are. He suggested that he thought that in some cases of computer intrusion, convicted offenders should have their access to devices limited as a condition of parole, but that he didn't believe that cantennas are illegal, and he also doesn't think it's illegal to access open wireless networks -- except when this is done for illegal purposes. He's apparently fielded a lot of calls on the subject and I suggested that he post a statement about this before he gets slashdotted. I hope he does -- I'll link to it here when and if.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:08:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How Craigslist changed NYC

This great New York Metro article encapsulates many of the changes that Craigslist has wrought on NYC, from escort services to apartment brokers to reality TV to human subjects research:

It Helped Set Off the Vintage-Furniture Craze
Is it coincidence that Craigslist's ascendancy dovetailed with the rise of midcentury-modern mania? "It's like a giant yard sale," says Andrew Eutsler of Cosmo's Cosmos furniture shop in Brooklyn, whose best finds include six Saarinen tulip chairs for $75. And it's not just midcentury stuff. An employee at Steven Sclaroff in the West Village tried in vain to snag a mahogany T. H. Robsjohn-Gibbings chest for $15. (A refinished one at the store costs $3,225.) "People don't know what they've got, and then it's gone," says Eutsler. But sellers are wising up. A few years ago, he slipped and told some how happy he was to get such a great deal. They raised prices on the spot. Buyers also realized better deals can be had from Eames-era grandmas with DSL. Craigslist's a "threat," admits David "Jake" Jacobs, of Two Jakes in Williamsburg. It "probably has blown the bubble on things that we as retailers could've gotten more money for."

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:00:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, July 25, 2005

Signage at Walt Disney World photos

This gallery of signage at Walt Disney World really highlights the amazing design flourishes and typography at work in the theme park. Link (via The Disney Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:57:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Starbugs: Taiwanese bug boutique with knockoff branding

The "Starbucks Knockoff" post series spirals ever downward. It began in the faux-franchises of Addis Abbaba, then slummed in Starbutts and Starfucks. Now, this new low: a beetle emporium with appropriated Starbusoid branding.

Boing Boing reader Roy Berman says:

"Your posts prompted me to post a couple of photos I had laying around from the insect-only petshop Starbugs, located in a sort of riverside entertainment zone in Danshui, just north of Taipei."

Link. Careful, if these green crawlies are doing what I think they're doing, this photo set is totally NSFW.
Previously on Boing Boing: Starbucks clones of the world, including sex-themed variants; Starbucks knockoff in Ethiopia

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:43:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Response to werenotafraid.com = iamfuckingterrified.com

A pragmatic parody of the much-publicized "werenotafraid" website invites the world to "join us in showing the world how shit-scared we are."

Link
(Thanks, Sean Bonner)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:37:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Japanese condom packaging art

Cute monkeys, turtles, and walrii abound in this odd gallery of label graphics from condom packages in Japan. I'm not sure what Kit Sack: Two Pieces really means, but it looks happy enough. Link, via this Fleshbot post with related urls.

Reader comment: The mystery of Kit Sack has been solved. Jeff Youngstrom says,

As I'm sure a million BoingBoing readers are about to tell you, "Kit Sack" is a pun on the Kit Kat chocolate cookie candy -- Link (there's a gallery of the candy wrappers at the bottom of the page). Incidentally, Kit Kats are made by Hershey in the US and Nestle everywhere else. The Nestle version is way better. Fortunately I live close to Canada.

Boing Boing reader Ben adds,

The Kit Kat marketing tagline could even work for Kit Sack: "...a simple treat that complements your lighthearted, positive approach to life."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:21:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

David Rowan on the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles

In June I wrote about an excellent Radar article on "Hollywood's hottest cult," the Kabbalah Centre in Los Angeles.

Davis Rowan, who writes for the London Times, says "Rav Berg's people have been worrying the Brits too -- here's my investigation for the London Times (I've been trailing them since 2002)."

[Rabbi] Berg's teachings, too, have angered more traditional Kabbalah scholars, particularly his claim that anyone can "read" these ancient Aramaic or Hebrew texts simply by scanning their eyes or fingers over the pages. Still, the promised benefits are an impressive selling point (with courses starting at £151): Kabbalah can make you rich, cure illness and help you find true love. "You'll learn how to harness the Light of the Creator to get what money can't buy - including more money," its literature claims. "You'll learn how to... find the perfect mate, how to remove illness from your life, and even before illness strikes, prevent it. You'll also learn about a precise technique that can methodically reverse the ageing process and prolong life."

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:05:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Snowboarding's for pussies -- try lava sledding.

Hawaiian native Tom "Pohaku" Stone is reviving the 2,000-year-old tradition of lava sledding, or he'e holua. Don't try this at home. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:52:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: pixel push zen

map of washington, d.c. | pixelgala | pixelbot | favicons | alphabet of blog favicons | pixel moon | city creator | what if | a guide to pixel art |
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

Reader comment: Paul Bragiel says,

gfxzone has some of the best pixel art from the demo scene going back from c64 through amiga onto the pc. Check out the 8bit galleries especially... some amazing stuff in there.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:47:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WSJ on adult-themed podcasts in Apple's iTunes

The controversial matter of adult-themed fare within iTunes podcast offerings is the subject of a recent Wall Street Journal piece. Among those interviewed: sex blogger Violet Blue.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:41:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Herbert's new album explores politics, science of food

Snip from an interview in the Guardian:

'Music sounds so wrong at the moment," says Matthew Herbert, sitting outside a pub near his London studio. People who hear his new album, Plat du Jour, may well agree with him. One of the tracks features the sound of Herbert driving a Chieftain tank over a re-creation of the meal Nigella Lawson prepared for Bush and Blair, when the US president came over to thank Tony for his support over Iraq. Plat du Jour also features 80,000 chicks, 3,255 people biting into apples, and a track made from "one crystal of beet sugar and a coke can" (...)

Herbert's research for the album also included a trip down the London sewers with his microphone. "It was like Ghostbusters. Late one night I got a call on my mobile. 'We're on,' said a man." He gave Herbert a location, turned up there in a van, gave Herbert a special suit and snuck him down a manhole in the early hours of the morning. "All to record the sound of your shit, you see?" I am stuck, just for a second, with the image of a singing poo.

Link to complete text. Also, check the album website -- Link. Specifically, be sure to go through the "Making Of" links. Your jaw will drop. Image: Herbert capturing audio from a little chickie, and here are more photos. (Thanks, Michael Donaldson aka Qburns Abstract Message!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:28:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Starbucks clones of the world, including sex-themed variants

Following up on last week's post about a Starbucks knockoff in Addis Abbaba, reader Jason Gull says,

I ran across this Starbucks knockoff in Santiago, Chile - not only is the sign's font and color virtually the same, but the fern-bar-with- coffee decor is a dead-ringer for the dreaded 'Bucks as well. (Come to think of it, the entire neighborhood of Las Condes looks like it could have been transplanted from suburban Virginia or Dallas or Sacramento.) Situated not far from the U.S. embassy, apparently the continued non-ceasing and non-desisting of this place occasionally causes a bit of a stink in discussions of IP in Chile. A "real" Starbucks just opened down the street, so perhaps the sparks of litigation will soon fly. Both places are going to have a tough time competing with Santiago's somewhat notorious "cafes con piernas," which translates to "cafes with legs," but might better be described as "caffeinated Hooters." These places, and this country, are not known for great coffee.

Previously: Starbucks knockoff in Ethiopia

Reader comment: S. Melmoth says,

There are numerous Starbucks-esque knockoffs in Korea, including Prowstar, for one. But since they merely serve coffee, that's all quite boring compared to.... the sex-related knockoffs!

There's Starbutts, and better yet, Starfucks! Notice... it's better than porno... It's prono.

And Boing Boing reader Manish Vij adds,

India's knockoff of Starbucks is called Barista. It's very popular, but it's not an exact copy: the colors are blue and orange, and several locations have a guitar you can pick up and play. Link

Ian says,

We saw a "USABucks" coffee house with a starbucks-esque logo in Harbin, China. This link shows my friend Keisuke getting his pose on in front of it. There is something brutally honest about a name like USA Bucks.

(Ed. note: I could swear the sign to the far left reads "WESTERN STYLE FOOBAR," but I'm pretty sure "food bar" is the intent.)

Reader Michael says,

This is a snapshot I took of a fake starbucks -- "starblack coffee" -- in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:02:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bollywood's Good Girls Learn to Be Bad

Snip from New York Times article about the trend toward open sexual assertiveness of female characters in Bollywood movies:

[Priyanka Chopra] is a Bollywood actress, and as such, trained to play the role of a virginal glam-doll, not a sexual aggressor. By tradition, a Bollywood heroine is a one-dimensional creation who may wear eye-popping bustiers or writhe passionately during a song in the rain. But she is unfailingly virtuous. Whether girlfriend, wife or mother, she is the repository of Indian moral values. In the ancient epic "Ramayana," the hero Lakshman draws a furrow in the earth, the Line of Lakshman, which represents the limits of proper feminine behavior, and requests that his sister-in-law Sita not step outside it. As if heeding his exhortation, Bollywood heroines have rarely stepped out of line, even for a kiss.

But a decade-long cultural churning has overturned stereotypes in India. In 1991, the threat of fiscal collapse forced the government to introduce wide-ranging economic reforms and allow multinational corporations to operate in India. The same year, satellite television arrived. Today, consumerism, globalization, the proliferation of semiclad bodies in print and television, and the emergence of a more worldly audience have redefined the boundaries of what is permissible. Sex has been pulled out of the closet and actors have become more willing to experiment with their images. The latest Bollywood heroines seem to be taking a page out of Mae West's book: when they are good, they are very good, but when they are bad, they're better.

Link (Thanks, Jonno) Photo: Priyanka Chopra and Ashkay Kumar in Aitraaz, credit: Mukta Arts.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:29:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photo gallery of allegedly legal public breast-barers in NYC

Photog and Boing Boing pal Siege says, "Did you know it's supposed to be legal to be publicly topless in New York? Here's what it might look like if more women, umm, exercised their rights."
Link to gallery of photos by Jordan Matter depicting bare-breasted women throughout Manhattan. Link to some related case law.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:09:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Portrait of the hacker as a young Fujitsu ad

This one goes out to all the ladiez in the house. Jake Appelbaum shot this portrait of a fellow hunky hacker pal clad solely in a Fujitsu P2120. "He's packing a super fast Crusoe processer under the hood," says the photographer.

Link.

Previously: E3 Snapshots for NPR by Jake Appelbaum, Xeni portraits, shot by Jake Appelbaum

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:53:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kevin Sites nominated for an Emmy

Blogger and combat correspondent Kevin Sites has been nominated for an Emmy award. Link to details.

Previously: Kevin Sites responds on Falluja shooting video via his blog, Kevin Sites interview on NPR Tuesday

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:46:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

1906 auto-guide to LA crossed with Google Maps

Mack sez, "Most people who buy nifty old books look at them a few times and shelve them so they can gather more dust. Dave Bullock found a 1906 electric coach tour guide of downtown Los Angeles, scanned and uploaded the vintage photogravure images, then constructed Google Maps mashups showing the location of the 1906 tour's landmarks with photos of how those buildings look today. Neat to see how much has changed, and which buildings still stand in downtown L.A." Link (Thanks, Mack!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:29:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Microsoft nukes Apple headquarters in new satellite map service

As seen using Microsoft Earth (left), Apple's Cupertino headquarters looks like its been bombed to rubble. Compare with Google Maps (right) Google Maps Link Microsoft Earth Link (thanks, Jim!)

Reader comment: Tom Robinson says: "Regarding the article about Microsoft "nuking" Apple's headquarters, it appears their satellite photos are simply very out of date. Many of surrounding buildings are different as well."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:25:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Laser sighted pencil launcher

Officeguns.com has instructions for making a laser sighted pencil shooter out of ordinary office supplies.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:18:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prisoner finds finger in meal, files lawsuit

An inmate at Pelican Bay State Prison in California found a human fingertip in his food and is suing the company that made the frozen meal. The company that makes the meals, G.A. Food Services, explained that the 3/4-inch fingertip belonged to one of its employees, who lost the finger while cleaning a machine on the assembly line last July.

At the time of the accident at the Florida plant, a department manager mistakenly thought all flesh had been flushed from the machine, the letter said. When workers couldn't find the fingertip, they assumed it had been washed down the drain. In the March 29 letter, included in the lawsuit, quality assurance director Frank Curto apologized for the "foreign object that was found in one of our frozen entrees" and "any inconveniences that were incurred as a result of this incident."

The prisoner, Felipe Rocha, who is serving time in an isolation cell for importing drugs (seven years), assault with a firearm (15 years), and assault while in prison (eight years) wants "at least $75,000 in damages" says his lawyer.

The entree at issue was served March 20 and supposed to be a "special vegetarian, soft diet meal," for Rocha, who practices Buddhism in prison and has dental problems, Merin said. "That was what was unusual to him. As he was eating the cornbread, he chomped into something that appeared to be a cashew nut, tried to chew it, then took it out of his mouth."

Link (via DiVERSiONZ)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:31:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Is Your Printer Spying On You?

Donna Wentworth says: "Could your color laser printer be automatically including a secret fingerprint in every page so that what you print could be used to trace the document back to you?

"While it sounds like something from an episode of "Alias," the scenario isn't fictional. "

In an effort to identify counterfeiters, the US government has succeeded in persuading some color laser printer manufacturers to encode each page with identifying information. That means that without your knowledge or consent, an act you assume is private could become public. A communication tool you're using in everyday life could become a tool for government surveillance. And what's worse, there are no laws to prevent abuse. ... The ACLU recently issued a report revealing that the FBI has amassed more than 1,100 pages of documents on the organization since 2001, as well as documents concerning other non-violent groups, including Greenpeace and United for Peace and Justice. In the current political climate, it's not hard to imagine the government using the ability to determine who may have printed what document for purposes other than identifying counterfeiters. Your freedom to speak anonymously is in danger. Yet there are no laws to stop the Secret Service -- or for that matter, any other governmental agency or private company -- from using printer codes to secretly trace the origin of non-currency documents. We're unaware of any printer manufacturer that has a privacy policy that would protect you, and no law regulates what people can do with the information once it's turned over. And that doesn't even reach the issue of how such a privacy-invasive tool could be developed and implemented in printers without the public becoming aware of it in the first place.

"EFF is investigating further, but we need more data before we can do anything more to protect your privacy. We're asking you to help out by printing and sending us test sheets from your printer and/or your local print shop." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:15:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Promise TV -- PVR records a month's worth of shows from all channels

Of all the amazing and wonderful things I saw this weekend at London's OpenTech conference, none came close to the stupendous Promise TV box. This is a home-built personal video recorder made out of commodity PC components (primarily a LOT of high-capacity hard-drives).

What the Promise does is grab the entire broadcast TV multiplex -- all the channels being broadcast in the UK -- slices them up according to the free, over-the-air electronic programming guide, and stores an entire month's worth. Why program a TiVo to get certain shows for you when you can record every single show on the air, all at once, and then use recommendations, search, a grid, or any other means you care to name to figure out which of those thousands and thousands and thousands of hours of programming you want to watch.

The promise.tv team have produced a breadboard prototype and a single, product-like box that looks like the kind of thing you might stick under your TV. They've put up a placeholder site to collect email addresses of people who want to find out more when they do a more formal launch. I've just signed up -- I can't wait to see more of this. I'd buy one in a hot second. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:37:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mutant food oddities photo gallery

The Museum of Food Anomalies collects photos of naturally occurring food oddments (peanuts that resemble duckies, foot-like carrots, and this seahorse-shaped funnel-cake) from around the interweb. Link (Thanks, Alice!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:11:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, July 24, 2005

War on Terror as a series of Unix shell interactions

An account of the War on Terror, as rendered via the Unix command-line:

$ cd /middle_east
$ ls
Afghanistan   Iraq          Libya         Saudi_Arabia  UAE
Algeria       Israel        Morrocco      Sudan         Yemen
Bahrain       Jordan        Oman          Syria
Egypt         Kuwait        Palestine     Tunisia
Iran          Lebanon       Qatar         Turkey

$ cd Afghanistan
$ ls
bin  Taliban    
$ rm Taliban
rm: Taliban is a directory
$ cd Taliban
$ ls
soldiers
$ rm soldiers
$ cd ..
$ rmdir Taliban
rmdir: directory "Taliban": Directory not empty
$ cd Taliban
$ ls -a
.            ..           .insurgents
$ chown -R USA .*
chown: .insurgents: Not owner
$ cd ..
$ su
Password: *******
# mv Taliban /tmp
# exit

Link (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:55:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TSA Secure Flight: criminal disaster

The TSA's "Secure Flight" program has been reviewed by the GAO, and they've given it a failing, miserable grade. Bruce Schneier walks us through the GAO report, and shows all the ways that Secure Flight is breaking the law and making Americans less secure:

Secure Flight is a disaster in every way. The TSA has been operating with complete disregard for the law or Congress. It has lied to pretty much everyone. And it is turning Secure Flight from a simple program to match airline passengers against terrorist watch lists into a complex program that compiles dossiers on passengers in order to give them some kind of score indicating the likelihood that they are a terrorist.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:30:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Giant ruined castle in N Ireland photos

Here's a Flickr set of photos that Sasha took of Gosford Castle, a giant, haunting, abandoned castle in Northern Ireland. Sasha sez, "Plans have been made to restore it into apartments, a hotel, and a casino over the years, but they all failed and the castle has been empty since 1983. The castle itself is unique, only one other castle in the world has been built in this style (Normandic Revival). The other castle is in Wales, and has been beautifully restored. Due to the Troubles in Northern Ireland, there hasn't been a lot of money for projects like this, which has led to the castle slowly turning into a ruin the way it is now." Link (Thanks, Sasha!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:28:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Collaboratively solve a crossword from the future, via Wired

Everett sez, "In next month's Wired, the 'Found' item from the future is a bit more interactive than usual... it's a crossword puzzle from a hypothetical 2019 issue of the NY Times and the clues have somewhat of a geeky bent to them, ranging from Firefox to Coleco to the Appollo 11 landing. I went ahead and scanned it and posted it to my blog; I think it'd be fun to have others come solve it collaboratively." Link (Thanks, Everett!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:25:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Walt Disney World's permanent autonomous zone

When Walt Disney secured his Central Florida location for Walt Disney World, he won numerous concessions from government, but none so far-reaching as the "Reedy Creek Improvement District" (RCID). The RCID is the name for the territory that Walt Disney World occupies, and it is a uniquely autonomous zone, which hardly has to answer to the state government at all. The zone can build its own nukes, run its own building codes, and generally do whatever it likes. This comprehensive Wikipedia entry on RCID is nothing short of fascinating.

The Improvement District has far-reaching powers. Through the District, the Walt Disney Company could construct almost anything within its borders, including a nuclear power plant (which it never built, opting instead for a more traditional plant that supplements power from outside the District). The District, as with any municipal corporation, can issue tax-free bonds for internal improvements. This became a point of contention when a 1985 law limited the amount of tax-free bonds in Florida. The eligible bonds were chosen randomly, causing the District to beat out Orange County, which had planned to build low-income housing, in 1989. In addition to the power of eminent domain outside the District, the one other power that the District was given that it would not have had if it were simply the two Cities was the power to ignore any laws, including state laws, about zoning and land use. When the state later established the Development of Regional Impact study process, the Walt Disney Company, through the District, was able to avoid the paperwork and streamline the process to build theme parks and other attractions. On the other hand, county taxes, including property and sales taxes, still apply within the District.

The planned residential areas never came (though part of the plans for EPCOT did come through), due in part to the fear of losing control of the District, causing some to cry foul. Most notably, Richard Fogelsong argues in his book, Married to the Mouse: Walt Disney World and Orlando, that the Walt Disney Company has abused its powers by remaining in complete control of the District. On a related note, the Disney-controlled town of Celebration, Florida, which was built with many of Walt Disney's original ideas, which have evolved into a form of New Urbanism, was deannexed from the City of Bay Lake and the District to keep its residents from having power over the Walt Disney Company. Celebration lies on unincorporated land within Osceola County, with a thin strip of still-incorporated land separating it from the rest of the county. This strip of land contains canals and other land used by the District. [edit]

Link (via The Disney Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:09:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Max Fleischer advertising silent film from 1927

"Now You're Talking" is a 1927 Max Fleischer silent advertising film that mixes live action and classic Fleischer animation -- the video was digitized off a Library of Congress print.

Beautifully preserved silent advertising film from Max Fleischer. The film starts off with a man trying to talk into a phone while trying to smoke a cigar. After failing to hear clearly (clearly failing to grasp how to use a phone), the man falls asleep.

His dream is done in the classic 1920's Fleischer style, using word balloons when characters needs to speak. The film relies on simple black and white lines, much like his later sound film "Finding His Voice".

A anthropomorphic phone is rushed into the hospital. When the doctor examines him, the phone complains of fatigue and the doctor examines the phone's diary. The diary covers all the don't of the day; don't get the cord wet, don't tangle the cord, look up correct number when speaking with the operator, etc. It should be noted that the film does contain a stereotypical portrayal of a African American zookeeper, complete with stereotypical speech.

After the rules are covered, the man wakes up, remembers the rules and is able to hear what's going on. The print for this film is in excellent condition and a fine example of Fleischer's style of the period.

Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:03:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Phone company blocks access to telecoms union's website

The Telecommunications Workers' Union of Canada is striking against has been locked out by Telus, a large phone company and ISP. Two of TWU's sites (including Voices for Change, a message board where union members can discuss issues such as being without a contract for 1666 days and last having received a general wage increase 2031 days ago).

Telus is playing very dirty -- they're blocking access to the union's website so that their workers and the general public are cut off from legitimate debate about this action. This is inexcusable: imagine if this phone company chose to block all calls into union headquarters. From an email forwarded by Damien Fox:

Telus Communications Inc, Canada's second largest telephone company, whose 13,500 unionized employees setup picket lines only sixteen hours before Telus implemented their non-negotiated contract offer Friday is now playing media censor.

In an attempt to convince employees to cross picket lines and win public support during what may be a long labour dispute, Telus has blocked access to several pro-union websites from any Telus customer internet connections. This comes only one day after the Canadian Industrial Regulations Board (CIRB) found Telus guilty of bargaining in bad faith for the third time during the negotiation process that has left the Telecommunications Workers Union (TWU) without a contract for nearly five years.

TWU members who rely on these websites and internet discussion forums for communications are now looking for alternative methods for retrieving information related to what is happening on picket lines across Alberta and BC. Union members who are able to get to the website are angered but not surprised by Telus' latest move.

"What else should we expect from a company who has tried to implement a contract deemed a violation of Canadian Labour Code? Telus' disrespect for customers, employees, and Canadian labour law has all unions in Canada on the edge of their seat. If Telus successfully imposes their non-negotiated contracts, it sets precedence for all unionized companies across Canada when they sit down to bargain." one post reads. The CIRB has been reluctant to impose any penalties for Telus' violations of labour code as they are unsure what the direct impact has been on the bargaining process, and if the two parties would be any further along if Telus had followed labour law. Telus has been found guilty of several counts of bargaining in bad faith and interfering with the operations of a trade union by the CIRB.

Known pro-union websites currently blocked to Telus customers are www.voices-for-change.com and www.telusscabs.ca . Visitors posting on the website are asking fellow union members, Telus customers, and the public to file a complaint with the CRTC and their MP for Telus violating their personal right to freedom of speech and freedom of the press under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

For further union information and media inquiries, please contact Bruce Bell, TWU President at 604-341-2925 or Sid Shniad at the TWU Burnaby Office at 604-437-8601. Visit the TWU web site: www.twu-canada.ca

For furher Telus information and media inquiries, please contact Nick Culo, National Communications, Telus Corporation at 780-493-7236, nick.culo@telus.com or visit www.Telus.com

Link (Thanks, Damien!)

Update: Abram sez, "This is the website through which you can make complaints to the CRTC about the business practices of Telus."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:51:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rave for Rocketo comic

I haven't seen or heard anything about Rocketo except for this preview by Amid Amidi on Cartoon Brew, but it looks like a fantastic comic book.

I was prepared for a letdown as soon as I saw ROCKETO's cover because there's no way the interior art could live up to such a masterful drawing, right? Well, what an incredible surprise to open it up and find an entire comic that looks like this. Every page of ROCKETO is a jaw-drop gorgeous work of cartoon art, with tight drawing, color and design throughout. The expressive use of color and rhythmical black inks give the book a distinctive feel that defies comparison to any other current American comic; you have to look at European comics to find anything that remotely resembles ROCKETO's stylish cartoon sensibility.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:02:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NES controller chair

This homebrew NES controller chair was made with a staplegun, high-density foam, and vinyl remnants. Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:59:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mario without architecture or enemies

This is the most delightfully perverse Mario mod I've heard of: "Ashmore altered this NES ROM by removing all the enemies, prizes, architecture within the game. Now as a game player, all you can do is go for a walk. Eventually you run out of time and die." Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:57:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Crap Hound -- seminal clipart zine -- is back!

Crap Hound was the seminal clipart zine that featured page on page on page on page of artistically arranged black and white design elements and illustrations, grouped on themes like circuses, skeletons, and -- in issue five, "hearts, hands and eyes." I'd always loved the word "craphound," since I heard it used in the film Local Hero, and when the zine came out, I immediately glommed onto it. In the mid-nineties, I wrote a short story called Craphound, which turned out to be my first professional publication -- and so not long thereafter I registered the domain, craphound.com.

Now the zine Crap Hound is back, in a series of reprints from ReadingFrenzy/Show & Tell Press. Yesterday I scored a copy of issue 5 from a dealer at Opentech and was completely delighted to once again hold a copy of this magnificent zine. According to the interior,, Show and Tell will be shortly reprinting issues 2 and 3 (Sex and Kitchen Gadgets), issue 4 (Clowns, Devils and Bait), and issue 6 (Death, Telephones and Scissors), along with an all-new issue number 7 (Church and State).

Crap Hound is mesmerizing -- browsing the pages is a near-mystical experience. At $8 an issue, it's a steal, too. Link (note to Reading Frenzy/Sean: my offer to set up mag.craphound.com or zine.craphound.com and point them wherever you'd like still stands)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:07:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

London college launches all CC/wiki program

London's Ravensbourne College is creating a new program called the School of Computing for the Creative Industries. The whole of the coursewear is Creative Commons licensed and the school itself is organized via a wiki. That's pretty twenty-first-century education!

The School of Computing for the Creative Industries is a new departure for Ravensbourne College. It retains Ravensbourne's commitment to vocationalism and practical skills, as well as Ravensbourne's spirit of innovation and enterprise. Though the School takes its inspiration and values from the core of the Ravensbourne tradition, it also embraces new opportunities and a new vision. The School's programmes are rigorous with a strong technical focus. One of the undergraduate programmes is delivered entirely via e-learning. The other programmes make strategic use of e-learning, digital communications, and Web 2.0 technologies as a living demonstration of, and a process of practical research in, the subject matter of the School.

The learner-practitioner is the heart and life-blood of the School. We recognise that the creative professional of the future - the new creative - has a distinctive skill-set and an easy relationship with technology. The new creative is a connected citizen, whose passions and campaigns, ideas and innovations appear first on their blog. The new creative uses the internet as an inspirational resource, drawing on that vast, interconnected meme-pool, but returning far more to it than s/he ever withdraws. Fundamentally, the new creative understands that s/he is defined by the impact and credibility of their online presence.

As the creative industries bifurcate into the twin realities of intellectual property businesses, and crafts-for-hire, the new creative has the skill, and panache, to exploit the opportunities of the new creative landscape.

Link (Thanks, Dave!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:45:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

3D modeller to recreate all of Walt Disney World

This 3D modelling enthusiast is bent on creating a pixel-accurate 3D recreation of the whole of Walt Disney World, including extinct attractions like Epcot's gone-but-not-forgotten Horizons. Link (via The Disney Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:42:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Inadvertent sexybits in the new Harry Potter

Tony has compiled a listing of all the inadvertent sexual innuendos appearing in the new Harry Potter novel:

"'There was no need to stick the wand in that hard,' he said gruffly, clambering to his feet. 'It hurt.'" (p. 64)

"Just as he raised a gloved hand to wipe them, Leanne made to grab hold of the package Katie was holding; Katie tugged it back and the package fell to the ground." (p. 248)

"Very astute, Harry, but the mouth organ was only ever a mouth organ." (p. 278)

("Love flies out the door when money comes innuendo" - G. Marx) Link (THanks, Tony!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:34:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Peter Watts's wonderful dystopias under a CC license

Peter Watts is the wildly imaginative dystopian science fiction writer whose novels Starfish, Maelstrom, and Behemoth B-Max/Behemoth Seppuku track the progress of a work-gang of sociopaths who are relegated to a geothermal work-station on the ocean's floor, their bodies and minds heavily modified to survive the intese pressures (see my post about Maelstrom for more).

Peter's a PhD Marine Biologist, and his scientific background and dark sensibility combine in unexpected ways -- for example, a credible account of the co-evolution of human and computer viruses.

Now Peter's put his first two novels online under a Creative Commons license allowing for unlimited noncommercial redistribution and the creation of derivative works (fan art, music, translations, films, audiobooks, etc). I'd love to get a podcast of these books being read aloud by someone who loves them as much as I do.

Peter's pledged to put Behemoth online shortly, and in the meantime, fans of his work are already converting them to formats well-suited to PDAs. Link

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

Would you give a fiver a month for a UK tech/civil liberties org?

At yesterday's Opentech, I participated in a panel about the need for a UK version of RFF -- not a chapter or an affiliate, but a made-in-Britain civil liberties org that works strictly on technology. The other panelists stressed that previous efforts to start membership orgs in the UK have fallen flat due to lack of funding, and this led NTK's Danny O'Brien to create a Pledgebank Pledge:

I will create a standing order of 5 pounds per month to support an organisation that will campaign for digital rights in the UK but only if 1000 other people will too.

Would you give a fiver a month to create and sustain a British technology liberties group that represented your interests the next time a data-retention act, a filesharing lawsuit, or a copyright term extension came along? I sure would. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:20:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, July 23, 2005

Styrofoam Hummer

When Todd Lappin submitted the link yesterday to San Francisco dump's artists-in-residence, he included this photo of "Styrofoam Hummer" by Andrew Junge, the current artist-in-residence at SF Recycling & Disposal Inc. (Photo by Christina Koci Hernandez/SF Chronicle.) For those BB readers in the SF Bay Area, Junge's work is on display this weekend at the dump. From his artist's statement:

Objects have power, they are invested with meaning and purpose by their makers. They carry with them stories of past use, past users, and often a history we, as their temporary custodians, can only guess at. This point becomes ever more poignant in the face of our capitalist/consumerist culture. We throw so much stuff away. Cool stuff....

I wish to examine and re-contextualize found objects and materials, to invest them with new life, and to sanctify - or at least acknowledge their presence in the world. Or perhaps, more accurately, to acknowledge my presence as these materials’ temporary curator, archivist and re-purposer. My aim is to turn the lowest form of human productivity, trash, into the highest, art - a kind of modern alchemy.

Link to SF Chronicle article, Link to Junge's artist-in-residence page (Thanks to everyone who submitted this.)

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:21:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cellphone Tripod

Joy Innovations' Cellpod is a neat-looking $24.95 tripod for camera phones. As Phil Torrone writes at the MAKE: Blog, "Expect someone to make a DIY version soon." From the product description:

...Many cell phone cameras have their lens at funny angles so someone has to actually hold the phone in order to take the picture. It’s hard to rest them on a table or fencepost to take the shot.

Cellpod easily connects with the popular “belt-clips” that are in use today. That standard button that hooks the phone to your belt snaps directly into the Cellpod. Many of the leather cases that people purchase to cover their phones have these “buttons” built in. It takes just a few seconds to attach. When you are done there is a quick release. If you don’t use a case or belt clip, an attachable button comes in the box to allow it to work with Cellpod.

Link

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

Forever 21 and Bible bagging

Forever 21 is a "cheap chic" retail chain selling junior and women's clothes. Apparently, Christian evangelism comes free with purchase. The fine print on their bags reads "John 3:16," referring to a Bible verse. Of course, Forever 21 isn't the first to employ this tacky tactic. In-N-Out Burger has been doing it for years.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:49:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mugshot of man arrested for inhaling spray paint propellant

From The Smoking Gun. This guy was arrested after attempting to buy spray paint at a hardware store. A sharp-eyed employee noticed the guy's face was covered with gold paint and called the cops. Link goes to larger pic and police report.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:55:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interview with an avatar creator from Second Life

Tomorrow -- Sunday -- at 2PM Pacific (11AM Eastern, 10PM UK) I'm doing my in-game book-signing in Second Life, a massively multiplayer online world with an extensive toolkit for creating in-game artifacts that have sophisticated behaviors and appearances (I once met a guy who makes a real living making and selling in-game penises).

The Second Lifers made a special effort to make me welcome, holding a design competition to create an in-game edition of my new book, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town (which included a replica cover made by creating an in-game avatar that looked like the girl on the cover's brilliant Dave McKean painting, posing it, and taking screenshots).

They also roped a Second Lifer, lilith Pendragon, into creating a custom avatar for me that looks pretty eerily lifelike (I logged in for a bit last night and made it do funky disco moves that required a lot more coordination that the real-life me could ever muster).

Second Life's in-game reporter, Hamlet Linden, has run a fascinating interview with lilith, who apparently has a whole in-gmae business creating custom avatars for players:

So lilith's Cory Doctorow joins an esteemed list of her celebrity tributes which also include Frieda Kahlo and Shirley Manson of Garbage (lilith most often wears her Ms. Manson, on herself). Her Cory is so exacting, I initially assumed she'd created a custom skin of him in Photoshop. But as she tells it, she brought Doctorow into this world "just using the [default avatar creation] sliders and looking at his pic. Then I made all the clothes in Photoshop."

She did have a challenge recreating Cory's skull-hugging haircut, however.

"I tried to do his hair with prims to get the flat top, but it just looked horrid, and I'm not patient," she says. "Made a hair texture for his head, similar to how I did the corn rows for Snoop, and tweaked the hair sliders to make a little stick up in front."

Link (Thanks, James!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:58:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Copyfighter to trademark bully: I own "freedom of expression"

Leo Stoller is the jackass who registered a trademark on the word "Stealth" and now has a racket bullying people into paying him for a "license" to use the word (people give him small sums of money to get lost, though occasionally they sue and get big judgments against him). The NYT ran a piece about this goon, who also claims to own dozens of other common words and phrases, including "freedom of expression."

Now, it so happens that prankster and copyfighter Kembrew McLeod registered a trademark in the phrase "freedom of expression" years ago, and has been writing ironic cease-and-desist letters to entities who use it, and even wrote a book with that title.

The outcome is inevitable: Kembrew and co have sent a cease and desist to Stoller for his infringement on their exclusive rights to "freedom of expression" -- said letter is full of dark, Orwellian hilarity. I sure hope that Stoller takes crayon in hand and responds -- it would be fun to find more excuses to mock him.

In the course of policing FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, we at FESC (consisting of the websites freedomofexpression.us, freedomofexpression.org, freedom-of-expression.org, and freedom-of-expression.com) have learned of your infringement, which can be found at this URL: http://www.rentamark.com/e-marks/E-I/e-i.html.

We are troubled by (1) your unrestrained use of FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION and (2) the fact that you have offered to license this phrase to third parties without permission. After all, not just anybody can utilize FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION, and it is clear that your use of this phrase constitutes unfair competition and a blurring and tarnishing of this federally registered mark.

FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION will be substantially and irreparably damaged should this infringement continue. We, therefore, demand that Rentamark.com immediately cease and desist using FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION within five days. We eagerly await your response.

Link (Thanks, John Joseph!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:46:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, July 22, 2005

San Francisco dump's artists-in-residence show

For fifteen years, SF Recycling & Disposal has hosted an Artist-in-Residence Program at San Francisco's city dump. A group show of work by some of the artists is currently on display at Steven Wolf Fine Arts Gallery. Seen here, Dio Mendoza's "Styrofoam Tree" (carved styrofoam, 2005. 120 x 84 in.) From the Artist-in-Residence Program description:

The goal of the Artist-in-Residence Program at SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc. is to use art to inspire people to recycle more and conserve natural resources. The company provides selected local artists with the opportunity to create art using materials they gather from San Francisco's refuse. This includes 24 hour access to a well-equipped studio, a monthly stipend, and an exhibit at the end of their residency, but artists seem most excited about having 24 hour access to the materials.

"Many artists find and recycle materials in their art, but no one else has this much material to pick from," says Program Director Paul Fresina.

The 2,000-square-foot art studio is located at SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc.'s Solid Waste Transfer and Recycling Center. The 44-acre site is where most of San Francisco's garbage and recyclables are temporarily dumped before going to a landfill or recycling plant. Recyclable items are sorted before being shipped to recycling plants and manufacturing facilities.

Throughout a residency, each artist talks to young students and adult tour groups about the experience of turning trash into treasures. At the conclusion of their residency, the company holds a reception to show the artist's work and invites the public. Many pieces of art from the program are exhibited in office building entries and public spaces in San Francisco. Many artists have made a permanent piece for the sculpture garden adjacent to the SF Recycling & Disposal, Inc. Transfer Station and the garden is a key stop for students on recycling tours.

Link (Thanks, Todd Lappin!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:19:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

making del.I'll check it out.us even tastier with oishii

From the site: "Oishii is kind of a del.icio.us mini-zeitgeist. oishii polls the del.icio.us front page every 5 minutes, and returns all sites bookmarked by at least 30 people. In the spirit of facilitating self-organization, oishii is a kind of pheromone trail allowing me and others to find the resources other members of the hive found useful, interesting, humorous, or for some other reason worth visiting again." Link (via Smart Mobs)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:43:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Doodad prevents loss of WD-40 straw

The new edition of Cool Tools has a review the Hold-It, which is a kind of leash for the red plastic straw that comes with cans of WD-40. As you know, the straw is very important for directing the delightful-smelling WD-40 lubricant into tight spots. But the straws disappear faster than my father-in-law when the dinner check arrives. I wish there were a human sized Hold-It (five bucks per dozen) to secure him to the restaurant chair. (Maybe next time we go out to eat with him I can get my daughter to sneak under the table cable-tie his ankle to the leg of the chair.)
Link

Reader comment:Tyler Campbell says: "Another way to save straws is to cut them so they fit under the cap while still attached. Even though the straw is much shorter, it still shoots straight. That way you can leave them on all the time."

Reader comment: noahpoah says: "In response to Mark's (Mr. Frauenfelder's) recent post on WD-40, I thought I'd mention that WD-40 isn't technically a lubricant, it's made to prevent corrosion and/or degrease. WD stands for Water Dispersal, and 40 comes from the fact that it was the 40th formula they tried that finally worked. The provided link tells about the history of Water Dispersal 40."

Update: WD-40 has its own solution to the lost straw problem -- the Smart Straw, which is a hinged cap that lets you spray through the straw or directly through the nozzle.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:13:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New eBay phishing trick

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Here's a new (at least to me) eBay phishing trick. I got this email, ostensibly from an 82-year-old woman who bid on a wheelchair that she "really needs do (sic) to my age." When you click on the "Respond Now" button, your browser loads a phisher's site.

Reader comment: Dan DeFrances says: "By God, it really is a wheelchair, and a spiffy one at that."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:27:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on the CIA's evil genius, Dr. Sidney Gottleib

After reading my book excerpt about the CIA's maddest mad scientist, Sidney Gottleib, Adrian McCarthy says: "I recently learned of Gottleib while researching for a novel I'm writing (just finished first draft--woo hoo!). Here are some additional tidbits I picked up:

"When Frank Olson's wife died, his children had Frank Olson exhumed so that he could be moved to the same cemetery. They took that opportunity to have an autopsy performed, which concluded that Olsen was struck in the head before falling to his death in New York, suggesting homicide.

"The apology and payout to the Olson family from the Ford administration to settle the lawsuit brought by the family was supposedly at to the urging of Cheney and Rumsfeld (yes, the same ones). Because the death was related to classified information, they argued, the government would not be able to mount a defense to the lawsuit.

"Gottleib had taken Olson to New York to try to help him recover from his changed state. But there were few psychiatric professionals with clearance to know what had been done to him. So while in New York, Gottleib also took him to meet a magician named Mullholland, hoping the illusionist could do a few tricks to cheer him up. Mullholland knew a bit about MK-ULTRA. He wrote a sleight-of-hand book for the CIA as part of an MK-ULTRA subproject. The book primarily focuses on teaching operatives how to drug people without there knowledge. The book itself is still classified.

"You mentioned that Gottleib picked victims in the seedy parts of San Francisco, but, in fact, he also worked in one of the nicer neighborhoods of the city by the bay. There is a duplex on 225 Chestnut Street, up on Telegraph hill, that was rented under the assumed name Morgan Hall. The CIA set it up like a brothel. They bribed prostitutes (with drugs) to bring their clients up where they were drugged unwittingly and then observed. (The prostitutes were 'paid' with drugs, and the clients were drugged unwittingly.) The same apartment was also used by the DEA for sting operations on drug dealers."

Reader comment: Duncan says: "The documentary Crazy Rulers of the World, by the journalist Jon Ronson suggests an alternative explanation to Frank Olson's death. Ronson interviewed one of Olson's colleagues who said that Olson was aware he had been dosed, was laughing about it and that it had no ill effects. There was no autopsy done on Olson's corpse when he was buried, but Olson's son had the body exhumed and examined. Forensic study suggested that Olson had received a blow to the back of the head, possibly from a gun butt, before he fell to his death. Olson's son also notes that his fathers melancholia and death came shortly after visits to Europe and there is evidence to suggest that he was party to the torture and killing of Cold War detainees. It is suggested a crisis of conscience caused his distress and eventual assassination by his CIA colleagues concerned about his loyalty."

Reader comment: Jamie says: "This article from Counter Punch details even more despicable and creepy research projects that Gottlieb was part of. It even mentions the suspicious circumstances of Gottleib's own death:"

Gottlieb's passing came at a convenient time for the CIA, just as several new trials involving victims of its experiments were being brought. Those who had talked to Gottlieb in the past few years say that the chemist believed that the Agency was trying to make him the fall guy for the entire program. Some speculate that Gottlieb may have been ready to spill the goods on a wide range of CIA programs.

Reader comment: Anonymous says: "After reading about Gottileb and the CIA using LSD, I was reminded of an article I saved about Gottileb's division that I read in Spin magazine in March of 1994. I found a copy of the article listed on the Frank Olson site (the home page of which was submitted by a reader, but this article itself is not easily found by navigating the site) It details information from Ike Feldman, an operative that worked under George White who was drafted by Gottileb - and what they did, as well as further information about Gottileb and how he ran his group." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:13:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Guide to speakers at tomorrow's OpenTech conference

Alex sez, "This is a bit obsessive, I've tried to collect all the details I can for everyone speaking at London's OpenTech conference tomorrow. Might be useful to some people, especially if (like me) you want to know a little bit about who you shall be seeing tomorrow. The OpenTech site has been updated with current travel information and for anyone who didn't preregister 'Should places become available on the day, an email will go to the mailing list. Please don't show up without a ticket.'" Link (THanks, Alex!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:06:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rifle bar set

This vintage bar set with rifle handles is up for auction on eBay. It looks perfect for serving, er, shots. The 12" gun rack is included. Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:32:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on CNN Showbiz tonight: Bloggers, know your rights!

Friday's edition of the CNN Headline News program "Showbiz Tonight" will include an in-depth exploration of technology at work. Among the issues we'll likely discuss: legal questions surrounding blogs maintained by employees who post thoughts about their employers. What are your rights? I'll be among the live studio guests. Airs at 7/11pm ET, 4/8pm PT.

Previously: EFF legal guide for bloggers, EFF Blogger Legal Guide in your trousers

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:21:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

iPod DJ Mixer a reality

Numark's iPod DJ Mixer I posted about in April has moved quickly from prototype to product. Officially announced today, the iDJ is slated to ship Q3 for a suggested retail price of $399. Unfortunately, the apparent lack of pitch control pretty much kills its chances of replacing CDJ or vinyl decks. Gear Junkies has the details. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:19:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Third annual Paul Reubens' Day Sat., July 23 in SF

"To honor the three years of Pee-wee mayhem this year’s Paul Reubens’ Day will boast three phases of Pee-wee debauchery, including and encouraged by our teaming up with the Center for Sex and Culture and Peaches Christ to ensure the most outrageous, outlandish, and Reubenesque PRD ever!!!" Link (Thanks, Macki!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:04:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Intricate fiberglass Panty Carvings from Japan

Because regular old Japanese fiberglass panties just aren't obscure enough. Link
(via pantiespantiespanties, a NSFW blog)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:03:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prophet Yahweh now summoning UFOS "One State at a Time"

Link to his holiness' latest press release: MEDIA ALERT: Prophet Yahweh, Seer Of Yahweh, Will Call Down UFOs For Radio And Television News And Talk Shows In All 50 States Of America, One State At A Time (via Warren). Previously: Spaceships Will Appear Over Las Vegas On My Signal.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:00:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bovine lingerie

An artist in France designs cow underpants.
Link (thanks siege)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:48:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Buzkashi is beautiful

More dead goat ball pictures for your enjoyment, shot by Boing Boing consigliere and patron saint Kevin Kelly. A few others follow this one: Link.

Previously, Afghan goat-mod: dead critter polo

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:42:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bush creates new fed anti-piracy post

The President announced the creation of a Piracy Czar post this morning, with Chris Israel as appointee. China will reportedly be a top point of focus. Link to WaPo story. (Thanks, 5000!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:23:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of wonderful zen

Boing Boing reader Giovanni says, "Are you guys aware that if you search for the word "wonderful" on Google, Boing Boing shows up as the first result?" Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:20:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hooooowdy-ho! Canada's poo mascot, Mr. Floatie

South Park's Mister Hankey did not respond to requests for comment on whether this amounts to an infringement of intellectual poo-perty.

You can't ignore a seven-foot-tall turd. That's Christianne Wilhelmson's take on Mr. Floatie, who has become a fixture at Victoria-area events. The program co-ordinator with the Georgia Strait Alliance says the chocolate bar-shaped mascot is responsible for renewed debate about what Victoria should do with its sewage.

Most people were tired of hearing about the issue, which the alliance has been pushing for more than a decade, but Wilhelmson said Mr. Floatie's recent appearances have changed that. "He has managed to raise the issue back to the level where people are talking about it again," she said. However, Wilhelmson's enthusiasm is not shared by Denise Blackwell of the Capital Regional District, who thinks Mr. Floatie is a childish waste of time.

Mr. Floatie is the mascot for People Opposed to Outfall Pollution, or POOP. Organizer James Skwarok, who also wears the mascot suit, said Mr. Floatie has been an invaluable tool.

Link (Thanks, Larry Mollica, via Wayne's list)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:08:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Camel-riding robot jockeys

A camel race was run in Abu Dubai, United Arab Emirates on Monday, but instead of humans jockeys the animals were mounted by remote-controlled robots. From New Scientist (photo from Reuters):

The robots were developed after the United Arab Emirates Camel Racing Association banned the use of jockeys under the age of 16 in March 2004. The age limit for jockeys was increased to 18 in July 2005....

An unnamed Swiss company has reportedly been paid $1.3m to develop the robotic jockeys, which are sold for around $5500 each. The first trials involving the riders took place in April 2005.

The remote-controlled riders have mechanical legs for balancing or leaning and mechanical arms for pulling on their camel's reins.

Link

UPDATE: According to Cory's post last year, robots jockeys are already used in Qatar for camel races. Link

UPDATE: Manish Vij points to his blog post outlining the brutality surrounding the child jockey scene in the Persian Gulf states. Hopefully, the use of robots will help improve things. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:59:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FCC to drop Morse Code requirement for radio licenses

The US Federal Communications Commission has proposed dropping the five words per minute Morse code requirement as a prerequisite for obtaining an Amateur Radio license. I don't know how you say "arrrrrghhhh" in Morse, but devotees are no doubt pecking it out right now. Link.

Previously on Boing Boing: Morse Texter

Reader comment: Patrick Joseph McNamara says,

Canada has had a gradated system in place for some time. It's possible for an individual to get their basic ham radio license without the need for Morse. However, they are limited in what ranges they can use.

Paul Wood says:

The US has had code-free licenses for quite some time. Technician class hams can use VHF / UHF frequencies, and add HF frequencies once they pass the morse code test. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:59:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mobile media broadcasts from gypsies, hookers, taxidrivers

Just what the headline says. Link (via textually, and eyebeam, thanks Wonbo!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:52:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mash-up Friday: Hiphop vs. Philip Glass = Glassbreaks

A collection of old skool hip-hop tracks smushed together with the compositions of Philip Glass. When I was around 9 years old, my mom introduced me to Glass' works (actually, the album Glassworks), and I've been a fan ever since. I forwarded her this link, and she replied, "I wonder what he thinks?" I'm curious, too!
Link

Update: Some folks have reported problems accessing the MP3s today. Reader Josh Berezin says,

It looks like the Philip Glass / Hip Hop mp3s are moving... I pasted the *.mp3 part of the URL into the base url of the site, like this and they seem to be there, though the links themselves don't reflect that yet.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:39:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Starbucks knockoff in Ethiopia

The tale of an illicit Addis Abbaba facsimile, created by a fan of the coffee chain. Her partnership request to Starbucks, which would have brought the real deal over, was denied.

Kaldi's has a Starbucks-like logo and Starbucks-like décor, and its workers wear Starbucks-like green aprons. At the bar, there are Starbucks-like "short" and "tall" coffee options, although Kaldi's sticks exclusively to Ethiopia's coffee varieties, while the real Starbucks includes Ethiopia's premium beans among many other offerings.

"I've always loved Starbucks, the ambiance of it," said Tseday Asrat, the proprietor of Kaldi's, fessing up to the obvious inspiration behind her year-old business. "So we created our own version of it here."

Kaldi's is by no means the only pretender around here. The latest hotel to go up near the airport is a "Marriot," another knockoff that uses only one "t" but has the exact same typeface in its sign as the J. W. Marriott hotel chain. There is a 7-11 convenience store here, as well, which has no connection to the 7-Elevens on so many corners back in America. The copycats are evidence of the financial success that many Ethiopians are attaining in the United States and of the desire of many of them to invest some of their wealth back home.

Link (Thanks, Newley)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:33:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

To do in Seattle in August: Rude Mechanicals

Boing Boing reader Joe says, "In August, the Seattle Art Museum is hosting Rude Mechanicals: Art Meets Machine!, a presentation featuring SRL's Karen Marcelo and others. Link"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:57:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sugar-game: keep a toddler's sugar high rolling

The Mr Sugar game -- you're a sugar-cube who needs to keep bouncing a toddler higher and higher, keeping his blood-sugar high enough to have fun fun fun! Perverse, with great audio! Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:17:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Computer-generated scientific papers delivered live and in person

Jeremy sez, "A while back you guys ran a story about our program, SCIgen, which generates fake computer science research papers. One of these papers was accepted by WMSCI 2005, and we were trying to raise money to make it down to the conference and give a randomly-generated talk. Well, we raised plenty of money, and as promised we posted a video of the random talks we gave. Thanks to everyone who helped out!"

This is some funny, funny video. Link (Thanks, Jeremy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:52:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Garbage Pail Kids movie on DVD

The release of the Garbage Pail Kids movie on DVD marks an exciting new anti-piracy technique from our friends in Hollywood: releasing DVDs of unwatchably bad movies that you'd be hard pressed to find a reason to download. Link (Thanks, Ryan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:48:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Origami full-sized house

This full-sized house and all its furnishings is made of paper elaborately folded. The sofas are particularly lovely. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:44:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Post-bombing tubemap

Feorag NicBridhe has put together a map of the London Underground as it stood after yesterday's tube-bombings; editing the familiar tubemap to show the holes in coverage engendered by line-closures. 343K JPEG (via Charlie's Diary)

Update: Here's the official version, courtesy of Pam Wain.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:36:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World's Worst Excerpt -- The Maddest Mad Scientist: The CIA’s Dr. Sidney Gottlieb

Here's an excerpt from my new book THE WORLD'S WORST: A Guide to the Most Disgusting, Hideous, Inept and Dangerous, People, Places and Things on Earth. (See prvious entries: "The Least Adorable Pet: Miracle Mike The Headless Chicken" and The Least Healthy Diet: Breatharianism)

“The Maddest Mad Scientist” The CIA’s Dr. Sidney Gottlieb

On a warm autumn evening in Paris in 1952, a 25-year-old, up-and-coming American artist named Stanley Glickman was enjoying a coffee at his favorite haunt, the Café Dome in Montparnasse. Perhaps he spent the moment thinking of his Canadian girlfriend who was touring Europe at the time, or of the painting he’d completed that was hanging in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In any case, Glickman’s musings were interrupted when an acquaintance approached him and invited him to have a drink across the street at the Café Select. He accepted. There, the artist and his companion were joined by an unfamiliar group of Americans. Dressed in unfashionably straight-laced clothing, the strangers espoused political beliefs that were highly disagreeable to Glickman. After hours of hotly contested debate, the artist decided to pay his part of the bill and go home, but one of the strangers—a man with a clubfoot—insisted on buying him a drink as a way to make up for their argument. Instead of calling over the waiter who’d been serving drinks to the party all evening, the clubfooted man went to the bar himself and bought a Chartreuse for Glickman.

Before he even finished his cocktail, Glickman began to feel “funny.” The walls appeared to move, the electric lights in the café were ringed with halos, and wine bottles seemed to levitate on Glickman’s silent behest. Another member of the party told Glickman that he was now capable of “performing miracles.”

Unbeknownst to Glickman, the clubfooted man had spiked his drink with LSD. The aftereffects of the acid trip sent him into a lifelong tailspin of psychosis, electroshock therapy, and terrifying hallucinations. He had no idea what had happened to him—this was 1952, at least a decade before most people had even heard of the drug. His social life was destroyed. He never had another romantic relationship (he told his Canadian girlfriend to leave him before he ruined her life). He took on a series of odd jobs, including cleaning furniture at a secondhand store. Glickman, who once had a promising future in the arts, never painted again.

Who was the mysterious poisoner? In all likelihood, it was Sidney Gottlieb, a man who dosed many other unsuspecting people with powerful hallucinogenic drugs during the 1950s. Infiltrating the seedier neighborhoods of San Francisco and New York, he poisoned prostitutes and their customers just to see what would happen.

The authorities were aware of Gottlieb’s activities but did nothing to stop him. That may seem strange, until you learn that the man was an authority himself. For 22 years, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb ran the technical services division of the CIA and oversaw the CIA’s MK-ULTRA program, an illegal drug and mind-control campaign launched during the height of Cold War paranoia. In addition to developing poison darts and toxic handkerchiefs for assassinating leaders of Communist governments, Dr. Gottlieb ran clandestine drug experiments on unsuspecting U.S. citizens. (It’s not known exactly how many people were dosed, because in 1973 the director of the CIA, Richard Helms, ordered almost all records pertaining to MK-ULTRA to be destroyed.)

Gottlieb typically selected prisoners, poor people, petty criminals, and the mentally ill for his test subjects, since they were the least likely to be taken seriously should they have the temerity to complain about being drugged without their knowledge or consent by an upper-echelon federal official. (In all fairness, Gottlieb also enjoyed slipping mind-altering drugs into the drinks of his fellow CIA cronies, just for grins.) MK-ULTRA also ran tests on “willing” volunteers, like the seven people in Kentucky who were given LSD for 77 days in a row.

It’s not known how many lives were ruined as a result of Gottlieb’s hallucinogenic high jinks, but there’s at least one documented case of a death resulting from his experiments. In 1953, at a U.S. Army research retreat at the Deep Creek Lodge in western Maryland, Gottlieb spiked after-dinner drinks with LSD without letting his fellow diners in on the joke. Frank Olson, a 43-year-old germ warfare researcher, became very disturbed by the experience. When he returned home, his wife and three children could hardly recognize the formerly jovial husband and father. They didn’t have much of a chance to get to know this chemically transformed man, because nine days later, he jumped to his death from a 13-story window.

While some might call this murder, you have to remember that Dr. Gottlieb was acting in the interest of national security. In fact, during the 1977 Senate hearing on CIA abuses, Gottlieb told the committee that dosing unsuspecting human guinea pigs with drugs was justified. “Harsh as it may sound in retrospect,” he testified, “it was felt that in an issue where national survival might be concerned, such a procedure and such a risk was a reasonable one to take.”

Give credit to Gottlieb for being smart enough to work for an organization that would not only allow him to poison and murder people with such aplomb, but would also protect him from the consequences awaiting any other sociopath. Olson’s widow fought years of heartrending legal battles until Congress agreed to award her $750,000 in exchange for releasing the CIA from liability. Glickman never received compensation for his unwilling role as a drug test subject. In fact, after he died in 1992, his sister sued the government. Despite the evidence against Gottlieb, the jury ruled against her. As for Gottlieb, he enjoyed his final years indulging his passions for folk dancing and goat breeding on his farm not far from CIA headquarters in Reston, Virginia. He died in 1999 at the age of 80. While his family refused to disclose the cause his death, it’s not likely that he died as the result of a drug-induced suicidal jump from a hotel window. Link

Reader comment: ScottG in NYC says: "Mark - thanks for the mention of the Frank Olson case. Every student in America should have Orwell's 1984 and this site put up by his family on their required reading list. At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur (which I'm certainly not), I think Springsteen put it best: 'blind faith in your leaders can get you killed.' Sadly, Frank is (non)living proof... :(" Frank Olson Legacy Project

Reader comment:eli says: "You might also might to check out GNN's NewsVideo The Most Dangerous Game: 'The Most Dangerous Game traces the history of top-secret CIA mind control operation MK-ULTRA: from the covert importation of NAZI scientists at the end of WWII, to the illegal brainwashing experiments conducted on the patients of world famous psychiatric researcher, Dr. Ewen Cameron -- cut to the pulsing hypnotica of Mitchell Akiyama.'" Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:53:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Get Rich Slowly

In April, foldedspace published ultra-condensed summaries of several books on becoming financially independent. This is a good idea. Most of these kinds of books can be condensed to a couple of hundred words. Of course, that doesn't do any good to the authors, because you can't make a book out of 200 words.

7 Money Mantras for a Richer Life by Michelle Singletary is a recent all-purpose financial book. I was ready to dismiss it for the absolute stupidity of mantra number one (stupidity in its phrasing, not in its advice), but after reading the book, I have to admit its advice is solid. It features: 


Mantra #1: "If it's on your ass, it's not an asset." If you can wear it, it's not an investment. Also, something is riding your ass (such as a high house payment), it's not an asset.


Mantra #2: "Is this a need or a want?" This is a question Kris has been trying to get me to ask myself for years.


Mantra #3: "Sweat the small stuff." Do worry about the small expenses; they add up.


Mantra #4: "Cash is better than credit." There is almost no reason to carry a credit card.


Mantra #5: "Keep it simple." With money, avoid anything that seems complicated. If you don't understand it, avoid it. You'll probably lose money.


Mantra #6: "Priorities lead to prosperity." Determine what's important to you, and pursue that with your time and money.


Mantra #7: "Enough is enough." Don't overconsume. Recognize when you have fulfilled your needs and your wants.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:44:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Brazilian cops: Orkut used as drug network

Police in Brazil arrested 10 people near Rio today on charges they sold drugs via Google's social networking site Orkut. The 7MM+ member service became wildly popular in Brazil last year. IMO, nothing too shocking in this news. As more people connect with one other in virtual space, logic follows that more will engage in unlawful activity there, too. Link to Reuters story (via CNET)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:31:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Article about creator of Weird-Ohs

For some reason, I thought Ed "Big Daddy" Roth had created the Weird-Ohs, those hot rod driving, goggle-eye, leering monsters clutching oversized shiftsticks. I had several Weird-Oh models when I was a kid. Turns out they're the handiwork of William "Bill" Campbell.

After a number of years I felt that the model companies had produced everything they could. In order to keep Hawk moving forward I came up with a new concept. I did some way-out thinking, drew some sketches, and proceeded to create rough models, using wire armature, balsa, marble dust, sculpting putty, and miscellaneous kit parts. The results? Digger,a dragster; Davey, a cyclist; and the unproduced General Fritzgruber Luftwaffle in his Sturmgrupen Eindecker, an airplane pilot. I presented these to the people at Hawk in 1963. They took one look and said, 'Let's produce them.' They asked me what I called my creations, and I told them 'Weird-ohs.' The name stuck, and Hawk prepared them for the annual model kit manufacturers' convention held in the fall of 1963 at the Sherman Hotel in Chicago. "Hawk presented five or six different Weird-ohs at the convention, and the models were the hit of the show. They went off like gangbusters! I heard that they wrote orders for 246,000 kits in a few days. The factory had to go into overtime to fill all the orders. The kits were on the shelves by November."

Link (via Bubblegumfink)

Reader comment: Allen Varney says: I wrote a 1997 column for a magazine about non-sports trading cards that describes the set of Weird-Ohs bubblegum cards Fleer issued in 1966:

"Pedestrian" figures in two senses, the crudely sketched and flatly colored Weird-Ohs cards lag far behind Roth's work and a later imitator, Donruss's popular 'Odd Rods' series (1969-73). The Weird-Ohs really lose the race with their back copy, tedious stream-of-consciousness paragraphs that taunt and demean their subjects. Take drag-racer Digger: "Sometimes this idiotic jack rabbit ends up tailing his own dragster. Trouble is, he needs a tune up between the ears. It's probably much safer for us pedestrians this way (card #54)." "Us pedestrians?" Try saying that at a custom car show!

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:30:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Salami rugs

These German rugs are designed to look like thin-sliced salami -- and not just any thin-sliced salami, but the very best kind, the kind that looks like a dachshund in cross-section! Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:58:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Modded Quake III engine that creates high-speed abstract art

QQQ is a piece of art made by modding copies of Quake III. The artist, Nullpointer, has modded the Quake III engine so that it renders out crazy, haunting, beautiful high-speed graphics instead of levels. Sometimes he gets people to play public games of Q3 on an Internet-connected server and renders out their movements in the QQQ engine at his gallery installations. The videos are just wild. Link ((via Cokstikyan)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:20:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How crypto got legalized and how Cindy joined EFF

EFF's Legal Director Cindy Cohn recounts the story of how she came to work at EFF, beginning with a pro-bono case that legalized strong crypto in America:

"A doctoral student in mathematics named Dan Bernstein has been told by the government that if he publishes a computer program he wrote on the Internet he could go to jail as an arms dealer."

"What does the computer program do, John?" I responded. "Does it blow things up? Take planes out of the sky? Reveal the location of warships at sea?"

"No, it just lets you keep messages secret. It's an encryption program. Without it, your email messages are just like a postcard, open for anyone to read," he replied.

"Sounds like a First Amendment problem to me," I said, despite not knowing what encryption was, or ever having sent an email message.

"Me too. Want to take the case with EFF?"

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:07:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Roald Dahl: loved by kids, loathed by adults

This excellent New Yorker piece covers the life and times of Roald Dahl, one of my favorite authors (despite his despicable anti-Semitism), seeking to answer the question: Why do children love Dahl while adults often hate him?

In many children's books--contrary to what parents tell their children about the meaning of appearances--physical ugliness signifies its moral equivalent. Dahl takes this to an extreme, describing his villains' repulsive attributes with brio: Mr. Hazell's "great, glistening, beery face . . . as pink as a ham," in "Danny, the Champion of the World" (1975); Aunt Sponge's resemblance to "a great white soggy overboiled cabbage"; the "grizzly old grunion of a grandma" in "George's Marvelous Medicine" (1981)--the one Dahl book I find irredeemably sour--who has "a small puckered-up mouth, like a dog's bottom." Dahl shared with George Orwell an acute sense of why small children often see adults as unsightly or intimidating. "Part of the reason for the ugliness of adults, in a child's eyes, is that the child is usually looking upward, and few faces are at their best when seen from below," Orwell wrote. Dahl once said that adults should get down on their knees for a week, in order to remember what it's like to live in a world in which the people with all the power literally loom over you.

Link (via Kottke)

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

History of the ingredients in a banana split

This in-depth history of each of the ingredients in a banana split is a fascinating read:

We still call them marshmallows, but there's no marsh mallow in them anymore. Candy made with honey and thickened with sap from the root of the marsh mallow (Athea officinalis) plant was savored in ancient Egypt. Marsh mallow, the plant, grows to be two to four feet tall. It has gray-green leaves and pink flowers. Not surprisingly, it grows in marshes and is related to other "mallow" plants, such as the rose mallow, the apricot mallow, and the common mallow.

Up until the mid-1800s, marshmallow candy made in the United States contained marsh mallow sap as a thickener. Today's recipes use gelatin (made from animal bones and hides) instead of the sap. Mostly, though, marshmallows are made of corn syrup or sugar. Gum arabic (made from acacia trees) serves as a "foam stabilizer." Flavoring is also added.

Link (via Making Light)

Update: Michael sez, "I would like to point out that the basic ingredient of a banana split is from New Guinea, not Malaysia:

Indeed, new evidence arising from archaeological and palaeoenvironmental studies at Kuk Swamp in the Western Highlands Province suggests a very long history of banana cultivation in Papua New Guinea dating back to at least 7000 years ago and possibly as long ago as 10 000 years (Denham et al. 2003). This is the longest record for banana cultivation in the world.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:58:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Federal database of sex offenders goes online

The United States Department of Justice just launched a searchable online database of sex offenders. Link (Thanks, Susanne Weigert)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:43:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Afghan goat-mod: dead critter polo

Snip:

First, take a headless calf or goat. Gut the creature, remove its legs at the knee and, for additional girth, stuff it with sand. Then toughen the carcass by soaking it in cold water for twenty-four hours. Collect two teams of horses and riders. Draw a circle on the ground and place the goat inside. You are now ready to play Afghanistan’s national sport, buzkashi.

Link, includes creepy video.

Remember, everything goes better with buzkashi (see page fifteen). (thanks, S)

Reader Comment: Nathan B. says,

I thought I'd mention that everybody's favorite Reagan-era hero, Rambo, played a rousing game of buzkashi in Rambo III. Amazon link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:33:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bootlegged DVDs at Comic-con

Variety's Ben Fritz reports that (shock, shock, horror) -- pirated wares were present at last week's annual nerd prom. Says Defamer, "[This] may lead the MPAA to commence a violent geek-purge at the convention. The streets of San Diego shall run green with spilled Vulcan blood!"

Snip from Variety:

Bootleg tapes and discs have a long history at comicbook and sci-fi conventions, where fans often look for copies of old cartoons and foreign productions that aren't sold legitimately in the U.S.

But mixed in with obscure titles at Comic-Con were numerous pirated movies that are or shortly will be available.

A scan of three booths selling bootleg discs at Comic-Con revealed titles including "Star Wars," "Star Trek: Voyager," "Veronica Mars" and the new "Battlestar Galactica."

Link (via Defamer, thanks Jeff Koganuts Koga!)

Image: One of many scanned sources of amusement available in the Crappy Boodleg DVD Covers photo pool. The tagline on this super-crappy bootleg of Blade (misspelled and crackerized as "Blake") is not the actual tagline of the movie. It's the beginning of a disclaimer from paperfilms.com, which ends in "we may terminate your account."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:10:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Weird Star Wars poster spotted in Tokyo

Boing Boing reader Vladix says, "I've just came back from Tokyo, and have seen a lot of Weirdness. For example, this Star Wars-themed ad promoting the Japanese mobile provider known as au." Link

Reader Comment: Kyle Goetz says,

I saw the post made about the Japanese cell phone advertisement with Darth Vader, and just had to share the pictures I took at the au gallery in Harajuku two weeks ago. The three I put up are a higher quality photo of the previous poster's Darth Vader, a Pimping Yoda, and a ginormous Darth Vader drape, for lack of a better term. Currently, they are front page at my blog but the individual pictures' postings are: Darth Vader and Schoolgirls, Yoda Pimping, and Huge Vader Poster thing

Jean Snow says,

Here is a scan of the magazine version of the ad (found in Tokyo Walker): Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:05:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Police publicly humiliate porn patrons in New Dehli

Oddly, this sounds like a possible adult film storyline. You know, the cops disrobe, then there's a double-anal-gangbang with a Bollywood musical interlude...

Indian police forced around 200 people caught watching pornography to do sit-ups in public to shame them and keep them away from theaters that illegally screen smutty movies. The Hindustan Times reported Monday that police stopped the screening of a pornographic movie at a cinema in Balasore district in the eastern state of Orissa and made audience members -- some as young as 17 -- do 10 sit-ups each at a public square, watched by onlookers. The police made the all-male group vow not to watch pornography again. To make matters worse for the embarrassed teenagers who were caught, police called their parents to watch them doing sit-ups.

Link (thanks, Virtual Poona Blogger)

Fleshbot has related items on Indian MMS porn and phonecam smut scandals.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:58:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pete Ashdown for US Senate

Boing Boing readers from Utah -- please vote for US Senate candidate Pete Ashdown. Wouldn't it be fun to have a US Senator who reads Boing Boing?

Pete Ashdown says: "Hello boingboing. Longtime reader, first time submitter. Somewhere in my misty memory, I remember riding to a rave with a boingboing editor while I was in SF, but sadly that is all I remember. Anyhoo, I'm currently the sole Democratic challenger to Senator Orrin "MPAA/RIAA" Hatch in Utah. I founded the first ISP in Utah, XMission, in 1993, and have been a net.denizen since 1987."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:52:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of couture zen: Dior death debutante

In this image from the Christian Dior Fall 2005 couture collection, model Nataliya Gotsii sports an evening purse in the form of a bleached skull. Beneath her seethru organza gown, matching femur-shaped ornaments jut out from a bone grey garter.

Link, click on the top right thumbnail, then select "details" to see the thighbone accessory. Or just clickez ici. Photos: Marcio Madeira. (Thanks, Susannah)
Reader Comment: Paula K. Wirth says,

This reminds me of Tim Burton's upcoming movie Corpse Bride (poster here, some movie info here). Perhaps this is a trend. I prefer it to froofy princess-like white numbers, myself.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:17:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Again: four more bombs hit London transit -- UPDATED

7:54am PT: In London, three blasts have hit the subway, one a bus. This occurs precisely two weeks after bombs that killed 56 people (including four bombers). Today's explosions are said to be significantly smaller, as are the reported number of casualties. There are reports that devices did not work as planned.

Image: among the snapshots beginning to appear around the web, this photo of people on the streets walking home now in London (rather than using public transport). Another flickr set here, related tags include London and bomb. Right now, those tags return a large number of images depicting people in London at work or home, wearily gathered around televisions tuned to live news coverage. And, this.
8:20am PT, officials state one confirmed casualty, no deaths.

CNN, 8:22am PT, Christiane Amanpour interviewing a terrorism expert on the street in London: "What kind of people are these, who can't get four devices to work properly?"

Blogs where you'll see local "citizen reports" include the London Metblog. The Guardian newsblog is following. Wikipedia has an entry here. Snip from that (developing) entry:

Unconfirmed reports stated that three separate incidents involving "dummy explosions", using only detonators, had occurred at Shepherd's Bush, Warren Street and Oval underground stations, leading to the closure and evacuation of the related tube lines (BBC). Other reports have speculated that complete bombs were used, but that the detonators failed to work correctly. It is reported that one person, who carried the bomb, has been injured at Warren Street, and a man was seen running from one of the Tubes after the explosion. One report also suggests that it was a nail bomb that exploded in Warren Street.

Link to related Wikinews article.

Reader comment: Anonymous says,

Just popped up in the New York Times: in the wake of the London bombings (but, they say, not because of them) MTA and NYPD to begin searching commuters at random. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:30:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rare woodpecker discovery questioned

In April, scientists reported that the ivory-billed woodpecker, thought to be extinct for decades, is alive and well in the Big Woods of Arkansas. (Previous post here. Official ivory-billed woodpecker site here.) Now, three biologists are saying that the team who reported evidence of the bird may have jumped the gun. The paper questioning the claim is expected to be published by a peer-reviewed journal in the next few weeks. Apparently, the authors of the new paper, written by scientists from Yale, the University of Kansas, and Florida Gulf Coast University, claim that a four-second grainy videotape purported to show the rare bird may not depict the ivory-billed woodpecker after all. A rebuttal by the original research team led by Cornell and the Nature Conservancy is also slated for publication, along with a rebuttal to their rebuttal. From the New York Times:

Everyone agrees that the bird that appears on the tape is either an ivory-billed woodpecker or a pileated woodpecker, a slightly smaller bird that is relatively common. Both species have a mix of white and black plumage. However, the ivory-billed woodpecker has a white trailing edge to its wings while the pileated woodpecker has a black trailing edge.

The team that conducted the original search for the bird ran extensive tests, including recreating the scene captured in video using flapping, hand-held models of the two types of woodpecker. They concluded that the plumage patterns seen in the grainy image could only be that of the ivory-billed woodpecker.

The authors of the new paper disagree.

Only extended scientific discussion - or new pictures of the bird from additional searches - will determine whose view will prevail. Another intensive scientific search of the region is scheduled to begin in November, Cornell officials said.

"The people who originally announced this thoroughly believe they got an ivory-billed woodpecker," (Yale ornithologist Mark) Robbins said in an interview...

John W. Fitzpatrick, the co-leader of the search for the bird and director of the Cornell University Laboratory of Ornithology, said it was normal for scientists to disagree about evidence of this sort, especially because in this case the video in question was "pretty crummy."

But he said that extensive analysis was done and redone to eliminate the possibility that the bird was a pileated woodpecker.

Link (Thanks, Loren Coleman!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:20:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Creationist zoo display nixed

Last month, I posted that Tulsa Oklahoma's Park and Recreation Board voted in favor of presenting a creationist exhibit at the city's zoo. I'm a couple weeks late on this news, but fortunately the decision was reversed! On July 7, the Board voted 3-1 against adding the Genesis exhibit. From the Associated Press:

Although he has taken a visible role in the effort, (Dan) Hicks (who pushed for the exhibit and offered to pay for it) said he was only one of 300 people interested in bringing the creationist exhibit to the zoo. Following Thursday's vote, Hicks said those 300 would have to decide what to do next but there would be appeals to the mayor.

In the meantime, the zoo continues to have a representation of a Hindu god, a globe sculpture that promotes pantheism and a Maasai display that contains the equivalent of posting Scripture, Hicks said. Presenting this material represented an affront to the majority Christian population of Tulsa, he said.

"There must be something very special about the Genesis account for opponents to fight so hard to suppress those words," Hicks said.

Link (Thanks, Mike Ransom!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:54:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Indigenous women wrestle in Bolivia's lo-fi version of WWF

She flies through the air in a skirt, then squashes her foe into dirt.
Opponent is rendered inert, and you better believe that it hurt.

Snip from New York Times story:

In her red multilayered skirt, white pumps and gold-laced shawl, the traditional dress of the Aymara people, Ana Polonia Choque might well be preparing for a night of folk dancing or, perhaps, a religious festival. But as Carmen Rosa, master of the ring and winner of 100 bone-crunching bouts in Bolivia's colorful wrestling circuit, she is actually dressing for a night of mayhem.

With loyal fans screaming out her name, she climbs the corner ropes high above the ring, bounces once for momentum and flies high, arms outstretched for maximum effect. To the crowd's delight, the dive flattens her adversary, María Remedios Condori, better known as Julia la Paceña (Julia from La Paz).

This, ladies and gentlemen, is "lucha libre," Bolivia's version of the wacky, tacky wrestling extravaganzas better known as World Wrestling Entertainment in the United States and Triple A in Mexico, which serve as a loose model. But there are no light shows, packed arenas or million-dollar showmen.

Link to NYT article by Juan Forero with excellent slideshow. Image: Noah Friedman-Rudovsky. (Thanks, "jewboy," and Susannah)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:43:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sexy phone charity auction for EFF

Eric sez, "In honor of the EFF"s 15th birthday, Phonescoop is holding a charity auction where all proceeds (every cent) will go to the EFF, in fact we won't even touch the money so you know who it's going to and you can get a tax deduction for it to boot. We don't have alot to auction off, but what we do have is hot stuff. Two Motorola RAZRs (one silver, one black) and a voice-driven Bluetooth car kit from Motorola as well. The bidding begins today and ends Saturday. We know it's fast but no one likes a belated birthday present, so we want the EFF to get their money while their birthday celebration is still happening." Link (Thanks, Eric!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:26:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Over the top police blotter write-ups

Matt Goff says: I think someone in the SFPD is an aspiring author. Some of the writeups from the blotter are hilarious (intentional or not). My favorite so far is at the bottom of the first page (Monday, May 16, 8:55am).

He had not run for very long before he realized the two cops were only pacing him. They could see something he could not. With each frantic step a sense of dread nagged at him. The more calm and calculating they were, the further behind he left his common sense, and his panic ratcheted up. As he ran, the black and white radio car glided silently along behind like a predatory whale.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:37:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Buy recycled Harry Potter in Canada

Kate Wing, an analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council, just informed me that JK Rowling's Canadian publisher, Raincoast Books, printed their edition of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" on 100 percent post-consumer recycled paper. (Link to a 2003 post about Raincoast Books' eco-consciousness.) From National Geographic:

Consequently, the Vancouver-based (Raincoast Books) may save nearly 30,000 trees, according a study by Markets Initiative, a coalition of environmental groups, including Greenpeace Canada and the Sierra Club.

Raincoast isn't the only publisher seeking to put a green tint on the wildly popular Potter books. Publishers from Germany, Italy, Britain, and Israel also comitted to printing Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince on large percentages of recycled paper and/or "ancient forest friendly" paper.

Link to National Geographic, Link to buy the book from Amazon.ca

Of course, you could also download it as a "pirated" ebook, as Cory pointed out yesterday.

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:33:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Classic banned PS2 commercial from France

At AEIOU Excuse My French, BB's Parisian pal Alex Boucherot posted a link to this excellent, and banned, French commercial from a couple years back advertising the Sony PlayStation2. As Alex wrote, "NSFW." Link to .mpg video

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:17:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mister Jalopy finds a discarded pinball machine

Mister Jalopy recounts his thrilling adventure of finding a pinball machine on the side of the road and bringing it home.

With the bulk of the machine in my driveway, I raced back down the street in the Country Squire and there was a grizzled alcoholic pawing the Captian Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy backglass. I excused myself as I pushed past him and loaded the head in the back of the wagon. A tired old wino is match for my pinball desires. He said, 'Ok, you can have that, but I am taking this!' as he thumped his hand on a shit brown file cabinet. Whatever, pruno.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:33:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Turtlesale.com is selling mutant, eyeless turtles as pets

Doesn't everyone want a mutant, eyeless turtle for a pet?

These little babies are true miracles of nature.  They have the same parents as Stevie our no eyed mascot. They are truly unique in every way. They are smart and adapt quickly.  They aren't shy either, when they hear your voice they become excited just like any seeing turtle does.  The one thing they need help with until they are use to their surroundings is feeding and as smart as these little fellows are it won't take long for them to get adapted to your feeding schedule.  So if you have the time and love for a special needs turtle, order one of these little gems today and enjoy them for a lifetime.

Link (thanks, steve lodefink!)

Reader comment: Stefan says: Blind turtles aren't the only mutant animals you can buy. There's a strain of mice available with an inherited neurological defect that causes them to spaz out and spin around as they walk. These "Dancing Mice" were once sold through the Johnson Smith novelty catalog! Link

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

Homebrew gigantic Gummi Bear

Some guy meltedd down a ton of Gummi Bears, filled a bear-shaped peanut-butter graham cracker jar with gummi slurry, let it cool, then snipped it away leaving behind a gigantic Gummi Bear. Link (via Waxy)

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

ESRA rescinds GTA:SA rating, ESA backs decision, production halted

Boing Boing reader Chris Eng says:

The Entertainment Software Rating Board has rescinded their rating for GTA:SA and is advising retailers to stop selling it. Take-Two, Rockstar's parent company, has stopped production of the game until it can produce a non-"Hot Coffee" version, and it may start disappearing from store shelves by the end of the day. The overblown witchhunt seemed comical until it began to succeed...

Link to original post, Link to news of production halt. and Link to followup on the Entertainment Software Association's statement backing the decision

Reader comment: Bonnie adds,

Rockstar's parent, Take Two Interactive, also admitted for the first time Wednesday that the sex scenes had been built into the retail game -- not just the PC version but also those written for Xbox and PlayStation2 consoles.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:39:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Black Panthers hot sauce

Members of 1960s revolutionaries the Black Panther Party are launching a hot sauce and clothing line. In honor of the Black Panther's 40th anniversary, the nonprofit Huey P. Newtown Foundation is introducing the products to promote the history and legacy of the group. The clothing line is called "Spirit of '66" while the hot sauce is dubbed "Burn Baby Burn." And that ain't a reference to Disco Inferno. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

The phrase is associated with the race riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles in 1965. Onlookers started chanting it after police arrested a young man for drunken driving. The confrontation triggered six days of rioting, resulting in more than 30 deaths, 1,000 injuries and devastating fire damage to the neighborhood...

"It's not about violence, but the hot sauce will remind people of the rebellion in Watts and how the slogan came about," (original party member David) Hilliard said. "But this is an emphasis on using some of the revenue used by our hot sauce to educate."

Profits from the merchandise will support literacy programs, Hilliard said.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:21:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of unfortunate graphic design zen: Japan

A double-entendrelicious logo for an otherwise normal Japanese pharmacy, captured in this digital snapshot: Link
(Thanks, Paul Frankenstein)
Update: The Kudawara pharmacy has a website.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:12:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michigan carpenter builds stonehenge replica in back yard

Sean Carton says: Here's an amazing video of a Michigan guy named Wally Wallington (really!) who thinks he's cracked the method which was used to build Stonehenge. In the video he stand a 19 ton monolith upright by himself using nothing but wood, some rocks, sand, and a hose. It's some really freakin' amazing stuff!

Oh, and he also uses a variation of his technique to move a pole barn by himeself over 300 feet! Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:10:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Debunking the porn-as-erotoxin meme

In today's issue of The Guardian, Fortean journalist Mark Pilkington reports on Judith Reisman, a psychologist who believes that pornography is an "erotoxin" that wreaks havoc on your brain chemistry. After pitching her ideas to the US Senate, Reisman and University of Utah professor emeritus Victor Cline are raising cash from conservative and religious groups to scan the brains of people enjoying porn. From The Guardian:

They foresee two possible outcomes: if they can demonstrate that porn physically "damages " the brain, that might open the floodgates for "big tobacco"-style lawsuits against porn publishers and distributors; second, and more insidiously, if porn can be shown to "subvert cognition " and affect the parts of the brain involved in reasoning and speech, then "these toxic media should be legally outlawed, as is all other toxic waste, and eliminated from our societal structure." Link

Using Pilkington's brief article as a jumping off point, the Mind Hacks blog takes Reisman to task with a collection of worthwhile links.

Unfortunately, (Reisman's) self-published paper The Psychopharmacology of Pictorial Pornography Restructuring Brain, Mind & Memory & Subverting Freedom of Speech (PDF) is highly selective when reviewing the published neuroscience research.

Many of her arguments are based on one-reference claims, and some only on what she calls "extensive documentation". One unmentioned implication is the fact that, if sexual arousal from pornography causes 'brain damage', then so will real-life sex!

Link (Thanks, Xeni!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:44:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TV Dinner Inventor Gerry Thomas Dies

The man credited with having invented the TV dinner has passed away at age 83.

The first Swanson TV Dinner turkey with corn bread dressing and gravy, sweet potatoes and buttered peas sold for about $1 apiece and could be cooked in 25 minutes at 425 degrees.

"We had the TV screen and the knobs pictured on the package. That was the real start of marketing," [Gerry] Thomas said. Ten million dinners were sold in the first year of national distribution.

Link to SF Gate story (Thanks, Bonnie)

Reader comment: Mike Ransom says,

I recognize that scan of a TV dinner as one I did for my site a few years ago (the dinner was tasty, too.) The Swanson TV dinner has a Tulsa radio connection: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:49:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

It's hot in Brooklyn today. Hack the fire hydrants, says Frank.

Siege says,

"Meet Frank.

He's posing with his prototype, which converts a useless fire hydrant into a lovely sidewalk shower.

Respect."

Link to full-size image shot by Siege in Brooklyn.
There's a related post on his Nerve.com blog (sadly, cockblocks all but registered Nerve subscribers).

Reader comment: Warning, do not try this in your 'hood. Roland is among the more sober Boing Boing readers who write in to party-poop this celebrated hydrant hack:

Yes, fire hydrants are TOTALLY useless. It's not like they're used for, oh, I don't know, putting out fires and saving peoples' lives or anything. And it's not like sticking extra crap onto the valves (or whatever it is they have) might prevent firefighters from properly accessing the hydrants and end up killing people trapped in burning buildings. *rolls eyes* Encouraging people to fuck around with important, life-saving equipment is hardly what I expect from you guys.

Oh, alright, we don't. But it's still a great photo.

Reader Leontine Greenberg adds:

About that fire hydrant thing - supposedly if you go to the local fire station, you can get a "sprinkler cap" to put on the hydrant. Totally legal and non-dangerous: Link

And Andrew Smith says, "The NYFD will turn on the hydrant if you request it. But you have to use their approved sprinkler cap. So I am not sure how much of a hazard this is."

How Can I Get The Fire Department To Turn On A Fire Hydrant For Neighborhood Children On A Hot Summer's Day?
You can contact your local firehouse or police precinct. Hydrants can only be opened when used in conjunction with an approved Sprinkler Cap. Only firefighters are permitted to open a fire hydrant. Link.

M. Amorim says,

Just a quick note on your fire hydrants hack post. I'm a civil engineer in Spain and I've been designing water supply networks for the last few years. While I'm clueless regarding the US regulations, most municipalities may have strict policies regarding these things (for obvious reasons), so you can easily get fined if you get caught fooling around with it. Furthermore, depending on the network pressure (typical values being something in between 10-80 psi), you can get a sudden blast which can easily knock you off (for good) if you fail to manipulate the hose coupling properly. Some hydrants (wet barrel types) are permanently pressurized so they are bound to deliver this behaviour. Additional info can be found on NFPA's or AWWA's regulations and standards. Link

Aaaand Siege says (pointing to two more of the terrific hydrant-related photos he shot):

Here is what the FDNY-approved sprinkler cap spray looks like: image link. They also will give you a blue NYPD police barrier to block parking and traffic near the hydrant, so the kiddies don't get run over by passing cars. And here's what the illegal spray looks like at full blast, focused with a soup can. It shot far enough to hit passersby on the bridge.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:29:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bizarre anti-piracy promo shown in Japan's movie theaters

Snip from IMDB.com newsbrief:

Security staffs in Tokyo theaters are confiscating the video cameras of anyone caught trying to use them to record a movie on the screen, the Tokyo daily Yomiuri Shimbun reported today (Wednesday).

Moreover, the newspaper reported, notices warning patrons that filming inside a theater is banned are being posted in Tokyo theaters, and the major Japanese film distributors have cooperated to produce an animated short film that is being screened throughout the country showing a girl shedding tears that turn into skulls, as an announcer says, 'Films are stolen, and so are impressive moments. Precious things are being tainted.'

Link. If anyone spots a copy of said animated short on the internets, do let us know. (Thanks, Jeff 'Koganuts' Koga)

Reader comment: Boing Boing reader pmk says,

I've tried to take pics of this thing twice now, but neither has come out. It's not anime, which makes it all the more freaky. It's a shot of a young woman's face, looking inexplicably sad, with a scary voiceover. About halfway through the shot, she starts crying BLACK TEARS. At the end, the whole kit and kaboodle morphs into a cartoon skull.

Reader fishyswaz adds,

This isn't the particular film clip you are looking for, but here is another anti-piracy spot that is showing on TV: Link to mpeg. And here is the link for information on the actress (Mitsuki Tanimura) of the spot running in the theater (with pic).

I can't find a capture of the actual film but the spot runs like (from memory so it may not be exact):

closeup of actress' face on black background with sad music.
actress voiceover: "Our (deep) emotions are being stolen"
actress cries black tears (like ink...) the tear drop into a into black water with film superimposed, as the water ripples a skull appears.
the film burns (melts), the antipiracy campaign logo appears and title read by announcer
accress voiceover of catchphrase: "I don't watch or buy" [pirated movies]
the catchphrase and criminal warning are displayed.

Next time I go to the theater, I'll see if I can't capture it on my cameraphone.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:27:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

QTVR of moon landing with archival sound

Today is the anniversary of the first human footsteps on the moon. While they were there, Apollo astronauts took panoramic photos with Hasselblad cameras. Hans Nyberg has stitched them together into 360-degree QTVR panoramas, along with sound files from that mission. Link (Thanks, Kevin Marks)

Oh, and don't forget. If you have a Moon Day party tonight (with Tang, Moon Pies, and telescopes), share your snapshots here!

Previously on Boing Boing:
Have a Moon Day party Wed 7/20/05, share snapshots!
Google's zoomable Moon-explorer

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:20:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Snapshots of bomb shelters in Israel

A photo gallery of Israeli bomb shelters.
Link (Thanks, SB)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:15:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How movie studios misuse reviews

David Goldenberg says: Every week, Gelf compares the critic movie blurbs printed in the friday Times with the actual articles they come from.

An example:
16 Years of Alcohol

Daily Star: "Trainspotting meets A Clockwork Orange!"

Actual line: "This glum, violent drama about a Scottish thug ruined by drink is written and pretentiously directed by Richard Jobson whose approach — Trainspotting meets A Clockwork Orange — is bad enough to drive you to drink in no time." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:10:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boy in Bubble Reviews NYC's Fashionable, Trendy Restaurants

Snipped from McSweeney's Internet Tendency:

Deciding that I mustn't be the last member of New York's illustrious glitterati to show off the exploits of a recent Milan shopping spree at Asia de Cuba, the Philippe Starck-designed Cuban-Asian fusion hot spot, I ventured into the certifiably buzzing mise en scène last week with high expectations and a Prada suit with a custom-sized neck hole and an extra interior pocket for my colostomy bag.

I have to admit, though, once my personal nurse Greg mashed the ginger and chili red-snapper frittatas into a paste fine enough to fit through my rubber feeding hose, I came to the immediate conclusion that Asia de Cuba indeed deserves its reputation as more of a glorified fashion catwalk than a serious dining mecca. These were far from the fragrant and exciting frittatas of coastal Cuba, which I remember fondly from my early childhood days spent at the Havana Experimental Clinic for Severe Combined Immunodeficiency Disorder.

Link to McSweeney's Internet Tendency: The Boy in the Bubble Reviews New York City's Most Fashionable and Trendy New Restaurants, by Joshua Yaffa (thanks, Susannah Breslin)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:57:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Color interaction" in quarks gets stronger with distance

Yesterday, I posted an entry about George Pendle's article on the only time Einstein attended a seance. Einstein later said that one reason he did not believe in psi-forces was because the strength of their signal did not decrease with distance, unlike the other four known forces of nature.

Two scientists sent me email about this.

Dr. Paul J. Camp from the Department of Physics at Spelman College in Atlanta, GA emailed me with the following:

What Einstein could not have known at the time is that there is one interaction that does not decrease with distance. The color interaction, which holds quarks together inside particles such as protons and neutrons, vanishes as quark separation goes to zero and gets stronger the further apart the quarks are. This is called "asymptotic freedom" and its discovery won a Nobel prize last year for Frank Wilczek and Davids Gross and Politzer. The bulk of their work was done in the 1970's.

This is why you can't observe a free quark. As you push them further and further apart, trying to separate one out, you eventually add enough energy to create more quarks which immediately bind to each other. So instead of free quarks, you just get more hadrons. Leakage of the color interaction is what is responsible for the strong force, but Einstein could not have known that since he died in 1955. His stated reason was therefore partly wrong, but his conclusion is still valid. Psi forces only appear in poorly controlled experiments.

And Allen Knutson of UC Berkeley's math department wrote:

Actually the strong force increases with distance. That's why you can't pull protons apart into their constituent quarks. (If you dump in enough energy to pry one out, it'll go into creating a quark-antiquark pair with the new quark taking the place of the old one -- all you've done is create a meson.) Basically, the difference between it and electromagnetism in this respect is that electromagnetic waves (photons) are not charged, whereas "strong-force waves" (gluons) are indeed colored (the strong force version of charge).

Therefore, psi-forces are real, and denying them was Einstein's biggest blunder.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:44:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

David Lynch starts a new foundation based on meditation

Director David Lynch is using his own money to launch the David Lynch Foundation for Consciousness-Based Education and World Peace. He plans to establish transcendental meditation (or "TM") courses and study how yoga affects the "brain and body."

Despite "hating speaking in public," Lynch, 59, says he decided "to stop being quiet" about his passion for the 47-year-old Hindu chanting technique after observing the sad state of education in U.S. schools.

Today's students "are even more stressed out. Their schools are hellholes," he goes on. "They're getting pathetic educations. They're not going forward with full decks of cards."

Students who meditate, he says, "will start shining like a bright, shiny penny, and their anxieties will go away. By diving within, they will attain a field of pure consciousness, pure bliss, creativity, intelligence, dynamic peace. You enliven the field, and every day it gets better. Negativity recedes."

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:34:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on Jesus in Japan

Kevin Kelleher says: "All this discussion of Christianity in Japan reminds me of the town of Herai in Aomori Prefecture, not far from where I once spent a year.

"In a truly bizarre twist on the life of Jesus, the town has two large crosses in a small, out of the way park - one for Jesus, who is supposedly buried there, and one for Isukiri, his brother.

"It turns out, according to local lore, it was Jesus' brother who was crucified so that Jesus could escape and move to Japan, where he lived for many years.

"One reason there aren't many Christians in Japan is that they suffered terrible persecution. Many retreated to this remote corner, where they lived and Japanified their savior. In the process, they kind of stripped out the central idea of the religion, the resurrection.

"A good summary is in this Fortean Times story."
Link (Thanks for the image of Sanders Claus, Rob Carrol!)

Update: In 2003, Joi Ito wrote about Christmas in Japan.

Did you know that Japanese families will be lining up in front of Kentucky Fried Chickens today to get their chicken for Christmas? I DO know where this comes from. When my friend Shin, introduced KFC to Japan, the ad campaign showed wealthy American families all eating friend chicken for their holiday feast. KFC was marketed as an upscale food of the privileged in America. This triggered a tradition in Japan for families to eat friend chicken on Christmas.

Link

Reader comment: Pat says: Between 1-2% of Japanese consider themselves Christian. The other 98% don't know much about the religion (thankfully!) except a vague relationship to Christmas: a bright, fun holiday for kids and lovers. There is next to zilch awareness of Easter. It probably came down to trying to find a sellable angle for a movie that had virtually no appeal at the Japanese box office. (Which, may I remind you, is the #1 overseas market for US films.)

Another Japanese Christmas 'tradition' is the ubiquitous strawberry shortcake, which Japanese believe graces every Christian's table on said day, to go with the Kentucky Fried Chicken. A single woman of 26 used to be considered past her 'sale date' (like a Christmas cake on Dec 26), and so a new pejorative entered the language.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:13:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

James Doohan, RIP

James Doohan, chief engineer Montgomery Scott on the original Star Trek, died today at age 85. Rest in peace, Scotty.
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:10:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Papercraft Howl's Moving Castle

On a Miyazaki message-board, fans are discussing and linking to two magnificent papercraft models of Howl's Moving Castle (from the film of the same name). One is a free download (though, bizarrely, it is a PDF in a Windows self-extracting archive, ugh) while the other is a $50+ book. Link (Thanks, Jesse!)

Update: Gabriel sends us direct links to the Mac download, and the Mac instructions download

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:56:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google's zoomable Moon-explorer

Google Moon is Google's commemorative site for the anniversary of the first manned Moon landing -- an interactive, zoomable map of the moon's surface with waypoints set for the six Apollo landing sites. Nice Easter-egg if you zoom all the way, too. Link (via Waxy)

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

Free Software for Busy People

Free Software for Busy People is a new book from Mohammad Al-Ubaydli, a Bahraini MD who is on a mission to help information-civilians understand why they should use free/open source software. The book tells the story of six people from six walks of life (government administrator, MD, corporate exec, entrepreneur, Arab teacher, primary school teacher) who adopt free software. The book simply and clearly states the case for adopting free software and provides equally clear and simple explanations of how to switch and what to expect when you get there. You can buy a printed and bound copy of the book, download a PDF, or read it as a hyperlinked html file. Link (Thanks, Mohammad!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:04:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Help name Downhill Battle's video tool, win $1000

Downhill Battle's new project is the Participatory Culture digital video project, a tool that lets you publish, receive and play back video by using BitTorrent, RSS aggregation, and the multi-format video playback engine VLC -- all packaged together in an easy-to-use parcel that can be readily used by information civilians.

Tiffiniy Cheng from DHB says,

The Participatory Culture Foundation is having a design contest for our open source RSS reader for video/video player with cash prizes up to $1300. We're offering:

-$1000 for the main interface design

-$300 for an icon or logo

-You can even win $200 for being the person who referred the winner to the site (we'll ask them how they heard about the contest).

Link (Thanks, Tiffiniy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:44:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Former Bush official signs up for RFID implant

President Bush's former Health and Human Services Secretary, Tommy Thompson, onetime Governor of Wisconsin, is getting an RFID implant. Why is he volunteering for the Mark of the Beast? Promotional reasons! Thompson is on the board of Applied Digital, owner of RFID vendor VeriChip. From the Philadelphia Inquirer:

Thompson said people will eventually get beyond any queasy feelings about having a chip implanted.

"It will prevent babies from being picked up by the wrong people in a maternity ward and make sure people in nursing homes don't walk away," Thompson said.

So far, about 7,000 chips for people have been sold, with about 2,000 implanted worldwide, said Scott R. Silverman, chairman and chief executive of Applied Digital, which owns VeriChip.

Once Thompson gets chipped, chances are it won't help him in an emergency. Only two hospitals - Hackensack University Medical Center in New Jersey and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston - read the chips, Silverman said.

No worries, said Rebecca Harmon, a spokeswoman for the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.

"We can always take him to the vet school," she said.

Link (Thanks, Xeni!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:08:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The adorable art of Paige Pooler

I've long been an admirer of Paige Pooler's illustrations. She's had a weblog for a while now, and she posts most of her work there.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:33:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Japanese pop-culture art at the Japan Society in New York City

Charles Platt says: "The Japan Society in New York City has a nice exhibit of Japanese pop-culture art, including some wonderful early items, including video of old movies (guys wearing monster suits) and iconic characters such as the Toshiba Man. Also, 'fine art' that uses pop-culture subject matter, exploitatively and not very interestingly in my opinion. A printed sign at the door warns visitors that some art contains adult or offensive themes. When I asked a visiting Japanese sociologist whether such a warning would be shown in Japan, she thought this was very amusing." Link (Here's a pdf file containing a complete list of exhibits.)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:25:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Einstein goes to a seance

George Pendle wrote a piece in The Guardian about the only time Albert Einstein attended a seance.

Curiously enough, when Einstein was asked, years later, about his beliefs in the telepathic experiments of Dr JB Rhine, then studying parapsychology at Duke University, he stressed his scepticism in strictly scientific terms. All of Rhine's experiments had reported that psi-forces did not decline with distance, unlike the four known forces of nature - gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force and the weak force. "This suggests to me a very strong indication that a non-recognised source of systematic errors may have been involved," Einstein wrote.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:13:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Five Stars! How to Become a Film Critic, The World's Greatest Job

My friend Chris Null has written a book called Five Stars! How to Become a Film Critic, The World's Greatest Job. Chris knows what he is talking about -- he's the founder of Filmcritic.com. His book is useful for anyone interested in getting free stuff, like screener DVDs and tickets to advance screenings.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:57:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tattooed fruit en route

Produce industry service company Durand-Wayland, Inc. developed a system for identifying produce with laser-etched codes in 2002. These "fruit tattoos" would replace those little stickers that always get stuck in your teeth when you bite into a nice, crisp apple while distracted. The technology's beginning to catch on, according to this NYT story.

A pear is just a pear, except when it is also a laser-coded information delivery system with advanced security clearance. And that is what pears - not to mention organic apples, waxy cucumbers and delicate peaches - are becoming in some supermarkets around the country. A new technology being used by produce distributors employs lasers to tattoo fruits and vegetables with their names, identifying numbers, countries of origin and other information that helps speed distribution. The marks are burned onto the outer layer of the skin and are visible to discerning consumers and befuddled cashiers alike.

Link to NYT article.
More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:09:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hilarious Passion of the Christ poster in Japan

Here's a crazy ad that appeared in a subway station in Tokyo for Passion of the Christ.

It appears that some advertising company was asked by a Tokyo distributor to do a special ad for Christmas for the Passion of the Christ DVD. Apparently nobody who was actually Christian got to review the ad before it was posted for thousands of people to see on their way home for Christmas Eve.

Not many Christians in Japan, I guess. I once asked a Japanese friend if he knew what Christmas was about. He said it was to commemorate "Julius Christ's birthday." Link (thanks, Mark Hurst!)

Reader comment: Dave Gallardo says: "The whole thing with sects in a foreign land & collision of cultures is pretty interesting. I remember being approached by a Chinese Christian in Xian, (there's some irony there, I suppose), who didn't seem to have very firm grasp of his apparently new-found faith.

Anyway, I thought you might enjoy this story that Brad Warner, author of Hardcore Zen, and a Buddhist teacher who lived in Japan for many years tells about a debate he witnessed between Japanese Hare Krishnas & Japanese Jehovah's witnesses: Link

Reader comment: Tian says: "My sister has been living in japan working for a pharmaceutical firm for over ten years now. She said the Japanese celebrates Christmas by eating KFC chicken. Apparently the resemblance between Colonel Sanders and Santa Klaus has mislead them to believe the Jolly St. Nick would jump down the chimney with buckets of delicious fried chicken.

what the hell, all you white people look alike.

Reader comment: Jenne says: "It looks like the text on the poster says 'Christ was killed; Christmas was born.' Which isn't exactly what they told us in Sunday school, but hey."

Reader comment:Rich pav says: "Yes, the ad looks silly if you don't understand Japanese. It's a juxtaposition of the Japanese interpretation of the meaning of Christmas and its true meaning. A looser translation of the copy would be, "Christ's death gave birth to Chrismas. Learn about the unknown truth here."

The story of Christ is completely unknown in Japan. How else can you market a DVD about it in a country that associates the date commorating the violent and tragic death of a major religious figure with fried chicken, pretty decorations and sex in a love hotel? Imagine someone renting The Passion expecting a typical Christmas movie. Woah.

For what it's worth, I do a podcast/videocast where I try to show what Japan is really like instead of more of the same old, "Look how quirky those funny little Japanese people are."

Reader comment: Brent says: Just thought I'd point out that the reason the Japanese go to KFC during Christmas isn't because Colonel Sanders looks like Santa. While it's true that it's a strange practice, this one falls on the PR Machine. When KFC was first introduced to Japan in 1970, they ran advertisements saying that KFC was what all Americans ate during Christmas. Since the holiday itself was a relatively new concept to the Japanese, KFC was able to make a connection right from the get-go. Years passed pressing the same idea, and now it's tradition. Yes, they DO put Col. Sanders in a Santa Suit come Christmas time, but I'm pretty sure i've seen that stateside too.

Reader comment: Bruce says: Christ was supposedly BORN on Christmas Day, and resurrected on Easter Sunday. All your commentators on this post, and the ad copy writers, appear to think Christmas celebrates Christ's death. What's up with that?

(Of course, the current date of Christmas is definitely not on the actual day the historical Christ was probably born, but who's counting? Also, there's a lot of weird evolution of both celebrations, the dates, etc., but that doesn't change the fact of the modern interpretation.)

"God rest ye merry gentlement,
Let nothing ye dismay.
Remember Christ our Saviour
was born on Christmas Day."

Doesn't anyone remember their carols?

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:05:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EFF 15th anniversary blog-a-thon

This week marks the Electronic Frontier Foundation's 15th anniversary -- a decade and a half of changing bad laws, creating good court decisions, and building a technological civil liberties movement that now comprises dozens of organizations, activity all over the world, and millions of geeks with a burgeoning consciousness that the Internet isn't free because of its nature: it's been kept free by the struggles of activists and users who have fought back the forces of repression who would have tamed it and crimped it and rendered it little more than an AOL-1.0-style toy.

I've been working at EFF since 2002. These three and a half years have been humbling and inspiring. Watching EFF's supporters hammer Congress, the FCC, and corporations with millions of impassioned and imaginative emails, mob the streets in front of Adobe after they had a programmer locked up for embarrassing them by showing up their DRM, create hilarious and savage programs and pranks -- it's been an education and a half and a half again.

We've won some stupendous victories. My first day on the job was attending the inaugural meeting of the Broadcast Flag negotiations. At the time, we had no idea how we would fight the Broadcast Flag -- we could barely understand what it was -- save that it would seek to put all digital television technology, including PCs, under the thumbs of the Hollywood studios. Two years later, "Broadcast Flag" is a household word (in geekier households), the Broadcast Flag is dead in the USA, and we'll strangle it in its crib in Europe. The best part of this fight was all the other groups we worked with -- like Public Knowledge, who led the legal effort, the Free Software Foundation, the AMerican Library Association, and so forth. It's one thing to be a lone voice, another entirely to be part of an honest-to-God movement.

EFF has doubled in size and funding every 18 months since I joined, following a kind of activist Moore's Law. Attorneys General like Ashcroft and Gonzales and industry bullies like the RIAA and MPAA are in a perverse way the best friends a group like EFF could ask for. Insane acts like wiretapping libraries and busting children for downloading make the case for EFF more eloquently than I ever could.

The next twenty years will be the policy years. Technology has given us the capability to do practically anything we can imagine with networks -- digitize every book, connect every person, break every cartel, enable every voice to be heard and safeguard the posterity of every moment of human creativity. The question now isn't "Can we?" it's "Will we?"

Or, more to the point, "Will they let us?"

This is a game of metaphors. EFF was founded to argue that the emails traded by Steve Jackson Games's customers were more like letters or phone-calls than like conversations in a park, and so the police should get a warrant before reading them. The coppers and EFF traded metaphors before a judge, and in the end, the judge liked our metaphor better -- and that's why the Man needs a warrant before snooping on your email (or he did, anyway, until the Homeland Security Enhancement Act shredded the Constitution).

The Internet is too big to be contained by metaphors, though. In the end, the Internet isn't like postal mail, or a phone call, or a city, or a highway, or a company, or a civilization. The Internet is like the Internet -- anything less is too constraining to contain its huge, astonishing potential.

If the Internet is to realize its potential, to be like the Internet and like nothing else, it will need defenders like EFF. I couldn't ask for a better cause.

EFF's 15th anniversary is being marked with a "Blog-a-Thon," with actual prizes. Check it out:

We want to hear about your "click moment" — the very first step you to took to stand up for your digital rights -- whether it was blogging about an issue you care about, participating in a demonstration, writing your representatives, or getting involved with EFF. As a thank you, we've enlisted an independent panel of judges to choose from among your posts for "Most Inspirational," "Most Humorous," and "Best Overall." At the end of the Blog-a-thon, we'll announce the names of the three bloggers with the best posts on our website and in our weekly newsletter, EFFector. We'll also publish the three best posts on our site and send the authors a blogging "kit" as an extra thank you: an EFF bloggers' rights T-shirt, special EFF-branded blogger pajama pants, a pound of coffee, and a pair of fuzzy slippers.

Link

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

Faux nose-picker nose-hair trimmer

This battery-powered nose-hair trimmer is shaped like a human finger for faux-nose-pickery hilarity! Link (via Red Ferret)

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

Have a Moon Day party Wed 7/20/05, share snapshots!

My friends Michael and Cynthia Perry sent out an invitation to pals for a geek gathering at their home in LA tomorrow. Sans personal info, it reads:

This Wednesday marks the thirty-sixth anniversary of mankind's greatest peacetime achievement, landing two human beings safely on the moon, before returning them safely to earth.

We're going to mark the occasion at our home with friends, Tang, cake and Moon Pies (if we can get Moon Pies). We'll also set up a telescope. We'd love it if you could join us.

If you can't come, please remember to look up at the moon this Wednesday night and think about how unlikely it is that once, long ago, humans set foot there.

What a cool idea! I asked Michael if it was okay to share this with Boing Boing readers, and invite other folks having "Moon Day parties" in other parts of the world to share snapshots (I set up a Flickr photo pool here for this purpose). Michael replied:

Sure, of course, I seriously believe it should be a national holiday and encourage everyone everywhere to reflect for a moment what we did "for all mankind".

We've been doing Moon Day celebrations of some sort or another since 1993; that year we re-enacted the descent from the lander to the surface of the moon on the front lawn of Griffith Observatory, with a foil-covered ladder and a boom box. Of course it was totally without permits or permission.

Another year I stood with some friends at the intersection of Hollywood & Vine (where the Apollo Astronauts have their names on the walk of fame) and passed out Tang to tourists and waved signs that said "Make Moon Day a Holiday" and "Honk if You've Been to the Moon."

Link to MoonDayParty flickr photo pool, Link to NASA website on Project Apollo, and the first lunar landing by astronauts Neil Alden Armstrong and Dr. Edwin Eugene "Buzz" Aldrin, Jr. Here's the Wikipedia entry. Here's one archive of related media.

Image: Buzz Aldrin poses on the Moon allowing Neil Armstrong to photograph both of them using the visor's reflection.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:53:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Strange self -defense tool from Japan: The Thorn Crotch

numlok says: "Apparently you're supposed to carry this pole around in case some loon bum-rushes you while you're out for a stroll.

"Via Google translate: 'The thorn crotch (it points and) [ the crime prevention supplies ]'"
Link

Reader comment: William Van Hecke says: "The 'thorn crotch' is actually called a 'sasumata,' and dates back to the Edo period. The idea is not so much to carry it around with you, but to have it on hand in case someone threatens your home or place of business. Think of it as a less aggressive version of the baseball bat (or shotgun) some of us westerners keep around. Link

Reader comment: Justin says: The so-called Thorn Crotch is actually a tool present in all elementary schools and (as far as I know) many if not all junior high schools in Japan. There are regular teacher and student training exercises that we've roughly translated as "the scary man drill." A scary man with a fake knife runs in to a given classroom, students shriek and run for cover, and a designated student runs to get a teacher with the scary man device. Then they chase each other around until the scary man gets pinned against a wall.

Reader comment: Kyle Goetz says: In case any readers are interested, I translated the Sasumata ad you posted on Boing Boing. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:37:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Roald Dahl's Oompah Loompah song lyrics cut from movie

Danny Elfman who wrote and performed the music for Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, used only a fraction of Roald Dahl's orginal, extremely nasty lyrics from the book.

Here's an example of parts Elfman didn't use (from the song for Augustus Gloop):

However long this pig might live,
We're positive he'd never give
Even the smallest bit of fun
Or happiness to anyone.

[snip]

So what we do in cases such
As this, we use the gentle touch,
And carefully we take the brat
And turn him into something that

Will give great pleasure to us all --
A doll, for instance, or a ball,
Or marbles or a rocking horse.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:34:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wonderful automaton based on idea by Claude Shannon

Information theory pioneer Claude Shannon was a master toy maker. (See Boing Boing entries about his juggling robots here).

Here's a box someone built based on Shannon's idea. When you push a red knob on the box, the lid opens and a hand comes out and pulls the knob, causing the lid to close. There's a video of the box in action on the site.
Link (thanks, TK!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:26:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wired News on Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research

Wired News reports on the controversial Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research program (PEAR), a 26-year-old effort to scientifically measure whether human consciousness can affect machines like digital random number generators. (Link to previous post about the Princeton-based effort.) From the Wired News article:

The first REG (Random Event Generator) that researchers used produced high-frequency random noise. Researchers attached circuitry to the device to translate the noise into ones and zeroes. Each participant, following a prerecorded protocol, developed an intention in her or his mind to have the generator alternately spew out more ones, then more zeroes, and then do nothing at all.

The effects were small, but measurable. Since then, the same results have occurred with other experiments, such as one involving a pendulum connected to a computer-controlled mechanism. When the machine releases the pendulum to swing from a set position, participants focus on changing the rate at which the pendulum slows to a stop...

What does all of this mean?

No one knows. Both (institute of Noetic Sciences researcher Dean) Radin and (Princeton professor emeritus Robert) Jahn say that just because there is a correlation between the intent of the participant and the machine's actions doesn't mean one causes the other.

"There is an inference (that the two are related) but no direct evidence," Radin said.

Radin said the phenomenon could be similar to quantum entanglement -- what Einstein referred to as "spooky action at a distance" -- in which two particles separated from each other appear to connect without any apparent form of communication.

Link

UPDATE: BB reader Tom Radcliffe points to several early 1990s papers written by now-retired University of Texas professor William H. Jefferys, critiquing some of the PEAR results. Search the page for "Random Event Generator Data" and follow the links to the PDF or Postscript files. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:14:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Guy uses Google Maps in court to beat traffic ticket

Heartwarming story of a clever lad named Edwin who beat a traffic ticket using Google Maps. The officer who issued the ticket told the judge that Edwin was driving down a one way street when he supposedly ran a red light. Edwin told the judge this wasn't correct -- it was a two-way street -- and pulled out his laptop, found a faint but usable WiFi connection, and loaded the Google Map page of the intersection where the alleged violation occurred. "The judge said that due to lack of memory of the officer she will have to dismiss the violation." (Of course, Edwin will now probably be locked away for stealing precious Internet resources by using the unsecured WiFi connection.)Link

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

World of Warcraft nude mod uncovered

Fleshbot points its gnome-booty-craving readership to a hidden nude mod in World of Warcraft which is much tamer than the GTA: San Andreas sex scene that has Hilary Clinton's britches in a bunch. This one's no big deal, says Fleshbot, but will still be exciting to those "curious and/or desperate [enough] to sit through a twenty minute download just to catch a glimpse of a few naked female characters doing the Macarena and some simulated oral sex."
Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:23:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Research base on skis

The winner of the British Antarctic Survey's competition to design a new research base is this 800 ton structure that can be moved across the ice on its ski-laden legs. The base was designed by Faber Maunsell and Hugh Broughton Architects and boasts a central recreation pod between research and living modules. From News@Nature:

The central module also features large, triple-glazed picture windows; researchers living at several of Antarctica's 82 existing stations have complained of depression brought on by living in dark, cramped quarters, often completely buried by snow.

Much of the modules' structure will be prefabricated, meaning the modules will be quick and easy to assemble in the harsh Antarctic conditions. "From arriving at the site to getting a weatherproof base will take just 35 days," says Peter Ayres, a member of the Faber Maunsell team.

The station will also feature solar panels for summer use, along with the aviation fuel traditionally used to power remote buildings in freezing climates. Power requirements are far greater in summer, when the station will house a crew of 52 people, as opposed to winter, when just 16 (roughly half of them scientists) will live there.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:16:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

No blank ammo for army exercises? Yell "bang" instead

The British Army is short on blank ammunition used for military training exercises. As a result, soldiers playing war games may have to shout "bang, bang" when they fire. From the UK Telegraph:

A senior Army officer said that the ammunition crisis was "shambolic" and came at the worst possible time for the Army.

He said: "There is nothing more dispiriting than soldiers having to go on exercise and shout 'bang, bang' because there is not enough blank ammunition. Any benefit from the exercise will be lost because soldiers just won't take it seriously. Why should soldiers who are being sent to Iraq, where their lives will be endangered, be forced to shout 'bang' in training because someone in the Ministry of Defence can't do basic arithmetic? It's a disgrace."

Link (Thanks, W. Vann Hall!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:06:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Four unusual neurological syndromes

The Brain, Mind, and Language site has a page with short descriptions of four different rare neurological syndromes.

People with "Kluver-Bucy Syndrome" try to put anything they can get their hands on into their mouths and will "typically attempt to have sexual intercourse with it."

People with "Capgras' Syndrome" think everyone around them is an impostor. They feel like they are living in a real life version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

People with "Cotard's Syndrome" believe they are dead -- walking corpses. "The French physician Charles Bonnet described a lady who insisted of dressing in a death shroud and being put in a coffin. She demanded to be buried and when refused, remained in her coffin until she died several weeks later."

People with "Fregoli Syndrome" see everyone around them as the same person. It must be like seeing the Oompa Loompas in Burton's Willy Wonka Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which were all played by the same actor. Link (via Spitting Image)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:47:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Access to Knowledge treaty has a site

The Access to Knowledge treaty is an effort to get the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to start acting like a humanitarian UN agency, instead of an industry consortium solely concerned with extending copyright, patents and trademark. The treaty calls on WIPO to harmonize international law to ease the tasks of educators, archivists and those who provide access to disabled people -- today, the laws for these tasks vary from nation to nation, making international cooperation legally difficult if not impossible.

An open group of international non-governmental organizations, governments, scholars, acticists and individuals has been planning the treaty for some months now and we've finally got a web-site where all of our work is being documented and published, with calls to action and other ways to get involved. Anyone can register and add material to the site.

In an October 15 speech, the Director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), Jonathan Dudas, vowed that the U.S. government will "fight" proposals that aim to "fundamentally change the WIPO charter and philosophy" away from its current focus on the promotion of intellectual property.

In his keynote remarks at the Annual Meeting of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA--a 15,000-member U.S. bar association comprised primarily of intellectual property lawyers) Dudas stated emphatically that "our current system and international norms are properly balanced". In a not-so-oblique reference to recent discussions at WIPO of a 'Development Agenda,' Dudas derided efforts to encourage WIPO to take a more balanced approach to intellectual property as part of a "strategy to water down intellectual property protection" that is "even worse" than efforts to increase PCT application fees.

Link (Thanks, Thiru!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:32:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Death Star subwoofer on eBay

This homemade Death-Star-shaped subwoofer is for sale on eBay -- the winning bidder to pick it up from near Reading, England.

My housemate and I are not known for under-engineering, or even adequate-engineering things, and this is another example of our finest over-engineering.

Inside is a skeleton made from 18mm MDF with curved ribs, approximately 30-40mm thick to make the basic circular shape. It was made airtight from the inside using fibre glass matting, then the gaps between the ribs was filled with chopped glass fibres and resin. A skin was then made on the outside from ply wood. It resembled a large onion at this point, not quite the plan!

The large onion was basically round but needed to be rounder.. So the plywood was covered in fibre glass - it's worth noting this is when we learned that power sanding fibre glass whilst wearing a T-Shirt was not our best idea, all the tiny glass fibres stick in your arms, hair, clothes etc. Safety first kids, goggles, breathing masks and overalls!

The whole surface was covered in car body filler, and sanded... and sanded, then we sanded it some more. It really is properly round and nice and smooth. The equatorial trench was then cut out using a router.

The last step was to paint it, it's two shades of grey, with a black equatorial trench and little white dots speccled over the surface to represent the lights. For further visual enhancement the speaker surround is a piece of polished aluminium.

Link (Thanks, Renata!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:25:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flickr photos of bad parking at Yahoo

Ycantpark is a Flickr user who apparently works at Yahoo! and is using Flickr to document the incredibly bad parking in the Yahoo lot (apparently caused by a shortage of parking and some genuinely inconsiderate behavior). Of course, Flickr was recently acquired by Yahoo. Link (Thanks, Uber-Review!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:21:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Clients threaten designers over portfolios

Suw Charman's published her excellent article from Design In-Flight magazine on ad agencies and marketing companies that threaten to sue their designers for putting samples of their own work in their portfolios:

When designer Jason Santa Maria put his portfolio online he wasn't expecting to get a Cease and Desist letter from a former employer citing clauses from his contract and demanding that he remove any references to them, including all images, from his site. Jason had fallen foul of his old Work for Hire contract which transferred ownership of all rights in his designs to the company he worked for. It meant that the only legal way he could use his designs in his portfolio was to obtain express permission from the rights owner, his former employer, or challenge the restriction in court.

"I wasn't entirely aware of the ramifications when I signed," Jason admits. "I was young and inexperienced. Most design shops accept that people will use the work they do in their public portfolios, but because you are now able to have a body of work on your website which can be accessible by anyone at anytime, I think you will see an increase in situations like this. Information is so readily available that you can't assume people aren't looking and, more importantly, aren't taking notice.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:12:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ScienceMatters@Berkeley, July issue

In my latest issue of ScienceMatters@Berkeley:

* Seeing Space: Telescopes that take the twinkle out of stars.

* Sweet Bioscience: A cell's sugary landscape could help diagnose cancer.

* Signaling Brain Cells: Making synapses from the fewest possible ingredients.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:55:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Potter was online in 24h

JK Rowling reportedly refused to release the new Harry Potter as an ebook, citing "piracy" fears. Less than 24h after the book hit the shelves, it had been scanned in, run through optical character recognition software, proofread and posted. The Pottermaniacs who did the work coordinated their efforts with IRC channels and most of them never met. Today if you want to buy a copy of the new Potter to read on your phone, you're out of luck: but you can download one for free that's been produced by fans of the book who were willing to sacrifice their copies to contribute to the homebrew digital edition. Smart business decision, huh? Link (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:46:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Surf-music/hard-rock mashups

Sounds For The Sun-Set: 2005 is a concept mash-up album from RIAA (Really Interesting Audio Adventures) that combines hard rock with surfer music. There are some really inspired tracks on this one:RIAA (Really Interesting Audio Adventures)

1. HOLIDAY INN: CAMBODIA - Martha & the Vandellas "Heatwave" vs The Dead Kennedys "Holiday In Cambodia" and plenty of thrift-store record sound bytes

2. BOP DON'T RUN- The Ramones "Blitzkreig Bop" vs The Ventures "Walk Don't Run"

3. TRICKY WIPEOUT - Run-DMC "It's Tricky" vs The Surfaris "Wipeout"

4. SWEET CALIFORNIA GIRL O' MINE - The Beach Boys "California Girls," The Beastie Boys "Brass Monkey," Guns n Roses: "Sweet Child O' Mine," intro-The Surf Coasters, beach movie bits

Link (Thanks, Conrad!)

Update: Site's down. Send me links to working mirrors and I'll post 'em.

Update 2: It's back up again!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:34:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Alternative Freedom trailer is live

Here's the long-awaited trailer for the documentary "Alternative Freedom.". It's a movie about the way that copyright and related regulations have curtailed personal liberty, free expression and innovation. The movie includes interviews with Bunnie "Xbox Hacker" Huang, Larry Lessig, Richard Stallman, EFF's Jason Schultz, DJ Danger Mouse, and numerous others. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:31:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tech companies as geopolitical analogies

danah boyd's put together a funny geopolitical analogy to three tech giants. Her readers have pickedup the game and are trying to figure out what other countries the remaining tech companies represent (delicious is Chechnya: Comprehensible only to those inside"):

Microsoft is Germany. They did some pretty evil things a while back but you don't remember the details, you just know that you really hate them. Even though they're really no worse than any other large corporpation/country, you can't help but distrust them permanently because, well, you always have.

Yahoo is Japan. It had an economic crisis that almost destroyed it and it plays too nice with all of the other evil empires, supporting the most evil endeavors. It hasn't really innovated for a while, but it tries to improve on known products to support average people. It's currently trying to sell culture in the form of animated cutesy iconic images which you kinda like and kinda despise.

Google is the United States. It has never seen trouble on home turf. It is arrogant and loved by the elite. You know you're supposed to respect them for being better than everyone else, because they think they are, but you actually kinda resent them for being so rich and powerful. Yet, you really like their cool toys.

Link (Thanks, Joe!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:51:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Little kids say TV's forbidden words

My friend Gnat Torkington, a perl hacker from New Zealand, has the filthiest mouth of anyone I've ever met. It's not surprising then that he's made this video of his little kids saying the seven words that you're not allowed to utter on television, with a surprise Easter-egg at the end. Link (Thanks, Quinn!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:46:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory speaking at Open Tech 2005 this Saturday in London

Next Saturday, I'm going to be speaking on a panel at the backstage.bbc.co.uk Open Tech 2005 conference in London. This is the successor to the NTK conferences like "The Festival of Inappropriate Technology" and "NotCon" -- they're always as fun as you can imagine, featuring everything from Bluetooth sniper-antennea fo synthesizers that you play by soldering and unsoldinering pins on the naked board to talks like the one I'm part of:

Where's the British EFF?

Does the UK need a membership digital rights organisation? And if so, what cool-sounding acronyms haven't already been taken?

Where: The Reynolds Building, St. Dunstan's Road, Hammersmith, W6 8RP (nearest tube stations: Hammersmith and Barons Court)

When: Saturday, 23 July, 11AM-6:45PM

£5 to attend -- tickets are sold out, but cancellation tickets will be available at the door.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:26:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, July 18, 2005

Blog-homage to '70s pinball cheeseball art

On his blog, Intergalactically famed illustrator Coop (father of all devil-babes) waxes poetic on pinball machine art he's collected over the years, including those designed by Dave Christensen.

Few outside the world of serious pinball maniacs would recognize Christensen's name, but I consider him a major influence on my own work, despite the fact that I only learned his name less than a decade ago. I grew up in the seventies, and I can distinctly remember playing machines designed by Christensen, and being mesmerized by the blinking tableaus of lowbrow decadence, images filled with lots of in-jokes, eyeball kicks and a heaping helping of big-boobed sexy girls that tantalized my adolescent libido.

Link to Coop's blog post, including lots of images of these machines and a kick-ass promo poster featuring Ann-Margaret circa Tommy. Best of all: a supremely kitschy NSFW image of the art for XXX-rated pinball game "Big Dick."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:57:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Blog devoted to cult of deceased Daily Show couch

Boing Boing reader TK says,

This guy is upset about the new Daily Show Studio, particularly the fact that the couch is no longer there. So he's written a blog called "Bring Back the Couch."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:23:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Atomic bomb-related footage in Prelinger Archive

Boing Boing pal Wil Wheaton says,

BoingBoing readers whose interest in the Manhattan Project has been piqued by your Simnuke posts will find hours of Cold War-era atomic bomb-related footage in the Prelinger Archive at the Internet Archive.

They've got lots of propaganda films like the hilarious Duck and Cover, and the horrifying My Japan. There are also official government test films, like Operation Crossroads (better known as the tests on Bikini Atoll) and Operation Cue, which features tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site in 1955.

Shown above, a series of stills from Duck and Cover.

Previously on Boing Boing:
Xeni on NPR -- SIMNUKE: Having a Blast in the Nevada Desert
Xeni headed to Simnuke
Simnuke snapshots

Reader comment: Nick James says,

I couldn't let your post on Boing Boing go by without pointing out 1954's amusing "The House in the Middle," a documercial sponsored by the National Paint, Varnish and Lacquer Association, of course, claiming that a clean house with a fresh coat of paint will save your house and family from a nuclear blast.

I wrote an essay on bomb shelter culture in the US a couple years ago, which I've made available, in case anyone's interested:Link. There seem to be a fair number of readers with a thing for Cold War culture, so I thought I'd share. A number of my sources for the paper were the safety films now featured on Boing Boing.

Anthony Hall says,

You neglected to mention the most fun factoid about Duck and Cover -- that Mia Farrow was the Duck and Cover kid.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:08:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nose bitten off over Sin City spat

A 19-year-old in Bathurst, Australia lost his nose in a fight outside a movie theater. Apparently, he was arguing with another moviegoer about the cinematic quality of Sin City. A brawl broke out and the tip of his nose was bitten off. It was surgically re-attached. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:17:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pakistani girl-geek is one of world's youngest MSFT experts

Boing Boing reader Abbas Raza says,

This is the story of a girl from a small city in Pakistan who became the youngest Certified Microsoft Expert at age 9. She met Bill Gates last week and asked him why he doesn't hire people her age. Gates has also said he will go and stay at her home in Pakistan. It's a charming story, and may go some way toward defusing stereotypes about Pakistan and its people (of whom I am one).

Quick, someone buy that kid a Linux box! Link.

Reader comment: Seb Flyte says,

As this ZDNet article points out, it might not be that simple... India claims to have an eight-year-old MCP. "According to a Channel News Asia report, the youngest every MCP is India's Mridul Seth, who is said to have gained the qualification at age eight in November 2004."

link

Anonymous snarkypants says,

More than anything else, I think these anecdotes are quite illuminating in regards to the actual value of Microsoft's technical certifications -- i.e., they're so easy to obtain, even nine-year-olds can do it.

Abbas Halai says,

There has been a website following up with this little girl at Pak Technology News at Link and Link

Patrix says,

The group blog Sepia Mutiny blogged last year about the world's youngest certified geek, Mridul Seth who lives in Bangalore. He achieved this feat in spite of having a severe physical deformity.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:58:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Malaysian teapot cult in hot water

A Malaysian cult devoted to the icon of a large teapot has been attacked. Some local Muslims are said to be angry that the group, which promotes interfaith harmony, is "stealing" converts from mosques.
Link (thanks, Tom)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:50:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Poaching linked to tusk-free gene occurrence in elephants?

A "tusk-free" gene typically found in 2-5% of male Asian elephants is now showing up in 5-10 percent of elephants in China, according to a Beijing zoologist who has been studying the creatures since 1999. "This decrease in the number of elephants born with tusks shows the poaching pressure for ivory on the animal," Zhang Li says. Link (Thanks, Sphinx)

Reader Comment: Chris Zable says,

Poaching, or any other environmental selection pressure, does not cause DNA to mutate. Environmental forces such as poaching favor particular gene variants (in this instance, apparently a gene already present in the gene pool, not a new mutation), causing them to become more prevalent. Hoping for more cool bio postings!

Dan says,

It's fun to note that people used to believe in inheriting acquired traits, aka Lamarckism (named for a French biologist who championed the idea: Link. It was disproven by August Weismann, who cut off the tails of rats successively for many generations, but discovered that their children still had tails (what do you know?) Link. Nonetheless, my mother says she remembers, going to school in the fifties, being told that because of the automobile humans would eventually be born without legs. Wwouldn't we still need them to press the accelerator? Weird!

And John Williams says:

I hate to disagree with your commentors. Enough violence is done to the elephant while harvesting the tusks that the elephant often dies even if the poacher does not take the short-cut of killing the animal first.

Dead animals don't have sex and elephants without tusks aren't targeted by ivory hunters. This means that the tuskless elephants have greater opportunity at reproduction (less competion from dead tusked elephants) and father more elephants (they're around longer to have more sex), thus increasing the prevalence of the tuskless mutation. So it's not Lamarkism, just basic natural selection at work.

Mark Federman, Chief Strategist for the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology at the University of Toronto, says:

Interestingly, one of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology's lecture series this year was on "Evolutionary Biology as a Medium," at which this very phenomenon was explored through human history. The link for the write-up of that lecture is here: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:46:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

IBEAM Optical Timepiece

The IBEAM Optical Timepiece is a wristwatch with a built in LED flashlight and flip-up magnifying glass. Perfect for frying bugs on the playground. Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:13:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Birds mimic ringtones

German ornithologists claim that some birds are now singing the songs of cell phone ringtones. Richard Schneider of the NABU bird conservation center near Tuebingen says that jackdaws, starlings, and jays are the best mimics. Still, the birds apparently can't copy more complex polyphonic ringtones. From Deutsche Presse-Agenture:

One reason for the phenomenon was that these birds were increasingly common in the urban environment, even the relatively shy jay, (Schneider) said. "There is food and an increasing amount of green space in modern cities."

The birds were simply adapting to their environment in imitating human sounds in what he termed an "evolutionary playground."

Link (via MobHappy)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:55:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Smiths, the musical

"Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others" is a stage musical based on the tunes of 1980s alt.melodrama band The Smiths. Directed by Andrew Wale with musical direction by Perrin Manzer Allen, the show runs for another week in London, followed by Ireland and Australia. From the New York Times:

"Some Girls" seeks the spirit of the Smiths' songs by transforming them. The arrangements are not for rock band, but for string quartet with electronics. Morrissey's heartsick legato croon is reassigned to four women and two men, who deliver anything from keening, primal unaccompanied wails to swing-era harmonies. The Smiths' lyrics were proudly defenseless and unguarded: "I know I'm unlovable/ You don't have to tell me." Yet the staging doesn't wrap them in obvious scenarios. The show is an allusive, surreal, ever-mutating fantasia on love and sex, family and control, violence and death.

The women take on archetypal roles as a child, a young woman and a mother; there's also a red-headed diva. An older and younger man are like a father and grown son; and there's a young boy on video, at first isolated and frightened, but eventually smiling and stepping into the light. They interact in love and rage, but there is no simple story. The younger man, Garrie Harvey, sings, "I am human and I want to be loved" while dressed as a rabbit; the girlish Katie Brayben is at various times a cellist, a trapeze artist and a gunslinger.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:25:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on NPR -- SIMNUKE: Having a Blast in the Nevada Desert

For today's edition of the NPR program "Day to Day," I filed a report on SIMNUKE, an art-tech-protest event in Nevada's Black Rock desert this weekend commemorating 60 years since the first nuclear bomb explosion.

On July 6, 1945 at 5:29AM Mountain War Time, the Trinity test took place -- a plutonium bomb nicknamed "gadget" was detonated. On July 16, 2005, at around the same time, SIMNUKE took place. About 400 gallons of gasoline and biodiesel (converted restaurant grease --- some batches smelled like egg rolls, other tanks like tacos) burned in less than 20 seconds. Propelled by liquid nitrogen, the mixture was blown by giant fans into a column of flame to simulate the look and feel of a nuclear explosion.

This was only 1/10,000 the power of the 19-kiloton test in 1945. But organizers say the point was to recreate the essence of what the real thing felt like. If more people sense this personally and physically, their logic goes, more will better understand the power and destructive reality of nuclear weapons. In 1945, there was one such bomb in the world. Today, there are about 30,000.

The vibe surrounding the event was a little like a nuke-themed Burning Man. Lots of el-wire, body paint, downbeat techno, and colorful surreality in the white alkaline dust. The desert scene at night before the dawn blast was a mellow chillfest. But for the socially-conscious geeks behind SIMNUKE who've been toiling on the project for three years, this was about something much more serious than a playa party.

Link to NPR "Day to Day" radio feature, with pictures, videos, and background on both SIMNUKE and the Trinity tests which marked the culmination of the Manhattan Project. Archived show audio will be available after 12PM Pacific/3PM ET.

Very special thanks to my NPR producer Robert Sachs, to video director/cinematographer Jeff Porter, to Sasha Magee, Michael Williams, Daniel Terdiman -- and to the Paiute lady at the reservation gas station near Pyramid Lake who helped us when we got lost on bumpy dirt backroads.

Previously on Boing Boing: Xeni headed to Simnuke, and Simnuke snapshots.

Reuters photos here, Flickr pool here, Xeni's snaps here, video clip here. SIMNUKE team member Kiki says,

I am not a pacifist. I do believe violence is sometimes necessary -- especially when dealing with those who only understand violence. But the bomb is not an appropriate weapon for war. It is simply not a weapon that can be used against an army. It is too large. It is a weapon that is used against a civilian population only. For that reason, it should be banned globally. A raw human feeling of the weapon we wield -- and the sorrowful impact it has -- is necessary for making decisions on how to use it. That is the essence of SimNuke.

I strongly recommend you look for Barefoot Gen and read it. It is a manga (a Japanese graphic novel) which you can find in any good comicbook store. Art Spiegelman (who wrote Maus) wrote the introduction to American readers. Barefoot Gen is the foundation for my views on war. It is *necessary* for all citizens to read, IMHO.

I also suggest The Making of the Atomic Bomb, a gripping book describing the drama of the Manhattan Project, from the discovery of the atom, through the epilogue of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I could not put it down through all 800 pages. [SIMNUKE founder Camron Assadi, aka] Teiwaz and [fellow team member Scott Bartlett, aka] Sparky each said it was because I gave that book to them to read that sparked their collaborative brainstorming on the idea of SimNuke so many months ago.

A fascinating interview with Keiji Nakazawa, author of the Barefoot Gen (Hadashi no Gen) manga (amazon link), is here. And here's another. Here's the 1983 anime movie directed by Mori Masaki.

Reader comments: Jodi says,

To go along with the Trinity anniversary: this site has pictures and video of many of the above ground nuclear tests done after WWII, not to mention other great stuff. It's in the "news and publications" section, and then you can go to photo library, or video. My favorite: I've always been a fan of Priscilla (6/24/57).

Ilkka Poutanen says,

While on the subject, you might want to consider mentioning Trinity and Beyond, a great documentary about the history of nuclear weapon development. The visuals and audio in this movie are just amazing, and really communicate the incomprehensible power of these devices that we wield and, it sometimes seems, have all but forgotten about.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:25:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NoKo students' stage show: bigger than Riverdance?

Click on the "Bigger than Riverdance?" link for video footage of what may just be the wackiest stage show of all time. These North Korean kids are super talented. Link to NYT online feature in Real (thanks, Mark Hurst)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:20:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Slate starts podcasting

Online mag Slate now offers podcasts of editors reading pieces aloud. Even more unusual and adventurous fare is coming soon, and from what I hear through the pod-vine... should be pretty amazing stuff. Link (disclaimer: Slate is the online partner of NPR's "Day to Day," to which I'm a regular correspondent). (thanks, Andy Bowers!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:15:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of haute couture zen: Giacomo Alvino

Porny, futuristic images from Giacomo Alvino's rip-snortin' Haute Couture Fall/Winter 2005/2006 collection.
Linky (thanky, Susannah Breslin)

Reader comment: Boing Boing pal W. Vann Hall points to more photos from the show: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:13:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Profile of a 10-year-old girl boxer

On the LA Times website, an beautifully-written, five-part series on 10-year-old Seniesa Estrada, a child boxer from East LA. Includes photos and home video.
Link (thanks, Ben Shapiro)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:05:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sexy toolbelt

"Pale pink satin accessories belt with detachable suspenders, fuchsia pink corset ribbon closing at back. Included with the belt is a pair of black sequinned nipple tassels, a pair of black silk wrist ties and a fuchsia pink blindfold. It has various loops and ties for customizing your own tool belt." Yeah, whatever. But I wonder if you could fit a soldering iron and some drill bits in this thing.
Link (Thanks, Violet Blue, via touchesexy)

Reader comment: John Klima says,

The best thing about the sexy tool belt is that it is also available from Mall-friendly Victoria's Secret through their online store: Link. Much to my surprise, Vicky's Secret also sells handcuffs: Link. Just what every middle American was looking for!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:30:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Third Annual Defcon Wifi Shootout Contest

WiFi enthusiasts from around the world plan to gather in Vegas from July 29-31, pitting geeky skills against one another in the third annual Defcon Wifi Shootout Contest. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:24:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Virtual barcode clock

Responding to my post below about a wall-mountable barcode clock, BB reader Bob O'Shaughnessy points to this classic JavaScript barcode clock. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:23:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Simnuke: snapshots

I'm out of the desert now, just returned from the SIMNUKE event commemorating 60 years since the first detonation of a nuclear bomb on July 6, 1945. Here is a hastily gathered set of snapshots. More to come. Stay tuned for an NPR "Xeni Tech" report airing on "Day to Day" Monday morning, and for more pics and video.

Image: At around 3:15am Saturday July 16, Dave Bayer of the Simnuke production team is hurriedly scraping ice off a large nitrogen tank. As nitrogen leaves this tank, and travels by hose to propel fuel in the fuel tanks, a condensation effect occurs, and ice forms. This is bad, because it slows down the nitrogen flow, making it harder to fill all the fuel tanks on time for the scheduled 5:29AM blast.

Link to Xeni's Simnuke set (also contains a few shots taken by others including Daniel Terdiman of Wired News), and link to the group photo pool where others are posting their images.

Previously: Xeni headed to Simnuke

Update: photographs from SIMNUKE participant William Francis, including the image below, are here.

Boing Boing reader Allen Knutson says:

You didn't mention the condensation on the hose itself, which is much more impressive. First the hose looks wet, then looks dry, then looks wet again. Why?

*spoiler*

First water condenses on it. Then water freezes on it. Then *oxygen* condenses on it. After a while the oxygen can even pool enough to drip off. Drip, drip.

(It's not cold enough to freeze oxygen, or, of course, condense nitrogen.)

Reader "Foxy Hedgehog" adds,

Maybe you've seen these. Robert Longo's exquisite and indelible drawings of the early detonations. The first chapter in this history. Link 1, Link 2, Link 3.

Tom Arey says,

A group of amateur radio operators commemorated the Trinity tests at the original test site by way of a special events station. Link. Also, a lot more information on the Trinity event can be found at the White Sands Missile Range Site: Link.

(Ed Note: link also has details on an "open house" event which took place at the range site on July 16 to commemorate the 60-year anniversary.)

UPDATE: Dave Bayer, the SIMNUKEr shown in the photo at the top of this post, says:

Slight correction (as I was probably not the easiest person to get to talk to in the desert): The large tank has liquid nitrogen in it. We stored pressurized gaseous nitrogen in the fuel tanks to later propel the fuel (doing so with liquid nitrogen would be very dangerous with the tanks and fittings in use due to the extreme cold and its effects on rubber and steel). Liquid nitrogen sits at about -193C in that tank. To evaporate the liquid nitrogen and warm the resulting vapor, the dewar (the nifty stainless steel tank covered in snow in the photo) has coils close to the surface to pull in heat from the surrounding environment. The layer of frost slows heat transfer into those coils which reduces the rate at which we can pull warmed vapor out of the dewar. Not enough heat and too high a flow rate results in very cold vapor or even liquid being drawn from the vapor port on the dewar.

Once the ice was scraped, there was a cascade of fog around the dewar like opening a refrigerator /freezer door on a humid day.

Ok, probably too much information (but I am a little anal about information seeing as one part of this wass an educational project) which can/should be distilled and condensed to something like: As gaseous nitrogen leaves this tank to be stored to propel the fuel later, the boiling of liquid nitrogen chills the outside of the tank causing a condensation effect. This is bad because it slows the flow rate at which the nitrogen can safely be pulled from the tank, making it harder to fill all the ...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:19:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Barcode Clock

I dig the idea behind this Barcode Clock. A red light above the numbers on the bottom indicates the hour while the LED display provides the minutes. I only wish they'd have figured out a way to keep the UPC interface throughout the whole thing. It's just $35 from Signals. Link (via Cool Hunting)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:02:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Commie comix auction

This 1926 issue of Red Cartoons, a magazine of commie comix published by The Daily Worker Publishing Company, is up for auction on eBay. Starting bid at $19.99. Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:46:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, July 16, 2005

What's killing Hollywood (not piracy!)

This short, sharp list of what's killing Hollywood is pithy and to the point, and the perfect note to sign off for the weekend with -- I'm going away for a couple days' worth of birthday celebration and I'll be back on Tuesdayish!

1. Hollywood cannot control its marketing costs or star salaries. The growing importance of DVDs increases the "needle in the haystack" problem for any single film and thus locks studios into more marketing, creating a vicious spiral.

2. TV is now so much better, and offers artists greater creative freedom. Why watch movies?

3. The Internet is outcompeting cinema, whether at the multiplex or on DVD.

4. Big TV screens are keeping people at home, which lowers box office receipts. This also hurts the long-term prospects of many DVDs.

5. The demand for DVDs has fallen because movie lovers have completed thei