[an error occurred while processing this directive]

View a recent day: June 26 | June 25 | June 24 | previous days | by month and year

Wednesday, August 31, 2005

A tale of two photos: Mississippi Goddamn

caption: President Bush plays a guitar presented to him by Country Singer Mark Wills, right, backstage following his visit to Naval Base Coronado, Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Bush visited the base to deliver remarks on V-J Commemoration Day. (AP Photo/ABC News, Martha Raddatz). Link.

Meanwhile, during those same hours, in Mississippi: Volunteers rescue a family from the roof of their Suburban, which became trapped in floodwaters on US 90 in Bay St. Louis, Miss. (Ben Sklar / AP) August 30, 2005.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:03:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Katrina sat pics from NASA; more coming via Google

BB reader Phil Gross says,

Regarding use of Google Earth to overlay near-live damage photos: Satellite photos of Katrina's damage will be available through Google Earth and Google Maps in the next few days. They've scheduled time on five flyovers in the next week. Poeple will at least be able to see the damage for a large part of the area at a fair level of detail. Link

John says,

In this previous Boing Boing post, you included a link to some NASA images of flooding in New Orleans. Here is a link to high resolution images of the Mississippi gulf area from NOAA. From the main page, people should click on the "Index Map" Graphic, from there they can select which part of the state they'd like to see images for. Link

bryan kennedy says,

You might want to keep an eye on NASA's MODIS Rapid Response site. This is where images from TERRA and AQUA come before getting preocessed and geo-rectified. But you might be able to get some images of the NOLA area before they hit the press. You can get very high resolution images here. Link

John Reiser says,

I thought you might be interested in some NOAA aerial photography imagery to match up to Google Maps pre-Hurricane imagery. I'm not from the area, and I think having before and after shots demonstrate the impact of this distaster.

US 90 Bridge before: Link US 90 afterwards: Link.

Bay Saint Louis before: Link. Afterwards: Link.

Gulfport's Port: Link -- and after: Link.

Also, this building remained somewhat intact, while everything around it is devastated. Link one, Link two.

Tim Holtt says,

I whipped up a quick "mouse over to toggle between before and after satellite pics of Katrina" page just now. It makes it easier to see the (astounding) differences. It's here: Link

- - - - - - - -
Image: This satellite still and animation from NASA’s Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) show the "strong convective development of Hurricane Katrina" on Saturday 08/27, as it moved west through the Gulf of Mexico.

Previously:

New satellite images of NOLA flooding (USGS, NASA)

Using Google Earth to process Katrina flood damage data

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:29:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Katrina aid idea: free net access / voip /cellphones at Astrodome?

Following up on an earlier BB thread about geeks who want to help Hurricane Katrina victims (with cash, tech know-how, gear, hard labor, or organizing skills) reader Rich Kulawiec suggests,

It seems that everyone currently in the New Orleans Superdome -- plus many others -- are going to be moved to the Astrodome...estimates range from 10K to 30K people, with a possible stay of "months" mentioned. The Astrodome's schedule is being cleared through December.

Communications are going to be a serious issue for these refugees; for example, those few who might have their cell phones probably don't have their chargers. And in a month, when their bill goes to their still-underwater house and isn't paid, their service will be cut off.

Suggestion: we the geeks put together and deploy the world's largest cybercafe in the Astrodome.

Granted, Internet access isn't a panacea, but it at least would provide a way for these people to communicate. What's needed:

(a) permission from someone in a position to grant permission
(b) space+power
(c) tables
(d) chairs
(e) lots and lots of PCs and Macs
(f) at least one ISP that provision a pipe into there
(g) net infrastructure: routers, cabling, etc.
(h) sufficient geek labor to build it.

My guess is that (a) might be the most difficult to come up with. So now what?

BB reader Dan says,

While a VOIP center at the astrodome would be a fun thing to build, maybe cell phones and blackberries would be a better way to actually get people in touch with the people they need to get in touch with.

Previously: Tech pros ask -- how can we help with Katrina recovery?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:36:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Liveblog from New Orleans datacenter

Matt Greenslade says,

Someone is blogging inside New Orleans whilst camped up on the 10th floor of a highrise in a data center. There's a webcam feed out onto the street below as well as accounts of looting (people selling looted shoes out on the street) and police movements within the city.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:14:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Watch out for phony Katrina aid scam websites

Boing Boing reader Simon says,

Regarding the post about helping Katrina survivors - SANS ISC is reporting that there are a number of scams going around about this (via spam), and that these sites look very dodgy: katrinahelp.com katrinarelief.com katrinacleanup.com. They recommend only giving money to recommended charities listed here.

And as good as the intention behind some of the Katrina-missing-people-locator sites may be, I'd also advise proceeding with heightened privacy awareness. Treat any website that asks for your personal data and that of your family members with caution, and know who you're dealing with. It's easy to make dumb decisions when you're afraid and worried about the status of missing pals or loved ones.

Reader comment: Jon Adams says,

In response to the phony Katrina aid scam websites, I found a few things via WHOIS and some Googling.

All the aid sites are registered to somebody named Demon Moon (not exactly the name of somebody looking to aid the disaster relief) located in Yulee, FL. Another site registered to this domain is bosco.us which seems to automatically forward you to rentalink.com/indexpvt.html for a brief period and then, oddly, to 32097.com.

There's also the fascinating rentalink.com where these sites seem to reside which states they "use proprietary automated techniques and software to search for and register generic domain names for websites, portals and client projects."

The email addresses associated with this person (aside from those on the aid site) are demonmoon@usa.com as well as fsbo@YuleeHome.com and FirstCoast@usa.com. I've sent a phony email to this person hoping to get a response and further identify them.

Maybe this info can be of some help to somebody with more resources or know-how than I. I'm just so disgusted that, not even after, but during such an insane tragedy, somebody would be attempting to profit off this. I would love nothing more for them to quickly be called out publicly on their actions.

Reader comment: Andrew says,

Now while I don't doubt that the sites being mentioned are terrible scams perpetuated by evil people, just because someone happens to have a non-white-American name like Moon doesn't imply that people who are not white americans won't care about what's happening, and wouldn't want to help in any way they could.

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

Beth Goza's Second Life Primer

My friend Beth Goza spends a lot of her free time living in Second Life. (Previous post about Beth and Second Life here.) In her first week, Beth bought property, landscaped it, and built her dream home. Now she's created a short video, "Bridge Making," about her experience so far as a Maker in the virtual world. You can watch it via the MAKE: Blog. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:06:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Postal service halts snailmail to zip codes throughout gulf

The US Postal service has suspended all mail delivery "until further notice" to many zip codes in Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama because of inaccessibility and building destruction from Hurricane Katrina. A regularly updated list is here. (thanks, oboreruhito)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:59:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BB reader snapshot of mercy boat in SF

Boing Boing reader Sarah Lefton in San Francisco says,

I just snapped this shot of a red cross boat probably bound for New Orleans, where my parents used to live.

Link to full size

Correction: Doug says,

The ship shown in your latest post is the USNS Mercy, a Naval ship based out of San Diego.

Its sister ship, the Comfort, based out of Baltimore, has already been dispatched to the [US] Gulf region. Since this bridge is steaming under the bay bridge in San Francisco, I doubt it's going to the [US] Gulf. Even going through the Panama Canal, it'd be a week or more before the ship would reach the affected area.

Kemp Mullaney, another BB reader in SF, says:

The boat pictured is a Naval Hospital boat that was in dry dock in SF for a retrofit after returning from tsunami relief work in Indonesia. I cycle by the waterfront where the boat was in dry dock and have been checking out the work they were performing. I cannot confirm that it is heading to NOLA, but that would be a good bet.

Vaughn says,

In regards to the photo you posted about the Mercy ship, here's a link to the Wired News article about a photographer stationed on the ship. Link

Luke Hankins says,

Google map of the hospital ship Mercy at her home berth: Link. We stumbled on it a few months ago after having been pointed at this building: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:24:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Documentary about saucer cult

At Wired News, Kristen Philipkoski reports on a forthcoming documentary "exposé" about the Raelians, a UFO cult most famous for claiming (but not proving) that they made the first human clone in 2002. The Raelians aren't too concerned. From the Wired News article:

...Rare video footage of the group taken at one of its Las Vegas seminars has been spun into an as-yet-unreleased documentary that brings a fresh, critical slant to the Raelians -- replete with allegations that the sect uses sex as a recruitment tool, targeting people most likely to sympathize with its message that aliens populated the world: "Trekkies and whatnot," explained Abdullah Hashem, who taped the group in May as part of a broader, personal investigation of the group.

"There are a lot of people (at these seminars) who believe in aliens, and all these beautiful women who will have sex with you even though you're a dork," he said. "And that's why most people were there..."

In an interview with Wired News, the Raelians dismissed Hashem's claims as a big misunderstanding. Spokesman Sage Ali said the group has nothing to hide, and is not ashamed of anything the team may have recorded.

Raelian theology states that aliens long ago visited the Earth and populated it through cloning. The religion also teaches that nudity and sexuality are pure and beautiful, and that if people were more in touch with their feminine sides, there would be less violence in the world.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:03:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New satellite images of NOLA flooding (USGS, NASA)

Pat Scaramuzza, Calibration Analyst with SAIC at the USGS National Center in SD tells Boing Boing:

Satellite pictures of the NOLA area are just coming out. We've put our Landsat 7 pics on our image gallery (Link).

NASA has MODIS images up (Link).

None of these are full resolution, but they might help anyone who is trying to make a flood map of the affected area.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:57:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Giant South American centipede found in London

A London man heard what he thought was a mouse scurrying around behind his television. What he found was a 9-inch-long venemous giant centipede. He caught the Scolopendra gigantea in a plastic container and brought it to Britain's Natural History Museum. Apparently, this representative of the world's largest centipede species likely emigrated from South American aboard a ship. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:53:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

American antiScientists stamps

Back in May, I posted about the US Postal Service's cool new American Scientists stamps honoring the likes of Richard Feynman and Barbara McClintock. Responding to the current anti-science tide in this country, Stay Free! has issued their own series of American Scientist stamps. From the Stay Free! Daily post:

While standing in line at the post office, I saw this new series of stamps devoted to American scientists...which is kind of ironic considering how our sciences are now under attack from all corners: from evangelicals to pharmaceutical marketing, educational declines, and funding cuts. It's like singing "Happy Birthday" to a man as he's being taken away on a gurney...

And with that we bring you an updated version of American Scientists. (We know God isn't precisely "American," but try telling that to the evangelicals...)

Link (via the f blog)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:41:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Music device in a CD case

One Bit Music is a circuit packaged in a CD case that plays minimalist glitch electronica. If you're in the NYC area, inventor Tristan Perich will present the technology at the Dorkbot-NYC meeting September 7. From the Dorkbot announcemenet:

Merging his interests in physical computing and electronic music, artist and composer Tristan Perich will give a presentation on his recent project, One Bit Music. Electronics programmed and packaged in a standard CD jewel case by Perich play minimal glitch/dance music when headphones are plugged in. The device is meant to fit into the standard album-based method of music distribution: you will find it along other CDs in a record store and it has different tracks; it will be released by Cantaloupe Music in the upcoming months.

Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:47:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

History of LSD in the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry

The latest issue of the Canadian Journal of Psychiatry includes a trip into the roots of psychedelic culture, titled "Flashback: Psychiatric Experimentation With LSD in Historical Perspective." The paper was written by Erika Dyck, a doctoral student in the Department of History at McMaster University in Ontario. From the abstract:

In the popular mind, d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) research in psychiatry has long been associated with the CIA-funded experiments conducted by Ewen Cameron at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal, Quebec. Despite this reputation, a host of medical researchers in the post–World War II era explored LSD for its potential therapeutic value. Some of the most widespread trials in the Western world occurred in Saskatchewan, under the direction of psychiatrists Humphry Osmond (in Weyburn) and Abram Hoffer (in Saskatoon). These medical researchers were first drawn to LSD because of its ability to produce a “model psychosis.” Their experiments with the drug that Osmond was to famously describe as a “psychedelic” led them to hypothesize and promote the biochemical nature of schizophrenia. This brief paper examines the early trials in Saskatchewan, drawing on hospital records, interviews with former research subjects, and the private papers of Hoffer and Osmond. It demonstrates that, far from being fringe medical research, these LSD trials represented a fruitful, and indeed encouraging, branch of psychiatric research occurring alongside more famous and successful trials of the first generation of psychopharmacological agents, such as chlropromazine and imipramine. Ultimately, these LSD experiments failed for 2 reasons, one scientific and the other cultural. First, in the 1950s and early 1960s, the scientific parameters of clinical trials shifted to necessitate randomized controlled trials, which the Saskatchewan researchers had failed to construct. Second, as LSD became increasingly associated with student riots, antiwar demonstrations, and the counterculture, governments intervened to criminalize the drug, restricting and then terminating formal medical research into its potential therapeutic effects.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:38:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tech pros ask: how can we help with Katrina recovery?

What is unfolding right now throughout the US gulf state region is the largest disaster this country has seen in contemporary history.

Millions of residents have been displaced, countless dead or injured, incalculable property damage.

Those who got out safely don't know when they can return, what they'll return to, or what they'll do next. NOLA friends I've spoken to who sought shelter in nearby towns say that's the hardest part -- not knowing anything.

There is little functioning communications; gas, power, water, and other basic systems are also non functional throughout much of the region. The most basic services that hold urban societies together -- from banking to hospitals to law enforcement -- are in disarray.

A number of engineers and tech-minded types have written in to BB to ask how they can help with technical expertise. Some have unsuccessfully attempted to contact groups like the Red Cross and Salvation Army, both of which are overwhelmed.

Reader Ignatz Sol is among them:

I know that you're not a volunteer organization, but maybe you can help direct me. I'm trying to find an organization who needs people on the ground in any of the affected areas. I live in Atlanta, but can go directly to any location. I can't get through to the Red Cross or Salvation Army and some other aid groups I have talked to will be helping after rescue is over. I'm a mechanical engineer with tools and I know that someone must need people there to help now. Can you help me? (flyingrobot at gmail.com)

Anyone have ideas on exactly how individuals who wish to -- people with experience repairing, maintaining, building communications systems, for instance -- can donate expertise?

Some companies are sorting out ways to assist, via public agencies and aid groups. Larry Williamson says:

My employer (F4W) has been called upon to provide a satellite uplink with voip capabilities in the vacinity of New Orleans (we are still waiting on exact deployment instructions). We utilize network hardware from various vendors and have a suite of mesh networking enabled software and hardware setups, including video surveillance and incident communication tools. We provided relief to the authorities during the aftermath of hurricane Charley ( Link ) and now we are going to lend a helping hand with that of Katrina.

It would sure be great if those of us whose lives weren't shot to hell by the disaster could coordinate ways of pooling tech knowledge resources to assist. I'll update this post as I can, as suggestions come in.

Reader comment: Erik V. Olson says,

People want to help. That's good. The problem is they often can, but they think they can. And, in the end, all they really do is get in the way.

The single best thing Joe Geek can do is give cash. Not stuff, cash. Cash is portable, fast, and useful. Everything else has problems -- even if it is something they really and truly need, because it isn't there, and people and resources are needed to get it there.

The canonical example: Bottled water. Something otherwise useless that is critical in this sort of emergency. So you give a few flats to the ARC. Well, you bought them at retail, and now, the ARC has to put them on a truck (which costs money) and ship them down there (which cost money, and time.)

Let's say you give them $20 instead. The ARC notes that they need water. So, they call a bottler in a city close to, but not affected by, the storm. They get wholesale or cost prices, as opposed to retail. For the same amount of money, they get far more water, far closer to where they need to be. In six hours, you're delivering your flats to the local ARC office. In six hours with cash, they're handing water to people who desperately need it.

Finally, of course, if what they really need is food, your flats of water aren't helpful, but your cash is. So, the lesson:

1) Give cash. That's the best thing you can do from your home.

2) Stay the hell away from New Orleans. Seriously. They're ordering everyone out, that includes you. Do not go.

3) If you are trained to do rescue work, they have almost certainly called you by now. If not, check in with your local org -- records and such get lost, and they may have missed you.

4) If you really insist, go to your *local* American Red Cross office and talk to them. If, in fact, they do need a skill you have, they'll put you with the people you need to know, and start the wheels moving. The single biggest thing the ARC does in disasters is routing solutions to problems.

5) If you have supplies, not cash, you can talk to the local office, but realize that the cost of shipping your supplies may make them worse off then just buying them closer. If you have supplies *and* shipping -- and we're talking trucks, not FedEx, -- then call the local ARC, and talk to them, and if they need what they have, they'll put you in touch with the people who need it, who can arrange how to get it to them.

In general, when they need something, they need lots of it, either in one place or put into one place so they can easily distribute at need. One satellite phone isn't that helpful, esp. if they have to figure out how to make it work. A thousand phones, ready to go, however, is.

6) If they really need what you have to offer, and you are one of the few who can provided it, they've probably called you by now.

7) If you want to help in the future, start working with rescue orgs now. If you haven't been trained in general rescue procedures, your not nearly as helpful. Think of it as backups -- you can't help New Orleans now, but there will be other bad days, and if you've done the classwork and drills, and kept in touch, then you will be one of the people they need -- and they'll call you when they need you. It may not be as elegant as network support -- but right now, they don't care about TCP/IP. They care about getting people out of the floodwaters, and plugging the holes in the levees.

Reader comment: Brenda VonAhsen says,

As this WaPo story suggests, FEMA is no longer in the natural disaster business. And while I've heard reports on the MSM about a government "response" that appears to be mostly related to search and rescue. I think it will be important to watch and see if there is any response from FEMA beyond rescuing survivors. Questions to ask: Are only state and private resources involved in rescue and later, in cleanup and rebuilding? All I hear is talk about making refief funds available. When we had flooding in Fargo/Grand Forks a few years ago, FEMA set up trailers for those made homeless from the floods. To evacuate thousands of people why weren't rail lines used before Katrina hit? Could they be used to transport survivors to those now empty military bases in the south? They'd make excellent refugee camps. Where are the military helicopters? Perhaps I missed seeing them on TV. Surely not every single one is in Iraq? What exactly are the parameters that FEMA operates under now? In the future, what can we can expect in the way of help from the government? Are the states on they're own now when it comes to natural disasters? Why?

Reader comment: Elizabeth says,

NPR has a list of organizations that need funds and volunteers for hurricane relief. I'd also recommend checking VolunteerMatch if a volunteer has a specific location in mind they want to help.

Reader comment: Bala Pitchandi says,

Members of the TsunamiHelp blog & wiki and other noble people around the world have assembled to put together the KatrinaHelp Wiki where we are gathering information about the aid agencies, helpline numbers and disaster related information. More importantly, people are pouring us with information about how they can help. We also have received requests from people who need help.

Reader comment: Vaughn says,

This site might be what you were looking for in terms of tech pros. Some sites in the sidebar to the right are looking for nerds to help get them off the ground for Katrina, and the main site is taking donations as well.

Reader comment: Angus says,

Craigslist seems to be playing a very important role as information clearinghouse, connecting the missing with the searching, and it becomes more valuable the more people who are made aware of it.

Reader comment: Patrick says,

[My school,] Georgia Tech, is hosting many refugees from Tulane. We've got the Student Center packed with students and from what I was able to glean, we're giving them food coupons to use on campus. Students are rising and beginning to work on fundraisers and other ways to help them.

The school president sent out an email about it saying that we'd be hosting them until they contacted their family and figured out when and how they could get home. He also noted some of them may be here for a while considering international travel and such.

I wish I could go and offer manual labor or something but I know for now that's not possible until the situations calm down.

Reader comment: Susie Bright says,

I live in Santa Cruz, which went thru the bad earthquake in 89. People here HATE the Red Cross, they scoff at them, because there were so many scandals and corruptions involved with their "efforts." It's like the whole county hates their guts. There's a great desire to help an organizaiton with integrity, and I wonder if you can figure out who that is.

Reader comment: Charlie Lindahl says,

This page directs people to UU (Unitarian Universalist) churches in the affected areas. Here's the list for Lousiana. Specific help is being asked for, such as food & water donations, and also for workers to help in the cleanup efforts. The Baton Rouge church site is one example: Link. In general, in answer to the question "how do I find out how to help?" I recommend surfing for church-related resources (not limited just to UU).

Reader comment: Arun says,

For the most part what's needed right now is not tech help, but raw labor. Anyone wanting to help out can just show up at the Red Cross here or at [Louisiana State University]'s Pete Maravich center [in Baton Rouge] and they'll be put to work. Here's a link from the local newspaper's website.

Reader comment: Rich Kulawiec says,

It seems that everyone currently in the New Orleans Superdome plus many others are going to be moved to the Astrodome...estimates range from 10K to 30K people, with a possible stay of "months" mentioned. (The Astrodome's scheduled is being cleared through December.)

Communications are going to be a serious issue for these refugees; for example, even those that have their cell phones probably don't have their chargers. And in a month, when their bill goes to their still-underwater house and isn't paid, their service will be cut off.

Suggestion: we the geeks put together and deploy the world's largest cybercafe ...in the Astrodome. Granted, Internet access isn't a panacea, but it at least would provide a way for these people to communicate.

What's needed: (a) permission from someone in a position to grant permission (b) space+power (c) tables (d) chairs (e) lots and lots of PCs and Macs (f) at least one ISP that provision a pipe into there (g) net infrastructure: routers, cabling, etc. (h) sufficient geek labor to build it. My guess is that (a) might be the most difficult to come up with. So now what?

Reader comment: James says,

Responding to a comment about military helicopters. I'm currently at Naval Station Ingleside, in South Texas. Over the weekend the amphibious assault ship, USS Bataan, was in route to our base for a port call. Instead, they were diverted to ride out Katrina in the gulf, standing by for possible relief efforts. Early Monday morning as Katrina was hitting, HM-15, a mine-countermeasures helicopter Squadron from Naval Air Station, Corpus Christi, flew personnel and relief supplies out the Bataan and immediately started assisting in rescue operations. Currently there are 3 other large ships from the east coast en route to the Gulf area for relief operations. They may not be on television, but the Navy is actively involved.

-------

Updates:

watch out for Katrina aid scam websites.

Katrina aid idea: create cybercafe/free voip phone center at Astrodome?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:09:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Observations from BB reader in Lake Charles, LA

BB reader oberuhito in Lake Charles, Louisiana says:

Still no reports that the water has stopped rising in much of New Orleans, although I've heard things are draining outside of the "bowl" on the West Bank, as well as around Algiers Point. Gov. Blanco said all refugees in N.O. shelters are definately going to be evacuated, and the Superdome will be evacuated within the next two days. That's at least 20,000 people, with pretty wild estimates ranging from 30,000 to 60,000. Nobody's officially said it, but after failing to patch the breached levee once and losing more water pumps, that's a terrible sign - they may be preparing to abandon the entire city, at least for several weeks.

The word I've been hearing on ideas and plans to patch the levees: choppers dropping huge concrete barriers into the breach, then topping them with 50 2,000-to-3,000 pound sandbags; weighted cargo containers dropped into the breach; and, I'm assuming the last idea, sinking one of those big barges up against the levee wall.

Tulane Univ. Hospital is evacuating by air, using 20 helicopters from their parent company and lifting one or two patients with some staff each trip and carrying them to triage centers outside of the city.

Several hundred patients and staff remain in the hospital at last word; the water's much faster rise, somewhere between 2-to-4 feet per hour, has knocked out their fixed generators, and they're running essential equipment on portable generators.

Here in Lake Charles, our main shelter is full at between 1,700-to-2,000 evacuees. 400 are on their way from Houston after being booted from hotels, either for lack of money or - unconfirmed, but overheard - to make room for people with reservations. A lot of plans, from before the storm hit but after the evacuation orders were made, called for gradually moving evacuees closer to New Orleans as time passed. However, many of our evacuees here aren't just looking for shelter – they're asking for jobs. Those mostly lived paycheck-to-paycheck, and with N.O. gone, there's no more paychecks.

These people may never go back, no matter what's done to rebuild.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:06:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tulane U. website becomes emergency blog of sorts

BB reader Eric says,

It seems that the Tulane University website has essentially turned into a blog that has been running since August 26th. As you will see their links to their "normal" homepage no longer work and the emergency.tulane.edu address is a replica of the homepage. Its incredible to see how affected "the grid" really is.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:23:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, August 30, 2005

Hundreds of 3D models of buildings

GreatBuildings.com offers a free collection of "hundreds of free 3D walkthough architectural computer models." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:18:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LSU press release for NOLA refugees

Daniel says,

I am a longtime reader of boingboing and a student employee at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, where I work as a dispatcher.

If anybody feels they can contribute some help towards the Katrina recovery efforts, including use of boats, etc, please call the Office of Emergency Preparedness at 225-925-7500.

Also if you're in the Baton Rouge Metro area and can lend some assistance, please stop by the Pete Maravich Assembly Center, which has been converted into a triage for refugees. If you feel you can lend a helping hand here, please call 225-219-0821. Thanks to all those who can assist.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:10:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Katrina's impact on communications infrastructure: roundup

Here's a quick roundup of some of reports around the web about the impact of Hurricane Katrina on the region's IT systems. Landline, cell, and electrical systems in the area have been devastated.

Snip from a NetworkWorld story on incoming tech aid:

The Red Cross tomorrow expects to begin deploying a host of systems it will need, including satellite telephones, portable satellite dishes, specially equipped communications trucks, high- and low-band radio systems, and generator-powered wireless computer networks, said Jason Wiltrout, a Red Cross network engineer.

Nine specially designed Ford Excursion sport utility trucks, dubbed Emergency Communications Response Vehicles (ECRV), include various radio systems that allow communications on a wide range of frequencies across disaster areas, Wiltrout said. The vehicles haveVery Small Aperture Terminal generator-equipped satellite dishes that can help establish communications in the absence of working phone lines and cell phone towers.

Each of the ECRVs also has 10 VoIP satellite phones and at least 10 wireless laptops, as well as a selection of portable, tripod-mounted satellite dishes used for communications after the storm's winds have eased.

Link

Snip from an Orlando Sentinel article about damage to two NASA sites:

Hurricane Katrina damaged two NASA facilities on the Gulf Coast Monday, casting doubt on the space shuttle's chances of launching in March. The Michoud Assembly Facility east of New Orleans and the Stennis Space Center near Bay St. Louis, Miss., both were located along the main swath of the storm's devastation. No casualties were reported and no buildings were destroyed at either site.

Link.

Snip from a PC World story about cellular service failure and recovery efforts:

Patrick Kimball, a spokesman for Verizon Wireless, said the floodwaters now pouring into the city from nearby Lake Pontchartrain have made a bad situation worse. (...) Flooding in New Orleans is what's having the most disruptive effects on cell phone network repairs, because the hardware is still submerged under feet of water, Kimball said. Power for the cellular service would not be as big an issue because some 90 percent of the cell phone towers and other equipment in the area have their own backup generators. The floodwaters are also affecting land-based fiber-optic telephone lines and systems used by other companies, further complicating efforts to get communications back into service, he said.

Link.

Here's an NPR story about ham radio operators helping in rescue and recovery efforts: Link (streaming radio segment in Real and Windows)

A Hollywood Reporter story looks at tech challenges for news reporters covering the story on site: Link.

This New York Times story examines efforts to keep newspaper production going in affected locales, by turning to the web: Link

Reader comment: Mike says,

The latest news would seem to indicate that the Michoud Assembly plant, where they build the big booster tanks, is fine.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:40:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Job #1 for America's Attorney General: porn, not terrorism

Snip from law.com story:

When FBI supervisors in Miami met with new interim U.S. Attorney Alex Acosta last month, they wondered what the top enforcement priority for Acosta and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales would be.

Would it be terrorism? Organized crime? Narcotics trafficking? Immigration? Or maybe public corruption?

The agents were stunned to learn that a top prosecutorial priority of Acosta and the Department of Justice was none of the above. Instead, Acosta told them, it's obscenity. Not pornography involving children, but pornographic material featuring consenting adults.

Link (via politech)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:01:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jack Kirby Museum

The Jack Kirby Museum & Research Center, honoring the comic illustration legend, has officially launched online. It's in the early stages, but I'm excited about the possibilities.

The Jack Kirby Museum and Research Center is organized exclusively for educational purposes; more specifically, to promote and encourage the study, understanding, preservation and appreciation of the work of Jack Kirby by:

* illustrating the scope of Kirby's multi-faceted career,
* communicating the stories, inspirations and influences of Jack Kirby,
* celebrating the life of Jack Kirby and his creations, and
* building understanding of comicbooks and comicbook creators.

To this end, the Museum will sponsor and otherwise support study, teaching, conferences, discussion groups, exhibitions, displays, publications and cinematic, theatrical or multimedia productions....

The Kirby Museum's long-term plans include a major travelling retrospective in 2007, a documentary, and more.

Link (via MAKE: Blog)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:59:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Email attributed to NOLA rescue worker; economics of disaster

My friend Ned Sublette passes along an email attributed to a rescue worker in New Orleans. Ned says:

The poorest 20% (you can argue with the number -- 10%? 18%? no one knows) of the city was left behind to drown. This was the plan. Forget the sanctimonious bullshit about the bullheaded people who wouldn't leave. The evacuation plan was strictly laissez-faire. It depended on privately owned vehicles, and on having ready cash to fund an evacuation. The planners knew full well that the poor, who in new orleans are overwhelmingly black, wouldn't be able to get out. The resources -- meaning, the political will -- weren't there to get them out.

White per capita income in Orleans parish, 2000 census: $31,971. Black per capita: $11,332. Median *household* income in B.W. Cooper (Calliope) Housing Projects, 2000: $13,263.

The email attributed to a rescue worker reads:

There are dead animals floating in the water, pets left behind. Surely people thought they would be back to collect the pets. Not so. The rescuers smell like gas when they come back in; there's gas in all of the water that consumes the area. Fires are burning all over the place. Our teams are tired and they are thirsty and they are hungry. And they have a place to sleep and water to drink and food to eat. I can only imagine how the people without these "luxuries" are feeling right now.

Each night will be a race against time. When night falls, people can't get picked up from roofs, the rescuers can't chop into people's roofs to check the attics for anyone alive or for anyone dead (sadly, there are dead). At night we can't see power lines we can't see obstacles, we can't see any of the things that will bring down a helicopter or pose a danger to boats rescuers.

One of the teams came in today after having been out for hours at a time. One particular rescuer went straight to a corner and collapsed into tears. I went directly to him and just held his hand. What else could I do? I said nothing. He said it all. They lowered him 26 times and he pulled 26 people to safety. He wants to be back out there but there are mandatory rest periods. His tears are tears of frustration.

Entire teams are working on nothing but evacuating the hospitals. All four of the major hospitals are beginning to flood. Critical patients have to get out or surely they will be lost. Generators cannot run forever; that's just the way it is. There are limited facilities to take those that are rescued and those that need to be evacuated. Anything that leaves by air leaves by helicopter. There are no runways for planes that aren't under water. Only one drivable way in and out.

Water everywhere and more keeps coming. Until they can do something about the three levees that are broken, more water will come and more water will kill. The water poses major health threats. Anyone with even a small open cut is prone to infection. Anyone who touches this water and touches his eyes, nose or mouth without find a way to "clean" himself first will be sick with stomach problems before long. It's bad and it's getting worse. It's not going to be anything better than devastating for days or weeks at best.

I wish I could tell you that I'll check in again soon. I can't. I don't know when my next message will get out. We'll be leaving where we are within just an hour or so.

Image of flood victim in New Orleans from nola.com shows "rainbow effect" of fuel and oily contaminants on flood water surface. (Thanks, Melissa)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:37:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Black people loot, white people find?

Flickr user dustin3000 uploads two similar news photos that show flood victims in New Orleans wading in chest-deep water. In each, a person appears to be dragging a bag or box or two of food or beverages.

The images were shot by different photographers, and captioned by different photo wire services. The Associated Press caption accompanying the image with a black person says he's just finished "looting" a grocery store. The AFP/Getty Images caption describes lighter skinned people "finding" bread and soda from a grocery store. No stores are open to sell these goods.

Perhaps there's more factual substantiation behind each copywriter's choice of words than we know. But to some, the difference in tone suggests racial bias, implicit or otherwise.

Link to comparison, and here are the originals: one, two. (Thanks, Howard)

Reader comment: oboreruhito says, "1.) AP has consistently named all people stealing items as looters.

2.) Some grocery stores had been occupied by police, who were taking food, drinks and essentials and distributing them to people. Then again, some cops were looting outright, as well, and others were trying to stop it all."

Snip from Times-Picayune news story:

Law enforcement efforts to contain the emergency left by Katrina slipped into chaos in parts of New Orleans Tuesday with some police officers and firefighters joining looters in picking stores clean. At the Wal-Mart on Tchoupitoulas Street, an initial effort to hand out provisions to stranded citizens quickly disintegrated into mass looting. Authorities at the scene said bedlam erupted after the giveaway was announced over the radio.

Link

Reader comment: Amid says,

I'd like to refute the reader comment that AP has consistently named everybody stealing items "looters." This is an AP photo of a white guy "looking through his shopping bag." ...coming out of a store with a broken window.

Update: More discussion on DailyKos: Link (thanks, True Blue) Reader comment: Tiffany B. Brown

Something else to remember about the Associated Press: A lot of what comes out of the AP is from its member news organizations. Bill Feig (who took this photo), is a photographer for the Baton Rouge Advocate. Dave Martin (who took this AP photo) is an actual AP employee. I don't know how much editing the AP does of cutlines (captions) before they're sent over the wire, but that could explain any inconsistencies in language about looters.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:03:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NOLA's Times-Picayune distributed online only

The New Orleans newspaper is (AFAIK) for the first time in its history *only* printing online. Its offices have been abandoned, and there are no means of printing a paper edition. These reporters have been doing an astounding job of covering an unfathomably large, complex, horrible series of events.

I've heard a number of friends -- including displaced pals -- say that the story unfolding in New Orleans feels to them a lot like 9/11. This was the largest national disaster we'd ever seen in America. It changed New York, and the country, forever. In both, great human suffering. But on 9/11, two buildings that had become an iconic part of a great American city disappeared. Now, it's as if an entire city is disappearing.

Snip:

As Jerry Rayes piloted his boat down St. Claude Avenue, just past the Industrial Canal, the eerie screams that could barely be heard from the roadway grew louder as, one by one, faces of desperate families appeared on rooftops, on balconies and in windows, some of them waving white flags.

(...) A woman screamed as Rayes boated by: "Hey! Damn! Hey!" "You can’t save everybody," he said, as he passed street signs barely visible above the water along with scores of felled trees and downed power lines. "That’s all we heard for hours this morning."

As he motored toward St. Claude Avenue, which looked like a bayou rather than a thoroughfare, his boat passed Fats Domino’s pink-and-yellow-trimmed house on Caffin Avenue. About a half a dozen men screamed from the balcony, flailing their hands for help. He passed them by.

"What am I going to do? I got to go to the parish," he said. "There’s way too many people out there and to few boats."

Link to "Flooding wipes out two communities"

Reader comment: oboreruhito says,

You were absolutely right about the Times-Picayune. The last time they didn't publish a regular edition was during the Civil War. Here's an AP story on what media outlets did to respond: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:44:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Using Google Earth to process Katrina flood damage data

BB reader Shawn is among several who've written in to suggest that Google Earth could be used to collaboratively analyze aerial image data for Katrina damage zones, and map out which areas have been flooded, how badly.

Part of the idea here is to help residents who've been displaced. They want to know if their homes are flooded, but can't get direct ground survey reports because, well, there is no ground in a lot of places right now. Only water.

Shawn says:

I'm trying to get people who use Google Earth to start making image overlays of all the flood images that are out there.

Here's one that I did earlier to demonstrate: Link. The one I did isn't great, but it works. If enough people do these, a better understanding of the damage is in New Orleans could be reached. Making an overlay in Google Earth is pretty easy:

File
> Add
> Image Overlay

Enter a URL of a Filename of the image.

It will load, then you just drag and drop, reshape and mold, the image over the top of the picture Google earth has of the object.

If these folks put it on the keyhole bbs, other google earth users can add them together, and peer edit the others.

Link to this experiment, and Link to Google Earth.

Blogger and BB reader Kathryn Cramer has an interesting post on her blog exploring this same topic: Link (there are many updates on her post since this morning, when I linked to it from BB).

Another reader points to GoogleEarthHacks.com for a file with a number of flood image overlays all in one, with updates coming.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:19:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Aid groups dealing with animals in Katrina hit zone

Countless pets and domestic animals have been also displaced by Katrina. Even apart from humane concerns, some have pointed out that large numbers of dead and dying animals present a massive disease hazard. Here are two of the groups addressing this problem: Humane Society of the United States and Noah's Wish. Both are seeking monetary donations to purchase equipment and provide materials & support for relief crews. (Thanks, Chris Maytag)

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

2002 PBS story on New Orleans ecology and storms

Boing Boing reader Josh says,

About three years ago I remember watching Bill Moyer's NOW on PBS and listening to a facinating piece on the threat New Orleans faced from a major hurricane. Then, last year Ivan had a near miss and I was reminded of the program.

Now that Katrina has hit, I went back and read the transcript. It is eeriely prophetic. The most interesting piece is near the end, where they link the increased exposure to major storms to the levees designed to protect.

The Mississippi delta has for years been a major buffer to storms as it quickly reduces the power of most storms. However, as levees are built to protect the city from flooding, they have funneled water away that is essential in keeping the delta healthy. In the past decade the delta has been reduced significantly in size. Thus major storms have a mouch larger impact when they hit the land.

Link

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

1864 "Freedom Primer" for slaves scanned and posted

Here's a Flickr set of "The gospel of slavery: a primer of freedom," a book with engravings published in 1864. It takes the form of a series of poems about freedom and slavery, and is purely marvellous. When I see stuff like this, I sometimes get a thrill to my toes as I realize that practically every document of this vintage will soon be on the web and only a quick search away. Link (Thanks, Andi!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:03:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Library "lends out" junkies, poor people, asylum seekers, gay people

A Dutch library is "lending out people" -- volunteers from outside of the Dutch mainstream (poor people, asylum seekers, gay people, etc) who will go sit in a cafeteria with library patrons, have a cup of coffee and chat with them:

Mr Krol, who said he was inspired by a similar scheme in Sweden, has already filled many of his volunteer slots, and hopes to launch the project next month.

He said: "I've got several gay men, a couple of lesbian women, a couple of Islamic volunteers, I've got a physically handicapped woman, and a woman who has been living on social security benefits for many years in real poverty. "

Mr Krol said he was especially keen to find members of Holland's small Roma gipsy community after a recent attack on two gipsy families in the city of Enschede.

Under the scheme, photographs and short biographies of the volunteers will appear in the library, and on its website. Library users who wish to take a person out can apply for an appointment. Mr Krol said he had not cleared the scheme with his municipal bosses.

Link (Thanks, Paul!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:18:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Maine AG implements antipiracy education in state schools

Snip from the Boston Globe article "Kids get new weapon against predators using Internet":

Maine children are being offered new protections from Internet predators through a program called NetSmartz, which was introduced Tuesday by state law enforcement and education officials -- and an animated figure called "Clicky." NetSmartz is being offered to schools at no cost to taxpayers through a partnership between the state and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Attorney General Steven Rowe said.

NetSmartz, which is available to all elementary, middle and high schools in the state, features the animated figure Clicky rapping and offering advice on how to spot Web users who use foul language, try to get strangers to meet them, send pornographic pictures or ask personal questions.

If you can make it through the layers of DRM-laden crapola on the "NetSmartz Kids" website, you'll find this gem -- aha, filesharing is the true mortal threat to our children!

Clicky's Stolen Song: A Lesson in Digital Ethics. Captain Bootleg, an Internet pirate, has stolen Clicky's hit song. Nettie and Webster learn why it is wrong to steal music from others!

Snip from dialogue:

(robot, stuttering): a fearless pirate has slipped in... it's not right to steal like a pirate!

(pirate, yarrr) shiver me timbers, lads and lassies, i got me files, they should fetch a pretty penny!

(kid with blue, deformed, football-shaped head) a pirate is what we call someone who steals stuff online, including songs... pirates nowadays don't have to look like pirates, it's just what we call people who steal stuff online. Let's go ask Cookie what to do, come on!

Link to NetSmartz Kids site, here's the section of the site with anti-filesharing instructional materials, and here's the video in craptacular WMV, natch. (thanks, RV)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:17:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Creationist buying roadside dinosaurs, "converting them" to I.D.

In the LA Times, news that intelligent design evangelists are buying up kitch roadside dinosaur landmarks around the country, then co-opting them to promote creationism. Won't someone please think of the pteradactyls?!?!

Dinosaurs lived in the Garden of Eden, and Noah's Ark? Give me a break," said Kevin Padian, curator at the University of California Museum of Paleontology in Berkeley and president of National Center for Science Education, an Oakland group that supports teaching evolution. "For them, 'The Flintstones' is a documentary."

Link (Thanks, Zed, and Pesco!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:02:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Univ. of CA sued over lack of creationism in colleges

A group representing religious schools in California is suing the University of California system. At issue, the question of whether creationist courses in high school are counted as science credit for college admissions.

The Association of Christian Schools International, which represents more than 800 schools, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday claiming UC admissions officials have refused to certify high school science courses that use textbooks challenging Darwin's theory of evolution. Other rejected courses include "Christianity's Influence in American History."

According to the lawsuit, the Calvary Chapel Christian School in Murrieta was told its courses were rejected because they use textbooks printed by two Christian publishers, Bob Jones University Press and A Beka Books.

Link to story.

Image: Pastafarians don't need to sue universities -- they already know that 99% of undergrads in the USA subsist on a diet comprised largely of 10/$0.99 ramen packets. His Noodliness is amply represented in American academia.

(Thanks, Jason Schultz, via IP list)

Meanwhile, the NY Times reports that 20% of Americans think the sun revolves around the earth. Link (Thanks, TomorrowYesterday)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:01:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pulp detective novel covers database

Chris sez, "The Gumshoes, Sleuths & Snoopers Database is a great collection of 'detective and mystery novels originally published during the period 1930-1960.' It is based on the George Kelley Paperback and Pulp Fiction Collection at the University at Buffalo. The database includes images of the covers of novels with names like The Girl with Sweet Plump Knees or It Ain't Hay." Link (Thanks, Chris!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:54:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dennett's NYT op-ed on the Intelligent Design hoax

John Brockman's EDGE.org just published the full text of philosopher Daniel Dennett's NYT op-ed from August 28. In the article, Dennett examines why the notion of so-called Intelligent Design has become so popular, in spite of the fact it cannot be substantiated by science.

"Is 'intelligent design' a legitimate school of scientific thought? Is there something to it, or have these people been taken in by one of the most ingenious hoaxes in the history of science? Wouldn't such a hoax be impossible? No. Here's how it has been done."

Link, and here's the same text on the NYT website (reg required). (Thanks, Chris, and many others!)

Image: a devotional chalk icon of the Flying Spaghetti Monster -- the only truly intelligent alternative -- on a university campus in Georgia. (Thanks, Graham)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:48:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Katrina: media evacuates, there is no grid, damage map?

BB reader Kathryn Cramer points us to a before-and-after photo comparison of the area of New Orleans where a levee broke last night. Link

In New Orleans, the Times-Picayune and WWL TV, two local news organizations who've held out longest, are evacuating.

The Times-Picayune is evacuating it's New Orleans building. Water continues to rise around our building, as it is throughout the region. We want to evaucate our employees and families while we are still able to safely leave our building.

Our plan is to head across the Mississippi River on the Pontchartrain Expressway to the west bank of New Orleans and Jefferson Parish. From there, we'll try to head to Houma.

Our plan, obviously, is to resume providing news to our readers ASAP. Please refer back to this site for continuing information as soon as we are able to provide it.

Link to Times-Picayune article. Snip from updates on WWL TV's website:

# 9:35 A.M. Marshal Law in effect in Jefferson Parish and Plaquemines Parish. 60 percent of homes in Plaquemines Parish under water.

# 8:39 A.M. WWL-TV studios are being evacuated as rising water is coming into the station. The French Quarter is taking on water and water is expected to rise in the city for the next few days.

Link

Throughout NOLA, water is rising in the streets this morning. The suspected cause: a levee break (update: reports now of three separate breaks) along a canal leading to Lake Pontchartrain. The city lies below sea level, and the complex system of pumps, canals and levees that protects it no longer functions. Electrical, gas, and telecommunications grids are equally devastated -- and the lack of even the most basic communications technology is making rescue efforts all the more difficult. Snip:

As the sun set over a still-churning Lake Pontchartrain, the smoldering ruins of the Southern Yacht Club were still burning, and smoke streamed out over the lake. Nobody knew the cause of the fire because nobody could get anywhere near it to find out what happened. (...)

Firefighters who saved [a group of people] tried to request an RTA bus to come for the refugees, but said there was no working communications to do so.

(...) At around 5 p.m., almost as if on cue, the battery power of all the house alarms in the neighborhood seemed to reach a critical level all at once, and they all went off, making it sound as if the area was under an air-raid warning.

Two men surviving on generator power in the Lake Terrace neighborhood near the Lake Pontchartrain levee still had a dry house, but they were eyeing the rising water in the yard nervously. They were planning to head back out to the levee to retrieve a vast stash of beer, champagne and hard liquor they found washed onto the levee.

As night fell, the sirens of house alarms were finally silent, and the air filled with a different, deafening and unfamiliar sound: the extraordinary din of thousands of croaking frogs.

Link

Islands of red ants floated in the gasoline-fouled waters through downtown. (...) And once the floodwaters go down, "it's going to be incredibly dangerous" because of structural damage to homes, diseases from animal carcasses and chemicals in homes....

Link

BB reader Andy proposes that someone generate a "New Orleans damage finder":

It would be great if there were a site or application where people could find pictures of hurricane damage by zip code. That way, all the folks who are evacuated check in to see conditions in their neighborhood. I was thinking Google Earth might be a good place for this, but it looks like there isn't much so far.

(Special Thanks to Ned Sublette)

Previously:
Katrina: things get worse in New Orleans
BB pal in NOLA says: consider a Red Cross donation
Katrina approaches New Orleans, US Gulf Coast

Reader comment: David says,

Slidell LA resident Brian Oberkirch (evacuated to Dallas since Sunday) created the Slidell Hurricane Damage Blog to collect any and all information, pictures, stories about what's going on in the disaster zone. So far news from Slidell hasn't been good but it's been hard separating fact from rumor. Link

Reader comment: BB reader David Calkins says,

You can't get a damage assement from these sea level maps of New Orleans, but it sure helps to get a idea of what's probably underwater. Link one, Link Two, Link 3

Reader comment: BB reader Ian Sewell points us to an audio file of CNN's Jeanne Meserve, reporting about what she witnessed yesterday in the Katrina-damaged zone. Journalists "are sometimes wacky thrill seekers" in hurricanes, Meserve said. "But when you stand in the dark, and you hear people yelling for help and no one can get to them, it's a totally different experience." This page contains a 10MB MP3.

Reader comment: Marc Nathan says,

My soon-to-be sister-in-law works for Tulane University and she has gotten preliminary reports that the damage on campus is so extensive after a second levee broke last night that school may not open until next *year*. She has been fielding calls about the process for students to transfer to nearby schools, namely the University of Texas at Austin. School was scheduled to start tomorrow.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:52:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-RIAA lawyer: no limit on how many people we can defend

Last weekend, I blogged about Patricia Santangelo, the first person threatened with a RIAA file-sharing lawsuit to opt to defend herself, rather than simply settle for thousands of dollars.

I've been told by an insider that the RIAA lawsuits are self-sustaining: that is, the cost of running their shakedown operation was less than the settlements it generated, so there was no reason to expect an end to the legal attacks on thousands of Internet users.

Patricia Santangelo's defense shifts those economics. By defending herself in court, Santangelo is causing the RIAA to fork over for attorneys to argue (albeit ineptly) that she should be forced to pay up to $150,000 per act of infringement that she is alleged to have committed.

How can Santangelo afford to defend herself? She has an attorney who believes that she is innocent, and that when she is found innocent that she will be able to recoup his fees from the RIAA.

This attorney (Ray Beckerman of Beldock Levine & Hoffman) believes that he can do this for lots of RIAA defendants. If he and other attorneys make good on this, kiss the RIAA's profitable legal shakedown goodbye: once the long-term suicide of suing customers becomes unprofitable in the short term as well, no way are the shareholders in these corporations let them go on.

We expect Ms Santangelo's costs to be picked up by the RIAA, since (a) the copyright statute permits the Court to shift the attorneys fees to the losing party, (b) these cases were clearly frivolous and brought in bad faith, and (c) it is a matter of public interest that the RIAA be deterred from bringing more such meritless cases...

We will fight to the end. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't take on something unless I am prepared to fight to the end. Also, anyone who knows me knows that the one thing I can't stand is a bully. The RIAA will give up long before we do, because sooner or later it will dawn upon them that their attorneys are taking them for a ride...

As far as I am concerned there should be no limit to how many people we can represent. If we have too many cases we can hire more lawyers.

Link (via Recording Industry vs The People)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:40:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Date-stamp analysis of Flickr "bar"-tagged pix show most popular clubbing dates

Jean-Paul sez, "Ryo and Yitz determine which day is the most popular day to go out to bars and pubs using the dates on photos from Flickr. Cool graphs included."

Exhibit B: # of pictures tagged "bar," by day of week

Sun: 2917 (21.0203934568%) [896]
Mon: 2803 (20.1988902501%) [795]
Tue: 2949 (21.2509908482%) [780]
Wed: 2690 (19.3845932118%) [840]
Thu: 4196 (30.237082943%) [941]
Fri: 5101 (36.7586654176%) [1185]
Sat: 5540 (39.9221733804%) [1301]

(Square brackets show number of unique users who posted images.)

Link (Thanks, Jean-Paul!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:07:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US Air Force's teleportation study

Today's San Francisco Chronicle surveys the US military's interest in teleportation. Last year, the Air Force dropped $25k on a "Teleportation Physics Study" to examine whether it might be possible to beam people and objects from one place to another. The report was written by Eric W. Davis who holds a PhD in astrophysics. (Not mentioned in the SF Chronicle article is that Davis apparently has also been affiliated with the National Institute for Discovery Science, a private research organization that studies "aerial phenomena, animal mutilations, and other related anomalous phenomena.") From the SF Chronicle article:

Now at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Austin, Texas, Davis reached both pessimistic and optimistic conclusions in his study. On one hand, he concluded that "Star Trek"-style teleportation faces enormous obstacles, partly because it would require the development of extraordinarily high-speed computers and would consume mind-boggling amounts of energy. Also, it would encounter all kinds of physics headaches generated by the principles of quantum physics...

However, Davis expressed great enthusiasm for research allegedly conducted by Chinese scientists who, he says, have conducted "psychic" experiments in which humans used mental powers to teleport matter through solid walls. He claims their research shows "gifted children were able to cause the apparent teleportation of small objects (radio micro-transmitters, photosensitive paper, mechanical watches, horseflies, other insects, etc.)..."

Michio Kaku, a noted physicist and author at City University of New York, said "the only way to use (teleportation) as a secret weapon is to allow our enemies to bankrupt themselves thinking they can produce a teleportation machine."

"The Air Force is to be applauded for investigating technologies that may have value for national security," Kaku added. "But wormholes, negative energies, warped space-time, etc., require futuristic technologies centuries to millions of years ahead of ours. The only thing going down the wormhole is taxpayers' money."

Link

UPDATE: You can download the full Teleportation Physics Study via Evan Poll's blog (link to post) and also directly from the Federation of American Scientists site (link to PDF).

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:36:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

1953 quiz: are you too scared of nukes to get into the shelter?

This is priceless: a 1953 government-sponsored quiz to help you evaluate whether you'll be paralyzed with fear when the nuclear bomb alert is sounded:

During the 1950s, government officials were very concerned that, in the event of an atomic attack, law and order would break down irrevocably as the nation dissolved into widespread panic and hysteria. In its publicity campaigns the Federal Civil Defense Administration wanted to frighten people sufficiently to encourage them to take part in drills, but not to incapacitate them with fear. The following government-sponsored quiz appeared in the August 21, 1953 issue of Collier's magazine as a supplement to an article about human behavior during nuclear attack. It was intended to help readers from becoming "victims of panic."

Link (Thanks, Kez!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:28:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hand-cranked phone charger/FM radio/flashlight

This hand-cranked cellphone charger also features a hand-cranked FM radio and hand-cranked flashlight. Link (via Red Ferret)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:26:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video recorder saves to Memory Stick for PSP viewing

This Memory Stick Pro Duo Video Recorder records video from your tuner or VCR straight to a Memory Stick, which you can then insert in your Sony PSP and watch. Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:23:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Microsoft abandons its customers AND copyright to kiss up to Hollywood

CNet reports that Windows next operating system, "Vista" (that's what Longhorn is called this week), will be designed with extensive countermeasures to prevent the owners of computers from using them in the ways that they want. These computers will be designed to break compatibility with current monitors, analog outputs, and currently shipping software, all to ensure that the restrictions dictated by enterainment companies are obeyed by Windows.

Microsoft is cutting its throat here. There isn't a single Windows user who wants a version of Windows that lets her do less with her music and movies.

Microsoft is also subverting copyright. Fair use and other public rights in copyright hinge on factors that can't be modelled in software. For example, people engaged in parody have a lot more flexibility in terms of how they use copyrighted works than people who are engaged in satire. The difference between parody and satire is pretty fine -- it's the kind of thing courts rule on, not the kind of thing that you get a computer to detect.

DRM apologists claim that DRM can be used to model the preponderance of fair uses, but this is completely untrue. Fair use almost always hinges on intention -- there isn't any software that is capable of reading a user's mind and determining intention.

So here come Microsoft, the great defenders of copyright, selling out both their business and copyright: creating devices that no one wants that models a copyright law that doesn't exist.

What's the use of having a swaggering bully of a monopolist if it can't muster the intestinal fortitude that Sony displayed from 1976-1984 when it battled in Congress and all the way to the Supreme Court for the right to manufacture VCRs despite Hollywood's insistence that these were tools of piracy?

In short, the company is bending over backward--and investing considerable technological resources--to make sure Hollywood studios are happy with the next version of Windows, which is expected to ship on new PCs by late 2006. Microsoft believes it has to make nice with the entertainment industry if the PC is going to form the center of new digital home networks, which could allow such new features as streaming high-definition movies around the home.

PCs won't be the only ones with reinforced pirate-proofing. Other new consumer electronics devices will have to play by a similar set of rules in order to play back the studios' most valuable content, Microsoft executives say. Indeed, assuring studios that content will have extremely strong protection is the only way any device will be able to support the studios' planned high-definition content, the software company says.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:44:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Matrix "regenerator pod" casemod

This super-cool casemod is sculpted to look like one of the "regenerator pods" from The Matrix and includes a little foetal human in a cloudy plastic dome. Link (via Make Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:12:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

5.25" floppies make great CD sleeves

This is a great crafty tip for those of you with a box of old 5.25" floppy discs lying around: slit them open and use them for CD sleeves! Link (via Make Blog)

Update: The Don'ts are distributing their latest CD this way. (Thanks, Denise!)

Update 2: ...as did the Evolution Control Committee (Thanks, James!)

Update 3: ...as did Gridlock (Thanks, chris242!)

Update 4: I hereby officially close the list of bands and CDs that use 5.25" floppies as CD cases. Others may have done so, but my attention span has been exhausted!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:10:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Build notes for USB/Bluetooth/UDP/TCPIP vibrator

This year's University of Melbourne scavenger hunt included this challenge: build or locate "an over engineered computer controlled vibrator:USB/bluetooth/Solar powered/UDP/TCPIP encouraged bonus points for it being really cool and if we can keep it for 'research purposes'. 500, up to 6969 points."

David Perry, an enterprising engineering student, took it upon himself to build this rubegoldberg, and he's posted some photos and his build-notes:

I grabbed a cordless drill motor/gearbox, some aluminium tubing/sheet/rod, nuts and bolts, transistors, resistors, diodes, an old parallel port cable and a protoboard. I also grabbed my notebook computer, an IBM PIII 700, running Slackware Linux 10.1. I determined that the only other parts I would need to buy would be three relays, two 3 amp for two vibrate speeds, and one 5 amp for 'thrust'.

All this stuff was brought back to TEAM ENG headquarters on campus, while I figured out what to do. The simplest way to make something computer controlled is using the parallel port. Use three data lines to operate three relays, with the coils switched using a PN2222 transistor, 1k resistor, and 1N4004 diode to prevent voltage spikes. Those three datalines can be controlled with a couple of lines of code.

First task was making the vibrator remotely switchable. I disabled the speed control adjust in the base, and brought a pair of wires out which were connected between the batteries in the vibrator - connect them, and the vibrator would turn on.

A built the circuit on the protoboard so that the parallel port could control the three relays. An old computer power supply was used to provide the +12V necessary for switching the relays.

Link (Thanks, David!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:03:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hollywood can break down any door in Delhi

The American Revolution was sparked, in part, by the Crown's use of general warrants, which let officers of the Crown search any premises, without specifying what they were searching for nor why they were searching there. These Colonial instruments are ripe for abuse, amounting to carte blanche for authority figures to break down any door and do anything they want with whatever they find inside.

Now the Motion Picture Assocation is using general warrants in India:

Stepping up its fight against motion picture piracy in Delhi, the Motion Picture Association (MPA) has obtained a general search and seizure warrants order covering the entire city. The order permits police to search any premises suspected of containing pirated products, and permits officers to open locked premises without delay.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:43:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Journal article: 50%+ of science journal articles have false conclusions

In an article in the Public Library of Science Medicine, John P. A. Ioannidis, an epidemiologist, argues that more than 50 percent of the conclusions drawn in papers published in scientific journals are false. The money sentence is this one: "The replication process is more important than the first discovery." The popular culture version of science is about labcoats and discovery, the real world science is about publishing, review and replication.

"We should accept that most research findings will be refuted. Some will be replicated and validated. The replication process is more important than the first discovery," Ioannidis says...

Traditionally a study is said to be "statistically significant" if the odds are only 1 in 20 that the result could be pure chance. But in a complicated field where there are many potential hypotheses to sift through - such as whether a particular gene influences a particular disease - it is easy to reach false conclusions using this standard. If you test 20 false hypotheses, one of them is likely to show up as true, on average.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:19:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hilarious essentialist comparisons of English and other tongues

This list of "Essentialist" descriptions of English (scroll around on the page for essentialist characterizations of other languages) made me laugh aloud six times before I even hit the scrollbar. These esentialist statements take the form "Language X is essentially language Y under conditions Z."

English is essentially any other language spoken with a very hot potato in one's mouth. --Ivan Derzhanski (based on Alain LaBonté on Swiss French)

English is essentially Low German plus even lower French minus any sense of culture. --Danny Weir

English is what you get from Normans trying to pick up Saxon girls. --Bryan Maloney

English is essentially French converted to 7-bit ASCII. --Christophe Pierret [for Alain LaBonté]

Inglish iz issenshali a langwidje dhat, wen rittun fonetkli, iz ilejibul tu netiv spikerz. --Peter Bleackley

Link (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:13:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, August 29, 2005

Spanish electric car rental outfit with Linux-based dashscreens: "Blobjects"

This BBC piece about an electric car-rental service in Cordoba, Spain called "Blobjects" is straight of out a Bruce Sterling novel. Bruce coined popularized the term blobject to refer to curvilinear, mass-produced products, as part of his Viridian Green movement.

The founder of Blobjects heard Bruce speak and went out and started this electric-car rental company that rents out cars with Linux-based tour-guide software and a GPS. The firm is funded by the local Communist Party government, which is actively funding entrepreneurial ventures (priceless quote: "Well, it's the communism of the future. It's a communism that moves logically toward something that is very different than what it used to be.")

The company rents the electric cars to tourists in Cordoba, as a safe, convenient, and environmentally friendly way to see the town. It costs about US$50 (£28) for a two-hour rental.

The Gems turn heads as they cruise along the city streets. The cars have a top speed of about 20mph (32Km/h), so scooters whip right by you.

But Mr Romeo contends that slow is better for sight-seeing anyway. And besides, he says, there are the extras.

Each Blobject car comes with a touch-screen computer system mounted in the dash. Through a USB port, you can plug in a flash drive containing information on Cordoba in Spanish, English or French. By using GPS technology, the computer keeps track of exactly where you are in the city.

When you pass a certain landmark, the computer then knows to display the appropriate text, audio and video information about that landmark on the screen.

The computer system is based on open source software developed by a company in Seville, Spain. As with any open source software, anyone can improve and change Blobject's code, as long as those improvements and changes are shared with others.

Link (Thanks, David!)

Update: Alan sez, "as the Wikipedia entry itself points out, design critic Steven Skov Holt is seen as the coiner of the term. This year he mounted a show of amorphous and blobby design at the San Jose Museum, their first design show ever. And I edited the book/catalog that he and his wife Mara Holt Skov--with contributions by Bruce and Phil--to accompany the show.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:59:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Side-band attack tips virtual Blackjack dealer's hand

Here's a fascinating account of a "side-band" attack on online Blackjack. At a certain point in the gameplay, the software dealer appeared to need substantially more calculations if there was a ten in the dealer's hole than if there wasn't. Players who timed the pause could therefore get a partial peek at the dealer's cards and so gain an edge over the house.

In Poker, this is called a "tell" -- the propensity of a player with junk to mop his brow, or of a player to unconsciously tap his foot when he's bluffing. Computers are generally considered not to have tells, because they're not sentient and hence not prone to subconscious fidgeting, but computer tells do arise in those situations where they are doing something computationally intensive.

The code itself may have been completely correct in the sense that it did what it was supposed to do. It was the amount of time the code needed to execute that ended up being the tell. No different than when a poker player twitches when holding a great hand.

The fix may have been to change the execution profile of the code so that it made the same pause no matter what was in the hole. Talk about a challenge for game developers. Not only does the code need to be bug free in syntax and semantics, but they now need to worry about the execution profile for their games.

Link (Thanks, Haaked!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:43:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Katrina: things get worse in New Orleans

News out of the US Gulf Coast area is not good tonight.

In New Orleans, reports that Canal street is now flooded; a levee has just broken near lake Pontchartrain. The breach is about two blocks long. Two nearby hospitals are in imminent danger of flooding, countless residences now in greater danger.

Throughout the area, nobody knows just how many people are drowning or suffering while trapped in their own flooded homes. Nobody knows how many may have already died.

BB reader oboreruhito says:

Here is a citizen journalism photo set. Not sure how often it'll update.

I keep getting reports, both media and from friends, that the water is still rising as of 1 a.m. CDT, even though the hurricane has long since cleared the state. Best guess is that it's a combination of tides and currents pushing water over intact levees and through the breached Ninth Ward levee. Also heard some rumors that the worst things right now are animal infestations and downed power lines - alligators in the east bank, mosquitos breeding like crazy, huge balls of fire ants. This is going to get worse before it gets better.

Still haven't heard from two friends in Slidell, just east of NO, which took the eyewall on the chin. No contact from anyone there since yesterday, and apparently all land routes there have been destroyed or are under feet of water. NOLA.com has some town-hall fourms linked off nola.com/forums, where people are posting and answering questions about specific areas.

Also, it may be worth noting that the Red Cross needs money donations, blood and volunteers more than anything. I have a feeling a lot of people are going to come back with the "Let's send blankets, clothes and canned foods" mindset that followed the tsunami, but if there's anything New Orleans has plenty of, it's food. They need money, badly, for rescue boats, potable water, generators, axes and other search and rescue equipment. Evacuees over here in Lake Charles have been hearing that it'll be 7 days or more before they can return, and the Red Cross desperately needs untrained volunteers at shelters in Louisiana and Texas to take over shelter efforts so the Red Cross can free up trained volunteers to go to Greater New Orleans and southwest Mississippi to support rescue and comfort efforts there. Major shelter points are Houston, Beaumont and Orange, TX; and Lake Charles, Lafayette, Alexandria and Shreveport, LA. And nobody thinks about the blood donations - listen, there are a surprising number of people that are going to have very serious trauma - severed limbs, puncture wounds and internal bleeding. The only common thread is a massive need for blood.

Some noteable flickr streams:
* deaah - photos from hurricane planes in the eyewall
* darrelf - a good roundup of wire photos

Not seeing a whole terrible lot of photos tagged katrina on there. Good night, and best wishes to all the NOLAians you know.

Image: from this photo set by a flickr user. Identified as a shot taken on an NOAA-43 aircraft at sunset, Aug 28, over the eye of hurricane Katrina.

"This shot was taken by a scientist aboard the NOAA-43...since I was flying on a different plane in the rainbands (and thus not really able to see much, as you can see in IMG-0949), I handed my camera off to him so that I could share what they saw there. I'm participating in the RAINEX (hurricane rainband and intesity change experiment) project, so I'm really lucky to be able to fly into these incredible storms...although it is sad to know the devestation that they cause below."

Many more photos of Katrina's damage on this local TV station's website: Link (Thanks, Eutychus)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:29:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BB pal in NOLA says: consider a Red Cross donation.

Today, I spoke to longtime Boing Boing buddy Susannah Breslin, fka The Reverse Cowgirl. She's a resident of New Orleans, and I finally learned this afternoon that she is, thankfully, safe.

I asked Susannah for permission to share some of her experience with hurricane Katrina these last few days on the blog, and she declined.

But she says, "If you want to suggest people donate to the Red Cross, that would be a beautiful thing.

Many people here are very poor and are relying on the Red Cross for help."

So, consider this a suggestion. Link.

Update: Snip from news article:

Margaret O'Brien-Molina, a spokeswoman for the American Red Cross' southwest service area office in Houston, said national Red Cross executives earlier today described Katrina as "the largest recovery operation the Red Cross has ever attempted."

"The Red Cross response to this event is the equivalent Hurricane Andrew, Sept. 11 and more," said American Red Cross Executive Rick Scofield.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:32:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hundreds of "zombies" mob posh Vancouver mall

Mister Wind-Up Zombie sez, "This past weekend a zombie quasi-flashmob two or three *hundred* strong materialized in the center of Vancouver and staggered through an upscale mall, onto the skytrain and down Main Street before joining their resting brethren at a local cemetry. The Flickr group has hundreds of pics and some discussion." These photos are *priceless*. Link (Thanks, Mr Wind-Up Zombie!)

Update: Zombies also descended on the American Idol auditions in Austin. (Thanks, Molly and Sean!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:39:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos from the real Dog Land

Will Shetterly, author of the brilliant novel Dogland, sez, "Dog Land was my family's tourist attraction in Florida in the early '60s. It inspired Dogland, my novel that Cory's said nice things about. I get the occasional question about the historical Dog Land from readers and roadsiders, so I made a page with my favorite photos."

My novel, Dogland, is about a family that moves to Florida in 1959 to start a tourist attraction. It's based on a place that I knew well; my family moved to Florida in 1959 to start a tourist attraction called Dog Land. (I wish I could say I changed the spelling to make the fictional Dogland different from the real Dog Land. But the truth is I forgot how my family spelled it.) At Dog Land's height, we had over 100 breeds on display, plus a three-legged mutt named Pirate.

Link Updated Link (Thanks, Will!)

Update: Will sez, "Boing Boing traffic blew out the data transfer rate for my Geocities freebie pages. So I moved the text and pics here. Not quite as pretty, but it should be much more dependable. "

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:21:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Judge to RIAA: Keep your "conference center" out of my court

Donna sez, "The transcript from a hearing in Patricia Santangelo's filesharing case shows the judge refusing to be, in Mike Godwin's words, 'a mere conduit steering Ms. Santangelo to the RIAA's 'conference center' (which should properly be called a "surrender center").'

MR. MASCHIO: No, all I was suggesting, your Honor, is that, if she doesn't come with an attorney, that the more direct way of doing this -- and this is just to facilitate things -- is to deal directly with the conference center.

THE COURT: Not once you've filed an action in my court.

MR. MASCHIO: Okay.

THE COURT: You file an action in my court, your conference center is out of it. They have nothing to do with anything.

MR. MASCHIO: Okay. I'll give her my card.

THE COURT: If you are here, you are here as an officer of the court. You're taking up my time and cluttering up my calendar, so you will do it in the context of the Court. Maybe it will be with a magistrate judge, but you will be representing your client, not some conference center. And if your people want things to be done through the conference center, tell them not to bring lawsuits.

It's a nice reminder that the RIAA lawsuits affect real people with real lives -- even busy judges who may chafe at the role they're being asked to play in this unfortunate, ineffective "education" campaign. Link (Thanks, Donna!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:12:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO host a library after-school D&D game

Peter sez, "Wizards of the Coast has developed a program to help public libraries host afterschool D&D games."

The Afternoon Adventure with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS program will include everything librarians need to start regular gaming programs in their library with the original pen-and-paper roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D for short). Players assume the persona of fantasy characters and pursue magical adventures, confronting and solving problems using strategic thinking and teamwork. For three decades, D&D has appealed to an ever-increasing population of fans for its use of imagination and storytelling over competition. This free program will include a Dungeons & Dragons Basic Game (a $24.99 value), instructions for starting a D&D group in the library, a guide to using D&D as an introduction to library use, recommended reading lists, and other practical resources.

Link (Thanks, Peter!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:59:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Human cannonball fired over US/Mex border

As part of Tijuana's inSITE conference, this daring human cannonball was fired across the US border. Link (Thanks, Cesar!)

Update: More photos from the US side of the border (Thanks, Patrick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:57:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO extract video from Yahooligans

Last weekend, I blogged about the Yahooholigans downloadable video of Super Mario Brothers Supershow, a wonderful-terrible cartoon that featured pro wrestler Captain Lou Albano among others. Unfortunately, Yahoo/Yahooligans requires that you have Microsoft or Real's proprietary browser plug-ins to watch the video, and takes countermeasures to prevent you from downloading the video to disk where you can watch it with an open player like mPlayer.

Boing Boing reader Owen Williams has taken the time to create a recipe for downloading the video anyway:

How to extract movies from Yahooligans:

You will need: * mPlayer * mPlayer plug-in * Windows Media codec pak (available on mPlayer webpage)

Make sure these tools are installed and working.

1. Go to Yahooligans and select the cartoon you want to watch.
2. Let the video load in mplayerplug-in and start playing.
3. Right click and select "copy url"
4. Paste the url into an empty text document so you can edit it.
5. Edit the url and replace every "&" with "\&"
6. Execute the following command in the terminal of your choice:

mplayer -dumpstream -dumpfile [filename].wmv [url]

where [filename] is the filename you want, and [url] is the new, edited url

Mplayer should contact the server and start downloading the stream. Don't worry about warning messages like "unknown object" or "Stream not seekable!" When you're done it should report: "everything done. Thank you for downloading a media file containing proprietary and patented technology Core dumped ;)". You should be left with a playable, copyable, editable wmv file of the video you were watching.

Sometimes mplayer quits and says "Core dumped ;)" but doesn't leave a file behind. I don't know why this happens. I find I have to delete my cookies or wait ten minutes and it will work again. I suspect Yahoo's servers are coded not to spew videos too rapidly.

Link (Thanks, Owen!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:43:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How humans track smells

UC Berkeley researchers report that humans can determine where a smell is coming using just our noses. In Berkeley study study, subjects were presented with essence or rose, cloves, and also odorants that smell like vinegar and banana. Brain scans revealed that the right and left nostrils are tied to separate regions of the primary olfactory cortext. As a result, the brain can locate a smell similarly to the way we localize sound based on input from two ears. From the press release:

"It has been very controversial whether humans can do egocentric localization, that is, keep their head motionless and say where the spatial source of an odor is," said study coauthor Noam Sobel, associate professor of psychology at UC Berkeley and a member of the campus's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. "It seems that we have this ability and that, with practice, you could become really good at it."

In future experiments, UC Berkeley biophysics graduate student Jess Porter and Sobel plan to train volunteers to track odors in the field and test the limits of odor localization in humans.

Porter, Sobel and their colleagues reported the results in the August 18 issue of the journal Neuron.

In a review appearing in the same issue of the journal, Jay A. Gottfried of the Department of Neurology at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine noted that the UC Berkeley findings open numerous avenues for further research. "Finally, what are the implications for the Provençal truffle hunt?" he wrote, only partly tongue-in-cheek. "In the traditional world of the truffle forests, the dog (or pig) is king. The evidence presented here suggests that humans are every bit as well equipped to carry out the search."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:11:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DIY mad scientist's speaker set

Ian Brown posted pictures on Flickr of his DIY iPod speakers. From the description:

These are remote iPod speakers I scratch-built for my wife's iPod shuffle. It's all scientific glass and aluminium construction. The sub-woofer is an inverted glass dome, and a fresnel lens from a rail-car. The guts of the thing is borrowed from a stock computer amp, whilst the speakers themselves are Apple Pro's... You can see from this alternate view that the tripod legs are made from aluminium garden trowles, polished up.

Link (via MAKE: Blog)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:12:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Los Angeles: Johnny Ryan solo show 9/2-9/25

Johnny Ryan, the cartoonist behind the crude, rude, immature, and laff-out-loud hysterical Angry Youth Comix, is having his first solo art show! Johnny's work will be on display at the excellent Meltdown Comics on Sunset in Los Angeles. The opening is September 3 and the show runs through September 25. Every time I visit Mark F., we make a pilgrimage to Meltdown. In fact, that's where Mark first turned me on to Johnny Ryan's politically-incorrect hilarity. (Previous Johnny Ryan posts here and here.) By the way, if you dig comix by the likes of Dan Clowes, Adrian Tomine, and R. Crumb, make sure to order Johnny Ryan's limited edition Comic Book Holocaust, a brilliant collection of alternative comic parody strips where he takes the piss out of the underground greats. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:00:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pencil blog

Pencil Revolution is a blog all about those miraculous sticks of graphite, including "wooden wisdom, product reviews, and ephemera." For example, BB readers may be familiar with Dalton Ghetti who carves sculptures out of pencil points, like this boot. Also last week, Pencil Revolution put a PaperMate American Natural through its paces:

Considering that the target market for (the PaperMate American Natural) is "children and schools" and that some companies seem to (for some reason) market junk to kids for pencils, these pencils are a pretty nice find. The core is dark, and as my friend Dan in Baltimore puts it, "They feel right in your hand." The plain wood, blue letters and plain ferrule combine to make one attractive pencil. The sanding is not as smooth as some unfinished pencils, but it is made up for by the fact that you can get a serious grip on this pencil. Whether you are sweating or whether you just ate half of a pizza, the raw wood will stay put in your paw. I've done some long writing with these, and they work just fine. Sharpening is smooth and clean, almost as much as cedar.

Link (via Drawn!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:31:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

San Francisco: Webzine 2005 September 24-25

If you're in or near the San Francisco Bay Area, the reborn Webzine conference is not to be missed. This is the first Webzine since 2000 and, well, lots of things have changed in the world of DIY online publishing. Webzine 2005 takes place Setember 24-25 and a weekend pass to all of the panels, workshops, parties, and events is just $22 in advance. From the Webzine 2005 description:

Two days of panel discussions and presentations from speakers covering a micro gamut of the independent publishing landscape. Hear from people who are turning mainstream media on it's head through self-reporting, culture jamming, citizen journalism, experimenting with new forms of audio and video broadcasting and of course, sticking it to the Man.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:07:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boxy official Russian sedans get fridges, DVD players and hi-power engines

Volga sedans make up a large portion of the aging offical fleet in Russia -- like Crown Vics are for American cops. A firm in Russia offers a full-service soup-up for them that includes "high-powered Toyota engines, DVD players and refrigerators."

For years, the Kremlin has been ordering bureaucrats to abandon their BMWs and Mercedes in favor of the boxy Volga, which is made by GAZ. The idea was first floated in 1997 by Boris Nemtsov, who was deputy prime minister at the time.

"A local bigwig might want to drive a foreign car, but his status won't allow it," said Vladimir Sevastyanov, who has chauffeured Tekhnoservis' director for the past 12 years.

Even his boss prefers to drive a Volga to work, though he owns three foreign cars, including a Range Rover, Sevastyanov said...

The 1961 Volga on display at Tekhnoservis' stand at the motor show was custom-made for a high-ranking Communist Party member and now belongs to a wealthy client.

After a 10-month, $50,000 refit, the car is capable of traveling at speeds of up to 140 kilometers per hour with its 152-horsepower Toyota motor.

Another car displayed at the show was a 1971 Chaika that boasted a DVD player, automatic transition and rather conspicuous Bridgestone tires.

Tekhnoservis' clients are wealthy Russians who want to feel like vintage party bosses on the weekends, Zemskov said, without revealing any names. Tekhnoservis receives a handful of orders for overhauling classic cars every year -- so far all of them from Russia.

Link (via Fark)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:47:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Papercraft Japanese fish models

This Japanese website sports downloadable, lifelike papercraft fishies of various delicious breeds, including Oshorokoma, Amago and Yamame. Link (via Paper Forest)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:42:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Katrina approaches New Orleans, US Gulf Coast

Big shout-out to all of our friends and readers in the path of Hurricane Katrina today, including often-BB-cited bloggers Susannah Breslin and Jonno of New Orleans (update: we've since learned that both are safe).

We hope you're all out of harm's way whenever you read this.

Here's a partial list of NOLA-based blogs: Link.

The New Orleans metblog is full of first-hand reports, including this evacuation account from contributor Craig Giesecke:

Not much traffic on the way out, as early as it was, and pretty much smooth sailing all the way to Florida. Part of me felt glad to be leaving, but another part felt like a quitter on my city and yet a third part was missing the action. (...)

We're determined to make this as much a vacation as we can, despite the budget limtations. I used to live in this part of the world, so I know the free stuff and the places to go. But they're also recovering from Dennis back in early July. We have no idea what we'll be going back to and, if predictions hold, my business location will be ruined. But y'know -- it's only stuff.

For now, we've got plenty of rum, some money, a pickup truck, a motel room with a pool, a box of Wheat Thins and a cooler half-full of smoked cheese. Life could be a hell of a lot worse.

Another local blog to check for updates: Jon Donley of NOLA.com has been posting from his "Hurricane Bunker" on the third floor of the Times-Picayune building. Link.

The nola.com webcams, the cincystreet.com cam, and many others provide stills of New Orleans. No telling how long they'll be functional, though. Here's a composite of what three webcams on nola.com capture, as of 11:07pm LA time on Sunday (Link to full size).

Here are a bunch of animated and still radar and satellite images: Link. Here is the National Weather Service bulletin.

Boing Boing reader Mark Kraft says,

There's a very active thread over on MeFi on Katrina, and how big of a danger it is, both to the people of the city and to the U.S. oil infrastructure: Link.

I'll be collecting LiveJournal users' firsthand accounts from the hurricane again, as I did for the tsunami and for several other hurricanes. There are a lot of people who are riding out the storm, sometimes because they have too much they'd have to leave behind, and sometimes because they just have nowhere to go and no way to get there. Latest updates will be here.

And, no surprise here -- the Hurricane Katrina page on Wikipedia is shaping up to be a frequently updated and very helpful resource. Link. Snip:

If it maintains its current central pressure, Katrina will be the most intense named hurricane to impact the United States since the naming of storms began in 1950 (and second overall since the recording of hurricanes began in 1851), being larger in size and slightly stronger than 1969 Hurricane Camille's central pressure of 909 mb.

(Thanks, oboreruhito, asteropm, John Frost, and John Parres)

Reader comment: johnsee says,

This is pretty incredible. Back on the 11th of September 2001 (ignore the other significance of the date for 5 seconds) Popular Mechanics published an article on what could happen if a category 5 hurricane hit New Orleans: Link.

Update: Even Wikipedia knows its own limitations. This notice, in red, now appears at top of the entry for Katrina:

ATTENTION: Residents of areas affected by Hurricane Katrina are advised to seek advice and information from local authorities through television and radio. Information on Wikipedia may not be current or applicable to your area. Do not decide whether to leave your house, shelter, or vehicle based on Wikipedia information.

Eyewitness photos are appearing on flickr, including this snapshot of a Baton Rouge butcher's sign (taken before the storm hit). Link to more.

Reader comment: TAD says,

A buddy of mine is riding the storm on the Mississippi Gulf coast which is expected to take the brunt of the storm. He has been posting overnight and has put up a video taken this morning. He'll continue posting until his power or telephone line goes out. Link

Monday 29 Aug AM: update: NOLA Metblog is full of updates on damage reports. And over on the Times Picayune NOLA.com blog early this morning, as the storm began to hit, Jon Donley wrote:

OK, it's official, Katrina is beginning to knock on our door. We've already been without main power for about two hours . . . no air conditioning (not to harp on that) . . . flashlights to get around the building. Thankfully, no televisions turned to helmet-haired weathercreatures yapping away about worst-case scenarios. Times-Picayune staffers huddled around a radio, or gathered at the second-floor landing, where there's a view of the newspaper's front drive circle.

The scene out the windows is frightening, and it's just beginning. Gusts slamming the big windows, and people reflexively ducking, knowing they've got to break. Trees whipping as if they're about to be uprooted. There is a tooth-grinding whistle from the wind . . . if it keeps up, I'm going to climb up there with my trusty roll of duct tape.

Here in the center of the building - the "hurricane bunker" - there is more power . . . enough generator power to keep our mission-critical computers going. Whether we'll keep connectivity is iffy. A couple of fans moving the air in here.

Scanner traffic now is all about storm emergencies - windows popping and frantic calls for help. People urged to move to interior hallways. Some structural collapses being reported . . . police trying to aid victims . . . didn't hear where this is occurring in New Orleans.

Reader comment: Brian says,

[the American Radio Relay League, or] ARRL has a story about shortwave radio activities related to Katrina. Short wave listening, and amateur radio become extremely useful information sources when commercial means fail. BPL proponents, take note. Link.

Monday 29 Aug PM: update: Several blogs are reporting an exchange between a Fox News Channel reporter and a New Orleans man-on-the-street during Hurricane Katrina coverage this morning:

SHEPARD SMITH: You’re live on FOX News Channel, what are you doing?
MAN: Walking my dogs.
SMITH: Why are you still here? I’m just curious.
MAN: None of your fucking business.
SMITH: Oh that was a good answer, wasn’t it? That was live on international television. Thanks so much for that. You know we apologize.

Link to post with video in Quicktime and WMV (via politicalwire, thanks Catherine)

Image: BBC photo of storm wake (via Warren)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:43:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Facebook: Pouty-mouth poses for narcoleptic dudes

The Los Angeles Times invited me to contribute a commentary about the popular student networking site Facebook. It ran today, and here's a snip:

You could describe Facebook.com as a digital yearbook, or the Internet equivalent of Greek T-shirts on frat brothers.

But most dead-tree yearbooks don't have 3.6 million members or party construction systems. Real-world sororities don't have names such as "Alpha Mega Pimpin," "The Divine Innocence of Jessica Simpson" or "I Just Tried to Ford the River and My [Fucking] Oxen Died," in homage to the 1980s video game "Oregon Trail."

Facebook does. And it conquered college America instantly.

Like its paper predecessors, the site provides students with tools to stay in touch, proclaim school pride and scrawl in-jokes next to head shots. Pouty-mouth glamour puss is the favored female photo pose. Male portraits often capture narcoleptic undergrads mid-kegger, adorned with live animals, football-foam headgear — or other narcoleptic undergrads.

But a glance at growth stats shows that as membership spreads — faster than strep-throat bugs at a spin-the-bottle session — the service is becoming a popular extension of real life at campuses across the country.

Link.

Previously -- Facebook: just poke me

Reader comment: Ian says,

A group of Northeastern University students made a commentary on Facebook as part of Campus Movie Fest 2005 in Boston, MA. Their submission didn't win the contest, but it did make it to the finals. It's another good example of how Facebook has cemented itself as a part of campus life. Link

Denise Nelson Nash of Caltech University in Pasadena, CA tells BB,

[Facebook founder] Mark Zuckerberg will be speaking at Caltech on Thursday, November 10, 2005 at 8 p.m. in Beckman Auditorium. He will be sharing his thoughts on the future of thefacebook and digital interactive yearbooks. Link to event info.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:05:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, August 28, 2005

Fox News misidentifies innocent family as terrorists

Fox News nutbag contributor and former US prosecutor John Loftus read the address of a "terrorist" residence in California on-air. Oh, wait -- whoops -- no terrorist home, just an innocent family of five who are now the target of angry threats.

Since the report aired on Fox News on Aug. 7, people have shouted profanities at Randy and Ronnell Vorick and spray-painted "terrorist" (spelling it "terrist") on their property.

Link to LA Times story, Link to followup on newshounds.us with news that Loftus has been sacked. (Thanks, yosephus)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:30:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

San Diego Computer Museum seeks new home

Boing Boing reader Steve says,

Among the many unique exhibits on display at the San Diego Computer Museum, is the think-a-tron by hasbro.

I visited the museum for a last chance to see the exhibits before it closed its doors. I spoke with the curator, David Weil. He is currently seeking sources of financial support to help pay for a new location in the San Diego area.

The San Diego Computer Museum is actively looking for a new site to house its exhibits, as the current location has been sold for redevelopment.

Link to contact info for curator David Weil.

Thinkatron photos: one, two.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:17:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stuff from a TV preacher -- UPDATE: the *farting* preacher

Boing Boing reader Bob H. says,

I called [evangelical Christian television preacher] Bob Tilton's prayer line and the photos in this Flickr set show some of what he sent to me.

I received at least six packets of information, some containing gifts, each with a four page letter, and all asking for money.

Don't miss the "Supernatural Blood Sprinkling Victory Package." Link to photo set.

Reader comment Ian Walker says,

I assume you are aware that Robert Tilton, the TV evangelist from today's Flickr gallery is the notorious farting preacher. These two vids are the best of the genre: one, and two.

And reader Scott C. points to another source for Tilton fart videos: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:00:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

If the van's a-orbitin', don't come knockin'

Boing Boing reader Johnny Mumbles says,

Here are photos of my uncle's van, in which he installed a couple Skylab simulator panels as well as a computer and other strangeness to complete the look of a space-van-craft circa 1975.

He still drives this thing daily.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:54:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cute-surreal photo illos from Korea: Komusin

A fantastic series of photo illustrations by Korean artist Komusin. Many images involve cute little medicine pills, pieces of candy, or sushi rolls gen-bap engaging in zany hijinks and speaking in talk-bubbles.

A flickr user has copied a number of these illos and made them available here, and komusin.pe.kr is the artist's website. (Thanks, Daily Pick)

Reader comment: Thanks to the many BB readers who wrote in to correct my botched food identification. Andrew Jones, who lives in South Korea, says:

that's actually not sushi. it's gen-bap or ken-bap, a Korean roll. Sushi is actually a japanese version of the seaweed and rice rolls Koreans originally invented. Oh, and genbap consists of ham sandwiched in with vegetables instead of fish like sushi rolls.

OMFG!!!11! Get your blog-foodie war on! Reader Kyungjooon Lee says:

I agree it's not sushi, but it's properly called gim-bap. And I'm sure Japanese people will write in to say that there's a lot more to sushi than just makizushi.

BTW, komusin (or gomu-shin,) means rubber shoe. Traditionally, Korean shoes were made with ropes made of dried hay. With the introduction of rubber in the twentieth century, shoes started being made of black rubber.

Nowadays old-fashioned shoes are hardly worn any more, but the mention of gomushin will likely make anyone over 30 feel nostalgia for their childhood days.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:09:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Martian dust devils or Black Rock City?

NASA's Mars Rover captured a series of dust devils rolling across a Martian plain over a period of hours. An animated GIF on the NASA website shows the devils' progression over time -- it's like you're right there on the red planet! Funny how this scene looks an awful lot like the playa where Burning Man is taking place this week. Only, there are probably a lot more alien life forms in Black Rock City. Link (Thanks, Peter Davidson)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:00:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Super Mario Bros Supershow toon on Yahoo, requires DRM

"I'm sure most of us remember the freaked out 'Super Mario Brothers Supershow' from the late 1980s. The show had a really scary theme song, lame live action segments featuring Captain Lou Albano as Mario, and some tripped out Mario cartoons and a really awesome Legend of Zelda cartoon on Fridays. For those who are tired of waiting for the DVDs, you can watch some episodes online legally by going to Yahooligans TV section thingy. What really kicks ass is that much like the SMBSS episodes, the Zelda episodes are also freely available on Yahooligans."

YMMV -- mine did. I got an error screen with this message: "The media you are trying to access does not have a stream that matches your default settings. You might try running the Media HelperTM again. Check that you have all required software installed to get the most out of your audio and video experience." I suspect that this is Yahoo's cryptic way of telling me that if I want to watch this, I'll need to install some form of DRM player. Sorry, Mario's not worth it. I'll just wait for someone to rip it to MPEG and put it on P2P. Link (Thanks, Reverend Raven!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:01:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, August 27, 2005

RIAA v the People: Lawyers for first RIAA defendant blogging

The lawyers representing Patricia Santangelo (a suburban mom who is the first person to refuse to settle with the recording industry over a file-sharing accusation, preferring to pay a lawyer to defend her, rather than capitulate to bullying) have created a blog called RIAA vs the People where they're keeping track of the case as it goes:

We are lawyers in New York City. We practice law at Beldock Levine & Hoffman LLP.

Through the Electronic Frontier Foundation we and our firm have undertaken to represent people in our area who have been sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) for having computers whose internet accounts were used to open up peer-to-peer file sharing accounts.

We find these cases to be oppressive and unfair, as large law firms financed by the recording industry sue ordinary working people for thousands of dollars.

We have set up this blog in order to collect evidence and input about these oppressive lawsuits.

Link (via A Copyfighter's Musings)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Einstein 1925 quantum theory manuscript scans

Iz Reloaded sez, "High-resolution photographs of the 16-page, German-language manuscript by Albert Einstein: The manuscript for 'Quantum theory of the monatomic ideal gas' has been found in the archives of Leiden University's Lorentz Institute for Theoretical Physics. The manuscript was evidently used by Einstein to correct the page proofs in early 1925 and then left behind in Leiden. The publication is in the proceedings of the Berlin Academy of Sciences." Link (Thanks, Iz Reloaded!)

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

Missing record producer found washing his jeans in a creek

The record producer who disappeared last week after making a frantic call to a friend claiming that he was being pursued has been found alive but disoriented, washing his jeans in a creek near his Topanga Canyon home. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:08:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Burned furniture

Maarten Baas's "Smoke" furniture is made by burning the wooden components of furniture, then coating them with clear epoxy, then upholstering them. The effect is striking and lovely. Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:31:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Alleged subway wanker makes the NY Daily News

The alleged subway wanker whose victim captured him on cameraphone and posted it to Flickr is on the cover of today's New York Daily News. Cover Link, Story Link (Thanks, B-!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:42:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BB readers: 25% off Euro Open Source con, Oct 17-19 Amsterdam

O'Reilly will host its first-ever European Open Source convention this October 17-19 in Amsterdam. I'm coming in on the last day to give a talk, and there's an excellent lineup of other speakers as well.

Boing Boing readers are eligible for a 25 percent discount -- just sign up using the code "Euor05rrd". Sign up before the 29th for an additional early bird discount.

To best adopt and exploit open source, you need three things: technology, contacts, and experience. We bring you all three. From web technology like Ajax, Ruby on Rails, or Plone; to server technology like MySQL, Apache, and Linux, we've sought out the latest and greatest essential open source technology. We also bring you the people who created these open source tools: Paul Everitt of Plone, David Heinemeier-Hansson of Ruby on Rails, and Larry Wall of Perl fame. And to cap it off, we bring case studies you can learn from: database migration, small-to-medium business adoption, and Apache deployment.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:03:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, August 26, 2005

Jim Leftwich's Flying Spaghetti Monster T-shirt at Boing Boing store

Boing Boing is selling a fundraising shirt to support the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), an organization that defends the teaching of evolution in public schools.

We went to our favorite illustrator/designer, Jim Leftwich, and asked him if he could come up with the ultimate Flying Spaghetti Monster logo. He was happy to take on the assignment to support the NCSE. Jim's logo is simply stunning. He came up with two designs for the shirts, which you can see at the Boing Boing store. All profits from the sale of FSM products will be donated to the NCSE.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:09:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vag-in-a-Can and other wacky Japanese sex toys

At left, SACK TWO brand condoms with manga packaging that reads, in part, "TRY NEW TYPE CAN YOU SURVIVE? 12 TIMES?"

You have no chance to survive make your time.

It's one of many odd products featured on a blog post here about Japansese Porno Shop Curiosities.

My two other favorites are a manga character modeling the rectal funnel gizmo shown here ("ohnooooo! must you look inside my butt?") and vagina in a can.

Hey, what guy can't use a nice tall can of female genitals now and then?

Snip from Rob's blog confessional about a first-hand (snort) experience with the device:

And you know what? It felt alright. It did the trick. That is, until it was all over. Until the moment after, when I was hit by a sobering freight train of humility, looking down at my dick stuck inside a latex vagina housed in a plastic beer can. Moments like that you start to question everything - "How the hell did it come to this? Who am I? What am I doing with my life?" I probably sat there for an hour, silently with my plastic lover, pondering my existence.

The next morning, when the subject of the previous night came up and someone said, "oh, where's that funny beer can thing we got? Rob, you had it, right?" And everyone looks at me, and I just stare at them for a moment, and then say, "...I fucked it. I fucked it and I hated myself, and now it's gone." There was a slight pause, followed by uproarious laughter. The ridicule took months to subside.

Link to blog post (Thanks, I-Wei)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:58:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FSM roundup: SC schools next to teach creationism?

Boing Boing reader and Pastafarian acolyte John Duffell says,

Mike Fair, a state senator from South Carolina, has just introduced a bill that would require public schools to teach Intelligent Design alongside evolution under the banner of science.

Says Fair, "Many of us -- most of us, I hope -- come from homes where children are taught by their parents that there's a reason behind it all." While the rest of us heathens wallow in the meaninglessness of existence, U.S. Senator Jim DeMint and Congressman Bob Inglis have expressed their support for Fair's bill.

Personally, I think it's time for these old stodgy men to be graced by His Noodly Appendage.

Link to news story.

Image: one of many Livejournal userpics remixed from FSM iconography. Link to set. (Thanks, VAspider)

Regarding Pastafarian holidays, BB reader Keith Kisser says:

The holiest of holidays for Pastafarrians, is of course the birthday of His Most Holy Prophet, Marco Polo (b. sept 15, 1254), who brought the word of his Noodly Appendage back from the East.

As Talk Like A Pirate Day falls on September 19th, this five day period constitutes Holy Pasta Week, durring which spaghetti is consumed liberally. With a nice chianti, of course.

Previously:

FSM: Give us this day / our daily noodle
FSM flotsam
Flying Spaghetti Monster Has a Posse, and more
Pastafarianism: Flying Spaghetti Monster cult grows
Boing Boing's $1 Million Intelligent Design challenge

Update: Don't miss Mark's post on Boing Boing's FSM fundraiser to benefit the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a group that works to defend science education in schools. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:41:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hey gang, it's Cosplay Friday!

Above, people dressed up as pieces of furniture. Image is tagged as having originated from leenks.com, I have no idea who took it, who these sofa-people are, or whether this happens next. Reader comment: Violet Blue says, "Those furniture bondage pics were snagged from the wonderfully hardworking forniphiliacs at House of Gord. Case in point: Link. Also, a definition:

Forniphilia: the art of human furniture
forni- f. Old French furnir f.
Roman, fornire; to furnish -philia f.
Greek philos; love of, fondness for

Link to full size.

Above: I don't read Japanese, so I don't understand all of the details -- but I think this photo gallery depicts people dressed up at a comics convention. This image kinda hurts.

(Thanks to Joi Ito for both sets!)

Reader comment: Nicholas Freeman says, The pictures are from Comic Market 68 (aka Comiket), which happened from 8-12 to 8-14 this year. It's a regular manga related festival. Info in English: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:29:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SF authors podcasting their novels: "podiobooks"

Interesting piece on the increasing trend for sf writers to podcast all or part of their novels:

As recently as this time last year, a podcast—a digital audio program that lives on the Internet—would have meant very little to most people. But today there are thousands of websites devoted to the technology; major media outlets have started releasing some of their broadcasts via podcast; and even cult favorite Neil Gaiman has posted the first few chapters of the audio version of his Anansi Boys on his blog. Sigler’s podcasting got him a deal with the publisher Dragon Moon Press after the publisher heard his audio version of EarthCore. And a new site, Podiobooks.com, has launched, with five titles already available for download. Its co-founder, Evo Terra, a podcaster for the online talk show The Dragon Page, notes that, as of this writing, 19 new authors have signed on to release free audio versions of their books through the site.

Link (Thanks, Frank!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:27:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why dry spaghetti always breaks into 3 or more pieces

These religious scientists have been making theological inquiries about why it is that when you bend and snap dry spaghetti (a component of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, creator of the Universe, arr) it always breaks into three or more pieces. "The multiple breaking of bent rods, like dry spaghetti pasta, can then be understood as a cascade of releases (loss of cohesion upon breakings) followed by stress increases leading to new cracks." With video! Link (Thanks, Gopi!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:26:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

web zen: faux vintage zen

tech taps past
elmira stoveworks
queen pin deluxe
danger dame
pokia
retropod
grammaphone
retroplayer

web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:21:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Author Thomas Sanchez's new Web site

When my wife and I lived in Paris last winter, we met Thomas Sanchez, an American author who had been living on and off in France for many years. My first impression was that Thomas fancied himself to be something of an Ernest Hemingway and Henry Miller expat bohemian type. Quickly though, I realized that he doesn't fancy himself to be one of those types at all. Rather, he's the real deal. Since his first novel, Rabbit Boss, was published in 1973, Thomas has been known in literary circles as one of the most important authors of the twentieth century. His novel Mile Zero, about the "end of the American road" in Key West, drew me in with its twisting and twisted tale of crooks, murderers, Vietnam vets, artists, and the voodoo that ties the island culture together. His new book, King Bongo, is described as "a fevered dream of glamour, intrigue, and corruption set in 1950's Havana." I can't wait to read it!

I think Thomas immerses himself so deeply in whatever place he's writing about that he leaves a part of him there when he leaves. (Fortunately, he seems compelled to go back to check on it every few years. That's how I met him.) Thomas has just launched a new Web site filled with background on all his books, interviews, and news. I just read that his novel Day Of The Bees is now being made into a film and his next book is a love story set in 1961 Miami during the Bay Of Pigs. That explains why shortly after we met Thomas in Paris he split for South Beach. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:09:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Guess what this is and win $15

Over at Random Good Stuff, Casino Vincente is offering $15 to the first person who can correctly identify what this thing is. (Don't email me about it. If you think you know what it is, click here and post a comment on Random Good Stuff -- Mark)
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:28:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More early Burn photos

Dawn in the desert. A praying mantis visits The Free United Cartel of Kanuckistan (F.U.C.K.), the state of which I am governor in absentia. More photos here. (Thanks, Thomas Terashima!)

Previously: Early Build Photos from Burning Man 2005
Hand-drawn Map of BRC 2005

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:08:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Another smoking chimp

Zookeepers in Xi'an, China are trying to help a 26-year-old chimpanzee quit smoking. According to an AP report, she started smoking 15 years ago by snatching butts left behind by visitors. (As BB readers know, smoking chimps are not unheard of.) Apparently, this chimp's habit picked up even more when her mate recently died. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:27:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Outbursts of Everett True

The Outbursts of Everett True was a comic that appeared each Saturday in newspapers starting in 1905. Every one of the two-panel strips used the same formula: In Panel one, Mr. True gets confronted by a person who annoys him, and in panel two, Mr. True has an outburst. Even though they are as predictable as an episode of Scooby Doo ("It's the disgruntled groundskeeper in a gorilla costume!") they're still funny, and the drawings are excellent. Here's a bunch of scanned strips. Link (via Benjamen Walker's Theory Of Everything)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:12:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cops have to pay $41k for stopping man from videoing them

Jeff sez,

Last month a federal judge awarded $35,000 in compensatory and $6000 in punitive damages to a man state troopers arrested for video taping them.

Given the Utah rave case and the Oakland police stop reported today, this seems like an important decision because it makes it clear that citizens are free to video law enforcement in action.

The ruling finds violations of the plaintiff's first and fourth amendment rights. It states "The activities of the police, like those of other public officials, are subject to public scrutiny...Videotaping is a legitimate means of gathering information for public dissemination and can often provide cogent evidence, as it did in this case. In sum, there can be no doubt that the free speech clause of the Constitution protected Robinson as he videotaped the defendants on October 23, 2002....Moreover, to the extent that the troopers were restraining Robinson from making any future videotapes and from publicizing or publishing what he had filmed, the defendants' conduct clearly amounted to an unlawful prior restraint upon his protected speech....We find that defendants are liable under § 1983 for violating Robinson's Fourth Amendment right to be protected from an unlawful seizure..."

PDF Link (Thanks, Jeff!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:40:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Metal thorns to keep people from sitting on things in the city

A large photo gallery of architectural ornaments meant to keep people from sitting on things in the city.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:40:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Commercial music in podcasts: the end of free expression?

PodShow is a new service that talks music labels into licensing their music for free playback on podcasts. So far, so good.

The problem is that in return for access to PodCast music, you agree to a license that prohibits you from referencing "software piracy (warez, cracking, etc.), hacking, phreaking, emulators, ROM's, or illegal MP3 activity" or saying anything "deemed unsuitable or harmful to the reputation of PodShow or the Licensor."

This is pretty nuts. Since when does the guy who provides the music to the radio station get to dictate what you're allowed to talk about? Is the price of commercial music in a PodCast that you have to yield unlimited, arbitrary editorial control to a music label?

And it gets worse -- under the terms of the license, you also agree to pay legal costs and damages to PodShow if you say something that gets them sued -- even if the judge eventually finds in your favor.

If that's the deal, count me out. I'll go on listening to podcasts with CC-licensed music in them. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:33:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hamster-powered phone charger invented by 16-year-old

This 16-year-old from Somerset invented a hamster-wheel-powered phone charger as a school project.

Peter Ash, of Lawford, Somerset, attached a generator to his hamster's exercise wheel and connected it to his phone charger...

He came up with the idea after his sister Sarah complained that Elvis was keeping her awake at night by playing for hours on his exercise wheel.

"I thought the wheel could be made to do something useful so I connected a system of gears and a turbine," he said.

"Every two minutes Elvis spends on his wheel gives me about thirty minutes talk time on my phone."

Link (Thanks, LukeDaDuke!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:38:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dennis the Menace returns from Fantagraphics

In April, Mark posted about how Fantagraphics is reprinting the complete run of Hank Ketcham's amazing Dennis the Menace comic strips, similar to their beautifully-produced Complete Peanuts series. The first Menacing volume, "Hank Ketcham's Complete Dennis The Menace 1951-1952," hits shelves next month. Yesterday, the Associated Press ran an article about the Dennis revival. From the article:

Marcus Hamilton, who took over the strip after Ketcham retired in 1994, said that the first volume of reprints may surprise longtime fans who view Dennis as a mischievous, but harmless little kid. "The strip was a little more risque when it first started," he said. For example, in one panel, Dennis tied a swan's neck in a knot.

Link (via Flog)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:24:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bigfoot art in the Big Apple

Artist Jill Miller's Waiting for Bigfoot project ended last weekend in northern California, but an unrelated group show of bigfoot-related art is currently running in New York City. The Chelsea gallery's Sasquatch Society exhibit includes paintings, drawing, videos, and sculptures like the piece shown here by Jennifer Sullivan. From today's New York Times:

The cleverest contribution is a two-part piece by Becca Baldwin. A small, doctored photograph appears to document Yves Klein's directing a group of bigfeet in a painting performance, as he once did using the bodies of naked women as expressionistic brushes. Next to the photograph is a work that presumably resulted from the performance: a canvas bearing a big blue footprint.

Other works are either portraits or fanciful narratives in a wide variety of styles. Ketta Ioannidou paints herself as a cartoonish bigfoot striding through the woods wearing only red bikini briefs. Megan Whitmarsh embroiders little yetis on fabric.

Link to NYT article, Link to Sixtyseven Gallery (Thanks, Loren Coleman!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:49:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Atari 2600 emulator for PSP

There's now an Atari 2600 emulator for your PSP -- just don't upgrade the thing to Firmware 2.0 or you lose the ability to load your own apps onto it. Link (Thanks, Noah!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:51:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

1930 catalog of Fraternal Order gags and punishments

This is the scanned-in 1930 DeMoulin Bros. & Co. Fraternal Supply Catalog No. 439 in its entirety. This may be the best thing to ever appear on the Internet. The names of the gags and punishments in the catalog alone are a kind of wild poetry ("The Rollicking Mustang Goat, The Fuzzy Wonder Goat, The Bucking Goat, Ferris Wheel Coaster Goat, Whiz Bang Aeroplane, The Submarine, Trick Bottom Chair, Trick Chairs, Electric Chair, A Pointed Affair, Bomb Stunt, Electric Bench, The Trick Camera and Surprise Chair, The "Jag" Producer") but they are nothing compared to the illlustrations, each of which is better, weirder and more incomprehensible than the last. Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

Update: Oops! Mark already posted this, back in 2002! (Thanks, Erik!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:49:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EFF needs geeks to help freedom-fighting lawyers

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Donna Wentworth sez:

Not long ago we told you about our new "Cooperating Techs" listserv to help connect technologists with attorneys working on cases that are core to EFF's mission but beyond what we can handle in-house. After a couple of weeks with only a few responses, we realized we made a technical mistake with the email alias for signing up!

Now that we've recognized our error -- as well as the irony -- we've corrected the problem. If you're a technologist who'd like to apply your skills to the fight for digital civil liberties, please send -- or re-send - an email to cooptechs@eff.org. We promise that this time, your request will get through -- and you'll even get a confirmation notice to prove it!

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:41:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Oakland sheriffs detain people for carrying cameras

Boing Boing pal Thomas Hawk sez, "Tonight, Flickr pals Aqui-Ali, Ropeboy, Rajit and I decided to night shoot Oakland's Warehouse District. As you know photography is a passion of mine. No sooner had we started than we were stopped by Sheriffs, required to give them our IDs and subject ourselves to background searches and then detained for about 20 minutes. Our crime? Carrying a camera."

Previous Thomas Hawk run-ins with the anti-camera Man in the Bay Area: No taking pix of San Fran building from the sidewalk?. Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:38:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sea anemones go to war in tide-pools

This account of how different sea anemone colonies battle for space in tide-pools while the tide is out is amazing -- real red-in-tooth-and-claw stuff. They even differentiate into distinct castes: "warriors, scouts, reproductives."

When the tide is out, the polyps are contracted and quiet. As the tide covers the colonies, "scouts" move out into the border to look for empty space to occupy. Larger, well-armed "warriors" inflate their stinging arms and swing them around. Towards the center of the colony, poorly armed "reproductive" anemones stay out of the fray and conduct the clone's business of breeding.

When anemones from opposing colonies come in contact, they usually fight. But after about 20 or 30 minutes of battle the clones settle down to a truce until the next high tide.

It's not just polyps along the border between two clones that clash. Polyps three or four rows away from the front will reach over their comrades to engage in fights, Grosberg said.

Differentiation into warriors seems to depend on a combination of signals from enemy stings and the genetics of the colony. Different colonies react differently to similar signals, explaining why different clones are organized into so many different kinds of armies. But borders between colonies can remain stable for years, even though the two colonies organize their armies in different ways.

Link (Thanks, Nick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:34:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

House of Cosby roundup

Andy "Waxy" Baio sez, "I've been obsessed with House of Cosbys lately, so I pulled together a bunch of Cosby-related links. Plus, I'm hosting a complete MP3 rip of Bill Cosby's out-of-print 1971 LP, "Bill Cosby Talks To Kids About Drugs."" Link (Thanks, Waxy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:31:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Talk Like a Pirate Day, Sept 19

The holiest of Pastafarian holidays is surely "Talk Like a Pirate Day," coming on Sept 19, which looms ahead like the scurvy wreckage of a fat clipper, yar, so it does. Avast. Rawk! Link (Thanks, TxGeek!)

Update: What better way to prepare for Talk Like a Pirate Day than with this MP3 of the legendary BBC Million Pound Radio Show comedy sketch, Pirate Training Day? (Thanks, Steve!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:29:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Science Cinematheque

Tim Schwartz, creator of the contagious media project The Brain Freeze has launched a cool new online exhibition for the Museum of the Moving Image. Schwartz writes:

Science Cinémathèque is about the intersection of science and film. You can watch student films about science, watch the panel discussions we have here at the museum with scientists and filmmakers, and read articles about film and science, which are annotated with video clips.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:27:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Recordings of ivory-billed Woodpeckers

Cornell researchers have released audio recordings they say is more evidence that the Ivory-billed Woodpecker, long thought to be extinct, is alive and well in Arkansas. (Background here and here.) The ornithologists analyzed more than 18,000 hours of recordings to come up with what may be the woodpecker's signature knocks and calls. From Cornell University News Service:

The recordings reveal sounds that, experts say, are strikingly similar to those made by ivory-billed woodpeckers and provide compelling information that can be added to evidence already gathered of the bird's existence. One of the recordings, from Jan. 24, 2005, captured a distant double knock, "Bam bam!" followed by a similar and much closer double knock 3.5 seconds later -- possibly the drumming displays of two ivory-billed woodpeckers communicating with one another by rapping on trees.

"I immediately felt a thrill of excitement the first time I heard that recording," said Russell Charif, a bioacoustics researcher at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "It is the best tangible evidence so far that there could be more than one ivory-bill in the area."

Link to "Listening for the Ivory-bill," Link to the news article

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

Where change blindness happens

University College London researchers have pinpointed the spot in the brain responsible for "change blindness," the phenomenon of missing big visual changes right in front of you, like a traffic light switching from red to green or a gorilla on a basketball court. The UCL psychologists used Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) to temporarily switch off the parietal cortex of their subjects' brains. (Previous posts on TMS here and here.) With that region inoperable, the subjects couldn't notice a different face in front of them. From the UCL press release:

Professor (Nilli) Lavie said: “Because the parietal lobe is not part of the visual cortex it was at first surprising to find that activity in the parietal lobe is critical for visual awareness. We have always known that the parietal cortex was responsible for concentrating. But it was a surprise to find out it is also important for detecting visual changes in a scene. The finding that this region of the brain has both these functions, concentration and visual awareness, explains why we can be so easily deceived by, say, a magicians’ trick. When we’re concentrating so hard on something that our processing capacity is at its limits, the parietal cortex is not available to pay attention to new things and even dramatic changes can go unnoticed. If you’re concentrating on what the magician’s left hand is doing, you won’t notice what the right hand is doing.”

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:09:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Water color paintings of Bikini Atoll A-bomb tests

The official US navy history site has a mind blowing gallery of water color, pencil, and oil paintings made by military observers of the Bikini Atoll A-bomb tests in 1946. Link (via Exclamation Mark)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:15:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FSM: Give us this day / our daily noodle

Update: Don't miss Mark's post on Boing Boing's FSM fundraiser to benefit the National Center for Science Education (NCSE), a group that works to defend science education in schools. Link

A roundup of devotional urls for Pastafarians.

(1) It isn't a real meme until Ze Frank weighs in. Link

(2) Today's "Family Circus" comic contains what could be interpreted as a stealth FSM reference. Link (Thanks, Eric and WT Hellzatt)

(3) How To Debate a Creationist: this blog entry links to an MP3 of a leave-it-to-beaveroid '50s (or early '60s?) song about science. "It's a scientific fact / it has to be correct / because it is a scientific fact." Kind of scary to think that empirical logic was more generally accepted in fifties pop culture than it is today.

(4) Mike Everett-Lane says,

Inspired by the variety of FSM graphics you posted, I've created an 80 x 15 pixel "button" for those who want to help show their support for the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Link.

(5) Hymns in His honor abound. It seems He has relatives. Is Cthulhu one of them? (Thanks, Larry White, Josh, and Michael Parker)

(6) Mein Gott, ein Nudelmonster! (via Al Dente)

(7) A 3D rendering. Link (Thanks, nico)

(8) A parody of Mormon prophet Joseph Smith's "First Vision." Link

(9) Boing Boing reader Adam Pava says,

Hi Xeni. I've enjoyed following the boom of FSM-related material you guys have been covering, but I noticed nobody has created a Pastafarianism holiday yet. How about asking the greater Boing Boing community for ideas? Here are mine:

Pastaover. It's obviously the night that the Flying Spaghetti Monster flew over the city, looking for the houses that had marinara sauce splashed upon the doorposts. Perhaps, during dinner, the youngest child asks the four questions: Why on this night do we leave a chair open for the Ghost of Blackbeard? Why on this night do we wear overturned bowls of spaghetti on our heads, like that cute picture of that baby I saw once? And so on. I'm not a theologian. Other possible holidays:

Ramendan
Yummy Kippur
Nosh Hashanah
Good Farfallday
Cinco de Macaroni
Pastille Day

I'm sure your readers can do better.

Previously:

FSM flotsam
Flying Spaghetti Monster Has a Posse, and more
Pastafarianism: Flying Spaghetti Monster cult grows
Boing Boing's $1 Million Intelligent Design challenge
DIY Flying Spaghetti Monster bumper sticker
Dear Kansas: Why stop at "Intelligent Design?"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:52:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LA record producer killed by Nigerian scam ring?

This chilling story in today's LA Times sounds like something out of a nightmare. Three days ago, a record producer disappeared from his house in Topanga Canyon while making a desperate phone call for help as he ran barefoot through a creek to elude pursuers at 3:45 in the morning.

In a frantic phone call before his disappearance, Christian Julian Irwin, 48, pleaded for help, telling a friend he was being chased down a ravine by people who he believed might kill him, police said. The call, about 3:45 a.m. Sunday, was his last; no one is known to have heard from him since. Investigators have few clues besides Irwin's glasses, found halfway down the hill behind his house, where it is believed that they fell as he ran.

Irwin's friends and relatives say his pursuers may be linked to con artists who had entangled him in a so-called Nigerian Internet scam.

...

Several months ago, Irwin told his friend and former business partner Fortunato Procopio, 47, that he had been unwittingly drawn into a Nigerian Internet fraud and had been threatened by the con artists, Procopio said.

"I told him it was clearly a scam — don't be silly," Procopio said Wednesday. But Irwin later received a mysterious $50,000 check, friends and relatives said, and became increasingly concerned. Procopio and some relatives offered few details, saying police had asked them not to discuss specifics of the case.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:51:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Punk linens

Sin In Linen is a killer new line of bed sheets, pillowcases, duvet covers, throw pillows, and kitchen towels emblazoned with punk/pin-up designs. I'd love to cuddle up in some of these prints. Link (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:43:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Underground comic publisher Denis Kitchen's bio

AIGA has a nice bio on the professional life of underground comic book publisher Denis Kitchen.

Kitchen also endured his share of hardships. In 1976 his local printer, who had no previous qualms about running Bizarre Sex and Dope Comix on his presses, decided to draw the line with Wet Satin: Women’s Erotic Fantasies, edited by Trina Robbins. A willing printer was procured in San Francisco where, notes Robbins, “they’ll print anything.”

In the mid-1980s Michael Correa, manager of Friendly Frank’s, a suburban Chicago comics shop, was convicted of possession and sale of obscene materials. Among the titles was KSP’s Bizarre Sex and Omaha, the Cat Dancer, written by Kate Worley and illustrated by Reed Waller (Fig. 16). As a publisher, Kitchen felt a responsibility to fight the verdict. He organized a fund-raiser, which garnered more than $20, 000, and was able to hire expert First Amendment litigator Burton Joseph. Consequently, an appellate court acquitted Correa. After Kitchen had paid the legal costs, he decided to use his few thousand in surplus to establish a permanent nonprofit group to help oppose similar injustices in the future. He established the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in 1986 and served as its president for its first 18 years.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:39:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Answer to PopSci 1960 puzzle

Well over 600 people submitted answers to the puzzle I posted yesterday. Most of the answers (90% or so) were incorrect. Andy Wood was the first to give the correct answer along with the correct reasoning:

Here are all the possible ways of factoring 225 into three integers:
9 + 5 + 5 = 19
15 + 15 + 1 = 31
15 + 5 + 3 = 23
25 + 9 + 1 = 35
25 + 3 + 3 = 31
45 + 5 + 1 = 51
75 + 3 + 1 = 79
225 + 1 + 1 = 227

Only two of those sums are the same, so the address of the house must be 31, as it would be the only scenario in which the census taker would need any additional information.  Presumably the implication is that if the solution had been 15, 15 and 1, the person answering the door would have said that there was another person his age, not that he was the eldest, so the answer is 25, 3 and 3.

Reader comment: Marc Kelsey says: "Here's why I think the answer to the 1960's puzzle is bullshit:

"If the census taker had to ask the person at the door if they were the oldest, it must have been because he couldn't tell whether the person at the door was the oldest or not. If he had been talking to a 25 years old, and the others in the house were presumably 3 and 3, he would not have had to ask. Therefore, he was talking to a 15 year old, and wanted to know whether they were the oldest 15 year old (by a month, say), or the youngest 15 year old.

"In other words, the question is wrong, not the answers."

Reader comment: Mark Jaquith says: "Regarding Marc Kelsey's response.

"The census taker asked because he didn't know whether the person he was talking to was 25 or 15. That may be a wide swath of years, but what if someone looks about 20, and must be either 15 or 25? Also, if the census taker believes the person at the door to be 15, why not the 15 year old from the 15 + 5 + 3 set? Because the census taker says that he needs more information, it must be because he is undecided between two sets that add up to the same house number.

"Rather, the strongest objection relates to the definition of "eldest." If there are two 15 year olds in the house, one of them MUST be older, even though their integer ages are the same. But, if the person at the door is the older of the 15 year olds, and he answers "yes" (that he is the oldest), the riddle is unsolvable, as both the older of the two hypothetical 15 year olds and the 25 year olds are the oldest of their respective sets. You must consider that the person proposing the riddle (the person at the door) knows this, and would not give an answer that would leave the riddle unsolvable, and would answer by saying that there is another person of their age in the house, or simply answering "no" (because they are the same integer age). If the person at the door says they are the oldest, it must mean they are 25, because that answer would leave the riddle unsolvable if they were 15.

"Admittedly, it would be better if the riddle had the person at the door had say "no," because then there is no doubt at all that the person is 15. Of course, then you have to consider the oddity of two 15 year olds owning a house and raising an infant."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:58:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Plazes link for Gitmo

"This is a Plaze called 'Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba' located in , Cuba." Link (thanks, Sean Bonner)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:41:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excellent spam: boom shakalaka!

The editor of Fleshbot and I like to exchange "greatest hits" selections from our spam folders every week. His pick for this week definitely wins.

Begin forwarded message:

From: "Aristocrat P. Chid
Date: August 25, 2005 12:05:01 PM CDT
To: Editor
Subject: About your loove probleem, Editor

Hello Sir, Editor

How do you do there in New-York? Me and Mahatma are waitin' for any news from you. Don't you forget all your friends in India? :) As for us, we are all right. Mahatma got new job in farmaceuticals company here in Bjenin. You ask me recently what to do to fuck longer. Hm, thats a problem, dude.

But Mahatma told me about one shit she making on she's job. Just put halv a pill under your tongue 15 minutes before boom shakalaka :) and fuck all night long.

BTW, they could send it to you. Here their internet page [redacted] It will solve all your problems, trust Mahatma :) Hope to see ya someday, write me about live abroad.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:32:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excellent purple dot illusion

If you stare at the little black cross in the center of this ring of blinking purple dots, the dots will turn green and eventually disappear. But if you stare at the purple dots themselves, you'll see that they only blink off momentarily and are never green. Remarkable. Link (via Random Good Stuff)

Reader comment: David says: Here's a page with 57 optical illusions and visual phenomena. The purple dot illusion is also on there, but figured other fellow BB readers would be longing for more."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:25:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flash drive figurines

Mimoco has announced a line of flash memory figurines. They look neat. (Too bad the website is a Flash nightmare. Every time you click in something, you're greeting with a "Loading" progress bar.)
Link

Update: Here's a non-Flash Link.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:17:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Satirical pro-Vietnam-war superhero cartoon from alternate 1970s

This low-budget short political video features a notional hyper-patriotic stick-figure superhero based on Captain America in a theoretical propaganda movie about the Vietnam war. It is amazingly funny and well-executed. Link (Thanks, Alex!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:41:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Avoid commuter-cooties by bringing your own transit strap

The TranStrap is a BYO transit strap made out of heavy-duty materials designed to withstand hard commuting on public transit. The idea is that instead of clutching the public straps on your local mass-transit vehicle, thus exposing yourself to DNA, cooties, and clammy-palm sweat residue, you bring your own and ride in quiet assurance that your hand is only coming into contact with your own dried commuter-juices. They also make a sling to allow you to hold a book while still giving you something to hold onto while the vehicle jumps and judders. Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:55:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Teaching Turing: instructional tool for teaching about Turing machines

We Make Money Not Art has a great post on a tool called "Teaching Turing," which "is an easy to understand, fun environment for learning about and programming Turing machines. The goal is to show people how Turing machines work by having them program a Turing machine themselves." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:50:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

iWannaSleep: sleep timer for Mac iTunees

Here's a brief plug for a piece of Mac software I use almost every day. iWannaSleep is a simple app that stops iTunes after a timer runs out. I often go to sleep listening to audiobooks, and I use iWannaSleep to set iTunes to stop playing the audiobook 20 minutes after I go to bed. iWannaSleep can also put your computer to sleep, shut it down, or run a custom AppleScript. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:38:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

American obesity skyrockets, 73% obese or overweight by 2008

The Centers for Disease control have released new numbers on obesity and the news isn't good: Americans are becoming more obese, faster, than when last measured.

In the past year, the adult obesity rate rose in 48 of America's states, and nationally from 23.7% to 24.5%, Trust for America's Health found.

In 10 states, over a quarter of adults are now obese...

Currently, about 119 million, or 64.5%, of US adults are either overweight or obese.

According to projections, 73% of US adults could be overweight or obese by 2008, Trust for America's Health warned.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:18:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bender casemod, talks, glows, and stores a terabyte

This casemod is a life-sized "Bender" from the show Futurama. His eyes glow and he says "Bite my shiny metal ass" on demand. He also has a terabyte of storage, WiFi, and a DVD burner. Link (via Make Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:13:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Zoo tortoise gets a fiberglass shell-patch after surgery

A veterinary surgeon removed the freakishly large bladder stones from a desert tortoise at the San Francisco Zoo and patched the hole in the tortoise's undershell with fiberglass, in a procedure the surgeon likened to "fixing a ding in a surfboard."

One stone was the size of a baseball and the other three were as big as golf balls. They added up to 553 grams, a little over a pound -- which is a lot for an animal like Cactus, who normally weighs 8 pounds and enjoys eating his namesake...

During last week's 90-minute operation on Cactus, Dunker cut a 3-by-4- inch rectangle in the tortoise's plastron, or underbelly shell, partially scoring the flap closest to the head.

"I hinged it and left it up like the hood of a car," Dunker said. "Then we had our starting point."

After removing the stones, he applied a fiberglass patch and sealed it with five-minute epoxy. It will take two years to heal.

"It was like fixing a ding in a surfboard," said Dunker, who performed a similar operation in 1992 on a tortoise from San Francisco's Randall Museum.

Link (via Fark)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:08:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Octopus-related pulp mag cover gallery

This is a gallery of scanned-in covers of pulp magazines and funnybooks of all genres, each sporting some kind of tentacled octopus-like creature in lurid four-color action. Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

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

Model-railroad-sim controller

People who are really into flight simulators buy USB cockpit-panel-shaped controllers so that they can get a more flight-like experience out of their sim. But what about model railroad hobbyists who simulate model railways on their PCs using apps like Auran Trainz and Microsoft Train simulators?

Enter the RailDriver, a model train simulator controller. Using RailDriver, you can have a more lifelike model railroad experience while simulating the model railroad inside your PC. Woah, I thing I just imploaded. Link (via Red Ferret)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:50:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World-killing disaster photoshopping contest

Nice Worth1000 photoshopping contest theme: world-killing disasters. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:40:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Court: DMCA can't prohibit third-party repairs

Great news: A court has reversed the decision that said that StorageTek, who make tape library backups, could use the DMCA to sue anyone who serviced their devices.

Today, the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals reversed [PDF] the trial court's order, holding that third parties can lawfully repair and maintain another company's software under Section 117 of the Copyright Act and, more importantly, that the DMCA cannot be used to sue such vendors when the repair and maintanence itself doesn't violate any rights under copyright law. The decision follows up on the Court's previous vindication of Skylink in its DMCA case against Chamberlain over garage door openers.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:36:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Neil Gaiman's new novel excerpt read by Lenny Henry

Neil Gaiman has posted a 16MB MP3 of Lenny Henry reading from Anansi Boys, his forthcoming novel that's due in September. Link (via Copyfight)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:33:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Podcasters fill Sin City DVD commentary vacuum

The DVD of Sin City came without any director's commentary, so the Spoliers, a podcasters of podcasters, made their own and released it as an MP3 intended to be played simultaneous with the movie. You could even load it onto an MP3 player and wear noise-cancelling headphones to the cinema and get their commentary instead of the film's audio! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:18:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Alleged subway wanker caught on cameraphone, Flickr

A Flickr user claims that this man exposed himself to her on the NYC subway, so she took a cameraphone photo and posted it to Flickr, then printed it out and brought it to the cops. Link (Thanks, Vidiot!)

Update:: Here's another alleged subway flasher.

Update 2: He made the cover of the NY Daily News!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:15:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chinese government mandating 3-hour caps on MMO playing

The Chinese government is mandating that online game companies impose a three-hour consecutive play limit, with five-hour rests, on their players. Players who play longer than three hours lose levels and experience, and after five hours, your account is reset to newbie.

Game manufacturers are apparently cooperating, though it's not clear from the article whether they'll be expected to coordinate with one another to stop a gamer from switching from one game to the next as her three hours run out.

If gamers can indeed switch games and reset the clock, perhaps the game manufacturers see an opportunity here to capture some of their rivals' customers, as gamers move from playing (and paying for) only one game at a time to playing several at once in three-hour chunks.

According to the Interfax news service, an official arm of the Chinese government, the system reduces the ability level of a player's online game character if the game is played beyond the three-hour limit. Basically, play more than three hours and the system cuts a game character's ability by half. Play more than five hours and the system reduces a game character's ability to the lowest level possible.

Gamers must wait a minimum of five hours before returning to gameplay, or the system will not reset..

Link (Thanks, Jamal!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:11:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hand-built tiki trailer on eBay

For sale on eBay, a tricked-out, hand-built teardrop-shaped trailer with heavy, amazing tiki decor, including an integrated tiki bar. Heaven on wheels. Link (Thanks, Artbot!)

Update: Here's the kit-company that sells plans to build your own teardrop trailer like this one, which you can tikify yourself. (Thanks, Earl!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:07:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ItPlaysQuake: reviews of Quake-ports on odd hardware

Earlier this month, I blogged ItPlaysDoom, a service that listed and reviewed every single Doom port it could lay hands on. Since Doom is open source and was designed for antique hardware, practically any modern device with a screen is capable of running a Doom port -- fancy toasters, watches, car stereos...

Now there's ItPlaysQuake -- the site that catalogs the implementations of the likewise open-source Quake as hacker after hacker ports Quake to device after device. Link (Thanks, Brandi!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:04:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Game-inspired cookies made in remote former Soviet republic

These video-game-inspired biscuits were baked in a village in Yakutia, a former Soviet republic in deep eastern Russia, where, reportedly, such things are very uncommon. Not that they're very common elsewhere, I guess. But still -- remote former Soviet republic game biccies, w00t! Bolshoi w00t! Link (Thanks, Peter!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:00:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Traffic ticket update: we won!

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) I'm very happy to report that the traffic ticket my wife got last year was dismissed. (Read all about the lousy circumstances surrounding the ticket here.)

I thank the folks at Ticket Assassin for helping me beat this ticket. I paid $25 for the TicketAssassin Shareware, "an arsenal of forms, examples and guidelines assembled to help you fight your ticket via Trial By Written Declaration, a process you can do entirely by mail. This collection includes specific court documents needed to contest your case, dozens of examples, and comprehensive, easy-to-follow directions and guidelines for their proper use."

The TicketAssassin folks also answered my emailed questions about the specifics of the ticket.

And it worked! The ticket was dismissed and the check I sent for $190 is being returned.

Trial By Written Declaration is the best way to fight a ticket. I am thrilled with TicketAssassin!

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:35:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Puzzle of the Month: Popular Science, April 1960

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Here's a fun puzzle from the April 1960 issue of Popular Science. Submit your answer to puzzletime@gmail.com.

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

MP3 interview with Jim Woodring

Ian Greeb says: "I did a fairly long interview with Jim Woodring on my podcast recently. I thought one or more of you might find it of interest."
Link (previous Woodring coverage on Boing Boing here)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:04:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beautiful gay merit badge patches for sale

Larry Jens Anderson is selling great embroidered "Gay Merit Badges" for $20. Shown here: "Flaming Faggot."
Link (thanks, Garth!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:34:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Christy Canyon and other XXX autobio writers in Vanity Fair

In the new issue of Vanity Fair, James Wolcott writes about XXX stars who've recently written autobiographies. Along with Jenna Jameson, Traci Lords, and Jerry Butler, the article features dear BB pal Christy Canyon, author of the excellent Lights, Camera, Sex! From the Vanity Fair article:

There's no apprenticeship in porn. No boot camp for nervous recruits. You're thrown naked into the gladiator ring to prove your mettle, and three weeks in the business gives you enough experience to accumulate quite a bushel of colorful anecdotes and pungent impressions. Three years as a porn thespian and you're a regular Gielgud, full of lore... Paired with Ken-doll porn stalwart Peter North, Christy Canyon learns that there's one part of his anatomy that's strictly No Trespassing:

"Can I just tell you one thing Christy," Deep concern set in his brown eyes... "It's really the only thing you have to know about me in a sex scene."

"Of course you can tell me." Maybe he was going to tell me that he easily formed a crush on girls that looked like me.

"Do not touch my hair." … He glanced in the mirror. "It takes me a long time to get my hair like this, and if anybody touches it in a sex scene, I lose all of my concentration."

I didn't want that on my conscience. "I promise you Peter, I will not touch your hair."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:31:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Treasure My Text's SMS voyeurism

At MobHappy, Russell Buckley posts about a new voyeuristic feature from Treasure My Text, an online SMS storage site. "SMS Log," AKA "Slog" (yeesh..) is "a real time log and archive of SMS messages sent to and from Treasuremytext." If you read the messages all strung together, it's kinda like Dada poetry--surreal, dirty, and/or nonsensical. Of course, you have to opt-in to contribute to the anonymous archive. A sampling:

Just checking i said thank you for lovely dinner and lovely evening xx

Are we eloping?TTT

Unexpectedly detained overnight for phone theft and breach of promise. Breakfast surprisingly good tho' and you're worth it. Horas Mami,aku sehat&baik2.Aku doakan Mami juga sehat,sejahtera&selalu disertai TUHAN.Aku terima SMS jam 24(6 pagi WIB ini).

hello babe

salut!merci pentru mesajul de ieri..cam scurt..dar e suficient si atat.Tu ce mai zici..bine, fericit? ne mai auzim:)

jim this is a tune,, from the top , alan

Link (Thanks, Carlo Longino!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:02:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Writing and Publishing the Graphic Novel

Lindsay says: "On September 15, 2005, AT 6:30 P.M., Chipp Kidd will host a panel discussion for those interested in the graphic novel.  Kidd is a novelist, a world famous book designer, and an editor of Pantheon Graphic Novels.  Panelists include Art Spiegelman, Pulitzer-Prize winning creator of Maus, Kim Deitch, creator of The Boulevard of Broken Dreams,  Jessica Abel, creator of Artbabe  and La Perdida comics series, and PJ Mark, agent at Collins McCormick Literary Agency.   

"The event will be held at 826 NYC, 372 Fifth Avenue in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  Tickets are $50, reservations can be made by calling 718.499.9884." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:01:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Paint by blog with Coop, part 2

Here's the second installment of Coop's blog series documenting the process behind a new painting.

I applied the brilliant blue with the same #14 brush, but I really slopped it on extra thick, to build up an impasto texture. I love throwing around paint, it makes me think I know what I'm doing.

One last small thing for the day. I painted the fingernails with my beloved cadmium red. I'll go back over this a few times to ensure that the red is really vibrant.

As more and more of the blank canva fills with color, the color harmony starts to make more sense, but it also creates new challenges. I'll be spending tonight figuring out the color I wanna use for the highlights in the hair.

Link. (Thanks, Sean "Real MiniPin Power" Bonner!)

Previously: Paint by blog with Coop

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:39:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rename Your Town "Dish," get free DISH Network for 10 Years

Boing Boing reader Andru says,

This one is too funny. Basically, the parent company of Dish Network is running a contest where towns in the United States who officially change their name to "Dish" will be eligible to receive free DISH Network service - in ALL households of that city - for 10 years. They mention that everyting must be officially done, federal paperwork, renaming municipal buildings and schools, etc.

Link. Hey, if you name yourself "Dish," will they stick a satellite receiver up your ass for a decade?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:14:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Early build pics from Burning Man '05

Shown here, the youngest member of Black Rock City's Department of Public Works crew. Link. Here's a link to the "burningman" tag on Flickr, where you'll find more: Link. (Thanks, Wayne Correia)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:10:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Facebook: just poke me

I've just joined Facebook in order to check out the service functionality, observe user behavior, bla dee bla. If you're a member, and you read Boing Boing, add me as your buddy! I'm conducting an experiment to see how many friends I can accumulate in a day. Then I'm gonna throw a totally awesome kegger at Alpha Mega Pimpin'! Here I am.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:50:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excellent ebooks blog

Teleread is a fascinating and thorough blog on electronic text and ebooks. Link (Thanks, Roger)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:40:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DRM != SSL

Regarding this post about Sun's "open source DRM," a number of people have written to point out that there's such a thing as open source *crypto*, e.g., SSL, so why can't DRM also be made open source?

Here's why:

In SSL you have a sender, a recipient and an attacker. The attacker is never supposed to be in possession of the cleartext. It doesn't matter, however, if the recipient gains access to the cleartext. That's why you can have open source SSL.

In DRM you only have a sender and an attacker, who is also the recipient. DRM relies on the attacker/recipient only gaining access to the cleartext while their machine is in the grips of non-user-accessible code that restricts what they can do with the cleartext (in particular, DRM seeks to ensure that the cleartext can't be saved back to the drive while still in the clear).

If you have an open source DRM "client" or "player," then how can it keep users from modifying it to allow the saving and manipulation of the conditionally rendered cleartexts?

There has never, ever been a DRM implementation that was intended to be user-modifiable. There can't be. It's like trying to make "dry water" or "hot ice." DRM is supposed to keep users from manipulating their players. Open source is supposed to encourage users to manipulate and modify their players. They are utterly incompatible.

Crypto isn't about algorithms. Crypto is about threat-models. The threat model for SSL is a third-party eavesdropper. The threat model for DRM is that the intended recipient of the cleartext will gain long-term access to the cleartext. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:04:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DIY "bullshit protector" earpieces, like Bill Moyer's

Amid sez, "A 73-year-old veteran, Bill Moyer, made the ultimate fashion statement at Bush's speech in Idaho Utah yesterday: he wore a 'bullshit protector' over his ears. The photo made the AP and is all over the net now. Inspired by Moyer, Wiseass.org has created a do-it-yourself PDF version of the earpiece." I wish that the wiseass.org ones were a more faithful repro of Moyer's lovely statement, though. Link (Thanks, Amid!)

Update: A Boing Boing reader has produced "a Bullshit Protector PDF that looks as close to the original photo as I could make it. And, yes, it really does say "cooties"."

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

People raised in Asia perceive more detail than those raised in the USA

A study that tracked eye motions of subject shown photographs concluded that people raised in Asia took in more detail in the background and more information about the relationship between the foreground and background objects than did people raised in America, who focused largely on foreground objects. The researchers claim that this is the result of a more cooperative culture in Asia that is driven by higher population density and historical communal modes of production (shared irrigation systems for rice paddies), while western culture is more individualized.

Nisbett illustrated this with a test asking Japanese and Americans to look at pictures of underwater scenes and report what they saw.

The Americans would go straight for the brightest or most rapidly moving object, he said, such as three trout swimming. The Japanese were more likely to say they saw a stream, the water was green, there were rocks on the bottom and then mention the fish.

The Japanese gave 60 percent more information on the background and twice as much about the relationship between background and foreground objects as Americans, Nisbett said.

In the latest test, the researchers tracked the eye movement of the Chinese and Americans as they looked at pictures.

The Americans looked at the object in the foreground sooner -- a leopard in the jungle for example -- and they looked at it longer. The Chinese had more eye movement, especially on the background and back and forth between the main object and the background, he said.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:16:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why some "piracy" can increase overall revenues

Chris Anderson's written a fascinating piece on the economics of "piracy" and whether a little piracy can actually allow for more net revenues to vendors. The argument is fascinating. Chris reiterates that any DRM that's effective at stopping illicit copying will necessarily block legitimate customer activities too, and drive honest users to downloading instead.

The usual price-setting method is to look at the entire potential market, from the many at the economic lower end to the few at the top, and set a price somewhere in between the top and bottom that will maximize total revenues. But if you cede the bottom to piracy, you can set a price between the top and the middle. The result: higher revenues per copy, and potentially higher revenues overall.

The only exception I take to Chris's argument is the idea that some "copy-protection" (DRM) technology can reduce downloading. The thing is, if I want to download a song instead of buying it, then all I require is a search tool and a copy of that song that someone, somewhere has cracked. It doesn't matter how strong or weak the DRM is on the copy that I choose not to buy -- all that matters is how much resource one cracker, somewhere in the world, was willing to devote to breaking the DRM. The first copy may be very expensive, but all subsequent copies are free.

The only way that DRM could stop me from downloading is if:

• Every copy of the song circulated, from the recording studio to the record store, had strong DRM on it
• No analog to digital converters were available to anyone, anywhere in world, who might have an interest in breaking the DRM (since you can just avoid the DRM by making taking the analog output off the player and re-digitizing the song in an open format)
• Peer-to-peer networks ceased to exist
• Search engines ceased to index file-sharing sites
• No "small worlds" file-sharing tools were in circulation

Unless all of the above are true, then the amount of DRM on a song is irrelevant to how hard or easy it is to get a copy without DRM on it. There are ways to reduce downloading -- for example, offering attractive services to high-downloader populations (like college kids). But DRM can't reduce the amount of downloading that people who want to download will undertake. Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:05:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scientist trading cards based on old baseball cards

This is a collection of scientist trading cards made by remixing old baseball cards, complete with stats and capsule bios of each scientist. I was very glad to see Alan Turing in the deck, but sorely missed having a Nikola Tesla card. Link (Thanks, Iz Reloaded!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:52:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sheriff: tweakers compulsive seek out ancient indian arrowheads

I recently blogged the police reports from Victoria, British Columbia about crystal meth addicts who soothe their nervous, drug-filled energy by compulsively stripping bicycles to their component parts.

Now comes the report of a sheriff in Arkansas who says that the local tweakers occupy their nerves by methodically searching nearby fields for indian arrowheads. The sheriff says that many of the tweakers he busts have large collections of indian arrowheads in their homes.

Tony Young of Velvet Ridge says the sheriff is on to something. Young is in jail awaiting trial on a meth charge. He says looking for arrowheads gives people wired on meth something to do. To pay for his legal defense, Young sold his arrowhead collection to a local dealer.

Young says that many nights he found himself in fields full of fellow arrowhead hunters and many of them were high on meth.

Arkansas State archeologist Ann Early says she's seen meth users collecting arrowheads in the Ozarks. She says it is troubling that they have taken to collecting Indian artifacts.

Link (Thanks, JohnR!)

Update: Slate's Jack Shafer recently covered this phenomenon and get the word that neurologists call this behavior "punding": "I received a polite e-mail from Joshua Kershen of the Tufts-New England Medical Center. He informed me of the neurological concept of "punding," the restless and repetitive assembling and disassembling of mechanical devices (watches, carburetors, radios), the obsessive lining-up of small objects, or the picking at one's own skin. The phrase was coined to describe the 'prolonged, purposeless, and stereotyped behaviour in chronic amphetamine users,' according to this scientific paper (additional punding papers can be found on PubMed). Punding is also observed in people experiencing dopamine excess states, such as when patients are overtreated with Parkinson's disease medication. Because meth, like amphetamine, causes a flood of dopamine, it stands to reason that a meth user would pund."

Update 2: More on the guy who sold his arrowheads to finance his meth-bust defense here (Thanks, Greg!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:48:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

FBI stages fake wedding, invites mobsters, arrests gift-bearing guests

The FBI staged a fake wedding between two undercover agents and invited a ton of alleged Chinese mafia bosses (who had come to know the agents as business associates) to it, then arrested them when they arrived:

Unbeknown to the attendees, many of whom came from China for the occasion, the supposed bride and groom were FBI agents. The government said Monday that the pair had spent four years investigating a sophisticated racketeering enterprise suspected of smuggling into the United States vast quantities of black-market cigarettes, high-tech weapons, Ecstasy, counterfeit Viagra and virtually undetectable counterfeit $100 bills...

"They were literally being taken out of their limos and into custody," one Justice Department official said. "Some of them were bearing gifts — expensive ones like Rolex watches."

Link (via Fark)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:59:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

What the *&^%#!? is an "open source DRM?"

Sun has launched an "open source DRM" project called "Open Media Commons." I have spent hours reading their docs and I've spoken with their project lead on this and I can't make any sense of it -- how can you have a technology that restricts what users do (DRM) while allowing users to modify it, including in ways that remove the restrictions (open source), and what is the word "commons" doing there when Creative Commons licenses forbid the use of DRM in connection with the more than 17,000,000 Creative Commons-licensed works in circulation? EFF's put out a short advisory about this:

Yesterday, Sun Microsystems announced its new "Open Media Commons," with a goal of "[s]pecify[ing] open, royalty-free digital rights management and codec standards" to "ensur[e] intellectual property protection." The problem with this approach is that making DRM "open" and "royalty-free" doesn't make it any less damaging and counter-productive.

People have the legal right to make fair uses of content. They have the legal right to use materials in the public domain. They have the legal right to use publicly owned works, such as government-gathered facts. Any software system, open or not, that blocks us from making these legal uses of our digital content is bad, especially when the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) makes it illegal for us to circumvent the copyright protection to make these legal uses.

This "Open Media Commons" says a lot about fostering sharing and so forth, but there's precious little to indicate that it will be any less threatening than the Microsoft DRM that it's supposed to challenge.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:57:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tim O'Reilly investigates "search engine spam" on O'Reilly sites

In a recent blog post, Phil Ringnalda took O'Reilly and Associates (publishers of the finest tech books in the world) to task for what he characterized as "search engine spam" in the advertising on O'Reilly's sites. Tim O'Reilly, the publisher and founder of ORA, has undertaken an investigation into this and has blogged a long piece about what he found:

# it's become clear to me on investigation that these folks are indeed paying us for our Google rank, and not just for clickthroughs. We just aren't targeted enough for their ads to be justified on a click-through basis. What's more, using Google's link: keyword to check for top links to these particular advertisers shows that the O'Reilly sites they advertise on are among their chief link sources. They aren't getting independent links from users. In short, these advertisers are using O'Reilly and other highly ranked sites who accept their advertising to improve their chances of being discovered via search engines, rather than in quest of direct click throughs (although those may also provide some value for their ad buy.)

# Google has an authorized way for people to show up arbitrarily high on searches: i.e., to pay for relevant Adwords. However, nearly all of the terms used in these links are quite expensive. So advertising on a site with a high page rank instead of via Google Adwords is a way of arbitraging the relative cost of advertising on the two sites. However, it has a downside in terms of the search engine user experience. The ad shows up as a sponsored link on the originating site, but as a legitimate result in the search engine.

Don't miss the conclusions at the end of the piece. This is a subtle and complicated issue. Link

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

Flowchart: is this work in the public domain?

This flowchart from the law firm of Bromberg & Sunstein LLP is a way of determining whether any given work is in the public domain in the USA, and if not, when it will enter the public domain. I have seen engineering flowcharts for nuclear reactors that were less complicated. The next time someone from the entertainment industry says "we need to educate 'consumers' about copyright" ask them what proportion of their own execs would be prepared to parse this (I recently heard an entertainment exec assert that "nothing is in the public domain unless everyone who worked on it, all the cameramen and such, have been dead for 100 years, and then if the work is rereleased it goes back into copyright"). Link (via EFF Mini Links)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:50:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stormtrooper at Star Wars con mistaken for armed robber

A vendor in a Stormtrooper suit (with a plastic laser gun) at a Star Wars con in Janesville, WI, was surrounded by police after someone called the police and said that there was an "armed robber" in fancy white armor at the local Ramada.

The alleged suspect was dressed as a Stormtrooper, a soldier for the Galactic Empire in the science fiction movie series "Star Wars."

"Apparently some people who saw him felt there was a threat," said Sgt. Kay Nikolaus of the Janesville Police Department.

Link (Thanks, Bonnie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:44:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bootleg Windows DVD comes with dozens of specialized XP versions

Wired News reports on Super WinPE Ultimate Boot CD 2004 Pro, a DVD image circulating via BitTorrent, with dozens of "remixed" versions of Windows on it -- including Windows with all the security patches pre-applied, lightweight Windows that takes up little disk space, troubleshooting Windows that boots from optical disc, and easy-install Windows that doesn't require as much user interaction:

In addition to two Chinese variants of Windows, the Super WinPE disc includes dozens of boot-time utilities for troubleshooting system snafus. One is an experimental "pre-installation environment" that uses a "mini-Windows XP" for system scanning and file recovery, similar to the popular Knoppix LiveCD version of Linux...

Minimalism defines many tweaked versions. Windows XP SP2 Corporate Edition is 580 MB in stock form, but can be pared down to as little as 235 MB, the size of the so-called "WinXP SP2 Lite Edition."

The Lite Edition strips out everything but the very basics: no Windows Media Player, no documentation and a far smaller library of drivers. It also forgoes the standard check for minimum system requirements, shortening the overall install process.

In fact, many cracked editions feature an install process that dispenses entirely with the standard setup dialog. Pop in the system burned to CD, reboot, and a few minutes later come back to a freshly installed, custom copy of Windows.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:39:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FSM flotsam

(1) Peeing Calvin comic: Link (Thanks Sean)

(2) Textbook stickers "inspired by both the creative FSM items posted to BB earlier and the dim-witted Georgia Dep't of Edumacation." Link to PDF designed for easy sticker printing. (Thanks Matt)

(3) Spotted at Camp Casey? Xon Lopez says, "Check out the 'Where we are from' map on the first page. If you look closely you can see the spaghetti monster beginning to emerge." Link.

(4) WWFSMD? Boing Boing reader Preya says, "I decided to put a 'sticker' on my blog to show my support for Flying Spaghetti Monster. I think this would be a great idea to share with other Pastafarians!"

(5)"What If God Wanted Pasta Sauce?", a song parody sung to the tune of "What If God Was One Of Us." A vocals-only version is also provided for remix hijinx. Link (Thanks, Alex)

What if God wanted pasta sauce
With some meat ’cause He’s the boss
Just a monster flying over us
Trying to make his way home

(6) Several Facebook groups ( like this), and several "friend profiles" (such as this)

(7) Creator of "Diesel Sweeties" comic creates a LiveJournal icon "Thou Shalt Have No Entree Before Me": Link (Thanks, Justin)

(8) BB reader Chris says,

Instead of "My Boss is a Jewish Carpenter" the FSM version should be "My Boss is A Flying Noodle". You should have a contest to come up with FSM sanctioned replacements for: "WARNING! In case of rapture, this car will be unmanned" "Dont let the car fool you-- my treasure is in heaven" "Big Bang theory-- God Spoke and "Bang!" It happened" "No Jesus, No Peace...Know Jesus, Know Peace"

(9) Ladies and Gentlemen, REAL ULTIMATE PASTA.

Flying Spaghetti Monster is awesome. S/he can fly around and have all the meatballs he wants, even seconds. I once heard that when Flying Spaghetti Monster was just cruising over a campsite in the woods on a mountain somebody's dog barked and Flying Spaghetti Monster rained down fury in the form of mushroom sauce. My friend Karl even once said that Flying Spaghetti Monster sent unfriendly faxes to municipal workers. And that's what I call REAL Ultimate Power!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you don't believe that Flying Spaghetti Monster has REAL Ultimate Power you better get a life right now or it will write letters to the editor about you!!! It's an easy choice, if you ask me.

Flying Spaghetti Monster is sooooooooooo sweet that I want to crap my pants. I can't believe it sometimes, but I feel it inside my heart. S/he is totally awesome and that's a fact. Flying Spaghetti Monster is fast, smooth, cool, strong, powerful, and sweet. I can't wait to start cooking classesnext year. I love Flying Spaghetti Monster with all of my body (including my pee pee).

Link (If you're new to the internets, here's why #9 is funny). Previously:

Flying Spaghetti Monster Has a Posse, and more
Pastafarianism: Flying Spaghetti Monster cult grows
Boing Boing's $1 Million Intelligent Design challenge
DIY Flying Spaghetti Monster bumper sticker
Dear Kansas: Why stop at "Intelligent Design?"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:54:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google Talk launches

Download link. Boing Boing "band manager" John Battelle has more here. The Google intro on an invitation I received from a friend said:

Google Talk is a downloadable Windows application that lets you send instant messages to your friends and make free phone calls over an internet connection. Google Talk offers excellent voice quality and works with any computer speaker and microphone.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:12:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hollywood trailer voices

I love this promotional video for the Hollywood Reporter's Key Art Awards. It's fun to put faces to the familiar, bombastic, melodramatic voices you'll recognize from big budget movie trailers. Two thumbs up... way up. The white knuckle thrill ride of the year. I'd see it again and again. Link (Thanks, Eric Paulos!)

UPDATE: Here's another link to the video. Link (Thanks, Ben Houston!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:49:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Momus on "The Multitasking Tribe"

Last week for Wired News, I reviewed Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, a book co-edited by Mizuko Ito that examines how mobile phone technology is changing Japanese culture. In the article, I referenced the Japanese legend of...

Sontoku (Kinjiro) Ninomiya, a Johnny Appleseed-like national folk hero often represented in statues outside bookstores and schools... most often remembered reading as he walks, burdened with bundles of firewood gathered in daily chores. The book points to this multitasker ancestor as a precursor of contemporary nagara ("while-doing-something-else") mobility, a concept now embodied in students who wander from home to class and back again, eternally gazing into a palm full of e-mails.

Newly minted Wired columnist Momus riffs further in a really interesting post on his blog:

This sense that Japan's technological modernity (and even avant gardism) might be rooted not in incomplete emulations of the West but in something very ancient, folksy and specifically Japanese is exactly what I feel about the country; that it's a place where (...) trains may look like Western trains, but are actually "a set of Japanese etiquettes and assumptions travelling through space".

I asked Hisae about this idea of the "multi-tasking tribe", the Nagara-zoku, and she came up immediately with an even older, more folksy ancestor: Prince Shotoku Taishi, a medieval multi-tasker so intelligent that he could listen to what ten people were saying, all speaking at once. He's the man in the statue to the left, and he would have loved the keitai.

It might seem odd to hold the view that Japanese phenomena are so rooted in local Japanese traditions, and yet applicable (by "Japanization") to the rest of the world, but I don't think it's a contradiction. When I think of the really successful Japanese products -- Pokemon, or the films of Miyazaki, for instance -- they're successful because they're full of a very specific Japaneseness. Their universality is rooted in their particularism, and their global reach comes from their local resonance.

Image: statue of proto-multitasker Prince Shotoku Taishi.

Link to Momus' blog-post "The multi-tasking tribe", and here's his first Wired News column, "Reading Green Tea Leaves in Tokyo."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:48:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amazon.com sells sub-$0.99 sex toys now

At 79 cents apiece on Amazon, the "Metallic Gold Slim Line Lady Finger Mini Massager Vibrator" is less than one fifth the cost of a tripleshot Starbucks cappucino. Who knew? Link (via Slashdong, thanks Cyrus)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:30:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Comic Rockstars Toilet Seat Museum

A photo set documenting the "world's only museum dedicated to original art on toilet seats by comic creators." Link (Thanks, Josh Richardson)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:11:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

In Memoriam: electronic composer Luc Ferrari

Peter Kirn says,

One day after losing Bob Moog, the electronic music community has lost one of its greatest composers, musique concrete and found-sound composer Luc Ferrari. Ferrari not only was the founding director of an academy dedicated to musique concrete but continued to advance the notion of recorded sound as music with experiments like turning a recording of a Yugoslav village into music. The fact that we now find such innovations old-hat is partly due to the influence he had.

Link

Previously: In Memoriam -- Bob Moog

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:54:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geek Squad oppressed by The Man for "unique color scheme"

Geek Squad is a PC support service owned by Minneapolis-based retailer Best Buy. Squad technicians dress like special agents and perform PC repair house calls. They drive VW bugs painted to look like cop cars -- and judging from the reaction of one Northern California police officer, the mod job is a little too convincing.

When Geek Squad "double agent" Mark Reardon was pulled over by the Highway Patrol on Interstate 680 near Walnut Creek in June, he wondered what he had done wrong. Then he found out. Reardon was ticketed because his company-owned Volkswagen Beetle too closely resembled a police car. "I was amazed," he said this week.

Now, the Geek Squad mobile computer technician service is repainting all of its 150 black and white Beetles to the CHP's liking. The CHP officer who stopped Reardon cited a state law that prohibits the painting of a privately owned or commercial vehicle to resemble a police car.

"Obviously it would be a pretty far shot to mistake a Volkswagen Beetle for a cruiser, but it comes down to protecting our unique color scheme," said Officer Steve Creel, a spokesman for the CHP's Dublin office.

The officer who issued the citation is on vacation and unavailable for comment.

Link

Reader comment: A Former Geek says,

I worked for the company back in the late 1990s when it was 35 people in Minneapolis’s Warehouse District. The Geek Squad’s owner (or, I suppose, Vice President now), Robert Stephens, has always been quite the marketer. He loved to regale us with stories about how he’d tried to acquire roof lights for all of the Geekmobiles, but ran into problems with Minneapolis city ordinances prohibiting this sort of behavior. Robert also spent some time trying to figure out how to stamp the Geek Squad logo onto urinal cakes for distribution throughout the bathrooms of high-end restaurants and bars in the Twin Cities. This never panned out, but he did have a box of urinal cakes underneath his desk for quite a while.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:41:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mary Yaeger's excellent patch art

From a series of small, hand-sewn patches by artist Mary Yaeger: "Christine de Pisan at her computer," 1999.

Christine de Pisan at her computer reflects my interest in combining historical female icons with contemporary imagery. The work was inspired by the 14th century feminist writer, Christine de Pisan (1364-1430). She is the first woman to earn a living from writing. In her Book of the City of Ladies (1405), she argued that women’s education should be equal to man’s."

Yaeger first created the design as gouache on paper, then transferred it onto a 3.75"-diameter piece of polyester satin. You can buy an unframed print for $50.

Check out the other amazing patch-work on her website -- Control Panels (shown above), Feminine Appliances, Breast Exam and Mastectomy, and others. I'd love to buy a bunch for my laptop case, but they're costly, one-of-a-kind objets d'art.

Link to artist website (Thanks, Siege)

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

Ourmedia needs volunteer moderators

Ourmedia, a site that provides "free storage and free bandwidth for your videos, audio files, photos, text or software" is growing fast and desperately needs more volunteer moderators. Adam sez, "They're swamped under all of the submitted content, and need more volunteers to help review the site for obvious copyright violations, porn, and other things that violate site policy. Currently, they have 40 moderators, and 40,000 users. If you've been thinking about getting involved, now would be the perfect time." Link (Thanks, Adam!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:23:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Future of Music Summit, DC, Sept 11-13

Kristin sez,

Just a quick update about our upcoming Future of Music Policy Summit, September 11-13, 2005 at GWU's Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC. We've had incredible success in recent weeks building panels that address emerging issues with top-level panelists. Here's a sample:

GROKSTER: On June 27, the US Supreme Court handed down its decision in MGM v. Grokster. Now, on September 13, some of the major players in this lawsuit including the movie and music industry’s lead counsel Don Verrilli, EFF’s Fred von Lohmann, RIAA president Cary Sherman, Creative Commons' counsel Mia Garlick, ASCAP's Chris Amenita and NYU professor Siva Vaidhyanathan will debate the impact of the Supreme Court decision on musicians and the music industry.

PAYOLA: On July 25, NY State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced a settlement with Sony BMG in his payola investigation. Now, on September 13, Terryl Brown Clemons, Assistant Deputy Attorney General for the Division of Public Advocacy and lead investigator, will explain the implications of the settlement as well as what we should expect from Spitzer and the FCC on payola in the near future.

Link (Thanks, Kristin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:21:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Annalee Newitz on "real women" ads: This Is Not My Body

Ms. Newitz opines:

It all started with those Dove ads that show all the hot, mostly naked girls in weirdly desexualized lingerie with the tagline: “Real women have curves.” I can only assume it’s from this sentence alone that we are supposed to guess that the women in the ad are fat or have otherwise culturally unacceptable bodies (a few are people of color, one has a large tattoo, another is sort of tomboyish). The ads are part of Dove soap’s “campaign for real beauty,” another tip-off that we’re supposedly looking at women larger than the usual “unreal” models.

And yet if it weren’t for Dove’s helpfully-condescending slogans for these women, I would never have pegged them for “real.” Sure, their underwear is kind of drab, but every model has flawless skin, shiny hair, a radiant smile, and not a dimple of cellulite anywhere on her “real” body. None of them have flab or wrinkles. And their breasts are perfectly perktacular! I’m definitely in the audience of “real-bodied” women the ads are aimed at, but I don’t see my body up there. I see the same old airbrushed cuties, except with less makeup, slightly more muscle, and no Victoria’s Secret.

In New York, people with magic markers started doctoring the ads with occasionally fat-phobic, occasionally anti-corporate, and occasionally utterly random comments. In Dusseldorf, a local branch of zippy advertising agency Ogilvy took up space on local bus stops with a parodic campaign for real men’s bodies.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:13:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Human cannonballs

Cannon Mania ("devoted to the hobby of firing small cannon") has an excellent photo gallery and brief history of human cannonballs. From the Web page:

The first recorded story of a person actually being shot from a cannon was in England, circa 1877. And yes, it was a girl, (14) called "Zazel" (Rossa Matilda Richter). She went on to tour with the P.T. Barnum Circus. Unfortunately (as some stories are told), during one of her performances, she broke her back and had to spend the rest of her life in a back brace. Since then, dozens of brave (?) souls have been propelled from cannons at speeds up to 90 mph and as far as 201* feet at a height of 100 feet. They endure "G" forces of around 12 G's when hitting the net. More than half of these entertainers were killed while performing their act, most by missing the net. New York State even issued a law prohibiting anyone from being shot from a cannon.

Link (via We Make Money Not Art and TackyTimes Magazine, where there are more links)

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:08:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scientific survey about out-of-body experiences

University of Manchester psychologists are launching a study on out-of-body experiences. People who claim to have had an OBE, and those who haven't, are invited to complete an online survey. From the press release:

David Wilde, the researcher running the project, said, "There are several theories as to why people have OBEs. A common link between them is the idea that in certain circumstances the brain somehow loses touch with sensory information coming in from the body. This triggers a series of psychological mechanisms which can lead to someone having an OBE.

"In this study we aim to take the theory a stage further, by looking at the way people see and experience their bodies, and how - through perfectly ordinary psychological processes - these images and experiences may create the impression of seeing their bodies from the outside."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:58:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Paint by blog with Coop

Counterculture artist Coop, best known as the godfather of devil-babe stickers and buxom dominatrix tats, liveblogs his way through a new painting. The canvas shown here measures 6' x 6', and is part of a series in progress.

While working, I typically leave my digital camera on a tripod, and snap a photo every so often. This helps me to look at the painting with a fresh eye, and figure out if things are working out the way I'd like. I thought it would be interesting to document the whole process step-by-step.

My working methods are pretty basic. I start with a preliminary pencil drawing, then transfer the drawing to bristol board, and ink the drawing with a Windsor Newton series 7 brush, #02 size. The line art is digitally scanned, then I play around in Photoshop until I find a composition I like. The line art is output at about 5" square, then mounted with spray mount on a small piece of masonite. Using my school-surplus opaque projector, the image is then transferred by hand to the 6' square canvas.

Link (Thanks, Sean!). Please, no whining about this painting being NSFW. If you have prostitute phobia or whatever, just replace BoingBoing in your blogroll with this.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:51:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interview with illustrator Jamie Wieck

Thunder Chunkie interviews cartoonist Jamie Wieck.

Perversely a lot of my drive is based on my interpretation of success. I would love to succeed – but I can’t really decide what ‘to succeed’ is, as it tends to flip-flop from one thing to another – leaving me with a very frightening, but at the same time, strangely comforting notion that I will never be able to put my feet up because I won’t know when I’d be happy enough to do so.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:42:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Don't update your PSP to 2.0!

Over at the Make Blog, Phillip Torrone warns that the PSP 2.0 is a piece of crippleware that'll prevent you from using any homebrewed mods.

Over the next day and week you'll hear about the new PSP 2.0 update from all the usual places, but don't update- really. There are a couple new features, like a web browser, image transfer/wallpaper, some other video and network tweaks -- but it's a yawn. You'll lose all the amazing homebrew playing capability, emulators and cool applications the PSP makers are cranking out -- so don't do it -- it's just not worth it, it removes fun (until the version 2.0 firmware can play homebrew, then it's ok to update).

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:13:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eco-design contest at Treehugger

Graham says: "If you have hacked, modified, or created something that helps current technology conserve energy, we want to know. Send a picture of your creation and a quick description of what it is to: contest [at] treehugger [dot] com. We will pick the best submissions and let the readers vote for the most deserving one. The winning submission will receive a new $230 Voltaic Systems backpack! You have until September 7th, 2005 to submit your entry."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:50:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More mannequin madness

Responding to my post yesterday about the surrreal mannequin boy, BB reader Oisin sends in a link to this image of similar mannequins unfortunately-posed at the entrance to Marks & Spencer in the Castle Quay Shopping Centre, Banbury, UK. Link

UPDATE: Apparently, mannequins of this species star in a Japanese television show called "OH! Mikey." Link (Thanks, Courtney K!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:42:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vietnamese homebrew webcam endoscope

A doctor in Vietnam has homebrewed his own low-cost endoscope using a webcam connected to a Pentium 4, a system that cost him about $800 (not including the PC, which was going spare), as compared to $30,000 for a commercially sold endoscope.

"The adaptor costs almost nothing because it is simply a system of lens linked to a webcam costing just about $30.

"In total I had to buy only the scope, which is about $800," Dr Huy told the BBC World Service programme Go Digital.

"A Pentium 4 computer with a colour printer is all that is needed for image processing.

"Using the Windows operating system, we have programs to record the images and put them in a database of patients."

"I can now make a complete endoscope system in just one week."

Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:44:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's Down and Out as a podcast

Mark Forman, a podcaster, is reading Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom on his podcast with regular, chapter-by-chapter readings, mixed in with music. Link to Prolog and Chapter 1, Link to Chapter 2, Link to RSS for podcast feed

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:36:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Labeling tape: just black out the lines that aren't in your letters

This instant labeling tape is really cool -- it's black tape with white printed lines like those on the face of an old-style digital watch. Just use a black marker to black out the lines that aren't part of the letter you're trying to form and voila, instant label! Link (via Make Blog

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

Notional list of Klingon fairy tales

This McSweeney's list of Klingon fairy tale titles is fantastic:

"Little Red Riding Hood Strays Into the Neutral Zone and Is Never Heard From Again, Although There Are Rumors ... Awful, Awful Rumors"

"Hansel and Gretel Offend Vlad the Impaler"

"The Hare Foolishly Lowers His Guard and Is Devastated by the Tortoise, Whose Prowess in Battle Attracts Many Desirable Mates"

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:06:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bruce Sterling gets an honorary doctorate!

Bruce Sterling -- whom I'll be seeing next week at the Singapore Writers' Festival -- has just been awarded an honorary doctorate from the Pasadena Art Center College of Design! w00t! Congrats, Dr Bruce! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:03:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beastie Boys release vocals-only tracks to encourage remixers

The Beastie Boys are posting acapella tracks -- just the vocals, in other words, along with BPM info -- from their songs and encouraging their fans to make noncommercial remixes of them. A new track goes live every Friday.

3 the Hard Way	|	093.00 bpm	|	[ Download ]
Alive	|	N/A bpm	|	[ Download ]
An Open Letter To NYC	|	093.75 bpm	|	[ Download ]
Brr Stick 'Em	|	102.00 bpm	|	[ Download ]
Ch-Check It Out	|	115.00 bpm	|	[ Download ]
Ch-Check It Out (Just Blaze)	|	107.00 bpm	|	[ Download ]
Oh Word?	|	098.00 bpm	|	[ Download ]
Rhyme the Rhyme Well	|	100.00 bpm	|	[ Download ]
Right Right Now Now	|	101.00 bpm	|	[ Download ]
Root Down	|	N/A bpm	|	[ Download ]
Triple Trouble	|	110.00 bpm	|	[ Download ]

Link (via Make Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:51:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

What was in Buddy Holly's plane-crash overnight bag?

Buddy Holly died in a storied plane-crash in 1959, but it wasn't until 1989 that his overnight bag -- recovered at the scene and long forgotten under Buddy's brother's bed in Lubbock, TX -- was opened and cataloged. The bag contained a false bottom with a pistol in it!

I've been a Buddy Holly fan ever since reading Bradley Denton's comic science fiction masterpiece Buddy Holly is Alive and Well on Ganymede, which I rate as one of the best comic novels ever written. I've worn thick black-framed glasses ever since.

The bag, belonging to Buddy Holly, contained a roll of adhesive tape (same size as what was used on the taped handle), a toothbrush, a half-used tube of Colgate toothpaste, a hairbrush and a comb (there must have been two combs as a BHMS member was given one of the combs by Larry Holley some time ago), a jar of Dusharme lanolin hair sheen, a Remington shaving powder stick, Sea And Ski tanning cream (8 fluid ounce plastic bottle hardy used), a small bottle of Anacin, a small clothes brush used to remove lint (with much lint on the bristles), a tube of Chapstick lip gloss, a packet of five Ronson lighter flints with two missing (no lighter was found in the bag. A lighter was found at the scene and returned to Jay Richardson.), a Ban lotion deodorant tube, and a few other assorted items, most in pieces.

Link (Thanks, JD!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:45:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gigantic Klein botttle

This may be the largest Klein bottle (lovely multilingual dissonance there!) ever made. Klein bottles are basically Moebius strips with one extra dimension -- bottles that have one continous volume without any "inside" or "outside." This Klein bottle was made by Cliff Stoll (who wrote the classic true-cybercrime thriller The Cuckoo's Egg) who runs the Acme Klein studio in the East Bay. I've bought one of Cliff's Klein bottles as a gift for my mathematician father, and it was very appreciated.

Acme made this 1.1 meter tall, 50 cm diameter, 15 Kg clear Pyrex Klein bottle in conjunction with Toronto's Kingbridge Centre and Killdee Scientific Glass. Link (Thanks, Adrian!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:38:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Armed SWAT team attack rave with dogs and gas -- video

An allegedly legal rave in Utah last Saturday was broken up by a heavily armed SWAT team who reportedly teargassed hundreds of peaceful dancers and then set attack dogs on them. Some of the attendees had video cameras with them, and the footage that has begun to appear on the Internet is very disturbing, showing brutal assaults by the officers.

The Wikinews roundup is probably the best coverage on the net:

The promoter says the party took place on private property, named Child's Ranch, with express permission from the owner. The property owner has apparently had at least one previous run-in with police over a similar event. Utah County requires a permit, bond and county commission approval for all gatherings with more than 250 people present. According to a DJ at the event, "they presold 700 tickets and they expected up to 3,000 people total". He added that by the time police arrived "the crowd was about 1500 people thick".

The police have publicly stated that these permits were not obtained, but the promoters claim otherwise. Officials also claim that the party had spilled over onto public land. Police reported in local press that more than 60 arrests were made for weapons offenses, driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, underage drinking, drug possession and distribution, resisting arrest, assault on a police officer and disorderly conduct. Officers claim to have found cocaine, ecstasy, marijuana, mushrooms, alcohol and large amounts of drug paraphernalia. Some of the drugs may include those confiscated from partiers by security guards.

Link (Thanks, it290 and many others!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:31:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thieves use Bluetooth phones to target cars with laptops in them

Thieves in Cambridge, England are using the "detect nearby Bluetooth devices" feature in their mobile phones to figure out which cars have laptops locked in them so that they know which cars to break into.

But thieves in Cambridge have cottoned on to an alternative use for the function, using it as a scanner which will let them know if another Bluetooth device is locked in a car boot.

Det Sgt Al Funge, from Cambridge's crime investigation unit, said: "There have been a number of instances of this new technology being used to identify cars which have valuable electronics, including laptops, inside.

Link (via Waxy)

Update: A number of you have written in to say that this is implausible, given that laptops don't transmit their Bluetooth ID when they're shut up in a car trunk. I agree -- this is fishy.

I've called the Cambridge policeman, Al Funge, quoted in the piece, but he's on holiday until Sept 5. His colleague says that he doesn't know where Funge got the information that thieves had successfully used this measure to locate laptops locked up in Cambridge car-trunks.

I've also just spoken to the Cambridge Evening News -- the newspaper that published this -- and asked if they have any more info; they've promised to get back to me about it. I'll post here when they do.

Update 2: Bruce Schneier sez, "I don't think it's fishy. Read the comments from my blog posts. Some Bluetooth devices can work even when turned off."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:24:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PWNTCHA: defeating CAPTCHAs with software

CAPTCHAs (Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart) are those distorted-text boxes on websites that you have to read and re-key before you can send an email or create an account. They're used to stop robots from being used to harvest thousands of pages or to create thousands of bogus accounts or send pots of spam.

There's a lot of controversy about CAPTCHAs, not least because visually impaired users have a very hard time using them, but also because there are a lot of programmers who believe that creating an app to read CAPTCHAs just isn't that hard (the easiest way may be to inline a CAPTCHA from the site you're attacking on a site where you're offering free porn, and get the people signing up for the free porn to solve the CAPTCHAs for you).

PWNTCHA is an app that decodes different vendors' CAPTCHAs, to varying degrees of accuracy, producing evidence for the case that CAPTCHAs don't do a great job of keep bad guys out nor of letting good guys in:

PWNtcha stands for "Pretend We're Not a Turing Computer but a Human Antagonist", as well as PWN capTCHAs. This project's goal is to demonstrate the inefficiency of many captcha implementations.

For an overview on why visual captchas are a bad idea, see Matt May's excellent presentation, Escape from CAPTCHA, as well as the W3C's Inaccessibility of Visually-Oriented Anti-Robot Tests working draft.

Link (via Waxy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:02:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, August 22, 2005

High-speed amateur pix of balloons in mid-pop

At last week's FOO Camp (a weekend-long nerd retreat organzied by Tim O'Reilly), there was a workshop on DIY high-speed flash photography, which is used to capture such amazing sights as soap bubbles bursting, bullets passing through glass, etc. For the workshop, they had a group of volunteers pop balloons with pins while the DIY high-speed cameras snapped away. Here's the Flickr set of the results, which are amazing and eldritch. Link (via Make Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:49:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steep San Francisco street to get 200 tons of snow for ski-jump day

One of San Francisco's steepest streets will soon be covered in 200 tons of artificial snow and used for a day-long ski-jump event.

Icer Air 2005, slated for Aug. 27, will put snow, a ski jump, camera crews and crowds on Fillmore Hill to help celebrate Olympic skier Jonny Moseley's 30th birthday and hawk Icer's line of apparel, ski waxes and snowboard waxes. Moseley and 30 other professionals -- including several Norwegians -- will fly off a jump at Fillmore and Vallejo streets, do mid- air acrobatics and land near Green Street.

Hay bales will keep them from plowing into oncoming traffic, and the athletes will be competing for a $100,000 prize and a Jeep. Organizers hope to make it an annual event in different cities.

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:44:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Surreal mannequin boy on eBay

This freaky mannequin is up for auction on eBay. The "Hard-to-Find Lovely Laughing Boy Mannequin" is 54.7" tall and constructed from fiberglass-reinforced plastic. It's brand new with a starting bid of $96.99. Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:23:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Snapshots: the "Six Feet Under" house

Boing Boing reader Joey Harrison says, "With the end of Six Feet Under, fans of the show might enjoy seeing my set of the Fisher house in its natural surroundings." Link to Joey's photos. Here's a Google map of the location: Link.
Previously:
Six Feet Under sign, Sunset/Gower Studios

Update: Famed photographer and Boing Boing buddy Steve Diet Goedde, who shot this, says:

Your posts today of the Fisher house reminded me of the phonecam shot I took of it last year (shown above -- link to original post). I stopped by there about a month ago and noticed that the owners replaced the stain-glassed windows with regular modern windows. I guess since the show was ending, they no longer had to keep up the appearance.

Also, here is the MSN Virtual Earth satellite photo of the Fisher house. Much closer with more detail.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:37:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Indoor RC airplane

This tiny (4 gram) remote control airplane from Plantraco, called the Butterfly, looks like a lot of fun. It even comes with a highly fetishistic carrying case. Watch the video of an almost inordinately jolly fellow demonstrating it. Gee, I want one, especially if it will make me as happy as the guy. $240.
Link (thanks, toihumanoid!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:48:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Iranian postcards of western actresses in Muslim attire

This guy found some beautifully rendered drawings of western actresses dressed in traditional Muslim garb. Shown here, Katie Holmes.
Link (via Frank)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:07:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Japanese subway roach video

Video of roaches crawling out of a manhole cover in a Japanese subway station. When a man sprays some insecticide into a hole in the cover, the roaches really start pouring out. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:53:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free FSM sticker to the first 100 Boing Boing readers who ask for it

(I don't have the stickers. If you want one click the link and read it. -- Mark) Signs Never Sleep says "Just send me your mailing address via e-mail and I'll send one off to the first 100 people that request it, just for the sake of my whuffie score... and to promote Pastafarianism worldwide... White vinyl decal with black printing, die cut to shape, outdoor durable, measuring 3.5" x 6""
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:49:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Unintentional faces in manufactured objects

According to Wikipedia, pareidolia is "a psychological phenomenon involving a vague and random stimulus (usually an image) being mistakenly perceived as recognizable."

One common form of pareidolia is seeing faces in objects (like the flying spaghetti monster on a tortilla, or the face of Sean Hannity on a human being). There is an excellent book filled with pictures of faces on objects, called Faces.

My friend Jim Leftwich has been taking his own pictures of faces for a while, and has a flickr gallery with them. As I expect from Jim, the photos are whimsical and surprising.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:14:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flying Spaghetti Monster bumper sticker, Version 1.1

Tom Yeaton says: "I saw your post earlier showcasing the brilliant Flying Spaghetti Monster car tag submitted by another reader and thought I may be able to help in refining his design. Here's a PDF with illustrator editing capabilities preserved. If your team is interested in what I've put together, I'd be happy to release the art work to the public domain through BoingBoing."
Link to editable PDF

Update: Here's another, from Scott Shanks.
Link

Update: Another set, from FINK.
Link to Adobe Illustrator file

Update: A stencil friendly version, from pATCH, who says: "I endorse nothing illegal, but graffiti is beautiful."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:47:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Goofy algorithm generates web page about "Prostitute Phobia"

A Boing Boing reader writes: "For reasons too complex (and embarassing) to explain I stumbled across this site.

"It's obviously generated by some sort of algorithm that takes Google search terms and writes copy based on them. In this case "Prostitute Phobia" generated this amazingly funny copy.

"An excerpt:

To add insult to an already distressing condition, most prostitute phobia therapies take months or years and sometimes even require the patient to be exposed repeatedly to their fear. We believe that not only is this totally unnecessary, it will often make the condition worse.

"Oh, it's beautiful! It even includes a semi-appropriate (and inadvertantly funny) stock photo in the design of the robo-generated page." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:28:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Warner Music CEO calls for iPod taxes, levies -- twirls moustache and cackles, clatters away on tiny, ebony hooves

Edgar Bronfman, Jr, the Chairman and CEO of Warner Music, gave a speech about how the future of music distribution will be all DRMed, how DRM makes technology companies "innovate" by producing technology to record executives' specifications, and how great it was that the Canadian government was considering a tax on iPods. What a dipstick. Here's a little refreshing honesty for ya, though:

"We like government levies when they benefit us," Bronfman said. "I would like none of the legislators in France, for instance, to say they should no longer pay us a levy for all the blank CDs that are being sold, (though) it doesn't make up for the revenue that we're losing...If the government mandated filtering technologies, we'd be delighted."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:51:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Butterfly knife demos

When I was a kid, I cut myself more than once trying, and failing, to get all flashy with the crappy butterfly (Balisong) knife I bought at a flea market. The Balisong video demos here are hypnotizing. I just wish they were shot as close-ups of the guy's hands. He does have amazing chops though. (Sorry.) Link (via MetaFilter, where there are more links)

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:26:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Creative commons comics" join Saturday Night Live cast

Loyal Boing Boing readers may recall past posts about The Lonely Island, an LA-based collective of funnypersons who shot a pilot for FOX called Awesometown. Fox passed, none of the networks picked it up, so the guys released the pilot on their website under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license.

Previously, we'd blogged other work from the dudes including their Channel 101 short series The 'Bu, and a supremely deadpan music video called "Just Two Guys."

But here's the big news -- a blog exclusive. BoingBoing's Hollywood informant raises his nose mid-snort from a line of blow along a stripper's butt-crack to tell us that three Lonely Island-ers have been hired by NBC's Saturday Night Live.

On SNL's forthcoming season, Andy Samberg (far right in photo above) will become a member of the new cast, while Jorma Taccone (far left) and Akiva Schaffer (to the immediate right of Jack Black in colonial drag) will support him as writers.

Link

Previously: Lonely Island: wack-ass online shorts and mp3s

"Lonely Island"-er Andy Samberg on Comedy Central

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:25:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mystery scream in Ohio

Residents of Liberty, Ohio, just north of Cincinnati where I grew up, are hearing a very strange scream at night that has yet to be identified. You can hear a recording of the blood-curdling scream by watching a cheesy local news report from Cincinnati's Channel 5. Link (via Fark)

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:13:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Piano Man goes home

In May, I posted about the mysterious "piano man" who was picked up by police in Kent, England. He couldn't or wouldn't speak but apparently played magnificent piano. The German foreign ministry confirmed today that the mystery has been solved. The piano man is a 20-year-old from Bavaria and is on his way home. According to a BBC News article, very few details have been revealed:

A national newspaper reported on Monday that the man had finally broken his silence and stated he was German, before leaving the UK.

The health trust said the patient had been discharged following a marked improvement in his condition but the rules regarding patient confidentiality meant there would be no further statement...

The German embassy in London said it had been contacted on Friday morning by the Little Brook Hospital, in Dartford, with a report of a man claiming to be a German national.

"We contacted his parents and his identification was confirmed," an embassy spokesman said.

"We gave him replacement travel documents and he left the UK using his own arrangements on Saturday morning.

"This was a neutral affair for us, it was someone who had lost his passport and needed to get back to Germany and we helped him."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:56:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flying Spaghetti Monster Has a Posse, and more

Link (Thanks, David)

See also: FSM Flickr pool (Thanks, Buz Carter)

The Pesto Manifesto: Link.

The boundary separating diet and deity grows thinner with the rise of Bacontarianism, an Atkins-compliant response to Pastafarianism. Link. Praise the Lard.
And Boing Boing reader Alan says:

You blogged:

"So, here's a question. If some people see Jesus in a tortilla, or the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, where does the Flying Spaghetti Monster show up to avoid redundancy?"

Cables.

He appears in every server room or near computers everywhere.

Previously:

Pastafarianism: Flying Spaghetti Monster cult grows

Boing Boing's $1 Million Intelligent Design challenge

DIY Flying Spaghetti Monster bumper sticker

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:50:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Robot can get back on its feet

R Daneel, a humanoid robot, can stand up after falling over by kicking up its legs and rocking onto its feet. Developed at the University of Tokyo, the 60kg robot was named after an Isaac Asimov character. From New Scientist:

"The robot is not controlled all the time through a predefined trajectory - as is typically done in robotics," says Max Lungarella, who works at the lab where R Daneel was developed...

The research project is aimed at exploring more flexible - and graceful - ways for robots to interact with the world around them. "The main idea behind the design of the robot is the exploitation of body dynamics," Lungarella told New Scientist.

The same blend of control and flexibility used in standing up could also be applied to other robot tasks, Lungarella believes. "All kinds of tasks - particularly dynamics-based ones - can be addressed with our framework. We are currently looking at jumping, rolling, walking, trotting, swinging, reaching and grasping."

Link to New Scientist article, Link to amazing video of R Daneel in action (via We Make Money Not Art)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:23:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flickr Pool of mid-century illustrations

Drawn!'s Ward Jenkins has launched an excellent Flickr Group called The Retro Kid. It's a photo pool of mid-1940s through mid-1960s illustration. From Ward's blog post:

The Retro Kid... focuses on children's book illustrations from the mid-40's through the the mid-60's, as that is one of my favorite eras for that sort of thing. But I don't want to limit it to just books, as I'm open to seeing anything that was illustrated for kids, such as textbooks, booklets, pamphlets, albums, 45's, ads, games, toys, etc. As long as it has that mid-century modern stylized look with the characters and colors, I'm down with it. Oh, and if it looks cool. Yeah. Cool.

In the description for the group, I mention some illustrators as examples that I dig -- Aurelius Battaglia, JP Miller, Art Seiden, The Provensens, Mary Blair, M. Sasek, and many more with similar styles. They were a prolific bunch, and I feel that there is not enough out there on the web about these incredibly talented artists to really get a sense of how influential they were. Thus, The Retro Kid was born. Hopefully this group will give exposure to these fantastic artists, and give credit where credit is due.

Link (via Drawn!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:11:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bar Camp photos

Over the weekend two great campouts were held: foo camp at O'Reilly Headquarters in Sebastopol and bar camp in Palo Alto. Both camps brought together hackers and makers of all stripes for a concentrated weekend of cross-pollination. Here are Scott Beale's photos of bar camp.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:51:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

VR Goggles Heal Scars of War

Snip from a story I filed for today's Wired News about a new virtual reality system designed for treating Iraq vets suffering from acute combat stress:

As part of an ongoing trial [at the San Diego Naval Hospital, Dr. James L.] Spira treats Marine and Navy personnel with the system. Some of his PTSD patients are veterans; others remain on active duty. One of the patients Spira worked with in the VR therapy trial was a Marine sniper, the sole survivor of an attack in which he witnessed at close range the violent deaths of fellow squad members.

"One of them was cut in half, literally, with machine-gun fire. (My patient) ran out on impulse to help him, and was shot in the arm and leg. He picked up the body, scooped up the intestines, brought him back to their vehicle as the guy looked up at him and spoke, dying. His squad truck headed back with them for safety, and was then hit by IED (improvised explosive device), which killed everyone but him." The Marine was rescued and transported to a hospital, and eventually returned to the United States, where he started VR treatment with Spira.

"Snipers are very tough in general, and during the session, he kept saying, 'I'm fine.' But I had him hooked up with physiological monitors, and when I asked him to tell the story of what happened, his system went through the roof.

"He flew out of his wheelchair in public once, and started pounding on a guy who said we shouldn't be in Iraq," Spira said. "But over time, as the therapy continued, he became calmer and was able to get along with people better."

Link

Previously:

NPR "Xeni Tech": Virtual reality to treat PTSD for Iraq vets

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:15:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hand-drawn map of Burning Man, 2005

Black Rock City in hand-drawn glory. By Lisa Hoffman (lisalisa at there dot net).
Link to full-size. (Thanks, Wayne Correia!)

Reader comment: Tim Holt says,

Here's a great satellite view of burning man's land scars. An interesting companion image to that amazing hand drawn map. Link

nym says,

I've collected some Burning Man maps here, and here is a Google Maps Slideshow I made.

Sebbo says,

Tim Holt refers to Burningman's "land scars" in the Google satellite image. I think that's misleading. Judging by the amount of settlement at the site, I'd estimate that the picture was taken at this time of year--that is to say, about a week before the event started. What you're seeing is the beginning of the city, not the aftermath. I don't know if Tim meant to suggest that the site is visible year-round, but given the controversy that's sometimes swirled around questions of the event's environmental impact, I thought it would be worthwhile to set the record straight.

And, finally, a personal note: Boing Boing reader Thomas Terashima says that "Kamp Kanuckistan" at Burning Man 2005 just named me Governor General of Kanuckistan. They're calling the trophy for the group's second annual road hockey tournament the "Xeni Cup". This is totally weird and I think my brains just exploded. I don't know what to say, other than -- thank you, kind Kanuckistani citizens. First gubernatorial decree: free bandwidth and beverages for all.

Thomas explains:

I am gifting a silver-plated bowl as the actual physical trophy. A group of Canadians (mostly from Calgary, Alberta) are hosting the event again this year on Thursday (September 1st) from 4 to 7 PM. Kamp Kanuckistan (representing the "stateless state" of the Free United Cartel of Kanuckistan) will be at 5:20 on Fetish.

The pronounciation of "Xeni Cup" would link it to an alternate name for the sport: Link.

Bonus extra -- a chart of 8 years of Black Rock City street names: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:02:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DIY Flying Spaghetti Monster bumper sticker

bpowah says: "This morning over coffee, I meme-sprouted a simple graphic intended for chrome plating and adhesive sticking to the back of a car. I hope some (if not all by now) Boing Boing readers are Pastifarian graphics artists and would like to refine it and perhaps submit it to a manufacturer of those footed Darwin Fish (who's population is on the decline as they are gobbled up by jesus fish) I submit it to the public domain via BoingBoing and Wikipedia."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:32:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Snapshot: Six Feet Under sign, Sunset/Gower Studios

</the show>. Shot on the way home in Hollywood on August 21, the day the final episode aired. Link, and here's another.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:41:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Customers of new UK ISP get to share all Sony music on P2P

PlayLouder MSP, an ISP in the UK, has secured a license from Sony that allows its customers to legally share any song in the Sony-BMG catalog with any other PlayLouder MSP customer, and to download these tracks from any ISP customer in the entire world.

This is such stupendously good news that I frankly didn't believe it. This is what EFF has been calling for for years now, a Voluntary Collective Licensing Scheme will break the file-sharing deadlock and give the majority of Internet users who file-share today the chance to get legit while compensating rightsholders.

I spent the day going back and forth with the two principles from PlayLouder MSP, Paul Sanders and Paul Hitchman, and based on what they've told me, I'm prepared to say that this is the best thing to happen to the copyfight all year -- maybe all century.

Here's the deal. PlayLouder MSP DSL costs about the same as comparable DSL offerings in the UK (though right now, PlayLouder MSP's one-meg speeds don't compare to the high-end offerings from ISPs like Bulldog, who are offering 8-meg DSL). For their money, PlayLouder MSP customers get their regualr DSL lines, as well as:

• The right to share any song in the Sony-BMG catalog
• Even if it's out of print
• In any file-format
• Using any file-sharing software
• At any bitrate

PlayLouder MSP's customers' license includes Sony music sourced from P2P networks, ripped from CDs, or digitized from vinyl, cassettes, or radio broadcasts.

PlayLouder MSP is using audio-analysis software provided by Audible Magic to analyze the P2P traffic that it can detect on its network and count approximately how many times each track is traded, and will deliver that, along with a cut of its revenue, to Sony.

They're also filtering traffic to the Internet to prevent Sony music tracks that Audible Magic recognizes from leaving its network via recognized P2P protocols and going to ISPs whose customers have not paid a license fee. However, they will not be stopping any tracks that Audible Magic fails to recognize, nor will they be resticting traffic using unrecognized protocols.

PlayLouder MSP has deals with many indy labels as well as Sony, and those labels will also get a proportional cut of the money that PlayLouder MSP takes in based on their network monitoring. The ISP says that it is negotiating with other major labels and hopes they'll come into the fold soon.

They'd be crazy not to: this is free money, just for letting music fans go on doing what music fans have always done.

More, this is a chance for the labels to extract themselves from the unsustainable quicksand they've sunk up to their necks in: suing their customers by the thousands in the hopes that some day, with enough lawsuits, the music-buying public will finally see the light and go back to the malls.

PlayLouder MSP is live at the end of September if their schedule holds. I'm subscribing. Link (Thanks, James and Chris!)

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

Writer's perspective on Amazon's pay-to-download short stories

John Scalzi, author of the tremendous sf novel Old Man's War, sez, "Amazon has started selling short fiction and essays as part of its new "Amazon Shorts" area -- I've checked it out and have written a review of the site from the perspective of both a reader and a writer."

Should Amazon be considered any different than any other fly-by-night "publisher" who offers to publish first, pay later? We'll have to see, but provisionally, I can think of a number of reasons why the answer here would be "yes." First: Unlike any number of nebulous "publishers," Amazon does not appear to be saying that author payment is contingent on some vague profit goal or on whether the magazine/site sells advertising or whatever; what it appears to be saying is "you get a cut from the very first sale" -- Meaning that as soon as Amazon starts taking in money, the author starts making money. If indeed this is the case, then Yog's Law is not violated.

Second: Unlike any number of nebulous "publishers," Amazon is Amazon, the industry leader in online retail, with a well-established history of working with (and paying) third-party vendors, which in this case is what the author would be. Amazon has nothing to gain by attempting to scam authors out of their work without paying them, and rather a lot to lose, since if it did so it would anger publishers, agents and authors, from whom Amazon derives one of its main sources of income, i.e., books. The proof of Amazon's business practices for Amazon Shorts will be at the end of however Amazon has structured its payment periods, when the participating authors get cut a check. But until that time, given who Amazon is and its history in business, I'm willing to assume they're not out to screw the authors.

Link (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:54:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pledge to poison a registration database this November 13!

The BugMeNot people are calling for an International Database Poisoning Day this November 13, and are collecting pledges to register an account with fake details at one of several major, registration-required news websites:

We, the undersigned, wish to demonstrate the pointless nature of forced web site registration schemes and the dubious demographic data they collect.

On November 13th we will each register an account using fake details at one or more of these top 10 offending sites:

www.nytimes.com
www.washingtonpost.com
www.latimes.com
www.ajc.com
www.chicagotribune.com
www.dallasnews.com
www.nypost.com
www.baltimoresun.com
www.philly.com
www.mercurynews.com

Link (Thanks, Bugmenotter!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:23:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

China's beautiful ice and snow festival

R Todd King went to Harbin, China, documenting the astonishing Ice and Snow Festival, where ice and snow scultpors are erecting buildings, statues, rides, and other fantasies out of frozen water. Link (via Ambiguous)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:05:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google stealthily monitoring clickthroughs from search-results

There's some very subtle clickthrough tracking going on at Google. Just before you click on a link on a search-results page, at the "on mousedown" event, Google rewrites the links in its search results with a long redirector URL that is presumably being used to track which search results are being selected most often.

For example, the first search result for a Google search for Boing Boing is listed as "boingboing.net/". If you hover your mouse over the link on the results page, the status-bar in your browser displays the link URL as "http://boingboing.net". However, if you right-click on the link and copy the link location, it is revealed to actually be "http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&ct=res&cd=1& url=http%3A//boingboing.net/&ei=U4gJQ6_fBqKiQevXjYIO" (it will probably be a slightly different URL for you).

I have no doubt that most of Google's intended uses for this are beneficial to Google users. For example, Google can use this to refine its search results based on which links Google users click most often.

However, there is a grave privacy implication here, especially when coupled with Google's never-expiring cookie: this new (?) practice means that Google now has a record not just of all the searches you performed, but potentially of all the links you've clicked through on its site.

It may be that Google is simply tracking click-throughs and not associating them with users, but it sure doesn't look like it. Look at the letter-salad at the end of the real URL there: "U4gJQ6_fBqKiQevXjYIO". That looks like a unique identifier to me -- if all Google cares about is which result is most popular with searchers, there'd be no reason to uniquely identify each click.

At the end of the day, the thing about this that bugs me is that it is stealthy and non-transparent to the user. If my search-engine is collecting info on every click I make on its site, I want to know that. Further, I want to know what it's doing with that information.

I hope Google will release more info on this today. Link (Thanks, Dylan!)

Update Loadquo sez, "If you check the unique identifier, it is constant for each search, but not constant over searches. Which suggests it is part of ploy to see what people click on for certain searches. Whether the search identifier is linked in any way to your user cookie would deterimine whether Google had broken its 'do no evil' code."

Update 2: Koz sez,

I believe the letter-salad you're seeing is related to google's personalised search & search-history features. In my case, I have an option in the top right which is:

"Turn OFF Personalized Search for these results"

Which reloads the results without the unique ids.

If I want to turn it off, I can click my account and then Delete personalised search. I don't know if my experience is different because I'm logged into gmail, but it doesn't look like anything evil is happening here.

Update 3: Rev Jeffrey Paul sez, "One of their features is a 'search history', which includes links to the pages you clicked through to from each search's result page (You must be logged in to your Google account for this to work.)

"It's great for when you found something useful off of Google then close the tab/window/whatever and end up needing the information again. There's direct links to just the pages you found important from the results."

Update 4: Dylan sez, "After deleting all Google-related cookies /and/ turning off personalized search and the search history feature, it is /still/ doing click-tracking URL's in the search results."

Update 5: Dave points out that Google's been experimenting with this since at least last February.

Update 6: Knock me over with a feather. There's a Greasemonkey Script to pull out Google redirects (Thanks, Kap!)

Update 7: The author of the CustomizeGoogle Firefox plugin sez, "Today I've added a new feature to the CustomizeGoogle Firefox extension. The feature is to remove click tracking in the Google search results."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:19:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hunter S Thompson's ashes in fireworks display -- pics

In accordance with his last wishes, Hunter S Thompson's ashes were packed into fireworks and shot into the sky on August 20th. This TalkLeft post has a good roundup of the coverage, with picture. Link (Thanks, Major Bloodnok!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:22:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Locked-out CBC production staff podcasting and blogging

Darren sez, "The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has locked out 5500 workers -- producers, on-air personalities, engineers, etc. Tod Maffin, a freelance broadcaster with the CBC, is doing a great job offering coverage of the labour action. Locked-out CBC producers plan to create shows and serve them as podcasts over the Web." Link (Thanks, Darren!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:18:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, August 21, 2005

In Memoriam: Robert Moog

Robert Moog, the gentle genius known to many as the father of electronic music, died at his North Carolina home today. He was 71.
Link

Image: Mr. Moog in 1965.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:19:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Reboot Stereophonic reissues space age Jewish music

Today's New York Times profiles Reboot Stereophonic, a new non-profit record label reissuing (stay with me here) classic space age bachelor pad Jewish music. The first release, available next week, is Irving Field Trio's Bagels and Bongos (1959), followed over the next several months by a Gershon Kingsley compilation called "God Is A Moog," and Joe Quijano's "Fiddler on the Roof Goes Latin" (1965). One of the Reboot Stereophonic co-founders is my pal David Katznelson of the excellent and eclectic Birdman Records label. From the NYT article:

Mr. Kingsley, too, pried Jewish music from its traditional foundation, but where Mr. Fields looked to another culture for inspiration, Mr. Kingsley took to the technology of his time. Already a virtuoso on the Moog synthesizer - his songs have more recently been covered by Kraftwerk and sampled by RJD2 - Mr. Kingsley, who learned to play piano on a Palestinian kibbutz and who worked as musical director for several Los Angeles synagogues, composed entire albums of songs for Jewish religious ceremonies. Two of them, "Shabbat for Today" and "The Fifth Cup," will be included in his Reboot Stereophonic collection. The Moog is a quizzical, at times mournful instrument, and the religious compositions Mr. Kingsley wrote on it are invariably strange: in places ominous, elsewhere blissful. The compositions turn religious reverence on its ear; the Moog sound, with its infinite modulations, invites and suggests questioning.

"I am a religious composer who doesn't like religion," Mr. Kingsley said.

Link to NYT article, Link to Reboot Sterephonic

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:24:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, August 20, 2005

Papercraft horse-race

This papercraft "Paper Horse Park" is fantastic. There are several different jockeys and horses, each posed differently, with real expressiveness. As if that wasn't enough, there are a group of cartoony kid-jockeys on kid-horses to print, fold and assemble, with removable jockey-helmets and goggles. Wow! Link (via Paper Forest)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Oxford no longer accepting "child prodigies"

Oxford is no longer accepting admissions from "child prodigies" because of the new UK child protection laws.

'The admissions executive is in discussions around whether we should introduction a minimum age of 17 for undergraduates,' confirmed Ruth Collier, a spokesperson for admissions to Oxford. 'We have been pushed to consider it, not because of concerns about whether it is psychologically healthy for children to study here, but because of child protection laws which have come into play this year for the first time.'...

Children can no longer live in student accommodation, because the university could not carry out a criminal record check on every other undergraduate sharing the same premises.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:33:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flickr magazine-cover-maker

This Flickr magazine-cover-generator uses the URL of a Flickr image and a bunch of user-supplied text and spits out a perfectly credible-looking magazine cover design that brings it all together. Fun! Link (via Make)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:46:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lost Astro Boy episodes sought for re-issue

An anime distributor that is planning on reissuing Astro Boy is looking to buy or borrow 16mm prints of a dozen lost episodes for the definitive versions:

16. Secret Agent 3-Z
19. The Cosmic Giant
20. Toxor, the Mist Man
21. Satellite R-45
29. Memory Day
30. The Super Duper Machine
32. The Moon Monsters
35. Planet X
36. The Elixir of Life
39. The Mysterious Cat
41. Deadline to Danger
47. The Gigantic Space Crab
51. Jimbo the Great
95. The Mighty Mite from Ursa Minor
104. Double Trouble

Link (Thanks, Tamu!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:26:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Yma Sumac to make rare appearance ay Hukilau 2005

In February, I posted an entry about outre vocalist Yma Sumac. She is going to make a live appearance at the Hukilau Festival in Ft. Lauderdale, October 6-8.

"Lotsa tiki acts and DJs, a slideshow presentation about Tiki through the years by Charles Phoenix, but most importantly: AN APPEARANCE BY YMA SUMAC," says Richard Butner.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:17:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Quake III Arena source is live

The source code to Quake III Arena is now online under the GNU General Public License -- free to be hacked, spindled, bent, folded and mutilated. Let the meta-fragging begin! Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:12:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cardboard house supplies own water

The Cardboard House -- roofed with HDPE plastic -- is recycled, recyclable, flat-pack, home-assembled, and comes with a composting toilet and condenses its own water, which doubles as an under-house ballast tank to keep it from blowing over.

The Cardboard House is conceived as a kit of parts comprising a flat pack of frames, and infill floor and wall panels. It uses minimal fixings: nylon wing nuts, hand-tightened polyster tape stays and Velcro fastenings are used to assemble the frames and protective skin system.

The building can be assembled by two people over a six-hour period using appropriate scaffolding, and is transportable in a light commercial vehicle. A series of repetitive portal frames are both spaced and stabilised by a standardised secondary structure, similar to the interlocking spacer sheets found in wine boxes. Once assembled, the structure provides a creative architectural frame from which the house derives its aesthetic.

Link (Thanks, Ivy!)

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

Free admission to Plane Crazy musical in NYC for flight crews

I've blogged before about Plane Crazy, my friend Suzy Conn's new musical about 1960s airline stewardesses and the sexual revolution, currently playing at the New York Musical Festival in Manhattan.

The show's been getting great reviews in places like Billboard, and now the producers have a new wrinkle: free admission for flight attendants who turn up in uniform.

Yep, that's right, all air crew get into the show for free...they just have to wear their uniform or wings to the show. For free air crew passes to the show, e-mail Plane Crazy's producer, Michael Rubinoff, at mrubinoff@mrubinoff.com (we have to subject this offer to availability just in case it gets out of control...thanks for understanding).

Link (Thanks, Grad!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:34:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Violence satirical RPG under CC license

World-champ game designer Greg Costikyan once wrote a funny, obscure game called "Violence: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed" as a gag for a published called Hogshead Publishing. The founder of Hogshead, James Wallis, has let Greg re-release the long-gone game under a Creative Commons license -- download it at the link below. 1MB PDF Link (via Games * Design * Art * Culture)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:29:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ToorCon hacker con in San Diego this Sept announces speakers

One of the most fun conventions I've ever attended was Toorcon, the indie, friendly hacker convention in San Diego. Their next event is coming up soon. Conference Chair H1kari sez, "ToorCon has just announced their finalized lineup for its 7th conference in San Diego this September 16th-18th. Seminar attendees receive training from some of the top experts in the industry including a Reverse Engineering tutorial by Mike Lynn, a hands-on overview of how evade most security tools by David Maynor and Robert Graham of ISS, and many others. The conference sessions feature over 30 talks including Paul Vixie, Joe Grand, Simple Nomad, Roger Dingledine, and many others." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:23:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Micro-Compact Homes inspired by first class air travel

These "Micro-Compact Homes" were designed at the Technical University of Munich and the Tokyo Institute of Technoloogy, inspired by the highly designed compact spaces in first-class airplane cabins and Smart cars. They are lightweight, transportable, and cost a mere 50,000 Euros. They're going to be installed in a "village" on campus at the Technical University of Munich.

The tiny cube provides a double bed on an upper level and working table and dining space for four or five people on a lower level. The kitchen bar is accordingly arranged to serve these two levels. The entrance lobby has triple use and functions as a bathroom and drying space for clothing. Storage is provided off each of these four functioning spaces.

Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:36:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mechanical flapping papercraft bat with tombstone

Looking for a weekend papercraft project? This life-size tombstone-perched bat flaps his wings when you turn his crank -- all based on paper mechanisms that you can download, print, glue to cardboard and assemble

Just turn the handle and watch this little creature flap its wings in a most convincing manner. The bat is actually life sized, with a wingspan of over sixteen inches! And he comes complete with his own crumbling headstone and rotting trees.

Link (via Paper Forest)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:32:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Carbon nanotube printer outputs 7m/min

Jamais sez, "Researchers from the University of Texas, Dallas, and Australia's CSIRO have developed a way of making strong, stable and amazingly useful ribbons and sheets made of multiwall carbon nanotubes. Their system pushes the material out at seven meters/minute; a Quicktime video of the process in action is here. If you've been following the development of nanotubes, you know what kind of accomplishment this is. In my view, this is the biggest technology breakthrough of the year, quite possibly of the decade." Link (Thanks, Jamais!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:17:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scrappy: forgotten toon of the 1930s

Harry McCracken sez, "I run an odd little Web site about 'Scrappy,' a cartoon character (a sort of Mickey Mouse-like little boy) who was extremely prominent in the 1930s--and who then, except for sporadic appearances on early kids' TV, just disappeared. I call him the greatest cartoon character that almost everyone has forgotten, and it's true. The site includes a lot of offbeat stuff (photos of weird Scrappy toys, for instance), as well as a Scrappy history and filmograpy." Link (Thanks, Harry!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:14:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fastest printer in the world

The Mitsuibishi Diamondstar 90 is reportedly the fastest offset printer in the world, capable of running 90,000 color newssheets per hour. Link (via Red Ferret)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:10:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, August 19, 2005

HOWTO request your TSA record

Yesterday, I blogged about the Alaskans who are suing the TSA for refusing the comply with the Privacy Act while testing the Secure Flight air passenger profiling system.

If you fly, you could be among the 100 million passengers whose info the TSA has illegally collected from commercial sources. Ann Harrison has posted a step-by-step guide for exercising your rights to request the TSA's records under the Privacy Act:

In direct violation of the Privacy Act, TSA has collected over 100 million records from commercial data providers to test Secure Flight. If your records are contained in this database, you have a right to obtain them. What would happen if thousands of people requested their TSA travel records every day?

You can request your travel and commercial records under the Privacy Act, but you better do it before TSA destroys the information. TSA spokeswoman Deirdre O’Sullivan told Wired News that the TSA has only destroyed some passenger name records (PNR) from airlines and travel agents, but not information TSA gathered from commercial data bases. You can request both your PNR and commercial data with a Privacy Act request.

Link (Thanks, Ann!)

Update: Ann clarifies: "I should note that 100 million individual commercial data records does not necessarily translate into 100 million passengers. As explained on the blog, TSA gave 42,000 passenger names to their data contractor who expanded the list to 200,000 names by using name variations. Then that data was compared to the 100 million illegally obtained travel records. But honestly, we don't have a clue how many names are really in that database. It's only an educated guess."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:18:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Baby porcupine hedgehog photos

Liew Cheon Fong has made my Friday afternoon even better by sharing this photo of three baby porcupines hedgehogs (thanks to all the amateur zoologists for the correction!).
Link (thanks, Takashi!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:08:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boing Boing's $250,000 Intelligent Design challenge (UPDATED: $1 million)

Yesterday, I posted an item to Boing Boing about the growing popularity of Pastafarianism, a new religion that worships Flying Spaghetti Monster, initially created to protest the Kansas State School Board's decision to teach "Intelligent Design" in schools. A suprising number of I.D. supporters wrote in with comments like this from reader Anne Kenny:

Okay Xeni

I read your Blog about Intellegent Design and the spaghetti monster. Ridiculous. I'd like to know what you think should be taught in the schools.

Certainally not evolution considering there is not one single fact that proves it. No missing links, not even common sense. Lies are still being printed that were proven wrong in the late 1800's but they're still taught as fact.

If you're so positive that you came from a monkey or a rock or whatever you think it is I suggest you debate Dr. Kent Hovind.

Dr. Hovind is willing to pay any individual a quarter of a million dollars to anyone who can give any empirical evidence for evolution. He has had this offer up for a long time but even this country's top scientists have gone up against him and lost the debates.

I suggest you offer this to your avid readers... I'm sure one of them would like some extra cash. You can call 850-479-3466 (8-5 Mon-Fri CST) for more info about the $250,000. Please blog this I'm interested in what you think about evolution and all of its lies.

I've discussed the matter with my blog colleagues, and we would like to hereby issue a challenge to Kent Hovind and his supporters.

We are willing to pay any individual *$250,000 if they can produce empirical evidence which proves that Jesus is not the son of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

You may submit entries here.

Suggested reading in Scientific American, "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense: Opponents of evolution want to make a place for creationism by tearing down real science, but their arguments don't hold up." Link to SciAm article (paid sub required); Link to a subscription-free PDF copy. (Thanks, Dan Strunk). See also this website with criticism of Dr. Hovind's challenge: Link

Previously on Boing Boing:

Pastafarianism: Flying Spaghetti Monster cult grows

Dear Kansas: Why stop at "Intelligent Design?" What about Spaghetti Monsters?

* Prize to be awarded with Intelligently Designed currency; void where prohibited by logic.

Challenge Grant Update: Recently converted Pastafarians are adding matching reward funds to the Boing Boing Intelligent Design Challenge. Jason Kottke of kottke.org (Link) and Sean Bonner of metblogs (Link) have each offered an additional $250,000. We've been flooded with still more donations, and have decided to cap the purse at $1 million -- in part because the number contains a lot of pretty, round zeroes that resemble holy meatballs. But also because many of you offered sums payable in "whisky and wenches," or "ho's 'n' blow," neither of which really count. Thanks all the same.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:46:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

GQ Japan article about Boing Boing

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) I was interviewed by GQ Japan a while back.

Here's a translation (courtesy of Ben List):

"bOING bOING" began before the word "blog" began appearing circa 2000. Mark Frauenfelder has reached the top position in the world of bloggers. We flew to LA to hear his secret.

1. The power of persistance

"We started early, and found our readership. It was really just lucky." he says modestly, however the popularity of the site is largely due to "frequent updating." Though "bOING bOING" was essentially started by Mark, he now collaborates with three writer friends contributing material from their various fields of interest.

"The readership of a blog is proportional to how frequent one is able to update." Frauenfelder spends only two hours a day on the blog, however is able to keep the content fresh with the aid of his partners.

2. Curiosity and the spirit of fun

"bOING bOING's" core staff are all professional writers having gained experiences writing for such publications as "Wired." "By nature, our curiosity is twice that of most people and are able to keep the content fresh." In their search for interesting content they do daily searches through magazines, newspapers, nerdy trade publications, and the internet. There was never any intention of making a profit (with "bOING bOING"), so they are driven mainly by "simply having fun with it." Unlike traditional media, the instant feedback of publishing on the internet, and direct contact with the readership is also part of the appeal. "The improvisational aspect (?) is as addictive as an adrenaline rush"

3. No compromising to advertisers or to readers

While they haven't created a corporation in the traditional way, "bOING bOING" has become a true business. With 200,000 hits daily from inside and outside the U.S., the company made $20,000 in advertisements from skateboard brand and a T-Shirt company in March, however maintaining an independent spirit is the the most important thing.

"We have been known to criticize corporations, but we don't kowtow to our advertisers. The popularity of the site was earned by writing what we want, but we aren't looking to change anything for our readers.

4. The key is in community collaboration

"The best part is the spirit of being able to share your thoughts and what interests you with the readers and community" Frauenfelder says. Communication with other bloggers has been the key to increasing the readership. By trading links with other blogs, communication becomes much more active, and traffic to and from the site increases. "The world of blogs is made up of innumerable tiny islands in a vast ocean all communicating with each other. It's the ultimate success for a blog to become part of that community."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:42:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NPR "Xeni Tech": Virtual reality to treat PTSD for Iraq vets

Using components from the first person shooter Full Spectrum Warrior, researchers at a Southern California thinktank have created a "virtual" world that simulates the sources of combat stress. In trials at three military hospitals, they're now using the sim in therapy sessions to treat Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) for personnel returning from combat in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I filed a "Xeni Tech" report on the system for NPR's "Day to Day." Link to radio segment with archived audio, video, and images from inside the simulation. An in-depth report for Wired News is coming on Monday.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:37:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Book review: Personal, Portable, Pedestrian

For today's Wired News, I filed a review on Personal, Portable, Pedestrian, a new book co-edited by Mizuko Ito that traces how mobile phones became an integral part of Japanese culture. The book teaches us a few new things about how technology changes societies in a broader sense, too:

[It] begins by tracing the evolution of mobile media from its roots in the wireless telephones found on '50s-era merchant ships, through '90s pager culture to contemporary smartphones. Then it explores how those devices became a source of pervasive connectedness to friends, family, lovers and co-workers -- a completely different kind of connectivity from the "other-world" internet space experienced through personal computers.

The Japanese word for cell phone -- keitai, meaning "something you carry with you" -- provides a hint about its role within Japanese culture. Over time, mobile devices in Japan have come to be perceived not so much as bundles of technical features, or tools for replicating PC functions from the road, but personal accessories that help users sustain constant social links with others.

In one essay, Ichiyo Habuchi describes that always-on state of wireless closeness as a "telecocoon" -- "a zone of intimacy in which people maintain relationships with others who they have already encountered."

And contributor Kenichi Fujimoto refers to the devices themselves as "territory machines" capable of transforming any space -- a subway train seat, a grocery store aisle, a street corner -- into "(one's) own room and personal paradise."

Link

Previously:
Keitai culture book by Mizuko Ito is now out

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:30:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Parisian book-vending machines

These Parisian book-vending machines sell classics, French-English dictionaries and cookbooks, priced at $2.45 each. Link (Thanks, Digitaler Lumpensammler!)

Update: RBP sez, "Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro have similar book-vending machines on underground stations. Sao Paulo also has a public library in one station, where people can register and borrow books for free, including a few in Braille." Also: book-vending machines are on the streets of Barcelona, apparently.

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

In-game machinima talk-show with random Halo players shooting guests

This Spartan Life is a machinma talk-show that takes place inside the multiplayer Halo game, using the Xbox Live service (Halo is also the basis for the amazing and hilarious Red Versus Blue series). The music is provided by an in-game DJ who spins 8bit Collective tunes made with a Nintendo Game Boy. They show is amazingly weird and funny. You've got the synchronized dancing moves of the Solid Gold Elite Dancers and the interviews are actually pretty thoughtful and stimulating, especially the segment with Bob Stein, the founder of the CD ROM pioneer firm Voyager (one of my first-ever programming jobs was coding Voyager CDs in the early 90s).

Of course, there are lots of Halo players who aren't in on the gag, crashing through the "set" and opening fire on the apparently slow-moving and non-lethal guest, host and crew, which only adds to the general awesomeness of this thing (excellent commentary on this here). Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:05:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Combining webcams with miniatures

Roermond-Ecke-Schönhauser is a telepresence art installation where live webcam images from Denmark, Amsterdam, Berlin, and Holland are projected onto small 3D models of the territory the cams are capturing. It reminds me of experimental videoconferencing systems I've seen where the faces of the conference participants are projected onto featureless "heads" to enhance realism. Roermond-Ecke-Schönhauser was created by Markus Kison, a digital media student at the Universität der Künste Berlin. From the project page:

To make the projection fit on the models, the architecture of the webcam-places was rebuild in a 3D-application and printed on a 3D-plotter. That way, the picture information is displayed on the same geometrical shapes, it is filmed from. The result are four "live-models" from a distant space, which can be regarded three-dimensional and are touchable. With this material manifestation, the transmission, in contrast to the usuall webcam, where transmission is not finished, is completed.

Link (via We Make Money Not Art)

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:33:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Penguin-suited activists crash Microsoft's Berlin parliament presentation

Philip sez, "Yesterday, Microsoft Germany rented the Berlin municipal parliament house to lobby the delegates after the day's session. Berlin's government thinks about switching to Linux and although everybody (at Microsoft and at the Berlin administration) denies it, this was a clear attempt to influence that process.

"Activists from the youth chapter of the German Greens party and the Berlin division of German hacker association CCC showed up in penguin suits and with a big 'Alt+F4' banner. They even managed to sneak in a PowerBook and deliver an audio stream via UMTS mobile internet connection." Link (Thanks, Philip!)

Update: NB: Alt-F4 is the Windows shortcut meaning "Close Windows." Gettit?

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:44:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US CD/DVD bootlegging is not run by organized crime

For years, I've taken it for granted that while the entertainment industry was generally full of crap when it came to how people were infringing copyrights online, they were at least correct when they talked about the "organized crime" elements who run the counterfeit CD and DVD businesses that supply the endless stream of sidewalk hawkers and market-stalls around America.

But according to this Wired News article, there's precious little evidence of any organized crime involvement with CD and DVD counterfeiting in the USA. That makes sense: organized crime likes the kind of business where they supply something the customer can't get for herself, preferably at a gigantic markup -- guns, hot goods, drugs, etc.

But while the average crack customer lacks the wherewithal to cultivate his own coca or machine his own handgun, practically all the customers for counterfeit CDs and DVDs are just as capable of cranking them out as the mob is. All you need, after all, is a burner, and Internet connection, and a file-sharing client.

So there's got to be a lot of downward pressure on the price of bootleg CDs and DVDs -- the only customers for these things have to be people who are too poor to afford their own burning rigs (who, by definition, won't be able to afford high-priced bootlegs either) or people who are willing to shell out a few bucks for the convenience of not having to go to the bother of downloading and burning themselves -- and for this latter, you have to ensure that the monetary cost of buying the discs never exceeds the convenience cost of downloading it yourself.

Considered that way, it's not surprising that there's not much evidence of mob activity in this realm -- the mafia is smart enough to stay in those businesses where it doesn't compete with its own customers.

Asked to cite actual U.S. convictions involving organized crime, the RIAA and MPAA instead presented a handful of pending piracy cases against warez networks, commercial replicators, a few members of street gangs and a smattering of individual drug dealers -- but no John Gotti or Tony Soprano.

"It's not organized crime families, as in 'the mob,'" admits Bradley Buckles, head of the RIAA's anti-piracy unit and former director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. "But large groups engaged in organized criminal activity are involved."

Link

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

Pastafarianism: Flying Spaghetti Monster cult grows

Two months ago, Cory was among the first to blog about "Flying Spaghetti Monster" -- the overlord of a new parody religion created to protest a Kansas State Board of Education decision allowing so-called Intelligent Design to be taught in science classes.

The FSM cult now has a Wikipedia entry, with details that indicate that followers of His Noodliness -- Pastafarians -- are growing in number, like so many meatballs accumulating on a plate of linguini. A few of the facts I learned:

Codes of conduct:
# Prayers are ended with the word RAmen rather than Amen.

Benefits of conversion:
# Like the great noodles they worship, Flying Spaghetti Monsterists have flimsy moral standards.
# Promise of a stripper factory and a beer volcano in Heaven.

A rival faction, based on SPAM (Spaghetti & Pulsar Activating Meatballs), has formed and is calling for a Holy War against FSM. SPAMation claims to have the One True Letter to the Kansas School Board.

Link to Wikipedia entry.

So, here's a question. If some people see Jesus in a tortilla, or the Virgin Mary on a grilled cheese sandwich, where does the Flying Spaghetti Monster show up to avoid redundancy?

Previously: Dear Kansas: Why stop at "Intelligent Design?" What about Spaghetti Monsters?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:25:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gay Batman gallery show gets DC nastygram

Carrie sez, "D.C. Comics is going after a Chelsea art dealer, demanding that it cease and desist from exhibiting Mark Chamberlain's series of 'gay Batman' watercolors." Link, Xeni's post on this show from May (Thanks, Carrie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:04:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lem's tensor algebra poem, annotated

LV sez, "Lia over at cheesedip.com annotated the Electronic Bard's love poem from Stanislaw Lem's The Cyberiad, for those of us who are not quite mathematically savvy but still want in on the joke."

Come, let us hasten to a higher plane
Where dyads tread the fairy fields of Venn,
Their indices bedecked from one to n
Commingled in an endless Markov chain!

Come, every frustrum longs to be a cone
And every vector dreams of matrices.
Hark to the gentle gradient of the breeze:
It whispers of a more ergodic zone.

Link (Thanks, LV!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:01:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Alaskans sue TSA over privacy breaches

Bill Scannell sez,

A group of Alaskans filed suit against the Transportation Security Administration in Federal District Court in Anchorage today.

At issue is TSA's refusal to comply with the Privacy Act while testing the Secure Flight air passenger profiling system. The Alaskans are asking the court to order TSA to stop destroying Secure Flight test data until the Alaskans are given all records collected on them by TSA, including commercial records.

TSA collected over 100 million travel and other commercial records on US citizens into a secret database in order to test Secure Flight. It is high time for TSA to comply with the Privacy Act and show the American people their files.

Link (Thanks, Bill!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:59:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disney books made in sweatshops

Disney's books are being produced in sweat-shops in China:

The National Labor Committee, an anti-sweatshop advocacy group that once exposed labor abuses in apparel produced for Kathie Lee Gifford's clothing line, made new charges Thursday against The Walt Disney Company, releasing a videotape alleging that two Chinese factories making books for Disney operate under unsafe conditions.

At a press conference, Charles Kernaghan, director of the NLC, released an 11-minute videotape in which workers -- their faces hidden -- in the Hung Hing and Nord Race factories say they have been injured by unsafe equipment and show their bandaged fingers and cut hands.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:53:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vintage bondage cyanotypes from 19th c. France

Boing Boing buddy Alex Boucherot points us to some amazing protoporn:

Charles François Jeandel (1859 - 1942) was a honourable member of the Archeological Society of Charente. With his wife Madeleine, he seemed to have a quiet life in the countryside. Or not. Charles and Madeleine didn’t have any children. It’s a miracle that this album didn’t get lost or end up in the hands of a private connaisseur. Today, the collection belongs to the Musée d’Orsay. The blue cyanotyped pictures give a touch of morbid mystery to these very special scènes de campagne: no one will ever know who’s really dominating / dominated. Notice the solid wooden frame on a lot of the pictures: as in japanese kinbaku, the erotic fantasy has something to do with penal punishment.

Link, and here are the photos.

Above, one of Jeandel's cyanotypes produced around 1880.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:52:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: fashion zen

tie a tie
sinclair spectrum hoodie
spamshirt
breakfast hat and bag
candy wrapper bags
go-go boots
and the bride wore...

web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:46:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More wireless long-distance records

Mike Outmesguine says,

Wireless vendors Trango and Microserv created a 137.2 mile ground-to-ground wireless link using "off-the-shelf" equipment from Trango. This distance bests the Defcon Wifi Shootout winners by 12.3 miles. People are crying foul, however, because (1) there were no independant observers to verify the distance and setup and (2) the equipment used is not 802.11b Wi-Fi - though it does use the unlicensed 2.5 and 5 Ghz spectrum. Still, that distance is impressive. Write up, pics, and screencaps from the participants: Link. SOCALWUG discussion: Link. News.com story: Link. Slashdot comments: Link.

My fave /. comment = "Uhh, I'm pretty sure voyager 1 has the record for data transmission across a wireless link."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:34:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Shuttle communications interview on podcast

Richard Giles has posted an audio interview with William Foster, Lead Ascent and Entry Ground Controller for Mission Control at NASA. Richard explains:

He gave a fairly detailed overview of the communications that they use with the Shuttle from launch to landing. Bill's has done launch and landing for the last 23 missions, including the last mission.

Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:30:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Yes, Alaska is melting, say senators

Snip:

Fresh from a trip to Barrow, America's northernmost city, [U.S. Senator] McCain said anecdotes from Alaskans and residents of the Yukon Territory confirm scientific evidence of global warming. "We are convinced that the overwhelming scientific evidence indicated that climate change is taking place and human activities play a very large role," McCain said.

McCain, accompanied by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., spoke to villagers in Canada whose spruce trees are being attacked by the northward spread of spruce beetles. On Alaska's northern coast, they met Native Alaskans dealing with melting permafrost and coastal erosion.

(...)Opponents who ignore evidence of humans contributing to climate change, Clinton said, are participating in a trend of turning Washington, D.C. into what she calls an "evidence-free zone."

"You just keep saying something no matter how untrue and unfactual it might be, over and over and over again, and try to drive the politics to meet your ideological or commercial agenda," she said. "That is a grave disservice to our country..."

Link (Thanks, John Parres!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:13:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Puffy. AmiYumi. Bukkake.

Worksafe, and not exactly what the headline promises: Link, via Fleshbot
(Thanks, Violet Blue!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:07:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tow truck driver charged with killing car owner

A couple weeks back I posted an entry about crooked towing companies in southern California. This story from the LA Times tops everything so far:

A tow truck driver was charged Wednesday with manslaughter after running over a Santa Ana man while towing his vehicle in June, officials said.

Paul Michael Sassenberger, 29, of San Bernardino County faces 20 charges, including taking a vehicle unlawfully, extortion by force or threat, attempted extortion, aggravated assault, reckless driving and using methamphetamine, said Mark Macaulay, spokesman for the Orange County district attorney's office.

According to the article, the tow truck driver was cranked up on speed at the time. It also says that "tow truck drivers are required by state law to release a vehicle if the owner arrives before the vehicle has left the property."
Link (thanks, jason!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:49:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Young girl's sticker collection from late '70s

Swapatorium has scans of a young girl's sticker collection from 25 years ago purchased at a flea market.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:31:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ferrari steering wheel costs $25,000

Look at all the pretty knobs, buttons, and lights on this Ferrari Formula 1 steering wheel. It looks like a high-end crib toy. My 2-year-old daughter would love one.
Link (via Core77)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:02:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hunter S Thompson's ashes to be sent high on fireworks

In accordance with his last wishes, Hunter S Thompson's ashes will be sent into the sky in 34 fireworks mortar tubes, and Johnny Depp is paying the $2 million the ceremony will cost:

Hunter S. Thompson's cremated remains, mixed with fireworks and packed into 34 mortar tubes, were en route to Woody Creek Wednesday. The unusual shipment from New Castle, Pa., via padlocked truck is one of the final steps towards a funeral Saturday expected to mix solemnity with pageantry.

Link (via Fark)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:01:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Southern Baptist guide to non-gay Disney movies

Since 1997, the Southern Baptists have been boycotting Disney because of its "gay-friendly" policies and productions. John sez:

This unintentionally hilarious article in Baptist Press News outlines the "few worthy efforts" by Disney in movie-making in the past several years. Columnist Phil Boatwright has gone to the trouble of weeding out the un-Christian flicks produced by gay-happy Disney since the implementation of 1997's boycott, and presents a list of movies that will not sully the souls of pure-hearted Baptist boys and girls.

Take note, if you will, of the caution placed here and there in the article. Boatwright warns that in 2002's Treasure Planet, "the story does include a father who abandoned his wife and child." Admittedly, I was puzzled by the remarks on the prevalence of Elvis' music in Lilo and Stitch: "At last, Elvis got to be in a good movie!"

Most amusing to me was the following excerpt from the review of Louis Sachar's 'Holes': "in the flashback story, a black man and a white woman fall in love, an act presented as against the law during that period, which leads to a tragedy perpetrated by a bigoted mob." I can't help but wonder: In reality, how many of those 'bigots' in the mob would have been Southern Baptists?

Link (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:58:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Boing Boing store sells retro bOING bOING T-shirt

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) We've opened a new Boing Boing store at Spreadshirt.com, which lets you customize the size, placement, and color of different Boing Boing logos on T-shirts and other items. I can't access the store using Safari, but it works with Firefox.

One of the shirt designs is an illustration I drew in 1990 for T-shirts that I sold in my print zine, bOING bOING. It features the zine's mascot Kata Sutra, a secret agent for the NeoWobblies.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:36:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ItPlaysDoom: catalog of devices capable of running Doom

Doom, the grandaddy of first-person-shooter games (ancestor of Quake), has been available under the GPL since 1997, and as a result, you can find a version of Doom playable on practically any device with a screen and buttons.

ItPlaysDoom.com is a site devoted to cataloging and reviewing all the different Dooms floating around out there. Fascinating reading:

The Jornada 820! The result? Carnage!
Doom runs faster on the Jornada than it did on my first Pentium PC. So fast, that the LCD screen can't keep up and blurs slightly. It's full-screen action, complete with sound effects, maps, options, WAD files... everything which makes Doom the fantastic game it is.

Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:53:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beer for kids

The Japanese company behind Kidsbeer, a nonalcoholic beverage that looks like the real thing, is apparently shipping 75,000 bottles of the stuff a month. From The Japan Times:

Satoshi Tomoda, president of the beverage maker, said: "Children copy and mimic adults.

"If you get this drink ready on such occasions as events and celebrations attended by kids, it would make the occasions even more entertaining."

The Kidsbeer label captures a nostalgic mood as it was modeled after classic beer labels.

"Even kids cannot stand life unless they have a drink," reads the product's advertising slogan.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:50:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Utility companies renaming customers on their bills

After complaining to Comcast about their customer service, LaChania Govan of Chicago received her August bill addressed to "Bitch Dog." Comcast identified the pranksters, fired them, and apologized to Govan. In a similar turn of events, Peoples Energy customer Jefferoy Barnes mysteriously began receiving bills addressed to a curious variation of his name. Form the Associated Press:

"I had no bad words at all. I guess the earliest letter is dated in May and from then on up until now my name has been listed as Jeffery Scrotum Bag Barnes and I have no idea why."

Barnes said he received an apologetic call from a company official. He also has contacted an attorney to determine if he can take legal action.

Link (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)

UPDATE:BB reader Stephen Berg points out that two diners at Parkhill's Waterfront Grill on the New Jersey shore were recently given a bill with a description on the bottom written by the waitstaff to identify their table. It said: "Jew Couple." Link to AP report, Link to NY Post's more recent coverage (reg. required)

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

91-year-old Sydney man walking every street in town

Alan is a 91-year-old resident of Sydney, Australia who is on a mission to walk every single street of Sydney and its sprawling suburbs. His walks are methodically documented with snaps of him standing bent and grinning before landmarks on each road. He is a latter-day Phyllis Pearsall -- the woman who walked 3,000 miles of London streets in compiling the now indispensable A-Z Street Atlas of London. Link (Thanks, Louise!)

Update: Caleb Smith has done this in Manhattan, too. (Thanks, Bruno!). Also, Francine Corcoran, a 91-year-old Minneapolis resident walked every street there. (Thanks, Sarah!)

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

The Onion on Intelligent Falling theory

The Onion brilliantly parodies Intelligent Design believers:

KANSAS CITY, KS—As the debate over the teaching of evolution in public schools continues, a new controversy over the science curriculum arose Monday in this embattled Midwestern state. Scientists from the Evangelical Center For Faith-Based Reasoning are now asserting that the long-held "theory of gravity" is flawed, and they have responded to it with a new theory of Intelligent Falling.

"Things fall not because they are acted upon by some gravitational force, but because a higher intelligence, 'God' if you will, is pushing them down," said Gabriel Burdett, who holds degrees in education, applied Scripture, and physics from Oral Roberts University...

Some evangelical physicists propose that Intelligent Falling provides an elegant solution to the central problem of modern physics.

"Anti-falling physicists have been theorizing for decades about the 'electromagnetic force,' the 'weak nuclear force,' the 'strong nuclear force,' and so-called 'force of gravity,'" Burdett said. "And they tilt their findings toward trying to unite them into one force. But readers of the Bible have already known for millennia what this one, unified force is: His name is Jesus."

Link (Thanks, Scott Compton!)

UPDATE: David Lynch (not that David Lynch) points to a comic with a similar gag from May. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:56:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Awesome Chinese cryptographers didn't get US visas for tech conference

Dan sez, "Wow. I am...mortified...apparently, our country wouldn't let Xiaoyun Wang -- the Chinese professor who finally took MD5 out back -- into the US. Wow. As someone who personally benefitted from her research...I don't know what to say."

Last year a Chinese mathematician, Xiaoyun Wang, shook up the insular world of code breakers by exposing a new vulnerability in a crucial American standard for data encryption. On Monday, she was scheduled to explain her discovery in a keynote address to an international group of researchers meeting in California.

But a stand-in had to take her place, because she was not able to enter the country. Indeed, only one of nine Chinese researchers who sought to enter the country for the conference received a visa in time to attend.

Although none of the scientists were officially denied visas by the United States Consulate, officials at the State Department and National Academy of Sciences said this week that the situation was not uncommon.

Link (Thanks, Dan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:17:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hong Kong Mickey Mouse flip-phone

Nick sez, "Pictures of the Dmobo M900, an official Mickey Mouse Flip Phone available in Hong Kong. It's just as awesome as you'd expect. Particualry check out the 'ears' softkeys - a surprisingly good design solution to an always tricky problem." Link (Thanks, Nick!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:15:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Career girl board game from 1966

Check out these scanned-in game tokens from "What Shall I Be? The Exciting Game of Career Girls," circa 1966. Link (Thanks, Cal!)

Update: See also 1966's "White Glove Girl" a promotional board-game from Manpower Employment Agency. (Thanks, Jon!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:13:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bacteria that eats bad breath and foot stink isolated

A British research team has isolated a bacterium that can eat other bacteria's waste products which lead to bad breath and smelly feet:

These smelly, highly reactive 'one-carbon' compounds are naturally produced from the breakdown of sulphur-containing amino acids in the mouth.

Dr Ann Wood and her colleagues at Kings College, London, reported these findings in the August issue of Environmental Microbiology. The odour-eating methylotrophic bacteria were isolated from the tongue, tooth plaques (supra-gingival plaques) and gum edge (sub-gingival plaques) of volunteers. They include strains of Bacillus, Brevibacterium casei, Hyphomicrobium sulfonivorans1, Methylobacterium, Micrococcus luteus and Variovorax paradoxus.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:45:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disneyland brought low by Windows worms

Disneyland's many computers were reportedly brought low by the Windows worms sweeping the Internet this week, shutting down the cash-registers, employee management system, and Fast Pass dispensers.

just like everyday at disneyland, a new day consists of resets for most computers. imagine if you will, a time when nearly every windows 2000 computer at disneyland is attacked by the same worm at the same time.

this really happened, and boy was it a mess for the few first hours. the main ticketing network was down, so everyone's park ticket had to be scanned in manually. then should you go and try to get a fastpass when the patched the computers, it wouldn't work because you didn't use your ticket for admission today. Or did you? Lets say then you give up fastpass rides and want to get something to eat, horribly the POS systems (that also run on windows 2000) were non operational. Okay, fine then no food. I guess I'll go on a ride. Oh wait, since the Cast Deployment System (known as CDS) runs on windows too, the cast members have absolutely no idea what they should be doing.

this was an amazing day folks. you should have seen how less crowded and nice everything was. (no fastpass) it was just magical for the cast members (who were off early so they could take advantage of the short lines)

Link (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:42:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO convert an NES controller to