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Friday, September 30, 2005
Four and Twenty Blackbirds: great goth scary novel discovered on LJ
I was privileged to read an early galley of Cherie Priest's debut novel, "Four and Twenty Blackbirds." Cherie is a Livejournaller who syndicated her lush, gothic novel on her LJ, where it was discovered by an editor from Tor and published.
Four and Twenty Blackbirds is a genuinely scary southern ghost story that had me switching on extra lights in my hotel room as I devoured it. The story is a dysfunctional family revenge tale that rockets along at high speed as an incredibly likable, personable alterna-protagonist discovers her family's dark secrets.
Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
04:30:38 PM
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West Side Story becomes trailer for zombie flick
Garfinkel says: "Saw your post on BoingBoing about the Shining trailer. Here is another from the same company. There is a third, Titanic, I am trying to track down. I spoke thru email with the guy who did the West Side one. here is what he had to say:Link"Thanks for kind words. Actually the three trailers that are flying around the net were made by three different assistant editors here. The Shining was done by Robert (whom I forwarded your email), West Side Story, me, tom colella, and the Titanic by Dustin Stephens. We posted them for friends and within two days we had almost 300,000 hits. Crazy. They were made for the AICE Trailer Park contest. In fact here's the disclaimer from all the attention we've been getting:
The AICE only intended the trailers to be viewed for a private audience. They had no intentions for internet audience to view them and PS 260 did not intend for these trailers to be made for promotional or monetary reasons. There you have it. Glad you enjoyed them."
Update:Here's the Titanic link. (thanks, Steve!)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
04:11:37 PM
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The Shining, if written and directed by Nora Ephron
I love this fake movie trailer for "Shining," consisting of footage from The Shining, which makes it look like a romantic dramady. LinkUpdate: Here's a NYT story about it.
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
01:33:03 PM
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African watering hole webcam
National Geographic has a live webcam pointed at an African watering hole. Right now (8:52 pm in Africa) the infrared camera isn't picking up any animals getting a late night drink, but you can hear crickets chirping and other animal sounds.PEAK VIEWING PERIOD: 7 a.m.-Noon Botswana Time
And in September as Mashatu moves into its summer season, Pete's Pond will see increasing traffic in the afternoon hours from about 4-6 p.m.
Link (via IP)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
11:57:25 AM
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Morphing ghoul portraits
Haunted Memories sells creepy posters of vintage photos that morph into undead ghouls as you walk by them. The site has a bunch of GIF animations showing the effect. Link (via PCL Linkdump)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
11:49:34 AM
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A Unicorn's Tears
Did someone say unicorn chaser? Cory's last entry about the Peter S. Beagle novel really bummed me out. If you feel sad, too, after you support the author whose work was so shamelessly ripped off, check out this totally unrelated website:Link to "A Unicorn's Tears."
I have always believed that unicorns existed, and that they are out there watching us, waiting for the day when we will be ready for them. Maybe when we stop hurting eachother, when we start treating each other with kindness. That's what the unicorn is all about, love, kindness, and peace. Maybe, just maybe someday, they will return to us, and bestow their gift of beauty upon us.
But first, all jokes aside, write a letter or donate some cash to support Mr. Beagle here. His prose is much better.
Previously: And now, we pause for a unicorn moment
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
11:48:30 AM
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Last Unicorn author ripped off by filmmaker, struggling and penniless
A couple days ago, I blogged about the unabridged author-reading of Peter S Beagle's classic novel "The Last Unicorn." Now, Connor Cochran, Beagle's business manager, writes in with this grim news about Beagle being ripped off by the British company that adapted his novel for animation, and Beagle's difficulty in fighting back due to his general pennilessness:London-based Granada Media has sold more than 600,000 DVDs and videotapes of THE LAST UNICORN worldwide, made multiple cable and satellite deals for same, and sold the live action remake rights for a quarter of a million dollars. Yet despite this great success, they refuse to pay Peter what he is owed under his contract. After two years of trying to reach an amicable settlement, with no progress, it is clear that Peter will only get what he is due by going to court. Unfortunately, there is no way for Peter to do so without outside support. Just about everything he earns right now goes to take care of his 100 year-old mother.Beagle's written a limited-edition sequel to The Last Unicorn that you can buy here. LinkAnyway, right now he has nothing with which to hire the attorneys and accountants he will need to either beat Granada in court or force them to negotiate. So we need to get the word out to as many professionals and fans as possible, to generate public support, contributions to the legal fund, letter-writing campaigns to Granada execs, etc. (We've just gotten started, but so far both Christopher Lee and Rene Auberjenois, two of the voiceover actors from THE LAST UNICORN, have agreed to help. That's exciting.)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:47:15 AM
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Mister Jalopy converts trash into treasure
A couple of weeks ago, I went to visit Mister Jalopy, and was greeted with one of my favorite smells as I approached his garage: the brain-eating tang of turpentine. Mister Jalopy was refinishing a small desk he'd found in a trash can.
It was in sorry shape, but I knew if anyone could turn it into a thing of beauty, it would be him. And I was right.
This desk would just be splinters in the landfill if he hadn't saved it. Now look at this little jewel! The clear green drawer pulls give it just the right touch of whimsy.
Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
11:44:00 AM
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Concept car spins passenger-cabin around instead of 3-pt turns
Nissan's Pivo concept car elides the need for three-point turns -- instead, the entire cabin spins around so that you're suddenly facing in the other direction.
Link
(Thanks, Alex!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:40:20 AM
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Jonathan Gold on Okonomiyaki (aka Japanese pizza)
Counter Intelligence columnist Jonathan Gold has a great piece on okonomiyaki, sometimes called "Japanese pizza." The best place to have it in the LA area is at GaJa in Lomita.LinkOkonomiyaki may be the homeliest food in creation, a squat, unlovely, vaguely circular mess of batter, cabbage and egg, slicked with a tarry black substance made from catsup and Worcestershire sauce, inscribed with mayonnaise, and dusted with curls of shaved, dried bonito that shudder and writhe on top of the pancake like a thousand pencil shavings come to gruesome life. Okonomiyaki is simultaneously crisp and gooey, sweet and savory, bland and funky as hell. When you are presented with your first okonomiyaki, you don’t know whether to kill it or to eat it.
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
11:20:13 AM
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H5N1 Bird Flu getting scarier by the day
H5N1 Bird Flu kills nearly every person who contracts it, and it looks like it is learning how to jump from human-to-human.Recombinics.com reports "H5N1 has clearly evolved and has become markedly more efficient at transmitting among humans, and has done so via recombination," and that, "H5 will clearly be resident in humans worldwide."
Today, an article in the Guardian reports that the UN official in charge of bird flu response efforts warned that "a global influenza pandemic is imminent and will kill up to 150 million people." A World Health Organization said the "best case scenario" would be 7.4 million deaths globally.
Yesterday, the US Senate approved spending $3 billion on anti-viral medications, "including one intended to fight avian flu."
Finland is planning to buy "5.2 million doses of a vaccine against the deadly bird flu, allowing it to protect its entire population."
Reader comment: Ken Seefried, CISSP says: Noted your BoingBoing post (among waaaay too many others). Thought I might make an observation.
The current set of statistics (76% fatality (per the Financial Times)...oh mah gawd!) seem to be based on reports that:
- 55 people caught it. That we know of.
- 48 people died. That we know of.
- All in essentially third world countries. With all that entails from a health care perspective.
Even the an original researcher takes the time to mention "Although this 76 per cent human fatality rate looked terrifyingly high, Dr Cox said it might be exaggerated by under-reporting of less serious cases of H5N1, which might not be recognized as avian flu." There could be one, one thousand or one million unreported non-fatal cases. With 1,000 unreported cases the fatality rate becomes, what, 4.5%? Bad, to be to sure, but not the second coming of the Black Death. Is it possible that in a third world country with 80 million people (say, Vietnam), much less the entire region from with the cases have been drawn, that there might be some unreported, non-fatal cases?
Maybe.
N.B. - There might also be unreported fatal cases, but let's be realistic...it's a lot harder to miss a dead body than someone with the sniffles.
I'm not saying that H5N1 isn't going to be a show stopper, world- beater pandemic or whatever. I've actually written two white papers for very large US corporations on business continuity issues associated with pandemic breakouts, primarily because I'm sure there's going to be something like this, some day (like there will certainly be a catastrophic earthquake in San Francisco or a Cat5 hurricane that will clobber New Orleans, but I digress). I'm merely pointing out that what has been reported so far seems to me to be more hysteria than science.
And Recombinomics is an interesting source. They seem to be in the business of anti-viral technology. Not that there's anything wrong with that, I'm just sayin'....
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
10:39:00 AM
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Van Morrison's contractual obligation songs
In 1967 or thereabouts Van Morrison wanted to get out of his contract with a record label, so he fulfilled his obligation by making up 31 songs and recording them in a single sitting. They're awful songs, but it's interesting to listen to a few. All 31 are available as MP3s on WFMU's blog.[Morrison sings] on topics ranging from ringworm to wanting a danish, to hating his record label and a guy named George. Make sure you get past the first few tunes - it takes him a few to get cooking.Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
09:25:38 AM
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Copyright scholars and publishers on crazy auctorial theories about books and tech
Two fantastic editorials on the Authors' Guild lawsuit against Google and the threats against Amazon for selling used books.The first is from William Patry, a renowned copyright scholar who is anything but a radical, talking about the angry rhetoric from publishers and authors over Amazon's used books:
An article in Thursday's (September 29) Wall Street Journal discusses complaints authors and publishers have about the fact that amazon.com offers books for sale at different prices: list price, new books at lower prices, and used books. Authors, literary agents, and publishers are quoted as saying they think they are being deprived of royalties and they want their share! It is really no fun to write about copyright owners acting like Luddite pigs, and being in private practice it has a definite commercial downside; I would much rather praise Caesar. But, things are as they are, and I have always opted for honesty over craven brown-nosing and over self-imposed censorship. I hope my twins forgive me...LinkI buy the vast majority of my books through amazon.com and pay alot of attention to the choices they offer for the book I am interested in. Choice is bad, apparently. I should have to pay list price and I shouldn't be able to resell it (at least through amazon.com) without amazon.com sending a check to the publisher, who will of course pass 100% through to the author, at least that is what a literary agent is quoted in the article as advocating.
Sad, is the only polite word I can think of for authors and publishers' utter failure to embrace an extremely beneficial system. The first sale doctrine was judicially created by the Supreme Court pre-1909 Copyright Act in order to prevent publishers from misusing copyright to maintain list price. Some things truly never change.
Next, an editorial in the NYT from publisher Tim O'Reilly about the inanity of the Author's Guild's suit against Google for creating searchable indices of every book it can lay hands on, a move certain to do nothing but invigorate the book trade by putting references to books into the search results that are increasingly the only way that potential book-buyers get their information:
I'm with Google on this one. It would certainly be considered fair use, if, for example, I circulated a catalog of my favorite books, including a handful of quotations from each book that helps people to decide whether to buy a copy. In my mind, providing such snippets algorithmically on demand, as Google does, doesn't change that dynamic. Google allows click-through to the entire book only if the book is in the public domain or if publishers have opted in to the program. If it's unclear who owns the rights to a book, only the snippets are displayed.As my editor Patrick Nielsen Hayden notes, "Tim O'Reilly 1000, Authors Guild 0". LinkA search engine for books will be revolutionary in its benefits. Obscurity is a far greater threat to authors than copyright infringement, or even outright piracy. While publishers invest in each of their books, they depend on bestsellers to keep afloat. They typically throw their products into the market to see what sticks and cease supporting what doesn't, so an author has had just one chance to reach readers. Until now.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:14:30 AM
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Steadman band releases all its music/videos for free downloads
Steadman, a band that used to be signed to the now-defunct Elektra label, has released 130+ downloads of music and video for fans to download and share. Simon Steadman adds, "Also could you mention that for information about upcoming shows and new songs please join our mailing list at the site?" Link (Thanks, Simon!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:06:09 AM
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Canadian recording industry: downloading leads to shoplifting
A push-poll of Canadian teenagers from the Canadian Recording Industry Assocation reports that teenagers who download will become shoplifting software pirates. No word if it will also make you grow hair on your palms. Link (Thanks, Ian!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:01:36 AM
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Xeni's report from iGRID2005 optical networks event
For Wired News today, I filed this report on the eye-popping technologies on display at this week's iGRID2005 conference at the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology (Calit2).
In the image above, Calit2 director Dr. Larry Smarr shows UCSD Chancellor Marye Anne Fox a zoomable 100-megapixel display that shows live image data (1 foot = 1 pixel maps of post-Katrina NOLA, shot by the USGS) streamed over an encrypted fiber-optic network link. Nortel provided the encryption, and the University of Illinois' Electronic Visualization Laboratory made the display grid happen. There's a 30-machine Linux cluster behind the screen, and you could feel the heat coming off of them!
At one point, a woman who'd evacuated New Orleans walked up to the display and said to UIC's Jason Leigh, "Can we go to my house please?" We did, and we "went" to the Superdome and to burning buildings... in incredible detail. The interlinked displays made this information so much more lifelike than it is on a small laptop screen.
Link to Wired News story.What do high-definition video of seafloor volcanoes and avant-garde Japanese digital cinema have in common? They're both examples of the kinds of bandwidth-intensive information that can be streamed live from remote locations, over ultra-fast optical networks.
And both were demonstrated this week at iGrid 2005. The week-long computing conference, which showcases research in high-performance, multi-gigabit networks, was held at UC San Diego's new Calit2 (California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology) facility.
"When you can stream content this high-resolution, you can start thinking about movie theaters as a place where live events can be displayed -- sports, fashion, politics, anything," said Laurin Herr of Pacific Interface, an Oakland-based tech consulting firm that produced the demonstration. "What color film did to audiences used to viewing black and white, what stereo sound did to audiences used to hearing mono, high-definition digital cinema will do to us."
Jaw-dropping demos abounded, promising just as much for scientists as for Hollywood. One experiment on Tuesday featured the first-ever live, IP-based transmission of high-definition video from the bottom of the sea.
During one high-def demo, scientists on board a ship in the Pacific had hoped to submerge their research instruments for a second round of live undersea footage.
They'd dazzled everyone with a live video feed from the ocean floor the day before -- translucent seafloor critters, "black smoker" volcanic vents, with everything so clear, the water disappeared. Magical undersea life, transmitted live in super-high-def, over IP. The thousands of miles separating us from this remote underwater world just vanished.
But powerful storms made that too dangerous to repeat on Wednesday, so the cameras stayed on the ship instead, beaming realtime interviews of the increasingly woozy crew while the storm pitched and rocked their ship violently.
As we watched that footage, transmitted over IP to optical networks on shore by way of a 15mbps Ku-band satellite, John Orcutt of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography turned to Dr. Smarr in the theater and said "It's still amazing."
Dr. Smarr gazed at the screen and was silent for a moment. Then he replied, "That's because it's the real world."
Oh, and here are details and some little screengrabs from the avant-garde Noh movie: Link. It was pretty amazing, too!
Previously:
Live webcast of undersea volcanoes @ IGRID2005
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
08:01:32 AM
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Disneyland history exhibit opens at MI's Ford museum
A travelling exhibit on Disneyland's history opens today at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI (my Flickr photos from the Henry Ford). Unfortunately, the site consists entirely of gigantic, non-quotable, non-bookmarkable Flash pages with tiny illustrations and an overwhelming flood of registered trademark symbols, which render me temporarily blind. So I can't tell you much about the exhibit, except that its website sucks and its subject-matter interests me a great deal. Link (Thanks, Patrick!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:53:47 AM
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"Creative Commons Comics" debut on SNL this weekend
Remember our previous blog-posts here on Boing Boing about The Lonely Island guys who were recently hired on Saturday Night Live? Well, this Saturday night is the opening night of the 31st SNL season, and I filed a story for Wired News about the long internet road that led to forthcoming TV debut of "the three dudes".Link (Thanks, Macki!)Live from New York, it's -- three comic talents who first made a name for themselves on the internet.
Andy Samberg will become a performing member of Saturday Night Live's 31st season cast debuting Oct. 1, while Jorma Taccone and Akiva Schaffer have joined the show as writers.
But all three got their first big break online, thanks in part to the viral popularity of video shorts they released on the net.
In a move that may have helped fuel rapid grass-roots distribution, the comics released their work under Creative Commons licenses, which essentially let anyone copy a given work for free provided that person doesn't try to profit from it.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
07:51:37 AM
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Photography and the Occult
Earlier this month, I pointed to a New York Times preview of "The Perfect Medium: Photography and the Occult" at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Today's NYT takes a deeper look at the exhibition with a long review and narrated slideshow by Michael Kimmelman. (Seen here, detail of "Henri Robin and a Specter" (1863) by Eugene Thibault.)
From the text:
The exhibition's deeper subject is the dreamer in all of us. The art in these ham-fisted photographs of transparent tomfoolery, such as it is, is generally not formal but mystical. I don't mean that the images of spirits and ectoplasms and mediums lofting card tables into the air are believable (although they are, I suppose, if you wish them to be). I mean that they inevitably sail past their intended goal, which is to document the unbelievable, and end up in a realm of higher truth. They remind us that art is a wonderment defying logic.Link
How else to describe, except in terms of wonderment, the deliciousness of the implausible image of the French medium Marguerite Beuttinger accompanied by her twin spirit, a trick of double exposure that evidently fooled somebody at one point. A blurry Marguerite is standing beside a seated Marguerite whose body is so slight that it makes her look like her own dwarf twin. The effect is marvelous, as is the multiple exposure of the ghost of Bernadette Soubirous, in white robes, gliding under a trellis, gradually evaporating into a brick wall.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
07:47:23 AM
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Tim O'Reilly profiled by Steven Levy
Wired Magazine has a fantastic, in-depth feature on Tim O'Reilly, the publisher of O'Reilly and Associates (world's greatest tech books, hands down). The feature is written by Steven Levy, he of Hackers, Insanely Great and Crypto fame (Hackers was a huge influence on me and a big part of how I ended up working in tech). Between Tim's insight and Levy's vivid writing, this is one of the best profiles I've ever read.LinkBy 1983, O'Reilly had learned enough about computers to start his own business. He set up shop in a converted barn in Newton, Massachusetts-, with about a dozen people, all working in a chaotic open room. "The company then was a loose confederation of people who knew Tim," says Dale Dougherty, who fell into the circle in 1984 and is now O'Reilly's most trusted associate and a 15 percent partner in the business.
What happened in that room was a small revolution in technical writing. The O'Reilly approach was to figure out what a system did and plainly describe how you could work around problems you encountered. "The house style was colloquial - simple and straightforward," Dougherty says. "And the other thing was to tell the whole story, not just what's easy to say."
In 1988, O'Reilly and Associates was producing- a two-volume guide to the programming libraries of the X-Windows system; in the process of showing it to vendors for licensing, people kept asking if they could buy single copies. MIT was about to host a conference on the system, and O'Reilly figured he'd give it a shot. "We went to a local copy shop that night and produced around 300 manuals," he recalls. "Without any authorization, we set up a table in the lobby, with a sign saying copies of an Xlib manual would be available at 4:30. By 4 pm, there was this line of 150 people. They were literally throwing money at us, or sailing their credit cards over other people's heads. That was when we went, 'Publishing could be a really big business.'"
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:46:12 AM
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Strange video of child prodigy "training"
Earlier this month, the BBC ran a documentary called "Child Prodigies: Too Much Too Young?" Here's a very odd clip from the program showing a woman subjecting her toddler to absurdly fast flashcard "training," including a game that could be called "Name the Dictator." Link to RealVideo clip, Link to program page (via Mason Inman's Moonshine Lard Man)
posted by
David Pescovitz at
07:19:24 AM
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Guided RPG hikes
Otherworld Excursions offers guided tours run by famous role-playing game designers who take you hiking through rural and urban treks, immersing you in the role-playing elements of the natural environment:See the occult architecture of Chicago as only Kenneth Hite can show it to you--then use this knowledge to survive (or, at least, be the last one to lose their mind) in an original roleplaying adventure of eldritch horror!Link (Thanks, Tavis!)The Windy City is the birthplace of urban horror. Riding on the L with a faceless mass of drones being herded back to their soul-crushing jobs, Fritz Leiber looked out across the sooty rooftops and envisioned the kinds of ghosts that the metropolis demanded. In his classic novel Our Lady of Darkness, Leiber invented the arcane science of megapolisomancy, the magic of cities. Or so the story goes.
Is it possible that Leiber didn't create a fictional concept, but instead revealed a hidden truth? Were the street plans for the great American cities laid out like circuit boards to channel psychic energies, with steel-girdled skyscrapers designed as capacitors to store up these forces until they were needed for some cosmic ritual? (The Ghostbusters script could well be calculated misinformation, or a nod to fellow initiates).
If anyone knows what's really going on, it is Kenneth Hite. Guided by his uncanny mastery of Things Man Was Not Meant to Know, you'll spend a Saturday afternoon inspecting the architectural evidence. Then head downtown to the Hotel Intercontinental--which was constructed as an athletic club for the Medinah Shriners, but may serve another purpose for their secret masters. Here, you'll experience an unparalleled evening of roleplaying led by Kenneth, and learn first-hand why he wrote the definitive chapter on "The Joy of Research" for Gamemastering Secrets. It'll be a day trip you'll never forget, which could be problematic if you still have to go into the city after dark.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:17:57 AM
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Indy label for games
My friend Greg Costikyan -- an award-winning game designer of such classics as Toon and Paranoia -- has co-founded a new "indy label" for games called Manifesto Games:Game industry veterans Greg Costikyan and Johnny Wilson announced today that they are joining forces to launch Manifesto Games, a new venture to build a strong and viable independent game industry. Its site will offer independently-developed games for sale via direct download--a single place where fans of offbeat and niche games can find "the best of the rest," the games that the retail channel doesn't think worth carrying. Three types of games will be offered: truly independent, original content from creators without publisher funding; the best PC games from smaller PC game publishers, including games in existing genres like wargames, flight sims, and graphic adventures; and niche MMOs.LinkWhile games were once the domain of hobbyists, today, the game industry considers any title that sells fewer than 1 million copies to be a failure; "The typical game store only has 200 facings," notes Costikyan, Manifesto’s CEO., "They can only carry best-sellers. On the Internet, there is no shelf space and you are limited only by how well you can market yourself, your site. This is where niche product can rule." Manifesto believes that an independent game market is analogous to film or music, where less commercial offerings aimed at identifiable markets and produced at lower budgets than the "blockbusters" can achieve profitability and critical success.
"The game industry has become moribund,” notes Costikyan. "Because of ballooning budgets and the narrowness of the retail channel, it is now essentially impossible for anything other than a franchise title or licensed product to obtain distribution. Yet historically, the major hits, the titles that have expanded the industry to new markets and created new audiences have been highly innovative. It is time for us to find a way to foster innovation, because it's not going to happen if we leave it to the large publishers."
"Many companies are entering the direct download space," Costikyan continues, "but in most cases, they're either focusing on casual downloadable games, or on offering the back catalog of major publishers. It’s amazing that casual game publishers can succeed selling games to people who, historically, haven't bought them, but we’d rather try to sell games to people who already buy them. By offering greater exposure to independent games, we'll be introducing gamers to a universe of games they haven't already seen--and that, we think, is the winning strategy."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:13:53 AM
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Thursday, September 29, 2005
Shaolin Bee-Fu! Slow-cook your enemies to death.
This is awesome. It's like combat sous vide. Snip:
"Honeybees that defend their colonies by killing wasps with body heat come within 5°C of cooking themselves in the process, according to a study in China. At least two species of honeybees there, the native Apis cerana and the introduced European honeybee, Apis mellifera, engulf a wasp in a living ball of defenders and heat the predator to death."
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
11:19:11 PM
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Xeni op-ed on Authors Guild lawsuit against Google Print
I wrote an op-ed for the Los Angeles Times on the class action suit filed last week against the Google Print Library Project by the Authors Guild, a biographer of Abraham Lincoln, a children's book author and a former U.S. poet laureate.Bottom line? Lawers, unclench: this should be considered fair use.
Google will make its money by selling ads next to book search result pages, just as it does when you search for images or Web pages — but the company says it won't show ads on pages that display books from libraries.Link(...)[T]his isn't the same as the recording industry's war on file-sharing or the Motion Picture Assn. of America's battles against DVD bootleggers. Google isn't pirating books. They're giving away previews. And in order to provide those keyword-searchable peeks, Google may have to scan entire books. For example, let's say you're a pug aficionado. A search on print.google.com for "tiara" + "pug" can't point you to the instructive masterpiece "Putting Party Hats on Dogs" unless the scan process got all the way to page 237, where the chapter "Princess Tea Parties for Toy Breeds" begins. OK, there is no such book, but work with me here.
Perhaps the Authors Guild members would prefer that search companies pay them for the right to build book search services. If Google has its way, their logic goes, we'll lose control over who can copy our work, and we'll lose sales. But Internet history proves the opposite is true. Any product that is more easily found online can be more easily sold. Amazon.com's "look inside" feature works similarly. And, surprise, the Authors Guild has squabbled with it too.
If the paranoid myopia that drives such thinking penetrates too deeply into the law, search engines will eventually shut down. What's the difference, after all, between a copyrighted Web page and a copyrighted book? What if Internet entrepreneurs could sue Google for indexing their websites? What if the law required search engines to get clearance for every Web page? Even a company as large and well-funded as Google couldn't pull that off because what's on the Internet, and who owns that content, changes constantly.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
11:13:11 PM
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In Memoriam: Jerry Juhl, Muppets and Fraggle Rock writer/producer
Jerry Juhl, who wrote for the Muppet Show and served as creative producer for Fraggle Rock, died Monday from cancer. Link to a remembrance by Ken Plume. (Thanks, John "Widgett" Robinson)posted by
Xeni Jardin at
11:07:15 PM
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The Twilight World of the Iraqi News Stringer
My friend James Glanz wrote a piece for last Sunday's New York Times about "the menacing, half-lit world inhabited by the network of Iraqi stringers that Western news organizations rely on." One of those stringers, a man who worked with Glanz, was murdered earlier this month.As important as they are for people around the globe who want to know what is happening in Iraq, the stringers cut only a shadowy profile outside the newsrooms where they send their reports - by choice, because their lives are continually under threat. Who the stringers are, how and why they do their work comes into much sharper focus for the Western journalists who work with them. And, sooner or later, the Western journalist gains a vivid appreciation of the risks the Iraqis run in helping to collect the news. But even with us, there are limits; we aren't seen much together outside of work; we do not share their family celebrations.LinkOne week ago, a different stringer from the one who had been merely warned met with a much more tragic fate. Men claiming to be police officers showed up at the home of Fakher Haider, a stringer in the southern city of Basra who worked primarily with The New York Times, and took him away in front of his family. Mr. Haider was found dead hours later.
Exactly why Mr. Haider was murdered, and whether it was related to his work for this newspaper, have not been determined. But he had just filed a report on clashes between British forces in the area and members of a militia that has infiltrated the Basra police force but is loyal to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr. Mr. Haider's killers arrived at his home in at least one police car.
The advocacy organization Reporters Without Borders reported on its Web site last week that when Mr. Haider's death is included, 72 journalists and "media assistants" - stringers - have been killed in Iraq since the American-led invasion. The great majority were Iraqi, but not all: Steven Vincent, an American freelance reporter, was shot and killed in Basra in August after being taken away, also by men in a police car.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
11:03:43 PM
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Prairie Prada
Snip from New York Times story:
[C]ome Saturday it will look as if a tornado had picked up a Prada store and dropped it on a desolate strip of U.S. 90 in West Texas. That is where Prada Marfa, a permanent sculpture by the Berlin artists Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset will be installed. (Actually it will go up in Valentine, Tex., about 26 miles outside Marfa, a town of 2,400 that has become a magnet for artists and art lovers.) The sculpture is meant to look like a Prada store, with minimalist white stucco walls and a window display housing real Prada shoes and handbags from the fall collection. But there is no working door.Link
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
10:53:54 PM
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Suicide Girls responds to post on FBI and image takedowns
Disclaimer: Suicide Girls is a Boing Boing sponsor.Responding to a Boing Boing post from earlier today, Steve Simitzis of Suicide Girls says:
Well, since you posted about the criminal case (which isn't over yet), the case is United States vs Chad Grant, not Suicide Girls vs Chad Grant. It's a criminal case - your post would imply that it's a civil dispute between us and him, which it's not. We reported the intrusion to the FBI, and from there, the government decides whether or not to prosecute. I already gave my testimony (yesterday) so I feel okay talking about it.Previously:But anyway, the reason why the two situations (the criminal case and the upcoming government crackdown) are connected:
During the investigation, the FBI asked us to provide them a list of every single photo set that contains bondage, blood play, urination, etc. In short, anything a jury might find "obscene". The idea was that the defense would try to discredit SG by displaying in graphic detail how we're disgusting and therefore evil. And the prosecution wanted to be ready for this attack, by knowing everything we had in advance, so they could either try to downplay it or make some other point about it. Either way they wanted to be prepared. But of course that's irrelevant to the case, since the defendant (a) also worked for an "adult entertainment" company, and (b) we're not on trial anyway - he is, for computer intrusion.
So, as requested, we started assembling the list of photos containing said naughty content, when news of the upcoming crackdown started to surface. And it immediately became crystal clear: if we were handing over a list of every photo on our site that contains the content they're about to start prosecuting, and if someone in the Attorney General's office would have that on file, it would be a quick and easy few steps from there to going after us, a fairly well-known site. We felt that we were too close to the fire at that point, and took the content down.
So - were we contacted by the FBI specifically because of the "war on porn"? No. Were we contacted by the FBI and asked for a list of all our "obscene" content? Yes. So when people were asking "were you contacted by the FBI?" we really couldn't give a straight yes or no answer without talking about something we couldn't talk about.
Suicide Girls: rumor-debunking time
Reader comment: Shannon Larratt of BMEzine responds to Steve's statement:
So you took down content to help you win a case against a competitor (even if by proxy), effectively admitted on the public record that you feel this content is legally obscene and you're ashamed or afraid to show it in court, played a highly misleading PR game, and didn't come clean about it until the PR started to go bad?As I said before, as someone who really has had a real threat of prosecution and had to uproot my whole life and company to avoid being shut down due to being unwilling to compromise the ethics of my site, I really think it's unfortunate that you guys did not have the strength of character to do the same, and I think it's even worse that you'd manipulate the courts by playing along with the FBI like this. It's not going to be helpful.
I'm sorry to be so blunt about this but I really feel you guys need to take a stronger stand, especially because if they ever actually did come after you on this point you're such an easily defendable target.
PLEASE restore the content, along with a pledge to fight to protect it.
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Xeni Jardin at
08:40:31 PM
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Odd tear gas packaging: spray this on students!
I bought a fresh can of self-defense spray at my friendly neighborhood weapons depot last week. "Sabre" is a potent mix of military-grade tear gas and pepper spray. It's at least a few times stronger than Chanel Number 5. and at $9 each, it's about twelve times cheaper. One detail on the packaging was really funny, though. On the back side of the box (partial scan shown above), a series of line drawings depicting potentially threatening foes you might need to use it on, or situations you might use it in. One of them is a blonde teen "student" smoking a cigarette, seated beneath a school sports pennant, and it's not entirely clear whether he's a victim or an aggressor. Link to full size.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
08:20:24 PM
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Man plays doctor with dead deer in stolen ambulance
Leon Holliman Jr., 37, of Jacksonville, Florida was reported missing from the River Region Human Services facility last month. On Sunday, he was found in North Carolina dressed like a doctor and driving a stolen ambulance with a dead deer in the back. The police had to shoot out the ambulance's tires to catch him. He's now undergoing psychiatric evaluation. From the Associated Press:Link"I don't know how the man got it up in there," said Sgt. Robert Pearson. "It was a six point buck."
It wasn't known where Holliman got the deer, which had been dead for some time, Pearson said.
Apparently, Holliman was nabbed and released earlier in the weekend for other unusual behavior. From EMS Network:
Lieutenant Scott Nanney says officers saw the man with a wheelchair near the hospital.Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)
"Actually he was in the wheelchair riding it in the middle of the road and intoxicated. So, that's when officers decided to take him into jail for four hours."
Police say the man wasn't charged with anything in the wheelchair incident.
He was only taken to jail for his safety, until he was sober enough to leave.
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David Pescovitz at
05:12:21 PM
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Sledgehammer keyboard
Chicago artist Taylor Hokanson constructed a massive computer keyboard that you type on with a sledgehammer. Temporary Services, the art group behind the amazing Prisoners' Inventions project from a few years ago, is exhibiting the Sledgehammer Keyboard at their Chicago experimental art/culture space Mess Hall on Saturday and Sunday. Temporary Services member Salem Collo-Julin says: "Users will be able to try it out for the first time this coming weekend during a street fair that's happening outside of Mess Hall. You slam your message into the keys, and your message is projected into our space."Link to Taylor Hokanson's site, Link to Mess Hall
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David Pescovitz at
04:55:49 PM
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Beautiful flowers losing their scent
It seems that the breeding behind the huge variety of roses and other ornamental flowers now available has also inadvertently diminished the flowers' scents. In an excellent Science News article, Ivan Amato examines why today's ornamentals don't smell as good as they once did. He also discusses how flower scientists are looking at ways to resurrect lost scents and even engineer new ones. From the article:"Pigment compounds are derived from the same biochemical precursors [as scent compounds are], so it makes sense that if you make more of one you get less of the other," notes floral-scent biochemist and geneticist Eran Pichersky of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.Link
Floral scent may be dwindling because breeders for the $30 billion ornamental-flower industry pay scant attention to this most emblematic attribute of flowers. "In order of [commercial] priority, color is number 1 through 10," says Alan Blowers, head of flower biotechnology for Ball Helix, a biotech company in West Chicago, Ill., devoted to the ornamental-plant industry. Beyond color, breeders have been targeting improvements in flower longevity, shape, size, disease resistance, and other traits likely to improve the growers' bottom lines.
Fragrance is different. It's invisible, and its sensory impression is as subjective as taste.
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David Pescovitz at
11:07:29 AM
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Apple ][ on the PlayStation Portable
Team Xboxopensource hacked together an Apple ][ emulator for the PSP. (Only works on PSP firmware 1.50. Don't upgrade. If you did, MAKE: Blog points to a downgrader. Link) Time to bust out those classic Karateka chops!Link
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David Pescovitz at
10:43:12 AM
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Haptic athletic outfits
This is a haptic sports garment developed by the Netherlands Organization for Applied Scientific Research. Laden with actuators, the vest is programmed to push on specific muscle groups to improve the technique of rowers, skaters, soccer players, and other athletes. From New Scientist:Link (via We Make Money Not Art)Eventually, sensors in the garments will measure the speed at which the rower moves and how they coordinate their leg and body movements. If the rower deviates from the optimum speed or rhythm, pads worn at the ankle and waist start vibrating at the correct stroke intervals to help the rower recapture the winning action.
"The feedback can be understood by the person much more quickly than if they are getting shouts from a human trainer," says Hendrik-Jan van Veen of the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research in Soesterberg.
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David Pescovitz at
09:58:32 AM
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Thirty buck "toy" amp kicking all kinds of ass
A stereophile friend of mine with $25,000 worth of sound-reproduction equipment in his house just went spontaneously gaga over the Sonic Impact T-Amp, a $30 15-Watt amplifier that "easily outperforms amplifiers that cost 100 times more." Apparently, audiophile reviewers (like this guy) (Google cache of previous link) took what was meant as a gimmick cheap battery-powered amp and have turned it into an overnight sensation, shipping thousands of units to a modder audience that are hacking their own aluminium enclosures and the like.LinkThis amplifier is STUNNING. And the review could stop here. Considering shipping, customs fees, VAT etc you can pay 25-30 € max for this item (non-EU Countries, make your conversions). This means the T-Amp costs more or less than a Music CD. At this price, it should deliver a multimedia-like kind of sound and shouldn't even be considered on a HiFi mag like this one. I understand you can find it hard to believe but I can assure you I found it harder, being the skeptic and investigative guy I am.
Warning: this has been the most thrilling and incredible experience I've had with a component in, say, 25 years of HiFi listening. This website has existed since 1995, I've reviewed hundreds of HiFi components, inexpensive and ridiculously overpriced ones. I never - repeat - NEVER came across such a stunning piece of gear in all of these years.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:29:56 AM
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Canadian copyfight: the CC-licensed book!
Legendary Canadian copyfighter Michael Geist has just published a ground-breaking anthology on the future of Canadian copyright law, with contributions by 19 Canadian copyright experts. You can buy the book between covers at finer bookstores across the land, but of course he's released the whole book under a Creative Commons license, so you can download it for free too. All the royalties from the print edition are to be donated to Creative Commons.As Canadians consider the anti-circumvention provisions contained in Bill C-60, several lessons learned elsewhere bear repeating. First, anti-circumvention represents an entirely new approach to copyright law. while copyright law seeks to balance creator and user rights by identifying the rights and limitations on rights holders, tPMs, supported by anti-circum- vention legislation, creates new layers of protection that do not correlate with traditional copyright law.Link (Thanks, Michael!)As noted above, Justice Binnie stated in Theberge that "once an autho- rized copy of a work is sold to a member of the public, it is generally for the purchaser, not the author, to determine what happens to it."6 Cases such as Streambox serve as an important reminder that this is not always the case, since activity that is lawful under traditional copyright law, may be unlawful under certain anti-circumvention legislation. This change in the law should resonate with the Competition Bureau since it challenges its longstanding position that a hands-off approach to intellectual property is warranted given its characterization of IP as pro-competitive.
Second, there is considerable flexibility in how a country implements its anti-circumvention obligations into national law. while the US DMCA is the best-known implementation, the approaches in several European countries, as well as those in the developing world, indicate that a country can seek to maintain the copyright balance, avoid regulating technologies, and foster a pro-competitive marketplace within the WIPO framework.
Third, the US DMCA experience illustrates that the fears raised by critics of the US approach have come to fruition. In only seven years, the DMCA has become a heavily litigated statute used by rights holders and non-rights holders to restrict innovation, stifle competition, and curtail fair use. This has occurred in large measure due to the US decision to strictly regulate anti-circumvention devices and to downplay the connec- tion between TPM [DRM] protection and copyright.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:53:22 AM
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Archive of penny-dreadful artwork
Diane Duane sez, "Searchable history and timeline of 'penny dreadfuls,' with thousands of images online. Text search too, though it seems to be misbehaving at the moment. Really cool!" I agree. These are wild.
Link
(Thanks, Diane)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:39:57 AM
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iPod baby costumes
These iPod baby-costumes are infringeariffic and so sweet, I needed insulin -- still, if you want to display your nerd pride through your offspring, this is a good way to do it. Or you could invest in somee child-sized cyber-goth gear from London's Cyberdog.
Link
(via Gizmodo)
Update: Greg sez, "When I posted about the addition of a black Nano onesie to the ipodmybaby lineup, it inspired another dad to whip up a DIY iPod onesie iron-on graphic that's actually funnier: the controls now say 'nap, poop, eat, play'"
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:33:32 AM
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Trailer with 36,416lbs of candy stolen
A trailer filled with $69,000 worth of candy was stolen from a Michigan truck-stop. There's a reward for the safe return of the junk-food. Happy Hallowe'en!The company is willing to pay up to $10,000 to find a semi trailer load of Bazooka, jelly beans and assorted candy that was boosted near Cambridge City.Link (Thanks, Brian!)McCain wants the sweets, not revenge. The offer is for locating the loot, not convicting the criminal.
There were 36,416 pounds of confections in a McCain trailer that went missing from Crazy D's Truck Plaza at Indiana 1 and Interstate 70 on Aug. 22.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:24:55 AM
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Anti-MMORPG ads from D&D
This anti-MMORPG ad from Dungeons and Dragons is STONE BRILLIANT. It reads "If you're going to sit in your basement pretending to be an elf, you should at least have some friends over to help. Dungeons and Dragons: Get together. Roll some Dice. Have Fun." Way to play to your core strength.
188k JPEG Link
(Thanks, Steeltoe!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:20:45 AM
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High Power Rocketry in the Black Rock Desert
Last weekend, amateur high power rocket makers went to Nevada's Black Rock desert and launched rockets with "motors leave a crater in the clay at takeoff." Here's a great photoset with comments. (Shown here: rocket through windshield of an SUV). Link (thanks, Travis F. Smith!)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
07:50:17 AM
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Phone unlockers versus the DMCA
A mobile phone company is arguing that companies that unlock their handsets violates the DMCA. They argue that the software on the phone is a copyrighted work, and the unlocker is breaking DRM in a way that violates the statutory prohibition on circumvention. Nice try -- but the courts already rejected that theory when Lexmark tried to apply it to people who refilled printer cartridges (copyrighted printer cartridges! What chutzpah!)Last week, I was contacted by a small company that I'll call Unlocko. Unlocko sells software that "unlocks" mobile phones so owners can select different cellular providers on the same handset. The company had received a cease-and-desist letter from a large mobile phone provider, which I'll call CellPhoneCo.LinkLike most U.S. cellular providers, CellPhoneCo electronically locks the handsets it sells so the phones can only be used with CellPhoneCo's service. CellPhoneCo claims that the sale of unlocking software is illegal.
The financial motive behind this claim is obvious. Companies have been using the razor blade business model to guarantee a steady stream of revenue ever since, well, the razor blade. Cell phone companies sell you a phone at a discount, and then make up the difference by requiring you to sign a multi-year contract promising to pay monthly fees for mobile phone service or to fork over a hefty termination penalty if you break the deal.
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Cory Doctorow at
01:23:41 AM
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Wednesday, September 28, 2005
Suicide Girls: rumor-debunking time
Disclaimer: Suicide Girls is a Boing Boing sponsor.Punk rock pinup site Suicide Girls has been the subject of much internet rumorage recently, on two fronts. First, problems between management and models; second, rumors that an FBI porn squad "cracked down" on SG, ordering the to take down certain images. Let's take these one at a time.
Wired News publishes this account today of claims that about 30 models have quit SG in recent weeks:
A group of angry ex-models is bashing the SuicideGirls alt-porn empire, saying its embrace of the tattoo and nipple-ring set hides a world of exploitation and male domination. The women are spreading their allegations through the blogosphere, raising the hackles of the SuicideGirls company, which has until now enjoyed a reputation as porn even feminists can love. It offers burlesque tours, clothes and DVDs in addition to a sprawling online library of naked punk and goth women.Link."The recent accusations are a little upsetting," said "Missy," the co-founder of SuicideGirls. "We think they're all pretty much unfounded."
Now, about that porn squad. As blogged previously on Boing Boing, this August the FBI's Washington, DC office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad tasked with gathering evidence about "manufacturers and purveyors of pornography" -- not child porn, not bestiality, not porn already illegal under US law. This time, the target is sexually explicit material depicting consenting adults, marketed to adults. Four days after the Washington Post published that news, Suicide Girls model and web engineer Olivia posted this item on the Suicide Girls blog which stated, in part:
SG Removing Pictures, You Can Thank BushThe language of this post led many to assume the FBI must have contacted SG to order that they take down images. That didn't happen. It would seem unlikely that a still-in-formation antismut force would pick SG as its first target, anyway, given the abundance of far more hardcore sites on the internet -- SG doesn't feature penetration or actual sex acts, just cute goth girls frolicking about in nothing but their tattoos. Despite this, rumors continued to proliferate on blogs and mailing list ("feds shut down suicide girls!!!", "FBI fscks SG!", "Bush bones goth erotica site!").I just wanted to let you know that, thanks to the "War on Porn," SG will be taking down a bunch of photosets and individual photos today. Even the FBI agents paid to surf for porn find this ridiculous, but apparently sending people to jail for pictures of two consenting adults enjoying a little rope bondage is more fucking important than.... I dunno, pick any one of the million of better causes out there that the government could be focusing on.
So, I apologise heartily for having to do this, both to the SuicideGirls whose art is being fucked over and the members who are being treated like babies, but we really don't want to get shut down and sent to jail. As soon as legally possible, the photosets and pictures about to be taken down will come back.
But today, SG's Missy explains that the image takedown wasn't the result of contact by the FBI or any other authorities -- the site's management chose to pre-emptively remove certain photos. Missy tells Boing Boing:
While we do not believe any of our images are illegal, SG has removed a number of images in order to ensure that we are not targeted by the U.S. Government's new "War on Porn."Update: [redacted] says,We have received no formal government notice to remove these images, however, in the course of our involvement, as witnesses, in a federal criminal prosecution that does not target SG, we have been made aware of the risks posting such content poses the owners of the company.
Given the U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' new war on porn task force and it's intent to bring obscenity charges against their loosely defined "Deviant" imagery, we have removed any images with fake blood and any images we felt could be wrongfully construed as sadist or masochist.
Given the natural disasters in Louisiana and Texas, the U.S. Government's numerous foreign war's and the growing U.S. deficit, we feel there are far better uses of government resources then pursuing the legality of imagery created by consenting adults, but as is usually the case, our opinions are not shared by the Current U.S. Administration. Also, we really miss Bill Clinton.
The criminal trial in question involves a dispute between Suicide Girls and Chad Grant of "Deviant Nation." There's a whole 'nother pot of internet rumors around the substance of that dispute, which both sides presumably haven't addressed in public because of the ongoing legal action. The trial was yesterday, Wed. Sep. 28., in LA.The criminal case in progress is United States vs Chad Grant.
And BMEZine's Shannon Larratt posts his thoughts on the matter(s) here: Link
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Xeni Jardin at
10:00:24 PM
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Lunchbox art show
La-La Land gallery in LA had a neat lunchbox art show over the weekend, and a lot of the lunchboxes are still available. Shown here: Amanda Visell's "A Robot Wants My Lunchbox."
Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
09:14:32 PM
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Kirsten Ulve show in Tokyo
The incredible Kirtsen Ulve (who did an illustration for the print edition of Boing Boing for a true story of a girl who went to a nudist camp on a dare) has a drawing show in Tokyo opening October 9. Link (thanks, Gary!)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
08:46:33 PM
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Billion-dollar Robinson Crusoe treasure discovered by robot
BiscuitBarrel sez, "A Chilean salvage company has located a famed buried treasure on the island that inspired Robinson Crusoe. The treasure is said to contain 600 barrels of gold looted from the Incan empire in the 16th century."A robotic treasure hunter has laid claim to the find of the century, on the very archipelago that inspired the novel Robinson Crusoe...Link (Thanks, BiscuitBarrel!)By some estimates the haul would include 800 barrels of gold ingots, silver pieces, gems and other riches worth up to $10 billion. Naturally, the promise of such fabulous wealth has attracted scores or treasure hunters to the island in the past.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:10:06 PM
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Robot feet turn cribs into rockers
Lullabubs are rocking robotic feet that fit under the legs of most baby-prisons, playpens, cribs, etc, and then synchronistically rock your proto-human back and forth without the need for boring adult intervention.
Link
(via Gizmodo)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:07:57 PM
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Harvey Danger's new album: DRM-free torrent!
Jordan sez, "The band Harvey Danger just released its new album Little by Little via direct download and Bittorrent. Rationale:"In preparing to self-release our new album, we thought long and hard about how best to use the internet. Given our unusual history, and a long-held sense that the practice now being demonized by the music biz as "illegal" file sharing can be a friend to the independent musician, we have decided to embrace the indisputable fact of music in the 21st century, put our money where our mouth is, and make our record, Little By Little..., available for download via Bittorrent, and at our website. We're not streaming, or offering 30-second song samples, or annoying you with digital rights management software; we're putting up the whole record, for free, forever. Full stop. Please help yourself; if you like it, please share with friends.Link (Thanks, Jordan and Jeff!)
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Cory Doctorow at
07:55:21 PM
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Photos of a man walking his pet tortoise
I like these pictures of a man taking his pet tortoise for a walk on a warm fall day in Canada.LinkThough, he wasn't a cheap purchase, Jeff and his family consider 'Franklin' to be an excellent value for a pet, who will probably live longer than most of us. Apparently, Tortoises can live an average of 60-80 years, with some living over the ripe age of 100! Astoundingly, he already weighs in at around 25 pounds but can grow up to 200!
Purchased at a city pet store, Franklin is a treasured member of the family, attracting interest from all who see the pair. Jeff said he doesn't mind the company of strangers when he's taking Franklin for a walk, and educates the guests on the difference between a tortoise and a turtle. He finds it relaxing to take Franklin for a walk after a tough day at work.
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
07:28:18 PM
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Pixar artist describes hassle of recovering stolen vehicle
Pixar artist Ronnie Del Carmen's car was stolen in Oakland. His story and photos of the tedious and costly ordeal involved in having to get it back from the police make me happy that the two cars I've had stolen in my life were never found.(thanks, John Frost!) ."There's your car." The Accord seemed to be in good shape from the outside. I peer in and I see that they tore out the wires under the steering column and dug out the ignition, seeming like the hotwire jobs one sees in movies. We attached the battery and the electrical system kicked in. The car still won't turn over. "You're not going to be able to fix that here." Great. Now I'm almost out of time. I have to run out of here without the car.
"I have a friend who can help," this man informs me. Time's up, I take this option and have the car towed to this guy's friend's place. $40 to move the car and $250 to fix the ignition and broken park lights--make it run. Made a decision under stress about matters I know little about. More stress. I had to leave.
While at the ceremony I start to worry if I didn't just open myself up yet another scam. Likely, eh? But I caught a break it seems that this man who said he'd take care of it seems to actually be doing the right thing. I ask him about the cars inside that lot where my car was and were they all stolen cars. "Most of them."
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
07:06:03 PM
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Knock Out Uke Out in SF, Oct 14
(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Don't miss the Knock Out Uke Out, a ukulele festival in San Franciso, on Friday, Oct 14. Link
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Mark Frauenfelder at
06:43:08 PM
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Kirsten Anderson interview
Roq La Rue gallery owner Kirsten Anderson was interviewed this summer in Traffic magazine.LinkTRAFFIC: Can you speak a little bit to that? It's like there's this invisible wall between this genre of art and the high art world. Is this art too juvenile, too sexual, what?
KA: Yeah, I think some people might see it as juvenile. And sexual, and cartoony. And maybe too light hearted, in a lot of ways. But it is what it is. It's people painting what they like, and what their world is about - what they think is beautiful. So whether it's giant tikis or giant devil heads and Day of the Dead skeletons – these images speak to these people. It almost comes down to the term "cool." It's what they think is cool, what they want to look at, what makes them feel good.
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Mark Frauenfelder at
05:00:52 PM
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iGRID2005: Xeni's notes
I've been at the iGRID2005 conference in La Jolla, California today -- an International Grid event intended to accelerate the use of multi-10Gb international and national networks.
There is a lot of mindblowing work on display here, much of particular interest to scientists, gov/mil, and entertainment industry. Demos so far have included:
The conference staff behind the iGRID2005 blog have been doing a terrific job of chronicling the event, so here are a couple of links:
* Distribution of mass cosmic data ray data from Tibet
* super-hi-def transglobal telepresence demos
* Real-time transatlantic dead cat xray analysis!
* High-definition streaming video from volcanoes on the Pacific ocean floor.
* A 55-panel tiled display showing extremely hi-res zoomable satellite images of New Orleans, post-Katrina.
* 20,000 terabits beneath the sea* First-Ever Live HD Images from Seafloor to Land Available as IP-Based Feed
* More snapshots of iGrid activity
* Nortel Demonstrates World’s First Integrated Data Encryption for 10 Gbps Networks
Whups, gotta go -- there's a 4K digital cinema demo beginning at 430, and CalIT2 director Larry Smarr says "It's gonna be AWESOME." At left, he's showing me another demo which was -- well, awesome. Dan Sandin’s personal varrier, an immersive stereoscopic environment that doesn’t require special 3-D glasses.Link to iGRID2005 blog.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
04:14:13 PM
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Rollyo -- personal search engine
Blogger Dave Pell has created an interesting new search engine tool call Rollyo. It lets you make a search engine that indexes up to 25 websites of your choice. I made one called Pop Surrealism, including many of my favorite blogs. Linkposted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
03:56:48 PM
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Cory's DRM talk to HP research
I've just come from giving a talk on DRM to HP's research group in Corvallis, Oregon -- a kind of sequel to last year's Microsoft DRM talk. The text of the talk is dedicated to the public domain, and live on the web.* PrivacyLinkIn privacy scenarios, there is a sender, a receiver and an attacker. For example, you want to send your credit-card to an online store. An attacker wants to capture the number. Your security here concerns itself with protecting the integrity and secrecy of a message in transit. It makes no attempt to restrict the disposition of your credit-card number after it is received by the store.
* Use-restriction
In DRM use-restriction scenarios, there is only a sender and an attacker, *who is also the intended recipient of the message*. I transmit a song to you so that you can listen to it, but try to stop you from copying it. This requires that your terminal obey my commands, even when you want it to obey *your* commands.
Understood this way, use-restriction and privacy are antithetical. As is often the case in security, increasing the security on one axis weakens the security on another. A terminal that is capable of being remotely controlled by a third party who is adversarial to its owner is a terminal that is capable of betraying its owner's privacy in numerous ways without the owner's consent or knowledge. A terminal that can *never* be used to override its owner's wishes is by definition a terminal that is better at protecting its owner's privacy.
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Cory Doctorow at
11:52:57 AM
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Gaiman/McKean/Henson film opens this Friday!
Neil Gaiman is one of the most talented writers working in science fiction, fantasy and comics today (and he works in all three, as well as kids-lit and other fields).His latest project is an extraordinary film called Mirrormask, lavishly illustrated by towering graphic genius Dave McKean (who did the cover for my most recent book), and brought to life by the Jim Henson Creature Shop (Neil's other cinematic endeavors include the English script for Princess Monanoke -- how freaking cool is that?).
Mirrormask, a twisted, pure-Gaiman fairy tale, opens this Friday, and the opening weekend will determine whether the film sticks around to get the audience it deserves. I know I'll be making time to see it.
Link (Thanks, Neil!)MirrorMask is a wonderfully demented fairy tale filled with fanged cats out of Escher sketches and prickly spiral staircases to nowhere, but at its core is simply a girl wishing her sick mother would get better. This is the genius of Dave McKean and Neil Gaiman: to create twisted, gorgeous worlds, breathtaking in their elaborate detail, yet never lose the ability to tell a compelling story.
In the opening credits, strips of paper come alive to form a circus. Spangled performers wander among the tents. Sock puppets discuss an evil queen. It is a thoroughly surreal scene, a circus by Salvador Dali come to life, until the very ordinary-looking woman at the ticket booth asks a mute clown to take over for her while she searches for someone who turns out to be her teenaged daughter. Helena (Stephanie Leonidas), the owner of the feet animating the sock puppets, has a very typical teenage argument with her mother and threatens, rather untypically, to run away from the circus.
What follows is a lovely journey through a fantastical landscape. Helena's mother falls sick, and Helena herself, wishing to join the real world, finds herself instead in the Dark Lands, a twisted world where fish fly in schools through the air, insulted books return to the library of their own volition, and everyone wears a mask. It is a quirkily charming place, and there are flashes of Monty Pythonesque humor in Helena's encounter with the Prime Minister (Rob Brydon, who also plays Helena's father). Yet it is also dangerous, as Helena is threatened by savage sphinxes and a creeping dark rot which turns out to be the result of the slow death of the Queen of Light (Gina McKee, who also plays Helena's mother). In this world of masks, it is Helena, with Leonidas' wonderfully expressive, mobile face, who is seen as strange and powerful, and the Prime Minister begs Helena to find the MirrorMask, an item of great power that will both restore the queen to health and allow Helena to return home.
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Cory Doctorow at
11:49:33 AM
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DRM system designed to encourage identity-theft -- UPDATED
Update: Memletics has responded to public criticism of this system and replaced it with one that is much, much better. See here for more.A textbook publisher's DRM system is designed to encourage the identity theft of its customers who loan out their books:
Memletics is one of those dime-a-dozen companies selling a product it promises will teach "accelerated learning" and how to "remember more." What makes Memletics remarkable is the digital rights management (DRM) scheme it uses on its books. The company's main product is a training manual that explains the "Memletics advanced learning system" -- and if you loan it to a friend, you do so at considerable personal risk. You see, Mimletic prints out your "name, address, telephone number, credit card number, and other information" on every tenth page of the e-book. The truly amazing part is that the company does this with its printed manuals too.LinkThe obvious subtext here is that if you share your valuable Memletics manual, you open yourself up to identity theft or worse, since the company includes your address and phone number. This is one of the only examples we've seen of DRM that works by intimidation rather than technical measures. It does have one thing in common with good old fashioned copy protection schemes like DVD CSS, however: people can't make fair use copies of the books. Readers are also threatened with identity theft even if they never make a single copy. Somebody glancing over a Memletics fan's shoulder on the subway could jot down her credit card information and start buying crates of Scientology books with it, or maybe just show up at her home. And what if your child uses Memletics? We work hard to teach kids that it's not safe to give away identifying information to strangers and here Memletics is doing it to them as punishment for violating a $32 contract.
Adding insult to injury, Memletics offers "incentives" to people who report violations of their copyright. These include, according to the company's website, "A discount, up to the full purchase price, of a valid Memletics product. Up to 5% of any net proceeds resulting from legal action against the parties involved. Other incentives as we see appropriate."
Update: Annalee, who wrote the above piece, has posted the following update: "UPDATE: Someone named Sean from Memletics contacted us to let us know that this entry is "factually incorrect" because Memletics does not include addresses or full phone numbers in the personal information that's inscribed in their books. Indeed, that is what the site says today, but the Wayback machine comes to the rescue again, providing us with yesterday's page that we wrote about. Quick work on the part of Memletics' webmaster, but still not so swift for consumers, who are left with their credit card information printed inside their books."
Sean also wrote to me to say, "The publisher of Memletics.com highly recommends other publishers do not follow the original path we took to protect ebooks."
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Cory Doctorow at
11:40:31 AM
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Katamari Damacy fan-cake of extraordinary coolth
By Crom, this is the coolest fan-cake I've ever seen -- an incredibly realistic sculpted Katamari and Little
Prince from the brilliant, addictive game Katamari Damacy.
Link
(Thanks, Emi!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:36:14 AM
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Sword swallowing extravagnza
To The Hilt is an amazingly comprehensive resource about sword swallowing: history, x-rays, videos, music, cartoons, terminology, and much more. There's even information about the Sword Swallowers Association International, "an elite private organization dedicated to networking existing sword swallowers around the world, promoting dialogue between sword swallowers, encouraging safe swordswallowing practices and techniques, and preserving and promoting the art of swordswallowing worldwide." From the history page:Link (via We Make Money Not Art)Sword swallowing originated thousands of years ago in India by fakirs and shaman priests who developed it, along with fire-walking on hot coals, snake handling, and other ascetic religious practices, as demonstration of their invulnerability, power, and connection with their gods. Sword swallowing is still popular in certain parts of India, and there is said to be a tribe of sword swallowers in the state of Andhra Pradesh who pass down the art of sword swallowing from father to son.
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David Pescovitz at
10:33:33 AM
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MoMA's SAFE exhibition
Developed by Penn State researchers, this prototype implantable glucose sensor for diabetics will be on display as part of the New York Museum of Modern Art show "Safe: Design Takes on Risk." The exhibit opens October 16. From the exhibition page:Link to SAFE exhibition page, Link to more info about the glucose sensorSAFE: Design Takes On Risk, the first major design exhibition at MoMA since its reopening in November 2004, presents more than 300 contemporary products and prototypes designed to protect body and mind from dangerous or stressful circumstances, respond to emergencies, ensure clarity of information, and provide a sense of comfort and security. These objects address the spectrum of human fears and worries, from the most mundane to the most exceptional, from the dread of darkness and loneliness to the threat of earthquakes and terrorist attacks.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
10:15:18 AM
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Two-headed Cuban tortoise
When I opened the San Francisco Chronicle this morning, I was delighted to see this image on the page opposite coverage of the giant squid images. The tortoise was apparently found on a river bank in Havana. It's a great week for weird animals. Link
posted by
David Pescovitz at
09:21:33 AM
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Katrina: Donate $100, get a call from Brian WIlson
If you donate $100 to Hurricane Katrina relief efforts, Brian Wilson (the Beach Boy) will call you on the phone.Link (Thanks, Mark!)"Here's my challenge: For anyone who sends a donation of $100 or more, I will call you personally and answer a question you may have, or just say hello. Also, Melinda and I will match the donation."
Reader comment: Paul says: "In case anyone asks you 'is this real,' the answer is yes. My friend David called me on Monday all excited. He had donated $160 and Brian Wilson called. Brian asked David 'so, do you have any questions for me' and David said 'no, I'm just a big fan,' and then Brian and David chatted star-to-fan for a couple of minutes."
Reader comment: Kevin Kelly says: "Yep, Brian Wilson just called me after I donated $100 via Pay Pal. He asked me what I did, and I told him. Then I asked him two questions: If I gave you a ticket to time travel, either to the past or to the future, where/when would you go to? He said, 'I'd travel back to the time when I was making Pet Sounds.' Then I asked him how many calls he's made. 'Twenty today. We've raised 100,000 so far!' I thanked him and that was that.
"It's such a GREAT idea!"
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
08:01:04 AM
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Gary Baseman's Toby dolls
(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Amazing artist and Teacher's Pet creator Gary Baseman sent me this photo of the Toby figurines he just got back from his show in May at Billy Shire Fine Arts in may.
Currently Baseman has a show at the Pasadena Museum of California art, called "A Moment Ago, Everything was Beautiful."
Link
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Mark Frauenfelder at
07:53:26 AM
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Cory starts podcasting
I've finally started podcasting! I love reading my stuff aloud, but it's not practical for me to find quiet places to sit down with a mic and a Powerbook and record. So the idea is that I'm going to record my stories in serial form from wherever I am: hotel rooms, friends' sofas, airport lounges, whatever, and post 'em. You can subscribe to the feed here, or download individual installments as MP3s here. The podcast is also available through iTunes. Thanks to the Internet Archive for hosting the MP3s and to Feedburner for munging the feed.
I've started the podcast by reading aloud from a novellette-in-progress called "After the Siege," inspired by my grandmother's hair-raising stories of being a little girl in Leningrad during the 900-day Siege of Leningrad, which she recounted this summer while we were at a family reunion in St Petersburg, Russia (Leningrad that was).
Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
05:44:34 AM
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Post to CommonTimes and del.icio.us simultaneously
Jeff sez, "CommonTimes, the social bookmarking site for news readers, now supports dual posting. Stories you add to CommonTimes can now be automatically added to your del.icio.us account. Users just need to configure their del.icio.us account information. If they also add in the Firefox GreaseMonkey script they can dual post to CommonTimes and del.icio.us from Bloglines." Link (Thanks, Jeff!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
05:43:59 AM
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Cop-chips in phones are a bad idea
The Trusted Computing Platform Alliance has released a list of reasons to put their cop-chips in mobile phones. The list consists of ways that mobile carriers can used these chips to restrict their customers, or ways that the chips can be used to accomplish the same thing that exsiting phone-security technology does. My cow-orker Seth Schoen took them apart in this VNUnet article:"This enables the carriers to further control their end users," Seth Schoen, staff technologist with the organisation, told vnunet.com. "Cellphones are already a disappointment to users."Link (via /.)He insisted that it is the business models used by mobile operators that determine what users can do with their devices, rather than technology. Schoen predicted that the security technology will only worsen these limitations.
Many of the user cases that the TCG presented can be looked at from two different angles, according to Schoen.
A secure Sim-lock, for instance, is designed to render the device useless to a thief after the operator has disabled the account. But it will also prevent the user from switching to a competing operator.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
05:42:36 AM
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DIY wooden automata kit
Britain's Automata Shop sells tons of hand-cranked whimsical wooden automata, and has a Design Your Own Automata kit that you assemble into automata of your own design by snapping together standardized wooden pieces.
Link
(Thanks, Dave!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
05:39:25 AM
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Tuesday, September 27, 2005
Gallery of giant hand advertising art
Datajunkie has a small gallery of advertising images from decades past featuring larger-than-life hands. Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
06:30:40 PM
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SF/f/horror models from model-making convention
Check out these stunning photos of cunningly contrived models from Louisville, KY's Wonderfest, a convention for science fiction, fantasy and horror model-makers.
Link
(Thanks, Icky Bob!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
06:30:35 PM
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Giant squid caught on film for first time
For centuries, all we've known about giant squid is what we could learn about them from examining the occasional beached giant calamari. Now, for the first time, scientists have captured film of a living giant squid doing its thing in the inky depths. The photos are incredible and delicious-looking.Link (Thanks, David!)The animal—which measures roughly 25 feet (8 meters) long—was photographed 2,950 feet (900 meters) beneath the North Pacific Ocean. Japanese scientists attracted the squid toward cameras attached to a baited fishing line.
The scientists say they snapped more than 500 images of the massive cephalopod before it broke free after snagging itself on a hook. They also recovered one of the giant squid's two longest tentacles, which severed during its struggle.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
06:26:46 PM
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Laughable abominable snowman doll
You could walk into a store and grab a product at random and it would look more like an abominable snowman than this toy does. My 2-year-old daughter would probably like his one piece pajamas with frilly collars, though. Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
06:23:47 PM
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Nintendo's Shigeru Miyamoto judges dog fashion show
(Click on thumbnails for enlargement) On Saturday, Nintendo held a dog fashion show to promote the canine simulation title, Nintendogs, for the DS handheld. (My daughter is a die-hard Nintendogs addict.) Gaming deity Shigeru Miyamoto was there to pick the best doggy outfit. Link to related Wired News story
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Mark Frauenfelder at
05:39:01 PM
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Penguins mating in minefield
The minefields in the Falkland Islands are the breeding and nesting ground for thousands of penguins and other animals that fortunately are too light to trigger any explosions. From Reuters:Wildlife numbers in the mined areas appear to be on the rise and conservationists cannot hide their enthusiasm about this unorthodox form of protecting lands previously trampled by people or overgrazed by sheep...Link (Thanks, Mark Pescovitz!)
One of the mined areas is at Kidney Cove, a stunningly idyllic stretch of beach across from Stanley where four species of penguins -- gentoo, king, rockhopper and Magellanic -- show up every year.
At the end of winter, the first 500 of 1,500 gentoo pairs begin their mating ritual at Kidney Cove after feeding in the cold waters. They waddle up from the mined beach to nesting areas among the tussock and diddle dee vegetation.
One of their favorite spots is on the mined side of fences with "Danger Mines" and skull and crossbones signs. Tourists are kept on the safe side of the fence, allowing the nervous, partner-seeking penguins to forget about encroaching humans.
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David Pescovitz at
02:25:33 PM
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Cyberpunk CC comic for PSP ships issue 2
In August, I blogged about NYC2123, comic intended for reading on the PSP (though you can read it on the web as well). It's a great, grim, noir cyberpunk comic, well-drawn and well-written, and they got over 30,000 downloads of issue one. Now they've put out issue two and it shows every sign of being as good as the debut.
Link
(Thanks, Chad!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
01:28:29 PM
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Gallery of news-photos of people pointing at nothing
Zeigerpointer is a new online gallery from whacky Viennese net.artists Monochrom: it collects news-photos of people pointing at stuff that isn't there anymore, like firemen pointing at places where burned building once stood, or EMTs pointing at the spot where a towed-away car-wreck occurred. They want your contributions, too!
Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:36:09 AM
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Celebrate Banned Books Week!
This week is the American Library Association's BANNED BOOKS WEEK. Go read something The Man says you shouldn't! ALA's site has lots of excerpts, audio and downloads from banned books. Best of all is the monster list of ways to celebrate Banned Books Week:Link (Thanks, Robert!)ASSIGN a research paper for students, such as: "Censorship and the Democratic Society"; "Banned Authors"; "The Various Forms of Censorship." Make arrangements for the local or school newspaper to print the best paper...
STAGE a mock trial or moot court. Put a banned book on trial and have students argue for and against the book. Select a jury that has not read the book. For mock trial materials and technical assistance, contact the following organizations:
1. The Constitutional Rights Foundation (601 South Kingsley Drive, Los Angeles, CA 90005; [800] 488-4CRF; Fax [213-386-0459]) has packets of mock trial material available for $4.95 each, and will send you a free catalog on request.
2. Street Law Inc. (918 16 Street, Suite 602, N.W., Washington, DC 20006-2902; [202] 293-0088; Fax [202-293-0089]) has many mock trial scenarios compiled into case packets; they are available free from their Web site http://www.streetlaw.org/mockt2.html. Note that the mock trials they have are not on censorship, but can be used as examples.
3. The Center for Civic Education (5146 Douglas Fir Road, Calabasas, CA 91302; [800] 350-4223) develops curriculum materials to teach about the Constitution in upper elementary grades, and will send a catalog of items free upon request...INCLUDE study on banned books in your school's curriculum. Ruth Bauerle, Assistant Professor of English at Ohio Wesleyan University, planned a fall semester seminar on "Banned Books: From Judy Blume to Molly Bloom." The coursework consisted of six reading units and several individual and/or group projects. The six-week seminar began with a background lecture on laws (Constitution, court cases) governing "censorship," and case histories of book withdrawals from libraries.
ENCOURAGE your governor, city council, and/or mayor to proclaim "Banned Books Week--Celebrating the Freedom to Read" in your state or community. For example, the state of Ohio and city of St. Louis did for the purpose of "informing our citizens as to the nature and magnitude of the threat censorship poses to our First Amendment rights of freedom of
GIVE away a banned book! Parents and students from the Goochland High School in Goochland, Virginia, were offered free copies of Stephen King's Salem's Lot after the school board banned it. The bookstore, Volume I, created a front window display featuring Salem's Lot and twenty other banned books. The Richmond Times-Dispatch published a photograph of the display and interviewed the bookstore owner. In the first week, twenty-two copies were given away.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:29:23 AM
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Psychology museum
Today's New York Times profiles the Archives of the History of American Psychology. Located in the basement of a former department store in Akron, Ohio, the Archives contain more than 1,000 bizarre instruments including the uniforms and billy clubs used in the 1971 Stanford Prison Experiment, a vintage 1933 psychograph, and Dr. Stanley Milgram's infamous, and faux, shock generator. From the article:Standing 30 feet from the (Milgram) display, (archive director Dr. David B. Baker) demonstrated a more harmless test of conformity, conducted on visitors to the exhibition. A sign at the front entrance instructed visitors to step only on black tiles in a passageway with a floor of alternating black and white tiles. Sure enough, Dr. Baker watched as a family of visitors followed the instructions.Link
"They were like a group of ducklings there," he said. "That's what Milgram said, we're very compliant."
posted by
David Pescovitz at
11:19:06 AM
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New Chris Rock pilot as free video stream on Google Video
UPN is offering the pilot of Chris Rock's new show "Everybody Hates Chris" as a free download via Google Video. Smart -- a TV pilot has a lot more to lose from being obscure than it does from not raking in every possible cent of advertising revenue. Linkposted by
Cory Doctorow at
10:13:48 AM
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Target's halloween illustrations
Target is using really cute illustrations in its Halloween campaign. Yopo77 posts a Flickr photo set of some in-store displays here. And the Target site has a fun little animation here. (via Drawn!)UPDATE: BB reader Allen Knutson reminded me that Mark posted about Target's 2003 Halloween campaign! Link
UPDATE: John Carey made points to an OSX icon set based on the illustrations. Link
FINAL UPDATE: Drawn! added the following to their original post: "To clear up any confusion over who did what, Sheraton from CSA points out that this year’s illustrations were done by former CSA artist Jason Shulte, and the icons seen here... are from 2003."
posted by
David Pescovitz at
10:13:19 AM
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Ye Olde Unicorn Chaser
Hothot barely legal unicorn-on-fresco action. "The Maiden and the Unicorn," Domenichino, c. 1602, Palazzo Farnese, Rome. Link to full-size, and link to source.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
10:09:51 AM
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Victim of the cookie cutter shark
Mark McGrouther of the Australian Museum Fish Site says: "The crested bandfish is pretty neat but the really amazing story is to do with the cookie shaped wounds on its side.
"These wounds are caused by the Cookie-cutter shark, a small beast that has bitten cookie-shaped plugs of 'flesh' from a range of larger fishes, mammals and even the sonar domes of submarines.
"And finally, it's 'big brother' the Large-tooth Cookie-cutter Shark has an absolutely unbelievable set of choppers."
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
10:04:49 AM
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Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge winners
The journal Science and the National Science Foundation have announced the winners of the 2005 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge. The entries spanned five categories--illustration, informational graphic, photography, interactive media, and non-interactive media. First place for photography went to James S. Aber of Emporia State University for his image titled "Autumn Color, Estonian Bog."Link to contest site, Link to MAKE: article about DIY kite aerial photographyIn the peat bogs of east-central and southwestern Estonia, autumn works a change in the color scheme: Cotton grass turns gold, hardwoods in surrounding forests turn orange and red, and pine trees remain silvery green. The bog water, in sharp contrast, stays an acidic brown. Geologist James Aber of Emporia State University in Kansas recognized the potential beauty of the landscape when he was collaborating with Estonian colleagues to study the glacial geomorphology and geotectonics of the region. But to capture it, he knew he'd need to get off the ground--or at least, his camera would.
Aber used a conventional digital camera in an unconventional setting: He attached it to a kite and operated it from the ground like a radio-controlled model airplane, an early type of remote sensing that has been around since the 19th century. Aber has used the technique for 8 years and has even taught it in courses at Emporia State on aerial photography.
Kite photography "gives us a scale and resolution that are difficult to achieve in other ways," Aber says. The kite flies between 50 and 150 meters above the ground, too low for a conventional airplane and too high for a boom or tower structure.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
10:03:15 AM
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HOWTO pop a combination lock with a beer can
I-Hacked.com explains how to cut a beer can into your own padlock shim that can be used to pop open a Master combination lock.Link (via MAKE: Blog) UPDATE: Site seems to load intermittently right now.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
09:48:11 AM
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Delusions on All In The Mind
On Saturday, the subject of Radio National's All In The Mind show was "delusions." You can listen to the show as Real Audio, MP3, and also subscribe to the Podcast. From the program description:Cotard’s syndrome is the belief that you have died, and for sufferers it is a terrifying state. Delusions can take many forms, from widespread paranoia to a specific and singular delusion – you might think an impostor has replaced your spouse. These misbeliefs are commonly associated with schizophrenia, but they can also occur in people with brain injuries, Huntington’s and Parkinson’s disease and dementia. The Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science is seeking to explain delusions by developing a model of how we all come to accept or reject beliefs.Link (via Mind Hacks)
posted by
David Pescovitz at
09:41:10 AM
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Authors' Guild v Google: opt-out is evil, except when we do it
The Authors' Guild (who previously insisted that Amazon stop selling used books, being the kind of economics-ignorami who don't realize that used-good markets increase the value of new goods -- after all, who would pay as much for a car she couldn't trade in for her next model?) are suing Google for scanning in books so that they can be searched.The Authors Guild believes that Google should only scan books belonging to writers that opt in (yeah, right -- and your VCR should only record shows from broadcasters that opt in, and Google should only index web-sites that opt in). An opt-out system such as the one that Google has proposed isn't good enough for the copyright nihilists at the Authors' Guild, who believe that even though the Google Print program will sell more books, it shouldn't be allowed without permission from rightsholders.
But the Authors' Guild has brought a class action suit on behalf of all writers who will be scanned by Google Print. That includes me, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Larry Lessig, and innumerable other authors who think that the AG is full of crap. In other words, the AG believes that Google shouldn't be allowed to opt writers in to its Google Print program (which will make money for writers and sell more books), but they believe that they should be able to opt writers into their costly, suicidal lawsuit against Google, which, if they are victorious, will reduce sales and take money out of writers' pockets.
The Authors' Guild represents a few thousand writers, an insignificant fraction of the writers whose works Google proposes to scan. They don't speak for me.
Hell, if I was in charge of auctorial response to Google Print, I would direct the use of Authors' Guild funds to purchase and deliver a fruit basket every single day to the Google Print project office (with a second basket to be delivered to Jeff Bezos for Amazon's Look Inside the Book) by way of thanks for the excellent work they are doing to promote books.
Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:37:02 AM
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Financial Times: WIPO's webcaster treaty is a disaster
Jamie Boyle's latest Financial Times column covers the Webcasting provisions of the new Broadcast Treaty at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Under these provisions, the mere act of converting A/V content to packets would confer a 50-year monopoly over the underlying work to ISPs. That means that if you release a Creative-Commons-licensed Flash movie that encourages people to share it (say, because you get money every time someone sees the ads in it), the web-hosting companies that offer it to the world can trump your wishes, break your business and sue anyone who shares a copy they get from them. This is a way of taking away creator's rights and giving them to companies like Microsoft and Yahoo, whose representative at WIPO has aggressively pushed to have this included in the treaty. It's bad enought that this stuff is going to crap up broadcasting, but they should leave the Web alone (I brought a letter signed by 20 webcasters to WIPO asking for just this).Much of what is broadcast over the airwaves is copyrighted - the broadcaster licenses the film or song from a copyright holder and then plays it to you at home. What you probably do not know is that nearly 50 years ago broadcasters in some countries got an additional right, layered on top of the copyright. Even if the material being broadcast was in the public domain, or the copyright holder had no objection to redistribution, the broadcaster was given a legal right to prevent it - a 20-year period of exclusivity. The ostensible reason was to encourage broadcasters to invest in new networks. The US did not sign this treaty. Has the US broadcast industry stagnated, crippled by the possibility that their signals will be pirated? Hardly. Copyright works well and no additional right has proved necessary. Has WIPO commissioned empirical studies to see if the right was necessary, comparing those nations that adopted it with those that did not? Of course not. This is intellectual property policy: we do not need facts. We can create monopolies on faith.Link (via /.)
Update: here's a sign-on letter asking the US feds to open public hearings into this dumb idea before they endorse it further.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:52:29 AM
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Peeing statues spell out famous quotes and SMSs in wee
These Czech animatronic statues realistically urinate on the trough before them, moving their hips and organs in concert. Their "pee" spells out quotes from famous Prague residents.Link (via JWZ)While they are peeing, the two figures move realistically. An electric mechanism driven by a couple of microprocessors swivels the upper part of the body, while the penis goes up and down. The stream of water writes quotes from famous Prague residents.
Visitor can interupt them by sending SMS message from mobile phone to a number, displayed next to the sculptures. The living statue then 'writes' the text of the message, before carrying on as before.
Update: Liam sez, "I got some video footage of these babies when I visited Prague recently, and put it on my blog."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:45:07 AM
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Real people as anime characters photoshopping contest
Today on Worth1000's photoshopping contest: mod photos of real people to look like anime characters.
Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:42:02 AM
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Monorail stapler
Most of this discounted Disneyland commemorative desk-set is pretty junky, but man, that is one sweet Monorail stapler. The Jungle Cruise tape-dispenser ain't bad, either.
Link
(via A Whole Lotta Nothing, via Uncrate)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:38:38 AM
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Podcasting con starts today, avail as a podcast
David sez, "The Duke University Podcasting Symposium, billed as 'the first-ever academic symposium on podcasting,' begins today here in Durham. Doug Kaye of IT Conversations and Michael Geoghegan of Reel Reviews are on hand, as are a handful of local podcasters and professors who will be partaking in panel discussions on various ideas surrounding this wacky new medium. Naturally, it will be available as a webcast, a vidcast and a podcast." Link (Thanks, David!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
06:59:29 AM
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Brummie hacker con this Saturday
BrumCon -- Birmingham, England's security/hacker conference -- starts this Saturday! Only a fiver to get in.12:30-13:30 "Things that go Bump in the Wire" - ZipserLink
14:30-15:30 "Build Your Own Distributed Password Cracker (Stack the Hashes for Fun & Profit)" - Irving
16:00-16:45 "Home Automedia" - Aie
16:45-17:30 "Introduction to Software Exploitation" An introduction to exploiting common flaws, such as eval()/global vars in php vulnerabilities, maybe mysql injection and then buffer overflows in C - Phased
18:00-19:00 "The Spy in your pocket" Personal items that one can carry that could compromise network security (where do I get them). - JW
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
06:57:48 AM
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Peter Beagle's the Last Unicorn as unabridged MP3 audio, read by author
In the same vein as yesterday's post about Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys being available on MP3 CD read by Lenny Henry, here's an unabridged MP3 audiobook edition of Peter S Beagle's classic The Last Unicorn, read by Beagle himself. Link (Thanks, Katrus!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
06:55:39 AM
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Monday, September 26, 2005
Free to caring home: Flying Spaghetti Monsterotica costume
"Yup, i'm giving away the flying spaghetti monster costume i made for burning man. i'm couch surfing and i don't have room for it. It's internet famous (along with my ipod) because boingboing posted pictures of a saran wrapped naked girl wearing it at a party last weekend. That's right, this costume has actually touched a girl who was naked (under the saran wrap). This is probably the only FSM costume that has ever been near a naked girl. Only part of the costume is pictured, but i assure you the rest is just as janky." Link to Craigslist post "Internet famous FSM costume free!"
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Xeni Jardin at
08:16:46 PM
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Live webcast of undersea volcanoes @ IGRID2005
I'll be attending the iGRID2005 conference this week in San Diego, where a bunch of really neat demonstrations like this will be taking place. Boing Boing reader Oren explains:
This coming week my colleagues at The Research Channel will be broadcasting a live stream of volcanoes on the ocean floor, along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, which lies 200 miles off the Washington coast. The live feed will be Sept 28 and 29 from 10 am to 6 pm, Pacific time.These demos will take place Wed. Sep. 28 and Thu. 29, from 2-3PM Pacific. Link to website with more info, link to infographic.The images will be shot in high-definition by a camera mounted on the Jason rover, tethered to the UW's Tommy Thompson research vessel, then beamed to shore via satellite.
If you're at an Internet2 site with multicast enabled, you'll be able to watch it in 6 Mbps high-def, but anybody with a broadband connection can watch the Windows Media versions. More info is on Visions05 pages. High definition video over the Internet live from ocean floor volcanoes - how cool is that?
This expedition is precursor to the Neptune project: "The expedition's goals include mapping and video coverage of areas along the northern portion of the NEPTUNE program study area. NEPTUNE is a planned U.S./Canadian underwater observatory. An instrumented network of 2,000 miles of fiber-optic/power cable will give researchers real-time, interactive observations of and experiments within the ocean, seafloor and subseafloor, as well as the biological communities that thrive there."
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
07:51:54 PM
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Skymall spoof -- funny!
Today's installment of the webcomic Penny Arcade spoofs the Skymall catalogs you get in the seat-back pockets on airplanes, filled with useless, over-described tchotchkes.Link (via Waxy)Hideous Portal to Gael'Thoth
Toil slowly over this cauldron of madness until the words give way to a blood-slick rip in natural law. Willl you rule in this new hell? Or will the symphony of wailing babes and sizzling human fat leave you a shuddering husk, and succor a distant memory? Comes with storage box (2 lbs). $29.95
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:45:41 PM
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Web Zen: Museum Zen
inflatible museum
patently silly
coat hangers
moist towelette
american package museum
flexi/cardboard records
heavy little objects
world's largest things
web wunderkammer
Above: The flexi-record "ET Speaks," from this gallery of odd, non-round-and-black-vinyl records.
web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
07:22:57 PM
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GP2X DRM de-mystified
Earlier this month, I blogged about the GP2X, a powerful Linux-based handheld computer, and raised questions about the DRM it incorporated. I have heard from "Craig," who works for the UK distributor of the device, who says,Gamepark Korea don't understand English very well and have used the term 'DRM' without realising its impact in the West and its accociation with corporate evil.The DRM in question is a use-restriction mechanism that the manufacturer offers to some game developers. However, Craig says that this system does not include any tamper-resistance measures, nor any renewability mechanisms that can be used to downgrade devices after they are in the field. Link (Thanks, Craig!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
05:54:20 PM
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Hand-sports (pen-twirling, card-cutting, cup-stacking) in video and tutorial
Superhandz is a site for would-be manual manipulators, with videos and other tutorial material for mastering flashy card shuffles, pen-spinning, cup-stacking, und zo weiter.
Link
(Thanks, Derek!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
04:53:50 PM
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Islam in science fiction
The Islam in Sci Fi site provides directories and analysis of Islam in sf literature, film, alternate history -- as well as sf by Muslims and original works of Islam-themed science fiction. It's a little thin at the moment, but a worthy project to be sure. Link (Thanks, Von Aurum!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
04:50:39 PM
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Gaiman's book available as MP3 CDs, read by Lenny Henry
Mike sez, "Author Neil Gaiman's book, Anansi Boys, has been released in mp3. This is one of the few largly published books that supports the most popular open, non-DRM, and cross-platform formats. I wish more authors supported mp3, it would save me the trouble of recording them over myself or using Goldwave to convert Audible versions." Funnily enough, I just bought the Anansi Boys MP3 CDs today! I've listened to the first 45 min and I'm captivated -- Lenny Henry is an amazing reader and the story is pure Neil Gaiman gold.
Link
(Thanks, Mike!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
04:46:26 PM
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MPAA/RIAA subvert democracy with super-broadcast-flag bid
The RIAA and MPAA have teamed up to demand that Congress get the FCC to create a super-duper broadcast flag for radio and TV. This means that they'll get a veto over pretty much anything that can play video or music -- from your iPod to your PC's tuner card.My cow-orker Danny O'Brien has written a brilliant, witty explanation of how the MPAA and RIAA are pulling this off in Congress, sneaking around behind closed doors to get this enacted without debate -- and what you can do to stop the enterainment cartels to stop undermining American democracy:
This will be tricky, since the Broadcast Flag essentially demands government interference with every digital AV product on the market.LinkAh, but how about -- no, that's far too sneaky. But...perhaps...
Listen. Suppose our sympatico politicos carve out a bunch of Digital TV provisions that, in fact, do have something to do with government finance? Suppose they stick those provisions in the Senate Commerce Committee's reconciliations bill (due October 26th), where they're practically untouchable?
But some key clauses on which these provisions depend will be omitted. Consequently, it will it be vitally important that Congress passes another Digital TV bill to fill the gaps.
That Digital TV bill will contain -- oh, look at that! -- the Broadcast Flag language. Oh, and the RIAA's Digital Radio Broadcast Flag, too, just for the sake of completeness.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
04:37:47 PM
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WHO: 1.5 billion obese by 2015
The World Health Organization predicts that 1.5 billion people worldwide will be obese by 2015, many from the developing world.Around one billion people are currently affected worldwide, and the figure is set to rise to 1.5 billion by 2015 if current trends continue, the WHO said ahead of annual World Heart Day, which is marked Sunday...Link (via Carbwire)"The rapid increase of overweight and obesity in many low and middle income countries foretells an overwhelming chronic disease burden in these countries in the next 10 to 20 years, if action is not taken now."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
03:59:38 PM
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ER visit or baseball game?
Researchers from Boston Children's Hospital determined that the number of visits to hospital emergency rooms dropped significantly during important Red Sox baseball games. From New Scientist:The researchers compared the number of visits to six emergency departments in the Boston area during 11 key baseball games in 2004 to the average number of visits on that day and at the same time in previous years, and plotted them against the number of TV viewers for those games.Link
A game against the New York Yankees, where the Red Sox’s victory guaranteed them a place in the US World Series, was watched on TV by 55% of the public in the greater Boston area, and coincided with a dip of 15% in emergency room visits.
But during another Yankees game, where it was taken for granted that the Sox would lose and only 30% of viewers tuned in, emergency room visits were almost 15% above average...
One explanation for the startling correlation is that while people are watching TV, they are sedentary and fairly safe. “People are at home watching the games so they are probably not getting into trouble,” explains (investigator John) Brownstein.
Another is that people who attend ER are often not experiencing a medical emergency in the true sense of the word.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
03:26:59 PM
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Puppy swallows kitchen knife, lives
Elsie, a Saint Bernard puppy, swallowed a 13-inch serrated knife and survived. From the Associated Press:Link"I was just flabbergasted," the vet, Jon-Paul Carew of Imperial Point Animal Hospital in Fort Lauderdale, told the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.
Elsie, a Saint Bernard puppy, apparently had the blade between her esophagus and stomach for about four days before it was removed earlier this week in a 2-hour operation.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
03:21:17 PM
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Soft and fuzzy light switches
These light switches wouldn't last long in my house because my kids' hands are never without a sticky coating of saliva-dissolved candy, but maybe when I ship them off to college I can buy a set.Link (thanks, Saul!)Gently touch the soft, fuzzy POM POM to dim and adjust light level in any room. IFM's patent pending fuzzy sensors are made with our own propietary electronic textile sensors. All you feel is the soft, fuzzy textile, no hidden buttons or switches!
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
03:12:37 PM
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Old anti-drug filmstrip
I remember seeing these kinds of drug awareness film strips in elementary school. I wish the soundtrack for this was available on the site. Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
02:04:55 PM
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Interesting words from around the world
Adam Jacot de Boinod wrote a book called The Meaning Of Tingo, "a collection of words and phrases from around the world."Here are some of the words in the book (from a BBC article) katahara itai: the action of laughing so much that one side of your abdomen hurts. (Japanese)
gigi rongak: the space between the teeth. (Malaysian)
bakku-shan: a girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front. (Japanese)
nakkele: a man who licks whatever the food has been served on (Tulu).
Putzfimmel: a mania for cleaning. (German)
Backpfeifengesicht: a face that cries out for a fist in it. (German)
uitwaaien: walking in windy weather for fun. (Dutch)
igunaujannguaq (literally meaning frozen walrus carcass): The game involves the person in the centre of a ring trying to remain stiff as he is passed around the ring, hand over hand. (Inuit) Link
Reader comment: Kevin reminds me that Howard Rheingold wrote a nice book on the same subject a number of years ago, called They Have a Word for It: A Lighthearted Lexicon of Untranslatable Words and Phrases.
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
01:14:03 PM
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Cory speaking in Berkeley this Friday
This Friday, I'm speaking at an event in Berkeley, California, called Online Video and the Future of Television, sponsored by the Intelligent Television project. I'm on a 3PM panel with Rick Prelinger of the Prelinger Archive and Peter Kaufman of Intelligent TV. Hope to see you there!Friday, September 30, 2005Link
9.30 a.m. - 4.30 p.m.
The Hillside Club
2286 Cedar Street
Berkeley, CA 94709More than 30 million hours of unique television programming are broadcast every year worldwide, and a growing fraction of it is digital, along with a flood of video from individuals, new production companies, and archives. The availability of large-scale public and private archives of television, video, and film offers enormous promise for educators, entrepreneurs, producers, broadcasters, and investors.
Nearly every aspect of television and video today is in transition. Storage is moving from tape to disk, distribution is moving from broadcast networks to the Internet, schedules are giving way to unscheduled or on-demand access, and viewing now happens via PCs, mobile phones, and home theaters.
This one-day conference, created by Archival.tv and Intelligent Television (http://www.intelligenttelevision.com), brings together archivists, educators, technologists, entrepreneurs, producers, legal experts, and investors to explore the enormous promise offered by the availability of online video and television content. Demonstrations and interactive panel discussions will highlight new video technologies, services, legal issues, and economic models. Participants from diverse -- and until now, largely disconnected -- specialties will be especially encouraged to interact.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:21:16 PM
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Los Angeles maps of fallen fruit ripe for the taking
Fallen Fruit is a website run by people who encourage you to grow fruit on the perimeter of your property and allow others to harvest it. They also have maps of Los Angeles neighborhoods that are bearing lots of free fruit.
Sarah Rich writes in the Oct/Nov issue of ReadyMade: "CalArts professors Dave Burns, Matias Viegener, and Austin Young are accidental farmers. After discovering an arcane Los Angeles city law that makes any fruit overhanging on sidewalks public property, the trio founded Fallen Fruit, a mapping project that promotes access to the city's free and forgotten oranges, bananas, and apricots."
Where I live, there are plenty of grapefruits, figs, persimmons, and guavas. I also have some olive trees, but I bit into an olive and it burned like acid.
Link
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Mark Frauenfelder at
10:41:14 AM
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Chewbacca gropes Leia
This is apparently genuine, though who knows -- someone in a Chewbacca suit, possibly Peter Mayhew (who played Chewbacca), taking hold of Carrie Fisher's boob, the two of them open mouthed in comic surprise. Comedy gold!
Link
(Thanks, Jon!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
10:38:47 AM
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Google images is a fun way to browse Boing Boing
Philipp says: "A different, visual way to browse the Boing Boing archive is to search Google Images for [site:boingboing.net]." Link (Shown here: a photo from page I made about fulchaus. I'd completely forgotten about this until I searched through Boing Boing's photos on Google Image Search.)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
10:22:07 AM
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Themepunks part three: the esthetic of the dotbomb
Salon is serializing the first third of a novel I'm working on, whose working title is Themepunks. The first 50,000 words are a stand-alone short novel, and every week for ten weeks, Salon is publishing another ~5,000 words from the story.The third installment is online. In this week's piece: Perry and Lester, the garage hackers that Andrea (the tech journalist) is profiling, take her on a tour of the new technology esthetic, brought on by the lost generation of out-of-work photoshoppers, html jocks, and perl hackers left behind by the dot-bomb.
He handed her a white brick, the size of a deck of cards. It took her a moment to recognize it as an iPod. "Christ, it's huge," she said.Link (Link to part one, Link to part two)"Yeah, isn't it just. Remember how small and shiny this thing was when it shipped? 'A thousand songs in your pocket!'"
That made her actually laugh out loud. She fished in her pocket for her earbuds and dropped them on the table where they clattered like M&Ms. "I think I've got about 40,000 songs on those. Haven't run out of space yet, either."
He rolled the buds around in his palm like a pair of dice. "You won't -- I stopped keeping track of mine after I added my hundred-thousandth audiobook. I've got a bunch of the Library of Congress in mine as high-rez scans, too. A copy of the Internet Archive, every post ever made on Usenet... Basically, these things are infinitely capacious, given the size of the media we work with today." He rolled the buds out on the workbench and laughed. "And that's just the point! Tomorrow, we'll have some new extra fat kind of media and some new task to perform with it and some new storage medium that will make these things look like an old iPod. Before that happens, you want this to wear out and scuff up or get lost--"
"I lose those things all the time, like a set a month."
"There you go then! The iPods were too big to lose like that, but just look at them." He passed back the iPod. The chrome was scratched to the point of being fogged, like the mirror in a gas-station toilet. The screen was almost unreadable for all the scratches. "They had scratch-proof materials and hard plastics back then. They chose to build these things out of Saran Wrap and tin-foil so that by the time they doubled in capacity next year, you'd have already worn yours out and wouldn't feel bad about junking them.
"So I'm building a tape-loading seashell robot toaster out of discarded obsolete technology because the world is full of capacious, capable, disposable junk and it cries out to be used again. It's a potlatch: I have so much material and computational wealth that I can afford to waste it on frivolous junk. I think that's why the collectors buy it, anyway."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:56:08 AM
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N Ireland's notorious, derelict Maze Prison in photos
Sasha sez, "My good friend Susan and I were lucky enough to be able to visit the Maze Prison in County Antrim, Northern Ireland, last week (it's not open for the general public, you have to get special permission for it).
"If you know anything about the history of Northern Ireland, and particuarly the Troubles of the past 30 years, you'll have heard of the prison. It is notorious and infamous. It is the place where in 1981 10 prisoners died of a hunger strike, and where in 1983 38 prisoners managed to escape. It is the prison where all the men suspected of terrorism (IRA, UVF, UFF, etc) were put, and it has been empty and abandoned since 2000. It will be torn down soon, a stadium will be built in its place, but right now, it is the most magnificent place.
"It is falling apart around us. Even in 5 short years, everything is rusting and rotting away. Walking around there, knowing everything that happened there and all the people that died there - it was creepy but so interesting at the same time."
Flickr Maze Prison Group
Wikipedia on Maze Prison
(Thanks, Sasha!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:03:49 AM
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Super Mario Brothers as light opera
The Super Mario Brothers Opera is just what it says on the tin: a fan-scored and -performed opera based on Super Mario Brothers -- complete with trailer video and catchy soundtrack download site.
Link
(via Monochrom)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
06:50:22 AM
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Free Information Infrastructure event in London next weekend
Next weekend in London: the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructure: calling all geodata hackers, community wireless networkers, public BitTorrent services, PVR homebrewers, free culture festival impressarios, government data republishers and tech liberties activists!On the first weekend of October (1st and 2nd) the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures is taking place in London. This event will bring together individuals and groups from across the world working on projects such as free wireless networking, free of copyright mapping and open hardware. It is also part of a larger season of events based around alternative approaches to knowledge production and access and timed to coincide with the UK's hosting of a pan-European Creative Economy conference.LinkThe event is open to all but we encourage you to register because space is limited. A small entrance fee of £10 is planned to help pay for costs but concessions are available.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
06:46:21 AM
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Sunday, September 25, 2005
Warner Music CEO: Price-fixing is for iTunes, too
Edgar Bronfman Jr, the CEO of Warner Music, wants Apple to charge 99 cents only for unpopular tracks. He wants to raise the prices on popular tracks. My cow-orker Fred von Lohmann writes,What? Bronfman singing the praises of "variable pricing"?! Lest anyone forget, he was at the helm of Universal Music Group back when it (along with all the other major labels) was engaged in a scheme of price fixing aimed at keeping CD prices high.Link (Thanks, Donna!)And Bronfman apparently doesn't think that "variable pricing" might include lowering the price of some tracks below 99 cents. Said Bronfman, "Some songs should be $0.99 and some songs should be raising our wholesale prices and preventing people from discounting."
This was, of course, exactly the aim of the MAP price-fixing scheme that Bronfman's former label, Universal, was running in the late 90s.
In the age of P2P file sharing, raising your prices and alienating your best retailers (not to mention fans!) is a recipe for disaster. Perhaps Bronfman is not the best CEO for a record label trying to find its way into the 21st century.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:12:49 PM
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Kate Wilhelm's must-read writerly advice/history of Clarion
I've just finished reading Kate Wilhelm's "Storyteller: Writing Lessons and More from 27 Years of the Clarion Writers' Workshop," a book that is a combination of memoir and instructional treatise, written by one of the field's great writers, mentors and teachers.Kate Wilhelm and her late husband, Damon Knight, taught the final two weeks of the Clarion writers' workshop every year for more than a quarter-century. This workshop -- "boot camp for science fiction writers" -- graduated such greats in the field as Kelly Link, Octavia Butler, Lucius Sheppard, Bruce Sterling, James Patrick Kelly, Kathe Koja and Nalo Hopkinson. I, too, attended the workshop in 1992, and was privileged to be taught by Kate and Damon, and this year I returned to Clarion as an instructor, with a group of talented and enthusiastic students to whom I tried to impart a little of what I'd learned from Kate and my other instructors, and from my practice in the intervening decade-and-change.
Teaching writing is a balancing act between compassionate encouragement and firm, blunt criticism. Kate is a master of it. The book uses reminisces about the founding, development and running of Clarion to frame a series of practical, plainly stated lessons for the beginning (and professional) writer. I learned a great deal reading it -- something that can be accomplished in a deceptively short time, for Kate is also a master of simply and clearly setting out complicated, muddy issues, a skill honed both in her award-winning fiction (Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang is a personal favorite) and in her long years of teaching.
Clarion is not like a university creative writing program, where the emphasis is often on theory and personal exploration: Clarion is a machine for teaching you to apply theory and personal exploration to producing commercial fiction that will sell in the market. Kate's book is jam-packed with this sort of advice, including stuff like:
LinkWhen beginning a story, do not:
* Let your viewpoint wander
* Confuse immediate setting with background and let your camera eye wander in, out, and about randomly
* Start with a lecture in anything -- history, physics, biology -- anything. Expository lumps anywhere are to be avoided if possible, but they are deadly in the opening.
* Start in the middle of a scene. This is why flashback openings are a mistake almost every time. You interrupt an ongoing scene to tell us something that happened earlier that results in ongoing scene. Once started, the scenes should be concluded before you move on. An ongoing conversation is hard to catch up with. Who are these speakers, what is their relationship, what kind of voice should I be hearing in my head? Introduce them before they open their mouths.
* Mislead the reader with false information or try to create suspense or arouse curiosity by withholding necessary information. What you arouse is mistrust and annoyance.
* Sprinkle around neologisms or made-up words that cannot be found in a dictionary.
* Use words that only you and a few other people in your speciaility can understand.
* Use contractions if you can avoid them, and only sparingly no matter what.
* Have your character look into a mirror or other reflective surface in order to work in a description of her.
* Let your character talk to an animal or inanimate object in order to give information to your reader about what is going on.
* Play games with the sex of your character.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
05:27:44 PM
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DHS: The Series, the scandal, the website.
Following up on yesterday's post about Joseph Medawar , the Hollywood scam artist producer arrested for allegedly swindling over $5.5 million from churches and little old ladies for a Department of Homeland Security TV show said to be backed by the Bush administration --
* Here's the website for DHS: The Series. Flash with obnoxious sound.
* Here's the trailer: Link, and mirror link (12.8 MB QuickTime), full of stolen or stock but undeniably schlock footage. A synopsis:
* Medawar's business partner, actor/co-producer Alison Heruth-Waterbury appears in the trailer. She has not yet been charged in the case, but her acting is a crime.- VO: Bush's declaration on the morning of Sept. 12, 2001. "The deliberate and deadly attacks which were carried out yesterday against our country were more than acts of terror. They were acts of war."
- Innocent American children frolic carelessly through ominous blue daisy fields.
- Dirka-dirka terrorists!
- Agents with furrowed brows peer into cellphones
- Dirka-dirka terrorists!
- DHS helicopters zoom, DHS SUVs vroom, DHS guns boom
* Nextel and a local Ford dealership are listed as sponsors. That explains all the freedom-fighting-gadget placements in the aforementioned trailer, but not the Chevy Suburbans.
* Here's the merch (Link to mirror). Surely the shoddy photoshoppery evidenced on the DHS-The-Series-branded "Aluminum Coffee Mug, "Class Coasters," and "Elegant Pen" raised an alert somewhere? Nobody honest uses bevel + emboss + drop shadow anymore. Also, try lugging Non-lethal Laser Pointer #11 through airport security.
* You can learn a lot about people by reading their source code. Behold, the opened kimono of www.dhstheseries.tv:
meta name="keywords" content="dhs, department of homeland security, action, spy, terrorist, group, guns, secret, weapon, attack, threat, threat colors, orange, blue, red, yellow, green, screen, drone, army, east, Iraq, producer, Joe medowar, steven blinn, stefan beese, mathew crouch, michel shane, chris bialek, metin berekli, police, cars! , fighter jet, machine gun, gashed, swat, prayer, Showtime, network, broadcast, harbor, TV, TV series, pilot, terror, agency, Cannes, mipcom, helicopter, chase, seal, president, terrorism, security, thriller, international, usa, Alison heruth waterbury, timothy patrick cavanaough, monitor, advisory system, explosion"* Yesterday's LA Times story on DHS: The Scandal called Medawar and co's claims that DHS: The Series was backed by high-ranking Bush administration staff "false." Funny, that's not what the press said six months ago. The "News" section on www.dhstheseries.tv points to earlier press clips which present the administration support claims as fact.
- E! Online News: Bush Backs New Terrorism TV Series by Jeffrey Jolson-Colburn, Feb 26, 2004.Fact-checking, anyone? And finally, dhstheseries.tv features what appears to be a faked Hollywood Reporter cover from Feb. 2004: Link. The date shown is a Sunday. THR doesn't run on Sundays. Could also be a purchased ad thing; THR sells "cover layouts" to sponsors.
- US News and World Report: "Team Bush Lends a hand to a brand-new TV show." Link.
- Boston Globe: Homeland Security Meets Home Theater. "The [E! Online report] raised eyebrows because the Bush-Cheney campaign intends to make the president's 'war on terrorism' a central prong in his reelection strategy. Pushing a pseudoreality show on that subject as the campaign enters its final stretch would be unprecedented." Feb. 28, 2004.
- WaPo: "War President 'Loves' New TV Show."
* Since Mr. Medawar and Steeple Entertainment are now under fed investigation, www.dhstheseries.tv may be yanked. If so, no worries: mirrors exist. (Thanks, PJ, Warren Ellis, and Colin Berry)
Previously on Boing Boing:
Hollywood producer bilked $5.5m for TV show claimed "backed by Bush"
UPDATE: My friend and ex-colleague Ben Fritz covered this for Variety, and unearths reports that Medawar pitched "DHS" to investors as "promoting Christian values."
Here is a reg-free Link for "Producer arrested over fake show: 'DHS' creator meets FBI, IRS." Ben adds,
"I think the Washington Post article is extremely skeptical. But as I noted in my Variety piece, there's another media outlet that did get totally suckered: NPR's On The Media (ironically). Here's a link to the transcript: Link."Snip from that "On The Media" transcript:
BROOKE GLADSTONE: To what extent is the White House and the Department of Homeland Security involved in the program?JOSEPH MEDAWAR: We try to give on a every two week basis a complete package of what we're filming and what the story's about to the proper authorities that we are working with here in California at the governor's office, and they pass it on. And it continues to the right channels, and the person with us is Congressman Rohrbacher from our district.
ALISON HERUTH-WATERBURY: Rohrbacher is the one who has had contact with, a complete conversation with the president, and we know that he knows about it; we, we told him ourselves personally.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: The president.
ALISON HERUTH-WATERBURY: Yeah, we met with him for a photo op- and we briefly ran it by him with the little time that we had.
JOSEPH MEDAWAR:Before we saw the president, we had a very nice conversation with Karl Rove on where we are and how far we're going with it. When Mr. Tom Ridge came to Los Angeles to inspire the entertainment division of doing shows about the department, the head of our production had met with him; there was tremendous amount of enthusiasm and excitement, and I, I -- if I may add something, it was very funny. Our head of production turned to Mr. Ridge and said "Who would you like to see play your part? And Mr. Ridge kind of giggled, and he says 'Hold off two years. Maybe I'll come back and play it myself.'"
BROOKE GLADSTONE:So Tom Ridge himself went to Los Angeles to try and get the entertainment industry interested in producing programs that would bring the message of homeland security and the war on terror to the people.
JOSEPH MEDAWAR: Well, absolutely. They're assembling an office in Los Angeles for producers, writers, directors to be able to contact for authenticity and information -- to help filmmakers deliver a right message.
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Xeni Jardin at
11:12:43 AM
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Webzine: FSM porn -- task force this, suckaz!
I cannot recall ever having to type "not worksafe" and "Webzine" in the same sentence before, but consider yourself warned.
Some crazy internet wackos shrink-wrapped a naked girl and covered her personal bits with geek stickers, then shipped her on a pallette to the Webzine afterparty last night.
Above: Flying Spaghetti Monsterotica (image Link).
Above (image Link), former Boing Boing guestblogger Macki reads Make to the becellophaned beauty.
And actually, that has nothing to do with sex. This young woman is staging a performance art dramatization of the unfairly restrictive effects of DRM on the global digital marketplace (note symbolic placement of iPod).
Oh, and -- mmmmm, above, the delectably DRM-free Violet Blue: Link to full-size photo.
Link to Jacob's photos from Webzine 2005.
Reader comment: Scott Beale from Laughing Squid says,
Here are my photos from Webzine 2005: Saturday, and Saturday Party.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:20:35 AM
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Awesomely bad teen home-music-videos on Google
Have you forgotten what slamdancing looks like? Air-guitar? Air-blowjobs? Click this (worksafe) link, and you will recall all. As Numair Faraz (himself a teen) tells Boing Boing, "Google Video is just insanely hilarious... it's an unbelievable source of teenage videos." Here's another. Finding the real gems can take a bit of digging, but entering search string "high school" plus "dance" or "music" seems to do the trick. Although, oddy, the first result for "high school music" is a 5-hour epic starring Larry and Sergey called "Google Factory Tour." Hrm.
Reader comment: Kathryn Cramer points out that Google Video is also a superb source for high school science class videos featuring the still-beating hearts of vivisected frogs: Link.
Nurse! Unicorn chaser, STAT!
Reader comment: Connor says,
Along with the videos of crazed highschool students, looking up "drunk" on google video produces a myriad of wonderfulness, from "Tim drunk yet again" , to a guy puking in his own drink... repeatedly... to to the funniest drunken arguement ever (Link).
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
08:58:21 AM
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"Boing Boing" Engrish t-shirt spotted in Japan
Boing Boing pal Wayne Correia has been attending EXPO2005 in Aichi, Japan. He spotted this lady rockin' a t-shirt there which reads:
Boing-BoingI kinda feel like we should adopt this, and start selling it as official BB merch. Link to ace-high size, oh yeah!
Lykle & Eagle
I feel ace-high now
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
08:50:09 AM
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Outdoor LAN gaming in a carport
Mel sez, "Photo of hardcore LAN gamers who literally played outside. They set up two giant projectors in a carport, in full view of anyone who happens to be walking or driving by the house. Finer details, such as bringing furniture outside, were included as well."
Link
(Thanks, Mel!)
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Cory Doctorow at
02:12:07 AM
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Cut and shuffle a deck with one hand
A Kuro5hin poster has written a great detailed, illustrated tutorial on one-handed card-shuffling and deck-cutting. I have tried to learn to do this on no fewer than six separate occasions, but have always been stymied by my accursed stubby fingers.Link (Thanks, Jim!)From the basic grip rotate your hand so the deck is standing vertically along the longest axis, holding the cards up with your little finger resting underneath. The vertical grip isn't strictly necessary, but it makes a clean cut of the cards easier. Bring your forefinger out from the back of the deck and grip the side of the deck above your middle finger. Use your forefinger to pull back half the cards. Now pinch the bottom half of the deck (closest to your palm) tightly between thumb and forefinger, letting the top half go with your thumb and balancing it on your little finger and supporting it with your middle and ring finger. You'll want to rotate your hand away from you slightly to do this, letting the top half of the deck balance neatly in your last three fingers.
Update: Jer sez "I thought the instructions were good, but I think they'll be easier to
learn with the addition of the video I just shot of me doing them."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
02:10:08 AM
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Saturday, September 24, 2005
Hollywood producer bilked $5.5m for TV show claimed "backed by Bush"
Snip from BBC News article:Link, and here is the Los Angeles Times' take:A Hollywood producer has been charged after allegedly taking $5.5m (£3.3m) from investors for a TV drama he said was backed by US President George Bush.
The US attorney’s office alleges Joseph Medawar, 43, collected money from investors for two years but spent the majority of it on himself. It said Mr Medawar had falsely claimed the White House had endorsed the proposed series, called DHS.
More than 70 investors, including churches, had invested money in the series on the basis that DHS - Department of Homeland Security - had been personally approved by Mr Bush…
Saying his drama had the blessing of President Bush and others in Washington, D.C., Joseph M. Medawar quickly found plenty of backers for the show — one that he promised would be followed by a reality-based series titled "Fighting Terrorism Together."But on Friday, in an ending that might have been foretold by anyone with a healthy skepticism of the Hollywood pitch, Medawar was arrested by FBI and IRS agents on charges that he bilked at least 70 investors — many of them from local churches — out of more than $5.5 million. Virtually all of the money, according to authorities, went to a lavish lifestyle that included luxury cars, shopping sprees, fancy dinners and $40,000-a-month in rent for a Beverly Hills mansion.
(...) The plans, he said, called for shooting 26 episodesand distributing it in 137 overseas markets. Assured that government involvement would make the show a hit, investors were urged to buy stock in Medawar's production company before he took it public.
Mr. Medawar is listed on this website as a producer and co-chairman of Steeple Entertainment. His co-chairman has also been charged. (via Warren Ellis)
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Xeni Jardin at
03:44:02 PM
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TiVo breaks devices, then charges you $150 if you don't like the new deal
Earlier this month, TiVo owners discovered that a mandatory, non-optional "update" to their TiVos changed the built-in software so that broadcasters could flag certain shows for automatic deletion and for restriction from use with TiVoToGo.David Zatz, a TiVo owner, decided to cancel his TiVo service. After all, he'd bought a device that could record all shows, not one that could record all shows save those that some paranoid Hollywood exec, overzealous broadcaster, or fumble-fingered technician gave him permission to record. TiVo had broken his device and he didn't want to keep using it.
But when he looked up canceling his TiVo, he found out that under the terms of his "agreement" with TiVo (e.g., the crap he clicked through when get got set up), he was obliged to pay a $150 "early cancellation" fee.
DRM ass-kissers talk a lot about how DRM is a "contract" -- someone offers you content in exchange for you waiving your rights to record, or time-shift, or format shift, or archive, or use on your Mac, or whatever.
But it's a funny kind of contract that is renegotiated at the whim of one side, who can unilaterally change the deal whenever he feels like it, and which you can't get out of if you decide that the new deal isn't one that you like (of course, every iTunes user whose iTunes tracks have been downgraded by an iTunes patch knows this already -- Apple won't give you back your $0.99 even when they decide to take away some of the value you paid for when you put your money down).
Link
(Thanks, David!)
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Cory Doctorow at
02:20:26 PM
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Shoggoth on the Roof: parodical Cthulhu musical
This is the website for a fictional Cthuthlu-based musical parody of Fiddler on the Roof called "Shoggoth on the Roof." It includes an hilarious video documentary on the aborted attempt at staging the musical, a PDF script and program for the play, and many other disturbingly elaborate supplementary materials. (OMG: "If I were a deep one, blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub blub!")
Link
(Thanks, Mark!)
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Cory Doctorow at
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Fuck This Book
Fuck This Book documents Bodhi Oser's silly, juvenile, and often hysterical sticker alterations of public signage. I love how the addition of just a single word can really, er, screw with reality. Link
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David Pescovitz at
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Rita: Texapocalypse updates
Image: Two geese and a jungle fowl hen wait out Hurricane Rita in a men's restroom at the Houston Zoo. (AP Photo/Pat Sullivan)
* The Houston Chronicle's Rita blog includes a post that points out one benefit of hybrid cars.
As vehicles ran out of gas during the Houston exodus (aka biggest traffic jam ever), one Chronicle employee who drove a Prius completed the 30 hour, 170 mile trek on three-quarters a tank of gas.
Other happy hybrid owners who didn't have to stop for gas or turn off their A/C weigh in: "My folks drove to Austin from League City in their lexus hybrid and 21 hours of driving later still had 1/8 tank of gas left - plus they had my 87yr old grandfather with them and ran the air conditioner all day unlike most people who ran out of gas. 3 cheers for the hybrid!" Link
* Amid the largest concentration of oil refineries in the US, not a drop of gas for those who needed it: Link. Most refineries in the area appear to have been spared: Link.
* Oh, let's just nuke the hurricanes into submission:
The federal government's hurricane modification program was called Project Stormfury. The idea was raised during the Eisenhower administration after several major storms hit the East Coast in the mid-1950s, killing 749 people and causing billions in damages. But it wasn't until 1961 that initial tests were conducted on Hurricane Esther with a Navy plane releasing silver iodide crystals. Some reports indicate winds were reduced by 10 percent to 30 percent.Link (Thanks, Tony, Dylan)During Stormfury, scientists also seeded hurricanes in 1963, 1969 and 1971 over the open Atlantic Ocean far from land. Researchers dropped silver iodide, a substance that serves as an effective ice nuclei, into clouds just outside of the hurricane's eyewall. The idea was that a new ring of clouds would form around the artificial ice nuclei. The new clouds were supposed to change rain patterns and form a new eyewall that would collapse the old one. The reformed hurricane would spin more slowly and be less dangerous.
(...) Project Stormfury was abandoned in the 1980s after spending hundreds of millions of dollars. Other storm modification methods that have been suggested include cooling the tropical ocean with icebergs and spreading particles or films over the ocean surface to inhibit storms from evaporating heat from the sea. Occasionally, somebody suggests detonating a nuclear weapon to shatter a storm.
Reader comment: Jon Power says,
I was interested in the cloud seeding story to reduce the storm damage. Did you know that in the UK in 1952, a notorious flash flood washed away an entire village called Lynmouth. It's now thought that the summer storm was caused by secret government experiments in cloud seeding. Link. Don't mess with nature...Reader comment: Stefan Jones says,
The DVD set that Mark reviews here includes an episode called “Eyes in Outer Space.” It features an extended dramatic sequence showing a future America’s corps of weather engineers at work. Working from a cavernous control room, they employ cloud-seeding robot aircraft and giant weather-modification towers to create a high-pressure system to divert a developing storm away from shore. In a nod to the law of unattended consequences, their efforts cause some nasty rain storms... which they clear up with more modifications.Reader comment: Jason says,
Apparently the "nuke a hurricane" question comes up often enough for the government to have referenced it in an NOAA FAQ.
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Xeni Jardin at
07:55:41 AM
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Katrina: roundup
* Last year, photographer Siege spent his life's savings on a trailer for his mom (above) and 13-year-old brother in Louisiana. Katrina destroyed their trailer home, and ate their belongings. Siege returned to Louisiana with his girlfriend to help them recover. He took this snapshot of his mom on Monday, September 12, and writes:
My mom was feeling very hopeful through all this. Then we met with FEMA this morning. After two hours waiting in line for it's cold bureaucratic embrace, her hope started to flicker.Link to the blog where Siege is documenting the trip, and efforts to raise funds to buy his mom and brother a new home (he's auctioning off prints of his erotic, fashion, and portrait work for that purpose).This is what it looks like when poor people have lost it all, and are told to get in line. Which line? Did you fill out that form? I hear they suspended the vouchers. Who do I call for shelter? Call this 800 number to get your number. But sir, I don't have a phone. Go to this website to get a number. But sir, I don't have a computer, or a home to put it in, or a phone to connect it to.
Link to another snapshot of Siege's mom with a shotgun; she sustained injuries on her face and legs while attempting to make her way through hazardous hurricane debris.
* Snip from a Human Rights Watch statement alleging that authorities abandoned up to 600 prisoners in New Orleans to drown in their cells during Hurricane Katrina.
[T]hey had no food or water from the inmates' last meal over the weekend of August 27-28 until they were evacuated on Thursday, September 1. By Monday, August 29, the generators had died, leaving them without lights and sealed in without air circulation. The toilets backed up, creating an unbearable stench. “They left us to die there,” Dan Bright, an Orleans Parish Prison inmate told Human Rights Watch at Rapides Parish Prison, where he was sent after the evacuation.LinkAs the water began rising on the first floor, prisoners became anxious and then desperate. Some of the inmates were able to force open their cell doors, helped by inmates held in the common area. All of them, however, remained trapped in the locked facility.
“The water started rising, it was getting to here,” said Earrand Kelly, an inmate from Templeman III, as he pointed at his neck. “We was calling down to the guys in the cells under us, talking to them every couple of minutes. They were crying, they were scared. The one that I was cool with, he was saying ‘I'm scared. I feel like I'm about to drown.' He was crying.” Some inmates from Templeman III have said they saw bodies floating in the floodwaters as they were evacuated from the prison. A number of inmates told Human Rights Watch that they were not able to get everyone out from their cells.
(...) Many of the men held at jail had been arrested for offenses like criminal trespass, public drunkenness or disorderly conduct. Many had not even been brought before a judge and charged, much less been convicted.
* "Experts Say Faulty Levees Caused Much of Flooding: Louisiana's top hurricane experts have rejected the official explanations for the floodwall collapses that inundated much of New Orleans, concluding that Hurricane Katrina's storm surges were much smaller than authorities have suggested and that the city's flood- protection system should have kept most of the city dry." Link to WaPo story.
* Snip from a Jeremy Scahill article in The Nation -- "Blackwater Down":
The men from Blackwater USA arrived in New Orleans right after Katrina hit. The company known for its private security work guarding senior US diplomats in Iraq beat the federal government and most aid organizations to the scene in another devastated Gulf. About 150 heavily armed Blackwater troops dressed in full battle gear spread out into the chaos of New Orleans.LinkOfficially, the company boasted of its forces "join[ing] the hurricane relief effort." But its men on the ground told a different story.
* Snip from a Naomi Klein article in The Nation, "Purging the Poor" --
Outside the 2,000-bed temporary shelter in Baton Rouge's River Center, a Church of Scientology band is performing a version of Bill Withers's classic "Use Me"--a refreshingly honest choice. "If it feels this good getting used," the Scientology singer belts out, "just keep on using me until you use me up."LinkTen-year-old Nyler, lying face down on a massage table, has pretty much the same attitude. She is not quite sure why the nice lady in the yellow SCIENTOLOGY VOLUNTEER MINISTER T-shirt wants to rub her back, but "it feels so good," she tells me, so who really cares? I ask Nyler if this is her first massage. "Assist!" hisses the volunteer minister, correcting my Scientology lingo. Nyler shakes her head no; since fleeing New Orleans after a tree fell on her house, she has visited this tent many times, becoming something of an assist-aholic. "I have nerves," she explains in a blissed-out massage voice. "I have what you call nervousness."
Wearing a donated pink T-shirt with an age-inappropriate slogan ("It's the hidden little Tiki spot where the island boys are hot, hot, hot"), Nyler tells me what she is nervous about. "I think New Orleans might not ever get fixed back." "Why not?" I ask, a little surprised to be discussing reconstruction politics with a preteen in pigtails. "Because the people who know how to fix broken houses are all gone."
* "Louisiana's wetland and land losses (which also include barrier island erosion) can be principally contributed to human settlement in Louisiana's low-lying and active floodplains and deltas, and the subsequent need to build levees to protect these settlements from river, rainfall and coastal flooding." Link
* Snip from LA Weekly about an event in Los Angeles this weekend about the photo book Sacred -- New Orleans Funerary Grounds:
The photos in Sacred: New Orleans Funerary Grounds are the last images taken of the city's cemeteries before Hurricane Katrina swept in.
Photographer Elizabeth Huston -- who was married in one of the graveyards -- happened to be in New Orleans, finalizing the shots for her book, just one week before disaster struck. Once the pinnacle of creepy-beautiful Southern Gothic, the moss-covered tombstones will never again be seen in their original pre-deluge incarnation. We mourn the loss of the living. Now we mourn the loss of the dead. Sacred is a memento mori twice over.
Huston presents Sacred: New Orleans Funerary Grounds at Dark Delicacies, 4213 W. Burbank Blvd., Burbank; Sat., Sept. 24, 7 p.m. (818) 556-6660. Due to the tragedy of Hurrican Katrina, all proceeds from this book will be donated to the American Red Cross, for recovery efforts. In the coming moths, as the city begins to heal, all proceeds will be also donated to Habitat For Humanity as well as the New Orleans based Charity, Save Our Cemeteries.
* Scientific American: " According to the analysis, the number of Category 4 and Category 5 hurricanes has almost doubled in the past 35 years." Link
* For those who are attending the Webzine conference in San Franciso this weekend, Jacob Appelbaum will be speaking today: Link. Boing Boing has featured Jacob's blogging and photos from NOLA in recent weeks. Update: Jacob says,
Thanks to the Internet Archive I’ve now found a permenent home for the photos and videos I’ve planned to release for some time. I’ve gone ahead and uploaded both JPEG images and Canon cr2 RAW files. (...) I’d like people to put them to use in the wikipedia, into books, into their art projects, public benefits or anything that suits your fancy. You don’t have to contact me for use even if it’s commercial. I don’t want your money, give it to the The Internet Archive or the EFF.
(thanks, Elegant Variation, Ned Sublette, Iam Serious)
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Xeni Jardin at
07:44:55 AM
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Vintage sf radio play podcast: Heinlein, Bradbury, Brown, et al
Spaceship Radio is a podcast featuring vintage science fiction radio plays written by such giants as Ray Bradbury, Robert Heinlein and Frederic Brown. Link (Thanks, Adeh!)
Update: Brand sez, "I've been running a Shoutcast stream for the last half a year, where I
feature Sci-Fi/Horror radio stuff, including all of the entries in
that podcast, and other writers like Lovecraft and Asimov."
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Cory Doctorow at
04:15:41 AM
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Japanese lobster-vending machine
Earlier this week, I blogged a great collection of Japanese vending machines, but this one is even better, sporting, as it does, a coin-operated live-lobster vending machine!
Link
(Thanks, GenkiGecko!)
Update: Here's a commercial supplier of coin-op lobster game/vending-machines (courtesy Daniel Drucker)
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Cory Doctorow at
04:13:12 AM
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Friday, September 23, 2005
Jason Robert Bell's female bigfoot paintings
Responding to my earlier post about Allyson Mitchell's Lady Saqsquatch art, BB reader Erik Brown points to the beautiful paintings of Kala, by Jason Robert Bell. Seen here: "Awaken" (72" x 60". Oil, acrylic, ink, on canvas, 2004)Link
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David Pescovitz at
04:14:46 PM
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Tell Congress -- No DMCA for webcasting!
Donna sez, "EFF has a new alert that lets you tell Congress to take a close look at WIPO's broadcast treaty before it slips under the wire and we get stuck with another WIPO-hatched debacle like the DMCA":WIPO's "Treaty on the Protection of Broadcasting Organizations" is protection, all right: a protection racket for middlemen in the TV and Internet worlds.Link (Thanks, Donna!)If adopted, the WIPO treaty will give broadcasters copyright-like control over the content of their broadcasts, even when they have no copyright in what they show. A TV channel broadcasting your Creative Commons-licensed movie could legally demand that no one record or redistribute it - and sue anyone who does. And TV companies could use their new rights to go after TiVo or MythTV for daring to let you skip advertisements or record programs in DRM-free formats.
If that wasn't bad enough, the US contingent at WIPO is pushing to have the treaty expanded to cover the Net. That means that anyone who feeds your "sound and images" through a web server would have a right to meddle with what you do with the webcast simply because they serve as the middleman between you and the creator.
John Naughton of the London Observer called the treaty "a control freak's charter." Mark Cuban, Tim O'Reilly, and 18 other Net experts called its webcasting provisions "unnecessary," and "likely to constrain, not increase, the creation of more information products for the public."
And yet, the US WIPO representatives are still pushing for it to go forward.
We don't think they are working in the best interests of the American public, nor do they have any sort of mandate to create new "rights" for middlement to be used to restrict what ordinary Americans can do with their media. We think that the Library of Congress and the US Patent and Trademark Office should invite formal public comment on what they're doing to our networks, and Congress should hold public hearings so that the audience can have its voice heard.
Write to Congress and remind them that it's government's job to protect all of us, not just the broadcasting industry.
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01:29:42 PM
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A visit to Coop's studio
(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Yesterday, Mister Japlopy introduced me to Coop, the incredibly talented artist that we've been mentioning on Boing Boing in recent weeks.
Before going to lunch at Nick's, a tiny cafe near Chinatown, which has the tastiest ham to have crossed by discerning palette, I was giving a tour of Coop's spacious studio. I'll post a full report here soon, but wanted to share this photo of Coop standing before a small fraction of his Japanese toy collection housed in the loft of the studio. Outside of the Small World attraction at Disneyland, I've never seen so many enchanting figurines in the same place.
Link to Coop's blog
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12:26:59 PM
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Katrina, Rita: Joel and Jacob continue blogging from NOLA area
Joel Johnson and Jacob Appelbaum have been in the New Orleans area for the past few weeks, voluntering tech aid to communities cut off by Katrina, and documenting what they witness. Here's an extensive roundup of their recent activities, from Joel: Link. Now, Rita is on the way, and Joel writes:So we've decided to hole up in Algiers, hoping that Rita will not hit us directly. We do intend to bug out if the storm track changes drastically, but for now it appears the direct hit will still be heading to Texas.Yeah, well -- that didn't take long: "New Orleans Industrial Canal levee breached again." LinkIt is possible that the Mississippi will flood the levees in Jefferson Parish, or top the levees here in Orleans Parish to flood the streets. If that happens, historically we should expect about 3 feet of water. Our houses are elevated enough that they should stay dry at 3-4 feet.
Joel continues:
FEMA, last I talked to them today, is taking off. The Red Cross left yesterday. The National Guard is pulling out of Algiers to head to Gretna, which worries some of us who aren't quite sure that the NOPD in the area are looking out for us. I'm not an anti-authoritarian-type, really, but these local cops haven't been paid since before Katrina. The Natl. Guard officer I spoke to today said he's a cop in another state and is worried about the behavior of the NOPD. We asked them to stick around and keep an eye on us, but they said we were on our own.Previously:I really think we'll be fine. The Common Ground group is fully of dirty hippies and the like, but the last thing they're trying to do is antagonize the authorities. In fact, FEMA, the Natl. Guard, and the volunteer public service workers from out of state have all been very great to the Common Ground workers, doing a pretty good job appraising us of the overall pictures (or what little bits they know about).
We may try to deploy some of our resources to Texas if we think we can do any good, but right now I've made a commitment to the people of Algiers and New Orleans and I'm going to try to stay here to help them. If the levees break again north of the river (or even south), I'm not sure what sort of response there will be.
Instant message; Joel and Jake continued
Wardriving occupied New Orleans on 9/11
Bloggers Joel and Jake visit NOLA for geek aid
Katrina account of Malik Rahim: "This is criminal.... genocide."
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Xeni Jardin at
11:45:44 AM
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John Gilmore explains why sterophiles who buy DRM are suckers
A reader writes, "In response to ZDNet blogger Dave Berlind's DRM nightmare blog post about why his $20,000 worth of audiophile gear can't play the 99-cent songs he's buying, EFF founder John Gilmore sent an e-mail that says the nightmare won't stop until all of us to come to our senses and stop buying DRM-encumbered content. He even scolds Berlind because he ought to know better:"It's really simple. It's because DRM is *designed* to break compatibility.LinkThe whole point of DRM is *restrictions*. The point of all previous audio formats was compatability. CDs play on any CD player. Cassettes play or record on any cassette player. Neither one cares what you do with the audio that comes out. By contrast, DRM is designed to prevent the audio from coming out in any way that the oligopoly objects to. And they even keep changing the rules as they discover new things that annoy them. ...Rather than calling for everybody to implement DRM, which would be uniformly terrible for most musicians, most equipment makers, and all consumers, you should be calling for nobody to buy DRM. We can't stop them from building it — there's no law against companies selling painful products. The only cure is education — of their customers.
Update: Jeremy sez, "I completely agree with John and have seen the evidence of this behaviour by consumers working. I used to be employed by a record label, Centaur Entertainment (www.centaurmusic.com), who began putting Macromedia Macrovision DRM on their discs. This lasted about a year. While they did have the policy of sending a consumer a non-DRM disc at request, all the complaints just got to be too much of a hassle and they stopped using DRM completely because of those complaints."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:30:14 AM
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Custom purses made from old books
Rebound Designs makes purses out of old and unloved hardcover books -- they will also do custom work if you send them a book of your own to get modded into a handbag. Don suggests getting a geek handbag made from Stevens UNIX Network Programming.
Link
(Thanks, Don!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:28:48 AM
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Japan's coolest vending machines
Photomann travelled Japan, shooting photos of odd, elaborate or improbable coin/card-operated self-service machines, from porn vending to egg vending, including this coin-operated refrigerated locker where you can keep your groceries.
Link
(via Make Blog)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:48:54 AM
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Mint-in-package action figure collector house-tour
On a message-board for fans of Spawn action figures/comics/etc, "punkg42" posts a gigantic, jaw-dropping gallery of his personal collection of action figures, videos and promotional tchotchkes, ranked in obsessive, neat display walls of mint-in-package glory. This person apparently owns a gigantic house in which practically every room is wallpapered with all the stuff that's not comics that they sell in comic book stores. The display is awe-inspiring and frightening, a graphic testimony to the compulsive need to collect and then display, like a 21st Century nerd equivalent of the Victorian mansion lined with hunting trophies.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:30:03 AM
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50 most cited works of 1976-1983
In 1987, Eugene Garfield published an article in Essays Of An Information Scientist (Vol. 10, 1987) that listed the most frequently cited works in the Arts & Humanities Index between 1976-1983. As you might expect, it's a heady list. Here's the top ten:1. T.S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. 1962Link (via MetaFilter)
2. J. Joyce, Ulysses. 1922
3. N. Frye, Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. 1957
4. L. Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations
5. N. Chomsky, Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. 1965
6. M. Foucault, The Order of Things. 1966
7. J. Derrida, Of Grammatology
8. R. Barthes, S/Z. 1970
9. M. Heidegger, Being and Time. 1927
10. E.R. Curtius, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages. 1948
posted by
David Pescovitz at
09:25:39 AM
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Shark-zapping wet suit
Invented by Vladimir Vlad, the electric field shark repellent wet suit is, er, outfitted with piezoelectric ceramic fibres. As the wearer moves through the water, it generates several volts that will freak out any nearby sharks. From New Scientist:Link to New Scientist article, Link to US Patent Application (via Gizmodo)If the diver sees an undeterred shark and swims fast to get away – a natural reaction, one suspects – the suit generates much higher voltages and stronger fields.
If the shark still fails to get the message and bites the suit, it gets a shock in the mouth and – hopefully – gives up for the day.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
09:13:37 AM
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Brad Sucks CD remixed
A reader writes, "Musician/blogger Brad Sucks gives away the entire source of his fan-funded album 'I Don't Know What I'm Doing' here. Many remixes are sent in (and posted to ccMixter), he chooses his favorites, puts out free online album of them called 'I Don't Know What I'm Doing Remixed'."
Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:02:19 AM
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Shanghai bans net.slang
Shanghai has banned the use of Internet-derived slang terms from classroom use, publications and official documents:"On the Web, Internet slang is convenient and satisfying, but the mainstream media have a responsibility to guide proper and legal language usage," the Shanghai Morning Post quoted city official Xia Xiurong as saying.LinkInternet chat and instant messaging are hugely popular with China's increasingly computer-literate youth, who employ an ad-hoc vocabulary of invented, abbreviated and borrowed terms such as "MM," meaning girl, "PK," or player killer, for one's competitor, "konglong" or dinosaur for an unattractive woman.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:55:23 AM
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Lady Sasquatch art in Toronto
At Toronto's Paul Petro Contemporary Art Gallery, Allyson Mitchell is exhibiting her "Lady Sasquatch" series of works. Wall hangings, constructed from faux fur and found textiles, and a bigfoot diorama are "about myths, female sexuality and fun/fear." The pieces were influenced, Mitchell says, by vintage porn magazines. From The Globe And Mail:Link (Thanks, Loren Coleman!)"Lady Sasquatch is your dream girl only bigger and hairier," she writes, "and she might eat you if you don't look out."
Mitchell's latest she-creatures are a departure from her earlier fun-fur pinups, sporting snouts and fangs, and baring their multiple teats and fur-rimmed genitalia with daunting (or hilarious, depending on your sensibility) vitality. In one wall hanging, a symphony of reds, a woolly she-creature bays at the moon.In another wall piece, worked up in oranges and golds, a Sasquatch giantess takes a licking from her nude female cohort, who is buried face-first in her lap. "These images were originally made by men for men," she says, referring to her soft-porn sources. "As a straight woman, you are not supposed to see them, and, as a dyke, I'm sure as shit not supposed to see them. I wanted to take those images back, to take the shame away..."
On the hair front, Mitchell says enlightenment came with an issue of Penthouse back in the eighties, when she was a teen camp counsellor in the Ontario woods. "We were definitely in Sasquatch land, there," she remembers with a laugh. "I remember all the boys drove into town to get the new issue with Madonna in it. . . . And I remember she had armpit hair."
posted by
David Pescovitz at
08:45:08 AM
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Wino wines history
Daily Lush has a breezy, fun capsule history of fortified "wino" wines, with emphasis on the Gallo Wine company's downscale products such as Thunderbird, on which it built its fortunes:Hawkes is responsible for one of the more divertingly notorious tales of Ernest Gallo. She tells of him driving through the streets of the inner-city, eventually pulling up to a stranger on a street corner. According to Hawkes, Gallo called out the lyrics to one of his jingles "What's the word?" As the tale would have it, the man immediately called back the correct answer: "Thunderbird!"LinkHawkes' tale is partially corroborated by at least one online source, a former Gallo salesman who recalled handing the drink out to Native Americans who were just being released from jail -- "to get the brand started." "Wino Samplings," as this former employee calls the practice of passing out free samples to hard drinkers, "used to be widespread."
Update: For reviews of fortified wines, see Bumwine (Courtesy Adam Thornton)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:27:30 AM
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Vintage Mex wrestler fotonovela scans
This site features the scanned-in pages of a bloody, hilarious vintage Mexican fotonovela about the masked wrestler Santo.
Link
(via We Make Money Not Art)
Update: Jacob sez, "you need to see this review of a Turkish film called '3 Dev Adam' that he appeared in. Not only did he fight side-by-side with Captain America, but they were fighting Spider-Man. Yes, you read that right, Spider-Man is evil in this film and instead of slinging webs, he carries a switchblade and hides in tee-pees. I couldn't make this stuff up if I tried! See the photos for yourself."
Update: Cesar sez, "This is a Flickr set I've just created with the Spanish text (poorly) translated into English using the notes feature, I'm sure it will be helpful to some people and to better understand the story in that wonderful piece. I wasted roughly 3 hours of my employer's time in the process."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:53:36 AM
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Seattle Monorail has a Posse stickers
The Seattle Monorail has a posse, and there are printable sticker-templates to prove it. Of course, many things have posses. Andre the Giant, Charles Darwin, Wil Wheaton -- and never forget, Fair Use (I gave out FAIR USE HAS A POSSE stickers to a group of DRM engineers at a standards-setting meeting earlier this month; the Motion Picture Association rep asked for one too, because "my clients rely on fair use to make movies") (rhyming alternatives for ____ ____ HAS A POSSE: JPEG COMPRESSION IS LOSSY and NO ONE DANCES LIKE FOSSE and A ROLLING STONE IS RARELY MOSSY)
Link
(Thanks, Graham!)
Update: See also Andre the Giant is So Passe stickers, courtesy Jason Sturgill.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
03:56:14 AM
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Duck Hunt/Doom mashup
IZ Reloaded sez, "Some cool folks have combined the classic NES game Duck Hunt with Doom. Duck Doom Deluxe is an updated version of the 2004 Duck Doom. I've been playing this game quite often recently and it is highly addictive. The objective is simple. Shoot as many ducks as you can with Doom weapons such as The Super Shotgun, The Chaingun, The Rocket Launcher and The BFG-900!"
Link
(Thanks, IZ Reloaded!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
03:39:46 AM
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Thursday, September 22, 2005
Rita: bloggage, podcasts, newpapers become web-only
This site includes a Google hack that combines Google Maps with hurricane tracking data, for a comprehensive view of Rita's activities: Link
Kathryn Cramer says,
Link to details.
Try this with that GoogleMaps plot of Hurricane Rita. First, shift to the satellite view, and then zoom in on the area of the map where Rita shifted from a Category 4 to a Category 5 and back again. You can see that the shift corresponds to the level of the sea floor.
Here's a story on Defensetech about drone aircraft tracking hurricanes: Link
Houston TV Station KHOU is reporting Rita updates on a blog which may become their primary distribution means if things get rough. Includes MP3 audio and text story summaries. Link
Boing Boing reader oboreruhito says,
The newspaper I work for in Lake Charles, La., in the path of Hurricane Rita, has shifted operations to blogspot, since everyone who can update our usual site has evacuated. They will be updating as news occurs and as long as they have power. Lake Charles, located about 15-20 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, is expecting to see quite a bit of flooding from the storm surge, and more from the rains; everything south of I-10 will experience flooding, and areas 8 feet above sea level and lower are expected to be underwater for at least some time. The waterways around here feed into the gulf, and the storm surge alone will cause most of them to crest. I know the focus is on the Texas coast, but we're expecting to get quite a bit of damage and 100+ mph winds ourselves.Link.
The group site Houston metblog also has frequent first-person updates: Link
BB reader Justin says,
Here is the Galveston, TX 61 St Fishing Pier Internal Security Camera. iSeeCamera Client, live video feed, 50 yards offshore inside the bait shop on the pier. We do not expect the pier nor the webcams to survive. LinkHere's the Houston Chronicle's "Stormwatchers" site:
Welcome to our experiment in citizen journalism. The bloggers who are posting here live in various parts of the city, and they will be posting their experiences as Hurricane Rita approaches and moves through the area. Bloggers here are posting on their own and are solely responsible for the content of their blogs.Link
Here's the latest NOAA advisory, and more will be here.
(Thanks, Mark Simmonds, Michael Slavitch, Mark Tyndall)
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
10:15:39 PM
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Katrina: "I took exactly one comic from my house."
New Orleans native Leo McGovern is best known for running a cool monthly zine called Antigravity, promoting NOLA's alt-music scene, and producing a twice yearly event called NO[DIY] that sheds light on the work of indie creatives. He and his loved ones lost pretty much everything to Katrina. He's blogging about it now. Above, a "before" snapshot taken just as he was evacuating; below, what he returned to.
Snip:
To say words cannot describe a situation like this is just wrong. The easiest thing to say is that it's fucked up. Demolished. Destroyed. Catastrophic. Cataclysmic. Some words may seem overbearing, but when you're standing there looking at all your possessions scattered about like Neptune flailed about your house, no situation can seem worse. It makes you wonder whether it'd be easier if a tornado simply hit the house and flung everything to another city. At least then you don't have to walk on things that used to be on bookshelves.Link to full post.Seeing my comics strewn about was the hardest. I've never been a mint freak, meaning I didn't really care if my comics were in the best condition. If I could read them, that was the important thing. I do have a theory about books though. They're like furniture. You buy a book to read just like you buy a couch to sit on. Sure, the book or couch will be messed up eventually, but you like to keep it in the best condition possible for as long as possible. To see my books in the worst condition they could ever be in, and to walk on them, seemed preposterous.
(...) I took exactly one comic from my house. I happened to have a TRANSMETROPOLITAN #1 in a hard case hanging on the wall, and it was above the water line. That was the one comic I took, out of all the others that lay on the ground there. I took some of the posters, too, and some action figures that were above the walkway. One comic.
After we took what we could, we decided to go explore.
Here's that comic. Here's the guy who wrote it.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:35:00 PM
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Why one must proofread, not just spell-check, court filings
PDF Link. Skim both pages, then read graf one on page one very carefully. Yow. (Thanks, Jason Schultz!)posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:28:06 PM
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Court rules no right to tell TSA screeners they live in a bubble
Jason Schultz says,You can wear a jacket with "Fuck The Draft" on the back into a court of law, but, according to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, don't even think about swearing loudly at any TSA officials who make you miss your plane.LinkToday, the Court ruled that TSA can arrest and fine you for swearing loudly and belligerently while you're being searched at the airport security check because it "interferes" with the TSA's job. The court rejected any First Amendment right to free speech, claiming that while asking a "good-faith question" with profanity in it or even "grumbling" with profanity would not be enough for a fine, the conduct here somehow constituted more.
Specifically, the court ruled:
Petitioner’s conduct in this case, however, cannot be characterized as simply asking a good-faith question while using profanities or as grumbling about not being allowed to walk back through the metal detector or the delay in being hand-wanded.
Rather, Petitioner interfered with the screener in the performance of his duties by actively engaging the screener with loud and belligerent conduct, and, after being asked not to use profanities, by exclaiming that the screener should be in a different line of work, that he should live in a bubble, and that it was a free country in which he could say what he pleased.
Due to the escalating loud and belligerent nature of Petitioner’s conduct directed at the screener, the screener needed to shut down his line and call over his supervisor. Thus, Petitioner’s conduct interfered with the screener’s duty to both thoroughly screen passengers and to do so in an efficient manner.
Is this really a justifiable difference? So its okay to ask the TSA "Why the fuck do I have to take my shoes off?" but not to tell them they live in a bubble or that this is a free country?
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:23:28 PM
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JetBlue emergency landing: life imitates Snowcrash
From Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash:[Hiro] turns off all of the techno-shit in his goggles. All it does is confuse him; he stands there reading statistics about his own death even as it's happening to him. Very post-modern. Time to get immersed in Reality, like all the people around him.And from CNN:
The airliner circled Southern California for hours, crippled by a faulty landing gear, while inside its cabin 140 passengers watched their own life-and-death drama unfolding on live television. [...] [Pia] Varma, 23, and other passengers said the plane's monitors carried live DirectTV broadcasts on the plane's problems until just a few minutes before landing at Los Angeles International Airport.(thanks, nop@nop.com)
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:18:58 PM
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HOWTO return faulty goods in the US
This morning I blogged a guide for British shoppers who end up with faulty computers or electronics, explaining the statutory rights that guarantee you value for money.Now David Barzelay, a US law-student has put together an equivalent guide for US shoppers:
First of all, when purchasing, it is of use to mention to the salesman specifically what you want the product to do. I worked at Circuit City selling computers for a summer and some holidays, and I know how those salesman usually work. They can generally be cajoled into making nearly any kind of promise whatever, because they (rightly) think they'll never be held accountable. So, if you say specifically, "I don't want to have to buy another computer for three years or so at least," and the salesman says, "Oh, you won't. This computer will last about that long or longer," you now have a promise from the seller. If he says, "Sure, your wireless internet connection will work all the way across your house," that's an enforceable promise. Try to elicit these kinds of statements, since they really get at a promise that the product is "fit for the specific purposes" for which you are purchasing the computer (or other product). Take note of any other specific promises the salesman makes, because those promises will generally be enforceable. Write them down, quoting as closely as possible, and assign a time and date to them. Note that, though you are writing them down, salesman will almost never be willing to sign anything agreeing they made those statements. Don't even try.Link (Thanks, David!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:50:26 PM
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Scanned in coconut-flake cake cookbook
Humuhumu sez, "Thought you might get a kick out of this: it's a 1959 promotional brochure from Baker's Coconut. It's chock-full of over-saturated full-color images of animal cakes coated with dyed coconut flakes. I grew up with this brochure (as my mother did before me). I spent so many hours as a kid daydreaming about these cakes, and struggled each birthday to choose which one I wanted. I think my favorite was the Dandy-Lion Cake. I've put the whole brochure up on my photo gallery."
Link
(Thanks, Humuhumu!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:46:33 PM
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Purse made from keyboard keys
These keyboard-key-covered purses are available in white and black. I'm not clear on where or how you get one, though.
Link
(via Wonderland)
Update: Joreg wrote to the manufacturer and these bags aren't in production (dammit).
Update 2: The manufacturer wrote to me and said, it is indeed in production (w00t).
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
04:13:59 PM
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Reporters Without Borders on Blogging Anonymously
Reports Without Borders has shipped a free guide for "Bloggers and Cyber-Dissidents" on publishing anonymously without getting fired, imprisoned or executed.Link (via Copyfight)Bloggers need to be anonymous when they are putting out information that risks their safety. The cyber-police are watching and have become expert at tracking down "trouble- makers." This handbook gives advice on how to post material without revealing who you are ("How to blog anonymously," by Ethan Zuckerman). It's best of course to have the technical skills to be anonymous online, but following a few simple rules can sometimes do the trick. This advice is of course not for those (terrorists, racketeers or pedophiles) who use the Internet to commit crimes. The handbook is simply to help bloggers encountering opposition because of what they write to maintain their freedom of expression. However, the main problem for a blogger, even under a repressive regime, isn't security. It's about getting the blog known, finding an audience. A blog without any readers won't worry the powers-that-be, but what's the point of it? This handbook makes technical suggestions to make sure a blog gets picked up by the major search-engines (the article by Olivier Andrieu), and gives some more "journalistic" tips about this ("What really makes a blog shine," by Mark Glaser).
Some bloggers face the problem of filtering. Most authoritarian regimes now have the technical means to censor the Internet. In Cuba or Vietnam, you won't be able to access websites that criticise the government or expose corruption or talk about human rights abuses. So-called "illegal" and "subversive" content is automatically blocked by filters. But all bloggers need free access to all sites and to the blogosphere or the content of their blogs will become irrelevant.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
02:09:19 PM
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WiFi plastic bunny waggles ears when you get mail
The WiFi-enabled plastic Nabaztag bunny lights up and waggles its ears when you get mail.Link (Thanks, Pete!)I'm a newborn bunny, one of a unique species of intelligent, smart objects. I'm 23 cm tall, I wriggle my ears, I sing, I talk and my body lights up and pulsates with hundreds of colours. Thanks to Wi-Fi technology, I'm always connected to the Internet. Oh, and I'll only set you back 95 €.
Thanks to me, your friends and family will have a totally new way of keeping in touch: through the web, text messages, their phone or email… plenty of different ways to send you messages, music, MP3 files that I'll read out to you… or sing out, or even dance. Your friends will no longer be confined to the depths of your computer or phone: they'll come alive in your home, in the noble guise of a rabbit.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
01:59:33 PM
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Biodiesel cars can run on plain filtered coconut oil
You can run biodiesel engines on filtered coconut oil!Vanuatan entrepreneur Tony Deamer has adapted his fleet of rental cars to run on coconut oil, a plentiful local commodity. Unlike with many biofuels, coconut oil doens't need to be transesterized - mixed with sodium hydroxide and alcohol to change its chemical composition - to run in a diesel engine. Filtered and warmed to temperatures about 25C, coconut oil is a better than satisfactory substitute for "mineral diesel" - it burns more slowly, which produces more even pressure on engine pistons, reducing engine wear, and lubricates the engine more effectively. Deamer runs most of his vehicles on a mixture of 85% coconut oil and 15% kerosene, but has demonstrated that modified diesel engines run filtered coconut oil quite happily.Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:54:06 PM
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Spring-loaded desktop stapler
My brother Charles Pescovitz is impressed with the ingenuity and simplicity in the design of the Paper Pro stapler. It's basically staple gun technology stuffed into a desktop stapler form factore. The Paper Pro spring-loaded so, according to the company, it only takes 12lbs of "hand/finger force to shoot staples" into your stack compared to the 30lbs of hand force required by traditional desktop staplers. The basic model is around $16. Link
posted by
David Pescovitz at
12:25:11 PM
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Playing FLICKR v2.0
Playing FLICKR v2.0 is a digital urban atmospheres experience installed by Mediamatic on the 11th floor of Amsterdam's PostCS building. Visitors to the bar/restaurant/club 11 are invited to send SMS's containing keywords of their choosing to the installation. The software then grabs Flickr images tagged with those keywords and displays them on the restaurant's panoramic screens.Link (Thanks, Anthony Townsend!)
posted by
David Pescovitz at
12:14:37 PM
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Old Daily Show sets auctioned for charity
Jesse sez, "The (old, late, lamented) Daily Show set is being auctioned off for charity. Remember that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer had the set of the Merv Griffin Show in his apartment? That can be you, and the proceeds go to 826 NYC, the literacy center founded by McSweeney's Man Dave Eggers."
Link
(Thanks, Jesse!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:11:51 PM
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Real-life sensor-enabled robotic Half-Life "sentry gun"
These Half Life fans built their own "Sentry Gun" as an exercise in order to learn to use their robotic machine-shop tools. It sports a USB interface and enough logic to draw crosshairs over the real world usingLink (Thanks, Mike!)Most of my software had been tested in my room with the small turret. To test outside, we had to drag my huge (and ancient) 1.5ghz, 512meg RDRAM computer to the backyard. Most of the testing involved me directing my little brother in front of the turret, him getting shot, and then running away. Polo shirts, not surprisingly, offer very little protection from BB's that are prone to leaving little welts. When I originally wrote the software, I added code so it would use the Microsoft speech API to say "Freeze" and offer various instructions to a target that it had acquired. At the end of 5 seconds, if the target moved 20 pixels in either direction, it would fire. The speech synthesizer was too much for my computer and it would stutter, entirely missing (rather important) commands and freezing the computer up. I'm sure multithreading will help with this particular problem, but for testing we turned off the speech synthesizer and left on the delayed firing that waited until the target moved.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:08:15 PM
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Psychedelic Dot-Coms for sale
Someone is selling a slew of psychedelic drug-related .com's (and .ca's) on eBay. For the Buy It Now price of $245,000 you can own such valuable Web real estate as: SHROOMS.COM, PSYCHEDELIC.COM, HowToGrowShrooms.com, TheStashBox.com, Marijuana101.com, shroomradio.com, psilocybins.com, and dozens more. Link (Thanks, Vann Hall!)posted by
David Pescovitz at
12:03:01 PM
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Stolen phone in woman's ass
Somehow I missed this ASStounding bit of news last week from Romania. Apparently, Petronela Brandus, 24, was spotted snatching someone's mobile phone but police couldn't locate it on her person. That's because it was in her person. From The Register:In the time-honoured fashion, they then rang the number and heard the tell-tale sound of internal phone action. In this case, however, Brandus had not gone for the relatively-simple vaginal option, but rather the less convenient back passage route.Link (Thanks, Anthony Townsend!)
It did her no good. Back at the station, a strip search quickly retrieved the offending item...
One question remains: what then happened to the phone? ...Its owner subsequently accepted it back.
Officer (Madalin) Taranu explained: "The station doctor extracted the phone and we sprayed it with disinfectant."
posted by
David Pescovitz at
11:49:58 AM
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Glow worm effect used for food safety
Moscow State University chemists are copying the principle that gives a glow worm its glow to test whether meat or milk is tainted with bacteria. The bit of biomimicry works by combining a food sample with a genetically-engineered enzyme that causes the luminescence in the presence of microbes. From Food Production Daily:A monitor then registers the quantity of luminescence and estimates the number of microbes. The scientists say they have synthesised the enzyme required to cause the luminescence. They have also produced analysis sets based on the technique.Link (Thanks, Vann Hall!)
They have established a company called Lumtech to market their method, according to Informnauka, Russia's science news agency.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
11:16:09 AM
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Using Play-Doh to control video playback speed
Brendan Dawes made a Play-Doh interface to control the speed of video playback. He's got a webcam aimed at a lump of Play-Doh. A program looks at the amount of Play-Doh and adjusts the speed of the video accordingly. Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
10:13:42 AM
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Cute kids' notebook labels
The latest issue of Martha Stewarts kids has a link to a PDF file with a set of adorable stickers for kids' notebooks by Marc Boutavant. Link (via Drawn!)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
10:03:53 AM
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Headsup for Rita evacuees -- shelter info from BB reader
Boing Boing readers in Houston and other areas in Rita's projected path -- and yes, spaceships, I'm talking to you too -- y'all stay safe out there. Reader Bruce Heerssen in Houston says,I am currently in the Heights in Houston, which is at the highest elevation in the city; about 50 to 60 feet above sea level. I'm still not sure if I'll evacuate. If not, I'll be at Fitzgerald's on White Oak Drive, which is a very strongly built building that has weathered several strong hurricanes and has never flooded. I will make a final decision this evening. In any case, I will try to be back as soon as possible to provide any assistance I can to my neighbors, many of whom are going to ride it out in their homes or in substantial buildings in the area. I will provide reports and pictures when and where I can.And Bruce passes on some info from Moveon.org:I will have my computers (including a laptop) and my wireless networking gear and I am willing to provide wireless service wherever I can get power and internet. If you know anybody that has an electricity generator and/or satellite or wifi gear in the area, please get them in touch with me and we can work on providing internet services.
Local news stations report that TXDOT (Texas Department of Transportation) is opening inbound lanes to outbound traffic on I-45 North now, and Highway 290 West and I-10 West later. Traffic is now moving at a crawl when it moves at all and some people have run out of gas after having been on the road for 12 to 24 hours. There is now almost no gas left anywhere in the city. Thankfully, I was able to fill my tank last night. Emergency workers are doing what they can to reach those stranded people and move them to emergency shelter or at least give them a little gas to get them a few more miles down the highway.
If you are being evacuated from your home due to hurricane Rita and need a place to stay, please visit HurricaneHousing.org or call 1-800-638-4559.Right now, there are over 265,000 spaces being offered to evacuees all over the country. We estimate that between 15,000 and 30,000 hurricane Katrina evacuees have already found temporary housing through the site.
By all reports, hurricane Rita threatens to be devastating—and after Katrina, we'd hate to see anyone take a chance staying in the path of the storm for lack of another place to go. If you're in the affected area and need a safe place to stay, please take advantage of this resource. (...)
-– Noah, Justin, Carrie, Micayla and the MoveOn.org Civic Action Team
Wednesday, September 21st, 2005
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:17:13 AM
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Doom as a turn-based mobile RPG
DoomRPG is a turn-based role-playing game based on Doom for mobile phones.
Link
(via Gizmodo)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:16:41 AM
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Hand-written manuscript of Alice's Adventures Underground
Nick sez, "Alice in Wonderland and 13 other rare manuscripts are in the British Library's 'Turning the Pages' collection. Other works include the Diamond Sutra and the Leonardo Notebook."
Link
(Thanks, Nick!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:41:00 AM
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Finnish record exec: Mac users should just buy regular CD players
The head of the IFPI in Finland (record industry shills) has told government that it's fine that the new Finnish copyright law may make it impossible to move music to your Mac or GNU/Linux box, since this is a "privilege" and those people can just buy CD players."Now, we need to understand that listening to music on your computer is an extra privilege. Normally people listen to music on their car or through their home stereos", says Kyyrae and continues; "If you are a Linux or Mac user, you should consider purchasing a regular CD player."Link (Thanks, Kimmo!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
07:32:54 AM
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Record industry releases malware that deletes your P2P software
IFPI -- the international equivalent of the RIAA -- has released a piece of software that will delete your P2P software, strongly implying that P2P is itself illegal and using ridiculous, non-legal terms like "copyright theft" (umm, you keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think it means). So much for 17,000,000 freely shareable CC-licensed works, so much for the public domain, so much for everything except for content from giant publishing orgs.Digital File Check helps to remove or block any of the unwanted "file-sharing" programmes commonly used to distribute copyrighted files illegally. It also allows the user to delete copyrighted music and video files from the "shared folders" of the computer from where they are commonly swapped illegally on the internet.No word on whether this malware also deletes your web-browser, email client and IM software, since all these, too, are sometimes used to infringe on copyright. Link (Thanks, Lu!)Digital File Check has been developed by IFPI, representing the recording industry worldwide, in conjunction with the Motion Picture Association, representing the film industry. DFC will be available online and on CD over the coming months in countries including Denmark, Finland, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
John Kennedy, Chairman and CEO of IFPI said: "Digital File Check is an educational tool aimed at making life easier for people who want to enjoy music responsibly and legally on the internet, or who want their families, friends and colleagues to do so.
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Cory Doctorow at
07:04:38 AM
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iPod, circa 1954
The BBC has a great story on a pioneering 1954 transistor radio that bears a striking resemblance to the iPod in form, disruptiveness and marketing.Link (Thanks, Mike!)The Regency TR-1 transistor radio, made in 1954, had a decent claim to be a genuine piece of innovation, however. It was, by popular agreement, the world's first commercially sold transistor pocket radio.
Small enough to hold in your hand, and powered by batteries, it came in a variety of delicious colours, including green, pearlescent blue, lavender, white and red.
The device went on sale just in time for hip young gadget freaks to hear Elvis Presley singing That's All Right - recognised by many as the moment at which rock'n'roll was born.
The TR-1 was marketed under the slogan "See it! Hear it! Get it!"
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Cory Doctorow at
06:55:40 AM
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RFID crackers hotwire cars, steal gas, sniff phones
This paper, "Analysis of the Texas Instruments DST RFID," is a thoroughgoing description of the vulnerabilities in commond RFID tag technology. In a series of related videos, the authors snoop on mobile phones, hotwire a car, and steal gas from a pump-payment system, all using breaks to the RFID. Amazing stuff.
Link
(via Beyond the Beyond)
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Cory Doctorow at
04:44:57 AM
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If Pirates Ruled photoshopping contest
Today's Worth1000 photoshopping contest theme is "If Pirates Ruled" -- some wonderful stuff there for a little belated Talk Like a Pirate Day action.
Link
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Cory Doctorow at
04:40:29 AM
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London cops mug blogger for computers, phones, data, call him a "terrorist"
David Mery is a London geek who was going down into the tube one night in July when he was arrested on suspicion of terrorism. He was held, his flat was searched, his computers and phones were confiscated, his data was copied, and his photo, DNA and fingerprints were taken.He was released the next day, but his computers were not returned, nor was his record expunged.
Mery's "crime" was carrying a "bulky" backpack (e.g., a laptop bag), wearing an "unseasonably warm" coat (it was one of the coldest July days on record), and "avoiding the police" (he was looking at an SMS on his phone when he went through the turnstiles and so didn't make eye-contact with the officers there).
There is not one single piece of evidence to suggest that Mery is a terrorist, and yet the tools of his livelihood and all his personal data are now squirreled away in a police evidence locker -- the police haven't even given him an inventory or receipt for all the goods they stole.
This isn't an anti-terror investigation, it's a mugging. And it could happen to you. Hell, if it happened to me, I'd probably just be deported, since I'm only an immigrant, and not a citizen.
If you don't want to get mugged by the coppers whose salary you pay, write to your MP and city councillors about David's plight. I just sent a note with much of this post and some additional text to mine:
This is institutionalised theft masquerading as anti-terror investigation. It makes Londoners less safe because it deprives us of the certainty that the police are taking sensible measures to protect us against terrorism, and because it instills the fear that the copper in the tube is a mugger in waiting, who might at any moment swoop in and confiscate thousands of pounds' worth of kit and insert us into the criminal justice system.Link (Thanks, Ewan!)
Update: David sez, "I was not denied counsel. I chose not get a solicitor while at the
station. This was probably a mistake (not used to be in such situations),
but it was entirely my choice."
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Cory Doctorow at
04:38:16 AM
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Wednesday, September 21, 2005
GameMan: 100lb, 3' GameBoy
The GameMan is a 3-foot-tall, 100lb Game Boy that actually plays games on gigantic custom cartridges. It's the brainchild of an art student named Jeff.
Link
(via Make Blog)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:34:19 PM
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HOWTO get your faulty UK goods replaced
Former# Your contract is with the seller, NOT the manufacturer. If (say) you buy a Toshiba laptop from PC World and it goes wrong, don't be fobbed off by PC World telling you to get the manufacturer to repair it under warrenty. Legally, PC World MUST deal with the problem.Link (via Plasticbag)# Goods must be fit for purpose, including any purpose you specifically mention to the seller. Fit for purpose is a great phrase - always use it, as it oftens triggers escalation to the next level of service. They must also be "of reasonable quality" which is another great phrase to quote at people.
# You have the right to reject faulty goods and obtain a refund, replacement, or repair. This is up to a "reasonable" time, but reasonable is not defined in law as it depends on circumstances. For example, if you buy a new laptop but don't use the wireless networking, only to find six months later when you first try it that it doesn't work, you're perfectly entitled to reject the goods and ask for a replacement. EVEN IF YOU SIGN AN ACCEPTANCE NOTE, YOU DON'T LOSE YOUR RIGHTS.
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Cory Doctorow at
09:31:21 PM
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Database of voice-jail shortcuts to speak to humans at big companies
The Find-a-Human database is a collection of touch-tone recipes that get you through big companies' voice-jail systems and through to a live operator.Astoria Federal Savings 800-ASTORIA When you hear the womans voice press zero. Will transfer right away to a human.Link (via Making Light)Bank of America 800-900-9000 Hit zero twice, after menu choices play
Bank One 877-226-5663 Press 0 thru the options to get a live person
Chase 800-CHASE24 Hit five, pause, then hit one, four, star, zero
CIBC 800-465-2422 Enter card# and pin, then press 0
CitiBank 800-374-9700 Zero
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:27:27 PM
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Three James Patrick Kelly audio stories free and CC-licensed
Hugo and Nebula-award winning sf writer James Patrick Kelly is a brilliant writer, a fantastic teacher (being his student at the Clarion Writers' Workshop went a long way to turning me into a real writer) and a genuine mensch.He's also a tremendous reader. Periodically, Jim goes into a studio and records himself giving spellbinding readings of his stories, which he then releases gratis on the Web, under a Creative Commons license, with a tipjar for donations to pay for more studio time.
Jim has just posted three more stories: "The Edge of Nowhere," "Barry Westphal Crashes The Singularity" and "Proof of the Existence of God (And an Afterlife)." I'm downloading them right now, because these have to be the very next thing I listen to!
Link
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Cory Doctorow at
09:24:33 PM
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EFF open house/party next Sunday in SF
w00t! EFF's having a fifteenth birthday party/open house next Sunday!When: Sunday, October 2nd, 2005 at 5:00 PMLink
Where: EFF Headquarters in San Francisco, 454 Shotwell Street, 94110Mark your calendars! EFF is 15 years old this year, and we are going to celebrate! We're having an anniversary bash at our San Francisco headquarters on Shotwell Street on Sunday, October 2nd, 2005. The party starts at 5 p.m.
Join us for delicious Mexican food and drinks from Pancho Villa, hear a special address from our founders, John Perry Barlow and John Gilmore, taste our special 3D cake, and enjoy both the grooves of Gypsy Jazz from the Zegnotronic Rocket Society, and the hypnotic beats of DJ Ripley and Kid Kameleon.
Our celebration is free of charge and open to anyone, so bring your friends and family. We look forward to celebrating with you!
Please let us know you're coming so we don't run out of food and libations! Send an email to rsvp@eff.org, or call 415-436-9333 x129.
EFF's office is located at 454 Shotwell Street and is BART accessible. Take BART to 16th and Mission, walk to 19th street and take a left, and take another left on Shotwell Street, three blocks down. We are located between 18th and 19th on Shotwell.
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Cory Doctorow at
09:20:13 PM
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Refugee camp in Central Park, courtesy Doctors Without Borders
Doctors without Borders is building a refugee camp in Manhattan to give New Yorkers a feel for refugee life:A three-day interactive Doctors Without Borders exhibit lets New Yorkers in on the misery at a simulated refugee camp in Central Park, complete with temporary housing, a heath care clinic and a food distribution center. Visitors will be able to taste emergency food used to combat malnutrition, learn how basic sanitation is essential to survival, and hear refugees' stories.Link (Thanks, Bill!)
Update: Geoff sez, "I made a complete jackass of myself today because I dragged 68 11th graders to see the MSF/DWB Refugee Camp in Central Park today, only to find out that the thing never went up--it was canceled..."
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Cory Doctorow at
09:15:45 PM
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Smart rope tells you how loaded and frayed it is
My pal Quinn Norton has an excellent piece in today's Wired News about Squidlabs, a company that makes cool stuff like a smart sensor-laden rope that can tell you when it's going to break:Link (via Ambiguous)That philosophy paid off earlier this year, when the group announced its first product, a smart rope that displays information about its state in real time. The rope, which can be cut and generally used like normal rope, has a display out the end that tells how much load it's carrying and even how frayed it is. It's expected to be on the shelves of Home Depot in about six months.
Other current projects include a laser location system for emergency first responders, a tablet PC and camera that overlays data on the real world for utility workers, a molding machine that creates prescription lenses in minutes for a few dollars -- and those are projects they can talk about. More half-made prototypes point to projects sealed under nondisclosure agreements.
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Cory Doctorow at
09:11:30 PM
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Authors Guild sues Google -- Xeni on NPR (UPDATE)
UPDATED: Cory Doctorow weighs in on the debate, at bottom of post.
This morning on the NPR News program Day to Day, I spoke with host Noah Adams about the legal battle Google has on its hands -- from some angry writers.
As blogged here on Boing Boing yesterday, the Authors Guild lawsuit claims that Google's effort to make books searchable and findable on the Internet violates copyright law.
Link to NPR "Writers Sue Google.com over Book Search" segment (airs nationwide, and audio will be archived online after 12PM Pacific / 3PM Eastern)
Previously on Boing Boing:
Authors Guild sues Google over print program
Reader comment: Tony Sanfilippo says,
I don't think you're telling the whole story here. I'm the Tony Sanfilippo quoted in the AP story and who also appears in Google Print's FAQ here.Reader comment: Jason Schultz counters:I have fully embraced Google Print for publishers, even wrote a study delivered at BEA and AAUP about using the Long Tail and Google Print to find new markets for scholarship, but this is entirely different.
Google Print for Libraries has two pretty major flaws. One being giving a digital copy of all of our works to the participating libraries where they will then most likely be used in e-course reserves without any compensation to ether author or publisher. University Libraries have an awful track record at compensating for e-course reserves and post our content frequently without any restrictions or security.
The second being Google will be profiting (through GoogleAds) on this content again without compensating the authors or publishers. Fair use should exclude commercial use. Even Creative Commons licenses (which I grant to my flikr account) gives you that option.
If we expect the production of good scholarship to be a viable, it has to be paid for somehow. I work hard to keep the price of our books as low as possible because I understand accessibility is directly related to cost, but until someone is willing to completely sponsor our work, we must protect our ability to break even.
Two quick points:UPDATE: Author and Boing Boing co-editor Cory Doctorow says:1) Fair use has always included commercial use. It's a myth that you have to be non-commercial to succeed in being a fair user. 2 Live Crew won a fair use case against Roy Orbison in 1994 by *selling* parodies of their "Pretty Woman" cover. Connectix beat back Sony in 2001 with a fair use defense to protect their Playstation emulator, even though they had to make hundreds of copies of the Sony Playstation operating system to do it. The bottom line with fair use is not whether you are commercial or not but whether you are creating new "transformative" uses of works instead of merely substituting your copies for the original. Here, there is no real argument that anyone is foregoing purchase of a book to use Google Print.
2) If University Libraries are violating copyright with e-reserve copies, then the Author's Guild should sue them and not blame Google. The reason they don't is because that would pit them against educational institutions and librarians, a much harder target to go after, at least in the public eye.
1. "University Libraries have an awful track record at compensating for e-course reserves and post our content frequently without any restrictions or security."Universities already have a broad exemption to copyright under fair use doctrine. That they compensate authors at ALL for photocopying and web-posting excerpts from copyrighted represents a good-faith compromise, not a failure. And as to "restrictions" -- damned right universities don't use DRM!
2. "The second being Google will be profiting (through GoogleAds) on this content again without compensating the authors or publishers.
Fair use should exclude commercial use. Even Creative Commons licenses (which I grant to my flikr account) gives you that option."
Fair use does NOT require noncommercial use! 2Live Crew's Pretty Woman knockoff was a
top-tencommercially released single that was still a fair use of theJohnny CashRoy Orbison lick.CC licenses may allow restriction of commercial use, but CC licenses are subordinate to fair use itself (as is stated in the second clause of every CC license). There's nothing in a CC license or the publication of a book that prevents commercial re-use per se (I'm sure that Tony's press's commercial books are themselves filled with fair use quotations).
3. "If we expect the production of good scholarship to be a viable, it has to be paid for somehow."
For starters, Google Print won't take a penny away from a publisher: what publishers are complaining about is that Google's figured out a way to make money from books and isn't proposing to cut them in for a share, but they're treating this new money that Google's making as though it comes out of their end.
As to supporting scholarship, how about our state-supported University system, then? Oh, and the new sales generated by Google Print? Both of these go a long way to supporting scholarship without requiring that universities be denied access to searachble indices of their own bought-and-paid-for collections.
4. "Google Print for Libraries has two pretty major flaws. One being giving a digital copy of all of our works to the participating libraries where they will then most likely be used in e-course reserves without any compensation to ether author or publisher."
If you support scholarship, how can you reject giving UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES searchable digital indices to their own collections because some of them might use them in a way that undermines your bottom line?
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Xeni Jardin at
09:05:02 PM
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Creepy cops violate restricted database to target journalist
After an Edmonton journalist wrote an article criticizing red light and speed cameras in the city (citing statistics that the cameras "raise about $14 million annually for police" but do nothing to reduce traffic injuries), the police there targeted him in a sting operation, hoping to bust him on drunk driving charges.The police broke the law when they used a restricted database to obtain information on the journalist (who, much to the dismay of the police, had a clean record). The police were also unsuccessful in their attempt to bust the journalist.
Now the police are saying they were only doing their duty to serve and protect... themselves, that is. Link
Reader comment: Sneaver says: "Regarding your post about Edmonton cops targeting journalists who criticize them, it's much worse than that. The cops have also targetted others who dare to speak out against them or fight back, e.g. one of the leading defence lawyers who has spoken out against police corruption and dirty tricks has repeatedly had his privacy invaded and been subjected to a smear campaign. Here are a couple of relevant links: here and here.
"Our city has lost several police chiefs in the last few years, in large part to all the scandals and corruption within the police force. It's sad how things have got so out of control here."
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Mark Frauenfelder at
01:33:53 PM
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NYT on the science of dirty words
In yesterday's New York Times, excellent science writer Natalie Angier surveys several intriguing scientific studies on cursing. From the article:Some researchers are so impressed by the depth and power of strong language that they are using it as a peephole into the architecture of the brain, as a means of probing the tangled, cryptic bonds between the newer, "higher" regions of the brain in charge of intellect, reason and planning, and the older, more "bestial" neural neighborhoods that give birth to our emotions...
...Investigators have examined the physiology of cursing, how our senses and reflexes react to the sound or sight of an obscene word. They have determined that hearing a curse elicits a literal rise out of people. When electrodermal wires are placed on people's arms and fingertips to study their skin conductance patterns and the subjects then hear a few obscenities spoken clearly and firmly, participants show signs of instant arousal.
Their skin conductance patterns spike, the hairs on their arms rise, their pulse quickens, and their breathing becomes shallow.
Interestingly, said Kate Burridge, a professor of linguistics at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, a similar reaction occurs among university students and others who pride themselves on being educated when they listen to bad grammar or slang expressions that they regard as irritating, illiterate or déclassé.
"People can feel very passionate about language," she said, "as though it were a cherished artifact that must be protected at all cost against the depravities of barbarians and lexical aliens." Link
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David Pescovitz at
12:18:57 PM
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Smart people on tech and intelligence
C/NET has published the first in a series of articles about "Intelligence in the Internet Age." The big question is whether "new innovations and technologies make us smarter or just lazily reliant on computers." Of course, I don't think offloading brain cycles onto machines is necessarily lazy. And there's also the related riddle of how to define intelligence in the first place. Still, it's a deep issue and the article quotes some heavy thinkers like Vint Cerf, Doug Engelbart, Susana Urbina, and Jeff Hawkins, who co-wrote the excellent recent book On Intelligence. From C/NET's first installment:"It's true we don't remember anything anymore, but we don't need to," said Hawkins, the co-founder of Palm Computing and author of a book called "On Intelligence."Link
"We might one day sit around and reminisce about having to remember phone numbers, but it's not a bad thing. It frees us up to think about other things. The brain has a limited capacity, if you give it high-level tools, it will work on high-level problems," he said...
People feared the invention of the printing press because it would cause people to rely on books for their memory. Today, memory is more irrelevant than ever, argue some academics.
"What's important is your ability to use what you know well. There are people who are walking encyclopedias, but they make a mess of their lives. Getting a 100 percent on a written driving test doesn't mean you can drive," said Robert Sternberg, dean of Arts and Sciences at Tufts University and a professor of psychology.
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David Pescovitz at
11:19:26 AM
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Beyond Cyberpunk hypercard stack ported to the Web
In 1990, my friends Gareth Branwyn and Peter Sugarman conceived of of a hypercard stack exploring near future developments in art, entertainment, media, science, literature, technology, music, etc. I drew a bunch of illustrations and drew a promotional comic book for the stack, and Jim Leftwich designed many of the interface elements. It was called Beyond Cyberpunk! and was a critical success.The stack was ported to the Web, and Gareth unveiled it today. From his introdcutory essay, written in 1991:
Here's a review of the print version of Boing Boing from Beyond Cyberpunk. Link"CYBERPUNK." Is it a literary genre? Is it marketing hype? Is it the latest style in the culture industry? Is it the apotheosis of post-modernism? As Dieter, the German nihilo-art snob on Saturday Night Live would say: "Your questions have become tiresome." Regardless of what it is or isn't, Cyberpunk (also called "Techno-culture" or "New Edge" culture) has become a cultural phenomenon which bears looking into.
For a multiplicity of reasons, it has, in hardy memetic fashion, taken on a life of its own. This stack is an attempt at holding up, for further examination, some of the more interesting strains of this curious cultural mutation.
As we move deeper into the 1990's, Techno-culture has become "important." In the tunnels of the underground, in the halls of academe, and in pop culture, people are talking about C-punk, taking it seriously. What these people are talking about has little to do with Cyberpunk as a literary movement. Those SF-ers who proclaim that "Cyberpunk is dead," are probably right. As far as literature goes. To the current generation of users, Cyberpunk is synonymous with the hacker underground, non-Luddite forms of anarchy, and the strategy (borrowed from C-punk lit) of extrapolating "20 minutes into the future." Cyberpunk has come to mean simply the grafting of high-technology onto underground, street, and avant pop culture.
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Mark Frauenfelder at
11:10:26 AM
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Separated at birth: Quark and Scottish Arts Council Logos?
Quark's newly-unveiled logo bears a slight resemblance to the Scottish Arts Council's, don't you think? Veer has an interesting comment thread about it. Link (thanks, Rachel!)
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Mark Frauenfelder at
10:09:11 AM
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Pesco profiles of MacArthur Fellows
Turns out in my ScienceMatters@Berkeley online research digest, I've recently profiled the work of two of the just-announced 2005 MacArthur Fellows, recipients of $500,000 "genius" grants:Lu Chen, UC Berkeley
UC Berkeley neurobiologist Lu Chen believes that one of the best ways to learn about the brain is to build one of its key components. She and her colleagues are exploring how synapses form between neurons to make the circuits of the nervous system. Their approach is to identify the fewest ingredients necessary to create a synapse, mix them together in a "test tube" of non-neuronal cells, and let biology do the rest. Link
Michael Manga, UC Berkeley
The hulking steel volcano simulator in UC Berkeley professor Michael Manga's laboratory is a far cry from the baking soda-and-vinegar science fair projects of our youth. Of course, that's to be expected. What's unusual is that Manga, a professor of earth and planetary science, is trying to answer the same question posed by the quintessential science class experiment: Why do volcanoes erupt? Link
posted by
David Pescovitz at
09:42:24 AM
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Xeni on NPR, CNN: Sonic Weapons in Iraq -- and now, US cities
I filed a report for the NPR News program Day to Day on the latest in non-lethal acoustic weapons -- electronic devices that use sound to disperse crowds, "gain compliance," or beam spoken messages for long distances in areas where normal communications systems do not function.
Earlier this month I attended a demo of these technologies hosted by the LA Sheriff's department at Edwards Air Force Base in the California desert.
Here is a photo of one such device being used by military police in New Orleans, outside of the Superdome in post-Katrina flooding. This is the LRAD, or long-range acoustic device, made by American Technology Corporation. More photos of sonic devices from ATC and HPV Technologies, some of which are being used by authorities in New Orleans, are here.
The NPR report "Focused Sound 'Laser' for Crowd Control" airs today, and you can also listen to it here online (after 12PM PT/3PM ET). I believe they're podcasting these now, too, in addition to offering Real and Windows streams.
At 445PM Pacific / 745PM Eastern, I'll be a guest on CNN International to talk with Techwatch host Kristie LuStout about how the devices are being used in Iraq and other war zones, and why law enforcement agencies throughout the US are considering using them here in the States.
Previously on Boing Boing:
Wired News story "Sonic 'Lasers' Head to Flood Zone"
Reported presence of long-range acoustic device (LRAD) at protests
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:30:02 AM
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Free Culture UK: Trim UK copyright to 14 years + one renewal
Rufus Pollock of Free Culture UK writes in with news of the new 14+14 campaign:Copyright terms have been continually extended since they were passed into English law by the Statute of Queen Anne. As these monopoly rights have grown, so the public domain has shrunk, greatly reducing our access to creative works, condemning vast quantities of our culture to obscurity and disappearance, and limiting the opportunities for future creators to build upon the works of the past. The 14+14 campaign has a simple goal: to restore a balance long lost by returning copyright to its original term as laid down in the Statute of 14 years with the option of a 14 year renewal.Home Page, Petition and Testimony, Sign up
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Cory Doctorow at
09:01:57 AM
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Face transplant coming soon?
Surgeons at the Cleveland Clinic are now screening patients for the first face transplant. They plan to install a face from a dead donor onto an individual who is seriously disfigured. The Clinic just received the bioethics board approval to conduct the surgery last year. (Other previous BB posts about face transplants here, here, and here.) From USA Today:The "consent form" says that this surgery is so novel and its risks so unknown that doctors don't think informed consent is even possible.Link to USA Today article, Link to BBC News article about the controversy, Link to Time article about why the actual transplant may be delayed
Here is what it tells potential patients:
Your face will be removed and replaced with one donated from a cadaver, matched for tissue type, age, sex and skin color. Surgery should last 8 to 10 hours; the hospital stay, 10 to 14 days.
Complications could include infections that turn your new face black and require a second transplant or reconstruction with skin grafts. Drugs to prevent rejection will be needed lifelong, and they raise the risk of kidney damage and cancer.
After the transplant you might feel remorse, disappointment, or grief or guilt toward the donor. The clinic will try to shield your identity, but the press likely will discover it.
The clinic will cover costs for the first patient; nothing about others has been decided.
Another form tells donor families that the person receiving the face will not resemble their dead loved one. The recipient should look similar to how he or she did before the injury because the new skin goes on existing bone and muscle, which give a face its shape.
posted by
David Pescovitz at
08:23:34 AM
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Giant pink bunny
The Guardian Unlimited has an interesting article about unusual massive art installations, including the giant pink rabbit that Viennese art collective Gelatin installed on Colleto Fava mountain in northern Italy. It's 200 feet long and designed to stay in place until 2025. Link (Thanks to all who submitted "Hase/Rabbit/Coniglio" links!)
posted by
David Pescovitz at
07:54:38 AM
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Participants needed for synthetic "haunting"
Tech artist Usman Haque is seeking participants for a new project where he is artificially creating the "experience of a 'haunted' space." He and collaborator Chris French are generating fluctuations in humidity, temperature, infrasound and/or electromagnetic frequencies, all phenomena that parapsychologists have linked to ghostly hauntings. If you'll be in the London area over the next few weeks, you can set up an appointment by emailing event@haque.co.uk. (I wrote an article last year about one of Haque's previous projects. Link) From the invitation to be a subject in Haunt:As a participant you would be asked individually to spend up to one hour in the specially constructed chamber. Participation may involve periods of exposure to infrasound and/or magnetic fields. You may experience mildly unusual sensations and will be asked to keep a record of these.And from the project page:
"Infrasound" is sound at frequencies below approx. 20Hz, which is generally too low for humans to perceive as sound. The magnetic fields will be generated by electromagnetic coils and will be similar to those generated naturally by the Earth. The levels used in the experiment will be at or below levels detected in the natural environment. These too will generally not be perceptible on a conscious level and are well under ICNIRP guidelines for health and safety.
In some cases, participants will be exposed to neither phenomena, though these participants will not be informed of this until the end of the experiment. In these cases, participants will be given an opportunity to experience the space with all phenomena active, though the results will not be included in the dataset.
There are naturally questions regarding whether these phenomena arise out of existing natural and manmade constructions: power stations, draughty windows, leaking pipes. The project proposed here does not attempt to explain how the phenomena arise, or even how they give rise to haunted perceptions. Rather, the project focuses on how the psychology of human perception gives rise to the construction of space.Link
posted by
David Pescovitz at
07:43:09 AM
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Hamster deathmatch
An hilarious cartoon from Jared Purrington explains how to convert your pet hamster to a mean, lean pit-fighting machine, and stage hamster deathmatches with your pals.
Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
02:39:47 AM
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Debian flamewars as anthropological phenomena
My pal Biella Coleman is a geek anthropologist whose recently awarded PhD was given for a thesis on nerd culture, with special emphasis on free and open source projects. Biella's just released a fantastic paper on ethical dilemmas in Debian, called THREE ETHICAL MOMENTS IN DEBIAN, which you can download for free:The third ethical moment I investigate is crisis. As the number of developers in the Debian project has grown from one dozen to nearly one thousand, punctuated crises routinely emerge around particularly contested issues: matters of project transparency, internal and external communication, size, openness, the nature of authority within the project, the role of non-free packages, and the licensing of Debian. Many of these crises have an acute phase in which debate erupts on several media all at once: mailing lists, IRC conversation, and blog entries. While the debate during these periods can be congenial, measured, rational, and sometimes peppered with jokes, its tone can also be passionate and uncharitable, sometimes downright vicious.LinkDuring these moments, we find that while developers may share a common ethical ground, they often disagree about the implementation of its principles. Though the content of these debates certainly matters (and will be discussed to some extent), my primary focus is on the productive affective stance that these crises induce. I argue these are moments of assessment, in which people turn their attentive, ethical being toward an unfolding situation and engage in very difficult questions. In this mode, passions are animated and values are challenged and sometimes reformulated. Crises can be evaluated as moments of ethical production in terms of not only their functional outcomes but also their ability to move people to reflexively articulate their ideals—an important condition of possibility for further action. Such dialogical and conflicted debate reflects the active engagement of participants who renew and sometimes alter their ethical commitments. Thus, crisis can be vital to establishing and reestablishing the importance of normative precepts.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
02:32:21 AM
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Japanese universities offering classes/programs in manga
We Make Money Not Art has a great roundup of Japanese universities that are creating centers and programs for the study of manga:According to asahi.com, Kyoto Seika University created the first school of Cartoon & Comic Art in Japan in 2000. That was the beginning. This spring, additional three universities created similar schools and courses for students to study manga, anime and games.LinkOsaka University of Art recently created Character Creative Arts Department. The dean of the department is comic artist Kazuo Koike and at least two of the 23 professors are well-known comic artists (Go Nagai who created Mazinger Z, Devil Man, Harenchi Gakuen, etc. and Machiko Satonaka who created Ariesu no Otome, Asunaro Zaka, etc.).
This April, Takara Zoukei University created School of Media Contents with a focus on movies, animation, and games. Professor Reiji Matsumoto is a well-known comic artist who created Space Battleship Yamato, Galaxy Express 999, etc. He recently did some anime work for French band Daftpunk.
Finally Otemae University recently created a manga and animation course. Monkey Punch is a professor there.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
01:33:23 AM
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Generate multi-lingual 12-sided papercraft calendar polyhedrons
This web-based papercraft engine will spit out cut-and-fold 12-sided calendars in any of several languages, for any year, as either a PDF or a Postscript file.
Link
(Thanks, Kevin!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
01:32:05 AM
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Tuesday, September 20, 2005
Authors Guild sues Google over print program
Here's the complaint (PDF Link), and here's a snip from a story by Elinor Mills at CNET:The Authors Guild on Tuesday filed a class action lawsuit against search engine Google, alleging that its scanning and digitizing of library books constitutes a "massive" copyright infringement.Link to story, and here is the Authors Guild's statement: Link (Thanks, Jason Schultz!)As part of its Google Print Library Project, the company is working to scan all or parts of the book collections of the University of Michigan, Harvard University, Stanford University, the New York Public Library and Oxford University and make those texts searchable on Google.
"This is a plain and brazen violation of copyright law," Nick Taylor, president of the New York-based Authors Guild, said in a statement. "It's not up to Google or anyone other than the authors, the rightful owners of these copyrights, to decide whether and how their works will be copied."
UPDATE: 850PM PT, Google's response:
The Google Print program respects copyright. We regret that this group has chosen litigation to try to stop a program that will make books and the information within them more discoverable to the world. Google Print directly benefits authors and publishers by increasing awareness of and sales of the books in the program. And, if they choose, authors and publishers can exclude books from the program if they don't want their material included. Copyrighted books are indexed to create an electronic card catalog and only small portions of the books are shown unless the content owner gives permission to show more.See also this related AP story, "Google's digital library tests law" Link, and a related paper by legal scholar Jonathan Band, "The Google Print Library Project: A Copyright Analysis," E-Commerce Law & Policy (August 2005) PDF link, and source.
UPDATE : 930PM PT, A more detailed response from Susan Wojcicki, the vice president in charge of Google's Print Library Project:
Google doesn't show even a single page to users who find copyrighted books through this program (unless the copyright holder gives us permission to show more). At most we show only a brief snippet of text where their search term appears, along with basic bibliographic information and several links to online booksellers and libraries.Link to the Google Blog postHere’s what an in-copyright book scanned from a library looks like on Google Print:
Just as Google helps you find sites you might not have found any other way by indexing the full text of web pages, Google Print, like an electronic card catalog, indexes book content to help users find, and perhaps buy, books. This ability to introduce millions of users to millions of titles can only expand the market for authors’ books, which is precisely what copyright law is intended to foster.
UPDATE: 11PM PT -- Fred von Lohmann of the EFF says, "I believe Google has a strong fair use defense here." His point-by-point case analysis is here: Link
UPDATE: Xeni's report for NPR News is here.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
04:40:33 PM
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New Orleans MP3-annotated musical history
The MP3 blog Aurgasm has posted an MP3-annotated musical history of New Orleans. Among the featured artists are NOLA natives The Dixie Cups, Lee Dorsey, and Sidney Bechet, whose 1932 rendition of Gershwin's Summertime (MP3 link) is guaranteed to break your heart.
Link to post, which includes nearly a dozen music files, as well as a comprehensive set of links to Katrina-related MP3 roundups on other music blogs.
Image, from the US National Weather Service photo library: The Great Mississippi River Flood of 1927, shot March 27 on a highway between Mounds, Illinois, and Cairo Illinois. Here are more NOAA photos from the 1927 flood which defined an earlier era of New Orleans history: Link
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
04:14:24 PM
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Logo rip-offs
Bad Design Kills has a side-by-side comparison gallery of logo rip offs.
Left: Mark Fox Original Logo: Source: 'The New American Logo' - Pg. 133 (ISBN: 0-942604-34-2). Right: LogoWorks.com design for Dutton Auto Body Shop. Link (thanks, John!)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
02:41:00 PM
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Linux-based handheld has DRM?!
Chris sez, "I saw the GPX2 on Boing Boing and decided to do a little more research into the console. You'll note that on the product page at the official site it states that the unit has 'copyright protection by certified DRM.' A blemish on an otherwise awesome product."
I agree -- WTF? So much for ordering one of these. Link (Thanks, Chris!)
Update: Lots of people have written in with various theories about this DRM. Some say that it's just that it honors usage states set in flash media. Others say it's a Microsoft WMA/WMV license. Others say it's to restrict the copying of certain commercial games.
But DRM licenses typically come with at least two requirements that would make this device a deal breaker for me:
1. Resistance to user modification. This means that parts of the hardware and software are designed to be off-limits to the API, resistant to reverse-engineering, and not easily removable or replaceable.
2. Responsive to system renawability messages (SRMs). SRMs are messages that disable or cripple features in your device after you get it home, in order to restrict the functionality you've already paid for. Like when they reduced the number of times you can burn a playlist in iTunes, or when TiVo was "updated" with a new version of Macrovision that makes it possible for broadcasters to delete the shows you record.
Until someone can tell me on a non-speculative basis what modification-resistance and renewability measures are in place on this thing, you can bet that I'll never shell out my dough for one.
Update 2: Clarification from the UK distributor: "Gamepark Korea don't understand English very well and have used the term 'DRM' without realising its impact in the West and its accociation with corporate evil."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
01:45:00 PM
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Black Metal for Dummies
What is black metal? There are as many definitions as there are demons in Satan's subterranean condo. And like those hot-and-bothered helldwellers, Black Metal afficionados are a contentious lot -- sometimes even murdering one other over who is and isn't true to the genre.
Wikipedia offers this definition, while this e-mail argument between two self-described Dark Lords provides another.
Musical characteristics include superfast guitars and shrieky, bummed-out vocals. Fashion characteristics include spiky shin guards, medieval accessories (swords, chains), and generous use of corpse paint.
But as the comparative graphic above shows, identification can be tricky. At left, Dani (image link) from the band Cradle of Filth is wearing lots of corpse paint. He is Totally Black Metal. At right, Louie the pug (image link) --who is owned by television news producer Jeremy Blacklow from a Certain News Network -- is not one bit Black Metal, despite facial markings that strongly resemble corpse paint.
This is tough, I know. Let's try it again.
At left, the Totally Black Metal band Dimmu Borgir, including a bald guy in a hat (image link). At right, Louie again -- (image link). Yes, he is wearing a hat, but he is still Not Black Metal. When they wake up in the morning, Dimmu Borgir raise lead chalices to their lips and drink smoothies blended from the blood and brains of their vanquished enemies. When he wakes up in the morning, Louie the pug eats either lamb-and-rice Science Diet or a sock.
For further study, I direct you to this Link for the TOP 10 MOST RIDICULOUS BLACK METAL PICS OF ALL TIME.
(Thanks, Sean Bonner, Jeremy Blacklow, David Pescovitz, and someone else whose email I deleted)
Reader comment: lupinstel says,
For a more true explanation and history I recommend the book "Lords of Chaos: The Bloody Rise of the Satanic Metal Underground" (Amazon link). Many dumb arguments have been had over what is "true" black metal and what is not. And like so many other styles of music, black metal can incorporate and be incorporated into parallel genres, thus making things more confusing. P.S. Viking or folk metal is better!Reader comment: Metostopholes says,
I am reminded of this old chestnut. It has instructions on how to make your own Black Metal band, including making up unpronounceable names, creating unreadable band logos, and never ever having a sense of humor. Link
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
01:35:14 PM
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Separated at birth: Foghorn Leghorn's son charge and Disney's Chicken Little?
Buck Mulligan observes that Looney Toons' Egghead Jr. bears a remarkable similarity to Chicken Little, star of Disney's forthcoming 3D animated feature. Coincidence? Or is something more sinister afoot in the henhouse?Link (thanks, ScottG In NYC!)
Reader comment: Chuck says: "I can't describe how pathetic it feels to know this, but 'Egghead Jr' wasn't Foghorn Leghorn's son -- he was the offspring of Prissy, the 'Widder Hen' and some unknown rooster.
Foghorn just got sucked into entertainng the kid while trying to get into Prissy's good graces (and more importantly, her house, which was a lot warmer than Foghorns' shack, and the weather was getting cold.)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
01:00:19 PM
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Katrina: snapshots from an animal care and rescue org
Boing Boing reader Paul says,
I live in Slidell, Louisiana. Since we came through the hurricane relatively intact, my wife has been volunteering with Noah's Wish, a non-profit organization that rescues and shelters animals in disasters. I spent an evening with her at the shelter, and took some photos that help to describe the wonderful work they are doing.Link to photos, and here's more info on the efforts of Noah's Wish to aid critters in areas affected by Katrina.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
12:39:45 PM
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Bollywood film posters as t-shirts
This website offers a bunch of nifty vintage Bollywood movie posters in a variety of forms: as poster reprints, as handpainted oil paintings on canvas, and as t-shirts. Link (Thanks, DJ Carlito!)
Previously:
Custom-painted Bollywood posters
Reader Comment: Abas Halai says,
Actually The Hot Spot is a Pakistani website and majority, if not all of those posters are from the Lollywood Film Industry (Lahore, Pakistan). The Hot Spot primarily started out as an ice cream shop in the capital of the country, Islamabad, the store was decorated with movie posters of classic cult b-movies from Pakistan and India. Now they review literally hundreds to thousands of alternative indy films, hollywood blockbusters to bollywood big names to lollywood flops with titles such as "Haseena Atom Bomb", "Don" and "Black Cat & Lady Boss".Reader Comment: Divya says,More info about the store is located on the website.
They've also spawned some of the best ice cream and dessert shops all over the country which are decorated with thousands of alternative movie posters from all over the world.
I am a 70s bollywood fan and as far as the site pages go, all posters are from Bollywood films (Inspector Vinod is a very hindu name which will never be used to describe a hero in a Pakistani film!). But of course, they do not seem to be authentic posters as far as the artwork goes. Most of them may have been painted in Pakistan for all you care, but the posters are of Bollywood movies (Have seen 30% of them I think!).
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
12:29:23 PM
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Beautiful old newspapers
Slate editor Jack Shafer has a nice essay about the glory days of early 20th century newspapers.The heavy reliance on illustrations makes the World look old-timey, but, once you accept the conventions of the period, the pictures take on a three-dimensional quality that rivals the finest modern photography and reproduction. There's something fantastically real to me about this Aug. 13, 1911, World magazine cover illustration of man-meets-beast in "The Submarine's Encounter—Whales!"
Link (via Paul Boutin)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
12:23:31 PM
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Mister Jalopy on hot rodding
On his Hooptyrides blog, Mister Jalopy wrote a wonderful essay about hot rodding, the "third great American innovation, after baseball and jazz." Plenty of nice photos complement Mister Jalopy's tribute to .LinkThe resourcefulness, the community of hot rodders, the pushing the envelope, the ten things tried that didn't work out for every one that did, the outlaw spirit, the scrappy attitude and the fearlessness. It was so much more punk rock than punk rock ever was.
(...)
I will never be anything but a spectator to jazz and baseball. Sure, I could learn to play the trumpet but I will never be able to participate at a meaningful level. And playing on a softball team would never scratch the surface of the complexity of the baseball diamond and how the physics of that space has kept the game much the same as it always was.
But I will be able to build a pretty decent hotrod. And have the same joys of mechanical ingenuity and hair raising wire wheel thrills that the dry lakers enjoyed. In twenty years, I may build a truly great hot rod. More likely than my reaching the level of Ellington or Babe Ruth.
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
11:52:25 AM
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Good art in new Little Golden Books
Jerry Beck of Cartoon Brew says Little Golden Books are looking especially nice lately thanks to the talented artists in Disney Publishing's Global Design Group. Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
11:40:31 AM
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FBI's new War on Porn -- vagina, not Osama, is greater threat
US Attorney General Gonzales launches the Bush administration's latest antismut assault, and is recruiting agents for a new FBI "porn squad".Eight agents, a supervisor and support staff will be responsible for gathering evidence on "manufacturers and purveyors" of porn -- not "child porn," we're talking about the kind that features consenting adults, and is purchased by consenting adults.
Snip from WaPo article:
Link (Thanks, Thomas)Early last month, the bureau's Washington Field Office began recruiting for a new anti-obscenity squad. Attached to the job posting was a July 29 Electronic Communication from FBI headquarters to all 56 field offices, describing the initiative as "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and, by extension, of "the Director." That would be FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III...
"I guess this means we've won the war on terror," said one exasperated FBI agent, speaking on the condition of anonymity because poking fun at headquarters is not regarded as career-enhancing. "We must not need any more resources for espionage."
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
11:23:59 AM
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Superb African music blog: naijajams.com
Naijajams is a terrific musicblog maintained by a group of "like-minded Nigerians who share a common interest in Nigerian music."It's not a commercial venture, just a labor of love -- and there's a lot to love. Great posts on contemporary afropop, juju, reggae, all things Fela, and vintage highlife, including this wonderful item about Ghanaian bandleader E.T. Mensah, known as the King of Highlife throughout English-speaking Africa some fifty years ago.
"If you were out dancing in Lagos or Accra in the 1950s and early 60s, highlife music is what the band was most likely playing," reads this post, "It was a music of the times – it reflected the optimism and hope individuals had in a the early days of self rule. You can hear this in the light-hearted themes and uplifting sounds."
When you listen to this MP3 of E.T. Mensah and his Tempos Band doing their midcentury hit, “All For You,” it's hard not to feel a little more upbeat than before you clicked.
Link (Thanks, DJ Carlito!)
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
11:01:46 AM
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Paintblogging with Coop: Atari 2600 joystick babe
Underground art master Coop opens his studio to us via blog, and gives a step-by-step "making of" tour for this painting of a hot babe with a strategically placed Atari 2600 joystick. Moments like these make me want to open all the windows in my office and scream, "I love the internets!" until my voice goes hoarse. But that, of course, is when the police tend to show up. Link
Previously:
Paint by blog with Coop, part 2
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
10:50:31 AM
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Hotel keys have credit-card numbers on them -- MYTH?
A geeky biz traveller decided to find out what info in on the mag-stripe on a hotel key (an item that is often left behind on checkout) -- turns out that some hotel keys have credit card numbers, names and addresses.What's scary is how easy it is for even a novice to steal this information. He says he bought a $39 card reader at a local retail store and plugged it into his laptop's USB port. Now when he scans a card, the device inputs the data directly into an open Excel or Word document.Link (via /.)I asked Wallace how often he finds his personal data on the cards. "Certain chains have that information [on their cards]. I've noticed it on three different chains," he says. While he declined to name specific hotels, he says the most recent incident occurred in June at a resort. In that hotel the magnetic strip yielded his credit card information, street address and full name.
Update: Snopes says it's a myth (Thanks, Leslie!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:47:11 AM
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Hollywood's DRM lab: doomed and dumb
Legendary DRM breaker Ed Felten comments on Hollywood's founding of a company to do copy-restriction right, and why it's doomed to fail, and what they'll do when it does:Hollywood argues -- or at least strongly implies -- that technology companies could stop copyright infringement if they wanted to, but have chosen not to do so. I have often wondered whether Hollywood really believes this, or whether the claim is just a ploy to gain political advantage.LinkSuch a ploy might be very effective if it worked. Imagine that you somehow convinced policymakers that the auto industry could make cars that operated with no energy source at all. You could then demand that the auto industry make all sorts of concessions in energy policy, and you could continue to criticize them for foot-dragging no matter how much they did.
If you were using this ploy, the dumbest thing you could do is to set up your own "Perpetual Motion Labs" to develop no-energy-source cars. Your lab would fail, of course, and its failure would demonstrate that your argument was bogus all along. You would only set up the lab if you thought that perpetual-motion cars were pretty easy to build.
Which brings us to the movie industry's announcement, yesterday, that they will set up "MovieLabs", a $30 million research effort to develop effective anti-copying technologies. The only sensible explanation for this move is that Hollywood really believes that there are easily-discovered anti-copying technologies that the technology industry has failed to find.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
08:28:26 AM
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Linux-based handheld that's open, powerful and cheap
Simon writes in with news of a remarkable-sounding new Linux-based handheld computer/PDA called the GP2X:Link (Thanks, Simon!)It can play games. It can play your Movies. It can play your music. It can view photos. It can read Ebooks. It runs on just 2 AA batteries - And it can do all this in the palm of your hand or on your TV screen.
It runs the free Linux operating system. This means a whole world of Games, Utilities and Emulators are at your disposal. Quake, Doom, SNES, Megadrive, MAME, Media players and Applications to name just a few.
It's powerful - Two 200mhz CPU's with 64meg of RAM, custom graphics hardware and decoding chips. Takes SD cards and has 64M of NAND memory. Plenty to play with. One of the most powerful and advanced handhelds today.
It's cheap. Just £124.99.
It's open. You want to develop your own games for the GP2X? Go right ahead. The SDK is included with the system free. Not since the days of the Amiga has a system been so easy to develop for, commercially and for fun.
The GP2X isn't just another wannabe be Gameboy. Its a whole different design. A whole new idea for a handheld games system.
But wait, we're not new to the scene. Heard of the GP32? An accidental experiment in an open source handheld that went right. Some 30,000 units were sold worldwide, mostly in the UK and parts of Europe. The machine has an astonishing following. The GP2X is the successor.
Update: Jason sez, "It's available in the US as a pre-order for $189.99 + shipping."
Update 2: Whoops -- according to the official site, this thing is crippled with DRM. So much for buying one of these, ever.
Update 3: Clarification from the UK distributor: "Gamepark Korea don't understand English very well and have used the term 'DRM' without realising its impact in the West and its accociation with corporate evil."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
02:44:23 AM
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Challenging received medical wisdom with self-experimentation
On the Freaknomics blog, a piece on challenging the accepted medical wisdom about zits (and by extension, other hard-to-treat common ailments) through self-experimentation. Inspirational!I did more little experiments varying the number of pills per day. The results kept indicating the pills were useless. One day I ran low on pills, so I started to be more careful about using the cream, which I considered useless. My acne suddenly improved two or three days later. It was cause and effect (speaking of delayed causality). You could just look at the time series -- one number per day, the count of new pimples -- and see this. Just once, if I remember correctly, I stopped using the cream. Two or three days later, my acne got worse. I resumed the cream. Two or three days later, my acne got better. :-)!Link (via A Whole Lotta Nothing)That was even better than learning that something was useless. Consistent use of the cream helped a lot. Over the next several years, I only made two further advances. First, I found that a Vitamin B pill helped, probably a multi-B pill. Second, based on the idea of a two- or three-day latency, I discovered that certain foods caused pimples. If my acne suddenly got worse, I tried to remember what I had eaten two or three days earlier. Diet Pepsi and pizza were the main culprits. Taking all this together, I reduced my acne about 90%. Then, as predicted, it faded away.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
02:01:02 AM
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Commodore 64 online service back online
Fortyseven sez, "Essentially, these guys reverse engineered the old C=64 Quantum Link service (precursor to AOL), made their own compatible server, and put up instructions on how to connect to it using the original client via emulation, or if you've got the hardware chops for it, a real modified Commodore 64. This is excellence." Link (Thanks, Fortyseven!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
01:56:10 AM
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Rucker's new book: free downloads, upcoming signings
Genius SF writer and mathematician/hacker Rudy Rucker's new book The Lifebox, the Seashell and the Soul: What Gnarly Computation Taught Me About Ultimate Reality, the Meaning of Life and How to Be Happy. has just come out, and Rudy's put half off the book online as free high-rez PDFs. Rudy's also got a book launch coming up.We're presently in the midst of a third intellectual revolution. The first came with Newton: the planets obey physical laws. The second came with Darwin: biology obeys genetic laws. In today’s third revolution, were coming to realize that even minds and societies emerge from interacting laws that can be regarded as computations. Everything is a computation.LinkDoes this, then, mean that the world is dull? Far from it. The naturally occurring computations that surround us are richly complex. A tree's growth, the changes in the weather, the flow of daily news, a person's ever-changing moods --- all of these computations share the crucial property of being gnarly. Although lawlike and deterministic, gnarly computations are --- and this is a key point --- inherently unpredictable. The world's mystery is preserved.
Mixing together anecdotes, graphics, and fables, Rucker teases out the implications of his new worldview, which he calls "universal automatism." His analysis reveals startling aspects of the everyday world, touching upon such topics as chaos, the internet, fame, free will, and the pursuit of happiness. More than a popular science book, The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul is a philosophical entertainment that teaches us how to enjoy our daily lives to the fullest possible extent.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:38:20 AM
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Lethem wins Macarthur "genius" award!
Jonathan Lethem, an sf writer who has crossed over to mainstream literary cred has just attained a rare honor -- receiving the Macarthur "genius" fellowship, which comes with a half-million dollar cash prize. Previous winners of note include Richard Stallman and Octavia Butler. See Lethem's magnificent Gun With Occasional Music and Fortress of Solitude if you're interested in getting a good feel for his work. Link (Thanks, Eileen!)posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:34:40 AM
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Photos of the rotting Jesusland built by Jim Bakker
Televangelist Jim Bakker's PTL Christian Theme Park has gone to wrack and ruin -- an illicit photog has crept through the ruins of this soi-dissant Jesusland and shot roll after roll of rotting Christian "amusements."
Link
(Thanks, Major Bloodnok!)
Update: Here are more photos, including some "before" shots from the PTL coffee table book that "PTL Partners" received with their $1000 lifetime partnerships. Courtesy of Ace Pryhill.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:30:13 AM
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Monday, September 19, 2005
Pirate tattoo gallery
This lovely gallery of pirate-themed tattoos is the perfect way to recover from the hijinks and antics of yesterday's International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Link
(Thanks, Shannon!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:50:30 PM
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Elephant Memory 5.25" floppy art and ads
Kevin has collected a lovely gallery of advertisements and protective sleeves from the sadly departed Elephant Memory line of 5.25" floppy discs, which sported great illos of mighty elephants faithfully remembering your Logo programs and saved Loderunner games.
Link
(Thanks, Kevin!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:48:07 PM
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High-speed art photos of splashing water
Liquidsculpture is photographer Martin Waugh's collection of high-speed photos of pouring and splashing liquids in motion. The pix are really striking, especially the gimmick shots done with viscous creams and colored liquids.
Link
(Thanks, Cavalaxis!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:45:13 PM
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Students for Orwellian Society: 2005 is 21 years too late!
Tracy sez, "StudentsforOrwell.org collects and documents the steady progress the U.S. government has been making towards acheiving Ingsoc's three major ideals: War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength, put forth in George Orwell's prophetic 1984.
"One entry under 'War is Peace': 'According to the Bush administration, the Duelfer report which conclusively showed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq actually justifies the war in Iraq.'
"If that's not doublethink, I don't know what is!"
Link
(Thanks, Tracy!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:40:36 PM
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HOWTO write ass-kicking emails and get a response
I get a lot more mail than I can conceivably respond to, though I do try. Part of my secret is to immediately respond to anything that I can readily respond to, which means that I've you're trying to get an email out of me, making it easier to answer is your best hope.Merlin Mann and I have been talking for a long time about what makes an easily answered email, and he's written up a fantastic primer on writing good emails, especially emails to colleagues and strangers. This is the kind of thing I want to see printed as a pamphlet and handed out on busy street-corners: if ten percent of it were taken to heart by ten percent of the email-sending world, humanity would be immeasurably benefitted.
You can make it even easier for your recipient to immediately understand why you've sent them an email and to quickly determine what kind of response or action it requires. Compose a great "Subject:" line that hits the high points or summarizes the thrust of the message. Avoid "Hi," "One more thing...," or "FYI," in favor of typing a short summary of the most important points in the message:Link* Lunch resched to Friday @ 1pm
* Reminder: Monday is "St. Bono's Day"--no classes
* REQ: Resend Larry Tate zip file?
* HELP: Can you defrag my C drive?
* Thanks for the new liver--works great!In fact, if you're relating just a single fact or asking one question in your email, consider using just the subject line to relate your message. As I've mentioned before, in some organizations, such emails are identified by adding (EOM)--for end of message--at the end of the Subject line. This lets recipients see that the whole message is right there in the subject without clicking to the view the (non-existent) body. This is highly appreciated by people who receive a large volume of mail, since it lets them do a quick triage on your message without needing to conduct a full examination.
Sadly, good email subjects have become something of a lost art, especially among more recent additions to the Interweb. It's a pity, because you're far more likely to get a favorable response from a busy person when they can quickly grok your message.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:36:31 PM
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Powerbooks to get integrated video cameras?
A recent patent filing from Apple suggests that they're considering integrating a little video-camera into the Powerbook lid's latch, which would be pretty sweet -- sorta like the Sony Picturebooks.
Link
(via Gizmodo)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:30:51 PM
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Pizza fork with integrated slicer-wheel
This Pizzafork is a sweet gadget -- though as someone who is carbophobic, it is of limited utility to me, personally. Don't let that stop you, though (but remember: carbohydrates make the baby Atkins cry).
Link
(via Negatendo)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:28:30 PM
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Credit-card sized 8GB NON-flash drive for $150, and it's orange
This 8GB LaCie credit-card-sized drive is only $150 -- a pretty good price for 8 gigs of
Update: AV has confirmed that this drive uses a 1" microdrive, not Flash -- thanks, AV!
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:26:12 PM
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Dogs in bee costumes
Beedogs collects and posts photos of dogs in bee costumes. Dogs. In. Bee. Costumes.
Link
(via Negatendo)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:23:35 PM
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Japanese pro-smoking campaign
An iconographic antismoking pro-smoking etiquette campaign from JT Tobacco of Japan. Link (Thanks, I am Dali)
Correction: Adriaan Tijsseling of Ecto fame says, "This is actually NOT an anti-smoking campaign. JT just promotes proper smoking behavior and is one of the biggest tabacco companies in Japan. They're scum."
Reader comment: Greg Lara says, "JT is owned by the Japanese government. (They are a major shareholder.) That would seem to present a conflict of interest, if the number one job of government is to ensure the safety of the populace."
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
10:08:39 PM
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Aussie ISP's new logo: accidental goatseism?
"It's the service that sets us apart," reads the tagline accompanying Westnet's new logo. Unfortunately, it looks a bit like something else is spreading them apart. Link
Previously: Moment of goatse artse
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:40:25 PM
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Mothman Festival
Point Pleasant, West Virginia just hosted its annual Mothman Festival, a celebration of the creepy cryptid that some claim visited the town in the mid-1960s and brought a trail of Fortean weirdness with it. The first festival took place in 2002 after the release of The Mothman Prophecies film, based loosely on John Keel's classic 1975 book. (More information on Mothman can be found in the book Mothman and Other Curious Encounters by Loren Coleman, my cryptoozologist pal who so kindly sent me this link.) From the Huntington, WV Herald-Dispatch:With a goal of jump-starting the town's economy, the festival was originally a way to capitalize on the "Mecca of history and genealogy," in the area, said Hilda Austin, executive director for the Mason County Area Chamber of Commerce.Link
Sisters Melanie Dudding and Kathy Jeffers of Pomeroy, Ohio, along with mother Shirley Simmons, returned to the festival out of intrigue. The sisters remember hearing the story of the Mothman growing up.
"I remember as a child, it frightened me to death," Dudding said. "We are all interested in things like this, and we really want to see the Mothman but never have. It seems like only people who really don't want to see him do, but we really want to see him."
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David Pescovitz at
03:31:06 PM
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Speech bubble sticker gallery
Ji Lee printed 50,000 of these speech bubble stickers and stuck them on "movie posters, ads and signs all over New York City," and then went back and took photos of what people wrote.Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
03:19:29 PM
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Ray Kurzweil talks about "Kurzweil's Law" Friday in SF
Stewart Brand says: "Ray Kurzweil's 'law of accelerating returns' is one of the most sweeping ideas ever, embracing all of human history and technology, all of biological evolution, and possibly the whole cosmic frame. Fit subject for a Seminar About Long-term Thinking."Kurzweil presents compelling, and highly visual, proof of the accuracy of the idea for describing events in the past and present (where "Moore's Law" of accelerating computer technology is the most familiar version of the idea for most people). In his brand new book, THE SINGULARITY IS NEAR: WHEN HUMANS TRANSCEND BIOLOGY, Kurzweil spells out how hyper-acceleration of technology is likely to play out in the next few decades and beyond. (He even sets a date for the Singularity: 2045--- when a normal trillion dollars worth of worldwide computer intelligence will be a billion times more powerful than all human intelligence today).
"Ray Kurzweil, 'Kurzweil's Law,' 7pm (doors open), Friday, September 23, Herbst Theater (at San Francisco Civic Center). The lecture starts promptly at 7:30pm. Admission is free ($10 donation very welcome, not required). Kurzweil will sign books after the talk. Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
03:01:56 PM
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Reviews of old sci-fi and horror flicks
For the last couple of weeks, Exclamation Mark has been reviewing the kinds of movies that used to play on Creature Features and Sci-Fi Flix. He particularly liked a movie I never heard of, Horror Hotel (1960)LinkA college student (Venetia Stevenson), with an interest in witchcraft, travels to a foggy, spooky town in Massachusetts and meets with the owner of the Raven's Inn, Mrs. Newless (Patricia Jessel). Mrs. Newless is in fact a 268-year old witch, who sold her soul to the devil to regain her life after being burned at the stake. Christopher Lee plays Stevenson's helpful history teacher who along with the town is controlled by the evil witch. When Stevenson's brother and boyfriend arrive in town to find the missing woman, they discover evil and disgusting happenings going on. (1960, b&w)
Horror Hotel is a brilliant movie saddled with an unfortunate title. You may have heard this movie referred to as City of the Dead, which isn't much better, but once you get past the campy title, you are in for a real treat.
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
02:33:25 PM
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Funny "Boinboing" typo in newspaper
(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) The UK's Independent newspaper recently ran a piece about the best websites. They kindly included Boing Boing in the list, but they misspelled it as "Boinboing," and included a screenshot of "Boinboing.net," which is one of those dumb shopping/faux-search sites used by parasites to grab people who misspell the names of popular websites. (thanks, Al Petfield!)
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
02:27:22 PM
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Mission guacamole dip contains 2% or less "avocado powder"
The accidental hedonist was dismayed to discover that the only thing avocado-ish about the jar of Mission brand guacamole dip she'd purchased was the "2% or less" of avocado powder listed in the ingredients.Thank God it does contain everyone's favorite anionic polyelectrolyte, xanthan gum, a thickening agent produced by a bacterium that lives on cabbage plants. You'll be hard pressed to find a canned or jarred gooey food product that doesn't contain xanthan gum. LinkWater, Canola Oil, Modified Food Starch, Tomato Paste, Maltodextrin, Contains 2% or less of: Avocado Powder, Dehydrated Onion, Partially Hydrogenated Soybean Oil, Garlic Powder, Bell Pepper, Spices, Whey Protein Concentrate, Salt, Natural and Artificial Flavors, Worchestershire Sauce Powder (Corn Syrup Solids, Salt, Caramel Color, Garlic, Sugar, Spices, Soy Sauce Solids [Naturally Fermented Wheat and Soybeans, Salt, Maltodextrin, Caramel Color], Tamarind, Natural Flavors), Citric Acid, Chili Pepper, Lemon Juice Concentrate, Lime Juice Solids, Sugar, Glucono- Delta-Lactone, Xanthan Gum, Sodium Acid Pyrophosphate, DATEM, Lactic Acid, Monosodium Glutamate, Yellow #5 & Blue #1.
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
02:01:57 PM
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Circuit bent George Bush doll
This guy bought a case of Barbie-sized talking George Bush dolls and reconfigured them on inside and out. The photos on the site are excellent, as are the sound samples.George's guts. Not much to him. I expect the "real" George to have something similar inside him too.
Link
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
01:44:31 PM
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Timeshifted unicorn chaser
Okay. I missed the ball last time Mark let loose, so here's a doublestrength dose: not only is this an image of a unicorn, it's a screengrab from Bladerunner, and is therefore imbued with extra-pretty healing powers. Link to fullsize, and source.
Reader comment: Gavin Brown says,
OK, this is really nerdy, but I can tell you that the unicorn scene in Blade Runner has some history.Reader comment: Stylimitsu, "Blade Runner Geek", says:The scene was originally filmed as a dream sequence for Blade Runner, but the original cinematic cut of the film dropped the scene (and added the voice-over, and so on).
Scott then re-used it in Legend (with Tom Cruise). Then, when he released the Director's Cut of Blade Runner, it went back in. So that sequence appears in two different Ridley Scott movies.As well as this, if you look at the graphics on the dashboard of Gaff's patrol car, you can also see computer graphics that were originally used in Alien. So obviously Ridley doesn't like to waste good material!
Just wanted to let you know that the reader comment from Gavin Brown is incorrect.Reader comment: Tessa says,The unicorn segment was an outtake from the original footage discarded by Ridley Scott in 1982. It was "rediscovered" in London's Rank film vault during the last minute scramble to produce a Director's Cut of Blade Runner that the director would actually endorse (Scott threatened to publicly disown the version Warner Brothers had prepared - a version without the unicorn!). This was in August of 1992. Legend opened in 1985. No shared unicorn footage.
Source: FUTURE NOIR: The Making of Blade Runner by Paul M. Sammon
I thought I might add that the Unicorn you featured is rumored to be evidence that Harrison Ford's character in Blade Runner is actually a replicant as well. The following is the reasoning behind this:Reader comment: Tai Freligh, Producer of "The Exchange" on New Hampshire Public Radio, says:In theory the Tyrell Corporation which manufactures replicants implants memories into the minds of its replicants because the intelligent robots are led to believe they are real humans with pasts. The police tracking these replicants have access to the files of memories placed in each replicant's mind, which is why Deckard can list the memories of his replicant love interest when he is trying to prove to her that she is a replicant.
The Unicorn sequence serves no narrative purpose whatsoever.
You see a shot of Deckard playing a single note on the piano and looking reflective and then the shot of the running unicorn. End of sequence. At the end of the film when Deckard and his love interest are making a get away, he finds an origami unicorn on the floor of his hall.
Origami creatures were the signature of his police partner who was always sidling about on screen looking like he knew something. His police partner would not only have known that Deckard was a replicant if he was one, but would have access to the files of memories implanted in his mind (like the Unicorn.) As Deckard examines the origami unicorn, there is an echo of his police partner's last line:
"It's too bad she [the replicant love interest] can't live, but then again who really does?"
Hence the conclusion that Deckard is, in fact a replicant, as evidenced by the use of the unicorn.
Ridley Scott has been trying to get a completely new version of Blade Runner released with new footage, but has been having a hell of a time with the rights. I wrote a piece for our local paper on it here: LinkReader comment: Stuart Ian Burns says,
In the documentary On the Edge of Blade Runner, film writer and interviewer Mark Kermode asks Scott directly if Deckard is a replicant and he answers simply 'Yes.' One of the other clues is that in a couple of scenes, such as the one between Deckard and Rachel in the kitchen of his apartment, the same technique is used to make the pupils of his eyes flash as appears elsewhere (see Roy on the roof). Link
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
01:29:11 PM
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Another picture of the tongue-replacing parasite
Here's a better photo of the parasite that eats its fish host's tongue, and then pretends to be the tongue.
Cymothoa exigua, a crustacean, is the only known parasite that effectively replaces a body organ. It makes its home in the mouth of a fish, where it drains blood from the tongue until it withers and dies. It attaches itself to the remaining stub and the fish is actually able to utilize it as a replacement tongue to draw in and manipulate food, which the parasite shares.Link (thanks, Rob!)
Reader comment: Mark McGrouther, Fish Collection Manager, Australian Museum says:
"I enjoyed the Boing-Boing Tongue-eating bug entry. I'm a little late, but you might be interested to add a link to the Australian Museum page, which shows some interesting pics of these little blighters." I like the photo with two tongue-eating bugs in one fish's mouth!
posted by
Mark Frauenfelder at
01:24:24 PM
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Moment of goatse artse
This photo is not what it might be, but it does involve software, donuts, and a herd of nerds wearing Krispy Kreme krown kaps. Link to full-size image from Scott Beale's photoset of an intimate code jam event called SuperHappyDevHouse 2^2 that took place this past weekend in the Bay Area.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
01:17:20 PM
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Katrina: a cameraman's journal in NOLA, part 3
Image: Ronald McDonald appears to have lost his home in the storm, too. BB reader David Brown says, "My girlfriend is in Biloxi doing relief work with HandsonUSA, and a young photographer accompanied a trip she took with some nurses trip to East Biloxi to give folks tetanus shots -- those too poor to evacuate, some whose cars were washed away by Katrina. All they have left are half-destroyed houses; no way to get to relief supplies, so some relief must come to them." LinkPart three of a personal diary maintained by a friend who's a television cameraman working in the K-Hole:
It’s September 13th and things have started to move here in New Orleans. Much of the water has dropped in the heavily flooded poorer neighborhoods, and most buildings appear to have been searched for survivors. Finding the dead will be time consuming, it requires breaking into some homes, and many have extra security, steel bars and doors.Since the arrival of thousands of police, it’s felt like an armed camp, but that seems to have diminished as military commanders have ordered troops to shoulder their assault rifles, remove the ammo clips, or store their M-16’s out of view. It makes a difference. The local and federal cops that traveled here have partially disarmed as well. It’s probably to the disappointment of some officers who really enjoyed brandishing a shotgun or semi-automatic handgun at a stranger - such as a black male.
I’d like to take this opportunity to thank the local constable on the Crystal City Connection (a bridge on US 90) for increasing my heart-rate about 400% last week. We were approaching a check-point and apparently he mistook 2 carloads of exhausted network news crews in late model rental cars for Bloods and Crips exporting jewelry or looted expensive electronics. After brandishing his sidearm for several moments and a lecture about driving too fast (?????) we were free to depart the area.
The change is instantly noticeable late at night. Last night, as we drove a good portion of the city around 10pm, there were virtually none of these local cops….the ones that drove in from places like Deerfield Township, Ohio or Douglas County, Colorado. The streets are much calmer. There’s a logical explanation for the transformation. Carnival Cruise Lines has brought in what looks like a large party ship, and it is open only (as I understand it) to visiting cops, official workers or local cops who’ve lost their homes. We should all appreciate the charity shown to the N.O. cops, most of whom have lost houses and even family members. But, it must be some scene on board, what with all that great food, beer, and maybe even a little bit of Las Vegas style entertainment. It’s keeping almost all of them off the street after sundown, so there is definitely something doing. You do see NYPD patrolling fairly late, they have 300 officers and from the moment they got here, they’ve been serious about doing a good job. It’s must be a cathartic assignment - 9/11 and all.
I drove much of the Ninth ward yesterday. It was a sobering view of poverty in the inner city. I can’t imagine what it must be like to be sitting in the Astrodome having watched the flood waters inundate this sad portion of a great American city. I honestly don’t know what the authorities will decide to do, or what they should do. There are so many pathetic little shacks with a putrid water line nearly up to the roof. The saddest thing for the former residents would be to see it all gentrified - rebuilt….just not for them. Where are all the General Marshalls when we need them?
I spent a lot of time yesterday with the mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin. I just don’t know what to make of this guy. I don’t know anything about him, but I do know that he has done a complete turnaround from his previous and well publicized criticism of our dear Administration. To hear him talk today - he is George W’s biggest fan. You are not going to hear one nasty word come out of his mouth as pertains to Mr. Bush. He wants to see his city rebuilt…..and they have hit him over the head with one big-ass shovel…….
The streets are New Orleans are largely secured by the National Guard and active duty troops. The have taken control and they are good. They know what to do and they are respectful and efficient. The soldiers have an almost familial charm about them - as though every single one could be your kid, or your neighbor’s. Even before my weeks in Iraq, I’ve always admired their professionalism and the seriousness with which they approach any task.
Yesterday, I met the army captain in charge of a huge part of the downtown area. He’s 82nd Airborne - a quiet, charming and seemingly well educated young officer. When he talks, you can sense his awe for the suffering that occurred in his operational area which includes the Superdome and the Convention Center. We talked for a while, and he is seriously troubled by what has transpired here. He can’t reconcile the violence and inhumanity that took place in those buildings. There were armed bands of gang-bangers snatching victims in the hallway and bringing them back to Hall “E” to be raped or even killed. His task now is to remove debris, mountains of it, and sanitize the facility, which is being done by crews in white moon-suits. Many of his troops are just back from Iraq, and some of them have told me that they find this assignment more disturbing than what they endured in that sad part of the world. From what I’ve seen, we should be proud of these guys. They are our sons and daughters and they are doing what they are paid to do. And we don’t pay them much to do it.
I was also impressed with one part of FEMA that definitely works. There are existing contracts between FEMA and various larger fire departments to provide urban search and swift water rescue teams to respond to disasters such as this one. These firefighters have been working non-stop saving lives since they got here. Initially, they used boats, but now move house to house by foot. They were some of the first to respond to N.O., flown in by the Air Force. The Army, Navy, Marines, and Coast Guard chopper crews, should also be recognized for the relentless task of plucking victims from their homes. If the system fell apart, it was by no fault of these first responders. We should remember that the bulk of the criticism has not been about their lack of response, but the shear lack of planning. Just like corporate America, if police or fire resources are squandered, blame the management.
Once again, I made the mistake of watching television, this time CNN. Paula Zahn was interviewing a California Highway Patrol captain describing the disaster scene in the French Quarter. It must have been tough duty wandering those dangerous narrow streets searching for all those starving, dehydrated survivors…..NOT!!! The French Quarter is substantially intact, almost no flooding, minor looting, and lots of residents hanging around, sweeping the streets, drinking, and even a few playing music. That didn’t stop Paula from asking the tough questions. “How many people did you encounter today in your search for survivors?”….. The captain said the number was around 30.
What he didn’t tell you is that these are some of the luckiest residents in New Orleans. This was purely an opportunity for him to appear on network television and make it appear that they are doing something worthwhile, worth the tens of thousands of dollars we are paying him and his large group of colleagues to be here. It was a great way for him to wave the flag and show the public and his superiors, that they are doing something. The only problem is that it was deceptive -- and ultimately, dishonest.
And then there is Fox News. Man, do I even want to go here. It’s as though the hurricane was just another round of WWF Smackdown. When I watch Fox, I always feel as if they are describing some sporting event. The reporter I watched should be sent back to elementary school under some provision of “No child left behind”. In his standup, he used words that don’t even exist…. “hurricanic” or something like that. His hair was great though, that sort of bad-boy flippy frosty kind of thing - like the guy on Extreme Home Makeover which I’d like to point out, is entertainment. I turned it off, feeling as if I was a participant in something that was nearly disrespectful to the dead.
I think that I will be out of here tomorrow afternoon. You can really burn out covering something like this. I hope that if you have gotten anything out of what I’ve written, it is to scrutinize where you get your information. Even great newspapers like the New York Times have been known to make things up. It’s a tough dilemma, one I whine about all the time. We all see things through different eyes.
I don’t claim to be an exclusive source of accurate information, I’m just writing about what I’ve seen. Someone else might see what I’ve seen in a completely different light. I do regret that since I won’t be here - I won’t know what is true or truly distorted or what’s pretend. Quite the dilemma. Goodbye New Orleans….hello NPR.
Previously:
A TV cameraman's diary, part two.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
12:35:59 PM
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Billboard Liberation Front now has a blog
The kings of culture jamming are now running WordPress. Link (thanks, jake appelbaum)
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
12:32:00 PM
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Katrina: Farai Chideya, live from the K-Hole
My NPR colleague Farai Chideya has been reporting from areas hit by Katrina -- aka the "K-Hole," in grim shorthand. She blogs:Link. Farai has been filing some amazing work for NPR from the area, including this interview with Gen. Russ Honore on "why it was so much easier to evacuate the Convention Center than the Superdome" -- Link. Here's another radio story she filed from Baton Rouge about evacuees looking for housing and social services: Link.My Uncle Israel Chideya was missing for a while, lost in the maelstrom of post-Katrina evacuations from New Orleans. Well, we found him. He is good...and mad. Here's just a snippet of what he told me.
He had bought a multi-unit apartment complex in the french quarter. He didn't evauate for the hurricane, but did once the levee broke and the floodwaters started rising. He and twenty thousand other folks ended up at the convention center, and he spent five datys in the place where (like the Superdome) children were raped, people were murdered, and even the elderly were harassed. "Elderly people from nursing homes were dumped at the Convention Center in their diapers." And another thing pissed him off: although some of the elderly were dying and the children were getting sick, the first people evacuated were the prisoners. "I don't have anything against people who are incarcerated," he said, "But they should have taken the sick, the elderly, and children first."
Uncle Israel took two elderly couples under his wing. One couple was blind. He shephereded them through the evacuation. They were taken by bus to Baton Rouge, then loaded onto military transport planes at the airport.
They werent told where they were going, but ended up in San Antonio, Texas. They were taken to the coliseum and the American Center, all of the evacuees. My uncle was worried about a repeat of the Convention Center fiasco. And then he noticed something. "All of a sudden we don't see any white people," he said. All of the white evacuees had mysteriously disappeared.
He asked a volunteering priest what had happened. The priest told him that local hotels were being paid to take evacuees. The white evacuees were told about the hotels. The black ones, says my uncle, were not.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
11:19:18 AM
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Katrina: loose ends
* Richard, a NOLA blogger, returns home briefly to assess damage and hopes to find his cat Lola alive:
I look around and see that there's not much damage. Some more small trees and shrubs are down in my neighbor's yard. A handful of my potted plants have died. I walk back to the kitchen to get my duffel bag and start packing.Link.Then I see her: a long, low lump stretched across a side table. I take a step toward her and call out "Lola?", but she doesn't respond.
The pieces quickly fall into place: during the storm, the door to the study slammed shut, trapping her in the back of the house for nearly three weeks, a few crucial feet away from bowls of food and a tap that's still dripping. Lola's eyes are slits, green and lifeless. I call her name again, stroke her back, but nothing.
Without thinking, I say, "I'm sorry." I keep repeating it: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
* Sascha Meinrath, volunteer tech aid coordinator with CUwireless, has this update for Boing Boing readers on some post-Katrina reconnect projects:
My friend Michael Maranda (President of the Association for Community Networks) summed up the lessons learned better than anyone I've heard thus far:* Here are some images of telco central offices in the New Orleans area. Food for thought for those in charge of rebuild plans: Link"The storm makes the case for distributed capacity/expertise to deploy networks throughout society... From voluntary/community and government sectors as well as business. Mobilization of volunteers for every aspect... From direct help to communications and database development and support presents a challenge... Existing structures don't know how best to open a space for such involvement. I know this is not what is understood as general definition of infrastructure, let alone critical infrastructure, but I believe we have the opportunity to redefine 'critical infrastructure' to include human systems and coordination of volunteer resources and talents."
Where the ad-hoc coalitions of Community Wireless Networkers excelled was in mobilizing quickly, integrating rapidly into chaotic conditions, and setting up infrastructures that meet the needs of the people involved. Whether it's setting up a computer cluster at the Houston Astrodome or creating a community built and operated telecom center in Algiers, the looseknit coalition of Community Wireless Networking groups has proven to be an effective force for bringing telecommunications infrastructure to the marginalized and ignored.
Over the next few days, plans include upgrading the LPFM Radio Station in Algiers, connect 25 shelters in the Bay St. Louis area, and shipping 2600 pounds of phones and computers to Response Teams in and around the disaster area.
* Intel donates 2300 laptops to the Red Cross and 150 wireless access points for first responders and disaster victims: Link
(thanks, Jonno, doug humphrey / Wayne's list, Lloyd Rodenbaugh )
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
10:58:37 AM
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Shadow billboard
BB pal Eric Paulos points to this ingenious design for a billboard that uses the sun to transform what the viewer sees. From the Cannes Lions Archive of international ads:LinkThe billboard is made of 12,148 aluminium pegs, varying in length from 1mm to 27mm. Each different length peg creates a different sized shadow. The different sized shadows create a greyscale image of a woman sunbathing, when the sun comes out.
UPDATE: Eric Paulos adds that the billboard technique is similar to Christian Moeller's "dePictured (Bitwall 4)" artwork. Link
posted by
David Pescovitz at
10:41:13 AM
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Inside CNN's "Situation Room"
I interviewed CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer and DC bureau chief David Bohrman for a Wired News story about how "The Situation Room" integrates internet tech and viewpoints:LinkIn January 2000, Bohrman left an earlier stint at CNN for Pseudo, which was known at the time for surreal, Warholian mega-parties that defined the Silicon Alley scene.
"The party stuff was interesting, but what lasted is that we defined a new form of participatory programming that fused TV and internet," Bohrman told Wired News. "That's what I brought back with me when I returned."
(...) Newly appointed CNN President Jonathan Klein, who joined the network that same month, later asked Bohrman to help him revamp the network's daytime roster with those election-season tech lessons in mind.
"OK, let's bring on the bloggers," Bohrman recalled thinking at the time. "But what became apparent after a few of those is that putting bloggers on TV to talk about bloggers blogging on blogs doesn't work. The whole reason they're blogging is because they're not on TV. I said OK, gimme a week, and I'll come up with something."
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
10:11:48 AM
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Blogging China's elusive steam trains
Scott Lothes (pronounced like "lotus") -- train enthusiast, engineering publication editor, and photographer -- says:He'll be blogging the search here.On Thursday I will fly to China where I will roam the countryside in search of the elusive "huoche" (hwoah-chuh, train, literally, "fire wagon" -- steam train). (...)
(Thanks, Dory Adams and Kevin Scanlon!)
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:56:01 AM
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Netporn conference in Amsterdam, Sep 30-Oct 1
This sounds promising:Link
The Art and Politics of Netporn is the first major international conference on netporn criticism. It will present multiple perspectives on our growing immersion in pornographic web-based media. A second aim of the conference is to discuss the potential of art and critical research in times of heightened information surveillance, filtering and censorship. The selected research presentations and art projects regard netporn as complex networks, with impact and growth, just as industries and/or indie media operations. Conference presenters will address the 'schizo' climate of hype and censorship, focusing on the ethics and aesthetics of digital media environments and (female and male) activities such as blogging, webcamming, chatting, p2p porn, live journals, confession boards, mailing lists and zines.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:43:23 AM
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To do in LA: Art of Bleeding
Reverend Al Ridenour's Art of Bleeding Foundation holds a Safety Awareness Performance this evening in Hollywood. Snip from LA Weekly preview by Ron Athey:Link to show info (starts 930pm @ il Corral in Hollywood)Described as "a traveling medicine show without any cure," The Art of Bleeding is Dr. A.P. Ridenour's (a.k.a. Rev. Al) actionist- comedy safety exhibition, using performance, film projection, live music, medical nonsense narratives and "managed accidents" to explore themes more productively addressed via common sense. While the jargon is all retro health and safety-education material, the culty fetishism is more J.G. Ballard than CPR. A rotating cast of zany, sexy nurses (including one volatile Kitty Diggins) and the mascot/ ambulance driver, Abram the Safety Ape, invite audience participation. In the L.A. film premiere of Burningangel.com's spoof on H.P. Lovecraft's Re-Animator, Joanna Angel and cast appear live to introduce The Re-Penetrator. Expect XXX zombie action onscreen, and more sexy antics off.
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:34:25 AM
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Adult Engrish
Engrish.com has been featured before on Boing Boing, but this week's focus on mangled four-letter and "adult" words merits another click. Link(Thanks, JT)
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:16:13 AM
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Dude Totally Drums on Cheese
Yes, this dude is in fact totally drumming on some cheese in an art gallery. Link (Thanks, tom)posted by
Xeni Jardin at
09:08:30 AM
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Hollywood to sink $30 mil into tech lab to foil pirates, yarrrr!
Of course, some will say the $30 mil to save Hollywood's future might be better spent figuring out how to make movies that don't suck:The six major Hollywood studios, hoping to gain more control over their technological destiny, have agreed to jointly finance a multimillion-dollar research laboratory to speed the development of new ways to foil movie pirates.Link to NYT story.The new nonprofit consortium is to be called Motion Picture Laboratories Inc. - MovieLabs for short - and will begin operation later this year. According to Hollywood executives involved in its establishment, MovieLabs will have a budget of more than $30 million for its first two years. The idea arose out of Hollywood's contention that the consumer electronics and information technology industries are not investing heavily or quickly enough in piracy-fighting technology.
The lab is modeled after CableLabs, which since 1988 has spearheaded pivotal innovations in the cable television industry - hastening the adoption of fiber optics, cable modems, telephony and digital video
(Thanks, Roland Dobbins, whose sigfile aptly quotes Doug Gwyn: "UNIX was not designed to stop you from doing stupid things, because that would also stop you from doing clever things.")
posted by
Xeni Jardin at
08:40:23 AM
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Free Culture UK congress, Oct 1
Tom sez,Free Culture UK will hold their first national membership meeting at the World Summit on Free Information Infrastructures, Limehouse Town Hall, London, at 5.30pm Saturday 1st October. The meeting will cover the innovative Public Domain Burn campaign, the 14+14 copyright term reduction campaign and how to spread Creative Commons in the UK. The event is open to all and will help decide the direction of the next year's campaigning.Link (Thanks, Tom!)Free Culture UK is a grassroots movement that supports an open, participatory culture. It was founded this summer with two aims:
1. to promote and empower creativity through social, legal and political means; and
2. to oppose those who would restrict our creative freedom.Local groups are already running successful projects such as Remix Reading, Remix Brighton, Loca Records, CNUK and Liquid Culture.
Rufus Pollock, a member of Free Culture UK, said "with six local groups [Birmingham, Brighton, Deptford, Exeter, Leeds and Reading] already running, this is a network ready to make a real difference. Congress will give anyone interested in culture and creativity a chance to decide what our grassroots movement campaigns on over the next year, including how we promote Creative Commons and the Public Domain, and what sort of copyright system we lobby for."
Anyone planning to attend should add their name to the wiki page.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
05:06:12 AM
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Themepunks part two: hacking Linux-based Elmo clusters
Salon has just posted part two of its ten-part serialization of my novel-in-progress, "Themepunks." Last week, we met Andrea Fleeks, a tech journalist; Lionel Kettlewell, a brazen Silicon Valley VC; and Rat-Toothed Freddy, a sleazy UK tabloid tech journalist, and learned that Kettlewell had bought up and liquidated Kodak and Duracell, two companies that have no place in a filmless, batteryless twenty-first century. Kettlewell proposes to use the money to fund micro-startups that combine cool commodity hardware, open source software and imagination to create new tools that are profitable for 3-6 months, until they are cloned and the margin on them falls to near-zero.In this week's installment, Andrea goes on assignment to Hollywood, Florida, where she meets Lester and Perry, a pair of tech-freaks who live in a junkyard where they remix dead high-tech toys into one-of-a-kind works of art:
Perry set Boogie Woogie Elmo down on a workbench and worked a miniature USB cable into his chest cavity. The other end terminated with a PDA with a small rubberized photovoltaic cell on the front.Link to this week's installment, Link to last week's inaugural installment"This thing is running InstallParty -- it can recognize any hardware and build and install a Linux distro on it without human intervention. They used a ton of different suppliers for the BWE, so every one is a little different, depending on who was offering the cheapest parts the day it was built. InstallParty doesn't care, though: one click and away it goes." The PDA was doing all kinds of funny dances on its screen, montages of playful photoshopping of public figures matted into historical fine art.
"All done. Now, have a look -- this is a Linux computer with some of the most advanced robotics ever engineered. No sweatshop stuff, either, see this? The solder is too precise to be done by hand -- that's because it's from India. If it was from Malaysia, you'd see all kinds of wobble in the solder: that means that tiny, clever hands were used to create it, which means that somewhere in the device's karmic history, there's a sweatshop full of crippled children inhaling solder fumes until they keel over and are dumped in a ditch. This is the good stuff.
"So we have this karmically clean robot with infinitely malleable computation and a bunch of robotic capabilities. I've turned these things into wall-climbing monkeys; I've modded them for a woman from the University of Miami at the Jackson Memorial who used their capability to ape human motions in physiotherapy programs with nerve-damage cases. But the best thing I've done with them so far is the Distributed Boogie Woogie Elmo Motor Vehicle Operation Cluster. Come on," he said, and took off deeper into the barn's depths.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:29:07 AM
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Decorative Russian hand-painted mice
Check out this gallery of hand-painted Russian mice in decorative styles including Chochloma, generally used on decorative plates and dishes.
Link
(Thanks, Zoolander!)
Update: Zoolander points out these birch-covered keyboards from near Ekaterinburg in the Urals (near Siberia), as well.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
12:28:02 AM
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Sunday, September 18, 2005
Software lets camphones scan and OCR a page of text in 5 secs
NEC has developed software that lets you wave your cameraphone at a page of text for 3-5 seconds and produce a scan that includes optical-character-recognition-extracted text as well as any images and a graphic of the page itself. This is abominably cool, so of course there are a couple of alarmist Luddite publishing types who are predicting that this will napsterize the printed page and cause gigantic copyright headaches.Using the new software with a 1-megapixel camera held at least 20centimetres away, an A4 sized page takes about 3 to 5 seconds to scan. This produces between 21 and 35 images which the software merges together to extract the text and record any images.Link (via /.)"The goal of our research is to enable mobile phones to be used as portable faxes or scanners that can be used any time," an NEC spokesman told New Scientist.
But the concern now is that this technology will catapult the publishing industry into a copyright furore similar to that which has gripped the recording industry in recent years.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
11:57:39 PM
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International Talk Like a Pirate Day
Avast ye scurvy dogs. Today be International Talk Like a Pirate Day, yarrr cully, and any squint what is caught not talking like a pirate will have his filthy guts torn from his wreeetched grog pot and laced round his useless head. Properly warned ye be, says I, and Davy Jones Locker waits for them what disobeys. LinkUpdate: A reader sez, "Distributed Proofreaders is celebrating 'Talk Like a Pirate Day' as 'Proof Like a Pirate Day':"
"This 'ere site provides a web-based method o' easin' th' proofreadin' work associated wi' th' digitization o' Public Domain books into Project Gut'nberg e-books. By divvying up th' work into individual pages many fine, feisty swashbucklers can be attacking th' same book at th' same time. This significantly speeds up th' proofreading/e-book booty-creation process."
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
10:56:37 PM
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Tons of fantastic Daily Show clips
Commonbits has just uploaded a whack of fantastic new Daily Show clips, including:* Evolution Schmevolution (all segments)Link (Thanks, Jeff!)
* Bush at the United Nations
* Lewis Black on Intelligent Design
* What Me Sorry? Bush Apologizes
* Roberts' Confirmation Hearings
* Interview with Kurt Vonnegut on his recent book A Man Without A Country
* Interview with Chris Mooney author of the Republican Attack on Science
And all of the past Katrina coverage
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
10:41:15 PM
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Mad Max Interceptor on eBay
Matt sez, "An auction for a full-size, running
Update: Angstron sez, "I'm sure I'm the umpteenth person to point out - that's not a replica, /it's the real thing./ The seller gets questioned & gives verification.
Here's an old magazine image that I geekily compared, 'cos I'm not so trusting.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
10:39:17 PM
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Ryanair flights cheaper as two one-ways than as a return
Ryanair is a dirt-cheap European discount airline. An Italian blogger called "Alfb" has discovered that many Ryanair itineraries are cheaper if bought as two one-way tickets rather than as a round-trip. Cool!
Link
(Thanks, Alfb!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
10:36:40 PM
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Propaganda poster remix photoshopping contest
This may be my favorite Worth1000 photoshopping contest to date: remixed propaganda posters.
Link
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
01:06:13 PM
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Profiles of RIAA victims who fought back
The music industry's indiscriminate legal attacks against music fans are so sloppy that they often catch people who've never heard of file-sharing, P2P or MP3s. P2PNet has a wonderful piece profiling several people who stood up to the music industry and refused to pay out to their protection racket when accused of file-sharing. Don't miss the FAQ about file-sharing and the music industry at the end of the piece."If somehow this activity was to somehow been pinned to me, it was somehow done so fraudulently," she says. "There is no way it came from my household.Link"I have the least expensive computer system you can buy from Dell. The type you order off television for $499.00. It was purchased in the summer of 2002 and has the smallest hard drive they make. I have no cd writer on it and the cd-rom that I do have, does not even work correctly.
"I live alone with my 8-year-old daughter (who would have been seven at the time the alleged occurrence took place). I am a single mom who is disabled and unable to work. I live on Social Security disability and struggle to support my daughter and myself. If I am put in a position where I need to defend myself regarding this situation, it would create extreme financial hardship on me. I have no money and did not do what is being said. I also must admit that all this stuff that has been occurring with this whole ordeal has triggered my medical condition to flare lately.
"I have always been against music downloading. In fact, I have been a member of BMG's music club for quite some time and I purchase my music either from there or from Target. When I first got my computer set up almost three years ago, I had a friend set it up for me since I did not know how to do it. She had put Kaaza Lite on there and told me what it was. I never used it and had no interest in doing so. I deleted it since I had no use for it. Even though I deleted it correctly, as is recommended by Microsoft, Mr. Eilers has told me it can hide out in my system and play without me knowing about it. I have done a total check of my computer and it is no where on there.
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:43:31 AM
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WWII aerial photos then and now
Last month, I blogged a series of WWII aerial photos that an enterprising Flickr user found tucked between the pages of a sale-book from a public library. Now another enterprising Flickr user has found contemporary satellite images on Google Earth of the same places and annotated each for comparison. How freaking cool.
Link
(Thanks, Kathryn!)
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
09:40:10 AM
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Last chance to submit proposals to Emerging Tech conference
Monday is the deadline for submitting proposals to the next O'Reilly Emerging Technology conference (San Diego, Mar 6-9). This year's call for proposals is a doozy:You Can Take It With You!Link
With a global population always on the move, how do we marry the flexibility of end-to-end applications to the power of disconnected operation? We look at TiddlyWiki as an early example of using the network as a data source but surviving disconnected operation; but what of resynching when you're next online? Gmail et al are designed for email from anywhere with a browser and network heartbeat, yet you can't take it with you on a plane or for a walk in the woods without resorting to a standard POP email client. Surely there's a way to take it offline without need of the costly interface and context switch!* What techniques let us successfully take web applications with us while disconnected and then resynchronize when we are next connected?
* Just how far can the browser and JavaScript be stretched as a platform for rich internet applications?
* Given that there are more mobile phones than landlines in many parts of the world, what progress has been made in using the mobile phone as a remote control?
posted by
Cory Doctorow at
01:16:53 AM
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