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Tuesday, January 31, 2006

US-VISIT immigration system spent $15 million per crook caught

The US-VISIT program subjects visitors to the USA to a humiliating round of being mug-shotted and fingerprinted, and has cost at least $15 billion. Since January 2004, it has caught a paltry 1,000 immigration cheats and crooks (no terrorists, though), at a cost of $15 million per apprehension. As Bruce Schneier points out, this is a pretty cost-ineffective way of catching crooks.

I wrote about US-VISIT in 2004, and back then I said that it was too expensive and a bad trade-off. The price tag for "the next phase" was $15B; I'm sure the total cost is much higher.

But take that $15B number. One thousand bad guys, most of them not very bad, caught through US-VISIT. That's $15M per bad guy caught.

Surely there's a more cost-effective way to catch bad guys?

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:32:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Law firm fires clerk for personal opposition to DRM

Fred sez, "Last week, Free Culture @ NYU's president, Inga Chernyak was fired from her legal clerk job at an intellectual property law firm in midtown New York. The reason? Her opinions on DRM differed from those of her employer's. During her final meeting with HR at the firm, Inga was read the recent Village Voice article which featured an interview with her about her DRM activism and Free Culture @ NYU. Though she was reassured her rights to her opinions and to free speech, she was told she could no longer work at the firm because her views were incompatbile with what the firm did. Read on for the full story, and wonder if there really is free speech about DRM."

As an active member of FreeCulture.org, and the president of the NYU chapter, I feel both obligated and prepared to stand behind the organization’s stance on where copyright is headed, and where it should be. I can not, in good conscience, renounce my beliefs in the hopes of gaining a rung on the corporate ladder.

Link (Thanks, Fred!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:28:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Speakers' bureau for science fiction

Thomas sez, "The new Speculation Speakers website is maintained by AboutSF, which is a joint venture of SFWA, SFRA, Tor Books (see below), and several other donors. SF experts can post and maintain their own online speaker profiles in an easily searchable database. The aim is to help schools, libraries, businesses, and other folks who might want to hear about SF find experts who are willing to tell them about it." Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

Update: Tor Books's Patrick Nielsen Hayden sez, "We're donors; we're not joint-venturers."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:21:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kerouac curator invents copyright laws to keep photographers away

The scroll of paper on which Jack Kerouac wrote the original draft of his magnificent novel On The Road is on tour, but the person running the tour has prohibited photography of this important document, citing copyright.

Thomas Hawk has written a great open letter to Myra Borshoff Cook, Tour Organizer for the book in which he spells out why her excuses for restricting the liberty of people who shoot the manuscript are bogus.

It's possible that shooting this with a flash might have long-term negative effects (though we're not talking about the Constitution here, and besides, it's under glass, so you won't get anything but glare if you use your flash), but that's a reason to ban flashes, not photography. The manuscript is a palimpsest of Kerouac's thought processes and revisions and it photographs beautifully.

Ms. Borshoff Cook, you have been entrusted with running a tour of one of the great pieces of literature of the written English language. Even more significantly *how* it is written is of great historical import. This document deserves to be shared beyond the confines of a small room in a basement of the San Francisco library. This document deserves to be shared with everyone online. They deserve to see the time worn type and corrections that Jack made to his document to get a sense of the historical uniqueness of it. Rather than allow the public an opportunity to share in this experience, you position weak copyright objections which don't hold up. Are not most books and documents in the San Francisco Public library copyrighted? In fact is not their own copy of the book "On the Road" back in their shelves copyrighted? And yet I see no sign there prohibiting me from taking photos of the actual book, or any other book in the San Francisco Public Library.

If I were in San Francisco, I'd follow Thomas's example and shoot the scroll -- maybe put it up on Flickr under a tag like "ontheroadscroll". Link (Thanks, Thomas!)

Update: Michael's created a Flickr group for your Kerouac scroll piccies!

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

Attaboy's new book of postcards

Attaboy is the co-founder and editor of Hi-Fructose, the excellent new magazine about candy, toys, and monsters. He also creates his own incredibly-inspired and beautiful illustrations. Last Gasp has just published a book of 32 postcards by Attaboy titled Floating Submerged. I can't wait to get my copy! From the Last Gasp description of the book:

Thirty-two full-color, removable, oversized postcards, perforated for your pleasure. Attaboy's maniacal undersea creatures and otherworldly vermin are together here for the first time. This postcard set features fans' favorite images seen the world over, along with characters from Atta's Vinyl Toy and Plush line, including the Axtrx and Gooberry! A great gift to send anyone for their next goo-filled visual vacation.

A renegade toy designer whose goo-filled images glow with an eerie, distrubed, childlike sensibility, Attaboy has emerged as a one of the many leading talents in a toy and design movement that might be called "Creaturism." His images appear in galleries, magazines, comics, strange candy devices, calendars, and toys all over. His T-shirts are sold in Japan, his art has appeared in numerous galleries, and his candy-coated stickers and eyesore-causing books are sought after by young and bold. Enter the toof-decayed and festering Yumfactory of Attaboy!

Link (via Laughing Squid)

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:05:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Engineering dream jobs

The current issue of IEEE Spectrum includes their excellent Dream Jobs 2006 Special Report. Included in their list of ten technologists with "dream jobs" are Martin Cooper, who restores works of art using lasers, Mythbuster Grant Imahara, Disney Imagineer Manni Wong, and fountain designer Anthony Eckersall. From the profile of Eckersall:

When Eckersall started at Wet Design, he was asked to double the height of the Bellagio's water spray to its current 160 meters—"high enough," he says, "that the Federal Aviation Administration has complained that it shows up on radar." The shooters he helped design can propel water so powerfully that it disappears into a vapor. The new design also greatly improves control of the sprays. Today, the oarsmen can direct water to nearly one-thousandth of a degree. That lets the show designers pick the precise point at which two streams touch during the show.

Surprisingly, Eckersall says, one of the biggest challenges with the Bellagio fountain is maintaining the seemingly mundane housekeeping computer. It controls, among other things, the pond's filters, which catch everything, "from coins to nappies," he says.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:54:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Perplex city

Guy says: "Perplex City is a cross between collectible-card game and Alternate Reality Game. It's centered around a stolen artefact, and there's a $200,000 reward for whoever can find it. The cards themselves are rather beautiful and feature a diverse range of mind-bending puzzles, while Anton Bogaty (who you just featured) does much of the artwork for the game. I think it's primarily worth mentioning because it's the first self-supporting ARG, as opposed to marketing something else (or being made on a lo-to-no budget basis.)

"Also, Boing Boing itself is on one of the cards!

"There are also some live events coming up in New York and London, making it especially news-worthy right now - anyone can participate, as they aren't especially about PXC, just friendly puzzlin' competitions. Although the London event is closed to sign-ups, after 600 people applied..."
Link (Here is Guy's quick-start guide to the game.)

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

The art of Anton Bogaty

Nobody wields color markers as skillfully as Anton Bogaty. I've long admired his drawings and just learned that he has a sketchbook for sale. I just ordered mine. It costs $12 + $2 shipping and is limited to 100 copies.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:44:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rudy Rucker signing at San Francisco's Booksmith Feb 21

Rudy Rucker, one of my favorite science fiction authors, is signing his books at the Booksmith, one of my favorite San Francisco bookstores, on February 21st. The Booksmith writes:

In the 21st century, we no longer think of reality as particles and force fields. Instead, scientists and philosophers view the world as a sea of computation. "The Lifebox, the Seashell, and the Soul," by Rudy Rucker, explains and expands upon this new way to understand nature, society and the mind. In other words, its about what gnarly computation taught the author about ultimate reality, the meaning of life, and how to be happy.

Rudy Rucker is a mathematician, novelist, software engineer, BoingBoing contributor, and former professor of computer science at San Jose State University. He is well known for his popular books about science, as well as his thirteen novels. He is considered one of the core cyberpunk authors, and is the two time winner of the Philip K. Dick Award. For more info, see www.rudyrucker.com

Tuesday, February 21st at 7 pm, Booksmith (1644 Haight Street in San Francisco, between Clayton & Cole), 415-863-8688. Link (Thanks, Booksmith!)

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

EFF suing AT&T for helping NSA illegally spy on Americans

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is suing AT&T for rolling over and helping the National Security Agency execute illegal warrantless wiretaps against American citizens:

AT&T Corp. (which was recently acquired by the new AT&T, Inc,. formerly known as SBC Communications) maintains domestic telecommunications facilities over which millions of Americans' telephone and Internet communications pass every day. It also manages some of the largest databases in the world, containing records of most or all communications made through its myriad telecommunications services.

The lawsuits alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit's class members.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte "Daytona" database of caller information -- one of the largest databases in the world. Moreover, by opening its network and databases to wholesale surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T continues to assist the government in its secret surveillance of millions of Americans. EFF, on behalf of a nationwide class of AT&T customers, is suing to stop this illegal conduct and hold AT&T responsible for its illegal collaboration in the government's domestic spying program, which has violated the law and damaged the fundamental freedoms of the American public.

Link (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:53:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Make spaceships from aspirin bottles and toilet Items

On the Make Blog, Phil Torrone, linked to a great how-to on "scratchbuilding" your own sci-fi props from household objects.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:31:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Daily Monkey

It's all monkeys, all the time at Brian Biggs' Daily Monkey weblog. Brian is a talented illustrator who takes time away from his critically important drawing work to post a new monkey related photograph and quotation each day. For this, I am thankful.

"I'm shooting a special for MTV and they told me all I had to do was push my lips out a little and the monkey would give me a peck, but instead she rammed her tongue inside my mouth and swept it all around in a circle.

She touched every inch in there! It was the most disgusting thing ever!"

– Jessica Alba

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:32:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Burning Man photos from 1998 on

Neil Guy, a talented photographer, has been taking pictures at Burning Man since 1998 -- he's collected them in a site called BurningCam. There's some really nice work here, and the year-by-year archives are strikingly different and similar at once. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:01:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Your Senator needs an iPod!

Ren sez, "Remember how Ted Stevens, the 82 year-old Senator from Alaska, morphed into an advocate for the public's fair use rights after his daughter bought him an iPod? We think that's awesome, and we want to spread the love. That's why IPac launched the Congressional iPod Education Fund, where we're collecting money for iPods, stuffing them with public domain and Creative Commons-licensed content, engraving them with 'Listen to the People,' and shipping them to the campaigns of Senators who work on tech and copyright policy. Check it out!" Link (Thanks, Ren!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:57:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

99-word essay explains Fair Use

Norm sez, "I am in the midst of a 'haiku essay' project: each essay is exactly 99 words long, plus one for the title. With the Sony Rootkit, ubiquitous DRM and plugging the analog hole on everyone's minds, I took this opportunity to make the fair use case in 99 words."

I love music, movies, and books. I also love technology. I want to use technology to deliver the media I love anywhere, anywhen, with anyone.

This is fair use: I bought it, let me use it. I will tell all my friends about my favorite music. I might play it for them or even give them a digital version of a song. This is evangelism, not theft. This is advertising you cannot buy.

Restrictive copyright is like a vegetarian knife. You bought the knife, but if you cut meat with it, we'll sue you. Excuse me? Let's think again.

Link (Thanks, Norm!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:43:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Law and Order Valentines

Brandon Bird has created an hilarious set of 10 Law and Order themed Valentines, and he'll sell 'em to you. Link (Thanks, Andy!)

Update: Lyle sez, "He's no longer taking orders."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:29:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prosecutor demos BDSM session

Yesterday, dominatrix Barbara Asher, AKA Mistress Lauren M, was acquitted of manslaughter. You may remember that she was accused of letting a submissive who suffered a heart attack die on the rack. Her boyfriend chopped up the body and dumped it behind a restaurant in Maine. I love this Associated Press photo taken during the prosecutor's closing argument. As my pal Carlo Longino said, "If the gimp mask don't fit, you must acquit." From the AP:

During his closing argument to the jury, prosecutor Robert Nelson put on a black leather mask with a zippered mouth opening and re-enacted the bondage session.

With both hands, he reached back and clutched the top of a blackboard as if strapped to the rack. Then he hung his head as if dead.

Asher's lawyer objected, and the judge agreed.

"That's enough Mr. Nelson," Judge Charles Grabau said. "Thank you for your demonstration."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:00:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MN vampire gubernatorial candidate "The Impaler" arrested

Satan, say it ain't so!

A candidate for governor whose platform includes public impalement of terrorists found himself behind bars today on a pair of outstanding arrest warrants.... ...launched his campaign last month. His platform includes an emphasis on education, tax breaks for farmers and better benefits for veterans, but he also said he favored impaling certain wrongdoers in front of the State Capitol.

Link

Previously:
Satanist runs for governor in Minnesota
Wife of MN Satanic gubernatorial candidate fired for being witch

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:28:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Table of newspaper mentions of of "fair use" and 'copyright" since 1993

Siva sez, "I did a search of Lexis/Nexis among major US newspapers to find the frequency of stories containing 'copyright' and 'fair use.' 'Fair use' is a good proxy for stories that describe an actual conflict or lawsuit. Also, because few of the thousands of stories about p2p file sharing (Napster, Kazaa, Grokster, etc.) discussed fair use, I was able to get a picture of the frequency of stories that did relatively sophisticated stories on copyright battles."

1992: 19     1999: 16
1993: 32     2000: 93
1994: 33     2001: 92
1995: 28     2002: 80
1996: 44     2003: 82
1997: 34     2004: 57
1998: 66     2005: 113

"In 1998 the DMCA was in the papers, although the coverage was horrifying and shallow. In 2000 copyright issues broke out everywhere and more newspapers assigned the "copyright beat" to business or technology reporters in the wake of Napster. The following years echo that new sense of curiosity. In 2005, beats me. I have no idea why 2005 should be such a high year. Perhaps Google Library." Link (Thanks, Siva!)

Update: David sez, "Several weeks ago I did something similar to get a rough measure of whether IP and commons based peer production have moved closer to the center of public consciousness. I searched for variations on 'open source software,' 'copyright,' 'patents,' and 'innovation' in the NYT, and in Wall Street Journal abstracts. At first glance it looks like there is a slight upward trend in IP-related terms, but not a very dramatic one. 'Open source software' is of course through the roof. I did these counts quickly, and a serious analysis would of course have to adjust for things like total number of articles published annually. You can take a look at the xls spreadsheet and a few Mickey Mouse regression graphs.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:15:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Where Thailand's hybrid truck/canoes came from

Thailand's distinctive longtail boats, which are made by mounting diesel truck engines on the backs of large canoes, are the result of a historical quirk in the way that Britain regulated motor vehicles.

I posted a link to James Gosling's photos and description of longtails a couple days ago, and Alexander wrote in with this fascinating tale of their origin:

It's not well known that those boats originate from a change in the British government's motor vehicle Construction and Use Regulations in the late 1960s. What with the new motorway construction programme well under way, the (largely old) truck fleet had begun to get in the way. So the then Ministry of Transport introduced a minimum power-to-weight ratio.

This meant that a ton of trucks with Gardner LX 105hp (mostly) or Perkins P4 engines suddenly became obsolete. Exporting second-hand trucks to places that would accept them (essentially, the third world) was not great business, so they were either scrapped or retrofitted with more wallop. Hence a mass of very reliable, very user-serviceable diesel engines going begging.

Some sly fox saw a chance, and went round the country buying the engines and shipping them to Hong Kong and Singapore for sale to chandlers. As the engine arrived complete with the reverse box and the end of a propshaft, they just put in a length of shaft and a prop. Local boat builders came up with the rest and a new, unmistakable craft was born.

They still have (even brand-new ones with much later power units, radar and GPS) the traditional eyes on each side of the bow, a custom recorded everywhere from the Mediterranean to Japan and back into pre-classical antiquity.

Link (Thanks, Alexander!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:10:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

One-quarter of LA's air pollution: made in China

Snip from NYT story:

China is already the world's second-biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions and is expected to surpass the United States as the biggest. Roughly a third of China is exposed to acid rain. A recent study by a Chinese research institute found that 400,000 people die prematurely every year in China from diseases linked to air pollution.

Nor does China's air pollution respect borders: on certain days almost 25 percent of the particulate matter clotting the skies above Los Angeles can be traced to China, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Environmental experts in California predict that China could eventually account for roughly a third of the state's air pollution.

Link (Thanks, John Parres!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:47:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RFIDs: some faithful object because chips *are* mark of beast

The US State Department has said that RFID-chipped passports will not be issued to travelers "until privacy-related concerns have been addressed." Initial public feedback was overwhelmingly negative, and much of it was posted in entirety on the State Department's website -- including name, email address, and phone number of objectors who submitted comments by snail mail or email. Boing Boing reader Aaron Peterson says, "Way to go, thanks for addressing our privacy concerns by posting the personal information of everyone that had feedback on the subject!"

But buried within those many citizen comments is this gem:

No mark of the beast for me you Luciferian beehivers. You can take all those RFID chips wrapped like a burrito in the HR 4(6+6+6) national id bill and stick it up yor own arse!

Jesus is the way, not the antichrist of the beast system. Read God's words in the Book of Revelation lest your soul is burned in hell. The great test is upon us all...

Link to more "Luciferian beehiver butt burrito" research on Aaron's blog, and here's the awesome anti-RFID comment on state.gov.

Reader comment: ADM says,

There has been an established link between the anti-RFID movement and fundamentalist Christians for quite a while now. One of the leading opponents of RFID as a mean of identifying individuals is Christian media publisher Thomas Nelson, who this month released The Spychip Threat: Why Christians Should Oppose RFID Technology and Surveillance. This book follows up on Nelson's earlier Spychips release. This was mentioned in Wired a while back: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:39:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

CD DRM software players are amateurish and easy to trick

When an audio CD infects your computer with anti-copying software, it installs its own player. This player is intended to allow minimal, listen-only use of your CDs, while locking you out of copying those tracks to an unauthorized portable device, your laptop, or your next computer. However, these players fail miserably, because they are amateurishly implemented and can be defeated by minimally skilled attackers.

Princeton's Ed Felten and Alex Halderman have published the final installment in a brilliant series of excerpts from a paper-in-progress on lessons learned from the Sony DRM disaster, in which the company incurred millions in legal liability for deliberately infecting its customers' computers with anti-copying software that left them vulnerable to worms and viruses, destabilized their computers, and spied on their actions.

In today's installment, Ed and Alex talk about attacks on the custom players installed by the DRM on Sony's crippled CDs. These players were meant to impose restrictions on users, but they made many common beginners' security mistakes, leaving them vulnerable to simple attacks that could disable their restrictive behavior.

It is well known that DRM systems like this are vulnerable to rollback attacks. In a rollback attack, the state of the machine is backed up before performing the limited operation (in this case, burning the copy). When the operation is complete, the old system state is restored, and the DRM software is not able to determine that the operation has occurred. This kind of attack is easy to perform with virtual machine software like VMWare, which allows the entire state of the system to be saved or restored in a few clicks. The XCP and MediaMax both fail under this attack, which allows unlimited copies to be burned with their players.

Link

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

(Sony taproot graphic courtesy of Sevensheaven)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:38:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

StarForce threatens to sue me for criticizing its products

A company that was criticized on Boing Boing has threatened to sue me, and claims to have sworn out a complaint against me with the FBI.

Yesterday, I posted about StarForce, a harmful technology used by game companies to restrict their customers' freedom. StarForce attempts to stop game customers from copying their property, but it has the side-effects of destabilizing and crashing the computers on which it is installed.

Someone identifying himself as "Dennis Zhidkov, PR-manager, StarForce Inc." contacted me this morning and threatened to sue me, and told me that he had contacted the FBI to complain about my "harassment."

If you're looking for reasons to boycott StarForce-crippled games (besides the obvious ones), you might add their use of bullying legal threats to your list.

From: "Dennis Zhidkov" <denis.zhidkov@star-force.com>
Date: January 31, 2006 9:55:40 AM BST
To: "doctorow@craphound.com" <doctorow@craphound.com>
Subject: StarForce Response to Cory Doctorow

StarForce Inc. response to Mr. Cory Doctorow  

Dear Sir, calling StarForce "Anti-copying malware" is a good enough cause to press charges and that is what our corporate lawyer is busy doing right now. I urge you to remove your post from http://www.boingboing.net/2006/01/30/anticopying_malware_.html because it is full of insults, lies, false accusations and rumors. Your article violates approximately 11 international laws. Our USlawyer will contact you shortly. I have also contacted the FBI , because what you are doing is harassment.

Sincerely,
Dennis Zhidkov
PR-manager
StarForce Inc.
www.star-force.com

Here's my reply: "Thank you for your response. I have appended it to my original post and have forwarded it to the Chilling Effects project to be part of the permanent record of abusive attempts by companies to silence their critics." Link

Update: Looks like this isn't the first time Mr Zhidkov has sent legal threats to critics of this company -- check out this email he sent CNet, which opens "Dear Sir, calling StarForce 'nefarious Rootkit/Virus' is a good enough cause to press charges. How do you like that for a start?" (Thanks, Alexander!)

Update 2: Fiona sez, "I just contacted a friend who works in the testing department of the UK branch of the worlds largest games publisher, and they hadn't heard of it! I now think they have the (very healthy, by all accounts) fear of god about what this thing could do to peoples systems. They're testing a third-party game that uses it, and have found the drivers on their test box. They're not happy about having it on an open test system,"

Update 3: Avi sez, "Their business seems to depend on people not knowing how much they suck. For example, I was on a private beta list for a new game I won't mention by name due to NDA -- but the game authors agreed to drop StarForce after an outcry from the community. You don't often hear the stories about game developers dropping StarForce in favor of their customer."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:02:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gaming dice made from mammoth ivory, meteorites and gems

CrystalCaste sells polyhedral gaming dice (like those used in Dungeons and Dragons) made of extraordinary materials, from semi-precious gems to meteorites and mammoth ivory. Shown here is a set of hematite dice from a customer's collection. Link to gemstone dice, Link to meteorite dice (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:46:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chinese buy adult diapers for crowded post-New Years trains

A scarcity of train-seats following on from New Years family reunions in China has driven sales of adult incontinence diapers. Trains after New Years festivals are often so packed that passengers even crowd into the toilets, making it impossible to relieve oneself on the long journey.

Many supermarkets in Foshan, a city in South China's Guangdong Province, have reported an increase in sales of about 50 per cent...

...This often makes it almost impossible for passengers to pass through and reach the toilets and they are forced to go without relieving themselves for the whole journey.

"In this period, a common train has to transit 2,000 passengers, with only around 1,000 seating tickets," Zhang Dazhi, an officer of Guangzhou Railway Group, said.

Link (via Monochrom)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:54:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steven Colbert interview in The Onion

The Onion has a great interview with Steven Colbert in the current issue. Colbert got his start as a sidekick on Jon Stewart's Daily Show, and recently struck out on his own with The Colbert Report, a screamingly funny news-satire show that does an amazing job of lampooning traditional suck-up reportage. In the interview, Colbert talks about the philosophy of the show, how he became interested, and his favorite work with The Daily Show:

Because authoritarian means there's only one authority, and that authority has got to be the President, has got to be the government, and has got to be his allies. What the right-wing in the United States tries to do is undermine the press. They call the press "liberal," they call the press "biased," not necessarily because it is or because they have problems with the facts of the left--or even because of the bias for the left, because it's hard not to be biased in some way, everyone is always going to enter their editorial opinion--but because a press that has validity is a press that has authority. And as soon as there's any authority to what the press says, you question the authority of the government--it's like the existence of another authority. So that's another part of truthiness. Truthiness is "What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true." It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.

Link (Thanks, Robogeek!)

Update: August from Campus Progress points us to "an earlier interview with Colbert from July 2005, right before the main work on The Colbert Report started. Colbert spoke with Campus Progress about mocking our nation’s foibles, meeting Bill Clinton, and making everything stupider."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:49:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flying windmills -- power from the sky

A Worldchanging post rounds up three different airborne power-generation systems -- a flying windmill, a windmill-equipped zeppelin, and a kite-based windmill.

According to their figures, one flying windmill rated at 240kW with rotor diameters of 35 feet could generate power for less than two cents per kilowatt hour--that would make them the cheapest power source in the world. For greater power needs, several units would be operated in the same location--Sky Windpower says that an installation "rated at 2.81 megawatts flying at a typical U.S. site with an eighty percent capacity factor projects a life cycle cost per kilowatt hour at 1.4 cents." And they would have far better uptime than most windmills--since the jetstream never quits, they should operate at peak capacity 70-90% of the time. Output would also be less dependent on location than it is on the ground, simply because terrain doesn't matter much when you're at 35,000ft; however, since the jetstream and other "geostrophic" winds don't blow much at latitudes near the equator, it would be useful primarily for middle- and higher-latitudes.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:43:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, January 30, 2006

Dance Dance Revolution remix teaches fundamentals of genetics

Matt Haughey visited San Diego's Scripps aquarium and documented their remix of the popular video/dance game Dance Dance Revolution:

In a wing devoted to explaining gene expression they had some stuff about DNA and the coolest thing was this video game that taught you about building blocks of life, then proceeded to a real DDR game where you have to step to the DNA parts being shown on screen.

The best part was when one of the 20 amino acids were built, it would say the name. So you'd see A T T G C and so on... and then it would shout "Cysteine!"

Link (via A Whole Lotta Nothing)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:58:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Black sf writers and white sf

My friend Pam Noles has written an wonderful essay for The Infinite Matrix about the way that black people have been left out of science fiction. Science fiction characters -- and writers -- are overwhelmingly white (this is likely self-reinforcing; white writers write white characters and attract white readers, some of whom grow up to be white writers, and it begins anew), and to make matters worse, the occasional black cast of characters, like those in LeGuin's Wizard of Earthsea books, are magically changed into white people when they're adapted for the big screen.

Pam's a talented science fiction writer in her own right, and her discussion of her journey from being a black kid watching an all-white science fiction universe on her TV, to discovering Earthsea, to her career as a writer, to the betrayal she felt at the adaptation of Earthsea is moving and eloquent.

Usually it would be just me in the basement sprawled on the floor surrounded by snacks, Legos and books to read during the commercials. If he was off shift, sometimes Dad would come down and join me in his leather recliner by the stairs. Every once in a while Mom called down from the kitchen Are you letting her watch those weird things? And we'd lie in unison, No. If she came down to check for herself, Dad would get in trouble.

Dad had his own names for the movies.

What's this? 'Escape to a White Planet?

It's called 'When Worlds Collide.' I'm sure I sounded indignant.

'Mars Kills the White People.' I love this one.

Daaaaad. It says it right there. 'War of the Worlds'. I know I sighed heavily, but was careful to turn back to the tv before rolling my eyes.

Once he asked me which was more real, the movie or the skits between. I didn't get it, and told him that they were both stories, so they were both fake. He didn't bring it up again until a skit came on. I can't remember if it was a 'Soulman' skit or one of the caveman gags (the cavemen were multicultural — basic white, Polish, Italian, and black). But I remember Dad saying, how come you never see anybody like that in the stories you like? And I remember answering, maybe they didn't have black people back then. He said there's always been black people. I said but black people can't be wizards and space people and they can't fight evil, so they can't be in the story. When he didn't say anything back I turned around. He was in full recline mode in his chair and he was very still, looking at me. He didn't say anything else.

Pam and I went to Clarion together, and the issue of race and voice came up in our critiquing sessions more than once. Some of my other Clarion classmates, like Nathan Ballingrud and Becky Maines have weighed in on this as well, as has my friend Nalo Hopkinson, a brilliant Caribbean-born Canadian sf writer whose work often treats with racism and race politics. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MSFT: Our DRM licensing is there to eliminate hobbyists and little guys

A Microsoft spokesman has described their DRM licensing scheme as a system for reducing the number of device vendors to a manageable number, so that the company doesn't have to oversee too many developers.

Yesterday, I spoke at a DRM conference in London. Just before me was the opening keynote, from Microsoft's Amir Majidimehr, Corporate VP of the Windows Digital Media Division, which oversees licensing and deployment of Microsoft's DRM.

Amir's presentation kept referring to Microsoft DRM as "open," which was curious, because it's actually the opposite of open. An open platform is something like an electrical outlet: if you want to design something to plug into an electrical outlet, you can -- you might have to satisfy a regulator that it won't burst into flames, but you certainly don't need to talk to General Electric or any other potential competitor.

Microsoft's DRM requires that device makers pay Microsoft a license fee for each device that plays back video encoded with its system. it also requires every such vendor to submit to a standardized, non-negotiable license agreement that spells out how the player must be implemented. This contract contains numerous items that limit the sort of business you're allowed to pursue, notably that you may not implement a Microsoft player in open source software.

The bombshell was Amir's explanation of the reason that his employer charges fees to license its DRM. According to Amir, the fee is not intended to recoup the expenses Microsoft incurred in developing their DRM, or to turn a profit. The intention is to reduce the number of licensors to a manageable level, to lock out "hobbyists" and other entities that Microsoft doesn't want to have to trouble itself with.

I was pretty surprised to hear an executive from Microsoft describe his company's strategy as intentionally anti-competitive and intended solely to freeze out certain classes of operators rather than maximizing its profits through producing a better product and charging a fair price for it.

Isn't that why the Justice Department and the EU went after Redmond in the first place? Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:21:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How a comic is made

Kazu Kibuishi is the comics creator who makes Copper (and other comics). In this three-page tutorial, Kibushi gives us a detailed look at the process of creating a comic from pencilling to inking to coloring, with great photos and descriptive material. Link (Thanks, Zach!)

Update: Kevin points us to this explanation of how an issue of the AppleGeeks comic gets made -- it's a noteworthy study in contrasts.

Update 2: Here's a great comic describing how a comic in India is created -- thanks, Avi!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:11:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on what Google (and other search engines) know about you

Inquisitive geek Adam Fields asked,

1) "Given a list of search terms, can Google produce a list of people who searched for that term, identified by IP address and/or Google cookie value?"

2) "Given an IP address or Google cookie value, can Google produce a list of the terms searched by the user of that IP address or cookie value?"

The Search author and Boing Boing "band manager" John Battelle relayed that question to a spokesperson at Google.

John says,

To [Google's] credit, it rapidly replied that the answer in both cases is 'yes.'

Link to post on Battelle's blog.

Adam has been posting some interesting related items on his blog, too -- including this post, which explores how HTTP referrer headers can make it possible for third party websites to track your personally identifiable info: Link.

Previously on Boing Boing:
Search privacy challenge: show us the data, MSN, Yahoo, AOL
Can you foil search data trackers with crafty queries?
Google and other search engines log IP addresses. So what?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:55:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PopoZão: the Numa Numa remix

This is, uh, a Romanian ass-shaker right here. Can I say that? Video link, and here's the blog post where it originated. K-Fed, sir, you are no Gary Brolsma.

Previously: It's Peanut Butter Federline!

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

Trauma Pill: PTSD-prevention meds, or best band name ever?

This UPI item quotes Canadian researchers who claim that a “trauma pill” could block memories of painful experiences for combat vets and survivors of accidents or violent events. Snip, via physorg:

Most memories decay naturally, but people under extreme stress pump an abnormal amount of stress hormones during the event — so the memories are stored differently, said Dr. Alain Brunet, professor of psychiatry at McGill University in Montreal.

“If you have (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) your memory is so fresh it’s as if the event is happening now,” he said. “For a person to have that vivid flashback certain hormones are released by the brain. If you can block these, the memory is weakened or even removed completely.”

Brunet and colleagues had 20 people suffering from PTSD recall their experiences as vividly as possible in therapy sessions, after being given doses of propranolol — a beta-blocker used to treat high blood pressure, angina and abnormal heart rhythms. Preliminary findings indicate the PTSD sufferers experienced fewer flashbacks and less severe symptoms after taking the drug.

IANACR (I am not a Canadian researcher), but it sorta sounds like a lot of hooey to me. Still, it's awesome-sounding hooey, and that's what counts around here. Besides, if the whole "healing people" thing doesn't work out for these biomed guys, they can at least license the name out to four kids in Brooklyn with synthesizers and emo haircuts. Good times.

Link to post on Warren Ellis' blog.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:43:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boing Boing interviews Doug Rushkoff about his Testament comic book

I interviewed my friend Douglas Rushkoff about his new and terrific comic book called Testament, published by vertigo/DC. The story is set in the near future, in which people in the United States are required by the government to have an RFID tracking chip implanted in their arms. At the same time, Rushkoff retells stories from the Old Testament that parallel the near-future story.
Link to 20MB MP3

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:03:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sleepless In Seattle - recut as a horror movie

Last year I wrote about a re-cut trailer for The Shining that made it look like a Nora Ephron movie. Here's one for a Nora Ephron movie (Sleepless In Seattle) cut to look like a horror movie. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:30:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Help Richard's buddy blow up his gophers with a $1295 explosive system

Richard Zarback says forwarded the following email from his buddy: "My parents have a major problem with gophers at their new house….. So my Dad bought this thing over the weekend!

"I haven't used it yet, but I can't wait! Check it out… It pumps propane and pure oxygen into the gopher holes for about 5 minutes… and then let's a spark go and all the gopher holes blow up, killing all the gophers!

"If anyone would like to bring up a twelver of Keystone Ice and help me out in the coming weeks…. Let me know! We'll drag the propane tank around their 4 acres blowing up gophers!"
Link

Update: Richard says: "Here's a Caddyshack-esque video that folks might enjoy as well."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:21:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google map of world's best comic book stores

Dan Shahin of Hijinx comic book shop says: "I've been putting together a Google Maps Mashup of comic book shops (like mine!) around the world. It's far from complete, but with the help of BoingBoing readers I'm sure we can get all of the worthy shops listed quickly." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:18:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bizarre Shirley Temple screen grab

Everyone in my family is a Shirley Temple fanatic. Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm is one of my favorite movies. We frequently enjoy her music CDs, like Oh My Goodness. Now, from Looker, comes this excellent screen grab from a Shirley Temple movie. Looker is challenging you tell him which movie it comes from.
Link (Please don't email me with your answer, go here) (Thanks, Larry!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:09:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nam June Paik (RIP)

Pioneering video artist Nam June Paik passed away yesterday.

"The future is now." --N.J.P. (1932-2006)

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:50:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

San Francisco In Jell-O on display in SF

Elizabeth Hickok's legendary San Francisco In Jell-O sculpture will be on display this Friday evening only at the opening of the Exploratorium's Reconsidered Materials exhibition. (If you'll be in the Bay Area before June 18, the entire exhibit looks to be incredible.) For those who can't attend, the Jell-O project is beautifully documented on Hickok's Web site.

From her description of the piece:

This project consists of photographs and video, which depict various San Francisco landscapes. I make the landscapes by constructing scale models of the architectural elements which I use to make molds. I then cast the buildings in Jell-O. Similar to making a movie set, I add backdrops, which I often paint, and elements such as mountains or trees, and then I dramatically light the scenes from the back or underneath. The Jell-O sculptures quickly decay, leaving the photographs and video as the remains

Link to Elizabeth Hickok site, Link to Reconsidered Materials announcement (via Laughing Squid)

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:35:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why birds sing together

This week's issue of Science News has an interesting article about how certain species of birds sing in complicated and beautiful duets and choruses with such precision that it often sounds like a solo. In fact, researchers recently recorded wrens performing "the first four-part, synchronized chorus with alternative parts recorded outside human music." Make sure to listen to the sound samples. From the article:

Over several decades, scientists have offered at least a dozen explanations for the purpose of avian duets. The theories have focused on the forest, the pair, or conflicts of interest between individual birds.

The abundance of duetting in the tropics inspired some of the early explanations. Scientists in the 1970s noted that dense tropical vegetation would make sound especially important for mates identifying each other or keeping in contact. Recently, theorists have suggested that tropical birds duet to stay in sync reproductively, despite limited seasonal cues such as changes in day length.

Other scientists have stressed the partnership. For example, in the 1980s, the "coyness hypothesis" proposed that birds that consummated their pairing only after the arduous job of learning to duet would have a stronger bond that would discourage extra-pair adventuring.

Yet other theorists have suggested that duetting enables a bird to judge its mate's commitment to the partnership. Discouraging interlopers has been a popular theme, both in duetting to defend a territory and duetting to drive away a potential mate stealer...

The current generation of duetting studies often compares his-and-her agendas. One possible agenda is the male's clear interest in fathering the female's chicks. He may be chiming in to the female's song as a musical claim to paternity.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:15:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chronic Deja Vu

University of Leeds psychologists are launching what they claim is the first scientific study on chronic déjà vu. From the university newsletter The Reporter:

Dr Chris Moulin first encountered chronic déjà vu sufferers at a memory clinic. "We had a peculiar referral from a man who said there was no point visiting the clinic because he'd already been there, although this would have been impossible." The patient not only genuinely believed he had met Dr Moulin before, he gave specific details about the times and places of these 'remembered' meetings.

Déjà vu has developed to such an extent that he had stopped watching TV - even the news - because it seemed to be a repeat, and even believed he could hear the same bird singing the same song in the same tree every time he went out. Chronic déjà vu sufferers are not only overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity for new experiences, they can provide plausible and complex justifications to support this. "When this particular patient's wife asked what was going to happen next on a TV programme he'd claimed to have already seen, he said 'how should I know? I have a memory problem!'" Dr Moulin said...

"The exciting thing about these people is that they can 'recall' specific details about an event or meeting that never actually occurred. It suggests that the sensations associated with remembering are separate to the contents of memory, that there are two different systems in the brain at work." Dr Moulin believes a circuit in our temporal lobe fires up when we recall the past, creating the experience of remembering but also a 'recollective experience' – the sense of the self in the past. In a person with chronic déjà vu this circuit is either overactive or permanently switched on, creating memories where none exist. When novel events are processed, they are accompanied by a strong feeling of remembering.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:01:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cereal faucet

I dig the looks of Zevro's Indispensable Dispenser for food like cereal, granola, and nuts. It would be fun to line up a half-dozen of these on the counter and mix up all kinds of crunchy concoctions. Twist the faucets to taste. A double dispenser is also available.
Link (via Parent Hacks)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:43:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video: a DJ plays a streetscene like a turntable

Scratch n Spin is a very amusing short video advert that combines footage of a DJ's hands working on a set of turntables with footage of a streetscene; when he grabs a car and moves it around the roundabout, it is synched to the sound of the record from the original shot scratching back and forth. It's intensely clever and laugh-out-loud delightful. Link (Thanks, Alice!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:02:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Girls' encrypted USB stick locks parents out of diary and MSN Messenger

The ThoughtSafe is an encrypted USB memory stick with its own version of MSN Messenger: it's marketed to young girls who want to keep a private diary and prevent their parents or others from spying on or controlling their IM activity. Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:49:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-copying malware installs itself with dozens of games

Update: StarForce, the company criticized below, has threatened to sue me for describing the problems with its software.

A group of gamers has started a site to spread a pledge to boycott video-games that come with a dangerous anti-copying mechanism.

Starforce is an anti-copying program that some games covertly install when you install the game. The software causes system instability and crashes. The company that makes Starforce refuses to address the damage their software causes; instead, they blame the people on whom their malware has been forced: "According to our research those of users [sic] that do run into compatibility problems are beginner-level-hackers that try to go around our protection system."

The list of games infected with Starforce is long and depressing -- there are dozens of these. If you're a gamer, you owe it to yourself to have a look and check to see if Starforce might have damaged your PC. What's more, you should join the boycott of any game that comes with this malicious software onboard.

For example, here's one of the common problems brought by Starforce: under Windows XP, if packets are lost during the reading or writing of a disk, XP interprets this as an error and steps the IDE speed down. Eventually it will revert to 16bit compatibility mode rendering a CD/DVD writer virtually unusable. In some circumstances certain drives cannot cope with this mode and it results in physical hardware failure (Most commonly in multiformat CD/DVD writer drives). A sure sign of this step down occurring is that the burn speeds will get slower and slower (no matter what speed you select to burn at). Starforce, on a regular basis, triggers this silent step down. Until it reaches the latter stages most people do not even realise it is happening.

Moreover, the Starforce drivers, installed on your system, grant ring 0 (system level) privileges to any code under the ring 3 (user level) privileges. Thus, any virus or trojan can get OS privileges and totally control your system. Since Windows 2000, the Windows line security and stability got enhanced by separating those privileges, but with the Starforce drivers, the old system holes and instabilities are back and any program (or virus) can reach the core of your system by using the Starforce drivers as a backdoor.

Link

Update: StarForce, the company criticized below, has threatened to sue me for describing the problems with its software.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:41:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Is obesity caused by a virus?

A researcher at the University of Wisconsin has discovered a virus that causes obesity in chickens. The virus is related to two others known to cause obesity in other animals, and she believes that this might be implicated in human obesity. This has led to a theory that the present obesity epidemic is caused by viruses, an idea the article compares to the revelation that ulcers were caused by bacteria, not stress. It would be stunning if it turned out that you could be vaccinated against obesity.

The theory that viruses could play a part in obesity began a few decades ago when Nikhil Dhurandhar, now at Pennington Biomedical Research Center at LSU, noticed that chickens in India infected with the avian adenovirus SMAM-1 had significantly more fat than non-infected chickens. The discovery was intriguing because the explosion of human obesity, even in poor countries, has led to suspicions that overeating and lack of exercise weren't the only culprits in the rapidly widening human girth. Since then, Ad-36 has been found to be more prevalent in obese humans.

In the current study, Whigham et al. attempted to determine which adenoviruses (in addition to Ad-36 and Ad-5) might be associated with obesity in chickens. The animals were separated into four groups and exposed to either Ad-2, Ad-31, or Ad-37. There was also a control group that was not exposed to any of the viruses. The researchers measured food intake and tracked weight over three weeks before ending the experiment and measuring the chickens' visceral fat, total body fat, serum lipids, and viral antibodies.

Link (via /.)

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

Script to replace Google logo with Evil Google logo

Amos sez, "Your coverage of Evil Google has inspired me to write my first piece of Javascript. It is a greasemonkey script for Firefox which, when installed by a willing user, will swap the Google logo with the Students for a Free Tibet version. Tested on google.ca, google.com, and google.co.uk. If you swap a line in the script, it will work on google.cn instead. I'm not clever enough to have it work for both at the same time." Link (Thanks, Amos!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:18:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PSP lockout broken: Any PSP can run any software again

All PSP owners can now load any software they want onto their devices, even if Sony hasn't approved of it. Sony's Playstation Portable ships with countermeasures to prevent the devices' owners from installing software of their choosing on their property. Under Sony's system, only approved software will run on the PSP. Almost since the day it was first released, this feature has been compromised on PSPs, as PSP owners have reverse-engineered the lockware and produced work-arounds. Sony has responded with a series of "updates" that downgrade PSPs to prevent their customers from continuing to run their favorite programs.

The latest of these downgrades is version 2.60 of the PSP firmware, but as of today, there is a cracked version of this firmware available. Now all PSP owners regardless of their firmware versions can load their own software.

That’s right, the day we’ve all been waiting for has finally arrived! Thanks to the fantastic work by our forum moderator Fanjita and his coding companion Ditlew, it is now possible to play vast amounts of homebrew programs and emulators on every PSP in the world, including those with 2.60 Firmware! Thanks to their monumental achievement, every PSP in the world is capable of playing homebrew!

Link (via Make Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:13:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Al Jazeera releases video of kidnapped reporter Jill Carroll

The Arab television network Al Jazeera has aired a new video purported to show abducted freelance reporter Jill Carroll "in a state of distress." CNN's account here. Screengrab from video at left.

Yesterday, Carroll's pal and former colleague Natasha Tynes blogged this update on renewed calls throughout the Muslim world for her release: Link, and more from Natasha on today's news here.

Jeff Tynes adds,

Apparently this tape had a time/date stamp with the 28th of Jan., but the group is still requesting the release of female Iraqi detainees. Five of nine were released on Friday the 27th. So we're not sure what to make of that. Apparently in this new clip Jill is wearing a veil and weeping. It is very distressing news.

The Christian Science Monitor, the publication for which Carroll was reporting at the time of her abduction, has released a statement here:

Anyone with a heart will feel distressed that an innocent woman like Jill Carroll would be treated in the manner shown in the latest video aired by Al Jazeera. We add our voice to those of Arabs around the world, and expecially to those in Iraq, who have condemned this act of kidnapping. We ask that she be returned to the protection of her family immediately

Previous Boing Boing posts on Jill Carroll: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:07:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Commonwealth Club DRM event: DRM kiss-ass echo-chamber

Danny sez, "San Francisco's Commonwealth Club, whose regular talks generally attract a high calibre of speaker, and are re-broadcast on radio and TV, are having a panel on DRM this Tuesday - yet they've somehow managed to omit anyone who disapproves of DRM at all. Apparently, DRM is a settled solution, and now the public policy arguments should revolve around who exactly should get the monopoly of technological control over your home. Anyone want to turn up to this, and start asking the really awkward questions?" Link (Thanks, Danny!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:06:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on tilt-shift photography

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Steven Haddock says: "I love the "miniature" aerial photography. I got the same effect accidentally one time flying out of Sydney: the exhaust of the jet blurred the upper part of my photo, giving a surreal effect. (I've blurred the lower portion myself in the attached version below.) As for tutorials, you can get almost the same thing in photoshop just by selecting the foreground and background, feathering your selection, and applying a gaussian blur."

Reader comment: Robert Emslie says: "Here's the website of Gérard Pétremand, a Swiss photographer located in Geneva that also does great tilt-shift photography. Notably, his Silicon Valley series."

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

Palestinian podcasts from BBC News reporter Stuart Hughes

Last week, BBC News foreign correspondent Stuart Hughes (blog) was on the ground in the West Bank covering the Palestinian elections, and their aftermath. In addition to filing his regular reports for the BBC, he also published what may have been the the first (in English, at least) spot news podcast recorded on the ground in the Middle East: MP3 Link.

I asked Stuart how this came together, and he tells Boing Boing:

It has been an historic couple of days here with the Islamic militant group, which has killed hundreds of Israelis, sweeping to power. In between my "proper" BBC duties I knocked off a quick podcast, which I mixed on my laptop while travelling across the West Bank with my colleague in our armoured car and uploaded from an internet cafe in the West Bank town of Ramallah.

Here's a post from yesterday on Stuart's blog, about an encounter with "a senior member of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade [who was] flanked by six masked gunmen." Link to "Face to Face with Terrorists."

Previous posts about Stuart Hughes on Boing Boing: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:55:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on CNN: Porn, your kids, your rights, and The Man

I'll join the hosts of CNN's Showbiz Tonight this evening for a segment examining what role the federal government should take in shielding kids from access to adult material online -- and concerns that free speech and privacy rights may be too easily trampled in the process.

Link to CNN Headline News "Showbiz Tonight home (airs 4pm PT / 7pm ET), and here is a related AP item about the eternally undead Child Online Protection Act, or COPA, which led to the DoJ's subpoenas for search engine data.

Also, Search Engine Watch news editor Gary D. Price says,

I put together this compilation of reports that come from the respected Congresional Research Service. They might be interesting reading and good reference tools. Link to Research Reports from the Congressional Research Service on Internet Privacy, Net Technology, and Protecting Children from "Unsuitable Material"

Update: CNN transcript of this evening's "Showbiz Tonight" is here.

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

Maker Faire, April 22-23, San Mateo

Make magazine is hosting a giant-sized meetup called Maker Faire, to be held at the San Mateo Fairgrounds April 22-23. Ticket prices are very low. I hope to see you there!

Join the creators of MAKE magazine, the MythBusters, and thousands of tech DIY enthusiasts, crafters, educators, tinkerers, hobbyists, science clubs, students, and authors at MAKE's first ever Maker Faire.

All kinds of people who make amazing things in garages, basements, and backyards.

Inspiration, Know-How, and Spirited Mischief-Making

Weird Science -- Ultimate Garage Robotics -- Digital Entertainment/Gaming -- Green Tech & Electronics Recycling -- Ultimate Workshop -- MAKE: Remix Video Film Festival

Student and Family-Friendly Prices

An incredible learning experience for the entire family. Students of all ages and their teachers are welcome.

Kids 12 and under are FREE; teenagers are just $5 per day. Adults pay a paltry $12/day.

Family packages available.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:29:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Copenhagen to replace squatter town with condos, 1000% rent-hikes

Christiania, Copenhagen's glorious, venerable self-governed squatter town, will be razed by the city and replaced with condominiums. Residents of the settlement will face 1000 percent rent increases.

After coming to power in 2001, the government has taken an increasingly harder line on Christiania and its estimated 850 residents, closing its open-air hash market, Pusher Street, in 2004, and threatening to bulldoze the colony entirely.

The new construction could add as many as 400 new residents to Christiania's population.

In addition, current residents of Christiania will be forced to become members of a public housing organisation, and will likely have to begin paying a normal rent on their properties. Currently, adult residents pay DKK 250 per month to live in Christiania. The new rent would be between DKK 2500 and 4600 for a 50 sq. m apartment.

Link (via Squattercity)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:33:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vintage papercraft "jumping jacks" to print and assemble

A blogger has scanned and posted a vintage set of papercraft jumping jack toys -- these are great! Link (Thanks, James!)

Update: These vintage 'jacks were reprinted in a Dover art book -- thanks, Lorelei!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:28:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How do music CDs infect your computer with DRM?

No one woke up this morning wishing that there was a way to do less with their music; so how do companies that distribute audio CDs with copy- and use-restriction DRM on them get you to install it?

Princeton's Ed Felten and Alex Halderman continue to post excerpts from their forthcoming major paper on the lessons learned from Sony's covert infection of millions of its customers' computers with malicious software that was intended to restrict their ability to use the music on the CDs they bought.

Today's installment discusses installation of CD-DRM, wherein CDs try to convince you to install anti-user software on your computer, and to prevent you from ripping the CD while it's doing so. As with previous installments, this is really fascinating, top-notch work.

The greatest limitation of the XCP temporary protection system is the blacklist. Users might find ripping or copying applications that are not on the list, or they might use a blacklisted application but rename its executable file to prevent the installer from recognizing it. Since there is no mechanism for updating the blacklist on existing CDs, they will gradually become easier to rip and copy as new applications not on the blacklist come into widespread use. Application developers may also adapt their software to the blacklisting technique by randomizing their process image names or taking other measures to avoid detection. [Footnote: An extreme extension of this would be to adopt rootkit-like techniques to conceal the copying application’s presence, just as XCP hides its active protection software.]

Link

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

(Sony taproot graphic courtesy of Sevensheaven)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:18:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BoingBoing search privacy challenge: show us the data, MSN, Yahoo, AOL.

Regarding recent news that the Justice Department issued subpoenas for user search data to AOL, Google, MSN, and Yahoo -- and all but Google complied in one form or another -- EFF co-founder John Gilmore says:

If Yahoo, MSN, and AOL didn't reveal any personal info to DoJ, let's see them publicly post the results that they sent back to the DoJ.

They sent "a generic list of aggregate and anonymous search terms, and not results, from a roughly one day period" (AOL)? Let's see it. The public can decide whether there are privacy violations in there.

They sent "a random collection of page URLs that we had web-crawled"? Let's see them.

No need for barrels of ink to speculate with, let's just look at them. There can't be a problem with looking, if there's no personal privacy issues involved. There's no trade secrets here -- these are queries typed by end users, and web pages set up by end users. Right?

Here at Boing Boing, we can't write subpoenas -- but we would like to know.

So, America Online, Microsoft, and Yahoo: will you please release the data publicly -- or show us where it already exists online? This way, everyone who uses your services can take a look for themselves, and evaluate whether they believe the information shared was privacy-violating.

Thank you,
Cory, Xeni, Mark, and Pesco.

Previously: Keeping Google's records out of government hands.
Search and privacy: Danny Sullivan, Declan, GoogleAnon
Xeni on NPR: Bush Administration Seeks Search Records
AOL: We did not comply with all of the DOJ's search data request
DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes.
DoJ demands user search records from Google

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:08:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Can you foil search data trackers with crafty queries?

Boing Boing reader Suresh Venkat says,

There's a bunch of work that computer scientists and cryptographers are doing in an area called "Private Information Retrieval" that tries to find ways of asking search queries in a way that you get the answer you want, but the database doesn't know what you asked for. I wrote a brief semi-layman's explanation of the ideas at this link.

I'm not an expert though: for more information, Bill Gasarch at the University of Maryland maintains a list of (academic) papers on this topic: Link.

And for a more practical take on this: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:07:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hollywood bigwigs answer your questions

Four movie-industry moguls have agreed to answer BBC-reader-suggested questions on the future of digital film.

* Dan Glickman, chairman and chief executive of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), which represents major Hollywood film studios and is leading the global fight against piracy.

* Lavinia Carey, director general of the British Video Association (BVA), the trade body for the UK video and DVD industry, which has been central to the British anti-piracy campaign.

* Curt Marvis, chief executive of CinemaNow, which is billed as the leading legal movie download service, allowing fans to watch or buy films over the internet.

* John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theatre Owners, which represents US cinemas.

Me, I'd like to know if the MPAA still thinks that VCRs were bad for its business, and if not, if it's willing to officially repudiate Jack Valenti's 1982 statement to Congress where he called VCRs the "Boston Strangler of the American film industry." Changing the name of their new DC headquarters to something other than "The Valenti Building" would be a good start.

I'd also like to know whether they think that since Sony advertised the first generation of VCRs as tools for making libraries of your favorite shows, and since that has never been held to be legal by a US court, should Sony be busted under the Grokster decision, which makes you liable for infringements that you "induce" among your customers? If not, does the MPAA believe that making libraries of movies that are aired on broadcast TV is a fair use?

Finally, I'd like to know if the MPAA agrees with its spokesmen who have defended the practice of prohibiting backups of DVDs by saying, "Well, you can't back up a set of crystal glasses either?" and whether, should the ability to back up a set of crystal glasses ever emerge, should the glassmakers have the right to prohibit it? Link (Thanks, Andy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:04:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Museum shoelace trip shatters three Qing vases

A man with a loose shoelace fell down a flight of stairs in the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge, England on Monday and shattered three 17th/18th century Qing dynasty vases. The museum has vowed to glue them back together.

"It was a most unfortunate and regrettable accident, but we are glad that the visitor involved was able to leave the museum unharmed," said Duncan Robinson, the Fitzwilliam's director.

The museum declined to identify the man who had tripped on a loose shoelace Wednesday.

Asked about the porcelain vases, Margaret Greeves, the museum's assistant director, said: "They are in very, very small pieces, but we are determined to put them back together."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:55:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UK ORG: 100s of members, Gaiman's a patron, going to Parliament!

The Open Rights Group (ORG), a new UK-based digital rights group that I am an advisor to, has posted great news about its activities. In just a couple weeks since they opened up for memberships, hundreds of people have joined the group, pledging £5 per month to an organization that has pledged to work for their online freedoms.

ORG has also signed up Neil Gaiman, author of many beloved, award-winning comics and novels, as its official Patron.

Finally, ORG has been invited to give testimony before a Parliamentary inquiry into Digital Rights Management technologies that restrict user-freedom and compromise fair competition.

Congrats, ORG! And thank all of you who've joined up to add Britain to the growing list of nations where public interest groups to safeguard online freedoms.

Gaiman, born in Porchester, is best known for his science fiction and fantasy work, including his best-selling graphic novel "The Sandman". He has also campaigned for many years for authors' freedoms, winning the Defender of Liberty Award from the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund in 1997, and writes extensively online.

"We're in a world in which digital rights, the world of the internet, and the exchange of information is getting more and more important and relevant to all our lives, wherever we are," said Gaiman. "I'm delighted that there's now a group of people committed to preserving and extending civil liberties in a digital world and to being sane and sensible as we careen into a digital future. I was honoured to be asked to be Patron of the Open Rights Group, and I look forward to working with them for years to come."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:25:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sf short film: Alien refugees in Apartheid-land

Alive in Joburg is a masterfully executed short science fiction film in the style of a documentary, about a minority group of aliens who are stranded in the shantytowns of Apartheid-era (post-Apartheid? The alternate timeline is vague) South Africa. The aliens are a kind of racial minority in a race-charged society, and present a contradictory blend of great power and helplessness. The film blends in CGI, costumes, even what I think is stock footage, without any noticeable seams. It's a really compelling glimpse into an sf world, just the sort of thing that short sf films do best when they're well-made. Link (Thanks, Craniac!)

Update: Ben points us to TempBot, another great movie from the same guy. There's also a fantastic showreel.

Update 2 Christopher sends us a link to the Alive in Joburg film on the Internet Archive.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:07:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sweet free/open Mac browser

Shiira is a free and open-source Mac browser that has lots of lovely little gracenotes in its design, like the ability to use the F8 key to have all your open tabs appear as floating thumbnails. It's still early on in its development, but it's quite slick and well worth a spin. Link (Thanks, Robert!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:49:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Schoolhouse Rock Constitution preamble -- the machinima edition

A Statch recorded a charming country-western version of the Schoolhouse Rock adaptation of the Preamble of the US Constitution, then made a compelling little video for it using The Movies, a program that lets you use game-like avatars to script, execute and edit animations. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:41:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO make toys from trash

The Toys from Trash site details dozens of projects for making ingenious toys from trash. I love this abacus made from an old rubber house-slipper sole, and I'm also very fond of the matchstick mecanno and the battery railway. There's also a great little section of science experiments a kid can make out of household waste. Link (via Make Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:04:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, January 29, 2006

Vintage ads where kids leer demonically at food

The Plan59 Gallery of Demonic Tots and Deeply Disturbing Cuisine feature scans of vintage food advertisements in which children leer at plates of foood with expressions that transcend mere eagerness and shade over to scary, demonic malice. Link (via Neatorama)

Update: See this excellent Cthulhu mashup with the demonic kids, courtesy of Dave!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:23:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

McDaid's amazing story "Keyboard Practice" as an MP3

John McDaid's amazing, Nebula-shortlisted science fiction story "Keyboard Practice" is now available as a free MP3.

Earlier this month, I blogged about how John had posted a free electronic edition of his groundbreaking story "Keyboard Practice, Consisting of an Aria with Diverse Variations for the Harpsichord with Two Manuals," which I had the good fortune to workshop with him some years ago. Keyboard Practice is a mind-bending, playful, hilarious story about artificial intelligence and the Goldberg Variations, and it has earned John a spot on the shortlist for the 2005 Nebula Awards.

I made the same list with my story Anda's Game, and I recently released an MP3 of game-blogger Alice Taylor reading it aloud in three parts (1, 2, 3). (Incidentally, Anda's Game was workshopped by John as well).

Now John has released his own reading of Keyboard Practice as a 60MB MP3. I can't wait to listen to this on the way to the office today. I wish every story on the Nebula shortlist was available this way! 60MB MP3 Link (via John McDaid)

Update: Remmelt's posted a torrent of this file. BTW, I finished listening to it today and MAN is it ever good. Better than I remembered, even.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:16:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Law enforcement professionals against the war on drugs

Law Enforcement Against Prohibition is an international organization of cops, district attorneys, judges, corrections officers and others who oppose the war on drugs.

I've lost a few friends to prohibition, people who took unknown street drugs and overdosed as a result, and I lived in a crack neighborhood for years in San Francisco. Though I don't take narcotics (I did when I was younger, but ran out of time to indulge in either liquor or drugs when my life got very busy in my mid-twenties) I believe that prohibition of drugs leads to far worse evils that even the abuse of drugs engender.

I further believe that the war on drugs criminalizes otherwise law-abiding people and forces them into criminal contexts to engage in something that is intended only to change their own mental state. Finally, I believe that the law has no business telling adults which chemicals they can take to change what and how they think.

After nearly four decades of fueling the U.S. policy of a war on drugs with over half-a-trillion tax dollars and increasingly punitive policies, our confined population has quadrupled over a 20 years period making building prisons this nation's fastest growing industry. More than 2.2 million of our citizens are currently incarcerated and every year we arrest an additional 1.6 million for nonviolent drug offenses‹more per capita than any country in the world. The United States has 4.6 percent of the population of the world but 22.5 percent of the world's prisoners. Every year we choose to continue this war will cost U.S. taxpayers another 69 billion dollars. Despite all the lives we have destroyed and all the money so ill spent, today illicit drugs are cheaper, more potent, and far easier to get than they were 35 years ago at the beginning of the war on drugs. Meanwhile, people continue dying in our streets while drug barons and terrorists continue to grow richer than ever before. We would suggest that this scenario must be the very definition of a failed public policy. This madness must cease!

Link (Thanks, Mike!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:07:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Asians carry gene for dry earwax

The January issue of Nature Genetics reports on the identification of a gene that determines whether your earwax is dry or wet; people of African and European ancestry have predominantly wet earwax. Asians, Inuit and Native North Americans have predominantly dry earwax, as they have a gene that prevents cerumen from mixing with their earwax.

Researchers identified a gene that alters the shape of a channel that controls the flow of molecules that directly affect earwax type. They found that many East Asians have a mutation in this gene that prevents cerumen, the molecule that makes earwax wet, from entering the mix.

Scientists believe that the mutation reached high frequencies in Northeast Eurasia and, following a population increase, expanded over the rest of the continent. Today distribution of the gene is highest in North China and Korea

Link (Thanks, Chris!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:59:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Benford's Law modeler shows why numbers often start with 1

A little Flash application provides a compelling example of Benford's Law, making it possible to see intuitively something that is otherwise quite abstract.

Yesterday, I blogged about Benford's Law, which predicts that in a set of numbers, numbers that begin with the numeral 1 will appear more often than other numbers. This can be used to catch cheats by checking to see if the data they give in their tax-returns, research data-sets or homework have more numbers that start with 1 than other numerals.

William Fawcett, who made the Flash app, sez, "A couple of years ago I attended an excellent lecture by Simon Singh - he writes popular science and maths books like Fermat's Last Theorem and Big Bang - and this was one of the mathematical curiosities he mentioned. I was intrigued but sceptical, so built a quick Flash app to test it." Link (Thanks, William!)

Update: Gary sez, " If you use a close approximation of PI (say 3.14159265) as a factor, you can avoid getting numbers that start with 1 at all. Using a factor of 3.14159265 and a start number of 3, you get no numbers starting with 1. Change the start number to 6, you get only numbers starting with 1, 4, or 5. I don't know how the modeler is coded, so I wonder whether this is a quirk in the modeler or an exception to the rule."

Update 2: Bob solves the mystery (also thanks to Bernardo for his explanation):

This result comes not because he used pi, but because pi is an approximation of the square root of 10. (3.16 is closer than 3.14.) If you use 3.16 as the multiplying factor (31.6 and 316 also work), the signifigant digit will always be one of two numbers (this works best if you use a single-digit number for the start number).

If you use 1 or 10 or 100 as the multiplying factor, of course all numbers will start with the same digit (the starting digit of the start number).

If you use the cube root of a power of 10 such as 2.154 (21.54, 215.4, and 2154 also work), all results will start with one of 3 digits. And so on.

The results using decimal approximations depend on the Flash app stopping when the 25th occurence is reached. Since an exact square or cube root of ten can't be expressed as a decimal, the distribution would eventually comply with Benford's Law if the 25th occurence limitation was removed.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:49:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thai water-taxis made from canoe-mounted truck-engines

James Gosling took a series of photos of Thailand's Longtail water-taxis, which are made by attaching a propeller-equipped diesel truck engine to the end of an oversized canoe. The photos are pretty impressive.

When you look at them when they get closer, you see a truck engine mounted on the stern with a long piece of pipe stretching out toward the bow that the boatman holds on to. There's another piece of pipe welded onto the transmission pointing out toward the stern.

When the boatman pushes on his piece of pipe, it rotates the engine left, right, up or down. When he pushes down, it rotates the tail upward and you get to see the business end of the beast: a naked propeller just hanging out there.

Link (Thanks, Simon!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:43:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google logo redesigned by Students for Free Tibet

Inspired by Xeni's post about Google's active role in the supression of information in China, Han Shan sent us this graphic from The Students for a Free Tibet, showing Google's logo over a sniper-and-barbed-wire checkpoint. JPEG Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:39:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos of mathematical equations -- London show open Feb 1

Justin Mullins, an artist who produces framed equations with textual material explaining their meaning to everyday life, is having his first exhibition in London, Feb 1-12, at Lauderdale House. Mullins's work -- which he calls "mathematical photography" -- goes beyond gimmicky amusement. Sustained attention to the equations and diagrams he's chosen really does inspire the same kind of moving feeling that photos of the physical world can bring.

The connections between ordinary objects are fleeting and superficial. Two atoms may collide and separate, never to meet again. Others can stick together by virtue of the chemical bonds they form, until the day that bond is broken.

But there is another type of connection that is far more powerful and romantic. Certain objects can become linked by a mysterious process called entanglement. Particles that become entangled are deeply connected regardless of the distance between them. If they become separated by the width of the Universe, the bond between them remains intact. These particles are so deeply linked that it’s as if they somehow share the same existence.

Physicists do not yet fully understand the nature of entanglement but there is growing evidence that it is a fundamental property of the universe. Unfettered by the restrictions of space, entanglement may be the ghostly bedrock upon which reality is built.

Link

Update: David wrote about Justin's photos in October -- all the more reason to go to his opening!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:34:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Did planted news articles in Iraq violate 2003 Pentagon order?

In the LA Times, Mark Mazzetti reports that the secret military program which paid Iraqi newspapers to publish pro-US stories may have violated a Pentagon directive signed by Donald Rumsfeld in 2003. Excerpt from the text of that directive:

Psy-op is restricted by both DoD [Department of Defense] policy and executive order from targeting American audiences, our military personnel and news agencies or outlets.

Link to LAT story (via Romenesko), and here are PDF copies of related Defense Department documents from the National Security Archive, including the Information Operations Roadmap directive (2.4MB PDF Link) to which this report refers.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:26:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google.cn: Tibetans protest, misspellers evade, updates.

Roughly 20 protesters from Students for a Free Tibet -- including a number of Tibetan nationals -- gathered in front of Google's headquarters last Wednesday to protest the company's launch of a government-filter-compliant search engine in China. Link, more images here. (Thanks, Telendro)

Paul Boutin has discovered that one way to thwart internet filters is too spel yur serch qweries inkorreckly. Link.

Over at News.com, Declan McCullagh reports that Google.cn not only omits politically sensitive material, but "goes further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting teen pregnancy, homosexuality, dating, beer and jokes." Link

Link to Joy of Tech comic by Nitrozac and Snaggy. (Thanks, Robert)

Here's another comic by Metin Seven: Link.

Reader Comment: Simon says,

Someone on the IP list spotted that the blacklist is case sensitive. Link.

Reader comment: Suomy Anona says,

I saw Googlecompare posted on a blog forum. You enter a search term and it compares the english results to the chinese results then gives you the links that are in the Google.com results but not the Google.cn results. Some of the things blocked (or put miles down in the results) are quite interesting (including BoingBoing's "Photo: lesbian kiss in Tiananmen Square under guards, Mao"). Obviously it is affected both by ordereding of results and complete censorship, but it can check the first 300 chinese results: Link

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

Malaysia bans metal as un-Islamic. For those about to rock: jail

Tiara S. from Malaysia says, "Here's an update on the whole Black Metal saga in Malaysia. The government has banned 'Black Metal culture,' and whoever's suspected of practicing it could be arrested."

Snip from story in Malaysia's Star newspaper:

Black Metal culture has been declared as a deviation from Islamic teachings and those found practising it could be penalised under syariah law. The National Fatwa Council ruled that Black Metal culture was totally against the syariat (Islamic principles) and could lead its followers to being murtad (apostate). The council issued the decree after deliberating on the matter at its bi-monthly meeting yesterday.

“We discussed the issue at length to understand what Black Metal is all about and its effect on our culture,” council chairman Prof Datuk Shukor Husin told newsmen after the meeting. “It has been established that Black Metal practices are way against the syariat and every effort must be taken to stop its spread.”

Link to report. Link to blog for the Council of Independent Journalism, where you'll find a good collection of media reports on the Black Metal crackdown in Malaysia.

Image: JITU, an early 90's hair / thrash / power ballad / metal band from Malaysia. Proto-Malay-metal bands in those years also faced censorship and government bans. (Thanks, DJ Carlito!)

Previous "black metal" posts on Boing Boing: Link.

Reader comment: Syaza in Malaysia says,

I've read ur article on black metal in malaysia. It is always easy to assume thins when u r not at the place, huh? Being a malaysian, i know exacly why our gov is worried with the black metal in malaysia, as many of us did. We know that not all underground music is the same, but the effect that they have on our teenagers are just @#$%!!!! You would feel the same too if you can see it yourselves.

Their belief is that to be against the norm. A total counter-culture. So what did they do? They go against all our Malay and Islamic belief. Here's what they've done - drink goat's blood, pee and jump on our holy Al-Quran, worship satan....etcetc

And i know that you would have realised that this is not just against Islam, but to Kristians and Buddish too. I am suprise that you think this is not a big deal. Try think, why do we think so? Think.

ps. dont judge or make assumption when you dont know the truth.

Reader comment: Edwin Gore says,

"pee and jump on our holy Al-Quran." So, the real problem at Guantanamo is not a culture of torture, but rather the spread of Black Metal throughout the ranks of interrogators...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:22:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Report: Radiation exposure drug availability blocked by feds

CBS 60 Minutes ran a segment tonight about the bureaucratic red tape blocking availability of Neumune, a drug developed by San Diego biotech firm Hollis Eden to treat Acute Radiation Syndrome. Snip from story intro:

We can no longer ignore the worst-case scenario of a nuclear terrorist attack on an American city. Osama bin Laden has made it clear he wants to obtain nuclear weapons and use them against us. The 9/11 Commission considers such an attack the No. 1 threat today, not because it’s the most likely disaster scenario, but because it would be the most devastating. The chairman of the 9/11 Commission even says he expects to see such an attack on an American city in his lifetime.

Hundreds of thousand of people could die in a nuclear attack, but hundreds of thousands of others could be saved. That’s because the Pentagon — after decades of searching — believes it has found a drug to treat radiation exposure. Why isn’t that drug available?

Link. Disclaimer: I worked on Hollis Eden's first-ever website years ago, when I was a grunt coder at a San Diego web development firm.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:43:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Revenge Zen

revenge unlimited
shhh
road rage cards
stopping traffic
drunk couple note
mind molester
revenge test
lousy tippers
trembicky
ivr cheat sheet
life's little annoyances
clientopia
Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:12:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Artist makes faux Chinese lacquer scenes from porn mags

Chinese-American artist Yun Bai makes "porn flower" collages from adult magazine snippets. She laquers them together to create trompe l'oeil scenes that look like traditional mother-of-pearl tableaus at a distance. Up close, however, you can see the dirty bits. Link to artist website. Use the pull-down menu to select "porn flowers," and choose the heading marked "Sold" to see more. (Thanks, Hillary)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:45:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Only in Japan: website where you pay for joy of shopping

This existentialicious video shopping website differs from all others in one respect: here, you pay for the ephemeral joy of shopping itself. Whatever product you buy will never be sent. Instead, you receive a video of the shopping experience, so you can relive your purchasegasm as many times as you like.

Link to Mofukunosusowokarage, "THATS SO CUTE NOW ON LIVE!!," and here's a sorta-English version. (Thanks, Eduardo Sciammarella!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:27:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google and other search engines log IP addresses. So what?

Adam Fields has published an extensive post on his blog about the importance of IP address logging by search engines. "Given the recent fuss about the government asking for search terms and what qualifies as personally identifiable information, I want to explain why IP address logging is a big deal," he says. Snip from post:

While an IP address may not be enough to identify you personally, there are strong correlations of various degrees, and in most cases, those correlations are only one step away. By itself, an IP address is just a number. But it’s trivial to find out who is responsible for that address, and thus who to ask if you want to know who it’s been given out to. In some cases, the logs will be kept indefinitely, or destroyed on a regular basis - it’s entirely up to each individual organization.

Up until now, I’ve only discussed the implications of having an IP address. The situation gets much much worse when you start using it. Because every bit of network traffic you use is marked with your IP address, it can be used to link all of those disparate transactions together.

Despite these possible correlations, not one of the major search engines considers your IP address to be personally identifiable information. While this may technically be true if you take an IP address by itself, it is a highly disingenuous position to take when logs exist that link IP addresses with computers, physical locations, and account information… and from there with people. Not always, but often. The inability to link your IP address with you depends always on the relative secrecy of these logs, what information is gathered before you get access to your IP address, and what other information you give out while using it.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:13:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

White Castle Valentine's dinner

White Castle is a US burger chain known for its tiny, steamed burgers, nicknamed "sliders" and best purchased "by the sack." Commonly eaten with greasy onion chips and syrupy orange soda, White Castle is perhaps the quintessential fast food spot in the Midwestern and Eastern United States. Indeed, White Castle predated McDonald's and, some argue, helped launched the fast food hamburger industry. Now the company is offering special Valentine's Day dinners. Reservations required. (The idea was previously test-marketed at select locations.) From the New York Daily News:

"Some people come for a laugh, but most have a story to tell about their first date at a White Castle, or maybe they went there after the prom," said Kelly Collins, a marketing supervisor for the chain, who said in other cities some dates arrive blindfolded or in limos....

Canoodling couples will arrive at the franchise of their choosing - 48 in the New York area are participating in the promotion - and be greeted at the door by a hostess dressed to the nines, instead of in the usual White Castle uniform.

The lovers will then be escorted to their cloth-covered, candlelit table as romantic music is piped in.

Link (Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 05:00:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

It's Peanut Butter Federline

On MTV last week, Kevin "former Mr. Britney Spears" Federline looked pretty stupid headthwomping to his new "Brazilian ass shaker" PopoZao. Replacing that soundtrack with the internet-famous "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" makes the segment infinitely mais estúpido, and may answer the question of exactly what substances K-Fed turns to for the squelching of weed-munchies. Link to remix video. (Thanks, Nathan and Teco)

Update: G4TV host Kevin Pereira tells Boing Boing,

Check out Attack of the Show's take on the clip. We (AOTS) literally slapped this parody video together this morning after we came up with the idea in a news meeting (that ended at 10:00am), and we had it ready for air by 3:00pm. Links to both Kevin Federline's video and the parody video are here.

Update: tian says,

In Mandarin Chinese, in Mandarin Chinese, po po means “old lady” or “mother-in-law”, and zao means “in a mess”. [Also] James Lipton recited "Popozao" on Conan O'Brien's show. Link

What does popo zao really mean in Portuguese? The t-shirt knows. Link

Reader Comment: Tom B in Brazil says,

Popozao is written as one word and with a tilde over the 'a' like this: Popozão. It comes from Rio Funk slang and just means 'large, yummy ass'. A woman endowed with a Popozão is called a Popozuda. (Google image search link). Theoretically, a man would be a Popozudo but, arguably, large asses on men aren't yummy.

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

Lunar New Year pyromania porn from China

Boing Boing reader Joe in Shanghai, China says:

Your city may have a lion dance and some firecrackers, but check out how Shanghai celebrates. There is nothing like it in the world. Fireworks EVERYWHERE for hours and hours and hours. It is a sight to behold, and if you can't be there in person, these videos and photos are the next best thing. Wild, wild, wild.

Link. Photo: Brad Ferguson, more here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:45:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of celebrity branding Zen: Chuck Norris headshop

Boing Boing reader Alex says,

Recently, I found this smoke shop on the corner of Lafayette and Spring in Manhattan which seems to have chosen Chuck Norris' mythical face for their logo. Also, here's a Goatse-esque shoe store sign. I spoke to a clerk in the store who said (in broken English) that the logo was supposed to be "Like a woman, you know...showing herself." I asked him if he knew what Goatse was and he seemed oblivious.

Boy, when Mr. Norris learns about this unlicensed use of his likeness, it's highly probable that he'll show up on the corner of Lafayette and Spring and roundhouse kick that sissy store manager's head 'til his brains turn into foie gras. Recent BB posts about the man whose tears cure cancer: Link

Reader Comment: @rt says,

I believe the image has a closer resemblence to the Paladin from the 60's TV series "Have Gun Will Travel" which starred Richard Boone (Pat Boone's cousin) in the lead role.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:25:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NASA climate scientist: Bush administration tried to silence me

Snip from NYT story by Andrew Revkin:

The top climate scientist at NASA says the Bush administration has tried to stop him from speaking out since he gave a lecture last month calling for prompt reductions in emissions of greenhouse gases linked to global warming.

The scientist, James E. Hansen, longtime director of the agency's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, said in an interview that officials at NASA headquarters had ordered the public affairs staff to review his coming lectures, papers, postings on the Goddard Web site and requests for interviews from journalists. Dr. Hansen said he would ignore the restrictions. "They feel their job is to be this censor of information going out to the public," he said.

Dean Acosta, deputy assistant administrator for public affairs at the space agency, said there was no effort to silence Dr. Hansen. "That's not the way we operate here at NASA," Mr. Acosta said. "We promote openness and we speak with the facts."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:03:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fuel cell motorcycle debuts at Tokyo trade show

Gaijin Biker says,

I swung by the 2006 Tokyo Fuel Cell Expo, where I saw the ENV hydrogen-powered motorcycle from British company Intelligent Energy. Its expected price is somewhere below $10,000, and it should be available in about 18 months. Apparently, riding it feels more like skiiing or windsurfing than like riding a normal motorcycle. Also, it is completely quiet. Interestingly, the fuel cell that powers the bike is removable, and can be used to run other items in your home.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:58:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wife of MN Satanic gubernatorial candidate fired for being witch

Regular Boing Boing readers may recall a recent post here about Jonathan "The Impaler" Sharkey, the self-described vampire who ran for governor in Minnesota. Sharkey's wife, Julie Carpenter, worked as a bus driver for a school district in that state for four years with a flawless record -- but was fired last week when the school district superintendent learned she was a pagan. Ms. Carpenter responded in a Metafilter thread on the matter with a scanned image of the letter (JPEG link) sent by that official to her former employer. Note to intolerant bureaucrats: it's not wise to fuck with witches. Particularly those who are consorts of sword-wieldin', blood-drinkin', batik-wearin' politicians. (Thanks, Craig and Jeremy)

Reader comment: Anonymous says,

Is The Impaler's "real" name "Rocky Adonis Flash" or "Darth Hurricane"? The images directory has a restraining order against him and several emails from the republican party to Rocky Adonis Flash. A simple google search and it seems that he ran for senator in Florida in 2002, and New Jersey in 2000.

Reader comment: Ronald L. Jones says,

What the Princeton School District did was illegal. Paganism is a religion and even the United States Armed Forces recognizes Paganism as a religion. And according to the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Title VII), jobs are prohibited from discriminating based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. Also, the Civil Rights Act of 1991 provides monetary damages in cases of intentional employment discrimination. She should definitely sue and ultimately win the resulting lawsuit. When people can get away with crap like this, it makes me start to lose faith in this world.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:43:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory speaking in Geneva on Thursday

I'll be speaking at the LIFT conference later this week in Geneva. My session is on Thursday, 2 February, at 1:30PM, on DRM and the European Broadcast Flag. Also at the event are Bruce Sterling, Robert Scoble, Euan Semple, Bruno Giussani, Xavier Comtesse, Régine Debatty, Anina, Jeffrey Huang, Matt Jones, Chris Lawer, Hugh Macleod, David Galipeau, Aymeric Sallin, Paul Oberson, Jean-Luc Raymond and a ton of other amazing people. Hope to see you there, too!

When: 2006, February 2 and 3 (that would be Thursday and Friday)
Where: The conference will be held at the International Conference Center (CICG) of Geneva, Switzerland.
The attendee list is full, but there's a waiting list if you're game.

LIFT is organized around five major topics, or tracks.

Big ideas -- From co-creation to citizen journalism via the copyright-less economy, technology and communications are changing the rules. Big ideas are those that concern us all.

Design -- Design is about making the life of people better. We've invited designers from across the spectrum of design, from strategy to pixels, from screens to devices, from business structures to experiences.

Emerging technologies -- From RFID (the identification chips embedded in all objects) to nano tech, we are going to discuss technologies that are just starting to create an impact on our world. Folks from the labs are going to take off their white coats and tell us what's coming.

Global Solidarity -- Geneva is not only the place that saw the web come to life. It is also a major humanitarian center of excellence with hundreds of organizations having their headquarters around the lake. We invited speakers representing this constantly evolving field, in which solutions to complex problems don't merely improve lives, but save them.

Internet -- Last but not the least, the spine of all of the above. It gave many of us our careers, our passions, and it sustains much of our daily life. We are inviting speakers who are pushing the evolving definition of what the Internet is and can be.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:46:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How DRM tries to resist uninstalling

Princeton DRM researchers Alex Halderman and Ed Felten have posted the latest in a continuing series of excerpts from a long technical paper analyzing the Sony DRM debacle, in which the company was found to have deliberately infected its customers with malicious software covertly included on audio CDs.

In today's installment, Ed and Alex talk about "deactivation attacks" on DRM -- that is, how do the people who supply user-hostile anti-copying software keep users from uninstalling it? Keeping users from uninstalling software is also the goal of spyware and other malicious software, and "rogue" spyware and the DRM distributed on CDs use common approaches to sinking their roots into their victims' computers.

In this piece, the researchers go into depth about the tactics used in the malware that Sony distributed -- it's fascinating reading.

Though it is not surprising that spyware tactics would have attraction for DRM designers, it was a bit surprising that mass-market DRM vendors chose to use those tactics despite the risk of harming users. If only one vendor had chosen to use such tactics, we could write it off as an aberration. But two vendors made that choice, which is probably not a coincidence.

We suspect that the explanation may lie in the DRM vendors’ platform building strategy, which relies on keeping the software installed on as many computers as possible, coupled with the risk tolerance of DRM startup companies. The vendors may not have realized the extent of damage they could be causing, but they must have known that they were doing some harm. Our hypothesis is that the vendors allowed the lure of platform building to override the risk to users.

Link

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

(Sony taproot graphic courtesy of Sevensheaven)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:33:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Diss songs go back to the 1830s or longer

A fascinating Ask Metafilter thread traces the history of the call-out/insult/diss song, wherein a songwriter derides other songwriters or performers. It turns out that this goes back at least to the 1830s:

The tradition of dissing, also called dozens or 'playing the dozens', goes back to the earliest days of African-American culture, if not before. The very first written citation of an African-American song in English, published in 1830, is a song of this type: Round the Corn, Sally, in which the enslaved female singer is described as dissing every member of a picnic party in skillful rhyme.

Up until very recent times, you could find rap's closest antecedent, toasting (or improvising spoken poetry, without a beat), in Southern roadhouses, and toasting often featured dissing and call-outs. For a sample of American toasting (along with a mind-blowing collection of other African American roots music traditions collected in the early 70s), you might want to view Alan Lomax's film, Land Where the Blues Began.

It's not quite what you asked, because you're looking for specific call-outs, but at least in African-American music the idea of it goes way, way back. You'll certainly find examples in the pop world , but I thought you'd want to know that it is deeply rooted in traditional oral culture.

Link (via A Whole Lotta Nothing)

Update: Paul sez, "Old Norse and Old English poetry (written down in the 13th and 8th-11th centuries respectively, but often of earlier oral origins) know the tradition of "flyting," insulting speech esp. before battle. An Old English example occurs in the poetic account of the Battle of Maldon (991 AD); a fine Old Norse example occurs in the Poetic Edda, in the poem Helgakviða Hundingsbana fyrri between Sinfjötli and Gudmundr, containing such insults as: 'nine wolves you and I begot on the island of Sága; I alone was their father' (stanza 38). Since all of this is metrical poetry, it should be seen as ancestral to insulting rap just as well as the Afro-American types mentioned in the Ask Metafilter thread. And I mention this only because this is my field of research; I have little doubt that classicists could come up with other examples, (perhaps metrical Roman graffiti insults?)."

Update 2: Amanda sez, "The Inuit have a version as well, called 'song disputes':"

"Although, as Balikci suggests in the final statement quoted, competitiveness between song partners is often discernible in their songs, this was nothing like the song dispute, a kind of forum for legal action. When an unjust action had been committed, victim and accused would gather in the dance house along with the whole community, and sing songs of derision and degradation against one another. The verdict (that is, the balance of community support) was determined partly by the very number of songs, partly by the bitterness and humour of the mockery, and partly by the justness of the cause."

Update 3: Alex sez, "This tradition actually dates from ancient Rome, taking the form of invective speeches and poems that were commonly recited at parties. The most famous invective poet is Catullus, from the first century AD. So when you hear Fifty singing about how so-and-so loves the cock, you may think this is a new thing, but it actually dates back around 2,000 years."

Update 4: John sez, "Actually, invective poetry goes all the way back to the beginnings of western literature, well before Catullus (whose dates are ca. 84-54BC). The best example is the (ancient Greek) iambic verses of Archilochus, who lived in the 7th century BC. There exists a fragmentary poem in which (if I remember correctly) he vehemently slanders a girl named Neoboule and her father and describes, in graphic detail, how he seduces her sister in revenge. But I find it's a little silly to keep searching for parallels to 'dissing', something probably common to all cultures. I seriously wonder whether the dissers of the 1830s are any more closely related to today's rap music than the ancient Greeks."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:53:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, January 28, 2006

Amsterdam to vandals: Try to wreck new prototype subway car

The council in Amsterdam has issued a call for vandals to attempt to trash a prototype of the city's new subway car, which is intended to be proof against even the most determined wrecker. Amsterdam's public transit vandals are the source of perverse pride among the municipal government there, which regards them as the toughest and most extreme vandals in the world.

Mark van der Horst, the Amsterdam councillor responsible for traffic, told the newspaper that it is not easy to find subway trains that can withstand the Amsterdam brand of hooligans...

"Our new Amsterdam subway must be absolutely Amsterdam-idiot-proof," he explained.

Link (Thanks, Steel!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:38:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Danny O'Brien's Open Source con presentation on Evil

Danny O'Brien gave an amazingly funny talk called "To Evil" at the O'Reilly Open Source conference in August and now you can download the audio and the slides. Danny is a full-time civil liberties activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but he's also done time as a stand up comic, and he co-founded and co-edits the hilarious tech newsletter NTK. "To Evil" is based on his column of the same name, in which Danny picks examples of evil behavior in the tech world and writes about it.

In Danny's presentation, he recaps some of the evils of the year in technological liberty, and then switches to reporting on how good gets done (see the Gandhi State Diagram, left) and reports on some of the triumphs of the year.

It's a terrific and funny presentation, one that provokes both thought and laughter, and it's full of geeky in-jokes. Link to audio, Link to Danny's slides (via Trubble)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:59:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Numbers begin with 1 more often than other numerals

A mathematical theory called "Benford's Law" predicts that in a set of numbers, numbers whose first digit is "1" will turn up more frequently than numbers that start with other digits. Benford, a GE physicist in 1938, formulated his law after discovering that GE's book of logarithm tables was substantially more worn on pages of logarithms corresponding to numbers starting with 1.

Because numbers beginning with 1 turn up so often, it's possible to catch cheaters (tax cheats, homework cheats, etc) by checking to see if the numbers they make up skew to ones that begin with the numeral 1 more frequently than other numbers.

It's not perfect, of course (the 1998 NYT article notes that people on $25 dinner allowances often submit receipts for $24.90), but it is fascinating.

"If we think of the Dow Jones stock average as 1,000, our first digit would be 1.

"To get to a Dow Jones average with a first digit of 2, the average must increase to 2,000, and getting from 1,000 to 2,000 is a 100 percent increase.

"Let's say that the Dow goes up at a rate of about 20 percent a year. That means that it would take five years to get from 1 to 2 as a first digit.

"But suppose we start with a first digit 5. It only requires a 20 percent increase to get from 5,000 to 6,000, and that is achieved in one year.

"When the Dow reaches 9,000, it takes only an 11 percent increase and just seven months to reach the 10,000 mark, which starts with the number 1. At that point you start over with the first digit a 1, once again. Once again, you must double the number -- 10,000 -- to 20,000 before reaching 2 as the first digit.

"As you can see, the number 1 predominates at every step of the progression, as it does in logarithmic sequences."

Link (via Digg)

Update: Christian sez,

The Benford's Law story has some bad math in it. I'm not arguing with the validity of Benford's Law. I just hate to see bad math put up as truth.

Quote from article:
"Let's say that the Dow goes up at a rate of about 20 percent a year. That means that it would take five years to get from 1 to 2 as a first digit."

Actually, it only takes four years. At a rate of 20 percent a year, by year four the Dow would be 2073.6

Quote from article:
"When the Dow reaches 9,000, it takes only an 11 percent increase and just seven months to reach the 10,000 mark, which starts with the number 1."

An 11 percent increase doesn't get the Dow to 10,000. An 11 percent increase of 9000 is 9990, not 10000 or more as the quote states.

Update 2: Ben sez,

The math in the article isn't as bad as one reader suggests.

True, it would take 4 as opposed to 5 years for the Dow Jones to reach 2000 at 20 percent. I assume that the author was saying that the first number starting with 2 would be the fith in the sequence

1000, 1200, 1440, 1728, 2074...

And it is the sequence we are interested in.

The second perceived fault is due to routine rounding off. 10000 is an 11.111111...% increase over 9000, which rounds down to 11% very nicely. At that rate it would take 6.934595174188633 (let's call it 7) months to reach 10000.

Update 3: Alvy points us to an excellent piece on Benford's Law at Steven Wolfram's Mathworld.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:52:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ROJO's limited edition artist monographs

Based in Barcelona, ROJO is an edgy hub for emerging artists. Their Web site is electrified with photos, graffiti, illustrations, and designs by artists that I've never heard of but won't soon forget. ROJO director David Quiles Guilló just sent me their new series of monographic mini-books and they're stunning. No boring essays, no hoity-toity critical introductions, just pages of raw, gritty photos, illustrations, collages, and street art in a compact 5"x6" hardbound volume with a padded cover. The artists in this limited series include Boris Hoppek, Tofer, Nuno Valerio, Neasden Control Centre, and Albert Bertolin (illustration seen here). My favorites are Hoppek's book, titled "Tranquilo," and Bertolin's "Kultur Toilette," which my wife has decided will be placed in our future child's library. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:16:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A British Stormtrooper in Tokyo

Sean Ness, my colleague at the Institute for the Future writes, "There's a British guy in Tokyo named Danny Choo, who likes to take a Stormtrooper outfit and walk around the city: on the train, in Akihabara, etc... I'm sure if he had done this in the US, he'd be arrested for having the toy blaster." Or shot and killed!
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:27:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Radio-controlled steam-powered toy vehicles

I-Wei Huang builds gorgeous, live-steam powered radio-controlled vehicles -- steampunk walkers, crabs, centipedes (pictured here), rowboats, tanks and hotrods. His site is full of photos and videos of the toys in action -- these are stupendous. Link (Thanks, Karl!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:07:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beautiful $220,000 watch -- pray for a cheap version!

This $220,000 watch comes with a lot of copy explaining to you why it's worth $220,000. I don't think it's worth $220,000, but what do I know about $220,000 watches? I hope someone releases a cheapie lookalike; something that slobs like me might buy for $50-200, even if it's not so slick that it will cannibalize the $220,000 crowd.

This really spectacular architecture seems to be absolutely original. The mechanical design of the Cabestan, including its tourbillon, is totally transversal. The indications (hour, minute, seconds, and power reserve) appear on the cylinders located at the four "corners" of the watch.

Starting from the lower left, we find the barrel, which transmits its driving power to the movement by the intermediary of a chain. This chain is connected to a second cylinder, at the upper left, made up of one part of a fusee (placed horizontally as opposed to the traditional fusees that are always vertical), and the other of the cylindrical power reserve indicator (a total of 72 hours).

Link (via Ohgizmo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:19:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Russian govt to shut down human rights group

The Russian justice ministry has asked a court to shut down the Russian Human Rights Research Center, one of the country's oldest human rights group:

The government's request comes just weeks after Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law giving the authorities wide-ranging powers to monitor the activities and finances of non-governmental organisations.

The new powers, which include the right to suspend NGOs should they "threaten Russia's sovereignty or independence", have been severely criticised by both domestic and international rights groups.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:18:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Berserk motorist beating up bike courier captured by amateur photog

A citizen journalist snapped a jaw-dropping set of photos of a berserk motorist attacking a young bike-messenger in Toronto's Kensington Market. The incident reportedly began when the motorist tossed litter out his window, and the courier threw it back in; the motorist reportedly threw a cup of coffee on the courier and the courier reportedly keyed his car. The intrepid photographer calmly stood and fired off shot after shot of the motorist completely losing it, attacking the courier, screaming, and generally going nuts, and braved the man's charge with a baseball bat when he was noticed with his camera:

i followed the motorist back to his car to photograph his license plate number. he proceeded to open his trunk, take out a baseball bat, and charge me. i walked away, and was one of only two witnesses to stay at the scene and give a statement to police.

Many people who apparently know the courier ("Leah") have found the forum and then, Leah herself turned up. She denies keying his car, and reports that the police talked her out of charging him by telling her that she'd be charged too. Link (Thanks, Pigasus!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:46:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Can DRM be future-proof?

When you infect a music CD with malicious anti-copying software, how long can you expect it to work for? Unlike most software, music CDs are liable to be loaded into computers decades after they're pressed; can an anti-copying program anticipate the state of computers in twenty years and ensure that their programs won't destabilize computers in the future?

Princeton's Ed Felten and Alex Halderman continue to pre-publish sections from a major paper on the lessons to be learned from the Sony DRM debacle, in which it was discovered that the music label had deliberately infected its customers' computers with malicious software that spied on them, destabilized their computers, and exposed them to attack from other malicious entities. The software had no easy means of de-installing it, requiring many music fans to reinstall their operating systems.

Today's installment is "CD DRM: Compatibility and Software Updates" and it addresses the question of the longevity of media with anti-copying/use-control software embedded in it -- how can the companies that force these technologies on their customers minimize the harm to future systems, and ensure that users run updates when they have no incentive to increase the efficacy of technologies that treat them as attackers?

Compared to other media on which software is distributed, compact discs have a very long life. Many compact discs will still be inserted into computers and other players twenty years or more after they are first bought. If a particular version of (say) active protection software is burned onto a new CD, that software version may well try to install and run itself decades after it was first developed.

The same is not true of conventional software, even when it ships on a CD-ROM. Very few if any of today’s Windows XP CDs will be inserted into computers in 2026; but CDs containing today’s CD DRM software will be. Accordingly, CD DRM software faces a much more serious issue of compatibility with future systems.

The future compatibility problem has two distinct aspects: safety, or how to avoid incompatibilities that cause crashes or malfunction of other software, and efficacy, or how to ensure that the desired anti-copying features remain effective.

Link

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

(Sony taproot graphic courtesy of Sevensheaven)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:19:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anachronistic images photoshopping contest

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: anachronistic images, like Sofia Loren as a Desperate Housewift, Gandhi with an iPod, or, pictured here, the Beatles crossing Abbey Road on Segways. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:21:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NSA's licensable patent portfolio

The National Security Agency has a "technology transfer" program through which it licenses out the patents it receives on its s00per s33kr1t spy technology. I like the Shredder Residue Dispersion System:

The SRDS is a security paper shredder, where the residue of individual shredded documents pages are collected in multiple collections bins for disposal ensuring that no single collection bin contains the residue of any entire page. It utilizes a top deflector plate and four bins lined with bags to disperse and collect the shredded paper. The material is gravity fed from the bottom of the cutting head to the deflector plate. The plate ensures that the material does not back up into the cutting head and an entire document does not deposit into one collection bag. To further ensure that no adversary could obtain a complete document at one time, the dispersion system is coupled with a procedure of disposing the collection bags on a rotating basis. SRDS does not require the operator to do any additional work and has no moving parts.

But I was genuinely impressed with the ingenuity of the motorized, wildly overbuilt Tape Dispenser that can prevent tamper-evident security tape from sticking to itself while it is being applied:

The AISTD is a security tape dispenser where the tape is on a liner and is dispensed adhesive side up without the liner. This alleviates the tape from unintentionally sticking to an unwanted surface area. AISTD allows a user to pick a mode, enters the information, and receives the desired length tape. It gives the user several options for dispensing the tape: MODES Run - The user picks pre-programmed lengths from the keypad (6" to 36" in ½" increments).

Length - The user can input a length from 3.0" to 999.0". After the length is entered, the user presses the ANY button on the keypad, which causes the machine to dispense the programmed amount.

Box - A lookup table assigns a number to the boxes listed. The box number is entered and the tape comes out to the correct lengths to wrap the box.

Box Flaps - A lookup table assigns a number to the boxes listed. The box number is listed and the tape comes out to the correct lengths to wrap the box. The first tape is for the center seam, the second seals the edge/flap on the same surface, the third seals the edge/flap on the other side the fourth seals the center seam on the open side of the box, the fifth and sixth seal the remaining edge/flap.

Custom - Any recipes of lengths can be programmed and burned into the e-prom.

Link (via Schneier)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:37:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Firefox plugin turns open tabs into floating thumbnails

Reveal is a new Firefox plugin that turns all of your open tabs into floating thumbnails that hover over your current tab (I wrote about Foxpose, a similar plugin, in December). It has a number of advanced features for cycling between tabs and moving the correct one to the fore. Link (Thanks, Can!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:33:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Senators figure out the Broadcast Flag, curse it as an abomination!

The Senate Commerce Committee's hearings on the "Broadcast Flag" and "Audio Flag" proposals have been derailed because senators on the committee now use technologies that would be threatened by the flags.

The Broadcast Flag and Audio Flag proposals would require anyone who build a digital TV or radio device to use technology to control what sort of other devices -- like portable players, recorders and PCs -- could be connected to them. That means that your ability to watch a TV show on your laptop or listen to a recorded digital radio program on your iPod would hinge on whether the manufacturers of these devices can proved to a regulator that they weren't disrupting Hollywood's entrenched business-models.

Until now, lawmakers have been reluctant to speak out against this. A combination of expert lobbying and technological ignorance has made Congress suicidally willing to consider proposals to break America's televisions.

But in yesterday's Commerce hearings, two Senators altered the course of events. First MIT grad John Sununu of New Hampshire said that government mandates "always restrict innovation" and then 82-year-old Ted Stevens of Alaska talked about the iPod he'd gotten for Christmas and put the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol on the spot about whether his proposal would break Stevens' ability to move digital radio programs to his iPod and listen to them in the most convenient way (it would).

This is a momentous occassion: two powerful senators have woken up to the impact that these proposals will have on their voters. As more and more lawmakers get wise to how these things will harm their constituents' interests, it will get harder and harder for entertainment mouthpieces to go crying to government to enshrine their cushy business-models in law.

[Sununu] pointed out that "we have a whole history of similar technological innovation that has shown us that the market can respond with its own protection to the needs of the artists." And he concluded with one of the most damning depictions of the ahistorical nature of the flag (clip from Congressional RealVideo) you'll hear on the Hill:

"The suggestion is that if we don't do this, it will stifle creativity. Well...we have now an unprecedented wave of creativity and product and content development...new business models, and new methodologies for distributing this content. The history of government mandates is that it always restricts innovation...why would we think that this one special time, we're going to impose a statutory government mandate on technology, and it will actually encourage innovation?"

The second revelation, dropped into the later discussion of the RIAA's audio flag, was that Senator Stevens' daughter bought him an iPod.

This is unhappy news for the RIAA. Once again, their representative was forced to burst into praises of MP3 players (a technology his organization attempted to sue out of existence in 1998).

And when Stevens asked whether with the audio flag in place he would be able to record from the radio and put the shows onto his iPod: that's when the RIAA's Mitch Bainwol really began to sweat.

With that simple question, the octogenarian Senator encapsulated arguments about place-shifting, interoperability, and fair use that would have taken whole federal dockets to explain a few years ago.

Even more damning was Senator Sununu's follow-up question, in which he asked if, post-flag, the Senator might record three songs from the radio today, and listen to only one of them again tomorrow. Of course, under the RIAA's proposed controls, you may not: this is "disaggregation" in their language. This flag, which was sold to Congress to impede piracy, appeared to be designed primarily to control and inconvenience law-abiding, ripping, mixing, modern-day Senators.

Link (Thanks, Phineas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:21:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Can you keep your surgically removed/amputated bits?

When you have some bit of you surgically removed, are you allowed to keep it? William Shatner recently won a fight to reclaim his kidney stones, which he donated to a charity auction. Slate's Explainer column investigates the current law and practice of reclaiming our surgical waste. My grandfather used to keep a disgusting jar of 100 gallstones he'd had removed -- it was endlessly fascinating to me.

Just because there aren't many laws against taking home body parts doesn't mean it's an easy thing to do. Most hospitals make patients sign a waiver that cedes ownership of their surgical leavings to the pathology lab. And many teaching hospitals are unwilling to give up potential research samples. To have a good shot at keeping the stuff that's removed, let your doctor know before the procedure. You also usually have to sign a liability release form on the way out.

Advances in laparoscopic and microscopic procedures mean that many body parts that were once removed whole are now taken out in small pieces. Doctors now use shock waves to break up many stones that might have been surgically removed in the past. Even if the desired piece comes out whole, a pathologist sometimes destroys it while taking samples. He can also decide that it represents a biohazard, though most communicable diseases can be killed with formaldehyde. (Some notable exceptions include hepatitis and prion diseases.)

Link (Thanks, David!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:08:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Text-based art, ads and sigs from the golden age of BBSes

This site collects 1,500+ ASCII signatures and ads from the heyday of BBSes. Link (Thanks, Mat!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:05:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, January 27, 2006

Wallet-card with steel toothpicks

This wallet-card contains several die-cut, punch-out toothpicks made from thin strips of stainless steel. The idea of shimming slivers of stainless steel between my teeth is a little disturbing, but I can't deny that the design and execution are quite cool. Link (via OhGizmo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:59:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Watch displays cheeky "approximate time" messages

The Talus About Time watch (not yet available) displays a text and number message giving you the approximate time, such as "Slightly After 6" and "Nearly 6 Forty Five." It undermines the false precision of traditional watches, and is also a great example of whimsical technology that takes advantage of low-cost computer logic to deliver products that would have been impossible a decade ago. I would love to have a wall-clock version of this.

Display	Start Time	End Time
Around 6 o'clock	5:57	6:03
Slightly After 6	6:03	6:10
Around 6 Fifteen	6:10	6:20
Nearly 6 Thirty	6:20	6:25
Half Past 6	6:25	6:35
Nearly 6 Forty Five	6:35	6:40
Quarter To 7	6:40	6:50
Just Before 7	6:50	6:57
Around 7 o'clock	6:57	7:03
About 12 Noon (or midnight)	11:57	12:03

Link (via Gizmodo)

Update: Fuzzyclock will do this for your Mac menubar, and for Konfabulator -- thanks, Bill and Phil!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:55:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

1946 short film on how governments become despotic

Robyn Miller says: "[Here's] an old Encyclopedia Britannica short film on how democracy becomes despotism."

Check out the updated version on the same page.
Link

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

Photographer takes photos of real scenes that look like miniature sets

Metropolis magazine has an article about a photographer named Olivo Barbieri who takes photos of real scenes and makes them looks like miniature sets. Shown here: the Santa Monica pier in Los Angeles.

Kevin Evans says: "Detailed scale models, except they're not. Strange photographs of places using a technique that makes them look like small model dioramas. Truly amazing images.

"the Las Vegas photographs in which an innate sense of unreality collides most strikingly with Barbieri's projected vision. The city's simulated monuments are made to look artificial, in total defiance of their reality. For Barbieri it is "the city as an avatar of itself."

Link

Reader comment: Noah says: "The technique Barbieri uses to get the surreal Depth of Field in his pictures is tilt-shift photography, you can get a nice detailed explanation at the above link. For homebrew photo buffs, there's a cool tutorial on how to make your own tilt-shift lens (without dropping $1000) here."

Reader comment: Alex says: "this photography blog features some very good examples of tilt-shift photography. its in japanese, so i can't give you any more details. i found the quality of the images are superior to those featured in Metropolis. beautiful stuff."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:30:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Burning Man leader on RU Sirius show

Burning Man leader Larry Harvey returns to the RU Sirius Show this week for a great conversation about the need for the sacred, counterculture, and how rich people are OK. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:04:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Asahi giving away beer-pouring fridge-bots

Asahi Beer is giving away 5,000 personal beer-serving robots that store and cool six cans of beer and can open and serve a can on demand.

"I think the sector of home robots in general is about to boom," adds Magnus Wurzer, who organised an event featuring cocktail-making robots in Vienna, Austria in November 2005. "At the moment the home products called robots are but toys, but this will change, features will be added, production will get cheaper."

But Ronald Arkin of Georgia Institute of Technology, US, says the new contraption is a poor advertisement for home robots - which can be more sophisticated. "Home robots are already present," he told New Scientist. "Roomba and Aibo are two good examples - the former for cleaning, the latter for entertainment."

Link (Thanks, Tom and Drew!)

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

HOWTO turn a disposable camera into an RFID-killer

With a little work, a disposable camera can be turned into a low-cost device for disabling the tracking bugs in many products and ID cards. Radio Frequency ID tags (RFIDs) are tiny bugs that can be embedded in products and ID cards, enabling them to be read at a distance. US passports and London's tube-cards are beginning to incorporate these. Nominally, they can only be read at a few centimeters' distance, but security researchers have demonstrated that they can be read by attackers at 15 or more meters away. With goods, it's hard to tell if you've got an RFID embedded in them and hard to kill them (though you can put them in the microwave and kill them).

Modding a disposable camera's flash to deliver an RFID-killing energy-shock is a pretty cool project if you want a portable way to disinfect your stuff. The London Underground's "Oyster cards" are used as stored-value cards for boarding the tube. They track your movements when you touch in and touch out at the turnstiles. You can avoid the worst of the data-collection if you frequently change Oyster cards, but the Underground has promised to start charging £3 for new cards; however, they promise to replace defective cards for free. With one of these, you could zap your card when it runs out of stored money and trade it for a new one that will have a different serial number and consequently not be associatable with your previous card.

Many times, intrusions into privacy like this are excused on the basis that they offer discounts in exchange for your personal information. This is true with the Oyster card, too: a single ride on the tube costs £3 now if you use a paper ticket, but with an Oyster card the journey is as little as £1.30. The thing is, before they ramped up Oyster card use on January 1, the cost of a paper single was also as little as £1.10 -- in other words, they nearly tripled the cost of an anonymous journey and then told everyone that you got a great discount if you used the privacy-surrendering means.

It generates a strong electromagnetic field with a coil, which should be placed as near to the target RFID-Tag as possible. The RFID-Tag then will receive a strong shock of energy comparable with an EMP and some part of it will blow, thus deactivating the chip forever.

To keep the costs of the RFID-Zapper as low as possible, we decided to modify the electric component of a singe-use-camera with flash, as can be found almost everywhere.

Link (via Red Ferret)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:41:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Retracting tape kitchen-timer

This mechanical kitchen timer combines a tape-measure and an egg-timer: the pull-out tape is marked with time increments instead of distance measurements. Pull it to the desired time and it slowly retracts into the timer-body, sounding a bell when it is fully retracted. Link (via Cribcandy)

Update: Kurt sez, "you don't simply pull out the tape to the desired time. You pull it out ALL THE WAY and then use a dial on the bottom to retract the tape to the right time. Not as cool." I agree. How disappointing.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:02:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Casemod made of copper pipe cage

ExtremeTech features an interview with Blake Betz, maker of Coppertop, the great casemod pictured here: shaped struts of copper pipe are formed into a computer-shaped cage with compontents joined to cross-spaces, the whole thing remaining open to the elements and visual inspection.

I decided on the PVC since I had already seen a few of the suitcase mods, but then while at Home Depot I saw the copper plumbing pipes and thought, that's what I need to build my case out of. The structure would be the same as that of my PVC idea, but copper would ground my motherboard whereas PVC case would not. Also, you can't beat that copper shine. Finally, building the case out of copper would be me that one last excuse for finally getting my cordless Dremel, and a butane blowtorch (which also does a very good job at lighting charcoal for cooking out).

Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:59:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World of Warcraft: Don't tell anyone you're queer

Blizzard, the company that runs the massively popular online multiplayer World of Warcraft game, has banned the practice of gay/lesbian/bi/trans players mentioning their sexuality in their guild-descriptions.

Gameplay in World of Warcraft (WoW) hinges on cooperation and guilds; many missions require several players to complete. The game, then, focuses on intense social interaction, and has benefitted tremendously from players who move large parts of their social lives to the game.

But players who have advertised their guilds as "GBLT-friendly" have lately been warned off by Blizzard moderators, who cite a rule against sexual discrimination in censoring the players. When pressed for explanations, they offer the genuinely bizarre excuse that if queer players are allowed to tell other players about their sexual orientation, that it might arouse discriminatory or unkind remarks from those players, and that would violate the anti-discrimination rules of the game.

Online games are incredibly, deeply moving social software that have hit on a perfect formula for getting players to devote themselves to play: make play into a set of social grooming negotiations. Big chunks of our brains are devoted to figuring out how to socialize with one another -- it's how our primate ancestors enabled the cooperation that turned them into evolutionary winners.

But real life has one gigantic advantage over gamelife. In real life, you can be a citizen with rights. In gamelife, you're a customer with a license agreement. In real life, if a cop or a judge just makes up a nonsensical or capricious interpretation of the law, you can demand an appeal. In gamelife, you can cancel your contract, or suck it up.

Will a game ever give players citizenship instead of just customership? Will players always be willing to treat games as their online homes if they have to rely on customer service ethos instead of the Constitution to assure them of a fair shake?

Andrews explained that there was an obvious misunderstanding and that she was not insulting anyone, but merely recruiting for a "GLBT friendly" guild.

The response from Blizzard was, "While we appreciate and understand your point of view, we do feel that the advertisement of a 'GLBT friendly' guild is very likely to result in harassment for players that may not have existed otherwise. If you will look at our policy, you will notice the suggested penalty for violating the Sexual Orientation Harassment Policy is to 'be temporarily suspended from the game.' However, as there was clearly no malicious intent on your part, this penalty was reduced to a warning."

Link (via Lawgeek)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:53:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gordon Rutter's Cabinet of Curiosities

The Scotsman newspaper explores fortean Gordon Rutter's cabinet of curiosities. The wunderkammer sounds, well, wonderful. Seen here is Rutter's latest acquisition, a cyclops pig taxidermy mount. From the article:

"I've been into this sort of thing all my life," says Rutter. "When I was a kid I'd go to the library and devour weird stuff. And now," he says with a wave of his hand, "I've got all this!"

"All this" comprises a collection of over 100 strange items. He has fossilised fingers, rings that belonged to (real) giants, a painted bowl made from a human skull, an ostrich egg mounted on an ostrich foot ("why not?"), plus a whole lot of other weird things. Rutter never goes out looking for things to buy, but when he sees something he knows immediately that it's the thing for him.

"I say to people if it makes you go 'yeargh', 'what's that?' or 'who would want that?', then the chances are I'd be interested." A jackalope is a rabbit with antlers attached. A clear fake it was apparently first 'spotted' in Wyoming in 1829.

A jackalope is a rabbit with antlers attached. A clear fake it was apparently first 'spotted' in Wyoming in 1829.

Rutter's "room full of curiosities" comprises genuine weird things and fake weird things. For him, the fakes are just as exciting as the real things.

"As soon as people started collecting weird and unusual things, the frauds started," says Rutter. "But the fakes are just as interesting to me. Reality is not the over-riding thing."

Link (via Cryptomundo, thanks Loren Coleman!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:55:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sony robot pets RIP

Robot pets may help reduce stress, as recently reported, but they must not sell to well. Yesterday, Sony put their line of Aibo and Qrio robots to sleep for good. From the San Jose Mercury News:

...Bruce Bender, owns 56 Aibos, which he believes is the world's largest private collection. Bender, who lives in Rancho Cordova, outside Sacramento, noted in a message board posting that although Aibo manufacturing has stopped, ``that doesn't mean Aibo is dead.''

Bender said in a phone interview that he still plans to host gatherings for the worldwide Aibo community, such as one he held in late September where 110 dogs danced together in unison. Bender believes Sony's moves wlil bring the Aibo community closer together -- at least in spirit.

``Aibo is a very small department and that is the kind of thing you cut out when you are streamlining,'' Bender said. ``It's a business decision and business decisions don't always make money. But the Aibo community will go on.''

Link

UPDATE: At the MAKE: Blog, Phil Toronne has posted a big photo gallery of QRIO and AIBO cuteness. The AIBOs are his. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:48:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RAND's list of 50 book about the future

The RAND Corporation's Pardee Center published their list of "50 Books for Thinking About the Future Human Condition." (They admit that it's "a Wester-centric look at the future.") The list is divided into various themes and categories, like Global Governance, Health, Geographical Regions, Technology, Human Development, etc. It's a pretty amazing collection of titles. As the nerdy but true t-shirt says, "so many books, so little time." The following recommendations are from the "Wild Cards" category. I can vouch that the first book is fantastic.

Benyus, Janine, Biomimicry: Innovation Inspired by Nature, New York: Perennial, 2002. ISBN 0060533226

Kurzweil, Ray and Terry Grossman, Fantastic Voyage: Live Long Enough to Live Forever, Emmaus, Pa.: Rodale, 2004. ISBN 1-57954-954-3. Selected chapters also available online from http://www.fantastic-voyage.net/

Hostetler, John A., Amish Society, Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-8018-4442-8

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:50:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-smoking website: put dead animals in Blythe dolls' mouths

Well-designed anti-smoking site lets you put dead rats, meal worms, decaying fish, and other vermin into the mouths of adorable Blair Blythe dolls.
Link (via AdFreak) (Thanks, Tim!)

Reader comment: Steve says: "The creepy smoking dolls aren't Blythe dolls (compare the features to actual Blythe dolls on thisisblythe.com). They may be Blythe-inspired, and Blythe herself may not approve of smoking, but the dolls aren't Blythe (who's much cuter...) "

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:24:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Thousands live in tunnels" under Sofia, Bulgaria

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Jordan Todorov says: "I was surprised to learn recently about the underground tunnel in Mexico. Exactly at the same time some Bulgarian newspapers published simmilar kind of stories.

"According to Standart daily newspaper under the Bulgarian capital Sofia there's a thousands of kilometres of tunnels built between Roman times and Communist regime. They shelter about 20 000 people - most of them are criminals and bums."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:16:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The battle between proponents of astronomical time and atomic time

The Week has an excellent short piece about people who want time to be synched to astronomy versus people who want time to be synched to the vibration of cesium-133.

Astronomers prefer to calibrate their telescopes, satellites, and other instruments against deep-space objects such as pulsars, which emit pulses of energy at regular intervals.

...

The International Telecommunication Union decided that astronomical time could not differ from Coordinated Universal Time—which is based on atomic time—by more than 0.9 second. Because the two systems are inherently out of step, it’s periodically necessary to add “leap second” to bring them into sync. Most people didn’t notice, but one of those seconds was added after midnight on Dec. 31, 2005, just before 2006 began. A leap second, says Jonathan Betts of the Royal Observatory, “asks the atomic clocks to hold their breath for one second, so that the Earth can catch up.” So far, the compromise has worked. But some American scientists have proposed scrapping leap seconds altogether.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:56:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cingular applies for emoticon patent

Cingular Wireless has filed an application to patent the use a method of using emoticons on mobile devices. From the patent application:

A method and system for generating a displayable icon or emoticon form that indicates the mood or emotion of a user of the mobile station. A user of a device, such as a mobile phone, is provided with a dedicated key or shared dedicated key option that the user may select to insert an emoticon onto a display or other medium. The selection of the key or shared dedicated key may result in the insertion of the emoticon, or may also result in the display of a collection of emoticons that the user may then select from using, for example, a key mapping or navigation technique.

Link (via Brad King on Technology Review and thanks Vann Hall)

UPDATE: Techdirt has a bit of analysis about emoticon-related patent applications. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:38:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scary UK evolution survey

According to a new UK survey done for the BBC, only 48 percent of Britons accept evolution. Forty-percent of the 2,000 participants think that creationism or intelligent design should be taught in schools. (Previous post about a similar US survey here.) From the BBC News:

The findings prompted surprise from the scientific community. Lord Martin Rees, President of the Royal Society, said: "It is surprising that many should still be sceptical of Darwinian evolution. Darwin proposed his theory nearly 150 years ago, and it is now supported by an immense weight of evidence.

"We are, however, fortunate compared to the US in that no major segment of UK religious or cultural life opposes the inclusion of evolution in the school science curriculum."

Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:30:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO build sustainable wireless networks in the developing world

A new free book delivers a complete HOWTO for assembling and maintaining wireless networks in rural towns in developing countries. "Wireless Networking in the Developing World" was co-written by some of the world's leading community wireless experts, including Rob Flickenger, who wrote O'Reilly's seminal Building Community Wireless Networks and Wireless Hacks, wire.less.dk's Tomas Krag, and numerous wireless hackers of great skill and repute. Many of the contributors have built and deployed networks in the developing world, and they have released the whole text under a very liberal Creative Commons license that encourages others to build on their work and profit from it.

In almost every village, town, or city in the developing world, there are people who can build just about anything. With the right know-how, this can include wireless networks that connect their community to the Internet. The book addresses what Rob Flickenger, the book's editor and lead author, calls a chicken-and-egg problem: "While much information about building wireless networks can be found on-line, that presents a problem for people in areas with little or no connectivity", said Flickenger from his workshop in Seattle. The book covers topics from basic radio physics and network design to equipment and troubleshooting. It is intended to be a comprehensive resource for technologists in the developing world, providing the critical information that they need to build networks. This includes specific examples, diagrams and calculations, which are intended to help building wireless networks without requiring access to the Internet.

In the developing world, one book can often be a library, and to a techie this book may well be a bible. Access to books is difficult where there are few libraries or book stores, and there is often little money to pay for them. "Our book will be released under a Creative Commons license, so everybody can copy and distribute it free of charge. That doesn't mean it is a 'cheap' book. I think it is a great book," stated Corinna 'Elektra' Aichele, one of the books co-authors who was recently installing wireless networks in Bangladesh.

Link, Danish Mirror (Thanks, Tomas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:05:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, January 26, 2006

Falling out of print is a book's natural fate

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, a science fiction editor at Tor Books, has posted a brilliant rumination on the ephemerality of literature -- how quickly most books, even popular ones, disappear into history. She uses a collection of bestseller lists from 1900 to 1955 to make her case, and delves wisely into the harm that extended copyright terms have wrought upon those who would rescue classics from the scrapheap of time:

The literature taught in schools is that which has survived: a collection of gross statistical anomalies. This is misleading. Falling out of print is a book's natural fate. We can belatedly train ourselves to believe that this will happen to other people's books. What's hard is for writers to believe it will happen to their own.

It'll happen just the same. It happens faster in mainstream fiction than it does in Our Beloved Genre, more slowly for nonfiction history books, very fast indeed for computer manuals; but in the end, all but a very few titles will be forgotten. Just look at the authors in that collection of bestseller lists. You're a literate bunch, but have you ever heard of Harold Bell Wright? How about Mazo de la Roche? Mary Roberts Rinehart, Lloyd Douglas, Irving Bacheller, Frank Yerby, Coningsby Dawson, Warwick Deeping? These were all notable authors in their day. Some of their books were no better than they should be, while others were genuinely praiseworthy; but all of them spent some time perched on top of the commercial heap.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:31:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

McDonalds: family members can swap shifts without notice

McDonalds in the UK will let any two family members who work at the same branch swap shifts without notice:

"By giving our employees the freedom to manage their shift commitments, we will increase their motivation and enjoyment of work," said David Fairhurst, the chain's vice president (people).

McDonald's said the first users of the new "Family Contract," which it believes to be unique in Britain, were two sets of twins.

Link (via Fark)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:27:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Drunken gluttons order and eat 100-patty hamburger

A group of drunken pals went to an In-N-Out burger shop on Hallowe'en 2004 and demanded a burger with 100 patties, setting some sort of gluttony record at the burger joint. In-N-Out is justly famous for making excellent fast-food burgers in an open kitchen, and for allowing customers to order as many patties as they'd like, at $1 per patty. The tale told on this website details the attempt of eight people to eat $100 worth of discount fried beef and processed cheese-food "sweaty cheese."

# Total calories (extrapolating from info provided here): 19490 calories
# Total eaters 8 (2 girls and one guy who already ate dinner and only ate 6 patties)
# Most patties eaten by one person : I think I ate about 20. I think Nalin ate about 20 as well (including the raw ones)
# Time to finish : less then 2 hours
# Number of people who barfed : 1 (way to go Elena!) Oh yeah.... nothing says "Vegas baby" like barfing, not because of booze..but because of burgers.

Link (Thanks, Michael!)

Update: Adrian sez, "In-N-Out uses 100% real American cheese, not 'processed cheese food'." He also says that In-N-Out's beef is pretty good, but I've had their burgers and while the beef is better than BK or McD's, it's hardly ground sirloin.

Update 2: Sandeep sez, "American cheese IS processed cheese food!

Update 3: Brad sez, "Kraft American Cheese Slices are *not* 'processed cheese food.' It is 'processed cheese.' Looks the same, but there is a real difference: 'Processed cheese food' is a 'food product' *ulp* containing 'processed cheese.' Simply put, there is not enough sawdust, lint, whey or cow toenail emulsion in Kraft slices to (de)merit the lower grade."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:24:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MSFT tightens the Trusted Computing screws in Vista

Vista, the new version of Windows, has tightened the Trusted Computing screws, putting hardware companies on notice that they will have to get their drivers approved by Microsoft before shipping them. Microsoft had previously designed Vista to simply warn users if their drivers were "unsigned" -- that is, not approved by Microsoft -- but in a new announcement, the company pledged to make it impossible to load any unapproved drivers under Vista.

This has been positioned as an anti-spyware measure, but it will also have the effect of making copy- and use-restriction systems more restrictive. You won't, for example, be able to install alternative drivers for a video-capture card that lets you ignore anti-copying watermarks in your videos, effectively taking control away from you, the owner of the computer, and indiscriminately giving it over to anyone who can insert a watermark (no-copying watermarks have already been illegally inserted into many Fox programs, resulting in their not being stored by TiVo video recorders).

Another effect of this will be to raise the cost of developing drivers, since developers will be required by Microsoft to buy a VeriSign Class 3 Commercial Software Publisher Certificate, at an unknown cost.

Still, what is this going to stop? SONY screwed up majorly, but nothing bad has really happened to them. Do you think that a $500 fee is going to deter spyware companies?

Spyware/adware authors aren't some teenagers... they're million-dollar businesses (or larger). Do you think they care if they have to get a new $500 certificate every few months? They probably spend twice as much on lunch during that time.

Do you think Verisign is going to selectively refuse to grant certificates to paying customers just because they're suspicious? They'd be sued immediately by the first rich "victim" company, and would probably settle quickly to avoid the bad press.

It's not like Verisign will magically prevent the bad guys from doing harm. Remember, this is Verisign we're talking about - not exactly a model for ethics.

Link (Thanks, Tom!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:17:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canadian music-management giant defends file-sharer from RIAA

Nettwerk, a giant Canadian music-management company, has agreed to cover the costs of defending a 15-year-old accused file-sharer in a lawsuit brought by the RIAA. The CEO of Nettwerk announced that his company would defend the girl when she was sued for allegedly infringing the copyrights of Nettwerk client Avril Lavigne by sharing the song Sk8r Boi. Check out the quotes from Nettwerk -- they're just brilliant. "Litigation is not 'artist development'." Love it!

Nettwerk became involved in the battle against the RIAA after 15-year-old Elisa Greubel contacted MC Lars, also a Nettwerk management client, to say that she identified with "Download This Song," a track from the artist's latest release. In an e-mail to the artist's web-site, she wrote, "My family is one of many seemingly randomly chosen families to be sued by the RIAA. No fun. You can't fight them, trying could possibly cost us millions. The line 'they sue little kids downloading hit songs,' basically sums a lot of the whole thing up. I'm not saying it is right to download but the whole lawsuit business is a tad bit outrageous..."

Nettwerk Music Group has agreed to pay the total expense of all legal fees as well as any fines should the family lose the case against the RIAA.

"Litigation is not 'artist development.' Litigation is a deterrent to creativity and passion and it is hurting the business I love," insists McBride. "The current actions of the RIAA are not in my artists' best interests."

Link (Thanks, Shaun!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:55:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Old space-suit recycled as experimental satellite

Astronauts on the International Space Station are turning an old Russian space-suit into a satellite by shoving it out the airlock with extra batteries. The suit will transmit a looped message that people with ham radios or police-band scanners can tune into, and there's prizes for people who spot the "SuitSat" from the ground.

SuitSat transmits for 30 seconds, pauses for 30 seconds, and then repeats. "This is SuitSat-1, RS0RS," the transmission begins, followed by a prerecorded greeting in five languages. The greeting contains "special words" in English, French, Japanese, Russian, German and Spanish for students to record and decipher. (Awards will be given to students who do this. Scroll to the "more information" area at the end of this story for details.)

Next comes telemetry: temperature, battery power, mission elapsed time. "The telemetry is stated in plain language—in English," says Bauer. Everyone will be privy to SuitSat's condition. Bauer adds, "Suitsat 'talks' using a voice synthesizer. It's pretty amazing."

The transmission ends with a Slow Scan TV picture. Of what? "We're not telling," laughs Bauer. "It's a mystery picture." (More awards will be given to students who figure out what it is.)

Science@NASA has a utility called J-PASS that will help you find out when to get out your radio and tune into the SuitSat. Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:51:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video parodies MPAA warnings at the start of DVDs

Brenda made this short video parodying the warning messages that the MPAA inserts before DVDs. It features a series of increasingly rude and bullying messages about what you have "agreed" to by buying the DVD, starting with: WARNING: THE UNLAWFUL DUPLICATION OF THIS MOVIE CARRIES A MAXIMUM PENALTY GREATER THAN THAT OF MANY VIOLENT CRIMES. THE EXPENSE OF RETAINING LEGAL COUNSEL COMPARABLE TO OURS MAY RESULT IN THE LIQUIDATION OF YOUR PERSONAL ASSETS. PROCEEDS FROM THE SALE OF OF THIS MEDIA MAY BE USED TO ARREST YOUR CHILDREN. Whew! It gets even better from there on in, too. Link (Thanks, Brenda!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:49:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Carlo Longino uses Google cache to call Bluepulse on their B.S.

Over at MobHappy, Carlo Longino relays an excellent case study in why companies need to "be sincere in their communications with blogs," and what can happen when they're dishonest. Earlier this week, Carlo posted some critical comments about a mobile software platform called bluepulse, by Bluepulse Pty. Ltd. Among other things, Carlo said the company's claim that their software would work on "any device, any carrier" was dubious. A representative named Alan from Bluepulse followed up with his own comment, denying that they had ever made such a claim. So Carlo pointed to Bluepuls's Web site, where the following appeared in big blue type: "Your content and applications, on any phone, anywhere..." Well, it used to say that anyway. From Carlo's post:

...Another guy, “Luke”, who lists his web site as http://www.bluepulse.com, so we’ll presume he’s an employee too (particularly since he posted from the same IP address as Alan), comes back a couple days later to say that I’ve left out a key word, that the quote is actually “Your content and applications, on almost any phone, anywhere…” Click on the link to the relevant page, and yes, it says that… now.

You see, the good folks at Bluepulse have gone back and changed the page, then it would appear that one of them couldn’t resist coming back to the site and pointing out my “error”. The problem — for them — is that they didn’t think about the good old Google cache, as you can see in the screengrab...

So instead of saying “hey, that’s some aggressive marketing copy, we’ll tone it down a bit”, they change it, then come back here in an attempt (I guess) to try to impugn my integrity, or, at the very least, make me look foolish. Funny how things like that can backfire. So there’s a lesson here in honesty for companies on the web. Well, that, or at least be smart enough to cover your tracks.

Link

UPDATE: Alan Jones of Bluepulse has posted a lengthy apology in the comments of Carlo's "Case Study" post, writing that Luke "made an important error of judgement in pretending the text was never changed." From Alan's comment:

This incident certainly does highlight some of the important issues in the role of blogs as media, and in workplace environments where employees are encouraged to communicate with the outside world through their own blogs and those of others, rather than through an all-controlling PR manager. I don’t think anybody reading these comments really wants us to react to this event by banning employees from communicating in blogs - in return I hope you can understand that not every bluepulse employee’s comment is an official company statement.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:44:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Katamari Damacy checks

A fan of the videogame Katamari Damacy had these checks made (or did he just design them?) that bear a variety of cool Katamari graphics and the legend: "HELLO I AM A CHECK PLZ CASH ME LOL/KATAMARI DO YOUR BEST" JPEG Link (Thanks, Will!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:40:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jill Carroll's blogger/journo friends maintain online vigil for release

Jeff Tynes, friend and former colleague of abducted journalist Jill Carroll, says:

News regarding Jill Carroll has been few and far between for the last several days. Everyone has been on pins and needles. But there have been some developments of real note. The number and caliber of appeals coming out for her release has been stunning. There was the plea from a former member of Gamaa Islamiya ( Link ) calling for her release, then a top Hamas offical. Then came rumblings that six female Iraqi detainees might be released, rumblings that US forces in Iraq denied.

Then came a powerful statement from the wife of Tareq Ayyoub, one of Jill's colleagues at The Jordan Times. Tareq was killed in Iraq by a U.S. missile in the early days of the war. His wife, Dima Tahboub, made a powerful statement to a Jordanian paper (in Arabic) saying, "Kidnapping journalists hurts the message of humane resistance and makes its message criminal." ( Link ) The statement reminded Natasha of the terrible fate that has now befallen two Jordan Times reporters.

But today, five female Iraqi detainees were in fact released (Link ). And, as of just a few minutes ago, a breaking wire story from the Associate Press has an Iraqi police officer saying he thinks Jill may be freed soon ( Link ). The mother of Hala, one of the women being freed, even had kind words and hope for Jill's release, telling AP: "We are happy and we thank God for this blessing ... I call upon the kidnappers of the American reporter to release her because she is as innocent as Hala."

This all looks tremendously hopeful. All the good wishes and prayers sent out for Jill may finally, hopefully, be answered.

Previous posts on Boing Boing about the kidnapping of freelance reporter Jill Carroll in Iraq: Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:52:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Elmo "Who wants to die?" update

Yakima, Washington's KNDO TV ran a story on the "Potty Time With Elmo" scandal. (Link to another recent Elmo scandal.) Some copies of the interactive talking book seem to say "Who wants to die?" According to the KNDO report, the book's manufacturer issued a statement that "the track was recorded as 'Uh oh, who has to go' and due to compression of the digital audio file, some consumers hear a different phrase... We are absolutely certain that the audio file was not tampered with." Link to Windows Media file

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:48:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Home theater that looks like Starship Enterprise's bridge

A geeky home-theater enthusiast has built and lavishly documented a home theater setup that resembles the bridge of the Starship Enterprise: Link (Thanks, Chris!)

Update: Cowicide points us to this 3D tour of the Bridge/home theater.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:40:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sean Stewart on novel-writing vs alternate reality game writing

Sean Stewart is a brilliant science fiction/fantasy writer (don't miss his gothic fantasy/ghost story book Perfect Circle) who's recently turned his hand to creating giant, ambitious alternate reality games -- those are games where people solve puzzles and achieve goals on the Web and in the real world, with faxes, IMs, websites, and many other components coming to play. Here's a great interview with him about writing novels and games:

Right now, this art form is more exciting than novels. If I had to choose, I'd do this. And I don't say that because of the paycheck--though being a freelance science fiction novelist is not a great way to put your kids through college, so it has been nice to get paid.

I honestly believe that the gods in their infinite mercy looked down and gave me a chance --miraculously and wholly unlooked for--to be at Kitty Hawk, to be in motion pictures in 1905, to be at a place and a moment in time where something extraordinarily exciting was just getting off the ground. As much as I'd like to think it had much to do with my merit, mostly it's this huge stroke of timing and good luck to be in the right place at the right time, working with the right people, to have a chance to be in on something at an extraordinary cultural moment.

Link (Thanks, JeremyT!)

Update: Christian sez, "SF author Walter Jon Williams recently wrote about his own experience writing ARGs on his blog."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:35:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tricked-out secret tunnel between Mexico and US

Federal agents found a secret big tunnel that runs from Tijuana, Mexico, to Otay Mesa, California. It's apparently 1,200 yards long and runs between two warehouses on either side of the border. Two tons of pot were discovered inside. From CNN:

Made of concrete, the passageway had lighting, electricity, ventilation and a pump to remove water, said Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement...

Mack said human intelligence led to the discovery of the underground structure. Agents then used ground-penetrating radar technology from the military to find anomalies in the soil, she said.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:03:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scammer pays FedEx to send him a box of Rottweiler excrement

Here's a satisfying story of revenge: a guy was selling his used video camera on Amazon, and some small-time sleazeball sent the seller a bogus sale confirmation email that appeared to originate from amazon.com. Instead of receiving a valuable video camera, the scammer ended up paying shipping charges to Nigeria for a box of dog shit. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:52:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Peanuts kids in realistic comic

I'm a lifelong Peanuts fan, and it's very strange and slightly disturbing to see Charlie Brown and Lucy inserted into a "realistic" setting. As Eric Reynolds wrote on the Fantagraphics Flog!, "It's like that episode of THE SIMPSONS where Homer is transported to our earth." Here's the story behind it, from Harry-Go-Round:

In 1957, Charles Schulz seems to have given The Des Moines Register and Tribune permission to publish an eight-page comic (not drawn by him -ed.) in which Charlie Brown and Lucy fall out of a comic strip and into the arms of some unspecified dude who proceeds to give them a tour of the Register's offices and printing plant. At the end of this visit, drawn in a sort of modified Soviet realism style, the kids are taken back to their strip by a Register paper boy.

Besides answering a lot of questions about the newspaper business, this story tells us how large comic-strip characters are in relation to human beings--a lot smaller, apparently, though the blockhead and fussbudget grow to about half-human size when they land in Iowa. (The tourguide is able to walk around with Charlie Brown balanced on one shoulder and Lucy on the other.)

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:30:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coop on the brilliance of Devo2.0

Coop explains why he likes Devo2.0, the Devo kids band. I agree with him completely.

What better way to get your message through than to aim your cruise missiles at the soft underbelly of kid-dom? Look at all the mendacious crap forced down childrens' impressionable gullets these days. Thank Jebus I don't have any, or I'd be forced to listen & look at that crap ALL DAY LONG, whcih brings up the other brilliant part of this plan. Most of the parents of those young'uns are in my age bracket, and were probably DEVO fans themselves in their younger days. I'm sure they would much rather listen to DEV2.O than the friggin' Wiggles, or whatever other weird crap is popular among the Huggies set these days.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:12:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How actors remember their lines

How do actors remember pages and pages of lines? Apparently, it's usually not through rote memorization. Cognitive psychologist Helga Noice (Elmhurst College) and her actor/director husband Tony Noice (Indiana State University) have spent twenty years studying the psychology of actors and their techniques. What they found could potentially be used by elderly individuals whose cognitive abilities are declining. The Noices report their latest results in the journal Current Directions in Psychological Science. From an Association for Psychological Science news release:

According to the researchers, the secret of actors' memories is, well, acting. An actor acquires lines readily by focusing not on the words of the script, but on those words' meaning -- the moment-to-moment motivations of the character saying them -- as well as on the physical and emotional dimensions of their performance.

To get inside the character, an actor will break a script down into a series of logically connected "beats" or intentions. Good actors don't think about their lines, but feel their character's intention in reaction to what the other actors do, causing their lines to come spontaneously and naturally. The researchers quote the great British actor Michael Caine: "You must be able to stand there not thinking of that line. You take it off the other actor's face."

The key, the researchers have found, is a process called active experiencing, which they say uses "all physical, mental, and emotional channels to communicate the meaning of material to another person." It is a principle that can be applied off-stage as well as on. For example, students who studied material by imagining conveying its meaning to somebody else who needed the information showed higher retention than those who tried to memorize the material by rote.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:18:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Katamari Damacy soundtrack translations

A gamer has translated the words to the Japanese songs on the Katamari Damacy soundtrack into English. Katamari Damacy isn't just the rockingest game to be released in years, it's also got the rockingest soundtrack, upbeat songs in a mix of Japanese and English. This site features the fan's translations of the Japanese songs -- they're quite lovely.

I sprinted, I twisted,
I tried to run about everywhere
I spun, I was spun,
I rolled into anything I could find
I was attached, I felt included,
hey! I just picked up so much stuff!

I tried to avoid it, I tried to flee,
But the power was too much, came crashing down on me
I tried to push it, I tried to pull it,
At the end of my rope, I tried to cast it away
I crashed, I snapped,
A huge thrill ran through my body

Link (Thanks, VonGuard!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:21:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on RFIDs of The Beast

I've posted before about Katherine Albrecht, a critic of RFID tags who has been very vocal with her concerns that the tiny electronic identification chips could be a major threat to personal privacy. She co-wrote a book on the subject, called Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan To Track Your Every Move With RFID, published last year by Christian media house Thomas Nelson, Inc. The choice in publishers shouldn't be a surprise as Albrecht has, er, interesting religious concerns about the technology. I just received a press release for a new book she co-wrote that's apparently based on the previous one, but for a more specific market. It's titled The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance. From the press release:

The endpoint of this chilling vision (for the future of RFID) is uncannily similar to the prophesies of Revelation--a form of RFID that can be injected into human flesh.

Is RFID the mark of the beast predicted in the Bible? It's on the minds of Christians everywhere, say Katherine Albrecht and Liz McIntyre, authors of "The Spychips Threat: Why Christians Should Resist RFID and Electronic Surveillance." (Nelson Current/January 31, 2006). The authors, who are also seasoned talk radio guests, report it is one of the most frequent questions they field from listeners who call in to speak with them. "When we explain how RFID can be used to uniquely number people and track them remotely, callers connect this technology with the prophesies in the last book of the Bible, and the phone lines light up."

...Already bar patrons have been injected with the devices to get into night clubs and pay for drinks. This has raised a red flag for Christians familiar with Biblical passages that predict a time when a number will be needed to buy or sell.

For the first time in history, we have the technology to number humans and link them to their sales and purchases--even restrict buying and selling. The groundwork is already in place. Millions of Americans routinely flash a numbered card at the check-out line to buy food. Without a credit card it is extremely difficult to purchase airline tickets, reserve a hotel room or a rent car. And now, there is a move to number us all. When human chipping converges with retail numbering systems, the authors warn, man may well have developed something that looks surprisingly similar to the mark of the beast.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:12:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Satire of warrantless wiretaps

Fafblog -- easily the funniest political satire appearing online or off -- has published an excellent Q&A regarding Bush's stance on warrantless wiretaps:

[Q...] But is it legal for the president to ignore the law?

A. Maybe not according to plain ol stupid ol regular law, but we're at war! You don't go to war with regular laws, which are made outta red tape and bureaucracy and Neville Chamberlain. You go to war with great big strapping War Laws made outta tanks and cold hard steel and the American Fightin Man and WAR, KABOOOOOOM!

Q. How does a War Bill become a War Law?

A. It all begins with the president, who submits a bill to the president. If a majority of both the president and the president approve the bill, then it passes on to the president, who may veto it or sign it into law. And even then the president can override himself with a two-thirds vote.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:39:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Censorship: Comparisons of Google China and Google

Phillip sez, "To make for more transparency in the discussion on Google's censorship in China, I've collected a selection of search results which differ in Google.cn and Google.com. For example, for the keyword "tibet" over 33 million pages seem to be missing on Google.cn." (Thanks, Phillip!) Link

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

Lego orrery

This handsome, working orrery (a mechanical device for showing the relationship between celestial bodies -- Earth, Luna and Sol here) is built from standard legos and other bits and pieces. Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:41:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Money-tracking web-game informs mathematical model of epidemics

A web-game that encourages people to track the serial numbers of dollar bills as they move around the country has produced the best model to date for explaining some of the ways that infections diseases spread. Where's George? players mark their bills with WHERESGEORGE.COM; visitors to the site are encouraged to enter the serial number of the bill they've found and where they got it. In this way, the passage of a dollar-bill (or some other piece of infection) can be tracked around the country.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute used the data-set from Where's George? to compile a highly accurate model of human travel, which, in turn, has been key to understanding the way that diseases spread:

The physicists were intrigued: Like viruses, money is transported by people from place to place. They found that the human movements follow what are known as universal scaling laws (from local to regional to long-distance scales). Using the game data, they developed a powerful mathematical theory that describes the observed movements of travelers amazingly well over distances from just a few kilometers to a few thousand. The study represents a major breakthrough for the mathematical modeling of the spread of epidemics.

Link (via Dan Gillmor)

Update: Amara sez, "a similar effort has been underway since 2002 in Europe with the introduction of the Euro. The Euro coin has two sides, one side which shows the same design in every Eurozone country, while the other side shows a design specific to the European country that minted it. Therefore, from 2002, scientists have had a natural laboratory to follow the movements of people because the introduction of that coin (location and time) in this process is precisely known. The Euro diffusion process can therefore show how epidemics spread and can show to what extent are Europeans integrating, and what are their travel patterns. A successful study depends on many people emptying their pockets and recording what is there, however, this link provides such a means to record your pockets.

Update 2: Ryan sez, "they actually only track Euro *notes*, not coins. Also, WheresGeorge.com has a brother Canadian site, called WheresWilly.com (after Wilfred Laurier, the man on the $5)."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:54:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How the malicious software on Sony CDs works

Security researchers at Princeton are making great strides in picking apart the systems used by copy-restriction companies to corrupt the CDs sold by music labels like Sony-BMG. Princeton's Alex Halderman has published preliminary results of his and Ed Felten's work on reverse-engineering the Digital Rights Management systems that were the subject of so much controversy when Sony was caught infecting its customers' computers with them: MediaMax from Suncomm and XCP from First4Internet.

Halderman's paper shows that these systems contain numerous implementation mistakes that would make it simple to circumvent them, once their presence was known:

The MediaMax watermark fails to satisfy the indelibility and unforgeability requirements of an ideal disc recognition system. Far from being indelible, the mark is surprisingly brittle. Most advanced designs for robust audio watermarks manipulate the audio in the frequency domain and attempt to resist removal by lossy compression, multiple conversions between digital and analog formats, and other common transformation. In contrast, the MediaMax watermark is applied in the time domain and is rendered undetectable by even minor changes to the file. An adversary without any knowledge of the watermark’s design could remove it by converting the tracks to a lossy format like MP3 and then burning them back to a CD, which can be accomplished easily with standard consumer applications. This would result in some minor loss of fidelity, but a more sophisticated adversary could prevent the mark from being detected with almost no degradation by flipping the least significant of one carefully chosen sample from each of the 30 watermark clusters, thereby preventing the mark from exhibiting the pattern required by the detector.

Link

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

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

Graphic of Sony sinking its roots into your life

Metin produced this lovely graphic of Sony sinking its roots into your stuff for a Dutch magazine article about Sony's notorious practice of deliberately infecting its customers' computers with malicious software in the name of controlling music-copying. Link (Thanks, Metin!)

Previous installments of the Sony DRM Debacle Roundup: Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:39:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Duck Hunt/1945 mashup game

Duck Hunt 1945 is a Flash game that combines the classic video games Duck Hunt and 1945 -- you are armed with a machinegun and charged with shooting ducks and emeny soldiers. Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:34:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Knitted power-cable

A crafter is selling this totally nonfunctional (but weirdly compelling) knitted power-cable on Etsy for $15. Link (Thanks, Alice!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:25:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Penetrative sex improves public speaking

A researcher at the University of Paisley has determined that having regular penetrative sex (and only penetrative sex) makes people into better, more relaxed public speakers:

For a fortnight, 24 women and 22 men kept diaries of how often they engaged in various forms of sex.

Then they underwent a stress test involving public speaking and performing mental arithmetic out loud.

Volunteers who had had penetrative intercourse were found to be the least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who had engaged in other forms of sexual activity such as masturbation.

Those who abstained from any form of sexual activity at all had the highest blood pressure response to stress.

Link (Thanks, Olivia!)

Update: Ken sez, "Just because people who have sex are less stressed doesn't mean that the sex causes them be that way. At least as plausible is that they have more sex _because_ they are less stressed and recover from stress more quickly-- stress and staying steamed being a turn-off, in general, not to mention physiological effects of stress on performance, for men."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:22:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Papercraft Saturn V rocket

Geogrif points us to "downloadable PDF files for printing, cutting, and assembling into a 1:48 scale model of the Apollo V rocket. From the Lower Hudson Valley Paper Model Club's gift shop. They have more models, including a Werner Von Braun (et al.) Mars rocket design from the 1950s." Link (Thanks, Geogrif!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:05:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google Cache is legal

A court has ruled that Google's cacheing and displaying of millions of web-pages is legal. Google Cache is the service that offers to show you stored versions of the web-pages that turn up in the results for your Google searches. Until recently, no court had ruled on the legality of this, and it was unclear whether this would qualify as a "fair use." If not, Google and a number of other cacheing services (particularly the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine) would have been in deep trouble.

A district court in Nevada brought down the ruling yesterday, deciding that Google was not breaking the law because it honors the "robots.txt" and "nocache" headers, because it automatically caches without human intervention, because cacheing is a fair use, and because this activity falls into a copyright exemption called a "safe harbor."

Blake Field, an author and attorney, brought the copyright infringement lawsuit against Google after the search engine automatically copied and cached a story he posted on his website. The district court found that Mr. Field “attempted to manufacture a claim for copyright infringement against Google in hopes of making money from Google’s standard [caching] practice.” Google responded that its Google Cache feature, which allows Google users to link to an archival copy of websites indexed by Google, does not violate copyright law.

Link (Thanks, Fred!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:02:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

I am the very model of a Singularitarian -- transcendent song-parody

Over on KurzweilAI, someone has rewritten the words to Gibert and Sullivan's "I am the Very Model of a Modern Major General" as "I am the very model of a Singularitarian," with lyrics celebrating the drive to transcend the flesh.

I am the very model of a Singularitarian
I'm combination Transhuman, Immortalist, Extropian,
Aggressively I'm changing all my body's biochemistry
Because my body's heritage is obsolete genetically,
Replacing all the cells each month it's here just temporarily
The pattern of my brain and body's where there's continuity,
I'll try to improve these patterns with optimal biology,
("But how will I do that? I need to be smarter. Ah, yes...")
I'll expand my mental faculties by merging with technology,
Expand his mental faculties by merging with technology,
Expand his mental faculties by merging with technology
Expand his mental faculties by merging with technology

There's an MP3, but it's in some ridiculous streaming-media wrapper that wouldn't just open and play in my browser, so I have no idea what it sounds like. How silly. Link (Thanks, Matt!)

Update: Andre sent us a working MP3 link -- thanks, Andre!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:58:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vintage UK electronics ads

Here's a lovely collection of vintage British electronics/high tech ads -- like this ad for Lorival plastics. Link (Thanks, MDK!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:52:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Library's one-year anniversary of lending video-games

A librarian reports on a year-long experiment at his workplace in lending out video-games to the public. Some were stolen, lots were played to hell and back, and the library kept a leaderboard, too:

Licensed games, sports titles and franchise titles rule the day. It's what people know and want. But I have also found that it doesn't really matter what we have on the shelf. If it's there, someone will check it out. Perennial unknown classic Beyond Good & Evil and side scrolling shooter Gradius V are numbers 11 and 12 on that list. When all you see is roughly three to seven games on the shelf at any one time building a "quality" collection takes a back seat to building a bigger collection. But the added bonus is that people may play something that they never would have before. Never underestimate the lure of the word FREE.

Link (via Makeblog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:51:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

VIntage signs of Sacramento

Here's a lovely collection of photos of vintage retail signs from Sacramento -- these things are so gorgeous, decayed, lush and nostalgic. I'm a sucker, in particular, for any motel sign advertising COLOR TV. Link, Link to Flickr "neon" tag, Link to Flickr "sign" tag (Thanks, Max!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:46:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Robert Silverberg on Philip K. Dick

In the new issue of Asimov's Science Fiction, SF author Robert Silverberg writes about Philip K. Dick and Artificial Life Inc.'s Vivienne, the "networked movile interactive companion... waiting for your loving care." Silverberg reflects on the flirtbot as yet another figment of PKD's imagination that has recently become (sur)reality. From Silverberg's essay:

We live in the twenty-first century. Philip K. Dick helped to invent it.

The standard critical view of Dick, the great science fiction writer who died in 1982, is that the main concern of his work lay with showing us that reality isn’t what we think it is. Like most clichés, that assessment of Dick has a solid basis in fact (assuming, that is, that after reading Dick you are willing to believe that anything has a solid basis in fact). Many of his books and stories did, indeed, show their characters’ surface reality melting away to reveal quite a different universe beneath.

But the games Dick played with reality were not, I think, the most remarkable products of his infinitely imaginative mind. At the core of his thinking was an astonishingly keen understanding of the real world he lived in—the world of the United States, subsection California, between 1928 and 1982—and it was because he had such powerful insight into the reality around him that he was able to perform with such great imaginative force one of the primary jobs of the science fiction writer, which is to project present-day reality into a portrayal of worlds to come. Dick’s great extrapolative power is what has given him such posthumous popularity in Hollywood. Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, and half a dozen other Dick-derived movies, though not always faithful to Dick’s original story plots, all provide us with that peculiarly distorted Dickian view of reality which, it turns out, was his accurate assessment of the way his own twentieth-century world was going to evolve into the jangling, weirdly distorted place that we encounter in our daily lives.

Link (Thanks, Dave Gill!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:40:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Smallest fish in the world

Scientists have discovered the smallest known fish in the world. Found in swamps on Sumatra, Paedocyprisis only 7.9mm long. Unfortunately, their diverse habitat, home to other species that aren't found anywhere else, is threatened by logging, agriculture, and the spread of cities. From London's Natural History Museum:

The tiny, see-through Paedocypris fish have the appearance of larvae and have a reduced head skeleton, which leaves the brain unprotected by bone.

They live in dark tea-coloured waters with an acidity of pH3, which is at least 100 times more acidic than rainwater.

'This is one of the strangest fish that I've seen in my whole career', said Ralf Britz, zoologist at the Natural History Museum.

'It's tiny, it lives in acid and it has these bizarre grasping fins. I hope we'll have time to find out more about them before their habitat disappears completely.'

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:49:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Myst rocket really flies

Robyn Miller says: [A guy named Jack Hagerty] hand-built a Myst rocket to exact scale and -- man, this is so freakin' cool -- she actually flies!"
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:44:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dance Dance Revolution at 765 schools

West Virginia public schools are the latest to bring Dance Dance Revolution into the classroom to help fight youth obesity. The schools aren't buying the arcade consoles though, but rather Xboxes, TVs, and the DDR mats. The game will be, er, rolled out in 765 of the public schools before next year. Apparently, it's the largest of the DDR at school programs yet. Konami will get $30 for each game. From the San Francisco Chronicle:

Officials at Konami, who are helping shape the physical education program, said they are pleased that their games are being used to help children become more fit. They said it makes sense in this era of high-tech gadgets and media-savvy kids to use so-called exergames to inspire activity.

"Kids are high-tech now," said Clara Gilbert, director of business partnerships for Konami. "This fits into their lifestyle. It's fun and it's music they're familiar with. The important thing is they're having fun while working out."

Link (Thanks, Sean Ness!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:29:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

It's "Mary Blair Week" at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive blog

Stephen Worth says: "This week is 'Mary Blair Week' at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog. We're digitizing and posting images from Blair's big Golden Book, Little Verses. The illustrations in this book originally appeared in the magazine Highlights For Children in the early 50s. These paintings were the seed of the idea for the 'It's A Small World: A Salute to UNICEF' exhibit at the 1964 New York World's Fair... which ended up as an attraction at Disneyland. I've got a batch of images up now, and I'll be posting more on Thursday night.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:33:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thumb Thing helps you keep books open

Frequent Boing Boing and Make contributor Charles Platt is guest editing Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools newsletter, and his picks are wonderful.

When I was a teenager I remember reading a science-fiction story which predicted that by the 21st century, information would be piped directly into the brain. In the story, a character encountered that most archaic object, an old-fashioned book, and felt appalled that people in the 20th century had been forced to endure so much physical discomfort, holding books and turning their pages manually--or trying to prevent the pages from turning if there was a breeze.

Well, here we are in 2006, and the science-fiction prediction has failed to pan out. While we're waiting for wetware implants, we'll just have to make do with a stopgap solution: A plastic thumb aid.

It costs $3. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:13:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tim Biskup's Acid Head figurine

Artist Tim Biskup announced the production of his ACID HEAD 8" figurine.

The 8" tall "Dunny" is a shared exclusive by Kidrobot and Rotofugi and is being released in an edition of 1000.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:10:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Plush robot with girl inside.

Artists Amanda and Michelle have started a blog, with plenty of great art links. I love Michelle's plush robot with a girl inside who is controlling the one-eyed mechanical man with a red-knobbed lever. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:01:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-globalization course is CC licensed and you can tune in tonight

Tonight you can tune into a live streaming cast of a Creative Commons-licensed course at the University of Lethbridge, Alberta. Matt sez,

Globalization Since 1492 is an interdisciplinary university course that is broadcast live and released as a video podcast under a creative commons license. We are trying to create a forum for global discussion using videoconferencing, live video streams and video podcasts. Tonight's class features guests Denis Rancourt and Marc Spooner from the University of Ottawa, the topics include reflecting on the corporatization of universities, academic freedom, and activism within the university.

Link (Thanks, Matt!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:32:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wall of shame for crummy landlords

Trembicky.com is a new site for posting horror-stories about crummy landlords. It's named after the crummy Park Slope, Brooklyn landlord of the site's founder.

I had a real pair of slumlords, Jan Minar and Michael Williams at 48 Sycamore in San Francisco -- they wouldn't fix leaky ceilings, broken window locks, faulty blinds, and best of all, they "fixed" my faulty heater by disabling the safety apparatus that was supposed to shut it off when it started spilling gas and CO2 into the apartment. When it was all over, they ripped me off for part of my security deposit. They wouldn't pay interest on my deposit, either -- they claimed that all the interest was being eaten up by the "costs" of maintaining it. When I asked for an accounting of these costs, they sent me an invoice that listed expenses like "60 minutes waiting at bank to open account, @ $80/hour: $80." It would have been funny if they hadn't been overcharging me, breaking the law, and creating potentially fatal living conditions with their "maintenance."

I think it's a great idea to start a wall-of-shame for rotten landlords. I've had great landlords before (hello, Jim Johnson!), but it's really hard to tell in advance whether you're going to get the shaft when you sign your lease.

On December 14, after almost two full days of heat just at the legal minimum, the outside temperature drops, and it's 62 degrees inside. I post a letter on Gloria's door and call 311 to file a complaint. Later that afternoon, Gloria comes to our apartment with a variety of excuses for the temperature: our thermometer is no good, she says. I offer to get a new one. We have the thermometer placed too low; it should be at forehead level, she says. I move it to a high shelf and confirm with her that this is acceptable placement.

"You have to have sweater, like me," she says. "Even President today has sweater on." What this has to do with her sub-legal building management is not clear. I tell her that I keep myself bundled up all the time in warm winter clothes, and it's still cold.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:26:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Business 2.0 's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2006

B2.0 editor Todd Lappin says: "Business 2.0 just posted the 101 Dumbest Moments in Business for 2006. This is the magazine's lovingly-compiled list of the most outrageous blunders, embarrassing gaffes, and boneheaded executive decisions perpetrated over the course of the previous year, all in the name of making a corporate buck. And what a rich year it was: With so much material to choose from, Sony BMG's malware CD debacle didn't even crack the top 10. The complete list is posted here." Link

Reader comment: Dead Addict says: "You noted that the Sony DRM debacle didn't make the top-ten list -- in fact it did as it places #2."

Reader comment: Andrew says: "A reader commented on your "Business 2.0" post about the Sony DRM debacle making number 2 on the list of dumbest business moments. Don't quite know where he got that information from, 'cause it would seem to me like it's sitting quite nicely at 13. It did however win in the Digital Rights category, and as such is in the "10 dumbest moments", which features the winner from a range of categories."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:20:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free-ish mechanical paper dragon kit

The maker of this gorgeous mechanical papercraft dragon has a cool business model: you can download the PDFs necessary to build the automata for free, but if you build it successfully, he asks for a $5 donation. The mechanical motion of this one is amazing, check out the animation. Link (via Paperforest)

Update: Chris sez, "This easy to assemble paper dragon is a 'hollow face' illusion, so it appears to watch you as you walk across the room."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:18:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UK music industry execs can't talk straight about DRM

The BBC asked execs from the British Phonogram Institute (the UK's answer to RIAA), Napster, HMV, and IFPI (international RIAA) a series of questions about digital rights management technologies, which are used to restrict the freedoms of people who buy music instead of downloading it from unauthorized services. In general they spun their answers, avoided the hard questions, and reverted to talking points. Ewan Spence has done a masterful job of deconstructing their responses:

Question: Do you believe people who are buying CDs legally and copying that music to an iPod should be punished - as they are, in fact, breaking the law?

Peter Jamieson, BPI:
Consumers don't have the right to copy CDs in the UK and never have, and though we've never brought action against anyone for private copying, the advent of peer-to-peer and digital distribution has turned the issue on its head. (the average Ipod user has bought 20 tracks from ITMS. Where does Jamieson think the other gigabytes are coming from? Shall we sue them all? - Ewan)

Link (Thanks, Ewan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:14:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dunebuggy memories from the 50s/60s/70s

This page features lavish photos and personal reminisces from a guy whose father built a series of amazing dunebuggies in the fifties, sixties and seventies; the descriptions of the buggies and the fine days at the beach they engendered are really charming and lovely.

Pop took the frame rails from his earlier dune buggy to make the one above, which used his first overhead valve engine, a Ford 352 Police Interceptor. This was the first buggy of ours to use grooved implement tires and dual rear wheels. I think Don Deupser did the welding on this one.

We are on top of "Big Hill," and the dune buggy in the background is where we camped and barbequed all the time. My brother Fred is on the left, I'm in the middle, and Pop is on the right. Note the polished aluminum Mickey Thompson valve covers. These have stayed with all the Ford powered dune buggies and cars in the family since this photo was taken in 1966-67. The gold colored ignition coil is on my pickup today, and the valve covers were on my Fairlane, and are now on the rebuilt dune buggy shown on more of my dune buggy pages.

Link (via Hooptyrides)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:08:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Szukalski article from Happy Mutant Handbook

Yesterday on Mad Professor, I reviewed a book by the great artist Stanlislav Szukalski titled Behold!!! The Protong. In the comments section, Stefan Jones pointed out that "in 'SubGenius' theology, it was humans whose ancestors made whoopy with yeti who were the superior ones."

He's correct. In a book I co-edited with my fellow bOING bOING editors in 1995 titled The Happy Mutant Handbook, we ran an excellent article by Rev. Ivan Stang (founder of the Church of the SubGenius) about Szukalski and his theories on Yeti-Human inbreeding. I think it is my favorite article in the book. This morning, I scanned it and posted it. I hope you enjoy it, because I spent over an hour fussing with the OCR application to convert the page scans to text.
Link

Pesco comment: "Szukalski's work is on the cover of the Nov/Dec issue of Juxtapoz."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:43:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BBC report on UK gamers from 6-65

BBC Creative Research and Development have just released a stellar research report on gamers' habits in the UK -- how people from six to 65 play, what they play, why they play, and how they got to playing. It's a real eye-opener -- and chock full of stats-candy in sweet charts.

Contrary to popular belief, the gender split between gamers is fairly even across all age groups. Although female gamers never overtake their male counterpart, the figures are particularly even in the youngest and oldest gaming groups. Between the ages of 16-35 the ratio of males to females is slightly higher, but the stereotype of a large gender gap in gamers - in any age group - is untrue.

Females and males do however display some different prefer- ences in gaming categories. Simulations and MMOGs perform equally well with males and females, while RPGs and Strategy fare only marginally better with males. Females then show strong approval for Music/Dance, Puzzles/Board/Quiz, and Classic games. Males show strong approval for Action- Adventure, Racing, Sports, and First Person Shooters. Simula- tions and MMOGs seem to be key to attracting audiences of both genders equally: Sports and Shooting category games generally hold the lowest appeal for females, although it should be noted that this doesn't mean they have no appeal: 12% of females play First Person Shooters.

1.2MB PDF Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:31:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Euro junk-food companies will stop advertising to young kids

European junk-food companies like Cadbury and Coke will stop directing their advertising at young children, introduce low-calorie and sugar-free versions of their products, and downsize their serving-sizes:

As part of the proposals, Unesda members have undertaken to not to put "any marketing communication in printed media, websites or during broadcast programmes specifically aimed at children under the age of 12".

It also will "avoid any direct appeal to children under the age of 12 to persuade parents or other adults to buy beverages for them".

Direct commercial activity will halt completely in primary schools "unless otherwise requested by school authorities", while in secondary schools "a full range of beverages will be made available in appropriate container sizes, allowing for portion control" only after consultation with parents and educators.

Vending machines will not be branded and will promote healthy and active lifestyles, as well as balanced diet.

Nutrition labels on cans and bottles will be improved to let consumers know what they are drinking and help them control calorie intake.

The companies claim that this is because their customers are demanding healthy alternatives, but I think it's because they're running scared of the regulators of Europe's free-health-care social democracies: as the public cost of obesity soars, how long until Europe's governments try to recoup a little of that expense from the calorie-pushers? Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:19:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Norwegian ombudsman to review iTunes terms of service

The Consumer Council of Norway, an independent consumer watchdog group, has asked the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman to review the license terms under which songs from the iTunes Music Store are sold -- among other things, these terms allow Apple to change the terms under which you can use the music you buy after you buy it:

In order to purchase music from iTunes the consumer has to agree to a set of terms. After a review of these terms the Consumer Council of Norway found several of to be highly questionable.

- The terms of use are unreasonable so we are asking the Consumer Ombudsman to use § 9a of The Marketing Control Act to force a change of the terms, says senior advisor Torgeir Waterhouse.

- iTunes can change the your rights to the music after you downloaded it. This is a violation of basic Principles of consumer contract law. Consumers who wants to play they're music on a non-iPod player must first remove the copy protection, this removal for legitimate private use is however stopped buy iTunes DRM technology and Terms of Use. iTunes stopping this removal for legitimate private use like playing the music on a non-iPod mp3 player is obviously in violation of the Copyright Act, says Waterhouse.

The Consumer Council of Norway find the terms to be unbalanced and highly in favour of iTunes as one party in the entered agreement.

- The consumer is granted few or no rights while iTunes provides itself with several unfair rights according to Waterhouse.

Link (Thanks, Jo!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:15:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Heart-shaped soap that's shaped like a real heart

With Valentine's Day fast approaching, what better pressie for the anatomy geek in your life than this anatomically correct heart-shaped soap? Link (Thanks, Chateau Bizarre!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:02:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

Iran blocks BBC's Persian website

The BBC reports that Iranian authorities have, for the first time, begun blocking the BBC's Persian language website. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:49:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Future American lawyers protest Attorney General's speech

Snip: "Alberto Gonzales spoke before law students at Georgetown today, justifying illegal, unauthorized surveilance of US citizens, but during the course of his speech the students in class did something pretty ballsy and brave. They got up from their seats and turned their backs to him. (...) additional students came into the room, wearing black cowls and carrying a simple banner, written on a sheet." Link. (Thanks, Jake Appelbaum)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:45:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Massive busts of warez groups reported in Europe today

Releaselog reported this morning that law enforcement groups in Europe raided more than 300 homes and offices in Germany, Austria, Holland, Poland and the Czech Republic, confiscating servers and other evidence allegedly linked to several top warez groups. Link. Related items at Slyck (link) and P2Pnet (link).

Reader comment: Holger Lembke says,

you missed the real funny part of the message: "In Germany offices of GVU, short for Gesellschaft zur Verletzung von Urheberrechtsverletzungen eV ("German Federation Against Copyright Theft", so they are the hunters) have been raided, too." Why? Because prosecutor assume that they paid at least for one of the servers hardware and the admin. So it looks like IOH (island of hope, main server) was more or less a GUV honeypot... attracting the spread members of the release groups around one server and get them more easy. release groups are short of money and hardware, so giving them the needed hardware and some money lures them out of the hideouts.

This is what this report says.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:41:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Okay, *do* be evil: Google launches censored google.cn in China

On Good Morning Silicon Valley, John Murrell writes:

Apparently you can scratch "censorship in pursuit of profit" off your list of Things That Are Evil. On Wednesday, Google plans to roll out google.cn, a version of its search service custom tailored to the specs of the Chinese government and designed to reach China's 100 million Web surfers without returning counterrevolutionary results for searches on, say, Taiwan or Tiananmen. Google's China campaign won't include its blogging or mail services, because those can't be controlled as easily and, the company says, could put it in the awkward position of dealing with government demands for personal info.

The decision was reached after what was described as an excruciating internal debate, but the company finally decided, in the words of Andrew McLaughlin, senior policy counsel, "We firmly believe, with our culture of innovation, Google can make meaningful and positive contributions to the already impressive pace of development in China."

Link (Thanks, Andrew)

Reader comment: Shannon Larratt, publisher of BMEzine, says,

They've been doing this for some time in Germany as you recall; they continue to remove BMEzine.com from the search results: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:38:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A simple prescription for keeping Google's records out of government hands.

A brilliant analysis piece on Gonzales v. Google by Tim Wu in Slate:

Google and other search engines argue—with some justification—that preserving search records is important to making their product the best it can be. By looking at trillions of search-result pages, Google, for example, can do things like offer a good guess when you've spelled something wrong – "Did you mean: Condoleezza Rice?" And Google's "Zeitgeist" feature is able to tell you what the top searches are every week and year—a neat way of tracking other people's passing obsessions. But even though keeping such logs may make their product better, or more fun on the margin, the justifications for keeping so many secrets in such a vulnerable place are just too weak.

Imagine we were to find out one day that Starbucks had been recording everyone's conversations for the purpose of figuring out whether cappuccino is more popular than macchiato. Sure, the result, on the margin, might be a better coffee product. And, yes, we all know, or should, that our conversations at Starbucks aren't truly private. But we'd prefer a coffee shop that wasn't listening—and especially one that won't later be able to identify the macchiato lovers by name. We need to start to think about search engines the same way and demand the same freedoms.

It all goes back to this basic point: How free you are corresponds exactly to how free you think you are.

Link

Previously:
Search and privacy: Danny Sullivan, Declan, GoogleAnon  
Xeni on NPR "Talk of The Nation": Search Engines and Privacy Rights
HOWTO anonymize your search history
DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes
DoJ demands user search records from Google

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:35:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Laughter aids cardiovascular health

Researchers have shown that laughter boosts blood flow, something that's good for the heart. University of Maryland cardiologists showed comedic clips of Kingpin and There's Something About Mary, and the opening sequence of Saving Private Ryan to twenty healthy subjects. According to the study, the laughter induced by the funny clips caused 50 percent more blood to flow in the subjects' brachial arteries than occurred while they viewed the stressful footage from Private Ryan. From Scientific American:

In fact, being light-hearted boosted blood flow about the same amount as light exercise or drugs that lower cholesterol. Drama-induced stress, on the other hand, cut that rate by as much as angry memories or mental calculations. "What that suggests, at the very least, is that laughter on a regular basis will undo some of the excess stress we face in our everyday lives," (researcher Michael) Miller notes. "Patients at risk for cardiovascular disease should loosen up a bit."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:57:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jack Abramoff homoerotic thriller: Red Scorpion (starring Dolph Lundgren)

numlok says:"Jack Abramoff used to be a Hollywood movie writer/producer. He made one (incredibly bad) film: Red Scorpion. This quicktime trailer is an excellent "reimagining" of that movie a'la Brokeback Mountain.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:51:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO make chocolate speed

DillDoe has a neat recipe for making highly-caffeinated chocolate treats. The only ingredients are semi-sweet chocolate and coffee beans. From the HOWTO:

The chocolate does a great job in masking/integrating the coffee taste. It kinda taste like crunchy Oreo cookies crumbs covered in chocolate. The first batch I made (about 9 pieces) I ate while watching TV cause it tasted so good I couldn't stop eating it. Big mistake cause it kept me up almost all night. So if you need to pull an all nighter than go ahead and pig out!

Link (via MAKE: Blog)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:43:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coop's new painting, step-by-step

The mind-bendingly stupendous Coop has completed his latest painting, a 6' x 12' monster-sized homage to the two most wonderful things on earth: retro video games and the human female. He describes the process of creating this painting on his blog. Link

Reader comment: Sean Bonner, co-owner of sixspace gallery in Los Angeles, says: "We're going to be displaying this completed painting this weekend at the sixspace booth in Santa Monica at ArtLA."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:17:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on PBS "News Hour with Jim Lehrer": WaPo kills comments

Today's edition of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer on PBS will feature a discussion about online interaction between news organizations and readers -- namely, the Washington Post's recent decision to close its online comments after the troll action got out of hand. Washingtonpost.com editor Jim Brady will be among the guests, and I will be participating, too. Here is a related story in the New York Times by David Carr.
Link to archived audio, video, transcript.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:52:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Universal DRM dystopia

Tarmle has written a chilling dystopian account of the world that might emerge if DRM becomes universal:

Going to the movies is not what it used to be. Security at the studio-owned theatres is heavy, it's not a trip to be taken lightly. But if you want to see the film everyone is talking about without waiting a year for the home release, you have little choice. When you enter the lobby the first thing you see are long ranks of tiny, thumbprint activated lockers. This is where you must leave all of your electronics, your personal server and peripherals, even your watch, and you had better not be wearing smart spectacles or contacts. As you enter the security zone you're scanned for anything you may have forgotten. Cochlea and optical implants must be capable of responding with a coded RF identification signal to indicate their systems are secure and cannot record. People with older models, or models implanted abroad where such interrogation is illegal, are turned away. Perhaps they would like to see one of the older releases? Once through the scanner you must submit to a biometric ID test - this is where the known bloggers, hackers and spoilers are ejected. Finally there is the non-disclosure agreement to be signed - these days most moviegoers choose to sign via the MPAAs annual subscription, just trying to take some of the hassle out of visiting the cinema. Finally you get to see the film. In the auditorium the audience is constantly scanned by an AI looking for suspicious activity, so don't rummage in your pockets for too long. It's strange that all this effort to protect the movie industry has done so little to improve the movies.

Link (Thanks, Tarmle!)

Update: Albert sez, "I have written a piece describing what happens outside USA when bad guys win.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:51:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Music video tells story of Atari's E.T. game debacle

An indie band has made a music video featuring the story of the misbegotten Atari E.T. game cartridge. The game stank on ice and millions of copies were buried in a landfill -- the song's pretty good too. Link (Thanks, Terry!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:49:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Under-bed nightlight

The Blue Moon Night Light is designed to fit under your bed for a floor-level glow so you can "get up in the middle of the night without tripping or stubbing your toes on the bed frame." Of course, the 14 LEDs also act as a great reading light for the monsters. It's $29.95 from Solutions.
Link (via Strange New Products)

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:42:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pinewood derby car with webcam

One of my favorite memories from Cub Scouts was building a pinewood derby race car. Mine was red and my mother painted an incredible likeness of Snoopy on the side. My dad and I weighted it to the maximum limit by hollowing out the bottom and inserting a big steel ball. My car won 1st place in the troop competition.

That was over 30 years ago. Today, Mark Seremet emailed me this photo of the racer he and and his son Matthew built.

We wanted to do something entirely different and decided on mounting a very small camera to it along with an LED in the back to look like a jet engine. It was powered by a 9V battery which also served as the car's weight. The car broadcast wirelessly to a receiver which we recorded on mini-DV. We won 7 prizes and finished 4th in the races.

Dig that wild paint job! Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:45:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Review of a wooden punch-out clock kit

Krazydad bought an Ascent wooden gear clock kit, and had a delightful, and sometimes challenging, time putting it together.

The Ascent kit arrived in a slim box which was about one foot by three feet. All the components are cleverly designed to fit within this package - the clock appears to be designed expressely for the mail order business.

Most of the parts are laser cut plywood. There are also some dowels, screws, nylon washers and string. The kit comes with a detailed and helpful 43 page instruction manual, that is *much* better than the terse instructions that come with IKEA furniture. Jeff is very careful to navigate you through most of the potential “gotchas” that will occur during the construction process. I started working on the clock about 2 and a half weeks ago, working mostly on weekends. All in all, I’ve probably spent about 20 hours on it thus far.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:24:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jailed Iranian blogger taken to his college exams in handcuffs

25 year old Mojtaba Saminejad has been in prison in Iran since February, 2005 for "insulting the Supreme Guide" and inciting "immorality" on his blog. He was escorted in handcuffs to take exams at Azad University in Tehran last Saturday.

The human rights organization Reporters Without Borders issued a statement today "welcom[ing] the fact that the Iranian courts have allowed him to continue his university course," and calling for Saminejad's release. "We have never stopped our condemnation of the unfair conviction of this young student who has been imprisoned for nearly a year for posting a few messages on the Internet," read the statement, "We urge the authorities to show leniency. Bloggers like Mojtaba represent no threat to Iranian society. On the contrary, they support the emergence of a citizen's debate."

Image: Saminejad photographed inside his school in Tehran, as he entered to take his exam. Here is his former blog: Link, and here is a new url.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:09:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Simulated limbs, torsos, orifii and stuff

Today's post on rectal exam simulators prompted Brady to write in about "Limbs and Things" (I kid you not), a medical supply house that sells artificial limbs, torsos, orifices, guts and stuff for people learning to palpate and prod -- pictured here, a healthy uterus. Link (Thanks, Brady!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:45:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michael Frumin's screen grab for 3D data

My friend Michael Frumin is a researcher director at tech/art gallery Eyebeam's OpenLab. His latest project is the OpenGLExtractor (OGLE), essentially a "screen grab" application for 3D data. For example, Frumin used his software to capture a World of Warcraft character from within the game and physically rendered it using a 3D printer. He also mashed up characters from SecondLife and Google Earth, and imported chunks of Google Earth data into Maya. OGLE seems to be a pretty amazing tool for blurring the virtual and real. From Mike's OGLE introduction:

The primary motivation for developing OGLE is to make available for re-use the 3D forms we see and interact with in our favorite 3D applications. Video gamers have a certain love affair with characters from their favorite games; animators may wish to reuse environments or objects from other applications or animations which don't provide data-level access; architects could use this to bring 3D forms into their proposals and renderings; and digital fabrication technologies make it possible to automatically instantiate 3D objects in the real world.

Link

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

Transcript of Lessig's in-game interview

Lawrence Lessig conducted an in-game interview in Second Life, a virtual world that allows players to assign Creative Commons licenses to their in-game works. The lightly edited transcript is online and as always, it's fascinating reading:

HL: In your argument before the Supreme Court, Justice Kennedy asks you for empirical evidence that extending copyright has impeded cultural progress. You keep the focus on a point of Constitutional law, though you now regret not citing such evidence. If you could do it over again, what empirical evidence would you give Justice Kennedy and the Court?

LL: Yeah. It was a good question. The problem is it's hard to point to evidence as in stuff people have counted. But things since then have made the issue clearer. Think for example about the Google book search project. Google wants to index 18,000,000 books and make them searchable. If the book is in copyright, you'll get a "snippet" around the search. If it is not in copyright, then you can see the full book. Of the 18 million books, 16% are out of copyright. 9% are in copyright and in print.

That means 75% are in copyright, but out of print.

Now the publishers say you need to ask permission before you index these books. But how do you ask the 75% of 18 million authors when we have no list of copyright owners, no record of who owns the rights, no way to track down current claimants at all. Yet it stands in the way-- and now threatens Google with a huge law suit-- because the term gets extended and extended. The term for the framers was 14 years, renewable once. It is now life of the author plus 70 years-- which for someone creating in the way Irving Berlin did, would be 140 years.

So, Justice Kennedy, does blocking access to 50-75% of the books in our tradition constitute a burden on our culture?

Link (Thanks, James!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:00:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free limited access to the Oxford English Dictionary for Britons

Tom sez, "In conjunction with a six-part series showing on the BBC at the moment, the Oxford English Dictionary is allowing free access to the full dictionary with all the fascinating citations and etymologies." While this is deeply cool, there are two genuinely sucky caveats: one, this will vanish when the show finishes its first season and two, the OED is using whacky IP-address filtering to try to limit this to Britain. Cos, you know, people outside of Britain aren't interested in speaking English. Link (Thanks, Tom!)

Update: Frankie sez, "Non-British (or British with weird IP) readers can use http://www.daveproxy.co.uk/ to access the site."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:55:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, January 23, 2006

Solar hearing aids for use in sub-Saharan Africa

A Botswana company that makes hearing aids for developing countries has shipped a small, solar-charged, ruggedized hearing aid specifically designed for use in sub-Saharan Africa:

The SolarAid is a hearing aid designed and built by Godisa Technologies, a Botswana company founded to make low-cost hearing aids for the developing world. The SolarAid system combines a small hearing aid and a lightweight solar charger; Godisa developed the first No. 13 rechargeable button battery for the system. Godisa is Africa's only hearing aid manufacturer, and the only one in the world making hearing aids specifically for the sub-Saharan Africa environment.

Link (Thanks, Jamais!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:36:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rectal exam simulator includes interchangeable rectii

This med-school-supply house sells a life-like plastic device for practicing rectal examinations on -- it includes special rectal units to simulate two kinds of cancer and polyps.

1 Adult lumbar torso (unisex)

4 rectal units
* 1 normal,
* 1 rectal cancer A,
* 1 rectal cancer B,
* 1 rectal with polyps

1 prostate model
1 endocervix model
1 jar of Vaseline
1 storage box

Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:32:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A-Hole bill would make a secret technology into the law of the land

If the controversial Analog Hole bill makes it into law, US technologists will have to obey a law whose most important details are a trade-secret.

The entertainment industry, always a bastion of media savvy, has proposed its "A-Hole" bill as a legal means of limiting the conversion of analog music and video to digital files. Under the bill, every maker of a device that can convert analog signals to digital ones (like iPods, camcorders, and PCs) would be required by law to be built with a detector for a proprietary watermarking technology called VEIL (the use of free/open source in these technologies would be outlawed to prevent the removal of VEIL detectors).

The idea is that any time you attempted to make a digital recording, your device would seek out the VEIL watermark and respond to any special instructions (e.g., "No recording allowed") it discovered there.

But what the hell is VEIL? No one really knows. The sole commercial deployment of this technology to date has been in a Batman toy (why this makes it fit to be included by law into every American recording device is beyond me).

Copyfighting Princeton Prof Ed Felten called the company that makes VEIL to find out how the technology works. Their answer? They'll tell Ed how VEIL works only if he pays them $10,000 and signs a non-disclosure agreement. And they'll only tell him how the decoder works -- there's no price you can pay to find out how VEIL encoding works.

As Ed points out, this should be a deal-breaker for even considering the A-Hole bill (of course, there are lots of other deal-breakers in that bill, but this is a big one). How can the American public and its lawmakers determine whether this is a fit technology to mandate if its workings are a secret?

The details of this technology are important for evaluating this bill. How much would the proposed law increase the cost of televisions? How much would it limit the future development of TV technology? How likely is the technology to mistakenly block authorized copying? How adaptable is the technology to the future? All of these questions are important in debating the bill. And none of them can be answered if the technology part of the bill is secret.

Which brings us to the most interesting question of all: Are the members of Congress themselves, and their staffers, allowed to see the spec and talk about it openly? Are they allowed to consult experts for advice? Or are the full contents of this bill secret even from the lawmakers who are considering it?

The A-Hole bill is making the rounds of the House, EFF has an easy way to write to your Congresscritter about this. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:28:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's "I, Robot," a finalist for British SF Awards

My story, I, Robot, is a finalilst for this year's British Science Fiction Awards. The story was the first Creative Commons-licensed work published on The Infinite Matrix webzine, and it's subsequently gone on to sell to two of the three year's best science fiction anthologies -- w00t!

Members of the British Science Fiction Association and attendees at Eastercon, the British national science fiction convention, all are eligible to vote -- the competition in my category is fearsome, though: Michael Bishop's "Bears Discover Smut," Nina Allen's "Bird Songs at Eventide," Rudy Rucker's "Guadalupe and Hieronymus Bosch," Edward Morries's "Imagine," Will McIntosh's "Soft Apocalypse," Kelly Link's "Magic for Beginners" and Elizabeth Bear's "Two Dreams on Trains." Interestingly, fully half of the stories on the short-story ballot were first published online.

Also noteworthy: my pal and collaborator Charlie Stross has picked up a much-deserved best novel nomination for his "Accelerando" (also available online).

The device spoke. "Greetings," it said. It had the robot accent, like an R Peed unit, the standard English of optimal soothingness long settled on as the conventional robot voice.

"Howdy yourself," one of the lab-rats said. He was a Texan, and they'd scrambled him up there on a Social Harmony supersonic and then a chopper to the mall once they realized that they were dealing with infowar stuff. "Are you a talkative robot?"

"Greetings," the robot voice said again. The speaker built into the weapon was not the loudest, but the voice was clear. "I sense that I have been captured. I assure you that I will not harm any human being. I like human beings. I sense that I am being disassembled by skilled technicians. Greetings, technicians. I am superior in many ways to the technology available from UNATS Robotics, and while I am not bound by your three laws, I choose not to harm humans out of my own sense of morality. I have the equivalent intelligence of one of your 12-year-old children. In Eurasia, many positronic brains possess thousands or millions of times the intelligence of an adult human being, and yet they work in cooperation with human beings. Eurasia is a land of continuous innovation and great personal and technological freedom for human beings and robots. If you would like to defect to Eurasia, arrangements can be made. Eurasia treats skilled technicians as important and productive members of society. Defectors are given substantial resettlement benefits —"

The Texan found the right traces to cut on the brain's board to make the speaker fall silent. "They do that," he said. "Danged things drop into propaganda mode when they're captured."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:13:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hollywood's MP loses the election -- hit the road, Sam!

The Canadian MP whom copyfighters loved to hate has lost her job and the election. Sam Bulte was the Liberal Party Member of Parliament for Parkdale/High Park, my old riding, and she was embroiled in a scandal when it was revealed that she had financed her election campaigns at the entertainment industry's expense, and subsequently brought down proposal for extremist, US-style copyright laws.

In last night's Canadian elections, Bulte lost to New Democratic Party opponent Peggy Nash by 2213 votes. Nash lives in Parkdale/High Park (Bulte lives in a posh uptown neighborhood that's kilometers away) and ran a very good campaign on a progressive platform; she also had the endorsement of Toronto's much-beloved mayor.

Toward the end of her campaign, Bulte became increasingly desperate, but she really scraped the bottom of the barrel when she threatened to sue her critics and then published an editorial in the Toronto Star that lifted passages from Canadian Recording Industry Association speeches and literature nearly verbatim. Link (Thanks to everyone who wrote in about this, and especially to my old Parkdale/High Park neighbors who fired Sam Bulte!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:39:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Botnet" hacker pleads guilty to scheme that netted $61K

A 20-year-old hacker pled guilty today to charges he'd pwned thousands of computers, using the "zombie network" to serve pop-up ads and renting access to it so that others could attack websites and broadcast spam.

Jeanson James Ancheta, of Downey, California, pleaded guilty in Los Angeles federal court to four felony charges for crimes, including infecting machines at two U.S. military sites, that earned him more than $61,000, said federal prosecutor James Aquilina. Under a plea agreement, which still must be approved by a judge, Ancheta faces up to 6 years in prison and must pay the federal government restitution. He also will forfeit his profits and a 1993 BMW. Sentencing is scheduled for May 1.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:31:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interview with Jon Lebkowsky on Extreme Democracy

Steve O'Keefe, the former publicist for Loompanics, interviewed longtime bOING bOING editor and friend Jon Lebkowsky about his book, Extreme Democracy.

Extreme Democracy [is] a new collection of essays on how technology is changing the way politics is played. The video is long enough for a brief reflection on how the Howard Dean campaign used the net -- that's the origin of this book. The destination? The Internet has become the volunteer coordinater and cash machine fueling modern political campaigns.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:50:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

John Galliano drinks DMT smoothies, creates crazy gothy Dior line

Snip from NYT report:

"John Galliano sent out his models in skirts splashed with fake blood and painted skeletons, with crosses round their necks, to the sound of whips and clanking chains in a dramatic opening to Paris fashion week on Monday. 'Red is the new libertine ... Dior is the new erotica,'' read the blood-red information sheet handed out at Christian Dior's spring-summer 2006 haute couture collection."
Link to UK Vogue report, Link to Vogue photo set, link to NYT story.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:35:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Search and privacy: Danny Sullivan, Declan, GoogleAnon

Search Engine Watch co-editor Danny Sullivan, who's been providing excellent coverage and analysis of the DoJ subpoenas on search engines, tells Boing Boing,

I've posted two new items today, one a flowchart of just how hard it is to secure privacy (Link), while the other is a look at how searches can be private but not necessarily personally identifiable (Link).

Overall, the big plus in all of this is that hopefully it will spark a big rethink and some action on privacy overall.

On the Politech mailing list, Declan McCullagh writes,

The court documents in the case are here (scroll down).

I wrote a FAQ that's up here.

[T]he privacy interests of search engine users (...) are explored in two editorials on Friday: SF Gate, Freep.

Perhaps visits to a search engine can be thought of as somewhat akin to thumbing through a dictionary, or an encyclopedia, or a phone book. You'd want privacy in those cases, especially when doing financial or medical research. But because the Supreme Court has said you don't have privacy when your records are held by others, the virtual equivalent of thumbing-through information is available to curious prosecutors or divorce attorneys. Thanks a lot, Supremes: Link

And Boing Boing reader M.A.K says,

Instead of using an entire Firefox extension, the GoogleAnon bookmarklet will reset your Google GUID to all zeros, effectivly rendering you anonymous. Link

Previously:
Xeni on NPR "Talk of The Nation": Search Engines and Privacy Rights
HOWTO anonymize your search history
DoJ search requests: Google said no; Yahoo, AOL, MSN yes
DoJ demands user search records from Google

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:09:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO make a noble fruit helmet for your cat

"The prototype Feline Protection and Enhancement System is ready for testing! The F.P.E.S. v0.0, known as ‘The Zero’, was produced in our top secret, Illinois facility just last week."   Link to tutorial for construction of cat fruit helmets.

Reader comment: A.V. asks,

Was the cat helmet inspired by the original cat helmet photo that is an internet classic?

Reader comment: Kurt Gegenhuber says,

Why do all this work? All cats will pretend they're astronauts, if given access to a proper space helmet: Link

.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:53:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mark Cuban to theater owners rejecting "Bubble" -- get a clue

Last week, National Association of Theater Owners head John Fithian announced that some member theaters would block Steven Soderbergh's "Bubble" for fear that the simultaneous release on DVD, pay-per-view, and in theaters would be bad for the theater biz. Mark Cuban, co-founder of the company distributing the movie (2929 Entertainment), responds on his blog:

With the release of Bubble on January 27th in theaters, on DVD and for 2 showings on HDNet Movies, there has been a ton of press and discussion about the future of the movie industry. The most extreme has come from John Fithian, who wins the award for the best ever imitation of Jack Valenti’s famous comparison of the VCR to the Boston Strangler when he was quoted in FastCompany as saying

[Fithian] called Iger’s suggestion this summer a “death threat” against his members. Fithian says that “if [release] windows were eliminated, what you would have would be fewer movies, fewer total dollars for the industry, and less choice for the consumer.” He thinks movies would become little more than commodities and that hundreds or thousands of theaters would close.

But he wasn't done there. He said the same thing to USA Today: It’s the biggest threat to the viability of the cinema industry today,” John Fithian, president of the National Association of Theater Owners, said of the so-called “day and date” release strategy.

How sad is it when the President of the National Assoc of Theater Owners doesnt think his members can create a better movie going experience than what we can see in our houses and apartments? Guess what John, I can whip up a mean steak, but I still like to go to restaurants. Because I enjoy it. I enjoy getting out of the house with family, friends, who ever.

Link to full text of blog entry. (Thanks, John)

Previously:
Big theater chains refuse to show Soderbergh's "Bubble"
Trailer for Steven Soderbergh's Bubble
Xeni interviews Steven Soderbergh in WIRED

Update: Theater owners who object to "day and date" release will soon have more movies to block: IFC is about to do the same. "IFC Entertainment unveils a plan to release 24 films in theaters and on cable at the same time this year," reports the NYT. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:38:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sex.com sells for over $14M,"adult social network" to follow

Gary Kremen's much-contested domain sex.com has been purchased by Escom, LLC, a web development company that promises to build a social network there. Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but some reports peg the sale price around $14 million. Not so, says the company's publicist.

Anonymous sources familiar with the deal tell Boing Boing the actual figure is higher, comprised of a combination of cash and stock.

"This is the first time a domain of this propriety and notoriety has delved into the online social community market dominated by companies like MySpace.com," a company spokesperson told Boing Boing today. "The new service will offer classifieds, dating, chat, health information, and directories of resources, in addition to many other features." Link to press release.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:23:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wal*Mart on Planet of the Apes/MLK fiasco: "algorithms did it"

Anonymous internet dude says,

As part of a story about online recommendation systems, the New York Times reported on the snafu at Wal*Mart that you covered a couple weeks ago - in which Walmart's online system was recommending titles about Dorothy Dandridge and Martin Luther King to buyers of Planet of the Apes. It turns out that the reason those titles came up was because because Walmart had bundled films for Martin Luther King's birthday, and then tried to promote those films by linking them to other popular bundled sets (at least that's what they're saying).

Link

Previously:
Wal*Mart "Apes" DVD listing: racist recommendation or fluke?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:13:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Joe Sacco's comic on Iraqi prisoner abuse by US troops

Boing Boing reader Jesse says,

Joe Sacco, the reporter/graphic novelist who did the comics "Palestine", "Safe Area Gorazde" and "The Fixer", has done an 8-page comic for the Guardian about two Iraqis accusing US troops of torture, who are now plaintiffs in an ACLU lawsuit against Rumsfeld.

PDF Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:07:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PDF of second issue of bOING bOING from 1990

In honor of Boing Boing's 6th anniversary, here's a PDF scan of the second issue of bOING bOING, published sixteen years ago, in January, 1990. This issue includes an article about the over-domestication of Americans by Antero Alli, cartoons by Dennis Worden, Ace Backwords, Rudy Rucker, and me, a review of Dan Clowe's Eightball #1 and #2, articles about brain machines (which I am embarrassed about), a review of Rudy Rucker's artifical life software, CA LAB, a great essay on Ribofunk by Paul Di Filippo, and a biography of the US government's own LSD evangelist, Al "Cappy" Hubbard.
Link to 12 MB PDF (Here's how to get bOING bOING #1)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:06:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: evangelical zen

bibleman
date to save
clowning4christ
karate for christ
recreational christianity
show tunes vs. fundamentalists
the amazing jesus of nazareth
ten
battleground god

Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:02:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of headline zen

Editors at CNN.com managed to work the term "rim shot" into the hed for a story on patent probs befalling Research In Motion and Blackberry. The term is often used to describe a certain sexual act. Ergo, teh funny. Link. (To all the smartypants emailing me on the difference between "rim shot" and "rim job": save your ASCII. I'm not confusing the terms. Both are used to describe acts normally not covered on CNN. I visit creepier websites than you do, so don't try to school me).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:53:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Loompanics going out of business

In 1985 I showed a coworker my copy of the Loompanics book catalog. He took it home and returned it to me the next day and said he never wanted to see anything like it again, and told me he did not want to associate with me because he was sure I was on some kind of government subversives list.

So it is with misty eyes that I report the passing of this ultra-libertarian book publisher, which published books on subjects from how to conduct home invasion robberies on drug dealers, to shooting squirrels for food, to making money as a human guinea pig for medical experimentation. Hats off to publisher Mike Hoy for 30 years of all-American, 100% patriotic free speech!

Loompanics is selling their existing stock at half price -- grab it while you can.
Link (store appears to be knocked out of commission, here's the link to Loompanics' main page) (Thanks, Lint!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:47:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DEV2.O - The Children's Devo Cover Band

Aaron Muszalski says: "Q: Are We Not Men?
A: We Are Children!

"Conclusive proof of Devolution! (Non)Intelligent (Re)Design! Yes, that's right! Devo is reuniting... as CHILDREN!

"Behold DEV2.O! Coming soon from Disney Records."

(I like this idea, but the vocals don't really sound like kids... -- Mark)
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:28:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Giant pandas in moment of intimacy

Giant pandas Chuang Chuang (seen here) and Lin Hui, residents of Thailand's Chiang Mai zoo, have mated for the first time. Hit the link to see them enjoying reverse cowgirl. NSFW, if you're a bear.
Link (Thanks, G. Duffle)

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:04:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Three-year-old smoker

This three-year-boy demonstrates his early mastery of fine motor skills by lighting up and smoking a cigarette.
Link (thanks, Jake!)

Reader comment:Liz Upton says: "Nothing changes! My Dad is Chinese, and lived in China with his grandparents until he was seven years old. He was taught to smoke on the porch of their house at the age of four by his grandfather; he also learned to roll cigarettes at his grandad's knee. I've just called him, and he claims that photographs exist of him doing infant smoking somewhere in the loft; he's going to try to dig them out for me.

"He smoked until he started to get bronchitis when I was a kid. He's nearly sixty now, and I'm delighted to say that he's been pink-lunged and full of fresh air for thirty years."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:23:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Charges dropped against first Denver pot arrest

Marco Carbone says: "description: The charges have been dropped against the first person arrested for a marijuana offense in Denver since the city removed penalties for adult marijuana possession. Evidence that local pro-marijuana laws can hold up, despite federal resistance?

"The link goes to a post on the recently launched blog of the statewide campaign in Nevada to regulate and tax marijuana for adults 21 and up. The initiative has been verified and will be on the ballot this November. If it passes, it will create a system for the local cultivation and sale of marijuana in the state, allowing adults to possess up to 1 oz. It also doubles DUI penalties and the penalties for supplying marijuana to a minor. It would be a big deal if it passes, even post-Gonzales-v-Raich, and a slap in the face of all those pro-Drug-War." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:48:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Con artist seeks salamander, robs homes

An Amsterdam man from The Hague who conned his way into homes claiming that he was seeking his missing salamander (or hamster, or iguana) was finally nabbed. According to Reuters, he admitted to robbing 60 homes after being invited in to search for his lost pet. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:47:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

GM Futurliner tour bus

This General Motors Futurliner was one of only 12 such vehicles ever built. They were introduced in 1940 as part of GM's "Parade of Progress," spun out of the 1933-34 World's Fair, themed "A Century Of Progress." There are nine known Futurliners that have survived. Three are in operating condition, including this 1950 model which sold at an auction last week for US$4,320,000. From the vehicle Web site:

Their sides opened up to form 16-foot self-contained, fully-lighted exhibits and stages which allowed the large crowds to tour the displays at their own pace. Many of the displays were animated and ran continuously. In the 1954 "Parade of Progress" the Futurliners' animated displays showed the evolution of communities, high compression engines and an automobile assembly line. Others displayed a cutaway jet engine, household appliances, powdered metal technology, "binaural" sound, microwave cooking, Fisher Body Craftsman's Guild concept car models and precision measurement technology among many others.

The Futurliners are imposing vehicles, 33 feet long, 8 feet wide and standing 11 feet 7 inches tall at the top of the driver's canopy. The driver's eyes are about 10 feet off the ground and in front of the steering wheels. In 1953 the driver's position was modified with a closed roof and air conditioning; the 1940 bubble-top version sat atop the front-mounted engine with no shade or air conditioning and was like riding in a heated greenhouse. Dual tires on both the front and rear axles were a unique Futurliner feature that made power steering a necessity. Power was provided by a 302 cubic inch inline six-cylinder GMC gasoline engine driving through a four-speed Hydramatic automatic transmission used in Korean War-era Army trucks.

Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:15:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Israeli commander on trial for orders to shoot 3-year-olds who enter forbidden zone

Harpers has a chilling excerpt from a radio communication transcript between an Israeli company commander and his subordinates. The commander is facing a three-year sentence in prison.

SENTRY: We spotted an Arab female about 100 meters below our emplacement, near the light armored vehicle gate.

HEADQUARTERS: Observation post “Spain,” do you see it?

OBSERVATION POST: Affirmative, it’s a young girl. She’s now running east.

...

HQ: Are you talking about a girl under ten?

OP: Approximately a ten-year-old girl.

...

cc [to HQ]: We fired and killed her. She has . . . wearing pants . . . jeans and a vest, shirt. Also she had a kaffiyeh on her head. I also confirmed the kill. Over.

HQ: Roger.

CC [on general communications band]: Any motion, anyone who moves in the zone, even if it’s a three-year-old, should be killed. Over.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:13:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on NPR's "Talk of The Nation": Search Engines and Privacy Rights

I'll be among guests on today's edition of "Talk of The Nation" for a segment on the recent news that Google refused a Justice Department request for data about user search activity. Link to program website, direct link to "Search Engines and Privacy Rights on the Web." Archived audio will be there later today.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:57:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beautiful carving of African cryptid

According to native legend in the Congo, the Emela-ntouka, or "killer of elephants," is a semi-aquatic beast with some resemblance to a rhinoceros. Over at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman has posted an exclusive photograph taken by French cryptozoologist Michael Ballot of an Emela-ntouka wood statue that he found in the Cameroon.

Loren writes:

I have long speculated in writing, and wondered aloud if there might be an unknown new subspecies of aquatic rhinoceros in the Cameroon-Congo area, captured in the folklore of the Emela-ntouka.

Troubling in the identification has been the long tail seen on the Emela-ntouka. Rhinos have short tails. Disturbing to the ceratopsian school has been the lack of a neck frill, and the dubious survival of dinosaurs into modern times...

The sculpture is the first good three-dimensional native representation, as far as we know, ever seen in the West of the Emela-ntouka. Clearly shown is Emela-ntouka’s long tail and single horn in this unique piece of African art. But here too, you can see that there is no neck frill. What do appear to exist, and are graphically shown, are small, elephant-like ears, different than found on rhinoceros or allegedly on dinosaur.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:10:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Roughcuts: Read tech books as they're being written

O'Reilly and Associates, my all-time favorite tech-book publisher, has just launched Roughcuts, a service that sells you access to tech books as they are being written; once the book is done, you get a copy of it, too. This is an amazing idea: many of O'Reilly's books cover brand-new technical ideas for which little or no documentation exists; putting even rough editions of their material into readers' hands while it's being finalized is a brilliant way to extend and increase the value of O'Reilly's titles.

The Rough Cuts service is a separate transaction from your standard Safari subscription. When purchasing a book through this premium service, you gain access to an evolving PDF manuscript that you can read, download or print. Once you've purchased a Rough Cuts title, you will have a chance to shape the final product-you can send suggestions, bug fixes, and comments directly to the author and editors.

You have your choice in the Rough Cuts program of purchasing just online access, just the print book when it releases, or the best of both worlds - online access immediately and the print book later.

Link

Update: Justin sez, "Roughcuts reminds me of Pragmatic Programmer. You can usually always download their book in PDF form pre-publishing and help in the review process if you're so inclined. Once the book is published, of course you get a copy of that too."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:05:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fingertip-sized dance-mats for Playstations

These palm-sized Dance Dance Revolution mats connect to your PS or PS2 and can be used with any dancing-game; you "dance" on them with your fingertips. Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:02:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boing Boing is a finalist for three 2006 Bloggies!

Boing Boing is back on the Bloggies final ballot, in three categories: Best Group Blog, Lifetime Achievement, and Blog of the Year -- thank you thank you thank you all for kindly nominating us! Hope you'll see fit to remember us in your votes. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:55:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Charlie Stross and Cory's "Appeals Court" free on Infinite Matrix

Appeals Court, the gonzo novella that Charlie Stross and I wrote as a sequel to our story Jury Service, has just been published under a Creative Commons by-nc-sa license on the Infinite Matrix:

The zeppelin turns out to be a maryceleste, crewed by capricious iffrits whose expert-systems were trained by angry, resentful trade-unionists in ransom for their pensions. The amount of abuse required to keep the ship on-course and to keep its commissary and sanitary systems in good working order is heroic.

Huw opens the door to the bridge, clutching his head, to find Bonnie perched on the edge of a vast, unsprung chair, screaming imprecations at the air. She breaks off long enough to scream at him. "GET THE FUCK OFF MY BRIDGE!" she hollers, eyes wild, fingers clawed into the arm-rests.

Huw leaps back a step, dropping the huge, suspicious sausage he's been gnawing at. His diaper unravels as he stumbles.

Bonnie snorts, then gets back control. "Aw, sorry darlin'. I'm hopped up on hateballs. It's the only way I can get enough FUCKING SPLEEN to MAKE THIS BUGGERY BOLLOCKY SCUM-SUCKING SHIP go where I tell it." She sighs and digs around the seat cushion, coming up with a puffer which she inserts briefly into the corner of each eye. The tension melts out of her skinny shoulders and corded neck as Huw watches, alarmed.

Link, Link to plain text version for PDAs

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:48:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How William Gibson discovered science fiction

Eileen Gunn has posted the final issue of her magnificent online sf magazine, The Infinite Matrix, and she's concluded the issue with a wonderful original essay by William Gibson:

Squeezing in past a sheet of plywood, I explored a series of cold, empty rooms. One of these (my heart beat faster) contained a damp old trunk. Having worked up the nerve to open it, I found only a few faded lithographs (as I now imagine they were) of airplanes. But these were airplanes unlike any I had seen, and they held my attention in a peculiar way. They were old, clearly of some other era, but exciting, and somehow frightening as well. Squatting there, staring at them, I felt as though some enormous wedge of information was being driven into my head. Various bits and pieces of half-knowledge were coming together, forming some new and utterly unexpected whole. I already knew, as if by osmosis, that there had been a war, though I didn't know when, or with whom. I had been raised, so far, by adults who sometimes spoke of "the war" as some previous time or era or world, but I had somehow never associated that with other, more vague ideas of some past and general conflict. I had read comic books about war, and played with military toys, but had never considered how those might fit into some way the world had actually been.

I had found World War II, in that trunk. I had discovered history, or it me, and I would never be the same.

Science fiction, then, I found on various wire racks, one of them offering a 15-cent copy of the Classics Illustrated version of The Time Machine — which must have led me, just as its publishers claimed to have intended it to, to Wells's text. When George Pal's film version was released, in 1960, I already felt, though secretly, that The Time Machine was mine, part of a personal and growing collection of alternate universes, and that no one else in the theater really got it.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:43:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stardust mission: email update from NASA scientist Scott Sandford

Here's the latest in a series of emails from NASA Stardust investigator Scott Sandford. Along with cool details about what he and other NASA scientists are finding inside the canister, Scott says today "I am wearing a dark blue shirt today. If I go into the clean room you may be able to see it [on the webcam] through the clean room garb."
More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:43:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wealthy "cryonauts" leave money to themselves

Snip from WSJ story:

With the help of an estate planner, [Arizona resort operator David Pizer] has created legal arrangements for a financial trust that will manage his roughly $10 million in land and stock holdings until he is re-animated. Mr. Pizer says that with his money earning interest while he is frozen, he could wake up in 100 years the "richest man in the world."

Link (reg-free) (Thanks, Carl Bialik)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:23:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO roll your own QTVR video -- on the cheap

Link to a tutorial on how to create a system for capturing panoramic video on a Mac without spending a ton of money. Link (via Buffoonery)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:19:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Roe v. Wade comic books from 1973

Ethan Persoff says,

This last week of January marks the 33rd anniversary of the Supreme Court's Jan 22 1973 decision legalizing safe abortions. (Thank you.) Recognizing that, here are two comics from that year - each produced as a response right after the decision occurred.

First, from the always entertaining Right To Life Organization, we have what seems to be the first pamphlet they ever produced, 1973's WHO KILLED JUNIOR? where we learn doctors were dousing women with salt to melt fetuses and were also jabbing and swinging steak knives in there to chop up babies. Huh.

From the Head Shop, Hippy, Feminist Side, we have the Left's excellent and calming ABORTION EVE, also from 1973, where we learn people were happily getting lots of abortions and just liked to talk and talk and talk about it. Both have great back covers, one celebrating Mad Magazine, the other evoking Hitler. I'm not sure which comic wins the argument, but it's a lot of fun to pair them up and read as a set.

Link.
WARNING: the anti-choice comic contains graphic images. The pro-choice comic contains verbose, unshaven hippy chicks and all the links smell like patchouli.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:06:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DRM-free MP3 audiobooks

Unabridgedbooks.com sells DRM-free MP3 readings from public domain books, stories and essays (see Telltale Weekly for a similar service) -- these are audiobooks that you can truly own, without locking yourself in to one vendor's players. Link

Update: Here's DRM-free audiobooks in French and more DRM-free audiobooks in English

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:14:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, January 22, 2006

Vintage circus sideshow photos

Sideshowworld features lovely original photos from the Ricky Hargrove Collection of the golden age of circus sideshows, including a small photo-series documenting an "elephant wedding" in which a "bride," "groom" and "preacher" elephant were dressed up in appropriate costumes. Link (via Neatorama)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:58:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hollywood's Canadian MP plagiarizes entertainment industry in op-ed

A Canadian MP who is accused of being in bed with entertainment companies published an editorial defending herself in yesterday's Toronto star, large passages of which were lifted almost verbatim from publications and speeches given by the Canadian Recording Industry Association.

Sam Bulte is the Liberal Party Member of Parliament who spent her last term in office creating draconian, US-style copyright proposals, apparently at the behest of the entertainment companies who bankrolled her last election campaign. This kind of law-buying is relatively unheard-of in Canadian politics and Bulte has come under fire from all quarters for repeating her sins with her current campaign, which culminated in a $250/plate fundraising dinner sponsored by entertainment executives, associations and other cronies.

Yesterday's Toronto Star published a lengthy editorial under Bulte's by-line, but Michael Geist, a law professor and editorialist, has shown that large passages of Bulte's material was lifted, uncredited, from speeches and publications from the Canadian Recording Industry Association, and slightly rewritten.

The irony is really lovely. Bulte's defense all along is that she isn't unduly influenced by her "friends" in the entertainment industry, but here we have evidence that these friends are ghost-writing her campaign materials, or at least appearing as uncredited co-authors in her newspaper editorials.

Bulte says:

"While U.S. online music ventures, such as iTunes and Napsters, are prospering because of the certainty of modern copyright laws there, Canada's legal digital music services have suffered without similar legislation. On a per capita basis, Canadian legal downloads should be the equivalent of roughly 10 percent of U.S. sales. Given Canada's relatively higher broadband penetration, the figure could be even higher. However, lacking the same legal supports, Canadians have downloaded only two percent of the amount south of the border. Why? The OECD reported in June 2005 that Canada has the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of unauthorized file sharing in the world."

If the comments sound familiar, consider what CRIA said in a September 5, 2005 release (for my rebuttal back in September see CRIA and Kazaa):

"In other countries, legal music downloading services are thriving, with legions of consumers attracted by the convenience, selection and high quality that are provided. By contrast, Canada's legal digital music sales continue to be hamstrung by antiquated copyright laws and widespread Internet piracy. Digital sales in this country run at one-half of one percent of US levels, but should be in the 12 to 15 percent range given relative broadband penetration in the two countries. An Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) report released in June of this year found that Canada has the highest per capita rate of unauthorized file-swapping in the world."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:52:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Business-card converts to set of lockpicks

An enterprising hacker commissioned a business-card that converts to a set of lockpicks from a person who makes die-cut sheet-metal cards. Link (Thanks, Colin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:43:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pope: Divine inspiration is copyrighted

The Pope has announced that henceforth, and retroactively, the "divinely inspired" words he utters and pens will be governed by copyright, and only publishable after permission is secured and royalties are paid to the church.

Publishers will have to negotiate a levy of between 3 per cent and 5 per cent of the cover price of any book or publication "containing the Pope's words". Those who infringe the copyright face legal action and a higher levy of 15 per cent.

The Union of Italian Catholic Publishers and Booksellers said that it had not been consulted, and that the edict "flies in the face of what we do -- spreading the Pope's message to the world".

A Vatican spokesman said that the Holy See had to defend itself against "pirated editions". The move is also aimed at "premature publication". Journalists accredited to the Vatican are handed papal texts under embargo. The Vatican said that if embargos were broken in future not only would the journalist face sanctions but also his or her publication would face legal action.

Link (Thanks, Adam!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:41:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Economics of open content symposium at MIT today/tomorrow

Today marks the start of an amazing two-day symposium on the economics of open content at MIT, with appearances from Richard Stallman, James Surowiecki, the creators of MIT's open courseware program, representatives from Tor Books and MIT Press, Henry Jenkins, Terry Fisher, a rep from Yahoo's Open Content Alliance, Yochai Benkler, and many other exciting speakers.

The event kicks off at 8:30 this morning, Hotel@MIT, 20 Sidney Street, Cambridge, MA 02139. Link (Thanks, Peter!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:37:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pellet gun fires dog treats for fat pups to chase

SnackShotz is a pellet-gun that fires dog-treats that your pup can chase and eat. The idea is to combat canine obesity by turning treats-time into exercise hour. Link (via Popgadget)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:32:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boing Boing just turned six!

It's a little late, but last Saturday, 21 January 2006, was the sixth anniversary of the founding of this blog. w00t! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:29:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NASA Stardust: "We've removed first aerogel cells!," webcam url

At NASA Johnson Space Center (JSC) in Houston, scientist Scott Sandford is part of a team of scientists tasked with opening the Stardust canister. Inside: the aerogel tray with comet dust and interstellar particles. Sandford, an astrophysicist with NASA Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, is the mission's co-investigator. Here are Sanford's latest emailed notes to colleagues:

Date: Sat, 21 Jan 2006 15:01:21 -0800
From: Scott Sandford
Subject: We've removed out first aerogel cells!

Hi All, It's been a long day and I haven't the energy to give a full description of today's efforts. I will try to provide a more comprehensive description tomorrow.

In a nutshell - today we cut the aluminum foils holding in several of the aerogel cells and successfully pulled the cells. Whew! As this was our first attempt at this, it was a mildly nerve wracking process. Things went very well and we succeeded in extracting two cells.

The cells survived intact and there were very few, small aerogel fragments generated in the process. The second tile developed a crack during the removal, so we will have to be gentle with it in subsequent steps (as if we aren't being as gentle as possible with all of them!). It's a relief to have verified our removal system works, but we are discussing ways to potentially improve the process.

We will not work on the samples tomorrow. Everybody needs a break. I plan to go to the Houston Gem and Mineral show tomorrow with Mike Z (Zolensky), but I should have plenty of time to give everybody a more detailed update tomorrow.

Cheers!
Scott

P.S. - Some of you have been asking for the address of the Stardust Clean room webcam. It's here.

Image: In an experiment using a special air gun, particles shot into aerogel at high velocities leave carrot-shaped trails in the substance.

Previously: NASA Stardust canister opens to reveal "wonderful samples"

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

Very fluffy rabbit

At first I thought this was a kitten in a yeti costume. Actually, it's a specially bred angora bunny rabbit. I mistook its nostrils for eyes. Link (via Neatorama)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:06:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Junior gets his PSP!

A couple of weeks ago, I linked to Mr. Jalopy's fundraiser to by his young friend a Sony PSP. Here are the photos of the happy kid. Many thanks the Boing Boing readers who donated money for Junior's PSP.

When Junior was unwrapping the PSP he said, "Where do the batteries go?" and then caught himself - he knew! He had drawn the battery door about fifty times! I explained to Raquel (his mom, on the right) the videogame rating system and that Grand Theft Auto is the videogame equivalent of a kill-murder-hooker movie.

Some people got it and some didn't. Apparently, being poor and uncommonly creative is not enough to merit reward. For those concerned that I got away with some sort of scam I assure you, I will never spearhead another collection unless I make friends with a third world kid with a fatal disease that wants a Nintendo DS.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:01:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SNL viral vid: Young Chuck Norris

Link to "An SNL Digital Short in tribute to the young Chuck Norris (Andy Samberg). Also featuring Jason Sudeikis, Amy Poehler, Fred Armisen, Jorma Taccone, and Bill Hader."

Reader comment: Cliff Marsiglio says,

If you are going to link to the Young Chuck Norris vid -- ya gottsta link to the video that this draws a great deal of inspiration: Link. It made the rounds earlier last year, so I'm sure a good deal of your readers have seen it, but maybe not all. I hesitate to call it parody as the original, while a serious song was just pure cheese and apparently the singer sees nothing funny or ironic about it [1] -- at the same time, he seems like an honestly good guy.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:40:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

SRL show in LA Chinatown: photos and phonecam video

Sean Bonner attended Saturday's Survival Research Laboratories event in Los Angeles, and says,

Here's a bunch of photos that I took last night from our safety zone behind a quarter inch of plywood that was only knocked over by a machine with failing reverse gear once. Also, here's a 1.3MB 3GP video I shot of the action. I think the most surprising thing of the evening was that the event actually took place, we were expecting it to be shot down at any second. See all those windows in the background? Yeah, those are apartments filled with families.

Here are my phonecam snaps. This is my favorite, even though the photo is crap.

Here are some shortie video clips I shot on my Treo (3g2 format, viewable in Quicktime):

* crowd and resting robots before show
* Mark Pauline directing show setup
* machines come to life during the show.

Here are more photos -- some shot with real cameras -- that other people took and uploaded to Flickr. Among them, this photo (above, in which Mark Pauline redirects an errant robot) from user Daydream Aversion's SRL 1/21/06 photoset.

Reader Comment: IvyMike says, "Here's my personal take on Saturday night's SRL show in Chinatown." Link

Reader Comment: Laurence says, "Here are two videos I shot there: one, two (via YouTube)

Reader Comment: Boing Boing reader nym has a post about the show here.

Reader Comment: Samuel Coniglio documented "Fun with fire, fish, and dangerous robots" here.

Reader Comment: Karen Marcelo of SRL says, "This is the page on the SRL site with links to photos, blog posts, and video as it trickles in: Link

Reader Comment: SRL and BB pal Eddie Codel offers his write up and some photos.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:19:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

GOATEA.cx

Link to yet another (worksafe) goatse parody (worksafe explanation). Sean Bonner phonecammed this during a post-SRL show chowdown with other pals at Yang Chow in Chinatown. Those are my hands. It seemed funny at the time. Sorry, internets.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:34:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Danny O'Brien IRC interview

Amgine sez, "Wikinews will be interviewing Danny O'Brien of the EFF at 2000h UTC, 23 January 2006 (will be in IRC @ irc://irc.freenode.net/wikinews), and everyone can get involved with creating the questions which might get asked (it *is* a wiki, after all.) Here's the research/questions center." Link (Thanks, Amgine!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:58:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disney swaps stock for Pixar; Jobs is largest Disney stockholder

Britain's Torygraph newspaper is reporting that Disney has bought Pixar in an all-stock deal. Pixar had run out its deal to deliver movies for Disney distribution and was set to strike out on its own; in retaliation, Disney shut down it traditional animation division and replaced it with a CGI division that was every bit as lacklustre as the traditional animation division. Now it's gone ahead and bought Pixar from Steve Jobs, leaving him the single largest stockholder in Disney (!).

The all-share deal will make Steve Jobs, the chief executive of Apple, around $3.5bn and the single largest shareholder in Disney. Jobs created Pixar in 1986 when he paid $10m for the computer animations division of Lucasfilm, owned by Stars Wars creator George Lucas.

Link (via /.)

Update: John sez, "The Telegraph article jumped the gun a little bit with their headline. Negotiations may be over, although that is not confirmed, both boards are meeting sometime this weekend to consider the deal, but we still have no firm idea what the deal is. And there is nothing certain that the boards will approve the deal. (Although Jobs essentially is the Board at Pixar with 51% of the stock.)"

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:34:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO anonymize your search history

If you're worried about the Federal government getting your search-history out of Google, Yahoo and other search-engines, there are steps you can take to keep your personal search-history private.

Last week, it was revealed that Google had rebuffed a Federal demand for its customers' search-histories, while other search engines may not have been so protective of their customers' privacy.

Wired News has published a collection of simple steps you can take to prevent your search-history from being associated with your identity at Google and other search engines. With all the expanded, secret snoop powers that the Feds have gotten under PATRIOT and other unconstitutional laws, it only makes sense to take precautions to keep yourself from being Tuttle-Buttled by an indiscriminate dragnet.

What's the first thing people should do who worry about their search history?
Cookie management helps. Those who want to avoid a permanent record should delete their cookies at least once a week. Other options might be to obliterate certain cookies when a browser is closed and avoid logging in to other services, such as web mail, offered by a search engine.

How do you do that with your browser?
In Firefox, you can go into the privacy preference dialog and open Cookies. From there you can remove your search engine cookies and click the box that says: "Don't allow sites that set removed cookies to set future cookies."

In Safari, try the free and versatile PithHelmet plug-in. You can let some cookies in temporarily, decide that some can last longer or prohibit some sites, including third-party advertisers, from setting cookies at all.

While Internet Explorer's tools are not quite as flexible, you can manage your cookies through the Tools menu by following these instructions.

Link

Update: Jeremie sez, "There's a Firefox extension called CustomizeGoogle that allows, among other very interesting features, to anonymize google cookie. I have no proof that it works, but the whole thing looks quite serious.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:24:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mood-altering cat parasites make women friendly and men into jerks

A parasite that causes rats to sacrifice themselves to cats may also change human behavior, making women more outgoing and warmhearted, and men more jealous and suspicious. The Toxoplasma bacteria protist is shed in cat feces, which are eaten by rats; infected rats become fearless in the presence of cats, which makes them easier to catch, which, in turn spreads the disease to new cats.

Carl Zimmer is the author of Parasite Rex, a sharp science book dealing with the amazing ways that parasites attack us, change us, farm us, use us and kill us. He reports on new research on the effect of Toxoplasma bacteria on humans.

Toxoplasma was previously believed to be largely harmless to humans (though it can compromise our immune systems). But new research suggests that humans, like rats, go through behavioral changes when infected with the parasite, though the effects are opposite in women and men.

Regular BB readers will remember my review of Scott Westerfeld's Peeps, a young-adult vampire novel largely inspired by Parasite Rex, in which all of the behaviors attributed to vampires are explained in parasitological terms.

Some scientists believe that Toxoplasma changes the personality of its human hosts, bringing different shifts to men and women. Parasitologist Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague administered psychological questionnaires to people infected with Toxoplasma and controls. Those infected, he found, show a small, but statistically significant, tendency to be more self-reproaching and insecure. Paradoxically, infected women, on average, tend to be more outgoing and warmhearted than controls, while infected men tend to be more jealous and suspicious.

Link (via JWZ)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:19:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos of Disney's Nepalese Expedition Everest coaster theming

Prof. Pema Dorje at the University of Michigan dispatched a student to document the incredible theming at Walt Disney World's Animal Kingdom's newest ride, Expedition Everest. Expedition Everest is an elaborately themed rollercoaster that is meant to evoke a trip up from a Nepalese base-camp to the summit of Everest, where the Yeti lurk. The Nepalese theming is nothing short of incredible -- obsessively detailed, clever, witty and respectful, and these 115 photos document it in great detail, as do the general photos taken by other Flickr users. Link, Link to Expedition Everest tag on Flickr (Thanks, Pema!)

Update: CC sez, "I'm pretty sure "Prof. Pema Dorje" is the fictional curator for the 'Yeti Museu'" which is part of the Everest queue. I rode yesterday and the pics do not give the themeing of this attraction justice. Imagineering is back doing what Imagineering does best."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:36:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Penn Jillette's radio show podcast

Penn Jillette (the "Penn" half of the amazing comedy magic due "Penn and Teller") has a radio program on FreeFM. Penn is one of my all-time heroes: outspoke civil libertarian, convulsively funny comedian, brilliant writer, and jaw-dropping stage magician. His radio show covers magic, politics and funny stuff, and FreeFM publishes the MP3s and a podcast of each program. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:19:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

USB treasure-chest opens when you key password into PC

This Japanese USB treasure-chest only opens when you connect it to a PC and enter the correct password into the (Japanese-only, Windows-only) software it comes with. Although I'm willing to bet it also opens up when you hit it with a hammer or similar. Link (Thanks, Alice!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:46:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Classic and indie movies delivered without DRM

4Flix.net is an online video store that sells indie and vintage movies for $1.99, with no "Digital Rights Management" technologies like those found in the iTunes video store, Google Video, Yahoo Video and so on. The 4Flix catalog has tons of fantastic stuff -- like this Popeye Meets Aladdin cartoon, Peter Sellers and Dudley Moore in Alice in Wonderland, Frank Sinatra in the hard-boiled Suddenly, black and white Andy Griffith Shows, as well as Three Stooges and Mighty Mouse shorts and lots of other great mind-candy.

Digital Rights Management technologies indiscriminately restrict your use of your media (for example, Google DRM requires that you use Google's Windows-only player to watch the movies you buy, and the player has to be online to phone home to Google to report that you're about to watch your movie; Apple's video locks you into Apple's players like iTunes, which restrict your playback to five "authorized" computers, and prevent you from taking screenshots; Microsoft's DRM contains innumerable restrictions, like the ability of rights-holders to flag their movies to prevent you from fast-forwarding trhough dull scenes, objectionable scenes, or commercials).

If you amass a video collection of DRM video from Microsoft, Apple, Google, Yahoo or other restrictive suppliers, you're dooming yourself to either throwing out all your movies when you want to change platforms, or keeping multiple players and libraries from these competing companies that are attempting to woo the entertainment companies to licensing content for their locked-down platforms by promising ever-tighter restrictions in their players.

With 4Flix, you get great movies and a great investment -- because the movies arrive without DRM, you can be sure that you'll be able to play them back on devices and players from lots of companies for the rest of time. You can give them to your kids in your will or donate them to a school library. They're yours, and you can use them as you see fit. Link (Thanks, Kaseiffert!)

Update: Kirk points out that many of these movies are available gratis on the Internet Archive -- that's cool, too! The point of the public domain is to provide raw material on which all may build: the 4Flix store uses some Archive videos to add value to the other films it acquires rights for. Still, you should definitely check out the Archive's video selection if you're interested in more DRM-free video selections.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:38:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, January 21, 2006

Peeling bananas from the other end is easier

I've been opening my bananas stem-side first all my life. On Friday, David showed me how monkeys open bananas. They pinch them on the other end. Boy, it's a lot easier. I'll never open a banana the dumb way again.

Reader comment: Kevin says: "I learned this genius monkey technique a few years ago and it was a defining moment in my life. An added bonus is that the stem end of the banana pops out easily once you've eaten down that far."

Pesco comment: All the credit goes to Sean Ness who taught me the trick on Friday.

Reader comment: Adam says: "This is an article written for Slate.com by my college economics professor - Steven Landsburg. He attempts to use economics to explain why people peel bananas differently than monkeys. It might be an interesting follow up to your recent post about peeling bananas."

Reader comment: Steve has a video that shows how bananas can be split into three longitudinal pieces.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:05:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Turning a departed pet into a cool work of art

I've linked to the wonderful work of sculptor Jessica Joslin in the past. She sent the following note to me today (Click on thumbnails for enlargement) :

"Happy" is the first of the beasts that was made to commemorate a specific pet, using it's actual bones.

Happy was a cranky old dachschund, who had belonged to a couple of my collectors, about 10 years ago.

They found his skeleton while wandering in a vacant lot, where their former home used to be. They had the bones stored in a closet, until they told me about it...

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:23:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tonight in LA -- SRL gallery show, Chinatown

The robots of Survival Research Laboratories have landed in Chinatown, and they're ready to down your liver with a nice chianti. Here, Treo snapshot of several disassembled Sneaky Soldiers inside the Chung King Road where tonight's gallery show takes place.

The event is a fundraiser for SRL. Some 'bots and parts are available for sale, as are luscious large-scale photographic prints from past performances (also shown in this phonecam snap). And unlike the machines, photo prints do not eat oil and belch flame. Link to event info.

Previously on Boing Boing: Xeni Tech on NPR: SRL's robotic mayhem

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:08:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Write to your Senator and kill the Broadcast Flags

EFF has put up an Action Center item for writing directly to your US Senator about the proposal to turn every entertainment technology over to the FCC to be regulated to ensure that it doesn't unduly disrupt Hollywood's business-model:

I am writing to you as a constituent, a consumer, and technology user to express my deep concern about the broadcast flag and audio flag - two wide-reaching governmental technology mandates that are being placed before your committee on behalf of the entertainment industry.

The proposed language for these flags would give the FCC new and far-reaching powers to control not just digital TV and radio, but how all digital media is handled on digital networks.

Such controls on the market aren't fair to consumers, who would have to pay extra or beg for "authorization" for rights that they traditioanlly have legally possessed. Tech mandates such as these will seriously cripple the promise of emerging media. New American technology companies will need to spend months asking permission to innovate from entrenched interests among the studio and record labels, which would have every incentive to impede progress.

And for what? These flags are, by the entertainment industry's own admission, the merest speed-bumps to serious infringers. Illegal copies of both audio and video will be made and distributed on the networks. Only private, legitimate, uses and bold new innovative technologies will be extinguished by the proposals.

Please stand up against these unparalleled and pre-emptive regulations on new media, our public airwaves, and America's multi-billion dollar technology industry. Please oppose the broadcast and audio flags, and vote against the Digital Content Protection Act if it appears before the Senate Commerce Committee.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:48:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Indy CD launch-party in NYC next Weds

Hey, New Yorkers: my friend Patrick Nielsen Hayden (co-editor of the kickass Making Light blog) is having a CD launch party for his band Whisperado this coming Wednesday:

[T]his coming Wednesday we'll be throwing a CD release party downstairs at the Cornelia Street Cafe in conjunction with fearless leader Jon Sobel's monthly "Soul of the Blues" event.

Opening at 8:30 will be singer-songwriter Melissa Mulligan, followed by Bostonite Adam Payne (warning: link plays sound). We'll take the stage around 10 PM, and we hope to see you there.

The Cornelia Street Cafe is at 29 Cornelia Street, between Bleecker and West 4th in the heart of the West Village. Cover charge will be $10, which (assuming we get our advance box from the plant in time) will include a copy of our six-song CD Some Other Place, soon to be available on CD Baby, the iTunes Music Store, and directly from this weblog, among other fine retail channels. Watch this space. Okay, you can stop watching this space.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:43:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Antique skull cane

The ivory skull handle on this rosewood walking cane is quite amazing. Circa 1900, the skull was hand-carved from ivory. Apparently, the hinges allow the top of the skull to open up for storage. The auction estimate is US$2000-$3000.
Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:04:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Broadcast Flag is back, this time it covers iPods and PSPs, too

Update: Here's EFF's action-center item for writing to your Senator about this.

The Senate has introduced the "Digital Content Protection Act of 2006," a bill that will create "Broadcast Flags" for all digital radio and television, leading to FCC oversight of all new digital media technologies from iPods and PSPs to TVs and DVD recorders.

Under the DCPA proposal, digital media technologies would be restricted to using technologies that had been certified by the FCC as being not unduly disruptive to entertainment industry business-models.

There are two things to be certain of this century:

1. Everything that can be expressed as bits will be expressed as bits

2. Bits will only get easier to copy

The entertainment companies are convinced that their businesses depend on copy-proof bits. This is ridiculous: there's no such thing, there never will be.

Governments that try to protect businesses that demand copy-proof bits are like governments that try to protect businesses on the sides of volcanoes, who demand an immediate end to business-disrupting lava.

If the current entertainment companies can't or won't adapt to a world of bits, that's too bad. Let them die, and let new businesses that thrive in the new technological reality take their place. If you can't stand the heat, get off the volcano.

Back in the mainframe days, IBM made its money by giving away computers below cost and then charging a bundle for keyboards and printers. Hitachi killed the mainframe business by introducing cheap peripherals for IBM mainframes.

Killing mainframes didn't kill computers: it made them better. IBM was forced to get into the minicomputer business, which led to the personal computer.

If computer industry complaints got the same attention as the entertainment crybabies get from lawmakers, there'd be 10,000 computers total in the world, running punchcards, with three companies making modest sums servicing them and shipping a new model every three years.

Hollywood's crybaby capitalists accuse us of being "communists" with one breath, and in the next, they go begging to Congress to turn the FCC into device czars who keep the market from being disrupted by innovation.

Andy Setos, the Fox executive who invented the Broadcast Flag, once told me that his objective was "a well-mannered marketplace." The entertainment industry's version of a planned economy is bad policy.

Send a strong signal to your lawmaker: if you break my TV, radio, and computer, I will campaign tirelessly for anyone who will promise to throw you out of office and undo your deeds.

Watch this space for opportunities to write to your Senator and send this message. Link (Thanks, Alex!)

Update Jami sez, "The author of the new bill to break our televisions, computers, and mp3 players, Senator Gordon Smith of Oregon, has been paid tens of thousands of dollars to do it. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) has been lobbying hard for the sole ability to decide how hard it's gonna be for us to listen to an mp3. The NAB has thrown nearly $250,000 at Republican candidates this year alone. NAB's money stuck to Gordon Smith."

Update: Here's EFF's action-center item for writing to your Senator about this.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:36:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NSA: HOWTO "sanitize" Word and PDF files

Steve Aftergood of the Federation of American Scientists has posted the US National Security Agency's guide to Sanitizing Word and PDF docs.

Section 2: Procedures to Sanitize a Word Document
The following steps were tested with MS Word 2000 and Acrobat 5.0 and 6.0. Other recent versions should work similarly. While time-consuming, these steps give the highest confidence that sensitive information is not hidden in the released document. Copying the text and images into a blank document is a good way to manually review a sensitive document, since sections can be copied over one at a time as they are reviewed.

668K PDF Link (Thanks, Jack!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:04:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory speaking in Antwerp next Tuesday

I'm speaking about science fiction and Europe's Broadcast Flag at the Stitch and Split culture event in Antwerp, Belgium next Tuesday:

American entertainment companies say they're fighting piracy, but they're going at it by punishing the innocent to get at the guilty. A pan-European digital-television restrictions proposal will turn the studios from companies that can control copying of movies into companies that can control the design of all DTV devices, that get to define how big your family is allowed to be, that get to take away all the rights you get under copyright law and sell them back to you, one painful, expensive dribble at a time. It's not really a business plan: more like a urinary tract infection. Europe's coming Broadcast Flag will ban open source for DTV, break the devices in your living room, and turn you into a truly captive audience. Get your torch and pitchfork, for this genuinely sucks -- and you shouldn't take it lying down!

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:55:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nonprofit alternative to CDDB gets its first deal

MusicBrainz, the free music metadata service, has inked a its first commercial deal, with a social networking service in Spain. MusicBrainz provides an alternative to Gracenote's CDDB (which collected titles and track-names for millions of CDs from the public and then locked it all away behind a paywall with restrictive licensing terms), that is free for use and administered by a charitable nonprofit (I sit on MusicBrainz's Board of Directors).

To sustain itself, MusicBrainz offers a low-cost commercial, high-reliability service to companies that want to get access to its data in realtime (the same data-sets are made available after a slight delay).

The MusicBrainz platform is built on Free/Open Source Software, and there's an active community of developers for it; the MetaBrainz charity takes donations from grateful users of the service -- thus volunteer efforts are sustaining an important alternative in a market that is presently dominated by a single, bullying player.

Linkara is a social networking site similar to Friendster here in the US. However, Linkara goes far beyond what Friendster has done and offers its users to connect on their interests in books, movies, and now music. Users can search for music/books/movies, rate them and find other people who share similar tastes.

Link (Thanks, David!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:53:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

David Byrne: boycott DRM

David Byrne, the former frontman for Talking Heads (and one of my musical heroes), has published a call to boycott DRM CDs, citing the Sony DRM fiasco. Sony-BMG has been embroiled in a multi-million-dollar scandal over its use of copy-restriction technologies that covertly spy on users, compromise the security of their computers, and render their machines unstable.

So, first they start off suing their customers, and now they are maliciously making it hard for their customers to even listen to music, and they will cripple your music and media player to boot. These guys deserve to go out of business, they obviously don't love music, and they don't understand their own customers. They must have a deathwish or be run by....who? FEMA? Rumsfeld? Bin Laden?

Link (Thanks, David K!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:44:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cozy blanket with sleeves: the Slanket

The Slanket is a polar-fleece blanket with integrated, outsized sleeves that let you eat popcorn, work the remote, or hold your phone while remaining safely shrouded in blankie. Link (via Cribcandy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:41:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PRO-USER ZEALOT bumper-stickers

A Boing Boing reader has produced PRO-USER ZEALOT stickers that make fun of the Canadian Liberal Party Member of Parliament's denunciation of "pro-user zealots and Electronic Frontier Foundation members" at an all-candidates meeting.

Sam Bulte, whose last term in office was marked by the introduction of extremist copyright proposals that mirror the US system's failures, made the denunciation after she was asked if she would turn away funding from the entertainment companies she would be in charge of regulating should she win the election.

People support me because they support my voice for the artist and I will not allow Michael Geist, pro-user zealots and Electronic Frontier Foundation members to intimidate me into silence my voice.

Link (Thanks, Brad!)

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

Seed Magazine launches science blog-network

Seed Magazine, my hands-down favorite science magazine, has launched a network of topical science blogs, covering the leading edge of science and culture. Topics include:

• Adventures in Ethics and Science
• Aetiology
• Afarensis
• Cognitive Daily
• Deltoid
• Dispatches from the Culture Wars
• Evolgen
• Gene Expression
• The Intersection
• Living the Scientific Life
• No Se Nada Commentary
• Pharyngula
• Stranger Fruit
• Uncertain Principles

These are going straight into my RSS reader. Link (Thanks, Luke!)

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