[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Friday, March 31, 2006

HK lawmaker: Yahoo unit had role in Shi Tao's jailing

Hong Kong legislator Albert Ho today released a document which is said to be a copy of the criminal verdict for reporter Shi Tao. The journalist received a ten year prison sentence from a Chinese court for "leaking state secrets."

"Yahoo Holdings (Hong Kong) Ltd. provided materials that confirmed the user's information," the document said.

The document appeared to contradict early comments by Yahoo, which said evidence used to convict the journalist was provided by Yahoo's unit in China to comply with the mainland's laws.

Those standards are more restrictive than those in Hong Kong, a former British colony that has been governed under a "one country, two systems" formula since it returned to China in 1997. The territory prides itself on having an independent rule of law and international business and privacy standards.

Link to AP story. Via Forbes today, news that Shi Tao's family is considering legal action against Yahoo:

Zhang Yu, representing the family of Shi Tao, said they were considering taking Yahoo Hong Kong Holdings to court either here or in the United States.

'We believe what (Yahoo) did was illegal so we are considering taking Yahoo to court,' Zhang told reporters, adding that Yahoo had refused to discuss the matter with him.

Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:07:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Learn how to knit a cute animal at the Maker Faire

The Maker Faire is taking place at the San Mateo county fairgrounds on April 22 and 23 (that's a Saturday and Sunday). We are going to have many many exhibits and workshops. Here's one — well known crafter Jess Hutch is going to teach you how to knit this little critter named George. Find out more on Jess's website.
Link(via Make blog)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:56:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Comic with anti-abortion Senator's phone number on eBay

Last week, Cory posted a comic strip that my old friend Stephanie McMillan drew featuring the phone numbers of anti-abortion senator Bill Napoli. (Link to the comic.) Stephanie is now auctioning off the cartoon on eBay with the proceeds going to help keep abortion safe and legal in South Dakota. With five days left, the current bid is $600. From MinimumSecurity.net:

I will donate 100% of the winning bid, after I receive it, to two places, half of the amount going to each:

1) Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and

2) Sacred Choices, the women's reproductive health clinic planned by Oglala Sioux Tribe President Cecilia Fire Thunder, to be built on sovereign tribal land at Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and which would not be subject to US law. Stephanie is also selling prints of the cartoon with most of the dough going to the clinics.

Link to eBay auction, Link to Stephanie's Minimum Security site

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:04:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-DRM flashmob hits Paris CD superstore

A group of technology activists staged an anti-DRM flashmob/protest in a large Paris music-shop yesterday. The group is called STOPDRM, a created by members of the Framasoft.net forum, where free software enthusiasts gather.

The activists went to FNAC, a giant record store, and at 7PM, a whistle was blown, whereupon the whole group unfolded anti-DRM signs saying things like "STOP DRM" "SAY NO TO RESTRICTED CDs" "YOU OWN THE MUSIC YOU BUY" and began to hand out leaflets explaining the dangers of DRM to other patrons. After they were all kicked out, they set up an anti-DRM information picket in front of the story. Link to video, Link to photos, Link to STOPDRM (Thanks, Jeremie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:03:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Remote control Gigantor kit costs $3,000

A Japanese company has announced that it will begin selling a remote control robot kit based on Gigantor (or Tetsu-jin 28, as it's called in Japan). The 15-inch tall work of art will cost $3,000. Cartoon Brew has more details. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:58:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Simulations of 1906 California earthquake

The United States Geological Survey launched an amazing Web site where you can watch simulations of the big shake that rocked the San Francisco Bay Area in 1906. From the project overview:

To better understand the distribution of shaking and damage that accompanied the great 1906 earthquake, seismologists have constructed new computer models to recreate the ground motions. The simulations show how ground moved on the two sides of the San Andreas fault and how seismic waves radiated away from the fault to produce the shaking. The earthquake, which began 2 miles offshore from the City of San Francisco, ultimately grew to cause shaking and damage along more than 300 miles of the San Andreas Fault.

Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:46:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mutant panda hybrid toys: Hanpanda

Remember that crazy viral clip from 2004, where the female aerobics instructor is surrounded by dancing poodles? The woman who created and starred in that video (which was titled "ex-Fat Girl") is Japanese artist Nagi Noda. She has a new book out, and a new project: HANPANDA, a line of acid-pop, half-panda, half-other-creature hybrid furries. If you're in Paris, you may want to swing by the Colete boutique for her in-store appearance (mit Hanpandas) on Monday, April 3rd. Link.

Previously: Poodle-robics video.

Reader comment: John Morley says,

The Nagi Noda Hanpandas were also featured in the video for "Baby Blue" by the excellent Japanese girl pop/hip-hop band Halcali. Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:42:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's on holidays until April 12, email after April 13, ok?

I'm going on holidays until April 12, and probably won't have any Internet connectivity for the whole time (yay!). If you want to say something to me, email me on April 13 or later! Send Boing Boing suggestions, as always, to the suggest-a-site form.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:16:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How logistics of Britain's national ID card will screw Britons

The UK is steaming towards a "National Information Registry" -- one big database of everyone's personal information, tied to biometric IDs. This system won't fight terrorism, but it will compromise the privacy of British people. What's more, the system will be impossible to implement, resulting in widespread harm to people who get screwed by the errors it generates.

This remarkable post details some of the impossible logistics of deploying the "NIR" and talks about the likely fallout of these failings. If you want to fight the NIR, join NO2ID, the national campaign to stop it.

So adding it all up, from NIR Day 1 for ten years you've got to keep processing people at the rate of 50 per hour at every centre, or one every 72 seconds, each of whom requires a scan of the whole central NIR to avoid multiple registrations, so the database has to be up and accessible every minute of the day to avoid delay.

In the early days it's a nailed on certainty that we'll get failures, resulting in potentially hundreds of people making pointless journeys (say it's down for an hour during a particular day - that's 50 people at each centre having their time wasted, a total of 3500 people). I have no idea of the MTBF for major government IT projects, and they almost certainly won't tell me on the usual 'commercial confidentiality' grounds. What I can do is provide some figures based on possible percentage reliability and estimate the number of people inconvenienced per year and the kind of reliability that would be required *from day one* to stop the scheme sliding into chaos.

Link (via Charlie)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:13:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Deep and surprising "origins of leetspeek" Wikipedia article

The Wikipedia entry on "leetspeak" -- a simple substitution code that is part of hacker/SMS/IM jargon -- is amazingly complete and full of fun facts:

It is widely believed that the expression "kekeke" comes from Korean players of StarCraft. It is an onomonopoetic Korean phrase similar to the English "hahaha", Spanish "jajaja" or Japanese "huhuhu", and is meant to express laughter. It is often used in-game as an expression of exhultation or as a form of mockery. Commonly, it is associated with a simple Starcraft tactic that involves massing a large number of units and using them to rush an enemy base before an opponent is sufficiently prepared to defend. This is often called a Zerg Rush, after the Starcraft faction for whom the tactic was created. The phrase "OMG Zerg Rush! kekeke!!" is sometimes used outside of the game to indicate any form of overwhelming or swarming force.

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:08:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Design of New Orleans' new levees flunks FEMA standards

The levees that the Army Corps of Engineers is currently building in New Orleans do not meet FEMA standards, reports John Schwartz in today's NYT:

New Orleans's levees do not meet the standards that the Federal Emergency Management Agency requires for its flood protection program, federal officials said yesterday — and they added that the problem would take as much as $6 billion to fix.

FEMA has long based its flood planning on whether an area is protected against a flood that might have a 1 percent chance of occurring in any year, also known as a 100-year flood. Without that certification, the agency's flood maps have to treat the entire levee system as if it were not there at all, which means that people hoping to build in the affected areas might have to rebuild their homes at elevations of 15 or even 30 feet above sea level in order to meet new federal building standards.

But since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, the agency has toughened its 100-year standard, based on new information about land subsidence and the increasing severity and frequency of hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico. There is also new data about weak soils in the area and the failure of some of the city's floodwalls.

registration-free Link.

Here are some related, recent stories filed by John Schwartz from New Orleans, including:
- Engineers' Panel Urges Study of All Levees in New Orleans
- Museums Roll Again, but Where Are All the People?

Image: New Orleans in stereoscope. "The Levee," from a photoset of historic stereographs of New Orleans uploaded by Max Sparber.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:08:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MP3s from "Economics of Open Content" conference

Last month's excellent "Economics of Open Content" conference in Boston has published the audio of all its sessions online as MP3s. Speakers included James "Wisdom of Crowds" Surowiecki, Yochai "Coase's Penguin" Benkler, Terry Fisher, Henry Jenkins and others!

Collaboration and the Marketplace
New Models of Creative Production in the Digital Age
Keynote Address: Openness as an Ethos
The Wealth of Networks
The Economics of Knowledge as a Public Good
The Economics of Open Courseware
The Economics of Open Text
Convergence Culture: Consumer Participation and the Economics of Mass Media
The Economics of the Music Industry
If Only We Knew Yesterday What We Know Today
The Economics of Open Archives, Museums, and Libraries I
The Economics of Open Archives, Museums, and Libraries II
The Economics of the Public Domain
The Economics of Film and Television I
The Economics of Film and Television II
The New Economics of Gaming
Everything is Miscellaneous
Business Interests in Open Content
Next Steps: Cooperation Across Institutions and Industries

Link (Thanks, Heather!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:54:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nevermind tinfoil beanies, here's the anti-deathray shirts

When you tire of wearing wadded-up aluminium foil on your head, check out lessemf.com's line of anti-electromagnetic steel clothing. T-shirts, aprons, fashionable scarves, and bedsheets (dramatized at left, image courtesy lessemf.com). 

Don't try sneaking any of it through airport screening lines, though. Via Bruce Sterling, who asks, "I wonder what happens when you drop that shirt in an acid bath. Are you left with NOTHING BUT the stainless steel fibers? What does that look like?"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:07:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Problems with predictions

At the Institute for the Future where I'm a researcher, we always say that the future is impossible to predict. The good news is, you don't have to. It's better to focus on foresight. In a draft chapter of a forthcoming book, my colleague Bob Johansen writes:

Foresight is a particularly good way to stimulate insights. While prediction is impossible, provocation is easy. Insights arise from differences: different ideas, different angles, and different moods. If insights were obvious, everyone would be having them. What new development might be created—given the external future forces that are at play? This is a search for “Aha’s!” It is a search for insights, a search for coherence in the midst of confusion.

With that in mind, here are a few excerpts from 2Spare.com's "Top 87 Bad Predictions about the Future":

• "The horse is here to stay but the automobile is only a novelty, a fad."--The president of the Michigan Savings Bank advising Henry Ford's lawyer not to invest in the Ford Motor Co., 1903.

• "There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home."--Ken Olson, president, chairman and founder of Digital Equipment Corp. (DEC), maker of big business mainframe computers, arguing against the PC in 1977.

• "Atomic energy might be as good as our present-day explosives, but it is unlikely to produce anything very much more dangerous."--Winston Churchill, British Prime Minister, 1939.

• "This 'telephone' has too many shortcomings to be seriously considered as a means of communication. The device is inherently of no value to us."--A memo at Western Union, 1878 (or 1876).

Link (via Neatorama)

UPDATE: Thanks to reader Dsamsil who points out that Olson's quote was apparently taken out of context. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:03:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-war, pro-cuteness tshirt: Kittens Not Bombs

BoingBoing reader Felix says,

I came across the BoingBoing 'drop shadows not bombs' post today, and it made me think of this shirt i printed a few months ago. It's nice to think of what would happen if we chose to drop kittens, not bombs. People would be too happy, too joyful to send their crazy young men at us with airplanes and exploding shoes.

Link to shop -- no direct link to this design, unfortunately, it's thumbnailed on the right-hand sidebar.

Reader comment: Jerry Yeti says,

Your "Kittens Not Bombs" post and link reminds me of the "Cupcakes not Bombs" shirts that Urban Outfitters stole from Johnny Cupcakes: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:53:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sister of held Chinese blogger Hao Wu blogs on detention

Rebecca MacKinnon of Global Voices says,

Nina Wu, the sister of detained filmmaker and Global Voices contributor Hao Wu, has now started a blog on MSN Spaces. It includes a photo gallery of “Haozi” as the family calls him. Even if you don’t know Chinese, leave her a comment in English and let her know your support for Hao.

Thanks to a volunteer who wishes to remain anonymous, we have a full translation of her first post. She includes an update on her latest visit to the police. It is a chilling account of what it’s like to be the family member of a Chinese person who has been detained without charge.

Image: From the Wu family's archives, a self-portrait snapshot taken by Hao Wu some months ago, and posted online by his sister Nina. Link to English translation of Nina Wu's blog post. Bloggers who support Hao are adding these badges to their sites.

Previously: Blogger, documentarian Hao Wu held one month

Update: here's an English translation of Nina's latest post. Snip:

When I got up today my eyes were swollen into two big walnuts. I had to wear sunglasses out.

Luckily, it was bright outside, and the sun felt good on my body. I squinted and looked at the sky. The Beijing sky is much worse than Shanghai’s, but I remembered how I used to rise early and return late. When did I last have time to look up at the sky? I shouldn’t be too demanding.

There was a din along Dawang road where the old houses were being demolished. Remembering the innumerable times my little brother walked among the noisy mass of people, I felt close to him again. I greedily looked over every street peddler, every pile of rubble.

Brother, are you lucky enough to see this bright and beautiful day? Do you know that your sister is walking on the same street you walked on so many times before? When I thought that he may be locked in a dark room, without any view or news of the outside world, my mood darkened too.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:37:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dale Dougherty on playwright Charles Mee

BB pal and MAKE: editor/publisher Dale Dougherty just emailed me this excellent commentary on a play he recently saw:

"There is no such thing as an original play," writes the playwright Charles Mee, who has the text of his plays online at www.charlesmee.org. "Please feel free to take the plays from this website and use them freely as a resource for your own work." He encourages others to "pillage his plays" as he has done to the work of other playwrights.

Last week, I saw "Hotel Cassiopeia" by Charles Mee, which was part of the Humana Festival of New American Plays at Actors Theatre of Louisville. The play was about the American collage artist, Joseph Cornell, a man who lived for most of his life in his parents' house in Queens, caring for a disabled sibling, and never having an an intimate relationship of his own. The play itself was more about the mind of the artist than the life of the artist, however. In this production, when you walk into the theatre, the actor playing Cornell is already on stage, sitting at a desk with his head in his hands. "Hotel Cassiopeia" is ornate and dream-like, without much of a plot. Real and imagined characters enter, old Hollywood movies are played on the wall and objects are retrieved and added to Cornell's collection in the drawers of his desk. He wonders whether anything he does has any meaning and is worth doing. He has a certain love of finding and keeping things, which seem as real to him as any relationship might be. Cornell is talking about these things in reverie:

the little store nearby where you can find
star fish
butterflies in little boxes
driftwood
and in the antiques store
the things from Asia
inlaid wood
a thousand little drawers

After the play, I found myself mulling it over, like a dream, strange and beautiful. I went to the Web to look up more information about Joseph Cornell and the play itself. I was delighted to find Mee's website, "The (re)making Project", with the full text of the play (and all of his plays.) Intentionally or not, Mee's thoughts about his own work seem to echo the ideas of Open Source and Creative Commons, viewing his own work as something to be remixed by others.

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:13:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jasmina Tesanovic: Scorpions Trial, Day 3

Jasmina Tesanovic, Belgrade
Scorpions Srebrenica Trial
Day Three: March 15, 2006
The Tin Soldier

I repeat, we should not mix anymore. This is not healthy, it is perverse, it is sickening: my gay friend, a Woman In Black, is looking at the Scorpion witness today and saying: he is so cute...

In his early thirties, dressed in a fancy suit, with an upright muscled body, he lies at full speed. His voice is scarcely audible, so that his contradictions cannot be followed. We, the audience, are huge today. Most of us are law students, led by their right wing professor from Belgrade law school, who thinks very well of the Scorpions, and very badly of all other ethnic communities on this territory. They are the clerico-fascist party in the government coalition; in the nineties, they used to be Milosevic's best allies, supporters of his troops such as Scorpions.

The "cute" witness was in his teens back then. Today he is obviously a professional criminal, blackmailed and pampered by his famous commander, who still makes them all tremble with his praises or scoldings.

Back then, the Tin Soldier was a war orphan, hired to drive a truck. A truck full of food-tins, he claims: food for the troop. Today he remembers nothing, or next to nothing, of names places deeds words. Not even one Name, not even one Place.

He has become a true geek, autistic and narrowly determined. He is a Tin Soldier, whose emptiness clanks like an empty tin, its contents eaten by Scorpions. He says he has no friends, no wife, just a boss whom he drives. The Tin Soldier needs no money for his expenses. He just wants to go. He says, many many times, as any answer to judge's questions; "everything is possible."

[image: Detail of interior house wall, Serbia, by Aleksandra Radonić]

More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:53:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Videoblogger's protest footage demanded by FBI

Josh Wolf says,

I'm a videoblogger and an independent journalist, and I  frequently cover protests and other civil unrest in San Francisco.

On July 8th, I shot a protest in the Mission during which a cop was injured in the course of an altercation. Later that week I was visited by the FBI and asked to hand over the unedited footage from that night.

After speaking to my lawyer I denied their request. A few months later, in the beginning of February I was subponead to appear before a Federal Grand Jury with the tape. On behalf of my pro-bono attorney's at the San Francisco National Lawyer's Guild (NLG), we have filed numerous motions in an attempt to quash the subpoena and a hearing to decide to quash the subpoena occured this morning. We are still awaiting the results of that hearing.

Link to a post on Josh's blog with video from the press conference. If I'm not mistaken, I believe this post contains some of the disputed footage from the July 8, 2005 protest.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:34:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Missing Byrne/Eno track "Qu'ran" appears on blogs

Following up on yesterday's post about the remixable re-release of David Byrne and Bryan Eno's masterpiece My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, reader Blake Leyh sez:

I have made the Eno/Byrne track "Qu'ran", referred to earlier as the missing track from "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts", available for download at my blog. Enjoy.

Mike points to another copy here.

And E.W. Brenner says,

here is a link of interest to people who are fond of the song "Qu'ran."

This was my favorite song on the record. I just bought my copy of the newly remastered album (which, for reasons cited in this blog post, does not include this track) here: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:05:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ralph Bakshi phone doodle gallery

Stephen Worth says: "Today on the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Blog, I posted my collection of Ralph Bakshi phone doodles. I worked with Ralph on Cool World and on Ren & Stimpy: Adult Party Cartoon. I'd regularly raid his trash for his amazing drawings; and when he figured out what was going on, he'd sign the sketches and inscribe them to me before throwing them away. Ralph is one of the most important animators who ever lived. Inbetween the images, I explain why."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:47:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Art made from Gocco printer for sale at The Wurst

The Wurst is selling art prints made on a Japanese silk screen printer called the Gocco. (Shown here: "Things We Love," by Aaron Draplin.)

Carla got me a Gocco printer for Christmas, and while I'm not nearly as talented as the artists at The Wurst, I'm having fun with device. It uses flashbulbs (like the kind found in old cameras) to expose your image onto the screen.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:39:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

David Maisel's Library of Dust

Photographer David Maisel has documented the forgotten and unclaimed copper canisters containing the ashes of patients who died at a state-run psychiatric hospital, originally known as the Oregon State Insane Asylum, between 1883 and the 1970s. From the artist's statement:

What happens to our bodies when we die? Inside a dusty room in a decaying outbuilding on the grounds of a state-run psychiatric hospital are simple pine shelves lined three-deep with thousands of copper canisters...The copper canisters have a handmade quality; they are at turns burnished or dull; corrosion blooms wildly from the seams of many of the cans. Numbers are stamped into each lid; the lowest number is 01, and the highest is 5,118...

The project's title is "The Library of Dust". As I was setting up to photograph in a storage building that houses the cremated remains, prisoners from the local penitentiary were called in to clean up some of the mess in the adjacent hallway, crematorium, and autopsy room. A young male prisoner leaned into the room lined with the copper cans, scanned the room, and said in a low tone, "The library of dust.”

Link (via Mind Hacks)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:36:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michael Eisner interviewing Bran Ferren on CNBC

Here's a video clip of former Disney chairman Michael Eisner interviewing uber-interesting former Imagineering head Bran Ferren, during the debut of Eisner's CNBC talk show (previous BB post). Unfortunately, to view the video you have to be using MSIE6, which cockblocks all Mac users and Windows users who've ditched IE for Firefox or Opera. Link (Thanks, Peggy)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:36:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Al Jazeera covers Pastafarianism, strippers, beer fountains.

What happens when worlds collide: The Arabic-language television network al Jazeera is running a story about Intelligent Design and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Link to English-language web feature for the broadcast segment.
(Thanks, grom)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:19:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Snakes on a Plane meets "Operation Divine Strake"

SOAP plus Operation Divine Strake =

Enough is enough! I've had it with these Strakes.

Whaddya gonna do about it? Strakes on a plain, baby. Strakes on a plain.

Ain't nothing you can do when it's Strakes on a motherfucking plain.

(Thanks, Gaijin Biker) .

On a more serious note, see also this post today on DefenseTech blog about Operation Divine Strake: Link. (thanks, Noah Shachtman.)

Previously: Snakes on a Plane meets Cory's angry letter to AA

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:57:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Inventor of the Web's lecture on "The Future of the Web" MP3

Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the Web, gave a stirring speech at the Oxford Internet Institute that makes subjects related to Internet freedom accessible to non-geeks and geeks alike. The audio is available as an MP3. Link Coral Cache Link to 70MB MP3 (Thanks, Rich!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:25:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, March 30, 2006

Dumb Aussie junkies mauled by stolen koala, so they tried a croc

Gnat sez, "Aussie thieves try to steal a koala to sell for drug money. They get 'scratched to shit'. So they turn to everyone's #2 redeemable-for-speed animal, the freshwater crocodile. Convict genes will out! This story is remarkable for the persistent, diligent, hard-working stupidity of the criminals and the genial bemused zookeeper." Link (Thanks, Gnat!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:38:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bird flu expected on US West Coast

Bird flu is expected to hit the US West Coast by this summer, California's Health and Human Services Secretary Kim Belshe said today. From Reuters:

(Officials) said some 60,000 birds, mostly waterfowl, would begin their migration south from Alaska in mid-August, working their way down through Oregon, Washington and into California. Although both coasts have set up monitoring systems for any signs of the avian virus "we expect there will be access (to the United States) through Alaska rather than upstate New York," said Ryan Broddrick, director of the California Department of Fish and Game. He did not elaborate.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt warned against panic when avian flu hits U.S. shores for the first time, saying it would not inevitably mean the start of a human pandemic...

But he warned states to lay the groundwork for possible human to human transmission. "There is clearly a lot of buzz (but) I worry there is not enough busy-ness," he said.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:16:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mosquito eardrums and future microphones

Scientists at the University of Bristol are studying the "ears" of locusts, membranes that oscillate on the scale of nanometers. (A nanometer is one-billionth of a meter.) They're also measuring the movements of mosquito antennae (seen here) in response to sound. According to the researchers, insights into insect hearing could someday lead to novel microphone technology inspired by nature. From a press release (photo by D. Robert):

Professor Daniel Robert is the research leader at Bristol: "We have found that different sound frequencies elicit very different mechanical responses in the locust hearing system. By studying these tiny nanoscale movements and understanding how sound waves are turned into mechanical responses we may be able to develop microphones based on the functions of natural hearing. These could detect very faint sounds and analyse their frequency, something that current microphones cannot pick up."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:07:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DIY gadget helps spot melanoma

This home made device built from different color LEDs can help you spot melanoma when you shine it on your skin.
Link (via Make blog)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:37:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Meaning of Walt Disney's term "plussing"

I've read that Walt Disney's greatest talent was his ability to get people to do better work than they imagined they were capable of, but it wasn't until I read Ward Jenkin's entry about "plussing," that I knew Disney had a coined a word for it.

Walt Disney coined the term plussing as a way of making an idea even better. By telling his workers to plus it, even when they think they nailed it, gave Disney that extra edge when it came to quality animation back in the day. Pixar is a staunch believer in plussing their work. And it shows.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:32:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Man builds PC in casting of wife's voluptuous torso

This lusty PC builder took a casting of his wife's torso and built an elaborate water-cooled overclocked PC in it. Link Coral Cache Mirror (via Digg)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:17:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hideous but collectible bigfoot merchandise

If Bigfoot turns out to be real, and is granted the rights of a human being, perhaps he can sue the companies that have made really ugly toys and games with his likeness. Bubblegumfink has a small but convincing gallery of bad Bigfoot merchandise.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:15:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

To do in Toronto: Jake Appelbaum photo exhibit

Photos from blogger / hacker / world traveler / shooter Jake Appelbaum are on display in Toronto tonight at his first-ever gallery show, together with photographer Kate Young. "Something Strange Bends Light Our Way" opens tonight at at the Now Lounge, goes for the next few weeks. Congrats, Jake! Link to show details. Image: a portrait shot by Jake on Kodak EIR infrared film.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:45:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fifties bathroom decor link-roundup

Laurie sez, "A couple weeks ago, on my blog about the renovation of my 1951 ranch house, I asked a question, 'What does a 1950's bathroom look like?' That question received some feedback. I think there is a void out in the information world about what 1940's and 1950's bathrooms look like, and people want to know! On this page you'll find my original post along with responses and links to images of 1950's bathrooms." Link (Thanks, Laurie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:36:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Intelligent brains grow differently

After analyzing 17 years of brain scans of 307 children, neuroscientists have determined that the brains of extremely smart kids grow differently than those of average children. The research was spurred by a previous finding that people with high IQs have a larger frontal lobe of the cortex. The latest news may help scientists understand how intelligence is linked to genetics and childhood experience. From the New York Times:

The general pattern of maturation, they report in Nature today, is that the cortex grows thicker as the child ages and then thins out. The cause of the changes is unknown, because the imaging process cannot see down to the level of individual neurons.

But basically the brain seems to be rewiring itself as it matures, with the thinning of the cortex reflecting a pruning of redundant connections....

One interpretation, (National Institute of Mental Health scientist Judith) Rapoport said, is that the brains of highly intelligent children are more plastic or changeable, swinging through a higher trajectory of cortical thickening and thinning than occurs in average children. The scans show the "sculpturing or fine tuning of parts of the cortex which support higher level thought, and maybe this is happening more efficiently in the most intelligent children," (researcher Philip) Shaw said..

I.Q. scores and measuring intelligence have long been controversial. Brain-imaging studies by Dr. Thompson and the study group have advanced the field by identifying physical features of the brain that correlate with I.Q.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:26:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LOVE / HATE baby mittens

At about US$12, these LOVE / HATE baby mittens are exponentially cheaper than the wearable sculpture for adults blogged here a few days ago.

Perfect for your li'l bundle of Robert Mitchum.

Link to store, via needled.com. And here's an interesting MeFi thread of yore about the origins of the archetypal tat popularized in the movie Night of the Hunter (promo poster below). (Thanks, Susannah!)

Previously: LOVE / HATE knuckle tat gloves

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:14:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BDSM-themed ad for laser hair removal service

Adrants sez:

Distancing itself from the more barbaric forms of hair removal, Priciderm, with help from its Quebec ad agency Carte Blance, has launched an S & M themed campaign to promote its seemingly less painful laser hair removal process.Two of the ads use the queasiness of S&M to illustrate hair removal doesn't have to be a painful ordeal. A third execution, gets right to the pint with blood in the sink.

Link (Thanks, Reverse Cowgirl!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:53:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Report: US to test 700-ton explosive in Nevada this June

Snip from Agence-France Presse Reuters item by Will Dunham:

The Pentagon plans to detonate 700 tons of conventional high explosives in Nevada in a June 2 test designed to gauge the effectiveness of weapons against deeply buried targets, officials said on March 30.

"I don’t want to sound glib here, but it’s the first time in Nevada that you’ll see a mushroom cloud over Las Vegas since we stopped testing nuclear weapons," James Tegnelia, director of the Pentagon’s Defense Threat Reduction Agency, told a small group of reporters.

The test, dubbed "Divine Strake," is sponsored by Tegnelia’s agency and is set to be conducted at the Energy Department’s Nevada Test Site in Nye County, about 65 miles (105 km) northwest of Las Vegas.

Link to Reuters item via DefenseNews.com. (Thanks, John Parres!)

A cursory Google search for "Divine Strake" yields some interesting docs. Link: cover from a 1950's atomic kitsch comic, via ep.tc.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:33:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Parts of "Superman Returns" converted into IMAX 3D

The Warner Brothers feature Superman Returns will become the first live-action studio feature to be released in part in IMAX 3D, using a proprietary 2D-to-3D conversion system.

As "colorized" is to black and white movies, "dimensionalized" will soon be for conventional footage which is later converted to stereo. Don't know about that "visual cue" part, though -- snip from press release:

IMAX Corporation will use its proprietary 2D to 3D conversion technology to convert approximately 20 minutes of the film into An IMAX 3D Experience (...) The film will be simultaneously released to IMAX® and conventional theatres on June 30, 2006.

During select sequences of the film, a visual cue designed by Singer will indicate when audiences should put on and remove their IMAX 3D glasses.

Link to press release. (Thanks Warren Betts, and thanks for the correction Mike Stubbs)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:14:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of adversynergy zen: NASCAR-branded meat

To the long list of reasons why America is a totally awesome superpower, add this: NASCAR has launched a line of branded meat products. Hey, do they taste like gasoline, or crashed human flesh? Find out here. (Via autoblog, thanks Frank Boosman!)

Reader comment: Stella says,

I was walking around CompUSA today and noticed a Nascar branded laptop: Link. First they take a step into the meat industry and now into computer technology... What's next?

Duhhh, laptops made out of beef that go 200 miles an hour, that's what!

Reader comment: Stacy says,

How about some hearty NASCAR russet potatoes to go with your NASCAR meat? Link.

Reader comment: "j" says,

Here's a NASCAR chainsaw. Just two weeks ago i toured the factory where some of the components of this puppy are made. The other people on the tour all agreed with me that it seemed a bit, um, odd. Or like someone was really stretching a brand name. Frighteningly enough, we were informed that the product sold as fast as they could make them. It's an odd kind of synergy, in a way, i mean, i can really picture NASCAR fans buying and using the hell out of a chainsaw. Call me a generalist, but it's true.

Reader comment: Paul says,

How about a NASCAR "slow cooker" for all of the NASCAR labeled meat and potatoes you find? Link.

Reader comment: Brandon says,

Don't foget the NASCAR romance novels! Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:33:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fan-posted chapter of Warren Ellis "Transmetropolitan #8"

A single chapter of Warren Ellis' graphic novel Transmetropilitan #8: Another Cold Morning has been scanned and posted online by a fan. On his blog, Mr. Ellis responds:

Since it’s one chapter out of sixty, and no-one’s trying to earn money off it, and I am lazy benign, I choose not to release the throatfucking hounds of hell upon the criminal Internets pirate responsible.

Instead, I offer it to you to read, and tell you that the story can be found in the collection TRANSMETROPOLITAN: LUST FOR LIFE, available from Amazon and all better comics stores and bookstores.

Link to the scanned excerpt, and you can buy the real deal here. (Thanks, shahryarrakeen)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:23:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

mydeathspace.com: deceased (former) MySpace users

From the website:

Only three things are certain in life. MySpace, Taxes, and Death.

If you have a MySpace account and you die, this is where you will end up.

MyDeathSpace.com memorializes deceased MySpace users and picks up where a regular obituary leaves off.

Click the MySpace Deaths link at the top to view the latest MySpace Deaths!

Link (Thanks, Matt!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:06:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Women with boob jobs banned from zero-G (DEBUNKED)

This may be the first time in history that Sir Richard Branson has gazed unfavorably on a pair of supersized tits. According to that stalwart of truth and accuracy in reporting, the Sun, women who've had breast augmentation surgery may be banned from  Virgin Galactic flights over fears their implants may explode in microgravity.

Cabin pressures on parabolic flights and in space flights are lower than on regular airplane flights. Snip:

More than 157 people have paid $200,000 each to zoom 400,000 feet above Earth on the Virgin Galactic space "shuttle." Spokesman Will Whitehorn said yesterday that the trip would be safe for 80 percent of people.

(Ed note: Wait, does that mean Whitehorn believes 20% of Virgin Galactic clientele have fake tits?)

He told London's Sun newspaper: "We've discovered there may well be issues with breast augmentation. We're not sure whether they could stand the trip -- they could well explode."

Link to Sun story, and here's a related item on SCENTA blog. (via LAFuturists, thanks John Smart and John Spencer).

Image: at left, an artist's rendition of a Virgin Galactic craft (courtesy Virgin Galactic). At right, a snip from a COOP drawing. Her rack, however, is real.

Reader Comment: This report is bogus, serves me right for linking to the Sun. Dustin Miller says,

The almighty Mythbusters done busted that myth. And they subjected the poor silicone baggies to a near complete vacuum! Link

Reader Comment: Steve says, "Related to your richard branson reference:"

Richard Branson's Aussie sex romp video -- A new viral ad for Virgin's finance arm features boss Richard Branson splashing about in a spa tub sex romp. But will it make you sign up for a Virgin home loan?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:58:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prayer won't heal ya

A new scientific study shows that prayer didn't seem to help patients who underwent bypass surgery. In fact, some of the people who were prayed for did worse. The results of the study of more than 1,800 patients were published in the American Heart Journal. From Reuters:

The patients in the study at six U.S. hospitals included 604 who were actually prayed for after being told they might or might not be; another 597 patients who were not prayed for after being told they might or might not be; and a group of 601 who were prayed for and told they would be the subject of such prayer.

The praying was done by members of three Christian groups in monasteries and elsewhere -- two Catholic and one Protestant -- who were given written prayers and the first name and initial of the last name of the prayer subjects. The prayers started on the eve of or day of surgery and lasted for two weeks.

Among the first group -- who were prayed for but only told they might be -- 52 percent had post-surgical complications compared to 51 percent in the second group, the ones who were not prayed for though told they might be. In the third group, who knew they were being prayed for, 59 percent had complications.

After 30 days, however, the death rates and incidence of major complications was about the same across all three groups, said the study...

Link to Reuters article, Link to the paper in the American Heart Journal (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

UPDATE: My brother Mark best summarized what several readers have pointed out: "Maybe they were praying to the wrong god!"

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:36:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Radiohead's "Fitter Happier": cool fan-made internet video

Radiohead fan and media designer Matt Smithson cooked up a fantastic little video for the song "Fitter Happier," off the album OK Computer. The tune features a sort of computer-drone voice, and Matt's video unfolds along a series of pages in an imaginary, vintage tech-product manual. It's perfect. Link to video on manvsmagnet.com. (via ateaseweb)

Reader comment: -C- says,

Seeing the post on the Radiohead video reminded me of one that a teacher I had in college did in 2000. A very different interpretation. It was and is still a beautiful piece. Link, go to the bottom of the page and choose either quicktime or wmv.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:33:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Court TV casting hustlers, con artists, street magicans

The notion that con artists will always have a place in Hollywood is not a new one, but this casting notice is a fun read, nonetheless. If this old BoingBoing reader survey is any indication, they may find quite a talent pool among our readership -- a significant percent of you identified yourselves as "slacker" or "criminal." Snip:

Court TV is currently casting for on-air talent for Takedown 2 (see below). We’re looking for con artists, magicians and experts in the area of street hustling, sleight of hand and other street cons. Must have some connection or expertise to one of these areas. Please no actors.

Takedown 2 SM: In this exciting new series, the con is on! A team of talented former con men and women led demonstrate some of the cleverest cons of all time, offering tips on how to avoid getting conned.

Link (Thanks, TV Guy)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:17:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geek Entertainment TV hits 50 episodes

BB pal Eddie Codel gave me an update on his emerging Geek Entertainment TV media empire:

We just hit our 50th episode with Larry Lessig. We caught up with him at the first Creative Commons Salon in SF a few weeks ago. Other recent interviews include Jimmy Wales, Caterina Fake, Bram Cohen, Anil Dash and several pieces from SXSW. One of my recent favorites is the Adaptive Path 5th anniversay episode where we pose the question "What is Adaptive Path?". Many internet rockstars provide a range of answers that probably won't show up in any official Powerpoint presentation.

Congrats, Eddie and Irina! Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:14:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Weak debut for ex-Disney chairman Eisner's talk show

In spite of his formidable star power, former Disney chairman Michael Eisner's new CNBC talk show did not attract the audience network execs hoped. Tuesday's debut of "Conversations with Michael Eisner" netted only 95,000 viewers, according to Nielsen Media Research. Link to Hollywood Reporter article.

I think he should have started a video blog, instead. I'd subscribe to his RSS feed. I think he'd have no trouble attracting many times more visitors in that medium.

Eisner interviewed former Imagineering head and Applied Minds cofounder Bran Ferren during Tuesday's debut -- that's really interesting stuff, IMO. I might not stop my life to sit in front of a tv set at 6/9PM on a Tuesday night to watch the show every week, but I wouldn't miss a download. Link to Reuters article.

Also, CNBC effectively has no web presence. CNBC.com redirects to moneycentral.msn.com, which doesn't include any teaser content for network shows. I can't find any online promotion for Eisner's show (or others) anywhere, period. <shrugs>.. Okay, here's the recently-launched CNBC site -- it's pretty thin, though. With such vast resources of financial data through MSN at their disposal, I don't understand why this isn't a lot more content-rich. Image: screengrab from video at MSNBC.com.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:33:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Black Velvet Unicorns United Against Earwax Blogposts

Oh, this calls for a unicorn chaser. BoingBoing reader Yetter says,

I've been a reader for a few months now and I like how you follow-up disturbing stories with pictures of unicorns. I have a unicorn painting here in my office that I thought you might enjoy, two unicorns running through outer space.

Link to full-size snapshot of "Unicorns in Space Black Velvet Painting" on Yetter's office wall.

Reader comment: IvyMike says, "The picture of unicorns in space reminds me of this classic bit of Simpsons dialog:"

Marge: Well, I studied art, and this guy's got a real gift.
Warden: You kiddin'? Look -- [shows another painting] he painted a unicorn in outer space. I'm asking you: What's it breathin'?
Homer: Air?
Warden: Ain't no air in space.
Homer: There's an air-in-space museum.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:31:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO convert an NES cartridge to a hard-drive

This HOWTO details a simple and lovely mod that converts a Nintendo Entertainment System cartridge into a bus-powered USB 2.0 2.5" hard-drive enclosure. Link

Update: Krisjohn has provided a mirror of this page.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:28:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The ear wax cleaning madness must stop, says reader

Dr. Paul J. Camp, Spelman College, Department of Physics is in the don't-pick-your ears camp:

Oh for god's sake, this has gone on long enough.

Ear wax is there for a reason. It has antibacterial properties as well as preventing dirt and bugs from going further into your hearing system. Excess earwax is pushed naturally to the opening of the ear canal, where it is washed away, pushed out as the cerumen glands secrete more wax and also by epithelial migration as your skin goes through its replacement cycle.

From the Mayo Clinic: "Never attempt to dig out excessive or hardened earwax with items such as a paper clip, a cotton swab or a hairpin. You may push the wax farther into your ear and cause serious damage to the lining of your ear canal and even to your eardrum." Wanna go deaf? Stick a bobby pin in your ear. See herefor what it looks like when you've been packing that stuff in for a while.

Even if you don't do that, simply scratching or abrading the skin in the ear canal provides a protected growth site for fungus -- the dreaded swimmer's ear. I had this once when psoriasis broke up the skin in my ear. You don't want it. Also, removal of impacted ear wax, from pushing it further down in the ear, is inevitably very painful.

Now there are a VERY FEW people who have excessive wax secretions and need to have it cleaned out every now and again. The solution to that is a few drops of mineral oil to soften up the wax and, a day or two later, a bit of warm water or hydrogen peroxide squirted up the ear canal.

And for god's sake, don't stick a candle in your ding dang ear. Ear wax cannot be sucked out by a candle. There are easier ways to set your head on fire.

Read a new comment by clicking on "More."
More...

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:11:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

eBay RAZR auction to benefit UK Open Rights Group

Open Rights Group is auctioning off a new RAZR phone and a signed first-edition hardcover of my novel Eastern Standard Tribe to raise funds for its ongoing operation. ORG is a UK-based technology activist group that I helped found -- its mission is "to preserve and extend traditional civil liberties in the digital world." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:34:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bruce Sterling's bumper-sticker designs

Kyle sez, "I commissioned Bruce Sterling to develop some bumper sticker concepts for my make-your-own-bumper-sticker site, and he came up with six pretty cool ones. He also gave me a great interview touching on spimes, cyberpunk, and the 'Centipede' scandal he's been blogging."

I use the word "instantiate" because the older word "manufacture" has the wrong etymology. Manufacturing literally means making something manually, with hands. Somehow the old term drifted into new use for a machine process that likely should have been radically renamed, like "mechafacturing." We lost that opportunity for clarity. In Shaping Things I'm trying to convince people that it's possible to approach physical possessions in an entirely different way than we do today. Tomorrow, they're no longer jealously guarded physical rarities that are hard to replace, they are hard copies whose histories and support processes are in continual flux.

Link (Thanks, Kyle!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:25:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bragg changes Ledbelly's "Bourgeois Blues" to "Bush War Blues": free MP3

John sez, "Continuing the tradition of Woody Guthrie and many other singers, Billy Bragg has taken a song from the past and updated it with relevent lyrics. Leadbelly's 'The Bourgeois Blues' has been re-made into 'The Bush War Blues' and is available for free download." Link (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:20:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Byrne/Eno "Bush of Ghosts" tracks re-released under CC

David Byrne and Brian Eno's masterpiece My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts (1981) has been remastered, and two of the songs are now being distributed as multitracks under a Creative Commons license for your remixing pleasure. Snip from website:

This is the first time complete and total access to original tracks with remix and sampling possibilities have been officially offered on line. In keeping with the spirit of the original album, Brian and David are offering for download all the multitracks on two of the songs. Through signing up to the user license, and in line with Creative Commons licenses, you are free to edit, remix, sample and mutilate these tracks however you like. Add them to your own song or create a new one. Visitors are welcome to post their mixes or songs that incorporate these audio files on the site for others to hear and rate.

This is one of my favorite records of all time. This is so freakin' cool. Link (Thanks, jason b)

Reader comment: Andrew Tonkin says,

Yes, that's very good news about the Byrne & Eno reissue & multitracks. One disappointing note - the haunting, original vinyl track "Qu'ran" is still nowhere to be seen. IIRC it was offensive to Muslims, was yanked from the vinyl and never made it to the original CD. Perhaps some vinyl-enabled BB'er might digitize and post this rarity, to the delight of the album's fans?

Reader comment: SoftwareDave says,

Qu'ran is on my copy of the CD (and of course the original vinyl...) - I'm listening to it right now. Maybe it's coz I'm in the UK.

Reader comment: E.W. Brenner says,

here is a link of interest to people who are fond of the song "Qu'uran."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:45:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lileks makes fun of a 1970s Fredericks of Hollywood catalog

James Lileks does another one of his hilarious takes on vintage pop culture ephemera. This time, he dissects an 1977 Fredericks of Hollywood lingere catalog.

Class. Pure class. That’s what the entire catalog oozes, and the cover does a brilliant job setting the mood. Because nothing says “alluring, tasteful lingerie” like something that resembles a grocery store circular from Red Owl, a series of arrows that point in the direction of detumescence, and a woman who looks like her head’s covered by a cross-dressing squid.

Link (Thanks, Coop!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:55:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jill Carroll is free, alive, and well!

American journalist Jill Carroll, who was abducted in Iraq nearly 100 days ago, is free. Link.

David Cook, Washington bureau chief of The Christian Science Monitor: "She was released this morning, she's talked to her father and she's fine." Link.

Best wishes to Ms. Carroll, and to her friends and family, who must be ecstatic today.

Jeff Tynes, Jill's pal and former colleague, tells BoingBoing

Jill is safe and inside the protected Green Zone in Baghdad. She's spoken to her family, saying she was well and the she was treated well. She said she was not sure why she had been abducted. We are all just overwhelmed with joy. Was it Katie's appeal that led to this release? We aren't sure, but the timing seems to suggest that's the case. Whatever the reason, our Jill is released! We just can't wait to see her home again!

 Link to post on Natasha Tynes' blog. The direct link to all Natasha's posts on Jill is here. (Thanks, Jeff Tynes, Glyn Wintle, and the dozens hundreds of BoingBoing readers who wrote in with this great news)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:50:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Indiana will observe DST across the state: pity the confused servers

Indiana, a state that straddles two timezones and only spottily embraces Daylight Savings Time, is planning to observe DST on a statewide basis starting April 2. The problem is that PCs don't know about this, which is gonna screw up all kinds of systems, putting them an hour out of synch:

"This is like Y2K except this one is really happening," said university IT spokesman Steve Tally.

Currently, most Indiana computer users set their PCs to a special "Indiana East" setting -- Eastern time that doesn't spring forward every April. Starting this April, however, they'll change their PCs to Eastern Daylight Time. The few who observe Central time set their computers to Central, and will also make the switch. Tally predicts the changeover will create havoc with the widely used Microsoft Outlook calendar application. When the time changes, he said, appointments will still be listed according to the old Indiana East time. The calendars of Central time Outlook users, in turn, will continue to list appointments according to Central time.

Link

See also: Aussie timezone switch borks Exchange Server

Update: Mark sez, "I happen to be an IT manager for a philharmonic orchestra in Indiana and the changeover is going to cause massive problems for anyone who uses outlook as a calendar. By the time this is all said and done, it's going to end up costing businesses in this state a lot of time and money. Perhaps the greatest irony is the fact that our governor pushed the change under the premise that it was going to increase revenue in the state. I've been actively encouraging fellow IT professionals in my area to contact the governor and give him an idea just how much the change is costing their company in money and man hours."

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

AMC CEO: why we won't show DVD simul-release movies

In this arrogant, off-putting interview, Peter Brown, CEO of AMC Entertainment, makes excuses for his industry's unwillingness to screen movies that innovative film-companies are simultaneously releasing in cinemas and on DVD, like Mark Cuban's 2929 Entertainment has done with its film, "Bubble":

Isn't the real problem that my local AMC charges $10.75 for a movie ticket?

Compare that to football games, baseball games, or the symphony - movie theaters are hands down the best value. The downturn you saw in 2005 was a quality issue. People read reviews, and there's a direct correlation with the box office numbers.

Yet in surveys people complain not about the movies but about megaplexes. Boutique theaters are booming.

Over 250 million consumers buy our product - that says something. Ultimately, if consumers don't like a product, they don't buy it. We offer entertainment for the masses.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:44:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Listening bug: power-strip with hidden GSM phone-hardware

This power-strip is actually a listening device that can be monitored from anywhere in the world. It contains a concealed GSM cell-phone and a mic; insert the SIM card from a mobile phone, plug the strip in somewhere with mobile coverage, and call the phone number for the SIM -- it will transmit the conversation over the phone-link. It's 950 Euros though: surely it's not all that hard to build one of these out of the guts of an old phone and a power-strip...

To monitor, simply dial the number of the SIM card inserted in GSM transmitter from your phone and you are immediately and clearly listening to all of the audio activity in the area of our professional concealed GSM monitor AGS-01.

Link (via Red Ferret)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:40:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chinese "ghost ship" fishing boats rotting off of W African coast

Greenpeace has published an amazing first-person account of visits to the rusting Chinese "ghost ships" floating off the West African coast. These fishing ships are loaded, supplied and collected form at sea, without any dock-time for maintenance (or for their crews to desert). They are floating wrecks, riddled with holes, hemorrhaging fuel, rotting to the water-line, and their crews are stuck on them for years at a time.

We head for the 'graveyard' itself. The first battered ship, the Lian Run 02 has holes near the waterline. They're so big, I could reach out and put my fist through. The two crewman are cheerful enough - or maybe just happy to see new faces. They'd been waiting there a month, in the hope of getting new crew - so far, there's no sign.

Next was the crumbling 'Happiness' ship already mentioned, the Zhang Yuan Yu 15. After we wave goodbye to the lone occupant, we head towards the next two ships. They appear roped to each other - the Zhang Yuan Yu 17 and the Lian Run 16. No one answers our calls on the first ship - but I see some movement behind the bridge, a cat... I'm not sure.

We move to the second ship, where again, a bunch of friendly young guys have been sitting at anchor for two months, waiting technical help and a new crew. Their engine doesn't work, and they no safety gear or radio. They can, however, run their watermaker, for desalinating seawater. Lines of drying fish hang over the deck, but they're running out of other food, and are often forced to signal other fishing boats for help. Like everyone else, their future is uncertain.

Link (via JWZ)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:34:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

GOP hopeful's photo of "peaceful Baghdad" was really Istanbul

Bloggers have caught Republican Congressional candidate Howard Kaloogian falsifying evidence of the success of the war in Iraq. Kaloogian posted a photo from "downtown Baghdad" showing how peaceful and calm things were there; bloggers investigated the photo and it was recognized as coming from a suburb of Istanbul -- something that could be proved by comparing it to web-based photo-albums showing the intersection and the surrounding area.

In less than a day, it was over. "Jem6X" at the popular DailyKos blog confirmed the street scene was in Bakirkoy, a suburb of Istanbul, not Baghdad.

Tipped off by someone who recognized the actual intersection in Turkey, Jem went through online photo galleries and in a matter of minutes today found a snap taken by a "Faruk" that lined up with the "Baghdad" photo in numerous conclusive ways. Game, set, and match to the blogosphere.

Later Wednesday, Kaloogian admitted the photo was from Turkey but denied he had anything personally to do with posting it on his site. He replaced that Turkey photo with a photo of what he said was Baghdad--taken from a distant hill.

Link (Thanks, Owlswan!)

Update: The Jesus' General site has a great parody of the fake Kaloogian photo -- thanks, Ian!

Update 2: David Roth sez,

Regarding the bogus photo which Mr. Kaloogian posted on his website, or rather its replacement:

The new photo which claims to show downtown Baghdad looks like was taken in July of last year. If you use the Unix/Linux command "strings" to strip out all of the text information contained in that photo, here are the first few lines:

More...

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:31:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Remixed propaganda poster photoshopping contest

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: Remixed propaganda posters. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:18:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Site dedicated to hating DRM

I Hate DRM: a new site dedicated to something I love -- hating crippleware systems that let other people control your technology. These are the built-in cops in your iPod that stop you from recovering your music off your player, the region-coding that stops you watching a DVD when you travel, the Adobe PDF lockdown that stops you from copying text out of a document. Link (Thanks, Eric!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:52:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Animated Flash map of Iraq war casualties

This animated map of coalition military fatalities during the Iraq war unfolds at ten frames per second. Each frame represents one day of the war. One dot marks each casualty site. A death begins as a white flash, then grows to a larger red dot, which turns black after 30 frames (days), fading at last to permanent grey.

Link to "Iraq War Coalition Fatalities," created by Tim Klimowicz. (via Digg user dirtyfratboy, thanks, John Parres)

Reader comment: Stuart Matthews says,

I liked the flash animation that you linked to. But it is missing one very important thing: Iraq (military and civilian) casualties.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:45:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A Brief History of Porn

Over at the Oprano messageboard for adult entertainment webmasters, there's an interesting thread today -- users are constructing a timeline of the adult industry. It's pretty comprehensive. Here's one of the more densely annotated timelines, submitted by user "Gonzo." After the jump, and into the late 20th century, we get into tech-centric milestones like Betamax and Section 2257 that made the present-day biz what it iz. I love how the timeline does one humongous warp-speed leap from the 1400s to Dr. Ruth. Guess there wasn't much shagging going on for 500 years! Snip:

1st century BC - Kama Sutra was created
1440 - Gutenberg Press Invented
1928 - Dr. Ruth was born.
1953 - Hugh Hefner starts Playboy
1965 - Bob Guccione starts Penthouse
1968 - Al Goldstein starts Screw
1969 - First mainstream movie to represent the swinger lifestyle - Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice, Directed by Paul Mazursky
1970 - Penthouse shows pubic hair for the first time.

More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:22:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Madonna '80s HIV infocomic: Who's that girl? On AIDS?

Ethan Persoff collects and scans ultraweird vintage comics, and hosts them on his ep.tc archive site.

He's just uploaded four new gems, including an AIDS prevention infocomic starring Madonna. The booklet was distributed on one night only, during a 1987 Madison Square Gardens concert (holy crap, that was twenty years ago!). Link.

While you're on Ethan's site, check out new archive addition Johnny Gets the Word. Ethan describes it as a "Grim but wonderfully realized 1965 VD comic. Of particular note, this is by the same people who made the anti-heroin 1966 HOOKED comic. Dates suggest they made this VD one first. Who knew that to be able to win a government contract to draw a comic on drugs you have to earn it by drawing one on syphilis first."

He's also posted two freshly-unearthed 1950s bomb scare comics. Ethan describes If an A-Bomb Falls (1951) as, "a blast on every page. I love the faces. Some of the saddest sulking ever shown in a comic. Shelters, worry, etc."

And about the civil defense HOWTO, "H-Bomb and YOU" (1954). Ethan 'splains: "Includes instructions for children to spy on overhead planes - and do also note the armbands."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:43:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ClipClip.org: bookmarklet preserves look of visited sites

This is kinda neat. ClipClip is an online bookmarklet service for clipping (bookmarking) a portion of a web page you've visited. What's new about it: the clip captures and preserves the look and feel of the visited website. Your clips are saved to a central server, so you can go back to them later as reference thumbnails, or share them with friends. A guy named Chao Lam created it, and had to do some innovative stylesheet and javascript DOM hacking to achieve the ability to preserve page aesthetic. (Thanks, Patrick "Zippy" Tufts!)

Reader comment: Darren Barefoot says,

Ma.gnolia.com, a social bookmarking site that my friends launched a couple months ago, has this nifty site snapshot functionality as well.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:20:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jill Carroll: nearly 100 days since abduction in Iraq.

Jeff Tynes, a friend and former colleague of kidnapped American freelance journalist Jill Carroll, tells Boing Boing:

Xeni, you may be aware that Jill Carroll's twin sister Katie made an appeal today on Al Arabiya, one of the Middle East's major news networks. Natasha has put up the statement as well as two pictures of Katie (right) and Jill (left) that the Carroll's released to the Christian Science Monitor.

As the days move steadily towards 100, we are all just stunned that Jill has yet to walk free. God knows, they accomplish nothing by keeping her one moment longer. Things in Iraq are surely not getting any better. That chaos is such a worry.

With the support Jill has received from virtually everyone, it is so frustrating to imagine her there, alone amidst the madness.

Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:07:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

E! Networks does a deal with YouTube

Viral-video hosting service YouTube teamed with entertainment TV network E! on a new broadband offering, "Cybersmack." The online "channel" launches Friday, and there's a $25K prize for the best video submission. Details in this Hollywood Reporter story: Corrected Link. (Thanks, David Ahrendts!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:59:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Drunk driver saved in court by "Shania Twain" defense

Obviously, his car accidents happened because Ms. Twain is a shitty driver. Snip from CBC News story:

One of the most notorious drunk drivers in [Ottawa, Canada] has been found not criminally responsible on his latest impaired driving charges because of a mental disorder that makes him believe female celebrities are controlling his actions.

Matt Brownlee was arrested last October after police spotted a pickup truck speeding along a busy street in downtown Ottawa. The 33-year-old man told psychiatrists that he knew the legal repercussions of his actions, but believed singer Shania Twain was helping him drive.

Link (via Warren Ellis). Image: AP file photo.

Reader comment: Jon Power says,

Nevermind dangerous driving, Shania Twain has shot a man!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:45:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Robert Ullman's Teeny Bikini

Fab illustrator Robert Ullman kindly sent me a copy of the first issue of Teeny Bikini, a teeny sketchbook of Ullman's drawings of girls in bikinis and less. Get one of your own for just $2.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:43:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rudy Rucker and John Shirley to speak in SF on April 18

As part of a monthly series of Science Fiction readings, two of my favorite writers, Rudy Rucker and John Shirley, will be speaking at New College Valencia Theater, 777 Valencia St. on April 18 at 7pm. It costs $4 at the door. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:37:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Awe inspiring images from old books

BibliOdyssey is a blog consisting mainly of old book illustrations that serve to remind us that human beings have always been wonderfully, wonderfully odd. This one is going into my RSS list.
Link (via Grow-a-Brain)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:26:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Clip of dune buggy granny from Salton Sea documentary

Regarding my recent post about Salvation Mountain, near the Salton Sea, Ryan says: "My friend Meri Pritchett shot a documentary about the Salton Sea, that included a long bit on the guy who built Salvation Mountain. The movie is called Desertopia and was shown on a number of PBS channels."

A motley group of eccentrics, hell-raisers, and visionaries have found heaven in the ruins of California’s once-premier resort area––The Salton Sea.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:17:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How (not?) to clean your ear with a bobby pin (Updated)

(UPDATE: Click here for comments about the dangers of cleaning your ears with any kind of pick, provided by otolaryngologist Grant S. Hamilton III M.D. -- Mark)

After reading my recent posts about ear cleaning in Asia, Zee says:

It's not just an Eastern thing. I'm Black and my parents are from the South (Mom St. Louis; Dad, Alabama); they taught all of us kids how to clean our ears from the time we were toddlers. (Well, actually they cleaned them until we were old enough to do it ourselves). We use a plain black bobbypin and it's true what they say: once you go black, you'll never go back. ;)

Stay away from the gold and decorative bobbypins, they're too big to comfortably insert in your ears and the experience will not be pleasant. Sterilize your tool with some soap and hot water, rinse it, dry it off, and insert into your ear. Gingerly work your way from the outer ear to the inside scooping out small bits of wax as you go. Wipe the wax on a nearby kleenex or sibling and continue until you've reached as far as you can comfortably go. Some tips:

1. The first time you clean your ears, you may start to cough as you get deeper inside. This is common and nothing to worry about; just be prepared so you can either stop moving or quickly take out the hairpin so you don't inadvertently jab yourself.

2. Never clean your ears if there are sick people around you; the waxy buildup actually protects you from their cooties. No kidding! I can't tell you how many times I've been perfectly healthy only to get the flu from somebody at work shortly after cleaning my ears. This goes for allergies, too; wait for the pollen to die down before cleaning your ears or you will suffer more than usual.

3. Never clean your ears on a bed. Murphy's Law dictates that once you've gone in good and deep, some fool will take the opportunity to dive bomb the mattress and assist you in your quest to puncture your eardrum.

4. Don't clean your ears too often or you risk irritating the inner ear and causing an infection. As with all other pleasurable pursuits, moderation is key. Once every week or two is plenty.

5. Have a friend with a videocamera nearby the first time you clean your ears. It will undoubtly be a memorable event. The first time I cleaned my boyfriend's ears, I pulled out a massive inch and a half blob of dark black wax; it was the exact size and shape of his ear canal! I nearly fainted from shock. He said he actually felt suction when I removed those wax plugs and his hearing improved dramatically.

As an aside, my friend recently bought me a Japanese ear cleaning kit while she was on vacation and I didn't care for it. It's very pretty, but the scooping end has a rough, serrated edge to it. I found it too painful to use and have since gone back to my trusty black bobbypins.

More...

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:06:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Real people want to visit fake town called New Ephemera

Tinselman says: "Amanda Spielman created an incredible fictional tourist destination, New Ephemera. Her own little fictional/mythical island world. After handing out brochures, people called for more info! Perfect!!! Included is a pdf of the brochure."

This reminds me of a story about a non-existant mini anarchist Utopia called "Visit Port Watson!" that appeared in the SF issue of zine called Semiotext(e) in the late 1980s. The piece was probably written by Peter Lamborn Wilson, aka Hakim Bey.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:54:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sculptures made from stacked food-tins

Here's a gallery of impressive stacked tins of food. I have no idea what this is about, but it's jaw-droppingly cool. Link (via Make)

Update: Nick sez, "I think some of these pics may come from a Vancouver BC competition which has been doing this for a few years."

Update 2: Tomo sez, "the canned sculptures were part of a charity event held annually in NYC called Canstruction. Several engineering and archiectural design firms in the city submit entries and awards are given out in various categories. All cans used are then donated to the regional food bank. A large portion of this past year's went to the victims of Hurricane Katrina."

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

Disney using freeware Disney-inspired font in its signs

Flickr user "MisterGargoyle" creates free Disney-inspired fonts; lately he's discovered them in use around the Disney theme-parks and publications and is documenting their use in a Flickr set (I suppose it's possible that Disney is simply using a similar face, but this sure looks like the same thing). Link (Thanks, Quinn!)

Update: Scott Lawrence sez, "This isn't the first time Disney has done this. For their fairly recent Tron special edition DVD, the 'Tron' font they used for their menu text is a freeware font that myself and Paul Albers worked on in the mid 1990s."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:56:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Comics publisher releases forthcoming title as free download

JK sez, "Larry Young, comics marketing guru and publisher at AiT/Planet Lar has the entire contents of AiT's upcoming graphic novel >Continuity on the web in .pdf format for free. He's hoping this will help drive sales of the paper version, which ships in June." Link (Thanks, JK!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:38:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Geek-ware web-store

Fractalspin is a nerdy web-store that carries a pretty interesting range of pins, cufflinks, t-shirts, backpacks, jewelry and other kit. Link (Thanks, Liz!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:47:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Yahoo could stay in China and stop sending its users to jail

Rebecca McKinnon expertly skewers Yahoo's spin on its ongoing assistance to the Chinese government in arresting dissidents -- Yahoo accuses its critics of calling on it to leave China altogether; McKinnon points out that most of us would be satisfied if it would just structure its business so that it couldn't be compelled to fink on its users and get them sent to jail.

Yahoo! executives keep framing this issue as black and white: Either you're in there and do everything the Chinese authorities tell you without question, or you can't do business in China at all. That is false. Companies can and do make choices. You can engage in China and choose not to do certain kinds of business. Yahoo! has placed user e-mail data within legal jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China. Google and Microsoft have both chosen not to do so. Why did Yahoo! chose to do this? Either they weren't thinking through the consequences or they don't care.

Link (via Dan Gillmor)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:44:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Device tells you if you're boring

MIT Media Lab researchers are building a device to help autistic people determine if they're boring or annoying the person they're talking to. The "emotional social intelligence prosthetic device" is a camera that clips on eyeglasses and feeds images to a small computer that uses image recognition software to characterize emotions. If the listener doesn't seem to be engaged, the device vibrates to alert the wearer. Progress on the device will be presented at the International Workshop on Wearable and Implantable Body Sensor Networks next week at MIT. From New Scientist:

(Researcher Rana El Kaliouby's) program is based on a machine-learning algorithm that she trained by showing it more than 100 8-second video clips of actors expressing particular emotions. The software picks out movements of the eyebrows, lips and nose, and tracks head movements such as tilting, nodding and shaking, which it then associates with the emotion the actor was showing. When presented with fresh video clips, the software gets people's emotions right 90 per cent of the time when the clips are of actors, and 64 per cent of the time on footage of ordinary people...

Getting the software to work is only the first step, (researcher Rosalind) Picard warns. In its existing form it makes heavy demands on computing power, so it may need to be pared down to work on a standard hand-held computer. Other challenges include finding a high-resolution digital camera that can be worn comfortably, and training people with autism to look at the faces of those they are conversing with so that the camera picks up their expressions.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:08:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Irene McGee's NoOne's Listening videos

Irene McGee and the crew at the NoOne's Listening podcast and radio show are now posting occasional video pieces. (Previous BB posts about Irene McGee and NoOne's Listening here and here.) Recently, Irene chatted up Wikipedia-founder Jimmy Wales, and went behind the scenes at the Chinese New Year Parade with former Rolling Stone magazine editor Ben Fong-Torres.
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:47:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Forty-one hours in Wal-Mart

Drake University sophomore Skyler Bartels went into Wal-Mart at the start of his spring break, planning to spend a week in the store and then write about it. (The project reminds me of Hugh Gallagher's classic early 1990s Rolling Stone article about spending a full week alone with MTV.) Bartels lasted just 41 hours though. Still, he's apparently in conversations with a book agent and New Line Cinema. From the Associated Press:

He checked out shoppers, read magazines, watched movies on the DVD display and played video games.

He bought meals at the in-store Subway sandwich shop, but was able to catch only brief naps in a restroom stall or on lawn chairs in the garden department...

Wal-Mart spokesman Kevin Thornton said Bartels neither violated store policy nor broke the law.

"We were unaware of his presence and if we were aware of it we certainly wouldn't have condoned it," Thornton said. "We're a retailer, not a hotel."

Link

UPATE: KVH points out that in December 2005, Mark Dixon apparently did 49 hours at Wal-Mart. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:54:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Electricity allergy

The Globe and Mail reports on electrosensitivity, basically an allergy to electricity that some people claim causes pain, headaches, lousy sleep, depression, rashes, and fatigue. Whether electrosensitivity exists or not is a topic of debate, but it's very real to those who say they're suffering from it. From the article:

Power quality is a well-known problem in the utility business, caused by the proliferation of computers, lighting dimmer switches, energy efficient bulbs, and other modern electronic gadgets. These new devices cause a more complicated use pattern for electricity than old-fashioned items such as incandescent bulbs, producing negative feedback involving high-frequency peaks, harmonics and other noise on electric wiring...

The change in power quality means more variable electromagnetic fields, and possibly more biologically active ones, are associated with electricity than there used to be. This is a possible explanation for the rise in electrosensitivity complaints in the view of Denis Henshaw, a professor at the University of Bristol in Britain, who is an international authority on the health effects of power transmission lines.

He says that if electricity were flowing in a constant way, most people's bodies would likely adapt, but with all the interference from modern devices, the resulting fields are too variable for people to get used to. "We just don't get to adapt to these because they don't have any special pattern to them," he said. "There is no proof of this, it's just an opinion."

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:31:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jasmina Tesanovic: Scorpions Trial, Day 2.

Scorpions Trial
Jasmina Tesanovic, Belgrade
The Liar, the Fall of Yugoslav Army
March 14, 2006

"I am going to pronounce something that I may regret for the rest of my life -- is there is any left after this -- but if I knew all this would have happened, I would have preferred to stay there in that meadow together with the victims.

"Mothers, you whose children were killed in cold blood, you should know that they never did anything to provoke or deserve their death: they had no uniforms and they were just kids. They were killed because we got that order, and because they were Muslims."

The only indicted Scorpion who shows some humanity. in his tremulous voice and red sweater, is the one called the Cunt, the coward who didn’t dare to shoot... He turns towards the audience behind the glass, heated and blurred with our wary breathing, while uttering this unexpected speech.

Then he turns to the witness who took the whole day to tell one big lie, which held no water by the end of the day, when even the guards started puffing with impatience.

His was the historical sentence, uttered in this miserable place called the 'special tribunal for war crimes,' in front of a crowd of war criminals, their criminal lawyers, their criminalized families, and us, a bunch of sobbing women. These brave mothers from Srebrenica are broadcast every single hour on CNN.

[image: Detail of interior house wall, Serbia, by Aleksandra Radonić]

More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:09:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mini-Sensors for "Military Omniscience"

Defensetech's Noah Shachtman says,

Spotting insurgents, sorting out friend from foe -- it's beyond tough in today's guerilla war zones. So tough, that no single monitor can be counted on to handle the job. The Pentagon's answer: build a set of palm-sized, networked sensors that can be scattered around, and work together to "detect, classify, localize, and track dismounted combatants under foliage and in urban environments." It's part of a larger Defense Department effort to establish "military omniscience" -- and "ubiquitous monitoring."

Link to blog post with photos.

Reader comment: Josh Winters says,

In the realm of 'Sci-Fi is now,' check out Patrick Farley's 'Spiders' online comic about an alternate war in an alternate Afghanistan: Link. Mini-sensors that network in realtime to provide military omniscience? How . . . novel.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:45:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Censorware in Iran: latest crackdown on bloggers.

The AP ran a a piece yesterday about Iran's latest crackdown on bloggers. Research from the Open Net Initiative shows that Secure Computing's Smartfilter software has been used by the state-mandated ISPs in Iran to control internet traffic. Smartfilter is the censorware that blocked BoingBoing as a "nudity" site. Snip from AP item:

To bolster its campaign, the Iranian government has one of the most extensive and sophisticated operations to censor and filter internet content of any country in the world -- second only to China, Hopkins said.

It also is one of a growing number of Middle Eastern countries that rely on U.S. commercial software to do the filtering, according to a 2004 study by a group called the OpenNet Initiative. The software that Iran uses blocks both internationally hosted sites in English and local sites in Farsi, the study found.

The filtering process is backed by laws that force individuals who subscribe to internet service providers to sign a promise not to access non-Islamic sites. The same laws also force the providers to install filtering mechanisms.

The filtering "is systematically getting worse," said [Hossein] Derakhshan, who was detained and questioned during a visit to Iran last spring, just before the election of hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Link (Thanks, Kathryn Cramer!)

Previously:
- MySpace banned in UAE, like BoingBoing, presumably with SmartFilter
- Distributed BoingBoing, for those blocked by censorware
- SmartFilter, BoingBoing, and Adult Baby - Diaper Lovers.
- Xeni's NYT op-ed: Exporting Censorship
- More on SmartFilter blocking BoingBoing and other popular sites.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:42:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mickey Mouse with a skull for a head tee

This Mickey Mouse With a Skull For a Head t-shirt is completely awesome, and what's more, it's a lawful parody (though I'm sure that won't stop the Disney lawyers from trying to get it yanked -- they don't care about the law, they just wanna control Mickey. I ordered mine right away, just to be sure I got it before the legal fireworks start.) Holy CRAP it's expensive, though! 53 Euros, shipped! Wow. Link (Thanks, Henrik!)

Update: Eric sez, "Kevin Dixon and I wrote the Mickey Death graphic novel, featuring a very similar-looking character, back in the early and mid-nineties. We recently republished the book, which you can get on amazon.com."

Update 2: Kate sez, "this death's-head Mickey Mouse is painted on an outer wall of the lovely and somewhat run-down Oakwood Cemetery in east Austin."

Update 3: Royal Stuart sez, 'The attached image is from a Saks Fifth Avenue ad I saw in the NY Times Magazine last Fall. I wanted one of these sweaters very badly, and contacted Saks to find out how to get one, because it couldn't be found on their website. Turns out their email and phone "help" couldn't help me at all, and said that "sometimes the models bring their own props to the photo shoot." Yeah right, it's a SWEATER, and it's a SAKS ad. If they weren't advertising the clothes, what were they advertising? Long story longer: I ended up finally finding the sweater, at Fred Segal in Santa Monica. It was made of cashmere, cost $400, and was a licensed Disney product.'

Update 4: Matt sez, "This site shows that Ian Astbury, lately singer of an updated version of The Doors and formerly singer/songwriter of The Cult, was using a death's head-Mickey as a graphic device back in 1983 in Death Cult (an earlier incarnation of The Cult). A large rendering of the Mickey Skull used to appear on the band's backdrop at the time, and was used on the front and back cover [TV design] of their 'Ghost Dance' EP."

Update 5: Matt sez, "Disney seamstresses in Bangladesh work 14 hour days for less than 20 cents an hour. This logoknit pattern is inspired by 2 designs from new book "Stitch N' Bitch" written by BUST magazine's editor Debbie Stoller."

Update 6: Cloroxenima sez, "This picture was actually taken at our shotgun-courthouse-steps-wedding in Chao Zhou, China (as you can see it was a very formal affair). We actually picked up the this T in Yantai China where my wife and I were living, and I had to buy this shirt as it, well for lack of a better adjective, rocked!

Update 7: Joshua sez, "I designed a Mickey Mouse skull t-shirt a while back, this one is a little more graphic than the ones you've got. Currently not in production, though if I get enough feedback I can certainly make it happen."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:11:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, March 28, 2006

Selfish Gene: commemorating 30 years of landmark genetics book

On Edge.org, John Brockman writes,

The toughest ticket in London's West End last week wasn't for a new mega-hit musical from Cameron Mackintosh, or a new play by Tom Stoppard. The people who flocked to The Old Theatre were greeted by famed British radio and television presenter Melvyn Bragg ("Start the Week") with the following opening words:

"They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence. They have come a long way, those replicators. Now they go by the name of genes, and we are their survival machines."

The words are from The Selfish Gene, by evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins. And the evening was a celebration of the thirty year anniversary of the publication of his classic book. (...) Physicist and computer scientist W. Daniel Hillis has noted:

"Notions like Selfish Genes, memes, and extended phenotypes are powerful and exciting. They make me think differently. Unfortunately, I spend a lot of time arguing against people who have overinterpreted these ideas. They're too easily misunderstood as explaining more than they do. So you see, this Dawkins is a dangerous guy. Like Marx. Or Darwin."

Part of Dawkins' danger is his emphasis on models derived from cybernetics and information theory, and that such models, when applied to our ideas of life, and in particular, human life, strike some otherwise intelligent people numb and dumb with fear and terror. Some have called the cybernetic idea the most important in 2000 years...since the idea of Jesus Christ. And that would make it one of the most dangerous ideas.

Link to archived audio (1 hour 22 minutes,  and in two formats: streaming, or downloadable 75 MB mp3) and 12,000-word transcript. Speakers: Daniel C Dennett (Tufts), Sir John Krebs, FRS (Zoology, Oxford), Matt Ridley, Ian McEwan, Richard Dawkins, FRS (Oxford), Chair: Melvyn Bragg; Organiser, Helena Cronin.

Here's an Amazon link for the original book: The Selfish Gene.

Reader comment: Andrew Platt says,

Melvyn Bragg presents ‘In our Time’ not ‘Start the week’ (that’s Andrew Marr) Podcasts of Radio 4s marvellous ‘In Our Time’ can be found here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:22:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lost Gene Hackman civil defense film unearthed

Ken Sitz of the online atomic kitsch history archive Conelrad says,

We just unearthed a relic from the 'Golden Age of Homeland Security' - Gene Hackman in the civil defense training film Community Shelter Planning. He appeared in this 22 minute Army Pictorial Center production just months before his role in Bonnie and Clyde (1967).

Link to more about the "lost" film, and here are two video clips featuring Gene Hackman as the CD Regional Officer Donald Ross making a pitch to Bucks County PA commissioners for the government's "Community Shelter Planning" program. He's very convincing in a pre-Katrina Michael Brown sort of way. Google Video Link 1 (3:40 min) Google Video Link 2 (2:00 min). YouTube Link for both clips.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:40:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Personal food experience tales sought by TV show

Television producer and BoingBoing buddy Ingrid Escajeda says,

I'm producing a series of short spots for the Food Network called "The Power of Food". They're basically little 60-second mini-documentaries that tell the story of real people whose lives were changed by food. They can be funny, touching, or both. For instance:

• How being part of cooperative garden in the middle of the inner city changed a kid's perspective on his future
• Someone trying to track down a certain ingredient met a future spouse in the one store they found the ingredient in.
• A woman quit her job to go home and take care of her cancer-stricken mother. She started researching nutritional treatments and ended up starting an organic farm business.

I'm pretty much looking for anything with a strong, tangible hook, where food has really affected someone's life. They need to be more than just "I love food, therefore I became a chef or opened a bakery" (even though that's a great thing). They can be located anywhere within the U.S. If the story is chosen by the network, we'd go out and film the person telling their story, as well as any relevant things and places, i.e that person in the garden or kitchen, old photographs, etc. People MUST submit their stories through the website, but if they have any questions, they can email me at foodshorts-power@yahoo.com.

Link to submission form at FoodTV website. Oh, hey, if you are a robot, you might want to submit a testimonial about eating Earth-children.

Image: a lovely macro shot of some peanuts, by photographer Di in Switzerland.

Previously on BoingBoing:
Food Hackers make high-tech geek eats

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:19:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Total eclipse on March 29: Look, up in the sky.

If you're kickin' it in Ghana, Togo, Libya, or Kazakhstan tomorrow -- lift your gaze from the internet for a few minutes. A total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor that traces half the earth. Link to NASA info, here's an entry at moleskinerie. (Thanks, Armand)

Reader comment: Jason Coyne says,

You probably don't want to tell people to look up at the eclipse (though I doubt you have many readers in the appropriate areas) as that would lead pretty straight to blindness. Pinhole viewers or special filters are the way to go...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:00:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Enigma machine spotted on eBay

 

Wow -- an online auction for what appears to be a legit Enigma machine. As the Wikipedia entry explains:

In the history of cryptography, the Enigma was a portable cipher machine used to encrypt and decrypt secret messages. More precisely, Enigma was a family of related electro-mechanical rotor machines — comprising a variety of different models.The Enigma was used commercially from the early 1920s on, and was also adopted by the military and governmental services of a number of nations — most famously by Nazi Germany before and during World War II.

Link to auction for "Enigma 3 Walzen Chiffriermaschine Chiper Weltkrieg 1941." Which, in case you're wondering, is said to be "ORIGINAL!!! KEIN NACHBAU!!! VOLL FUNKTIONSTÜCHTIG!!!!" If my math's right, bidding is around US$12K right now. (Danke, Jake Appelbaum)

Reader comment: Tom says,

Here's the english version of the enigma machine on ebay...a little easier to understand!

Reader comment: anonymous says,

Thought you guys might find this link to an Enigma machine kit sold at Bletchley Park (where the machine was originally developed) interesting: Link.

Reader comment: Bill Schweikert says,

Here's a link to paper Enigma machines! Print the PDF files on card stock and you'll have (and understand) a working cypher box.

Reader comment: Roger Braun says,

Just wanted to tell you that the Enigma has not been developed in Bletchley Park, as is suggested in the seconde reader's comment. It's bin developed by Arthur Scherbius in Germany, not in the British Bletchley Park. It has been broken there, though (with a lot of help from Marian Rejewski and his colleagues in Poland).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:41:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dispute over South Central LA urban farm: snapshots

Following up on recent BoingBoing posts about the threatened closure of South Central Farm (a big, communal urban farm plot which may soon be paved for a Wal-Mart), reader and photographer Kathryn Hill says: "I've been documenting the fight. Here are some updated photos." Link.

Previously:
Urban farm in LA gets eviction notice, Wal-Mart imminent

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:12:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Long-overdue unicorn chaser

Mark, my dear colleague, with all due respect: the earwax and hydrobooger colonics posts are totally icking me out. It's time for a unicorn chaser. This cute, stuffed objet d'art (115 x 30 x 95 cm; 2005) was stitched with lovin' by Chilean-born artist Patricia Waller, who now lives in Karlsruhe, Germany. The teddy bear is bleeding because he's happy. Link.

Waller's begenitaled aliens and space cowboy with a laser gun are also outtasight. And check out her crocheted computer games. The best part? Her entire online portfolio is 100% earwax-free. (Thanks, Jeff K!)

Reader comment: Anonymous says, "The last unicorn chaser reminded me of Perry Bible Fellowship's awesome unicorn revenge strip. 'Nice shirt, gay wad.' Link."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:55:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free Hugo-nominated novel ebooks for Worldcon attendees

Hugo Award voters (generally, people who've registered to attend the World Science Fiction convention in Los Angeles this August) can score free ebooks of two of the nominated titles. Tor Books has given erights to John Scalzi and Robert Charles Wilson and the authors have released DRM-free RTF files of Wilson's wonderful "Spin" and Scalzi's amazing "Old Man's War," and all you need to do to get your ebooks is email John with your LACon registration info.

I think it's a little silly not to just post these books on a page. The point is to get them into the hands of Hugo voters; generally speaking, anyone who can afford to shlep to a WorldCon can afford to buy a couple books, so the thing that's keeping voters from reading these is more likely to be time-poverty than cash-poverty. Getting over a reader's transom is hard, and your best ally in the task is a friend of the reader you're trying to woo: if you can get someone to read and love your book and then make it easy for her/him to email it to a Hugo voter, you're further along than if you'd posted a physical copy of the book right to the door of the reader. Recommendations from trusted friends are the best sales-tool an author has.

So it follows that the more hands these books find their way into, the higher the likelihood that they'll get forwarded to a Hugo voter. What's more, they've got stiff competition from Charlie Stross's Acclerando, which is available to all comers as a CC-licensed ebook.

A Hugo win for any of these books will sell tons of physical objects -- when I worked in a science fiction bookstore, we could hardly keep the Hugo Winners' shelf stocked; those books would practically fly out the door. Even if you believe that giving away the ebooks to all comers might cost you a sale or two (which hasn't been my experience, not by a damned sight; CC licenses sell the hell out of my books), the upside of a possible Hugo win is gigantic and will overcome any potential losses from a widespread ebook release. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:33:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Neti pots to clean your sinuses

It's head-orifice cleaning week at Boing Boing. Yesterday, we looked at Japanese ear cleaning. Today, we'll focus on maintaining a healthy sinus system, because a well-irrigated nasal cavity is a happy nasal cavity.

Bytheplanet.com sells neti pots, which you fill with warm salt water and pour into one nostril until it pours out the other nostril. I'm going to buy this. It looks like as much fun as the hot pepper nasal spray I bought a couple of years ago.
Link (Thanks, Posture!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:32:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Earth-children vs. Space Robots: things get ugly.

Sometimes it comes by email. Sometimes, by encrypted IM. Sometimes, they spell it out for us in Alpha-Bits cereal. Despite the great risk involved, roboticized earth-children and their parents are sending word to BoingBoing about the ongoing struggle against mecha-overlords. And today, the news is not good: robots are using stuffed animals to lure our young into their steely claws. Snip from Minneapolis Star-Tribune story:

Devin Haskin isn't the first little boy to find the inside of a toy machine too enticing to resist. When the 3-year-old Austin, Minn., boy crawled through the discharge chute of a Toy Chest claw machine at a Godfather's Pizza in his hometown, he ended up on the other side of the glass surrounded by stuffed animals.

Link. (Thanks, Scott Van Zile).  Meanwhile, main screen turn on. We get signal from the moms and dads of kids forcibly assimilated into machine consciousness. Here are some testimonials with photographic evidence.

Image above: Tech writer and editor Dylan Tweney says, "Here's my daughter Clara, fully assimilated into the guise of the dancing robot from the Junior Senior video, "Move Your Feet". Link to more snapshots.

BoingBoing reader Matt Vaughn points to his robot child from Cupertino, and says,

"What makes this Robot Child extra nerdy is that my daughter came up with this costume after finding the packing foam from her Mac Mini in my office." Link.

John Firehammer of "This is Pop!" blog says, "Here's a pic of my 8-year-old son Max from last Halloween [Ed. Note: why is it that so many of the robot child-abductions seem to occur on this day?]. Check out the smashed calculator bits, dryer vent arms and wired-on spigot."

Stacy Springman says, "A few days before you posted the first robot kid pic, I had started making my son a robot costume. The snapshot here shows the first stage of robot construction; the pics you post on boingboing are giving me some great ideas for a superior robot -- thank you. Time for a second generation robot, I suppose."

Without explaining why his daughter's name is "Mr. K," Gene Kaufman cries,

"Help!!!! The robots have enslaved my daughter, Mr. K!!!!!" Link.

And finally: garments with which to usher in the dark times. Claire says, "Can't Sleep, Robots Will Eat Me! A t-shirt designed in response to the horrific Child Eating Robots documented in recent BoingBoing posts."

Offered in "INFANT CREEPER." Oh, how cruelly apropos. Link
Previously on BoingBoing:
- Fresh children arrive from space
- Random jpeg of cuteness: robot kid
- More evidence robots devouring our kids
- Earth-children's robot resistance marches on
- "Roboticization of Earth-children": das ist geFarken

Reader comment: Brian Cubbison says, "The Associated Press photographs an Israeli robot child at Purim: Link."

Reader comment: Rim Toemer says,

I read your latest account of robots luring children into their jaws with stuffed animals, and I thought you might want to know this has been happening for almost a year now! Story: Toddler rescued from toy vending machine.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:26:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Custom-built 1900s-style iceboxes

Iceboxes.com makes replicas of old-timey iceboxes, including classics like the 1900 Sears and Roebuck Icebox and the 1900s McCray icebox; they'll also build an icebox front for your modern fridge. Link (via Cribcandy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:01:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO make a "fractal chandelier" - simple and ingenious

This page explains a simple and ingenious method for daisy-chaining three-way lightbulb adapters to make a lovely "fractal chandelier" where each three-way has another three-way with another three-way in each of those, finally terminating in low-watt light-bulbs. Link (via Cribcandy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:58:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Two films show how good and evil are done

I just watched two stunning films on a long plane flight; both are part of Mark Cuban's extraordinary new film company, which releases its movies simultaneously as downloadables, theatrical releases, DVDs, and video-on-demand titles.

The movies are Good Night and Good Luck and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, and together, they make a powerful, moving statement about how good people do evil and how flawed people can do good.

Good Night and Good Luck is the story of journalist Edward R Murrow's campaign to expose Senator Joseph McCarthy's Communist witch-hunts for a sham aimed at grabbing power by instilling fear of shadowy bogeymen into America's hearts. Murrow and his fellow campaigners are portrayed in great warts-and-all style, flawed people with a heartfelt disgust for the deeds of a wicked opportunist who is destroying everything they love about their country. Most compelling about this is the way that it attacks the dumbing-down of discourse, something that's been in free-fall since before Murrow's time and shows no sign of hitting bottom. Cinematically, this is a beautiful film, shot in black and white and seamlessly intercut with scenes out of McCarthy's hearings, with spooky interstitial sequences of torchy jazz.

Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a straight-ahead documentary about the rise and fall of Enron. The Enron events took place over years, and it's hard to remember sometimes just how high-flying these bastards were, and how much harm they wrought to millions, and how much they got away with. The filmmakers got astonishing on-camera interviews with insiders from a Portland linesman who lost his pension when Enron bought the state utility he'd worked for all his life to a senior Enron exec who left just before things went horribly wrong and who is visibly moved in discussing the suicide of one of her peers, who she describes as a good person, despite his participation in a shell-game that bankrupted tens of thousands of workers who lost everything in his shell-game.

Smartest Guys in the Room also makes brilliant use of news-footage, with genius cuts from the Congressional Enron hearings to corporate Enron booster films to newscasts to grainy, secret whistle-blower clips. And Smartest Guys also has a fantastic soundtrack most notable for its use of spooky Tom Waits songs like "Starving in the Belly of a Whale" and "What's He Building Up There?" that have always struck me as soundtrack for a movie as yet unmade.

These two films tell you a lot about how good and evil are done. Smartest Guys shows you a parade of good and bad people who collectively did great wickedness (baby-faced traders bug-eyed with enthusiastic remembrance of the high-flying days of pump-and-dump) and Good Night and Good Luck shows you good people who refuse to do wicked, and who inspire others to follow their lead.

There are days when it's hard to believe that the world will ever improve, that greed will ever be set aside for decency, but these films put a lie to it. I recommend watching them both, back to back, the next time your hope runs low.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:55:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wooly magnetic Katamaries for sale on Etsy

Here's an Etsy seller making bespoke Katamari Damacy balls with embedded magnets -- roll them around your table and pick up metallic objects, just as the Prince does in the stunning video-game of the same name.

These Katamari are big enough to fit in the hand comfortably. The nubs are fully magnetic to facilitate the Katamari rolling power. Perfect for sitting on a desk or in a craft area holding metalic things for you. I can make them in any combination of 3 Bright acrylic yarns you want.

Link (Thanks, Chris!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:37:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

America's worst WiFi hotels

On Monday, I blogged HotelChatter's list of the ten best WiFi hotels in America; they've followed it up with their list of the ten worst WiFi hotels Stateside; none of 'em can top London's Victoria Park Plaza, where WiFi in the conference space will run you $838.63 per 24 hours:

Marriott Flagship: Once again, the Marriott Flagship makes the worst list, partly because of inconsistency across the Marriott brands (Residence Inn, Courtyard and others offer free WiFi) and partly because you need a Ph.D to comprehend the Internet policies at some of their flagship hotels. First off, there's no free wifi. You can pay $9.99 for 24 hours in the lobby only. Or you choose to do a T-Mobile Hotspot option but $6.99 a minute roam charges apply. In the rooms, you can pay $9.95 for tethered ethernet access which will include any phone calls, local and long distance, that you make. Or you can head down to the business center and get free WiFi on the few computers offered there but will have to wait your turn and then have the next person in line breathe down your neck while you check your email. Marriott Flagship, you lost us at "No Free Wifi."

Link (Thanks, Mark!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:21:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Help Peter Beagle sue the film-house that made "The Last Unicorn"

A flat-broke, much-loved fantasy novelist is trying to raise money to help sue a scumbag film-house that owes him a bundle for adapting his famous novel. Peter Beagle, author of The Last Unicorn, got savagely ripped off by a UK film-house that made a commercially successful animated film based on his book and won't pay him for it. Connor Cochran writes:

Granada [the scumbag film-house in question] has hardened their stance (even after -- or perhaps because of -- being shown evidence that the numbers they are standing on are fraudulent). Their current position is classic Hollywood: they claim with a straight face that a movie which only cost around $3 million to make back in 1982, and which has earned at least $20-25 million, is still $15 million in the red (!) because of "interest charges," and therefore they don't need to share a penny of their large windfall income from it.

Link (Thanks, Connor!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:16:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Food chains made out of variably sized tools

Make Reader Nick Carter is creating and photographing lovely displays of different models of tools into "food chains" and "circles of life," like the Plier Food Chain shown here; they really do look like natural-history posters depicting food chains and circles of life. Link to "Plier Food Chain", Link to "Drill Chuck Cirle of Life" and "Kant Twist Clamp Circle of Life", Link to "C-Clamp Food-Chain"

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

Facebook's on the block, possible Viacom sale rumored

Rumors of a possible sale involving the college/high school networking site and Viacom have been around for a while -- and they're growing louder: Link to Businessweek article.

In related news, police arrested a twenty-year-old Purdue university student after tracing his identity by way of his Facebook profile. Link. (Thanks, 7im)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:58:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fake magazine cover photoshopping contest

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: fake magazine covers. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:56:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Oregon State U survey on open WiFi use

Sarah sez, "This is a online survey done by researchers at Oregon State University on how people share and access open Wi-Fi networks and what matters the most when they use Wi-Fi. The latest cases in Illinois and Canada of people being fined or arrested for accessing an open Wi-Fi network show that the issue of open Wi-Fi access rules needs to be solved." Link (Thanks, Sarah!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:25:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DRM is Killing Music: the t-shirt

Inspired by Julian Bond's brilliant DRM IS KILLING MUSIC graphic, Ken at Giant Robot Printing has done a t-shirt with the design. Link (Thanks, Ken and Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:25:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Reading news to regulate mood

In some circumstances, men who are pissed off purposefully read news articles that will feed their anger while women select articles that will chill them out. Researchers at Ohio State University report that men pick negative stories to "sutain their anger until their opportunity to get even." The researchers gave 86 college students an impossible computer task to anger them while promising them the opportunity to evaluate the experimenter later on. Then they were asked to evaluate the content in an online magazine by picking articles to read which interested them. From Ohio State Research Communications:

“For women, it is not seen as appropriate for them to retaliate when they're angry, but it is OK for men. And that's reflected in their selection of media content,” said Silvia Knobloch-Westerwick, co-author of the study and assistant professor of communication at Ohio State University.

“This shows that even our news consumption is not motivated just by information concerns. We use news to regulate our moods...."

Overall, the findings suggest people may sometimes use their media choices to put them in the right frame of mind for upcoming events. “You want to make sure your mood fits whatever situation you're in,” Knobloch-Westerwick said. “Media choices can help you do that.”

For example, commuters facing a stressful drive home from work may choose calming, relaxing music on the radio.

“Our media use is not just for entertainment or information. It can also be functional, helping us to regulate our moods for what we're doing.”

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:47:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Shocking briefcase

The 80,000 volt Attache Case has a remote control that allows you to sound a 107 db alarm or zap whoever is holding it. No word on the range. Sixteen (!) batteries included. Available in brown or black for 899.00EUR from the Euro SpyShop.
Link (via The Red Ferret Journal)

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:18:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Marc Ngui's pen-and-ink insanity

Marc Ngui is a pen-and-ink illustrator and graphic novelist based in Windsor, Ontario. His two-sided poster "Monster Island," drawn in pencil and pen with digital color and collage, reminds me of some speedfreak art I've seen, only done by someone with much more talent. Link (Thanks, Mike Love!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:21:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cryptid baby onesies

A few weeks ago, my friend Amy Miller gave us the perfect gift for our forthcoming baby: a soft onesie emblazoned with a Bigfoot iron-on! I was even more excited to hear that Amy made the iron-on herself. She handcrafted a mini Bigfoot figure from assorted spare doll parts and other materials, photographed it, and then tweaked the image in Photoshop. I was delighted to hear that the Bigfoot design is just one in a limited series of Cryptid onesies. Along with Bigfoot, Amy is now offering Mothman and Giant Squid designs. Coming soon are the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, Tasmanian Tiger, Jersey Devil, Chupacabras, and Nessie. The onesies are $20 including tax and shipping. Makes a great gift for any Fortean or fringe parents!
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:47:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excellent video of earwax picking

In reference to yesterday's post about earwax picking, Rob says: "Last Fall I vacationed with a Japanese American woman who had the earwax picking bug. And, believe it or not, I made a micro-movie about it."
Link

Update: David emailed me a photo of an earwax picker with a built-in compass. (Click on thumbnail for enlargement)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:34:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Protest tshirt for graphix nerds: Drop Shadows Not Bombs

Link (Thanks, Chris)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:01:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jasmina Tesanovic: Scorpions Trial, Day One

Scorpions Trial
Jasmina Tesanovic, Belgrade
First day of trial, March 13, 2006

Boca's Squad / Military Box 9189/19 Vukovar

That's how today's witness presented himself: a low-key thirty-nine-year old locksmith, grim and uncomfortable in his role. He executed his legal duty with obvious physical pain and loud moans and groans. as if barbecued slowly by the impatient woman judge, who looks every time more like a Hollywood star.

"Boca" is just a nickname here, commonly given to the nice kid round the corner, and Vukovar used to be a time-honored city in Croatia. However now, we are talking about Scorpions destroying that city, together with the Jugoslav National Army, the JNA. Recently a movie was made about that scene of the crime and bloodshed. Once again the reality show and the documentary material beat all the moralizing words of the accused war criminals.
More...

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

How radio DJs in LA put half a million marchers into motion

Snip from Los Angeles Times story:

He's one of the hottest Spanish-language radio personalities in the nation. So when Los Angeles deejay Eddie Sotelo joined hands with his radio rivals to urge listeners to turn out for a pro-immigrant rally in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, organizers hoped for a big turnout.

But many said Monday that they were stunned by how many responded to the call to march against federal legislation that would crack down on undocumented immigrants and penalize those who assist them.

(...) Rally supporters, including immigrant-rights activists, churches, and labor and community groups, agreed that the active advocacy of the region's top Spanish-language radio personalities was critical in drawing the enormous crowds, who marched more than 20 blocks along Spring and Main streets and Broadway to City Hall, wearing white "peace" shirts and waving American and Mexican flags.

Link

Previously on BoingBoing: LA student protests organized on MySpace

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:42:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, March 27, 2006

Adult entertainment co trademarks "virtual sex"

Porn Valley based adult biz Digital Playground announced last week that it has registered "Virtual Sex" as a trademark (#3014320) with the USPTO. Link (Thanks, Susannah!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:26:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

To do in LA Wed 3/29: Art of Bleeding, with Margaret Cho

Margaret Cho, Jewel of Denial, Abram the Safety Ape, and the Magic Ambulance Crew will all appear in Reverend Al Ridenour's periodic ultaviolent spectacle, THE ART OF BLEEDING, this Wednesday night in Los Angeles. Blood will spurt, pasties will twirl, and the ape will get it right between the eyes. Corrected link (whups, sorry!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:22:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US agency calls for probe over fears Lenovo "bugged" PCs

The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) is calling for an officiel investigation into Chinese PC firm Lenovo's contract to supply compuers to the State Department. The group fears Lenovo's PCs may include software or hardware components to facilitate spying on the US government. Snip from BBC story:

Lenovo, which last year bought IBM's PC arm, said it had nothing to hide and would welcome the investigation. Concern has been rising in the US over foreign companies buying US firms.

Link (Thanks, Tian!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:13:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LA student protests organized on MySpace

José Marquez says,

Joel Rubin, a reporter from the Los Angeles Times, just told the host of a news program on KCRW (the NPR affiliate station in LA), that the 15,000 high school students who walked out of school today organized today's march using MySpace.com over the weekend.

The students were, once again, protesting the House bill would make illegal immigration into a felony rather than a civil offense.

Link to "Which Way LA" radio show, and eecue took lots of photos of the student protests (including the one above) -- Link.

Reader comment: cathode ray says,

i am a student teacher at crenshaw high here in los angeles. let me begin by saying that as the daughter of mexican immigrants, this issue is of paramount importance to me. let me continue by saying, however, that the "walk-outs" can hardly be described as "organized." i strive to empower my students politically (even in my math class!) but staging a walk-out from school is a slap in the face of the many immigrants who have come to the united states seeking, among other things, a decent, if not quality, education.

when i asked my kids why they were walking out, only one knew about the bill in the house. the remainder were simply getting out of school early. schools like crenshaw lose *hundreds of thousands* of dollars per day due to absences. i think a more appropriate form of protest would be to stage a "school-in" much like the lunch counter demonstrations from the 1960s civil rights movement. coming to school and saying "i demand *everyone* have equal access to *a quality* education" is, in the end, more productive. and i can tell you, that the vast majority of the students who walked out of crenshaw high are the very ones who have constantly failed their classes, despite our best efforts to teach them, in english or in spanish.

in the end, education is the key. leaving is simply opting out of the educational process, which is another slap in the face to educators like me who are doing the best they can to provide these kids the futures our parents dreamt for us.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:37:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Peder Burgaard interview

Peder Burgaard is the Event Manager at Denmark's Innovation Lab, an "international wunderkammer of technology trends" that, among other projects, organizes the annual NEXT innovation conference in Copenhagen. I have the pleasure of working with Peder for the next few months while he's interning at the Institute for the Future. Régine Debatty of We Make Not Art has posted a long interview with Peder about the Innovation Lab, NEXT, and the relationship between art, technology, and invention. From the interview:

From one edition of NEXT to the other, do you see that technology is moving at a rapid pace? Or is it a slow continuum with, here and there, too many repetitions?
Technology will be moving even faster and among others will the convergence of established disciplines in the future contribute to this increased pace. Convergence in research fields will be more common because we are increasingly looking to apply the construction work of Mother Nature for creation of advanced technology. So the biologist will need more mathematics and vice versa. Also the merging of biotechnology and nanotechnology will create a demand for researchers which interdisciplinary skills. A forerunner of this trend is Stanford University’s Bio-X Lab of interdisciplinary research connected to engineering, computer science, physics, chemistry, biology, math and medicine.

A future ability to reverse engineer the human organs and other advances in technology will keep the pace of new discoveries at an exponential level of unheard dimensions if compared to past rates of discoveries. Some predicts that the next 50-100 years will yield advances in technology equivalent to 14.000 years of previous discoveries.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:52:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The joy of earwax picking in Japan

My favorite gaijin over at Nude Highway Driving has a short post about ritualized earwax picking in Japan.

[I] learned all about mimikaki from an American friend who is addicted to his Japanese wife's ability to dig wax out of his ears without pulling brain matter out in the process. It's a Japan thing.

What better way to cap off a day or work and night of drinking than to have someone jam a camera-enabled pick in your ear so you can watch your very own "house of wax" on TV? A thousand yen gets you a 10-minute ear-cleaning and a quick massage.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:01:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dave Cooper's fantastic homemade drawing contraption

Dave Cooper is one of my favorite artists (check out his wonderful step by step of a recent masterpiece), and I was thrilled to see this insane contraption he his father designed and built to position his body while he draws.

having a fucked up back means drawing can be excruciating at times. one of the few positions that is actually GOOD for my back is laying on my stomach with my back arched (kinda like when you're watching tv on your stomach with your chin in your hands). trouble is, after about 30 minutes your shoulders and neck get exhausted, plus you can't slide huge pieces of paper under yourself like you would under a table, onto your lap. this thing addresses all those concerns. the adjustable chest angle thing supports your shoulders, the padded piping supports your head, and the whole thing is on a superwide frame that's lifted about 1 inch off the ground. BRILLIANT. and for added appeal, mom upholstered all the padding in the same world war II airplane fabric that she made my son's little duvet case out of.

Link (via Drawn!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:11:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Alcohol, Red Bull, and perception of buzz

I got a kick out of the opening paragraph's abundance of italics in this press release about a new study on the combination of Red Bull and alcohol that appeared in the scientific journal Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research. For some reason, it sounds funny if you read it aloud and make sure to stress the italicized words:

Study results show that drinking alcohol and Red Bull together significantly reduces the perception of headache, weakness, dry mouth and impairment of motor coordination. Red Bull does not, however, significantly reduce alcohol-related deficits on objective measures of motor coordination and visual reaction time. People who combine alcohol with energy drinks may be at even greater risk for problems such as automobile accidents because they believe they are unimpaired.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:20:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nontransitive short con #2: penny ante

Greg says:

I thought that if you liked the nontransitive dice, you might also like a nontransitive coin-tossing problem called "Penny-ante". Basically, your opponent chooses a series of three coin tosses (HTH, for example), and you choose another series (HHT). Then you flip a coin until one of these patterns shows up. So if we flipped HTTHHHT, you would win, because the pattern "HHT" appears at the end of the sequence. Seems fair, right? Well, it turns out that, no matter what your opponent chooses, you can always choose a sequence that's more likely to occur. In fact, your odds of winning *at worst* are 2-to-1. You choose the winner by choosing the opposite of the second position of your opponent's sequence, then tacking it in front of the sequence and ignoring the third position. So if your opponent chooses "THT", you choose "TTH".

Here's a good article about the game (PDF), And it's Puzzle 13 on this page.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:17:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Court to Mob-victimized family: you're too late to sue.

Wired News senior editor and hacker god Kevin Poulsen says,

According to the First Circuit Court of Appeals, a Boston family victimized by FBI-protected mobsters have no recourse to sue the government, because they waited until their lives were no longer in danger before filing the lawsuit.

The case involves a long-term collaboration between the FBI and the Winter Hill Gang, violent mobsters who helped the Bureau take down the competing Italian mafia in exchange for carte blanche to run South Boston's rackets without fear of prosecution. Gang leaders included Stephen "the Rifleman" Flemmi, who started working with the feds in 1965.

More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:17:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Betelnut Beauty "action" figures

Emkid learned that Blockbusters in Taiwan sell Betelnut Beauty figurines. According to Wikipedia, Betelnut beauties are "scantily-clad young women selling betel nut on roadside kiosks in Taiwan. A uniquely Taiwanese phenomenon, they are named after the legendary beauty Xi Shi from the Spring and Autumn Period of ancient China."

P. Kerim Friedman has more to add on the topic at his blog, Keywords.
Link (Previous coverage of betelnut girls on Boing Boing here, here, and here)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:06:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BB's "Roboticization of Earth-children": das ist geFarken

The legions of photoshoppers at Fark.com have had their way with a photo sent to BoingBoing by reader Dean Adams, blogged here last week in a series about the roboticization of Earth-children. Link to Fark thread "Photoshop the agony and the ecstasy of these cardboard robots," and here's why the remix at left (by butthold) is funny.
(Thanks, Burris T. Ewell)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:53:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Panda painted on a human hair

Chinese artist Jin Yin Hua used a rabbit hair to paint a panda on the side of a a single human hair. According to the BBC News, it took Hua ten days to create the painting that is on display under a microscope. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:35:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Armless man busted for speeding

A Waikato, New Zealand man with no arms was caught driving 121 km/h last week. He used one foot to steer and another to press the pedals. The man, who has never had a driver's license, was fined $170, prohibited from getting behind the wheel, and may also be charged with "dangerous driving." From The New Zealand Herald:

Senior Constable Brent Gray approached the driver's window, spotted a foot up on the dashboard and noticed the seat was reclined.

Mr Gray told colleagues he thought the man had an "attitude". But then he noticed his armless torso...

(Senior Sergeant Deidre Lack) had nothing against people with disabilities who drove motor vehicles, but had absolutely no sympathy for this speeding driver.

"Obviously driving at a speed like that, arms or not, you're just waiting for an accident. You're asking for an accident at 120km/h, whether you've got arms or not. Look at the risk he was posing."

Link (via Peculiarosities)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:28:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mumbai blogger interviews workers occupying store for a month

On Metroblogging Mumbai, contributor Saakshi Juneja posts a fascinating first-person account (with photos) about a worker's strike in that city:

On Friday the 10th of February, the store all of a sudden decided to fasten its doors to the world. For over a month, 40-permanent workers have been squatting outside the estranged shop. Unable to get over the untimely death of their second home; where they have spent over 30 years of their lives. Struggling day in and day out, to obtain some kind of justice.

(...) Driving over in my A/C car I casually thought over a few questions to ask, but at that point didn't realize the gravity of the situation. I wasn't even sure, if I wanted to write a post on this.

As soon as I parked my car, workers assuming I have come to shop, yelled "dukhan bandh ho gaya hai, do mahena ho gaya." I got down and into the premises, as usual had to explain my self and my purpose. To which, for obvious reasons I had umpteen volunteers, ready to open their hearts out....and so here it goes.

Link (thanks, Sean Bonner!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:26:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gilmore responds to "TSA ID-checking security lax" story

EFF cofounder John Gilmore responds to the "flying-without-ID" story we pointed to on BoingBoing last week:

The story's slant is a bit off.

We aren't complaining that "TSA security [is] lax", as in your headline. Nor are we saying that "TSA agents frequently fail to enforce the agency's rule that travelers must present government-issued ID". It's the opposite, actually.

More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:17:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Japanese science magazine for young couples

Science Walker is a new free magazine that Japan's Education Ministry is launching to spur interest in the sciences among young people. According to an English translation of a Japanese article in the MSN-Mainichi Daily News, the magazine is "packed with scientific topics that young people can chat about with their sweethearts while on dates." Science Walker will apparently also contain articles about "soccer, music, food, and scenic drives."
Link (Thanks, Paul Saffo!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:14:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Australia: Mark Pesce's op-ed on why Internet filtering sucks

Mark Pesce wrote a brilliant op-ed about censorware for Sunday's Age in Australia. Here's a snip:

Last Thursday, Communications Minister Helen Coonan reversed her opposition to a proposal to filter the internet of obscene and violent content. Liberal backbenchers, led by Tasmanian senator Guy Barnett, who find existing internet filters unsatisfactory, argue that a mandatory national filter is the only way to protect children. It's a noble idea, but there's a problem - it won't work.

Link, and see also this related article from Mark on the same subject: "Understanding Gilmore's Law."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:09:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nick Philip and Imaginary Foundation in RES Magazine

The new issue of RES features a profile of Nick Philip, the designer behind the delightful Imaginary Foundation line of surrealist t-shirts. (Previous BB posts about the Imaginary Foundation here, here, and here.) Rumor has it that the mysterious Director of the Imaginary Foundation has tasked Philip with designing a special limited edition Boing Boing / Imaginary Foundation double label t-shirt. More news as it unfolds. From the RES article (photo by Jessica Miller):

Those ideas Philip references in his designs come from the real-life Imaginary Foundation, a clandestine, eccentric assembly of academicians and philosophers begun in 1973 and led by a septuagenarian with doctorates in physics and philosophy who holds 25 worldwide patents and whose father conceived the Dada movement. While Dadaists embraced nihilism, Surrealists, though inspired in part by Dadaism, valued the ordinary and embraced Freud's theories about the strength of the unconscious. It's the latter that drives Imaginary Foundation's function. "They believe everything around us in culture and what we see [is] essentially one idea... so the power of the idea and imagination is the power behind all of culture," explains Philip. "There's an incredible potential for creating beauty and harmony with our own minds."

Link to RES article, Link to Imaginary Foundation

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:53:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tiffany Shlain's film The Tribe premiers in L.A.

The Tribe, a short film by Tiffany Shlain of the Webby Awards, has its Los Angeles premier this Thursday, March 30, at the Egyptian Theater in Hollywood at 8pm. The film is "an unorthodox, unauthorized history of the Barbie Doll and the Jewish people." I've seen the film--it's a lot of fun and also raises some deep questions about identity and culture. The screening will be followed by discussion with cast and crew, a live performance, and a party. Tickets are $9 but Tiffany has kindly offered complimentary seats to the first twenty BB readers who email her at rsvp@tribethefilm.com with Boing Boing in the subject line.
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:36:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gilles Tréhin, a savant and his imaginary city

Gilles Tréhin, an autistic gentleman who lives in Cagnes sure Mer, France, has designed an incredibly detailed city that exists only inside his head. He first conceived of the city, called Urville, in 1984, and began to construct a scale model out of LEGOs. In 1986, he says, he "realised that I could expand the city in my mind without necessarily building it in Lego bricks." Tréhin's Web site is filled with drawings of the city, historical and cultural information, data about Urville's economy, and some sociological insights on its population. From an article at the Wisconsin Medical Society Foundation site:

My name is Gilles Tréhin, I was born in 1972, I live in Cagnes sur Mer, near Nice, in south-east of France.

I have been drawing since the age of 5. I have always been fascinated by big cities and aeroplanes.

Since 1984, I started to be interested by the conception of an imaginary city. I called it Urville, the name comes from "Dumont d'Urville", which is a scientific base, in a French territory of the Antarctic.

Since then, I am doing some drawings on this city and I am actually writing a book with an historical, geographic, cultural and economic description of Urville.

In the book I have writen, "Urville's Guided tour", it wasn't possible for the moment to put all the major quarters of Urville because the whole of Urville is still not completely drawn.

All the drawings, more than 250, come from the 5 main very large general views of the different sectors of the city. There is an example of a large view at the beginning of this text. Each of the smaller views show details of the streets, squares and various monuments of Urville. For each of them I have written a text giving more information about the history of the place.

I hope that the book will be published very soon.

Link to Urville.com, Link to a "Savant Profile" of Tréhin from the Wisconsin Medical Society (via The Kircher Society)

UPDATE: Gilles Tréhin's father Chantal kindly informs me that his son's book has just been published in English and is available on Amazon. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:23:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stanislaw Lem reportedly dead at 84

Wikipedia reports that Stanislaw Lem, the Polish science fiction author of such amazing novels as Solaris, died today at age 84. More details in this obit from DNA India. Link (Thanks, RonK!)

Update: Benjamin sez, "The front page of Rzeczpospolita, Poland's paper of record, is reporting Lem's death on the front page. The article doesn't specify cause of death, only that he'd been in hospital for several weeks.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:35:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Timeline of everything from several movies

The Movie Timeline is a timeline of all the events that occurred in many, many films, from 4,000,000 BC to 865,427,810 AD:

1703 Gulliver discovers Brobdingnag (Gulliver's Travels)
1704 October 10: Bouvet Island, Antarctica - Predators arrive for their feasting ritual on xenomorphs and humans (Alien vs Predator)
1711 Gulliver marooned with the Houyhnhnms (Gulliver's Travels)
1712 Kildare, Ireland - Connor MacLeod and Duncan rescue a stagecoach from bandits, and Duncan meets Kate (Highlander: Endgame)
1715 Rob Roy escapes the defeat of the clans (Rob Roy The Highland Rogue)
A Predator gains a pistol while hunting in the Raonoke colony (Predator 2)
Ireland - Duncan kills Kate MacLeod (Highlander: Endgame)
1720 Pirate Jack Sparrow frees a governor's daughter in the hope of regaining the Black Pearl (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl)

Link (via Joshua)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:42:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NPR Day to Day "Xeni Tech": Clickfraud woes grow

For today's edition of the NPR program Day to Day, I filed a report on the growing dilemma surrounding click fraud -- shorthand for the many forms of invalid traffic that can run up online advertisers' bills. Just how big the problem may be is disputed, but some say click fraud may account for as much as 20 percent of all ad traffic and a billion dollars a year in bogus sales.

Click fraud is currently the subject of some high-profile lawsuits involving search engines. In an Arkansas class action suit involving multiple search biz defendants, Google recently offered to settle to the tune of 90 million dollars. Yahoo and others haven't said whether or how much they'll pay in that case. Another suit filed against Google in a federal court in California is up for class action consideration mid-May.

For today's story, I spoke with Google's Trust and Safety product manager Shuman Ghosemajunder; Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch; Tom McGovern of Snap.com; and Jessie Stricchiola, who's serving as an expert consultant in the Arkansas class action suit.

Link to archived audio for "Web Ad Buyers Fight Back Against Click Fraud." Here are the NPR "Xeni Tech" archives.

Charles Mann did a comprehensive piece on click fraud for a recent issue of Wired Magazine here: How Click Fraud Could Swallow the Internet. And BusinessWeek's Burt Helm did a story last month that's well worth a read, too: Click Fraud Gets Smarter.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:35:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Swisscom WiFi at London conference centre costs $838.73/24h

I've written before about how crummy Swisscom's Eurospot WiFi service is; this service is ubiquitous across European hotels, and it costs a fortune, throttles your connection, caps out after a certain number of bits transferred, and blocks ports. Every hotel seems to have a different Swisscom tariff, and it seems that Ben Hammersley may have found the highest Swisscom fee yet: £480 per 24 hours for non-guests using the conference spaces in London's Victoria Park Plaza hotel. That's $838.73 a day. For WiFi. Not even good WiFi. (Now, of course you won't stay in the conference space for 24h -- I'd probably cap out at 16-18h a day, meaning I'd only pay $559.17 to $594.04 a day. A bargain at twice the price)

I’m sat in the Guardian Changing Media Summit, at the Victoria Park Plaza hotel in London, and the wifi is priced as above. Staying in the hotel, it’s £15 for 24 hours. But if you’re down here in the conference room, it’s £10 for 30 minutes. That’s £480 for 24 hours. I believe that’s the hotel equivalent of “Hi! Fuck you!”

Link

Update: Looks like Ben's blog is temporarily down; I'm sure it'll come online again soon, though.

Update 2: It's back up!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:55:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Best hotel WiFi in the world

HotelChatter has posted its latest annual roundup of the best hotel WiFi in the world -- they're going to follow up tomorrow with the world's worst, too.

Kimpton Hotels: Kimpton once again tops the list as the undisputed hotel WiFi kings. The brand improved their now legendary free WiFi service in the last couple of years, by extending their fast, reliable WiFi network to your upstairs room, at many hotels. Yup, at most Kimpton hotels you *can* actually sack out with your computer on the bed wireless and happy. This scenario is oft-advertised by other hotel chains, but hardly ever a reality. Kimpton doesn't count on their lobby WiFi network to reach the top floors of their buildings, instead, at the hotels we visited, Kimpton actually had two separate WiFi networks--one for the lobby and the other for the guest rooms. Both networks are easily accessible by clicking on a standard terms and conditions. Furthermore, during our Kimpton visits, friendly staffers went out of their way to ask us if we were getting a good reliable WiFi signal in both the lobby and our room, and guess what? We were. Kimpton Hotels tend to appeal to business travelers, hip leisure travelers, and globe-trotting bloggers.

Link (Thanks, Mark!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:46:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DRM is Killing Music parody of "Home Taping is Killing Music"

Julian Bond has knocked together this hilarious take-off on the music indiustry's old Tape-and-Bones campaign "Home Taping is Killing Music and It's Illegal" -- Julian's version depicts an iPod and bones and says, "DRM is Killing Music and It's a Rip-Off." Link (Thanks, Julian!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:26:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, March 26, 2006

Aussie timezone switch borks Exchange Server

Some Australian states have delayed their Daylight Savings time-switch by a week in order to accommodate the Commonwealth Games; however, this is causing chaos in corporate environments where the servers have no idea how to reconcile their time-zones and get everyone into the same meeting at the same time, correctly sort database entries by time, etc. It's only going to get worse next year, when some Canadian provinces change their Daylight Savings switch-dates to save electricity -- time-zones are already ad-hoc, and nearly random (see the update to this post for more); once they start getting arbitrarily changed from year to year, it becomes practically impossible to keep track of them

The hitch is that the Microsoft Exchange server that we all use in Australia for my company is located in Kuala Lumpur, who I'm guessing didn't know about this deviation from standard DST. As a result, our Outlook calendars are showing that Adelaide are out of DST when they aren't.

The upshot of this is that some of the meetings in my calendar are actually an hour earlier than they appear to be. But only the ones that were booked by folks in Adelaide, and only for this week. As a result some people are putting the time of the meeting in the subject line (note the Tuesday 11am meeting below marked as "10am Perth time").

Link (Thanks, Stewart!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:03:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Teledildonics vibe can be controlled via "finger"

The new GNU/Linux and MacOS drivers for the network addressable "teledildonics" sex toy, the TranceVibrator, can be controlled via the finger daemon, "bringing generations of CS undergrad innuendo full circle."

This program is a rudimentary teledildonics application built around the finger daemon - hence bringing generations of CS undergrad innuendo full circle.

It has two modes in addition to what you're seeing now - if you finger [any string]@[this host], a series of random pulses will be generated, proportional to the length of the string.

Alternatively, fingering 0x[hex digits]@[this host] will instead send a direct stream of motor speeds to the vibrator, one per second.

Link (via JWZ)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:45:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Most expensive Google ad keywords listed

This list of the highest-paying Google advertising keywords is exciting for its very dullness: if there's one thing that's become clear it's that in 2006, the most aggressive users of keyword advertising are asbestos lawyers, ambulance chasers, and mortgage brokers.

$54.33 mesothelioma lawyers
$47.79 what is mesothelioma
$47.72 peritoneal mesothelioma
$47.25 consolidate loans
$47.16 refinancing mortgage
$45.55 tax attorney
$41.22 mesothelioma
$38.86 car accident lawyer
$38.68 ameriquest mortgage

Link (via Battelle)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:40:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Korean "macro" programs and keyboard emulators for gamers

The Korea Times covers the "Macro" software scene among Korean Gamers; this is software that automates tedious, repetitious in-game "grinding" tasks, such as repetitively hunting down and killing weak monsters. I'm especially fond of the hardware-based keyboard emulators that look like thumb-drives and can be trained to undetectably automate input to in-game tasks (getting output from the game is harder and would require hardware network- or monitor-sniffing). I wonder if game-developers will respond by producing CAPTCHA-style questions at critical junctures during grinding? Also -- this strikes me as a pretty good way of implementing a nigh-undetectable pokerbot (or at least one whose detection would be a consequence of its signature gameplay, not detection via a process-monitor).

In comparison, the hardware type is more complicated, more expensive and more stable. They often look like portable USB storage with a flash memory chip and electronic circuits inside. It can grab video signals transmitted between the PC and the monitor, and analyze the signals to make a judgment.

For example, when a player gets beaten by a monster and loses his health, the game shows that he is in a critical condition by showing a bar gauge on the monitor. When the reading goes down by a certain point, the auto-mouse notices it, and moves the character out of the danger zone. Then it makes the character regain his strength by drinking a magic potion or using a magic spell, before sending it to another battle.

It is practically impossible for outsiders to tell whether a human or a computer program is playing a game character. Also, it is not against Korean law to use a macro of an auto-mouse, as they do no damage to the game’s main server.

Link (via Smart Mobs)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:37:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video: Bill Gates being grilled by US anti-trust lawyers

This YouTube clip purports to be footage of Bill Gates being grilled by US government anti-trust lawyers in 1998 -- though you don't really get a clear look at his face, but that autistic rocking is pretty characteristic. The video closes with a come-on to get a multi-DVD set of the entire deposition. Link (Thanks, Dave!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:31:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LA Times slams Marvel for trying to steal "superhero"

An editorial in today's LA Times chastizes Marvel for its recruitment of a science museum to help it steal the word "superhero" from the public domain:

In trademark law, the more unusual a term, the more it qualifies for protection. We would have no quarrel with Marvel and DC had they called their superheroes "actosapiens," then trademarked that. But purely generic terms aren't entitled to protection, at least in theory. The reason is simple: Trademarks restrict speech, and to put widely used terms under private control is an assault on our language.

Once a trademark is granted, it remains in effect until someone proves to the feds that the term has lost its association with a specific brand, as happened with "cellophane" and "linoleum." That's why Johnson & Johnson sells "Band-Aid brand adhesive bandages," not simply Band-Aids(TM).

Link (Thanks, Will!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:23:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lost 1975 Monty Python interview

This 1975 interview with Monty Python at a Dallas PBS affiliate hasn't been aired in over 30 years:

This interview footage first aired live on KERA that year, and hasn't been seen by the public since. It was discovered on an old reel that had been saved by an engineer, and as you can see, it cuts off after about 14 minutes... the engineer taped over the rest. It's a look at the group being candidly questioned by fans at the peak of their fame and creative powers.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:32:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anachronistic fine art photoshopping contest

Today on the Worth 1000 photoshopping contest -- anachronistic elements in fine art, like this impressionistic travoltoid. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:27:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video reveals Belarus electoral fraud

A video made by an elections observer in Belarus shows evidence of electoral fraud. Belarus has been torn apart by riots in the wake of the phony re-election of its strong-man dictator, Alexander Lukashenko, a neo-Stalinist kleptocrat. Damn I'm glad my grandfather left Belarus.

...[O]ne person at one point asks why there are ballots of candidate A stacked on top of the ballots of candidate B? Another person then yells at the others to get away from the tables. And that they should stop asking questions!

Link (Thanks, Anonymous!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:35:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

European clocks advance one hour today

Hey Europeans! Remember that today's the day to roll your clocks forward for British/European/Irish Summer Time. Hey everyone else: Europe is now one hour in the future until Daylight Savings kicks in -- that means that London is 6 hours ahead of New York and 9 hours ahead of San Francisco. Paris is 7 hours ahead of New York and 10 hours ahead of San Francisco. Link

Update: Stewart sez, "Be aware that the eastern seaboard of Australia (Melbourne, Sydney, etc) NORMALLY end DST today, but this year it's delayed one week because of the Commonwealth games. Some folks may get caught out by that."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:15:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kleptones new mashup double-CD free to download: "24 Hours"

Mashup kings The Kleptones have released a double-disc album called "24 Hours" that you can download as individual tracks, whole-disc torrents, or as large MP3 files engineered for CD burning. There's some amazing stuff here -- I love the Doors' Peace Frog mashup, 1730 Know How Frogs Function, and the Bowie's It Ain't Easy/Clash/Rock the Casbah blend, 1100 Casbah Ain't Easy. There's even a video for one of the tracks. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:12:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steve Jobs, 2002: "You need the right to manage music on all devices"

Last week, Apple slammed the French government for proposing a law that would require Apple to license the iTunes crippleware format to its competitors, so French people could listen to the music they buy from Apple on devices made by other companies.

Today, Apple rejects interoperability, but check out this Steve Jobs quote from 2002:

In 2002, Steve Jobs said, "If you legally acquire music, you need to have the right to manage it on all other devices that you own."

In 2006, France said, "The consumer must be able to listen to the music they have bought on no matter what platform."

Sounds like Steve agrees with France.

Link (Thanks, Rob!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:06:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monks in Wisconsin refill printer cartridges

The Laser Monks are a 75-year-old Abbey of the Cistercian Order in Wisconsin who refill printer cartridges to cover their expenses, instead of making cheese or beer.

And then the Angels appeared. Out of the blue, I received an e-mail from two ladies in Colorado who had a website selling ink cartridges. For various reasons they had decided to move on to other projects. We had received their offer along with many other online printer supply companies, to sell us their online business. I wrote them back and explained who we were and what we were trying to do. To make a long story short, not only were they delighted to discover us, they offered to come up here to Wisconsin to help us for a few weeks to get our business organized and running well - at no charge.That was in July of 2003. The "angels" and the monks got along so well, and our various gifts and abilities complemented one another so well, that we decided to make the arrangement permanent. Our MonkHelper Angels reside in one of the Abbey houses on the corner of the Abbey property. They handle our order processing, customer service, and manufacturer relations under the company name of MonkHelper Marketing. This leaves the monks free to focus on developing the business, media relations, advertising, speaking, and most importantly, finding creative ways to use LaserMonks income to help others.

Link (Thanks, Ronks!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:59:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LOVE / HATE knuckle tat gloves

Elbow-length gloves in tattooed lambskin that spell out LOVE and HATE on the wearer's knuckles, by designer Silvia B. The look may be ghetto, but the price tag ain't: €725 a pair. Link to designer's website, where you'll find these and other limited-edition "wearable sculptures." (via mocoloco.com, thanks Siege!)

Reader comment: Sharif says,

As nice as the Love/Hate gloves are, I'd love to see a pair of the Luv/Hat variety.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:09:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jewel-encrusted Mister Potato Head

 

This specimen of profound vulgarity, spotted at the Beverly Hills Neiman Marcus between cases of Baccarat and Limoges, is a jewel-encrusted Mister Potato Head. I took some snapshots with my phone: one, two, three. The last time I saw such meretricious merch off Rodeo Drive was some hand grenade perfume next door, at Saks 5th Avenue.

Previously on BoingBoing: Darth Tater.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:08:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web zen: testing zen

google image quiz | rorshack test | firing squad | self-referential  test  | what kind of american english?  | monday morning test  | various personality tests  | Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:07:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Folksonomy, meet personomy

Over yonder on his blog, Bruce Sterling says,

I've been noticing that successful tech neologisms tend to have children. For instance, the term "AJAX" was a little suspect at first, because the acronym for "Asynchronous Java and Xtml" doesn't always entirely jibe with programmers' actual usage of web techniques that get called "Ajax." However, Ajax spawned "COMET" and "FLORWAX." This lineage makes Ajax much harder to kill.

"Folksonomy" has now reached a similar fertile-adult stage with the coinage of "personomy."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:06:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Peepshow chicks in chocolate

Hold this NSFW white chocolate bar up to the light, and you'll see three clothes-free women.

Link (Thanks, mr lim)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:06:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, March 25, 2006

Photos: largest protest ever in Los Angeles history

Blogging.la contributor eecue says,

"Today I walked with half a million people in support of immigrants rights. I took some pictures and wrote about it. It was amazing."

Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:25:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hat of poop (and what a fetching hat of poop it is)

A most fashionable headcovering from Japan in the form of human excrement. 5.5" wide, 4" high, and $22 per turd from jlist.com. Link (via suicidegirls/Vanessa, thanks Susannah)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:16:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web zen: video zen

nam june paik | rutt-etra video synthesizer | video feedback  | bathroom | i am drugs | elevator moods | pleix | post video art | park 4dtv  |  Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!)

Reader comment: jesse jack sez,

It feels like a post including the Rutt-Etra synthesizer is incomplete without a mention of another amazing, early realtime video processor, the Daniel Sandin Image processor. And maybe a mention for Steina and Woody Vasulka, who created several works with both processors: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:09:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Did Entertainment Weekly rip off Robert Ullman's art?

About a month ago, illustrator Robert Ullman sent his latest promo postcard -- featuring Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann Al Franken (thanks Aaron!) as Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots -- to a bunch of art directors, including "five or six contacts at Entertainment Weekly".

Imagine his surprise to open the latest copy of EW and see an illustration of Bill O'Reilly and Keith Olbermann as Rock'Em Sock'Em Robots rendered by another illustrator. Coincidence? Maybe. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:52:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nontransitive dice -- how to win every time

I'm reading a terrific book by William Poundstone called Fortune's Formula: The Untold Story of the Scientific Betting System that Beat the Casinos and Wall Street. On page 153 Poundstone writes about a 1968 dinner meeting between mathematician Edward Thorp and fund manager Warren Buffett. Poundstone mentions in passing that Buffett and Thorpe discussed their shared interest in nontransitive dice. "These are a mathematical curiosity, a type of 'trick' dice that confound most people's ideas about probability," writes Poundstone.

Curious, I googled "nontransitive dice" and found a nice description of them by Ivars Peterson at the Mathematical Association of America's website.

Peterson introduces the subject with this intriguing paragraph:

The game involves four specially numbered dice. You let your opponent pick any one of the four dice. You choose one of the remaining three dice. Each player tosses his or her die, and the higher number wins the throw. Amazingly, in a game involving 10 or more throws, you will nearly always have more wins.

Here's what the dice look like:

The trick is to always let your opponent pick first, and then you pick the die to the left of his selection (if he picks the die with the four 4s, then circle round to the die with the three ones). It's just like playing Rock, Paper, Scissors -- only you get to see what the other guy picks in advance.

With these dice, you always have a 2/3 probability of winning -- what a great sucker's bet! Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:47:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Buck Owens, RIP

One of my friends used to like to take LSD and watch Hee Haw, a hillbilly variety show hosted by Roy Clark and Buck Owens. I never paid much attention to the show, but he convinced me to listen to the music of Roy, Buck, and Grandpa Jones, insisting they were geniuses. And he is right. I became a big fan of all three, and learned to love Hee Haw, even without drugs.

Yesterday, Buck Owens, a supremely gifted songwriter and guitar player passed away at the age of 76. He'll be missed. His music lives on. If you're curious, I recommend The Very Best of Buck Owens.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:21:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RoadWired's Skooba Satchel

In a dozen years of carrying a laptop computer, I've probably gone through an equal number of laptop bags. Backpacks, messenger bags, man-purses... I've tried them all. Thing is, I'm very picky. Last year, Cory turned me on to the joys of RoadWired products and on short outings I started carrying my 12" Powerbook in one of their excellent Compact Skooba Sleeves. At least once a week, someone asks me who makes it. That sounds like hype, but it's the truth. And I'm not sure why. Sure, it's a great bag, but it's pretty darn minimalist in terms of design. Maybe that's why it grabs people's attention.

Several weeks ago, I swapped out my deteriorating messenger bag that I carry on longer trips for the new larger Skooba Satchel, a beefed-up version of the minimalist Skooba Sleeve. I spent a week plus a weekend on the road with it and I didn't miss my trusty messenger bag once. Like the Sleeve, the Satchel's laptop pouch is lined with Air Squares for protection if when you drop it. In fact, the $99.95 Satchel is basically the Sleeve impregnated with a dozen more pockets. The main laptop compartment can hold 17-inch laptops, making it a bit oversized for my 12" Powerbook. If you also have a small laptop, you might first put it in a simple sleeve or one of the RoadWired RAPS diapers to keep things tight and tidy once it's in the Satchel. That also comes in handy so you can transport your laptop around a conference or to a cafe when you don't need the whole Satchel. (Think of the extra sleeve or RAPS as a shuttle craft.) Now if only the Satchel wasn't so heavy. But that's not RoadWired's problem--the Satchel weighs 44 ounces empty. Time to put my gear on a diet again.
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:35:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Snakes on a Plane meets Cory's angry letter to AA

Metafilter's Stevil has posted an hilarious mashup of my angry note to American Airlines and the new Samuel Jackson movie, "Snakes on a Plane":

On Sunday, January 9th, I flew AA51 from London Gatwick to Dallas-Fort Worth. At Gatwick, I was confronted with a security check that exceeded sense and decency and, I feel, creates a terrible potential liability for your airline.

At Gatwick, I was directed to a security podium before I checking in for my flight. The security officer asked me a series of questions, such as:

* Where are you flying?

* How long have you owned your luggage for?

* Are there any motherfucking snakes in your luggage?

The security officer then handed me a blank piece of paper and said, "Please write down the names and addresses of ever motherfucking snake you're staying with in the USA."

Link (Thanks, Erik!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:36:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, March 24, 2006

Justin Watt and ACLU win parody case

O'Reilly OPG web producer, Justin Watt, successfully defended himself against a laughable cease-and-desist sent to him from a creepy outfit called Exodus International, which promises to help gay people obtain “freedom from homosexuality through the power of Jesus Christ.”

About three weeks ago Exodus International sent Justin the cease-and-desist for this image that parodies the lame billboards that Exodus International uses to advertise their hideous message.

The ACLU jumped to Justin's aid by sending Exodus International a mind-blowingly great letter explaining why Justin is well within his rights to make laughing stocks of the homophobic group. And Exodus International backed off. Here's a USA Today article about it.

And here's Justin's blog entry with a link to the ACLU letter. Way to go, Justin and the ACLU!
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:44:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Megaphone helmet on eBay

How have I been able to exist this long without a 1950s megaphone helmet? eBay has two - get one for you and your significant other and take your arguments to a new level.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:54:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EMI releases Brazilian DRM CDs that totally hose their customers

Brazilian mega-star Marisa Monte's new CDs from EMI ("Infinito Particular" and "Universo ao Meu Redor") come with DRM that can't be uninstalled, and requires you to "agree" to a contract that isn't published in Portuguese. Even if you disagree, the malware is installed. The DRM blocks you from playing the CD on Linux and MacOS, and from loading it onto an iPod. This, just as the Brazilian government has launched a Computers for All initiative to distribute 1,000,000 Linux PCs, seems particularly contemptuous of the Brazilian people. Ronaldo sez,

When you insert the CD in your computer, it automatically opens a window with the "License Agreement" of the CD. This is a very large contract in Portuguese, but it is very difficult to read. The agreement is opened in window programmed in flash, so it is impossible to cut and paste the text into another program. In some computers, when you try to scroll down the contract using the arrows, the text slides completely out of control, making it impossible to read.

After taking some time to read the agreement, the first thing that called my attention is that the text says that a full copy of the contract is available at the address "www.emimusic.info/". That is NOT TRUE. If you go to the "Brazil" link at the page, there is no copy of the agreement whatsoever at the website, contrary to what the agreement itself expressly says.

The text of the agreement says that the CD will install software in your computer in order to make the cd playable. However, it says that the user must acknowledge the fact that "certain files and folders might remain in your computer even after the user removes the digital content, the software and/or the player".

Additionally, it says the following: "This contract has been originally drafted in English. The user waives any and all rights that he or she might have under the laws of his or her own country or province, in regard of this contract drafted in any other language".

Finally, my favorite part. There are two buttons below the agreement. The first reads "Accept the Agreement" the second reads "Reject it". After reading all the above, I decided to reject it, and pressed the "reject" button. Immediately a screen with the word "Initializing" appeared, the proprietary software was installed, and the music started to play in my computer using the proprietary EMI player, as if I had "accepted" the whole thing.

(Thanks, Ronaldo!)

Update: Of course, if you want to get this music without infecting your PC, there's always ISOHunt -- thanks, Christopher!

Update 2: Before you click on ISOHunt, read this, from Malke: "IsoHunt tries to install Winfixer on a Windows machine. Since I know you use an Apple and I use Linux, it wouldn't affect us, but even here on Linux using Firefox with popup control, I got three popup window attempts to install Winfixer on my machine. Winfixer is really nasty malware (I do computer tech support/repair for a living and that's how I know about this) and will seriously mess up Windows users' machines."

Update 3: Clarification: it's not ISOHunt that hs the malware, it's some of the search results on the ISOHunt page.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:40:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Altoids case made from old iPod shuffle

Courtney, a graphics artist, like to use Altoid cases to hold extra X-Acto blades. But now where do the Altoid mints go? Why, inside a gutted iPod shuffle. Instructables has the instructions for making one of your own.
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:25:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Walt Disney film about venereal diseases

Amid says: "Somebody has posted on Google Video a copy of the super-rare 1973 Disney film VD ATTACK PLAN, which is all about venereal disease protection. Who ever said Disney cartoons and condoms don't mix!

"I also mentioned it on CartoonBrew today."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:08:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

What if? Pierce Bush interviewed in Iraq

vaporlock says: "You had some stuff on your site today that mentions Pierce Bush, [the 19-year-old who supports his uncle George W. Bush's war in Iraq yet bafflingly hasn't signed up to fight for democracy in Iraq]. I made a video and posted it on youtube were I took the interview of Pierce and placed him in Iraq, thus making the interview that much more watchable. Check out the video and post it if you like."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:49:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Major retailers offer on-site inkjet refills

Chicago Tribune reports on how large retailers such as OfficeMax and Walgreens are offering on-premises ink-jet cartridge refilling services. Hewlett-Packard is pretending not to care, but the article says printer supplies account for about 70 of HP's printer business profits, and that 15-20 percent of the supply business has already moved to third-party refillers.

"I'm of the opinion it's just ink," said Sean Lowry, a senior vice president for Pacor Mortgage in Chicago, whose company is hooked on the service. "An average cartridge for a good printer or copier is $100. If you're using six or seven machines at the office, that's a lot of money."

Link (via Make Blog)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:46:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ten-Year-Old Robot Punk Rock prodigy

Boing Boing reader Jesse says,

My 10-year-old brother Brendan (now known as "Eddy Demon") is the frontman, lead guitarist, and principal songwriter for a punk rock band called "Total Annihilation." One of his best lyrics (in my book) is:

"You say cool, I say hot! / Together we made a robot!"

Anyway, they just released an EP, which features some originals (like "Rock and Roll on a Friday"), and some covers (like Iggy Pop's "I Wanna Be Your Dog"). They even have a creation myth:

Long ago there lived a demon by the name of Rock.Rock was inventing a plan to take over the world.After 2,000 years he had finally invented a plan.Rock created a style of music which he called Rock'N'Roll.The only thing Rock needed now was minnios to help him complete his plan to take over the world.

Link. The robot kid sounds kick-ass.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:26:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Statue of nude Britney Spears giving birth

"Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston" is a life size statue by artist Daniel Edwards. It will be unveiled at Capla Kesting Fine Art in Brooklyn on April 7.

“Monument to Pro-Life: The Birth of Sean Preston,” believed Pro-Life’s first monument to the ‘act of giving birth,’ is purportedly an idealized depiction of Britney in delivery. Natural aspects of Spears’ pregnancy, like lactiferous breasts and protruding naval, compliment a posterior view that depicts widened hips for birthing and reveals the crowning of baby Sean’s head.

Link (via PCL Linkdump)

Update: Here's a podcast interview with Daniel Edwards.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:15:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fresh children arrive from space to replace roboticized Earthlings

Well that's a relief. As the photo here clearly proves, a fresh crop of children have finally landed from outer space, to replace the hordes of Earth-children forcibly assimilated into robot consciousness. Link to "recycled cardboard rocket playhouse." (Thanks, Gary Grainger)

Previously:
- Random jpeg of cuteness: robot kid
- More evidence robots devouring our kids
- Earth-children's robot resistance marches on

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:11:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fake titles for Neil Bush's software company, Ignite! Learning

On March 23, 2006, I wrote about Neil Bush's educational software company, Ignite! Learning, and about the company's shady investors, which include scions of the Chinese ruling class, United Arab Emirate royalty, and a Russian gazillionaire wanted on criminal charges for allegedly plotting to overthrow Boris Vladimir Putin. Neil's mother, Barbara Bush, is also a big beleiver in Neil's company -- her donation to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund was specifically earmarked for her son's company. (Here's a Houstin Chronicle article with more details.)

I asked readers to send in their suggestions for Ignite! software titles, were they to reflect the behavior and philosophy of Neil Bush and his investors. The suggestions were great, and I've posted some of my favorites below.

At the end of this entry, I'm running two emails sent in by people defending Ignite!. One is from a guy who is friends with Ignite! employees, who he describes as "distinctly kind and gentle individuals." The other email is from an actual employee of Ignite! who wishes to remain anonymous.

But first, here is my favorite entry, from Bob's:

Well, to promote traditional values, Ignite! would, of course, release different games for boys and girls. . .

For the girls:

Explora the Whora - As Explora, travel around the world knocking on hotel room doors looking for relatives of the rich and powerful. Maximum possible points for each round are based on the hotel guest’s family’s wealth and influence. Get friendly with the guest as quickly as possible, then collect points by extracting marriage proposals and/or blackmail payouts! Teaches young women how to move up in neo-conservative America and patriarchal societies around the world.

For the boys:

ShockAndAwecracy - As president G. W. Booyah, dress up in your flight suit and jump in to the cockpit of your NewWorldReorderer machine! Just press buttons to select countries from a map of the world, sending bombs and troops to spread democracy and freedom! Maximize your score by spending as much borrowed money as possible. Score extra points for enriching your friends with no-bid contracts to rebuild what you have destroyed (no rebuilding required). Teaches boys how to make friends and influence people.

Here, in no particular order, are the runners-up:
More...

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:53:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Principles for Network Neutrality from USC Annenberg

Snip from statement on the USC Annenberg website:

In February the Annenberg Center for Communication at the University of Southern California invited a group of senior communication experts from industry, academia, and consumer groups to discuss how to begin to bridge differences over the issue of network neutrality. In cordial, off-the-record discussions several key principles began to emerge that we believe could serve as a base from which detailed discussions might proceed. We have continued to fine-tune these ideas over the past month. Not all participants are completely comfortable with every principle. But, we all believe that these Principles may help anchor the current debate and may help advance the conversation. We wish to place them on the record so that interested parties and the public can continue the process of reaching agreement on this important issue.

Here is the list of principles, released by Annenberg Center for Communication Executive Director Jonathan Aronson and Senior Fellow Simon Wilkie, a former FCC chief economist:

The Annenberg Center Principles for Network Neutrality

The goal of the Annenberg Center Principles for Network Neutrality is to provide a simple, clear set of guidelines addressing the public Internet markets for broadband access.

1. Operators and Customers Both Should Win: It is important to encourage network infrastructure investment by enabling operators to benefit from their investments. It also is important to ensure that customers have the option of unrestricted access to services and content on the global public Internet.

More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:13:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cryptozoology museums

At Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman surveys several cryptozoology museums throughout the world. From the post:

Artist John Frick of Cumberland, Maryland, stands under his creation, a Mothman replica that hangs from the ceiling of the Mothman Museum in Point Pleasant, West Virginia...

What cryptozoology and Bigfoot museums would you recommend to other Cryptomundo readers from your journeys and readings? (please post comments at Cryptomundo--ed.)

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:03:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vlog interview with Bruce Sterling

Bruce Sterling looks a bit like a younger, healthier Johnny Cash in this vlog interview with Minnesota Stories vlogger Chuck Olsen, (director of Blogumentary). Earlier this week, the esteemed Mr. Sterling took a break from novel-writing in Belgrade to appear in conversation with "relational aesthetics" artist Rirkrit Tiravanija at the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN. They spoke of shoes and spimes, and for a spell, all was right with the world. Link to more info. Also, the Tiravanija / Sterling talk will be here shortly: Link. (Thanks, Paul Schmelzer and Chuck Olsen)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:51:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Brian Jungen's sculptures from everyday objects

BB pal Kirsten Anderson of Seattle's Roq La Rue gallery points us to the excellent work of Brian Jungen, a Vancouver artist who transforms everyday objects into very different forms. Seen here, Nike shoes and human hair reborn in the form of a Northwest Coast Indian mask. The piece is titled "Prototype for New Understanding #16 (2004). In another work, he assembled a multitude of the ubiquitous white plastic chairs into a whale skeleton.
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:51:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rebar's prankster life

Last year, I posted about San Francisco art group Rebar's urban prank where they converted a downtown parking space into a public park for a day. The cover story in this week's issue of SF Weekly is a wonderful chronicle of Rebar's secret history and method behind the delightful madness. From the article:

As part of its spring 2003 "property" issue, the quarterly arts magazine Cabinet had bought half an acre in the middle of nowhere on eBay and dubbed it "Cabinetlandia." The editors offered readers 3-square-foot plots of the undevelopable desert at a penny apiece in a bizarre avant-garde statement of the illogic of ownership and the very idea of property. When (Matthew) Passmore proposed the equally bizarre idea of building a library on the site — every town needs a library, after all – the editors approved, doubting he'd ever actually go through with it.

Even to Passmore, the whole thing did seem a little ridiculous. He wasn't really an artist – six months before, he had still been a corporate lawyer. But it was too late to turn back. He and his friends had invested hours and hours planning the project, and Cabinet had already entrusted them with funds to buy materials. Passmore wasn't sure whether the library would be a "piece of art" or a project without much meaning, but he found the idea of bringing a slice of industrialized America into the wide-open Wild West very, very funny. So he lugged a filing cabinet and a few tools out of the minivan and left them on the ground. Then he drove half an hour back to the motel in Deming, the closest town to Cabinetlandia, and waited.

That afternoon, Passmore's high school buddy Jed Olson, a doctor living in Denver, arrived in his truck. Two more friends, Judson Holt, a litigation consultant, and John Bela, a landscape architect, flew from San Francisco to El Paso and met at the Deming motel. They drove over to Cabinetlandia and started digging...

When they'd finished, a crescent mound rose from the desert floor, flanked by solar-powered lights. A filing cabinet within the small hill housed the entire archive of Cabinet, waiting for anyone who might visit Cabinetlandia and want to borrow a copy. The crew gathered their equipment and planted a wooden sign that said "LIBRARY" into the ground, then started the long journey home.

Link (Thanks, Ken Goldberg!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:39:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bizarre three-faced doll head

This surreal three-faced bisque doll head, a German antique, is up for auction on eBay right now. Current bid is GBP 21.99. From the item description:

very more beautifully and well received

three faces head

very more rarely three faces head, approx. around 1900, without damage. no tears or jumps, crying width unit a face with glass eyes, a laughing face with glass eyes, and a sleeping face
2, 8 inch

Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:27:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

worldblogcenter.com: lying turdmongers

BoingBoing reader Darren Rowse just pointed us to a shady site called World Blog Center, which touts itself as "prestigious virtual real estate location in which blogs from a variety of industry sectors are housed." I prefer to think of them as lying assholes, because they're claiming that BoingBoing is a "tenant," and exploiting the BoingBoing logo and name without our permission in their press releases, on their website, and -- according to folks they've hit up for cash -- in spam emailings soliciting paid membership.

On Darren's blog, a worldblogcenter.com spokesperson named Amja lied that BoingBoing gave them permission and asked to be a part of their dishonest scheme -- we did not. Snip:

Every single company we have listed in our news section has taken up space, and we have the emails to prove it. The latest company is Business Week Online who came on board today.

At the time, BoingBoing was listed in their news section. We did not consent to this, by email or otherwise. We've asked them to remove our name from their press re-lie-leases (BoingBoing.net is the first word in 9 copies distributed through various online press release services), we've asked them to remove our name from their site. They have failed to do so.

On their website, they claim, "The World Blog Center is PRESTIGIOUS. It is EXCLUSIVE and you could say ELITIST... you can't simply BUY your way in." Well, for the record, BoingBoing didn't.  Link to more on Darren's blog.

Update: Here's their domain registration info (Thanks, John Battelle!)

Domain Name: WORLDBLOGCENTER.COM
Registrar: GO DADDY SOFTWARE, INC.
Whois Server: whois.godaddy.com
Referral URL: http://registrar.godaddy.com
Name Server: NS2.INTERMEDIA.NET
Name Server: NS3.INTERMEDIA.NET
Status: REGISTRAR-LOCK
Updated Date: 11-mar-2006
Creation Date: 09-dec-2005
Expiration Date: 09-dec-2006

Reader Comment: Mongo says,

Check out their Twin Towers-reminiscent logo. So not only are the "people" (innocent until proven otherwise, right?) behind the site unethical, they are overtly exploitative. Someone call Scumbags Anonymous for these losers!

Reader Comment: littlestar_43 reminds us,

They're really ripping off milliondollarhomepage.com.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:26:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Internet Backbone map for North America

CIO.com just published a swank new detail map of the North American Internet backbone -- 134,855 routers are represented, each color-coded to indicate which provider 0wns it. Information Aesthetics blog explains:

Red is Verizon, blue AT&T, yellow Qwest, green is other backbone players like Level 3 & Sprint Nextel, black is the entire cable industry put togethe, & gray is everyone else, from small telecommunications companies to large international players who only have a small presence in the U.S.

Link to PDF (1.1MB) , and link to related post on CIO.com blog.

On his blog, USC Annenberg Center for Communications scholar Kazys Varnelis adds,

CIO Senior Writer Ben Worthen, who produced the map with Bill Cheswick of Lumeta suggests that what it tells us is that the debate on net neutrality needs to be understood not only in terms of the last mile, but also in terms of the backbone. The players are increasingly the same.

(Thanks, Dan Lurie and Kazys Varnelis!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:09:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Survey: Sometimes you can fly without ID, TSA security lax

A survey conducted by three privacy activists -- including EFF cofounder John Gilmore -- showed that TSA agents frequently fail to enforce the agency's rule that travelers must present government-issued ID at US airport security checkpoints. Snip from GovExec story:

Many of the travelers responding to the survey had forgotten their identification or it was stolen, or their driver's licenses had expired. Many of those who recounted their experiences at the airports said TSA screeners subjected them to extra security checks but allowed them to board the aircraft.

Other travelers were allowed to board planes after showing several forms of non-government identification, such as credit cards or school ID cards.

The survey was undertaken by a group of three activists calling themselves "The Identity Project." They are concerned about the inefficient and overly intrusive security policies implemented by the government.

Link (Thanks, Bill Scannell)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:43:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NY photog held for hours by police over flag photo

Thomas Hawk says,

Having been the subject of unwarranted police background checks and being detained when shooting in the streets of Oakland myself, I was dismayed to read about this guy, Ben Hider, who was detained by police for two hours, searched, forced to empty his pockets and frisked. His crime? Taking photos of the flags out in front of the courthouse. Although he was issued an apology this is just unacceptable behavior on the part of the police. Photography is not a crime.

Link to ABC News story from White Plains, NY. Here is Ben Hider's MySpace page. Looks like this is the photograph that got him in trouble.

Reader comment: Ryan says,

In response to the man who was hassled by police taking pictures of the (public!) courthouse...this link is to an attorney's page whic has a nice PDF that states a photographer's rights. I keep a reduced one in my wallet in the case I am ever confronted, which seems like it may be sooner than later these days. Here's the PDF link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:33:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Report: MySpace banned in UAE, like BoingBoing, presumably with SmartFilter

A friend of BoingBoing who is currently working in the United Arab Emirates reports that attempts to reach the popular social networking site MySpace using a terrestrial broadband connection are blocked. Sources tell us that the filtering system at use here is "SmartFilter," produced by the American censorware company Secure Computing.

The would-be MySpace user in the UAE reports: 

They give a pretty interesting screen message saying that it is blocked because it is inconsistent with their religious, moral and cultural values. I took a screen shot if you are interested. Also, Google seems to strip out all ads on their site here.

Earlier, our readers in the UAE reported that the state-run ISP in that country was also blocking BoingBoing.net, with the help of SmartFilter: Link.

Previously:
- Distributed BoingBoing, for those blocked by censorware
- SmartFilter, BoingBoing, and Adult Baby - Diaper Lovers.
- Xeni's NYT op-ed: Exporting Censorship
- More on SmartFilter blocking BoingBoing and other popular sites.

Reader Comment: Arthur Magill says,

I'm wondering if SmartFilter blocks BBC News, for displaying gratuitous nudity? This BBC News link points to photos of sculptures by Auguste Rodin, highlighting a forthcoming exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts in London. Blocking a major news site like the BBC would be pretty serious. I'm not filtered here, so I can't check. If any of your readers could check, I'd like to know what the BBC would have to say. If it isn't filtered, I'd like to know why Secure Computing will make some exceptions and not others? I must be reading too much BoingBoing, because I keep wanting to shout at the world for being wrong. Keep up the good work.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:27:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rant transcript from Game Developers' Conference

For the second year running, Alice from the Wonderland blog has taken incredibly detailed notes from the "Game Developers' Rant" at the Game Developers' Conference (this year in San Jose, CA). The Rant is a panel where a bunch of luminaries from the gaming world get together and foam at the mouth, hurling obscenities and pearls of wisdom from the stage. Alice captured some real mind-blowers from this year:

Frank Lantz: Why does the phrase 'the player will be able to go anywhere and do anything' sound like nails on a chalkboard to me? It's based on a very naive and unsophisticated understanding of how simulation, how representation works. You have a thing, a part of the world, and you have a simulation of that. There's a gap in between, the gap is made up by all the differences, the way that this is not this.. the immersive fallacy is this idea that computer simulation allows us to close this gap and makes these things identical. But this gap is an essential part of how this representation works, this gap is where the magic happens.

Let's say a bear is attacking a friend of yours and is about to kill him. The word 'bear' will warn your friend. The word 'bear' would not be better if it had teeth and could kill you! The same thing is true of the bear mask that the tribal priest puts on, or the bears on the wall of the cave, and of the game 'Bear'. Statues wouldn't be better if they could move. Model airplanes would not be better if they were the same size as airplanes! By the same token, if you think about it, the incredible sense of freedom created by GTA is created by carefully limiting the actions of the player.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:01:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Union Pacific threatens to sue painters, model railroaders over TM

The Union Pacific Railroad has gone trademark crazy. They're threatening to sue anyone who puts a Union Pacific logo on a model railroad, photographers who take pictures of Union Pacific trains, and even painters who paint pictures of Union Pacific trains. Model railroaders, photographers, and painters are freaking out, natch. Link to Trains.com thread, Union Pacific licensing program (Thanks, Robin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:49:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Melbourne's graffiti scene killed by Commonwealth Games

ACB sez, "Stencil artist Banksy has written an article for the Guardian on the war on graffiti and street art in Melbourne, Australia, until now one of the world's epicentres of street art, where the government has adopted a Giuliani-esque zero-tolerance policy to sanitise the city for the Commonwealth Games. In his article, Banksy points out that one of the places where evidence of Melbourne's unique, and now destroyed, street-art scene survives is in digitised photographs on the Web. Given that Australia has recently banned a video game involving graffiti and is considering a national internet firewall, one wonders whether such sites will remain accessible from within Australia for very long." Link (Thanks, ACB!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:38:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US frequent flier programs deliver less and less

The New York Times covers the steady erosion of frequent-flier programs. People who fly tens of thousands of miles per year on one airline or another get less and less for their loyalty.

US travelers don't know how good they have it. I've flown about 280,000 miles on British Airways since June 2004, but I get practically nothing for my trouble -- faster checkin and a lounge to use, but I've never managed to redeem my miles for upgrades, never managed to get a ticket on miles, not even when I book a year in advance. What's more, when BA loses my luggage, I get no help at all, and BA customer service on the phone is often rude enough to make me want to just cancel my trip.

With upgrades scarcer, there are still some benefits to elite-status programs, like getting first dibs on booking such choice seats as aisle seats toward the front of coach or exit row seats with extra legroom. But that, too, is fading.

Then last week, Northwest Airlines, in what it called a test program, started charging an extra fee, $15 for each leg of a flight, to reserve choice coach seats. Anyone can reserve them.

The reaction on Flyertalk.com was swift. You alienate your most loyal fliers "when you start taking away preferred seating," one Northwest Platinum Elite member wrote in a letter to a Northwest executive, adding that he would be taking his business elsewhere.

Link (via Consumerist)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:35:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, March 23, 2006

Square of squirtguns wall-hanging

These 18" x 18" panels of cunningly arranged squirtguns cost $50, but it seems like it's the kind of thing that would be pretty easy to duplicate on your own. It'd be wild to do a whole wall this way! Link (Thanks, Candy Addict!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:59:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mother Jones mag - "Intellectual property"'s worst excesses

Mother Jones, a left-wing magazine, has published a Harpers-Index-style guide to copyright's worst excesses; it's notable that this week both they and their ideological opponents at the libertarian Cato Institute have both published material supporting the copyfight. It's truly a nonpartisan fight:

A DAY AFTER Senator Orrin Hatch said "destroying their machines" might be the only way to stop illegal downloaders, unlicensed software was discovered on his website.

BILL GATES had the 11-million-image Bettmann Archive buried 220 feet underground. Archivists can access only the 2% that was first digitized.

AMONG THE 16,000 people thus far sued for sharing music files was a 65-year-old woman who, though she didn't own downloading software, was accused of sharing 2,000 songs, including Trick Daddy's "I'm a Thug." She was sued for up to $150,000 per song.

MICROSOFT UK held a contest for the best film on "intellectual property theft"; finalists had to sign away "all intellectual property rights" on "terms acceptable to Microsoft."

Link (Thanks, Dave!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:56:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Better than a unicorn chaser: baby firefox photo

Is FlashOnTheBlog's photos of a little "firefox" cute enough for you?
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:54:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why everyone wants to invest in Neil Bush's software company

It turns out that Barbara Bush's donation to the Bush-Clinton Katrina Fund is going straight to Ignite!, an educational software company owned by Neil Bush, the current administration's very own "Billy Carter/Roger Clinton" type character. (You may remember Neil as the fellow who headed Silverado Savings & Loan in the 80s. When the bank failed under his watch, he walked away with a mere sanction while taxpayers were forced to clean up his mess by forking over a $1 billion bailout.)

In his Talking Points Memo, Joshua Micah Marshall says Ignite! makes its money by jetting Neil to exotic locales, where he visits "international statesmen, bigwigs and criminals who want to 'invest' in Ignite! as a way to curry favor with the brother in the White House."

(Bush's international influence-peddling jaunts have also proven to be a great way for him to get laid, according to CNN:

[Bush] admitted in the deposition that he previously had sex with several other women while on trips to Thailand and Hong Kong at least five years ago.

The women, he said, simply knocked on the door of his hotel room, entered and had sex with him. He said he did not know if they were prostitutes because they never asked for money and he did not pay them.

"Mr. Bush, you have to admit it's a pretty remarkable thing for a man just to go to a hotel room door and open it and have a woman standing there and have sex with her," Brown said.

"It was very unusual," Bush said.)

It turns out that lots of people besides Barbara Bush believe in her energetic young man: the rich kids of China's rulers, the United Arab Emirates, and Russian tycoon Boris Berezovsky (who has been accused of trying to overthrow Putin's government to help his company) are all eager investors in Ignite!. Now, who's to say that the individuals in this rogues' gallery are only interested in getting the president to think kindly of them? Perhaps they truly want to help children learn.

Let's have some fun: what kinds of children's educational software might be produced buy Ignite!, were these investors to have a say in their development? Email your ideas for titles and descriptions to me and I'll post the best on Boing Boing. Link (Thanks, Haybales!)

Reader comment: Phil says:

After seeing the post earilier today about Neil Bush, I got to wondering what other Bush siblings have been up to. Here's an interesting [Wikipedia] entry on Marvin Bush (the youngest of the Bush brothers):

"He was a director of the Sterling, Virginia company Securacom, also known as Stratesec, from 1993 until fiscal year 2000. The Securacom/Stratesec company was publicly traded and backed by an investment firm, the Kuwait-American Corporation. Securacom/Stratesec was in charge of security at the World Trade Center, Dulles International Airport, and United Airlines on September 11, 2001."

Reader comment: Leslie says:

The Wikipedia claim about Marvin Bush's ties to 9/11 seemed a little too "conspiracy theory" to me. A quick Google search turned up what looks like a more balanced view. I'm no Bush fan, far from it, but there is enough REAL evil stuff about these guys without manufacturing conspiracy.
Link

Reader comment: John says: "THIS is the funniest Bush I've seen all year." (It's a video of 19-year-old Pierce Bush, the President's nephew, out of his mind on coffee at 6:30 am)
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:31:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Technology Review's 10 Emerging Technologies list

Technology Review magazine has posted a special report on ten emerging technologies they think are poised to have a big impact. The technologies they cover include:

Epigentics: Alexander Olek has developed tests to detect cancer early by measuring its subtle DNA changes.

Nuclear Reprogramming: Hoping to resolve the embryonic-stem-cell debate, Markus Grompe envisions a more ethical way to derive the cells.

Universal Authentication: Leading the development of a privacy-protecting online ID system, Scott Cantor is hoping for a safer Internet.

Cognitive Radio: To avoid future wireless traffic jams, Heather “Haitao” Zheng is finding ways to exploit unused radio spectrum.

Diffusion Tensor Imaging: Kelvin Lim is using a new brain-imaging method to understand schizophrenia.

Comparative Interactomics: By creating maps of the body’s complex molecular interactions, Trey Ideker is providing new ways to find drugs.

Nanomedicine: Kames Baker designs nanoparticles to guide drugs directly into cancer cells, which could lead to far safer treatments.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:13:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mortal Kombat kake

Boing Boing reader Poopdog says,

This is a Murderlicious cake my sister made for a Mortal Kombat themed party she and her friends had. They watched both the movies and played the video game all night and enjoyed this delicious tribute to the finest fighting game franchise of all time.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:06:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lego lie detector

Nicole says: It's a lie detector - or, more accurately, a galvanic skin response sensor - made out of Legos, aluminum foil and velcro. What more need be said?

"I found this link through a post about 'Demonstrations of Implicit Knowledge' from Colorado's Cognitive Science comunity on LiveJournal (full disclosure: I am an employee of Six Apart, Ltd., and work on LiveJournal)."
Link (Some other cool demos)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:54:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

San Francisco in Jell-O on display April 1 in SF

Elizabeth Hickok's amazing San Francisco In Jell-O sculpture will be on display only for the opening day, April 1, of the Exploratorium's new exhibit series Magnitude X: Quake Science and Survival. The entire series sounds quite intriguing though. From the exhibition description:

Magnitude X includes an offbeat, quivering, large-scale Jell-O model of San Francisco made in the primary-colored shimmering medium by artist Liz Hickok... Meet dog heroes. See earthquakes pop up on an international map as they occur throughout the world. A sampling of a month-long collection of exhibits and demonstrations cover liquefaction -- the cause of major damage to homes built on sand and landfill -- the physics of waves, resonance, seismic action and the mathematics of sine waves. Meet geologists, first-responders, survival kit experts, and structural engineers. What do you want to know about your survival kit, your structure or your neighborhood, or how you can best be prepared? Every weekend, the Exploratorium provides a range of opportunities to pose all your pent-up personal questions to a series of experts.

Link to Exploratorium exhibit info, Link to Elizabeth Hickok's site

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:04:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stephen Berkman's photography

BB pal Alan Rapp just blew my mind with a link to the work of incredible photographer and installation artist Stephen Berkman. His subject matter, composition, and use of archaic processes results in deeply spooky, dreamy, and wonderful works.
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:53:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bigfoot in Ely, Minnesota: more video

Earlier this week, I posted about a video clip of a purported Bigfoot stumbling in the snow in Ely, Minnesota. Apparently the shooter, Richard Sade, just realized he had a little more footage of the animal. Comments are welcome over at Loren Coleman's Cryptomundo blog.
Link

UPDATE: Sade as removed the video from YouTube. Link

UPDATE: The video is back again. See Loren Coleman's post for more info. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:00:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moment of couture zen: death, pirates, fashion.

A cerebral meditation on why deathmotifs in clothing look badass: "Ever since pirates first sailed under the skull and crossbones, it has been associated with death. Now, this morbid symbol flies again in the upcoming fashion season." Link to Sleek Magazine item. Image: a model shows off a design from Gori de Palma's 2006-2007 collection. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Update: Whoah, there's a weird story behind the t-shirt design shown here. That thing inside the rib cage is a fetus, made for a princess. Link (Thanks, Violet Blue!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:31:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Giant squid-sicle on display at Melbourne aquarium

Make haste! Get thee to the Melbourne aquarium in Australia! Only three more days left to see the world's most ginormous frozen squid!

The 250-kilogram creature, caught by commercial fishermen off New Zealand’s South Island earlier this year, has cost the aquarium more than $100,000, which included purchasing and transporting the squid. The bill also included displaying the squid in a purpose-built 3½-tonne block of ice.

Link to item on the world's first all-squid, all-the-time SquidBlog! Image: courtesy Melbourne Aquarium. (Thanks, Scott Beale!)

Update: Alex Loke says,

The article mentions that there are only a few days left to see the squid, but the Aquarium website says the exhibit has been extended to September 30. That being, said I've seen it and it's pretty damned amazing.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:18:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Australia's proposed 'net censorship scheme: the politics.

Following up on yesterday's BoingBoing post about a proposed state-mandated internet filtering system in Australia, reader David points us to a Sydney Morning Herald report about the political maneuvering behind the deal, and says:

While the Labour plan was originally scoffed at by the Coalition government, they are now being placed under pressure by members within to support such a system. Family First, an emerging religous right party, has already expressed support for the idea. It's worth noting that the leader of the opposition (Labour) is so unpopular at the moment that he could head-butt Godzilla and still not stand a chance in hell of being elected.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:11:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO tag walls using laser electro LED graffiti

Instruction video (with a bangin' soundtrack) on "electro-graf" -- a form of graffiti that uses electro-conductive, magnet paint to embed LED display components on walls. Stencilers in this video are also using laser cutters to craft their designs. Neato.

(Note: BoingBoing does not condone the unlawful defacement of property).

Link to YouTube video, via "Instructables." (Thanks, Violet Blue!)

Reader comment: Jemal says,

The "bangin' soundrack" to the graf video is from RX's thePartyParty.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:08:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ecuador: blogging indigenous anti-globalization protests

Kevin Koenig of Amazon Watch writes from Ecuador (via Rainforest Action Network):

The country is about to burst at the seams. There have been provincial strikes and road blocks since i got here. Although they subsided over the weekend, they’re gaining strength again, and the repression has been brutal.

There is now a state of emergency called in five provinces, with more to come tomorrow. The two demands of CONAIE, the national indigenous group, which is finally starting to be joined by other social sectors and universities, are: NO to the signing of the TLC, spanish acronym for the Andean Trade Pact, and the nullification of OXY’s contract and essentially the expropriation of their operations.

Never in my wildest dreams would i ever have thought that OXY would become the focal point of an entire nation, and it now looks like it has become such a flashpoint for the GoE that any offers by OXY to re-negotiate its contract or offer Ecuador more money are moot. I don’t think this government will survive without kicking OXY out.

The grassroots radio stations are calling on the forajidos, the loose knit community neighborhood groups responsible for the ousting of Gutierrez last April, to auto-convocarse (self mobilize and autonomous actions) to the streets in protests neighborhood by neighborhood, because large marches are now prohibited by the state of emergency, and they’ve been getting crushed by the military and police.

Link (thanks, Brant) Here's a related NYT story: Link to "Ecuador's President Declares a State of Emergency," by Juan Forero.

Image: "An indigenous Ecuadorean woman walks in her community of San Miguel del Prado, north of Quito, Ecuador, Wednesday, March 22, 2006. Thousands of police and soldiers were deployed to clear blocked highways Wednesday after President Alfredo Palacio's government declared a state of emergency in four provinces to curb protests against a proposed free-trade deal with Washington. (AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa R.)". Full-size photo here, here's another, and another.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:01:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Misbehaving players to be crucified in MMORPG

Players who misbehave in the Roman online role-playing game Roma Victor will be punished by having their characters crucified and displayed in public spaces for other players to mock and throw things at. The first crucifixion is being doled out to "Cynewulf," played by a 27 year-old electrical engineer from Flint, Michigan, whose crime is "ganking" (ripping off) new players as they first appear in game. Cynewulf will be hung on the cross for seven days.

Crucifixion is to be used as a form of player 'ban' within the virtual world of Roma Victor, with the length of the ban reflecting the severity of the punishment. For cheating by exploiting a bug and advancing his or her character's skills unfairly, for example, a player might typically receive a seven-day ban; multiple or more serious offenses will result in a longer (or even permanent) ban.

Link (via Terranova)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:59:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Oglala Lakhota president: we'll host abortion clinic on reservation

Responding to South Dakota's statewide abortion ban, the Oglala Lakhota president on the Pine Ridge reservation -- a former nurse -- says she'll provide access to sovereign tribal land for clinics. Snip:

"To me, it is now a question of sovereignty," [Cecilia Fire Thunder] said to [Lakhota Times editor Tim Giago] last week. "I will personally establish a Planned Parenthood clinic on my own land which is within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation where the State of South Dakota has absolutely no jurisdiction."

Link to Native Times article (subscription required), or read excerpt on indybay website here. (Thanks, drogheda, Ryan and others!)

Reader comment: For those wishing to donate cash for the project, or extend messages of support, BoingBoing reader Lampbane says, " Contact info for president Fire Thunder can be found here."

Reader comment: A.V. says,

Careful with the Sioux abortion clinic donations. Although it's a great idea for the clinic, be careful about donations which may not actually go towards the desired destination.... definitely read that post before blindly sending money: Link.

Reader comment: Adam says,

The Planned Parenthood of Minnesota, South Dakota, and North Dakota posted this reponse on their site. Read it before making any donations. They thank the OGLALA SIOUX but indicate that they have no plans to open a clinic on the reservation. Of course, Planned Parenthood is a worthy charity and accepts donations through their official site. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:39:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Comic advises women to call anti-abortion Senator to make their choices

The Minimum Security webcomic sends up South Dakota Senator Bill Napoli, who helped push through the state ban on abortion. It features a woman unable to choose what sort of salad dressing to have, who calls up Napoli's office to get him to make the choice for her -- the strip includes his office and home phone numbers in case you want to try, too. Link (Thanks, Steeltoe!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:23:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO build a toilet-paper air-cannon

This site contains instructions for building your own semi-automatic air-cannon designed to fire rolls of toilet paper.

This will be handy if we're invaded by the kind of Klingons that hang around Uranus.

The real ingenuity lies within the auto loading mechanism of the cannon. It uses a bolt-like system which grabs and places the ammo in the barrel, directing the air flow only to the projectile being fired, and springs back to catch another projectile automatically. This in turns enables this cannon to be a semi-automatic cannon. As said earlier this loader can be used to design a full-auto air cannon relatively easily. Xinventions, is in the process of designing this full-auto cannon, and more info will be available to the public soon.

Link Corrected Link (via Red Ferret)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:11:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO become an early riser

This HOWTO explains how to turn yourself into an early riser. I've always been an early riser -- when I was a kid, I used to get up at 4AM; these days, it's more likely to be between 5 and 6 -- and I love it. I get so much done while everyone else is asleep, by the time I get to work, I've already gotten my blogging done, worked on my novel, cleared out my inbox, done some physiotherapy exercises, Tai Chi and yoga, eaten a healthy breakfast and gone for a walk.

Apparently, non-early-risers make a lot of mistakes when they try to switch -- like just going to bed earlier, or going to bed whenever and waking up whenever. This article, written by someone who's tried many approaches, explains one approach that worked for him.

The solution was to go to bed when I’m sleepy (and only when I’m sleepy) and get up with an alarm clock at a fixed time (7 days per week). So I always get up at the same time (in my case 5am), but I go to bed at different times every night.

I go to bed when I’m too sleepy to stay up. My sleepiness test is that if I couldn’t read a book for more than a page or two without drifting off, I’m ready for bed. Most of the time when I go to bed, I’m asleep within three minutes. I lie down, get comfortable, and immediately I’m drifting off. Sometimes I go to bed at 9:30pm; other times I stay up until midnight. Most of the time I go to bed between 10-11pm. If I’m not sleepy, I stay up until I can’t keep my eyes open any longer. Reading is an excellent activity to do during this time, since it becomes obvious when I’m too sleepy to read.

When my alarm goes off every morning, I turn it off, stretch for a couple seconds, and sit up.

Link (via Evhead)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:04:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FreedomHEC: a hardware conference for liberty

FreedomHEC is an alternative to the annual Microsoft "WinHEC" conference. At WinHEC, Microsoft explains how you need to suck up to them and screw your users if you want your stuff to work in a Trusted Computing world. FreedomHEC (timed to follow WinHEC, also set in Seattle) explains how to use GNU/Linux to set your users free and make better programs.

Who: Hardware engineers and driver developers

What: High-intensity learning, networking and taking-back-the-PC-industry unconference

Where: Seattle, Washington, USA

When: May 26-27, 2006

Why: Take control of your own destiny and make your hardware valuable to the growing Linux market.

Link (via Vitanova)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:58:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Piss-controlled urinal-based video games

Marcel Neundörfer's On Target urinal has a pressure-sensitive screen recessed into it -- score points by shooting the moving images onscreen. Not only does this add much-needed entertainment to otherwise dreary elimination functions, but it also improves aim -- if you stay on target, you'll avoid splashback and misses. Link (Thanks, Vipula!)

Update: Jeff sez, "This is a pretty flagrant copy of this project for the Media Lab, by Dan Maynes-Aminzade." (see this BB post from 2003)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:50:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Firefox plugin converts dollars to barrels of oil

A new Firefox plugin rewrites all the US prices in the pages you load into the equivalent cost in barrels of crude oil. Link (via CNet Blog Esoterica)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:44:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stand-up comic gets his material from dumb patents

Wired News reports on Daniel Wright, a standup comic who gets his material by looking at new patents filed at the USPTO and making fun of them, keeping track of the best on his blog, Patently Silly:

Hardly a week goes by without Patently Silly featuring some new invention for pampering pets, be it the dog umbrella, pet product vending machine or meat-filled flying disk.

In the course of skimming thousands of patents each week, however, Wright also encounters an abundance of patents geared for the poultry and livestock industries. These patents -- which bear names like "spinal cord removal tool with adjustable blades," and "animal sorting and grading system using MRI to predict maximum value" -- offer a rather striking contrast to the soft and cuddly pet genre.

"If you're a dog, you get umbrellas and all kinds of good things," notes Wright. "But if you're a cow, you get stuck in an MRI that'll tell you how good your meat is going to taste...."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:34:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Animated cute zombies getting their asses kicked

Paul Robertson's LiveJournal has tons of delicious looping animated GIFs, apparently from his forthcoming animated short film Pirate Baby's Cabana Street Fight 2006. Most of them show shambling baby zombies that look a little like undead Stortroopers, including a standout one showing the undead getting their asses thoroughly kicked by a kung-fu kid. Link (Thanks, Josh!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:30:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Airport screening doesn't stop knives, bombs, or guns

Bruce Schneier has an excellent article on why current invasive screening procedures are ineffective at stopping bombs, guns and knives from getting on planes, and has suggestions for how to introduce effective security.

One thing, though: his article mentions that in Europe, the ineffective and time-consuming process of separately X-raying laptops isn't practiced, but on my last flights out of Heathrow and Amsterdam airports, last week, I had to take my laptop out for a separate screen.

Of course, this isn't just bad because it wastes time -- it's also a problem because it lets the whole world, including laptop thieves, eyeball every laptop entering the airport. Plus every time you have to hold your shoes, coat, belt, ticket, ID, sweater and laptop while shuffling toward the X-ray machine, there's a chance that you're going to drop your computer and smash it to flinders. We have a security procedure designed for people with nine arms.

It seems like every time someone tests airport security, airport security fails. In tests between November 2001 and February 2002, screeners missed 70 percent of knives, 30 percent of guns and 60 percent of (fake) bombs. And recently (see also this), testers were able to smuggle bomb-making parts through airport security in 21 of 21 attempts. It makes you wonder why we're all putting our laptops in a separate bin and taking off our shoes. (Although we should all be glad that Richard Reid wasn't the "underwear bomber.")

The failure to detect bomb-making parts is easier to understand. Break up something into small enough parts, and it's going to slip past the screeners pretty easily. The explosive material won't show up on the metal detector, and the associated electronics can look benign when disassembled. This isn't even a new problem. It's widely believed that the Chechen women who blew up the two Russian planes in August 2004 probably smuggled their bombs aboard the planes in pieces.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:22:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

HOWTO build magnetic LEDs for glowing fridge pixelart

Instructables has instructions for building magnet-backed LEDs that you can arrange on your fridge into glowing, whimsical pixel-art that will scare you when you come to the dark kitchen for some midnight ice-cream. Link (via Cribcandy)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:37:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Don't Shoot the Puppy Game - win it by doing nothing

Don't Shoot the Puppy -- a dead-simple Flash game. If you move the mouse or type anything, you shoot the puppy. The objective is to not shoot the puppy. Therefore, to win, you must do nothing. Link (via Plasticbag)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:25:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pop song in praise of Belarus's dictator

Lukashenka, the corrupt dictator of Belarus, has a bad pop band campaigning for him in his crooked election. They sing a hilarious song praising him to the skies (and don't miss the video)...

Well-set and slim
He won't teach you evil
Father can bridle anyone
Father is stronger than the rest

He will settle conflicts
He is reliable and calm
He just throws a glance - and you see
Who is the master in the house

My grandfather came from Belarus -- I'm just glad he got out when he did, otherwise this might be the themesong of my homeland. Link (Thanks, Brendan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:49:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Phil Torrone's Robot Dance Party

Phil Torrone of MAKE: hosted a robot dance party and posted a video of the festivities!
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:44:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Podcast from ex-Mormon "accidental terrorist"

My pal Bill Shunn calls himself an "accidental terrorist" because he once threatened to blow up an airplane while working as a young Mormon missionary in Calgary, Alberta. His hilarious memoir of accidental terrorism is now appearing in his podcast as a serial -- and between his great reading and the great material, it's bound to be one of my favorite podcasts for the weeks to come. Link (Thanks, Bill!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:39:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Apple's hypocritical slam against French DRM-interop law

Apple has issued a statement damning a proposed French law that would force it and other music-crippleware companies to license its technology to anyone who wants to build a music player.

Apple condemned the proposal as "state-sponsored piracy" and warned that it would result in its customers filling their iPods with "pirate" videos and music. This is intensely hypocritical. Apple ships millions of iPods holding up to 10,000 songs. Most customers for 60GB iPods have fewer than 10,000 songs' worth of CDs and no one is buying $10,000 worth of iTunes. While there's a certain amount of public domain and Creative Commons music likely to end up on iPods, and some video these days, there's no question that Apple's iPod business is built on the average customer's need for a way to take her/his unauthorized music downloads on the road.

What's more, as Steve Jobs explained to Rolling Stone in 2003, iTunes DRM doesn't stop people from making and sharing unauthorized copies of their music:

None of this technology that you're talking about's gonna work. We have Ph.D.'s here, that know the stuff cold, and we don't believe it's possible to protect digital content. . . . . [There is] this amazingly efficient distribution system for stolen property called the Internet --- and no one's gonna shut down the Internet. And it only takes one stolen copy to be on the Internet. And the way we expressed it to them is: Pick one lock -- open every door. It only takes one person to pick a lock. Worst case: Somebody just takes the analog outputs of their CD player and rerecords it -- puts it on the Internet. You'll never stop that. So what you have to do is compete with it.

If Apple doesn't think iTunes stops "piracy," then why include it? Because it lets them send legal threats to competitors like Real when they make players for their own DRMed music that run on Apple devices. Real's effort to put a Real player on the iPod wouldn't have helped anyone commit "piracy" -- nor would the French law. All it would do is give iPod owners the option to buy their crummy DRM-crippled music from someone other than Apple, maybe getting a better price or better features or both.

In a response issued after the law won initial approval, Apple said: "If this happens, legal music sales will plummet just when legitimate alternatives to piracy are winning over customers."

But, it added, the law could prove a boon for Apple and its popular iPod music players.

Said Apple: "iPod sales will likely increase as users freely load their iPods with "interoperable" music which cannot be adequately protected. Free movies for iPods should not be far behind in what will rapidly become a state-sponsored culture of piracy."

Link (Thanks, Herve, Dave and Peanutbutter13!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:35:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vinge's scientific computing Nature article about MMORPGs

Nature Magazine has publised a free, online/offine issue about scientific computing -- the way that science is advanced by computers.

One standout article (among many worthy pieces) is this article on massively multiplayer online role-playing games written by Vernor Vinge, the computer scientist and Hugo-award winning science fiction writer who coined the term "Singularity" and wrote the absolutely seminal proto-cyberpunk story True Names.

How can we prepare for such a future? Perhaps that is the most important research project for our creativity machine. We need to exploit the growing sensor/effector layer to make the world itself a real-time database. In the social, human layers of the Internet, we need to devise and experiment with large-scale architectures for collaboration. We need linguists and artificial-intelligence researchers to extend the capabilities of search engines and social networks to produce services that can bridge barriers created by technical jargon and forge links between unrelated specialties, bringing research groups with complementary problems and solutions together — even when those groups have not noticed the possibility of collaboration. In the end, computers plus networks plus people add up to something significantly greater than the parts. The ensemble eventually grows beyond human creativity. To become what? We can't know until we get there.

Link (Thanks, Timo!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:19:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Silver jewelry shaped like everyday objects

This site sells silver jewelry shaped like household objects like macaroni, fruit loops, Pez, and Barrel of Monkeys monkeys. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:14:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Morphing materials

MIT researchers are making strides in the development of "smart materials" that can change shape. For example, imagine an airplane wing that morphs for better aerodynamics. The researchers' approach is based on the same principal that causes the material in lithium batteries to expand and contract during charging and recharging. From the MIT News Office:

In the quest for materials that would allow such morphing, engineers have recently focused on nature's approach to the problem. A plant that bends toward the light, quickly furls its leaves when touched, or pushes a concrete sidewalk aloft with its roots is essentially moving fluids between cells.

(Materials scientist Yet-Ming) Chiang realized that the solid compounds used to store electrical energy in lithium rechargeable batteries could be made to work in a similar way. The movement of ions to and from these materials during charging and recharging, he thought, was analogous to the moving fluids in plants...

The researchers have already demonstrated basic battery-based actuators that can pull and push with large force. Later this year, they hope to demonstrate the shape-morphing of a helicopter rotor blade. The morphing capability should allow for a more efficient design, ultimately making it possible for a vehicle to carry heavier loads.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:09:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cryptozoology action figures

At Cryptomundo, Craig Woolheater posted glamour shots of a number of cryptozoology action figures that have been created over the years. Sasquatch! Mothman! Jersey Devil! Collect them all! (Seen here, the Shadowbox Myths & Legends Bigfoot from 1996.)
Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:50:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hitchcock's The Birds becomes reality

A flock of crows is attacking residents of Warwick, England. First, the crows were targeting cars, scratching them up and tearing off windshield wipers. Now they've reportedly moved on to humans. Colin Wilkinson, a conservation officer with the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, suggests that people "protect themselves by wearing hats" and not leave any food scraps around. From the BBC News:

"It is most unusual for these birds to do this, (Wilkinson said.)

"Attacking cars occurs from time to time but graduating to attacking humans is more rare.

"It is hard to explain except if it is an instinctive reaction to someone who is close to what they regard as their territory."

He said it was the time of year that crows would be pairing up, building nests and laying eggs.

"It simply might be that they are being more aggressive at this time of year, that is the most likely explanation," Mr Wilkinson.

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:37:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kinetic sculpture accuses patrons of crimes

Artist Thomas Edwards has created this sculpture titled Blame, which senses the presence of gallery visitors and then swings an arm with an accusing finger towards one hapless person, and in a loud voice "proceeds to blame the viewer for some horrible crime against society. After that, the arm returns to scanning for a new victim to blame."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:21:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Yahoo: if you use our ads, you have to block non-US visitors

LDM sez,

I joined the Yahoo Publisher Network, a beta program through which Yahoo provides text ads in much the same way that Google does. I started running the Yahoo text ads on many of my web sites.

A couple of days ago Yahoo sent me a notice stating they'd revised their Publisher Policy. Item '11.l' stated that I will not "display all or part of the Ad Unit to any user located outside the US". In other words, I can't allow users outside of the United States to view my pages if there is a Yahoo ad on the page!

More...

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:49:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Discovering asteroid craters using Google Earth

Emilio González writes about using Google Earth to discover asteroid impact craters.

But the most important thing is, probably, that using a free distributed software ( Google Earth, but I'm also using NASA World Wind) anyone can search for similar structures. Probably I was very lucky, as after this success I spent many hours searching for more without results.

Link (thanks, Kazys!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:16:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Funny FedEx T-shirt

T-shirt looks like you have a FedEx envelope under your arm.
Link (Thanks, Phil!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:58:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

YouTube perplexes Hollywood, Lazy Sunday a watershed.

Over at Lost Remote blog, Cory Bergman writes:

NBC and CBS are two of the companies that we know have sent nastygrams to YouTube over copyrighted video, and I'm sure there are many more. YouTube co-founder Chad Hurley says in some cases, the same company is both uploading video and ordering YouTube to take it down. "There's been a few examples of marketing departments uploading content directly to the site, while on the other side of the company their attorney is demanding we remove this content," Hurley said. (...) Did you know YouTube has twice the traffic of Yahoo! Video and more than three times that of Google Video and AOL Video? Wow!

YouTube was also the subject of a cover story yesterday in trade mag Hollywood Reporter, along with the Lonely Island guys, whose Chronic-WHAT-cles of Narnia SNL phenom left television and movie biz execs deeply perplexed: "Do we mack on the cupcakes, or sue them?"

Link to THR story on YouTube, and Link to THR story on "Lazy Sunday."

Previous BoingBoing posts: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:42:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bob Staake's Struwwelpeter

Bob Staake is a terrific children's book illustrator (here's a great interview with him at Pixelsurgeon). My kids love all his books. Today, Fantagraphics released Staake's latest book, Struwwelpeter, and it's his best work yet. The art (which Staake draws using his ancient copy of Adobe Photoshop 3.0!) is creepy and happy at the same time, which is my favorite kind.

Struwwelpeter is Staake's adaptation of Der Struwwelpeter, a teach-kids-morality-through-fear book written 160 years ago by Heinrich Hoffman. When Staake was a child, he was exposed to the original book's, and never forgot its frightening and gory illustrations of mayhem and punishment.

The "scissor scene" (top) from Hoffmann's original Struwwelpeter. This is the image that haunted Staake (and others) from childhood on -- and the power of the gruesome scene compelled Staake to reinterpret the Hoffmann classic in 2006.

Staake's Struwwelpeter is both a faithful adaptation of the original and an inspired reexamination. it's my favorite book of the year.

Be sure to check out the excellent website Staake made for the book, which contains many sample pages, and historical notes on the original book and its author. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:34:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Switzerland: 240 people build 100 igloos in 12 hours

In Switzerland last weekend, a new and odd world record: 240 people built a village of one hundred igloos in 12 hours, with no motorized help. Link (Thanks, Jens Riedweg)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:30:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fight for your right to keitai: geeks in Japan protest anti-vintage-tech ban

A recently-proposed law in Japan would outlaw many forms of vintage electronics and handheld gadgetry. Dozens of old-school electronic music enthusiasts in Japan took to the streets this week to protest (the ban may outlaw old synths and boomboxen). Here are photos. Tom at MusicThing blog posts details on the acts of civil geekobedience in Japan, and says,

I want to see the birth of an utterly ruthless terrorist organisation devoted to the protection of dusty musical gear. Someone should kidnap the relevant minister's family and torture them with copies of Country Moog: Switched on Nashville until the law is repealed.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:22:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nationwide 'net censoring update: Australia, Guatemala

Labor party politicians in Australia want to censor the country's internet using state-mandated content bans that would be maintained by internet service providers:

Under the policy, announced by Opposition Leader Kim Beazley today, international websites would be banned by the Australian Communications and Media Authority if they contained graphic sexual or violent material, rated R or higher.

Link to Herald Sun news report.

And in Guatemala (where the death squads are back in business, and reportedly canoodling with US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld), a similar plan is under way.

The Australian Scottish censorware maker selling the filtering tech to Guatemalan ISPs calls its product a "broadband condom." Snip:

Yesterday, Bridge announced it had signed a deal with locally based Red Technologies to manufacture the GuardianBox in Guatemala and take licence revenue from all boxes used in the country. The contract requires the filtering system to be refined to recognise offensive Spanish terms. It is expected to be worth around £250,000 a year.

Link to Scotsman news article.

Kathryn Cramer has a related post on her blog here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:12:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO preserve a snowflake

I've previously posted about Wilson Alwyn Bentley who in the late 19th century created an amazing collection of snowflake photomicrographs. Inspired by Bentley, Icelandic chemist Tryggvi Emilsson came up with a way to "preserve" the structure of snowflakes using superglue and microscope slides. The snowflake seen here has been stored in Emilsson's desk since 1979. From Popular Science:

1. Set microscope slides, coverslips and superglue outside when it’s 20°F or colder to chill them. Catch flakes on the slides or pick them up with cold tweezers.

2. Place a drop of superglue on the snowflake. Note: Gel glue doesn’t work. Find a brand that’s thin and runny.

3. Drop a coverslip over the glue. Don’t press down hard or the flake could tear or melt from the heat of your finger.

4. Leave the slide in a freezer for one or two weeks and don’t touch it with warm hands. The glue must completely harden before the snowflake warms up.

Link (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:07:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Blog condos, part 2: better than a home page.

Here is another apartment complex in Taiwan in which units are branded "BLOGS." Link. This Taipei building is called "MRT Blog," and the MRT is the city's subway system. (Thanks, Poagao)

Previously:
In Taiwan, a condo project called "BLOG"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:59:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Modern Marvels Invent Now challenge - top 25 inventions of 2006

On the Make blog, Phil Torrone recaps Modern Marvels' top 25 inventions of 2006. Shown here: Matthew C. Grossman's "Shift Bicycle," designed to teach kids how to ride a two wheeler. As the tricycle picks up speed, the rear wheels get closer together, until they merge into a single wheel.
Link

Reader comment: John says:

In the story posted today is mentioned Matthew Grossman as the sole inventor of the SHIFT Bike. Others were also involved as part of a design project at Purdue, under the guidance of professor Scott Shim and in tandem with alumni Ryan Lightbody. The linked to article in question seems to state that it was designed in Austin, Tx. The original press release for the bike is linked here.

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

Aerial mural of Sacto River woven into carpet at Sacto International Aiport

Iranian artist Seyed Alavi has installed this beautiful mural of an aerial view of the Sacramento River woven into the carpet of a skybridge in Sacramento International Airport. Link (Thanks, Retank!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:09:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

Jewelry made from Cracker Jack toys

This Etsy seller produces lovely brooches and necklaces built from Cracker Jack toys. Link (Thanks, Irene!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:54:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Open firmware for MP3 players - iPods, Archos, and iRiver

RockBox is a set of "open firmware" for various MP3 players, including the iPod, Archos and iRiver players. The firmware is the operating system for the player, which determines how the player behaves, what programs it can run, and what restrictions it puts on your actions. By loading an open firmware on your player, you get total freedom and lots of bonus features, like video-games and other third-party software. The code itself is free/open source software and has a giant and active developer community that's always adding new features to it. Link (Thanks, Pat!)

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

Portraits of cans of ashes of 5,000 mental patients' remains

Ken sez, "Last year you ran a story about the cremated remains of 5000 people found in the closet of an Oregon psychiatric hospital. Turns out photographer David Maisel has been carefully documenting the canisters that hold those people's remains (!), taking individual photographic portraits of each one. Link (Thanks, Ken L!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:44:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Online sexual material is obscene if any community in US objects

The Supreme Court of the United States has declined to overturn an important case about obscenity and the Internet, leaving anyone who publishes sexual material on the Internet in uncertainty about whether they're open to federal penalties.

At stake is the obscenity section of the Communications Decency Act, which bans publishing "obscene" material on the net. The problem is that US courts use "local standards" to determine whether something is obscene -- so if in the eyes of some local community, the material is obscene, then you can't distribute it there.

But the Internet can distribute material into all communities in the country, and because the Communications Decency Act is federal, prosecutors can bring their charges in the most sex-o-phobic corner of the country (say, the conservative Catholic private town that the guy who founded Domino's Pizza is building in Florida).

By turning down this case, the Supremes have said that the whole country is now subject to the decency standards from its most conservative, anti-sex, anti-nudity corners; that the local standard from that place will become the national standard.

"According to the court's decision," Alan Levy, a lawyer and member of the NCSF, wrote in an article for the New York Law Journal last year, "in order to prove that the statute is overbroad, one would have to present evidence regarding each of the 1.4 million web sites and determine whether each of the local communities in the Unied States would deem the material on that Web site as obscene. ... Considering that there are 94 federal districts in the country (temporarily ignoring that there are numerous communities within a district); if one multiplies the number 1,400,000 by 94, we reveal 131,600,000 possible applications of the CDA, and that only applies to adult sites that happen to have material related to [sadomasochism]."

Link (Thanks, Seth!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:40:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's "I, Robot" is up for a Hugo!

The final Hugo Ballot is online, and my story I, Robot is a finalist for the best novelette! w00t!

Best Novelette
(207 ballots cast)
"The Calorie Man", Paolo Bacigalupi (F&SF October/November 2005)
"Two Hearts", Peter S. Beagle (F&SF October/November 2005)
"TelePresence", Michael A. Burstein (Analog July/August 2005)
"I, Robot”, Cory Doctorow (The Infinite Matrix February 15, 2005)
"The King of Where-I-Go", Howard Waldrop (SCI FICTION December 7, 2005)

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:24:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scientology Pageant used kids to make musical fun of CoS

What with Tom Cruise reportedly killing South Park's Scientology episode it's a good time to blog about "A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant," a 2003 musical depicting the kooky teachings of the Church of Scientology. You can even buy the soundtrack album!

A jubilant cast of children celebrate the controversial religion in uplifting pageantry and song. The actual teachings of The Church of Scientology are explained and dissected against the candy-colored backdrop of a traditional nativity play.

Avant-garde performance art and children's theater meet in one of the funniest and most bewildering holiday shows you will ever see: the OBIE Award-winning ironic masterpiece A Very Merry Unauthorized Children's Scientology Pageant.

(image caption: "Chigoziri Ikeme, Mario Quinonez, and Nikki Haddad as Thetans, Molly Matzke as Prince Xenu, Kristopher Barnett, and Kyle Kaplan as L. Ron")

Link (via Neatorama)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:22:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canadian music industry pollsters slime Michael Geist, spin spin spin!

A Canadian pollster has slimed a law prof who posted his own analysis of their results, and the prof has fought back with more analysis of their rebuttal, making them look like even bigger jerks.

Michael Geist is the copyfightin' prof who posted an incendiary analysis of a poll conducted on behalf of the Canadian Record Industry Association. Michael found that a close examination of the poll revealed that downloaders buy more music than non-downloaders and many other points that invalidate the hysterical rhetoric of Big Music.

Pollara, who conducted the survey is a "single-issue pollster" who conducts polls on behalf of industry groups who need stats to back up their talking points. They responded to Michael's post with an 11-page memo that purported to rebut Michael, and went on to call him "impertinent and presumptuous" and that they hoped he wouldn't "distract us from the serious business at hand."

Michael's posted a great rebuttal of their memo:

* I noted the Pollara data found that P2P sources constituted only one-third of the music on people's computers.  Pollara argues that this only reflects the music on their hard drives, not their downloading activity. I frankly don't understand their complaint here.  They didn't ask about downloading activity, they asked about the source of music on their computers.  If they were to ask about all their music (online and offline), I suspect the number would be even lower as many users might well have more CDs that they have not digitized.

* Pollara seems to step out of the role of pollster in their memo by regularly offering what amount to legal opinions on music copying.  At page three of the response, they lump together P2P downloading, sharing with friends, and copying CDs that might not be their own.  Perhaps Pollara is unaware of the private copying user right that exists under current Canadian law that has generated more than $140 million for artists and the industry which specifically covers much of this copying.  This is not, as Pollara suggests, "unpaid-for-music" but rather copying that is well compensated. 

Michael's giving a talk at Toronto's Hart House on Mar 30, too. Link (Thanks, Michael and Derek!)

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

Lab Notes from UC Berkeley, March 2006

My latest issue of Lab Notes, research from UC Berkeley's College of Engineering, is now online. I hope you enjoy it! In this issue:

* Fracture mechanics of human bones

* How cells move

* Wi-Fi for auto safety

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:20:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

China: Blogger, documentarian Hao Wu held one month

Snip from a statement today by human rights advocacy group Reporters Without Borders:

[D]ocumentary filmmaker Hao Wu (...) was arrested in Beijing on 22 February after attending a meeting of members of a protestant church not recognised by the government as part of the preparation of his next documentary.

Hao, who lived for more than 10 years in the United States, is a contributor to Global Voices (...) "Hao's only crime has been to do his job as journalist in an independent manner," Reporters Without Borders said in its letter to [Chinese] President Hu [Jintao]. The organisation also called on US diplomats to raise Hao's case with the Chinese authorities, above all as part of the preparations for Hu's visit to the United States next month.

Hao was detained by the Beijing division of the State Security Bureau, which has officially confirmed his arrest. Two days after his arrest, police raided his home, seizing videotapes and editing equipment. He has not been charges and the authorities have not explained why they are holding him. Global Voices said they authorities could be trying to get him to provide information about China's underground protestant churches.

Using the nom de blog "Beijing Loafer", Hao maintained an online journal at Beijing or Bust, which was also the title of one of his documentary films. To foil China's state-run internet filters, Hao mirrored his blog at MSN Spaces. Under the alias Tian Yi, he also contributed in English to Global Voices. GV co-founder Ethan Zuckerman has launched a  support site for Hao. Snip:

Why didn’t we speak out about his detention earlier?
Hao’s family and friends in China have deflected questions about his detention for the past month, as authorities in contact with people close to Hao have urged them not to publicize the case. There had been hope that his detention was only for a short period of time, in which case publicity would not have been helpful.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:39:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO technically illustrate a cruise ship

Technical illustrator Kevin Hulsey has posted a fascinating explanation of how he used Adobe Illustrator to create an incredibly-detailed cutaway illustration of a cruise ship. All Hulsey had for reference was a paper blueprint. The illustration took him 720 hours to complete. From the HOWTO in the "Lessons & Tutorials" section of Hulsey's site:

All of the initial line art was done in vector based Adobe Illustrator. Most of the final color work.. was done in Adobe Photoshop. The techniques used in this demonstration tutorial are applicable to any 3 dimensional perspective drawing, regardless of scale or complexity.

This project presented many unique challenges. The actual ship was still in Germany being completed when I started the project. There was no photography or CAD reference to work from, only the paper blueprint... In order to have the brochures completed by the time the ship went into service, the final illustration had to be finished in under two months.

Link (via Drawn!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:34:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How to reach NoKo musical director who pawned kidney

Over at NPR's new "Mixed Signals" blog, host JJ Sutherland updates the story of Yodok Story director Jung Sungsan. Sungsan's musical recently opened in Seoul, and tells the tale of his imprisonment in a North Korean gulag. JJ explains:

Many people have posted or written in asking how they can give money [to Sungsan, who] put up a kidney as collateral for a loan to finance the show. (Here's the full story.)

NPR's Louisa Lim found the contact info. The person to email is Binna Choi (binna77 at hanmail.net). You can reach Jung Sungsan directly (mrjung1117 at yahoo.co.kr), but he speaks no English so any messages in English should be sent to Binna.

Me, I'm kind of skeptical about the kidney-hock part of this story, but Sungsan claims what he claims. What do I know about North Korean gulag musicals? Besides, stranger things have been pawned for showbiz, here or in Seoul. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:09:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Two new paintings by Amy Crehore

One of my favorite artists, Amy Crehore, just finished two more "Monkey Love" paintings. (Click on thumbnails for enlargement) The one on the left is called The Two Timer, and the one on the right is called The Nibbler. See more of her lovely work at her site. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:57:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mexican movie theater lobby cards

Steve Worth, curator of that bottomless cornucopia of stunning mid-century art and illustration, the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive Project Blog, says: "I just posted a fun batch of scifi, horror and adventure related Mexican lobby cards from the late 50s and early 60s. I'm asking the readers to analyze the images and suggest visual techniques the artists use to try to entice moviegoers to buy a ticket. Fun stuff!"
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:51:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Apocalpyse Pooh mashup movie from 1987

Andrew Tonkin says: Came across this quite by accident on Wikipedia - a 1987 (!) mash-up of Winnie the Pooh and Apocalpyse Now. It's brilliant, and lots of fun seeing which Hundred Acre Wood characters wind up on the PBR Street Gang. This seems right in line with the current "trailer remix" trend, even though it was made nearly 20 years ago!"
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:46:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Salvation Mountain

Tinselman has an entry about Salvation Mountain, a desert hill near the Salton Sea in California that's being continuously decorated with brilliantly colored things by a man named Leonard Knight.

Rising up out of the desert near Niland California is Leonard Knight's whimsical vision of paradise: waterfalls, flowers, streets of gold, fields of rich green grass and towering pines. It virtually blankets a small hill and still, he continues to build.

Link

Reader comment: Bart says: "We've gone out to Salvation Mountain several times, each time showing more friends and family what Leonard has done. That entire southeast region of the Salton Sea has many interesting stops including Slab City (snowbirds and squatters community on a deserted military base), Bombay Beach (half underwater) and the numerous bird preserves (one dedicated by Sonny Bono). Quite an interesting place. I recently snapped a bunch of photos while out there.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:40:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

In Taiwan, a condo project called "BLOG"

A real estate developer in Taiwan decided to cash in on the coolness associated with the word "blog" by branding a condo project "BLOG." One problem, though: they neglected to register the "myblog.com" domain they stuck all over related ads.

Link to snapshot, and Link to related post on "Taipei Nights" blog, which is not a condo project at all. Neither is BoingBoing, despite the fact that it is my home. (Thanks, Peter and Premshree)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:28:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Three years ago: Iraq war zeitgeist in BoingBoing archives

On March 20, 2003, the US-led invasion of Iraq began. I don't spend much time sifting through BoingBoing's archives, but just now I clicked on March, 2003 to look back at posts we made about the beginning of the war. Here's a fistful:

• Paul Boutin -- "Where is Raed" Iraq blog: hoax? real?
• Media giant ClearChannel sponsoring pro-war rallies
• Photos of San Francisco business district shutdown
• Is Iraq's Internet still functioning?
• US military leaflets dropped over Iraq
• War-blogging worth reading
• War demonstration pics, vids, audio fills blogs today
• Resignation letter from US diplomat who quit to protest war
• John Perry Barlow: "War in the Land of Peace"
• NYT on mobile tech and frontline war reporting
• WP's Howard Kurtz on warblogs
• French's Mustard: Eat me! I'm not French!
• SMS-psyops: CIA using cellphone spam in war on Iraq
• Newsweek's Steven Levy on warblogging
• American Military operation automatic name-generator
• Iraq-o-meter provides dashboard glimpse of war
• A Librarian slams the PATRIOT Act
• Snacks of Mass Destruction
• How to watch Iraqi Satellite TV on the web: The Saddam Show

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:59:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos: 3rd year since Iraq invasion marked with protests.

Protests commemorating three years since the US-led invasion of Iraq are documented in photo streams at Flickr and other image-sharing sites. Relevant tags include antiwarprotest, march20, peacemarch, and of course, Iraq.

Shown here, Matthew Bradley's photos of a protest yesterday at the Pentagon. Link. (Thanks, Arnold Edmayer, spotted on DCist).

Below: found on Flickr under the "iraq" tag and shot by Daniel Ross -- evidence that Cartman was here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:42:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hilarious productivity speech from Merlin Mann

Merlin Mann -- of the 43 Folders productivity blog -- gave an hilarious speech at BayCHI last week. Merlin is a very funny guy (see his laugh-aloud 5ives site for proof), and he's got a really good handle on personal productivity. MP3 Link (Thanks, Paul!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:34:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Audio from Sunday's "Copyfighters" talks at Hyde Park

Sunday was the first public London Copyfighters' Drunken Brunch and Talking Shop, a monthly fake-champagne brunch followed by impromptu speeches at Hyde Park's Speaker's Corner. Jose recorded the event and turned it into a podcast. Link

(see Flickr for the pics.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:16:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Right-wing think-tank hates DRM

The Cato Institute, an ultra-libertarian, right-wing think tank, has released a white paper damning the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act's ban on breaking the anti-copying systems used to cripple digital media, like DVDs and iTunes songs.

It's amazing to watch crippleware come under attack from all points of the compass -- Marxists and anarchists hate DRM. Libertarians hate DRM. Media studies people, economists, and musicians hate DRM.

But it takes sharp free-market types like the Cato characters to bust out elegant critiques like this one:

The movie industry has every right to segment the worldwide market for DVDs, but it should bear the costs of doing so. Those costs might include requiring no-resale contracts with distributors and monitoring sales in low-price countries to make sure DVDs were not being resold outside their intended market. Deciding whether those costs would be worthwhile might be difficult. The indus- try’s desire for market segmentation is not, however, a good reason to outlaw the sale of unofficial DVD players. The role of government is not to ensure that a private business’s pricing strategy succeeds, and consumers, who have not agreed to help enforce the DVD cartel’s segmentation scheme, are under no obligation to respect it.

I've heard for years that the Cato Institute was divided on DRM and copyright, so it's good to seem them taking a stand now. I think they've only scratched the surface, though. Of special interest to free-marketeers should be the way that DRM lets Apple hijack the music companies' copyright monopoly and turn it into a tax on Apple customers who switch from an iPod to a competing product. You can keep your MP3s if you switch from Windows to Mac, but if you switch from iPod to Creative, kiss your iTunes goodbye. Talk about anti-competitive!

And how about TiVo updating its devices to cripple them after their customers have already paid for them? Or Macrovision using its monopoly over DVD anti-analog tech to jack up its licensing prices to the movie industry? If you like free markets, DRM are a nightmare from top to bottom. Link (via Michael Geist)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:15:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coop essay on real life 70s superheroes

Artist Coop wrote a glorious essay commemorating his nitro-fueled heroes of the 1970s, especially Evel Knievel.

It would be hard for someone born after 1980 to understand the hallowed place Evel held in the imagination of a kid back then. Forget fakes like Superman and Spider-Man, we had a real-life superhero to worship, a hero who dressed like a star-spangled Elvis, rode a Harley, smashed his bones like brittle Ortega taco shells, and who, in his ultimate act of insanity (and some would say of hubris) climbed into a red-white-and-blue rocket and shot himself over the gaping chasm of the Snake River Canyon. Like Icarus, he didn't complete his flight; missing the far side of the canyon, he plummeted to the canyon floor, narrowly avoiding drowning in the river below. I can still remember witnessing this event on ABC's Wide World Of Sports. just as I can instantly recall his painful slo-motion Caesar's Palace crash, the Zapruder film of my generation. As a kid, I had all the Evel Knievel toys, of course, and later tried to jump drainage ditches on my dirt bike in imitation of Knievel, earning a broken collarbone for my troubles.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:01:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Perplex City "wave 3 card" puzzle

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) My daughter and I have been having a lot of fun solving the card puzzles in Perplex City (an alternate reality game that I previously wrote about here.)

The kind folks at Perplex City know I'm a fan, so they've given Boing Boing an exclusive link to a new card that will be available as a real card later this month. But you can solve it here and still earn a point. Also, Michael Smith, one of the creators of Perplex City, will be on G4's Attack of the Show tonight.)
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:53:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Reasons to take math in high school

Espen Andersen -- a Norwegian net-head and a prof at the Norwegian School of Management -- has written an excellent article on why students should choose math at the high-school level, giving 12 reasons to pursue math at the secondary level. Here are my two favorites:

Choose math because you will lose less money. When hordes of idiots throw their money at pyramid schemes, it is partially because they don't know enough math. Specifically, if you know a little bit about statistics and interest calculations, you can look through economic lies and wishful thinking. With some knowledge of hard sciences you will probably feel better, too, because you will avoid spending your money and your hopes on alternative medicine, crystals, magnets and other swindles -- simply because you know they don't work...

Choose math because you will live in a world of constant change. New technology and new ways of doing things change daily life and work more and more. If you have learned math, you can learn how and why things work, and avoid scraping by through your career, supported by Post-It Notes and Help files -- scared to death of accidentally pressing the wrong key and running into something unfamiliar.

Link (Thanks, Espen!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:43:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kite folds up small enough to hang on a keyring

The Keyring Kite fits in your pocket and unfolds to something 80cm long, with 30m of string included! Link (via Gizmodo)

Update: Sasha found this on sale on a US web-store for only $3.50!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:29:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pics from Shawn Wolfe art opening in Seattle

Longtime bOING bOING (the zine) and Happy Mutant Handbook contributor Shawn Wolfe had an art opening at Goods last week in Seattle, where he exhibited paintings as well as customized Adidas shoes.

Adicolor is this Adidas shoe that's being (re)introduced this week and there were similar solo artist shows in NYC, LA (and a couple other cities, not sure where) The blank white shoe comes with miniature Adidas spray paints and markers.

For these events the artist was given two pairs to customize. You'll see mine there. One pair reads "Trans" "Action" and the other pair reads "Movin'" "Units" (And new paintings on wood panels hanging in the background.)

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:22:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sun ships free and open microprocessor

Sun has released the "code" for one of their microchips, the new OpenSPARC, under the free/open GPL license. This is awesome news -- now, if only Sun would stop shipping crippleware DRM that relies on trusted computing to shaft its users, I'd be totally, utterly thrilled.

Goals of the OpenSPARC Initiative

* To significantly increase participation in processor architecture development and application design by making cutting-edge hardware intellectual property freely available.
* To eliminate barriers to the next big build-out of the Internet.
* To improve collaboration and cooperation among hardware designers.
* To enable community members to build on proven technology at a markedly lower cost.
* To encourage innovation.
* To foster bringing bold new products to market.

Link (via Lessig)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:05:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Marshmallow gun from eTech Farked

In Make Vol 2, we ran instructions on how to make a marshmallow shooter gun. At this year's eTech conference, we brought a bunch of supplies so attendees could make their own.

Scott Beale of Laughing Squid took this awesome photo of a marshmallow gun in action, and it was picked up by Fark, where countless funmakers fired up their copies of photoshopped and tweaked the photo in hilarious ways. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:58:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mark on radio today at 10am Pacific

I'll be on a radio show called Your Call today at 10am to talk about Make and DIY. I'll be joined by my friend Shoshana Berger, editor of ReadyMade magazine.

It's on 91.7 KALW in Berkeley San Francisco. You can listen to the KALW stream here, and an archive will be available after the show here.

On the next Your Call, we're whipping out the tin snips and firing up the soldering iron. The DIY movement is back in force and isn't just punk rockers and suburban housewives. Every week a new magazine pops up on knitting, whittling or home repair. Are people actually doing any of this? Or is being handy as much a fantasy as other magazine standy-bys, like having rock hard abs? We asked you to try two projects, and we tried our hand at them ourselves. Join us as we talk to the editors of Make Magazine and Berkeley's-own Ready Made and on the next Your Call with Rebecca Roberts and you.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:34:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bigfoot video shot in Minnesota?

Over at Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman looks at a video clip that a man named Richard Sade says is a Bigfoot he caught on tape at the side of a road in Ely, Minnesota in January. One would think that a real Bigfoot from Minnesota wouldn't be so stumbly in the snow. From Loren's post:

I have no background or personal information on Richard Sade. Who is he? What was he doing on the road at that hour? Is this a hoax? Does the hair seem rather long on this Sasquatch? Is it a good video? What was the weather like at 4:30 am near Ely, Minnesota on that January day? Have there been other recent sightings from around there? If Bigfoot exists, won’t we expect such new footage to appear? What is actually seen occurring in this video? Is it a human in a suit or an authentic unknown hairy hominoid?

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:55:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fake eggs with plants inside

Egglings are ceramic eggs with seeds. They're $8.95 each and are available seeded with lobelia, phlox, thyme, mint, and petunia (seen here). From the ELSEWARES product description:

These ceramic EGGLINGS look and feel just like real eggs. Just crack one open, add water, and you’ve created a springtime oasis for your desk or window (even if it's winter outside). Each comes with a terra cotta tray and seed pack. Growing is EASY — plants thrive for months in their shell and can be replanted in soil. Sold individually.

Link (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:38:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Octavia Butler scholarship will send people of color to Clarion

In February, we brought you the sad news that Octavia Butler, the genius science fiction writer, had died unexpectedly.

Now a charitable scholarship has been founded her name. The Octavia E. Butler Memorial Scholarship Fund will "will enable writers of color to attend one of the Clarion writing workshops, where Octavia got her start." These are the science fiction writers' workshops in Seattle and East Lansing that serve as a kind of "boot camp for science fiction writers," graduating talented writers who often go on to fame in the field and outside of it (I am on the Board of Directors of the charity that oversees Clarion East).

The charity is seeking tax-deductible donations to raise a full endowment of $100,000.

Octavia E. Butler (1947 - 2006) was a brilliant African American writer who broke barriers with her courageous and profoundly truthful books and stories. Winner of many awards including a MacArthur Fellowship, and speculative fiction's highest honors, the Hugo and the Nebula, Octavia was greatly loved during her lifetime and will be greatly missed.

Link (Thanks, Alex!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:25:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

South Park petition: No, Tom Cruise, censorship is not awesome!

Supporters of South Park who've launched a web petition and protest-letter campaign say:

Comedy Central suddenly switched out episodes of South Park -- replacing the previously-scheduled "Trapped in the Closet" without any explanation. According to a friend of mine (secretary for a certain company that owns Comedy Central), Tom Cruise has blackmailed the company into not showing the episode, which portrays him as a homosexual and his religion (Scientology) as a cult.

Update, 522pm PT: Here's a new url for the protest site: chefgate.info.
More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:50:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

France will let MSFT play iTunes - but what about open source players?

The French Parliament is considering a law that would force music-lockware companies like Apple and Microsoft to license their anti-copying software to other companies, so that customers who bought crippled music could play it on other vendors' players.

This is a good step, but for me, it leaves the big question hanging: will Apple and Microsoft have to license their players to free and open source software authors? The problem is that anti-copying software always comes with a licensing condition that requires implementors to design their players so that users can't modify them. It's like requiring everyone who licenses your internal combustion engine design to weld the hood shut.

Free and open source software (FOSS) -- collectively authored programs like GNU/Linux, Firefox, Sendmail, Apache and VLC -- has proven itself to be an important new way of producing valuable goods and services. From Amazon to Google, from the US military to the Mac OS, everyone who uses computers relies on FOSS to keep them running. What's more, FOSS upsets the dominance of incumbents in the marketplace, letting new entrepreneurs, non-profits, individuals and educational institutions compete with entrenched giants.

But the cornerstone of FOSS is that it should be modifiable by its users. Even though most of us will never write a line of code (no more than most of us will service our car-engines), the ability for all users to choose to understand, modify, improve upon and distribute the software they use is fundamental to FOSS.

Now, given that all anti-copying software requires that users can't modify it -- because you could change the "don't copy this" routine to a "allow this to be copied" routine -- and given that FOSS requires user-modifiability, how will the French Parliament resolve it?

An analogy: Apple iTunes is like a blacksmith who puts a toll-box at the head of a major road. Unless your horse is shod with his shoes, you may not pass. The French Parliament might require Apple to let horses wearing Microsoft shoes to use its road, and that's great -- if you're on horseback.

But if you're in a car, you're screwed. FOSS is an entirely different industrial production system that Apple and Microsoft crippleware can't accommodate -- will the French Parliament outlaw it because of that? Do the blacksmiths get full employment for life, even if it strangles the automobile in its cradle?

The French proposal would let music fans download music to their iPods from services other than iTunes or to rival players from the French iTunes store.

It could force Apple into choosing between making its service compatible with rival players or shutting down its online store in France.

Apple has so far declined to comment on the bill, which would also affect how its rivals run their music services.

Link (Thanks, Ben!)

Click MORE... below for tons of juicy commentary on this fight -- who's screwing whom and how.
More...

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

Diane Duane posts chapter one of her subscription ebook

The first chapter in a subscription-based ebook from Diane Duane, a popular author of young adult fantasies, is online.

Back in February, I posted about Diane Duane's vow to write the last volume in her Feline Wizards trilogy as a reader-supported open ebook. She's soliciting donations from readers, who get early access to her chapters as she posts them and a hardcopy of the book from Lulu.com once it's done.

Diane posted her first chapter for her subscribers last week and has just opened it to the general public -- now it's time to sign up to subscribe to chapter two!

Four-thirty on a Sunday morning is about the closest the City that Never Sleeps ever gets to turning its name untrue. Midtown Manhattan, in particular, is quieter then than at almost any other time except when it’s snowed. But there was little chance of that happening today. It was the third of June, and though New York’s wizards can do unusual things with their weather when the need arises, right now the busiest group of them had far more important business on their minds.

The light at the corner of Eighth Avenue and West Thirty-first Street changed from red to green, without any other visible result: no cars were waiting to move on either side of the intersection. In fact, nothing at all could be seen between Eighth and the River but various parked cars – not a single pedestrian, not even a stray dog. The only thing moving down that way, down at the far end of Thirty-first, was the Hudson River – seeming to slide slowly with the inward tide from the Great South Bay just now swinging, and the surface of the water gone the color and texture of tarnished beaten pewter in the pre-dawn twilight.

Sitting at the corner of Eighth and Thirty-first, watching the river, watching the paling sky, was a small black cat. To human observers, city cats often look furtive or nervous: but this one sat there like she owned the street. This morning, she did. The most senior worldgating technician on the East Coast of North America let out a long breath and turned her attention away from the placid slow roll of the river, looking uptown along Eighth.

Link (Thanks, Diane!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:00:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's "Nimby and the D-Hoppers" podcast concludes

I've just posted the final installment of the podcast of my story, "Nimby and the D-Hoppers," originally published in Asimov's, reprinted in a Year's Best anthology, and translated into French, Russian, Chinese and Hebrew.

Nimby and the D-Hoppers is an alternate future of deep green anti-technocracy, and the collission with dimension hoppers from more technocratic realities. I read the story in three installments and they're all online now. Next up, the three-story "Bugouts" trilogy, starting with Shadow of the Mothaship.

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Podcast feed

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:50:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Goths grow up to be dentists and PR people

This Guardian article, written by a former goth, makes the case that goths disproportionately grow up to be high-earning professionals -- and includes a 10-point quiz to help you figure out if your boss is a closet/reformed goth.

Visitors to the Archangel dental surgery in west London are confronted by a goth dentist, Didier Goalard, who says: "I've got goth friends who are doing quite well. There's a dentist in Lyon, a couple of solicitors, a Church of England priest."

"Goths are like masons," I have been told. "They're everywhere." But rather than blaming some sinister conspiracy, let us look at the reasons people become goths in the first place. According to Choque Hosein, formerly of goth band Salvation but now running a record label, "Goths tend to be the weirdo intellectual kids who have started to view the world differently." Cathi Unsworth is now a successful author, but she remembers that her own dark gothic past gave her an outlet for alienation. "I loved the bands, especially Siouxsie and the Banshees, but it wasn't a pose - I felt authentically depressed," she says. Unsworth was a teenager in Great Yarmouth, where she felt that "people didn't like me. It got to a point where I wanted to stop fighting against being different and embrace it."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:54:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A new discipline to describe the copyfight

Copyfightin' humanities prof Siva Vaidhyanathan has just published a paper in which defines a new discipline that encompasses the copyfight. "Critical Information Studies" is Siva's name for the interdisciplinary field that the copyfight crowd are creating, a field with some comp sci, some law, some philosophy, some economics, some poli sci, some public diplomacy, some critical theory, and so on. Siva proposes that "Critical Information Studies" will cover:

* the abilities and liberties to use, revise, criticize, and manipulate cultural texts, images, ideas, and information;

* the rights and abilities of users (or consumers or citizens) to alter the means and techniques through which cultural texts and information are rendered, displayed, and distributed;

* the relationship among information control, property rights, technologies, and social norms; and

* the cultural, political, social, and economic ramifications of global flows of culture and information.

Link (Thanks, Siva!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:12:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Evidence that Superman is a dick

Superdickery is a website devoted to collecting evidence that superheros underwear perverts (mostly Superman) are giant bastards -- panels, covers and sequences that document the supers' bad behavior. Link (Thanks, Grayson!)

Update: Turns out this is a rerun of a post from last March that Mark made -- but given the whole underwear pervert thing, I'm gonna let the dupe stay. (Thanks, Ryan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:02:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, March 20, 2006

Sliderule-Calculator missing link

The other day, my Institute for the Future colleague Paul Saffo showed me a stunning specimen he had acquired for his technological cabinet of curiosities. Manufactured in 1975, the Faber-Castell TR3 features a calculator on one side and a sliderule on the other. Paul photographed the TR3 and put it in historical context on his blog. From the post:

At first blush, the TR3 looks like the proverbial missing link, still dripping wet as it crawls out of the analog ocean onto the digital shore. And certainly proof, if any was needed, that technologies evolve. But the story is not quite so simple. For starters, the slide rule companies took calculators seriously, but only as slide rule substitutes. They assumed that calculators would slowly replace slide rules in the niches where slide rules were sold -- pleces like college bookstores. The slide rule manufacturers thus never guessed that calculators would become a must-have item for ordinary folk who would flock to purchase them in department stores, book stores, drug stores and even supermarkets. This meant that instead of a gradual shift that the slide rule makers could easily manage, the change was exponential and far beyond what they could possibly respond to.

But still they tried, and the TR3 was part of the effort... In the end, the TR3's calculator was far behind the competition, and the slide rule was superfluous as slip-stick jocks defected in favor of TIs, Commodores and HPs.

Link

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

Will Wright on the future of games in the new Wired

Will Wright is the guest editor of the latest issue (14.04) of Wired, and has a great essay on the future of games, called Dream Machines.

(Shown here: A planet from Will Wright's forthcoming game, Spore.)

In an era of structured education and standardized testing, this generational difference might not yet be evident. But the gamers' mindset - the fact that they are learning in a totally new way - means they'll treat the world as a place for creation, not consumption. This is the true impact videogames will have on our culture.

Society, however, notices only the negative. Most people on the far side of the generational divide - elders - look at games and see a list of ills (they're violent, addictive, childish, worthless). Some of these labels may be deserved. But the positive aspects of gaming - creativity, community, self-esteem, problem-solving - are somehow less visible to nongamers.

I think part of this stems from the fact that watching someone play a game is a different experience than actually holding the controller and playing it yourself. Vastly different. Imagine that all you knew about movi