posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:35:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Complete New Yorker Magazine on a USB hard drive (DRM crippled)

Now all 4,164 issues and 500,000+ pages of The New Yorker, from its February 21, 1925 debut to April 2006, are available to Levenger customers on one pocket-sized, USB-powered portable hard drive that's about the size of a PDA. You can take this treasury wherever you take your laptop or use your desktop PC or Mac. Enjoy the fastest, easiest access there is to the complete archives of America's grande dame of literary magazines.

Find virtually anything you're looking for, in any issue, thanks to an indexing system that's simple but thorough. Browse by cover, by author or department, year or week.

Reader comments:

Carol says:

It might be worth adding a footnote that with this product, you are working with a complete DRM'd thing. You cannot even select a sentence or two to quote in a document. (I personally own the 6 DVD set issued prior to the hard drive offering.) So, it's high-quality page images, including the ads. But certain aspects are indeed disappointing.

In addition, this is not full-text indexed, rather the index reproduces the manual one used at New Yorker offices.

Having spent a chunk of my life on writing about the Complete New Yorker [here and here], I keep trying to not get sucked back into this hole. Though I didn't crack it in the Mr. Kracman-style of completely disabling the Macrovision, I was able to get it working on a hard drive with some minor SQL changes.

To be fair to the New Yorker, it is true you can not do a full text search or clip a sentence, but that really has nothing to do with DRM. The Complete New Yorker is image scans only - it was not OCR'd and, as such, there is no text to clip or search. Given the scope of the project, I can't say I blame them.

The three primary nasty bits to the DVD Complete New Yorker were:

1) Couldn't load to a HD.

Ed Klaris, general counsel and Complete New Yorker project manager, stated in a radio interview that loading onto a hard drive was not necessary. That there was more than enough information on one DVD to satisfy the consumer. That swapping was not arduous.

Seems Ed changed his mind on this one. Great!

2) Spyware End User License Agreement

The EULA said they could record what articles you read, in what order, how long on each page, etc. Then, they reserved the right to tie this data to your name/address/phone number and sell it to third parties.

In a New York Times article that quoted Ed Klaris and myself, Ed stated that the spyware language was included in the EULA by accident.

3) Macrovision

Though the EULA states you are allowed to make a back-up copy, the DVD's are protected with Macrovision.

Although I should know better, I really want the Complete New Yorker. I returned the DVDs, but I just ordered the Levenger HD version.

If the EULA is still insidious as fuck, I will return it. Ed said it was a mistake, so, hopefully, it is sorted at this point.

What about Macrovision? What if it is still copy protected? Well, what can I say? That will suck. But it will suck no worse than the protected movies that I buy.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Mr Jalopy's love/hate relationship with the Complete New Yorker

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:18:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Documentaries on Google Video

These days, there are fewer reasons than ever to turn on the television. Link | RSS feed

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:14:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tadpole limb regeneration, human tissue regeneration?

Researchers have known for decades that an electrical current is created at the site of regenerating limbs. Furthermore, applying an external current speeds up the regeneration process, and drugs that block the current prevent regeneration. The electrical signals help to tell cells what type to grow into, how fast to grow, and where to position themselves in the new limb...

...The complex networks needed to construct a complicated organ or appendage are already genetically encoded in all of our (human) cells (too) — we needed them to develop those organs in the first place. "The question is: how do you turn them back on?" Levin says. "When you know the language that these cells use to tell each other what to do, you're a short step away from getting them to do that after an injury."

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:35:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Messages from God" must come down from woman's roof

Benavides, a 48-year-old woman who lives alone in her yellow house on Cottage Grove Avenue, began painting the giant messages about a year ago, about the time her husband moved out and she lost custody of her son. Last month, she had two large pins inserted through her lips, to keep her from eating as part of a religious fast. God told her to do that, too...

The messages are a barely intelligible garble involving cloning, abuse, rape, the Mafia, Castro, Hitler, the Constitution, hurricane Katrina, Watergate and President Bush. Link

Benavides, 47, who also broadcasts the messages from a loudspeaker on her car's roof, has said the messages come to her from God through a statue at her church and from the Bible...

"They're telling me based on the San Mateo sign code that I'm violating the law," Benavides said. "I'm telling them based on the U.S. Constitution that their sign code violates the law. Link (via Fortean Times)

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:59:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Escaped animal drill at zoo

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:23:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Are you a college student who's received an RIAA letter?

If you're a student and you've been accused of illicit downloading by the RIAA, I'm working on a report and I'd like to talk with you -- please email xeni@xeni.net.

Eliot van Buskirk at Wired: Listening Post blog has a good roundup of the story here:

As part of its new initiative to convince universities to turn over the names of students suspected of copyright infringement (more on that soon), the RIAA has launched its P2Plawsuits.com website, which, in a deliciously ironic twist, had previously hosted all sorts of ads for dodgy P2P clients.

On the site, students whose universities have agreed to turn over student names to the RIAA and users whose ISPs have agreed to turn over subscriber names to the RIAA can apply for a settlement by entering their case number, and even pay their settlement online, which the RIAA promises will be represent "a substantial discount" from what they would have had to settle for before this campaign launched.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:58:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scan of old decal sheet

I was looking for something in my flat files, and found this old decal sheet. It was from an original AMT "Two in One" kit, and somehow survived 40+ years to find its way into my greasy mitts.

It is so beautiful, I am almost moved to tears. I immediately threw it on the scanner to share with you, O dear reader.

Reader comment:

Coop says:

I'm not entirely sure, but I think that this post says that the monster-driving-hot-rod decal I posted looks like the President Of Brazil!

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:40:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Head of WIPO lied about his age for 24 years

For 24 years since joining the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), Director-General Kamil Idris signed numerous documents giving his birth date as 1945, whereas he was born in 1954, the report states.

Diplomats said the confidential auditors' report, which was completed in last November, was drawn up at the request of the United Nations' independent watchdog, the Joint Inspection Unit...

The report, according to sources with knowledge of its contents, questions whether the Sudanese official could claim, given his real age, the 10 years senior experience normally needed for the level of post he took on entering the Geneva-based body in 1982.

There are also issues related to the amount of severance pay he could receive on leaving his job, given the fact that he is 9 years younger than initially stated and so that much further from retirement age, diplomats said.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:33:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Neo-Mickey Mouse cartoon

This was fun. The project is in limbo land at the moment so why not share. I tried to make Mickey a bit more contemporary and dare I say it cool, but people seem to be undecided as to it's age target. Is it the pre-schooler or the pot-smoker? Is it the pot-smoking pre-schooler? Who knows -- I just tried to make it different. Barry Baker did the Animation, I did the designs and the storyboard (what story?!).

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:33:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pop-up porn case update

PC World's Steve Bass made a bit of a miscalculation and outed the partial identity of Fred F., a juror in the Amero trial. The email interview in which the juror's screenname was released was initiated by Fred F,. who failed to follow Lincoln's famous rule, "It's better to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool; Rather than open it and remove all doubt."

I'll let Fred F.'s own words and lack of punctuation speak the volumes that I dare not say.

"she was pronounced guilty because she made no effort to hide or stop the porno, not just because she loaded the porno onto the machine. Going to the history pages it was obvious that the paged were clicked on they were not the result of pop-ups."

That statement is in direct conflict with the testimony on record. Amero did everything short of turning off the computer, which she was instructed by a superior not to do. The children from her class testified -- right in front of this juror -- that she did make every effort to hide what was being displayed. He also seems to have picked up the same in-depth knowledge of Internet Explorer possessed by the Norwich police computer expert, which could be defined as; little to none.

Fred's obviously not the sharpest tool in the shed but, can you blame him? After all, he's a product of the same Connecticut school system that's teaching kids it's OK to send an innocent woman to jail in order to cover your own incompetence.

As Steve Bass says: "What I've learned from the Amero case is that if you're a teacher, always carry around a large, black trash bag, just in case you need to quickly cover a monitor. Who knows, it may keep you out of jail." Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Take Action: Julie Amero Porn Case
• Teacher faces 40 years for porn in classroom, blames adware
• Teacher faces jail time over "accidental porn" in classroom (Thanks, Jennifer!)

Reader comment:

Zan says:

The Norwich Bulletin is reporting that sentencing has been postponed in the Julie Amero case until March 29th. Which means that there is still plenty of time to get your emails and letters in.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:24:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Asia food trend: "cannibal banquets" - Bogus?

Vorephiliacs, rejoice! Chop open the humanoid piñata corpse, rip away her skin, then nosh out on what's inside. The wounds you create "bleed" edible blood. Are the genitals jporn mosaicced like that in real life? Link, via Gadling (thanks, paul).

Reader comments and debate over whether this is (a) real and (b) Japanese follow after the jump.
More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:46:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dow Jones 500-point drop due to failed computer backup?

Dow Jones & Co., the media company that manages the well-known index of 30 blue chip stocks, said it discovered shortly before 2 p.m. that its computers weren't properly handling the day's huge volume in trades at the New York Stock Exchange. It switched to a backup computer, and the result was a massive swoon in the index as the secondary system took over processing shortly before 3 p.m.

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

Fake Bombs in Mall as PSA

Aren't many shopping mall habitués illiterate? Link

Reader comment:

Kate says: "Wouldn't those clear plastic bags be the ideal place to hide a bomb in plain view, if one were terroristically inclined?"

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:19:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More cyborg attack-critter technology revealed

Reader comment: Carroll Bilbrey says,

Saw your post about the cyborg attack critters. I think somebody has been reading super-cool writer/drug enthusiast, Grant Morrison, and his book WE3. Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:42:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boston police blow up traffic counter chained to lightpost

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:33:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Academy threatens YouTube over Oscars footage

Several segments of the show, including host Ellen DeGeneres' opening monologue and musical numbers featuring Will Ferrell and Beyonce, had been among YouTube's most-viewed content this week. Ferrell's musical lament about how comedies never win Oscars, sung with Jack Black and John C. Reilly, had racked up more than 250,000 views on YouTube before it was replaced with the message "This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences."

Ric Robertson, exec administrator for the Academy, said the organization had its content pulled "to help manage the value of our telecast and our brand."

The official Oscar.com Website, which is run as a joint venture of the Academy and Disney's ABC.com, features a five-minute clip of highlights from the three hour, 51 minute broadcast. That footage, along with "Thank-You Cam" videos from backstage, are preceded by ads.

But Robertson said that the ads weren't a factor: "Even if Oscar.com didn't have clips, we would have asked YouTube to take remove the excerpts."

On his blog, Kirsner elaborates:

Ric Robertson from the Academy told me, essentially, that they prefer for people to watch (or tape or TiVo) the awards telecast. That's where all their revenue comes from (through a broadcasting deal with ABC), and they don't want to diminish the ratings by having too much video floating around the Internet. In fact, Robertson said that the scraps of video on the official Oscar.com site will disappear soon, too, to "whet people's appetite for next year's show." Interesting strategy...

Previously:

Reader comment: gtron says,

several hours later, this one still plays: Link. and it's on the most watched pages - so somebody is wrong -

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:22:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Youtube vid sends up Bev Oda, Canadian copyright czar

Oda is Canada's copyright czar, in charge of regulating entertainment, software and other copyright companies -- the same companies who footed the bill for her election campaign. Even after gaining office, Oda continued to offer unprecedented access to her office for American entertainment companies, and allowed them to continue to shower her with money.

The video is a great send-up -- wonderful visuals and hilarious lyrics. Bravo!

Bev Oda: the dirty minister who lines her pockets with MAFIAA money and blows tax-dollars on limos.

"I'm not dumb but I can't understand why she could ride in a stretch but not in a van."

That's a line from a satirical 'Oh, Bev Oda' video targeting Durham MP Bev Oda, which can be found at www.drinfo.ca/odavideo.html on the popular YouTube site. The video, posted Feb. 22 by YouTube user 'ethanjacobs', features a male voice set to the tune of The Kinks classic 'Lola', but the lyrics have been altered to poke fun at Ms. Oda. The video refers to reports the federal heritage minister took Canadian taxpayers for a ride at the Juno awards last year in Halifax, where she racked up almost $5,500 in limousine expenses in four days, according to information dug up by the Liberals.

See also:
Canada's copyright czar and the taxpayer-funded limos Canadian copyright czar forced to turn away industry bribes
Can. Heritage Minister's election was funded by entertainment co's
Canada's about to have a copyright disaster
Canadian Heritage Minister Oda in the pocket of recording execs
Hollywood's Canadian Member of Parliament
Canadian copyright minister caught lining pockets

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:47:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tombstones of the Russian mob

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:16:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BoingBoingBoing podcast 10: Bonnie Burton, Star Wars fandom

Episode #10 of the Boing Boing Boing podcast is out! Our guest for this edition is Bonnie Burton of Lucasfilm and grrl.com fame, author of the just-released book You Can Draw Star Wars (Amazon link) . In today's podcast, we probe the universe (and Bonnie's brain), asking...

LISTEN:
Podcast Feed, Subscribe via iTunes, Archive.org, Listen at Odeo, Direct MP3 url. Also, here's the iTunes link, and feel free to leave comments there if you dig the podcast!

BONNIE'S BOOKS:

LINKS MENTIONED IN THE PODCAST:

WHERE TO FIND BONNIE:

MUSIC:
The tune you hear in this podcast is by Q-Burns Abstract Message, aka producer and indie digital music entrepreneur Michael Donaldson. The song is his remix of "Angel Soup" by Cold Hands, recently released on vinyl and digital via Blunted Funk Records. Listen to the whole thing here, with info on where you can purchase his DRM-free music

TECH NOTES:
We recorded this podcast as a Skype conference call, and captured it with AudioHijack. The audio was later edited in Apple's Garage Band, after some help from Levelator.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:59:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disney Princess wedding dresses

Parks and Resorts Chairman Jay Rasulo said he expected the dresses to be a hit among brides to be, especially given the increasing popularity of weddings at Walt Disney World, the site of about 2,000 nuptials each year.

"If you do 2,000 weddings a year, think of all the people who say, 'I can't, I have to get married in my hometown, my own church,' but they certainly may still have that princess dream as part of it," Rasulo said.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:04:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stand-up comedy by Disneyland Jungle Cruise skippers

Since 1955 the World Famous Jungle Cruise has been the home of the funniest people at Disneyland. Join us for Round 4 of the Maverick Stand Up Jungle Cruise Skipper night on Sunday, March 18, 8:00 p.m.. In case you've been trapped under a heavy appliance for the past month, this is a special night at Maverick Stand Up where all of the comics are current or former skippers! Some have gone on to perform comedy professionally and others will be taking the stage for the first time, without a script and without management’s supervision.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:00:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Atlantic City brownie costs $1000

BROWNIE EXTRAORDINAIRE WITH SAINT LOUIS
Chocolate Brownie with Italian Hazelnuts, Ice Cream & Port Wine Atomizer

* The Brownie Extraordinaire is served with an elegant St. Louis crystal atomizer containing 1996 Quinta do Noval Nacional – a very fine, very rare port wine. Atomizer is included in the price.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:57:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Milk tolerance gene emerged recently

Analysis of Neolithic remains, in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests no European adults could digest the drink at that time.

University College London scientists say that the rapid spread of a gene which lets us reap the benefits of milk shows evolution in action...

Today, more than 90% of people of northern European origin have the gene...

Dr Mark Thomas, from UCL, said: "The ability to drink milk is the most advantageous trait that's evolved in Europeans in the recent past."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:48:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World of Warcraft cake

Last year she started dating my old roomate who plays World of Warcraft a fair amount around his job; for Christmas she acquired a "WoW stole my boyfriend" t-shirt.

She is good-natured about his love of Warcraft, however, as shown by the birthday cake she made him three weeks ago.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:43:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

One-liners from heaven: alien sex fiend exposé excerpt

Who then was the being whose blond hair inexplicably became wrapped around Peter Khoury's penis?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:19:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prizewinning pot videos

See also Make a pro-dope short, win $1k

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:59:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO build a 2.5 scale Sherman tank

Pt 1: Intro, body shell, suspension
Pt 2: Tracks
Pt 3: Engine, Controls, Weapons
Pt 4: Transmission (ingenious solution and key to the simplicity)

(Thanks, Glyn!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:54:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jupiter flyby today for New Horizons; photo time capsule

The NASA New Horizons mission will make its closest approach to Jupiter a half-hour from the moment I hit "publish" on this blog post -- that's 28 February 2007, at 05:43:40 UTC. Next stop: Pluto.

To commemorate today's historic Jupiter flyby, The Planetary Society has published images which will be sealed in a Digital Time Capsule, and unlocked in the year 2015 (when the craft is scheduled to reach Pluto).

There are a number of different image categories, but my favorite are the tech ones -- a screengrab of Windows XP, a double-A battery, or the one where a bunch of ipods are stacked on a laptop. That's all gonna look so lame in 8 years.

Snip from announcement:

When New Horizons arrives at Pluto eight years from now, the Society will open the time capsule to remember the world as it was when the mission launched. Fifty images submitted by people in 17 countries have been selected, and tonight's encounter with Jupiter will begin a countdown to closing the capsule until the spacecraft arrives at Pluto.

"When we open the Digital Time Capsule in 2015, New Horizons will be looking back at Earth from a distance measured both in time and in miles," said Bruce Betts, The Planetary Society's Director of Projects. "Much will have changed on that pale blue dot by the time the spacecraft arrives at Pluto."

As the spacecraft approaches its rendezvous with Pluto, it will send back a "family portrait" of the Pluto system. The return of this image from the spacecraft will be used as the signal for the time capsule to be opened and shown to Earth in 2015.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:12:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Graffiti: It's a Fun Crime

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:59:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Peru: report on links between unsafe sex and public 'net cafes

One recent survey, for example, found that a small number of men--10 out of 1,112 in the survey--reported having had their last sexual intercourse inside a private module of an Internet cafe. Nine out of the ten had anal sex (only four used a condom), and one out of the ten had oral sex without a condom. Of those who had anal sex, four out of nine had a casual partner, three out of nine an anonymous partner, and two out of nine a stable partner. All last sexual partners were males and all had met on the Internet.

"Given the possible association between HIV/sexually transmitted infection transmission and the high level of Internet use by men who have sex with men in Peru," say the authors, "cabinas públicas are a logical place to deliver Web-based interventions."

"Cabinas also may be an effective means for delivering low-cost prevention messages to a great number of people, especially those who are not being reached using more traditional methods."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:45:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cyborg pigeon overlords uncloak themselves before mankind

Noah Shachtman at Wired: Danger Room writes:

Dave over at the Mutant Palm blog has uncovered pictures of those Chinese cyborg pigeons -- and the scientists controlling their implanted minds.   So now we'll know what to look for, when our half-robot, half-flying-rat enemies attack.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:36:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MoMA website art-prank-hacked by Jenny Holzer impersonator

Paddy Johnson, editor of Art Fag City, tells BoingBoing:

I was tipped off today on one of the best website hacks I've seen in a long time. A hacker taking the voice of Jenny Holzer sends a selection of truisms to MoMA president Glenn Lowry in the form of a MoMA ecard. The is particularly timely given the fact that just last week the New York Times reported that Lowry had received an undisclosed 5 million dollars in addition to his regular salary.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:29:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Black Rock winter snowscape photos (Burning Man site)

Image: cropped detail from a stunning panoramic photo of the Black Rock Station on a sunny, wintery Nevada day -- well, actually, today.

Snowy Gerlach in February, the opposite spot in the calendrical cycle from those sweltering weeks when the desert is chock full of hippies.

JPEG Link (it's a really large photo, 11726 x 504 pixels), and here's an index page with more beautiful panoramic photos of the same site, during other seasons. Photos credited to Ghost Dancer.

It's really a lovely place, with or without beglowsticked humans. (Thanks, Wayne Correia)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:18:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FAIR Use Act: copyright reform bill introduced in House

Reps. Rick Boucher and John Doolittle's FAIR Use Act [PDF] would remove some of the entertainment industry's most draconian anti-innovation weapons and chip away at the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) broad restrictions on fair use. Take action now and tell Congress to help restore balance in copyright now.

Technology companies play a game of Russian roulette whenever they create products with both infringing and non-infringing uses. Current "secondary liability" standards don't provide enough certainty, and if innovators guess wrong, they can be hit with statutory damages as high as $30,000 per work infringed. When it comes to mass-market products like the iPod or TiVo, damages could run into the trillions of dollars -- more than enough to bankrupt anyone from the smallest start-ups to the biggest companies. Unlike in other areas, the private assets of corporate officers, directors and investors are not shielded from liability in copyright cases.

The FAIR USE Act would eliminate statutory damages for secondary liability and allow innovators to make more reasonable business decisions about manageable levels of legal risk. Meanwhile, copyright owners could still get injunctions and actual damages for harm suffered, putting them in no worse a position than civil litigants in most other areas.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:08:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Biodiesel from liposuctioned human ass-fat powers race boat

Here's some video from a Current TV segment about a biodiesel boat race to circumnavigate the globe. The boat featured in the video runs on a mixture of fuel from various sources -- 4 gallons of the stuff was produced from liposuctioned butt blubber (a hundred grams of that came from the captain's own backside). Welp, there's a renewable fuel source America has plenty of. Here's a blog post with more info. (Thanks, Jay)

UPDATE: Ah, looks like Wired covered this story a year ago! Link.

BoingBoing reader Brian Jamison says,

I know these people and there is more to the story. The boat in question is attempting a round-the-world speed record powered entirely by earth-friendly biodiesel. They've put everything on the line and just had a major sponsor pull out at the last moment. They are in dire need of support -- a donation of any amount would help!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:56:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Help Defend Fantagraphics & The 1st Amendment

First, in the history-of-Fantagraphics book WE TOLD YOU SO: COMICS AS ART that we serialized on the Comics Journal blog last year, Gary told two brief anecdotes about Ellison’s conduct during the infamous Michael Fleisher trial. We are defending ourselves by arguing the content of these anecdotes are a) opinion and b) true (and for that matter have been circulated for over a decade unchallenged including on Ellison’s own website in the context of the notoriously one-sided Gauntlet article), Ellison has now elected to allege that they were libelous. When we were apprised by Ellison’s attorney initially that Ellison was unhappy with these comments, we offered him space in our book to rebut these comments or offer his own counter-narrative, but he rejected these options and chose to file suit instead.

Second, we reprinted the Ellison interview that caused the Fleisher suit in our COMICS JOURNAL LIBRARY collection THE WRITERS. Ellison is not suing over this –in fact, he’s admitted in public that we own the interview and have the right to reprint it—but is claiming instead that it is illegal to use his name on the cover (along with the names of the other writers we interviewed).

We have argued to the court that both claims are absurd and the suit frivolous and meritless. In our opinion, it is merely designed to harass us, bully us, hurt us financially, and chill public criticism of Ellison generally. Notwithstanding Ellison’s own denials (embedded in the text of his rambling lawsuit), we consider this suit to be a petty and malicious effort to trample our 1st Amendment rights to truthfully relate the history of our company, and to cost us money and time.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:54:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Art of Frank Lacano

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:41:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Silicon Valley traffic report: gorilla suited guy on freeway

Incident: 1286 Type: Location: info as of: 2/27/2007 4:54:41 PM
ADDITIONAL DETAILS
4:52PM MAN IN GORILLA SUIT STILL 1097
4:52PM SO ADV 2 VEHS LEFT THE AREA
4:47PM PER ANOTHER ABOUT 1 MILE JNO 92 / 2 PEOPLE IN CD
4:45PM THIS IS A REAL PERSON IN A GORILLA AND 2 OTHER PEOPLE ON RHS
4:39PM IN CD/MALE LSW GORILLA SUIT
RESPONDING OFFICERS STATUS
4:45PM CHP Unit Assigned
4:50PM CHP Unit Enroute

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:53:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Machine Project suffers flood damage

So, last weekend while we were out in the desert our neighbor Paolo from the Film Center called and said there was some flooding at Machine. It turns out that our (perhaps negligent) landlord let another hot water heater fail in the apartment above us (yes, this has happened before), which flooded our office and destroyed a bunch of stuff.

At first we thought this was really terrible, but shortly realized that this was a great opportunity to fix a major problem, which is the gallery is really too small to hold all the people who come to events, and the back office is much larger than it needs to be. And since the office is trashed anyway, what better time to move the partition wall back 10 feet to make the gallery a whole bunch bigger. Yay!

In another lucky coincidence, our friend Mark Daggett just made a new website for fund raising campaigns called Pledgie, so we went ahead and made a campaign to fund our repair and renovation project. Please visit the link below to read more about the plan and see some photos of the carnage.

Should this all seem terribly uninteresting we can also offer you this video sent in by Ryan of a rabbit repeatedly attacking a snake.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:44:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tooth as drug delivery device

'It is important for some conditions that there is a constant level of drug in the blood plasma,' said (researcher Thomas) Velten. 'Also, for people at risk from heart attacks, these attacks commonly take place very early in the morning when the patient is asleep and cannot self-medicate. With this system we can time the dosage to take place — even when the patient is sleeping...'

Once the device is fitted, saliva in the mouth enters the reservoir via a membrane and dissolves the solid drug, forming a solution. When the system is triggered, a valve opens and allows a controlled amount of this saturated solution to flow into the mouth where it is then absorbed by the mucous membranes in the patient's cheeks.

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:51:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Military RF kills garage remotes, again

For decades, the military has held a portion of the radio spectrum, from 138 to 450 megahertz, in reserve. That part was borrowed by remote-control manufacturers, with the understanding that the signal be weak enough to be overridden by the military...

"Consumer wireless devices, such as garage door openers, operate on an unlicensed basis, meaning they are required to accept any interference from licensed spectrum users, including the Department of Defense," said Lt. Brian P. Donnelly, a spokesman for the Quantico base.

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

String Theory in two minutes or less

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:14:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dow Jones just dropped 500 points

Link. BoingBoing's "band manager" John Battelle has more here. Worst one-day drop since 9/11 - WTF does it mean? Nothing, or something?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:11:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Braille bumps on keyboards

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:08:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Have sex with a dead dog in Michigan, go to jail

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:56:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bloomframe: Picture window converts to a balcony

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:37:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Co-working facilities for social-hungry solo freelancers

Cool piece in Businessweek about the rising popularity of "co-working" spaces for independent, internet-age freelancers who are burnt out on working from their homes (cons: too isolating, makes you crazy, no work/life boundaries) and don't want to just work out of Starbucks (cons: too public, not networking-conducive, laptop theft, rising price of lattes). Image above, hatfactory in dogpatch, San Francisco. Snip from story:

Over the past few years, co-working facilities—both grassroots, co-op-like versions and for-profit models—have started popping up across the country and the world, from Seattle to Copenhagen. A co-working wiki hosts pages for dozens of other cities with co-working initiatives in progress. And while the concept of shared office space is nothing new to entrepreneurs, an increasing number of them are signing on and finding that the community-building and networking benefits outweigh even the virtues of a shared fax machine.

In a recent report on the future of small business, the Silicon-Valley based Institute for the Future pegged co-working as a trend to watch over the next decade (see BusinessWeek.com, 1/31/07, "The Face of Entrepreneurship"). After co-working first took off with clusters of free-agent programmers and writers, its flexibility and low cost have also proven a good match for startups unwilling to sign a long-term lease. Because many of these facilities operate on a gym-membership model that doesn't assign workers to specific desks, co-working is cheaper than most subleasing arrangements. And unlike traditional business incubators, co-working isn't just for startups with high-growth potential.

The study's lead author, Steve King, says the increasing popularity of co-working facilities reflects the rise of one-person "personal businesses" as well as a broader fluidity between virtual and real-world communities.

Update: Those of you in San Francisco may want to consider swinging by hatfactory for an open house they're holding this Wednesday, Feb. 28:

On February 28, Wednesday, the Hat Factory Coworking space in San Francisco is throwing its doors open to welcome interested folks who want to give us a try, for free. Come and work with us during the day, from 11 AM to 5:00 PM. Bring your laptop and that manuscript, screenplay, or killer app you've been working on and leave the crowded, loud coffee shops behind. We'll also be cooking a big meal starting around 5pm with free dinner served after 6pm. Come and eat with us! We'll have a projector set up so everyone can show off their work.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:32:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More on silent film revivalism on the internet

Following up on yesterday's BB post about a new youtube soundtrack for the 1902 silent film Voyage Dans La Lune, John Brownlee of the Wired blog Table of Malcontents points us to a recent Wired.com piece he did on silent film revivalism online. He explains:

The piece explores modern scoring of silent films and the future of silent films on the ubiquitous video displays of major cities (as well as all silent, black and white plays based on Louise Brooks films... oh, and Cthulhu): Link.

It hadn't even occurred to me to talk to some of the people rescoring films on the Internet for the piece, and now the heel of my palm is shuddering against my forehead for missing that angle, because it's one of the cooler aspects of silent film revivalism. It doesn't even stop at silent film: for example, there's this experimental rescoring to the trippy French animated classic Fantastic Planet.

I'm actually posting up an interview over the next couple days with the girl who did an all silent, black and white play (part one: Link) and I'll be following up over the next week or two with a bunch of other interviews with artists involved with silent film revivalism.

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:08:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jasmina Tešanović: Serbia Not Guilty of Genocide

by Jasmina Tesanovic, photo by Bruce Sterling.

Once again, Serbia is on the front pages of the world press. Serbia is off the hook. The Hague has ruled that the Serbian nation is not directly responsible for the genocide in Bosnia. Genocide didn't happen in Serbia, the genocide existed only in Srebrenica, in those three days of execution and burial of eight thousand people.

I am split over this bad and good verdict. For twenty-four hours I've been talking on my B92 interactive blog with people from all over the world who fear/ hope/ know what this Hague tribunal sentence means... for us and everyone else.

It's a precedent for the rest of the dirty-wars in the world, which now exist in such plenty. It is the first time in history that an international court of war crimes has declared a country both NOT GUILTY of genocide and yet also guilty of NOT preventing a genocide... bad and good news together.

(continued after the jump)

More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:54:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Robots on the runway: Yohji Yamamoto, Viktor and Rolf

Next came an interlude of black-and-white polka-dot hoop skirts that at the touch of a switch revolved, the tiers of the most complicated one turning in different directions. Despite the inevitable comparisons that will be made to Hussein Chalayan (who sent out his own motorized showpieces last season), you could feel the audience breathe a sigh of happy relief. This was more familiar territory.

For background, here are two earlier BoingBoing posts about that mechanized clothing from Chalayan, referenced in this review: Link 1, Link 2.

The Viktor & Rolf show in Paris this week also incorporated unusual uses of electricity:

Should anyone have the idea that today's models are a limp and weedy bunch, they might take a look at what they had to put up with—literally—at Viktor & Rolf. First, the girls had to shoulder heavy steel rigs, further weighed down with tungsten lights and speakers, some of them built up high above their heads. Then, unable to bend or use their arms to balance, they were asked to walk the runway wearing giant, clunky high-heeled Dutch wooden clogs. As the rigs got bigger and the girls' expressions more frozen with fear, involuntary gasps escaped from the audience. "Oh my God, she's listing!" hissed one observer. "I can't look!" cried another. "That poor girl's slipping!" shrieked someone else. By pure luck, no one did fall (...)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:43:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Mark Ryden show: The Tree Show

Michael Kohn Gallery is pleased to announce
The Tree Show
New Paintings from Mark Ryden

March 10 - April 28, 2007
Opening Reception: Saturday, March 10 from 1:00 - 6:00 pm

For more information, please contact: info@kohngallery.com or 323-658-8088.

* Keeping in the theme, please wear brown and/or green attire to the Opening

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:42:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sleep Labs of the Soviet Empire

In the late 1920s, Soviet architect Konstantin Melnikov proposed a worker's dormitory that would "intensify the process of slumber."

It was designed with sloping floors, for instance, which would "obviate the need for pillows" (!). Wonderfully, though, the whole building was a kind of machine-womb, because sleep technicians in a central control booth would "command instruments to regulate the temperature, humidity, and air pressure, as well as to waft salubrious scents and 'rarefied condensed air' through the halls." They would also soundtrack the dorms with nature sounds, all to perfect the experience of sleep.

"Should these fail," we read, "the mechanized beds would then begin gently to rock until consciousness was lost." These would thus have been "sleep labs" for the workers of the Soviet Empire.

Originally from Cabinet Magazine, but there's no direct link.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:15:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prankster tricks Swiss newspaper into running fake Gucci ad

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:47:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Faux infomercial about a radical new way to eat corn.

Reader comment:

Maximillian Hill says: "The video is made by Tally Hall ( tallyhall.com ) Here's a link to it on their site." Kim says:

This is reminiscent of the Billows Feeding Machine from Charlie Chaplin's "Modern Times." Here's a video of that scene, in which Chaplin becomes the machine's victim as the "counter-shaft, double-knee-action corn feeder, with its synchro-mesh transmission" goes horribly wrong.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:35:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Christian clown training video

When you enter the nursing home, do not stand there in your group with a large cluster of clowns. Clowns can look rather intimidating if you see a lot of them in one place.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:27:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hatto piano music scandal update

William Barrington-Coupe, husband of "neglected" classical pianist, the late Joyce Hatto, admits to passing off the work of other musicians as the playing of his wife.

The deception was came to light after a listener played a Hatto CD in a computer. The disc was identified by the iTunes database as a 1987 recording by Laszlo Simon. Other Hatto recordings were later identified as being by other artists.

TIn a letter to BIS Records (Laszlo Simon's record label), Barrington-Coupe admits to having inserted several "samples" of other musicians work in order to cover up the sounds of his wife's groans of pain, caused by her cancer.

TBarrington-Coupe maintains he only inserted the pieces to help his wife--an "overlooked" performer--get the recognition he thought she deserved. However, it seems the deception runs deeper and may be whole performances rather than bridging passages, and an article in the current edition of Gramophone Magazine reveals that Barrington-Coupe continued to produce and sell counterfeit recordings after his wife's death.

As of yet, nobody knows the full extent of the deception, and Barrington-Coupe is saying little more than "I'm tired, I’m not very well. I’ve closed the operation down".

While the text of Barrington-Coupe's letter has not been released by BIS Records, there is a comment on the BIS website.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Prodigy pianist declared a fraud

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:15:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DMZ: graphic novel, a worthy successor to Transmetropolitan

I've just finished the first two collections from Brian Wood and Riccardo Burchielli's DMZ, and its really, really goddamned great.

DMZ is set in a near-future America torn apart by a new civil war. The "Free State" army is a band of redneck insurgents, sick of an America in decline, who've brought Iraq-style asymmetric warfare to the streets of America. Starting in small towns and sweeping across the country, they are fought to a standstill in Manhattan, the DMZ, where they face off against the US military.

Matty Roth is a kid journalist in Manhattan, the sole survivor of an abortive attempt to drop a Geraldo-like journalist into the DMZ to get the "real story" for Liberty, a politicized TV network with the ethics of Rupert Murdoch's FOX. Matty is the intern, but he's got the gear, and the guts, and he sets about telling the stories of a Manhattan under siege, where all the rich people have gotten out, leaving the poor behind for target practice by both armies.

DMZ has the guts and verve of Transmetropolitan, and a similar structure, too -- episodic slice-of-life views into a city in glorious, self-devouring ruin, shot through with an overarching plot about the fight of average people and brave journalists to expose official corruption.

The storylines are each vivid and rapid-fire, so that you can't stop reading (if I'd had a stack of these, I would have skipped sleeping and just read all night). Like Y: The Last Man and Fables, DMZ is a new kind of comic, something born from Frank Miller classics like Martha Washington, but way more evolved, ebola to Millers' flu-bug.

The supporting art is even better. There are more grace-notes that hint at a fleshed out world beyond the claustrophobic DMZ, little visual cues that make the whole thing seem completely real, totally immersive.

This was another find from the recommended table at Secret Headquarters, my favorite comic shop, and they just keep steering me right. If you're in LA, they're the best place to go get your brain inverted.

Book 1 Link, Book 2 Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:23:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory at Ad Astra sf con in Toronto this weekend

On that note, the British sf podcast "Yatterings" (produced by Iain Elmsley, proprietor of the brilliant Aust Gate bookseller) has a new interview up with me about sf writing and how it relates to the future.

Link

See also:
Torontonians: win the right to name a character in my book

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:16:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Generation labels from the Puritans to Gen Y

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:10:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ant'ique wallpaper made from real ants

Update: See also Jennifer Angus's ant-paper (Thanks to Jenny et al for this!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:07:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nintendo Family Computer guitar

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:00:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MEP who wrote copyright proposal is an infringer

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:58:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Printable cold-sores for defacing subway ads

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:53:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, February 26, 2007

MC Router, "queen of nerdcore," just got this new tattoo.

If you missed the story of how MC Router dissed Wired Magazine in a nerdcore revenge track some months ago, go read up here, then listen to the result: "UnWired."

Lest ye suffer under the misbelief that that the 21-year-old, Texas-based Ms. Router is a personage to be taken lightly, I present unto you a snip:

Nerdcore article got published in Wired.
That asshole Roger Thomasson should get fucking fired.
What the hell's going on with this shitty magazine?
You want this motherfucking knife in your fucking spleen?

Here's an MP3 Link for the song. Here's her MySpace: Link. And here's a recent profile in a Texas newspaper: Link.

For the record, the folks at Wired took the song with much good humor. No nerdcore revenge rap reply issued from Chris Anderson, last I checked.

Previously on BB:

Reader comment: Mr. Fingers says,

You posted about MC Router's new tattoo today, which also happens to be the release date of the new Rhyme Torrents compilation of nerdcore tracks! Link. Router's not on it, but still, thought it was worth mentioning.

Maybe this will earn me a knife in the spleen, but I have to point out the futility in trying to level up when your exp gauge is only 1/3 full. Attempting to do that will simply spill your skill points everywhere, and then the tears will start flowing faster than the blood of your enemies. And no one wants that.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:59:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's Duke talk on privacy - audio

Link, Direct MP3 Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:08:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

USB device lets you spy on other's PC activity

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:48:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Use free wireless in Alaska, lose your laptop

The police officer confiscated Tanner's laptop in order to inspect what he may have been downloading, Remaley said. Remaley on Friday said he hasn't looked inside the computer yet; he's putting together a search warrant application.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Vancouver cops hate WiFi
• Florida man arrested for "stealing" unencrypted WiFi signal
• Rogue cop invents anti-WiFi laws, shakes down man-of-cloth
• Rogue Nantucket WiFi cop embroiders the truth (some more)
• Hi-tech cop: cantennas are illegal to possess

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:36:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Larry Niven, Tim Pratt and others at FICTION SCIENCE this weekend in LA

We live in a science fictional world. Every day another futuristic projection made in the past turns into the reality of the present. Science fiction and science fact have become all but indistinguishable. "Special effects" are no longer particularly special, and fictional worlds, hoaxes and alternate histories are sometimes more real than reality itself. Science fiction turns its readers into early adopters; it helps prepare us for the future however it unfolds. Science uses this imaginative resource to think beyond its paradigm boundaries. TransFormations 3: Fiction Science examines how science and science fiction mutually inform one another and shape not only our sense of the future but also our understanding of the present.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:38:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Raul Gutierrez: photographs from Tibet and rural China

Above, "Mother and Daughter," from the "Yushu to Serba Road" series by Brooklyn-based photographer Raul Gutierrez. I could look at his work all day. He has traveled extensively in Amdo, Kham, and other rural areas of Tibet, and the candid glimpses of traditional life he's brought back are just stunning. Subscribe to an RSS feed of his photos here, looks like he's represented by this gallery if you'd like to buy prints.

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:16:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Super Mario re-created in snow by bored college students

A 60-foot snow portrait of Super Mario. Link (Thanks, Patrick)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:51:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why DRM drives piracy

Yes, it's irritating to authors to see their work posted up on the internet without their permission, especially when the deed is accompanied by a virtual raspberry from a super-annuated juvenile delinquent bragging about it. But the fact remains that the material damage done to authors by such activity is so minimal that it can barely be distinguished from zero—if there's any material damage at all, which I doubt...

Pirates rob bullion ships, they don't rob grain ships. Electronic copyright infringement is something that can only become an "economic epidemic" under certain conditions. Any one of the following:

1) The product they want—electronic texts—are hard to find, and thus valuable.
2) The products they want are high-priced, so there's a fair amount of money to be saved by stealing them.
3) The legal products come with so many added-on nuisances that the illegal version is better to begin with.

Those are the three conditions that will create widespread electronic copyright infringement, especially in combination. Why? Because they're the same three general conditions that create all large-scale smuggling enterprises.

And . . .

Guess what? It's precisely those three conditions that DRM creates in the first place. So far from being an impediment to so-called "online piracy," it's DRM itself that keeps fueling it and driving it forward.

See also:
Copy-prevention hurts ebook sales, ebooks don't hurt real-book sales

Update: Chris points out the other items in the series, as linked from Teleread:

1. A Matter of Principle
2. Copyright: What Are the Proper Terms for the Debate?
3. Copyright: How Long Should It Be?
4. What is Fair Use
5. Lies, and More Lies
6. There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:38:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DIY cocktail umbrellas

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:30:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

First sci fi film retracked online: Voyage dans la lune, 1902

My God, I love the internet.

Threetails says,

This represents several months of work. I have taken Georges Méliès' 1902 classic film "A Trip to the Moon" (Une Voyage dans la Lune), the first science fiction film ever produced, and dubbed on an original soundtrack! If I get a good enough reception I might make tracks from this piece available... Sorry I couldn't make the audio quality a little better for YouTube.

The music is inspired by a number of artists from the early days of electronica, including Kraftwerk, Vangelis, and even Rick Wakeman. So yeah... I took a 104 year old film and made it into a music video for my own experiments in electronic music.

There's also a copy of the original film at archive.org with a more conventional soundtrack. The filmmaker's family resigned copyright in 1961. Here's the Wikipedia entry on George Méliès, here's the entry on "Trip to the Moon."

Reader comment: Joe Francis says,

The Visual effects society has adapted that great Melies image of the rocket in the moon's eye for their awards trophy: Link. I think it's really clever - and not just because I'm a member.

And here's what a "Vessie" looks like in the wild. :-)

Even though the Melies film is wonderful, the "first" sci-fi film was made by the Lumiere brothers themselves. Named Charcuterie Mecanique, it's a 50 second short about a machine: you put the pig in one side, and the sausage, ham, etc. comes out the other! As such a machine still doesn't exist, it could righteously qualify as the first sci-fi film. :) I posted the google video on my blog a few weeks back: Link. Cheers! (source: Baydur, Memet. Cinema Writings. Iletisim Yayinlari, Istanbul, 2004.)

Noel Fielding as the moon from the Mighty Boosh - strangely Melies-like. Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:22:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ripping (off) the Congressional video record

The U.S. Congress provides webcasts for many of their hearings. In all cases, the hearings are streaming only, in many cases they are "live only" (no archive of the stream). In some cases, the committees even put a "copyright, all rights reserved" notice on the hearings!

This is really dumb. So, I've started ripping all congressional streams starting with the house and posting them in a nonproprietary format for download, tagging, review, and annotation at Google Video and another copy at the Internet Archive (just to prove this is a nondenominational issue :).

This is a Tom Sawyer hack, a la "painting this fence is *loads* of fun!" I intend to prove to the Congressional webmasters that it is so much fun doing their web sites for them that they'll want to do it themselves so that I go away. Until then, look for "Carl Malamud on behalf of the U.S. Congress" for official news.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:47:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Palla's architectural photo cut-ups

By making it symmetrical I confront the natural with the mechanical, the artificial. Architecture in itself is made entirely by people to be used and controlled by people. It is artificial. However, when people come and gather, it becomes like a city, a living organism and the situation transforms into something more natural. My works contain both those artificial and natural components. I’m attracted by the dynamism of the change from a simple form to a complicated organism.

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:39:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Animation Zen

Images above and below: screengrab from "GAME OVER," a short film by PES, in which classic videogames are recreated in cupcakes, sprinkles, fossils, pizzas, and toy froggies.

Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:32:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hi-Fructose, Vol 4

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:08:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thierry Mugler's robot fashion prescience profiled in NYT

Snip from a profile of fashion designer Thierry Mugler, king of '90s robocouture, from this weekend's New York Times:

“[...] I relate to space because it helps me realize that nothing is as important as you first think. There’s always something bigger.”

While it’s tempting to dismiss him as the Shirley MacLaine of fashion, Mugler moonwalks it like he talks it and has steadfastly adhered to his fantastical aesthetic since the early 1970s. Now, seven years after the crash of his label, the rest of the fashion world has landed on Planet Mugler.

Mugler’s PVC-clad intergalactic dominatrixes, who first invaded the runways in the mid-’80s, re-entered the fashion stratosphere at the spring shows. There they were at Balenciaga, where robo-babe metallic leggings brought to mind Mugler’s cyber-couture from the early ’90s; at Dolce & Gabbana, where dresses that appeared to have been made from space junk bore a striking similarity to Mugler’s signature hardware; and at Alexander McQueen, where frothy chiffon confections fit for a prom on Saturn were clones of Mugler’s jellyfish gowns at his farewell couture show in 2000.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:04:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bryan Berg, cardstacker

In Stacking the Deck, Bryan Berg reveals the secret to successful cardstacking with his simple four-card-cell structure and expanded grid techniques. Using illustrations and step-by-step instructions, he guides readers on to more elaborateóand incredibly strongócreations. He covers a wide range of architectural styles, from classic to whimsical, and various types of structures, including pyramids, shrines, stadiums, churches, an oil derrick, and even the Empire State Building. Since first setting the height record in 1992, Bryan's built awe-inspiring card models of a Japanese shrine, the Iowa State Capitol building, Ebbets Field, and his latest tower, which is more than twenty-five feet tall! The book includes photographs of some of these amazing pieces, illustrating just how appealing and enduring a "house of cards" can be. Stacking the Deck will inspire everyone from youngsters experimenting with their first deck of cards to adults, who can create their very own skyscrapers.

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:42:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video: cats in things they're not supposed to be in

A music video exploring human fascination with online images of cats in things they're not supposed to be in. Link to "Cat me if You Can," by "Canada's premiere folk/funk/meth-rock/R&B fusion group Agile Like This." Found here on milkfat, the site of internet funnyfarmer Michael Mouris, who produced this video. (worksafe warning: Contains a brief flash of cartoon cat anthropomorphic nudity)

Previously on BB:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:18:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Robot flapper pinup: photo art of Jeffrey Scott, "1019"

Link to the artist's website, here's a direct link to the larger jpeg. You can buy a print of this and many other lovely images (like this one, wow) right here. (Thanks, Jason Schultz)

Reader comment: Allygal says,

Hi, I love your blog, and am a very long time reader! I just wanted to comment and suggest an artist, related to your post about the artist Jeffery Scott. There is an amazing artist who I believe to be one of the innovators to this type of digital photography. His name is Symon Chow: Link. And has been doing this form of work for many years. He seems to be quite reclusive and modest. And deserves way more attension that he has gotten. You can see his work with the link provided and a lot of reviews (from other bloggers) of his work can be found by googling his name. Thanks again for wasting all my time at the office ;)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:14:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Airline loses "armless" dog that walks on two legs (Video)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:06:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Conservapedia's entry on the cactus

The secularist view of the Cactaceae is that they are roughly two million years old, and that they have evolved exclusively in the new world. This view fails to explain, however, how it is that the Opuntia genus is native to the island of Opus, near Greece. Cacti are known for their high content of alkaloids, and have often been used in the sacramental rights of the Native Americans. Because of this, the early Catholic missionaries in the west thought the plants to be the work of Satan, and this is perhaps a preferable view to that of materialistic evolution since it is difficult to imagine how something like mescaline could have evolved by natural selection. Besides that, the psychoactive content of many cacti have inspired the writings of such ungodly men as Aldous Huxley and Albert Hoffman.

Several species of cactus are now endangered in the west due to "poaching" by collectors and invasive species. But, since Genesis suggests that man has been given dominion over all of the earth, the environmentalist concerns on this note are entirely inappropriate. It may also be that environmentalists, in addition to flauting the Word of God, are merely concerned about the effects that declining cactus populations will have on their supply of mescaline.

Reader comment:

Scott says:

"You can't make this stuff up, folks. You have to let others do it for you."

Or, perhaps you can. A comment on the blog you linked to notes:

"Righteous Bubba said...

Although there are lots of funny original entries there, you should know that everybody and their mother has been vandalizing the Conservapedia for a little while now.

The joke entries tend to use better English than the true ones.

Geoff Holtby said...

It's definitely been vandalized all to hell. But most of the vandalism is of a subtle Colbertian sort. Outright vandalism just gets removed, so a lot of people have been adding hilarious pseudo-Conservative entries. There was a thread on the Something Awful forums about doing exactly this."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:58:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EMI changes tune on DRM-free music

Which is funny, since removing DRM can only help sell music. After all, no one buys music for the DRM. People who buy DRM songs -- instead of nicking the same music on P2P -- do so because they don't mind the DRM, or because they don't know about the DRM, or because they are willing to hold their nose. Presumably, there are people who are aren't willing to hold their noses (I'm one of them) who'd buy if the DRM was gone.

Online music giants Apple and Microsoft, along with smaller players including RealNetworks and Yahoo! Music, sought to indulge EMI's demands by waving leafy-green dollar bills at the company, but it wasn't what EMI asked for, and the company subsequently put the talks on hold. Warner's renewed interest in EMI is likely another contributing factor to EMI's own cold feet: Warner's leadership is devoted to DRM, making the DRM-free discussions all the more circumspect.

While it has become a truism in tech enthusiast circles that 'no DRM equals more sales,' EMI and other record companies are pleased enough with the status quo that they expect any "risk" to be shouldered by retailers. If a "non-DRM tax" of sorts were applied to music, online retailers would have no choice but to increase the cost of downloadable music.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:07:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DIY robot ride up for auction

This robot has a capacity rating of 346 pounds and was at one time used in a Nissan Motor Plant. It is NOT intended to be a "RIDE" and I do not reccomend doing so. Fanuc also does NOT support the use of this machine as a "JOY RIDE". Using this robot in such a manner can be hazardous to your health!!! I have no further use for this unit and I am looking to sell. With the money from this sale I will be in the market for an ArcMate 100i with PowerWave 455 welding machine...

The SEAT, and 5-point CROW racing harness are also NOT available in this auction...

This is NOT a JOKE, this is a serious auction for a serious piece of industrial equipment. This is NOT a TOY or a "RIDE", although it is apparent that it can support the weight of average humans.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:27:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UK MoD's psychic experiments revealed

Surprisingly 28 per cent of those tested managed a close guess at the contents of the envelopes, which included pictures of a knife, Mother Teresa and an "Asian individual".

But most subjects, who were holed up in a secret location for the study, were hopelessly off the mark in their guesses. One even fell asleep while he tried to focus on the envelope's content...

Nick Pope, who ran the MoD UFO research programme and worked at the ministry for 21 years, said: "It can only be speculation, but you don't employ that kind of time and effort to find money down the back of the sofa.

"You go to this trouble for high-value assets. We must be talking about bin Laden and weapons of mass destruction."

The MoD last night refused to discuss the possible applications of such a technique, but said that the study had concluded there was "little value" in using "remote viewing" in the defence of the nation.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:06:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A caravan of women comes to Spanish village

"Meeting someone this way, it's more rustic and authentic ... it's easier to get to know someone face to face," said 32-year-old farmer Cesar del Rio, whose family has lived in Hoyocasero for centuries...

"It's not really necessary to (meet people) this way any more. The thing is, it's more fun," said Laura Martin, 27, who was hoping for "a laugh, friendship, maybe something more."

"It seems to me that there are lot of older men who are interested but we younger women want our freedom and, here in the village, the men want to come straight down to business," she said, surrounded by a group of giggling girl friends.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:48:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Musique Concrete: skateboard as digital musical instrument

Tricks and movements generate real-time sounds allowing the skateboarder to composes his/her soundtrack of the city. Furthermore, combining tricks and movements result in unique and often unexpected musical compositions. Used in conjunction with ramps, obstacles, ledges and other architectural elements that make up the skateboarder’s universe, Musique Concrete provides the listener with a sonic imprint of the urban environment.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:37:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

OpenCongress -- ripping open the doors to Congress with Web 2.0

One of the problems we were aiming to address is that there is a lack of comprehensive, usable web resources for people and groups writing about bills and issues in Congress. The Library of Congress website, Thomas, doesn't do nearly enough to make Congressional information accessible -- meaning that political bloggers didn't have anywhere helpful to link when discussing Congress, that there wasn't a way for their readers to get the "big picture" behind an issue. The lack of public knowledge about what's really happening in Congress breeds apathy about political change in general.

OpenCongress helps close the information gap between political insiders and the public by bringing together official government information from Thomas (by way of GovTrack.us), news articles from Google News, blog posts from Technorati, campaign contribution data from OpenSecrets.org, and more -- to give you the real story behind what's happening in Congress.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:32:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moon Over Morocco podcast

Beginning Thursday, March 1, the ZBS Foundation has decided to release the second Jack Flanders tale, "Moon Over Morocco," as a free podcast. "MOM" was written by ZBS chief Meatball Fulton; its environmental and location sounds were recorded by Fulton in Morocco, and [hipster cred alert] backing music was recorded by Paul Bowles.

I don't know if you're familiar with ZBS's radio dramas, but they are always interesting (if occasionally annoying) romps through spacetime, with a healthy dose of mysticism and Eastern philosophy tossed in. In the mid- to late-70s, I'd catch the occasional episode from a ZBS program airing on NPR; I remember especially well the time my father fell asleep driving* while listening to "Moon Over Morocco" and started talking back to the radio. ("Falling asleep" while driving is actually a family trait I occasionally share; it doesn't seem to effect our ability to drive all that much, but every so often I'll wake up and have no idea where I am.) It wasn't until the 1982 rebroadcast of "The Fourth Tower of Inverness" (1972), though, the first of the Jack Flanders mysteries, that I was able to listen to an entire storyline. (And when I needed a handle for CompuServe's IRC-like CB chat service the following year, the name of Inverness's resident mad scientist, Dr. Marlin Mazoola, immediately came to mind.)

Over the years, ZBS has become expert at aural VR -- their "Dr. Fritz" series made use of a Kunstkopf to allow authentic 3D recording -- but even their earliest productions manage to suck your brain out your earholes and carry it off for a good, hard run through the park.

"MOM" is usually heard as it was broadcast on NPR, in ten 1-hour episodes, but it was conceived as fifty 12-minute episodes aired weekdays over a ten-week period. The podcast returns to the original 12-minute format, with a new episode released daily for seven weeks.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:25:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Home Depot's bullshit EULA- UPDATED

Sounds like that slip is ripe for a Reasonable Agreement sticker.

Link (Thanks, Mark!)

Update: Abelard sez, " As a former employee of HD, I bear them no great love, but the slip Mark was asked to sign is spit out when you do a transaction that involves the 'Special Services' desk - i.e. either a special order, a delivery or a will call.

"In all three cases the customer agreement is assigned a unique number (in his case, #156326) and is printed on letter-sized paper with the particulars of the order (items, colors, delivery date, etc.). This sheet also has disclaimers, such as 'We deliver curbside only, we won't go into your house' and 'Yes, I truly do want a fire-engine-red bidet and I know I can't return it.'

"We used to get the customer to sign off on the 8.5 X 11 and we would keep a copy, but someone decided it would be easier or more efficient to do this at the checkout.

"If he didn't get a copy of the customer agreement, then his salesperson did a bad job (I sure hope he knows what he just paid for, too!)."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:13:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Default router passwords

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:46:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Batman Year 100: Batman versus the DHS

Batman Year 100 is set in 2039, 100 years after the 1939 debut of The Bat-Man. America has become a Soviet-like military society, where corrupt Department of Homeland Security officials reign supreme in a land of suspended habeas corpus and universal surveillance.

Batman is now a mere urban legend in Gotham City, but he is still alive and well, living in the cracks of totalitarian America. When he witnesses a Fed shock-trooper's murder, he becomes the target of a violent, determined investigation from the DHS brass, who are determined to destroy "the last mask" and perfect their vision of an America where they are the only authority.

Batman Year 100 is the most exciting and fresh re-imagining of the Batman stories since the original Frank Miller Dark Knight comics. The artwork is broody, abstract, haunting; the writing screams along at 100 mph. This Batman is the most complex, conflicted, and darkest Batman yet.

As a bonus, there's a great short alternate-universe Batman story stuck at the end, where Batman is imagined as the alter-ego of a Nazi-fighting Jew in 1939 Germany. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:32:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jacket with collar/neck-support for public sleeping

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:22:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beer-catapaulting fridge conserves beer-fetching calories

Have you ever gotten up off the couch to get a beer for the umpteenth time and thought, "What if instead of ME going to get the BEER, the BEER came to ME???" Well, that was how I first conceived of the beer launching fridge. About 3 months and several hundred dollars later I have a fully automated, remote controlled, catapulting, man-pit approved, beer launching mini-fridge. It holds 10 beers in its magazine with 14 more in reserve to store a full case. It is controlled by a keyless entry system. Pressing unlock will start the catapult rotating and when it is aiming at your target, pressing unlock again will stop it. Then the lock button can be pressed to launch a beer in the selected direction.

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

Video slots pulled for use of subliminal jackpot-screen

The games flash winning jackpot symbols at players for a fifth of a second, long enough for the brain to detect even if the players are not aware of the message, some psychologists told CBC News.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:14:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Creative Commons 3.0 licenses launch

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:11:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Foul pit yaws wide in Guatemala City

Officials blamed recent rains and an underground sewage flow from a ruptured main for the tragedy. The pit emitted foul odors, loud noises and tremors, shaking the surrounding ground. A rush of water could be heard from its depths, and authorities feared it could widen or other sinkholes could open up.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:07:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, February 25, 2007

Merlin Mann launches internet TV show via iTunes

BoingBoing reader Gord Fynes sez,

Productivity guru, That Phone Guy, and everyone's favorite electronic hobo, Merlin Mann, launches his "The Merlin Show" Monday February 26 via iTunes. We all probably owe it to ourselves to tune in!

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:37:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Terrorism Finger Puppets

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:17:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, February 24, 2007

Best muscle-rub ever

I first tried this stuff after really wrenching my neck while on holidays in France -- the pharmacist at the local shop recommended it and it saved the trip. Instead of lying down with an icepack all week, I was running around, having fun. Minutes after applying it, I felt a deep, deep warmth in my muscles, and one by one they loosened themselves, relaxing away from the punishing spasm.

I've gone through two or three tubes since, and I just polished off my last one, after hurting my back while doing something foolish (occupational hazard -- after two days this week on airplanes, it's no wonder that my back is rebelling). Ten minutes ago, I wanted to lie down and die. Now my back is a warm, comfortable thing.

A little googling turned up an American distributor for the cream -- they mark it up 300 percent, but I still ordered another tube. This stuff is worth its weight in gold. Link

Update: Here are some cheaper places to shop for the magic sauce, courtesy of Michael and Matthew: Link, Link

Update 2: Yang adds, "And if you're in Canada, the Sports Alkileine cream is available from Mountain Equipment Co-op, also without ridiculous mark-ups." That's the wrong cream, sorry!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:46:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lectures from Cory's USC class: podcast

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

Mac program can erase your home directory if you use a pirate serial

Update: Jason sez, "Display Eater's developer posted a public letter on his website saying that it was all a hoax. Also, this isn't new to the Mac community. A similar incident occurred in 2004."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:54:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Crocheted Dalek

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:04:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Egypt: blogger Kareem Amer gets 4 years for insulting Islam

An Egyptian court this week sentenced blogger Abdel Kareem Nabil Suleiman (pictured above) to four years in prison. He is the first person in Egypt to be jailed for internet-based journalism.

He was charged with "inciting hatred of Islam" and insulting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on his blog, where he wrote under the pseudonym of "Kareem Amer": Link (Arabic), here is his Blogger.com profile, and here are writings he posted on a discussion forum: Link (Arabic).

The sentence comes three years after Mubarak announced he would abolish the practice of imprisonment for "press offenses."

Snip from AP coverage of the sentencing on Thursday:

Nabil [Kareem Amer], wearing a gray T-shirt and sitting in the defendants pen, gave no reaction and his face remained still as the verdict was read. He made no comment to reporters as he was immediate led outside to a prison truck.

Seconds after he was loaded into the truck and the door closed, an Associated Press reporter heard the sound of a slap from inside the vehicle and a shriek of pain from Nabil.

As a result of this conviction, which clearly confirms Egypt's inclusion in our list of Internet enemies, we call on the United Nations to reject Egypt's request to host the Internet Governance Forum in 2009. After letting Tunisia, another violator of online freedom, host the World Summit on the Information Society, such a choice would completely discredit the UN process for debating the future of the Internet.

Suleiman, who was arrested on 6 November 2006, got three years for inciting hatred of Islam and one year for insulting the president. The judge dismissed the charge of "spreading rumours liable to disturb the peace" which had been included in the prosecution's indictment. Suleiman's blogs regularly criticised the government's religious and authoritarian excesses. He also criticised Egypt's highest religious institutions including the Sunni university of Al-Azhar, where he studied law. Egypt is on the list of the 13 Internet enemies which Reporters Without Borders compiled in 2006 (Link). The government wants to host one of the stages of the Internet Governance Forum, a series of UN-sponsored negotiations about how to regulate the Internet (see: Link).

On 23 February 2004, the newly-elected president of the Union of Egyptian Journalists, Galal Aref, made an important announcement: President Mubarak had just telephoned him and had formally undertaken to abolish prison sentences for journalists in connection with their work. In effect, he was promising a major overhaul of the laws concerning press offences. Three years later, nothing has changed. Journalists still risk being imprisoned despite the semblance of a reform last year. (For more on this: Link).

Link to the "Free Kareem" website set up by his supporters.

Human rights organization Amnesty International condemned the sentence, and also calls for Kareem's release: Link.

More on Reuters, AP, BBC, Gulf News.

Glenn Reynolds has been following this case for a while at Instapundit: Link 1, Link 2, and he points to an extensive feature on Kareem's case here: Link 3.

One of those posts points to a blogger in Egypt called "Sandmonkey," who wrote this troubling update:

[Embattled Egyptian Blogger] Abdel Kareem’s father announced today that he is disowning Abdel Kareem, and that he would like to see Sharia Law applied to his son, in which he would have 3 days to repent at the end of which if he is not repentant, he would be killed.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:50:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Golden-age stewardess glamor shots

See also:
Plane Crazy: Musical about golden age aviation and the Pill
Inside look at producing a musical

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:01:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interactive copyright navigator to help cram for law finals

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:55:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

PS3-betrayed gamers make anti-Sony song, video

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:53:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gizmodo: Boycott RIAA in March

Alright, we've been following the RIAA's increasingly frequent affronts to privacy and free speech lately, and it's about time we stopped merely bitching and moaning and did something about it. The RIAA has the power to shift public policy and to alter the direction of technology and the Internet for one reason and one reason alone: it's totally loaded. Without their millions of dollars to throw at lawyers, the RIAA is toothless. They get their money from us, the consumers, and if we don't like the way they're behaving, we can let them know with our wallets.

Link (Thanks, Will!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:49:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Net Neutrality video - WOW!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:44:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Light-saber umbrella

Update: Thanks to everyone who pointed out that these are reminiscent of the Blade Runner brollies.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:41:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coffee mug with a pistol grip

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:38:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, February 23, 2007

Warren Ellis on Second Life: Please stop doing that to the cat

In return for allowing her avatar to be animated into bump-and-grind moves around The General, she got paid Linden Dollars. Not a lot, but hers was a free account, which means the system doesn’t give her a stipend in return for paid membership. She could leave her computer running for a couple of hours, making sure her Second Life connection didn’t time out, and earn enough Linden Dollars to get through the week — mostly spent on styling her av and helping with the rent on the land she and her friends called home. Which doesn’t sound a million miles away from the life of a real-world dancer, subtracting the need for food.

That Second Life can replicate that sort of blank existence would seem reason enough to take a good look at what kind of experience the world is really fostering. But that is really the soft edge of sex in Second Life.

There have been attempts, recently, to downplay the role of sex in Second Life. Anyone’s who’s spent more than a day in-world knows those attempts to be disingenuous at best. The mainland is divided into Mature and PG areas, and any tour of the Mature regions will inevitably feature a collision with the sex business. A longer tour will illustrate how little of it is vanilla.

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:00:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Armed America on new blog That Ain't Art

The question of gun ownership in America is a fractious one. Even the number of guns in the country is in significant debate. The National Rifle Association (NRA), the country's largest pro-gun lobbying group, quotes the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (BATFE)'s estimate that in 1999 there were about 215,000,000 guns in America and one gun in about half of the households in the country. The Brady Campaign (the nation's leading anti-gun coalition) estimates there are 192,000,000 guns in America, owned by 39% of the population.

This isn't a book about guns. It's a book about people.

Whether it's 39% or 50% of Americans, it's still an awful lot of people. I started wondering just who they were, what they looked like, and how they lived.

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:59:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Recording the Beatles book

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:39:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Senior citizen offs mugger with bare hands

(Limon police chief Luis) Hernandez said the American, whom he refused to identify, struggled with the robber, breaking his collarbone and eventually killing him. Police identified the dead man as Warner Segura, 20. The other two assailants fled.

Afterward, the tourists drove Segura to a hospital, where he was declared dead. Sergio Lopez, a Red Cross auxiliary, examined Segura's body and said he died from asphyxiation.

Costa Rican officials interviewed the Americans, and said they wouldn't charge the U.S. tourist with any crime because he acted in self defense.

"They were in their right to defend themselves after being held up," Hernandez said.

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:28:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Make your own "Dharma Initiative" snacks

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:50:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steampunk walking robot

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:44:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NASA procedure for nuts in space

Space station medical kits contain tranquilizers and anti-depression, anti-anxiety and anti-psychotic medications. Shuttle medical kits have anti-psychotic medication but not antidepressants, since they take several weeks to be effective and shuttle flights last less than two weeks.

The checklist says astronauts can be restrained and then offered oral Haldol, an anti-psychotic drug used to treat agitation and mania, and Valium. If the astronaut will not cooperate, the drugs can be forcibly given with a shot to the arm. Crew members are instructed to stay with the tied-up astronaut to monitor vital signs.

Space station astronauts talk weekly via long-distance hookup to a flight surgeon and every two weeks to a psychologist, so any psychiatric disorder would probably be detected before it became so serious that the astronaut had to be brought home, (NASA spokesperson James) Hartsfield said...

U.S. astronauts at the space station keep a journal for a study by a researcher. But (former NASA psychiatrist Dr. Patricia) Santy said the diaries will not help detect mental illness.

"What astronaut is going to tell you they're feeling homicidal?" she asked. "They're very conscious that if they say the wrong thing they could get grounded."

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:33:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Three-year-old fingerpainting prodigy (fake?)

Reader comment:

Peter says:

As much as I wanted to believe it was real, I'm pretty sure that video is faked. It's just a doll's arm or something. The only time you see the kid's fingers move is the shots where he's filling in solid areas or "blending." I'm sure they sped it up so it wouldn't look as fake. Plus the site at the end of the video (turtlekid.com) is to promote the new movie.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:54:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fool politician wants to ban truck nuts

Maryland Delegate LeRoy E. Myers Jr. has filed legislation to ban the display of those oh-so-chic Truck Nuts and "anatomically correct" human or animal genitalia from the back of pick-up trucks.

From the WaPo story:

"People are making a joke out of it," Myers said yesterday. "But I think it's a pretty serious problem. You have body parts hanging from the hitches of cars. We've crossed a line."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:48:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video of biotech artist awaiting trial

"In July 2006, Angie Waller and Jim Fetterley decided to visit Steve Kurtz in Buffalo and make a candid video about him awaiting trial for mail fraud. "Steve Kurtz Waiting" can provide an active introduction to his grand jury case for those who have never heard of it, while also providing a valuable account of where he stands at this time for those of us who have been following the work of Critical Art Ensemble for years.

"Since May 11th 2004, Steve's life has drastically changed and the outcome of his case will affect all US citizens."

On May 11, Steve Kurtz phoned 911 to report his wife of 20 years was unresponsive. When paramedics came to his house, one of them noticed that Kurtz had laboratory equipment, which he used in his art exhibits. The paramedics reported this to police and the FBI sealed off his house.

Authorities later said that Kurtz's wife had died of "heart failure," but he wasn't allowed to return to his home for two days while the FBI confiscated his equipment, and biological samples. They also carted off his books, personal papers and computer.

The contradiction between the charges for possessing harmful substances and the county health commissioner assessing that no hazardous substances were found in the house leaves only the conclusion - that ideas, when misunderstood or disagreeable, are toxic.

Kurtz is one of the founders of the Critical Art Ensemble, a group whose beginnings in filmmaking over a decade ago have evolved into public performances and videos that educate the public about the politics of biotechnology. All of CAE's museum and public performances are meant to not only inform the public about the ways their lives are affected by biotechnology, but also to dispel public paranoia that is generated by the media and a lack of understanding.

Steve became the victim of this paranoia, and through the extended powers of the US Patriot Act, he still awaits trial for mail fraud. If found guilty, could face up to twenty years.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:43:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Torontonians: win the right to name a character in my book

The Sunburst honors the best Canadian sf book of the year with a $1,000 cash prize and national prestige (my first short story collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More, won the prize a few years back). It's an award I'm glad to support -- Canadian sf is incredibly vibrant and exciting.

I've donated naming rights for one of the characters in a forthcoming novel to the auction -- the book that was partially syndicated under the title Themepunks last year on Salon. It'll be out from Tor in 2008, and the winning bidder can have slap her/his name on either the female or the male lead.

Hope to see you at Ad Astra -- and at the auction!

- 10th-anniversary statue of The Sandman, new in his box, all 12½ inches of him, with signed certificate of authenticity
-signed copy of Neil Gaiman's novel Fragile Things (hardcover, first U.K. edition)
—signed first edition of Windflower, by Nick Bantock and Edoardo Ponti
—signed copy of Jeff Hoke’s non-fiction book The Museum of Lost Wonder, with special bonus not available in stores!
—two signed prints donated by Martin Springett: one from Tolkien's Farmer Giles of Ham and one Guy Gavriel Kay-related image
—AND a character named after the winning bidder in Cory Doctorow's next novel.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:07:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free legal representation for fair-use filmmakers

Now, Stanford's Fair Use Project has announced that it will provide free legal services to films that follow the guidelines:

As reported just over a year ago, American University’s Center for Social Media released the Documentary Filmmakers’ Statement of Best Practices in Fair Use. This fantastic report outlines principles to guide filmmakers in the fair use of copyrighted material in their films. It was an important step towards helping to clarify this unruly area of the law.

Working with Media/Professional, and Michael Donaldson, the Fair Use Project has now found a way to insure films that follow the Best Practices guidelines. For films that are certified to have followed the Best Practices guidelines, Media/Professional will provide a special (read: much lower cost) policy; Stanford’s Fair Use Project will provide pro bono legal services to the film. If we can’t provide pro bono services, then Michael Donaldson’s firm will provide referrals to a number of media lawyers who will provide representation at a reduced rate. Either way, filmmakers will be able to rely upon “fair use” in the making of their film. The Fair Use Project and Donaldson will defend the filmmakers if their use is challenged. Media/Professional will cover liability if the defense is not successful.

This is a huge breakthrough. As many of us have been arguing, the real constraint of fair use comes not from the courts, but from those in the market who are trying to avoid any risk of copyright exposure. This market-based solution will now clear the way for many films to be released which before could not secure insurance. And we are eager to use the inevitable cases that will emerge to solidify the fantastic Statement of Best Practices developed by the Center for Social Media.

The project has an advisory board: filmmakers Kirby Dick, Academy Award-nominee Davis Guggenheim, Arthur Dong and Haskell Wexler; professors Peter Jaszi and me; and intellectual property attorneys Michael Donaldson and Anthony Falzone.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:00:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-drug puppet-show remixed into stoner video

I don't know if this would be quite so satisfying to someone who didn't grow up with TVOntario's shows, as I did. This runs a little long -- as does most surrealism -- but it has moments of pure stoner brilliance. Link (Thanks, Ryan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:57:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pulp Fiction as typography

Update: Jorge P sends in "another typographical interpretation of the Marcellus Wallace scene. It's quite different from the one you posted, but just as fun."

Update 2 Jarratt Moody made the original video.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:53:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HTML tags illustrated

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:48:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, February 22, 2007

What Steve Jobs's DRM announcement means

Although Apple's DRM is wholly ineffective at preventing copying, it does manage to raise the cost of switching from an iPod to a competing device. Every iTunes song you buy for 99 cents amounts to a 99 cent tax on switching from an iPod to a Zune. That's because your iTunes songs won't play on your Zune -- or on any other player, save those made or licensed by Apple. Jobs tries to skate around this in his memo, suggesting that only a tiny fraction of the music on iPods comes from his music store, and so the anti-switching effects are minimal.

While it's true that most of us haven't loaded our 10,000-song iPods with $9,900 worth of iTunes songs, it doesn't follow that the switching cost for even casual iTunes customers is negligible. If you'd bought just one iTunes track every month since the launch in 2003, you'd have rung up $82 in lock-in music. Throw in a couple of $9.99 albums and maybe an audiobook or two and you can easily find yourself in $150 down the lock-in hole.

That's $150 you kiss goodbye if you buy a sexy little Creative Labs Zen or a weird little no-name from the wildly imaginative entrepreneurs of Malaysia. Not only won't your iTunes Store music play on those devices, it's illegal to try to get it to play on those devices.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:12:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mix-n-Mash: Brit video remix contest from Creative Commons and Google

Britain: home of fish and chips -- and of the battered Mars Bar. You can get real ale in a 14th-century pub, but don't expect to drink there past bedtime. It's been called the land of hope and glory, but to others it's the land of embarrassment and breakfast. Show the world what rocks your boat about Britain … and what you'd send overboard.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:36:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Swarm of Angels voting round

Our global member community are taking part in a voting round right now for our groundbreaking participative cinema project. The votes are to help finalize some media production, and initiate others.

Notably we're preparing to gather video footage from our members to create video teasers for our feature film project.

We are also in the final stages of creating our remixable trailer (Angels just voted recently on their favourite version: Geometry)

See also:
50,000 angels will fund £1 million film: A Swarm of Angels
Kleptones podcast for A Swarm of Angels
Kleptones join Swarm of Angels film project
Swarm of Angels film project holds its first vote

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:32:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIAA declares war on open WiFi

The RIAA just wants to stand up for freedom. First they convinced Russia to force licensing and 24-hour inspection of presses, now they want to eliminate anonymous speech here at home.

Record companies are quick to cite the First Amendment when someone suggests banning music with "suggestive" lyrics, but they're not so big on free presses and anonymous speech. It's like they love free speech, but not enough to share it with the rest of us.

Predictably, the RIAA has filed a "motion for reconsideration" of Judge West's decision to force the RIAA to pay for Foster's legal fees. In the motion, the plaintiffs emphasize a key point: They want the judge to rule that the owner of an ISP account is responsible for all activity on that account, which could have a chilling effect on public wireless access and open hotspots. (The appeal also made the point that Foster should be held liable if she was aware of the infringement occuring via her account; in the case of someone with an open Wi-Fi network, that could constitute something as simple as experiencing traffic slowdowns.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:27:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nerdy hood ornament made from D30

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:21:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Puretracks "DRM-free music" mystery explained

Isabelle sez, "I'm the director of marketing at Puretracks and a big fan of BoingBoing. I wanted to give you an update on your post about our MP3 offering that just rolled out. The first thing to mention is that we really do have 50,000 MP3s for sale in Canada . But we don't have Mac support at the moment. This is a side effect of our business reality. The entire first version of the store was based around the WMA (DRM'd) format, and it has been a monumental task switching our database and everything to support the new format. Several of these pieces, including our Download Manager, are still based on ActiveX controls and other non-Mac-friendly mechanisms so Mac users cannot purchase and downloads songs from Puretracks as of yet. But we WILL support the Macs, and the MP3 rollout is our first step towards being able to actually do that." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:12:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ikea's Slabang alarm clock

[T]his small, battery-operated, brick-shaped clock is wrapped in a funky yellow rubber, so it can handle being smacked and/or knocked off of the nightstand and still look good while doing so. It’s large face does not illuminate unless you hit the oversized snooze bar (another bonus), so no more glancing and keeping track of what times you woke up during the night. Like most clocks, it has an adjustable volume switch for its alarm, but here’s the best part: you can record up to seven seconds of your own sounds using it’s built-in microphone. For fun, the first thing I did was record the chorus of Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe” so that I could channel Bill Murray in Groundhog Day.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:56:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Electroshock therapy for China's "Internet addicts"

Alarmed by a survey that found that nearly 14 percent of teens in China are vulnerable to becoming addicted to the Internet, the Chinese government has launched a nationwide campaign to stamp out what the Communist Youth League calls "a grave social problem" that threatens the nation.

...

Led by Tao Ran, a military researcher who built his career by treating heroin addicts, the clinic uses a tough-love approach that includes counseling, military discipline, drugs, hypnosis and mild electric shocks.

Tao said the clinic is based on the idea that there are many similarities between his current patients and those he had in the past.

In terms of withdrawal: "If you let someone go online and then he can't go online, you may see a physical reaction, just like someone coming off drugs." And in terms of resistance: "Today you go half an hour, and the next day you need 45 minutes. It's like starting with drinking one glass and then needing half a bottle to feel the same way."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:03:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Police blow up profanity-spewing CD players found in church

The players were programmed to play sexually explicit language during Ash Wednesday mass.

The recordings, made on store-bought blank discs, featured people using foul language and "pornographic messages," [Capt. Gary] Johnson said. He would not elaborate because of the ongoing investigation.

Church staff members took the CD players to the basement and called police, who sent the bomb squad, Johnson said.

The bomb squad blew up two players outside and kept the third one to test for fingerprints or DNA and trace its components, he said.

Update:

Meanwhile, in Northern Ireland, police discovered a -- gasp! -- tape dispenser in a rail station. You can guess what happened:

The Army carried out a controlled explosion on the object which was declared safe. Traffic in the town was severely disrupted for several hours while the operation took place. A police spokesperson said: "As with any object that cannot readily be accounted for, we have a duty to be wary in order to ensure the safety of all in the vicinity," they added.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:53:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Susie Bright on RU Sirius show

Susie Bright: … some of us have started Bet on Ted [betting pool]. You just pick your date. We're going to give it a year. Any time this year. And to win, something has to happen with Ted [Haggard] that gets into the news or into the courts. We've come up with a list of things -– all of them involve Ted cracking, and it hitting a news report. If you have the lucky date, then you win half the pot and the other half goes to our worthy cause: LYRIC.. If nobody gets the right date -- or Ted sneaks by all year and nothing comes out -- then the whole pot will go to LYRIC too. So bet on Ted! I'm hoping we get somewhere with it.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:33:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

W.W.G.W.B.D.? flow chart

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:55:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos of people wearing fezzes

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:46:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Blog with "nothing but pictures of cute girls at tea"

Reader comment:

Mariana says:

Michael Kelly did it first. :)

He is a British humorist who might be best known for this satiric article: French Intellectuals in Afghanistan.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:41:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Terence McKenna's library destroyed in fire

Terence's brother Dennis owns an index of Terence’s collection, which will at least give us an overview of his library—sorta like a playlist without the MP3s. But even this valuable document will not replace the body of knowledge itself—a body that had become, in the weird ways of the memetic world, a kind of second body for Terence’s fabulous and fascinating mind. No budding head will ever be able to poke through this collection again, with its faintly perfumed volumes on Chinese alchemy and butterflies and hash. And the world has one fewer 1659 folio of Isaac Casaubon’s A True and Faithful Relation of what passed between Dr. John Dee and some spirits, and one fewer old-school copy of Agrippa’s Three Books of Occult Philosophy, which Terence swapped for a pound or two of yummies back in the day. The content of these books, at least, is reproducible; Terence, of course, was one-of-a-kind.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:17:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stolen laptop recovered thanks to SETI@home software

SETI@home is a program that analyzes deep space radio wave data collected by the Arecibo radio observatory in Puerto Rico. Kimberly's husband, James, installed the program on her computer. He's one of over a million people who have SETI@home running on their computers in the hopes of finding non-human intelligent life in the universe. SETI stands for "Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence."

Melin monitored the SETI(at)home database to see if the stolen laptop would "talk" to the Berkeley servers. Indeed, the laptop checked in three times within a week, and Melin sent the IP addresses to the Minneapolis Police Department.

After a subpoena to a local Internet provider, police determined the real-world address where the stolen laptop was logging on. Within days, officers seized the computer and returned it. No one had been arrested as of Wednesday and the case remains under investigation, said Lt. Amelia Huffman of the Minneapolis Police Department.

Kimberly's writings were safe, and the thieves didn't appear to have broken into her e-mail or other personal folders. But the returned computer contained 20 tracks of rap music with unintelligible lyrics, possibly from the person who stole the computer or bought it on the underground.

"It's really, really horrid rap," Melin said. "It makes Ludacris look like Pavarotti."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:51:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chimps use spears to hunt for vertebrates

Chimps were observed thrusting their spears into hollow trunks and branches with enough force to injure anything inside the holes, Pruetz’s research team says. The chimps used a “power grip” and made multiple downward stabs – much the same way as a human might wield a dagger.

Ten different chimps in the population were observed to perform this behaviour in 22 bouts. In one case the researchers saw a chimp remove a dead bushbaby and eat it.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Club-wielding chimpanzee spotted in LA suburb
• Jane Goodall on human-like behavior in chimps
• Chimps attack humans at ape sanctuary
• Video: Chimp plays Ms. Pac Man
• Oliver the Humanzee

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:20:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Shapeshifting aircraft

One promising approach is aimed initially at helicopters, not airplanes, and takes after one of nature’s creations: plants. Flowers angle their stems by shifting fluid from one cell to another. Lithium batteries also change shape as ions flow in and out of them when they are charged and discharged. You may not notice the batteries changing shape, but “your cell phone designer and your iPod designer know about it and design around it,” says Yet-Ming Chiang, a professor of materials science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Chiang and colleague Steven Hall took advantage of the shape-changing nature of batteries by building the same materials into a model of a Blackhawk helicopter blade. They found a small dose of energy could reshape the blade, altering the angle of its trailing edge to give it more lift. That’s great for hovering, but the blade doesn’t need as much lift in flight mode. A morphing blade could simply return to its original shape when it’s time for the helo to fly away.

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

Weird photographic effect -- can you explain it?

(Click on thumbnail for enlargement) Long time boingboing reader, first time emailer.

I thought I'd solicit the help of the boing boing community in explaining a weird optical illusion in a photo I took.

I was travelling in a Bombardier turboprop plane recently, looked out my window and saw the propeller. Thought it would make a nice picture, so I took out my cameraphone.

The picture is attached. Unphotoshopped. There are propeller blades that appear to be floating, and that appear in a path that is outside the normal path of the propeller. Not sure what to make of it.

I've got a few other photos showing the same thing, but I'm enclosing the most dramatic one. Can anyone explain what's going on?

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:07:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO make a steampunk keyboard

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:47:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Small world in your head

...Scientists are looking for small-world setups within the brain's massive, interconnected cell networks and for moment-to-moment electrical manipulations that, they suspect, foster thinking and learning. Their efforts are a sharp departure from popular brain-imaging efforts to pinpoint neural niches that specialize in particular mental capabilities.

"Researchers have just begun to apply a huge arsenal of approaches to understanding how brain networks are patterned, how they evolve and grow, and how they generate dynamic structures," says neuroscientist Olaf Sporns of Indiana University in Bloomington...

The notion that the brain thrives on chaos, in a mathematical sense, comes as no shock to neuroscientist Walter J. Freeman of the University of California, Berkeley. For the past 20 years, he has argued that the brain churns out a cascade of chaotic electrical activity that serves as a "get ready" state. From there, he theorizes, vast expanses of brain tissue shift into electrical-activity patterns that organize thought and perception.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:31:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wooden keychain speaker

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:57:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO upholster a tree stump

This really began as unauthorized public art, and is not intended as something to have, but rather as a gesture to give. The street stumps are anchored and framed with firm roots and city masonry as they are, and what we do is contribute, care, and dignify that which has been diminished thus giving vitality again to spaces usually below the pedestrian radar. Working in the urban areas is quite easy because these small sidewalk plots, where the tree stumps are found, have an ambiguous jurisdiction and allow for engaged activity without provoking upset, only occasional curiosity. I tend to act spontaneously and from a perspective that where something is obviously blighted, one shouldn’t have to ask permission to care, nor sponsorship to make and exhibit art. So it’s best to work in places that its quite obvious that no one is taking responsibility for the care of the space or tree stump. Engaging to care for something in public space is a radical gesture indeed; it changes our measurement of responsibility into simply, the ability to respond.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:39:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Colossal squid caught

Colossal squid, which are found deep in Antarctic waters, are thought to be about the same length as giant squid (Architeutis dux) but are much heavier...

The squid was frozen in the ship's hull and brought back to New Zealand for scientific examination.

"The colossal squid has just arrived in New Zealand and it is likely that it is the first intact adult male colossal squid to ever be successfully landed," (New Zealand Fisheries Minister Jim) Anderton said.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:21:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cheap mechanical hand mimes piano-playing

The various gears and levers inside this clear plastic hand interact to move the fingers as if they are playing one of six classic piano pieces; as the digits play selections from Beethoven's "Fifth Symphony", Scott Joplin's "The Entertainer," or Chopin's "Minute Waltz," you'll be fascinated by their precise movement...

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:42:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canadian download store has 50,000 DRM-free MP3s for sale -- UPDATED

Isabelle sez, "I'm the director of marketing at Puretracks and a big fan of BoingBoing. I wanted to give you an update on your post about our MP3 offering that just rolled out. The first thing to mention is that we really do have 50,000 MP3s for sale in Canada . But we don't have Mac support at the moment. This is a side effect of our business reality. The entire first version of the store was based around the WMA (DRM'd) format, and it has been a monumental task switching our database and everything to support the new format. Several of these pieces, including our Download Manager, are still based on ActiveX controls and other non-Mac-friendly mechanisms so Mac users cannot purchase and downloads songs from Puretracks as of yet. But we WILL support the Macs, and the MP3 rollout is our first step towards being able to actually do that."

Puretracks, a Canadian online music store, sells everything in its catalog (The Barenaked Ladies, Broken Social Scene and Sarah McLachlan and other indie artists from many labels) as DRM-free MP3s. They have 50,000 tracks at $0.79 each.

The labels include Nettwerk Music Group of Vancouver, Arts & Crafts Productions of Toronto, the San Francisco, Calif.-based Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA) and Beggars Banquet Records of London, England.

Update: Mark sez, "The item suggests the site sells mp3s DRM-free, but if you hit their web page on a Mac, you get this screen. In which they tell you they use Windows Media and claim they're incompatble with Macs because they can't use FairPlay (ah, that old myth again!). Doesn't sound very DRM-free to me."

He's totally right. Despite what the CBC article says, it appears that every single track at Puretracks is crippled with Windows DRM.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:26:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory speaking at Duke, UNC today

• 5PM: Duke University, Love Auditorium, Levine Science Research Center -- "From Myspace to Homeland Security: Privacy and the Totalitarian Urge"
• 2PM University of North Carolina, Wilson Library -- a talk on copyright

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:47:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pay-per-use electricity in Dallas/Fort-Worth airport

Last year, I had a ridiculous experience in Luton airport outside London, where a security guy told me that my laptop creates a "fire hazard," and couldn't stay plugged in. I asked for a direct quote I could publish and attribute to him, and he balked, saying he wasn't authorized to speak for the airport. I pointed out that there was a Dixon's electronics shop in the terminal full of things that were plugged into the mains and mentioned that I'd bought my power-adapter from a Dixon's just like it in Heathrow the week before. Then I pointed out that the business-lounge (which overlooked the main terminal) was full of people visibly plugged into the same electrical system. Finally he relented -- and the airport didn't burst into flame. Talk about a business-traveler-hostile airport, though.

DFW is a hub for people flying cross-country, but it's not the only one. Free electricity and a laptop-friendly atmosphere are a good reason to choose to fly through Chicago's O'Hare instead of Dallas -- though Dallas does have a killer BBQ restaurant that beats the food court in Chicago hands-down. Link

See also: Montreal airport denies electricity to laptop users

Update: Aaron sez, "Technology Evangelist just posted a couple days ago that Minneapolis/Saint Paul International started charging $3 for 30 minutes of juice."

Update 2: Andrew sez, "The Port Authority of NY and NJ provides power poles at Kennedy airport for free.

Mark sez, "There's a great site for finding free power outlets in airports, the Air Power Wiki. I've blogged about it a few times in the past on my site, Upgrade: Travel Better."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:37:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, February 21, 2007

Flame First, Think Later: NYT on why we act like jerks online

Image: Penny Arcade.

This New York Times story on the psychopathology of flame wars has -- surprise! -- generated much heated discussion around the internet:

John Suler, a psychologist at Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J., suggested that several psychological factors lead to online disinhibition: the anonymity of a Web pseudonym; invisibility to others; the time lag between sending an e-mail message and getting feedback; the exaggerated sense of self from being alone; and the lack of any online authority figure. Dr. Suler notes that disinhibition can be either benign — when a shy person feels free to open up online — or toxic, as in flaming.

What's behind those flaming hot e-mails or UseNet flame wars or MetaFilter comments?. Perhaps, as John Suler suggested, there are a number of factors, including dissociative anonymity, invisibility, asynchronicity, solipsistic introjection (altered self-boundaries), dissociative imagination, and minimzation of authority, as he discussed in his fascinating 2004 paper.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:29:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

To do March 3: look up in night sky, see total lunar eclipse

Link to details at NASA website. Depending on where you are on earth, you may be able to see a red glowing moon during the total lunar eclipse next week, on Saturday March 3. I predict that it will be beautiful.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:09:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Second Life: Drew from "Toothpaste for Dinner" tries it.

Drew, the Columbus, Ohio-based creator of the offbeat webcomic Toothpaste For Dinner, recently tried out Second Life. Drew being Drew, he had this to say:

Yesterday I downloaded something called Second Life. It is like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, except you can't shoot anyone, and you can't hit people. You just walk around. There are no prostitutes, and everything costs real money, and you can't rob anyone to get money. You have to use your credit card, with real money, to buy fake money to use in the game. It's not actually like Grand Theft Auto at all.

Second Life is free to play, and I keep seeing people referring to it in the news, so I had to take one for the team and just dive on in. I knew it probably wasn't going to be intriguing when I got to the signup part and couldn't even make a one-word name. I had to use some fantasy-ass last name and I couldn't even use cusses. The best I could do was call myself Wenis.

Wenis Swindlehurst: How do I hit people
Foxbrand Leprechaun: You can't
Wenis Swindlehurst: I need that shit you drive.

My character came pre-loaded as a "cybergoth". Most people I saw in the game, jerkily wandering around, also had fantasy-ass names. They also had fantasy asses. Perfect, round fantasy asses. Which left me with only one choice: I had to become what they were not.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:49:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Exotic turntables of the world

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:32:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Robot zen

robot island
invasion of the tinmen
birth of a robot painting
robot wrestling
giant robot costume
caveman robot
survival research labs
thundercleese

IMAGE: Cellphone snapshot; still-life inside the San Francisco workshop of Survival Research Laboratories, the world's most feared producers of artisanal robotic lethality. 2006, Xeni Jardin, under this CC license. More cell snaps from that visit here.

Web Zen Home, Store (Thanks Frank!).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:01:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jasmina Tešanović: Carnival of Ruritania

Photos by Bruce Sterling

words by Jasmina Tešanović

At dawn, I crossed the border between the bad wild Serbs and the good little Croats in the center of Europe. My Serbian passport was closely scanned by Croatian police -- especially the page with my permanent US visa. The Serbian bus featured American movies and apt professional smugglers hauling big checkered plastic bags: "all purpose bags," they call those.

Immediately after arrival I checked out the bathrooms of modern Croatia: they were clean! They had seats! The local pop music sounded sweet, like Italian canzona. A Serbian bus station would feature dirty squat toilets and a turbo folk version of Bosnian rock.

The beautiful port city of Fiume/ Rijeka is preparing for their yearly carnival, as in Venice. I had my first taste of the sea in Rijeka, when it was part of my own country and I was a Yugoslav red princess. I had one of the best passports in the world, a splendid passport free of Western-Eastern cold wars, brick walls, and iron curtains, and for a holiday jaunt in Rijeka I didn't need one at all.

In the 1970s no one in the world knew or cared what a "Serbian" was -- at a high-society party in Rome I once claimed to be a "highly trained cosmonaut from Serbia." Nobody doubted me. I might as well have come from the Moon, or Ruritania.

(continued after the jump)

More...

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:47:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LapDawg: cool, in-bed laptop holder for lazy slackers

This portable laptop desk is the most comfortable way I've found to use a laptop in bed. It's a bit pricey compared to the homemade stuff you can find online, but less expensive than similar products like the LapGenie and Laidback, which can go for up to $150. The LapDawg, which is lighter than the Laidback, is also made of wood, which makes it human friendly and gives it a warm touch. It's very simple to put together and fits my 17" notebook perfectly.

The InsTand Laptop Stand is a great travel desk but can't do what the LapDawg does best: allow you to recline. Interacting with your laptop at a comfortable typing angle, right in front of you without feeling the weight and heat you would otherwise feel on your lap is very refreshing. The LapDawg is not the perfect travel solution, but if you have a big enough bag, it doesn't take up too much space and it weighs less than two pounds. Being able to lie flat on my back and use a laptop comfortably is worth making room.

Update: Another blogger was *paid* to review the LapDawg -- he didn't actually try the product himself, but gave the product's website a "D minus" grade. The "Cool Tools" contributor did try it IRL, liked it, and he was not paid to review it (as bloggers elsewhere apparently were). (Thanks, Paul Benjamin)

Reader comment: Daniel Descheneaux says,

New boing boing reader here, from Montreal, Canada. I publish a weekly bulletin called "Tout va bien?" ("all goes well?", but it's idiomatic in French, like "how ya doin'?") You can check it out here: (Link). Last November, I posted an entry ( Link ) or with Google translation, which only makes me sound a little retarded (Link) on a Japanese product similar to the Lapdawg. I thought you'd be interested to see it. The store: Link. Thanks for the good articles!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:34:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michigan State U forces students to watch RIAA videos

"They're trying to make a statement," said Randall Hall, who polices computers at Michigan State University, seventh on the list with 753 complaints. Michigan State received 432 such complaints in December alone, when students only attended classes for half the month.

Hall meets personally with students caught twice and forces them to watch an eight-minute anti-piracy DVD produced by the RIAA. A third-time offender can be suspended for a semester.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:30:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Croatian Mickey Mouse liver-paste

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:30:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Microscopic chainmail for smart clothing

The fabric has a similar tensile strength to nylon, can be bent around any shape and stretches to increase its length by one-third. It also readily conducts electricity.

"We are interested in perhaps using it as a flexible textile or fabric that has properties like sensing or heating," (Liu says.)

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:28:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mathematically significant numbers

0 is the additive identity.
1 is the multiplicative identity.
2 is the only even prime.
3 is the number of spatial dimensions we live in.
4 is the smallest number of colors sufficient to color all planar maps.
5 is the number of Platonic solids.
6 is the smallest perfect number.
7 is the smallest number of faces of a regular polygon that is not constructible by straightedge and compass.
8 is the largest cube in the Fibonacci sequence.
9 is the maximum number of cubes that are needed to sum to any positive integer.
10 is the base of our number system.

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:06:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cat with 26 toes

"Her mum Star is a normal cat but her grandmother had six toes on each paw as well and so does her brother. But we've never even heard of a kitten with seven toes on each front paw," says (Extra's guardian Kaelene Gerrard).

"Extra's a good climber and runs really fast."

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:59:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jason Tester: Case for Human-Future Interaction

At its core, human-future interaction would be the art and science of effectively and ethically communicating research, forecasts, and scenarios about trends and potential futures. For technology design, human-computer interaction has become the framework that links the capabilities of technology, the behaviors of users, and the goals of designers and developers. These three constituents have very similar counterparts in futures work, and human-future interaction should serve much the same role--connecting the capabilities of design tools and media formats with the strategic needs of users, shaped by the goals and insights of researchers and forecasters.

This isn’t just about giving a catchy label to work already being done. Thinking of the creation of futures media and related experiences as a structured process will simply lead to better results—media that engages a broader audience in discussion about trends shaping our shared future, and experiences that engage this audience in far more personal ways than a wordy report ever could. This ability to present forecasts and future visions in media beyond text--and not just by Hollywood--is an exciting development, and couldn’t have come at a sooner time. Popular engagement in the future is particularly crucial now when so many of the important challenges facing the human species can be influenced—perhaps only solved—by the cooperation and involvement of everyone, not limited to people and organizations that have traditionally held power. The time to engage a mass audience in global, longer-term futures thinking is here, today.

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:45:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Guy mistakes porn DVD sounds for victim, appears with sword

Update: These guys came up with a far better headline than I: "Man Choking Chicken Nearly Stricken." (Thanks, Frank)

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

University fires prof over transgender identity

Spring Arbor University, a small Christian college in Michigan, is firing Julie Nemecek (formerly known as Dr. John Nemecek) because they feel her transgender transformation is not a good model of Christian character for their students. Nemecek's wife has chosen to stay with Julie and has strongly supported her decisions to appear publicly as a woman.

Ironically, human sexuality courses at SAU encourage tolerance of transgender individuals. Apparently they don't practice what they teach.

Link to news story. There is also a student-run Facebook group in support of Julie Nemecek, where she has taken a very active part in the ongoing discussion and debate regarding her employment, faith and life as a transgendered person: Link.

Reader comment: Cliff Van Eaton says,

Just read your post on the transgender prof who is being sacked in Michigan, and I couldn't help but contrast that sort of treatment with the life of Georgina Beyer, a transgender person who just recently retired from her position as a member of the New Zealand parliament. Here's a couple of links that give more detail about her life (one; two). Georgina is well respected here in New Zealand, and many people were sad to see her leave the national political stage. Mind you, our parliament is a bit different (and some would say more representative) than some other democratic political institutions in the English-speaking world. For instance, we've also got a member who's a Rastafarian, wears dreads, and rides a skate board to work. ( Link ).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:16:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excellent MP3s of '60s and '70s "porn-style" music

[He] was the foremost German composer of erotik film scores in the 1970’s, crafting music for over nine classic movies in just thirteen years. In collaboration with filmmaker and long time friend, Friedrich Wohlfäht, he expanded and thrust the genre beyond its known limits.

Reader comment: Craig Hollinshead says,

If Klaus Harmony was the Mozart of erotic film music, then Gert Wilden was the Beethoven of such music...or Bach...or maybe W. Axl Rose, who knows. Anyway: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3

More classic(al) porn soundtrakcs: Link

That music reminded me of the classic 70s car chase music. This is a link to a forum with a few links to some samples. See also blacksploitation.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:10:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

101 ways to beat drawer's block

1. Make a book cover for your favorite classic novel.
2. Create a series of illustrations that show the passage of time.
3. Illustrate a song.
4. Make a narrative advertisement for a soft drink.
5. Illustrate your favorite childhood memory.
6. Make a children’s book spread for a fairy tale.
7. Illustrate the four seasons.
8. Why did the chicken cross the road?
9. Make a series of black and white “chapter” drawings for a novel.
10. Retell a short story in graphic form.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:27:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Broken image postage stamps

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:18:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WWII booklet: Stretch Your Meat with Cream of Wheat

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:12:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New record for world's hottest pepper: Bhut Jolokia

Chile heads rejoice! Recent tests have confirmed that there is a new "world's hottest chile pepper" : the Bhut Jolokia. Clocking in at a whopping 1,001,304 scovilles, it's 100 times hotter than a jalapeño. This is good news both for mouth masochists looking for the ultimate burn, but also for food producers who will be able to produce the same amount of chile burn as an additive with far fewer chile peppers. (NMSU photo by Darren Phillips)

Reader comment:

Mark Matienzo says:

Here's the comparative lab results that the BBC had the Warwick Horticultural Research Institute run. It's important to note that the Dorset Naga is a cultivar derived from the bhut jolokia, which also happens to be known as the naga jolokia. The Dorset Naga in general has a lower Scoville rating than the bhut jolokia, but depending on all sorts of horticultural factors, the heat can vary pretty wildly.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:48:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Take Action: Julie Amero Porn Case

I've been privy to private conversations with a dozen security experts (you'd immediately recognize many names), forensic examiners, and an attorney (one that I'd choose for my defense if ever I needed one).

Unfortunately, there's lots I can't repeat. However, what I can say is the consensus is that Amero is getting a bad rap for a lot of reasons. High on the list was a poor defense, a not-very-PC-savvy judge, and a school district that won't take responsibility of having no current protection on the computer in the classroom. For instance, one forensic investigator examined an image of the PCs hard drive said the anti-virus program was ancient and the last time it was updated was in "August 2004," and, he said, "hopelessly out of date."

Right after my newsletter was posted, many of you asked what you could do. You can check the Julie Amero blog and consider helping by way of the Julie Amero Defense Fund.

The State's Attorney responsible for supervision of David Smith, the prosecutor in the Amero case, is Michael L. Regan. You might want to write him and strongly urge he help Smith file a motion to vacate the conviction. An e-mail to the Chief State's Attorneys of Connecticut Kevin T. Kane and Connecticut Governor M. Jodi Rell can't hurt, either. (There are more e-mail links on the Julie Amero site.)

If you write, however tempting, try not to go on a rant. Use your computing expertise -- and a civil argument -- and you'll likely get better results.

The case has the public's attention and it's taken on an energy that won't be stopped. Stay tuned.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Teacher faces 40 years for porn in classroom, blames adware
• Teacher faces jail time over "accidental porn" in classroom

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:36:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Prodigy pianist declared a fraud

Several days ago, another Gramophone critic was contacted by a reader who had put a Hatto Liszt CD -- the 12 Transcendental Studies -- into his computer to listen to, and something awfully strange happened. His computer's player identified the disc as, yes, the Liszts, but not a Hatto recording. Instead, his display suggested that the disc was one on BIS Records, by the pianist L·szlo Simon. Mystified, our critic checked his Hatto disc against the actual Simon recording, and to his amazement they sounded exactly the same.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:07:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Understanding what a progam can do

Senator Sam Brownback has reportedly introduced a bill that would require the people rating videogames to play the games in their entirety before giving a rating. This reflects a misconception common among policymakers: that it’s possible to inspect a program and figure out what it’s going to do...

Nonexperts are often surprised to learn that programs can do things the programmers didn’t expect. These surprises can be vexing; but they’re also the main reason computer science is fun.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:54:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Danger Room: new blog by founder of Defensetech.org

Noah Shachtman says,

A little more than four years after I founded Defense Tech, I'm moving on, to work on a new project.

I'm starting a new blog for Wired. It's called DANGER ROOM (Link). And it'll cover "what's next in national security." All the familiar faces from Defense Tech will be contributing: David Axe, Sharon Weinberger, David Hambling, you name 'em. And they won't just be talking about gear -- although you'll get more than your fair share of killer drones, electronic weapons, and nuclear threats, don't worry. We'll look at new strategies, new thinking, and new tactics in national security, as well. And we'll follow the personalities and politics surrounding these developments. Because within a military-industrial complex that chews up a trillion dollars a year, there are plenty of power struggles, both behind the scenes, and in front of the cameras. (...)

To start things off, we'll talk to one of the most influential figures in military research today: Tony Tether, head of Darpa, the Pentagon's way-out science and technology arm. Ordinarily, he's reluctant to speak with the press. But in this hour-long, exclusive interview, he shares his thoughts on everything from bio-terrorists to zombie rodents to thinking machines to the golf courses in Iraq. Tether also talks about what looming threats scare him this most. I think the answer will surprise you, as much as it surprised me.

Link

* New Robo-Weapon: Paralyzing Floodlight
* Land Warrior Revealed!
* Al-Qaeda's Shape
* New Phase in Insurgent Campaign?
* Brits Begin Killer Drone Push
* Attack of the Giant Flying Condom

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:32:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Retro-future Fleischer cartoon about 1939 World's Fair

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:23:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Song based on "Overclocked"

Future shock, present shock, we’re already in past shock
Too much to go to and nowhere to go, we’ve got way too much to know
Something in the future’s already in the past, the present’s an illusion
Cos the world is spinning way too fast

Overclocked, clock shock
This watch never stops
Overclocked, time’s fast
You’ve been blasted in the past

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:16:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Lodging for breastmilk swap on Berkeley Craigslist

We are offering a free room for a woman who is willing to provide breast milk for consumption to the household. We are an otherwise vegan house but have recently read A.O. Wilson's study of the benefits of human breast milk to all human beings of any age. This is not sexual. Neither appearance nor sexual preference are of any concern to us.

We are willing to accept one child into the house as well. We do not want to take breast milk away from a nursing child however. We also don't need gallons of breast milk but whatever you can muster; it is a nutritional supplement for members of the house who want to partake.

The room is 10'x 15' in a sunny house in Berkeley. There are 7 other people in the house and we live largely communally - shared food and house supplies. You must still pay for food, only rent is free. Reply to this posting and we will set up a time. Contact Dana.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:12:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mind blowing video of laser-guided graffiti system

Reader comment:

Aidee says:

Just a correction re the article, in that I thought initially a laser was being used to "paint" the building also. What happens instead, is that a handheld laser-pointer is used to tag the building and a camera discerns the contrast of the laser on the building to then output through a DLP video projector the actual tag. The DLP projector is doing the grunt work of projection and not the laser -- much safer!!

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Graffiti Research Lab's video of Maker Faire
• Make cheap magnetic LEDs for fun graffiti projects
• LED Throwies at Maker Faire
• Share an inflatable studio with artist Huong Ngo

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:49:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Synthetic language crossword puzzle

In order to solve this crossword puzzle, you’ll need to know a bit of Klingon, Elvish, Furbish, Esperanto and a handful of other constructed languages. In fact, all of the solutions are in constructed languages. Thanks to Kevin Kosbab for becoming fluent in each language just to put the puzzle together. And for those of you who for some reason haven’t mastered these tongues, we’ve got a handy little word bank to help you. I don’t think I’ve said “word bank” since 3rd grade.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:37:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monkey feeds self with brain-controlled robot arm - video

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Monkeys treat robot arm as bonus appendage
• Monkey controls robot arm through neural interface

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:34:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

1970 article about cybersex

I found the magazine in which I wrote about erotic haptics (before the word "haptic" existed). It was in New Worlds, and although the cover is undated, the issue appeared in March 1970 -- 37 years ago! Just shows how SLOW progress can be....

An excerpt of the scanned text is attached. It makes no mention of modems, because I don't think even modems existed in 1970.

The file cabinet drawer on the cover was at a sleazy publisher of softcore porn magazines, for which I wrote bios of the models. The photo editor was puzzled as to why I was photographing his file cabinet. I never bothered to get permission to do anything back then.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:12:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NPR "Xeni Tech" - A Los Angeles 'Hotel' for Internet Carriers

For the NPR News program "Day to Day," I filed this radio/photo report about One Wilshire in downtown Los Angeles:

If the Internet is a superhighway, One Wilshire is a really popular roadside hotel. It's a 30-story building, and once exclusively housed law offices. CRG West manages the property, and they're the tech real estate branch of the Carlyle Group. David Dunn of CRG West says 23 of the building's floors are now designed to house not people, but some of the most important communications infrastructure in the country.

The site is what's known as a "carrier hotel." The occupants: connection hardware from nearly 300 Internet and telecommunications giants from around the world. Familiar U.S. companies such as AT&T and Google are here, but so are carriers from Europe, India and Asia.

And like the guests in a regular hotel, these networks can get to know each other. So if one telecom company needed to link up with another, it's much easier when they're under the same roof.

That can be particularly helpful in the event of a disaster like the December 2006 earthquake that struck Taiwan, severing critical undersea fiber optic cables. Most voice and data traffic into and out of Taiwan was slowed or halted, and connectivity to and from other Asian countries was drastically reduced.

Getting to the bottom of the ocean and repairing the cables has taken months. But places such as One Wilshire were able to re-route some of that Internet and voice traffic through their facility within days.

Or, listen to this report in the "Xeni Tech" podcast: Link to subscribe, and here's a direct link to this episode (MP3). Images above: Xeni Jardin, under this Creative Commons license.

Among the voices in this piece: Bruce Schneier, author of "Beyond Fear," who addresses growing concerns that One Wilshire may be a "cyberterror target" because of its unique role as a crossover point for internet and telecom networks.

(Special thanks to NPR News producer Nihar Patel!)

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

Red Cross chapter installs fearmongering terror billboards

From what I can tell, the image above is legit, and documents one of a number of billboard ads for the Greater Buffalo, NY chapter of the American Red Cross. What's creepy about the ad campaign is that they've pegged the date of a future "terrorist attack" at November 9th 2009, and predicted that the incident will be a bio-chemical attack. Spotted at Alex Jones' Infowars. (Thanks, Rich Kulawiec)

Reader comment: Michael Calanan says,

Howdy, I live in Buffalo and can confirm that these fearmongering 'boards do exist, I see several versions whenever I travel the area's highways. For as much as I photograph the streets of this city I haven't actually taken any of the billboards else I'd have more examples to pass on. Their fake headlines range from snowstorms to terrorist attacks and in fact last year the following 'board was shown in the area and not too long after it debuted Buffalo received its "October surprise" [ Link ] storm that indeed devastated the city. Here's the billboard related to that storm: [ Link ] (Image from buffaloredcross.org). And my images from the storm: [Link].

I did a search through the local Flickr group [ Link ] and couldn't find anyone who has taken photos of more billboards. Maybe, like me, they think the program is just too ridiculous to bother recording?

These billboards are like rabbits...I saw two on the way home tonight within a couple blocks of each other. Link 1, Link 2.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:20:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Diddy and Bjork have a conversation: the animated gif

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:40:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Justice audit shows data flaws for anti-terror cases

Overall, nearly all of the terrorism-related statistics on investigations, referrals and cases examined by department Inspector General Glenn A. Fine were either diminished or inflated. Only two of 26 sets of department data reported between 2001 and 2005 were accurate, the audit found.

Responding, a Justice spokesman pointed to figures showing that prosecutors in the department's headquarters for the most part either accurately or underreported their data - underscoring what he called efforts to avoid pumping up federal terror statistics.

The numbers, used to monitor the department's progress in battling terrorists, are reported to Congress and the public and help, in part, shape the department's budget.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:51:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Guantanamo facility for expected post-Castro migrant wave

The new installation is needed because terrorism suspects occupy space on the base used in past emergencies to hold large numbers of migrants, Bush administration officials directly involved said. They note that the facilities are designed to house people from any Caribbean nation who attempt to enter illegally -- not just Cubans

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:27:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NASA: Mars Orbiter spots evidence of ancient underground fluids

NASA has released a report indicating that liquid or gas flowed through cracks that penetrate underground rock on Mars. The report is based on early observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which suggest conditions to support possible habitats for microbial life. Link to images and story.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:15:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Accused terrorist is big GOP donor, opensecrets.org reveals

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) won't say what it plans to do with thousands of dollars in campaign donations it received from an accused terror financier. Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari gave $15,250 to the NRCC since 2002, according to FEC records published on the Web site opensecrets.org. On Friday, Alishtari pled not guilty to funding terrorism and other crimes, including financial fraud.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:09:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Teen couple who photo'd own sex acts prosecuted for child porn

Each was charged with producing, directing or promoting a photograph featuring the sexual conduct of a child. Based on the contents of his e-mail account, Jeremy was charged with an extra count of possession of child pornography.

Combine unsupervised teenagers, digital cameras and e-mail, and, given sufficient time, you'll end up with risque photographs on a computer somewhere.

I think most would agree that what these kids did was exceedingly dumb, and not a wise choice for their safety or privacy. But for young people who grow up documenting *everything* in their lives digitally, then sharing it on MySpace, YouTube, their mobiles -- documenting what they do sexually isn't much of a stretch. And by their logic, however flawed it may be -- sharing those photos privately doesn't seem like a crime. Given the increasing prevalence of digital self-documentation, and the shrinking ages of those doing the documenting and sharing, it seems inevitable that legal conflicts like will become more common, and the job of being a parent will only become more complex. (Thanks, danah boyd)

Reader comments: Daniel Turner says,

Call it what it is, a stupid prosecutorial overreach with implications for freedom of speech and the natural right of freedom of action. Child porn laws are on the books for two reasons - one, children are horribly exploited in making such pornography, and two, people who enjoy kiddie porn pose a potential threat to other children because of their proclivities. But only one of those reasons is valid in a free society. We must not allow laws to be used to punish potential crime on the basis of expression. In this case, there was certainly no exploitation, and thus the law has turned away from justice. No matter the motivation of the prosecutor or the framers of the law, be it repressively moralistic or repressively socialistic, there was no crime committed in the actions of these teens.

It's a strange anomaly. They're charged for making child pornography and tried as adults. However, the law calls the pictures they produced child pornography, so they should be trying them as minors. Anything less than this is hypocrisy.

I feel like this criminal prosecution also flies in the face of some basic legal principle (which I can't quite name or put my finger on right now): How can the state prosecute somebody for a crime when that person is in the class of people the very criminal statute is intended to protect?

Additionally, looking at this in a slightly different way, isn't this prosecution pretty much akin to charging someone with attempted murder after they survive a suicide attempt?

You have a comment posted on BoingBoing right now that indicates the teens were prosecuted as adults (which would be REALLY outrageous considering they legally stand as children in their role as supposed victims).

However, I think that is incorrect. Early on in the Florida appellate court's opinion, it mentions the person was charged as a juvenile.

"Further, if these pictures are ultimately released, future damage may be done to these minors' careers or personal lives."

I'm speechless. To use this as an argument for definitely ruining their future?

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:00:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video from Kircher Society extravaganza

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:59:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mr. Sulu pwns Tim Hardaway with homophobia PSA

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:43:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jim Woodring's Mr. Bumper toy sculpture

I just ordered one of Jim Woodring's fantastic Mr. Bumper statue toys (first mentioned on Boing Boing here) after my friend Scott De Las Casas got his in the mail. The cowl can be removed to reveal a gloriously detailed body. Link (Many more Jim Woodring links on Boing Boing here.)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:30:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eyewitness report of RIAA press conference gone oh so wrong

This morning I'm at a press conference about a new anti-piracy study and task force featuring L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and various other government and business officials. As at most events decrying the evils of piracy, there's a wide array of pirated goods seized by law enforcement on display such as bootleg DVDs and CDs, counterfeit purses, shoes, watches, etc. They're out there for the cameras because, hey, the evenings news needs a good visual.

The event was held right outside of Staples Center, which for those of you not familiar with L.A. geography, is a big pedestrian area in the middle of downtown. So the Mayor or somebody else is talking about how awful piracy is, how it harms the Los Angeles economy and costs jobs and tax revenue, etc., etc., when I see a group of about a dozen tourists walk by. They're definitely Asian, probably Japanese.

They look at the goings-on for a minute, clearly unsure what's happening. Then they walk up to the counterfeit goods on the tables and start perusing... like they're SHOPPING.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:22:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYT on RIAA raid of DJs Drama and Cannon: a legal question

Later that night, a reporter for the local Fox TV station, Stacey Elgin, delivered a report on the raid from the darkened street in front of the studio. She announced that the owners of the studio, known professionally as DJ Drama and DJ Don Cannon, were arrested for making “illegal CDs.” The report cut to an interview with Matthew Kilgo, an official with the Recording Industry Association of America, who was involved in the raid. The R.I.A.A., a trade and lobbying group that represents the major American record labels, works closely with the Department of Justice and local police departments to crack down on illegal downloading and music piracy, which most record-company executives see as a dire threat to their business.

Kilgo works in the R.I.A.A.’s Atlanta office, and in the weeks before the raid, the local police chief said, R.I.A.A. investigators helped the police collect evidence and conduct surveillance at the studio. Kilgo consulted with the R.I.A.A.’s national headquarters in advance of the raid, and after the raid, a team of men wearing R.I.A.A. jackets was responsible for boxing the CDs and carting them to a warehouse for examination.

So, Jim Burrows asks:

Is it common practice to allow a private non governmental organization access to the private property sized by court order? So far as I know R.I.A.A, is not affiliated nor proscribed to act in any official capacity yet they were given unsupervised access to the property of the defendants.

IMAGE: Jessica Dimmock for The New York Times. "The Aphilliates' inner circle, in their Atlanta studio, from left: Willie the Kid, DJ Drama, Jay Stevenson (the studio engineer), DJ Sense, DJ Don Cannon."

Reader comment: Mithras Invicti says,

I am a blogger and lawyer in Philadelphia and wanted to respond to your post "NYT on RIAA raid of DJs Drama and Cannon: a legal question". It's commonplace for third parties to work with law enforcement, especially in the case of investigations where the police don't have the necessary expertise themselves. For example, in a previous career as an accountant, I accompanied police executing a search warrant on a government office from which they were seeking certain kinds of financial records. I examined the material they were searching, and told them which of it was applicable to the case and which wasn't. In that case, I was under contract with the District Attorney's office, and that contract specified that I was not to reveal anything I learned except in court.

I know of other people who, on a contractual or volunteer basis, assist law enforcement in crimes involving computers or other technology they have expertise in. As despicable as the RIAA is, I am frankly not surprised they were involved with the raid mentioned in the post.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:14:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Irene McGee's apartment burned down

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:29:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TIME: getting rich off those who work for free

It might seem very odd to look to a long-dead Russian anarchist for business advice. But Peter Kropotkin's big idea--that there are important human motivations beyond what he called "reckless individualism"--is very relevant these days. That's because one of the most interesting questions in business has become how much work people will do for free.

Kropotkin was an aristocrat who, after being imprisoned for his insurrectionist activities, escaped and fled to England in 1876. He also drew the first good topographic maps of Siberia and wrote a memoir of his revolutionary days that has become a minor classic. More to the point, he proposed in his 1902 book, Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution, that the survival of animal species and much of human progress depended on the tendency to help others.

That I even know of Kropotkin comes courtesy of the Wikipedia entry for the "gift economy," the current term of art for this altruistic approach. Wikipedia is, of course, a prime example of the gift economy at work. Argue about its inaccuracies all you want, but the volunteer-authored online encyclopedia is on its way to becoming (if it isn't already) the world's dominant reference resource.

Open-source, volunteer-created computer software like the Linux operating system and the Firefox Web browser have also established themselves as significant and lasting economic realities. That's not true yet in the worlds of science, news and entertainment: we're still figuring out what the role of volunteers will be, but that it will be much bigger than in the past seems obvious.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:27:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Supremely bad TV ads: Eagle Man lays an egg-dump, you save.

An auto insurance company in the Chicago area ran this jaw-dropping commercial for several years in the nineties... it's extremely famous among people from Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. It features a creepy plastic-headed mascot named Eagle Man, who can lay eggs (and does so, graphically, on camera) despite his eponymous maleness. My sister still leaps at every possible conversational opening to quote from this commercial.

Previously on BB:

Reader commnent: Jordan says,

Yeah this commercial is awesome and has been parodied by several people including Eagle Insurance themselves. Mancow (a chicago radio personality) was such a fan that he made an official sequel to the commercial with Eagle Insurance, which was equally (but intentionally) as bad. I can't find it on youtube but there's more info here: Link.

Where the Eagle Man ad was expanded to incorperate a female eagle, who would then hold two giant eggs up to simulate breasts, while exclaiming, "Look at those LOW RATES!" The low rates would then appear on the egg-breasts. I can't find a video of this online, but the female version is actually better known among my friends than the original is. Wikipedia link.

I lived on the north side of Chicago when that was played ad nauseum (pun intended). The version on YouTube contains bits that were not in the original that was played so often, namely the part about "the lowest price on SR-22" and the dazzling special effect of the egg being laid. Before that, the actor in the suit merely squatted upward from an huge, fake egg that he was already sitting on.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:48:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dominican Republic: Merck tests new AIDS vaccine on sex workers

US-based Merck & Co. is conducting a trial of a new AIDS vaccine with 175 sex workers in the Dominican Republic.

The prostitutes, who will spend much of the next four years traveling to Santo Domingo for injections and checkups, were recruited from brothels across the country. They are among some 3,000 people in eight countries testing the experimental vaccine — a combination of deactivated cold viruses and synthetically produced HIV genes meant to train the body to destroy infected cells.

Any long-term risks will take years to discover, but once doctors explained there was no way to contract the disease from the vaccine, they found plenty of volunteers at Adams' brothel in Las Guaranas, a town of dirt streets and low-slung houses surrounded by rice fields about 75 miles (120 kilometers) north of Santo Domingo.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:42:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

She's Such a Geek photo contest

See also She's Such a Geek - geeky women book on tour

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:31:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coinstar hackers trick machines into waiving 9% fee

Reader comment: Gabe says,

Your mileage will vary on the Coinstar trick. A few weeks ago I dumped $60 worth of coins into my local Coinstar and selected the "Starbucks Card" option. The system spun for a few minutes trying to connect (I did not pull the phone cord; I really wanted a Starbucks card), and then dumped me to a screen saying my selected option was unavailable. It prompted me to try another. I tried a few other options (Amazon gift certificate, iTunes card), and they all failed.

If you live in NYC, Long Island, CT, NJ, or the Palm Beach area of FL, Commerce Bank has coin machines that are 100% free. You don't have to do anything potentially illegal, and you don't even have to have an account at the bank. I go there all the time to dump off my coins. And their coin machine is awesome, it has a video screen with Penny from Pee Wee's Playhouse, who counts your change while you pour it in.

Back in 2004, the Wall Street Journal tested Coinstar and other similar machines, and found them all to be inaccurate, especially the "100% free" Commerce Bank machine:

"For consistency, we began with equal piles of $87.26 worth of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters that we had gotten from a local bank in coin envelopes. Talk about a tough economy. The machines at both Commerce Bank and Coinstar gave us less back than we put in -- Commerce Bank missed by a whopping $7.02, while Coinstar was off by 57 cents."

The article is on-line but it's subscriber-only. The link, for those with access, is here

One way to legally enjoy fee-free Coinstar services, albeit not all in cash, is to make a legitimate attempt to put the amount on one of their gift cards - every machine I have tried has choked at this point, and the machine is programmed to eventually just print out a voucher. In every case, the transaction fee has been included.

I have emailed Coinstar about this problem each time it's happened (making sure to include the transaction ID off the voucher) and in every case, they have responded within 24 hours with a credit for the fee applied to my Starbucks Card. Using this method, you'll get 91% in cash and 9% on your Starbucks Card - not a bad exchange, really.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:30:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kenya: help the "camel bookmobile" bring books to rural nomads

Maud Newton tells BoingBoing, "Author Masha Hamilton is urging authors and readers to donate their old books to Kenya's camel library, which serves the semi-nomadic people in the isolated Northeastern Province, near the unstable border with Somalia." Link to more infoz.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:26:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Joey Skaggs speaking in Los Angeles tonight

* Cathouse for Dogs (1976): Skaggs published an ad for a dog brothel in The Village Voice and hired actors to present their dogs for the benefit of an ABC news crew. The prank annoyed the ASPCA and the Bureau of Animal Affairs until Skaggs revealed the truth after a subpoena. ABC did not retract the story (the WABC TV producer insisted that Skaggs had said it was a hoax to avoid prosecution), possibly because the piece had been nominated for an Emmy Award. It was subsequently disqualified.

* Celebrity Sperm Bank (1976): Skaggs organized a sperm bank auction in New York; the sperm bank was then robbed and semen was supposedly taken as hostage.

* Geraldo Hoax (1991): Skaggs appeared on Geraldo Rivera's TV talk show and told a story about New York artists living in water towers—which he had not done.

* Brooklyn Bridge Lottery (1992): Skaggs released a "leak" informing the public of a lottery where the first prize would be renaming rights to the Brooklyn Bridge

• Art Attack (2000): Espai D'Art Contemporani (EACC) in Castellon, Spain asked Skaggs to organize a presentation; in response, Skaggs created a computer game where people could shoot passersby in the outside corridor going through the building.

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:11:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Robotic bird-watcher seeks woodpecker

The system hasn't yet captured an image of the ivory-billed woodpecker, but it has won over some ornithologists. "I was somewhat skeptical about the use of a robotic camera system like this to detect birds whizzing across [the sky]," says Ron Rohrbaugh, director of Cornell Lab of Ornithology's ivory-billed-woodpecker recovery project. He thought it would take many more cameras to capture quality clips and properly cover the prime search area. But Rohrbaugh says that now that he has seen the video, he's pleasantly surprised by the results. "The [ACONE] system could have a lot of applications monitoring other wildlife species too, particularly other birds," he says.

While some of the video clips are too blurry to use to determine species, Rohrbaugh says others are quite clear. Using the video captured by the system, the team has already identified a blue heron, a red-tailed hawk, and Canadian geese.

Ultimately, Goldberg says, the researchers would like the software to automatically identify each species.

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:45:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pakistan: traveler blogs video clips of traditional music

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:20:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pastor with 666 tattoo is God

"The spirit that is in me is the same spirit that was in Jesus of Nazareth," de Jesus says...

The Antichrist is not the devil, de Jesus tells his congregation; he's the being who replaces Jesus on Earth.

"Antichrist is the best person in the world," he says. "Antichrist means don't put your eyes on Jesus because Jesus of Nazareth wasn't a Christian. Antichrist means do not put your eyes on Jesus Christ of Nazareth. Put it on Jesus after the cross."

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:01:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dave's Pawn Shop and Wunderkammer

"This morning, someone said they wanted to pawn a mummy," (said owner Larry Baron.) I told him to bring it in so I could take a look at it."

Baron said he didn't know how much he'd offer the mummy owner for the artifact until he actually saw the mummy and did some research. Villa's finger's selling price is $9,500, while the heart is $7,500. When asked to remove the two items from the display window for closer inspection, Baron declined, stating "for the right price, I'll take it from the window."

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:45:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Baby tattoos

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:42:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anna Nicole Smith

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:10:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US copyright lobby is out of touch with the rest of the world

Countries around the world, particularly those in the developing world (including Indonesia, the Philippines, Lebanon, Kuwait, Nigeria, and Vietnam) all face demands to eliminate compulsory licensing schemes in the publishing and broadcasting fields.

Moreover, the report even criticises those countries that have merely raised the possibility of new compulsory licensing systems, such as Sweden, where politicians have mused about an Internet file sharing license.

Left unsaid by the IIPA, is the fact that the US is home to numerous compulsory licenses.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:16:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Badger - turn any RSS feed into a badge

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:53:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Brit snoops want to wiretap MPs

In the first report of its kind from the Interceptions of Communications Commissioner, it was also revealed that nearly 4,000 errors were reported in a 15-month period from 2005 to 2006. While most appeared to concern “lower-level data” such as requests for telephone lists and individual e-mail addresses, 67 were mistakes concerning direct interception of communications.

Sir Swinton Thomas, the report’s author, described the figure as “unacceptably high”.

The disclosures came as Tony Blair admitted that the fingerprints of everyone obtaining identity cards could be checked against nearly a million unsolved crimes.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:07:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

JetBlue CEO apologizes for delays on YouTube

• All non-airport crew members of JetBlue will be badged and ready to go if needed to be called upon
• Increasing number phone lines open for changing reservations
• Tripling the size of the group that schedules pilots and stewardesses
• Delays 1-2 hours: $25 off a future flight
• Delays 2-4 hours: $50 off a future flight
• Delays 6+ hours: Free round-trip ticket

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:07:32 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO make an Atari noisemaker joystick

Information and schematic diagram on how to build a unit that generates all of our favourite sounds of the Atari computer games era. Squelchy, sawtoothy popie growls.

Once you put it together you have a couple of potentiometer knobs that you 'twiddle' and 'tune' to get that ultimate sound.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:49:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TSA site pwned by identity thieves

A new link on the TSA's Our Travelers page directs people who "were told you are on a Federal Government Watch List" to click on a link taking them to this site, which, by all accounts, fits the profile of an attempt to harvest personal information and identity document details.

(UPDATE: The site has been changed and now redirects to https://trip.dhs.gov/index.html. However, the janky spelling, incorrect information and the possibly illegal collection of information without an OMB control number can still be found on the website as of 12:30 pm PST. TSA has still not responded to my call for comment.

1:05 PST -- TSA employee Christopher White called to say "We are aware there was an issue and replaced the site. The issue has been fully addressed. We take IT responsibilities seriously. There never a vulnerability; just a small glitch." That's not quite accurate, as the non-SSL encrypted form submission was a vulnerability, but I take it to mean the site wasn't hacked by phishers. White did not have an answer as to why there is no OMB number for the information collection, saying he was concerned at the moment with the site's security.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:46:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Viacom announces deal with Joost

Just two weeks after ordering its content to be pulled from YouTube, Viacom Inc. announced a broad licensing deal with Joost, a new Internet service that specializes in commercial video content.

The deal, which follows the recent collapse of similar talks between Viacom and YouTube parent Google Inc., involves licensing hundreds of hours of programming from Viacom cable networks such as MTV, Comedy Central and Spike as well as movies made by the company's Paramount studios.

The companies declined to disclose financial details. In similar deals in the past, Viacom has received two-thirds of the advertising revenue and other compensation.

Previously:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:43:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FBI and MPAA train Swedish copyright cops

This US meddling in domestic affairs so outraged Swedes that they sided with the Pirate Party in great numbers, throwing their lot in with local rogues in favor of American bullies.

Apparently, the MPAA hasn't learned its lesson: when you intervene in local politics in Europe, locals see you as an evil representative of American hegemony. It's like they want the pirates to win!

In an effort to help stamp out pesky Swedish pirates, FBI agent Andrew Myers and the MPAA have given a group of six Swedish police officers extensive training on how to effectively combat piracy and catch people who engage in illegal downloading from the internet...

Together, Agent Myers and the MPAA's instruction to this new Swedish anti-piracy unit ranged from rules and regulations governing copyright enforcement and piracy, to examples of anti-piracy initiatives in other countries that have already proven effective. The most shocking revelation is a report of a lecture given by the MPAA in which officers were shown the ins and outs of movie camcording, or "CAM-ing."

When the police were asked about possible conflict of interest by having a private interest group such as the MPAA involved in the training of enforcement personnel, they apparently saw none.

See also:
P2P insurer will pay your fines if RIAA sues: $19/year!
How Sweden's "Pirate Bay" site resists the MPAA
Sweden's Pirate Party - political arm of the pro-piracy groundswell
MPAA's PirateBay letter to Swedish Sec'ty of State
Swedish BitTorrent site cusses at nastygramming Dreamworks lawyer
The Pirate Bay's backstory
US branch of "Pirate Party" launches
MAFIAA's list of enemy countries
Steal This Movie: documentary on Swedish piracy movement
Pirate Bay trying to buy Sealand, offering citizenship

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:41:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chicken-flavored soap-bubbles for dogs

Adapted from one of their existing products, the team at Gazillion saw the need for an automatic scented bubble blowing machine after watching a TV series on Dog behaviour, in which the K9's under observation went utterly bananas for bubbles! The Fetch a Bubble was designed as an Ideal toy for indoor or outdoor use, and is incredibly simple to set underway. It's series of bubble wands rotate through 13 full revolutions in one minute firing off a frenzy of thousands of bubbles per minute in a Tommy-Gun like fashion!

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:26:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Spy ears

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:22:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gut-worms live inside their parents like nesting dolls

It appears the monogeneans move from fish to fish, each species of parasite living on a single species of fish host. (Here's a digression but a good one: some monogeneans give birth to offspring without releasing them from their bodies. Their offspring mature inside them and give birth as well. Like a hideous Russian doll, a monogenean may contain twenty generations of descendents inside its body! ["Kids, it's time you found a place of your own..."])

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:19:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

419 scammers tricked into re-creating Dead Parrot Sketch

The thing is, these guys are actually pretty funny. They're certainly better at being comedians than they are at being rip-off artists. Link (via Kottke)

See also:
Busting a 419 scammer spammer
Nigerian Letter scammer convinced to carve replica Commodore 64

Update: Here's the original Dead Parrot Sketch (Thanks, Xeni!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:17:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Odeo for sale

So rather than killing Odeo, or letting it limp around sickly and unregarded, they're trying to sell it -- but not through a mergers-and-acquisition dog-and-pony. Instead, they've basically put up a long classified ad:

We're open to a variety of scenarios—from cash offer to an equity position. Our main concern is the ability to focus on Twitter and to see Odeo live on in some legitimate form.

If you're interested in Odeo and can make a serious offer—either in cash or the ability to invest in it while we retain some equity—email me (ev AT obvious) for more details.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:13:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, February 19, 2007

List of bald-headed babes who are not named "Britney Spears"

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:28:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BoingBoing week in review: Feb 12-19, 2007

Above: movie poster for the mid-'60s bedroom farce "Boeing Boeing," starring Tony Curtis and Jerry Lewis (Thanks, Andrew Tonkin).

Here are a bunch of recent Boeing Boeing posts we think are worth a second peep, in case you missed 'em.

Reader comment: Brendan says,

Following today's link to the movie poster of the old 60s film version of 'Boeing Boeing', a stage revival of the original play has recently started in London. I'm quite sure it's a wonderful thing. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:05:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Glenn Fleishman on the AirPort Extreme with 802.11n

Apple’s new AirPort Extreme Base Station (Best Current Price: $179.00) solves three major wireless networking problems in one blow: speed, range, and configuration. The gateway also makes sharing multiple printers and hard drives across a network as easy as plugging in a cable.

This new wireless router promises roughly five times the throughput and twice the range of the previous model. And because it’s based on a new wireless standard, 802.11n, which incorporates both the older b and g standards, it is backward compatible with Apple’s earlier AirPort (802.11b) and AirPort Extreme (802.11g) adapters. Best results, however, require leaving b and gstandards behind.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:49:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mystery of the shattered sliding door

I have a good mystery for Boing Boing readers.

This morning at 7am we awoke to find the inner pane of our patio door shattered. When we went to bed at 10pm the window was still fine. We live on the third floor and there is no access to our patio. Since only the inner pane was damaged, it couldn't have been caused by something from the outside. The area that was damaged is not easy to get to, and I can speak with certainly that we didn't hit or strike it. There were no earthquakes (we live in SF), but the temperature did vary from 49 degrees at 9am...reached 70 degrees by 3pm...and then back to the 40's in the early morning hours.

The pane, though shattered, is one complete sheet. No glass has fallen out or in. And while there is one area that looks like an impact point, it is not pressed in and the glass is intact there.

Can anyone help us figure out what might have caused this as I'm looking at a very expensive repair bill?

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:30:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Barenaked Ladies video starring YouTube celebs

Geriatric 1927
Eepybird
New Numa guy
The DietCoke/Mentos guys
and more.

See also:
Barenaked Ladies TV interview on DRM
Barenaked Ladies Are Me tour - great music, politics, and tech!
Barenaked Ladies release album on USB stick
Barenaked Ladies go remix crazy
BNL endorse Jack Layton
Hollywood's MP denounces "users," "EFF members" -- video
New Barenaked Ladies single as free, remixable multitracks
Barenaked Ladies guy on Universal's DRM SpiralFrog service
Canada's New Democratic Party embraces copyfighting musicians
Barenaked Ladies frontman on copyright reform

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:59:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Couple who caught cop speeding accused of "stalking" him

Lee and Teresa Sipple spent $1,200 mounting three video cameras and a radar speed unit outside their home, which is at the bottom of a hill. They have said they did so in hopes of convincing neighbors to slow down to create a safe environment for their son.

The Sipples allegedly caught Kennesaw police officer Richard Perrone speeding up to 17 mph over the speed limit. Perrone alerted Bartow authorities, who in turn visited the Sipples' home to tell them Perrone intended to press charges against them for stalking.

Update: Thanks to everyone who wrote in to say that the cop is dropping the complaint/

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:55:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Videos of makers

For this weeks podcast, Phillip [Torrone] and I are bringing you a new monthly series. Every month I'm going to do a round up of videos that people send to me and videos that I take that just really need to be shared.

In this video, the following makers are featured: Leung Julie Leung's family egg drop experiment. Treb Chris Love's Trebuchet that has been waiting in the wings for over a week, just aching to get published. Tri Jeremy Franklin Ross of the hazard factory shows off his dangerous Tri-Rod-Del-Fuego! Goo Nate True's snot-like Goo Fountain.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:34:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Universal Bullshit Detector Watch by Joey Skaggs

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:31:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pictorial history of kids' watches

Link

See also:
History of armored military watches
History of slide-rule wristwatches
Early days of plastic watches Mechanical "LED watch" from 1970
History of calculator watches
Steampunk watch
Belt-drive watch
Watch guts of great beauty
All-plastic watch movement from the 70s
Awesome, impractical, expensive watch

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:53:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

America's superstar cities - is NYC becoming a trustafarian resort-town?

I know what he means -- I think of Europe's B-list cities, like Florence, as having the best of all worlds: relatively cheap housing, lots of weird, experimental activity, cosmopolitanism, beauty and culture. Go to a superstar city like NYC or London and check out how similar all the restaurants, stores, and galleries are. When you need to make $[RIDICULOUS] per square foot every month, there's not a lot of room for a crazy, experimental bookstore or a funky, marginal cafe. Compare that to cities like Melbourne, Montreal, Austin and many other "second cities" and you find a flourishing alternative culture.

The high-price trend is further exaggerated by the large concentrations of "trustafarians," or those with large amounts of inherited capital, in these areas. Many of these people have multiple residences — in some Manhattan buildings as many of half of the owners are non-residents — but can still drive up prices. Together with top-end business types, they can create what Mr. Gyourko describes as "the Vailization" effect: that is, turning part of the city into something akin to a high-amenity resort area, a "scarce luxury good" for a relative few and those who must remain behind to service them...

Over the past decade college-educated workers — who once disproportionately migrated to the superstar cities — now appear to be tilting instead to more affordable, family-friendly places. Since 2000, Riverside, Phoenix, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Dallas all have been among the big net gainers with such migrants. In contrast New York, Boston, L.A. and even the Bay Area, a big winner in the 1990s, appear to have become among the highest net losers. The big outlier here, as in many things, is Washington, D.C., where an ever expanding federal government and its satellites continue to draw in ever more educated workers.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:49:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Guinness-flavored Marmite for St Paddy's

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:56:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

USB hub tape-dispenser

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:05:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thin-sliced post-grandfather clock

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:02:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's at Duke, UNC this Thursday

Link

Other upcoming events: Ad Astra Toronto Mar 2-4; Simon Fraser University Vancouver, Mar 8/9.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:37:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Delete-key pencil eraser

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:31:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Evoting researchers buy used "secure" voting machines for $82

For a mere $82 a computer scientist and electronic voting critic managed to purchase five $5,000 Sequoia electronic voting machines over the internet last month from a government auction site. And now he's taking them apart.

Princeton computer science professor Andrew Appel and his students have begun reverse-engineering the software embedded in the machines' ROM chips to determine if it has any security holes. But Appel says the ease with which he and his students opened the machines and removed the chips already demonstrates that the voting machines are vulnerable to unauthorized modification...

Despite the ease in doing this, Appel said the Sequoia machines he bought so far seem to be more secure than a Diebold voting machine that Princeton colleague Ed Felten and others examined last year. Felton discovered that he could inject subversive software into the Diebold machine through the removable memory cards on which it stores votes. He could even produce a virus that would spread automatically from one Diebold machine to another.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:28:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Colorful murals on brutal Russian tower-blocks

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:24:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Toaster burns skull-and-xbones into bread

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:20:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cuban amusement park rides

Update: Arlo got some nice video of a Cuban fun-fair in action.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:17:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tampered food photoshopping contest

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:13:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, February 18, 2007

Atomic energy agency releases new warning symbol

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:22:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Microbes and obesity - Quirks and Quarks radio show

I listen to Quirks every weekend and have done since I was a little kid. It's hands-down my favorite science radio show.

Dr. Jeffrey Gordon, from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, is also looking for factors that contribute to obesity. He's been studying microbes that live in the gut, and has found that the types of bacteria found in the stomach vary between obese and lean mice. Not only that, but by transferring these bacteria into other mice, he can influence whether they'll turn out skinny or fat.

In a similar vein, Dr. Nikhil Dhurandhar is also looking at microbes. But he's studying viruses. He's found a virus that infects chickens, and makes them gain weight. He's tested humans and found that some obese people carry the same virus, suggesting it may be infecting us, too.

See also:
Animated map of American obesity 1985-2004
Obesity growing (ahem) faster than starvation
Sleepdep doubles obesity risk
Promising anti-obesity pill
Obesity in America leads to boom in sales of larger chairs
Is obesity caused by a virus?
American obesity skyrockets, 73% obese or overweight by 2008
Obesity and oral contraceptives
Yale's obesity blog
Obesity, inactivity overtaking tobacco as top USA death cause
Historical origins of obesity
Does sprawl make us fat?
Is high-fructose corn syrup the devil? Yup.
Global overweight now outnumber global malnourished
GOP shifts priorities, advocates Cheeseburger Bill while Rome burns
Exercise in a pill
America's supersized asses demand supersized toilet seats
Dance Dance Revolution at 765 schools
Dance Dance Revolution for every school in W Virginia
Kit Reed's new sf novel
Does fat make you fat?
Adult Happy Meals include pedometers, personal responsibility
Quirks and Quarks is not dead!
Quirks and Quarks on biowar
Radio show on the science of happiness
Is autism a "disorder"? Is psychopathy a "disease"?
Blind woman who sees with sound
Stretching before exercise impairs performance and other heresy
CBC radio's brilliant science show as MP3s

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:44:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Financial Times poll on DRM

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:26:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Maker Faire "auditions" in SF Bay Area this Saturday, Feb. 24

This is an opportunity to demonstrate your project and discuss it with Make's editors. We are looking specifically for projects for this year's Maker Faire, which will be held May 19-20 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds. We will also consider the best project for a future issue of Make magazine.

In addition, a NY-based film crew will be on-hand to record this session. We will also have seating for about 30 people if you'd like to watch the auditions. In addition, it's a great opportunity to get a tour of TechShop's new facility.

If you would like to demonstrate a project at the February 24th audition, please contact Natalie Villalobos by email (natalie@oreilly.com) so we can put you on the schedule.

Directions to TechShop here.

P.S. Please don't get hung up on the word "auditions." Consider it a preview. We are interested in seeing your work and understanding how we can feature it best at Maker Faire. We will be talking about your project, trying to evaluate it for the Make and Maker Faire audience.

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:50:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Drew Friedman: Guilty Pleasures of Lit. Greats

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:15:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Another mummy found watching TV

"You could see his face. He still had hair on his head," Newsday quoted morgue assistant Jeff Bacchus as saying. The home's low humidity had preserved the body.

Officials could not explain why the electricity had not been turned off, considering Ricardo had not been heard from since December 2005.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:00:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disney toon shows how Nazis were made

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:24:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anatomically correct gummy heart

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:19:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UrbanCurators "frame" our rotting buildings

Humans have for centuries sought after the grandeur of ruins that were once the glory of ancient cultures, recognizing them as windows into the lives of past civilizations. The Urban Curators project proposes that we should likewise cherish those ruins that reflect modern-day consumerism and industrialization, realizing them as vehicles by which we can gain insight into our own society

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:17:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos based on kids' drawings

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:13:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Satirical science textbook stickers

Wording for the first disclaimer (top left) is taken verbatim from the sticker designed by the Cobb County School District ("A community with a passion for learning") in Georgia, which actually plagiarized Alabama's evolution disclaimer (view). Really, I'm not making any of this up. The other 14 are mildly educational variants that demonstrate the real meaning of a scientific "theory" as well as the true motivations of the School Board members and their creationist supporters. Ideally, the above stickers will deter other districts from using textbook disclaimers as a way to undermine the teaching of evolution.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:10:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Now in beta: Intel Mac beta of "post-television" video app Joost

Link.

Previously on BB:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:25:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Social sf publishing: Oort Cloud

For writers, Oort-Cloud offers....

A place to share experiences in writing, publishing and help one another in dealing with the challenging decisions associated with copyright.

A place to reach out to readers, develop stronger ties to them, find new ones, and keep them up-to-date about new and coming works.

A place to learn what ideas and issues readers are interested in.

A place to help readers understand the issues concerning writers, especially in light of intellectual property issues.

A place to share opinions about trends in science-fiction and encounter new ideas that might inspire new creativity.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:13:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MPAA rips off freeware author

Way back in October last year whilst going through the website referals list for another of my sites I stumbled across this link. That's right, my blogging software is being used by the MPAA (Motion picture Association of America); probably one of the most hated organisations known to the internet. Cool, I thought, until I had a look around and saw that all of the back links to my main site had been removed with nary a mention in the source code!

But the MPAA believes that employers should be held responsible for employees' copyright infringements. They want you to know that if you download movies at work, your employer will also be named in the suit. Infringe as we say, not as we do.

This reminds me of Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman, Jr's admission that his kids downloaded infringing music. He shrugged it off, saying that he'd dealt with the matter privately. Other parents are not so lucky: when their kids get caught downloading music, the RIAA sues them for every penny, through a thuggish boiler-room operation.

Copyright law is hard. It used to only govern relations between giant industrial players. Copyright didn't regulate reading an interesting tidbit from the newspaper for a friend. It didn't regulate watching movies. But now, sharing a newspaper article with a friend (by blogging it) involves copying, and so triggers copyright. Now watching a movie (by downloading it) involves copying, so it triggers copyright. The rules that are supposed to be interpreted by lawyers at Fortune 100 companies now apply to every single kid working on a project for her class's website.

This is like having to file with the SEC every time you loan a buddy $5 for lunch.

Even the MPAA and its member companies can't avoid violating copyright. The MPAA's own CEO personally ripped off Kirby Dick, pirating his film "This Film is Not Yet Rated" using the MPAA's duplicating facilities. The studios regularly hose writers, painters, composers and performers, nicking their creative labor without compensation, and sneeringly invite them to sue if they don't like it. Even the web-development departments get in on the act.

Is it any wonder that everyone with a computer is practically guaranteed to be a copyright criminal? Link (Thanks, Mike!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:40:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Union Square subway - like playing the Star Wars arcade game

Whenever I walk through the Union Square subway station, I have to navigate through all these vertical I-Beams that are all over the place. It always reminds me of something, but I couldn’t figure out what. Finally it dawned on me. It’s the first stage of the Death Star level in the Star Wars arcade game.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:15:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Taiwan's rotting Jetsons houses

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:11:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Virtual drug gets you and your Second Life avatar high

While your avatar is staggering and lurching under an animation replicating the outer effects of necking a handful of foul pills that some nerve-damage case mixed up in a bathtub and probably cut with talcum powder and rat poison, motion graphics and audio launch to commence a hypnotic induction. The inductive system is intended to, from what I can gather, get you good and dopey, disoriented, and wondering why the walls are melting and the floor is made of meat.

The whole experience apparently takes half an hour. That, sadly, was half an hour I didn’t have this week. So go down to Seclimine Drug Shack and get good and messed up for me.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:03:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Unboundedly long songs

Repeating songs
* "10 Green Bottles"
* "99 Bottles of Beer"
* "Bingo"
* "Brother for Sale" by the Olsen Twins
* "Here We Go"
* "Ivan's in the Garden"
* "Michael Finnigan"
* "I Know A Song That'll Get On Your Nerves"
* "The Song That Never Ends"
* "There's a Hole in My Bucket"
* "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt"
* "Found a Peanut"
* "Rabbit Ain't Got No Tail At All"
* "We're Going to Bonnie Doon"
* "I Know A Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves
* "We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do"
* "The Diarrhea Song"
* "Stay on the Happy Side"
* "Yon yonson"
* "Coin Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:59:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tech support for books in the middle ages

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

Fine art/toon mashup photoshopping contest

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:52:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hijacker beaten and burned by passengers

Speaking to the gunman during the hijacking, the pilot realized the man did not speak French. So he used the plane’s public address system to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try: brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the plane jump on him, the Spanish official said.

The pilot also warned women and children to move to the back of the plane in preparation for the subterfuge, the official said.

It worked. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot carried out his maneuver, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of his two 7mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:50:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ear-hair powered space-suits

They are focusing on a protein called prestin, which is found in the outer hair cells of the human ear. In the cell membranes of these cells, prestin converts electrical voltage into motion, elongating and contracting the cell. This movement amplifies sound in the ear.

However, prestin can also work in reverse, producing electrical charges in response to mechanical stresses, such as tiny vibrations. Each protein is only capable of making nanowatts of electricity, but Matthew Silver and Kranthi Vistakula, both of IntAct Labs, believe that many proteins used together may be able to power small devices or help charge a battery...

But eventually, they say networks of the proteins could form 'power skins' to coat spacesuits, so that the astronauts' natural movement would be able to generate power for their equipment. The skins could also wrap around buildings on the Red Planet, where gusts of wind would activate prestin.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:47:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Science and faith: two flowcharts

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:44:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, February 16, 2007

NYT: Slayer fans rock the House (of Representatives)

Serial internet music developer Rob Lord says, "Here's an actual screenshot from The New York Times website tonight. A divided congress? More like a SLAYER congress."

JPEG Link of full screengrab.

Ah, but if Congress only had *half* as much of a pulse as this photo suggests. The Times has corrected the mixup, and in this photo's place, you'll now see a shot of Speaker Nancy Pelosi waving what might just be the corna handsign at fellow heshers. You'll find the Slayer story here.

Reader comments: Congressional watchdog Sean Bonner says,

REIGN IN BLOOOOD!1!111!!! [ Ed. note: about that. ]

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:55:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dog eats turtle, turtle lives

"The turtle would definitely have caused an obstruction," (veterinarian David) Thomassy said. "Without cutting it out directly, it eventually would have killed the dog."

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:09:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Japanese cellular toys made from junk electronics

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:55:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ask a Scientist: Jane McGonigal

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

Anti-evolution, anti-semitic memo under legislator's name

The memo calls on lawmakers to introduce legislation that would end the teaching of evolution in public schools because it is “a deception that is causing incalculable harm to every student and every truth-loving citizen.”

It also directs readers to a Web site www.fixedearth.com, which includes model legislation that calls the Kabbala “a mystic, anti-Christ ‘holy book’ of the Pharisee Sect of Judaism.” The Web site also declares “the earth is not rotating … nor is it going around the sun...."

Bridges acknowledged that he talked to Hall about filing legislation this year that would end the teaching of evolution in Georgia’s public schools. Bridges said the views in the memo belong to Hall, though Bridges said he doesn’t necessarily disagree with them.

“I agree with it more than I would the Big Bang Theory or the Darwin Theory,” Bridges said. “I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?”

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:42:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wheel of Food

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:58:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jesus statue shoots sparks

(Academy manager June Lurnie said): 'Some people have said the portrait is evil and they can see sparks in Jesus's eyes. Others actually kneel down and go into a trance convinced they are connecting with God.'

Sculptor Burgess said: 'It began when one woman who saw the statue fell to her knees and began praying.

'She was transfixed for more than thirty minutes and when she came out of the trance she said she had witnessed sparks coming from the eyes of the Christ figure.

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:31:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cargo cult celebrates 50th anniversary

The cult was reinforced during WWII, when US forces landed with huge amounts of cargo - weapons, food and medicine.

Villagers believe the spirit of John Frum sent the US military to their South Pacific home to help them.

Devotees say that an apparition of John Frum first appeared before tribal elders in the 1930s.

He urged them to rebel against the aggressive teachings of Christian missionaries and instead said they should put their faith in their own customs. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:07:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gang-rape of 11 yo old girl captured, shared via cellphone video

After seeing the footage on her cell phone -- which showed the 11-year-old naked from the waist down on top of one of the suspects -- neighbor Caprice Greene said she was confused. Greene's cell phone was used to record the incident that police say happened in Greene's home on Collinson Avenue, in the basement bedroom of her 15-year-old brother, Reginald Pope Jr. He is among the five suspects.

"I really don't understand it myself," said Greene, 17, who is listed as a witness in the case.

She told police someone swiped her camera phone off its charger and that she stumbled across the clip afterward and recognized the 11-year-old as the "little girl from down the street," according to the police report. The victim told police that Greene filmed it, police reports say. Greene told police she deleted the clip to keep from getting in trouble, according to the police report.