posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:19:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scans of 19th c. science book: "The World before the Deluge"

Snip from description:

The object of "The World before the Deluge" is to trace the progressive steps by which the earth has reached its present state, from that condition of chaos when it "was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the the deep," and to describe the various convulsions and transformations through which it has successively passed.

Shown above: "Ideal Scene of the Lias Period with Ichthyosaurus and Plesiosaurus."

Scanned pages of 'The World Before the Deluge' by Louis Figuier (1872 revision of a 1862 publication) are online at 19thcenturyscience.org: Link. 518 + 8 pages, illustrated with 235 figures. Scroll down to "PLATES" for illustrations of "ideal landscapes" of various geological epochs.

Spotted at Bibliodyssey, where there's more background here: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:46:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gizmo documentary on Google video

David says:

Behold...the power of the open mind! Howard Smith's 1977 documentary about improbable inventions is now freely available on Google Video. The documentary compiles old newsreel footage of wacky inventions in action, (or inaction as the case may be), as well as some inventors' physical quirks and others' daring deeds in "bringing their invention to market," all for your enjoyment. A personal favorite, the backwards car, can be seen near the 50 minute mark. A must-see for Boing Boing readers!

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:17:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sumo wrestlers compete to make babies cry

For some reason, I doubt these guys will catch as much flak as the amazing photographer Jill Greenberg did for giving and then taking away candy from little kids to make them cry. Link (Thanks, John!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:07:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beer bottle cellular automata movie

Artist Lozano Hemmer presented "Synaptic Caguamas" a large motorized Mexican “cantina” table with 30 “Caguama”-sized beer bottles (1-litre each). The bottles spin on the table with patterns generated by cellular automata algorithms that simulate the neuronal connections in the brain.

Every few minutes the bottles are reset and seeded with new initial conditions for the algorithm so that the movement patterns are never repeated.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:53:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Winner of Schwarzenegger impersonation contest

He also handed out small color photographs of himself to the students. When my daughter returned home, she showed me the photo and I noticed a sticker on the back with a warning not to use the photograph for any purpose besides personal enjoyment by the recipient.

I thought it would be fun to post a reproduction of the sticker and invite readers to impersonate the governor reciting the warning. Within 24 hours, nearly 100 people called the Boing Boing hotline to give their impersonation. Every one of these people did a much better job of impersonating the governor than I could have done. In fact, they did a better job that the governor himself could have done.

It was hard to pick a winner, but I finally settled on Matt Plumb, who not only did a first-rate job of impersonating Governor Schwarzenegger, but also added some awesome ad-lib commentary. Congratulations, Matt!

Here's Matt's winning entry, followed by several other excellent entries to the competition. The impersonators are, in order of presentation: Alex Carey, Grey Hodge, Morris Pratt, Anonymous, Mark McQuillen, and Rich Sigfrit. Thanks very much for your excellent comtributions, everyone!

MP3 file | Subscribe to the Boing Boing Boing podcast | Subscribe in iTunes | Boing Boing Boing audio archives

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:45:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kenya: Joseph Linaschke is photoblogging rural aid work

As blurbed previously on a trek-blog I maintain from the road, photographer Joseph Linaschke is currently photoblogging his trip to Kenya with an aid organization that serves extremely poor children in rural, indigenous communities. Link to his Kenya-tagged posts. Here's a beautiful shot of the starry night sky there. (Photos in this post shot by Joseph Linaschke)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:37:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steampunk mouse

One holds the device in a manner similar to the way a wood-worker holds a sanding block. The palm rests upon the “ball” in the foreground, with the fingers extending forward. The middle digit is placed upon the spiked cog, while the pointing-finger and the ring-bearing finger sit on the studded levers on either side. The thumb and small-finger rest comfortably on the side of the cylinder, helping to grip the contraption. The “Bug”, as the Professor calls it, is slid about upon a table top–thusly controlling a mobile indicator upon the Telecalculograph’s display. Push the device away from one’s self, and the arrow “moves” towards the top of the viewing window. When the arrow has been positioned appropriately so that it is pointing at the desired “item” on the glass, the user pushes down upon the various levers to elicit his desired effect. Turning the wheel in the center produces an action similar to turning a page in a book, or cranking a kinetoscope.

See also:
Steampunk guitar
Spring-loaded steampunk spex
Steampunk magazine
Steampunk Star Wars
Steampunk watch
Beautiful steampunk laptop
HOWTO make a steampunk keyboard
HOWTO make etched brass steampunk journals
HOWTO make a steampunk spinning-wheel
Steampunk walking robot
Steampunk cartoon from SciFi channel: Amazing Screw-On Head
Homebrew mechanical steampunk lion from Belgium
Steampunk robotics
Steampunk weekly serial - handsome editions
Steampunk rayguns
Steampunk Transformer-bots
Ukrainian steampunk plane
Steampunk casemod with a "furnace"
Steampunk submarine free paper toy
Steampunk/dead media photoshopping contest
Brighton's steampunk rolling sea-platform
Steampunk Slashdot
Steampunk mecha-wars
Steampunk car-wars
New York's steampunk pneumatic subway

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:27:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

AACS DRM body censors Cory's class blog

Last week, I received a legal threat from the AACS licensing authority, promising a lawsuit if I didn't removing the processing key and the link to the Doom9 forum.

On advice from lawyers, I've censored this material off the post. However, Google maintains a list of over 100 sites that link to the Doom9 post, including one from Boing Boing.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:14:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Internet radio crisis: Newsweek's coverage

As you read these words on your monitor, there is a decent chance that you’re also streaming a little online radio. After all, with an estimated listenership of approximately 50 million Americans per month, Internet radio has become a go-to destination for a fuller spectrum of music, an alternative to FM’s mind-numbing monotony. And if you are one of those listeners, mark May 15 on your calendar: it might well be the day that the music dies.

Last month the trio of Library of Congress judges that oversees copyright law’s statutory licenses decided that May 15 will be the date royalty fees owed by Web radio operators will be recalibrated. The Copyright Royalty Board changed rates from a percentage of revenue to a per-song, per-listener fee—effectively hiking the rates between 300 and 1,200 percent, according to a lawyer representing a group of Webcasters. "If this rate does not change, it will wipe out the vast majority of Web radio," Tim Westergren, founder of the music discovery service Pandora, tells NEWSWEEK. "If this stays, we’re done. Back to the stone age again."

Previously on BoingBoing:

Reader comments: Ben says,

The actual text of Rep. Jay Inslee's bill to "Save Internet Radio" is here: internet_radio_bill_april_2007.pdf. I'd suggest everyone contacting their representative and urging him or her to support the bill.

To make it easier to contact your representative, the SaveNetRadio coalition built this terrific site that includes the ability to quickly lookup the phone # for your representative and also includes talking points. This an urgent matter and I hope all BoingBoingers will participate in saving Net Radio!

Just sending this as a FYI. I received this back from Sen Feinstein's office in reponse to my submittal to savenetradio.org.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:39:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Using floating junk to study oceans

Worldwide, about 10,000 cargo containers fall overboard each year. In most parts of the world, the dispersal of flotsam isn't of major interest to researchers. But along the bustling trade routes that link eastern Asia to North America, the tennis shoes, kids' sandals, hockey gloves, and other stuff that drops off ships is enabling scientists to fill in details of how the Pacific Subarctic Gyre works.

Often, the lost items float and can be readily identified as coming from a ship at a certain location. Recently, (retired oceanographer Curtis) Ebbesmeyer and his colleagues used almost a century of data from such floating objects to map the gyre's major subcurrents and swirls.

Now, for the first time, scientists have determined that a lap around the Pacific Subarctic Gyre takes about 3 years. That information, in turn, led Ebbesmeyer and his colleagues to identify long-term variations in water temperature and salinity in the North Pacific that hadn't been noted previously.

All this from studying flotsam...

...The flotsam-researchers' techniques may not seem scientifically rigorous, comments Richard Thomson of the institute (of Ocean Sciences) in Sidney. However, he adds, "with oceanographers, the more data, the better. ... [Studying flotsam] is one of the few ways to get it."

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:20:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BoingBoing week in review: April 23-30, 2007.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:12:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Worst practices at funeral home

It is also claimed staff disposed of ashes which were later to be claimed by a bereaved family by accident.

One worker said that, when the family arrived, their urn was filled with ashes which had lain unclaimed in the office for 50 years...

In 2003 (the Sunday Mail) revealed that the Dunfermline Co-op had buried squaddie Jamie Henderson, 22, in the wrong grave by mistake.

They offered to correct their mistake - for an extra £3000.

The firm also delivered flowers from Jamie's young nephews with the message "from the dogs" instead of "from the boys".

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:09:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Phone company filters customer's name "Gay" as inappropriate

...For Hamilton, who happens to be gay, the shock was not isolated to the reply she received but also to the fact that Telecom had spent time and resources deciding that the word "gay" should be audited from staff communications. "If they do have to put content filters on ... then maybe they should ensure that it only gets genuinely abusive words."

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:50:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EEG controllers for videogames

"Whatever we sell, it will work on 100 percent or almost 100 percent of people out there, no matter what the condition, temperature, indoor or outdoors," Yang said. "We aim for wearable technology that everyone can put on and go without failure, as easy as the iPod."

Researchers at NeuroSky and other startups are also building prototypes of toys that use electromyography (EMG), which records twitches and other muscular movements, and electrooculography (EOG), which measures changes in the retina.

While NeuroSky's headset has one electrode, Emotiv Systems Inc. has developed a gel-free headset with 18 sensors. Besides monitoring basic changes in mood and focus, Emotiv's bulkier headset detects brain waves indicating smiles, blinks, laughter, even conscious thoughts and unconscious emotions. Players could kick or punch their video game opponent -- without a joystick or mouse.

"It fulfills the fantasy of telekinesis," said Tan Le, co-founder and president of San Francisco-based Emotiv.

The 30-person company hopes to begin selling a consumer headset next year, but executives would not speculate on price. A prototype hooks up to gaming consoles such as the Nintendo Wii, Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:55:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pro-coffee tee tweaks Mormon Church, Church responds with trademark threat

It shows a giant hand from the sky pouring the java - which the LDS Church urges its members to abstain from drinking - into a disembodied trumpet.

The caption: "The Lord giveth, and a church taketh away."

Store owners Ed Beazer and Van Lidell insist it's just harmless repartee, albeit a tad one-sided.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints isn't talking about the new design and whether it violates the trademark.

(Photo ganked from a larger snap by Ryan Galbraith)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:47:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Giant DRM-free jazz download store launches

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:40:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Call Warner Music and complain about lawsuits and DRM

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:39:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sony sacrifices goat for Playstation game

Reader comment:

Sony representatives did not decapitate the goat at the party. Instead, they purchased a pre-decapitated goat for the event.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:05:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Portable Childhoods, sf stories by Ellen Klages - beautiful nostalgia

Portable Childhoods is Ellen's first book-length collection of short stories, a book that was a decade in the making. I remember many of these stories' initial publications, because Ellen Klages stories make an impression when you read them. They're the kind of stories that make you remember where you first encountered them, little life-changing events, like a Shuttle disaster or a major promotion.

Klages's stories are infused with Bradbury-like nostalgia, and her recurring young girl character is clearly some version of her own childhood, studious and funny, a little introverted and enchanted with the world. This is a Madeline L'Engle heroine, a Philip Pullman heroine, utterly likable, but also drawn with enough honesty that she's anything but a benign cherub.

These stories are mostly very short -- half the stories in the book run just a few pages -- and the very short ones have the feel of the best of the golden age of science fiction, like stories from Avram Davidson. They're funny and witty and have great skiffy conceits that'll turn your head around.

But the real treasures are the handful of longer stories. "In the House of the Seven Librarians," an arch little fairy-tale about feral librarians. "Time Gypsy," a bit of gender-bent time-travel that'll wrench your heart. "Guys Day Out," a story about bringing up a Down's Syndrome child (Ellen's has a sister with Down's) that'll do more than wrench your heart. And "A Taste of Summer," a story so sweet and perfect that I want to read it again this summer, the way I sometimes read Bradbury's Dandelion Wine on a beach in the summer, just to cement the fine day and the finest season. Link

See also: Sf story of great note: Klages's "Green Glass Sea"

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

Kitchen of Tomorrow, from 1967

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:50:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

London 2012 Olympics: We only buy security tech from sponsors

So who has bought their way into being the security experts of choice, and with whom our security and that of the visiting millions will rest? Visa. Oh whoopy-doo, I admit to feeling much more reassured now, after all these are the same people who do not suffer from any problems with identity and authentication and fraud and crime on a huge scale within their own business sector after all. Not...

Personally I find it beyond contempt that security decisions that will impact upon the whole country, and the billions watching around the world, come down to a money making opportunity for a sponsor rather than being a Government controlled process. Wyatt readily admits it is nothing to do with him, his committee or indeed the Government as the deals arrangements are between the IOC and their sponsors. He also readily admits he doesn’t see why the UK should have to foot the £1billion cost of security in that case.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:45:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hugo Gernsback explains gadgets, 1935

YOU will not find the word “gadget” in many dictionaries; perhaps for the reason that most dictionary compilers consider the word to be slang. Yet, the word “gadget” is well known to everyone, and is used in everyday language in connection with some article that has a practical use and, usually, can be bought at a low price...

As I have said before, the market for gadgets in this country is really tremendous. There is constantly room for these novelties, and the public is always willing to buy them. There is, in fact, a sort of craze, that many people have, to be the first to have this or that new gadget to parade it proudly among their friends...

And let no one think that the gadget market in this country is apt to decline. With our advance in civilization, the chances are overwhelmingly in the opposite direction; since the more mechanized we become, the greater the demand for gadgets. We probably have not even scratched the surface, and in the years to come we may expect to see a flood of gadgets on the market that will dwarf anything we have seen so far.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:41:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Propellor-driven monorail from 1933

An improved airline cab, capable of 155 miles an hour, is the latest invention of the French engineer who developed the trench mortar used during the World War. Suspended on monorails, the cabs resemble airplane fuselages.

Update: Toby sez, "Here's some proper engineering from Scotland. It's some lovely footage of the Bennie Railplane, a glorious 'Metropolis'-style bullet which sped (briefly) through a twee bit of the Glasgow suburbs in 1930. It was designed to do 120mph, and to use adjustable aerodynamic 'planes' at each end to trim its lift/downforce. It's well-described here and here. Wouldn't it be fantastic to drive to the railplane terminal in your Leyat Helica?"

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:37:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-piracy group pirates anti-piracy report

"The ICC and BASCAP misrepresented themselves as a partner in 2006 and 2007, gained access to proprietary information and then took what they learned and incorporated it into their own product offerings.

Its functionality, user interface, presentation, method of classification, and delivery is clearly based on our designs and existing products. It is extraordinary that an organization committed to fighting counterfeiting and piracy would steal the intellectual property of another organization."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:34:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coachella, pt. 3: plastic crunch, raver cruft, ghosts of desert past.

(Photos: crowd above, security chart below, by eecue of blogging.la, more here, cc-licensed).

I've been posting Coachella notes (one, two) to BoingBoing between band sets, from inside my buddy Wayne's biodiesel tour bus.

I hear there are several temporary cell towers on-site while the event lasts, to keep the voice, data, and SMS service moving. So unlike other desert events (say, Burning Man), phones are everywhere at Coachella, in-hand.

People walk while txting, wandering from stage to stage with eyes fixed on display. Fans hold them up during night performances, to snap photos or video or pay tribute by beaming display-light back at the band.

Stepping between tight rows of cross-legged attendees, waiting for one act to go on, I smell weed. I glance down, looking for the source glow. But all I can make out are luminous Sidekicks, fingers punching out txts, blotting out glow in staccato code.

We watched one superstar techno headliner play earlier tonight, to a packed field under black sky. When the music ended and those tens of thousands of fans exited, a chorus of crinkly, plasticky sound rose from beneath all those feet. Stomp, crunch, crackle; flattened water bottles and brittle glowsticks on the grass.

"Raver cruft," said Wayne. "That's what we used to call this smushed-up trash carpet back in the day."

Hard to remember to pick up your junk when you're rolling on all that E.

Coachella organizers came up with a crafty way to encourage attendees to help recycle, though, and it does minimize the mess: Turn in 10 empty watter bottles, get a cold, fresh bottle of water, free.

(Photo: Willie Nelson performing Sunday at Coachella. Shot by eecue, cc-licensed).

Peel away the art, the crowds, the stages, the taco and t-shirt vendors, pull up the turf -- and you got desert here. Beyond Coachella the event, the same is true in the greater Coachella Valley. Virtual reality, as long as the water lasts. Suburban lawns where only a creosote shrub might have managed to choke out a living before.

(Photo: ?uestlove of The Roots, performing Sunday at Coachella. Shot by eecue, cc-licensed).

Old date palm plantations are disappearing, giving way to new housing developments. The wild desert still pops up here and there, a cactus peeking out between planned, rectagonal community plots.

But the unplanned community plots are what make events like Coachella fun. Late last night, we wandered into the parking lot where all the artists and vendors camp. Hobo land, some were calling it.

One guy scavenged scrap wood to ignite in a burn barrel. "Burn first, ask questions later!" someone whispered at him. Someone else deejayed, dozens danced, others did somersaults and stiltwalking.

A guy from Reno named Chris, whose card I lost, set up this wild infrared light projection system on a sheet, with software he'd written -- people dance in front of the infrared lamp, some kind of crazy command-line magic happens, and their moving silhouettes end up projected on that flat sheet, with retro video trail effects lagging behind the outlines. Imagine an iPod TV ad mashed up with the sfx from a 1972 Deep Purple video.

Then, that robot showed up again, trash talking and trying to pick up all the chicks.

Goodnight, Coachella.

(Photo above: Dancing with the infrared video display thing at "Hobo Land," in the small hours between days. Shot by Xeni, cc-licensed).

- - - - - - - - - -

PREVIOUSLY ON BOINGBOING:

Live (time-delayed) webcast, YouTube uploads, Flickr "coachella" tagged photos, technorati, LA Times coverage, band lineup, Wikipedia entry, blogging.la.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:23:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Richard Evans Schultes's Golden Guide to Hallucinogenic Plants

Hallucinogenic plants have been used by man for thousands of years, probably since he began gathering plants for food. The hallucinogens have continued to receive the attention of civilized man through the ages. Recently, we have gone through a period during which sophisticated Western society has "discovered" hallucinogens, and some sectors of that society have taken up, for one reason or another, the use of such plants. This trend may be destined to continue.

It is, therefore, important for us to learn as much as we can about hallucinogenic plants. A great body of scientific literature has been published about their uses and their effects, but the information is often locked away in technical journals. The interested layman has a right to sound information on which to base his opinions. This book has been written partly to provide that kind of information.

No matter whether we believe that men's intake of hallucinogens in primitive or sophisticated societies constitutes use, misuse, or abuse, hallucinogenic plants have undeniably played an extensive role in human culture and probably shall continue to do so. It follows that a clear understanding of these physically and socially potent agents should be a part of man's general education.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:44:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coachella pt. 2: hipsters, robots, ravers, steampunk, 122 bands.

Photo: A child meets "Hotshot the Robot" at Coachella (Shot by Xeni, cc-licensed).

Above and below, two performances at the event. Photo above: Wu Tang Clan member Ghostface Killah. Photo below: DJ XXXL, MC Dino, and DJ Question Mark. (Shot by eecue of blogging.la, more here, cc-licensed).

- - - - - - - - - -

I'm writing this post from the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival in Indio, California. Specifically, from a pimped-out, wired-up, biodiesel tour bus driven by my friend Wayne Correia.

The gear you see further below at left is the guts of "Renegade Radio," a pirate station broadcasting on-site at the event. Between the deep house and experimental trance sets, we're hearing important public service announcements, like, "Things not okay to bring in to Coachella site: drugs, weapons, video cameras, bad vibes and DRAMA."

Some of the performances we caught bits of yesterday: Red Hot Chili Peppers, Gotan Project, The Rapture, LCD Soundsystem, Ghostface Killah, and Blonde Redhead. I missed !!! (say: "chik chik chik") yesterday, but a friend says they destroyed.

Photo below: Wayne's pal Alfred Martinez stuck a Wintec GPS tracking device (Amazon product link) in his pocket when he, Wayne, and I walked around the Coachella grounds together on Saturday. This is the resulting tracking map, via Google Earth.

Alfred says, "There are some errors in the trail, since there were times when the we lost contact with the sat -- remember, that tiny unit was in my pocket -- but this should give you an idea of our walking tour."

Photo Below (Shot by Xeni): That same Wintec GPS device (in Alfred's hand), shown with cold bevvie, tortilla chips (in my hand), laptop, and seven-layer dip, for social context and physical attribute evaluation.

Photo above: The inner workings of "Hotshot the Robot, the World's Only Living robot." Shot by eecue, who explains:

When I shot that photo of the robot with his guts hanging out, I had a few drinks in me and asked if he was autonomous. The operators told me he was the singularity. A few minutes later I actually listened to the voice coming out, and it was a guy 10 feet away on a walkie-talkie.

Hotshot behaved pretty well around children and most other carbon-based life forms earlier in the day, but he demonstrated a darker personality in the wee hours, when in the proximity of adult females -- let's just say there were surprise appearances by a certain hydraulic part. Here's a video of him kissing a girl.

Photo above, the Fire-Pod at Coachella. Below, the pyro sculpture's controlling interface. (Shot by eecue). More about the creation, from its makers:

Fire-Pod is a steel sculpture standing 11’ high with a 20’ diameter footprint. Six claw-like tendrils jut out of the ground to define a spherical negative space from which fire performers emerge. Each tendril hosts two propane cannons; one at the top facing upward/outward, and another at the bottom facing inward, for a total of 12 firing points controlled through a midi interface.

I learned more about that cool steam train mentioned here yesterday, and shown below (shot by eecue).

It's called "A Clockwork Menagerie," and it's a project from Kinetic Steam Works (KSW), a Bay Area-based collective that aims "to bring steam power and kinetic art together."

The coal and wood-powered train engine doesn't move here at Coachella, but it does produce steam that powers a wild little merry-go-round that carried many candy-ravers to ecstasy last night when Tiësto's crowd overflowed.

The KSW crew here at Coachella included Zachary Ruckstella, Sean Orlando, Greg Jones, and Stephen Rademaker, some of whom are also involved in the Crucible industrial arts school in Oakland, CA.

KSW project member Jeremy Crandall uploaded a bunch of great photos, including the night shot at left: Link to more, alternate link, alternate link.

Photo below, KSW's Zachary Ruckstella. (Shot by Xeni)

The one photo I can't post, but encourage you to visualize:

An unknown, beautiful girl-stranger in a diaphanous floral minidress found her way in to the bus and passed out on our sofa last night while checking email on her Blackberry. Just frozen there, head facing the PDA in her outstretched, manicured hand, mid-download. We'd walked in after a late afterparty and found her, still and silent, eyes closed. We poked and talked at her, but she wouldn't wake up. We checked her pulse and made sure she hadn't OD'd or anything. When it was clear she was not dead or in danger, I threw a blanket on her and her Blackberry, and crawled off elsewhere to sleep.

She did wake up eventually, and turned out to be a pretty nice person.

- - - - - - - - - -

Live (time-delayed) webcast, YouTube uploads, Flickr "coachella" tagged photos, technorati, LA Times coverage, band lineup, Wikipedia entry, blogging.la.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:01:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Last Gasp's Ron Turner's tour of San Francisco

Magical road trip. "Drive over to Potrero Hill and go down Vermont Street, the real crookedest street in the world, and then to Golden Gate Park, past 25th on JFK Drive. Park and walk next to the little brook. As you walk uphill, you will notice the water is also going uphill! Impossible, but follow it to a small waterfall that empties into the portals of the past."

Tommy's Mexican Restaurant, 5929 Geary Blvd. "As long as you're near the Richmond District, go over to Tommy's Mexican Restaurant and pray that Julio, the world's greatest Tequilaologist, is in. He has 5,000 followers in his tequila school. Classes held nightly."

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:23:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory's Little Brother reading

I really went to town on the samples and mixing in this one, hauling out Audacity, the free/open sound-editing program, and grabbing a boatload of samples from the Freesound project, and a little punk guitar from the Anchormen, a great Boston act.

As soon as we sat down, she unrolled her burrito and took a little bottle out of her purse. It was a little stainless-steel aerosol canister that looked for all the world like a pepper-spray self-defense unit. She aimed it at her burrito's exposed guts and misted them with a fine red oily spray. I caught a whiff of it and my throat closed and my eyes watered.

"What the hell are you doing to that poor, defenseless burrito?"

She gave me a wicked smile. "I'm a spicy food addict," she said. "This is capsaicin oil in a mister."

"Capsaicin --"

"Yeah, the stuff in pepper spray. This is like pepper spray but slightly more dilute. And way more delicious. Think of it as Spicy Cajun Visine if it helps."

My eyes burned just thinking of it.

"You're kidding," I said. "You are so not going to eat that."

Her eyebrows shot up. "That sounds like a challenge, sonny. You just watch me."

She rolled the burrito up as carefully as a stoner rolling up a joint, tucking the ends in, then re-wrapping it in tinfoil. She peeled off one end and brought it up to her mouth, poised with it just before her lips.

Link, Link to podcast feed

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

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Coachella: Björk's wild sound machines, and report from the turf

(Photos, top image and first two in post, by eecue of blogging.la, cc-licensed).

I'm at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts festival in Indio, California this weekend.

More around the web: Flickr "coachella" tagged photos, technorati, LA Times coverage, band lineup, Wikipedia entry.

I haven't been out here in a couple years. The event seems much larger now. The desert town where this takes place only has a population of about 70,000, but they're expecting another 60 - 70,000 200,000 to show up for the event this weekend. Profit estimates I'm hearing for the event's organizers are around $50 million.

I'm crashing on an airconditioned couch in my friend Wayne Correia's world-famous, geek-pimped, beWiFi'd bus on the event grounds. He has a better satellite 'net connection on this thing than my broadband in urban LA.

I'm listening to a low-power FM pirate radio station here at the event site: "Renegade Radio," at 103.3 FM if you're nearby. Paynie put the tracks together.

It's 108° F. outside, according to the gauge on Wayne's bus. When I drove in yesterday afternoon, there were mobile sprinklers all over the place to keep dust down. RVs, tour buses, and tent encampments stretch out as far as I can see in either direction right now.

More than 120 bands are on the lineup this year, and lots of robots, flamey stuff, and software-driven art installations, some of which might look familiar from Burning Man.

Coolest thing that isn't a band so far is the fully functional, but stationary, steam engine. Coal and everything. I'll try to upload video later (or post links to someone else's), but here's a still photo from eecue below.

(At left, Coachella Tesla Coil photo from Flickr user omarr, cc-licensed).

We wandered around from stage to stage Friday night. Interpol, Peaches, Charles Feelgood, Marques Wyatt, Jarvis Cocker, Amy Winehouse, and Sonic Youth all played, among others.

The biggest draw last night seemed to be Björk, performing material from her new album, Volta. The set was great, but what made really my jaw drop (and those of the two nerd pals I was with) was the Mac-based hardware and software system used in her set for live sound manipulation.

Flat video displays flanked the stage, and the camera lingered on closeups of that equipment inbetween shots of Björk, her horn and chorus ensemble, and the live drummer. My friends and I squinted when close-up shots of the gear came up, then googled the brand names we saw on our phones, to figure out what the components were. Here's what we found.

First: JazzMutant's multitouch control surface for live performance called Lemur, built in Bordeaux, France. Snip from manufacturer's description:

At first glance, the Lemur looks like a high-fashion etch-a-sketch. As a performance interface, the Lemur is immediately appealing. You touch colorful rounded interface objects on the 12" LCD display to control your computer in any way you can imagine. The Lemur's elegant simplicity is made possible by its sophisticated graphics processor and proprietary touchscreen interface that tracks multiple fingers simultaneously.

Using the JazzEditor application running on your choice of Mac or Windows, you drag and drop switches, faders, and other objects into an exact simulation of the Lemur's screen. Make any number of interfaces, store them in an XML-based project file, then upload them to the Lemur and it's ready to go. You can reuse them with the Import/Export feature.

I'm seeing reports online that she/they used it for the first time in their show earlier this week, during the SNL performance (Video Link).

The reactable was developed over the last few years by a team led by Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger, and Marcos Alonso in Pompeu Fabra University's Music Technology Group, in Barcelona, Spain. Snip from description:

reactable is a multi-user electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible user interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving physical objects on a luminous table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

Videos of the reactable in action: 1, 2, 3 (or on google video: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)

Electronic music godfather Robert Moog playing an early prototype of the reactable at the NIME conference 2004 in Hamamatsu, Japan. Here's a Video Link.

More about the Björk show from bandmate Jónas Sen's Volta tour blog: Link. Excerpt:

I must confess I felt I was about to faint when we walked on stage. Such an enormous audience! Almost the entire population of Reykjavik.

(...) We have “ear monitors” with a metronomic click sounding in our ears to keep the band’s playing together, plus everything else we need to hear. In some songs I want to hear as little from the drums as possible (even though Chris’ playing is damn good!). In other songs I want to hear the drums clearly but less of the brass. This is so unreal… yet amazing that it is possible.

(Björk photo from Friday night's Coachella set by Flickr user mediaeater, cc-licensed, more here.)

Big ups to all the BoingBoing readers out here! It's been great meeting so many fellow happy mutants here at Coachella. Thanks for saying hello. <throws internet freak sign>.

(Thanks, Wayne Correia!)

Saw that you have a photo of the coils that Syd Klinge built and took out to Coachella. It'd be awesome if you could throw his name in there. I don't have more details on the coils, but I believe they're the largest dueling coils ever run. Here's his site: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:40:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stumbling on Happiness: why we suck at being happy

Gilbert is a Harvard Psych prof, and in this book, he doesn't seek to explain how to be happy -- in fact, the introduction specifically disclaims this intention -- but rather, how happiness happens. And why happiness is so elusive.

Happiness is certainly elusive. How many times have we chased some goal, some purchase, some strategy, sure that we needed it to be complete, only to discover later that we're no happier than we were when the whole steeplechase started? This is the crux of Gilbert's thesis: why are we so consistently bad at estimating how happy some course of action will make us?

For Gilbert, the answer lies in our faulty perceptions. We misremember how happy we've been in the past, we mispredict how happy we'll be in the future (his section on futurism should be mandatory reading for every science fiction writer and tech journalist). Citing study after study, Gilbert lays out the lucid and funny case for the idea that our brains aren't very good at measuring what's going on in our brains.

Gilbert's funny, conversational style reminds me of Freakonomics, as does his subject-matter. For happiness is at the core of more than psychology -- it's also at the heart of justice, economics, political science, ethics, and many other key organizing disciplines that set the Earth in motion. This was the kind of book that made me reexamine more than my life's goals -- it made me re-think my politics and economic activity, too.

I listened to an unabridged edition read by the author, and it was very fine. Gilbert has the timing of a stand-up comic, and the book itself is just so funny to begin with. Highly recommended.

Link to book, Link to audiobook

Update: Louis sends in this video of the author speaking at the TED Conference

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:10:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Coke skin-cream

Update: Meg sez, "Coke's not making a skin cream, it is a 'nutraceutical' beverage to be called Lumae. They want to sell it at places like Saks apparently. "

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:04:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disneyland Paris's four best rides as simulators

I love this approach to simulating Disney rides. It's clearly aimed at those of us who, like me, are more fascinated with the ride's artistry than its thrills, the melding of artistry and engineering in the service of fun. My dream has always been to work at the Haunted Mansion (I even wrote a novel about it) and this was totally hypnotic as a result. I could have played it for days. I probably will. Link (Thanks, Metavisual!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:02:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Economist slams DRM

The movie industry, which nowadays depends as much on DVD sales as on box-office receipts, still seems to think that making life difficult for its customers is a recipe for success.

After likewise shooting itself in the foot for ages, the record industry is now falling over itself to abandon DRM (digital rights management) on CDs. A number of online music stores such as eMusic, Audio Lunchbox and Anthology have given up using DRM altogether. In a recent survey by Jupiter Research, two out of three music industry executives in Europe reckoned that dropping DRM would improve sales.

A blanket licensing scheme -- you pay a collecting society, they pay artists, you get the right to file-share using any protocol, file-format and software -- needs a bunch of ways to figure out who gets paid what. There are a lot of ways to measure the popularity of music online, including audio fingerprinting, Neilsen-style sample families, and anonymous monitoring of P2P networks. Some weighting scheme agreed upon by all the stakeholders could ensure that artists get paid when their music gets shared.

But systems like AudibleMagic are no good when it comes to enforcing a ban on file-sharing. These systems can't detect all infringement, can't tell the difference between infringement and fair use, and sometimes block non-infringing works.

In other words, audio fingerprinting is useful as part of a system to allow file-sharing, but useless as part of a system to stop file-sharing. Link (Thanks, John!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:55:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Slashdot: the flowchart

See also: Science and faith: two flowcharts

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:45:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Turn WordPress blogs into Commodore 64s

Update: James sez "I really enjoyed the C64 theme. Here's another done Unix style."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:44:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Barenaked Ladies want a compulsory P2P music license

"Not everyone's an artist," Page says, "but people can now express themselves like artists do, by sharing something that means something to them. If we had a system of compulsory licenses, they don't have to worry about going and getting a license to do it, or circumventing the system."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:39:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, April 27, 2007

ReMake: Bay Area electronics recycling event starts tomorrow!

ACCRC in Berkeley, CA and Make have been collecting household electronics--including old projects, failed inventions, half finished prototypes. All of these items will be diverted to ReMake, a 24-hour event beginning at noon on Saturday, April 28.

Come find parts for your new projects and work with others to create something new from salvaged electronics. ACCRC will provide internet, sleeping quarters, food, and plenty of toys to aid makers to encourage us to recycle and ReMake. Bring your tools and anything else needed to create. You can also bring anything you ReMake to the upcoming Maker Faire, May 19-20 at the San Mateo Fairgrounds, where we will showcase how a little innovation can make the old, new again.

Where: Alameda County Computer Resource Center (ACCRC), 1501 East Shore Highway, Berkeley, CA 94710

When: Noon, April 28, 2007 - Noon, April 29, 2007

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

Manga aisle hoboes?

I apologize in advance if this somehow exemplifies my ignorance: Is there a name for the people who sit on the floor of the graphic novels aisle in bookstores (who invariably read manga)? I tried "manga hobos" but it doesn't sit right. I don't mean to criticize: those books can be pricey. But they're always in the way!

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:30:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Unusable watch wrapped in leather

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:45:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Playing cards illustrated with Nixon and the gang

These POLITICARDS are dated 1971 and were made during the height of Richard Nixon's presidency. Each of the 54 different playing cards is a different character of the era. There are members of the Kennedy family, Agnew, Jane Fonda - 'political activist', Ralph Nader, Buckley, Goldwater, Ford, Eisenhower, Reagan, Martha Mitchell, Strom Thurmond, McGovern, Proxmire, Tunney, Maddox, Richard Daley, George Wallace and other politicos and fringe celebs of the day. Of course, Nixon is King. Deck is still sealed (using photos of our own personal deck). After you chuckle at the humorously-illustrated cards, you can actually play with them.

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:36:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Johhny Ryan's Klassic Komix Klub #2 on sale

Klassic Komix Klub #2—the spanking-new sequel to Klassic Komix Klub #1, published in Winter 2006—is a limited edition comic recently self-published by Johnny. KKK #2 collects 24 highly scatological, not-for-the-squeamish classic literature parody strips into one gorgeous package, wrapped up in a display-worthy three-color letterpress printed (on fancy paper with yellow-gold metallic ink) wraparound cover produced by Buenaventura Press. (One sample colorway is represented above, we'll have detailed photos for you soon!) Only 200 copies were produced and we have limited quantities available. Each copy is signed and numbered. Various inks and papers were used, the pic above shows samples of what you might receive. Please note that Johnny's last few parody books sold out extremely fast; also these are not available in stores. Only $10.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Johnny Ryan in Mad
• "What're You Lookin' At?!" anthology
• Johnny Ryan's Klassic Komix Klub
• Johnny Ryan's Comic Book Holocaust
• Johnny Ryan's Comic Book Holocaust 2

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:14:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Satan responsible for illegal immigration, says Utah delegate

"In order for Satan to establish his 'New World Order' and destroy the freedom of all people as predicted in the Scriptures, he must first destroy the U.S.," his resolution states. "The mostly quiet and unspectacular invasion of illegal immigrants does not focus the attention of the nations the way open warfare does, but is all the more insidious for its stealth and innocuousness."

...

Satan has popped up in Utah County politics before. Last year, failed congressional candidate John Jacob of Eagle Mountain blamed the devil for his flagging campaign.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:26:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

AOL's beta site looks like Yahoo

AOL's new beta site looks just a teensy bit like Yahoo's home page, wouldn't you say? (Thanks, Patrick!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:16:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Steampunk guitar

After cutting, a spacer was cut and installed to join the two pieces of the body. Knowing damned well that wouldnt be a strong enough of a join for just about any player, the steampunk look hit me, and I went on to installing the copper pipe, and soldering the joints. You just cant have steam power without a gauge, so I cannibalized an old oil gauge and made a custom face in it with my name and a real complex readout.

Gears. Man I hacked more gears together then I knew what to do with, and inlaid them into a cut plexi frame that was then screwed into the body. Under the gears is a carbon fiber layer which really sets them off. By the way, one of the gears in the lower end is a Matrix headplug vast from one of the original plugs used in the film. What the hell, it had the look.

See also:
Spring-loaded steampunk spex
Steampunk magazine
Steampunk Star Wars
Steampunk watch
Beautiful steampunk laptop
HOWTO make a steampunk keyboard
HOWTO make etched brass steampunk journals
HOWTO make a steampunk spinning-wheel
Steampunk walking robot
Steampunk cartoon from SciFi channel: Amazing Screw-On Head
Homebrew mechanical steampunk lion from Belgium
Steampunk robotics
Steampunk weekly serial - handsome editions
Steampunk rayguns
Steampunk Transformer-bots
Ukrainian steampunk plane
Steampunk casemod with a "furnace"
Steampunk submarine free paper toy
Steampunk/dead media photoshopping contest
Brighton's steampunk rolling sea-platform
Steampunk Slashdot
Steampunk mecha-wars
Steampunk car-wars
New York's steampunk pneumatic subway

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:14:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

$20 for a monster drawing by mail

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Videos of hoboes being drawn by Ape Lad
• Ape Lad draws Jackhammer Jill as a hobo

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:05:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Write an essay in Illinois, go to jail

Dion says: "A straight A student is arrested and charged with misdemeanor disorderly conduct (and removed from the school) for writing an essay that mimics the content of violent video games, in the context of a creative writing class assignment. While some concern about the content is well-understandable, and some investigation appropriate, the reflex to criminalize represents a view that sees adolescents and young adult expression as a dangerous series of risk factors that increasingly require arrest and preventive detention."

"I understand what happened recently at Virginia Tech," said the teen's father, Albert Lee, referring to last week's massacre of 32 students by gunman Seung-Hui Cho. "I understand the situation."

But he added: "I don't see how somebody can get charged by writing in their homework. The teacher asked them to express themselves, and he followed instructions."

Allen Lee, an 18-year-old straight-A student at Cary-Grove High School, was arrested Tuesday near his home and charged with disorderly conduct for an essay police described as violently disturbing but not directed toward any specific person or location.

Update: Here's the essay that got Lee arrested.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:41:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More favorite podcasts

Example:

PopSci Podcasts

Jonathan Coulton, the wonderfully talented geek guitar troubadour, hosts this weekly podcast from his bunker on the moon, phoning in for interviews with people profiled in Popular Science magazine. He's talked to an electric car manufacturer, visionary roboticists, and a scientist who swaps genes around in fruit flies to make the boy flies fight like girl flies and vice versa.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Five favorite podcasts
• Subscribe to the Boing Boing Boing podcast
• Subscribe to Boing Boing Boing on iTunes
• Boing Boing Boing archives
• Subscribe to the Get Illuminated podcast
• Subscribe to Get Illuminated on iTunes
• Get Illuminated archives
• Boing Boing's 60 most recent videos
• 9 great old punk videos
• 7 punk and post-punk female singer videos

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:01:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Rats of Spring: "Evil Hamsters," a child's poem

Evil hamsters are almost as "terrizing" as the LOLGAY gebrils: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:51:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Home Inspection Nightmares photo gallery, Vol. 5

Nothing feels better than a good shocking shower before going for a swim. A showerhead placed directly over an electrical junction box does the trick.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Sex-in-Russia article on This Old House site
• Photos of bad and dangerous home improvement hacks

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:32:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Attaboy's Too Many Robots! pilot

Atta sez: "Animated by Ghostbot!, featuring music by the awesome Mike Relm and the lead is voiced by Kelly Stables (the Ring 2+3)." Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Attaboy's Fuzzy Axtrx
• Attaboy's new book of postcards
• Preview of new issue of Hi-Fructose
• Hi-Fructose volume 3

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:26:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Maker Faire previews from April 23-27

• The Crucible Link
• The Art of Motion Control Link
• The King of Fling contest Link
• Makers @Maker Faire Link
• X1 electric car does 0-100 mph in 6.8 seconds Link
• Tom Zimmerman and his DIY videoscope for backyard biology Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:19:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Behold the Stalinmobile

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:03:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Beautiful Russian cake-sculptures

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:19:50 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stephen Hawking, Zero G

UPDATE: Vann points out the striking surreal similarities between the Hawking photo and "Dali Atomicus" (1949).

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:34:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Guatemala: "tattooed terrorist" Antichrist denied entry

Jose Luis de Jesus Miranda (Wikipedia link) is the head of the Florida-based Growing in Grace church. He runs a 24-hour Spanish-language television network, and hosts a radio program broadcast on 287 stations.

Thumbnail at left (Alexandre Meneghini, AP) (link to full-size): A follower of Miranda holds a baby with "SSS" painted on her head. The letters stand for Miranda's motto, "salvo, siempre salvo," or "saved, always saved."

This week, Miranda tried to fly on his private jet to Guatemala, where he apparently has a big following, to celebrate his 61st birthday.

But Guatemalan officials flagged him as a terrorist, and say he's a security risk because he provokes conflict with Roman Catholics and evangelicals.

Snip from an AP story:

He often takes aim at the Catholic Church — the most powerful faith in Latin America — calling all priests child molesters and saying chastity vows go against the Bible's teachings. Members of his church have torn up images of saints and other religious symbols in El Salvador, and marched in Guatemala and Honduras.

He preaches that sin and the devil do not exist. In January, he revealed tattoos of the numbers 666 on his forearms and declared that he and his followers were Antichrists because their beliefs supersede those of Jesus Christ. The Bible describes the Antichrist as someone who will fill the world with wickedness but be conquered by a second coming of Christ.

Despite the Guatemalan government's security block, his supporters say...

"It has been predestined, and angels will make it happen," said Axel Poessy, Miranda's media director. "He is, after all, God himself."

He had vowed to defy the ban but canceled Saturday and will instead address the gathering in a video teleconference, said the sect's head pastor in Guatemala, Jorge Batres. "We're a church respectful of the law and we will have to wait until the judge gives us an injunction," Batres said.

Batres said De Jesus Miranda's Guatemalan followers will "firmly fight within the law so that he can come and let the world know that Jesus the Man is in Guatemala."

No surprise here, but the church's website appears to be a very important part of their "Antichrist ministry" outreach program.

The most interesting parts of the site, to me, are these videos of children proclaiming themselves part of a "Super Race" of Miranda followers, and this photo gallery documenting "Day of the Tattoo," where followers of de Miranda all got tattoos of "666" and "SSS" ("salvo, siempre salvo") on their bodies to proclaim their faith.

Previously on BoingBoing:

(via Warren Ellis)

Reader comment: attorney Elizabeth Camp from the University of Texas says,

Miranda moved his church and his headquarters to Houston some time ago: Link. Then he announced he is the Antichrist.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:12:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mark Shuttleworth explains Ubuntu's business-model

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:48:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cory speaking at LA Times Festival of Books this Sunday

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:45:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Squirming SoKo octopus: more enticing video

Following up on a previous BB post about freshly-killed, still-wriggling octopus tentacles -- a popular dish in South Korea -- many of you wrote in with personal accounts, and video. Here are more.

ray says,

Just read the squirming octopus post on BoingBoing! I was in Korea some 2 years ago and posted a similar breakdown on my own site - it includes videos of flopping fish and waving sea urchins. Live. And of course, we're eating them. Doesn't get any fresher than that! And now I'm getting hungry too... Link.

I have been living on Geoje Island, Korea, for the past two years. I have never eaten the wiggling octopus tentacles because they gross me out but I have had other undead seafood and I love steamed octopus.

I thought you might like to know the reason why Koreans eat their food this way. Especially in coastal areas, there is an emphasis on the "freshness" of seafood. Seafood lovers in the West know that fish always tastes better if it hasn't been frozen — Koreans take this one step further. They think most seafood is best when it's freshly killed, like, literally seconds before you eat it. Near the coast, almost all seafood restaurants have tanks outside where you pick the fish you want to eat. It is then killed at a bar inside and served up sashimi-style. Markets here serve skinned eel that even after de-gloving continue to wriggle around.

There is a scene in the Korean movie "Seom" (A.K.A. The Isle, a very good movie) in which a fisherman pulls a catch out of the water, cuts a chunk off the flank, eats the meat and then drops the butchered fish back into the water. The camera follows the fish as it swims away, streaming blood. Animal right activists had a heyday with that one, since the scene looks very, very real, but the director swears the fish was a fake. You can see part of the fish in this trailer at about 54 seconds in. Video Link.

The posts about octopus reminded me of recent Pulitzer-recipient Jonathan Gold's description of eating live prawns in LA's Koreatown: Link.

It's a great piece of writing, like no other food review I've read.

Here is a 2 minute video of a sushi chef who fillets both sides of a fish, then puts it back in the tank where it swims around seemingly unaffected. The video is not graphic or gory unless you consider being able to almost see through the fish as either of those things. Video Link.

BTW, there's a Wikipedia article about eating live octopus: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:30:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Neuros to AppleTV hackers: hack our set-top box!

I've had a couple of these circulating in my class at USC this semester and some of the students have had a complete nerdgasm over them (for example, see this post on the class blog). The Neuros offers the best functionality of several devices -- a TiVo, an AppleTV -- in a small, cheap, functional package. It's built on free/open software and there's a community of hackers working to improve it. I can't wait to get my recorder back from my students so I can start using it at home!

We at Neuros are working to fulfill the vision of the open set-top box, but the path is not an easy one. The embedded components that are typically needed are quite often not nearly as open as many of the components in PCs. We don't have the heritage of mature, free software to support multimedia playback and recording, and we often have constrained computing resources that are a challenge to porting the software designed for PCs. Although each generation of our devices has become increasingly more open, we continue to rely too heavily on licensed proprietary code that would benefit greatly from the kind of help and expertise that you can bring.

Unlike other manufacturers who typically ignore or may even try to suppress or undermine your contributions, we at Neuros rely on them. Your contributions can get quickly incorporated in our official releases, and you will have a say in the creation of future generations of our devices and the ability to work side by side with our internal engineering team.

All while expanding the body of free software for those that follow.

At Neuros, we do not sell content, nor do we sell our devices through content distributors, as most set-top box manufacturers do. We are beholden only to you, the consumer. In a world of DRM, closed systems and proprietary walled garden content distribution, we record content from any legally obtained source to free and non DRM-encumbered MPEG-4 files that allow you to use that content as you wish.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:34:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, April 26, 2007

Jodie Foster, teenage chanteuse

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:52:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bag of sand spurs Evacuation

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:05:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jack Valenti, former MPAA head, has died.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:27:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Internet radio crisis: an overview, from SomaFM's Rusty Hodge

The first internet radio station I ever tuned in to was a downtempo ambient stream from Soma FM. I was working long, late hours at a website sweatshop an interactive services firm, with visions of plump stock options dancing over my monitor. The music and the delivery method were equally captivating. Radio! On the computer! Whoah. It felt so new at the time. I've remained a loyal Soma FM fan as years passed.

Now, Soma FM and other Internet radio providers -- including terrestrial radio networks now offering streams online -- are in big trouble, thanks to blockheaded moves by the RIAA and its spinoff, SoundExchange.

I asked Soma FM general manager Rusty Hodge if he wouldn't mind sharing an overview with BoingBoing readers, and he generously complied. Snip:

There is a crisis facing internet radio: new mandatory royalty rates are so high that they will force most or all independent internet radio stations off the air.

Kurt Hanson and the Radio and Internet Newsletter (RAIN) folks have been covering this from the beginning, too -- here's their latest post: Link.

More background: here's an explanation from one of the lawyers representing webcasters: Link. LA Times reporter Jon Healey posted something about the issue in his blog, as well: Link.

(Thanks, Wayne Correia, and Fred von Lohmann!)

Reader comment: Aram Sinnreich says,

I just published an interview on the subject with tim westergren from pandora in truthdig.com: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:19:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Get Illuminated Podcast episode 8: Comic Art Magazine

Alvin also publishes other books of and about comics -- check out the line-up at Buenaventura Press. Hignite is the author of a terrific book called In the Studio, in which he visits well-know cartoonists and interviews them about their process and inspirations. (Shown above: The cover of the upcoming Comic Art 9 by LA cartoonist and musician Tim Hensley.)

MP3 link | Podcast feed | Subscribe via iTunes | Previous Get Illuminated shows

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:30:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gross video of still-writhing octopus tentacles for dinner

Reader comment: M. Hwang says,

If you've ever seen the Korean movie Old Boy (I'd highly recommend it, though it's also a bit disturbing), there's a scene in it where the protagonist eats a live octopus on camera. As he chomps down on it, the tentacles move along his face. The actor, CHOI Min-sik, is a devout Buddhist, and apparently he prayed/begged forgiveness after each take. Video link.

Korean Cuisine Geek and BB reader stylimitsu says,

OMG! Are you kidding me? My mouth is STILL watering after checking that video out! Seriously. Funny what turns different people on, huh?

The way it was prepared in the video makes it seem pretty tame. The sauce actually lubricates the tentacles, making them easier to manipulate in the mouth and, thus, chew properly (trust me, you gotta chew the hell out of these things). It also makes them easier to pick up with chopsticks, as, without the sauce, the little suckers (hah!) grip tenaciously to the smooth surface of the plate. That's why sliced tentacles will often be served on top of leaves (on top of plates).

Okay, I'm really getting hungry now...

Yeah, I have been to South Korea sometime ago and encountered this "store" which was selling live octopus next to a rocky shore. According to the local tour guide, one has to chew really fast to prevent the suckers from getting stuck onto the teeth. Also, divers (woman) who catches these stuffs on the spot needs to be able to dive to a depth of some 50 to 100 feet all while holding their breath without the use of diving equipment. The end result of holding such long breaths is that these divers don't actually live long.

Just read the squirming octopus post on BoingBoing! I was in Korea some 2 years ago and posted a similar breakdown on my own site - it includes videos of flopping fish and waving sea urchins. Live. And of course, we're eating them. Doesn't get any fresher than that! And now I'm getting hungry too... Link.

Also see the related behind the scenes footage from Oldboy: youTube Link. (BTW I, being from the middle of the north american continent, say it's gross, but it makes my Korean wife totally hungry :))

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:24:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Garage dentist busted

When Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies raided Bean's garage, they recovered various power tools, false teeth, putty, dentures, and moldings. Bean, pictured in the mug shot at right, described himself as a "denturist" and told cops that this was not the first time he had been nabbed for operating an unregistered lab. He was charged with practicing dentistry without a license, a felony. While first visiting Bean's garage (after receiving an anonymous tip), detectives watched as a 67-year-old woman arrived to pick up dentures Bean had repaired for the bargain basement price of $40.

Ron St. Mary, 73, head of the neighborhood crime watch, said Bean is no criminal.

"He's helping the old people who don't have a few dollars," he said. "I think the world of him."

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:21:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How the CIA used a fake sci-fi flick to rescue Americans from Tehran

The story is a CIA rescue mission during the Iran Hostage Crisis, when six American embassy staff escaped the compound and were on the lam in Tehran for months -- until the CIA rescued them by creating a fake Hollywood production company and pretended to be in Iran location scouting for a big-budget sci-fi epic. I swear, it's all true. The CIA even got an office for their fake production company at Sunset/Gower studios, had a script and concept art, and took out ads in Variety. There are many more strange digressions in detail, but I'll let you find out about them in the story.

Reader comment:

Luke says: In Errol Morris' First Person series, he did a documentary about the CIA agent responsible for the Sci-fi rescue. He talks about it in some detail. The episode is called "The Little Gray Man"

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:14:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Royal Society 2007 Prize for Science Books

• Homo Britannicus by Chris Stringer
Homo Britannicus tells the epic story of the human colonisation of Britain, from our very first footsteps to the present day. Drawing on all the latest evidence and techniques of investigation, Chris Stringer describes times when Britain was so tropical that humans lived alongside hippos and sabre tooth tigers; and times so cold they shared the land with reindeer and mammoth; and times colder still when humans were forced to flee altogether. Link

• In Search of Memory by Eric R. Kandel
Nobel laureate Eric R Kandel charts the intellectual history of the emerging biology of the mind, and sheds light on how behavioural psychology, cognitive psychology, neuroscience and molecular biology have converged into a powerful new science. These efforts, he says, provide insights into normal mental functioning and disease, and simultaneously open pathways to more effective treatments. Link

• Lonesome George by Henry Nicholls
Lonesome George is a 1.5m-long, 90kg tortoise aged between 60 and 200, and it is thought he is the sole survivor of his sub-species. Scientific ingenuity may conjure up a way of reproducing him, and resurrecting his species. Henry Nicholls details the efforts of conservationists to preserve the Galapagos' unique biodiversity and illustrates how their experiences and discoveries are echoed worldwide. He explores the controversies raging over which mates are most appropriate for George and the risks of releasing crossbreed offspring into the wild. Link

• One in Three by Adam Wishart
When his father was diagnosed with cancer, Adam Wishart couldn't find any book that answered his questions: what was the disease, how did it take hold and what did it mean? What is it about cancer's biology that means it has not been eradicated? How close are we, really, to a cure? There was no such book. So he wrote it. One in Three interweaves two powerful stories: that of Adam and his father; and of the 200-year search for a cure. Link

• Stumbling on Happiness by Daniel Gilbert Psychologist Daniel Gilbert reveals how and why the majority of us have no idea how to make ourselves happy. The drive for happiness is one of the most instinctive and fundamental human impulses. In this revealing and witty investigation, psychologist Daniel Gilbert uses scientific research, philosophy and real-life case studies to illustrate how our basic drive to satisfy our desires can not only be misguided, but also intrinsically linked to some long-standing and contentious questions about human nature. Link

• The Rough Guide to Climate Change by Robert Henson
The Rough Guide to Climate Change is a complete, unbiased guide to one of the most pressing problems facing humanity. From the current situation and background science to the government sceptics and possible solutions, this book covers the whole subject. The guide looks at visible symptoms of change from a warming planet, how global warming works, the evolution of our atmosphere over the last 4.5 billion years and what computer simulations of climate reveal about our past, present, and future. It looks at the sceptics' grounds for disagreement, global warming in the media and what governments and scientists are doing to try and solve the problem. It also includes lifestyle advice and tips for consumers who want to make a difference in tomorrow's climate. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:03:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web campaign to free American in Nicaragua (NPR "Xeni Tech")

- - - - - -

LISTEN:
"Two Sides Take up Nicaraguan Murder Case Online." Link to archived audio (Real/Win). Here's an MP3 Link. Or, listen to this report as an MP3 in the "Xeni Tech" podcast (subscribe via iTunes here). NPR "Xeni Tech" archives here.

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Eric Volz is one of many Americans drawn to the beauty of Nicaragua. Two decades after the end of a civil war between leftist Sandinistas and U.S.-backed Contra rebels, the country has become a magnet for retirees, surfers, and ecotourism.

After going there to surf, Volz ended up staying in Nicaragua, selling beachfront real estate and launching a magazine about local culture. Life was pretty good — until last November. His 25-year-old Nicaraguan ex-girlfriend, Doris Jimenez, was murdered. Of the four suspects, Volz was the only non-Nicaraguan. He became the prime suspect.

The one witness placing Volz at the scene of the crime was himself a suspect — a petty thief with an established criminal history. Charges against him were dropped when he agreed to testify against Volz.

Evidence for Volz's defense, including phone and Internet records, and testimony from 10 witnesses who claimed to have seen Volz in another city at the time of the crime, were denied by the small-town court.

Nicaraguan tabloids printed inflammatory headlines about the case (examples: 1, 2, 3), and Volz's mother, Maggie Anthony, says the climate surrounding the legal proceedings became chaotic.

"After the hearing, Eric was chased by a mob chanting, 'Let the gringo out so we can kill him,'" says Anthony. "We believe that was a direct result of the frenzy that happened because of the press."

Anthony says they turned to close family friend Richard McKinney for help. McKinney -- a former government tech CIO in Tennessee, now a Microsoft executive -- had some experience with technology and media. At first, they thought it best to avoid more press attention.

"Our lawyers said the best course of action is to let the evidence speak for itself and not make the situation worse by introducing the media," says McKinney.

If that spun out of control, they reasoned, the story could turn into a Nicaragua-vs.-America firestorm. But when the court returned a guilty verdict, McKinney turned to his 24-year-old daughter Nicole, who works in an ad agency and knew a thing or two about creating "viral media" campaigns with YouTube, MySpace, and blogs.

"When I called her, I said, 'Darlin', we need to light a fire on the Internet,' and she said, 'Let me work on it,'" McKinney recalls.

A "Free Eric Volz" MySpace page materialized, letters written by Eric from jail appear like blog posts on a "Friends of Eric Volz" Web site. Supporters produced a YouTube video called "An American Wrongfully Imprisoned In Nicaragua."

Soon, blogs picked up the story, and mainstream US media followed. Around the same time, congressmen and State Department officials took notice. In Nicaragua, there is not a strong Internet culture yet — but locals expressed themselves online, too, in newspaper forums. And an anti-Eric Volz video popped up on YouTube, followed by counter-responses produced by still others who had learned about the case from the Internet. Beyond the case itself, it seemed that traditional media in Nicaragua suddenly found itself at odds with a new, global, social media.

Howard Rheingold, the author of "Smart Mobs," believes this is part of an emerging trend.

"The poor people who earn a dollar a day don't have access to the Internet quite yet, but they've always had access to the networks through which rumors spread — and they hit the streets," says Rheingold. "Some of those people on the streets know someone who's connected to the Internet, and I think increasingly we'll see those two worlds merge."

Those worlds are merging in other legal cases, too. Supporters of American videoblogger Josh Wolf, who spent 226 days in U.S. prison, credit a massive online campaign in part with his recent release.

The murder trial of a 23-year old woman in Oakland, Calif., grabbed national headlines last year when her mom posted scanned court documents and photos of witnesses on MySpace.

Just as "conversational media" could be used to exonerate the wrongfully imprisoned, Rheingold worries that it could be used the other way.

"The question is, is that going to raise the quality of the public sphere, or is this simply going to be a medium that can be manipulated, [where] people become inflamed over falsehoods?"

Volz's case has been forwarded to an appeals court in Nicaragua, and a new hearing is expected in the coming weeks.

- - - - - - - - - -

CNN's Rick Sanchez covered it for "Anderson Cooper 360" this week: Link.

Here's a San Francisco Chronicle story (April 6): Link. And a Wall Street Journal story is here (March 19, behind a paywall, sorry): Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:18:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fark's copyright policy stinks -- UPDATED

Fark -- home to many photo-mashup contests -- has a new (?) copyright policy: everyone who posts to Fark agrees to assign all copyright in their work to Fark (Fark then gives the posters back the right to use their work on personal projects, but not to allow anyone else to ever use their work).

The clause is really dumb. It's clear that Fark just wants to be sure they're allowed to, for example, publish books of the entries in Fark contests and to make sure that they're allowed to put ads alongside user submissions. Not altogether ridiculous.

But there are much better ways of accomplishing this than simply grabbing all the copyright to farkers' submissions. For example, Fark could ask submitters to release their submissions into the public domain, or to license them as Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike, which would make sure that Fark could make stuff from user submissions, without turning Fark into the sole owner of their users' creative output.

The agreement also prohibits any quoting of Fark submissions, message board posts etc, without ever mentioning fair use. Boing Boing has often quoted Fark posts in the past -- something that this policy now prohibits.

All in all, these terms of service are not very well thought through and are a real disappointment.

Fark.com is the legal owner of all copyright interests of Fark.com content. Each and every submission to Fark.com carries with it an implied assignment of the entire copyright interest in the submission. In exchange for the content and publication of that submission on Fark.com, Fark.com grants back to the submitter a non-exclusive, non-transferable and royalty-free license to republish that submission in any and all forms.

If you have any questions about our copyright policies, please send Feedback.

Update: Fark's Drew Curtis has gone on record saying that this agreement isn't good and will be fixed soonest -- great news!

We’re not, we’re asking for a non-exclusive right to republish. Submitters still own their submissions, we’re asking for reprint rights in case we can use it. We have no intention of acquiring ownership of submission

Update 2: Fark's Drew Curtis adds, "Something else no one knows, because no one asked, is that since the inception of the website, I have been contacted on multiple occasions by mainstream media people (or otherwise, such as when Thomas Dolby asked permission to blow up submissions to a PS contest with him as the subject to poster size for his own house) about using Fark PS submissions. I have refused to give the permission, and instead have on every occasion contacted the individual who owned the work and told them that the didn't need to respond to the media inquiry but if they wanted to they could. Because of this, if you ever saw a Fark PS in Mainstream Media that was uncreditted, it was used without permission."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:52:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Survey: Kids download media because they mistrust labels/studios

Some 41% of 18- to 34-year-olds in the U.K. did not trust entertainment companies to provide them with value for money, compared with an even higher figure of 54% in France. In the U.K., 35% of those asked did not think entertainment companies respected the rights of people who pay for digital entertainment, with that figure rising to 46% in France.

"It's bad news for the entertainment companies in that consumers are saying they're used to getting what they want, when they want, without paying for it on the Internet," said Gail Becker, Edelman's global head of digital entertainment division. "People are asking if I am going to pay for my entertainment, what value are you going to give us?"

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

More Merit Badges for scientists

Recently, our badges have doubled in number (new ones include various levels of the "I build robots" badge; the "I've named a child or pet for science" badge" and the "I AM actually a freakin' rocket scientist" badge).

As well, the Science Scouts have adopted a kicking punk rock song called "Increase the N" by local Vancouver band HEFE as our official anthem. Who knew punk could work in the words "Mass Spec" into the lyrics?

Update: JFR sez, "I thought you would enjoy these merit badges from the Autonomous, Co-Ed, Secular, Non-Heirarchical Meme-Rider Scouting Collective for All Ages."

Update 2: Bonnie sez, "Saw these awesome zinester merit badges from podpodpost.com at Alternative Press Expo in San Fran this weekend!"

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:03:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fossilized rain forest found in Illinois

The forest... features an abundance of huge leaf impressions, large trunks of extinct trees, and tree-size horsetail plants, the researchers (from the Illinois State Geological Survey) said...

Geologist John Nelson, also with ISGS, found the fossils in 2004 when he was visiting the mine and noticed plant imprints in its shale-covered ceiling.

Elrick said, "Imagine an artist's canvas that's covered in gray flat paint—that's what gray shale kind of looks like.

"The plant fossils stand out in that grayness as black impressions, and they look just like pressed leaves in a book.

"As [workers] continued to mine, they exposed more and more fossils," he added.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:38:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO make a wallet from an innertube

Duct tape wallets are non-optimal. The nature of the adhesive used on duct tape results in a wallet that will slowly slide apart based on the forces input to the wallet by your ass. After a year or so, depending on the ambient temperature of your location, the wallet will be falling apart and you will be building a new one. Besides, who needs all those pockets, a full length cash slot or other "wallet" features? In today's modern, RFID, credit-ready, cash-poor society a money clip with credit card and drivers license storage is truly the best wallet you will ever need. Any more storage and you will tempted to store receipts, ATM slips, business cards, and other sundry items in the wallet until you have a full blown case of "Costanza Wallet".

Enter the Innertube Wallet. As a Maker, geek, or otherwise shunned cheapskate, you doubtless have numerous blown bicycle innertubes, a few sheets of rusty 22 gauge steel, and any number of DOA hard disks and their attendant magnets. With such materials and a boundless enthusiasm for turning interminably stored junk into stuff you don't need, I present the bitchin' innertube wallet to solve all your wallety needs.

Update: Matias sez, "My friend Eli in Seattle has been making awesome bags and other accessories from inner tubes and other reused materials for a while. He sells them through his tiny business Alchemy Goods."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:17:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Funny coffee mugs to animalize your face

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:55:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sheep sold as poodles

'We launched an investigation after we were made aware that a company was selling sheep as poodles,' a police spokesman told The Sun.

'Sadly, we think there is more than one company operating in this way.

'The sheep are believed to have been imported from overseas - Britain and Australia.'

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:38:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video: '70s Dutch pop music show revived online

TopPop, a Dutch hit music show from the seventies and eighties, has opened its archives last month. They were big on the eve of the video clip, when artists who wanted to market their face and not just their music had to make live appearances on local TV shows throughout the world. TopPop was special because of their funky backgrounds (think: Blondie standing on a tin foil mountain); the fact that if an artist was unable to appear, the show would replace them by a ballet (think: dancing to the theme of Star Wars); and because of its slightly goofy looking presenter Ad Visser, who also wrote the science fiction novel-with-soundtrack Sobrietas.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:22:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

LA Times journalist: "I am a transsexual sportswriter."

I am a transsexual sportswriter. It has taken more than 40 years, a million tears and hundreds of hours of soul-wrenching therapy for me to work up the courage to type those words. I realize many readers and colleagues and friends will be shocked to read them.

That's OK. I understand that I am not the only one in transition as I move from Mike to Christine. Everyone who knows me and my work will be transitioning as well. That will take time. And that's all right. To borrow a piece of well-worn sports parlance, we will take it one day at a time.

Transsexualism is a complicated and widely misunderstood medical condition. It is a natural occurrence — unusual, no question, but natural. Recent studies have shown that such physiological factors as genetics and hormonal fluctuations during pregnancy can significantly affect how our brains are "wired" at birth.

As extensive therapy and testing have confirmed, my brain was wired female.

A transgender friend provided the best and simplest explanation I have heard: We are born with this, we fight it as long as we can, and in the end it wins.

Reader comment: Mike DeBonis, senior editor with Washington City Paper, says,

Christina Kahrl, who's one of the brains behind Baseball Prospectus, one of the most respected baseball publications around, used to be Chris Kahrl. (She's lived as a woman since 2003, but didn't change her byline until 2005.) Our sports columnist Dave McKenna wrote about it back in summer 2005: Link.

The creators of the television show "Nip/Tuck" are working on a series about a transsexual sportswriter: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:57:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wiley threatens scientists with copyright law - UPDATED

This is, of course, bullshit. Reproducing part of a figure in a critical, scholarly essay is so obviously fair use that it hardly bears discussion. Wiley's lawyers know this. You and I know it too.

Traditional science journals are facing competition from open access journals whose entire contents are licensed Creative Commons, and whose articles are intended to be spread to interested scholars around the world. If scientists send their work to the open access journals, they get more citations and attention from their peers, which leads to more opportunities to present their work, find collaborators and get funded. Traditional journals are scrambling to attract submissions from scientists, adding open access features in a bid to stay relevant to science.

All except Wiley. If there's one lesson to be learned from this debacle (which has aroused the ire of scientists around the world), it's this: don't submit your papers to the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, because they will harass and intimidate people who try to do public scholarship with your work. Link (Thanks to everyone who suggested this!)

Update: On Batts's blog, this comment:

Sarah Cooney | April 26, 2007 01:02 PM: I am Director of Publications at the Society of Chemical Industry, owner of the journal in question (JSFA).

There has been a misunderstanding with this issue, inadvertently caused by a junior staff member at our Society. Our official response is below:

'We apologise for any misunderstanding. In this situation the publisher would typically grant permission on request in order to ensure that figures and extracts are properly credited. We do not think there is any need to pursue this matter further.'

I have written to Shelley to clarify that this was a general misunderstanding, and she has been happy with my response.

The journal in question is owned by the Society of Chemical Industry. We work in partnership with Wiley to produce our journals.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:05:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

USC students get a meeting with President Sample TODAY! Rally at 10AM

I was one of the 13 inside Sample's office and your support meant alot. Also, I'm a fanatical Boing Boing reader so to see you posting about us makes my heart swell. I just read your recent posting and I have some good news for an update on Boing Boing. We actually got word late last week that, after eight years, we will in fact be meeting with President Sample. The meeting will take place today (Thursday) at 10 AM. We will be coordinating a silent rally at Tommy Trojan to support our friends inside.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:55:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Art made with help from living bees

"Aganetha Dyck collaborates with bees to make art: Link.

"I like the bee-altered shoes, myself: Link."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:51:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Simulated mouse-brain running at 1/10 speed

Neurobiologically realistic, large-scale cortical and sub-cortical simulations are bound to play a key role in computational neuroscience and its applications to cognitive computing. One hemisphere of the mouse cortex has roughly 8,000,000 neurons and 8,000 synapses per neuron. Modeling at this scale imposes tremendous constraints on computation, communication, and memory capacity of any computing platform.

We have designed and implemented a massively parallel cortical simulator with (a) phenomenological spiking neuron models; (b) spike-timing dependent plasticity; and (c) axonal delays.

We deployed the simulator on a 4096-processor BlueGene/L supercomputer with 256 MB per CPU. We were able to represent 8,000,000 neurons (80% excitatory) and 6,300 synapses per neuron in the 1 TB main memory of the system. Using a synthetic pattern of neuronal interconnections, at a 1 ms resolution and an average firing rate of 1 Hz, we were able to run 1s of model time in 10s of real time!

Update: Jamais sez, "This is a simulation of a cortical network with the size, link complexity and signal activity of a mouse brain, but without the structure -- so, arguably, it isn't a really a simulated mouse brain, but a functional platform upon which a mouse brain sim could run. Depending upon your perspective, this is a minor quibble or makes all the difference."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:50:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Egypt: worldwide rallies for jailed blogger on Fri. Apr. 27

Supporters of jailed Egyptian blogger Kareem Amer will rally for his release from prison tomorrow, Friday April 27. Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:47:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

CODE Guardian: Nazi robots attack!

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:54:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More Todd Goldman art that looks like other artists' work

And what do you get when you post this story to the most widely read tech-news site on Earth? Why, you get scores of techno-literate nerds looking for further examples of swiping, of course! This leads us to your possibly-stolen Todd Goldman concept of the day (pictured above). Courtesy of this post to Slashdot, a Goldman cartoon that bears more than passing resemblance to Marshall Kirk McKusick’s character design for the FreeBSD Daemon, the mascot for an open-source operating system. On the right, one of Goldman’s Goodbye Kitty T-shirt designs. (Note the pattern on each devil’s shoe, transfered directly from the hyperpixellated Daemon to the Goodbye Kitty thingie.)

“But wait,” I hear you say, “The bodies might look really, really similar, but the heads are totally different.” This is true. The head of Goldman’s T-shirt design looks nothing like the head of that FreeBSD critter. It does, however, look eerily like one of designer/illustrator Chip Wass’ “Chippies,” again compared above to another of Goldman’s T-Shirt designs.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Todd Goldman loves Threadless T-shirt designs
• T-shirt makes fun of Todd Goldman

Reader comment:

Tom says: "The FreeBSD Daemon was designed by John Lasseter. Kirk just holds the copyright."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:04:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

80GB Moleskine hard drive

A few weeks later I accidentally placed my WD Passport external drive on top of my Moleskine notebook and, what do you know, they were pretty much the same size. That got me thinking.

After some extensive research (well, I just googled for 2.5" sata enclosure) I found all I needed: an external enclosure for laptop SATA drives that would not need a power supply and with the smallest possible circuitry. There are many brands and models, but this one from Cool Drives was just perfect, and at under $25 it was cheap enough I didn't have to ask my wife for budgetary allowances.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:47:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amateur Batman movie destined to become a cult-favorite

As Coop says, it's "possibly the best thing ever." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:09:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Contest: imitate the CA Governor issuing a warning

He also handed out photos to the kids. He looks very serious in the photo, and the sticker on the back has a similarly serious warning:

"This photograph is a gift from the Governor and is for the personal use and enjoyment of the recipient only. It may not be used for any other purpose. It may not be sold, duplicated, altered in any way, or used for any political or promotional purpose without the advance express written consent of Governor Schwarzenegger. If this photograph is used in an unauthorized manner, the Governor shall have the right to enjoin its use."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:18:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Brown-skinned poetry prof sets out box of trash, ROTC student phones in terrorism alert

On April 19, after a day of teaching classes at Shippensburg University in Pennsylvania, I went out to my car and grabbed a box of old poetry manuscripts from the front seat of my little white Beetle, carried it across the street and put it next to the trashcan outside Wright Hall. The poems were from poetry contests I had been judging and the box was heavy. I had previously left my recycling boxes there and they were always picked up and taken away by the trash department.

A young man from ROTC was watching me as I got into my car and drove away. I thought he was looking at my car, which has black flower decals and sometimes inspires strange looks...

Upon my departure, he called the local police department and told them a man of Middle Eastern descent driving a heavily decaled white Beetle with out of state plates and no campus parking sticker had just placed a box next to the trash can. My car has NY plates, but he got the rest of it wrong. I have two stickers on my car. One is my highly visible faculty parking sticker and the other, which I just don't have the heart to take off these days, says, "Kerry/Edwards: For a Stronger America."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:01:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pocket watch with a powder flask, compass, and sundial from 1590

Consisting of a round powder flask made of rosewood with inlaid and engraved rosette-shaped ornaments of brass and bone. A small clock with 1-12 hours twice situated on the outer ring. The small funnel of bone is closed with a springy lid made of brass. Below the center under the engraved lid with a transversally placed hinge, there is a horizontal sundial with indication of the hours from six o'clock in the morning to six o'clock in the evening. A small compass with north-south indication but without correction for the magnetic pole. The string gnomon is stretched by opening the lid and is only valid for one latitude. On the side of the flask, there is an opening to a funnel-shaped small pipe which is placed in the socket and allows for filling up the powder flask. Diameter 10.8cm

See also:
History of spy-cam watches
Solid wood pocket-watch from 1900
Pictorial history of kids' watches
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 01:57:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

When will SubGenii get Dobbshead tombstones?

Jim Leftwich asks a good question. When will followers of the Church of the SubGenius get a Dobbshead on their military grave markers? SubGenius soldiers would probably even settle for a Dobbsicon.

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

USC students try to meet with president for 8 YEARS!

They've been trying to meet with the President for eight years.

They still haven't met with him.

The students come from a group called SCALE, a campus organization that is part of a larger movement called the Worker Rights Consortium. They are pushing USC to adopt a code of conduct and a "Designated Supplier Program, both aimed at eliminating the use of sweatshop labor in licensed USC merchandise (USC overflows with garments and tchotchkes emblazoned with the university logo, mascot, sports team, etc).

One group of SCALE protestors held up banners and picketed outside the building housing the President's office. A smaller group (initially 14, later 13) actually occupied the President's office, sitting in and refusing to leave when asked.

The issue of labor conditions in USC's merchandise program is a complex one. USC is a member of something called The Fair Labor Association, which welcomes representatives from manufacturing concerns, such as Nike, on its board of directors. It, too, has a code of conduct, which is substantively similar to the one offered by the Worker Rights Consortium. The biggest difference between the two organizations is in how they approach enforcement: the FLA enforces its policies through inspections. The WRC uses unions -- the Designated Supplier Program requires members to buy from union shops. The theory is that inspectors keep factories honest and humane only at inspection time, while unions safeguard workers for the duration.

However, Liz Kennedy, USC's Licensing Director, says that the Preferred Suppliers Program doesn't confront the reality of manufacturing, requiring that manufacturers do the primary sewing and the logoing at the same time. Many suppliers buy generic pre-made garments and add logos later.

Both sides make good points, but the university administration also says some genuinely silly things -- for example, both university spokesman James Grant and Vice President Michael Jackson suggested that it was impossible for SCALE to have been requesting a meeting with the President for eight years, since the membership of the organization rotates as students graduate, and none of the students in the group today were enrolled eight years ago. SCALE, one supposes, is reborn every term, a new organization.

If this is so, then the same thing must be true of other campus organizations -- for example, the football team, the Trojans, doesn't have the same students playing on it today as were playing on it in 1999. All those trophies that "the Trojans" won were therefore in fact won by other teams, playing in a separate, distinct slice of time-space, unrelated to the present team.
More...

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:25:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

1967 live stop motion animation short

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Super Mario, the stop-motion Legos edition
• Stop-motion Space Invaders using human pixels
• Excellent amateur stop motion video
• Stop-motion video game animation made with candles
• 1952 stop-motion short film
• Fun stop motion videos
• Early 70s Levi stop-motion commercial
• Stop motion film maker: PES
• Vintage Eastern European stop-motion animation clips
• Video-games recreated in stop-motion with household objects
• Vicious Cycles

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:11:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cartoon short attempts to ape John K's style, falls flat

The guy who made this cartoon totally lifted John K's Ripping Friends, and he seems to think there's nothing wrong with ripping off another artist. In fact, he says he's proud of doing it.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:46:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Super Mario vs Psycho Crusher

Update: Shadow Government Supreme Commander sez, "That video was created using the MUGEN game engine. MUGEN basically allows you to import characters from various 2D fighting games into a single roster and allows you to edit those characters into different backgrounds/levels - allowing for awesome mashups like the video you posted and awesome matchups like Homer Simpson Vs. Mario or any other combination you can imagine... And for yer extra added enjoyment, Here's godzilla smashing up the same level (also thanks to MUGEN)."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:27:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monologist Mike Daisey meets his attacker

He has three kids--one is 21, and two are 17--and he's terrified of the world. Terrified by violence, and sex, and he sees it all linked together--a horrifying world filled with darkness, pornography and filth that threatens his children, has threatened them all his life. They're older now, but he says he still sees things the same way--and that the only way to protect his children and himself is to lock it all out of his life.

He also said he's had anger-control issues for years, and sometimes acts of rage come over him--he explodes, and then has to apologize, and doesn't know why it happens. He tries to lock it down, but it happens, and he's ashamed of it. I told him that regardless of where we both stand, I felt very strongly that the repression of walling off everything in the world and viewing it all as filth is connecting with these outbursts, and that it isn't going to work--until you deal with the root causes, and deal with the world, his anger and rage would keep using him.

He agreed with this.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:19:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More real-life underwear perverts: Superman sex abuse in Army

A Fort Eustis drill sergeant was sentenced to six months in military prison after pleading guilty on Monday to a series of training transgressions including an incident in which he instructed a subordinate to dress like Superman and simulate sex acts.

(...) In an affidavit filed April 16, 2006, a soldier accused Estrada of sexually assaulting him. He said he came to Estrada complaining of depression, and that Estrada instructed him to dress in Spandex and pretend to be Superman, weakened by Kryptonite and undergoing sexual torture. The soldier said Estrada photographed him during these acts and threatened him if he refused to participate. Soldiers from Estrada's previous unit said he demanded to photograph them shirtless and wearing spandex.

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:02:11 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Daikon "foot"

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:31:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Programming computers to understand music

Even without musical sense, Raphael's program is opening new musical possibilities. Jan Beran, a composer and statistician at the University of Constance in Germany, wrote several oboe solos with piano accompaniment especially for Raphael's system.

Raphael has performed the pieces with his system. He says that he doesn't think that those pieces could be played with a live accompanist.

The rhythmic interplays are so complex that performers can't handle them, he says. For example, one piece contains many sections where one musician plays 7 notes while the other plays 11. "Human players say, 'I'll play my 7, you play your 11, and let's shoot for where we come out together,'" Raphael says. "But the program can tell at any place in the middle of this complicated polyrhythm exactly where it needs to be."

With music this complicated, Raphael says, the software takes on a peculiar leadership role even though it does nothing but follow. "From the very first rehearsal, it understands the way the parts fit together and sort of teaches you this," he explains.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:21:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

City noise causes robins to sing at night

There are two ways of looking at these results," says (scientist Richard) Fuller, who admits he does not know if the birds that sing at night are vocal in the daytime too. "On one hand, you could conclude that these birds are highly adaptable to the urban environment. On the other, it could be that they are suffering from the poor-quality habitat and having trouble attracting a mate."

If this is the case, says Fuller, the night-time singers could be sacrificing other activities such as feeding and preening in order to maximise their singing time.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:56:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nike Transformer - sneaker robot

Update: Christian sez, "The transforming sneaker will not be following Optimus Prime, it IS Optimus Prime. 'Convoy' is his Japanese name."

Update 2: $cott sez, "Not to be outdone, Reebok has enlisted Voltron to make a special line of shoes this summer. It's the new mash-up: streetwear collabs."

Update 3: Matt sez, "Not to be outdone, the mighty Megatron also has taken the form of footwear."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:43:54 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Man and horse nap in bank

"It was late, it was already dark and cold," (Wolfgang H.) was quoted as saying...

Confronted with the lack of a hitching-post, he brought the 6-year-old horse, named Sammy, in along with him...

Apparently Sammy made his own after-hours deposit on the carpet.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:35:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scott McCloud gives away "The Right Number"

McCloud is the author of the incredible Understanding Comics and the inspiring Making Comics, and I'm always up for whatever he's made.

The Flash UI for this is genuinely novel, cool, and improves the art. I generally hate Flash on websites, but this is an exception.

The Right Number was originally presented in June 2003 using a micropayments system offered by a company called Bitpass, sold for 25 cents each. Since Bitpass ceased operations in January 2007, I'm offering Parts One and Two for free now.

Part Three was delayed due to severe hand strain problems on my part a few years ago and delayed again when I began work on my recent book, Making Comics. I do still hope to finish the third and final chapter and make it available at some point in the future. Part Three will also be offered free through this page. (Sorry for the delay!)"

Update: Clay Shirky sez,

I had a bit of a trip down memory lane today, seeing your item about McCloud's "The Right Number." Though I am a McCloud fanboy for his graphic work, he and I disagreed, violently, about the likely effectiveness of micropayments back in 2003 (me here, Scott here.) My core thesis was that the internet doesn't turn creators into publishers, it turns them into artists with printing presses, and that the desire of artists for attention would make it hard for them to to voluntarily keep their work opaque, in order to support payment regimes. With McCloud's release of The Right Number, it looks like that prediction came true, even for the staunchest of supporters of the micropayment idea.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:01:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Print 16mm/8mm movies with an inkjet

Update: Mouser sez, "I have written a free program that will let you print out 'flipbooks' from movies with almost no effort, and it's completely configurable with templates so that you could use the program to do EXACTLY what this post is talking about, in a completely automated fashion. It never occurred to me that the program could be used for this; it's a wonderful idea."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:34:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ask DNC and RNC for freedom to remix presidential debates

This next political cycle will see an explosion of citizen generated political content. Some of that speech will be crafted from clips taken from the Presidential debates. Some of that will be fantastically valuable and important. Yet as the law is right now, it is extremely difficult for an ordinary citizen to understand the boundaries of “fair use,” or the limits to copyright law. It is likewise difficult for companies such as YouTube, or Blip.tv. Indeed, it is even difficult for a skilled practitioner. That uncertainty, if not checked, could produce a cloud over much of this political speech, as sites and universities don’t know how much is too much. It will certainly create a temptation by some politicians to invoke copyright law to block particularly effective speech critical of them.

Some friends (old and new) and I are therefore calling upon both major political parties to make this problem go away. Not by changing the law, or by supporting some expensive and time consuming litigation. But instead, by simply promising to require of any network broadcasting Presidential debates (at least) that they license the debates freely after they are initially broadcast — either by putting the debates into the public domain, or by permitting anyone to use or remix the contents of those debates, for any reason whatsoever, so long as there is attribution back to any purported copyright holder. (CC-BY)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:30:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, April 24, 2007

NASA's new 3D images of the sun are bitchun

The new view will greatly aid scientists’ ability to understand solar physics and thereby improve space weather forecasting.

"The improvement with STEREO's 3-D view is like going from a regular X-ray to a 3-D CAT scan in the medical field," said Dr. Michael Kaiser, STEREO Project Scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.

The STEREO spacecraft were launched October 25, 2006. On January 21 they completed a series of complex maneuvers, including flying by the moon, to position the spacecraft in their mission orbits. The two observatories are now orbiting the sun, one slightly ahead of Earth and one slightly behind, separating from each other by approximately 45 degrees per year. Just as the slight offset between a person’s eyes provides depth perception, the separation of spacecraft allow 3-D images of the sun.

NASA provides PDF papercraft plans for groovy Apollo-era 3D spex here: Link. If, like me, you are the lazy, non-papercrafting type, you can instead buy a pair from vendors here: Link. (Thanks, ScottG in NYC)
Reader comment: Steve says,

The really good stuff is here: Link. Including this rad video of an eclipse: Video Link. And where they are right this very minute: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:04:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

China: more on Hu Jintao's new net censorship regs

This is from the blog of an English-language "polisher" who works for Xinhua news agency. The piece that got picked up by Reuters (and passed on to CNN) actually crossed his desk. His view, like those of many observers here in China, is that Hu Jintao's statements are, at this stage, typical government claptrap. "Duffman says a lot of things."

Although China still labors under an uneven regime of censorship, there is a surprisingly wide array of opinion and internal debate that goes on, in print and on the 'net. danwei.org is always a good place to start if you're curious about what's going on in the Chinese media. They publish interviews, translations, and provide a very down-to-earth perspective on the Chinese press and its travails.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:43:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Potentially Earthlike planet discovered outside our solar system

“On the treasure map of the universe, one would be tempted to mark this planet with an X,” said Xavier Delfosse, a member of the team from Grenoble University in France, according to a news release from the European Southern Observatory, a multinational collaboration based in Garching, Germany...

The most exciting part of the find, Dr. Sasselov said, is that it “basically tells you these kinds of planets are very common.” Because they could stay geologically active for billions of years, he said he suspected that such planets could be even more congenial for life than Earth.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:37:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Man chops off penis in crowded restaurant

The man was then taken to hospital in south London where his condition is stable. It is understood surgeons were unable to reattach his penis.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:59:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rudy Rucker's science fiction webzine Flurb #3 is out

See also:
Cory's "I, Row-Boat" live on Flurb
FLURB: Rudy Rucker's new literary zine
Rudy Rucker's science fiction webzine Flurb #2 is out

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:38:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Floating jellyfish pool-lights

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:33:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Real-life underwear perverts in the news

DOCTOR DRESSED AS SUPER HERO ACCUSED OF SEX ASSAULT

...followed by the weirdest buried lede of the week:

"Authorities said Adamcik was in possession of a large burrito and drugs."

Link to news story. And more about the term "underwear perverts": Link. (stolen from T. Bias on Wayne Correia's list)

Reader comment: W. Vann Hall says,

The guys at The Smoking Gun have Dr. Raymond "Captain America" Adamcik's mug shots and arrest report posted: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:12:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Parody of Jack Chick tract warns against tiki worship.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:49:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Craft Vol 3 on newsstands

Konichiwa Crafters! CRAFT: 03, the Japanese Style issue is available today on the newsstands! We are so excited to bring you this issue that shares our love of Japanese crafts and style. In this issue you'll learn how to stitch the cute cover kitties featured in Aranzi Aronzo's The Cute Book. Diana Eng shows you how to make a punk Harajuku-style T-shirt, Suzi Pakhchyan makes blushing finger puppets, and Susan Beal shows you how to make your own sweet smelling bath scrub. Other DIY projects include Sumi paper marbling, hypertufa planters, gorgeous dorodango mud balls, knitted kimonos, and way more than we can list here, get ready to have no shortage of exciting crafting projects.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:51:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Interview with John Kricfalusi

AARON: You once mentioned that your "breakfast diet was planned by Bugs Bunny, Yogi Bear and Rocky Squirrel." Recent studies have revealed that "less than 2% of television commercials are for foods that promote a balanced diet." With the spiraling obesity and childhood diabetes epidemics in America, do you think that children's advertisers should be regulated?

JOHN: No. But companies that make healthier products should jump on the bandwagon and get me to create mascots for them and cartoons that entertain kids and sell the healthy foods. Lots of healthy food actually tastes good and most fast foods taste like crap.

When I was a kid I ate whatever cereal had the best cartoon character on the box and had the best prize. Most cereal doesn't taste very good anyway. We just ate it so we could get the next box and prize.

I'm amazed at how amateurish the graphics are now even on the big name cereals. They don't even look fun anymore. I could cure that so easily. Hell, kids wanted to buy Log just because of the commercial! I'm obsessed with packaging and would love to find sponsors that see that making their products seem fun will sell a lot more products.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• bOING bOING interviews John K.
• John Kricfalusi on the art of Milt Gross
• Outline for John Kricfalusi's new cartoon
• John K's animation for Weird Al's video
• BB Digital Emporium: John K's "George Liquor Xmas" video
• John K on the "Death of Form"
• John K's drawing school
• John K's storyboard for "Stimpy's Invention" episode
• The $100000 animation drawing course (for only $8!)
• Foolish Warner Bros. lawyers trying to clobber John K.
• Jack Black Tenacious D video directed by John K
• Ren & Stimpy: The Lost Episodes
• John Kricfalusi has a blog

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:29:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Kryptonite found in Serbian mine

"Towards the end of my research I searched the web using the mineral's chemical formula - sodium lithium boron silicate hydroxide - and was amazed to discover that same scientific name, written on a case of rock containing kryptonite stolen by Lex Luther from a museum in the film Superman Returns.

"The new mineral does not contain fluorine (which it does in the film) and is white rather than green but, in all other respects, the chemistry matches that for the rock containing kryptonite..."

The mineral cannot be called kryptonite under international nomenclature rules because it has nothing to do with krypton - a real element in the Periodic Table that takes the form of a gas.

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:40:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Daylight savings time tied to global warming?

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:14:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

China: government's new campaign to "cleanse" the internet

Previously on BB:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:50:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hong Kong: debate rages over proposed copyright law changes

Intellectual property law professor Peter Yu and Charles Mok, head of the Hong Kong Internet Society, spoke at a seminar here at Hong Kong University last Thursday. They pointed to a lot of ways in which the proposed legal changes would be potentially harmful to freedom of expression in Hong Kong.

(...) Peter didn't say this outright, but a couple of questions arise in my mind, also unanswered by the consultation document: Might the existence of illegally obtained movies on the hard drive of a government critic be used as an excuse to put him in jail??? What about a journalist who does a hard-hitting, muckraking report? Might she get a call from somebody the night before it is published saying "Greetings. We have learned from your ISP that somebody using your home computer downloaded 100 songs illegally in the last month. (meaningful silence)...."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:45:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Available emblems of belief for US govt headstones

I especially like the groovy looking emblem shown here, for the Eckankar religion, which was founded in 1964. It makes me think the government should also approve the old EC logo for dead die-hard comics fans. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:50:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Todd Goldman loves Threadless T-shirt designs

(Left: Todd Goldman design. Right: G. Dan Covert design)

(Thanks, Esther!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:58:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Campaign to ban Comic Sans typeface

Earz: I found a weird website on typography, it was written in Italian I think, and had images of a gravestone lettered in comic sans. What does that say to you?

Combs: That would only be appropriate if the deceased were a clown or comedian, but other than that, I'd come back to haunt whoever did that if I were the dead guy.

Reader comment:

Rogier says:

In your Campaign to ban Comic Sans typeface, Earz mentions the language on the tombstone depicted is Italian. Actually, it’s Dutch. It says: “Here rests our loving mom and granni [translated sic] RIE SPANS -- BROERE, March 23 1936 -- January 24 2004”. Her name was Rie Spans-Broere.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:47:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fascist America, in 10 easy steps

1 Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy

2 Create a gulag

3 Develop a thug caste

4 Set up an internal surveillance system

5 Harass citizens' groups

6 Engage in arbitrary detention and release

7 Target key individuals

8 Control the press

9 Dissent equals treason

10 Suspend the rule of law

It is a mistake to think that early in a fascist shift you see the profile of barbed wire against the sky. In the early days, things look normal on the surface; peasants were celebrating harvest festivals in Calabria in 1922; people were shopping and going to the movies in Berlin in 1931. Early on, as WH Auden put it, the horror is always elsewhere - while someone is being tortured, children are skating, ships are sailing: "dogs go on with their doggy life ... How everything turns away/ Quite leisurely from the disaster."

As Americans turn away quite leisurely, keeping tuned to internet shopping and American Idol, the foundations of democracy are being fatally corroded. Something has changed profoundly that weakens us unprecedentedly: our democratic traditions, independent judiciary and free press do their work today in a context in which we are "at war" in a "long war" - a war without end, on a battlefield described as the globe, in a context that gives the president - without US citizens realising it yet - the power over US citizens of freedom or long solitary incarceration, on his say-so alone.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:33:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Next Tuesday, May 1, USC Free Culture sendoff/BBQ

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:10:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Homebrew cars of 1954

MATE A MANTA RAY with a jet plane and this is what you get. Builders V. F. Antoine and G. K. Hire, of Whittier, Calif., work on guided missiles for a living. Shout is a chromed aluminum casting. Bumpers were fabricated from Hudson parts.

Update: Coop sez, "That car was patterned after the 1951 Buick Le Sabre concept car, designed by legendary GM design god Harley J. Earl."

Update 2: Todd sez, "The Harley Earl show car was the 1951 GM LeSabre, not a Buick. General Motors didn't badge the car for a specific division, but it's often mistaken for a Buick because the LeSabre name was used for a Buick model beginning in the 1959 model year."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:59:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

HOWTO hack Australian terrorism security: dress like an American

If you do it dressed like an American, you get instructions on getting inside the nuclear facility. As Bruce Schneier notes, "Moral for terrorists: dress like an American." Link (via Schneier)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:49:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canadian professor denied US entry for taking LSD in 1967

"Feldmar *was* told he could apply for a waiver, and that after a year, and at a cost of around $3,500, he had a '90% chance' of its being granted.

"Oh -- and he'd have to go through the process each time he wanted to travel to the US."

The official said that under the Homeland Security Act, Feldmar was being denied entry due to "narcotics" use. LSD is not a narcotic substance, Feldmar tried to explain, but an entheogen. The guard wasn't interested in technicalities. He asked for a statement from Feldmar admitting to having used LSD and he fingerprinted Feldmar for an FBI file...

Feldmar was determined, in the months after the aborted border crossing, to turn things around. He was particularly determined because the idea of not being able to visit his children at their homes was unthinkable.

(Image ganked from The Tyee, where it was credited to C. Grabowski.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:41:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dumb inventions that got patents

Airbag Undershorts (2006)
What better way to magnify the humiliation of falling on your ass than with inflatable undies? These brainy briefs feature accelerometers that detect a tumble in progress, sending compressed gas into balloonlike pockets throughout the knickers. Phew — that was almost embarrassing.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:34:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Universal and Amazon to sell DRM-free MP3s

Initial reports about Amazon's MP3 store came from Billboard, saying that that Universal Music Group had partnered with Amazon to sell unprotected music, mostly in the form of classical tracks. Such a move would be crucial to DRM-free music sales, as Universal currently holds the top position among all music labels and would send a strong message to labels who are nervous about following EMI's lead. "If Universal goes [DRM-free], then everyone has to follow," an anonymous music executive told Reuters on Friday. However, today's report in the Times debunks the speculation about Universal as "wide off the mark."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:34:00 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Russian ecommerce hack tricks post-office in US/Canada

It’s no secret that many bigger shops use electronic systems processing orders. So in order to see if this address is in USA or Canada it uses ZIP code, state or province name and words “USA” or “CANADA”.

So what was possible to do is to put totally Russian address in the order delivery form, like: Moscow, Lenin St. 20, Russia in the address fields, usually there is a plenty of space to enter long things like this, and in the field country they put Canada in the field ZIP code – Canadian zip code.

What happens next? The parcel travels to Canada, to the area to which the specified ZIP code belongs and there postal workers just see it’s not a Canadian address but Russian. They consider it to be some sort of mistake and forward it further, to Russia.

Here is a sample parcel that a guy in Russia got this way.

Guys at Canadian post stroke out the words “CANADA” and Canadian zip code, wrote RUSSIA and forwarded the parcel further.

People say this trick works perfectly, but warn not to order expensive things way like this because there are some risks that a parcel would be returned, though this method is perfect for different free merchandise that companies give out to USA and Canada citizens.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:28:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Postcards from 1900 depict tech of 2000

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:24:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, April 23, 2007

Impractical LED watch is all bracelet, part timepiece

See also:
Radio Active watch from Tokyo Flash
Crazy TokyoFlash watch: the Pimp Watch
Binary LED watch from TokyoFlash
Biohazard watch
Japanese watches from the edge of cool
Bingo Watch -- looks like a Bingo card
Japanese watch blinks and beeps the time in Morse code
Scope watch tells time using line-intersections on Cartesian grid
Impractical lovely pixelwatch from Japan
Japanese black-light watch uses mirrors to make time seem infinite

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:32:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Big collection of Pixel-Stained Technopeasant contributions

Update: Clifton sez, "Jo Walton's blog posting for IPSTP day has a long list of IPSTP postings followed by a long list more posted in the comments, as she requested."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:27:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web-censoring weather report: Thailand still blocking YouTube

Laurent Haug says,

I am in Bangkok right now, and youtube is still blocked (see screenshot) as of 12:48 a.m. EDT. The ban is no hoax and has been openly reported in media like the bangkok post (Link), and is among other disturbing things happening thanks to the junta's interpretation of democracy (Link).

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:09:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wiccan pentacle approved for US soldier tombstones

The VA sought the settlement in the interest of the families involved and to save taxpayers the expense of further litigation, VA spokesman Matt Burns said. The agency also agreed to pay $225,000 in attorneys' fees and costs...

"This settlement has forced the Bush Administration into acknowledging that there are no second class religions in America, including among our nation's veterans," said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, which represented the Wiccans in the (latest) lawsuit.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:09:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sex lube co's data breach exposes 250K+ personal records

Some of the data may have been accessible online for days, months, even years (some records date back to 2003). And some of the data remains available through Google's cache even now, because Astroglide apparently failed to clean up the mess properly.

Here's a link to an April 21 blog post at Homeland Stupidity, and Wired News Threat Level blog has an extensive post with updates from Google spokespersons today.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:20:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Anti-censorware service "distributed BoingBoing" needs mirrors

"Ever since the Boston Boing Boing embargo, Distributed Boing Boing has been getting some much needed attention -- but now, quite a few of the mirrors have gone down," project organizer Mark Christian says. "I like to keep it around 100 or so, to make sure things are robust, and the list is down to 81."

If you are in a position to host a mirror, please grab a copy of the script and let Mark know where you put it. His email is m@rkchristian.ca.

Thank you! And millions of cockblocked internet users thank you, too. (And thank *you*, Mark Christian).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:42:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free reading from Elizabeth Hand's noir novel "Generation Loss"

Cass Neary made her name in the 1970s as a photographer embedded in the burgeoning punk movement in New York City. Her pictures of the musicians and hangers on, the infamous, the damned, and the dead, got her into art galleries and a book deal. But thirty years later she is adrift, on her way down, and almost out. Then an old acquaintance sends her on a mercy gig to interview a famously reclusive photographer who lives on an island in Maine. When she arrives Downeast, Cass stumbles across a decades-old mystery that is still claiming victims, and into one final shot at redemption.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:31:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cookie with edible nutrition facts list

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:20:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gilbert and Sullivan's "Baby Got Back"

Update: Jennifer sez, "The footage comes from the 1983 film version of 'Pirates of Penzance,' staring Linda Ronstadt and Kevin Kline. I am only mildly embarrassed that I know this. Heh."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:18:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mayor of Boston bans the DEA's website

Disturbingly, I could not access many government web sites that inform me of my rights and responsibilities as a citizen, the punishments for various crimes, or available government services. I attempted to access both the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the Drug Enforcement Agency and was denied access. I could not read about drug crime penalties or how different substances are controlled. I was denied access to information about what law enforcement officers can and cannot demand of me and what the government does to protect children from abuse.

Additionally, the phrase lists in use block many internet dating sites such as match.com, OkCupid, Yahoo Personals, and Plenty of Fish. Interestingly, eHarmony and DateHookup are not blocked.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:05:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eastern Standard Tribe is a podiobook (and banned in Boston!)

Podiobooks are free audiobooks that are delivered to your podcast player in installments. Instead of getting a full ten hours of audio in one go, the story is sent to you in manageable chunks, on the schedule you set.

The raw audio for this podiobook came from my podcast, but the Podiobooks people have taken my readings and cleaned them up, cut out the intros, and equalized the levels across all the installments. It sounds dynamite.

The timing on this couldn't be better -- this is just in time for International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day, when Internet creators post free material for sharing and enjoying.

What's more, this book also has the distinction of having been banned by the Mayor of Boston from Boston's free WiFi network (Boing Boing is also banned!) I'm especially proud of this, since part of the book is set in Boston. I'm lucky to have been censored by the best. Link (Thanks, Evo and David!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:48:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Funny d-CON ad from 1971

Yes, rat poison and Earth Day. They go hand in hand. This ad comes from a 1971 Life magazine. I don't remember seeing this ad but I did see the in-store display. I took all of the decals from the store display and pasted them all over my bike. It looked....real crappy. So I pulled them off a day later.

Reader comment:

Scott says:

The non-violent rat poison derived from sweet clover, as discussed in the ad, is coumarin. Coumarin derivatives at high dosages (such as in rat poison) cause death by inducing a fatal hemorrhage.

The powerful prescription anticoagulant warfarin is a derivative of this chemical, and is used safely throughout the world to treat coagulation related disorders. Its dosage and administration must be closely monitored.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:26:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

T-shirt makes fun of Todd Goldman

Here's a large gallery of other artist's images alongside Goldman's art. Does Goldman copy other artists? You be the judge. Jay says:

Had to be just a matter of time before something like this showed up, and it'll probably be a shorter time until it gets pulled from the interweb shelves from some angry punters! This tee was inspired by the Todd Goldman debacle of recent times, where he was caught borrowing other people's artwork.

More on the Todd Goldman scandal:

Evan says: "I found one of his own(?) designs which pretty much says it all."

Dirk Deppey says:

After covering an example of plagiarism on the part of Todd "David & Goliath" Goldman, who has acknowledged creating a painting stolen from cartoonist Dave Kelley, The webcomics news site Fleen has received a "cease and desist" letter from a lawyer claiming to represent Goldman, demanding that they take down... well, read for yourself:

"We have acquired articles posted on your website which contain defaming, derogatory and malicious statements about Mr. Goldman. Therefore, we request that you immediately remove these article from your website, as well as any subsequent articles and/or URL links of this nature regarding Mr. Goldman. Further, the hosting of such statements and/or URL links about Mr. Goldman is actionable defamation and libel that has caused irreversible damage to his character."

Please note that the specific items that Goldman wants removed in order to avoid legal action are never actually listed in the letter.

Here's a funny anecdote about running into Goldman at his gallery in Hollywood.

There were paintings of lamps that looked as if they had been done by "getting old ain't so bad" greeting card illustrators. Mr. Bill-like cartoon faces, with no perceivable expression or appeal, stared sightlessly off white canvas. Seemingly random depictions of household objects bore zany witticisms scrawled atop.

"Jesus wept," someone said, "this shit is TERRIBLE."

Instantly, he was upon us. The artist himself, lurking at a nearby cafe table and supervising the reactions of the gallery's passerby, leapt to his feet and verbally laid into us. Sputtering and red, he demanded to know what we had said about him, if we knew who we were dealing with, and who the hell we thought we were. We pointed and laughed at the poor crazy man who couldn't draw, and went to a movie.

Kyle found this: Left: a "NEW!!!" design from the David & Goliath web store (left), and one of Kyle's all-time favorite Threadless tees (right).

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:14:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Security expert Bruce Schneier on the RU Sirius show

Schneier is persuasive in his argument that the government's recent efforts to prevent terrorism have been a colossal waste of money and effort. Checking the IDs of everyone who gets on a plane, for instance, is useless. All the 911 terrorists had ID cards, the shoe bomber had an ID card, and so has every other terrorist.

Schneier believes that using more trained guards (uniformed and plain clothed) walking around airports looking for suspicious behavior, is a much better way to spend money than by wasting time searching a grandmother's luggage for a penknife.

RU: A recent BoingBoing headline read “TSA missed 90% of bombs at Denver airport.” (Obviously they weren’t talking about real bombs, but a test.)

BS: And the real news there is it wasn’t even surprising. This is consistent in TSA tests both before and after 9/11. We haven’t gotten any better. We’re spending a lot more money, we’re pissing off a lot more fliers, and we’re not doing any better.

There’s a game we’re playing, right? Think about airport security. We take away guns and bombs, so the terrorists use box cutters. So we take away box cutters and small knives, and they put explosives in their shoes. So we screen shoes and they use liquids. Now we take away liquids; they’re going to do something else. This is a game we can’t win. I’m sick of playing it. I’d rather play a game we can win.

RU: The reactive thing is terribly absurd. The whole shoe-bomber thing — my ongoing joke is that if he were an ass bomber, taxpayers would now be buying a lot of Vaseline.

...

RU: So if you were in charge of airport security, are there any things that you would implement?

BS: I think we should ratchet passenger screening down to pre-9/11 levels. I like seeing positive bag matching. That’s something that was done in Europe for decades. The U.S. airlines screamed and screamed and refused to do it, and now they are.

Really, I would take all the extra money for airport security and have well-trained guards, both uniformed and plainclothes, walking through the airports looking for suspicious people. That’s what I would do. And I would just give back the rest of the money. If we secure our airport and the terrorists go bomb shopping malls, we’ve wasted our money. I dislike security measures that require us to guess the plot correctly because if you guess wrong, it’s a waste of money. And it’s not even a fair game. It’s not like we pick our security, they pick their plot, we see who wins. The game is we pick our security, they look at our security, and then they pick their plot. The way to spend money on security – airport security, and security in general — is intelligence investigation and emergency response. These are the things that will be effective regardless of what the terrorists are planning.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:59:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Protestors dump water on monologuist's script

I am performing the show to a packed house, when suddenly the lights start coming up in the house as a flood of people start walking down the aisles -- they looked like a flock of birds who'd been startled, the way they all moved so quickly, and at the same moment... it was shocking, to see them surging down the aisles. The show halted as they fled, and at this moment a member of their group strode up to the table, stood looking down on me and poured water all over the outline, drenching everything in a kind of anti-baptism.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:38:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US nuclear lab is full of stoners

I can't tell you how many times, after listening to some lame explanation about why security at the Los Alamos nuclear lab still wasn't fixed, I though to myself, "What are they, stoned?"

The answer, it turns out, is yes.  At least some of 'em are.  An Energy Department investigation, unearthed by Time, has turned up "35 cases involv[ing] drug use within the year prior to requesting a security clearance."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:22:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

War on Terror boardgame tournament in LA, Apr 28-29

Jason Wishnow says,

Sadly, I'm not going to be in LA for it, but this coming Saturday and Sunday (the 28th and 29th), Bill Gillman (the post-production supervisor for Oedipus, and vfx compositor for Team America, Gattaca, Star Wars Episode II, Spider-Man 2, Hulk, & King Kong) is throwing a WAR ON TERROR TOURNAMENT at Meltdown Comics in Hollywood: Link.

WAR ON TERROR : THE BOARDGAME looks genius. Link. The "axis of evils" is a spinner in the center of the board... And they're sold out in the states, except for the event this weekend.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:10:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Which US neighborhoods generate the most "placeblogs"?

Since we've been tracking local blog posts by neighborhood for six months now, we figured it was about time we figured out exactly what the US's bloggiest neighborhoods were, given that this is the question every sensible person has been trying to find an answer to for years now.

What's interesting about the list we compiled is that it turns out placebloggers tend to thrive in gentrifying communities -- half of our nabes in the top ten were in the middle of some form of gentrification. makes sense, but it wasn't something we went into the project expecting to find.

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:57:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wonderful praying mantis photo

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:44:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Break PDF DRM with Scribd

"However, it seems that you can do something similar with online document sharing site Scribd: DRMed PDF files can be downloaded in plain text and several other formats, and there's even an unencumbered PDF download option!" Link (Thanks, Andreas!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:09:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Creepy automaton from 1900s: Enigmarelle

Here's a newspaper article about it from 1908:

"Thousands who attended the performance at the Bell Theater yesterday were entertained at the special feature provided by Enigmarelle, who walks, rides a bicycle, writes his name, turns corners of his own volition, and performs a number of feats only hitherto attributed to human beings." "The appearance of this most marvelous sensation was eagerly awaited, and hundreds of mechanics, electricians and other scientifically inclined, who were in the audience, all agreed that is was without question a marvel, the product of a great genius, and an education in itself."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:55:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Making of Star Wars book

Using his unprecedented access to the Lucasfilm Archives and its trove of never-before-published “lost” interviews, photos, production notes, factoids, and anecdotes, Star Wars scholar J. W. Rinzler hurtles readers back in time for a one-of-a-kind behind-the-scenes look at the nearly decade-long quest of George Lucas and his key collaborators to make the “little” movie that became a phenomenon. For the first time, it’s all here:

• the evolution of the now-classic story and characters–including “Annikin Starkiller” and “a huge green-skinned monster with no nose and large gills” named Han Solo
• excerpts from George Lucas’s numerous, ever-morphing script drafts
• the birth of Industrial Light & Magic, the special-effects company that revolutionized Hollywood filmmaking
• the studio-hopping and budget battles that nearly scuttled the entire project
• the director’s early casting saga, which might have led to a film spoken mostly in Japanese–including the intensive auditions that won the cast members their roles and made them legends
• the grueling, nearly catastrophic location shoot in Tunisia and the subsequent breakneck dash at Elstree Studios in London
• the who’s who of young film rebels who pitched in to help–including Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Spielberg, and Brian DePalma

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:52:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hobo Chili dog food also edible by people

The very same plant that makes food for humans makes Dick Van Patten’s Natural Balance Eatables For Dogs! Eatables is a complete and balanced premium dog food which contains a superior mixture of the finest meats, as well as fresh vegetables and premium ingredients your dog will love. This unique blend assures high digestibility and contains all of the nutrients, vitamins and minerals necessary for puppies through adulthood. Natural Balance Eatables For Dogs is a premium line of delicious varieties that contain a different taste of the world for your dog in every can.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:51:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

DIY smart fridge

The fridge has now become aware of its contents; and it is capable of establishing direct contact between you and their producers. Like you, the fridge is on the Internet and thus able to get hold of you – even on your mobile. It will let you know what you need to buy if you want to prepare a simmering beef stroganoff; also, it will alert you if you are out of chocolate-and-fruit flavoured ice cream.

But this is as much about security! In case a food producer detects a potential health hazard in a shipment, he can – via the fridge – send out a warning and withdraw the product in question.

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:07:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flying motorcycle

"The problem with flying cars in the past was what to do with the wings once you were on the ground," said Neal. 'With a 'fly-drive' gyroplane, just fold the rotor blades and drive on down the road."

"Using rotor blades for the wings of a flying car makes the fly-drive Super Sky Cycle a new kind of vehicle," Neal said. "There's nothing else like it, a gyroplane that can fly at freeway speeds, land in 20 feet, be driven home as a motorcycle, and fit in your garage."

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:32:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bone factory busted

"We received complaints that several bodies were missing from graveyards and, while investigating the case, we stumbled on the secret bones factory," (district police chief Peeyush) Pandey said.

The accused would take largely unburned bodies from Hindu cremation sites as well as from rivers where the dead are often disposed by the poor who cannot afford to cremate them, he said.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:18:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Telerobotic birdwatching

"We believe in citizen science," Goldberg said. "You'll care about the environment if you can experience it. A lot of people are never going to get out to Alaska or Antarctica. For a lot of people it's not really feasible for them even to get out into the woods."

Goldberg hopes to place future cameras in more exotic locales to observe bears Yosemite, polar bears in the Artic, mating penguins in Antarctica, gorillas in Rwanda and even whales using an underwater system.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:01:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BoingBoing week in review: April 16-22

Reader comments: Here's a thoughtful criticism of this BoingBoing post, and the essay therein: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:38:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Will Eisner's New York - like Jane Jacobs in graphic form

As Neil Gaiman notes in his introduction, this is by no means a Valentine to the city. Eisner's eyes are wide open to the tragedies of city living -- just as they are to its glories. It's no Valentine, but it is, perhaps, a love-song, an agape hymn to a city that he loves for its ups and downs, it terrors and its wonders.

This is a glorious book. The longer pieces -- "New York," "The Building," "City People," "Invisible People" -- are fully-formed things, whole stories that manage to put an entire novel's worth of feeling into a few short pages. The vignettes are executed with such a deft hand and such a keen observer's eye that they achieve nearly as much, sometimes with just a panel or two.

This is like a graphic version of The Death and Life of Great American Cities, the kind of thing that documents the unseen and all-important symbiosis that humanity achieves with the largest organisms on the planet: our cities. Link

See also: Fagin: Will Eisner's retelling of Oliver Twist

Update: Ben sez, "If you're a fan of Eisner, a fan of comics in general, or if you're just looking for an interesting perspective on the creative process, check out 'Will Eisner: Portrait of a Sequential Artist' at the Tribeca Film Festival. He was an innovator in many ways."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:28:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stross's MISSILE GAP: free download

Gregor is feeding pigeons down in the park when the sirens go off.

A stoop-shouldered forty-something male in a dark suit, pale-skinned and thin, he pays no attention at first: the birds hold his attention. He stands at the side of a tarmac path, surrounded by damp grass that appears to have been sprayed with concrete dust, and digs into the outer pocket of his raincoat for a final handful of stale bread-crumbs. Filthy, soot-blackened city pigeons with malformed feet jostle with plump white-collared wood pigeons, pecking and lunging for morsels. Gregor doesn’t smile. What to him is a handful of stale bread, is a deadly business for the birds: a matter of survival. The avian struggle for survival runs parallel to the human condition, he ponders. It’s all a matter of limited resources and critical positioning. Of intervention by agencies beyond their bird-brained understanding, dropping treats for them to fight over. Then the air raid sirens start up.

The pigeons scatter for the treetops with a clatter of wings. Gregor straightens and looks round. It’s not just one siren, and not just a test: a policeman is pedaling his bicycle along the path towards him, waving one-handed. “You there! Take cover!”

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:33:39 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, April 22, 2007

URGENT! Europeans! Last chance to save Europe from worst copyright law in the world!

IPRED2, the insane EU plan to criminalise almost all copyright violation (meaning that rightsholders could pressure the police to prosecute companies they don't like - eg a Euro-YouTube on the taxpayer's dime, and even join police investigation teams as "experts" to assist looting and destroying business competitors), will be voted on on April 25th.

EFF has been running a campaign against it at CopyCrime; they've worked with FFII, Europe's biggest consumer group and the EU librarian's association to file amendments that might fix it. Even the UK government has now thrown its weight behind the coalition's amendments.

But EU citizens still need to stand up and tell their MEPs to vote for the amendments.

If you're in Europe, your elected representatives are probably on a train right now to Strasbourg and preparing their voting lists for a vote ON WEDNESDAY.

Make sure when they reach their Strasbourg offices, they have hundreds of messages telling them to "Support the Librarians', Consumers' and Innovators' Coalition Amendments to IPRED2".

You can find your MEP here. If you have more than one MEP, go through the list. If you know they're eurosceptics, point out that IPRED2 would give the EU new powers to create criminal law. If they're euro-socialists, tell them Segolene Royal doesn't like it. If they're pro-business, point out that the Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law hates it.

Copycrime has more details. Don't let them turn you into a copyfighting criminal.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:54:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pixel-stained technopeasants talk about free online fiction

See also: April 23 is International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:53:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mursi tribeswoman with AK47 and iPod

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:49:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Happy Earth Day from Rocketboom

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:06:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gama-Go iPod case

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:09:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EFF co-founder John Gilmore live online with RU Sirius today at 2PM Pacific

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

Vista Suicide Note paper reading now available

The reading is in four pieces, hosted on the Internet Archive under a Creative Commons CC-BY-SA license -- you can sell it, give it away, change it, make money on it, whatever. The Archive publishes the reading as MP3s and OGG files for your listening pleasure.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Podcast feed

See also:
Windows Vista: Suicide notes, nerdcore rap MP3
Vista Suicide Note -- rebuttal and response

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:42:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, April 21, 2007

Magic 8-Ball vivisection

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:22:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Premium cellular company does unlimited calls and a free PA

The service is clearly targeted at people who think that a gold phone and the ability to boss around a researcher is cool, but I'm thinking that $200 a month isn't bad for unlimited calling and data (I already spend that much or more a month with my regular cellphone) plus the gravy of a part-time personal assistant service that'll wait out hold queues, check stuff for you on the road, and run the kind of routine research tasks you might have to hire a full-time staffer to do otherwise. What's more, the premium services -- like free loaner phones with call-forwarding when you're travelling in Asia, free insurance, next day handset replacement -- are all things that I presently end up paying money for.

When I called the general number, I got someone smart, thorough, pleasant and helpful -- on the second ring. When's the last time that happened with your mobile carrier? It's certainly not par for the course with Verizon, who I pay a gigantic sum of money to every single month and who still make me wait for 40 minutes and then treat me like dogshit every time I call, unless I'm actively threatening to switch carriers. Link to goofy Flash site targeted at rich idiots

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:15:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

British Airways cuts Richard Branson out of in-flight movies

Virgin boss Richard Branson appears briefly in the James Bond film Casino Royale.

However, British Airways passengers watching the film as an in-flight movie won't see Branson's brief appearance because BA has edited Branson out of the film, along with a shot of a Virgin Airways aircraft.

Commenting on the phantom edit a BA spokesman said "We do reserve the right to edit films, and many films are edited in some way on board."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:00:58 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lori Earley in Juxtapoz

As for her trademark “elongated” style, Earley expresses a kind of bemused frustration with people who are convinced she uses a computer to generate her images. “I can see why people would think they’re digital, but it’s a little upsetting, because when I first started doing all this, barely anyone had a computer. I don’t even think Photoshop existed for regular users. Then when it came out, I thought, shit, now everyone’s going to think I do all my stuff in Photoshop.”

Earley is classically trained and credits much of her technique to the painter Steven Assael, who she studied under at the School of Visual Arts. The elongation is something she developed entirely on her own and she prides herself on her meticulous perfectionism. She says she’s gone through different color phases depending on her mood and is influenced by everything from music, to movies and books, but has a special affinity for fashion.

“I love looking at fashion. Fashion in and of itself is an art form. It’s so much more interesting to look at a dress that has all these layers and detailing, and when it comes to painting, I love painting that. I like weird fashion that looks kind of timeless and bizarre, like Alexander McQueen, Versace, Gaultier, and all those guys.”

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:36:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hams restore historic satellite earth station

The dish sits on a 160-acre site that's been subdivided for residential sale, so the restorers feel some urgency in trying to preserve it. Ideally, they'd like to see it returned to service, perhaps to support scientific and deep space missions. But they also think of it as an ideal location for a space camp for star-struck students.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:18:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Self-flagellation may have led to rabies

The government doctor in Pampanga, Maria Clara Aquino, said vaccines had been given to 103 people who could have been exposed.

Self-flagellation is an annual tradition in Pampanga and other parts of the Philippines in which men whip themselves into a frenzy on Good Friday to atone for their sins.

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:58:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Goatse.cx domain is for sale

Reader comments: Dan says,

I saw this and had a good laugh to myself - I have some, I guess you could say 'insider information' about this. It's speculation, but it makes sense.

Goatse.cx was put up and maintained by a guy named Mike Joyce. He also runs obstinate.org.

Mike Joyce lived in San Diego and worked for a small ad agency. Hes good friends with Sammy, the guy who wrote the 'sammy is my hero' myspace worm. Sammy also used to live in San Diego, but he moved to LA to start his own web development company. Mike Joyce quit his sysadmin position and moved up to LA to work with sammy. That opened up his position and I was hired there.

In the last few months, as I'm certain you guys are aware, Sammy was getting prosecuted by the company that owns myspace for their downtime, and all the damage he caused. It was something like 300,000 dollars in advertising revenue lost for the day and half they were down (forgive me, I cant find the post with the actual figure).

I wonder if Mike is selling goatse.cx to help Sammy pay for legal fees?

btw, here is a link to the most recent goatse statistics.

See also:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:26:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lethem's new novel: daffy and precise love story about art-rockers

I'm an enormous Lethem fan, and have been since Gun With Occasional Music, a hard-boiled detective story by way of Philip K Dick, and I particularly love how versatile he is, every book really different from the last. You Don't Love Me Yet is no exception.

The book follows the story of Lucinda, a barista and bass player who has just broken up with Matthew, her lead singer who works days as a veterinary assistant at the LA Zoo and burns with white-hot anger at the treatment of one of the kangaroos there. They remain friends, and remain in the band, and Lucinda finds herself quitting the coffee shop to work for a conceptual artist whose latest gimmick is the "Complaints Line," a phone number you can call and complain to.

It's there that she first encounters The Complainer, a brainy, deeply weird older man who seduces her through the complaints line -- and gives her the inspiration to get the band out of its rut and onto a stage.

You Don't Love Me Yet's characters -- a collection of earnest would-be rockers, rogue zoologists, cynical promoters, and sociopathic sloganeers -- are totally charming. Even the most repulsive among them is redeemed, shown to be somehow necessary, even if utterly reprehensible.

The storytelling in this book has all the daffy precision of an old Talking Heads song, an intense, nerdy diction like an autistic film student telling you about the secret meaning of an old black-and-white movie he's been studying by watching once a week for ten years (this actually happens in the book). And like an old Talking Heads album, say, Remain in Light, the tone of the book veers madly with Lethem's whims, from nearly pornographic to uproariously funny and then introspective and quiet again.

I listened to Lethem's unabridged reading of the book on CD, and he does a really good job with the material, delivering it with unashamed earnestness of his striving characters, throwing in the occasional comedy voice, and generally having a high old time. I love hearing writers read their own work, and Lethem is great at it. Link, Link to audiobook

See also:

Lethem on the copyfight
Lethem: free film option in exchange for public domain release after 5 years
Jonathan Lethem: remix my stories!
Lethem, Vaidhyanathan, et al talk copyright and plagiarism on NPR tonight
Jonathan Lethem on Philip K. Dick
Copyfight symposium in NYC with Lessig, Lethem, Art Spiegelman...
Lethem wins Macarthur "genius" award!
Lethem's new novel reviewed on Salon
Lethem to Gehry: High-rise Brooklyn is wrong
Prisonaires: golden age pop music from behind bars

Update: Rick Kleffel, sf interviewer extraordinaire, got an interview with Lethem in for his podcast last week

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:44:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Todd Goldman's lawyers sending nastygrams

A lot of websites are pointing out the similarities between Goldman's work (which sells for a lot of money at his gallery in Hollywood), and other artists.

For some reason, Goldman has retained the services of a law firm to send email to some of these websites, demanding that they remove articles "which contain defaming, derogatory and malicious statements about Mr. Goldman."

from Andrew.P.Felix@[redacted]
to authors
date Apr 19, 2007 6:10 PM
subject Todd Goldman

Andrew P. Felix, Esq. wrote:
Dear Sir or Madam:

This firm represents Mr. Todd Goldman. I write on behalf of Mr. Goldman regarding certain comments and disparaging remarks that are posted and housed on your website (www.fleen.com).

We have acquired articles posted on your website which contain defaming, derogatory and malicious statements about Mr. Goldman. Therefore, we request that you immediately remove these article from your website, as well as any subsequent articles and/or URL links of this nature regarding Mr. Goldman. Further, the hosting of such statements and/or URL links about Mr. Goldman is actionable defamation and libel that has caused irreversible damage to his character.

Unless we receive written assurance that you have removed these article, as well as any subsequent articles and/or URL links of this nature regarding Mr. Goldman, from your website by the close of business on Friday, April 20, 2007, we will have no other alternative but to take action to seek injunctive and monetary relief against you pursuant to Florida law. Please be advised that we will also seek to recover attorneys’ fees and costs associated with this matter. As time is of the essence, this action must be taken immediately.

This letter is not, nor should it be construed to be, a waiver of any rights or remedies available to Mr. Goldman under federal or state law, whether now existing or hereafter accruing.

PLEASE GOVERN YOURSELF ACCORDINGLY.

Sincerely,

SHUTTS & BOWEN LLP

/s/Andrew P. Felix

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:39:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vatican decides not to believe in limbo any longer

In the 5th century, St. Augustine declared that all unbaptized babies went to hell upon death. By the Middle Ages, the idea was softened to suggest a less severe fate, limbo.

In his Divine Comedy, Dante characterized limbo as the first circle of hell and populated it with the great thinkers of ancient Greece and Rome, as well as leading Islamic philosophers.

The document published Friday said the question of limbo had become a "matter of pastoral urgency" because of the growing number of babies who do not receive the baptismal rite. Especially in Africa and other parts of the world where Catholicism is growing but has competition from other faiths such as Islam, high infant mortality rates mean many families live with a church teaching them that their babies could not go to heaven.

Father Thomas Weinandy, executive director for doctrine at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the document "addresses the issue from a whole new perspective — if we are now hoping these children get to heaven, there is no longer any point in worrying about limbo."

Reader comment:

Kevin says:

Your post today about limbo was an example of how the media misunderstands the Church. I have immense respect for people who make an effort to understand a position opposite to theirs before publicly rejecting them, but your post, as well as the LA Times article, shows that you are rejecting something you don't understand.

Limbo was never part of official Church teaching. St. Augustine did think limbo existed, but that does not mean that it was part of Catholic belief. For example, you will not find it in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, a dense summary of what the Church believes produced by the Church. I've heard it classified as a "theological hypothesis" which no Catholic must assent to, but it would no be contrary to the faith to believe in it. This was not a reversal of Church teaching, although in many places limbo was taken as a given by people in their local Churches and many universities.

So that means that this panel did not reverse anything. They just pointed out that there is merit to the position that unbaptized babies may go to heaven. The Church did not change Her mind.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:40:59 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mayor of Boston bans Boing Boing

Want to defeat censorware? Let freedom ring!

Update: Seth sez, "The phrase 'Banned combination phrase found' is a characteristic message of the censorware Dan's Guardian. It seems some combination of words has triggered the 'isItNaughty' flag (that's what they call it). It would be an interesting legal case to see if you had the right to file a Freedom Of Information Act for the settings and block logs to find out the exact reason you got censorware'd."

Update 2: Seth appears to have figured out the incredible stupid basis on which Boing Boing has been banned.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:28:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Locus Award finalists - Cory's a double nominee!

Blindsight, Peter Watts (Tor)
Carnival, Elizabeth Bear (Bantam Spectra)
Farthing, Jo Walton (Tor)
Glasshouse, Charles Stross (Orbit; Ace)
Rainbows End, Vernor Vinge (Tor)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:42:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Korean Small World knockoff ride

That's no accident - at Everland, the park mascots, Lastar and Laila, look suspiciously like Mickey and Minnie, as well. Not to sell Korea's top amusement park short, or anything - there are many reasons why this is one of the most attended on the planet (recent stats actually place it as the most visited non-Disney park in the world.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:32:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

History of mealtimes

With these late hours for entertainment and parties, and with more artificial lighting, many people in the cities began going to bed later and rising later in the morning. Mealtimes were pushed back as a result. In London, by the 1730s and 40s, the upper class nobles and gentry were dining at three or four in the afternoon, and by 1770 their dinner hour in London was four or five.

In the 1790s the upper class was rising from bed around ten a.m. or noon, and then eating breakfast at an hour when their grandparents had eaten dinner. They then went for "morning walks" in the afternoon and greeted each other with "Good morning" until they ate their dinner at perhaps five or six p.m. Then it was "afternoon" until evening came with supper, sometime between nine p.m. and two a.m.! The rich, famous and fashionable did not go to bed until dawn. With their wealth and social standing, they were able to change the day to suit themselves. The hours they kept differentiated them from the middle and lower classes as surely as did their clothes, servants and mansions.

Some upper-class individuals did get up earlier, children for instance and sometimes their mothers. By 1800 the dinner hour had been moved to six or seven. For early risers this meant a very long wait until dinner. Even those who arose at ten a.m. or noon had a wait of anywhere from six to nine hours. Ladies, tired of the wait, had established luncheon as a regular meal, not an occasional one, by about 1810. It was a light meal, of dainty sandwiches and cakes, held at noon or one or even later, but always between breakfast and dinner. And it was definitely a ladies' meal; when the Prince of Wales established a habit of lunching with ladies, he was ridiculed for his effeminate ways, as well as his large appetite. Real men didn't do lunch, at least not until the Victorian era.

Update: Dallas sez, "My mother grew up on a farm that followed the traditional meal times: Breakfast after chores, Dinner at noon, Supper in the evening. Lunch was a snack taken out to the men working in the fields in between both Breakfast/Dinner and Dinner/Supper. As a child, I was always puzzled by having Dinner at noon and cold cuts and leftovers at night. This is still the general pattern that my grandmother (92yrs old) follows, still calling the meals by their traditional names as well. When we go to visit, we just adapt and I find myself eating a small snack before bed - cold-cuts having not been enough for a body that is used to a big meal."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:28:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, April 20, 2007

Scientific supercomputing visualizations

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

Cory as an Ape Lad robo-hobo

See also:
Ape Lad draws Jackhammer Jill as a hobo
John Hodgman's hobo mosaic
700 imaginary hobo names
700 Hoboes project takes off

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:46:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dickens World: a Dickens theme park

The indoor attraction includes a central square of cobbled streets and crooked buildings, where staff dressed as pickpockets and wenches will mingle with the crowds. Visitors who pay the $25 admission charge -- $15 for children -- will have the chance to see the Ghost of Christmas Past in Ebeneezer Scrooge's haunted house, be hectored by a schoolmaster at Dotheboys Hall -- the dismal school from "Nicholas Nickleby" -- and peer into the fetid cells of Newgate Prison.

Tourists can also have a meal in the cafeteria, which has resisted the temptation to offer "Please, sir can I have some more?" 2-for-1 specials. The little ones can play in Fagin's Den, an area for preschoolers named after the gangmaster of the band of thieves in "Oliver Twist."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:42:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Happy 420 (aka "hubbly bubbly") -- Love, Iraq.

A while back, BB linked to Hometown Baghdad, a web documentary series about life in Baghdad. We've put out 17 videos so far. And by pure luck, today (4/20) we put out a video tribute to one Iraqi's all-consuming love for his hookah, or hubbly bubbly as he calls it. Even though he isn't smoking marijuana in the video, it seems appropriate for today.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:06:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Maker Faire previews from April 16-20

• Survival Research Laboratories coming to Maker Faire Link
• Sparky Jewell Link
• The Neverwas Haul Link
• The Disgusting Spectacle - Giant hamster wheel/nose picker Link
• Maker Faire Video Preview Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:08:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Crazed gunman holed up at NASA Johnson Space Center

Update: a local news station reports that both the white male gunman and a second male, a hostage, are dead. A third person, a female hostage, was "duct taped but uninjured."

Reader comment: Michael Calanan says,

The video embedded on this site appears to be raw video (no sound) right from the chopper cam. The page also links to streaming video of the local ABS news station's broadcast at: Link.

Here is one of the local Houston TV channels that is covering the event live.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:35:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Winner of Perplex City tells his story

It was then that I realised I was practically standing on a spot where the topsoil was the colour of the clay that ought to be hidden underneath it.

It wasn't 10m from the post, it was slightly further -- practically a continuation of the line I'd just investigated, exactly where you'd end up burying something if you walked 10m, stopped, and leaned forward to start digging. Seeing sub-surface clay with just a very thin covering of the material that was several inches thick elsewhere was deeply suspicious. If this wasn't the evidence for a hole that had been dug and then filled in, I didn't know what it was. I unpacked my trowel and cut straight down into it.

I'm trying to remember, and I think at this point I already knew I was onto something good, even before I'd gone very deep. It was the most promising spot I'd yet seen - it fitted the clues and it had good archaeology - and it had come at a moment when I was at a pretty low ebb. Six inches down, my trowel nicked something dark in the side wall of the hole that crackled when I prodded it. Just a couple of square millimeters of whatever it was, and at that point it behaved exactly like the tree root bark I'd been finding since Friday - it looked the same, and it made the same noises when poked. I cleared more of the sticky clay away from it with the tip of my trowel, and found that it was definitely plastic - not bark, but a bag. Plastic bags get buried for all sorts of reasons, usually accidental, so I refused to allow myself to believe it was the Cube. Nevertheless, I rocked back on my heels to take a photo. It's not a great photo, all blurry, but it turned out to be a pretty important photo - because moments later I cleared enough of the clay to run a gloved hand along the plastic and feel a hard, heavy, straight edge inside it.

That was when it hit me, that was when I knew I'd found the Cube.

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Perplex City
• More on Perplex City
• Fan song created for Perplex City
• Perplex City players need help to crack encryption
• Alternate reality games
• SF Weekly on Jane McGonigal
• Microsoft's new alternate reality game

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:19:51 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia founder, interviewed on Fresh Air

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:51:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Old encyclopedia says comic books make kids do "wicked acts"

Webcomic artist Neal von Flue has scanned a page from an old encyclopedia which basically says that comic books are the root of all evil. He found it while helping his daughter do a school paper on "comets," and just, you know, skipped over a couple of pages.

Best bit: "There is nothing real about the stories in such comic books, and for that reason, grownups are often against them and children love them." Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Predecessors of anti-game hysteria: anti-novel, anti-waltz, anti-phone! (Thanks, Rodney!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:44:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cool new online playlist generator

As Joey points out in the following Q&A, Critical Metrics -- in it's current state of development -- is geared towards music geeks, but future iterations will make the service more accessible to casual music lovers.

Q: What does Critical Metrics do?

A: Basically, CM takes advantage of recommendations across ALL media to quickly find and source, with some credible accuracy, your real, e.coli-free, “new favorite song.” Pretty much at whatever rate you want to consume new favorite songs.

Q: Who will use it?

A: At this moment, I think Critical Metrics will most impress BB’s music nerds and/or Rails hacker-types. The music nerds, because they’ve been waiting for/fearing a digital indexing of the music press for years already. The hackers more to laff at our sheer Ruby-on-crack audacity.

Honestly, we’re a few passes short of being nice enough for the average music consumer, but our soonish goal is for anyone who enjoys music to understand CM as a legit alternative to relying upon iTunes ads, Grey’s Anatomy, college radio, a 2.0 blackbox, or their cool friends to find fresh tunes. (Much as we love all those things, ofc. They’re all in the next rev.)

Q: How does it work?

A: Stat-wise, here’s how CM breaks down: we’re currently indexing ~22K reviews written by ~1200 reviewers, who over the last 18 months have collectively recommended 15K+ songs via 300+ review/recs sections of around 80 publications and misc media outlets. Out of these 15K songs, we’ve sourced 23K merchant links amongst iTunes, Rhapsody, eMusic, and various other merchants. Of course, these numbers all grow daily, but it’s already a nice library.

Q: You mentioned that Critical Metrics is especially suited for integrating Rhapsody accounts into playlists. Can you explain?

A: I think Rhapsody is proving itself to be super-suited for 3rd party integration in general. Yottamusic is a perfect example--an incredibly fast and useful Rhapsody skin that lets you build a massive CD collection in an afternoon. Critical Metrics is another example, although our focus is more on playlisting singles and individual tracks.

I think it's altogether fair to encourage everybody, iPod supremacists included, to pony up for the doggone Rhapsody subscription already. Great sound, great selection, super portable, and ridiculously cheap compared to ANY other entertainment service out there: Netflix, iTunes, and your local cable provider included. These days, Rhapsody’s pretty much my favorite net institution.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 11:34:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

US exposes 1000's of SSNs for years in web-accessible database

Officials at the Agriculture Department and the Census Bureau, which maintains the database, were evidently unaware that the Social Security numbers were accessible in the database until they were notified last week by a farmer from Illinois, who stumbled across the database on the Internet.

“I was bored, and typed the name of my farm into Google to see what was out there,” said Marsha Bergmeier, president of Mohr Family Farms in Fairmount, Ill.

The first link that appeared in the search results was for her farm’s Web site. The second was for a site that she had never heard of, FedSpending.org, which provides a searchable database of federal government expenditures. The site uses information from the Census database.

Ms. Bergmeier said she was able to identify almost 30,000 records in the database that contained Social Security numbers. “I was stunned,” she said. “The numbers were right there in plain view in this database that anyone can access.”

Reader comment: Gabriela says,

I saw your post on BoingBoing about the USDA privacy breach that The New York Times reported and wanted to let you know The Sunlight Foundation just unveiled a new project -- Real Time Investigations – that also had exclusive coverage of this story and blogged about it moments before the Times piece ran.

Real Time Investigations is an open source journalism effort that reveals the behind-the-scenes research involved in petitioning the federal government to make its information more accessible to citizens, constituents and journalists. We first learned of the extraordinary privacy breach by the USDA when a user of FedSpending.org, an online database of government spending created by OMB Watch and funded by us last year, reported it to OMB Watch late last week.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:24:12 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

People committing eternal sin on YouTube

You may damn yourself to Hell however you would like, but somewhere in your video you must say this phrase: "I deny the Holy Spirit."

Why? Because, according to Mark 3:29 in the Holy Bible, "Whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit will never be forgiven; he is guilty of an eternal sin." Jesus will forgive you for just about anything, but he won't forgive you for denying the existence of the Holy Spirit. Ever. This is a one-way road you're taking here.

Reader comment:

Jacob says:

Just saw the Blasphemy Challenge report on Boing Boing and thought it was hilarious. However, as a former Christian and current Discordian, I’m quite concerned that those poor souls participating in the Blasphemy Challenge have been deceived by the contest’s requirements and are not actually signing over their souls in an irrevocable manner. The requirements of “Unforgivable Sin” are simply not met by the act of denying the existence of the Holy Spirit.

A quick study of some related text (Matthew 12:22-31) will show that eternal damnation may only be assured by attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to the work of the Devil. The passage is centered on unbelievers telling Jesus that he was possessed by an evil spirit, and that he used the evil spirit to cast out another evil spirit. Jesus replied, telling them very specifically that they had just committed blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, as it was the Holy Spirit that empowered him, not Beelzebub.

If you’re going to blaspheme, do it properly! This “I deny the Holy Spirit” stuff is for pansies.

Thanks for the fun link!

Hey, saw your link to the Blasphemy Challenge and thought you might be interested in the counter-site, Challenge Blasphemy. Here's a chance for believers to respond.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:47:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cat macros hijacked by heartless homosexuals

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:43:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Landlord

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:30:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

World's worst hobby can be most dangerous job

"In the link below I tell of running into a boy with scavenging for metal with such a detector in central Vietnam:

"Sadly, many Vietnamese are severely injured or killed while tampering with live ordnance. My organization, Clear Path International, assists those that are injured. Link

"I thought as a techie you might like to see more up close pics of the boy's homemade detector. I have some pics up on Flickr here."

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:20:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Island for sale on eBay

Ram Island has been designated, along with most of the other uninhabited islands along the Maine coast, as a bird nesting island -- and it's true! Sea gulls do nest on the island. And live there too. Along with the gulls are cormorants, ducks, hawks and eagles, and small birds like swallows, sparrows and terns. Because of this nesting designation you cannot build during nesting season, which is May and June. This is the only restriction placed upon use of the island due to the designation.

The island is also home to seals. It's common to see their heads sticking out of the water, just off shore, watching you. They are very curious about human guests. They are like great big water-borne puppy-dogs with engaging personalities and their cute "barking" sound.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:08:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New free Boston daily written by bloggers

In the name of relevancy, BostonNOW is handing huge swaths of its editorial pages to its readers. Instead of bemoaning competition from bloggers, they're proposing a true pro-am partnership, promising to publish the work of any blogger who's willing and literate enough to work with them.

Update: Jon sez, "They ripped off content from Bostonist.com - while they gave the URL we certainly didn't give them permission to put the clips into print. BostonNOW is still in their inagural week and there has been little to no blogger contributed content thus far. From what's been reported to me the system they'd announced for "submitting" content wasn't even fully functional by press time of the first issue (and possibly later than that). I really want to like a print paper that is looking to use content from willing bloggers - but yesterday they straight lifted content from bostonist.com without permission."

Update 2: Overheard at a Party sez, "I overheard Sean Bonner from Metroblogging respond to this news at the Web2Expo earlier this week. His quote was 'Print versions of blogs - their slogan should be 'Bringing you yesterday's news tomorrow".'"

Update 3: BostonNOW's John Wilpers sez,

Let me apologize for our unauthorized lifting of copy from bostonist. I am embarrassed and chagrined. I did not authorize or clear it, nor was I even aware of it. I will certainly find out how it happened and make sure it never happens again. That (unauthorized lifting) is definitely NOT our model. We hadn't planned on doing that and we don't plan on doing that in the future...

And we hope we can give aspiring writers, reporters, photographers, videographers, etc. the kind of exposure that can help jump-start their careers. And, ultimately, we hope to develop a compensation system to reward them for their work with something beyond fame and massive exposure, and to offer consultation on optimizing their own sites for making money (if that's their interest).

Based on that philosophy, unauthorized lifting of content is antithetical and will not happen again. At the risk of over-doing it, I apologize again for this instance.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:38:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bill Gates and Free Software heckler in China

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:58:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tiny perfect Hobbit doll-house

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:24:38 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Theatre of Comets, 1668 astronomy book from Amsterdam

"Necessarium est autem veteres ortus cometarum habere collectos. Deprehendi enim propter raritatem eorum cursus adhuc non potest, nec explorari an vices servent et illos ad suum diem certus ordo producat"

[It is essential that we have a record of all the appearances of comets in former times. For, on account of their infrequency, their orbit cannot yet be discovered or examined in detail, to see they observe a periodical interval and whether their reappearance on a fixed day could be the result of certain cause] {Seneca, 60AD}

The vast 'Theatrum Cometicum' (The Theatre of Comets) was published in Amsterdam in 1668 and includes about 80 lavish engravings (a great many of them are double-page fold out illustrations). It provides accounts of over 400 comet sightings throughout history and in discussing their meaning, [Polish astronomer Stanislaus] Lubienietzki essentially helps usher in a more astronomical rather than astrological approach to the study of comets.

The whole of 'Theatrum Cometicum' is available online at the National Digital Library of Poland. Also known as Biblioteka Narodowa, this digital library deserves special mention. In addition to having a large selection of books in page image format, the interface is one of the best I've seen.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:22:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web zen: meaty zen

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

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:09:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Armchair meets padded cell

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:54:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Recreating vintage photos of London

Update: Kim sez, "I created a Then-and-Now group on Flickr a while ago, open to any location. There's especially a lot of photos of Montreal and Chicago."

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:52:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Donald Duck's 1937 vision of the future

The museum is full of wonderfully ridiculous inventions from the future such as the pneumatic pencil sharpener, peanut sheller, robotic nurse maid, old razor blade mangler, robotic hitch-hiker's aid, potato peeler, the hydraulic potato peeler, mechanical bottle opener, and the automatic bundle wrapper.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:47:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Digital camera disguised as giant vintage locket

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:41:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Adjustable breast implants

The Spectrum is a technologically innovative design that allows the surgeon to continue making adjustments to the breast after your breast augmentation operation. A small, removable fill tube is left temporarily attached to the breast implant after surgery. The tube is accessible to the physician by injection through the skin. In a simple office procedure, breast implant size can be varied until you have achieved the result you desire. At this point, the fill tube is removed (again, in a routine office visit) and a self-sealing valve immediately closes and seals the breast implant.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:33:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, April 19, 2007

Tripod dog T-shirts are awesome

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:56:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bobby Lee

Comedian Bobby Lee, best known for his work on Mad TV, is one funny dude. You can totally tell from his MySpace template.

One of the editors at UCLA's "Asia Pacific Arts" project turned me on to this new online video of an interview with Lee, in which he makes funny faces, hacks, farts, and explains why parodies of Korean telenovelas inexplicably yet consistently make for such terrific sketch comedy.

SF Gate columnist Jeff Yang (who I met by phone today, in the context of a different story) recently wrote a column about Bobby Lee's current blowing-up-edness. Link to Yang's April 10 piece, "Mad Man." Lee has a role in a forthcoming film about breakdancing, and there's some kind of new Comedy Central TV thing in the works or something.

There is a lot of him on YouTube: Link.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:45:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Yahoo aided China in torture, says dissident in lawsuit papers

Snip from New York Times story:

A Chinese political prisoner and his wife sued Yahoo in federal court Wednesday, accusing the company of abetting the commission of torture by helping Chinese authorities identify political dissidents who were later beaten and imprisoned.

The suit, filed under the Alien Tort Claims Act and the Torture Victims Protection Act, is believed to be the first of its kind against an Internet company for its activities in China.

Wang Xiaoning, who according to the suit is serving a 10-year prison sentence in China; his wife, Yu Ling; and other unnamed defendants seek damages and an injunction barring Yahoo from identifying dissidents to Chinese authorities.

Wired News reporter Luke O'Brien, who covered the story as it developed in this earlier piece, has an update today. Snip:

I just spoke with former dissident Harry Wu, who helped arrange Yu's travel to the United States. He told me Yu Ling is leaving tomorrow morning to go back to China. Today she wanted to walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. She walked the whole thing.

Update: ArsTechnica has a post, too: Link (Thanks, Glyn)

Previously on BoingBoing:

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:10:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Who Is Sick? user-generated epidemiology map

The CDC (Center for Disease Control) provides flu data but only to the State level and only on a time scale of 1 week. For example, they will report that in the state of California, last week, there were 539 cases of the flu reported. While this information may be useful for some health practitioners or academics, for the average individual, this does not come in handy when they are trying to figure out what kinds of sicknesses are going around their area. It is not local enough, timely enough, or broad enough because they don't cover different types of sicknesses.

In contract, whoissick provides local (down to the zip code level), timely (within a day), and broad (many different symptoms, not just the flu) sickness information. Some typical use cases for a user would be

1. I am feeling a little sick and want to check what sicknesses are going around in my local area - probably within 10 or 20 miles from where I live or work.
2. I am traveling to another area of the country and want to know if there are sicknesses going around that I need to be careful of
3. I live in an area where I notice lots of people getting sick, so in preparation, I can take an AirBorne or vitamins to prevent catching anything

To date, the only way to get information like this is probably to call multiple places (hospitals, doctors, clinics, schools, etc) and ask what is currently going around. Not very organized or efficient.

We hope to change this.

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:04:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Larry Sanger on the "New Politics of Knowledge"

Today's Establishment is nervous about Web 2.0 and Establishment-bashers love it, and for the same reason: its egalitarianism about knowledge means that, with the chorus (or cacophony) of voices out there, there is so much dissent, about everything, that there is a lot less of what "we all know." Insofar as the unity of our culture depends on a large body of background knowledge, handing a megaphone to everyone has the effect of fracturing our culture.

I, at least, think it is wonderful that the power to declare what we all know is no longer exclusively in the hands of a professional elite. A giant, open, global conversation has just begun—one that will live on for the rest of human history—and its potential for good is tremendous. Perhaps our culture is fracturing, but we may choose to interpret that as the sign of a healthy liberal society, precisely because knowledge egalitarianism gives a voice to those minorities who think that what "we all know" is actually false. And—as one of the fathers of modern liberalism, John Stuart Mill, argued—an unfettered, vigorous exchange of opinion ought to improve our grasp of the truth.

This makes a nice story; but it's not the whole story.

As it turns out, our many Web 2.0 revolutionaries have been so thoroughly seized with the successes of strong collaboration that they are resistant to recognizing some hard truths. As wonderful as it might be that the hegemony of professionals over knowledge is lessening, there is a downside: our grasp of and respect for reliable information suffers. With the rejection of professionalism has come a widespread rejection of expertise—of the proper role in society of people who make it their life's work to know stuff. This, I maintain, is not a positive development; but it is also not a necessary one. We can imagine a Web 2.0 with experts. We can imagine an Internet that is still egalitarian, but which is more open and welcoming to specialists. The new politics of knowledge that I advocate would place experts at the head of the table, but—unlike the old order—gives the general public a place at the table as well.

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:42:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fantasy tech support call, Web 2.0 dating rituals

IMAGE: screengrab of a wonderful real-life Craigslist ad that illustrates SFGate columnist Violet Blue's latest column on the hookup practices of contemporary networked computer users. Also, an idle question: is there a huge cache of Mac guy / PC guy slash fic somewhere out there? If so, please DO NOT send me the url right now. Because I won't blog it here, I tell you, I won't.

Update: Boy, is it ever a relief to know that Mac guy/PC guy slash fic does not exist.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:45:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

VA Tech killer's digital vanity package (NPR News "Xeni Tech")

The package is being described by some as "unprecedented," and by others as "a spree killer's EPK." Cho is now tagged by some as "the first Web 2.0 psycho killer," and the net result may be a possible template -- even a challenge -- for aspiring mass murderers.

- - - - - -
LISTEN:
"The Virginia Tech Shooter's Digital Mark." Link to archived audio (Real/Win). Here's an MP3 Link. Or, listen to this report as an MP3 in the "Xeni Tech" podcast (subscribe via iTunes here). NPR "Xeni Tech" archives here.

Also check out a related commentary about how to properly print and pronounce Korean names, filed yesterday by NPR "Day to Day" producer and contributor Ki-Min Sung: Link to audio.
- - - - - -

This isn't just about disintermediation, intermediation or even "the media". It's about no longer depending on The Media alone. Naturally, the media still have roles to play. They are just no longer the only ones playing those roles.

When Cho walked around shooting people, those in the best position to help each other were right there. The media that mattered most then, in real time, was direct contact by voice, hand signals, and mobile phones. People helping other people. That's still true now.

Again, I'm not saying that The Media are bad, or wrong. Just that we no longer live in a world where we get our best information only from top-down few-to-many sources. This is about AND logic, not OR.

Also, I am not saying that disclosing this stuff won't have bad consequences. It will certainly have many consequences. So will concealing it.

Here's a related piece Yang wrote for Salon.com: Link to "Killer reflection." ("Cho and other Asian shooters were portrayed as "smart but quiet" and "fundamentally foreign." What do these stereotypes reveal, and what do they obscure?")

In between the two rounds of shootings, Cho sent NBC a manifesto containing videos and photographs, some of which have been shown by other broadcasters. Did the rival networks have to pay for the images?

No. The package falls under the doctrine of fair use, which gives networks the ability to borrow unique and newsworthy information from each other. Another example might be an important interview with a high-ranking official that only one network scored. That meant that the networks were able to take the Cho footage from NBC at no cost, immediately after it aired.

The past 48 hours have been one long, ongoing demonstration of what Jill Godmilow, in both her incomparable film What Farocki Taught and her essay “What’s Wrong with the Liberal Documentary?, labels “the pornography of the real”:

The “pornography of the real” involves the highly suspect, psychic pleasure of viewing “the moving picture real” … a powerful pornographic interest in real people, real death, real destruction and real suffering, especially of “others”, commodities in film. These “pleasures” are not brought to our attention. The pornographic aspect is masked in the documentary by assurances that the film delivers only the actually existing real — thus sincere truths that we need to know about.

[...]I think of storytelling as a kind of citizenship, so I don’t blame people for wanting to know the stories unfolding in Blacksburg, nor do I blame journalists for telling those stories. Still, how one gathers the facts, why you gather them, and the way you tell them can’t be separated from the story you’re telling.

- - - - - - - - - -

Previously on BB:

- - - - - - - - - -

"We know we are in effect airing the words of a murderer tonight," Williams said as he introduced reporter Pete Williams. But those words were not just of a murderer. They were of a sick man who had regressed so far into delusion that he considered his actions necessary. He claimed he had no choice but to slaughter the 32 people who became his victims. Airing the video ultimately was disrespectful to the victims and their families. It also was exploitative of Cho's condition and that of all severely mentally ill people.

In interviews yesterday several competitors questioned some of NBC’s decisions concerning the way it distributed the images, which went out accompanied by a list of rules for how they could be used, including points like: “No Internet use. No archival use. Do not resell,” and “Mandatory credit; NBC News.” (...) And while the rules about usage were fairly standard for the television news business, [CBS News VP Paul] Friedman said that “in this instance it seemed inappropriate” for NBC to be so proprietary about material of such sensitive nature.

One aspect that clearly irritated many of NBC’s competitors was the impression of the logo “NBC News,” which the network burned into every image from the material. Mr. Friedman of CBS said he had thought about calling NBC executives Wednesday night to suggest they remove the logo simply to distance the network from the material. “It may backfire for them to be so closely associated with footage that makes people’s flesh crawl,” Mr. Friedman said.

READER COMMENTS: your responses and related discussion after the jump.
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posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:52:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Video of Tim Biskup painting the Helio Ocean mural

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:27:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Underwater map of Mavericks surf spot

“As soon as I saw that gradual ramping from deep to shallow water, it was, like, wow! That’s why Mavericks happen,” says Rikk Kvitek, director of the Seafloor Mapping Lab at California State University in Monterey Bay. “I’ve done an awful lot of seafloor mapping and I’ve never seen geology like that before.”

As waves get close to shore, their base begins to run into the seafloor, slowing the deeper parts of the wave. The shallower part of the wave keeps moving at the same pace, causing the wave to stand up and then pitch forward. This creates the wave face that is so sought-after by surfers.

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:52:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Motley Fool: 27 second stock pitch video contest

posted by David Pescovitz at 02:16:20 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amazon is suing Alexaholic creator

At first glance, it does seem that Alexa has a decent case to make when it comes to taking their IP and trademarked materials. However when you read the 43 page complaint, some interesting things pop out and make you wonder if this is really such a cut and dry case of infringement? One excerpt in particular that catches my eye is:

"Unfortunately, Mr. Hornbaker has refused to stop trading off the Alexa name. And he has deliberately circumvented every attempt by Alexa to block him from stealing its traffic graphs."

a few lines later we have:

"Through this lawsuit, Alexa seeks to force Mr. Hornbaker to stop infringing Alexa's trademarks and to stop pirating Alexa proprietary data."

There are two things I find interesting about these statements. First, thousands upon thousands of websites link to Alexa graphs, which is one reason their site is so popular in the first place. Looking over large sites like O'Reilly and Paul Kedrosky's (who called Alexaholic "marvy") Infectious Greed, I found several "stolen" traffic graphs. Will Alexa now target anyone who places Alexa data in their sites?

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:15:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Insane Archive of Retro-Tech Creations

Attention circuit-benders, hardware hackers, techno-antique collectors, control panel enthusiasts, analog synth and Theramin fans, and marvelers of magnificent and mad machinery in general. This link will rock your world.

Tim Kaiser is a performance artist and experimental musician. He's built dozens (and dozens) of crazy instruments and other sound-generating gadgets, many of them housed in antique Geiger counters, old telephones, Oscillator boxes, and other retro equipment cases. His site features page after page of amazing DIY tech art. I was swooning by the time I was done, and I don't think I even exhausted the site. It seems to go on forever. Some of the machines have MP3 files attached to them so you can hear what the devices sound like.

One of the most linked-to pieces on Street Tech is the Gallery of Homebrewed Headphone Amps. This is an equally amazing collection of homemade audio gadgets. We can only hope that Tim Kaiser's work generates a similar buzz.