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Tuesday, September 30, 2003

Book launch this Thursday in San Francisco for my collection

A reminder: I'll be launching my new short story collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More, at Borderlands Books in San Francisco this Thursday, at 7PM. I'm going to be signing copies and reading from a new work. Hope to see you! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:13:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Newsmonster is hiring!

Newsmonster -- a wicked-cool, Mozilla-based RSS reader -- is funded and looking to hire an engineer. The rarity value of this, a cool tech gig in San Francisco in 2003, is really astonishing.

We're looking for someone with experience in

# JavaScript, Java, C, C++ (min 5 years)

# XML including SAX, DOM, XPATH, XSLT, XUL, RSS, and RDF

# Understanding of "modern" RPC technologies (REST/SOAP/XMLRPC)

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:21:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

O'Reilly eBay Hacks book is out, with an intro by me!

eBay Hacks -- the latest of the O'Reilly Hacks series -- is out. It runs down 99 tips and tricks for eBay, ranging from simple buying and selling techniques to advanced programming with the eBay API. I wrote the intro for this book, and I'm really pleased with how it came out:

eBay makes us all into participants in the market again. It's no coincidence that eBay's first great wave of participation came from the collectibles trade. The collectibles market occurs at the intersection of luck (discovering a piece at a yard-sale or thrift shop), knowledge (recognizing its value), market-sense (locating a buyer for the goods) and salesmanship (describing the piece's properties attractively). It requires little startup capital and lots of smarts, something that each of us possess in some measure.

Somewhere, in the world's attics and basements, are all the treasures of history. Someone is using the Canopic jar containing Queen Nefertiti's preserved spleen as an ashtray. Someone is using George Washington's false teeth as a paperweight. Somewhere, a mouse is nibbling at a frayed carton containing the lost gold of El Dorado. A Yahoo! for junk would never break even: you simply couldn't source enough crack junque ninjas to infiltrate and catalog the world's storehouses of *tchotchkes*, white elephants and curios.

And just as Napster found the cheapest way to get all the music online, eBay has found the most cost-effective means of cataloging the world's attics and basements. It's attic-Napster, and it's spread the cost and effort around. When you spy a nice casino ashtray on the 25-cent shelf at Thrift Town and snap its pic and put it up on eBay, and when the renowned collector of glass ashtrays, ColBatGuano, bids it up to $400, you have taken part in a market transaction that has simultaneously catalogued a nice bit of bric-a-brac and moved it to a collection where it will be lovingly cared for -- and you've left a record of where it is and what it was worth when last we saw it. Buried in eBay's backup tapes is a Blue Book with the last known value of nearly every object we have ever created as a species, from Trinitite (green, faintly radioactive glass fused at the detonation of the first nuclear explosion at Los Alamos, $2.59 a gram at last check) to commodity 40-gigabyte laptop hard-drives ($30 at press-time and falling fast).

Link

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

10 techs that deserve to die

Bruce Sterling's produced a list of ten dreadful technologies whose day has gone, technologies that deserve to die:

Most loathsome of all is the fiendish spam hard-burned into DVDs, which forces one to suffer through the commercials gratefully evaded by videotape fast-forwards. The Content Scrambling System copy protection scheme doesn’t work, and the payoff for pirating DVDs is massive, because unlike tapes, digital data don’t degrade with reproduction. So DVDs have the downside of piracy and organized crime, without the upside of free, simple distribution. Someday they will stand starkly revealed for what they really are: collateral damage to consumers in the entertainment industry’s miserable, endless war of attrition with digital media.

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:07:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"New Ground" radio host Douridas to program iTunes?

Rumor: A BoingBoing pal says that Chris Douridas, host of AOL and KCRW's syndicated radio show "New Ground," has just been tapped as music programmer for iTunes.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:17:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mild-mannered spam victim strikes back

Wired News story about a graphic artist whose domain and professional reputation were effectively hijacked by a spammer -- and what he did to fight back:

One week later, the spammer struck again, using Markley's domain. Five days after the second attack, the spammer struck yet again. Thousands of bounce reports and hate e-mails arrived in Markley's inbox. And Earthlink reps told Markley they could do nothing to help him. So "blood boiling, furious and literally foaming at the mouth," Markley set out to track the spammer down. (...)

Markley checked the headers on the original spam returned with some of the bounces. Then he learned how to access domain-registry information and how to use a trace-route program. Over the next two weeks, he painstakingly worked his way through a half-dozen hijacked servers and a dozen spoofed e-mail addresses and bogus identities to find "his" spammer. "Last Thursday, at around 7 p.m., I finally knew without a doubt that my nemesis was Eddy Marin, who has a reputation as the world's most prolific spammer," said Markley.

Link

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

New work by painter Isabel Samaras: The Haunted Dollhouse

If you're in LA: new work by BoingBoing pal and Bay Area artist Isabel Samaras will be included in a show called "The HAUNTED DOLLHOUSE," which opens tonight and runs though Nov 8th at Copro Nason Gallery in Culver City.

Shown here: "Wednesday The Destroyer," Oil on wood.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:43:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New: "Beginners Guide to Building Robots" book

Gareth Branwyn, blogger, author, and scribe of Wired Magazine's Jargon Watch column, has a new book out: The Absolute Beginner's Guide to Building Robots. It's part of the popular Absolute Beginner's Guide series by Que publishing, and leads newbies into the fascinating world of robots and do-it-yourself bot building. Gareth explains:

"The book contains projects that detail how to build three cool robots out of a coat hanger, a trashed computer mouse, and those AOL CDs that seem to breed on your desktop. I'm not kidding. Junkbots R Us.

Ilustrations throughout the book where done by bOING bOING's amazing Mark Frauenfelder, with photos by Street Tech's very own Jay Townsend. The site will include information not available in the book, bug fixes on the projects, reader hardware hacks, robot news, and downloadable "Heroes of the Robolution" trading cards illustrated by Mark."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:35:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why grossout photos online should make you smile

Because they're proof that the Internet is still, on whole, uncensorable:

They die over and over on continuous loop, the journalist's throat slashed again and again, the bank robber blown up by the bomb locked to his body time after time. The graphic video and still images of dead and dying people that mainstream news organizations choose not to display inevitably find their way to the Internet, where they can't be killed. Some can be legally challenged, but even if a site is shut down, the image rarely goes away.

And there's a vigorous argument over whether instant access to such images is good or bad: Are they examples of stomach-turning excess or honest depictions of a disturbing world? There's little disagreement, however, over the Internet's role in eroding the mainstream media's reign as gatekeeper -- the media's decisions to withhold images from their viewers no longer mean viewers won't see those images

Link (via politech)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:30:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Invasion of the high-tech body snatchers

Brilliant and minstretching manifesto on the end of four billion years of Darwinian evolution, the dawn of Homo Technicus, and the ethical implications of bioengineering. Author Alan H. Goldstein is director of the Biomedical Materials Engineering Science Program at Alfred University in New York. Snip:

"The current popular fixation on clones, or science fiction's obsession with cyborgs, does not provide useful paradigms for the new forms of sentience that will ultimately emerge from nanotechnology. Both clones and cyborgs are too anthropomorphic. Ultimately, the future will not be about mixing humanity and technology but about sentient chemistry. Just as the revolution in quantum physics laid the foundation for the creation of weapons capable of vaporizing the planet, so the nanotechnology revolution is laying the foundation for the end of evolution and of life in any form we can imagine."

"A recognition of the ethical implications of bioengineering should have followed logically from the ethical questions raised by genetic engineering. But somewhere in our human hearts we apparently need to believe that, even in a cyborg, there will be a border where biology starts and technology ends -- a plug, a slot, an interface. That, unfortunately, is a fantasy. Silicon and carbon are perfectly happy to bond on the molecular level. DNA has no mandate from any deity that gives it an eternal role as the information storage system of sentience. Homo technicus will be different at the atomic level. We are not only going through the looking glass; we are merging with it."

Link (thanks, Stephen Hill)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:26:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

FBI invokes Patriot Act against reporters covering Adrian Lamo case

Via Declan's politech list, news that the FBI is demanding that several reporters retail any notes or communication records pertaining to Adrian Lamo, the "Homeless Hacker" who turned himself in to Federal Authorities earlier this month. Lamo has been charged in NYC federal court with computer fraud and unlawful access.

The letters, first revealed in a report by Wired News, state that pending authorization, the FBI will issue subpoenas for the reporters' records regarding conversations with Lamo. (...)

FBI Agent Christine Howard states in the criminal complaint against Lamo that she gained information about Lamo's New York Times break-in from articles published by Securityfocus.com, Newsbytes (a Washington Post web site), the Associated Press, MSNBC.com, ComputerWorld.com and the San Francisco Weekly. Several reporters from these and other organizations have received requests from the FBI to retain all records relating to their contact with Lamo. Howard, part of the Cybercrime Task Force in the New York field office, told Wired News that "all reporters who spoke with Lamo" should expect similar letters.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:21:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

First-ever Internet-ready satellite launched

Boeing's new 376HP model satellite -- "e-BIRD" -- was successfully launched earlier this week. The satellite was launched by an Ariane 5 rocket out of French Guiana on September 27, and is said to be the first ever specifically engineered for two-way broadband communications.

With a configuration of multiple spotbeams, each providing high-power regional coverage, e-BIRD can contribute to national and pan-European broadband programmes such as the European Union's e-Europe initiative that aims for all schools, universities and businesses to have access to the Internet by 2005. It is estimated that a quarter of the population and between 10 to 40 per cent of Small to Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) in the European Union and candidate countries do not have access to broadband today.

link (via pho, thanks JP!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:18:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Study says RIAA lawsuits have decreased P2P downloads

'Net research firm Nielsen/NetRatings says fileswapping volume has decreased on popular peer-to-peer networks since the most recent bout of RIAA-vs-consumer lawsuits.

Since the last week of June, traffic to the largest network, Kazaa, fell 41 percent to 3.9 million visitors during the week ending Sept. 21. Similar drops in usage were recorded for BearShare and IMesh networks. "The RIAA is clearly sending a strong message to American Web users and the message appears to be working," said Greg Bloom, senior Internet analyst at Nielsen/NetRatings (NTRT: news, chart, profile). "With hundreds of individuals facing real lawsuits, the threat to music file sharers is serious." Usage of popular file-sharing applications is at an all-time low, he added.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:14:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on NPR's Day to Day: new CA anti-spam law

On today's edition of the NPR program "Day to Day":

California's Anti-Spam Law: NPR's Alex Chadwick talks with technology writer Xeni Jardin about California's new anti-spam law, scheduled to go into effect Jan. 1, 2004, and how effective the law might be.

Link to "Day to Day" home, listen to the archived show here after 12PM Pacific.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:32:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WiFi wants to be free

Two interesting pieces on this morning's WiFi Networking News:

Intel's free networking day benefitted free networks: in hindsight, it seems obvious that the biggest beneficiary for publicity for free wireless will be free wireless networks. Still, the stats are compelling:

...the Starbucks in downtown Portland had 40 unique logins while Portland's free Personal Telco hot spot downtown had 176 unique logins.

Hotspot suppliers are offering competing packages for cafes that want to offer free wireless, including one that claims to "stop spam" (??). It's not clear to me, though, why a cafe that wants to give away free WiFi needs a "managed" solution (which requires that you depend on a tech-support queue for problems) that costs $300 when the "unmanaged" solution (a regular access-point, which can be "fixed" by turning it off and on) costs $40.

The moral of the story: Free WiFi is really, really free. Or at least cheap. The brisk market in WiFi gear, combined with the commodity nature of packets, makes it hard to engineer the kinds of market-failures in WiFi that represent gigantic marginal profit opportunities.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:18:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disposable diapers' secret sauce useful for un-soaking books

Super Slurper, the super-absorbent compound found in disposable diapers, is being repurposed for use in drying out books that have been flood-damaged:

"Around 250,000 books are damaged each year in the United States by water from flooding or burst pipes," Yeager said...

"With Super Slurper it takes roughly 10 minutes to dry each book. It's a quantum leap in the amount of time," Yeager said.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:29:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moby hates the RIAA's response to P2P

One of Moby's fans is being sued by the RIAA, and it's got Moby steamed:

personally i just can't see any good in coming from punishing people for being music fans and making the effort to hear new music.

i'm almost tempted to go onto kazaa and download some of my own music, just to see if the riaa would sue me for having mp3's of my own songs on my hard-drive.

Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:10:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, September 29, 2003

GPS will pinpoint Coke prize winners

Presently topping my list of scary/surreal commercial applications for GPS technology:

Next summer, Coca-Cola plans to use satellites to find U.S. buyers who happen to purchase special cans of Coke products. They will be winners in a giveaway that will feature Hummer H2 sport-utility vehicles. The giant vehicles will be presented in person, using satellites to locate the recipients."

Link (Thanks, tregoweth!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:36:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

P2P Legal defense fund downhillbattle.org launches

A new project known as the "Peer-to-Peer Legal Defense Fund" was launched today by a group calling themselvers Downhill Battle. Co-founder Nicholas Reville explains:

We think the major label lawsuits are just intimidation followed by extortion: the record companies scare people with a suit for hundreds of thousands of dollars and then offer a settlement for 4 or 5 thousand. The cost of fighting is so high that even if you think you're innocent, it's cheaper to settle. (...)

The Defense Fund actually runs on a peer-to-peer model: rather than collecting the donations centrally and then later distributing them, we use PayPal accounts so that donations go directly to people that have been sued and have signed up on our system. Our open-source software tracks donations and presents the person with the least donations so far to receive the next contribution-- money gets spread out evenly over time, without a middleman. We think it's a cool system and a good political response.

We hope it will give some people the ability to fight and will help alleviate some of the financial damage to the families that have to settle, people are seriously talking about taking out second mortgages or not being able to afford college tuition. From a political standpoint, if we can take away the damage, then the lawsuit scare strategy doesn't work as well.

Link to web site, Link to related NYT story, (via pho list)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:17:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cramer disses Disney's MovieBeam

James Cramer's rant on Disney's new VOD venture, Operation MovieBeam:

No more devices. Sorry, I don't want still one more device attached to my television set. And I certainly don't want to pay for it. Yet, there goes Disney (DIS:NYSE) , offering Operation MovieBeam, under which you can add a device to your television that costs you money every day so you won't have to pay late fees at Blockbuster. Huh? Who thinks about this stuff? Who creates it? And at what point do companies stop dreaming about the wonders of video on demand? (...)

My prediction: There's a $100 million write-off headed Disney's way. This venture reminds me so much of those Disney ventures I was involved during the dot-com period. Everything they touched turned to stone. They had no feel for the marketplace or for what consumers wanted. It's just amazing how bad they are.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:09:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Roger Wood clock

My friend Roger Wood's latest assemblage sculpture clock makes me homesick for a time that never was. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:36:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Accenture puts Verisign in charge of US Internet voting

Remember Verisign? The incompetent crooks who have abused their monopoly over .COM and .NET, betraying the trust of every Internet user, continuing on a long history of abusing their customers and the Internet?

They've been tapped to secure the US's Internet voting technology. They were given the contract by Arthur Andersen consuluting, now using the post-felony-fraud alias Accenture Accenture (Accenture split from Arthur Andersen before the Enron scandal, thanks, Jamais!). This beggars the imagination. I'm going to be sick.

VeriSign announced Monday that it will provide key components of a system designed to let Americans abroad cast absentee votes over the Internet.

The contract was granted by consulting firm Accenture, which is working with the U.S. Department of Defense on a voting system known as the Secure Electronic Registration and Voting Experiment. When completed, the system will allow absentee military personnel and overseas Americans from eight participating states to cast their votes in the 2004 general election.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:29:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dean campaign enlists clueful roster of net-advisors

The Dean campaign has drafted a gang of Internet advisors -- not all of whom are Dean supporters -- to help guide its use of and feedback to the Internet. The advisors include Hal Abelson, Laura Breeden, Lawrence Lessig, Bob Lucky, Dewayne Hendricks, Joi Ito, David Reed, Richard Rowe and David Weinberger. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:02:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TSA-appointed "passenger advocate" in cahoots with CAPPS II contractor

Bill Scannell -- the whistle-blower who caught Jet Blue violating its own policies by handing over its customers' records to defense-contractors for a TIA-like aviation spy-program -- has caught one of the CAPPS II vendors with its hand in the cookie-jar. The TSA has appointed David S. Stempler, head of the "Air Travelers Association," to serve as the "passenger advocate" in the CAPPS II process. CAPPS II, the suspicion-generating system intended to automatically determine which passengers are likely to be guilty of crimes and hence liable to search and grounding, is supported by Cendant Corporation, a defense contractor that stands to profit if CAPPS II is enacted.

And it looks like Cendant Corportation and the "Air Travelers Association" are run by the same people.

Some "passenger advocate." No wonder he says that CAPPS II is a fine idea and "(w)hatever's going to be done will have to be done in secret".

# Stempler's 'Air Travelers Association' website reads like an infomercial for Cendant's Travelers Advantage program.

# Both Stempler's website and the site of Cendant Travelers Advantage are owned and managed by the Trilegiant Corporation, a Cendant subsidiary.

Update: more background on Cendant from George Scriban your post on Cendant's shell game with the "Air Travellers Association" caught my eye. one thing you might want to clarify -- Cendant's not a defence contractor in the Lockheed sense of the term. they're a holding company for a number of businesses in the travel and hospitality industries (like the Gallileo GDS, CheapTickets.com, Days Inn, Howard Johnsons, Budget car rentals) with interests in real estate (Century 21) and consumer fiance (Jackson Hewitt). of course, they also have "loyalty" programs that remarket to frequent users of their products, and a wealth of data on their customers. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:02:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Voice-Over-IP-over-WiFi phone ships from Pulver.com

Pulver.com -- makers of fine Voice-Over-IP memes, software and now hardware -- have shipped a Voice-Over-IP-over-WiFi phone, called the WiSIP. Right now, it can only be used to make calls on the Free World Dialup network, but a version that works with Vonage's service is in the offing, which will play with the legacy phone-network. Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:33:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tickle Me Elmo fur coats

The PETA people are sure to get their panties in a bunch over this one: fur coats from Elmo pelts, and wall-mounted game trophies of the googly-eyed one's decapitated head. Elmo say, "owie." But don't throw blood at your monitor -- it's only the work of artist Kelly Heaton, who purchased 64 previously-owned Tickle Me Elmo dolls on eBay.

Link to photo series, Link to eBay art auction (Thanks, Tim)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:34:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Australian 5-year-old makes bong for show-and-tell

Yes, you read that headline right. "The little girl showing how to make a bong was the most in-your-face example of drug culture among primary school students I've heard of,'' one teacher said. Link (Thanks, Richard!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:19:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disney's Utopian EPCOT in an academic book

Walt Disney and the Quest for Community is a (pricey, $50) academic text on Walt's Utopian dream of building a city called EPCOT -- Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow -- on the grounds of his planned Florida theme park. EPCOT would have asked its worker-citizens to sign away their Consitutional rights in favor of a code-of-conduct specified by Walt and embodied in the Park's designs, and included plans to be electrically self-sufficient through the construction of a nuclear power-plant.

Written by a professor of Urban Planning, the book seems to have been written from the perspective of utopianism in urban design, with Walt as a kind of Bizarro-world Jane Jacobs. This is a subject that's always fascinated me -- the idea of a top-to-bottom Disney-mediated utopian community. There was a generation of Americna entrepreneurs who dreamed of these things -- Ford reportedly built planned communities in Brazil called "Fordlandia" where he subjected his rubber-plantation workers to his utopian vision (which included the banning of the local booze in favor of Tom Collinses, which were inherently Utopian in Ford's eyes).

"Mannheim does a remarkable job in detailing the Disney's revolutionary urban planning contributions that shape most of the modern world."
Edward J. Blakely, Dean, Milano Graduate School of Management and Urban Policy, New School University, New York, USA

"The book is the first to reveal Walt Disney's deep personal concern for the urban "crisis" of the time..."
Gerald Gast, Associate Professor, Portland Urban Architecture Program, The University of Oregon

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:53:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eat your spectrum: Clearchannel, the restaurant

Following recent moves by ESPN and Fox Sports to add their names to restaurant chains, media behemoth Clear Channel Communications is licensing Minnesota's largest sports radio station to launch "KFAN the Restaurant." I'll have one order of monopoly meatloaf, some free speech fries, a Commons cupcake, and a side of public airwaves, julienned.

Opening in Roseville, Minn., near St. Paul, by early December, the restaurant will be the first of what may become many tied to Clear Channel properties throughout the United States, including New York City. The Minnesota restaurant is meant to piggyback on the power and reach of Clear Channel properties. In addition to 60 plasma-screen televisions, banquet space and private "skyboxes," it will offer patrons sports and music programming from Clear Channel's seven area radio stations.

In exchange, Clear Channel will receive 5 percent of the restaurant's sales, sales that are forecast to reach $10 million in the first year, said Ken Plunkett, the chief executive at Grand Management in St. Paul, which is opening the restaurant. Clear Channel has agreed to return half of that 5 percent in the form of advertising time.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:48:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, September 28, 2003

Collaborative ToorCon notes

Alexander "al3x" Payne, Chris Adams and Christian Woodward took great collaborative notes at ToorCon using SubEthaEdit, a Rendezvous-enabled text-editor for OS X.

a. Introduction to Root-Fu
 - What is a hacker?
  + Deep knowledge: finding/writing exploits, breaking in, fixing, alluding capture
  + Classical hacking: physical security, dumpster diving, social engineering, phreaking
 - What is a hacker contest?
  + The problem: how do you test a hacker's mettle in 2-3 days?
  + Limiting script kiddy BS
  + Finding/developing sploits
   = Coming in with predefined sploits doesn't make a good contest; DIY sploit dev
  + Teamwork
   = Range of skills required to own modern, complex systems
  + Integration of classical hacking
   = Physical, espionage, information gathering
  + Challenge of scoring
  + Fast-paced game

Day One Link, Day Two Link (via Al3x)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:16:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fanimatrix: stunning Matrix fan-film

I'm at the ToorCon infosec after-party at DachB0den labs, and they've just screened a stunning Matrix fan-film called The Fanimatrix, which had a roomful of hackers enraptured.

"The Fanimatrix" is a fan-made, zero-budget short film set within the Matrix universe, specifically shortly before the discovery of "The One" (i.e. the first "Matrix" feature film). It tells the story of two rebels - Dante and Medusa - and of their fateful mission onto the virtual reality prison world that is The Matrix.

The film was shot on the Sony Mini-Digital Video format and edited on a PC editing suite utilizing Adobe Premiere, After FX and AlamDV Special FX. The entire production was completed over nine nights, ranging from six to over fifteen hour shoots, not including rehearsal and blocking-tape-shooting sessions. Most of the props, sets and lighting equipment was borrowed and locations were either hired or shot guerilla style. Although the film was a "zero budget" production, the final cost of the movie (combining personal expenses of cast and crew such as investment into costumes, transport costs, food etc) has reached upto approximately $1000 NZ (or $400-$600 US). The movie was shot entirely within Auckland City, New Zealand (our home).

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:39:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Greatest living writer" Neal Pollack launches punk rock tour

Neal Pollack -- blogger, author, chutzpah-filled media prankster, and Suicide Girl -- tops even the zaniest of his previous stunts by embarking on a nationwide book/rock tour to pimp his latest literary and musical releases:

Now I'm going on the road, thanks largely to the generous donations I received from readers of this website, and I won't disappoint. Yes, I'm out to sell and promote my groundbreaking rock novel, Never Mind The Pollacks, currently the 66,410th most popular book in the country, and the accompanying soundtrack from my band, The Neal Pollack Invasion. Reviews of both can be found here. So, yes, I'm selling, because I'm the Willy Loman of literature. Attention must be paid. But I have other purposes as well.

Link. Tour starts today. Don't miss that soundtrack, which includes the timeless ballad "I Wipe My Ass on Your Novel."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:59:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: The sound of music

lo-fi mixtape
audio vhs
disco
techno
rave slave
records
cassettes
cover versions
critic
emogame

web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:45:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New tech tools change definitions of comas, consciousness

New York Times story about technologies for studying human consciousness -- and the impact of new research on both medical ethics and practical policy. Recently, one group of neurology researchers proposed a new definition, "the minimally conscious state." With it, they point to the possibility that many coma victims who've been diagnosed as vegetative might in fact have mental activity that was previously undetectable.

As the tape of his sister's voice played, several distinct clusters of neurons in Rios's brain had fired in a manner virtually identical to that of a healthy subject. Some clusters that became active were those known to help process spoken language, others to recall memories. Was Rios recognizing his sister's voice, remembering her? ''You couldn't tell the difference between these parts of his brain and the brain of one of my graduate students,'' says Hirsch, an expert in brain imaging at Columbia University. Even the visual centers of Rios's brain had come alive, despite the fact that his eyes were covered. It was as if his sister's words awakened his mind's eye.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:41:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

P2P United plans announcements tomorrow

The recently-formed Peer-to-Peer filesharing trade association "P2P United", together with CxOs of larger P2P software developers, are expected to announce tomorrow the adoption of a "File-Sharing Industry Code of Conduct" at a gathering in Washington, DC. They're also expected to demand Congressional action to work out differences between the file-sharing public and the recording/film industries, and to halt the RIAA lawsuits. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:32:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Two new Lisa Rein songs online

Lisa Rein has posted two more of her original songs to her site: Hiding and It's Alright. Both very good, both under a Creative Commons license. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:24:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Internet's builders and vandals

In his current Sunday column, Dan Gillmor's written a very good piece on the good guys and bad guys of the Internet, and the ways in which the Internet constitutes a microcosm of the forces of constructivism and vandalism:

But pure malevolence fills some souls, and the Internet is their toxic playground. One creep found a security flaw in the software powering the site and exploited it. This person posted programming code inside a comment form -- some HTML that took users to an unaffiliated Web page containing one of the most disgusting photographs I've ever seen.

The site came down temporarily but quickly, thanks to users who alerted us. The offending post has been removed, thanks to a sharp-eyed programmer who let us know what had happened. The hole is being permanently repaired, thanks to the free software's developer, who hadn't foreseen this misuse.

We'd surely seen the downside of the Net. But in the response of people who helped us find, analyze and fix the problem, we'd also seen the profound upside.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:46:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Oxford geneticist says males are doomed to extinction

Bryan Sykes, a professor of human genetics at Oxford University, says that because the Y chromosome doesn't mix with other genes, and is therefore unable to heal itself from genetic wounds, men will eventually become extinct.

Seven percent of men are infertile or sub-fertile and in roughly a quarter of cases the problem is traceable to new Y chromosome mutations, not present in their fathers, which disable one or other of the few remaining genes. This is an astonishingly high figure, and there is no reason to think things will improve in the future -- quite the reverse in fact. One by one, Y chromosomes will disappear, eliminated by the relentless onslaught of irreparable mutation, until only one is left. When that chromosome finally succumbs, men will become extinct.

Brian Carnell says: "a recent study demonstrated that the Y chromosome does have the ability to repair genetic damage to itself through a rather unique method." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:49:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, September 27, 2003

Volumetric video rendering: time is the third dimension

Video can be thought of as having three dimensions -- length, width and time. When you envision video with the third dimension transposed into depth, you get a volumentric picture of a moving image. Dan Kaminsky, a packet-obsessed crypto guy, has been monkeying with volumetric ways of visualizing the randomness -- the entropy -- in sets, and along the way, he's started visualizing other kinds of information. This is (some of) the output. By the way, volumetric visualization of code turns out to look like latticework, in proof of William Gibson's prescience. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:22:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ToorCon photos

I'm posting my photos the ToorCon infosec conference to a gallery linked below. Pictured here, Pablos and the Hackerbot, a WiFi-sniffing, password cracking sarcastic robot that hunts down WiFi users and shows their their passwords on a screen. I'll be updating the photos once or twice more over the weekend, so check back later. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:54:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Feds snooping on Scotch distilleries for fear of chemical weapons conversions

US Intelligence is closely monitoring Scotch whisky distilleries on the off-chance that they will be converted to chemical weapons factories.

For it has been revealed that Ursula, a spy with the US Defence Threat Reduction Agency - "Our mission to safeguard the US and its allies from weapons of mass destruction" - has been monitoring the island distillery.

Apparently, it takes just a "tweak" - her words - in the process of making whisky and Bruichladdich could be churning out chemical weapons.

Link (Thanks, Will!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:50:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TCP over bongo-drum

Students at Algoma University have implemented a TCP transmission over bongo-drums.

Eight weeks later, the first public demonstration was given to the class by using a simple ping packet. With a blinding 2bps speed, the class sat patiently as the packet was received in roughly 140 seconds.

Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:44:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Schneier's keynote at ToorCon

Here is my impressionistic transcript of Bruce Schneier's keynote, "Following the Money, or Why Security has so Little to do with Security" from the ToorCon infosec conference in San Diego.

* We want to get the most security for the least trade-off

* Determine the acceptable risk-level

* Figure out the trade-offs

THE BEST WAY TO DO THIS IS TO MAKE THE PERSON WHO CAN FIX THE PROBLEM ON THE HOOK FOR FIXING THE PROBLEM.

We have no choice but to accept some residual risk. "No terrorism is acceptable" in nonsense: there IS an amount of rat-droppings that are acceptable in your breakfast cereal. Some risk is inherent in everything. We've decided that 40k auto deaths/year is OK. In the end, there's an amt of danger that we are willing to accept.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:16:32 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cringely's keynote at ToorCon

Here is my impressionistic transcript of Robert Cringley's keynote, "I Have Seen the Future and We Are It: The Past, Present and Future of Information Security" from the ToorCon infosec conference in San Diego.

I built, by hand, the first 25 Apple ][s, worked on the Lisa's GUI. I invented the Trashcan Icon.

I had spent the summer of 1979 working for the Fed, debugging 3-Mile Island (I'd been a physicist). Then I wrote a book about it on a 300-baud modem terminal connected to an IBM mainframe using a line-editor. I hit the wrong key one night and trashed 70K words. Hell, Lawrence of Arabia lost a handwritten ms for a 350k-word manuscript.

When I went to work on the Lisa, I was determined that deleting a file would be a two-step process. On some systems, the trashcan bulges (defies physics); on others, the lid goes off (defies my mother). In my version, a fly circled the trashcan. The focus groups thought it was fuckin' awesome. But by turning off the fly, the computer could be made to run twice as fast. They fired me.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:16:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Haunted Mansion book really doesn't suck!

Earlier this month, I predicted that a new book called The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies would suck -- it was packaged for 9-12 year-olds, and I thought it would likely be a brochure disguised as a book, targetted at kids.

I was so wrong. This is a really loving, thorough, adult history of the Haunted Mansion, an appredciation by someone who is clearly a dedicated fan of the ride and who has spent an enviable amount of time talking to some of the principals involved and digging through the Disney archives (the archival material reproduced in the book is stunning, and includes a lot of stuff that I've never seen in a lifetime of Mansion fandom). I'm enjoying the hell out of it. I take it all back. This does not suck. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:40:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

BeardCon comes to the US

The World Beard and Moustache Championships are coming to Carson City, Nevada on Nov 1 -- this'll be the first BeardCon on US soil in over a decade! Maybe the first EVAR! Link (via Geisha Asobi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:34:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Doug Rushkoff's new book available as PDF

Douglas Rushkoff's new book, Open Source Democracy, was commissioned by Demos, "an independent UK think tank with a strong interest in democratic renewal and emergent political systems. We think that Douglas Rushkoff is one of the most interesting thinkers on the new forms of social interaction that have grown up around the internet. And, as he argues in his new book, these networked, decentralised forms of communication have a lot to tell us about political organisation." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:51:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, September 26, 2003

India to ban cover-versions of music

Universal Music Group is pressuring the Indian Parliament to revise Indian copyright to make cover versions (without permission) illegal:

[...W]hen the soundtrack to a new film is released (by far the most popular genre of music in India), the demand for it is immense and the record labels have virtual carte blanche to sell it at any price they wish. However, starting in the 1970s and 80s, enterprising music distributors released cheap cover versions of popular songs (some of which were not covers but outright pirate versions) and significantly expanded the existing market by making music accessible to people who could never afford it before.

In this lobbying campaign, the music industry has also not hesitated to make some rather far-out arguments which tend to appeal to the religious right (which dominates the multi-party ruling coalition in India). These are along the lines of how song remixes are evil and mixing "pure" Indian music with music from other cultures is distasteful and further evidence of how our culture is polluted by American music, etc.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:47:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Google File System paper

Three of Google's scientists have written a paper on the Google File System, the file-system custom-designed for Google's server-farm.

First, component failures are the norm rather than the exception. The file system consists of hundreds or even thousands of storage machines built from inexpensive commodity parts and is accessed by a comparable number of client machines. The quantity and quality of the components virtually guarantee that some are not functional at any given time and some will not recover from their current failures. We have seen problems caused by application bugs, operating system bugs, human errors, and the failures of disks, memory, connectors, networking, and power supplies. Therefore, constant monitoring, error detection, fault tolerance, and automatic recovery must be integral to the system.

272K PDF Link (via Hack the Planet)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:45:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fox News posts home phone for CNN's Tucker Carlson on web site

CNN's Tucker Carlson says he was besieged by angry and threatening phone calls last night, when unknown persons at rival network Faux Fox posted his home telephone number on foxnews.com:

Carlson, who hosts CNN's "Crossfire," said on Friday that earlier in the week he jokingly announced what he claimed was his telephone number during an episode of his show, which he co-hosts with Democratic strategists Paul Begala and James Carville, along with conservative columnist Robert Novak. In fact, the number Carlson gave out connected callers to a switchboard at Fox News.

According to Carlson, an unknown person or persons at Fox retaliated by posting Carlson's actual home telephone number on the Fox Web site. Carlson said hundreds of angry phone calls were made to his home, including threatening calls. Carlson's wife and four young children were at home at the time the calls were made. Carlson and Carville on Friday excoriated Fox for the reverse prank, which Carville said "scared young children to death," unnecessarily.

Link to Boston Globe story, Link to FOX News story which previously listed Carlson's home number and has since been altered to list CNN's Washington bureau number instead. (note: if you search for the story name in Google, Carlson's home phone still shows up as the story title for this item).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:18:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

@Stake employee fired after criticizing MSFT: Download the report

An @Stake employee has been fired from his gig at the security company after co-authoring a report that was critical of Microsoft. His company does a lot of business with Microsoft. A lot of people are drawing the obvious inference. Dan Gillmor is urging his readers to download and link to the report in question: 879 PDF Link (via Dan Gillmor)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:13:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Electronic voting machines: WE WON!

Remember last week when EFF asked IEEE members to write to their organization to get it to rein in a broken standards process that was threatening to unleash corruptable voting-machines onto unsuspecting democracies?

Well, we won! After all the hue and cry over the problems with the proposed standard, the committee has voted no-confidence in the proposal, sending electronic voting-machines back to the drawing board.

This is pretty cool -- chalk one up for the Internet, and for democracy. Thanks, folks.

The IEEE standard will now go back to its drafting committee, Project 1583, which holds its next meeting in Austin, Texas, in October. Once finalized, the U.S. and other governments worldwide will likely adopt the IEEE electronic voting standard, since IEEE sits on a technical advisory board established by the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA).

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:08:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Philandering Fillipino Feds snitched out by SMS

Filipinos are being encouraged to send SMSes to a special snitch-line if they spot electred officials treating their mistresses on the public nickel.

"Report-a-mistress is not an attack against mistresses," said Congress representative Kim Lokin.

"We are just looking here at the corruption aspect," Ms Lokin told a local radio station.

"It is not right for an official to use public funds to sustain his questionable lifestyle."

Link (via Smart Mobs)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:04:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Truck with a LOT of corn

Amazing photo of a Somali truck laden with a really large amount of corn. Link (via Kottke)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:01:55 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Digital jewelry

In Q104, Nokia plans to release a line of digital jewelry that features a little screen for displaying photos you upload via infrared (by phonecam or PDA). The device allows you to store and display up to eight different images. Bev, who pointed us to this item, imagines aloud, "I won't wear a photo of someone's face around my neck but i'd wear pictures of patterns or something that can act like a jewel."

Feature list, from the Nokia website: "Wearable steel-framed display; Choker in two styles: steel chain or matte rubber; You choose the images; One touch reveals a timepiece; Color screen: 4096 colors, 96 x 96 pixels; Controls to browse and delete images."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:54:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flask-shaped PDA

The Bar Master is a $30, flask-shaped PDA that stores drinks-recipes. Link (via Atrios)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:19:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Talk Like Bill O'Reilly Day -- Shut up!

Atrios has adopted "Talk Like Bill O'Reilly Day" on his blog. Looks more bilious than "Talk Like a Pirate Day," but possibly also more spleenfully fun. Shut up!

It's this kind of talk that's getting our troops killed. I may have to make an exception to my unwavering opposition to the death penalty just for you.

Link (via Electrolite)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:15:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Queer As Folk meets Dr Who

The creator of Queer As Folk is writing a new Dr Who TV series for BBC.

Although Davies says he wants to "introduce the character to a modern audience", Lorraine Heggessey, the controller of BBC1, insisted yesterday that she did not expect a gay Doctor Who.

Link (via NTK)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:35:13 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Joel on Software's Bionic Office

Joel of Joel-on-Software has just finished custom-building the new offices for his software company. Being a coder himself, he set out to design a non-cube-farm office, optimized for actually coding in.

1. Private offices with doors that close were absolutely required and not open to negotiation.

2. Programmers need lots of power outlets. They should be able to plug new gizmos in at desk height without crawling on the floor.

3. We need to be able to rewire any data lines (phone, LAN, cable TV, alarms, etc.) easily without opening any walls, ever.

4. It should be possible to do pair programming.

5. When you're working with a monitor all day, you need to rest your eyes by looking at something far away, so monitors should not be up against walls.

Link (Thanks, Zed!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:24:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Funnybook ads

Amazing gallery of vintage funnybook ads. Link (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:08:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Librarians to P2P critics: Shhh!

Via Declan McCullagh's politech:

In a hotly contested lawsuit before a federal appeals court, two peer-to-peer companies are about to gain a vast army of allies: America's librarians.

The five major U.S. library associations are planning to file a legal brief Friday siding with Streamcast Networks and Grokster in the California suit, brought by the major record labels and Hollywood studios. The development could complicate the Recording Industry Association of America's efforts to portray file-swapping services as rife with spam and illegal pornography.

Link to CNET story

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

Clueless/hilarious soundbite of zen

From the German Phonographic Industry chairman, via NY Times story "U.S. Is Only the Tip of Pirated Music Iceberg," emphasis added:

Music executives abroad are scrutinizing the American industry's legal campaign against people who share files on the Internet. But many doubt such tactics would work in their countries, given the relative weakness of laws protecting copyrights and the ubiquity of the activity. "People in their 60's are burning CD's at home," said Gerd Gebhardt, the chairman of the German Phonographic Industry Association. "Housewives, who should be cooking, are burning. It's not like we can go after 80-year-old men or 12-year-old kids. We have to find the right approach."

Link (via pho, Thanks, JP)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:46:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, September 25, 2003

Railgun weblog

Cool weblog about a high voltage homebrew railgun, which shoots metal projectiles over 300 MPH. Link (Thanks, Howard!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:48:59 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Weekends mess up weather

The weather is weird on the weekends -- turns out that our collective going-to-work Monday-to-Fridayism actually messes up the weather in real time. Chances are, it's the differntial in aerosol use from day to day. (Thanks, Andy)

Because weekly cycles are rarely if ever found in nature, the observed fluctuations must therefore be anthropogenic in origin, the researchers write. In particular, they propose that cloud changes associated with aerosol particles in the atmosphere could be causing the weekend effect, though other pollution processes cannot be ruled out at this time.

Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:53:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bush's heavy-weather FUD is whistle-blown by EPA leak

Stefan sez, "The fossil fuel industry and their ideological brown-nosers have done a great job of spreading FUD about Global Warming. This leaked internal EPA memo details the Bush Administration's own contribution to the effort." This is a disheartening and enraging document. 672k PDF Link (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:36:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

A kids' musician who rejects the labels

Gene sez, "Sara Hickman, an award-winning singer-songwriter, has thrown off the shackles of record companies and their ilk to self-produce her music, both for adults and children. This week she released her third self-produced children's album, 'Big Kid,' and her new weblog provides her with an outlet for exchange with her fans and friends -- I can only hope that the combination of the net, blogs, and the artists who take a chance can finally put an end to the ridiculous practices of the recording industry, and give us all much better music!" Link (Thanks, Gene)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:16:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Speaking at ToorCon in San Diego this Sunday

A reminder: I'm going to be giving a talk on security and copyright at the ToorCon InfoSec conference in San Diego this Sunday at 11AM:

Security begins with asking the right question. Asking "how can we keep sharps off airplanes" leads to confiscation of nail-scissors; while asking "how can we keep terrorists from overpowering pilots" leads to reinforced cockpit doors. It's all in the question.

The copyright wars should be asking questions like, "How can we compensate artists?" and "How can we preserve the largest library the world has ever seen?" and "How can we promote Constitutional values like anonymity, due process, and free speech?" Instead, the copyright debate has been hijacked by people who seem to be asking questions like, "How can we alienate 60,000,000 American file-traders?" and "How can we destroy the American legal system with badly conceived laws, suits and lobbying?"

There are better questions -- and better answers.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:10:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Marc Cuban buys Landmark Theatres, nation's largest art-house chain

Digital media evangelist Mark Cuban -- the serial entrepreneur behind Broadcast.com (sold to Yahoo!), HDNet, and owner of the Dallas Mavericks -- just bought Landmark Theatres. Cuban and longtime business partner Todd Wagner purchased the chain for an undisclosed sum, and say digital projection systems will eventually be introduced in an effort to influence every aspect of filmmaking, from production to display.

They already have their own film production company, called 2929 Entertainment, and they own part of Lion's Gate, a film production and distribution company, as well as Magnolia Pictures, an art-house movie company. About 18 months ago they bought Rysher Entertainment, which owns a library of TV shows and movies.

Now, with their own movie theaters, "We somewhat control our own destiny," said Wagner in an interview yesterday. "The ultimate goal is to attract more and more filmmakers. If they work with us and we commit to a project, they already know that (their movie) is going to get a certain amount of distribution right out of the box."

Link to Seattle Times story, Link to press release. UPDATE: And in a post to the pho list today, Cuban says: "We are going to be vertically integrated with our other companies....and not play by the rules."

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:02:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ACLU launches JetBlue FOIA/Privacy Act request Web form

Wondering if your personal information might have been part of the recent JetBlue privacy breach? The ACLU has launched a Web page where you can file a FOIA/Privacy Act request to find out if the government may be holding your information.

The Web page allows individuals who flew with JetBlue before September of 2002 (when the airline turned over its data to the government) to generate an official request under the Privacy Act of 1974 and the Freedom of Information Act for any data held about them in connection with JetBlue by the Department of Defense (DoD), the Army, and the Transportation Security Administration (TSA).

"After I realized that I personally flew JetBlue during the period in question, I decided to file a personal Privacy Act request for my files," said [Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program]. "Then it occurred to us that people who aren't ACLU lawyers should have an easy way to submit their own requests for their files. So we set up this page so that anyone can exercise their legal right to access files about them being held by the government."

Link (via politech)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:43:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scientists make 10 optical discs from a corncob

The world's first eco-friendly optical discs made from corn will become available to consumers by December of this year, say Sanyo researchers who claim to have found a way to create 10 high quality compact discs from a single corncob. This is no big deal. Squirrels manufactured the laptop I'm blogging from with nothing but a handful of discarded acorn hulls. Link (thanks, Mark!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:25:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WKRP in Cincinnati redacted to save on license fees

Zed sez, "WKRP in Cincinnati (which was shot on video instead of film because RIAA's ASCAP's licensing fees were more favorable for programs on video) has, in syndication, had all the original music replaced with generic music because the RIAA's ASCAP's license fees to keep the music were outrageous. Other shows in which music plays an important role never see syndication for that reason. So instead of getting some money, they succeed in getting no money." Link (Thanks, Zed!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:43:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Free Monopoly money PDFs

Hasbro has released high-rez, printable PDFs of Monopoly money. Great stuff, especially if you're playing a Cheapass Game that needs currency-tokens. Link (Thanks, Zed!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:40:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Intel's "One Unwired Day" is today

In case you missed the blanket ad campaign: today, Intel is offering free Wi-Fi access for one day only at participating locations, like Borders & Starbucks. Link (Thanks, Chris)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:37:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Urban vehicle camouflage

From Kevin Kelly's Recomendo e-zine:

My Jeep is camouflaged to look like a commercial fleet vehicle. I made up a fake company name, appropriated a 1950s-era logo that once belonged to a nuclear energy mutual fund, painted safety stripes on the back, and plastered a fake vehicle number all over the place. I also added flashing yellow lights in the rear window, and a police-style spotlight and rubberized push bumper to the front. VERY FUN accessories ... and useful too (when used with discretion). The spotlight is incredibly versatile -- you can point/rotate it while sitting in the driver's seat -- and it's come in handy countless times for roadside emergencies, setting up campsites, or finding house numbers on dark streets. This urban camouflage guise is very useful for parking in yellow zones, urban/industrial exploration, and crime deterrence. And the thing is... it really works!

The spotlight, bumper, and rear flashers came from my *all-time favorite* mail order catalog: Galls, "The Authority in Public Safety Equipment and Apparel." It's a gold mine, full of handy things that you didn't think you were allowed to buy.-- Todd Lapin

Galls catalog, The Unity spotlight, The Federal Signal flashers, Unruly crowds? Need riot gear? Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:41:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boston Phoenix on downloading wars: The Empire strikes back

Ted Drozdowski's story in today's Boston Phoenix on efforts by the five major record labels to stamp out free filesharing. I was interviewed for the piece, but thankfully so were a number of more intelligent people.

"What we’re seeing right now is really exciting in terms of inventiveness," says [Mike] Dreese [co-founder and CEO of the Newbury Comics retail chain]. "Just think of how far we’ve come since the advent of recording in how we listen to music. Now it’s a matter of the law and certain legal rights catching up with technology. We’re living in an accelerated world, so what we’re experiencing now with the lawsuits, some universities considering a student fee for downloading music, and other possible solutions might have taken much more time. After all, it took something like 40 years of litigation to get the music on radio licensed. Now, within the span of about five years, we’re going to have a completely new technology and possibly new laws in place for an industry. That’s remarkable."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:27:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amazing Masonic watch

I want this. Badly. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:08:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIAA sues grandmother for downloading Snoop Dogg

New York Times story on the odd tale of 66-year-old sculptor and retired schoolteacher Sarah Ward, who received notice she was being sued by the RIAA (the case has since been dropped, but the RIAA reserves the right to sue again):

Mrs. Ward was deeply confused by the accusations, which have disrupted her gentle life in the suburbs of Boston. She does not trade music, she says, does not have any younger music-loving relatives living with her, and does not use her computer for much more than sending e-mail and checking the tides. Even then, her husband does the typing. "I'm a very much dyslexic person who has not actually engaged using the computer as a tool yet," she explained in her first interview about the case. (...)

In a number of the 261 lawsuits the industry has filed so far, members of the household other than the named defendant might have had access to the machines, she said. But some of those being sued, she added, are contending that their cases are purely ones of mistaken identity.

That is exactly what Mrs. Ward says happened to her. Not only does nobody else use her computer in more than a passing way, the computer, an Apple Macintosh, is not even capable of running the KaZaA file-swapping program. And though the lawsuit against her said that she was heavily into the works of hip-hop artists like Snoop Dogg, Ms. Ward says her musical tastes run to Celtic and folk.

Link to NYT story (registration required) (thanks, SupeMatt!), Link to SFGate story (Thanks, Johnny!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:55:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Domain registrar GoDaddy emails customers about Verisign

BoingBoing reader Chris says, "Just got an email from GoDaddy as part of their quasi-spam/email alerts. They are going to sue verisign over the dns wildcarding." Here's a snip from the GoDaddy email Chris and other customers received:

Have you ever needed to ask for directions while you were driving? Let's say you stopped to ask a trusted authority, like a police officer. You'd expect that officer to be honest, right? Wouldn't you expect him or her to provide you a safe, direct route to where you needed to go? I sure would. But what if that officer instead misdirected you to a shopping mall? A shopping mall, it turns out, that actually paid the officer for every sale that resulted? That would be an abuse of the police officer's authority. It would be capitalizing on your misfortune.

We believe that's what VeriSign is doing with its "Site Finder" marketing scheme. We believe that it is once again abusing the power to oversee all .com and .net domains it was granted by the U.S. government.

Link to GoDaddy pdf press release on the SiteFinder lawsuit.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:50:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wal-Mart facing biggest lawsuit ever

Wal-Mart is facing a potential class-action suit on behalf of 1.6 million female employees and ex-employees, who have always been paid less than their male counterparts.

One lawyer for the firm said it would seek testimony from 4,000 store managers in a class-action case, resulting in a trial that would last 13 years.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:47:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, September 24, 2003

Her: great webcomic

Stefan sez, "Oh, wow: 'Her!' is a delightfully nasty, minimalist web comic about a little girl, a pig, and various walk-ons." Link (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:30:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Early review of Haunted Mansion movie

Ain't-it-Cool News has an early review of the Haunted Mansion movie:

The bad thing about this film is that it never really wants to scare you too much. When you are a kid and you go on The Haunted Mansion for the first time it scares the shit outta you! Waiting in line, standing in that sinking elevator, checking for exits, your heart beating fast, hands sweaty-I wanted that feeling when I saw this movie! Sure you get a few jumps, a few scary looking skeletons but that is pretty much it...

The music was great, assuming we heard the soundtrack that will be in the finished film. The FX although some unfinished were tight. Rick Baker's make up was sweet as always. And the cinematogaphy was great too. Interesting lighting, clean shots, taking great advantage of 2:35.

Link

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

Michael Moore's comprehensive response to criticisms of Bowling for Columbine

Michael Moore has written a thorough response to the critics of his disheaterning, enraging film about American life, Bowling for Columbine, called "How to Deal with the Lies and the Lying Liars When They Lie about 'Bowling for Columbine.'" He promises to keep this page updated with responses to all his attackers, so, "if you hear something about me that doesn't sound quite right, check in here."

When you see me going in to the bank and walking out with my new gun in "Bowling for Columbine" – that is exactly as it happened. Nothing was done out of the ordinary other than to phone ahead and ask permission to let me bring a camera in to film me opening up my account. I walked into that bank in northern Michigan for the first time ever on that day in June 2001, and, with cameras rolling, gave the bank teller $1,000 – and opened up a 20-year CD account. After you see me filling out the required federal forms ("How do you spell Caucasian?") – which I am filling out here for the first time – the bank manager faxed it to the bank's main office for them to do the background check. The bank is a licensed federal arms dealer and thus can have guns on the premises and do the instant background checks (the ATF's Federal Firearms database—which includes all federally approved gun dealers—lists North Country Bank with Federal Firearms License #4-38-153-01-5C-39922).

Within 10 minutes, the "OK" came through from the firearms background check agency and, 5 minutes later, just as you see it in the film, they handed me a Weatherby Mark V Magnum rifle (If you'd like to see the outtakes, click here).

And it is that very gun that I still own to this day. I have decided the best thing to do with this gun is to melt it down into a bust of John Ashcroft and auction it off on E-Bay (more details on that later). All the proceeds will go to The Brady Campaign To Prevent Gun Violence to fight all these lying gun nuts who have attacked my film and make it possible on a daily basis for America's gun epidemic to rage on.

Link (via K5)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:17:41 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Makers of Kazaa sue record labels for copyright infringement

Yes, you read the subject line correctly.

Sharman Networks, the company behind the Kazaa file-sharing software, filed a federal lawsuit on Monday accusing the entertainment companies of using unauthorized versions of its software in their efforts to snoop out users.

Sharman said the companies used Kazaa Lite, an ad-less replica of its software, to get onto the network. The lawsuit also claims efforts to combat piracy on Kazaa violated terms for using the network. Entertainment companies have offered bogus versions of copyright works and sent online messages to users. Sharman's lawsuit also revives its previous allegation that the entertainment companies violated antitrust laws by stopping Sharman and its partner from distributing authorized copies of music and movies through Kazaa.

Link to AP story

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:20:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Calf-implants: not just for lederhosen anymore

A German company that makes "calf-implants" for stick-legged lederhosen-wearers to slip in their socks is branching out into Scotland, hoping to tap into the lucrative kilt-wearer market. Link (via Fark)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:19:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

ICANN invites emailed comments on Verisign SiteFinder

BoingBoing reader Hal says:

"I haven't seen this noted on Boing-Boing yet, and it seemed worth a mention. ICANN's Security and Stability Advisory Committee has released a memo titled Recommendations Regarding VeriSign's Introduction of Wild Card Response to Uninstantiated Domains within COM and NET. I don't know if reams of emails from annoyed geeks will do any good, but it can't hurt either." Snip:

To gather information on security and stability implications, we invite inputs from all interested parties. Send inputs to: secsac-comment@icann.org. Further, we will meet publicly in the Washington, D.C. area on October 7, 2003, for interested parties to present factual information relevant to the security and stability of the Internet. Details will be available shortly.

Details here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:15:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jason Calacanis launches Weblogs, Inc

Jason Calacanis, founder of Silicon Alley Reporter and Venture Reporter magazines, launched his new venture this morning. Weblogs, Inc is sort of a profit-based micropublishing system for niche, business-to-business blogs. Here's a snip from the company's manifesto.

Weblogs, Inc. is a B2B Web site dedicated to creating niche Weblogs (a.k.a. blogs) across niche industries in which user participation is an essential component of the resulting product. Weblogs, Inc. is creating a new layer on top of the traditional business-to-business media that:

* saves professionals the time associated with reading dozens of B2B publications by providing a non-stop, top-level summary of the news;
* provides analytical tools that allow users the ability to sort and search stories by subtopics inside B2B niches;
* gives users the ability to participate by engaging in discussions, ranking stories and by submitting their own “blogs” (i.e., pointers and summaries of stories on other sites); and
* promotes fairness and truth in reporting by acting as a public forum where industry professionals can participate.

Link (Disclaimer: I'm a former employee of the publishing company behind Silicon Alley Reporter/Venture Reporter/etc. )

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:07:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

CloudShield "improves" Internet by trapping it in telco amber

CloudShield is a company whose explicit mission is to break the end-to-end nature of the Internet by creating high-capaciity packet-filters that can allow the phone company to decide which of your bits are important and which ones are unimportant. So, for example, if you were a physicist who invented a new protocol called http and a new service that runs on top of it called the WWW, you wouldn't be able to deploy it until you'd gotten all the CloudSheild filters to recognize your new system. Boy, that sounds like a real improvement to the Internet as we know it.

The Internet will choke under its own success if intelligence continues to be relegated only to the edge of the network. The notion that networks should remain 'dumb' and simply perform transport is outdated. Deploying certain application functions closer to the network core, instead of solely at the edge, relieves pressure on downstream access devices and applications, and allows the network to be more efficient, manageable, resilient and secure. . . .

Link (via Isen.blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:29:05 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Language Removal project: stump-speeches without any words

The Language Removal project edits political speeches to remove all the words, leaving only the "uh"s "humm"s and "errr"s. They've got a page of California guberantorial hopefuls grunting and clicking -- it's cool, you can sort of make out their positions better this way. Link (via Futurismic)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:43:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Best micropayments rant I've seen

Lore "Brunching Shuttlecocks" Sjoberg has posted a freaking brilliant, bullshit-free rant about micropayments, charging for access to sites, and so forth:

ChargingPeople is far from the Web standard, even though it solves every single economic issue on the Web today, and several of the aesthetic ones. You make money instead of losing money. You make more money the more readers you have. You don't have to use invasive advertising or promote products you may not personally endorse. The only downside is that your readership shrinks to a fraction of its former glory.

ChargingPeople is especially suited to the independent Web artists out there. First off, only an employee-free operation can hope to make enough money from ChargingPeople to turn a profit right now. Secondly, the independent Web artists are the same ones who are going to write and draw stuff anyway. They've been making comics or writing stories since they were in grade school and they're not going to stop just because they're in QA now. So as long as you're making it, you may as well get what you can out of it.

Link (Thanks, eegba!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:41:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hammersley's Florentine travelogue

Ben Hammersley -- hacker, journo, gentleman adventurer -- has moved to Florence with his three high-strung doggies and his devastatingly tall, brilliant and beautiful Swedish wife, and is chronicling an adventure there right out of a (very funny) fairy tale.

Down at Marco's, my newly adopted cafe-for-the-evening, a habit is forming. Pico bounds in the arms of someone lovely, Mischa wanders into the bar and receives pizza crust benediction, and Lucy stands outside and watches the passers-by, leaving me, leads taut in three directions, stretched in the doorway, balancing my caffè coretto on the icecream fridge, and trying to remember enough Latin roots to work out what people are talking to me about. It's really quite amazing how long you can keep a conversation going without understanding more than one word in ten. I had a long one yesterday afternoon about hare coursing in Argentina. I think. Still: lovely chap.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:17:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, September 23, 2003

Neal Stephenson launches a Wiki to explain his new novel

Inpsired by Quicksilver, his giant doorstop of a new novel, Neal Stephenson has put up a wiki where his readers can collaboratively annotate the ideas in the book:

My own view of the Metaweb is pretty straightforward: I don't think that the Internet, as it currently exists, does a very good job of explaining things to people. It is great for selling stuff, distributing news and dirty pictures, and a few other things. But when you need to get a good explanation of something, whether it is a scientific principle, a bit of gardening advice, or how to change a tire, you have to sift through a vast number of pages to find the one that gives you the explanation that is right for you. Generally this is not a problem with the explanations themselves. On the contrary, it seems as though a lot of people like to explain things on the Internet, and some of them are quite good at it. The problem lies in how these explanations are organized.

We have been looking for a way to get an explanation system seeded for a long time, and it occurred to us that a set of annotations to my book might be one way to get it started. At first, the explanations here will be strongly tied to characters and situations in QUICKSILVER and so may be of only limited interest to those who have not read the book. However, with a few clicks we might move on to more general explanations. For example, Robert Hooke and Robert Boyle appear as characters in QUICKSILVER, and so early on we might see annotations concerning specific things that they are shown doing in the book. But later these might link to explanations of Boyle's Law. Such an explanation need not refer to QUICKSILVER in any way, and so it could be useful to, say, a high school student who has never heard of me or my book but who needs to understand Boyle's Law and why it is important.

Link (Thanks, Jeremy!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:29:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Journos: a blogging survey for an academic paper

Henry Farrell, an astute blogger and cyber-politics prof from at the University of Toronto, is co-writing a paper on politics and blogging, and he's looking for answers to a simple survey from journalists, columnists, commentators, producers, or editors for newspapers, magazines, or television stations.

1) How many blogs do you read a day?

2) Please name the three blogs you read most frequently. [What if you read less than three? Then just name the ones you do read.]

3) Why do you read the blogs you read? In other words, what makes those blogs worth checking out on a regular basis?

4) Have you ever read something on a blog that affected your decision-making on what to air/publish? If the answer is yes, can you give an example?

5) How much influence do you think blogs have on political discourse? A lot, a little, or none at all?

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:41:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bruce Sterling's Flash app

Bruce Sterling has produced a piece of cranky and eerily beautiful Flash interactive art called "Embrace the Decay." Like Bruce, it is contrarian, challenging, gnomic, and thought-provoking. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:22:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Magnificent space-age illustration gallery

Dreams of Space is an enthusiastic and wonderful gallery of vintage space-related illustration from the 1890s to the 1970s, divided by era. Link (Thanks, Charles)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:39:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on NPR's "Day to Day": VeriSign SiteFinder scandal

On today's edition of the NPR program "Day to Day":

Dot-Com Administrator Sued for Alleged Unfair Practices: NPR's Mike Shuster talks with technology writer Xeni Jardin about a $100-million lawsuit against VeriSign, alleging the company engages in unfair business practices. The company was entrusted by the government to oversee all dot-com and dot-net addresses on the Internet -- but some of its competitors feel VeriSign is abusing its power.

Link to "Day to Day" home, listen to the archived show here .

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:09:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Non-genetic maggot speciation

Changes in aromatic preferences can cause "sympatric speciation" among maggots -- a form of speciation that is not really genetic (the two species can still interbreed), but rather circumstantial: genetic differences contained in each species causes it to behave in a way that ensures it will never get it on with the other species.

The apple and hawthorn maggots are common names for the same species, Rhagoletis pomonella . The pest and the hawthorn plant are native to North America, but the apples they now infest were introduced from Europe around 250 years ago. During the 1860s, in New York's Champlain Valley, some hawthorn flies shifted to apple plants as their host, while others did not."There are no morphological differences between the two, so they are still the same species, but two races can be distinguished by looking at the diversity of protein structures of whole populations and by the specificity of individual flies to different host plants," explained Roelofs, who is the Liberty Hyde Bailey Professor of Insect Biochemistry at Cornell.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:53:51 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Lisa Rein track online

Lisa Rein has released a new song online, under a Creative Commons license, called "Rain." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:20:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tell Congress: We want number portability!

We're fast closing in on the late November deadline for cellular companies and other telcos to offer number portability to their customers. The telcos have been dragging their heels on this for years, knowing that their businesses -- which have legnedarily poor customer satisfaction -- will be challenged to behave like real companies if their customers can switch and keep their phone numbers with them.

Now Congress is starting to waffle on the idea of number-portability -- big-money lobbyists have done their work and turned our elected representatives against us. Escape Cell Hell is the action-center fielded by Consumers Union (publishers of Consumer Reports) where you can write in and tell your Congresscritter not to sell out your interests to the twisted progeny of Ma Bell. Link (Thanks, Matt!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:54:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Daily Show on Briana Lahara's RIAA settlement

Lisa Rein has posted an amazing clip from the Daily Show, discussing the plea-bargain given to Briana Lahara, the 12-year-old honor student from a New York housing project, who paid the RIAA $2,000 in exchange for having downloading 1,000 songs, including "If You're Happy and You Know it Clap Your Hands" and a number of TV theme-songs. 7.5MB Quicktime Link (via On Lisa Rein's Radar)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:24:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

More US gyms are banning phonecams

As concerns about phonecam misbehavior grow, an increasing number of healthclubs in the US are banning mobile devices with embedded cameras:

So far, gym bans on camera phones have occurred mostly outside the Washington area. Celebrity-laden clubs in Los Angeles, including the Sports Club/LA, already have nixed camera phones.

Camera-equipped cell phones have been banned at all 300 clubs in the 24 Hour Fitness chain nationwide. Cameras are not allowed inside those clubs without written permission, and "the new camera-cell phone combinations are no exception to this rule," said spokeswoman Shannon May. The rule appears on signs posted in every club, she said. The chain operates no fitness centers in the District, Maryland or Virginia. But most local workout spots haven't gone quite that far -- at least not yet.

Link (Thanks, Craig!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:19:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, September 22, 2003

How to find out how often people are googling you

Glenn Fleishman has come up with a neat way to find out how often people are looking up his name on Google.

I figured out accidentally a neat trick to find out how often people are searching on your name or seeing pages on which your name is prominent in some fashion. Buy a set of Google AdWords with your name. I composed a goofy ad for my name.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 09:59:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New voting machines are criminally bad

Salon is running an astonishing interview with Bev Harris, the whistle-blower who broke the news that the computerized voting machines in use across America are not only insecure, but deliberately so, because insecure machines are easier for the techs from Diebold and other suppliers to "fix" when they have embarassing failures (of course, they're also easy for anyone else who wants to "fix" an election). Diebold hasn't denied that the leaked memos that Harris published are real -- rather, they've owned up to them and asserted a copyright on them, threatening her with a DMCA suit if she doesn't take them off the web.

Well, I don't believe you can protect intent to break the law by slapping a copyright on it. And the memos that we posted show that the law has been broken. If you can protect intent to break the law, all anybody would need to do is take their bank robbery plans and put a copyright on it, and then say nobody can look at them because they're copyrighted...

...[T]hey have been aware of these security flaws for years and they have chosen not to correct it. He says something to the effect of, find out what it will take to make this problem go away. [Referring to a voting equipment certifier, Clark tells a colleague to "find out what it is going to take to make them happy."] He says if you don't mention [a problem] you may "skate through" certification. And talking about doing "end runs" is not a good thing either.

And what's disturbing is the very same thing that these memos are talking about -- overwriting the audit log -- in the presentation in which they sold their machines to the state of Georgia they specifically bring up the audit log and say that no human can change it. This shows they made fraudulent claims, frankly.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:31:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

JetBlue won't help out with CAPPS II -- anymore. Unless they have to.

JetBlue, having been caught lying about its voluntary involvement with the testbed programs for CAPPS II (turning over 1,000,000+ customers' personal data over to a defense contractor in violation of its privacy policy), has had enough of playing ball with the unpatriotic feds who think the Constitution is less important than "fighting terrorists."

"(JetBlue) decided against further participation unless federally mandated due to concerns for customer privacy and the uncertainty of the final structure of CAPPS II," the airline said in a written statement.

Link (via EvHead)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:58:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Verisign's SiteFinder hijacks your privacy as well as your typos

Not only has Verisign betrayed their trust by hijacking all the .NET and .COM typos, they've also tossed out the privacy of every fumblefingered netizen by putting a web-bug on their SiteFinder page, so that anyone whose session is stolen by Verisign is thereafter marked with a tracker-cookie that is used to spy on you as you traverse the Web.

The query string of the URL contains the usual things such as the Web page URL, the referring URL, browser type, screen size, etc. This query string is built on the fly by about 50 lines of JavaScript embedded in the Verisign Web page.

The Omniture server sets a cookie so that people can be watched over time to see what typos they are making.

Link (via Dan Gillmor)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:41:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tai Chi boosts shingles immunity

Participation in daily Tai Chi practice by a controlled group of seniors boosted their immunity to shingles in a preliminary study.

The researchers randomly assigned the adults to tai chi chih instruction or to a waiting list. Those who received the tai chi chih training learned the standard series of 20 "meditation through movement" exercises from an instructor with 20 years' experience. Irwin and colleagues monitored immune levels by through a series of blood tests.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:20:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

USB keychain with a camera

Philips is shipping a $99, 64MB USB keychain with a built-in, no-driver 1.4 megapixel 640x480 camera. Link (Thanks, Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:12:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Technorati API grows

David Sifry is building out the API for his stellar Technorati blog-mining services. The new call is getinfo:

It tells you things that Technorati knows about a user. In the simplest case you can use getinfo to find out information that a blogger wants to make known about himself, along with some information that Technorati has calculated and verified about that person.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:17:41 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How to win friendsters and influence elections?

Arianna Huffington has a Friendster profile -- no, really, it's her. Excerpt from her profile, which reveals the fact that she's into Public Enemy. If nothing else, it's way more entertaining than Howard Dean's blog:

Favorite TV shows: Curb Your Enthusiasm, Real Time with Bill Maher, The West Wing, Da Ali G Show, Who Wants to Be Governor of California?

Favorite Movies: Hybrid vs. Hummer

About Me: Well, first off, I'm NOT a Fakester. I'm the leading independent candidate in the California recall election. My dream is to unite Californians behind a real vision for California - clean government, clean energy, schools not jails. Check out http://www.VoteArianna.com for more about my platform and to join my campaign to Take Back California. [Extra Note: I would love to add you as a friend, but I'm currently at Friendster's maximum friend limit of 500. Hopefully, I'll be able to add you soon.]

Who I Want to Meet: Arnold, in a debate...but it's not looking good.

Link to related CNET item on Friendster's recent VC funding here, in which her campaign officials are said to have confirmed its validity. UPDATE: Anil Dash says, "Arianna updates her weblog herself, too, in addition to having a Friendster profile. Of course, I'm biased towards her because she's on TypePad. :) "

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:14:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Library moblog for kids

BoingBoing pal Jean-Luc in Paris is at it again. He writes:

"This moblog experiment involved 10-13 y.o. children from the city library of Plessis-Trevise ; they are from a reading club and they exchange each month feelings about new books they are reading. The work is not finished, though. They're going to put add critiques on the book they have read and comments too... this will be THEIR moblog."

Link to library moblog, link to earlier BoingBoing post about Jean-Luc's phonecam projects involving kids in France.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:49:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Phonecam sales surpass digital cameras, worldwide

A milestone for consumer camera phones:

For the first time, global sales of camera-enabled mobile handsets surpassed sales of conventional digital cameras in the first half of 2003. According to results reported by Strategy Analytics, mobile phone makers shipped 25 million handsets with built-in cameras worldwide in the first half of the year. This number is compared with four million in the year-earlier period.

Link to news item, link to related story about SA report and growing use of phonecams

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:23:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, September 21, 2003

Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance.

Former US Senator Max Cleland, a Vietnam vet, has written an open letter to the current administration, who are eager to go to war, never having been, and sure that they will emerge victorious. The setup is very good, but it's nothing on the punchline:

The president has declared "major combat over" and sent a message to every terrorist, "Bring them on." As a result, he has lost more people in his war than his father did in his and there is no end in sight.

Military commanders are left with extended tours of duty for servicemen and women who were told long ago they were going home. We are keeping American forces on the ground, where they have become sitting ducks in a shooting gallery for every terrorist in the Middle East.

Welcome to Vietnam, Mr. President. Sorry you didn't go when you had the chance.

Link (via Electrolite)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:23:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pipe-fixing bots obviate road-work

New pipe-crawling robots in use in the UK can patch broken pipes from inside, without tearing up the streets:

First the bag is positioned at the point where damage has occurred and is inflated until it fits the pipe and irons out any dents.

Steam is then pumped in to glue the new lining to the walls of the pipe, which usually takes around two hours.

By using ultra-violet light to dry the glue this fix time has been cut to just 30 minutes.

Sharp objects or obstructions which cannot be removed with the bag are dealt with using remotely-operated high-pressure water jets.

Link (via Futurismic)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:23:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Graffiti history site, annotated

Teresa Nielsen Hayden has written a stunningly good tour of Subway Outlaws, a "rich, complex site about the work and history of NYC’s aerosol graffiti artists," filled with links to the highlights of the huge site. This is the kind of annotation that hypertext was made for, and is rarely used for.

The lifestyle was hard. Some writers were throwaways or runaways, living wherever they could. Almost all of them were out stealing paint, sneaking into subway yards and tunnels at all hours, and getting into fights with other writers over territory, real and imagined slights, and raids on each others’ paint supplies. They tell wild stories about escape attempts, successful and otherwise, when the police showed up. Although their joy was great when they saw a car they’d painted in use in the subway system, in effect a traveling billboard for their work, there was always a good chance that the cars they’d just gone to so much trouble to paint were going to immediately get hauled into maintenance and buffed straight down to the metal, so that no one would ever see what they did.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:22:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Latest MSFT "update" hands control of your box to others

Microsoft has issued an "update" to its operating systems that allow others to control what you may do with your computer, without your consent or ability to override. Called "Digital Rights Management," this is technology that requires backstopping from apocalyptically unconstitutional laws like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Microsoft is trying to get its users to opt-in to this, and over on Slashdot, the message boards are full of reasons not to.

Although it's not required or a 'critical' update, this just paves the road for all of Microsoft's software to require DRM technology on your computer. Quote from the details page: 'Installing this client allows RM-aware applications to work with Windows Rights Management Services (RMS) to provide licenses for publishing and consuming RM-protected information.' This, dubbed 'Activation', entails that 'your computer will be automatically connected via the Internet ... in order to create and save on your computer a system component that is associated with your hardware.' Hmmm... me no like ..."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:15:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Why we need smart fridges

We've all chuckled at the businesses that promised to deliver us a "smart refrigerator," but after discovering that his fridge died during a two-week road-trip, Dan Gillmor's figured out a pretty important business-case for one:

I won't be too graphic about it, but the food -- including yogurt and formerly frozen meat -- was decomposing in an especially pungent manner. Luckily, I hadn't eaten anything in many hours, if you get my drift.

The circuit is now repaired. The foul smell is more stubborn. (There's also a whole industry devoted to "odor control," I've discovered.)

In any event, the experience has convinced me that that the modern home should be more intelligent, and communicative, than it is today.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:42:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UK health spreads FUD on Atkins

The British government is busting out FUD over the Atkins diet, telling people it will make them fat and sick and that it's unsustainable. Of course, this is true, for people for whom it doesn't work. For people for whom it does work, it's a big, fat lie. And for some reason, opponents of low-carb diets can't distinguish between those two sentences.

'Cutting out starchy foods, or any food group, can be bad for your health because you could be missing out on a range of nutrients,' the statement says. 'This type of diet also tends to be unrealistic and dull, and not palatable enough to be tolerated for a long time.'

It adds: 'High-fat diets are also associated with obesity, which is increasing in the UK. People who are obese are more likely to develop conditions such as diabetes and some cancers. Low-carb diets tend to be high in fat, too, and eating a diet that is high in fat could increase your chances of developing coronary heart disease.'

Link (via Joi Ito)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:49:04 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dewey Decimal bullies go after theme hotel

The rights-holders to the Dewey Decimal System are suing some people who opened a Dewey-themed hotel in Manhattan where the rooms are decorated and appointed according to the subject that corresponds with their number.

Online Computer Library Center, a nonprofit organization based in this Columbus suburb, acquired the rights to Dewey Decimal in 1988 when it bought Forest Press...

The complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Columbus on Wednesday seeks triple the hotel's profits since its opening or triple the organization's damages, whichever is greater, from hotel owner Henry Kallan.

Link (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:45:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, September 20, 2003

Fed cop slams Verisign

Andrew Fried, a Senior Special Agent for the U.S. Treasury Department and Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has written a letter to the NANOG list today, praising the Bind people for writing a patch that un-does the damage that Verisign has wrought up the Internet with its brain-damaged SiteFinder "service." As Dan Moniz points out, it's pretty interesting that a big Fed cop like Fried is making this statment in public. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:48:17 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Haunted Mansion trailer

There's a new Haunted Mansion movie trailer online. Exciting! 28.1MB Quicktime Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:58:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Guy tries to live off suburban land for 80 days

Essay by a guy who lived off the land in the burbs near Santa Barbara.

I would wake up early, usually around six, and when I didn't already have food I would walk in the dawn to find something for a morning salad. These were quiet and relaxing times, when the rest of the college community was still sleeping, and it felt like I had the whole world to myself. My generous friend Ryan had two blocks away in his yard a huge Turkish fig tree that produced an exceptional bounty of the most heavenly fruits. The tree was about thirty feet tall, and I spent many hours in those branches, filling bags with ripe fruit or just stuffing myself. The tree's figs were as big as small apples, green outside and bright crimson inside, and the best were those so ripe that they had burst open. They had begun to ferment inside and tasted faintly of wine.

Link (Thanks, kk!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:20:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, September 19, 2003

IEEE members: save democracy from a broken standards-committee!

The IEEE, normally the sobersided epitome of integrity and accountability, has had one of its standards-committees jump the tracks. The people who are writing the IEEE standard for voting machines have been doing their best to rig their deliberative process ot exclude input from critics who want the standard to include performance metrics that will guard against electoral malfeasance. This is heavy stuff: the standard this committee produces will likely form the basis of the US goverment's voting-machine purchases (as well as those of governments abroad), and if there are holes in the standard today, they will be biting our democracies on the ass for decades. There's never been a clearer demonstration that "architecture is politics."

IEEE is better than this. If you're a member of the organization, please take a moment to read up on this disaster-in-the-making and then use the form at the EFF's action-center to write to the IEEE and ask them to investigate this -- before it's too late.

...instead of using this opportunity to create a performance standard, setting benchmarks for e-voting machines to meet with regards to testing the security, reliability, accessibility and accuracy of these machines, P1583 created a design standard, describing how electronic voting machines should be configured (and following the basic plans of most current electronic voting machines). Even more problematic, the standard fails to require or even recommend that voting machines be truly voter verified or verifiable, a security measure that has broad support within the computer security community.

To make matters worse, EFF has received reports of serious procedural problems with the P1538 and SCC 38 Committee processes, including shifting roadblocks placed in front of those who wish to participate and vote, and failure to follow basic procedural requirements.We've heard claims that the working group and committee leadership is largely controlled by representatives of the electronic voting machine vendor companies and others with vested interests.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:34:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pix from Wireless Park Lab Days

Bill sez, "I posted some photos I took this afternoon at City Hall Park in Manhattan. NYC Wireless sponsored their 'Wireless Park Lab Days,' to feature the free public hotspot that they provide there. Tomorrow at 1 pm, they'll be having their Noderunner contest." Link (Thanks, Bill!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:13:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ice-age river discovered 123' below Toronto

An ice-age river has been discovered running beneath Toronto:

The existence of a bedrock valley was first documented in the first half of the century, but its exact location remained largely unknown, said Steve Holysh, a hydrogeologist working on the project...

In tests done in August, researchers at the High Park site expected to hit bedrock at about 40 feet, but it wasn't until a depth of 123 feet that they hit the river system, technically known as an artesian aquifer. They hit bedrock at 145 feet.

Link (Thanks, Kevin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:08:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook If...

A truly wonderful bit of net-lore: "You Might Be An Anti-Spam Kook If..."

# you have discovered the Final Ultimate Solution to the Spam Problem (FUSSP).

# you are the first to think of the FUSSP.

# you started looking for the FUSSP after observing that it is impossible to filter more than 99% of spam with fewer than 0.1% false positives by currently available mechanisms.

# despite being the inventor of the FUSSP, you are unfamiliar with "false positive," "false negative," "UBE," "tarpit," "teergrube," "Brightmail," "Postini," "SpamAssassin," "DNS blacklist," "HELO," "RBL," or "mail envelope."

# you plan to make money by licensing the FUSSP.

# you don't plan to make a fortune from the FUSSP, but you do expect fame as its generous and public spirited netizen inventor.

# you are deeply hurt and angry because you are not respected as "spam fighter."

Link (Thanks, Jim!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:08:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Island Chronicles: The Pickup

Our new Island Chronicles dispatch is up at LA Weekly, called "The Pickup". Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:44:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stupid networks are still the best

David "Stupid Network" Isenberg has a new blog, and is cooking with it. He're's a nice debunking of the idea of price-discrimination in networks:

...service providers need to make their networks 'intelligent' so they can identify users and the applications used.

Just what I want -- a network that identifies the application I'm using!

I can imagine
*** ERROR 4XX: UNAPPROVED APPLICATION ***
*** PERMISSION TO USE NETWORK DENIED ***

Link (via JoHo the Blog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:47:57 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Time-Warner sues apartment over Wi-Fi, claiming "piracy"

Sue like a pirate day? CNET reports that Time Warner Cable is suing a NYC apartment complex and its Wi-Fi provider with illegally reselling Road Runner broadband over a wireless network. AFAIK, this would seem to be the first suit of its kind.

The suit, filed Monday in the Southern district of New York, claims that Internet service provider iNYC Wireless and London Terrace Towers, a residential apartment complex, have been illegally pirating and marketing Road Runner through a Wi-Fi network.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:59:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Talk Like A Pirate Day photo-moblog

For everything, there is a phonecamblog. Talk Like A Pirate Day -- today -- is no exception. Upload your snapshots of idiots people talking like a pirate for today's event. Post, ye scurvy curs! Link (Thanks, Caines)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:39:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

WIRED mag launches new e-mail newsletter on gadgets

Pete Rojas (of Gizmodo, etc) is a busy fella. He's about to start a new column for Wired News, and will be contributing to a new, free, weekly gadget email list with Wired Magazine. Both are sure to rock. Link to newsletter subscription form.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:53:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Provigil: Eastern Standard Tribe's drug-of-choice

A new "go pill" can keep you up and focused on boring tasks for 54 hours straight. It's being proposed for people who work swing-shifts -- the drug of choice for the Eastern Standard Tribe.

In 1998 the FDA approved Provigil to treat narcolepsy, but doctors prescribe it "off label" as a fatigue fighter for airline pilots, long-haul truckers, and medical residents. Users say the drug doesn't make them jittery the way caffeine does. One 200-milligram pill restores focus and alertness as effectively as three tall lattes and costs $5. And all the clinical data show that the drug has none of the addictive qualities of amphetamines like Dexedrine. Because Provigil has fewer side effects than Ritalin, it's even being prescribed to some children with attention-deficit disorder.

Link (Thanks, Howard)

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

Play Tele-Twister at noon (PT) today!

Internet telerobotics pioneer Ken Goldberg and his students are testing their Tele-Twister collaborative telerobotics game today at noon Pacific Time. I've played with the system and it's quite engaging!

Come play Tele-Twister! Have fun while learning about gravity, anatomy, ergonomics, and social dynamics! The party game Twister, introduced in 1966, was the first board game played with human bodies. This version, "Tele-Twister," is a game designed for the Internet. As in the original, the game is played with human bodies (the twisters), but in this version you get to play along and direct their moves from the comfort of your computer. As a player, you log in and are automatically assigned to either the Red or Blue team. You view and play from your computer screen. You see two twisters (real humans), one dressed in red, the other in blue. They respond to moves chosen by the Red and Blue online teams. Your team chooses moves for the twisters (eg, "right hand YELLOW") using a Java-based online interface. You can log in as a guest, but we much prefer if you register for your own password. Just go to the Register page anytime before the game starts and we will email you a password. Please note: you'll need a PC with Internet Explorer, or a Mac with OS X to use the Java interface. Tele-Twister includes audio, so if your computer has speakers, be sure to turn up the volume.

Link

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

AccordionGuy's date from hell, concluded

Joey "AccordionGuy" DeVilla has finished his hilarious, five-part saga of what is, almost certainly, the worst date in the history of the world. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:41:30 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Arrrrrrr! Pirate Zen!

(1) day (2) quiz (3) glossary (4) name (5) translator (6) shirts (7) quest (8) cruise (9) pete (10) golf (11) dinner (12) riddles (13) murder

web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank). Arrrrrrrr!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:32:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Laptop totes for fashionable shegeeks

Cool laptop cases for girlnerds. One of them even includes a baby-changing panel. Link (thanks, ESC)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:22:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Camera specs for snapshots on the fly

You thought phonecams would change how we feel about privacy in public spaces? H-P researchers have created a prototype pair of sunglasses with built-in, tiny camera.

"It means you now have a wearable camera which nobody will notice and can take pictures while being involved in events," said Huw Robson from Hewlett Packard.

Link to BBC story, (thanks to multiple BB readers for suggesting)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:21:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sun's dumbass trademark policy

Sun has an unbelievably stupid trademark policy that they somehow believe applies to "all Sun organizations worldwide and to Sun resellers, developers, customers, advertising agencies, consultants, professional writers and editors, licensees and other third parties making reference to Sun trademarks"

WRONG (possessives)
"Service providers admire the Sun Fire's features"
RIGHT
"Service providers admire the features of the Sun Fire servers"

WRONG (plurals)
"We bought fifty new Sun Rays"
RIGHT
"We bought fifty new Sun Ray appliances"

WRONG (verbs)
"I Java-tized my applications."
RIGHT
"I improved my applications with Java technology."

WRONG (puns)
"Let the Sun shine in your datacenter!"
RIGHT
"Bring Sun servers into your datacenter and make your net work."

Link (via NTK)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:44:07 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Belgian teens losing sleep to SMS

Belgian teenagers are losing sleep because they leave their phones on overnight and get up to answer their SMSes.

Many teenagers leave their mobile phone on while they are asleep. About 2500 children in Flanders (aged 13 years and 16 years respectively) were asked how often they were awoken at night by incoming text messages on their mobile phone. Among the 13 year olds, 13.4 per cent reported being woken up one to three times a month, 5.8 per cent once a week, 5.3 per cent several times a week and 2.2 per cent every night.

Link (via SmartMobs)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:13:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lyrics to PotC Theme, Avast!

Of some assistance of Arrrr Talk Like a Yo-Ho Pirate Day will be the theme song from Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean, "Yo Ho! (A Pirate's Life for Me)." Me 'earties.

We kindle and char and inflame and ignite.
Drink up me 'earties yo ho!
We burn up the city, we're really a fright.
Drink up me 'earties yo ho!
We're rascals, and scoundrels, and villains, and knaves.
Drink up me 'earties yo ho!
We're devils and black sheep and really bad eggs.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:12:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rules for Talk Like a Pirate Day

It's International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Me 'earties. Teresa Nielsen Hayden's got a good set of ground rules. Avast.

1. Rhotic, like, to the max.

2. The basic phonetic unit of pirate speech is the single long-drawn-out letter: R, I, A, etc.

3. Interpolate random piratical interjections: avast, belay, matey, me hearties, blow me down, bugger me standing, etc.

4. In a pinch, try the Pirate filter. If you’re fluent in Gangsta, you can also use the Pirate - Gangsta glossary.

5. Only to talk like a pirate. Not to make walk the plank. Not to sack the Accounting Department. For that is the law.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:07:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Open WiFi: A public good?

Crooked Timber is a new-ish group blog run by academics from around the world. Yesterday's posting included a piece about the notion of open WiFi as a public good. I believe that it is, natch, but take some exception to the author's notions that free-riding is a problem or that anonymity is undesirable.

The first problem arises from the fact that publicly available wifi hotspots could do away with the need for users to register or identify themselves in some way, tying their computer to a personal identity in meatspace. In some set-ups, users of hotspots will be able to act anonymously, making detection of abuse (DOS or other computer related crime, spam, harassment, etc.) much, much harder.

Link (via Many2Many)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:05:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sf story about TiVo

Here's a delightful sf short story exploring the erotic dominance relationship of TiVo to the real world, the ultimate power-fantasy inherent in being able to pause reality:

'You don't know what TiVo is.'

'If you put a gun to my head I'd guess it was like a Palm Pilot?'

'Doctor, seriously, what the hell. I was referred to you specifically, Doc, specifically because of your expertise with technology-related disorders. Your alleged so-called expertise.'

'I know Palm Pilots. It's usually about Palm Pilots or voicemail or cell phones, like ninety percent of the time.'

Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:02:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Art Spiegelman (Maus) shunned by US Media

In this UK Independent article, Pulitzer Prize winning cartoonist and creator of Maus Art Spiegelman says he quit his job as an illustrator for The New Yorker because the magazine was sucking up to the government in order to retain access to Washington VIPs. Spiegelman also talks about his latest comic, "In the Shadow of No Towers," and how The New York Times wouldn't even reply to his offer to let the paper publish it. He ended up selling the strip to a German paper.

You would have expected the US media to sit up and take notice; instead, it slumped in its comfortable chair and closed its eyes. Yes, Spiegelman is a Pulitzer-prizewinning cartoonist; yes, he has a particular genius for describing the human price of fanaticism. Rarely have commentator and theme been so perfectly matched. But in the new "with-us-or-against-us" climate of aggressive US patriotism, his habit of expressing uncomfortable truths was becoming awkward. Once, The New Yorker had been happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with Spiegelman in the face of controversy (notably in the case of his notorious 1993 cover depicting an orthodox Jew passionately kissing a black woman); now he found himself being urged to tone down his work. "I found that I was fighting for every picture, and that was really exhausting." He realised that his new cartoon stood no chance of being published there; and, by extension, that he was probably working in the wrong place. (Spiegelman finally resigned this February, after 10 years, saying that The New Yorker was "marching to the same beat as The New York Times and all the other great American media that don't criticise the government for fear that the administration will take revenge by blocking their access to sources and information.")

Other leading publications were no more enthusiastic about the prospect of a Spiegelman cartoon on the theme of September 11. The New York Times never even responded to his offer of a strip; The New York Review of Books rejected what it saw with the opaque comment: "This would be great for Europe." Eventually, "In the Shadow of No Towers" was commissioned by the German newspaper, Die Zeit - whose editor, Michael Naumann, is an old friend and admirer.

Here's the Link. (I just noticed that this story is no longer available for free.) Shojo wrote to say "In the Shadow of No Towers" has been running in the The London Review Of Books for the past six months or so.

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:57:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, September 18, 2003

Penis enlargement pills loaded with toxins

Penis enlargment pills are more than useless spam-fodder. They're also full of poison. The Chicago Daily Herald reports that "an independent laboratory analysis of a composite sample of 10 (so-called 'penile enlargement') pills ... turned up significant levels of E. coli, yeast, mold, lead and pesticide residues." Link Via Follow Me Here

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:06:33 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Save Baltimore's Book Thing

The Book Thing is a Baltimore-based org that collects used books, stamps them "Not for Resale" and gives them away. They're in trouble:

We know that the current economy has hit all of us hard. The loss of our van made our situation at The Book Thing even more precarious. We appreciate all of those who have made the very valuable contribution of their books and time. we also need those of you that can and are willing to make a financial commitment, however small, to come forward to insure that The Book Thing can keep giving away books... we will continue our policy of not requesting donations from our patrons at our distribution site, since we don't want to discourage those who most need our service from coming to The Book Thing simply because they cannot afford the "suggested donation." Those who wish make a donation, however small, should make the donation payable to The Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc. Donations may be sent to The Book Thing of Baltimore, Inc., P. O. Box 2197, Baltimore, MD, 21203-2197. We are a non-profit organization with 501(c)(3) status, and all donations are tax deductible.

Link (Thanks, Pete!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:55:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Street campaign for "New Napster": ah, the irony.

BoingBoing reader Josh said:

"This is borderline cynical - - well maybe just cynical - - but in the week that UMG sued a 12 year-old girl for something she didn't know was wrong, the new owner of Napster sent out street teams to start the buzz for the late fall launch. UMG owns a hunk of Roxio which owns the market leading ripping software responsible for the mix CDs that little girl listen to and, of course, Roxio owns the new Napster. Like good street teams do, Napster is busy defacing everyone else's posters. Attached are on Santa Monica near the Century City Shopping Center. Napster. It's Bad. It's Back. (It's Legal)."

UPDATE: Faux graffiti! A number of BoingBoing readers including Abe wrote in to set the record straight:

from what I understand the Napster campaign is fully legal, they aren't covering up other people's ads, only fake ads they themselves put up. Unlike those Nissan Electric Moyo, they really do seem to be pasting the heads on, not printing out fake paste ups. But I think they are pre pasting the heads before putting up the ads...the amazing Wooster Collective has more images here.

I'm getting great pleasure watching corporate america try its hardest to create "street cred" for a brand that once was the hottest shit around without even a business plan.

link to image one, link to image two.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:51:04 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

We all pay Hollywood's price for DVD

DVD as a technology is very tightly controlled. As 3-2-1 Studios, a vendor of DVD copying and backup software discovered, making any innovation in the DVD world without permission from the Hollywood companies (who thought that the VCR and ReplayTV were forms of insitutionalized theft) is an invitation to a punishing lawsuit. Well, who cares, right? After all, DVD is a "success" -- lots of people have DVD players.

But DVD players are frozen in amber. The features that the public demands have not been forthcoming -- rather, they've stayed pretty much at the level that they started out at in the mid-nineties. They got cheaper, but they didn't get cooler, or weirder, or more flexible.

Case in point: Kaleidescape, a company in Mountain View, has built a "legit" DVD jukebox with permission from Hollywood. This is pretty easy hardware: big-ass hard-drives, some user-interface, and a commodity optical drive. Should be cheap as hell.

It's not. By the time Kaleidescape pays its license fee to the Hollywood studios and calculates the price it can command without any competition in the field, it ends up fielding a box that holds thirty DVDs on its hard-drive and costs thirty-thousand dollars.

The idea that a 30-movie DVD-ripping jukebox -- which I can build "illegally" in my living room for a couple grand -- should retail for thirty thousand bucks is revolting. It's what we, as customers of the CE companies, pay for adopting a technology that is proprietary to the Hollywood companies that take the view that watching movies out of order, skipping commercials, time-shifting and home taping are theft. Shame on us, and what a shame. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:41:09 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

What're the odds on Monopoly squares?

What's the probablity of landiing ona given square in Monopoly? What're the long-term earning possibilities for each? This guy has found out.

I first wrote a C program that simulates a single person rolling the dice and moving around the board a great number of times. It included all of the rules for going to jail and the Chance and Community Chest cards. Although this gave good aproximate answers, I decided that I wanted to write another program that would find the exact probabilities using a Markov matrix, which was the method described in a simplified form in the Scientific American article. I used an extended version of this program to generate this web page...

In the process of figuring all of this out I ran into an interesting difficulty. When trying to calculate the probabilities exactly using the Markov matrix, it is necessary to estimate the probability--for each square--that the last two rolls of the dice are doubles (since three doubles in a row sends you to jail). First I used an estimate of 1/36, but in practice it's different for each square and it's not that high for any square. I used my simulation program to find the empirical probability for each square and then used these values in my Markov matrix program. I simulated 32 billion rolls to make these estimates, so I believe they are reliable and any deviation from their exact values is extremely small. Interestingly, the probabilities of two previous rolls being doubles is slightly different on certain squares for the two jail strategies. Additionally, the average roll when landing on a utility is a bit lower or higher than 7 depending on the utility and the jail strategy, which affects the rent value.

Link (Thanks, Jed)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:33:26 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Excerpt from Warren Ellis's novel

Warren Ellis has posted an excerpt from his forthcoming novel:

What follows is a conversation between private investigator Michael McGill and the Chief Of Staff to the office of the President of the United States, essentially explicating the initial plot engine of the book. Again, this is all crabby-looking first draft stuff, so, you know, just roll with what it's saying, rather than how it's saying it. Good prose and funny jokes will be inserted later. I've got nine months to finish the book and make it pretty, and then it's published in early 2005. I'm probably going to need that long to come up with a title.

Link (via Oblomovka)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:35:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Attack of the Giant Guinea Pig!

Eight-million years ago, a cow-sized cousin of today's guinea pig roamed around Venezuela. "Imagine a weird guinea pig, but huge, with a long tail for balancing on its hind legs and continuously growing teeth," says one of the German scientists now studying Phoberomys pattersoni after finding an "exceptionally complete" skeleton. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 01:52:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cataloguing the references in Paul's Boutique

This site collaboratively catalogs and explains cultural references embedded in the Beastie Boys' hyperdense album "Paul's Boutique."

# "Are you experienced little girl?" - reference to Jimi Hendrix's song and album titled "Are you experienced?"

# "Cause you know why a you see H..." If you take the last five words of this line pronounced phonetically, Why=y, a=a, you=u, see=c, h=h = Y+A+U+C+H

# "customs jailed me over an herb seed" - refers to an incident in 1988 when the US customs arrested a man at the mexican border for posessing three marijuana seeds

# "Do Wah Diddy" (song by Manfred Mann)

# "Proud Mary keeps on turning..." song by the name of "Proud Mary" by Creedence Clearwater Revival

# Bob Dylan-famous folk singer

# Dragnet, TV show and pulp-movie

# Harley - Harley Davidson Motorcycle

# Miss Crabtree and Spanky (characters in Little Rascals)

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:21:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Vanitydate.com: like Match.com, but for The Beautiful People.

Not sure if it's hoax or a ridiculously tacky real thing, but the site description goes straight to the point:

Welcome to VantiyDate.com [sic -- you'd think those gorgeous Mensa wannabes could spell their own name, no? --XJ], the world's most judgmental, shallow dating website. At Vanity Date we have a vision of creating the largest database of the world's most good looking, rich and superficial people. Now, this doesn't mean you have to be a super model, but you have to be a so called 7.0 and above to be allowed full access to the database or be talented and have an income over 200,000 dollars per year. Leave a bad taste in your mouth? If so, then we have accomplished our goal. Remember though, intelligence is encouraged. In fact, if we find out you have an IQ below 100, you will be kicked off the site.

Link to Vanitydate.com. Those who don't like the site are invited by its hosts to click here. IMO, the only truly unforgivable thing here is the site's assmunchingly gratuitous use of Flash. (Thanks, Siege)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:10:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Feathered Back Hair Site

The Farrah. The Bertinelli. The Machio. They're all here, on a sort of online shrine to 70's and 80's feathered hairstyles. Flattery or mockery? Who cares, this site rules. Link (Thanks, Ken!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:59:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Hypertension and plaque don't cause aneurysm

The Mayo Clinic is asserting that high blood-pressure and arterial plaque are not significant risk-factors in aneurysm (though they are risk factors for other conditions).

"Atherosclerotic plaques and the risk factors that cause them, including hypertension, classically have been considered important potential causes of the expansion of the aorta," says Bijoy Khandheria, M.D., a Mayo Clinic cardiologist and study author. "Intuitively, it makes sense that high blood pressure would stretch the vessel walls and make them more likely to become enlarged. This study shows that while these risk factors are highly important in a host of diseases and conditions, they are bit players when it comes to causing the dilatation of the aorta that can lead to aneurysm."

Link

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

New Haunted Mansion book probably *won't* suck

OK, I take it back. There's every indication that The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies will not suck. Over at DoomBuggies.com, Jeff Baham has interviewed the author, who appears to be a real Mansion trufan who set out to write a comprehensive historical document about the bestest ride the Imagineers ever built.

This book is one of those classic "I really want to read this book so I guess I'll have to write it" situations. That was last summer, and I knew we had the movie coming up in a year-and-a-half, so I figured the timing was as good as it was going to get. I ran the idea by Don Winton, our VP of Creative down here in Florida, and he suggested taking it to Marty Sklar himself. Marty thought it was a great idea and told me to write up a proposal.

So, I wrote a five-page outline that broke the whole story down into three sections: the history of the attraction in all four parks, a scene-by-scene "tour" of the show, and the making of the movie.

The "spine" of the story was the evolution of this idea, from the very first sketch of a "Haunted House" that Harper Goff did back in 1951 to the attraction's transformation into a feature film. I thought it was a fascinating idea, because Imagineering was born of the movie industry. The first Imagineers were all filmmakers from Walt's studio and the attractions gave audiences the opportunity to experience Walt's stories in three dimensions instead of two; so the movie really represents that process in reverse. In a sense, I thought the book would give me the chance to show people how The Haunted Mansion came full circle.

At any rate, Marty helped me tweak the outline a bit and the next thing I knew he told me that Wendy Lefkon, the Editorial Director of Disney Editions, was waiting for my proposal. So I sent the thing off and about two weeks later Wendy called me and told me that everyone at Disney Editions loved the idea and they were going to do it. I think the whole thing was a result of very good timing and having the ability to get the idea directly in front of the decision-maker.

Link (Thanks, Casey)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:47:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Two new Haunted Mansion books out

Disney has shipped two books in honor of the upcoming Haunted Mansion movie (which will not, can not suck, even though Eddie Murphy is in it). The first is Build Your Own Haunted Mansion, a punch-out book with plastic nuts and bolts bundled in so that you can assemble your own scale Haunted Mansion (yes, I am busting a nut, thank you very much); and the second is The Haunted Mansion: From the Magic Kingdom to the Movies, a book for ages 9-12 that probably will suck, but I am getting a copy anyway.

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:42:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Political websites reviewed

Brian Dear sez, "The Nettle blog is taking on political websites: candidate blogs, official sites, political party sites, etc. This will be a long-running series over the next 12 months." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:08:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fashion is a commons: copying is the sincerest form of flattery

NPR's Morning Edition ran a great piece today on the fashion industry and copyright. Fashion designs are drawn from a rich commons of designs that have come before, remixed by designers who enjoy very little in the way of intellectual property protection, and yet the industry thrives and creativity flourishes.

Francesca Sterlacci is head of the fashion design department at New York's Fashion Institute of Technology. She says it's expensive and risky to actually create new designs. It's cheaper and easier to simply knock off successful ones. Typically, Sterlacci says, designers just let the copies go. After all, new designs will come out in a couple of months, and lawsuits are time-consuming, expensive "and you're never really sure whether or not you're going to win," she says.

Link (Thanks, The Other Michael!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:49:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

South Africans: Organize against the telco

South Africa's national telco monopoly has rolled out a terrible, hollow mockery of DSL service. As Martin says:

Certain ports on an ADSL line are 'prioritised', meaning all the others are basically useless. A 3GB cap is enforced per month. Line speed is 'deprioritised' after you have been capped, meaning your line is useless for everything but browsing local sites.

South African geeks are trying to get their government regulators to pay some attention to this: the telco is keeping the country in the technological dark-ages in order to preserve its dinosauric bizmodel, and the whole national economy is at stake if South Africa ends up largely off the Internet grid as a result of malfeasance and incompetence. The MyADSL site is a place where South Africans can share stories and hatch strategies for making a difference. Link (Thanks, Martin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:46:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Michael Moore's open letter to Wesley Clark: "The General vs. the Texas Air National Guard deserter!"

Michael Moore has written an open letter to General Wesley Clark, who is standing for the Democratic nomination in 2004. Moore admires the General's integrity, but moreover touches on the plausibility of a Clark campaign against Bush -- a genuine military man who opposes war going up against a deserting, lying coward ("The General vs. the Texas Air National Guard deserter! I want to see that debate, and I know who the winner is going to be.") who uses war and punishing tax cuts to engineer massive transfers of wealth to his cronies who feed from the public trough:

1. You oppose the PATRIOT Act and would fight the expansion of its powers.

2. You are firmly pro-choice.

3. You filed an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in support of the University of Michigan's affirmative action case.

4. You would get rid of the Bush tax "cut" and make the rich pay their fair share.

5. You respect the views of our allies and want to work with them and with the rest of the international community.

6. And you oppose war. You have said that war should always be the "last resort" and that it is military men such as yourself who are the most for peace because it is YOU and your soldiers who have to do the dying. You find something unsettling about a commander in chief who dons a flight suit and pretends to be Top Gun, a stunt that dishonored those who have died in that flight suit in the service of their country.

Link

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

Sharing culture: How middle-schoolers view P2P

The NYT is running a fascinating report of a group of 12- to 14-year-olds at a Californian middle-school discussing file-sharing:

It shouldn't be illegal," said 14-year-old Sonya Arndt. "It's not like I'm selling it."

"Isn't it like recording movies?" asked Korbi Blanchard, 13. "They're making a big thing out of nothing."

"It's wrong to be downloading hundreds of songs, but if you only want one or two, it's not that big a deal," said 13-year-old Kristina Lee.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:38:02 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bacteriophages: Set a microorganism to catch a microorganism

Interesting piece from this month's Wired, about bacteriophages: microorganisms that attack bacteria and kill them in your bloodstream. Bacteriophages are being held out as an alternative to antibiotics (in the age of antibiotic-resistant superbugs that are only made stronger by the application of stronger antibiotics, an alternative is sorely needed), ironically, since they were set aside as ineffective when compared to the newly discovered penicillin in the forties.

Set aside by the West, but avidly (if sloppily) pursued by the Soviets, who saw bacteriophages as their best defense against infection. Now, former Soviet scientists have abandoned their bankrupted, catastrophic science-parks in Tblisi and emigrated to the US, there to establish a rigorous science of bacteriophages.

To gather new strains, Sulakvelidze need only drop a bucket into Baltimore's Inner Harbor. The waters of the Chesapeake Bay, of which the harbor is an inlet, have enough exchange with the Atlantic that he can find a phage for almost any species of bacteria, he says. If one doesn't work, he simply refills his bucket and looks for another that does.

"This upgradability is one of the unique qualities of phages," Sulakvelidze adds. "Developing a new antibiotic takes 10 years and God knows how many millions of dollars."

As he puts it, "Mother Nature runs the best genetic engineering lab out there. No institution or company can match it."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:35:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dogging: UK sex-parties in parks, via SMS

STDs are on the rise in the UK, a phenomenon that's blamed on "Dogging" -- the practice of organizing giant, secret sex-parties in public parks using newsgroups and SMS.

Legally, the issue of dogging is a grey area - "doggers" are committing no offence unless they are witnessed by a member of the public who can be defined as "outraged" in the eyes of the law.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:00:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, September 17, 2003

DC-only pickup lines

WashPo ran a contest for the best pick-up lines that would only work in DC. Funny!

Third Runner-Up: Excuse me, ma'am, but the gentleman at that table has sent you a FYH 2005 energy and water appropriations bill rider for a $52.3 million solid-waste treatment plant upgrade in your home congressional district, with his compliments. (Mark Briscoe, Arlington)

Second Runner-Up: I'm guessing you work for Fannie Mae, because your fanny may be the best I've ever seen. (Chris Doyle, Forsyth, Mo.)

First Runner-Up: Babe, why are you wasting your time with an assistant to a deputy secretary, when you could be with ME, a deputy assistant undersecretary?

Link (via Electrolite)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:58:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Word Pirates: take back the language!

David Weinberger and Dan Gillmor have launched a site, Word Pirates, where we can reposses the vocabulary that's been hijacked by politicans and marketers.

They're our words, dammit!

Marketers, politicians and other short-sighted, self-interested, sticky-fingered people have been stealing our words. Not only do they take them for commercial purposes, but they misuse them entirely. They're Word Pirates and we're going to take back what's rightfully ours. For instance...

For instance, the word "pirate" itself has been taken over by the Big Content companies. They mean "anyone who shares files." Real pirates murdered, raped and stole. They didn't share music, rightly or wrongly.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:48:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Werbach's kick-ass spectrum paper

Kevin Werbach -- former counsel for New Technology Policy at the FCC -- has released a 88-page draft of a whitepaper on spectrum allocation called "SUPERCOMMONS: Toward a Unified Theory of Wireless Communication." From the opening sentence ("A specter is haunting spectrum policy – the specter of commons.") to the real nut-grafs (Buried on page 55! Kevin, this should be on PAGE ONE!):

In short, fair use is outside but not opposed to the exclusive rights copyright grants. It is a realm of unconstrained sharing that balances a complex array of competing claims on published work. All of these rationales can be applied to supercommons transmissions around the exclusive transmission rights that administrative licensing or private ownership guarantee. The primary difference is that fair use is limited to functions such as education and parody that do not directly compete with the primary commercial exploitation of the work. The supercommons is a full-fledged communications space that may be utilized for any purpose.

The universal access privilege, in effect, says that any transmission that is not otherwise prohibited is allowed, though whether it is subject to a Hohfeldian privilege depends on whether it exceeds a flexible set of boundaries developed through decentralized legal mechanisms. This proposal reverses the current approach, under which actions must be expressly authorized by the government, or in a property regime by the property owner. It resembles the unambiguous language of the First Amendment, which is nonetheless is limited and balanced in application.

this paper is provocative, comprehensive, lucid and brilliant. If you want to understand how spectrum came to be allocated the way it is today; how the spectrum auctions of the 80s took place, how the new property and commons models of spectrum allocation arose; how they differ, and what a credible path forward to universal connectivity through the public's airwaves is, you've come to the right place. Bravo! 495K PDF Link (via Werblog)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:22:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dean campaign spawns open source project

The Dean campaign's grassroots organizing effort has spawned an open-source software project aimed at producing code for running grassroots organizing efforts.

This campaign's grassroots base - you - are incredible, and as you are discovering, quite powerful. Spawning from ad-hoc meetups and spilling over into Yahoo Groups and mailinglists you are defining the future of the political process. But while Meetup.com and Yahoo Groups have been very instrumental in this campaign, they were not designed specifically to be tools for political organization and expression. So I decided someone should build them.

Thus began the DeanSpace project. From a simple webpage with some rough ideas on how these tools should work and a mailinglist for development discussions, the project has grown into a full fledged open-source development community. Complete with rowdy IRC design debates and weekly tarballed releases, we are coding the tools we think will help define the future of political and civic participation.

Link (Thanks, Brent!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:57:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Reading in Berkeley, Oct 9

I'll be reading from my short story collection and signing books on October 9th, at the Other Change of Hobbit Bookstore in Berkeley from 6-8PM. Hope to see you there! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:52:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Brilliant rant on suckitude of Motorola phones

In Business Week, this hilarious rant from Christopher Kenton -- a (former?) consultant to Motorola:

My phone has more buttons and features than Luke Skywalker's cockpit console. Trouble is, I think Darth Vader led the design team. It's 2 a.m., and I want to tell you why I hate Motorola. I should be circumspect, since I've had the privilege of serving Motorola as a consultant, and the company was an exceptional client. But I've been staring at the ceiling now for more than an hour, my sleep destroyed by a thoughtful feature on my cell phone called the Low Battery alarm.

In the normal course of events, when I arrive home in the evening, I plug my cell phone into its charger, which sits on the kitchen counter not too far from the coffeemaker and the key rack. In the morning before I leave, I make my coffee, grab my keys and phone, and go on with my life. The phone is happy. I'm happy. The world is a happy place. Every so often something disrupts this routine, however. Sometimes I forget to take my phone out of my pocket. Sometimes my two-year-old finds the phone and, after exhausting the imaginative possibilities of make-believe conversation, abandons it under a couch or behind the desk. And there the phone sits, slowly trickling out of energy.

Like many smart devices, my phone has an alarm to tell me when the battery is low. I suspect this drains a lot of the remaining energy from the battery in order to fulfill its prophecy more quickly, but normally I might consider it a useful feature. Right now, however, at 2am, I've discovered that the usability engineers at Motorola designed this feature not as an alert, but as a behavior-modification tool. Make the punishment for forgetting to plug in the phone painful enough, and I won't do it again.

Link (via unwired)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:28:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Miscount in beluga spells the extinction of caviar?

The conservation body responsible for estimating population of beluga sturgeon and setting caviar-harvesting quotas may have misjudged this year's quote so badly as to drive the species to extinction.

Trade in beluga and the caviar they produce is governed by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. CITES believes that beluga sturgeon numbers are on the increase, reaching 11.6 million in 2002, up from 9.3 million in 2001 and 7.6 million in 1998...

But critics say there may in fact be fewer than half a million fish left, and that raw data published by CITES itself suggests that the sturgeon population crashed by 40 per cent in 2002 alone. Continued fishing and trade in beluga caviar will only hasten the demise of the species, they say. CITES's approval also comes at a time when the US government, the world's leading importer of beluga caviar, is considering an outright ban.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:51:25 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Adult Happy Meals include pedometers, personal responsibility

McDonald's has hired Oprah's personal trainer to ship a "healthy" "adult Happy Meals" that include a Pedometer instead of an action-figure.

Two weeks ago, a federal judge in New York dismissed an obesity lawsuit against McDonald's that alleged it had been hiding the health risks of eating its popular Big Macs and Chicken McNuggets. It was the second time this year that U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet threw out a class-action lawsuit that blamed McDonald's for making people fat.

Greene, who can't remember the last time he visited a McDonald's restaurant, said consumers had to take "personal responsibility" for the choices they make when it comes to consuming food. He will also consult on new menu items for the Oak Brook, Ill.-based company, which also announced a new taco version of its premium salads on Tuesday.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:43:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jet Blue denies CAPPS II, Scannell rebuts

If you wrote to Jet Blue yesterday to express your disappointment with the airline's unpatriotic cooperation with the Feds in piloting the CAPPS II spyware initiative, you probably got an official denial telling you that "No JetBlue customer information has been shared with the US Government with respect to testing the CAPPS II program currently under design."

Bill Scannell, the guy who outed both Delta and Jet Blue for particpating in CAPPS II, has the smoking gun on this -- a document showing that:

In September of 2002, JetBlue Airways secretly gave the Transportation Security Administration the full travel records of 5 million JetBlue customers. This sensitive travel data was then turned-over to a private security contractor for analysis, the results of which were presented at a security conference earlier this year and then posted on the Internet.

Check out the damning link for more -- the Jet Blue statement is technically correct, but only because of weasel-words inserted to elide the fact that they are enthusiastic collaborators with those who would undermine the Constitution to "fight terrorism." Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:37:53 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New guestblogger: Jason of textfiles.com!

Much thanks to Macki, who held down the BoingBoing guestbar in inimitably 1337 fashion for the past couple of weeks. Female fans, please stop tossing your digital panties at the blog. Because sadly, the mothership landed early today, beckoning him back with great haste to whatever planet he came from. We'll miss you, Macki. Now, BoingBoing welcomes a new guestbar tenant -- and he's gonna kick it old-school style.

Knock that broadband connection down to 300 baud and let's get started, shall we? Jason Scott runs textfiles.com, a collection of BBS-era textfiles that have turned from a side project into a foundation for about dozen other computer history related sites. Besides the original project he has also been maintaining a list of all North American BBSes in history and has spent the last two and a half years filming and editing a documentary about BBSes. Throughout his journey into the past, he's unearthed some pretty interesting stuff. Welcome, Jason!

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:17:46 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Samsung and Napster 2.0 to create new digital music devices

Electronics maker Samsung announced plans today to create a new line of digital music players with soon-to-be-reborn Napster 2.0:

The announcement Tuesday was just one of nearly a dozen products ranging from mobile phones with tiny built-in television sets to huge TV screens being unveiled at the company's annual showcase of new devices. The new Napster-ready device will be available in retail stores this fall, Samsung said in a statement. "Samsung is trying to do what Apple Computer has done with its iPod music players and iTunes online music store," said Michael Kelleher, an analyst with market research firm Yankee Group in Boston. "Certainly if Napster can build itself up as a legitimate file sharing portal, then that's good for Samsung."

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:01:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Alert the media! IM used for gossip, flirting, timewasting

This shocking CNN news item reveals that IM in corporate environments is used largely for productivity-burning smalltalk and illicit on-the-clock flirting, despite the ease with which instant message traffic can be monitored by employers. Link (Thanks ESC)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:28:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tech-ed: Kids and collective phonecamblogs in school, in Paris

Jean-Luc, a BoingBoing ami from Paris, shares news of a fun educational experiment with young students in France:

"Xeni, have you seen the collective moblog that children from 7 to 11 years old have created (with me) at the Plessis-Trevise city (closed to Paris) where I worked. The children have done a report of their (school's) sportive outdoor centre by moblogging themselves the pics during all the day (this wednesday) from 9.00 al to 5.00 pm. they have been equiped of Nokia 3650s and all the pics have been moblogged by the children and I have helped them to configure and use the phonecams. they had not any problem in term of usability to use the phonecams. it seems to be very natural for them and they have a great dexterity with using their thumbs. this was funny (imagine 3 phonecams in the hands of children that run in playing soccer for example, at the swimming pool, etc.) and they are gonna add some comments and legends to their pics in some days at the telecenter of the city and we will edit a written newspaper of all of this."

URL of the collective moblog here, another snapshot of the kids here.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:15:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Zagat does Wi-Fi

Chris Pirillo points us to news that the folks who brought you the Zagat guides (to restauraunts, nightclubs, and gourmet food sources) have just gone unwired:

"Today, there are thousands of wireless Internet access points in hotels and restaurants across the nation, with more appearing every day. This special-edition guide, created by Zagat Survey and brought tyou by Intel Centrino mobile technology, will help you find the coolest hotspots fast." Cities include: Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, and Seattle."

Link to PDF with more info.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:14:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Japanese online art: "Mad Lovers Erotic Violence and Cute"

Inexplicably zany sex-themed art from Japan: "Mad Lovers Erotic Violence and Cute." T-shirts, action figures, online gallery. Think, bunnies and panda bears ripping each others' entrails out during wildly bloodthirsty BDSM sessions, while condom-clad butterflies observe from a distance. NSFW, duh. Link (via Geisha)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:13:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Franken's Supply-Side Jesus

One of the funniest bits in Al Franken's brilliant and scathing Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at the Right is the comic-strip "Supply-Side Jesus." Now the strip's online -- enjoy! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:04:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Verisign is damage: route around it

Yesterday, Verisign (the company I'd like to see put to death) broke the Internet by redirecting all unregistered .COM and .NET addresses to a page on their site where they run a search-engine. For a lot of good technical reasons, this is a bad idea, and it makes a savage mockery of Verisign's (unbelievably lucrative) monopoly on critical pieces of the Internet's infrastructure.

Today, the makers of the BIND DNS software responded by announcing a patch that will interpret Verisign as damage and route around them.

However, the ISC is about to undercut the Site Finder service with a patch to its BIND software.

BIND runs on about 80 percent of the Internet's domain name servers -- the machines that translate human-readable Web addresses like www.wired.com into machine-readable Internet addresses used by the Internet's vast network of computers.

The patch will be released by the end of Tuesday, said Paul Vixie, ISC's president.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:41:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, September 16, 2003

Signing my collection at San Francisco's Borderlands, Oct 2

There's a book launch for A Place So Foreign and Eight More, my new short story collection, coming on Thursday, October 2nd at 7:00 pm at Borderlands Books in San Francisco. I'll be doing a reading, answering questions, and signing all the books I can lay hands on. Hope to see you there! Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:23:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Talking at Futurist Salon this Friday

Just a reminder that I'll be giving a futuristic talk about copyright, DRM, science fiction and whatnot this Friday night at the Silicon Valley Futurist Salon:

We will be back at the Barnes and Noble bookstore at the Hillsdale Shopping Center just across of the San Mateo Caltrain Station. 11 West Hillsdale Blvd., Hillsdale Shopping Center San Mateo, CA 94403 650-341-5560

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:20:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYT cartoon: The Copyright Cops

Hilarious and instructive cartoon in today's New York Times about copyright crackdowns and the RIAA lawsuits, with guest cameos by the EFF's Fred Von Lohmann and the RIAA's Amy Weiss. Link (registration required)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:16:40 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

I'll be at a virtual book-club meeting in gamespace this Sunday

I'm "appearing" at a book-club that meets in an online roleplaying game called Second Life, this Sunday at 6:30 PM. If you've got a Windows box, you can get a free seven-day avatar and join the disucssion!

Cory Doctorow will be the debut guest of the Hamlet Linden Book Club, the first reading group (far as we can tell!) to be conducted in a massively multiplayer online world -- Second Life.

This Sunday, Sept. 21, at 6:30pm (PST), Cory Doctorow's avatar will appear in the main auditorium of Second Life, the 3D online society where Hamlet Linden (aka Wagner James Au) is the world's embedded journalist. Cory will discuss his acclaimed novel *Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom* with an in-world audience of Second Life residents.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:15:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Translate gangsta to pirate

Nice Gangsta-Pirate translation table:

Gangstah	Pirate
fo'ties	bottles o' rum
bling bling	booty
Yo!	Avast!
Homey	Matey
Bee-atch	Scurvey dog

Link (via Making Light)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:18:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Freewayblog on Halliburton's War Bonanza

The Scarlet Pimpernel sends this example of Los Angeles freewayblogging:

It's about 10'X10' and reads "Dear America, Thanks for all the money, sorry about your kids. -- Halliburton Oil" on one side and "Nobody Died when Clinton Lied" on the other. Somebody's opened a website dedicated to this mysterious group, and I'm thinking of doing the same. In the meantime, check out Nobody Died.

From Smart Money:

Halliburton Corp.'s (HAL) U.S. government contracts to restore Iraqi oil production and provide support services to troops will cost taxpayers an estimated $2 billion and are expected to rise, Army spokesmen said.

An Army Corps of Engineers contract to rehabilitate the country's oil fields, controversial because it wasn't competitively bid, now is valued at $948 million, more than $200 million above the level projected last month. One particularly expensive item: importing fuel to the oil-rich country, at a cost of as much as $6 million a day.

Meanwhile, ex-Halliburton chief Dick Cheney continues to receive deferred compensation payments from Halliburton. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:28:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Parodies of new Apple iPod billboard ads

Tons of wacky spoofs on the latest iPod ad campaign, courtesy of somethingawful.com. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:06:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Celebrity literati cupcakes for rabbits

I don't make this stuff up, I swear. BoingBoing pal Mara alerts us to news that "comedian Amy Sedaris (Strangers With Candy, David's sister) is selling homemade cupcakes at a rabbit convention in New Rochelle, NY." Throw in a flashmob, a phonecam blogger, or an exhibitionist magician and we'd really have something. But I'd settle for a copy of the Sedaris cupcake recipe. Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:52:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boycott JetBlue -- stop CAPPS II!

CAPPS II is the TSA's mini-Total-Information-Awareness program, an automated suspcion-generation technology for our nations airports that will use algorithms to semi-randomly finger passengers for cavity-searches, no-fly-lists and other forms of terrornoia-inspired unconstitutionality.

CAPPS II isn't a reality -- yet. But that didn't stop Delta Airlines from deciding to pilot CAPPS II for its flights last spring. Massive public outcry changed Delta's mind about selling its passengers out to the governmental elements who believe that the Constitution only applies when we're not "fighting terrorists."

That was a real victory, but now JetBlue has stepped up to volunteer to run its customers through the TiA-meatgrinder.

The airline industry is in real trouble. Boycotts against the airlines work -- they can't afford to lose even a few patriotic customers. I'm not flying JetBlue again until they change their tune.

Rather than being merely the airline with free DirecTV, JetBlue shall henceforth be known as the airline with thousands of daily, non-stop trips from Washington, DC into the private lives of Americans foolish enough to fly their Orwellian, unpatriotic airline.

It's time for all patriotic Americans to share with JetBlue a little of that Boycott Delta love. If the JetBlue leadership hadn't been under a rock for the past six months, they would be well aware of the pillorying in the media and the countless millions of dollars in lost revenue borne by Delta by participating in the first round of CAPPS II testing.

Until JetBlue publicly withdraws from any and all CAPPS II testing and apologizes to the American people for their reckless disregard for the US Constitution, a boycott of JetBlue Airways is in effect.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:55:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Canada: We're not stealing music, eh?

BoingBoing reader Darren says, "Via /., an interesting article on the apparent differences between American and Canadian copyright laws, and the rarely discussed digital media tax north of the border."

The Copyright Board of Canada administers the Copyright Act and sets the amount of the levies on blank recording media and determines which media will have levies imposed. Five years ago this seemed like a pretty good deal for the music industry: $0.77 CDN for a blank CD and .29 a blank tape, whether used for recording music or not. Found money for the music moguls who had been pretty disturbed that some of their product was being burned onto CDs. To date over 70 million dollars has been collected through the levy and there is a good possibility the levy will be raised and extended to MP3 players, flash memory cards and recordable DVDs sometime in 2003.

Link to Tech Central Station article, (thanks to others who suggested, including Siege)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:48:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xeni on NPR's "Day to Day": RIAA backlash

On today's edition of the NPR program "Day to Day," I talk with host Alex Chadwick about popular backlash to the RIAA's recent lawsuits against individual filesharers -- and some possible solutions to the digital music dilemma. Link to "Day to Day" home, archived show will be here after noon Pacific/3PM Eastern.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:23:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

VC ISO failed startup ex-CEO for fun, adventure

Interesting piece in yesterday's SF Chronicle about an irony-rich investment capital trend:

Ben Smith, the former head of financially troubled startup Casbah Corp. , knows firsthand the boom-and-bust cycle of the late '90s. It all converged one day during his topsy-turvy four-month ride as chief executive officer, when Upside magazine listed his company among the hot 100 firms in technology. Ironically, the accolade came just when the startup was about to be sold to a rival firm.

"I got a letter telling me that we were in the Upside 100 -- and we were out of money," said Smith. "Everything just sort of fell apart very quickly."

Despite his disappointing debut as a Silicon Valley chief executive officer, the 36-year-old is back in the startup business. As head of Spoke Software in Palo Alto, he has found venture capitalists willing to give him another chance -- and millions in cash -- to start and lead another company. Smith isn't alone. Today, venture capitalists are looking for management gems among ex-dot-com managers who survived an extremely turbulent time in the technology industry. Experience, leadership skills, tenacity and perseverance are qualities they are seeking in candidates.

Link (Thanks, David!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:13:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Virtual Museum of Bacteria

The subject line says it all, folks. An online tribute to the glory that is, um, bacteria. Link (via Viridian list)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:09:20 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Joy of 404

Oldie but yet-unblogged-on-BoingBoing goodie: Hilarious online gallery archiving the art of the 404 error page. Link, My favorite. (thanks, ESC!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:07:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Freenet's Ian Clarke gets props from MIT Tech Review mag

Freenet creator Ian Clarke was selected as one of the top 100 innovators under the age of 35 by MIT's Technology Review magazine. Says Ian, "Why the fact that I am under the age of 35 is so important is somewhat beyond me, most innovators seem to do their cool stuff in their 20s." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:01:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Industrial art

Cool new site of industrial-themed art and sound. Warning: egregious Flash. Link (Thanks, Mark!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:58:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Rules for MMORPG bots

GameSpy's PlanetFargo column this week is a very funny plan for setting up a bot to play your online role-playing games for you, including a scenario showing just how well this could work.

1. If someone says something ending in a question mark, respond by saying "Dude?"

2. If someone says something ending in an exclamation point, respond by saying "Dude!"

3. If someone says something ending with a period, respond by randomly saying one of three things: "Okie," "Sure," or "Right on."

4. EXCEPTION: If someone says something directly to you by mentioning your name, respond by saying "Lag."

5. (And remember to accept all trade requests from other players by giving them a melon.)

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:12:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, September 15, 2003

Phone-pranking the RIAA

This phone-prank on the RIAA is high-larious:

JH: Hello. I just downloaded some illegal MP3s and my friend told me that the RAII is going to sue everyone who downloads music. What should I do?

RIAA: Hold on just a sec...

RIAA: The best advice I can offer you at this moment is to go to dub-dub-dub-musicunited.org and you can learn there how to uninstall your peer-to-peer software or file-sharing service.

JH: But I don't have a pee service. Someone just e-mailed me a song and I listened to it. Am I going to jail?

Link (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:30:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Devil's Dictionary on Copyright

The new edition of The Devil's Dictionary has many swell corkers, but I'm quite partial to this one:

copyright, noun

The notion that you can protect from the future what you stole from the past.

Link (Thanks, Jason!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:24:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Academic discussion of Whuffie

Over on the Whuffie blog (yes, there is such a thing; no, I did not have anything to do with it; and yes, I am immensely flattered), there's a guest-blogger writing good, scholarly critical analysis of the economics of the Bitchun Society, the world in which my novel is set.

The danger, pointed out in this passage from Doctorow's novel, in having a completely subjective, reputation-based economy is that it is quite possible for someone like me to be made an outsider from the economy due to actions for which I had no responsibility. Granted, similar problems exist in a cash-based economy. The market could bottom out, as we all certainly know, and I could be left with stock in… nothing. Still, there are objective factors, along with the subjective ones that move the market, that justify such occurrences. With a reputation economy, the threat of being ostracized unfairly is very real, and very much free from the protections of objectivity. Thus, this points to a problem with such a system. I do not think it is a problem that would defeat the system, as a general concept, but it is one that may justify eschewing it as a device for commerce.

The subjective nature of reputation is an interesting issue that goes beyond Herodotus. It is one that troubles modern politicians and entertainers, sometimes rightly, and sometimes wrongly. It's for this reason that I think X's website, and Doctorow's novel, are such interesting topics of discussion. Reputation is a matter that merits consideration, because it is a value that, subjectively, has massive impact on our life -- and on the lives of the ancients.

He makes a good point. The problem (OK, a problem) with Whuffie is that it lacks a lot of the critical stuff that makes up the fundamentals of democratic infrastructure, like protection for minority opinions. Some of that is elided by the lack of scarcity in the novel: it's hard to be a well-and-truly oppressed minority when every material want is answered in plenty, but the social effect of the normative pressure of Whuffie is ultimately highly corrosive.

To put it more pithily: "Popular speech never needs defending." Free speech shouldn't be a popularity contest. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:17:16 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Atkins changes food economics (from beyond the graaaaaave)

Low-carb eating is changing the economics of food-prep, hurting sales of carb-heavy food from bread to sweets, and driving sales of meat and weird, revolting chemical "chocolate bars" made from (what tastes like) acetone, Splenda, cocoa powder, tar and sawdust.

Three months ago, the British Federation of Bakers made headlines when it announced that bread sales have declined 2 percent per year since Dr. Atkins’ book was re-released in 1997. Wheat consumption has dropped from 147 pounds per person to 139 pounds in the past six years. And in May, the Tortilla Industry Association held a high-profile seminar titled “An Industry in Crisis: The High-Protein, Low-Carb Diet and Its Effects on the Tortilla Industry.”

Atkins-friendly foods, on the other hand, are booming. News reports have credited Atkins for an increase in U.S. beef sales in 12 of the past 14 quarters. Prices on cattle futures have climbed from 65 cents per pound in 2001 to 82 cents per pound today (suggesting the beef market has grown by $3 billion in 3 years). Consumption of bacon and eggs are at 10-year highs. Beef jerky sales are up more than 40 percent in the past two years, and pork-rinds have tripled their market share to $496 million per year.

Link (Thanks, Stefan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:11:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Futuristic scenaria for BBC Interactive

Matt Jones, a very sharp application designer at the BBC, has been noodling around with futuristic scenaria, in the forms of rpedictions and narratives about what his users will look like in the face of those predictions.

ocial pressures to watch the latest seasons of Charmed, Buffy and Angel combine with file-sharing apps such as Kazaa to mean that many 15-24 year olds have watched entire seasons from the US on their PCs or Burned VCDs before they are shown on satellite pay TV or the much later free-to-air...

A "Social Scheduling" scenario as shown above could see p2p filesharing apps such as Bittorrent (which increases in efficiency with each concurrent user) thrive in the creation of ultralocal, and/or ultratribal media channels.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:08:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Groupware and group-think

Geoff Cohen's nailed a really important idea about network effects in "groupware," and the way that groupware creates group-think:

...it's a little applet which displays a bunch of pixels in a rectangle. Instructions tell the user that the area ought to look like a world map. One pixel is highlighted, and a form asks if the highlighted pixel ought to be land or water. Rinse, lather, repeat, and ten thousand visits later or so, it's moved from random noise to a recognizable world map. Pretty incredible...

Furthermore, imagine the difficulty of changing that consensus. Maybe you're a Pacific Islander, and you want to change the map to reflect the actual size of the Pacific. Too bad! Given the momentum of the consensus, it would be prohibitively difficult to move all the pixels of North America over the east, or shrink Asia, or whatever it would take. For the architecture of this application, consensus is what the old chaos mathematicians would call an attractor, and it's a powerful one.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:05:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Xbox: Freedom is a bug, not a feature

If your Xbox has the Xbox-Live "feature" wherein the device connects to the Intenret on your behalf, be warned: Xbox-Live will "update" your box to "fix bugs" without your permission or knowledge. Included in the "bugs" that will currently be fixed by Xbox-Live is the "bug" that allows the device to run Linux.

The particular bug that this update will correct for the user is the ability to run Linux. Once the update is in place you will not be able to install Linux on your Xbox any more, at least not in the convenient way that the Dashboard bug allowed, according to the XboxLinux pages.

Link (via Hack the Planet)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:00:10 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Solar window shades to prevent future NYC grid failures?

Researchers are developing solar "window shades" for the biggest users of peak-period energy: big office buildings. They're targeting a 100% energy-conversion rate, a huge improvement over conventional solar panels.

It isn't surprising that New York's electrical grid malfunctioned during the big blackout of 2003, says one Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute professor. It's not that the grid is antiquated; it's that our demand for energy is insatiable. While proponents of conservation seek ways to get people to use less energy, Anna Dyson, who teaches architecture at Rensselaer, has another idea. She is leading a team of researchers who are trying to prevent future power failures by making energy-sucking office buildings ultra-efficient at peak hours. They plan to combine a series of highly efficient, low-cost technologies into a single sustainable device that would be almost transparent to those using its energy.

Link to Wired News story (via Mark Pesce's yeschaton listserv)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:54:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Outsider recording artist Wesley Willis: RIP

BoingBoing buddy Eli the Bearded points us to sad news that the wacky, Casio-keyboard-playing, Alternative Tentacles recording artist Wesley Willis has died of complications resulting from Chronic Myelogenous Leukemia (CML). "To me," says Eli, "Wesley's best song has always been I Whupped Batman's Ass. A classic of outsider art." (Listen here -- WAV).

Wesley's most recent album, Fabian Road Warrior contained some 24 original tunes -- including the timeless triumvirate, Suck a Cheetah's Dick, Suck a Pitbull's Dick, and Suck a Donkey's Bootyhole. Shortly after he finished his first album, he was diagnosed with chronic paranoid schizophrenia. Wesley described having "schizophrenia demons" in his head that removed him from the "harmony joy rides" that inspired his music, placing him instead on "torture hell rides". Snip from the Geeklife news item on his passing:

"He lived an interesting life, going from homeless bum to revered musician. Some of his more memorable songs in my mind have been "Chicken Cow", "Kill That Jerk" and "I'm Sorry I'm So Fat (I will slim down)". I had the distinct pleasure of meeting Wesley one midsummer's night after a show at the Metro after a Reel Big Fish show (i think). I said hello to him and asked him how he was doing on his latest album. He was very friendly, albeit extraordinarily incoherent and when I moved to take my leave and shake his hand, I got a head-butt instead! I guess I should count myself lucky he didn't kill me as Wesley was a 6'5 350 lb. behemoth. Head knocking aside, Wesley will be missed for his whimsical outlook on life and his unfailing sense of humor in his song-writing."

Link to news item, Link to Wesley Willis fan page with links, a lyrics generator, and sound clips.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:35:48 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Family Guy movie in 1-1.5 years

There's going to be a direct-to-DVD Family Guy movie:

"Timeframe, you're probably looking at a year, a year-and-a-half down the line. It will take a while to make. If we could do it within a year it would be very exciting."

Link (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:30:11 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Stealth Disco: rock out behind your cow-orkers

Stealth Disco is the act of sneaking up behind your cow-orkers and silently rocking out while a co-conspirator films you and the hapless "victim." He's a screamingly funny best-of video. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:38:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How many CDs can be labelled with one sharpie?

In an experiment aimed at determining qualitatively how much ink is inside a sharpie, the How Much is Inside people spent two days labelling CDRs with a single Sharpie. The answer:

The total was 968 CDs labeled with one Sharpie marker. You can view tiny images of the CDs on the gallery page.

I estimate the total distance marked to be 1,800 feet.

Link (via Ambiguous)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:16:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flashmobs and exhibitionist magicians make each other suck less

Flashmobs may be so over, but are they any worse than exhibitionist conjurer's tricks? Yesterday, a group of Londoners converged on the South Bank in a mob that spelled out rude words with their bodies beneath the clear glass box in which "flamboyant" magician David Blaine is passing 40 days without any food, suspended over the Thames. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:46:52 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Public-domain Pinnochio lives again in a beautiful Tor edition

Pinnochio is one of my favorite children's books. Like many of the great children's stories that have survived history, it is a lot darker than most people realize. In fact, it's a vicious little bastard of a book, and screamingly funny in places. It was from my re-reading of the Gutenberg edition of the text that I was inspired to write my short story Return to Pleasure Island), which appears in my new short-story collection.

Now, Tor Books has brought out a beautiful new edition of the public-domain text of the novel, deisgned by Chesley-Award-winning art director Irene Gallo (who is astonishingly good at her job, and who has a special fondness for this book, I'm told), and lavishly (and I do mean lavishly) illustrated by Gris Grimly, in sepia-toned macabre ink drawings that are as angular and jocularly grim as the text itself. I got a copy of the book in the mail last week, and I've laid aside the book I'm supposed to be reading to read this one -- to devour it again. It's wonderful to have this brilliant text married to this brilliant package. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:43:40 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Poor countries walk out on WTO

A coalition of poor countries organized a mass walkout from the WTO's Minesterial meetings, where trade reps from the developing world were subjected to intense pressure to grant concessions to the rich countries.

The announcement of the walkout came at about 3:30 while US trade representative Robert Zoellick was giving a press conference declaring the intentions of the US to continue negotiations on the Singapore issues. As the press stormed out of the room into the hallway of the convention center, they were met by the dancing and singing of NGO members celebrating the collapse of the meetings.

Developing countries have said for weeks that they were already overburdened and hurt from previous concessions, and were not prepared to negotiate until the issues of agriculture was sufficiently addressed. Unsurprisingly, the demand of rich countries to include the Singapore issues was a clear indication that they were not committed to development, or even to the so called "development agenda" agreed upon in Doha.

Link (via Ambiguous)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:31:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Richard Forno on "high tech heroin"

Interesting essay by Richard Forno of infowarrior.org:

We want to be part of this information environment and feel more empowered with each new gadget, service, or digital connection in our lives. The concept of "information everywhere" provides instant gratification to satisfy our needs for books, music, porn, and digital interaction with others through web searches, e-commerce, wireless, instant messaging, e-mail, and streaming content over broadband. High-speed links enable organizations to operate around the world at light speed and conduct business on a twenty-four hour clock. (...)

Yet as we rush to embrace the latest and greatest gadgetry or high-tech service and satisfy our techno-craving, we become further dependent on these products and their manufacturers ­ so dependent that when something breaks, crashes, or is attacked, our ability to function is reduced or eliminated. Given the frequent problems associated with the Information Age - losing internet connections, breaking personal digital assistants, malicious software incidents, or suffering any number of recurring problems with software or hardware products, we should take a minute to consider whether we're really more or less independent - or empowered - today than we think, knowing that how we act during such stressful periods is similar to a heroin junkie's actions during withdrawal.

Link, (via politech)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:53:56 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Make way for fembots

At long last, my people are returning to Earth. BoingBoing pal Roland says:

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, Peter Hill, of the Australian robotic company Kadence Photonics, has reprogrammed robots to give them some "feminine" intuition. As wrote the author, "a robot that thinks like your mum may be running your kitchen and home sooner than you think." Peter Hill's new method of programming robots [is] based on co-operation rather than exploitation. These reprogrammed robots, Michelle, Romy and Goldie, "are able to switch between a number of jobs according to priority and circumstance." "If a man does the housework, he'll load the washing machine then stand there and watch it," Dr Hill said. "A woman will go off and do something else." Check this summary for more details.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:29:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

QTVR: the iPod car

QTVR enthusiast Hans Nyberg says, "At the Apple Expo in Paris on Tuesday smart car will introduce a special version called i-move It has an Apple iPod built in. The news about it has only been in Mac World UK and Mac Generation in France. (Link). I am now today able to present the car from inside in a Fullscreen QTVR with special music added. The page is here. The QTVR is made by Denis Gliksman from Paris." Link to more info on i-move.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:05:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bush Bills

From the Smoking Gun:

"SEPTEMBER 12--North Carolina cops are searching for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House complete with lawn signs reading 'We like ice cream' and 'USA deserves a tax cut.'"

Link (Thanks, Gil!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:04:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, September 14, 2003

Photos: Inside the Temple of Skatan

I photographed some sk8r bois at a ramp in Santa Barbara, California this weekend.

Link to photo gallery

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:32:39 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Magic posters

Beautiful gallery of vintage magician posters, organized by illusionist. Link (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:40:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Darth Ashcroft: Copyright infringement is your best protest dollar

Remember the Calvin and Hobbes strip where Calvin gives himself his own music-track to accompany his comings and goings? Protestors are applying that to Darth Ashcroft, playing the Imperial March when he puts in appearances.

Ashcroft was bombarded by cries of "Shame!" and the sound of the "Imperial Death March" from the movie "Star Wars" as he entered a meeting with law enforcement officials in Faneuil Hall.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:30:02 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

MSFT + MOT team up to produce new phone

Tomorrow, Microsoft is expected to announce a deal with Motorola -- the world's second-largest handset maker, after Nokia -- to create a new mobile device powered by Windows OS. The phone will be Microsoft's first-ever made in partnership with a major handset manufacturer.

The new glossy black clamshell-shaped phone, called the MPx200, will go on sale in Britain in October through Orange for a retail price of £239 ($383). It will be introduced in the United States through AT&T Wireless and in Asia through various Hong Kong-based distributors during the fourth quarter. The price has not been announced. The phone is aimed at executives on the go and is designed to make it easy to use e-mail messaging and synchronize the phone with a computer, the companies said.

Executives said the model was the first of a new line of Motorola phones to be based on Microsoft's software, although Motorola will continue to make phones based on other operating systems, like Linux and those developed by Symbian, Microsoft's main competitor in the market for operating systems for high-end phones. Symbian, based in London, is a software licensing consortium owned by companies including Nokia; Psion, a maker of hand-held devices; the cellphone makers Samsung, Siemens and Sony Ericsson, as well as Matsushita Electric Industrial, the maker of the Panasonic brand.

Link to Telegraph UK article, Link to NY Times article (registration required)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:09:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jamie Zawinski's "scrmabling" script

Jamie Zawinski has written a perl script to convert blocks of normal text into text where letters excluding the first and last are "scrmabled," to prove the point that legibility is only marginally affected by altering spelling of words, provided that first/last letters are left intact.

# Premssioin to use, cpoy, mdoify, drusbiitte, and slel this stafowre and its
# docneimuatton for any prsopue is hrbeey ganrted wuihott fee, prveodid taht
# the avobe cprgyioht noicte appaer in all coipes and that both taht
# cohgrypit noitce and tihs premssioin noitce aeppar in suppriotng
# dcoumetioantn. No rpeersneatiotns are made about the siuatbliity of tihs
# srofawte for any puorpse. It is provedid "as is" wiuotht exerpss or
# ilmpied waanrrty.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:42:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cheap, OTC Prilosec

Procter and Gamble is gearing up to ship over-the-counter Prilosec for $1/dose. At this rate, my heartburn-killing meds may drop from a major expense to a minor one. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:38:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Amazing Grace, harmonica-style

Last week, I was privileged to hear virtuoso harmonica-artist Howard Levy blow Amazing Grace on a simple 20-note "Oh Suzanna" harmonica. Howard has allowed his track to be released online, and David Weinberger's blog has the details on Howard's homepage, publisher and such. 3.6MB MP3 Link (via JoHo the blog)

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

Vocab of Voice of America

"Special English" is Voice of America's stripped-down English used in its propaganda broadcasts into foreign territory. Here's a link to the complete Special English vocabulary. Link (via Kung-Fu Grippe)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:33:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Scrambled words are legible as long as first and last letters are in place

From Joi Ito's Web:

Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at an Elingsh uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, olny taht the frist and lsat ltteres are at the rghit pcleas. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae we do not raed ervey lteter by ilstef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:00:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Four scenaria for a futuristic vote

The Accellerated Democracy Project features some very rich scenaria for a future in which democracy is computer assissted. I found more entertainment than insight here, though -- while the illustrations and faux newspaper headlines are very well-rendered indeed, tthere was nowhere near enough thinking about the failure modes and potential for expolitation inherent in the "solutions" imagined here. Link (Thanks, Tim!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:02:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Africa needs open source

Dan Gillmor's been in Africa, and in his column this week, he turns in good insight on the role that open source software plays in the developing world.

Around the globe, educators, companies and governments are getting tired of paying the Microsoft tax, which tends to rise inexorably, and sending the money to America. They don't like the upgrade cycle, especially when older computers run Linux just fine. They want to inspire more software innovation at home, and suspect Linux may be the best platform in a world where Microsoft also takes most of the profits in Windows application software...

Microsoft's best argument against open source in the corporate and government contexts is to say it really isn't free, given the support and training costs. There's some truth to this, but the logic also assumes that people are willing to keep buying new hardware to support Microsoft's latest products.

In Africa, that's not just flawed logic. It's nutty, and cost fundamentally rules out Windows on much of the continent.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:53:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, September 13, 2003

Indie comix festival at UCLA, Nov 7-9

My old Clarion classmate Pam Noles has become a comix maven, and is co-organizing an indie funnybooks festival at UCLA called super*MARKET from Nov 7-9. Admission is $2, parking is $7.

Keeping with the do-it-yourself spirit behind super*MARKET, programs will include workshops and seminars designed to help up and coming creators, as well as inform fans curious about how these works of art come to be. Panels will range through topics political and humorous, with a tribute to the underground masters who laid the foundation for today’s independent creators. Quite a few crowd pleasers are thrown into the mix, along with a slate of events for youth. Programming is coordinated by local fan Pam Noles.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:13:03 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Sidekick features, just in the nick of time

The Sidekick turns a year old this month, and for a lot of us early adopters who bought in at full retail on the (dashed) hopes that T-Mobile would make good on Danger's promise to deliver an open platform (like the Symbian phones from Sony-Ericsson, which anyone can write code for, and which, conseuqently, have a really robust software ecosystem percolating under them), that means that this is the month that we can get rid of our Sidekicks and buy something else. For those of us who were so turned off by the outrageous voice-plan offered by T-Mobile on these devices that we kept our old handsets and used these as handheld Internet terminals, there's precious little reason not to: the carriers are subsidising Symbian phones if you buy into a one-year plan, and who needs number-portability when you haven't given anyone the number?

Coincidentally (?), this month, Danger has announced a bunch of really hot (and long overdue) enhancements to the device, including such basic functionality as copy-and-paste. I may hold onto the Sidekick for a couple months longer -- at least until Novmember 28th rolls around and we get fee-crashing number-portability for cellphones.

The new features include:

* Copy and paste (party like it's 1982!)

* Download manager (with ringtones! Party like it's 1998!)

* More AIM features

* "Usability features" Link (Thanks, Mike!)

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

Speaking in San Diego, Sept 28

I'm giving a talk called "Civil liberties, copyright law, and security" on Sunday, Sept. 28th at 11am at the ToorCon Information Security Conference, San Diego, CA, Sept. 27-28, $65 at the door.

ToorCon has established a name for itself within both the professional InfoSec and hacker communities for high-calibre cutting edge talks presented by eminent speakers. This year, with a theme of "Back to Basics," is no exception. Comprehensive presentations on both defence and attack of IT resources, and industry specific presentations on the growing concerns of policies, procedures, and regulatory compliance are highlights of this year's conference.

Link

Note: new link Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:06:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Future sarcastic trousers of many, many pockets

Speaking of future-sarcastic, John Illig makes these cargo pants that are rave culture's finest gift to nerddom, communicating the message, "I have a pocket of dimensions thus-and-so, I wonder if anyone manufactures a device that would fit in it." His fall line is out, and the RAF Fatigues are a really excellent, really future-sarcastic way of secreting your device-array about your person. What's more, they're priced competitively with Gap cargoes (and run about double Old Navy or Army/Navy prices). Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:02:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Future sarcastic rayguns and robots of exceeding loveliness

Greg Brotherton is a sculptor who recycles retro-futuristic vaccuum cleaners and other industrial detritus into breathtakingly cool, highly polished rayguns and robots.

I call this look "future sarcastic," and it's just about my favorite aesthetic. It says: "Well, it's the twenty-first century, where the fuck is my jetpack?" Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 04:57:14 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, September 12, 2003

Island Chronicles: Kookoo for Coconuts

Our new Island Chronicles dispatch is up. Link Feedback

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:20:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Floatation phone" blocks outside world

BBC story about a gizmo that cuts out external sensory stimulation so you can make a phone call. Involves getting into a warm pool and sticking your head in a lightproof bubble. Link (via Smart Mobs)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:03:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Privacy-lovers: Kill phonecams with this remote device?

CNET story about a new product that promises the ability to automatically shut off small cameras in futurephones:

Iceberg Systems is beta-testing Safe Haven, which combines hardware transmitters with a small piece of control software loaded into a camera phone handset. When the handset is taken into a room or building containing the Safe Haven hardware, the phone is instructed to deactivate the imaging systems. The systems are reactivated when the handset is out of range.

Analysts have predicted that there will be almost 1 billion camera phones in use within five years, which has led companies such as Samsung and LG Electronics to bar employees from using camera phones in research and manufacturing facilities because of fears over the security of sensitive data.

Patrick Snow, managing director of Iceberg Systems, said he is already in talks with well-known handset manufacturers interested in testing the technology. Although the technology is designed only for disabling the imaging system, it could be adapted for a wide number of uses, such as blocking loud or annoying ring tones in a theater or even disabling text messaging in a school. However, Snow said that for now, his company is focused solely on controlling the imaging side of handsets.

Link to story, Link to vendor site (via unwired list, thanks Mike!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:54:17 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Me in Wired on casemodding

My piece on casemodding from this month's Wired magazine is online:

MODDER: Rainer Wingender
Manager, BITS-Consulting
Siegenburg, Germany

SPECS: left side: 1.8-GHz AMD XP Thoroughbred 2200, 512 Mbytes RAM, Nvidia GeForce4 graphics card, 110-Gbyte hard disk, DVD-ROM; right side: 450-MHz AMD K6-2, 256 Mbytes RAM, 44xCD, CD-RW, 40-Gbyte hard disk.

COST: $1,000 in cooling plates, exhaust, intakes, and gauges; $2,000 in computer components

TIME: 250 hours over three months

INSPIRATION: "A 1971 Ford Mustang I owned when I was 18. If you've ever driven a V-8, you know the feeling."

CHALLENGE: "Designing good-looking feet. Early tries seemed too small, but when I added the punched bars, it balanced just right visually."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:54:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

William Gibson halts the blog

BoingBoing reader Chris says, "William Gibson has 'unblogged' himself. He's going back to his day job, and he finds blogging overlaps with novel writing enough that it interferes." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:47:01 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nokia ships phone with printable faceplate

Nokia's new phone has a faceplate that can be printed to with an inkjet printer. Link (via Gizmodo)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:37:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

UK police argue for national DNA database

Via politech: "Every single person in the UK should be compelled to have their DNA on the national database in an effort to prevent crime, a senior police officer has argued." Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:36:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Top 10 outsider videos of all time

Hilarious list of the ten most awesomely bad videos of all time, according to Vice Magazine. Picks include the Orson Welles commercial for Paul Masson, some Anna Nicole Smith Outtakes (there are outtakes?), and What I Really Want -- described thusly:

[A] way-too-short informative clip (you want it to go on for days) features a typical Marin County self-help group talking about actualizing your dreams. The story goes that, halfway into filming, the leader of this bizarre yuppie cult decided “everything has to be destroyed – RIGHT NOW!” The filmmakers managed to salvage this 15 minutes before the rest was lost forever. HIGHLIGHT: A man rests on his knees and, after being encouraged to say what he feels no matter how much it hurts, bursts into sobs and screams, “I want to touch people. I want people to TOUCH ME!!!!”

Link, (Thanks, ESC)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:23:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

EyeToy: Play

Greg says:

EyeToy:Play is, according to the ELSPA sales chart, currently the #1 best-selling "game" in the UK. The package includes a small camera you attach to your Playstation 2 via a USB cable, and a disc with a bunch of "mini-games." When you play a game, the camera catches your image, and displays it onscreen. You interact with game objects through the magic of motion capture, using your body to whack them or whatnot. Looks like a very cool toy. No word on if/when it will be available in North America, though.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:14:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Photos of NY skyline, 09/11/03

Brooklyn-based photographer Siege, whose erotic "Dreampod Sessions" for Nerve.com have been blogged here before (Links: Hot, Cold), shot these images of the New York City skyline last night. He's published them online using an interesting photo-sharing service called Fotki I haven't used before. But then, I don't get around the Internet much. Link,

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:01:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Al Franken on The Daily Show

Lisa Rein has uploaded captured video from Al "Fair and Balanced" Franken's appearance on The Daily Show. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:31:47 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Are the RIAA subpoenas legal?

Lisa Rein has written a very good article for O'Reilly, reviewing the ways in which the RIAA's latest attack on P2P users (and due process!) are legal and how they're legally questionable.

A recent decision by the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals finds that a party using "patently unlawful" subpoenas to obtain access to another party's stored electronic communications could be liable for violations of electronic privacy and computer fraud statutes. This could have serious implications for the RIAA's mass subpoena campaign in that, if such subpoenas were also determined to be "patently unlawful," for whatever reason, the organization could be held liable under electronic privacy and computer fraud statutes for accessing user data under false pretenses. (Read a summary of the decision.)

Does this mean, if the RIAA's subpoenas are determined "invalid," that they are illegally snooping? It's extremely possible. However, the DMCA subpoena law is new and there aren't many decisions on it, so the RIAA could try to hide behind the "newness" of the law to avoid liability for misusing it.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:20:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

12 days more to propose a talk for ETCON

Don't forget: you've got until September 24th to get a proposal in to the O'Reilly Emerging Technologies conference if you plan on speaking there. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:16:26 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ask Congress to fix copyright and stop the RIAA's lunacy

The EFF has launched its first-ever a new petition, asking Congress to look into constructive solutions to the file-sharing problem!

Take a Stand Against the Madness; Stop the RIAA!

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) is on a rampage, launching legal attacks against average Americans from coast to coast. Rather than working to create a rational, legal means by which its customers can take advantage of file-sharing technology and pay a fair price for the music they love, it has chosen to sue people like Brianna LaHara, a 12 year-old girl living in New York City public housing.

Brianna, and hundreds of other music fans like her, are being forced to pay thousands of dollars they do not have to settle RIAA-member lawsuits -- supporting a business model that is anything but rational. This crusade is generating thousands of subpoenas and hundreds of lawsuits, but not a single penny for the artists that the RIAA claims to protect.

Copyright law shouldn't make criminals out of 60 million Americans, and it's time for a change. Congress is going to hold hearings; we need your help to make sure that the public's voice is heard. Tell Congress that it's time to stop the madness!

We have 3493 signatures so far. Help us get to 10,000!

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:10:42 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Flash-mobs for the enterprise!

Geoff Cohen's figured out the logic end-point of this whole flash-mob business:

You've read about flashmobs in the newspaper. Now, tap the power of flashmobs for your enterprise, realizing ROI on your enterprise software investment, and increasing the stickiness of your customers.

Using our proprietary peer-to-peer, adaptive, autonomic, social-network-aware FLASHPOWER software, direct your employees, customers, and stakeholders to arrive at specific locations. We support over four thousand possible locations through our FLASH LOCATIONS PARTNERS program, including Starbucks(tm), Marriott(tm), and Newbury Comics(tm). FLASHPOWER supports twenty-five different activities for your mobs, including muttering, chanting, clapping, hopping on one foot, and furiously scowling while entering data into their PDA*. Upgrade to FLASHPOWER PRO and receive additional PRO locations, including such important sites as Faneuil Hall, Boston, the QuickStop used in Kevin Smith's film "Clerks," and the 1st base bleachers of Coors' Field**.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:00:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lethem's new novel reviewed on Salon

Jonathan Lethem is a hell of a novelist. Ever since his Gun, With Occassional Music (the inspiration for me inserting a character who's "always self-identified as an ewok" in my most-recent novella), I've been an enormous fan. Now his new book, Fortress of Solitude is out -- and Salon has a great feature review of it.

"Like a match struck in a darkened room," his novel begins: "Two white girls in flannel nightgowns and red vinyl roller skates with white laces, tracing tentative circles on a cracked blue slate sidewalk at seven o'clock on an evening in July." These are the Solver sisters, Thea and Ana, shining "like a new-struck flame" in the eyes of Dylan Ebdus, the currently five-year-old hero/narrator/recollected protagonist of Lethem's mighty "Fortress." The sisters are blond and beautiful, strangers, like Dylan, in a rundown New York neighborhood made up principally of browns and blacks. It's 1972 and the Solvers are "the new thing, spotlit to start the show ... The girls murmured rhymes," Dylan thinks, or "were murmured rhymes" -- it's hard to tell "in the orange-pink summer dusk, the air and light which hung over the street, over all of Gowanus like the palm of a hand or the inner surface of a seashell."

Gowanus is a part of Brooklyn, of course, not Krypton or Kandor, and Lethem is the new poet of Brooklyn -- the new Whitman, even, whose bold imagination and sheer love of words defy all forms and expectations and place him among this country's foremost novelists. Five years in the making, "The Fortress of Solitude" is Lethem's "spiritual autobiography," proudly claimed as such and following magically on the heels of 1999's award-winning "Motherless Brooklyn," the novel that introduced a detective with Tourette's syndrome to the United States and marked Lethem's departure from the hybrid but definitely marginal genres in which he'd previously worked -- mysteries, westerns and sci-fi's, sometimes all three at once. To say that Lethem bends the rules, pushes the envelope and extends the possibilities of fiction is to state only part of the case. He's defiant, delicious, in his refusal to be pinned.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:57:36 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Adolf Hitler's Homes and Gardens moment

In 1938, Homes and Gardens ran a long, loving piece on Adolf Hitler's Mountain Home. Words of Waldman has the scans. Link (via Joi)

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

Thursday, September 11, 2003

Till Death Do Us Part

In the October Wired, Joshua Davis tells the gripping operating room tale of Laleh and Ladan Bijani, the 29-year-old Iranian conjoined twins who underwent surgery this summer to get separated and died as a result. Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:17:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Muy, muy Muybridge

When I was a little girl, one of my favorite books in our house was this gigantic collection of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge. I used to scan my eyes accross each page really fast, left to right, trying to form movies in my head out of the sequential rows of stop-action stills. The horse ones were my supernumberonefavorite; the naked baseball guy was also neat. So, anyway, there's a new biography out about Muybridge by Rebecca Solnit called River of Shadows: Eadweard Muybridge and the Technological Wild West (Viking Press, 2003). It explores his relationship with California, examining his experiments in film and their importance in shaping the future of this state as the seat of entertainment and technology.

If you're in LA, or passing through -- Michael Dawson Gallery is launching an exhibit of Muybridge's photos that runs through November 8. They're also hosting an evening with Solnit on Tuesday, October 14.

"Eadweard Muybridge (1830-1904) was born and died in Kingston upon Thames, Surrey, England, but spent much of his working life as a professional photographer in America. He arrived in San Francisco from his native England in 1855. After working for a time as a bookseller, Muybridge began his career as a photographer, calling himself 'Helios' - the name of the ancient sun-god (...) By the late 1870's Muybridge was deeply involved in his study of human and animal movement and developed innovative techniques for producing sequential photographs. Employed by Leland Stanford to answer the question of whether all four legs of a trotting horse were ever aloft simultaneously, Muybridge became THE pioneer photographer of the moving image. His extensive studies and inventions were acknowledged by E. J. Marey, the Lumiere brothers, Thomas Edison and other innovators of the motion picture."

Link to more info on the show, Link to online gallery of some of the images in the show, Link to more info on the book.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:21:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

GPS Networkcar

A company called GPS Networkcar promises "complete solutions for monitoring the performance, location, and security of your car." Location-based wireless technology connects to your car's computer and beams data about your car's performance to your "personal vehicle website," and your service provider. This kind of stuff seems to be becoming a more common built-in feature on late-model vehicles, particularly luxury brands (for instance, some of the cool telematics stuff that Mercedes-Benz began offering in 2003). But if your car didn't ship off the lot with such features, GPS Networkcar's service "communicate[s] with your vehicle's onboard computer, interpret[s] the data and transmit[s] important information back to you and your service provider." Here's how it works. Update: The all-seeing Paul Boutin wrote about this recently in Slate, and check out this related article by Paul on automobile "black boxes." (via unwired, Thanks Frank!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:45:38 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Here's what an actual California recall sample ballot looks like

Link to scanned ballot (804x638 px jpeg), (Thanks, Gabe!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:33:52 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Latest in Graham Roumieu's BIGFOOT comic-art series

Click here for the entire frame, with both image and text. A BoingBoing exclusive: Renowned Toronto-based artist Graham Roumieu shares his latest from the Bigfoot series, and you're the first to see it.

Roumieu's graphic books In Me Own Words: The Autobiography of Bigfoot, and A Really Super Book About Squirrels are available through Amazon.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:14:57 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIAA counterpoint: Pie Rats strike back

From Scott Rosenberg, in Salon:

My kids are big Richard Scarry fans, and one of their favorite books is a little paperback titled "Pie Rats Ahoy!" (Yes, these successors to Captain Hook are tiny rats who steal a pie from the seafaring hero.)

I thought of that punning title as I read the latest batch of headlines from the file-swapping wars. The RIAA and its member labels have now taken the final step (one I predicted nearly four years ago, as I recalled here) of declaring all-out war on the music fans who are their own best customers -- and who have in recent years taken to file trading en masse because of the music industry's price gouging and its pathetic reluctance to adapt to new technology.

Link, (Thanks, ESC)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:54:03 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYC Supreme Court says: boobies = free speech

Straight Outta Gawker:

Lushy clothes-shedding celebutante Tara Reid is undoubtedly pole-dancing with joy today. In the first good thing to happen to New York City in months, nudie bars and porno theaters are -- for now -- totally legal. Yesterday, Manhattan's Supreme Court ruled against the City's adult business ban, calling it, weirdly enough, unconstitutional. Michael Bloomberg, capitalist kingpin, will now spend hundreds of thousands of dollars of the broke-ass City's money trying to close down the small businesses. This is when Cindy Adams pokes her head out of the stripper bar and shrieks, "Only in New York, kids, only in New York!"

Link to NY Daily News item,

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:40:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

QTVRs: WTC, 9/11/2001, + 10

QTVR panoramas of Ground Zero, shot ten days after September 11, 2001 by photographer Jim Galvin.

Link to Galvin's seven panoramas, Link to other 9/11-related QTVRs,

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:15:19 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, September 10, 2003

Gawker's Elizabeth Spiers: first-ever bidding war for a blogger?

Item! The blogosphere is all aflutter.

(1) Elizabeth Spiers, "snark queen" editor of Nick Denton's New York-based Gawker blog is said to be on (insert Dr. Evil air-quotes) vacation (/air quotes). Jeff Jarvis says:

She has been hanging around New York magazine, getting a co-byline on the Intelligencer this week (imagine if you could hear her voice there -- it'd be better than a return to the good old days of the column that really started smart local gossip). She has also been called by various magazines, even Conde Nast magazines (yes, even that one), to freelance. What makes this notable is that Elizabeth is the first media star really made by weblogs. Others have become stars in their own rights (Glenn, Andrew, et al) but Liz is the first to be making the jump from niche to mass media; she is our Judd sister. Nick Denton discovered her voice on a weblog and together they made Gawker a hit and now she's getting ready to move on up to the East Side. Choire Sicha has been filling in.

Greg Lindsay from WWD dishes more speculation, Gawker weighs in here, and there's a statement on Elizabeth's personal blog here. You still with me? Good.

(2) Jason McCabe Calacanis wants to put the bling in blogs. The serial entrepreneur who created tech publications including Silicon Alley Reporter and Venture Reporter (disclaimer: I'm the former VP of the publishing company he founded, behind both magazines) has been quietly planning to launch his Next Big Thing later this month. His still-in-stealth venture has something to do with B2B weblogs for profit, and creating viable economic micropublishing models for bloggers. If it takes off as planned, someone close to the venture says, he'll have spawned 500 of these sites in three years' time.

(3) Calacanis initiated what amounts to a bidding war for Spiers today, offering her 50% of a new publication product she would edit, a new laptop, paying for her Soho house membership and funding. Can Nick Denton -- or any of Spiers' rumored print suitors-- top that?

Update: Nick Denton responds.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:57:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Jenn Shreve on NPR: Day to Day

Former BoingBoing guest blogger Jenn Shreve was interviewed today on NPR: Day to Day. Jenn talked about her Slate essay "A Fitting Memorial," an insightful piece on memorial t-shirts that commemorate the tragic deaths of loved ones. Scroll down to find the audio link to "Slate's The Gist: T-Shirts and Mourning." Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:33:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

New Roger Wood clock

Roger Wood's latest clock is brilliant, beautiful. I really miss living down the hall from him. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:07:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Pixies together again

BoingBoing pal Gil Kaufman breaks the news on MTV.com that after more than a decade, the legendary Pixies are reuniting in April for a world tour. Gil says: "The Eagles declared 'Hell Freezes Over' when they reunited a few years ago, and indie rock fans are about to feel the same way." Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 12:32:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

von Lohmann on RIAA Amnesty

My co-worker Fred von Lohmann has an op-ed in today's LA Times about the ways in which the RIAA's amnesty is a scam:

Rather than trying to sue Americans into submission, imagine a real solution for the problem. What if the labels legitimized music swapping by offering a real amnesty for all file-sharing, past, present and future, in exchange for say, $5 a month from each person who steps forward?

The average American household spends less than $100 on prerecorded music annually. Assuming that many people will continue buying at least some CDs (a recent survey by Forrester Research found that half of all file-sharers continue to buy as many or more CDs as they did before catching the downloading bug), $60 per year for file sharing seems reasonable.

And such a plan would surely be more popular than the use-restricted and limited-inventory "authorized" alternatives. After all, the explosive growth of file-sharing is the strongest demand signal the record business has ever seen. The industry should embrace the opportunity instead of continuing to thrash around like dinosaurs sinking in hot tar.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:19:29 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

How to sell an iTunes track

Want to exercise your first-sale rights in the music you buy from Apple? It's not easy, but it is possible. All you need to do is buy a disposable credit-card, jump through a lot of hoops, and eventually, you can make it happen.

I run to CVS and buy my first prepaid MasterCard, paying for it with my real credit card. The price of pseudo-anonymity is steep though, $9.95 for the card with a minimum initial balance for $20, turning my $1.05 iTunes investment into a pricey $31 expenditure. I should be able to get the $20 back out of the card assuming Keith doesn't buy 20 iTunes the moment he gets my email. [Update 2003-09-10 8:23 AM - I was able to spend $19 of the $20 on a gift to the EFF, not sure what happened to that other $1]...

I've deauthorized my computer, sent Keith the information and file. He can play the Double Dutch Bus as well as the other songs that he purchased from the iTunes Music Store. His computer is now authorized on his old account and the new account that he received from me.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:18:06 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

RIAA amnesty is fraudulent

A California resident represented by Ira Rothken, a brilliant Class Action attorney, is suing the RIAA for its fraudulent shamnesty offer:

It is "designed to induce members of the general public...to incriminate themselves and provide the RIAA and others with actionable admissions of wrongdoing under penalty of perjury while (receiving)...no legally binding release of claims...in return," according to the complaint.

"This lawsuit seeks a remedy to stop the RIAA from engaging in unlawful, misleading and fraudulent business practices," the suit reads.

Link Ho

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:17:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

For the want of a fuse, London was lost

London's worst blackout in 10 years was caused by the improper installation of a one amp fuse.

National Grid's chief executive, Roger Urwin, described the incident as a "one off" caused by a single faulty installation that remained undetected until August 28, when it provoked London's worst power failure in 10 years...

The automatic protection equipment, a shoebox-sized device that acts like a normal domestic fuse, was activated because it was the wrong amp size. Two years ago, engineers had mistakenly installed a one-amp version instead of a five-amp version. When the power surged, the fuse - because it was oversensitive - shut down the system when a correct fuse would not have done.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:43:08 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lab Notes from UC Berkeley

* Smart Dust Millirobots take a walk

* Computer-recognition of human motion could lead to videogames where the players control human actors

* A collaborative virtual workspace is tricked out with haptic feedback

All in my latest issue of Lab Notes from UC Berkeley's College of Engineering. Please stop by! Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 07:42:31 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Help pay back the RIAA's 12-year-old victim

Emmett Plant is running a collection-plate to pay back the 12-year-old honor student who lives in a New York housing project who was intimidated into turning $2000 over to the RIAA to keep them from suing her for file-sharing. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:38:28 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

H-Bomb architect Edward Teller dies

The Hungarian immigrant known as the "father of the H-bomb" died at his home on the Stanford University campus in California Tuesday. Link, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:12:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bill Joy leaves Sun

Sun Microsystems chief scientist Bill Joy said yesterday he is leaving the company. Link, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:04:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Labels are data-mining the P2Pnets

BigChampagne, a P2P metrics company that generates Billboard-charts for file-sharing nets, is the subject of a Wired article in which they reveal that their customers are the same labels whose industry association is suing everyone from 12 year old girls to university profs for using those nets.

According to on-the-record statements by many major labels, the scene I witnessed in Fleischer's office couldn't possibly have happened. But Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, says his firm is working with Maverick, Atlantic, Warner Bros., Interscope, DreamWorks, Elektra, and Disney's Hollywood label. The labels are reticent to admit their relationship with BigChampagne for public relations reasons, but there's a legal rationale, too. The record industry's lawsuits against file-sharing companies hang on their assertion that the programs have no use other than to help infringe copyrights. If the labels acknowledge a legitimate use for P2P programs, it would undercut their case as well as their zero-tolerance stance. "We would definitely consider gleaning marketing wisdom from these networks a non-infringing use," says Fred von Lohmann, staff counsel for the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the San Francisco-based cyber liberties group that's helping to defend Morpheus, Grokster, and Kazaa.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 05:17:06 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, September 9, 2003

Wacky numbering systems from around the world

BoingBoing pal ESC exclaims, "Did you know the British have a different numbering system than we do for numbers over a million? They have shit called Milliards, and Billiards! WTF?" Link, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:37:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wonderful Japanese toys from Hideshi Hino

I don't know anything about Hideshi Hino, but I sure like the look of his toys. Link Discuss (via Geisha Asobi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:28:28 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Chile's forgotten socialist Internet

In the 1970s, Chile's Allende socialist government contracted with a British garage-inventor to erect an egalatarian nationwide data-network.

For the next two years, as subordinates searched for these amid the food shortages, and the local press compared him to Orson Welles and Socrates, Beer worked in Chile in frenetic bursts, returning every few months to England, where a British team was also labouring over Cybersyn. What this collaboration produced was startling: a new communications system reaching the whole spindly length of Chile, from the deserts of the north to the icy grasslands of the south, carrying daily information about the output of individual factories, about the flow of important raw materials, about rates of absenteeism and other economic problems.

Until now, obtaining and processing such valuable information - even in richer, more stable countries - had taken governments at least six months. But Project Cybersyn found ways round the technical obstacles. In a forgotten warehouse, 500 telex machines were discovered which had been bought by the previous Chilean government but left unused because nobody knew what to do with them. These were distributed to factories, and linked to two control rooms in Santiago. There a small staff gathered the economic statistics as they arrived, officially at five o'clock every afternoon, and boiled them down using a single precious computer into a briefing that was dropped off daily at La Moneda, the presidential palace.

Link Discuss (via Electrolite)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:26:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Warren Ellis takes up prose

Warren "Transmetropolitan" Ellis has sold his first novel. Kick ass!

This comic tour of the dark underbelly of American culture features a down-and-out private detective who is hired by heroin-addled G-men to find the lost (secret) Constitution to the United States. Publication is slated for Winter/Spring 05.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:21:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Dashboard mounted Tablet PC

Pete Rojas writes on Gizmodo:

"Someone in South Korea actually went to the trouble of mounting a Compaq TC1000 Tablet PC to the dashboard of their car so they could use it for GPS navigation and as a video and music player. We love it."

Link Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:57:34 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

100% X keyboard

On this keyboard -- which is currently being auctioned on eBay -- every key has been replaced with an "X." I rather like it, but must confess a particularly personal bias to that character. Link, Discuss (via Geisha)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:51:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

photo gallery: Tricky Dominoes

A new end-of-summer gallery of previously unreleased shots is now up on Paris-based photographer Ernesto Timor's site. Some nudity. Link, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:35:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Virtual "Burning Man" realm in online world of Second Life

Participants in Second Life -- a large, user-built, 3D online society -- created a virtual "Burning Man" that existed concurrently with the real-world event:

All the freeform creativity and dreamy partying -- just without the sunburns, or long lines at the portapotty. In an online tribute to the legendary Burning Man arts festival held every Labor Day weekend in the Black Rock desert, Second Life opened up two new simulators (about 32 acres of virtual land), and let the residents go wild.

[R]esidents immediately converged on Burning Life, held in the Mauve and Chartreuse simulators, throwing up fantastic sculptures and structures. Pyramids of giant monkeys! The statue of a torch-bearing goddess! An electronica-themed nightclub for raving into the wee hours! Elf-bearing dirigibles, pagan art shrines, kinetic horse sculptures, solar system mobiles, and of course, the bonfire incineration of the Burning Life effigy itself. Everything seemed possible, and usually was -- right up until September 2nd, that is, when the simulator territories were returned to normal use.

Link, Discuss (thanks, Charlie O'Donovan!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:16:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Realdolls need Realsurgery

Online step-by-step photo gallery documenting "surgery done on Realdolls." For those of you unfamiliar with these high-end sex toys, they are costly (about $6-7K) and unusually lifelike love dolls. Each page on this surgery site contains a brief explanation of the procedure, history of how each -- er -- mishap occured, and how each faux female was fixed. Includes helpful tips on why superglue is bad for Realdolls, intimate snapshots of "butt repair," and hyperpunctuated reminders to "enjoy the gruesome and PLEASE TAKE CARE OF YOUR DOLLS!!!!!" Wiley points out that the site lacks "information on anything really interesting, like adding exta heads or limbs." I suppose it's not worksafe, but the only naked women here are 100% silicone, so, whatever. Link, Discuss (via News of the Dead)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:44:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

TSA's flight screening program color codes passengers

Within the year, the new Transporation Securiry Administration will begin to do background checks on every airline passenger. You'll be issued a color-code: green, yellow, or red.

It's a textbook case of function creep. The TSA is not only targeting terrorists. but criminals of all kinds.

[U]p to 8 percent of passengers who board the nation's 26,000 daily flights will be coded "yellow" and will undergo additional screening at the checkpoint, according to people familiar with the program. An estimated 1 to 2 percent will be labeled "red" and will be prohibited from boarding. These passengers also will face police questioning and may be arrested.

...The system "will provide protections for the flying public," said TSA spokesman Brian Turmail. "Not only should we keep passengers from sitting next to a terrorist, we should keep them from sitting next to wanted ax murderers."

Thank goodness. This ought to put a stop to all those gruesome ax murders that are committed aboard commercial airliners. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:57:44 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sound of a Black Hole

Regarding my Infrasound post below, Marc Laidlaw points us to this article about the discovery of sound waves from a supermassive black hole more than 250 million light years from Earth. According to a NASA article, "the 'note' is the deepest ever detected from any object in our Universe." Marc asks "Could it be that the supermassive black hole at the galactic core is responsible for the sense of cosmic dread that permeates our galaxy?" Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 03:29:05 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Disney's self-destructing DVDs

Disney is going to start offering DVDs that deteriorate within 48 hours after removing them from an oxygen-resistant envelope. Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:36:14 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Making Book: best of the proto-blogs

While at WorldCon last week, I had opportunity to go to dinner on two consecutive nights with Patrick and Teresa Nielsen Hayden -- friends and mentors and editors of mine who are both thoroughly engaged in the business end of the field and the fannish, amateur (as in "one who loves") end of the field. On the first night, Teresa mentioned that her collection of essays (mostly collected from fanzines, APAs and the like), "Making Book," was going into its third printing. I realized that I had seen this book on innumerable bookcases at friends' writerly apartments around the world, a kind of recognition symbol of membership in a fraternity of publishing and fannish insiderdom, but that I'd never read it myself. So I rushed out and bought one of the few remaining second edition printings still available for sale, had Teresa sign it, and started to read it in bits and bites.

This is a terrific book. I mean, I had no idea. It is a convulsively funny, shrewd and sharp collection of anaecdotes well-told, observations well-observed and jokes hilariously cracked, all the while tracing secret histories of fandom, the ins and outs of being diagnosed narcoleptic at a time when such diagnoses were considered sprious and radical by the medical establishment, and of the gypsy life of a con-running, APA-publishing foremother of the blogging masses whose "personal publishing revolution" has its origins in the dim days of mimeographs and dittos.

Oh, and don't miss the "On Copyediting" piece, which began as an internal publishing memo and is a sterling example of the species of bureaucratic documentation that can become a lasting work of art.

I've been thinking about which bit I wanted to quote here, and today on the BART I nearly fell out of my seat laughing at this passage:

Unfinished letter (New York, c. 1984): Take the "A" Train

We're in New York now, living a few blocks from the 190th street "A" train stop. I want someone to do a new musical arrangement of "Take the 'A' Train." It would be played at half the normal speed, and partway through the band suddenly stops and just sits there for fifteen minutes while the conductor cups his hands around a microphone and makes muffled announcements in Mandarin Chinese and the audience groans in unison. Then the band would play a few more bars and stop again, while the conductor announces that everyone sitting to the right of the center aisle must go find a seat on the left side and vice versa. Any member of the audience not complying will be forcibly seized and carried out, to be later deposited in Far Rockaway. And all that jazz.

BTW, Teresa's blog is every bit as sharp as her book, but harder to read on the subway. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:37:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Cheaper than Southwest Air: fly cargo

The cheapest way to get from Boston to Texas? Air freight.

After hours of traveling, McKinley, 25, of New York City, pried open the crate with a crowbar Saturday morning. He popped up outside his parents' doorstep in the south Dallas suburb of DeSoto, shook the hand of a shocked deliveryman and walked away.

The deliveryman called DeSoto police, who arrested him on outstanding Texas warrants. The FBI and the Transportation Security Administration are investigating.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:24:35 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tell the Patent Office to back off on the open source WIPO debate

WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization, is theoretically about agreements on all kinds of copyright regimes, including open source and patent-free tegimes. However, the WIPO administration has refused to consider questions of how to promote open culture, open source, and open science, largely because the US Patent and Trademark Office has been throwing its weight around, saying that open IP regimes have no place at WIPO. Write to the USPTO and tell them what you think of this! EFF's got the details at the action center:

The cost of software, availability of medicine and production of valuable scientific knowledge are, in large part, determined by the policies of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). Today, WIPO focuses on restrictive intellectual property regimes, but it doesn't have to be that way tomorrow. WIPO is holding a budget meeting in Geneva from September 8-10, where it will decide whether or not to schedule increased discussions of open and collaborative development models (OCDM). OCDM includes open source software like Linux and collaborative scientific endeavors like the Human Genome Project - valuable initiatives that benefit the public. WIPO expressed support for such a discussion, but backed off when the U.S. Patent and Trade Office (USPTO) warned it away. Tell the USPTO to reconsider its misguided stance and support public information goods throughout the world! Note: International residents are welcome to take this action.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:56:55 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Gilmore on not obfuscating email in online archives

Declan McCullough sent out a message to his Politech list subscribers recently, saying that he planned to go through the online list archives and obfuscate the email addresses published thereon to frustrate spammers' harvest-bots.

John Gilmore's written a stirring and principled response.

Why have you fallen into the all-too-common fallacy of thinking that if email addresses aren't published anywhere, that will help "solve" the problem of unwanted communications? I had an idiot come after me several times, demanding that my archive of the USENIX Face Saver images remove his email address, because he was trying to obliterate every reference to it on the web. I refused, of course. Have we reached a Brave New World in which we all start rewriting online history to suit today's prejudices? That sounds like what you propose for the Politech archives.

For the record, please keep my email address INTACT in the Politech archives. I don't want my communications to be "obfuscated" in the historical record.

Unwanted communications would exist even if every "spammer" was flayed and burned at the stake. You should know -- reporters get more unwanted press releases than anybody.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:53:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, September 8, 2003

Slip-N-Slide sues Dickie Roberts

Wham-O, the brain-donors who manufacture the Slip-N-Slide water-fun-toy are suing the producers of "Dickie Roberts," a dumb torture-comedy movie in which Dana Carvey David Spade (thanks, JeremyT) flings himself on an un-wetted Slip-N-Slide and friction-burns his nipples.

Wham-O is asking a judge to order the film out of theaters as long as it contains the Slip 'N Slide scene, or for a disclaimer to be added urging viewers not to try the maneuver made by Spade.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:40:18 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Boutin in Slate on RIAA's amnesty deal: "An offer you CAN refuse"

Blogger and tech journalist Paul Boutin points us to this article, for which he pinged lawyers at the EFF and RIAA today to nitpick details and outline potential problems with the RIAA's Clean Slate amnesty program. "I'm sure people will disagree with my personal opinions," says Paul, "but the legal points are worth reading."

To those determined to make an end-run around the music biz's lack of attractive online offerings (Apple's iTunes Music Store is still the best of a weak lot), the lawsuits just mean it's time to abandon KaZaA by moving their game of keep-away to the next playground. KaZaA rose to prominence only after Napster was shut down. Now that RIAA lawyers have proved they can subpoena the names of KaZaA users from their ISPs, expect a mass migration to anonymous, encrypted P2P networks designed specifically to fix the known vulnerabilities in KaZaA. Earth Station 5 is the most outrageous example. It uses a mesh of proxy servers, encrypted data, and other identity-hiding tricks to keep copyright owners from tracking who's downloading what. To top it all off, the company—which recently issued a press release declaring itself "at war" with the entertainment industry—is headquartered in Palestine.

But what about Americans worried about the prospect of a bank-breaking lawsuit? Should you take the RIAA up on its amnesty offer? Maybe not. The "Clean Slate" program promises that the RIAA won't pursue legal action against P2P pirates who send in a notarized affidavit declaring that they've wiped all copyright-infringing materials from their disk drives and who vow not to file-share again. But lawyers at the Electronic Frontier Foundation in San Francisco say there are multiple reasons to sit tight for now, rather than rush to sign and deliver what amounts to an admission of guilt.

Link, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:10:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Lessig 2.0

Larry Lessig's a father! The gold master shipped yesterday, codenamed "Willem Dakota Neuefeind Lessig." Link Discuss

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

List of links to wireless art projects

Bev points us to this incomplete but interesting list of websites about art projects that involve cellular phones or mobile internet devices. Some of the projects are new, some are old, but the link-list is good for countless hours of amused browsing. Link, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:38:49 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Two (digital) turntables and a microphone

CD scratchin' and mixin'. The soon-to-be-released Technics Direct Drive Digital Turntable makes me weak in the knees:

"From some photos of a Technics display in Japan pictured below, you can see in great detail the new decks soon to be released. The photos suggest that the turntables themselves spin, and are to work fundamentally along the same lines as the Technics 1200 series Turntables, but feature a huge number of digital functions, additions and improvements. The turntable also uses Panasonic’s SD Card technology so you can instantly switch between CDs and digital memory stick, which can hold up to 512MB. This essentially enables a DJ to rock up to a gig and deliver his set directly off SD Cards.

We are of course reserving judgment until we get to play with some, but the outlook appears promising. Technics decks are currently featured in nearly all clubs and bars around the world, and set the global standard for professional DJ equipment. It will be fascinating to see if these new CD mixers can live up to the high expectations and eclipse the Pioneer CDJ1000’s, which have grabbed much attention of late, for a decent share in the market."

Link to photos from Resident Advisor, Discuss (thanks, Geoff Goodfellow)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:09:30 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Toynbee tiles": Weird, unexplained street-art-graffiti

Cool story about mysterious art-graffiti tiles embedded in American streets. No, it's not a new phenomenon, but this Kansas City Star story offers a fun new take.

"The message wasn't painted. It was some kind of tile, a bit larger than a license plate, that had actually been imbedded in the street. Each letter looked to have been hand carved and inlaid in a plastic or epoxy base. I tried to push my thumbnail into the tile. It was rock hard. Harder than the asphalt itself(...) Since then I've walked right over the thing dozens of times and each time made a mental note to further investigate its origins. And each time promptly mislaid the mental note.

A couple months ago, however, on my way back from Jake's, I made an actual paper note and kept it clutched in my hand all the way back to my cube here at The Star where I "googled" the wording on the strange tile. Bingo. Up popped more than 30 Internet addresses referring to other such tiles found in other cities. Turns out there have been more than 130 documented sightings of these "Toynbee tiles"-- as they're nicknamed on the Net -- in at least 20 cities around the United States (and two in South America!). In New York almost 50 tiles have been counted, in Philadelphia nearly 30. Twenty have been spotted in Baltimore, including four at one intersection. And there have been at least 16 documented sightings in Washington, D.C., -- one a block from the White House.

All the tiles say virtually the same thing. And they all look virtually the same, except some are made with colored letters and others only black letters. The Internet accounts and stories from other newspapers indicate that the first tiles were discovered in the late 80s. Nobody has ever claimed to have witnessed any of the tiles being imbedded. And nobody has ever publicly claimed responsibility for making the tiles."

Link to Kansas City Star story, Discuss (Thanks, ESC)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:52:00 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Eye candy or eye drugs?

Optical illusions for endless hours of zoned-out, timewasting pleasure. Included in this online gallery of tasty visual teases, "Rotating Snakes." Click thumbnail at left for full-size image and full, freaky visual impact. The static, "coiled" shapes appear to writhe on-screen. Link, Discuss (Thanks, KK!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:30:24 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Copyright law's perennial dilemma

This quote is stuck up on the wall here at EFF. It makes me think every time I read it. Figured it should be online somewhere.

Copyright law strikes a precarious balance.

To encourage authors to create and disseminate original expression, it accords them a bundle of proprietary rights in their works.

But to promote public education and creative exchange, it invites audiences and subsequent authors to use existing works in every conceivable manner that falls outside the province of the copyright owner's exclusive rights.

Copyright law's perennial dilemma is to determine where exclusive rights should end and unrestrained public access should begin.

Neil Netanel, Copyright and a Democratic Civil Society, 106 Yale L.J. 283, 285 (1996).

Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:39:36 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

My short story collection is out!

My first short story collection, "A Place So Foreign and Eight More," is out! It should start appearing on store shelves this week. As with Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, I've made a bunch of the stories in the collection available online for free, under the terms of a Creative Commons license.

I'm trying some different stuff this time around. For starters, I'm only making one format available: ASCII text, wrapped to 80 columns. If you want another format, you're invited to do the conversion yourself and post a link to a downloadable version on the page for the story in question.

Short stories are naturals for electronic distribution. For starters, they're short. Durr. More important is that they're ephemeral. Short fiction is the cutting edge of the field, but the stories themselves usually vanish along with the current ish of the magazines in which they appear. That's depressing as hell, but it's also infopocalypic. I learned a lot of my form by reading and dissecting stories, and by writing them, iterating through different experiments quickly. Those stories are gone -- might as well be gone forever.

Electronic editions mean that the stories will be in print forever -- or for as long as there's an Internet. I'm really glad to have the collection on the stands and the stories on the Web. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. (Oh, and don't miss Bruce Sterling's intro, it's killer). Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:55:27 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Infrasound Experiment

I've always been intrigued by infrasound, extreme bass frequencies that you may not be able to consciously hear but can have a profound impact on your state-of-mind (and body). Of course, the military has also been interested in exploiting this phenomenon as a non-lethal weapon. Acoustic scientists at the National Physical Laboratory in England recently conducted the first controlled infrasound experiment--on 750 people at a concert. According to this Reuters report, "The audience did not know which pieces (of music) included infrasound but 22 percent reported more unusual experiences when it was present in the music. Their unusual experiences included feeling uneasy or sorrowful, getting chills down the spine or nervous feelings of revulsion or fear."

"Some scientists have suggested that this level of sound may be present at some allegedly haunted sites and so cause people to have odd sensations that they attribute to a ghost -- our findings support these ideas," said Professor Richard Wiseman, a psychologist at the University of Hertfordshire in southern England.

It'd be fun to write an article on the history and future of infrasound. Link Discuss

posted by David Pescovitz at 11:37:58 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

The Island Chronicles: "You've got Ringworm"

Here's the latest Island Chronicles dispatch. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 12:55:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Sunday, September 7, 2003

'50s commercial animation art gallery

Extremely cool online gallery of '50s and '60 commercial art and photography. Link, Discuss (via J-Walk).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:53:37 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Morton's Salt Dough House

In the '70s, Morton gave out a brochure with a recipe for "salt dough" -- like Play-Doh for grownups. The brochure is full of pictures of creepy salt dough crafts you can make for your home. Link Discuss (via Irregular Orbit)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:48:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

"Object that might possibly be an animal part" discovered in Conde Nast headquarters

(Forwarded anonymously) This email message was sent to Conde Nast employees today:

This morning an object that might possibly be an animal part was found in the 18th Floor janitorial area of the freight corridor. At this time our security personnel is cooperating with an investigation that involves representatives from both the EMS and the NYPD. As part of their routine investigation, it may be necessary to inspect other janitorial areas and/or employee bathrooms within 4 Times Square. We appreciate your cooperation.

Discuss (Thanks, Anonymous!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:45:12 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tell the Feds: Hands off financial privacy!

The Electronic Privacy Information Center is calling on us to get involved in a Federal initiative to limit the power of States to control how organizations firehose our personal information at each other. Write your congresscritter!

This Fall, Congress is likely to amend the federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) and in doing so, may override or "preempt" state laws on affiliate sharing of personal information. Affiliate sharing is the practice of transferring personal information amongst companies with the same corporate ownership. Information transferred can include name and contact information, Social Security Number, purchase information, account numbers and balances, and even the information individuals write on checks. Affiliate sharing is invasive because individuals have no access to the data and cannot obtain an accounting of disclosures; it is used to generate unwanted marketing and telemarketing; and because it puts personal information at risk of being misused.

Affiliate sharing presents a large and growing risk to individuals' privacy. It is likely to be the most important financial services privacy issue in the next decade, especially as companies increase profiling, cross-selling, and telemarketing activities using affiliate-shared information. Companies, such as Citibank, that have 1,900 affiliates, or Bank of America, with over 1,000 entities in its corporate family, can transmit personal information for these purposes to an unlimited degree under federal law. If Congress continues this standard, it will permanently prevent states from passing laws to establish reasonable restrictions on affiliate sharing and on some areas of identity theft. Furthermore, a federal standard is highly anti-democratic, and comes at a time when California legislators have just enacted a new law for affiliate sharing regulation that enjoys significant public support.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Chris!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:04:53 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Ghosts of the metropolis

Forgotten NY is a collection of annotated photos of the bones of the cities that New York once was, from faded murals to alleys to nowhere to ONE WAY signs from the paleolithic. Link Discuss (via Electrolite)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:23:29 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Doonesbury references masturbation, America's editors surrender

Garry Trudeau's Sunday Doonesbury strip mentions masturbation in passing, something that has aroused the ire (or cowardice) of "hundreds of newspaper editors." Salon has the story. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:18:45 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Saturday, September 6, 2003

Translate spam -- or anything -- into teenAOLspeak

This text-to-juvenile-AOLspeak translator will translate anything into the sort of language your 13-year-old niece might use on IM. Yes, it's been around for a while, but we haven't blogged it here yet. Big up to a fellow named Wayneco for introducing me to its Zen-ifying effect on business proposal emails from Sani Abacha's widow:

XENI!!!!! OMG!!!! I AM MARIAM ABACHA DA PRINCIPAL MANAEGR COPORAET R3SOURCES OF DA EQUITY BANK OF NIEGRIA LIMIETD LAGOS BRANCH!1!!!1 WTF??? I WISH 2 MAEK U A PROPOSAL WIT REGARDS A TRANSACTION IN WHICH I R3QUIER FOREIGN ASISTANC31!!! OMG ABOUT 4 Y3ARS AGO IN APRIL 199 A VENAZUELAN BUSIENSMAN AND A P3RSONAL FREIND OF MIEN BY NME MR11!1!! OMG LOL GIOVANI VILAET MAED A FIEXD D3POSIT IN MAH BANK OF MOUNT US$13750000111! OMG LOL (THIRTEN MILION SAV3N HUNDR3D AND FIFTY UNIETD STAETS DOLARS)!1!! LOL UNFORTUNAETLY HA DEID OF CARDIAC AREST IN D3C3MBR 200AS!!1!11 WTF HIS PERSONAL FREIND I DO KNOW FOR C3RTANE TAHT H3 HAD NO RALATIEVS HARA IN NIEGRIA NOR ANY TAHT I KNOW OF IN HIS HOME COUNTRY!1!! WTF ACORDNG 2 TEH LAW HERE TEH FUNDS WIL HAEV 2 B CLAMEED BY DA GOVERNMANT OF MAH COUNTRY IF AFTER 5 (FIEV) YEARS NOBODY APLEIS 2 CLAME DA FUNDS!11!1 WTF LOL

FROM MAH YEARS OF 3XP3REINCE AS A BANK3R SUCH FUNDS USUALY END UP IN PRIVAET POKETS OF CORUPT GOVARNMENT OFICIALS1!!!1!1 I DO NOT WISH THIS 2 B TEH CAES OF DA HARD 3ARN3D INV3STAD FUNDS OF MAH LAET FREIND1!! OMG LOL I THANK U FOR UR UNDARSTANDNG OF TEH PRIVACY OF THIS PROPOSAL 2 U111!! LOL

AWATENG UR PROPMT R3SPONS3
WARM!1!1 OMG WTF LOL REGARDS
MARIAM ABACHA!!! OMG!!! LOLOL!!!!

link, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:25:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Big Urban Game: using Minneapolis/St. Paul as a giant playing surface

Alan sez,

They are playing games in the Twin Cites of Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota. B.U.G. (Big Urban Game) consists of three game pieces being moved around a 108-square mile game board of the two river cities. The five day race has three inflatable colored Red, Blue, and Yellow pawns 30 feet in height being moved on color coordinated routes. It is manually carried by "movers" from one day's checkpoint to the next checkpoint on one of two routes which is selected by web voting results. The community "shakers" at the end at the day's race, roll big inflatable die to tally total numbers. The the color team with the most people (of all ages -some reports have animal pets being included) participating gain a "speed boost" which is subtracted from their "moving time". This link has some images for day one for the Blue team. it is an individual's web site, and will give you a taste of the project. More game details are at http://design.umn.edu/bug/. That site (University of Minnesota Design Institute) is planning to release a site with contributed images of all the teams moving throughout the metro area in the comming days.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Alan!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:06:31 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Koppel rips on PATRIOT

Ted Koppel went gloriously mad on air last week, tearing apart the dread USA PATRIOT Act. Lisa Rein has the video and the transcript.

The men who drafted our constitution, who framed our civil rights and protected our various freedoms under the law would, I suspect, retch at some of the bone headed, self-serving, misinterpretations of their intentions that they so often use these days to undermine the very freedoms they pretend to safeguard. The miracle of American Law is not that it protects popular speech, or the privacy of the powerful, or the homes of the privileged, but rather, that the least among us, those with the fewest defenses thoses suspected of the worst crimes -- the most despised in our midst, are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

That remains as revolutionary a concept now as it was in the 1780s. It makes protecting the country against terrorism excruciatingly difficult, but we cannot arbitrarily suspend the rights of one catagory of suspects without endangering all the others.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Lisa!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:03:07 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Moblogging the Toronto Film Festival

Over at the FilmNerd blog, a bunch of civilian film enthusiasts are moblogging the Toronto International Film Festival, giving us an amateur account of the best of the Festival. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:00:46 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Friday, September 5, 2003

Giving the finger after the Hugos

There's a story that goes with this picture. I'm sitting in the bar at Torcon after the Hugos in my snazzy suit, having just discovered that my story 0wnz0red missed making the Hugo ballot by four lousy nominations and therefore enjoying an unaccustomed glass of Irish whisky when Craig Engler comes up with a camera and says, "Give me the finger!"

I gave him the finger. He took my pic.

"Craig," I said. "Why did I just give you the finger?"

"It's not my camera," he said, and went off to someone else and said, "Hey, give me the finger!"

Post-Hugo-Ceremony at the bar is always a pretty emotional timespace. I'd gotten very miffed at the people sitting in front of me who'd turned around and glared at me every time I cheered and applauded while the nominee and winner names were read out (I mean, honestly, what kind of person goes to an awards ceremony prepared to act like a giant buzz-kill to anyone nearby who cheers and applauds?), and that combined with the so-close-and-yet-so-far revelation about 0wnz0red was enough that my finger here is more genuine than fanciful.

As it turns out, the camera belonged to Scott Edelman, the first professional editor to publish one of my stories and one of the nicest guys I know.

Scott's gallery of Craig's pix of birds-being-flipped after the Hugos is actually pretty funny. There's a lot of truth revealed in people's facial expressions when you send them to an awards ceremony whose fruits they all aspire to, then pour a couple drinks down them, then ask them to make a rude gesture. Just saying. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:26:01 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Fan-art tattoo gallery

Wild gallery of huge, elaborate tatts inspired by Star Wars, Transformers, GI Joe and others. Heavy emphasis of the work of Toronto and Ontario artists. If only all copyright infringement were this bad-ass. Link Discuss (via Geisha Asobi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:15:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Passing guestblogger torch to Macki of Rotten.com

Huge thanks to the inimitable Steve G. Steinberg, aka "Frank Drake," who is departing the guest-blogger slot today after a smoking two-week stint. Tough act to follow. We'll miss you, Steve.

Starting today, the BoingBoing guestbar torch is passed to Macki of Rotten.com, whose guest-guest-guestbar hijinks regular readers may recall. We don't have much info on Macki -- all we know is that he's said to be some sort of hacker, he works for Rotten, and appeared in the movie "Freedom Downtime" (about the movement to free Kevin Mitnick). He was 2600's webmaster for two years, during which he worked on the Free Kevin campaign, posted DeCSS on the 2600 website, and assisted with the subsequent lawsuit. Recent projects include Am I Governor Or Not and Avrilution. I once phonecammed him trying to work up the nerve to make a pass at Ronald Reagan. Someone else once caught him hamming for the camera while standing on John Gilmore's shoulders.

Prior to becoming nefarious and ph34red, Macki was once innocent and cuddly, a fact the photograph to the left clearly proves. That's Macki dressed up as Michael Jackson, as you can see from the the sequined glove and Thriller button. Anyway, welcome.

Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 05:23:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

To do in LA this weekend: Art, freedom, and Jello

BoingBoing pal Sean Bonner, founder of LA's SixSpace gallery says:

"Cruel and Unusual, an art exhibition to benefit the West Memphis Three, opens on Saturday, Septemeber 6th from 5-10pm. This event is free and open to the public however we do expect a large crowd and ask that you arrive early in case there is a wait. You do not need to reserve tickets. Jello Biafra will be speaking at approx. 8pm with additional speakers before and after. You can read all the information regarding this show here including a brief case overview and the list of artists -- which includes Exene Cervenka, The Clayton Brothers, Edward Colver, Glen E. Friedman, Camille Rose Garcia, Shepard Fairey, Jaime Hernandez, Emmeric James Konrad, Matt Mahurin, Marilyn Manson, Liz McGrath, Grove Pashley, Raymond Pettibon, Chad Robertson, and Floria Sigismondi."

UPDATE: Over 5,000 people showed up, Winona Ryder gave a speech, and USA Today covered it all right here.
link to LA Weekly article, Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 03:30:15 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Will San Francisco's next mayor be a human or a replicant?

The Wave magazine took the replicant-or-human test from PK Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" (the basis for the film Blade Runner) and administered it to San Francisco's mayoral candidates. The results are highly amusing:

SUBJECT 4: TOM AMMIANO

It's your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react?
Tom Ammiano: I'd look for money.

TW: You've got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do? TA: I'd think this was Blade Runner. That's my reaction.

TW: You're watching television. Suddenly you realize there's a wasp crawling on your arm.
TA: Call 911.

TW: You're in a desert walking along in the sand when all of the sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, Tom, it's crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back, Tom. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can't, not without your help. But you're not helping. Why is that, Tom?
TA: That's interesting. I don't know. I'm a republican?

TW: Describe in single words, only the good things that come into your mind. About your mother.
TA: Tenderness. Yelling.

Link Discuss (Thanks, JeremyT)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:18:45 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Search the Wayback Machine

11 billion of the pages stored at the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine have been indexed are now searchable through a new search-interface. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:18:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Big Thunder Mountain at Disneyland derails, injures 11

The Big Thunder Mountain Runaway Train Ride (not a roller-coaster in Disneyspeak, but a "runaway train ride") at Disneyland derailed today, injuring 11 people, including one critical injury. Any Disney insiders want to comment on this? Most of the Disney attraction injuries I've read about are candidates for the Darwin Award, but this seems like a catastrophic prevantative maintenance failure, no? Link Discuss (at least twenty of you suggested this, but Thomas was first!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:08:42 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

$SPAM from $SOMEONE

Blogging about spam is only slightly less masturbatory than blogging about blogging, but damn, this is one funny piece of spam...

From: "$FIRSTNAME $LASTNAME"<$STRIPPEDUSER@XINHUANET.COM>
Date: Fri Sep 5, 2003 1:26:23 PM US/Pacific
To: doctorow@craphound.com
Subject: $RANDOMIZE

$RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RAN! DOMIZE $RAND MIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RAND! OMIZE $RANDO IZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE $RANDOMIZE

Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:04:43 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Counterfeit couture better-made than the real thing

Shoppers in poor countries deliberately seek out counterfeit designer goods, which are perceived as being better-manufactured than the legitimate goods.

Nina Laurie, from the department of geography at Newcastle University, said often the quality of the counterfeit clothing was as good or sometimes better than the original, and less than 10% of the price. Very often it was the cheapest clothing available because it was mass-produced in such large quantities...

"In fact, they are not replicas at all but originals designed for the local market but with a designer label included because otherwise they would not sell," Dr Laurie said.

She had watched a young man operating a laptop computer from a car battery in a tin shack while he downloaded logos from the internet, traced them, and began man ufacturing designer labels for local factories.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Maf!)

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

Reverse Cowgirl's Blog: goodbye.

Susannah Breslin has taken down Reverse Cowgirl's Blog.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 12:06:54 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Mullet haiku

Sphinx standing guard
A double-wide sarcophagus
Get off my property
-W

Born to Run Hairdo
Whither doest thou wander, Dude?
Home to New Jersey..
-Ralph Gervasio

It's not a trailer
Angry mullet man insists
Manufactured home
-KJ

Best of the BoingBoing reader-submitted haikus:
My el camino
'sup on blocks right now, got a
mu'fukin oil leak
--Deleon

Link, Discuss (Thanks, Clayton)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:42:37 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Erupting Volcano QTVR panoramas

From BoingBoing pal Peter Murphy, Australian photographer and QTVR enthusiast:

Hi Xeni -- pretty remarkable, these panoramas of a volcano in eruption by a French guy, here. And new on my blog lately a panorama of an art installation, in a log cabin, a real log cabin, a couple on a bed surrounded by taxidermy."

Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:01:33 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Become pride of the trailer park with this amphibious bus

Amphibious boatbus. Kitsch meets cool. The web site explains:

"We have combined the best features of world class yachts and Motor Coaches in a revolutionary design and YES IT DOES GO IN THE WATER!"

Link, Discuss (Thanks, ESC)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:57:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Technomads: Mobile wireless computing at Burning Man

BoingBoing reader Tom Longson and friends pulled together a really cool social networking project at Burning Man this year that involving mobile, ruggedized Internet kiosks. I didn't have an opportunity to visit in person, but the project sounded insanely well-executed, and I hope that Burning Man organizers consider teaming up with Tom and crew to expand it next year. While I realize that many "burners" argue that part of the charm of the playa is total lack of connectivity, this sort of thing strikes me as an enhancer, not an inhibitor, of the experience. As a first-time attendee, one of the things that surprised me most was how flat-out tough it was to connect with friends out there. Cell and mobile data service don't work, and the nature of the experience makes it silly/inappropriate to lug around a laptop and check email every five minutes. What Tom and friends imagined -- and created -- adds up to a smart use of wireless computing that helps bring people together in physical space, under tough environmental conditions. Tom explains:

"In my quest for a max max cyberpunk fantasy, I attended Burning Man for my 3rd year with the goal of providing roaming kiosks to offer access to the yearly event's "Digital Directory", and to the Internet. I knew keeping computer equipment running wouldn't be easy, with the playa's huge amounts of fine dust, 75 MPH wind speeds, and baking sun. With the help of family and friends, we constructed three cabinets to keep the dust away from the sensitive CPU and monitor, while keeping them ventilated. With the help of The Embassy's satellite uplink and wireless network, we hooked up our kiosks to the desert's temporary network. The kiosks allowed people to access Burning Man events, maps of the playa, and the chance to check back home via email. One burner, after checking his email, excitedly told me he got a job he had applied for. We plan to continue the project, providing more kiosks on the playa, and attempt to obtain a permanent trailer to spread our technomadic dream across the planet. Interested bloggers, computer artists, and donors please contact nym@espians.com."

Check out photos and documentation of the project here. Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:47:24 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Web Zen: Ark of Zen

kitten
penguin
kangaroo
squirrel, penguin + pig
badgers
creatures

and the classic
happy tree friends
web zen home, web zen store, Discuss (Thanks, Frank)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:26:49 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Thursday, September 4, 2003

Weird crap from the wires

Tara Calashain of ResearchBuzz and the Google Hacks book has put together a new blog for odd items off the news-wires. I'm pretty excited about the Hello Kitty Tongue Tape:

Hello Kitty(R) and Strawberry Shortcake(TM) Tongue Tape(TM) Hit Retail Shelves for Back to School -- Source: PR Newswire, September 4, 2003. "New assortments of Tongue Tape(TM dissolvable tongue strips packaged in collectible dispensers based on Hello Kitty and Strawberry Shortcake(TM) hit retail shelves nationwide just in time for Back to School. The perfect lunchtime snack, sugar-free and calorie-free Tongue Tape(TM) is tempting the tummies of children, parents and teachers alike with a variety of delicious fruit flavors."

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:04:27 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Call your Senator, prevent media consolidation!

Robert sez,

In a surprise order yesterday, new FCC rule changes that would dramatically alter the American media landscape were temporarily blocked by a federal court. It's a big victory, and the timing couldn't be better. With the rule changes on hold, we now have the opportunity to void them for good -- before they ever take effect. But we need your help TODAY.

This is a call to action. The Senate Appropriations Committee is voting today on whether to roll back these FCC media ownership rules. We need to keep Senate phones ringing off the hook.

Link Discuss

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

Slick new amphibious car

Gibbs Technologies took its new Aquada amphibious car for a test drive on the Thames River yesterday. The Aquada goes 100 mph on land and 30 mph on water. Apparently, it only takes a few seconds for the wheels to retract and the drive mechanism switch to power a jet for water jaunts. As Alan Gibbs so eloquently explained, "With this you can have a really good car on the road, and an exciting toy that can tow a water skier, that you can commute to work with, that you can go to St. Tropez with and take two girlfriends." And it's only, er, $235k to buy one! Link Discuss (Thanks, Scott!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:14:23 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Computer History Museum Fellows Awards Celebration

The amazing Computer History Museum in Mountain View is hosting its annual Fellow Awards Celebration fund-raiser. It's expensive ($175/person), but it's for a good cause. And where else can you find Gordon Bell, Tim Berners-Lee, and David Wheeler in the same room? Link Discuss

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

Disneyland truefans

This is a stunning -- if somewhat unkind -- feature on Orange County's Disneyland obsessives. These are Disney truefans who make me look like a rank amateur, people who try to go every day. Their obsessions are touching and vividly portrayed, and are ultimately no weirder than baseball obsessions or science fiction obsessions or what have you -- something that I wish the article had acknowledged.

Benji explains that every square inch of Disneyland has its own obsessives. There are people solely devoted to Ron Miller, the man who plays ragtime piano in Refreshment Corner at the end of Main Street. There is one woman who comes to the park every day and just rides the Indiana Jones™ Adventure over and over. Its crew gave her a crystal bowl to commemorate her thousandth time. There are Haunted Mansion people, Matterhorn people. Benji and his closest friends don’t focus on one attraction, though; they are generalists, they like everything at the park.

Doug Marsh is Benji’s best friend, even though they couldn’t be less alike. Where Benji is brooding and shy, Doug is expansive, showy, a Disneyland-obsessed Nathan Lane type, short and paunchy, but with flaming red hair and a bushy beard. (“I’m not gay,” he tells me. “A lot of people think I am.”) He says that he’d also love to give me his tour of the park, so one morning we meet near the entrance. As we walk toward the ticket booths, Doug spots a piece of white photocopied paper and goes to pick it up. “Look at this,” he says — it’s a list of special events at the park on October 17, 2001. “Why would this be floating around? And why would they print up a special schedule for that day?” He puts the paper in his satchel. “This will be investigated.” I’ve heard Doug collects paper ephemera, any sort of printed matter that’s given away free at Disneyland. “Yes,” he says. “Ephemera. Particularly ephemeral ephemera.”

Link Discuss (Thanks, xowie!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:52:09 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Nanoscale iron to clean up toxic waste

Nanoscale iron filings introduced into contaminated soil can interact with toxic waste to break it down or render it insoluble, preventing it from entering the water-table and hence the food chain.

...[W]hen metallic iron oxidizes in the presence of contaminants such as trichloroethene, carbon tetrachloride, dioxins, or PCBs, he says, these organic molecules get caught up in the reactions and broken down into simple carbon compounds that are far less toxic.

Likewise with dangerous heavy metals such as lead, nickel, mercury, or even uranium, says Zhang: The oxidizing iron will reduce these metals to an insoluble form that tends to stay locked in the soil, rather than spreading through the food chain. And, iron itself has no known toxic effect--just as well, considering the element is abundant in rocks, soil, water, and just about everything else on the planet. Indeed, says Zhang, for all those reasons, many companies now use a relatively coarse form of metallic iron powder to purify their industrial wastes before releasing them into the environment.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 06:41:16 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Wednesday, September 3, 2003

Turing test for genetic algorithms

Here's a collection of genetic algorithmm output that's "human-competitive," that is, as good as something a person might produce. What constitutes human-competitiveness?

(A) The result was patented as an invention in the past, is an improvement over a patented invention, or would qualify today as a patentable new invention.

(B) The result is equal to or better than a result that was accepted as a new scientific result at the time when it was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal.

(C) The result is equal to or better than a result that was placed into a database or archive of results maintained by an internationally recognized panel of scientific experts.

(D) The result is publishable in its own right as a new scientific result  independent of the fact that the result was mechanically created.

(E) The result is equal to or better than the most recent human-created solution to a long-standing problem for which there has been a succession of increasingly better human-created solutions.

(F) The result is equal to or better than a result that was considered an achievement in its field at the time it was first discovered.

(G) The result solves a problem of indisputable difficulty in its field.

(H) The result holds its own or wins a regulated competition involving human contestants (in the form of either live human players or human-written computer programs).

Link Discuss (Thanks, Chris!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:14:22 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Algorithmic evolutionary poetry

Genetic poetry -- you prey on unfit poems and allow the fit ones to reproduce, and soon enough, the alogrithm's cranking out poetry good enough to write on a toilet-wall.

Ok, here's the idea: starting with a whole bunch (specifically 1,000) randomly generated groups of words (our "poems"), we are going to subject them to a form of natural selection, killing off the "bad" ones and breeding the "good" ones with each other. If enough generations go by, and if the gene pool is rich enough, we should eventually start to see interesting poems emerge...

spirit sky whatever considered
rude puzzled and
hearts
soiled the arrogance
the
gleams
shaked streamside walls do life praying

Link Discuss (Thanks, Chris!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 09:12:50 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Palahniuk and Stephenson coming to Berkeley in September

Two killer readings coming to the East Bay this month: Chuck Palahniuk and Neal Stephenson.

Thursday, September 25, 2003 07:30 PM
Neal Stephenson, will be promoting Quicksilver
Appears on/at: CODY'S BOOKS/Reading/Signing
2454 Telegraph Ave., Berkeley, CA 94704

9/8/2003 Chuck Palahniuk promoting Diary
Cody's Books
Berkeley, CA
510-845-7852

Discuss (Thanks, Zed!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:03:08 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Paleo-turntablist mixes, back from obscurity

Andy sez:

Double Dee and Steinski's "The Lesson," created in the early 1980s by two hobbyist DJs, sampled countless unauthorized sources (by dual cassette decks!) to create something innovative and new. Of course, the three songs were never made commercially-available because clearing the samples would have been impossible.

"The Lesson" later inspired an entire genre of cut-and-paste turntablists, from DJ Shadow and Cut Chemist to basement "mash-up" makers. Previously available only by bootleg, you can download the MP3s here. Like Ryan said in the thread, "Long live open source culture!"

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:41:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

IKEA product names demystified

Know those funny IKEA furnishing names? Turns out there's a method to the madness:

Upholstered furniture, coffee tables, rattan furniture, bookshelves, media storage, doorknobs: Swedish placenames

Beds, wardrobes, hall furniture: Norwegian placenames

Dining tables and chairs: Finnish placenames

Bookcase ranges: Occupations

Bathroom articles: Scandinavian lakes, rivers and bays

Kitchens: grammatical terms, sometimes also other names

Chairs, desks: men's names

Link Discuss (Thanks, Eli!)

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

Superb collection of ASCII animation

This is a mind-blowingly cool collection of ASCII images and movies -- I'm boggled. The harry Potter flick is especially nice. Link Discuss (Thanks, Eli!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 02:02:56 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Bicycles reimagined

An interdisciplinary group of German engineers and scholars have designed a beautiful, radical new bicycle. The site's got tons of mind-candy, including wicket cut-aways of the drive-train, which reminds me of the pictures of nanoscale engines I've seen. Link Discuss (Thanks, Brent!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:58:13 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Library Association shares RIAA's lawfirm

The Library Journal reports that the American Library Association law-firm is also representing the RIAA in its racketeering putsch to destroy the American justice system in the name of defending copyright. The ALA is thinking about getting new counsel on the ground that destroying culture constitutes a conflict on interest when you're meant to be representing the guardians of human knowledge:

The American Library Association (ALA) is investigating whether its relationship with law firm Jenner & Block is a conflict of interest, as the firm has represented the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) in its recent efforts to gather the names of those suspected of illegal file-sharing. In a letter to ALA executive director Keith Fiels, Emily Sheketoff, executive director of ALA's Washington Office, said that the office has grown "very uncomfortable" with Jenner & Block's legal activities on behalf of the RIAA. ALA is seeking a letter from the firm setting forth how it would handle any potential conflict.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:53:21 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Speaking at Futurist Salon in Silicon Valley, Sept 19

I'm giving at talk at the Bay Area Futurist Salon on Friday the 19th of September 7pm -- I'll be doing a riff on copyright, spectrum and spculating, in good futurist fashion, on the future of same. Hope to see you there!

We will be back at the Barnes and Noble bookstore at the Hillsdale Shopping Center just across of the San Mateo Caltrain Station. 11 West Hillsdale Blvd., Hillsdale Shopping Center San Mateo, CA 94403 650-341-5560

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:45:35 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Accidental Trepanation

A construction worker in Truckee, California fell from a ladder face first onto an 18-inch-long, 1.5-inch diameter chip auger drill bit. The bit went into his eye, pushed his brain aside, and travelled through his skull and out the back. Amazingly, he lost only the eye, not his life. (He should join ITAG!) According to CNN, the "doctors essentially unscrewed the bit to remove it." Link Discuss

posted by David Pescovitz at 08:58:34 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Traffic congestion is a living animal

"Aggregate Traffic Animals" -- a delightful, Richard Dawkins-inspired bit of speculation about the degree to which traffic patterns on freeways can be viewed as living organisms.

The author first became aware of the existence of ATAs while making his way through the hinterland of Canada on a long, mid-winter solo drive in a decrepit Dodge Charger with no functioning radio. Due to his dangerous penchant for immersive daydreaming in the absence of external stimuli, he began to parasite his driving decisions by locking in behind another car with comparable speed ambitions. By reserving a sliver of awareness for tracking the red brake lights of the "lead" car for changes in speed or direction, the author was able to comfortably enjoy his trance while a hefty burden of road awareness was outsourced to the other driver, causing the front car to function as a sort of early warning mechanism for changing conditions (including the Mounties' speed-traps)...

The most basic form of multi-car life is the Asipetal Caterpillar, also known as a worm. Worms begin when a stable solo vehicle spawns a linear, single-lane chain of vehicles composed of loose monomers joining at the rear (a closely related, but dysfunctional, construct known as an Acropetal Caterpillar grows by adding vehicles to the front of the chain, generally leading to destructive diffusion or autolysis). Short, lithe worms are the fundamental building blocks of healthy ATA tissue. Perverse, long-form worms are the seeds of congestion and death.

The second atomic element of ATA tissue stands in stark contrast to the worm, for it is a fleeting thing, and when it takes concrete form at all it is often manifested as a single car. The Apparent Coxswain is a vehicle that appears, to the conscious or semi-conscious mind of one or more drivers, to be a leader of the worm. When the Apparent Coxswain changes lanes, there is a higher probability that a majority of the worm will follow suit than if the change were initiated by a less trusted vehicle. In many cases each car in a worm perceives the car immediately ahead of it to be the Apparent Coxswain, leading to domino-effect lane-transitions; such formations have high homeostatic integrity because of the worm's ability to "find a new head" should one Apparent Coxswain be lost to the currents.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:17:48 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Real map of Europe

Geoff Cohen has been ranting entertainingly in his blog about something he calls "real maps." It's been long known that maps are distortive -- canonically, they're not the territory -- and out of proportion --the way that the mapmaker accounts for the Earth's curvature can be intensely political, as can the decision as to where the lateral boundaries of the map occur.

But Geoff's after a simpler form of "real map" -- he wants a map "with the actual names of countries on it. If you look at a typical American-produced map, it's full of countries with names like "Germany" and "India" and "Greece" and "China" and "Japan" and "Hungary" and "Egypt," etc. etc. etc. You might not think that's strange, but the fact is that there are no such countries. Sure, we in the English speaking world may have been calling certain countries by those names, but it's not what the people who live there call them. This is ridiculous. It's time to get rid of at least one vestige of colonialism and produce an accurate map."

He's gone ahead and produced a real map of Europe. It's nice. I'm going to print it out and hang it up in my bathroom, near my shower-curtain that has a map of the world on it. Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 07:05:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Tuesday, September 2, 2003

Last Burning Man post on BoingBoing ever, promise.

I'm back on planet Earth again, just returned from a first-ever trip to Burning Man. What I learned: Showers and flush toilets are a beautiful thing. But I was working out there: Wired News ran this story and more of the photos I shot (click on thumbnail at left for full-size image), and I did this piece for NPR's program "Day to Day" with Alex Chadwick (scroll down for "Looking Back at Burning Man").

Update: the rest of my snapshots from Burning Man are online now, here.

Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:42:23 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Origami MEMS motors to improve mobile phone cameras

According to New Scientist, UK company 1 Limited is developing tiny motors made from piezoelectric ceramic materials that could provide zoom and focus features to inexpensive mobile phone cameras. A .1 mm sheet of piezoelectric ceramic is cut and molded so hundreds of tiny bridges on legs protrude from the surface. The sheet is then rolled into a cylinder around a lens. Applying current causes the legs to flex, moving the lens up and down inside the cylinder. Link Discuss

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:11:22 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Open-source superhero

Nice piece on Jenny Everywhere, a comix character created explicitly as an open-source project, open to tweaking by anyone who cares to write her into a story -- it's like League of Extradorinary Gentlemen without the 75-year copyright interregnum.

The Shifter's mysterious Open Source origins can be traced back to a comic book discussion group hosted by hip UK-based webzine Barbelith.com. Community administrator Tom Coates uttered a plea for rights-free characters "that we declare can be used by anyone at any time in any format without there being anyone to give money to."

Ottawa-based artist Steven "Mr. Moriarty" Wintle, one of the first to answer the call, was intrigued and motivated by the idea of a public domain superhero. "I checked around to see what other people were doing," says Wintle, "and I was angered that people claimed to have open source characters, but they had all these strings attached. I'd have an easier time making my own character rather than deal with those fuckers."

Link Discuss (Thanks, Kevin)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:48:21 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Be a marrow donor

An anonymous reader writes,

Millie Forbes (20), from Donside, Aberdeenshire, UK has Acute Myeloid Leukaemia and now she desperately needs a life-saving transplant of blood stem cells / bone marrow. A search in The Anthony Nolan Trust Register has, to date, proved unsuccessful.

Millie's family have done everything they can to help her and now her future lies in the hands of generous spirited people 18 - 40, especially young men, to come forward.

Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:45:25 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Podzilla: a place for everything and everything on your belt

The Gadgeteer has posted a review of PodZilla, the belt-pack carrying case from RoadWired, who are absolutely my favorite computer-accessory company in the world.

Based upon the innovative design of their Pod bag, RoadWired has resized and reworked the original. Podzilla is a good looking bag that anyone, including manly-men, can carry. For those that like to keep things simple, Podzilla is available in a black/black or navy/black combination. For those that would rather spice things up a bit, the color combinations titanium/black, yellow/black, red/black and olive/black are also available. I received the red/black model, which has the added benefit of almost perfectly matching my Swiss Army luggage, for when I travel.

Podzilla measures 9.25" tall x 9" wide x 6.5" thick, weighs 1.5 pounds and has an exterior composed of water-repellent1050 denier ballistic nylon with an interior lined in smooth nylon pack cloth. This bag is extremely well made, well padded and gives you a general feeling of quality...

In all, there are over 20 pockets and compartments included in the Podzilla just waiting to be filled with your gear. Here is what I was able to fit in mine: Sony CLIÉ NZ90, iPAQ 5450, a complete Seidio Data Power Package, a Cannon Powershot S330 camera, a Sony Cyber-Shot U camera, two multi-pens, four AA batteries, AC & DC power adapters for the CLIÉ, three compact flash memory cards, the Sony CF PEGA-WL110 WiFi card for the CLIÉ, a CF ->PCMCIA adapter, a 4inOne PCMCIA card reader, the Canon's battery charger, and the Cyber-Shot's battery charger...whew! See why I prefer a padded strap? ;0)

Link Discuss (Thanks, Tim!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:44:15 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

My Torcon pictures

I took a buttload of photos at the WorldCon in Toronto this year. Here are the 300 best pictures. Anything labelled ?? is someone whose name I've forgotten, which is really embarassing, but I have an unbelievably bad memory for names. If you have one of the missing names, please email me, along with the URL of the page that the photo can be found on.

Did you take WorldCon pix too? Post the URL to the Quicktopic. I forgot to get a self-portrait of me in my spiffy suit at the Hugos, did anyone get a shot? Link Discuss

posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:19:44 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Monday, September 1, 2003

Drawing Mickey Mouse from memory

"Bad Toon Rising is a collection of drawings of well-known cartoon characters produced by amateur artists entirely from memory and without any reference materials whatsoever. We can all picture what Mickey Mouse or the Pink Panther look like in our minds, but getting that image down on paper is another matter! Never mind, we think that some of the worst drawings are the best." Link Discuss

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:35:47 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

Live from Burningman

I'm sitting inside a trailer Prevost bus/RV belonging to an incredibly generous, satellite-dish-toting friend named Wayne -- on the playa in Black Rock City, at Burning Man. It's 2:30AM. Most of the event has passed, but performance-explosions are going off all over the place, brightly illuminated art-cars are floating by in the sand, and people with el-wire woven into their hair and clothes are milling around in the middle of the night. The sky above is astonishingly clear. I can see the milky way. The Man has burned, as has the Temple of Honor, as has tons of propane, trash, wood, and just about everything else flammable you might imagine. I'm sleep-deprived, grimy, and covered in white alkaline dust. This was my first time out here, and while it's been a terrific adventure, I'm seriously looking forward to home and running water. Here's one snapshot of an art-car; at left is a snapshot of the man just before the Burn. A few more of the photos I took out here will run with a forthcoming story in Wired News within the next couple of days. Oh, Burningman Bingo? It was dead-on. I crossed off everything but the tofu pup wrapper and the deodorant rock. Discuss

posted by Xeni Jardin at 02:45:43 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

NYT homage to Jack Kirby

The New York Times wrote a nice tribute to the late Jack "King" Kirby, the world's greatest comic book writer/artist.

There are elements of the "Star Wars" mythology in "Matrix." But the idea of a hero turning out to be the offspring of the most inconceivable evil, an immensely grim force that dominates out of pride, did not begin with George Lucas. In 1971 Kirby left Marvel after disagreements over rights to characters he had helped bring to life. After going to DC Comics, the home of Superman and Batman, Kirby hammered together a new vision: an expanse of planets and the gods that controlled them called the New Universe, which unfolded in the "New Gods," "Forever People" and "Mister Miracle" comics.

With the malevolent overlord, Darkseid — who turns out to be the father of Orion, a damaged warrior-hero who has to battle a barely sublimated streak of cruelty — Mr. Lucas's "Star Wars" archvillain, Darth Vader, can clearly be glimpsed.

Link Discuss (Thanks, Scott!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:41:10 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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