The final Transmetropolitan collection, "Transmetropolitan: One More Time," is available for pre-order on Amazon. It's the tenth book, collecting issues 55-60: there are nine other books collecting the earlier issues, and as good as those issues were, it's in this, the final volume of the most original and invigorating sf comic I've ever read, that Ellis outdoes himself, pulling together a finale to his five-year serial that's triumphant, sad and brave. When the last issue came out, I wrote a Wired review of it -- and rereading it today reminds me of just how exciting it was to get a new Transmet ish at the comic-shop. It was Transmet that turned me into a comics reader again: I'm so glad that the whole series is now available for sale. Link (Thanks, Pat!)

Counterpane.com's Bruce Schneier sez: "How hard would it be to swing an election by hacking computerized voting machines? How valuable would it be? I did the math, and the results are even scarier than I expected them to be." Link

A brain study released today shows that the human ability to appreciate aesthetics is based in the prefontal cortex, part of the brain involved in decision making. The scientists at the Balearic Islands University in Spain came to this conclusion by imaging their subjects' brains while looking at art and photography. According to the study, quoted in Scientific American, "'a phylogenetic change in the prefontal cortex could give way to the decorative and artistic profusion' in humans."

Another study published today by Northwestern University suggests that "Eureka!" moments of insight activate "a distinct area in the right hemisphere of the brain's temporal cortex," a region where semantic connections occur.

"For thousands of years people have said that insight feels different from more straightforward problem solving," one of the researchers said. "We believe this is the first research showing that distinct computational and neural mechanisms lead to these breakthrough moments."

Link

Painting our roofs and roads white would substaintially reduce the cost (both monetary and environmental) of cooling our cities.

Cooler roofs come from changing the color of the material used for roofing shingles. Most homes have to be re-roofed about every 20 years. Changing from a dark shingle (once traditional because it was more "wood like") to a light-colored (titanium-based white or terra cotta red) shingle can cut air conditioning costs by up to 40%. Georgia has been a leader in pushing cool roofs, passing a state law encouraging the shift. A few other states and regions also provide incentives, and the federal government is considering adding heat reflectivity requirements to housing regulations.

Link (via Oblomovka)

The Canadian government is giving away tax-dollars to fund the creation of digital rights management software. I think I'm going to throw up. Or go on tax strike. The idea that the Canadian government is going to spend my arts-career-earned dollars on doomed techno-snake-oil whose only use is to frustrate posterity, steal the public's rights in copyright, and justify the existence of stunningly evil anti-circumvention laws -- Christ, it makes me want to spit.

To assist in the development and implementation of online, copyright management and licensing systems and mechanisms that facilitate access to and the exploitation of one or all types of existing or copyrighted works, in particular Canadian, including works where multiple ownership arrangements exist, preferably through the development of a single-window model.

Link (Thanks, Damien!)

The British Library is releasing a ton of audio from its archive on the Web -- though the article implies that it will only be available to higher education institutions.

Examples held on the British Library site include a live recording of Paul Robeson in Othello, Florence Nightingale speaking in one of the earliest sound recordings, as well as the genesis of Sherlock Holmes.

These historic recordings will be made freely available to further and higher education institutions in the UK and will include a wide range of materials, including classical and popular music, broadcast radio, oral history, and field and location recordings of traditional music.

Link (Thanks, Patricio!)

Imajes is planning a London blogger get-together -- I'm hoping it'll happen on a day when I can make it. Link

Here's an article I wrote for TheFeature about a new research projected at UC Berkeley to outfit firefighters with high-tech wireless helmets to help them navigate through burning buildings. Link

Long article about happiness from The Guardian. I was especially interested in the part that reported that people, on average, are least happy at age 42, because they realize they aren't going to be rich and famous like they thought when they were in their twenties. After 42, though, they stop worrying about it, and start enjoying life more.

'People start out in life pretty certain that they're going to end up like David Beckham or win the Nobel Prize,' says Oswald. 'Then, after a few years, they discover it's quite tough out there - not just in their careers, but in life. Unsurprisingly, their happiness drops.' The good news is that the downer doesn't last. According to Oswald, if you trace the trajectory of most peoples' happiness over time it resembles a J-curve. People typically record high satisfaction levels in their early twenties. These then fall steadily towards middle age, before troughing at around 42. Most of us then grow steadily happier as we get older, with those in their sixties expressing the highest satisfaction levels of all - as long, that is, as they stay healthy.

Link (Via LinkmachineGo)

Sony and Toppan Printing have developed DVDs consisting of 51 percent paper. Data is stored on the discs using a blue laser instead of red. The smaller wavelength of blue laser light means that 25 gigabytes of data can be packed onto each paper/polymer disk, more than twice the capacity of traditional polycarbonate plastic-based DVDs. Link

Howtoons are how-to project cartoons for kids, with a good mix of mischief, smartassery, and science. Link (Thanks, Joe!)

Playfair is the program that removes the use-restriction wrapper from your iTunes Music Store tracks. It used to be hosted on SourceForge, but they chickened out when Apple sent them a bullying note demanding takedown under the ludicrous and loathesome DMCA. Playfair moved to a host in India, which apparently has no such law, but now Apple has nastygrammed the Indian hosts too, resulting in another takedown while the Indians get some legal advice. Gee, Apple, you really can't buy publicity like this. Well, you can. But why would you want to? Link (via /.)

A geophysicist with a good track record of predicting quakes based on fault line stress data says Los Angeles will experience a nasty 6.4 quake by September.

The experts predicted in June an earthquake measuring 6.4 or higher would strike within nine months in a 496-kilometre region of central California, including San Simeon, where a 6.5-magnitude temblor struck December 22, killing two people. In July, they said they predicted a magnitude 7.0 or higher quake in a region that included Hokkaido by December 28. The September 25 quake fell within that period. Now they predict a major quake will hit an area that stretches across desert regions to the east of Los Angeles, home to around nine million people, including the Mojave desert and the resort town of Palm Springs, which lies near the notorious San Andreas fault.

Link (Via IP)

Earthlink's spyware-hunting add-on has been running since January. In that time, it's found an average of 28 spyware apps on users' PCs.

The Spy Audit by EarthLink reflects the results of scans involving over one million computers between January and March.

It uncovered more than 29.5 million examples of spyware. These are parasite programs sometimes come attached to software downloaded from the web.

Link

The UK Royal Mail has redesigned its site in craptacular, non-accessible glory, shutting off people using assistive devices from looking up postcodes. The official line of the post office is that Britons "begin to notice dramatic improvements in accessibility in the next two months." As NTK points out, though, the old, lynx-friendly site is still accessible at a s33kr1t URL. Link (via NTK)

Howard Waldrop, the legendary science fiction writer whose short stories -- such as "Flying Saucer Rock and Roll" and "Night of the Cooters" -- are some of the best sf I've ever read, has taken over Bruce Sterling's old berth as blogger-in-residence for the brilliant sf mag Infinite Matrix. I thank the universe that I lived to read a blog penned by Howard Waldrop. Link (via Beyond the Beyond)