Doctors who wear neckties may look more competent and reassuring, but their cravattes are actually disease-harbouring pest-farms of neck-grease, sweat, and plague germs.

Researchers found that nearly half of the ties worn by medical workers harboured bacteria which could cause disease.

Clinicians were eight times more likely to wear a tie carrying bacteria than by hospital security staff.

Link (via Stross)

Kevin Werbach has a cool perspective on the fact that AT&T has divested itself of its physical and cellular networks: it has become a "virtual" phone company. (Remember the spectrum docket where AT&T was all about the open spectrum? Maybe this virtual telco thing makes phone companies less evil?)

AT&T is hollowing itself out -- and that's a good thing. Under Dave Dorman, AT&T has invested heavily in building a true all-IP backbone and deploying VOIP offerings. Following the sale of AT&T Wireless to Cingular and AT&T's subsequent deal with Sprint PCS, AT&T is poised to offer a full suite of wireless offerings without the cost of owning a cellular network. And it is still the biggest player in the lucrative business services market, with a national brand second to none.

Link

Microsoft has commissioned an IM-speak translation of The Iliad to promote its new IM client; book two is compressed to a mere 24 "words":

Agamemnon hd a dream: Troy not defended. Ordered attack! But Trojans knew they were coming n were prepared. Achilles sat sulking in his tent.

Link (via Fark)

There are some great entries in this Something Awful fake-mag-cover photoshopping contest, but Internet Tough Guy is hands-down the funniest. Link (Thanks, Soren!)

This lovely little website is the result of a sort of online pixel scavenger hunt:

I started gathering little, iconesque web images for myself so that I could compare, contrast, and study the techniques used by other graphic artists on the web. My initial pool of images looked so interesting that I decided to continue methodically hunting and capturing the icons for a public display piece. The purpose of this document is not to copy the intellectual property of others, but rather as a jumping-off point for your own unique web graphic projects. It's for Brainstorming, if you will.

I roughly estimate that for every six web sites I scoured, I was able to acquire one graphic image. I visited only Fortune 1000 company sites, major online retailers, well known blogs, top advertising, publishing, and design agencies, technology and software industry leaders, and the very largest online news publishers. Approximately 1800 web sites later, I have this collection of 300 of the most interesting, unique, and beautiful formations of pixels to display.

Link (Thanks, Sean!)

Dance Dance Revolution, the legendary electronic game cited in a CNN piece today, is apparently capable of inspiring both good and eeeeevil. Here's the sordid tale of a midwestern fanatic who became a thief to support his DDR habit.

Giles thought of himself as old school; he'd learned to play on early versions of DDR with dimly lit arrows, poor graphics and no speed modifiers, circa 2001. He called new players who sucked "nubs." He was certain he had groupies. "In every arcade, we have what's called a fan club," he says. "A group of girls, normally underage, that are just desperately, madly obsessed with us."

Before things turned bad, Giles would dance against anyone willing to do battle: the stud-wearing punk, the overweight high school kid, the middle-aged Sprint worker, the preteen with the overprotective mother. "It's not just some little stompy-stompy crap," he says. "It can go crazy on you."

When he danced, he moved so fast his sneakers began to blur. Sweat beaded and fell from his brow like raindrops. Following the arrows, his feet accelerated in time, playing the commands like a musical score.

Link (Thanks, Joel Johnson!)

Art doesn't get any better than this. Look at this gorgeous portfolio of four prints by cartoonist Jim Woodring, using a special embossed printing process. The packaging is a beautiful Woodring-designed wonder, too. $300 and limited to 80 portfolios. According to an email I got from Woodring; they're going fast. Link

This CNN piece follows the tales of formerly supersized boy and girl geeks who shed *lots* of unwanted weight playing the wacky Japanese electronic game "Dance Dance Revolution." In DDR, players stomp around on a grid of brightly lit squares while hyperfast techno music blares at them from a video display unit. There's also a home version, which sells for under US$50.

As she cooled herself in front of a fan at a video arcade, two teenage boys danced on a machine nearby. Their sneakers pounded out a staccato rhythm at a pace so fast that "Lord of the Dance"'s Michael Flatley would be envious.

Not everyone sees dramatic results. Seventeen-year-old Justin Meeks says his body is more toned, but his weight hasn't changed. He's pleased to point out, though, that his dancing skills have helped him get girls. "Two. I'm guilty of that," Justin said with a grin as he watched friends play DDR.

Link

Dawn 2004 is an all-night music/performance event tomorrow (Tuesday) night in San Francisco in celebration of the Jewish holiday of Shavuot. It's $15 for the entire night of eclectic programming: Russel Simins from Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Broun Fellinis, Heather Gold, DJ Polywog, and a host of other artists. At 10pm, I'm conducting a live interview with RU Sirius about his forthcoming book, Counterculture Through the Ages. Please stop by if you can!

"RU Sirius (aka Ken Goffman) and David Pescovitz take a mind-expanding trip though history to uncover the common threads of counterculture that link biblical Abraham to the Socratics, the revolutionaries of the Enlightenment, the Yippies of the 1960s, and the hacktivists of today. Sirius will reveal how countercultures-- anti-authoritarian, changeable, antic movements that revolutionize mainstream culture--are a powerful and necessary catalyst for the continued evolution of the human species."

Link (Thanks, Birdman!)

Following up on an earlier BoingBoing post about a Brazilian heavy metal band that plays covers of video game theme songs, BoingBoing reader Carlos says:

Unfortunately, the answer to that question is probably not as fun as it might seem... we still say 'mullet', there's just no translation of that word... but then, fortunately, mullets were not as popular here as they were in the US of A...

Link to previous post

Suw Charman has written a great article on book-authors who release their work on CC, focusing on the amazing story of the collaborative audiobook project for Lessig's Free Culture.

Most people are very aware of worth these days. eBay gives value to junk that might previously have been given away. Amazon sells second-hand books that might otherwise have been taken to a charity shop. The Antiques Roadshow raises the possibility that the horrendously ugly teapot you inherited from your Aunt Bessie might actually be worth hundreds, if not thousands of pounds.

Worth. Everything has a worth. Things. Words. Music. Everything. And everyone who owns anything worth something is not only entitled to benefit from the full extent of that worth, but should also do their utmost to protect it. Only a fool gives away something for nothing. That's right, isn't it?

Isn't it?

Link (Thanks, Suw!)

I know as much about this picture as you do. Link (Cory blogged the source two years ago.)

The RIAA is arm-twisting the FCC over a "broadcast flag" for digital radio, to keep you from recording and saving digital radio broadcasts. They're trying to get the Consumer Electronics people -- who sold us all out in the digital TV Broadcast Flag fight -- to play along, but this time around, the CEA has grown a spine and is pushing back. JD Lasica wrote a piece for Mindjack on this, but more interesting is the leaked correspondance between the RIAA and the CEA, in which the CEA tears the RIAA a new one over the unbelievable, suicidal stupidity of restricting the ability of end-users to record digital radio signals.

You state that you do not wish to limit the ability of consumers to record over-the-air radio broadcasts. Instead, you apparently want to force them to buy what they have received for free since Fleming and Marconi first made it possible for consumers to hear news and music over the public airwaves. As you know, we have long been concerned about content owners seeking to change the 'play' button on our devices to a 'pay' button.

(Thanks, JD and Donald!)

Japanese gum company Lotte is having a contest to give away a life-size replica of its gum package, made of pure gold. The package opens so you can take out the 9 solid gold sticks of gum, each weighing 100 grams. Total intrinsic value: $90,000. Link

Kevin sez: "This is a great piece about the 'most valuable weapon, worldwide' the Russian shoulder launched missle, RPG -- the one hurting the US in Iraq."

This cheap little dealie, nothing but a launcher tube and a few rockets shaped like two ice-cream cones glued together, has kicked our ass (and Russia's too) all over the world since back when the Beatles were still together. In fact, more and more guerrilla armies are making the RPG their basic infantry weapon, with the AK used to protect the RPG gunners, who provide the offensive punch. The Chechens fighting the Russian Army are so high on it that they've switched their three-man combat teams from two riflemen and an RPG gunner to two RPG gunners with a rifleman to protect them.

There's another stat that's even more important right now: the RPG has inflicted more than half--half!--of US casualties in Iraq. This is the weapon that's hurting us. And it's been doing that for one hell of a long time.

Link

Scientists have set up a webcam overlooking an active volcano crater in New Zealand. Someone has put a little toy Dino (from the Flintstones) in front of the camera. Click on thumbnail for enlargement. Article Link, Webcam Link. (Thanks, Marc!)

Boing Boing pal Douglas Rushkoff's neuron-annihilating comic Club Zero-G, first serialized in BPM magazine, has finally been compiled and expanded into a full-length graphic novel. Published by the demented souls at Disinformation, the book features art by Canadian cartoonist Steph Dumais.

"The story follows Zeke, a gangly, unpopular, 19-year-old college student - a townie who also happens to attend the elite college in his community - who has discovered a terrific new club where he is accepted and popular. There's only one catch: everyone at the club is dreaming. It only exists in the shared dream consciousness of its participants. If at all.

For there's the rub: Zeke's friends think he is simply going crazy. His girlfriend in the club won't even acknowledge his existence in real life.

As Zeke descends further into the Club Zero-G reality, he learns that this shared dream space is actually a psychic field created by four mutant children from the future - the last of their kind, conceived by human space travelers in zero gravity and exhibiting strange deformities and abilities. Living in a future where independent thinking is considered a threat to "consensus," they are hunted by the authorities, and seek the help of teens from the 21st century who, they hope, can still alter the course of reality.

But Zeke eventually learns this is all a set-up, and he is being used by the militaries of the present and the future as a portal into the psychic field of the Zero-G kids, so they can be destroyed. Unless, of course, he is just going mad." Link

Jim sez, "The new online magazine Chicagoist has an article on 15 giant Mickey Mouse statues that will be on display on State Street in downtown Chicago until the middle of July." Link (Thanks, Jim!)

Tri sez, "I know some of these guys myself. They come into my library regularly and max out the two or three cards that the members share."

They may have been dreamers, but this month, East Wind's 75 members celebrated the 30th anniversary of their enduring -- and thriving -- community. East Wind recently paid off a loan on an additional 883 acres, its business ventures are worth more than $2.5 million, and it is building a new machine shop and bathhouse.

Link (Thanks, Tri!)

These new Afterlab speakers look hella cool. Link (Thanks, Adnan!)

On Popular Science, an article on getting your mobile phone unlocked. Here in London, there're shops that advertise phone unlocking on practically every block, but it's almost unheard-of in the USA:

While number portability may have freed your cell digits, your phone is still a ball and chain, locked into one carrier's service. These subsidy locks keep you from walking away before the provider can recover that big discount you got when you bought the phone.

But it doesn't have to be so. If you have a GSM phone, you can unlock it and switch to any GSM network carrier (the big three are AT&T, Cingular and T-Mobile). You can also take an unlocked phone overseas (most of the world uses GSM) and use it on a local network to avoid paying for international roaming, or even buy a European phone (they tend to be ahead of us in cell tech) and use it here. Have an old phone lying around? Unlock it and keep it as a spare.

Link

Some GOPers are googlebombing John Kerry's site with the word "waffles," and Kerry's supporters are fighting back with a Google AdWord buy for "waffles" that goes to a page on Bush's waffling.

I think that this googlebombing stuff is highly overrated. For starters, who googles the word "waffles?" What should be the canonical link for "waffles?" It's really self-reflexive: the nominal point of a googlebomb is to hijack a common search-term to misdirect searchers (i.e., the neo-Nazis who bombed the string "jew"), but in fact, a single-word query for "jew" is a pretty weird thing to punch into Google: "Hmm, I wonder why my neighbor takes every Friday night off and lights a candle. Wonder if it's cos he's Jewish? I know, I'll type 'jew' into Google and see if there's anything about Friday nights and candles in the top ten results."

In fact, the point of a googlebomb is to acheive the googlebomb and then publicize it: "Look, if you search for 'more evil than satan,' you get the Microsoft home-page, hardy-har-har." But those who argue that they've scored some kind of victory here are nuts: no one searches for "more evil than satan" -- unless someone tells them that there's a funny googlebomb on the other end.

When I was a kid, we had all these "calculator games" -- addition, subtraction and multiplication routines that would yield a string on the LCD, that, when inverted, would spell out a word. I remember one "dirty" one that spelled out "BOOBLESS" (55378008). At the time, it felt like we'd really gotten one in against The Man, by somehow convincing a pocket-calculator to kinda-sorta spit out a word we weren't allowed to say in polite company, but the joke got old fast. For starters, "BOOBLESS" isn't a (very) dirty word, and more importantly, it just didn't make the calculator dirty to get it to spit this out.

By the same token, "WAFFLES" isn't that common a naked query, and convincing Google to spit out John Kerry's homepage (or an AdWord for an anti-Bush page) isn't gonna score you any points with the people looking for info on waffles -- the most it can acheive is the (very) faintly humorous spectacle of the Kerry homepage coming up on this improbable query.

Hardy har har.

The campaign has purchased Google AdWords, sponsored links that come up beside results when certain words are searched. The short links also refer to Kerry's website, but suggest users "read about President Bush's Waffles."

"When we heard people were linking the word 'waffles' with John Kerry, our thought was, 'This is ridiculous,'" said Morra Aarons, Internet grass-roots coordinator for John Kerry for President. "But our solution was to fight fire with fire."

Link

The next WTFCon is in London this Saturday: it's a one-day convention devoted to hackery subjects.

* An open space gathering and conference of various groups, projects, people, and organisations active and interested in creating a better world.

* Action and not just talk. Too many social forums and gatherings result with little or no outcome. Come and propose and gain support for actions during Soho Summit, ESF, G8, GDR etc.

* An assembly of gifts and needs: tell everyone what your projects are all about, what they have to offer, and what they need. Together we have everything. Let's self-organise and share!

* About working together, many of us have shared principles despite our diverse goals. No more either or!

Link (Thanks, Tav!)

Jakob Nielsen is a legendary usability crank who writes great little columns called "AlertBoxes" wherein he runs down his best practices for one or another element of usability (I always forget to read these because I can't find any RSS or Atom for Jakob's site and it updates too infrequently to put it in my regular Moz tab-group bookmark; nevertheless, some of Nielsen's pieces, like the Microcontent thing from 1998 have been very influential in my blogging style)

Last week's AlertBox was about link-style, and it's pretty good and sensible. But, like all of the AlertBoxen, it is ugly as hell.

Enter "Design Eye for the Usability Guy." Five designers, who have clearly been scorched by Nielsen's legendary rants about the primacy of usability over design, take on Nielsen's AlertBox house-style in a kind of overblown, gushy tone, and undertake to remodel Jakob's image so that his site is both usable and beautiful. It's funny, subversive and in the words of the Cos, "you may learn something before it's done. Hey! Hey! Hey!"

Last time I checked it wasn't illegal to use illustrations to spice up your web site. Now, before we go wild let us remember that Nielsen's not exactly the nothing-but-prada-shoes type of guy. So, I settled with a clean, icon-like style that will reinforce each guideline visually. The colours used are basic: red for links, blue for hover and shades of gray and black for other text. Again, let's try to stick with a style that somehow matches his current branding.

To translate the general concept of links into something simple I've chosen to use an underlined letter "a," applied to an assortment of situations that exemplify each guideline. The font used is Georgia, which happens to work nicely and is very much ubiquitous.

Link (Thanks, Danny!)

Update: here are a couple of scraped RSS feeds off of AlertBox: one from Bootleg RSS (Scraped Feeds For A Better World); one from NewsIsFree. (Thanks, Carlo and Simon!).

Here are Peter "Palladium Pete" Biddle's slides on the latest plans for Microsoft's "Next-Generation Secure Computing Base," the trusted computing technology that used to be called Palladium. 1.9MB PowerPoint Link (Thanks, Wes!)

Here's a collection of video-clips from the notorious Quincy "punk rock" episode, where Quincy asks the musical question: "Can punk rock kill?" (Personally, I prefer the CHiPS punk episode -- "I diiig paaaaain!") Link (Thanks, roboto!)

These Futurama panoramas are created by taking screengrabs from successive frames of long panning shots in Futurama, then stitching them together. Link (via Waxy)