"Signal Orange is a project to make the invisible visible -- which is a premise and prerequisite for democracy. The goal of Signal Orange is to unveil the faces that the Bush Administration wants hidden -- and to stop pretending that its actions in Iraq are inconsequential.

"This is a response: Signal Orange represents the dead with the living -- wearing T-shirts in their names. There is one shirt for each soldier who died. The front states how he or she died, the back reads, "(Rank) (First) (Last) can't vote anymore." The signal orange color of the shirt was chosen for the same reason it is used where caution is required -- it's the most visible color in person, on camera, and on video. The shirts are to be worn in places where the media is focused, whether that focus is momentary or constant. Examples might include the audience outside a morning talk show, or a parade, or a sporting event, and it certainly includes the Republican National Convention in NYC come September.

"Signal Orange doesn't say that these soldiers or their families condemn or support the war, and it doesn't speak for them. Whether they opposed or supported the war, they were fighting for our right to decide democratically whether a war is just or not. They've been buried twice--once in the ground, and once in the media. If we can make them visible in the media through Signal Orange, we can demonstrate that they had voices that have been lost."

The goal of this year's contest is to achieve the greatest possible connect distance between two 802.11b stations through innovative engineering and antenna design. Wonderful prizes and fun are available to all who participate!

[Rankin] was given an advance trial of Nokia's latest and highest-resolution cameraphone, the 7610. With it, he crafted six huge A2 sized photographs and 60 other shots, inspired by the legendary Cottingley fairy photographs. By running the images through software filters, the former co-founder of the legendary Dazed & Confused magazine managed to conjure up incredibly sharp images of beautiful women posed as woodland fairies. All this from a one-megapixel cameraphone with 4 x digital zoom, and a very sharp colour display.

"A lot depends on the amount of compression in the original MP3, but the CD-R request would be either to allow a linear version to be supplied, or a very much less compressed version. Every time lossy-compressed audio goes via a lossy part of the chain it gets worse (depending, of course, on the original level of compression and the type of audio)."

A BH studio to the FM transmitter network is not a problem, but it is when it goes to DAB/Freeview/Dsat ... and then the studio itself may be being sourced via a lossy ISDN (as indeed Peel is). Add these together and the results could be dreadful ... therefore there's a policy to (a) not use MP3s unless editorial imperatives demand it and there is absolutely no other way, (b) not us Minidiscs except in certain circumstances and (c) have computer playout systems working with linear audio.

"There we have it. DAB is the European terrestrial digital radio system, Freeview is the UK's digital terrestrial TV system which has multiple radio channels too, and DSat is the digital satellite system. There's one heck of a lot of digital broadcasting round these parts, each with its own compression system, and that's before you start to worry about the streaming stuff on the Net."

[Xeni speaking again here]. I'm still not sure that explains it. The BoingBoing reader who pointed John Peel to the Rodeohead MP3s says that when he learned Peel couldn't play the MP3s, he burned them to CD, sent them to Peel at the BBC, and they aired on Peel's show shortly thereafter. So, either (a) the issue was that Peel's show was simply unable to deal with downloading, storing, and playing digital files (but popping a CD in a player was no prob), or (b) the above theory is true, and Peel's show obtained and then aired a non-lossy version of the material, from someone other than this BoingBoing reader.

During a single week in May, Canadian pop rocker Avril Lavigne's new song Don't Tell Me aired no fewer than 109 times on Nashville radio station WQZQ-FM. The heaviest rotation came between midnight and 6 a.m., an on-air no man's land visited largely by insomniacs, truckers and graveyard shift workers. On one Sunday morning, the three-minute, 24-second song aired 18 times, sometimes as little as 11 minutes apart.

Those plays, or "spins," helped Don't Tell Me vault into the elite top 10 on Billboard magazine's national pop radio chart, which radio program directors across the country use to spot hot new tunes. But what many chart watchers may not know is that the predawn saturation in Nashville ­ and elsewhere ­ occurred largely because Arista Records paid the station to play the song as an advertisement. In all, sources said, WQZQ aired Don't Tell Me as an ad at least 40 times the week ending May 23, accounting for more than one-third of the song's airplay on the station.

I heard someone (honest) talking about their "shag phone" the other day. He was a married man having an affair with a lady who was also married. It seems that one of the first heady rituals of the affair was to purchase a "his and her" pair of Pre-pay shag phones.

Only they knew each other's number, so when the phone rang, they could answer in an appropriately passionate way. While much the same effect could be achieved with caller recognition (assuming they were mobile literate), there was more than just a romantic gesture involved with this behavior. Technology still can't hide your phone bill from a suspicious spouse. And it can't hide your amour's frequently dialed number from prying eyes. Better to get a pair pre-pay phones with no incriminating phone bills or records. A small example of how the mobile is impacting on 21st century life.

About 9 years ago my dad was needing some relief from persistent shoulder pain. After the fun and joys of X-rays and MRI's he elected to have surgery to correct a bone spur that had literally torn the innards of his rotator cuff apart.

This is just one of dozens of conceits in a novel that combines the best themes from books like Out on Blue Six and Desolation Road, handles them with the masterful hand visible in Scissors Cut Paper Wrap Stone and the Sturgeon-award-winning Tendeleo's Story, and folds in all the contemporary themes in sf like the Singularity and the cratering of cyberpunk memes and spits out a 575-page epic that I couldn't put down until I'd finished it.

Ian McDonald has been one of my favourite writers for some 15 years now, and the amazing thing is, he's getting even better. Link

in 1862, the Human League takes credit for a series of bombings against Mlosh citizens of Britain. The Crown vows to catch them, but there are sympathetic elements in Scotland Yard that slow the investigation.

in 1934, Pascal, LLC, with the assistance of Carla Lambert, persuaded Congress to fund a system of linking Eddies together such that they could share information constantly. Using telegraph lines and radio frequencies set aside for them by the Congress, Pascal constructed a Knowledge Railroad that made the almost instantaneous transmission of information possible across the nation.

in 1958, Buddy Holly reunited with his old band, The Crickets, for a successful US tour. This reunion produced such hits as I'll Be Lovin' Her, Puerto Rican Mama, and their remake of I'll Be Seeing You.

in 1977, President Reagan enacted sweeping tax cuts, mostly aimed at the well-to-do, but with some at lower ends of the economic spectrum. They didn't prove to be the stimulus he expected, though, and the nation plunged into a deep recession.

in 1982, King Charles of England called on all exiled nobles of England to return and take their rightful place at his side. He announced a general amnesty for those who had supported the Nazis, and declared that England would rise again to its former glory.

in 1992, filmmaker Oliver Stone releases JBR, in which he attempts to give credence to People's Attorney Presley's arguments that Comrade President Rosenberg was killed by a conspiracy rather than a lone counter-revolutionary. The film is a huge success, prompting the Communist Party to call for its banning.

We think we found the exact spot where JD, TD and their dad went fishing up Beaver Canyon. It was papa Fitzgerald's secret spot, not far up the canyon, and had great fishing in the river and an open meadow. It must have been at what is now the Little Cottonwood campground (#5). We tried to stay there, but all the sites were full.

In the story, the secret got out one year, and the location was crowded with other campers. JD's dad decided to go further up the canyon, maybe to Kents Lake (#14).

The message, received on cell phones on Thursday and Friday, carried the sender line of the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, Premier Silvio Berlusconi's office. The message detailed when the polls will be open and what documents citizens need to vote.

"Finally we have recourse to a tool like the text message that is now in everyday use to bring the state closer still to its citizens," said Technology Minister Lucio Stanca. But the political opposition branded the strategy as a political tactic. The government "is trying every subterfuge to recover votes. It's alarming that privacy is violated in such a sensational way," said opposition lawmaker Francesco Martone.

Note that the only thing that this DRM is doing here is pissing off the honest fans who want open CDs; the DRM on the CD didn't stop my source from making me a set of MP3s. In other words, if you plan on listening to the new disc on your iPod or laptop, you're better off downloading a copy made by a cracker and posted on Kazaa -- if you buy it in a shop, you're going to have to go through the lawbreaking rigamarole of breaking the DRM yourself.

I always hear record execs whining that they "can't compete with free" -- but maybe the real competitive disadvantage is that they're selling a product that's less useful than the one being served up on P2P nets. Link (Thanks, Jon!)

Update: Ian sez, "Hi, I'm not sure who posted re: Beastie Boys copy protection, but I just spoke with Mike D and their management and they wanted me to pass along that a) This is all territories except the US and UK -- US and UK discs do not have this protection on them; b) All EMI CDs are treated this way, theirs isn't receiving special treatment; c) They would have preferred not to have the copy protection, but weren't allowed to differ from EMI policy."

We're currently seeking nominations for ten patents that deserve to be revoked because they are invalid. Sadly, we don't have the resources to challenge every stupid patent out there. In order to qualify for our ten most-wanted list, a patent must be software or Internet-related and there must be a good reason to suspect that the patent claims are invalid. We're especially interested in patents that target tools of free expression, such as streaming media, blogging tools, and voice over IP (VoIP) technology. Most importantly, the patent-holder must be aggressively enforcing its patent and suing (or threatening to sue) alleged infringers. We're particularly interested in cases where the patent-holder is trying to force small businesses, individuals, nonprofits, and consumers to pay licensing fees. Deadline to enter is June 23.

On June 30, the Patent Busting Project's team of tough lawyers and brainy geeks will announce the contest winners – or losers, depending on how you look at it. And that's when the real fight for great justice begins. We'll be needing your help to research prior art for each patent and offer your technical expertise or historical knowledge. Using a legal process called "reexamination," the Patent Busting Project will ultimately go to the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) and attempt to take those bad patents off the books.

Some investors are betting Bush will win the election. According to the Iowa Electronic Markets, as of 8:45 a.m. New York time investors were paying 53.2 cents for futures that pay $1 in November should Bush win the election. Kerry futures were quoted at 46.8 cents.

Sponsored by the University of Iowa Henry B. Tippie College of Business, the market allows investors to buy and sell futures contracts based on the outcome of political and economic events, such as elections and Federal Reserve interest-rate changes.

"See average schmoes go up agaist GEARHEADS GODS in the age old struggle for Power Tool SUPREMACY! Watch as the finest minds in mutated motors RIP SHRED and BURN the track to TWISTED CINDERS! Nibble your carcinogen-laden fingers in suspense as the competition gets down to the FINAL BLOODY SHOWDOWN!"

Before the Bush administration took office, the Army's interrogation procedures -- which were unclassified -- established this simple and sensible test: No technique should be used that, if used by an enemy on an American, would be regarded as a violation of U.S. or international law. Now, imagine that a hostile government were to force an American to take drugs or endure severe mental stress that fell just short of producing irreversible damage; or pain a little milder than that of "organ failure, impairment of bodily function, or even death." What if the foreign interrogator of an American "knows that severe pain will result from his actions" but proceeds because causing such pain is not his main objective? What if a foreign leader were to decide that the torture of an American was needed to protect his country's security? Would Americans regard that as legal, or morally acceptable? According to the Bush administration, they should.

[Hersh] said that after he broke Abu Ghraib people are coming out of the woodwork to tell him this stuff. He said he had seen all the Abu Ghraib pictures. He said, "You haven't begun to see evil..." then trailed off. He said, "horrible things done to children of women prisoners, as the cameras run."

He looked frightened.

A New York company that makes Internet pop-up ads has asked a judge to block enforcement of Utah's new Spyware Control Act pending resolution of the firm's challenge to the law's constitutionality.

WhenU.com Inc. claims the law that took effect last month is "arbitrary and Draconian" and violates its free-speech rights.

Yesterday the phone rang towards the end of the day and when we picked it up the voice on the other side of the line said, "This is Marianne Rohrlich." It was like getting a call from Elvis. Marianne Rohrlich?! Who we have been reading obsessively and PROMOTING obsessively for the best home section coverage IN THE COUNTRY? She is, however, not happy with us. "Did it occur to you that it is not right to just LIFT other people's work?" she asks me. ("Do you know what blogging is?" I want to ask.) "Our legal department is going to be calling you."

"The local weekly paper, the Arcata Eye, publishes an arch, sometimes hilarious, sometimes hair-raising police blotter column, available on its web site and now as a book!"

8:10 p.m. Malloy and Reed (you’'re too young to remember them) would’'ve described the behavior of the woman at a Uniontown shopping center as "hinky." It was this very hinkiness that compelled management and police to render her persona non grata, even though she hadn’'t stolen anything.

10:39 p.m. More hinkage, same place. This time it was a man. A man and a bottle. The bottle wasn’'t his, and yet he seemed to enjoy its company, toting it around the store and placing it in different locations, thus maximizing the hink factor and attracting a security guard’s interest. When he went through the checkout line, though, the bottle was not visible. He left, the police came, but neither he nor his glassy shopping companion were located.

One of my favorite episodes from his life is from his high school years. A kid he didn't know very well invited him over to his house. The mom asked him if he wanted a hambuger. He said, "Sure." When the burger was ready, the mom and her son sat down at the table and watch Denny eat the burger. They didn't eat; they just watched Denny. They had gleams in their eyes. When Denny was finished, they asked him if he liked it. He said it was OK, but a little spicy. Then the mom and soon broke out in laughter. "It was DOG FOOD!" they howled.

Denny had 20 issues of his comic, Real Stuff, published, mostly by Fantagraphics. This anthology, also titled Real Stuff, is published by a company in Los Angeles that I've never heard of, called Swifty Morales Press. They did a great job -- the book is a beaut. Link

Motorola is sponsoring the show, and they've provided some late-model camera phones for each of the 30 participating artists (including Megan Mullally of TV's "Will and Grace," Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, "Weird" Al Yankovic, and a number of renowned photographers and filmmakers).

National Public Radio's "Day to Day" program issued a "Phonecam Challenge" to their listeners in partnership with the show -- NPR listeners from around the world submitted images to SENT, and five winning entries will be recognized after review by a panel of judges including "Day to Day" host Alex Chadwick.

The invited artists' images will debut at the gallery show in July, and images submitted by the public are available for viewing right now.
Link, and instructions on how to submit your phonecam art are here. the NPR "Day to Day" Phonecam Challenge is here.

Update: Billl sez, "FYI, Andover Consulting is *not* bankrupt or going out of business, according to one of their people I just emailed. I suspect this is just an auction of stuff they're liquidating from other companies."

* 3-D Videoconferencing (no glasses required!)
* Synthetic Biology (a parts library of genetic Tinkertoys!)
* Seconhand Smoke (worse than we thought!)
* The Molecular Foundry (fab new nanofab!)

It's shaped like a basketball. It was inspired by Spock's tricorder. And, if NASA researchers have their way, it could be helping out astronauts aboard the International Space Station in as little as three years.

The Personal Satellite Assistant is a robot prototype designed to buzz around the space station, performing a variety of jobs for astronauts and mission controllers: monitoring life-support systems, keeping tabs on the day's tasks and reminding space scientists how to do their experiments right. After six years of development, engineers at NASA's Ames Research Center say they now have a version of the Personal Satellite Assistant, or PSA, that's fully mobile, with a sensor suite that's nearly space-ready.

But it's unclear whether the red spherical bot will ever make it into orbit. Like so much else at the space agency these days, the fate of the PSA remains uncertain. The drone's makers hope to have an answer from the higher-ups by the end of the summer.

Update on this post is here.

Gizmodo has a very interesting story about the iTunes DRM ripping software known as Hymn. "Now part of the whole shtick with Hymn is that even though it strips the iTunes DRM, it leaves your email address and other unique purchasing information in the protected AAC file, ostensibly to symbolically signify that Hymn users aren't trying to spread their fairly-purchased music files to the whole world, but instead to whatever devices they want." How does the new version of iTunes respond to this? It notes that the purchasing information is there and then blocks the file from playing.

"(After surgery, the patients were asked) to do various motor and speech tasks, moving their hands various ways, talking, and imagining. The team could see from the data which parts of the brain correlate to these movements. They then asked the patients to play a simple, one-dimensional computer game involving moving a cursor up or down towards one of two targets. They were asked to imagine various movements or imagine saying the word 'move,' but not to actually perform them with their hands or speak any words by mouth. When they saw the cursor in the video game, they then controlled it with their brains.

'We closed the loop,' said (professor Daniel) Moran. 'After a brief training session, the patients could play the game by using signals that come off the surface of the brain. They achieved between 74 and 100 percent accuracy, with one patient hitting 33 out of 33 targets correctly in a row.'"

"Early morning of May 11, Steve Kurtz awoke to find his wife, Hope, dead of a cardiac arrest. Kurtz called 911. The police arrived and, after stumbling across test tubes and petri dishes Kurtz was using in a current artwork, called in the Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Soon agents from the Task Force and FBI detained Kurtz, cordoned off the entire block around his house, and later impounded Kurtz's computers, manuscripts, books, equipment, and even his wife's body for further analysis. The Buffalo Health Department condemned the house as a health risk.

Only after the Commissioner of Public Health for New York State had tested samples from the home and announced there was no public safety threat was Kurtz able to return home and recover his wife's body. Yet the FBI would not release the impounded materials, which included artwork for an upcoming exhibition at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art."

This site gives free downloads of the oral arguments in US Supreme Court cases of the 1960s. The sound quality isn't always brilliant; the arguments may be barmy; but the interest is in listening to how crucial civil rights issues were viewed at the time. Try Loving v Virginia (are anti-miscegenation laws racially discriminatory? umm, hard question). Warning: some are almost two hours long.

Q:What are some advanatages of adding Zombie Reagan to the ticket?

A: He will demonstrate America's resolve to continue the battle against terrorism. Instead of retreating to an undisclosed location, for instance, Zombie Reagan will be on the front lines, eating illegal combatants.

Mincing Lane
Cock Pond
Tyttenhanger
Pratt's Bottom
Titsey Park
Minges
Claggy Cott
Herbert's Hole
Nasty
Thong

Presidential science adviser John Marburger complained that the UCS's account sounded like a "conspiracy theory report." That's because it is one. As the report amply documents, the Bush administration has systematically manipulated scientific inquiry into climate change, forest management, lead and mercury contamination, and a host of other issues. Even as Marburger addressed his critics, the administration purged two advocates of stem-cell research from the President's Council on Bioethics.

When politicians dictate science, government becomes entangled in its own deceptions, and eventually the social order decays in a compost of lies. Society, having abandoned the scientific method, loses its empirical referent, and truth becomes relative. This is a serious affliction known as Lysenkoism.

Increasingly, blogs — daily updates supposedly from an entirely personal perspective — have become a central focus of many people’s Web experience. A blogger captures our attention less through brilliance of expression, than by resonating with our own prior views, and also — often chiefly through various degrees of self–revelation. In general, the more intimate, the better; and the more supportive of a particular side, slant and style in some public debate, also the better each blogger then can direct our attention to other sites or sources, that further our knowledge of and loyalty to the same stance. We can easily be inundated in views, gossip, conspiracy theories, selected facts and so forth that serve to bolster the preconceptions that attracted us to such thoughts in the first place.

For any text to continue to hold our attention on the Internet, it must be calibrated so as to: provide just the right level of excitement to sustain interest; not introduce matters so strange that the reader cannot follow or is tempted to seek explanations on other sites; to present arguments of only moderate complexity — again not to distract or bore the reader; and gather the reader’s sympathy by presenting materials likely to resonate with her. Opportunities to escape these limitations that might do for a printed work are far more risky in the Internet environment, where attention can quickly stray. Despite the apparent democracy of the Internet, where anyone has an equal chance to create a site or blog, these tight restrictions demand a high degree of talent and ingenuity for success.

Update: Starting on Monday 7/14, Goldberg and Bohringer's flw will be on display for a month at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose.

I'm on a civilian owned internet right now. That means if I chose, I can search for pornographic material right at this moment if I felt so inclined. However on a military computer, we use internet which is connected to a military owned server, broadcasted by our own Sattelites. These frequencies get filtered based on what the military deems is right and wrong. This includes shopping, games, pornographic material, dating services, chat lines, and perhaps some Blogs.

For those who felt they weren't being blocked from ANY site, well, if all you try to go to is Yahoo.com, then come on. Try out "bigkinkygirls.com" or something on a military computer. Or access a hate or racist site. Good luck. Sometimes, due to the filters, a site containing news and information may be blocked without the intention of cencorship. Such as some adult software blocks a childs report on Mule's simply because the webpage had the word ass in it.

NIPR's "Websense" software is strict and server based. And is controlled by a higher leveled ISO. If there is any doubt to the web pages contents, contacting the help desk should help them realise the mistake, and fix the situation upon investigation. But NIPR would rather block any suspected webpage, than allow one to slip through. But in the luckier parts of Iraq, the soldier is free to walk into a KBR internet cafe without cost. And many units supply them with free internet so that we may research, email our families, or simply have a good time at one of our favorite Blogs.

PFC "Zaku", 47th FSB, 1AD Baghdad

Things get interesting when you apply Monolith to copyrighted files. For example, munging two copyrighted files will produce a completely new file that, in most cases, contains no information from either file. In other words, the resulting Mono file is not "owned" by the original copyright holders (if owned at all, it would be owned by the person who did the munging). Given that the Mono file can be combined with either of the original, copyrighted files to reconstruct the other copyrighted file, this lack of Mono ownership may be seem hard to believe.

Consider this simple fact: for a given Element file and any other file of the same length (call it fileA), it is possible to choose a Basis file that, when munged with the Element, will produce fileA as the resulting Mono file. Therefore, if a copyright holder claims that she owns the information in all Mono files that are munged from her work, she is also claiming copyright over all possible binary files that are the same length as her work. For example, suppose that fileA is an MP3 of a Beatles song, and the Element file is an MP3 of a Britney Spears song copyrighted by Jive Records. It is possible to find a Basis file that, when munged with the Spears song, will produce the Beatles song as the Mono file. Jive Records certainly cannot claim copyright over the Beatles song (which is copyrighted by Apple Records), nor can they claim copyright over any other Mono files munged from MP3s of their songs.

What does this mean? This means that Mono files can be freely distributed.

Update: Ernest Miller says, more or less, BFD: "The conceit of the concept is that neither the cryptotext nor the key is copyrighted. Thus, it should be legal to distribute both. Otherwise, the author of Monolith claims, everything is copyrighted and nothing can be distributed because there is always a number such that, if XOR'd with another number, will produce a copyrighted work. This argument is not new and it not terrible interesting. It basically postulates that any encrypted transmission of information is actually not a transmission of information at all." Link

"SWINDLE quarterly will be the definitive pop-culture and lifestyle publication for young men and women. Servicing music, art, and fashion, SWINDLE provides a wide variety of fresh “lifestyle” content for the young and eclectic. SWINDLE will be the first truly non-disposable almanac of popular culture. It’s hardcover and premium print quality will set it apart from other publications on the newsstand. When you buy SWINDLE, you get a beautifully designed addition to your personal library, to be displayed next to your favorite books." Link

In the lawsuit, the foundation said that because the companies all use the same wireless network standard, called GSM, customers should be able to use the same phone across those carriers' networks just by changing out an easily-replaced unit called a "SIM card" inside the phone.

Other than the idea of voluntarily listening to lawyers speak, this sounds like a great idea to me, too. Has this been done before? No? Any takers?

But tonight was no ordinary night of snorting and hiding my face in the Feng Shui soy candle display. Tucked away on the shelf below that black velvet UFO portrait of The High ECK Master, I found Dancing With Cats (Chronicle Books, 1999). Been around for years, but I'd never seen it before. Filled with pictures of humans fannying about in tights, striking "I-Wish-I-Were-Baryshnikov" poses -- together with cats who doing the same thing. The text is rich. "Multicat" interspecies dance ensembles as a tool for enlightenment; think Busby Berkeley with hairballs and chakras. Dig the pre-dance exercises:

Before we can begin dancing with our cats, we must first make contact with them. We can't simply put on music and expect that our cats will dance with us. We have to first align our dynamic vibration systems with theirs and bring those systems into a kind of confluence before we can build the energy levels through the dance that are necessary to attain the higher vibrationary states which enable us to channel the infinite power of the universe.

You see, human beings and cats are not simply physical bodies confined within a barrier of skin or fur. We are also made up of dynamic energy systems which extend out, and interact with, every other energy system around us.

There's a simple exercise you can try right now as you sit in front of your computer. It's one of a number of what we call mirroring exercises that will allow you to bring your body into an energy-centered relationship with your cat and prepare you to dance with it... a simple purring technique. Remember that purring is the way a cat modulates its energy reserves in order to restore its psychic equilibrium.

Update: If you like that, check out Catflexing and Why Cats Paint, both of which must be seen to be believed. (Thanks, Matthew Burns and Thomas A. Dennis!).

And BoingBoing reader Cliff Van Eaton of Papamoa, New Zealand says:

"It sounds like you had your tongue firmly implanted in your cheek ... you should, because the website you linked to was another wonderfully disguised creation by one of New Zealand's great merry pranksters, Burton Silver. He used to be a much-loved cartoonist here, with a long running strip called Bogor that featured a hedgehog that craved snails and marijuana leaves, and a sensitive new age logger. Here's a link to a few phone cards featuring the Bogor characters. He was featured on a New Zealand stamp a few years ago.

Silver created his first book ruse with Why Cats Paint. It was considered a big joke in New Zealand (because everyone here was quite familiar with his wit), but overseas lots of gullible people (read: cat lovers) took it seriously, and lo and behold he had a hit on his hands. My favourite Silver scam is a book and ball combination he brought out on the New Zealand market a few years ago at Christmas. It was a combination between golf (a favourite and very egalitarian pastime here) and rugby (the national religion). The golf ball is in the shape of a rugby ball, and you score points by hitting it between goal posts. Well, everyone knew that Silver was having a good joke, and lots of fathers and brothers got "Golf Cross" sets for Christmas. But interestingly, when people took them out in the paddock and had a bit of a hit around, they found that it was actually a very enjoyable game. Here's a link with more info about Golf Cross."

Ronald Reagan is the man who destroyed America's sense of reality -- a paltry target, all in all, given our predilections. It only took an actor: the real successor to John Wilkes Booth. In our bones, we had always been this sort of bullshit-craving country anyhow, founded on abstractions: not land (somebody else's), not people (Red Rover, Red Rover, send Emma Lazarus right over), not even shared history (nostalgia isn't the same thing, and try pulling that Civil War Shinola anywhere west of the Rio Grande). Just monumental words and wordy monuments, with two convenient oceans between them and circumstance; from Nat Turner's status as three-fifths of a man -- even though we ended up hanging all of him -- to Reagan's child Lynndie England (b. 1983, the year we invaded Grenada and lost 241 Marines in Lebanon), any shortfall could be blamed on something lost in translation. But it was Reagan, whose most profound Freudian slip was the immortal "Facts are stupid things," who beguiled us into living in the theme park full-time, and so much for the Declaration of Independence's prattle about "a decent respect to the opinions of mankind" -- actually the only time we ever expressed much concern for those. Since his 1980 opponent, Jimmy Carter, was about the sorriest embodiment of the reality principle imaginable -- Three's Company's Mr. Roper on the world-historical stage -- facts didn't have a prayer.

Witty was very well written. It was less than 700 bytes long. It used a random-number generator to spread itself, avoiding many of the problems that plagued previous worms. It spread by sending itself to random IP addresses with random destination ports, a trick that made it easier to sneak through firewalls. It was -- and this is a very big deal -- bug-free. This strongly implies that the worm was tested before release.

Witty was exceptionally nasty. It was the first widespread worm that destroyed the hosts it infected. And it did so cleverly. Its malicious payload, erasing data on random accessible drives in random 64KB chunks, caused immediate damage without significantly slowing the worm's spread.

The most useful one, though, is the Autopen, made by International Autopen Co. of Sterling, VA., a popular device that is apparently still in use (the Republic National Committee bought one just this year). The Autopen is loaded with special metal 'matrix' -- basically a traced pattern of the signature -- that can be used again and again, even if the signer isn't there. Even better, owners of Autopens can purchase signature matrices through the mail from third parties, duplicating any autograph at will. Current models of the Autopen weigh around 100lbs, run off regular power, and can use real pens and pencils (although they work better with Sharpies, due to the fixed width of the pen looking less off when done with marker).

* Brazil

- Article 5: National Treatment. We favor alternative J, irrespective of whether we agree on some kind of redefinition of the term "national." We reserve the right to come back -- possible at a future meeting -- to the issue of the rights conferred to the beneficiaries under the treaty.

[ed: note Brazilian implication that this business shouldn't be concluded at this session]

- Concentrate on Article 16, Technical Protection Measures [ed: AKA DRM]. Brazil is concerned with proposed inclusion of TPMs in proposed new treaty. Aware that similar provisions are in WCT and WPPT, but it's important to recall that those treaties were negotiated and adopted when there was little awareness regarding potential implications of use of TPMs. Since then, some years have gone by, and there's a growing widespread awareness that use of such measures can be quite detrimental to rights of consumers and public at large. Significant concern that anticircumvention has significant negative for exercise of rights exceptions and limitations in national laws. Important obstacle to access of public to public domain materia.

Inconsistent with necessary free flow of info so important to encourage innovation and creativity in the digital environment. All of Art 16 counters stated objectives of new treaty as referred to in preamble. Para recognizes need to maintain balance between rights of broadcasters and larger public interest.

This entire article should believe this entire article should be deleted from the text. Other delegates argue that e fact that we have these provisions in WCT and WPPTY mean that we should include them in this treaty. We disagree. Not pertinent to rights of broadcasting organizations.

[ed. Brazil is very courageous. -dt]

[ed. See EFF's Unintended Consequences report for some of the specific harms from adopting anticircumvention to which Brazil alludes. Brazil recognizes that previous treaties offer opportunity to learn from mistakes, not just blindly follow existing language. -ws]

[ed This is the best statement I've ever heard at a WIPO session. -cd]

Chairman: Access to information is near to my heart as well. This is not intended to cover DRM that locks up public domain material. If an industry or entity does this, then TPM protection shouldn't be available and circumvention should be lawful.

[ed. Since broadcasting isn't copyright, though, there's a wide range of new material locked up by new rights for broadcasters. Otherwise, there's no need for a treaty at all, since copyright and licensing of copyrights can cover the field. -ws]

[ed. It's a nice theory, but the DMCA enthusiastically covers the uncopyrightable, the public domain, and things that really shouldn't be thought of as copyright, like the way that garage door owners work or the secret of refilling a printer cart -cd]

Osama bin Laden captured! 33.3%

Spectacular terrorist attack on US soil! 23.6%

Vote is threatened by terrorist attacks, vote suspended due to red alert. 14.6%

Diebold Election Systems fixes the vote in battleground states. 11.4%

Escalation in Israel, Iran, or North Korea. US opens a new war front. 8.1%

US pulls out of Iraq in October, leaving the UN in charge. 4.9%

WMD's found in Iraq! 4.1%

"Wi-Fi wants to be free," said John Yunker, an analyst at Byte Level Research who follows wireless technology. He believes high-speed wireless access will evolve over the next several years into a freebie service, much like cable television or air-conditioning in hotel rooms, that customers come to expect at cafes, airports and conference centers.

For surviving Wi-Fi players to remain afloat, Yunker believes, they'll have to change their business models, offer more all-you-can-surf plans and cut prices. For those who do charge, he believes customers will be comfortable paying rates of about $4 a month for unlimited access to a network of hot spots.

Its justification for existence was weak 70 years ago, but advances in technology since then have eliminated whatever arguments remained. Central planning didn't work for the Soviet Union, and it's not working for us. The FCC is now an agency that does more harm than good.

Consider some examples of bureaucratic malfeasance that the FCC, with the complicity of the U.S. Congress, has committed. The FCC rejected long-distance telephone service competition in 1968, banned Americans from buying their own non-Bell telephones in 1956, dragged its feet in the 1970s when considering whether video telephones would be allowed and did not grant modern cellular telephone licenses until 1981--about four decades after Bell Labs invented the technology. Along the way, the FCC has preserved monopolistic practices that would have otherwise been illegal under antitrust law. These technologically backward decisions have cost Americans tens of billions of dollars.

6. Look for substitutions that make sense. Don't want to pay top dollar for bacon? Lean boiled ham is much less expensive and fills the same purpose in many menus. And canola oil has the same healthy fat benefits as olive oil for less than half the price.

My first thought: scam. I mean, who is this guy? Why is he writing to me, right out of the blue? I don't know him from Adam. And, if this guy is from the Reader, then why was he using what appeared to be a personal email address (not sdreader.com)? So, I looked up the phone number for the San Diego Reader and called.

I asked for Jim Holman. The receptionist wanted to know what this was regarding. I told her I just a moment ago got this email from Mr. Holman saying he wanted to pay me for an article and I am calling to see if this is for real. She put me on hold and then sure enough, I was talking with Jim Holman.

According to the release, first up will be a promotion involving one of Hasbro's (NYSE: HAS) popular board games, "Trivial Pursuit Junior." Questions from that brand will be featured on the crisps, along with the answers, of course. (Actually, P&G should consider placing the questions in one canister of crisps and the answers in another canister to double sales -- as well as the anger level of consumers, I suppose). The launch of this initiative is scheduled for summertime.

Update: Biohazard wrapping paper is a bad idea! Bottom line: stick with the "happy fucking whatever" paper. BoingBoing reader Chris Davis writes,

I am not a trained first responder (IANATFR), but I've heard that when real, trained, first responders come across safety symbols - biohazard, nuke radiation, etc - they take them very very seriously.

So lets say you wrap your bottle of wine for the party host in the cool biohazard paper, and then get in a wreck on the way there. And the wine bottle breaks inside the box. The EMT gets to your car, sees a damaged box covered in biohazard symbols leaking fluid on the passenger seat, and makes a 180 out of there to call in the trained biohazard people, leaving you to fend for yourself. Oops..

I just called a firefighter friend, so he IS a trained first responder (IAATFR?). Turns out he just last week had a hazmat response training session. He said they use 'common sense' - so in my example above, they MIGHT go ahead and treat the injured, but it would probably set a chain of events in motion that would be a really big deal - guys in hazmat suits going over your car before you get it back, law enforcement asking a lot of pointed questions.. He emphasized that in this day and age, they do take this stuff seriously.

As he put it, 'Say you've got somebody you've got a problem with. Wrap a box of kleenex in that paper, throw it in his car, and drop a dime. He will never fuck with you again.' "

There are very specific laws regarding the disposal of biohazardous waste, if you mark you waste as such you are required to dispose of in that manner, since people at the dump don't really like to go digging through possibly biohazardous waste to make sure it's dangerous. The EPA (or public health dept) however absolutely will dig through it in order to place the blame on the (most often) company that violated the disposal laws. I used to work for a large commercial lab, and I've heard through people at other labs of stories where they look through everything to trace it back to the violator... I'm sure you wouldn't get a fine for actual dumping, but I wouldn't want to cause that sort of trouble. People working landfills are another group that doesn't like to see the biohazard sign.

New trends among our readers (primarily educated urban men and women in their twenties and thirties): 32%, for example, think cheating begins with a raunchy IM session. Fidelity is a priority for them (close to 80% are pro-monogamy), but they're laissez-faire about the lifestyles of others (97% think having children out of wedlock is okay). There's just one thing on which they refuse to compromise: 59% think bad sex is grounds for divorce.

LayerOne Technology Conference will be going on this Saturday and Sunday [June 12-13] at the Westin LA Airport. We've got a grip of really great speakers lined up for our first year... NTK's Danny O'Brien will be flogging his Life Hacks talk that's won over crowds at everywhere from Emerging Tech to NotCon. Dan Kaminsky will be giving an early preview of his Black Hat talk and hopefully be releasing some tools to back up his concepts. Jason Schultz of the EFF will be talking about how the DMCA is stifling innovation and preventing the future of interoperability. USC's Douglas Thomas will be covering how code is and can be a means of political action.

On top of that we've got eight more great talks, free wifi, a mini-vendor area [see: shirts and technological epherma] a cash bar right off the speaking area and gratis beer for paying attendees on Saturday night. Doors open at 9am on Saturday and on each day the first talk is at 10am and the we adjourn at 6pm. We're charging $50 for the weekend, which we'll gladly take at the door.

The line-up of performers is truly insane, from Subgenius savant Dr. Hal Robins to heavy metal bagpipe virtuoso The Madpiper to New York "sound acrobat" ZeroBoy.

As Timothy Leary said, "You have to go out of your mind to use your head." Happy birthday, Laughing Squid! Link

Hutchinson said it is due in part to the lower specific gravity, which relates to the amount of starch in the potato, compared to the more widely recognized Russet Burbank baking potato. "The smooth, buff-colored skin and light yellow flesh will make this potato an attractive and tasty alternative in many traditional potato recipes," he said.

There's no transparency into this process for most of the world. The doors are locked, the minutes are sealed, and you need to be accredited just to sit in the room.

There's no connectivity in the room, but by publishing and using an ad-hoc WiFi network in the main room, three of us (me, my cow-orker Wendy Seltzer, and David Tannenbaum from the Union for the Public Domain) were able to collaborate on note-taking on the first half-day's session using SubEthaEdit, the brilliant and unique Mac app.

The speaking style at these events is "diplomatic" --slow, formal and thick with coded and subtle messages. Between the three of us we were able to untangle some of the speech and tease out some analysis. I think that our point-form notes are a really good, comprehensive view of the meeting.

* Brazil: We've been at this for ages. No real and substantive discussions have taken place. There's no clear understanding of the potential economic and social impact of database protection. A study that was comissioned by WIPO on database copying in Latin America indicated from the Latin American perspective that regulation is premature. It's detrimental to innovation, science, education, access, etc., particularily in developing countries. In the light of this we want to question the usefulness and convenience of maintaining this on the agenda. This isn't unfinished business, the lacklustre engagement of the committee tells us that this is business we don't want to engage in, and this gets in the way of other business we might choose to address. We ask to have this permanently deleted from the agenda.

* ALA: The database protection issue in US Congress is significantly controversial, highly unlikely to pass in this Congress. Agree with Brazil, let's take this off the table here. Congress called this a "Solution in search of a problem" -- there's more databases than ever, why do we need this. We don't see a consensus or a need for protection.

* Ecuador: On behalf of Latin American and Caribbean group, I would like to make a general statement. We don't think that this should be on the agenda now.

* India: Should everyone who produces work by sweat of the brow come here for protection? This isn't creative labour. There's no allegation of widespread copying of non-original databases. Even if there were, the question relevant for this organization is whether this body should be considering nonoriginal databases. Where there's no creativity, databases are assets; that's the apporpriate concern to address by misappropriation, but not intellectual property. Perhaps soem other rubric, some other forum is appropriate. Many entities need protection of sweat of brow assets but we shouldn't have all of them approaching WIPO for a remedy.

If EU wants to protect nonoriginal databases, EU can. It's important to leave industry space to develop. at this stage, we need a more careful learning process, not laws that inhibit industry rather than facilitate. Database protection is premature now. Even in long term, it may not be appropriate for WIPO. We recommend the issue be deleted from the Standing Committee's agenda.

* US delegation: We think that this should remain on the agenda. We need to exchange more information about what this is and how it works where it's been adopted.

With Mr. Neely's gravelly narration, the movie's tone shifts into darkly comic, pop-culture-savvy territory. Hagrid, Harry Potter's giant, hairy friend, becomes Hagar, the Horrible, and Harry's fat cousin becomes Roast Beefy. As imagined by Mr. Neely, the three main characters are child alcoholics with a penchant for cognac, the magical ballgame Quidditch takes on homoerotic overtones, and Harry is prone to delivering hyper-dramatic monologues. "I am a destroyer of worlds," bellows Mr. Neely at one point, sending laughter reverberating through the warehouse Friday night. "I am Harry" expletive "Potter!"

"(In his description of Atlantis) 'Plato wrote of an island of five stades (925m) diameter that was surrounded by several circular structures - concentric rings - some consisting of Earth and the others of water. We have in the photos concentric rings just as Plato described,' Dr Kuehne told BBC News Online."

Responding to an unprecedented boom in computer game popularity, China's government established a censorship task force this week to monitor the content of imported games for offensive or politically sensitive content.

Ministry of Culture officials said all online and wireless games produced outside the country will now be subject to examination first before they can be legally distributed within the country. Foreign producers of online games already in distribution must submit those products to MOC examinations by Sept. 1, or face punishment.

"The ministry allows the import of foreign online games whose content accords with Chinese national conditions and has positive effects on young people's mentality," according to an MOC statement. Chinese officials had been monitoring the content of video games before, but they seem to be stepping up efforts after a period of exponential growth in computer and wireless gaming. Two European games were recently banned.

Test subjects can't see the invisible beam from the Pentagon's new, Star Trek-like weapon, but no one has withstood the pain it produces for more than three seconds. People who volunteered to stand in front of the directed energy beam say they felt as if they were on fire. When they stepped aside, the pain disappeared instantly.

The long-range column of millimeter-wave energy is known as the "Active Denial System" for its ability to prevent an aggressor from advancing. Senior military officials, who plan to deliver the device for troop evaluation this fall, say years of testing has produced no sign it will lead to health effects beyond perhaps causing skin to temporarily redden.(...)

But in an era of secret interrogations of al-Qaida suspects and revelations of U.S. abuse of prisoners at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, Executive Director Doug Johnson of the Minneapolis-based Center for Torture Victims is skeptical. "It seems fundamentally a weapon that's designed to create a great deal of pain and fear," Johnson said. "The concern I would have is ... once this kind of technology is available and there's a perception that it's safe and nonlethal, it seems like a natural device to be used in interrogations.

Update: Popular Science Michael Moyer says, "We did a feature last year on a bunch of nonlethal weapons that the military is developing. The writer actually got shot by the beam in question for the story. His verdict: It hurts really, really bad." Link

Stay Free!: With its hundreds of samples, is it possible to make a record like It Takes a Nation of Millions today? Would it be possible to clear every sample?

Shocklee: It wouldn't be impossible. It would just be very, very costly. The first thing that was starting to happen by the late 1980s was that the people were doing buyouts. You could have a buyout--meaning you could purchase the rights to sample a sound--for around $1,500. Then it started creeping up to $3,000, $3,500, $5,000, $7,500. Then they threw in this thing called rollover rates. If your rollover rate is every 100,000 units, then for every 100,000 units you sell, you have to pay an additional $7,500. A record that sells two million copies would kick that cost up twenty times. Now you're looking at one song costing you more than half of what you would make on your album.

Chuck D: Corporations found that hip-hop music was viable. It sold albums, which was the bread and butter of corporations. Since the corporations owned all the sounds, their lawyers began to search out people who illegally infringed upon their records. All the rap artists were on the big six record companies, so you might have some lawyers from Sony looking at some lawyers from BMG and some lawyers from BMG saying, "Your artist is doing this," so it was a tit for tat that usually made money for the lawyers, garnering money for the company. Very little went to the original artist or the publishing company.

01 -- If God exists then he's a fake, or more likely a foot!
02 -- On RAH.
03 -- Christopher.
04 -- self-sacrifice, the person sacrifices himself for another person.
05 -- On Mussolini.

At Wiscon last week, Lister Matheson (the director of Clarion East for the past several years) and Mary Sheridan hosted a brainstorming session to talk about what we can do to keep Clarion alive despite MSU's financial and political machinations.

We came up with some ideas, both short term and long term, in that hour and a half. Step 1 in the plan is to organize a core group of Clarionites to continue the discussion via a listserv, come up with other ideas, and begin to implement some of them. Many people who were there were eager to continue the conversation, and I think all of you might have thoughts to contribute as well.

I just set up the list, and will wait a couple days for everyone to get on it (and for Lister, Mary, and Amelia at Clarion to get back online--the university relocated their offices to rooms without sufficient electrical outlets), then summarize what we've discussed, immediate action items, and we can go from there.

I hope you'll consider joining this conversation by following the Yahoo instructions below to join the group. Feel free to direct others who may want to join us to contact me as well. Thanks.

Rheumatic, lank, dyspeptic, lean;
The bad effects are plainly seen,
On those who do themselves the wrong,
Of buying any brand that comes along.
But happy though, the daily life,
Of the bright, contented, plump, housewife,
And happy all who take her stand
To buy the Arm & Hammer Brand.

There is nothing more contemptible than a bald man who pretends to have hair.- Marcus Valerius Martialis, Roman poet, 98 A.D.

People use todo.txt (Ford's is 27,000 lines long)

* Don't use complicated apps

* Use Word, BBEdit, Notepad, emacs, vi, whatever

* Why?

* If you want to organize yourself, take the stuff you're going to forget quickly and dump it just as quickly -- if it's in your short-term memory, you have to put it somewhere

* You need to be able to find and enter text fast

* Can cut, paste and find text fast

* XML Guy: "Not interested in tagging my behavior with metadata -- just want to find stuff. Google shows that text cna be found quick"

* Text editors have incremental search (Mozilla: type slash and begin typing for your search string) -- quick way to lock-in on your desired text

* In Moz, Panther, Launchbar, Quicksilver, etc

* Text can be trusted

* Power users trust software as far as they've thrown them in the past

* Power users know that the bigger an app, the flakier it is

* They've upgraded and crossgraded a lot, which means that they need text, which can run on every platform

I am writing to say that it is important to me that Europe has strong intellectual property laws in place and that they are enforced properly.

The creative industries are under assault from pirates, counterfeiters and those who want weaken or remove the protections that enable the creative industries to function. 17,000 jobs a year and billions of Euros are lost every year because the IP laws are weak or not enforced.

Please support us when you're elected. We're counting on you!

File-sharing is part of the traditional cycle of new technology development: from the phonorecord to the VCR, from the radio to the satellite service, every new technology that lowered the barriers to reproducing and distributing copyrighted works has had to make use of the popular media of the day to conjure itself into existence -- usually over the howls of protest of rights-holders who were merely the legitimized pirates of from the last fight.

When the phonorecord people bitterly fought radio, they conveniently forgot that they'd built their business through widescale infringement of the sheet-music publishers. It's no different today: filmmakers (who enthusiastically violated Edison's film patents), broadcasters (who played records without permission or payment), cablecasters (who pirated free-to-air signals for their networks) and even hybrid entertainment/electronics companies (like Sony, whose piratical VCR was characterized by the motion-picture people as the certain death of the film industry) are all standing shoulder to shoulder in the fight against programmers and ordinary citizens who have, once again, discovered a better way to distribute and reproduce creative works.

It's no surprise that these pirates of the entertainment industry want to pull the ladder up behind them and dog the hatch. After all, the traditional role of inventors has been to create massive new revenue opportunities for the entertainment industry, and the traditional response of the entertainment companies has been to seek legislative relief from those opportunities.