I gave a talk at Microsoft Research today on why Microsoft should get out of the DRM business and what they could do instead. Here's the text of it:

Here's what I'm here to convince you of:

1. That DRM systems don't work
2. That DRM systems are bad for society
3. That DRM systems are bad for business
4. That DRM systems are bad for artists
5. That DRM is a bad business-move for MSFT

It's a big brief, this talk. Microsoft has sunk a lot of capital into DRM systems, and spent a lot of time sending folks like Martha and Brian and Peter around to various smoke-filled rooms to make sure that Microsoft DRM finds a hospitable home in the future world. Companies like Microsoft steer like old Buicks, and this issue has a lot of forward momentum that will be hard to soak up without driving the engine block back into the driver's compartment. At best I think that Microsoft might convert some of that momentum on DRM into angular momentum, and in so doing, save all our asses.

Link Update: Anil has created a pretty html version, and Trevor's created a purple version

This species of fish, the Hydrolagus matallanasi, has been swimming around for perhaps 180 million years. Apparently, it was first discovered by Brazillian fisherman in 2001 but the photo was just released today. According to researchers, this species of chimaera (or ratfish) is over a foot long and is related to sharks. "It's like if we had an animal as old as the Tyrannosaurus rex still alive," Jules Soto, curator of the Oceanographic Museum of the Universdad do Vale do Itajai, told Reuters. Link (Thanks, G!)

The latest Cool Tools newsletter is out, with amazing stuff as usual. My favorites this time are a battery-powered amplifier-speaker that you can plug an iPod into for blasting music, and a description of "tool lending" libraries. Link (If you don't see them on the Cool Tools site, wait a couple of hours, Kevin sends the emails before updating the site. Better yet, sign up for the list)

John describes his mind-blowing tour through Applied Minds, a Glendale, CA consultancy started by former Disney Imagineers Danny Hillis and Bran Ferren.

After chit chatting for a few minutes, he took me to a small room - no wider than my outstretched arms - at the far end of which stood one of those classic red English phone booths. We stepped inside - a bit cramped - and Danny lifted the receiver and dictated a passphrase of some sort. Presto - the rear wall of the booth opened, and we stepped into - nerdvana.

From a cramped phone booth into massive pure-white-lit space two-stories high, adorned with all manner of things strange and beautiful. Over to one side stood the Terminator-like skeleton of a forty-foot dinosaur, its 15-foot pneumatic legs gleaming and exposed. Nearly blending into the walls, itself painted movie-set white, was a tricked out Hummer-like RV refitted as a communications/command center - complete with built-in kitchen and bedroom. The space was a great big project lab, with happy geeks combing over various assemblages of wiring, motors, processors and plans like ants on a summer picnic. It's Willy Wonka's chocolate factory for geeks.

Link

Popular Science has a simple hack for replacing a flashlight's bulb with bright white light-emitting diodes.

A flashlight ... hacked to use three 2300-millicandela LEDs will be as bright as an incandescent and last 5 to 10 times longer. Of course you can add up to 20 LEDs (as long as they fit in the reflector) if you're planning to, say, man a lighthouse with the thing.

Link

The second annual Blogue Ta Musique is under way. "This is a volunteer and non-profit music sharing event, and a important collaborative moment for french-speaking bloggers (and others)," says Jean-Luc in Paris. "Download the beautiful small BTM logo, and more information (en Français) is here."

Dav sez, "The ever brilliant Tim Ross of Tuba Frenzy has mashed up the Enron tapes (and I think some Bush quotes) with Snap!'s The Power. It's beautiful. Burn baby burn! Burn baby burn! Burn baby burn!" 5.1MB MP3 Link (Thanks, Dav!)

If you're in LA next week, head over to the IAF video art festival Tijuana-Los Angeles on Saturday June 26th, 2004. Takes place at LA's Mexican Cultural Institute on historic Olvera street. Videographers, visual artists, and DJs/sound artists from Tijuana, the D.F., and Southern California. The event should be great fun. Link, and remember: not this Saturday, *next* Saturday. (Thanks, Sal)

Mid-air shagger helper. For frequent flyers fortunate enough to need it, this discreet 8" x 5" x 3" case contains adult accourements like massage oil, condoms, lube, sex toys, wet wipes, and after-sex mints (what? No Sphincterine?). Link (via Fleshbot)

Monogolians, who have customarily used only first names, are now required by law to have last names as well. Unfortunately, most people are choosing "Borjigin," Genghis Kahn's tribal name. The director of the State Library is attempting to fix this by publishing advice on historically accurate surname choices for potential Borjigins.

Mr. Besud has spent years poring over the dusty archives of the state library to compile a book of possible surnames for the nameless. He obtained access to the highly secret archives of the country's Communist Party, which included detailed lists of the names of noble families who were prohibited from party membership.

He discovered his own long-lost surname, Besud, by finding his grandfather's name on a 1925 list of conscripts in a Communist army.

His book, called Advice on Mongolian Surnames, provides maps and lists of historically used surnames in each region of the country.

Link (via Foe Romeo)

Here's a chart showing the typical speed of various Hollwood chase-scene pursuers, from T-Rexii to Boeing 747s. There were many craptacular things to mock about The Dat After Tomorrow, but most among them was a chase scene in which the protagonists need to outrun ice. This would have been handy then.

90 mph baseball pitch: 40.0 m/s

Stone from Commercial Slingshot: 42.5 m/s

Crossbow Bolt: 45.7 m/s

Link (via Waxy)

Following up on our previous post about the Pentagon's new Active Denial System (energy beam) and other "non-lethal" weapons, here's a New Scientist feature about the state-of-the-art in ray guns:

"...the $9000 Close Quarters Shock Rifle projects an ionised gas, or plasma, towards the target, producing a conducting channel. It will also interfere with electronic ignition systems and stop vehicles.

'We will be able to fire a stream of electricity like water out of a hose at one or many targets in a single sweep,' claims XADS (Xtreme Alternative Defense Systems) president Peter Bitar."

Amnesty International and other human rights groups are none too thrilled. Link

Based on the model of Lab Notes, my online research digest from UC Berkeley Engineering, we've now launched a new publication to focus on the sciences at the university. In ScienceMatters@Berkeley, I'll report on mind-bending research in physics, chemistry, biology, and mathematics.

In the premier issue:
* Crystallizing Nanoscience
* Hunting the Achilles' Heel of Hepatitis
* The Mysterious Matter of Dark Matter

If hope you enjoy it! If you do, please feel free to subscribe to the email or RSS ScienceMatters digest. Link

Congrats to Fark for post its 1,000,000th link! Link (Thanks, frigg!)

jkinberg has invented a bicycle that doubles as a dot-matrix printer, huffing out low-resolution ASCII characters from an array of spraypaintchalk cans mounted on the bike's rear and controlled by a Powerbook. He's planning to make a bunch of them to spray anti-GOP messages during the Republican convention -- he calls the project "Bikes Against Bush." Link (Thanks, Poppy!)

Here's an oldie-but-goodie. In 1999, the Iams Company publicly released a list of their favorite "fun" (read: stupid) customer service calls, including such provocative queries as:

• "I have trouble seeing what I'm scooping in my yard. Can your food turn my dog's poop pink?" -dog owner, Ronkonkoma, NY
• "When my dog pees, he leaves brown patches all over the lawn. Is he peeing fire?" – dog owner, Covington, KY.

Link (Thanks, Jess!)

In which Piss Clear meets the Final Frontier:

Hi all, The folks at MHV are continuing to get the various sites ready for the influx of people, who seem to already be arriving. Several RVs drove slowly down the flightline.

The White Knight, which was doing a number of touch and goes day before yesterday, was out doing maintenance runs today.

Yesterday's update generated a couple of questions:
1 -- Can a person sleep in their car on the airport overnight Sunday night? No. The general parking area won't open till 3am. Only self-contained RVs will be allowed on the airport overnight. There is a large open lot across Hwy 58 from where big-rig trucks usually overnight, and that might be an option. I do understand, however, that a number of people plan on lining up on the shoulder of 58 around midnight. Don't know if they'll get chased away or not. There's a CHP (California Highway Patrol, for you out-of-staters) station adjacent to the airport, so they may be out in force.
2 -- Is there any European live broadcasts planned? I've no clue. AFAIK, there are a bunch of satellite trucks scheduled to start arriving on Saturday, no idea who they might be from. I have not heard of anyone planning a live webcast, but you might want to check at space.com to see if they're doing anything...I know some of their folks will be here.

One caution to those planning on being here but aren't used to life in the desert: BRING LOTS OF WATER! Even at 7am, it's getting quite warm now, and you will get dehydrated much faster than you'll realize. There will be vendors selling water, but count on it being pricey. Our rule of thumb out here: if you're not peeing every couple of hours, you're not drinking enough.

Other news: I haven't received confirmation yet, but my understanding was that the FAA was supposed to issue the airport the first ever civilian spaceport license today. There's going to be about a 2 hour gap between the flight and the offical press conference, and they are tentatively planning to do a formal presentation of the license during that time, and it should be within view of the public viewing area.

The public viewing area is set up southeast of the new Taxiway Bravo (map is available at mojaveairport.com ), at the approach end of Rwy 30, so everyone will get an excellent view of the landing.

When Burt came in for lunch at the Voyager Cafe yesterday, he was all grins...looks like he's really having a lot of fun with this. Five days and counting!

Alan

Link to previous installation (Thanks, Todd Lappin!)

The government of Iran has reportedly stepped up Net censorship again. The latest blacklist includes porn sites and political sites as one might expect, but also geek self-help sites and tech services like Movable Type. Link (Thanks, hoder)

BoingBoing reader Roland Piquepaille says:

In "Chip Miniaturizes Holography," Technology Review says that Japanese researchers have developed a hologram generator on a single circuit board. The electroholographic system consists of a special-purpose computational chip and a high-resolution, reflective mode, liquid-crystal display panel as a spatial light modulator. With this system, they were able to generate an hologram at a resolution of 800x600 in half a second for an object of 1,000 points. Their solution is scalable in two ways: the computation is done in parallel streams, and several chips can work on a single hologram. The researchers think that there will be real-time 3D applications for television or medical imaging within five to ten years. This overview includes other details and references, including a diagram and a photograph of the hologram generator.

Link