BoingBoing reader Kevin Slavin says,

"Things are getting a little heavy about 10 blocks from here -- police are reported (widely) to have shown up at a large demonstration manning an LRAD. What's an LRAD? Long-range acoustic device. Military non-lethal technology being tested in Baghdad and Fallujah, and it looks like, right now: NYC.

First two links off Google: one, two.

This is heavy and damaging stuff, that leaves no marks when used on humans. Latest text reports say it's been turned on, pointing west, volume low. You can hear live coverage from Union Square by calling 212 400 7458, option 4.

Update: As he walks towards the protest site in question, Slavin text-messages BoingBoing from his mobile phone:

"Here are updates via indymedia now-- they are discussing the LRAD -- it's a lot of people saying it, but I still can't confirm."

[Ed. note: following is an abridged excerpt of the first-person accounts now being posted on the indymedia site, shown in reverse chronological order. ]

08:20 PM: There is an additonal small contingent of protesters rallying at 34th and 7th. Large # of police. The group is planning to march to the ANSWER rally.
08:13 PM: There is a carnival atmosphere in Union Sq. Lots of art for sale, and a great presence by Iraq Vets. against the war.Several thousand at least. Caller feels that the police presence is heavy but par for the course in NYC at this point.
08:01 PM: The Protest Warriors are being put in their own pen. It is expected that the two pens will scream at each other for a while.
07:51 PM Officer has powered on the LRAD (sound weapon) device, pointing it west. volume is at minimum. It has not been deployed yet.
07:41 PM: Police have penned the south side of Union Sq.
07:30 PM: 1500 people now in Union Sq. Large police presence but fairly chill so far. Bike police on all corners. As it gets dark the crowd seems to be getting more excited and larger, still fesitve atmosphere.
07:12 PM: There are 100-200 people at 29th St. and 8th Ave in the ANSWER pen. There are several hundred people in Union Sq. Reports of law enforcement with semi-automatic weapons at 34th St. and 7th Ave.
06:42 PM:Receiving reports that an LRAD (sound weapon) is present at north side of Union Square.

Link to update transcript from indymedia, and Link to a related page on their website with background on the device -- said to weigh only 45 pounds, and shown in the AP file photo here.

Snip from Brian Braiker's July 12 Newsweek article (Link):

In February the Marines signed a $1.1 million contract for the devices; the I Marine Expeditionary Force took them to Fallujah and the Navy's Fifth Fleet has them in the Persian Gulf. (McSweeney didn't know if they'd been used.) Miami, Los Angeles, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and the Department of Homeland Security are considering purchases. With protestors coming to New York and Boston for the conventions, might we see the first domestic use this summer? Gruenler hints: "All I can say is there are cities you would recognize."

And, this from an August 30 AP story from Ellen Simon (Link):

Earlier this month, the New York Police Department showed off a machine called the Long Range Acoustic Device, developed for the military and capable of blasting at an earsplitting 150 decibels -- as loud as a firecracker, a jet engine taking off or artillery fire at 500 feet, according to the Noise Center at the League for the Hard of Hearing. The NYPD said it would use the machine to direct crowds to safety if there's a terrorist attack or remind protesters where they're allowed to march. Police said they wouldn't use the earsplitting screeching noise feature at the convention. "It's only to communicate in large crowds," Inspector Thomas Graham of the police department's crowd control unit said.

Update 2: Image from indymedia said to be snapshot from site of protest taking place right now; the LRAD device is shown mounted atop police car. Link to full-size image shown in thumbnail at left. Link to more snapshots of LRAD device from other protest events during the RNC. See also wikipedia entry for background (Link), and this August 25 CBS report on NYPD's plans to use LRAD at RNC: Link

BoingBoing reader Charles ODonovan says, "I just noticed that the name of the guy who invented the LRAD device deployed at the RNC was also mentioned on BoingBoing back in March with one of his other inventions: Link."

French blogger and journalist Emmannuelle Richard posts an appeal for the release of the two french journalists, Christian Chesnot and Georges Malbrunot, currently held hostage in Iraq:

Back from a family, Internet-free vacation. Still, I was worn down by the news of the kidnapping of two French journalists and colleagues of RFI and Radio France in Iraq: I only know them by e-mail, because they belong to Spartacus, a group of world correspondents for francophone radio stations that I co-founded in 2000. Christian gave an interview to Larry King on CNN in March 2003. Everybody in the network is just praying for their safe release. Here is Spartacus' press release, sent out while I was away...

Link to Emmanneulle's blog entry, with copy of the group's appeal (scroll down page for English translation) (Thanks, Jean-Luc)

John sez,

More than 100 authors have contributed to Small Bites, a new anthology published to support author and editor Charles Grant, who has been hospitalized for nearly six months now with various lung and heart ailments.

Grant is the author or editor of more than 100 books, and the winner of nearly every major award for speculative fiction. He has also been a tireless and generous supporter of other writers through the years.

In addition to the anthology, September 12 marks not only six months since Grant first entered the hospital, it is also his birthday. His wife is gathering birthday cards from fans and friends to help cheer him up. Cards can be sent to: P. O. Box 97 Newton, NJ 07860-0097

Link (Thanks, John!)

Interesting piece in today's NYT about NYPD crowd control tactics at the Repulican National Convention. If I'm reading this correctly, the prevailing logic seems to be that a lack of wanton violence makes the protests less worthy of air time and serious media coverage?

[N]early 1,800 protesters had been arrested on the streets, two-thirds of them on Tuesday night alone. But for all the anger of the demonstrations, they have barely interrupted the convention narrative, and have drawn relatively little national news coverage.

Using large orange nets to divide and conquer, and a near-zero tolerance policy for activities that even suggest the prospect of disorder, the New York Police Department has developed what amounts to a pre-emptive strike policy, cutting off demonstrations before they grow large enough, loud enough, or unruly enough to affect the convention. The demonstrations, too, have thus far been more restrained than many recent protests elsewhere; five years ago in Seattle, for example, there was widespread arson and window-smashing, none of which has occurred here. Lacking bloody scenes of billy-club-wielding police or billowing clouds of tear gas, the cameras - and the public's attention - have focused elsewhere.

"It is almost easier to explain what you are not getting here," said Ted Koppel, anchor and managing editor of ABC's "Nightline," when he was asked why news organizations have given little time to the protests. "What you are not getting here is a replay of 1968 in Chicago."

Reg-required Link

I'm in Dallas Ft Worth airport en route from an EFF gig in Chile to Boston for the WorldCon and thought I'd post my finalized WorldCon schedule, which has a couple minor changes from the last time around:

* THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 2:

6PM: Unlimited Access: Issues involving unlicensed access to spectrum. With Harold Feld from the the Media Access Project.

* FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 3:

10AM: Group reading from The Thackery T. Lambshead Pocket Guide to Eccentric & Discredited Diseases

11AM: Locus Award ceremony

5PM: Drunk on Technology: With Patrick Nielsen Hayden and Charlie Stross

* SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 4:

12PM: The End of Copyright: Can the Arts Survive the Digital Age? With Charlie Petit, Daniel Grotta, Steve Miller, and James M. Turner

1PM: Tradeoffs between Freedom, Security, and Privacy. With Joseph Lazzaro, Teresa Nielsen Hayden and Don Sakers

2:30-3PM: Charlie Stross and I will be signing our new short novel, Rapture of the Nerds, just published in the new issue of Argosy Magazine, at the Borderlands Books table in the Dealers' Room

5PM: Postcapitalist Social Mechanisms. With M. M. Buckner, David Friedman, Benjamin Rosenbaum and Charlie Stross

* SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5:

10:30AM Ebooks: Neither E Nor Books. A recapitulation of my talk at the O'Reilly Emerging Tech Conference

4PM: Reading

5PM: Sign at the Asimov's Magazine table in the Dealer's Room

6PM: Group signing for Re/Visions anthology in Room 107 in the Hynes

* MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6:

11AM: Kaffeeklatsch

12-12:30: International Copyright Issues

Link

Someone has translated Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill Vol. 1 into a series of ASCII text images. Uma's looking as thin as a stick figure! But: brilliant. Link (thanks, Case)

"Hey Hey! Ho Ho! These pesky clothes have got to go!"

I don't really know what they were shouting at the time, but a cadre of chyxxors performed a panty flash mob during RNC protests yesterday. BoingBoing reader Cyrus Farivar took some snapshots of the action, which was organized by Axis of Eve at Battery Park. Link.

If you can't get enough of this sort of thing -- and really, who can -- Fleshbot has more images: Link

JP writes:

Nearly half a million Floridians were ordered to leave their homes today. Kennedy Space Center employees were sent home leaving the Space Shuttle Orbiters to fend for themselves... Frances threatens but where will she land? Various models predict different scenarios. The folks on Space.com's message board are keeping watch. "Shuttle_guy" sez "We are securing the facility and the Shuttle Orbiters for the storm. For everything up to a category IV hurricane we have a "ride out" crew on the base during the storm to do what they can safely do to protect the Flight hardware. However for category IV and V the hardware is on it's own. No one will be on the KSC property for this storm which is expected to remain a strong Cat. IV." According to "najaB" all three orbiters are in the Orbiter Processing Facility (OPF) which is the least protected of KSC facilities. Most ominously "najaB" reports that "...in the original plan, the Orbiters weren't supposed to be in the OPF during a storm - they're supposed to be transferred over to ride out the storm in the [40-year-old Vehicle Assembly Building]. I guess nobody ever thought that all the Orbiters would be immovable in the OPF at the same time that KSC would be staring down the barrel of a Cat 4 storm..."

As of this writing NOAA is predicting Frances will hit south of the Kennedy Space Center with her counter-clockwise punch hitting the space port the hardest. Or perhaps she is targeting Disneyworld? In any case, prayers to all the people in the way...

Link to previous post.

Snipped from 5ives:

Five things I'll be doing while you're at Burning Man

1.carefully stewarding my pallor
2. repeatedly watching Law & Order: Special Victims Unit on the TiVo
3. defecating indoors -- copiously, often, and without queueing
4. not tongue-kissing a sweaty Java programmer in clown makeup named "Shanti"
5. wearing clothes--lots and lots of square, capitalist, heinous-body-covering clothes

Link (Thanks, Jason Schultz!)

My latest article at TheFeature.com is about a new breed of robots--biomimetic blimps, tiny helicopters, and swarmbots--that use Bluetooth for wireless communications.

Bluetooth is finally taking off. Literally. A small robotic blimp floats gently through the Autonomous Systems Laboratory at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, wirelessly interacting with a desktop computer to literally evolve its own navigation software without human intervention. What the blimp sees via its onboard sensors is Bluetoothed to the PC for processing. The artificially evolved "brains" are then transmitted back to the mylar blimp so it can intelligently fly through its environment, improving with each run....

Link

A new study from the University of Washington's Information School provides more proof that search rules:

More than half of survey participants admitted losing track of a paper document at least once a week -- more than twice the number of people who reported losing electronic information.

The result? While more than 60 percent reported being satisfied with their ability to handle computerized records such as e-mails, electronic documents and Web bookmarks, only 31 percent were satisfied with their ability to organize their papers.

The survey is part of an interesting project called Keeping Found Things Found, an effort to develop innovative ways to manage information stored digitally and on dead trees. Link