Lazyweb request - I need a hiss filter for audio recordings

By Mark Frauenfelder at 6:21 pm Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

I'm looking for a cheap (under $50) Mac OS X program that will filter the hiss out of an interview I recorded on a cassette tape. If you have a recommendation, please email me!

SPIT: New Internet acronym!

By Cory Doctorow at 10:55 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Spam over Internet Telephony -- SPIT -- is the pending-Internet-disaster du jour. Nice acronym! Link

SkyEar

By David Pescovitz at 9:50 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Several months ago, I wrote an article for TheFeature about artists using wireless telecom in their work. One of the artists, Usman Haque, was planning to launch a network of instrumented helium balloons in the air. Equipped with mobile phones, LEDs, and sensors that measure electromagnetic radiation into the air, the cloud of balloons would act as a SkyEar.

"As police radios, television signals, distant storms, and other radio transmissions alter what Haque calls the "local hertzian culture," the cloud flickers in response... Of course, calling a particular phone alters the "hertzian topography" in that region of the balloon cloud, affecting its glow. "You can enter into something like a conversation with the cloud," Haque says."

Ten days ago in London, SkyEar had its second flight. Link

Insane Phil Remix

By Mark Frauenfelder at 9:14 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Eric read this post about a answering machine message left by an angry gentleman named Phil and decided to do a Garageband remix based on it. Very funny. (Full of swear words) Link

Web Zen: Dating Zen

By Xeni Jardin at 7:48 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

brutally honest personals
the week in craig
pick up lines
cuddle party
smittens
things my girlfriend...
break up form
rejection line
paper napkin
break up news
Image: "smittens." So cute they make me yearn to hurl. web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

Video mashup of Russ Meyer + Hoodoo Gurus / Persian Rugs

By Xeni Jardin at 7:38 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Following up to this week's sad news that sexploitation auteur Russ Meyers has passed away (Link), BoingBoing reader Richard Crepeau says, "Thought I'd spread the word about a Hoodoo Gurus side project called the Persian Rugs. One of their videos uses Russ Meyer clips from Mondo Topless. A nice hybrid between garage rock and camp."

On their website, the band says:

"Music and sex go very well together. For proof, just take a look at the video for the Persian Rugs' new single 'Be A Woman'. The band and director Todd Sheldrick have created the perfect setting for the band's 60's Punk-inspired Primal Rock: strippers and cavemen collide in a 21st Century psychedelic garden of eden. (...) The Rugs got in touch with famed 60's director Russ Meyer, the maker of such films as 'Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill!'and Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls' (the latter a direct influence on the Austin Powers movies) and asked for permission to incorporate footage from one of his cult classics, 'Mondo Topless', into their new filmclip. Russ asked to hear the song first, [and] loved it (...)

Link to "Be a Woman" *.asx video in low and hi-res, contains megadoses of kitsch nudity (and shots of vintage '60s electronic equipment). How did those ladies make their humongous breasts do that stuff on rhythm? Weighed down by all that eyeliner, no less?

Update: Reader Rob says, "If you have a fink installation on your mac, you can install asfrecorder from fink unstable packages and record the Russ Meyer/Hoodoo Gurus--Persian Rugs thing."

Video mashup of Half Life 2 + Oakenfold

By Xeni Jardin at 6:59 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

BoingBoing reader Mike says, "I just posted a new screenshot / electronica mash-up video: "30 Scenes in 30 Seconds." Link to blog post (video is DivX).

Sims in Sims 2 can play Sims 1

By Cory Doctorow at 4:38 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

The new version of The Sims, called "The Sims 2" allows your sim-people to play "The Sims" in-game. Recursion-licious! Link (via Wonderland)

Cory's Sunburst acceptance speech

By Cory Doctorow at 4:31 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Nalo Hopkinson sent me this photo of my pal and collaborator Karl Schroeder accepting the Sunburst Award (presented by Michelle Sagara) for my short story collection, A Place So Foriegn and Eight More on my behalf at last night's ceremony at Toronto's Merril Collection sf library. Here's the speech he read for me:

It is a cliche to note that receiving an award conveys an honour upon its recipient, but this is a stupendous honour and I would be remiss if I failed to tell you all how mightily chuffed I am. I am deeply sorry that I am not able to be there tonight: I am with you in spirit.

The list of people who deserve to be thanked for this is long indeed: the friends and colleagues; the fans and readers; the editors and critics; the collaborators and the writers who inspired me -- and the jury, them too! My most sincere thanks to all of you.

No writer is an island, no idea is original, no effort is a solo effort. We stand upon the shoulders of giants, we collaborate with our colleagues and with the immortal words of our dead literary ancestors. Literature -- indeed, all human endeavor -- is dignified and uplifted through collaboration and cooperation. We sit atop a great erected infrastructure of human invention and effort, all of it embodied in the bricks and boards that surround us, and, most importantly, in the traditional knowledge that allows each generation to improve upon the bricks and boards of the last one.

The writer is engaged in dialog with the world and with posterity. Our words go on to form a layer of the substrate of human creation. Those who tell us that our words, our art and our posterity are best served with strong locks and high fences are *not on our side*. No writer could pen a single word but for the rich humus of public domain effort with which we garden our notions and conceits.

So thank you all, and thanks most of all to our ancestors, the bringers of fire and the inventors of the wheel, the Judith Merrils and the Phyllis Gotleibs, the Gilgameshes and the golems, the Turings and the Teslas. Thanks to the brave pirates who continue to preserve our posterity in the face of outrageous insult to creation. Thanks to the readers and to you all.

Link

Universities offering classes inside of MMOs

By Cory Doctorow at 4:04 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Second Life, the Massively Multiplayer Online world where end users can design and trade their own game-artifacts, is offering free accounts to university profs to disburse to their students for the purpose of conducting in-game classes.

In order to help teachers bring their classes to Second Life, Linden Lab donates accounts for each student, as well as an acre of land in the metaverse for the teacher and students to work and build on. Afterward, anyone wishing to stay a member can do so at half price.

To date, in addition to Delwiche and Beamish, professors from San Francisco State University, the Rochester Institute of Technology and Vassar College have used Second Life in their courses.

Link

TV channel subs videogame-hockey for the real thing

By Cory Doctorow at 4:01 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

With the hockey labor dispute leaving an on-air void where televised hockey used to sit, G4TechTV is broadcasting virtual hockey games played using video-game engines:

All 1,230 regular season games originally slated for the 2004-2005 NHL season will be played, with results of each video game match-up available to fans who tune-in daily to "Sweat." Up-to-the-minute scores, stats, teams and player profiles will be online at www.g4techtv.com.

Link (via Wonderland)

Presidential fright-mask sales as election-predictors

By Cory Doctorow at 3:14 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

A manufacturer of rubber presidential fright masks says that their sales figures during election-year Hallowe'ens successfully predict the winner of the upcoming presidential election. Unfortunately, at the moment more people are signing up to buy Shrub funnymasks than Kerry, but it's still early times.

In 2000, due to the popularity of political masks, BuyCostumes.com began publishing statistics on each Presidential Candidate's mask sales. It was soon apparent that the mask sales were as good a resource as the polls being published by major national media groups. Seeing the similarities, BuyCostumes.com then looked into some data on political mask sales in election years. Not only did they ask five different mask manufacturers, they also spoke with 12 national stores about their sales history all the way back to 1980. Their findings were astounding and right every time....

Link (via Kottke)

Lucas put malicious Xbox trojan on Star Wars DVD

By Cory Doctorow at 2:45 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

The new Star Wars bonus DVD erases elements of your Xbox's firmware without informing you or giving you a chance to decline. This is apparently deliberate, as part of an "anti-piracy" effort aimed at punishing people who play the Star Wars DVD bonus disk in a modded Xbox.

The 'StarWars Trilogy DVD' (video/movie DVD) has an 'Extra Special Features Disc'. If you try to launch this on your Xbox it will automaticly update your dashboard ... NO confirmation will be asked. The bonus disc has extra features including a documentary on the star wars saga, footage from the making of all three films and a preview demo of the new 'StarWars Battlefront' Xbox game (that's why there's a default.xbe, dashupdate.xbe and update.xbe on the disc).

This information can be important for some people with older bioses (booting xboxdash.xbe), people using exploits or simply those who don't want their dash upgraded.

Link (via Gizmodo)

HHGG text-game on the Web

By Cory Doctorow at 2:42 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

The old Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy text-based Infocom adventure game has been tarted up with some new graphics and re-released as a little Flash app by the BBC. Link (via Waxy)

Cancer-sniffing dogs

By David Pescovitz at 2:41 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Scientists report that dogs can smell disease in the urine of bladder cancer patients. In the study, published in this week's British Medical Journal, the canines successfully identified a cancer patient's urine sample placed among six control samples 41 percent of the time, far better than the 14 percent expected by chance. From an Associated Press article on the research:

"Perhaps the most intriguing finding, though, was in a comparison patient whose urine was used during the training phase. All the dogs unequivocally identified that urine as a cancer case, even though screening tests before the experiment had shown no cancer. Doctors conducted more detailed tests on the patient and found a life-threatening tumor in the right kidney."

Link

Bugs photoshopped into everyday objects

By Cory Doctorow at 2:40 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Today's Worth1000 photoshopping contest: turn everyday objects into insects. Naked-Lunch-tastic! Link

Art/culture of computer viruses

By David Pescovitz at 1:46 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

BB friend Alessandro Ludovico of Neural.it magazine points us to "I love you (rev.eng): The Aesthetics of Computer Viruses," an exhibit he's involved with that premiered in Germany and is now on view at Brown University in the US:

"I love you [rev.eng]" is divided into four investigative areas - political, cultural, technical and historical - and focuses on the controversial positions of security experts and hackers, of net artists and programmers, of literature experts and code poets...

What can visitors to the "I love you [rev.eng]" exhibition expect?

- Force computers to crash with "Sasser" or "Suicide"
- Experience a global virus outbreak in real time via a 3D world
- View security concepts and methods for preventing global network attacks
- Witness computer viruses as works of art like "biennale.py" and "The Lovers"
- See films by hackers on their subculture
- Learn about programming languages as the material for contemporary poetry
- Juxtapose experimental literature and code poetry

Link (to Brown exhibition details) Link (to Wired News article)

Prelinger Archive gems

By Cory Doctorow at 12:52 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Rick Prelinger, who curates the Prelinger Archive (the largest video archive in the world, comprising thousands and thousands of "ephemeral films" like VD shorts, industrial training footage, and other great mix-and-match material -- all licensed under Creative Commmons licenses), sends us three fantastic links to material in the Archive:

PANORAMA EPHEMERA (2004, 89:35 min., color and black and white) is a collage of sequences drawn from a wide variety of ephemeral (industrial, advertising, educational and amateur) films, touring the conflicted landscapes of twentieth-century America. The films' often-skewed visions construct an American history filled with horror and hope, unreeling in familiar and unexpected ways.

PANORAMA EPHEMERA focuses on familiar and mythical activities and images in America (1626-1978). Many creatures and substances that we hardly notice because we feel so used to them take center stage, including pigs, corn, water, telephones, fire, and rice. At first resembling a compilation, it soon reveals itself as a journey through the American landscape over time, and the story begins to emerge between the sequences. Link, Torrent Download Link

And:

This site contains theatrical trailers for feature films. What, another movie trailer site? Well, this is a special one -- SabuCat Productions specializes in collecting, preserving and distributing high-quality 35mm materials, and the trailers in this collection are unlike anything you're likely to see online. Top titles: "5000 Fingers of Dr. T," "Amazing Transparent Man," "Conquest of Space," and of course "Attack of the 50-Foot Woman." Link

And:

Growing collection of educational films originally targeting so-called "GenXers." Like Prelinger Archives films on the same site, but made for younger audiences in the Open Classroom era. Memorable titles: "Last Prom," "Why Doesn't Cathy Eat Breakfast," and "If Mirrors Could Speak: Self-Image Film." Link

(Thanks, Rick!)

Strange Horizons: Hugo-nominated sf webzine

By Cory Doctorow at 12:48 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Jed sez,

Strange Horizons is a Hugo-nominated online speculative fiction magazine that pays pro rates for fiction. We've published fiction, nonfiction, and poetry every week for the past four years, and other material (including art) a couple of times a month. Almost everything we've ever published is still available for free in our archives, including the wildly popular April Fools article about Installing Linux on a Dead Badger, as well as our Author Focus week on Cory.

We're funded entirely by donations; most of our budget goes to paying for the material we publish, 'cause all 30 of our staff members are volunteers. We're currently in the middle of our twice-annual fund drive -- the model is a lot like public radio, except that we don't interrupt our content to ask for money. We're a 501(c)(3) literary nonprofit, so if you pay taxes in the US, your donation is tax-deductible. We'll take donations in any amount; I'd love to see the magazine funded entirely by hundreds of $5-$10 donations. A donation of any size gets you a chance to win one of our fund drive prizes. Larger donations get you a spiffy membership card and other premiums.

So if you'd like to stop by and help us out, we'd appreciate it. But even if you don't want to donate, come take a look at the magazine. Enjoy!

Assemblage sculpture/clock of surpassing gorgeosity

By Cory Doctorow at 12:46 am Friday, Sep 24 • Comments • Share

Roger Wood, my pal the genius assemblage-sculptor clockmaker, has been on a tear lately, as is evidenced by his latest mailing-list update, shown here. Link