Anon sez "Step-by-step photos showing how to make miniature (about 5mm diam) model oranges from modelling clay. (Oranges are symbolic of gold and wealth for the Chinese, hence they're all over at the Lunar New Year.) The detail is impressive." Link

UPDATE: J Bryan sez: "This is the site that the miniature orange tutorial originated on. Polymer clay is a special subject to me and the artists hold a special place in my heart and it is important to me that their work is credited when possible. [Angie Scarr] is a fantastic artist and it is good to see her work showing up in other languages, but she is the one who originated this realistic method."

Photo sequence of a frog eating a young mouse. Link (Thanks, Jenn!)

UPDATE: Emily sez: "That sequence with the toad and the pinkie is actually from an amazing book [Food Chain] by Catherine Chalmers. The book is full of these sequences, with frogs, pinkies, mantids, tarantulas, snakes, and more. She also did some great work with cockroaches. Look her up--she's fantastic!"

Over at Brooke's Bitter Shack of Resentment, there's news about a kit you can buy to make a Nativity creche out of s'mores.

Says Lee's cousin Luke: "Doesn't baby Jesus look adorable? And tasty?"

Link

Great piece by Chris Null from Mobile PC mag on why the RIAA isn't as fearsome as it would like people to believe.

Lots of stories get written when the Recording Industry Association of America sues people, but not much gets written about the aftermath of those suits.

There should be: In the last 12 months, the RIAA lost a landmark suit against Grokster (essentially legalizing peer-to-peer software), lost a suit to Verizon (holding that it did not have to provide names of its subscribers who the RIAA wanted to sue), and has yet to actually win against any of the thousands of individuals it has sued in court (some of the cases have been settled out of court, most are still pending). Suddenly, the RIAA isn’t looking so much as devastating as it does merely pathetic.

Link

John Battelle has the scoop on Google's "Project Ocean." From an email he received:

"Harvard University is embarking on a collaboration with Google that could harness Google's search technology to provide to both the Harvard community and the larger public a revolutionary new information location tool to find materials available in libraries. In the coming months, Google will collaborate with Harvard's libraries on a pilot project to digitize a substantial number of the 15 million volumes held in the University's extensive library system. Google will provide online access to the full text of those works that are in the public domain. In related agreements, Google will launch similar projects with Oxford, Stanford, the University of Michigan, and the New York Public Library."

Link

Ben Rosenbaum, the great new sf writer whose story, "The Ant King" is one of the finest pieces ever published by the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction (and with whom I'm currently collaborating on a story called "True Names"), has just released his story, Embracing the New, which Asimov's Magazine published this year, under a Creative Commons license.

The Bereft worked in the new mines, carving the green stone from the cliff face. Their fur had been shaved, because of the heat. Many of them had bloody claws, torn by the stone. Vru tried to look away. He had rarely seen so many Bereft. Their bodies were muscular, powerful... and naked of Ghennungs. It was horrible, yet there was something about those empty expanses of skin that called to him, like a field of untrodden snow.

The green stone glittered, embedded in the gray rock. Khancriterquee had been yelling at the foreman all day. Why use the idiot Bereft? They understood enough to be useful in the older mines, with the older gray stone. But this wonderful new green stone, in which so much detail would be possible -- the perfect stone for gods, won from the Godless -- was difficult to extract, and they were incapable of learning to do it. They had ruined every large piece so far.

"They are useless! Useless!" Khancriterquee screamed at the foreman. "Why could you not get real people?"

Link

For my money, Bruce Schneier is the best computer security person in the field right now. He's just published a list of security recommendations for individuals who want to make their PCs safer:

Operating systems: If possible, don't use Microsoft Windows. Buy a Macintosh or use Linux. If you must use Windows, set up Automatic Update so that you automatically receive security patches. And delete the files "command.com" and "cmd.exe."

Applications: Limit the number of applications on your machine. If you don't need it, don't install it. If you no longer need it, uninstall it. Look into one of the free office suites as an alternative to Microsoft Office. Regularly check for updates to the applications you use and install them. Keeping your applications patched is important, but don't lose sleep over it.

Browsing: Don't use Microsoft Internet Explorer, period. Limit use of cookies and applets to those few sites that provide services you need. Set your browser to regularly delete cookies. Don't assume a Web site is what it claims to be, unless you've typed in the URL yourself. Make sure the address bar shows the exact address, not a near-miss.

Web sites: Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) encryption does not provide any assurance that the vendor is trustworthy or that its database of customer information is secure.

Link

The UK government has been asked to grant copyright cops the power to shut down entire car boot sales (flea markets) if any bootleg DVDs are found on sale there:

The Anti-Piracy Taskforce wants more powers be given to Trading Standards Officers to close down car boot sales where pirate DVDs are sold.

Link (Thanks, Brian!)

The Motion Picture Association of America is expected to announce new legal actions this week against operators of tracker sites for two major peer-to-peer filesharing networks. In the US, action is expected to be filed against operators of BitTorrent tracker sites; in Europe, against parties responsible for the hosting of eDonkey trackers. The MPAA has not confirmed or denied that these actions are forthcoming, but have announced that a press conference will be held Tuesday to launch a "significant expansion of the global fight against movie piracy."

Participants in Tuesday's conference will include MPAA CEO Dan Glickman and Anti-Piracy chief John Malcolm; Mark Ishikawa, CEO of file tracking tech provider company BayTSP, and Redswoosh's Travis Kalanick (previously co-founder of the now-defunct P2P service Scour.net).

Update: Variety's Ben Fritz now has a story online.

[W]hile P2P networks themselves are still legal despite industry efforts to shut them down, indexing servers that help users locate and download pirated content are not.

The fact that the defunct Napster ran such servers, while Grokster and Streamcast Networks, defendants in the Supreme Court case, do not, was cited by lower courts as a key reason why Napster was ruled illegal but the newer networks weren't. Developers of BitTorrent and eDonkey don't run their own indexing servers. However, many individuals and groups involved in online piracy do, and they're expected to be the targets of the new legal crackdowns .

"If it can be demonstrated they lent substantial assistance to copyright infringement and had knowledge of what they were doing, it's a strong case that fits in line with Napster," explained Michael S. Elkin, head of the entertainment and media group at law firm Thelen, Reid & Priest. Several sources close to the MPAA confirmed the planned actions, although reps for the group weren't talking before today's press conference in Washington, DC.

Link (paid sub required)

Update: Xeni's reports for NPR and Wired News, and new updates on the MPAA actions, are here: Link

I just finished Kim Stanley Robinson's Forty Signs of Rain. Robinson wrote Pacific Edge, the most inspiring utopian novel I've ever read (and one which never fails to reduce me to happy tears in the last chapter) and the Red Mars, Blue Mars and Green Mars trilogy -- the most breathtakingly ambitious science fiction books I've ever read.

Forty Signs of Rain is a fast, even breezy read, which I tore through in just a couple sittings. Its best feature is its characters, who are Science Heroes: scientists who are really into science, in the way that one of Neal Stephenson's hacker characters is into hacking. They see everything they do -- fixing broken sea-walls, climbing cliffs, navigating traffic, pushing for global warming remdiation, chairing meetings, even nursing babies -- in terms of scientific theory, experiment and action.

The thing that all of Robinson's Science Heroes have in common is their concern with global warming, which has reached an all-too-believable tipping point in Forty Signs of Rain. As the world reaches and then passes the brink of catastrophic flooding, Robinson's characters argue, act and think about how to bring us back from the brink. They are not only charming as they do so -- they're inspiring. Faced with a world that may soon be broken forever, they swuare their shoulders and apply themselves. They despair, but they master their despair. Pacific Edge is a book I return to again and again when I am down. This will surely be another. Link

Joey Manley is gushing over the PC game, Gish.

Gish is to Halo 2 as Jeepers is to Wolverine – a lower-budget, supercute, delightful alternative. The free demo alone provides more pleasure than the average videogame. It only took me about five minutes of playing the demo to realize that I had to buy the full version. Yes, this game has caused me to put down Halo 2.

Link

Freelance writer Mike Whybark has been reading my blog entries about transcribing interviews, and he let me know about a couple of web-based human transcription services. He wrote about it in a blog entry.

On opening the file, I was overjoyed. While the iDictate files were quick-and-dirty, costing (I thought) a penny a word, and yielding about 5,000 words per half hour, the escriptionist file was meticulous, beautifully formatted, and scrupulously accurate. It was also 7000 words long, rendering the per word cost considerably less than 1 penny.

I tried iDicate last night on a 2,700 word MP3 interview and was very happy with the results. They turned it around in a matter of hours and the copy was very clean. A penny a word is a great deal. Link

justin007 sez: "Found this link to an 8-bit band out of Tokyo that uses a Famicom (8-Bit Nintendo) to create some very cool tunes. The next evolution of Shibuya-Kei. Click on the links to listen to their MP3's." Link

UPDATE: Karl sez: "Enjoyed your boinboing blurb, 8bitpeoples is among the many sites offering similar fare, with a wealth of offerings. What I think is noteworthy, or at least timely, is the fifth selection from the top, a holiday compilation called 'The 8bits of Christmas.' My favorite is "Let it Snow," by bit shifter. It's so wonderfully ... exuberant, I can't help laughing every time I listen."

Enjoy this 1964 audio clip of President Lyndon Johnson speaking on the phone with SeaLab Commander Scott Carpenter, whose lungs are filled with a helium-oxygen mixture, making him squeak like an excited rodent. Link (Thanks, Ethan!)

Researchers from MIT, Brown University, and the Providence Veterans Affair Medical Center are launching a $7.2 million, five-year effort to develop bionic limbs:

"At the end of the project, the scientists hope to have created "biohybrid" limbs that will use regenerated tissue, lengthened bone, titanium prosthetics and implantable sensors that allow an amputee to use nerves and brain signals to move the arm or leg."

Link

Krucoff sez: "I have just launched an MP3 re-issue music label. I've started with a classic compilation tape of the 80's Berkeley punk scene originally put out by Aaron Cometbus which I think might be of interest to your readers. Here's the "release" permalink.

And here's the background on why I started this effort to digitally preserve old music. Link

On the NPR program "Day to Day" this week, I join NPR's Alex Chadwick to discuss the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to hear MGM-Grokster -- a case involving P2P which may be the most important intellectual property decision in decades.

Link to archived audio for this program, Link to NPR Day to Day home.

Carlo Longino, my friend and fellow escapee from Cincinnati, Ohio, points us to this article from the Cincinnati Enquirer:

Surgeons at University Hospital have removed a 66-pound tumor from the abdomen of a woman from Peebles, Ohio.

"I can't believe that thing was in me," said Grace Radtke, who went home today after the massive but non-cancerous ovarian tumor was removed on Dec. 3.

Link

My cow-orker Jason Schultz -- who leads EFF's fight against stupid software patents -- has written a great editorial for today's Salon on the perils of dotcom patents:

The idea behind patents is that inventors and manufacturers of new products should have some protection against free riders in the marketplace that would otherwise copy their innovations. If competitors are able to simply copy the innovations of those first to market, few will have incentives to release their products to the public. In this instance, however, we see the opposite result.

Here, the patents at issue were less valuable to companies that actually produce Web services products than they were to firms that produce nothing but lawsuits and licensing threats. In other words, patents like these have become worth more as weapons than as protections for companies competing in the marketplace.

Link

My cow-orker Fred von Lohmann has written a great, scathing attack on Marvel Comics' evil decision to sue City of Heroes, an online game, because some of City of Heroes customers have designed characters that look like Marvel superheroes.

Yes, you read that right -- Marvel's claim is based on the idea that private individuals who pretend to be Wolverine for fun in a video game are breaking the law. Since when is it illegal to pretend to be your favorite superhero? Should parents be policing their kids, lest they be caught "pretending without a license"? Were all those drawings of the X-Men on grammar school notebooks evidence of infringement? And what about all those homemade superhero Halloween costumes?

Of course, Marvel may well be wrong about the law. From a trademark point of view, it is difficult to see how these kinds of noncommercial activities could satisfy the "use in commerce" threshold imposed by federal trademark law. Copyright lawyers will reason that these activities, even if technically infringing, are almost certainly sheltered by defenses like fair use or de minimis non curat lex. Marvel, for its part, will doubtless say that its legal beef is with the operators of "City of Heroes," not the players (pay no attention to that pesky complaint, that's just legal mumbo jumbo).

But all of these lawyerly answers miss a more fundamental point: Why are everyday expressive activities in the real world -- such as joining some neighborhood kids in the backyard for a bit of superhero role playing -- suddenly exposed to the depredations of copyright and trademark lawyers when they move online?

Link

John Scalzi is an hilarious writer and journaller, whose Bathroom Readers and National Lampoon pieces are practically required reading. A couple years ago, he wrote a science fiction novel called "Old Man's War," which he serialized on his blog. My editor, Patrick Nielsen Hayden, read the book and decided to buy it for Tor books, and now it's available in hardcopy, with a starred Publisher's Weekly review, no less.

Old Man's War is a cross between Heinlein's Starship Troopers and Haldeman's Forever War -- a raunchy, action-packed, thought-provoking book about galactic-scale warfare where lightspeed lag and distant, unimaginable alien technology are central to the story.

In Old Man's War, senior citizens can enlist in the space army, and when they do, they are taken away and rejuvenated, using secret technology, given a turn in battle, and the survivors are retired to a distant world, never to see the Earth again. For a certain kind of person, this is infinitely preferable to certain senescence and death, and that's the sort of person that fills the pages of Old Man's War.

Scalzi's modern twists on SF classics are genuinely surprising -- I read this book in practically one sitting, but I keep going back to it now, thinking about the great ideas and writing. As a last minute Xmas gift, you can't go wrong. Here's the blurb I wrote for the cover:

Scalzi's written a dynamite, gripping and surpassingly original military novel here. It's Starship Troopers without the lectures. It's Forever War with better sex. It's funny, it's sad, and it's true.

Link