Daily Show on The Gates

By Cory Doctorow at 11:58 pm Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

Here are a couple of Daily Show clips pillorying The Gates of Central Park, also courtesy of Lisa Rein. Link

Shining hotel replicated as a Duke Nukem level

By Cory Doctorow at 11:57 pm Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

This fan of The Shining has replicated the Overlook Hotel -- in which Jack Nicholson went spectacularily nuts -- as a Duke Nukem level. Link (via Waxy)

Daily Show on Howard Dean winning the DNC

By Cory Doctorow at 11:53 pm Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

Lisa Rein has posted two Daily Show clips on Howard Dean winning the head of the DNC. Link

This year's robot toys

By Cory Doctorow at 11:52 pm Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

I'm working on a novel right now in which scroungers build exciting new devices out of really high-tech toys that failed to sell -- the favorite being an Elmo doll from 2008 called "Boogie Woogie Elmo" that can learn to dance by watching you (this turns out to be a great tool for clustering: install Linux on five or ten of them, teach them to speak and hear several rudimentary commands, and they can drive a car as a cluster of homeostasis-seeking cellular automata).

The Associated Press has an article on this year's robotic toys -- new Furbies and Elmos and such -- imagine what a boon these things will be to assemblage sculptors in five years when they can be had for a nickel apiece and when someone's standardized a GNU/Linux distro for each.

Pixel Chix from Mattel. The handheld gadget in the shape of a house lets a child interact with an animated girlfriend and will retail for $30.

Winnie the Pooh or Elmo Knows Your Name from Mattel's Fisher-Price. A doll that can learn a child's name and other personal details, such as a birthday and favorite games, is programmed by the parents. Using a cable connection and a CD-ROM, parents can download information into the characters, which will be priced at $40.

Furby (a new version) from Hasbro. The toy's new technology is called emotronics, which supposedly brings the plush toy more to life because it speaks interactively with the child and reacts to words like "hungry." All this for a mere $40.

Amazing Amanda from Playmates Toys. The 21-inch doll can recognize her "mommy's" voice and respond after hearing it just three times. The doll should cost around $100.

Link

Darling You Shouldn't Have

By David Pescovitz at 6:17 pm Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

I really like the vintage illustration style of Darling You Shouldn't Have, a line of t-shirts and baby bibs(!) that my friend's sister recently launched. Some of the drawings remind me of old editorial cartoons or Rich Uncle Pennybags from Monopoloy. Link

Clickthrough licenses considered harmful

By Cory Doctorow at 1:51 pm Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

My cow-orker Annalee Newitz has just published a white-paper on End User LIcense Agreements (EULAs) -- those long screens of legalese you don't ever read before clicking "I Agree." What are you agreeing to? Basically, you're agreeing to get royally screwed:

The Windows license, however, is less invasive than the terms of Pinnacle's Studio 9 movie-making software. See the DRM-related provisions in Section 6 of the Pinnacle EULA8 :

"You acknowledge and agree that in order to protect the integrity of certain third party content, Pinnacle and/or its licensors may provide for Software security related updates that will be automatically downloaded and installed on your computer. Such security related updates may impair the Software (and any other software on your computer which specifically depends on the Software) including disabling your ability to copy and/or play ‘secure' content, i.e. content protected by digital rights management."

Clicking through this EULA appears to allow Pinnacle to install software automatically from third parties onto your computer – software which the vendor admits may "impair" the program ("the Software") you have just purchased, as well as "any other software on your computer which specifically depends on the Software."

Link (Thanks, Donna!)

HOWTO defeat the DRM on your coffee-maker

By Cory Doctorow at 1:42 pm Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

If you've got a Senseo coffee maker -- the kind that takes little proprietary, pre-measured coffee "pads" and converts them to hot mud -- then you've got a DRMed kitchen appliance. Those little pads contain countermeasures to keep them from being refilled and/or replaced by third-party coffee delivery-systems. This HOWTO explains how to circumvent your coffee-maker's DRM and roll your own pads.

Step 1: find the right glass
You’ll need a glass with a round bottom that’s just the size of a Senseo coffee pad. This shouldn’t be too difficult.
Tip:It doesn’t really have to be a glass, but it helps if you can see what you’re doing. Go out and buy a glass of the just right size if necessary.

Step 2: draw the filter shapes
Lay the tea filter bag flat on the surface. Place the Senseo-sized glass on top. Use the pencil to draw a circle on the filter. Read step 4 to help you decide where to place the glace and draw the circle.
Tip: Do not substitute a pen or marker instead of a pencil. You do not want ink or mystery chemicals in your coffee. Even so, use a soft pencil to avoid ripping the fine filter fabric and don’t push too hard. You do not want graphite in your coffee either.

Link Link to commercial refillable compatible pad (via MAKE Blog)

New NeoFiles

By David Pescovitz at 11:22 am Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

RU Sirius's latest issue of NeoFiles is online, including interviews with transgenic art provocateur Eduardo Kac, creator of the green flourescenet rabbit, Howard "Lucifer Principle" Bloom whose latest book is the Global Brain, and psychedelic spiritualist Jonathan Bethel. RU says:

"Start the universe with a few rules. Watch it iterate and accumulate complexity over billions of years. Add in some nanotechnology, robotics, and super-chemistry. Now, take the transgenic bunny rabbit and put it in Professor Schrödinger’s box. Wait several decades … stirring frequently. If things work out, you will have a perfectly divine singularity … to serve up to family and guests. If not, you will have an entertaining read, to be savored until we issue again."

Link

More Koko nipple love

By David Pescovitz at 10:00 am Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

Yesterday's post about the lawsuit tied to Koko's nipple fetish reminded many readers about Koko's guest starring role on Monster Garage that could possibly be used as evidence for the claimants. Link (Thanks, Michael Golamco and Jonathan Hendry!)

And this from another reader who says that in the 1990s he worked on a video involving Coco:

One day our editor had a mad case of the giggles when we came into the room and we couuldn't figure out why, until he showed us a clip of Koko's 'sign language.'

Over and over, she kept making the motions for the phrase 'Koko nipple love."

...Keep me anonymous please. I don't want Koko coming over to my house and giving me a titty twister.

UPDATE: Readers Jean Dudley and Suebob Davis point out that Koko's trainer, Francine "Penny" Patterson, has claimed for years that Coco "uses nipple to refer to people." Link to Penny's Team Journal, Link to Straight Dope column

Ikea's Ayn Rand rung

By Cory Doctorow at 9:22 am Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

Ikea is selling a rug called the Anja Rand -- for the objectivist crank libertarian in you. Link (Thanks, Simon!)

Classic Disneyland promo movie from 1956

By Cory Doctorow at 2:14 am Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

Kirby sez,

Our friend "waltsentme" over at webjay links us to the 1956 film "People and Places - Disneyland U.S.A.". A Disney made film to promote the less than one year old park!

Part one starts with a flyover of the park that is fascinating in what is NOT there. The film is narrated by the laconic narrator that Disney used a lot then. The hill they eventually built the Matterhorn on is clearly visible. Visit the Disneyland MOTEL. No tower. A trip up Main Street on a streetcar, America at the turn of the (20th) century with lots of people in the fashion of 1956. After a brief stop at the hub we visit Frontierland. More aerial views of the newly planted Disneyland. Tom Sawyer's Island had just opened in 1956. You could fish and "keep what you caught". That didn't last long. Gunslingers in Rainbow Ridge threw the perspective of the buildings off. (These buildings are still visible in the queue of Big Thunder Mountain Railroad.). There is some footage of "The Indian Village is a permanent and popular attraction here". How many times did they move that?

Part 2 starts in Adventurland and has footage of the Jungle Cruise when it was serious and populated with very primitive animatronic figures. No "back side of water". They do shoot the hippos, though! Tomorrowland in 1956 was mainly Autopia. You can see the short lived Phantom Boats in an aerial shot. Fantasyland has no footage of the interior of the dark rides, but lots of reaction shots of people entering and exiting them. Storybookland had just opened when the film was made. Long section of footage of it. The footage of the Disneyland Band in the Mad Tea Party is classic. "Tempo in a Tea Cup". Views of various parades end the film, including Walt and Fess Parker on horseback.

Be aware that both videos are over 77MB in size. No slow connection here.

This is an absolute classic. I don't know how long it will last a boingboing hit, so grab it now.

Link (Thanks, Kirby!)

Update: Lucas Emery's got a torrent of these up.

Pirate captain will sue ninjas for you

By Cory Doctorow at 2:10 am Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

This Flash video is a commercial for a pirate captain-cum-lawyer who will help you sue ninjas who have injured you through kicklash, elbow face, or medical malpractice. Link (Thanks, Mark LL!)

$150 for a Mickey Pez covered in Swarkovski crystals?!

By Cory Doctorow at 2:08 am Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

This iced-out $150 Mickey Pez-dispenser is covered in hand-applied Swarkovski crystals, glued on by "artisans" at a shop in Beverly Hills. Definitely the gift for the Disney fan who has everything and who you never want to have to speak to ever again. Link (Thanks, IZ Reloaded!)

Broadcast Flag court date: Feb 22

By Cory Doctorow at 2:03 am Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

The loathesome, unprecedented Broadcast Flag comes into effect this summer, and thereafter, the feds will be mandating DRM in all technologies that can interact with a digital television signal, forever driving a nail into digital television uptake in the USA.

There's a single ray of hope, though: EFF, Public Knowledge and several other public interest groups are suing the FCC over this, arguing that they don't have the jurisdiction to impose the Broadcast Flag -- the appeals hearing kicks off on Feb 22.

The oral arguments on the broadcast flag case in the U.S. Court of Appeals Court will be held next Tuesday, Feb. 22.

Public Knowledge and other organizations challenged the authority of the FCC to institute the broadcast flag rule, which requires consumer electronics and other devices such as TiVos, iPods, digital VCRs and cell phones to be able to block copying of over-the-air digital TV content at the wishes of content owners. Organizations including the Consumer Federation of America, Consumers Union and several libraries said the FCC exceeded its authority to institute the broadcast flag rule.

Link (Thanks, Donna!)

Evil tech execs for this month

By Cory Doctorow at 2:00 am Saturday, Feb 19 • Comments • Share

Danny O'Brien's "To Evil" column is a monthly salute to terrible behaviour on the part of tech companies and individuals. This month's is out, and contains a good rant on a subject near to my heart: secret spam-filtering rules:

The American ISP, according to several news reports, had decided a unique filtering technique for eliminating spam: banning email coming from countries outside the USA.

Given that most spam comes from American companies, this sounds a bit like fighting stings by locking yourself in a beehive, and smearing yourself with royal jelly. But mostly, it's odd because eventually those foreigners are going to find someone they *can* communicate with. And once they snap out of that crazy bloo-bloo language they all speak, and talk proper English to a journalist, Word Will Get Out.

What's really crazy, though, is that it's not entirely clear that cutting off the world is really was what Verizon is up to. Some European e-mail gets through; others do not. Strangely-configured SMTP servers are rejected; others slipped right by.

But when the world was reporting that Verizon was dropping mail, the company kept everyone in the dark, including their customers. They didn't tell them they were filtering; they didn't tell them how they were filtering.

People had to draw their own conclusions: and what they concluded is that Verizon hates foreigners.

Link (Thanks, Steve!)