"Homecoming" is a full-frontal assault on the Bush administration, and about as subtle -- and bracing -- as a punch to the jaw. Adapted by Sam Hamm from Dale Bailey's short story "Death and Suffrage" -- but also vaguely reminiscent of Irwin Shaw's 1936 anti-war play "Bury the Dead" -- Dante's hour darkly satirizes zombie movie conventions, as dead soldiers arise to vote against the politicians who shipped them off to war.

Reader comment: Or in Israel says:

I've just tried to view the link in your BoingBoing post - " TV movie: "Homecoming" -- zombie soldiers rock the vote", but then i've hit an intresting road-block. Check out this screenshot (PNG). It seems that Showtime is not interested in letting Israelis -- or rather anyone who does not live in the United States of America -- view their website. Makes me wonder what is it that they are trying to hide?

I remember facing this error a couple of times before, when attempting to view the official site of a few TV shows that we screen here on our local television. Showtime has been doing this for years. The concept being forced to use an anonymous american proxy just to be permitted to view a specific website is just plain aggravating.

Reader comment: Mateusz Pozar in Sweden is among many BB readers who wrote in to say they're getting the same cockblock message ("We at Showtime Online express our apologies; however, these pages are intended for access only from within the United States."), and asks,

I'm trying to track down a free proxie to use from within the US to take a look at the site. any suggestions? could someone mirror it perchance?

I'm in the US, but proxify.com has come in handy a few times for me. Also, this modified Showtime "Homecoming" link might work directly for overseas visitors.

There was an article on digg.com recently listing open proxies: Link. But, as with all lists like that, they get stale pretty quickly. However, someone in the comments on digg pointed the rather spiffy proxy.org -- This site'll allow you to plug in a URL and pop a new window displaying that site via a random proxy. Fantastic! (Note: I tried it with Showtime URL & it worked.)

Thankfully, there's no restriction for the actual clips. (shakes head). You can access the clips directly here: part one, part two.

More links, no SWF -- MOV+WMV: Link.

Digital coding is the universal language allowing free translation between abstract information and physical books. Once upon a time, if you wanted the information, you had to physically possess (or borrow) the book. If you wanted to purchase a new copy of the book, the title had to be "in print."

This is no longer true. Scan the text once, digitally, and the information becomes permanently available, anywhere, no matter what happens to physical copies of the book. Search for an out-of-print title and you will now find bookshops (and libraries) who have copies available; soon enough the options will include bookshops offering to print a copy, just for you. Google Library and Google Print have been renamed Google Book Search — not because Google is shying away from building the Universal Library (with links to the Universal Bookstore) but because search comes first. To paraphrase Tolkien: "One ring to find them, one ring to bind them, one ring to rule them all."

Why does this strike such a nerve? Because so many of us (not only authors) love books. In their combination of mortal, physical embodiment with immortal, disembodied knowledge, books are the mirror of ourselves. Books are not mere physical objects. They have a life of their own. Wholesale scanning, we fear, will strip our books of their souls. Works that were sewn together by hand, one chapter at a time, should not be unbound page by page and distributed click by click. Talk about "snippets" makes authors flinch.

The site is "Dedicated to the preservation of early recorded sounds" and features wicked cool Jurassic DJ gear 'n' stuff, including this STILL LISTENABLE sound recording from 1878, grooved into a lead cylinder (instead of tin or wax) -- and a record player that looks like a watchmaker's lathe.

Reader comment: David says,

These recordings are a bit newer, from around the time of the first World War (1914-1918). Click the links on the right side to hear songs by year. My favorite is Aba Daba Honeymoon.

A snip of this fine prose:

"Aba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"
Said the Chimpie to the Monk,
"Baba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"
Said the Monkey to the Chimp.
All night long they'd chatter away,
All day long there were happy and gay,
Swinging and singing in their hunky-tonkey way.
"Aba, daba, daba, daba, daba, daba, dab,"
Means "Monk, I love but you."
"Baba, daba, dab," in monkey talk Means "Chimp, I love you, too."

Reader comment: JonesR says,

Leia Skywalker's Mom sang Aba Daba Honeymoon in "Two Weeks with Love"! Debbie Reynolds sang this in 1950, and it was repeated in one of the "That's Entertainment" compilations of MGM musicals that were released in the seventies. Don't know if Carrie Fisher had been in Shampoo yet, but I think Star Wars had not happened yet.

Leo McGovern of the New Orleans alt-zine ANTIGRAVITY says,

At a mall in Metairie (just outside of New Orleans), a Christmas display was removed because it featured a Katrina theme. A couple of people complained, and it was deemed offensive because the guy who built it included blue tarps on the houses, a helicopter saving someone from a house, and a shut down pumping station. It was a pretty neat display. Here's a link to a local stations coverage, and a link (with more photos) to the New Orleans LiveJournal community's posting about it.

The folks at Lakeside Mall have reversed their position on the Hurricane Town display and allowed it to be restored. The public outcry was tremendous. It seems everyone got it except mall management. Link.

web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

I earn my living as a stevedore, but I shall promptly and respectfully reply to all personal messages at my leisure time providing that a busy working day hasn't squeezed all orange juice out of me.

You’ll note that the Nasdaq (red) lags Wired’s page count (blue) by a few months. I’m not suggesting you go an buy technology shares, but gee, I’m thinking the reports of money pumping back into technology companies might just be true given the big up-tick in this months page count (294).

Nov 21: Protest CD DRM in NYC on Nov 30!

FreeCulture NYC is planning another street demonstration at a Tower Records store in Manhattan against DRM CDs, and have a great flier about the dangers of buying DRM music.

Nov 21: Table compares different kinds of Sony music infections

Sony CDs are infected with at least two different kinds of malicious software, the XCP rootkit and a spyware product from Suncomm called MediaMax. This handy table summarizes the differences and similarities between the two systems

Nov 22: Library won't buy Sony CDs

The library system in Ann Arbor, MI declares a moratorium on buying DRM CDs from Sony

Nov 24: Sony rootkit tee: "Why should people care about rootkits?"

These limited-edition tees from F-Secure bear the now infamous quote from Sony BMG president Thomas Hesse: "Most people don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"

Nov 24: Sony rootkit recall makes The Onion

The news of Sony's recall of its rootkit-infected CDs goes even more mainstream and is lampooned in this week's issue of The Onion, their What Do You Think? section.

Nov 24: Rootkit arms-dealer takes website down

First4Internet, the makers of the rootkit DRM that has turned Sony into an infamous villain facing tens of millions in liability, have taken down their website and replaced it with a simple landing page with some contact info.

Nov 27: Pre-history of the Sony rootkit

An old email thread shows the early efforts of the authors of Sony's infamous rootkit.

Nov 28: Sony rootkit author asked for free code to lock up music

An old newsgroup post from a First4Internet programmer offers cash if someone will do his homework for him. Later, code from the free/open source software project LAME (which does some of what this programmer was trying to do) showed up in a First4Internet product.

Nov 28: Programmers on Sony's spyware DRM asked for newsgroup help too

Programmers on Sony's less-known DRM, a piece of spyware called MediaMax from a company called Suncomm, posted messages to newsgroups asking for help with their technology.

Nov 28: Sony CD spyware installs and can run permanently, even if you click "Decline"

We knew that the MediaMax spyware on Sony's CD installs itself even if you click "Decline" when confronted with the "agreement" that governs it. Now we find that the software also runs, permanently, under some common circumstances, even if you never agree to its installation.

Nov 29: Will NY sue Sony, too?

New York Attorney General is making threatening noises over Sony's rootkit DRM, and it looks like he might bring suit.

Nov 29: Sony knew about rootkits 28 days before the story broke

BusinessWeek reports that Sony knew on Oct 4 that its DRM system was built on rootkits and exposed its customers to danger of opportunistic infections from other malicious programs.

Dec 1: No Xmas for Sony protest badge

Gisela has created a "No Xmas for Sony" badge she's using in her email, linking it to Mark Russinovich's account of the Sony rootkit debacle, as a means of convincing people not to buy Sony products this holiday.

Dec 3: How can you tell if a CD is infectious?

EFF publishes a list of indicia that Sony has used to inform customers that a CD carries the MediaMax spyware.

(Cool Sony CD image courtesy of Collapsibletank)

Firefox still has less than 10 percent of the browser-share globally, but on sites like Boing Boing, it's a clear majority (check out the present stats -- almost 46 percent Firefox/Moz versus 34 percent Explorer). This also seems like it's true in cosmopolitan cities like New York. At a guess, I'd say that a lot of the Explorer market share is in corporations where people are forced into Microsoft's browser by their IT departments. Link, Torrent Link (via Digg)

Update: Booksandlibretti sez, "The video was filmed in Washington Square Park, which is basically part of NYU's campus. Chances are good that the interviewed people were a lot more hip, with-it, and tech-savvy than the usual run of people even in New York. We saw a lot of students, but I'm guessing a large proportion of the adults were also affiliated with NYU as professors or as grad students."

"Other interesting info: NYU grad students are on strike (detailed on MeFi and lots of other places). In this video, you can hear their whistle, and at times you can see the inflatable union rat in front of the large red building (Bobst Library)."

The biggest change is that anyone can now use the in-the-browser recording tool (Odeo Studio) and phone posting, along with the "Casually Private" sharing functionality we built around the idea of casual content creation. We've also redesigned the homepage for simplification and the workflow of the site around the idea of an audio inbox. You can still download everything in iTunes or your podcast client of choice. Or you can listen on the site.