Here's an ingenious method for making your own headphones out of bottlecaps, foam, and wire. The technique was created by Prince Dzuckey a boy at Takoradi Technical Institute, Takoradi, Ghana. Link (via Make)

A spammer is sending out come-ons offering to buy MySpace profiles with more than 20,000 contacts, presumably to send out more spams through MySpace. Of course, spammers aren't to be trusted, so there's every chance this dirtbag will take your profile and scarper. You can't exactly ring up Rupert Murdoch and complain that the scumbag didn't pay you for the MySpace profile you spent all those hours adding "friends" to with a script.

From: Jessica
Date: Jun 14, 2006 7:55 PM
Subject: TOP CASH FOR YOUR MYSPACE ACCOUNT
Body: If you have over 20,000 myspace friends in your account and would like to sell it, please contact me
I'm offering top dollar for these accounts. So, if you or someone you know wants to sell, then I'm looking to buy. ;-)
email me at: siteinvestor@yahoo.com

Link (via Waxy)

Here's the audio from a South By Southwest 2006 presentation by Harvard's Daniel Gilbert on the psychology of probability estimation. This is important stuff -- it explains why we're socially willing to commit nigh-infinite social resources to fighting terrorism, though statistically, terrorist attacks almost never happen; though we barely lift a finger to help save people from routine traffic accidents, backyard pool drownings, and asthma, which mow down our neighbors by the thousands. It explains why people buy lottery tickets. It explains a great deal about many kinds of human activity. This is both sensible and entertaining audio, and it's got a great title: "How to Do Precisely the Right Thing at All Possible Times." 23MB MP3 Link (Thanks Avi!)

I just walked past this band, Rautakoura, playing on the streets of Helsinki. They're a four-piece bluegrass band, and they sounded phenomenal. They're four kids with indie-rock haircuts and cool shoes, playing American roots music on the streets of Finland, and they sound great. Download a couple of their demo tracks here: Link

In this video, Stephen Colbert nails Georgia Representative Lynn Westmoreland, a Congressman who's co-sponsored a bill to require the display of the Ten Commandments in the House of Reps and the Senate. After bantering with Westmoreland for a couple minutes, Colbert says, "What are the Ten Commandments?"

Stephen Colbert: What are the Ten Commandments?

Lynn Westmoreland: What are all of them?

SC: Yes.

LW: You want me to name them all?

SC: Yes.

LW: Uhhh.

LW: Ummmm. Don't murder. Don't lie. Don't steal. Ummmmm.

LW: I can't name them all.

Link, YouTube Mirror (Thanks, Mapletree 7!)

Eric, writing about this post on a novel Hungarian automobile intended to be driven by people in wheelchairs, sez,

40 years ago wheelchair users in Great Britain were driving around in something very similar - a single person vehicle with a 197 cc engine operated with a joystick.

The 3-wheelers had a flap-down seat extension that allowed you to transfer from a weelchair to the seat, and allowed a (folded) wheelchair to be stored alongside you. Of course, though strictly forbidden, the flap also served as a passenger seat!

Link (Thanks, Eric!)

Sudesh Mahato, Home Minister of India's Jharkhand state is to be married. His wedding gift to his bride is electrical power for her village and a new 35km road leading to it.

He is an influential minister in the state and his influence was enough to persuade the state government to do these things. The villagers of the bride are really happy and excited. They are getting the things that they have dreamt about for ages. The minister is arranging his ceremony in the village area with all the grandeur of a royal wedding. Massive arrangements have been done and nearly 150,000 guests are expected to join the wedding feast.

The minister has ensured the building of a 35-kilometer (22-mile) concrete road that is joining his home with that of his bride.

Link (Thanks, Razib!)

The Washington Post has a great feature on the Backstage Tours at Walt Disney World. I took several of these when I was researching my novel Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, and they were always fantastic. If there's anything cooler than seeing the masterful illusions created in Disney World's parks, it's seeing behind them and watching them being created and maintained.

Our private boat through the venerable Jungle Cruise revealed stagecraft secrets such as the hidden heaters used to warm the tropical plants and the actual words uttered by the animatronic cannibal ("I love disco," believe it or not).

And that doesn't even count such sworn-to-secrecy dish as how they keep the Safari Adventure lions on that viewing rock (air conditioning), what employees really think of certain daily performances ("Cinderellabration, the Loudest Show on Earth") and just who that is in the Mickey costume (a petite woman, most likely).

Link (via The Disney Blog)

Instructables has a great, easy project for making a blinged out Rubik's Cube by taking the sub-cubes off, soaking off the labels, and spray-painting the cubes gold or silver. Link (via Make Blog)

Justin Hall is experimenting with the idea of a "passively multiplayer game," a game that you get points and levels in based on the surfing you do on the Internet. This reminds me of the "bus-transfer wars" we'd have on the way home from school, adding up the digits in the serial numbers of our individual transfers to see who got the highest score. I'm really interested in seeing where this goes -- I have a feeling it could be really satisfying and/or addictive to turn looking at the net into a game. Link

Update: Harri sez, "For a while now there's been an IRC game where players level up and gain items/experience by simply idling. They're penalised for speaking in the channel, leaving the channel etc. The original's on EFNet though I personally play on AfterX."

Update 2: Mike sez, "Here's another, rather more passive MMOG called 'Progress Quest'. You sign up, choose your race and just watch as your characters make their way up the rankings."

Update 3: Crankyspouse sez, "ZenMoo was a mud/moo from 1992 or so, probably the original passive multiplayer internet game. This is the closest thing I could find to original documentation for it."

Now, to make sure that you are really meditating, and not just in another shell, you will be asked a question or riddle from time to time. You will want to answer as quickly as possible, in order to keep from appearing asleep. Students have dozed off during meditation and been booted, loosing their vital idle statistics, and living in shame. Let me explain the output from the "who" command.

As part of Popular Science's big Future of Energy package, the magazine outlines "10 steps to end America's fossil-fuel addiction." On the PopSci site, each step links to a longer explanation of the technology and potential impact. Here are the first five:

* Step 1: Harness the Wind
Turbines are getting stronger, lighter, bigger

* Step 2: End Gridlock
Make power where we use it

* Step 3: Rev Up Our Hybrid Rides
Ultralight parts and a plug could double America's mileage

* Step 4: Brew Better Ethanol
With a little help from our termite friends

* Step 5: Switch on the Sun Lamp
Cheaper, more efficient materials can send solar soaring

Link

A decommissioned military air hangar in Irvine, California is currently being converted into the world's largest pinhole camera. The photographers with the Legacy Project hope to have a completed photo of the adjacent El Toro Marine Corps Air Station by July 8. From the Associated Press:

"This project is about being deep inside photography, in the sense that you can walk inside the camera. It's the origins of photography and we've been living in it for weeks at a time," said Doug McCulloh, a photography teacher at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art...

The photographers are using a nearly 31-by-111-foot piece of white fabric covered in 20 gallons of light-sensitive emulsion as the "negative."

After exposing the fabric for up to 10 days, they will develop it in a huge tub made of pool siding, using 200 gallons of black-and-white developer solution and 600 gallons of fixer.

Link, Link to Photo District News' more detailed earlier article

The RIAA is reportedly sending letters to YouTube users demanding that they take down videos of kids singing along and dancing to their favorite songs. This is pretty crazy, of course -- as Battelle says, "Wake up. This is how we use music in the real world. Get over yourselves."

But that's just the beginning of the story. Last July, RPG Films got a takedown notice from someone who claimed to be the RIAA. RPGFilms hosts videos of people's video-game characters dancing to music -- rock-videos made with games. They shut down and there was a terrible stink about it, and the RIAA actually contacted us to tell us that they hadn't sent the notice -- it was a fake.

We reported that, and I asked RIAA Director of Communications Jenni Engebretsen some followup questions:

Q: Are forgeries like this common occurrences?

A: I can't really say -- I'd have to speak to our folks to see if this happens with any frequency. As I stated in my email, we haven't initiated any legal action of any kind.

Q: Do you plan to pursue the forgers who sent out the bogus takedown in your name?

A: I need to check into that, that's all the information I have at this point.

Q: Will you pursue a claim against RPG Films for the use of your member-companies' copyright music in the films they host?

A: We have not initiated any communication or legal action against them. Forecasting future actions is not something we do.

Q: Do you have an institutional policy on the use of your member companies' music in noncommercial fan-films made from video-games?

A: I need to check on that.

Q: That's great, thanks. I'll post this and update the post when you get back to me.

But I never heard back from Engebretsen. In fact, I couldn't get her on the phone at all. I'd ring her from my home number and mobile phone and no one picked up, and I never received a response to my emails. Eventually, I called her from a different number while travelling in the US and she answered. I asked her about all those "I need to check on that" and "I'll get back to you" answers.

She said, "Yeah, we don't have any comment on those questions."

So now we've got the RIAA (?) sending takedown notices to YouTube over kids who rock out to the songs they love. You have to wonder -- if this is a forgery, has the RIAA decided to do something about it? If it's not, does that mean that they now have a policy about fan-films made with music?

If Ms Engebretsen is reading this, I'd be glad to hear any comment you'd care to make on those questions now. Link (Thanks to everyone who suggested this link!)

This Hungarian (concept?) car, the Kenguru, is designed as a stylish small vehicle for wheelchair users. You can wheel your chair right into it and drive it with a joystick.

The car’s interior space has no front seat -- just a space built to house the driver’s own wheelchair so all he/she has to do is simply roll in through the extra large car doors and into position. The wheelchair locks into place, within easy reach of the car’s controls which are centred around a joystick.

Link (via OhGizmo)

Update: Palasik sez, "This is NOT a concept car, you can buy it in Hungary, there is a price on the distributors homepage, and it looks like, that disabled people can get it on health insurance for free. Thecnically it is a 'four wheeled mororcycle,' so that is the driving permit you have to have for it."

This billboard advises you to stop using the word "like" as punctuation, on behalf of something called the Academy of Linguistic Awareness. Link, Another Academy of Linguistic Awareness billboard

Jim Baen, a visionary, successful science fiction publisher, has had a serious stroke and is in hospital. Baen Books publish many long-running series, and were true pioneers in producing non-DRM, freely available ebooks of their print editions, correctly intuiting that giving away electronic books sells printed books. Jim and I have corresponded and I've always been impressed with his shrewdness, kindness and commitment to writers and the field. I hope he gets well soon.

Jim Baen is in the ICU after a stroke, it is serious, Toni [Weisskopf] and a relative are there with him. Now you know as much as we do about his condition.

Baen Books is functioning under the very detailed emergency plans that Jim has in place.

Please don’t send cards or flowers. Please do send whatever prayers are appropriate to your faith.

Link

EFF Staff Technologist Seth Schoen has written a great blog-post on the Defective By Design campaign, which stages public anti-DRM protests in hazmat suits. So far, the campaign has targeted a Bill Gates keynote speech at WinHEC in Seattle, and Apple stores across the US over the iPod's use of DRM. As Seth notes, "the fame of the 'Mac/PC' platform rivalry -- just like the 'Democrat/Republican' rivalry -- is an obstacle to learning about new issues. If anyone criticizes Apple for labor issues (as a recent article did) or Microsoft for using digital rights management, the prominence of 'Mac vs. PC' makes the general public assume that the critic wants everyone to switch to 'the other platform'".

Many Apple fans were upset that Defective by Design targeted iTunes/iPod DRM, claiming that Apple can't be held responsible for its decision to use its technology to control instead of empower its customers. Seth expertly addresses each of these arguments, showing that Apple's embrace of DRM has been enthusiastic, abusive and thoroughgoing, not merely a necessity of the market.

Record labels, not Apple, are to blame: There's a lot of blame to go around, but an Apple lawyer said publicly that Apple would not abandon FairPlay restrictions if the record labels gave it permission to do so. A music industry trade association in the U.K. has stated that Apple's use of FairPlay is a competitive problem (although it does not necessarily agree with Defective By Design that the use of DRM in general is a problem). And Apple is now actively supporting legislation that prevents people from working around these restrictions. Did the record labels require Apple to do that?

Apple competitors are hypocritical because they also create (or want to create) proprietary products that prevent interoperability: That's often the case, so we need to get in the habit of criticizing everyone for doing this and try to help the press understand (as BusinessWeek understood) that there are people whose objections run deeper than any one company's business strategy.

Users can choose other products: That's the main thing that the Defective By Design protest was encouraging people to do. The most common position among protestors is not necessarily that there should be an antitrust investigation of Apple, but that users should stop feeling sympathetic to Apple's business strategy and that the law should stop protecting it by threatening technologies that create interoperability.

Link

Jay-Z is calling for a rapper boycott of premium Champagne maker Cristal after an executive for the company implied discomfort with his firm's product being a status symbol for rappers and wondered "what can we do? We can't forbid people from buying it." Jay-Z has pulled the brand from his clubs, and is calling on rappers and their fans to stay away from the drink.

In a special summer issue of The Economist magazine, Frederic Rouzaud, managing director of Louis Roederer, said the company viewed the affection for his company's champagne from rappers and their fans with "curiosity and serenity."

Asked by the magazine if the association between Cristal and the "bling lifestyle" could be detrimental, Rouzaud replied:

"That's a good question, but what can we do? We can't forbid people from buying it. I'm sure Dom Perignon or Krug would be delighted to have their business."

Link

Helix is a new, free, donation-supported science fiction magazine edited by two well-known sf writers, William Sanders and Lawrence Watt-Evans. The magazine has some top-notch fiction in it (I liked the story by folk-legend-turned writer Janis Ian), and it's all free to read. They solicit your donations to pay the writers -- a trend that we see in other free sf magazines, like The Infinite Matrix, Futurismic, and Strange Horizons (Baen's Universe actually charges money upfront, but it's the same general principle). I love short science fiction, and it works great on the web and on small devices. The explosion of new-business-model short sf is encouraging too -- these variegated attempts to figure out a viable business model for short fiction are looking into new avenues, some of which will surely bear fruit. Link (Thanks, Daniel!)

Yesterday I caught a presentation by Adam Greenfield about the ethics of "ubiquitous computing" (the idea that the devices around us will know where they are, what they are, and who you are). This is a place where science fiction and real world policy are converging; for example, it's becoming harder and harder to ride the London Underground without carrying a radio-pollable card that could be used later to identify who you are and where you've been. American passports are getting RFID chips that can be read at a distance, and visitors to the US are likewise being told that they have to carry radio-readable "papers" at all times in the country, at a pilot program being run at two border-crossings.

The utility of radio-readable identifiers is undeniable. I've written stories about how people could use them to improve their quality of life; seniors' homes are incorporating them into the Alzheimer's ward, in Hong Kong, the contactless card has made public transit and other routine transactions into an act of graceful dance, where people gesture in a fluid motion at the turnstiles to present them with their "Octopus" cards.

Obviously, the supply-chain uses for these in retail and wholesale are many and interesting, as are the uses that arise after we bring stuff home -- everyone's favorite example is the washing machine that won't let you mix colors and whites.

But there's an ethical dimension that needs to be considered in engineering radio-readable products. These products are potential privacy-bombs, capable of wreaking great havoc in our personal lives and the body-politic. They have the potential to be systems of control, rather than empowerment. As Mitch Kapor says, "Architecture is politics." The way we design these systems will effect the way we live our lives: in freedom or in tyranny.

Greenfield has a recent book out on the subject, called Everyware, which attacks the promise and peril of ubicomp at great length and in depth. He surveys the ways in which RFIDs are being used today, the good and the bad, looks at the research that's being done for the next generation, and tackles these thorny ethical questions. (introduction, conclusion)

Here's an article that Greenfield wrote on the subject of ubicomp ethics, called "All watched over by machines of loving grace: Some ethical guidelines for user experience in ubiquitous-computing settings." It give you a good flavor for the talk I heard yesterday -- it's fascinating and thought-provoking.

Principle 1. Default to harmlessness. Ubiquitous systems must default to a mode that ensures their users' (physical, psychic and financial) safety.

We are familiar with the notion of "graceful degradation," the ideal that if a system fails, if at all possible it should fail gently in preference to catastrophically, with functionality being lost progressively rather than all at once.

Given the assumption of responsibility for users and their environments implied by the ubicomp rubric, such systems must take measures that go well beyond mere graceful degradation.

Slaved passenger vehicles, dosage settings for pharmaceutical-delivery systems, controls for sealed or denied environments are examples of situations where redundant interlocks must be provided to ensure user safety.

Link

My pal Terre Thaemlitz sent me this:

after rinsing out an empty can of mountain dew for recycling (featuring the new logo), i set it upside dow to drain. from across the room it caught the corner of my eye and it read "MAO"! the swirl also makes the "oM" from "Mountian" look like a lowercase "g" so you get the "Tung" clearly.

Unfortunately, "uie" doesn't sound like "tse" no matter how you slice it. ; )

Stephen Worth says:

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is presenting an exhibit devoted to the Art of the Storyboard throughout the months of June and July. Included in the exhibit are segments from the pilot episodes of the Yogi Bear Show, The Alvin Show and The Flintstones; as well as examples of the work of Warner Bros story men, Warren Foster, John Dunn and Mike Maltese.

Recently added to the exhibit is an eye popping set of storyboards from John Kricfalusi's Spumco studio. The collection includes the original hand drawn boards for "Stimpy's Invention", "Space Madness" and "Sven Hoek"; as well as the Ranger Smith special and the Bjork video. You can read the boards for unproduced Spumco projects and sequences that were cut from the shows too.

For a sneak peek at the exhibit, see our previous postings:

Stimpy's Invention Part One, Stimpy's Invention Part Two, Alvin Show: The Whistler

The ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive is located at 2114 W Burbank Bl in Burbank, CA and is open Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1pm to 9pm. Link

Tinselman says: These Hiroshima miniatures, illustrating the devastation caused by the bomb, are incredibly provoking. But it's especially powerful seeing the before and after miniatures. Before, a quiet, almost quaint town... Link

Enrique Mora, a recently retired man in Montclair CA, dug a 60-foot pit in his front yard because he was convinced he'd eventually strike gold. Neighbors complained and the fire department shut down the operation and ordered him to hire an engineer to fill the pit.

When firefighters pulled up at the home, workers were dumping paint cans brimming with dirt scraped from the bottom of the hole with a shovel and a pick ax. To pull the dirt out, Mora had devised a rope-and-pulley contraption with a plastic wheel and a metal rod.

The worker at the bottom of the crater had shimmied down, a rope tethered to a belt, and was sucking on a garden hose for oxygen, neighbors told the emergency responders.

Link

Zed sez, "Reverse DNS lookup on thepiratebay.org's IP yields: hey.mpaa.and.apb.bite.my.shiny.metal.ass.thepiratebay.org" Link (Thanks Zed!)

Update: Rostok sends in more DNS funnies from ThePirateBay:

Name: same.tracker.same.place.come.get.me.roswall.thepiratebay.org
Address: 83.140.176.145

Name: hi.ponten.retractable.baton.sodomy.is.good.for.you.thepiratebay.org
Address: 83.140.176.147

Name: per.brumark.says.d.oh.its.back.thepiratebay.org
Address: 83.140.176.148

Gene sez, "This is an amazing find -- a collection of Soviet era B&W photographs. Each photograph uniquely captures urban Russian life during 50s and 60s." Link (Thanks, Gene!)

Update: Obviously, many of these photos (including the one shown here) are from later than the sixties.

A materials scientist from Sandia National Laboratories argues that nanoscale computer simulations can actually provide more detailed info than "real" experiments. Researcher Eliot Fang told an audience at a scientific conference that Sandia's latest simulations involving billions of atoms revealed insights they couldn't have gotten any other way. From Sandia:

(Researcher Eliot) Fang derided the pejorative “garbage in, garbage out” description of computer modeling — the belief that inputs for computer simulations are so generic that outcomes fail to generate the unexpected details found only by actual experiment.

Fang not only denied this truism but reversed it. “There’s another, prettier world beyond what the SEM [scanning electron microscope] shows, and it’s called simulation,” he told his audience. “When you look through a microscope, you don’t see some things that modeling and simulation show.”

This change in the position of simulations in science — from weak sister to an ace card — is a natural outcome of improvements in computing, Fang says. “Fifteen years ago, the Cray YMP [supercomputer] was the crown jewel; it’s now equivalent to a PDA we have in our pocket.”

Link

At a talk in Hong Kong on Monday, celebrity physicist Stephen Hawking urged humans to get busy colonizing other worlds because Earth (thanks in no small part to us) is increasingly at risk of becoming, well, inhospitable. He also said that he's planning to co-write a children's book with his daughter about the wonders of the universe. From the Associated Press:

Humans could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and a colony on Mars in the next 40 years, the British scientist told a news conference.

"We won't find anywhere as nice as Earth unless we go to another star system," added Hawking...

Hawking said that if humans can avoid killing themselves in the next 100 years, they should have space settlements that can continue without support from Earth.

"It is important for the human race to spread out into space for the survival of the species," Hawking said. "Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster, such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers we have not yet thought of."

Link

Vincent Ferrari says: "I'm the customer on the other end of that AOL disaster. Just so you know, according to Netscape News, the guy has been fired."

At AOL, we have zero-tolerance for customer care incidents like this -- which is deeply regrettable and also absolutely inexcusable. The employee in question violated our customer service guidelines and practices, and everything that AOL believes to be important in customer care -- chief among them being respect for the member, and swiftly honoring their requests. This matter was dealt with immediately and appropriately, and the employee cited here is no longer with the Company."

The link has an interview with Vincent about the incident. Link

This Namid Desert beetle was the inspiration for a new material that can control the movement of tiny drops of water. Developed by MIT researchers, the material is made up of a water-repelling surface dotted with tiny bumps that attract water. The material could someday be used to control fluids in tiny labs-on-a-chip for DNA screening and medical diagnostics. The work was funded by the US military who have "expressed interest in using the material as a self-decontaminating surface that could channel and collect harmful substances." From the MIT News Office:

The researchers got their inspiration after reading a 2001 article in Nature describing the Namib Desert beetle's moisture-collection strategy. Scientists had already learned to copy the water-repellent lotus leaf, and the desert beetle shell seemed like another good candidate for "bio-mimicry..."

The desert beetle has evolved to take perfect advantage of the tiny amount of water available in the desert. The fog that drifts over the Namib Desert is so light that normal condensation can't take place, so "you need something specially designed to hold and collect that condensation," (materials scientist Michael) Rubner said.

Link

The laughing head sculpture that David Hensel created for installation at the UK's Royal Academy of Arts has been removed was never installed by a judging panel who preferred the wooden support mount that supported the head. From the BBC News:

In a statement, the Academy said Mr Hensel's work, One Day Closer To Paradise, was submitted as two separate pieces.

"Given their separate submission, the two parts were judged independently.

"It is accepted that works may not be displayed in the way that the artist might have intended."

Link (Thanks, Mike Love!)

This is pure genius. Michael Rosenblatt made a rubber stamping system out of a folding chair. It stamps a perfectly-aligned image on a business card. The movie explains everything you need to know. Link (via Make)

After reading my posts about people who have had to beg to be disconnected from AOL, J2, and Sky TV, Vodka offers the following advice:

I've worked for a telecommunications company that I would prefer to go unnamed, and I'd like to offer some tips to anyone trying to disconnect a service they no longer want. The biggest tip is to call well outside of normal business hours -- in my company, customer service was open 24/7, but the retention department closed in the evening. If you call, say, before bed, or during the middle of the night, you'll just be talking to a regular CS rep who has no incentive whatsoever to keep you as a customer. It can turn a twenty minute phone call into a two minute phone call.

Second, if you get a rude rep, hang up and call right back. Some reps, especially in commission driven departments like sales and retention, are especially pushy, where as if you call back you might get someone who is right at the end of his shift and just wants to get you off of his phone.

Third, there is one reason for disconnection that will work for almost every service--moving. Tell them you're moving out of the service area, or moving in with someone who already has the same service, and they should be required to cancel everything for you.

Also, it would be helpful to remember that the representatives in retention are paid to retain you as customers--threatening to record the call, asking for their name or ID, or asking for a supervisor will not do anything. All calls are recorded and the representatives have responses they are required to give for every customer question or complaint. The rep who actually gets in trouble will be the one who disconnects you immediately without trying to retain you, not the one who spends twenty minutes using every tactic in the book the company wrote for him.

Thinglink is a fast-and-easy way of adding unique identifiers to your craft, design and homebrew projects. These unique numbers work like the UPCs you see on the sides of boxes, or ISBNs for books, unique numbers that make it easy for people who encounter or seek your goods to search for them and information about them on the web. The problem is that GUIDs and UPCs cost money and require permission, while a Thinglink is free and permission-free.

Thinglink.org is an open database where makers can register their work for free and create labels for their products. Crafters, artists, designers, producers, and other makers can use Thinglink to identify their products and document their work. We built Thinglink for makers, because we think everyone is a maker. We hope it will make the social networks around products visible and navigable.

Link

The photoshoppers at B3ta are having a profane remix-the-roadsigns competition with some great results. Link (Thanks, Jason!)

How do you cheat effectively on a university essay? Alex Halvais is exasperated with the way his university students cheat on their papers. He's not just fed up with cheating, he's also fed up with how badly they cheat, implying that they think he's just not very bright. He's listed a bunch of common mistakes that help a prof figure out when a student is cheating:

When you "write" a sentence like "The veil of ignorance, to mention one prominent feature of that position, has no specific metaphysical implications concerning the nature of the self; it does not imply that the self is ontologically prior to the facts about persons that the parties are excluded from knowing," you have two ways of being caught up. First, while I make no claim of having anything approaching an eidetic memory (more like an idyllic memory), it may ring some dusty bells and heck, I might be able to pull the book you stole it from down off my shelf, even if you followed the advice of #3. If my memory fails to serve, as is frequently the case these days, Google Print might help out.

The second way you can trip up is by following this with your original words, which tend to be less sophisticated, or equally sophisticated material from an entirely different source that simply does not seem to make sense in this particular context.

Link (via Schneier)

Running Press, a book publisher with a kids' line, has cut a deal with Procter and Gamble to promote Cover Girl cosmetics in a new young-adult novel; in exchange, P&G will promote the book on a website they run for teenaged girls.

The book includes references to Cover Girl Lipslicks, a brand of lipstick, and a specific color of Cover Girl eyeliner. And in at least one cartoon supposedly drawn by the main character in the book, a caption refers to Cover Girl: "Artist! Detective! UnderCover Girl." The references existed in the manuscript before the marketing deal was made, but only in a generic form (a made-up lipstick color, etc.). After the partnership was defined, the references were changed to specifically mention Cover Girl and its products.

Link (via Wonderland)

Update: Jim sez, "The novel, Cathy's Book, is an ARG inspired novel by Jordan Weisman and Sean Stewart of 'The Beast' and 'I Love Bees' fame. Here's the release."

Brandon Sanderson is an author on the Campbell ballot for best new science fiction author; he's got a four-book deal with Tor and a four-book deal with Scholastic, but he's ahead on both and has started a new book. Given how long it will take for that book to see print, he's started posting his chapters-in-progress to his site. He says, "I think it will be a fun experience to see what kind of advice/criticism fantasy readers will give if they can see a book's progress from its conception." Link (Thanks, Brandon!)

Update: Chris sez, "as another Campbell-nominated author this year, I'm also fielding chapters-in-progress of the space opera I'm currently writing, Beyond the Threshold, which I'm posting on my blog. While I've got books coming out in the next few years from Viking, Pocket, and Pyr, this one is something of an experiment, a spec novel that doesn't yet have a home, so I'm putting the chapters in the public view to help me guage reader reaction. The response so far has been interesting, to say the least."

Here's a great idea for making a $11 wide-angle lens for your pocket-camera by getting a fisheye peep-hole (the kind you put in your front door) and holding it to your camera's optics. Link (via Make Blog)

Heidi MacDonald came across a truly strange food product, based on a movie about kids who starve to death.

One of the finest animated movies ever made is the Japanese film HOTARU NO HAKA - or GRAVE OF THE FIREFLIES, a horrifically beautiful movie about two Japanese children orphaned by the war who struggle for survival with no food in a society turned savage. Based on a true story, it is a struggle they do not win, as the opening scene reveals. Beautiful, lyrical, grim yet unsentimental — no one human can watch this film without weeping.

At one point the starving children have a can of fruit drops that they desperately cling to. When they finish the candies, they fill the tin with rainwater and drink the juice. Sad.

Well, it seems Glico made a commemorative tin full of delicious candy to tie in with this film.

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There’s a very entertaining conversation about sex and evolutionary psychology between RU Sirius and Joe Quirk on this week’s NeoFiles. And Mel Gordon, author of Voluptuous Panic: The Erotic World of Weimar Berlin is on The RU Sirius Show.

Stephen Worth of ASIFA-Hollywood's Animation Archive says:

A couple of months ago, we posted a section from the Famous Artists Cartooning Course... Chad's Design For Television.

Today, we have a FA lesson on drawing animals by newspaper cartoonist, Willard Mullin.

Willard Mullin was a variety of cartoonist that doesn't exist any more... a sports page cartoonist. In the days before high speed film and well lit night games, newspapers relied on cartoonists to illustrate the sports stories that photographers were unable to shoot. They did this by caricaturing the players and team mascots to represent who was on top and who was in the doghouse.

Mullin was not only the greatest sports cartoonist of his day, he was also one of the most talented artists ever to work in newspaper comics. When it came to drawing animals, he was unmatched.

As a bonus, we've posted scans of a rare Mullin original depicting the 1935 Kentucky Derby. This comic hasn't been seen since it was originally published over 70 years ago!

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The Idaho Museum of Natural History in Pocatello has a new Bigfoot exhibit opening this week. Called "Bigfoot: How Do We Know?," the exhibit will "examine Bigfoot through the lenses of scientific method, belief, mythology, folklore and traditions," according to a museum press release. (PDF) Included are such artifacts as a branch that Bigfoot may have stepped on in the famous Patternson-Gimlin footage of 1967, possible hair samples, casts, and cultural artifacts related to Sasquatch. From the Associated Press:

Jeff Meldrum, an anatomy professor at Idaho State University and a local Bigfoot expert, said the exhibit will give visitors a new way to consider the subject.

"I think the (museum's) approach is a very thought-provoking one that recognizes there are a variety of dimensions to the experience of Bigfoot," Meldrum said. "The exhibit attempts to use the topic of Bigfoot as a springboard to analyze different ways of knowing. A variety of those things intersect with the subject matter at hand." Link

In other Bigfoot news, the long-awaited cryptozoology art exhibit, "Cryptozoology: Out of Time Place Scale," opens this month at Bates College in Lewiston, Maine! More details at Cryptomundo. Link

The FCC fined CBS $3 million for the teen sex orgy scene in Without a Trace. (View it, if you dare, here). Now CBS is saying the fine is invalid because the people who complained didn't even know what they were complaining about. They were just robotically following the orders of their cult leaders at the PTC and the American Family Association

CBS says that 100% of the 4,211 complaints filed with the feds about this episode of "Without A Trace" came from web-based e-mail form letters originating from 2 right-wing christian groups (the PTC and the American Family Association). Only two complainers claimed to have seen the show, but made an inaccurate reference to another scene, thus blowing their cover.

But the brunt of the issue lies with a technicality in the indecency complaint process: the FCC can only consider complaints from viewers in the station's broadcast area. Therefore, CBS alleges, the PTC and AFA-initiated complaints against "Without A Trace" are invalid.

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In today's Wall Street Journal, the Cubicle Culture column discusses why brainstorm sessions can easily suck. From the article:

The popularity of brainstorming results in part from corporate America's knee-jerk faith in teams. In fact, the father of brainstorming, advertising executive Alex Osborn, advocated using people to storm a corporate problem "in commando fashion." And let yourself be labeled a "nonteam player," and you might as well start your own one-person consultancy.

But teams aren't necessarily so great. "There are so many things people do in management because they think it's good, but there's no evidence for it," says Paul B. Paulus, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Arlington. "Teamwork is one example. Brainstorming is another." Prof. Paulus conducted research on the number and quality of ideas of four people brainstorming together versus four people brainstorming by themselves. Typically, group brainstormers perform at about half the level they would if they brainstormed alone....

David Perkins, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education, warns that sometimes group sessions can result in one person's bad idea tainting and limiting the range of others' ideas. "The best way to get good ideas is to get people to write them down privately and then bring them in," he says. You want group diversity but no more than five to seven people or you risk ending up with "coblabberation."

Link (Thanks, Alex Pang!)

Paul Boutin has written a tutorial that shows you how to watch the FIFA World Cup live on your PC. Link

(Boing Boing would like to thank Baker & McKenzie, and their client, Infront Sports and Media for letting us know about the World Cup. Before receiving their letter, I didn't know what a World Cup was. Now, I do.)

Last week, a contractor bought a bathroom vanity at a Massachusetts Home Depot and discovered two 50-pound "bricks" of grass inside. Elsewhere in the state, a plumber purchased a similar product at an unnamed "hardware store" and opened it to find 40 pounds of weed plus 3 kilograms of cocaine. Police and DEA officials have swept a dozen Home Depots in the state and found other loaded vanities. From CNN:

In each incident being investigated by Tewksbury Police, all of the merchandise boxes originated from a Texas location and were distributed through one Massachusetts warehouse, Peterson said.

"I'm sure the packages were being shipped to the distribution center and someone was supposed to intercept them," Peterson said. "So that person [who was supposed to intercept the packages] either wasn't on duty that day or the packages were marked wrong."

Link

Yesterday, I linked to a recording of a phone call between a stunningly obnoxious AOL customer service representative and a poor soul who had to beg him to cancel his account. Today, Creation Robot emailed me to let me know that he had a similar experience with Sky TV in the UK.

After a few minutes pass by where he threw various package names at me and I batted them back by repeating the manta ‘No, I just want to cancel.’ He changes tack and talks about the movie channels so I butt in and point out there is no need to follow his script, I just want to cancel. He changes tack again and inadvertently gets my full attention.

‘What do other people in the house watch?’

‘That doesn’t matter,’ he ties to butt in so I just talk over him, ‘I didn’t ring up to argue with you, just to cancel.’

‘I’m not arguing Mr. X, just trying to help; as you have been with us for some time.’

‘Well, not any more.’

‘You want to cancel because it’s too expensive? But everything goes up in price,’ I wonder where he was going to go with that, but I was annoyed and cut back in.

Link

Reader comment: Losiu says:

The solution to this problem is quite simple. Use Amex card as auto draft payment method for any phone/inet/tv/other-vulture account. Then, if said vulture does not cancel, call Amex. They will take care of it for you. (I'm in no way associated with Amex, just a happy customer).

Reader comment: pj says:

You can use Sky's reticence to cancel your connection to your advantage - if you have a sky system that's outside the warranty period and it's developed a fault then rather than asking sky to repair it (and incur a £75 fee) you can simply tell them you want to cancel, they'll fight a little and propel you up their system to someone else who's job seems to be to prevent cancellations - they will then offer to repair your equipment at NO charge as long as you keep your subscription. You can use the same technique to score a reasonable discount off sky instead.

For the record I cancelled Sky very easily, but I did tell them that was giving up TV.

Reader comment: Bob says:

You know, a simple "I'm recording this conversation for my blog" and "Would you please repeat your name" would probably go a long way towards shortening the cancellation process. I haven't tested it, since I don't have an account at SkyTV or AOL, but it might help.

Update: Here's another one, this time from j2.com(an online fax service that I use).

James Patrick Kelly and John Kessel gave a great interview to Sci Fi Weekly about their new anthology, Feeling Very Strange: The Slipstream Anthology. The book has a top-notch table-of-contents, stories that defy genre conventions and make your head spin in a good way.

We make the point in our introduction that slipstream isn't really a genre at the moment and may never be one. What it is, in our opinion, is a literary effect--in the same way that horror or comedy are literary effects achieved by many different kinds of dissimilar stories. What is that effect? We borrowed the term cognitive dissonance from the psychologists. When we are presented with two contradictory cognitions--impressions, feelings, beliefs--we experience cognitive dissonance, a kind of psychic discomfort that we normally try to ease by discounting one of the cognitions as false or illusory and promoting the other to reality. But in some cases we aren't well served by this convenient sorting out.

We think that what slipstream stories do is to embrace cognitive dissonance. F. Scott Fitzgerald once said that "The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function." We believe that such an ability is necessary to cope with life in the 21st century and that stories that ask us to exercise that ability are an expression of the zeitgeist. Do you really need a definitive answer as to whether an electron is a wave or a particle? Why? Maybe it's time to make room for uncertainty in contemporary fiction, even if the stories do make you feel very strange. Slipstream may use metafictional techniques to estrange us from consensus reality, they may rewrite history, they may mash up different styles or genres. But that's the point, as we see it. Slipstream has no rules, it has only results.

Link (via Beyond the Beyond)

The next Worth1000 photoshopping contest challenges artists to fake UFO-sightings photos. The quality of entries here is a little uneven, but the best of the lot are real gems. Link