Video of giant apple cannon

By Mark Frauenfelder at 2:46 pm Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Make's Bre Pettis produced a video that shows you how to make a big honking apple bazooka. Link

Two Historical Documents from Two World Wars

By Xeni Jardin at 2:30 pm Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Above, a page scaned from a zine produced by residents of a WWI prisoner of war camp. What follows is without a doubt one of the most incredible reader submissions we've ever received. Daniel J. Geduld says,

On a recent trip to visit my parents, I was given several documents which belonged to my late grandfather, Sol Geduld. He led an amazing life. Born in Germany in 1905, he was put, along with his father, Harris Geduld, in a POW camp when World War I broke out because his father was a British subject. His mother, Bertha, was German and was not put in the camp. He and his father were traded for two German POWs and went to live in England. My Grandfather didn't know any English, but picked it up very quickly and ended up going to a prestigious high school where he showed an early aptitude for art and was on his way to becoming an architect or commercial artist.

Unfortunately, when his father died, he was pulled out of school at age 16 by his mother and taken back to Germany and forced to work odd jobs which is where my English Grandmother found him, working in an ice cream parlor in 1930 and they married that year and moved back to England. This was very lucky as they were both Jewish.

Although he continued to work various odd jobs during the depression apart from a few months where a serious bout of dermatitis made work impossible, when WWII broke out, he was incredibly active in the war effort despite being too old to join the military. He painted huge posters seen all over London to promote the war, he volunteered as an air raid warden meaning he was outside of a shelter during air raids, making sure others got to safety. He also got a job as an aircraft inspector, first for Handley-Paige and their Halifax Bomber and later for DeHaviland and their Mosquito fighter/bomber. Being an inspector meant he actually had to go up in the planes with the test pilots and make sure everything was working properly.

Eventually, they emigrated to America to be closer to my father who had moved to Indiana after receiving his PhD in London to work at Indiana University but only moved to Indiana itself shortly before I was born and they had retired. They both lived out the rest of their days there and my Grandfather spent his retirement volunteering for a community guarden and head start programs while doing much of the promotional artwork and advertising for them. He was a brilliant man and unfortunately died when I was still in high school but I still miss him very much.

Now, on to the documents. Although there are more than these two and I plan to scan more in later, I will share these first. They are from two very different points in my grandfather's life and you will see why I gave you his biography first.

The first document was a souvenir from his days in the POW camp, known as Ruhleben camp. It was in Germany on a former race course and around 4000 English men lived there. The document was a magazine which was printed at the POW camp called In Ruhleben Camp. It is sometimes very funny and sometimes very poignant (the story about the camp orchestra actually brought tears to my eyes: page 1, 2, 3, 4). Above all it is very, very English. Ridiculously English in the way only people away from their beloved homeland could be. There are more issues which I will scan in at some time in the future, but they are all in bad shape and this one was the most deteriorated. It is missing its cover. You can see it here: Link.

The second document is his notebook from when he was training to be an aircraft inspector in the second world war. Despite never finishing high school, he had to learn some pretty complex engineering, but his skills definitely helped him out. All of the illustrations were hand-drawn by my grandfather with a fountain pen. I don't understand a lot of it, but it is still just a beautiful document to look through. There is a second, longer notebook I will scan in at some point which is better preserved as it has been re-bound. You can see the notebook here: Link. I hope you enjoy these two little pieces of history.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
FLICKR PHOTOSETS:
- Part 1 (WWI POW camp zine)
- Part 2 (WWII engineering notebook).
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I found myself poring over the elder Mr. Geduld's drawings for hours, and the prose in the camp zine is incredible. I think the inside cover is my favorite scan of all, if only for this one short line:

This is our first number, alas,
it will not be our last --
a quaint wish but our readers will understand.

And then, there's this announcement for a short story competition:

Stories should not exceed 1600 words,
and and it should be borne in mind
that they have to pass the Censor.

Many thanks to Daniel, from all of us at BoingBoing, for sharing these amazing, rare documents with the world.

Audio from Toronto Free Software Symposium

By Cory Doctorow at 2:26 pm Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Toronto's excellent Free Software and Open Source Symposium has posted the audio from its talks. Organizer Bob Boyczuk sez, "There's some pretty cool stuff, including keynotes by Shaver, by Marcel Gagne (who explained why we suck at promoting open source), and by Nat Friedman (who made a case for the OED being an early open source project, then somehow managed to segue into a demo of Novell's cool new SLED 10 desktop - not sure how he did that, but it was seamless at the time). There's a whole bunch of other talks by a variety of people on a variety of interesting open source and open content and licensing issues, including EFF's Ren Bucholz's talk on the 'Next Generation DRM Systems and the Shadowy International Organizations Who Love Them,' and Chris Blizzard's talk on OLPC. And the list goes on and on. All of this is available in divx and mp3 (later today) formats, and under a CC license." Link

See also: Kick-ass free software/open source con coming to Toronto, Oct 26-27

Judge declares mistrial in Gizmondo mystery Ferrari crash case

By Xeni Jardin at 2:08 pm Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Snip from AP story: "A judge declared a mistrial Friday in the fraud and grand theft trial of a Swedish businessman whose 162-mph wreck in a classic Ferrari led to the charges alleging he stole two luxury sports cars. Jurors told Judge Patricia Schnegg they were deadlocked 10-2 in favor of convicting Bo Stefan Eriksson." Link.

Previously on BoingBoing:

* Gizmondo's Spectacular Crack-up
* The phony police business is alive and well
* Rare Ferrari busted in half

EFF fights another DMCA abuser

By Cory Doctorow at 2:05 pm Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

EFF's Derek Slater sez, "Michael Crook isn't the only bully who's abusing the DMCA. This week, EFF also fought back against 'self-help' group Landmark Education's attempts to suppress an investigative television news piece critical of its methods. Using the DMCA and alleged copyright violation as a pretext, Landmark subpoenaed three websites hosting the video -- the Internet Archive, Google Video, and YouTube -- seeking the identities of the anonymous uploaders. But the news piece at issue isn't copyrighted by Landmark, and to the extent the video includes Landmark's copyrighted material, such use is self-evidently fair use. EFF filed objections to these bogus subpoenas on behalf of the Internet Archive and the Google Video uploader. YouTube sent notification to the user about its subpoena and is giving the user a reasonable opportunity to move to legally nullify, or 'quash,' it." Link (Thanks, Derek!)

Two Tim Biskup Paintings stolen In Berlin

By Mark Frauenfelder at 1:37 pm Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Two paintings by Southern California artist Tim Biskup were recently stolen off the walls of an art gallery in Berlin, Germany. The theft happened on or around October 14th, 2006. The gallery, Gallery Engler, was open at the time.

Here are the details of the missing pieces along with URL links to images. (Click on thumbnails for enlargement)

“Scatterbrain”

Cel Vinyl Acrylic On Wood

10.5” x 7.5”

“Monster”

Cel Vinyl Acrylic On Wood

12” x 10”

Please help in any way you can. Post the information online and of course, if you hear or see anything about where these painting might be contact Tim Biskup's publishing company, Flopdoodle INC. by email.

Two Little Savages: Gutenberg book pick

By Mark Frauenfelder at 12:15 pm Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Kaden Harris says:

I grew up in the country; my dad was a conservation officer in Ontario for 35 years, and he *knew* the great outdoors. Sometime in the mid '60s he gave me a copy of Ernest Thompson Seton's Two Little Savages. Adventures, common sense, philosophy, woodlore, respect for the environment and indigenous people, and *lots* of makin' stuff: Two kids from disparate backgrounds living as "Indians" in the early 1900's. Why this book isn't a constant kidslit best seller speak volumes about post millennial society in a way that saddens me deeply. Thankfully, it's in the common domain.
(It's worth noting that while the book contains many admirable elements, its title and characterization of Native American people would now be widely acknowledged as racist. Like other artifacts of this period, this book reflects the popular culture of its time.)

Link

Reader comment:

Ben says: Along with Robert Baden Powell, Seton is the lesser-known co-founder the Boy Scouts of America. This old Outside Magazine article gives some insight into Seton and his Little Savages.

Griffith Observatory re-opens in LA: videos, photos, audio

By Xeni Jardin at 10:50 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

93 million miles: distance from Earth to the Sun.
93 million dollars: cost of transforming the Griffith Observatory.

After five years of darkness, Hollywood's historic Griffith Observatory re-opened yesterday with much hoopla, and many happy nerds.

------------------------------
TINY VIDEOS shot with a tiny camera:
* Ribbon cutting with Mayor Villaraigosa (0:27)
* Zeiss 12" refracting telescope (2:41)
* A walk on the roof, with Jen Collins. (2:07)

PHOTOS: Link to Flickr photoset.
------------------------------

I went to the ribbon-cutting ceremony with my pal Jen Collins, who art directed a documentary about the reconstruction (which stars Leonard Nimoy who was present, too).

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Observatory director E.C. Krupp, and a host of celebs and politicians were there speechifying. But the real stars in the house were all the astronomers and old-school science buffs, some of whom were part of the Observatory's history since its early days.

Jen and I wandered around and drooled over the Zeiss 12" refracting telescope, the Tesla Coil, the camera obscura, and lots of amazing hands-on astronomy exhibits. Thankfully, the extreme makeover left the spirit of this beautiful 1930s site intact.

My grandfather Leo J. Scanlon was an amateur astronomer. He was a "maker." Born to an Irish immigrant family in Pittsburgh, PA, he made his living as a plumber but used to dumpster-dive in steel mills and glass factories with pals, scavenging glass and metal to build telescopes and backyard observatories. He built the world's first aluminum-domed observatory in Pittsburgh, and Einstein came to visit it once. His observatory was torn down, but I have a marker and an asteroid to remember him by.

Yesterday at the opening ceremony, Griffith Observatory resident Astronomical Observer Tony Cook told me one of the astronomers involved in the original design of this site was part of the same amateur astronomy scene as my beloved "pop-pop," during the Great Depression. They may even have been friends. I can't wait to learn more about the history those two men shared.

A love of the stars connected them back in the '30s, when Griffith Observatory was built. That same love still connects me and my grandfather, even now that he has left this planet to join those far-away specks of light.

David "eecue" Bullock from blogging.la was there at the Observatory opening, too. Here are his pics from the grand opening yesterday: Link. Here is his photoset of HDR pics from a tour last week: Link. Here is audio he captured of Villaraigosa and others, during the ribbon cutting ceremony: MP3 Link.

Tech notes: video and stills shot with the itty bitty Canon Powershot SD360, photos and video edited with iMovie and iPhoto. Linux users: if the embedded video above makes your browswer farty, try the new Flash 9 beta which includes Linux support: Link. (Thanks, Micki Krimmel and Steven Starr / Revver.com)

Reader comment: Jim Winstead says,

As the page you linked to says, "Since opening in 1935, more than seven million people have put an eye to Griffith Observatory's original 12-inch Zeiss refracting telescope." What is new is an attached telescope (or two?) that allows a live video feed to be shown down in the main building, for guests who can't (or don't want to) make the climb to the telescope. Link

David Friedman says,

What? A whole article about Griffith Observatory and its history, but no mention of the fact that it figured prominently in "Rebel Without a Cause"? You must be saving that for an "Observatory Zen" entry, huh? Here's the famous fight scene at the observatory: video Link. (look for Dennis Hopper in the background at 1:48 into the clip) This follows a lengthy scene inside the observatory, but alas there is no clip on the YouTube.

Naked man with secreted awl arrested

By David Pescovitz at 10:24 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

John Sheehan, 33, was arrested yesterday near a train station in El Cerrito, California after police responded to reports that he was lying on a tree stump masturbating. When police asked Sheehan whether he was carrying anything like a weapon, he responded that he had an awl stored in his ass. Police were planning to bring Sheehan to the emergency room but he kindly removed the tool himself before an ambulance was called. From the Contra Costa Times:

Mindful that a 6-inch metal awl wrapped in black electrical tape could be used as a weapon, officers kept their weapons trained on the 33-year-old.

Sheehan went quietly afterward, without explanation.

Sheehan was paroled from state prison last week... Police booked him into County Jail in Martinez on suspicion of parole violations, indecent exposure and one felony count of possessing a concealed weapon.

Link (Thanks, Tess Hand-Bender!)

Animals that play dead

By David Pescovitz at 10:02 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Why do some animals play dead when threatened by a predator? The commonly held belief is that many animals including snakes, bison, chickens, rabbits, and, of course, opposum act dead to discourage those who would eat them. Recent research suggests that this isn't always the case. For example, the Parachromis friedrichsthalii fish acts dead in order to hunt. Smaller fish move in to take a nibble and wham! Other animals, such as hognose snakes, do exhibit what scientists call "tonic immobility" upon sensing a predator, sometimes delivering an Oscar-worthy performance. From Science News:

When a hognose snake that's facing a predator flips belly-up, its mouth opens and stays agape, sometimes oozing drops of blood. And the snake defecates or otherwise releases an unappetizing smell. "It's spectacular," says Gordon Burghardt of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Grossly dead as the animal may look, Burghardt and Harry Greene, now at Cornell University, found that it's paying attention. Even snakes just 2 weeks old resurrect themselves sooner when a nearby human is looking away from them rather than directly at them.

Europe's grass snake puts on an even more realistic death act, says Patrick Gregory of the University of Victoria in British Columbia. When he caught his first grass snake years ago in France, it went limp. "I thought I'd accidentally killed it," he says. A death-feigning grass snake stays in character, not flopping back to its original position after it is turned over.

The relationships among the great range of freezing behaviors have yet to be clarified. "I see them as part of a continuum," Burghardt says.

Many questions remain: Are some of the activities seizures? A mental meltdown in response to disorientation? And how do some feigners remain conscious of vital details such as the gazes of observers?

Link

Creationist Dr. Dino goes to jail

By David Pescovitz at 9:41 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Kent "Dr. Dino" Hovind, founder of Creation Science Evangelism and the Dinosaur Adventure Land creationist theme park in Florida ("where Dinosaurs and the Bible meet!"), and his wife face more than 200 years in jail for tax fraud. (Previous post with background here.) Yesterday, Dr. Dino was found guilty on 58 counts, including not paying an $845,000 employee-related tax bill. From the Pensacola News Journal:

U.S. District Judge Casey Rodgers released Jo Hovind until sentencing but denied Kent Hovind's request to be released. He most likely will be detained at either Escambia County Jail or Santa Rosa County Jail until sentencing.

(Assistant US Attorney Michelle) Heldmyer said Kent Hovind was a flight risk and a "danger to the community."

His attorney, Alan Richey, argued that the Internal Revenue Service pursued his client because of his religious beliefs.

Kent Hovind, whose life's mission is to debunk evolution, says he and his employees are workers of God and therefore exempt from paying taxes. He pays his employees in cash and does not withhold their taxes or pay his share as an employer.

Link to Pensacola News Journal article, Link to Scientific American's "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense"

UPDATE: At Cryptomundo, Loren Coleman draws the link between Dr. Dino and cryptozoology. It seems that Hovind has been funding a search for Mokele-mbembe because, Loren writes, "He felt if he could prove that a living dinosaur species existed, it would overthrow evolution. Of course, such a discovery would do no such thing, and there are many 'prehistoric' species that exist little changed today." Link

Microsoft orphans suckers who bought DRM music

By Cory Doctorow at 7:19 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Brent sez, "MSN Music is shutting down, in favor of pushing Zune and Real Rhapsody for their 'Buy Now' links. News.com says MSN Music files won't play on Zune or Rhapsody, and there's no upgrade path."

As for those who have bought MSN Music tracks, Microsoft said on its Web site that users will still be able to use their songs, transfer them to compatible music players and burn them to CD.

You were a sucker if you bought MSN Music tracks. You're a masochist if you buy Zune tracks.

Link (Thanks, Brent!)

Timeline of words used in Presidential speeches (1776 - 2006)

By Mark Frauenfelder at 6:56 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Chirag has analyzed "the words that presidents used frequently in their speeches shows which issues they deemed important. The prominence of 'Terrorist' in G. W. Bush's tag cloud is unsurprising while Richard Nixon was all about 'commitment' somehow. Move the slider around to see the changes in tag cloud. Link

Voice mails are from Haggard, says voice expert

By Mark Frauenfelder at 6:35 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

The Pastor Ted Haggard scandal now includes sex and drugs. (See previous post here.)

Richard Sanders, a voice expert who worked on the Oklahoma bombing, JonBenet Ramsey murder, and Kobe Bryant cases, says voicemails left on a gay escort's answering machine belong to megachurch pastor and Bush ally Ted Haggard.

The voice mails for from a man who calls himself "Art." It should be noted Haggard's middle name is Arthur.

The first voice message, left on August 4 at 2:18 p.m., says:

"Hi Mike, this is Art. Hey, I was just calling to see if we could get any more. Either $100 or $200 supply. And I could pick it up really anytime I could get it tomorrow or we could wait till next week sometime and so I also wanted to get your address. I could send you some money for inventory but that's probably not working, so if you have it then go ahead and get what you can and I may buzz up there later today, but I doubt your schedule would allow that unless you have some in the house. Okay, I'll check in with you later. Thanks a lot, bye."

The second voice message, left on August 4 at 5:10 p.m., says:

"Hi Mike, this is Art, I am here in Denver and sorry that I missed you. But as I said, if you want to go ahead and get the stuff, then that would be great. And I'll get it sometime next week or the week after or whenever. I will call though you early next week to see what's most convenient for you. Okay? Thanks a lot, bye."

Jones claims Art is referring to methamphetamine in the messages.

Also, according to the Non-Prophet blog, the New Life Church Board of overseers has sent an email to members of the church mailing list that states that Haggard has confessed to at least some of the charges:

Since that time, the board of overseers has met with Pastor Ted. It is important for you to know that he confessed to the overseers that some of the accusations against him are true. He has willingly and humbly submitted to the authority of the board of overseers, and will remain on administrative leave during the course of the investigation.

Link | Video of Haggard speaking to Channel 9 in Denver | Video with voice mail allegedly left by Haggard

Daniel C. Dennett: "Thank Goodness!"

By Xeni Jardin at 5:23 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Philosopher and atheist Daniel C. Dennett, author of "Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon," recently had a close brush with death.

An ambulance sped him to a hospital, where a C-T scan revealed he had a dissection of the aorta. The lining of the main output vessel carrying blood from his heart was torn, creating a two-channel pipe where there should be one.

Some of the people who loved him prayed for him during his recovery. He responds to those friends in this essay, thanking "goodness," not God, and explains why.

As I now enter a gentle period of recuperation, I have much to reflect on, about the harrowing experience itself and even more about the flood of supporting messages I've received since word got out about my latest adventure. Friends were anxious to learn if I had had a near-death experience, and if so, what effect it had had on my longstanding public atheism. Had I had an epiphany? Was I going to follow in the footsteps of Ayer (who recovered his aplomb and insisted a few days later "what I should have said is that my experiences have weakened, not my belief that there is no life after death, but my inflexible attitude towards that belief"), or was my atheism still intact and unchanged?

Yes, I did have an epiphany. I saw with greater clarity than ever before in my life that when I say "Thank goodness!" this is not merely a euphemism for "Thank God!" (We atheists don't believe that there is any God to thank.) I really do mean thank goodness! There is a lot of goodness in this world, and more goodness every day, and this fantastic human-made fabric of excellence is genuinely responsible for the fact that I am alive today. It is a worthy recipient of the gratitude I feel today, and I want to celebrate that fact here and now.

Link (thanks, John Brockman)

US shuts down online nuke guide

By Xeni Jardin at 5:13 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Jeff says,

The New York Times is reporting that the feds have shut down the Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal (old Link) due to concerns from weapons experts that the "papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs."

One diplomat is quoted as saying, “If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things.” I was able to find indexes to older (less sensitive) documents (and some html from pdfs) still cached at Google tonight. Rep. Pete Hoekstra pushed for the public release of the archive (Wiki link) to help determine "whether Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction or hid or transferred them". Critics have said the archive was created to perpetuate misinformation about WMDs (Salon link, subscription required) .

This is sure to reignite the debate over which party is best protecting the country's national security interests.

Link (found via TalkingPointsMemo)

Vista license improves, but still broken

By Cory Doctorow at 12:50 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Even as Microsoft announces that it has reconsidered the crippling restrictions on reinstalling its new operating system Vista (the original terms stated that you could only reinstall once before it locked up and died), SecurityFocus's Scott Granneman details more damning restrictions in the Vista license. When you unwrap your copy of Vista, you "agree" not to publish damning information about the OS -- benchmarks, security vulnerabilities -- except under terms dictated by Microsoft (and those terms can change at any time).

This is a piece of software that comes with a gag order.

Granneman covers other ways in which the Vista "agreement" takes away the freedom you'd assume you'd get when you shell out your hard-earned dough for a product. The key here is that Microsoft, and innumerable others, have elevated the user license to a high art. Practically every vendor now believes that it can turn a sale into a "license" just by putting a sticker on the package that says, "by opening this box, you agree."

Real agreements are negotiated. You and I sit down at a table and hammer it out. Real agreements aren't "subject to change without notice." Real agreements don't make you agree not to sue for negligence. Real agreements don't make you agree to treat your property as if it still belonged to the guy who sold it to you.

This is an obscene legal fiction, for if all it takes to form an agreement is to announce that it has been formed, then the very idea of legitimate agreement is dead. How can you have a social contract if the notion of contract has been strangled by innumerable shrinkwraps, clickwraps, and EULAs?

The draconian limitations I've discussed could only be enacted by a monopoly unafraid of alienating its users, as it feels they have no other alternative. Microsoft may yet learn, however, that there are limits to what its users will bear.

Link to Vista license analysis, Link to changes in Vista reinstall license (via /.)

See also:
Vista licence: Microsoft's abusive relationship with you
Vista license only lets you reinstall your OS on new PCs twice

Phishers send out pink-slips

By Cory Doctorow at 12:34 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

A phishing scam caught a number of employees at the Dekalb Medical Center in Decatur, GA. They were sent what appeared to be notices from their employer, telling them they were fired, with a link to a "career counselling site." Loading the site installed a keylogger on your computer.

Called targeted spam or spear phishing, this type of spam that’s currently on the rise is particularly vexing because the spammer is able to “spoof” the sending e-mail address to make it look like it’s coming from within the organization of the recipient, making it difficult for spam filters to catch. And, unlike traditional spam that is sent in the thousands, spammers are sending just handfuls of these messages at a time, again making it difficult for antispam technology to detect.

Link (via /.)

Laptop stand with integrated keyboard and USB ports

By Cory Doctorow at 12:09 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

The forthcoming Logitech Alto laptop stand is a nice compromise between a dock and just plunking your lappie down on your desk. The stand comes with a full-sized keyboard and three extra USB ports. Folds away when you're done, too. Link (via Wonderland)

Cardboard box maze spans two rooms and a hallway

By Cory Doctorow at 12:02 am Friday, Nov 3 • Comments • Share

Flickr user Daniel W lovingly documents his wonderful Hallowe'en cardboard maze: "Constructed out of cardboard boxes, duct tape, and 300 bolts. The maze spans two rooms and a hallway." Link (via Make Blog)

Update: Jennifer sends us a link to box rivets -- "For building box mazes (work on coroplast, too) way better than bolts!"