By Xeni Jardin at 8:22 pm Thursday, Nov 9
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Kevin Poulsen at Wired News' 27bStroke6 blog writes:
The president's choice for new defense secretary believes in "cyberterrorism." From this 2004 AP article:
Cyberterrorism could be the most devastating weapon of mass destruction yet and could cripple the U.S. economy, former CIA Director Robert Gates said at a terrorism conference Saturday.
We interrupt this block quote to say: please!, let that be hyperbole by the AP, and not an accurate reflection of what's in our next defense secretary's head. Continuing ...
Gates, who became Texas A&M University's president in 2002 about a decade after he left the CIA, cited as an example the "love bug" virus that overwhelmed computer systems around the world in 2000.
"When a teenage hacker in the Philippines overnight can wreak $10 billion in damage to the U.S. economy by implanting a virus, imagine what a sophisticated, well-funded effort to attack the computer base of our economy could accomplish," said Gates, addressing the two-day conference at Rice University.
Link
Reader comment: Nelson Cunnington says,
All it takes is one determined Cyberman (or Cyberwoman). But he shouldn't worry, they always attack the UK first.
By David Pescovitz at 8:14 pm Thursday, Nov 9
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Japanese European lingerie company Triumph is showing off a concept bra
in Japan that can be transformed into a shopping bag. The aim is to discourage the use of environmentally-harmful plastic bags. Triumph has no plans to take the bra to market. From the AFP:
Lingerie maker Triumph has regularly designed bras aimed at drawing attention to social issues and to raise its own profile. Last year it unveiled a bra that can be heated in a microwave so as to help save on indoor heating costs.
The "Bra Rangers" -- named in a nod to the television characters that morph into superheroes -- come with matching underwear whose pocket has the inscribed message, "No more plastic bags!"
The bra-turned-bag is made of polyester fiber created through recycling. The bra straps can be tied onto the bag as ribbons.
Link (Thanks, Natalie Zee Drieu via Coquette!)
By Cory Doctorow at 7:23 pm Thursday, Nov 9
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Nathanael sez, "Peter Kirn of Create Digital Music has a devastating critique of just why Universal & Microsoft's new agreement for profit sharing on Zune
hardware sales is bad for music and a dangerous precedent."
1. Instead of license fees covering music, they’ll cover audio hardware – with no music involved.
2. Instead of license fees being paid to the musicians, they’ll be paid to the record label. One (large, corporate) label.
3. Instead of a fair, standard license fee, that license fee will be negotiated independently by individual labels. Arbitrarily.
4. Hardware manufacturers, who theoretically ought to profit off a product they design, manufacture, market, and distribute, will now have to share those profits with a separate company that wasn’t involved in the hardware at all.
Link
(
Thanks, Nathanael!)
By Mark Frauenfelder at 7:03 pm Thursday, Nov 9
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Here's a message from Anita Coyoli-Cullen, co founder of Ukes for Troops, an organization that sends ukuleles to soldiers stationed overseas:
I just got back from a week in Hawaii. While I was there I got a telephone call from the producer of the CBS Nighttime News with Katie Couric. Boy, was I excited. I had her call Shirley Orlando, my partner, back in California. It seems that CBS does this thing where you vote about what topic you want to see developed, and they want Ukes for Troops to be one of the shows.
So, on Friday, November 10, 2006 please watch the CBS news with Katie Couric and when they provide you with a list of 3 topics that you would want to see developed, please vote for 'Ukes for Troops'. If we win, then they will come out to Shirley's store, Island Bazaar, in Huntington Beach, on Tuesday, November 14th, and tape the story. Please let me know if you need more information. Please pass this on to everyone you know -- Anita Coyoli-Cullen, Co-founder of Ukes for Troops
Gary says: "As if things couldn't get any cooler, I just learned that Anita has been named as a winner of the Bank of America Local Hero Award. The award will be presented to Anita at a banquet being held on Thursday, November 16, 2006, at the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim Stadium in the Diamond Club. The presentation will begin at 11am and end by 2pm. Woo hoo! Way to go, Anita! Can anyone in SoCal spearhead a contingent from the ukulele community to turn out in Anita's honor? Email me if you'd like to volunteer, and I'll post info on how people can meet up with you here on
Ukulelia."
By Mark Frauenfelder at 3:24 pm Thursday, Nov 9
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Coop is participating in La Carerra Panamerica race and has been taking tons of great photos of his adventure.
Link
By Mark Frauenfelder at 12:01 pm Thursday, Nov 9
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Here's a
video of Lou Reed performing at Web 2.0 last night. And here's a
review of the performance.
So Lou Reed gets on stage with two accompanying musicians, flanked by large video screens zoomed in directly on his weathered face. He begins playing a song to the buttoned down and sitting down Web 2.0 crowd. Meanwhile there’s an audible drone of people talking in the back of the large room.
Between songs Lou looks pissed, but I think that’s normal. He tells the crowd, “You can keep on talking, I’ve only got 20 minutes. Or I can turn up the music. I can turn it up so loud it will hurt. Do you want me to turn it up? Do you want me to make it hurt?” (rough paraphrase). How awkward.
He’s met with some faint cheering/clapping to turn it up, so over the mike to his sound guy, he growls, “Frank turn it up!” Frank probably thought he was joking. Lou repeats himself once or twice: “Frank, turn it up, Frank turn up the sound!”
Link
By David Pescovitz at 11:15 am Thursday, Nov 9
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This grainy black-and-white photo was one of the first images of Earth taken from space. It was snapped on October 24, 1946 from a V-2 missile at an altitude of 65 miles. The V-2 was launched from the White Sands Missile Range in south central New Mexico.
From Air & Space magazine:
More than 1,000 Earth pictures were returned from V-2s between 1946 and 1950, from altitudes as high as 100 miles. The photos, showing huge expanses of the American southwest, appeared in newspapers and were scrutinized by scientists from the U.S. Weather Bureau. In his (1950) National Geographic article, (Clyde) Holliday, (who developed the camera that captured the images), offered a few predictions as to where it all might lead: "Results of these tests now are pointing to a time when cameras may be mounted on guided missiles for scouting enemy territory in war, mapping inaccessible regions of the earth in peacetime, and even photographing cloud formations, storm fronts, and overcast areas over an entire continent in a few hours." Going out on a limb, he speculated that "the entire land area of the globe might be mapped in this way."
Link
By Mark Frauenfelder at 11:10 am Thursday, Nov 9
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Merlin of
43 Folders wrote a funny review of a PBS program called
Animals Behaving Worse.
I’m not much of a fan of nature programs, and regrettably, Animals Behaving Worse did not erect my flagging interest. In fact, I only made it through two of the program’s segments (crazy squirrels steal yellow ribbons! mischievous foxes steal newspapers!) before slinking back to reruns of The Office on BBC America.
...
I suspect that if I’d stayed tuned, I would have learned how human encroachment into wildlife areas has led to a modern race of super-angry grizzlies, ants that breathe battery acid, and cunning labradoodles who quietly switch the decaf pot at your local Denny’s — as well as, of course, those increasingly evolved, boat-entering stingrays that we read about so often in today’s headlines. Fascinating, all.
Link
By Xeni Jardin at 10:33 am Thursday, Nov 9
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BB reader
Doran says, "60 Minutes correspondent
Ed Bradley has died. He was one of my very few journalistic heroes. He will be greatly missed. But he also leaves a tremendous legacy."
Link. More
here (
thanks, AV and others)
By David Pescovitz at 9:04 am Thursday, Nov 9
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The editors of
Macworld seem to have recently had a craving for edible imagery. This month's issue features: Oreo Picture Cookies (seen here), Oreos dipped in white chocolate, printed with edible ink, and then sprinkled with sprinkles; and Sugar Craft's service where you send a digital image, they print it in icing, and ship it to you for installation on your own baked goods. Not just any photo will do though. According to the site, it's "IMPORTANT" that "If using a photo taken by a professional photographer you must acquire a release statement." Gimmeabreak. Of course, if someone sues, you can always eat the evidence.
Link to Lady Fortunes' picture cookies,
Link to Sugar Craft's edible pictures
By David Pescovitz at 8:45 am Thursday, Nov 9
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In another sad example of robots taking jobs away from our nation's eager teens, Segway introduced its x2 Golf model. It's really just the $5,500 x2 all-terrain transporter tricked out for the links. Personally, I'm waiting for a Segway baby stroller. From the x2 Golf product page:
* Golf Bag Carrier Attachment secures your golf bag to the Segway x2 Golf and allows for easy dismount and club access while playing. Removes easily for storage and transport
* Scorecard Holder keeps your scorecard, golf balls, and tees readily accessible
Link (via Gizmodo)
By David Pescovitz at 8:27 am Thursday, Nov 9
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Researchers at Denmark's Innovation Lab and collaborators have created the first computer screen fashioned from transparent concrete. Heavy. The display was constructed with students Christoffer Dupont and Lene Langballe along with concrete manufacturing company Dalton Beton. Check out the video or see the screen live at the I-Lab's
Next 2006 event in December. From the Innovation Lab project page:
The screen consists of concrete with embedded optical fibres, arranged as pixels, capable of transmitting natural as well as artificial light. The light-admission points are on the back of the screen where the fibres are positioned. The light, or the picture, will then be displayed in pixels on the front. The light source can be a projector emitting either pictures or film footage. In principle, the screen is capable of acting as a window since – owing to the combination of the screen concept's light-absorption and optical cables – it has a capacity for transmitting natural light.
Link (Thanks, Sean Ness!)
UPDATE: Alberto Gaitán reminded me of the translucent concrete featured in an exhibit about new trends in concrete that I blogged about in 2004.
Link
By Xeni Jardin at 8:02 am Thursday, Nov 9
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An unnamed 22-year old soldier who recently returned from Iraq inserted a rocket in a place where the sun does not shine. "The man, whose injuries include a scorched colon, is still in hospital."
Link, and
another. (
thanks, Angstrom)
By Xeni Jardin at 7:34 am Thursday, Nov 9
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Eric Silva was one of a number of BoingBoing readers who pointed us to documents about the Iran-Contra affair involvement of Robert Gates, who has been chosen to replace outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Robert M. Gates has his own chapter in the official Iran-Contra affair court documents by independent counsel Lawrence E. Walsh. This is by far the best description of his involvement in the Iran-Contra affair I've read: Link.
And this is a New York Times editorial from 1991 on Robert Gates: Link to "The Once and Future C.I.A."
Reader comment: Charles Lai says,
As much as Gates’ links to Iran-Contra might taint his background, I think it’s the best change we could ask for at the moment with George Bush in power. Have your read the Slate article on Gates yet? Link. Rumsfeld was so bad in so many ways. Gates as a replacement will lead to more sensible decisions regarding our nation’s defense and Iraq.
Ian says,
While Gates might be very competent, when you learn more about the Contras (Wikipedia page: Link) you have to wonder about the ethics of anyone involved with Iran-Contra. Anyone who is concerned about the disregard Rumsfeld has shown for justice and human rights in Iraq can probably expect more of the same from Gates, though maybe as a more competent leader he'll be more careful that only our proxies in the Middle East do the torturing on our behalf.
Bill says,
I'm not exactly sure about the Iran-Contra affair, but I am a student a Texas A&M University, and he's done an amazing job for the few years that we've had him as President of the University. He will be missed, but if his work here is any sign, I certainly think he will do a great job in his new position.
By Xeni Jardin at 7:21 am Thursday, Nov 9
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Jason Kottke writes,
A couple of days ago, I pointed to a patent filed by the Flickr folks for the concept of interestingness. I should have poked around a bit more because there's a related patent filed by the Flickr and Josh Schachter of del.icio.us concerning "media object metadata association and ranking". I'm not a big fan of software patents, but even so, I can't see the new, useful, nonobvious invention here. I also find it odd that these patents reference exactly zero prior inventions on which they are based...compare with Larry Page's patent for PageRank.
Link (
thanks, Amit)
By David Pescovitz at 7:12 am Thursday, Nov 9
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Rosamond Purcell, photographer, collage artist, and keeper of an incredible
wunderkammer, has a new book out,
Bookworm, celebrating the decay of old books and their beauty as raw material in curious collages. (Seen here is
Book for Fishes.) Slate is hosting a slide show and essay by Amanda Schaffer about Rosamond's work over the years. From the essay:
Over the years, Boston artist Rosamond Purcell has photographed goliath beetles and translucent bats culled from the backrooms of natural history museums; a collection of teeth pulled by Peter the Great; moles flayed by naturalist Willem Cornelis van Heurn; and scores of worn and weathered objects, like the termite-eaten book and fish skeleton at right.
Purcell is fixed, in other words, on the state of decay. This bent is evident in her exceptional new volume, Bookworm, which recasts mangled texts as works of art. If Purcell seems always to look backward, she is also strikingly tuned to present-day obsessions–especially our fascination with repurposing. Aggregating curiosities and favorites, both our own and others', is a prominent feature of sites like del.icio.us, MySpace, and YouTube. The effect is part curation and part spectacle.
Link to slide show,
Link to buy Bookworm
UPDATE: At his Boston Globe
blog, Joshua Glenn points out that Rosamond's work appears in the current issue of National Geographic illustrating Carl Zimmer's article on evolution, titled "A Fin Is A Limb Is A Wing."
Link to photo gallery,
Link to article
By Cory Doctorow at 5:39 am Thursday, Nov 9
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The audio from Fred von Lohmann's
talk at USC on Tuesday is online. Fred is the senior IP attorney at the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and his talk, "DRM: What is it good for" was presented to a great crowd as part of my Canada-US Fulbright Chair lecture series at the USC Center for Public Diplomacy. As with previous speakers, we lucked into great audio support from Mike Jones and Andy Sternberg, USC students who are also cracking audio engineers and podcasters.
Link,
Link to MP3,
Podcast feed link
