The developers of Joost, formerly known as the Venice Project, have just released the beta for Intel Macs.

Link.

Previously on BB:

Skype founders' internet TV project goes beta

Venice Project, internet TV thing, becomes Joost.

Oort Cloud is a new "social publishing" experiment for science fiction. Authors put their work online for critique, improve their work, participate in discussions, etc. The site uses RSS feeds, tag clouds and other Web 2.0 nift to keep it all together.

For writers, Oort-Cloud offers....

A place to share experiences in writing, publishing and help one another in dealing with the challenging decisions associated with copyright.

A place to reach out to readers, develop stronger ties to them, find new ones, and keep them up-to-date about new and coming works.

A place to learn what ideas and issues readers are interested in.

A place to help readers understand the issues concerning writers, especially in light of intellectual property issues.

A place to share opinions about trends in science-fiction and encounter new ideas that might inspire new creativity.

Link

The author of ForestBlog, a blogging tool, has discovered that the MPAA was using his code in violation of his license. He gives the code away for free, but requires that users link back to his site and keep his name on the software. The MPAA deleted all credits and copyright notices from his work, and used it without permission. They ripped him off:

Way back in October last year whilst going through the website referals list for another of my sites I stumbled across this link. That's right, my blogging software is being used by the MPAA (Motion picture Association of America); probably one of the most hated organisations known to the internet. Cool, I thought, until I had a look around and saw that all of the back links to my main site had been removed with nary a mention in the source code!

Now, as Patrick Robin (the software author) notes, this probably wasn't the outcome of a high-level board meeting wherein the executive committee decided to rip him off. It was more likely the work of a lazy Web person at the MPAA who was cutting corners at work.

But the MPAA believes that employers should be held responsible for employees' copyright infringements. They want you to know that if you download movies at work, your employer will also be named in the suit. Infringe as we say, not as we do.

This reminds me of Warner Music chief Edgar Bronfman, Jr's admission that his kids downloaded infringing music. He shrugged it off, saying that he'd dealt with the matter privately. Other parents are not so lucky: when their kids get caught downloading music, the RIAA sues them for every penny, through a thuggish boiler-room operation.

Copyright law is hard. It used to only govern relations between giant industrial players. Copyright didn't regulate reading an interesting tidbit from the newspaper for a friend. It didn't regulate watching movies. But now, sharing a newspaper article with a friend (by blogging it) involves copying, and so triggers copyright. Now watching a movie (by downloading it) involves copying, so it triggers copyright. The rules that are supposed to be interpreted by lawyers at Fortune 100 companies now apply to every single kid working on a project for her class's website.

This is like having to file with the SEC every time you loan a buddy $5 for lunch.

Even the MPAA and its member companies can't avoid violating copyright. The MPAA's own CEO personally ripped off Kirby Dick, pirating his film "This Film is Not Yet Rated" using the MPAA's duplicating facilities. The studios regularly hose writers, painters, composers and performers, nicking their creative labor without compensation, and sneeringly invite them to sue if they don't like it. Even the web-development departments get in on the act.

Is it any wonder that everyone with a computer is practically guaranteed to be a copyright criminal? Link (Thanks, Mike!)

David recently had an epiphany: navigating the NY Union Square subway station is like playing the Death Star level of the Star Wars arcade game. He's even made a video to demonstrate the point.

Whenever I walk through the Union Square subway station, I have to navigate through all these vertical I-Beams that are all over the place. It always reminds me of something, but I couldn’t figure out what. Finally it dawned on me. It’s the first stage of the Death Star level in the Star Wars arcade game.

Link (via Kottke)

Flickr user CanikFotos has sets of photos (1, 2) of the haunting, dead-future "Desolation Row" housing development in Taiwan. The development -- which resembles a rotting, zombified version of the Monsanto House of the Future from Disneyland -- was never finished, and has sat empty for all these years, going to wrack and ruin. Link

Warren Ellis ventured into the "Seclimine Drug Shack" in Second Life and discovered a virtual drug that is reputed to get both you and your avatar high. Snow Crash arrives in the metaverse.

While your avatar is staggering and lurching under an animation replicating the outer effects of necking a handful of foul pills that some nerve-damage case mixed up in a bathtub and probably cut with talcum powder and rat poison, motion graphics and audio launch to commence a hypnotic induction. The inductive system is intended to, from what I can gather, get you good and dopey, disoriented, and wondering why the walls are melting and the floor is made of meat.

The whole experience apparently takes half an hour. That, sadly, was half an hour I didn’t have this week. So go down to Seclimine Drug Shack and get good and messed up for me.

Link (via Warren Ellis)

Wikipedia's list of unboundedly long songs ("songs...that continue until the singer decides (or is forced) to stop) has some real gems that appeal to my inner repetitious repeater.

Repeating songs
* "10 Green Bottles"
* "99 Bottles of Beer"
* "Bingo"
* "Brother for Sale" by the Olsen Twins
* "Here We Go"
* "Ivan's in the Garden"
* "Michael Finnigan"
* "I Know A Song That'll Get On Your Nerves"
* "The Song That Never Ends"
* "There's a Hole in My Bucket"
* "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt"
* "Found a Peanut"
* "Rabbit Ain't Got No Tail At All"
* "We're Going to Bonnie Doon"
* "I Know A Song That Gets On Everybody's Nerves
* "We've Got Spirit, Yes We Do"
* "The Diarrhea Song"
* "Stay on the Happy Side"
* "Yon yonson"
* "Coin Operated Boy" by the Dresden Dolls

Link (via Kottke)

In this hilarious youtube clipped from the Norwegian show "Øystein & Meg" a monk and a "help-desk" rep from a high-tech book company go back and forth on the proper use of a book, going through a series of misunderstandings as the monk grapples with the way that the book is different from his beloved scrolls. Link (via Lawgeek)

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: fine art mashed up with cartoons. Mona Jessica -- heaven! Link

A guy who tried to hijack a plane going from Africa to the Canary Islands was ambushed by flight attendants and passengers (with help from the pilots), had scalding water dashed in his face, and was then pounced on and beaten.

Speaking to the gunman during the hijacking, the pilot realized the man did not speak French. So he used the plane’s public address system to warn the passengers in French of the ploy he was going to try: brake hard upon landing, then speed up abruptly. The idea was to catch the hijacker off balance, and have crew members and men sitting in the front rows of the plane jump on him, the Spanish official said.

The pilot also warned women and children to move to the back of the plane in preparation for the subterfuge, the official said.

It worked. The man was standing in the middle aisle when the pilot carried out his maneuver, and he fell to the floor, dropping one of his two 7mm pistols. Flight attendants then threw boiling water from a coffee machine in his face and at his chest, and some 10 people jumped on the man and beat him, the Spanish official said.

Link (Thanks, John!)

NASA is investigating the use of a protein found in human ear-hair as a means of powering space suits. The protein converts motion into electrical energy -- and if it's augmented with an electricity-conducting microbe, it could form self-healing, semi-living "skins" that convert Martian wind and even the jogging and walking of astronauts into juice.

They are focusing on a protein called prestin, which is found in the outer hair cells of the human ear. In the cell membranes of these cells, prestin converts electrical voltage into motion, elongating and contracting the cell. This movement amplifies sound in the ear.

However, prestin can also work in reverse, producing electrical charges in response to mechanical stresses, such as tiny vibrations. Each protein is only capable of making nanowatts of electricity, but Matthew Silver and Kranthi Vistakula, both of IntAct Labs, believe that many proteins used together may be able to power small devices or help charge a battery...

But eventually, they say networks of the proteins could form 'power skins' to coat spacesuits, so that the astronauts' natural movement would be able to generate power for their equipment. The skins could also wrap around buildings on the Red Planet, where gusts of wind would activate prestin.

Link (via Futurismic)

Wellington Grey has two flowcharts, explaining the scientific method and the "faith" method. For science, you get an idea, try it out empirically, evaluate it in the face of new evidence, and modify your idea accordingly. For faith, you get an idea, you believe in it. Link (via Plasticbag)

Serial internet music developer Rob Lord says, "Here's an actual screenshot from The New York Times website tonight. A divided congress? More like a SLAYER congress."

JPEG Link of full screengrab.

Ah, but if Congress only had *half* as much of a pulse as this photo suggests. The Times has corrected the mixup, and in this photo's place, you'll now see a shot of Speaker Nancy Pelosi waving what might just be the corna handsign at fellow heshers. You'll find the Slayer story here.

Reader comments: Congressional watchdog Sean Bonner says,

REIGN IN BLOOOOD!1!111!!! [ Ed. note: about that. ]

BB reader LA Marlowe reminds us that "satan hands" have been documented on Capitol Hill many times before: Link.

A pet slider turtle named Pepper managed to survive after a golden retriever scarfed it down. Shelby Terihay, 12, of Brandon, Florida, noticed that one of her turtles had been snatched out of the bathtub by her dog Bella. Following a vet's advice, Bella's parents made the dog vomit. Even after 10 minutes in the dog's stomach, Pepper suffered only a shattered shell that the vet managed to patch up. From the Associated Press:

"The turtle would definitely have caused an obstruction," (veterinarian David) Thomassy said. "Without cutting it out directly, it eventually would have killed the dog."

Link (Thanks, Mark Pescovitz!)

The Petit Tech line of Japanese figurines are hand-made from spare parts. The latest installment is this little doggie that includes a working bell for a muzzle -- it comes with a strap so you can hang it from your cellie. Link (via Tokyomango)

Games researcher Jane McGonigal, my new colleague at Institute for the Future, is the first respondent in the Wired Science blog's "Ask a Scientist" feature. You can post questions for reporter Mary Jane Irwin to ask Jane. The interview is pegged on Jane's upcoming talk this weekend in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Her presentation is titled, "Experimental Gameplay: Creating a Virtual Scientific Culture." Link

Previously on BB:
• Technology Review's 2006 Young Innovators Link
• Ministry of Reshelving puts 1984 in its proper place Link
• Spelling out Camus's "Myth of Sisyphus" in cookies Link

Alex Pang says, "Have you boing boinged the 'evolution, the big bang, and heliocentrism are part of a vast, ancient Jewish pharisee plot" story?"

Apparently, a memo went out with Georgia state Rep. Ben Bridges's signature claiming that "Indisputable evidence — long hidden but now available to everyone — demonstrates conclusively that so-called ‘secular evolution science’ is the Big-Bang 15-billion-year alternate ‘creation scenario’ of the Pharisee Religion... This scenario is derived concept-for-concept from Rabbinic writings in the mystic ‘holy book’ Kabbala dating back at least two millennia." The Anti-Defamation League is demanding that Bridges apologize. He says that he didn't write the memo and didn't personally issue it. Rather, it was penned by his former campaign manager's husband, Marshall Hall. From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

The memo calls on lawmakers to introduce legislation that would end the teaching of evolution in public schools because it is “a deception that is causing incalculable harm to every student and every truth-loving citizen.”

It also directs readers to a Web site www.fixedearth.com, which includes model legislation that calls the Kabbala “a mystic, anti-Christ ‘holy book’ of the Pharisee Sect of Judaism.” The Web site also declares “the earth is not rotating … nor is it going around the sun...."

Bridges acknowledged that he talked to Hall about filing legislation this year that would end the teaching of evolution in Georgia’s public schools. Bridges said the views in the memo belong to Hall, though Bridges said he doesn’t necessarily disagree with them.

“I agree with it more than I would the Big Bang Theory or the Darwin Theory,” Bridges said. “I am convinced that rather than risk teaching a lie why teach anything?”

Link to Atlanta-Journal Constitution, Link to more at Talking Points Memo, Link to Scientific American's "15 Answers to Creationist Nonsense"

Unsure of where to go for lunch? Spin the Wheel of Food, a silly-fun interface for Yahoo! Local created by Jim Bumgardner. (He also made a Wheel of YouTube and lots of other experimental interfaces for online data from sources like Amazon and MagazineArt.org.)
Link to Wheel of Food, Link to Baumgardner's Coverpops (Thanks, Mike Love!)

A artist's sculpture of a pissed-off Jesus is reportedly shooting miraculous sparks from its eyes. The artwork, Cleansing Of The Temple, by Brian Burgess, has been drawing crowds to the Liverpool Academy of Art. From Metro.co.uk:

(Academy manager June Lurnie said): 'Some people have said the portrait is evil and they can see sparks in Jesus's eyes. Others actually kneel down and go into a trance convinced they are connecting with God.'

Sculptor Burgess said: 'It began when one woman who saw the statue fell to her knees and began praying.

'She was transfixed for more than thirty minutes and when she came out of the trance she said she had witnessed sparks coming from the eyes of the Christ figure.

Link (via Fortean Times)

Previously on BB:
• Jesus in a sand dune Link
• Jesus on a potato chip Link
• Squint and see Jesus Link

Residents of the South Pacific island of Tanna worship an American "messiah" named John Frum who first appeared to them in the 1930s. According to a village elder quoted in a recent Smithsonian article, John promised to someday return and "he’ll bring planeloads and shiploads of cargo to us from America if we pray to him. Radios, TVs, trucks, boats, watches, iceboxes, medicine, Coca-Cola and many other wonderful things.” The cargo cult is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. From the BBC News:

The cult was reinforced during WWII, when US forces landed with huge amounts of cargo - weapons, food and medicine.

Villagers believe the spirit of John Frum sent the US military to their South Pacific home to help them.

Devotees say that an apparition of John Frum first appeared before tribal elders in the 1930s.

He urged them to rebel against the aggressive teachings of Christian missionaries and instead said they should put their faith in their own customs. Link

Previously on BB:
• Smithsonian Magazine visits a cargo cult Link

The five teen suspects could face life in prison if convicted. The sister of one suspect is accused of having witnessed and captured the attack on her cellphone:

After seeing the footage on her cell phone -- which showed the 11-year-old naked from the waist down on top of one of the suspects -- neighbor Caprice Greene said she was confused. Greene's cell phone was used to record the incident that police say happened in Greene's home on Collinson Avenue, in the basement bedroom of her 15-year-old brother, Reginald Pope Jr. He is among the five suspects.

"I really don't understand it myself," said Greene, 17, who is listed as a witness in the case.

She told police someone swiped her camera phone off its charger and that she stumbled across the clip afterward and recognized the 11-year-old as the "little girl from down the street," according to the police report. The victim told police that Greene filmed it, police reports say. Greene told police she deleted the clip to keep from getting in trouble, according to the police report.

Link, Link 2, Link 3

In Seattle's new sculpture garden, someone left a nest of baby eagle sculptures next to Calder's Eagle. Link (Thanks, Kirsten!) here.">Link

Snip from a New York Times story by Jim Dwyer:

In a rebuke of a surveillance practice greatly expanded by the New York Police Department after the Sept. 11 attacks, a federal judge ruled yesterday that the police must stop the routine videotaping of people at public gatherings unless there is an indication that unlawful activity may occur.

Four years ago, at the request of the city, the same judge, Charles S. Haight Jr., gave the police greater authority to investigate political, social and religious groups.

In yesterday’s ruling, Judge Haight, of United States District Court in Manhattan, found that by videotaping people who were exercising their right to free speech and breaking no laws, the Police Department had ignored the milder limits he had imposed on it in 2003.

Citing two events in 2005 — a march in Harlem and a demonstration by homeless people in front of the home of Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg — the judge said the city had offered scant justification for videotaping the people involved.

reg-free Link to report, video, and PDF of the court decision.

These beautiful paintings of space colonies (and other cosmic scenes), from a future we forgot to have, have been granted to the public domain, by the artist, Donald Davis.

Donald Davis was commissioned to do paintings for NASA in the 1970s and is now offering them to the public domain. The "toroidal shaped space colony" above is an incredible piece of paleo-futuristic art from 1975. Click on the images to make them larger or visit his site to see all of his space paintings.

Link

In the latest episode of Make's Weekend Projects videos, Bre Pettis shows how to safely drop an egg from 4 stories or more without breaking. Link

The Architectures of Control in Design blog has a great post about a Member of the European Parliament's campaign to end the use of "skinny mirrors" in fashion stores. Some stores in the UK reportedly use these deceptive mirrors to make you feel like you look better in your potential new clothes than you really do.

If, when designing a retail environment, you could a) increase sales and b) make customers feel better about themselves by using a ’slimming’ mirror, why wouldn’t you? How ethical is this? It’s an underhand method of persuasion rather than physical control, but it could make a significant difference to sales, in the process making shoppers feel more positive, even if ultimately it’s deceitful. Hewlett-Packard already produces digital cameras with a ’slimming’ mode. If it helps you modify your self-image, and you like that, then I’m not sure it’s unethical per se. It’s just part of the great embedded architecture of delusion that fuels modern consumerism. Vanity sizing - another method of persuasion in clothes retailing - is an additional aspect of this.

Mirrors are a useful persuasion and control tool for retail designers anyway, whether distorting or not. People stop or slow down when they encounter them. Sometimes it’s vanity; sometimes it’s simply useful for people to see how they look.

Link

This 2.5" USB enclosure is styled to resemble a naked hard-drive -- so after you put your tiny naked hard drive in its case, it will look like a larger, naked hard-drive. Link (via Gizmodo)

The CEO of Macrovision has sent an open letter to Steve Jobs telling him off for speaking out against DRM. Macrovision is a company that makes abusive DRMs (the system that stops you from hooking up your VCR and your DVD player in series, the system that stops your TiVo from recording "accidentally" crippled Fox shows, etc), that had the great good fortune to get its technology mandated under the DMCA. That meant that it could charge anything it wanted to the entertainment industry for its nonfunctional anti-video-user technology, and it proceeded to hose the living hell out of Hollywood.

Now that the free ride is over, Macrovision is trying to find the next easy lay. The CEO's letter to Jobs tells a bunch of lies about DRM -- including a genuinely hilarious call for "interoperable DRM" (this from the company that would sue you if you tried to interoperate with its DRM!). Another dumb claim: "DRM will increase electronic distribution." How's that again? The majority of digitally distributed works online were distributed in spite of DRM, or from works with no DRM -- scanned books, ripped music, digitized vinyl and film, and so on.

The most ridiculous of all the claims is this one:

DRM increases not decreases consumer value –
I believe that most piracy occurs because the technology available today has not yet been widely deployed to make DRM-protected legitimate content as easily accessible and convenient as unprotected illegitimate content is to consumers. The solution is to accelerate the deployment of convenient DRM-protected distribution channels—not to abandon them. Without a reasonable, consistent and transparent DRM we will only delay consumers in receiving premium content in the home, in the way they want it. For example, DRM is uniquely suitable for metering usage rights, so that consumers who don't want to own content, such as a movie, can "rent" it. Similarly, consumers who want to consume content on only a single device can pay less than those who want to use it across all of their entertainment areas – vacation homes, cars, different devices and remotely. Abandoning DRM now will unnecessarily doom all consumers to a "one size fits all" situation that will increase costs for many of them.

This is my favorite DRM fairy tale of all: that someone out there will use DRM to charge you less and deliver more. It'd be great to see any compelling examples of this, but they're pretty thin on the ground. Where's the CD that only costs $0.0001 because it's been crippled with Sony's rootkit? Why is it that Macrovision-free DVDs of old movies cost less than ones that have the DRM added to them? Is Vista cheaper because they added DRM? How come Amazon Unbox charges the same to deliver crippled, spyware-encrusted digital movies as the real Amazon charges for DVDs (hell, those DVDs are often way, way cheaper -- because you can buy and sell them used).

The idea that a company with more negotiating power over its customers will cut them a better deal is just hilariously dumb.

Link (Thanks, Alan!)

See also:
Xeni on Steve Jobs "drop DRM in a heartbeat": ABC News, NPR
Imagine no DRM -- with apols to John Lennon
Will Steve Jobs drop iTunes DRM in a heartbeat?
Steve Jobs blogs about DRM

Joe from the Forbidden Planet comic shop writes,

A large number of some of the best French comics artists have contributed original artwork for an auction to raise money for the homeless. It includes work from artists such as Enik Bilal, Jacques Tardi and other bandes dessines greats. I thought it was very interesting this came up after the recent media interest in the 'red tent' campaign in Paris where dozens of tents were erected for homeless people in Paris to shame the authorities into doing something.

Link (Thanks, Joe!)

Virtusphere is a giant, human-sized hamster-ball on rollers that stays in one place as it spins. The idea is to let you "run around" while in your VR goggles without needing a lot of floor-space to accomodate you. Link

This 21.75"-high wooden model of a lovely mid-century modern house runs a hefty $295 -- but it's not a bad dollhouse for the over-30 set, the kind of thing you can gleefully forbid the kids from playing with. Link (via Cribcandy)

This cute, brightly colored inflatable exoskeleton prototype runs on compressed air and looks more like high-end ski gear than an assistive device:

This prototype "power jacket" from Matsushita Electric Industrial (parent of consumer electronics company Panasonic) is designed to help patients recover from partial paralysis. Sensors at the elbow and wrist allow a healthy arm to control the eight artificial muscles, which are powered by compressed air, on the paralyzed side. The 4-pound robotic jacket was on display Wednesday at the Home Care and Rehabilitation Exhibition in Tokyo.

Link (via Warren Ellis)

(Photo thumbnail above taken from a larger image credited to Yoshikazu Tsuno/AFP/Getty Images)

The Order of the Science Scouts of Exemplary Repute and Above Average Physique at the University of British Columbia has any number of hilarious and useful merit badges for aspiring scientists to earn.

The "sexing up science" badge. In which the recipient has had experience with things such as selective breeding, crossing, mate selection, prokaryotic conjugation, fertility studies, STD related microbiology, and/or any other acceptable interpretation of the badge.

Link (via Kottke)

Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: photos of impossible things that appear to have been taken a long, long time ago. Link

Ever wonder what a lightbulb looks like at the instant it burns out? This looks like a fun high-speed photography project:

What you are seeing is a capture of a lightbulb in the process of burning out. To create the shot, my friend Harley and I removed the glass enclosure of a standard household lightbulb (while leaving the innards intact) and powered it up in a pitch black room. The result was an immediate burn-out, which we were all too ready to photograph. The red hue on the smoke was added in post-processing.

Link (via Make)

Update: Ryan sez, "The photographer actually does it in bulb mode, which is basically the opposite of high speed photography."

Update 2 Rich Legg, who took the photo, sez, "This is incorrect. Here's the exposure info:"

Shutter: 1/640 second
f/stop: f/4
ISO: 100

There are two days left to bid on paintings from the Charity-By-Numbers art show curated by Gary Baseman. Biskup, Ryden, Baseman, Schorr, Crehore, and many other pop surrealist luminaries are featured in the show. The money goes to a good cause, The Alliance for Children's Rights. Link

Simon Owens says:

The British Medical Journal published an awesome article on the dangers of being a sword swallower. He came to the conclusion that their biggest threat to their health was being distracted. In one instance, an audience member merely put money in his pocket and the blade severed his throat.

Link (Via Bloggasm)

Update:

Pesco says:

Same guy did a previous study on sword swallowing and published in the same journal a year before

BoingBoing reader blitzcat says,