By Cory Doctorow at 4:13 pm Sunday, Sep 9
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Copyfighter James Grimmelman -- now at the New York Law School -- has just posted a new draft paper: "Information Policy for the Library of Babel." It's a lovely allegory about the Library of Babel proposed in 1941 by Jorge Luis Borges, in which all possible books are available -- and about the information policy the library's guardians would have to implement to make it the best library possible. James proposes that the Internet bears striking similarities to the Library of Babel -- and applies the lessons from its infinite depths to the question of information policy for the net.
Or, looked at another way, the Federal Library Commission must serve the inhabitants of the
Library (or "librarians," as Borges calls them). There is no one else for it to serve. The
inhabitants, however, encounter the Library first and foremost as readers. Indeed, their search for
information in its stacks (or the repudiation of that search) is the principal act that gives their own
lives meaning. They search for their Vindications, for "the books of the Crimson Hexagon,
books smaller than natural books, books omnipotent, illustrated, and magical." 12 On the shelves
somewhere are "the detailed history of the future, the autobiographies of the archangels, . . . the
treatise Bede could have written (but did not) on the mythology of the Saxon people,"13 and
other informational treasures beyond measure. We do our job well if we help our constituents
find the true and beautiful books and steer them clear of the false and ugly ones.
PDF Link,
HTML Link
By Cory Doctorow at 4:01 pm Sunday, Sep 9
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Dear Lord, I have such a case of bookcase lust over this chair, with its integrated bookcases and lamp. The fact that you can pick it up from behind and wheel it around like a wheelbarrow just makes it all the cooler. Someday, I will have a library of my own and it will be filled with furniture like this.
Link
(
via Neatorama)
See also:
Bookcase with integrated chair/stool
Armchair incorporates 5m of bookcase
Handyman's 17-in-1 lounger from 1939
By Cory Doctorow at 3:57 pm Sunday, Sep 9
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VeriChip -- and other vendors -- have been busily implanting radio-frequency ID (RFID) chips in human and animal subjects ever since the FDA approved the process. But a series of studies conducted from 1996-2006 noted a high incidence of dangerous tumors arising at the sites of RFID implants -- something the FDA apparently did not consider when it approved the procedure.
Cancer or no, I wouldn't go near an RFID implant. These things don't have off-switches. They don't have disclosure policies. They don't have logs, or even notifiers. That means that you can't stop people from interrogating your RFID, you can't choose who gets to interrogate your RFID, you can't see who has polled your RFID -- and you can't even know when your RFID is being read. You wouldn't carry normal ID that behaves this way, but from London's Oyster Card to the DOT's FastPasses to the new US passports, these things are being stuck to our person in ever-greater numbers.
And while manufacturers claim that these things have inherent security because they can only be read from a few centimetres away, hackers have already ready them at more than 10m distance.
Leading cancer specialists reviewed the research for The Associated Press and, while cautioning that animal test results do not necessarily apply to humans, said the findings troubled them. Some said they would not allow family members to receive implants, and all urged further research before the glass-encased transponders are widely implanted in people.
To date, about 2,000 of the so-called radio frequency identification, or RFID, devices have been implanted in humans worldwide, according to VeriChip Corp. The company, which sees a target market of 45 million Americans for its medical monitoring chips, insists the devices are safe, as does its parent company, Applied Digital Solutions, of Delray Beach, Fla.
Link
See also:
How thieves steal RFID-enabled cars
HOWTO disable your new, RFID-laden US passport
CA bill would ban forced subdermal RFID-tagging of humans
HOWTO make an RFID virus
Report: "contactless" credit cards with RFID are easily hacked
DIY self-RFID-chipping HOWTO, Wed. Jan 4 at Dorkbot in NYC
HOWTO build an RFID skimmer
Hello Kitty anti-RFID skimming sleeves
Personal firewall for the RFIDs you carry
Interview with RFID implantee
Former Bush official signs up for RFID implant
How RFID hackers can steal gas, cars, and office access
HOWTO turn a disposable camera into an RFID-killer
UK RFID passports cracked
US Passports to get RFID chip implants in 2006
US starts issuing RFID passports, despite security concerns
Audio from Bruce Sterling's "Arphid nor RFID" rant
Why RFID-chipped US passports are a bad idea
Why new US passports can be read without permission
US govt admits RFID passports are danger to Americans
By David Pescovitz at 7:03 am Sunday, Sep 9
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Erling Ellingsen made his own homebrew multi-touch interface from a plastic bag, blue dye, and an iSight camera. It's called the dyeSight.
Link (Thanks, Mike Love!)
By David Pescovitz at 6:32 am Sunday, Sep 9
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This gorgeous skull and bones lock is up for auction on eBay. According to the listing, it was issued by the National Hardware Company in the late 1800s. It would be perfect to keep the riff raff out of your
wunderkammer. With twelve hours to go before the hammer drops, the starting bid is $199.
Link
By Cory Doctorow at 3:14 am Sunday, Sep 9
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The Clarion Science Fiction Writers' Workshop has announced its instructor lineup for summer 2008 -- and it's a stellar bunch! Clarion is a kind of six-week boot-camp for sf writers (I'm a graduate, sometime instructor and member of the Board of Directors for The Clarion Foundation, the nonprofit that oversees the workshop), and this year's teachers are: Kelly Link, James Patrick Kelly, Mary Anne Mohanraj, Neil Gaiman, Nalo Hopkinson and Geoff Ryman.
Not to be outdone, the Clarion West workshop (a kind of sister workshop, but located in Seattle instead of San Diego) has announced its lineup for this summer: Paul Park, Mary Rosenblum, Cory Doctorow, Connie Willis, Sheree R. Thomas, and Chuck Palahniuk.
Yes, I taught Clarion this past year and will teach Clarion West next year. There's a pretty good chance I'll end up doing another (undisclosed) Clarion the year after, and then I'm taking a several-year hiatus. These things are incredibly rewarding, but man, they're hard work!
Link to Clarion roster,
Link to Clarion West roster
By David Pescovitz at 1:33 am Sunday, Sep 9
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Before my pal Erik Davis, who sometimes writes about music, left for Burning Man, he dropped off a pile of stuff to a thrift store. One of the items he purged was an advance promotional CD of Beirut's The Flying Club Cup, due out next month. Apparently, some anonymous person then acquired the CD and made it available on a P2P file-sharing network. Thing is, the CD was digitally "watermarked," meaning that the uploaded tunes were identifiable as having come from Davis's review copy. When Erik returned from Burning Man, his answering machine was steaming with angry messages from Ben Goldberg, proprietor of Beirut's record label. Erik has written up his experience in a thoughtful essay titled "My Data Crime: The Ticking Time Bomb of the Watermarked Advance CD." From the piece:
After giving me less than 24 hours to respond to his initial accusation–during which time I was rambling around the Black Rock desert in a fire truck with a flame thrower on the roof–the label owner went on the warpath. He sent out emails to all his publicist contacts and indy label buddies about my evil ways, and was in addition stirring up as much journalistic interest as possible, giving The Flying Club Cup a nice dose of early publicity while also being able to tar and feather a suddenly non-anonymous practitioner of the file-sharing arts.
I felt pretty shitty about all this. Last year I wrote extensively about Joanna Newsom’s Ys, which was famously leaked from a Pitchfork server, and I know the pain such leaks causes to artists and smaller labels alike. That said, I also know its not necessarily the worse thing in the life of a record, and I was pissed that Goldberg took to the wires before talking to me and trying to figure out why a 40-year-old guy who writes for righteous publications like Arthur would do something to fuck over a righteous independent label.
I called up a handful of my publicist friends, some of whom actually seemed to believe me, and eventually talked to Goldberg. I apologized, he explained his feelings, we bonded over our shared love of the Dead C. Hatchets were buried, and though I suspect my flow of advances might slow over the coming months, the prospect of being reviewed in Blender or Arthur will, in the end, keep most publicists supplying me with product–although the "product" in question will increasingly be a url. And people wonder why I mostly buy vinyl!
Link
By Xeni Jardin at 12:11 am Sunday, Sep 9
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This excellent entry on Chris' Invincible Super Blog also includes a Wu Tang infographic on what to do "When Dealing With a Killa Be Swarm In The Land of Shaolin," and the Unified Dre-Dogg theory: a Bitch/Ho/Trick/Shit venn diagram.
What makes these most LOLworthy, however, are some of the comments:
I notice a critical flaw in Figure 4-A. The figure contradicts Dr. Dre’s (PhD) treatise entitled ‘Bitches ain’t shit’, in it is stated that “Bitches ain’t shit but hoes and tricks”. While you have correctly shown that ‘Bitches’ and ‘Shit’ are two discrete groups (i.e. that “Bitches ain’t shit”), you have incorrectly shown the class of “bitches” as existing partially outside of the groups “tricks” and “hoes”. The correct formulation of the theory would have “bitches” as the intersection of the two classes, with no section outlying. Keep in mind, bitches ain’t shit but hoes AND (not and/or) tricks.
Link (thanks, Coop!)
Previously on Boing Boing:
Unicorn threat level rainbow flowchart chaser
More flowcharts than you can shake a laser pointer at
Panflute Flowchart
Flowchart: Is it f*cked up? What to do, if so
Flowchart skull
Flowchart: RIAA Lawsuit Decision Matrix
Infographic: Criteria for proper tactical usage of phrase "Oh, Snap!"
Flowchart: Medieval sexual decisionmaking for penitentials
