My friend Craig showed me this utterly fascinating archive of Mike Wallace Interview videos from the 1950s, which are hosted online by The School of Information at The University of Texas at Austin.

It's astonishing to watch television in which the host asks real questions and the guests answer in full sentences. Wallace never lets people off the hook and he smokes cigarettes like the world is ending tomorrow, piling on fulsome praise for his beloved Winstons before each interview begins.

And what a list of guests! He interviews Frank Lloyd Wright, Salvadore Dali, Leonard Ross (a 12-year-old California school boy who won a total of $164,000 on the game shows The Big Surprise and The Sixty-Four Thousand Dollar Challenge), Aldous Huxley, Gloria Swanson, Tony Perkins, Eldon Edwards (Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan), Philip Wylie, Jean Seberg, Earl Browder (former head of the Communist Party in the United States), Mary Margaret McBride (the "First Lady of Radio"), David Hawkins (the youngest of 20 prisoners to defect during the Korean War), Dr. Henry Kissinger, and many more.

Mike Wallace rose to prominence in 1956 with the New York City television interview program, Night-Beat, which soon developed into the nationally televised prime-time program, The Mike Wallace Interview. Well prepared with extensive research, Wallace asked probing questions of guests framed in tight close-ups. The result was a series of compelling and revealing interviews with some of the most interesting and important people of the day.

Link

Wall Street hacker Steve Steinberg, a former BB guest-blogger, has finally started a blog. From his teenage days with legendary hacker gang Legion of Doom, to his influential Worm and Intertek zines, to his years at Wired, Steve has always managed to grok complex technologies and illuminate them for the lay-person. He really gets what's going on under the hood of the tech itself but also how it may intersect with culture and business. He is a master at showing why most conventional wisdom is anything but wise, and he does it without the typical snarkiness of most tech trendspotters. Steve's new blog is called .csv, for "comma separated values." From his latest post, on the buzz around "crowd dynamics":

The tools and theories needed to analyze social interactions are just now reaching the level of sophistication — in accuracy, in robustness – necessary to leave the lab and enter commercial duty. We are in a period analogous to the early 1970s, when developments like the Capital Asset Pricing Model and the Black-Scholes equation transformed finance, changing it from an art to a science, and opening enormous new markets in the process. Now, new equations describing “crowd dynamics” are about to change our lives. And not always for the better. This is one of the most significant technology trends I have seen in years; it may also be one of the most pernicious....

It wasn’t long after the 2003 invasion of Iraq that US military theorists began to realize that our soldiers were completely lost amidst the country’s byzantine tribal structures, religious factions, and internecine feuds. They needed tools to help navigate these social structures that were as effective as their GPS devices and laser-designators were at guiding them through the local geography. DARPA moved quickly, creating a half-dozen social science programs, all of them focused on near-term research with mostly tangible deliverables. The mission became known as “human terrain mapping”, sure to be one of the most important neologisms of this decade.

It’s interesting, if unsurprising, that DARPA had focused on the social sciences only once before: in 1962, during the Vietnam War.

Link

James Leatham says:

Howdy!

Remember me?

The Apple //e computer animation . The film described in the Flickr posts of CineMagic Magazine has been 'special editioned' and posted in its entirety at Google Video.

That's me near the end as a government official.

Link

Scott says: "This is a great commentary on the 40th anniversary of Kubrick's masterpiece."

The site includes this YouTube clip from an interview with Kubrick.

The famously sniffish Renata Adler got to weigh in during her short-lived reign at the New York Times: "There is one ultimate science-fiction voyage of a man (Keir Dullea) through outer and inner space, through the phases of his own life in time thrown out of phase by some higher intelligence, to his death and rebirth in what looked like an intergalactic embryo... Its real energy seem to derive from that bespectacled prodigy reading comic books around the block. The whole sensibility is intellectual fifties child: chess games, bodybuilding exercises, beds on the spacecraft that look like camp bunks, other beds that look like Egyptian mummies, Richard Strauss music, time games, Strauss waltzes, Howard Johnson's, birthday phone calls... [T]he uncompromising slowness of the movie makes it hard to sit through without talking—and people on all sides when I saw it were talking almost throughout the film. Very annoying. With all its attention to detail—a kind of reveling in its own I.Q.—the movie acknowledged no obligation to validate its conclusion for those, me for example, who are not science-fiction buffs. By the end, three unreconciled plot lines—the slabs, Dullea's aging, the period bedroom—are simply left there like a Rorschach, with murky implications of theology. This is a long step outside the convention, some extra scripts seem required, and the all-purpose answer, 'relativity,' does not really serve unless it can be verbalized."

Link

Boing Boing Gadgets' Joel Johnson was at McMaster University yesterday where he met a researcher who used a focus ion beam microsocope to carve his school's logo on a human hair. I would love one for my wunderkammer! More info over at BBG. Link

Michael Moulton, a prof at the University of Florida, is suing a company tha republishes his students' notes from class, because he says that taking notes on his classes and selling them violates his copyright.

Those notes are illegal, Faulkner and Moulton contend, since they are derivative works of the professor's copyrighted lectures.

If successful, the suit (.pdf) could put an end to a lucrative, but ethically murky businesses that have grown up around large universities to profit from students who don't always want to go to the classes they are paying for.

The suit could also have ramifications for more longstanding businesses such as Cliffs Notes, which summarize copyrighted novels.

Faulkner Press publishes two e-textbooks that Moulton wrote and uses in his classes, and sells its own set of class notes for the course.

Link

A pit bull attacked Amy Rice's canine companion Ella. Rice couldn't get the dog off Ella so she bit it on the nose. Ella is recovering with staples and stitches while the pitbull is in quarantine. From the Associated Press:

"I didn't plan it, that's what happened. I broke the skin and had pit bull blood in my mouth," she said.

"I knew what happened, and I knew that it wasn't good..."

Rice said her doctor will have to determine whether she should get shots for rabies.

Link

Hurrah for Clay Shirky for pulling off a masterful stint on The Colbert Report, promoting his new book Here Comes Everybody, one of the tightest, sweetest explanations of What The Internet Is For that I've ever read. Link (Thanks, Jeff!)

See also:
Clay Shirky's masterpiece: Here Comes Everybody
Clay Shirky's Harvard talk: Here Comes Everybody
Shirky talks activism: how group forming networks change protest

Mister Jalopy sez, "Auction for banana leaf wallpaper that was destined for the Polynesian Hotel at Walt Disney World. When Cory builds the True Fan Enchanted Tiki Room, this will be perfect for the powder room!" Link (Thanks, Mister Jalopy!)

Gama-Go is having a big hoodie sale! Buy one and you can get a second for 1/2 off. That includes the limited-edition Boing Boing/Gama-Go hoodie too! (Unfortunately, very limited sizes remain on those.) So, for example, if you buy a $120 BB/GG hoodie (above left) and an $84 Deathbot Circuitry hoodie (above right), they'll half the price of the more expensive BB/GG hoodie, bringing your total to $144 for the two. The Gama-Go crew is holding the sale to support a very exciting new project: They're hoping to open a boutique and art gallery in San Francisco! Also, keep your eyes peeled for another fun BB/GG collaboration in the near future. Link

UPDATE: For those not seeing the discount when they order, the Gama-Go sale page informs, "To be clear, we will adjust your total after you've placed your order, but before we charge your card."

In this BBtv vlog episode, Xeni speaks with Tibetan human rights worker Lhakpa Kyizom about reported abuses against so-called "wired monks" in Tibet, by PRC military and police. Using cellphones, these monks photographed people who had been killed or injured during nonviolent, pro-Tibetan sovereignty protests that took place in March. The monks then disseminated these images to supporters outside Tibet, using connected computers and mobile devices.

After the images spread worldwide, and their origin became known to authorities in the tightly-controlled, tense, post-protest environment in Tibet, Kyizom says, military forces invaded the monastery, confiscated all communications tools, and detained nearly 600 monks in political retaliation.

Kyizom works as a radio producer for Tibet Connection, and is a trainer with the Active Nonviolence Education Center in the Northern Indian town of Dharamshala, also home to the Dalai Lama and the Tibetan government in exile.

Link to Boing Boing tv episode, with discussion, downloadable video, transcript of Kyizom's account, and links to related reports.

Update: Nathan Freitas says, "The unfortunate aftermath of the incidents your video covered...."

Two monks commit suicide in Amdo Ngaba
According to confirm information received by the Tibetan Centre for Human Rights and Democracy (TCHRD), two monks committed suicide in Amdo Ngaba (Ch: Aba) as a direct result of relentless oppression by the Chinese security forces after the series of peaceful protests.

Update 2: Chinese military police killed 8 Tibetans today, after shooting on hundreds of Tibetan monks and villagers in a monastery:

Witnesses said the clash – in which dozens were wounded – erupted late last night after a government inspection team entered a monastery in the Chinese province of Sichuan trying to confiscate pictures of the Dalai Lama.

Officials searched the room of every monk in the Donggu monastery, a sprawling 15th century edifice in Ganzi, southwestern Sichuan, confiscating all mobile phones as well as the pictures.

When the inspectors tore up the photographs and threw them on the floor, a 74-year-old monk, identified as Cicheng Danzeng, tried to stop an act seen as a desecration by Tibetans who revere the Dalai Lama as their god king

Link (thanks Oxblood)

Previously:
* BBtv Vlog (Xeni): Tibet's uprising and the internet.

Climate change denialists like to cite Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark's theory that global warming is caused by sunspots in excusing the ongoing de-terraforming of the Earth (Svensmark's work was the basis for a film called "The Great Global Warming Swindle"); but research from Lancaster University undermines Svensmark's conclusions.

The idea is that variations in solar activity affect cosmic ray intensity.

But Lancaster University scientists found there has been no significant link between them in the last 20 years.

Presenting their findings in the Institute of Physics journal, Environmental Research Letters, the UK team explain that they used three different ways to search for a correlation, and found virtually none.

This is the latest piece of evidence which at the very least puts the cosmic ray theory, developed by Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark at the Danish National Space Center (DNSC), under very heavy pressure.

Link (via Futurismic)

NPR talked to scientists who say that the benefits of drinking tons of water are overrated, and that you don't need to carry a water bottle for a stroll around the park -- "Just drink when you're thirsty."

Myth No. 1: Drink Eight Glasses Each Day
Scientists say there's no clear health benefit to chugging or even sipping water all day. So where does the standard advice of drinking eight glasses each day come from? "Nobody really knows," says Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, a kidney expert at the University of Pennsylvania.

Myth No. 2: Drinking Lots of Water Helps Clear Out Toxins
The kidneys filter toxins from our bloodstreams. Then the toxins clear through the urine. The question is, does drinking extra water each day improve the function of the kidneys?
"No," says Goldfarb. "In fact, drinking large amounts of water surprisingly tends to reduce the kidney's ability to function as a filter. It's a subtle decline, but definite."

Link (via Kottke)

Here's a short item about a Middlesex University study that concluded that players of violent video-games experience relaxation after they finish playing:

The psychologists studied 292 male and female online gamers playing World of Warcraft. They found that overall the gamers, aged between 12 and 83, were more likely to feel calm or tired after playing, although there were differences depending on sex, age and personality.

“There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger but this did very much depend on personality type,” said Middlesex University’s Jane Barnett, who is also an International Game Developers Association committee member.

Link (via Wonderland)

A UK court finally heard evidence about the bizarre liquid-explosive plot hatched in 2006 by some fairly unrealistic suicide bombers, the origin of the global ban on taking liquids through aviation security checkpoints. The plan? To mix Tang and peroxide in Lucozade bottles and make airplanes go boom. Ever since the plot first came to light, chemists and explosives experts have been highly skeptical of it working, and the TSA and UK authorities have blithely insisted that they believe it could come true.

Now, readers of Bruce Schneier's security blog are invited to weigh in on the feasibility of such a scheme, given the information that just emerged in court:

The court heard the bombers intended to use hydrogen peroxide and mix it with a product called Tang, used in soft drinks, to turn it into an explosive.

They intended to carry it on board disguised as 500ml bottles of Oasis or Lucozade by using food dye to recreate the drinks' distinctive colour.

The detonator would have been disguised as AA 1.5 batteries. The contents of the batteries would have been removed and an electric element such as a lightbulb or wiring would have been inserted.

Link to Schneier's blog, Link to Daily Mail article

Air Canada continues its slide into self-parody with a new optional service for fliers: for a mere $25-$35 per trip, the airline will sell you its "On My Way" service. What's "On My Way" service? It's a special number you can call that's staffed with people who aren't anaesthatized, script-reading drones, in the event that the airline loses your luggage, cancels your flight, or otherwise screws you over. This is the same airline that charges coach passengers two bucks for a "pillow" that's actually a ziploc bag you blow up and slip into a paper doily (business- and first-class passengers get their ziploc bags for free), so I guess it's all in keeping with business as usual at Canada's flagship air-carrier.

Air Canada said passengers who opt to pay an additional $25 one-way on short-haul flights and an extra $35 one-way on long-haul routes within North America will receive "speedy" access to "specially-trained" customer service agents who will help rebook flights on Air Canada or other airlines, as well as pay for hotel stays and meals, if necessary.

Air Canada said the program, which applies to any flight cancelled within 48 hours of the scheduled departure, goes beyond the industry practice of assisting customers affected by schedule changes deemed to be the airline's fault, such as mechanical problems with aircraft, scheduling glitches or crew members failing to show up for flights.

But while Air Canada is touting the program as an industry-first, at least one observer said it was once common for big North American carriers to go out of their way to help inconvenienced or stranded customers – free.

Link (via Consumerist)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Fred von Lohmann sez, "Agreeing with EFF's amicus brief, a federal court in Boston in a 52-page ruling concludes that 'merely exposing music files to the internet is not copyright infringement.' The Boston court disagrees with a ruling in New York on the same day, which found that a mere 'offer to distribute' a song could violate copyright, even if no one took you up on it. Obviously, this is a fight that's not over yet."

EFF filed an amicus brief in this case (formerly known as Atlantic v. Does 1-21), and our arguments appear to have found a more receptive audience in Boston that they did in New York City (the judge thanks us for our participation on page 11). The 52-page ruling is the most extensive analysis yet of the recording industry's "making available" argument, which claims that you infringe copyright merely by having a song in your shared folder, even if no one ever downloads it.

As we discussed yesterday, a key issue is whether a mere "offer to distribute" is enough to infringe the distribution right, in light of the fact that a mere offer can be enough to constitute "publication." Unlike the court in Elektra v. Barker, the judge in London-Sire v. Doe concludes that "distribution" and "publication" are not identical -- "even a cursory examination of the statute suggests that the terms are not synonymous." If you are interested in the details, the court's analysis is highly illuminating (p. 24-27), touching on a number of earlier rulings, such as Hotaling v. Church of Jesus Christ of Letter-Day Saints and A&M v. Napster (copyright nerds will recognize those as pivotal decisions in this area).

Link (Thanks, Fred!)

Popline is the world's largest health-information search engine, run by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health with funding from the US government. They have just changed their database so that queries for "abortion" show no results, even though the system has access to more than 25,000 documents on the subject. They say they've done this because they believe it's a requirement of their federal funding.

The massive database indexes a broad range of reproductive health literature, including titles like "Previous abortion and the risk of low birth weight and preterm births," and "Abortion in the United States: Incidence and access to services, 2005."

But on Thursday, a search on "abortion" was producing only the message "No records found by latest query..."

A librarian at the University of California at San Francisco noticed the new censorship on Monday, while carrying out a routine research request on behalf of academics and researchers at the university. The search term had functioned properly as of January.

Puzzled, she contacted the manager of the database, Johns Hopkins' Debbie Dickson, who replied in an April 1st e-mail that the university had recently begun blocking the search term because the database received federal funding.

"We recently made all abortion terms stop words," Dickson wrote in a note to Gloria Won, the UCSF medical center librarian making the inquiry. "As a federally funded project, we decided this was best for now."

There was no notice of the change on the site.

Dickson suggested other kinds of more obscure search strategies and alternative words to get around the keyword blocking.

"In addition to the terms you're already using, you could try using 'Fertility Control, Postconception'. This is the broader term to our 'abortion' terms and most records have both in the keyword fields," she wrote.

She also suggested using a euphemistic search strategy of "unwanted w/2 pregnancy." But the workarounds don't satisfy critics of the censorship.

Link

Update: They've turned around:

I was informed this morning that the word “abortion” was blocked as a search term in the POPLINE family planning database administered by the Bloomberg School’s Center for Communication Programs. POPLINE provides evidence-based information on reproductive health and family planning and is the world’s largest database on these issues.

USAID, which funds POPLINE, found two items in the database related to abortion that did not fit POPLINE criteria. The agency then made an inquiry to POPLINE administrators. Following this inquiry, the POPLINE administrators at the Center for Communication Programs made the decision to restrict abortion as a search term.

I could not disagree more strongly with this decision, and I have ordered that the POPLINE administrators restore “abortion” as a search term immediately. I will also launch an inquiry to determine why this change occurred.

The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health is dedicated to the advancement and dissemination of knowledge and not its restriction.

(Thanks, Rachel!)

Creative Japanese packaging designers at D-Barcode have come up with delightful ways of incorporating the UPC bar-codes into their products. Link, Link to Dark Roasted Blend roundup of creative barcodes (Thanks, Marilyn!)

Psychopathic monster Charlie Manson has released a new album, "One Mind," under a Creative Commons license. I am not entirely delighted by this news. Link (Thanks, Mike!)

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

Some days, the U.S. government truly astounds. At Public.Resource.Org, we released 50 years of decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals. Knowing that the U.S. Courts have to pay big bucks to West Law and Lexis/Nexis to access their own archives, we though they might be interested in having their very own copy.

So, we asked how we could maybe get a phone call to discuss making a donation of case law. Instead of a phone call, the general counsel of the courts (how's that for a meta position!) sent me a letter saying that while this would be great for the public he saw no benefit to the judiciary and our gift offer was hereby declined.

(Not only does the Judiciary spend big bucks on legal information services, this is the same group that runs the billion-dollar IT boondoggle called PACER, which mandates that the public pay $0.08/page for court documents even though they have $146.6 million in unspent funds in their computer account they can't even figure out what to do with.)

Link (Thanks, Carl!)