Al got an advance review copy of neal Stephenson's new book Anathem -- which looks really good! -- and discovered that it came wiht a CD of music inspired by the story. Incredibly weird, wonderful music.

I’ve just listened to several of the songs on this CD and, frankly, this is some weird shit. I say this without reservation. The musical styles are all over the map except that they all only use human voices (and occasionally hands). Some of it is similar to Western, Christian, styles of chanting. Other tracks are more Classical vocal arrangements with singing. The rest of the tracks seem to be heavily influenced by Eastern, Buddhist, styles of chanting, especially Tibetan Buddhism with its use of harmonics and overlaying voices. It varies quite a bit from song to song. Additionally, when there are recognizable words, they are not in English (nor in any language that I recognize). “Celluar Automata” is the weirdest track of this sort with multiple voices weaving in and out, along with some clapping and exclamations in an unknown language. “Thousander Chant” would be at home on some of the collections of Tibetan chanting that I have and whoever is performing it is obviously trained in the throat chanting used by Tibetans and others in Asia.

As it happens, I actually know the guy who made this -- it's David Stutz, the former free software maven for Microsoft whose resignation letter was a brilliant work of analysis explaining just what Microsoft should be doing to co-exist with free/open source software. He was also a key developer for the NeXT, Visual Basic and a lot of other widely used technologies. These days, he has a winery and makes incredibly strange, beautiful traditional music. Link (Thanks, Al!)

See also: Ask Neal Stephenson questions about Anathem

A Google engineer has tracked down, munged and XMLified the copyright renewal notices for all the books the US Copyright Office knows about -- now there's a one-click way to discover if an old book is in the public domain (more or less) and who holds the copyright if it isn't.

For U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963, the rights holder needed to submit a form to the U.S. Copyright Office renewing the copyright 28 years after publication. In most cases, books that were never renewed are now in the public domain. Estimates of how many books were renewed vary, but everyone agrees that most books weren't renewed. If true, that means that the majority of U.S. books published between 1923 and 1963 are freely usable.

How do you find out whether a book was renewed? You have to check the U.S. Copyright Office records. Records from 1978 onward are online (see http://www.copyright.gov/records) but not downloadable in bulk. The Copyright Office hasn't digitized their earlier records, but Carnegie Mellon scanned them as part of their Universal Library Project, and the tireless folks at Project Gutenberg and the Distributed Proofreaders painstakingly typed in every word.

Thanks to the efforts of Google software engineer Jarkko Hietaniemi, we've gathered the records from both sources, massaged them a bit for easier parsing, and combined them into a single XML file available for download here.

Link (Thanks, Frances!)

The John W Campbell Award for Best New Writer is nominated for and voted on by the people who select the year's HugoAward winners. Writers are eligible for two years from their first publication, and the nominees and winners each year are a who's-whom of the most promising talents in the field -- one of the finest moments of my life was winning the Campbell at the 2000 Hugo Awards, joining such august company as Nalo Hopkinson, Spider Robinson, Jay Lake and Naomi Novik.

Mary Robinette Kowal, a current Campbell nominee, writes, "In one of the classier moves I've seen, Jon Armstrong, one of this year's nominees for the Campbell Award for Best New Writer, is starting a series of interviews with his fellow nominees. He starts with me and we talk about puppets, NASA and ballgowns. I'm looking forward to his interviews with the other nominees. He's a charming host and his book 'Grey' is well-worth reading." Link (Thanks, Mary!)

David Weinberger writes, "The FCC is suggesting that it will make a slice of spectrum available for free Internet access to users, so long as the providers filter out all the porn...and, if the filters don't work, then the providers have to use 'other means,' which presumably might include blocking entire application types or protocols, or blocking encrypted data. It includes filtering p2p traffic. The idea is now open for public comment. One of the prominent supporters of this idea, M2Z, which is bidding for it, bills itself as a 'free family friendly broadband' company. " DOC Link (Thanks, David!)

I'm digging this new "Space Is The Place" t-shirt design from Imaginary Foundation. Note the other member of the band reflected in the drummer's visor. Sun Ra would be proud. Link

I blogged yesterday about chatter throughout the 'web surrounding plans by Virgin America and American Airlines to offer wireless broadband on domestic flights.

Included in that post were comments from a Virgin America spokesperson, and a promise from me that we'd speak to American Airlines and follow up with details soonest (American launches their WiFi this week, Virgin's waiting a bit longer).

Today I joined wireless tech journalist Glenn Fleishman of Wi-Fi Networking News for a conversation with representatives from both AA and AirCell, the wireless provider behind the "Gogo" inflight internet which both VA and AA will offer.

Glenn kindly offered to contribute a guest post to Boing Boing with his analysis of American Airlines' plans. Here's his report (continues after the jump):

Lucky passengers on an American Airlines flight from JFK to Los Angeles tomorrow (Wednesday, June 25, 2008) will be the first commercial flyers to access high-speed, in-flight Internet service since the shutdown of Boeing's Connexion service in 2006. Tomorrow's flight is a round-trip test before a full-blown pilot program starts up and runs 3 to 6 months on all of American's 767-200 equipment -- 15 aircraft in total -- wending their way from JFK to SFO, LAX, and Miami.

The flight tomorrow is likely to put much more stress on the "Gogo" air-to-ground system built by Aircell, after their 2006 win in an FCC auction of a thin sliver of spectrum -- just 3 megahertz split between up and down directions, capable of carrying perhaps up to 2 or 3 Mbps. Doug Backelin, American's inflight communications and technology manager, said in an interview today with Xeni and me that, "We're going to do a dress rehearsal."

Gogo will be available at no costs to Wednesday's passengers, and that lets American and Aircell "see how the service performs on a full planeload of people, get their feedback, test our streaming video," and help "fine tune some things before our actual launch."

The full-on launch, slated for "the next couple of weeks," Backelin said, will involve charging for service: $12.95 for flights over 3 hours, Aircell's airline solutions director Dave Bijur said. "Eventually, when we have flights that operate shorter segments, as we will later this year when we launch with Virgin America," they'll also have a $9.95 plan for 3 hour or shorter segments.

To use the service, passengers will fire up a browser on a mobile device with Wi-Fi or a laptop, connect to a portal, and pay a fee after tomorrow's test. Some walled-garden content is available through the portal at no cost: all of American's AA.com site, as well as Wall Street Journal headlines and Frommers' travel information about the flight's destination. There are separate tailored portals for laptops and mobile devices.

BoingBoing readers will likely be ecstatic to hear that Aircell and American are entirely clueful when it comes to filtering for content. American's Backlein said the airline will "not block or filter content, and we're going to rely on the good judgement of our passengers, and also our flight crew do have polciies and procedures on inappropriate behavior." The crew already have to deal with people bringing on magazines and DVDs, and this falls into the same category.

If anyone expects President Obama to roll back Bush's illegally-gained dictator powers, they are smoking rope. From Salon's Glenn Greenwald.

It is absolutely false that the only unconstitutional and destructive provision of this "compromise" bill is the telecom amnesty part. It's true that most people working to defeat the Cheney/Rockefeller bill viewed opposition to telecom amnesty as the most politically potent way to defeat the bill, but the bill's expansion of warrantless eavesdropping powers vested in the President, and its evisceration of safeguards against abuses of those powers, is at least as long-lasting and destructive as the telecom amnesty provisions. The bill legalizes many of the warrantless eavesdropping activities George Bush secretly and illegally ordered in 2001. Those warrantless eavesdropping powers violate core Fourth Amendment protections. And Barack Obama now supports all of it, and will vote it into law. Those are just facts.

The ACLU specifically identifies the ways in which this bill destroys meaningful limits on the President's power to spy on our international calls and emails. Sen. Russ Feingold condemned the bill on the ground that it "fails to protect the privacy of law-abiding Americans at home" because "the government can still sweep up and keep the international communications of innocent Americans in the U.S. with no connection to suspected terrorists, with very few safeguards to protect against abuse of this power." Rep. Rush Holt -- who was actually denied time to speak by bill-supporter Silvestre Reyes only to be given time by bill-opponent John Conyers -- condemned the bill because it vests the power to decide who are the "bad guys" in the very people who do the spying.

...

In comments, Hume's Ghost wrote:

What really rubbed me the wrong way was how Obama in his statement says essentially trust me with these powers, I'll use them responsibly.

Nope.

"There is danger from all men. The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty." - John Adams [1772].

In 1799, Thomas Jefferson echoed that: "Free government is founded in jealousy, not confidence . . . . Let no more be heard of confidence in men, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitutions." Between (a) relying on the limitations imposed by the Constitution or (b) placing faith in the promises of a political leader not to abuse his unchecked power, it isn't really a difficult choice -- at least it ought not to be, no matter who the political leader in question happens to be.

Link

Lisa Katayama says: Here's an interview I did with the Dalai Lama's youngest brother -- he's bipolar and has anger management problems. Nobody's interviewed him at length before.

Tendzin Choegyal is the Dalai Lama’s youngest brother. Aside from being related to one of the holiest persons alive, TC is a rebellious soul who dropped out of college, spent a couple of years as a paratrooper in the Tibetan contingency of the Indian army, survived alcoholism,and found peace through a blend of Buddhism, lithium, and reading the news on the Internet. When I met him at his home in Dharamsala, India—the Himalayan town that houses the Tibetan government-in-exile—we talked about reincarnation, war movies, Steven Seagal’s crazy outfits, and the preservation of Tibetan culture.

The following is a reprint of my interview with Choegyal, published in Issue 52 of Giant Robot magazine. A feature-length profile will be in the Fall issue of Buddhadharma, which goes to press in July.

GR: At a young age, you, too, were recognized as a reincarnate of an important man, right?

TC: Oh, that’s bullshit. I don’t believe it. From a Buddhist perspective, we are all reborn. But choosing a particular person as someone special and saying he’s a reincarnation of so-and-so is bullshit. I don’t consider myself special. I’m just like you. I want happiness, and I don’t want suffering. I think it’s just a sheer accident that I was chosen.

GR: What about your brother?

TC: Ah, that’s different. He is on a completely different level—a much higher caliber, and a lot of tests were done. It may be true for others, but as far as I’m concerned, this is the greatest mistake of the century.

Link

Sarah Milstein, Boing Boing's chief loop closer, has a piece in the New York Times about "urban hiking" -- a way to get exercise and socialize at the same time.

Plan your route, and — this is going to sound crazy — assume you’ll go a mile or maybe two an hour. With a group, you’ll move a lot more slowly than you expect. We usually aim for about five miles (www.gmap-pedometer.com is good for figuring out distances) and include about six points of interest and two takeout food stops. To allow for lots of conversation, keep your highlights farther apart than the typical walking tour and mostly brief. (If your group includes strollers and dogs, don’t forget to plan a route that will work for them.)

Link

Lisa Rein says

Timothy Leary’s estate, the Futique Trust, is auctioning off a an original painting from the infamous Shotgun Art series of William S. Burroughs. The piece was a gift to Leary from Burroughs in the late '80s.

The painting, which hung in the Leary’s living room for years, is being auctioned on Ebay with a starting bid of $85,000. A blog has been set up to track the auction action and discuss the painting and its connection to Tim's huge archive, which is also for sale (but not on Ebay).

Before his death in 1996, Dr. Leary became fascinated with virtual experiences, and was an early advocate of the WWW and virtual reality/worlds. One of his last wishes was for his entire archive to be made available through the internet. The Trust has been working with Brewster Kahle at the Internet Archive to fulfill Tim's wish of making it available to the world.

The Leary Archive is full of primary source documents chronicling the birth of the psychedelic movement including photographs and letters from countless celebrities of the counterculture movement. It also includes everything from Tim's baby pictures and unpublished writings to Harvard LSD sessions and a seldom seen Folsom prison video.

Burroughs Shotgun Art

Jeffrey Barrier, of my hometown Cincinnati, Ohio, was allegedly trying to snap phonecam pics of nude women in a tanning salon. Police were called but Barrier denied the charges. Then they found his cell phone in his butt. According to a Hamilton County Sheriff's Office report, Barrier "hid evidence in his anus." The Smoking Gun has more. Link (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

Raphael Uhrweiller and Mayumi Otero of France's Ecole supérieure des arts décoratifs (ESAD) made huge woodcut art prints with a 17 ton steamroller. Link (via Drawn!)

Here's the first paragraph from the latest edition of "Harper's Weekly," one of my favorite email newsletters:

Oil reached a record $139.89 a barrel. Four Western companies met with Iraq's Oil Ministry to finalize no-bid contracts to tap Iraqi oil fields, and the Nigerian government distributed billions of dollars of windfall to corrupt state officials. Thirty-five countries and 25 oil companies met in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, to try to fix global oil prices, which have caused strikes, riots, and inflation around the world. Many OPEC countries blamed speculators for the price increase, as did some representatives of oil companies and oil-dependent industries. United States Energy Secretary Sam Bodman blamed supply and demand, as did lobbyists for Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, and the International Swaps and Derivatives Association. Drivers in the Gaza Strip, where Israel limits fuel supplies and black market gas costs $27 per gallon, used vegetable oil and turpentine as fuel, producing toxic fumes that result in diarrhea and stomach pain. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cancelled four global-warming research expeditions, citing the cost of fuel. American cowboys could not afford to drive their horses to rodeos, and those who lived near the border were filling their tanks in Mexico, where gas is subsidized. Giant iguanas continued their conquest of South Florida, surrounding Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commissioner Bob Kanjian at a golf course in Lake Worth. "I had 25 to 30 iguanas," he said, "staring at me while I was playing."

Link

The Large Hadron Collider slated to be fired up in September isn't likely to accidentally generate any Earth-devouring black holes. That's according two new reports, including a safety review by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN). The world's most powerful particle accelerator may crank out black holes, but they'll be so tiny and vanish so quickly that we shouldn't worry. I wonder if these reports will appease those who filed a lawsuit against CERN fearing that the machine might suck Earth into a parallel universe. From Science News:

...It is possible that the LHC, according to one theory, could be a veritable factory of mini-black holes — no larger than a thousandth of the diameter of a proton.

That theory proposes that gravity is weak, compared to the other forces in nature, because some of it leaks out into other, hidden dimensions folded up into sizes as small as 10-17 centimeters, a tiny fraction of the diameter of a hydrogen atom.

At the high energies and small scales probed by the LHC, gravity would become much stronger than it is in ordinary three-dimensional space. Gravity could then cram enough matter together to form microscopic black holes as often as once a second.

However, such black holes, according to research first reported by Stephen Hawking in the 1970s, ought to rapidly radiate away their energy and evaporate in an instant, before doing any harm.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Lawsuit about risk of collider and parallel universe Link
• Large Hardon Collider Link

Caleb Clark has interviews of children of hippies displayed in short video clips.

A hippie interface for documentary video. Be free! Explore these unedited short videos of children of hippies answering the same 20 questions in self-interviews. This is an experiment in new interfaces for documentary video as part of an ITP Masters Thesis by Caleb J. Clark

Link

At as loss for what to read this summer? Take a look at the books recommended by Daniel Pinchbeck, Steve Aylett, Ian MacKaye, Mike Daily, Paul Saffo, Gareth Branwyn, Rodger Bridges, Peter Lunenfeld, Erik Davis, Richard Metzger, Dave Allen, Mark Pesce, Alex Burns, Paul Miller, Brian Tunney, Patrick Barber, Steven Shaviro, Ashley Crawford, Cynthia Connolly, and Gary Baddeley.

Richard Metzger:

Christopher Booker The Neophilliacs (Gambit): One of the great forgotten books of the 1970s, you can still find used copies on the ABE Books website. Private Eye magazine co-founder Booker writes of what he describes as a “psychic epidemic” which struck British culture in the 1960s. His central point is a startling one: During the swinging 60s a cadre of influential London media darlings (e.g., The Beatles, Marianne Faithful, David Hemmings, David Bailey, etc.) exhibited — and were rewarded for — outlandish behaviors, exhibitionist clothing and general attitudes that would have seemed daft at best or insane at worst to the previous generation. The widespread veneration of these immature neurotics is the exact point when society and culture took a radical detour into frivolity and meaninglessness. One look at YouTube, of course, proves Booker’s point in spades! Reading this book almost forty years after it was written is an eye-opening experience indeed. It would be a real pity if the unique perspectives provided by this book are lost to history.

Link

The Linnean Society of London has posted hundreds of beautiful photos of butterflies and moths from the collections of famed naturalist Carl Linnaeus (1707-1778), the father of modern taxonomy. (Seen above, Papilio cardui.) They've also included digitized insect specimens from the collection of Sir James Edward Smith (1759-1828), the founder of the Society. These additions follow the posting of the Herbarium archive, including all 14,000 Linnaean plant specimens. From the Linnean Society:

The Linnean Society is the custodian of Linnaeus' collections, which comprises specimens of plants (14,000), fish (168), shells (1,564) and insects (3,198) acquired from the widow of Carl Linnaeus in 1784 by James Edward Smith as well as Smith's own plant (17,000 specimens) and insect (5,800) collections. The collections also include the library of Linnaeus (some 1600 volumes) and around 3000 letters and manuscripts.

It is the Linnean Society's aim to make available its primary research material in digital formats to support taxonomic and conservation efforts worldwide as well as providing public pleasure and enjoyment.

Link to Linnean Insect Collection page, Link to press release

Over at BB Gadgets, John has the details on this delightful action figure of Regan from the Exorcist doing the spider walk.
Link

"I'm not here to say that the government is always right, but when the government tells you to do something, I'm sure you would all agree that I think you all recognize that is something you need to do." -- Sen. Kit Bond (R-Missouri), explaining why his fellows had to lock arms with him and grant telecom immunity. (via Reason)

From 1989 to 1997 Andrew Bush took photos of people driving in Southern California.

Caption for above photo: Man driving west at 23 mph down a yet-to-be-named dirt road, around lunchtime, during a construction boom in Las Vegas in June of 1989 Link

Flickr user Aud1073cH has a fine collection of handmade guitar picks. Personally, I'm a fan of bread picks, those little plastic things that keep loaf bags closed. Link (via MAKE: Blog)

Today on Boing Boing tv, two short works from the young Paraguay-born animator and web designer Joaquin Baldwin, now a student at UCLA in Los Angeles. First, Papiroflexia, "An origami tale of a skillful paper folder who could shape the world with his hands." Next, Placenta, an "autobiographical film using photography, motion graphics and rotoscoped video."

Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and BBtv podcast subscription instructions.

Previously on Boing Boing tv:
Joaquin Baldwin's short, "Sebastian's Voodoo."

Wlahti sez, "Finnish public television channel one(YLE1) broadcast a couple of Soviet Era Russian animations of Winnie the Pooh last night. I watched both episodes that they broadcast, delighted to have found a bright spot after a completely rainy Midsummers vacation." Link (Thanks, Wlahti!)

Flying Pig sells downloadable, functional papercraft models of combination, cylinder and warded locks, along with a locksmithing booklet so that you can learn to fix, pick, and assemble locks while having scissory-glue fun. Link (Thanks, Dug North!)

From the Smithsonian's Flickr stream of historic, public domain photos, a shot commemorating the end of being able to ship your children by postal mail:

This city letter carrier posed for a humorous photograph with a young boy in his mailbag. After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples.

Link (Thanks, Marilyn!)

A Gloucester bus-spotter ("omnibologist") is being forced to abandon his 40-year-old hobby of snapping pictures of busses and trams because security kooks keep calling him a terrorist and even a pedophile. A 30,000-photo veteran shooter, Rob McCaffrey's been at this since he was ten, and he says that the harassment in the UK is off the charts -- worse than in former Soviet states.

The credit controller, from Gloucester, says he now suffers "appalling" abuse from the authorities and public who doubt his motives.

The bus-spotter, officially known as an omnibologist, said: "Since the 9/11 attacks there has been a crackdown.

"The past two years have absolutely been the worst. I have had the most appalling abuse from the public, drivers and police over-exercising their authority.

Mr McCaffery, who is married, added: "We just want to enjoy our hobby without harassment.

"I can deal with the fact someone might think I'm a terrorist, but when they start saying you're a paedophile it really hurts."

Link (Thanks, BritSwedeGuy!)

Wilkerson's M21 Flat-Panel TV looks like a two-dimensional version of the huge console TV I grew up watching in my grandparents' basement rec-room. All it needs is one of those ancient Zenith acoustic remotes that used a bunch of buttons poised over miniature tuning forks, which emitted inaudible sounds that caused the channel to change (you could mute the TV by sneezing and turn it off by jingling your keys!). No price yet, but I'm guessing not cheap. What shall we call this 1950s-meets-today design aesthetic? Beaverpunk? Link

HighTech's Ammonite concrete washbasin looks like a giant fossil ammonite, spiraling to nautilus nirvana. Link (via Cribcandy)

Design Heure's lovely lamps include simple slide projectors that allow them to bounce the image of your choice off a nearby wall. They also do some handsome projection clocks. I love the all-analog technology here -- just some mirrors, lenses and transparencies. Link (Thanks, Herveline!)

The Rogues are a collection of Creative Commons licensed, downloadable papercraft dolls who wear fearsome masks that flip up to reveal their true, gentle nature. They're really delightful -- designed by 24lemons. Link (via Paperforest)

Instructables user Britsteiner has posted a great HOWTO for making your own gigantic reusablke vinyl wall-stickers. As the instructions point out, this is perfect for rental places like dormitories or apartments, since you don't need landlord permission and you can take it with when you move.

I tested my sticky stuff on an interior closet wall, and found that my ConTact paper was about as sticky as a Post-It note, if not slightly less. It was almost un-sticky to a fault, which is fine by me, since I don't want to pay for damages on my walls when I move out!) My tape also came up very easily, so I was good to go.

Link (via Craft)

Craftster user Umbrolly cooked this magnificent Tardis cake for her sister's birthday. Apparently the eerie Martian planetscape beneath the tardis was meant to be a nice smooth rectangular cake but went wrong -- I think it makes the whole thing just perfect. Lots of documentation on Craftster if you want to try your hand at it.

It looks really wobbily in these pictures, I used a different cake recepie to usual and it was a bit too moist, so what started out nice and rectangular went sort of squishy.

Link (via Craft)

Neave's Television applet ("Telly without context") turns your browser into a fast-cutting video screen that embarks on a directionless tour through a bewildering array of really awful, funny, and inexplicable video clips, interspersed with test-patterns. It's like skiing the upper slopes of mount cable while stranded in a foreign land at three in the morning. Flash Link (via JWZ)

Scott Amron's "Cash Money Clip" is an interesting take on money clips: a dollar bill with a steel plates stuck to it, one over a neodymium disc magnet. I'm a big fan of carrying cash in a clip (I gave up fat wallets in the back pocket and lower-back pain in favor of a small card-wallet and a cash-clip years ago) but I've never really trusted magnetic clips. It's cool to be able to stick teaspoons, small change and bits of metal to your front pocket, but your coins get stuck to 'em and you run the risk of demagnetizing your credit-cards if you absently stick your cash in the same pocket as your card-wallet.

Still, this is just too much fun -- and Amron will also sell you a kit so you can convert your own currency to a money clip (you could probably do this without the kit just by shopping around for metal and magnets, too!). Link (via Make!)

Update: Regarding demagnetizing a card, Ben Laurie sez, "Mythical, apparently. You can't hurt much, even with a rare earth magnet, apart from CRTs. I've seen this demonstrated with: a) Credit cards (hotel room keys are a low risk way of trying this yourself). b) laptops. Apparently to demag a credit card you need an oscillating magnetic source."

Robert D sez,

Today would have been the 96th birthday of cryptologist, mathematician and father of almost everything digital Alan Turing. That he was persecuted for his homosexuality to the point of suicide is a crime and a tragedy.

Remember today the man who, more than Steve Jobs or Bill Gates, is the reason you are now sitting at a computer, reading this very sentence.

ALAN MATHISON TURING
23 June, 1912 - 7 June, 1954

Link (Thanks, Robert!)

Harris sez,

My wife Svetlana and I run the only project helping blind students in Russia. She is from Leningrad where her grandfather was a physics professor for 57 years and was blind from age 2. He was on the last train out before the Siege -- with the staff of the Mariinsky Theater, where his father played in the orchestra. She now works at MIT in Cambridge, Mass.

We have sent or taken 100 folding graphite reflective white canes to St. Petersburg. I have this fantasy of hundreds of blind people out walking, their canes glowing -- in a city where Svetlana never saw a blind person on the streets in 30 years, although we know of 150 blind university students.

We have sent or taken 30 computers and 40 digital voice recorders for blind students to record lectures.

For less than the cost of one tank of gas, you can help a blind person get around for several years--with a cane. We have a list of 47 blind people who want a folding graphite cane--they are $30 each.

Link