Years ago, my friend John Gilmore told me he thought accounts of the spread of botnets (massive networks of virus-compromised machines that can be used in concert to send spam, attack servers, etc) were overblown, because if botnets were really all-pervasive, then the price of using them should have crashed. Now comes this spam, on one of my personal blogs, and I wonder, has the great botnet price-crash finally hit?

Tired of a competitor's site? Hinder the enemy? Fed pioneers or copywriters?

Kill their sites! How? We will help you in this!
Obstructions of any site, portal, shop!

Different types of attacks: Date-attack, Trash, Attack, Attack, etc. Intellectual
You can work on schedule, as well as the simultaneous attack of several sites.

On average the data, ordered the site falls within 5 minutes after the start. As a demonstration of our capabilities, allows screening.

Our prices

24 hours of attack - $ 70
12 hours of the attack - $ 50
1 hour attack - $ 25

GeckoStone makes tesselated paving stones that look like Escher's interlocking lizards. (hilariously, they've registered a trademark and claim copyright on this work derived from a classic Escher work that is, itself, copyrighted -- and there's no evidence that they licensed the design from Escher's estate; every pirate wants to be an admiral!)

GeckoStone (via Make)

Robbo sez, "Rocky Gaudrault, CEO of TekSavvy [ed: fantastic, indie Canadian ISP that does not practice throttling, unlike the major semi-monopoly, Bell Canada], sent this email to customers today. Seems important for people in Canada even if they aren't TekSavvy customers:"

In March 2008 Bell started throttling its Wholesale Customers (TekSavvy among a group of many) without notice. We attempted to have the CRTC force Bell to stop as it removed our ability to do business and give Market choice. The throttling was done in the name of congestion, even if Bell, at the same time launched higher speeds (which they did not share with their wholesalers) and also dabbled with launching IPTV, which consumes even more capacity.

The CRTC sided with Bell in November 2008 but launched a Public Hearing to discuss Network Management Practices, clearly showing they made a decision on throttling without having all the details in hand to do so. As a result we launched a request to reverse their decision from November (The Review & Vary) in May 2009.

The only way we are going to make a difference at this point is to get full public support to stop companies like Bell from bullying the market and the regulators! The Telecom and Cableco Monopolies control 96% of our marketplace, so if we don't stand up and voice our concerns, this will become a two party dance where choices and services are going to be completely removed and rates raised to unreasonable levels!

Here are the details on how to submit your comments:

1) Go to: http://support.crtc.gc.ca/crtcsubmissionmu/forms/Telecom.aspx?lang=e
2) Select "Part VII / PN" from the drop down list and then click "Next"
3) In box entitled "Subject" line, insert "CRTC File #: 8662-P8-200907727"
4) In the box entitled "Description / Comments / Questions", insert any comments that you may have on the review and vary application.
5) If you would like to attach a document, select "yes" and follow the instructions for attaching a file.
As indicated in the Title, I believe the deadline is June 22nd, so don't wait to long

PS - R&V details here.

Man, would you look at how hard it is to link to a specific docket at the Canadian telco regulator? It's almost as though they don't want activists to be able to exhort people to go and take action. Either that, or they don't know how the Internet works. I'm not sure which one is worse.

Submit a telecom-related request (Thanks, Robbo!)

Laurent sez, "The Switzerland's Piraten Partei (Pirate Party, of course) will be loaded July the 12th in Zurich. There is also a Facebook group : Piratenpartei Schweiz - Parti Pirate Suisse - Partito Pirata Svizzero Mondial."

The original Swedish Pirate Party won a seat in the recent EU election (two seats, once the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified), the German PP got 1% of the popular vote, and there are affiliate parties all over the world now. All this in just a few years -- I wonder how far the Green Party got in its first three years?

Parti Pirate Suisse (Thanks, Laurent!)

The Associated Press (who once suggested that bloggers should pay for five-word excerpts of its stories, and should be forced to promise not to use those excerpts to make fun of the AP) have found a new progressive streak and announced a plan to syndicate investigative journalism stories financed by nonprofits:

Starting on July 1, the A.P. will deliver work by the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and ProPublica to the 1,500 American newspapers that are A.P. members, which will be free to publish the material...

As they sharply reduce their staffs, many newspapers have cut back on investigations or given them up entirely. When there are barely enough reporters to cover the daily news from the local courthouse and the school board, it is harder to justify assigning someone to an in-depth project that might take weeks or months.

At the same time, independent groups doing investigative journalism have grown in number and size, fueled by foundations and wealthy patrons, and are offering their work to newspapers, magazines, television and radio news programs, and news Web sites. ProPublica was created in 2007 and the Investigative Reporting Workshop in 2008. The Center for Investigative Reporting has operated for more than three decades, and is doubling in size. The four groups combined have more than 50 professional journalists.

A.P. in Deal to Deliver Nonprofits' Journalism (via /.)

Humanscale's new Diffrient World Chair is the latest outing from legendary designer Niels Diffrient, the man who (as Bruce Sterling points out) literally wrote the book on ergonomics. Reading this description is sheer chairporn. $740 is out of my budget, though I have no doubt that it's worth every penny.

Made from just eight major parts and weighing less than 25 pounds, the Diffrient World chair achieves Humanscale's signature weight-sensitive recline through an innovative new design that functions without a mechanism. Utilizing two frame components, the user's body weight, and the laws of physics, the Diffrient World chair's mech-free recline action automatically adjusts to the needs of each user, offering appropriate levels of resistance without unnecessary locks, dials or other manual controls.

Like its older sibling, the award-winning Liberty chair, the Diffrient World chair features Form-Sensing Mesh Technology that ensures perfect lumbar support for every user without the external, manually adjusted lumbar devices found on all other mesh chairs. Additionally, a mesh seat pan with a frameless front edge provides all-day comfort with soft support under the thighs.

Humanscale Sets New Bar With Ultra Simple Task Chair (via Beyond the Beyond)

The brief at the Daily Routines blog is to collect stories of "How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days." I'm a total creature of habit, even when I'm on the road, a 5AM-rising daily writer; the last thing I do before bed is all the breakfast prep for a huge, elaborate three-course breakfast for the family so that I can bang it all out in ten minutes after getting to inbox0 from the night's email and getting through all the morning's blogposts, hot and ready by 7AM. I get a nap, half an hour's reading and half and hour's yoga every afternoon, get in two pages of the novel, two pages of the short story, and about 3 to 5 times a week, I write a column. Every Monday is podcast day. Monday and Wednesday night, I leave the office ten minutes early, get the kid from day care and make sure she's bathed, fed and in bed by 7 when the sitter comes by so Alice and I can go to a proper 1.5h yoga class around the corner. Sunday mornings we have breakfast out, and I walk the kid to the PO Box, stop and play in the park on the way back, drop off all the stuff from the box at my office, then come home and put the kid to bed while Alice kills zombies on the Xbox. I love my routine.

Despite all this activity Churchill's daily routine changed little during these years. He awoke about 7:30 a.m. and remained in bed for a substantial breakfast and reading of mail and all the national newspapers. For the next couple of hours, still in bed, he worked, dictating to his secretaries.

At 11:00 a.m., he arose, bathed, and perhaps took a walk around the garden, and took a weak whisky and soda to his study.

At 1:00 p.m. he joined guests and family for a three-course lunch. Clementine drank claret, Winston champagne, preferably Pol Roger served at a specific temperature, port brandy and cigars. When lunch ended, about 3:30 p.m. he returned to his study to work, or supervised work on his estate, or played cards or backgammon with Clementine.

At 5:00 p.m., after another weak whisky and soda, he went to bed for an hour and a half. He said this siesta, a habit gained in Cuba, allowed him to work 1 1/2 days in every 24 hours. At 6:30 p.m. he awoke, bathed again, and dressed for dinner at 8:00 p.m.

Daily Routines (via Kottke)

Murilee sez, "English Russia has dug up some excellent photos of crypto-punks of the Late Brezhnev Era, when it still took plenty of guts to dress like a freak."

Soviet Punks (Thanks, Murilee!)

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Well, my time guest blogging on BoingBoing is almost over. So many things to write about and so little time. A few things I like that deserve more, than the few words I'm able to provide:

1. ZoozBeat This is the iPhone/iTouch application that won the "gadget-off" competition at Kinnernet last month in Washington DC. It's a gesture-based mobile musical studio, simple enough for non-musicians to immediately become musically expressive but rich enough for experienced musicians to push the envelope of mobile music creation. Use shake and tilt movements, tap the screen, or press the keypads to create and modify rhythmic and melodic lines. Available thru iTunes.

The Celestron digital microscope I wrote about earlier came in second.

2. The Debut My absolute favorite indie rock band in the world. I'm especially fond of the lead singer. ; ) Best known work is The Photograph Song



3. Goex brand black powder. Sure, you can learn how to make your own bp by reading the Thundring Noyse chapter of Absinthe and Flamethrowers. But what if you just want to buy it? Then this is the stuff I like: "In a powder mill in the piney woods of north Louisiana, workers carry on the tradition of generations of American black powder makers, grinding out granules of black powder at the GOEX Black Powder Plant."

4. BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!! (Paperback). Not sure if it's worth every penny of its $135 cover price, but may be available used for less. One Amazon reviewer wrote:
"Despite being written entirely in BLOCK CAPITALS, this self-published work conveys its message elegantly. In fact, you don't even need to read it to understand the main argument being put forward.

True, by avoiding this book you will miss out on the precise location of the heretical surfboard worshipped by the British royal family and . . . .". .( more here)

5. Malta (the drink, not the country, although the country is fine as well) It's a delicious malt flavored beverage popular in the Caribbean. (But read the label. Goya Malta has a whopping 230 calories per 12 oz serving.)

Today in his weekly column on junk science, Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre challenges the War on Drugs and Britain's latest obsession with fighting cocaine:

In the case of cocaine, there is an even more striking precedent for evidence being ignored: during the early 1990s the World Health Organisation conducted what is probably the largest ever study of global cocaine use. In March 1995 they released a briefing kit which summarised their conclusions, with some tantalising bullet points.

"Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use," they said. "Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users."

The full report - which has never been published - went on to challenge several of the key principles driving prohibition, and was extremely critical of most US policies. It suggested that supply reduction and law enforcement strategies have failed, and that alternative strategies such as decriminalisation might be explored, flagging up such programmes in Australia, Bolivia, Canada and Colombia....This report was never published, because just two months after the press briefing was released, at the 48th World Health Assembly, the US representative to WHO threatened to withdraw US funding for all their research projects and interventions unless the organisation "dissociated itself from the conclusions of the study" and cancelled the publication. According to WHO, even today, this document does not exist, (although you can read a leaked copy in full on the website of the drugs policy think tank Transform at www.tdpf.org.uk/WHOleaked.pdf ).

This is my column. This is my column on drugs. Any questions?

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Uber-maker Bre Pettis his colleagues Zach Smith and Adam Mayer are hard at work on a open source 3D printer for the masses. Great idea: it's one thing to come up with an idea on paper (or CAD file), and quite another to turn that idea into a tangible thing. It's even another thing to sell a 3D printer kit that's about as cheap as a regular-old mass produced laser printer.
photo by rstevens

I interviewed Bre at NYC Resistor last month, after we went on a fruitless search for restaurants in Brooklyn that serve saltfish and ackee.

Bill Gurstelle (pointing to squarish object on desk): What's that?
Bre Pettis: That? It's the MakerBot Cupcake CNC. It's an open source 3D printer, that turns your table top into your own little factory.

Bill Gurstelle: So, how does it work?
Pre Pettis: The machine works like a super accurate automated hot glue gun robot. It takes a filament of plastic and melts it down and extrudes it through a tiny hole to make a tiny string of molten plastic. Layer by layer it builds up material until your object is complete!

BG: Um, what's with all the cans of cake frosting?
BP: We created a frosting attachment that you can use by switching out the plastic extruder. The Frostruder means it can frost a cupcake too! Right now, we're getting set up to make a world record attempt for the fastest cupcake decorated by a robot.

BG: (points to more stuff on a different table) What's all this other junk for?
BP: We're prototyping up a scanner which together with a MakerBot would be a replicator. We are also in the process of having an eco-friendly plastic manufactured called Polylactic Acid (PLA) manufactured. PLA is a material made out of corn in Nebraska. PLA is clear and we may be able to get it in a medical grade to do things like replace bones with it. Also we're getting the electronics for the machine assembled.

BG: Replicator? Hey, Could a Maker Bot make a Maker Bot?
BP: We're getting there one part at a time. With every batch we manufacture a new part to ship with the machine. Already we've got idler pulleys that snap over a skate bearing that are made on a MakerBot. MakerBot Operators who got a first batch MakerBot can get a hardware upgrade just by downloading the design file and printing it out on their machine. Printable Upgrades!

There are multiple reports that the text-messaging systems on cellphone networks in Iran went down just before the polls opened. Boing Boing reader Jadi says, "Right now, there are many ongoing protests in the streets against the fraud and still SMS system is down."

According to Ghalam News and multiple Twitterers in Tehran, the text messaging system in Iran has been taken down, just hours before polls open for Friday's presidential election.(...)

The Ghalam News report, translated from Persian, says that the popular network "was cut off throughout the country." The action occurred just before midnight local time, less than nine hours before the start of elections. "All walks of life from all over the country" are discovering that "messages on different cell phone networks will not send."

Blog accounts: Textually, Mideast Monitoring, i-policy.

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Am I being overly skeptical of this story: Boy Hit by Meteorite Traveling at 30,000 MPH?

The news photos show the meteorite to be quite small, something slightly smaller than a 22-cal bullet. But 30,000 mph is around 15 times the muzzle velocity of an M-16. I'd expect a worse outcome than a band aid and a smile.

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Eighty-five year old George H. W. Bush celebrated his birthday by going skydiving. Politics aside, that's a wonderful thing. (Yes, it's a tandem jump, but give him a break, he's 85.) GHWB, perhaps unlike some of his descendants, seems to be a pretty fair practitioner of the Art of Living Dangerously.

Marisa Ranalli's Ribcage Bag is felt on the outside, and has a change-purse screen-printed with a heart sewn into the interior.

Ribcage Bag (via Street Anatomy)

In Britain, cops have the power to search you if you take a picture of a "sensitive" area, but they won't tell you which areas are "sensitive," because they're so "sensitive."

The British Journal of Photography is trying to use the UK Freedom of Information Act to find out which places in Britain have such precious photons that people who collect them without authorization can have their civil rights violated, but so far they've been unsuccessful.

There's no evidence that terrorists use photographs to plan attacks. Indeed, if disclosing the visible features of notable, iconic buildings puts them in danger, we may as well tear them all down now and get it over with, since the whole point of a notable, iconic building is that everybody knows what they look like.

The Home Office has rejected a Freedom of Information Act request filed by the BJP regarding the disclosure of the list of all areas where police officers are authorised to stop-and-search photographers under Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000...

While it is common knowledge that the entire City of London [ed: the City of London is a one-square-mile financial district], at the behest of the Metropolitan Police, is covered by the legislation, it remains unclear which other areas in England and Wales have requested the stop-and-search powers...

The request asked for a 'full list of all areas - in England, Wales and Northern Ireland - subject to Section 44 Terrorism Act 2000 authorisations, which the Home Office has a statutory duty to be aware of.'

The request was rejected in late May on grounds of national security. 'In relation to authorisations for England and Wales, I can confirm that the Home Office holds the information that you requested. I am, however, not obliged to disclose it to you,' writes J Fanshaw of the Direct Communications Unit at the Home Office. 'After careful consideration we have decided that this information is exempt from disclosure by virtue of Section 24(1) and Section 31(1)(a-c) of the Freedom of Information Act...'

As part of its ongoing campaign for photographers' rights, BJP has appealed the decision, requesting an internal review of the request's handling. It has also filed 46 additional Freedom of Information Act requests to all Chief Constables in England and Wales, asking them to disclose whether they have asked for stop-and-search powers under section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000.

All quiet on the Westminster front (via Memex 1.1)

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz gave its reporters the day off and asked novelists and poets to report the news for a special edition in honor of Hebrew Book Week. The results were lovely:

Among those articles were gems like the stock market summary, by author Avri Herling. It went like this: "Everything's okay. Everything's like usual. Yesterday trading ended. Everything's okay. The economists went to their homes, the laundry is drying on the lines, dinners are waiting in place... Dow Jones traded steadily and closed with 8,761 points, Nasdaq added 0.9% to a level of 1,860 points.... The guy from the shakshuka [an Israeli egg-and-tomato dish] shop raised his prices again...." The TV review by Eshkol Nevo opened with these words: "I didn't watch TV yesterday." And the weather report was a poem by Roni Somek, titled "Summer Sonnet." ("Summer is the pencil/that is least sharp/in the seasons' pencil case.") News junkies might call this a postmodern farce, but considering that the stock market won't be soaring anytime soon, and that "hot" is really the only weather forecast there is during Israeli summers, who's to say these articles aren't factual?

Literary Lesson: Authors, Poets Write the News (via Kottke)

The IT Crowd, Channel 4 UK's brilliant sitcom about sysadmins, is coming out on DVD in the US (previous DVDs were region-free, but were only sold through UK retailers and importers to the US). It's only the season 2 disc (you can order season 3, where the show really hit its stride, from the UK). I love this show, plain and simple: it's funny, silly and relentlessly geeky, and pushes the envelope with every episode.

The IT Crowd on DVD in the States

Niles sez, "Here's a video introducing the Atari wallet, a project I've just completed after almost five years in the making. I repurpose original Atari 2600 video games into wallets using every original piece inside except the screw."

Atari wallet - Pac Man introduction (Thanks, Niles!)

Here are some of my recent posts about money for credit.com.

A Look at Amish Finances: Amanda Grossman was interested in finding out how it was possible that the Amish, who don't use electricity and shun many modern conveniences, are able to own large, well maintained houses surrounded by plenty of farmland.

How to Prevent Your Waiter from Altering Your Credit Card Bill: Take a cell phone photo of your receipts and check them against your statement or use a geeky checksum method to alter-proof your receipt.

Obama's Policy Advisors Are "Devotees" of Behavioral Economics: In Greensboro, NC, teenage mothers are paid $1 a day by the city if they don't get pregnant. That's not a lot of money, but the small incentive is enough to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy in the town.

25 Traits of the Not-So-Well-To-Do: People who are in debt share 25 similar traits. Those include buying the latest consumer technology, eating out frequently, getting a new car every few years, and maintaining poor health habits.

A Visual History of Credit Cards: Caitlin McDevitt of Slate's The Big Money site has written a fun, brief history of the credit card, starting with a photo of the very first credit card, The Diners' Club from 1951.

Interview with "Nudge" Author Richard H. Thaler: Google invited Richard H. Thaler, author of the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, to come to the Google campus and talk about behavioral economics. His hour-long presentation is a fascinating trip through irrational human behavior, especially when it comes to how we make financial decisions.

Interview with Predictably Irrational's Dan Ariely -- the Power of a T-Shirt Slogan In one experiment, Ariely gave a group of volunteers t-shirts with the word "generous" printed on them and gave another group shirts that said "stingy." It turned out the the people behaved according to the word on the shirts they were given, even when the word was printed inside the shirt so that no one else could see it.

I'm enjoying Casey and Sommer's blog of their trip to Japan, which includes photos and videos of claw machines, self driving cars, and a trip to the Railway Museum and Tokyo National Museum.

Japanification

Step 2: Making an Ax from Jamie O'Shea on Vimeo.

Jamie O'Shea's Immaculate Telegraphy project:

Could humans at any point in history, given the right information, construct an electronic communication network? To test this hypothesis, Substitute Materials will attempt to build a functional electric battery and telegraph switch from materials found in the wilderness, using no modern tools except information from the internet. The telegraph will be a first step towards an ahistorical internet.

Full-scale construction of the artifacts is currently underway in Mineral county, Montana.

Currently, Jamie is working on making an ax to cut wood to make tools to make a smelting furnace. Above, a basket that Jamie made to hold things he collects.

I wish him luck!

Immaculate Telegraphy

Jim Leftwich says:

"I'm thinking the next step beyond raising chickens in the backyard is to have your own Goat Tower!

"Currently there are only three Goat Towers in the world (which I think you'll agree is not nearly enough!). The original Goat Tower was built in 1981 by Charles Back at the Fairview Wine and Cheese Estate in Paarl, South Africa. The estate has 750 Saanen goats and some of these are allowed access to the tower.

"The other two Goat Towers are the "Tower of Baaa" in Findlay, Illinois and one built in 2006 in Ekeby, Norway, both of which are modeled on the original.

"Here's an interview with David Johnson, who built one in Illinois, and which is interesting because it contains a lot of great details about the Goat Tower's construction."

"Goats love it and people driving by can't believe it," says David Johnson of Findlay, Ill., about his 31-ft. tall, 7-ft. dia. "goat tower" built with the help of the late Jack Cloe, Herrick, Ill. The tower was constructed with 5,000 hand-made bricks, each one a different size and shape. The tower has 276 concrete steps, arranged to form a spiral staircase, that allows Johnson's goats to climb up and down with ease.

Johnson has 34 Saanen milk goats that use the tower. "Goats are the most curious animals in the world so they use the tower a lot. They come and go, passing each other on the ramp as needed."

...

The roof is supported by wheels that ride on a circular steel rail along the upper edge of the tower wall. "I cut a door into the roof and plan to use a garage door opener to rotate the roof and use it as an observation tower. I might even bring a telescope up there to look at stars," says Johnson.

Goat Tower

From Monte Beauchamp of BLAB!:

Midwestern BLAB!, curated by Monte Beauchamp, the Chicago-based creator of BLAB!, focuses on the art work of five Midwestern artists (Don Colley, Tom Huck, Teresa James, CJ Pyle, and Fred Stonehouse) who have contributed significantly to BLAB! and are exemplars of the periodical’s core values.

WHEN: June 18 – July 22, 2009

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, June 18, from 5:00-8:00

Fred Stonehouse Lecture: Wednesday, June 17 at 6:30pm, 623 S. Wabash, Room 203. No reservations needed.

WHERE: Columbia College Chicago’s Leviton A+D Gallery 619 S. Wabash Avenue Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm, Thursday 11 am – 8 pm

COST: Free and Open to the Public

BLAB! magazine's midwestern exhibition

Our friend Attaboy has an art exhibition opening this week in LA. He new work looks amazing.

Daniel Seifert, better known as Attaboy, presents his first solo show in two years at LA's POV Evolving Gallery in LA's Chinatown. Atta presents an onslaught of meticulously handcut shadow casting spray varnish stenciled plastic pieces, elaborate "exploded view" drawings, and a Gooberry Patch in the back room, where visitors can pick an unripened talking pull string Gooberry Plush and take one home to abuse. After 5 years of waiting, they've finally arrived, and they're still not ripe. Music in the Gooberry Patch will be by toy piano mash-up genius Twink.

There will also been a fantastic sculpture installation of Atta's Brine Queen as interpreted by artist J.Shea. The show has been generously sponsored by Hi-Fructose Magazine and Gelaskins. If you come out to the show early enough you will be able to snag some iphone, ipod and laptop skins of Atta’s recent work to embellish your electronic life...

Attaboy @ POVevolving Gallery ~ June 13th to July 8th, 2009

Join us for the opening reception on Saturday June 13th from 6 - 10 pm. The gallery is located at: 939 Chung King Road Los Angeles, CA 90012

Attaboy art exhibition, "A Touch of Evil"

(Download / YouTube) In today's edition of Boing Boing Video, Mark Frauenfelder and Boing Boing Gadgets editor Lisa Katayama profile three cool things found at the recent Bay Area Maker Faire: The Yudu personal screen printer, an interactive, collaborative, musical Tesla Coil, and a candy-fabbing device from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Below, one of the freaky, free-form sugar creations produced (photo courtesy Windell of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)

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Where to Find Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic, and to Wayneco Heavy Industries!).

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Sponsor shout-out: This week's Boing Boing Video episodes are brought to you in part by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "will influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."

supermarket checker
vintage supermarkets
konbini life
grocery cart sculpture
bread ties
buying organic
foodzie
hard to find grocer
laughing banana

and the classics...
trader joe's ad
Illeanarama

Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store, Twitter. (Thanks Frank!)

Canadian blogger and world traveler Brendan, aka "Cashewman" (who took the amazing photo above) has a great list of tips -- some aesthetic, some technical, some social -- about how to take great photographs when you're on the road in someplace like, say, rural Africa, where he's apparently spent a lot of time. One of the 13 tips he lists: ask if it's okay.

This is an important one for me. There are larger debates about photography etiquette and our responsibilities as visitors and photographers. I'll leave that for another time, but a golden rule is: if you're unsure whether to take a picture of somebody, then ask. In some areas, it's considerate to leave a small gift or amount of money as a thank you. Your call.

I missed one of the best shots I have ever come across, because I asked whether it was okay to shoot. Picture an old Senegalese grandmother, piercing green eyes within a face etched with thin white contours. Headscarf, clutched just below the chin with a flowing, boney hand. She was sitting in front of an earth wall with soft evening side lighting. When I asked if I could take a picture, she said no, with a subtle smile. I still wish I could have taken the shot. But she didn't want me to, so I'll just have to remember it instead.

13 Tips for Great Photography in a Developing Country (via @whiteafrican/ photo: Cashewman)

Why I am I always the last to hear about these things? (thanks, Richard Metzger).

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

In the blog Notes from the Technology Underground, I present reasons for the relative paucity of famous engineers and scientists.

Back in the 1970's, there were not many famous scientists or engineers, and now, there are almost none. If you disagree, try and name one, right now. Go ahead, try it. Who did you come up with? Carl Sagan? No he's dead. Try again. Stehpen Jay Gould, the Harvard dinosaur guy? No, he's dead too. Hawking? Sure, Stephen Hawking is alive, but he's far more well known for overcoming his disabilities to do great scientific stuff, than for his scientific stuff itself (does anybody really understand "A Brief History of Time?). Perhaps, on odd occasion a autograph seeker stalks MIT's Old Main in hopes of obtaining Marvin Minsky's or Noam Chomsky's signature, but really, very few scientists need bodyguards to keep away the star struck rabble.

On the "Q-Scale" of modern fame where Albert Einstein stars with a 54 and George Takai rates a 1, no living scientist or engineer even makes a blip on the Sulu's radar screen. It's pitiful, but the truth is that no technology related individual, with the exception of Bill Gates, pulls a higher Q score higher than Count Chocula.

The point is there are many, many excellent engineers although the majority of them are not well known outside of their own companies. In fact, the term "famous engineer" is an oxymoron on par with "nondairy creamer", "dry martini", or "jumbo . . . . (continues here.)

By what percentage do you think Sulu is more well known than the other guy?

Recently on Offworld, we watched the network TV debut of Microsoft's motion-controller Natal, took a TV trip back even further to see the original members of The State selling Game Boy Pockets, and saw both the start-stop unveiling of ngmoco's next iPhone first person shooter and the last look at the latest from Minotaur China Shop creators Flashbang: Crane Wars, due for release on Monday.

Elsewhere we saw Reset Generation -- Nokia's fantastic flagship retro-referencing multiplayer strategy game for PC and their N-Gage service -- come to Mac, Linux and web portal Kongregate, took a new look at Apple's beautiful App Store data-viz Hyperwall, and saw a nice piece on the design process behind rebranding EA's Redwood Shores studios as 'Visceral Games'.

And the day's 'one shot's: Platinum Games on designing guns to "look hot in a girl's hand", and Media Molecule offer a replacement for the default iPhone wallpaper (above) for a stitched-up felt LittleBigPlanet of your own.

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

I ordered naga jolokia pepper seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University. The naga jolokia, sometimes called the bhut jolokia, the ghost pepper, or the poison pepper, is the world's hottest chile pepper. My brother, the expert gardener, is growing them right now. These are pretty difficult to grow in Minnesota; they take forever to germinate and the drop flowers at the slightest provocation.

The scale used to measure chile pepper piquancy is called the Scoville scale. At the low end is a green bell pepper and at the high end is 100% capsicum pepper spray.

In 2001, an academic visiting India and sent back seeds of a pepper he found growing there to NMSU. Shades of hades, the fruit of the naga jolokia were hot! How hot? The peppers were analyzed and found to be 4 times hotter than the previously known hottest pepper, the Red Savina. Can eating a chile pepper be dangerous? Judge for yourself.

In Absinthe and Flamethrowers, I devote a chapter to "Thrill Eating" which is practicing the art of living dangerously by eating "dangerous" foods. So name your poison: fugu, ackee, pokeweed, casu marzu, Amanita mushrooms, naga jolokia, or Los Angeles danger dogs. As Nietzsche said, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

Nobel-prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz contrasts the American response to its economic crisis with the measures it shoved down the throats of poor countries during their crises, and discusses why rich-world double-standards ("Buy American/European" provisions in bailouts that only discriminate against poor countries) contribute to a global disillusionment in the values that the rich world nominally espouses: democracy, transparency, and so on.

Among critics of American-style capitalism in the Third World, the way that America has responded to the current economic crisis has been the last straw. During the East Asia crisis, just a decade ago, America and the I.M.F. demanded that the affected countries cut their deficits by cutting back expenditures--even if, as in Thailand, this contributed to a resurgence of the aids epidemic, or even if, as in Indonesia, this meant curtailing food subsidies for the starving. America and the I.M.F. forced countries to raise interest rates, in some cases to more than 50 percent. They lectured Indonesia about being tough on its banks--and demanded that the government not bail them out. What a terrible precedent this would set, they said, and what a terrible intervention in the Swiss-clock mechanisms of the free market.

The contrast between the handling of the East Asia crisis and the American crisis is stark and has not gone unnoticed. To pull America out of the hole, we are now witnessing massive increases in spending and massive deficits, even as interest rates have been brought down to zero. Banks are being bailed out right and left. Some of the same officials in Washington who dealt with the East Asia crisis are now managing the response to the American crisis. Why, people in the Third World ask, is the United States administering different medicine to itself?

Many in the developing world still smart from the hectoring they received for so many years: they should adopt American institutions, follow our policies, engage in deregulation, open up their markets to American banks so they could learn "good" banking practices, and (not coincidentally) sell their firms and banks to Americans, especially at fire-sale prices during crises. Yes, Washington said, it will be painful, but in the end you will be better for it. America sent its Treasury secretaries (from both parties) around the planet to spread the word. In the eyes of many throughout the developing world, the revolving door, which allows American financial leaders to move seamlessly from Wall Street to Washington and back to Wall Street, gave them even more credibility; these men seemed to combine the power of money and the power of politics. American financial leaders were correct in believing that what was good for America or the world was good for financial markets, but they were incorrect in thinking the converse, that what was good for Wall Street was good for America and the world.

Wall Street's Toxic Message (via Memex 1.1)

io9's roundup of "7 Great Sci-Fi Moments From The Muppet Show" includes some absolute gems, including Alan Arkin, Jeckell-and-Hyded into monster-form, performing a stunning rendition of "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah."

7 Great Sci-Fi Moments From The Muppet Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
End Times
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview

The Daily Show's segment on the decline of the New York Times ("reporting the news, making stuff up, getting us into war") is fantastic - and reaches its peak when Jason Jones asks an editor to describe the appeal of "aged news," and when the editor asks him to explain, he challenges the editor to find a single thing in the paper that happened that day.

June 10, 2009: End Times

Over on Offworld, our Brandon has the story of plucky indiegame publisher Mobigame and their battle with UK games magazine trademark holder who registered "Edge," who argues that releasing a platformer game also called "Edge" is a violation of his trademark [Thanks to Tom Armitage for setting me straight on this]. This is a neat illustration of the problem of lumping trademark and copyright together under the banner of "intellectual property." Copyright confers the exclusive right to control copying; trademark is the right to sue people who might mislead your customers, tricking them into thinking that a product that looks like yours came from you. It's not an exclusive right at all. Trademark holders don't "own" words -- they have the right to stop people from using words in a fraudulent manner.

So here's the question: would the average punter off the streets in the UK who stumbled across a copy of Mobipocket's "Edge" think, "Oh look, that games magazine old company that used to also publish software in the 1980s has done a new game"? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Our household's a good test case: I'm not much of a gamer, but I know about Edge. My wife, on the other hand, is a games professional who played Quake for England on the national team. Neither of us have any trouble distinguishing Mobipocket's "Edge" from "Edge," the magazine ancient software company.

Edge Magazine The trademark holder for Edge has a long and shameful history of threatening companies over its trademark, treating the word "Edge" as its property. Finally, someone is standing up for the public's right to have products and services called "Edge" in the marketplace.

Update: With apologies to Edge Magazine for confusing them with the trademark holder!

A short list of the companies that have apparently settled with Langdell and licensed the name or otherwise stepped out of his way include UK magazine Edge, Namco -- whose Soul Edge game would be released in the west as Soul Blade, 1997 Anthony Hopkins movie The Edge, Malibu comics character Edge and any Marvel comic with the word in the title... the list goes on, but out of all the heavy hitters that have conceded, Langdell has finally met his angriest and noisiest match in the one place he probably least expected it: the indie game community.

Langdell has, of course, maintained his right to the mark, and has further claimed that Mobigame has undertaken what amounts to a PR war against him, but since that late May day, the facts have been piling up against him. Chief, in my mind, is the allegation by Mobigame that after informing Langdell that they'd be happy to withdraw any claims and change the name of their game to Edgy, Langdell immediately filed a new trademark on exactly that name (and the name does appear in the trademark database, filed some days before the App Store removal).

Edge of madness: the copyfight between Mobigame and Tim Langdell

Discuss this on Offworld

Green Dam, the mandatory censorware that will be installed on all Chinese PCs as of July 1, is remarkably insecure. J Alex Halderman from Freedom to Tinker and his colleagues Scott Wolchok and Randy Yao have released a paper, based on a mere 12 hours testing, detailing attacks that can be used to "steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet" and " install malicious code during the update process." They've released sample code demonstrating their findings.

The Chinese government has mandated that all PCs sold in the country must soon include a censorship program called Green Dam. This software monitors web sites visited and other activity on the computer and blocks adult content as well as politically sensitive material. We examined the Green Dam software and found that it contains serious security vulnerabilities due to programming errors. Once Green Dam is installed, any web site the user visits can exploit these problems to take control of the computer. This could allow malicious sites to steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet. In addition, we found vulnerabilities in the way Green Dam processes blacklist updates that could allow the software makers or others to install malicious code during the update process. We found these problems with less than 12 hours of testing, and we believe they may be only the tip of the iceberg. Green Dam makes frequent use of unsafe and outdated programming practices that likely introduce numerous other vulnerabilities. Correcting these problems will require extensive changes to the software and careful retesting. In the meantime, we recommend that users protect themselves by uninstalling Green Dam immediately.

Analysis of the Green Dam Censorware System

Freedom to Tinker: China's New Mandatory Censorware Creates Big Security Flaws (Thanks to everyone who suggested this!)

In this brief but compelling Vanity Fair interview with Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor and attorney general of New York, the reporter repeatedly presses Spitzer to explain why he was having sex with a prostitute while campaigning against prostitution. Spitzer's responses are fascinating: it sounds like he had divided his life into two pieces, the values he believed in and the things that he was compelled by.

It reminds me of the scene in Stephenson's Diamond Age in which a neo-Victorian recounts, "Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy... Because they were hypocrites, the Victorians were despised in the late twentieth century. Many of the persons who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefarious conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves-they took no moral stances and lived by none."

"I'm not going to make excuses," he replied evenly. "Let me ask you a question: Is there a difference between politicians and anybody else? Or is it that the lives of politicians are so very public?"

"There is a difference, Mr. Spitzer. You were elected to a position of public trust."

"That's right," he conceded. "It's why I resigned without delay. Some said I could try to ride it out. But I didn't see it that way. What I did was heinous and wrong..."

"You knew the risks. Either you felt you were above the law or you had some kind of death wish."

His response was that neither was the case. "It's a story that has been repeated since our earliest days as a species. It's both obvious and not susceptible to an answer," he insisted. "Nonetheless, we are led down a certain path. It wasn't hubris or a death wish--but frailty, temptation, and common miscalculation."

Lunch in the Park with Eliot (via Kottke)

Channel 4's gallery of Victorian and Edwardian kitchenware has many outstanding glimpses into the fine bygone era (moustache protectors, anyone?), but nothing can top this original, gleaming Teasmade: "A flame was triggered by the alarm clock, which heated the kettle. Once at boiling point the steam would lift a hinged flap tilting the kettle and filling the tea pot. Simple. It's not known how much tea ended up on the sheets."

Teasmade (via Making Light)

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Back in 1960, U.S. Army Captain Bertrand Brinley published the Rocket Manual for Amateurs, one of the greatest DIY books ever written. Its cover price reads 75 cents. Buying a copy today in a used bookstore could set you back more than $100. But it's that good. (I know, I have it.)

There is a considerable amount of information on rocket motor making in RMFA. The line drawings are excellent and the writing clear and straightforward. A lot of people bought this book back in the 50s and 60s, because making rocket motors was a fashionable pastime, and there were lots of clubs and societies that would tinker around making rocket engines.

But like any high energy hobby, things could and would go wrong and people got hurt. Rocket engines had a nasty habit of blowing up in the maker's face and causing injury. There is a part of the process where the propellant is rammed into a tube and that's pretty dangerous. (I personally know of a couple people who hurt themselves this way.) So, the activity changed, and rocket people were encouraged to buy commercial rocket motors instead of rolling their own.

That is indeed much safer. But I think you lose something when you give up the core part of the activity. That's why in Absinthe and Flamethrowers I provide instructions for creating a small but powerful rocket motor wholly out of stuff available at Home Depot or SuperTarget. There's just something so ... satisfying about homebrewing a rocket with stuff you got at Walmart.

Brinley's book contains instructions for making for "micrograin" rocket engines (pulverized zinc and sulfur ramrodded into a steel container.) I tried it and it burns like crazy. Whoa nelly, that's some hot stuff. Probably too dangerous for an amateur.

Dave sez, "Just a quick note to say that the Science Scout website has been completely revamped and ready to take in your anecdotes for why you deserve certain badges (Also a bunch of newish badges are now on display, including, The 'I'm a marine biologist but I kind of f***ing hate dolphins' badge). As well, we're talking to nerdmeritbadges about potentially supplying real badges. Maybe the badges with the most comments will get chosen?"

Badges! Badges! Badges! (Thanks, Dave!)

Cable operators -- representatives of the industry that has spent the last several years arguing that they should be able to charge net-video providers for the right to send data to their customers -- are now arguing that video companies should not be allowed to charge them for the right to send video to their customers.

"Media giants are in the early stages of becoming Internet gatekeepers by requiring broadband providers to pay for their Web-based content and services and include them as part of basic Internet access for all subscribers," an ACA press release on the issue warns. "These content providers are also preventing subscribers who are interested in the content from independently accessing it on broadband networks of providers that have refused to pay."

Cable group turns net neutrality around over ISP access fees

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Magnetism Studios is offering a selection of droll, stylish interactive forms, useful for a wide variety of everyday situations (apologies, invitations, unsolicited feedback, airing of grievances, etc.)

From the www.BureauOfCommunications.com website:

"Every day there are millions of thoughts that go unspoken. To promote better understanding between the peoples of the world, the Bureau of Communication is pleased to present a selection of fill-in-the-blank stationery for everyday correspondence....

At one minute past midnight Eastern Time this Saturday, Facebook users will be permitted to claim a unique user name, which may well spark a virtual vanity landgrab the likes of which we've never seen. Author and former BB guestblogger Douglas Rushkoff says this is the moment when Facebook becomes obsolete.

This is more than 200 million users, already engaged, simultaneously scrambling in the greatest territory dash since the Oklahoma Territory's land run of 1889, albeit with fewer shotgun injuries.

But Facebook's new page-naming scheme actually brings up other memories for me, ones that hold bigger stakes for the company itself. It reminds me of the moment that AOL, formerly a completely closed network with its own content, allowed its users onto the greater Internet for the first time. Internet USENET boards were filled with what we called "newbies" wandering around and asking anyone they could find how to download pornography. Formerly high-level conversations were quickly brought down to the lowest common denominator as a huge population of people uninitiated in basic Internet etiquette flooded the networks faster than we could educate them.

The impact was far worse for AOL. By opening itself to the greater Internet, AOL revealed itself as something of a wading pool. A mini-Internet. Once people could use AOL as a portal to the true, unadulterated, global net, the company was reduced to an ISP. AOL became series of phone numbers you dial to get online, and little more. Steve Case knew his moment was over, and used his inflated stock price to purchase some real assets like Time Warner. We all know how that turned out.

The Facebook Land Grab (Daily Beast)

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Back when I was a boy scout, you had to learn either semaphore or Morse code to earn First Class Scout rank. Most kids in my troop learned semaphore because it was easier to learn. I'm proud to say I learned Morse code. I still remember the code for "a," "e," "I" "n" "o" "s" and "t." So, if the chips were down, I could tap out "I eat no oats," or "Note, I see stones."

The first ship to transmit an SOS distress call was the Cunard liner Slavonia on June 10, 1909, when it went aground on rocks off the Azores.

Prior to that, ships used a variety of distress calls, such as:

-.-. -.. --.- CDQ (subject to misunderstanding)

..- .... / --- .... / .-- . / .- .-. . / ... .. -. -.- .. -. --. UH OH WE ARE SINKING (much clearer)

.. / - .... .. -. -.- / .. / .... .. - / .- / --. --- -.. -.. .- -- -. / .. -.-. . -... . .-. --. I THINK I HIT A GODDAMN ICEBERG (No doubt at all here)

... .... .. .--. / -.-. .- .--. - .- .. -. / -....- / ..-. .- .. .-.. SHIP CAPTAIN - FAIL!

A while back, Jay Leno gave identical messages to the "world's fastest texter" and an old time Morse code expert and set a contest to see who could send it faster. The Morse code blew the texter away. Sort of like John Henry beating the steam drill. Video is here.

.. / .-- .- -. - / - --- / -.. .. . / .--. . .- -.-. . ..-. ..- .-.. .-.. -.-- / .. -. / -- -.-- / ... .-.. . . .--. --..-- / .-.. .. -.- . / -- -.-- / --. .-. .- -. -.. ..-. .- - .... . .-. .-.-.- .-.-.- / -. --- - / ... -.-. .-. . .- -- .. -. --. / .- -. -.. / -.-- . .-.. .-.. .. -. --. / .-.. .. -.- . / - .... . / .--. .- ... ... . -. --. . .-. ... / .. -. / .... .. ... / -.-. .- .-. .-.-.-

• Rob reviewed the Kindle DX. It's great, but...

• We also ran a gallery of the Kindle DX compared with 10 everyday things (Box, Helmet, Puppy...) to give an idea of why its bigger size isn't at all troublesome.

• Xeni spotted a cleverly designed umbrella that allows one to avoid poking other pedestrians, or from having to make eye contact with Ben Stein.

• There's a charming stop-motion demo for an iPhone app.

• Monster made a remote control, but it looks like it should be something else.

• The Xperia X2's keyboard looks like typing may be possible on it. Typing.

• Behold! Homeplug.

• They finished building that massive Gundam statue.

• What is real?

The Open Video Conference takes place June 19-20 in New York, and the event promises ample awesomeness. Speakers include, NYU's Clay Shirky, Harvard's Yochai Benkler, DVD Jon, Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman, EFF's Corynne McSherry, and many many more. I'll be delivering a keynote on Saturday afternoon.

Check out the full agenda here.

The organizers have kindly granted a discount for friends of Boing Boing: 15% off for regular/corporate attendees (you have to sign up before Monday 15th). Use this link. Entry includes access to the two-day event, lunch on both days, and a video remix dance party on Friday night! W00t.

About the Open Video Conference:

At this very moment, in 2009, we have a chance to ensure that internet video retains key characteristics of the internet at large. It's still early and things are looking good, but we need devices that play nice with each other, networks that aren't totally neutered, and playback and production tools that are low-cost (ideally free/open source) and easy to use. Developments like Hulu are interesting for the user, because they can watch what they want, when they want. But we don't want internet video to be a glorified TV on demand service. We want video to be a dynamic medium that invites clipping, archival, remix, collage, repurposing, and many other uses that are currently inhibited by law or by lack of tools.

Hope you'll join me there! - XJ

I present to you the Death Metal Parrot (technically, a cockatoo). Related: Death Metal Dog. (Thanks, Dean Putney)

Video Link. This This cleverly-designed umbrella allows you shrink to fit the sidewalk.. (Thanks, Stephen Lenz)

I dare not publish the photo, for it is far too disturbing, but I will link to it.