For this All Saint's Eve, here's a creepy, 1911 ghost story called "Night Fishing," written by Izumi Kyōka, a writer "heavily influenced by supernatural and grotesque themes from Edo-period literature and folklore." The translation's brand new, from Matt Treyvaud, and the story reads like a Japanese-inflected Poe piece.

It late November. An unseasonably muggy wind had blown all evening. Humid clouds swelled overhead. People too near a brazier were damp with sweat, wishing they could remove their coats. And now the sun was setting. Iwa-san left work and wound through the alleys of the Gyōgan temple grounds to the longhouse where he lived with his family. But once he got there, he seemed agitated by something and in a great hurry. Without even making his usual visit to the bath-house, he wolfed down his rice and tea, said that he was going to visit a friend, and left the house.

While he was gone, the wind grew ever fiercer. The doors and shoji screens rattled. The dark mouths of the shutters yawned and slammed. The skies, despite all this, were clear, stars still and twinkling even as the gale grew wild. Gray clouds like piles of cotton swelled into view from time to time, shedding a few drops of rain. But just when it seemed about to pour, the wind would grow wild and blow the skies clear.

Link (Thanks, Bill!)

The Participatory Culture Foundation has published a compelling chart comparing the free, open Miro video player to Joost, a closed and proprietary system that's crippled with DRM and only carries content from those few producers lucky enough to get a deal with Joost. By contrast, Miro has done extensive outreach to indie creators, has no privacy-invading tracking of your viewing habits, delivers HD video, and is built on free software and open standards.

Using Miro is as easy as using a TiVo. Download the free software, pick the channels you want (over 2,500 of them at present, and anyone can publish new channels), and Miro will subscribe to your favorite net-shows, checking their RSS feeds for new episodes and downloading them with BitTorrent, so that the folks who make your shows don't go bankrupt on bandwidth bills. As a bonus, BitTorrent means that the more popular a show gets, the faster you'll get it -- no more sites being clobbered because too many people are using them at once. It doesn't matter what video format the shows are in, because Miro includes VLC, the open video player that can play pretty much every file-format on the net.

Miro is produced by a nonprofit, the Participatory Culture Foundation, who pay a staff of 11 (mostly hackers) to continuously improve and enhance the free/open Miro codebase. Miro is available for the Mac, Windows and Linux, with all versions being released simultaneously.

I'm proud to volunteer on the Foundation's board, and delighted to see how well we stack up against Joost, a company with more than 100 employees and a gigantic marketing budget (Miro's marketing budget is zero). Joost is a pretty nightmarish vision for the future of Internet video: a DRM-crippled, locked up future where video producers and viewers are beholden to a single company that chooses what does and does not get shown. This is the Internet, after all, not cable TV. Let's keep it that way! Link, Link to download today's new Public Release 3 of the Miro software for Mac, Windows and Linux

(Disclosure: I am proud to volunteer on the Board of Directors for the nonprofit Participatory Culture Foundation, which produces Miro)

The 12 Angry Men blog has a good little rant about the death of the chemistry set, blaming it on lawyers, the war on terror, and the war on some drugs (specifically, the war on meth). These sets were key to interesting untold millions of kids in science and the scientific method.

Today however, the Chemistry Set is toast. Current instantiations are embarrassing. There are no chemicals except those which react at low energy to produce color changes. No glass tubes or beakers, certainly no Bunsen burners or alcohol burners (remember the clear blue flames when the alcohol spilled out over the table). Today’s sets cover perfume mixing and creation of luminol (the ‘CSI effect’ I suppose).

In some States, you need a FBI criminal background check to purchase chemicals. Some metals, like lithium, red phosphorus, sodium and potassium, are almost impossible to purchase in elemental form. This is thanks to their use in manufacturing methamphetamine. Sulphur and potassium nitrate, both useful chemicals, are being classified as class C fireworks (here is a good precursor link). Mail order suppliers of science products are raided. Many over-the-counter compounds now require what is essentially a (poor) background check. Even fertilizer (ammonium nitrate) is under intense scrutiny. Where does this trend end? Ten years from now, will the list include table salt, seawater and natural gas — precursors to many industrical chemicals?

Link (via /.)

(Photo credit: Ancient Chemistry Set, a Creative Commons Attribution-License photo from Vortistic's Flickr stream)

Least Likely to Breed carries a range of delightfully named pregnancy products, from "Tough Titties Nipple Rub" to "Roid Rage Hemorrhoid Remedy" -- as well as a diaper salve called "Bad Ass Booty Balm." I have no idea if the stuff is any good, but the product names are great. Link (Thanks, Leigh!)

Malware for OS X is rare, but here's a new trojan that Mac users should know about:

(Screenshot from Sunbelt Software)

A malicious Trojan Horse has been found on several pornography web sites, claiming to install a video codec necessary to view free pornographic videos on Macs. A great deal of spam has been posted to many Mac forums, in an attempt to lead users to these sites. When the users arrive on one of the web sites, they see still photos from reputed porn videos, and if they click on the stills, thinking they can view the videos, they arrive on a web page that says the following:

Quicktime Player is unable to play movie file.
Please click here to download new version of codec.

After the page loads, a disk image (.dmg) file automatically downloads to the user’s Mac. If the user has checked Open “Safe” Files After Downloading in Safari’s General preferences (or similar settings in other browsers), the disk image will mount, and the installer package it contains will launch Installer. If not, and the user wishes to install this codec, they double-click the disk image to mount it, then double-click the package file, named install.pkg.

If the user then proceeds with installation, the Trojan horse installs; installation requires an administrator’s password, which grants the Trojan horse full root privileges. No video codec is installed, and if the user returns to the web site, they will simply come to the same page and receive a new download.

Link

Marco says: "Paul Rand left a huge mark on American graphic design thanks to his corporate logo designs you've all probably seen. It was only recently that the UPS logo was redesigned from his original look.

"Here is a 4 minute Quicktime film tributing Paul's work, a delicious animated journey through very familiar shapes and colors as Paul explains graphic design. In short, it looks really great.

"Paul Rand was inducted to the One Show Creative Hall of Fame this week." Link

Mason says:

Bamboo microscopes that cost just $4 are being made in India by a group called Jodo Gyan. They're hoping to supply kids with more hands-on learning, and get away from rote memorization.

Nature has an article about this, with photos of the microscope and of a woman making them.

Link

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we saw a disgusting automatic donut maker, an interview with the writer of Portal, a bungee-strap for your laptop case, another rentable tank, the Asus Eee sub-notebook on sale, new versions of The Secret Life of Machines, a better painter's masking tape, a 900-lumen metal halide flashlight, a calculator belt buckle, and Portal papercraft.

Today's also the last day to get in on our latest contest with the prize of one Neuros OSD. (Team bOING bOING has taken second place overall in the Cosmology@Home distributed computing program!)

Jumbled Pile is a volunteer for the Jail Library Group, which provides reading materials to the residents of jails in Dane County, Wisconsin.

Occasionally, he comes across notes and sketches placed between the pages of the books. He scans these and posts them to his Flickr site. Link (Thanks, Seán in Seattle!)

Today's Boing Boing tv episode:

The invite said "Bring a Yoga Mat - Dress Like a Zombie." When filmmaker and Boing Boing pal Jason Wishnow set out to create a trailer for Scott Kenemore's new book "The Zen of Zombie : Better Living Through the Undead" (yes, people make video trailers for books!) a vision came to his brrraiiiiinns. Why not gather 100 people in a Brooklyn park, dress them as zombies, and film them all doing yoga? There's no inner peace like undead inner peace.

So today on Boing Boing tv, in honor of Halloween, we've produced a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Jason's Zombie Yoga trailer (we'll share his actual trailer tomorrow!). Oh, and -- watch out for flying guts when they do "downward decapitated dog" or "corpse pose." (Music by T.bias.)

Link to video. Happy Halloween from Boing Boing! Zombies are forever.

Dan says: "Here is a great story I found about Arnold Schwarzenegger telling a British journalist that marijuana is not a drug. He was trying to deflect suggestions that he had used drugs in the past by saying weed is 'not a drug. It's a leaf." Then the PR machine began, predictably, to crank into full gear."

Aaron McLear, Schwarzenegger's press secretary, said the governor made the comments in a lighthearted context, noting his interviewer was Piers Morgan, one of the judges on "America's Got Talent." Morgan is a former British newspaper editor.

"The governor was doing an interview with the host of 'America's Got Talent,' the newest version of the gong show," McLear said. "I think it's important to keep that quote in the context of the environment where it was said."

Link

Via Joshua Glenn's Hermenaut:

Eric Reynolds of Fantagraphics sez: "Jenny Ryan embroidered this awesome cover for Nickelodeon Mag's "Comic Book" section this month, based on a drawing by her husband, Johnny Ryan." Link

Alejandro Cardenas and Daniel Cardenas were commissioned by GOOD Magazine to create this terrific animation presenting curious facts about the death industry. Link

Flickr user Kudzutech's bad-ass samurai costume (build detailed at the link below) is made from 32 gallon Rubbermaid garbage cans! Link (Thanks, Rob!)

In the comments to the weird story about the crashed drug plane with ties to the CIA, Mongip pointed to a "much more detailed, objective and intriguing investigative report on this plane," from Chicago Public Radio.

The new owner? "Donna Blue Aircraft"[3] a corporation recently registered in South Florida to two Brazilians.

[Reporter Kevin] HALL: one of these mailboxes-are-us type of business.

Donnablueaircraft dot com was registered just ten days before they bought the plane[4] So is this just a Front Company? Investigative journalist Daniel Hopsicker visited Donna Blue’s listed address… He found an empty office suite, a blank sign, and six unmarked police cruisers parked in front.[5]

[Investigative journalist Daniel] HOPSICKER: It’s a phony front company.

Exactly who these Brazilians are is a whole 'nuther story.

HOPSICKER: Non-US citizens are not allowed to own N-Numbered Planes…and…neither one of these guys appears to be a US Citizen.

HALL: he didn’t check either box as to whether he was a US citizen.

After just two weeks, the plane was sold again in another mysterious transaction. The only evidence for this is an anomalous bill of sale with the name of the new owner: “Clyde O’Connor” He’s a well-known guy around Ft. Lauderdale Executive Airport.

HALL: I had the sense they seemed to have known more about him than they were letting on, he seems to be a veteran around that area, who’s got a bit of a checkered past.

O’Connor’s been involved in at least two plane crashes and he was cited for Criminal Air Safety Violations in 2001.

[Florida reporter Bob] NORMAN: He’d gone through bankruptcies, a divorce, he’s a chronic traffic offender.

Florida reporter [and Blogger @ the Broward Palm Beach New Times] Bob Norman tried to track down O’Connor.

NORMAN: He’s a slippery guy, … and where the money’s coming from, I think that’s a big question.

Kevin Hall was wondering about O’Connor’s money too.

HALL: …seems to own a $450,000 house, so he seems to be doin pretty well even though his businesses are going bad

He has two corporations registered in his name, but they’re run out of Post Office Boxes and their phones are disconnected. Bob went looking for O’Connor at Ft. Lauderdale executive airport. He just missed him.

NORMAN: I don’t know why he was there but it was the talk of the airport.

So Bob reported he had been seen around the Ft Lauderdale airport days after the crash. The same day his story came out, O’Connor left the country in a hurry.[6] He flew to Canada and was arrested right away for lying about the guns in his bag.[7] Then, he paid several thousand dollars to get his plane back and then flew it to the Azores. He still doesn’t appear to be under investigation for any wrongdoing, despite being the cocaine plane’s owner of record. This really gets Bob Norman’s goat…

NORMAN: This is a trail that needs to be investigated, Clyde O’Connor needs to be investigated.

And according to the bill of sale… He was the lawful owner of the plane.

SLACK: Even though the paperwork may not be on record and filed, presumptive ownership transfers on the date of sale.

There’s another big question about Clyde…

ROOT: Who actually piloted the plane out of the US was it Mr. O’Connor, who wasn’t certified?…

So did he fly it illegally or did someone else fly it? And also: who gave O’Connor the money to buy the plane? According to the Brazilian owner, O’Connor was buying the plane on behalf of someone else… Then who’s he buying it for? There was another name on the bill of Sale: Greg Smith, the only person involved in the deal not to have left the country. So Dan Hopsicker tried to get his side of the story,

HOPSICKER: The pilots aren’t talking to the press so I asked someone who I know does business with the two pilots to call and Greg Smith blurted out ‘it was Don’s money’…

That’s Don Whittington, a convicted drug smuggler, tax evader and champion race car driver.

Several of his planes were named in investigations of the CIA rendition program[9] but we’ll get back to him later. So What do we know so far…Weve got a crashed drug plane in Mexico…It’s got a history of government use…It changes hands twice in a couple weeks before crashing…

Link | Link to MP3

Etsy.com announced the winners of its 2007 costume contest. I was honored to be one of the judges in the "General Awesomeness" category. Here's the first place winner, Sweetestpea's robot costume, complete with an LED (low-tech entertainment display) that can be hot-swapped with different hand-cut messages. More than 500 crafters entered. Congrats to everyone!
Link

Southern California New York police will soon begin field testing this "pistol cam" that mounts to the barrel of a service revolver pistol. Cameras that mount on guns are not new, but this particular model will be deployed for tests over the next few months within the Orange County's sheriff's emergency service team and the Newburgh Police Department. According to WREX-TV, the president of the city of Newburgh's police union doubts that the officers will be happy about the new system. I fear looking at YouTube once the street finds its own use for these things.
Link

UPDATE: In the Discussion, Ed G. kindly points out that the Times Herald-Record has a much more detailed story about the PistolCam. Link

Political scientist Bruce Bueno de Mesquita is bringing mathematics to bear on what Yogi Berra said is the hardest thing to predict: the future. The New York University professor is profiled in this week's Science News and is also on the cover story in the current issue of GOOD Magazine. He's consulted for the CIA, the Department of Defense, and Fortune 500 companies to help generate forecasts using a computerized game theory model. He's recently worked with the US government on the conflict with Iran. However, he says his private consultancy's corporate policy bars him from saying, "on a commercial basis," who will be the next president of the United States. From Science News:

The details of his study of negotiation options with Iran are classified, but Bueno de Mesquita says that the broad outline is that there is nothing the United States can do to prevent Iran from pursuing nuclear energy for civilian power generation. The more aggressively the U.S. responds to Iran, he says, the more likely it is that Iran will develop nuclear weapons. The upshot of the study, Bueno de Mesquita argues, is that the international community needs to find out if there is a way to monitor civilian nuclear energy projects in Iran thoroughly enough to ensure that Iran is not developing weapons.

One of his most famous past predictions also concerned Iran. In 1984, the model predicted that when Ayatollah Khomeini died, an ayatollah named Hojatolislam Khameini and a little-known cleric named Hasheimi Rafsanjani would rise to succeed Khomeini as leaders of Iran. At the time, most experts considered that outcome exceedingly unlikely, since Khomeini had designated a different person as his successor. But in fact, when Khomeini died five years later, Rafsanjani and Khameini succeeded him.

Bueno de Mesquita says he also predicted that Andropov would succeed Brezhnev long before experts considered it likely. He foresaw that China would reclaim Hong Kong 12 years before it happened, and he predicted that France would narrowly pass the European Union's Maastricht Treaty.

Former CIA analyst Stanley Feder says that he has used Bueno de Mesquita's model well over a thousand times since the early 1980s to make predictions about specific policies. Like others, he has found it to be more than 90 percent accurate.

Link to Science News, Link to GOOD Magazine

Previously on BB:
• Failed futuristic predictions Link
• Gladwell on mysteries vs. puzzles Link
• Problems with predictions Link

After attending a Halloween party in Hamburg, Germany, a 26-year-old drunken man dressed as a zombie passed out on the train home. Passengers thought he was dead and called police. Apparently, Halloween costumes aren't a common sight in the town he was passing thorough. From Reuters:

A first aid team called to the scene soon cleared up the confusion. Police told the man to remove his make-up after which he was allowed to continue his journey.

Link (via Fortean Times)

Evil Mad Scientist Labs have improved on their classic design for a bat-wing costume made from old umbrellas with a new design that is even more anatomically correct! Link (via Craft)

See also: HOWTO: Make a bat-person costume out of an old umbrella

The punchline on today's Jack of All Blades web-comic riffs off my fave xkcd episode -- the one where I'm outed for my practice of blogging from a hot-air balloon while wearing goggles and a red cape. Link (Thanks, Joe!)

See also:
Geeky comic strip uses Cory as the punchline
Cory Doctorow cosplayers at the XKCD picnic

Update: From the comments, "Cory (A Different One)"'s revelation that this was his Hallowe'en costume!

Kirby sez,

Ricky at Inside the Magic has a video of Disney's Haunted Halloween Parade at Tokyo Disneyland.

All of the floats have Haunted Mansion themes - even obscure stuff like the Rolly Crump designed overstuffed easy chair with the face worked into the design. Another float has the Ballroom's Organ as the major design element. The Knight from just outside the endless hallway is represented by 4 cast members. The bride is a chipmunk character. Another float has a giant representation of the skeletal arm with a trowel bricking himself into his own tomb.

A phalanx of Haunted Mansion maids leads the parade. Ghosts from the Mickey Mouse cartoon "Lonesome Ghosts" pepper the entire parade.

The song that accompanies the parade is called "One More Ghost" in reference to the need to find that 1000th ghost that the Mansion needs.

The show stop at the end of the parade features the Japanese Ghost Host voice with various riffs off of the Grim Grinning Ghosts theme.

MP4 Link, Inside the Magic podcast (Thanks, Kirby!)

Lauren sez, "Our kick-ass South African sci-fi kids' show, URBO: The Adventures of Pax Afrika has a special episode about the music industry and DRM technology, only in our universe, 'DRM' stands for the Don't Rip Monsters, who really do bite you on the ass if you dare to file-share." Link (Thanks, Lauren!)

Tim K sez, "I thought you'd enjoy seeing this set of Flickr pix I took at a Hollywood Day of the Dead festival: Bugs and the gang as Looney Tunes skeletons." Link (Thanks, Tim K!)

Flickr's Girlontherocks has made a grisly "inside out" wardrobe for her Blythe doll, garments that show the doll's notional internal organs -- it's the Visible Woman Blythe Doll! Link (via Craft)

See also: Balloon-dog anatomy

Here's a nice selection of paper doll "Hallowe'en costumes" inspired by Bob Dylan lyrics, courtesy of the Seattle Weekly. Link (via Neatorama)

For the past week or so, I've been blacklisting PR flacks from my email inbox. Anytime I get a press release that doesn't interest me, I add the domain name of the PR agency to my killfile list.

I just found out that Chris Anderson, Wired's editor-in-chief, has been doing the same thing.

He's also published his long, long list of banned flacks. Good for him.

I've had it. I get more than 300 emails a day and my problem isn't spam (Cloudmark Desktop solves that nicely), it's PR people. Lazy flacks send press releases to the Editor in Chief of Wired because they can't be bothered to find out who on my staff, if anyone, might actually be interested in what they're pitching.

Everything else gets banned on first abuse. The following is just the last month's list of people and companies who have been added to my Outlook blocked list. All of them have sent me something inappropriate at some point in the past 30 days. Many of them sent press releases; others just added me to a distribution list without asking. If their address gets harvested by spammers by being published here, so be it--turnabout is fair play.

There is no getting off this list. If you're on it and have something appropriate to say to me, use a different email address.

Link (Thanks, Barry!)

Donovan, singer of such fantastic 60s tunes as "Mellow Yellow" and "Sunshine Superman" is opening his own Donovan University in Scotland where students will all practice transcendental meditation. He's working on the idea with his surrealist film director pal David Lynch. From the Associated Press:

"The Maharishi told me during that 1968 visit that I should build a university in Edinburgh. I went to my room and drew a beautiful dome-shaped place of learning," he said Friday...

Donovan and Lynch, Oscar-nominated director of "Blue Velvet," "Mullholland Dr." and "The Elephant Man," are part of a tour to promote transcendental meditation as a means of reducing violence, crime and stress in schools and colleges...

"For a country the size of Scotland it would take only 250 students meditating to protect Scotland from its enemies and to bring peace, to stop violence and drug abuse," Lynch said. "That is just a byproduct of the students meditating together."

Link (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)

Production has wrapped on the film adaptation of Philip K. Dick's novel Radio Free Albemuth. The 10th movie adaptation of a PKD story, the indy movie was directed by John Alan Simon and stars Alanis Morisette. According to Simon, the total shoot took just 24 days and "the entire budget of the picture was less than the majors spend on catering." David Gill has more news over at the Total Dick-Head blog including promise of an interview with the director.
Link to Total Dick-Head, Link to buy the book Radio Free Albemuth

Professional amateur-hater Andrew Keen gets raked over the coals by Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas Zuniga. On page 52 of Keen's silly book The Cult of the Amateur, Keen writes:

Unfortunately, the internet is bloated with the hot air of these amateur journalists. Despite the size of their readership, even the A-List bloggers have no formal journalistic training. And, in fact, much of the real news their blogs contain has been lifted from (or aggregated from) the very news organizations they aim to replace.

It is not surprising then that these prominent bloggers have no professional training in the collection of news. After all, who needs a degree in journalism to post a hyperlink on a Web site? Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, for example, the founder of Daily Kos, a left-leaning site, came to political blogging via the technology industry and the military.

Kos responds by listing his education and professional background as a journalist, which anyone with access to the Internet can easily discover for themselves.

Moulitsas earned two bachelor degrees at Northern Illinois University (1992-96), with majors in Philosophy, Journalism, and Political Science and a minor in German.

After a hitch serving as an artillery fire director at the headquarters for a missile battery, he attended Northern Illinois University, winning dual degrees and majoring in philosophy, political science and journalism and minoring in German.

From there, it was on to Boston University, where he earned his law degree.

“I knew in law school that I never wanted to be a lawyer. It was a way to kill three years of my life,” he offered with a smile.

He could have become a reporter—there was a job offer from the Associated Press—and he did freelance for three years for the Chicago Tribune, “but I decided I didn’t want to live vicariously through other people’s lives.”

Link (Thanks, Gary!)

Jay Leno will have The Sex Pistols and Ron Paul on this evening's Tonight Show. Link

Last night my daughter and I watched the Night Gallery episode about the killer doll from India and it freaked her out (in a good way).

I probably should get her this Living Dead Dolls pencil sharpener, which reminds me of the creepy killer doll from Night Gallery. (Aww shucks -- it's sold out.) Link

In 1971, anthropologist Dr. William Bass (seen above) founded the University of Tennessee's Forensic Anthropology Facility, aka the "Body Farm." On those three acres in Knoxville, dozens of lifeless human bodies lie in various states of decomposition in the name of science and education. Alan Bellows of Damn Interesting paid a visit. From the article, which is not for the squeamish:

From a short distance the male figure almost appeared to be napping among the hummingbirds and squirrels, draped as he was over the pebbled ground. But something about his peculiar pose evoked a sense of grim finality– the body language of the deceased...

The students knelt alongside the slumped form, seemingly untroubled by the acrid, syrupy tang of human decay which hung in the air. They remarked on the amount of decomposition that had become evident since their last visit, such as the sloughed skin and distended midsection. The insects which feasted upon the decommissioned man were of specific interest, prompting a number of photographs and note-jottings. After surveying the scene to their satisfaction, the students strolled across the glade to examine a considerably more decayed corpse in the trunk of an abandoned car. Their lack of alarm wasn't altogether surprising, for they were part of the organization responsible for dumping these corpses– along with dozens more– throughout the otherwise serene forest....

As the lifeless subjects are interred into the grisly forest hideaway, each is assigned an anonymous identification number. Some are situated to provide interesting decomposition vectors, while others are used to reconstruct specific circumstances for police investigations. At any given time, several dozen perished persons are scattered around the hillside within automobiles, cement vaults, suitcases, plastic bags, shallow graves, pools of water, or deposited directly upon the earth. Except when clothing is necessary for a particular study, cadavers are disrobed, and frequently certain factors such as fire and chemicals are introduced to measure their effects. Grad students and professors return periodically to check on the subjects' progress, with occasional visits from police officers or FBI agents undergoing training.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Vultures halt "body farms" plans Link
• Forensic anthropology in Glenn and Helen Show podcast Link

Ashley Highfield, the BBC's Director Future Media & Technology, has done an interview with the BBC Backstage podcast about the BBC's new DRM-based net-delivery system, iPlayer, which delivers a slim fraction of the functionality available to people who watch their TV over the air.

Highfield defends the company's DRM in an incoherent way, attacking straw-men ("The rightsholders need DRM to protect their rights" and "we need open source DRM, but that may be a contradiction in terms," "Rightsholders are scary," "We need a fictional technology that will let us insert ads but only when American eyeballs are present") but without addressing the really meaty questions.

The BBC broadcasts the entirety of its programming at the speed of light, in digital form, without DRM, to every corner of the UK. The net is flooded with every single show the BBC transmits. The BBC has previously stood up to rightsholders who insisted DRM (removing DRM from its satellite feeds, despite an entertainment industry boycott that lasted a year). Adding DRM to its downloads just makes the downloads suck, traps Britons into using Microsoft OSes, shuts out one in four license-paying households who don't have the right combination, bans open source -- but it has nothing to do with stopping infringing downloads.

What's more, the fictional technology Highfield cites as a prerequisite for dropping DRM is wildly improbable. It would require every single entity in the video "value chain" -- every player, every hosting site, every hardware company -- to sign on to always follow the BBC's "insert ad here" instruction, and the only way to force them to do that is...to add DRM.

When asked about the iPlayer's P2P system (which you can't switch off, meaning that once you download shows, they're available for other iPlayer users to download from you), Highfield says that the ISPs have sold "unlimited" broadband to their customers without expecting us to actually use the service without limits. They have a dishonest pitch for their technology, and Highfield essentially says, "Well, that's their problem."

I couldn't agree more -- and what's more, there's another group of companies that have made a dishonest pitch for technology: the rightsholders who say that DRM on the BBC's downloads will stop unauthorized distribution of their videos.

I like Highfield -- I know him personally and think he's smarter than this. I'd love to see him interviewed by someone who actually walked him through the real implications of what he's proposing here. Link, Link to Ben Laurie's rebuttal (Thanks, Glyn!)

See also:
BBC announces that it may NOT deliver Linux/Mac/older Windows version of iPlayer -- sorry, 25% of UK, no iPlayer for you!
Cory's column on DRM's Potemkin Village for the Guardian
BBC Trustees agree to let BBC infect Britain with DRM
BBC's online media now requires MSFT player, DRM
BBC picketed over use of Microsoft DRM
BBC recruits Microsoft DRM exec
Regulators order BBC Trust to meet with open source consortium over DRM player

Bernard Foing wrote an article for Astrobiology Magazine about how our Earth, its weather, and its life forms would be different without the influence of the Moon.

The eyesight of many mammals is sensitive to moonlight. The level of adaptation of night vision would be very different without the Moon. Many of these species have evolved in such a way that their night vision could work in even partial lunar illumination, because that’s when they are most active. But they can be more subjected to predators, too, so there is a balance between your ability to see and your ability not to be seen. The Moon has completely changed evolution in that aspect.

Human vision is so sensitive that we are almost able to work by the light of the Milky Way. The full Moon has more light than we need to see at night. For most of our history, we were hunting and fishing or doing agriculture, and we organized our lives by using the Moon. It determined the time for hunting, or the time where we could harvest. That’s why most of our calendars are based on the Moon.

Link (Via Daily Grail)

What's the difference between us and our chimpanzee cousins? Researchers studying traits that we share, like altruism and vengeance, and those we don't, like spite and most social learning skills, are shedding light on what it means to be human. The new issue of Smithsonian surveys several of these studies. From the article:

What makes us lucky bipeds human?

"The most important way to ask these really hard questions—is human altruism unique, is human spite unique, is human fairness unique—is to ask non-human animals," says Laurie Santos, director of the Comparative Cognition Laboratory at Yale University. This behavioral process of elimination defines humans as it progresses.

Since chimpanzees can't speak our language, researchers design experimental scenarios to detect the presence or absence of such traits.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Ape altruism Link

Barack Obama has promised that he will deliver a law mandating Net Neutrality if he's elected:

Affixing his signature to federal Net neutrality rules would be high on the list during his first year in the Oval Office, the junior senator from Illinois said during an interactive forum Monday afternoon with the popular contender put on by MTV and MySpace at Coe College in Iowa...

He went on to explain the issue briefly: "What you've been seeing is some lobbying that says that the servers and the various portals through which you're getting information over the Internet should be able to be gatekeepers and to charge different rates to different Web sites...so you could get much better quality from the Fox News site and you'd be getting rotten service from the mom and pop sites," he went on. "And that I think destroys one of the best things about the Internet--which is that there is this incredible equality there."

Link

Mark sez, "In the original Anaheim Disneyland it may be a Small World after all, but that world's inhabitants are getting bigger and heavier almost by the day, so much so that some of the rides may have to be re-engineered. This has already been scheduled for the Small World ride, which will be closed for almost a year beginning in January for retooling. When the ride finally reopens, the flume will be an inch or so deeper and the boats more buoyant, thus allowing for several hundred more pounds of capacity."

The Small World ride now must accommodate adults who frequently weigh north of 200 pounds, which it often cannot do. Increasingly, overweighted boats get to certain points in the ride and bottom out, becoming stuck in the flume.

Link (Thanks, Mark!)

NPR has an audio excerpt from Henry Petroski's latest book, The Toothpick: Technology and Culture.

For author Henry Petroski, the simplest of instruments — be it a pencil or a telephone keypad — can offer fascinating stories of engineering, design and cultural history.

Even toothpicks don't escape his inquisitive eye. His latest book explores the history of this seemingly mundane tool — and why picking our teeth is among mankind's oldest bad habits.

In The Toothpick, Petroski, who is a professor of civil engineering and history at Duke University, chronicles the instrument's odd and funny history, taking readers back to the time of the Neanderthals. Anthropologists have found evidence of grooves on fossilized teeth that resulted from rough-hewn toothpicks. Later, in ancient Rome, the emperor Nero entered a banquet hall with a silver toothpick lodged in his mouth.

Link (Thanks, Partha!)

Researchers found a clam off the coast of Iceland that's between 405 and 410 years old.

The mollusc, which is thought to have lurked beneath the waves until at least the age of 405, would have been a juvenile when Galileo picked up his first telescope, Hamlet was first staged and the gunpowder plot failed to blow up King James I.

The Arctica islandica clam was plucked from 80m-deep water by researchers at Bangor University in Wales, who were dredging the north Iceland shelf for the creatures. By studying their shells, the scientists hope to learn how the marine environment has changed in recent centuries.

The clam was alive when it was brought to the surface, but at that point, the researchers had no idea how old it was. Only after cutting through the shell and counting annual growth rings under a microscope did they date the mollusc to between 405 to 410 years old.

Scientists said it was a little tough, but "very tasty fried in butter and garlic." (Not really.) Link

Incredible sculptor Tessa Farmer collaborated with the London Natural History Museum's Entomology Department to unleash an army of tiny faeries on the museum's mounted insect and animal collection. The exhibition, titled Little Savages, runs until January 28. As part of the exhibit, Farmer, Sean Daniels, and my friend Mark Pilkington made a stop-motion film of the faeries' in the wild. Interesting, Farmer is the great granddaughter of fantastic fiction author Arthur Machen, a fact she only found out after developing her relationship with the faeries.



"They have their roots in Victorian fairies, who were quite mischievous and lived in natural habitats, often torturing animals," Farmer recently told The Guardian. "My fairies are more gory. Their ultimate ambition is to attack humans..."

Link to Mark Pilkington's Strange Attractor post
Link to Natural History Museum
Link to more of Farmer's work in a 2006 exhibit called Miniature Worlds

In today's episode of Boing Boing tv:

Who says all the leading men in slasher flicks have to be straight? From Invisible Engine comes a new series of online snuff-comedy-webisodes called Gay Friday, and we take a pre-Halloween peek today.

Link.

The Consumerist has posted a giant round-up of their advocacy articles called "The Ultimate Consumerist Guide To Fighting Back." It breaks down into three sections:

Section 1: "I've been wronged! What do I do next?"
Section 2: The Consumerist Corporate Executive Directory
Section 3: Success Stories

and each section contains links to excellent articles on everything from timestamping your communications with customer-service lines to "launching an executive email carpet-bomb" to the delightfully named "Underlying Principle For Forcing An Uncaring And Adversarial Company Fix Your Problem." The next time I'm ripped off, I'm starting here. Link

John sez, "Shimmer Magazine just released The Pirate Issue, which was guest-edited by me, John Joseph Adams. In addition to all the bloodthirsty pirate action you would expect to find in an issue labeled "The Pirate Issue," the issue also features a story that should be of particular interest to Boing Boing readers: "Captain Blood's B00ty," a story in which magic is real but every spell has been copyrighted by an RIAA-like organization. In the story, there is a pirate website that lets you download stuff anyway (like The Pirate Bay, but for magic)." Link to site for story, Link to story download page (Thanks, John!)

Christopher Locke makes spider-sculptures out of confiscated scissors bought at TSA auctions ("The larger ones are made from barber scissors, and the smaller ones are made from cuticle scissors.") Link (Thanks, Christopher!)

See also: California kleptocrats auctioning airport confiscata on eBay

Danny sez,

The Invisible Computers: The Untold Story of the ENIAC Programmers is a documentary on one of the first programming teams: Betty Snyder Holberton, Jean Jennings Bartik, Kathleen McNulty Mauchly Antonelli, Marlyn Wescoff Meltzer, Ruth Lichterman Teitelbaum and Frances Bilas Spence.

The six-woman team hardwired code for ballistics trajectory calculations, but were overlooked in the previous accounts of the first US large-scale, electronic, digital computer in 1946.

The documentary is being previewed at Google next Thursday -- they production team are looking for donations to finish it off and show it elsewhere.

Link (Thanks, Danny!)

Bonnie sez, "Need a cool Star Wars Halloween disguise that you can create yourself? Star Wars: A Pop-Up Guide to the Galaxy author Matthew Reinhart shows you how to make this simple pop-up mask that changes you from Anakin Skywalker to Darth Vader in a flash. Now you can go to the dark side and back again and again!" Link (Thanks, Bonnie!)

M.E. sez, "I just spent well over a month working on this article about Disney's Haunted Mansion & various related DIY and craft projects. (There's plenty of introductory information for people who have never been on the ride or who don't remember it in much detail.) I talk about the illusions involved in creating some of the effects, how people are using elements in their own lives (esp around Halloween), all the crafts I could find, some other craft ideas, and so on." Link (Thanks, M.E.!) (Photo credit: Gingerbread Haunted Mansion, Craftster)

On Friday, I got the Twin Peaks Definitive Gold Box Edition -- a 10 DVD set of David Lynch's mind-bendingly creepy/dreamy TV series.

In addition to the remastered versions of all 29 episodes plus the US and European pilots, it's loaded with excellent supplemental material, including lots of making-of documentaries and interviews. It's a terrific package of stuff.

This 10-disc set includes "Greetings from Twin Peaks" collectable postcards and a plethora of special features, including hours of newly-minted bonus content, featuring exclusive cast and crew interviews and rare footage never before released on DVD.

"Secrets from Another Place: Creating Twin Peaks" is a collection of four new documentaries exploring the origins, production and impact of the show. The cast and crew, including co-creator Mark Frost, composer Angelo Badalamenti, singer Julee Cruise, actors Kyle MacLachlan, Joan Chen, Piper Laurie, Ray Wise, Sheryl Lee, Kenneth Welsh, Maedchen Amick, Miguel Ferrer and many others share their memories of creating the show in this in-depth piece covering the sensational and tumultuous evolution of TWIN PEAKS in four parts: "Northwest Passage: Creating the Pilot," "Freshly Squeezed: Creating Season One," "Where We're From: Creating the Music" and "Into the Night: Creating Season Two."

Co-creator and four-time Academy Award(R) nominee David Lynch, Kyle MacLachlan and Maedchen Amick take an amusing look back at the series in "A Slice of Lynch," an all-new get-together of friends over piping hot coffee and sweet cherry pie.

"Return to Twin Peaks" follows a group of devoted fans to the 2006 Twin Peaks Festival, where the show's faithful have been regularly gathering for costume contests, celebrity sightings, trivia games and other wildness in the woods outside of Seattle. And an Interactive Map allows viewers to revisit the show's unforgettable locations as they appear today...and how to find them in real life.

Newly remastered from the original negative and personally approved by David Lynch, the episodes have never looked better. Moreover, viewers will have the option of enjoying the episodes in either new 5.1 Surround Sound or the original 2.0 network television audio.

Link