Gorgeous keyboard mod from a German maker, inspired by Jake von Slatt's steampunk keyboard mod. Love the gothic-y brass frame pieces.

German Steampunk Keyboard

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iOscilloscope displays the iPhone's mic in as waveform with fast fourier transform or Sonogram modes - iOscilloscope

For a more advanced view check out SignalScope -

• Analyze signals coming from the iPhone's built-in or headset microphone, or from the built-in accelerometer.
  
• Zoom in or out on spectrum and waveform displays with two-finger expand/pinch gestures, even while the analyzer is running.
  
• Pan vertically or horizontally in zoomed displays with two-finger scrolling.
  
• Pinpoint individual sample values or frequencies with a cursor.
  
• Save high-resolution spectrum or waveform display images to the iPhone's Camera Roll photo album.

- SignalScope

- sorry no harware BNC connector for iPhone as of yet ;)

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Fox's new reality show pilot called Smile, You're Under Arrest features people with outstanding warrants getting tricked for the audience's amusement before being arrested.

Fox President of Alternative Entertainment Mike Darnell calls it "a reverse Punk’d. Instead of the worst day of your life and then a joke at the end, this is the reverse. This is the best day of your life, and then we arrest you.”

One of three set-ups just shot in Arizona features the cops luring a criminal to a movie set with the promise of making him an extra and paying him a couple hundred dollars. An elaborate film set is staged and filming begins on a faux movie. The set-up continues as the director then gets mad at the lead actor, fires him and replaces him with the law-breaking extra.

The scene escalates with the fake director introducing the mark to a supposed studio mogul and continuing to create this dream-comes-true sequence. Finally, all the participants are revealed as officers of the law, and the criminal is apprehended (before signing waivers to let the footage be used in the show).

New reality show "Smile, You're Under Arrest" (Via The Agitator)

Oldyeller89 writes "LG, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes pleaded guilty to charges of price fixing in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. They fixed the prices on LCD screens used not only in their products but also in other products such as Apple's iPods. The three companies agreed to pay $585 million in fines. Perhaps this will cause the price of our TVs to drop?" The New York Times also has a story on the outcome of this case.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Oldyeller89 writes "LG, Sharp, and Chunghwa Picture Tubes pleaded guilty to charges of price fixing in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act. They pleaded guilty to fixing the prices on LCD screens used not only in their products but also in other products such as Apple's iPods. The three companies agreed to pay $585 million in fines. Perhaps this will cause the price of our TVs to drop?" The New York Times also has a story on the outcome of this case.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael Una brings us the Beep-It optically controlled squarewave generator in a petri dish enclosure -

This minimalist electronic musical instrument eschews esoteric interface in favor of intuitive, expressive control. One button turns the device on or off, which can produce a continuous tone or a rhythmic sequence. One sensor varies pitch of the output waveform in response to ambient light. The resulting system encourages playfulness and body movement.

In addition to selling these, Michael has kindly posted the hand-drawn schematic to his blog - Beep-it for Sale

[via Create Digital Music]

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Probably no color profile issues with this version (via). #

We're seeing a bunch of folks pointing out that evidence collected by the Washington Post's computer security writer, Brian Krebs, is basically responsible for getting that company kicked off the internet. Krebs is a fantastic reporter, so I don't doubt the story -- but I'm always a little skeptical of stories claiming that a huge percentage of spammers have been knocked offline. We see such stories every few months, and it never seems to have any real impact on the amount of spam out there. Just last month there was a report claiming that the world's largest spam operation was shut down, but the actual amount of spam flowing across the network did not decrease.

This case is a little different, in that it didn't shut down the spammers themselves, but rather a hosting company that apparently many of the largest zombie botnets relied on. However, it seems quite likely that they'll find some other hosting company that will gladly take them on and everything will be up and running again. That's not to say it's bad that these guys get taken down -- but at some point people should realize this seems like a big game of whack-a-mole, and there may be better, more efficient ways to tackle the problem.

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CWmike writes "DeepDyve has launched its free search engine that can be used to access databases, scholarly journals, unstructured information and other data sources in the so-called 'Deep Web' or 'Dark Web,' where traditional search technologies don't work. The company partnered with owners of private technical publications, databases, scholarly publications and unstructured data to gain access to content overlooked by other engines. Google said earlier this month that it was adding the ability to search PDF documents. In April, Google said it was investigating how to index HTML forms such as drop-down boxes and select menus, another part of the Dark Web."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few months ago I switched from BBEdit to Coda for fulltime development work. I'm a happy camper for the most part (largely because of it's integrated local/server syncing). This new version touts a nice new plug-in system to extend the editor. #

But what does it mean? (Via The Cut; photo credit: David Byun for Surface.)

Aquila was a yearbook for Japanese American high school students interned in a camp during WWII. The University of California has scans of two editions.

Scan of WWII US internment camp for Japanese Americans (Via This Isn't Happiness)

Roq La Rue's Kirsten Anderson and Mark Ryden teamed up on a project to raise money for The David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. They released this Mark Ryden print, titled "The Bunny Cart," in a limited edition of 50. They're 7.5" x 10.5", signed/numbered, and are $1000 each. Every penny goes to the U.S. Friends Of David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust. I have one and can vouch that the quality is absolutely exquisite. It looks and feels just like an original drawing. There are fewer than 10 left. If you'd like to purchase one, please email Kirsten directly: kirsten ((at)) roqlarue.com

I guess when you're known for being a virtuosic fabricator of fabulous tech-mods in cyberspace, you're kids aren't going to let you slide by with a wriggling animatronic hand from Target for Halloween. Here, the day before flying out to deliver the keynote at the California Steampunk Convention, Jake von Slatt presented this Wizard of Oz themed Halloween display at his house outside of Boston.

Hallowe'en 2008

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narramissic writes "Back in March 2001, a hacker named Josh Buchbinder (a.k.a Sir Dystic) published code showing how an attack on a flaw in Microsoft's SMB (Server Message Block) service worked. Or maybe the flaw was first disclosed at Defcon 2000, by Veracode Chief Scientist Christien Rioux (a.k.a. Dildog). It was so long ago, memory is dim. Either way, it has taken Microsoft an unusually long time to fix. Now, a mere seven and a half years later, Microsoft has released a patch. 'I've been holding my breath since 2001 for this patch,' said Shavlik Technologies CTO Eric Schultze, in an e-mailed statement. Buchbinder's attack, called a SMB relay attack, 'showed how easy it was to take control of a remote machine without knowing the password,' he said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've seen plenty of occassions where, in an attempt to offset falling revenues from music sales, the recording industry chooses to attempt to extract royalties from 'performances' which have actually added value to the music. In yet another such situation, Australian health clubs are faced with a 3000 percent rise in their royalty rates for playing music during exercise classes from the Phonographic Performance Company of Australia (PPCA). Currently, the rate is $0.90 per class, with an annual cap of $2,654 ($0.80/$2,302 USD); the proposed increases are to $31.67 ($26.89 USD) per class with no cap, or a monthly fee of $26.08 ($22.55 USD) per member. The drastic nature of these increases has prompted one Australian fitness club chain has partnered with the International Health, Racquet and Sportsclub Association (IHRSA) to resist the changes.

The chain's president said of the action, "We have no choice. If we don't fight this, we won't have an [Australian health club] industry left to fight for." While an increase of 30 times would undoubtedly negatively impact the clubs, it seems somewhat hyperbolic to suggest the industry would disappear as a result. More interesting is IHRSA president Joe Moore's observation that the change "has serious implications for clubs in other countries" - that is to say the change, if successful, would be used to argue for similar rises in performance royalties across the world - a tactic we have already seen from bodies purporting to represent musicians.

One factor neither side is really discussing (beyond the "our industry will collapse" rhetoric) is the potential consequences of these royalties being sufficiently high to cause health clubs and similar businesses to seek out alternative sources. Their core business is not to provide licensed music for their customers, so there's no reason why they couldn't play royalty-free music instead, simultaneously lessening the control the PPCA exerts over the music business, cutting off the existing income from royalties and promoting the competitors of the artists it supposedly represents. Perhaps the health clubs might lose some business through customers disliking the change of music in their classes (although that seems unlikely), but it would at least be a more powerful way to convey their message to the PPCA than to plead complete dependence.

Douglas Gresham is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Douglas Gresham and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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The Yes Men printed over one million fake copies of the New York Times with a headline proclaiming that the Iraq War was over. The Yes Men Distribute Fake New York Times: “Iraq War Ends”

Maclolm Gladwell, author of Blink! and Tipping Point, has a new book coming out next week. In Outliers: The Story of Success, he looks at how, and why, some people succeed far beyond their talents merit. According to Gladwell, "they are invariably the beneficiaries of hidden advantages and extraordinary opportunities and cultural legacies that allow them to learn and work hard and make sense of the world in ways others cannot." New York Magazine features a long profile on Gladwell, the "geek pop star," and tease the ideas he explores in the new book. It sounds fascinating! From New York Magazine:

Consider, for instance...hockey stars. Relying on the work of a Canadian psychologist who noticed that a disproportionate number of elite hockey players in his country were born in the first half of the year, Gladwell explains what academics call the relative-age effect, by which an initial advantage attributable to age gets turned into a more profound advantage over time. Because Canada’s eligibility cutoff for junior hockey is January 1, Gladwell writes, “a boy who turns 10 on January 2, then, could be playing alongside someone who doesn’t turn 10 until the end of the year.” You can guess at that age, when the differences in physical maturity are so great, which one of those kids is going to make the league all-star team. Once on that all-star team, the January 2 kid starts practicing more, getting better coaching, and playing against tougher competition—so much so that by the time he’s, say, 14, he’s not just older than the kid with the December 30 birthday, he’s better. The solution? Double the number of junior hockey leagues—some for kids born in the first half of the year, others for kids born in the second half. Or, to apply the principle to something a bit more consequential (to non-Canadians, at least), Gladwell suggests that elementary and middle schools put students with January through April birthdays in one class, the May through August birthdays in another, and those with September through December in a third, in order “to level the playing field for those who—through no fault of their own—have been dealt a big disadvantage.”

Or take the case of Bill Gates. Gladwell cites a body of research finding that the “magic number for true expertise” is 10,000 hours of practice. “Practice isn’t the thing you do once you’re good,” Gladwell writes. “It’s the thing you do that makes you good.” Gladwell shows how Gates accumulated his 10,000 hours while in middle and high school in Seattle thanks to a series of nine incredibly fortunate opportunities—ranging from the fact that his private school had a computer club with access to (and money for) a sophisticated computer, to his childhood home’s proximity to the University of Washington, where he had access to an even more sophisticated computer. “By the time Gates dropped out of Harvard after his sophomore year to try his hand at his own computer software company,” Gladwell writes, “he’d been programming practically nonstop for seven consecutive years. He was way past 10,000 hours.” Yes, Gates is obviously brilliant, Gladwell concludes, but without the lucky breaks he had as a kid, he never could have had the opportunity to fulfill the true potential of that brilliance. How many similarly brilliant people never get that opportunity?

And then there are the math geniuses who, as anyone can’t help noticing, are disproportionately Asian. Citing the work of an educational researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, Gladwell attributes this phenomenon not to some innate mathematical ability that Asians possess but to the fact that children in Asian countries are willing to work longer and harder than their Western counterparts. That willingness, Gladwell continues, is due to a cultural legacy of hard work that stems from the cultivation of rice. Turning to a historian who studies ancient Chinese peasant proverbs, Gladwell marvels at what Chinese rice farmers used to tell one another: “No one who can rise before dawn 360 days a year fails to make his family rich.” Contrast that legacy with the one derived from Western agriculture—which holds that some fields be left fallow rather than be cultivated 360 days a year and which, by extension, led to the creation of an education system that allowed students to be left fallow for periods, like summer vacation. For American students from wealthy homes, summer vacation isn’t a problem; but, citing the research of a Johns Hopkins sociologist, Gladwell shows that it’s a profound handicap for students from poor homes, who actually outlearn their rich counterparts during the school year but then fall behind them when school lets out. “For its poorest students, America doesn’t have a school problem,” Gladwell concludes. “It has a summer-vacation problem.” So how to close the gap between rich and poor students? Get rid of summer vacation in inner-city schools.

"Why Malcolm Gladwell Thinks We Have Little Control Over Our Own Success (New York), Outliers: The Story of Success (Amazon)

ancientribe writes "The thousands of Web sites infected by a new widespread SQL injection attack during the past few days aren't necessarily in the clear after they remove the malicious code from their sites. Researchers from Kaspersky Lab have witnessed the attackers quickly reinfecting those same sites all over again. Meanwhile, researchers at SecureWorks have infiltrated the Chinese underground in an attempt to procure a copy of the stealthy new automated tool being used in the attacks."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As the Democrats take power and the Republicans move out, it's pretty obvious that the Republicans must decentralize and build and do it using the Internet.

And please emphasize self-respect and respect of others, to attract people with good intentions and brains. The kind of mindless arguing that Republicans have become famous for has chased away all the people who know how to find creative solutions to problems. You need to attract the people with ideas in order to get their ideas.

I said it over and over during the campaign, but I don't know how many people believed me, now maybe you will -- I am not a Democrat. I don't care which party wins, what I care about is that we, as Americans, act intelligently and make the best of the opportunities we have. I think there are a lot of people like me.

I'd like to see the parties compete for our support. We've done pretty well with the Democrats, now it's time to help the Republicans, if they want it. The first thing: you're going to have to give up and disavow the loutishness. No way anyone with self-respect is going to associate with that.

Here's another clue, I was able to get into the DNC twice in the last two cycles, and wasn't able to get into the RNC either time. Maybe you need to take a look at how you've set up your gates and who you're keeping out and why.

Scott Beale of LaughingSquid writes:

"Can Throwing", it's kind of like Parkour for recycling.

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A huge group art show all about clowns opens this Saturday, November 15, at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, California. The lineup is, er, no laffing matter, with the likes of BB faves Andrew Brandou, Korin Faught, Audrey Kawasaki, Travis Louie, Annie Owens, J. Otto Seibold, Joe Ledbetter, Travis Louie, Gary Baseman, Brandi Milne, and dozens of others. The show runs until November 29, 2008. Corey Helford Gallery kindly provided us with a sneak preview of work from the show. Clockwise above, Brandi Milne, Chet Zar, Jason Shawn Alexander, and Shag. Click the images to see them larger.

Clowns! at Corey Helford Gallery

Illustrator Derek Yaniger has a book of his illustrations called Wildsville.

Celebrating a retro subculture of tiki gods, hillbillies, and burlesque, this collection of Derek Yaniger's incredible body of 1950s-style cartoon art is a must for all tiki and Kustom Kulture addicts. The only work devoted to his illustrations for Cartoon Network, Marvel Comics (for which he worked on such titles as Hellraiser, Transformers: Generation 2, and Web of Spider-Man), and more, this book contains more than 150 original paintings and illustrations. Derek's illustration style, reminiscent of cocktail napkin art of the 1950s, delves into the retro world of beatniks, tiki bars, and Vegas glamour. Original cartoon art collectors, students of cartoon art, and fans of lowbrow artists will all find this an essential reference.

Wildsville - The Art of Derek Yaniger

WFMU's Radio Freetown with DJ Franc O from 11/10/2008

Radio Freetown is a terrific new podcast from WFMU featuring West African pop music from the 1970s. Subscribe via iTunes

Radio Freetown

Down in the south end of the Metal detectorist's mysterious find thread, we've been kicking around the idea of running games in the comment threads. We've even played some short games there.

This has now been declared a Good Idea, so we're starting one with this entry. The winner gets applause, glory, and a spot at center stage in which to show off really well. The same goes for everyone else who turns in a good performance. The only difference is that Everyone Else doesn't also get a Gears of War 2 Special Edition Zune 120 GB (see description).

Note: it's a freebie, nothing more. If you're really worried about Boing Boing's purity, you can help protect it by winning the game. As you know, freebies emit a faint, kryptonite-like radiation that only affects Boingers; but since the arrangements call for donor Whitney Biaggi to ship the Zune directly to the winner, and since readers are of course immune to freebie-radiation, things should work out just fine.

We're going to be running more games and contests in the near future, with prizes from other donors. If you're planning to kick up a big fuss about some imagined commercialization, please bear in mind that (1.) freebies aren't terribly memorable unless someone makes a fuss about them; and (2.) eventually even you will get bored at having to kick up a fuss whenever someone snags a prize, and the rest of us will get bored a lot sooner than that.

You're a clever bunch. Let's play games instead.

The first one's simple: write some verse about one or more recurrent Boing Boing obsessions: steampunk, the TSA, unlikely mods, papercraft, mashups, gadgets, emergent properties of the Zombie Apocalypse, DIY, FISA, comics, photographers' rights, WTF, FTW, wristwatches, skiffy history, misused tasers, making a foo out of bar, cryptozoology, Tibet, animation, copyright abuse, drives, hacks, sex, robots, robot hacks, hacking sex, sex with robots, emergent properties of sex with steampunked robots during the Zombie Apocalypse forestalled by misuse of copyright by body-modded TSA official using LEDs and a 9-volt battery, et cetera, found dead on beach in Long Island. (Not a complete list.) Best poem wins. If you turn down the prize, you get a jar of marmalade, and the runner-up gets the Zune. The moderation guidelines still apply.

All other things being equal, your poem is likelier to win if it rhymes and scans; even more so if it's formal verse. Villanelles count more than limericks. Alternately, write it as a pastiche of a recognizable work or author. Pastiches may be prose, but may not be long, and had better be good. For extra extra credit, write your piece as an on-topic comment in some other thread, then re-post it here. All other things being equal, wit, language, and happy mutancy win.

Finally, feel free to suggest other games to be played in future threads.

Addendum: Tdawwg replies:

But limericks are formal verse,
the same as villanelles; you err
thus separating the two. Worse,
although their differences are fair,
they're unremarked by you: silk purse,
sow's ear, don't make of them a pair,
two distinct objects they, diverse.

A woman died this week when her husband's coffin slammed into the back of her neck during a traffic accident in Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Marciana Silva, 67, was riding in the front seat of the hearse when she was hit.

"Husband's coffin kills woman on way to cemetery" (Associated Press, thanks Joel Johnson!)

Previously on BB:
• Tombstone kills man

Matt_dk writes "Today, Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft has successfully reached its intended operational orbit at a height of about 100 km from the lunar surface. This followed a series of three orbit reduction manoeuvres conducted during the past three days by repeatedly firing the spacecraft's 440 Newton Liquid Engine. The next major event of Chandrayaan-1 mission planned in the coming days is the release of Moon Impact Probe (MIP) from the spacecraft and its eventual hitting of the moon's surface."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As we posted a couple weeks ago, one of our newest sponsors is Safari Books Online, the outfit that offers a digital library of tech books from publishers like O'Reilly, Apress, and Addison-Wesley. As part of Safari's sponsorship, they offered BB readers one month free online access to any of the following books: JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Learning Perl, and Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML.

As mentioned previously, we thought it would also be a hoot to hold a contest based on what you might learn from those books. As a prize, Safari offered up a year of access to the complete Safari Books Online library, a $515 value. So now the contest... In Learning Perl, the authors write the following:

"Though we recommend you write clear code, some people like writing code that's as hard to understand as possible... We don't recommend it for normal coding purposes, but it can be a fun game to write confusing code..."

So in that spirit, we are holding an obfuscated code contest. To enter, come up with a wonderfully obfuscated code snippet that prints out the phrase "Boing Boing." Post the snippet in the comments thread. Then, we'll pick a winner with the shortest, most elegant, or creative bit of code. The snippets have to be executable!

You have 24 hours from now, after which time we'll lock the comments thread. The winner will be announced here on November 19. Good luck!

Free tech books from Safari Books Online

As regular Techdirt readers are surely aware, Tim Lee has been writing a series of posts here about issues having to do with network neutrality. The five part series, was based on research he was doing for a position paper for the Cato Institute on network neutrality. If you haven't read the series of posts, you can find them here:

• Censoring The 'Net Is Hard
• Ownership Doesn't Always Mean Control
• Changing The Internet's Architecture Isn't So Easy
• Revolving Door Undermines FCC's Watchdog Role
• A History Lesson For Those Advocating Network Neutrality Laws

Whether or not you've read those posts, you should absolutely read the finished product, which has now been released by Cato. While the document is long, it should be required reading for anyone interested in the issues surrounding network neutrality. It's well-researched, well-written and quite thought-provoking -- challenging many of the claims made by supporters of "both sides" of the debate, highlighting the fact that reducing network neutrality to "two sides" has always been a mistake.

Specifically, Lee, rips apart the arguments made by those who believe that various service providers need to violate network neutrality "end-to-end" principles, pointing out how it's based on faulty logic. He also dismantles faulty arguments from those who claim that the internet is not or never was "neutral." He also details why the concept of neutrality has been quite important to the growth and success of the internet, and he cites much of the innovation that came about because of it.

However, rather than supporting the efforts of "network neutrality supporters" (which is common in the tech world), he points out why we probably do not need regulations to enforce network neutrality -- highlighting non-regulatory methods that have, and will continue to, keep network providers honest. Yes, there may be encroachments at the margins -- but, for the most part they turn out to be unsustainable both due to the backlash of users and the fact that they often end up making very little business sense.

Finally, he points out the risks of unintended consequences from any network neutrality legislation, pointing to similar situations in the past in other industries, that resulted in "regulatory capture," where the industries being regulated were able to abuse the regulatory process to their own benefit. He also takes a look at the most likely proposed legislation, highlighting just a few of the more obvious problems that would crop up if it were turned into law.

Anyone who is making policy or supporting a particular policy around network neutrality is doing themselves a tremendous disservice if they do not take the time to read this paper. Whether you're advocating for network neutrality laws, or claiming that service providers have to violate network neutrality to stay alive, you need to take the time to read this paper, and either come up with the evidence to refute Tim's points, or perhaps recognize that the way this issue has been painted in the press does not give the complete picture.

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Bob Logan reports that iTunes is selling great Disney old music. A commentor writes:

Randy Thornton (Disney Music Restoration Hero) has gotten a lot of great, classic stuff up on iTunes, including The (original) Mickey Mouse Club soundtrack (and the music from its serials!), Thrilling Chilling Sounds of the Haunted House, Babes In Toyland, Ludwig Von Drake, the never-before-released-anywhere 20,000 Leagues soundtrack and much, much more. Check it out (unfortunately, it takes some searching: It seems iTunes doesn't have them grouped in any logical way).

Classic Disney on iTunes!

Golfer_X, of the darkly funny Riverside and San Bernardino Real Estate Blog, took this weird photo when he was in Las Vegas.

I spent the last weekend in Vegas. As you can see from the picture the hooker hawkers are not just handing out cards anymore. Now they walk around with lit billboads strapped to their backs! Freaking amazing. I don't quite understand why the city allows these guys on the street. Most of their handouts end up littering the streets. I took this picture out in front of the Paris Hilton.

Photo of Las Vegas "hooker hawkers"

I love Johnny Yanok's cover art for the Mexican surf/garage/psychedelic band Telekrimen.

Johnny Yanok - Telekrimen

Wasapeas writes-

This is a visualization of a linux boot sequence where each function is a node and each edge represents a function call, direct branch, or indirect branch. Nodes are laid out using an unweighted force-directed layout algorithm, where each node is simulated as if it were electrically repulsive and had springs between nodes.

The little "lobe" on the left is made up the interrupt processing routines (irq vectors, irq_svc, etc). The tail at the top is the bootloader. The main thing in the middle is the linux boot sequence.

The entire graph represents a call chain from the bootloader up until it jumps into userspace to a shell prompt...

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Treehugger has an excellent overview of 30 non-standard ways to put a roof over your head in 'tents times.' Above is one of my favorite: a tent disguised as a car. Don't worry: the article is as good as the pun is bad:)

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A new study suggests that listening to your favorite music is actually good for your heart. The research from the Maryland School of Medicine supports a previous study showing that laughter is good for vascular health. From the University of Maryland:

Music, selected by study participants because it made them feel good and brought them a sense of joy, caused tissue in the inner lining of blood vessels to dilate (or expand) in order to increase blood flow. This healthy response matches what the same researchers found in a 2005 study of laughter. On the other hand, when study volunteers listened to music they perceived as stressful, their blood vessels narrowed, producing a potentially unhealthy response that reduces blood flow...

Compared to baseline, the average upper arm blood vessel diameter increased 26 percent after the joyful music phase, while listening to music that caused anxiety narrowed blood vessels by six percent. “I was impressed with the highly significant differences both before and after listening to joyful music as well as between joyful and anxious music,” says Dr. (Michael) Miller...

Most of the participants in the study selected country music as their favorite to evoke joy, according to Dr. Miller, while they said “heavy metal” music made them feel anxious. “You can’t read into this too much, although you could argue that country music is light, spirited, a lot of love songs.” says Dr. Miller, who enjoys rock, classical, jazz and country music.

"Joyful Music May Promote Heart Health"

I am in love with Joonhuyn Kim's flat lightbulb via Hackedgadgets.

flat bulb is designed by korean designer joonhuyn kim. unlike ordinary bulbs its volume is 1/3 smaller, reducing the cost of packaging and transport. its slim shape allows bulbs to be easily stacked and prevents breakage as it does not roll. his work was on display as part of 100% design tokyo.

*A reader has reported that there is a "virus" on the artist's site, so proceed with caution - not sure if something is there or not...

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Riding with Robots writes "Just days after announcing that the Mars Phoenix Lander has met its icy demise, NASA reports that a dust storm has left the rover Spirit on the edge of power failure. During one recent Martian day, the robotic geologist's solar array produced only 89 watt hours of energy, the lowest output by either rover in their nearly five years on Mars. Mission managers are taking steps to protect the hardy, battle-worn spacecraft, but the agency describes Spirit's status as 'vulnerable.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Now we're talking! This is great! Open Source Hardware on New Hampshire Public Radio's "Word of Mouth"!

The Italian design firm Arduino makes one of the hottest circuit boards used by gadget builders today. Since mass production began two years ago, the company has sold about 50,000 units - not bad for a small start-up nestled in the medieval foothills of Milan.

But there’s something different about Arduino – their business model. They give everything away. On their Website you can download all the design plans, send them off to a Chinese factory, mass-produce the boards, and sell them yourself. There are no patents. You can pocket the change without paying Arduino a dime. Sounds crazy? It’s part of a new movement called open source hardware.

WIRED Magazine contributing editor Clive Thompson wrote about Arduino and this new trend in technology, and he joins Word of Mouth with more on how open source hardware makes sense as a business model.

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On the other hand...

There's this great scene in The Wire, I'm going to have to look it up and at least get the audio online, where Carcetti, the newly elected mayor, is having breakfast with a long-retired former mayor.

He explains that on his first day in office he was kicking back in the beautiful mayor's office thinking how great it was to finally be here when his aides came in with a lovely plate and on it was a shit sandwich. They handed it to him saying "This is for you."

Basically the story is that for the guy on top, every day is a series of eating shit sandwiches in a beautiful office.

I thought of this when I read this WSJ article about the first crisis waiting for the new President, and how the current President said "no deal" when Obama asked him to have a taste. Bush basically was saying: "Obama man that's your shit not mine."

Now, it is a beautiful office.

Kevin Kelly writes:

This is Tanya Vlach's new eyeball. She lost her real one in a car accident a few years ago. I met Tanya at a film festival recently. During our conversation she said she was looking for help in turning her artificial eye into a eye-cam. You know, a mini web cam inside an eyeball. It would capture live video and stream it to a memory somewhere and also perhaps eventually assist her own vision in real time. She confessed that she was not technologically adept enough to hack it on her own.

Eye-Cam Wanted

I'll be joining a number of other internet video creators and network folks at NewTeeVee Live, tomorrow in San Francisco. My session is 4pm, and we'll be talking about Boing Boing tv's first year, and some of the fun stuff we have planned. Tickets are still available if you'd like to attend, and the lineup is great -- lots of solid internetelevision. NewTeeVee kindly included Boing Boing tv in their NewTeeVee Top 10 Breakout Video Stars of 2008.

A man with no arms allegedly stole a 23" TV from a store in Munich, Germany. According to reports, he had helpers strap the TV to his chest. From the Daily Telegraph:

A police spokesman admitted: "It's hard to believe that the sight of an armless man walking along with a giant TV clamped to his body did not get anyone's attention."

"Daring thief steals television despite having no arms"

eBoy, those isometric pixel-stackers extraordinaire, have a new art book out called Pixorama. I haven't seen a copy yet, but it looks like a heavy board book of the various cityscapes they've created in recent years. Here are some more photos of the book.

14 full-color cardboard pages featuring Foobar, London, Assembler, New York, Superbronco, Tokyo, Baltimore and LA. Size closed: 22,5×30 cm (8,86×11,81 inch). Corners rounded.

Speaking of their cityscape posters, they've got a new one of the Baltimore Docks.

eBoy Pixorama book

Our pal Bonnie at Lucasfilm says, "I thought you both might get a kick out of this. My Darth Vader toast recipes are now on Starwars.com! Oh and I took some fun photos with the toast and toys!"

Naomi Klein's must-read piece in Rolling Stone about the $700 billion Wall Street bailout begins by examining Reuben Jeffery III, the man first tapped to serve as the program's chief investment officer. Snip:

Like Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, he's an alum of Goldman Sachs, having worked on Wall Street for 18 years. And as chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission from 2005 to 2007, he proudly advocated "flexibility" in regulation — a laissez-faire approach that failed to rein in the high-risk trading at the heart of the meltdown.

Bankers watching bankers, regulators who don't believe in regulating — that's all standard fare for the Bush crew. What's most striking about Jeffery's résumé, however, is an item omitted when his new job was announced: He served as executive director of Paul Bremer's infamous Coalition Provisional Authority in Baghdad, during the early days of the Iraq War. Part of his job was to hire civilian staff, which made him an integral part of the partisan machine that filled the Green Zone with Young Republicans, investment bankers and Dick Cheney interns. Qualifications weren't a big issue back then, because the staff's main function was to hand over stacks of taxpayer money to private contractors, who were the ones actually running the occupation. It was this nonstop cash conveyor belt that earned the Green Zone a reputation, in the words of one CPA official, as "a free-fraud zone." During Senate hearings last year, when Jeffery was asked what he had learned from his experience at the CPA, he said he thought that contracts should be handed out with more "speed and flexibility" — the same philosophy he cited back when he was in charge of regulating Wall Street traders.

The Bush Administration has since reversed the Jeffery appointment, perhaps thinking better of giving a CPA alum such a central role in the Wall Street bailout. Still the original impulse underscores the many worrying parallels between the administration's approach to the financial crisis and its approach to the Iraq War. Under cover of an emergency, Treasury is rapidly turning into an economic Green Zone, overrun with private companies collecting lucrative contracts. Fittingly, one of the first to line up at the new trough was none other than the law firm of Bracewell & Giuliani — yes, that Giuliani. The firm's chairman, Patrick Oxford, could scarcely conceal his glee over the prospect of cashing in on the bailout. "This one," he told reporters, "is very, very big." At least four times bigger, in fact, than the post-9/11 homeland-security bubble, from which Giuliani and his various outfits have profited so extravagantly. Even bigger, potentially, than the price tag for the Iraq War itself.

The New Trough (Rolling Stone, thanks Clayton Cubitt, illustration by Illustration by Victor Juhasz)

tsa writes "The European Department of Justice has decided that the Danish company Lego does not have exclusive rights to the lego building block anymore (sorry, it's in Dutch). Lego went to court after a Canadian firm had made blocks that were so like lego blocks that they even fitted the real blocks made by Lego. The European judge decided that the design of the lego blocks is not protected by European trade marks and so anyone can make the blocks." If true, hopefully this will open doors for people interested in inexpensive bulk purchase of bricks of specific sizes and colors. Perhaps at long last I can build a life sized Hemos statue for my office.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Switthoft's text message bottles via NOTCOT. The maker writes -

Each bottle contains a text message that I have avoided deleting from my selfoan. The messages are printed in braille on used 1/2-inch Ampex audio tape. The end of each message is wound and adhered to the respective leather corks.

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Super cute French kid ad-libbing a fantastic story with crocodiles, monkeys, and Winnie the Pooh. I hope she got license clearance for those copyrighted characters. More about the video here at videogum. (thanks, John Walsh!)

Proving, once again, that common sense isn't so common, News.com is reporting on a series of orders handed down by judges in Argentina that have forced Google and Yahoo to completely block searches on certain Argentinian celebrities. Apparently, some Argentinian models who were upset that their pictures were showing up on some porn sites, sued both Yahoo and Google. For anyone who understands just about anything about how the internet works, it would be easy to recognize that this lawsuit was grossly mistargeted. Yahoo and Google have nothing to do with the content on the various websites they point to, but apparently Argentinian models and judges do not seem to recognize this.

So, the judges issued an injunction, demanding that Google and Yahoo block references to the models. This "win" caused other Argentinian celebrities who were upset with content online about them to seek out the same lawyer, who filed similar lawsuits over and over again. Each time, the court has issued an injunction, forcing Google and Yahoo to block results on those individuals. In some cases, they've tried to block specific results, but in at least one case, Yahoo has blocked all results on a search for Argentinian soccer star Diego Maradona. The blocks only impact the Argentinian sites, but it still seems fairly ridiculous.

Google is appealing the injunctions, saying that this really seems like something of a shakedown. The company is also trying to explain to the Argentinian government why it should put in place safe harbor laws that protect service providers from being liable for the content created by others. Of course, even without such laws in place, common sense should prevail. Apparently, though, common sense remains less common than commonly believed.

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brothke writes "It has been suggested that if one was somehow able to change history so that aspirin had never been discovered until now, it would have died in the lab and stand no chance of FDA approval. Similarly, if we knew the power that Google would have in 2008 with its ability to aggregate and correlate personal data, it is arguable that various regulatory and privacy bodies would never allow it to exist given the extensive privacy issues." Read below for the rest of Ben's review.

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I've been following Rob's Halloween costume build for a week, he made the most amazing box of chocolates costume from foam, paint, straws and other common items. Nice work!

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Ostracus writes "Lost creator JJ Abrams has unveiled footage from his Star Trek prequel at a press event in London. The clips featured US actor Chris Pine as the young Captain Kirk, Heroes star Zachary Quinto as Mr Spock and Simon Pegg as Enterprise engineer Scotty. The audience also saw Leonard Nimoy reprise his role as the older Mr Spock in one of four excerpts from the film. In his introduction, Abrams said he wanted the film to be released in May 2009, to feel 'legitimate and real.' Speaking at London's Vue West End cinema on Tuesday morning, the film-maker admitted he had 'never really been a huge Star Trek fan.'" Note that the article doesn't actually contain the footage, just brief descriptions of it. The video clip included is just the old trailer that we saw many moons ago. But that won't stop me from lusting.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You may recall that Classmates.com was a website that first showed up in the 90s, and tried to do what Friendster and Facebook were later able to do. The problem was that Classmates.com's business model was to charge users for many of its features, including actually connecting with and contacting your classmates -- things that more recent social networks have always allowed for free. However, if you ever used Classmates.com for anything, you've probably been spammed with emails for years, each one claiming that your classmates are looking for you, or had recently viewed your profile. Nearly every email sent by the company (and they seem to come about once a week) has some enticing subject line that tries to suggest that something is happening with your profile and you're missing out if you don't upgrade to a premium account.

I've always ignored these emails, figuring that if any of my former high school classmates really wants to contact me, there are plenty of ways to do so that don't require me to pay up -- and naturally assumed that Classmates.com was exaggerating what was happening on the site. Some folks, however, believed the emails and upgraded. And, now, one of those who upgraded his account to see which classmates were trying to contact him, discovered (surprise, surprise) that Classmates.com was lying to him. His classmates weren't trying to contact him via the site, and so he's now suing the company for deceptive advertising, and demanding that the company refund subscription fees for everyone who was similarly duped.

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Part of the appeal of Obama, at least to this voter, is what our choice said to the rest of the world about us. But there was more to it, and now it's time to talk about that.

Ryan Lizza wrote a fantastic piece in the New Yorker, like all of his campaign pieces for the 2008 election. The closing paragraph sums up something really important about Obama.

After one of the Clinton debates he said: "'I am not a great candidate now, but I am going to figure out how to be a great candidate.' One of Obama's achievements as a politician is that he somehow managed to emerge intact, after navigating two years of a modern and occasionally absurd Presidential race, while also becoming a great candidate. On Election Night, as he once again invoked the words of Lincoln, he seemed to be saying that he was going to figure out how to be a great President."

Lizza was also on FreshAir yesterday. Highly recommended.

So now the question is of course how does Obama become a great President.

The two crises he has to deal with are: 1. The huge financial bubble that just burst and 2. Overpopulation, energy, global warming (all of which are really a single problem).

Neither of these problems have an American solution. Even if he were absolute dictator of the United States, he wouldn't be able to solve them. He could prop up American institutions and home owners, nationalize all the industries, we'd work on infrastructure, education and health care, but he'd still have to make deals with other countries to buy our debt to finance those efforts.

He can and absolutely should take steps to cut our use of oil, of course it makes no difference whether the oil comes from Alaska or Venezuela, that was an outright lie by the Republicans during the election. But, again, it's a world wide thing, in order for our planet to continue to sustain life, we must cut carbon emissions, and ultimately to do that, we must get population under control.

So how can President Obama be a great President, given this scenario? It's pretty obvious that he's going to have to keep campaigning, on a world wide level, and doing it the same way he did it in the US, with everyone, in their own way, pulling together toward a common goal. Sell the people of the world on the idea of a sustainable planet and a fair, distributed economy that serves the people, and then show them how they can play a role in solving the problem.

That last phrase is the most important part. In the last century people may or may not have wanted to be couch potatoes and eyeballs, I don't care to debate that -- but it's not true in this century. Its fascinating to watch so many pundits flail around trying to understand what just happened, when it's obvious. Government became active and inclusive, at least for the moment.

Now the challenge for Obama, that will determine whether or not he's great, is two-fold: 1. Will he get absorbed by the internal momentum of Washington and lose his connection with the people; and 2. Will he extend the momentum of the campaign to the world that's reachable through the Internet, and organize it in the same way he organized the US electorate toward a shared purpose of making life on the planet sustainable. If he can do both, he will not only have been a great President, but will have become the greatest political leader in history. And the amazing thing about our times is that its conceivable, because of our new distributed communication tools, it's possible.

I returned from Tokyo on Monday. I gave a talk at the Web Directions East conference. I've never had a simultaneous translation of a presentation before. I hope it went OK. I'll be forever grateful to John Allsopp, Satoshi Kukichi and the rest of the WDE team for inviting me to speak, being incredibly gracious hosts and generally being awesome people. I'll never get tired of traveling to faraway places, where (without fail) the quality of people in this industry inspire, impress and humble me. I feel lucky.

I don't think I'll travel that distance again without the rest of my family.

I'll never forget walking through customs after spending the entire Election Day in the air. CNN was on in the airport lobby. 'Barrack Obama Elected President of the United States' it said. Twenty seconds later, John McCain started his concession speech. Relief after 14 hours of nail-biting anticipation.

I took a lot of photos. I tried packing as much into a few days as possible. I was amazed by the giganticness of the city. I caught a view of the cityscape at night, at the top of the hotel where Lost in Translation was filmed. They wanted a $20 cover charge, so we left.

I loved that every train station in Tokyo has it's own unique short little melody (hear them all). I love how this aids accessibility with audio. I'm thinking we need more unique audible melodies for events that happen on the web or desktop. I was also impressed with the grooved sidewalk path found throughout the entire city, which would direct a blind person from station to station, uninterrupted.

I probably didn't bow enough.

I sang Don't Stop Believing in a karaoke bar in Shinjuku along with friends old and new. I've never sang karaoke before. I had the best doughnut I've had in my life in Harajuku, at Tamagotchi Donuts. I was amazed by the depth of the character culture in Japan. It permeates everything and everyone -- not just for kids, but a part of general communication throughout the city.

I tried the eel (unagi) and 'chicken knuckles', but was less adventurous with the raw horsemeat. I loved the simplicity of the food in Japan. I have a new favorite snack in 'onigiri', a triangle of sushi rice, seaweed, and (in my case) teriyaki-soaked seaweed inside. I'll have to hunt for those here at home.

I learned two Japanese phrases. I should've learned more.

My son and I built the Mechamo Inchworm kit - actually, he built most of it himself, I helped figure out a couple of parts issues and put together some tiny bits. This is a great kit for kids! He's 14, but hasn't built a lot of kits before, and it went really well. He learned a lot of little things from the build, like how to stabilize a nut while tightening a screw. It's also a pretty forgiving design; twice he put something together backwards, but figured it out and was able to take it apart and put it back together correctly - a lot of kits won't let you take things apart.

I was impressed with how nicely it was packaged - the parts were well organized, and there was a parts list, and instructions in both Japanese and English - the English even made sense! It also comes with its own tools; the only thing we added were some containers to hold the tiny parts, and 6 AA batteries.

The directions were really clear and straightforward with lots of pictures. It took him about 4 hours total to build, and the payoff was fantastic! The Inchworm movement is kind of spider-y; it goes forward and backward and can turn 360 degrees. He noticed that you have to point the remote directly at the Inchworm, and that you can control it from quite a distance, maybe 15 feet. I highly recommend it as a kit for a teenager to do on their own, and I think a smart younger kid could build it with help from an adult.

Click "read more" to see the rest of the build.

In the Maker Shed:

The Gakken Mechamo Inchworm kit is available through the Maker Shed.

More: Gakken Mechamo Crab build and mod

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unc0nn3ct3d writes "In a shocking update on the seemingly endless troubles plaguing NCSoft, Richard Garriott — the king of online games, creator of The Ultima Series (and consequentially Ultima Online), as well as the recently troubled Tabula Rasa — has announced that he would be stepping down from his position at NCSoft. Apparently motivated by his recent trip into space, perhaps he has found a higher purpose while orbiting so high above the earth."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

unc0nn3ct3d writes "In a shocking update on the seemingly endless troubles plaguing NCSoft, Richard Garriot — the king of online games, creator of The Ultima Series (and consequentially Ultima Online), as well as the recently troubled Tabula Rasa — has announced that he would be stepping down from his position at NCSoft. Apparently motivated by his recent trip into space, perhaps he has found a higher purpose while orbiting so high above the earth."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ESCquire writes "Apparently, the Washington Post Blog 'Security Fix' managed to shut down McColo, a US-based hosting provider facilitating more than 75 percent of global spam. " Now how long before the void is filled by another ISP?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Super cute knitted roll of toilet paper via BoJ.

More:

Toilet graffiti embroideries.

Make Spaceships from Aspirin Bottles and Toilet Items.

Toilet Paper Halloween Costume.

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"C3 Loops" by Swedish researcher Rikard Lindell is a single-point touch screen that allows users to navigate around a virtual plane playing audio and video clips. Check out the video to watch the interface in action running on a Macbook.

Rikard Lindell via Pete's Sonic Art Research

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A big fan of stereoscopic imaging, Matti heavily modded a viewmaster - adding an Arduino board, accelerometer, bluetooth and some buttons. The result is an interactive animation viewer using color-based chromadepth technique for 3D -

The Arduino sends the sensor data and the button states wirelessly via bluetooth to my computer. The information is parsed in Max/MSP, which in turn sends the data as OSC packets to Animata (my favourite software at the moment). Animata then animates everything in real-time and handles the hiding/revealing of different layers.

Definitely a unique functionality, the demonstration video sheds some light -

Read on for more details - Mickey Mann

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For years, video game haters like Jack Thompson have tried to use bogus claims about video games to absolve criminals of responsibility for their crimes. It's really rather sickening, that rather than getting criminals to stand up and accept responsibility, they try to blame some video game. However, with China now embracing the concept of internet addiction, it appears that an accused killer is now trying to similarly pin the blame for poisoning his parents on his online video game addiction. These stories really have nothing to do with video games, and everything to do with criminals trying to skirt responsibility for their actions by throwing the blame on video games that had nothing to do with the actual crimes.

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Check out this matrix-like hexapod robot CNC router cutting a 3D face in high density foam! via LoL.

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Peace Corps Online writes "The Maldives will begin to divert a portion of the country's billion-dollar annual tourist revenue to buy a new homeland as insurance against climate change. Rising sea levels threaten to turn the 300,000 islanders into environmental refugees as the chain of 1,200 island and coral atolls dotted 500 miles from the tip of India is likely to disappear under the waves if the current pace of climate change continues to raise sea levels. The UN forecasts that the seas are likely to rise by up to 59 cm by the year 2100. Most parts of the Maldives are just 150 cm above water so even a 'small rise' in sea levels would inundate large parts of the archipelago. 'We can do nothing to stop climate change on our own and so we have to buy land elsewhere. It's an insurance policy for the worst possible outcome,' says the Muslim country's first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, adding that he has already broached the subject with a number of countries and found them to be 'receptive'. India and Sri Lanka are targets because they have similar cultures and climates; Australia is worth looking at because of the immense amount of unoccupied land in that country. 'We do not want to leave the Maldives, but we also do not want to be climate refugees living in tents for decades.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lovely bacon scarf!

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Lovely bacon scarf!

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'Tech Dorm Gone Wild' WSJ's Andy Jordan hangs out at a dorm at MIT, which houses a coterie of fidgeting student-technologists with a penchant for tinkering, and an eye for changing the world" - if the video doesn't play, visit the site...

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'Tech Dorm Gone Wild' WSJ's Andy Jordan hangs out at a dorm at MIT, which houses a coterie of fidgeting student-technologists with a penchant for tinkering, and an eye for changing the world" - if the video doesn't play, visit the site...

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This might just be the world's largest pinata. Measuring in at 28.5 meters long, 7.2 meters wide, 18 meters tall, and filled with 8.000 pounds of assorted candy, this "Trojan Horse" pinata took a wrecking ball to crack open. We wonder what the sugar rush would be like from eating all of that candy at once.

via PanAsian Biz

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This might just be the world's largest pinata. Measuring in at 28.5 meters long, 7.2 meters wide, 18 meters tall, and filled with 8.000 pounds of assorted candy, this "Trojan Horse" pinata took a wrecking ball to crack open. We wonder what the sugar rush would be like from eating all of that candy at once.

via PanAsian Biz

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This "Soil Lamp" by Marieke Staps is made of mud and lights an LED through the natural metabolism of the biological organisms contained within it. We've seen fruit powering electronics before, but building it into something that resembles a commercial product is still pretty far off.

Soil Lamp via Next Nature

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This "Soil Lamp" by Marieke Staps is made of mud and lights an LED through the natural metabolism of the biological organisms contained within it. We've seen fruit powering electronics before, but building it into something that resembles a commercial product is still pretty far off.

Soil Lamp via Next Nature

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We were somewhat dismayed by the ruling against the Harry Potter Lexicon, a guidebook of sorts for the universe created in the Harry Potter series of books. J.K. Rowling argued against the book on emotional, rather than legal, grounds, but the judge still found it to be a violation of copyright, and not covered by fair use. For a variety of reasons many copyright scholars felt this to be a bad decision. However, since the judge put in place a rather low fine, it wasn't clear if the publisher would bother appealing.

A bunch of folks have been submitting the fact that RDR Books has, in fact, decided to appeal the ruling and to argue that publishing such a guidebook is, indeed, fair use. Hopefully the Appeals Court recognizes the problems of the lower court ruling and protects fair use for such guidebooks. Of course, some of us are still hopeful that even J.K. Rowling realizes that she's doing a lot more damage to her own reputation in pursuing this case,. Then, if she just could realize (as she did when the Lexicon was just a website) that allowing fans to help explain and expand the universe she created only serves to make her own works that much more valuable.

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We were somewhat dismayed by the ruling against the Harry Potter Lexicon, a guidebook of sorts for the universe created in the Harry Potter series of books. J.K. Rowling argued against the book on emotional, rather than legal, grounds, but the judge still found it to be a violation of copyright, and not covered by fair use. For a variety of reasons many copyright scholars felt this to be a bad decision. However, since the judge put in place a rather low fine, it wasn't clear if the publisher would bother appealing.

A bunch of folks have been submitting the fact that RDR Books has, in fact, decided to appeal the ruling and to argue that publishing such a guidebook is, indeed, fair use. Hopefully the Appeals Court recognizes the problems of the lower court ruling and protects fair use for such guidebooks. Of course, some of us are still hopeful that even J.K. Rowling realizes that she's doing a lot more damage to her own reputation in pursuing this case,. Then, if she just could realize (as she did when the Lexicon was just a website) that allowing fans to help explain and expand the universe she created only serves to make her own works that much more valuable.

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Wolfger writes "Continuing the recent (useful) stupid theme: I've recently become a BlackBerry user, and I'm in love with the obvious(?) tricks, such as installing MidpSSH to access my home box remotely. But I'd like to know what more experienced Crackberry addicts can share."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The XRB3 is only the beginning of a much more powerful map-making robot. It looks like they are off to a good start. Check out the link for more pictures and videos of the XRB3.

XRB3 is powered by an AVR ATMEGA324P micro controller on a custom board that I made. Although he is fully autonomous, he is using an XBEE module to communicate with my PC for debugging (and eventually with other robots). Onboard sensory includes: 3 Sharp IR sensors (for wall following and obstacle detection), an SRF-05 sonar sensor and AVRcam.

More about Multipurpose robot: XRB3

Pololu 3pi Robot&ampClick=19209

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Lukas sent me a link to his new project that encourages people to learn Processing. The idea is to make a B/W monster in Processing and post it on his website. All the monsters are interactive and the source code is available to download. I really like "Blink Eye Monster", and look forward to checking out all the new ones. [Thanks Lukas]

I'm trying to get as much people as possible, to create simple b/w monster in Processing, I'm gonna later use in a short music reactive video.. while the bottom line is to encourage other people to learn Processing by showing the source code..

More about Processing Monsters

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zzptichka sends along a link to recordings of typical sounds from 35 different failing and dying hard drives. The host of these sounds, Datacent, is in the business of data recovery, so presumably they have heard it all.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While the negotiations on the awful ACTA treaty are getting more attention these days, another awful treaty seems to be coming back from the dead. WIPO's Broadcasting Treaty has been out there for years. The idea is to add more new copyrights for content that's "broadcast," even though it's usually already covered by copyright. The end result would actually do significant harm to the public domain, because a broadcaster who broadcasts public domain content could then claim a "broadcast right" over that content -- basically reclaiming it from the public domain. The entire treaty is based on the faulty idea that ownership of content is somehow socially beneficial, when there's little evidence that this is true.

Some powerful entertainment industry folks have been trying to push this treaty through, as a way to force various governments to pass new laws that grant them these new copyrights, that will really be useful in keeping competitors from broadcasting certain content. So far, the treaty has repeatedly stalled out. Last year, we were encouraged when the Senate Judiciary Committee admitted that it was greatly troubled by the proposed treaty, noting that it would significantly harm consumers' rights. Soon after that, the treaty died, though we warned that certain interests would keep on pushing it.

And, indeed, that's exactly what's happening. At a recent WIPO meeting, it appears that the Broadcasting Treaty is back on the table, and doesn't appear to be going away any time soon. There are considerable disagreements over what it should include, so it might not move forward, but it's disheartening that it appears the US representatives at WIPO seem to have reversed their earlier position, and are now saying that webcast content should get this totally unnecessary and damaging "broadcast right" as well as content broadcast on other media. Hopefully the wrangling over terms will cause this treaty to die again -- but considering how much of an effort big media companies have put behind it, you can bet it won't go down without a fight.

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Let's bring back the traveling woodworking shop tour, Popular Mechanics - 1938.

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A study has found that everybody has a unique body odor, like their fingerprints, that could be used as an unique identifier. The study showed that a persons unique odor stayed the same even if they varied their diet with strong smelling foods such as garlic and spices. "These findings indicate that biologically-based odorprints, like fingerprints, could be a reliable way to identify individuals," said Monell chemist Jae Kwak. I would have thought that hundreds of years of dogs tracking people would have proved this, but it's nice to know that science has figured it out officially now.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michelle @ CRAFT points us to Leo Kempf, who writes:

I made this house for my cat, Olive. She enters through a door in the bottom side and then ascends a ramp, which boosts her to the upper level. The front wall is plexi-glass, the floor is 2.5 inch thick old sheepskin rug, and my wife made some small paintings that hang on the walls. There is also a big cardboard scratching porch. Cats love to scratch and relax on cardboard. The top is removable and the glass slides out for maintenance.

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Eric Goldman has submitted comments to the SEC explaining how its recent guidelines concerning the liability for companies based on links on their websites most likely violates the safe harbor provisions in Section 230 of the CDA. Section 230, as we've discussed over and over again, provides a clear safe harbor to protect third parties from liability for the actions of others. While we personally think it should just be common sense that third parties shouldn't be liable for the actions of others, it's been clear for way too long that common sense isn't really all that common.

In this case, the SEC indicated that some companies may be liable for content on third party sites that they link to, if the link gives the impression that the company has approved or endorsed the info. As Goldman points out, this appears to be in violation of the safe harbors, as no one should be liable for content they have no control over -- even if they indicate they might endorse that content.

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fprintf writes "As much as I hate to admit it, it looks like my 13-year-old son is following in my footsteps and preferring interesting, science-based toys. In the past he has been really interested in Lava Lamps, Newton's Cradle, and anything magnetic. It seems the knick-knacks that have generated the most interest were small and relatively inexpensive. For example, a small laser pointer keychain I bought him a couple of years ago still provides tons of entertainment. Yesterday I showed him ThinkGeek and he really liked the Levitron. I wanted to ask the Slashdot crowd what were some other really neat, interesting gadgets? Is there anything cool in the under-$50 range that you would like in your stocking this year?"

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Charles Platt pointed me to this Times Online article about a fan-poweerd flying car. The British inventor is going to fly it from London to Timbuktu.

“This thing will launch itself without any pilot input,” says Cardozo. “You just open it up and it goes. The more power you put on, the faster you go until you come off the ground [at 35mph]. The wing will basically lock above you [once airborne] and stay there, without weaving, at speeds of up to 80mph.”

Fully road-legal - the car passed the government’s single vehicle approval test last month - and designed to run on bioethanol, Cardozo’s Skycar is powered by a modified 140bhp Yamaha R1 superbike engine with a lightweight automatic CVT (continuously variable transmission) gear-box from a snowmobile. It boasts Ferrari-beating acceleration on land, an air speed of up to 80mph and can swap between road and flight modes in minutes.

The flying car

Sean Ragan writes:

This is a coffee table incorporating a tiled "space invaders" motif. Several years ago tiled space invader sprites began showing up as graffiti in major western cities--Paris, London, New York, etc. It may never be possible to accurately say who was really first, but the British graffiti collective at space-invaders.com has a well-established presence. "Space Invader," of course, is a clever double entendre in the graffiti context; as the subject of the graffiti is a videogame "space invader," so too is the medium of graffiti an invasion of space. My coffee table's not nearly that clever. It does achieve a nice contrast between sense and style through the use of handmade Mexican Talavera tiles. These tiles, like most handmade artifacts, are imprecise and show significant natural lumpiness and variation. The depiction of the precise, orderly, pixellated image of the space invader sprite would be boring if executed in precisely manufactured injection-molded bathroom tiles from the big orange store. The slightly uneven tile heights and lightly meandering grout lines lend a warmth to the image which would otherwise be lacking.

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NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "RDR Books, the would-be publisher of the book version of the 'Harry Potter Lexicon' Web site, has filed an appeal from the Judge's decision in Warner Bros. Pictures v. RDR Books, the case involving the Harry Potter Lexicon. The Judge, after a bench trial, issued an injunction and awarded statutory damages of $6,750 (as we discussed at the time), holding that the Lexicon was not protected by fair use due to (a) sloppiness in attribution in sections, (b) the length of some of the quotes, and (c) imitation of J. K. Rowling's writing style in portions. I recently wrote an article criticizing the opinion, but doubting that an appeal would be taken in view of the small damages award. I guess I underestimated the resolve of the defendants and defendants' lawyers — who include the Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society."

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I'm definitely a big believer in the idea that there are some businesses that thrive especially in economic down times, and that any business should be looking to take advantages of those opportunities -- but I'm not exactly sure that online psychics were what I was thinking of at the time. Apparently, the online psychic business is booming these days, as people with more money than sense figure the best thing to do is ask a psychic what's coming down the road in their financial future. I don't necessarily mean to cast aspersions on the psychic profession, but my own view into the crystal ball suggests that if you want to have more money than otherwise in the future, you shouldn't spend what money you do have on psychic readings.

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Sometimes I just make predictions to friends verbally and forget to put them on the blog, to get them on the record. So...

I stand by my prediction that Bush, if he doesn't end up in jail, will be a very happy ex-president.

Check out this CNN piece about his regrets. There will be more like that.

I think Bush never really wanted to be President, I think he wanted to run for President. He was a very good campaigner, you really could see this during the 2004 campaign. On the stump, his timing was perfect, he was a fantastic speaker. I wonder if McC didn't make a big mistake by not having Bush go out for him this year (glad he didn't!). Anyway, once the campaign was over and he had to be President again, he was stumbling and bumbling and tripping over his words, as usual.

This point is emphasized in the Oliver Stone movie. He's the dog who caught the car. Now what? That's the part Bush wasn't so good at.

But as an ex-President life will be one big Texas BBQ with non-alchoholic beer. He can read a book every once in a while, watch a game, have some of his friends over, tell everyone they're doing a heckuva a job, and not have to worry about the shit he had to worry about.

You could see it clearly when he was hanging out at the Olympics this summer. Man, he was having a great time, he looked fantastic, confident, tan, relaxed. Until Putin reared his head and brought him back to reality and then a few weeks later so did the economy.

Now he just has to make a deal with Obama for a pardon (heh wonder how that's going) and in a couple of years he can go on a book tour to sell his memoir and I bet everyone will be nostalgic for the guy, amazing as that might seem now. Things kind of work out that way.