I enjoyed the "carnie girls" collection of vintage paperback covers from the Good Girl Art website. Shown here are covers to two (sadly out-of-print) carnival-themed books I highly recommend: Madball, by Fredric Brown, and Nightmare Alley, by William Lindsay Gresham. (Update: Nightmare Alley is available in the anthology Crime Novels: American Noir of the 1930s and 40s.)

Good Girl Art, usually shortened to GGA, is the term that describes certain types of Vintage Art, and specifically Paperback Cover Art. Richard Lupoff in his The Great American Paperback defines it as "A cover illustration depicting an attractive young woman, usually in skimpy or form-fitting clothing, and designed for (mild erotic interest). The term does not apply to the morality of the 'good girl', who is often a gun moll, tough cookie, or wicked temptress." The GGA designation seems to have originated with comic books and is usually applied to attractive sexy young women who are either in peril or are perpetrating the peril like my favorite gun moll on the right. So it is often politically incorrect but can also be empowering when at the right end of a gun.

Good Girl Art Paperbacks (Via Shane Glines)

A week ago we discussed the takedown of McColo (and the morality of that action). McColo was reportedly the source of anywhere from 50% to 75% of the world's spam. On Saturday the malware network briefly returned to life in order to hand over command and control channels to a Russian network. "The rogue network provider regained connectivity for about 12 hours on Saturday by making use of a backup arrangement it had with Swedish internet service provider TeliaSonera. During that time, McColo was observed pushing as much as 15MB of data per second to servers located in Russia, according to... Trend Micro. The brief resurrection allowed miscreants who rely on McColo to update a portion of the massive botnets they use to push spam and malware. Researchers from FireEye saw PCs infected by the Rustock botnet being updated so they'd report to a new server located at abilena.podolsk-mo.ru for instructions. That means the sharp drop in spam levels reported immediately after McColo's demise isn't likely to last."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hacked Gadgets ran a contest to try and find the awesomest electronics workbench in all of Geekdom. They got some pretty sweet entries, but the winner was Lorne Wilkins. Not only is his set-up top-drawer, he goes into detail describing parts of it, including some homebrewed tools, like the PCB holder made from an old printer tractor feed mechanism (15 in the photo).

Hacked Gadgets Workbench Contest Winner
All the contest entries

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Plan-K-Troniks posted a schematic of a nice little 8-step sequencer for use with the Gakken Analog Synthesizer kit. Their description is in Japanese, but not such a problem if your familiar with the language of electronics - MICRO ANALOG SEQUENCER FOR SX-150

SX-150 Analog Synthesizer Kit

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CWmike and other readers alerted us to Google's announcement that it was making available 10 million images from Life magazine's archives dating back to the 1750s. (Most of the news accounts covering this announcement refer to Life's "photos," and none mention that photography wasn't invented until early in the 19th century.) Only a small percentage of the images — including newly digitized images from photos and etchings — have even been published. The rest have been "sitting in dusty archives in the form of negatives, slides, glass plates, etchings, and prints." At this point about 20% of Life's archive is online; the rest is promised within months.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After more than a decade of watching the entertainment industry (mainly the RIAA and the MPAA), one thing I've learned is that the organization never gives up in pushing its legislative agenda. If there's a setback in one area, you can be sure that others from the organization are eagerly pushing the exact same rules through some other angle. The typical MO is that they try to get federal legislation passed in their favor. However, if that fails, they switch to the fallback plans which involve international treaties and state laws. Both of these are great because they tend to get a lot less scrutiny. State laws are a bit of a pain, because you have to get a few of them approved to create the "groundswell" that makes other states jump on board, but changes to state laws can often pass through under the radar.

That appears to be what's happening in the effort to force universities to install filters monitoring their networks for any unauthorized transmissions. You may recall that the RIAA pushed strongly to get Congress to pass laws requiring filters. Basically, the entertainment industry first flat-out lied (yes, lied) about how big a problem file sharing on campus was, and that got some Congressional Reps (with plenty of campaign contributions from the entertainment industry) to introduce legislation punishing universities if they didn't filter their networks. Widespread outcry against that legislation helped water it down, but it appears the industry just moved on to state legislatures.

The RIAA is now celebrating the fact that Tennessee has passed legislation that requires universities to install filters if they've received at least 50 DMCA requests. Considering the massive number of DMCA notices that the RIAA has been known to file, this is hardly a large hurdle. The law will cost Tennessee taxpayers nearly $10 million in the first year, and another $1.5 million each year -- based on the state's own estimates. And for what? To put in filters that won't work, just to try to prop up an obsolete business model from legacy players in an industry that needs to learn how to adapt to the market?

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The release of the Dead Kennedys pack for Rock Band may lead to my first videogame console purchase since the Atari 5200. Dead Kennedys for Rock Band (Boing Boing Offworld)

Cool videos using a video camera mounted to a Coke bottle. Video mounted to Coke bottle

Hugh Pickens writes "If we humans have such big brains, how can we get conned? Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak has an interesting post on Psychology Today in which he recounts how he was the victim of a classic con called 'The Pigeon Drop' when he was a teenager and explains how con men take advantage of the Human Oxytocin Mediated Attachment System, called THOMAS, a powerful brain circuit that releases the neurochemical oxytocin when we are trusted and induces a desire to reciprocate the trust we have been shown. 'The key to a con is not that you trust the con man, but that he shows he trusts you. Con men ply their trade by appearing fragile or needing help, by seeming vulnerable,' writes Zak. 'Because of THOMAS, the human brain makes us feel good when we help others — this is the basis for attachment to family and friends and cooperation with strangers.' Zak's laboratory studies have shown that two percent of the college students he tested are 'unconditional nonreciprocators' who have learned how to simulate trustworthiness and would make good con men. Watch a video of Skeptics Society founder Michael Shermer running the classic pigeon drop on an unsuspecting victim and see if you wouldn't be taken in by a professional con man yourself."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AJTurley lives out many a Kraftwerk fan's fantasy as he uses his scientific calculator as a MIDI controller by way of a Basic Stamp board -

This is a demo of a project I built so that I could use my HP 48 to play a MIDI keyboard. The calculator is running a program that sends data to a Parallax Stamp Basic microcontroller over the built-in serial port whenever I press a button. The microcontroller is running software that converts the message from the calculator into a MIDI noteon or noteoff message that is then sent to the keyboard. This is a response to a createdigitalmusic.com poll in which a (small) number of users said they wanted the site to cover more calculator music.

[via Create Digital Music]

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The best science fiction short video ever, only it's real. (Via Mt. Holly Mayor's Office)

Maker Media grand Pooh-Bah Dale Dougherty is the latest guest blogger on Boing Boing. Dale has one of the most captivating and restless intellects I know, so it's really exciting to see him given free range to talk about whatever is on his mind. Some of his postings thus far:

Merrill Lynch Needs a Dressing Down
Merrill Lynch is bullish on snobbery and status. These snobs, wearing more expensive suits, consorted to run their company into the ground. Now they look down on the company that rescued them and the people who work there as not being worthy, not sharing their own high status. It's another sign that failure will not humble Wall Street or cause them to change their ways. It's also a bad sign for Bank of America of the difficulty of getting these dandies to do an honest day's work...

Beach Dreams
I saw a nostalgic photo in the bathroom of a NY City restaurant recently, a picture of the beach at Coney Island and the ocean was absolutely filled with people from where the water met the shore to as far out as people could stand. It was such a great picture that could be interpreted two different ways: what an awful thing to go to a crowded beach OR what an amazing time you'd have in the middle of all those people enjoying the day of the beach. Think of its opposite -- the island beach with white sand and nothing but you and nature, the kind of photos you find in "Travel and Leisure" magazine. It's another setting that could be seen and experienced two different ways -- I've found paradise because I can lie on this beautiful beach or, an hour later, I'm bored because there's nobody here and nothing to do. One test is to ask yourself what you'd have done as a kid. The kid has to prefer the crowded beach with lots going on...

Tinker in a Collective Shop
Check out Daniel B. Smith's article on Lewis Hyde in the New York Times Magazine: "What is Art For? Hyde is the author of "The Gift", an influential book exploring the idea of gift economies. It's a book that I have meant to read. Hyde seems to be a practical man as well as a man of ideas. He wrote an essay "Alcohol and Poetry: John Berryman and the Booze Talking" because he was reading Berryman's poems while working in a hospital's drunk ward and noticed the same kind of delusional language he found in the poetry...

Hard Drives' Dying Moans
From a repair shop comes a collection of the sounds of hard drives failing. Their last words, their dying moans...

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BB pal Vann Hall turned me on to Europa Film Treasures, featuring, as he says, "tons of historical footage in a well-annotated website. (And downloadable with the right tools!) Seen above, a still from Jön az öcsém (1919), directed by Michael Curtiz of Casablanca fame; and John MacFadyen (1970), a Scottish animation featuring credits painted right on the film stock. And here are the most popular films on the site right now:

1. The Apple-Knockers and the Coke (1948)
2. Das Sandbad (1906)
3. Farfale (1907)
4. Das eitle Stubenmädchen (1908)
5. Gordon Highlanders (1899)

Europa Film Treasures

Many of you probably remember BountyQuest, the company set up by Tim O'Reilly and Jeff Bezos as an attempt to bust bogus patents by reaching out to the "wisdom of the crowd" to dig up prior art. The initiative got plenty of attention, thanks to Bezos' and O'Reilly's involvement, but the project faded out and eventually just shut down after it failed in its high profile attempt to invalidate Bezos' own infamous "one-click patent" (which has since run into troubles on prior art found by others).

Apparently, though, there's a new startup that's attempting to do pretty much the same thing. The Associated Press has an article about Article One Partners, whose business plan sounds like a photocopy of BountyQuest's original plan. Apparently the AP reporters weren't aware of BountyQuest, because it's not mentioned in the article. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but considering the striking similarities between the two operations, you'd think it would at least merit a mention. Hopefully Article One can survive where BountyQuest flopped, but I'm not that hopeful, honestly. It could potentially work for a few high profile patents, but on average, it's tough to get random people to get excited about digging up prior art on patents.

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ancientribe writes "A hardened operating system used in the B1B bomber and other military aircraft has now been released commercially, after receiving the highest security rating by a National Security Agency-run certification program. Green Hills Software's Integrity-178B operating system was certified as EAL6+, which means that it can defend against well-funded and sophisticated attackers." The company is not saying how much the OS would cost a potential customer: "The system and its associated integration and consulting services are custom solutions." Both Windows and Linux are EAL 4+ certified, which means they can defend against "inadvertent and casual" security breach attempts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In 2004, ex-con Charles Manning, 61, was infected in prison by a flesh-eating bacteria that ate away at his groin. Prison doctors first thought he was just having an allergic reaction. He sued and the Washington Department of Corrections settled by giving him $300,000. From the Associated Press:

By the time he was taken to a hospital, Manning had an internal abscess that required doctors to remove several pounds of flesh from his pelvic region.

Surgeons made a replacement penis with skin from his thigh.

"Wash. prisons, inmate settle disfigured groin case" (Thanks, Scott Compton!)

Linsey Pollak drills out a carrot and turns it into a clarinet and plays it, live looping with a Boss RC20 to record 3 layers....from his solo show "Making Jam"

Wow - I thought you coud only get tone like that from a gourd! [via Boing Boing]

More:

Handlebars as wind instrument

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I haven't played Spore yet, but I find this image of appendages in the latest Spore patch to be just the kind of Wunderkammer-esque collection that I appreciate. Brandon Boyer has more over at our new Boing Boing Offworld games blog! "EA tosses new parts into Spore patch"

I get lots of books sent to me to review. I can't read them all, even though many of them look promising. Here are a few I plan to read, eventually. I hope.

Show Me How: 500 Things You Should Know Instructions for Life From the Everyday to the Exotic

My 5-year-old daughter and I quickly paged through this book filled with cartoon-like project ideas and made a lost of things to do: grow an avocado tree from a seed, invent clay oddities, assemble a super slingshot, tell time with a poato clock, blow a humongous bubble, make a delicious s'more, and about 20 other things.

The Mental Floss History of the World: An Irreverent Romp through Civilization's Best Bits

From the publishers of mental_floss, this book contains entertaining snippets and stories in the vein of one of my favorite books, The People's Almanac. Here's an excerpt, about the Amazon:

When it’s not making people crazy, the Amazon seems to inspire bizarre, larger-than-life schemes. In 1967, American shipping magnate and billionaire Daniel Ludwig bought a larger-than-Connecticut sized chunk of the Amazon to create a gigantic industrial and agricultural complex called the Jari Project. It didn’t work out. All the construction led to massive soil erosion, screwing up the “agricultural” part of his plan. After sinking $1 billion into the project (back when $1 billion really meant something) Ludwig called it quits in 1982. It was eventually put up for sale for $1--a great deal, if you’re willing to assume $354 million in debt. The bright side: For anyone with a dollar and a dream, it’s your lucky day: the Jari Project is still for sale!

Falling off the Edge: Travels Through the Dark Heart of Globalization Time correspondent Alex Perry traveled around the world to see the effects of globalization "on the ground, instead of the executive suite."

Perry takes readers to Shenzen, China's boom city where sweatshops pay under-age workers less than $4 a day; and to Bombay, where the gap between rich and poor means million-dollar apartments overlook million-people slums. He shares a beer with Southeast Asian pirates who prey on the world's busiest shipping artery. And he puts us in the middle of a firefight between American Special Forces and the Taliban.

He shows that for every winner in our brave new world, there are tens of thousands of losers. And be they Chinese army veterans, Indian Maoist rebels or the Somali branch of al Qaeda, they are very, very angry.

Magic Bus: On the Hippie Trail From Istanbul to India Travel writer Rory MacLean revisits the old South Asian "hippie trail."

In the 1960s and 1970s, hundreds of thousands of young westerners in search of enlightenment blazed the “hippie trail” that ran through Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nepal. Forty years later, Rory MacLean revisits the trail, where he encounters the tie-dyed veterans who never made it home, meets locals reaping the rewards and regrets of westernization, and crashes up against Taliban fighters and Islamic extremism, which has turned the hippie trail into a path of dust and danger.

The Macrophenomenal Pro Basketball Almanac: Styles, Stats, and Stars in Today's Game

An idiosyncratic, highly personal take on professional basketball. The illustrations and overall design are stunning. I don't even like pro sports, but I am planning to read this. Check out these sample pages (click for big).

Wham-O Super-Book: Celebrating 60 Years Inside the Fun Factory

When Carla, David, Gareth, and I edited The Happy Mutant Handbook in 1995, Carla wrote a chapter about the world's greatest toy company, Wham-O! Besides the Hula Hoop, Super Elastic Bubble Plastic, the Super Ball, Slip-n-Slide, and the Air Blaster, Wham-O made a bunch of charmingly weird but less-well-known toys, such as Cute Scoot, Sun Vu, Fun Farm, Instant Fish, Fun-Gun, and many more. This book, by Tim Walsh, presents the history of Wham-O along with lots of color illustrations from the Wham-O archives. It's already one of my treasured keepsakes.

Wham-O's irresistible toys practically define childhood for an entire generation. The Frisbee Hula Hoop SuperBall Slip 'N Slide Silly String and Hacky Sack are all cherished companions that brought kids together and still enjoy an enduring popularity today. Super-Book ("the most fantastic book ever created by science") showcases these amazing toys and a wide array of entertaining and downright odd playthings dreamed up by a company started by two childhood friends. Released in time for the 60th anniversary of Wham-O and featuring an engaging history of each plaything colorful vintage packaging and ads as well as photographs of the toys this boisterous book is sure to inspire nostalgia and a trip to the nearest park Frisbee in hand.

That's just a small sample from my book stack. I'll post more soon!

Matt_dk writes to point out the upcoming tenth anniversary of the International Space Station in two days' time. "On 20 November 1998, a Russian Proton rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome for a historic mission: It was carrying the first module of the International Space Station ISS, named Zarya (Russian for 'dawn'). This cargo and control module, which weighs about 20 tonnes and is almost 13 meters long, provides electrical power, propulsion, flight path guidance and storage space. The launch of the module... heralded a new era in space exploration, as, for the first time ever, lasting cooperation in space was achieved between Russia, the US, Europe, Canada and Japan. Over the next ten years, many other modules were brought into orbit, and ISS developed into the largest human outpost in space. Since that time, the building blocks, transported by Russian launch vehicles or the US Space Shuttle, have expanded the ISS to the size of a soccer pitch and a current total mass of about 300 tons."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two recent patent battle lawsuits made news this week, and both highlighted one troubling aspect of patent lawsuits: patent holders trying to damage others beyond the company that infringed. Now, before the patent system defenders rush to post angry comments, this is not a new thing. It's been quite common for a while. Nor is it surprising. If you were a patent attorney representing one of these patent holders, you'd probably do the same thing: going after third parties is probably a good strategy to force the other company to settle. However, it does highlight how patent law is used in ways that clearly are outside of its intended purpose. That is, it's being used to punish plenty of innocent third parties by removing innovation from their grasps, rather than encouraging innovation.

The first case involves a patent lawsuit concerning Microsoft's Visual Studio. WebXchange claims it has patents that Visual Studio violates -- but rather than suing Microsoft, WebXchange sued three Microsoft customers, claiming that by using the software, they were violating the patent. This is clearly an attempt to scare Microsoft into settling, out of a fear that other customers won't use Visual Studio to avoid getting sued by WebXchange. Microsoft is fighting back, asking a judge to declare the patents invalid, but in the meantime, WebXchange has been able to drag Microsoft's customers into a patent battle, putting extra pressure on Microsoft to settle.

The second case involves Spansion suing Samsung for patent infringement concerning Samsung's memory chips. In this case, Spansion isn't just going after Samsung, but demanding an injunction that would block US sales of a variety of popular gadgets that use Samsung's memory chips -- including iPods and Blackberries. Once again, while it's unlikely that a court would order such a block, by dragging other companies such as Apple and RIM into the mess, Spansion is abusing the patent system's threat of an injunction to put extra pressure on Samsung to settle.

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Unlike Sad Guys On Trading Floors, this is no laughing matter. A trader on the floor of Sao Paulo's Bovespa stock exchange shot himself in the chest. According to the Associated Press, Paulo Sergio Silva's condition is not known. From the AP:

It was not clear if he shot himself due to the recent sharp losses in Brazilian stocks or for other reasons.

Trading was halted for a few minutes after the shot was fired on Monday.

"Trader shoots himself on stock exchange floor"

In each MAKE we have a special column called MakeShift, by Lee D. Zlotoff - Lee is a writer/producer/director among whose numerous credits is creator of MacGyver. So, I'm always on the look out for MacGyver news... and this just came in - MacGyver tops TV tough guy poll, the thing is - MacGyver was never "tough" he solved puzzles, made things, thought his way out of problems and never used a gun or violence. Maybe this is a shift in what we're celebrating and what we want in our heros?

All that said, he did have one awesome move - the tornado punch!

More:

• List of problems solved by MacGyver.
• MacGyver episodes.
• MacGyver action figure.

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MagnetDroid writes "A startup company based in Vancouver has developed a new kind of generator that could harvest much more energy from the wind. The design could not only lower the cost of wind turbines but increase their power output by 50 percent to as much as 100 percent, in some locations. Normally, when wind speeds drop, a turbine's engine becomes less efficient. The new engine, from ExRo Technologies, runs efficiently over a wider range of conditions. The design replaces a mechanical transmission with what amounts to an electronic one. Magnets attached to a rotating shaft create a current, but individual coils can be turned on and off electronically at different wind speeds." The company will begin field-testing a small, 5KW wind turbine by early next year.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Transmedia artist Guy Overfelt created this massive inflatable "smoke" installation for the Cantocore Export Guangzhou show in China a couple months ago. It follows the thread of Overfelt's previous Inflatable Trans-AM. From the description of the piece, titled "Untitled" (Up in Smoke):

This time the inflatable Smoke is fabricated in Guangzhou, factory direct. Beyond Paul McCarthy-like reductive shapes coming off the assembly line or the Chinese Olympic team leaving the others’ in the dust, the simple shape raises questions about what these factories are pumping out in Guangzhou.

Guy Overfelt's inflatable smoke (Thanks, Heather Sparks!)

In this week's Boing Boing TV update, we discuss what's ahead with the launch of BOING BOING: OFFWORLD, and we speak with the YES MEN about their EPIC STUNT last week in which they printed and distributed lots and lots of copies of a New York Times fantasy-edition, with the headline IRAQ WAR ENDS. Mark blogged about this last week, with video.

We speak to three of the guys who made this event possible over a multi-channel iChat session that gets kind of melty sometimes. They are: Steve Lambert from the ANTI ADVERTISING AGENCY, Andy Bichlbaum from the YES MEN, and Scott Beibin from THE LOST FILM FEST. Some of those names might be aliases, who knows, caveat lector.

They say they received a cease and desist over email from HSBC over a parody HSBC ad that appears in both the print and online editions of their Faux NYT, but oddly, the C&D (they showed us a copy) is addressed to the REAL New York Times. We have not yet been able to confirm the lawyergram's validity with HSBC, but the email headers suggest it's legit.

In this Boing Boing TV update, you will hear music from Q-Burns Abstract Message and Eighth Dimension Records, and you'll hear me talk about BBtv's new programming changes. (Special thanks to Eddie Codel, Sean Bonner, and Scott Beale, who covered the Yes Men item early on).

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Link to Boing Boing tv blog post with subscription instructions, and here is a direct link to an MP4 file.

Fun Flickr sets showing the making of a cute sculpture called The Jumping Brain.

The Jumping Brain is a limited edition toy created by artist Emilio Garcia that is a detailed plastic model of the brain, with, erm... webbed feat.

It comes in traditional lab demo gray, as well as red, green and blue and even has its own MySpace page.

The Jumping Brain (Via Mind Hacks)

Andy is reverse engineering the Google mobile voice search - nice start! Check it out, he needs some help too.

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Tricked-out hexapod robots, built by Austrian technical school students, in a dance competition.

More Hexapod Adorableness

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A couple months ago, we wrote about what may be one of the most bizarre and questionable trademark lawsuits we've seen. Huge corporate law firm Jones Day was suing a small website called BlockShopper for posting public info about various professionals (including some who worked at Jones Day) buying homes in certain neighborhoods. Jones Day claimed that BlockShopper violated trademark law by mentioning that Jones Day employees worked at Jones Day and linking to Jones Day's website. The firm claimed that naming the company and linking it was a violation of trademark since people would interpreted it as being sponsored by Jones Day. It's hard to see how anyone, let alone a moron in a hurry would come to that conclusion, but that's what Jones Day claimed. Plenty of legal advocacy groups quickly jumped up in protest. If Jones Day won, it would establish a horrible precedent, that a firm could claim trademark infringement just for linking to the company's website.

The case was such an incredible stretch of trademark law, and so obviously a situation of a big law firm bullying a small website that it seemed obvious that the judge should dismiss the case. However, there were some worrying signs at the beginning. Paul Levy from Public Citizen had reported that the judge apparently told the guy from BlockShopper that he should just settle, noting how much it would cost to defend himself -- suggesting that the judge was already siding with Jones Day, despite the highly questionable nature of the claims. So, while disturbing, perhaps it's not a surprise that the judge has refused to dismiss the case. This increases the likelihood that BlockShopper will simply settle, as the time and expense of going through a lawsuit is, indeed, quite large, as the judge allegedly noted originally. It's difficult to fathom how one could look at the facts of the case and see any merit in the trademark infringement claims. This is a very unfortunate ruling.

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Guy attaches a drill to a cheap stroller and locks its front wheels to make it go around in circles until either the batteries run out or the little brat falls asleep. Genius.

Automatic baby walker

More documents are coming out in court proceedings over the Vista Capable debacle. Internetnews.com has good coverage of HP's fury over Microsoft lowering the requirements for a Vista Capable sticker, at Intel's request. "Intel officials may have been pleased that Microsoft lowered standards for obtaining the company's Windows Vista Capable logo program sticker, but the same can't be said about HP's execs. 'I can't be more clear than to say you not only let us down by reneging on your commitment to stand behind the [device driver model] requirement, you have demonstrated a complete lack of commitment to HP as a strategic partner and cost us a lot of money in the process,' said one e-mail from Richard Walker, the senior vice president of HP's consumer business unit, to [Microsoft executives]." PCPro.co.uk follows the trail of accusatory emails inside Microsoft from there: "HP's email prompted then Microsoft co-President, Jim Allchin, to send a furious email of his own to company CEO Steve Ballmer. Allchin's email suggests the decision to lower the requirements was made in his absence by Ballmer, following 'a call between you and Paul [Otellini, Intel CEO].' 'I am beyond being upset here,' Allchin wrote to Ballmer. 'What a mess. Now we have an upset partner, Microsoft destroyed credibility [sic], as well as my own credibility shot.' Ballmer, in turn, blamed another Microsoft executive, Will Poole, in a rather erratically typed reply to Allchin."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

South Attleboro, MA -- home of the brightest, most sympathetic city employees in the whole town!

South Attleboro resident Eileen Wilbur's bill from the city is for one penny.

The city sent Wilbur a letter dated Nov. 10 stating that if the 1 cent balance is not paid by Dec. 10, the city will assess a lien of up to $48 on Wilbur's next property tax bill.

"They wasted taxpayer money on the letter," Wilbur said, noting the 42-cent charge for a stamp.

City Collector Debora Marcoccio said the bill was sent out along with more than 2,000 others as the city tries to recoup outstanding balances before resorting to putting liens on property.

A computer automatically printed the letters for any account with a balance remaining, and they were not reviewed by staff before being sent out, Marcoccio said.

"It would be fiscally irresponsible for me to have staff weed through the bills and pull out any below a certain amount," Marcoccio said. " And what would that amount be?"

City wants her cent (Via The Agitator)

This curious bronze statue is available on eBay for a BuyItNow price of $249. Remove the devil head and the true phallic nature of the statue becomes clearer. I prefer it with the devil head in place.
"Pure Bronze masculine genital Sculpture Statue Signed" (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

Today, we announce some changes over at Boing Boing tv -- the good kind. The show completed its first year of Boingsistence on October 2, 2008 (remember our very first day back in 2007?), and we've spent some time in recent weeks thinking through new things we'd like to explore, and how to stay nimble and consistently fresh during a time when many online video shows are, to be frank, having a rather hard time of things.

Here's what we're doing.

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Each MONDAY, we'll post a brief update of goings-on around the mothership blog, hosted by me, including iChat Video or Skype interviews with folks we've blogged about recently. Kind of a fast news update, and a way for us to keep you in the loop on things that Cory, Mark, Pesco and I have posted here on Boing Boing that have taken on a life of their own. We're posting the first one of these momentarily (yeah, I know it's Tuesday, but we're kicking things off today.)

TUESDAY, expect a Boing Boing Gadgets item. We're producing a bunch of short electronics/tech stuff reviews from Joel Johnson, and we hope to include BB Gadgets co-editors John Brownlee and Rob Beschizza, soon, too.

WEDNESDAYS, we'll feature stuff from Brandon Boyer and crew at Boing Boing Offworld, the games blog we launched yesterday. Check out offworld.com for a hint of how this will feel: gaming seen through a wide lens that encompasses the art, culture, and human experience of gaming, not just a buying guide.

THURSDAYS, we'll continue to bring the engaging original programming that we love to produce, and you, our audience, seem to love just as much. We’ll keep bringing you reports from around the world; mini-documentaries about tech and culture topics with me, the other Boingers, and other brilliant people around the world (Kyle Glanville doing coffee treks in Brazil, Joi Ito galavanting around in Tokyo, Sean Bonner hunting monsters, Monochrom herding inebriated Vikings, John Behrens and the Omega Recoil Tesla Coil builders); and all the other brain exploding material we have yet to find!

FRIDAYS? The return of the Unicorn Chaser. This will surprise and delight you. It will be super awesome. You will thank us all weekend long.

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So, that's the plan. And on behalf of my Boing Boing partners, a very special THANKS to everyone who made the first year of Boing Boing tv possible, including, but not limited to, and in no particular order...current crew members and alumni Derek Bledsoe, Rob Bergsma, Keith Carunida, Dana Devonshire, and Wesly Varghese; our jungle-dwelling consigliere and creative consultant Jolon Bankey; our production advisor Matt West of DECA; DECA co-founders Michael Wayne and Chris Kimbell, and the entire staff and management team of DECA, George Ruiz at ICM; our attorney Rob Rader of MSK; the good folks at Creative Commons and the EFF, to Sarah Milstein, and the teams at Castfire and Episodic, our sysadmin Ken Snider, and the management and sales superheroes at Federated Media -- John Battelle, Chas Edwards, Bernie Albers, Jason Weisberger, Mugs Buckley, Neil Chase, Jennifer Tamez, James Navin, Josh Mattison, Jackie Mogol, Alison Marino, Jason Ratner, Mac Delaney, Lester Lee, Leona Laurie, Matt Jessell, Sacha Lien, Cindy Murphy, James Gross, Ivan Kanevski, Liam Boylan, Eric Amsden, and Jonathan Schrieber. A very special thanks to the many friends who've contributed talent to the show, including John Hodgman, the MAKE (event and magazine) folks, Johannes and the team at monochrom; Matt and Hiroko, Todd Lappin; Bill Barminski; Syd Garon; Russell Porter; Eddie Codel, Jason McHugh, Charis Tobias, Adam Koford, EBOY, and many others. Thanks to the guys at Virgin America, Apple/iTunes, and YouTube, for help with distribution. And much gratitude to Boing Boing tv's past and present sponsors, including: Intel, Dell, Samsung, Verizon, Microsoft, Crowdfire, Toshiba, BMW, IBM, T Mobile, Amazon, Adobe, SanDisk, and JCPenney. [gasps for breath]. Also, God, and our moms. Thank you and good-boing.

The Wall Street Journal, Friday November 14th, reports on "culture clashes" between the brokers of Merrill Lynch and the bank that bought them, Bank of America. As the article portrays it, the values of Wall Street are coming in conflict with those of Main Street. "Merrill staffers joke that Bank of America employees are recognizable in the elevators by their less expensive attire and American-flag lapel pins."

Merrill Lynch is bullish on snobbery and status. These snobs, wearing more expensive suits, consorted to run their company into the ground. Now they look down on the company that rescued them and the people who work there as not being worthy, not sharing their own high status. It's another sign that failure will not humble Wall Street or cause them to change their ways. It's also a bad sign for Bank of America of the difficulty of getting these dandies to do an honest day's work.

These are the good people we're helping bail out and they look down their noses at the rest of us. It bothers me that we're providing welfare payments to people who fly first-class, stay in five-star hotels, eat in expensive restaurants, watch sports in skyboxes and travel in limos more frequently than rock stars, all the while being impeccably dressed in the classic fashion. It just makes me want to rise up out of my seat in coach, walk to the front of the plane and grab one of them by their silk tie. I want to scream: "Get out here, you bum. I know you're not the one paying for this." I'd half-expect them to defend themselves by saying "Hank Paulson said I could sit here."

The bare truth is that they have lived this lifestyle by taking people's money in return for worthless advice. Their specialty is knowing what's good for themselves, not understanding what's happening in the market. Read Michael Lewis's year-old article in Portfolio: The Evolution of an Investor about a broker named Blaine Lourd who finally understands the disservice he performs.

The problem was the entire edifice of modern Wall Street, in which some people —- brokers, analysts, mutual fund managers, hedge fund managers -— presented themselves as experts and were paid fantastic sums of money for their expertise. But essentially, Ellis argued, there was no such thing as financial expertise. "I read this book," Blaine says, "and I thought, My whole life is a lie, and everyone around me is facilitating this lie."

If you see a broker dressing like one from Merrill Lynch, tell him to loosen his tie, roll up his sleeves a little and lose the Italian-made loafers. Tell him times have changed and he won't be dressing anymore like he's made of money.

Ok makers! We're going to kick off some holiday gift guide action for 2008! First up - $20 and under ELECTRONICS KITS, we know holiday gift budgets are shrinking - a lot of us will have more time than money next year, so more than ever - if you're going to spend your hard earned cash consider spending it on something that gives back. A kit to learn about electronics, a book to savor and pass along to someone else, a tool you know you'll use for years, something that you know you'll use - something to learn with, something you can give to someone else later. Read on for the complete list!

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I understand Maker Faire Austin is done and gone, but I'm still thinking about how much fun it was. Over the next week or 2, I'll continue to share some highlights from the most make-tastic event Austin's ever seen.

Sparkfun Electronics raised a pretty penny for some Austin nonprofits:

The soldering workshop was a huge hit! We accepted donations for the soldering kits we gave away to students of the workshop. We were able to raise $884 for Austin non-profits Angelheart Children's Shelter and The Robot Group! Thanks goes to everyone who came and checked out our booth and our soldering workshops.

Factor in things Faire-goers purchased from the many independent artisans / Makers at the Faire, and Maker Faire Austin seems to have had a nicely positive impact. Add on the encouragement current and future Makers received, and that's an even better story:)

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holy_calamity writes "Article One Partners is a new startup that offers $50,000 rewards to people that find prior art for certain valuable patents. The company's founder told New Scientist she thought the initiative would improve 'patent quality' by increasing scrutiny on poor patents. She aims to profit by selling the information contributors collect, or trade stocks based on it. Current patents they are looking for help to bust include those being used by Konami to sue Harmonix over Rock Band and Guitar Hero."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm not an economist, and while I'm not a casual investor (no one can be) -- I'm not a very active investor. I tend to park my assets in one place and just leave them there. The one major exception was January of this year, when I sold almost all my stock. Slowly, I bought back in -- index funds, but a very small amount of my holdings. Mostly I'm in US dollars and like everyone else, taking a bath and getting a haircut. It hasn't been a good year.

At the same time, I've been watching the AP and AFP photos flow through my screen saver, as always really excellent stuff, and the other day was struck by a photo in a Chinese unemployment office. The people don't look very different from us, and the office looked like it could be in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, St Louis, Atlanta, DC, Philadelphia or Boston or any other American city. There were people gathered in front of a window, waiting in line. And there were computers, they looked exactly like ours (of course, our computers come from China) and they had wires on them, and I imagined those wires went to the Internet, the same Internet the wires on my computer go to.

The moral of that little story is that today in our crumbling economy, jobs in a random part of China are completely fungible with jobs in a random part of the US. Our workers compete with theirs and vice versa. If they can do a job for less money than our workers, they're going to get the work. Seeing Chinese workers in a scene that looked so familiar brought all this home in a new way.

At the same time, I'm listening to the talk on cable TV and radio about the looming crisis in Detroit, and recognize that at least half of the talk is nonsense, and the other half is people saying that the first half is nonsense. As usual, they are trying to create a debate, they don't care if the debate is about the substance. On Face The Nation, I heard Bob Schieffer ask the same nonsense questions on Sunday that on Monday Chris Matthews asked on Hardball and Mika Brzezinski asked on Morning Joe.

The don't report that the problems at GM, Ford and Chrysler are part of the September meltdown, part of the fallout of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. The economy is rapidly slowing down, maybe even grinding to a halt in some areas (esp autos) and companies like the Big 3 automakers can't get loans even if they have decent credit. I understand this because I was listening and reading during the initial reporting of the meltdown, and I heard what they were reporting, almost parenthetically during the rush of news, btw -- GM will run out of cash in a few weeks and might disappear -- but apparently these reporters weren't paying attention to their own reports. (Maybe understandable, because at the time the concern was over Bank of America disappearing.)

So instead of discussing what form our support will come in, we're discussing the morality of whether they should receive the support. It's the stupidest most dangerous discussion imaginable, because we're going to pay for this one way or the other. We can pay $25 billion now, or $200 billion in January to feed the out-of-work people. And of course, the comments on this post are just going to be rehashes of what Matthews, Schieffer and Brzezinski were saying on their respective TV shows. The Internet mostly parrots, reflects whatever nonsense is on TV.

The really scary part is that our government, still run by Republicans until January 20, seems to be willfully driving off the cliff. It would be one thing if it was just posturing, one party preparing to blame the other for whatever problems come from what they're calling a bailout, but it's much worse than that. They're going to let the companies fail. I don't think people appreciate just what that means. And the press should be reporting on that, not the morality. They should put their reporters in Detroit, Columbus, Indianapolis, where ever there are elements of the auto industry, and explain what will happen to these Americans when GM, Ford and Chrysler shut down, even if it's just for a few months. Really show us what the decision is. For once, scare us with the truth, instead of telling the usual bedtime story. That would be the honorable journalistic thing to do, but of course they're not doing it.

We daydreamed through the various crises of the last eight years, really the last forty or fifty. We won't be able to stay asleep through what's coming.

On an NPR show yesterday they had people calling in from Michigan. They sounded very clear, not angry, not a lot of fear in their voices, but the things they were saying scared me -- towns where everyone is out of work, and no one is able to sell their house, nowhere to go, savings being depleted, wondering what happens when they're gone.

In online discussions people say we should let the companies fail -- they scare me even more, because they don't understand how much our lives depend on each others. That was clear in New Orleans after Katrina. They couldn't re-open the restaurants not because there was no demand for the services, there was, but because there was no place for the staff to live and no way to get the supplies they needed. And you can't bring in the workers to rebuild the city without places for them to eat.

Civilizations take a long time to reboot after a crash, so you must do everything you can to avoid crashing, but this one seems to be willful, we have the means to prevent it, but for some reason we're too stupid, collectively, to stop it.

I feel this also because I live in earthquake country. People here say "New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt cause there never should have been a city there in the first place." I lower my glasses down my nose and look at them and say (after a long pause) "Are you fucking out of your fucking mind? Don't you see where you live?" I usually don't even have to say a word, just pause and let them think.

My mother, who lives in NY says the same thing, and I say sheez, it's not as if your city didn't need the rest of us to save you. She literally doesn't understand what I was saying. I ask if she remembers 9/11.

Fact is, we all live in New Orleans and Detroit, and we're going to learn that in this country, but it's going to be a very very painful lesson, apparently.

I'm not an economist, and while I'm not a casual investor (no one can be) -- I'm not a very active investor. I tend to park my assets in one place and just leave them there. The one major exception was January of this year, when I sold almost all my stock. Slowly, I bought back in -- index funds, but a very small amount of my holdings. Mostly I'm in US dollars and like everyone else, taking a bath and getting a haircut. It hasn't been a good year.

At the same time, I've been watching the AP and AFP photos flow through my screen saver, as always really excellent stuff, and the other day was struck by a photo in a Chinese unemployment office. The people don't look very different from us, and the office looked like it could be in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Denver, St Louis, Atlanta, DC, Philadelphia or Boston or any other American city. There were people gathered in front of a window, waiting in line. And there were computers, they looked exactly like ours (of course, our computers come from China) and they had wires on them, and I imagined those wires went to the Internet, the same Internet the wires on my computer go to.

The moral of that little story is that today in our crumbling economy, jobs in a random part of China are completely fungible with jobs in a random part of the US. Our workers compete with theirs and vice versa. If they can do a job for less money than our workers, they're going to get the work. Seeing Chinese workers in a scene that looked so familiar brought all this home in a new way.

At the same time, I'm listening to the talk on cable TV and radio about the looming crisis in Detroit, and recognize that at least half of the talk is nonsense, and the other half is people saying that the first half is nonsense. As usual, they are trying to create a debate, they don't care if the debate is about the substance. On Face The Nation, I heard Bob Schieffer ask the same nonsense questions on Sunday that on Monday Chris Matthews asked on Hardball and Mika Brzezinski asked on Morning Joe.

The don't report that the problems at GM, Ford and Chrysler are part of the September meltdown, part of the fallout of the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers. The economy is rapidly slowing down, maybe even grinding to a halt in some areas (esp autos) and companies like the Big 3 automakers can't get loans even if they have decent credit. I understand this because I was listening and reading during the initial reporting of the meltdown, and I heard what they were reporting, almost parenthetically during the rush of news, btw -- GM will run out of cash in a few weeks and might disappear -- but apparently these reporters weren't paying attention to their own reports. (Maybe understandable, because at the time the concern was over Bank of America disappearing.)

So instead of discussing what form our support will come in, we're discussing the morality of whether they should receive the support. It's the stupidest most dangerous discussion imaginable, because we're going to pay for this one way or the other. We can pay $25 billion now, or $200 billion in January to feed the out-of-work people. And of course, the comments on this post are just going to be rehashes of what Matthews, Schieffer and Brzezinski were saying on their respective TV shows. The Internet mostly parrots, reflects whatever nonsense is on TV.

The really scary part is that our government, still run by Republicans until January 20, seems to be willfully driving off the cliff. It would be one thing if it was just posturing, one party preparing to blame the other for whatever problems come from what they're calling a bailout, but it's much worse than that. They're going to let the companies fail. I don't think people appreciate just what that means. And the press should be reporting on that, not the morality. They should put their reporters in Detroit, Columbus, Indianapolis, where ever there are elements of the auto industry, and explain what will happen to these Americans when GM, Ford and Chrysler shut down, even if it's just for a few months. Really show us what the decision is. For once, scare us with the truth, instead of telling the usual bedtime story. That would be the honorable journalistic thing to do, but of course they're not doing it.

We daydreamed through the various crises of the last eight years, really the last forty or fifty. We won't be able to stay asleep through what's coming.

On an NPR show yesterday they had people calling in from Michigan. They sounded very clear, not angry, not a lot of fear in their voices, but the things they were saying scared me -- towns where everyone is out of work, and no one is able to sell their house, nowhere to go, savings being depleted, wondering what happens when they're gone.

In online discussions people say we should let the companies fail -- they scare me even more, because they don't understand how much our lives depend on each others. That was clear in New Orleans after Katrina. They couldn't re-open the restaurants not because there was no demand for the services, there was, but because there was no place for the staff to live and no way to get the supplies they needed. And you can't bring in the workers to rebuild the city without places for them to eat.

Civilizations take a long time to reboot after a crash, so you must do everything you can to avoid crashing, but this one seems to be willful, we have the means to prevent it, but for some reason we're too stupid, collectively, to stop it.

I feel this also because I live in earthquake country. People here say "New Orleans shouldn't be rebuilt cause there never should have been a city there in the first place." I lower my glasses down my nose and look at them and say (after a long pause) "Are you fucking out of your fucking mind? Don't you see where you live?" I usually don't even have to say a word, just pause and let them think.

My mother, who lives in NY says the same thing, and I say sheez, it's not as if your city didn't need the rest of us to save you. She literally doesn't understand what I was saying. I ask if she remembers 9/11.

Fact is, we all live in New Orleans and Detroit, and we're going to learn that in this country, but it's going to be a very very painful lesson, apparently.

The family of Martin Luther King Jr. has unfortunately done plenty to tarnish the great man's legacy over the last few decades, specifically in being overly aggressive claiming "ownership" of anything having to do with King, and demanding money from various entities that show King's speeches. A decade ago they were involved in a big legal fight with CBS for showing King's I Have A Dream speech. Who knew that dream was locked up thanks to intellectual property laws?

Now the family is apparently threatening to sue anyone selling any kind of merchandise that includes images of King and President-Elect Obama, claiming that if others are making money off of King's image, King's family should get a cut: "We do feel that if somebody's out there making a dollar, we should make a dime." So, now, apparently that dream is to keep making money off a speech that was delivered decades ago.

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The talks of bailing out GM (and other auto-makers) are dominating the headlines, it's an interesting debate and I think we (the USA) will end up "bailing them out" - not because it will save them, but because it will postpone an even harsher economic reality. I'm curious what the makers here think - it's energy, it's engineering, it's what MAKE is all about.

I love GM, our Detroit automakers and the heritage of American made cars - but that doesn't mean they get a free pass... Here are my quick thoughts - I suppose what makes this sting the most is what GM was saying a few years ago.

While Toyota was introducing the Prius, 's Vice Chairman Bob Lutz was quoted as saying it was a publicity stunt and "it was kowtowing to the shrill screams of a handful of a nutty environmentalists living in California communes, or something like that."

Harsh!

During the same time - At GM he "introduced car buyers to the V-16 Cadillac Sixteen concept car, sporting a 14-litre engine (a typical four-cylinder engine is about two litres.) GM also introduced the new Camaro at around that time, and other muscle cars, all under the watchful eye of the Czar... (who also gave us the Dodge Viper in a previous life.)"

GM also owns Hummer, but they're trying to sell it off now - so far no buyers.

There was more... "DETROIT (Reuters) - General Motors Corp Vice Chairman Bob Lutz has defended remarks he made dismissing global warming as a "total crock of s---," saying his views had no bearing on GM's commitment to build environmentally friendly vehicles."

So here we are getting asked to bail them out, most of the people I know don't have the same sentimental thoughts towards GM as our parents and grandparents do.

We've all heard the famous 1953 quotation from the former General Motors president Charles E. Wilson — that what was good for our country was good for G.M.

I think it's extremely important to debate and research global warming but to not address the market with more fuel efficient cars that consumers want and to also taunt an entire state in the USA didn't really help in the past and I think it's still not helping in the current crisis. What good for GM *is* good for the USA - It's an odd place we're in right now, it took decades to get here and unfortunately it will take decades to get us out - can GM (and all of us) wait that long?

Mr. Lutz is now heading up the Chevy Volt launching in 2010 - I'm looking forward to it and I hope this is a new beginning for GM. I don't mean to single Bob out but he's the one that talks to all of us.

The Extended-Range Electric Vehicle that is redefining the automotive world is no longer just a rumor. In fact, its propulsion system is so revolutionary, it's unlike any other vehicle or electric car that's ever been introduced. And we're making this remarkable vision a reality, so that one day you'll have the freedom to drive gas-free.

Chevy Volt is designed to move more than 75 percent of America's daily commuters without a single drop of gas.(2) That means for someone who drives less than 40 miles a day, Chevy Volt will use zero gasoline and produce zero emissions.

Unlike traditional electric cars, Chevy Volt has a revolutionary propulsion system that takes you beyond the power of the battery. It will use a lithium-ion battery with a gasoline-powered, range-extending engine that drives a generator to provide electric power when you drive beyond the 40-mile battery range.

I'm sure our elected officials have long memories too, we'll see what happens - if and when a bailout happens there might need to be really specific goals for fuel efficiency, it's lame that government and not the free market would need to do that but here we are. In 2005 the auto-makers defeated a bill that would have raised fuel efficiencies - it doesn't look like they'll have the same clout for awhile.

Thoughts? Post up in the comments!

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Tobias Buckell's Sly Mongoose is the latest in a series of fantastic space-operas that tackle big philosophical and economic questions without skimping on the gigantic battles or the thoughtful character-development. The action centers around a superhot, Venus-like planet where the residents live 100,000 feet above the surface in cloud cities. Most of the world is rich and happy, ensconced in a super-participatory democracy that uses direct brain links to vote on every substantial matter of policy, but one ethnic minority, a kind of neo-Aztecs, live in the direst poverty.

These are the descendants of a rampaging, murderous lot who were duped by cruel aliens into believing that the ancient Aztec civilization whence they descended was established by the selfsame alien gods, who had chosen them to lead, and who demanded blood sacrifice in return. Once the gods were revealed as liars and cheats (by a force of Caribbean-descended warriors called the Ragamuffins), the disgraced neo-Aztecs renounced their faith and moved to the cloud-world.

Now a fallen civilization, they rely on ancient, half-working machinery to extract the ores that keep their power-systems humming, machinery that can only be maintained by young, bulemic boys, the only ones slender enough to fit into the surface-suits that were designed for ancestors who had access to metabolic technology that let them strut about with the stretched-out bodies of elves.

Civilization is disrupted when Pepper, a near-immortal Ragamuffin, plunges through the atmosphere in an improvised re-entry vehicle, puncturing the floating city's dome and killing one of the boy maintenance workers. By that's just the start of their problems: Pepper comes with a warning of a new bioweapon unleashed on their corner of space by the arrogant, distant human alliance -- a bioweapon called The Swarm that turns its hosts into shambling, semi-telepathic zombies who form a huge neural net that gets smarter the more people they bite.

Sly Mongoose has enough science and speculation for three books, with swashbuckling set-pieces that include airship battles, vividly described infantry action on a grand scale, mad inventors and their analog-computer-based autonomous ornithopters, pirates, alliances, betrayals, alien races, and so forth.

But Sly Mongoose is also a novel of character and philosophy, where people we care about make hard decisions that challenge who they are and re-shape them. Besides Pepper, there's Timas, an adolescent maintenance worker; Katerina, another adolescent who is the avatar for her hyper-democratic civilization, and a host of secondary characters, none of whom is ever relegated to mere spear-carrier.

The story presents us with several different versions of consent, coercion, democracy and cooperation, using the author's contrived situation to stage a nuanced, fascinating debate about the ethics of different kinds of collective action, one that raises lots of hard questions without offering any simple answers.

I've had the pleasure of reading every one of Toby Buckell's excellent novels, and of blurbing one or two of them, and not only have I never been let down by one of them, I've also always been delighted to find each book even better than the last, as a prodigious young talent unfolds and discovers itself.

Sly Mongoose on Amazon

Update: Josh sez, "Toby is currently in the ER for a heart issue. Send good thoughts."

I saw a nostalgic photo in the bathroom of a NY City restaurant recently, a picture of the beach at Coney Island and the ocean was absolutely filled with people from where the water met the shore to as far out as people could stand. It was such a great picture that could be interpreted two different ways: what an awful thing to go to a crowded beach OR what an amazing time you'd have in the middle of all those people enjoying the day of the beach. Think of its opposite -- the island beach with white sand and nothing but you and nature, the kind of photos you find in "Travel and Leisure" magazine. It's another setting that could be seen and experienced two different ways -- I've found paradise because I can lie on this beautiful beach or, an hour later, I'm bored because there's nobody here and nothing to do. One test is to ask yourself what you'd have done as a kid. The kid has to prefer the crowded beach with lots going on.

HOW TO - Shut down your computer with a text message by Tinkernut via CG.

Control your VCR with a text message.

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Gabe and Max have produced another episode of their manly man beauty tips for Details.com. These are delightfully creepy, and some of the guys in the studio where we produce Boing Boing tv have found them most useful. Are you in Brooklyn Thursday night? Max Silvestri has a message for you:

And if you aren't busy Thursday night, come out for an extra-special Big Terrific with me and Gabe & Jenny. It's our last show until December, because believe it or not we won't be making jokes on the night of Thanksgiving. We'll be busy seeing who can eat the most oyster stuffing without passing out. Spoiler alert: it's me. Also joining us for this pre-holiday celebration: * LEO ALLEN (two Comedy Central specials, SNL) * KURT & KRISTEN (Flight of the Conchords, Comedy Central special) * JON FRIEDMAN (The Rejection Show) * MIKE O'CONNELL (in from LA; Jimmy Kimmel Live, YouTube sensation "What's It Gonna Be?")

We hope to see you there! It is always a very loose and fun and fresh time. There is a party afterwards. That's pretty chill.

Thursday, November 20th 2008 @ 8pm, Sound Fix Records 110 Bedford Ave., at N. 11th St. Brooklyn, NY 11211 FREE!

Previously on BB and BBtv:

* Gabe and Max answer Bing Boing readers.
* Gabe (of "Gabe and Max") takes on YouTubeTards
* Gabe and Max's Guide to Man Style
* Internet Cookies/Internet... Thing

flnca writes "Today, I was playing with the thought again to purchase an AIX workstation one day when I can afford them, and I was surprised to see that IBM is going to give its IntelliStation POWER Series workstations the boot in January '09. A black day for AIX on the desktop. I really wonder what's the problem there, warehouse costs? IBM has a history of burying its best stuff (like OS/2 for instance). Some years ago, I enjoyed hacking away on an RS/6000 workstation running AIX 4.2, and it was a pure joy. Not only the kernel, but also the admin tools, like smit and smitty. Their blade-centric solution uses Windows as a client for workstation application. This truly sounds like IBM wants AIX only for servers anymore. I'm not amused. Although, eXceed on Windows with an XDCMP server running on AIX might also be a viable solution ... whatever. But it can't beat a native POWER box sitting on your desk, that's for sure."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What do you call the shop where you get your miscellaneous stuff? I grew up in Toronto, where they were called "convenience stores," "smoke shops," and sometimes "Becker's" or "Mac's" (names of chains that got genericized). In New York, I learned to call them "bodegas." In Montreal, "depanneurs" or "the dep". In Costa Rica, we went to the pulperia (or "pulpe") for supplies, and in Honduras, we went to the "super." Here in London, they're "bottle shops," "off-licenses," "newsagents," "offies," and "cornershops" (not all identical in meaning).

What do you call 'em?
(Image: Cheap Booze, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike image from Fabbio's Flickr stream)

ruheling writes "From yesterday's New York Times: ' What Has Driven Women Out of Computer Science?' In many US universities, over the past decade, there has been deliberate effort to integrate and encourage women and girls to get more involved in the 'hard' sciences, engineering, and math. However, instead of the proportion of women to men increasing, in Computer Science the opposite is actually true. Specifically, in 2001-2, only 28 percent of all undergraduate degrees in computer science went to women. Now many computer science departments report that women now make up less than 10 percent of the newest undergraduates. What's going on here, folks?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Job Koelewijn's infinity bookcase via Neatorama.

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A while ago I converted a 1934 folding camera into a USB web cam. I brought it with me to Maker Faire Austin 2008 and a lot of people seemed to like it. In fact, a lot of people wanted to know how I made one. I promised them I would do a how-to on the blog, and I always keep my promises, so let's get started.

The best part about this project is the availability of the cameras. I was able to pick up a USB web cam for $10 at a local bigbox store. The antique cameras I picked up on ebay for $1. Actually, I picked up (2) cameras for $1 each and the shipping was only $5. That was a great deal. You can easily pick one up for less than $10 online or a local antiques shop.

What you need:

• Antique folding camera - Available on ebay for $1 - $10
• USB web camera - Available for $10 - $20
• Heat-shrink tubing
• Rosin core solder

Tools you need:

• Soldering Iron
• Glue Gun
• Arms of Assistance - Make you own
• Fume extractor - Make your own
• Miscellaneous hand tools - screw driver, needle-nose pliers

Step 1: Purchase the cameras

First you need the cameras. Scour the Internet, check local antique shops, or ask your friends. These types of cameras, both the antique camera and web cam, are readily available and they are very affordable.

Step 2: Remove the lens

Start by opening up the antique folding camera. There is usually a switch somewhere that slides over so you can load the film.

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I've just come back from a better honeymoon than I dared hope for, and it's largely thanks to the amazing place I visited and the wonderful hotel I stayed at, so I thought I'd better plug both of them.

The place is Roatan, one of Honduras' Bay Islands, a little tropical island less than three hours' flight from Houston (direct flights also go from Milan, Toronto and Miami in season), and the hotel was Cocolobo, in the village of West End.

First, a little about Roatan. This island is a former British colony, with four main populations: English-speaking "islanders" descended from freed slaves from the British era, Spanish-speakers from the mainland, Garifunan-speakers, and expats from the US, Canada, Europe and elsewhere. It's a narrow, tropical island with a single paved road and many unpaved tributaries, and it sits squarely on the second-largest barrier reef in the world (itself a protected marine park reserve).

We stayed in West End, a town that's touristy enough that you can get a delicious meal at any of several restaurants and draw out cash from one of the two ATMs (when they're working!), but also far enough off the beaten track that it felt sleepy and safe and absolutely tranquil and isolated from the cares we'd left behind.

A huge part of that was Cocolobo, our hotel, where we stayed for about $75/night, in a large room with air-conditioning, a ceiling fan, a back porch with a hammock overlooking the sea and the "iron shore" (fossilized coral) with spectacular nightly sunsets, a pool, and delicious hot breakfasts every day. Rory and Claire, our hosts, were magnificent, helping us find dive-shops, babysitting, great food, and fun things to do while there.

We dove every day, mostly with Ocean Connections (who were fantastic) as well as with Coconut Tree. The diving was unbelievable -- clear seas, warm water, and an amazing variety in dive-sites from high-speed drifts along the wall to mellow dives among the giant barrel-sponges. There were turtles and rays and morays in plenty, and dolphins and sharks, too, as well as a couple of challenging and spooky wrecks. Dives were very reasonable -- about $25/person including gear rental.

We spent a lot of time at Cocolobo, too, relaxing and reading, playing with the baby, snorkeling off the iron shore, getting online now and then. It was incredibly comfortable and beautiful, besides.

For meals, we favored the $6 lunch at Mavis and Dixie's, right on the beach, where we got a generous portion of blackened wahoo, plantains, beans and salad, usually with a fresh banana-pineapple smoothie. Sometimes we'd take the baby to the secluded lagoon behind Mavis and Dixie's for a splash and a dig in the sand (the folks at the restaurant even loaned us a spoon so she could dig in the sand!).

There were lots of good dinner options, but the most remarkable was Ooloontho, a gourmet Indian restaurant run by a Canadian-born chef and his Indian-born wife. We ate dinner there twice and I was knocked off my seat both times by the delicate flavors, the inventiveness, and the quality of the ingredients. I'll never forget the calamari, and I'll never, never, never forget the banana bread-and-butter in a salt caramel sauce! I was in Mumbai in September and while I ate some great food there, Ooloontho beats everything I tasted in India or here in London.

(Speaking of tastes, ZOMG, Bucanero hot sauce kicks 18 kinds of ass -- we brought home ten bottles!)

We barely scratched the surface of all there is to do in Roatan -- dolphin encounters, yoga, horseback riding, a butterfly reserve, zip-lines through the jungles, and the world's deepest-diving civilian submarine (built by a hobbyist who taught himself to weld!). Nearly every person we met was friendly and helpful. I've never felt so relaxed in my adult life.

We fell in love with the place and are hoping to return next year with our extended families, taking over five or six of Cocolobo's 12 rooms, along with one of the smart little self-catering cabins they were finishing while we were there. The hotel and island are the picture of paradise: laid back, kid-friendly, warm and unspoiled.

Cocolobo, My Roatan photos

Blu-ray "won" the next-generation DVD standards battle, but that victory has, thus far, been pretty hollow, as consumers haven't wholeheartedly embraced the new format (and the new DVD players they need to take advantage of it). But one group of people is loving Blu-ray: Asian movie pirates. The pirates rip Blu-ray movies, then burn them onto DVDs using the AVCHD format, at a resolution that's lower than Blu-ray, but still higher than standard DVDs. The lower resolution means the pirates can burn onto regular blank DVDs, not blank Blu-ray discs, holding their costs down and creating fat profit margins on the $7 bootlegs. Wasn't one of the reasons the movie industry was so hot on Blu-ray its fantastic DRM that was supposed to make life hell for pirates? All it appears to have really done is annoy customers, while Blu-ray itself is making the pirates' business even better.

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

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We're really liking Discovery's new show, Time Warp - it's the perfect combination of science, woohoo! moments, and how things work. The hosts, Jeff Lieberman and Matt Kearney, both have an infectious sense of curiosity that make the show really fun to watch.

Do you know how your dog uses its tongue to drink? In what exact way a face contorts when punched by a UFC contender? What happens when an egg falls into the pinwheeling blades of a fan? Or an apple is hit with a bullet? Using the latest in high-speed photography, the Time Warp team takes some natural events (a cat licking its paw, a champagne bottle being opened) -- and some not-so-natural (a water balloon to the face, a raw piece of chicken exploding) -- and turns them into a thing of both beauty and learning.

Time Warp recently filmed EepyBird's Diet Coke and Mentos fun - the episode is called "Stone Breaking" Do your own messy experiments with the Diet Coke and Mentos kit from the Maker Shed!

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piemcfly writes "Chinese-born physicist Shu Quan-Sheng Monday pleaded guilty before a US court to violating the Arms Export Control Act by illegally exporting American military space know-how to China. The 68-year-old naturalized US citizen, pictured here on his company profile, admitted handing over the design of fueling systems between 2003 and 2007. Also, in 2003 he illegally exported a document with the impossibly long name of 'Commercial Information, Technical Proposal and Budgetary Officer — Design, Supply, Engineering, Fabrication, Testing & Commissioning of 100m3 Liquid Hydrogen Tank and Various Special Cryogenic Pumps, Valves, Filters and Instruments.' This contained the design of liquid hydrogen tanks for space launch vehicles. He also admitted to a third charge of bribing Chinese officials to the tune of some 189,300 dollars for a French space technology firm." Here's the FBI press release regarding Shu's plea.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In engineering, programming, web design and most other creative work, many people consciously use The Design Process. The PBS show Design Squad provides some great examples of how people can work with this system. There are also plenty of resources for working with students and other learners on their site.

The Android G1 is pretty much ready for the public to use, but it is still not done. One of the reasons I wanted the G1 was to follow the process of developing a product from initial release. The phone and its systems work ok, well enough for product release. In a few years, months or weeks, it will be much better. The fact that the phone and its systems are being developed in an open manner is one of the most powerful aspects of it for me.

The innovation of the Android system and G1 phone is not limited to just employees, but explicitly involves the community of users and developers to make it a better system. If we decide that it should be better, we can change it without waiting around for some research group at corporate to get the resources to identify, solve and implement a solution.

Consider the the original ipod. If you put that collectors' item in the hands of a recent ipod touch user, they would experience little other than frustration. With a low res black and white screen that had no touchscreen interface, small mechanical hard drive, short battery life, heavy clunky form factor, drm locked music formats, lots of tactile buttons and a wide collection of other currently unacceptable design traits, it was enough to transform the music industry and modern culture. Apple had to start somewhere.

Steps
Often, the Design Process is presented as a series of steps that you go through in developing an idea or product. They (usually) include: Identify a problem, Gather information, Propose solutions, Choose the best idea, Test the idea, Evaluate and Communicate. There are many different versions, no set list covers all the ways people interpret the Design Process. As you get more familiar with the use of the process, you tend to skip around inside it as your project needs dictate.

Looping
In the image above, and in many other descriptions of the Design Process, it is shown as a loop. In considering a project to work on, you find a problem to solve, gather information, try out an idea, test it and evaluate. If you solve the problem, move on to another problem or aspect of the project that needs attention. If you don't solve the problem, you have some more information about what won't work. That information gets incorporated in your next go-round.

Making it right
As you cycle through the Design Process, your product should be getting better as you go. The more you identify problems, pose solutions, test them and implement them, the device, program, product or project gets better. New problems arise the more you work the process. If you nail the biggest ones first, eventually you have something that works pretty well and are fine tuning after a while. It is possible to over do this fine tuning part, causing the project to never see the light of day. It is also possible to short circuit this phase. Ebay, second hand stores and the dump are full of examples of products which did not get enough exposure to this phase.

Delivering
When your product is sufficiently complete, and you have resolved the most pressing problems determined in the process, it is time to deliver. This does not mean that the project is done forever, instead, it means that it is ready for more testing in a real world environment. As you (and your team, as may be the case) see the product in the world, you will hopefully be looking at it for examples of where it can be changed and improved. As you find aspects of the project that need refinement, you make a plan for revision and implement it. Hopefully these flaws you find at this point are not tragic enough to seriously stall or ruin the project.

How do you use the Design Process? Have you introduced it as a development technique when working with creative people? Have you taught it to kids? What are your experiences with developing ideas partially or fully by looping through these steps?

Post your ideas, experiences and observations into the comments!

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I love this Robotic Genie shirt at Design by Humans - appropriately emerging from an oil can. via Super Punch

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Matt_dk writes "An international team of scientists who analyzed data from the Gamma Ray Spectrometer onboard NASA's Mars Odyssey reports new evidence for the controversial idea that oceans once covered about a third of ancient Mars. 'We compared Gamma Ray Spectrometer data on potassium, thorium and iron above and below a shoreline believed to mark an ancient ocean that covered a third of Mars' surface, and an inner shoreline believed to mark a younger, smaller ocean.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Mightyohm gave a broken phone handset new life in the form of bluetooth functionality - by repurposing a discarded, semi-functional headset -

Upon receiving it, I proceeded to rip the headset apart, interested to see what was inside. I found a fairly simple PCB with a discrete bluetooth module in the center. The PCB is not labeled, but given that this is an older headset (3-4 years old) most of the connections are large enough to attack with a pencil iron and solder wires to.

This headset was begging for a project.

- Bluetooth Handset Hack

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The launch for the UK edition of my novel Little Brother has been scheduled! I'll be signing at Forbidden Planet in London on Satuday, November 29. They're also taking pre-orders for signed copies by mail-order -- makes a dandy Christmas pressie!

Cory Doctorow – Little Brother
Saturday 29, November, 1:00PM - 2:00PM
Forbidden Planet London Megastore,
179 Shaftesbury Avenue, London, WC2H 8JR

Our Price: £6.99

Pre-order signed Little Brothers from Forbidden Planet, Little Brother signing at Forbidden Planet

Ian Rogers, an old-school music-tech geek who runs Topspin, a music/tech startup, gave a hell of a keynote at the GRAMMY Northwest MusicTech Summit, in which he told the most powerful people in the music industry to suck it up, get over the rhetoric about stealing and lost CD sales, and build businesses with the net, not against it.

The lamenting we read in the press is not the story of the new music business. Continuing to talk about the health of the music industry on these terms is as if we’d all been crying about the dying cassette business in 1995. The difference is that when we moved from cassette to CD the winners were the same (big companies who owned access to cash, distribution, and marketing) and the definition of winning was the same (more units sold for these big companies).

As I’ve been saying for years, the physics of the media space have changed and you shouldn’t expect the winners or even the definition of winning to stay constant, so simply looking at how iTunes replaces CDs doesn’t tell the entire story.

GRAMMY Northwest MusicTech Summit Keynote

Once again, we have a situation of unintended consequences due to politicians trying to make headlines for "protecting the children." As you probably know, the press and politicians have been pushing for a bit of a moral panic over the idea that kids are at great risk from predators online. The truth is that the risk has been blown way out of proportion. Most child abductions come in cases where the abductor knew the child, and most children know better than to talk to random strangers online. Yet, because of all the scary articles in the press, plenty of politicians went around demanding that various social networks put in place age verification systems in order to "protect" the children. Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal led the charge in insisting that predators on social networks was a huge problem.

Of course, now that the social networks have started putting in place age verification systems, child safety experts are realizing that this actually creates some serious privacy issues, most likely bigger than any threat of predators. The various companies that are providing age verification tools are building up databases of info on children, and many of them are using that info to market stuff specifically to children. So, now, rather than being mostly anonymous online, various marketers have a bunch of info -- including name, age, address, school and gender -- that they wouldn't have access to otherwise.

And, of course, even though he's partly responsible for this turn of events, Richard Blumenthal is quite upset. After first claiming that he's only just been hearing about such privacy issues, he claims:

"The attorneys general would be very concerned about using age verification to promote marketing or any other kinds of promotional pitches or gimmicks aimed at specific age groups. Targeted marketing may have its place, but it should not be coupled with the issue of childhood safety."

Perhaps he should have thought of that before demanding that social networks hire companies to collect that kind of information.

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John Buckman, the founder of the radical, sharing-friendly, artist-paying label Magnatune, sez,

The Magnatune music service has been transitioning from a "buy album downloads" model to a "DRM-free, all-you-can-eat, pay-what-you-want" model. I believe that Magnatune is the only DRM-free all-you-can eat pay music service.

Today, Magnatune removed all commitment requirements for membership, so that literally you can join for $10 and get access to all Magnatune albums and downloads.

This marks the end of a 3 month experiment, in tandem with Yochai Benkler's research group, to see what effect different prices, pay-what-you-want strategies, and commitments might have on a post-scarcity online music business model.

Membership without obligations (Thanks, John!)

Some nine years ago, I had my mind blown by Bruce Sterling's Viridian Manifesto, a call-to-arms that held:

1. That the world was under serious threat due to anthropogenic global warming, and
2. That the answer wasn't to live simply, but rather to use better technology to help us make better choices and conduct our lives in a better way

These two ideas are incredibly inspiring, and have served as a powerful antidote against the Three Stupidities of Global Warming:

1. There is no global warming, or if there is, it's natural
2. The only answer to global warming is to live in log cabins, unplug your fridge and never get on another airplane
3. Global warming is inevitable, so let's go buy some more Hummers and pass the spotted owl omelette, wouldya?

The Stupidities are, at root, counsels of despair. They rely on denialism, or hold humanity to an impossible standard (witness the goofball commenters to my post about entertaining your children with a single bucket of water on a hot day who immediately leapt in to characterize this as a sin against the very planet, since water is precious and shouldn't be wasted by splashing around in the summer), or throw up their hands and give up.

For this entire century, Viridianism has provided a critical, design-based, technological, optimistic, and humane approach to the immense problem of global warming.

Now, Bruce has wound up his movement, writing a final brilliant essay filled with advice for the future of material culture. In the Last Viridian Note, Bruce issues a kind of high-tech Arts and Crafts Movement manifesto to surround yourself with great things -- things that are great for you, great for your community and planet and species, and to approach the world as a problem to be solved, and to solve it. Reading Bruce in this mode is inspiring, makes me want to stand up and salute.

I've just given away fifty boxes' worth of junk and shut down my Toronto storage locker. My London locker is gone. My LA locker is next. I won't get down to Thoreau's axe-head and pen, but I'll be pretty close: a few good pieces of furniture, some books I love, some art, a laptop and assorted life-support, and well-made, comfortable clothes that look good and last. Oh, and a multitool, natch.

What is "sustainability?" Sustainable practices navigate successfully through time and space, while others crack up and vanish. So basically, the sustainable is about time -- time and space. You need to re-think your relationship to material possessions in terms of things that occupy your time. The things that are physically closest to you. Time and space.

In earlier, less technically advanced eras, this approach would have been far-fetched. Material goods were inherently difficult to produce, find, and ship. They were rare and precious. They were closely associated with social prestige. Without important material signifiers such as wedding china, family silver, portraits, a coach-house, a trousseau and so forth, you were advertising your lack of substance to your neighbors. If you failed to surround yourself with a thick material barrier, you were inviting social abuse and possible police suspicion. So it made pragmatic sense to cling to heirlooms, renew all major purchases promptly, and visibly keep up with the Joneses.

That era is dying. It's not only dying, but the assumptions behind that form of material culture are very dangerous. These objects can no longer protect you from want, from humiliation -- in fact they are *causes* of humiliation, as anyone with a McMansion crammed with Chinese-made goods and an unsellable SUV has now learned at great cost.

Furthermore, many of these objects can damage you personally. The hours you waste stumbling over your piled debris, picking, washing, storing, re-storing, those are hours and spaces that you will never get back in a mortal lifetime. Basically, you have to curate these goods: heat them, cool them, protect them from humidity and vermin. Every moment you devote to them is lost to your children, your friends, your society, yourself.

It's not bad to own fine things that you like. What you need are things that you GENUINELY like. Things that you cherish, that enhance your existence in the world. The rest is dross.

Do not "economize." Please. That is not the point. The economy is clearly insane. Even its champions are terrified by it now. It's melting the North Pole. So "economization" is not your friend. Cheapness can be value-less. Voluntary simplicity is, furthermore, boring. Less can become too much work.

The items that you use incessantly, the items you employ every day, the normal, boring goods that don't seem luxurious or romantic: these are the critical ones. They are truly central. The everyday object is the monarch of all objects. It's in your time most, it's in your space most. It is "where it is at," and it is "what is going on."

It takes a while to get this through your head, because it's the opposite of the legendry of shopping. However: the things that you use every day should be the best-designed things you can get. For instance, you cannot possibly spend too much money on a bed -- (assuming you have a regular bed, which in point of fact I do not). You're spending a third of your lifetime in a bed. Your bed might be sagging, ugly, groaning and infested with dust mites, because you are used to that situation and cannot see it. That calamity might escape your conscious notice. See it. Replace it.

The Last Viridian Note

This hack shows how to stuff a Nintendo Gameboy inside the housing of a TI-83 series calculator. We've seen the cool things these calculators can be hacked to do, but we haven't seen someone take it this far. Unfortunately, I think it would be more impressive if he got the TI-83's hardware to play Gameboy games, rather than just soldering the keys to the original Gameboy's controller. Oh well, still a nice site with lots of pics of the build.

GameBoy Color inside a TI-83 series calculator

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CSMatt points with this excerpt from the EFF's page: "Last week, the RIAA celebrated the signing of a ridiculous new law in Tennessee that says: 'Each public and private institution of higher education in the state that has student residential computer networks shall: [...] [R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources, if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year.' While the entertainment industry failed to get 'hard' requirements for universities in the Higher Education Act passed by Congress earlier this year, the RIAA succeeded in Tennessee (and is pushing in other states) with this provision that gives Big Content the ability to hold universities hostage through the use of infringement notices. Moreover, the new rules will cost Tennessee a pretty penny — in the cost review attached to the Tennessee bill, the state's Fiscal Review Committee estimates that the new obligations will initially cost the state a whopping $9.5 million for software, hardware, and personnel, with recurring annual costs of more than $1.5 million for personnel and maintenance."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CSMatt points with this excerpt from the EFF's page: "Last week, the RIAA celebrated the signing of a ridiculous new law in Tennessee that says: "Each public and private institution of higher education in the state that has student residential computer networks shall: [...] [R]easonably attempt to prevent the infringement of copyrighted works over the institution's computer and network resources, if such institution receives fifty (50) or more legally valid notices of infringement as prescribed by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 within the preceding year." While the entertainment industry failed to get "hard" requirements for universities in the Higher Education Act passed by Congress earlier this year, the RIAA succeeded in Tennessee (and is pushing in other states) with this provision that gives Big Content the ability to hold universities hostage through the use of infringement notices. Moreover, the new rules will cost Tennessee a pretty penny — in the cost review attached to the Tennessee bill, the state's Fiscal Review Committee estimates that the new obligations will initially cost the state a whopping $9.5 million for software, hardware, and personnel, with recurring annual costs of more than $1.5 million for personnel and maintenance."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ThanatosMinor writes "September's quench at the Large Hadron Collider is going to cost CERN at least $21 million and delay future collisions until June of 2009 at the earliest. Enjoy your last few months outside of an event horizon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When Alice and I were planning our honeymoon on Roatan, Honduras (more on this later!), we knew we'd need something for the baby to sleep in -- a mosquito net to go over the crib? Something else?

I happened on KidCo's PeaPod Travel Bed on Amazon and was intrigued. It's a tensegrity-based pop-up bed/net that also works as a sunshade on the beach, and best of all, it folds up tiny, not much bigger than a toilet-bag.

I took a chance and ordered it, and I was delighted with the thing. It was comfortable, airy, bug-proof, and incredibly cool. You extract this little disc of nylon and coiled wired struts out of the case and it literally springs open in your hand, instantly turning into a perfect kid-bed with an audible whomp. It kept out the sand-fleas and sun on the beach and the mosquitos at night. It let in the breeze, and it provided shade by the pool.

Some of the reviewers have complained that the thing was hard to get back in the case, but I got it on the second try and never had trouble with it afterwards. The "quilt" that comes with it is a little junky, but we didn't need it in the tropics. Highly recommended.

The last thing you need while you're traveling with a baby is to lug a lot of extra luggage around. Rather than packing a Pack'n'Play or a folding bassinet, which are cumbersome and heavy, simply pack the ultra-light, super-compact PeaPod away in your suitcase. At 14 x 5 x 14 inches (LxWxH) when closed, it takes up little space, and it comes with a carrying case for easy portability. And at 48 x 30 x 18 inches (LxWxH) when open, the PeaPod will take up little space once you reach your destination.

The PeaPod is also designed to open and fold shut quickly and easily. Other than the included air pump for quickly inflating the small mattress, no tools are needed: simply follow the directions to "snap" it into its standing position, and fold it back down quickly when finished. So whether you're traveling across the country, making a weekend trip to the beach, or simply spending the day at a friend's house, the PeaPod Portable Travel Bed makes it super-easy and convenient for baby to sleep comfortably and safely while on the go.

KidCo Peapod Portable Travel Bed

Lovely old sign (or perhaps new) V for Victory via Eyebeam.

More:

Victory garden kits.

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This tutorial shows each step necessary to build a MIDI clock to sync to Little Sound DJ or NanoLoop on a Nintendo Gameboy in order to output beats to the midi instrument of your choice. It lets you synchronize up to six copies of LSDJ or NanoLoop simultaneously to a MIDI clock. Check out this relatively cheap build at the link below.

How to Build a MIDI Clock to Game Boy Sync Thing for Around AU$15

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From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Arms22 shares this oddly stealthy example of DIY audio - converting a couple of empty grandes into computer speakers using a TDA1552Q amplifier chip. Nice reuse - looks natural too! The relevant page is in Japanese but you can still check out the schematic - Coffee cup speakers

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A few weeks ago, Amazon announced a program to push for more customer-friendly packaging -- specifically moving away from those impossible to open plastic clamshell bubble packs that have a way of encouraging excessive swearing (and injuries) from consumers trying to open them. The good news, however, is that many retailers and manufacturers all agree that it's time to end that practice and to move towards more reasonable packaging solutions. It's about time.

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Interesting article about Honda @ Forbes... At American auto companies, finance guys and marketers rise to the top. Not at Honda...

Of all the bizarre subsidiaries that big companies can find themselves with, Harmony Agricultural Products, founded and owned by Honda Motor, is one of the strangest. This small company near Marysville, Ohio produces soybeans for tofu. Soybeans? Honda couldn't brook the sight of the shipping containers that brought parts from Japan to its nearby auto factories returning empty. So Harmony now ships 33,000 pounds of soybeans to Japan. An inveterate tinkerer, Honda also set up a center nearby to develop better soybean varieties and improve agricultural processes.

This is from a company that sold 21 million internal combustion engines for cars, motorcycles, lawnmowers and boats last year. But there's nothing Honda (nyse: HMC - news - people ) hates more than waste, and there is nothing Honda likes more than an engineering problem. Indeed, how else to explain why Honda has studied the maddeningly evasive cockroach (for anticollision technology), decoded the rice genome (to increase crop yields and create more-productive crops for biofuels) and developed a robot that can get instructions by reading human brain waves (to learn how machines and humans can better coexist).



Longtime auto analyst John Casesa, who now runs a consulting company, says, "There's not a company on earth that better understands the culture of engineering."



The strategy has worked thus far. Honda has never had an unprofitable year. It has never had to lay off employees. In the fiscal year that ended in March, profit grew 12%, to $5.1 billion, on $84 billion in sales. In the U.S., which accounts for 43% of Honda's sales, vehicle sales are up 7% through July, even as the industry slipped 5%. The company sold more vehicles in July than one member of the old Big Three, the Chrysler Group.

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There seems to be a theme here...

Want some clock? Saw off a piece...

Want some radio? Saw off a piece...

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The Auduino project turns Arduino into a PWM based sound synthesizer -

Sound is generated by playing the same noise ('grain') repeatedly at very high speed. This merges into a tone that is an audible hybrid of the repetition rate and the original grain.

The grain consists of two triangular waves of adjustable frequency, and adjustable decay rate. The repetition rate is set by another control.

Only basic hardware required - 5 potentiometers, and an output jack -

Looks like a cool project - details, links to Arduino code here - Auduino

Arduino Pocket Piano Synth Kit

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The "Zebra Crossing Memorial" was an urban street art hack designed in a similar way to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in WDC. Hundreds of names of people that were killed by cars were stenciled in the streets of Portugal. Check out the video to see the entire process unfold.

via Web Urbanist

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Kodak is challenging Samsung Electronics, LG Electronics and related companies over alleged patent infringement. Kodak is claiming technologies used in LG and Samsung camera phones are covered by its patents. Documents filed with the International Trade Commission highlight technologies in the Samsung Blackjack II and LG Dare handsets.

This is a great way to recycle a discarded wooden pallet. I just might grab the next one I find on the street and make a coffee table out of it.

This modern, ethnic-looking coffee table, with its ochre stripes that conjures up visions of Marrakech, was made from a wooden pallet discarded in a shopping area. The painstaking task of removing nails and sawing wood was avoided by fitting the pallet with a hardboard bottom and filling the cracks with mortar. And presto, we have a table top.

More about DIY: Pallet coffee table [TipNut]

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Dante_J writes "In the final report published by the Australian Senate inquiry into 'The Current State of Australia's Space Science & Industry Sector' entitled 'Lost in Space? Setting a new direction for Australia's space science and industry sector,' it calls for the formation of a 'Space Industry Advisory Council' to oversee the creation of a fully-fledged Australian Space Agency. Of the top 20 GDP nations, Australia is the only one without a Space Agency, which impacts on many aspects of ordinary life, not to mention Research and Engineering endeavors. Every satellite operated by Australia is owned by another party and the costs of this alone are comparable to that of a Space Agency. The report is a tidy piece that drew upon submissions form Andy Thomas, and an impressive collection of Australian Academics and Space Science entities frustrated by successive generations of government apathy. While this report is welcome, lethargic Government action in a climate of competing concerns is not expected to stem the flow of Space Science brain drain out of Australia any time soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is a nice DIY universal remote using an Arduino and an IR LED. Hopefully you have an oscilloscope so you can decode your current remote. If not, keep checking craigslist for a really cheap one. That's where I got mine.

It is really easy to build a universal remote using an Arduino. With just an infrared LED, it can impersonate remotes for your TV, fans, lights, etc. and can let you easily incorporate these into your electronics projects. You won't even have to solder anything or void any warranties.

More about Building a universal remote with an Arduino

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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The latest study from the Pew Internet and American Life Project says that while plenty of people are buying new gadgets and technology, an awful lot of them are having trouble getting or keeping it working. According to the survey, 48% said they need others' help in setting up new devices. Additionally, plenty of folks noted that when their stuff broke, it was a pain to fix it. In fact, 15% of people said they just gave up and left devices not working when they had troubles. While some may see this as an opportunity for various "home geek services" operations, it seems more like an alarm for the consumer electronics and technology industries that they have to start making stuff that isn't so confusing to set up and use.

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This is a really cool time-lapse sequence of Robert Burden's painting of "Voltron". It's really amazing to see the entire creative process that Robert goes through to complete this work of art.

More about Robert Burden [BoingBoing]

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JagsLive was one of several readers to point out Jerry Yang's departure as Yahoo CEO. He's not leaving the company; he will return to his former role as Chief Yahoo, whatever that entails. Yang has been under fire in recent months from investors for his handling of Microsoft's recent acquisition attempt."Yahoo, under fierce financial pressure, has begun a search to replace company co-founder Jerry Yang as chief executive, the company said Monday. 'Jerry and the board have had an ongoing dialogue about succession timing, and we all agree that now is the right time to make the transition to a new CEO who can take the company to the next level,' Chairman Roy Bostock said in a statement."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

These weaponized suitcases via NOTCOT remind me of my laptop bag.

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Larry Lessig and Pam Sameulson gave barn-burning talks at this year's Free Culture summit at Berkeley -- I'm especially interested in Pam's talk. She's one of the top scholars of American copyright law and when she says there's something wrong with it, people sit up and listen:

I think one reason that it’s really important to think about copyright reform is because really pretty much every 40 years there has been copyright reform. So it’s time to really get that conversation started. And a lot of what we need to do is move to better principals about what a good copyright law would look like. It shouldn’t be as long – current copyright law is 200 pages long, 300 if you buy certain editions – and it’s too complicated. I can’t make my way through about half the provisions because they’re so incomprehensible. Maybe it was ok that copyright law was really abstruse at a time when the only people who needed to know anything about it were the industry lawyers who essentially were mediating these kind of inter-industry disputes. If they knew what it meant and nobody else did, who cared, as long as it just applied to them. But now that copyright law is really affecting and regulating our daily activities, we the people deserve a copyright law that’s simple, that’s fair, that’s balanced, and that gets us to a much better way of thinking about what good role copyright law can play.

Like some of the earlier speakers, I worry a lot about the implications of copyright for the activities that all of you do on a daily basis. There’s a really fun essay that was written by one of my colleagues in Copyright, John Tehranian, entitled, “Infringement Nation.” What John does in the article is go through the average day of a professor (seems to be modeled on himself). He does a bunch of stuff on the internet, he goes to the gym, he works out with his tattoos on his shoulders, he plays loud music in his car, and he sings Happy Birthday to people in a restaurant, and by the time he’s finished with his average day, he counts 83 acts of plausible infringement, because some sort of copying was done. And he multiplies that by the maximum statutory damages – $150,000 per infringed work. So, just in one day, even without any kind of peer-to-peer file-sharing going on, John calculates 12.5 million dollars of potential liability for those ordinary infringing acts, and then of course, that’s just for one day, so if you multiply it times the number of days in a year, you end up with 4.5 billion dollars in potential statutory damages for an average day of your life, and that’s only one person. So, when you think about that, you sort of say, “Boy this thing is really out of whack! We really need to get into a better shape.” I could give you dozens of other examples, and actually some of the other people here today have given you other examples, but I want to concentrate instead on how to think about a reform landscape for copyright.

Free Culture Conference 2008: Larry Lessig on Remix Culture , Free Culture Conference 2008: Pamela Samuelson on Copyright Reform (Thanks, Sra!)

Larry Lessig and Pam Sameulson gave barn-burning talks at this year's Free Culture summit at Berkeley -- I'm especially interested in Pam's talk. She's one of the top scholars of American copyright law and when she says there's something wrong with it, people sit up and listen:

I think one reason that it’s really important to think about copyright reform is because really pretty much every 40 years there has been copyright reform. So it’s time to really get that conversation started. And a lot of what we need to do is move to better principals about what a good copyright law would look like. It shouldn’t be as long – current copyright law is 200 pages long, 300 if you buy certain editions – and it’s too complicated. I can’t make my way through about half the provisions because they’re so incomprehensible. Maybe it was ok that copyright law was really abstruse at a time when the only people who needed to know anything about it were the industry lawyers who essentially were mediating these kind of inter-industry disputes. If they knew what it meant and nobody else did, who cared, as long as it just applied to them. But now that copyright law is really affecting and regulating our daily activities, we the people deserve a copyright law that’s simple, that’s fair, that’s balanced, and that gets us to a much better way of thinking about what good role copyright law can play.

Like some of the earlier speakers, I worry a lot about the implications of copyright for the activities that all of you do on a daily basis. There’s a really fun essay that was written by one of my colleagues in Copyright, John Tehranian, entitled, “Infringement Nation.” What John does in the article is go through the average day of a professor (seems to be modeled on himself). He does a bunch of stuff on the internet, he goes to the gym, he works out with his tattoos on his shoulders, he plays loud music in his car, and he sings Happy Birthday to people in a restaurant, and by the time he’s finished with his average day, he counts 83 acts of plausible infringement, because some sort of copying was done. And he multiplies that by the maximum statutory damages – $150,000 per infringed work. So, just in one day, even without any kind of peer-to-peer file-sharing going on, John calculates 12.5 million dollars of potential liability for those ordinary infringing acts, and then of course, that’s just for one day, so if you multiply it times the number of days in a year, you end up with 4.5 billion dollars in potential statutory damages for an average day of your life, and that’s only one person. So, when you think about that, you sort of say, “Boy this thing is really out of whack! We really need to get into a better shape.” I could give you dozens of other examples, and actually some of the other people here today have given you other examples, but I want to concentrate instead on how to think about a reform landscape for copyright.

Free Culture Conference 2008: Larry Lessig on Remix Culture , Free Culture Conference 2008: Pamela Samuelson on Copyright Reform (Thanks, Sra!)

The Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler is a free online anthology of science fiction and fantasy from the Philippines. I've just skimmed the stories, and they're pretty fascinating and often good. From Khavn De La Cruz's "The Family That Eats Soil":

"Soil again," groaned Baby, who was turning one on Saturday. "Soil for breakfast, soil for lunch, soil for dinner. Soil for snacks. Don't tell me we'll be having soil on my first birthday." "There, there, child," said Mother. "I promise we won't have soil." "What then?" "It'll be a surprise." The words were barely uttered as Baby's face lit up while munching on stewed soil.

*

"Aaaah! Aaaah!" In a dark alley in Suburville, the eighth teenager was having his way with Sister who was as beautiful and frigid as a mannequin while being recorded on video by the next kid in line. "Aaaah! Aaaah!"

*

"Please pass the fish sauce," said Father. Someone passed the fish sauce. Still, Father thought, he hadn't gotten it. So he went to the sea and caught some fish and fermented it until it because fish sauce. Father's finally happy. No thanks to his good-for-nothing children.

Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler (via Futurismic