We are big Little Lulu fans around my house. I read the comic anthologies to my kids all the time. Even though the stories are 50 years old, they're fun and fresh and the characters -- Lulu, Tubby, and Alvin -- behave like real kids.

(Dark Horse has published the complete run of John Stanley's Little Lulu series as reasonably priced paperback anthologies. Vol 1, Vol 2, Vol 3, Vol 4, Vol 5, Vol 6, Vol 7, Vol 8, Vol 9, Vol 10, Vol 11, Vol 12, Vol 13, Vol 14, Vol 15, Vol 16, Vol 17, Vol 18)

The main writer of Little Lulu was John Stanley. He also wrote a number of other comics, but I've seen just a few, because they're hard to come by. Drawn & Quarterly has corrected that problem by launching the John Stanley Library. The first book in the series is Melvin Monster, Volume One. I can hardly wait.

The classic children’s comic strip in a handsome new archival series, designed by Seth

John Stanley is celebrated as one of the great children’s comics writers for his work on the Little Lulu series. In fact, the Lulu work is a small part of his output; he drew and continued to write many other comics—notably his work on the 1960s teen comics from Dell (Thirteen, Dunc and Loo, and Kookie) and his monster comedy strip, Melvin Monster.

Drawn & Quarterly is planning to launch an extensive reprinting of much of Stanley’s work in discrete volumes. The first in this series is the two-volume Melvin Monster collection featuring all ten issues about the oddball monster boy who just wants to be good, go to school, and do as he’s told. Designed to fit nicely with Drawn & Quarterly’s reprinting of Tove Jansson’s Moomin series, these comics are great reading for all ages. Stanley’s reputation as a great storyteller and visual comedian is richly deserved -— few golden- or silver-age comics stand the test of time the way these comics do.

Melvin Monster, Volume One

svonkie writes "C overwhelmingly proved to be the most popular programming language for thousands of new open-source projects in 2008, reports The Register (UK). According to license tracker Black Duck Software, which monitors 180,000 projects on nearly 4,000 sites, almost half — 47 per cent — of new projects last year used C. 17,000 new open-source projects were created in total. Next in popularity after C came Java, with 28 per cent. In scripting, JavaScript came out on top with 20 per cent, followed by Perl with 18 per cent. PHP attracted just 11 per cent, and Ruby six per cent. The numbers are a surprise, as open-source PHP has proved popular as a web-site development language, while Ruby's been a hot topic for many."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The BSA sure does love to use bogus numbers. Usually, it's with its stats on "piracy" that are so ridiculously misleading it's amazing that the press reports them as fact so often. However, it also gets away with a silly gimmick where it promises to pay out "up to $1 million" for snitching on your employer for using pirated software. Except, of course, the fine print reveals that the "up to" part is really important. Basically, the BSA gets to decide how much it pays out -- and you can bet that it's not anywhere close to $1 million. In fact, in response to the BSA's program, we promised to pay out up to $1 million to anyone who could prove the BSA paid any individual $1 million. It looks like we're safe again. In 2008, the BSA paid out -- in total -- $136,000 to 42 different people, making an average of $3,200. The BSA is now pitching that as a way to make some extra money in a down economy -- though, I would imagine that losing your job after tipping off the BSA might create a bit more hardship than $3k covers.

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Andrew sez, "The National film Board of Canada (NFB) has opened up its vault - more than 700 films, clips and trailers are now available on the film board's new website launched today. From entertaining shorts and cartoons, to deeply moving or disturbing documentaries - they're all there for free, with more being added every week."

Hell yes. This is how public money should be spent. And yes, they have The Big Snit, my all-time favorite NFB short.

Films : All - NFB (Thanks, Andrew!)

Slatterz writes "Bill Gates declared in 2004 at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland that spam would be 'a thing of the past' within five years. However, Graham Cluley, senior technology consultant at Sophos, has written in a blog post that 'with the prophecy's five-year anniversary approaching, spam continues to cause a headache for companies and home users.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE: Flickr pool

Flickr member Nick Russo demonstrates that irrevocable feeling of a system error with metal etching … I'm guessing the above window will unresponsive. - Error on Flickr

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I enjoyed this long essay by Kevin Kelly about how "all goods and services are candidates for rental, sharing, and the social commons." He raises a lot of interesting points. Here's one:

Very likely, in the near future, I won't "own" any music, or books, or movies. Instead I will have immediate access to all music, all books, all movies using an always-on service, via a subscription fee or tax. I won't buy – as in make a decision to own -- any individual music or books because I can simply request to see or hear them on demand from the stream of ALL. I may pay for them in bulk but I won't own them. The request to enjoy a work is thus separated from the more complicated choice of whether I want to "own" it. I can consume a movie, music or book without having to decide or follow up on ownership.

For many people this type of instant universal access is better than owning. No responsibility of care, backing up, sorting, cataloging, cleaning, or storage. As they gain in public accessibility, books, music and movies are headed to become social goods even though they might not be paid by taxes. It's not hard to imagine most other intangible goods becoming social goods as well. Games, education, and health info are also headed in that direction.

Better Than Owning, by Kevin Kelly

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, this fabulous bug-sculpture made from a sparkplug.

Spark plug bug, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

This black-light skeleton tattoo is tufneltastically great. It's invisible in normal light, but under black light, everyone gets X-ray spex.

Tattoos - UV Blacklight Ink (via Street Anatomy)

Stef Magdalinski, co-founder of MOO Cards, who make the awesome little custom business cards, sez,

I'd like to say that it was in celebration of Obama's inauguration, MySociety's victory for transparency or even because of the weather. But it isn't. It's just cos we're nice, and it's January, so we'd like to offer all Boing Boing readers a free holder when they order a pack of our minicards (add a holder to your basket on your way out, and use code MOOBOING09 at the checkout)

MOO MiniCard Holder (Thanks, Stef!)

A Las Vegas-based Celtic band was the subject of a local newspaper article discussing how it wasn't listed in Wikipedia. A member of the band, Killian's Angels, noticed this when she checked the Wikipedia article about the soundtrack to the Grand Theft Auto IV video game, upon which the band appears. Every other band had a Wikipedia entry, so eventually one of the band's fans wrote one about them -- and it was deleted later that day because the band wasn't, according to Wikipedia editors, "notable." Cue the newspaper article... and then the follow-up, saying the band was back in Wikipedia, with an entry linking to the original story. A Wikipedia spokesman told the paper that "Sometimes furor over a deletion leads to a newspaper article, he said, which leads to notability that warrants a Wikipedia page." So a band isn't notable enough to be included in Wikipedia, but then an article saying just that makes them notable enough for inclusion?

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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By way of BotJunkie comes this robot vacuum, the Dustbot, sold by Tomy in 1985. I'd never even heard of it. The broom and dustpan is not, apparently, how it does its job. That's just for a little light entertainment while it attempts a little light vacuuming.

Tomy Vacuuming Dustbot Had Edge Sensors In 1985

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Ensign Taco writes "I'm sure nearly every one of us has had it happen. All of a sudden your Windows PC slows to a crawl for no apparent reason. Yeah, we all like Linux because it doesn't do annoying things like this, but the Windows desktop still reigns supreme in most managed LAN work environments. I'm running XP with 4G of RAM and a decent CPU, and everything was fine, until one day — it wasn't. I've run spybot, antivirus, and looked at proc explorer — no luck. There is no one offending, obvious process. It seems every process decides to spike at once at random intervals. So I'm wondering if there's a few wizards out there that know what to look at. Could this be a very clever virus that doesn't run as a process? Or could this just be some random application error that's causing bad behavior? I've encountered this a few times with Windows PCs, but the solution has always been to just add more hardware. Has anyone ever successfully diagnosed this kind of issue?" And whether such a problem is related to malware or not, what steps would you take next?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is a blog post I've been really excited to hit "publish" on for a while. KCRW is my favorite radio station in the world. I listen to them when I'm driving around LA, but also tune in online when I'm traveling, and subscribe to some of their podcasts, too, so I can listen while I'm running on the beach or wandering around in some strange city overseas where all other sounds are unfamiliar. They've pretty much been the most important source for my own personal music discovery habits over the past decade or so. The voices and personalities of the hosts are so familiar, they feel like friends or family -- guiding ghosts who point me toward all that is cool, beautiful, and audible.

Because of this, it was an honor and surprise when KCRW's Rachel Reynolds -- who reads Boing Boing! -- invited me to participate in the station's Guest DJ Project.

Even more sweet, the fact that this guest DJ session would be hosted by my favorite KCRW DJ (I swear I'm not making any of this up), the inimitable music curator and velvet-voiced host Chris Douridas.

Chris and Rachel asked me to select songs that meant something to me personally, and revealed something of my life experience. Then, they invited me to come in and talk about the songs with Chris, and today, they've published the resulting music/conversation audio piece. It's the most personal thing I've ever done in public, if that makes sense? Telling the world about why your favorite songs are your favorite songs is like liveblogging your id, or having one of those dreams where you're riding the subway naked. So it feels weird to type this. But these songs actually do mean a lot to me, so I'm really excited to share the experience.

Links to Listen: Here is a downloadable MP3. Here's where you can listen on a streaming web player. And here's the text transcript.

Tracklist:

1.) Tomita - Claire de Lune
2.) Bad Brains - Banned in DC
3.) David Byrne and Brian Eno - The Carrier
4.) Lucho Gatica - Encadenados
5.) Ryuichi Sakamoto - Boing Boing video episode with Joi Ito

Make subscriber Mike Beradino writes -

This is a project that I put together to make customizable LED paper craft lamps from low polygon 3-D geometry. I set out to make a object that will fulfill the same function in both a virtual environment and the real world. These Lamps illuminate both, on roughly the same scale. This work is a closer translation in scale, color and function than my other digital geometry interpretations.

This could be a great way to add a little personal touch to an office even a kid's desk - LED papercraft lamps

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An anonymous reader writes "Researchers claim to have developed a type of soluble semiconductor ink which could help to make bendable computer screens a reality. Developed at Polyera and BASF Future Business, the ink carries an N-Type negative charge. Previously, semiconductor inks have only been able to carry a positive charge. The new ink can be printed onto any flexible material, including plastic and paper, using only a modified ink-jet printer."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PopSci posted a nice article and video covering the goings-on @ the last Handmade Music event -

Last Thursday's event had the air of an interactive science fair, and while some attendees sat in the corner drinking, chatting, and soaking in the sounds, most crowded around the projects for demonstrations and the chance to take the controllers and make a little music of their own. While there were only five participants, the event drew around a hundred people, according to organizers (although the promise of free beer probably didn't hurt the turnout).

[...]

According to Peter Kirn, editor-in-chief and publisher of createdigitalmusic.com, Handmade Music Night helps connect people who are interested in making digital music but who don't necessarily have access to music institutions or some of the underground music scenes that are more difficult to infiltrate.

Read more of the story - Making Electronic Music By Hand

Create Digital Music also posted a visual tour of the event via Flickr photo set -

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One of our readers, Virginia, alerted us to a report concerning a gathering of US IP Attaches (basically, the US gov't's international copyright cops that we send around the world to try to enforce draconian IP policy), in which they spend most of the time complaining about how countries around the world don't agree with the US's view on intellectual property and are quick to ignore it when possible. In fact, those countries often don't even want to invite their US counterparts to meetings because they're "too aggressively pro-IP."

Of course, rather than take this as a sign that maybe their views are too aggressively pro-IP, they instead want to blame anyone who is pointing out the dangers of being so aggressively pro-IP. The article quotes US Chamber of Commerce President Tom Donohue, saying that US IP cops can't just focus on pirates and counterfeiters, but need to start worrying about those of us crazy enough to point out the dangers and downsides of aggressively pro-IP policies:

"[There is a] second threat [from] a growing movement of anti-IP activists drawn from universities, foundations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), ideologically driven interest groups, and even governments."

You see, we're not a part of the debate and the conversation -- perhaps showing how their strong belief in stronger IP is dangerous -- but we're a "threat" that needs to be dealt with. Nice to know that the US's worldwide IP enforcers have such open minds.

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I've been working on an app that archives the tweets of the people I follow in OPML. I want to plug this into the Instant Outliner at some point, that's why the format is OPML. So then the question is, how will I know which users have updated and when. I thought about it and thought about it and then it hit me in a flash. I have a format for that. It goes back to 1999, and it scaled up to millions of changes every day.

http://twitter.opml.org/calendar/changes.xml

It works.

Now this is only going to make sense to people who really followed this stuff. There might be 25 such people in the world. But for a few of them it's going to be fairly delicious. (Not del.icio.us.)

Here's a detail of an entertaining heavy metal band name taxonomy. The chart was made by graphic designer and comedian Doogie Horner. Full image available here. (Thanks, HC!)

Kevin, of Race Day Nutrition, writes:

RFID devices have found a niche in the sports timing world. Instead of handheld stopwatches or velcro transponders, racers now strap an RFID to their shoelaces. Race logistics are greatly improved, but at what cost? What is the environmental impact of 10,000 trashed RFIDs after a big city marathon?

He's looking for input and ideas from the environmental and DIY communities on reuse and recycling of these tags.

RFID race timing vs. the environment

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Today on Boing Boing Gadgets we looked at an inexplicable, gravitationally-defiant watch and discovered that Malia Obama uses a cute little Kodak digicam. An inflatable gladiator set gives co-workers the option of non-lethally beating each other's brains out, and Brownlee pined for a button-cute proto-Roomba from 1985. Apple threatened to sue Palm, kinda. A neato lamp was both a bookmark and a lighting source. Robot Insects, spark plug bugs and butterfly ornithopters. We also discovered the history of the Mac boot-up beep and the surprising fact that Darth Vader likes to drag race. Joel pined to be a little girl on Sesame Street eating Maraschino cherries and Dr. Manhattan kicked the crap out of the Viet Cong. Rob revisited a 1984 Mac review while Xeni linked a Casio Watch with the closing of Gitmo. And, as always, there were a couple of fun little iPhone projects. Link

An anonymous reader writes "The new White House website privacy policy promises that the site will not use long-term tracking cookies, complying with a decade old rule prohibiting such user tracking by federal agencies. However, Obama's legal team has quietly exempted YouTube from this rule. Visitors to the official White House blog will receive long-term tracking cookies whenever they surf to a web-page with an embedded YouTube video — even those users that do not click the "play" button. As CNET reports, no other company has been singled out and rewarded with such a waiver."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Art Shanty Projects is an artist community and exhibition that forms each winter on the frozen surface of Medicine Lake in Plymouth, Minnesota. My friend Mike Haeg entered his dICEHOUSES project this year—5 gigantic dice icehouses, each outfitted with a cozy table and a pack of playing cards.

From the dICEHOUSES bLOG:

Nowadays, we hardly sit at the same table and interact face to face with each other. As families, we eat in shifts or on the fly. We communicate more through our phones and email than we do with our own smiles, eyes and touch.. With the increasing popularity of video game systems, gameplay has become less intimate as people sit on a sofa facing the television instead of each other.

By creating 5 tiny little dicehouses designed around 2-4 people sitting close together playing games together, we hope to rekindle the warmth and art of face to face interaction and gameplay for our visitors.

Each dicehouse will be heated exclusively by the warmth of conversation and the closeness of the people within it.

I'd like to get out this weekend and take some photos, but right now my attention is completely drawn to these amazing aerial shots taken by MNkitemnan. Using a kite-flown camera, he was able to capture this unique perspective of the event from 60-75 feet in the air.

The Art Shany Projects 2009 exhibition is open until February 14. Check it out. Bring a coat.

dICEHOUSES bLOG
MNkitemnan's Art Shany Projects 2009 Photography
Art Shanty Projects

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WATCH: Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here.

---

Earlier this week, we aired a Boing Boing video episode in which we visited Shepard Fairey's gallery in LA, and spoke with him about the most well-known of his works, the Obama poster. That episode was shot as another artist's work was being hung on the walls: legendary punk / hiphop / skate culture photographer Glen E. Friedman. Together, Shepard and Glen were also working on a collaboration together that brings Shep's visual style together with some of Glen's most iconic images.

Today, we present the second episode from that evening of conversations. This one's all about Shepard and Glen's new collaborations together.

One of those creative collaborations involves the great DC hardcore band Bad Brains. The image below, of lead singer H.R. mid-scream at The Whisky in LA in March 1982, was shot by Glen (and appears in this book). The first punk show I ever saw was the Bad Brains live (as I mentioned in yesterday's guest DJ spot on KCRW!), and this image captures exactly what those moments of stillness in the midst of phenomenal speed and force felt like, up close. Watching H.R. perform in those early days was like watching a plane take off -- headed right towards you.

Glen's books are available here, and they're amazing.  Below, here is a short film based on his book "Recognize." The video includes every image in the book, which is available in limited edition through his website.

Special thanks to Boing Boing pal Sean Bonner, who pulled this awesome series of conversations together. I really enjoyed hearing two of our creative heroes talk about their work, and I hope you dig the video as much as we did the experience. Also, special thanks to Glen, who put up with a lot on our behalf: he'd just got off a long plane flight from NY to LA, and survived hellish Friday LA rush hour traffic, to get to the taping.

And a very special thanks to Ian MacKaye, Fugazi, and the Dischord records family for generously allowing us to use a couple of Fugazi clips (from the album Instrument) to accompany Glen's work in this piece. You guys f'n rule. Boing Boing is grateful!

Previously on Boing Boing:
* Glen E. Friedman's photo show at Shepard Fairey's gallery
* BB Video: Shepard Fairey and the Obama Poster, on Inauguration Day

Paul Brinker writes in to let us know of an odd case in Australia, where a man who had a breath-testing device installed in his car (presumably due to previous DUI convictions) asked a court to remove it after he was unable to start his car one day after eating some ice cream. Curious as to whether or not ice cream could actually set off a breathlyzer-type device, the court ordered a test, whereby the man breathed a 0.00 blood-alcohol level, then took a few bites of the same exact ice cream (Bubble O'Bill, for those wondering) and was then tested again, showing a 0.018 blood-alcohol level. The guy won the case, and was allowed to remove the device. While I'm all for getting drunk drivers off the road, it is at least somewhat troubling that just a few bites of a non-alcoholic food could lead to false positives on such testing devices.

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Barence writes "Microsoft yesterday unveiled its MSN Mobile Music service — and a surprise return to digital rights management (DRM). While companies such as Apple and Amazon have finally moved to music download services free of copy protection, MSN Mobile locks tracks to the mobile handset they are downloaded to. It also charges more than the other services per track, and offers no way to transfer your tracks to your new phone when you upgrade. The company's Head of Mobile UK spoke to PC Pro about the launch, but his answers are almost as baffling as the service itself. Best quote: Q: "If I buy these songs on your service — and they're locked to my phone — what happens when I upgrade my phone in six months' time?" A: "Well, I think you know the answer to that.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Handy options in this dummy text generator, including number of words or characters, specifying pixel width, number of paragraphs (with tags), etc. #

On the most recent installment of Boing Boing Video, Russell Porter reports from last year's Loop Festival. There, he interviewed minimalist/glitch-pop trio Micachu and the Shapes. What makes them especially interesting to us is that they're inspired by the experimental composer Harry Partch. And like Partch, they make a lot of their own instruments and incorporate junk, toys, and everyday machines (like vacuums) into their music, which is surprisingly hook-laden and lyrical.

BB Video: Micachu and "maker" music, the Russell Porter interview

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Today's Very Short List reviews Henchman's Helper: a webpage filled with live video cams and weather information from around the world.

The site’s attractions include 42 live webcams from around the world, 9 constantly updated weather graphics, and a large, ominous-looking infrared satellite image of North America.

VSL reviews Henchman's Helper

This site has lots of photos and descriptions of rationing books, tokens, and coupons used in WWII. Aren't those little colored tokens cute!

During the Second World War, you couldn't just walk into a shop and buy as much sugar or butter or meat as you wanted, nor could you fill up your car with gasoline whenever you liked. All these things were rationed, which meant you were only allowed to buy a small amount (even if you could afford more). The government introduced rationing because certain things were in short supply during the war, and rationing was the only way to make sure everyone got their fair share. War ration books and tokens were issued to each American family, dictating how much gasoline, tires, sugar, meat, silk, shoes, nylon and other items any one person could buy.

World War II Rationing (Thanks, Sam!)

synodinos writes "Adobe has announced plans to publish the Real-Time Messaging Protocol specification, which is designed for high-performance transmission of audio, video, and data between Adobe Flash Platform technologies. This move that has followed the opening of the AMF spec has been received with varying degrees of enthusiasm from the RIA community."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Our friend Craig Yoe, an illustrator, designer and comic historian has a new book called Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman’s Co-Creator Joe Shuster.

Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster showcases rare and recently discovered erotic artwork by the most seminal artist in comics, Joe Shuster. Created in the early 1950s when Shuster was down on his luck after suing his publisher, DC Comics, over the copyright for Superman, he illustrated these images for an obscure series of magazines called Nights of Horror, published under the counter until they were banned by the U.S. Senate. Juvenile deliquency, Dr. Fredric Wertham, and the Brooklyn Thrill Killers gang all figure into this sensational story.

The discovery of this artwork reveals the "secret identity" of this revered comics creator, and is sure to generate controversy and change the perception of the way we look at Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Jimmy Olsen forever. The book includes reproductions of these images, and an essay that provides a detailed account of the scandal and the murder trial that resulted from the publication of this racy material.

Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster

Some new research has found that, despite media hype, there is no relationship between violent video games and school shootings. The report criticizes earlier reports linking violent video games to aggression, noting that their methodology was flawed -- and also points to the unfortunate trend of politicians and the mainstream media to team up to create moral panics around such things despite any evidence of a causal link. This is the latest in a long line of recent research that has noted similar findings. Maybe we can finally get past blaming video games for youth violence...

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Here's my latest contribution to a series of essays by Boing Boing editors at GOOD -- a review of a "green move" service called RentAGreenBox.com, which I tried when I relocated not long ago. The basic idea is to use materials made from 100% post-consumer waste instead of using a bunch of cardboard boxes and plastic/petroleum-based moving supplies like styrofoam peanuts, plastic tape, and bubble wrap. Snip from my review:

They send a truck to your home with whatever number of boxes you need (they’ll help you estimate). The boxes are made from recycled plastic containers, and come in various sizes—smaller ones for heavy objects like books, larger ones for more lightweight things like clothes or bedding. The service comes with recycled packing materials, too, so you don’t have to use über-wasteful, petroleum-based stuff like bubble wrap or Styrofoam packing peanuts.

Spencer drove the (100% veggie biodiesel) truck to my home himself, and showed me around the truck and demonstrated the process in person. My dog liked him, and she liked rolling around in the “expandos” and “recocubes.”

Apart from being (surprise!) made from recycled materials, these packing materials also look attractive. The expandos are cute papercraft-oid thingies (like something Buckminster Fuller might fiddle with while bored at his desk), and we found the recocubes serve a second, sinister purpose: they’re great for tossing at whoever’s helping you move, when you’re all sore and tired and frustrated and want to blow off steam.

Even the dolly they delivered was recycled—made from aluminum beverage cans, so it was lighter than the steel one I owned. I also loved the “geami” packing paper—that’s their recycled alternative to bubble wrap. Again, visually pleasing, and non-evil.

Read "My Ecologically Correct Move" at GOOD, and here's the comment thread, and GOOD published a bunch more iphone snapshots I took of the supplies, the process, and our cute golden retriever who thoroughly approved. Here's the website for RentAGreenBox.

Previously:
* Boing Boing posts on GOOD!
* Boing Boing on GOOD: "All the Web's A Stage"
* Good: The return of amateur science
* Boing Boing on GOOD: A Mayan Village Reacts to Obama

JCWDenton writes "Former National Security Agency analyst Russell Tice, who helped expose the NSA's warrantless wiretapping in December 2005, has now come forward with even more startling allegations. Tice told MSNBC's Keith Olbermann on Wednesday that the programs that spied on Americans were not only much broader than previously acknowledged but specifically targeted journalists."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While researching a new project (as us mad-scientists-types are prone to do), I found this amazing video. It's basically a clear chemical that undergoes a reaction in the presence of UV light that makes it very quickly turn green. But, the key here is that the reaction is also quickly reversible - in about a half second after the light is removed, the liquid reverts back to the clear state.

This reminds me of a fictional Dr. Seuss invention, the "flash-dark" (from "The Cat's Quizzer"), that's like a flashlight except it shines a beam of darkness instead of a beam of light.

Practical uses? I can imagine this being used with large video projectors.

Traditional projectors are neat because it's easy to make large images - just use a large screen. A major drawback, though, is that the darkest color that they can produce is the color of the screen -- and that screen is usually white to reflect the most light. As a result, projectors must be used in low-light situations, or with exceedingly bright bulbs.

Reflective LCD displays (like the kind found in watches, not TVs) work differently - instead of creating light, they just block out the ambient light in areas to create dark spots - as a result, they are low-power and work great in bright light. But, LCD displays don't scale up to large sizes easily because they can't be projected.

I think that you could get the benefits of both of these technologies by painting this chemical on a wall. An ultraviolet projector would project an inverse image, creating a large dark green image that is visible even in bright light. There are two main drawbacks, though, that would probably limit the use of this technique to informational and artistic displays: First, the very slow response time (600 msec, which is slower than eink) prevents it from displaying full motion video. Second, it's only one color - turning it in to a full-color display will require a lot more work.

So, what would you do with something like this?

More information:

• Research report: "Photochromism of a Radical Diffusion-Inhibited Hexaarylbiimidazole Derivative with Intense Coloration and Fast Decoloration Performance"
  (restricted access, but I included the link because I love the title)


• Wired Science Blog


• The Chem Blog

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Lloyd's roof-mounted solar panels (image via Extreme Tech)

In response to a Slashdot / Extreme Tech article about a $60,000 residential PV system that still leaves its owner with $200 per month winter power bills, Mikey Sklar posted the following tips:

1. Roof Mounted Panels Suck - They often have limited or no tilt
control and clumsy to maintain. This means that you will likely get
strong performance in summer or winter, but not both. Finding the
average latitude tilt for your region and mounting the panels at that
angle is your best option for roof mount. Trackers can bring your
performance up by 1/3rd, but will include extra expense and
complexity. Consider a manual tracking system which you just push with
your hands through out the day if you need a early morning or late
afternoon boost. This is ideal for the off-grid / unemployed eco-geek.

2. Grid Tie has issues too - Although grid-tie allows a PV install to
greatly reduce their installation time and costs they also have some
drawbacks. Continuing to buy power from a power company can result in
relatively high monthly fees if the system purchased was undersized.
Many grid-tie installations have no battery backup so when the grid
dies, you lose all your juice too. In remote towns many power
companies only pay the customer a 1/4 of what they charge the customer
for power. My town being unusually behind the times refuses to
purchase any power from their customers.

3. PV Batteries - New batteries are easy, but old ones can be fixed.
Our world is hemoraging so called "dead cycle batteries". Try talking
to your local golf course, marina, or auto parts store. As you learn
to test cells and repair lead acid batteries through desulfation you
can save yourself a fortune in batteries and store large amounts of
energy. Keep in mind that batteries are much like people. They like
72F temperatures and a little exercise. Do not cycle the batteries
below 50% on a regular basis. I try to stay over 70% capacity on my
battery array at all times.

4. Heat - My panels tend to have a pretty big drop off in performance
during the summer. This is partly due to my not adjusting the PV array
to be almost flat during June. It is also related to our monsoon
season bringing in lots of rain and cloudy weather. However, the real
killer of performance is the temperature. High temperatures drop my
panel performance by 30%. Our temps in June sit peak around 100F in
June which is enough to dramatically reduce the performance on a
polycrystal PV cells. The monocrystal cells are supposed to handle the
higher temperatures better.

Thanks Mikey (and Lloyd!)

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An internet prankster and hacker known on LJ as tongodeon says,

For the last year or two, a friend and I have been giving our friends Casio F-91w wristwatches. They are cheap, reliable, and a reason why 28 prisoners have been held in extrajudicial detention in Guantanamo. In late October I attended a rally in Reno, NV and gave an F-91w and letter to Barack Obama via a senior staffer on the national campaign team. Today Barack Obama issued an executive order closing Guantanamo. The wire photos don't show him wearing my watch, but I still feel a little vindicated today.

Here's his post about the affair, and here's a snip from his letter to President Barack Obama (OMG that feels awesome to blog for the first time):

I've been volunteering for your campaign because of this watch, the Casio model F-91w. These watches cost $7.50 in quantity. They are cheap, waterproof, and reliable. They are common throughout the developing world. And they have been listed by the Department of Defense as a reason for the continued extrajudicial detention of the 28 Guantanamo detainees listed on the following page.

In 1995, US intelligence recovered a document in Manila by Ramzi Yousef describing how to use this watch as the timing device for a bomb. Ahmed Ressam, the "millennial bomber" was captured with two Casio F91Ws. As a result, when Pakistani police and the Northern Alliance turned over alleged Taliban members to the military, their ordinary watches were identified as evidence that they were terrorists.

Here's yet another one for the books to respond to those who claim that music giveaways only work for "big" artists. Corey Smith was a high school teacher, doing weekend music gigs. Then, apparently, his manager had a revelation and started giving all of his music away for free: and last year Corey brought in $4.2 million. And the music industry is complaining that if the government doesn't step in creative content will cease to exist?

Corey's story is quite interesting. He mostly makes money from concerts, and the free music drives more people to those concerts, but there are a few other aspects that are worth exploring. First, even though the music is available for free, plenty of people still buy his music on iTunes. However, as an experiment, they took down the free tracks from Corey's website for a period of time last summer... and sales on iTunes went down. Once again, this proves how ridiculous the claim is that free songs somehow cannibalize sales.

But, still, the real money maker for Corey is concerts, and even here he's doing something innovative: making concert tickets cheap: $5. The thinking here appears to be that once you see him in concert, you become a true fan who will keep going back (and paying) for more. And, in fact, at $5/ticket, you can afford to drag along your friends as well, and turn them into fans as well. And, of course, part of building up those true fans is better connecting with fans -- and so Corey will meet with pretty much anyone who asks. Contact his agent, and he'll set up a meeting.

One other point is worth noting. Corey's manager, Marty Winsch, has tried this with other artists, where it hasn't always worked as well. So, some may claim that the model (again) is very limited. Of course, the reason is that those other acts just weren't that good. To me, that's a system that works quite well. It rewards good musicians, rather than mediocre ones. Still, it's great to have yet another example to add to the (increasingly) long list of musicians adopting the various business models discussed around here and finding tremendous success.

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Ed Note: Boingboing's current guest blogger Steven Johnson is the author of six books, most recently The Invention Of Air: A Story of Science, Faith, Revolution and the Birth Of America, for which he is currently on book tour. He's also the co-founder of the hyperlocal community site outside.in.

A show as complicated as "Lost" deserves an equally complicated spoiler alert: if you have never seen an episode of "Lost" past, say, Season Two, and plan on immersing yourself in the show sometime soon, you might want to bookmark this post and revisit sometime in the future, once you've gotten up to speed. Otherwise I will keep this relatively vague, so that hardcore fans (for whom there will be no surprises) and Lost-dabblers can both read with no worries.

I posted yesterday about the often insurmountable complexity of seasons 1-4 of "Lost," but the first episode of season five held out the distinct possibility that that complexity might well be conquered by the end of the series. Not just because all the questions would be dutifully answered in some kind of contrived, ad-hoc fashion, but because the events in last night's episode suggest--in a way that earlier episodes have only delicately hinted-- that all the madness of the last four years, all the implausible speeches, connections, surprises, and attacks, have at their root one small change in the core bylaws of Reality As We Know It.

This is a formal innovation worth noting, though of course it's unclear from just a single episode whether the innovation has long-term significance or whether it turns out to be just another distraction. But I'm rooting for the former: "Lost" has the unique opportunity of proving you can build a narrative of mesmerizing implausibility that ultimately turns out to be entirely plausible simply by changing one elemental rule of the universe--and then not telling your audience about the rule change until the third act. Mainstream entertainment toys with the conventions of reality constantly (see Back to the Future, or pretty much every Jim Carrey movie) but invariably it lets the audience in on the rule changes early in the story. "Lost," not surprisingly, is playing hard-to-get with its revelations: not just in the backstory and mythology of its characters, but the basic laws of the genre.

That a mass audience is willing to embrace this kind of storytelling innovation is truly remarkable, and has a kind of sign-of-the-times quality to it. (The ultra-complex serial narrative show is to our own moment what the concept album was to the late sixties culture.) In a small way, "Lost" was actually an inspiration for The Invention of Air: I had a moment early in trying to figure out what the book would be like when I imagined that I would write a founding fathers history book that would be structured like a season of "Lost." (There's a middle chapter, for instance, that jumps back 300 million years, to the Carboniferous Era, before zooming back to the late 18th-century.) It's probably good that I didn't fully try to emulate "Lost" in the end, but just the fact that one could look to a prime time network mega-hit for inspiration in writing a book of science history is a sign that something has changed -- most of what I was watching as a kid in the seventies would not have been quite as inspirational.

I'm sure there are plenty of strong opinions about last night's episode: I hereby declare the comments thread below open to all spoilers. If you haven't seen the show yet, you are duly warned.

mytrip writes "In what may come to be seen as a deeply symbolic moment in the history of operating systems, Red Hat is on the verge of surpassing Sun Microsystems' market capitalization for the first time. Sun, perhaps unfairly, represents a fading Unix market. Red Hat, for its part, represents the rising Linux market. Given enough time for its open-source strategy to play out, Sun's market capitalization will likely recover and outpace Red Hat's."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My five-year-old daughter's current favorite book is The Donut Chef, by Bob Staake. I'm glad she wants me to read it to her at least once a week, because I enjoy it as much as she does. It's the story of a chef who opens a donut store that becomes a big hit. But then a rival donut chef opens a store around the corner, and the two chefs compete by making increasingly elaborate donuts with flavors like "cherry-frosted lemon bar, peanut-brickle buttermilk, and gooey coca- mocha silk."

Staake is one of the best illustrators out there, and I'm amazed that he does it all with Adobe Photoshop 3.0 on Mac OS 7. The Donut Chef, by Bob Staake

"This land was made for you and me." -- Woodie Guthrie.

"This nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." -- Abraham Lincoln.

"We the People of the United States..." -- The Constitution.

Our new President has said repeatedly, and correctly -- we can't wait for someone else to do the job, we must do it ourselves. That is so totally consistent with the philosophy of the country, and perhaps not unremarkably -- the web too.

Go back to the beginning, the web was created in that spirit, and whenever it runs out of juice we go back to the well, draw another bucket of irreverence and gumption, and create something new.

It's not the nature of the US to wait for someone else to do the job, and it's not the nature of the web.

When I looked at the Clinton whitehouse.gov, I felt no urge to get involved, these were the people who promoted the Communication Decency Act, which failed to extend First Amendment to the web. (And that's being generous.) They were the enemy of freedom, their website was not something I wanted to help.

Same with the Bush whitehouse.gov, although I gotta say, the people who claim the Obama whitehouse.gov is so innovative must not have looked at the Bush website. They had all the technical innovation of the Obama one.

As I said clearly, I supported Obama. So quickly people forget. But that website, until I give up, is mine and yours as much as it is the webmaster's. If they construct it in such a way that that's not true, then they have failed to live up to the promise of the United States and the promise of the web. And since the web is the hub for idea exchange, it means that everything else they try will be crippled, the attempt to restart the economy, to create a spirit of volunteerism, to get health care and education working, to promote our revolution of individual freedom to the rest of the world.

A lot of people who use the web these days don't know how to create a web, they know how to use what was created. In some ways, some times change must come incrementally, and patience is the right course of action. But sometimes, and this is one of those times, it must come in one big discontinuous suprt and then we figure out what happened in subsequent years.

The people who tell themselves and others that they run the world are placeholders, if they urge caution and safety. These are not safe times. Those people are going to be swept away by the change that's on its way. This is not a time for caution, it's a time for courage, intelligence and creativity.

snydeq writes "Windows XP, Windows Vista, and (soon) Windows 7 all support SMP out of the box, but as InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy notes, 'experience has shown that multiprocessing across discrete CPUs is not the same thing as multiprocessing across integrated cores within the same CPU.' As such, Kennedy set out to stress the multiprocessing capabilities of Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 in dual-core and quad-core performance tests. The comprehensive, multiprocess workload tests were undertaken to document scalability, execution efficiency, and raw performance of workloads. 'What I found may surprise you,' Kennedy writes. 'Not only does Microsoft have a firm grasp of multicore tuning, but its scalability story promises to keep getting better with time. In other words, Windows Vista and Windows 7 are poised to reap ever greater performance benefits as Intel and AMD extend the number of cores in future editions of their processors.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's no surprise that many technologists and engineers dislike software patents -- even as their company's execs and lawyers push them to get more patents. Stephen Kinsella highlights an anonymous comment from a software engineer who clearly works for IBM (though he doesn't come out and say that directly), where he explains how IBM actively encourage engineers to file for as many patents as possible (it rewards them with monetary bonuses). This is not new of course -- an awful lot of companies do this. However, the guy goes on to explain why even though he holds patents and believes very strongly that his company makes and sells nuermous innovative products, he believes all this patenting is damaging to the process of innovation:

Speaking from my own experience, corporations (such as the one I work for) spend a lot of money to innovate. However, I would "press that button" and get rid of IP law immediately, given the chance. I agree completely with the arguements made in the article - as such, I'll just bring up a few other issues:

I think IP law is incredibly damaging to innovation and competition. In the case of software patents, moreso in that they take resources (primarily money which gets redirected to legal teams) from firms who are forced to research existing patens, and also defend themselves against IP lawsuits.

Many software patents are particularly silly. Many of these are issued for algorithms - the vast majority of the time, these algorithms are only available outside the company via patent! That is, when they are shipped externally, it is in a form that is not readable (object code). Sure - this can be reverse engineered. But for a particularly complex program or operating system, this in itself would be a colossal endeavor. Yet, a patent is issued for it - and the patent describes exactly what the algorithm does!

Another firm could look at the patent and use the invention. In most cases, it would be impossible to tell that they've "stolen" anything. Here they are counterproductive.

I should also mention the obvious - the corporation which holds the patent already has a huge advantage! They will ship a product with these innovations before any other corporation can ship its' product. Quite frankly it will generally be a significant period of time before another product can be shipped which contains these innovations - even if the innovation was immediately obvious and known. This will not generally be the case.

Then you have the patents for user interface - these are just silly. I've seen patents issued (granted, this was a long time ago) for using a particular color on a "dummy" terminal.

Anyway, I hope I do not sound like a hypocrite (because I hold IP patents). As I said, it is a part of my job. I also cannot fault my company for taking advantage of whatever silly laws are created. I simply view this as another case of the state interfering with the market, and the market adjusting to exploit the foolishness of the laws.

Well said.

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Typographic illustration using some obscure typeface that very few people use (via swissmiss, which by the way, has become my favorite blog of cool and interesting things). #

Ian Lamont writes "The Electronic Frontier Foundation and the National Security Archive are praising President Obama's executive orders to make the federal government more open. Yesterday, Obama issued two memos and one executive order instructing government agencies to err on the side of making information public and not to look for reasons to legally withhold it. The moves are expected to make it easier for people to file Freedom of Information Act requests, and should also boost the amount of information that agencies place on their websites. The general counsel for the National Security Archive (an NGO that publishes declassified documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act) even predicts that agencies will use blogs to share information. Obama's directives reverse a 2001 memo from former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft instructing federal agencies to generally withhold information from citizens filing FOIA requests."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Normally I try to avoid posting straight business news, but I think that these 3 stories combine to something meaningful. Muleguy noted Microsoft is laying off 5,000, Mspangler reports that Intel is cutting 5-6k, while nonyabidness afraid4myjob submitted that IBM Layoffs have begun with no number, but estimates as high as 16,000.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Normally I try to avoid posting straight business news, but I think that these 3 stories combine to something meaningful. Muleguy noted Microsoft is laying off 5,000, Mspangler reports that Intel is cutting 5-6k, while nonyabidness afraid4myjob submitted that IBM Layoffs have begun with no number, but estimates as high as 16,000.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Homegrown Evolution recently pointed out Farm Aid's social networking site.

This website celebrates all of us who pioneer a HOMEGROWN way to live, eat, grow, and express ourselves. We connect to the land and to each other. HOMEGROWN.org is a place where we can learn from each other, share our questions, and show off how we dig in the dirt, grow our own food, work with our hands, and cook and share our meals - all things that we call HOMEGROWN.

It's a neat site - there are videos about making papercrete; a forum for sharing information about composting, winter gardening, whatever you want to learn about; groups talking about Kombucha and bread, people buying things and selling things, event announcements, and there's a really nice sense of community.

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MAKE subscriber Mike Prevette writes in about this incredible homemade Japanese RV. From the site:

Ok, this car isn't nostalgic (or even a car, really), but the idea is timeless. After graduating high school, three Japanese buddies decided to follow their dream of a year-long cross-country road trip, from the northeastern island of Hokkaido to the southwestern one of Yakushima. But before they set out, the trio built one of the coolest road trip cars ever conceived, from a decrepit mid-80s Toyota Toyoace.

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Eric Goldman has the details on a fascinating case involving a guy suing his former employer for failing to update the whois info on their domain names (which used his names as the contact) and then pulling a bogus astroturfing marketing stunt that people started blaming him for organizing. Greg Meyerkord worked for Zipatoni, a "promotional marketing company." While there, he was the contact name on their domain registrations. He stopped working for Zipatoni in 2003. However, in 2006 Zipatoni was the company behind the disastrously stupid "fake" viral marketing campaign known as All I Want For Xmas is a PSP. After that was exposed, blogs went to town making fun of Sony... and Zipatoni. As part of that, people went to the whois and "outed" Meyerkord, including calling him a "douchebag."

Because of this, Meyerkord is suing Zipatoni, claiming a privacy violation. A lower court rejected this argument, but an appeals court has sent it back, saying there could be an issue if Zipatoni acted with "malice." That's probably going to be difficult, so the case may not be going anywhere. Goldman notes that it's pretty ridiculous that Zipatoni left the incorrect whois on the domain for so long, but it's not that surprising to me. With many registrars, it's pretty much a "set it and forget it" type of operation, where there's little need to ever review or change the info.

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kzieli writes "Britannica is going to allow viewers to edit articles. with changes to be editorial reviewed within 20 minutes. There is also a bit of a rant against Google for ranking Wikipedia above Britannica on most search terms."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

?The "Reuseum" is a mega-mart for all things Maker-Friendly. Based in Garden City, Idaho, this place holds tons of old and vintage electronic surplus and junk as well as hosts Maker and Circuit Bending workshops! Check out their site to find out what they have and their "EVENTS" page for more details on the workshops and classes

The Reuseum via GetLoFi

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From the MAKE: Flickr pool

The VoiceShield from Spikenzie Labs incorporates an audio record/playback chip (ISD4003) and amplifier into an Arduino add-on device -

It uses a unique, yet very user friendly, way to access different sound bytes so it is easy to build a "talking" device. It can work with words, complete sentences, or sound effects. With the VS your Arduino can also build phrases "on the fly" that sound a little like an automated telephone operator, for example; "you" "entered" "one" "two" "three" "press" "pound" "if" "that" "is" "correct".

This could be a lot of fun for robots and RSS reader projects just for starters - VoiceShield

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InternetVoting writes "After all the controversy surrounding Obama's Blackberry, word has come that he will get to keep it. Few details are available and neither the National Security Agency nor the White House are talking. The current rumor is that the Blackberry will be used exclusively for personal use and a Sectera Edge will be used for official communications."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Arnold Kling rips apart a particularly silly New Yorker article by James Surowiecki which attempts (and fails) to show that libertarian economists are hypocrites. The basic reasoning from Surowiecki is that libertarian economists believe strongly in market forces -- but, at the same time, the stock market has reacted positively to news of a potential economic stimulus package. Thus, he concludes, libertarians should support the stimulus package (the market says so!) even if the concept of an economic stimulus package goes against libertarian ideals.

This is silly and wrong for a number of reasons, but it brings up a mistake that I've been seeing made around here all too frequently: the idea that if one market benefits from a certain government handout, then clearly "the market" has benefited overall. So, of course the stock market is looking forward to a government handout -- because those involved in the stock market will benefit from such a handout. However, that does not mean that it's really the best thing for the wider economy. Surowiecki's mistake is thinking that the stock market is a proxy for the overall economy. That's the sort of mistake made by someone totally unfamiliar with the stock market -- so it's a bit surprising to see Surowiecki make it.

As for the similar arguments I've been seeing around here, some of our more vociferous patent system defenders have been posting links to studies that have showed that certain industries have benefited from patent protection. Well, duh. But, of course, those industries don't represent the larger market. So, for example, there is some evidence out there that pharmaceutical companies have benefited from patent protection, but there's also even more evidence that doing so has come at a huge cost to actual healthcare, which has a huge multiplier effect on the economy (in a bad way). The fact that one single segment of an industry benefits from government handouts -- whether in the form of a stimulus package or a gov't granted monopoly -- is hardly proof that the wider market is aided by it. In fact, historical evidence suggests just the opposite. Investment is put towards these more inefficient (on purpose!) markets, rather than what would best serve the wider market.

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?Here's an interesting take on bringing 3D video game characters into the real world. This "low-polygon" man was made from molded plastic and resembles something like a cross between Grand Theft Auto meets an August Rodin figure.

via Monster Munch

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By far one of my favorite iPhone apps, SynthPond provides a blank canvas for sound experimentation, accessed using cell/planet-esque components with individual parameters set by the user or at random. SynthPond's creator ZachGage writes -

synthPond is a music / art piece that I made for the iphone. It's a spatial synthesizer, and it's in the vein of toshio iwai's stuff... theres a free lite version that i think is pretty full featured, and there's upcoming OSC support that will work with any osc device.

The 3D audio output from the app is quite interesting, very often soothing. I still find myself experimenting with groups of orbitting 'reactors' which can be surprisingly fun. - SynthPond

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theraindog writes "Although the solid-state storage market is currently dominated by flash-based devices, you can also build an SSD out of standard system memory modules. Hardware-based RAM disks tend to be prohibitively expensive, but ACard has built an affordable one that supports up to 64GB of standard DDR2 memory and features dual Serial ATA ports to improve performance with RAID configurations. And it's driver-free and OS-independent, too. The Tech Report's in-depth review of the ANS-9010 RAM disk pits it against the fastest SSDs around and nicely illustrates the drive's staggering performance potential with multitasking and multi-user loads. However, it also highlights the device's shortcomings, including the fact that SSDs are more practical for most applications."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"HYPERION_Fragment" by Rosalie is a light sculpture installed at the ZKM museum in Karlsruhe, Germany consisting of 3,150 LEDs that are controlled to display a "river of light" across several distinct color sequences. The project spreads out over an area of 9.25 x 27 meters, so its reach is definitely intimidating. Check out the video to see it in action.

HYPERION_Fragment by Rosalie

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Alessandro writes -

Facebook Lamp is an RGB led lamp that advise you if you have notifications on facebook changing its color or fading from one to others , the lamp in connected to my laptop via USB and is controlled by a custom software, written by me, able to connect to the web and retrive information from your facebook pages.

- A facebook lamp

More:

HOW TO - Display RSS feeds with Arduino

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Adam Norton created the" Generic Escape Capsule" which contains everything you need to live while remaining hidden from view. I can't tell you how many times I would like to have an "Escape Capsule" to hide out in until things settle down. Check out the link for more pictures, including the very simple, yet functional, bathroom facilities.

More about How-to: Live inside an old wardrobe

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You may recall back when Apple first announced the iPhone, Steve Jobs proudly talked up how the company had over 200 patents on the various technologies in the phone. We wondered whether the company really needed those patents. After all, most of the "new" technologies in the iPhone weren't really new at all. The compelling part of the iPhone was that it was put together in a nice (relatively inexpensive) package, and designed so well that people wanted it. The massive success of the iPhone since then has highlighted that fact. It had nothing to do with patents, and everything to do with designing a phone that many people wanted. And, of course, the patents did absolutely nothing to stop patent infringement lawsuits from being filed against the company. However, Apple had resisted using those particular patents against anyone else... but that may be changing.

On the latest earnings call, when asked about the new Palm Pre phone, which is getting fantastic reviews for actually doing a bunch of things better than the iPhone, Apple's Tim Cook made it clear that the company was examining patent lawsuits against Palm:

We like competition--as long as our competitors don't rip off our IP. And we're going to go after anyone who does. I'm not talking about any particular company, but we are ready to suit up and go against anyone. We will not stand for having our IP ripped off, and we will use every weapon at our disposal....

In other words, Apple doesn't really like competition -- at least not competition that improves upon an idea before Apple is able to do so. Once again, we're seeing the problem of patents and left wondering where the benefits are. Having a strong competitor to the iPhone in the market will drive everyone to more rapidly innovate and improve on the offering -- and that's only going to be good for everyone. More innovation will drive more revenue while making happier customers. Using patent lawsuits to take a strong competitor out of the market (or distract them with court time and costs) is about tearing down innovation, rather than encouraging it.

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Gamasutra is running an in-depth look at the regulation of video games in the US and other countries. They discuss the reasons for such legislation, such as child protection and intellectual property restrictions, as well as what gamers can expect to see in the coming years. "Fairfield also points out combinations of laws, which, when put together make for strange outcomes. The biggest of these, for video games, is the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act. In short, gaining unauthorized access to someone's computer and doing $500 in damages opens you up for criminal charges. It's good for prosecuting hackers, but it makes for a strange fit with social networking websites and user-generated content. That fit was especially strange when prosecutors weren't quite sure how to approach the widely publicized case of Megan Meier. The 13-year-old Meier committed suicide after being deceived and bullied by another girl and her mother, Lori Drew. Unable to find a good way to approach the issue, prosecutors charged Drew under MySpace's End User License Agreement, effectively giving MySpace the power to dictate criminal law."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With just a few cheap supplies from a local craft store, you can make this huge flash bouncer & diffuser. It's really easy to make and the results are pretty good. The web site has a detailed template, build instructions, and a lot of great examples on how to use it properly. If you shoot with an external flash, you really should try it out for yourself.

More about DIY: Kimel Bouncer

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LARS is a really nice project for several reasons. First, it's a robot powered by an Arduino with lots of sensors. Second, it's being build by a father and his son. I can't think of a better thing to do with your kids than teach them a new skill that can use for the rest of their lives.

We had another test run for LARS. Now that we have the basics down, we plan to start adding to it. The next addition we are going to add is an on-board wireless camera. This will allow LARS to roam around and send the video signal back to our TV.

More about LARS: Light autonomous robotic scout [Let's Make Robots]

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You may recall, a few years back, some news around a patent holding company getting a patent on virtual subdomains. As part of its Patent Busting project, the EFF submitted a ton of prior art to the Patent Office, who has now done an initial rejection of all of the patent's claims. The patent holder (and, it's worth pointing out that it's changed hands since this started) can now respond or just give up on the patent. Either way though, it highlights the silliness of considering any granted patent as automatically "valid." Considering how many patents that are reviews end up having claims (sometimes all of them) rejected, it seems pretty clear that the initial patent review is simply not even close to effective as a judge of patent-worthiness.

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Boot Beep - The story of the Mac's boot chime, with source code written in 68000 assembly language... Andy Hertzfeld -

When you powered up an Apple II, it would make a short beep sound to let you know that it was alive. We thought that the Mac should do something similar, once it passed the diagnostics, sort of like an infant's first cry, letting the world know that you actually made it here.

The 1981 Macintosh just had a square wave sound generator, where the software controlled the frequency by loading a value into the VIA's timer. I wrote a boot sound routine that gradually incremented the frequency at an accelerating pace, so it had a whooping quality to it that was almost humorous. People generally liked it, but we knew that we'd have to do something better for the real product.

In August 1982, the Mac was redesigned with much better sound quality, so we had the possibility of a better boot sound, since we now had 8-bit samples to play with. I started experimenting a little bit, to see if I could come up with something.

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Smivs writes "The BBC are reporting on the development of tiny motors the size of a grain of salt which could power surgical Microbots. Some surgical procedures are hindered by the size or inflexibility of current instruments. For example, the labyrinthine network of blood vessels in the brain prevents the use of catheters threaded through larger blood vessels. Researchers have long envisioned that trends of miniaturisation would lead to tiny robots that could get around easily in the body. The problem until now has been powering them. Conventional electric motors do not perform as well as they are scaled down in size. As they approach millimetre dimensions, they barely have the power to overcome the resistance in their bearings. Now, research reported in the Journal of Micromechanics and Microengineering has demonstrated a motor about 1/4mm wide, about the width of two human hairs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news, as revealed by Russell Tice, who was one of the major "whistleblowers" on the NSA's questionable warrantless wiretapping activities, that the NSA was not just (as the gov't has claimed) spying on known terrorist threats, but was spying on journalists on a regular basis. Specifically, they were collecting pretty much everything (emails, phone calls, etc.) on certain journalism organizations. He explains that he was officially put on a project supposedly to "weed out" that info, but that it was a deception so that the NSA had some cover if called on it. Instead, he found that all of the data was being recorded. This seems to be an even bigger breach of the surveillance laws. Now, before some people jump up and down in the comments about protecting us from terrorists -- the point here is that there are perfectly good laws allowing intelligence representatives to tap into communications of potential terrorists. The problem here is that it appears the administration went well beyond that, spied on those who were not at all involved in terrorist activities and did not use the legally prescribed process of obtaining warrants (probably because they never would have been granted).

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A bunch of folks have been sending in the news, as revealed by Russell Tice, who was one of the major "whistleblowers" on the NSA's questionable warrantless wiretapping activities, that the NSA was not just (as the gov't has claimed) spying on known terrorist threats, but was spying on journalists on a regular basis. Specifically, they were collecting pretty much everything (emails, phone calls, etc.) on certain journalism organizations. He explains that he was officially put on a project supposedly to "weed out" that info, but that it was a deception so that the NSA had some cover if called on it. Instead, he found that all of the data was being recorded. This seems to be an even bigger breach of the surveillance laws. Now, before some people jump up and down in the comments about protecting us from terrorists -- the point here is that there are perfectly good laws allowing intelligence representatives to tap into communications of potential terrorists. The problem here is that it appears the administration went well beyond that, spied on those who were not at all involved in terrorist activities and did not use the legally prescribed process of obtaining warrants (probably because they never would have been granted).

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A bunch of folks have been sending in the news, as revealed by Russell Tice, who was one of the major "whistleblowers" on the NSA's questionable warrantless wiretapping activities, that the NSA was not just (as the gov't has claimed) spying on known terrorist threats, but was spying on journalists on a regular basis. Specifically, they were collecting pretty much everything (emails, phone calls, etc.) on certain journalism organizations. He explains that he was officially put on a project supposedly to "weed out" that info, but that it was a deception so that the NSA had some cover if called on it. Instead, he found that all of the data was being recorded. This seems to be an even bigger breach of the surveillance laws. Now, before some people jump up and down in the comments about protecting us from terrorists -- the point here is that there are perfectly good laws allowing intelligence representatives to tap into communications of potential terrorists. The problem here is that it appears the administration went well beyond that, spied on those who were not at all involved in terrorist activities and did not use the legally prescribed process of obtaining warrants (probably because they never would have been granted).

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

A bunch of folks have been sending in the news, as revealed by Russell Tice, who was one of the major "whistleblowers" on the NSA's questionable warrantless wiretapping activities, that the NSA was not just (as the gov't has claimed) spying on known terrorist threats, but was spying on journalists on a regular basis. Specifically, they were collecting pretty much everything (emails, phone calls, etc.) on certain journalism organizations. He explains that he was officially put on a project supposedly to "weed out" that info, but that it was a deception so that the NSA had some cover if called on it. Instead, he found that all of the data was being recorded. This seems to be an even bigger breach of the surveillance laws. Now, before some people jump up and down in the comments about protecting us from terrorists -- the point here is that there are perfectly good laws allowing intelligence representatives to tap into communications of potential terrorists. The problem here is that it appears the administration went well beyond that, spied on those who were not at all involved in terrorist activities and did not use the legally prescribed process of obtaining warrants (probably because they never would have been granted).

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Grandma's Graphics hosts a really lovely collection of web-resolution public domain children's artwork, perfect for design projects:

From Harry Clarke to 1890's storybooks, if you're looking for unique images or clipart for use on your web pages or in other design or craft projects you've come to the right place. There's a treasury here at Grandma's Graphics that you probably won't find anywhere else online. Some of these graphics are quite large and take time to load, but be patient, they're worth the wait.

Grandma's Graphics: Unique Images from the Past (via Making Light)

Over on Boing Boing Gadgets, our Joel needs your help to re-make this lovely table-less table created from a crocheted tablecloth stiffened with resin:

This low-slung table, created from a woven tablecloth petrified with sort of resin, may not be a retail product, but it could always get work as a set piece in an Aqua Net commercial. If I were to try to build one, what sort of resin should I use?

Tablecloth sans table as table, Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

Instructables author Crowdsourced has a nice, simple HOWTO for resurfacing an old table with dominoes, noting that this is simpler and easier than broken-tile mosaics (and it's pretty sweet-looking besides!).

Dominoes Table (who needs broken tiles?) (via Craft)

The Electronic Frontier Foundation's Marcia Hofmann has a report card on transparent government measures undertaken by the Obama administration on its first day in office. The news is pretty damned good: they've reversed Ashcroft's restrictions on Freedom of Information Act requests as well as changes to the Presidential Records Act, and have adopted general principles on transparency and open government.

According to Obama's memo: "All agencies should adopt a presumption in favor of disclosure, in order to renew their commitment to the principles embodied in FOIA, and to usher in a new era of open Government. The presumption of disclosure should be applied to all decisions involving FOIA."

This statement is almost certainly meant to address a controversial memo issued by John Ashcroft in the wake of 9/11, which ordered agencies to disclose information only after considering all possible reasons to withhold it, and assured them that government lawyers would defend their decisions in court unless they had no "sound legal basis." Many open government advocates believe Ashcroft's policy effectively gutted the FOIA over the past several years. Today's memo doesn't explicitly reverse that policy, but directs the incoming attorney general to issue new FOIA guidelines to agencies "reaffirming the commitment to accountability and transparency." This is a big step in the right direction.

The memo doesn't stop there. It goes on to say: "The presumption of disclosure also means that agencies should take affirmative steps to make information public. They should not wait for specific requests from the public. All agencies should use modern technology to inform citizens about what is known and down by their Government. Disclosure should be timely."

On Day One, Obama Demands Open Government

NSA whistleblower Russel Tice says that the Bush administration's illegal spying campaign was even worse than suspected: the administration specifically targeted "non-terrorist" groups for special surveillance, including journalists.

Whistleblower reveals surveillance target (Thanks, Bill!)

An "American of German origin" was kicked off a Turkish Airlines flight from Istanbul to New York for standing up and shouting loud complains about all the "Arab types" on the plane:

Daniel Sussman Pincus, whose age and hometown were not given but who was described in one report as an American of German origin, shouted his complaints as the flight was preparing to depart Monday.

PLANE CRAZY (Thanks, Bill!)

Instructables user kraker89 made this really sweet climbing wall in his garage. He documented his process and insights very well; it makes me want to build one!

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coondoggie writes "Researchers say technology they have developed would let boats or small aquatic robots glide through the water without the need for an engine, sails or paddles. A University of Pittsburgh research team has designed a propulsion system that uses the natural surface tension that is present on the water's surface and an electric pulse to move the boat or robot, researchers said. The Pitt system has no moving parts and the low-energy electrode that emits the pulse could be powered by batteries, radio waves, or solar power, researchers said in a statement."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sicilian police are moving into some new territory in their ongoing fight against the Mafia: Facebook. They're keeping tabs on several groups devoted to convicted Mafia members, suspicious that they're online gathering places for people interested in more than just some harmless social networking. There have also been calls in Italy for Facebook to shut down the groups, which it hasn't yet done, while Facebook groups protesting the Mafia groups have also sprouted up -- illustrating that the ideal response to speech some people find offensive is more speech. But the groups are also exposing the dangerous path that Facebook and other site owners start down if they begin removing material that some people find offensive, but isn't illegal. One of the anti-Mafia groups is called "Yes to Breasts, No to Totò Riina," highlighting the fact that Facebook recently removed pictures of breast-feeding mothers, but has let the pages touting the Mafia members stand.

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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One of the tragedies of ridiculous music licensing practices has been that TV shows that involved great music can no longer be seen -- because when they were first aired, there was no aftermarket, and so no rights were cleared with the music owners. The famous case is the TV show WKRP in Cincinnati, which tried to get around the issue by replacing all the great classic rock in the original, with crappy new music -- really harming the quality of the show. Tom sent in a note pointing out that the classic 80s TV show The Wonder Years is actually facing a similar issue, and because of it, the show is not available on DVD. The show was famous for integrating great music into the overall show -- clearing all that music for a DVD release is apparently too difficult, leading to an overall loss to society and culture.

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CWmike writes "Microsoft's advice on disabling Windows' "Autorun" feature is flawed, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (US-CERT) said today, and it leaves users who rely on its guidelines to protect their PCs against the fast-spreading Downadup worm open to attack. US-CERT said in an alert that Microsoft's instructions on turning off Autorun are 'not fully effective' and 'could be considered a vulnerability.' The flaw in Microsoft's guidelines are important at the moment, because the "Downadup" worm, which has compromised more computers than any other attack in years, can spread through USB devices, such as flash drives and cameras, by taking advantage of Windows' Autorun and Autoplay features."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today on Offworld, we saw how Obama (or a reasonable facsimile, at least) unwinds after a long inaugural day with a little retro-gaming, and likely the best piece of cosplay kit we'll see in some time -- a masterfully rebuilt Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device. We also saw new flashcarts built specifically for Game Boy musicians, the finalists in the Independent Games Festival's student showcase, custom vinyl toys of classic Dig Dug characters, and new God of War and WipEout crossovers coming to LittleBigPlanet. Finally, we played the latest game in the fantastically complex Grow series, looked back at LucasArts' 300-baud C64 virtual world forerunner Habitat, heard about Flashbang's newest abstract underwater action game Blush, and saw the first hints at a new WiiWare game from Sega that parodies 8-bit gaming's past.

These user reviews for a Playmobil Security Check Point ($55!) are pretty hilarious. (via @EFF on Twitter)

Update: Oh, Cory posted about this product 5 years ago! But I'll leave this new post up because a bunch of funny user comments have accrued on the Amazon listing, like so many happy barnacles on an ocean rock.

Power usage monitors like the Kill-A-Watt are pretty cool, but what if you want to monitor usage for your whole house? What if you want to track usage in real time throughout the day, without stepping outside to read the power meter? What if you could do all this without messing with mains voltage. Kevin tipped us off to this Instructable by jasonT which shows you how to do exactly this.

This Instructable details a real-time web based household power usage monitor. The end result is a live chart in a web page that updates every 10 seconds with the instantaneous power usage for my entire house. The electrical current is measured on the main lines entering my home with AC clamps. The signal is then conditioned with a simple circuit and monitored by an ioBridge module. The ioBridge module takes care of feeding the data to the internet without the need for me to host a power hungry home web server. By using ioBridge widgets with a few JavaScript API calls on my web page, I am able to chart the data with Google Charts as it is measured and make kilowatt-hour calculations in real-time.

Instead of doing anything with the mains power, the author uses an AC clamp to sense power usage. It's basically a transformer coil that you can easily place around the incoming power line, no wiring needed. It outputs a low voltage AC signal, which can then be converted to DC with a simple circuit so that it can be used as a measurement device for embedded systems like the ioBridge or an Arduino.

We're all trying to cut our energy usage, but without decent measurement tools it's hard to really tell when or where your major expenditures are originating. Hopefully, this sort of device will be a standard feature in most homes in the next 10 years, but until then you can make your own.

What tools are you using to measure your home power usage?

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Here is a new piece by Lockwasher, one of my favorite artists. His found-object sculptures are sublime. Part of the fun with his work is recognizing where all the parts came from. In the case of this robotic bug:

Fashioned from - pneumatic spark plug cleaner, Illinois license plate, shoe trees, lawn sprinkler, bicycle brake levers, model airplane engine cylinder, mt. bike suspension pivot and old typewriter parts. 10" tall x 12" wide x 16" long

From the MAKE: Flickr Pool.

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Italy is the latest European country to fall under the mesmerizing claims of a recording industry that feels the need to punish file sharers by kicking them off the internet. Apparently, Italian politicians are looking to implement a French-style "three strikes" law that would kick people off the internet for their third accusation (not conviction) of file sharing. They're doing this, despite the fact that the EU Parliament has rejected the idea as violating basic civil rights. This is the latest in a long line of attempts by the recording industry to get Italy to attack file sharers. There was the silly attempt to force ISPs to redirect Pirate Bay traffic to an industry website -- which, of course, only drove more traffic to The Pirate Bay in the long run (and was also rejected by a higher court in Italy). Then there have been attempts to get an ISP tax put in place to pay for all that "piracy." So, now it seems that the industry may be succeeding in at least getting a 3 strikes law in place, despite the lack of any logical argument for such a rule.

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Urchin writes "Researchers have just identified the first batch of weapons-grade plutonium ever made. The batch was produced as part of the Manhattan Project, but predates Trinity — the first nuclear weapon test — by seven months. It was unearthed in a waste pit at Hanford, Washington, inside a beaten up old safe."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Moss becomes a rug in the most beautiful and sustainable bathroom fixture I've seen:

Check out the rest of Nguyen La Chanh's portfolio here. I especially like the kitchen garden and anti-mosquito fan.

(via Inhabitat)

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