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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.
nietzsche family circus
hi and lois
five card nancy
comics curmudgeon
useless superpowers
the bitter pen
bellen!
previously on web zen
sunday comics zen 2008
Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store, web zen twitter. (Thanks Frank!)
* The Mae Shi are "Professionals" A music feature with our UK-based correspondent Russell Porter about a cool, experimental punk band who recently hit SXSW. download the MP4 here.
* Gödel ????? Film School," excerpt from the PSST! 3 Animation Project. Brilliant, surreal short from a collaborative animation project. One of the contributors on this one is the lovely and talented David O'Reilly, about whom we are admittedly apeshit. You can download the MP4 here.
* United Nations Drug Policy- Skeptics Chime In. You can download the MP4 here. Working with Witness and the Hungarian Civil Liberties Union, we cut together excerpts from "Dare to Question? Using Video to Take on UN Drug Policies" and other testimonials appealing to the United Nations to reconsider its hardline policies combating the cultivation and use of illicit drugs.
* Cyberpipe's Mecca of Vintage Computers. You can download the MP4 here. Mononchrom’s Johannes Grenzfurthner takes us backwards through time to Cyberpipe’s Computer Museum, a huge collection of functioning vintage computers located in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
(Special thanks to Boing Boing Video's hosting and publishing provider Episodic.)
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It ain't about the 'principle,' friend, its (sic) about the MONEY! Pay Me! Am I doing this for other writers, for Mom (still dead), and apple pie? Hell no! I'm doing it for the 35-year-long disrespect and the money!Given these antics and ridiculousness, you have to wonder just how many folks won't be hiring Ellison in the future, knowing he's likely to blow up and potentially sue them, as well. You also should wonder how much "money" he's missing out on from folks like me who will never buy any of his works. If it's "all about the money" perhaps someone who writes sci-fi like Ellison can think about the future a little bit, and how many opportunities he kills off by demanding every penny today at the expense of dollars tomorrow.
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I recently found out about the work of cartoonist Lucy Knisley (thanks, Drawn!) and have been enjoying her portfolio, blog, and songs. As Drawn! points out, her ligne claire style, reminiscent of Joost Swarte and Herge, is very appealing.
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In response to Chris' Val ties the canoe piece, one of our readers, Dave, wrote:
Zeppelin knot
I bought a used Mother Earth News magazine just because of the article on a knot that it had inside. It is a GREAT knot for tying two lines together. The history makes it interesting. Here is the web link to the same article.
More:
HOW TO - Tie the 10 most useful knots
From MAKE magazine:
Check out MAKE, Volume 17: The Lost Knowledge issue!
In Volume 17, MAKE goes really old school with the Lost Knowledge issue, featuring projects and articles covering the steampunk scene -- makers creating their own alternative Victorian world through modified computers, phones, cars, costumes, and other fantastic creations. Projects include an elegant Wimshurst Influence Machine (an electrostatic generator built entirely from Home Depot parts), a Florence Siphon coffee brewer, and a teacup-powered Stirling engine. This special section also covers watchmaking, letterpress printing, the early multimedia art of William Blake, and other wondrous and lost (or fading) pre-20th-century technologies.
If You're Gonna Kiss Me, Kiss Me ThereThere's a reason why you can't write music that appeals to everyone, unless you're the odd genius who can pen an "Mmm...Bop" or "Macarena." When you try, you wind up watering things down to the point where they're meaningless. That's one of two problems with this song. It says nothing about the fair itself, instead serving up a "Take Me Out to the Ballgame" great-date theme, minus the baseball love or love for much of anything. To their credit, the songwriters did slip the marvelous double-entendre, "If you're gonna kiss me, kiss me there" into the lyrics, a lone conceit to songwriting skill handcuffed by the need for that elusive mass appeal.
The other problem with the song is the recording. By 1962 standards, this is dreadful. It sounds like the band was encased in an oildrum and miced from the outside. Audiophiles should note that this recording will likely reverse the magnetic fields in your Harmen-Kardon speakers.
I'm an unabashed sucker for tilt-shift photography and videos, and this one, Bathtub IV, by Keith Loutit really hits the spot.
# Networkico Fantastico25 Other Names The Sci Fi Channel Could Rebrand With (thanks, @bonnie)
# The Sci-Fi, But That's Not A Bad Thing Channel
# Being A Broadcast Network That Specializes In Pictorial Representations Of A Technical and Supernatural Nature
# All Grace Park All The Time Channel
# Joss Whedon's Natural Home If He'd Only Realize It
# We're Worried That You're Still In Your Mom's Basement Because That's Not Really The Demographic We're Looking For Channel
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Forgetomori presents two eerie videos of "stick figure aliens." As the presenter of the first video remarks, "Could be extraterrestrials, could be elves." Take your pick.
A rider got 10 months in jail for driving a "ramshackle" motorcycle at 142 mph in Devon, UK.
When the bike was later examined, there were bubbles on the tyres from the rubber heating up during the chase, a bootlace and mismatched bolts and threads held parts of the bike together, the seat was wobbly and other parts had cracked.(Via Arbroath)The court heard that the wheels could have locked, the engine oil had become dangerously low and the defendant had risked his hands becoming trapped in the faulty steering parts.
For this week's EMS Labs project, Windell and Lenore continue their geek kitchen cookery by showing you how to make fractal Koch cupcakes in fondant and marzipan. Fractal iteration never tasted so yummy!
As one commenter so astutely points out:
Enjoy your infinite edge of icing!
More:
Sierpinski Cookies
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"Deadly Spider Found At Tulsa Store" (Thanks, Jill Miller!)"Within minutes you will have breathing problems, you'll start to lose control of your muscles, you'll start to drool and within 20 to 25 minutes you'll probably collapse on the floor and die of asphyxiation," said Terry Childs (director of the university's animal facilities)...
Apparently the spider, also known as a banana spider, hitched a ride on some bunches of bananas all the way from Honduras. It turns out it is the kind of thing that happens all the time, but this particular spider is more threatening than most.
"This particular one happens to be one of the most aggressive ones I've actually come across. This thing will actually jump at you," said Terry Childs.
"We found the sand was not like the sand in the brochure. Your brochure shows the sand as yellow but it was white.""Aroused elephant tops list of bizarre holiday grievances"
"On my holiday to Goa in India, I was disgusted to find that almost every restaurant served curry. I don't like spicy food at all."
"The brochure stated: 'No hairdressers at the accommodation'. We're trainee hairdressers - will we be OK staying here?"
Here's a three-part YouTube video, done by videographer Craig Mansfield, of last weekend's UK Maker Faire in Newcastle. He created a special YouTube channel for the videos, in hopes of using it as a means of connecting makers who were at the Faire and in the video.
More:
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Here's Nina Paley creator of the celebrated -- and copyright-permission-haunted -- animated film Sita Sings the Blues, singing her new "Copyright Song," a delightful little ditty about the moral case for copying stuff.
Robin adds, "Nina Paley's new project, inspired by her experience with freeing Sita from copyright jail, will be a series of short films about copyright. The first part of the project is that she wrote a song that she's hoping will get covered by different musicians; she can then animate those musical tracks."
Nina Sings the Copyright Song (Thanks, Robin!)
Don't keep calm and carry on. (via Warren Ellis)
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In its submission, Google notes that more than half (57%) of the takedown notices it has received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998, were sent by business targeting competitors and over one third (37%) of notices were not valid copyright claims.Google's point is that these types of laws are widely abused, and setting up such a system where punishment is handed out without any real due process is going to lead to an awful lot of mistakes. But, these stats are worth discussing just for what they say about the DMCA itself, and that myth that the process is rarely abused. From the numbers Google has seen, it's quite clear that the DMCA isn't just abused, it's regularly abused in ways that are both anti-competitive and chilling.
I've said it before: "This was one of the most delightful things I read last year, a hilarious, gentle, sweet and deeply satisfying cartoon collection that sent me reeling back in time to endless soft-humming sunny afternoons with a stack of paperback comic collections -- except that it seemed to have dropped out of a parallel universe in which Internet memes had seeped backwards into the teens."
Laugh-Out-Loud Cats #1083 (Thanks, Ape Lad)
Max Sprecher's antique straight razors
Though they'll happily sharpen your straight razor for just $20 (and restore it for an additional fee), Max Sprecher will happily sell you a fully restored antique model for $90 to $160, depending on vintage and materials.
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Pentax's parent company, Hoya, is to reduce its digital camera staffing levels in Japan to around half their current levels, according to the respected Japanese business paper, Nikkei. The report says jobs will be lost in sales, production management and development. Up to 300 sales-related jobs outside Japan may also go. The company has not discussed precise details but says the Nikkei story restates the company's restructuring plans announced with its third-quarter financial results in February. Comments Off [link]
Pentax's parent company, Hoya, is to reduce its digital camera staffing levels in Japan to around half their current levels, according to the respected Japanese business paper, Nikkei. The report says jobs will be lost in sales, production management and development. Up to 300 sales-related jobs outside Japan may also go. The company has not discussed precise details but says the Nikkei story restates the company's restructuring plans announced with its third-quarter financial results in February. Comments Off [link]
Pesco has blogged about this before on Boing Boing. During my visit to West Africa this month, I fearlessly followed up on this urgent news imperative for our blog, in person. Bottom line, yes, these mass "penis theft panics" do happen from time to time. Seem to occur more often in Nigeria than anywhere else, but below, a scanned news article from one local newspaper in Benin about a craze in 2006 which left a number of people dead (large size here), and here, a news report about what was probably the biggest-ever penis-thievery-crisis in recent history, back in 2001.
Over dinner in Cotonou this Monday night with two foreigners working in Benin, I heard the story of that big 2001 scare like this:
On a busy November day in a bustling public street market in Cotonou, some Beninese people started shouting that their man-junk had been stolen by a group of men nearby, who happened to be Nigerian. A mob soon formed, things got hysterical fast. The mob poured gasoline on the accused and set them on fire, killing them. BTW, the first rule of being accused here of witchcraft penis theft (or even regular old petty theft) is: run to the police as fast as you can, because a mob will form and try to kill you. After this initial freakout, about 9 more copycat incidents soon followed, in which the accused schlong-stealers were either burned alive or hacked to death.
One of the expats in Cotonou Monday night told me the bittersweet punch line was -- the men who claimed their penises were stolen and caused all the mayhem were later apprehended by police, stripped of clothing, and paraded in front of television news crews totally naked, to show that yes, their wedding tackle remained intact and the whole thing was BS.
Someone (either a cop or a TV reporter) on camera asked one of the chained, naked, still-be-penised guys "So! What do you have to say for yourself! Obviously it's still there!"
To which the guy replied -- "Well, it was a lot larger before."
- - = - -
Update: Oh, interesting, there was a Harper's article about this phenomenon not long ago. "A mind dismembered: In search of the magical penis thieves," by Frank Bures (thanks, Nach0s).
Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.
This is Obama's air-traffic controllers moment.
In 1981, not long after taking office, President Reagan faced a strike by the nation's air-traffic controllers. He fired them, broke the union and set in motion a generation of anti-labor policies that were a tenet of Republican orthodoxy. Whether those policies were ultimately more positive or negative is still a topic of political and economic debate, (I think the aggregate outcome was damaging) but Reagan's decisive action made a huge difference that reverberated through his presidency and several more.
Today, we face corporate arrogance that is almost transcendent and vastly more damaging than any of organized labor's excesses. Wall Street's barons, and the people who have been running and allegedly governing many of the nation's biggest companies, have raised a collective middle finger to America even as they've forced us to bail out the enterprises they've run into the ground. When commentators fret about corporate leaders' tone-deafness, they are implying that the executives simply don't get it. Oh yes they do.
In coming to Washington for bailouts, they said: "This is a stick-up. GIve us the money or we'll kill the economy."
In creating their disgusting compensation schemes, they said: "Pay us as usual, not for performance but because this is our just due as masters of the universe. And because we deserve anything we can loot from whoever has the money, whether it's shareholders, customers, taxpayers or anyone else."
The puzzle of the past week is not that Americans are furious. Only an idiot (or a Wall Street banker) wouldn't be angry upon learning of the unconscionable "bonuses" renegade ward-of-the-taxpayers AIG wants to pay to its employees -- including well over $100 million to people in the same unit that completely screwed the company and then threatened to take down the entire global economy if we refused to subsidize (so far) to the tune of $170 billiion.
No, the mystery is why this outrage hasn't come to the surface sooner. And why it's not more dangerous.
Why, for example, didn't Americans take to the streets earlier this year when we found out that Merrill Lynch and it conniving buyer, Bank of America, had paid almost $5 billion in bonuses -- a number that makes the AIG bonus money seem small -- after taking tens of billions from taxpayers? Why didn't we scream bloody murder when the Bush administration flatly refused to disclose where the hundreds of billions in bailout money was going in any kind of detail?
One reason, perhaps, is that we are a soft and lazy and uncurious people. We are quick to being pissed off at relatively small things -- typically minor but sensationalized stuff that tabloid TV news programs (i.e. CNN, MSNBC and Fox and local stations) decide to make into issues -- but slow to grasp the significance of the really big and crucial stuff until it's so powerfully in their face that they can't avoid it any longer.
AIG's bonus payout tipped the scales, or, maybe more accurately, removed another kind of scales from people's eyes. It demonstrated precisely what suckers the Wall Streeters have been taking us for.
How can we blame them for deciding that they were entitled to loot us, again and again? We were electing politicians of both parties who have been corrupted by and enablers of the very system that created the credit bubble and its catastrophic outcome. We weren't demanding accountability from anyone, including ourselves.
But now it's time. The American public is not blameless in what's happened. But we are finally waking up to the level of arrogance that dominates wide swaths of corporate America, particularly Wall Street. These transcendently greedy people, who aren't just indifferent to what the rest of us think but who actually believe they're entitled to loot the treasury and our children's futures, need a slapping down.
President Obama has a chance to turn this in a positive direction, but he's going to have to risk a lot of his political capital. He's going to have to admit that he, too, has been player in the corrupt system, albeit a relatively bit player.
Then he has to say, and mean it, that this crap is going to stop, right now -- and explain how he's going to do something about it.
We have a chance to reform the corrupt political and corporate governance that has created a system in which the people at the top brazenly tell the rest of us to go screw ourselves. It's a small chance, but if we don't do it now we will never do it, and the market economy itself will have no real future.
One institution can most effectively lead the charge in a way that can create change that doesn't turn into a mob-driven frenzy: the presidency. Is this president up to it?
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Every time it rains here, Kris Holstrom knowingly breaks the law.People who use barrels to catch rain from their roofs breaking law, says State of ColoradoHolstrom's violation is the fancifully painted 55-gallon buckets underneath the gutters of her farmhouse on a mesa 15 miles from the resort town of Telluride. The barrels catch rain and snowmelt, which Holstrom uses to irrigate the small vegetable garden she and her husband maintain.
But according to the state of Colorado, the rain that falls on Holstrom's property is not hers to keep. It should be allowed to fall to the ground and flow unimpeded into surrounding creeks and streams, the law states, to become the property of farmers, ranchers, developers and water agencies that have bought the rights to those waterways.
...
"If you try to collect rainwater, well, that water really belongs to someone else," said Doug Kemper, executive director of the Colorado Water Congress. "We get into a very detailed accounting on every little drop."
While I was in Benin over the last couple of weeks, a local BB reader pointed me to some interesting contemporary artists from this region. Probably the most well-known of these, internationally, is a man named Romuald Hazoumé who transforms salvaged materials into symbols of spiritual power.
Hazoumé has residences in the capital city of Cotonou, and in nearby Porto Novo near the Nigerian border. He is of Yoruba ancestry (which means his grand-folks were from Nigeria, I presume), and grew up in a Catholic family, but like many Beninois, also lives in touch with his voudun roots.
Starting in the mid-1980s, Hazoumé began creating works made from a locally ubiquitous type of plastic container -- I've heard them referred to as "jerry cans?" Basically, you see them everywhere in Benin, used and reused and reused to store everything from palm oil to water to gasoline.
Above, images of his mask mods, using these discarded source materials. The one I've selected there is called "Walkman." Snip from his bio:
After slight modifications, these objects became masks which subtly reveal Hazoumé's critical vision of political systems. He has said of his work: “I send back to the West that which belongs to them, that is to say, the refuse of consumer society that invades us every day.”Here's his bio, and Here's a gallery of some of the "trash masks" and some of his installation work. Below, a work by Hazoumé's from a large show in 2007 at the Victoria and Albert museum in London, borrowed from that_james' Flickr stream. The piece is called "Dan-Ayido-Houedo/Arc-En-Ciel, Symbole De Perpètuitè." (thanks, Hugo!)
Larry Pesce wrote in to let us know that he's posted his build notes for this year's Shmooball Cannon:
Shmoocon (hosted by the fine folks at the Shmoo group, an independent security "think tank") is a small hacker/security conference in Washington, DC, typically some time during the month of February.
...They provide a foam stress ball (aka a Shmooball) at registration for each attendee (and offer more for sale, proceeds going to charity). The organizers encourage you to throw them at the presenters when you have a point to make, or when you think that you're being sold a bill of goods.
...
In 2007, a group of folks unveiled their Shmooball cannon at closing ceremonies and unloaded at Bruce. It was multi-shot, made from PVC and a 2-stroke leaf blower. It was a great concept, but it was smelly and not incredibly efficient.
This is when I had thoughts of doing better. In 2008, I created a version that was much like a shoulder fired grenade launcher. In 2009, I decided I needed to take it up a notch.
This is the story of the building of the 2009 Shmooball cannon.
Building of the 2009 Shmooball Cannon [Flickr set]
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Daito Manabe used a system that converts music to electrical impulses and wired up his friends' faces to twitch in time to the song. (via Pink Tentacle)
Annie Kevans has painted a lovely series of oil portraits of the girlfriends of U.S. Presidents.
Shown above: Kay Summersby (Dwight D Eisenhower), Monica Lewinsky (Bill Clinton), Maria Halpin (Grover Cleveland), Pam Turnure (John F Kennedy), Jill Cowan (John F Kennedy), Blaze Starr (John F Kennedy), Marilyn Monroe (John F Kennedy), Madeleine Brown (Lyndon B Johnson).
All the Presidents' Girls (Via Presurfer)
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Last week, a juror in a big federal drug trial in Florida admitted to the judge that he had been doing research on the case on the Internet, directly violating the judge’s instructions and centuries of legal rules. But when the judge questioned the rest of the jury, he got an even bigger shock.As Jurors Turn to Web, Mistrials Are Popping Up (Thanks, John Schwartz, also spotted via @cshirky)Eight other jurors had been doing the same thing. The federal judge, William J. Zloch, had no choice but to declare a mistrial, a waste of eight weeks of work by federal prosecutors and defense lawyers.
“We were stunned,” said a defense lawyer, Peter Raben, who was told by the jury that he had been on the verge of winning the case. “It’s the first time modern technology struck us in that fashion, and it hit us right over the head.”
It might be called a Google mistrial. The use of BlackBerrys and iPhones by jurors gathering and sending out information about cases is wreaking havoc on trials around the country, upending deliberations and infuriating judges.
From the MAKE Flickr pool
Captain Credible created quite the cool controller using Arduino + 4051 multiplexer chips. The custom MIDI interface sports a plethora of controls including jacks to connect modular external control boxes as well - still, I think the best part is the labels -
Hmmm ... interesting enclosure - perhaps from a fluorescent light fixture?
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Junkbot sculptor Lockwasher strikes again (strikes back?).
What is Beer2-D3 made from?Beer2's technical specs:
Head - 1945 chrome BLC utility light shell.
Eye - vintage movie camera lens w/adjustable spring-loaded aluminum casing.
Body - 4.7 liter "adult soda" mini-keg.
Legs - propane tank valve handles, brass spacers, drilled-out washers, pair of aluminum Lady Josephine shoe butler (wall-mounted shoe shine holders).
Feet/base - 3 mini bread loaf pans, lamp hardware and a 1/2? precision drilled aluminum base plate.
+assorted nuts, bolts, screws and, of course - lockwashers!
More:
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Hack a Day reports on what appears to be the first shield created specifically for the forthcoming Arduino MEGA board. NKC's prototyping shield is of course predictably longer and uhhh … mega-er. The comment thread over at NKC points out that their shield only has 2 holes for standoffs - apparently the massive connecting pin-count offers sufficient stability on its own.
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If you're interested in learning more about the Parallax Propeller, or already a die-hard Propeller head, you may want to check out the Unofficial Propeller Expo being held on June 27-28, put on by one of Parallax's forum members, Jeff Ledger.
Bring your projects to show off, tools to work on collaborative projects, or just come hang out with other creative people.
The Expo will continue into the early morning hours, as Parallax will keep its doors open all night. Who knows what kinds of projects will emerge at 2:00am!
Details regarding hotel reservations can be found here.
Check out the report and photos from our last Unofficial Propeller Event! Also, check out the discussion thread for this event.
BTW: There will also be a Northeast Expo, in Norwalk, OH, on August 22, 2009. Deatils can be found here.
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From the MAKE Flickr pool
Furan dug into an LED message scrolling badge to gain custom control -
This is one of those el-cheapo led nametag badges. The inside of the badge had one of those gloptop chips between some pads for a smt chip, so I dremeled out the gloptop, reverse engineered the schematics for the board, and hooked up an AVR. This is just the start, coming soon I'll do this with a white and blue badge, completely self contained with (hopefully) decent PWM effectsTotal removal is certainly one effective way of dealing with the problem of manufacturer's "black blob" IC's. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!
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This how-to is in Hungarian, but the pictures pretty much tell you what you need to know.
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Check out the new 8-bit TV-Computer from the Maker Shed. It's a great hackable computer that includes a BASIC programming language with a sprite manipulator. Who doesn't like classic 8-Bit computers, especially all that nostalgic music? Did I mention you can play your old 8-bit games with an additional adapter? (not included) Check out the link for a lot more information about the 8-bit computer system, including how to play your classic game cartridges!
Features
- Contains a 1Mhz 6502 chip--the same technology that ushered in the "Home Computer Revolution" in the 1980s
- Each box comes with a keyboard, mouse, 2 game controllers, operating system cartridge, RCA cables (NTSC video and stereo audio), and a 9 volt power supply.
- Plays 8-bit 60-pin Japanese game cartridges (such as Famicom cartridges, or NES cartridges with an NES to FC converter)
- Supplied Cartridge comes with:
- Mandarin Chinese 8-bit GUI with English DOS prompt
- BASIC programming language and sprite manipulator (in English)
- 8-bit Music composer
- "Visual Theremin" Mode
More about the 8-bit TV-Computer
Also available in the Maker Shed: 72 Pin - 60 Pin Converter (Must have 8-bit TV-Computer)
Do you have a drawer full of 8-bit NES cartridges, but your Nintendo console will only give you the "Slow Blink of Death?" Are you tired of blowing on your cartridges, with no success? A TV-Computer (sold here) and this 72-pin to 60-pin converter will help you bring your cartridges back to life! Very hard to find!
More about the 72 Pin - 60 Pin Converter
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NES emulator hacker Xkeeper has been working on a Lua script that allows you to manipulate Super Mario Bros. game objects right in the middle of game play:
FCEUX is a NES emulator. It has Lua scripting support, and in the latest versions, a feature that allows you to grab input from the mouse and keyboard, outside of the "game input".
The script allows you to see the byte values of tiles by mousing over them and you can grab enemies (including things like lifts or projectiles) and move them around with your mouse. This particular Lua script hasn't been released on the FCEUX site yet, but it should be soon and there are several other Lua demos available in the luapack archive.
The Lua add-on to FCEUX allows you to cobble in your own code that will execute before each frame draw in the emulator, giving you an opportunity to manipulate things while the game is running. I've never coded in Lua, but the demo source code is easy to grok, and you may get some fun ideas for another game hack.
SMB1 + FCEUX + input.get = Fun with mouse control [via Offworld]
FCEUX
Luapack (ZIP file) with sample Super Mario Bros. scripts
Last month we covered Microsoft's patent infringement lawsuit against GPS device maker TomTom. As Mike noted, this is a pretty clear example of abusive patent litigation. The patents in question are so broad that it's virtually impossible to innovate in this space without first paying Microsoft for the privilege. Obviously, that prospect doesn't bother Microsoft's top patent lawyer very much, but it should be a serious concern for the rest of us. Since Mike wrote that post, another angle of the case has gotten a lot of attention from tech blogs: whether it's possible for TomTom to settle the lawsuit without running afoul of the GPL, the free software license that covers the Linux code that Microsoft claims infringes at least three of those patents.
A bit of background is helpful here. When the Free Software Foundation drafted version 2 of the GPL, it included a clause saying that if a vendor is forced to place restrictions on downstream redistribution of software covered by the GPL (due to a per-unit patent licensing agreement, for example), that vendor loses the right to distribute the software at all. This clause acts as a kind of mutual defense pact, because it prevents any firm in the free software community from making a separate peace with patent holders. A firm's only options are to either fight to invalidate the patent or stop using the software altogether. This clause of the GPL actually strengthens the hands of free software firms in their negotiations with patent holders. A company like Red Hat can credibly refuse to license patents by saying "we'd love to license your patent, but the GPL won't let us."
This creates a problem for a company like Microsoft that wants to extract licensing revenues from firms distributing GPLed software. Ordinarily, a patent holder sues in the hope that it will be able to get a quick settlement and a nice revenue stream from patent royalties. But the vendor of GPLed software can't settle. And if the patent holder wins the lawsuit, the defendant will be forced to stop distributing the software, depriving the patent holder of an ongoing revenue stream. Either way, the trial will generate a ton of bad publicity for the patent holder.
In a comment at the "Open..." blog, prominent Samba developer Jeremy Allison charged that Microsoft has tried to sidestep this agreement by basically forcing companies to sign patent licensing agreements that violate the GPL under the cover of non-disclosure agreements. Allison argues that TomTom got sued because it was the first company to refuse to participate in this fraud. It's important to note here that Allison can't prove the existence of these agreements, so we should take his claims with a grain of salt. But if these charges are ever conclusively proven, they would have explosive consequences. The Free Software Foundation would likely insist that such firms either cancel their agreements with Microsoft (likely triggering a patent lawsuit) or stop distributing GPLed software altogether (which could be a death sentence for a firm that relies on such software).
Regardless, TomTom is now stuck between a rock and a hard place. The GPL has left the firm with only two options. It must either fight Microsoft's patents to the death (literally) or it must settle with Microsoft and immediately stop distributing GPLed software. Given how deeply-entwined GPLed software apparently is in TomTom's products, that second option may be no option at all. So expect a long and bloody fight in the courts.
One likely result will be to create a serious PR problem for Microsoft. Some people might remember the infamous GIF patent wars of the 1990s. When Unisys tried to collect patent royalties on the GIF format, the Internet community responded by switching in droves to the PNG format. In the process, Unisys earned a ton of bad press and a terrible reputation among computer geeks who care about software freedom. Microsoft risks a similar fate if it pursues this litigation campaign against Linux. And given that Microsoft is in a business where innovation is king, it's probably not a good idea to become a pariah in a community that includes many of the world's most talented software engineers.
Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.
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Dynamic range and the various ways of trying to capture and represent it are the topic of many a heated discussion on the forums. We spoke to Apical, a company working on this challenge whose technologies are incorporated in cameras from the biggest brands, to find out what it is doing to address the matter. We think this interview with managing director Michael Tusch will help shine a little light on this shadowy corner of image processing. Comments Off [link]
Dynamic range and the various ways of trying to capture and represent it are the topic of many a heated discussion on the forums. We spoke to Apical, a company working on this challenge whose technologies are incorporated in cameras from the biggest brands, to find out what it is doing to address the matter. We think this interview with managing director Michael Tusch will help shine a little light on this shadowy corner of image processing. Comments Off [link]
The 555 Noisemusick Kit from the Maker Shed is an fun way to learn more about one the most popular integrated circuits, the 555 timer. I had a chance to put one of these kits together a few weeks ago. It was really easy to solder, and the documentation was great. Check out the link for more information and a video of the 555 Noisemusick Kit.
The 555 Timer is one of the oldest integrated circuits still available. It's also one of the few ICs you can buy at the mall! Its hardiness -- and the fact that you can drive a speaker directly from the output on pin 3 -- have made it a natural choice for electronic music experiments in noise since the seventies. The 555 Noisekit utilizes two 555 timers.
More about the 555 Noisemusick Kit
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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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So what did $1,900 buy? The run-down bungalow had already been stripped of its appliances and wiring by the city’s voracious scrappers. But for Mitch that only added to its appeal, because he now had the opportunity to renovate it with solar heating, solar electricity and low-cost, high-efficiency appliances.For Sale: The $100 House (via Waxy)Buying that first house had a snowball effect. Almost immediately, Mitch and Gina bought two adjacent lots for even less and, with the help of friends and local youngsters, dug in a garden. Then they bought the house next door for $500, reselling it to a pair of local artists for a $50 profit. When they heard about the $100 place down the street, they called their friends Jon and Sarah.
Admittedly, the $100 home needed some work, a hole patched, some windows replaced. But Mitch plans to connect their home to his mini-green grid and a neighborhood is slowly coming together.
Now, three homes and a garden may not sound like much, but others have been quick to see the potential. A group of architects and city planners in Amsterdam started a project called the “Detroit Unreal Estate Agency” and, with Mitch’s help, found a property around the corner. The director of a Dutch museum, Van Abbemuseum, has called it “a new way of shaping the urban environment.” He’s particularly intrigued by the luxury of artists having little to no housing costs. Like the unemployed Chinese factory workers flowing en masse back to their villages, artists in today’s economy need somewhere to flee.
Medical Museum's Flickr streamThis previously unreported archive at the National Museum of Health and Medicine in Washington, D.C., contains 500,000 scans of unique images so far, with another 225,000 set to be digitized this year.
Mike Rhode, the museum's head archivist, is working to make tens of thousands of those images, which have been buried in the museum's archive, available on Flickr. Working after hours, his team has posted a curated selection of almost 800 photos on the service already, without the express permission of the Army.
"You pay taxes. These are your pictures," Rhode said. "You should be able to see them."
My 10-year-old son wanted the chance to walk from our house to soccer practice behind an elementary school about 1/3 mile from our house. He had walked in our neighborhood a number of times with the family and we have driven the route to practice who knows how many times. It was broad daylight - 5:00 pm. I had to be at the field myself 15 minutes after practice started, so I gave him my cell phone and told him I would be there to check that he made it and sent him off. He got 3 blocks and a police car intercepted him. The police came to my house — after I had left — and spoke with my younger children (who were home with Grandma). They then found me at the soccer field and proceeded to tell me how I could be charged with child endangerment. They said they had gotten “hundreds” of calls to 911 about him walking. Now, I know bad things can happen and I wasn’t flippant about letting him go and not checking up, but come on. I live in a small town in Mississippi. To be perfectly honest, I’m much more concerned about letting him attend a birthday party sleepover next Friday, but I’m guessing the police wouldn’t be at my house if I chose to let him go (which I probably won’t).A Mom Lets Her Son Walk to Soccer…And The Police Come Calling
Teens capture images of space with £56 camera and balloon
Building the electronic sensor components from scratch, Gerard Marull Paretas, Sergi Saballs Vila, Marta Gasull Morcillo and Jaume Puigmiquel Casamort managed to send their heavy duty £43 latex balloon to the edge of space and take readings of its ascent.Created by the four students under the guidance of teacher Jordi Fanals Oriol, the budding scientists, all aged 18-19, followed the progress of their balloon using high tech sensors communicating with Google Earth.
Team leader Gerard Marull, 18, said: "We were overwhelmed at our results, especially the photographs, to send our handmade craft to the edge of space is incredible."
(Image: METEOTEK IES LA BISBAL SCHOOL/BARCROFT MEDIA)
Sean Ragan writes:
Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!A few times in my experiments with creative reuse I've had some very satisfying Aha! moments. One was my finding, back in 2004, that this flexible blue plastic conduit (or "ENT" = Electrical Nonmetallic Tubing), which I find very beautiful, fits perfectly into 3/4" PVC pipe fittings. Using only conduit, 3/4" PVC tees, and PVC cement, I was able to construct the giant bouncing blue buckyball model shown above. It is slightly more than three feet in diameter and bounces delightfully when dropped on the floor. Its construction led to the realization, on my part, that any geodesic system could be approximated by a construction toy having three-way connections and flexible members. Although many geodesic graphs call for nodes with greater than three-way connectivity, any such connection can be approximated by a circle constructed only using three-way connections. In fact, my blue sphere wasn't undertaken with the intent of modeling a buckyball, rather it was an approximation of an icosahedron in which each 5-way joint was replaced by a 5-prong circle. I only realized after the fact that this method incidentally modeled C60 buckminsterfullerene.
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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.
As network infrastructure has become an increasingly important part of our economy, there's been growing concern about the problems of cybersecurity. So far, the key debate is over whether the government should be involved in helping the private sector secure its networks or should focus on government networks. But another important question is which part of the government should be in charge of cyber-security. We're in the midst of a bureaucratic turf war between the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency over who will be in charge of government cybersecurity policy. The NSA's head, Keith Alexander, is pushing the theory that cyber-security is a "national security issue," and that therefore an intelligence agency like the NSA ought to be in charge of it.
The problem with this is that the NSA has a peculiar definition of cyber-security. When most of us talk about cyber-security, we mean securing our communications against intrusion by third parties, including the government. Yet the NSA has made no secret of its belief that "cyber security" means being able to spy on people more easily. Moreover, as Amit Yoran, former head of the Department of Homeland Security's National Cyber Security Division, points out, the NSA's penchant for secrecy, and concomitant lack of transparency, will be counterproductive in the effort to secure ordinary commercial networks. Therefore, the fight between DHS and the NSA is more than just a bureaucratic squabble. There's plenty to criticize about the Department of Homeland Security, and reasons to doubt whether they should be helping to secure private sector networks at all. But at least DHS is relatively transparent, and (as far as we know) doesn't engage in the kind of indiscriminate, warrantless wiretapping for which the NSA has become notorious.
Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.
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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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Timothy Lee is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Timothy Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.
This is a case from the Insight Community, a powerful new marketplace that connects companies with intelligent communities like Techdirt. Click here to learn more.
Continuing from our earlier cases, American Express is sponsoring more conversations here in the Insight Community concerning how small businesses can handle the current economic environment. Contributions to our past discussions have made their way to American Express' OPEN Forum blog, and we're looking for further insights that will complement the topics on the economy section of the OPEN Forum blog.
Given the economic slowdown, many small businesses are putting in some extra effort to retain and gain customers. How can small business owners effectively execute improvements in customer service for this? How should any changes be measured to determine if they work? When does a small business owner know when customer service is good enough? What can managers do to encourage and inspire great customer service from employees? These are just a few topic suggestions, feel free to contribute your own recommendations.
Ideally, submissions will contain specific examples and personal experience. Any insight that is selected to be published on the American Express OpenForum blog will be awarded a payment. You may submit multiple insights, but make each submission a post that can stand alone.
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