Ed writes "Apparently, the Centers for Disease Control released a study indicating that geography can have a significant impact on mood. You may not be surprised to learn that Kentucky is more depressing than Hawaii. However, ranking up there with Hawaii are Minnesota, the Dakotas and Wisconsin. Frustratingly, they have not yet published the study on the web, so it is left as an exercise for the reader to find the original study and post a link for the rest of us."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

And now, we pause for a unicorn moment. Nothing banishes the retina-scarring horror of scutigera coleoptrata like amateur YouTube video homages to the beauty of unicorns.

In her recent New York Times op-ed, Maureen Dowd takes aim at Google, blaming it for the sorry state of the newspaper industry. Perhaps in hopes of winning people over to the newspapers' side in the argument over how much Google should be profiting from their content, Dowd spends a lot of the article attempting to make the reader fear Google, trying to paint the company as anti-privacy and bent on "world domination."

But there is a vaguely ominous Big Brother wall in the lobby of the headquarters here that scrolls real-time Google searches -- porn queries are edited out -- from people around the world. You could probably see your own name if you stayed long enough. In one minute of watching, I saw the Washington association where my sister works, the Delaware beach town where my brother vacations, some Dave Matthews lyrics, calories Panera, females feet, soaps in depth and Douglas Mangum, whoever he is.

The uselessness of this statement is hard to overstate. If you stayed long enough you'd see your name? She saw the names of places where her sister works and her brother vacations? Ever look at a phone book or a map, Maureen? All she was seeing was evidence that people are looking for information.

And that is where Google adds value: it helps to connect people with the information they want. If Dowd would just pause the dramatics long enough, maybe she would recognize that this concept sounds very familiar. Just like newspapers have always done, Google tries to find information that its users want, and deliver it to them in a way that is useful -- and news stories are just one example of what people want Google to find for them. Dowd quotes Rupert Murdoch calling what Google does "stealing." But, Google is no more "stealing" the information to which it links than newspapers steal the events on which they report. It does not take much thinking to see the parallels. But hey, why take time to think when you can engage in some juicy fear-mongering and hyperbole?

Like many others, Dowd also makes the mistake of equating the decline of newspapers with the end of journalism, ignoring the evidence that says this is simply not true. We've already pointed out examples of how journalism can not only survive but thrive apart from physical newspapers. Newspapers were valuable when they were the most convenient, useful way to deliver the news. The content itself was always practically free. But the value of the content was used draw eyeballs to ads -- to give advertisers paid access to the community of readers. With the newspaper format now dying, entrepreneurs will find new ways to leverage the still-existent value of the free content to sell something scarce.

Fear-mongering, making misleading statements, ignoring evidence, not understanding your own business -- it's ironic that, while attempting to blame others for the woes of her own industry, Dowd makes so many of the mistakes that are really contributing to its decline.

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"Disturbing Strokes" is a great example of the power of music to affect mood and give different meaning to familiar visuals. (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

An anonymous reader writes "New York City is soliciting ideas from the public about possible technology improvements for its 13,000+ fleet of taxis. TLC (the city agency in charge of cabs) is 'seek[ing] input and information on ways to enhance the technology systems in each taxicab for the benefit of passengers, drivers and owners alike.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's still early, but the initial estimates on the impact on iTunes of higher priced songs on iTunes is that songs that got tagged with the $1.29 price saw their overall sales rankings drop. However, the indications were that the sales drop didn't outweigh the higher price. In other words, fewer units, but more overall revenue. It'll certainly be worth watching to see if the trend continues. Of course, the report only looked at the top 100 songs, doesn't factor in other things that may have caused sales to change, and seems to be lacking certain important data. But... still... as an early snapshot of what's happening, it's good to know. In the meantime, if you're a smart up-and-coming musician who recognizes that digital music sales are a tiny fraction of what you can be earning overall in the business, you should be doing everything possible to get your songs out there at the lower price, knowing that it'll help you stand out against the higher priced options, and you'll be able to recoup the difference through the other parts of your business model.

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Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

Spring is in the air. The plants are sprouting. That last pile of snow on the shady part of your neighbor's lawn has successfully melted. And your bathroom is alive with terrifying, multilegged creatures that look like this:

Yes, it's active season for everybody's favorite arthropod, scutigera coleoptrata, aka the house centipede. One of these bad boys scuttled across my bathroom floor just last night. My cats, which were born in the South and are still somewhat disappointed by Minnesota's distinct lack of huntable palmetto bugs, think this is great. I'm less enthused. But I figure that when life hands you horrifying household pests, the least it can do is make them interesting.

With that in mind, I present:
Four Facts You Didn't Realize You Wanted To Know About That Thing Living Behind Your Toilet

1.Scutigera Coleoptrata are Not Your Fault
Stop beating yourself up. Unlike, say, cockroaches, house centipedes aren't hanging around because you didn't clean the kitchen. At least, not directly. Scutigera coleoptrata feed on spiders and insects--they're actually pretty beneficial if you're willing to do the devil's arithmetic here and decide that you'd rather have one fast-moving centipede than a colony of roaches. That said, leaving crumbs and half-eaten sandwiches about does create a nice environment for s. coleoptrata's food to grow in. So it might not hurt to clean.

2. Scutigera Coleoptrata are Efficient
They're actually capable of eating several other bugs at once, noshing on one meal while holding onto another with one of their 30 legs. They usually hunt at night, waiting for prey to get close enough that they can jump onto it, lasso it in, or whip it into submission.

3. Scutigera Coleoptrata are Not a Toy
House centipedes do their hunting via a set of venomous front legs. The good news: They won't come looking to start a fight with you and, most of the time, even if you do egg them into attacking, they won't be able to break your skin barrier. The bad news: That's only most of the time. S. coleoptrata has apparently successfully stung humans before. Not life-threatening, it's supposed to feel a lot like a bee sting.

4. Scutigera Coleoptrata Will Not Forget This
Unlike a lot of household pests that can be expected to die shortly after breeding, s. coleoptrata can live as long as seven years. There's a distinct possibility they've been in your house longer than you have. During that time, they can grow to be as big as 1.75 in. long. Unsurprisingly, getting rid of them isn't easy. Sticky traps are often recommended, but the house centipede can escape those by simply breaking off the stuck legs and growing them back later.

Photo courtesy Kenta Hayashi

Althea Crome might be the only person in the world who imagines everything she sees in miniature and then knits them with tiny, tiny needles and thread. The intricacy of her work is simply amazing--I'm a hobby knitter myself, and can't even imagine working on such a microscopic scale. She was actually commissioned to hand-make allsome of the apparel in the movie version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline. [Web Urbanist via Neatorama]

alphadogg writes with this excerpt from Network World: "Stanford University researchers are designing an operating system from the ground up to handle the power and security requirements of mobile devices. The Cinder operating system is already working on an Arm chip, and members of the team are working on making it run on the HTC G1 handset, according to Philip Levis, a Stanford assistant professor. Levis spoke about Cinder at the Stanford Computer Forum on Tuesday. If an application isn't running as fast as the user wants, a Cinder-based phone could include a button to boost the energy allocated to that application, Levis said. Cinder also could allow users to download any code and run it safely on their phones in a 'sandbox' mode."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Disbarred lawyer Jack Thompson, made famous for never missing an opportunity to blame violent video games for any sort of violent activity (despite a near total lack of evidence to support this), has focused his post-lawyer life on trying to get states to pass anti-violent video game laws. Of course, this has been a tough slog. Utah appeared to be his only hope, but even that state eventually vetoed the bill, noting that it didn't make much sense. Thompson, who is known as a prolific emailer, has apparently been emailing Utah politicians quite a bit since this decision came down, and now the President of the Utah Senate (who supported the Thompson's bill) is threatening to go after Thompson using CAN SPAM anti-spam laws, telling Thompson:

I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again. If I am not removed I will turn you over to the AG for legal action.

Can't wait to see Thompson claim that this is all part of the conspiracy of video game fans against him. Clearly, the video gamers have somehow brainwashed the President of the Utah Senate...

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TEDChris writes "The Allosphere, being created at USC Santa Barbara, is the most ambitious attempt yet at creating powerful 3d visualizations of raw scientific data, such as the structure of a crystal, or how quantum effects take place. Researchers watch from a bridge inside the 30-foot sphere, looking at data projected 360 degrees around them and listening to 3D sound. The first major public demo of the facility has just been posted at TED.com. Optimists would argue that many of the greatest scientific breakthroughs happened through a new visual way of imagining data. Penicillin and relativity come to mind. So this is either a killer new research vehicle, an incredible toy, or just an insanely expensive art project."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As of last week, you can watch Make: statewide on GPB at 12:30pm (pre-empted on 4/19/09). Make: television is very excited to welcome Georgia Public Broadcasting to the list of stations carrying Make:! We'd love to hear from the MAKE Online fans from Georgia. What sort of projects are grabbing your attention?

Make: television already has ties to Georgia. Daniel Bauen, maker of the brilliant tennis-ball launcher in Episode 6, hails from Atlanta.

Other links to check out:
Dorkbot atl site
Freeside Hackerspace

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jcrousedotcom writes "Time Warner cable apparently has heard that folks aren't too happy with their plan to meter their unlimited connections. From the first paragraph of the article: 'Time Warner Cable's proposed trials of consumption-based billing were originally slated to begin in several markets this summer, where customers would be a part of a tiered pricing scheme. Pricing would have started at 1 GB per month for $15, and go up to 100 GB per month for $75, and include a per-gigabyte overage fee. The public's reaction was less than favorable, and the trials in Texas have been rescheduled.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Over at New World Geek, Patti points us to this inspiring roundup of art made from junk and recycled materials.

Recycled Treasures Converted Into Inspired Art

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We've already noted that NY Congressman Eric Massa believes broadband caps raise First Amendment issues, though we have trouble understanding exactly what those issues are. We're not fans of the caps by any stretch of the imagination -- and, in fact, think that they're bad for innovation and bad for everyone (including the broadband providers implementing them). However, that doesn't make them First Amendment issues. Still, Massa seems committed to introducing new regulations against caps, which may be as misguided as the caps themselves. The real issue shouldn't be whether or not the caps exist; it should be how we can enable more competition in the broadband space, such that caps are no longer an issue. Massa claims his bill will "seek to increase competition among broadband providers," but didn't provide any explanation of what that actually meant. It would be great to see more competition, but it seems unlikely that what's being cooked up here will do the trick.

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Jonathan sez, "I am planning an event, a protest sign pumping extravaganza, for this Saturday in Greensboro, NC. Greensboro is in the same boat as Rochester. Time Warner Cable will 'test' transfer limits here as well, starting this summer. I wanted to amplify the effect of Rochester people protest and got a decent feedback on Twitter. I started by tweeting and establishing a Facebook event, and contacting the city office today. If you could post this on BB I would really appreciate it. We need all the support and media coverage we can get. As you probably already know, TWC is embarking on anti-competitive practices, effectively limiting consumers use of online video, audio, and communications like VOIP. Analysts claim that the wholesale prices of bandwidth use is somewhere around $3 per 40GB. TWC wants to charge $75 per 100GB!!! Thats 1000% ($7.5/100GB)."

Time Warner protest planned for Saturday (Thanks, Jonathan!)

Photographer Terry O'Neill created this lovely photo of Raquel Welch, crucified, for a "One Million Years BC" film poster.
Raquel Welch (On Cross) (Thanks, Richard Metzger!)

DesScorp writes "The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Energy Secretary Steven Chu is endorsing 'clean coal' technology and research, and is taking a pragmatic approach to coal as an energy supply. '"It absolutely is worthwhile to invest in carbon capture and storage because we are not in a vacuum," Mr. Chu told reporters Tuesday following an appearance at an Energy Information Administration conference. "Even if the United States or Europe turns its back on coal, India and China will not," he said. Mr. Chu added that "quite frankly I doubt if the United States will turn its back on coal. We are generating over 50% of our electrical energy from coal."' The United States has the world's largest reserves of coal. Secretary Chu has reversed his positions on coal and nuclear power, previously opposing them, and once calling coal 'My worst nightmare.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Every year, approximately 2.5 million exajoules of solar energy reach the Earth. That's about 5,000 times the amount of energy consumed by people each year. The trick is collecting it and converting it into electricity cheaply and efficiently. Plants do a good job of that. Turns out scientists have been working on ways to imitate nature's photosynthesis since 1912. And they're still at it. This week, the scientific journal Chemical & Engineering News posted two deep articles on the subject. The first is about the molecular mysteries of photosynthesis, including whether it's as efficient as one would expect from a process that has more than a couple billion years of evolution behind it. From the article, "Harnessing Light":

Water-splitting is key to the renewable production of hydrogen gas and other energy fuels, and doing so with inexpensive catalysts, as plants do a billion times per day, would be a huge step forward for solar power research. But the photosynthetic process has some other secrets, too, that scientists are only just figuring out, such as how photosynthetic organisms can tame light without suffering too much radiation damage, the plant equivalent of a sunburn...

(One) contentious area is the question of how efficient photosynthesis actually is..

One reason that plants don't store fuel efficiently is that "plants' goals are different than our goals," says (Devens Gust, a photochemist at Arizona State University). "The plant's goal is to live and reproduce, not to store energy for humans."

Even so, many researchers turn to photosynthesis for inspiration on how to achieve humanity's energy needs. They hope to mimic the early, energy-efficient light-harvesting steps of photosynthesis, but then direct the harnessed light energy entirely toward producing fuel instead of growing a plant.

"When we think about ways to harvest sunlight," Gust says, "it seems natural to look to photosynthesis for ideas. It has been around for the longest time, and it works on the largest scale."

That's where biomimicry comes in. The companion article in C&EN describes research by Gust and others to build small molecular systems that imitate what plants do using a biological "machine" consisting of 20 proteins. From the second article:

The overall efficiency of photosynthesis for making sugar fuels is low--only about 2-3%--because plants' primary goal is to live and reproduce, not store fuel. But the first steps performed by (the plant's photosynthesis system) are much more energy efficient, about 30%. So researchers want to "take the basic chemistry and the basic physics of the photosynthetic reaction center" and build a molecular version in the lab, says Devens Gust, a photochemist at Arizona State University. In effect, they want to produce a molecular photovoltaic that, like (the plant's version), produces a current of electrons that could be used to split water and thus drive the production of a fuel such as hydrogen gas.

Harnessing Light
Attempts To Mimic A Plant's Light-Harvesting And Water-Splitting Megamachinery

If you're in Boulder, Colorado right now, I hope you'll join me at SparkFun's offices for its Autonomous Vehicle Competition.

April 15th, 2009 10AM - Rain, shine, or snow

Create a vehicle that can autonomously navigate around the SparkFun building

$300 cash first prize

Amanda sez, "This is a collection of pictures of the playing cards hand-drawn by NYC subway engineer William Barclay Parsons, who died in 1932. The playing cards are beautifully illustrated with schematics and diagrams and sketches of pulleys, cranks, levers, and so on."

Parsons, William Barclay (Thanks, Amanda!)

Over at Boing Boing TV, Xeni has posted an awesome video of Theo Gray using prosciutto ham to cut through steel. For the vegans in the audience, he also works wonders with a cuke and some breadsticks.

BB Video: The Flaming Bacon Lance of Death, from Theo Gray's book "Mad Science"

More:
Make: Talk #005 show notes and next episode (where we talk about Theo's book)

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Improv Everywhere, a comedic performance art group based in New York, has a history of pulling off hilarious and impressive "scenes of chaos and joy." Running "missions" such as the annual "No Pants Subway Ride," a food court musical, sending 80 people into Best Buy dressed as employees and getting 200 people to "freeze" during rush hour in Grand Central station, these guys are masters of the flash mob and the harmless prank. Last April, in a mission called "Best Game Ever," they showed up at a little league baseball game with signs, peanut vendors, programs and even an NBC sponsored jumbotron with live commentary and player stats to turn an ordinary event into something extraordinary.

Building on that theme, Improv Everywhere's latest mission was to create the "Best Funeral Ever," to pick a random funeral from the obituaries and show up to make it "truly awesome." It sounds terrible, and the video is pretty horrifying... until you realize it's from April 1^st. The next day, they confirmed it was an April Fool's joke and that it wasn't a real funeral -- all of the "family members" were actors. Lots of people fell for it (I definitely did at first), but best of all was the local CW 11 news team that covered the YouTube video as if it were a real funeral. Charlie Todd, founder of Improv Everywhere, uploaded a video of the newscast with the following commentary:

So basically the extent of their reporting is watching a video on YouTube and then describing it as fact on air. They didn't bother to email Improv Everywhere for comment, call the cemetery to verify, or try to get a quote from the"family." They just watched the video and threw it on TV. Great journalism!

The story was on the news channel's website too, but was later removed without any explanation or correction. Now, two weeks later, Todd has received a copyright notice from YouTube that his video of the newscast was removed due to a copyright claim from Tribune (the station's parent company). First of all, it's pretty silly to try to hide the mistake rather than owning up to it and posting a correction (Streisand Effect anyone?). But beyond that, it's pretty ironic and hypocritical that the news organization, which used the Improv Eveywhere video without permission or even proper attribution, would send a take-down notice to the owner of the that video who was commenting on their commentary. Todd writes,

It's OK for them to air content that we shot and own, but it's not OK for me to upload their footage of the content they took from me? It's "fair use" for the news to take a video off of YouTube and broadcast it, but it's not "fair use" for a citizen to expose their poor reporting on his own content?

Fair use or not, Tribune just found a great way to draw more attention to the fact that their "journalists" fell for the prank and seem to be pretty embarrassed about it.

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

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Roger sez, "My new tee features an x-ray image of an At-At walker. 'Since the Dark Side started using genetically modified walkers, they found many had to visit the Imperial Veterinary Clinic of Osteology suffering with acute pain in their hip joints. X-rays revealed their skeleton structure was just not strong enough to manoeuvre wearing those heavy boots. No amount of Cod Liver oil would ease their pain.'"

AT-AT Anatomy T-Shirt (Thanks, Roger!)

narramissic writes "A team of researchers at the University of Southampton, UK, has received funding from the UK's Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to learn whether otoacoustic emissions (OAE), the ear-generated sounds that emanate from within the spiral-shaped cochlea in the inner ear, can be used as a viable biometric technology like fingerprints and IRIS recognition. According to a report in New Scientist, someday instead of asking for passwords or pin numbers, a call center or bank would simply use a device on their telephone to produce a brief series of clicks in the recipient's ear to confirm the person is who they say they are." Try faking that with gummy bears.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alharaka writes "I have a relative that has been a lawyer for over two decades. In passing conversation, he revealed to me that he has a great deal of his data stored on floppies. Naturally, as an IT guy, I lost it on him, telling him that a one-dimensional storage strategy of floppies was unacceptable. If he lost those files, his clients would be enraged. Since I do not know much about online data storage for lawyers, I read a few articles I found on Google. A lot of people appear to recommend CoreVault, since a few bar associations, including Oklahoma, officially endorsed them. That is not enough for me. Do any Slashdotters have info on this topic? Do you have any companies you would recommend for online data storage specifically for lawyers? As a lawyer with recognition in NJ, NY, CA, and DC, are there any rules and regulations you know of regarding such online storage he must comply with? I know IT and not law. I am aware this is not a forum for legal advice, but do any IT professionals who work for law firms know about such rules and regulations?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

I really need to start keeping a list of my favorite ludicrous plans, if for no other reason than so I can say, "This is my absolute favorite ludicrous plan," and not have it be just hyperbole. That said, I've been working for mental_floss in some capacity since I graduated college in 2004. In that time, I have read about a lot of grandiose, impractical ideas. But this is one I go back to when I'm having a bad day and need cheering up.

In 2003, CalTech planetary scientist David J. Stevenson proposed a way to send a probe down into the depths of the Earth. Published in Nature, "Modest Proposal: Mission to the Earth's Core" laid out a detailed plan for inter-Earth investigation--it was brilliant, theoretically possible (or so I'm told) and only briefly mistaken for an April Fool's joke. For your convenience, I have taken the liberty of breaking Stevenson's proposal down into four steps.

Step 1: Get $10 billion. Surprisingly, this is not the hardest part.

Step 2: Find a nation willing to take one for the team, by letting you blast a 984-foot-deep hole in their country with a nuclear bomb.

Step 3: Pour in enough molten iron to fill your new crevasse. Hopefully, gravity should now kick in, pulling the heavy metal toward the center of the Earth and lengthening your original hole at a rate of about 10 miles per hour. At that speed, your iron river should reach the Earth's core in a week or so. And, naysayers, never fear. According to Dr. Stevenson's calculations, high pressures below ground would reseal the earth after the iron passed by--preventing any awkward uncloseable chasms.

Step 4: Before the flow of iron gets moving too fast, toss in a probe. For maximum effectiveness, said probe should be able to withstand temperatures surpassing 3000° Fahrenheit and pressures 1000 times greater than the bottom of the deepest ocean. It also has to have a strong enough signal that it can reach the center of the Earth and still transmit some data back to you. As you go through the bidding process, do remember that you get what you pay for. And, in case American manufacturing has lost its edge, let's go with an unmanned probe. Better safe than sorry.

Image is courtesy Michael Rogalski.

MP4 Download here. YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Twitter updates @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video.

---

Yesterday, I blogged about the release of Popular Science columnist Theo Gray's new book, MAD SCIENCE.

In today's episode of Boing Boing Video, a collaboration with PopSci, we debut the world-premiere of the first video documenting the sort of experiments you'll find in this book -- in which Theo cuts steel with bacon. It's a FLAMING BACON LANCE OF DEATH.

Yes, that's right, using nothing but bacon -- okay, prosciutto -- and an air hose, Mr. Gray constructs a high performance thermic lance that seriously cuts sheet metal.

In this video, you'll also see a purely VEGAN THERMIC LANCE built from one cucumber and several dozen thin vegetable-oil coated breadsticks. (Tip: the performance is all about the oil). This hotrod burns fast and furious, but does not last long enough to initiate a cut in steel sheet. The flame front travels towards the back of the cucumber and endangers the operator when it reaches the rubber connector.

Theo also built a CUCUMBER-BEEFSTICK LANCE. A high-performance thermic lance constructed from seven beefsticks and a cucumber. Later versions used Pup-Peroni brand dog treats, which are exactly like beef sticks only cheaper.

In some ways this device out-performed the Bacon Lance, and it's much easier to build.

But it's not made of bacon.

Theo tells Boing Boing,

"Cucumber is an *excellent* base for these things because it's air-tight, moist (to resist fire), easy to core, and has a rubbery skin that makes an air tight seal. About the only thing wrong with cucumbers is that they are not made of bacon. (I have a thing called a "fruit coring tool" which is like a very small round cookie cutter on a stick. You drill it down the middle of the cucumber until it comes out the other end, then stuff the cucumber with the chosen fuel.)"

Here are Theo's columns at PopSci.com. And more on the flaming bacon of death at PopSci.com.

These devices were created by Theodore Gray. Videography in this BB Video episode by Nick Mann (shot on the 5D Mk II). Stills are by Mike Walker.

Previously: Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do at Home, But Probably Shouldn't (Book)

Andrew Savikas just showed me how to buy and read O'Reilly books on an iPhone or iPod touch. I was thrilled to see that Getting Started with Arduino was available. It looks great. And the book doesn't require any soldering, so you can (mostly) safely leave your iPhone on your workbench as you try out the projects.

Andrew's written up some helpful instructions for anyone who wants to give this a go (and all titles are 40% off for a limited time):

• How to buy and read O'Reilly Ebooks on Stanza
• Another way to get oreilly.com epub onto Stanza
• All O'Reilly Ebook bundles

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Nicola Hahn writes "One of the first things I noticed while flipping through this hefty book is the sheer number of topics covered. Perhaps this is a necessity. As the author puts it, rootkits lie "at the intersection of several related disciplines: computer security, forensics, reverse-engineering, system internals, and device drivers." Upon closer inspection, it becomes clear that great pains have been taken to cover each subject in sufficient depth and to present ideas in a manner that's both articulate and well organized. This accounts for the book's girth; it weighs in at roughly 900 pages." Keep reading for the rest of Nicola's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've been among those slamming newspapers who are complaining about Google somehow harming their business when they've done little to nothing to upgrade the value they offer readers. Who knew that this was the same advice that newspapers were getting 50 years ago as well? Mathew Ingram points us to a profile of Bernard Kilgore, who ran the Wall Street Journal for many years -- and helped reinvent the paper to take on the "threat" of radio news. Subscriptions were falling, and people questioned why they needed a newspaper to tell them what the radio had told them the day before:

Kilgore observed that then new media such as radio meant market news was available in real time. Some cities had a dozen newspapers that had gained the Journal's once-valuable ability to report share prices.

The Journal had to change. Technology increasingly meant readers would know the basic facts of news as it happened. He announced, "It doesn't have to have happened yesterday to be news," and said that people were more interested in what would happen tomorrow. He crafted the front page "What's News -- " column to summarize what had happened, but focused on explaining what the news meant.

On the morning after Pearl Harbor, other newspapers recounted the facts already known to all the day before through radio. The Journal's page-one story instead began, "War with Japan means industrial revolution in the United States." It outlined the implications for the economy, industry and commodity and financial markets.

It seems like newspapers today could actually learn a lot from that core message: focus on providing additional value beyond what they can get elsewhere. And, if your fear is that aggregators or bloggers are somehow "stealing" from you, you're not providing enough value.

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An anonymous reader writes "Symantec announced that malicious code activity continued to grow at a record pace throughout 2008, primarily targeting confidential information of computer users. According to the company's Internet Security Threat Report Volume XIV (PDF), Symantec created more than 1.6 million new malicious code signatures in 2008. This equates to more than 60 percent of the total malicious code signatures ever created by Symantec — a response to the rapidly increasing volume and proliferation of new malicious code threats. These signatures helped Symantec block an average of more than 245 million attempted malicious code attacks across the globe each month during 2008." Another anonymous reader notes a related report from Verizon (PDF), which says 285 million records were compromised in 2008, more than the total of the previous four years combined.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We recently posted about Frank Zappa's early recognition of where the music industry was heading, with fans taping and sharing music. That story got a lot of attention, but we'd forgotten how incredibly protective Frank's widow Gail has become of Zappa's own music. In the past, she's tried (and failed) to stop a music festival of Zappa's music called Zappanale, and Karl alerts us to the fact that she's been going around threatening any cover band who doesn't agree to pay up. This is, as any copyright lawyer will tell you, ridiculous. So long as the venue where the music is being played has paid its blanket licensing fee, then anyone can play whatever music they want there. Many musicians (and their widows, apparently) falsely believe that copyright allows you to completely control all uses of your work, but that's simply not true. And, it's a shame that Zappa's "legacy" is being treated this way, whereby people are being told that simply playing and sharing Zappa's music is somehow illegal without first paying up to the Zappa family.

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snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Martin Heller takes a first look at Microsoft's Exchange Server 2010 Beta, noting several usability, reliability, and compliance improvements over Exchange 2007. Top among Exchange 2010's new features are OWA support for Firefox 3 and Safari 3; improved storage reliability; conversation views; mail federation between trusted companies; and MailTips, a sort of Google Mail Goggles for the corporate environment. 'Database availability groups give you redundant mail stores with continuous replication; database-level failover gives you automatic recovery. I/O optimizations make Exchange less "bursty" and better suited to desktop-class SATA drives; JBOD support lets you concatenate disks rather than stripe them into a redundant array.' Exchange 2010 will, however, require shops to upgrade to Windows Server 2008, as support for Windows Server 2003 has been dropped. Microsoft will release technical previews of other products in the suite, including Office 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Visio 2010, and Project 2010, in the third calendar quarter."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Maggie Koerth-Baker is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. A freelance science and health journalist, Maggie lives in Minneapolis, brain dumps on Twitter, and writes quite often for mental_floss magazine.

I'm going to launch right into my guest blogging stint with one of my favorite chunks from Be Amazing, the book I recently wrote with mental_floss magazine. The basic idea: Anybody can increase their awesomeness quotient, all it takes is a little advice and inspiration.

To anybody who ever wanted to grow up to be an absolute monarch...this one's for you. (Also, there's a nice tie-in to tax day. Hooray for news hooks!)

How To Colonize a Nation
Step 1: Pick a Target

Let's face it, this was easier back in the day when it was open season on any landmass--no matter how large--provided you had guns, and the other guy didn't. Nowadays, you're probably going to have to stick to colonizing tiny nations that can't fight back. Luckily, the Pacific Ocean is home to plenty of these. Case in point: The Republic of Minerva, a would-be libertarian paradise established in 1972 by Nevada businessman Michael Oliver. According to a New York Times article form that year, Minerva was to have no income taxes--opting instead for a system that gave business and individuals special incentives for contributing to the government (sort of like a high-stakes version of the PBS pledge drive). However, the wise colonizer will note that this also meant they had no standing army.

Step 2: Make a Good First Impression
If you really clinch this step, you might not even have to fire a shot. Just ask Taufa'ahau Tupou IV, the King of Tonga, a nation located about 260 miles east of the Republic of Minerva. About five months after Oliver founded Minerva, King Tupou arrived to greet--and invade--the new neighbors. Reports on the invasion force vary, but it apparently involved one or more of the following: A military gunboat, a convict work detail, and a rowboat manned by the king and his ceremonial brass band. At any rate, the invasion was successful and on June 21, 1972, the Minervan flag was hauled down and the atoll became part of the Kingdom of Tonga.

Step 3: If At First You Don't Succeed...
Unfortunately for Tonga, that brass band wasn't enough to intimidate away all the other would-be conqueror-come-latelies. A gang of Americans showed up in 1982 and held the island for three weeks before Tonga had to send troops to chase them off. And a more legit claim was made by Fiji in 2005; one that made it all the way to the International Seabed Authority. The atoll's ownership probably won't be settled until later this year. Of slightly less concern is the claim made on the land by "Prince Calvin," a Charleston, South Carolina man who declared the atoll his principality in 2003.

krou writes "A new study entitled 'The Carbon Footprint of Spam' (PDF) published by ICF International and commissioned by McAfee claims that spam uses around 33 billion kilowatt hours of energy annually, which is approximately enough to power 2.4 million US homes (or roughly 3.1 million cars) for a year. They calculated that the average CO2 emission for a spam email is around 0.3 grams. Interestingly, the majority of energy usage (around 80%) comes from users viewing and deleting spam, and searching for legitimate emails within spam filters. They also claim that 'An individual company can find that one fifth of the energy budget of its email system is wasted on spam.' One of the report's authors, Richi Jennings, writes on his blog that 'spam filtering actually saves an incredible amount of energy.' He continues, 'Imagine if every inbox were protected by a state-of-the-art spam filter. We could save about 75% of the spam energy used today — 25 TWh per year; that's like taking 2.3 million cars off the road.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the excuses given by the various trade representatives negotiating the ACTA treaty for the fact that they were keeping it quite secret, was that it wouldn't represent any significant change to copyright laws, and thus it was no big deal. Yet, the various drafts of the proposed treaty have suggested otherwise. TorrentFreak examines one of the latest leaked drafts and notes that it would require agreeing nations to change copyright laws concerning damages, pushing judges to consider every unauthorized file to be considered as a lost sale for the calculation of damages. This is a key point that plenty of folks have made clear over the years: assuming that every shared file would have been a lost sale is absolutely false. Putting that into the law and suggesting judges use that false concept as a basis for calculating damages is quite troubling. In the meantime, we're still trying to figure out why ACTA is even necessary? And... on top of that, no one has yet explained why industry lobbyists have been integral to the negotiations, but the public and public interest groups are being blocked from any information based on bogus national security claims.

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Please welcome our new guest blogger, Maggie Koerth-Baker! She says:

I write about health and science for magazines and Web sites like MSN.com, LiveScience.com, Discover and Prevention. I used to be an assistant editor for mental_floss magazine. Now I just write for them a lot. In the line of journalistic duty, I have made 3:00 am international phone calls to talk about heavy metal; spent countless hours at my local public library; and bitten the head off a live fish.

I recently wrote a book with mental_floss called Be Amazing: Glow in the Dark, Control the Weather, Perform Your Own Surgery, Get Out of Jury Duty, Identify a Witch, Colonize a Nation, Impress a Girl, Make a Zombie, Start Your Own Religion . It's a handy little guide to creating a more awesome version of yourself, via lessons from the great successes (and failures) of history, politics, science and art. I'm looking forward to sharing some of my favorite snippets from the book here on Boing Boing. Hell, I'm just excited to say, "here on Boing Boing." It won't all be book promotion, though. Promise. I research cool stuff for a living, have a big mouth and lack coworkers. There is plenty to share.

I live in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Sadly, I have never taken a purifying dip in the waters of Lake Minnetonka. Or seen Prince. Direct all other questions/observations/over-sharing to my email (maggie.koerth@gmail.com).

Hanna Perner-Wilson just released a kit version of her fabric bend sensor- everything you need to make one yourself!

This is a kit, meaning that it comes unassembled and requires you to have tools and some regular sewing thread as well as about half an hour time for completion.

This kit contains:

* Two 2 x 12 cm pieces of 1.5 mm thick HS quality neoprene with polyester jersey fused to each side (gray, purple)

* Two 1.5 x 9.5 cm pieces of Velostat

* Two 1 x 2 cm pieces of stretch conductive fabric with fusible interfacing adhered to one side

* 60 cm of conductive thread

* 1:1 Instruction stencil printout on A4 paper

To compete this kit you will need:

* Regular clothing iron

* About 60 cm of regular sewing thread

* Sewing needle

* Scissors for cutting thread

* Knife for cutting out stencil

* Pen for marking stencil

You can use her Instructable as a guide to construction.

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An anonymous reader sends in a story at Wired about the increasingly popular methods criminals are using to bypass PIN encryption and rack up millions of dollars in fraudulent withdrawals. Quoting: "According to the payment-card industry ... standards for credit card transaction security, [PINs] are supposed to be encrypted in transit, which should theoretically protect them if someone intercepts the data. The problem, however, is that a PIN must pass through multiple HSMs across multiple bank networks en route to the customer's bank. These HSMs are configured and managed differently, some by contractors not directly related to the bank. At every switching point, the PIN must be decrypted, then re-encrypted with the proper key for the next leg in its journey, which is itself encrypted under a master key that is generally stored in the module or in the module's application programming interface, or API. 'Essentially, the thief tricks the HSM into providing the encryption key,' says Sartin. 'This is possible due to poor configuration of the HSM or vulnerabilities created from having bloated functions on the device.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Will sez, "The Department of Justice is using secretive prison facilities on U.S. soil, called Communication Management Units, to house inmates accused of being tied to 'terrorism' groups. They overwhelmingly include Muslim inmates, along with at least two animal rights and environmental activists."

It is difficult to discern the rationale behind why some inmates are transferred to the CMU and others are not. For instance, John Walker Lindh, the "American Taliban," is housed at the CMU in Terre Haute. He pleaded guilty to supporting the Taliban and carrying a rifle and grenades on the battlefield in Afghanistan. However, the government announced last month it is actually easing restrictions on his communication.

In the case of Andy Stepanian, he was one of six codefendants, and by the admission of prosecutors he was one of the minor players in the case. He is not accused of any violent crime or any property destruction, and had no disciplinary problems while incarcerated. Stepanian received the second-lowest sentence of the group, and his codefendants are not in CMUs.

Daniel McGowan's notice of transfer to the CMU gives some indication of the government's reasoning. It says that he has been identified "as a member and leader in the Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and Animal Liberation Front (ALF), groups considered domestic terrorist organizations."

But in a letter from the CMU, McGowan wrote: "It's funny-I have like 13 codefs [codefendants] + there are 11 other eco prisoners and I end up here."

Part of the explanation for his transfer to the CMU, it seems, is that he is a vocal, prominent activist with a large group of active supporters. For McGowan, his near celebrity status within the environmental movement, along with his continued activism, has become a liability. When I attended his sentencing hearing in Eugene, Ore., in 2006, the judge made a point of criticizing his media appearances and his website, SupportDaniel.org.

Secretive U.S. Prison Units Used to House Muslim, Animal Rights and Environmental Activists (Thanks, Will!)

After reading yesterday's post about the role that Henry Mayhew's London Labour and the London Poor played in the birth of steampunk, William Gibson wrote in to add,

I've never actually read Mayhew, but feel I've long had him, through brilliant osmosis, with Kellow Chesney's Victorian Underworld, which is easily one of my favorite books ever. People assume, when I tell them that, that Chesney would mainly have influenced The Difference Engine, but actually this was very consciously the basis of the criminal society of Neuromancer, et al. It was a Victorian model, as I saw what's since come to be called neoconservatism producing a neo-Victorian world. Not a bad call, either!

I literally had The Victorian Underworld on my desk constantly, throughout the writing of Neuromancer, and for years after.

Victorian Underworld (Thanks, Bill!)

(Image: The Victorian Underworld from rauter25's photostream)

Gareth used Arduino + MotorShield to create Puff - the Magical Firefighting Dragon!

Puff is able to Put out Fires - He Scans his Head to find the Flames - he orientates towards the Flame - and Blows it out.

If he fails to blow out the Fire within 2 sweeps then the "PANIC" mode switches in and he backs away to save himself from frying his "Chips".

Puff is an Arduino based tracked autonomus Robotic Vehicle with "Cliff" and "Obstacle" detection.

The bot uses 2 LDRs for flame tracking, plus infrared sensor for avoiding falls/collisions. (He also sports a nifty pair of glasses in the test videos. See more on the project page. [via adafruit industries]

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Fascinating little piece (no dollhouse puns intended) on the Ponoko blog:

Mass customization and rapid manufacturing are still considered to be in the early stages of popular usage, but there's at least one hobby that has embraced both from the beginning. Think Victorian architecture, painted lady grilles, miniature side chairs, and tiny four poster beds. For years dollhouses have been literal play grounds for laser-cut design and customization.

After the jump are five companies keeping the dollhouse tradition alive with current manufacturing technologies.

Early Adoption of Mass Customization and Laser Tech--Dollhouses [via Brian Jepson's Twitter feed]

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eldavojohn writes "Yesterday, GamePolitics ran an interesting story about the Utah Senate President threatening Jack Thompson with the CAN-SPAM Act. You might recall Utah being Jack's last hope and hold-out after being disbarred in Florida and more or less made a mockery everywhere else. Well, from Utah's Senate Site, we get the picture of what Jack is up to now: spamming his last friends on the planet. The Salt Lake Tribune is reporting on Senate President Michael Waddoups' statements: 'I asked you before to remove me from your mailing list. I supported your bill but because of the harassment will not again. If I am not removed, I will turn you over to the AG for legal action.' The Salt Lake Tribune reports that Waddoups confirmed on Tuesday that he would attempt to pursue legal action under the federal CAN-SPAM Act of 2003 against Jack Thompson."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well, there they go again. Three big "media" names, who have been trying to convince themselves that there are enough people out there clamoring for someone to give them a way to pay for news, have decided to put together a company that will do just that. Stephen Brill, L. Gordon Crovitz and Leo Hindery Jr. have teamed up to create a system to charge for news, with the idea that any newspaper can sign up and use their system. Clay Shirky calls this an RIAA for news, while Mathew Ingram points out that it may be more accurate to call it an iTunes for news.

The problem, of course, is that this is all based on the faulty theory that people want an iTunes for news. This, of course, is great for other newspapers who know better, and decide to skip out on this plan, and get all the traffic that these newspapers give up. As Jeff Jarvis points out, in looking for news about this very venture, he was blocked by the paywall at some sites, and found the best coverage at a free site.

And, of course, it's especially ironic that Stephen Brill is behind this. That's because he's tried this before and it failed. Miserably. Meanwhile, Hindery in the past has shown that he also is one of those guys who tends to overvalue content and undervalue everything else people do online (communicate, share, discuss). This whole model is based on this single faulty assumption: that it's the news itself that's important to people. It's not. The news is important, but people want to be able to share the news, spread the news and discuss the news -- and you can't do that when it's behind a paywall. The very act of putting up a paywall diminishes the value of the content.

Still, it's a great opportunity for competitors of any newspaper short-sighted enough to sign up for this program.

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Nikon has released a firmware update for its D40 and D40x DSLRs. Version 1.12 for the D40 and Version 1.01 for the D40x improve compatibility of both cameras with Nikon's new EN-EL9a batteries. With the updated firmware, the D40 should deliver approximately 510 shots in single-frame shooting mode using the EN-EL9a, according to CIPA standard tests, rather than 470 with the original EN-EL9 pack.

Nikon has released a firmware update for its D40 and D40x DSLRs. Version 1.12 for the D40 and Version 1.01 for the D40x improve compatibility of both cameras with Nikon's new EN-EL9a batteries. With the updated firmware, the D40 should deliver approximately 510 shots in single-frame shooting mode using the EN-EL9a, according to CIPA standard tests, rather than 470 with the original EN-EL9 pack.

AH sez,

The Author's Guild v Google suit recently produced a settlement agreement. The agreement has been lauded widely, but what hasn't gotten as much press is what the agreement says about orphan works -- copyrighted works whose author cannot be found, or where it is not clear if the copyright is valid.

Interestingly, the agreement describes a scheme where money is collected for the use of these works, but if it goes unclaimed for five years, is then disbursed to the book registry, as well as to all participating authors! That is to say, Google and the Author's Guild will be asserting (monopoly) control and the right to profit from works that might otherwise be in the public domain.

Lewis Hyde (author of The Gift), Harry Lewis, (former Dean Of Harvard College) and the Open Access Trust are seeking permission to file a motion to intervene in the suit (and settlement agreement) on behalf of the public domain. This is a letter written to Judge Denny Chin, the judge presiding over the Author's Guild v Google suit, requesting a conference with respect to a motion to intervene in the suit.

The moving parties seek to intervene in order to "represent the community of readers, scholars, and teachers who use orphaned works" and "defend our interest in orphaned works to defend the public domain's claim to free, fair use." The moving parties " think that this case and the constitutional issues of national moment that it presents will be better resolved if the public domain has a seat at the table."

It's a exciting development, and will ideally lead to an even better resolution of the issues surrounding the digital archiving project.

Letter to Request Intervention in Author's Guild v Google (Thanks, AH!)

clickclickdrone writes "The BBC are reporting that Amazon has said it will not allow online advertising system Phorm to scan its web pages to produce targeted ads. For most people this is a welcome step, especially after the European Commission said it was starting legal action against the UK earlier this week over its data protection laws in relation to Phorm's technology. Anyone who values their privacy should applaud this move by Amazon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

GetLoFi points out this rather mighty specimen of circuit bending - The Speak n' Spellbinder fuses
a Rock Band guitar controller with (of course) a Speak and Spell and supporting switches, pots, and pushbuttons - resulting in a plastic speech axe complete with tone triggers, pitch contol, whammy bar and more. The 'binder's creator, AJ Gannon,forged the instrument for use on his upcoming "Toy Volcano" album. Be sure to check out the build pics for more sound devices he's using on the record.

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willith writes "The SF Chronicle reports on the results of the International Space Station Node 3 naming contest (which we previously discussed). Comedian and fake-pundit Stephen Colbert conducted a bombastic write-in campaign and repeatedly urged his show's fan base (the 'Colbert Nation') to stuff the ballot box with his name, which resulted in 'Colbert' coming in first in the write-in contest with almost a quarter-million votes. Although the Node 3 component will not be named 'Colbert' — NASA has instead chosen to call it 'Tranquility' — one of the Node 3 components will bear the honor: the second ISS treadmill, which will be installed in Node 3, will be named the Combined Operational Load Bearing External Resistance Treadmill. The formal announcement was made on the air yesterday at 22:30 EDT on the Colbert Report by astronaut Sunita Williams."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I managed not to screw up the second part of Episode #005 (finishing up our conversation with Tom Igoe) and it went off without a hitch. Audio is still problematic and I'm not sure we're going to be able to do much about it. We're at the mercy of whatever phone tech our guests call in on. But we'll keep fighting the good fight.

Dale was in meetings, so Mark joined Goli and me. We talked a little about some of our host pics for the week:

• One of my picks was Theo Gray's amazing new book Mad Science: Experiments You Can Do at Home, But Probably Shouldn't. I'll have a full review of it later in the week. Xeni over at Boing Boing beat me to it. Read her review here.
• My other pick was Craftastrophe.net, a site collecting... ah... inappropriate crafts. Mildly not safe for work. Mostly bathroom humor level, and just seriously wrong. But I laughed so hard at some of this stuff, I almost pulled something.
• Goli and the crew in Sebastopol were neck-deep in getting Volume 18 off to the printer on Friday, so that was her pick. The upcoming issue in entitled ReMake America: Building a Sustainable Future. She talked about some of the projects, which include building a rainwater collection system, an inexpensive home heat exchanger, and the Garduino (an Arduino-powered plant monitor). Look for Volume 18 the middle of next month.
• Mark recently built another cigar box instrument. He was really over the moon for two websites related to cigar box instruments, Cigar Box Nation and One String Willie. I loved hearing how enthusiastic he was about this strange and wonderful-sounding maker community. He talked about how welcoming everybody is, how cool and interesting some of the projects are, and how amazing some of these crude instruments actually sound. In following up the show, he sent me links to a couple of his favorite videos:

Our guest on the show was Tom Igoe, co-author of Physical Computing, author of Making Things Talk , and one of the developers of the Arduino microcontroller. We talked about his teaching at ITP, about the development of Arduino and the new Arduino MEGA, and about his roller girls fetish (no, really).

Make: Talk Episode #006, Friday April 17, 2009
Our guest this Friday is going to be the amazing, the brilliant, the superwoman of geekery, Jeri Ellsworth, aka Circuit Girl, of the dynamic duo The Fat Man and Circuit Girl. We'll be talking to Jeri about her storied career, her current projects, and her Easy Bake chip lab, which she's bringing to Maker Faire. This episode will begin our run-up to the Faire, from now on featuring guests who'll be there.

Make: Talk on BlogTalkRadio

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The FTC's advertising-practices division is considering an update to ad guidelines that would hold bloggers liable for false or misleading statements, if they are compensated to promote or review a product. The FTC will vote on changes to its guidelines this summer, and the agency says it will review public comments beforehand. But is additional regulation really necessary?

While some ad agencies are worried about the "chilling effect" new regulations might have on nascent viral campaigns, other groups point out that transparency should be at the core of any social media campaign in the first place. And this is concept that should be recognized before any word-of-mouth ad campaign is even started: transparency and authenticity are the keys to a brand's marketing reputation. If a company thinks it can fool consumers with astroturf campaigns, it should really think twice about the potential damage such dishonesty can do. In fact, ultimately, running honest marketing efforts will be much more effective for winning over consumers. So although the threat of new regulations might force some companies to reconsider their sneaky viral ads plans, the more realistic penalty for disingenuous ads is the loss of trust from valued customers.

Assuming, though, that additional gov't regulations are actually instituted -- holding bloggers liable will not necessarily solve the "problem" of paid blog reviews. Presumably, the objection to paid reviews is that such content misleads consumers and that companies behind the fabricated opinions are free to create as much false info as they want. However, if the liability for this unsavory behavior is laid at the feet of bloggers, then the blame is shifted from the company (that is more justly at fault) to a possible multitude of bloggers. An evil corporation bent on promoting misinformation would love to spread the liability around, since the legal burden would be on individual bloggers. The unintended consequence might be that even more dishonest ad campaigns are encouraged since the liability does not lie with the corporations backing them.

So before the FTC begins regulating blog posts, some thought to the ramifications will hopefully be brought up. The goal of protecting consumers may be a noble one, but the side effects of bad regulations could potentially make things worse.

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Hugh Pickens writes "Every human body harbors about 100 trillion bacterial cells, outnumbering human cells 10 to one. There's been a growing consensus among scientists that bacteria are not simply random squatters, but organized communities that evolve with us and are passed down from generation to generation. 'Human beings are not really individuals; they're communities of organisms,' says microbiologist Margaret McFall-Ngai. 'This could be the basis of a whole new way of looking at disease.' Recently, for example, evidence has surfaced that obesity may well include a microbial component. Jeffrey Gordon's lab at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published findings that lean and obese twins — whether identical or fraternal — harbor strikingly different bacterial communities that are not just helping to process food directly; they actually influence whether that energy is ultimately stored as fat in the body. Last year, the National Institutes of Health launched the Human Microbiome Project to characterize the role of microbes in the human body, a formal recognition of bacteria's far-reaching influence, including their contributions to human health and certain illnesses. William Karasov, a physiologist and ecologist at University of Wisconsin-Madison, believes that the consequences of this new approach will be profound. 'We've all been trained to think of ourselves as human,' says Karasov, adding that bacteria have usually been considered only as the source of infections, or as something benign living in the body. Now, Karasov says, it appears 'we are so interconnected with our microbes that anything studied before could have a microbial component that we hadn't thought about.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Matt created this delicate window sill sculpture from a solar garden light, twigs, and hot glue -

My little solar sculpture lives on the sill and winks to life for just and hour or so, right after the sun sets following a sunny day. Then it slowly fades, flickers, and goes dark. It's like my own private echo of the sunset, in case I missed the real thing.

Looks like a nice n' gentle way to welcome each evening. It's always great when projects like these find a home in our daily routine. Check out more of Matt's pics on Flickr.

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The BBC has finally produced and aired a TV show that can be released under Creative Commons, along with the "asset bundle" of associated media that went into the final cut. The show is a pilot for a broader strategy of giving Britons the freedom to re-use the material they pay for through the "license fee," which all television owners are obliged to pay, and which funds the vast majority of the BBC's operations.

The BBC announced the move on Thursday through its Backstage Blog. For now, the experiment is extremely limited. A single program, called R&D TV, will be released for download to anyone, regardless of whether they're located in the UK or not. So far, only one episode is done, and a second is in the works; more may be made if these prove to be reasonably popular.

Episode one can be downloaded from a BBC FTP server, where Flash, Quicktime, and Ogg versions are available, either as a five minute series of excerpts or in its full, half hour glory. The blog post suggests that Windows Media versions should be made available as well but, so far, these have not materialized. The files will also be made available through YouTube and Blip.TV.

But it's not so much the ready availability of this material that makes it a bold step forward, but the license under which it's released: the Creative Commons non-commercial attribution license, v2. As the accompanying Read Me file (complete with the old-school ASCII BBC logo) says, "you can watch, rip, redistribute and remix all the contents of this package." As long as you don't try making money from the videos, you're set.

BBC airs, releases program under Creative Commons license

R&DTV: a collaborative project between BBC Backstage & RAD (Thanks, Marilyn!)

What to do with all of those street corner news boxes and video drop boxes that are suddenly in great supply? Seems like the piece we published in MAKE, Volume 10 struck a nerve and inspired several sites to round up other potential uses. Like:

A cool casemod.

An aquarium:

You'll have the most unique fish tank on the block if you encase your little floaters in a repurposed newsstand. The window makes for great viewing and the coin slot makes for a convenient feeder/air hole.

Put a computer inside and a flat screen monitor and you've got yourself a digital newssstand.

6 Creative uses for old newspaper boxes

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The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) -- which is basically just a front for the RIAA -- has been pushing hard for increasingly strict copyright laws in Canada, for no good reason (or, rather, entirely made up reasons). To date, the group has had trouble getting the laws passed, as the public has been quick to speak up in defense of user rights -- something that few politicians seem interested in protecting. However, Michael Geist points out that the CRIA isn't stopping, and has put out a copyright reform FAQ. However, what's amazing is that almost every "answer" in the FAQ appears to be wrong. In talking about what copyright is, it only talks about the rights of the content creator, and not the user, nor the fact that copyright law has always been designed to "balance" both sets of rights. It also claims (incorrectly again) that "piracy" (loaded word) is no different than shoplifting, despite the fact that any ounce of logic would tell you the two are quite different -- even if both may break the law.

But, perhaps the most stunning claim is the one where the CRIA actually claims that it's "piracy" that has caused record stores to shut down, rather than the shift to buying (legally) things online:

Q: Does copyright piracy put your job at risk? A: Yes. Canadians who work in the copyright-related industries have seen numerous job losses - from the artists who create music to truck drivers who deliver CDs and DVDs to retailers. Since the advent of widespread P2P file sharing 10 years ago, retail sales of music have declined by more than half; this has forced ongoing job reductions and slashed funds available for Canadian artist development.

Does the CRIA actually think anyone believes that P2P file sharing is the reason for this? I don't do any file sharing at all, but haven't set foot in a physical "record store" in years -- because I buy all my CDs online (and, yes, I still buy CDs). To claim that the end of physical retailing can be blamed on file sharing is simply ridiculous.

You can read through the link above to see the other "questions and answers" including, Geist's refuting nearly every single one. What's sad, though, is that some in the press, and many politicians, will start using these as talking points as if they're factual.

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Zeni sent me this really interesting, and amusing, hack of the Gakken EX-150 from the Maker Shed. Just remember to, drink, mod, and create music, responsibly!

I've made a modification to the Gakken Analog Synthesizer SX-150. The interface for making sound with the original SX-150 is with a small stylus. I've added another interface (there is a selector for switching between the two interfaces) so that it is possible to control the SX-150 through alcohol. There is a sensor that is attached to the SX-150 that is sensitive to alcohol. You can either put the sensor near a source of alcohol or if you just drank alcohol, you can just breath on it. The sound is altered depending on the alcohol level.

Mores about the Alcohol controlled Gakken EX-15

In the Maker Shed:


Gakken SX-150 Analog Synthesizer Kit

More about Collin's review of the Gakken analog synth kit

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Urchin writes "Laser beams just gained a new property — they can curve through space. That's what happens when ultrashort laser pulses pass through a phase pattern mask and a lens, which together shift the most intense region of the beam from the center to the right-hand side. The asymmetry in the pulse causes it to drift progressively further to the right along an arc as it travels. The laser beam is so intense that it ionizes the air it passes through to create a curved plasma channel. Those kinds of channels can be up to 100 meters long — direct them at thunderclouds and they could first trigger lightning to spark and then act as a convenient but short-lived lightning rod to guide it safely to the ground, according to some researchers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Stepping Into Science kit from the Maker Shed is a great way to start a lifetime of scientific investigation and understanding with 25 fun experiments in five key areas: nature, physics, chemistry, air, and water. With a 48-page guidebook, Stepping into Science teaches science fundamentals with step-by-step, hands-on experiments, while also introducing children to the scientific method itself. Ages 5 and up. By Thames & Kosmos.

Learn more about Stepping Into Science

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Apple has released an updated version of its Aperture image processing software. Version 2.1.3 fixes minor issues related to the image library and improves the overall functioning of the software. The update also rectifies an error in thumbnail display of Nikon camera files when the camera is connected directly to the computer.

Apple has released an updated version of its Aperture image processing software. Version 2.1.3 fixes minor issues related to the image library and improves the overall functioning of the software. The update also rectifies an error in thumbnail display of Nikon camera files when the camera is connected directly to the computer.

A story from the WSJ last week alleging that the US electricity grid and other infrastructure system had been infiltrated with malware from foreign "cyberspies" gathered a lot of buzz, though it was difficult to determine the veracity of the report. This was followed by four fiber-optic lines being cut in Northern California, disrupting internet traffic, landlines and cell phones. The two stories, in quick succession, are leading some to wonder just how vulnerable American communications networks are, either to physical or cyber attacks. As CNet notes, the fiber cuts in Northern California seem to be the result of a knowledgeable malicious actor, since the attacks managed to knock out the redundancy that's generally built into fiber networks. There's some speculation that the cuts are related to ongoing labor talks between AT&T and the union representing some 125,000 of its workers, though there's no proof of this yet. While the likelihood of physical attacks such as fiber cuts creating widespread disruption to communications networks seems a little low, given the sheer number of cuts and the coordination that would be required, last week's events stand as a reminder of the importance of building redundancy into networks, as well as the need for network providers and local officials to be prepared to respond to total network outages. Meanwhile, concern over cyber attacks remains high, even if the actual threat remains harder to quantify. Of course, the federal government has made cybersecurity a priority, but its progress thus far doesn't look too promising.

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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Bill Farrand, the longstanding "wolfman" of Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln, NH, is retiring after fifteen years. Now the company needs to find a new geek to scream from the woods at passing steam trains for 48 hours a week:

The new Wolfie, as he is affectionately known, must be over 18, be willing to grow a beard and eschew soap, and work up to 48 hours a week for $12 an hour.

The Wolfman, for the uninitiated, is one of Clark's Trading Posts most unique attractions, aside from, of course, the trained bear shows, which celebrate their 60th anniversary this summer.

During the daily steam train rides aboard the White Mountain Central Railroad, it's the Wolfman's job to scare the beejeebees out of the passengers, whom he believes are trying to jump his precious Unobtainium claim. He bursts out of the woods driving an ancient automobile, sets off firecrackers and yells at passengers to go home.

On the return journey, passengers have learned that to send the Wolfman back into the woods, they have to shout back "Scram you old goat!"

Wanted: A new Wolfman at Clark's (via Making Light)

Today on Offworld, we played Scarygirl, the just-released new platformer game based on illustrator and designer toy maker Nathan J's exquisitely designed world and characters, which, pleasantly enough, turned out to be one of the richest web-game experiences in recent memory. We also learned that Through the Looking Glass -- the first and only game ever first-party Apple developed and published for the Mac -- had been brought to the iPhone as AliceX by its original developer, Steve Capps (who would go on to help develop the first version of the Finder). Elsewhere we saw Sony taking on a new strategy of selling digital-download-only PSP games at retail by providing little more than a box and a download code, read how game developers and porn stars are alike, saw the 13 oddest developments in the history of the Game Boy, and found out that the new PC release of Xbox Live Arcade favorite Braid comes with a full level editor. We also learned more about the "feverish bad crazy" at the heart of EVE Online, took a longer look at iPhone space combat game Galaxy on Fire, listened to our favorite loopy lonely computer song, wondered if a game based on the attack in Fallujah was "too soon," started reading a new blog dedicated to the art of the pixel, and, wonderfully, found an 8-bit heart meter T-shirt that only refills when it's close to its mate.

For April Fool's Day this year, ImprovEverywhere pretended they'd done a flashmob at a funeral, posting a staged video of the prank to YouTube. The Tribune's CW11 news-team presented the prank as fact that night on their evening newscast, so ImprovEverywhere put a little clip on YouTube of the CW11 broadcast of their gag -- CW11 simply aired their own video with the words "YouTube" superimposed on it.

So, naturally, CW11 sent a copyright notice to YouTube saying that the video infringed their copyright.

CW 11 News Falls for Fake Improv Everywhere April Fool's Mission - video powered by Metacafe

Tonight I got a copyright notice from YouTube informing me that Tribune (the parent company of the CW 11) had filed a copyright claim against the video and that it had been removed. Clearly they want this embarrassment off of the Internets. What's more interesting is the fact that their original broadcast used our content without permission. They simply put "YOUTUBE" on the screen to indicate that's where they found the video. So it's OK for them to air content that we shot and own, but it's not OK for me to upload their footage of the content they took from me? It's "fair use" for the news to take a video off of YouTube and broadcast it, but it's not "fair use" for a citizen to expose their poor reporting on his own content? CW 11 Files Copyright Claim (Thanks, Jim!)

David Warsh's latest economics column delves into the renewed interest being given to economist John Geanakoplos' paper explaining how the real issue that brought down the economy was a misunderstanding of "the leverage cycle." Basically, the argument is that everyone (mainly, the Fed) gets so focused on the interest rates, that they stop focusing on the leverage/collateral involved. It's sort of the central banker equivalent of when the mortgage broker tries to get you to ignore all the real terms in your mortgage and just gets you to focus on how much you'll be paying each month. The argument, then, is that the government could have done much more to prevent the crisis if it had simply paid more attention to the leverage situation, which had obviously grown totally out-of-hand. Basically, the argument says that in a competitive market for credit, leverage will always rise, as some parties take bigger and bigger risks, forcing others to do the same. But then everyone's way overleveraged, and when the music stops, basically everyone's left without a seat. It's an interesting theory -- one that sounds good, though on a first read I'm not entirely convinced. While the issue of how much leverage was out there is obviously a part of the problem, I'm not entirely sure that the government would realistically be able to totally control the issue. While it could put in place certain regulations, it seems like there would always be loopholes that allowed leverage to occur elsewhere. Either way, I'm going to do some more reading on the subject, but wanted to pass it along here to see what others thought of it in the meantime.

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On Tuesday Blizzard rolled out the first major content patch for World of Warcraft since the launch of Wrath of the Lich King last November. The 3.1 patch includes the long-awaited dual-specialization feature, which allows players to quickly and easily switch from one set of talent choices to another. Action bars and glyph choices change as well. The patch also includes a new end-game raid dungeon, Ulduar, which expands upon the variable difficulty modes Blizzard has recently experimented with. The instance contains 14 bosses, 10 of which have an optional "hard mode" that players can attempt for better rewards. In addition, the patch contains a host of class balance changes, bug fixes, and UI improvements. You can see the full patch notes at Blizzard's website, and a brief trailer is also available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brazilian designers Diego Silvério and Helder Filipov created this stacking Tetris furniture -- the tricky part is getting your spouse to slowly lower it, piece by piece, from the ceiling.

Tetris Furniture (via Neatorama)

Michael Geist sez, "The World Intellectual Property Organization may be best known for the Internet treaties that led to the DMCA, but in recent years groups like EFF, KEI, and Public Knowledge has helped to open things up and move toward a Development Agenda that better balances international intellectual property policy. That progress may be threatened by the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which officials now acknowledge is designed to exclude WIPO, developing countries, and NGOs."

Moreover, the criminal provisions go well beyond clear cases of commercial infringement by including criminal sanctions such as potential imprisonment for "significant wilful copyright and trademark infringement even where there is no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain."

Jail time for non-commercial infringement will generate considerable opposition, but it is the internet provisions that are likely to prove to be the most controversial. At the December meeting in Paris, the US submitted a "non-paper" that discussed internet copyright provisions, liability for internet service providers, and legal protection for digital locks.

While the substance of the treaty will remain fodder for much debate, Canadian officials recently hosted a public consultation during which they acknowledged the true motivation behind the ACTA. Senior officials stated that there were really two reasons for the treaty. The first, unsurprisingly, was concerns over counterfeiting. The second was the perceived stalemate at WIPO, where the growing emphasis on the Development Agenda and the heightened participation of developing countries and non-governmental organisations have stymied attempts by countries such as the United States to bull their way toward new treaties with little resistance.

Given the challenge of obtaining multilateral consensus at WIPO, the ACTA negotiating partners have instead opted for a plurilateral approach that circumvents possible opposition from developing countries such as Brazil, Argentina, India, Russia, or China. There have been hints of this in the past - an EU FAQ [frequently asked questions] document noted that "the membership and priorities of those organisations [G8, WTO, WIPO] simply are not the most conducive" to an ACTA-like initiative - yet the willingness to now state publicly what has been only speculated privately sends a shot across the bow for WIPO and the countries that support its commitment to multilateral policymaking.

The ACTA Threat To The Future Of WIPO

Kirsten Halterman writes in:

"My First Robot" is a book for young children (ages 1-3), intended as an introduction to sensory input and output. I created this book to excite children about small electronics and robots.

Using an Arduino, buttons, and an IR sensor, I programmed the robot (named Isbot) to sing a song for its user. When the user gives Isbot a high-five or a low-five (pushes one of the red buttons), Isbot detects their depth (Isbot's eyes are the IR sensor) and will either sing a song slowly (if they are close) or very quickly (if they are far away). This book gives parents a platform to discuss depth, sound, and touch.

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A bunch of folks have submitted various versions of a story in Boston, involving Boston College police being granted a warrant which they used to confiscate the computers of a student as part of an investigation over an email sent to a mailing list. The troubling part is that the warrant was given without any real reason. In fact, part of the warrant application focused on the scary fact that the student in question used a command line on his computer:

Mr. Calixte uses two different operating systems to hide his illegal activities. One is the regular B.C. operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.

There are other accusations in the filing, but reading through it, it seems clear that this is a pure fishing expedition by the police, rather than any real probable cause. Luckily, the EFF is now representing the student, pointing out how this appears to be a pretty significant violation of the student's rights.

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Alyssey writes "The Mexican Government wants to have a database to track every cellphone number in the country (in Spanish, Google translation) and whom it belongs to. They want to tie in the CURP (Unique Registration Population Code in Spanish, like the Social Security Number in the US) with cellphone numbers. If Mexicans don't send in their number and CURP via SMS before April 10, 2010, their cellphone number will be blocked. The new law was published back in February and going into effect now."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We were quite surprised when the UK gave a basic approval of Phorm's clickstream tracking/behavioral advertising effort -- despite widespread consumer outrage that their internet surfing was being tracked and sold for advertising purposes. And given that simple approval, Phorm has been looking to aggressively expand. However, it appears that other officials may have a different idea. The European Commission has "started legal action" against the UK for allowing Phorm to proceed, saying that it seemed likely to violate European privacy rules. Who knows if this will actually go anywhere, but it seems pretty clear that the rather widespread mistrust of Phorm is making sure that it's not able to do much at all without additional scrutiny.

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A few folks have sent in the news that since the implementation of a new antipiracy law in Sweden, legal music downloads are way up... and we already noted that it appears (loosely) that unauthorized file sharing has dropped. This, of course, has supporters of stricter laws insisting that this is "working." However, that seems unlikely. As we've seen, there's been massive demand for encryption technologies. It's no surprise that music sales would increase immediately following the shift, as many users wouldn't have any other source for music in the short term. But, given a chance to route around the new law, it seems likely that many people will do so. At the same time, now would be an excellent time for smart musicians and labels to play up the fact that their music is available to be freely shared, because you can imagine such a move would get a lot more attention than at other times.

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blackbearnh writes "Yahoo! has been working for a while to promote a unified system for referring to places, through their Where On Earth IDs. Using a WOEID, you can query Yahoo's publicly available APIs to find out things like what cities are in a county, or what counties border each other. In an interview for O'Reilly Radar, Tyler Bell, the product lead for the Yahoo Geo Technology Group, talks about their Open Location program (not to be confused with openlocation.org, a different group altogether.) He also talks about how privacy concerns interact with the increasing use of personal geotracking, and the troublesome problem of what to call places. 'I'm not even going to tell you about the problems we had when we accidentally called Constantinople Byzantium, just slipping back about 800 years there accidentally. That's a very sensitive issue. Any company dealing with geography is going to have to address it somehow. So I'll be very candid in how Yahoo addresses this. I mean first, our stated goal is to capture the world's geography as it is used by the world's people. We don't see ourselves as the definitive authority on how a place should be called.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've definitely seen cases where activist groups, upset with what people were saying about them, used the DMCA abusively to remove content that they had no real say over. However, this latest story is a bit strange. Before we get to it, though, I'm going to ask, politely, that the comments stick to the copyright issues at hand, rather than the political issues... Apparently, a group called The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) put together a video of "ordinary people" worrying about the impact of gay marriage being allowed. It turns out that everyone in the video is an actor, and the fact that they're "fake" received plenty of attention earlier this week, including being shown on the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC, which included clips of the audition tapes of the actors. The clip of the MSNBC segment was then put on YouTube. And here's where the copyright questions come in... the video was of the MSNBC segment, but NOM put in a DMCA takedown request, which YouTube obeyed.

That raises all sorts of questions... MSNBC reporting on the videos is almost certainly fair use of NOM's videos. But, it was someone else who uploaded the MSNBC clip to YouTube. MSNBC is still running the clip on its own site -- but, if anyone had any sort of DMCA claim on the video, one would think it would be MSNBC... not NOM. So, then, is NOM abusing the DMCA takedown process, in demanding an entire video (most of which is not its content) be taken down? Seems like you (or, say, the EFF) could make a pretty strong case for that...

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BB pal Alex Ringis says, "A sign of the financial times: Live action roleplaying geeks in full costume with fake weapons and in a reality vortex. Repo-bounty hunters, there to repossess the 'Wizard's' Toyota Prius. BIZARRE video ensues."

It's an episode of the TruTV show Operation Repo, titled "Unhand Thine Prius."

Caveat view-or: as one commenter noted, it's very likely that this "reality" show is presenting a staged or highly modified version of "reality." So, take it as seriously as one might take a friendly fellow in a wizard costume, casting spells in the park.