The old standby for unfinished homework, "the dog ate my homework" has long since gone out of style. It certainly has become popular to claim that one's computer was the problem, with people saying that files got lost or corrupted or the computer died. However, Mathew Ingram points us to a new service that tries to help bad students get away with this, by selling students corrupted files that they can turn in. Yes. They will sell you a corrupted Word document, Excel spreadsheet or PowerPoint presentation for just $3.95 (a bargain!). The service claims that this can be useful as a diversionary tactic to "buy time" since it may be days before the teacher/professor tries to open the bogus file -- at which point you may have completed the actual assignment. Or, you know, you can just do the work on time.

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Mike Masnick over at Techdirt has an incredibly in-depth look at two presentations in particular from the recent CISAC world copyright summit. Rep. Robert Wexler and Senator Orrin Hatch both gave deeply troubling presentations calling opponents of stronger copyright "liars" and suggesting that copyright is the only way to make money on creative works, respectively. "Does anyone else find it ironic that it's the so-called 'creative class' which copyright supporters insist are enabled by copyright supposedly have not been able to tell this 'great story?' Perhaps the problem is that there is no great story to tell. Perhaps the problem is that more and more people are recognizing that the 'great story' is one that suppresses the rights of everyday users, stifles innovation, holds back progress and stamps on our rights of free speech and communication? Has it occurred to Wexler that for the past decade, the industry has been telling this story over and over and over again — and every time they do, more and more people realize that it doesn't add up? "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instructables user AndyGadget made this light and sound toy in an Altoids tin to mimic the activity of the mothership from Close Encounters of the Third Kind. It uses a PicAxe microcontroller.

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Here are some of my recent posts about money for credit.com.

A Look at Amish Finances: Amanda Grossman was interested in finding out how it was possible that the Amish, who don't use electricity and shun many modern conveniences, are able to own large, well maintained houses surrounded by plenty of farmland.

How to Prevent Your Waiter from Altering Your Credit Card Bill: Take a cell phone photo of your receipts and check them against your statement or use a geeky checksum method to alter-proof your receipt.

Obama's Policy Advisors Are "Devotees" of Behavioral Economics: In Greensboro, NC, teenage mothers are paid $1 a day by the city if they don't get pregnant. That's not a lot of money, but the small incentive is enough to reduce the rate of teenage pregnancy in the town.

25 Traits of the Not-So-Well-To-Do: People who are in debt share 25 similar traits. Those include buying the latest consumer technology, eating out frequently, getting a new car every few years, and maintaining poor health habits.

A Visual History of Credit Cards: Caitlin McDevitt of Slate's The Big Money site has written a fun, brief history of the credit card, starting with a photo of the very first credit card, The Diners' Club from 1951.

Interview with "Nudge" Author Richard H. Thaler: Google invited Richard H. Thaler, author of the book Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness, to come to the Google campus and talk about behavioral economics. His hour-long presentation is a fascinating trip through irrational human behavior, especially when it comes to how we make financial decisions.

Interview with Predictably Irrational's Dan Ariely -- the Power of a T-Shirt Slogan In one experiment, Ariely gave a group of volunteers t-shirts with the word "generous" printed on them and gave another group shirts that said "stingy." It turned out the the people behaved according to the word on the shirts they were given, even when the word was printed inside the shirt so that no one else could see it.

An anonymous reader sends in a story about how Wolfram Alpha is becoming the latest tool students are using to help with their schoolwork, and why some professors are worried it will interfere with the learning process. Quoting: "The goal of WolframAlpha is to bring high-level mathematics to the masses, by letting users type in problems in plain English and delivering instant results. As a result, some professors say the service poses tough questions for their classroom policies. 'I think this is going to reignite a math war,' said Maria H. Andersen, a mathematics instructor at Muskegon Community College, referring to past debates over the role of graphing calculators in math education. 'Given that there are still pockets of instructors and departments in the US where graphing calculators are still not allowed, some instructors will likely react with resistance (i.e. we still don't change anything) or possibly even with the charge that using WA is cheating.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A bunch of folks have sent in the story in The Register about Jim Griffin's appearance at the World Copyright Summit, where he apparently told the crowd that "tens of thousands" of students at universities have agreed to voluntarily pay for Choruss. But, unfortunately, nobody seems to know what it is. Plenty of folks have been asking for an actual description of what it is -- and every time we're not told anything other than that it's "an experiment" that we're not to criticize. So, I'm curious who these tens of thousands of students are, and exactly what they've signed up for. If any of them is willing to share with us the details of what they signed, that would be great.

At one time, we were told that Choruss would be mandatory, but lately, Griffin has suggested that it will be voluntary. A voluntary system is much better, so that's definitely a step in the right direction, if that's true. But there are still plenty of other problems with such a system, many of which I've outlined elsewhere. It still seems like the entire program is based on a negative benefit ("you won't get sued") rather than a positive incentive ("here's a reason to give money in exchange for something you want") and a distortionary effect on the market (i.e., inserting unnecessary bureaucracy into a market, such that artists will actually make less). But, the fact that supposedly tens of thousands of students have agreed to pay for this when no details of what "this" is have been offered seems quite odd.

Separately, I should note that in our last post about Choruss, we solicited questions to be sent to Griffin which he has promised to answer. Due to my own hectic travel schedule, I haven't had time to go through the responses yet and whittle the list down to a more reasonable level, but I'm hoping to do that shortly. Alternatively, Griffin is free to answer questions and discuss these issues in the comments, but to date he has preferred not to do so, which is his right, of course. Still, if you have any additional questions for Griffin, feel free to add them in the comments, and I'll include them in the potential list (which will be narrowed down, so as not to overwhelm Griffin).

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

Bryce & Naomi uploaded pics of this elegant homebuilt bicycle trailer, "The Edison" - perfect for those leisurely days you'd rather leave the motorcar at home -

It's made from 3/8 in birch luan on an Aluminum base frame. The wood frame was then fiberglassed to weather proof it. Copper sheet (14 Gauge) was used to protect heavy wear areas (and make it look good). The "hood" is cut into the curved top surface, hinged and lined with a leather snap cover that is stitched to the wood hood cover.

I am still working on the martini bar I am installing in the trunk. More pics when the bar is complete.

Check out a bunch of nice build photos in the Flickr photoset.

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Aguazul writes with this excerpt from the Guardian: "The music industry likes to insist that filesharing — aka illegal downloading — is killing the industry; that every one of the millions of music files downloaded each day counts as a 'lost' sale, which if only it could somehow have been prevented would put stunning amounts of money into impoverished artists' hands. ... If you even think about it, it can't be true. People — even downloaders — only have a finite amount of money. In times gone by, sure, they would have been buying vinyl albums. But if you stopped them downloading, would they troop out to the shops and buy those songs? I don't think so. I suspect they're doing something different. I think they're spending the money on something else. What else, I mused, might they be buying? The first clue of where all those downloaders are really spending their money came in searching for games statistics: year after year ELSPA had hailed 'a record year.' In fact ... games spending has risen dramatically — from £1.18bn in 1999 to £4.03bn in 2008. Meanwhile music spending has gone from £1.94bn to £1.31bn."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I built a bunch of vibrating marker-legged artbots with the kids at my son's preschool the other day, and it was great fun. We taped motors with an offset weight on their shafts to the top of some plastic cups, chose different colors of markers for the legs, and set them in motion creating beautiful artwork. I've never seen groups of five-year-olds so focused as they were during the artbot session.

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In my last post, I walked through the misleading or outright false arguments by Rep. Wexler in defense of stronger copyrights. At the same event, Senator Orrin Hatch also spoke, and it's worth responding to him as well.

You in this room are the artists, the innovators, and leaders of the world copyright industry. Not only do your artistic works continue to encourage the creation of new works that inspire and delight us, but also your industry is one of the few that consistently generates a positive balance of trade.

This assumes, incorrectly, that copyright is the sole reason for the creation of artistic works or that positive balance of trade. The evidence suggests otherwise. There are many reasons why people create. Some have nothing to do with monetary incentive -- but even those that do have found that "copyright" is not the only way to make money, and, in fact may not be the best way to make money. Yet, those who do creative things are often limited by copyright.

Conversely, copyright piracy is the very antithesis of creativity -- crippling growth and stifling innovation in its wake. Beyond the cost to the copyright industries, piracy negatively affects all aspects of our economy.

Yes, the "antithesis of creativity." Folks like Ray Charles -- who invented soul music, but did so by violating copyright law? Yes, stifling innovation. How about Kutiman, the amazing DJ who recently mashed up various YouTube clips to create something amazing and new. According to Hatch, this DJ is the antithesis of creativity? Crippling growth and stifling innovation? I'd argue exactly the opposite.

In fact, one study reports that each year, copyright piracy from motion pictures, sound recordings, business and entertainment software, and video games costs the U.S. economy $58 billion in total output, costs American workers 373,375 jobs and $16.3 billion in earnings, and costs federal, state, and local governments $2.6 billion in tax revenue.

Yet another study that has been debunked. The study, which Senator Hatch conveniently did not cite (wonder why...?) was actually written by the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), a group of companies who have benefited greatly from the intellectual monopolies, and clearly wish to extract additional monopoly rents. Their study has been widely discredited and debunked, and was recently the source of controversy after the Conference Board of Canada mistakenly relied on its results -- which The Conference Board later withdrew and apologized for after realizing what a mistake it was to rely on those numbers. In the meantime, the only reason that research was used by The Conference Board was because the IIPA was upset with the actual numbers that showed copyright infringement really wasn't that big of an issue.

The problems with those numbers have been discussed elsewhere in great detail, but the two biggest problems are that (1) they greatly inflate the number of unauthorized copies that would have been sales otherwise and (2) they simply ignore the other side of the coin in terms of who benefits from infringement. That is, the industry loves to talk about lost jobs or lost tax revenue from infringement, but they ignore that an infringing piece of software may make another company more productive, allowing it to hire more employees, produce more and pay more in taxes. I do not know if the net benefit outweighs the loss to the "copyright industry" but totally ignoring the other side of the coin makes the study worthless. To rely on such a number is folly.

Just a few weeks ago, the Congressional International Anti-Piracy Caucus, on which I serve as co-chairman, unveiled its 2009 Country Watch List identifying several countries with ineffective intellectual property protections.

For years, countries like China and Russia have been viewed as providing the least hospitable environments for the protection of intellectual property. But this year, it was particularly disappointing to see that Canada, one of America's closest trading partners, was listed on the Watch List. This is another sobering reminder of how pervasive and how close to our borders copyright piracy has become in the global IP community.

The Country Watch List is based on the same bogus information in the IIPA report -- and has also been thoroughly debunked. The IIPA has been pushing for sanctions against Canada for years, despite no real evidence of any real problem in Canada, and plenty of evidence that unauthorized copying is a very minor issue in Canada. In fact, some of the stats on Canada seem to be based on little more than hunches.

I would think, that as a respected Senator, Hatch would want to rely on non-biased, factual information -- not information from an industry who stands to unfairly benefit from intellectual monopoly, and who has a long history of putting out false or deceptive numbers. Right?

Some of you have heard me say this before, but it bears repeating: There are many who do not understand that ideas, inventions, artistic works, and other commercially-viable products created out of one's own mental processes deserve the same protection under the law as any other tangible product or piece of real estate.

Being ignorant of the purpose of property is no excuse for lying, Senator Hatch. If Senator Hatch wishes to treat ideas as tangible property, why not pass a law to do so? Copyright and patent law does no such thing. Furthermore, as the pro-copyright and pro-patent supporters often insist on this site, neither copyright nor patent law protects "ideas." Copyright protects expression. Patent protects invention. We all know that those are somewhat arbitrary and misleading attempts to hide the fact that it really does put a limit on ideas, but it's nice of Senator Hatch to admit it outright.

Furthermore, and more importantly, if Senator Hatch believes that "commercially-viable products created out of one's own mental processes deserve the same protection under the law as any other tangible product or piece of real estate," then clearly the Senator believes in the right to resell such property once you bought it, at a reasonable price. So if I buy a copy of a song by Senator Hatch, clearly, by his own words, I should have the right to resell it to others or to make a copy of it -- just as I have the right to make a copy of a physical chair that I buy, or to resell the chair that I have bought.

Or did Senator Hatch not mean what he said? Did he really mean that only some property rights should be granted? That is, should we only grant property rights that favor big industries at the expense of both consumer and social welfare?

Appallingly, many believe that if they find it on the Internet then it must be free. I have heard some estimates cite no less than 80 percent of all Internet traffic comprises copyright-infringing files on peer-to-peer networks.

Ah, a misleading demonization. Senator Hatch has "heard some estimates." Why not cite them so that they can be responded to accurately? Perhaps because Senator Hatch knows they do not hold up under scrutiny.

That is why the Pirate Bay case is so important. While the decision does not solve the problem of piracy and unauthorized file sharing, it certainly is a legal victory and one that sends a strong message that such behavior will not be tolerated.

I'm sure the Senator is quite busy, so perhaps he missed the "strong message" that was actually sent: a biased judge sided against a search engine claiming it was responsible for the actions of its users. From that, thousands of people recognized that this was a patently ridiculous scenario, and signed up as members of a political party designed to protect consumer civil rights -- allowing them to win a surprise seat in the European Parliament. Quite a strong message. It seems to be the opposite of the one Senator Hatch thinks was given.

I strongly believe that if we're going to be successful in this fast-paced digital age, a solid partnership between the copyright community and the Internet Service Providers is crucial. I am confident that such a partnership can break up the current viral spread of copyrighted works on the Net.

Many countries have begun to take action by working closely with ISPs to curb online piracy. For example, France has adopted a three strikes law, which calls for ISPs to suspend a subscriber's service if they are accused three times of pirating copyrighted material. Across the globe, from Japan to the UK, from Australia to Brazil, there have been engaging discussions within the industry on how best to proceed on this front.

In the United States, I am encouraged with the developments that have transpired between content owners and some ISPs. Obviously, we still have a ways to go, but we are seeing a promising level of participation within the industry. I believe a flexible and free-market solution is essential if we are to be successful in this endeavor. As more of these discussions turn into actions, it is vital that these principles remain front and center.

To be fair, Hatch's speech was given the day before France tossed out the three strikes law as unconstitutional -- but that should still be instructive. The EU Parliament has made clear that cutting users off from the internet connections, especially based solely on industry accusations of infringement, represents a serious breach of civil rights. That a US Senator would support such a "guilty without proof" setup is quite troubling, and raises serious questions about his understanding of our constitutional rights.

As for being "encouraged" by the developments between content owners and ISPs at home, does he meant the fact that not a single ISP has agreed to sign up for the RIAA's three strikes program? That, at least, is encouraging to me.

On a side note, there is another benefit of stopping online piracy that is often overlooked. By reducing some of the infringing content online, the networks will be more efficient, thereby making more broadband capacity available for paying customers

On a side note, there is another benefit to forcing all automobiles to travel no faster than 5 mph with a man waving a red flag in front of them that is often overlooked. By reducing some of the speeding automobile traffic on roads, the roads will be more efficient, thereby making more road capacity available for drivers.

Do you see the logical fallacy? The broadband infrastructure can handle much greater traffic. Purposely limiting it doesn't increase efficiency. It does the opposite.

I am reminded of the time when Senator Leahy and I worked together on the Berne Convention Implementation Act of 1988, which made the United States a party to the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works. Passage of this law extended copyright protections beyond our borders to the worldwide coverage by the multilateral treaty.

And we are all worse off for it. Many scholars who have noticed the damaging effects of agreeing to the Berne Convention standards are quite concerned about what that has done to copyright. It has extended it well beyond reason. It has gutted the important public domain. It has hindered the ability of creative efforts. It was a horrible mistake by almost any measure.

When we passed the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in 1998, one of my goals was to address the problems caused when copyrighted works are disseminated through the Internet and other electronic transmissions without the authority of the copyright owner.

By establishing clear rules of the road, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act served as the catalyst that has allowed electronic commerce to flourish. I believe the DMCA, while not perfect, has nonetheless played a key role in moving our nation's copyright law into the digital age.

If by doing things like allowing security researchers to face lawsuits for finding problems in DRM and e-voting software, then yes, it's moved us into the digital age. If you mean by allowing all sorts of companies to use anti-circumvention provisions not to protect copyright, but to stop competition, then yes, you are right. If you mean by allowing people to issue takedowns on content they don't like, then yes, you are right.

But most of us don't consider those to be good things.

In 1998, Congress also passed the Sony Bono Copyright Term Extension Act to ensure adequate protection for American works abroad by extending the U.S. term of copyright protection for an additional 20 years. This bill made certain that America maintained its international trading advantage by keeping pace with emerging international standards.

The Constitution says that copyright should be for a limited time -- initially 28 years. You have made a mockery of that, by now extending it to life plus 70 years. That "additional 20 years" created massive harm, locking up tons of content that lies useless that should be in the public domain. And for what? To keep Mickey Mouse from being in the public domain (while still protected by trademark law)? And those "emerging international standards" are nothing more than an industry-driven sham, designed to create a game of leapfrog. They first push one country to extend copyright, and then insist that we too need to extend ours to "keep pace with international standards." It's happening once again in Europe, with the push to extend performance rights. This is not "keeping pace with international standards," it's a handout to the entertainment industry that harms emerging artists.

Let me say a few words about the Performance Rights legislation. It is time to amend copyright law to establish performance rights in sound recordings. Some people are under the wrong impression that everyone in the music industry is making a fortune, but they are not aware that all too often it is a struggle to survive.

I believe that artists should be compensated for their work. This is an issue of fairness and equity. I agree with the position of the Department of Commerce Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights, which reported that the lack of a performance right in sound recordings is "an historical anomaly that does not have a strong policy justification ... and certainly not a legal one."

No one is claiming that everyone in the music industry is making a fortune. Why even bring up that as a strawman? And no one has said artists should not be compensated for their work. What we're saying is they should earn via a business model, not a tax on radio stations. Why do you support taxing radio stations? Weren't you just talking about the importance of not harming creative industries in this economic time?

Last year, the Senate unanimously passed bipartisan legislation to encourage the use of orphan works -- works that may be protected by copyright but whose owners cannot be identified or located. Countless artistic creations -- books, photos, paintings and music -- around the country are effectively locked away and unavailable for the general public to enjoy because the owner of the copyright for the work is unknown.

Unfortunately, it often isn't easy to identify or find these owners of copyrighted work. To make matters worse, many are discouraged or reluctant to use these works out of fear of being sued should the owner eventually step forward.

Senator Hatch, do you not realize that the very problem of orphan works is due to your proud support of things like the Berne Convention standards and the Copyright Term Extension Act? Without those, orphan works are not much of a problem at all.

This is more of the same from Senator Hatch. Playing up the supposed benefits based on biased studies and information and ignoring all the harm caused. Any chance he'll reintroduce his plan to destroy the computers of people accused of infringing? That won him lots of fans last time.

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Flickr user JerryLeeTypes has a clever collection of embroidered images. The safety bike above reminds me of some of the pictures Danny was lasering onto books a few months ago. He also has some other great products in his Embroidery set, and there are some other cool projects in the Real Men Sew and Manbroidery pool.

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Bibek Paudel writes "Nepal's Constituent Assembly is drafting a new constitution for the country. We (FOSS Nepal) are interacting with various committees of the Assembly regarding the issues to be included in the new constitution. In particular, the 'Fundamental Rights Determination Committee' is seeking our suggestions in the form of a written document so that they can discuss it in their meeting next week. We have informed them, informally, of our concerns for addressing digital liberties and ensuring them as fundamental rights in the constitution. We'd also like to see the rights to privacy, anonymity, and access to public information regardless of the technology (platforms/software). Whether or not our suggestions will be incorporated depends on public hearings and voting in the assembly later, but the document we submit will be archived for use as reference material in the future when amendments in the constitution will be discussed or new laws will be prepared. How are online rights handled in your country? How would you want to change it?" Read on for more about Bibek's situation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "Former CIA counterterrorism analyst Stephen Lee has an interesting article in the Examiner asserting that the National Security Agency is 'a secretive, hidebound culture incapable of keeping up with innovation,' with a history of disregard for privacy and civil liberties. Lee says that for most of its sixty-year history, the NSA has been geared to cracking telecom and crypto gear produced by Soviet and Chinese design bureaus, but at the end of the cold war became 'stymied by new-generation Western-engineered telephone networks and mobile technologies that were then spreading like wildfire in the developing world and former Soviet satellite countries.' When the NSA finally recognized that it needed to get better at innovation, it launched several mega-projects, tagged like 'Trailblazer' and 'Groundbreaker,' that have been spectacular failures, costing US taxpayers billions. More recently, the NY Times reported that the NSA has been breaking rules set by the Obama administration to peer even more aggressively into American citizens' phone traffic and email inboxes. Whistleblower reports portray NSA domestic eavesdropping programs as unprofessional and poorly supervised, with intercept technicians ridiculing and mishandling recordings of citizens' private 'pillow talk' conversations. Lee concludes that 'if the Federal government must play a role, then Congress and President Obama should turn to another agency without a record of creating mistrust — perhaps even a new entity. Meanwhile, NSA should focus on listening in on America's enemies, instead of being an enemy of Americans and their enterprises.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Check out the attention to detail on this custom bike by Blue Flame Alley. Via Street Anatomy.

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Earlier this week, CISAC, a copyright collection society held its "World Copyright Summit," which was effectively a gathering of groups of collections societies and copyright holders who want to strengthen copyright at every turn, so that they can collect more cash -- without ever needing to actually give people a reason to buy. IP Watch has a good summary of the event, where you see it was basically a bunch of people trying to figure out how to have governments around the world force people to hand money over to them. As per usual, the only voice of reason appears to have been Gary Shapiro, who tried to tell the assembled folks that their strategy to date has been a disaster, and they need to understand the differences between "property" and "copyright." In response -- the audience groaned. It would appear his message did not get across.

That said, I wanted to respond to two of our elected officials who both spoke at the event and who said somethings that are quite questionable. Rep. Robert Wexler gave a troubling speech in which he claimed that those who look to protect consumer rights, and question the value of stronger copyright are "lying" and need to be dealt with. Senator Orrin Hatch -- who once suggested remotely destroying the computers of anyone suspected of copyright infringement -- gave another misguided and misinformed talk. Both deserve a response. Let's start with some excerpts from Wexler's talk -- and I'll cover Hatch's in a separate post:

In the public debate, outside Washington and Brussels -- and beyond trade journals and economic reports, most people, first, would not be able to describe what intellectual property is. Second, too many do not see digital piracy -- for example -- as the serious theft that we here in this room know it to be.

These regrettable opinions from the public at large are being harnessed by a ground swell of anti-intellectual property sentiment from the so called 'Napster generation,' which has come of age in a digital file-sharing era

Notice that he immediately goes with the demonization effort, rather than understanding the actual issues. He sets it up that people don't understand intellectual property, rather than that they may have a legitimate beef with what current intellectual property laws have created. He doesn't even consider the idea that many people do have tremendous understanding of intellectual property issues and have found them to be troublesome. Instead, he brushes it off as being the "Napster generation." Finally, he shows that he, himself, does not understand intellectual property (or the law!) in calling it "theft." Rep. Wexler should (as a lawyer and a Congressional Representative) be familiar with the difference between theft and infringement. That he is not is troubling.

Two years ago, as Chair of the Caucus, I sent a letter to my colleagues in the House of Representatives focusing on some of the major problems and challenges we face on intellectual property issues around the globe.

In a tongue and cheek manner, I used the genuine formation of the "Pirate Political Party" in Sweden as an abstract way to point out how silly and extreme those on the other side of this debate had become. Evidently, I was quite wrong about the extreme part.

As nearly everyone in this room knows, this week that same "Pirate Political Party" won a seat in the EU parliament. It won 7.1 % of the total vote in Sweden, and even more shockingly, it had the HIGHEST percentage of 18-25 year-old voters. That statistic should alarm all of us in this room who care about intellectual property law.

First of all, rather than mocking The Pirate Party, perhaps Rep. Wexler should have taken the time to actually understand its arguments. It is a party that is focused on important civil rights issues -- many of which Wexler appears to support.

The fact that younger people came out to vote in such large numbers is significant because we know that getting someone to the poll the FIRST time is the hardest part.

Those young voters are now much more likely to vote in the next election -- and the election after that. Soon, those 18-25 year olds will be home owners, and business owners and employees of major companies.

So doesn't it make sense to pay attention to their concerns and actually understand them before brushing them off?

First and foremost, those of us who understand the importance of intellectual property law have failed to do the job in educating others toward our point of view. Artists, creators, governments, and industry must join together to spread this message.

The truth is that we have a great story to tell and we must tell it better.

Our collective job is to raise awareness of the potential of intellectual property to contribute to the social, cultural and economic advancement of countries and individuals throughout the world.

We must send an unequivocal message that the theft of intellectual property -- whether the corporate piracy of software, organized crime manufacturing of optical disks, or personal Internet downloading -- will not be tolerated.

Does anyone else find it ironic that it's the so-called "creative class" which copyright supporters insist are enabled by copyright supposedly have not been able to tell this "great story?" Perhaps the problem is that there is no great story to tell. Perhaps the problem is that more and more people are recognizing that the "great story" is one that suppresses the rights of every day users, stifles innovation, holds back progress and stamps on our rights of free speech and communication? Has it occurred to Wexler that for the past decade, the industry has been telling this story over and over and over again -- and every time they do, more and more people realize that it doesn't add up?

We are facing two significant problems simultaneously. First, our voices are getting increasingly lost in a sea of misinformation from the anti-intellectual property community. And second, our opponents don't necessarily have to play by the rules.

The anti-intellectual property advocates are free to make simple arguments that often resonate with an audience because they are not based in "facts" or "legal rights."

First, it's rather demeaning to refer to those who believe in actually making sure that intellectual property laws live up to the values put forth by the Constitution ("promoting the progress...") are necessarily "anti-intellectual property rights." Folks like William Patry, James Boyle and Larry Lessig, I think, would all take significant exception to the idea that the ideas they put forth are "anti-intellectual property" and/or not based in "facts" or "legal rights." Rep. Wexler, have you read any of their writings?

And if we're talking about making simple arguments that resonate with an audience because they are not based on facts or legal rights, shouldn't we start with calling copyright infringement "theft"?

Perhaps the real problem is that the arguments put forth by these scholars actually is both based in facts and legal rights, and those facts and legal rights are compelling because they're true.

I found this out on a personal level, when I was in Congress during the original file-sharing debate about Napster. I remember unveiling a strongly worded statement against Napster and a defense of our intellectual property legal regime. I thought I sounded pretty good. I knew I wouldn't be popular with high school and college students in my district. But I was shocked when my father called me and said I sounded like I was on the wrong side of the issue. I knew if I couldn't even convince my own father -- that we had a big problem.

Or, if you couldn't convince your father, perhaps it suggested that you hadn't truly understood the issue and had made an argument that was poorly reasoned. Perhaps the problem wasn't with your father's views or the views of the students in your district -- but with your argument?

Julian Sanchez from CATO has discussed this exact problem, which he calls a "one-way hash" where "for every confused or muddled claim, it would take about a dozen paragraphs of explication to make clear to someone not intimately familiar with [the subject] what's wrong with it."

So, what a blogger in Sweden writes in a few minutes would take hours or days for the copyright community to answer in an appropriate factual response. It takes much longer to argue using facts and precedent than it does to say anything you want because it sounds plausible -- just like it takes far longer to make a movie than it does to steal it.

This is an odd statement for a variety of reasons. Amusingly, of course, it's Julian Sanchez (a sometimes contributor to this very site) who did an amazing job digging deep into research to discover that it's the copyright holders who have been flat out lying about the impact of "piracy" using entirely made up numbers. He, in fact, took the "confused or muddled claims" of Wexler and the entertainment industry, and used about a dozen paragraphs of explication to make it clear to Wexler and others, what's wrong with his very argument.

So what a politician in Washington says in a few minutes took hours or days from the consumers rights community to answer in an appropriate factual response. It takes much longer to argue using facts and precedent than it does to say anything you want because it sounds plausible.

Right, Rep. Wexler?

And, yet, Wexler is simply wrong here as well. Because Sanchez's well, researched, detailed analysis of the lies the copyright industry and politicians tell the public, did get the message out. Because those of us who believe in basing our opinions on factual information have no problem taking the time to read such arguments and understanding them. It's a shame you chose not to.

Even worse, the less someone knows about the subject, the more likely they are to be swayed by these empty arguments -- and the more likely they are to be convinced that they are right. And none of this is going away.

Perhaps we travel in different circles, but I have found the exact opposite to be true. Most people, having been taught from a young age, the "wonders" of intellectual property as a driving force to our economy, have an instinctual, inherent belief that more and stronger IP laws must be a good thing. I know I certainly felt that way for a long time. It was only as I was exposed to more facts, more details and more evidence that I began to realize just how troubling it is to create such intellectual monopolies, in an effort to create artificial scarcity, to lock up ideas and expression -- all to allow profit over freedom of expression. It's the people who spend more time trying to understand these issues that are so troubled by them. It's the people who read and think through these ideas on a daily basis who are so troubled by what you are suggesting. Rather than dismissing us all as know-nothings who haven't considered these ideas, why not try talking to some of us?

For example, a recent UN-sponsored internet governance forum in India brought together various international leaders to discuss the many global issues related to the Internet. This is an important topic, which should have rightfully generated a tangential interest in related intellectual property issues. However, at almost every single panel and discussion there was a significant intellectual property component. And the opinions expressed about intellectual property rights were largely unfavorable. So what we ended up with was a UN-sponsored event educating an international government audience about how strong intellectual property protection is a hindrance to the developing world.

This message is particularly frustrating for me, as I am sure to those in this room, because I believe so strongly that vibrant intellectual property law is a KEY to economic development in these same developing countries.

Perhaps the issue is that the folks talking about the problems of IP in the developing world had actually read the research that showed how damaging IP rights are in the developing world. Perhaps the issue was that they had bothered to understand the details and the facts, and didn't just go on the "strong belief" you seem to have, that is not backed up by facts.

Rep. Wexler, in the next few weeks, we are going to be running a detailed series on the question of IP in the developing world. I would recommend taking the time to read it.

The creativity and innovation that have transformed the United States and enhanced our standard of living should stand as MODELS for nations still in transition to healthy and resilient modern economies. Everyone here knows that intellectual property is the backbone of global economic competitiveness.

Actually, you should revisit what "everyone knows" because the actual research suggests something quite different. Especially in the copyright space, it was the lack of copyright protection that helped grow many of our creative industries when we were a developing country. It was our lack of copyright protection on foreign works that helped spread those books and ideas and helped us grow. It was the fact that Hollywood hid from Thomas Edison's intellectual property claims that allowed them to grow and thrive. It was Walt Disney's copying of the copyrighted film Steamboat Bill that kicked off the Disney empire.

It was only after these industries were built and established that they suddenly called out to the gov't for greater protection against new industries and new upstarts. The Copyright Act of 1909, which was a massive change in copyright law was driven, in large part, due to the supposed "threat" of the player piano. For the past hundred years, all we have seen is the growth and strengthening of copyright laws not as the backbone of our economy and global competitiveness, but because those industries did not want to compete against upstarts and innovations from around the globe.

Almost three quarters of real business value in the US is intangible. The most recent report found that the total copyright industry contributed $1.38 trillion to the US economy or 11.12 percent of the Gross Domestic Product. In 2005, the total copyright industry employed 11.3 million workers in the US or 8.5 percent of the total workforce. The licensing of U.S. patents contributed an additional $150 billion according to KPMG, and that number is growing.

There are millions of jobs created by the U.S. copyright industries -- and these jobs are more important than ever based on our economic crisis. With American, and international, businesses in such dire straights, the value of innovation of these businesses is even more important than ever. And while our overall economy has contracted, the innovation industries continue to grow both in American and internationally.

So why is this not a home run?

Because most people realize those stats are bogus. They realize that they are lies and not based on fact, but are spoken to an appreciative audience because they "sound plausible." The truth is much different, however. The jobs and the economic output are not due to copyright. They may be protected by copyright, but you and many others make the false assumption that those jobs and that content disappears in the absence of copyright. You make the false assumption that there aren't other business models that work much better and which help grow the economy even more, without relying on copyright.

My job for example is likely one of those many millions that are included as being within "the copyright industry." Yet, I reject that claim. I have built a company and a business model that, despite being in the falsely named "copyright industry" does not rely on copyright. The numbers you cite are bogus for the very reason that it assumes that those jobs don't exist absent copyright laws. That is simply not true. Did removing the sugar monopoly mean that no one made money in sugar any more?

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative cited 50 countries, even key allies, such as Canada and India, for failure to adequately protect U.S. intellectual property rights. A study by the Business Software Alliance showed that software piracy alone amounted to $53 billion in losses in 2008. Intellectual property theft isn't just software and movies anymore either. It is everything from copies of machine tools and counterfeit car parts to knock offs of golf clubs, designer handbags, watches and jewelry.

The BSA's study has been debunked left and right for years. Its claims of "losses" are laughable to anyone who looked at the "facts" rather than at the lies that are written out quickly because they "sound plausible." For someone who insists on not being misled by such lies, you seem to repeat them quite often yourself. We've done a detailed explanation of the mistakes in the BSA's analysis. Perhaps the research and the facts that went into that were too troublesome for you to read over in those many paragraphs, when you could just accept their quick and laughable claims because they "seemed plausible" to you?

Those of us in this room know how intellectual property can bring us together as you create the very technologies that speed communications and make physical borders obsolete. Let us capture and utilize the spirit of international reconciliation that will be fostered over the next four (or eight) years as impetus for us as an international intellectual property community to come together and work collaboratively.

Which "technologies" exactly are you talking about? The MP3 player which the folks in that room sought to have outlawed? The VCR which they called "the Boston Strangler to the movie industry"? The internet, which they're now looking to hamper with new laws and limitations? The player piano? The radio? The television? These are all new technologies that the "copyright industry" freaked out about when they first came about.

However, we must recognize that punitive measures and enforcement-focused outreach alone are doomed to failure in this digital age. It is the battle of message that we must win first and foremost. We can and we will succeed in this effort, but our tactics and messages must improve.

Yes. I agree. Your tactics and message must improve. Because based on this, you are spouting lies and misleading statements without bothering to understand the facts or the evidence. That won't convince anyone.

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(Download / YouTube) In today's edition of Boing Boing Video, Mark Frauenfelder and Boing Boing Gadgets editor Lisa Katayama profile three cool things found at the recent Bay Area Maker Faire: The Yudu personal screen printer, an interactive, collaborative, musical Tesla Coil, and a candy-fabbing device from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories. Below, one of the freaky, free-form sugar creations produced (photo courtesy Windell of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)

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Where to Find Boing Boing Video: RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic, and to Wayneco Heavy Industries!).

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Sponsor shout-out: This week's Boing Boing Video episodes are brought to you in part by WEPC.com, in partnership with Intel and Asus. WePC.com is a site where users come together to "share ideas, images and inspiration about the ideal PC." Participants' designs, feature ideas and community feedback will be evaluated by ASUS and "will influence the blueprint for an actual notebook PC built by ASUS with Intel inside."

1 a bee writes "Ars Technica is running a story by Matthew Lasar about how Disney's ESPN360.com is charging ISPs for 'bulk' access to their content. According to the article, if you visit ESPN using a 'non-subscribing' ISP, you're greeted with a message explaining why access is restricted for you. This raises a number of issues: '... it's one thing to charge users an access fee, another to charge the ISP, potentially passing the cost on to all the ISPs subscribers whether they're interested in the content or not.' Ironically, the issue came to the fore in a complaint from the American Cable Association (ACA) to the FCC. A quoted ACA press release warns, 'Media giants are in the early stages of becoming Internet gatekeepers by requiring broadband providers to pay for their Web-based content and services and include them as part of basic Internet access for all subscribers. These content providers are also preventing subscribers who are interested in the content from independently accessing it on broadband networks of providers that have refused to pay.' So, is this a real threat to net neutrality (and the end-to-end principle) or just another bad business model that doesn't stand a chance?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Scarlet Knight, named for sponsoring Rutgers University's mascot, is a cruise-missile-shaped autonomous ROV that was launched off the New Jersey coastline on April 27. If all goes according to plan, the Rutgers team will recover it off the westernmost coast of Spain right around Christmas day. That happy event would mark the first successful underwater crossing of the Atlantic by an unmanned vehicle. At the mission website, you can track the robot's position using Google Earth, monitor her battery status, and follow the team's navigation blog.

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pavithran writes "Does SAP, one of the largest business companies offering software solutions, support FOSS as a movement? Why is SAP looking at closed and open source in a similar way? This shows lot of ambiguity in SAP's attitude towards open source software. I found an interesting article in Linux Journal on whether SAP is an open source friend or foe, by Glyn Moody. Here's a quote from the article: 'For an outfit that calls itself "the world's largest business software company," the German software giant SAP is relatively little-known in the open source world. With 51,500 employees, a turnover of 11.5 billion euros ($16 billion) last year, and operating profits of 2.7 billion euros ($3.8 billion), SAP is clearly one of the heavyweights in the computer world. Given that huge clout, SAP's attitude to open source is important; and yet it is hard to tell whether it is really free software's friend or its foe. ... A company that wished open source well would back these ideas. One that really supported free software would also fight against software patents. So, while SAP's involvement in Eclipse and investment in open source companies is welcome — and pretty self-interested, it has to be said, given that it presumably hopes to make a profit on them — it's not really enough cancel out its unhelpful attitude and statements elsewhere. If it wants to be a serious, respected player in the world of open source, as befits its size, it must do better.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eldavojohn writes "Winning the lottery requires incredible luck and one in a million odds. So does getting hit by a falling space rock. A 14 year old German boy was granted a three inch scar by the gods. A pea sized meteorite smote young Gerrit Blank's hand before leaving a foot sized crater on the road. The boy's account: 'At first I just saw a large ball of light, and then I suddenly felt a pain in my hand. Then a split second after that there was an enormous bang like a crash of thunder. The noise that came after the flash of light was so loud that my ears were ringing for hours afterwards. When it hit me it knocked me flying and then was still going fast enough to bury itself into the road." Curiously, the rock was magnetic and tests were done to verify it is extraterrestrial. The Telegraph notes the only other recorded event of a meteorite striking a person was 'in November 1954 when a grapefruit-sized fragment crashed through the roof of a house, bounced off furniture and landed on a sleeping woman.' Space.com lists a few more anomalies and we discussed the probability of these things downing aircraft recently."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm enjoying Casey and Sommer's blog of their trip to Japan, which includes photos and videos of claw machines, self driving cars, and a trip to the Railway Museum and Tokyo National Museum.

Japanification

There's a disturbing trend in various discussions we have here (especially on patent discussions) where people seem to insist that big companies automatically win in competitive environments. Yet, especially in the tech space, we've seen that it's often quite difficult for big companies to do that. Smaller companies are often more innovative and effective at taking on big companies. The idea that some big company can just copy someone else's product and automatically take over the market is clearly wrong. Does it happen sometimes? Sure. But as has been noted by many folks, if your product is truly innovative, you'll often have to beg people for attention, rather than worrying about anyone copying it.

A great example of this is the failure of Microsoft Money. The company has now announced that it's going to discontinue the product despite years of effort and millions of dollars spent to try to defeat Intuit's Quicken product. In fact, the saga of the battle between Intuit and Microsoft highlights (yet again) that it wasn't so much the invention part that allowed Intuit to win the battle, but the innovative way in which Intuit kept and grew marketshare. In an interview with News.com, the guy who ran Microsoft Money for a few years, noted that Intuit beat Money because they did a better job with the marketing.

Meanwhile, of course, it's worth noting that Intuit itself is now facing upstart challenges from web-focused startups like Mint and Wesabe, and some believe the company is discovering in its own way how smaller, more nimble startups can succeed against larger entrenched interests. Innovation is an interesting beast. The idea that big companies can always defeat smaller ones has been disproved many times -- but here's yet another example.

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Step 2: Making an Ax from Jamie O'Shea on Vimeo.

Jamie O'Shea's Immaculate Telegraphy project:

Could humans at any point in history, given the right information, construct an electronic communication network? To test this hypothesis, Substitute Materials will attempt to build a functional electric battery and telegraph switch from materials found in the wilderness, using no modern tools except information from the internet. The telegraph will be a first step towards an ahistorical internet.

Full-scale construction of the artifacts is currently underway in Mineral county, Montana.

Currently, Jamie is working on making an ax to cut wood to make tools to make a smelting furnace. Above, a basket that Jamie made to hold things he collects.

I wish him luck!

Immaculate Telegraphy

narramissic writes "On Tuesday, the same day Google held a press event to launch its Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook, the company quietly announced in its research team blog a new online database called Fusion Tables. Under the hood of Fusion Tables is data-spaces technology, which would 'allow Google to add to the conventional two-dimensional database tables a third coordinate with elements like product reviews, blog posts, Twitter messages and the like, as well as a fourth dimension of real-time updates,' according to Stephen E. Arnold, a technology and financial analyst. 'So now we have an n-cube, a four-dimensional space, and in that space we can now do new kinds of queries which create new kinds of products and new market opportunities,' said Arnold, whose research about this topic includes a study done for IDC last August. 'If you're IBM, Microsoft and Oracle, your worst nightmare is now visible.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jim Leftwich says:

"I'm thinking the next step beyond raising chickens in the backyard is to have your own Goat Tower!

"Currently there are only three Goat Towers in the world (which I think you'll agree is not nearly enough!). The original Goat Tower was built in 1981 by Charles Back at the Fairview Wine and Cheese Estate in Paarl, South Africa. The estate has 750 Saanen goats and some of these are allowed access to the tower.

"The other two Goat Towers are the "Tower of Baaa" in Findlay, Illinois and one built in 2006 in Ekeby, Norway, both of which are modeled on the original.

"Here's an interview with David Johnson, who built one in Illinois, and which is interesting because it contains a lot of great details about the Goat Tower's construction."

"Goats love it and people driving by can't believe it," says David Johnson of Findlay, Ill., about his 31-ft. tall, 7-ft. dia. "goat tower" built with the help of the late Jack Cloe, Herrick, Ill. The tower was constructed with 5,000 hand-made bricks, each one a different size and shape. The tower has 276 concrete steps, arranged to form a spiral staircase, that allows Johnson's goats to climb up and down with ease.

Johnson has 34 Saanen milk goats that use the tower. "Goats are the most curious animals in the world so they use the tower a lot. They come and go, passing each other on the ramp as needed."

...

The roof is supported by wheels that ride on a circular steel rail along the upper edge of the tower wall. "I cut a door into the roof and plan to use a garage door opener to rotate the roof and use it as an observation tower. I might even bring a telescope up there to look at stars," says Johnson.

Goat Tower

From Monte Beauchamp of BLAB!:

Midwestern BLAB!, curated by Monte Beauchamp, the Chicago-based creator of BLAB!, focuses on the art work of five Midwestern artists (Don Colley, Tom Huck, Teresa James, CJ Pyle, and Fred Stonehouse) who have contributed significantly to BLAB! and are exemplars of the periodical’s core values.

WHEN: June 18 – July 22, 2009

OPENING RECEPTION: Thursday, June 18, from 5:00-8:00

Fred Stonehouse Lecture: Wednesday, June 17 at 6:30pm, 623 S. Wabash, Room 203. No reservations needed.

WHERE: Columbia College Chicago’s Leviton A+D Gallery 619 S. Wabash Avenue Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday 11am – 5pm, Thursday 11 am – 8 pm

COST: Free and Open to the Public

BLAB! magazine's midwestern exhibition

Our friend Attaboy has an art exhibition opening this week in LA. He new work looks amazing.

Daniel Seifert, better known as Attaboy, presents his first solo show in two years at LA's POV Evolving Gallery in LA's Chinatown. Atta presents an onslaught of meticulously handcut shadow casting spray varnish stenciled plastic pieces, elaborate "exploded view" drawings, and a Gooberry Patch in the back room, where visitors can pick an unripened talking pull string Gooberry Plush and take one home to abuse. After 5 years of waiting, they've finally arrived, and they're still not ripe. Music in the Gooberry Patch will be by toy piano mash-up genius Twink.

There will also been a fantastic sculpture installation of Atta's Brine Queen as interpreted by artist J.Shea. The show has been generously sponsored by Hi-Fructose Magazine and Gelaskins. If you come out to the show early enough you will be able to snag some iphone, ipod and laptop skins of Atta’s recent work to embellish your electronic life...

Attaboy @ POVevolving Gallery ~ June 13th to July 8th, 2009

Join us for the opening reception on Saturday June 13th from 6 - 10 pm. The gallery is located at: 939 Chung King Road Los Angeles, CA 90012

Attaboy art exhibition, "A Touch of Evil"

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Bill Snyder questions whether AT&T's jockeying on tethering and MMS may signal coming iPhone pricing surcharges. After all, as Apple's exclusive US partner, Ma Bell should have plenty of insight into upcoming iPhone features and revenue opportunities. Yet AT&T was very conspicuous in its absence from the list of providers who will support tethering and MMS at Tuesday's launch of the new iPhone at WWDC, and by Wednesday, it was backpedaling furiously, saying it will offer both services — later in the year. Certainly, the exclusive arrangement between the companies is proving to be an ugly roadblock to Apple's iPhone vision. But Snyder thinks it may go deeper than that: 'My best guess is that we'll see horrendous pricing surcharges for tethering and MMS, on top of the already expensive data and voice charges iPhone users pay. I don't think AT&T execs wanted to stand up at WWDC and announce that.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael Scott alerts us to the news that a court in Germany has found that accidental file sharing is not a crime. In this case, it involved a guy using file sharing software, where he didn't realize that anything he downloaded was automatically shared. For that reason, he was found not guilty of sharing the same content. Of course, as the article notes, this isn't likely to be meaningful in other lawsuits in Germany for a variety of reasons, including the lack of precedential power of court rulings, and the fact that most copyright cases in Germany are civil, rather than criminal cases (this one was criminal, because of the nature of the content). Still, in an era when "accidental infringement" has become pretty much the norm, it's nice seeing a court realize the problems of charging someone for infringing by accident.

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In early April of this year, a fairly significant event happened for my family. Geeky as it may sound, my husband, sons, and I were ecstatic to learn that the first season of The IT Crowd was available on DVD in a format that we could use here in the United States. My husband Bruce posted the news to GeekDad, and we all gathered round ye old plasma TV to enjoy the laughs. But it was over all too quickly. Were we doomed to Land of the Lost reruns on Hulu?

Thankfully, we're now looking forward to the end of this month, when The IT Crowd, The Complete Season 2 comes out on US format DVD on June 30th. Sure, you can watch it online or on the IFC channel, but we'll be happy to have the whole series on DVD, both for the funny 1337 extras and the subtitles, which my son uses (he wears hearing aids).

Word on the internets is that the 4th season of The IT Crowd will begin in July in the UK, and a Season 3 DVD may hit the States this fall. Bring on the IT Brits!

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supermarket checker
vintage supermarkets
konbini life
grocery cart sculpture
bread ties
buying organic
foodzie
hard to find grocer
laughing banana

and the classics...
trader joe's ad
Illeanarama

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, Twitter. (Thanks Frank!)

Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton takes a look back at the recent Boston case where police seized a student's laptop but had to give it back. "The EFF was right to argue that police had no right to seize the laptop of a Boston College student who was accused of forging an e-mail from his roommate. But according to the judge's reasoning, the police probably could have gotten away with it, if they had appeared to care more about pursuing the student for downloading pirated movies instead." Click the link for Bennett's analysis.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An interesting discussion over on FriendFeed, spawned from a series of comments I made yesterday on Twitter about the cyclic relationship between the tech press, the tech industry and the users. I think this time around the loop things may change for good, the cycle may just break.

John Blossom: "Journalists stay in business by cultivating relationships with sources - that's a pretty universal fact, not just with the tech press. It's always a dance to avoid getting too close and cushy for the sake of something less than pure motivations. In today's environment, though, the multiplicity of online channels in any market segment in conjunction with purely social media buffers us against this kind of corruption. As soon as someone spoons too lovingly for something they get outed."

My response: "John, that's why blogging took off -- because the tech press was so rotten with the vendors, they'd never say anything negative about them. So when you wanted to find out if a product really worked, you'd do what we do now -- listen to other users. Amazon built an empire on that idea. Of all the Web 2.0 companies they may be the only ones who get that the press doesn't control what users know anymore, that the users are getting it for themselves."

The cycle of users taking control of the tech industry and press goes back a long, long way. My first experience was in the late 70s, as a grad student in comp sci. I'd go to the student library, a quiet reading room where they left copies of the computer industry publications. I remember leafing through them thinking that this stuff seemed overly complex and irrelevant. When my generation went out into the world, we started over. That's the cycle.

It has always seemed possible to me that a company could make the transition from one generation to the next without getting caught in the gears, but I've yet to see it happen. Maybe the closest is Apple, but they went through hell between the advent of the web which overturned a lot of their assumptions and the rebirth of Apple under Steve Jobs 2.0.

These days the press can reform itself very quickly because the printing presses are very cheap. It cost News.com millions of dollars to start up in the 90s. TechCrunch started four years ago with nothing but a Wordpress installation and an entrepreneur with a little extra time. So when the press gets too cozy with industry, the next layer of the press forms in an instant. When users want to know if the products really work they just inform each other.

BTW, much of the press now calls themselves bloggers. They can do that, no one owns the trademark. But that doesn't mean they are immune to being routed around by bloggers. It's as if you changed the name of "rain" to "sunshine." You'd still need an umbrella if you went outside in it.

Why I am I always the last to hear about these things? (thanks, Richard Metzger).

Canadian blogger and world traveler Brendan, aka "Cashewman" (who took the amazing photo above) has a great list of tips -- some aesthetic, some technical, some social -- about how to take great photographs when you're on the road in someplace like, say, rural Africa, where he's apparently spent a lot of time. One of the 13 tips he lists: ask if it's okay.

This is an important one for me. There are larger debates about photography etiquette and our responsibilities as visitors and photographers. I'll leave that for another time, but a golden rule is: if you're unsure whether to take a picture of somebody, then ask. In some areas, it's considerate to leave a small gift or amount of money as a thank you. Your call.

I missed one of the best shots I have ever come across, because I asked whether it was okay to shoot. Picture an old Senegalese grandmother, piercing green eyes within a face etched with thin white contours. Headscarf, clutched just below the chin with a flowing, boney hand. She was sitting in front of an earth wall with soft evening side lighting. When I asked if I could take a picture, she said no, with a subtle smile. I still wish I could have taken the shot. But she didn't want me to, so I'll just have to remember it instead.

13 Tips for Great Photography in a Developing Country (via @whiteafrican/ photo: Cashewman)

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

In the blog Notes from the Technology Underground, I present reasons for the relative paucity of famous engineers and scientists.

Back in the 1970's, there were not many famous scientists or engineers, and now, there are almost none. If you disagree, try and name one, right now. Go ahead, try it. Who did you come up with? Carl Sagan? No he's dead. Try again. Stehpen Jay Gould, the Harvard dinosaur guy? No, he's dead too. Hawking? Sure, Stephen Hawking is alive, but he's far more well known for overcoming his disabilities to do great scientific stuff, than for his scientific stuff itself (does anybody really understand "A Brief History of Time?). Perhaps, on odd occasion a autograph seeker stalks MIT's Old Main in hopes of obtaining Marvin Minsky's or Noam Chomsky's signature, but really, very few scientists need bodyguards to keep away the star struck rabble.

On the "Q-Scale" of modern fame where Albert Einstein stars with a 54 and George Takai rates a 1, no living scientist or engineer even makes a blip on the Sulu's radar screen. It's pitiful, but the truth is that no technology related individual, with the exception of Bill Gates, pulls a higher Q score higher than Count Chocula.

The point is there are many, many excellent engineers although the majority of them are not well known outside of their own companies. In fact, the term "famous engineer" is an oxymoron on par with "nondairy creamer", "dry martini", or "jumbo . . . . (continues here.)

By what percentage do you think Sulu is more well known than the other guy?

Rachel over at CRAFT points us to instructions for seasoning (or re-seasoning) your cast iron skillet, which is very important for Father's Day breakfast!

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snydeq writes "The European Commission will proceed with its antitrust case against Microsoft regardless of Microsoft's decision to strip IE from Windows 7 in Europe. Europe's top antitrust regulator said the EC would draw up a remedy that allows computer users 'genuine consumer choice,' noting that stripping out IE from Windows 'may potentially be positive,' but 'rather than more choice, Microsoft seems to have chosen to provide less.' Jon von Tetzchner, CEO of Opera, whose complaint to the European Commission at the end of 2007 sparked the initial antitrust investigation, said Microsoft is 'trying to set the remedy itself by stripping out IE. ... Now that Microsoft has acknowledged it has been breaking the law by bundling IE into Windows, the Commission must push ahead with an effective remedy,' he said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recently on Offworld, we watched the network TV debut of Microsoft's motion-controller Natal, took a TV trip back even further to see the original members of The State selling Game Boy Pockets, and saw both the start-stop unveiling of ngmoco's next iPhone first person shooter and the last look at the latest from Minotaur China Shop creators Flashbang: Crane Wars, due for release on Monday. Elsewhere we saw Reset Generation -- Nokia's fantastic flagship retro-referencing multiplayer strategy game for PC and their N-Gage service -- come to Mac, Linux and web portal Kongregate, took a new look at Apple's beautiful App Store data-viz Hyperwall, and saw a nice piece on the design process behind rebranding EA's Redwood Shores studios as 'Visceral Games'. And the day's 'one shot's: Platinum Games on designing guns to "look hot in a girl's hand", and Media Molecule offer a replacement for the default iPhone wallpaper (above) for a stitched-up felt LittleBigPlanet of your own.

Online ticket reseller StubHub says that sales revenues and volume were up significantly in the first quarter, as secondary ticket prices fell and lured in more buyers. The head of the company says he wishes he could have some control over the prices and keep them down so the volume (which drives StubHub's revenues) stays high, but the company really has no way to control that, since each individual seller that uses its platform will try to push the price as high as they can. In any case, Stubhub's booming business helps explain why Ticketmaster is trying to grow its own resale business, grabbing a cut from the original sale, and then the resale too. On a related note, the StubHub CEO says he's not concerned about Ticketmaster's increasing use of paperless tickets as a means to thwart scalpers: "There are ways that brokers can provide these tickets. They're not elegant. They don't provide a great experience to the fan... Where there's a will there’s a way, and there are both interested sellers and interested buyers." Inevitably, resellers will find a way around the system -- but somehow, as long as Ticketmaster finds a new revenue stream coming from it, it's hard to imagine the company will mind too much.

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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Instructables member datenkrieger built an instrument from three kind of awesome - lasers, guitars, and synthesizers.

I was very inspired by all the youtube videos of laser harps but i found them all too big to bring along for a jam session or they needed a complicated setup and a pc etc. I thought of a guitar with lasers instead of strings.
Then I found a broken toy guitar similar to a guitar hero controller at a flea market. I'm already gathering too much electro-junk but i had to make something out of this.

A 555 timer IC provides each string's voice, each triggered by photodiodes. Check out the step-by-step here. [via Synthtopia]

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mmmscience writes "Scientists are investigating the use of Wii Sports as a form of treatment for Parkinson's sufferers. After a four-week study, researchers found that rounds of tennis, bowling, and boxing improved rigidity, movement, fine motor skills, and energy levels as well as decreasing the occurrence of depression. It is thought that combining exercise with video games helps to increase levels of dopamine, a chemical that is deficient in Parkinson's. The therapy is gaining notoriety under the name Wii-hab."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Shamus wrote some impressive procedural city software in OpenGL and posted this simple summary of how the process works -

• The project is bound to Windows right now. Several people made great suggestions yesterday for wxWidgets, Qt or SDL. I don’t have time to examine those now (the interface is already done and I’m anxious to move forward) but I am making a note to make sure my next project is written on something portable.
  
• I’m using OpenGL for rendering. The API seems more quaint every year, but it still gets the job done without getting in the way.
  
• The look I’m going for is a helicopter-level view of a city, not a street-level view.
  
• The city is going to be pretty basic. 30 hours is not much time, and I’m aiming for simple-yet-effective as opposed to profound and feature-rich. While a lot can be done with a procedural city, I’m not going to take this idea very far to begin with. I just want something that’s fun to view for a couple of minutes.

Not much in the way of specifics, but much more info can be found on the Twenty Sided blog - p1, p2, & p3 [via Create Digital Motion]

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When Instructables user RocketScientist wanted a marimba to practice at home, instead of buying one (at 7000K), he build his own DIY marimba. It's an ambitious project, and he throws in a tutorial video for wrapping your own mallets while he's at it.

More marimbas:

• Flashlight beams make music on photo-electric marimba
  
• ABSOLUT MACHINES - Amazing robotic, web connected ping-pong tossing musical instrument, a large-scale electromechanical sculpture
  

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(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

I ordered naga jolokia pepper seeds from the Chile Pepper Institute at New Mexico State University. The naga jolokia, sometimes called the bhut jolokia, the ghost pepper, or the poison pepper, is the world's hottest chile pepper. My brother, the expert gardener, is growing them right now. These are pretty difficult to grow in Minnesota; they take forever to germinate and the drop flowers at the slightest provocation.

The scale used to measure chile pepper piquancy is called the Scoville scale. At the low end is a green bell pepper and at the high end is 100% capsicum pepper spray.

In 2001, an academic visiting India and sent back seeds of a pepper he found growing there to NMSU. Shades of hades, the fruit of the naga jolokia were hot! How hot? The peppers were analyzed and found to be 4 times hotter than the previously known hottest pepper, the Red Savina. Can eating a chile pepper be dangerous? Judge for yourself.

In Absinthe and Flamethrowers, I devote a chapter to "Thrill Eating" which is practicing the art of living dangerously by eating "dangerous" foods. So name your poison: fugu, ackee, pokeweed, casu marzu, Amanita mushrooms, naga jolokia, or Los Angeles danger dogs. As Nietzsche said, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

eldavojohn writes "In yet another bid to make your life a little more annoying, our DRM overlords at the AACS Licensing Authority have released a new AACS Adopter Agreement. The riveting, 188-page PDF will inform you that — in the name of Digital Rights Management — there will be new limitations set on devices that decrypt Blu-Ray discs. HDMI already has the awesome encryption of HDCP between the device and the display unit. But Blu-Ray still has the Achilles heel of analog players that allow someone to merely re-encode the analog signal back to an unencrypted digital format. So if you have an analog HDTV, hang on to those analog decoders and hope they never break; by 2013 you won't be able to buy a new one. Ars points out the inherent stupidity in this charade: 'Particularly puzzling is the fact that plugging the so-called "analog hole" won't stop direct digital ripping, enabled by software such as AnyDVD HD. And even the MPAA itself recommends using a camcorder pointed at a TV as a way to make fair use copies, creating another analog hole.' And so the cat and mouse game continues. On that subject, DVD Jon's legit company just brought out a billboard ad for his product doubleTwist next to Apple's San Fransisco store. It reads, 'The Cure for iPhone Envy. Your iTunes library on any device. In seconds.' So while he's busy taunting Apple, I'm certain there are others who might have some free time to look at Blu-Ray and the 'uncrackable' AACS."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This probably doesn't come as much of a surprise to anyone, but China's new mandated censorware that is required to be installed on all new PCs sold in the country has serious security flaws that put users' computers (and their data) at risk. Of course, censorware/spyware type software almost always does that -- and, it seems likely that the Chinese government isn't all that concerned about the privacy of citizens and their computer usage. Still, the bigger fear is that the security flaws can (and will) be used to basically hijack all those computers and turn them into a botnet. That should certainly be a bigger concern, especially given the Chinese governments' insistence that it wants to crackdown on the widespread use of Chinese servers for spamming operations anyway.

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CWmike writes "Microsoft is preparing to launch a public beta of Morro, the free anti-malware it announced last November, according to reports. Morro will use the same scanning engine as Windows Live OneCare, the software that the free software will replace and Microsoft's first consumer-grade antivirus package. OneCare is to get the boot as of June 30 (along with finance app Microsoft Money). John Pescatore, an analyst at Gartner, has questioned whether users would step up to Morro even if it was free. 'Consumers are hesitant to pay for a Microsoft security product that will remove problems in other Microsoft products,' he said. 'Think of it this way. What if you smelled a rotten egg odor in your water and the water company said, "Sure, we can remove that, but it will cost you $50." Would you buy it?' Not surprisingly, competitors have dismissed Morro's threat to their business. 'We like our chances,' Todd Gebhart, vice president in charge of McAfee's consumer line, said when it was announced OneCare was a goner. 'Consumers have already rejected OneCare,' added Rowan Trollope, senior vice president of consumer software at Symantec. 'Making that same substandard security technology free won't change that equation.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fujifim Japan has released the Finepix Z300, its first camera that offers touchscreen shooting. With this new feature, users can focus and shoot images by touching the subject on the LCD screen. This 10MP camera with its 3.0" LCD and 5x (36-180mm equiv.) optical zoom incorporates features such as Image Stabilisation, an improved macro mode and Infrared Connectivity. The camera is available in Pink, White Gold, Purple and Glossy Black, but currently only in the Japanese market.

Evan points out this vid where the experimental music group INVISIBLE demo their unique sequencer, Rhythm 1001. Using a large rotating disc interface, the device triggers an array of found-object percussion via an arrangement of small pegs. Sure looks like an interesting method for visualizing beats/loops.

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Designing and offering a new invention usually requires making a model
of what you have created. Perry Kaye explains the art of Frankenstein Prototyping
and shows us a new invention and how he built it in this Weekend Project from Maker Faire.

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freakshowsam writes "Technology Review has an article on a software engine, developed by researchers at the University of Washington, that pulls together facts by combing through more than 500 million Web pages. TextRunner extracts information from billions of lines of text by analyzing basic relationships between words. 'The significance of TextRunner is that it is scalable because it is unsupervised,' says Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, which donated the database of Web pages that TextRunner analyzes. The prototype still has a fairly simple interface and is not meant for public search so much as to demonstrate the automated extraction of information from 500 million Web pages, says Oren Etzioni, a University of Washington computer scientist leading the project." Try the query "Who has Microsoft acquired?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kikizo has an editorial piece evaluating the Xbox 360's upcoming motion-control scheme, Project Natal, and discussing why it's a bigger step forward for interactive gaming than many people think. Quoting: "[Natal] accurately perceives players in 3D space, simultaneously tracking over 48 joints on your body, enabling it to accurately redraw your skeleton in real time as you move about. On a separate 'debug screen' in the closed-doors session, we could witness for ourselves the 'mind's eye' of Natal, visually showing how it completely understands where we are, how we're moving, where we are in 3D space, how far in front of my face my hand is, whatever. It can supposedly even track individual hand and finger movement when it switches into this more finely-tuned mode. ... There is a surprising feeling of tactility and iPhone-like fluidity and precision to the way Natal works." Another interesting bit of news about Natal is that Wii-hacker Johnny Chung Lee is part of the development team. We've discussed some of his creations in the past.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's nice to see a patent lawsuit go in the right direction. A judge in LA has tossed out a patent infringement lawsuit against Nintendo concerning parental controls on DVD players. The only problem? The Wii doesn't play DVDs. Of course, Nintendo still faces a number of other patent infringement lawsuits, but at least this one was dealt with relatively quickly.

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Duke University students have developed a prototype smartphone app that reads characters drawn with accelerometer data and outputs text using OCR. Though a little impractical as a keyboard replacement, it would be great for gestural input. You could annotate photos incorporating this method or use it in conjunction with other eyes-free input methods to enhance alternative user experiences.

Air Writing: Next Big Thing in Cell Phones? [via hackaday]

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18-year-old Jessica Terry suffered from stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting and fever for eight years. She often missed school and her doctors were unable to figure out the cause of her sickness. Then one day in January someone was finally figured out what was wrong with Jessica. That person was her. While looking under a microscope at slides of her own intestinal tissue in her AP science class, Jessica noticed an area of inflamed tissue called a granuloma, which is an indication of Crohn's disease. "It's weird I had to solve my own medical problem," Terry told CNN affiliate KOMO in Seattle, Washington. "There were just no answers anywhere. ... I was always sick."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Controversial "shock jock" DJ Michael Savage (real name: Michael Weiner) last year made some news for threatening critics with copyright infringement for posting a segment of his radio show and providing commentary on it (while also suggesting his advertisers drop their sponsorship). A court eventually explained fair use to Savage, though it didn't stop his representatives from continuing to threaten others over nearly identical situations.

Now, a bunch of folks have been sending in the story from Consumerist about how Savage's lawyers are apparently sending legal nastygrams to a variety of sites that have noted Savage's connection to the popular "Rockstar Energy Drink." Apparently, the company was founded by Savage's son, and Savage's wife is a director of the company -- as she is for Savage's company, Savage Productions. Both companies share the same address as well. That allowed a few sites to point out these connections, suggesting that Savage was also involved in Rockstar, which brought out the legal nastygrams, leading to a deleted Facebook group and a "retraction" from another site. The specific claim is that despite the family connections, Michael Savage himself has nothing to do with the drink company.

Of course, it's difficult to see the reasoning here. If Savage is not connected to Rockstar, that's fine, but why send out threatening legal nastygrams? A simple note explaining that the companies are separate would seem to suffice. One possible reason to lawyer up so quickly is that Savage wants the close connections (if not a direct connection) kept entirely secret -- except, of course, that's now backfired in a big way, since the threats themselves are making a lot more news than the original claims ever did.

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This is a really inexpensive way to program your Arduino. In fact, it's a really cheap way to program any ATmega8 chip. However, there are a few drawbacks. It only works with Windows, and you can't communicate back to the host computer for serial communications. Despite some of the drawbacks, I still like this solution since many people would have all the parts needed to make one right now. Check out the link for the complete build details.

Equipment

• Soldering iron
• Hot glue gun (optional)

You'll need (parts):

• (2x) 470 ohm resistor (yellow-purple-brown)
• (1x) 220 ohm resistor (red-red-brown)
• (1x) Parallel port cable or parallel-to-serial adapter
• (2x) Three wire cables with female connectors on one end, unattached wires on the other

More about making a Parallel Port Programmer

In the Maker Shed:


More about the Arduino Mega in the Maker Shed

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eldavojohn writes "British Telecom is asking for more money for the bandwidth that iPlayer and video streaming sites eat up. The BBC's Tech Editor is claiming that 'Now Britain's biggest internet service provider is making it clear that, in a cut-throat broadband market, something is going to have to give — and net neutrality may have to be chucked overboard.' The BBC and BT are currently already in talks over how to get past this together. This might sound like a familiar battle from over a year ago."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just Posted: Our in-depth review of the Nikon D5000. Nikon has been on something of a roll with its recent DSLRs and, with the D5000, we see much of the technology from the D300 trickle down to the entry-level for the first time. In addition to that 12 megapixel CMOS sensor, the D5000 gains a tilt/swivel LCD monitor to help make the most of its 720p HD movie capabilities. Is this enough to fend off the very competent cameras it will be up against? Find out in our full review.

Over on Offworld, our Brandon has the story of plucky indiegame publisher Mobigame and their battle with UK games magazine trademark holder who registered "Edge," who argues that releasing a platformer game also called "Edge" is a violation of his trademark [Thanks to Tom Armitage for setting me straight on this]. This is a neat illustration of the problem of lumping trademark and copyright together under the banner of "intellectual property." Copyright confers the exclusive right to control copying; trademark is the right to sue people who might mislead your customers, tricking them into thinking that a product that looks like yours came from you. It's not an exclusive right at all. Trademark holders don't "own" words -- they have the right to stop people from using words in a fraudulent manner.

So here's the question: would the average punter off the streets in the UK who stumbled across a copy of Mobipocket's "Edge" think, "Oh look, that games magazine old company that used to also publish software in the 1980s has done a new game"? I'm pretty sure the answer is no. Our household's a good test case: I'm not much of a gamer, but I know about Edge. My wife, on the other hand, is a games professional who played Quake for England on the national team. Neither of us have any trouble distinguishing Mobipocket's "Edge" from "Edge," the magazine ancient software company.

Edge Magazine The trademark holder for Edge has a long and shameful history of threatening companies over its trademark, treating the word "Edge" as its property. Finally, someone is standing up for the public's right to have products and services called "Edge" in the marketplace.

Update: With apologies to Edge Magazine for confusing them with the trademark holder!

A short list of the companies that have apparently settled with Langdell and licensed the name or otherwise stepped out of his way include UK magazine Edge, Namco -- whose Soul Edge game would be released in the west as Soul Blade, 1997 Anthony Hopkins movie The Edge, Malibu comics character Edge and any Marvel comic with the word in the title... the list goes on, but out of all the heavy hitters that have conceded, Langdell has finally met his angriest and noisiest match in the one place he probably least expected it: the indie game community.

Langdell has, of course, maintained his right to the mark, and has further claimed that Mobigame has undertaken what amounts to a PR war against him, but since that late May day, the facts have been piling up against him. Chief, in my mind, is the allegation by Mobigame that after informing Langdell that they'd be happy to withdraw any claims and change the name of their game to Edgy, Langdell immediately filed a new trademark on exactly that name (and the name does appear in the trademark database, filed some days before the App Store removal).

Edge of madness: the copyfight between Mobigame and Tim Langdell

Discuss this on Offworld

LSDelirious writes "10 individuals in the UK have been arrested in connection with an online fraud gang, whereby the group created several songs, had the songs uploaded to iTunes and Amazon, then used thousands of stolen credit cards to repeatedly purchase the songs from these services. It is estimated that they charged approximately $750,000 worth of fraudulent purchases, netting the group over $300,000 in royalties payments."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nobel-prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz contrasts the American response to its economic crisis with the measures it shoved down the throats of poor countries during their crises, and discusses why rich-world double-standards ("Buy American/European" provisions in bailouts that only discriminate against poor countries) contribute to a global disillusionment in the values that the rich world nominally espouses: democracy, transparency, and so on.

Among critics of American-style capitalism in the Third World, the way that America has responded to the current economic crisis has been the last straw. During the East Asia crisis, just a decade ago, America and the I.M.F. demanded that the affected countries cut their deficits by cutting back expenditures--even if, as in Thailand, this contributed to a resurgence of the aids epidemic, or even if, as in Indonesia, this meant curtailing food subsidies for the starving. America and the I.M.F. forced countries to raise interest rates, in some cases to more than 50 percent. They lectured Indonesia about being tough on its banks--and demanded that the government not bail them out. What a terrible precedent this would set, they said, and what a terrible intervention in the Swiss-clock mechanisms of the free market.

The contrast between the handling of the East Asia crisis and the American crisis is stark and has not gone unnoticed. To pull America out of the hole, we are now witnessing massive increases in spending and massive deficits, even as interest rates have been brought down to zero. Banks are being bailed out right and left. Some of the same officials in Washington who dealt with the East Asia crisis are now managing the response to the American crisis. Why, people in the Third World ask, is the United States administering different medicine to itself?

Many in the developing world still smart from the hectoring they received for so many years: they should adopt American institutions, follow our policies, engage in deregulation, open up their markets to American banks so they could learn "good" banking practices, and (not coincidentally) sell their firms and banks to Americans, especially at fire-sale prices during crises. Yes, Washington said, it will be painful, but in the end you will be better for it. America sent its Treasury secretaries (from both parties) around the planet to spread the word. In the eyes of many throughout the developing world, the revolving door, which allows American financial leaders to move seamlessly from Wall Street to Washington and back to Wall Street, gave them even more credibility; these men seemed to combine the power of money and the power of politics. American financial leaders were correct in believing that what was good for America or the world was good for financial markets, but they were incorrect in thinking the converse, that what was good for Wall Street was good for America and the world.

Wall Street's Toxic Message (via Memex 1.1)

io9's roundup of "7 Great Sci-Fi Moments From The Muppet Show" includes some absolute gems, including Alan Arkin, Jeckell-and-Hyded into monster-form, performing a stunning rendition of "Zip-a-dee-doo-dah."

7 Great Sci-Fi Moments From The Muppet Show

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
End Times
thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Newt Gingrich Unedited Interview

The Daily Show's segment on the decline of the New York Times ("reporting the news, making stuff up, getting us into war") is fantastic - and reaches its peak when Jason Jones asks an editor to describe the appeal of "aged news," and when the editor asks him to explain, he challenges the editor to find a single thing in the paper that happened that day.

June 10, 2009: End Times

Green Dam, the mandatory censorware that will be installed on all Chinese PCs as of July 1, is remarkably insecure. J Alex Halderman from Freedom to Tinker and his colleagues Scott Wolchok and Randy Yao have released a paper, based on a mere 12 hours testing, detailing attacks that can be used to "steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet" and " install malicious code during the update process." They've released sample code demonstrating their findings.

The Chinese government has mandated that all PCs sold in the country must soon include a censorship program called Green Dam. This software monitors web sites visited and other activity on the computer and blocks adult content as well as politically sensitive material. We examined the Green Dam software and found that it contains serious security vulnerabilities due to programming errors. Once Green Dam is installed, any web site the user visits can exploit these problems to take control of the computer. This could allow malicious sites to steal private data, send spam, or enlist the computer in a botnet. In addition, we found vulnerabilities in the way Green Dam processes blacklist updates that could allow the software makers or others to install malicious code during the update process. We found these problems with less than 12 hours of testing, and we believe they may be only the tip of the iceberg. Green Dam makes frequent use of unsafe and outdated programming practices that likely introduce numerous other vulnerabilities. Correcting these problems will require extensive changes to the software and careful retesting. In the meantime, we recommend that users protect themselves by uninstalling Green Dam immediately.

Analysis of the Green Dam Censorware System

Freedom to Tinker: China's New Mandatory Censorware Creates Big Security Flaws (Thanks to everyone who suggested this!)

Michael Scott points us to a story about a lawsuit accusing Adobe of copyright infringement for its InDesign software product. The complaint was from a company called Brookhaven Typesetting Services. The judge sided with Adobe -- and it isn't difficult to see why. What is difficult is figuring out how or why Brookhaven thought it had a case. The company apparently had a page layout software product called K2 back in the early 90s. At some point, the company tried to license it to Aldus, who had a popular page layout software called PageMaker -- including sending Aldus the source code. Aldus, of course, was eventually bought by Adobe, and Adobe eventually released InDesign as a replacement for PageMaker. So what's the complaint? Well, when InDesign was in development, its code name was K2. So, yes, it was a similar page layout software, and the code name was the same as Brookhaven's product name. So you could see where Brookhaven would be initially suspicious. But the problem was that there was no fire behind the smoke. A comparison of the two products' source code showed no similarities whatsoever. The product was clearly entirely separate. Yet, once Brookhaven lost the case... it still appealed, only to have now lost again. For some reason, some people seem to think that any similarity at all is copyright infringement, but that's simply not true.

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In this brief but compelling Vanity Fair interview with Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced former governor and attorney general of New York, the reporter repeatedly presses Spitzer to explain why he was having sex with a prostitute while campaigning against prostitution. Spitzer's responses are fascinating: it sounds like he had divided his life into two pieces, the values he believed in and the things that he was compelled by.

It reminds me of the scene in Stephenson's Diamond Age in which a neo-Victorian recounts, "Virtually all political discourse in the days of my youth was devoted to the ferreting out of hypocrisy... Because they were hypocrites, the Victorians were despised in the late twentieth century. Many of the persons who held such opinions were, of course, guilty of the most nefarious conduct themselves, and yet saw no paradox in holding such views because they were not hypocrites themselves-they took no moral stances and lived by none."

"I'm not going to make excuses," he replied evenly. "Let me ask you a question: Is there a difference between politicians and anybody else? Or is it that the lives of politicians are so very public?"

"There is a difference, Mr. Spitzer. You were elected to a position of public trust."

"That's right," he conceded. "It's why I resigned without delay. Some said I could try to ride it out. But I didn't see it that way. What I did was heinous and wrong..."

"You knew the risks. Either you felt you were above the law or you had some kind of death wish."

His response was that neither was the case. "It's a story that has been repeated since our earliest days as a species. It's both obvious and not susceptible to an answer," he insisted. "Nonetheless, we are led down a certain path. It wasn't hubris or a death wish--but frailty, temptation, and common miscalculation."

Lunch in the Park with Eliot (via Kottke)

Channel 4's gallery of Victorian and Edwardian kitchenware has many outstanding glimpses into the fine bygone era (moustache protectors, anyone?), but nothing can top this original, gleaming Teasmade: "A flame was triggered by the alarm clock, which heated the kettle. Once at boiling point the steam would lift a hinged flap tilting the kettle and filling the tea pot. Simple. It's not known how much tea ended up on the sheets."

Teasmade (via Making Light)

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to becky@makezine.com or drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Michael Willits wrote in to us on Twitter, "Do you have suggestions for how engineering faculty could see Makezine.com as a valuable educational resource?" A few ideas come to mind.

Assign a re-engineer project

You could assign your students to search here on the site for an open source DIY project, then take the plans and re-work the design. This would work for all fields of engineering and you could even have them release the new, improved project plans back out there to the community online. It's not about finding problems in other people's designs, it's about building on the group of dedicated makers and their innovative projects. Check out the archives in the following categories: electronics, furniture, computers, flying, open source hardware, robotics, science, and wireless.

Give a resources-limited problem

Create a project where the materials for completion are limited. It can be a software or hardware limitation, and could vary from person to person, say, "whatever you have in your garage," or "the following electronics components only." Send them here to look for inspiration.

Get feedback

If your students are keeping a public log of investigations (in blog form or otherwise), they can submit their work here using this page or to the Makezine forums. Getting a project or problem here on the blog is a great opportunity to expose student work to a wider audience that loves to give constructive feedback. Keeping a project blog is a great way to connect with other engineering students as well as interested industry members from around the country and world.

Use projects from the blog as case studies

A big part of engineering is communicating your ideas effectively. With your students, go over sample projects featured here and analyze their method of presentation and public response. Find and identify smart presentation methods and also places to improve. We frequently feature projects for the simple reason that they are documented extensively and completely. Check out our archive of Instructables as well for this one.

Have a suggestion for Michael? Are you an engineering professor using our site as an educational tool? Please share with us in the comments!

Photo above is some amazing papercraft by Haruki Nakamura.

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Latest news -- we were about to get a Charles Hotel, run by the same people who run the Charles in Cambridge -- a truly classy hotel (a great place to wait out a snow storm). At the same time I found out about it, I found it's been cancelled. Oy! It's almost too much to bear.

Lots of new posts on InBerkeley and now you can follow us on Twitter, and never miss an update. I'm having so much fun with this project.

http://twitter.com/inberkeley

I just posted some pictures from my evening walk. Lately we've been showing newly vacant storefronts. In this walk I show two recently empty stores that have new businesses. One a new restaurant and the other new Internet cafe. Berkeley has plenty of both, but imho there's always room for more. Both are at the intersection of Cedar and Shattuck.



Also walked through the North Berkeley farmers market. Every Thursday, "all year round, rain or shine."

Everyone should start a hyperlocal site. It'll give you fresh eyes for: 1. Blogging and 2. The place you live.

Mininova, the latest BitTorrent search engine to raise the ire of the entertainment industry is currently engaged in a court battle with BREIN, an anti-piracy organization, in the Netherlands. Apparently, BREIN is making a variety of highly questionable demands of Mininova, including that it be responsible for installing filters to block certain content (at Mininova's own expense) and that it stop indexing torrents from trackers that allow public uploads. In other words: even if Mininova is considered a search engine, the industry hopes that it can set the rules of what can and cannot be searched. Hopefully the court sees through these arguments. Separately, the article appears to report that BREIN made false statements, including the idea that famed BitTorrent uploader aXXO had been given "VIP" status on the site. The only problem? Mininova offers no such thing. So which is more unethical? Creating a search engine for certain types of files, some of which may be infringing? Or lying in court?

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An anonymous reader writes "The answer is No. In space, nobody can hear you scream. However, it might go supernova in the near future, if it hasn't already. I wanna see that, even if it would permanently disfigure Orion. Ka freaking bam!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With backpacking season upon us, the Survival Skills series on the Backpacker site caught my eye. Their newest skill is how to start a fire in the backcountry with your cellphone battery, some steel wool, and tinder. Simple enough, but worth sharing. You never know when the skill may come in handy for survival … or for solving the next installation of Makeshift. Check out the vid:

Other Survival Skills videos cover surviving a bear attack (hilarious reenactment with a guy in a bear suit), treating broken bones, and putting together a homemade survival kit (that looks pretty darn good). Also check out their tutorials on how to fix your gear.

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Michael Scott points us to the fact that US Attorneys have requested data on anonymous commenters who commented on an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. From the description, it sounds like the feds are fishing for a lot more than they should be allowed to get. The subpoena requested:

"full name, date of birth, physical address, gender, ZIP code, password prompts, security questions, telephone numbers and other identifiers ... the IP address," of everyone who commented

Seem a bit excessive? It's not entirely clear what the feds are fishing for, but one indicator? Some of the comments were quite critical of (you guessed it) a federal prosecutor. As Thomas Mitchell, the editor of the Review-Journal notes:

These comment posters are not reporters; they have no shield law protection, especially since Congress has yet to pass the pending federal shield law. A grand jury can subpoena just about anyone for any reason.

But what time, effort and tax-funded expenses are being expended by the U.S. attorney's office to track down a bunch of posturing blowhards squandering their Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination?

....

What the prosecutors don't appear to understand is that we don't have most of what they are seeking. We don't require registration. A person could use a fictitious name and e-mail address, and most do. We have no addresses or phone numbers.

To add prior restraint to the chilling effect of the sweeping subpoena, we were warned: "You have no obligation of secrecy concerning this subpoena; however, any such disclosure could obstruct and impede an ongoing criminal investigation. ..."

We've been seeing a lot of similar stories lately -- with gov't officials getting upset at what's being said about them online, and pushing the (or crossing) the boundaries of the law in order to try to find out who is behind those comments.

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Instructables user MarchW saw a smart design for a collapsible table and re-made it. The top slats are connected with nylon strapping, and when the bolts are removed, the cross-supports can be removed and the whole thing folds up to about the size and shape of a yoga mat. Perfect for picnics!

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How-To: Collapsible treehouse table

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