twitter writes "The US Postal Service has moved its Cobol package tracking software to HP machines running GNU/Linux. 1,300 servers handle 40 million transactions a day and cost less than the last system, which was based on a Sun Solaris environment." The migration took a year. The USPS isn't spelling how big the savings are, except that they are "significant."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Julien Nitzberg, director of the documentary film, The Wild Whites of West Virginia, is the guest on the third episode of our friend Richard Metzger's terrific interview show, Dangerous Minds.

Shot over the course of eighteen months, the film follows the often comical, sometimes tragic antics of the hell-raising hillbilly White family of Boone County, WV. Surely the state's most notorious clan since the days of the Hatfields and the McCoys, the Whites engage in a mind-blowing array of anti-social and criminal activities with barely concealed glee. Produced by "Jackass" maestros Johnny Knoxville and Jeff Tremaine through their Dickhouse production company and MTV Films, "The Wild Whites of West Virginia" takes no prisoners and it doesn't tell you what to think about the Whites.  Local law enforcement hate them, but for the most part--barring a several day armed seige one younger White puts them through--but tend to want to stay out of their insane shenanigans. When one of the Whites gives birth and then snorts up ground painkillers in her hospital room while her infant sleeps nearby, the camera was there, okay? It's intimate! Unlike anything you are likely to see unless you live in Boone County, WV. An incredible documentary. Highly recommended.

Julien Nitzberg discusses "The Wild Whites of West Virginia"

In the early days of RSS, we had the idea that instantaneous updates would be the next step. That was 2001. It took a little longer than we thought, but now with "realtime" as the Next Big Thing, it's time to reboot all that lovely stuff.

http://rsscloud.org/

If it works, it'll be a bootstrap. That means at first the results will be a few sites pinging each other and updating in realtime. If it gains traction, it'll get support from a lot of tech and media companies. It could happen very quickly.

One thing's for sure -- we'll need implementations in every language and runtime. I'm doing mine in the OPML Editor, of course. But just think of that as a reference implementation. I think the really scalable versions will be in Python, PHP or C.

Also thinking about using Amazon's SimpleDB to store the graph. We'll see..

Earlier this year, there was a lot of attention paid to proposed changes to copyright law in New Zealand. After originally being struck from a proposal, some politicians simply put back in a "three strikes" proposal and then literally yelled at those who were upset by this. This kicked off a lot of controversy, with the government standing by the proposal for a long time -- even in the face of musicians who stood up to against this bill that was supposedly there to help them! Eventually, with so much attention, the government agreed to dump the plan temporarily. There was a report that it would actually revisit all copyright law from scratch, but that was denied quickly.

Either way, it should probably come as little to no surprise that the proposals now being put forth really aren't all that different than what was there before. After all, the industry needs to have its laws. The people... not so much. The major difference is that it won't be ISPs just kicking people off. Instead, it will use a gov't Copyright Tribunal to act as a mediator to review accusations of file sharing and deciding on what (if any) punishment should be handed out, including the potential to cut people off. This is certainly an improvement, but it's still about the industry fighting the wrong battle. Rather than providing more value and a better business model, they're so obsessed with stamping out file sharing that they're totally missing the big picture. What a shame that politicians are simply going along with them.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Phillip, Phil, pt, MISTER Torrone, the man frequently behind the camera (and other happenings) at adafruit industries, is back in orbit over Planet MAKE. He makes planetfall tomorrow and we're absolutely thrilled to have him back.

There's nobody else like PT. His understanding of the DIY world, the blogosphere, digital media, open source hardware, the emerging cottage manufacturing movement and high tech small businesses, and a bunch of other bleeding-edge niches, is unmatched. And his passion for all this is, frankly, rather dizzying. There's a joke around the office that "Phil never sleeps." Not only is that nearly true, but after trying to fill his shoes for the past four months (and he wears half a dozen pairs), I know why. I'm not sure the guy's even human! Klaatu barada nikto (just to be on the safe side).

He comes back to us after an extended MAKEcation, time away to work on many projects, and to help grow adafuit industries. We can't wait to see some of his "What I did on my summer MAKEcation" articles, detailing some of what he's been up to and what he's learned along the way. He'll be working here on the site as a Contributing Editor, writing about what's on his radar, and on his mind, and working behind the scenes, on planning, marketing, etc.

So, from all of us here at Make: Online, welcome back, Phil! How can we miss you if you don't go away? You went away. We missed you.

[And speaking of MAKEcations, you'll be able to go on your own MAKEcations soon and share some of what you've learned with us. It's an upcoming summer series we'll be launching soon. Stay tuned...]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this!

CWmike writes "Attacks exploiting the latest Microsoft vulnerability are quickly ramping up in quantity and intensity, several security companies warned today as they rang alarms about the developing threat. Symantec, Sunbelt Software, and SANS' Internet Storm Center bumped up their warnings yesterday after Microsoft announced that attackers were exploiting a bug in an ActiveX control used by IE to display Excel spreadsheets. There is no patch for the vulnerability; Microsoft didn't release one in today's Patch Tuesday. A temporary fix that sets the 'kill bits' of the ActiveX control is available, but experts believe it's likely most users won't take advantage of the protection. Symantec raised its ThreatCon ranking to the second of four steps. "We're seeing it exploited, but currently on a limited scale," said Symantec's Ben Greenbaum. Sunbelt also bumped up its ranking, to high." Firefox users can't be too complacent; Secunia is warning of a 0-day in version 3.5.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Perhaps T. Boone Pickens was onto something. Al writes "An article in Technology Review argues that plans to string new high-voltage lines across the US to bring wind power from the midsection of the country to the coasts, could be an expensive mistake. What's needed instead are improved local and regional electricity transmission, the development of an efficient and adaptable smart grid, and the demonstration of technology such as carbon capture and sequestration, which could prove a cheaper way to reduce carbon dioxide emissions than transmitting power from North Dakota to New York City."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The common wisdom you hear these days is that the concept of the "album" is dying thanks mainly to the ability to obtain single songs (whether through legal means or not). However, some are beginning to challenge that thinking. Bandcamp, a fantastic service for musicians we've discussed before notes that their sales data bucks the trend: full albums outsell single song downloads on the site. There are a few reasons why:

• Most Bandcamp artists are indie and attract fans more interested in complete works than the average Hannah Montana/Lady Gaga flavor of the moment consumer
• You can listen before you buy via Bandcamp. Not just 30 second samples, but rather the whole album.
• iTunes and others price most CD's at $10. Bandcamp artists have found that name your own price with a $5 minimum is a real sweet spot.
• iTunes and others encourage single track purchases with page layouts, buy buttons and featured tracks

This is definitely interesting. I know that I'm in the camp of folks who never buy single tracks, but always look to buy the full albums of bands I like, so that makes sense. But the really interesting point is the third bullet: if albums were priced closer to $5, people would likely be a lot more interested in buying. Again, this shouldn't be a surprise. When the old Allofmp3.com let people buy albums for sums between $2 and $5, it seemed to be quite popular -- even compared to the ability to just download albums. It certainly adds a lot of credence to the idea that one of the big problems the recording industry faced was really the super high prices of CDs.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Over at her Tokyomango blog, our Lisa Katayama (also of Boing Boing Gadgets) has a post up about "spider pizza" offered at a pizzeria in Okinawa.

Vigile writes "The SATA 6G standard offers more than simply a faster 6.0 Gb/s data throughput speed, to wit: improved NCQ support, better power management, and a new connector to support 1.8-inch drives. While modern-day, spindle-based hard drives struggle to keep up with SATA 3G speeds, modern SSDs are nearly saturating the existing standard, and a move to SATA 6G was welcome in the hardware community. It looks like that technology will be delayed, though. The only chip supporting the standard today, the Marvell 88SE9123, is having major issues. Motherboard vendors including ASUS and Gigabyte, which had planned on releasing SATA 6G technology using the chip on Intel Lynnfield platform motherboards later this summer, are having to remove the Marvell 88SE9123 and redesign their boards at the last minute due to significant speed and reliability issues."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On uC Hobby, they took apart an old desk phone, scavenged it for parts, and wrote up what they found:

The easiest way I have found with modern technology to identify parts is to type all of the markings on the part into a Google search, and refine your search from there. If you then find numerous instances of the same repeated part of the markings such as, the 4 reed switches made by KUAN HIS. A search for KUAN HSI D2A050002 C35 results in no matches, but drop the C35 and you get 2 results. If you go the first link you find that the part number is D2A050002 and the manufacturer is KUAN HSI. Drop the Manufacturer and you can obtain more manufactures of the common part, and then if you weed through the results you should be able to find a data sheet for the item in question. You may have to omit some numbers to get rid of date codes, or manufacturer's plant codes, the last digit or three. I never found a data sheet for a D2A050002, but I did find one for a D2A050000, at alldatasheet.com.

Here's some of what they got out of it:

1. 42 capacitors from 1 microfarad to 220 microfarad
2. 4 black 4 pin photo coupler anode cathode emitter collector
3. 3 black 2 pin 682j inductors
4. 2 102j 2 pin white inductors
5. 4 8 pin reed switches D2A050002
6. 4 ksp44 transistors epitaxial silicon transistors collector base 500v collector emitter 500v emitter base 6v
7. 7 varied resistors
8. 1 5.5v .47F Super capacitor useful as backup power for CMOS
9. 1 121j - 120 uH inductor
10. 5 varistors light blue flat discs brand _ _ _ varistor voltage - _ tolerance (k-10% l-15%,m -20%) - _ Type (disc or square) - _ _ element diameter
11. 4 EPCOS tantalum chip capacitors
12. 3 152j - 1.5 uH inductor
13. many screws
14. 2 transformers

Scrounging a Desk Phone

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

GigsVT writes "Editors on Wikipedia are engaged in an epic battle over a few piece of paper smeared with ink. The 10 inkblot images that form the classic Rorschach test have fallen into the public domain, and so including them on Wikipedia would seem to be a simple choice. However, some editors have cited the American Psychological Association's statement that exposure of the images to the public is an unethical act, since prior exposure to the images could render them ineffective as a psychological test. Is the censorship of material appropriate, when the public exposure to that material may render it useless?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well, this is rather disappointing. Just days after caving in and agreeing to new webcaster rates that will harm pretty much everyone, Pandora has gotten right into bed with the RIAA/SoundExchange in supporting the Performance Right Act (the RIAA Bailout Act) to extend a similar unnecessary tax on radio. Pandora's reasoning is no surprise: basically it's saying that if it has to pay such a silly tax to help promote musicians, it's unfair that radio stations get away without paying something similar. But, still, it's disappointing. Rather than looking at adding value to the overall market, Pandora has basically decided that it's "enemy's enemy is a friend" and is supporting such a law simply because it will harm radio stations. This makes me think significantly less of Pandora.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Oracle Goddess sends word that YouTube is presenting IE6 users with a banner exhorting them to upgrade to a modern browser, and TechCrunch is reporting that YouTube will be phasing out support for IE6 soon. This Twitter search reflects the jubilation breaking out all over the Net at the imminent demise of this most despised and non-standards-compliant browser. The market share for IE6 is now well down in the single digits.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.

What are you doing this summer? Artist Dan Witz is creating a New York City street art series that he calls Dark Doings.

He tells Wooster Collective:

"I don't think I've ever been as excited as I am about this work I'm doing now... I'm calling it, "Dark Doings", inspired by my recent time in Amsterdam's red light district."

Dark Doings.

Guestblogger Marina Gorbis is executive director at Institute for the Future.

The title of this post is actually the name of the program started by the California Bluegrass Association, an organization that brings together young pickers, ages 3 to 18, to play at various bluegrass festivals. Before I, or more precisely, my son and his friends, found bluegrass, I could never imagine that this traditional American music genre could be the epicenter of young musical talent. And when I mean young, I mean very young. I've seen some amazingly hot pickers who are under 10! What I love about bluegrass festivals is that there is as much great music offstage as on, in the campground where small and large groups, many including very young musicians, jam together. Bluegrass is the ideal medium for these musicians. The basic chords are easy to learn, bluegrass jams are cross-generational affairs with pros often happy to share their skills with novices, and the music is highly social and ad hoc, i.e. you can play acoustic instruments virtually anywhere without any major set up. Although the chords are easy, the possibilities for virtuosity in this genre are immense (think Chris Thile , Bela Fleck , or Bryan Sutton). I also love the fact that at most any bluegrass festivals you can see the "stars," mixing with the audience or standing in line for coffee just like anyone else. Imagine such a thing at a huge rock festival.

Above are videos of a few amazing young bluegrass musicians I've come across: Annie Staniec, Molly Tuttle, and AJ Lee with the Tuttles. There are many more out there, young and old, so feel free to link to your favorites in the comments.

Back in May, we wrote about the amazing remixed autotuned "rap remix" of the infamous Slap Chop infomercial. In the post, we noted that the ad was almost certainly infringing on basic copyright, but it was actually doing an amazing job attracting more attention to the product. It's much more entertaining than the original ad itself. And, amazingly, it looks like the folks behind Slap Chop (no slouches when it comes to recognizing viral ways to get their message out to the world) have embraced the remix. Details are minimal, but Lee points us to the news that the remix is going to start airing on TV as a real commercial for the Slap Chop: Once again, it's great to see the convergence of a few different things we talk about here, including how advertising is content and content is advertising, along with a better way to respond to "infringement," by recognizing how you can take advantage of it, rather than breaking out the lawyers and threatening to sue.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Myrrh writes "Though an official announcement has not yet been made, it would appear that the BOINC project as a whole has exceeded two petaflop/s performance. The top page features this legend: '24-hour average: 2,793.53 TeraFLOPS.' According to last month's Top500 list of supercomputers, BOINC's performance is now beating that of the fastest supercomputer, RoadRunner, by more than a factor of two (with the caveat that BOINC has not been benchmarked on Linpack)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Inspired by the sartorial geekiness of Bre Pettis and Cory Doctorow, this enterprising desktop fabber printed out his own glasses on a Makerbot.

Glasses by langfordw [via adafruit]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Makers | Digg this!

angry tapir writes "The UK was the likely source of a series of attacks last week that took down popular Web sites in the US and South Korea, according to an analysis performed by a Vietnamese computer security researcher. The results contradict assertions made by some in the US and South Korean governments that North Korea was behind the attack. Security analysts had been skeptical of the claims, which were reportedly made in off-the-record briefings and for which proof was never delivered." The Vietnamese security site's blog is linked from the article, but it is very slow even before Slashdotting. The researchers observed 166,908 zombies participating in the attacks — a number far larger than most earlier estimates.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

To understand the economics of the digital era, at some point or another you need to dig pretty deep into the issue of externalities -- a topic on which there's been a lot of recent research. However, the traditional view of externalities is that these are economic "spillovers" that either benefit (positive externalities) or harm (negative externalities) third parties. The traditional view is that too many externalities can lead to too much or too little of a good being produced, because all of the costs and benefits are not properly accounted for by those making the production decisions. Some recent research begins to question that assumption. And this becomes more and more important in a digital era, where externalities are less "spillover" and can, in some cases, be a major result of the good. For example, the ability to make a perfect copy of a song for free may be seen as an externality.

Either way, though, Clay Shirky recently brought up a point that touches on the psychology associated with externalities. He was talking about the silliness of Mannie Garcia claiming copyright on Shepard Fairey's iconic poster, and noted that people seem to view externalities quite differently, depending on how they impact them. For example, nearly the entire benefit of the photo that is being fought over was added by Fairey. That is, the only reason that the photo has any significant value these days is because of Fairey's poster. It's an externality from the poster. And yet, rather than recognizing that it has received a free benefit, both the AP and Garcia want to demand money from Fairey for causing the externality.

But, at the same time, the AP of course has no trouble profiting off the externalities of others. The fact that people make news that allows the AP to report on it, is an externality. The fact that tons of people are willing to talk to reporters and give them quotes and educate them is an externality. The fact that the AP learns about some stories from other news sources or researchers its stories via Google or any internet technology is an externality. And it has no problem benefiting from every one of those externalities, and would be quite upset at the thought that someone would come back later and try to charge them for it.

And, yet, when it comes to the other direction, suddenly the AP says that no one else might benefit from externalities. Only it may benefit from externalities.

Of course, this is not just limited to the AP. It's a common psychological problem when it comes to externalities. Look at almost any dispute that's being caused by the modern internet and you can find someone who's upset about some externality not being "fair." We see it with the blame being put by the entertainment industry on "piracy." We see it with the blame being placed on aggregators and Craigslist by newspapers. We see it in trademark, copyright and patent disputes. And it's always psychological. Recent behavioral economics studies have shown that rationality gets tossed out the window the second someone thinks that someone else is benefiting too much. Even if you would benefit more yourself, seeing someone else apparently benefit more seems unfair.

This thinking is both pervasive and dangerous -- even if it's natural. It leads to a destruction of value (or, at the very least, a hindrance of it). It focuses on pulling others down, rather than looking at how we can all, individually, be better off. Both Mannie Garcia and the AP benefited greatly from Shepard Fairey's externalities. But because they feel he benefited too much, they want to sue him. And all that does is prevent them from benefiting from similar externalities in the future. The same is true in pretty much every industry that we talk about. It's as if people don't realize how much they benefit from externalities. They assume that benefiting themselves is "normal." But the second anyone else benefits, it's "theft" or a massive problem that needs intervention. And that's a problem.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

On Wednesday, Bonhams New York is auctioning and insanely amazing collection of artifacts from the history of space exploration. The 400 lots including such choice items as an Apollo 11 Lunar Surface Star Chart (image above right), a Mercury life raft, and a dehydrated cocoa drink carried on Apollo 13. From Bonhams:

From the Apollo 16 mission comes one of the most highly estimated lots in the sale- a cuff mounted check list (image above left) used on the surface of the moon. Presented to backup Commander Fred Haise by astronaut Charles M. Duke after his Apollo 16 flight, the checklist was used during the second and third lunar surface exploration periods by Duke. It was exposed to the lunar environment for over 12 hours and had lunar dust embedded in to several sheets as Duke turned each leaf with his dust coated lunar glove. The checklist's authenticity is further evidenced by a photo of Duke wearing this check list while touching a large lunar boulder. Considering its direct contact with the moon and the lingering proof of its trip in the form of moon dust, the coveted lot is estimated at $200/300,000. This lot is being sold to benefit the non-profit Infinity Science Center, located near NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

An item directly from Apollo 13 Astronaut Fred Haise and prized for its actual time spent on the moon, is a lunar surface dust brush (image top) . It was used during two Extra Vehicular Activities (EVAs), or Moonwalks, of the Apollo 14 mission to remove moon dust from the lenses of film and TV cameras. Apollo 14 landed at the area intended for Apollo 13, prior to the oxygen tank explosion that aborted that mission. Given to Haise by astronauts Alan Shepard, Stuart Roosa, and Edgar Mitchell the lot carries an estimate of $125/175,000.

Also expected to inspire fierce bidding is a flight vehicle altitude hand controller assembly unit that was part of the Apollo 15 Lunar Module. Considering that Lunar Modules were never designed to return to earth this lot's appearance on the market is extraordinarily rare. With an estimate of $200/300,000 this is true cause for excitement amongst collectors.

Space History auction

This 1959 Cadillac Miller-Meteor ambulance, converted by Universal Studios into the Ghostbusters' Ecto-1, was up for auction on eBay. The listing does not imply that this was the one used in the movie. I'm sure there were several made for the film and other promotional uses. The high bid was $45k but did not meet the reserve. From the auction listing:

There is not a lot that can be said about this car once you see it you know what it is. This car was owned by Universal Studios as you can see by the copy of the title. This is the real Universal car not a copy. The car runs and drives good it has new tires on it know. The car is in a car Museum right now, when it goes on tour it draws a VERY VERY LARGE crowd.

Ecto-1 on eBay (via Laughing Squid)

As camera phones have become more sophisticated, the advantages of owning a separate camera for everyday shooting have deminished. So, when Nokia offered us a chat and a chance to play with its latest 8 megapixel model, we thought we'd have a go. So, is it time to hang up on the compact camera?

The past month has seen probably the biggest wave of changes made to the site since it was established over ten years ago. These improvements have been introduced to make the site easier to use, provide new features to play with and generally make the experience more enjoyable. Now that these features have been rolled-out and the dust is beginning to settle, we wanted to run through the updates, to make sure you've not missing out on any of the new facilities.

One of the most promising MMORPGs in development these days is NCSoft's Aion, a fantasy-based offering built on CryEngine. It makes heavy use of flight as a gameplay mechanic, allowing aerial combat and easy travel around the visually stunning game world. There are four basic classes — Warrior, Priest, Mage, and Scout — each of which have two subclasses. For example, Warriors can be tank-like Templars, or berserker-like Gladiators, while Mages can turn into a scholarly Sorcerer or command the elements as a Spiritmaster. Early previews of Aion almost universally comment on how polished the game seems — this is partly due to the fact that it has been up and running since November in South Korea. "Being stable, scalable, reliable and fuss-free is far from a given in MMOs, but Aion is all those things, and can already stand alongside the genre's usability kings, EVE Online and World of Warcraft. Its expansive, zone-free open-world environments look terrific and run smoothly on a wide variety of systems. It just works." Since the game is already in a relatively complete state, NCSoft has been running closed beta "events," where a portion of the game is opened for testing. MMOGamer has a write-up from the latest such event. Aion is due out in September.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Telegraph UK reports on the World Peashooting Championship where George, the 58-year-old reigning champion, used a high tech pea shooter to win again this year, much to the consternation of traditionalists, who use a simple straw.

George's home-designed device featured a gyroscopic balancing mechanism, a hyper-accurate laser sight, and what he described as "other bits" borrowed from his son's Nintendo.

The result is a fearsome piece of kit that has helped him to three world championships.

Contestants have to hit a calibrated target, fashioned out of putty, from a distance of 12 yards.

Pea shooters fight it out for world championships

I think we've set a new world record for any particular story being submitted to us here at Techdirt. I'd actually ask the folks at the Guinness Book of World Records to verify that... but I don't think they really want to have much to do with this story. You see, there's a wonderful blog out there called the Fail Blog. If you don't read it regularly, it's like you're not really online at all. It's quite amusing. It usually involves pictures of random (hilarious) "failures" of some kind or another. Last week, it had a great one. It involved the website of the Guinness World Record book, where it had an entry on the "most individuals killed in a terrorist attack." What was the failure? Well... it appears that the Guinness records' web template includes a link on each record for "break this record." Not quite the sort of thing you would think that GWR folks wanted to encourage when it comes to the most people killed in a terrorist attack.

So how does Guinness respond? Certainly not by fixing the screwed up template. And, apparently not by taking some time to think it over while drinking a tall glass of Guinness. Instead, it released the legal hounds on the Fail Blog and threatened the site with a totally bogus trademark infringement claim, saying that because the screenshot included the Guinness World Record logo, it was a trademark violation. Of course, that's preposterous. Still, Fail Blog complied, took down the original, but posted Guinness' letter, its own rather direct response, and a new version of the screenshot with the Guinness World Record logo pixelated. Nobody will ever figure it out now: Oh, and it looks like the Guinness folks have finally taken down the original world record page...

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Michael Davis made this really cool PVC pipe laptop mount for his truck cab that mounts in the console cup-holder. I actually had this idea on-deck for a Make: Project for a couple weeks from now, and was really annoyed excited to find that Michael had already done such a great job of it. Of course, the usual don't-stick-this-up-your-butt disclaimers apply: don't play Quake in rush hour traffic, don't surf YouTube at highway speed, etc., etc. Nice work, Michael.

More:

• Homemade unimount laptop mount for cars
• HOW-TO: Plexiglas VESA mount for tablet PC
• DIY Laptop - GPS Car Stand
• Make a PVC laptop desk for your car

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Transportation | Digg this!

The Meeting Ticker is a fun tool to measure how much money is spent attending meetings. You enter the number of attendees, average hourly salary, and meeting start time, and watch the dollars add up in real time. Meeting Ticker (Thanks, Mathias Crawford!)

Doug writes "I've recently been inspired to take up amateur electronics, specifically with FPGAs. I have an understanding of the basics, plus a solid programming background. From my research so far I've concluded that I should start with a simple FPGA development board and a couple of books on Verilog and/or VHDL and go from there. I found this Ask Slashdot discussion on Verilog vs VHDL very useful, but it focuses more on the development language rather than hardware. I'd be very interested in hearing peoples' recommendations for an entry-level kit that is simple, flexible, and affordable (sub-£200), and preferably Linux-friendly, and indeed any other wise words that experienced FPGA developers (professional or amateur) might have for a novice just starting out in the world of circuit design."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'll admit that I'd never heard of author Richard Stark (real name: Donald E. Westlake) or his 1962 novel, The Hunter, until I'd read this superb graphic novel adaptation.

Eisner award-winning Artist and writer Darwyn Cooke's version is stunningly rendered in black and blue that perfectly matches the mood of this hard-boiled story about an amoral professional thief name Parker who's on a mission of revenge against another thief who double crossed him.

Imagine Mad Men, with its cool stylishness, but with characters even more depraved and rapacious, and you'll have an idea for what's in store when you read The Hunter.

Parker: The Hunter by Darwyn Cooke

Another advantage of front wheel drive. (Via Neatorama)

Last week's Clinton town-hall with the State Department featured an apparat begging to be allowed to use Firefox:

MS. GREENBERG: Okay. Our next question comes from Jim Finkle:

Can you please let the staff use an alternative web browser called Firefox? I just - (applause) - I just moved to the State Department from the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency and was surprised that State doesn't use this browser. It was approved for the entire intelligence community, so I don't understand why State can't use it. It's a much safer program. Thank you. (Applause.)

SECRETARY CLINTON: Well, apparently, there's a lot of support for this suggestion. (Laughter.) I don't know the answer. Pat, do you know the answer? (Laughter.)

UNDER SECRETARY KENNEDY: The answer is at the moment, it's an expense question. We can -

QUESTION: It's free. (Laughter.)

Town Hall Meeting to Announce the Quadrennial Diplomacy and Development Review (QDDR) (via Memex 1.1)

Tony Millionaire's version of Iron Man in the forthcoming Strange Tales mini-series by Marvel looks amazing.

Other contributors to the series include Paul Pope, Peter Bagge, Molly Crabapple & John Leavitt, Junko Mizuno, Dash Shaw, James Kochalka, Johnny Ryan, Michael Kupperman, Nick Bertozzi, Nicholas Gurewich, Jason. Wow!

The philosophy of the book was to have these creators from ‘indy’ or ‘alternative’ or “literary” or ‘art’ comics come in and do what they do best. I think Marvel readers will really dig seeing radically different versions of their favorite characters, and the fans of these cartoonists will get to see the creators work in a milieu they never thought they’d get to see.

Independent comic book artists draw Marvel superheroes

(Ed. Note: We recently gave the Boing Boing Video website a makeover that includes a new, guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. I'll be posting periodic roundups here on the motherBoing.)

---

More @BBVBOX: boingboingvideo.com

Today on the Worth 1000 photoshopping contest: "Star Wars Ren 3" -- fine art mixes of Star Wars characters.

Star Wars Ren 3

Harry writes "In theory, software version numbers should be incredibly mundane. In reality, companies have long twisted them for marketing purposes, avoided ones they didn't like, and even replaced them with things other than numbers. I've prepared a tribute to them with some facts and ruminations, but there's a lot I don't know, and I'd appreciate help on the historical side of things. (Anyone know when the standard decimal point-based system came into use?)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scott Amron of Amron Experimental wins this decade's OMG-why-didn't-I-think-of-that award. Via Neatorama.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gadgets | Digg this!

A bunch of folks have been sending in various versions of this story -- and I have to admit, it sounds so ridiculous that it reads like an urban legend. I was hesitant to even write about it at first, but with so many mainstream media sources covering it, perhaps it really did happen. Basically, a girl who claims she was so focused on text messaging while working fell into an open manhole in Staten Island. Now, that should be embarrassing enough, but the really crazy part is the claim that the girl's parents are planning to sue the city for not adequately protecting their daughter from herself. At least they're not suing the mobile carrier or mobile device maker as well...

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

MAKE subscriber Jeff made this really sweet laser synth-guitar that he calls The Prism.

The Prism is a laser guitar, with four laser beams acting as "strings" that can be held to produce a tone. A Sharp IR range finder detects the musician's hand on the fretboard to change the pitch. You can select sine, tri or square waveform outputs, and introduce classic synthesizer effects like sync, skew and LFO.

Full instructions (it's quite a complex project) are up on Instructables.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.

The New York Times has a story on these beautiful horse "puppets" that appear in a play in London called War Horse: "Making Horses Gallop and Audiences Cry."

The horses are seven feet tall, and each requires three human puppeteers working within the body of the puppet to tell the story of an impoverished British boy who loses his horse to a British officer who rides the beast to battle in World War I.

The ears of the horses, for instance, are driven by bicycle brake cables and are capable of a 180-degree sweep. The tail is controlled by three cables acting as tendons, producing a movement based on the actual anatomy of a horse. And the curling of the lower leg and hoof, as the horse raises its leg, is controlled by so-called passive tendons, loose cables that are moved first by the puppeteers and then by sheer gravity.

What makes the horse puppets seem truly alive is the way they appear to breathe -- an accomplishment that Mr. Kohler described as "a complicated effect that ended in a simple solution."

"Because the spine of the horses is supported by backpacks worn by the puppeteers inside, the chest manipulator" -- the puppeteer handling the chest and front legs -- "simply has to bend and straighten his knees, allowing the torso of the horse to raise and lower," simulating breathing, Mr. Kohler said.

Making Horses Gallop and Audiences Cry. (Image credit: Andrew Testa/The New York Times.)

Christiane writes "The SSL Root CA responsible for issuing the German digital health insurance card lost its secret private key during a test enrollment. After their Hardware Security Module (HSM) dutifully deleted its crypto keys during a power outage, it was all "Oops, why is there no backup?" All issued cards must be replaced: 'Gematik spokesman Daniel Poeschkens poured scorn on the statement that Gematik had insisted on the service provider carrying out a test without backing up the root CA private keys. "We did not decide against a back-up service. The fact of the matter is that the service provider took over the running of the test system, so it also has to warrant its continuous operation. How it fulfils this obligation is its own responsibility."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Financial Times reports that "McGraw-Hill could reap just $1 from a sale of Business Week, according to people familiar with the 80-year-old financial magazine's losses."

Boutique investment bank Evercore is tasked with exploring the possibilities for a sale. The "predominantly print" magazine reported a circulation of 936,000. (Thanks, Richard Metzger)

My latest Guardian column, "Stop worrying, Hollywood - nobody is stealing your films with mobiles," looks into the curious practice of forcing attendees at preview screenings to surrender their phones while they see the movie. The industry admits that no one has ever camcordered a movie with a phone, and further, they admit that 100 percent of pre-release leaks come from insiders, not camcordering. And then there's the small matter of all the data on those hundreds of VIPs' phones that are left in care while they spend a couple hours watching giant robots throw buildings at each other.

If I wanted to stop movies from being pirated, I'd focus my effort on the places where they leak. In the case of the Oscars, that's the insider awards voters who leak every movie they're sent within six days, not the film critics - who have never, ever leaked a movie by recording it at a preview.

Likewise, if I wanted to secure hundreds of mobile phones, my first resort would be to leave them where they are, in cinemagoers' pockets, which is surely the safest place for them to be. Failing that, I'd have a top-notch security system, with tamper-evident, shielded, opaque bags for storing phones, a system of multiple watchers who kept an eye on each other as well as the phones, and special background checks into anyone allowed anywhere in the vicinity of the handsets.

Oh, and I'd make sure I was carrying special insurance that specifically covered losses due to data breaches from phones in my care.

What does the film industry do to safeguard your phone when you see a preview? It's very hard to say. No one could really tell me what the details were.

Stop worrying, Hollywood - nobody is stealing your films with mobiles

Visa recorded a $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 purchase on Consumerist reader Dale's kid's prepaid Visa Buxx card: "My lectures about financial responsibility appear to have failed: yesterday she charged $23,148,855,308,184,500.00 at the drug store. That's 2,000 times more than the national debt, which is a paltry 11 trillion. The ever-vigilant folks at VISA added a $20 'negative balance fee,' and have suspended the card."

Unruly Teen Charges $23 Quadrillion At Drugstore

Sumana sez, "'Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs' is this week's fiction offering from Strange Horizons. Leonard Richardson got tired of editors saying 'this story didn't grab me,' so 'Let Us...' starts off with a thymomenoraptor trying to buy a gun. Reviews are calling it 'The best dino-related fiction to come out since Overdrift,' 'everything that daredevil dinosaurs from Mars should be,' and 'Finally, the first Infernokrusher story!'"

"I want to buy a gun," said the Thymomenoraptor. He moved his foreclaw along the glass case of pistols, counting them off: one, two, three, four. "That one." He tapped the case; the glass squeaked.

"Why would a dinosaur need a gun?" asked the shop owner.

"Self-defense."

The owner's gaze dropped to the three-inch claw that had chipped his display case.

"These are killing claws," said the dinosaur, whose name was Tark. "For sheep, or cows. I merely want to disable an attacker with a precision shot to the leg or other uh, limbal region."

"Uh-huh," the owner said. "Or maybe you figure humans shoot each other all the time, but if someone turns up ripped in half the cops are gonna start lookin' for dinosaurs."

Tark carefully pounded the counter. "There used to be a time," he said, "when gun dealers would actually sell people guns! A time . . . called America. I miss that time."

"I don't sell to foreign nationals."

"Racist!"

Let Us Now Praise Awesome Dinosaurs (Thanks, Sumana!)

Henry V .009 writes with a link to Zed Shaw's "newest rant," which gives a cogent description of his reasons for choosing the not-always-popular GPL for his own code: "Honestly, how many of you people who use open source tell your boss what you're using? How many of you tell investors that your entire operation is based on something one guy wrote in a few months? How many of you out there go to management and say, 'Hey, you know there's this guy Zed who wrote the software I'm using, why don't we hire him as a consultant?' You don't. None of you. You take the software, and use it like Excalibur to slay your dragon and then take the credit for it. You don't give out any credit, and in fact, I've ran into a vast majority of you who constantly try to say that I can't code as a way of covering your ass."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MAKE subscriber JoshCube sent us a link to an item about this Lithuanian builder who created a foam overbody for a CL-class Mercedes. I guess "super wide" just wasn't wide enough.

How to Build Sports Cars Using Foam

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Transportation | Digg this!

Wells Fargo is suing itself to clear title on a property in order to foreclose on it; as the first mortgage holder, it must sue all subsequent mortgage holders, including the second mortgage holder...Wells Fargo!

The condo owner's attorney, Dan McKillop, suggested that the reason had to do with paperwork. While a lender could avoid suing itself as a lienholder by just releasing the lien after the foreclosure, that apparently involves an extra step or steps, which end up making it easier and faster for the bank to sue itself. That may be -- I don't pretend to understand this area of law -- but generally it is against the rules to file a complaint that you know cannot succeed (for example, because you can't recover against yourself), even if it may come in handy for some reason. Maybe this is in fact a clever strategy, or maybe, as a professor quoted by FOX Business suggested, "[t]his is just folks cranking out paperwork without conscious thought."

Financial Crisis Comes Full Circle As Bank Sues Itself

Recently on Offworld we had a mini-#musicmonday as French chiptuner Je Deviens DJ en 3 Jours assembled friends to create Da Chip! -- a free compilation album of Daft Punk covers done on "vintage game systems", while another scenester, Dr. Zilog, put together an 8-bit cover of Animal Collective's certifiable hipster hit My Girls, with a low-res filtered version of the video to match (and a bonus MGMT cover, to boot). Elsewhere we saw Crayon Physics creator Petri Purho debut his first entry into the relaunched Experimental Gameplay Project with Post I.T. Shooter (above) -- an IT Crowd-referencing low-res shooter rendered entirely in faux-hand-animated Post-It Notes, completing the game -> Post-It animation -> game circle. Finally we watched an indescribable video telling the orgasmic, ultra violent history of videogames, saw James Barnett -- the artist behind the previously featured 'fauxvist' paintings that made Matisse-ian landscapes of Fallout 3, Half-Life and Team Fortress -- offer prints and originals for sale, took a last look at the Ghostbusters content coming to LittleBigPlanet, and our 'one shot's for the day: Capcom's Darkstalkers in glorious Paul Robertson pixels, and Bit.Trip mascot Commander Video, Meat Boy style.

Psylab shares this vid of MIDI controlled pyrotechnics at Firefly 2009 -

Fire Cannon created by Rob Darman. The cannons are controlled by MIDI notes being sent from Steven Asaro's Roland V-Drums. Special thanks to Jeff Mission for MIDI technical support and translations via GlovePIE.

Plus - not to be missed, their cover of MJ's "Don't Stop til You Get Enough" -

[via Synthtopia]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

Deviceful maker Mike Davis built an in-vehicle laptop tray for his pickup truck for a tenth of the cost of a commercially made unit using PVC and some plywood sheet.

And before you all start writing me and saying how unsafe it is to use the computer while driving, don't panic. I don't use it while driving. I use it while stopped, usually at sales. It's a lot more convenient than trying to balance it on my lap or the armrest.

[via hackaday]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Digg this!

Stephen Fry is a very well known British actor, comedian and writer. He's also known as a real tech geek sorta guy -- who doesn't mind getting his hands dirty with new technologies to learn about them. He apparently gave a speech (made up on short notice) about copyright and the future of music, where he complained that politicians, such as those who created the Digital Britain report were clearly reflecting the views of various industries and not of the people. Fry made it clear that he doesn't endorse the idea of widespread file sharing -- and he warned against misinterpreting his speech that way -- but still admitted that he's been known to fire up BitTorrent himself to get the latest episodes of 24 or House. And he admits that he feels a bit guilty about it, but the reason is that he can't really get that content elsewhere. The fault is with the industry, and yet the gov't is trying to protect that industry, rather than recognize that the real problem is the industry not giving people what it wants. Having the gov't come up with a plan to try to stomp out file sharing misses the point. The problem isn't the file sharing -- it's the industry not responding to the market.

This is an important point, actually. Thanks to some of the press coverage, and the way the industry often tries to frame this debate, you get this picture of evil kids destroying an industry by downloading tons and tons of content. And, there are some folks out there who do download a ton of stuff. But the real issue isn't with that group of folks, who would never have bought any content in the first place. It's with the everyday folks, like Stephen Fry, who would just like to access the content in the most convenient way possible -- and the industry is failing him. The answer isn't to go after some kids and fine them millions or throw them in jail. It's to respond to the market.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Thomas Beagle writes "The New Zealand government has been stealthily introducing a centralised internet child-pornography specific filtering system. Voluntary for ISPs but not for their users, ISPs representing over 94% of the market are already intending to join. Read the general FAQ and technical FAQ about the proposed Netclean Whitebox implementation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Soychemist writes "On the same day that yet another shuttle launch was postponed, SpaceX successfully carried a Malaysian satellite, RazakSAT, into orbit. This is the second successful launch in a row for Elon Musk's space exploration startup. Later this year the company will launch its larger Falcon 9 rocket, which could be used to carry cargo to the International Space Station. RazakSAT was designed by ATSB and carries a high resolution camera, if it is intact, the satellite will take photographs of Earth that could be used to better manage natural resources."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The WaveRP library makes audio recording possible with Arduino(ATMega328), WaveShield + simple mic preamp circuit -

WaveRP is an Arduino library for recording and playing Wave files with the Adafruit Wave Shield. It records 8-bit mono files at 4,000 to 44,100 samples per second. Use of the Wave record/play library, WaveRP, requires the following:

• Arduino with a 5 volt 328 processor.
  
• Low noise power source such as a nine volt DC adapter or battery.
  
• Adafruit Wave Shield (version 1.1 is best but 1.0 works)
  
• Microphone preamp. A circuit for a simple preamp is included in the documentation.
  
• Microphone, PC type with 3.5 mm plug. See the documentation for details.
  
• SD/SDHC formatted with 32KB allocation units.

[via Adafruit Industries]

In the Maker Shed:


Arduino WaveShield Kit

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this!

Jim, from TechShop, has a nifty how-to on Instructables covering the sponge and Ferric Chloride method of quick n' dirty PCB etching. He writes:

This weekend I tried this sponge and ferric chloride method to etch 3 Arduino shield boards I am prototyping for our RFID-enabled member access system at TechShop (TechShop is the 15,000 square foot membership-based DIY workshop with locations in Menlo Park CA, Portland OR and Durham NC). I was so impressed with the success of this technique that I decided to write it up as an Instructable.

The method I will now show you gives you the advantages of all the other methods, and none of the downsides. Specifically:

• You get a fast etch (much faster than either method I know of),
• You use a tablespoon of solution, so disposal problems are eliminated
• A small bottle of ferric chloride will last for hundreds of boards
• No tank or tub is needed, no heating or agitation
• Undercutting is practically non-existent, and the resist stays in place
• There is no need to try to reduce the amount of copper being etched
• The etch is so fast that it is actually exciting to watch and show your friends!

Sponge + Ferric Chloride Method -- Etch PCBs in One Minute! [Thanks to The Brown-Eyed Albino]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

angry tapir writes "Nearly six in 10 companies have no current plans to deploy Windows 7 by the end of next year, according to a new survey. Of 1,100 IT administrators who responded to the survey, 59.3 percent said they didn't have a plan to deploy Windows 7. (Full results, PDF.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jeremy Wagstaff has done a fascinating (if morbid) little analysis using Google Trends to track the popularity of the search phrase "commit suicide painlessly." Perhaps not too surprisingly, it appears to track the economy. That is, it was relatively flat for a while, but spiked in October 2008 through March 2009 -- though, it's since come back down. As he notes, this isn't exactly a small blip -- it was over an extended period of time. He digs down a bit in the data, which suggests that while the US is a lot less suicidal these days, things are still a bit on edge over in the UK (you guys doing ok?). What would be interesting now would be to correlate that data with actual suicides. Oddly, Wagstaff notes that a similar boost is not seen in just the basic search of "how to commit suicide." That makes me wonder if the "commit suicide painlessly" search is suffering from a small sample size problem. Still, it's yet another fun little "economic indicator" found from public data, similar to the post we had recently on analyzing job trends via Facebook status. While the data might not mean much yet, the fact that there is so much more data so easily accessible is really powerful.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Peter points out the release of the Cantarino speech synthesis library for Arduino - demoed above in an endearing rendition of "Daisy".

An interrupt on the PWM output timer calls a sample generator. This uses a synthesis similar to FOF or granule synthesis - using two sines and a square wave of adjustable pitch and amplitude, synced and enveloped by a pitch of selectable frequency. Phase modulation is added to the pitch, to allow unvoiced phonemes to be uttered.

As the Google code page explains, it's still a work in progress but sounds rather impressive considering it uses only PWM output from a single pin!

More:

Controlling a speech IC via Arduino

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this!

We got this message from Clifton Burt:

The Northeast Portland Tool Library is a non profit lending library of tools located at NE 20th and Killingsworth Sreet. Open on Saturdays and Wednesdays, the checkout of the tools is free; it works just like a lending library for books. It began a year ago with 100 members and has now exceeded a membership of 500 patrons. On any given day, over a 100 tools are checked out and being used within the community. Some of the library's collection that stood out in my mind as being particularly useful (to me) were air compressors, table saws, nail guns, a bike trailer, and extension cords. I signed up to help out with the upcoming SOUTHEAST Portland tool library since that'll be in my neighborhood.

The Northeast Portland Tool Library

Also: The North Portland Tool Library

From MAKE magazine:

Check out MAKE, Volume 18: ReMake America!
Buy your copy in the Maker Shed, subscribe to MAKE
Read about Dustin Zuckerman's "Tool Library" in the Digital Edition of MAKE (if you're already a subscriber).

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Toolbox | Digg this!

Andrew Katz of the new International Free and Open Source Software Law Review sez, "OK, so it's not going to appear in airport bookstalls any time soon, but we think that the launch of the Review is a pretty big step forward for openness, and a sign that (1) free and open source software is moving into the mainstream; and (2) even lawyers can adopt a collaborative model and create something both free as in freedom, and as in beer."

International Free and Open Source Software Law Review Issue 1 PDF (Thanks, Andrew!)

Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.

Xeni, I see your laser portraits and raise you a Gunz Don't Kill People Lazers Do! Wacky video for "Hold the Line" directed by Ferry Gouw. (Maybe some NSFW language; hard to tell. Via Submarine Channel.)

An anonymous reader notes a BBC report on research recently published in the journal Current Biology, indicating that cats manipulate humans by adding a baby-like cry to their purring. "Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans. Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a 'soliciting purr' to overpower their owners and garner attention and food. Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a 'cry,' with a similar frequency to a human baby's. The team said cats have 'tapped into' a human bias — producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader notes a BBC report on research recently published in the journal Current Biology, indicating that cats manipulate humans by adding a baby-like cry to their purring. "Cat owners may have suspected as much, but it seems our feline friends have found a way to manipulate us humans. Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered that cats use a 'soliciting purr' to overpower their owners and garner attention and food. Unlike regular purring, this sound incorporates a 'cry,' with a similar frequency to a human baby's. The team said cats have 'tapped into' a human bias — producing a sound that humans find very difficult to ignore."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Samsung has announced the SL502 (PL55 in Europe) digital compact camera. It has a 5x zoom but starting at 35mm equivalent, so no wide-angle capability. With a 12.2MP sensor and 2.7 inch LCD, it includes features such as Smart Auto mode, Smart Album, Face, Smile and Blink detection. Priced at £149, it will start shipping in August 2009.

Samsung has released the SL720 (PL70 in Europe) digital compact camera with 720p HD video recording. Sporting an 12.2MP sensor, 3 inch LCD and a 5x image stabilized zoom lens starting at 28mm. It includes the ability to pause and re-record HD movie clips and has an HDMI connector. Priced at £199 it will become available in August 2009.

The Welcome to MAKE bundle from the Maker Shed is for any of our online readers that haven't subscribed to the print edition of MAKE. Already a subscriber? Don't worry, you can renew your subscription too!

The Welcome to MAKE bundle includes:

• (1) Year subscription to MAKE Magazine $34.95 value
  
• (1) The Best of MAKE $34.99 value
  
• (1) Maker's Notebook $19.99 value

All for the discounted price of $48. That's 46% off the price if you purchased these items individually.

More about the Welcome to MAKE bundle in the Maker Shed

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

Apparently, EMI has had enough of independent record stores. Via Digg come reports that EMI has been calling various smaller independent record stores and telling them that it won't sell them product directly any more. Instead, they'll have to source it from third parties -- meaning that it will be more expensive. Basically, this means most of those stores will carry fewer EMI CDs. Of course, some might argue that this won't really mean much, since independent record stores are smaller (and don't always sell as much major label product), but it still seems like an odd choice by EMI. You would think the company would be working overtime to keep the few retail channels pushing its product happy.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The editorial team of InBerkeley.com had lunch today at Saul's in North Berkeley. I had a bowl of cold borscht with sour cream, and a toasted bagel with lox and cream cheese.

After lunch we all went down the block to Chez Panisse and had a Bastille Day special mulberry ice cream cone for $2.

dmolnar writes "I recently helped my girlfriend move her stuff from Chicago, IL to Oakland, CA. The movers were scheduled to arrive at 8AM on the 5th of July, and we were stressing the day before about all the things that could go wrong with a move. We realized that if we knew where her stuff was, it'd make us feel better. This is a story about using the $99 iPhone to track the move... and about a somewhat surprising potential use of Find My iPhone to track your friends' iPhones without them noticing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Peter sez, "This article in the Jakarta Globe describes the resistance of Javanese batik-makers to suggestions from well-meaning government officials that they copyright their motifs. Looks like the batikkers have their own model of open-source design: 'They believe that each time they create something, it is not they who worked, but it is God who worked through their human body and soul...Being grateful [to God] is sufficient for them.'"

Candra Malik (Thanks, Peter!)

(Image: Candra Malik, JG)

Larry sez, "Paranoid Larry's video of the song 'You Can't Search me' from the LP entitled, 'Paranoid Larry and his Imaginary Band.' Check him out live. He's mesmerizing."

Love the message and the Linux-grade beard.

You Can't Search Me (Thanks, Larry!)

John sez, "At Balticon this past May, Charlie Stross was the guest of honor. As a special treat, the first ever live full cast recording of the excellent Escape Pod podcast was performed of Stross's story Rogue Farm - his tale of future tech, biological hacking, and human nature is well-presented."

I've been listening to this all morning while brushing my teeth, cooking breakfast, etc. Convulsively funny, in a way that does justice to Charlie's wonderful story!

"Buggerit, I don't have time for this," Joe muttered. The stable waiting for the small herd of cloned spidercows cluttering up the north paddock was still knee-deep in manure, and the tractor seat wasn't getting any warmer while he shivered out here waiting for Maddie to come and sort this thing out. It wasn't a big herd, but it was as big as his land and his labour could manage - the big biofabricator in the shed could assemble mammalian livestock faster than he could feed them up and sell them with an honest HAND-RAISED NOT VAT-GROWN label.

"What do you want with us?" he yelled up at the gently buzzing farm.

"Brains, fresh brains for baby Jesus," crooned the farm in a warm contralto, startling Joe half out of his skin. "Buy my brains!" Half a dozen disturbing cauliflower shapes poked suggestively out of the farms' back then retracted again, coyly.

"Don't want no brains around here," Joe said stubbornly, his fingers whitening on the stock of the shotgun. "Don't want your kind round here, neither. Go away."

EP206: Rogue Farm (Thanks, John!)

The bonkers Ukrainian steampunk leatherworkers "Bob Basset" have released a steampunk leather doll that freaks me out, in a good way.

Steampunk Leather Doll "Makar Pathfinder". ???????? ????? "????? ????????"

On Play This Thing, Greg Costikyan reviews Slobbovia, a collaborative writing exercise disguised as a game:

To call Slobbovia a Diplomacy variant is, however, misleading; the game purposefully had no victory conditions, and the formal game itself served as little more than a framework for structuring a written roleplaying game. The postal Diplomacy hobby has a tradition of "press," whereby a player may, each turn, include a written statement that is published with the turn's results (e.g., "The Office of the Kaiser today announced..."). In Slobbovia, press was the focus of the game, rather than a minor adjunct.

In other words, it was a form of collaborative story-telling in written form; each player had a single "main" character, but could also introduce subsidiary characters. An tacit rule prohibited killing off another player without his permission, and it was considered polite to get a player's input and permission if you intended to include one of his characters in a scene. Events in the ongoing story would certainly cause players to change their behavior in the underlying game, and vice versa, but no one seriously tried to play the game in a min-max, win or die kind of way.

A typical issue of the Slobinpolit Zhurnal, the fanzine that carried the game, would have more thsn 100 pages of prose, and perhaps 3 pages of game results.

Slobbovia

Uh-oh: New Zealand is ready to reintroduce the "three-strikes" rule that says that everyone in your household will be denied Internet access (and all that goes with it, from education to civic engagement to health information) if one person is accused of infringing on copyright:

Due to New Zealand's geographical isolation the internet is a vital tool for connecting to the rest of the world, and is also becoming more pervasive with vital services moving online such as parts of government, health care (records, scheduling) and social interaction tools (newspapers, phone, email, social networks). Disconnection may hinder people's ability to pay bills, operate their business or do their job, access banking, education, insurance, etc. Due to this the internet is already a necessary service like other utilities such as the phone and postal systems. With internet use showing no signs of slowing, in future years disconnection will be seen as a shortsighted and increasingly unfair penalty.

For artists, fines have the potential to include compensation for copyright infringement, whereas broad and indirect punishments that harm innocent people will simply reflect badly on artists.

It's likely that there will be significant business compliance costs with termination. ISPANZ have estimate that 90% of NZ Businesses use network devices that are currently incapable of tracking and we see no coverage of this in the draft (although it's unsure whether we would expect at this early stage).

Terminator 2: MED release Section 92A Proposal. (via Michael Geist)

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

Public.Resource.Org has sent in 3 letters to the Administration to try and get Federal Law to become open source:

1. An appeal to the Executive Office of the President to help us make the Federal Register and the U.S. Patent databases available in bulk and for free. The letter is addressed to Aneesh Chopra and Vivek Kundra, the President's CTO and CIO. I've met both of them and they're both very good and I'm hoping they'll be able to help cut through the red tape.

2. A formal FOIA request to the National Archives asking them to make the very expensive standards that are "Incorporated by Reference" into the Code of Federal Regulations available for free. These standards cost *big* bucks from groups like ANSI and Underwriters Laboratories. Although these "Standards Development Organizations" are ostensibly nonprofit, you'd be shocked how many million-dollar CEO salaries they have.

3. Last year, we pooled our money with Sunlight Foundation and other groups and forked over $17,000 for the bulk feed of the Code of Federal Regulations. Well, the product is defective and we want our money back.

These 3 actions taken together are trying to establish a basic principle: the laws of our society need to be readily available for all to read, not locked behind a cash register. The past practice of parceling out the public domain to private parties is illegal and needs to stop.

Open Source America's Operating System (Thanks, Carl!)

It's all too common for IP lawyers to go to the legal nastygram first, rather than recognizing that perhaps the "infringement" is an opportunity. Take, for example, this (amusing) story about how when Prada, the famous design company, first got started, Miuccia Prada got angry about someone making knockoff products. Except... rather than sue Patrizio Bertelli, who was making the knockoffs, she was convinced by him to make use of his manufacturing capabilities, and the two teamed up... even to the point of eventually getting married to each other. Obviously, that's a pretty extreme example, but the key point is worth repeating: sometimes the better solution is not to freak out and sue over infringement, but to see if that infringement can be used to your advantage.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

A little Boing Boing exclusive for you. Embedded above, "The Dead Weather, Their Oral History and Future Plans, an explanation and apology from the band themselves." We received this video produced by the band, about the band -- an alt-supergroup of sorts that formed in Nashville earlier this year. Their debut album, Horehound, hits the proverbial streets today.

The Dead Weather consists of Jack White, most widely known from White Stripes and Raconteurs; Alison Mosshart of the Kills; "Little Jack" Lawrence, bassist for the Raconteurs; and Queens of the Stone Age keyboardist/guitarist Dean Fertita. They are touring the US and Canada: info here.

The video answers many questions, but raises far more. What is this creepy basement they're all sitting cross-legged in? Who did that weird kitsch painting of the dude on the wall next to L.J.? Where do those ickily carpeted stairs lead? And what does L.J. say at the end of the video? Do let me know in the comments.

Inset (Wikipedia): clockwise from top left, Alison Mosshart, Dean Fertita, Jack White and Jack Lawrence.

Below, a video directed by Jonathan Glazer for the track "Treat Me Like Your Mother," off Horehound (Amazon link) (Thanks, Tom Osborn).

Artist Andrew Salomone created this portrait of Bill Cosby entirely from JELL-O shots, then invited art show visitors to consume the portrait as the party progressed.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

Guestblogger Marina Gorbis is executive director at Institute for the Future.

l find many things remarkable about psychiatrist George Vaillant's longitudinal studies of 268 Harvard men, not least of which is their time span -- 72 years! To see someone transformed from a teenager to an old man is usually the stuff of fiction, not academic research. It turns out though that real lives are not that different from fiction, what with so many unpredictable twists and turns. What struck me most was the depth of personal transformations many of Vaillant's subjects' lives take. For example, starting out as a promising well-adjusted student with a loving family and later coming to resent your kin, seeing them as cold and detached; veering from a happy marriage to an affair with a much younger woman and eventual divorce; finding God, abandoning God, all in the span of one life. These transformations are so stark, some of the study participants barely recognize themselves when presented with vignettes of their past selves. As Joshua Wolf Shenk writes in the June issue of Atlantic Monthly:

"One of the men in the study at age 50 declared, "God is dead and man is very much alive and has a wonderful future." He had stopped going to church, he said, when he arrived at Harvard. But as a sophomore, he had reported going to mass four times a week. When Vaillant sent this--and several similar vignettes--to the man for his approval to publish them, the man wrote back, "George, you must have sent these to the wrong person." Vaillant writes, "He could not believe that his college persona could have ever been him. Maturation makes liars of us all."

The stories reported in the study are complex yet familiar -- they are not so different from stories of our own lives or those of our parents, grandparents, or others we know. I have come to view my own life as a progression of different personas --- a young girl in Ukraine, a young professional in Silicon Valley, a mom of a teenager. At each stage, I was a different person with a different outlook on the world, different circumstances and sets of aspirations. Reminders of my past selves are contained in a few photographs tucked away in a shoe box that I occasionally bring out, a box of letters to my family in Odessa, and, more recently, increasingly growing compilations of videos, e-mails, online photos, etc.


Reinventing ourselves as we go through life is a natural part of human experience. It is what we do as we mature, encounter new circumstances, build new relationships.  It is an inherent part of the immigrant experience as one changes homes, learns new language, and internalizes new cultural norms. But such reinventions and transformations are not the exclusive domain of immigrants -- we are all subject to them to a greater or lesser degree as a part of living.

A key part of the process of reinvention of self is the acquisition of new reference points that serve to give us a sense of our new identity -- new friendships, new relationships, new places. An equally important part of this process is the shedding of old ones. This is what is so interesting about high school reunions.  We realize that the people in the room who were so important to us during our teenager years, whose acceptance and approval defined so much how we thought about ourselves, matter so little to us twenty years later. Indeed, it is hard to believe they once mattered so much at all. They simply no longer serve as reference points to who we are today.

Almost ten years ago when doing research on technology and identity, my colleague Kathi Vian wrote:  "We create our identity through reference points. We know who we are in reference to others... Identity is a conception of self that we create based on various reference points in our life."   Meaning that we know we are tall because there are people around us who are shorter, we know we are smart because someone tells us we are, and we know we are shy or outgoing by comparing ourselves to those around us.

What is interesting about the technology environment we live in is that for the first time in our human history we are able to create persistent and mirror-like references points of our lives that keep former identities in constant view. Videos and photographs taken from birth, snippets of life documented on Facebook, streams of thoughts on Twitter, inner wonderings revealed in blogs -- these are all new reference points for creating and shaping our identities, our senses of self. And unlike previous reminders, often tucked away in shoe boxes, desk drawers, and attics, these are much more sensory-rich, pervasive, and easily accessible, to us and others.

Sociologist Amitai Etzioni raises an alarm about existence of these persistent trails and reference points. In an article titled "Second Chances, Social Forgiveness, and the Internet"  he writes:

By computerizing local public records, the Internet casts the shadow of people's past far and fast; like a curse they cannot undo, their records now follow them wherever they go. True, even in the good old days, arrest records, criminal sentences, bankruptcy filings, and even divorce records were public. Some were listed in blotters kept in police stations, others in courthouses; anyone who wished to take the trouble could go there and read them. But most people did not. Above all, there was no way for people in distant communities to find these damning facts without going to inordinate lengths.

In the Internet era, in contrast, a person's conviction of graffiti vandalism at age 19 will still be there at age 29 when he is a solid citizen trying to get a job and raise a family, and the conviction will be there for anyone to see. Same is potentially true for a high school prank captured on someone else's Facebook page or Youtube channel. While this is of concern, I wonder if as a result of pervasiveness of such information we may actually see greater social forgiveness and tolerance. After all, the more people see that even those they admire do stupid things once in a while, particularly when they are young, wouldn't our tolerance level go up also? And hasn't it happened already? The more we find out about personal indiscretions of various politicians and celebrities, the more inured the public has become, it seems. We are finding out that many of our heroes are fallible. Maybe, along with everything else, the Internet is democratizing human fallibility.

What I do wonder about, however, is how will personal transformations be achieved in this era of persistent and vivid reference points from the past? I see these transformations as an integral and necessary part of going through life, a part of creating new selves as one matures, learns, and acquires new life experiences. What tools and practices will we develop to shed the old reference points as a part of such transformations? In other words, what is the new equivalent of the old shoebox or cobwebbed attic in the Internet era?

suraj.sun sends along an Ars writeup of the lobbying Pandora is doing now that it has secured its future, royalties-wise. Some might think it odd that Pandora is weighing in on the side of the record labels in their fight to get radio stations to pay more for the music they broadcast. "US radio stations don't pay performers and producers for the music they play, but the recording industry hopes to change that with a new performance rights bill in Congress. Webcaster Pandora has jumped into the fray on the side of the artists and labels, asking why radio gets a free ride when Pandora does not. ... With revenues from recorded music sales declining, rights-holders have turned their eyes in recent years to commercial US radio, which currently pays songwriters (but not performers or record labels)... With its own future secure for the next few years, Pandora is now turning its attention to the public performance debate here in the US, saying that the issue is a simple matter of fairness: why should webcasters have to pay more for music than traditional radio does? ... [But] the 'fairness' argument could clearly go either way. Radio might start paying a performance right; on the other hand, perhaps webcasters and satellite radio companies should simply stop paying one, relying on the old argument about promotion."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As newspapers struggle, some seem to think that those of us advocating newer, better business models think that professional journalists somehow go away. That's not true at all. There's still a tremendous role for them. The point that we try to make, though, is that their role changes a bit, and it needs to incorporate what the rest of the world is doing. It's good to see some news organizations figure this out. Aaron deOliveira points us to Jeff Jarvis' coverage of how a news organization in the Philippines is training the public to help out in covering the upcoming election. The idea isn't to replace the journalists but to augment them, by training everyone to help capture, report and spread the story. The professional journalists still have a role in working with everyone else, but it's a much more collaborative effort. As Aaron points out:

• They get people over the learning curve of how to operate their cell phones, cameras, etc. as well as upload content.
• They've magnified their reach far beyond what they could ever pay their own reporters to cover.
• They're doing it far more cost effectively.
• The trained news staff in the news room can use their experience to do editorial work on the submissions as well as curate. They can also pass along their experience to these 15,000.

Seems like a great idea, and one that plenty of other news organizations could use effectively to empower their community, rather than just looking for ways to suck money out of them.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

(Click for big)

Here's a human cage built next to a park in Superior, Colorado. It is designed to contain two people, separated by a metal wall. There's no sign or indication of its intended purpose (beyond the obvious of caging people).

This morning, before we recorded the RTN podcast, there was evidence that Microsoft had announced something. Apparently they had briefed the press at some undisclosed location on some date we don't know about some products we don't understand.

Last week I gave Google a ton of grief for announcing an operating system that has been shipping for 17 years and a web browser that had been shipping for about a year as a new product with the same name as the browser that had been shipping for a year.

In the podcast we talked about a river of realtime news. The analogy fits these pseudo-events in the following way. Sometime in the past weeks Microsoft held a private event, trying to build a dam on the river, hoping to blow the dam at a predetermined time earlier today, thereby creating a rush of news that would impress everyone. It didn't work because apparently the dam developed a leak in the middle of the night and the water rushed down the river of news while everyone was sleeping. No one was impressed. Sad Microsoft.

The moral of the story: Companies probably should announce products when they are new, and when ordinary people and the savvy insiders can try it all out and share their opinions. That way if the product is any good it will generate interest. If it's not good, no one need bother get excited.

ReadWriteWeb: Microsoft Office Web Access Not Here Yet.

It's getting a bit tiresome to see these types of lawsuits, but Eric Goldman notes that this appears to be the ninth such lawsuit against Google, claiming trademark violations for allowing people to buy AdWords on trademarked terms (or suggesting them as keywords). This time the company suing is Rosetta Stone, but the complaint is basically the same. In fact, it uses the same lawyers and apparently the same boilerplate language as some previous lawsuits (wonder if they charge full price for reusing the same text?). The problem is the same, however. It's a general misunderstanding of the purpose of trademark law, which does not give the trademark holder full control over the trademark, but merely is designed as consumer protection to stop confusion among buyers or, possibly, dilution of the trademark. But that does not prevent the use in competitive advertisements. And, even if it did the liability would be on the advertising party, and not Google. But Google has the cash, so everyone sues Google.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

An anonymous reader writes "As a kid I was (and still am) heavily influenced by Carl Sagan, and a little later by Stephen Hawking. Now as I have started a family with two kids, currently age 5 and 2, I am wondering who out there is popularizing science. Currently, my wife and I can get the kids excited about the world around them, but I'd like to find someone inspiring from outside the family as they get older. Sure, we'll always have 'Cosmos,' but are there any contemporaries who are trying to bring science into the public view in such a fun and intriguing way? Someone the kids can look up to and be inspired by? Where is the next Science Hero?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

<img alt="lazer.jpg" src="http://www.boingboing.net/2009/07/13/lazer.jpg" width="400" height="504" class="mt-image-center" /
The Laser Portraits photo-blog amounts to "a tribute to the greatest school photo backdrop there ever was." (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

Last week, our guest blogger Susannah Breslin wrote about Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker's Significant Objects Project. (She wrote about it today as well, here).

Glenn and Walker's idea was to invite people to write stories about thrift store trinkets and then post the stories on eBay to find out how much people will bid on the objects. (There is no intent to deceive -- that would ruin the purpose of the experiment. The eBay descriptions for the objects include a disclaimer that "The significance of this object has been invented by the author.")

Here's the first three paragraphs of my story:

Matt saw the tiny blue bottle on the third step of the main entrance to the Los Angeles Central Library. It was next to a sleeping man, obviously homeless. A $100 bill, rolled-up, was protruding from the bottle's open neck. Matt slyly scooped up the bottle on his way into the library. He hid the bottle in his fist until he got to a desk with side partitions.

A chipped decal on the bottle read, "Arrow De Luxe Apricot Flavored Brandy." He pulled the rolled-up bill from the neck. When he unrolled it, it was a just note printed on what looked like a $100 bill. He'd picked up these phony bills before. They were religious tracts. What kind of religion tries to win members by pulling a dirty trick? he wondered.

Matt dropped the note on the ground and pocketed the bottle. It looks like an antique, he thought. I might get some money for it. He barely made it to the computer card catalog when the bottle appeared in his mouth. The oddly ribbed neck protruded from his lips, while the rest of the bottle uncomfortably occupied his mouth, pushing his tongue down and preventing him from closing his jaws completely.

Read the rest of the story here.

(The eBay auction for this miniature jug ends on July 14 at 5:21 am PDT.)

The media seems to be falling all over itself to report on the "insights" coming out of a "report" put out by Morgan Stanley about how teens are using technology today. The report, it appears, isn't an actual research analysis or anything. It's just a 15-year-old intern writing about what his friends use technology-wise. That's not to say it's not interesting. It certainly gives a decent view of what's happening in one kid's social circle. Nothing in it seems all that surprising. Kids communicate a lot on the internet. They don't buy music (oh yeah, he contradicts that "other" questionable study of the day that claimed streaming was replacing downloads by noting that his friends prefer to actually have the files, but don't pay for them). It's difficult to see why this is a big deal, but because Morgan Stanley put its logo on it, suddenly it's getting a ton of coverage from Bloomberg, The Telegraph, The Guardian, The Financial Times and others. It's as if none of them have ever thought to actually ask a teenager what kind of media and technology he or she uses. But the key point here is that while there are some useful insights raised by the kid (though, nothing too surprising) it's still just the anecdotal musings of one kid.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The Shuttle launch may have been delayed by two days, but NASA has better news to report. caffiend666 writes "As speculated a few weeks ago, NASA has found and is starting to restore the lost Apollo 11 tapes. A Briefing will be held July 16th at the Newseum in Washington to 'release greatly improved video imagery from the July 1969 live broadcast of the Apollo 11 moonwalk... The original signals were recorded on high quality slow-scan TV (SSTV) tapes. What was released to the TV networks was reduced to lower quality commercial TV standards.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.