CodeShark writes "The AP is reporting that mosquitoes have been used for the first time to deliver anti-malarial vaccine through their bites. According to this article the results were crystal clear: 100% of the vaccinated group acquired immunity, everyone in the non-vaccinated control group did not. Those in the control group and developed malaria when exposed to the parasites later, the vaccinated group did not. Malaria kills nearly a million people per year, mostly children."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bloggingheads.tv has a video interview with author Kurt Andersen about his new book, Reset: How This Crisis Can Restore Our Values and Renew America. The interview was conducted by Will Wilkinson of the Cato Institute.

Above is a clip titled, "Is a political reset really possible?" Here's another: Are we stuck In the '80s? Or is the Age of Reagan finally over?

destinyland writes "After 13 years, the creator of the Noble Ape cognitive simulation says he's learned two things about artificial intelligence. 'Survival is a far better metric of intelligence than replicating human intelligence,' and "There are a number of examples of vastly more intelligent systems (in terms of survival) than human intelligence." Both Apple and Intel have used his simulation as a processor metric, but now Tom Barbalet argues its insights could be broadly applied to real life. His examples of durable non-human systems? The legal system, the health care system, and even the internet, where individual humans are simply the 'passive maintaining agents,' and the systems can't be conquered without a human onslaught that's several magnitudes larger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With our CwF + RtB experiment in full swing, we've asked some of the participants involved to provide some guest posts, including their thoughts on the experiment itself. Jill Sobule is a well-known singer/songwriter, who last year embraced the CwF + RtB spirit with her Jill's Next Record experiment. We asked her to share some of her experiences with it as a guest post:

Around 2 years ago, I put up the website -- jillsnextrecord.com -- where fans, as well as semi-pressured family members and friends, could donate to the recording and release of my next record. I didn't want them to just give me money, so I came up with different levels of donation for various "gifts and services": For example: The $25 Polished Rock Level would get you an advance CD -- no big deal. But the $50 Pewter Level would place you in the liner notes. My favorite was the $500 Gold Level where I would write you your very own theme song -- just to let you know, the host of... "Dancing With The Stars" went for that one. Within two months, much to my surprise, I reached my goal. Not only have I bypassed that much maligned middleman (the record label) but I have developed and maintained a closer relationship to the one's that really matter: the fans. Someone asked me if I ever had any stalkers. I said yes, and I put them to work selling my merch at shows or helping me with my website... They do such a better job.

I really like that Techdirt is promoting artists and writers who are trying to break the mold -- and in many cases, already succeeding. Also, as in my case, the creativity didn't stop at just the music itself... We worked together to figure out how to best to offer my work. Our first idea was a semi-lame faux cactus (to match the cactus on the album cover). We, thankfully, came up with a better one: handwritten lyrics on a moleskin journal to go along with the new record. Wish I would have thought of that before.

Given her experience, we were thrilled that Jill agreed to be a part of the whole CwF + RtB program. Not only that, but she went above and beyond in enthusiastically volunteering to create custom, one-of-a-kind notebooks for everyone who orders the Techdirt Music Club. For each order, she'll take a brand new notebook, and jot down some song lyrics and some doodles on the first few pages -- so you'll get a totally unique "Jill Sobule original" notebook, along with a signed copy of her CD. If you order both the Techdirt Music Club and the Techdirt Book Club before midnight PT, August 3rd, we'll throw in a free Techdirt hoodie, or a free lunch with me (Mike).

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Del Cruiser has been working on building a "bakfiet" (box bike/cargo bike) from junked bikes and parts. He's keeping a photojournal of his progress on Flickr.

This project was inspired by the "Carrier Pidgeon" , which is a chinese-made imitation that has a shorter payload.

By nature, bakfiets take some time getting used to due to the elongated front payload. I liked the Carrier Pidgeon because it wasn't as long as traditional bakfiets and should be easier to maneuver.

Junkfiets Project

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Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.

To a certain group of dedicated dorks, videogame controllers and their history is fiercely interesting, even to the point of having dedicated T-shirts. It's to those folks I present this discovery: this looks like it may be the first product (image from a 1977 ad) with a joypad-like device, used for user input (enlargement mine):

Ah, the CALCUPEN. Now, I know Gunpei Yokoi usually gets credit for those little 4-way rocker switches first used on the famous Game & Watch series, but it sure looks like our little Calcupen has five of the things running up its nerdy spine there. Granted, they're used for numerical input as opposed to direction control, but it's essentially the same device. I bet, if one was lucky enough to find one, a Calcupen could be wired to act as an old Nintendo controller!

Maybe the Calcupen is really that missing link between nerd productivity culture and nerd time-wasting culture. I smell a dissertation.

In addition to meeting comic book historian Craig Yoe last night, I was also lucky to meet artist Dean Yeagle, who was in attendance. Dean is an incredible illustrator with an impressive resume. I've long been a fan of his work and was thrilled when he gave me a copy of his new book, Mandy Godiva, which was a big hit at Comic Con last week.

The images above are from Mandy Godiva (click images for full size), and are some of the only pages that wouldn't get a NSFW label.

You can see more of Dean's work and buy his books at his website, Caged Beagle.

Steve Kerrison writes "With the explosion of netbooks now available, the line between PC and mobile phone is becoming much less distinct. ARM, one of the biggest companies behind CPU architectures for mobile phones (and other embedded systems), sees now as an opportunity to break out of mobiles and give Intel a run for its money. HEXUS.channel quizzes Bob Morris, ARM's director of mobile computing, on how it plans to achieve such a herculean task. Right now, ARM's pushing Android as the OS that's synonymous with the mobile Internet. But it's not simply going to ignore Microsoft: 'What if Microsoft offered a full version of Windows (as opposed to Windows Mobile or Windows CE) that used the ARM, rather than X86 (Intel and AMD) instruction set? Then it would be a straight hardware fight with Intel, in which ARM hopes its low power, low price processors will have an advantage.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A bunch of folks have sent in various versions of how the entertainment industry is trying to convince the Copyright Office not to grant a special DMCA exemption for breaking DRM in the very limited -- but quite real -- scenario where a DRM server goes dark, taking away access to content people thought they had legally purchased. This seems like a perfect example of a reasonable DMCA exemption (people legally bought something, and they can no longer access it without getting around the DRM). On top of that, the music industry especially has finally come to terms with the fact that DRM not only doesn't work, but decreases the value of the music and makes people less willing to buy. So you might think that they wouldn't put up much of a fight. But, you'd be wrong.

Nate Anderson's coverage does the best job highlighting the absurdity of the response representing the RIAA and MPAA:

"To recognize the proposed exemption would surely discourage any content provider from entering the marketplace for online distribution... unless it was committed to do so... forever. This would not be good for consumers, who would find a marketplace with less innovation and fewer choices and options."

The mind boggles. This reads like copy from a Bizarro World manifesto on DRM, since the reality of the market for downloaded music (which was the issue behind the proposed exemption) has shown quite clearly that people don't want DRM on their tunes and providers are happy to comply once the labels allowed it. The current situation, with several major stores and little or no DRM on downloads, is manifestly better for buyers.

Just an ordinary day for the established entertainment industry's lawyers, where they love to insist that, theoretically, what's happening in reality is impossible.

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snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister suggests that Wolfram Research's claim to copyright of results returned by the Wolfram Alpha engine could have significant ramifications for the software industry. 'While software companies routinely retain sole ownership of their software and license it to users, Wolfram Research has taken the additional step of claiming ownership of the output of the software itself,' McAllister writes, pointing out that it is 'at least theoretically possible to copyright works generated by machines.' And, under current copyright law, if any Wolfram claim to authorship of the output of its engine is upheld, by extension the same rules will apply to other information services in similar cases as well. In other words, 'If unique presentations based on software-based manipulation of mundane data are copyrightable, who retains what rights to the resulting works?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Can't believe I missed this on Coast To Coast. So, I don't know what your plans are for September 12 and 13, but you might want to change them. The 11th annual "Bay Area UFO Expo Celebration Event" takes place that weekend in Santa Clara, California. Snip:

Just think about it.... Eleven years of bringing you the most compelling theories and evidence in support of the truth about UFO's, their mysterious occupants and Earth's hidden underground bases!

If you are interested in UFO's, ET's, Reptoids, Earth Changes, Crash Retrievals, Chem-Trails and Conspiracies, the 11th Annual Bay Area UFO Expo will guarantee an entertaining and mind expanding experience!

That copy already had me pretty worked up, but then I read about the "Seasonal Vegetable, Sliced Fruit Tray, Assorted Breads, and Chef's Selection of Dessert" that come with the two-day pass. Sold! If you go, please tell me about it. I'll gladly re-blog any interesting photo/video/liveblogs submitted by BB fans who do attend. Also, how great is that poster?

11th Annual Bay Area UFO Expo (via Bonnie Burton)

Spotted over at the EFF Deep Links blog: a series of humorous web videos produced by the folks at Green Apple Books which extol the virtues of paper books over Amazon's Kindle e-book reader.

Above, an episode which examines how the Kindle fares for folks who might want to resell their book after they're done reading it (this is what lawyers and people who know what the letters E-F-F stand for refer to as the "first sale doctrine").

The Book vs. The Kindle (Hugh D'Andrade, eff.org/deeplinks)

Here's a video and how-to for making your own potato six shooter. Family fun at its finest!

The Potato Gatling Gun

By now, you've probably seen the video of the wedding party entrance for the wedding of Jill Peterson and Kevin Heinz (if not, go check it out). It's been seen by many millions of people, and the number just keeps on growing. The wedding party entrance is choreographed as the entire wedding party dances enthusiastically to Chris Brown's song Forever. The video, of course is almost certainly copyright infringement. Even if we assume that the church in St. Paul where this took place paid its public performance license, that would only cover the venue, not the eventual rebroadcast on YouTube. Now there are some who will insist that every streamed version of this song should require that a fee be paid. But, of course, if that were the case, this video almost certainly would not have been put on YouTube and would not have been seen by so many millions of people.

And what would have happened then?

Well, JohnForDummies notes that the success of this video is having a major impact for Chris Brown (who's reputation is, reasonably, in tatters for assaulting his then girlfriend, the singer Rihanna). Not that we advocate supporting someone who assaulted his girlfriend, but the video is having an impact. The song Forever has jumped into the iTunes top 10, despite having been released over a year ago. Also, the video itself has greatly outpaced an attempt by Brown to create a viral video "apologizing" for his actions.

It's not clear how the record label (in this case, a subsidiary of Sony Music) feels about this (see update below) -- though, I will note that embedding has been disabled on the video and there is a link to buy the song on the YouTube page. At the very least, this suggests that Sony (which has a good relationship with YouTube, unlike some others...) worked out a deal to take advantage of the publicity around the video. Though, the disabling of embedding seems rather pointless. Embedding the video would likely guarantee far more views, and with it, more purchases.

Update: Thanks to a bunch of folks sending in the news that Google is now promoting this as a case study of a rights holder taking control over content.

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In the immortal word of Keanu Reeves: "Whoa."

A Water-Powered Jetpack

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(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

All of James D. Griffioen's Detroit photos are incredibly gorgeous. Some of my favorites are of the abandoned feral houses being consumed by vegetation.

David Pogue has distilled into useful form a long-standing complaint I have (and one reason I have long had a voice mail greeting that asked people not to leave me voicemail): cell phone companies set up the greeting, caller instructions, and playback system prompts in large part to maximize their revenue per user; by his calculations, the "mandatory 15-second voicmail instructions" from AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile and others is earning those companies something near a billion dollars a year in charges. Pogue suggests that users should "take back the beep," and to that end provides contact information for the largest cell carriers in order to register a complaint — and, more helpful in the short run, suggests ways in which to make better use of paid-for phone minutes by alerting callers how to bypass the annoying instructions.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ReadWriteWeb reports today that eBay is developing software that would replace the "guts" of Skype, but the company may lose a court battle with Skype's founders over rights to the core technology.

[eBay] said in a regulatory filing yesterday that if it fails in both the legal and technical avenues it's pursuing then "continued operation of Skype's business as currently conducted would likely not be possible."

Joltid, a company owned by Skype's founders, merely licensed some of the system's core technolgy to eBay when it sold Skype to the auction giant in 2005. Joltid now says that the license has been revoked and eBay is infringing on its rights by continuing to use the technology. The case is scheduled to go to court in June of 2010 but eBay is trying to replace the technology in the mean time. It may not succeed.

Skype As We Know It May Not Exist Much Longer, eBay Says (via @rmack)

David recently posted a video to announce the exhibition at the San Jose Museum of Art of Todd Schorr's fantastically detailed, feverish paintings.

I have a copy of the large-format book, American Surreal (published by Last Gasp), which has high-quality reproductions of his paintings, along with preliminary sketches, details, commentary, and other supplemental materials. His work is a well of novelty that never runs dry, no matter how often you draw from it.

The latest collection of paintings by one of contemporary surrealism's most influential artists. American Surreal picks up where Dreamland, Schorr's previous bestselling collection of mind-bending paintings left off. Look forward to countless hours of eye bulging investigative thought while examining the impeccably rendered subject matter that has become the hallmark of Schorr's outrageous vision. Schorr, one of the seminal figures in what has come to be known as the Lowbrow or Pop Surrealism art movement, has continually and systematically set the bar ever higher in his quest to bring classic old master painting technique to his pop culture infused subject matter. This latest collection continues that journey culminating with the epic masterpiece Ape Worship included in this volume. Schorr's paintings are the subject of two upcoming museum retrospectives, and are highly prized and coveted by collectors the world over. American Surreal is sure to satisfy those with an overly-developed visual appetite.

Todd Schorr's formative years were spent surrounded by the atomic and space ages; by Saturday morning cartoons and racks of comic books; by Revell models, Mad Magazine, Testors glue, Mickey Mouse, and Rat Fink. The compulsion to replicate these images led to a formal art education and exposure to a new set of influences drawn from the world of advertising and commercial art.

UPDATE: Ben Marks of KQED public radio reviewed the show.

American Surreal, by Todd Schorr

We've seen more than enough stories already about questionable court rulings around the globe saying that certain ISPs must block access to The Pirate Bay or other sites. Historically, such blocks have been a disaster. They don't work (people find an easy way around them) and the announcement of the ban itself almost always generates a lot more traffic to the banned site. It's like free advertising. However, the anti-piracy group BREIN appears to have taken a different strategy in the Netherlands. Rather than asking the court to have ISPs block The Pirate Bay, it asked the court to tell The Pirate Bay to block Dutch web surfers. BREIN, of course, has a history of overreaching, including demanding names of file sharers against local privacy laws and declaring that a usenet group, by itself was illegal.

And yet again, a court has ruled in the entertainment industry's favor, going against basic civil rights. The court has said that The Pirate Bay must start blocking Dutch web surfers from reaching the site. Somehow, I doubt the folks at The Pirate Bay will comply. They've already complained about the process, noting that they were never summoned to the court to defend themselves, while the ruling itself actually spends a fair amount of time claiming that the folks from The Pirate Bay were fairly summoned through a variety of means. The court basically concludes that they should have known about the case, and their failure to show up will not stop the case from moving forward.

Not surprisingly, the Pirate Bay folks find the whole thing to be a farce. They're already suing BREIN's lawyers for falsely claiming that The Pirate Bay had launched a DDoS attack on BREIN's website. Also, amazingly, the court wouldn't even give them a copy of the ruling against them. Of course, as brokep notes, The Pirate Bay doesn't have any operations in the Netherlands anyway, so what can the court do?

In the meantime, is it worth mentioning that it was a Dutch study that recently said that file sharing had a positive impact on the economy?

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Last night my friend Colin and I went to Meltdown Comics & Collectibles in Los Angeles to listen to comic book historian Craig Yoe's (center) presentation on the weird, sad life of Superman co-creator Joe Shuster.

Here's my glossed over summary of Yoe's fascinating presentation (which included lots of great slides that you can't see here but are in the pages of Yoe's fantastic book, Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster):

Boyhood friends Joe Shuster and Jerry Siegel created the Superman character in the late 1930s. They sold a 13-page story about the superhero to DC comics, which bought the story and all rights to the character for $130, which Shuster and Siegel split. The story appeared in Action Comics #1 (1938).

Superman immediately became a huge success. Issue #7 of Action Comics sold a half-million copies, and soon Action was selling a million copies a month. This irked Shuster and Siegel, but the publishers soothed their tempers by giving them the lion's share of the Superman newspaper strip syndication revenue. Thanks to this, the young men each made today's equivalent of $750,000 a year.

This went on for about seven or eight years, with the boys riding high, but then they met a sleazy lawyer, Albert "Zuggy" Zugmsith, who told them he would sue DC to get them back the rights to Superman. The trial ended in 1948, and it was a devastating loss for Shuster and Siegel. DC stopped paying them, and they were blackballed from the entire comic book industry.

Shuster had to scrape by sweeping floors and doing other odd jobs, but finally found work doing fetish illustrations for a cheaply produced sado-masochistic fetish magazine called Nights of Horror. Many of the characters in his fetish illustrations for these booklets bore a striking resemblance to Clark Kent, Lois Lane, Jimmy Olsen, and Lex Luthor.

In 1954, the Brooklyn Thrill Killers, a gang of Jewish neo-Nazi teenagers who sported Hitler mustaches, were arrested for killing homeless men and horsewhipping girls. They told the court that they were acting out scenes from Nights of Horror. The publisher and dealer of the magazine were imprisoned, as were the members of the Brooklyn Thrill Killers. Joe Shuster was able to stay hidden from the media furor because he hadn't signed the work and no one recognized his style. Shuster went back to performing menial jobs and died poor.

This story might never had come to light if it weren't for Craig Yoe's ability to recognize cartoonists by looking at their work. In his book he writes that when he came across a copy of Nights of Horror by chance several years ago "in a dusty old cardboard box in a used bookseller's stall, these words leaped in a single bound to my mind: "Oh, my God, Joe Shuster!" That was the beginning of a multi-year-long research project that took Yoe all over the world, and led to the writing of Secret Identity: The Fetish Art of Superman's Co-creator Joe Shuster. The full story in the book is even more bizarre, and there's even a movie deal in the works.

After the presentation the Suicide Girls (above) acted out several of the scenes from illustrations in the book. I've uploaded photos to my Flickr account, but they should be viewed by adult intellectuals only.

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

One of my upcoming Toolbox columns is going to cover shop storage tech. So I was happy to see this positive review of Akro-Mils storage cases in today's Cool Tools:

Working in industrial design, I constantly acquire small sets of parts to use for multiple clients and projects. I've tried using a variety of translucent plastic boxes to contain and organize these parts, but they've been flawed in a number of ways: the parts are difficult to pick out with your fingers; the small pieces migrate from compartment to compartment; and finally, the latches break.

I think Akro-Mils has solved all of these problems with their cases. The latches span the entire front side of the organizer, work well, and don't seem to break. The bottom of each compartment is curved on at least two sides to allow picking up those 0-80 screws, and the top has ridges that surround each divider to make it much less likely for the parts to jump out of their compartments. The two Akro-Mils organizers I have been using are the small (05-705) and the large (05-905). There's a medium available, too. I think I paid $4 and $7, respectively, which is about the same price as products with none of these features or durability. -- Arthur Carr

Akro-Mils

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djcb writes "After only 2 years since the previous version, now emacs 23 (.1) is available. It brings many new features, of which the support for anti-aliased fonts on X may be the most visible. Also, there is support for starting emacs in the background, so you can pop up new emacs windows in the blink of an eye. There are many other bigger and smaller improvements, including support for D-Bus, Xembed, and viewing PDFs inside emacs. And not to forget, M-x butterfly. You can get emacs 23 from ftp.gnu.org/gnu/emacs/ or one of its mirrors; alternatively, there are binary packages available, for example from Ubuntu PPA."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eldavojohn writes "Two researchers, Dan Kaminsky and Moxie Marlinspike, came up with exact same way to fake being a popular website with authentication from a certificate authority. Wired has the details: 'When an attacker who owns his own domain — badguy.com — requests a certificate from the CA, the CA, using contact information from Whois records, sends him an email asking to confirm his ownership of the site. But an attacker can also request a certificate for a subdomain of his site, such as Paypal.com.badguy.com, using the null character in the URL. The CA will issue the certificate for a domain like PayPal.com.badguy.com because the hacker legitimately owns the root domain badguy.com. Then, due to a flaw found in the way SSL is implemented in many browsers, Firefox and others theoretically can be fooled into reading his certificate as if it were one that came from the authentic PayPal site. Basically when these vulnerable browsers check the domain name contained in the attacker's certificate, they stop reading any characters that follow the " in the name.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Jeff says: "My friend Juliet gave me this great essay that is simultaneously a love letter to David Lynch and a kick in the pants to the city of Philadelphia."

Philadelphia has a problem with its statuary: we build lavish monuments to to the wrong people while letting the right ones go unmarked.

We have statues of people who polarized us (Frank Rizzo), who couldn't have cared less about us (Charles Dickens) or who never existed (Rocky Balboa). Meanwhile, we overlook people who logged real time here and did great things.

This problem has a solution: put a big-ass statue of the title character from the movie Eraserhead, directed by former Philadelphia resident David Lynch, at the corner of 13th and Wood.

David Lynch Must Be Honored in Philadelphia with a Giant Monument to the Guy From Eraserhead. For Real.

Now, it's no surprise that plenty of people don't quite "get" the public domain or why it's important (though, if you are interested, you should read James Boyle's excellent book on the subject, which you can also order -- signed -- as a part of the Techdirt Book Club). And we've seen more than a few instances where people falsely claim copyright on public domain material. However, none of that really explains Barnes & Noble's bizarre and contradictory response to someone's question about why public domain ebooks were locked up with DRM (thanks Mark for sending this in). B&N is apparently offering a promotion for "free" ebooks, but it turns out that all of them are in the public domain (meaning most are already available for free online). But, oddly, these books were locked up by DRM, and someone decided to ask why. The original question goes a bit too far in claiming that the DRM "infringes" on the "right to print the works" (there's no such right, and B&N has no requirement to allow you to print), but that's no excuse for the way B&N "explains" why the public domain books its giving away "free" are protected by DRM:

We selected public domain titles as our free eBooks because these books are traditionally among our customers' favorite works of literature.... Also, for copyright protection purposes, these files are encrypted and cannot be converted or printed.

So, they recognize that the works are in the public domain... but they encrypt them with DRM to protect the copyright that doesn't exist on those works. That's convincing.

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National Geographic posted a selection of photos related to the massive Nomura's jellyfish that may inundate Japanese waters this summer. The magnificent photo above was taken off the cost of Japan in 2007 when the jellyfish wreaked havoc on fishing nets and spoiled catches with their toxins. From National Geographic:

Scientists have since been racing to unlock the mysteries of this giant jellyfish species in an attempt to forecast invasions and prevent damages.

This June researchers at Hiroshima University made some of the first surveys of the jellyfish's spawning grounds off the Chinese coast. The team found a huge new brood lurking in the waters, prompting experts to warn that another giant jellyfish invasion may be on the horizon.

"GIANT JELLYFISH PICTURES: Japan's Nomura Invasion"

Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.

This is a building in downtown Los Angeles. It's a pretty straightforward classic-style building, what with doubled Ionic columns and all the usual classic Greek/Roman detailing one expects out of these sorts of buildings. But, at some point in the building's life, it was renovated, and whoever was in charge decided the best typeface to use on the pediment there would be something that made the building look like a backdrop in a bad 80s scifi movie. Like that really should say "Terran Space Senate Headquarters" or something.

It's such a strange and jarring contrast, I'm surprised it got the go-ahead. But I think I like it.

Over on BBG, our Lisa has spotted these cracking coconut headphones. Gilligan's Island chic FTW!

Coconut headphones!

Discuss this on BBG

Oracle Goddess writes "Buying DRMed content, then having that content stop working later, is fair, writes Steven Metalitz, the lawyer who represents the MPAA, RIAA in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office. 'We reject the view that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works.' In other words, if it stops working, too bad. Not surprisingly, Metalitz also strongly opposes any exemption that would allow users to legally strip DRM from content if a store goes dark and takes down its authentication servers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scott Bradlee plays a rousing Ragtime piano medley of 80s hits including Come On Eileen, Don't You Want Me Baby, Material Girl, Don't Stop Believin', and, er, this one. (Sorry.)

This started a few years ago, when suddenly grandstanding Congress-folk started blaming Limewire for "leaking" a confidential terrorist threat assessment. Of course, that was misguided. The problem wasn't Limewire (or any file sharing software), but idiotic gov't employees who (a) put file sharing software on gov't computers (b) didn't properly wall off the software and (c) put confidential info where it could be shared. Earlier this year, suddenly, the issue came up again (again targeting Limewire). It was instigated by some aggressive entertainment industry lobbyists, who have concocted this huge story about how Limewire is to blame. And politicians always seem willing to buy it.

The latest is that some in Congress are planning legislation after claiming that "Secret Service safehouse locations, military rosters, and IRS tax returns" were available via Limewire (funny... those are the same things mentioned in the PR email I got from the entertainment industry lobbyist's PR person...).

Our Congressional critters tried to one up each other in stupid proposals, with one, Rep. Bill Foster, even tossing out the idea of passing a law to block the Gnutella protocol (though, he admitted it wasn't likely to work). Others just planned to pass laws that would ban the use of file sharing software on gov't computers (you need a law for that?!?) and to have the FTC investigate Limewire. And, of course, the real goal in all of this, politicians want to pass a law demanding that the gov't "undertake a national campaign to educate consumers about the dangers of file sharing software."

That last one, of course, is actually the end-goal here. The entertainment industry and their shills such as the group Arts+Labs (who was behind much of this campaign) have been demonizing file sharing software completely, and now want the gov't to help. So the best way to do that was to find some folks who misused the software, get some headlines about how P2P software "exposed" Obama's safehouse locations and then get the gov't to put in place some entertainment industry propaganda. Arts+Labs wins completely. It's backers include the various entertainment firms (bonus! gov't pitching their propaganda story) and a few tech companies who sell filtering/blocking technology (bonus! gov't increasing demand for their technology).

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OK, so this report came from The Sun. And I know about pareidolia. But I still get a kick out of this image of Jesus that appeared in a baking tray after Oliver Bellerby of Yorkshire, England cooked a burger.
"The Holy Roast"

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her now defunct Stay Free! magazine.

As mentioned earlier, I collect books by people who have raised apes or monkeys in their homes, so, as a service to Boing Boing readers, I thought I'd review them for you.

Toto and I: A Gorilla in the Family, by A Maria Hoyt (1941)

A charming memoir by an eccentric heiress who brought Toto home after her husband, working for the Museum of Natural History in New York, shot Toto's mother on the hunt for a specimen. Despite marrying a mommy killer, Hoyt goes to the wall to help young Toto, even moving to Cuba to accommodate her charge. There are lots of choice anecdotes in this book but my favorite involve sleep training the gorilla. Like many children, Toto insisted on sleeping with her parents. Caregiver Thomas and Toto slept in separate beds in Toto's room; each night over the course of month, Tomas moved his bed farther and farther away from Toto until he was actually out of her room. (Incidentally, this is essentially the same method recommended by the Sleep Lady.) Before Toto was weaned from cosleeping, however, she "punished" Tomas by locking him in her bedroom:

[Toto] slammed the door after him, deftly locking it from the playroom side. Since the windows were heavily barred, Tomas was now securely confined with Toto, his jailer, dancing in triumphant joy in the other room.... For over an hour, he stayed there securely locked up. Then, growing a little weary of the game, he called Toto to the door, scolded her severely and told her to unlock it and let him out. Shamefacedly, she obeyed...

Lucy: Growing Up Human, A Chimpanzee Daughter in a Psychotherapist's Family, by Maurice K. Temerlin (1972)

Touchy-feely account by a nut job (Maurice Temerlin, aka Maury) who goes to great lengths to maintain a relationship with his chimpanzee "daughter." Lucy is by all accounts an extremely precocious chimp; the stories here are lively and engaging but often for the wrong reasons. I could write at length about this book but instead I'll just share one telling anecdote. Maury, like many caretakers of primates, insists on calling Lucy his daughter. Most of such quasi-parents keep their charges in cages and use cattle prods or other devices to keep them in line. Not Maury. But he's got his own bizarre ideas of what it means to be a dad:

Lucy attempts to mouth my penis whenever she sees it, whether I am urinating, bathing, or having an erection. As a matter of fact I think it is accurate to say that Lucy is fascinated by the human penis since she attempts to explore it with her mouth whenever she can, unless it is mine and she is swollen in estrus.

So Maury frequently has erections in the company of his "daughter" and observes her putting penises (not just his own!) in her mouth. And, wait, there's more: "I found this a very interesting observation as throughout the years of my deep affection for Lucy I never experienced sexual desire for her. " Interesting? Really? She's supposed to be your daughter? And a chimp!

Maury ended up getting fired from his job as head of the psychology department at the University of Oklahoma. Lucy, however, triumphed: after nearly 18 years with crazy Maury and his wife (a record), she became one of the very rare chimps who was successfully re-introduced into the wild in Africa.

Nim, by Herbert S. Terrace (1979)

Terrace was a professor at Columbia University who acquired Nim Chimpsky (a pun on you know who) in order to conduct an experiment in teaching a chimp sign language. Nim is a clever little imp. After sneaking a bowl of cereal, he would hide the evidence (the dirty bowl). Unlike many chimps, he was able to be potty trained. In fact, when he wanted to get out of doing something unpleasant, he'd sign "dirty" to indicate that he had to go to the bathroom.

Unfortunately, little Nim was treated more like a test subject than a family member. Every time he developed a bond with one of his teachers, the semester ended or the teacher would otherwise leave, stranding him with strangers. Chimps are extremely social creatures and, without being able to develop bonds with others, Nim suffered emotional problems. Consequently, Nim didn't learn nearly as well as was expected.

After shipping Nim back to a research facility, Terrace closely studied video tapes of Nim and concluded that Nim couldn't communicate with language. In the book, Terrace acknowledged that Nim's social problems likely foiled the study, but over time he seems to have downplayed his own failings with the study and gone out whole hog on a mission to prove that apes are incapable of language. Pity. A followup book by Elizabeth Hess, Nim Chimpsky: The Chimp Who Would Be Human, came out last year but I haven't read it yet.

No He's Not a Monkey, He's an Ape and He's My Son, by Hester Mundis (1976)

Two New York writers buy a chimp from an exotic pets store, seemingly as an excuse to write a book about it. This book is relatively dull, though I did appreciate reading about little Boris' habit of sneaking up on the family dog and swatting him in the balls. The writers gave Boris to a zoo a year after buying him. They published two books about him.

Samba and the Monkey Mind, by Leonard Williams (1965)

This was the first primate-related book I read and remains one of my favorites. It's written by a charming Australian man with a gift for prose and a habit of accepting rogue wooly monkeys that no one else wants to deal with. The book doesn't have much in the way of structure; it's just observations by Williams about his woolies. For example, Williams notices that female woolies make passes at the boys by peeing on them. (Williams gets peed on a lot.) The tititular Samba ("a little black wooly poltergeist") has a habit of sneaking in the liquor cabinet and taking a "nip" of sherry. She never remembers to put the bottle back, though: "Samba is, frankly, an unrepentant rogue." There are lots of pictures of Williams' troops, and they are, by all objective measures, utterly adorable. Fun summer reading. I was sad when it was over.

The History of Noell's Ark Gorilla Show, by Mae Noell (1979)

A fascinating memoir by one of the founders of a 1940s side show that featured chimps who would box men from the audience. For real. Granted, the name of the show is a misnomer. The average person at the time hadn't heard of chimps (or assumed them to be small monkeys) so for publicity's sake the Noell's called them gorillas.

The show began by soliciting participants from the audience; the ones who came forward were a self-selected bunch of drunks and he-men with something to prove. The chimps ate them up. Sometimes literally. Noell writes that the chimps were natural showmen. Because they craved laughter and applause, they needed no training to perform. They would instinctively pull acts that they knew would get a reaction: somersaults and acrobatics, egging on the men, and tearing off opponents' clothes. Once, a chimp named Snookie rammed both thumbs up his opponents nostrils, Three Stooges-style, and stretched them apart until the sides tore. From that point all, all chimps were required to wear gloves and muzzles. Ultimately, of course, government killjoys stepped in and stopped the show. The Noells ended up founding a sanctuary in Palm Springs, Florida, called Chimp Farm. (That sanctuary has a pretty storied history.) Incidentally, one of their apes gave birth to baby Lucy, the chimp adopted by Maury Temerlin.

The Ape in Our House, by Cathy Hayes (1951)

Before primate psychologists were hip to sign language, Keith and Cathy Hayes attempted to raise a chimp as their daughter and teach her oral language. Keith and Cathy would manually try to shape baby Viki's mouth to get her to say "mama" and the like. Since chimps have little capacity for vocalizing, these lessons never amounted to much, and the Hayes eventually gave up. Viki picked up some o the Hayes' other habits, however. In the morning, she would run out to get the newspaper, sit on the couch and hold it as if scanning headlines, then turn pages one by one as if reading. After seeing "mom" Cathy trying to remove a clothing stain, she started dabbing a washcloth on some clothing herself.

The book covers the day to day life of Viki up to year three; I don't know what happened after that. In fact, I didn't actually finish this one; I found it a bit dull.

Eve and the Apes, by Emily Hahn (1988)

This book is an outlier but since it's about woman who have raised apes (many at home) I wanted to briefly mention it. Hahn was a New Yorker writer fascinated with primates. Each chapter focuses on a different woman and her charge(s); one features Maria Hoyt and Toto, another Penny Patterson and Koko, zoo director Belle Benchley, etc. So many women have devoted their lives to apes that Diane Fossey and Jane Goodall don't merit a place here; their contributions are too well-known. Hahn had caught on to something about primatology: much of what we know about ape intelligence and behavior was discovered by women. In fact, women have been integral to primatology to an extent rare in other sciences. Robert Yerkes, often credited as the "father" of primatology, learned how to raise apes from a Cuban woman, Madame Abreu. Anyway, this book is particularly well-written and informative.

OTHER BOOKS:

I already wrote about W.N. Kellogg's The Ape and the Child in a previous post. Goma the Gorilla Baby, by Ernst M. Lang, has cute photos but isn't particularly enlightening. Ditto Christine the Baby Chimp, by Lilo Hess. I read half of Next of Kin by Roger Fouts a decade ago but need to revisit it. I also haven't read Infant Chimpanzee and Human Child by N. N. Ladygina-Kohts. Know of any others? Let me know!

Tom Hobson made these fun BeatSneaks shoes with tap sensors and MIDI. Along with controlling music, they could trigger video or almost any other circuit. He's posted a HOWTO on his Hogbog Eclectronics site. BeatSneak HOWTO

secmartin writes "In a totally unexpected ruling, a Dutch court has decided that The Pirate Bay should block visitors from the Netherlands within 10 days or face a fine of €30,000 per defendant per day. Peter Sunde has already announced that he will appeal the ruling. Even though the defendants sent a letter explaining that they were unable to come to the hearing and provided arguments in their favor, these were ignored by the judge because they failed to appear in his court. The full text of the ruling was just published (in Dutch, PDF) by Peter Sunde, and further coverage is available at Forbes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The DoggieLoverDoll is a sex toy for male dogs. It seems to be real, and it's also not the first of its kind. The DoggieLoverDoll faux female features a silicone vagina and an (ew) "easy to clean reservoir." From the product's manfuacturer:

This doll comes in three sizes: small, medium and large, to satisfy all existing races. “I had the idea to make this doll when my Maltese started to grab everybody’s legs. I did some research and couldn’t find anything like it, anywhere in the world. I decided to make it!”, reveals Marco Giroto, owner of the PetSmiling company, responsible for this worldwide novelty...

During the doll’s test period with a few canines, including the Maltese Flock (responsible for the idea), the pets showed a better quality of life based on less anxiety, less barking, and less territorial demarcation. In other words, the dogs live a better life, satisfying their repressed sexuality, in some cases for many years.

When a dog tries to hump legs, stuffed animals and other objects, he cannot reach an ejaculation. With the DoggieLoverDoll he can. Human beings have their hands to masturbate themselves, now the domestic animals, which have practically no contact with females in heat, can alleviate themselves with a toy designed specifically for them.

DoggieLoverDoll (Thanks, Lisa Mumbach!)

John Rausch's Puzzle World website showcases some incredible and ingenious objects from Rausch's own puzzle collection, and from those of others. The site is divided into categories like interlocking solid puzzles, impossible object puzzles, sequential movement puzzles, etc. It's a nearly inescapable click-trap. Shown here are two of my favorites, so far. Above is Stewart Coffin's handmade "Jupiter" puzzle, and below is Harry Eng's "Jar of Tennis Balls."

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Earlier this month, I wrote about Voyageur, a storied, marvellous guitar pieced together from emotionally charged physical objects from across Canada, from the local to the national. Voyageur is a remarkable thing, a deliberately created talisman that was created by selecting 64 significant objects, combining them with skill and craftsmanship, and then bringing it across the nation, back and forth, back and forth, to draw out the personal magic of all kinds of Canadians.

Voyageur's story is collected in a remarkable book, Six String Nation: 64 Pieces, 6 Springs, 1 Country, 1 Guitar, written by Jowi Taylor, the guitar's overseer. Both the book and the guitar are quintessentially Canadian, attempting to unify a nation that is inherently synthetic, filled with people whose claim to "Canadianness" is recent, contingent, and fraught. It's not just non-indigenous people; Canada's "First Nations" struggle just as much with identity, the result of a combination of state policies that ranged from the merely discriminatory to the outright genocidal and the diversity within indigenous communities, whose makeup includes Cree and Six Nations and other "original" indigenes; Inuit people who found the continent much later, and metis and other "mixed" people who lay claim to multiple heritages.

Growing up Canadian, I fully internalized the idea that countries are just arbitrarily delimited places filled with people from all over the world, that prejudiced nationalism wasn't just ugly, it was nonsensical. "Canadians" aren't Canadian because of where they were born or because of who their parents were -- they're Canadian because they call themselves Canadian. It's no wonder that the winning entry in a famous CBC contest to finish the phrase "As Canadian as..." was "...possible under the circumstances."

Jowi Taylor's book, his guitar, and his remarkable quest to bring an object "made from hockey sticks and canoe paddles and grain elevators and baseboards and boats and antlers," to as many Canadians as possible, to have it played by as many Canadians as possible, are a uniquely Canadian endeavor, a synthesis of all the different ways there are to "be Canadian."

Structurally, the book is a great mix of short reminisces, portraits of the guitar and the many people who've honored it, and an inventory of the pieces that form it, from ancient rock to Rocket Richard's Stanley Cup ring to Pierre Trudeau's canoe paddle to a piece of the sacred Haida Gai tree to a piece of John A Macdonald's sideboard to a piece of the Nova Scotia Home for Coloured Children to a bit of a soup paddle from Hoito Restaurant, a worker's co-op started by Finnish trade-unionists in Northern Ontario. Braiding the stories of the guitar, its pieces, and its fans makes for a powerful back story, a kind of magic that is positively galvanizing.

Whether or not you are Canadian or care about Canada's endless identity crisis, "Six String Nation" is a remarkable account of how humans infuse objects with meaning and story and turn them into powerful, awesome symbols.

After writing my earlier post, I heard from Jowi, who reminded me of a delightful personal connection, as his mother told him, "You and Cory Doctorow played together in [Toronto's] Earl Bales Park at the NDP [New Democratic Party] Picnic when you were little"! It's a small world and a small country, indeed.

Six String Nation: 64 Pieces, 6 Springs, 1 Country, 1 Guitar (Amazon Canada)

Six String Nation: 64 Pieces, 6 Springs, 1 Country, 1 Guitar (Amazon US)

Six String Nation (site)/Guitar Explorer

My favorite cheap spy-tech/weird cheap gadget seller, Brando, just announced a GPS jammer that plugs into a cigarette lighter. The description is sparse, but I am guessing it can be used to block navigation/tracking/logging systems that rental cars and company fleet vehicles sometimes use to keep track of drivers. It's $49 and I don't know if they are legal or not. Gobal Positioning System (GPS) Jammer

destinyland writes "MIT's Media Lab is building 'a game that designs its own AI agents by observing the behavior of humans.' Their ultimate goal? 'Collective AI-driven agents that can interact and converse with humans without requiring programming or specialists to hand-craft behavior and dialogue.' With a similar project underway by a University of California professor, we may soon see radically different games that can 'react with human-like adaptability to whatever situation they're thrust into.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The EFF is trying to get a DMCA exemption from the Library of Congress for people who jailbreak their iPhones (if history is any indication, this won't happen -- the Library of Congress never seems to care about consumer rights). However, Apple's response to the Library of Congress, suggesting that open or jailbroken iPhones could be used by terrorists to bring down cell towers is both preposterous and totally unrelated to the issue at hand. First it's preposterous, as there are plenty of "open" devices out there already, and there has yet to be a single report of anyone taking down a cell tower with their mobile phone.

But, much more to the point: the point of copyright is not to protect us from terrorists taking down cell towers. If we, as a country, are relying on the DMCA to protect us from terrorists who don't want us making phone calls, we've got bigger problems. Even if it were true that terrorists could take down cell towers with an open mobile phone, does anyone actually think they'd shy away from doing so because it violated the DMCA? It's not like that's going to make much of a difference at all. It's entirely meaningless to the question of whether or not legal buyers of a mobile device should have the right to place whatever legal software they want on the device.

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Well, to laser-etch, anyway. Brooklyn tattoo artist Scott Campbell makes these laser-cut stacks of $1 bills. Recently shown at a gallery in Miami, the stacks are part of a collection called "Make it Rain." Thanks to Billy Baque for the heads-up.

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Greg Huang writes "Looking back, it's almost impossible to believe that for most of the 1990s, a single company, Network Solutions, had a government-issued monopoly on registering domain names on the Internet. And considering how central the company was to the growth of the Web, it's surprising how little of the company's back story — how it got into the domain name business, or who owned it — has been told. Xconomy has an in-depth interview with two former executives from SAIC, the secretive San Diego defense contractor that bought Network Solutions in 1995 for $5 million and sold off the domain registration business in 2000 for billions of dollars."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As a follow up to their d12 purse, Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has gone ahead and upped the ante with this d20 purse, complete with a kit (including laser-cut numbers) and full instructions.

More:

How-To: Make a handbag of holding

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Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.

Are you one of those folks who loves God? I mean really loves God? As in enough to make the visual association between your Lord and a noted package delivery company?

Because, friend, that's what it takes to wear this garment. If you're just one of those fly-by-night, loves-God-only-enough-to-associate-Him-with-a-soft-drink types, then keep walking.

(Thanks, Galen!)

Carrie McLaren is a guest blogger at Boing Boing and coauthor of Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. She lives in Brooklyn, the former home of her now defunct Stay Free! magazine.

Though I consider myself an ape enthusiast, I've never really cottoned to movies starring chimps. Chimps dressed in clothing performing slapstick gags just isn't my thing. Documentaries about primates usually aren't much better; they tend to be dry and humorless, sucking all the spirit out of their subjects while portraying their depressing circumstances. Also, there's just something incongruous about watching "nature" documentaries on TV screens. But People of the Forest: The Chimps of Gombe transcends all this. In a word, it's awesome. The documentary draws on 20 years of footage to tell the stories of a group of chimps that Jane Goodall followed in Gombe, Tanzania. It's as sweet and funny and heart-rending as any great feature film. Highly recommended. (The movie is out of print, but Amazon has a few copies, or you may be able to get it via P2P.)

Al writes "The head of Google's Web-spam-fighting team, Matt Cutts, warned last week that spammers are hacking more and more poorly secured websites in order to "game" search-engine results. At a conference on information retrieval, held in Boston, Cutts also discussed how Google deals with the growing problem of search spam. "I've talked to some spammers who have large databases of websites with security holes," Cutts said. "You definitely see more Web pages getting linked from hacked sites these days. The trend has been going on for at least a year or so, and I do believe we'll see more of this [...] As operating systems become more secure and users become savvier in protecting their home machines, I would expect the hacking to shift to poorly secured Web servers." Garth Bruen, creator of the Knujon software that keeps track of reported search spam, added that some campaigns involve creating up to 10,000 unique domain names." Link To Original Source

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I have to admit, I wasn't going to write anything at all about the Yahoo/Microsoft search deal. It honestly seemed pretty pointless -- much bluster about nothing at all of importance. After talking it over with an editor at Forbes, however, I agreed to write up an op-ed for them about why the deal is misguided, and I wanted to expand on one part of that here. I just don't think there's very much interesting in fighting the last battle over "search" rather than looking at where things are headed. And, on that front, I noted:

People are discovering that information finds them, rather than them going in search of information. Search already works. The next interesting challenge is in improving the way information finds you, rather than the way you find information.

That is the key point that innovators in the internet space are starting to figure out. Information is much more powerful when it finds you (for example, when it's passed along by someone you trust). But that information doesn't just find you by itself. The internet helps, in making it easy to pass along a link or some text -- or to share/embed/etc. some content. But the tools for sharing information need to improve drastically, and that's where the next excitement will come from. It's in enabling relevant information to find you rather than the other way around. And, Yahoo/Microsoft has nothing to do with that at all.

Separately, this is also why I think sites that are trying to lock up content behind paywalls or limited access are making things worse. They're doing the opposite of where the internet is moving. They're making it harder for their information to find you, and they'll discover that this will lock them out of much of the opportunity.

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mhx writes "A single character sent by text message could allegedly compromise every iPhone released to date. The technique involves sending only one unusual text character or else a series of 'invisible' messages that confuse the phone and open the door to attack. Apple has not released any updates yet, so little can be done, except to power off your iPhone to avoid being hacked."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mhx writes "A single character sent by text message could allegedly compromise every iPhone released to date. The technique involves sending only one unusual text character or else a series of "invisible" messages that confuse the phone and open the door to attack. Apple has not released any updates yet. So little can be done, except power off your iPhone to avoid being hacked."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Home Crisis Investigation
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Joke of the Day

Barry Ritholtz sez, "An utterly brilliant takedown of the Housing Crisis, illustrated by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's inability to sell his own NY home. The faux auction is too too funny -- Sold to Sir-Coughs-a-lot!" Home Crisis Investigation (Thanks, Barry!)

Noah Scalin sez:

Some images from my exhibition After Life that is currently up at Quirk Gallery here in Richmond, VA. The show features 100 original skulls from my Skull-A-Day project (which is the majority of what still exists) as well as several new large-scale pieces made specifically for this show including: a working sign made from vintage neon pieces, a giant laser cut steel skull, a 9 foot tall laser cut wood version of the United Skull of America, a hand pinstriped car hood, and custom upholstered chairs. The show is up through August 22nd and is the first time any of the work has been for sale.

There are also a couple of events happening at the gallery before it closes: SKULLS FOR KIDS (August 8th 10am-noon); and TEA PARTY (August 15th 2-4pm).

After Life: A Skull Exhibition (Thanks, Noah!)

Check out this clever headphone mod. Maker Iwan Roberts reconditioned this pair of headphones using coconut husks and some twine as a gift for a friend. They're perfect for listening to a MAKE Podcast and rugged enough to bring along on the occasional three hour tour.

[via ben grainger]

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An anonymous reader writes "Lance Davis, the main project administrator for CentOS, a popular free "rebuild" of Red Hat's Enterprise Linux, appears to have gone AWOL. In an open letter from his fellow CentOS developers, they describe the precarious situation the project has been put in. There have been attempts to contact him for some time now, as he's the sole administrator for the centos.org domain, the IRC channels, and apparently, CentOS funds. One can only hope that Lance gets in contact with them and gets things sorted out."

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While we tend to have trouble with the idea that there's a real "addiction" issue with video gaming, there certainly are some people who have trouble leaving the game. And, there have been plenty of therapists/psychologists/psychiatrists popping up with offerings to help "video game addicts." But how does one stand out in the space? How about by treating the patients directly in the game itself? Apparently, that's the plan of one psychiatrists, who wants to start getting other therapists to join the game and treat patients within it. Wonder if they'll try to convince the offshore "gold farmers" that they need help...

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MAKE compadre Pete Edwards posted this rather handsome one-sheet guide for adding effect/mix control to a common megaphone voice changer. Looks like a great starting point for those looking to convert inexpensive toys into more versatile devices for music. Have closer look over @ Casper Electronics.

From the pages of MAKE:

Circuit Bending  Volume 04, Page 93

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Jack Spine writes "UK intelligence agency MI5 has admitted that its website security was breached by hacker group Team Elite. A member of the hacker forum posted details of the hack last week, which took advantage of a cross-site scripting vulnerability in the site's Google embedded search. MI5 admitted the breach on Wednesday, but said that the flaw had not been exploited maliciously."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A bit of fairy tale busting from the BBC's Bang Goes the Theory - A gas-powered vortex cannon does some impressive huffing & puffing, taking on the role of big bad wolf against little huts of straw, sticks, and brick. That be one very loud & gassy wolf!

More:

Weekend Project: Vortex Cannons

Vortex Cannons  Volume 15, Page 116

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The following article is reprinted from my old personal-tech website, Street Tech. I thought these vibrobots would make perfect family projects for the "Teach Your Family to Solder" MAKEcation. If you have kids too young to solder, you could build a mint-tin vibrobot [PDF] with them (which doesn't require soldering) and these solar-powered vibrobots with the rest of the makers in your family. - Gareth

In MAKE, Volume 08, I wrote a piece on pummers, a type of solar-powered robotic plant life. I've known about pummers for years, but my inspiration for the MAKE article was finding Zach Debord's gorgeous pummer set on Flickr. Being an artist and designer, Zach understands the value of making miniature robots that are as beautiful as they are functional. Mark Tilden, the "Big God" of BEAM robotics, has a wonderful adage that a human is a way that a robot makes a better robot. One "evolutionary strategy" here is centered on aesthetics. Aesthetics help drive human interest. The pummer piece is a prime example. I saw Zach's bots, I was wowed by their beautiful designs, and I wanted others to see them. The piece got published, and now, if you search on pummer in the MAKE Flickr pool, you see other people are making them. The robots are replicating themselves.

In the realm of behavior-based robotics, BEAM, bio-mimics, and other bottom-up, bug-brained approaches to robotic design, nearly every conceivable form of motility has been explored. There are bots on wheels, two-, four-, six-, eight-legged bots, bots with whegs (wheel/leg crossbreeds), snakebots, spinnerbots, swimmers, fliers, climbers. You name it. One of the less documented types of robotic motility is found in the vibrobot, a type of robot that gets around by shimmying, shaking, and scooting. It's not the most graceful or accurate way to explore the world, but it's very easy to build a vibrobot and they're really fun (and funny) to watch.

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Timmy writes "In the cruelest of ironies, e-mail security vendor McAfee has accidentally coughed up the personal details of some 1400 attendees of its recent security conference in Sydney, Australia. Those who were sent the list — attached as a spreadsheet to a thank you e-mail — are far from pleased that such an extraordinary thing could happen. McAfee, which sells products to 'stop sensitive and protected data from leaving the enterprise through email and web traffic' has blamed 'human error' for the blunder and is 'taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.' Doh!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Timmy writes "In the cruelest of ironies, e-mail security vendor McAfee has accidentally coughed up the personal details of some 1400 attendees of its recent security conference in Sydney, Australia. Those who were sent the list — attached as a spreadsheet to a thank you e-mail — are far from pleased that such an extraordinary thing could happen. McAfee, which sells products to 'stop sensitive and protected data from leaving the enterprise through email and web traffic' has blamed 'human error' for the blunder and is 'taking steps to ensure it doesn't happen again.' Doh!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A research team at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Electronic Nano Systems (ENAS) in Chemnitz, Germany, led by Prof. Dr. Reinhard Baumann, have developed a 1.5V battery that weighs less than a gram, is less than 1mm thick, and can be printed using a process similar to that used in silk screening.

The new type of battery consists of different layers: a zinc anode and a manganese cathode, among others. Zinc and manganese react with one another and produce electricity. However, the anode and the cathode layer dissipate gradually during this chemical process. Therefore, the battery is suitable for applications that have a limited life span or a limited power requirement, for instance greeting cards.

The team hopes to have products using the method available by the end of the year.

Need battery power? Just print it out

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We've argued before that the antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft was misguided (though, I'll admit that I was in the camp that thought it made sense at the time, before realizing that was a mistake). The fact that the EU continues to go after Microsoft on antitrust issues seems even more silly. Farhad Manjoo has an article in Slate, officially about why it doesn't make sense to go after Google on antitrust charges, but with most of it detailing why Microsoft wasn't really an antitrust problem:

Many of Microsoft's assets turned out not to matter, because upstarts like Google and old foes like Apple found ways to innovate around them.

Indeed, in many ways Microsoft's size was a liability, not an asset. This is the classic innovator's dilemma; the company was so intent on protecting its cash cows--it derives most of its revenue from two products, Windows and Office--that it was blind to opportunities in new markets. Microsoft couldn't make a Web e-mail system like Gmail, because that would have threatened Outlook. And why should Microsoft bother with free online word processing apps when Office was doing so well? When journalist Steven Levy showed Bill Gates the first iPod, Gates' first reaction was, "It's only for Macintosh?" Gates saw the iPod through the lens of desktop computers; if the iPod connected only to Macs, it didn't pose a threat to Microsoft. What he didn't figure out was that the iPod would herald the iTunes Store, allowing Apple to become not only the most influential entertainment company in the world, but also the dominant software maker for mobile devices. Yes, the first iPod didn't work on Windows. In time, it would help render Windows irrelevant.

Indeed. This is a point that we've raised often before. Underdogs beat out big companies all the time, by changing the rules completely. When we talk patents, we hear people insisting that small inventors can't succeed because big companies will just "steal" their idea, but the simple fact is: if that big company recognizes the value in your idea, then you probably weren't going to succeed in the first place. The real innovators get responses like Gates' above to the iPhone. They come from so far out of left-field that the "big companies" don't see them coming (at all), even when they're right beneath their noses.

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A lot can be learned about 3D modeling in Google SketchUp from these video tutorials. They are extremely well presented, and cover a lot of advanced techniques. Check out the web site for a really nice library of building timbers, more videos, and information about designing in SketchUp.

More about Timber Frame Design using Google SketchUp

Woodworkers Pocket Ref

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blackbeak writes "The UK's Food Standards Agency's "Independant Organic Review" results were just released and the BBC rushed to publish the findings in the shockingly titled article, "No Health Benefits to Organic Food" From the article, 'There is little difference in nutritional value and no evidence of any extra health benefits from eating organic produce, UK researchers found.' A peek into the research at Postpeakpublishing provides a slightly deeper look."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A whole bunch of people have been submitting the story that some US Senators are now pushing a law that would effectively ban texting while driving across the country. Now, you may note that this is a state issue, rather than a federal issue, so the Senators have a sneaky way around that: they basically say that if states don't pass such a law, they'll withhold federal highway money. Now, let's be very clear here: texting while driving is moronic. It's obviously incredibly stupid and dangerous and you would have to be an idiot to do it. There was a recent study that wasn't even worth mentioning because of course trying to type a message on your phone while you're driving is going to massively diminish your driving skills and put everyone around you in danger.

That said, it's unclear what good a "ban" on this does. It's like trying to ban stupidity. There are a bunch of driver distractions, and people will continue to do them with or without a "ban." The real answer is a combination of (a) education and (b) potentially technological solutions (voice control with voice-to-text?). Perhaps you could make the argument that a regulatory ban would serve to educate, but it seems like there should be more effective ways to teach people that it's incredibly dumb to try to type out a text message while driving.

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Don't forget, we're giving away a $100 Maker Shed gift certificate to our favorite entry in the "Teach Your Family to Solder" MAKEcation challenge. We're also giving away five additional prizes (your choice of The Best of MAKE or The Best of Instructables) and some Maker's Notebooks, so be sure to upload your images and videos to Flickr and YouTube and tag them "MAKEcation."

All the details about the soldering challenge can be found here.

And, to make them more convenient and cheaper, we've put together a special bundle of kits (and some other goodies) for the event:

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Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.

Earlier this year, I did a bit of technical work for an artist, Kerry Tribe, on her installation/film project called H.M. It was a remarkable piece. At its core, it was a documentary about a man who had some experimental neurosurgery that left him with an active memory of 20 seconds. What made the piece so remarkable was that it played back on two 16mm projectors, the film being delayed by exactly 20 seconds from one to the other. The film was shot in such a way that the two projections, displaced in time by 20 seconds, worked together uncannily well, sometimes displaying complementary images, and even, in one visually notable part, forming a complete image that spanned over the two screens. It's pretty great.

Kerry and I are in the early stages of a collaboration I'm quite excited about, but even if I wasn't I'd encourage everyone to check out more of her work. There's not really a good way to see H.M. online, since the mechanical projectors and the maze of looped film form such an integral part of the piece, but I think it is traveling around a bit, so the best I can tell you is to keep your eyes open for it.

Jill sez, "This handcrafted (Etsy) 'real world' take on Game Boy consists of a felt 'Game Boy' console with little clay marios, luigis, mushrooms, turtles, tetris pieces and other iconic video game characters, and instructions to create scavenger hunts and active play in real physical space - encouraging couch potato gamer kids to spend some time moving around. "

iSpy Gameboy Bag with video game charms FREE Shipping (Thanks, Jill!)

We've had some interesting discussions around here concerning "fair use" lately -- especially in talking about the Shepard Fairey case. Some have suggested that because Fairey didn't do "enough" to change the look of the photo, it's not fair use. But, of course, that's now how fair use works. As an example of this, here's a recent lawsuit involving an angry blogger who set up some "gripes" sites against a certain company. He also created "WANTED" posters/postcards, using photos of execs that he pulled off the corporate internet page. Among other things, the company sued the griper, claiming copyright infringement for the use of the photos, but the court ruled in favor of fair use, even though the guy used the photos as they were. The company had tried to argue that since the guy didn't really change the images, there was no fair use, but the court dismissed that:

Sedgwick argues that there can be no fair use [as to the unaltered photos on the postcards] where, as here, Defendant did not alter the photographs of North and Posey.... [But] the salient inquiry is whether the use of the photos, in the specific context used, was transformative.... "[M]aking an exact copy of a work may be transformative so long as the copy serves a different function than the original work[.]"

Here, there can be no legitimate dispute that Defendant's use of North and Posey's photographs was transformative. Both images originally were used by Defendant for promotional reasons. Defendant, however, used the photographs as a vehicle for criticizing the Company. Specifically, both photographs are superimposed on postcards that mimic "WANTED" posters. Above each picture is the heading, in a large font, which states: "WANTED FOR HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS." The copy accompanying the photographs criticizes Sedgwick and its management's alleged mistreatment of claimants and questionable practices, and urges the public to report any misdeeds to the U.S. Department of Justice and state Attorney Generals. When viewed in context, it is clear that Defendant used North and Posey's photographs for a fundamentally different purpose than they were originally intended by transforming them into a vehicle for publicizing and criticizing Sedgwick's alleged business practices. In view of the above, the Court finds that the first fair use factor weighs strongly in favor of fair use.

Apply that same reasoning to the Shepard Fairey case, and you've got a clear transformation as well. The use was quite different than the original (news vs. political campaigning). Once again, a good reminder that "fair use" goes a bit further than what some people think. Separately, in the original link above, Eric Goldman points out that the other parts of the lawsuit against this guy were smartly tossed out as an anti-SLAPP violation.

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farrellj writes "According to Zeropaid, record company EMI has been notifying small music stores that they will no longer be able to buy EMI CDs from EMI, and will have to buy product from mega-chains like Walmart. Independent record store customers are some of the most loyal music buyers around. You are not going to find the back catalog, what used to be the staple of the music business, at your local Walmart. One wonders when the music business is going to run out of feet to shoot?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

farrellj writes "According to Zero Paid, record company EMI has been notifying small music stores that they will no longer be able to buy EMI CDs from EMI, and will have to buy product from Mega-Chains like Walmart. Independent Record store customers are some of the most loyal music buyers around. You are not going to find the back catalog, what used to be the staple of the music business, at your local Walmart. One wonders when the Music Business is going to run out of feet to shoot?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new game prototype called FunSAT from University of Michigan computer scientists Valeria Bertacco and Andrew DeOrio marries human intuition to computerized chip design to solve problems that computers are bad at by making it fun for humans to help them:

By solving challenging problems on the FunSAT board, players can contribute to the design of complex computer systems, but you don't have to be a computer scientist to play. The game is a sort of puzzle that might appeal to Sudoku fans.

The board consists of rows and columns of green, red and gray bubbles in various sizes. Around the perimeter are buttons that players can turn yellow or blue with the click of a mouse. The buttons' color determines the color of bubbles on the board. The goal of the game is to use the perimeter buttons to toggle all the bubbles green...

The game actually unravels so-called satisfiability problems--classic and highly complicated mathematical questions that involve selecting the best arrangement of options. In such quandaries, the solver must assign a set of variables to the right true or false categories so to fulfill all the constraints of the problem.

In the game, the bubbles represent constraints. They become green when they are satisfied. The perimeter buttons represent the variables. They are assigned to true or false when players click the mouse to make them yellow (true) or blue (false).

Once the puzzle is solved and all the bubbles are green, a computer scientist could simply look at the color of each button to gather the solution of that particular problem.

Game Utilizes Human Intuition To Help Computers Solve Complex Problems

FunSAT: Human Computing for EDA

Glyn sez, "Buying DRMed content, then having that content stop working later is fair writes Steven Metalitz, the lawyer who represents the MPAA, RIAA in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office."

"We reject the view," he writes in a letter to the top legal advisor at the Copyright Office, "that copyright owners and their licensees are required to provide consumers with perpetual access to creative works. No other product or service providers are held to such lofty standards. No one expects computers or other electronics devices to work properly in perpetuity, and there is no reason that any particular mode of distributing copyrighted works should be required to do so."

This is, of course, true, but that doesn't make it any less weird. The only reason that such tracks are crippled after authentication servers go down is because of a system that was demanded by content owners and imposed on companies like Wal-Mart and Apple; buyers who grudgingly bought tracks online because it was easy accepted, but never desired the DRM. To simply say that they are "out of luck" because they used a system that the rightsholders demanded is the height of callousness to one's customers. While computers and electronics devices do break down over time, these music tracks were crippled by design.

I've got 78RPM records from my grandparents' basement that play just fine today -- and I've got Logo programs I wrote in 1979 that I can run today. I own a piano roll from 1903 that I can play back if I can clear the space for a player piano. I've got books printed in the 17th century that can still be read -- and if they can't be read, they can be scanned and the scans can be read. This is what an open format means.

It's hilarious that the same yahoos who argue for perpetual copyright (implying that copyrighted works have value forever) also argue for time-limited ownership (implying that people who buy copyrighted works should be content to enjoy them for a few weeks or years until the DRM stops working).

Remember: when you buy DRM, you really rent, until such time as the DRM company goes bust or changes its mind. When you buy DRM-free, you get something your great-grandkids can enjoy.

Big Content: ludicrous to expect DRMed music to work forever (Thanks, Glyn!)

Elissa sez, "These folks did a Katamari Damacy wedding, and it's totally adorable." It certainly is! Look at the centerpieces! Bravo!

Aidra and Ernest (Thanks, Elissa!)

Here's an a capella version of the Star Wars Cantina music performed by Sixteen Feet -- what an awesome cover!

Sixteen Feet - Cantina Band

MP3 link

(via Making Light)

French kids' clothes maker Underten has a sweet line of baby tees with crazy-mouthed TV characters.

Underten - collection 2009 (via Geisha Asobi)

This year's ComicCon featured a strong contingent of steampunk cosplayers, as evidenced by this gallery at KPBS.

Steampunks At Comic-Con International, 2009 (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Over on Offworld, our Brandon's spotted something custom-made to make me slaver: concept art for a steampunk dystopian Disney parks game called Epic Mickey:

The project -- a trip through a fantastical dystopian Magic Kingdom -- is being headed by former Deus Ex designer Warren Spector, whose studio was acquired by Disney in 2007 (and who explained why this was such a perfect match in an interview with me at the time). The game was first confirmed to exist last December, when similar images were discovered by artist Gary Glover, including the 'beach attack' above, with its unbelievable Seven Dwarves tea-cup diggers.

Behind the fold, then, more images from both Gambino and Glover, covering rotted Epcots, foreboding Cinderella castles, terrifying scorpion-like mecha-Country Bears, and more -- all of which come with the obvious caveat that they may or may not reflect anything of the current state of the project.

Gallery: the broke-down steampunk dystopian Magic Kingdom of Epic Mickey

Discuss this on Offworld

Wow, neat, Instructables user nusnel shows us how to make an acoustic rain gauge:

For a project at Delft University of Technology (The Netherlands) we are building cheap, durable acoustic rain gauges, known as disdrometers. These devices "listen" to the rain and calculate the rain rate from the acoustic signal. But you can also listen to the signal: that way, you can hear the rain, even when inside a cubicle. A nice way to bring the outside environment into the office, without getting wet.

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There are a bunch of different mobile music services out there (and more popping up every day). Some involve getting downloads to your phone, and others involve streaming (and, of course, there are things like ringtones and ringbacktones for specific functions). But Music Ally points us to a new service launched with Orange UK (and Universal Music) that will let users dial a voice call to hear some music. Basically, you call into an IVR system, and get a variety of options on what playlist you want to listen to. There's some functionality where you can set up your own playlist on a computer, and then access it via the IVR. Of course, the service is quite limited, especially in that it only has Universal Music music right now. The article describes the service as "free" but also targeting "pay as you go" customers, which makes me wonder if people are paying for those voice "minutes" that they'd use (which could add up). Perhaps I'm missing something? I also would think the very limited selection is an issue. Still, it's fascinating to see someone try such an experiment to get around some of the other barriers -- especially for folks with lower-end phones that don't have all the bells and whistles and app stores of higher end phones.

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Here's a USB fridge we from www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.7340 but there may be better places... We're using this to keep our lead-free solder paste cold (more on that in a moment). Cut off the USB cable and replace it with a 2.1mm DC inline jack cable. Tip is + (red) and sleeve is - (black). Use a 5V regulated power supply, the switching one we used is an overkill. You only need about 1Amp supply draw, but its what we had in our box-o-wallwarts. There's sometimes a little condensation on the peltier, that's fine.

We use this paste for reflowing and stenciling of some of our kits at Adafruit, one example is the 3-axis accelerometer. The parts are super tiny so you use a stencil and a squeegee to apply the paste and pop it in the skillet (video here of another kit getting cooked).

The solder paste needs to stay between o and 10 degrees celsius to keep its 6 month shelf life. If it's not stored properly (cooled) it can degrade, get too sticky and just be a mess to work with. Don't store in your fridge with food, this is nasty stuff - look in to a solution like a small cooler instead.

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Nikon has also revealed an update to its popular DX-format superzoom, in the shape of the AF-S DX Nikkor 18-200mm F3.5-5.6G ED VR II. The revised version features a new zoom mechanism to combat 'zoom creep' (one of the most common user complaints about the original lens), along with a zoom lock switch to keep the lens compact when carried. Improved 'Super Integrated Coating' promises to reduce flare and ghosting, while size, weight and optical construction remain unchanged. The lens will be on sale from September 2009 at an RRP of £729.99 / €887.00.

In addition to its camera releases, Nikon has unveiled the AF-S Nikkor 70-200mm F/2.8G ED VR II, a completely redesigned version of its workhorse professional telezoom. It features an entirely new optical formula which is designed to deliver sharp images all the way into the corners of the frame even on FX format cameras, using no fewer than 7 ED elements to minimize aberrations and Nano Crystal coat to combat flare. A new A/M focus mode provides autofocus priority when the manual focus ring is handled during shooting, and 'VR II' Vibration Reduction technology offers a claimed four stops benefit. The lens is shorter but heavier than its predecessor and incorporates extensive sealing against dust and moisture. It will be available from November 2009 at an RRP of £1999 / €2430.

Nikon has also been kind enough to let us play with its latest entry-level DSLR so we've prepared a brief hands-on, to get you up-to-speed with the new model. So, beyond the headline specifications, what does the D3000 offer and how does it fit into the model line-up?

Nikon has also unveiled the D3000, its latest compact DSLR. The entry level camera, which replaces the company's popular D60 features the same 10.2 MP DX-format CCD sensor and 3fps continuous shooting rate. It also adds a larger, 3.0 inch LCD and the 11-point AF system with 3D tracking we saw in the D5000 and D90. Targeted towards beginners and experienced compact users, the camera features a new Guide mode to help learn how to get the most out of a DSLR.

Not all of the changes made to create the D300S will be immediately apparent from looking at the specification sheets. Thankfully Nikon has loaned us a D300S which we've pored over and peered into, in an attempt to get to the bottom of the less obvious changes that have been made to its APS-C flagship. Click here for more information.

In a move that won't surprise anyone that has been listening out for rumors, Nikon has launched the D300S, a refreshed version of its successful mid-level DSLR. Compared to the D300, It offers full 720p HD video recording, a faster 7 fps continuous shooting and Dual CF and SD card slots. It also sees an addition of a new Quiet drive mode and a dedicated Live View and Info button.

suraj.sun writes "A presidential panel reviewing the U.S. space program has found that the United States needs to boost NASA's budget by $1.5 billion to fly the last seven shuttle missions and should extend International Space Station operations through 2020. The panel also proposed adding an extra, eighth shuttle flight to help keep the station supplied and narrow an expected 5-7 year gap between the time the shuttle fleet is retired and a new U.S. spaceship is ready to fly."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As pointed out on the Freakonomics Blog:

Japan's Keihin Express Railway Co. has set up "smile scanners" at 15 of its stations, where railway employees have their smiles assessed by software in the hopes of perfecting a customer-friendly look.

This is such a classic misuse of technology by a corporation. The goal of the company is to provide more positive and friendly customer service but its technique of using a "smile scanner" is going to have the opposite effect. Nobody likes to be forced into happiness, and the employees will end up resenting the scanners, their bosses for making them use the scanners and the customers for expecting them to smile.

Instead, a smart company would try to figure out how to make its employees genuinely happy so that they smile because they want to smile. This would create endless positive outcomes for the company, the employees and the customers.

Sometimes technology can look like it provides a quick fix when, in fact, it is just an illusion.

Cross-posted from MyMediaMusings.com

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

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After last week's Teach Your Family to Solder Week, I couldn't help but to think of this cool little project as perfect soldering practice. The Rock 'N' Roll Speakers first appeared on the pages of our sister publication CRAFT in Volume 07 as a sneak peek excerpt from one of our books, Fashioning Technology by Syuzi Pakhchyan. This set of lo-fi travel speakers are driven by a simple power amplifier circuit and a tilt switch, so you turn them on and off by tilting them. When both speakers are visible, they're on, and when only one is visible, they're off. The speakers are built into cut and folded mat board. Here's a look under the hood:

Here is the full project for you shared through our Digital Edition. Naturally, the best soldering practice is one that yields a super cool end product.

And be sure to check out Fashioning Technology for lots more where this came from.

This DIY Intro to Smart Crafting is an invaluable resource that walks you through the materials and tools you can use, gives technical primers on everything from LEDs to soldering to troubleshooting, and then offers 12 innovative projects of wearables, home goods, and toys you can make. The book is filled with clear, instructive photos for anyone who wants to expand their crafting horizons. There's really no other book out there like it. You can also check out the Fashioning Technology community site for tutorials, resources, and forum discussions.

Also, check out Make: televison Episode 10 for a spotlight on author and SparkLab founder and designer Syuzi Pakhchyan.

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Jason Torchinsky is a guest blogger on Boing Boing. Jason has a book out now, Ad Nauseam: A Survivor's Guide to American Consumer Culture. He lives in Los Angeles, where he is a tinkerer and artist and writes for the Onion News Network. He lives with his partner Sally, five animals, too many old cars, and a shed full of crap.

This is something I found a good while ago, and have posted at other places online; but it's just one of those things that I think merits looking back at, periodically, to help better understand the mysteries of existence.

The top, of course, is that famous picture of Jack Ruby shooting Lee Harvey Oswald. The bottom is the cast of Bagger Vance, horsing around at the opening night party, as seen in Variety.

Were they trying to recreate this image? If so, why the hell would they do that? Did the photographer see the resemblance? There's so many questions here, all vastly more interesting than anything Bagger Vance normally produces.

Man. It gives me chills.

holy_calamity writes "Microsoft's animated paperclip may be long dead, but a $150m DARPA project has resurrected the idea of a virtual assistant. AI researchers from more than 60 institutions worked on the project entitled CALO. CALO is designed to help ease the bureaucratic burden of the military. A consumer spinoff, Siri, is coming to the iPhone later this year. It responds to conversational voice commands to take over multi-step tasks like choosing and booking restaurants or cabs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Re: MAKE IT! is a three day festival of installations, music, and workshops highlighting the spirit of DIY culture. The festival celebrates the innovative use of custom-built, re-purposed, and recycled technology to create art, presented in environments and performances that reflect self-reliance, innovation, collaboration, and community participation.

Re: Make It! will take place at the Santa Fe Complex (Santa Fe, NM) on August 7th 5PM - 10PM, August 8th NOON - 10PM, and August 9th NOON - 8PM.

More information can be found here.

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Re: MAKE IT! is a three day festival of installations, music, and workshops highlighting the spirit of DIY culture. The festival celebrates the innovative use of custom-built, re-purposed, and recycled technology to create art, presented in environments and performances that reflect self-reliance, innovation, collaboration, and community participation.

Re: Make It! will take place at the Santa Fe Complex (Santa Fe, NM) on August 7th 5PM - 10PM, August 8th NOON - 10PM, and August 9th NOON - 8PM.

More information can be found here.

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We've been hearing all of these stories about the importance of extending copyright further over news content and how mainstream publications can't handle other publications acting as "parasites" -- using their news without paying.... And at the same time, there seems to be a huge double standard. Apparently people are questioning the journalistic ethics of ESPN for offering to pay $500 for the Lebron James dunk video, which made some news recently when James supposedly tried to suppress it.

However, the bigger point here is: smaller publications are considered parasites for rewriting a story from a major publication leading people to put forth proposals that these sites pay the original publication. But... when it comes to a video from an independent entity, it's suddenly an ethics violation to pay the copyright holder? In the first case you have company A (the major publication) demanding money from company/person B (the indie publication) for "using" their work. In the second case you have people saying that it's unethical for company/person B to get money from company A for using their work.

Can someone please explain how that's not a double standard?

When the mainstream publication is reporting it's unethical to pay for copyrighted material? But when another publication writes a story (not copies it, even) based on reporting from a mainstream publication, it's suddenly a violation? By the mainstream publications' own reasoning, wouldn't accepting money from these "parasites" be just as unethical? After all, those smaller publications would now be paying for news, which apparently is incredibly unethical in the mainstream journalism book...

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We've been hearing all of these stories about the importance of extending copyright further over news content and how mainstream publications can't handle other publications acting as "parasites" -- using their news without paying.... And at the same time, there seems to be a huge double standard. Apparently people are questioning the journalistic ethics of ESPN for offering to pay $500 for the Lebron James dunk video, which made some news recently when James supposedly tried to suppress it.

However, the bigger point here is: smaller publications are considered parasites for rewriting a story from a major publication leading people to put forth proposals that these sites pay the original publication. But... when it comes to a video from an independent entity, it's suddenly an ethics violation to pay the copyright holder? In the first case you have company A (the major publication) demanding money from company/person B (the indie publication) for "using" their work. In the second case you have people saying that it's unethical for company/person B to get money from company A for using their work.

Can someone please explain how that's not a double standard?

When the mainstream publication is reporting it's unethical to pay for copyrighted material? But when another publication writes a story (not copies it, even) based on reporting from a mainstream publication, it's suddenly a violation? By the mainstream publications' own reasoning, wouldn't accepting money from these "parasites" be just as unethical? After all, those smaller publications would now be paying for news, which apparently is incredibly unethical in the mainstream journalism book...

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Leica has said its S2 autofocus medium format DSLR will be available in October for a recommended selling price of £15,996 (UK). The camera is built around a 37.5 megapixel 30x45mm sensor (56% larger than 'full frame'), that puts it squarely into the apparently troubled medium format sector. Customers willing to spend an extra £3,096 will receive an S2-P featuring a sapphire glass monitor screen and 'Platinum Service' support package. The company has also revealed the prices of the first four S-series lenses, announced alongside the camera at the Photokina 2008 exhibition in Germany.