We've seen so many stories about trademark disputes involving Monster Cable that, as soon as I saw that Jonathan had submitted a story about a trademark dispute over the word "monster," I assumed it must involve them. But... nope. No such luck. This particular dispute involves Monster Energy Drink complaining about the attempted national trademark on Vermonster beer, a play on the fact that the beer is from Vermont. The guy behind Vermonster called up the energy drink company's lawyer, and said there shouldn't be a problem since he wasn't going into the energy drink business, and as long as MED stayed out of the beer business, there wouldn't be an issue. But the lawyers for Monster Energy Drink said no deal. The Vermonster guy says he's going to fight it, even if it costs a bunch of money to take on MED, saying that it's a question of principles. Maybe we can have Monster Cable try to arbitrate a solution...

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Over the past few months, we've been following the FCC's inquiry into Apple and AT&T after they rejected Google Voice from the App store. A couple weeks ago, AT&T did their best to deflect the FCC by dangling a shiny object in front of them — the use of Google Voice to block calls. It now appears the FCC has taken the bait, as they've sent an official inquiry to Google asking why the service restricts connections. "In its letter, the FCC asked Google to describe how its calls are routed and whether calls to particular numbers are prohibited. It also asks for information on how restrictions are implemented, how Google informs customers about those restrictions, whether Google Voice services are free, and if Google ever plans to charge for them in the future." Richard Whitt has already posted a brief explanation on Google's Public Policy blog. "The reason we restrict calls to certain local phone carriers' numbers is simple. Not only do they charge exorbitant termination rates for calls, but they also partner with adult sex chat lines and 'free' conference calling centers to drive high volumes of traffic." The FCC also received a push from members of the House of Representatives on Wednesday.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Creative Commons has launched its 5th Annual Fundraising Campaign. Donate $75 or more and you'll get a special edition t-shirt featuring this lovely design by Shepard Fairey! For those who may not know, Creative Commons is an incredibly important non-profit making it easier for people to legally use, share, repurpose and remix creative work. It's about a shift from the default all-or-nothing stance of "all rights reserved" to a spectrum of "some rights reserved." Of course, everything Boing Boing does is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Creative Commons isn't about knocking down copyright, but rather complementing it in ways that support, and fuel, creativity and culture. Donate to Creative Commons

theodp writes "Microsoft's Open Value Subscription offering didn't get the warmest reception. Nor did the follow-up announcement of Albany, a planned MS-Office Subscription Service. Now comes word from the USPTO that Microsoft feels it deserves a patent for the 'invention' of 'Time-Based Licensing,' which aims to make the traditional pay-once perpetual license model a thing of the past. Hey, if your customers were waiting nine years between OS upgrades, you'd try touting a three-year lease with a balloon buy-out payment, too!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Microsoft's Open Value Subscription offering didn't get the warmest reception. Nor did the follow-up announcement of Albany, a planned MS-Office Subscription Service. Now comes word from the USPTO that Microsoft feels it deserves a patent for the 'invention' of 'Time-Based Licensing,' which aims to make the traditional pay-once perpetual license model a thing of the past. Hey, if your customers were waiting nine years between OS upgrades, you'd try touting a three-year lease with a balloon buy-out payment, too!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Royal de Lux, the incredible French mechanical marionette street theatre company, performed in Berlin this week as part of a 20t anniversary celebration of the Berlin Wall's fall. The main performers were the massive Big Giant and Little Giantess, which Cory posted about back in June. The Big Picture has a breathtaking photo gallery of the performance, titled The Berlin Reunion. This stunning photo was taken by Philipp Guelland for AFP/Getty Images.
"The Berlin Reunion" at The Big Picture (Thanks, Kenny Montana!)

A few weeks back, we noted how AT&T was trying to claim that Google violated the very net neutrality rules the search giant is pushing for by blocking calls on Google Voice to various free conference service lines. However, as we explained at the time, the issues are totally different. However, from AT&T's standpoint, they get to try to kill two birds with one stone. First, AT&T would love to kill the regulatory arbitrage situation that allows small rural telcos to charge incoming call providers ridiculous connection fees. So, complaining about Google Voice draws more attention to that issue. Separately, it gets net neutrality questions moved away from AT&T and onto Google, which AT&T generally dislikes.

Still, it's hard not to be even more cynical when a bunch of politicians suddenly pick up interest in this issue, and ask the FCC to investigate Google using language that appears quite similar to the letter AT&T sent to the FCC. As Broadband Reports notes in that last link, it sure looks like AT&T got a bunch of friendly politicians to suddenly express outrage over something most of them didn't understand -- and they just had to rewrite the letter AT&T had already used. It's as if these companies and politicians don't even care how blatant it is that the lobbyists actually set the agenda.

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In an effort to advance the cause of citizen science, Michael Wood is offering a total of $400 in prize money to anyone who can produce reliable, low-cost (<$100US) DIY scientific apparatus capable of meeting one of four design objectives:

First, we require a device capable of producing liquid nitrogen at the rate of at least 100mL an hour.

Secondly, we require a vacuum system capable of pumping down a volume of at least 10cm x 10cm x 10cm to, and holding a vacuum at, 0.01 atm (with pressure measurement).

Thirdly, we require the ability to view objects of small scale with up to 1000x magnification.

Finally, we require a functioning oscilloscope, capable of measuring at least two signals at once, and with multimeter capability, accurate in all measurements to within 1%.

Read all the details at Michael's website.

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These may look like Bang & Olufsen TV remote controls from the 1980s but they're actually Sinclair Sovereign LED calculators from 1977. Sadly, the Sovereign was a market failure due in part to the nearly simultaneous domination of the category by its technology successor, the LCD calculator. From Planet Sinclair:

Named patriotically for the Queen's Silver Jubilee in 1977, the Sinclair Sovereign was an attempt to break out of the bottom end of the calculator market and recapture the top end. It was one of the better-engineed Sinclair calculators and was very well-designed - so much so, in fact, that Sinclair designer John Pemberton won a Design Council Award for it. It was available in a satin chrome finish or plated in silver or gold. A few limited edition silver Sovereigns inscribed to commemorate the Silver Jubilee were also produced. Sinclair even produced two in solid gold!

Sinclair Sovereign (1977) (Thanks, Rob Beschizza!)

I photographed this graffiti under an overpass near the Palo Alto Caltrain station. It's a C++ program, called FUCKYOURMEMORY.c. Only in Silicon Valley.

Several sources are sending us reports of NASA's recent LCROSS Moon impact mission. While the visual results seem to be less than stunning, LCROSS Principal Investigator Anthony Colaprete said the initial results produced "the data we need," but refused to say anything about "water or no water." "The goal of this dual impact was to have the Centaur upper stage impact first, allowing the LCROSS spacecraft to observe close-up the results of the impact. In fairness, the view from LCROSS as it approached the moon was amazing — even though there was no obvious visual evidence of impact, which early data from the infrared camera on the craft indicates did occur. What happens next is a whole lot of math and science. The LCROSS spacecraft included nine individual science instruments. This suite of instruments consisted of one visible camera, two near-infrared cameras, two mid-infrared cameras, a visible light spectrometer, two near-infrared spectrometers, and a photometer. All nine of those instruments were gathering data simultaneously and streaming that data back to Earth."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A couple years back, we wrote about some guy who kicked off a campaign to get sites to block all Firefox users, claiming that too many of them use extensions like "AdBlock" and those people are "stealing" from the site. This is silly for a whole bunch of reasons. You don't need to monetize every single person who visits your site, and it's their computer. If they don't want to see ads on their computer, that's their decision. If your business model is something they don't appreciate, that's your problem, not their's. This issue has suddenly come up again, as Rose M. Welch alerts us to a blog post from a guy who threatens to start blocking Firefox users, claiming that using AdBlock is "practically like you are stealing from me."

Amusingly, in that same post, he argues that he never expects people to actually click on the ads from his site, but he relies on the revenue those ads bring in. So... let me get this straight. If people use AdBlock, they're stealing from you. But... if, instead, people come to your site and totally ignore the ads, but those advertisers have to pay you anyway, that's okay? Based on this guy's own logic, isn't he "practically stealing" from the advertisers? After all, he's granting them a service and then telling his readers to ignore the ads. Those advertisers rely on people buying stuff after clicking the ads, right? So, it's okay if people don't help out those advertisers, but if your own readers don't help you out by allowing the ads, it's theft? Yeah... okay.

Taking this concept to an even greater extreme, the EFF has stepped in on a legal dispute, where file hosting provider MediaFire is demanding Mozilla remove a plug-in that lets people skip the ad that MediaFire tries to show people before they can access the file they're trying to download. As the EFF notes:

It's my browser, and I can ignore your ads if I want to.

MediaFire's claims are like the people who claim that anyone using AdBlock is "stealing" from them and breaking their user agreement -- but as the EFF notes, there's no stealing of anything going on here, and the user agreement is never actually agreed to, and thus not particularly enforceable or even relevant.

So, once again, with feeling, it's worth reminding people that your business model is not sacred. You have no right to a business model, and if some technology comes along that undermines your business model, that shouldn't be illegal. It just means the market has changed, and it's time you change along with it. And yes, for those who ask, please feel free to use AdBlock on this site if you want to. It's totally up to you, of course. You don't need my permission.

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Here's the translation of a page about a DIY TV-B-Gone inside a flashlight/torch, looks great! [via adafruit]

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Captain Sarcastic writes "I have been a contract programmer for a few years (with some time off when a contract-for-hire paid off and made me a full-time employee). Currently, I'm between projects, but I'm a little worried about one of the contracting companies who's helping me. First off, a little history. "Zeke" (not his real name) was with ABC Contractors (not their real name) when I first met him, and he took my resume and started processing me through the jobs that ABC had available. A bit later, Zeke left, and his replacement Yvonne (standard disclaimer) submitted me to a company (call them "Acme") for a contract-for-hire. Everything looked like a good fit, and she E-mailed me a copy of the resume they submitted to Acme. Came the interview, I realized that Zeke had left out part of my history and had mis-dated other aspects, to keep me from appearing unemployed. Like an idiot, I tried to correct this at the interview, to find out that Acme had decided that I had fabricated all of my experience, and chewed out the rep for ABC for sending an unqualified applicant. Fine, learning experience for me — double-check what the contracting company says about you, and don't try to correct things in the middle of the interview." Read below for the rest of the story. What other difficulties have others gone through with headhunters and when is it time to leave one behind?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Following up on Mark's earlier post about the fancy owl tape measure, here's Gama-Go's brand spankin' new Tape Measure. It's $8.

This young fellow is Colton "Colt" Harris-Moore, aka "The Barefoot Burglar." Police in Washington State say the 18-year-old is suspected of stealing, joy-flying, and then crashing three small planes in the past year. His nickname came from previous burglaries he committed, sans shoes. He's also jacked luxury cars and boats. This photo was retrieved from a digital camera Harris-Moore nabbed from a Mercedes he had also stolen. The Mercedes shirt he's sporting apparently belonged to the owner of the stolen vehicle. Arrested nine times before he was 15, Harris-Moore squats in empty vacation homes on the state's coast, police say, or sleeps in the great outdoors. He has a fan club page on Facebook. From CNN:

(Island County Sheriff's Office spokesman Ed) Wallace said Harris-Moore has charged thousands of dollars worth of video games, GPS devices and police scanners online, using stolen credit cards.

The theft of a Cessna 182 from the San Juan Islands in November jogged Wallace's memory. He recalled what he had found on a computer he said Harris-Moore used. "He had looked at flight manuals and how to fly a plane," he said...

Harris-Moore's mother doubts her son learned to fly on his own.

"Any time anything is stolen, they blame it on Colt," Pam Kohler told the Everett Herald newspaper. "Let's say you're the smartest person in the world. Wouldn't you need a little bit of training in flying a plane? They're not easy."

"Police suspect 'Barefoot Burglar' is stealing, crashing planes"

UPDATE: BB friend Glenn Fleishman writes:

While it's too late to prevent worldwide coverage of this kid's activities, as a local (about an hour south of Camano Island in Seattle) getting regular updates in the paper and other media about Harris-Moore, I'm concerned about him simply staying alive.

This week, when sheriffs were investigating a theft at a home remote from others, a shot was fired, they report. No one was hit, and the sheriffs are not alleging that Harris-Moore fired it. Nonetheless, I worry that he's already become a folk hero, and we all know how American folk heroes end: in a blaze of bullets, death by police.

While this may all seem remote and romantic, the kid's mother--oddly proud of him for apparently teaching himself to fly and clearly in routine communication with him--fears he'll be killed.

He's clearly a brilliant kid, who would probably have done better in rural Alaska than in exurban Washington state. I just hope he comes out of the cold, accepts some part of his role, and perhaps moves on to a more interesting life.

Snitches and snoops wanted: Internet Eyes is a new "game" where the public is invited to watch thousands of CCTV cameras for criminal activity. The most successful crimespotters can win cash prizes. The site will also feature a rogues gallery of alleged perpetrators. The service launches next month in Stratford-upon-Avon, Warwickshire, England. It's free to watch the cameras and £20 a week to have your CCTV up for monitoring. From the Internet Eyes site (image above from Wikimedia Commons):

The locations of the feeds are not disclosed and Viewers reporting remain anonymous. Viewers can earn money by detecting an event that matches the above scenarios. The Viewers notification is sent to an SMS device of the owner of the video feed. The owner of the video feed is known as a Customer. The customer will also get a screenshot sent to their Customer Control Panel. As a Viewer you'll need to be quick if you're certain of activity as there maybe other Viewers watching the same video feeds. Only the first notification gets through. Internet Eyes

From the Daily Mail:

(Company founder) Tony Morgan, a former restaurant owner, said it would give local businesses protection against petty criminals, and act as a deterrent once 'Internet Eyes patrol here' signs are prominently displayed...

'There are over four million CCTV cameras in the UK and only one in a thousand gets watched, (he said). 

'Crimes are bound to get missed but this way people the cameras will be watched by lots of people 24-hours-a-day.

'It gives people something better to do than watching Big Brother when everyone is asleep.

'We've had a lot of interest from local businesses and hope to roll it out nationwide and then worldwide.'

Internet game that awards points for people spotting real crimes on CCTV is branded 'snooper's paradise'

Barence writes to tell us that it seems Microsoft has been grinding away in the corporate world for so long, they have forgotten what "fun" means. PC Pro managed to get their hands on one of the "party packs," and it seems woefully inadequate. Nowhere did we see a pin-the-chair on the Ballmer game, giveaways that you might actually use, or even a few balloons or streamers. Instead, the only reason to get a party pack seems to be the free copy of Windows Ultimate Signature edition, which doesn't do much for your party guests (unless you burn them all copies I guess, but we would never condone that). All-in-all, it seems that Microsoft should have gone to the nearest dorm room and asked for some pointers on how to have a good party.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Beginning at noon Pacific time today, October 9, and closing at noon Pacific time Monday, October 12, we will be accepting comments, below, describing the Halloween-y use (or uses) to which you would put the prize bundle consisting of one Microchip Technology PIC10F Cap Touch Demo Board and one MCP1650 Multiple White LED Demo Board.

We have a lot of these to give away, and in order to keep it interesting I'm going to change up the "prompt" for ideas each time. For this giveaway, the challenge is to use the prize bundle in a device to react to trick-or-treaters who try to take too much candy from a bowl. Be sure to include a valid e-mail address when you fill out the comment form!

The winner will be announced Monday afternoon at the bottom of the comment thread.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

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When Ralph Lauren tried to remove a creepily retouched advertisement from the net, was it embarrassed by graphic design woes, or by a cutting hatchet job by an unknown prankster?

It's obvious by now that Ralph Lauren *hates* being mocked. They hate being mocked so much that they ordered their attack lawyers to send letters trying to fool ISPs into pulling an "infringing" advertisement featuring a ridiculously skinny model (in fact, our posting of the image was fair use, not infringement; Ralph Lauren's takedown notices are bogus and they should know better).

It's also obvious that the photo of Filippa Hamilton used in the Ralph Lauren advertisement was digitally manipulated. But we still have three questions: 1) who, exactly, gave Ms. Hamilton the Olive Oyl physique? 2) If the photo was manipulated after it appeared in the advertisement, why didn't Ralph Lauren's law firm make mention of that in their silly DMCA takedown notice? and 3) Where's the original advertisement?

We're so curious about getting to the bottom of this that we're offering a bounty -- the first person to send us a photo of the real advertisement, along with information about where it ran, gets their choice of any Gama Go Boing Boing T-Shirt.

Our hunch is that a combination of bad angle and bad camera contrived to put a bad ad in an even worse light. In any case, we can at least take heart in one thing: the world has a problem where the best solution is cake.

Even if a prankster warped the ad, it's already embarked on a suppression campaign that becomes even sillier if it turns out to be an anonymous 'shopper's transformative "art." From the outset, Ralph Lauren put its head up its own arse: a bad idea when your ears are further apart than your hips.

Update: Flickr user Tokyo Boy offers an intriguing theory in <a href="this thread: that shopkeepers in the far east often make their own ads. Wouldn't it be bizarre if it was not only a fake, but a fake made by Ralph Lauren's own affiliates wandering off the reservation? Jezebel, however, unearths another awful 'shop of the same model, spotted at Ralph Lauren's website.

Update: Ralph Lauren confides to Extra:

On Thursday, Polo Ralph Lauren released the following statement about the retouched ad: "For over 42 years we have built a brand based on quality and integrity. After further investigation, we have learned that we are responsible for the poor imaging and retouching that resulted in a very distorted image of a woman's body. We have addressed the problem and going forward will take every precaution to ensure that the caliber of our artwork represents our brand appropriately."

Alas, no apology for the legal nastygrams.

We've already discussed how ridiculous it is that any mainstream publication agrees to the NFL's policies that effectively set rules for how they can report on sporting events. How can a publication claim to have journalistic integrity after agreeing to specific rules on what they will and won't report on concerning a news event? On top of that, we've pointed out how ridiculous one particular football team, the Washington Redskins, has become in dealing with fans. Despite having the longest record of continuous sellouts in professional sports, the Redskins have been suing over 100 fans who were unable to pay for their season tickets. The Redskins could have easily just resold the tickets (and, in fact, they are reselling the tickets). But also suing some of the team's biggest fans after they've been hit by the financial crisis? That's just obnoxious.

Lots of fans are pissed off at the Redskins this season, and a local radio station came up with a plan to get fans to wear paper bags over their heads during a recent game -- even going out and handing out a bunch of bags outside the stadium for just that purpose. Of course, gametime came and security confiscated most of the bags, saying that such bags are not allowed in the stadium. Still, Dan Steinberg, who writes the DC Sports Blog for the Washington Post, went around looking for such disgruntled fans. And while he didn't find many with paper bags, he did find other disgruntled fans displaying their... disgruntlement. These included t-shirts that were anti-Dan Snyder (owner of the team) along with some other things. Steinberg took photos of these protesters and posted them to his blog.

But not for long.

The photos soon disappeared, and the photo editor for the Washington Post admitted that the Redskins had called them claiming that taking photos of disgruntled fans was a violation of policy:

"The Redskins said he was in violation of his credentials for taking the photographs. We honored that request, because at the end of the day, they control access to their facility."

First off all, how ridiculous is it that the Redskins are so insanely controlling that it thinks that banning photos of disgruntled fans will suddenly make people not realize that fans are disgruntled?

But, more importantly, what a shame that the Washington Post would simply fold like that. Yes, the Redskins control access to the facilities, but the Washington Post is effectively providing free advertising for the Redskins pretty much every day, by writing articles about them. The Redskins don't want to lose coverage from the Post. If the Washington Post had any journalistic integrity, why wouldn't it stand up to the Redskins and say "hey, disgruntled fans are news, and we're here to report the news." And people wonder why folks don't trust the coverage in their local newspapers any more. Apparently, those newspapers -- even the big "respected" names -- have no problem caving in to ridiculous requests from those they cover.

Meanwhile, The Big Lead (which gets a few of the details of the story mixed up) wonders what would happen if other people took such photos and sent them to the Washington Post to put on its blog, since the Redskins' main complaint is that Steinberg violated his credentials by taking the photos. If others took the photos though...

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alphadogg writes to mention that at their "Open Hack Day" conference today and tomorrow, Yahoo plans on opening the floodgates to their homepage in hopes that developers will start building massive numbers of applications for general distribution. "Announced in April 2008, YOS [Yahoo's Open Strategy] aims to open all of the company's online services, sites and applications to third-party developers, as well as give end users a 'social profile' dashboard to unify and manage their Yahoo services. Swinging wide open the doors of Yahoo.com to external developers is a big milestone in this ambitious effort. Until now, Yahoo has erred on the conservative side when it comes to allowing tightly-integrated applications for its home page, opting to work individually with hand-picked partners."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alphadogg writes to mention that at their "Open Hack Day" conference today and tomorrow, Yahoo plans on opening the floodgates to their homepage in hopes that developers will start building massive numbers of applications for general distribution. "Announced in April 2008, YOS [Yahoo's Open Strategy] aims to open all of the company's online services, sites and applications to third-party developers, as well as give end users a 'social profile' dashboard to unify and manage their Yahoo services. Swinging wide open the doors of Yahoo.com to external developers is a big milestone in this ambitious effort. Until now, Yahoo has erred on the conservative side when it comes to allowing tightly-integrated applications for its home page, opting to work individually with hand-picked partners."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In honor of this phallo-rific paperback cover that Hang Fire Books proprietor William Smith recently stumbled upon, he has created an "Artists With Issues" tag for the "Ugly and Bizarre" category of his Pulp Fiction Cover Gallery.

Instructables user Light_Lab writes:

I collect lots of documents as part of my work; recently I decided I should let the sheets of ‘tree stuff’ return to the environment and clear up my living space and office by scanning everything I could. I had recently got rid of a flat bed scanner; it was far too slow and I hardly ever used it. I needed something that was convenient and fast; it didn't need to make ultra high fidelity scans, just readable would do.

Check out the tutorial for this easy and cheap copy stand.

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Attention white supremacist Obama supporters: this attractive vinyl Obama Hope Rebel Flag has been marked down from $24.95 to $12.95. As a bonus, they'll throw in a few dozen unsightly fold creases for free! (Via Reddit)

Bone tape measure from Gold Bug in Pasadena, California. (Via Kimagure Gaki)

Here's an update to story I've been following since 2006 about a woman who was denied custody of her 10-year-old son after a judge saw photos of her participating in a SubGenius holiday (an adult-rated parody of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ).

The good news is that Rachel Bevilacqua (AKA Rev. Magdalen) regained custody of her son. The weird news is that, according to Modemac of the High Weirdness Project, Bevilacqua is "still the only SubGenius officially banned from keeping SubGenius materials in her home, where her innocent son might accidentally come across them and become corrupted into the corrupt, obscene, decadent SubGenius cult that got his Mom into trouble in the first place."

After nearly four years and $140,000 in legal costs, the SubGenius child custody case of Rachel Bevilacqua (Reverend Magdalen) has been dismissed. The end result is an anticlimax: She has custody of her son at last, and the status quo is maintained -- except that she is officially forbidden from keeping SubGenius materials in her home, in order to protect her son from J.R. "Bob" Dobbs.

No, really.  When the initial order in Rachel's favor was handed down by Judge Adams (not Judge Punch) in January of 2007, it specified that she was allowed to keep SubGenius materials only in a special "office" area of her home, so as to prevent her son from having access to it.  This order was never rescinded or nullified, and it has remained in effect throughout the various legal wranglings that took place thereafter.  According to Rachel, the order remains in effect even now, and is included in the final judge's decision, which she will be making available online shortly.

Some might say that because only one person (Reverend Magdalen) is forbidden from keeping the Book of the SubGenius in her home, that doesn't make it a banned book.  The idea of censorship is to use force to keep others from expressing ideas and beliefs, and exposing so-called "innocent children" to those beliefs.  As such, this means that not only is Magdalen being censored -- so is her son.  And so is everyone in the Church who supports her.

(Disclosure: I have been a card-carrying SubGenius reverend for 25 years and have contributed to Rachel's legal fund.)

SubGenius Reverend officially banned from keeping SubGenius materials in her home

Market watcher Gartner is claiming that by Q4 2012 Google's Android smartphone OS will have overtaken Apple's iPhone. Currently only the sixth most popular phone OS, Android is set to rocket into second place behind Symbian if the predictions are to be believed. The reason for the changing of the guard is that "many handset makers are betting their futures on Android, while Apple is just one company." 2012 rankings place Symbian at the top followed by Android, iPhone, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A city guide website called Revel in New York makes great mini documentaries about interesting New Yorkers.

Here are a few:

The Pigeon Lady, an East Village pigeon fancier who's been stealing pigeons from prized coops for nearly a decade. (Above)

High Times senior editor David Bienenstock, who explains the different effects of different kinds of pot.

A foot fetish sex worker who talks about her job about the foot-friendly places in NYC.

Molly Crabapple, artist and founder of Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School.

Tea blender Nini Ordoubadi, an Iranian born New Yorker who comes from a long tradition of tea blenders.

It's hard to come up with an adjective to describe Craigslist's decision to sue Red Trumpet other than "dumb." Nothing good will come of this lawsuit for a variety of reasons, and Craigslist is asking for trouble in filing it. Now, I can understand why it sounded like a good idea. Last year, we wrote about the increasing problem of spam on Craigslist, highlighting how a variety of spammers had figured out ways around each attempt by Craiglist to stop the spam. And, yes, we absolutely agree that spam on Craigslist is a problem and a nuisance, and it's good that Craigslist is working hard to try to stop it. But that doesn't make this lawsuit make sense. The full lawsuit is below (it's a bit long), and highlights all of the different claims that Craigslist is making against Red Trumpet, a company that offers tools and services to help advertisers post messages on Craigslist (some of which may be spammy, though, certainly not all): So what are the problems? Well, as Eric Goldman notes, Craigslist is "playing with fire" on a variety of legal doctrines, almost all of which could come back to bite Craigslist. For example, Craigslist is blaming Red Trumpet -- a service provider -- for the actions of its users in spamming the site. Think about that for a second. For the past couple of years, law enforcement officials have been trying to use that exact argument against Craigslist over things like prostitution posts on the site -- to which Craigslist has always put forth a strong defense that as a service provider (under Section 230 of the CDA) it's not liable for the actions of its users. Does Craigslist really want to try to establish a precedent that would chip away at Section 230 protections?

Next, Craigslist is making a really weak DMCA claim here. It's claiming that its various anti-spam technologies (captchas, phone verification, etc.) act as "technological protection measures" that Red Trumpet is circumventing... and thus running afoul of the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules. But the circumvention has nothing to do with violating Craigslist's "copyright," though the lawsuit makes a half-hearted attempt to claim that it does.

Then, there's the trademark claims. There are a few different ones, but it argues that Red Trumpet is violating Craigslist's trademark by mentioning Craigslist on its website and in its ads. While again, you can see why this is annoying to Craigslist, if the company is accurately describing services it provides (the ability to post on Craigslist) it's difficult to see the "confusion" being caused. The ad in question doesn't appear to imply any endorsement at all by Craigslist. And, does Craigslist really want to open up a can of worms concerning trademarks being used in ads? After all, there must be a ton of posts on Craigslist that mention trademarks.

Finally, there's Craigslist claiming that Red Trumpet violates the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act by accessing its site despite violating its terms of use. Does this sound familiar? It's the same argument that was used to try to punish Lori Drew, and was recently tossed out by a judge. Basically, it's claiming that if you happen to violate the terms of use of a site, and then still access the site, you've effectively "hacked" into the site. This is a really bad reading of the law, which is why it was good that the Drew ruling got tossed out. So why is Craigslist trying to re-establish that as a rule?

Yes, clearly, Craigslist is upset about the spam on the site -- and it should be. Plenty of users are upset about it, and Craigslist wants to help those users, help itself and stop the spam. But this particular lawsuit, with these claims, seem highly problematic -- such that even if Craigslist wins, the precedents it sets could come back to haunt Craigslist... and many other parts of the internet as well. Is Craigslist really so desperate to stop spam that it's willing to do all this other damage as well?

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We don't see many transforming-house mods around here, and its a shame. Anyone ever try making something like this? It would be perfect for places that have seasons (who needs a balcony in the winter?), or for playing tricks on your would-be Romeo. [via core77]

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Photosketch, a new image manipulation program that combines stick-figure sketches, internet image search, and pattern matching seems to be spreading like wildfire. Created by five Chinese students at Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore, the tool takes a basic sketch and simple labels and turns it into a polished image. "Although online image search generates many inappropriate results, our system is able to automatically select suitable photographs to generate a high quality composition, using a filtering scheme to exclude undesirable images,' say the PhotoSketch team in an abstract outlining the tool. 'We also provide a novel image blending algorithm to allow seamless image composition. Each blending result is given a numeric score, allowing us to find an optimal combination of discovered images. Experimental results show the method is very successful."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I’m pleased to announce the super excellent folks at Carsonified are bringing the Handcrafted CSS workshop to London! Carson Workshops will be presenting Ethan Marcotte and myself in a reprise of the one-day course we organized last month here in Salem, MA. And it’s surely going to be a blast.

Just like last time, each attendee will get a copy of the book (Video Edition including the DVD) and we’ll spend the day walking through much of its content and more. This event was a great success here in New England, and we’re thrilled to bring it to the UK. Thanks to Carson Workshops for making this happen!

So join us on November 23rd at Wallspace St Pancras in London. For more info on the event and to book a place (there’s a max of 70 spots), visit the Carson Workshops site.

Pretty much every time we hear about a game launching in-game advertising it sounds like a horrible idea that will only serve to detract from the experience. However JJ Richards of Massive wants you to give it a chance, claiming that if done correctly it can not only work, but actually enhance the overall experience. "In fact, according to Massive's research, gamers like ads. Here's the caveat: they have to add to the gaming experience. He describes a game that takes place in Times Square. With no ads, it's not real at all. With generic ads, it's a little better. 'Now imagine Times Square with ads you just saw on television or read in a newspaper—the latest movie release or television show or a new car model,' he said. 'Imagine further that it is up-to-the-minute, whether you played your game today or six months from now. That is much more realistic.' His argument is that gamers consume the experience of ads, not just the ads themselves. 'The ads add to and enhance that experience, and our research shows that it is highly effective for both game play as well as advertisers.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The environmental committee of the city of Taichung, Taiwan is trying something different to clean up its streets — it's offering $3 in shopping vouchers per kilogram of dog poop collected. From the city council's web site:

By means of offering rewards, the bureau hopes to goad the public into spontaneous clean-up efforts that protect the environment.

The problem in Taiwan isn't that dog owners don't pick up poop — it's more an issue of strays, where pet owners get bored of their dogs and leave them on the streets. The poop initiative seems like an odd, half-assed initiative given the greater issue of animal negligence on the island (180,000 strays among a population of 23 million people, according to Reuters), but I suppose it's better than nothing. Fetch! City pays for dog poo

Finnish computer science doctoral candidate Cessu created a hack to make music from (dramatically slowed) bit-level operations in his CPU. A similar technique called "software visualization" is more commonly used to clarify the operation of complex algorithms for educational and analytical purposes, but Cessu seems to be the first person to try it with sound. [via Hack a Day]

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An oxygen-depleted "dead zone" the size of New Jersey (well, figures!) is starving sea life near the coast of Oregon and Washington. The phenomenon will probably recur annually, and is caused by climate change, according to Jack Barth, an oceanography professor at Oregon State University. The news coincides with the release of this National Science Foundation briefing about the increasing occurrences of these "dead zones" around the world.

Pacific Ocean 'dead zone' in Northwest may be irreversible (LA Times)

In digging deeper into the request from music publishers and songwriters' representatives after they started demanding performance royalties for the 30-second previews in iTunes, Greg Sandoval was able to get a copy of the letter that was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee concerning copyright laws from the National Music Publishers Association, ASCAP, BMI and the Songwriters Guild. Reading the quotes is stunning, in that you could basically paraphrase them as saying "we are luddites -- do not let technology change the way the world works." Here's one quote:

"Technology should not be used to strip rights from songwriters, composers and music publishers. The choice of certain audiovisual delivery systems or methods over others should not result in a diminution of creators' rights or royalties."

Read that one carefully. They are saying that as technology changes, and as the market changes, their royalties should never be allowed to drop. Notice that they're not taking responsibility for adapting to a changing market. They're not saying that they need to adjust and put in place smarter business models. No, they're saying that Congress somehow needs to guarantee that no matter what happens in the market, their royalties remain the same.

What's really revealing is that this quote highlights the fact that these representatives view their royalties as "rights" to be protected -- not revenue to be earned.

No wonder they're lashing out and doing all sorts of ridiculous stuff like trying to get extra royalties on embedded videos, ringtones and 30 second previews. These are the same groups that have publicly decided they need to try to start a PR campaign against people who are trying to protect user rights and fair use. Since that time, we've noticed various people associated with ASCAP and the Songwriters Guild putting up various blogs attacking copyright skeptics in the most ridiculous ways. There's one, which isn't worth pointing out, where a lawyer who works with these groups regularly mocks Larry Lessig, William Patry, Michael Geist and myself -- using nicknames and making up fanciful stories about us. It's the sort of activity you'd expect from a 12-year-old.

It looks like these groups simply feel entitled to having the government force everyone to hand over money. Songwriters who belong to these organizations are being led down a dangerous path. It seems like there's room in the market for groups to represent songwriters' interests without being anti-fan or anti-technology. Quite clearly, ASCAP, BMI, NMPA and the SGA do not fall into that category. Instead, they're pretending that the world owes them money just for existing, and they're going to lash out anyone who tries to suggest otherwise.

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The rumor that we discussed a few months back is looking more real. Vigile writes "Once the darling of the enthusiast chipset market, NVIDIA has apparently decided to quit development of future chipsets for all platforms. This 'state of NVIDIA' editorial at PC Perspective first highlighted the fact that the company was backing away from its plans to develop a DMI-based chipset for Intel's Lynnfield processors due to legal pressure from Intel and debates over licensing restrictions. That effectively left NVIDIA out in the cold in terms of high-end chipsets, but even more interesting is the later revelation that NVIDIA has only one remaining chipset product to release, what we know as ION 2, and that it was mainly built for Apple's upcoming products. NVIDIA still plans to sell its current offerings, like MCP61 for AMD platforms and current generation ION for netbooks and nettops, but will focus solely on discrete graphics options after this final release."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On a winter night in 1931, 57-year-old Winston Churchill stepped off the curb of 5th Avenue & 76th St. in New York City and was hit by a car.

SPOILER: He survived. But I think 1000 writers could probably do a lot with what could have happened if he hadn't. Now, the job of speculative fiction authors everywhere has become somewhat easier, thanks to Here Is Where, a project to locate and map the sites of little-known, relatively unimportant historical events in the United States.

Technically, the possibilities for alternate history are just a happy side-effect of Here Is Where, which is really about preserving tiny details of history for people who want to geek out over the parking garage where Bob Woodward met Deep Throat, or the baseball diamond where U2 spy plane pilot Francis Gary Powers died in a helicopter crash. According to the New York Times, it was inspired by...

a story founder Andrew Carroll read 15 years ago about a dramatic rescue that occurred during Abraham Lincoln's first term as president. The president's son Robert Todd Lincoln was about to board a sleeping car at Exchange Place in Jersey City one night when he fell between the platform and the train as it started to pull out of the station.

"My coat collar was vigorously seized and I was quickly pulled up and out to a secure footing on the platform," Lincoln recalled years later. "Upon turning to thank my rescuer I saw it was Edwin Booth, whose face was of course well known to me, and I expressed my gratitude to him, and in doing so, called him by name."

Mr. Carroll hopes to install a marker at the site, now a PATH station.

That would be Edwin Booth, older brother of John Wilkes, btw. Right now, Andrew Carroll is traveling cross-country, collecting stories for the project. You can read about what he's found on his blog. Whether you turn what you read there into a best-selling novel is up to you.

Ladyada shows us how to cut header pins (both male and female) with a set of diagonal flush clippers.

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itwbennett writes "At the Hack In The Box conference in Kuala Lumpur, Wikileaks.org announced a plan to enable newspapers, human rights organizations, criminal investigators, and others to embed an 'upload a disclosure to me via Wikileaks' form onto their Web sites that would give potential whistleblowers the ability to leak sensitive documents to an organization or journalist they trust over a secure connection. The news or NGO site would then get an embargo period in which to analyze the material and write the story, after which Wikileaks would make the leaked material public. At the same time, the receiver would have greater legal protection, says Julien Assange, an advisory board member at Wikileaks 'We will take the burden of protecting the source and the legal risks associated with publishing the document,' said Assange. 'We want to get as much substantive information as possible into the historical record, keep it accessible, and provide incentives for people to turn it into something that will achieve political reform.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm pleased to announce the super excellent folks at Carsonified are bringing the Handcrafted CSS workshop to London! Carson Workshops will be presenting Ethan Marcotte and myself in a reprise of the one-day course we organized last month here in Salem, MA. And it's surely going to be a blast.

Just like last time, each attendee will get a copy of the book (Video Edition including the DVD) and we'll spend the day walking through much of its content and more. This event was a great success here in New England, and we're thrilled to bring it to the UK. Thanks to Carson Workshops for making this happen!

So join us on November 23rd at Wallspace St Pancras in London. For more info on the event and to book a place (there's a max of 70 spots), visit the Carson Workshops site.

Let's start by saying there's nothing good about losing a parent.

They say it's inevitable, it happens to everyone, but in the dark of night, as you're trying to fall asleep, there's no consolation in that fact. When you die and when you go to sleep it's the same, you're on your own. The only difference is -- well you know what the difference is.

However...

In the waking hours, as you rejoin the human race (which you never really left), you find that you have a new bond with a huge number of people you knew before, but never really knew, because until it happens to you, it's all hypothetical.

Not much more to say except as one who is always looking to bond in deeper ways with others, I'm kind of excited to find out what's coming.

My father said something to me a number of times which is now comforting. He said his life didn't really begin until his father died. I have no idea if this is true or not (for me, I'm not questioning his experience) but it says to me that I have his blessing to have a better life as I grow older.

Anyway, I'm flying back to California today and have a window seat and a camera, so you can follow my progress, cloud-cover-willing, on Flickr.

More notes here as I think of them.

And we've got yet another example of insane attempts by the Olympics to extend copyright and trademark law well beyond its stated intentions (which, tragically, some governments have been known to accept in order to get the Olympics on their home turf). This time, it involves the International Olympic Committee sending a cease-and-desist to a guy who posted the photos he took at the Beijing Olympics on Flickr. Seriously.

It's hard to understand what they're complaining about specifically. They mention that he violated the "terms and conditions" on the back of the ticket (which are often not enforceable, anyway) in "licensing pictures." Inquistr suggests the problem is that the guy, Richard Giles, put his own photos (on which he owns the copyright) on Flickr under a Creative Commons license. It's difficult to see what sort of leg the IOC has to stand on here (though, it may involve jurisdiction in a few different countries). The guy took photos himself -- so it's his copyright. Putting them under a CC license is then his decision. The trademark claims are laughable. At best, the IOC might be able to claim breach of contract in violating the "back of the ticket" agreement -- but even that seems like a stretch, and it's difficult to see what sort of "harm" the IOC could suggest these photos caused.

It's difficult to understand what the IOC thinks its accomplishing here. This was someone spreading the word (and view) of his Olympic attendance to his friends and many others online. You would think that would be seen as good and free advertising rather than as something for which the legal dogs should be unleashed. What sort of organization lets loose its lawyers on a fan posting photos showing off his cool experience attending an event? Honestly, I can't fathom what anyone at the IOC could possibly be thinking here.

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An anonymous reader sends in a new report on a not-so-new problem, one that has had little visibility so far. A quirk in the way Apple's iPhone App Store works has enabled squatters to move in, and in fact has encouraged legimate developers to grab and squat on dozens of app names that they might use some time in the future. "It turns out you can exploit the registration process to gain ownership of as many app names as you like, without any intention of actually writing a single line of code. 'A developer can pretend to submit an app, but abandon their submission at the last moment, avoiding the need to actually create an application, but keeping hold of the app's name. In limbo. Maybe forever.' says iPhone app developer Atomic Antelope, who found that their app name 'Twitch' and its variations were stuck in limbo . 'Squatters have moved into the app store. They're worse than domain name squatters though, because you can't even enter into negotiation with them. You don't know who they are, or where they are.'" The solution seems simple: for Apple to flush all the apps that have not submitted binaries, and to repeat periodically.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

OK, so I made up that name. Windell of Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories calls it a "Rovin' Pumpkin," which is a perfectly respectable moniker. But it's never going to score a juicy government defense contract for this technology, the military applications of which, I should think, are obvious. [Thanks, Becky!]

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

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ZDnet's Richard Koman accuses Yahoo of having collaborated with the Iranian regime during the recent post-election protests. Koman says the online giant provided names and emails for some 200,000 Iranian Yahoo users to authorities so that those same authorities would "unban" Yahoo on the state-controlled internet. The blog post does not include a response by Yahoo, but promises "to provide further proof as the story unfolds." UPDATE: Yahoo denies all of the claims in the ZDnet article: "The allegations in the story are false. Neither Yahoo! nor any Yahoo! representative has met with or communicated with any Iranian officials, and Yahoo! has not disclosed user data to the Iranian government. "

Snip:

This is according to a post on the Iranian Students Solidarity (Farsi) blog. My sources indicate the information comes from a group of resisters who have infiltrated the administration and are leaking out important information. These sources say that Yahoo representatives met with Iranian Internet authorities after Google and Yahoo were shut down during the protests and agreed to provide the names of Yahoo subscribers who also have blogs in exchange for the government lifting the blocks on Yahoo.

Exclusive! Yahoo provided Iran with names of 200,000 users (ZDnet via @rmack)

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been caught violating someone's copyright again. This time, presidential services made 400 unauthorized copies of a DVD when only 50 had been made by the publisher. Mr. Sarkozy, of course, is the one pushing the HADOPI law, which would disconnect the Internet service of an alleged pirate after three allegations of infringement. This isn't the first time he's been connected to copyright violations, either. His party had to pay some €30K for using a song without authorization. If he were he subject to his own law, Mr. Sarkozy would be subject to having his Net disconnected the next time he pirates something."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anne Troake is a choreographer and filmmaker from Newfoundland. Her film Pretty Big Dig is the best of the many "dancing heavy machinery" videos I've seen on YouTube.

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Why is it always the adamant defenders of silly policies like kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement who are later found to be mass infringers themselves? French President Nicolas Sarkozy, of course, was the first major politician to support the concept of kicking people off the internet for copyright infringement (more commonly called a "three strikes" rule). He took credit for coming up with the idea originally nearly two years ago, and pushed very hard for the law -- which eventually passed but was then tossed out as unconstitutional in France. Sarkozy still stood by it and helped bring back a revised version.

Of course, in the middle of all this, there was a bit of irony in that Sarkozy was caught using music without authorization in some online videos, for which he paid a €30,000 fine. Of course, it now appears that may have just been the tip of the iceberg. Boing Boing points us to the news that Sarkozy's administration has been caught mass "pirating" DVDs of a documentary about Sarkozy. The publisher of the documentary only made 50 copies. Sarkozy's "audiovisual services" group happened to make itself another 400 without permission -- even replacing the name of the original publisher on the cover.

Once again, this should be a "teachable moment," to point out to Sarkozy and other supporters of such plans to kick people off the internet that the issue isn't quite so simple after all. When you're on the other side, sometimes it seems perfectly natural to make a copy of something, without even realizing it's potentially infringing. Unfortunately, why do I get the feeling that Sarkozy won't change his stance one bit -- or even recognize the irony of the situation?

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pickens writes "Nuclear batteries that produce energy from the decay of radioisotopes are an attractive proposition for many applications because the isotopes that power them can provide a useful amount of current for hundreds of years at power densities a million times as high as standard batteries. Nuclear batteries have been used for military and aerospace applications for years, their large size has limited their general usage. But now a research team at the University of Missouri has developed a nuclear battery the size of a penny that could be used to power micro- and nano-electromechanical systems. The researchers' innovation is not only in the battery's size, but also that the batteries use a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor. 'The critical part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure of the solid semiconductor,' says Jae Wan Kwon. 'By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem.' The batteries are safe under normal operating conditions. 'People hear the word "nuclear" and think of something very dangerous,' says Kwon. 'However, nuclear power sources have already been safely powering a variety of devices, such as pacemakers, space satellites, and underwater systems.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ladies and gentlemen, meet the Red Kuri. It's a winter squash — unlike its summer siblings, it's harvested at full maturity and has a very thick skin. I got this one from my CSA and fell instantly in love with its beautiful orange skin, which is hard to slice without killer knife skills. Flavor-wise, the red kuri squash has a gentle sweetness to it with a slightly nutty aftertaste. Very autumn-y. My chef friend Julio helped me make risotto with my little red kuri. Some recipes say to cook the squash with the rice, but we actually roasted it separately. This prevents extra juices from the fruit from seeping into the rice, and it also allows for greater appreciation of its beauty and aroma as it bronzes in the oven. The red kuri and it winter squash relatives are rich in beta-carotene, an antioxidant — this means it is not only great for the diet but awesome for skin care. To make an home-brewed anti-aging face mask, mix two parts of cooked red kuri squash (pumpkin works, too) with one part honey and leave that on your face for ten minutes. For a no-frills body scrub, puree the cooked red kuri and mix it with equal parts brown sugar. Easy, wonderful, and cheaper than The Body Shop! In 2007, a team of American anthropologists discovered that squash was grown by farmers in Peru 10,000 years ago. It was also one of the main crops of early Native Americans, along with corn and beans. Red kuri seeds are delicious, too! Wash and dry, place on a baking sheet, salt and pepper, then stick them in the oven for 10-15 minutes. The cooked skin also makes a fine snack — I fed mine to the dogs for dinner. Peak red kuri season starts now and goes through November — that's why we're seeing so many winter squash varietals at veggie stands right about now, including pumpkins. It's also part of the reason we carve pumpkins and eat pumpkin pie at Halloween and Thanksgiving. Be careful when taking a knife to the red kuri's thick skin, though — every October, thousands of people suffer from bloody hands and tendon injuries while carving pumpkins. The American Society for Surgery of the Hand has safety tips for the accident-prone. Every installment of Taste Test will explore recipes, the science, and some history behind a specific food item.

Check out an old-school pecan crusher made out of junk parts found in a man-cave.
Thanks to Terry Dove for this nutty project.
To download The Junk Parts Pecan Crusher video click here and subscribe in iTunes.

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Our pal Jeri Ellsworth got to dawn the telepresence rig for the Anybots robot. Cool stuff. My favorite part of the vid is this exchange:

Jeri: "I'm scared to crash it"
Anybots' Trevor Blackwell: "You should be."

Now that's no way to instill confidence! :-)

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Pictured: Two vectors at work. Suwon City Mosquito Monument, Suwon South Korea. Image courtesy Flickr user wmjas via creative commons.

A wise person once said, "It's hard to make predictions, especially about the future."* When you start talking about the future of complex systems, it only gets more difficult. Case in point: The effects of climate change on vector-borne diseases.

Climate change: More pestilence-carrying pests in more places. At least, that's the fear. In 2008 alone, there were some 4000-odd peer-reviewed papers published on the topic, according to the journal Ecology. That should give you an idea of how twitchy this possibility makes actual scientists. Top it off with a glass full of TV news Kool-aid, and you've got yourself a regular panic. But there's currently a scientific debate raging over what, exactly, this means for people. Some researchers are now saying that the issue is more complicated than it appears on the surface. We can't simply assume that rising temperatures automatically equal higher rates of human disease, they say. At least, not all the time.

Why such a twisty answer? Because predicting the spread of disease involves more than just sticking out a thermometer. You have to account for a lot of other things, including where and how people live, the other ways they're changing the environment and how heat affects the disease, itself.

Case in point: Lyme disease. Rates in North America have skyrocketed since the 1970s, and the habitat of the Lyme-carrying deer tick has spread to cover large swaths of the U.S. At the same time, those same regions have also been getting warmer...yada, yada, yada, we're all gonna die.

Not necessarily. Deer Ticks and Lyme disease are moving North, says Durland Fish, professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health. But they're also moving East and South. In fact, he says, what looks like a climate-triggered expansion actually has more to do with reforestation, re-population of wild deer herds and suburban lifestyles that put more people in contact with both. So, then, hooray! Climate change isn't a problem and the hippies can suck it.

Well, again, not necessarily. By 2080, the global mean temperature is expected to increase by more than 5.4° F. Based on this, Fish and his colleagues mapped deer ticks' future habitat and found it'll likely grow by more than 20% in the U.S.--mostly in areas of Kentucky, Missouri, Kansas and Nebraska that aren't particularly Lyme-ridden today. Thankfully, those regions aren't terribly popular with humans, either, but Fish also says trends toward earlier Springs and warmer, longer-lasting Falls seem to favor a type of bacteria that causes more severe cases of Lyme. The result could be a future where Lyme doesn't infect significantly more Americans, but causes worse illness when it does.

The story for other vector-borne illnesses is equally complicated. For instance, the mosquitoes that spread malaria do favor tropical temperatures. So you'd think climate change would put more people at risk as regions bordering the tropics heat up. But Kevin Lafferty, a research ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, pointed out in the April issue of Ecology that rising temperatures also mean some currently malaria-prone areas will become too hot for mosquitoes. Equally important, according to Lafferty, is the fact that many of those border regions are far wealthier than current malaria hotbeds, so it's really unlikely malaria will make a comeback in places like the United States. Sure, the South is getting warmer, but Americans still live air-conditioned, indoor lifestyles, and still have relatively high levels of access to mosquito repellants and malaria treatments. In his Ecology paper, Lafferty reported data from computer models suggesting that, while the worst strain of malaria could expand beyond its current habitat to gain 23 million new human hosts by 2050, it's also going to lose access to some 25 million people.

*Also tough: Attributing pithy quotes. According to the Internets, this saying comes from Yogi Berra, Mark Twain, Woody Allen, Groucho Marx, Confucius, Will Rogers, and Niels Bohr. Presumably first uttered during a great conversation aboard the TARDIS.</em