theodp writes "Want to work at Winthrop Hospital? Roll up your sleeve, and we'll talk. TIME reports that every employee at the Long Island hospital — from doctors and nurses who care for patients to the administrative, housekeeping and food-service personnel — must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face termination. The mandate comes from the health department of New York, the first state to require all health-care workers to be vaccinated against influenza. Meanwhile, two-thirds of parents say they'll avoid flu shots for their little ones like, well, the flu. So who should you believe — Dr. Bill Frist or 'Dr.' Bill Maher? Before you decide, perhaps a consultation with Dr. Google is in order."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Want to work at Winthrop Hospital? Roll up your sleeve, and we'll talk. TIME reports that every employee at the Long Island hospital — from doctors and nurses who care for patients to the administrative, housekeeping and food-service personnel — must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face termination. The mandate comes from the health department of New York, the first state to require all health-care workers to be vaccinated against influenza. Meanwhile, two-thirds of parents say they'll avoid flu shots for their little ones like, well, the flu. So who should you believe — Dr. Bill Frist or 'Dr.' Bill Maher? Before you decide, perhaps a consultation with Dr. Google is in order."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Want to work at Winthrop Hospital? Roll up your sleeve, and we'll talk. TIME reports that every employee at the Long Island hospital — from doctors and nurses who care for patients to the administrative, housekeeping and food-service personnel — must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face termination. The mandate comes from the health department of New York, the first state to require all health-care workers to be vaccinated against influenza. Meanwhile, two-thirds of parents say they'll avoid flu shots for their little ones like, well, the flu. So who should you believe — Dr. Bill Frist or 'Dr.' Bill Maher? Before you decide, perhaps a consultation with Dr. Google is in order."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Want to work at Winthrop Hospital? Roll up your sleeve, and we'll talk. TIME reports that every employee at the Long Island hospital — from doctors and nurses who care for patients to the administrative, housekeeping and food-service personnel — must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face termination. The mandate comes from the health department of New York, the first state to require all health-care workers to be vaccinated against influenza. Meanwhile, two-thirds of parents say they'll avoid flu shots for their little ones like, well, the flu. So who should you believe — Dr. Bill Frist or 'Dr.' Bill Maher? Before you decide, perhaps a consultation with Dr. Google is in order."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "Want to work at Winthrop Hospital? Roll up your sleeve, and we'll talk. TIME reports that every employee at the Long Island hospital — from doctors and nurses who care for patients to the administrative, housekeeping and food-service personnel — must be vaccinated against both seasonal and H1N1 flu or face termination. The mandate comes from the health department of New York, the first state to require all health-care workers to be vaccinated against influenza. Meanwhile, two-thirds of parents say they'll avoid flu shots for their little ones like, well, the flu. So who should you believe — Dr. Bill Frist or 'Dr.' Bill Maher? Before you decide, perhaps a consultation with Dr. Google is in order."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Game research, ghost stories, Alan Moore, and academia: The far reaches of edutainment.
Jim Rossignol of Rock, Paper, Shotgun argues that games don't necessarily have to be fun to be engaging: "Do critics decry games because games need, more than any other media, to be something a group of people can all agree on?"

How'd They Do That? Poison Ivy and Carbon Dioxide Studies
Maggie Koerth-Baker discovers how scientists figured out that CO2 makes ivy grow incredibly fast ... and problematically poisonous.

The ecologist who found his wedding ring
Lisa Katayama writes: "When Aleki Taumoepeau, a 42-year old ecologist, dropped his wedding ring in the murky waters of a New Zealand ... he was determined to find it at all costs"

BBVideo: SYNESTHESIA, a film by Jonathan Fowler.
Boing Boing Video presents a remix of "Synesthesia," a documentary directed by Jonathan Fowler, about people whose senses blend, or mix. For instance: a synesthete might see colors when listening to music, or taste flavors when hearing a spoken word.

Why Halo makes me want to lay down and die
Margaret Robertson on Halo's oneiric call to adventure: "Halo is a place where I feel peaceful. It's partly, I grant you, the pistol in my hand and the rocket-launcher on my back, both of which take the stress out of day-to-day life."

storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

storagedude points to this article at Enterprise Storage Forum which argues that cloud-based storage options have fatal limitations for both businesses and individuals: "The article makes the argument that high volumes of data and bandwidth limitations make external cloud storage all but useless for enterprises because it could take months to restore the data in a disaster. It also appears to be a consumer problem — the author spent three months replicating 1TB of home data via cable modem to an online backup service." Seems like those off-site incremental storage firms could dispatch a station wagon full of tapes, for enough money. Update: Here's another reason, for Sidekick users: reader 1ini was one of several to point out an alert from T-Mobile that "...personal information stored on your device — such as contacts, calendar entries, to-do lists or photos — that is no longer on your Sidekick almost certainly has been lost as a result of a server failure at Microsoft/Danger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rob Meyer built this amazingly small (1/18th scale) R2-D2 with three of Solarbotics GM15 pager gearmotors. It uses two of the motors in the drive train and one to rotate the mech's dome. It measures 2.36?/6cm tall! [via Solarbotics]

Rob Meyer Productions

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High-C writes "Dr. Christopher James of the University of Southampton has demonstrated what is being termed 'Brain to Brain' communication. In binary, no less. In essence, one person imagined a binary number, which was picked up by an EEG and transmitted via the net to another PC. The received signal was displayed on LEDs flashing at two different frequencies. The receiver's EEG correctly deciphered the string, resulting in a 1:1 transmission of binary data via thought. The throughput isn't great so far, at .14 bits per second, but it's an incredibly geeky proof-of-concept all the same."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ralph Steadman and Tim Robbins in studio, recording for upcoming production of Paris Records' The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved, 2009. Photo courtesy Paris Records

Ethan Persoff wrote an article in the Evergreen Review this month about Paris Records, which, he says, has "produced some of the more interesting records of the last 25 years," including William Burroughs' Dead City Radio, Terry Southern's Give Me Your Hump!, and Allen Ginsberg's Lion For Real.

This is the first published account of the label's entire 25 year history. The article also has news and photos of previously unannounced album The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved starring Ralph Steadman as himself and Tim Robbins as Hunter Thompson. Produced by Hal Willner and Michael Minzer. Due in late 2009 or spring 2010.

"Other bonuses include two free mp3s of very rare out of print material: Ginsberg singing William Blake and Kathy Acker's Savage's School for Girls. Plus video of Burroughs on Saturday Night Live and many photos."

Conversations with Michael Minzer and Hal Willner on one of America's most inexplicably unknown recording projects.

Here's an interview with leather artisan Kara Ginther, who carves Brook's leather bike saddles.

"I'll never forget how nervous I was to make that first cut into the gorgeous seat. Carving leather leaves little room for error; not only can you ruin the design, but with one slip of the blade you can render an object useless!"

To Be, Inspired: Interview with leather artisan Kara Ginther

Stephen Worth of the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive says:

Down on his luck, Ross Bagdasarian Sr. (aka "David Seville") bought a tape recorder capable of speeding up voices with his last $200. He quickly knocked out a Christmas demo titled "The Chipmunk Song" and took it to record executives Simon "Sy" Waronker, Theodore "Ted" Keep and Alvin "Al" Bennett at Liberty Records. The label was close to bankruptcy, but Bagdasarian convinced them that they might as well press Chipmunk singles with the leftover vinyl pucks and labels in their warehouse rather than just turn the unused stock over to the bank when the business went under. Production commenced and in just a few months leading up to Christmas of 1958, the record shot to the top of the charts, becoming one of the best selling singles of all time. Bagdasarian won two Grammy Awards, Liberty Records was saved from bankruptcy, and the Chipmunks became a household name with children all over the world.

The History of the Chipmunks

Etylowy writes "Over the years I have repaired my own, family, and friends' PCs many, many times. While in most cases it turned out to be restoring system after malware/user/Windows made a mess, or simple cases of 'follow the smell of smoke and molten plastic,' there were some nasty ones where the computer mostly works. By 'mostly,' I mean: you can boot it up, it might even work for a while, but will crash way too often to blame it all on Microsoft — what do you do then? Once you strip it off any extra hardware (which with today's motherboards, with pretty much everything integrated, might not be an option) you are left with CPU, motherboard, graphics card, RAM and HDD. You can test HDD, you can run memtest86+ to check RAM, but how do you go about testing CPU, motherboard and graphics card trio to find which is to blame? Replacing them one by one isn't really an option. Do you know any software that would help the way memtest helps with RAM?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Every time a relative passes this issue comes front and center for me. Most other times it's just lurking in the shadows.

We need one or more institutions that can manage electronic trusts over very long periods of time.

The institutions need to be long-lived and have the technical know-how to manage static archives. The organizations should need the service themselves, so they would be likely to advance the art over time. And the cost should be minimized, so that the most people could do it.

I've felt that universities would do the best job, since they already need to maintain the work of their professors, possibly in partnership with technology companies. This could be a huge source of endowments, as wealthy people with a vision for techology compete to build long-lasting monuments to their creativity and generosity.

And of course why not actually have the work be created in the archival form, so there's no pile of work to do when the person passes.

At this point I am managing the content for two relatives. At some point not too far down the road I will pass too. I would like to set aside a bit of money to maintain these archives, and to help inspire others to do so as well. I'm willing to devote a substantial portion of the time I have left to this task.

I don't run an institution that could fill this role. I've suggested it to people I've worked with at Harvard, a university that I think would be perfectly suited for the job, possibly partnering with a technology vendor. Amazon almost has exactly what we need, they just need a partner who does domain registration, and there must be a financial service organization that pays the monthly hosting bills.

My father left a huge number of photos he took over forty years of traveling all over the world. He spent a lot of his time in retirement digitizing the photos. We have purchased leonwiner.com. So we've got a fresh problem right now. My mother, who owns the copyright has given us permission to license the photos under the Creative Commons.

There's a huge amount of work to do to get ready for the future. Who else is interested in working on this?

This week's story on the Escape Pod sf podcast is Marc Laidlaw's "Sleepy Joe," a grimly comic, apocalyptic story about paralegals with a secret cable-access show who find themselves caring for (and kidnapping) a brainwashed war-veteran who's been turned into a human weapon. It's a marvellous story and a great reading (the story was originally published on The Infinite Matrix). Astute readers will remember Marc as a former guestblogger, a wildly imaginative sf writer, and the games-writer behind such Valve titles as Half-Life.

The plan must have come to Rog fully formed that first morning, as he stepped off the elevator into the lobby of Szilliken Sharpenwright and saw the old soldier newly stationed there in his omnichair between the potted silk ferns and the coffee tables.

"Oh. My. God. I am in love."

Megan, her arms loaded with Rog-House props and paraphernalia she hadn't had time to ditch yet, said, "You say that an awful lot for someone who styles himself completely asexual. Not to mention atheistic."

"There's no conflict! He's completely post-human!"

"Hm. You two even look a bit alike."

EP219: Sleepy Joe

Direct MP3 link

Sleepy Joe text on Infinite Matrix

Darren Ginter writes "A group of Samba v4 developers recently spent a week in Redmond to work with Microsoft on Active Directory interoperability(?!). The result? Windows Server will now join, trust and replicate a Samba-based Active Directory using Microsoft-native protocols. Although Samba v4 is still in the alpha stages, this is a huge step for open source. Or it could be a trap."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mike sez, "For three weeks only, Amazon and Mojo Nixon are offering his entire catalog in MP3 format completely free, including his latest album, Whiskey Rebellion."

Now there's some good news! There's nothing I don't like about Mojo Nixon. This is the guy who produced the kiddypunk band Old Skull after all (I always suspected he was responsible for the rousing chorus of "I hate you Ronald Reagan!" at the end of their smash-hit "Homeless").

If you're not familiar with Mr Nixon's oeuvre, give a listen to Elvis is Everywhere, Wash No Dishes No More and This Land is Your Land. Especially Wash No Dishes No More.

Update: This only works if your IP address is in the USA.

One of the most outsized personalities on college radio in the '80s, Mojo Nixon won a fervent cult following with his motor-mouthed redneck persona and a gonzo brand of satire with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. Nixon had a particular knack for celebrity-themed novelty hits ("Elvis Is Everywhere," "Debbie Gibson Is Pregnant With My Two-Headed Love Child," "Don Henley Must Die"), but he was prone to gleefully crass rants on a variety of social ills ("I Hate Banks," "Destroy All Lawyers," "I Ain't Gonna Piss In No Jar"), while celebrating lowbrow, blue-collar America in all its trashy, beer-soaked glory. All of it was performed in maximum overdrive on a bed of rockabilly, blues, and R&B, which earned Nixon some friends in the roots rock community but had enough punk attitude -- in its own bizarre way -- to make him a college radio staple during his heyday.

Mojo Nixon (Thanks, Mike!)

Pickens writes "Farhad Manjoo has a provocative story at Slate asserting that while the iPhone has prompted millions of people to join AT&T, it has also hurt the company's image because all of those customers use their phones too much, and AT&T's network is getting crushed by the demand. The typical smartphone customer consumes about 40 to 80 megabytes of wireless capacity a month, while the typical iPhone customer uses 400 MB a month. As more people sign up, local cell towers get more congested, and your own phone performs worse. He says the problem is that a customer who uses 1 MB a month pays the same amount as someone who uses 1,000 MB, and the solution is tiered pricing. 'Of course, users would cry bloody murder at first,' writes Manjoo. 'I'd call on AT&T to create automatic tiers — everyone would start out on the $10/100 MB plan each month, and your price would go up automatically as your usage passes each 100 MB tier.' He says the key to implementing the policy is transparency, and that the iPhone should have an indicator like the battery bar that changes color as you pass each monthly tier. 'Some iPhone fans will argue that metered pricing would kill the magic of Apple's phone — that sense of liberation one feels at being able to access the Internet from anywhere, at any time. The trouble is, for many of us, AT&T's overcrowded network has already killed that sense, and now our usual dealings with Apple's phone are tinged with annoyance.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mjasay writes "Former MySQL CEO Marten Mickos has written to EU Commissioner of Competition Neelie Kroes to urge speedy approval of Oracle's proposed purchase of Sun, including the open-source MySQL database. The EU has been worried that Oracle's acquisition of Sun could end up hurting competition by dampening or killing MySQL's momentum. But in his letter, Mickos separates MySQL-the-community from MySQL-the-company, arguing that Oracle's takeover cannot hurt the MySQL community: 'Those two meanings of the term "MySQL" stand in a close, mutually beneficial interaction with each other. But, most importantly, this interaction is voluntary and cannot be directly controlled by the vendor.' In a follow-up interview with CNET, Mickos indicated that he has no financial interest in the matter, but instead argues he 'couldn't live with the fact that [he's] not taking action,' and is 'motivated now by trying to help the employees still at MySQL and Sun, and by an urge to bring rational discussion to the matter.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I

It's old news, but this awesome foam Golem suit from live-action role-players in New Zealand just caught my eye.

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An anonymous reader writes "Rock, Paper, Shotgun points out a new game called Star Guard, a Flash-based platformer for Mac and PC that's a throwback to the early days of computer gaming, yet still entertaining. They describe it thus: 'Its greatest strength, to my mind, is throwing out the old-school traditions of difficulty. It does certainly get tricky, requiring the platformer standbys of carefully timed jumps and learning enemy patterns — there's something of a Metroid vibe to it. But you don't get punished for failing to meet one of its challenges — you're just plunged a few feet back to most recent checkpoint, and carry on. Lives are not finite, but the small mound of green pixels that mark your corpses are a maudlin testament to your ineptitude. However, death is useful — I ritually found myself sending in a suicide spaceman, taking out an enemy or a mine so that the path was clear for my next go. ... However, it doesn't leave people who pride themselves on their gaming skill, and demand their games to be hard, out in the cold. At the end of each level, your score alters dramatically depending on how many times you died.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction toy designer John Austin provides detailed, step-by-step instructions for building 35 devices include catapults, slingshots, minibombs, darts, and combustion shooters. Once you've built your armory, the author provides plans for a Top Secret Concealing Book to hide your stash, as well as targets for shooting practice. Never let your personal space go undefended again!

We've come a long way from the Peashooter Era: with the advent of modern household products and office supplies--binder clips, clothespins, rubber bands, ballpoint pens, toothpicks, paper clips, plastic utensils, and (of course) matches and barbeque lighters--troublemakers of all stripes have the components needed to build an impressive, if somewhat miniaturized, arsenal.

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geirnord writes "Previously a US-only device, the Amazon Kindle 2 is now finally available in an international edition. The new device is identical to the Kindle 2, with the exception of Edge and 3G support. That means Whispernet-like functionality over most of the world." Reader pasm notes a report at The Guardian which points out higher ebook prices for international Kindle users. "When asked by the Guardian precisely how much downloads would cost, an Amazon.co.uk spokesman revealed that foreign customers — including those in Britain — would be paying $13.99 (£8.75) per book instead of the American price of $9.99 (£6.25). That amounts to a 40% premium for the same title." The spokesman said the higher prices reflected higher operating costs and VAT rates.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eldavojohn writes "Modern processors rely on wires mere nanometers wide, and now Yale physicists have successfully measured a theoretical 'persistent current' that flows through them when they are formed into rings. The researchers predict this will help us understand how electrons behave in metals — more specifically, the quantum mechanical effect that influences how these electrons move through the metals. Hopefully, this work will shed new light on what dangers (or uses) quantum effects could have on classical processors as the inner workings shrink in size. The breakthrough involved rethinking how to measure this theoretical effect, as they previously relied on superconducting quantum interference devices to measure the magnetic field such a current would create — complicated devices that gave incorrect and inconsistent measurements. Instead, they turned to nothing but mechanical devices, known as cantilevers ('little floppy diving boards with the nanometer rings sitting on top'), that yielded measurements with a full order of magnitude more precision."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mathias sez, "Nasty Old People is the first feature film in Swedish history to be released under a Creative Commons license."

Mette is a member of a neo-Nazi gang, her day job is to take care of four crazy old people that all are just waiting to die. Her life becomes a journey into a burlesque fairytale, where the rules of the game are created by Mette herself. Mette is indifferent about her way of life, until she one night assaults a man, kicking him senseless. Waking up the day after, she realizes that something is wrong, and in company with the her crazy oldies she longs for respect and love. She can tell that the old folks are marginalized by the modern society, but together they create a world and a voice of their own.

Nasty Old People

Download legally from the Pirate Bay

(Thanks, Mathias!)

When a British girl -- who had an undiagnosed tumor -- died shortly after receiving the HPV (cervical cancer) vaccine, the British tabloids jumped on the story as proof that vaccines are evil and pad and deadly and dangerous. They even quoted respected scientists who agreed with them. Except they misrepreented those scientists' views, got the science completely wrong, scared people away from potentially life-saving treatment, and failed to adequately own up to their mistakes. Ben Goldacre, the "bad science" columnist for the Guardian, has written a scathing indictment of the way the press handled the story.

The story seemed unlikely for three reasons. Firstly, Professor Harper is not a known member of the antivaccination community, which is vanishingly small. Secondly, it was on the front page of the Sunday Express, which is indeed cause for concern. Lastly, it was by specialist health journalist Lucy Johnston, whose previous work includes "Doctor's MMR fears", "Exclusive: Experts Cast Doubt On Claim For 'Wonder' Cancer Jabs", "Children 'Used As Guinea Pigs For Vaccines'", "Dangers Of Mmr Jab 'Covered Up'", "Teenage Girls Sue Over Cancer Jab", "Jab Makers Linked To Vaccine Programme", and so many more, including a rather memorable bad science story, the front page: " Suicides 'Linked To Phone Masts".

So I contacted Professor Harper. For avoidance of doubt, so that there can be no question of me misrepresenting her views, unlike the Express, I will explain Professor Harper's position on this issue in her own words. They are unambiguous.

"I did not say that Cervarix was as deadly as cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix could be riskier or more deadly than cervical cancer. I did not say that Cervarix was controversial, I stated that Cervarix is not a 'controversial drug'. I did not 'hit out' - I was contacted by the press for facts. And this was not an exclusive interview."

Jabs "as bad as the cancer" (Thanks, Evidence Matters!)

An anonymous reader writes "A lengthy interview on Groklaw discusses the EU's case against Microsoft. The case is supported by Opera, Google, Mozilla, ECIS, and the Free Software Foundation Europe. The EU has demanded that users are offered a 'ballot screen' to make it easier for users to select other browsers. Microsoft has responded by implementing the ballot screen as a web page inside IE. While this may nominally satisfy EU's demand, it is unlikely to satisfy users who prefer other browsers. In order to select another browser, users must be running IE. Also, users will be shown security warnings when choosing from the ballot. Microsoft's ability to charge patent fees in Europe is also discussed: why are they allowed to charge patent fees where software patents are not recognized?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

snydeq writes "Fatal Exception's Neil McAllister questions whether the move to port Flash to the iPhone isn't a last-ditch effort on Adobe's part to remain relevant in the quickly evolving smartphone market. By allowing developers to compile existing Flash apps into native binaries, Adobe believes it has found a way around Apple's requirements that no non-Apple API interpreted code may be downloaded and used in an app, a clause that has also prevented Sun from porting JVM to the iPhone. The resulting apps will be completely stand-alone, with no runtimes and no Flash Player required — if Apple lets Adobe get away with it, no small feat given how protective Apple has been about its app market. But as much as Apple has at stake here, Adobe may actually have more, McAllister writes. 'Already the idea of using Web languages and tools to build smartphone applications is taking hold. Palm has built an entire smartphone platform around the idea. Apple supports the use of Web technologies like AJAX to build applications based on the iPhone's Safari browser. And developers will soon even be able to build Web-based applications for BlackBerry handsets, thanks to a new SDK from Research in Motion. As late to the game as it is, what Adobe needs now is to convince developers that Flash is better than the other options — and that could be a tough sell.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

coondoggie writes "The US House of Representatives has taken its last mainframe offline, signaling the end of an era in Washington, DC computing. The last mainframe supposedly enjoyed 'quasi-celebrity status' within the House data center, having spent 12 years keeping the House's inventory control records and financial management data, among other tasks. But it was time for a change, with the House spending $30,000 a year to power the mainframe and another $700,000 each year for maintenance and support."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sometimes you want to tell a story that takes a while to unfold. One of the beauties of digital photography is that you are not limited by how many shots are on the roll of film, now you can shoot until your camera's card is full. With the high capacity cards available now, you can shoot a very large amount of high resolution photos and barely fill your card.

In this project, we'll use Windows Movie Maker, which comes bundled with the operating system on many computers. If you have a Mac or Ubuntu machine, keep looking. iMovie surely has a process similar to this, and I haven't found a good way to work with movies on Ubuntu. Add your thoughts in the comments if you know of good software for other other platforms. All the windows machines in my classroom run on XP, I have heard that Moviemaker is a bit harder to find in Vista.

Making movies and sharing them online is a great way for students to sum up what they have learned from doing a project. By using the video description, students have a place to park a written explanation of what the project helped them learn and what the photos depict. They can write the text in any word processor and then add it to the video description when it is uploaded. If they need to alter it later, they can just edit the notes by logging in and making the changes.

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This Russian casemodder included a dollhouse-scale living room in an elaborate PC case... Presumably it's where the computer elves go to relax after a hard day's tallying up spreadsheets.

????????? ?????????: ??????? ? ?????????? (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

chrnb writes "Last year, the Danish island of Samso (pronounced SOME-suh) completed a 10-year experiment to see whether it could become energy self-sufficient. The islanders, with generous amounts of aid from mainland Denmark, busily set themselves about erecting wind turbines, installing nonpolluting straw-burning furnaces to heat their sturdy brick houses and placing panels here and there to create electricity from the island's sparse sunshine. By their own accounts, the islanders have met the goal. For energy experts, the crucial measurement is called energy density, or the amount of energy produced per unit of area, and it should be at least 2 watts for every square meter, or 11 square feet. 'We just met it,' said Soren Hermansen, the director of the local Energy Academy, a former farmer who is a consultant to the islanders."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Boing Boing guestblogger Mitch Horowitz is author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation and editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin publishers.

One of the oddest and most enduring occult books of modern times is called The Kybalion. Dan Brown mentions it twice in The Lost Symbol. The book exists in a multitude of editions and claims to be an ancient work of practical occult wisdom. Its pages brim with canny advice on how to get what you want from life. The "author" of The Kybalion is a hidden entity called Three Initiates. Speculation rages online that one of these Three Initiates was a twentieth-century magician, occultist, and writer named Paul Foster Case. Case, so the theory goes, co-conceived the popular book in early twentieth-century Chicago, a city bustling with occult impresarios. I consider the Case connection and The Kybalion in Occult America:

Chicago was a great city for a budding occultist in the early twentieth century. It was home to the influential New Thought teacher Emma Curtis Hopkins and hosted bustling subcultures in "mental science" and metaphysical publishing. A Chicago lawyer named William Walker Atkinson produced an imaginative array of occult books from his Yogi Publication Society based in the twenty-two-story Masonic Temple Building, once a jewel of the city's skyline and later demolished. Atkinson himself wrote many books, under the pseudonyms Yogi Ramacharaka, Magus Incognito, and, most famously, Three Initiates. The Chicagoan used the last of these aliases in 1908 to publish his most successful book, one of the occult classics of the twentieth century: The Kybalion.

This compendium of "lost" Egyptian-Hermetic wisdom read a lot like New Thought principles recast in antique language but nonetheless enthralled readers, partly due to the secrecy of its authorship. A long-standing rumor, which now abounds online, named Paul Foster Case as one of the Three Initiates. But The Kybalion reads to the letter like Atkinson, and it was published before the two men would have been likely to meet. The Kybalion is often misdated to 1912. But the copyright and first edition were actually from 1908, when Case had barely arrived in the city. The error arose from a 1940 edition in which the publisher listed the initial registration as 1912, almost certainly in an attempt to reassert control over a copyright that had fallen into public domain after failing to be renewed at the required 28-year interval.

Whatever its authorship, The Kybalion is an enticing guide to wise-living. I publish a new, redesigned edition at Tarcher/Penguin, which is probably the first to specifically credit Atkinson on the about-the-author page. The Kybalion

Platinum Dragon writes "Ontario's auditor-general released a blistering report this week detailing how successive governments threw away a billion dollars developing an integrated electronic medical record system. This CBC article highlights an open source system developed at McMaster University that is already used by hundreds of doctors in Ontario. As one of the developers points out, 'we don't have very high-priced executives and consultants,' some of whom cost Ontario taxpayers $2,700 per day." The McMaster University researchers claim their system could be rolled out for two percent of the billion-dollars-plus already spent on the project. The report itself (PDF) also makes note of the excessive consultation spending: "By 2008, the Ministry’s eHealth Program Branch had fewer than 30 full-time employees but was engaging more than 300 consultants, a number of whom held senior management positions."

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For many years, I've pointed out that I tend to disagree with many folks -- who I otherwise agree with -- in copyright debates, who argue that we should be looking for the "right balance" of copyright holder rights vs. user rights. I've long thought that balance is the wrong way to look at it. The purpose of copyright law is to incentivize the creation of new content, and thus the standard on which copyright law should be judged is one where the creation of content is maximized. As such, there shouldn't be a question of balance, because the ideal situation where content is maximized should make everyone better off. Talking about balance is figuring out how both sides should compromise to meet in the middle. Talking about maximizing content creation, on the other hand, is talking about ways to improve the marketplace of options for everyone.

Still -- especially among so called "copyfighters" -- the concept of "balance" is quite commonly used. However, it appears that at least some others are also concerned about this use of "balance." Copycense alerts us to a paper that was published recently by Abraham Drassinower, of the University of Toronto Law School, which also argues that balance is the wrong way to view copyright policy. Unfortunately, the paper is not the most... lucid thing out there. It's quite academic and, tragically, does not do a particularly good job clearly and concisely making its point. It's not what I would call an easy read. Instead, it rambles at times, and uses overly complex (and at times circular) language, rather than just coming out and stating a clear and concise thesis. This is unfortunate, because if you can get throgh the language used in the paper, it does make some very valuable points.

The argument is, effectively, that "balance" as a concept in copyright law really only makes sense if you believe that copyright law is designed to reward a content creator for their labor -- in legal terms, the "sweat of the brow" argument. However, courts in both the US and Canada have rejected a "sweat of the brow" standard for copyright law, as being separate from the purpose of copyright law. If you believe that "sweat of the brow" is appropriate, then you are starting from a position that a content creator naturally deserves rewards from all benefits that result from his or her work. And, thus, the "balance" is in slowly removing some of those rewards and giving them to the public, until things are seen as "fair" for both sides.

The sweat of the brow standard affirms a view of copyright law on the basis of what we might call a misappropriation paradigm--that is, a paradigm that grants copyright in the products of a person's mental effort so as to preclude others from reaping where they have not sown. The mischief copyright law aims at in this paradigm is the misappropriation of value through copying. Copying a phone directory gives rise to copyright liability because such copying amounts to an unauthorized transfer of value from the author to the copyist, the plaintiff to the defendant. It is to correct this "grievous injustice"--to use the words of a classic House of Lords judgment in this tradition--that copyright law operates. Its target is the injustice of misappropriation.

But, without a "sweat of the brow" standard, then the whole concept of balance makes a lot less sense. Instead, Drassinower notes that copyright is actually based on a "skill and judgment or creativity" standard, which focuses just on the creative elements of the work, rather than the effort put into the work. In other words, the standard we have set for copyright focuses on the value of creativity rather than the value of effort. Drassinower argues that balance, as a concept, does not, and cannot take that difference into account.

Again, while I agree that balance is the wrong way to look at things, I was quite disappointed by the way Drassinower sets out to make this case. It's interesting, but not presented in a compelling way. There are times when it makes good points (though, again, using overly dense language in most cases), but never seems to fully come out and just state the clear conclusion of focusing too much on balance: that it falsely implies that when one loses the other wins. That it falsely implies that this is a zero sum game. At times, he gets close, as in the following passage:

[Once] the metaphor of balance is assumed as the integrating mechanism holding authors and users together, integration properly so-called can never occur. And that is because once value-balancing is the ordering mechanism, then the relation between authors and users is but a perennial struggle for value, such that claims of authors are but minimizations of the value-entitlements of users, and similarly, the claims of users are but minimizations of the value-entitlements of authors. The upshot is that successful haggling about price masquerades as the foundation of a truly public domain. The failure to elucidate authorship as anything other than value-origination generates an impoverished vision of the public domain as nothing other than a lower or lowered price.

But he fails to take that final step of pointing out that it's not a zero sum game, and the goal of copyright should be maximizing the creation of content overall, such that everyone is better off. Still, if you can get through the rather dense language, the paper does raise some good points, even if I felt it misses the true problems over "balance" in the copyright debate.

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Rob Hyndman points us to an editorial in the NY Times from the founder of the famous Cook's Illustrated magazine, Christopher Kimball, bemoaning Conde Nast's recent decision to shut down the magazine Gourmet. Rather than talking about all sorts of mistakes made by Conde Nast in managing its magazine portfolio, he works out some way to blame people who use Twitter and Google and (gasp!) put their own recipes online and (oh no!) have their own feeble-minded opinions:

The shuttering of Gourmet reminds us that in a click-or-die advertising marketplace, one ruled by a million instant pundits, where an anonymous Twitter comment might be seen to pack more resonance and useful content than an article that reflects a lifetime of experience, experts are not created from the top down but from the bottom up. They can no longer be coronated; their voices have to be deemed essential to the lives of their customers. That leaves, I think, little room for the thoughtful, considered editorial with which Gourmet delighted its readers for almost seven decades.

To survive, those of us who believe that inexperience rarely leads to wisdom need to swim against the tide, better define our brands, prove our worth, ask to be paid for what we do, and refuse to climb aboard this ship of fools, the one where everyone has an equal voice. Google "broccoli casserole" and make the first recipe you find. I guarantee it will be disappointing. The world needs fewer opinions and more thoughtful expertise -- the kind that comes from real experience, the hard-won blood-on-the-floor kind. I like my reporters, my pilots, my pundits, my doctors, my teachers and my cooking instructors to have graduated from the school of hard knocks.

The thing is, the evidence actually suggests he's wrong. People who first become interested in such "bottom up" knowledge, often go on to seek out the "thoughtful, considered editorial." The bottom-up system works because the ease of entry doesn't scare people off, but it also doesn't take long for those who find it compelling to seek out more expertise in the subject. Refusing to "climb aboard this shop of fools" is a good way to make sure that the snobs you're hoping will come find you never even bother.

Kimball is correct that he should be better defining his brand and proving his worth -- that's what we've been saying all along. But you can do that without insulting the riff raff, as well. You can do that while embracing the "bottom up" process. You can do that without being a total snob that has no time for the people who actually pay your salary.

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destinyland writes "Scientists from the University of Chicago and the US Department of Energy have developed the first nanoparticles that seek out and destroy GMB brain cancer cells. Nanoparticles killed up to 80% of the brain cancer cells after just five minutes of exposure to white light, showing the promise of nanomedicine — highly-specific intervention at the molecular scale. Because nanomedicine could repair brain cells or damaged nerve and muscle tissue, the NIH has established eight Nanomedicine Development Centers around the country for their Nanomedicine Roadmap Initiative. Researchers have also used gold nanospheres to search out and 'cook' skin cancer cells with light — 'It's basically like putting a cancer cell in hot water and boiling it to death,' says one researcher. And the NIH Roadmap ultimately predicts 'novel tiny sensors ... that search for, and destroy, infectious agents.'"

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With prizes for most original vehicle and best costume, I'm wishing I had heard about the NYC big wheel race a bit sooner...

Bring your big wheel, trike, skateboard, velocipede, or handmade contraption on wheels along with your superhero costume to race down the Great Hill in Central Park against the greatest front and rear axelers.

If you do manage to get a vehicle together, wear a helmet!

2nd annual NYC Great Big Wheel Race
Saturday, October 10, 3-5:30pm
Central Park Drive, 104th St east side

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There's been a lot of attention recently to the news that the heirs of comic book artist Jack Kirby are alerting companies of plans to take back the copyright on various Kirby characters, using the termination rights in the Copyright Act. This followed a very long and drawn out lawsuit involving a similar attempt over Superman. The details are really complex, but copyright law allows the original creator (or heirs if that creator has passed away) certain opportunities to basically negate a deal that was signed early on to hand over the copyright on certain works. The idea was to help protect artists who signed bad deals, but in practice, it's just been a total mess.

Still, given the success of the Superman saga in getting at least some of the copyrights back, suddenly lots of people are looking to see what other copyrights can be reclaimed. Apparently, a bunch of musicians are now lining up to try to regain their rights from the labels starting in 2013 (the first year musical works are eligible). As the article notes, with record labels still too clueless to figure out how to successfully build business models around new acts, many still rely on sales of old music to bring in a lot of their revenue. If the labels lose the copyrights on much of that music... well... let's just say suddenly The Pirate Bay may be the least of their concerns.

The labels, of course, are aware of all of this, and have been planning a strategy to fight it for years. As was detailed in William Patry's latest book, in 1999 the RIAA was able to get Congress to amend copyright law in the middle of the night (literally), to change musical works to "work for hire," which does not have a termination right associated with it. There were loud protests from many artists, and Congress quickly backed down. Still, the record labels are going to claim that, even without that clearly written in the law, the music created by musicians on the labels were, in fact, "works for hire."

So, get ready for a series of long and drawn out lawsuits from the labels over this issue. They certainly realize that even if they eventually lose, by taking it to court, they can delay that day of reckoning for quite some time. Now, to be clear, I tend to have a problem with the whole concept of these termination rights. If you've contractually agreed to give up your copyright, that should be that. It only causes more problems (as we see) down the road to offer some sort of automatic out, not negotiated into the contract. That said, the very fact that the labels are freaking out about this and intend to go to court against the artists over this should (once again) be a reminder that the labels and the RIAA have never had "the artists' best interests" in mind in whatever they do. The fact that politicians and many in the press still think that the labels represent the artists' interests is pretty ridiculous. Hopefully, things like these upcoming lawsuits will help clarify that for them.

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Over on O'Reilly Radar, MAKE editor and publisher Dale Dougherty has a thought-provoking piece on remaking public broadcasting:

Imagine a broadcast network in America that was dedicated to education, where the best educators had the opportunity to produce its programming, and where individuals as well as institutions could develop a new genre of wide-ranging educational programs? Educational programming could elevate the role of teaching in our culture and promote the value of lifelong learning. This blog post explores why education is a more important role for public broadcasting in America, a new role that would re-align PBS with its original mission as an educational network.

A More Public Role for Public Broadcasting: Education

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Jeff Nolan points us to the news that yet another redlight camera program in California has been struck down as illegal, this time in San Mateo (right up the road from where I live). The details are a little technical, but effectively, California law doesn't allow municipalities to do deals with redlight camera vendors, where the vendor gets a percentage of the money brought in by tickets. San Mateo tried to get around this by giving the vendor (Redflex, of course) a cut up to a certain level. However, the judge didn't buy that, and rejected the ticket that was at issue. The lawyer who handled the case is thinking about now turning this into a class action lawsuit against various municipalities doing the same thing -- and potentially against Redflex. (Full disclosure: Just recently -- long after I'd written about how awful these cameras are, my wife got a ticket from one of these redlight cameras... in San Mateo, for the exact same thing as the guy who won this lawsuit: a right turn on red, without a full stop).

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Absolut187 writes "Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford says Steam's domination of digital distribution is 'dangerous,' and exploits small developers. 'Steam helps us as customers, but it's also a money grab, and Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that's not totally fair. ... Valve is taking a larger share than it should for the service it's providing. ... There's so much conflict of interest there that it's horrid.' Pitchford's comments came as part of an interview with Maximum PC, and he thinks Valve should spin off Steam to its own company. Is he right? Is there a better answer?" Update: 10/10 at 02:00 GMT by SS: Randy has clarified his remarks in a comment here at Slashdot. He makes it clear that he likes Steam a lot, and for several reasons, but thinks stronger competition would benefit the industry as a whole.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Absolut187 writes "Gearbox Software CEO Randy Pitchford says Steam's domination of digital distribution is 'dangerous,' and exploits small developers. 'Steam helps us as customers, but it's also a money grab, and Valve is exploiting a lot of people in a way that's not totally fair. ... Valve is taking a larger share than it should for the service it's providing. ... There's so much conflict of interest there that it's horrid.' Pitchford's comments came as part of an interview with Maximum PC, and he thinks Valve should spin off Steam to its own company. Is he right? Is there a better answer?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sand painting in front of a large audience and what looks like American Idol-style judging? Who knew? Really fascinating to watch. And amazing to see that audience members are driven to tears by the experience. There are a whole bunch more of these sand painting vids on YouTube. My momma used to say: You should put a new wrinkle on your brain every day. This is definitely a new wrinkle. [Thanks, Dan!]

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