Charles Vestal alerts us to the news that Zombieland writer/director Rhett Reese has apparently be using Twitter to shame people who were mentioning that they were watching unauthorized copies of Zombieland at home, declaring to each one: "You realize we do what we do for money, right? Same as you." This comes soon after we highlighted some directors and moviemakers have found success by embracing those who were downloading their movie, recognizing that it was leading to more sales.

And, in fact, at least some of the people that Reese called out complained that they had actually seen the film multiple times in the theater and planning to buy the official DVD once it came out as well. In other words, the reason the movie is downloaded so much is because people like it, and yes, they still are supporting the moviemakers.

So, what made Reese lash out at these fans? You guessed it. He claimed he had just watched the 60 Minutes episode on movie piracy -- the one that we debunked for being factually incorrect, and it resulted in him getting angry at these fans, without thinking through the fact that the download might not be a substitute. But, even after the fans told him they had seen the film multiple times in the theaters, he's complaining that this decreases the chances of a sequel getting made. Given the massive popularity of the film -- both in the theater and online -- that seems highly unlikely. As we've seen before, the popularity of a movie in unauthorized downloads closely correlates with its box office take in many instances. It's rarely a sign of "lost revenue," and quite often a good indicator of actual revenue. In fact, the details show that Zombieland has done amazingly well, already earning back much more than it cost. Reese has a strong and loyal fanbase who want to support him and a very successful movie on his hands. Rather than attacking them, he should look for ways to embrace them and give them more real reasons to buy.

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alphadogg writes "Georgia Tech researchers have received a $450,000 NSF grant to boost security of iPhones, BlackBerries and other smartphones and the wireless networks on which they run. And it's those networks where the researchers are really zeroing in. The researchers are looking into ways wireless carriers such as AT&T and Verizon can detect malware on devices and clean up the devices before they do further damage. 'While a single user might realize that a phone is behaving differently, that person probably won't know why,' says Patrick Traynor, assistant professor at Georgia Tech’s School of Computer Science. 'But a cell phone provider may see a thousand devices behaving in the same way and have the ability to do something about it.' Georgia Tech is going to build out a cellular network test bed to try out its remote repair techniques."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A study in the scientific journal Brain and Cognition suggests that increasing the "crosstalk" between the brain's left and right hemispheres can increase creativity. Researchers from the Richard Stockton College of New Jersey ran an experiment on 62 people to gauge creative thinking. After a first try at the task, some of the participants were told to shift their eyes horizontally back and forth for 30 seconds, an exercise that boosts the communication between the hemispheres. Those subjects performed much better on the test the second time around than a control group who stared straight ahead. The scientists published the results of their study in the journal Brain and Cognition. From the British Psychological Society Research Digest:

An important factor that the researchers took note of was the participants' handedness. Prior research has suggested that people who have one hand that is particularly dominant, so-called "strong-handers", have less cross-talk between their brain hemispheres compared with people who are more ambidextrous or "mixed handed"...

The key finding is that on their second creativity attempt, strong-handers who'd performed the horizontal eye movements subsequently showed a significant improvement in their creativity, in terms of being more original (i.e. suggesting ideas not proposed by others) and coming up with more categories of use...

The researchers also showed that, for strong-handers, the beneficial effects of the eye movement exercise lasted nine minutes for originality, but just three to six minutes in terms of coming up with more categories of use.

"Performing horizontal eye movement exercises can boost your creativity"

DesignMartus's portfolio has some beautiful metalwork on display, around a motif of hands and fists. This wonderful fist sledgehammer would be a fine addition to any toolkit.

Early Tools (via Make)

Big Think video: "According to Rutgers psychology professor Barry Komisaruk, some women are able to achieve orgasm through mental activity alone. What can their brains tell us about the neurological basis of sexual pleasure, and can these discoveries help patients who are unable to orgasm at all?"

Theme Park Brochures, a superb gallery of theme-park maps from the 30s onwards -- I especially love the hand-drawn ones. <p Theme Park Brochures (via MeFi)

Here's a linear optical encoder made from printer parts, a PIC 18F4520 MCU, and an L298 motor controller:

The goal of this tutorial is to create a way to know where the 'stage' is, accurate to about 1/4'' using optical encoding. The stage is controlled via a 12v motor so we will use an L298 motor controller for controlling the motor via a 18F4520 PIC.

The PIC will use hardware PWM generators to output the correct frequency & duty cycle. The PIC will also take the analog input from the IR detector diode to keep track of how far the stage has moved via an internal analog to digital converter (ADC).

Simple Motor Optical Encoder

More:
How To: DIY quadrature encoder
HOW TO - Make an Optical Encoder

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From GOOD: "The remarkable similarity between the arcs of U.S. oil production and songs in Rolling Stone's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time" by year is staggering." (Graph created by Overthinkingit.com)

A reader writes, "The Catena wall clock harkens back to traditional mechanical clocks. Copper digits mounted onto a bicycle chain place emphasis on the cyclical nature of time. This clock is a striking clock, literally and figuratively."

Well, not literally. But figuratively. And man, was this thing ever designed to fire up the desiderata center of my brain.

Catena Wall Clock

Followers of Boing Boing will know that the Electronic Frontier Foundation has been battling in court to force the US government to disclose documents related to the illegal mass wiretapping that the phone companies and Uncle Sam engaged in as part of the "war on terror." Now the government has blinked, and EFF has the photos to prove it.

Hugh from EFF sez, "A photo of what it looks like when the gov't says 'uncle': EFF lawyers with a mountain of telecom immunity docs."

nate&marcia (Thanks, Hugh!)

Ladies and Gentlemen, the 1987 Crystal light National Aerobic Championship. (Thanks, Bloggy!)

An anonymous reader writes "The Remus project has just been incorporated into the Xen hypervisor. Developed at the University of British Columbia, Remus provides a thin layer that continuously replicates a running virtual machine onto a second physical host. Remus requires no modifications to the OS or applications within the protected VM: on failure, Remus activates the replica on the second host, and the VM simply picks up where the original system died. Open TCP connections remain in tact, and applications continue to run unaware of the failure. It's pretty fun to yank the plug out on your web server and see everything continue to tick along. This sort of HA has traditionally required either really expensive hardware, or very complex and invasive modifications to applications and OSes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Another good reason to get a Mac or use Linux. A Windows-only virus can "visit as many as 40 child porn sites per minute" filling the unsuspecting computer owner's hard drive with child pornography. It has already ruined at least one couple's life.

Above are examples of deer butt face taxidermy art. Yes, indeedy. For more about this fine craft, visit "Make your own redneck art." Note that the description of the process, and reference to a hunter's "game dressing tool" called "Butt Out," may be offensive to some. Deer butt face mounts can also be found on eBay. (Thanks, Michael-Anne and Barnaby!)

In case you missed it, last week we added our DMCA Takedown T-shirt to our ongoing CwF+RtB experiment, and it's been incredibly popular (people sure do love mocking the DMCA). You can just order the t-shirt (which also comes with the Techdirt Crystal Ball and insider badge), or you can get the DMCA Takedown T-shirt with my book, Approaching Infinity. However, the t-shirt is only available for a few more days. All orders need to be in by Monday November 16th at midnight, PST, or you'll have to go without...

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To commemorate Veterans Day, Mental Floss collected videos of very happy dogs greeting returning soldiers.

Spotted in the online portfolio of design firm Martus & Silvio, of Grand Rapids. It's a sculpture, technically, entitled "Early Tools," but I'd have a hard time not using it at least once, Office Space style, on something that really made me angry. [via Dude Craft]

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Iowa State University researchers developed a system to converts common 2D MRI and CAT medical scans into 3D visualizations, enabling physicians to fly through the body using an Xbox controller. Apparently, their software is much simpler to use, and the visualizations easier to explore, than existing 3D medical imaging technologies. The engineers have now spun out their innovation in to a start-up, called BodyViz. Their hope is that the software can be used to train medical students and enable physicians to try procedures before doing them on live patients. The PC software sells for $4,995, plus $69 for the wireless Xbox controller. From Iowa State:

Two-dimensional imaging technologies have been used in medicine for a long time, said  (BodyViz co-founder) Eliot Winer, an Iowa State associate professor of mechanical engineering and an associate director of Iowa State’s  Virtual Reality Applications Center. But those flat images aren’t easily read and understood by anybody but specialists.

“If I’m a surgeon or an oncologist or a primary care physician, I deal with patients in 3-D,” Winer said.

(The creators) like to quote a doctor who told a reporter that when preparing for complex procedures, “2-D is guessing and 3-D is knowing.”

"Iowa State engineers develop 3-D software to give doctors, students a view inside the body"

Joe sez, "The McDonald's franchise at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba is looking for an assistant manager. The ideal candidate will have previous restaurant management experience, a valid U.S. passport and a willingness to relocate to Cuba. Apparently, no special security clearance is required. Perks include great weather, potential tax free status for year-round residents, and half of the successful candidate's stateside rent paid by the company. The Gitmo McDonald's has been in operation since 1986, and serves the base's 6000 inhabitants, including military personnel, their families, Jamaican and Filipino guest workers. and 215 detainees, who can make take-out orders for Big Macs, fries and other items."

Guantanamo-based McDonald's seeks applicants (Thanks, Joe!)

Rebecca from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "More news about the Yes Men and the Chamber of Commerce. BoingBoing reported on the lawsuit the Chamber filed over the activists' political criticism of the Chamber's stance on climate change and the Chamber's DMCA takedown attempt. Now it's official: EFF and Davis Wright Tremaine, LLP, will defend the Yes Men and other activists involved in the action. As EFF Senior Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry says: "The action was a brilliant piece of political theater, but it had a serious purpose: calling attention to the Chamber's political activities. This is core political speech, protected by the First Amendment." Next step in the case -- a response to the Chamber's complaint is due later this month in the U.S. District Court for District of Columbia."

"The action was a brilliant piece of political theater, but it had a serious purpose: calling attention to the Chamber's political activities," said EFF Senior Staff Attorney Corynne McSherry. "This is core political speech, protected by the First Amendment. We're very pleased that Davis Wright Tremaine -- with its long, successful history of protecting free speech rights of Americans -- has joined us in helping these activists battle a transparent attempt at censorship."

"U.S. courts have recognized that political parody lies at the heart of the First Amendment," said Davis Wright Tremaine LLP partner Bruce Johnson. "Even if the party parodied refuses to giggle--or even panics and sues--free speech will ultimately triumph. We look forward to a prompt dismissal of this case and a reaffirmation of the rights of all Americans to poke fun at the pompous and powerful."

The Chamber has pulled out all the stops in its effort to silence the activists. First, it sent an improper copyright takedown notice to the Yes Men's upstream provider, demanding that a parody website posted in support of the action be removed immediately and resulting in the temporary shutdown of not only the spoof site but hundreds of other sites hosted by May First/People Link. Next, the Chamber filed suit against the activists in federal court, claiming among other things the activism infringed their trademarks.

EFF to Represent Yes Men in Court Battle Over Chamber of Commerce Action (Thanks, Rebecca!)

Foofoobar writes "Just when you thought all was safe on the crazy patent front, Microsoft has come out of the obvious patent closet to file patent number 7617530, which basically duplicates the functionality of 'sudo' which is found in all Linux systems. PJ over at groklaw has a wonderful writeup on the entire fiasco."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Guestblogger Arthur Goldwag is the author of "Cults, Conspiracies, and Secret Societies: The Straight Scoop on Freemasons, The Illuminati, Skull and Bones, Black Helicopters, The New World Order, and many, many more" and other books.

No, not really. But when I was a freshman in college in 1975, the Poli Sci 101 course that I took was Straussian and neo-conservative to its core. Kenyon College's political science department was (and still is--or at least it was three years ago, as this story in the far right wing journal Human Events confirms) an "oasis" of Straussian and conservative theory. The first text we read, as I recall, was Socrates "Apology." Most of us assumed that Socrates' persecutors were the bad guys, that freedom of thought was strictly good and the suppression of free speech categorically bad. But using Socrates' own mode of questioning, our teachers challenged our blandly liberal presuppositions. Precisely what's good about Democracy? Why shouldn't the state protect itself? Are we sure we understand what the Founders of our own country really meant when they wrote about "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"

Writing in David Horowitz's rightwing Front Page magazine in 2002, Robert Locke explains:

The key Straussian concept is the Straussian text, which is a piece of philosophical writing that is deliberately written so that the average reader will understand it as saying one ("exoteric") thing but the special few for whom it is intended will grasp its real ("esoteric") meaning. The reason for this is that philosophy is dangerous. Philosophy calls into question the conventional morality upon which civil order in society depends; it also reveals ugly truths that weaken men's attachment to their societies....Strauss shockingly admits, contrary to generations of liberal professors who have taught him as a martyr to the First Amendment, that the prosecution of Socrates was not entirely without point. This honesty about the dangers of philosophy gives Straussian thought a seriousness lacking in much contemporary philosophy; it is also a sign of the conviction that philosophy, contrary to the mythology of our "practical" (though sodden with ideology and quick to take offense at ideas) age, matters.

This isn't the inherent slipperiness of language that we're talking about, Strauss's isn't the radically deconstructive spirit of Barthes, Derridas, or Paul de Man. Strauss believed, rather, that the authors had deliberately coded their texts; applying sufficient care and scholarship, they could be decoded too. We spent an entire semester working through Allen Bloom's copiously annotated translation of Plato's Republic, for example, which had a surprise on nearly every page.

Though Strauss was an atheist, he was culturally Jewish to the core. And hermeneutics is a prototypically Jewish practice. Kabbalists acknowledge that every Biblical text has four distinct levels of meaning:

The Masons borrowed the idea of exoteric and esoteric texts from Kabbalah; needless to say, Conspiracy Theorists are as suspicious of Masons as they are of Jews. But they have armed themselves with their enemies' methods and learned to be attentive for hidden messages and meanings themselves--thus, this anonymous poster on a conspiracist website: "Has anyone else noticed that Obama keeps saying, 'Out of many, we are one?' It's the E Pluribus Unum from the seal of the US. Is this his ritualistic mantra signaling to the world that HE will bring about the NWO?"

A number of leading conservatives in Washington turn out to be Straussians--Locke's piece identifies some of the most prominent circa 2002: "Justice Clarence Thomas; Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork; Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; former Assistant Secretary of State Alan Keyes; former Secretary of Education William Bennett; Weekly Standard editor and former Quayle Chief of Staff William Kristol; Allan Bloom, author of THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND; former New York Post editorials editor John Podhoretz; former National Endowment for the Humanities Deputy Chairman John T. Agresto; and, not meaning to class myself with this august company but in the interests of full disclosure, myself."

Some of the architects and most strident apologists of the Iraq war turned out to be students (or students of students, or protégés of students) of Leo Strauss, among them Wolfowitz, Abram Shulsky, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Douglas Feith, and Robert Kagan. Some of them (not all of them, but enough that it was noticeable) were Jewish. Leftists rightfully attacked these neo-conservatives for the disastrous consequences of their militarism, but at times there was an unsettling undertone to their rhetoric. "The anti-Semitism behind the current wave of Strauss hatred, like the anti-Semitism that drives so much talk about the neoconservative "cabal" in Washington, is barely even veiled," Adam Kirsch complained in the New York Sun. "Tim Robbins, in his recent play "Embedded," portrays characters based on Messrs. Wolfowitz and Perle shouting "Hail Leo Strauss," in an echo of the Nazi salute." Extreme rightists were even less circumspect. But how could they not be? I mean, the whole phenomenon was an antisemite's dream. Here was a real-life, flesh-and-blood cabal of influential Jews, academically trained in the art of dissimulation and coded discourse, enacting what seemed to be a well-thought-out, long-held plan to hijack American foreign policy. It could have been ripped right out of the pages of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion:

The art of directing masses and individuals by means of cleverly manipulated theory and verbiage, by regulations of life in common and all sorts of other quirks, in all which the GOYIM understand nothing, belongs likewise to the specialists of our administrative brain. Reared on analysis, observation, on delicacies of fine calculation, in this species of skill we have no rivals, any more than we have either in the drawing up of plans of political actions and solidarity. In this respect the Jesuits alone might have compared with us, but we have contrived to discredit them in the eyes of the unthinking mob as an overt organization, while we ourselves all the while have kept our secret organization in the shade.

I never drank the Straussian Kool Aid, but it was offered to me, and by teachers that I respected. Maybe that's why I'm troubled by some of the kneejerk denunciations of Strauss. Writing in Free Inquiry, Shadia Drury declared that,

Strauss thought that the best way for ordinary human beings to raise themselves above the beasts is to be utterly devoted to their nation and willing to sacrifice their lives for it. He recommended a rabid nationalism and a militant society modelled on Sparta. He thought that this was the best hope for a nation to be secure against her external enemies as well as the internal threat of decadence, sloth, and pleasure. A policy of perpetual war against a threatening enemy is the best way to ward off political decay. And if the enemy cannot be found, then it must be invented.

Is that a fair summary of Strauss or a caricature of his disciples? I can't answer the question with any authority--I'm not deeply read in Strauss, as she is--most of my exposure to him was second hand, and it was more than thirty years ago, when I was eighteen and nineteen years old.

Anything that provides fodder to anti-Semites is unfortunate, but it's hardly surprising that the most politically ambitious exponents of Straussianism would have found each other in Washington and formed a clique-College Republicans, Dartmouth Review editors, born again Christians and students of Robert Bork do the same thing. There's a creepily culty quality to the ism that his name is attached to today, which never quite made it into the mainstream of American academia, suffered a major backlash in the '60s and '70s, and is experiencing another today, during the reaction against George W. Bush. Most of those guys are bad actors and some of them must have real chips on their shoulders. But do they rise to the level of a cult or a conspiracy or a secret society? I suspect not.

Predict what excuse Sean Hannity will use to explain why he misused old video to back up his claim that a large crowd came to Washington to protest the health care bill. (One rule: his excuse must somehow blame the liberals).

One of the common criticisms we hear around here when we talk about the various business models that are working for more and more musicians these days, is that it's somehow "unfair" or even "wrong" that musicians need to think about business models these days, since they should just be spending all their time creating music. Of course, this assumes (incorrectly) that the same thing wasn't true in the past as well. For years, musicians have always teamed up with business managers and music labels for that very reason: to delegate some of the business tasks. That doesn't change in the modern era. What does change is that the different opportunities have grown significantly. Either way, Andrew Dubber (who's always worth paying attention to on these topics) recently put a comment on a blog post on this particular topic that is so good it shouldn't be buried as just a comment, so I'm going to highlight some of the key parts here:

Musicians deserve more money than they get. Most train harder and for longer than brain surgeons in order to do what they do, and then they earn less than checkout operators for what they do. I strongly believe that more money should go to more musicians more often than it does....

Making music is not (usually) a job of work. It is a creative act. You don't have the RIGHT to make money from your music. You only have the opportunity.

If you make music speculatively - that is, you create it in the hopes of making money from it, then you are a music entrepreneur. As such, entrepreneurship rules apply.

You may invest a good deal of energy, effort and expense in your creative ideas. You may make a lot of money. You will probably make none. But nobody OWES you money just because you put the work in.

If your business model is to grow and sell oranges, then it's no good picking the oranges, then leaving them on the footpath outside your house with a price tag on each one. It doesn't matter how great your oranges are, or how hard you've toiled in your garden. Someone WILL take your oranges. Some will get kicked to the side of the road. Some will get stepped on. But it's not because people are immoral and don't understand or appreciate fruit properly.

If you wish to be reliably rewarded for your music, then get employed to make music as your job.

Bingo. That's the point I've been trying to make for years on this, but said much better than I could express it. He then goes on to make another point I've tried to make in the past, which is that if you compare the situation today to what it was in the past, there are so many more opportunities to make money. In the past, it was nearly impossible to make money on music because there were so many gatekeepers.

The odds are stacked against you. History is littered with musicians who are disillusioned, embittered and broke. This was true before the internet just as it's true now. The internet is neither your saviour, nor your enemy.

Let me make that bit clear: prior to the internet, most people spent NO money on music. If they bought a record in a year, it was a gift for a nephew (and it was usually rubbish). Some people spent a lot of money on music, because it was tied up with cultural things like identity that they were really invested in.

Back when you needed a record label to just be heard, it was a lottery. The odds were bad, the lottery tickets were expensive, and most of the prizes - if you did happen to win - were just awful. Now you don't need to play that game - but you need to be smart and you need to understand what the rules of the new game are.

You CAN, of course, get signed to a record label (and that lottery is still in play) but you can also be an entrepreneur. I recommend the latter - but not because it guarantees you money.

But the simple fact is that you don't become a successful entrepreneur by making things that people will not pay for, insisting that they should, and then complaining that their morals are to blame. They may not share your morals, but that's not even the point.

It's not their job to understand your needs. It's your job to understand theirs.

You become a successful entrepreneur by meeting people's needs and wants, solving a problem for them and doing it in a way that allows you to make money.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Even if it was true that all the people you wish to target with your art are immoral thieves who you would never invite into your home - why would you insist on trying to change their behaviour as part of your business strategy?

And he concludes by pointing out (as we have in the past as well) where the real "sense of entitlement" comes from:

You may make great and interesting music, and put on an amazing show with amazing costumes.... But decrying a sense of entitlement among those who won't pay you for what you insist on doing is back to front.

The people with the weird sense of entitlement are the ones who stamp their feet and say 'look at all this hard work I put in - where's my money?'

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The Gigantic Robot is a 32-page board book written and illustrated by Tom Gauld, and published by Buenaventura Press. Each two-page spread has a single sentence on the left, and a hauntingly stark drawing on the right.

Gauld describes the book as a "wry fable concerning the production of an impressive secret weapon whose promise goes unfulfilled." I don't want to give away any more so I'll leave it at that.

The extremely short story takes place over an extremely long time period, and even though it took 60 seconds for me to read it, I went back and studied the powerful illustrations for a long time.

The Gigantic Robot

This giant Mona Lisa sculpture is made of motherboards. Reportedly conceived of and built by Asus engineers, it is on display at their headquarters in Taiwan. [via technabob]

Photo above by Flickr user johnkoetsier

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drDugan writes "Many legitimate media providers are using Bittorrent to distribute content, but the recent Pirate Bay legal verdict and closures left many content downloads unavailable. Along with the ongoing legal issues at Mininova and other sites, options have been scarce for legitimate Bittorrent tracking service. Once a torrent is created with a tracker URL, that tracker has to stay running for normal distribution to continue. LegalTorrents.com has quietly launched a solution with three open Bittorent trackers for its members, including a fully automated, community-based flagging system to blacklist and immediately remove copyright-infringing content. Users submit SHA1 hash values for content with infringing materials. Site members can include and track their own published materials regardless of flagging."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gretchen Rubin, author of the forthcoming book, The Happiness Project, offers several good de-cluttering tips in a blog post titled "Eleven Myths of De-Cluttering."

Here are the first three:

1. "I need to get organized." No! Don't get organized is your first step.

2. "I need to be hyper-organized." I fully appreciate the pleasure of having a place for everything, and perhaps counter-intuitively, I believe it’s easier to put things away in an exact place, rather than a general place (“the third shelf of the coat closet,” not “a closet.”) However, this impulse can become destructive: if you’re spending a lot of time alphabetizing your spices, organizing your shoes according to heel height, creating eighty categories for your home files, etc., consider whether you need to be quite so precisely organized. I find this particularly true with toys – I’ve spent hours sorting pretend food, Polly Pockets pieces, and tea sets, only to find everything a jumble the next day.

3. "I need some more inventive storage containers." See #1. If you get rid of everything you don’t need, you may not need any fancy containers.

In short, she's a fan of getting rid of stuff. Me, too!

Eleven Myths of De-Cluttering

I always celebrate when a new Terry Pratchett novel hits the stands -- doubly so now that health problems are slowing him down from his normal superhuman output to a merely impressive one. But I confess I was a little less excited to learn that the newest Pratchett Discworld book, Unseen Academicals, was about football (AKA soccer). I'm not a sports fan. I wasn't a hockey fan when I lived in Canada. I wasn't a baseball fan when I lived in the US. I'm not a footie fan now that I live in the UK. But I gave it a whirl: this is Terry Pratchett, after all. I'd read his grocery lists.

A word about Pratchett for the uninitiated. Terry Pratchett is an incredibly funny, warmly human British fantasy (mostly) novelist. He writes at an impossible rate. Most of his books are part of a sprawling, infinitely varied fantasy series called Discworld, about a flat, disc-shaped planet that is carried on the backs of four gigantic elephants who tramp in slow circles around the back of a vast, interstellar turtle called A'Tuin. On Discworld, everything happens. There are imperial battles and barbarians; witches and trolls and dwarves in the hills; animist spirits on lost continents; and there is a vast and wonderful and terrible city called Ankh-Morpork. Ankh-Morpork is presided over by a tyrant called Lord Vetinari, who is quite progressive as tyrants go. For one thing, he's let the trolls, vampires, medusae, dwarves, werewolves, zombies, and assorted other nonhumans into the city. For another, he's organized the thieves into a guild to whom one can pay an annual license and be guaranteed a life free from official thieving (freelance thieves are dealt with most firmly by the guild).

You can read the Discworld books in almost any order. Some of them run in little trilogies that follow the same characters, but even if you picked up the second or third volume of these, you'd probably get along OK -- Pratchett is quite good at getting newcomers to Discworld up to speed on its basics.

Back to Unseen Academicals. Here's the setup: the wizards of Unseen University have discovered that a key grant from a former Archchancellor requires them to keep a football team that plays regular matches. It's been decades since the last UU team was fielded, and they're in imminent danger of losing a substantial source of funding. Meanwhile, football itself -- as played on the streets of Ankh-Morpork -- is a vicious game that is more riot than sport, and the wizards of UU have no intention of getting involved in that mess.

So they cook up a plan to reform football -- and to field a team of their own, coached by Nutt, a mysterious (and erudite) goblin who has been heretofore employed as a candle-dribbler (no self-respecting wizard wants to do magic by the light of a pristine, unmarked candle) in the cellars of UU.

That's the setup. Here's the payoff: it's brilliant. The novelist's best trick is to make you care about stuff you don't care about. It's what Fever Pitch does. And it's what Unseen Academicals does, too. Pratchett shows us how sport is part of the emotional life of a city, and how its significance resonates across generations, across regional parochialism, across social strata, uniting us behind something that transcends the mere game.

What's more, Pratchett shows us how fragile a thing this is, how vulnerable it is to greed and thuggishness and venality, and how those who defend the game do so for the best reasons imaginable. As Pratchett says, "The thing about football is, it's not about football."

I wouldn't call this the best Discworld novel ever (I think my vote for that honor would go to Monstrous Regiment, which, incidentally, can be read without having read any of the other Pratchett novels). But it's in the top five.

A word of warning: it's also one of the most inside-baseball (you should forgive the expression) of the Discworld books, requiring a fair bit of familiarity with the previous books in the series to be fully appreciated. It's a real gift from Pratchett to his fans, in other words, and I, for one, am grateful for it.

Unseen Academicals (Amazon US)

Unseen Academicals (Amazon UK)

MAKE, Volume 20 is out (and will be on newsstands and in bookstores next week) and it's one of my favorite issues. The special theme of this issue is kid-friendly projects.

Our projects editor, Paul Spinrad, sat down with Adam Savage to talk about his childhood as a maker. Adam is on our cover, which was illustrated by our pal Ape Lad (aka Adam Koford). Here's an excerpt:

Paul: I think of enthusiasm as the opposite of coolness, and adolescence is a turning point for this. Children are all enthusiastic, they're into what they're into, and it's great and they love it. But then something happens, and suddenly some of the kids start looking down on that enthusiasm and seeing it as immature or dorky. So they invent coolness as an alternative. I always gravitated away from that because I was interested in too many things. Adam: Yes, and enthusiasm also makes you vulnerable. When you like something, someone can take it away from you. I once gave a sculpture to some friends as a wedding present, and they turned it down. That was really upsetting to me. And that vulnerability itself is also embarrassing. The two emotions are deeply linked, which is why people try not to cry in public.

One of my favorite articles in the issue is "Productive Plastic Playthings," written by toy design Bob Knetzger. He takes a look at 1960s "maker" toys like the Vac-U-Form, the Time Machine, the Thingmaker, and the Mold Master. I had a lot of these toys when I was a kid, and when I read Bob's piece, it brought back the smell of Plastigoop.

Of course, we've got a bunch of great projects in this issue, including a hydrogen-oxygen bottle rocket (use electricity to split tap water into the two gasses), a laser light show you can fit into vintage metal lunchboxes, a DIY van Leeuwenhoek microscope, a guide to lashing, and much more. For a look at the complete table of contents, go to the MAKE Vol. 20 page at makezine.com

For years, Hollywood has pushed a totally ridiculous claim that Canada is somehow a den of copyright thieves, and it needs to make its copyright laws much more strict. This fantasy has worked on journalists and politicians, who insist that the movie industry is dying in Canada due to rampant piracy. Except someone forgot to inform the real world. An anonymous reader sends over the news that the owners of Cineplex in Canada are reporting record box office sales and revenue, even with the current economic downturn. Once again (and yes, we've been pointing this out for a decade), it appears that it's the actual experience that gets people to go to the movies. The folks at Cineplex note that a growing number of highly experiential films -- such as those using IMAX or 3D technology -- has really helped in getting more people into the theater and in getting them to pay more.

Oh, and as a special note to NBC Universal's General Counsel, Rick Cotton, who seemed so worried about those poor corn farmers who would be decimated by piracy, you can rest easy:

Concession revenues did well due to a film slate that catered to family audiences, who tend to be higher concession spenders.

Phew. Now Rick can go back to working on ways to stop people from watching the Olympics and figuring out ways to avoid paying copyright royalties to songwriters.

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angry tapir writes "China's film and TV regulator has praised the growth of an iPhone application from state broadcaster CCTV as the country looks for new ways to project its political views abroad. The free iPhone app, one of a growing number from Chinese state-owned news outlets, has gained 500,000 users in the month or so since it went online and is adding 2,000 new users each day, the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television said in a statement on its Web site. The CCTV app has shown 'favorable performance' and proven especially popular during broadcasts of major events, such as a high-flown military parade held in Beijing last month, the statement said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

And gets the answer.

http://droidie.com/2009/11/10/can-android-tether-today-for-0-extra/

Blogging at it's besssst.

Jon Cohrs writes:

Tired of the blocky, JPEG-like resolution of digital television? Do you long for the days of RF modulation and regulated-yet-unregulated content? Do you simply have the desire to toss your converter box out the window and make use of those rabbit ear antennae that are just lying around? If so, then you might be interested in becoming a savior of analog television! This Instructable will show you how to create your own fully-fledged low-power analog television channel, with any video source(including your computer) as a source of content.

We created one that went live the minute analog tv went dead. We're still the only analog station in NYC, but please join us in making more!!

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gribll writes "October 2009 marked an important milestone in the history of computing. It was exactly 40 years since the first Multics computer system was used at MIT. The interview is with Multics co-developer, MIT Professor and Turing Award winner Fernando J. Corbato. Multics (Multiplexed Information and Computing Service) is regarded as the foundation of modern time-sharing systems. Multics was the catalyst for the development of Unix and has been used as a model of operating system design since its release four decades ago. There is also a picture gallery of Multics history."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Adam 'Atomic' Saltman's one-button action-opus Canabalt (covered earlier in a previous column) will likely go down as 2009's biggest viral surprise -- to no less even than Saltsman himself, who admitted at this year's Austin GDC Indie Games Fest to squandering and then scrambling to capitalize on the success the game near instantly saw (the first 120,000 players the game captured by its second day, and subsequent 650,000 by the week's end, saw none of the cross-indie/Twitter/iPhone port promotions subsequently rolled out as quickly as possible). But there's almost no one in the industry that hasn't taken serious note of its acclaim and wondered what magic formula there might be hidden in its design that can be replicated elsewhere. And so -- in service to fans, would-be devs and established designers alike -- Saltsman has provided us with his sketches and notes, illustrating each leap to logical leap he made in finishing that first version. Interestingly -- though maybe not so surprisingly, given that the game was created for the Experimental Gameplay's 'Bare Minimum' challenge -- the documents show a game more complex than what we eventually received, with its anonymous runner able to pull off sliding ducks on top of his now-singular jump, and 'edit' and 'profile' modes obviously stripped from the game (indeed, the entire game seems to now live inside what Saltsman originally had planned as a 'quick race' option). And so, what follows is the necessarily brief notes and calculations for a necessarily brief production, neither any less worse off for it: let us know if you crack Saltsman's magic code. [Canabalt fan art at top by Pauli MadamLuna Kohberger, via Saltsman]

Saltman's first page shows the rooftop decorations that would eventually make it into the game, as well as the first try at the fine-mist-making dropped bomb, with all other front menu options (and what appears to be a Mirror's Edge inspired vent system) having been stripped from the completed game.

More Mirror's Edge parkour-acrobatics having never made it in are shown above, in the first sketchy mockup of how the runner would eventually move, along with Saltsman eschewing a day/night progression for the simple black and white palette the game would take on.

And finally, the first color sketch of the look of the final game, and the first evidence of its un-expounded-on far-backstory with the giant invaders in the far background, and the military-dropship-esque vehicles passing in mid-ground. Also, note back to page one to see Saltsman arguing with himself over the size of the game's John Woo-esque scattered doves.

If you haven't already, by all means play the final game itself at its official site, and pick up its essential iPhone port at the App Store, then check either the unofficial Twitter leaderboards set up by CapnDesign or Onstuimig to see just where you rank in the eternal race.

When President Obama took office, one of the very first things he did was declare that all government agencies should default towards openness in dealing with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. It looks like some are trying to sneak around that a bit. Wired has the story of an FOIA request where the government is demanding $522,886 in order to fulfill the request. This certainly gives off the appearances of pretending to be open while figuring out a nice way to toss up a huge roadblock. Oh, by the way, that single bill would just about equal the entire cost that the US gov't charged for all FOIA responses in 2008. Why so expensive? That's not particularly clear. Apparently, the guy filing the request even knows which file cabinets the information he needs is in, so it's not like the gov't has to go searching for it...

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A strapped-for-cash middle school in North Carolina is selling test points to students for $20.

We've posted before about the Pope's chief astronomer Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes and his statements on possible extraterrestrial life. (ETs "don't contradict our faith," he has said.) The Vatican recently hosted a conference on the topic of astrobiology -- the study of life in the universe -- where a group of international scientists from a variety of fields discussed the possibility of alien life. From the Associated Press:

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises "many philosophical and theological implications" but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.

"Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe," he told a news conference Tuesday. "There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe..."

The Church of Rome's views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.

"Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life"

S-4'N3 writes "The BBC reports that Microsoft has disconnected approximately 600,000 Xbox users from Xbox Live because the devices they are using have been modified, either with software or with new chips, to play pirated games. 'Microsoft confirmed that it had banned a "small percentage" of the 20 million Xbox Live users worldwide. Microsoft said that modifying an Xbox 360 console 'violates' the service's 'terms of use' and would result in a player being disconnected.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wondering what something you own would look like under a scanning electron microscope, but don't happen to have one in your garage? Well, then you might be interested in this intriguing offer from ASPEX: a complimentary SEM scan of your favorite object!

This looks like a really awesome service, however I am a bit suspicious- their sample photos are all high quality stock images, and there doesn't seem to be a way to specify the orientation of the scan. Anyone want to try it out? Be sure to let us know your results!

[Thanks, Matt!]

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As Rupert Murdoch talks about how he wants to cut off Google, while claiming that aggregator sites are "parasites" and "stealing" from him -- and that fair use would likely be barred by the courts, it seemed like a good time to examine at least some of the sites that are owned by Rupert Murdoch that appear to aggregate content from other sites and which rely on the very same fair use argument. We've mentioned a few in the past, but figured it wouldn't hurt to explore them more thoroughly.

Well, let's start with the flagship Wall Street Journal itself. It integrates its own "aggregator" with headlines and links to other stories. For example, on the WSJ's tech news page if you scroll down, you'll find a bunch of headlines and links to other sources -- without permission: Oops. Looks like the WSJ is "parasiting" and "stealing" according to Murdoch. Perhaps he should cut them of too.

Okay, how about Fox News itself? Yup. It's got an aggregator as well. Here's its Politics Buzztracker that aggregates and links to stories from a variety of different publications, including the NY Times, the Washington Post, MSNBC and others: Murdoch can't be too happy about all that thieving.

Then we've got the folks over at AllThingsD, who I actually think do excellent work, and who have built up a nice part of their site called "Voices." I actually quite like this and find it useful (and yes, every so often, they are kind enough to "parasite" one of my posts). In fact, it helps keep AllThingsD in my RSS reader because it's so useful. But, damn, if that doesn't look just like what Murdoch is complaining about. Not only does it have headlines, but also a fair bit of intro text (no summary, no commentary) and even the links are hidden at the bottom, rather than using the headlines as links: Of course, it's not just with news either. The folks at AlarmClock remind us that Murdoch's News Corp. owns IGN, which has a variety of properties, including the ever popular RottenTomatoes movie review aggregation site. Yes, the entire site is based on "parasiting" (according to Murdoch) movie reviews off of every other site, and pulling them all together: Good thing Murdoch is planning on working on ways to get the court to ban that sort of "fair use."

Some other IGN sites don't quite have aggregators, but I do find it interesting that they've integrated in Google search, such that you could do searches for things across the web and have them remain in a totally News Corp./IGN-branded experience. Effectively, on these pages, Murdoch's own properties are able to "parasite" back Google's own "parasite" engine. Here are two examples:

I'm sure there are probably more examples of various News Corp. properties regularly doing exactly what Murdoch and other News Corp. execs are now decrying as illegal and which must be stopped. So, it has to be asked, Mr. Murdoch, will you pull down all of these sites?

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An anonymous reader writes "Cenzic released its report revealing the most prominent types of Web application vulnerabilities for the first half of 2009. The report identified over 3,100 total vulnerabilities, which is a 10 percent increase in Web application vulnerabilities compared to the second half of 2008. Among Web browsers, Mozilla Firefox had the largest percentage of Web vulnerabilities, followed by Apple Safari, whose browser showed a vast increase in exploits, due to vulnerabilities reported in the Safari iPhone browser." It seems a bit surprising to me that this study shows that only 15% of vulnerabilities are in IE.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We aren't very good at predicting either one much further out than a week or two.

A BBC story (and film) talks about the problems virologists and public health defenders face as they tackle a virus like H1N1 flu and try to figure out how the disease will impact people around the globe. It's an honest examination of both the strengths of science, and the barriers that exist around human knowledge.

Such are the limitations of science, whether meteorology or virology. The recent H1N1 or swine flu predictions have led to forecasts of 65,000 deaths in the UK - but the truth is, we simply don't know. Yet in reporting the outbreak, the media broadly falls between two extremes - from alarming scare stories to experts who purport mass vaccination to be "madness, foolhardy and a gamble". Whatever happens when the pandemic pans out, there will be a substantial third group - the "I told you so" faction. Pandemic disease remains a critical test of the extent of what we do and don't know.

Pandemics--What History Tells Us on the BBC, via Holly Tucker.

Image courtesy Flickr user chascar, via CC.

PBH submitted a link to a really amazing composite image of the Milky Way released by NASA. They combined infrared, visible, and x-ray images taken by Spitzer, Hubble, and Chandra to create one beautiful image to commemorate the 400 years since 1609, when Galileo looked up.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We see stories all the time of people who write a story or a script and then when they see someone else has success with a similar idea, they assume that it was "stolen" and they're owed millions. Or, as the case may be, billions. A Red Sox fan named Samuel Bartley Steele, who apparently wrote a song called "(Man I Really) Love this Team," in 2004 got upset when he saw singer Bon Jovi release a song "I Love This Town" which was then used by Major League Baseball to promote the playoffs in 2007. He claims that he gave copies of the song to Red Sox execs, Red Sox players and MLB execs -- and thus Bon Jovi's song must have stolen from Steele's song. Of course, the two songs are apparently entirely different -- and even Steele's own musicologist testified that the songs were different. The district court tossed out the case, noting that no reasonable jury would find a similarity, but the guy has appealed and is asking for $400 billion, yes, with a b. If he won that much, perhaps he could donate some to the team to pick up a free agent outfielder or two this off-season, but I imagine that this case won't last very long.

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Tim Saylor recently wrote in to me about the Gingery-style charcoal foundry he built for Chicago's hackerspace Pumping Station: One. There's a write-up here and a good Flickr set showing construction and use of the furnace to melt aluminum here, including some really pretty shots of the fire and sparks at night. [Thanks, Tim!]

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The pimple detector: Finally, science has invented a portable mean girl to tell you there's a zit on your face. Thanks, Chris Patil!

The pimple detector: Finally, science has invented a portable mean girl to tell you there's a zit on your face. Thanks, Chris Patil!

Ken Robinson speaks on the importance of creativity and how closely it depends on our freedom to make mistakes. Hmmm … to put it more accurately - Sir Ken Robinson explains how our modern education system represses creative thought by discouraging mistakes. If you've ever stared paralyzed at a blank canvas/page/protoboard/ etc, you likely understand the problem. In fact, when I find myself stuck in a loop of perfection paralysis, the best cure seems to be starting off in an intentionally wrong direction. Sometimes demonstrating how I don't want a project to go, can define how I do want things to turn out … or at least 'break the ice'. [via The Stretta Procedure]

Related:
On the role of mistakes in the process of creativity

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scruffybr writes "Today the first information about the pricing and launch of Microsoft’s Project Natal has emerged. The pricing for the hardware will be much much lower than many had anticipated, coming in at around £50 when sold separately from the console. The idea being that it’s low enough that people will purchase on impulse."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

scruffybr writes 'Today the first information about the pricing and launch of Microsoft’s Project Natal. The pricing for the hardware will be much much lower than many had anticipated, coming in at around £50 when sold separately from the console. The idea being that it’s low enough that people will purchase on impulse.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's a photo-essay from True Slant by P.J. Tobia on the houses that opium poppies built in Afghanistan. Here's a related video feature in Monocle magazine. Here's a related AFP item about poppy palaces and widespread corruption in Karzai's Afghanistan, and here's an item about the neologism in the NYT blog "Schott's Vocab." (Image: P.J. Tobia / via Kristie Lu Stout of CNN)

Here's a photo-essay from True Slant by P.J. Tobia on the houses that opium poppies built in Afghanistan. Here's a related video feature in Monocle magazine. Here's a related AFP item about poppy palaces and widespread corruption in Karzai's Afghanistan, and here's an item about the neologism in the NYT blog "Schott's Vocab." (Image: P.J. Tobia / via Kristie Lu Stout of CNN)

Impress your friends and coworkers with these easy-to-make edge-lit holiday cards by Evil Mad Scientists Laboratories! This time around they used PETG polyester, which is easier to cut than acrylic.

More:

How-To: Make "edge-lit" holiday cards

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EFF has the bizarre story of a convicted murderer in Germany who is demanding that Wikipedia censor all mentions of the guy's name. Apparently, he (and his lawyers) are using a part of German law that allows for the protection of "names and likenesses of private persons from unwanted publicity." However, as the EFF points out, he's not a private person. He became a very public person when he was tried and convicted (along with his half-brother) for killing Bavarian actor Walter Sedlmayr. Apparently, his lawyers are going after multiple service providers, trying to get the guy's name taken off the internet. The EFF points out that the press has published the two convicted murderers' names for Sedlmayr's death: Wolfgang Werle and his half-brother Manfred Lauber, and that this appears to be nothing more than an attempt to censor history across multiple borders.

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DangerFace writes 'Scientists are set to unveil a lightweight system they say makes an operating system significantly more resistant to rootkits without degrading its performance. The hypervisor-based system is dubbed HookSafe, and it works by relocating kernel hooks in a guest OS to a dedicated page-aligned memory space that's tightly locked down. The team installed HookSafe on a machine running Ubuntu 8.04, and found the system successfully prevented nine real-world rootkits targeting that platform from installing or hiding themselves. The program was able to achieve that protection with only a 6-percent reduction in performance benchmarks.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DangerFace writes 'Scientists are set to unveil a lightweight system they say makes an operating system significantly more resistant to rootkits without degrading its performance. The hypervisor-based system is dubbed HookSafe, and it works by relocating kernel hooks in a guest OS to a dedicated page-aligned memory space that's tightly locked down. The team installed HookSafe on a machine running Ubuntu 8.04, and found the system successfully prevented nine real-world rootkits targeting that platform from installing or hiding themselves. The program was able to achieve that protection with only a 6-percent reduction in performance benchmarks.'

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

coreboarder writes "Recently it was divulged that the Brazilian power infrastructure was compromised by hackers. Then it was announced that it was apparently faulty equipment. A downplay to the global public or an honest clarification? Either way, it raises the question: how vulnerable are we, really? With winter and all its icy glory hurtling towards those of us in the northern hemisphere, how open are we to everything from terrorist threats to simple 'pay me or else' schemes?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

coreboarder writes "Recently it was divulged that the Brazilian power infrastructure was compromised by hackers. Then it was announced that it was apparently faulty equipment. A downplay to the global public or an honest clarification? Either way, it raises the question: how vulnerable are we, really? With winter and all its icy glory hurtling towards those of us in the northern hemisphere, how open are we to everything from terrorist threats to simple 'pay me or else' schemes?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

coreboarder writes "Recently it was divulged that the Brazilian power infrastructure was compromised by hackers. Then it was announced that it was apparently faulty equipment. A downplay to the global public or an honest clarification? Either way, it raises the question: how vulnerable are we, really? With winter and all its icy glory hurtling towards those of us in the northern hemisphere, how open are we to everything from terrorist threats to simple 'pay me or else' schemes?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

These two submissions came in one after the other, both having to do with Brazil, so I decided to just mix them together into a single post. Of course, it's a bit of a good news/bad news sorta thing. Let's start with the "bad news." Reader Stuart Waterman alerts us to the news that Google, owner of Orkut (the social network that is amazingly popular in Brazil for reasons still unclear) has been ordered to pay Formula 1 racer Rubens Barrichello $500,000 because there were fake profiles of him on Orkut. If this were the US, the case would have been tossed out on Section 230 grounds (noting that the service provider is not liable for the actions of users -- even though the users may be liable). But the Brazilian court apparently said that Google is, in fact, liable because it manages the site. If you're a service provider in Brazil, you just got a reason to lock down any sort of user-generated offering. Of course, this has happened before to some extent. Remember that a Brazilian court once tried to get YouTube shut down entirely due to an uploaded video that someone didn't like.

On to the good news. Carl alerts us to the news that Brazil is considering a new copyright law that would legalize mashups and private copies. It would also allow the reproduction of out of print works. Of course, this is just the proposed bill, and you can expect that the entertainment industry is about to send in the lobbyist army to fix things up quickly. On the whole, though, Brazil has been quite good about recognizing the downsides to overaggressive copyright law. In fact, Gilberto Gil, a grammy-award winning musician and Brazil's former minister of culture, released his music under a Creative Commons license, and has regularly spoken out against abuses of intellectual property law. And, of course, we've seen stories about how forms of Brazilian music have thrived by taking advantage of the easy promotion and distribution allowed by file sharing. It would be nice if the country's laws were updated to reflect that.

Now, if only they could also change the laws to stop blaming service providers for the actions of users, then Brazil would get it all right this time.

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Just got a link from my book agent Steve Hanselman, to this piece by Matt Mullenweg, on CNN -- 10 blogs to make you think.

I was really proud to see my humble blog at the top of his list.

And I'm proud of Matt -- he's done really well with WordPress. I'm using it all day every day and building my newest software around it. Why? It's pretty simple, and Matt says it in his piece. He listens.

And when I asked him to add a feature to WordPress he said yes. I didn't even have to call him, or buy him lunch -- all I did was ask on the blog. He must have been reading.

There isn't enough trust in the world, imho. People can't tell, or don't take the time to find out, if someone is trustworthy. The other day I asked this question of an editor at a major newspaper -- why don't you trust your readers? I ask this of Apple, why don't you trust your users? What about the government, why doesn't it trust its citizens? Ultimately all these institutions must listen to the people they serve. The news and tech industries, even governments -- will eventually listen.

The reason people are reluctant: If you extend trust, sometimes you're going to get burned. And if you never trust anyone, you'll never be hurt. But you won't have much of a life. So you have to develop a sense of who and what you can depend on.

Not many guys in Matt's shoes take a chance on a guy like me. But it just takes one to make some amazing things happen! And while today's news people don't seem to trust me, all it took was one to revolutionize how news flows through the Internet. Just one. That's all.

I look back to the times when I have been most effective, it's always been in partnership with someone else. That's the big secret. Take a chance, and when it works, take another, and another.

Pretty soon I'm going to put another invitation out there to the universe, and I know I'll get a listen from Matt, and I hope from some other people too.

An engineer's solution to the jack-'o-lantern problem if ever I saw one. [via There, I Fixed It]

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bonch writes "After apparently disabling and then re-enabling support for the Atom chipset in test builds of their 10.6.2 update, Apple has officially disabled support for the chipset in the final update. This makes it impossible for OSX86 users to run 10.6.2 on their Atom-based netbooks until a modified kernel shows up."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Support on Twitter can't possibly work, for two reasons.

1. Can you really explain the problem in 140 characters?

2. Can it can be solved in 140 characters?

Better: Find a way you can ask in a comment or email, and explain carefully what went wrong.

CWmike writes "Microsoft today patched 15 vulnerabilities in Windows, Windows Server, Excel, and Word, including one that will probably be exploited quickly by hackers. None affects Windows 7. Of today's 15 bugs, Microsoft tagged three 'critical' and the remaining 12 'important.' Experts agreed that users should focus on MS09-065 first and foremost. That update, which was ranked critical, affects all still-supported editions of Windows except Windows 7 and its server sibling, Windows Server 2008 R2. 'The Windows kernel vulnerability is going to take the cake,' said Andrew Storms, director of security operations at nCircle Network Security. 'The attack vector can be driven through Internet Explorer, and this is one of those instances where the user won't be notified or prompted. This is absolutely a drive-by attack scenario.' Richie Lai, the director of vulnerability research at security company Qualys, agreed. 'Anyone running IE [Internet Explorer] is at risk here, even though the flaw is not in the browser, but in the Win32k kernel mode driver.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bleep Labs announced the sequel to their Thingamagoop synth/noisemaker and it looks to be one heckuva major upgrade. The Thingamagoop 2 features -

• Analog VCO controlled by analog or digital signal from Arduino. (A separate Arduino board is not required)
• Sample and hold, Arpeggios, noise, and bit crush effects with open source code so you can program your own sounds!
• All the analog sounds of the original Thingamagoop.
• Controllable LEDacle – Ramp and random waveforms with rate control.
• New modulators – Square wave amplitude modulator and triangle wave pulse width modulator.
• Tough, stomp box type body with silk screened graphics in 3 different styles.
• Easy to access battery – No more screws!
• Much fuller and louder speaker.
• CV in and out.
• Arduino Programmer jack. Easily hook an Ardunio board up to the Thingamagoop 2.
• Kit now comes with a pre-drilled enclosure.
• Still assembled in Austin, Texas by Dr. Bleep and friends.

The Arduino integration alone is quite awesome, and along with control voltage input/output this should be a really versatile platform for cooking up some unique sounds. Kits and preassembled versions are currently available for pre-order over at Bleep Labs

In the Maker Shed:

Thing-a-ma KIT

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For some reason there are two bits of movie dialog stuck in my head.

1. In Fargo, there's a scene where a random cop is talking to a bar owner who's shoveling his sidewalk, telling the story of the "funny lookin guy" played by Steve Buscemi. At the end of the story, which he just told in a beautful midwestern "you know you betcha" way, when he runs out of story, he says "That's it. (Big pause.) End of story." The moment wasn't awkward at all, quite dignified, beautifully done.



2. The big "my sister" moment in Chinatown with Faye Dunaway and Jack Nicholson. That might be the most perfect bit of dialog in all moviedom. I don't want to spoil the plot by saying why, but... Wow.

The video of the scene is on YouTube. But don't click the link if you haven't seen the movie yet.

Some movies you can only watch once, these movies never get old. For some reason Fargo works really well on mobile computers like the iPhone or Droid.

Dan alerts us to the news that the free muni-WiFi system used around the Coshocton’s County Courthouse in Northern Ohio was shut down over a complaint by the MPAA over a single unauthorized movie download. Amazingly, rather than admit that perhaps that was going a bit too far in punishing everyone in that town over a single individual's usage, the MPAA couldn't resist the opportunity to complain about the evils of movie piracy again. The MPAA doesn't seem concerned at all about the collateral damage, and just thinks that it's a good opportunity to push ahead with its misguided complaint against file sharing.

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This has to be the coolest car mount for any mobile device out there. Originally designed for home use, maker remington870_20ga from the everythingpre.com forums wired a stock Palm Touchstone Charging Dock to run directly off his car battery using off-the-shelf components. Not only do you get an unencumbered view of the screen, your mobile device gets a chance to charge itself without all the messy cables.

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Reader Cameron Boykin alerts us to the news that a game modder appears to have filed a DMCA claim against Infinity Ward for its video of a certain part of Modern Warfare 2, claiming that the element in the game was influenced by a mod he had created. While this may seem amusing to the folks who are pissed off at Infinity Ward for various consumer-unfriendly positions, it still appears to be an abuse of the DMCA. It doesn't sound like Infinity Ward flat out took this guy's code or anything -- and having similar gameplay elements is unlikely to be copyright infringement at all. While it may have just been a joke or a "protest" sort of move, filing a bogus DMCA takedown is bad news no matter how you look at it, and can get the filer into a lot of legal hot water pretty quickly.

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LegalReader writes "An Illinois judge has decided that an anonymous commenter on a newspaper website will be unmasked, even though the mother of a teen about whom 'Hipcheck16' allegedly made 'deeply disturbing' comments hasn't yet decided whether to sue over the posting."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For just $1500, you can have your very own remote-controlled bowling ball! Maybe this is worthy of a remake? How about adding flashing LEDs to one of those translucent bowling balls? That shouldn't be too difficult to make, right? Although I doubt the addition of LEDs will help you score a 300!

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Just posted! Our lens review of the Canon EF 100mm F2.8 L IS USM. A few months ago Canon announced a new optical image stabilisation technology, dubbed 'Hybrid IS', that promises greater effectiveness at close distances for which conventional IS systems tend to be ineffective. The first lens to feature this has duly arrived in the shape of Canon's latest 100mm Macro, which alongside image stabilisation has also gained the added attraction of the premium 'L' designation. We take a close look to see if it's worth the premium over the older EF 100mm F2.8 USM Macro, which remains in Canon's range.

The SD Card Shield from the Maker Shed is an inexpensive break out board for a standard SD Card. It makes adding mass storage and data logging to your next Arduino project a lot easier. The shield allows you to select either 3.3V or IO port power, allowing for added flexibility depending on you application.

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This one's a bit old, but I'm cleaning out some older posts I wanted to write up. Sent in by johnjac, apparently the University of Texas charges a local painter a fee for selling paintings of its main building, the Texas Tower. While the Freakonomics post delves into whether this should be a flat fee or a percentage, shouldn't the actual question be why should the painter have to pay a fee at all?

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Bonnie sez, "Measuring close to a foot tall and crafted in durable all-weather resin, the Garden Jawa protects your tomatoes, zucchini, and daffodils from the dark side, armed with a garden tool bandolier, a garden hose, and a thumbs-up attitude. Reflective amber-colored eyes peek out from underneath his hood, challenging any unwelcome visitors looking to feast on his turf. True to nature, the Garden Jawa is still up to the well-known mischievous antics we know from the movies. Case in point: If you've caught StarWars.com's Flickr sets lately, you may have caught this little guy sneaking into Skywalker Ranch to snag some pics in front of the Main House. We've also caught him snooping around Lucasfilm's Presidio campus, reclaiming a bit of green from the dry California summer months. "

Garden Jawa a StarWarsShop Exclusive (Thanks, Bonnie!)

Sam notes an Ars story on Microsoft pulling the Windows 7 USB/DVD Download Tool from the Microsoft Store website after a report indicating that the tool incorporated open source code in a way that violated the GNU's General Public License. Whether the software giant is actually violating the GPL, a widely used (including by the Linux kernel) free software license, is not confirmed. 'We are currently taking down the Windows USB/DVD Tool from the Microsoft Store site until our review of the tool is complete,' a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. The fact the company pulled the tool doesn't bode well, so we'll have to watch closely to see what the company puts it back on its servers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The global crime ring that hit ATMs in 280 cities worldwide last year simultaneously for $9 million have allegedly been busted.

A federal grand jury in Atlanta has indicted eight men in connection with the scheme, including five Estonians, one Russian, one Moldovan and one unidentified man. Prosecutors allege that the men "used sophisticated hacking techniques" to defeat the company's encryption system. The scam, which hit RBS WorldPay last November, involved an elaborate plan in which the attackers first bypassed the encryption on the debit cards, which RBS WorldPay issues to customers for employee payroll purposes. They then raised the limits on the accounts attached to the cards.

Once that was done, the gang then allegedly "provided a network of 'cashers' with 44 counterfeit payroll debit cards, which were used to withdraw more than $9 million from more than 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide, including cities in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan and Canada. The $9 million loss occurred within a span of less than 12 hours," the Department of Justice said in a statement on the indictments released Tuesday.

U.S. Takes Down $9 Million RBS WorldPay Hacking Ring (via /.)

Stanford primatologist and anthropologist Robert Sapolsky scores big with this grad lecture on "The Uniqueness of Humans," a humbling, inspiring and sweet 30 minutes on what it is about humans that makes us unique from our animal cousins, and how many of the seemingly unique features of humanity can be found elsewhere.

Sapolsky make me want to go back to school, enrolling in the Stanford anthropology program, just so I can take his classes.

Class Day Lecture 2009: The Uniqueness of Humans (Thanks, Avi!)

A reader writes, "Passengers riding Walt Disney World's updated Space Mountain attraction will be able to play video games as they wait in line. Each game lasts about 90 seconds with a 90-second interval and the games can accommodate 86 players at one time."

Space Mountain is a notorious slow loader (all coasters are, since they can't do that lovely continuous belt thing that characterizes, say, the Haunted Mansion; nor do they support giant boats like Pirates of the Caribbean). Anything to make the queue less dull is great news!

Walt Disney World's Classic Space Mountain Attraction to Reopen with a Few Surprises

Crafster member Leahseraph, the creator of these Super Mario Fire-Flower gloves "just winged it," making up the pattern as she went.

Geek Craft: Super Mario knitted flower gloves (via Wonderland)

Monsters and Rockets sez, "Sesame Street is 40 years old today! In this early clip, Grover and a little boy named Jesse define marriage. It's a cute bit, but the remarkable thing is that given recent headlines this actually plays a lot like a PSA about gay marriage. At no point do Grover and Jesse say that a married couple has to be a man and a woman, and the things they say make up a marriage - kissing, hugging, being friends, helping each other - would apply to any married couple, straight or gay."

Sesame Street: Grover discusses What Is Marriage? (Thanks, Monsters and Rockets!)

Glenn Fleishman of WiFi Net News says, "T-Mobile is going full throttle on building out faster mobile broadband networks: 21 Mbps starting next year. Hallelujah, said the netbook. (For comparison, 3G speeds = up to 14 down, 5.8 up.)

I vaguely recall a similar story a couple years ago, though now I can't find it, but the Nieman Journalism Lab has an article about how PR folks are starting to use targeted Google AdWords buys to respond to negative press coverage. It doesn't seem like this sort of thing would really be all that effective, but the article discusses a PR guy who bought up AdWords on a variety of related keywords for the New Zealand Seafood Industry Council, after the NY Times came out with a negative story about overfishing. Of course, it looks like the guy also went over the line, claiming in one ad that the NY Times "apologizes for story," when the truth is that it just apologized for its use of a photograph it didn't have the rights to -- not the story itself. Amusingly, the guy also buys the reporters' own names as keywords in running his ads. I could see how that might intimidate the journalists (if they're particularly thin-skinned) but it's not really clear how that actually helps get the "other side" out.

What was potentially more interesting is that the NY Times (unlike many other newspaper websites) actually linked to the Council's website within the story, and the Council changed the page that clickers ended up on to a rebuttal to the NY Times story, whereas before it had just been a page about the type of fish in question. That seems like a smart move by the Fish Council, though it makes you realize why some publications might be skeptical about linking out, especially when whoever operates the site being linked to has the opportunity to change the site.

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Many readers are sending in the news about Go, the new programming language Google has released as open source under a BSD license. The official Go site characterizes the language as simple, fast, safe, concurrent, and fun. A video illustrates just how fast compilation is: the entire language, 120K lines, compiles in under 10 sec. on a laptop. Ars Technica's writeup lays the stress on how C-like Go is in its roots, though it has plenty of modern ideas mixed in: "For example, there is a shorthand syntax for variable assignment that supports simple type inference. It also has anonymous function syntax that lets you use real closures. There are some Python-like features too, including array slices and a map type with constructor syntax that looks like Python's dictionary concept. ... One of the distinguishing characteristics of Go is its unusual type system. It eschews some typical object-oriented programming concepts such as inheritance. You can define struct types and then create methods for operating on them. You can also define interfaces, much like you can in Java. In Go, however, you don't manually specify which interface a class implements. ... Parallelism is emphasized in Go's design. The language introduces the concept of 'goroutines' which are executed concurrently. ... The language provides a 'channel' mechanism that can be used to safely pass data in and out of goroutines."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Full-scale model of a Pan Am Airlines first-class cabin - in a guy's garage...

When Anthony Toth wants to experience the luxury of flying first class, he doesn't need to travel any further than his own Redondo Beach garage. That's where the 42-year-old aircraft enthusiast built a full-scale replica of a first-class cabin from a Pan Am World Airways 747. When visitors enter Toth's garage, they are greeted with a timetable listing the flight schedule from Los Angeles that Pan Am would have used in the 1970s. They are then directed inside the cabin, where they can sit in red-and-blue airplane seats, and eat peanuts from a Pan Am embossed package. Toth has painstakingly re-created a Pan Am aircraft from the 1960s and '70s, complete with recordings of the original in-flight audio. It's taken Toth nearly 20 years to scavenge for the parts to construct the cabin, which he started building five years ago. He estimates that he's spent more than $50,000 on airplane

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Alan Gerow was the first of a few folks to send in the news that some independent filmmakers not only discovered that their film, Ink, had ended up being widely available via Bittorrent, but that they were quite happy about the exposure. Alan sends over the email that the filmmakers sent out:

Dear Fans and Friends,

Over the weekend something pretty extraordinary happened. Ink got ripped off. Someone bit torrented the movie (we knew this would happen) and they posted it on every pirate site out there. What we didn't expect was that within 24 hours Ink would blow up. Ink became the number 1 most downloaded movie on several sites having been downloaded somewhere between 150,000 to 200,000 times as far as we can tell. Knowing there's absolutely nothing we can do about it, we've embraced the piracy and are just happy Ink is getting unprecedented exposure.

As a result, Ink is now ranked #16 on IMDb's movie meter and is currently one of the top 20 most popular movies in the world.

This all started as a result of the completely underground buzz that you've each helped us create. We've had no distributor, no real advertising and yet the word of mouth that you've generated has made the film blow up as soon as it became available worldwide. So many of you came to see the movie multiple times, bringing friends and family and many of you have bought the DVD and Blu-ray from us. All of this built up and built up and suddenly it exploded.

We don't know exactly where this will all lead, but the exposure is unquestionably a positive thing.

Ink hits Netflix, Blockbuster, iTunes and many more tomorrow! Remember to get your signed copies, t-shirts and posters at the Ink Store.

Thank you so much for the constant love and support.

Jamin and Kiowa
Double Edge Films"

Again, we've seen this with other films as well, but it's always nice to see filmmakers who realize it doesn't make sense to freak out, but to look for ways to take advantage of this as a promotional opportunity.

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Trailrunner7 writes "US and international prosecutors have indicted a criminal ring that they allege was responsible for an ATM scam last November that stole about $9 million from RBS WorldPay. The criminals cracked payroll debit cards and withdrew money from ATMs in hundreds of cities around the world. A federal grand jury in Atlanta has indicted eight men in connection with the scheme, including five Estonians, one Russian, one Moldovan, and one unidentified man. Prosecutors allege that the men "used sophisticated hacking techniques" to defeat the company's encryption system. The scam involved an elaborate plan in which the attackers first bypassed the encryption on the debit cards, which RBS WorldPay issues to customers for employee payroll purposes. They then raised the limits on the accounts attached to the cards, then provided a network of 'cashers' with 44 counterfeit payroll debit cards, which were used to withdraw more than $9 million from more than 2,100 ATMs in at least 280 cities worldwide, including cities in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Japan and Canada. The $9 million loss occurred within a span of less than 12 hours; 130 different ATMs in 49 cities were hit within one 30-minute period."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Found on Sean Bonner's tumblog.

Last week, I stumbled into a jam session with Frank Fairfield and other musicians by accident, and blogged a quick iPhone video snapshot. The next day, I started googling and YouTubing and Myspacing to find out more about each of the musicians, and found this. A stunning video of Fairfield performing "Nine Pound Hammer." Give me chills. Shot and directed by Keith Musil (I'm dying to know what he shot with, doesn't it look great?).

There are a few more YT clips in this series, they're all gorgeous. I missed Fairfield's live show last night at the Redwood in LA with Blind Boy Paxton, but I hope to catch them, together or separately, soon.

Robin from the Fleet Foxes described him like this, in Rolling Stone:

"He's like 26 years old and he sounds like Mississippi John Hurt," says Robin. Fairfield plays fiddle and banjo player and strums back-porch bluegrass, complete with shaky jug-band vocals reminiscent of The Foggy Mountain Boys from way back in the '40s (think O Brother, Where Art Thou?).

"He's kinda crazy," says Robin. "He has his own radio show where he just plays these old gramophones. He just puts a mic up and plays all these field recordings from the 1900s; it's insane. He dresses like it's the early 1900s. He's born out of time, and his voice is amazing."

Buy his music: His self-titled album Frank Fairfield, and the EP I've Always Been a Rambler (Amazon MP3s).

He's playing a bunch of West Coast US tour dates from now through January: San Francisco, Eugene, Portland, Tacoma, Seattle and other ports of call.

Videos:
• Frank Fairfield - "Nine Pound Hammer"
• Frank Fairfield - "Short Life of Trouble"
• Frank Fairfield - "Tim Brooks"

Some blog posts about Fairfield: LA Record, naturalismo, passionweiss. And here's an LA Weekly profile.

While the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is often seen as being inherently in favor of stronger intellectual property rights, every so often, the organization shows itself open to more reasonable approaches. A few years back, for example, it questioned the evidence on patents, and had trouble finding any real evidence that stronger patents resulted in greater innovation. Now, via Slashdot, we hear about a discussion at WIPO concerning "enforcement" issues where a number of papers were presented that pushed back on excessive pro-IP positions. These included a paper by WIPO Chief Economist, Carsten Fink, which calls out many of the previous studies on "losses" due to counterfeiting and piracy, and notes how misguided many of them are. While I think Fink uses some outdated and since disproved economic theory in his paper, overall it's nice to see at least some acknowledgment of moving more towards evidence based policy setting, rather than the maximalist's default "more is better" position.

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The Good News: If you're in New Orleans on November 22, you can watch a mock battle between Jared the Subway guy and the inventor of the po' boy sandwich (both are reenactors as the po' boy inventor is dead and Jared is probably not allowed to participate in anti-fast food stage combat). The Bad News: The fact that such an event exists bodes poorly for the future of po' boy itself. The sandwich, which owes its name and origins to 1929 labor disputes, is losing ground to fast-food chains, a still under-populated city and cost-cutting measures. From The New York Times.

StonyCreekBare writes "Lately I've been rethinking my personal security practices. Should my laptop be stolen, having Firefox 'fill in' passwords automatically for me when I go to my bank's site seems sub-optimal. Keeping passwords for all the varied sites on the computer in a plain-text file seems unwise as well. Keeping them in my brain is a prescription for disaster, as my brain is increasingly leaky. A paper notepad likewise has its disadvantages. I have looked at a number of password managers, password 'vaults' and so on. The number of tools out there is a bit overwhelming. Magic Password Generator add-in for Firefox seems competent, but it's tied to Firefox, and I have other places and applications where I want passwords. And I might be accessing my sites from other computers that don't have it installed. The ideal tool in my mind should be something that is independent of any application, browser, or computer; something that is easily carried, but which if lost poses no risk of compromise. What does the Slashdot crowd like in password tools?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Say you want to build a re-programmable toy, but the person you are making it for doesn't have access to a computer. How could you do it? Charlie Robinson looked to the past to solve this problem with his Arduino Cassette Engine. His project allows an Arduino to interpret specially coded audio files as binary data, which can then be stored to a memory card. The current version seems to be just storing the data, however there is no conceptual reason why this couldn't be used to actually reprogram the device once it is downloaded.

So, why is this interesting? Well, if the Arduino can be programmed using audio, then suddenly anything with a speaker can be made into a programmer. I think it would be pretty funny if you could use, say, a garden variety cell phone with some Java software to write programs for your micro.

What do you think, is there some potential here, or would it be better to just give aspiring programmers a regular computer to hack on? [Thanks Matt!]

Arduino photo by Matt Biddulph.

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Michael Jackson's funeral cost one million dollars. His final outfit cost $35,000, and the flowers cost $16,000. Lord. Obviously I'm no MJ anyhow, but when I die, if there's a mil lying around? Feel free to bury me in nekkid dirt and use the rest to feed pie to starving kids.

Dark Helmet writes in to alert us to an article discussing a recent Larry Lessig speech concerning conflicts between copyright and education, leading DH to write:

"What do we, as a society, value more: business rights or education rights?

Because we're more and more often hearing stories about IP law effecting things like text book answers, lesson agendas, syllabi, etc. It seems that we are so wrapped up in the idea of personal rights and personal walls around the content that we create or organize that we're losing sight of some truly important values, none more so than the ability to educate our emerging leaders to their fullest. After all, what could do more to promote the progress of our society and way of life as a whole than to educate our masses to the fullest? What standing could one possibly have to impede another's education to eke out further profit?"

Indeed. For quite some time it's appeared that there's a bit of a conflict in the basics of copyright and the concept of education -- which is all about sharing information and spreading that information. It's one of those things that copyright maximalists (especially the ones who are professors) usually don't like to talk about.

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Yves Béhar (who is in an epic struggle with Marc Newson to claim the title of "sexiest industrial designer alive") designed this vibrator. It looks like a Miyazaki cartoon creature.

The Form 2 takes a two-pronged approach to the vibrator, giving its user what they're calling "Sensation in Stereo." The "ears" can be positioned independently like a Gumby action figure for maximum, um, range, and the entire thing is made from phthalate-free platinum silicone to be completely waterproof. There's even a cute iPod-esque docking station for charging and it can operate UP TO SEVEN HOURS on a single charge.

A New Vibrator by Yves Behar Arouses Our Interest

itwbennett writes "Google is giving you something to be thankful for as you travel this holiday season. The company announced today that it is offering free Wi-Fi at 47 airports across the US between now and January 15. If you haven't booked your flights yet, you want to factor this into your plans. Here's a list of the 47 airports, which cover about 35% of all US passengers, according to Google. The Burbank and Seattle airports will continue to offer the free Google Wi-Fi indefinitely." The HuffPo notes another altruistic note in Google's gesture: "As another way to pass on the spirit of the season, once they log on to networks in any of the participating airports, travelers will have the option [of making] a donation to Engineers Without Borders, the One Economy Corporation, or the Climate Savers Computing Initiative. Google will match the donations made across all the networks up to $250,000, and the airport network that generates the highest amount per passenger by January 1, 2010 will receive $15,000 to donate to the local nonprofit of their choice."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.