The folks at Sparkle Labs have put up a cute project on their site. It's a simple LED circuit on a breadboard (built with their Discover Electronics Kit), with some Turkey papercraft attached, to create a Thanksgiving table decoration. This is a great way to get your kids involved in a basic electronics project that becomes part of the holiday festivities (er... for those of you in the States).

Thanksgiving LED Turkey centerpiece project

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BullJustin points us to a short NPR piece about four massive failures by the recording industry. If we skip over number 3 (Kevin Federline), the other three are pretty relevant to what we talk about here on a regular basis: the Sony BMG rootkit fiasco that opened up security holes on computers without letting anyone know, the RIAA's lawsuit strategy of suing fans and the record labels' ongoing efforts at payola to get songs played on the radio.

However, BullJustin makes an amusing point in the submission concerning that last one:

It cost the industry untold millions in actual payola, independent promoter fees, and then more than $25 million in settlements, not to mention lawyer fees. If they would have just let people share the music online, the marketing they were looking for could have been free."

It really does make you wonder what goes through the minds of record label strategists. They tossed away millions paying people to get music heard, when they could have just embraced file sharing and made it cheaper and easier to get music heard without running into the legal problems of payola as well. Of course, the problem with that plan is that the labels also lose "control." They've paid to get songs on the radio because they wanted to just focus on a small group of artists who they could squeeze for as much profit as possible, dumping all the rest. File sharing makes it harder and raises the possibility that other artists might also get heard.

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sopssa sends in a TechCrunch story that begins "Several federal and regional government officials in Germany are trying to put a ban on Google Analytics, the search giant's free software product that allows website owners and publishers to get detailed statistics about the number, whereabouts, and search behavior of their visitors (and much more)." Here's Google's translation of the article from Zeit Online (original in German). A German lawyer cited there says that penalties for websites that uses Google Analytics could amount to €50,000 (about $75,000). Reader sopssa adds, "The amount of data Google collects from everywhere on the Internet is indeed huge, and website owners should be using a local open source alternative to keep visitor data private."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"The Washington Post, in a significant retrenchment, is closing its remaining domestic bureaus around the country." The paper's six US news correspondents in New York, Los Angeles and Chicago will be offered reassignments in Washington. The Post's parent company lost $166.7 million in the first three quarters of 2009.

Researchers from the School of Medicine at the University of California have shown that the more germs a child is exposed to, the better their immune system in later life. Their study found that keeping a child's skin too clean impaired the skin's ability to heal itself. From the article: "'These germs are actually good for us,' said Professor Richard Gallo, who led the research. Common bacterial species, known as staphylococci, which can cause inflammation when under the skin, are 'good bacteria' when on the surface, where they can reduce inflammation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After this weekend's report of a dangerous flaw in IE (which Microsoft confirmed today), intrudere points out an exclusive report in The Register on a new hole in IE8 that could allow an attacker to pull off cross-site scripting attacks on Web sites that ought, by rights, to be safe from XSS. This is according to two anonymous sources, who told El Reg that Microsoft had been notified of the vulnerability a few months ago.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Rationalizer is a concept design for a bracelet that provides feedback on the stress level of day traders. Developed by Philips Electronics and Dutch bank ABN AMRO, it's like a high-tech mood ring. The aim is to help traders avoid rash decisions. From Physorg:

The Rationalizer consists of an "EmoBracelet" and an "EmoBowl" and incorporates sensors and signal processors designed by Philips. The EmoBracelet's galvanic skin response sensor measures the level of emotional arousal in a similar way to a lie detector. The result is displayed on either the bracelet or the EmoBowl as a light display that intensifies and changes to reflect the wearer's intensifying emotional arousal. At the highest emotional stress level the display has a greater number of elements moving at higher speed, and the color changes to a warning red.

Concept video after the jump.

"'Rationalizer' bracelet tells traders when they're stressed" (Thanks, Chris Arkenberg!)

Are the alligators in New York City sewers just an urban legend? Not according to Salvatore Condoluci, 92, who in 1935 claimed to have caught and killed an 8-foot-long gator in a sewer on 123rd Street near the Harlem River. However, it wasn't until the publication of Robert Daly's 1959 book The World Beneath The City that the sewer alligator stories slithered into popular culture. In honor of the book's 50 year anniversary, the New York Times found and interviewed Conduluci. The article also quotes BB pal Loren Coleman who has studied this curious bit of urban folklore in great depth, covering it in his book Mysterious America. According to Daly's book, the former superintendent of city sewers, Teddy May, saw the reptiles firsthand. From the NYT:

Mr. May decided to go down to sewers himself to determine whether there was anything other than an excess of whiskey behind his inspectors' reports of narrow escapes from alligators. That startling description of what he found, given by the man affectionately known as the King of the Sewers and recounted by a journalist, was immortalized in "The World Beneath the City":

Alligators serenely paddling around in his sewers. The beam of his own flashlight had spotlighted alligators whose length, on the average, was about two feet. Some may have been longer. Avoiding the swift current of the trunk lines under major avenues, the beasts had wormed up the smaller pipes under less important neighborhoods, and there Teddy had found them. The colony appeared to have settled contentedly under the very streets of the busiest city in the world...

"These tales had a journalistic background," said Loren Coleman, director and curator of the International Cryptozoology Museum in Portland, Me., who has researched and written about the topic for decades. "Daley's book came along, and it was almost like independent confirmation."

"The Book Behind the Sewer-Alligator Legend" (NY Times)

More background at Cryptomundo

Novation Launchpad - $200

With Ableton Lite bundled free of charge, this bizarre USB-powered light box is easy to set up and fun to use. An 8x8 grid of glowing pads surrounded by context-setting controls, it's a clever way to control playback of readied tracks--but not so fluid as a compositional tool. Though a gorgeous stage prop, it's not a toy, either: don't get it for folks who don't know a DAW from a doorstop.

HTC Imagio $200 w/2-year contract

You've seen HTC's Imagio--it's the one in those cheeky Verizon ads that mock AT&T's dismal 3G network. Consider your needs. It'sthe best WinMo iClone yet, but being the second best phone of 2007 still isn't good enough if you're a contract-free agent. HTC's concealment of Windows' obsolete clunker OS is an amazing feat--it swipes, it scrolls, it looks good--but at every turn there's another reminder, a performance or UI irritation that takes the shine off. Droid is better, and so is an iPhone--but don't count it out without a fiddle at the mall kiosk.

CardScan for Windows Mobile - $15, out soon.

Dymos's CardScan scans business cards with a WinMo 6.5 cellphone's camera, performs character recognition, then syncs up the data with your address books. It's as simple as that, but requires at least a 2-megapixel camera. The weirder the card's typography, the more cleanup work you'll have to do. That said, it's as good as dedicated business card scanners--Dymo's putting its own hardware on the critically endagered gadget list!

Motorola Debut i856 - $100 with a 2-year Sprint contract, $150 contract-free with Boost.

This chunky slider-phone has push-to-talk, GPS and a 1.3MP camera. Perfectly serviceable, its old-school low res display and short feature list limit its appeal, but the real killer is price: even for $100, you can get something better.

Moshi Voice Control Travel Alarm Clock - $25

There are two things you need to know about this. Firstly, it is incredibly small, small enough to fit in your pocket. Secondly, the voice recognition works perfectly. Okay, so there's a third thing: you have to press a button to get it to accept voice commands. The size makes it good for travelers or the cramped, but the voice thing is only really for those who hate figuring controls out.

paltemalte writes "Simon Marlow has posted an announcement of Haskell 2010, a new revision of the Haskell purely functional programming language. Good news for everyone interested in SMP and concurrency programming."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My buddy Jon makes these awesome little puzzle boxes from acorns. There are four shown in the video: one pair consisting of a smaller hinged acorn that nests, matryoshka-style, inside a larger one with a wire spring latch; a larger, locking nut that is opened by removing a small pin; and, finally, a large hinged version that is unlatched by knocking it against a surface from a certain angle. Besides this post, the project doesn't have any web presence to speak of, but Jon says its fine to e-mail him directly if you are interested in more information.

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Plenty of fiction authors base their characters on real life people. But, perhaps they need to be more careful. A jury has ruled in favor of someone who claimed libel against an author for supposedly writing a character "inspired by" a former friend. That former friend was not happy about the portrayal, in which she was a "sexually promiscuous alcoholic." This seems like a really bad precedent. Fiction authors quite frequently take people from real life, but then exaggerate them to extremes. But if that opens them up to potential libel charges, that seems quite ridiculous.

For example, I once read a book that had a character that was based on my father, written by someone who knew him many, many years ago (in the copy the author sent my father, it was inscribed with my father's name, followed by the character's name in parentheses). It was entertaining, to me, to see such a character who certainly resembled the rather content, laid back, unflappable nature of my Dad... except at the end where the character went crazy and had to be locked up. That, clearly, did not happen in real life, but it never struck me as "libelous." It was obviously just a fictional story, where the author needed the character to do something and act in a certain way. That's why it's fiction. Besides, for it to be defamatory, you have to be able to show the harm caused, and that's only going to happen if a lot of people know that the character is supposed to be the real person, which seems unlikely in most cases. In the meantime, though, if you're writing a fictional story, be careful who you base your characters on.

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After posting his excellent series of instructional videos on YouTube for 3-string cigar box guitar, Keni Lee Burgess has started posting videos for the 4-string cigar box guitar.

We used to call our original video episodes "BBTV," and we don't anymore. We call it Boing Boing Video now.

Well, ladies and germs, allow me to present to you the inheritor of that acronym: BBTV is now the name used by Bedbug TV, a guy who makes episodic web video content about how to deal with bedbugs. I think he runs a pest control company. His videos crack me up, particularly the first 15 seconds or so. The one above deals with how to cope with bedbug infestations in your home electronics products, like if your "electronics, books, paintings, pictures, dvd players, radios, alarm clocks, boxes and just clutter in general" is crawling with bedbugs.

I stumbled on them because back in 2007 when we started Boing Boing TV / BBTV, I created a Google News vanity search for "BBTV." We stopped using the acronym in 2009 and switched to "Boing Boing Video," but recently I'd begun receiving new hits on the "BBTV" vanity search -- all of them bedbug videos. B-B-T-V. Four immortal letters. Immortal and unkillable, just like bedbugs.

BBTV.

Disclaimer: I may also be lying to you, and all of this might be a postmodern viral marketing performance art campaign to promote Boing Boing's online video project.

A 13-year-old with Asperger's syndrome spent 11 days living on NYC subway trains last month. Francisco Hernandez Jr. says he never left the subway system that whole time, subsisting on newsstand snack food and bottled water. He'd run away to avoid punishment at home after getting in trouble at school, but lost his sense of time. "He was prepared, he said, to remain in the subway system forever."

Ryan sez, "Geeky clean sells soap with d20's embedded in the center. I'm getting these for a few of my paper and pen game friends."

Geeky Clean! -- Soap with d20s (Thanks, Ryan!)

superglaze writes "UK mobile broadband providers currently have no way of telling which subscribers are file-sharing which copyrighted content, ZDNet UK reports. This represents something of a problem for new laws that have been proposed to crack down on unlawful file-sharing. According to the article, databases (tracking IP address mappings) could be built to make it possible to identify what specific users are downloading, but the industry is loathe to fund this sort of project itself. Also, as an analyst points out in the piece, users of prepaid phone cards are mostly anonymous in the UK, which creates another challenge for the government's plans. And if that isn't enough, connection-sharing apps like JoikuBoost would make identification pretty much impossible anyway."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Know someone that is interested in photography? Or a tinkerer who wants to present their work in a better light? Then we have a guide for you! Here are some project and gear recommendations to help you find the perfect present.

Make them a photo with DIY bokeh effects (Free, if you have the equipment)
Use your leet photography skillz to make a photo that you can give as a gift, with a bokeh filter made from a piece of cardstock.

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The online dating site OKCupid has a blog where they post analyses of the tons of data they collect, and it's really fascinating.

For instance the attractiveness of woman on OKCupid, as judged by the men on OKCupid, is a symmetrical bell curve. In other words, half the women are better-than-medium looking and half are worse-than-medium looking. But OKCupid's women rate 80% of OKCupid's guys as worse-than-medium looking! Even more interesting: while men are much more likely to send messages to the most attractive women, woman send are much more likely to send messages to men who are slightly less-than-average looking.

As you can see from the gray line, women rate an incredible 80% of guys as worse-looking than medium. Very harsh. On the other hand, when it comes to actual messaging, women shift their expectations only just slightly ahead of the curve, which is a healthier pattern than guys’ pursuing the all-but-unattainable. But with the basic ratings so out-of-whack, the two curves together suggest some strange possibilities for the female thought process, the most salient of which is that the average-looking woman has convinced herself that the vast majority of males aren’t good enough for her, but she then goes right out and messages them anyway.

Your Looks and Your Inbox (Thanks, Vann!)

Blinking an LED and transmitting text to a serial terminal is not the most exciting thing in the world, but it's very cool to breathe life into a balky computer, even at the most basic level. Also, I have worked with enough development tools to know that it can be a lot of work going from the first build to basic function. Many vendors, like National Instruments, Texas Instruments, and others, have recognized the value of making a good first impression, while preserving all the power and sophistication available to the user. I do understand that ease of use can be hard to achieve, especially with complex, powerful tools. I own a small Sherline CNC mill that I built up with 3-phase brushless motors, a custom motor controller, and optical limit switches. It was a fun project, especially building the machine and seeing it run for the first time. I use it much less frequently than I would like, but it's been very handy for many of my projects. The mill is powerful enough for small projects, and simple enough that I can ignore it for several months without forgetting how to use it. I also have a little experience running large industrial CNC mills. I could make a lot of cool devices if I had a 5-axis commercial CNC machine, but using the machine effectively would require a substantial and continuous investment of time. Given what can go wrong, improper operation resulting from infrequent practice can be disastrous.

I've experienced a similar comparison between Windows Embedded CE and other prototyping and development tools I've worked with. For simple embedded projects, I use a wide variety of tools, from Arduino to ARM and others. I like to program in C or C++, using assembly only when I have to. I have been known to slip uLinux into projects when I can. These systems are like the Sherline CNC mill. They have limitations, yet are valuable from an ease-of-use perspective. Windows Embedded CE is more like the large industrial CNC mill - very powerful once time has been invested.

Now about those XBees, check out the Microsoft SPARK site for more!

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It's still way too early for holiday music and decorations, however this was too good to pass up. Robobuilder made this RoboBuilder Xmas Dance Routine to demonstrate the capabilities of their 5720t 'Huno' robotics kit. Ok, I'll take ten. [via neatorama]

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eldavojohn writes "Petr Horava, a physicist at the University of California in Berkeley, has a new theory about gravity and spacetime. At high energies, it actually snips any ties between space and time, yet at low energies devolves to equivalence with the theory of General Relativity, which binds them together. The theory is gaining popularity with physicists because it fits some observations better than Einstein's or Newton's solutions. It better predicts the movement of the planets (in an idealized case) and has a potential to create the illusion of dark matter. Another physicist calculated that under Horava Gravity, our universe would experience not a Big Bang but a Big Bounce — and the new theory reproduces the ripples from such an event in a way that matches measurements of the cosmic microwave background."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Remember Alan Ralsky? The "spam king" came to be well known online in 2002 after agreeing to a profile in the Detroit Free Press, where he bragged about all the spamming he did and the huge house it had bought him. The folks on Slashdot decided to do something about Ralsky, and started signing him up for all sorts of snail mail marketing offers, so his real life mailbox was overflowing with ads. The humor-impaired Ralsky apparently couldn't see the irony, saying he was going to sue the people involved. He never seemed to actually get around to that. Instead, while it took quite some time, law enforcement started investigating Ralsky. While he had loudly insisted that the CAN SPAM law wouldn't impact him, the FBI disagreed. Last year, he was finally indicted. Earlier this year he entered a guilty plea and has now been sentenced to four years in jail for his spamming and fraud activities -- reported in the same Detroit Free Press that ran that original profile of him. Maybe he should have avoided bragging about the mansion that spam built.

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J. Dzhugashvili writes "While it's played up the general-purpose computing prowess of its next-gen GPU architecture, Nvidia has talked little about Fermi's graphics capabilities — to the extent that some accuse Nvidia of turning its back on PC gaming. Not so, says The Tech Report in a detailed architectural overview of the GF100, the first Fermi-based consumer graphics processor. Alongside a wealth of technical information, the article includes enlightening estimates and direct comparisons with AMD's Radeon HD 5870. The GF100 will be up to twice as fast as the GeForce GTX 285, the author reckons, but the gap with the Radeon HD 5870 should be 'a bit more slender.' Still, Nvidia may have the fastest consumer GPU ever on its hands — and far from forsaking games, Fermi has been built as a graphics processor first and foremost."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Well, you just knew this was going to happen eventually. Suddenly publishers are starting to freak out over "ebook piracy," claiming (totally inaccurately) that they've lost $600 million to it. Of course, as some are noting the real problem isn't "piracy" but the industry's response to it:

The best way to fight piracy? Got e-book shoppers accustomed to buying from legitimate sources before it's too late. That means easy downloading, fair prices and the ability to move content easily from machine to machine within a household. Use of the standard ePub format and the end of traditional DRM could go a long way in that regard.

Instead, they're likely to go in the other direction (they always do) and try to raise the DRM walls higher in a futile effort to "fight" piracy. Of course, as we discussed nearly a year ago, the ebook industry could really use more piracy, because it's actually a great indicator of what people really want. And, of course, locking up content with more DRM will only serve to take away value. If there's growing piracy, that just means the industry is putting up unreasonable barriers. Hopefully publishers realize this before totally screwing things up, but somehow it seems likely they'll make all the same mistakes as the music industry.

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Sparkfun is giving away things for free on January 7!

You can blame it on Chris Anderson's book Free. After reading his book, I started kicking around the idea of what we can do that's 'free'. Sure, we have free bits (open-source hardware designs, available code, etc.), but we don't have free physical widgets. Now combine that with our love of creating shear havoc (AVC, C&D letter, Portable Rotary Phone), and you get Free Day.

Nobody gives away a free physical thing. There's always a catch. So up front: you have to pay shipping. Other than that, it's open season.

• $100 max per household
• You pay shipping
• Limit of $100,000 in giveaways for the day
• Starts 9AM MST January 7th, 2010
• Ends 11PM MST January 7th, 2010 (or when we hit $100k, whichever comes first)
• Rainchecks for popular items will be allowed

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Video: Chase Whitestead and Erick Stroll of New Left Media speak to Sarah Palin fans at her book signing in Columbus, Ohio. More at Dangerous Minds.

Related: Over at The Awl this past weekend, Rudy live-blogged his reading of Sarah Palin's memoirs (so you don't have to). This follows a month-long build-up where he reviewed the entire canon of vice presidential memoirs. You're welcome. (via Jason Wishnow)

RichZellich writes "Police arrested a senior vice president from Island Def Jam Records, saying he hindered their crowd-control efforts by not cooperating. The crowd at a mall where Justin Bieber was appearing got out of control, and police wanted the man to send a tweet asking for calm; he refused and they arrested him on a felony assault charge 'for putting people in danger.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Snip: "At the height of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency paid $3,000 to renowned magician John Mulholland to write a manual on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft. All known copies of the document were believed to be destroyed in 1973. Turns out one survived - and is now available on Amazon."

Wired Danger Room item here, and I'm gonna go buy a copy right now. (thanks, Noah Shachtman)

Video: YouTube, MP4 download, or Dotsub (subtitles)

On Sunday, a man named Sal9000 married the love of his life. Her name is Nene Anegasaki, and she lives inside of a Nintendo DS video game called Love Plus. The wedding took place during a Make: Japan meet-up held at the Tokyo Institute of Technology. In attendance were a live audience, an MC, the bride's virtual video game girlfriend — who made a speech — and a real human priest.

The event was livecast on Nico Nico Douga, a popular video sharing web site that I wrote about in Wired Magazine back in 2008. (Watch this clip of hot shot Wired folks making total fools of themselves on Nico Nico Douga.)

Nico Nico Douga is home to thousands of video projects by anonymous users — mashups of original art, pop music, anime, and web memes that only an insider to Japanese web geek culture can completely decipher. Sal9000 is an active member of the Nico Nico Douga community, so it was important to him that his offbeat wedding ceremony was broadcast on the site. The footage seen here of Sal and Nene tying the knot between real and virtual is a highly imaginative, multimedia project orchestrated by a guy determined to officiate his devotion to his video game, and to pay homage to the otaku subculture that nurtures this type of creativity. Enjoy!

Tomorrow: Interview with the groom!

Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that Amazon and Wal-Mart are waging an price war for the future of online retailing that is spreading through product areas like books, movies, toys, and electronics. The tussle began last month over which company had the lowest prices on the most anticipated new books and DVDs this fall, but has now spread to select video game consoles, mobile phones, even to the humble Easy-Bake Oven. 'It's not about the prices of books and movies anymore. There is a bigger battle being fought,' said Fiona Dias, executive vice president at GSI Commerce, which manages the Web sites of large retailers. 'The price-sniping by Wal-Mart is part of a greater strategic plan. They are just not going to cede their business to Amazon.' Wal-Mart, with $405 billion in sales last year, dominates by offering affordable prices to Middle America in its 4,000 stores, while Amazon, with $20 billion in sales, caters mostly to affluent urbanites who would rather not push around a cart. But Amazon is expanding its slice of the retail pie at an alarming rate — its sales shot up 28 percent in the third quarter of this year; and sales in Amazon's electronics and general merchandise business are up 44 percent. 'We have to put our foot down and refuse to let them grow more powerful,' says Dias. 'I applaud Wal-Mart. It's about time multichannel retailers stood up and refused to let their business go away.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For quite some time we've wondered why there's no independent invention defense to patent infringement. It's hard to come up with any justifiable reason for not only barring those who come up with an idea on their own from making use of such an invention, but also for potentially making them liable for millions of dollars in damages for just making use of something they came up with on their own. For years, I've been waiting to hear any justification for this -- either economic or moral -- and I've never heard anything that makes any sense at all. Patent attorney Stephan Kinsella has now written up a post that also calls for an independent inventor defense, noting how incredibly rare it is for a client to ever have actually been accused of copying an idea. He notes that about the only reason most are against this idea is that they realize it would put a lot of patent lawyers out of work.

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The audiobook of my latest novel, Makers has been published by Random House Audio, strictly in DRM-free formats over the net (this means that Apple won't carry it in the iTunes store, even though Audible was willing to carry it without DRM).

The reading is by Bernadette Dunne, a very talented actor. I just listened to this for the first time yesterday and I was blown away by Dunne's reading. I'm a huge audiobook nut, and I'm incredibly glad to have professional audiobook adaptations of my books from Random House -- and doubly grateful to them for supporting my commitment to DRM-free distribution. When you buy this book, you own it. The "terms of service" are "Don't violate copyright law," not "By buying this audiobook, you agree that we get to come over and kick you in the ass."

Makers, read by Bernadette Dunne

MP3 Sample

Buy Makers Audiobook on Borders

My friend Justin says, "I'm thankful for many things this year, but in particular, I'm thankful for Animals with Lightsabers."

So say we all, Justin. (Wait, now I'm getting my metaphors mixed up...)

A 41-year-old man searching for his biological father reports that he became depressed after discovering it's Charles Manson. It doesn't help that dear old dad signs his prison letters to his son with a swastika.

Sockatume writes "The UK's Human Genetics Commission has published its report on the collection of DNA by the Police forces in England and Wales. Currently, Police collect DNA from every suspect in a case which could lead to a criminal record, and retain that material, which the European Court of Human Rights has ruled illegal. The government plans to keep all DNA samples for suspects from England, Wales and Northern Ireland for up to six years, except for DNA from individuals arrested during terrorism-related investigations, which will be retained forever. The report states that the police frequently performed arrests solely to collect DNA, that certain demographics (such as young, black men) were 'very highly over-represented,' that there was 'very little concrete evidence' that the DNA database had any actual use in investigating crime, and that the database contained material from individuals arrested in Scotland and Northern Ireland, outside its remit. Of the 4.5m individuals in the database, a fifth have never received any convictions or cautions from the Police. The report recommends that an independent advisory body oversee the database, and that laws be passed to limit the uses of the database, while tracking those with access to it, and making misuse of the information a criminal offence."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'd been meaning to write this up for about a week, but finally got it around to it, just in time to add some additional info. First up, though, comes the news that Microsoft's legal department demanded a blogger remove a blog post about flaws in Bing's Cashback offer (Microsoft's attempt to bribe users to search via Bing instead of Google). One of the methods for the cashback offer involved pixel tracking, and blogger Samir Meghani noted that this was easily gamed to post fake transactions to your account. He also noted problems with the way Microsoft used sequential IDs, allowing potential scammers to "deny cashback rebates to legitimate users by using up available order ID numbers." Instead of dealing with these flaws, Microsoft lawyers sent a cease-and-desist and forced the blog post offline. I'm actually quite surprised this hasn't received a lot more attention.

In the legal nastygram, Microsoft's lawyers claimed that because Meghani had tested the flaws out himself, he was likely guilty of violating "various laws relating to computer intrusion, unauthorized access and unauthorized use of information," while suggesting that his actions could result in criminal charges. That's ridiculous, of course. He didn't actually scam the company -- he was just exposing a flaw. This is legal bullying to silence someone for pointing out a rather basic security flaw in Microsoft's program.

But, of course, even though Meghani was silenced on that issue, it doesn't mean he has to be silent on all of the flaws in Bing's Cashback program, so his latest (found via Slashdot) is that various retailers that offer "cashback" via Bing purchases are showing higher prices if you search via Bing. In fact, the price people can pay if they do certain searches on Bing is higher than if they'd gone direct:

So, if I go directly to butterflyphoto.com, I pay $699 with 0% cashback. If I use Bing Cashback, I pay $758 with 2% cashback, or $742.84. Using Bing cashback has actually cost me $43.84, giving an effective cashback rate of -6.27%. Yes, negative cashback! Is this legal? False advertising? I don't know, but it's pretty sketchy.

The problem doesn't end there. Using Bing has tainted my web browser. Butterfly Photo set a three month cookie on my computer to indicate that I came from Bing. Any product I look at for the next three months may show a different price than I'd get by going there directly. Just clicking a Bing link means three months of potentially negative cashback, without me ever realizing it. I'm actually afraid to use their service even just to write this, because it may cost me money in the future. If you've been thinking about trying out Bing Cashback, you may want to rethink that.

Microsoft responded and called this "an isolated instance" that it had missed with its tools that try to prevent merchants from gaming the system this way. Still, perhaps rather than sending out legal nastygrams and PR pablum to people discussing these things, Microsoft should focus on actually making sure that Bing's Cashback bribery program actually works correctly and safely.

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tsu doh nimh writes "Alan Ralsky, the 64 year-old dubbed the 'Godfather of Spam,' was sentenced to 51 months in prison on Monday, The Washington Post's Security Fix reports. According to anti-spam group Spamhaus.org, Ralsky has been spamming since at least 1997, using dozens of aliases and tens of thousands of 'zombies' or hacked PCs to relay junk e-mail. Also sentenced — to 40 months in jail — was Ralsky's 48-year-old son-in-law, Scott K. Bradley and two other men named last year in a 41-count indictment for wire fraud, mail fraud, money laundering and violations of the CAN-SPAM Act." And eldavojohn writes "Nineteen year old Dmitriy Guzner, Anonymous member and Scientology DDoS attacker, received one year and one day in jail for his admitted crime. His sentence could have been a maximum ten years. According to the Church of Scientology, Anonymous has harassed and attacked them with '8,139 threatening phone calls, 3.6 million e-mails, 141 million hits on its website, ten acts of vandalism against its property, 22 bomb threats, and eight death threats against Church leaders.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I am a sucker for a good SketchUp exploded view (although I think the screws shown in this one just have to be wrong). This plan comes from the usbddr project. From the readme file:

usbddr is firmware for the Atmel ATMega8 which implements a usb controller ("dance pad") for games such as stepmania. In contrast to other homebrew dance pads, it uses capacitive sensing, eliminating mechanical wear and allowing adjustable sensitivity.

There's some good discussion of the project over at Hack a Day,

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blee37 writes "Researchers at Carnegie Mellon demonstrate 'popping out' touch screen buttons to become physical buttons using pneumatics. The idea is to combine the dynamic reconfigurability of touch screen buttons with the tactile feedback of real buttons. The technology could be applied where tactile feedback is currently lacking, such as in car navigation systems, ATMs, or cell phones."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A record executive who refused to send out a tweet asking for unruly fans at a scheduled Justin Bieber appearance was arrested for "[putting] lives in danger and the public at risk."

Police arrested a senior vice president from Bieber's label, Island Def Jam Records, James A. Roppo, 44, of Hoboken, N.J., saying he hindered their crowd-control efforts by not cooperating...

He was in custody Friday night, pending charges that could include criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor and obstructing government administration, Smith said...

In an interview on WBLI 106.1-FM at 7 p.m., Bieber talked about the scene at the mall. "It was so crazy that I couldn't get to even come in the building," the singer said. "They [the authorities] basically threatened to put me in cuffs and send me away to jail."

Aggressive Roosevelt Field crowd cancels Bieber visit (Thanks, Rick!)

Not everyone was born to blog, but some people were.

Pity the poor NBB who was born before there were blogs. You can imagine this person wandering the planet with some unspecified sense of purpose. Scratching his or her head, wondering what exactly it is they were supposed to do with their lives.

Of course that's a joke, because this instinct had many ways to be satisfied before there were blogs, but it wasn't as easy as it is for people today.

I tripped across this in trying to puzzle out what was disturbing about the Julie & Julia biopic. Both main characters were clearly NBBs, and perhaps both deserved their own movies. Smooshing the stories together made for a confusing mess. I was more interested in Julia Child, the proto-proto-blogger, the blogger before there were bloggers, because her spirit is what NBBs everywhere do.

Americans should understand French cooking, says Julia. It's hard, she says, but you can do it. So, did she just wring her hands and wish for it? No, she took matters into her own hands (a phrase Jay thought was pivotal) and made it happen. That's the spirit we love!

It seems that the spirit of blogging and the spirit of America are wrapped up in each other somehow.

This came up in yesterday's Rebooting the News, which if I do say so myself, was one of our best. We get into the subjectives of what makes natural-born blogger. Here are some of the ideas.

1. An NBB doesn't wait for permission.

2. A NBB explains things, even when they don't understand. An NBB is often proved wrong, to which the NBB shrugs his or her shoulders and says something like Shit happens.

3. NBBs go first. If there's an NBB around you don't have to wait for a volunteer.

4. NBBs err on the side of saying too much. If you find yourself wishing someone would just STFU you're very likely looking at an NBB.

NBBs annoy the hell out of you. And if they're good, they get you to think. There's the big value in having us around. We foster thinking.

When I say someone is a Natural Born Blogger, it's the highest praise I know. I am not annoyed by them, but I know that often people are annoyed by me. I don't plan to change.

So who are some NBBs? My mother, for one. It's where I got my NBB gene. I never had to explain to her why she should blog, she just knew. The mechanics of blogging software weren't so natural to her, but she eventually figured it out.

Robert Scoble is a total NBB. He has an opinion about everything. I often want to strangle him, but then I realize sheez he has a point.

Dan Gillmor, Doc Searls, Jeff Jarvis and Howard Weaver are NBBs. Most good reporters are, but I suspect most of the true NBBs in journalism left about 10 years ago. I was schooled in how the web worked by the striking news writers in the Bay Area in 1994. We came across this in our podcast yesterday. Good reporters and good bloggers == same thing.

In American history, Thomas Jefferson and Ralph Waldo Emerson were bloggers. Who else? You tell me.

Pickle Monger alerts us to a CNN story suggesting that a Facebook group "may have lead to the beating of a 12-year-old" boy. Really? Facebook could do that rather than a group of kids who are bullies? The "group" in question was apparently a group (potentially inspired by a South Park episode) for a national "kick a ginger" (redhead) day. There was actually some controversy about this last year as well. It seems bizarre to blame Facebook (or, for that matter, South Park) for this at all, and so Pickle Monger went and checked out the actual Facebook group and noted: "There doesn't seem to be any outrageous comments. In fact most comments are in good humor, some by readheads. The event has one confirmed guest - assumingly the creator, who seems to be readheaded (assuming it's his photo on the profile). The event has two people awaiting reply." Kids do stupid things, and sometimes the stupid things they do involve hitting other kids. That's not the fault of Facebook.

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Charles Pax is working on a new MakerBot extruder he's aptly calling the Paxtruder. It makes it super easy to change out the plastic filament, and can even be butted up against another one of itself for potential support material extrusion one day. Check out the plans on Thingiverse.

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Lensbaby has invited photographers to submit images taken with one of its products for a chance to be published in an upcoming book. Photographers have until December 31, 2009 to submit up to two images via the company's website. Successful entries will be announced on Lensbaby's website on January 15, 2010.

Glyn Moody writes "The response to Google's Chromium OS has been rather lukewarm. But suppose it's just part of something much bigger: a netbook computer from Google that would cost absolutely nothing. Because all the apps and data are stored in the cloud, storage requirements would be minimal; screens are getting cheaper, and the emphasis on lean code means that a low-cost processor could be used. Those relatively small hardware costs could then be covered by advertising in the apps — after all, they are just Web pages. Interestingly, Google has not only rolled out advertising to more of its services recently, it has also started running AdSense ads in the desktop application Google Earth. Would you accept a free Google netbook — or is the price you would pay in terms of the company knowing even more about what you do on an hour-by-hour basis just too high?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The holiday season is a great time of year, especially for kids! This year I came up with a list of products that will inspire your children, and let you in on the fun too! Many of these recommendations were inspired by my own childhood. I certainly made a lot of kits growing up, and I've included a few of my favorites in this list! Remember, the holiday season is a great time to start a new project with your kids. Teach them something new, get involved....and don't forget to have some fun!

Haba architectural blocks (OOMPA, $16.49 - $89.99)
I was lucky enough as a kid to have a really cool set of blocks that were made by my grandfather. We made houses, mazes for our little rodent friends, racetracks, and just about anything else you could imagine. Most blocks today are standard squares and rectangles, maybe an arch or two. Haba blocks are the exception. They make an incredible variety of blocks, including Baroque Building Blocks, the Coliseum, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Castle parts, and a lot more. Be sure to click through all the pages to see the complete line of Haba architectural building blocks.

Drawdio Kit (Maker Shed, $19.50)
Drawdio is a really fun DIY electronics kit and musical instrument. It's easy to assemble, and fun to hack! Drawdio has been kid-tested at my house for many hours, and is a hit with everyone who tries it! The kit requires some soldering, but you could make that into a great learning experience for your little engineer in training.

Drawdio is an electronic pencil that lets you make music while you draw! It's a great project for beginners: An easy kit with instant gratification! Essentially, its a very simple musical synthesizer that uses the conductive properties of pencil graphite to create different sounds. The result is a fun toy that lets you draw musical instruments on any piece of paper.

Telescope (Orion, $49.95 - $300+)
I have to admit, I never owned a telescope, but that may change soon. Recently, I've been researching telescopes, both DIY and commercial versions. I plan on getting a truss tube Dobsonian scope one day, but they're fairly expensive, so I might have to wait a while longer, or try to make a DIY version. Orion seems to have a nice selection of beginner scopes, at reasonable prices. However, do your research before making any large investment.

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Tokyo-based electronics company NEC has developed a technology to eliminate noise from by AF and zoom motors in digital camera videos. At present focus and zoom motors are slowed or disabled to prevent noise being collected by internal microphones. NEC's technology processes-out motor sounds using a similar method used by noise-canceling headphones. Its system takes a three-stage approach to accurately match its suppression to the noises of the specific camera. With manufacturers' increasing concentration on HD movies, this is a technology we'd like to see used, if it allows the effect of zoom and focus to be seen and not heard.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Flickr member Giant Eye created a handcuff mechanism with his Makerbot Cupcake CNC -

3d printers are incredibly boss, cool, fantastic, and other words that mean they make me tingle. I designed these handcuffs (okay I've only printed one out at the moment) using only fdm printable parts.

Nice work! Check out the project plans on Thingiverse.

Related:
Working printed handcuff key
&
CupCake CNC build, part 1, part 2, part 3, & part 4

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kreyszig writes "The recent story of a cat brain simulation from IBM had me wondering if this was really possible as described. Now a senior researcher in the same field has publicly denounced IBM's claims." More optimisticaly, dontmakemethink points out an "astounding article about new 'Neurogrid' computer chips which offer brain-like computing with extremely low power consumption. In a simulation of 55 million neurons on a traditional supercomputer, 320,000 watts of power was required, while a 1-million neuron Neurogrid chip array is expected to consume less than one watt."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Once again, we're left wondering how Hulu can survive, given that its ownership has too much interest in restricting what its customers want to do. Following braindead efforts to block specialized browsers, even though they access Hulu content just like regular browsers, combined with blocking anonymous proxies, even those used for perfectly legitimate reasons, Hulu is apparently now cracking down on sites that embed a lot of its videos -- yes, despite having embed functionality specifically allowed.

You may recall that one of the key reasons why YouTube became so popular in the first place was a little javascript hack that made it incredibly easy to embed the video directly into any other website (while still hosting the content on YouTube). Suddenly, rather than having to link to the video, it was easy to have video on any other website. Hulu of course recognized the value of that and included embed code functionality as well, but quickly found itself unsure how to deal with the fact that people actually used it. Back when Hulu was still in private beta, requiring invites to access the sites, some other sites quickly decided to just embed all the videos on their own sites, pulling in the traffic that Hulu could have generated for itself. Many sites apparently are still embedding lots of Hulu shows, and Hulu has simply decided to tell those sites to stop. As NewTeeVee notes in the link above, nothing good will come from this policy. It comes across as being rather against how the web works and how people expect the web to work. In the end it just appears like yet another "but we can stop people from doing what they want to do" move that all too often comes from those in legacy industries.

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coondoggie writes "A radiation-proof Cisco router was sent into space today aboard an Intelsat satellite with the goal of setting up military communications from space. The router/satellite combo is a key part of the US Department of Defense's Internet Routing In Space (IRIS) project, which aims to route IP voice, video and data traffic between satellites in space in much the same way packets are moved on the ground, reducing delays, saving on capacity and offering greater network flexibility, Cisco stated."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm not sure if this isn't more rightly called "paper sculpture" than origami. True it uses only one sheet of paper and there are no cuts, but, well...watch the video and you'll see what I mean. Besides getting to see the mushrooms themselves, which are almost photo-realistic, it's worth it to see how a master with 20 years of experience moves his hands. [via Boing Boing]

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A refreshingly different kind of mash-up -

"We Are All Connected" was made from sampling Carl Sagan's Cosmos, The History Channel's Universe series, Richard Feynman's 1983 interviews, Neil deGrasse Tyson's cosmic sermon, and Bill Nye's Eyes of Nye Series, plus added visuals from The Elegant Universe (NOVA), Stephen Hawking's Universe, Cosmos, the Powers of 10, and more. It is a tribute to great minds of science, intended to spread scientific knowledge and philosophy through the medium of music.

Download the mp3 over at Symphony of Science. [via Tag Sale Cosmology]

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1sockchuck writes "Virginia's new state IT system is experiencing downtime in key services because of a mind-boggling oversight: the state apparently neglected to require network backup in a 10-year, $2.3 billion outsourcing deal with Northrop Grumman. The issue is causing serious downtime for state services. This fall the Virginia DMV has suffered 12 system outages spanning a total of more than 100 hours, and downtime hampered the state transportation department when a state of emergency was declared during the Nov. 11 Northeaster."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've pointed this out over and over and over and over and over again, but whenever a government puts together a big database of info on people -- the data gets abused. The latest example, found via Michael Scott is the news that a police chief in Iowa has been suspended after he supposedly revealed data that he never should have had in the first place, supposedly handing out information on someone's driving record and criminal history, despite having no legal reason to even have that info, let alone distribute it to anyone. So why do we keep assuming that governments won't abuse such data collections?

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Two years ago, my wife surprised me with one of the coolest presents I've ever received: an original Goliathon raygun from effects-house Weta (best known for doing the effects for the Lord of the Rings movies). It's a cast-iron monster, with delicate blown-glass fillips, and it comes in its own molded carrying case lined with red velvet. I've made it a point not to look up what it cost (it's a gift, after all), but I do know that people who collect these things tend to suck air over their teeth appreciatively when they see it, so I'm assuming it's rather a lot. It's among my top ten favorite inanimate objects in the universe, and it gives me pleasure every time I come through the door of my office.

So I was excited when Weta offered to send me two of their latest rayguns for review. The new line, "Dr. Grordbort's Rayguns," are not made from cast-iron, but rather from "Real Imitation Metal" (e.g., molded plastic), and comes in toylike packaging that wouldn't look out of place in a Toys R Us aisle. But as with the more expensive originals, the detail on the unit is exquisite, the best I've ever seen on a mass-produced item (this even carries over to the teeny-weeny desk-toy-sized "Minisculized" versions, which have details that even look good under a magnifying lens). They're still not cheap -- the "Righteous Bison" they sent me costs about US$85 -- but they're a lot more affordable than the hand-made iron monsters.

I have a small collection of rayguns here, some from professional houses, others hand-crafted by Etsy makers, but the Righteous Bison is the first plastic/mass-made version I'd consider adding to my wall. It's a beautiful piece, truly. And the little teensy Victorious Mongoose desk-toy gun (with its own stand) now lives beside my monitor, where I can enjoy it every time I look up.

Dr. Grordbort's Rayguns from Weta

With so much cool stuff popping up these days you notice when something truly draws awe. Qi Pan, a PhD candidate at the Engineering Department of Cambridge University, has developed a novel approach to capturing 3D objects with a standard webcam. Called ProFORMA, Pan's software digitizes and image maps an object in 3D as the user rotates it in front of the camera in realtime. Additionally, the physical object can be used as a marker to overlay the virtual object in realtime for potential Augmented Reality applications. [via Core77]

As the user rotates the object in front of a stationary camera, a partial model is reconstructed and displayed to the user to assist view planning. The model is also used by the system to robustly track the pose of the object. Models are rapidly produced through a Delaunay tetrahedralisation of points obtained from on-line structure from motion estimation, followed by a probabilistic tetrahedron carving step to obtain a textured surface mesh of the object.

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It's been almost four years since we wondered what would happen when the social networking generation started running for office, since there would almost certainly be a digital record of activities that historically would have been buried and/or lost to history for most candidates. It seems that we're already starting to see what happens with some younger candidates. Earlier this year, we mentioned one candidate who dropped out of a race after "racy" Facebook photos popped up. MediaShift is now taking a look at the issue and finding that more and more candidates are dealing with this issue, though often in different ways. One embraced it, saying that the photos showed he was a real person and approachable. Others try (usually unsuccessfully) to scrub their digital histories. As this becomes more common, though, it seems likely that even as opponents try to exploit these sorts of things, most people will put the photos in context and not be all that concerned about them.

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Audrey23 writes "I am traveling to London from Washington state for two weeks in December for pleasure (use-it-or-lose-it vacation scenario) and was wondering if I should bother bringing my laptop. I know that I would have to change the region code on my wireless amongst other things and the power cord would have to be changed for a UK outlet. Would I be better off not bringing my laptop and just using Internet kiosks (do they exist in London?) or would having my laptop be a better choice to keep in touch, off-load my digital images etc? I plan on hitting the British Museum but was wondering what geeky things to do that are in London that might be worth going to and any tips hints on overseas travel for geeks? I travel quite a bit in the states but this will be my first trip overseas and want to make the best of my stay in merry old England. What words of advice do you travel seasoned geeks have for me?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I planned on writing an entry about burning bootloaders and updating the firmware, but I just realized my kit comes ready to go! Yay! This is a major advantage to purchasing the Generation 3 Electronics kit. If you're making you own boards, be sure to check out these detailed instructions on burning bootloaders and updating firmware before going any further.

Here's the description of the Generation 3 Electronics kit [Mostly Assembled]:

This is a kit of mostly assembled electronics. All of the hard stuff is taken care of for you, and the only soldering that remains is the opto endstops which are very simple (only through hole components, no SMT). The stepper drivers, extruder controller, and motherboard all come fully assembled and ready to use. The extruder controller and motherboard have been pre-programmed with the MakerBot firmware and Arduino bootloader.

I know, I know, it's been a while since my last entry, and I apologize. The truth is, I was a bit under the weather last week, and my CupCake CNC kit had to sit and wait patiently for me to recover. The good news is, I'm feeling much better now and am super motivated to start printing parts! The next entry will be packed with CupCake building goodness. Promise!

Next up, making the pulleys and enclosure. As you can see, I chose a butchers wax finish. It's nontoxic, and nonflammable, which makes documenting it in my studio a lot easier. Also, it preserves the beauty of the wood, including the laser burns! Besides, if I don't like it, I can always cut out a new enclosure.

Ask questions! Do you want to see a better picture of a particular part, a different camera angle, a video perhaps? Maybe you have a suggestion for a cool mod or hack? Let me know in the comments. I'll try to answer them as best as I can. Thanks!

Build history:

• Part 1: Introduction & background
• Part 2: Unboxing
• Part 3: Electronics
• Part 4: Update & burning the bootloaders
• Part 5: Pulley & enclosure assembly
• Part 6: Y Stage Assembly
• Part 7: X Stage Assembly
• Part 8: X/Y Stage Installation
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IMAX theaters have become an increasingly important part of the movie business's continuing success over the past few years, as theaters have realized that (1) you can't "pirate" the IMAX experience and (2) people are often willing to pay more for it. But, it appears that at least one theater began to wonder why it had to pay IMAX so much for such an offering, and decided to set out on its own to build a competitor. The only problem is that this theater, Cinemark, has been a customer of IMAX, so now IMAX is suing Cinemark for trade secret violations and breach of contract (sent in by Eric Goldman).

The details of the case certainly look like a business deal gone bad, and also involve Cinemark preemptively going to Texas (of course) to file a patent action against IMAX, asking the court to make clear that it does not infringe on IMAX's patents. There may very well be breach of contract issues involved here, so IMAX may have a decent case on that front. But what's more interesting is the question of whether or not there are trade secret violations here. We don't talk about trade secret protections as much around here, because they really don't come up that often. But IMAX is claiming that it shared proprietary trade secret info with Cinemark as part of their relationship, and that info was used by Cinemark to build its competing service.

Perhaps much more interesting, however, is the fact that, at least according to the IMAX lawsuit, the Cinemark XD quality has been reviewed poorly compared to IMAX (I looked around and actually found the reviews to be mixed, with many saying that the two are comparable in terms of experience). Cinemark is a much bigger company than IMAX, and had direct access to all of their technology -- and, even so, at least some are saying that the end result doesn't measure up. I'm reminded again of how silly it is to claim that big companies can always "steal" good ideas from smaller ones. It's simply not that easy. Beyond just the basic quality issues, IMAX really has built up a great brand name, and many people do think specifically about going to see "IMAX films." Cinemark can chip into that, but it's going to take a lot of marketing effort. And, really, what's wrong with a bit of competition? IMAX has had the market to itself for years, and some competition between two different methods of "immersive" movie-going experiences seems like it should only create a better situation for consumers.

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Britain's cops have the largest DNA database in the world, and it's full of innocent people who were arrested but not charged, or charged but not convicted (the EU's Court of Human Rights have ordered this practice to stop, but the cops refuse to comply with the law -- their latest dodge is to keep innocents' DNA for six years). Now an inquiry that begins today claims that police are "routinely arresting people" that they know they can't convict of any crime, simply to get their DNA into the database.

The highly critical report from the government's advisory body on the development of human genetics is published as the number of innocent people on the database is disclosed to be far higher than previously thought ? nearing 1 million.

The commission says the policy of routinely adding the DNA profiles of all those arrested has led to a highly disproportionate impact on different ethnic groups and the stigmatisation of young black men, with the danger of their being seen as "an 'alien wedge' of criminality"...

The chairman of the commission, Prof Jonathan Montgomery, said: "It's now become pretty routine to take DNA samples on arrest. So large numbers of people on the DNA database will be there not because they have been convicted, but because they've been arrested."

He said the commission had received evidence from a former police superintendent that it was now the norm to arrest offenders for everything possible. "It is apparently understood by serving police officers that one of the reasons, if not the reason, for the change in practice is so that the DNA of the offender can be obtained," said Montgomery, adding that it would be a matter of very great concern if this was now a widespread practice.

Police routinely arresting people to get DNA, inquiry claims (Image: DNA Molecule display, Oxford University, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from net_efekt's Flickr stream)

MikeChino writes "The much-hyped Solar Impulse airplane just completed its first runway test, paving the way for a 20-to-25-day trip around the world next year. Conceived by Bertrand Piccard, the single-pilot plane successfully used its four solar powered motors to taxi around the runway. If all goes according to plan the plane will be able to fly day and night without fuel, signaling a bright future for solar-powered flight."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Striking images from Jun Takahashi's "Undercover Grace" show in Tokyo.

UNDERCOVER ?GRACE? (via JWZ)

A huge amount of email from the East Anglia Climate Research Unit was hacked and released onto the web, causing much rejoicing from the climate change denialists. They read through the corpus of email and found that the scientists working on climate change often have substantive disagreements with one another, which they debate vigorously in email, and cited this as evidence of a conspiracy to cover up dissent and present a scientific consensus on climate change.

Futurismic's Tom Marcinko does a great job of putting this in context, rounding up several links to other good commentators around the web. In a nutshell: science is about the advancement of competing theories and the evaluation of these theories in light of evidence. The East Anglia Climate Research Unit's scientists disagreed in some particulars, and used peer-review to resolve them (and continue to do so). No one is paying them to cover up evidence that climate change isn't real or isn't caused by humans -- but they are conducting science the way that scientists do.

Smart enough to hack, not sophisticated enough to appreciate the daily give-and-take of how science works-is that how we nonscientists are going to approach critical issues? Maybe we can do better than that.

Those hacked climate e-mails: Good scientists, poor conspirators

Using photos and satellite images, the Sweet Juniper blog documents the "pathways of desire" in Detroit -- the streets and sidewalks that Detroiters carved out of the snow indicating where they'd like to go, rather than where the city expects them to go. I read somewhere (I think it was Peter Ackroyd's incredible London: A Biography) that after the Great Fire, Christopher Wren tried to lay out the city in a regular grid, but that Londoners continued to walk along where the old winding streets had been, using the old, unburned stone church-spires to navigate them, walking through the construction sites, forcing the streets back to their old places.

This past winter, the snow stayed so long we almost forgot what the ground looked like. In Detroit, there is little money for plowing; after a big storm, the streets and sidewalks disappear for days. Soon new pathways emerge, side streets get dug out one car-width wide. Bootprints through parks veer far from the buried sidewalks. Without the city to tell him where to walk, the pilgrim who first sets out in fresh snowfall creates his own path. Others will likely follow, or forge their own paths as needed.

In the heart of summer, too, it becomes clear that the grid laid down by the ancient planners is now irrelevant. In vacant lots between neighborhoods and the attractions of thoroughfares, bus stops and liquor stores, well-worn paths stretch across hundreds of vacant lots. Gaston Bachelard called these les chemins du désir: pathways of desire. Paths that weren't designed but eroded casually away by individuals finding the shortest distance between where they are coming from and where they intend to go.

Streets With No Name (via Making Light)

Researchers at UC San Diego say that being covered in Staphylococci bacteria "blocked a vital step in a cascade of events that led to inflammation," after an injury.

By studying mice and human cells, they found the harmless bacteria did this by making a molecule called lipoteichoic acid or LTA, which acted on keratinocytes - the main cell types found in the outer layer of the skin.

The LTA keeps the keratinocytes in check, stopping them from mounting an aggressive inflammatory response.

Head of the research Professor Richard Gallo said: "The exciting implication of the work is that it provides a molecular basis to understand the hygiene hypothesis and has uncovered elements of the wound repair response that were previously unknown.

Dirt can be good for children, say scientists

"The very design of the federal assistance to A.I.G. was that tens of billions of dollars of government money was funneled inexorably and directly to A.I.G.'s counterparties." A necropsy of the AIG deal, in the NYT. Spoiler: we lose. (lifted from Mitch Kapor)

Seach and TV/online ad behemoth Google today announced an agreement to subscribe to TiVo's user data. "Here's where the fear and loathing come in. Google promises that advertisers pay only when their ads are seen. But TiVo lets viewers fast-forward through commercials. Now, with TiVo's data, collected from millions of digital video recorders across the country, Google can tell exactly which of those commercials are being bypassed."

Joceyln sez, "The annual Olympus BioScapes contest consistently yields amazing microscopic-scapes and this year a bonus: a glandular font, courtesy of Dr. Ma. Ivy Clemente's Glandular structures from Fibroadenoma and Nodular Prostatic Hyperplasia cases. I know what font I'm using on my holiday cards now..."

Specimen: Glandular structures from Fibroadenoma and Nodular Prostatic Hyperplasia cases (Thanks, Jocelyn!)

Looks like the courts got one right concerning a trademark claim involving famed movie dog Rin Tin Tin. It seems that some movie makers wanted to make a movie about Rin Tin Tin, which seemed reasonable enough. However, Rin Tin Tin Inc., a company that continues to breed "Rin Tin Tin dogs" for movies objected to the use of the name, saying that since they held the trademark on Rin Tin Tin, the movie was infringing. Thankfully, the judge disagreed, noting that the movie is about Rin Tin Tin, and thus was descriptive and a perfectly reasonable use of the name.

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A double shot of timewastey STAR WARS funs: Band Names (hashtag's here, @johnmoe started it), and Facebook Updates (via @bonniegrrl )

paltemalte writes "Microsoft and various retailers have teamed up to bring you cashback on purchases made via Bings price comparison feature. There is a little snag though — it seems that when you have a Bing cookie living in your browser, some retailers will quote you a higher price than if you come with no Bing cookie in your system."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Despite some sweet talk from Hollywood about how important ACTA and its secret negotiations are to America (and, once again, no, the secrecy is not at all "normal," as some industry lawyers would have you believe), it looks like some Senators are finally beginning to question how ACTA is being handled. Senators Bernie Sanders and Sherrod Brown have sent a letter to US Trade Rep Ron Kirk asking for ACTA documents to be made public. The letter points out that "the public has a right to monitor and express informed views on proposals of such magnitude" especially considering that "there are concerns about the impact of ACTA on the privacy and civil rights of individuals, on the supply of products under the first sale doctrine, on the markets for legitimate generic medicines, and on consumers and innovation in general." The letter also takes on the bogus claims of state secrets in protecting ACTA documents:

We are surprised and unpersuaded by assertions that disclosures of basic information about the negotiation would present a risk to the national security of the United States, particularly as regards documents that are shared with all countries in the negotiations, and with dozens of representatives of large corporations. We are concerned that the secrecy of such information reflects a desire to avoid potential criticism of substantive provisions in ACTA by the public, the group who will be most affected by the agreement. Such secrecy has already undermined public confidence in the ACTA process.... We firmly believe that the public has a right to know the contents of the proposals being considered under ACTA, just as they have the right to read the text of bills pending before Congress."

Unfortunately, these are just two Senators. Supporters of ACTA likely have many more who will blindly fight to keep ACTA secret and get it approved with little or no substantive input from those it will impact most.

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Tasering just isn't for 10 year olds, a UK man invented a lobster zapper that some feel is more humane than just tossing them in boiling water. I would like to try this electric lobster they speak of. Looking at the photo, it looks like two big metal plates that "zap". The company is called "CrustaStun".

A company in the United Kingdom is about to lift the lid on a device that zaps lobster with electricity to kill them, and the inventor said Wednesday his humane alternative to boiling is about to give the entire industry a jolt.

British entrepreneur Simon Buckhaven said the CrustaStun system, developed over the past decade by his company Studham Technologies Limited, near London, kills the lobster with an electric charge, so the crustacean feels no "pain or distress."

The application of a stun (110 Volts - 2-5 amps) causes an immediate interruption in the functioning of the nervous system of the shellfish. By interrupting the nerve function, the shellfish (be it Crab. Lobster or other) is unable to receive stimuli and thus by definition, cannot feel pain or suffer distress (Dr. Dave Robb 2000 - Bristol University - paper on sentience in Crustacea, Baker 1975, Jane Smith 1991, Bateson 2000, Sherwin 2000 & Gregory & Lumsden 2000). The prolonged application of the stun causes a permanent disruption which kills the shellfish.

Sounds tasty! This isn't the only lobster tech from Crustapreneurs...

In short, Hathaway took the idea of providing people with pre-shucked lobster, researched it and found that the government had been looking for ways to extend the shelf life of foods without freezing or irradiation for years. He discovered there are only two companies in the world that make machines that use extremely high water pressure to process foods and give them extended shelf life. (The government applied that process to its MREs, or meals ready to eat, for the military.) About a year and a half ago, Hathaway learned that this process also separated shellfish meat from the shell and that several Canadian lobster processors were using this system. Hathaway came up with the money for a machine. He started the new business by qualifying for a block grant from the state (which had a matching fund) and through private investors. Then, instead of having an architect design a fancy, state-of-the-art building on the coast, he decided to go back to his roots. He took a space in the nearly empty, old Etonic sneakers factory in Richmond, a slightly down-at-the-heels river town in central Maine between Wiscasset and Augusta, an area with people needing work. In April 2006, he opened his new company, Shucks Maine Lobster.

Buckhaven, meet Hathaway.

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"An expert commission of African leaders today announced their plan for comprehensive reform of the rock band U2." (via Ethan Zuckerman)

T-shirt: Freshjive (via Raymond Roker)

A fashionable gentleman wearing 15 live lizards strapped to his chest was arrested by fashion police at LAX as he attempted to enter the country from Australia. US Customs agents said something about "smuggling," and claim the two geckos, eleven skinks, and two monitor lizards were worth a total of $8,500.

Wow, this is interesting... Hobbymedia writes -

Yesterday I went to Tokyo MAKE Meeting 04 with Gianluca Martino: a member of the Arduino team. He has been super popular and he really appreciated the Japanese Arduino scene. During the show Gakken displayed the prototype of the JAPANINO (Arduino clone). It will be released next spring in the Otona no Kagaku (in Japanese it means “Science toys for adults”) magazine series with a Persistence of Vision plastic Toy with color LEDs. The price tag will be less than 3500 yen (ca$35) and it will help a lot of people to get into the “Makers” scene. I’m doing consulting for Gakken on this project so I can not reveal all details but this release will definitely make the Japanese Arduino scene the biggest in the World as in a couple of months the magazine will probably sell what the original Arduino sold worldwide in the last years. As all Otona no Kagaku issues there will be also a magazine with many information about original Arduino and simple guide for beginners. There will be a Japanese IDE downloadable from Gakken website but foreign users can use the standard Arduino software.

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Last week, we noted that an attempt to let hackers crack e-voting machines in Brazil failed, but Slashdot points out that someone did use some Van Eck phreaking to figure out who people voted for. While that's not quite the same as hacking the results of an election, it could lead to questions about privacy and how anonymous voting really is. Of course, to some extent, this has always been a risk with e-voting systems, but it hasn't received that much attention.

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There are woodcarvers, and then there's Gary Tatman, of Glen Burnie, Maryland. Gary explains his incredible work on Hemmings Auto Blog:

You're correct in your assumptions- these carvings start out as a block. I use the Internet motorsports archives to obtain enough photos of the project car for detailed areas such as interiors, engine compartments, suspensions etc. Once all data and photos are assembled, a ratio has to be determined for scaling (in reference to actual body size). Then all areas can be measured and used in the ratio to determine the actual size of the pieces. Once this is accomplished, the design needs to be drawn on the block, for references while shaping takes place.

Fast Wood

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What could be cooler than pop-up books dioramas? How about if they were life-sized? That's exactly what designers Liddy Scheffknecht and Armin B. Wagner have created with their pop-up office. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like the furniture is strong enough to use, but what fun! [via neatorama]

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An anonymous reader writes to tell us that finding malicious code might have just become a little harder. Last week at the ACM Conference on Computer and Communications Security, security researchers Joshua Mason, Sam Small, Fabian Monrose, and Greg MacManus presented a method they developed to generate English shell code [PDF]. Using content from Wikipedia and other public works to train their engine, they convert arbitrary x86 shell code into sentences that read like spam, but are natively executable. "In this paper we revisit the assumption that shell code need be fundamentally different in structure than non-executable data. Specifically, we elucidate how one can use natural language generation techniques to produce shell code that is superficially similar to English prose. We argue that this new development poses significant challenges for in-line payload-based inspection (and emulation) as a defensive measure, and also highlights the need for designing more efficient techniques for preventing shell code injection attacks altogether."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Reader Kasey Krehbiel alerts us to some news coverage of the FCC's recently released list of seven "critical gaps" in reaching universal broadband (pdf) and is rightfully surprised to note that a lack of competition in the marketplace is not on the list. Such an absence makes you wonder if the FCC is really paying attention. Most of the other "gaps" would quickly disappear if there were meaningful competition in the market -- but we've never had a real policy of encouraging broadband competition in the US. Instead, policy has mostly been driven by incumbents who have lobbied hard for exactly the opposite.

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Interesting quote from today's big education announcement (MAKE is part of it!). Reminds of when Dean Kamen says "We are what we celebrate"...

Mr. Obama said academics should be receiving an athletic-like focus. And as he presented a set of initiatives intended to improve the science and math scores of American students, he announced that the White House would begin holding an annual science fair starting next year.

“If you win the N.C.A.A. championships, you come to the White House. Well, if you’re a young person and you’ve produced the best experiment or design, the best hardware or software, you ought to be recognized for that achievement, too,” Mr. Obama said. “Scientists and engineers ought to stand side by side with athletes and entertainers as role models, and here at the White House, we’re going to lead by example.”

He added, “We’re going to show young people how cool science can be.”

Mr. Obama presented the “Educate to Innovate” campaign on Monday. Sally Ride, the first American woman in space, was on hand, along with students and dozens of scientists and other administration officials. After speaking for about 15 minutes, the president inspected the “Cougar Cannon,” a device made by two students that is intended to scoop up and toss moon rocks.

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I've been working on microscope sets for Maker Shed. Until now, the only microscope set the Shed carried was the Thames & Kosmos TK2. That's a decent set, at under $100, but it's still a toy. We wanted some better sets, so I put together three, which we imaginatively named the Basic Microscope Set, Intermediate Microscope Set, and Advanced Microscope Set. The sets differ only by microscope is included; the accessories are all the same.

I've always been annoyed by the accessory selection in typical microscope sets, which seem to be chosen for cheapness rather than usefulness. A typical set includes a few prepared slides, which are usually of such poor quality that they're not worth having. Most sets include a "cleaning kit," which again is cheap and of limited use. (If you keep your microscope covered with a plastic bag, the optics should remain clean indefinitely. When they do get dirty, you can clean them with a soft cotton cloth and a drop or two of window cleaner.) And you usually get maybe a dozen blank slides and a a few coverslips, which is barely enough to get started. In other words, the typical accessory set is pathetic, but has the advantage from the seller's point of view of being cheap to include and they make for an impressive-looking list and product image. I knew we could do better.

When I sat down to make a list of accessories to include, I realized that I didn't need to re-invent the wheel. When I started work on the forensics book, I bought a microscope (not coincidentally, the Shed now carries that model, including the objective upgrades). When I ordered the microscope, I also ordered accessories, so all I had to do was check back to see which accessories I ordered with the microscope.

First up were slides and coverslips. I actually ordered three gross of slides (six boxes of 72) and several ounces of different coverslips (at about 100 to the ounce). That's obviously overkill for a set, so I decided to include one box of 72 slides and an ounce of coverslips. Glass, in both cases. Yeah, glass breaks, but plastic slides are a pain and plastic coverslips are really poor optically. For slide making, I included plastic forceps, which are better than metal ones for handling coverslips and most specimens, a pack of ten polyethylene pipettes, and bottle of glycerol for making temporary wet mounts. I was going to include a bottle of permanent mounting fluid, but the good stuff is expensive and would needlessly boost the price of the set. A small bottle of colorless Sally Hansen's Hard As Nails from the drugstore costs only a couple bucks and works about as well. No one ever thinks about how they're going to store the permanent slides they make, so I included a slide storage box. Oh, and because a beginning microscopist needs lots of interesting things to look at, I included one of our Microbe Motel kits, so they can grow their own microorganisms. (Yeah, the name is cute, but it includes everything you need to culture bacteria and other microorganisms. Real stuff, not shoddy plastic junk.)

I dithered about which stains and supplemental reagents, if any, to include. I have more than 30 biological stains and reagents at my microscope workstation, but real biostains and reagents are relatively expensive, so including even a few of them would boost the prices of the sets for something that some people wouldn't use. Then I was struck by a cunning plan. I headed for my local strip mall.

At Walgreens, I scored one ounce bottles of iodine tincture and gentian violet and a pint bottle of ethanol for about $7 total. At the supermarket, another couple of bucks got me a box of four food coloring dyes, two or three of which are actually useful biostains, and a bottle of distilled white vinegar (acetic acid). And at the pet store next door, I picked up a small bottle of methylene blue for a couple bucks. So, for a grand total of about $12, I ended up with a pretty decent starter set of biological stains and reagents, including everything necessary to do basic biostaining and even Gram staining. Including all that stuff in the microscope kits would boost their prices by a lot more than $12, so I decided it made more sense just to recommend kit buyers make a quick trip to the local mall. Our beancounters probably hate that, but set buyers should love it.

Check out all of our microscopes and sets in the Maker Shed Science section.
Check out our Choosing a Microscope article and all of the other labs and tutorials in the Make: Science Room.

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A jar containing two of Galileo's missing fingers has been located. The jar containing the digits has been missing for more than a century. An individual purchased them at auction and delivered them to the Museum of the History of Science in Florence, Italy. The two fingers will join a third finger (image below) and a tooth that were removed from Galileo's corpse in 1737.

The museum plans to display the fingers and tooth in March 2010, after it re-opens following a renovation, Galluzzi said.

The museum has had the third Galileo finger since 1927, so the digits will be reunited for the first time in centuries, he added.

Removing body parts from the corpse was an echo of a practice common with saints, whose digits, tongues and organs were revered by Catholics as relics with sacred powers.

"Galileo's missing fingers found in jar"

In 1954, LIFE magazine sent their movies editor Mary Leatherbee and photographer Peter Stackpole to the Bahamas where Disney was filming 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. See a marvelous gallery of photos over at the LIFE site. Above, the film's director Richard Flesicher. "These distinctive suits, as the original captions noted, were a technical problem because they 'had to be invented to clothe the fabled Nautilus crew-- Victorian-looking yet practical and self-contained... the way Jules Verne imagined it for his mythical hero, Captain Nemo.'" 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea photo gallery

The guys at Lumenlab used one of their RoBLOKS 3D deposition printers to print white ink on a black T-shirt.

RoBLOKS 3DP **ALPHA**, 3D deposition printing; fun with goo!

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