Vainglorious Coward writes "When UK hacker and Asperger's sufferer Gray McKinnon lost the judicial review of his case it seemed likely that he would be extradited to the US to face charges of hacking almost a hundred systems causing $700,000 worth of damage. Today the UK home secretary rejected his last-ditch attempt to avoid extradition adding that 'his extradition to the United States must proceed forthwith.' McKinnon's relatives are expressing concerns for his health, with his lawyer going so far as to claim that extradition would make the 43-year-old's death 'virtually certain.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

British legislators have created new crimes at a rate of one a day since 1997.

RunRevKev writes "The unveiling of Revolution 4.0 has sparked a debate on ZDNet about whether programming is being dumbed down. The new version of the software uses an English-syntax that requires 90 per cent less code than traditional languages. A descendant of Apple's Hypercard, Rev 4 is set to '...empower people who would never have attempted programming to create successful applications.' ZDNet report that "One might reasonably hope that this product inspires students in the appropriate way and gets them more interested in programming.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Members of the American Chemical Society show you how a pop-up turkey timer works.

The Chemistry of Thanksgiving

More:
Lots more chemistry on MAKE in the Make: Science Room

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Holiday projects | Digg this!

An anonymous reader writes "CNET UK has written a head-to-head piece entitled Apple Newton vs Apple iPhone. Despite the Newton being released some 10 years ago, and despite the iPhone being a phone, not a tablet, the site's editors believe the Newton is the more innovative of the two Apple products. The two devices were tied over four rounds, but in the 'Special Powers' element, where the iPhone was praised for its iPod capability, the Newton countered with its ability to play MP3s, connect to iTunes and 'its ability to work as a phone' because 'Blam! Not even the iPhone can do that.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My latest Guardian column looks at Peter Mandelson's new "Digital Economy Bill," a sweeping piece of proposed British legislation that would give Mandelson broad powers to act as the Pirate-Finder General, with the implausible aim of reducing UK file-sharing by 70 percent in one year.

Mandelson argues that Britain's Digital Economy will be based on the contrafactual premise of a steady decrease in computer speed, drive capacity, technical competence, network versatility and network ubiquity. Of course, the real digital economy is in those British companies that figure out how to thrive whether or not copying occurs - companies that use networks to reduce their costs, reach larger customer bases, and provide services whose demand and profitability grow with network use, companies such as Last.fm or Moo.com.

These companies' businesses are inconceivable without the net, but they also risk being collateral damage in Mandelson's war on the British internet. Just increasing the liability for copyright infringement (and creating a duty to police user-submitted files for infringement) could bankrupt either company overnight. How would Moo sell business cards with your personal photos on them if they could be sued into oblivion should those photos turn out to infringe copyright?

Mandelson is standing up for the Analogue Economy, the economy premised on the no-longer-technically-true idea that copying is hard. Companies based on the outdated notion of inherent difficulty of copying must change or they will die. Because copying isn't hard. Copying isn't going to get harder. This moment, right now, 2009, this is as hard as copying will be for the rest of recorded history. Next year, copying will be easier. And the year after that. And the year after that.

Why does Mandelson favour the Analogue Economy over the Digital?

Dan Bull (he of the musical open letter to Lily Allen about copyright) has recorded another open letter to Peter Mandelson, the UK Business Secretary who's set himself up to be Pirate-Finder General, with nearly unlimited powers to enforce copyright.

Dan Bull - Dear Mandy [an open letter to Lord Mandelson] (Thanks, Toby!)

Senseaware is FedEx's cellular-connected sensor-package. Drop it in your super-important packages (they're targeting it at people who ship human organs around) (Matthew from FedEx sez, "We're not targeting shipping of organs. It's life sciences. So that's pharma, medical devices/equipment, diagnostic kits and samples.") and for $120/month it will tell you everything about that package -- where it is at this very second, whether it's been dropped, how hot/cold it is, and so on. Science fiction plot-device ahoy! Also, check out the awesomely jargony product description from the press-release:

fedexvideo("http://cache.mediacenter.fedex.designcdt.com", "/sites/all/themes/fedex/FlowPlayerCustom.swf", "/sites/default/files/videos/SenseAware RGB color.flv", "http://cache.mediacenter.fedex.designcdt.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/video_screengrab/videos/screengrabs/SenseAware RGB color_1.jpg", 0)

Available in the spring of 2010, SenseAware is an open, highly adaptive and easy-to-use sensor information sharing platform. It is a multi-modal solution that will serve customers who desire near real-time visibility and insight into their shipments. SenseAware will provide business decision makers the ability to quickly and easily collaborate on many types of information data across their global supply chain.

SenseAware is permitted by the Federal Aviation Administration to be used during flight on FedEx aircraft and will allow customers to monitor in-transit conditions during ground transportation.

A SenseAware device riding with a FedEx shipment can provide the following information:

* Precise temperature readings
* A shipment's exact location
* When a shipment is opened or if the contents have been exposed to light
* Real-time alerts and analytics between trusted parties regarding the above vital signs of a shipment

SenseAware powered by FedEx (via OhGizmo)

An anonymous reader writes "The FreeBSD Release Engineering Team is pleased to announce the availability of FreeBSD 8 stable release. Some of the highlights: Xen DomU support, network stack virtualization, stack-smashing protection, TTY layer rewrite, much improved ZFS v13, a new USB stack, multicast updates including IGMPv3, vimage — a new virtualization container, Fedora 10 Linux binary compatibility to run Linux software such as Flash 10 and others, trusted BSD MAC (Mandatory Access Control), and rewritten NFS client/server introducing NFSv4. Inclusion of improved device mmap() extensions will allow the technical implementation of a 64-bit Nvidia display driver for the x86-64 platform. The GNOME desktop environment has been upgraded to 2.26.3, KDE to 4.3.1, and Firefox to 3.5.5. There is also an in-depth look at the new features and major architectural changes in FreeBSD 8.0, including a screenshot tour, upgrade instructions are posted here. You can grab the latest version from FreeBSD from the mirrors (main ftp server) or via BitTorrent. Please consider making a donation and help us to spread the word by tweeting and blogging about the drive and release."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two bits of lighthearted holiday history from my old friends at mental_floss.

About The Presidential Turkey Pardon

The first official National Thanksgiving Turkey was presented by members of the Poultry and Egg National Board to Harry Truman in 1947. According to some reports, they ate him. Not that it necessarily matters, since the turkeys who get pardoned don't live for very long anyway. According to The New York Times, "Whether the turkeys come from a shelter or the White House, they don't live very long. Most adopted turkeys are commercially bred broad-breasted whites, genetically disposed to grow to a marketable size in about four months. Even on a diet of only a couple of cups of turkey feed a day, they become obese. They usually develop leg problems, congestive heart failure and arthritis."

About Black Friday

In 1939, the Retail Dry Goods Association warned Franklin Roosevelt that if the holiday season wouldn't begin until after Americans celebrated Thanksgiving on the traditional final Thursday in November, retail sales would go in the tank. Ever the iconoclast, Roosevelt saw an easy solution to this problem: he moved Thanksgiving up by a week. Roosevelt didn't make the announcement until late October, and by then most Americans had already made their holiday travel plans. Many rebelled and continued to celebrate Thanksgiving on its "real" date while derisively referring to the impostor holiday as "Franksgiving." State governments didn't know which Thanksgiving to observe, so some of them took both days off. In short, it was a bit of a mess.

Mental_Floss: The Somewhat Dark History of the Presidential Turkey Pardon & A Brief History of Black Friday.

Image courtesy Flickr user joiseyshowaa, via CC.

Dr Peter Watts, a PhD biologist and a hell of a science fiction writer, talks about what it means that a bunch of climate scientists

Science doesn't work despite scientists being asses. Science works, to at least some extent, because scientists are asses. Bickering and backstabbing are essential elements of the process. Haven't any of these guys ever heard of "peer review"?

There's this myth in wide circulation: rational, emotionless Vulcans in white coats, plumbing the secrets of the universe, their Scientific Methods unsullied by bias or emotionalism. Most people know it's a myth, of course; they subscribe to a more nuanced view in which scientists are as petty and vain and human as anyone (and as egotistical as any therapist or financier), people who use scientific methodology to tamp down their human imperfections and manage some approximation of objectivity.

But that's a myth too. The fact is, we are all humans; and humans come with dogma as standard equipment. We can no more shake off our biases than Liz Cheney could pay a compliment to Barack Obama. The best we can do-- the best science can do-- is make sure that at least, we get to choose among competing biases.

That's how science works. It's not a hippie love-in; it's rugby. Every time you put out a paper, the guy you pissed off at last year's Houston conference is gonna be laying in wait. Every time you think you've made a breakthrough, that asshole supervisor who told you you needed more data will be standing ready to shoot it down. You want to know how the Human Genome Project finished so far ahead of schedule? Because it was the Human Genome projects, two competing teams locked in bitter rivalry, one led by J. Craig Venter, one by Francis Collins -- and from what I hear, those guys did not like each other at all.

Because As We All Know, The Green Party Runs the World. (via Charlie Stross)

[Image: "Earth Egg," from the CC-licensed Flickr stream of azrainman]

Cory told you earlier this week about the recent hacking at the University of East Anglia's Climate Research Unit, and the subsequent distribution of emails that some people say prove a global conspiracy to promote anthropogenic climate change contrary to evidence.

I wanted to get a handle on this before I posted, so I've been reading coverage and analysis for the last few days. Here's a few key points I'm picking up...

1) Evidence of vast conspiracy is sorely lacking. Ditto evidence disproving the scientific consensus on climate change. This isn't the "nail in the coffin" of anything. However, the emails do prompt some legit questions about transparency and how professional researchers respond to criticism in the age of the armchair scientist.

In fact, the whole reason the CRU seems to have been hacked is that the Unit was fighting off requests for access to the data sets it used to put together its climate models. This is one of the issues that gets discussed in the e-mails. Basically, some of the CRU researchers didn't want to release the data to people who weren't trained scientists because they were tired of spending their time fighting with bloggers and wanted to focus on research. Which is great, except for two things: First, from what I'm reading it looks like there might have been some ethical lapses in how the researchers went about blocking the release of data; Second, when you block the release of data, no matter what your real reason is, people will assume it's because you're hiding something nefarious. One of the positive outcomes of this whole hacking debacle is that it's forcing some discussion about when circling the wagons becomes protectionism, and might lead to the climate change data sets becoming more open source. Frankly, I think that's a good thing.

2) Theft is bad. But if you're a researcher who can explain context to the general public, decrying theft shouldn't be your primary objective right now.

This goes back to the whole transparency issue. This would-be scandal ought to be a learning opportunity--a chance for scientists to educate the public on the evidence for climate change. And while there is plenty of that going on, there's also a lot of people making arguments like, "we shouldn't even be talking about the content of the emails because they are stolen property." Well, you're right, they are stolen property and, technically, should be left private. But you know what? Skeptics of climate change are using these emails, no matter what you think. If experts and researchers refuse to address them, it's just going to mean that the only narrative the public hears is the one that thinks the emails are proof of conspiracy. Not helpful.

3) The Mainstream Media is covering this. They just might not be covering it the way you want, and that's probably a good thing.

I've heard from several people who have asked me why MM isn't on top of this story, and read several complaints to that effect on blogs. It comes both from people who think the emails are proof of conspiracy, and those who think there's absolutely nothing wrong in the emails at all. But I've been reading great coverage in the New York Times and Washington Post (both the official publications and attached blogs), and elsewhere. In that light, I kind of interpret the complaints as, "The MM isn't saying what I want them to say." OK. That's good. Because the story is a bit more nuanced than either opposing position would have you believe and MM coverage is reflecting that.

And now, I bring you a whole crap-ton of links.

Basically, everything I say above is a synthesis of what I've read here. I'm including all of these so you know I'm not just pulling this out of my tookus, so you can delve more deeply into this stuff if you want and because it's all pretty interesting if you're wonky like that. And I bet you are.

• FiveThirtyEight: I Read Through 160,000,000 Bytes of Hacked Files And All I Got Was This Lousy E-Mail

• openDemocracy: The Real Scandal in the Hacked Climate Change Emails Controversy

• Ed Darrell Purloined: CRU e-mails on climate science: One scientist pleads for accuracy and Smoking guns in the CRU stolen e-mails: A real tale of real ethics in science

• The Guardian: Global warming rigged? Here's the email I'd need to see

• Wired: Hacked E-Mails Fuel Global Warming Debate

• Reuters: ANALYSIS-Hacked climate e-mails awkward, not game changer

• Energy Collective: Do Leaked Emails Undermine the Scientific Consensus?

• Energy Collective: An Interesting Gripe

• Climate Progress: Here's What We Know So Far

• Climate Progress: Let's Look At the Illegally Hacked Emails In More Detail

• Washington Post Capital Weather Gang Blog: Two Parts in a Three-Part Series on Expert Opinions on Climate Change Emails (third part not yet published)

• Climate Audit: Curry on the Credibility of Climate Research

• Washington Post proper: Two Articles on the Hacking of the Files and Its Aftermath

• Science magazine Science Insider blog: In Climate Hack Story, Could Talk of Cover-Up Be as Serious as Crime?

• Yale Climate Media Forum: Climate Scientists' E-mails Hacked, Posted; So What Does it All Mean for the Climate?

• New York Times: Hacked E-Mail Is New Fodder for Climate Dispute

• NYT Dot Earth blog: Two Posts Plus Expert Commentary

• National Review Online: Climate Change Scandal

• Real Climate: Two Posts + Tons More In Comments, Responses from Scientists Whose Emails Got Hacked

CWmike writes "Apple wants a federal judge to shut down Psystar's Mac clone operation and order the company to pay more than $2.1 million in damages, according to court documents. The move was the first by Apple since US District Court Judge William Alsup ruled that Psystar violated Apple's copyright and the Digital Millennium Copyright Act when it installed Mac OS X on clones it sold. Alsup's Nov. 13 order, which granted Apple's motion for summary judgment and quashed Psystar's similar request, was a crushing blow to the Florida company's legal campaign. In a motion filed Monday, Apple asked Alsup to grant a permanent injunction that would force Psystar to stop selling any computer bundled with Mac OS X; using, selling or even owning software that lets it crack Apple's OS encryption key to trick Mac OS X to run on non-Apple hardware; and 'inducing, aiding or inducing others in infringing Apple's copyright.'" Groklaw has summarized Apple's request as well, and noted that Apple has also filed a motion to dismiss Psystar's litigation in Florida (or transfer it to California, where the above injunction was filed).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Over the years, starting in 1994, I've written Thanksgiving messages. Essays, lists, whatever. Every year the message is the same. Thanks. It's a message that never goes out of style.

Thanksgiving is the best holiday. You don't have to believe in any particular god to be part of it, or even believe in god at all.

This holiday includes everyone. All you have to do to participate is be thankful.

We have other inclusive holidays. July 4. Veterans Day. Martin Luther King's birthday. But Thanksgiving is the one that's about thanks.

This being the year of Twitter lists, I made a list of the people on Twitter who I'm thankful for. It's a dynamic thing. I'll be adding to it over the next few days but I'm not going to point to it though, because it'll be a short-lived thing.

Rather than make a big list here on the blog, I've whittled my Thanksgiving thought down to one idea that I'd like to express thanks for. The mystery of life.

At some point in childhood we realize we don't have a clue what existence is about, or the limits of existence. I think everyone reaches this point, whether or not they believe in god or an after-life. I think religion is a way to bundle up the confusion in a box and put it Over There so we can get on with living.

Every so often something happens, a family member or friend dies, and that makes the confusion come front and center. And once in a lifetime someone as close as a father dies, and that floors you. You get knocked down, and as you come back up, you're not the same person you were before. The mystery of life and the question of existence after life, they're always there, but they loom much larger after a loss.

I am not a member of the church of "I Know There's Nothing" after death. My father, however, was a member. He said he knew there was nothing.

Me, I'm a mystic about What It All Means.

I celebrate the mystery of it.

I think, by extrapolation, that every species thinks it's the highest form of life. Largely because they can't experience the existence of higher forms of life, even when they're there.

An example. Think about a bird. We think we're more conscious and more intelligent than a bird. Maybe we are. But is the bird aware that we exist? Not sure about that. Maybe we're like weather to birds? Or earthquakes or locusts. Does the bird acknowlege our superior intellect? More doubtful. Now just go down the hierarchy a few steps and sooner or later you reach a species that isn't aware that we exist. And assume it's true that we are superior, that means that a superior form exists for them that they are not aware of. So now put your focus on the human species. How could it be that we are the most advanced species there is? That would seem pretty lucky. And if we weren't the most advanced, if there were superior beings walking among us, would we even be aware of them? I think we wouldn't.

8/28/96: "Do they have bee priests and doctors to provide spiritual context, or to shrug their shoulders and say that nothing can be done?"

And with mysteries that we can identify but have no clue how to explain (like the conflicting theories of the universe that apply in black holes) -- is it impossible that there are species in the universe who have figured it out? And if they have, what capabilities does that knowledge give them that we can't even imagine?

Think back to the human species before Einstein formulated the Theory of Relativity. In some ways we haven't changed, but in others, we're a whole new species just because of that one discovery.

Physicists believe there is a theory that pulls all existence together into a single framework, and it's not hard to imagine that the knowledge that flows from that theory will lift our species to a new level. Maybe right there, at that moment, we will become a higher form of life? Hard to know until it happens.

Okay, so what does all this mean?

Well, there's an arrogance to saying you know that there's no existence before or after life. That our soul, the core of our being, our awareness, is just wasted when we die. That there is no purpose to living. No purpose at all. It's arrogant to think you know that. Because the fact is you don't know.

It also betrays a pessimism that is all too common in our species. Maybe it's just survivors and refugees like my father who had this pessimism. Hard to know.

I think it's clear that the only rational answer to all the questions that our species is not yet equipped to answer: Who Knows. Put them in a box, over there, close the box and go on living. And once a year, on Thanksgiving Day, thank the box, and hug someone close to you, eat too much food, watch some TV, go for a walk and get ready for Christmas.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

A reader named Jim from Arizona sent us an email a while back about his nine year old son, Schuyler, aka "Doctor Professor," who wanted to join the Make: Money program to fund his DIY, robotics, and electronics projects. At nine, the kid is already teaching Arduino to 4-18 year olds in the Phoenix area.

We were so tickled by the letter, and the precocious Doctor Professor, that we decided to send him a little Maker Shed surprise package. The above video is Schuyler opening the package and gushing over the items inside (and plugging them as great holiday gifts!). Hey, unlike most adults we know, he actually knows how to pronounce "Duemilanove" (or close enough).

That is one enthused kid! We're going to go ahead and imagine that every recipient of a Maker Shed package gets this jacked up over it. (Dad Jim did tell us that he might have withheld the box for a few days to get as much best-behavior out of Schuyler as possible... So he was charged to full anticipatory capacitance by the time the video camera rolled.)

Thanks to Jim for sending us the video. And thanks to the good Doctor for being such a cool kid and spreading the word on open source hardware to a new generation of makers. Let us know how your Make: Money program is going and what sorts of projects you make with all the loot your acquire.

Enjoy! And Happy Thanksgiving from all your pals at Maker Media!

You can find out more about the Make: Money program here.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Maker Shed Store | Digg this!

Every year in New York, Boing Boing buddy Danielle Spencer organizes a Turkey-shaped Jell-O® Mold art competition that rivals the great art showcases of our time -- think of it as the Venice Biennale of holiday-themed foodplay.

The 2009 edition winners have been selected, and Danielle has published critiques and appreciations of each masterpiece. There's an awful lot of je ne sais quoi goin' on. Justin Downs crafted a Jell-o turkey Death Rattle that purrs when you pet it, with an embedded capacitive circuit (inset, at left). Then, there's David Byrne's conceptual baby-food entry. Cindy Sherman's entry sounded tastiest: "white chocolate with chopped candied walnuts filled with cranberry/pomegranate flavored gelatin (no added sugar) with raspberries."

Above, "Live Feed," by The Builders Association:

With the hard drive as proscenium, The Builders Assocation mounts a spectacle that exposes the "transparency" of contemporary technology. The turkey appears to be giving birth to an iPod Nano, which plays--on endless loop--a video of a turkey. We are frozen in time, yet the video evokes remembrances of cluckings past. In this way the Builders brilliantly capture the intersection of synchronic and diachronic axes while forcing us to interrogate our relationship with turkeys and technology.

Turkey-shaped Jell-O® Mold: 2009 Competition

[A note for lawyers: this is just unofficial fun, and Jell-o/Kraft Foods has nothing to do with this, other than having created an iconic and enduring American food ingredient.]

You! Stop! Drop those marshmallows! Before you make a mistake you'll regret, consider this recipe instead.

Grammy Althea's Marshmallow-Free, Awesome-Full Stove Top Sweet Potatoes

You'll Need

• Sweet potatoes, probably about two pounds, peeled and chopped into thick hunks. Two pounds is approximate. You should have enough sweet potatoes, when chopped, to fill your skillet.
• 1 stick of butter
• 1 pound of brown sugar
• Water
• Cast-iron skillet

---

Instructions

1. Fill cast-iron skillet with peeled and chopped sweet potatoes.

2. Add enough water to not-quite-cover the sweet potatoes.

3. Cut stick of butter into pats and add it to the skillet. Add entire 1 lb. bag of brown sugar to the skillet as well.

4. Bring to a boil. Then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about an hour. The liquid should become thick and bubbly, like a gooey delicious tar pit. Sweet potatoes are done when they are soft and glazed-looking.

Image courtesy Flickr user nataliemaynor, via CC

Cellular carriers claim that their contracts offset heavy subsidies on handsets. They claim they'd love to sell phones contract-free at retail--you're just not interested. But there's a problem with this story: these "full price" handsets are grossly overpriced, suggesting that they want consumers in the contract rat trap after all. As hard as it is to prove, discount handsets often reveal the absurdity of list pricing. For example, Motorola's Renew, free with a 2-year agreement, is listed as $160 full-price at T-Mobile. Amazon has it for $70 unlocked, however, and Manufacturer Motorola charges just $50.

JoshuaInNippon writes "A Toshiba employee in western Japan has been arrested on charges of copyright violations for selling software online that breaks copying limits on certain Japanese digital TV recording and playback devices. The software specifically overrides limits on a program called 'dubbing10,' which is used in devices sold by companies such as Sony, Sharp, and Panasonic. It is believed that the man generated thousands of dollars worth of earnings for himself by selling to at least 712 people, including one teenager who then resold the software to another 240 people. This is the first disclosed case in Japan of someone being arrested for selling such limit-removal software for digital TV recording. Since it sounds like he has already admitted to selling it (although he denies creating it), and due to the generally high conviction rate of those arrested by Japanese police, his future does not look so bright at the moment."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A photograph from the Library of Congress collection in the Flickr Commons.

Thanksgiving Maskers, what the heck's that, you ask? Before Halloween became the holiday it now is in the United States, children would dress up in masks on the final Thursday in November and go door to door for treats (think: fruit!), or scramble for pennies. The tradition was known as Thanksgiving Masking.

Here are more Library of Congress images from the early 1900s which depict the now-abandoned custom.

An excerpt from a New York Times article published in 1899 after the jump, with details of the maskers' hijinks -- which included boys and men running around in women's clothing. Some of them organized into a society known as "Fantastics."

From Encyclopedia.com:

Progressive era reformers regarded child begging on Thanksgiving as immoral and thought children who engaged in it should be arrested. Why were parents not able to control their offspring? the New York Times in 1903 wanted to know. (30) The newspaper castigated parents who allowed children to demand treats or money as indecent.(31) The police tried to enforce a ban against begging. In response to complaints from the public, the clergy, school superintendents, and classroom teachers issued warnings. The New York Times in November of 1930 worried that demanding coins could teach children to become professional beggars and blackmailers and that children were annoying the public.(32) Begging, decided the paper, was a "malicious influence on the morals of children of the city. (33) Boys' clubs and other child welfare agencies organized parades and costume contests as alternative activities. As a result of these efforts, child begging on Thanksgiving finally disappeared by the 1940s.(34) The tradition went back as far as 1780, involving crossdressing men who called themselves the Fantastics and paraded on the holiday.

And here's a snip from a New York Times story from December 1, 1899 about that year's Thanksgiving festivities:

Full PDF of the article, as it appeared in print.

An anonymous reader writes "A team at NIST (the National Institute of Standards and Technology) used berylium ions, lasers and electrodes to develop a quantum system that performed 160 randomly chosen routines. Other quantum systems to date have only been able to perform single, prescribed tasks. Other researchers say the system could be scaled up. 'The researchers ran each program 900 times. On average, the quantum computer operated accurately 79 percent of the time, the team reported in their paper.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Want to get some hacking in after your Thanksgiving feast? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

Hack Friday @ HackPittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Nov 27, 2009, 6pm +

Electronics 101 @Freeside
Atlanta, GA
Saturday, Nov 28, 2009, 2pm - 4pm

Make:KC - Show and Tell
Parkville, MO
Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009, 6pm - 8pm

Project Lab with Expert Included
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009, 3pm - 6pm

Drop-in Arduino and Electronics classes
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009, 7pm - 9pm

Intro to Welding @Willoughby and Baltic
Somerville, MA
Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009 to Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009, 7pm - 9pm

Woodshop Fundamentals @Willoughby and Baltic
Somerville, MA
Tuesday, Dec 1, 2009 to Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009, 7pm - 9:30pm

Build your own lightsaber! @Bug Labs
New York, NY
Wednesday, Dec 2, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

Start planning for:

Guitar Effects 101 @Hive 76
Philadelphia, PA
Monday, Dec 7, 2009, 7pm - 10pm

Sound Experiments and Experimental Sound @Bug Labs
New York, NY
Wednesday, Dec 9, 2009, 5:45pm - 7:30pm

Introduction to the AVR Micro Controller @Hive 76
Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, Dec 12, 2009, 5pm - 8pm

GO-Tech (Ann Arbor, MI) December Meeting
Ann Arbor, MI
Tuesday, Dec 8, 2009, 7pm - 10pm

Event Photos (from left): Show and Tell, Artumnal Gathering, Screen Printing, Robogames Benefit, Installfest

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Events | Digg this!

Pabugs writes with news that popular torrent site Mininova has abandoned their attempts at filtering and simply deleted all torrents other than the legal ones they facilitate through their Content Distribution service. According to their blog post, they were left "no other option than to take [their] platform offline" after a court ruling from August. "The judge ruled that Mininova is not directly responsible for any copyright infringements, but ordered it to remove all torrents linking to copyrighted material within three months, or face a penalty of up to 5 million euros."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark and I have rounded up some of our favorite items from our 2009 Boing Boing reviews for the second-annual Boing Boing gift guide. We'll do one a day for the next six days, covering media (music/games/DVDs), gadgets and stuff, kids' books, novels, nonfiction, and comics/graphic novels/art books. Today, it's kids' books!

The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook (Eleanor Davis): The Secret Science Alliance and the Copycat Crook is Eleanor Davis's kids' comic glorifying science, invention, and the joys of personal exploration. Julian Calendar is a bright 11-year-old who has moved to a new school where he is determined to fit in by masking his voracious intellect, but instead he finds himself (gladly) fallen in with two other science kids -- Greta Hughes, a "bad kid" with a reputation and Ben Garza, a "dumb jock" who shines on the basketball court but chokes on tests. Both kids are, in fact, natural scientists (as is Julian), but they aren't the right kind of smart to get ahead in school. Full review | Purchase

The Donut Chef by Bob Staake. It's the story of a chef who opens a donut store that becomes a big hit. But then a rival donut chef opens a store around the corner, and the two chefs compete by making increasingly elaborate donuts with flavors like "cherry-frosted lemon bar, peanut-brickle buttermilk, and gooey coca- mocha silk." Full review | Purchase

T-Minus: The Race to the Moon:
Jim Ottaviani's new science history graphic novel, T-Minus: The Race to the Moon, is a fast-paced, informative recounting of the events beginning with the launch of Sputnik, the first human-made satellite on Oct 4, 1957, to the first human landing on the moon on July 20, 1969.
Full review | Purchase

<img
src="http://boingboing.net/images/day-glo-xm.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left">The Day-Glo
Brothers I absolutely loved Chris Barton's true story about
the two brothers who invented fluorescent paint and Day-Glo paint in
the 1930s.
Full
review | <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/157091673X/boingboing">Purchase

Night Cars (Teddy Jam):
Teddy Jam and Eric Beddows's 1988 classic picture book Night Cars has me absolutely charmed. It's a beat-poetry story of a little boy who drifts in and out of sleep while, on the commercial road below him, cars and people pass by in the night. I read this book to my daughter every night before bed.

Full review | Purchase

<img
src="http://boingboing.net/images/pet-dragon-tb.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left">The Pet Dragon: A Story
about Adventure, Friendship, and Chinese Characters, is the story
of a little girl who gets a baby dragon, then loses it and goes
looking for it. Chinese characters are cleverly placed over some of
the things. What a fun way to learn the written Chinese language!
Full
review | <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0061577766/boingboing">Purchase

Leviathan (Scott Westerfeld):
Leviathan is set in an alternate steampunk past, in which the powers of the world are divided into "Clankers" who favour huge, steam-powered walking war-machines; and "Darwinists," whose hybrid "beasties" can stand in for airships, steam-trains, war-ships, and subs (they even have a giant squid/octopus hybrid called the kraken that can seize whole warships and drag them to their watery graves).

Full review | Purchase

<img
src="http://boingboing.net/images/classic-kids-comix-xm.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left">The TOON Treasury of
Classic Children's Comics is a massive anthology of old comic
book stories for kids, and is a big hit around our house. My
six-year-old loves it so much she reads it to herself. The oversize
format and 350 pages make for a delightful reading experience.
Full
review | <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0810957302/boingboing">Purchase

It's Useful to Have a Duck (Isol):
It's Useful to Have a Duck is the English translation of the delightful Spanish kids' board-book "Tener un patito es util," by Isol. It's an accordion-fold book that you can read from either end -- read from front to back, it tells the story of a boy who found a rubber duck that he loves but uses roughly, sitting on it, drying his ears with it and leaving it in the plug-hole when he's done with his bath. Read back to front, though, the story becomes "It's Useful to Have a Boy," and it tells the same story from the duck's perspective -- the boy "rubs my back," "waxes my beak" and when its all done, the duck finds "my little sleeping hole."

Full review | Purchase

<img
src="http://boingboing.net/images/new-brighton-xm.jpg"
width="100" height="100" align="left">The New Brighton
Archeological Society by Mark Andrew Smith and Matthew Weldon
is one of the very best all ages graphic novels in years. It proves
that there can be an outlet to introduce kids to the world of
picture-based story telling without pandering to them or horrifying
their innocent sensibilities.
Full
review | <a
href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1582409730/boingboing">Purchase

Ariel (Steven R Boyett): I first read Steven R Boyett's novel Ariel in 1983: I was twelve years old, and I was absolutely, totally hooked.

Here's the premise: one day at 4:30 PM, the world Changes. Complex technology (anything beyond a simple machine) stops working. Magic starts working. Planes fall out of the sky, dragons take wing. Chaos wracks the world. Riots. Starvation. Murder. Full review | Purchase

Blueberry Girl (Neil Gaiman): Neil Gaiman and Charles Vess's Blueberry Girl is a beautiful, affirming, inspiring picture book based on a poem that Gaiman wrote for Tash, Tori Amos's daughter (who is also Gaiman's god-daughter). The poem is a set of benedictions for girls, wishes for a realistically joyful life where what pain that comes only serves to make the pleasure sweeter. Vess (a well-known fantasy artist) has a distinctive style that gives the book much of its charm.

Full review | Purchase

The Neddiad: How Neddie Took the Train, Went to Hollywood, and Saved Civilization (Daniel M Pinkwater):
The Neddiad concerns the cross-country migration of Neddie Wentworthstein, who one day mentions to his war-enriched shoelace-magnate father that he'd like to eat in the Brown Derby in Hollywood (because, hey, restaurant shaped like a hat!), prompting his father to realize that he, too, had always dreamt of dining in a hat. The family immediately moves to Los Angeles, taking the train, and Neddie loses the family in Arizona, meets a shaman, is given a holy relic, meets a cowboy and a ghost and a best friend, finds his way to Los Angeles, and saves the world.

Full review | Purchase

The Education of Robert Nifkin (Daniel M Pinkwater):
Here's the setup: it's the mid-fifties and Robert Nifkin has just moved from suburban California to Chicago with his Eastern European immigrant parents (his father is a notorious Polish gangster who was thrown out of Warsaw by his fellow Jews, as the Gentiles were too scared to talk to him). He is sent to Riverview High, a kind of prison camp for geeky kids, and there he rests for the first half of the book, enduring a season in Hell.
Full review | Purchase

ABC3D (Marion Bataille):
It's called ABC3D, and it is an unbelievably witty and well-made pop-up ABC book, produced by Marion Bataille. It's one of those books that could only be a book -- there's no way this could be an ebook or a movie (though the little video above gives you an idea of the thing, it's a poor substitute) or an audiobook or whatever. This is the apotheosis of book, something you have to put between covers to really, really appreciate.

Full review | Purchase

Free to Be...You and Me (Marlo Thomas):
Free To Be... You and Me was one of my favorite movie/record/books when I was growing up. Marlo Thomas's 1972 project brought together an all-star cast to perform songs, poems and sketches that challenged gender stereotypes and delivered a fundamentally humane, loving message about being who you are and not being constrained by society's expectations.
Full review | Purchase

Mommy? (Maurice Sendak):
Mummy? is a practically wordless, six-page popup that follows the travails of a little boy who's looking for his mother in a castle full of monsters. The left panel shows junior saying "Mommy?" and the right panel shows a leering monster; flip it up and see how the boy has defeated it. Mommy?'s dimensionality is fabulous -- the monsters explode in all directions, portrayed in fabulous grisly style that's a cross between Big Daddy Roth and Marc Davis's Haunted Mansion ghouls.

Full review | Purchase

Other installments:

Part One: Kids

Part Two: Media

Eugen tips news that Microsoft has sent DMCA takedown notices to several websites to stop them from offering the Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE) tool for download after it was leaked earlier this month. One of the sites, Cryptome.org, has posted their correspondence with Microsoft over the software. "... Microsoft contacted Network Solutions, which hosts Cryptome, and since John Young, the owner of the website, wasn't too keen on losing his whole website for the sake of a single 15MB file, he removed the download link and sent Network Solutions a notice of compliance."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bill sez, "Today, Thursday, is the 90th birthday of Fred Pohl, science fiction novelist, who has also been a literary agent, teenage magazine editor, political activist, globetrotting lecturer, and member of SF fandom."

I recently wrote a Fred Pohl tribute story, "Chicken Little," for a forthcoming Tor anthology called "Gateways" -- stories in appreciation of Fred.

Happy 90th Birthday, Frederik Pohl! (Thanks, Bill)

(Image: The Way The Future Was by Frederik Pohl., from Jim Linwood's Flickr stream)

angry tapir writes "Milan prosecutors have sought prison sentences ranging from six months to one year for four Google executives accused of violating Italy's privacy laws over the posting of a video showing the bullying of a handicapped teenage boy. The prosecutor's request was backed up by a request by lawyers representing the Milan city council for €300,000 (US$452,000) in moral and material damages. The case concerns the posting on Google Video of a three-minute mobile-phone video showing a handicapped boy being tormented by his classmates in a Turin school."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ever since you made one of those turkeys out of an outline of your hand in kindergarten, you've probably been aware of the fact that Thanksgiving might not be the preeminent maker's holiday. Unless your forte is food. Or turkey papercraft.

But being thankful, taking stock of ourselves and our world, is something we should all be able to get behind as makers, even those of you who don't live in the States and aren't celebrating this particular holiday today. The subtitle of MAKE magazine is "technology on your time." It's about slowing down (likely), taking stock of your physical world, your technology, figuring out how it's made, and figuring out how to improve it, and by extension, how to improve the quality of your life in the process. So, in some ways, the ritual notion of Thanksgiving is kind of encoded within the mission of MAKE itself. That was also part of the idea behind the "ReMake America" theme of Maker Faire this year. Taking stock of what we have, the bounty we still enjoy, even during an economic crisis, and then figuring out what we can do to creatively improve the quality of our lives, using the resources at hand. It's a mission we're still on.

So on this day, we at Maker Media will slow down, sit down, take stock of what we have, of what we've accomplished (okay, and eat and drink like just-rescued castaways). And we'll think about the coming year and what we can do to better document and celebrate "technology on your time." We'll hoist a glass to all of you in the process.

Thanks for making 2009 such a great year for the maker community and thanks for supporting us in all of our Maker Media endeavors. We couldn't do it without you!

Now, if you'll excuse us, we have some hand-print turkeys to cut out and glue.

Thanksgiving project to help you work off lunch:

DIY Thanksgiving roundup 2009
CRAFT Thanksgiving roundup 2009
Thanksgiving papercraft redux (above image)

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Makers | Digg this!

blee37 writes "Researchers at Microsoft have invented a system for tagging images by reading brain scans from an electroencephalograph (EEG). Tagging images is an important task because many images on the web are unlabeled and have no semantic information. This new method allows an appropriate tag to be generated by an AI algorithm interpreting the EEG scan of a person's brain while they view an image. The person need only view the image for as little as 500 ms. Other current methods for generating tags include flat out paying people to do it manually, putting the task on Amazon Mechanical Turk, or using Google Image Labeler."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "At the height of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency paid renowned magician John Mulholland $3,000 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."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Alan F Beck paints watercolors of mice posed and modelled on classic and famous portraits -- including wonderful versions of Poe, Asimov, and Frankenstein's Monster as mice. Saw some of these last weekend at Philcon and was very amused -- so much so that I couldn't stop thinking of them and just bought a Poe one for Poesy's room (she's a big mouse nut, and has a stuffed mouse ["Chairman Mouse"] that goes everywhere with her).

Classical Mouse Portrait Gallery

A recent report from a games industry analyst suggests that among a number of factors leading to the purchase of a video game — such as price, graphics and word of mouth — the game's aggregated review score is the least important measure. Analyst Doug Creutz said, "We believe that while Metacritic scores may be correlated to game quality and word of mouth, and thus somewhat predictive of title performance, they are unlikely in and of themselves to drive or undermine the success of a game. We note this, in part, because of persistent rumors that some game developers have been jawboning game reviewers into giving their games higher critical review scores. We believe the publishers are better served by spending their time on the development process than by 'grade-grubbing' after the fact."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nikon has updated its Capture NX and Camera Control Pro software to support the D3S. The Camera Control Pro update includes Windows 7 support though users of Capture NX will have to keep waiting.

I love this simple wooden orrery from Muji's gift lineup. Sadly, their ecommerce-fu is about as terrible as it gets, but if you're near a Muji store, it's £16 well-spent.

Wooden Solar System (Thanks, Alice!)

Ricoh has announced a firmware update for its GR Digital III digital compact. The latest version will bring in additional features and improvements to the camera including compatibility with GF-1 external flashgun, addition of 1.5m snap focus distance and improved playback functions. The firmware will be available for download from December 1, 2009 from Ricoh's website.

theodp writes "CNN reports that for most of the past week, when someone did a Google image search for 'Michelle Obama,' one of the first images that came up was a picture of the First Lady altered to resemble a monkey. After being hit with a firestorm of criticism over the episode, Google first banned the site that posted the photo, saying it could spread malware. Then, when the image appeared on another site, Google displayed the photo in its search results, but displayed an apologetic Google ad above it. On Wednesday morning, the racially offensive image appeared to have been removed from any Google Image searches for 'Michelle Obama.' Google officials could not immediately be reached for comment." Update — 15:38 GMT by SS: A reader pointed out that this article from the Guardian says the image was de-listed simply because it was removed from the blog where it was hosted rather than by any "deliberate" action from Google.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "CNN reports that for most of the past week, when someone did a Google image search for 'Michelle Obama,' one of the first images that came up was a picture of the First Lady altered to resemble a monkey. After being hit with a firestorm of criticism over the episode, Google first banned the site that posted the photo, saying it could spread malware. Then, when the image appeared on another site, Google displayed the photo in its search results, but displayed an apologetic Google ad above it. On Wednesday morning, the racially offensive image appeared to have been removed from any Google Image searches for 'Michelle Obama.' Google officials could not immediately be reached for comment."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A post on Pixel Poppers looks at the psychological underpinnings of the types of challenges offered by different game genres, and the effect those challenges have on determining which players find the games entertaining. Quoting: "To progress in an action game, the player has to improve, which is by no means guaranteed — but to progress in an RPG, the characters have to improve, which is inevitable. ... It turns out there are two different ways people respond to challenges. Some people see them as opportunities to perform — to demonstrate their talent or intellect. Others see them as opportunities to master — to improve their skill or knowledge. Say you take a person with a performance orientation ('Paul') and a person with a mastery orientation ('Matt'). Give them each an easy puzzle, and they will both do well. Paul will complete it quickly and smile proudly at how well he performed. Matt will complete it quickly and be satisfied that he has mastered the skill involved. Now give them each a difficult puzzle. Paul will jump in gamely, but it will soon become clear he cannot overcome it as impressively as he did the last one. The opportunity to show off has disappeared, and Paul will lose interest and give up. Matt, on the other hand, when stymied, will push harder. His early failure means there's still something to be learned here, and he will persevere until he does so and solves the puzzle."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

thisIsOdd writes "NPR had a recent report about scientists at the University of Ulm who suggest that ants in desert environments count to help them get to and from their homes. Because the desert's windiness and sandiness is not conducive the 'smell-trail' method, where ants squeeze certain glands that leave a chemical trail, scientists were puzzled by the fact that these desert ants were able to leave and successfully return to their nest. The theory is called the 'pedometer theory,' and the experiment used to test it involves manipulating the leg length of some of these ants. Ants with longer legs would pass the nest on the way home, and ones with shorter legs came up... well... short."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sneak Preview: MoMA’s Tim Burton Retrospective @ Vulture

Taking inspiration from popular culture, Tim Burton (American, b. 1958) has reinvented Hollywood genre filmmaking as an expression of personal vision, garnering for himself an international audience of fans and influencing a generation of young artists working in film, video, and graphics. This exhibition explores the full range of his creative work, tracing the current of his visual imagination from early childhood drawings through his mature work in film. It brings together over seven hundred examples of rarely or never-before-seen drawings, paintings, photographs, moving image works, concept art, storyboards, puppets, maquettes, costumes, and cinematic ephemera from such films as Edward Scissorhands, The Nightmare Before Christmas, Batman, Mars Attacks!, Ed Wood, and Beetlejuice, and from unrealized and little-known personal projects that reveal his talent as an artist, illustrator, photographer, and writer working in the spirit of Pop Surrealism. The gallery exhibition is accompanied by a complete retrospective of Burton’s theatrical features and shorts, as well as a lavishly illustrated publication (MoMA).

If you're in NYC and strapped for cash don't forget Fridays are free...

Admission is free for all visitors during Target Free Friday Nights, sponsored by Target, every Friday evening, 4:00–8:00 p.m. Tickets for Target Free Friday Nights are not available in advance. The line for Target Free Friday Night tickets can be long, so consider arriving after 6:00 p.m.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

angry tapir writes "Students at Tokyo's University of Science have developed a new version of their muscle suit, a wearable robotic suit that assists the muscles when carrying out strenuous tasks. The original version of the suit, which has been in production for several years, provides assistance to the arms and back but the new version provides assistance to the back only. That means it is lighter and more compact than the original model."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We gently knocked Wil Wheaton recently for saying some things that we thought were a bit wrongheaded in terms of dealing with people copying his work -- while noting that for the most part he absolutely seemed to "get" where things were heading and had a long history of embracing that. Whatever you think of that minor blip, it looks like he's definitely got the right idea when it comes to new business models. Reader Avengingwatcher alerts us to a recent blog post by Wheaton where he's inspired by the fact that people can just "get excited and make things" if they have an idea, rather than having to go through the old gatekeeper model that so many were stuck in for so long. Specifically, he talks about print-on-demand solutions that take much of the upfront risk out of creating just about anything -- since you no longer need to pay for massive production at the beginning, and can just see what people want and order:

This is incredibly inspiring to me, and I hope that it's just as inspiring to indie artists everywhere. Why not take a creative risk and see if it works out? Unlike the old days, when we had to purchase a lot of stock ahead of time and hope we could sell it, we can just Get Excited and Make Things, knowing that the very worst that can happen is that nobody likes that thing we made as much as we thought they would.

Much of this is inspired by some experiments some friends are doing and discussing -- and one of the links he puts forth tries to tackle the "but this only works if you're big and famous" fallacy that we've debunked in the past.

I have to admit that 2009 has really become the year of creators embracing cool, working business models. These days, we get probably five to ten submissions per day of more artists embracing these sorts of business models that we talk about. We used to write about many of these, but it's reached the stage where we really only pick and choose to write about really interesting or unique ones, even as we see that many of these are working wonders. But the key point is the one that Wheaton hinges his post on, which is that more and more people aren't worrying any more, but they've decided to
Get Excited and Make Things
Is there any better motto for what's happening these days?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Kari Byron is currently Twittering live from the set of the MythBusters epidode they're taping tonight.

MythBusters Official on Twitter

From MAKE magazine:

Want to know how to build a hydrogen rocket? How about a laser light show in a lunchbox? Or a simple remote-controlled videocam car? Or maybe you want to go old-school and build a wooden mini sailboat or toy car launcher? All this and tons more, plus revealing photos of Adam Savage's maker childhood, can all be found in MAKE, Volume 20, "For Kids of All Ages." Get your individual copy in the Maker Shed, or subscribe now.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Online | Digg this!

When we talk about intellectual property issues, many maximalists on both the copyright and patent side of things have this inherent sense that "copying" is "bad." Not just "bad," it's downright immoral. You hear words like "freeloading," "parasites," "pirates," "thieves," "copycats," etc. Yet, time and time again, when we look at industries or societies where there is less (or no) intellectual property protection, we notice something interesting: while there is definitely a lot of copying going on, it hasn't proven bad for overall innovation, and at times it's been shown to be very good for overall innovation. When we've talked about things like the chemical industry in Switzerland in the late 19th century (which was not covered by patents), there were certainly many chemical companies who focused on copying -- but there were also many who were quite innovative, and the overall impact to the economy was very strong.

The same is true if we look at the fashion industry, which does not have copyrights. It thrives without copyright protection in part because of all that copying. The copying serves a few very useful functions: first, it helps "perfect" the offering, as each "copyist" may improve on it a bit. Second, it helps diffuse the new idea throughout society, by offering it up in many places and ways that the originator was unable to. Third, it offers an element of price differentiation (the wealthy want the original/official version and pay more for it, others want the cheaper knockoffs). Fourth, it actually helps to validate the original idea (if there's a knockoff, the original must be cool). Finally, it stimulates additional brand new creativity from the original creator, who must realize that he or she cannot rest on any laurels, and needs to get to work on the next great design.

Copying serves an important function in getting new concepts out there.

And, now some researchers have started to look into it, and actually have built a model that shows society is likely better off when copying is the norm. Aaron deOliveira alerts us to the research on this, which tries to model societies with creators and innovators, and finds that society is served best when 30% of the population is involved in creating new goods, while 70% is focused on copying. Now, you can read through the full research and quibble with the methodology, but the basic premise is sound, and has been borne out in real life, in situations where copying was widely allowed. Hopefully there will be more research done in this arena, to see if this sort of modeling can be refined a bit more to take more factors into account. But, for now, this is a good place to start, and a reminder to those who seem to think that "copying" is somehow bad, that it serves a valuable part in the overall ecosystem of building and distributing innovative offerings.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

A Swedish textile design student has created this beautiful series of surgical masks for flu season. The patterns are printed with thermochromic ink, so the masks change color when the temperature of your breath changes. Some of them, like the one below, look more like neck warmers.

Designer's profile via Ecouterre via NotCot

Reader mick alerts us to the story of a small eight-person startup that makes a popular app for backing up your iPod music, which had been called "iPodRip" until Steve Jobs and Apple's lawyers got involved, demanding the company cease using the name and hand over its domain. It's even told the guy that even if he rebrands his app, he can't even say that it's the app "formerly known as" iPodRip. While lawyers told him he could successfully fight Apple on this, the guy gave in and is in the process of changing the name to iRip. Someone involved with the company actually sent Steve Jobs an email about the whole situation, and got the response:

"Change your apps name. Not that big of a deal."

Pleasant. Of course, at this point it seems worth pointing out that years long battle Jobs fought with the Beatles' Apple Corp. over the "Apple" name. Would Jobs have been okay if John, Paul, Ringo and George had simply told him "Change your company name. Not that big of a deal"? Now, yes, it is true that a company needs to enforce its trademark, lest it become generic, but in this case it certainly seems like the name was descriptive in a way that certainly didn't imply endorsement from Apple. But, of course, when you've got lawyers who can bully on your behalf, the details apparently aren't that important.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

With the Thanksgiving holiday nearly upon us here in the States, I suspect there will be a lot of beer drinking and watching television happening over the long weekend. For those of us who know that life is not a spectator sport, there's this week's flashback from the pages of MAKE Volume 07. Bill Barminski shows us how to drink beer on C-SPAN, or at least give the impression that you are.

MAKE Volume 07 is no longer available in print, but the juicy information in it is accessible by all subscribers. Subscribe to access all back issues digitally. Also, check out Bill Barminski talking about drinking beer on C-SPAN in the Trouble Maker section of Make: television episode 103.

How to Drink Beer on C-Span
Put yourself into somebody else's video.
By Bill Barminski

OK, you're not really going to drink beer on C-SPAN or Larry King Live. But you can make it look like you did on video. I don't know why you'd want to, but let's just say you do. I know I did.

The method used to achieve this effect is called compositing. You will need a source video recorded from a television show, a replacement video you will shoot yourself, and a static matte — a shape cut out of the source video with Photoshop to hold the new video.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Imaging | Digg this!

zmaragdus writes "Facebook Inc. converted its existing stock holdings into different classes of stocks (Class A and Class B) designed to give certain shareholders more power than others. This has been typically done in an IPO of a company's stock to give important people (company founders, for instance) more clout in the actions of the company when stock is first offered to the public. While Facebook maintains that it does not plan to offer stock publicly in the near future, this restructuring is one of the critical steps in doing so."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Remember ACS:Law? The shakedown organization that appears to have taken over where Davenport Lyons left off (including using some of the identical documents), and who has "partnered" with DigiProtect, the company that gleefully admits that it purposely puts files on file sharing networks just to collect the IP addresses of anyone who downloads, is asking for the identifying info on 30,000 UK users. To put that in perspective, in the years long campaign by the RIAA to sue people for file sharing, they apparently requested info on about 35,000 IP addresses. Of course, when spreading such a big net, it's no surprise that tons of innocent people get caught in it. But that's really of little concern, since no real lawsuits have been filed. They're just hoping a bunch of people feel that it's easier to pay up. It's not about stopping piracy or getting people to buy -- it's about shaking people down for as much money as possible.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

We were just talking about how pretty much any government database will get abused by government employees eventually. But it's not just on the accessing or revealing of data that this can happen. How about the collection of data as well? Jabberwocky alerts us to the news that police in the UK have supposedly been arresting innocent people just to add them to the UK's DNA database. The report looking into this, sarcastically titled "Nothing to hide, nothing to fear?" finds that nearly one in five of the DNA records in the database are from innocent people. And part of that is an "arrest first, ask questions later" policy towards collecting DNA:

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.

Oh yeah, to make matters worse: "there is very little concrete evidence on the importance of the DNA match in leading to a conviction and whether the suspect would have been identified by other means anyway." Don't you feel safer now?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Ian Lesnet, who used to write for Hack A Day, did the Bus Pirate project, and now runs Dangerous Prototypes, has this cool little hackable LED holiday card/ornament (don't tell Adafruit). The ATtiny13A-driven card comes in two flavors, an already-assembled version, for $15, and a not-for-the-weak-of-heart surface-mount soldering kit, for $12. The cards are currently being manufactured and Ian hopes to have them out by Dec 18th.

Prototype: Hackable LED Christmas card & ornament

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

schwit1 writes "The Obama administration is seeking to reverse a federal appeals court decision that dramatically narrows the government’s search-and-seizure powers in the digital age. Solicitor General Elena Kagan and Justice Department officials are asking the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals to reconsider its August ruling that federal prosecutors went too far when seizing 104 professional baseball players’ drug results when they had a warrant for just 10. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It seems pretty bizarre that companies and industry organizations would be against helping those with reading disabilities or vision impairment -- but that's exactly what you get in the discussion over creating some loopholes in copyright law to make it easier to reformat content to help those who would have difficulties reading it otherwise. Their concern, of course, is anything that can be seen as weakening copyright law. As we've noted in the past, there's never really been any weakening of copyright law... ever. The only exception I can think of is when the US officially established that government documents could not be covered by copyright. But every other change has only strengthened it -- so perhaps it's no surprise that the usual suspects, including the MPAA and the RIAA are upset about this, claiming that this WIPO treaty on this subject would "begin to dismantle the existing global treaty structure of copyright law, through the adoption of an international instrument at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms."

Now, that's funny, because you could pretty much say that ACTA is doing the same thing... and yet these same groups are strongly in favor of ACTA, which would also be at odds with existing, longstanding and well-settled norms." Funny how their view changes completely when discussing treaties that would beef up copyright law vs. those that would create important and useful loopholes in it.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story