I'm sitting in the lobby of the Little Nell with Auden Schendler. This is a fancy pants, 92-room spa and resort in Aspen that routinely hosts world leaders and celebrities in rooms that cost upwards of $760 a night. The Nell is a major energy spender — in 2008, it used 25,556 MMBTU of natural gas and 3,269,967kWh of electricity, generating 4,245 tons of CO2 emissions (the average house generates about 17,000 lbs). Aspen is an entire town full of buildings like the Nell; in addition to the hotels and shops, the luxury ski town hosts four mountains full of energy-sucking ski lifts, snowmaking machines, snowcats, and heated buses on constant rotation that take people from one part of town to another. Add to that the transportation costs to and from the resort of the 1.36 million skiers and 34,000 employees that come here every ski season, and you've got what seems like a major environment killer.

But if you ask Schendler, he'll tell you that the Little Nell is a prime hub for fighting climate change.

Schendler — a tall, mountain-man type wearing big boots and a puffy jacket — is the Sustainability Director of the Aspen Skiing Company. What this means is that he has the seemingly absurd task of transforming the entire energy-sucking, luxury-soaked resort into a tool to fight climate change. Earlier this year, Schendler authored a book called Getting Green Done: Hard Truths from the Front Lines of the Sustainability Revolution — a fun-to-read motivator that very clearly outlines how big, influential corporations can leverage their power to lead the fight against climate change. Schendler used to be a regular grassroots "enviro guy"; but now that he's a bigwig exec at a big corporation, he's even more hell bent on solving the climate problem. We chatted for about an hour at the Nell's restaurant last week, and here's what he said:

The question: "How do you even justify what you're doing?" comes up all the time. I'm sorry, you're the sustainability guy at the ski resort? You care about climate change? Why don't you shut down the resort? Aspen flies people in from all over the world. If you look at carbon footprint, that's 27,000 tons of CO2 a year. For your day of skiing, it's about 30-40 lbs of CO2 for one day. Per skiier! Snowmaking uses huge energy. Shut down!

The problem with that logic is, it's very hard to draw the line. Ok, no skiing. No flying? Ok, no flying because it's worse than skiing. No vehicles. Can't ride the bus. Can you stay in a hotel? Not a five star hotel. Can you stay in a motel 6? Pretty lavish compared to say, Bangladesh. It becomes impossible to say what's okay that's not.

It's wasteful, I see it. But The Nell is a five star hotel. The whole concept is wasteful. And unless we say we're gonna change the whole product, we're stuck. Skiing is absurd on its face. But we have to assume that the business itself is acceptable because presumably, no matter how radical we are as environmentalists, the community needs a base of business. There's value to an economy and people having meaningful jobs that pay well. Otherwise to solve climate you'd have to shut the world down and go back to medieval times.

We've done huge energy retrofits in this hotel. Solar panels on the roof, LED lights in all the rooms, the garage... all this cool stuff. If you look at the menu here, it's all local food, farmed locally. We certify the buildings to LEED standards. Every guest who stays at the Nell has $2 deducted from their bill and that goes to open space preservation. Some of the lifts have maps on them — it's cool, it keeps people from littering, and we don't have to print as many. Those are environmental solutions in the old way, but they also reach a captive audience with climate messages.

But if you look at the impact of those emissions reductions in the scope of the world, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if I make the decision not to fly. That's not gonna stop the plane. The plane's still flying. Even if the ski industry eliminated all our emissions, we're still out of business by 2050 or 2100 because of the climate.

So what do you do? You gotta fix the whole system. You have to fix the economy and the energy economy so that the carbon footprint is much less. We have to fix the problem of transportation. The best thing to do would be to have a carbon tax. You can't just say, okay no pool. What you can do is create the conditions where it doesn't make sense to have that pool or to fly. A carbon tax taxes energy, so all the energy used is more expensive. you just have to decide whether to pay more or not. Right now it costs $2000 a year to heat that pool. Maybe if it cost $20,000, things would start to change.

I always get in the same arguments with the hard core enviro community. They want me to do rinky dink stuff like bamboo foors and recycling, and I tell them it doesn't matter, that their personal actions don't matter because the problem's too big. That pisses people off — they get mad at me and say every little bit helps. But every little bit doesn't help because the problem's too big. If everyone who was so inclined did every little thing from the Prius to the bulb, we still wouldn't solve this problem. It's gotta be a global mandate, not a voluntary thing. My day is full of people getting furious at me. Last week I had to send the FBI some death threats I was getting about calling the governor of Utah willfully ignorant on climate. This is war. This is a combat situation. and it's gonna hurt people the way wars hurt people. I like to say, we're gonna have to break things and hurt people to make this happen. Just being straightorward and truthful about these things instead of glossing and deluding people is incredibly valuable.

If Aspen can be anything, it can be a shining city on a hill. There's a lot of energy being wasted at the Nell, but it's also a power center. The people at this hotel are the people who can save the world. Jeffrey Sachs said, if the top 5% of the wealthiest people in the world gave 4% of their income every year, you'd end global poverty. Those people are right here! They're in this hotel! I'm exactly where I need to be. In the past two months, our CEO has been to DC twice to lobby on climate change. We have the tax resources and the corporate resources — if we can't demonstrate that this problem is solvable, then no one can do it. We're a lab for addressing climate change; we can try stuff and fail and be public about those failures and successes in a way that has a ripple effect.

What if I said, you know what, I can't justify being here at this five star hotel. I'm gonna go to the peace corps and work on putting photovoltaic installations in Samoa. What have I done? I've essentially made myself powerless. I've changed this from being about climate to being about me personally. The second this becomes about you or me, we reach a point where we're fully incapable of solving a problem. It's naive to just say, our impact is terrible, we're gonna shut down. A ski resort operated appropriately is one of the sustianable conrnerstones of this community. Are we there yet? No, but we'll get there.

Images: Jeremy Swanson (top), Paul Morrison (thumbnail), courtesy of the Aspen Skiing Company

Dark Helmet points us to the news of an Associated Press investigation into how Monsanto basically cornered the market in seeds by using gene patents and coercive licensing agreements that basically make it impossible to grow certain products without having to first reach a restrictive agreement with Monsanto. And they did this all in about a dozen years. Gene patents are already troubling enough, and reading this report on how Monsanto used its gene patents to basically wipe out all competition is quite telling in exactly how patents can be used to significantly harm a market. Of course, beyond the ridiculousness of gene patents, this situation has been made worse by the recent Supreme Court decision that said that Monsanto could put an end user license agreement on seeds, such that even if you collected seeds from your own harvest to replant them, you could be found guilty of infringing on Monsanto's patents. The investigation here details how Monsanto basically has completely cornered the market, even limiting publicly funded research into certain seeds. And, of course, now the company is raising prices on various seeds when many farmers have little in the way of other options.

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An anonymous reader writes "Last year tomography researchers of the ASTRA group at the University of Antwerp developed a desktop supercomputer with four NVIDIA GeForce 9800 GX2 graphics cards. The performance of the FASTRA GPGPU system was amazing; it was slightly faster than the university's 512-core supercomputer and cost less than 4000EUR. Today the researchers announce FASTRA II, a new 6000EUR GPGPU computing beast with six dual-GPU NVIDIA GeForce GTX 295 graphics cards and one GeForce GTX 275. The development of the new system was more complicated and there are still some stability issues, but tests reveal the 13 GPUs deliver 3.75x more performance than the old system. For the tomography reconstruction calculations these researchers need to do, the compact FASTRA II is four times faster than the university's supercomputer cluster, while being roughly 300 times more energy efficient."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Our finely-wired friends at Solarbotics have released their latest Arduino kit, the Ardweeny, "the smallest Arduino you can build yourself with through-hole components." I love the backpack PCB concept which puts the support electronics for the ATmega328 chip on a board that stacks on top of the chip and is soldered to the chip's pins. The Ardweeny is a Solarbotics riff on Kimio Kosaka's One-Chip-Arduino.

Solarbotics Ardweeny

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Steorn, developers of free-energy gadget called Orbo, have managed to survive for six years without having successfully demonstrated the technology in public. It must be some kind of record. But yesterday, an Orbo was installed at the Waterways Ireland Visitor Centre, and you can see a live video stream of the Orbo chugging away.

According to Steorn CEO Sean McCarthy, the Orbo is able to "gain energy from magnets with no apparent source."

Here's more about it, from Steorn's "What is Orbo Technology" page:

Orbo is a technology that creates energy from magnetic interactions. Orbo provides free, clean and constant energy at the point of use.

Orbo is a platform technology that can be engineered to power anything from a phone, to a fridge to a car.

Orbo technology is controversial - science tells us that energy can not be created - yet Orbo does this. Orbo is an over unity technology - it provides more energy out than is put in.

Orbo is a result of many man years of technological development using a "Victorian Science" approach. It is a technology that has been derived phenomologically, through test, implementation and retest.

Three cheers for "Victorian Science," but I don't believe the Orbo can make more energy than it uses. It sure is fun following Steorn's attempts to achieve the impossible, though. If any Boing Boing readers in Dublin have witness the live demo, please share your thoughts in the comments.

UPDATE: the blog called Steorn's Orbo has a good post about why this demo is useless:

Orbo 2009 is similar in its basic design, but the outer ring of magnets are now electromagnets rather than permanent magnets, and these electromagnets are fed by a battery. That battery, it is claimed, is constantly recharged by a small electrical generator attached to the spinning Orbo. The net result, says Sean McCarthy, is that the Orbo produces some three times the energy it uses. The energy that isn't cycled back to the battery is dissipated as heat. Sean's claim may be true — the Orbo may be generating three times the energy it is using, right in front of our eyes. Or, it may not be; there's no way to tell without being an experienced engineer and hooking the rig up to a lot of complex testing equipment. Because there's a battery in the loop, there's just no telling how much energy, if any, Orbo is actually generating. So Steorn may have what they claim. Or they may be lying about it as part of a scam. Or they may honestly believe they have it, but be wrong. There's still no way to tell.

In other words, this Orbo sounds like it's a plain old motor.

Steorn, developers of free-energy gadget called Orbo, have managed to survive for six years without having successfully demonstrated the technology in public. It must be some kind of record. But yesterday, an Orbo was installed at the Waterways Ireland Visitor Centre, and you can see a live video stream of the Orbo chugging away.

According to Steorn CEO Sean McCarthy, the Orbo is able to "gain energy from magnets with no apparent source."

Here's more about it, from Steorn's "What is Orbo Technology" page:

Orbo is a technology that creates energy from magnetic interactions. Orbo provides free, clean and constant energy at the point of use.

Orbo is a platform technology that can be engineered to power anything from a phone, to a fridge to a car.

Orbo technology is controversial - science tells us that energy can not be created - yet Orbo does this. Orbo is an over unity technology - it provides more energy out than is put in.

Orbo is a result of many man years of technological development using a "Victorian Science" approach. It is a technology that has been derived phenomologically, through test, implementation and retest.

Three cheers for "Victorian Science," but I don't believe the Orbo can make more energy than it uses. It sure is fun following Steorn's attempts to achieve the impossible, though. If any Boing Boing readers in Dublin have witness the live demo, please share your thoughts in the comments.

UPDATE: the blog called Steorn's Orbo has a good post about why this demo is useless:

Orbo 2009 is similar in its basic design, but the outer ring of magnets are now electromagnets rather than permanent magnets, and these electromagnets are fed by a battery. That battery, it is claimed, is constantly recharged by a small electrical generator attached to the spinning Orbo. The net result, says Sean McCarthy, is that the Orbo produces some three times the energy it uses. The energy that isn't cycled back to the battery is dissipated as heat. Sean's claim may be true — the Orbo may be generating three times the energy it is using, right in front of our eyes. Or, it may not be; there's no way to tell without being an experienced engineer and hooking the rig up to a lot of complex testing equipment. Because there's a battery in the loop, there's just no telling how much energy, if any, Orbo is actually generating. So Steorn may have what they claim. Or they may be lying about it as part of a scam. Or they may honestly believe they have it, but be wrong. There's still no way to tell.

In other words, this Orbo sounds like it's a plain old motor.

Much of the reasoning behind Joe Biden's recent summit with entertainment industry bosses and a variety of top administration officials -- including the Attorney General and the head of the FBI -- was to "coordinate" enforcement efforts. Efforts, one assumes, like the FBI's hard work in tracking down and arresting the guy who put a pre-release version of the movie Wolverine online, even though it was lacking in special effects and final audio. As we noted at the time, there were many ways that the studio could have responded to the leak that made them look cool and would have encouraged more people to go see the real movie. Instead, 20th Century Fox went ballistic about how evil this was, and got the FBI to act as its private police force. Of course, despite how this leak "ruined" the movie, Wolverine (despite mostly dismal reviews) had a massive opening and went on to earn $180 million at the box office, significantly more than it's $130 million budget. But, of course, the movie industry is dying, and our tax payer money should be used to track down the guy who did so much "damage."

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Howard Boys made this awesome steampunk-y camera body from soldered brass. The lens and shutter were purchased components. [Thanks, Billy!]

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corbettw writes "Ted Alvin Klaudt, a former South Dakota lawmaker convicted of raping his two foster daughters, has sent news organizations what he claims is a copyright notice that seeks to prevent the use of his name without his consent." The story says Klaudt maintains "no one can use his name without his consent, and anyone who does would owe him $500,000."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

plasmacutter writes "The Video Lan dev team has recently come forward with a notice that the number of active developers for the project's MacOS X releases has dropped to zero, prompting a halt in the release schedule. There is now a disturbing possibility that support for Mac will be dropped as of 1.1.0. As the most versatile and user-friendly solution for bridging the video compatibility gap between OS X and windows, this will be a terrible loss for the mac community. There is still hope, however, if the right volunteers come forward."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing this year, designer Martin Mostböck made this area rug inspired by the moon's surface.

Artist's web site [via Dezeen]

To celebrate the 40th anniversary of the lunar landing this year, designer Martin Mostböck made this area rug inspired by the moon's surface.

Artist's web site [via Dezeen]

We were just noting how the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act is regularly abused to bring "hacking" charges where none are really warranted. And here we have yet another example. Alex Howard points out that a Minnesota Public Radio reporter, Sasha Aslanian, is potentially facing "hacking" charges from a Texas company called Lookout Services. Lookout creates employment/compliance software for large organizations, and Aslanian was reporting on a supposed data vulnerability in the software used to verify employment eligibility that could potentially reveal private info. Aslanian's report noted that she was able to see info from the state of Minnesota, and the state was now directing agencies to stop using Lookout. The details are not entirely clear, but from what's written at the MinnPost link above, it sounds like there were some vulnerabilities, poor security, and a bungled demonstration which revealed a vulnerability -- all of which Lookout admits -- and from those vulnerabilities (which Lookout claims it closed), someone was able to adjust the URL to find private data.

So, basically, the company admits to a series of vulnerabilities, which exposed info that allowed the reporter to eventually see some private data... but still claims that the reporter was "hacking" and is now looking to sue under the same Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which could lead to 5 years in prison. Because our federal government still hasn't passed a journalism shield law, the reporter is potentially liable, though, as the MinnPost reporter notes, Lookout seems particularly shortsighted in bringing this lawsuit in the first place. All it does is call more attention to its own vulnerabilities and failings. And the CEO of Lookout basically responds that she doesn't care:

While the legality and severity of Lookout's security breach remains to be adjudicated, there's no doubt Aslanian was trying to serve the public interest -- something a prosecutor might consider. As Dalglish says, "The state of Minnesota should be grateful MPR exposed what's going on. It seemed like a pretty good story."

I asked Morley if she realized, by filing a high-profile suit, how hapless her timeline made Lookout look. After all, there's the webinar screwup, letting clients pick lame IDs/passwords and caching security credentials in such a way that rendered them useless.

"Yup," she admitted. "It was a perfect storm that came together. Our communication with the state really broke down -- in our contract, we had 60 days to fix any problem. But there was still an unauthorized intrusion, and that was wrong."

So, even though this will publicize not just Lookout's failings, but also how it responds to people who notice and report on vulnerabilities, the company still thinks it needs to bring a lawsuit because exposing those vulnerabilities "was wrong"? I would argue that the company's reaction to this gives many more reasons never to do business with Lookout -- more than any discovered vulnerabilities. Vulnerabilities in software happen -- and it's more telling how a company reacts when they're exposed. Suing those who expose them isn't what you want to see.

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JerBear0 writes "I work as the sole IT employee at a company of about 50 people. I handle programming, support, pretty much anything that is IT related, or even that plugs in. As seems to be true with many small companies, the priorities seem to shift quite frequently. As a result, I've always got multiple programming (both new systems and improvements/changes to existing systems), integration, research, maintenance tasks/projects on my To Do list, in varying stages of completion. At any given time, I need to be able to jump back to one of these items and pick up where I left off. I am currently using Outlook Tasks, and then end up referencing my notebook and email for those dates to figure out exactly where I left off. It works, but not well. If it's been a while, I'll end up losing an hour or two just tracking everything down. I looked at using MS Project / OpenProj, but they want an individual file for each project, and I want at least the project/task list all on one screen. Essentially what I'd want would be a Task List on steroids, allowing for hierarchical subtasks, attachments, and prioritization. Ideally it would be a desktop app, but a locally-hostable web app would be okay. In some of these projects I may want to include proprietary information, which I really don't want floating out in the cloud outside of my control. I know I'm not alone in this problem, so what do you guys (gals) use to address this?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Wall Street Journal goes square-dancing.

The Wall Street Journal goes square-dancing.

RIP, Roy E Disney, nephew of Walt, son of Roy Sr, at 79, from cancer. Thanks for kicking out Eisner and bringing the company's emphasis back to the Parks.

The younger Disney, born in 1930, worked for the company as a writer and producer. But his most important influence was as a Disney shareholder who led two investor revolts.

In 1984 he led a successful campaign to oust Walt Disney's son-in-law from the company. Nearly 20 years later, he launched another successful shareholder revolt against Michael Eisner.

Roy E. Disney dies (Thanks to everyone who sent this in)

(Image: File:Roy_E._Disney.jpg, GNU FDL, Wikimedia Commons)

RIP, Roy E Disney, nephew of Walt, son of Roy Sr, at 79, from cancer. Thanks for kicking out Eisner and bringing the company's emphasis back to the Parks.

The younger Disney, born in 1930, worked for the company as a writer and producer. But his most important influence was as a Disney shareholder who led two investor revolts.

In 1984 he led a successful campaign to oust Walt Disney's son-in-law from the company. Nearly 20 years later, he launched another successful shareholder revolt against Michael Eisner.

Roy E. Disney dies (Thanks to everyone who sent this in)

(Image: File:Roy_E._Disney.jpg, GNU FDL, Wikimedia Commons)

There are 172,000 books published every year in the US, and another 206,000 in the UK. Suffice to say, they do not all become best-sellers. But just because a book isn't popular, doesn't mean it didn't deserve your attention. The Guardian staff is trying to give unloved tomes a second chance by naming their favorite books of the past decade that no one but themselves read. It's a great concept, and a couple of these have caught my eye, including:

War Reporting for Cowards by Chris Ayres, published in 2005, is one of the funniest books I have ever been involved with - it's about the author's hapless time as an embedded reporter with the US Marines in Iraq. I think the reason it did not take off as it should was to do with the gap between commissioning it in 2003 and it being written and published two years later: by then the war had got so unpopular with the public that every book about it, brilliantly entertaining or not, was struggling. I hope in time it will become recognised as a classic.

The Guardian: The Decade's Best Unread Books

A small indie record store owner in Ottawa, Canada, has plead guilty to a charge of copyright infringement for importing rare CDs from abroad. Apparently, these discs (which are themselves licensed, as far as I can tell) aren't licensed for sale in Canada, and Canadian law (apparently) bans this kind of parallel importation.

But none of these CDs are actually available in Canada. And no one orders rare, expensive imports unless he's already got the artist's entire catalog. And, of course, the record labels that went after this record store owner (whose whole purpose in life is to sell their CDs) are presently being sued for $60 billion in copyright damages for ripping off artists, and have admitted to $50 million in liability already.

"I can't believe I'm standing here right now," Nolan said outside court. "I've never bought a pirated item in my life."

Prosecutor Rob Zsigo said in an agreed statement of facts that the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA), acting as experts for the RCMP, concluded that 294 discs -- including live concerts, imports and CDs without UPC codes -- violated Canadian copyright law...

Nolan said the 100 CDs represent a tiny fraction of the hundreds of thousands of recordings in his collection and that the discs at issue are mostly imports.

An example is a recording of 1950s singer Gale Storm. Big labels don't press them but seniors still want to buy them so he orders them from import distributers [sic], Nolan said.

"I have to have the things the bigger chains don't have," Nolan said. "It's kept my business alive.

"I feel like the RCMP has robbed me."

CD seller pleads guilty to breaking copyright law

This looks neat, a team of scientists from the Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University have figured out how to get bacteria to spin tiny gears. Though the gears themselves are small, the bacteria are even smaller, so apparently it takes hundreds of them swimming in swarms to produce enough energy to turn the gears. Anyone have ideas about how to turn these gear motions into logic gates? I'd love to have a bacteria-powered computer! [via boingboing]

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snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy takes an in-depth look at VMware Workstation 7, VirtualBox 3.1, and Parallels Desktop 4, three technologies at the heart of 'the biggest shake-up for desktop virtualization in years.' The shake-up, which sees Microsoft's once promising Virtual PC off in the Windows 7 XP Mode weeds, has put VirtualBox — among the best free open source software available for Windows — out front as a general-purpose VM, filling the void left by VMware's move to make Workstation more appealing to developers and admins. Meanwhile, Parallels finally offers a Desktop for Windows on par with its Mac product, as well as Workstation 4 Extreme, which delivers near native performance for graphics, disk, and network I/O. 'There's some genuine innovation going on, especially in the areas of hardware support and application compatibility,' Kennedy writes. 'All support 32- and 64-bit Windows and Linux hosts and guests, and all have added compelling new VM management capabilities, ranging from automated snapshots to live VM migration.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has been pushing himself as a defender of copyrights, and even helped create the original three strikes plan in France. And yet, he and his political party keep getting caught infringing on copyrights. First there was the use of a song in some online videos without proper licensing. Then there was the issue with mass pirating DVDs. So you would think that his party would be extra careful when putting together yet another online video involving music. Apparently not.

In a move that is being widely mocked even by those within Sarkozy's party, it has released a lipdub video using some UMP politicians singing along. The only problem? You guessed it... the party did not properly clear the rights and now need to pay up for infringing on the copyright (Google translation from the original French). Apparently, they had licensed the rights to the original version of the song, from 1976, but then decided they didn't like that recording, and instead used a modern version of the song. According to another report, the UMP had asked the copyright holder if it could use this version, and they were turned down, because the label did not want the song used for political purposes. So Sarkozy's party just used it anyway.

I wonder if Sarkozy can blame Vimeo for inventing "lip dubs" and encouraging the UMP to violate copyright laws in this manner. But, the real question remains: given that France has moved forward with Sarkozy's plan to kick infringers off the internet on a three strikes basis, and this appears to be at least Sarkozy's third strike, does the UMP have to give up their internet access? Or do Sarkozy's favored laws not apply to Sarkozy?

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A couple weeks back you asked some questions of new CodePlex Foundation President Sam Ramji. He has responded and expressed interest in participating in the discussion at some point. If you have follow up questions feel free to drop them in the discussion so he can address them as he has time.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My friend Joanna Ebenstein who who runs the engrossing (sorry!) Morbid Anatomy blog was featured on a "Weird New York" episode of the "Toni On! New York" television show. The host took a tour of the Morbid Anatomy Library and saw some of Joanna's favorite curiosities.

Here's a conundrum: The African and European plates of the Earth's crust are no longer pushing into each other, but the Alps (created by the collision of those plates) are growing by about .05 in. per year. At first glance, those facts might make you question plate tectonics. But the real explanation is even weirder.

The Alps grow because they swim in the Earths mantle. Mountains like the Matterhorn or the Zugspitze lose one meter of stone every 1000-2000 years, Sauer reports. Like a melting iceberg slowly rises out of the water to adjust to the loss of weight, the alps rise according to their weight loss due to erosion. Sauer explains, that this was a hypothesis for years, but that it is proven now, because German scientists from the Research Center for Geoscience in Potsdam developed a new method to measure the erosion.

Original story is in German at Neue Zürcher Zeitung.
English summary from the Knight Science Journalism Tracker

Image courtesy Flickr user toprural, via CC

A bunch of folks have sent in this story of former South Dakota state Rep. Ted Alvin Klaudt, who was convicted of raping his two foster daughters a couple years ago, and who is now claiming that his name is covered by copyright, so no one can report on it. More specifically, he's trying to claim a "common law copyright." Unfortunately for Mr. Klaudt, except in extremely limited circumstances, the US does not recognize "common law copyright." He's demanding written permission to use his name in a news report, and has apparently demanded anywhere from $500,000 to $2 million for each "unauthorized" use. Apparently Klaudt, despite having been a former lawmaker, is unfamiliar with the basics of the law. Perhaps he can use his time in prison -- where he will most likely be for quite some time -- to study up.

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The original story of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland is missing what have become some of the book's most iconic characters and scenes: the Cheshire Cat, the Mad Hatter's tea party, the Knave of Hearts' trial, and several other great moments. Why did Charles Dodgson (aka Lewis Carroll) add them later? According to Alice scholar Melanie Bayley, Dodgson, a mathematician by day, created the scenes to make fun of edgy math ideas floating around at the time. From New Scientist:

Outgunned in the specialist press, Dodgson took his mathematics to his fiction. Using a technique familiar from Euclid's proofs, reductio ad absurdum, he picked apart the "semi-logic" of the new abstract mathematics, mocking its weakness by taking these premises to their logical conclusions, with mad results. The outcome is Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Take the chapter "Advice from a caterpillar", for example. By this point, Alice has fallen down a rabbit hole and eaten a cake that has shrunk her to a height of just 3 inches. Enter the Caterpillar, smoking a hookah pipe, who shows Alice a mushroom that can restore her to her proper size. The snag, of course, is that one side of the mushroom stretches her neck, while another shrinks her torso. She must eat exactly the right balance to regain her proper size and proportions.

While some have argued that this scene, with its hookah and "magic mushroom", is about drugs, I believe it's actually about what Dodgson saw as the absurdity of symbolic algebra, which severed the link between algebra, arithmetic and his beloved geometry...

The madness of Wonderland, I believe, reflects Dodgson's views on the dangers of this new symbolic algebra. Alice has moved from a rational world to a land where even numbers behave erratically.

"Alice's adventures in algebra: Wonderland solved"

Be careful just how you vent online is the lesson from this story pointed out by reader kungfugleek, from which he excerpts: "A University of Minnesota student has been banned from the Twin Cities campus after three of her instructors felt threatened by some of her Facebook postings. Amanda Tatro was patted down and questioned by campus police when she got to class Monday. The 29-year-old mortuary science student had posted comments on her Facebook page after breaking up with her boyfriend. She told her Facebook friends she wanted to stab a 'certain someone in the throat' with an embalming instrument. Tatro said she was 'looking forward to Monday's embalming therapy.' When the instructors learned of the postings, they contacted police." The Star-Tribune's account offers more detail.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Artist Andrew Salomone has a new take on the traditional gingerbread house:

Abandonded Gingerbread House Building Sites is a site-specific project I made for my show, everything is as it seems to be, at The Space in Cork City [Ireland].

When the global economy unravelled last year the Irish countryside was left with a lot of empty, unsold, and unfinished housing estates. This holiday season I thought it would be nice to celebrate these unique landscapes by making them into picturesque gingerbread-house decorations that will rot and eventually be thrown out much like the unfinished housing estates themselves.

More Andrew Salomone:

• Breakbeats Sampler
  
• Bill Cosby Portrait in JELL-O Shots
  
• Computer Themed Ouija Board
  
• Amy Winehouse Tattoo Sweater
  
• How-To: Identity-preserving ski mask
  

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Michael Mandiberg developed a kit for making your bike super visible to car headlights with retroreflective vinyl tape! It's easy to apply, looks fly, and comes in several colors. I did up my ride too, check it out above in normal light and below in flash (simulating headlights). The kit makes a great gift for your cycling friends and family members.

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Here's a cool project by Ivan Poupyrev, an interactive 3D surface called Lumen. Unlike a regular 3D display, which uses optical tricks to make the image appear to extend out from the screen, in this display the pixels actually move.

I've been wanting to make something like this for a long time, but couldn't come up with a viable actuator to move the pixels. Solenoids would draw way too much current, and a robotic arm to push each one in turn would be too slow. Ivan's solution, though, seems just right. Each pixel is activated by a wire made of shape memory alloy, which deforms when heated and returns to it's original shape when cool. Aha!

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Vigile writes "And here Intel was about to get out of 2009 with only a modestly embarrassing year. While Intel and AMD settled their own antitrust and patent lawsuits in November, the FTC didn't think that was good enough and has decided to sue Intel for anti-competitive practices. While the suits in Europe and in the US civil courts have hurt Intel's pocketbook and its reputation, the FTC lawsuit could very likely be the most damaging towards the company's ability to practice business as they see fit. The official hearing is set for September of 2010 but we will likely here news filtering out about the evidence and charges well before that. One interesting charge that has already arisen: that Intel systematically changed its widely used compiler to stunt the performance of competing processors."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We were amazed a few months back when a variety of press reports started surfacing after Susan Boyle became famous via a YouTube clip, claiming what a shame it was that no one was monetizing that video. That whole thing seemed preposterous. YouTube provided free software, free hosting and free distribution and turned Susan Boyle into a world famous star, overnight. As we noted at the time, if you can't monetize that in some other manner, you don't belong in business. And, indeed, as tons of folks have reported, Susan Boyle's first album has been a massive top seller -- the best opening week selling album of the year, and the best opening for a "debut" album in sixteen years. And, yes, much of the reason that anyone knows of her existence is because of the clip on YouTube.

But would you believe that people are still complaining about YouTube's role in all of this? Rob points us to an interview with Simon Cowell, who demonstrates stunning cognitive dissonance in both slamming and praising YouTube in two contradictory consecutive sentences:

Cowell also spoke of the popularity of Susan Boyle's Britain's Got Talent audition, which saw her rendition of I Dreamed A Dream viewed 100 million times in its initial days on YouTube - without any kickback for him.

"That will change," he told GQ. Because, eventually, if YouTube are not paying, they're not getting the clip.

"But at the moment I'm very happy to get promotion around the world. She'll sell 10 million albums this year because of YouTube."

So, wait, is he upset or not? Would he have preferred that YouTube had not shown the video which it didn't pay for, and a very small number of people knew of Susan Boyle? Or is he happy that he got free hosting, free software, free bandwidth and free promotional value that helped him sell 10 million of her albums? Maybe he should be paying Google...

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oldandcold writes "Given the recent coverage and controversy over Australia's forthcoming web censorship system, it is somewhat surprising (and worrying) that Clause 11 of the UK's proposed Digital Economy Bill seems to have gone by largely unnoticed. It amends the Communications Act 2003 to insert a new section 124H that could give the Secretary of State powers to order ISPs to block pretty much any website for pretty much any reason. Such orders would not require the scrutiny of parliament, or anyone else for that matter because the Secretary of State would not be required to publish them."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Every other week, MAKE's awesome interns tell about the projects they're building in the Make: Labs, the trouble they've gotten into, and what they'll make next.

By Ed Troxell, photo intern

I'm the photo intern at MAKE but I like to do more than just one thing, like starting my own magazine and shooting videos. A couple months ago I came across IdeaPaint in Inc. Magazine -- it's this cool paint that you can apply to any surface and turn it into a whiteboard. It comes in ten colors and can be used pretty much anywhere in your home, office, school, you name it, as long as the surface is smooth and flat. It's great for team meetings, kids' rooms, and brainstorming.

I sent the link over to MAKE managing editor Shawn Connally, and the next thing I know we've got a can of orange IdeaPaint on its way to the office for us to test out. We're gonna make an orangeboard!

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With the Obama White House appearing thoroughly convinced of the entertainment industry's views on "piracy," it's a bit surprising to hear that it has come out in favor of a proposed treaty to create copyright exceptions for the visually impaired. This is the WIPO treaty that we recently wrote about, noting that all those organizations pushing for ACTA were very much against this particular treaty. The Commerce Department even responded to the entertainment industry by saying that nothing about the treaty appears to "weaken" international copyright law, as they fear.

Unfortunately, the details suggest a bit of horse trading may be going on. The report suggests that the Commerce Department is saying that it will support this particular treaty, but it will seek to strengthen copyright law pretty much everywhere else (by which it means full support for ACTA). There's been a near universal alignment on these two treaties: those in favor of the WIPO one are against ACTA, and those in favor of ACTA are against this treaty. Reading a bit between the lines, it looks like the Obama White House is saying it will support both treaties. While the WIPO treaty is important, it's a much smaller deal than the ACTA treaty. So, even if the White House is supporting it, it looks like it may just be doing so to remove some complaints on ACTA, which is the big problem.

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Lucas123 writes "Fedora, openSUSE and Ubuntu Linux desktops may look alike, but they've got some important distinctions, like the fact that Fedora and Ubuntu, use GNOME 2.28 (the latest version) for their default desktop, while openSUSE uses KDE 4.3.1. And, Fedora's designers have assumed that its users are wiser than the general run of users. 'For example, in earlier versions, ordinary (non-admin) users could install software on Fedora without access to the root password. As of this version, however, local users will need to enter the root password before they can install software (as they do on almost all other Linux distributions).'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Swedish artist Michael Johansson made this life-size dinghy "model kit" from a real boat and related equipment. The pieces of "TOYS'R'US," as it's called, are fastened together by a welded tubular frame and painted a uniform gray. Michael has done several of these 1:1 "model" kits made from life-size original objects. [via Dude Craft]

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

Fridgebuzzzzz's MK 1 MIDI controller reminds me of my Dad's old Gretsch Tennessean … but yaknow, in an elegant, future-y kind of way.

the MK1 prototype is a user programmable midi controller featuring 32 LED pushbutton switches and 6 touch sensitive copper plate switches. an example user mapping would have the top row of twelve buttons be designated as major chords arranged in the cirle of fifths. the row below has minor chords arranged as the relative minor to the major chords. the touch sensitive switches, arranged as if they were strings on a guitar, trigger notes based on which chord button is pressed. the eight buttons located higher on the neck play a major or minor scale in the key of the last chord button that was pressed. the headstock contains siz LEDs that flash when the corresponding touch plate is activated.

More info + demo vids over at fridgebuzzz electronics.

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g0dsp33d writes "Fake Steve Jobs, the alter-alias of Newsweek's Dan Lyons, is calling disgruntled AT&T users to protest comments from AT&T’s Ralph de la Vega that smart phone (specifically iPhone) usage is responsible for their network issues and his plan to end unlimited data plans. The post, dubbed "Operation Chokehold" wants AT&T customers to use as much data service as they can on Friday, December 19th at noon. While Fake Steve Jobs is notable for its satire, many Twitter and Facebook users seem to be rallying to its cry. It is unclear if there will be enough support to cause a DDOS."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's been plenty of buzz over the past few days about Google's alleged plans to offer a phone of its own design (built by HTC, potentially sold both directly and by T-Mobile, if not others), which has been dubbed the "Nexus One." I didn't write anything about it, because there didn't seem much to write about at this point. I'm always happy to see more competition in the market, though, and if the phone is really good, that's obviously a good thing. But one thing did catch my eye. The NY Times is noting that the name "Nexus One" appears to be a play on how Philip K. Dick named the replicants in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, which was subsequently turned into the still popular movie Blade Runner. In both stories, the replicants are "Nexus-6" devices, being the sixth generation of that type of robots. It's a fun little homage by Google and an obvious play on the fact that its operating system is called Android.

And yet... the estate of Philip K. Dick is not pleased. The article notes (surprisingly) that Motorola paid George Lucas for the rights to use "Droid" for its Android phone, but no one spoke to the Dick estate, who now claim they are "shocked and dismayed." Really? Shocked? Isa Dick Hackett, Philip's daughter is claiming:

"We were never consulted, no requests were made, and we didn't grant any sort of permissions."

Perhaps that's because Google doesn't need permission from you to do such a thing. Of course, since Google hasn't made any official announcement on this, there's still a good chance they could change the name, just to avoid having to deal with an angry and misguided family member who doesn't like the idea of anyone paying tribute to her father without first paying up. You have to imagine there must be some other science fiction author out there who would be thrilled to have Google promoting his or her work, rather than whining about getting permission (i.e., "payment") for the use of a name.

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(Boing Boing guestblogger Ned Sublette is a writer, historian, photographer, and singer-songwriter who lives in New York City.)

Excerpt from The Year Before The Flood

To hear me reading this excerpt (in a shout, as I tend to do in clubs) at Joe's Pub, click here. Oh, and if you want to get on my e-mail list, send an e-mail saying "subscribe" to ned.sublette at gmail.com

---

Fully conscious and quite annoyed, Idelber was lying on the sidewalk on Magazine Street, bleeding from a long window-glass cut on the side of his head. It looked dramatic, but he wasn't badly hurt.

You can easily get creamed driving across Magazine. You have to creep way out into the street until you can see around the parked cars. Then you have to look both ways and go! In the time it took Idelber to look left and right and turn onto the street, an SUV came barrelling down the road from behind the phalanx of parked cars, outside his field of vision. It was going at least fifty when it made impact over Idelber's left front tire. Had he started out from the intersection a half-second earlier, he would probably have been dead.

As I got there, Idelber was being strapped onto a stretcher, and was asking them not to immobilize his head until he could have a cigarette. He had asked bystanders to come tell us about the accident not because he needed help but because he was concerned we'd think he was a jerk for pulling a no-show at dinner. I went through his glove compartment and scooped up all his insurance and personal info and jammed it into a bag. I called Chris, who raced over. The police said that since Idelber had a head injury he had to go to [cue ominous music] . . .

Charity Hospital! [Sound of screams in the background.]

Founded in 1736 (though not at the same location) with a bequest of ten thousand francs from a French sailor, Charity was the oldest continuously operating hospital in the United States. In 2004, Charity was the only place a lot of people in New Orleans could go for medical attention, and it was famous for its combat-hardened medical staff. It got the head wounds and the Saturday night gang-war casualties. A couple of years before, there had been a gunfight in the emergency room.

Chris went in the ambulance while I stayed with Idelber's car until it was towed. About an hour later, they called to say they were bailing from Charity, and they'd be waiting outside for me to pick them up. No one at Charity had looked at Idelber, who was perfectly able to walk and had had it with waiting around in what he called, possibly being hyperbolic, the hip-hop version of Dante's Inferno. As Idelber waited, someone came in with an eye torn out. Then someone arrived who'd been shot in the stomach, and then someone who'd been shot in the leg. But the one that sent Idelber out of there was the man who came running in, covered in blood, holding his detached penis in his hand and shouting, "My woman just chopped it off!"

Idelber was basically fine, though his head needed stitching up. We went to another emergency room, Touro. I sent Chris home and waited it out under the fluorescent glare in the orange plastic bucket seats while Idelber kept slipping out to smoke cigarettes, his head still bleeding somewhat.

Most of the people in the waiting room at Touro seemed to be there for emergency liposuction. They looked like eyes and mouths set in blobs of fat. I wasn't sure which ones were patients and which ones were waiting, though I figured the enormous teenage girl who went out and came back with a bucket of fried chicken was not a patient. Yet.

Idelber and I would have had plenty of time to go out for fried chicken. Since he wasn't bleeding to death, it took a couple of hours for the doctor at Touro to see him. When he did, he took a quick look and gave Idelber the choice of having the wound closed up with stitches or staples. But, he pointed out, the injection of anesthetic along such a long cut before the stitching would be about as painful as the staples. With the staples, no anesthetic, but it's quick.

"If it were me?" he said, "I'd choose the staples."

He was pretty much telling Idelber which to choose. Well, OK, said Idelber without realizing that what the doctor was really saying was that staples hurt like a motherfucker, but they were quicker and easier for him to do.

I had never seen this procedure. I thought, staples, well, that's some kind of technical term. No, the guy pulled out a stapler. Not a puny little office stapler, either. A big one.

If you are ever given this choice, don't choose the staples.

by Cameo Wood

I opened my beekeeping store in downtown San Francisco in June, and I've found that everyone loves beekeepers or bees, and that beekeepers are serious makers. What they can't find to buy, they generally end up building. I've also been stocking my store with the beekeeper in mind, and here are some of the top sellers, at my store and abroad!

---

8-Frame English Garden Hive

If you're just getting started in beekeeping, choosing the type of hive can be confusing. The only hive I use or sell is the 8-Frame medium Cypress hive, called the "hive of the future" by Bee Culture Magazine's Kim Flottum. Having one consistent size for all your equipment is a huge time saver, and is ideal for beginners and experienced beekeepers alike. There are two problems with the traditional 10-Frame shallow/deep sized box methodology.

• If your bees decide to make honey in your deep, you don't really have any recourse. You now have a 100+ pound box of honey that you need to lift every time you work your hive.
• If you get brood in your honey shallows, or honey in your brood deeps, there is no way to switch the frames around -- you're stuck with a mess.

The 8-Frame medium garden hive solves all of those problems. This is a beautiful hive that is all set up. You only have to paint/lacquer it, and you're set to go. Also, get a load of that gorgeous copper A-Line top... Fancy!

---

Apidan Overalls with Air Openings and Detachable Hood ($175)

The one thing that every beekeeper tends to buy eventually is a full sting-proof suit, for the days when the bees are cranky. Bees tend to sting if something is wrong in the hive, if the queen has died, if there was a recent invader, or if it's really cold and rainy outside. In these cases, the bees would really prefer if you didn't come barging into their home, making a mess of everything they've been building. For all these reasons, but mostly for the ones I can't anticipate, the full sting-proof suit is at the top of my list. These are the best I've found, and they look darn cool to boot. Find them in HMSBeekeeper or in the UK from beeproofsuits.

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A couple hundred thousand years ago, the planet became a much colder and drier place. In Africa, deserts expanded, species were wiped out and the human race was in deep trouble.

See, humans today may look pretty different from one another but, genetically speaking, there's not much diversity at all within our species. In fact, chimpanzees, which look pretty much the same from one individual to the next, are much more genetically diverse than we are. To scientists, that suggests that humans have come through a genetic bottleneck--a point where our numbers shrunk dramatically, and a relatively small population had to rebuild the species. For about 20 years, genetic anthropologists have been comparing the genes of modern human populations. Over time, they've used bigger and bigger samples, and better and better analysis, to hone in on when our bottleneck likely happened, and how many humans managed to slip through it.

Turns out, somewhere between 130,000 to 190,000 years ago, the human species was reduced to less than 1000 breeding individuals--just a few thousand people in total. Ancient, naturally driven climate change pushed our species to the brink, said Curtis Marean, Ph.D., a professor with the Institute of Human Origins and the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University.

What saved us? According to Marean, the answer may be "shellfish".

"They're a great source of protein," he said. "And shellfish are immune to colder ocean temperatures. In fact, when the water gets colder, those populations go up."

Marean used climate models to pinpoint locations in Africa where human hunter-gatherers could have hunkered down during a long glacial period that dried out the continent and expanded deserts. Of the four-to-six possible locations, he focused in on an area along the coast of South Africa.

"That area has a super high diversity of below-ground tuberous plants, which have high carb loads. People are excellent foragers for them. You need a digging stick and there wouldn't be a lot of animal competitors," he said. "And the tuberous plants are adapted to arid environments."

His team eventually found a site, dating to 164,000 years ago, that shows evidence of humans eating shellfish, working with natural pigments and creating technologically sophisticated tools. He thinks this could be the remnants of the humans of the bottleneck--ancestors of everyone alive today.

Other researchers have theorized that eating shellfish was actually the driver that allowed humans to develop the big brains we enjoy today, because shellfish are high in the Omega 3 fatty acids that the brain needs to function. But Marean thinks the big brain came first. You can't just walk down to the beach and score yourself some sweet shellfish action (at least, not enough to sustain a society) without being pretty bright. Ancient humans would have had to be able to do some pretty complex thinking about concepts like time, Marean said. They would have to be able to make connections between unrelated things, like phases of the moon, tides and when shellfish were most plentiful. And they'd have to be able to communicate all that to other people.

From Marean's perspective, big brains enabled a small group of humans to make the switch to a shellfish diet--an adaptation that allowed them to survive a climactic upheaval that wiped out most of their peers.

Naturally, this all begs the question, "Could humans adapt to and survive modern, anthropogenic climate change as well?" Again, Marean thinks the answer lies in our food supply.

"These people were hunter-gatherers, and beauty of a hunting and gathering economy is that it's very flexible. If you use 80 plants and 14 animals, and you lose 10 plants and two animals, you can just shift your resources. When you commit yourself to agriculture that has very narrow environmental parameters, and your whole population is dependent on that, slight changes in the environment can have catastrophic effects," he said. "I'd say we have the cultural and technological ability to make a change and adapt. But we need to get busy."

This story was inspired by Curtis Marean's lecture at the 2008 Nobel Conference at Gustavus Adolphus College in St. Peter, Minn. You can watch Dr. Marean's lecture online.

Image courtesy Flickr user avlxyz, via CC

davecl writes "Over the next three days, many new science results will come out from Herschel. The first of these, a view deep inside the stellar nursery of the Eagle Nebula, finds a huge amount of activity, revealing new stars and filaments of dust that could not have been detected by previous telescopes. Also open today is OSHI, the online showcase of Herschel images where all the new science images will be found. Herschel news also available on the Herschel Mission Blog."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

davecl writes "Over the next three days many new science results will come out from Herschel. The first of these, a view deep inside the stellar nursery of the Eagle Nebula finds a huge amount of activity, revealing new stars and filaments of dust that could not have been detected by previous telescopes. Also open today is OSHI, the online showcase of Herschel images where all the new science images will be found. Herschel news also available on the Herschel Mission Blog."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

By now you've probably heard that Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was attacked with a statue last weekend. Apparently, his political friends have decided that Facebook and Twitter are to blame for this, and they're now considering laws to crack down (even more than already) on what is allowed on such sites. Perhaps aware of how Italian prosecutors are still pushing forward with criminal charges against Google execs over a single video on YouTube posted by some kids, Facebook apparently was quick to respond that it will happily monitor and censor content on the social networking site that relates to Berlusconi.

As the CSMonitor article points out, Berlusconi owns a significant portion of the media business in Italy, and the internet is often viewed as a problem because he hasn't been able to control it. Thus, this may just be another political move to try to gain more control over dissenting voices online -- and it's a shame that Facebook would so easily play along.

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itwbennett writes "Hurrah! The European Commission's antitrust investigation of the Microsoft's position in the browser market is over. The EC has accepted Microsoft's commitment to offer users of 'Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7 a choice screen through which they can pick the browsers they want to install on their PC,' writes Peter Sayer in an article on ITworld. 'The screen will be offered to users in the European Union and some neighboring countries for the next five years via the Windows Update mechanism. In addition, PC manufacturers will be allowed to ship computers with competing Web browsers, as well as or instead of Internet Explorer.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Built by Associate Professor Yojiro Ishino of the Nagoya Institute of Technology, this giant camera took six months to build and has reportedly been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the camera with the record-holding highest number of lenses. It's about 3 inches high and 18.5 inches across, and was built to study flames by capturing them simultaneously from as many angles as possible a large number of angles. [via Neatorama]

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MAKE subscriber Michael C. Reilly writes -

As a followup to our Geek Wreath from a few years ago, we decided to make a Geek Tree inspired by the velleman 3D tree kit. Construction was funded by our new company Neighborhood Workshop.

Nice. Added bonus - looks like it can fold up and be stored flat for next year. Anyone else expect to see a car battery used as a base? More pics and info on the construction process on Flickr.

In the Maker Shed:

3D Christmas Tree Kit

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eldavojohn writes "Not to be out patent trolled by Eolas, a mystery company named 'BetaNet, LLC' is suing: Adobe Systems, Inc, Apple, Inc., Arial Software, LLC, Autodesk, Inc.,, CARBONITE, INC., Corel Corp., Eastman Kodak Co., International Business Machines Corp., Intuit, Inc., Microsoft Corp., McAfee, Inc., Oracle Corp., Rockwell Automation, Inc., Rosetta Stone, Inc., SAP America, Inc., Siemens Corp. and Sony Creative Software, Inc. for infringement of their patent entitled Secure system for activating personal computer software at remote locations. And of course, this was filed in our favoritest of favorite places: Marshall, TX (Texas Eastern District Court)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AdmiralXyz writes "It appears to be the end of the road for infamous Mac clone-maker Psystar, as a federal judge has issued a permanent injunction against the company, banning it from selling its OS X-based hardware products, following November's ruling that Psystar was guilty of copyright infringement under the Digital Millenium Copyright Act. Specifically, Judge William Alsup's ruling prevents Psystar from 'copying, selling, offering to sell, distributing or creating derivative works of Mac OS X without authorization from Apple; circumventing any technological measure that effectively controls access Mac OS X; or doing anything to circumvent the rights held by Apple under the Copyright Act with respect to Mac OS X.' The ruling does not include Psystar's Rebel EFI software, which (in theory) allows users to boot OS X onto some Intel computers, but Alsup said that too would be unlikely to stand up in court if Apple decides to make a formal challenge."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recent studies have shown that -- despite a massive recession -- both the music and movie industries are having fantastic years. However, both industries are complaining about how they're being "killed" by "piracy." There's no evidence of this of course, but when it comes to copyright, politicians don't seem to believe evidence is necessary. They just spring into action. So, just as a bunch of Federal government representatives sat down for a private meeting with entertainment industry bosses, Congress agreed to earmark another $30 million to propping up their obsolete business models fighting "piracy." It's a nice deal. Copyright infringement should, by any honest definition of the term, be a civil issue, taken up between private parties. There is a criminal component to copyright law, but it makes little sense. However, now the Justice Department and other local officials have a pool of cash so that they can be the entertainment industry's police force and private prosecutors.

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Researchers from Delft University of Technology have assembled inexpensive alternatives to costly scientific sensors using the Nintendo Wiimote.

Luxemburg's team aimed the Wiimote at a problem that can be very tricky for hydrologists: measuring evaporation on a body of water. The easiest way to measure evaporation is to place pans of water near the lake, or whatever water is being studied, and put pressure sensors in them. The sensors record the drop in pressure as more and more water disappears. But this equipment can run $500 or more, and still the measurements aren't accurate because the water in the pan gets warmer on land than it would in the lake. Alternatively, measuring the level of water in a pan that is floating in a lake is also tricky because the pan will inevitably be moving.

Hacked Wiimote Makes Super Scientific Sensor [via Slashdot]

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Zoran sez, "Earlier this week (12th Dec), a massive, peaceful protest of 100,000 people -- the largest demonstration for climate justice in world history -- was met with a heavy-handed response by the Danish police. Thousands of riot police swarmed the march route, blocked off streets surrounding large groups of protestors, and arrested almost 1,000 people. Arrestees were cuffed and forced to sit in rows for hours, as the temperatures dipped below freezing; numerous people urinated on themselves after being denied use of toilets."

Of course, these protests are being motivated by frustration at the incredibly weak results of the COP-15 negotiations. Last week, a closed-room group of delegates from Global North countries shocked Global South delegates and climate justice activists by pushing for a secretly-negotiated "deal" that would allow global temperatures to be allowed to rise by another 2 degrees Celsius - over the vehement protests of delegates from Africa and small island countries, argue that any increase larger than 1 degree will devastate and - in some instances - literally flood them. Then, in the past two days, the negotiations on a deal on REDD (reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation) - which are being touted as the "success" of Copenhagen - have degenerated into an incredibly weak potential deal, in which immediate targets for deforestation limits would be dropped and no financial commitments from Global North countries would be made. These failings on the part of negotiators from the Global North have been met with protests - both planned and spontaneous - by youth activists as well as delegates from the Global South.

Crackdown in Copenhagen (Thanks, Zoran!)

The New Zealand government has reintroduced its controversial "three-strikes" Internet law, Bill 92A. Previously defeated after widespread outcry, the new 92A was introduced minutes before Parliament recessed for the holidays, and makes no substantial improvements over the initial proposal. Under the revised proposal, if anyone in your house is accused of three acts of infringement (without any proof of wrongdoing), your entire household loses stands to lose Internet access for six months, and/or pays a NZ$15,000 fine (the previous version of the bill would have taken away your family's internet for life). The major change in the bill is the opportunity for a counter-notice, if you believe the accusation is false.

This "revised" law is still fundamentally flawed. The two important mistakes that this law makes are:

1. Assuming that taking away your household's Internet access is a just punishment for copyright infringement.
Even if you're guilty of infringing copyright, kicking your family off the Internet is a punishment vastly disproportionate to your crime. The Internet is increasingly tied to our earning power, our participation in civic affairs, our dealings with government, our education, and our connections to our community and families. Taking away your Internet access doesn't just deprive you of one means of copying movies or music: it could deprive your kids' of their ability to complete their homework; it could cost you your living; it could exclude your family from civic affairs such as Parliamentary hearings, local council initiatives, etc, and impair your ability to interact with government services from health to building permits.

And, of course, it is fundamentally unjust to punish an entire household for the deeds of one person.

2. It contains no real penalties for false accusations.
Earlier Internet copyright initiatives, such as the "notice-and-takedown" system for removing content from websites, have made no provision for punishment in the event of a false accusation of infringement. In the absence of such penalties, companies and other rightsholders have treated these copyright laws are carte blanche to send out abusive, sloppy, or spurious notices, because the cost of their mistakes would be borne by ISPs and web-site creators.

The record on this is clear: giving one group of people the power to punish another group without penalty for abuse of this power leads to abuse. As I've pointed out here before, Universal Music would never go for this law if it cut the other way -- if Universal stood to have all its New Zealand offices kicked off the Internet in the event that it makes three false accusations -- but without some check on power, terrible abuse is inevitable

Update: Thanks to commenter StuartM for pointing to a better source on the bill. While the bill retains the two fatal flaws above (collective punishment, no penalties for false accusations), it does contain some major improvements over the original 92A:

* Guilt must be proven to a copyright tribunal

* The definition of ISP has been narrowed to exclude universities, employers and other institutions that provide Internet access

* Rightsholders must pay a (unspecified) fee to file compliants.

Govt reveals revamped Section 92A (Thanks, Nic)

(Image: DSC_0723.JPG, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Br3nda's photostream)

Self Bias Resistor writes "According to a post on the Arcade-Museum forums, ASCAP is demanding an annual $800 licensing fee from at least one operator of a Guitar Hero Arcade machine, citing ASCAP licensing regulations regarding jukeboxes. An ASCAP representative allegedly told the operator that she viewed the Guitar Hero machine as a jukebox of sorts. The operator told ASCAP to contact Raw Thrills, the company that sells the arcade units. The case is ongoing and GamePolitics is currently seeking clarification of the story from ASCAP."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last year, you may recall that New Zealand tried to sneak through a "three strikes" type law that relied solely on accusations and would kick people off the internet. After first resisting, the government realized that public outrage over the plan was too strong and scrapped the plan, but admitted it was planning to try again, though with a bit more oversight.

It looks like that's exactly what's happened. The New Zealand government has released its new three strikes plan that is a bit more sane. You can still get kicked off the internet, which is troubling, but it's a much more involved process. The system involves a notice-and-notice offering, whereby copyright holders notify an ISP, who notifies the user. After three notices, you don't face disconnection, but a government tribunal, who can fine the user monetarily, but only to recover "damages," not for punitive reasons. Finally, if there are still more signs of infringement, the rights holder can take the user to court, which can lead to much larger fines and the possibility of losing an internet connection for six months. Throughout the process, the user will be able to appeal.

This is certainly a lot more reasonable than the original plan, but I still find any plan that involves kicking people off the internet entirely for their actions to be draconian and impossible to enforce reasonably. These days, your mobile phone or even a desk phone may use the internet, and many people require internet access for their jobs. It seems ridiculous to kick people off entirely.

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In this video, two British police officers come up to a young woman who is filming a building and harass her, imply that she is a terrorist, intimidate her, demand to see her footage. The policeman says that he's harassing her for being "cocky" -- punishing her for failing to cringe sufficiently. England's police chiefs have ordered policemen to stop harassing photographers, but this officer called for backup and 7 more officers converged on the photographer. The photographer was brutally detained -- she is covered in bruises -- and fined but she had the presence of mind to return to the scene and interview the witnesses to the assault.

i'm not a terrorist (Thanks, DavidB!)

Just posted! Our review of the Canon PowerShot G11. The G11 is the company's flagship compact camera, offering a flexible zoom range, solid build and classic styling. This latest incarnation of the G-series regains the much lamented flip-out screen lost from its recent predecessors, it also uses a 'high sensitivity' CCD that could put right the G10's disappointing low-light performance. So, after extensive testing, how did the G11 fare?

Kayla Kromer made this sweet Millenium Falcon bed - complete with stowaway compartments and headlights. Check out more pics in the Facebook photo gallery. [via Geekologie]

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The New Zealand government has reintroduced its controversial "three-strikes" Internet law, Bill 92A. Previously defeated after widespread outcry, the new 92A was introduced minutes before Parliament recessed for the holidays, and makes no substantial improvements over the initial proposal. Under the revised proposal, if anyone in your house is accused of three acts of infringement (without any proof of wrongdoing), your entire household loses Internet access for six months, and/or pays a NZ$15,000 fine (the previous version of the bill would have taken away your family's internet for life). The major change in the bill is the opportunity for a counter-notice, if you believe the accusation is false.

This "revised" law is still fundamentally flawed. The two important mistakes that this law makes are:

1. Assuming that taking away your household's Internet access is a just punishment for copyright infringement.
Even if you're guilty of infringing copyright, kicking your family off the Internet is a punishment vastly disproportionate to your crime. The Internet is increasingly tied to our earning power, our participation in civic affairs, our dealings with government, our education, and our connections to our community and families. Taking away your Internet access doesn't just deprive you of one means of copying movies or music: it could deprive your kids' of their ability to complete their homework; it could cost you your living; it could exclude your family from civic affairs such as Parliamentary hearings, local council initiatives, etc, and impair your ability to interact with government services from health to building permits.

And, of course, it is fundamentally unjust to punish an entire household for the deeds of one person.

2. It contains no real penalties for false accusations.
Earlier Internet copyright initiatives, such as the "notice-and-takedown" system for removing content from websites, have made no provision for punishment in the event of a false accusation of infringement. In the absence of such penalties, companies and other rightsholders have treated these copyright laws are carte blanche to send out abusive, sloppy, or spurious notices, because the cost of their mistakes would be borne by ISPs and web-site creators.

The record on this is clear: giving one group of people the power to punish another group without penalty for abuse of this power leads to abuse. As I've pointed out here before, Universal Music would never go for this law if it cut the other way -- if Universal stood to have all its New Zealand offices kicked off the Internet in the event that it makes three false accusations -- but without some check on power, terrible abuse is inevitable

Govt reveals revamped Section 92A (Thanks, Nic)

(Image: DSC_0723.JPG, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Br3nda's photostream)

zerothink writes "American student Lily Sussman, 21, upon entry into Israel from Taba (Egypt, Sinai) caught Israeli border police in grumpy mood — after two hours of questions and searching through her belongings they decided to put three bullets through her laptop. Explanation? 'I'm sorry but we had to blow up your laptop.' Haaretz also covered the story." All three bullets missed the hard disk.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Translated.by is a service for groups of volunteers working to group-translate texts into their native language, intended primarily for use on magazine articles, blog posts, and other short works. Presently, the language options are English, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian, though the creator, Ruslan Grokhovetskiy notes that he can switch on other languages "on request." Ruslan and friends have used the service to translate a bunch of my articles and stories into Eastern European languages, and they're on the lookout for others interested in playing along!

Translated by humans (Thanks, Ruslan!)

Translated.by is a service for groups of volunteers working to group-translate texts into their native language, intended primarily for use on magazine articles, blog posts, and other short works. Presently, the language options are English, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian and Lithuanian, though the creator, Ruslan Grokhovetskiy notes that he can switch on other languages "on request." Ruslan and friends have used the service to translate a bunch of my articles and stories into Eastern European languages, and they're on the lookout for others interested in playing along!

Translated by humans (Thanks, Ruslan!)

The inaugural Delhi outlet of Haagen Dazs (A Danish phrase that means, "Made in New Jersey," apparently) opened with a "no Indians allowed" policy. The sign on the door read, "Access restricted only to holders of international passports." After a public hue and cry, the franchise operator (who is Indian) dropped the policy and claimed it had never existed.

I immediately called Ramit. "You are an international traveler, and you have a passport, so you can go in", I said. Ramit's response was instant: I tried to enter but they said you are not allowed for you don't have an international passport.

I am normally not given to immediate emotional reactions, but I couldn't resist this time. I was, to be honest, upset. How can they do this to an Indian, in India? Do a story on TOI or NBT? Do it for print or Online? Call other media friends and colleagues? I simply didn't know how to react. Print would have a better impact, but should I wait that long?

Sorry, Indians not allowed

(Image: Times of India)

This is my first circuit from the new Make: Electronics book! It's Experiment 33: Moving in steps from page 286. You might be asking why I chose the stepper circuit for my first project? The simple answer is, I like stepper motors and thought it would be fun. The book is filled with great illustrations, diagrams, and pictures, making all the projects very easy to understand and build. Now that I got that out of my system, I'm going to go back and start from the beginning....Wait, I have to what in Experiment #1? Zap-zap! (if you own the book, you know what I mean!)

Over the next few months, we will be featuring a lot of projects from the Make: Electronics book here on Make: online. Are there any particular experiments from the book that you would like us to make? Did you make any projects? If so, please let us know in the comments. Thanks!

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An anonymous reader points out a recent article at Gamesradar discussing the frequency of major bugs and technical issues in freshly-released video games. While such issues are often fixed with updates, questions remain about the legality and ethics of rushing a game to launch. Quoting: "As angry as you may be about getting a buggy title, would you want the law to get involved? Meglena Kuneva, EU Consumer Affairs Commissioner, is putting forward legislation that would legally oblige digital game distributors to give refunds for games, putting games in the same category in consumer law as household appliances. ... This call to arms has been praised by tech expert Andy Tanenbaum, author of books like Operating Systems: Design and Implementation. 'I think the idea that commercial software be judged by the same standards as other commercial products is not so crazy,' he says. 'Cars, TVs, and telephones are all expected to work, and they are full of software. Why not standalone software? I think such legislation would put software makers under pressure to first make sure their software works, then worry about more bells and whistles.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's just something about the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act -- the "anti-hacking" law in the US -- that seems to leave it open for abuse in lawsuits. This is the law that was used to convict Lori Drew. Even though the judge eventually tossed the ruling, it showed how the broadly-worded law could be applied in dangerous ways. Still, at least some attempts at twisting the law aren't getting very far. For example, a woman in Minnesota tried to use the law against a company that sent her spam text messages she never requested, and discovered that in order to bring a case under a law, you have to actually show that the law was broken:

Plaintiff brings three possible claims: (1) a claim for obtaining information from her phone; (2) a claim for transmitting information or code through her phone; and (3) a claim for "accessing" her phone.

Information Claim: The court rejects the information-based claim because there's no information that WSOD allegedly obtained through accessing the plaintiff's phone. Plaintiff analogizes to websites and argues that any time someone sends a message to a mobile phone, information is "obtained" in the same way that information is obtained any time someone accesses a website. The court rejects this analogy, finding that "there is a fundamental difference between viewing websites and communicating with wireless devices such as cell phones by sending text messages." Even if the transmission of an unwanted text message somehow resulted in the "obtaining of information," the court concludes that there's no loss as a result of defendant having obtained the information.

Transmission Claim: The transmission claim requires plaintiff to allege that WSOD caused the transmission of code or information and as a result "intentionally caused damage without authorization" to plaintiff's device. The complaint fails on both counts. There wasn't a credible allegation of damage (there was no allegation of impairment to the machine) or of WSOD's intent to cause the damage.

Access Claim: The court rejects the access claim since plaintiff does not adequately allege that the unauthorized access was intentional.

So, nice try, but no dice. Someone sending unsolicited text messages to your mobile phone may be annoying (and potentially illegal under other laws), but it's not hacking under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

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Yep, that's right! The Maker Shed is offering FREE shipping on orders of $175 or more, and we guaranteed delivery for December 25th! What's the catch? Well, there are some stipulations. It's not to be combined with any other offer, and you must use coupon code ELF175 at checkout. Lastly, it's only for packages delivered in the continental US.

But wait! What about all our friends that live in far-away lands? Well, we have a deal for you too. Just use coupon code DASH10 and receive $10 off you next order. We can't guarantee the same speedy delivery, but it will get to you as soon as possible.

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Response to our 100-word fiction contest, "Found in Space," was overwelming: some 80,000 words of entries! Having gone through them as best we can, we've whittled it down to a handful of finalists. Forgive us if we've missed something magical: With such a vast number of entries, it's easy to miss a beat!

Frankly, making decisions is hard. Whim guides our hand. So why don't you make the final decision? Read the finalists, then vote below on who gets the HP MediaSmart server. Poll closes in 24 hours.

P.S. -- there are runner-up prizes, too!

 

By Drew826:

"Daddy, look! It's winking at us!"

A metallic mass glinted in the bright red sunlight, its irregular shape reflecting occassional pulses of light through the heavily tinted windows of a lunar transport shuttle, catching the eye of a young girl accompanying her father to work. As usual, the Luna School System was observing the semi-annual lunar eclipse by having students "shadow" their parents at work. "Shadow days" were perfect for spotting forgotten pieces of junk floating out in space, just beyond the shadow cast by the Earth.

"Daddy, do you think it can see me? I winked back."

 

By acrocker:

He knew that his owners loved him, but that was about it. Benny, a golden retriever, certainly wasn't clever enough to see the irony of his owners only putting up 'lost' signs a mile from his home while he was a great many orders of magnitude further away. Nor was he smart enough to know even the basics of the exotic physics that brought him here in .037 seconds.

He didn't even know where here was, he just knew it looked a little like a place he could call home: green grass, lots of squirrels, three suns in the sky.

 

By Thought Grime:

We'll go no more a-roving, the immortal words of Byron,
the tattered moon is out of bounds since they brought back the pylon.
Loudly, since the probe returned, the scientists implored,
Daedelus offered secrets that could never be ignored.
Eight months they argued who was best to undertake the study,
to clean the wretched thing because it was so freakin' cruddy.
Finally they started to remove the dense, moon-sand,
excruciatingly because they cleaned it all by hand.
At last the pylon stood revealing secrets from afar,
all Earth was still as they were read, the English words; "We Are".

 

By Garry Cook:

Reversing thrusters, gaze dropping to the object in his hand, the child glided to a stop in the entrance bay.

When was the last time humans had touched these? Some might consider him a hero, as this could really turn things around for our race. Or it could lead us right back down the path we were on three centuries ago, when the population was ten billion, not ten thousand. An adrenaline rush chilled him to the bone.

His grip faltered and the doors slid closed as it floated back into the ether, unsure if letting it go was intentional.

 

By femaletrouble3:

Finally: contact. Humanity's ultimate question was answered.

A metallic sphere, roughly 3m in diameter, polished to a mirror. Nondescript otherwise except for an iridescent arrow indicating a recessed palm-sized red button.

The StarFreighter HMS Darwin approached the sphere and gently brought it aboard. The harbinger was "weighted", photographed and measured while the various crews of the armada impatiently paced and speculated.

Eventually came the day where the only thing left to do was push the palm-sized red button.

...

It took the light from the explosion four years to reach Earth.

 

By toryhoke:

10 INPUT "Please enter your username: ", U$

20 IF U$ != "Amanda" THEN GOTO 160

30 PRINT "My dearest Amanda,"

40 PRINT "I thought I'd never see you again."

50 PRINT "You've grown."

60 PRINT "I guess I've stayed the same."

70 PRINT "I may not be everything you want me to be."

80 PRINT "But I loved you first, and I loved you best."

90 PRINT "There was a time you loved me, too."

110 INPUT "Come back to me? ", A$

120 IF A$ = "N" OR A$ = "n" THEN GOTO 150

130 PRINT " <3 <3 <3 "

140 GOTO 130

150 END

160 PRINT "Invalid username: "; U$

170 PRINT "You cannot access this space."

180 GOTO 10

 

By Andvaranaut:

He rose. First slowly, then a little faster. His feet detached slightly from the ground, and then -- as if rushed forward by a colossal slingshot -- he began flying. At 0.99c, things seem weird, collapsing and color-shifting at whim; but he was not distracted. Mars came zooming past. A myriad asteroids. Jupiter. Enceladus. C'mon. Neptune. Almost there. There it was: Voyager I, glorious in its shine. Farthest human object ever made. Makes your head spin. He could almost touch it, that Sagan golden record in the cold of space...

 

By ueannossioba:

The first kiss was careful, tentative, almost as if Will Robinson was testing the unknown temperature of one of his mother's meals. But Mom and Dad were long gone, as was Sis and the Major. For years it had just been the two of them and his growing curiosity. Now, at an age when he was nearly too old to be an object of desire, Dr. Smith had finally succumbed to the younger man's clumsy seduction.

Far off, in a dusty corner of the Jupiter 2, the barely functioning positronic brain of a long forgotten robot processed one word: danger.

 

By justi121883:

I don't know how long I stared at that cow. I think she must have escaped from the farm down the hall. It was after midnight on the third-deck workspace and I was alone. She lumbered in and tore a frond from my hydroponic fern. Then she leaned into my desk and it tipped into the air like a ship. I watched in disbelief, paralyzed, as my monitor crashed to the floor. Before, she was just another cow in a spaceship. But now she made history: she was the first ever cow in a spaceship to go on stampede.

He opened his eyes, and it all was gone.

 

By sanborn:

We drifted over Greenland, in the old polar orbit. I spread myself thin, enjoying the cold of space. I could tell she was looking for something. "What is it?" I asked. She didn't answer. Then we passed out of the Earth's umbra, changing from icy cold darkness to glaring sunlight. Suddenly, there was a glint of light. "I see it!" she cried, propelling herself forward. It was a small stainless-steel capsule in orbit, filled with dust. She formed herself around it. "What do you want with that old thing?" I asked. "You wouldn't understand," she said. "It was my body."

 

Whose story gets the gear?(opinion)

coondoggie writes "In about 5 billion years, our Sun will face a nasty death. Scientists with the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics this week released dramatic new pictures of a dying star much like the Sun, about 550 light-years from Earth. According to the researchers, Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that if it were in our solar system it would swallow every planet out to Mars and cook the asterid belt. The star has started to pulse dramatically, beating like a giant heart with a period of 408 days." The research team produced a video of the pulsating star, using infrared images captured via very long baseline interferometry.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I missed this last month, but a friend sent over a NY Times article looking at the growing practice of teachers making additional money by selling lesson plans. Marketplaces are emerging, and teachers who have crafted smart and useful lesson plans are able to earn extra cash, while other teachers who are looking for help in crafting smart lesson plans, or understanding what kinds of lesson plans work gain the ability to learn from others, rather than starting from scratch. However, there's a problem (isn't there always?). Some school districts are upset that the teachers are selling lesson plans, believing they deserve some of the "cut." Thanks to our "ownership society," we've built up this belief that every idea must be "owned" and if anyone makes money, others come grabbing as well.

Of course, while the article doesn't go there, I would bet that a growing number of teachers are seeing value not just in "selling" lesson plans, but posting them publicly for free. In doing that, you can get better feedback and open a nice discussion among other teachers to share what they all have learned, and create a better overall lesson plan that helps everyone out (especially the students). In fact, the more you think about it, the more you realize that expecting teachers to keep coming up with their own lesson plans entirely separate from what thousands of other teachers are doing, seems positively backwards.

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The remarkable story about Zimbabwean hyperinflation:

The cumulative devaluation of the Zimbabwe dollar was such that a stack of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (26 zeros) two dollar bills (if they were printed) in the peak hyperinflation would have be needed to equal in value what a single original Zimbabwe two-dollar bill of 1978 had been worth. Such a pile of bills literally would be light years high, stretching from the Earth to the Andromeda Galaxy.

Shadowstats' John Williams: Prepare For The Hyperinflationary Great Depression (via Kottke)

Two months ago, I blogged about the hit-and-run driver who ran down JWZ and friend on their bicycles in San Francisco. The victims lavishly documented the crime, including getting witness names, a photo of the license plate and so on. They filed a report with the SFPD, and waited. And waited.

After two months, they've been told that the SFPD doesn't intend to investigate the crime. Apparently, driving your car into a cyclist, causing injury, and failing to remain at the scene isn't a serious crime in the SFPD's books. JWZ thinks that this is part of a pattern of the SFPD ignoring motor-vehicle crimes against cyclists and pedestrians.

John called SFPD, went down to the police station in person and filed a report (case 091-062-114), and after several followup phone calls over the next few weeks was told:

"No action has been taken on your case, but you can call the DMV and get the person's plate if you want to file a civil suit."

Apparently prosecuting hit-and-run drivers is beneath the notice of our police department, and the piece of shit driver who almost killed us both gets off scott free.

SFPD hates bicyclists

Michael sez, "As a followup to our Geek Wreath from a few years ago, we decided to make a Geek Tree inspired by the Velleman 3D tree kit."

Geek Tree (Thanks, Michael!)

My guestblogging experience here has been wonderful, thank you all! I've learned a lot, made some neat connections, and gotten many pointers for learning more and doing more about things I'm interested in. This pleases me greatly.

I tried to pursue what Cory has called "That feeling of trepidation, of being slightly out of control, of taking a risk, of not knowing whether you are going to crash and burn." I hope that this showed, and that the results were enjoyable to you. I think that if you're not continuously checking your sanity, testing if you're correct or deluded about how your efforts might bounce off of the real world, then you're limiting yourself.

Here it goes, one last post into the ether-- watch it bounce: boing, boing, boing, boing, boing...

Fondly,
Paul

Nina Paley (of "Sita Sings the Blues" fame) writes,"I just released her first animation since Sita Sings the Blues, and it's about copyright! Specifically, that Copying Is Not Theft. This is the first in a series of "Minute Memes" I am producing with nonprofit QuestionCopyright.org. But 'Copying Is Not Theftl isn't finished yet, because the audio is just a scratch track of my unprofessional voice (I'm a professional animator, not a professional singer!). That's where you, Musicians of the Internet, come in. You are invited to arrange and re-record the song, add your name to the credits, and share the results however you like. The high-resolution video file is at archive.org. It's Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike licensed, so you can do anything you want with it except restrict its use. Yes, you can even use it commercially. Go crazy!"

Hi-rez video file (Internet Archive)

Minute Meme #1: Copying Is Not Theft (Thanks, Nina!)

abell writes "Gravatar offers a global avatar service, using an MD5 hash of the user's email as avatar ID. This piece of information in some cases is enough to retrieve the original email address. Testing a simple attack on stackoverflow.com, I was able to determine the email addresses of more than 10% of the site's users."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Back in October, we wrote about how various newspapers, under the auspices of the "Newspaper Licensing Agency" were threatning NewsNow, a UK news aggregator that is (in my experience) one of the more comprehensive aggregators out there, but which only shows headlines and links to full stories. It's difficult to see how that would be a copyright violation in anyone's definition of the term or why that should require any kind of license. The NLA gave NewsNow until last week to "comply" and according to the folks over at the Nieman Lab, NewsNow has decided to bid adieu to those sources rather than pay up:

"Unfortunately, we have not been able to reach an agreement with the NLA. In spite of the NLA's claims to the contrary, we continue to maintain that what they are demanding of ourselves and our customers is unacceptable and of questionable legitimacy. Irrespective of the lack of a legal basis, the NLA's licence is not fit for purpose. This is not just about the charges they intend to impose on us, but the charges they would also impose on our customers for receiving and circulating links within their own organisations. In addition, it is a perhaps an under-reported fact that the terms dictated by the NLA scheme would oblige us to hand over customer details to the NLA, which seems to be developing a potential rival service itself. It is hard to imagine that this kind of behaviour would be tolerated in any other sector. The NLA has also offered no reasonable guarantees of limitations on the increase of costs over time. We strongly feel that to accept the NLA's terms would set a dangerous precedent restricting our customers' ability to conduct their business freely. We see this as a 'slippery slope' towards any free-to-access website demanding licence fees from any organisation for circulating or clicking on links."

It is interesting that part of the license would have required handing over customer info, and good of NewsNow to resist this. The aggregator says that it will still provide links to those sources in its free (extremely feature limited) online offerings, but will remove them from its subscription offerings. It's difficult to see how this benefits anyone. It makes life worse for newspapers, NewsNow itself and NewsNow customers.

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QRPMe, Rex Harper's site for QRP (reduced-power) amateur radio kits, has a nifty little prototyping board that fits inside of a mint tin and could be used for other types of mint tin projects. The board (and a mint tin to house it) cost $12 postpaid.

While you're on his site, check out some of his other offerings, including a mint tin filled with QRP prototyping parts (secomd image above), tuna tin QRP transmitters, and QRP parts vacuum-sealed inside of tuna cans.

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I've been following "Square" it's a MEGA VC'ed company that has a dongle that accepts credit cards on devices like iPhones. It seems there is some type of dispute over who invented or something...

Square, a new company that makes a small device to let anyone make a credit card payment from their mobile phone, has probably stirred up more excitement than any other startup launching in recent months. But Bob Morley, an associate professor of electrical engineering at Washington University in St. Louis, says there’s a big hitch: He built Square’s credit card reading technology and has filed a patent for it, so the San Francisco company doesn’t own a key part of its tech. He came up with the concept, designed it, and assembled the first working prototype for it, he says.

I'm not really interested in that, so here's the patent (maybe, it could just be an older one) if you want to check it out...

A method and apparatus are disclosed for determining the remanent noise in a magnetic medium by, for example, dc saturation of a region thereof and measurement of the remaining dc magnetization. A conventional magnetic recording transducer may be used to determine the remanent noise. Upon determination, the remanent noise may then be digitized and stored on the same magnetic medium, in a database, or both to thereby "fingerprint" the magnetic medium. This "fingerprint" may then be later used to verify and authenticate the magnetic medium as being an original. The magnetic medium may be of a type adapted to record information magnetically or, even more broadly, any magnetic surface or substance that can be sensed through its magnetic field. In such manner, any magnetic medium, or any object having an associated magnetic medium, may be "fingerprinted" including credit cards, computer program diskettes, magneto-optic discs, videotapes, cassette tapes, bank checks, stock certificates, etc. A different or additional portion of the magnetic medium can be selected each time the medium is authenticated. In this manner, different fingerprint data can be used for each authentication procedure for added security, and to avoid the ramifications of possible counterfeiting, on-line interception, electronic eavesdropping, or sharing of access data by unscrupulous users.

I haven't looked through all of it yet, but someone might want to see what you could make... you can also make your own magstripe reader in MAKE too!

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Latest Gadget Freak! Table Saw quick cleanup, simple Hall effect sensor project -

When John Dawson turns on his table saw he wants a Shop-Vac to automatically turn on, too. He might have controlled a duplex outlet from a wall switch, but where's the fun in that? Instead, he uses a Hall-Effect sensor to detect current flow in the saw's power cord and then turn on the vacuum cleaner via a relay. John's design adapts well to other control situations, too. Don't get sucked into a simple switch circuit.

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An anonymous reader writes "Two developers have created 'Detect and Eliminate Computer Assisted Forensics' (DECAF). The tool tries to stop Microsoft's Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor (COFEE), which helps law enforcement officials grab data from password-protected or encrypted sources. After COFEE was leaked to the Web, Microsoft issued takedown notices to sites hosting the software." The article notes that DECAF is not open source, so you aren't really going to know for sure what it will do to your computer.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earlier this year, we wrote about the sitcom It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, which has a bit of a cult-like following among fans of the show. As we wrote, the show was doing a cool thing to connect with fans, by doing a live tour and screening a new episode in theaters around the country. It was a cool idea, and we were surprised other TV shows didn't do things like that. But, of course, the rest of our favorite "CwF + RtB" business model equation is beyond connecting with fans, you also have to give them a reason to buy. And reader Jeff alerts us to something else that the show recently did. In an episode last month that involved the various characters in the show discussing their new product ideas, at least one of them, the Dick Towel (um... NSFW) was turned into a real product (again, NSFW) and offered for sale for $20. According to Jeff, in an email he recently received from the site, so many people have ordered that they're a little late in shipping, and it looked like over 4,000 towels had been sold. Connect with fans and giving them a reason to buy appears to work with television shows as well... Of course, others have tried similar things as well, and there's even an entire company, Omni Consumer Products, that tries to license brands from movies to turn them into real products...

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The Type n Walk iPhone app enables you to see in front of you, via the iPhone's camera, while typing. I haven't tried it yet, but it's a cute concept. I'd imagine their lawyers wouldn't let them call it Type n Drive. Type n Walk (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

garg0yle writes "Scientists are repurposing Wiimotes as scientific sensors to help measure wind speed or evaporation from lakes, among other things. At about $40 per unit, the controller is much cheaper than specialized sensors. The scientists are still considering how to add storage and extend the battery life."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com. Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

Found via Slashdot comes the news of some breakthroughs in plastic flash memory. It's obviously still very early, and there are some limitations on the technology right now, but the potential makes it quite a worthwhile technology to follow. While it may not ever match what silicon flash memory can do in terms of storage and stability, plastic memory could provide some new and fascinating options for implementation, mainly in being a lot more flexible. That means it could be integrated into all sorts of new things -- including electronic paper and other offerings. Of course, the trickiest part in understanding new disruptive technologies is often in thinking about what sorts of new products it would allow. So it would be great to hear from folks what they think flexible, plastic memory might allow, and how it might change certain markets.

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In my previous SPARK post, I created a program that sends serial port commands via an XBee transceiver to control lights plugged into a modified power strip. It was nice to see this level of functionality, but since this is my last SPARK post, I wanted to add a little pizzazz to the project. The eBox 2300 computer I am using has audio in and audio out. I thought it'd be cool if I had lights flashing in coordination with music. The more lights I have, the cooler the effect. So I grabbed several more of my hacked power strips, added some code to the Windows Embedded program, and had a nice little light show sequenced to flash along to Herbie Hancock's Chameleon.

The power strips happen to be great project enclosures for my line voltage powered electronics.

Continue on to the SPARK site for video of the flashing light array and more information about hacking power strips for XBee control! Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Computers | Digg this!

Many people, including close friends and family of mine, hate joke bands. I understand the sentiment. Music has an almost sacred ability to break through left-brained chatter, reconnect you to the present and to emotional truth, and lift your spirits-- so it seems almost profane to turn the whole thing into a joke-- to drag it back into the domain of distancing, cleverness, and the inauthentic. But some joke bands have meant a lot to me, and I sincerely love them-- with The Surf Punks and The Upper Crust at the top of the list.

The Surf Punks were primary stars of my teen years. One of my favorite concert experiences ever was seeing them with my friends Ed and Peter at Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium, probably around 1982. They set up an entire beach scene on stage, complete with a lifeguard station. For their finale, guitarist Drew Steele donned an emergency life vest, stood in a kiddie pool, and let drummer Dennis Dragon (who also played on his brother's The Captain and Tennille albums) poured the following over his head: maple syrup, chocolate syrup, strawberry syrup, marshmallow Fluff, and several boxes of breakfast cereal. Now, that's entertainment! Steele then took the life vest off and threw it into the crowd, and Ed caught it. I believe that this {price-, worth-}less piece of rock history still resides in a paper bag in the back of a closet at Ed's parent's house. Here is a short taste of Surf Punk magic, a video for their 40-second song "New Lead Guitar."

The Upper Crust, champions of faux-aristocratic "roque music," played songs like "Monarchy In The U.S.A." wearing breeches, stockings, and powdered wigs. If you know the AC/DC song "Big Balls" then you have a sense for what the Upper Crust's songs are like-- but the Crust develops the concept further. They put on a fantastic show which I enjoyed at Bottom Of The Hill in San Francisco about 10 years ago, but I missed seeing them with original member Lord Rockingham, who had left the band to write speeches for Bill Clinton. Here is a video of their rousing "Let Them Eat Roque" (2:48). Enjoy!

Deleted. Y'all are right. There are way too many errors in there and I didn't pay nearly enough attention to ferreting them out before I decided to post. My bad.

As penance, I offer you this image of a Scutigera coleoptrata being eaten by a Venus fly trap. It's no unicorn, but it does a good job of summing up my failure nicely.

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO BLOGGERS WHO ARE WRONG ON THE INTERNET

Image comes from Plant Systematics Resources site of San Diego State University.