He's made a list. He's checked it twice. You'll find your gifts behind the toilet.

(Thanks to Arkizzle, fulfiller of Christmas wishes!)

Reader Vincent Clement alerts us to yet another story of a copyright overreach up in Canada, this time involving the owner of a small independent record shop in Ottawa who was charged with copyright infringement and has pleaded guilty, rather than fight it. The details are a bit confusing, but it sounds like the police raided his shop, and took a bunch of CDs, claiming they violated copyright -- but reports suggest that these are mostly legal imports that simply haven't been packaged for sale in Canada. In some cases, the "infringing" CDs were actually CDs of a local band that the store owner himself helped finance. In other words, these are the sorts of CDs you can find in pretty much any independent record store, and are the sorts of things purchased by true fans and collectors who want to own everything they can get. These aren't the types of products that are "pirated" or bought by people looking to avoid supporting a band. It's the opposite. But, the Canadian record labels and police have now "cracked down." Hope this makes the US politicians claiming that Canada is a piracy haven happy.

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Barence writes "Mozilla claims that its new Firefox Mobile browser could be the beginning of the end for the hugely popular app stores created by Apple and its ilk. Mozilla claims Firefox Mobile will have the fastest Javascript engine of any mobile browser, and that will allow developers to write apps once for the web, instead of multiple versions for the different mobile platforms. 'As developers get more frustrated with quality assurance, the amount of handsets they have to buy, whether their security updates will get past the iPhone approval process ... I think they'll move to the web,' Mozilla's mobile VP, Jay Sullivan, told PC Pro. 'In the interim period, apps will be very successful. Over time, the web will win because it always does.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just like there are no atheists in foxholes there are no Republicans who are uninsured and critically ill.

On Saturday, December 19, The Franklin Institute and Body World 2 will be hosting an Operation® game tournament. Body World 2 teamed up with our pals at MakePhilly and Hive76 to create a life-size 'Ben Franklin' version of Hasbro's popular game Operation. Quoth the PR:

Competitors will play on regulation-size Operation boards during the preliminary rounds and finalists will have the chance to skillfully remove Ben Franklin's ailments on the life-size version of Operation! The lucky Grand Prize winner will receive four complimentary tickets to the Body World 2 & The Brain exhibition, an exhibition catalog, and DVD, and -- of course, a regulation-size Operation game. The tournament promises to bring out the most highly-skilled and steady-handed players in the world of competitive Operation play.

---

Early registration for the tournament is highly encouraged. Check-in on competition day is from 12:30 to 1p.m. and the tournament introduction will start at 1pm sharp. WMGK-FM on-air personality Debbi Calton will guide contestants through each round leading up to the final event. There will be related make-n-takes and activities for young visitors. The event takes place in Franklin Hall at The Franklin Institute. For more information, log on to www.fi.edu.

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FrenchSilk writes "The largest gigapixel photograph ever created with a DSLR camera was made by A.F.B. Media GmbH in Dresden, Germany. 1655 images, each 21.6 megapixels in size, were taken with a Canon 5D Mark II and a 400 mm lens over a period of 176 minutes. The images were stitched on a 16 processor system with 48GB of main memory, taking 94 hours to create the final result. The interactive view can be found here."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lots of people got a good ironic laugh from the news that Microsoft, which has repeatedly complained about "piracy" in China, got caught blatantly copying code from a small startup named Plurk. Microsoft blamed a vendor and shut down the service. Plurk, for its part, got a ton of free publicity, and apparently it doesn't want to give it up. It's sent out a statement to lots of media folks (and us) with absolutely nothing of substance, but which says that the company is still considering legal action, while going on and on about how its just a small company that can't even afford sales people or a marketing person to write this email. And yet, it thinks it wants to distract itself with a lawsuit against Microsoft? If it can't afford sales people, those lawyers might be a bit costly. Yes, Microsoft copied your code. Time to use that to your advantage, and whining about the legal action you might take doesn't get anyone else to actually care about your product.

Meanwhile, another provider of similar software (though open sourced), Status.net took a smarter approach. Blaise points out that Status.net put up a blog post telling Microsoft to go right ahead and take its code. After all, it's open source (and they have a Chinese translation already). That's what you're supposed to do.

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British camera restorer Rayment Kirby has a cool tutorial on how (and why) to make your own antique-style field camera from wood and brass. Mr. Kirby seems to follow the convention that the "Field" of "field camera" is an eponym and should be capitalized, whereas the Wikipedia article does not. Can anyone clarify? Was there a "Mr. Field?" Or a "Mrs. Field?" (Please, no cookie jokes.) [Thanks, Billy!]

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An anonymous reader writes "The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) today filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission, asking the agency to investigate the recent changes made by Facebook to the privacy settings of Facebook users. The complaint discusses the sharing of user information with third-party developers and the new, widely-opposed 'Everyone' setting, which allows certain user information, such as name, profile picture, and friends lists, to be publicly available. EPIC also urges the FTC to compel Facebook to restore privacy safeguards. The complaint was signed by nine privacy and consumer organizations."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

itwbennett writes "Do geeks really 'drive girls out of computer science,' as the headline of a LiveScience article contends? Blogger Cameron Laird doesn't think so. In fact, 'I don't think "gender issues in computing" is important enough to merit the attention it gets,' says Laird in a recent post. And maybe the problem isn't that there are too few women in computing, but that there are too many men. 'I'm waiting to read the headline: "Women too smart for careers with computers,"' says Laird, 'where another researcher concludes that only "boys" are stupid enough to go into a field that's globally-fungible, where entry-level salaries are declining, and it's common to think that staying up all night for a company-paid pizza is a good deal.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

itwbennett writes "Do geeks really 'drive girls out of computer science,' as the headline of a LiveScience article contends? Blogger Cameron Laird doesn't think so. In fact, 'I don't think 'gender issues in computing' is important enough to merit the attention it gets,' says Laird in a recent post. And maybe the problem isn't that there are too few women in computing, but that there are too many men. 'I'm waiting to read the headline: "Women too smart for careers with computers,"' says Laird, 'where another researcher concludes that only "boys" are stupid enough to go into a field that's globally-fungible, where entry-level salaries are declining, and it's common to think that staying up all night for a company-paid pizza is a good deal.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the key questions that comes up when you discuss the concept of a world without copyright is "what's to stop others from just copying that book/DVD/CD etc. and selling it themselves, thus making the money that you could have made." The answer is that there's usually a lot preventing it. Filmmaker Nina Paley, a big supporter of culture without relying on copyright, has a great post discussing the "what's stopping you" question, where she notes that most people simply won't go through the hassle. However, what's more interesting is that even if people do start selling your works, it's not necessarily a bad thing. This is the similar to the discussion we recently had about others making money off of your content. If they're able to do so, it often suggests some sort of demand that you haven't met. As Paley notes, it's free market research:

In general, I would much prefer you bought Sita merch from the Sita Merch Empire than from a CafePress store. Reasons include: I know the Merch Empire merch is high quality, I personally designed and like all the products there, and a much higher % of the money goes to me. CafePress merch tends to be overpriced for the quality, and CafePress takes almost all the profits unless the seller sets prices absurdly high.

That said, Drakar's store offers Sita merch that doesn't exist at the Merch Empire. If I offered mugs, mousepads and stickers, he wouldn't have needed to make a Cafe Press store in the first place. If he actually sells any, it will demonstrate there is demand for such products. Then I can offer the same or similar products at my store. Drakar is essentially providing free market research, as are any other "competitors." If any of them do exceptionally well, I'll know what merch I should be selling.

This is why old-school economists say competition is good for businesses. It is. Too bad there's so little real competition in our supposedly "free market democracy."

Indeed. This is also why we've said time and time again that it's perfectly fine if you want to copy this blog and try to sell ads against it (or make money some other way). If someone actually figures out something that works well, then that's useful info to us, and would allow us to then incorporate those findings into our own offering. That's actually good for everyone...

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The $20 PermaFLOW Never-Clog Drain seems like a good idea!

With its innovative, self-cleaning design and integrated wiper that removes blockage, PermaFLOW eliminates the need for chemical drain cleaners, plungers, and expensive pipe repairs. This smart alternative to traditional P-traps installs in a snap and even allows for easy retrieval of accidentally lost jewelry and other items.

Amazon has videos of it in action.

Many thanks to copyranter for reminding me about the world's greatest anti-smoking ad, illustrated by Frank Frazetta, and co-starring the world's only selectively-blind teenage surfers. (Click image for a closer look.)

In 2004, doctor Mark Weinberger vanished from a private yacht in the Aegean. In debt to the tune of $5.7 million, and facing a class-action suit from patients who believed he performed unnecessary surgery on them, he was featured on America's Most Wanted more than once. This week, he was caught, 6,000 feet up an Italian mountain, living in a tent. (Thanks, Steve Silberman!)

In this remarkable and fully rockin' video, an Italian singer performs a rock piece whose lyrics are gibberish intended to sound like English. Entitled "What English Sounds Like to Foreigners," the video is meant to illustrate which English phonemes and syllables carry into the foreign ear, but I tell you what, it sounded like English to me, too, though like English as sung in such a way as to make it hard to decipher.

What English Sounds Like to Foreigners (via Making Light)

Update Thanks to commenter LukeWhite for this intelligence: "It's actually titled Prisencolinensinainciusol, written by Adriano Celentano wrote it in 1972."

Cities that installed LED traffic lights to save money are learning that the incandescent lights they got rid of had a useful purpose: their waste heat melted the snow that covered them in winter storms.

Municipalities around the country are taking different steps to keep their signals shining brightly in the face of Mother Nature. Crews in St. Paul, Minnesota, use compressed air to keep their lights clean. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, city workers brush the snow off by hand in a labor-intensive process.

Unintended Consequence of Technology: New LED traffic lights can't melt snow

LinuxScribe writes "In a blog announcement today, Canonical Founder and CEO Mark Shuttleworth revealed he will be stepping down from his CEO role to be replaced by current COO Jane Silber. Both execs do not see major strategic changes on the horizon. Silber's official blog and Linux.com each have more details on how the change will be implemented."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I liked it, but I wouldn't buy it.

Product Page

PaidContent has the details on an interview with Steve Haber, the boss of Sony's ebook reader business, where he trashed the $10 ebook and praised DRM. And now you all know why no one buys Sony ebook readers. Basically, the product's boss has decided to take an anti-consumer stance. Why would anyone want to shell out hundreds of dollars on a product when you know the company that makes it wants to screw you over?

On the price of ebooks -- a topic of widespread debate -- he insists that $10 can't possibly work:

"The $9.99 price point is not a money-maker. Certain bestsellers are sold at that price for retail, competitive reasons. But you need to have a range. You could go from $10 to $20 even to $100 for an e-book. There's no sweet spot and it's certainly not $9.99."

Well, first, let's be clear. The only reason that $9.99 isn't a money-maker is because publishers are still charging more at wholesale for the ebooks, still pretending that the lack of printing, materials and shipping shouldn't result in a lower price. Basically, the publishers are in denial, and Sony shouldn't be supporting them.

How about DRM? Remember, this is Sony, we're talking about, which has a history of abusing DRM against consumers. It's also the same Sony who keeps having its top execs claim that DRM holds up innovation and that open solutions win in competitive markets. And then they release their next DRM'ed/closed offering. So, how does Haber explain his love of DRM?

"You need an orderly process to sell books and DRM makes that possible, mainly because it allows content creators and distributors to make money from that content."

Huh?!? What does DRM have to do with making money from content? Absolutely nothing. iTunes sells a lot of music -- and it's all DRM free (finally). You don't need DRM to make money from content. You don't need DRM to have an "orderly process" to sell things. You only need DRM to limit what consumers can do, limiting the value of the content, making it less valuable to pay for.

It seems that the only thing keeping Sony in this business is the fact that the competition is basically just as bad on these issues, but one of these days someone's going to figure this out -- but it doesn't sound like it will be Sony.

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The band has a new album coming out in 2010, too.

Fraggy_the_undead writes "According to German IT news site heise.de, yesterday several 3D showings of Avatar couldn't take place (German; Google translation to English), because the movies were DRM protected such that there had to be a key per copy of the film, per film projector, and per movie server in the theater. The key supplier, by the name Deluxe, was apparently unable to provide a sufficient number of valid keys in time. Moviegoers were offered to get a refund or view an analogue 2D showing instead."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scott Draves sez, "The Electric Sheep makes art collaboratively with 60,000 computers and people all over the internet. It's based on a free screensaver that anyone can download and run. As it runs you may vote on designs you like, and the favorites survive to reproduce with a family resemblance, hence the flock evolves to please its human audience. It also supports Intelligent Design: you can use a genetic editor to create your own sheep and upload them into the gene-pool. All the sheep are CC licensed and may be remixed or remade into your own work.

I use the free screensaver as a design laboratory and supercomputer to realize higher quality works such as all-over print t-shirts, limited edition c-prints, and high-resolution videos (like the one recently commissioned for the new Gates Center for Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and the sample from our Blu Ray). Our objective is to make this artificial life-form self-sustaining, so the revenue generated by these pieces funds the operation of and improvements to the open source screensaver.

For example, In the past 6 months the Electric Sheep have been totally remade. We have a new server (including support from archive.org) and the client has been rewritten. The whole setup is 10x better than it used to be: the visual/genetic language is more expressive, the sheep have double the resolution and a better codec (x264), display is totally smooth, and download works for everyone.

More information can be found on the Wikipedia and in my bio. High Fidelity Demo Excerpt (2009) (Thanks, Scott!)

darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

darthvader100 writes "Gizmodo has run an article with some predictions on what future space battles will be like. The author brings up several theories on propulsion (and orbits), weapons (explosives, kinetic and laser), and design. Sounds like the ideal shape for spaceships will be spherical, like the one in the Hitchhiker's Guide movie."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tools.com's new blog's purpose is to keep you up to date on coupons, deals, sales, contests, and giveaways about tools. This one's going straight into my RSS reader! [via Core77]

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I recently wrote about Simon Cowell's conflicting statements expressing anger that YouTube didn't pay him for showing the Susan Boyle video millions of times, while then being happy that the same video will result in 10 million album sales. In my latest column for The Telegraph, I explore how the legacy music industry made a huge mistake in attacking YouTube and having videos pulled down off the site for not getting "paid" enough, when just a few years ago if they had wanted to put up music videos of their bands, they would have paid an arm and a leg for software, hosting and bandwidth -- and the consumer experience would have been a hell of a lot worse (RealNetworks media player, anyone?).

In thinking more about this, I was realizing how hypocritical the recording industry is on this particular topic. After all, they go on and on about how bad "free" is, and how they must get paid for any use of their content or they can't survive. And, yet, when someone gives them something for free (and YouTube provides free software, free bandwidth, free community and a bunch of other benefits), they complain that they're not getting paid. It's an incredible double standard. If the recording industry were actually being intellectually honest (I know, I know...), wouldn't they be demanding to pay Google for providing such a service, since (as they claim) you "can't make money from free"?

Separately, I had wanted to mention this in the Telegraph column, but ran out of room. It is worth noting that at least some of the industry has, in some ways, "embraced" YouTube with the launch of Vevo a couple weeks ago (though, that launch was completely bungled by apparently not expecting anyone to actually visit the site). I still haven't quite figured out what Vevo is, however. It's a joint venture of Google and Universal Music, with EMI and Sony Music as partners (Warner remains the major label holdout). As far as I can tell, though, it just seeks to be a separate platform to give the labels some more "control" over videos on YouTube. I still can't figure out why this needs to be a separate company, other than to play financial games. Isn't this just a feature of YouTube?

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darthcamaro writes "Moonlight 2.0, that's Novell's open source implementation of the Microsoft media framework in now available and with comes a new patent promise from Microsoft. Any Linux user can use it now without being worried about being sued: '"A really important change in how the community and individuals will see and use Moonlight is a change and extension to the patent covenant that Microsoft provides to Novell and its end users,' Brian Goldfarb, director of Web and user experience platforms at Microsoft, told InternetNews.com. 'We're now increasing the reach of the agreement — Microsoft's commitment not to sue Novell or Novell customers now extends to redistributors."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Looking for something fun to do with that special gamer in your life? Well, you might want to try Ed Keeble's Pong Prom, which combines the formerly disparate activities of slow dancing and pong. LED displays embedded on the front of each garment show your partner's side of the pong game, and you play by swinging them around. Instructions aren't provided yet, however a how-to is promised soon. [via technabob]

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How much data--in terms of genetic information--does a human sperm carry and what is the rate of transfer? Can you properly compare a penis to an ethernet connection? The good citizens of Reddit attempt to convert "bits" to bits. Hilarity ensues. (Thanks, Marc Abrahams!)

aws910 writes "According to an article on the BBC website, BBC HD lowered the bitrate of their broadcasts by almost 50% and are surprised that users noticed. From the article: 'The replacement encoders work at a bitrate of 9.7Mbps (megabits per second), while their predecessors worked at 16Mbps, the standard for other broadcasters.' The BBC claims 'We did extensive testing on the new encoders which showed that they could produce pictures at the same or even better quality than the old encoders ...' I got a good laugh off of this, but is it really possible to get better quality from a lower bitrate?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There have been a bunch of companies popping up lately that have allowed bands to help "pre-finance" an album, by getting fans to commit to pay up in exchange for some sort of added benefit. We've covered in great detail how Jill Sobule successfully used just such a method (on her own, not with a startup) to finance her last album. Earlier this year, though, the concept got a lot of attention when the group Public Enemy signed up with the company SellABand to try to raise $250,000 by the end of the year to finance its latest album. While we were impressed by such a well-known act trying such a system, we did note when it was announced that the "benefit" given by the group didn't really seem that compelling. The pricing seemed quite high for what people were getting, and there was little effort to actually "connect with fans." It was really just a very high-priced way of getting people to fund the next album.

So it doesn't come as much of a surprise that Public Enemy is struggling to reach its goal. It has raised over $70,000, which is nothing to complain about, but that's well short of the $250,000 goal.

There are definitely some important lessons to be learned from this. These sorts of models require a lot more than just putting it out there and expecting fans to automatically support you, no matter how big an act you might be. Jill Sobule worked really hard to cultivate and connect with her committed fanbase, and that's what helped her hit her goal. Public Enemy didn't seem to put much effort into that at all. Second, pricing really does matter. In giving people a "reason to buy" something, that doesn't mean you just slap a price on stuff. The price needs to be reasonable and make sense to people. Public Enemy's offerings just seemed pricey all around, even to fans of the group. At $100 you got a CD and a chance to buy a second CD at 50%, along with your name in a booklet? Eh. What's so exciting about that. At $250 they add in a t-shirt? That's $150 just for a t-shirt? You had to go all the way up to $500 before they would even autograph the CD. Sure, $1,000 for a 3 year unlimited backstage pass could be cool if you were going to see the band a lot, but that was the first offering that really seemed potentially worth the money for a serious fan.

So, I think there are some important lessons here. We've mainly focused on pulling lessons from the success stories, but the lessons from failures can be just as valuable. And, in this case, it goes back to our standard formula of Connect with Fans (CwF) and give them a Reason to Buy (RtB). Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Public Enemy really did much of either. They just expected the fans to come to them, and they priced everything too high, without giving really compelling lower end options. Because of that, they certainly got some people to pay up -- and, again, raising $70,000 is nothing to put down -- but it fell well short of the goal. In some ways, what they did is like a cargo cult: copying all the superficial aspects of what worked before, but not the really important stuff.

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krou writes "A producer from Uruguay who made a short science fiction film and uploaded it to YouTube has landed a film deal with Sam Raimi's Ghost House worth $300 million. The film, which shows spaceships and giant robots attacking Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, was made by Fede Alvarez for around $30. 'I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios,' he said. Alvarez is to develop and direct a film based on one of his ideas, but there is no word yet on the writer."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

krou writes "A producer from Uruguay who made a short science fiction film and uploaded it to YouTube has landed a film deal with Sam Raimi's Ghost House worth $300 million. The film, which shows spaceships and giant robots attacking Montevideo, the capital of Uruguay, was made by Fede Alvarez for around $300. 'I uploaded (Panic Attack!) on a Thursday and on Monday my inbox was totally full of e-mails from Hollywood studios,' he said. Alvarez is to develop and direct a film based on one of his ideas, but there is no word yet on the writer."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This PermaFLOW sink trap from PF Waterworks was featured in Popular Science's Best of What's New 2008. To be clear, I've neither owner nor use one of these, so I can't vouch for the quality of the product nor for its practical effectiveness. However, I admire the clever thinking that went into the design: the transparency lets you see at a glance how bad the clog is (or if your wedding ring really went down there), and the knob lets you clear it without dismantling the trap. At least in theory. In practice, of course, accumulated grime (or algae, if your trap is regularly exposed to light) might eventually obscure the interior of the pipe, and the rotating paddle mechanism might break down or get fouled with hair. Be interesting to see if this thing is still around in five years, and if so, how the early installations are holding up. [via SlipperyBrick]

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Professor Eustace P. Toffeynuts III, Ph.D., D.D.T., L.S.D., has produced a very important treatise on the freaky nature of goat eyes, their relationship to the freaky nature of octopus eyes and why both animals are clearly in league with Satan.

Goat Eye Syndrome is characterized by eyes afflicted with horrific horizontal pupils similar to those of cephalopods such as octopi, squid, or cuttlefish. The pupils of these beasts are approximately the shape of a kidney bean, but instead of dividing the eye vertically, in the manner of noble, trustworthy beasts such as tigers, bobcats, and snakes, the GES pupils transfix the eye horizontally. This is disgusting. The only other type of animal to display such disgusting, vomit-inducing eyes are the previously mentioned cephalopods (which have a long association with death from the murky depths and Cthulhu) and Kermit the Frog, who is a felt puppet created by Jim Henson, and should not be considered an example of an accurate representation of frog physiology.

Ignore this research at your own peril.

Professor Eustace P. Toffeynuts III, Ph.D., D.D.T., L.S.D.: Goat Eyes: Satanic ploy, or merely horrific crime against nature? A serial treatise on the unnatural pupils of those beasts of the genus capra (2006)

(Thanks, Ed Yong!)

Image courtesy Flickr user BitBoy, via CC

Marco at Tumblr says that he was inspired by the "seriously clever" use of the Twitter API by WordPress. Of course I was too. When they came out with it I wondered out loud if the Twitter API is now an open standard.

Well, less than a week later, Tumblr now has implemented the Twitter API, and as a result you can use any Twitter-compatible tool to post to and read from Tumblr.

Marco's post explains.

Let's pause here to let that sink in.

Wow. Unbelievable. Fantastic. Awesome.

Conventional wisdom says that open standards are created by endless deliberations among experts and big tech companies, and those do sometimes gain traction.

But this is how it usually happens: Someone goes first. No one thinks of it as an open standard. Then someone clones it. All of a sudden people get ideas. Inspired, someone goes third. At this point it's inevitable that there will be a fourth and fifth and so on.

It's also inevitable that Twitter tools vendors will start testing their products with WordPress and Tumblr, and hopefully report bugs and have them fixed.

And the brilliant minds of the developers and users of WordPress and Tumblr will have their say in the evolution of this new art.

All of a sudden things are exciting again!!

PS: If Facebook were to implement the Twitter API that would be it. We'd have another FTP or HTTP or RSS.

We've been covering how the Olympics has been able to get various governments around the world to grant it extra special intellectual property protection on certain words and phrases, with the upcoming Vancouver Olympics being no exception. In that case, you have to be careful of the use of "Vancouver," "Olympics," and even "2010." So, clothing maker Lululemon decided to come up with a line that mocks these restrictions, with a brand new line of clothing called:

"Cool Sporting Event That Takes Place in British Columbia Between 2009 and 2011 Edition."

Note how careful the company is to avoid any of the restricted words. Nicely done.

Of course, guess who isn't happy? Reader Joe McEnaney alerts us to the news that, even though the Vancouver Olympics can't officially do anything to Lululemon, it has decided to try shaming the company instead, expressing disappointment that the company has "has broken the spirit of Olympic trademark regulations." Of course, even so, the Olympic officials seem to misunderstand what's going on here. They claim:

"We expected better sportsmanship from a local Canadian company than to produce a clothing line that attempts to profit from the Games but doesn't support the Games or the success of the Canadian Olympic team."

But, of course, that's not what's going on here at all. They're not trying to profit off of the Olympic Games. They're trying to profit off of the ridiculous free speech restrictions put in place by the Olympics for no good reason.

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SharpFang writes "The new Zune HD Twitter app censors naughty words out of tweets in your timeline. Sure, it's a free app, but this kind of active content censorship just rubs me the wrong way."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

106 years of flight...

On this day in 1903 near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright made the first successful sustained flights in an airplane—Orville first, gliding 120 feet (36.6 metres) through the air in 12 seconds.

They gained the mechanical skills essential for their success by working for years in their shop with printing presses, bicycles, motors, and other machinery. Their work with bicycles in particular influenced their belief that an unstable vehicle like a flying machine could be controlled and balanced with practice. From 1900 until their first powered flights in late 1903, they conducted extensive glider tests that also developed their skills as pilots. Their bicycle shop employee Charlie Taylor became an important part of the team, building their first aircraft engine in close collaboration with the brothers.

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Join me and fellow Make: Online contributor Sean Ragan this Friday for some LIVE 3D printing action using my MakerBot CupCake CNC machine. This will coincide with a Make: Projects 3D modeling tutorial using OpenSCAD, and will give you a chance to ask us questions about the models, the machine, and see it BZZTREEAAOOWWWing live in front of your very eyes. Join us between from 1pm-2pm EST (10am-11am PST) on Ustream. The live video feed will be from my Brooklyn studio, with Sean online from Austin, TX.

Live 3D printing with MAKE and MakerBot
Friday, December 18 1-2pm EST
Becky's Ustream channel

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Matt_dk writes "Surendra Pal, associate director of the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Satellite Centre says that Chandrayaan-1 picked up signatures of organic matter on parts of the Moon's surface. 'The findings are being analyzed and scrutinized for validation by ISRO scientists and peer reviewers,' Pal said. At a press conference Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union fall conference, scientists from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter also hinted at possible organics locked away in the lunar regolith. When asked directly about the Chandrayaan-1 claim of finding life on the Moon, NASA's chief lunar scientist, Mike Wargo, certainly did not dismiss the idea."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There has been an effort made by some to try to connect the totally unrelated issues of network neutrality and unauthorized file sharing together. There is no connection between the two, but that won't stop busy lobbyists from doing their best to drum up such a connection. Copycense points us to the news that Grover Nordquit's group has decided to push this line of nonsense by parroting claims by the Songwriter's Guild of America (SGA) that accepting net neutrality is akin to encouraging piracy. How? That's not clear, because there's really no connection at all. The best they can say is that net neutrality would prevent efforts to crack down on file sharing (except, every plan for net neutrality has explicitly had exceptions for such things). I've said it before and I'll say it again: I am not in favor of laws mandating neutrality, but the arguments made by those against it are so over-the-top ridiculous that it's actually making me wonder why. There are reasonable arguments against mandating neutrality, but these groups don't make them.

That it's the SGA making these arguments initially shouldn't come as a surprise. The group has a rather antiquated view of business models and modern technology, and its boss has declared in the past that songwriting would not occur without copyright -- an obviously incorrect statement. The SGA has become a caricature of itself in the last few years. Rather than admitting that the market is changing and working with songwriters to help them adapt, it has basically decided the only reasonable strategy is to go crying to the government for more protectionism, and greater mandatory licensing fees. This is an odd group for the anti-net neutrality types to team up with, since most of them claim their reasons for being against net neutrality is to get away from government meddling in the internet industry. And then they go and team up with the SGA, who's entire purpose is to encourage more government meddling in the music business? Politics makes strange bedfellows indeed...

Separately, it's probably worth noting that ITIF, a "think tank" in DC and which has been a huge anti-net neutrality voice, has just come out with a poorly researched, poorly argued, joke of a report on "reducing digital piracy." In it, they promote kicking people off the internet (based on accusations, not convictions) under a three strikes regime, and also that ISPs should filter and monitor their networks to try to stop infringement. Apparently, ITIF is not a big fan of your privacy... but it's own... well, just try to find out who funds ITIF? That's secret. Funny how that works. Otherwise the report repeats a bunch of sweeping claims that have no support in reality, and does not back them up. It states, repeatedly, that you can't compete with free, even as many smart businesses do that every day. The report advocates DRM, and amusingly fails to mention the massive failure of every DRM system to date, and the harm it has done to legitimate users. But, of course, it saves most of its focus on supporting "technical measures" from ISPs to inspect your content and stop you if they think you're doing anything wrong. Welcome to the big brother state. The report also supports ACTA, even though it admits it doesn't know what's included. Basically, it's "recommendations" straight from the entertainment industry, with no basis in reality. And, with a nice "net neutrality" tie-in. Those ties seem likely to get closer, which is unfortunate. Funny that those who keep claiming they want the government to "stay out" of the internet, are so keen to have them very actively involved when it comes to copyright.

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When we asked some of our maker family what they had on their holiday wish lists, I-Wei Huang, aka Crabfu, responded with so many R/C vehicles (this...er-hurm.. grown man likes toys as much as I do!), we decided to make it into a mini, unofficial gift guide. Thanks, I-Wei! And to all you fellow Peter Pans out there, enjoy!

Beginner R/C

E-flite Blade mCX ($120, E-flite)
Indoor-only micro-coaxial (mCX) helicopter. Very easy to fly, with four channels for full control. Comes in BNF (Bind and Fly) or RTF (Ready to Fly).

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ParkZone Vapor ($100, ParkZone)
Indoor 3-channel plane. Easy to fly and maneuverable in small areas. (I've hacked mine to become a biplane Comes in BNF or RTF.

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Micro Rock Crawler ($120, Losi)
1/24-scale rock crawler. I just got one of these and it's great fun for indoor crawling. Comes in BND (Bind and Drive) or RTR (Ready to Run) models.

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Mini Rock Crawler ($240, Losi)
A bit larger than the micro, great for couch crawling. Comes in RTR.

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Rovio ($224, WowWee)
Awesome little robot camera that you can drive over the internet. Here's my review on Trossen Robotics.

Intermediate/Advanced R/C

Ultra-Micro Sukhoi ($100, ParkZone)
Currently my favorite R/C airplane, it is tiny and quick. Made of foam and nearly indestructible. Full function, 4-channels, and comes in BNF.

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Blade MSR ($150, E-flite)
Cool fixed-pitch heli. Very easy to fly for a single rotor helicopter, but much harder to fly than a coaxial. It is tame compared to a control-pitch heli, but rather twitchy and unstable if you were to compare it to an mCX. Great for indoors, but can't handle much of a breeze outside. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Flying | Digg this!

Canon has issued firmware updates for its EOS-1D Mark III, 1Ds Mark III and 5D Mark II cameras to provide compatibility with the wireless file transfer units. The 1D series cameras gain compatibility with the WFT-E2 II unit while the 5D Mark II gains WFT-E4 II support and lower noise when shooting Bulb exposures. Meanwhile the WFT-E2 and E2A firmware is also updated to allow use with the 1D Mark IV.

azoblue writes "Google — the world's largest online ad broker — sees no reason to worry about the addition of ad-blocking extensions to its Chrome browser. Online advertisers will ensure their ads aren't too annoying, the company says, and netizens will ultimately realize that online advertising is a good thing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instructable user incoherent, shared an intelligible explanation of his thorough PCB fabbing process along with a bit of background on how it came about.

After experimenting with home PCB fabbing for a while, I've finally worked out a process that produces reasonably consistent results that actually look pretty good. I spent lots of time trying to use the toner transfer method with varying degrees of success (OK, varying degrees of failure might be more accurate). I also tried Philmore/Datak negative photo resist spray with consistently horrible results (the stuff eventually melted the spray nozzle that came with it and leaked all over the place). Not Green & not recommended. Now I could have purchased presensitized boards and saved a lot of trouble, but I find the material to be too costly for the volume of boards I'm producing. I eventually tried dry film photo resist and I won't be going back!

After laying out the board in Inkscape, the dry film resist and artwork transparency are held tightly together in a homemeade vacuum frame and exposed to a bed of UV fluorescent bulbs housed in an old scanner. The funky color gradient soldermask seen in the top pic was actually the result of unintentional overheating during the reflow step. (Note to self: always overheat soldermask.) Check out the full process for Killer PCBs on Instructables.

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

Another interesting project from Flickr member jiskar - he's developing a high-power LED light with adjustable color temperature.

The goal of this project is to develop an energy efficient lighting system that not only produces light, but that produces light with a color and spectrum that actually has a positive influence one one's biological and mental state. Just like sunlight.
[…]
Humans reacts on the different colors and intensities of sunlight. It influences one's biological clock by making feel awake or sleepy, it influences productivity and mood. A lot of research has been done on this topic and it shows that lighting can have significant impact on one's state. You probably notice this yourself; when you're working its nice to have bright white light and when you're relaxing you like a cozy yellow light more.

Of course those high power LEDs produce a fair amount of heat, hence the impressive heat sink -

The current iteration mixes the four LEDs via an ATTiny44's PWM outputs. Should be interesting to see how this one turns out - if nothing else, it'll make one heckuva custom desk lamp. Follow his progress on the Ledmodule wiki page.

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Interesting story on MSNBC about how the newer energy-efficient LED traffic lights are causing accidents because, unlike conventional incandescent traffic lights, they do not generate enough heat to keep themselves clear of snow, and thus can easily become obscured by it. I don't think anyone's saying LED traffic lights are a bad idea in general, but it is an interesting parable about thinking all the way through a problem from a design perspective. [Thanks, Ron!]

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coomaria writes "Thought that 2009 was the year botnets died? Well, think again: compromised computers were responsible for distributing 83.4% of the 107 billion spam messages sent around the world every single day this year, and it's going to get worse if intelligent and autonomous botnets arrive in 2010 as predicted."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1 Predator drone: $4.5 million

Intercepting video from the Predator drone's unprotected communications link: $25.95

Predator drones are built by General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Inc. of San Diego. Some of its communications technology is proprietary, so widely used encryption systems aren't readily compatible, said people familiar with the matter.

Fixing the security gap would have caused delays, according to current and former military officials. It would have added to the Predator's price. Some officials worried that adding encryption would make it harder to quickly share time-sensitive data within the U.S. military, and with allies.

Today, the Air Force is buying hundreds of Reaper drones, a newer model, whose video feeds could be intercepted in much the same way as with the Predators, according to people familiar with the matter. A Reaper costs between $10 million and $12 million each and is faster and better armed than the Predator. General Atomics expects the Air Force to buy as many as 375 Reapers.

Wall Street Journal: Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

Copycense points us to an ongoing lawsuit by a guy seeking to bar the Baltimore Ravens and the NFL from making use commercially of any game involving the Ravens from 1996 to 1998. At issue was that this guy claimed his logo design was copied by the team. A few years back, William Patry detailed the ridiculousness behind the original lawsuit and how it had resulted in many more ridiculous lawsuits:

Bouchat, a security guard in Baltimore, believed that the Baltimore Ravens had infringed a design he claims to have created for the team's logo. He sued the team and the NFL's licensing arm. In my opinion, there was no evidence of access and the thus the case should have been summarily dismissed. In my opinion, the case was a shakedown. But, applying the fatally flawed theory of striking similarity, the case went to a jury. The jury found liability, and the Fourth Circuit affirmed in an awful decision that drew an excellent dissent by Judge King, 228 F.3d 489 (4th Cir. 2000), amended by and pet. for reh'g en banc denied. 241 F.3d 350. Judge King's dissent is the best thing yet written on why striking similarity is inherently inconsistent with basic copyright principles, and as to the facts in Bouchat, devastating to the plaintiff's claim and the majority opinion.

While Bouchat "won," he wasn't given any money, because he had failed to register his design before it was put into use. But he's since sued various other companies, and this latest lawsuit is an attempt to say that no one can show those old films because they use "his" logo, despite the lack of evidence of actual copying (which, if copyright were actually about copyright would be necessary). The lower court turned him down, noting that the use of the logo was incidental and fair use, but Bouchat is (of course) appealing. This is, again, in line with Patry's analysis that this is nothing more than a shakedown. He's not really interested in stopping the sale of these videos. He wants the team to pay him a big chunk of money so that it can keep selling the videos. This is not what copyright is intended to do, but it's what happens when copyright law gets out of control.

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reporter writes "A computer program that can be easily purchased for $25.95 off the Internet can read and store the data transmitted on an unsecured channel by an unmanned drone. Drones are crucial to American military operations, for these aerial vehicles enable Washington to conduct war with a reduced number of soldiers. '... the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under US surveillance.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Computer security guru Matt Blaze takes a tour of a decommissioned ICBM complex in Arizona. Cool photos, insightful perspective on two man control, perimeter security, human factors and why we didn't blow ourselves up. From the article: 'The most prominent security mechanism at the Titan site, aside from the multiple layers of thick blast-proof entry doors and the fact that the entire complex is buried underground, was procedural: almost all activities required two person control. Everywhere outside of the kitchen, sleeping quarters and toilet were "no lone zones" where a second person had to be present at all times, even for on-duty members of the launch crews.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rich 3D graphics in standard web content without a plugin just got one step closer to reality. The Khronos Group recently announced the availability of the first WebGL specification draft.

WebGL is largely based on OpenGL ES 2.0. It makes the OpenGL APIs available through JavaScript, allowing Web developers to draw 3D graphics inside of the HTML5 Canvas element. The goal is to bring all of the power of OpenGL directly to the browser by exposing the low-level graphics APIs. In theory, the flexibility of this approach will make it significantly more useful than previous 3D Web technologies like VRML which confined developers to a handful of predefined abstractions.

WebGL draft published, Khronos seeks community involvement [via precentral]

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Earlier this year, we noted that while many newspaper execs were complaining about "free," the owners of the London Evening Standard had decided to make their paper copy free and that had resulted in much greater circulation and (importantly) lower distribution costs. Part of the issue was that the paper stopped distributing to certain newsstands and newsagents as just not being worth it. Yet, as reader mowgs points out, some of those newsagents so badly want the paper -- even if it's free -- that they're now paying the newspaper to carry it, even while giving it away for free:

The Evening Standard editor, Geordie Greig, said today that the paper had been besieged by inquiries from newsagents wanting to stock the paper as a way to attract customers, even though they were no longer paid a commission.

"What has happened is that entrepreneurial London has taken over. Little companies have got together and have decided to distribute the Standard in little places we decided we couldn't afford to go to," Greig told the BBC Radio 4 Media Show.

"We used to pay a large commission to newsagents to sell the Standard. We now have dozens of newsagents paying us 2p a copy to have copies in their shop ... which they then give away," he said.

Separately, he noted that the rise in ad revenue to the paper has been dramatic, and that they're making two to three times as much in ad revenue on certain days. But, you know, it's "impossible" to support journalism while giving away the content for "free." Rupert Murdoch says so.

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Electronic Frontiers Australia have posted their authoritative condemnation of the Australian government's plan to impose mandatory, national filtering on the Australian Internet (like the filters used in Iran, Syria, China, and other repressive regimes). EFA points out that this national censorship plan will do little to curb child pornography and crime (because people who seek out that sort of thing can always get around filters), but it will give unaccountable government bureaucrats the power to secretly and arbitrarily hide information from Australians.

An announcement on Tuesday confirms it: next year, all Australian ISPs will be required to filter access to a government-supplied blacklist containing "refused classification" (RC) web content. That would include nasty stuff like child pornography, but also a broader range of content: fetishy sex, instruction in crime (such as euthanasia), any computer game not suitable for under 18s. The list will be partly generated by complaints from the public, and may include lists imported from overseas police departments.

While this is sold as a kid-friendly measure, to "improve safety of the internet for families", it's clearly nothing of the sort. A few thousand URLs hardly constitutes a national net nanny. The list would almost be laughable if it was not only mandatory but secret - unlike censorship decisions made in other media, blocked URLs will remain secret and expressly excluded from freedom of information requests. Just as worrying is the fact that once this list is in, a conga-line of special interests will be approaching the government to have their pet peeves added to the list. It's not much of a stretch to imagine AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) clamouring to have bittorrent trackers added, and several parliamentarians are on record calling for a ban on pro-anorexia sites and pornography in general.

Filtering coming to Australia in 2010 (Thanks, Gwen!)

(Image: The Worst Part of Censorship is ###### a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from kogakure's photostream)

JC Hutchins -- he of the boundless energy! -- has assembled a free "holiday sampler" of excerpts from great new books, handily bundled together in a handsome PDF, well suited to loading onto your device or printing out for your Xmas holiday. In it are excerpts from recent books by some of my favorite authors, including Cherie Priest, Seth Godin, and Scott Sigler (as well as an excerpt from my latest novel, Makers.

In The Nick of Time holiday sampler (PDF)

JC's page on the project with full contents and links

(Thanks, JC!

oranghutan writes "A research and development group down under is working to develop an advanced video surveillance system for ports around the world that uses video superimposed onto a 3D map. With 16-megapixel high-definition cameras on a distributed (cabled) network and a proprietary system written in a variety of languages (C++, Python, SQL, etc.), the group from NICTA is aiming to allow security teams at the Port of Brisbane — which is 110km long — to monitor shipping movements, cargo and people. By scrolling along a 3D map, the security teams can click on a location and then get a real-time video feed superimposed onto the map. Authorities from around the world with the right permissions can then access the same system. The main difference from regular surveillance systems is the ability to switch views without having to know camera numbers/locations and the one screen view."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

123di.com has updated its interactive learning application: 'The 123 of digital imaging'. Version 6.2 adds coverage for Mac and Windows versions both of Adobe's Photoshop Elements 8 and the Public Beta of Photoshop Lightroom 3. It also gains an additional tutorial on the use of clipping masks alongside revisions to keep it up-to-date with the latest changes in technology and post-processing. 123di V6.2 is free to owners of version 6.0 or can be downloaded as a free trial.

Brian points us to the news of yet another questionable patent lawsuit filed by yet another shell company, yet again in Eastern Texas against a ton of software companies. The patent in question (5,222,134) is for a "secure system for activating personal computer software at remote locations," and was originally filed back in 1991 and granted in 1993 -- meaning that the patent is actually nearing end of life. Odd, then, that it was suddenly noticed that all these companies were infringing. The lawsuit is filed by a shell company called BetaNet, and no one seems willing to speak. The lawyers representing BetaNet won't say who is behind the company, or how they even got the patent. This is typical. Many of these types of lawsuits are filed by shell companies to hide who is actually behind them. As for the defendants, here's the list:

Adobe, Apple, Arial Software, Autodesk, Carbonite, Corel, Kodak, IBM, Intuit, Microsoft, McAfee, Online Holdings, Oracle, Rockwell, Rosetta Stone, SAP, Siemens, and Sony.

Obviously, none of those companies could have come up with ways to remotely activate software without this patent (yes, that's sarcasm). As the Register notes in the link above, even some of the software products listed as violating this patent don't seem to involve activation at all, raising serious questions about how they could possibly violate this patent. This sounds like yet another case of someone having read the book Rembrandt's in the Attic and deciding to go trolling for companies to sue with a meaningless patent.

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Hundreds of makers all over the world have built compressed air rockets since we published the project in MAKE, Volume 15 (included in the kit). Now all the parts for making your own launcher and rockets are available in the Maker Shed! Just add a bicycle pump, masking tape, and two standard 9v batteries and you are ready to blast these paper and tape rockets hundreds of feet in the air!

Tonight, midnight PST, is your last chance to take advantage of our FREE shipping promotion in the Maker Shed. Get all the details about this great offer here.

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An anonymous reader writes "The New Zealand government has reintroduced a newly rewritten addition to the Copyright Act which will allow rights' holders to send copyright notices to ISPs, and force them to pass them on to account holders. Section 92A of the Copyright Act will allow rights holders to take people who have been identified as infringers more than three times in front of a Copyright Tribunal. This law will allow the Copyright Tribunal to hand down either a $15,000 fine or six months internet disconnection. The law specifies that the account holder himself is responsible for what is downloaded via the account, and doesn't make allowances for identifying the actual copyright infringer if there are multiple computers tied to an account."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As the February release date for Quantic Dream's Heavy Rain nears, several publications have gotten a chance for some hands-on time with the game and seem to be intrigued by what they saw. Quoting the Opposable Thumbs blog: "The game grabs you during the quiet moments where nothing 'happens.' When you look at a picture your child drew. When you're questioning someone about a crime. When you're trying to figure out how to react to a violent situation. The preview we were sent put me in different situations as I played a small handful of characters, and each one provided a few tiny moments that were surprising in terms of storytelling or subtlety." Eurogamer's previewer had a similar reaction: "To my great delight as well — Heavy Rain isn't a mature game because it has unhappy families and moody lighting, it's a mature game because it anticipates an adult response from the player and is prepared to receive it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just in time for the holiday season, SteveD alerts us to the news that PPL, Phonographic Performance Limited -- a separate UK licensing group, which collects for performers and producers (unlike PRS, which is for songwriters/record companies) -- is pushing forward with demands for charity shops to pay up for a license on top of the license they already pay PRS. In the past, the UK government exempted charities from having to pay the PPL license, but they've now removed that exemption, and like so many music collections societies, PPL didn't bother to consider how it would look to shake down charity shops, and apparently just drove forward with plans. Nice of them. This is what happens, of course, when you create the statutory ability to shake down anyone who plays music. That right just expands more and more, and the musicians and songwriters never have to actually give people a reason to buy: they just sit back and collect.

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The board of the UK Payments Council has set a date to phase out checks in a bid to encourage the advance of other forms of payment. They added, however, that the target of Oct. 2018 would only be realized if adequate alternatives are developed. "The goal is to ensure that by 2018 there is no scenario where customers, individuals or businesses, still need to use a cheque. The board will be especially concerned that the needs of elderly and vulnerable people are met," the Payments Council said in a statement.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The board of the UK Payments Council has set a date to phase out checks in a bid to encourage the advance of other forms of payment. They added, however, that the target of Oct. 2018 would only be realized if adequate alternatives are developed. "The goal is to ensure that by 2018 there is no scenario where customers, individuals or businesses, still need to use a cheque. The board will be especially concerned that the needs of elderly and vulnerable people are met," the Payments Council said in a statement.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Leaks have emerged from another secret copyright treaty, this one between the EU and Canada. The EU is really screwing Canada with this one, demanding longer copyright terms, more liability for ISPs (which means that it gets harder and more expensive to host anything from a message board to a video), laws against breaking copyright protection (even for a legal purpose, like getting your own files back), and a royalty on the sale of used copyrighted goods (so you'd have to track down and pay the rightsholder when you resold a painting or other copyrighted work).

And all this while Minister Tony Clement has been conducting a consultation with Canadians on what they think Canada's copyright laws should be -- at the same time, Canada's government has been sneakily negotiating two secret copyright treaties that would tie Parliament's hands and throw away Canadians' own Made-in-Canada copyright rules.

While the leaked document may only represent the European position, there is little doubt that there will enormous pressure on Canadian negotiators to cave on the IP provision in return for "gains" in other areas. The net result is that when combined with the ACTA requirements, Canadian copyright law reform may cease to become Canadian. Instead, the rules will be dictated by secretive agreements as the U.S. and Europe tag team to pressure Canada into dramatic changes far beyond those even proposed in Bills C-60 or C-61.

Beyond ACTA: Proposed EU - Canada Trade Agreement Intellectual Property Chapter Leaks

My pal Roger Wood, the mad clock sculptor of Klockwerks.com, really puts the "Ch" back in "Channukah" with this steampunk menorah.

(via Cribcandy)

Former South Dakota State Rep. Ted Alvin Klaudt -- presently serving time for raping his two foster daughters -- is sending bizarre "copyright notices" from prison to news agencies and outlets that use his name in print or online, claiming a "common law copyright" on his name and demanding $500,000 for any unauthorized use.

Proving, at least, that knowing the law is no prerequisite for serving in high office.

A letter and an accompanying document labeled ''Common Law Copyright Notice'' said former state Rep. Ted Alvin Klaudt is reserving a common-law copyright of a trade name or trademark for his name. It said no one can use his name without his consent, and anyone who does would owe him $500,000...

The letter and copyright notice Klaudt sent to The Associated Press carried a postmark of Dec. 11 from Mobridge, a city near his ranch. The notice was signed July 13, 2008, and notarized in Bon Homme County, the location of the Springfield prison. It also included a seal indicating it was filed with the register of deeds in Corson County, where the family ranch is located, on July 31, 2008.

The letter said anyone seeking to use Klaudt's name would have to file a written request 20 days in advance. It also said he would pursue charges and other legal action against anyone who violated the notice.

Ex-Lawmaker Convicted of Rape: Name Is Copyrighted (via /.)

djBC writes, "As you probably know from the steady stream of Holiday mashup albums I've been compiling over the past 5 years, I dig Christmas music, and I keep remixing it. In this case I took the Big D and The Kids Table Christmas paean to Red Sox, victory, drinking, heavy Boston accents and holiday merriment in general, cut it into a hip-hop beat and enlisted rapper Black Element to bust rhymes. Anyway- I finally did it! I made a Christmas single! AND video! Woo! I hope people get a kick out of it and it ends up on some holiday mixes right next to 'White Christmas.' Or something. Directed by Craig Shannon of Imagavision Films.

Wicked Hip-Hop Christmas

The original Big D and The Kids Table video for 'Wicked Hardcore Christmas' (2004)

(Thanks, djBC!)

Tony from the StarShipSofa sf podcast sez, "In the spirit of 'paying it forward', StarShipSofa is rallying the SF/F community around Spider and Jeanne Robinson. Throughout the month of December, the online audio magazine will be releasing an original series written by Lawrence Santoro. While listeners can hear 'Lord Dickens' Declaration' for free on StarShipSofa, one can elect to purchase the ebook with art by Skeet Scienski. All proceeds will be donated to Spider and Jeanne in an effort to support her as she battles cancer. Diagnosed with a rare biliary cancer, the treatments have eaten away at the Robinson's finances as doctors aggressively fight the disease from spreading. This ebook will only be available for purchase through December 31st and is priced at 2.99 GBP, with an option to donate more (in increments of 10, 20, 50, & 100 GPB). Any fan of the Robinson's can attest to their strength, but we hope that through this time of strife, the SF/F community can help them survive through the worst. Thank you for standing with the Robinson's in their time of need."

Aural Delights No 113 Lawrence Santoro Pt 3 (Thanks, Tony!)

Treehugger photographer Matt McDermott happened to be in the right place when the massive climate demonstrations in Copenhagen broke out, and the site has a great gallery of shots of the action.

Whose Summit? Our Summit! Bella Center Erupts in Protest

While there are questions as to how separated the "church" and "state" part of the newspaper business has been, it seems to be disappearing almost entirely these days. We already talked about one paper that was starting to have editorial staff report to ad sales staff, and now we've been alerted to a story about a journalist in Colorado who was apparently (at least according to his side of the story) let go for writing a column critical of local ski resorts, who are major advertisers in the paper:

Berwyn said Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz called him at the paper and expressed displeasure with the column.

"I don't remember his exact words, but the thing that stuck in my mind was 'This calls into question our ability to work with you,'" said Berwyn. "That was sort of the main thing that stuck in my mind."

Berwyn says Jim Morgan, the publisher, was concerned that Vail Resorts would end their advertising relationship with the newspaper.

When describing what Morgan said to him, Berwyn said, "he went on to talk about the business situation of the Summit Daily and how it was a business, how they had to watch out for the bottom line."

Now, I've never really believed that the church and state parts of the news business were really that separated, and I actually don't have a huge problem with the two sides understanding where the other is coming from. But, if you're going to deal with such a situation, then you have to know that the scrutiny is going to be even stronger over anything that smacks of bias or favoritism. And stories like this raise serious questions about the credibility of The Summit Daily as a news gathering operation. And, without credibility, it's hard to get readers, and without readers, it's going to be hard to get advertisers -- even if some of those advertisers are pissed off about a random column here or there. If the paper had stuck up for its author, telling Vail that its credibility was more important than a few ads -- and Vail had still threatened to pull its ads -- then the paper could have told its readership what happened, and built up even stronger credibility with its audience (and that, in turn, could create additional ad revenue from elsewhere).

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sympleko writes "Zynga has the lion's share of traffic in Facebook applications, and Mafia Wars is one of their most popular social games. Collapsing under the weight of over 26 million users, Zynga has been scrambling to thwart hard-core gamers who reverse-engineer URLs or script the game to optimize their enjoyment. Many of the workarounds have annoyed users who were accustomed to various game features, and even worse, the hastily-deployed changes have resulted in many players losing access to the game, in-game prizes, or statistics. Fed up with a software company seemingly bent on discouraging people from enjoying their product, a number of tagged players have organized a boycott of all Zynga games. The first 24-hour boycott on Sunday 12/13 resulted in an 11% decline in Daily Active Users, and an emergency thread on Zynga's forums (from which most of the flames were deleted). The current boycott, extending Wednesday through Sunday is being supported by a 428K strong Facebook group. At issue is the social contract between software companies and their devoted user base, as well as the nefarious tactics Zynga has used to raise cash."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today, on O'Reilly Radar, Brady Forrest announced that Ignite, the popular five-minute presentation events that have spread from Seattle to cities across the US, is going planetary in 2010:

This March, it gets much, much bigger. O'Reilly is launching the first-ever Global Ignite Week, to bring together as many local Ignites as possible. As of right now there are almost 40 Ignites scheduled from March 1st through the 4th. The Ignites will span the globe and you'll be able to watch them streaming online every day. So far, Global Ignite Week is represented on 4 continents and 10 countries. Our goal is to have participation from all 7 continents (Nairobi is looking good, and we're working on Antarctica).

Check out his post to see the list of cities that have signed on (so far)

Global Ignite Week: 40+ Ignites Coming Next March

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DustyShadow writes "On Tuesday, the Moscow-based Institute of Economic Analysis (IEA) claimed that the Hadley Center for Climate Change had probably tampered with Russian-climate data. The IEA believes that Russian meteorological-station data did not substantiate the anthropogenic global-warming theory. Analysts say Russian meteorological stations cover most of the country’s territory, and that the Hadley Center had used data submitted by only 25% of such stations in its reports. Over 40% of Russian territory was not included in global-temperature calculations for some other reasons, rather than the lack of meteorological stations and observations. The data of stations located in areas not listed in the Hadley CRU survey often does not show any substantial warming in the late 20th century and the early 21st century."

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Happy holidays from the Universe...

Just in time for the holidays: a Hubble Space Telescope picture postcard of hundreds of brilliant blue stars wreathed by warm, glowing clouds. The festive portrait is the most detailed view of the largest stellar nursery in our local galactic neighborhood. The massive, young stellar grouping, called R136, is only a few million years old and resides in the 30 Doradus Nebula, a turbulent star-birth region in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite galaxy of our Milky Way. There is no known star-forming region in our galaxy as large or as prolific as 30 Doradus. Many of the diamond-like icy blue stars are among the most massive stars known. Several of them are over 100 times more massive than our Sun. These hefty stars are destined to pop off, like a string of firecrackers, as supernovas in a few million years.

Large image here...

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There are many people out there who are greatly troubled by the way the FCC "enforces" efforts against broadcast indecency -- with some even questioning whether or not it's even constitutional for the FCC to act as a public arbiter of indecency. It looks like the FCC has just hired one such person, in the form of Duke telco law professor Stuart Benjamin. Since I consider myself among those who question how indecency fines can fit with a First Amendment, this seems like a good thing -- but the reporting on it, at the link above, only focuses on the complaints about this hire. But the complaint comes from the Parents Television Council, whose main claim to fame is flooding the FCC with bogus complaints about "indecent" programming from people who didn't even see whatever it is they're complaining about. So you can understand why they might complain. If they lose the ability to create moral panics, it's harder to keep going.

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An anonymous reader writes "Researchers at the California Academy of Sciences traversed four continents and two oceans to uncover 94 new species in 2009, proving that while sometimes in this digital age the world can feel like a small place, much of it has yet to be explored. Among the 94 discoveries were 65 arthropods, 14 plants, 8 fishes, 5 sea slugs, one coral, and one fossil mammal. Why does it matter? As Dr. David Mindell, Dean of Science and Research Collections at the Academy, explained, 'Humans rely on healthy ecosystems, made up of organisms and their environments. Creating a comprehensive inventory of life on our planet is critical for understanding and managing resources. Yet a great many life-forms remain to be discovered and described.'"

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Looking for a fun, functional, low-cost project to knock out during the holidays? Check out this clever repurposing piece from the pages of MAKE Volume 10, offered up by David Battino with help from George 'the Fat Man' Sanger.

The Sweet Sound of Particleboard
Beef up the tone of open-back amps with a little thrift shop help.
By David Battino

After transforming a record player and some plumbing parts into a spinning speaker (see MAKE, Volume 05, page 24), George "the Fat Man" Sanger is back with a new way to enhance your guitar sound.

His Goodwill Amp Enhancer is a DIY version of the commercially available Enhancer, which beefs up the tone of open-back amps by redirecting the "lost" sound to the front.

The nicely finished commercial versions start at $150 (soundenhancer.com), but the Fat Man built his enhancer out of a $15 computer desk he scavenged from a thrift shop. "It took just an hour or two," he reports, "and adds wonderful tone to my amp."

How It Works

The Sound Enhancer site details the science involved, but in general, the Fat Man explains, an open-back amp is a design compromise.

"In theory, a perfect speaker box would be a speaker mounted in the middle of a wall of infinite size, because that would let the sound from the front reach your ear without having been partially cancelled by the inverse sound from the back," he says. "Mom won't let us build anything infinite anymore, not after what happened last time, so we approximate the infinite wall by putting speakers into sealed boxes, also known as infinite-baffle enclosures.

"Unfortunately, infinite-baffle enclosures make it really hard for the speaker to move, so the sound is quieter. And of course, quietness is not very rock 'n' roll, is it? So designers make a lot of amps louder (and a little funny-sounding) by opening the backs.

"This speaker stand bends the back sound around a corner, which makes it even less like the front sound, and then sends it out the front, where its slightly altered power is added to your already Majestic Volume in a rich and tonally pleasing way."
In addition to reinforcing the sound, the Goodwill Amp Enhancer points the amp at your head, letting you hear yourself louder than, and before, your bandmates do. That helps you play better, and your bandmates don't hate you for playing too loud.

MATERIALS

Donor furniture with big sides (e.g., a printer stand or computer desk, ideally with casters), taller than your amp (hip height is great), and 1¼ times your amp's depth
Other wood (possibly salvaged from the donor), several pieces cut so their lengths match the width of your amp minus about 1". Their widths must add up to approximately 1 amp depth plus 1 amp height. They need to be thick enough to take a ½" screw.
Particleboard screws about 1½" long
Saw Circular is good, but a handsaw will do.
Screwdriver
Caulking gun and caulk
Hot glue gun and glue
Weather stripping twice the amp height, twice the amp depth, and once the amp width
Weather-stripping adhesive

DIRECTIONS

Step 1: Ready the donor. Pull the sides off the donor, place them on the floor, and lay your amp on its side in the tipped-back position you want it to sit on the stand. The back of the stand needs to rise above the opening in the back of your amp to seal it off, but it mustn't block any essential controls. The bottom-front edge of the amp will come right to the front of the stand.

Step 2: Make the side panels. Mark the outline with a Sharpie, and saw along the resulting L-shaped line. Now your side panels are done, and they should look something like that one particularly odd block
in the game Blockhead!

Step 3: Make the floor and back wall. Make a floor and back wall for the amp by hot-gluing the other wood between the two side panels. You may need one additional narrow piece to bridge from the top of this back wall to the spot on your amp where the open back stops and the controls begin. Don't worry if you mess up; hot glue can be broken free and redone easily.

Step 4: Make it permanent. Once it looks right, make it permanent by sinking some screws in from the sides. Caulk up the cracks, then glue the weather-stripping to the edges that will touch your amp. "This stand will make your amp sound so much better," the Fat Man promises. "It has to be heard to be believed."

Sound comes out the back of the amp and is forced out the front of the stand. Beyond that, the shape of the barrier isn't too important.?Be sure that the horizontal bit hits the amp's back above the speaker opening and below any controls.

Hear the Goodwill Amp Enhancer: makezine.com/10/diymusic_amp

More from the Fat Man: fatman.com

About the Author:

David Battino is the audio and digital music editor for O'Reilly's Digital Media site, the co-author of The Art of Digital Music, and on the Steering Committee for the Interactive Audio Special Interest Group (IASIG). He plays Mac, PC, and keyboards. With his wife, Hazuki Kataoka, he also writes, publishes, and performs Japanese kamishibai storycards. More at www.batmosphere.com.

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We've discussed in the past how the class action lawsuit process if often abused mercilessly. While the concept of a class action lawsuit can make a lot of sense, as you look at the details of many of the lawsuits, they do little to nothing to benefit the "class," but plenty to make the lawyers involved quite wealthy. Eric Turkewitz, a personal injury lawyer who actually does tend to like class action lawsuits, finds himself on the other end of one such class action lawsuit -- involving charges of click fraud being allowed by Yahoo! -- and is now objecting the settlement which pays the lawyers a ton, but offers absolutely nothing to many former Yahoo advertisers, like Turkewitz. In looking over the details of the settlement, he realized that the only companies that would be getting paid (and by getting "paid" it meant $20) were companies no longer in business (which, he notes, also means they're not likely to file). Once again, we're seeing a "class action settlement" where the lawyers all make out, but the "class" seems to get shafted.

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adeelarshad82 writes "The Federal Communications Commission has released an outline of what might be included in its upcoming national broadband plan, and encouraging competition was a top priority. The FCC statement said 'Competition drives innovation and provides consumer choice. Finding ways to better use existing assets, including Universal Service, rights-of-way, spectrum, and others, will be essential to the success of the plan. The limited government funding that is available for broadband would be best used when leveraged with the private sector.' The stimulus plan provided $7.2 billion in broadband grants and $350 million for a broadband mapping program, but also directed the FCC to deliver a national broadband plan to Congress by February 17, 2010."

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Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

Make: Denver December Meeting
Denver, CO
Thursday, Dec 17, 2009, 7pm +

Hacky Crafty Holidays at HackPittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Dec 18, 2009, 7pm +

Coup-fourré! Roadside Skills for Non-Greasemonkeys @i3Detroit
Royal Oak, MI
Saturday, Dec 19, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

Welding Class @Pumping Station: One
Chicago, IL
Saturday, Dec 19, 2009, 2pm - 4pm

ComBots Cup
San Mateo, CA
Saturday, Dec 19, 2009 - Sunday, Dec 20, 2009, 2pm - 7pm

Hackathon: Come On Feel The Noise @Pumping Station: One
Chicago, IL
Saturday, Dec 19, 2009, 8pm - 12am

ITP Winter Show
New York, NY
Sunday, Dec 20, 2009, 2pm - 6pm and Monday, Dec 21, 2009, 5pm - 9pm

Project Lab with Expert Included
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009, 3pm - 6pm

Drop-in Arduino and Electronics classes
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009, 7pm - 9pm

Start planning for:

Classroom Arduino for Teachers @Willoughby and Baltic
Somerville, MA
Monday, Dec 28 - Wednesday, Dec 30, 2009, 10am - 4pm

HamCram: Earn You Amateur Radio License in a Day
San Francisco, CA
Saturday, Jan 9, 2010, 8am - 5pm

CMOS Music I // 1-bit chiptunes w/o programming @NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Jan 9, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

Using Transistors @Metrix Create:Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Jan 10, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

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Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

Make: Denver December Meeting
Denver, CO
Thursday, Dec 17, 2009, 7pm +

Hacky Crafty Holidays at HackPittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Dec 18, 2009, 7pm +

Coup-fourré! Roadside Skills for Non-Greasemonkeys @i3Detroit
Royal Oak, MI
Saturday, Dec 19, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

Welding Class @Pumping Station: One
Chicago, IL
Saturday, Dec 19, 2009, 2pm - 4pm

ComBots Cup
San Mateo, CA
Saturday, Dec 19, 2009 - Sunday, Dec 20, 2009, 2pm - 7pm

Hackathon: Come On Feel The Noise @Pumping Station: One
Chicago, IL
Saturday, Dec 19, 2009, 8pm - 12am

ITP Winter Show
New York, NY
Sunday, Dec 20, 2009, 2pm - 6pm and Monday, Dec 21, 2009, 5pm - 9pm

Project Lab with Expert Included
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009, 3pm - 6pm

Drop-in Arduino and Electronics classes
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Dec 22, 2009, 7pm - 9pm

Start planning for:

Classroom Arduino for Teachers @Willoughby and Baltic
Somerville, MA
Monday, Dec 28 - Wednesday, Dec 30, 2009, 10am - 4pm

HamCram: Earn You Amateur Radio License in a Day
San Francisco, CA
Saturday, Jan 9, 2010, 8am - 5pm

CMOS Music I // 1-bit chiptunes w/o programming @NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Jan 9, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

Using Transistors @Metrix Create:Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Jan 10, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

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We've covered how libel tourism has become a big problem, usually in the UK, where defamation laws are much more ridiculous. However, it seems (oddly) that one American company, Evony, has decided to take a UK blogger to court in Australia for libel, after being upset about what that blogger wrote about the company. Once again, to make this clear, it's a US company suing a UK blogger for libel... in Australia. This story originally came out last week (when a few of you submitted it), but I had hoped to wait for a hearing this past Monday determining if the case would go forward. However, it now appears that the hearing has been postponed until February because Evony changed lawyers.

Evony is apparently quite upset at the way blogger Bruce Everiss criticized some of its activities, even though plenty of others have been equally critical of Evony, its marketing practices and how the game itself works. Of course, the further Evony (formerly Civony) takes this whole thing, the more attention it will draw to its practices. It's hard to see how that is a sensible move. Whatever you might think of how Evony conducts its business, the way it conducts its legal campaigns seems reason enough to avoid having anything to do with the company.

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It may seem arbitrary lumping the indies and the iPhone together for the second half of this feature on the best games of 2009 (which previously ran down the best retail console and handheld games of 2009), but this year more than ever the lines between the two blurred, as the App Store continued to evolve into a marketplace second only to the web where a one-person team has as equal a chance for success as the biggest publishers in the business. Granted, that chance still continues to be "slim", and most recently the tides have been turning slightly to top-seller lists reading more like those you'd find on the DS and PSP, but nearly all the iPhone games on this list earned critical praise and top slots in the charts with marketing staff and budgets approaching zero. Still, I wish this list could be longer. Even moreso than the first half of this feature, where the best games left off the list were the ones that were called out as the year's finest nearly everywhere else, the selections that didn't make the cut here were still at the top of their game. Releases like the Bit.Trip games, LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias, Bonsai Barber, Words With Friends and reams of other iPhone games (as I've been continuing to cover weekly), and especially Spelunky (which technically is a late 2008 release, though it didn't progress to truly sublime until a few months later) all deserve their high praise. So then below, the best web, PC, Mac, and iPhone games -- freeware, commercial, and uniquely otherwise -- that sprang from the best of the indie community this year.

Canabalt [AdamAtomic, web/iPhone, App Store link]

Canabalt will probably be the least obscure name on this list, not least for its repeat coverage here in recent months, and in the frequent high-score updates you'll have no doubt spotted in your friends' twitter feeds.

Adam 'Atomic' Saltsman's one-button game was one of the truest "sensations" this year: launched in late August as a knocked-out five-day experiment which took instant storm, leading to fast lessons in social add-on integration and an equally fast but even more compulsive iPhone port, culminating in this week's release of a newly enhanced version, adding more obstacles and more of composer Danny Baranowsky's music, and formalizing an official leaderboard for the game.

And the success of Canabalt simply as a well-designed game was just part of the story: just as interesting was how in that span of time the community truly made the game its own, spawning not one but two fan-made Twitter-scraping leaderboards. Also worth note was Saltsman's decision to not succumb to the 99 cent pressures of the App Store, a move he expounded on at length here, and hopefully one that helps inspire other iPhone developers to move the device toward a more sustainable economy.

Captain Forever/Successor [Farbs, web]

You'll be forgiven if Captain Forever's willfully obscure homepage layout led to some blank stares, but it's all in the name of maintaining the underlying 80s-star-pilot narrative that literally binds you (via your webcam) to the seat of your ship.

It's this retro aesthetic and anachronistic faux-command-line inconvenience that helped make Forever a year-topper for many indie devs themselves, but even moreso the way developer Farbs has given his players a window into a so-far limitless universe and asked only that they create something beautiful and deadly.

And its clear that he has no intention of letting Forever slip quietly off the edge of that universe: taking smart cues from the MMO sphere and other online successes like Valve's ever-evolving Team Fortress 2, Farbs is building up his Captain as a brand, charging a project wide 'supporter fee' (which gets you early access to new versions of the game, like the recently upgraded Successor) rather than a per-copy asking price, allowing him to monetize development as he steers the ship in newer and more complex directions.

It's an incredibly strong indie-career starter from someone who less than nine months ago made the leap from full time gainful employment (announcing the departure to his employer, you'll recall, via a version of Super Mario Bros), and one of the projects I'm most anxious to see where it's headed next.

Drop7 [area/code, iPhone, App Store link]

You've either never played Drop7 or the mere mention of its name sends nic-fit twinges through your spine. There is, I've found, no middle ground. One of the year's first best games, Drop7's lethal addictiveness spread throughout the year, aided by late Spring Facebook integration, and since that time I haven't met a single person who didn't follow up "yeah, I've played it," with lengthy praise/condemnation for how much they've played it.

Many games lay claim over the 'minutes to learn/lifetime to master' claim, but Drop7 actually deserves it -- its balance of strategy and randomness is what gives it its compulsive charm, even after a daunting first few minutes struggling with its wholly original numerical premise.

If you haven't played it yet (and if you lack an iPhone, its original incarnation as a web-based TV series tie-in is still available), by all means go, but go warned.

Eliss [Steph Thirion, iPhone, App Store link]

Eliss, like Drop7 and Canabalt, is another name I've been tirelessly repeating throughout the year, and it's rightfully earned its place as one of the App Store's best for perfectly encompassing what it means to be an iPhone game.

It did that as one of the device's first true multi-touch games, and by seemingly effortlessly giving us a sense of style -- in its entirely original graphical/musical aesthetic -- that, especially at the time, was leagues above the App Store's standard fare of pastel-shaded and casual-focused design.

For as much as the iPhone has earned a reputation as a present from the future dropped in our hands (a feeling I know I still get navigating any foreign city with it constantly at my side), Eliss should be its ubiquitous Minesweeper: a curious concoction of accessible play and alien origin, unlike any other game and baffling precisely because of its uniqueness, and destined to be the standard of tomorrow.

Glum Buster [CosMind, PC]

Developer Justin 'CosMind' Leingang's labor of love (slaved on for years during off hours while creating similarly overlooked and forward thinking games like the DS's wifi-signal-collector Treasure World) still hasn't quite earned the reputation it deserves but stands as one of the year's best surrealist short stories.

As I've said before, part of that could be in its staunch refusal to speak in the language that game players have grown accustom to: entering its world means learning how to communicate all over again, even if its goals and navigation feel like standard platforming fare.

But that's precisely what gives it its magic, and a thrill of exploration that comes not just from the sights you'll see, but the way you'll interact with its inhabitants. It's an adventure into weird worlds, and its an experience that still begs for more careful attention.

Machinarium [Amanita, PC/Mac]

Long-time followers of Amanita's work wouldn't have been surprised that Machinarium ended up as one of the year's best: studio founder Jakub Dvorský has proved and re-proved himself as a creator that sees -- and constructs -- realities unlike any other, via his original cult hit Samorost, its commercial sequel, and a set of other short-form commissioned side projects.

What was surprising is in how much more rich its interactions were: gone were the simple pixel-hunt-and-click-to-move-on tasks of his earlier games, Machinarium dove even deeper into adventure gaming history and came back up with an even more complex and rewarding set of puzzles that took us into the bizarre order of its rusted steam-bot world.

One of the few developers left keeping the point and click torch lit, Amanita -- in an ideal world -- gave a new generation a taste of what it was that lends warm nostalgia to our own pasts.

Rolando 2 [Hand Circus, iPhone, App Store link]

Hand Circus's followup to its landmark original -- one of the first iPhone games that caused the wider industry to sit up and take notice of the device as a true competitor -- stands a bit at odds with the rest of the games on this list, if only for how blindingly polished it feels next to the scrappy, experimental set aside it.

And that's certainly not without good reason: publisher ngmoco was surely dead set on giving the indie dev the time and resources it needed to deliver a game that looked and felt like it could stand next to those on handheld gaming's more established hardware, and on all counts it did.

For every part that felt slightly safer than its prequel, that formula felt doubly refined. It was smarter, flashier, and hit all the right notes that should have made it the iPhone's signature mascot platformer franchise, its Mario or Sonic -- should the studio continue to go down that natural path.

Saira [Nifflas, PC]

And then, from nowhere, came Saira. Making a surprise touchdown on PC just days ago (after originally being teased as a potential WiiWare game from the same team that are working on the console's gorgeously serene bedtime-story platformer NightSky), it didn't take long to recognize that it was going to leave a mark on the year longer than the year's last few weeks would otherwise allow it.

Part of that was simply the developer's legacy: Sweden's Nicklas 'Nifflas' Nygren is among the highest regarded indie dev within the community for his work on the Knytt series, a freeware franchise of tiny (by pixel count) worlds that are as stunningly expressive and atmospheric as they are austere (think: the lonely landscapes of Ico and Shadow of the Colossus creator Fumito Ueda).

And unlike the more physics-based puzzling of NightSky (Knytt's true chronological successor, but still maddeningly yet unavailable), Saira stays very close to Knytt's formula of exploiting the basic joys of exploration, and ups the ante considerably by connecting all those worlds via starships (with, wonderfully and unexpectedly, an onboard-playable pinball machine) and by introducing a photo mechanic that sees you hunting for clues in the landscape itself that are later used to unlock planetary defense mechanisms and allow you deeper into its twisting caverns.

With everyone still caught off guard and dazed by its sudden appearance, it's a game you should be hearing much more about in the coming weeks, as the holidays settle and everyone returns with reports on how it was the best way they spent their 2009 Christmas vacation.

Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor [Tiger Style, iPhone, App Store link]

Like Eliss, Spider is the perfect example of the type of game that should be dominating the App Store: a brilliantly crafted mix of arcade overtones tooled specifically for the device (its flick-jump alone remains one of the year's best character control schemes), a beautifully vintage children's book style that instantly set it apart, and, at its core, a mature story that reclined quietly and let players ask all the questions of it rather than imposing itself on you.

Happily, it did enjoy the chart-topping success it deserved for a time, lending a sliver of hope that iPhone development does reward more than the lowest common denominator, and is always patiently waiting for something smarter to come along -- a sentiment that hopefully will be stirred again when the Tiger Style team release their upcoming 'Director's Cut' update and move on to whatever love letters they've got squirreled away in the dark corners of their future.

Windosill [Vectorpark, PC/Mac/web]

And finally, Windosill shares an important trait with a number of other entries on this list: it let us explore the make-up of a world entirely unlike our own and entirely representative of its sole creator, here multimedia/interactive artist Patrick 'Vectorpark' Smith.

Unlike those other surrealities, though, Windosill is made up of some manner of mathematical magic that lends a truly remarkable tangibility to its unearthly toy-box components. Even its most bizarre creations move as they "should", react believably to our prods and pokes, and, at their best, seem so alive and driven by a spirit of their own that it feels unfathomable that they're the product of code alone.

All of these are, of course, Vectorpark hallmarks, and have earned him his reputation over the past several years, but Windosill was important for promoting his work beyond the usual interactive/Flash appreciators and into the wider gaming sphere -- so much so that the game landed Smith his debut on no less a mass-market service than Valve's Steam, momentum that we can only hope will be carried through into the new year.

Entropy98 writes "Scientists have unlocked the entire genetic code of skin and lung cancer. From the article: 'Not only will the cancer maps pave the way for blood tests to spot tumors far earlier, they will also yield new drug targets, say the Wellcome Trust team. The scientists found the DNA code for a skin cancer called melanoma contained more than 30,000 errors almost entirely caused by too much sun exposure. The lung cancer DNA code had more than 23,000 errors largely triggered by cigarette smoke exposure. From this, the experts estimate a typical smoker acquires one new mutation for every 15 cigarettes they smoke. Although many of these mutations will be harmless, some will trigger cancer.' Yet another step towards curing cancer. Though it will probably take many years to study so many mutations."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recently, Ben Light, of BLight Design, did a workshop at the Museum of Art and Design in NYC on turning manila envelopes into stars to decorate holiday light strings. He has the star pattern and pics (as well as pics of the event) in his Flickr sets.

Building Star Light Minis

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Recently, Ben Light, of BLight Design, did a workshop at the Museum of Art and Design in NYC on turning manila envelopes into stars to decorate holiday light strings. He has the star pattern and pics (as well as pics of the event) in his Flickr sets.

Building Star Light Minis

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