Paul Kedrosky points us to an absolutely ridiculous op-ed in the NY Times from a guy who runs a price comparison search engine that offered little of value and reasonably was punished by Google for it. But the guy tries to make a federal case out of his own poor ranking, suggesting that the government needs to regulate Google because the company was so bold as to recognize that people weren't searching for his lame price-comparison site and probably would find others more appropriate. Kedrosky picks apart the piece brilliantly:

Gosh, what a shocker. Someone in search with no web traffic.... wants someone in search with a lot of web traffic, Google, to send his company buckets of visitors. Amazing.

The OpEd goes downhill from there. We get a litany of silly complaints, like the idea that Google doesn't innovate, that it just buys stuff from others, and that Google's Maps and other products have hurt other companies. Yeesh. I'll say this really slowly: Consumers want products that work together, simplify our lives, and solve problems. For this nitwit to want to throw us back to a world where we need point products -- maps here, directions there, product search there, email over there, etc. -- as some sort of full-employment act for me-too companies that can't get web traffic on their own merits is batshit nuts.

Furthermore, the guy's claim in the article that Google went out of its way to make his company "disappear" simply isn't supported by the evidence at all. Again, Kedrosky rips this argument to shreds:

Really? Google went out of its way to make a tiny product search company in the U.K. disappear? That would be a great story if true....

Trouble is, Google doesn't "disappear" other much larger product search companies, as a quick search for "canon prices" will show you. Up pops shopper.cnet.com, pricegrabber.com, and so on, as well as, of course, Google's own product search site.

If Google were really trying to "disappear" the competition, wouldn't it focus on sites that actually matter?

Kedrosky points out the other big problem with this OpEd as well. Despite this being written by someone who has a clear conflict of interest, he notes that you don't find this out until your well into the OpEd:

Of course, there is a second level of stupid to this piece, and that goes to the NYT itself. It took until the fourth paragraph of the piece until we find out that the OpEd author is, you know, conflicted in that he himself runs a search company (albeit one with negligible traffic). Not only that, he has an axe to grind, as he goes on in paragraph four to arm-wavingly allege that Google "disappeared" his site from its results.

It makes you wonder why the NY Times would allow such an OpEd to go forward. Kedrosky has his opinion: "apparently NY Times OpEds over the holidays are vetted by malnourished monkeys."

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Craig "Lazie" Lynch has been on the run from a U.K. prison since September. However, he continues to taunt police by updating his Facebook status. Now he is threatening to quit. From the article: "It seems, though, that late Sunday, Lynch began experiencing a little emotional pain. In what must have been an almost teary update, he posted: 'right I'm coming off this page as I have better things to do.' Who might have imagined that, in his mysterious hideaway, Lynch had something better to do than continue his run as a Facebook attraction?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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My friend Jon Singer has been experimenting with creating a relatively-cheap, straightforward flashlamp-pumped dye laser. This first-blush version uses caps he bought on eBay. As he refines the design, he hopes to avoid as many commercial components as possible. This proof-of-concept build was attempting to answer the musical question: Is a dozen Joules enough to threshold a dye? Answer: yes.

Toward a Straightforward DIY Flashlamp-Pumped Organic Dye Laser -- Step 1, First Proof of Principle: A Minimalist Machine

Jon also recently called me, excited, 'cause he'd managed to get three dyes to oscillate in the same cuvette to create RGB laser light! The guy's a monster. Half the time, I don't really understand what he's talking about, but I always feel smarter for having done so. See his "RGB 'White' Dye Laser Light from a Single Cuvette" research report here.

More:
Homegrown laser crystals
El cheapo mirror mounts

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As the UK considers Peter Mandelson's Digital Economy Bill, a UK government report that looks into the likely impact of the law is incredibly damning. It finds that the plans to send threat letters to users and eventually kick them offline based on accusations (not convictions) would cost consumers in the neighborhood of £500 million. Note, of course, that the music industry itself claims that £200 million worth of music is downloaded in the UK per year (and, of course, that's only "losses" if you use the ridiculous and obviously incorrect calculation that each download is a "lost sale"). The report also finds that these greater costs on ISPs for managing such things (all of which will get passed along to consumers) will likely caused 40,000 residents to just give up their broadband, rather than pay the higher fees.

You might think that this would be reason enough to drop the bill as quickly as possible, but not so fast. The report also, without any evidence, suggests that the same law would also increase sales for the music and movie industry by £1.7 billion over the next ten years. That's odd, because there's still no one who can explain how kicking people off the internet actually gets anyone else to buy anything. In fact, we already have proof that it won't. Prior to the threats of losing your internet access were the much more threatening prospect of ending up being fined millions for sharing two dozen songs. And that didn't convince people to buy more.

Either way, the cost side of the equation makes it quite clear that this is the government asking consumers to artificially foot the bill for an entertainment industry that appears unwilling to adapt to a changing marketplace that requires new business models.

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nandemoari writes "When security officials decide to "go after" computer malware, most conduct their actions from a defensive standpoint. For most of us, finding a way to rid a computer of the malware suffices — but for one computer researcher, however, the change from a defensive to an offensive mentality is what ended the two year chase of a sinister botnet once and for all. For two years, Atif Mushtaq had been keeping the notorious Mega-D bot malware from infecting computer networks. As of this past November, he suddenly switched from defense to offense. Mega-D had forced more than 250,000 PCs to do its bidding via botnet control."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Clever design from Thingiverse user vik, which lets you mount and simultaneously fire a devastating barrage of nine party poppers at unsuspecting revelers. "I should've marked it with FRONT TOWARD FRIENDS," he comments.

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Our former colleague Joel Johnson, over at Gizmodo: President Obama, It's Time To Fire the TSA. Joel, I sing this kumbaya right along with you.

The Telegraph is reporting that for the first time an extinct animal has been brought back via cloning. The Pyrenean ibex, a type of mountain goat, was declared officially extinct in 2000 but thanks to preserved skin samples scientists were able to insert that DNA into eggs from domestic goats to clone a female Pyrenean ibex. While the goat didn't survive long due to lung defects this gives scientists hopes that it will be possible to resurrect extinct species from frozen tissue. "Using techniques similar to those used to clone Dolly the sheep, known as nuclear transfer, the researchers were able to transplant DNA from the tissue into eggs taken from domestic goats to create 439 embryos, of which 57 were implanted into surrogate females. Just seven of the embryos resulted in pregnancies and only one of the goats finally gave birth to a female bucardo, which died a seven minutes later due to breathing difficulties, perhaps due to flaws in the DNA used to create the clone."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dear major record lables: when we suggested you learn how to embrace "free" in your marketing and promotions, this isn't quite what we meant. Consumerist points out that Interscope (part of Universal Music) has put together a promotion with Best Buy, whereby if you buy a CD from certain Interscope artists, you get a free copy of the software Tweetdeck. Well, that's nice... other than the fact that Tweetdeck is already free. Great deal! Now, to be fair, the copy of Tweetdeck you get is a special "customized" version that automatically has you following 16 Interscope artists (even if you only bought a CD from one of them). Of course, you could also just follow any of those artists yourself (again, for free), so it's not quite clear what the promotion is. But, they sure seem to suggest it's a big deal in the Best Buy newspaper ad: Now, I guess, to some extent, we should note that it's a good thing that a major record label is admitting publicly that "free" can act as a good promotion -- so kudos to Interscope for taking that big step. It's also nice to see Interscope recognize that an infinite good (software) can potentially help sell more scarce goods (CDs). But, on the whole, it definitely seems like this promotion could have been handled a lot better. Pumping up the "free" aspect of something that's already free just doesn't seem that compelling.

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Working between Christmas and New Year's? Still with relatives for the holidays and looking for a Christmas-themed way to pass the time till your flight home? You can play a game with coworkers or family called Click to Jesus.†

1. Go over to Wikipedia.
2. Click "Random Article" just below the Wikipedia unfinished Death Star logo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
3. Choose the link in the article you think will get you closest to the Jesus article.
4. Keep track of the articles. Continue step 3 until you arrive at Jesus.

Scoring:
1 point for Random page
1 point for each click
1 point for Jesus page

Tally and compare with friends!
† Fun variants include Click to Buddha, Click to Muhammad, Click to Hitler, or Click to Cher. Sadly, Click to Raptor Jesus can no longer be played, since that article was merged to "internet meme" after heated debate.

I've seen the northern lights once, at a cabin weekend in Wisconsin a couple of years ago. It's a strange thing to experience, especially at that latitude, where the lights aren't as in-your-face as this photo. For the first minute or so, you kind of wonder whether you're hallucinating. Then you realize that everybody else is standing perfectly still and silent, staring at the exact same point in the sky.

This time-lapse video (you'll have to follow the link to watch) shows a far more spectacular display over the Ringebu Fjell in southern Norway, captured by photographer Bernd Proschold. The moment when the clouds clear away, and the lights burst into view is absolutely breathtaking.

The World At Night: A Glimpse of the Far North

(Thanks, Chris Combs!)

Still image taken in Greenland by Flickr user nickrussill. Used via CC.

Giant SOMA puzzle

By George Hart for the Museum of Mathematics

The seven-piece SOMA puzzle has been a classic since Piet Hein invented it in the 1930s. The Math Museum has a giant SOMA, one meter on each side, for visitors to play with. This one is stuffed with foam so you can climb on your creations.

It is easy to glue together 27 wood cubes to make your own set. There are seven pieces to the puzzle --- all the possible ways to have at most four blocks and at least one bend. Note that two of the pieces are mirror images.

Once you make a set of pieces, you can challenge your spatial abilities by assembling them into many different constructions. Here are a just a few things you can make, each with the same seven pieces.

It is a fun group activity to make a much larger SOMA by assembling cardboard boxes. Instructions are online here.

More:
Math Monday: Tie your bagel in a knot!
Math Monday: Playing card constructions
Introducing "Math Monday"

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I've started a new blog to document the root-level work I'm doing in the OPML Editor.

http://frontiernews.org/2009/12/28/welcome-to-the-frontier-news-blog/

In a way this is not a new blog at all. Frontier News is a very old name in our community. Before there was Scripting News, I had a blog that documented work we were doing in Frontier.

So in a sense this is the continuation of a thread that goes back to 1996 and before that, to the CompuServe forum and support we were doing on AppleLink starting in 1990.

Big wheel keep on turning!

An anonymous reader writes "China unveiled their new high speed train that clocks in at an average of 217 mph. China's new rail service travels through 20 cities along its route, connecting central China and less developed regions to the larger and more industrial Pearl River Delhi. Seimens, Bombardier and Alstom worked together to design and build this feat of modern transportation, which topped out at a whopping 245mph (394km/h) during trial runs earlier in December."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I have to admit to massive disappointment with Zynga. The company who was founded by and invested in by folks who I tend to think are rather "clueful" has been involved in all sorts of questionable activity, from virtual goods scams to ridiculous trademark lawsuits against competitors. The latest, sent in by reader Eric, is a case where it looks like Zynga is really stretching copyright law as well. Specifically, Zynga has sent a cease & desist to the folks who make an autoplayer script called Mafia Wars Auto Player. MWAP appears to do what you would expect: which is allow a player who has installed it in his or her Firefox browser (it's a Greasemonkey userscript) to "autoplay" the game Mafia Wars based on parameters set in the tool. Seems pretty straightforward.

Now, Mafia Wars bans the use of such scripts in its terms of service, and has apparently been known to ban users caught using such scripts. I don't quite understand why this is a big deal (admittedly, I don't play the game, but I don't see how this is different than if a player sat there and played repetitively themselves), but if Zynga wants to ban players, so be it. But what isn't clear at all is how the makers of this userscript are violating Zynga's copyright. You can look at the full source code of the user script here, and I'm at a loss to see where the copyright violation occurs. I can understand that Zynga doesn't like that this userscript exists, but I'm not clear how "we don't like it" means "it infringes our copyright." Instead, it has the feeling of a (now) big company using the threat of copyright law to try to push a small community to shut down. And, it appears to have worked, as the MWAP people have decided to comply with the C&D rather than fight it.

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This LEGO minifig group costume has some amusing making-of photos, and the costumes turned out great! [via EMSL]

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littleidea writes "Ruby In Practice is like a sampler platter that picks up where The Ruby Way leaves off. Depending on your tastes each of the different offerings are delicious, but sometimes leave you wishing you had a whole order of just that. Then again, if you eat the whole thing, chances are you won't be hungry." Keep reading for the rest of Andrew's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I am very happy to introduce Boing Boing's latest guest blogger, Andrea James. She explains....

I'm a writer, activist and filmmaker. I wrote ads in Chicago for ten years, which led me into consumer activism that focuses on quackery and fraud, especially in medicine and academia.

I also work on behalf of the transgender community. I maintain Transsexual Road Map, a site on the practical aspects of gender transition, and HairFacts, a spinoff general-market site on hair removal. In 2003, I moved to LA and co-founded Deep Stealth Productions, to counter the dismal depiction of trans people in the media and to expand my earlier web-based educational efforts. I founded GenderMedia Foundation and serve on the board of Outfest, which showcases and preserves LGBTQ media, as well as TransYouth Family Allies, which helps families with gender-variant children.

I am also very interested in online phenomena like hoaxes, trolling, the free culture movement, social networking, and crowdsourcing projects like Wikipedia. Please email me with any tips or thoughts you'd like to share, or just to say hi!

Welcome, Andrea!

Here's a forensic "hacker analysis" of a Victoria's Secret image which was featured on Photoshop Disasters. The analysis begins with what appear to be tell-tale signs of clumsy digital manipulation, but goes on to explain how to peel back data in such images to understand how they've been processed. I've pinged Victoria's Secret for comment, and will update if a reply arrives.

News from the Chaos Computer Congress hits the New York Times. 28-year old computer engineer Karsten Nohl today announced "that he had deciphered and published the secret code used to encrypt most of the world's digital mobile phone calls, in what he called an attempt to expose weaknesses in the security of the world's wireless systems."

David Mellis, of Arduino fame, wrote in to share this radio that he built with Dana Gordon. Noting that most personal fabrication projects seem to be aimed at niche markets, they designed a radio that could be enjoyed by anyone. Their hope is to enable individuals to produce and sell small-scale products profitably. They have an excellent write-up on their website, complete with schematics, board designs and drawings.

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You may recall that about a year ago, Trent Reznor jokingly mentioned that 400 gigs of high definition video footage of some shows from Nine Inch Nail's previous tour had been released online "by a mysterious, shadowy group of subversives." Not only that, he noted "I'll bet some enterprising fans could assemble something pretty cool." Now, of course it was Rezor's own people who were "leaking" the content, but we'd been hearing all sorts of cool things about what they were doing, and on Christmas Eve they officially released what they had put together called "Another Version Of The Truth: The Gift." It's an amazing display of crowdsourced teamwork by a group calling itself "This One Is On Us," a play on Reznor's statement when he released "The Slip" as a completely free download, when he said "This one's on me."

As they note, it took 12 months, involving a "core team of dozens (with a network of thousands), spanning 3 contents, 4 languages, 5 specialist teams [and] countless sleepless nights." And what did they come out with? Well, it's a concert video that's available in pretty much any format you might want (and they're still adding more). In fact you'll soon be able to get it in Blu-ray. But in the meantime, you can get it in standard DVD of dual layer DVD formats. You can get it for the PS3 or as a basic .MOV file. There's a version catering to those who want to watch on an iPod, and (of course) it's on YouTube.

And as we're being told how awful BitTorrent is and how various torrent trackers and search engines need to be shut down, the folks behind this effort released it under a Creative Commons license, and people are being told that they "are encouraged to seed for as long as possible." As for Reznor himself? He notes that he's "blown away" and reminded (yet again) that Nine Inch Nails fans "kick ass."

But Bittorrent can't be used for any legitimate purpose, right? And musicians can't possibly embrace what the technology allows? Once again, we're seeing why those who embrace what technology allows will do just fine moving forward. It's only those who think that the answer is to bring out the lawyers and try to hold back progress who will find themselves struggling to create business models that work.

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Buried in the TSA security directive issued to airlines on Saturday, after a Nigerian man reportedly attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound flight, is this:

1. During flight, the aircraft operator must ensure that the following procedures are followed (...)

# Disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services (phone, internet access services, live television programming, global positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight.

So, does this effectively kill off in-flight wireless internet services such as GoGo? What about in-flight video, like the Boing Boing Video channel on-board Virgin America, or Direct TV presentation of 24 hour news channels like CNN or MSNBC?

For what it's worth, when I flew back into the US on Saturday on an international Delta flight, the WiFi service which had been promised on the flight was disabled for the entire flight. When I asked attendants whether internet access was simply not working, or had been disabled, two attendants replied that WiFi is typically only offered during the last hour of the flight, and would not be available at all because of restrictions on "last hour" acvitity.

Saturday's TSA directive was initially aimed at international flights, but portions have also been implemented haphazardly on an assortment of domestic US flights, too ("keep 'em on their toes!" seems to be the prevailing explanation for the lack of consistency in implementation). This TSA Q&A for travelers doesn't answer the question. (Leaked text of directive from Boarding Area blog, via Jason Calacanis)

UPDATE, 10am PT: I reached out to sources at US-based airlines today by email, and one replied to say that as presently understood, the TSA directive has not yet been implemented on domestic flights. Some international flights connect within the US, however, and if in-flight internet is disabled on that aircraft, they typically cannot turn the service back on until the plane "overnights" somewhere.

(Image: Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, at far left, in a photo from his Facebook profile, via NYT.)

Update: See related post here, with discussion of how TSA directives may affect in-flight internet and entertainment services on domestic and international flights.

Here's an open thread for discussing the awesome new TSA in-flight security restrictions that will surely protect us all from future pantsbombers. Just like the war on toothpaste protected us from Mister Sizzly Pants' crotch-launched Christmas fireworks. How'd that loser manage to board a plane in Lagos packing Pentaerythritol tetranitrate (PETN), then glide on through to a Detroit-bound Delta Airlines flight? What the hell's PETN? Is it in toothpaste? How did our supposedly tightened post-9/11 flight security system allow this to happen — despite apparent warning?

Incidentally, I took an early morning flight on Delta today from Latin America to the US, among the first international flights subject to a TSA security directive issued this morning. The pre-boarding procedues included the most invasive hand pat-down I've ever had, and a long line of guys with gloves at the gate, going through everyone's hand luggage in more detail than I've ever experienced.

As we boarded, the flight attendants announced that all passengers would be prohibited from getting out of their seats (for instance, to go to the toilet) or from using any electronic devices (phones, laptops, games) or having anything on their laps (even a book or a blanket) during the last hour of the flight. I tweeted about it from the plane. Bottom line, the new rules make your fellow passengers farty and crosslegged (ever try not going to the bathroom during the last part of a really long-haul international flight?), the flight attendants seemed to be just as annoyed about the meritless new rules as the passengers, and we were none the safer. The worst part? None of this would have stopped the pantsbomber.

Bruce Schneier today blogged, " Do we really think the terrorist won't think of blowing up their improvised explosive devices during the first hour of flight?" And as Schneier wrote back in 2008, "Only two things have made flying safer [since 9/11]: the reinforcement of cockpit doors, and the fact that passengers know now to resist hijackers."

Related: Nigerians are seriously pissed off at the suspect, who is reported to be the son of a prominent Nigerian banker.

And the New York Times points out that what this would appear to mean for flights of 90 minutes or less: you won't be able to get up or use electronics for the entire flight.

* Origin of headline joke is here. Antinous came up with Mister Sizzly Pants, not me.

harrymcc writes "The blogosphere is abuzz with rumors about 'iSlate,' Apple's supposed upcoming tablet. It's constructive to look back at coverage of the first iPhone in the months before it was announced. A high percentage of what was reported turned out to be hooey — as I remembered as I reviewed stories that said the iPhone would have a click wheel, a slide-out keyboard, and two batteries, and would run on an Apple-branded wireless network. I'm guessing that much of what we 'know' about iSlate is similarly off-base."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Eddie Codel got a robotic hamster for Christmas, and he made a short video about it here.

Via Chris Anderson comes this rather odd news about plans for Berkeley High School to cut science labs as part of the school's measures to "address Berkeley's dismal racial achievement gap." Apparently white students at the school do "far better than the state average while black and Latino students [do] worse." Fair enough. That's something worth looking into, but taking away science labs? According to one of the people who helped put forth the proposal, "science labs were largely classes for white students." So, just do away with them? Why not explore why that is? Or see if there's something more proactive to be done about it? Of course, it's not even true that it's just white kids taking science labs:

Science teachers were understandably horrified by the proposal. "The majority of the science department believes that this major policy decision affecting the entire student body, the faculty, and the community has been made without any notification, without a hearing," said Mardi Sicular-Mertens, the senior member of Berkeley High School's science department, at last week's school board meeting.

Sincular-Mertens, who has taught science at BHS for 24 years, said the possible cuts will impact her black students as well. She says there are twelve African-American males in her AP classes and that her four environmental science classes are 17.5 percent African American and 13.9 percent Latino. "As teachers, we are greatly saddened at the thought of losing the opportunity to help all of our students master the skills they need to find satisfaction and success in their education," she told the board.

It seems like there must be more to this story than what's being reported. The concept of cutting science labs because more white students take them just seems too preposterous to make sense.

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Ordinary copy paper can be made highly conductive by treating it with a simple water-based dispersion of carbon nanotubes. Bing Hu and other graduate students under Stanford researcher Yi Cui published a paper in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) describing the use of such conductive paper to create high-performing prototype supercapacitors, batteries, and fuel cells. He also studied the wear resistance of the nanotube ink and found that it bonds very tightly to the paper; his data show that soaking, rinsing, and wringing-out in water does not significantly affect the properties of the treated paper. The supplementary information for his PNAS paper is freely available for download and describes his experimental methods in detail, including the recipe for his ink and the trick of reloading a commercial highlighter with it. [via Science Daily]

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Glyn Moody writes "Today is the birthday of Linus. Just under 19 years ago, on the first day the shops in Helsinki were open after the holidays, Linus rushed out and spent all his Christmas and birthday money on his first PC: a DX33 80386, with 4 Megs of RAM, no co-processor, and a 40 Megabyte hard disc. Today, the kernel he wrote on that system powers 90% of the fastest supercomputers, and is starting to find its way into more and more smartphones — not to mention everything in between. What would the world look like had he spent his money on something else?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I received the most special gift this Christmas. My husband, Chris, was holed up in our garage most nights since November, feverishly working on a secret project for me. He's never attempted woodworking before, but tackled this project with absolute determination. I'm a huge space geek, and have been fascinated with the night sky almost all of my life. I've talked of wanting a good telescope, and it would have been very easy for him to just make a stop by the store to pick one up. That he spent weeks working on this for me makes it the most special gift I've ever received.

Watching him get so excited about the project's progress and work through difficulties and come up with ingenious solutions of his own was so much fun. My only disappointment was that I couldn't be out in the garage working with him. When he unveiled the telescope on Christmas Eve, I was stunned and very excited. When I looked through the eye piece and gazed upon the moon - crystal clear and full of gorgeous craters - I started crying. We've already taken it out almost every night since Christmas Eve, and I can't wait to get it out to a truly isolated spot to really see what she can do!

There's just a little leftover staining to do, but otherwise the scope is complete and working beautifully. Now Chris thinks I should sew a nice dust cover for it.

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Hannah Perner-Wilson made this stretch sensitive bracelet that doesn't light up until you wear it. It's knit from resistive and traditional yarn, and also uses conductive thread.

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There's been plenty of anecdotal stories thrown around about how Facebook impacts relationships. You see stories of breakups exacerbated by Facebook, or jealousies created due to Facebook, but how prevalent is it really? According to one UK law firm, they went through recent divorce petitions and found around 20% of them cited Facebook in some manner. While the article goes into the ridiculousness department by suggesting this means that Facebook is "fueling" divorce (rather than recognizing it's probably just a symptom), it seems likely that if a marriage is heading for divorce anyway, it isn't that surprising that some of the evidence might come from Facebook. But that doesn't mean that the site is to blame. In fact, hidden all the way at the bottom of the article is the rather relevant fact that the divorce rate in the UK has been falling recently, just as the popularity of Facebook has shot upwards. It seems like you'd have to suggest a lot more to prove that Facebook is to blame for these divorces, rather than just an additional element in the proceedings.

I also wonder if there's a bit of a generational thing going on here. I would guess that those who have grown up with Facebook probably won't be as freaked out to find out that someone is still friends with an ex-. There will always be some aspect of jealousy, of course (especially among young people), but we're reaching an era when it's no longer that strange to stay in at least some form of contact with lots of people you meet. The older you are, the more used to losing touch with people you are, and thus a reconnection seems like a bigger deal than it might be to groups of people who have remained in touch constantly.

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Luminous Coward writes "As previously discussed on Slashdot, according to AnandTech and The Tech Report, hard disk drive manufacturers are now ready to bump the size of the disk sector from 512 to 4096 bytes, in order to minimize storage lost to ECC and sync. This may not be a smooth transition, because some OSes do not align partitions on 4K boundaries."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Luminous Coward writes "As previously discussed on Slashdot, according to AnandTech and The Tech Report, hard disk drive manufacturers are now ready to bump the size of the disk sector from 512 to 4096 bytes, in order to minimize storage lost to ECC and sync. This may not be a smooth transition, because some OSes do not align partitions on 4K boundaries."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This guy converted a garbage truck into a mobile home. I love the storage drawers, which have cut-outs in them for all of the kitchen tools and dinnerware so that it doesn't knock about when the house is in motion. [via Steven Robert's Facebook page]

A Story of Organization in Pictures

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Filmed by neighbors who asked them not to attempt driving out on their iced-over suburban street, this pair somehow turn their predicament from "deductible" to "Darwin Award" near-miss in record time. [via Arbroath] Update: now with Bolero.

For all the things the indies are able to do best -- experiment wildly and allow themselves the infinite creative freedom that otherwise gives stockholders the chilled sweats -- one of their greatest assets is the element of surprise. Unlike the managed valleys and troughs of the four-year-dev-time hype-cycles, fantastic and wholly unexpected indie games pop up weekly and continually knock us flat on our backs. And so, choosing a list of the games we look forward to the most in 2010 is somewhat a fool's errand, as you honestly never know when another Canabalt is going to land from nowhere in a blinding flash. But still, there are enough higher-ambition titles -- especially for indies making their bigger-budget forays onto consoles -- that deserve more attention to make this round-up necessary, so find below ten of the games (of a much larger field about which we know even less: I'm looking at you Bit.Trip: Runner) that you'll likely be hearing much more about in the months ahead, as their gestation periods finally end.

DeathSpank [Hothead, PC/PS3/Xbox 360]

Hopes are high for Penny Arcade Adventures dev Hothead's upcoming DeathSpank to be the Brutal Legend of 2010, not for its mechanical or thematic similarities, but rather its pedigree.

The game marks the return of original grump Ron Gilbert, creator of LucasArts classics Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, leading this loot-packing Diablo-esque action/RPG crossed with, well, genuine humor, still one of the things games desperately need more of.

Fez [Polytron, Xbox Live Arcade]

The excitement for Fez isn't just based on its inimitable style or perspective-shifting basics, though both obviously help: in helping to debut the game at Austin GDC I got a much longer look at the progress it's made since its Independent Games Festival debut and couldn't be more excited for the direction it's headed and the aspects yet to be revealed.

Though similarities to Super Paper Mario's dimensional shifts are still being drawn elsewhere, Fez does far more with its z-axis than anyone before has dared, making progress through its world directly reliant on cutting a path through each of its four sides.

Joe Danger [Hello Games, platform TBD]

UK upstart Hello Games came out of nowhere in 2009 -- well, not nowhere, their Voltron-like team is formed of former Kuju and Criterion leads on games like Burnout 3, Black, Geometry Wars Galaxies and Sega Superstars Tennis -- and their indie debut game Joe Danger rose meteorically to many top most wanted lists, especially after its debut at Eurogamer's 2009 Expo (from which the video above was leaked).

Forget the recent World Rally WiiWare remake: Joe Danger is the 21st century Excitebike we didn't know we wanted, with a gorgeous toy-like blue-sky aesthetic and a firm handle on stunt- and trick-jumping that rivals even Trials HD for expert handling.

NightSky [Nicalis, WiiWare]

Apparently lost in deep-sleep stasis somewhere in a cryo chamber hidden deep within Nintendo, NightSky should have been one of 2009's best, but -- with any luck -- will move on to top 2010 lists.

As good a bedtime-story game as we'll probably ever get, NightSky comes from Nicklas 'Nifflas' Nygren -- the same Knytt creator that only weeks ago surprised debuted best-of-2009 champ Saira.

With a firm focus on more physics-based platforming and an entirely original approach to What Game Music Can Be -- the lullabies here provided by Chris Schlarb (part of Sufjan Stevens' indie music collective Asthmatic Kitty) -- NightSky's set to be an instant WiiWare classic, if it could only let itself actually emerge.

Quarrel [Denki, Xbox Live Arcade]

It'll be hard to tell from simply the screenshot above what to expect from Quarrel, and even if I then go on to explain that it's at heart a competitive word game, you might be forgiven for giving it the same pass as you rightly did a number of the lower-shelf family games that were released to no fanfare on Xbox Live Arcade this year.

But this one -- be assured! -- is different. Not just because of the team behind it -- though Denki head Gary Penn has more than proved himself over the years with design credits on the original Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown -- but for the game's more strategic underpinnings, where the actual competitive word battles are simply its substitute for combat in a larger land-grab conquest (which you see above: think DiceWars). Fast-paced, instantly approachable, and considerably and considerately iterated on for the better part of a year, Quarrel is already set to be a game worth yelling about.

Diamond Trust [Jason Rohrer, DS]

It was the least likely design doc surprise of 2009, as Jason Rohrer -- solo dev behind reigning art-game-champ Passage and the Esquire-curated (?!) game Between -- announced he was partnering with casual publisher Majesco to create a DS game based on "diamond trading in Angola on the eve of the passage of the Kimberly Process."

We've only seen the recently released scraps of screenshots (well, and a chick-pea and penny based prototype), but the blood diamond trade is nothing if not a, well, diamond mine of strategic, socio-political, and potential emotional depth, and there are few people other than Rohrer that I'd trust to smartly interpret that in interactive form.

Scott Pilgrim [Ubisoft, platform TBD]

Here's the wildcard of the bunch: we don't really know what Ubisoft's got up its sleeve for the game based on Canadian comic artist Bryan Lee O'Malley's cult hit comic book series, but what we do know is that there is nothing in Scott Pilgrim's already deeply videogame-influenced world that shouldn't perfectly translate into one itself.

Deep-Throat rumblings about some of the cherry-picked team behind the game have bolstered some extra high hopes that this won't just be a quick cash-in tie-in with Edgar Wright's film adaptation (itself my most anticipated movie of 2010), but with nothing publicly said about the game other than their intention to create it and continual consultation with O'Malley himself, there's nothing much to do in the meantime but scrunch your eyes up tight and hope.

Spelunky [Mossmouth, Xbox Live Arcade]

You say: "God, Spelunky again?" I say: absolutely. Even though we've already spent all of 2009 plumbing its procedurally generated depths -- over, and over, and over, and over -- on PC, the forthcoming console port of Derek Yu's retro-platformer is worth watching for all the ways in which it won't be a port.

Yu's already recently explained that at least graphically, the Xbox 360 version will be a much different beast, relying on a more painterly approach akin to his work on Aquaria, and in general seems to be hinting that it holds other experimental surprises that will separate it from the freeware version it was branched from. To say nothing of the simple fact that now it's Spelunky in our living rooms! Over, and over, and over, and over.

Super Meat Boy [Team Meat, WiiWare]

There's nothing necessarily experimental about Team Meat's super-charged console port of their free Flash original Meat Boy: it's just old-school white-knuckle challenge-based platforming done gloriously right.

The Meat boys are determined not to make any concessions to the white-livered weaker players among us: having run through its first world, I can assure you that there's essentially no such thing as a safe landing in any of Meat Boy's levels until you've reached the end.

It'll be the visceral thrill that separates -- I don't know, the prime cuts from the grist -- and also, unrelatedly, will likely be the most indie-all-star jam packed game of the year, with cameo appearances already assured from Braid star Tim, Bit.Trip protagonist Commander Video, and The Behemoth's original Alien Hominid.

Zangeki no Reginleiv [Sandlot, Wii]

This list was almost entirely conceived to give proper due to this game, which might be completely unfair as it still hasn't been confirmed for a Western release. On the surface it might appear to be any other word-jumble from the subset of Japanese gaming that only two small handfuls of obsessive sub-culture fans in the West can appreciate, but again, let me assure you this is different.

I know this, having seen only as much as the trailer above, because I know developer Sandlot: or rather, I know they are the team behind the jaw-droppingly brilliant and desperately under-appreciated Earth Defense Force games (only one of which has made it to the States as the Xbox 360's Earth Defense Force 2017 -- you can find it for about $10 now and you need to purchase it immediately. Europe was luckier to have received its even more necessary PlayStation 2 prequels).

Originally devised as cheap budget thrills, the EDF series is a fantastically simple setup: choose two guns, shoot at about thirty billion cut-and-paste stock-3D-model giant ants and spiders that all swarm at you at once. But it works, better than you'd ever dream, the true gamer's game.

And then comes Reginleiv, which takes that same formula and substitutes in Norse mythology for all the future-alien-invasion b-movie tropes, hands you swords to Wii-mote slash on top of the firearm stock (here represent, of course, by "magic"), but leaves in all of the overwhelming and beelining enemy forces and, best, the towering demigods (which you can get a better taste of via this too-short earlier video teaser).

Nintendo obviously has higher hopes for this one than all of the budget publishers before have had for their previous works -- they're publishing it themselves in Japan -- and with more ambitious co-op play, this will be the year's biggest tragedy if we don't see it make its way West-ward.

ThousandStars writes "'The anti-technological aspect [in James Cameron's Avatar] is strange because the movie is among most technically sophisticated ever: it uses a crazy 2D and 3D camera, harnesses the most advanced computer animation techniques imaginable, and has apparently improved the state-of-the-art when it comes to cinema. But Avatar’s story argues that technology is bad. Humans destroyed their home world through environmental disaster and use military might to annihilate the locals and steal their resources.' The question is two-fold: why have a technically sophisticated, anti-technical movie, and why are we drawn to it? Part of the answer lies in Neal Stephenson's Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out."

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ThousandStars writes ""The anti-technological aspect [in James Cameron's Avatar] is strange because the movie is among most technically sophisticated ever: it uses a crazy 2D and 3D camera, harnesses the most advanced computer animation techniques imaginable, and has apparently improved the state-of-the-art when it comes to cinema. But Avatar’s story argues that technology is bad. Humans destroyed their home world through environmental disaster and use military might to annihilate the locals and steal their resources." The question is two-fold: why have a technically sophisticated, anti-technical movie, and why are we drawn to it? Part of the answer lies in Neal Stephenson's Turn On, Tune In, Veg Out."

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Well, here's an interesting one. There were reports last week claiming that Reuters had spiked a story about hedge fund big shot Steven Cohen after Cohen complained to Reuters management. While Reuters has since strongly denied the charge, it is interesting to note (as sent in by reader JJ) that at least one Reuters blogger complained quite vocally about this decision. The full blog post, written on Reuter's Hedge World blog is well worth reading. Here's a brief snippet:

As a news organization, all we have connecting us to our audience is our credibility. When we make mistakes, when we miss the point, when we fail to publish in a timely manner--each of these creates a little crack in that credibility. Once enough cracks form over time, the credibility is eroded and ultimately broken apart. At that point it doesn't matter how many orange dots you have swirling around your TV commercial or how intelligent you claim your information is. Once that bond is broken you're screwed.

Because Reuters is my company, there's a big part of me that hopes this incident has been blown out of proportion; that the blogs don't have the whole story. I fear that's not the case, however. The way it looks now is positively scandalous. And as a journalist it makes me almost physically ill to think about it.

I hope someone above me addresses the situation publicly, because lord knows not addressing it ain't working. Right now this incident is relatively contained (although it was the most viewed post on ZeroHedge as of Tuesday). But by next week, this will be all over the place--Romanesko, Drudge. From there it could get real ugly real fast.

And herein, I hope, lies a lesson for whomever killed Matt Goldstein's Steve Cohen story: When you make a decision like that, under those circumstances, the back story will get out. And the fallout from that back story will always, always be worse than the fallout from the story itself.

What strikes me as most interesting about this is that this Reuters post is still up. Reuters did not pull it. It does have an update link at the top to another blog that posted Reuters' denial (not even a Reuters page... which is also noteworthy). While I'm still curious about the decision to spike the story, I have to admit that the fact that a Reuters blogger was allowed to post this blog seriously questioning the integrity of Reuters management (his own bosses) lends at least some more credibility to Reuters itself. This is strengthened by the fact that the blog post has remained up as well.

Compare this to the stories that went around when the Associated Press was announcing its silly and totally useless attempt to DRM the news. At the time, I heard from a few different AP reporters who thought it was a ridiculous idea that made the Associated Press look bad -- but they weren't allowed to say that publicly, and had no real outlet to do so. Reuters and the AP compete pretty directly in the newswire business, and every time I compare them to one another Reuters seems to come out ahead in recognizing where the world is heading. If it is true that Reuters spiked the Cohen story, that would be quite damning and could make me question trusting Reuters, but how it's handled this news so far, and how it's reacted to its own blogger talking about the story is impressive.

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Photos by Richard Baker, University of Rochester.

University of Rochester Associate Processor Chunlei Guo has developed a technique that uses a femtosecond laser to blast nanoscale features into the surface of a piece of metal--pretty much any metal. These tiny features interact selectively with white light to reflect a particular color--pretty much any color. It's also possible to achieve a near-perfect black finish and iridescence. If the process can be made economical (it's very slow at present, requiring about half an hour to treat a dime-sized area), it could be a complete game-changer when it comes to finishing metals. Guo gives the example of a bicycle factory that could use only a single laser to make parts of any color or color scheme.

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blognoggle writes "Roger Sessions, a noted author and expert on complexity, developed a model for calculating the total global cost of IT failure. Roger describes his approach in a white paper titled The IT Complexity Crisis: Danger and Opportunity. He concludes that IT failure costs the global economy a staggering $6.2 trillion per year."

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Bunnie's blog points out a rather sweet hack by xobs which swaps Chumby's LCD display for TV output. It requires new firmware + minimal hardware modding - def seems worth it for those looking for bigger display options. Read more in the Chumby wiki.

In the Maker Shed:

Chumby Guts

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Eventually somebody looses track of what glass their drinking out of at almost every dinner party I attend. That's what those little wine charms are for. I really dig this LED wine charm instructable from billr. They're geeky, festive, and yet another excuse to add an LED to something that would otherwise forgo illumination.

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Lots of folks have sent in various versions of Amazon's hyped up press release about how it sold more ebooks on Christmas than physical books. While this ought to make some publishers reconsider their hatred of ebooks, there are two points that make this rather meaningless. First, how many physical books are usually sold on Amazon on Christmas day? My guess is not very many. Books are purchased before Christmas day. However, I'm sure plenty of people did get new Kindles on Christmas, and quite a few then went and "purchased" an ebook or two to test it out.

But, again, since this is the Kindle we're talking about, shouldn't Amazon make the distinction between purchased and rented? When someone buys a physical book from Amazon, they then own that book and can do pretty much what they want with it, including reselling it or giving it away. When they "purchase" an ebook from Amazon, that's not the case at all. They're quite limited in what they can do with it. They can't resell it. They can't share it with a friend (unless they give up their entire Kindle and all the books on it). And, of course, Amazon can make the ebook disappear at will -- though, it insists it will never do this again. Even though it can. So, congrats to Amazon, for renting more books on a day when such rentals are to be expected and when physical book sales are probably at their very lowest.

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theodp writes "Recalling that CEO Jeff Bezos originally explored placing Amazon.com on an Indian Reservation near San Francisco to 'have access to talent without all the tax consequences,' the NY Times argues it's time toput an end to the e-tailer's 'entity isolation' tax-avoidance games. The LA Times chimes in, saying Amazon's claims that collecting sales tax constitute an undue burden are 'worth a horselaugh,' noting that Amazon boasts it has no problem keeping track of millions of unique products."

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Thessia Machado's Interference -

an interactive sculpture/instrument made with harvested electronic parts. You can modulate both the sounds and the images by shading the light on the photocells. The lcd screen (from a discarded pda) is excited directly by the voltage output from the oscillator.

[via Califaudio]

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When you connect an odd number of digital logic inverters in a ring, you'll get a Ring Oscillator - one of the simplest types. This configuration has no stable state, so the 1s and 0s chase each other around the ring, creating oscillations. Normally this isn't easy to visualize, but Make Flickr Pool contributor ellindsey000 made a pendant that illustrates the principle beautifully:

This actually looks much better in person -- I'm at the 26C3 conference, where someone (sorry, I'll try to get your name!) built a replica based on ellindsey000's photos. The LEDs are ultraviolet, causing different spots in the center marble (which contains uranium) to glow. What the video above doesn't show is that the UV LEDs are barely visible and the glow inside the marble seems to move almost as if it was a liquid.

The schematic matches the construction in circular symmetry - both are beautiful:

More pictures: complete gallery, including how it looks in daylight.

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If you've got a jailbroken iPhone and want to use a bluetooth keyboard with it you can now download BTstack Keyboard in the Cydia Store. [via theiphoneblog]

More:

• External keyboard for iPhone from our own iPhone Hacks--no jailbreaking needed!
• iPhone PS/2 keyboard interface with Arduino
• Physical keyboard for iPhone and an iPhone robot - WITH ARDUINO

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Here is another how-to from Jeff, this time he describes using a 555 timer as an external clock for the Arduino. It's a really interesting technique on how to get a fairly accurate external interrupt at lower frequencies.

The key here is an 'external clock'. Rather than have the Arduino keep track of when to perform the next task, you have an outside signal that says "Now!" and fires an interrupt which the Arduino responds to. If your source fires every 100 milliseconds, then 10 times a second, the Arduino will receive an interrupt which will stop any processing currently happening and immediately execute the interrupt handler. For every tick of the clock, the interrupt handler will execute.

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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A bunch of folks are sending in variations on this story saying that AT&T has stopped its online sales of iPhones to anyone in New York City. This is fueling all sorts of speculation, given that the NYC market was one where there were quite a lot of complaints about congestion problems for iPhone users. Add to that a random AT&T customer service person telling Consumerist "New York is not ready for the iPhone", and you've got quite a story. AT&T's initial response (at the first link above) is amazing for its lack of anything resembling an explanation:

"We periodically modify our promotions and distribution channels," said Fletcher Cook, an AT&T spokesman.

Further investigation by some turned up that you can get new iPhones in New York if you go into stores, or if you are an existing customer looking to upgrade. Plus, it looks like if you order directly from Apple itself, you can buy an iPhone in New York. So, on the whole this sounds like some sort of inventory management issue that will probably be worked out pretty quickly, rather than some attempt to limit usage of iPhones in New York.

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An anonymous reader writes "Ylmf, famous for pirating Windows XP, have just released a version of Ubuntu that looks just like Windows XP. Really, really similar. Apparently because Microsoft were cracking down on the actual Windows XP pirating — though I think they will still suffer for ripping off the GUI exactly." Of course, if that's the sort of look you like for your desktop, you need not risk any download cooties or language barriers; a reader in the Ubuntu Forums suggests this instructional video for giving Gnome the XP treatment.

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Happy Birthday Johannes Kepler!
Kepler is best known for establishing laws of planetary motion (explained in the above vid series) which later helped form the basis of Isaac Newton's work on gravity. His research in the field of optics resulted in the invention of the "Keplerian" refracting telescope. For more Keplerian info, check out JohannesKepler.info (natch!)

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I've been trying to find an easy way for my mom to manage her own digital camera, and have settled on getting her a netbook computer she can travel with. I'll set it up so it's easy for her to take the SD card from the camera and plug it into the netbook and upload her pictures to Flickr. It'll be pretty easy, but then I was just driving home from dinner and realized that someday, maybe very soon, it will be even easier.

Imagine a Twitter-branded camera. Here's how it would work.

It would have the inverse of Amazon's Whispernet. Where Amazon wants to push content to the remote device, the purpose of the Twitter camera would be to push the content, pictures -- to Twitter.

The user interface would be simple. Take a picture. It shows up in the little screen built into the camera. There would be a blue button with the Twitter bird on it. Click the button and the picture being displayed is uploaded and a pointer is tweeted on your behalf. One-click publication from anywhere a cell phone works.

Ultimately cameras will be able to communicate. Until today I didn't realize that they would be hard-wired into social networks. I'm sure they will.

Of course there will be a Facebook camera.

And if Yahoo had been paying attention there would have been a Flickr camera, two or three years ago.

A UStream or Qik HD camera would be good too.

The key point is that the device and the online service will become inseparable and least for casual point-and-shoot people, like myself.

Victorian Infographics details here!

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kfogel writes "GNU Emacs, one of the oldest continuously developed free software projects around, has switched from CVS to Bazaar. Emacs's first first recorded version-control commits date from August, 1985. Eight years later, in 1993, it moved to CVS. Sixteen years later, it is switching to Bazaar, its first time in a decentralized version control system. If this pattern holds, GNU Emacs will be in Bazaar for at least thirty-two years ..."

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Transparentius, by noted Russian design firm Art Lebedev, consists of a semi-trailer equipped with a projector that displays the view from a forward-looking camera on the back of the trailer. [via Neatorama]

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Rumor time! AT&T reportedly has a new solution to insufficient 3G network capacity in New York (or maybe just fraud in New York): it's refusing to sell iPhones online to customers with New York zip codes.

From the International Space Fellowship website:

To celebrate the holidays, the Cassini imaging team has created a video collection of "mutual events," which occur when one moon passes in front of another, as seen from the spacecraft. Imaging scientists use mutual event observations to refine their understanding of the dynamics of Saturn's moons. Digital image processing has enabled scientists to turn these routine observations into breathtaking displays of celestial motion. The original images were captured between Aug. 27 and Nov. 8, 2009.

[via Tim O'Reilly's Twitter feed]

Cassini Holiday Movies Showcase Dance of Saturn's Moons

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cowp writes "A Consumerist tipster couldn't get AT&T's website to sell him an iPhone when he shopped using an NYC ZIP code, but could when he tried other cities' ZIPs. Consumerist asked an AT&T CSR and seems to have gotten confirmation that this is carrier policy: 'Yes, this is correct the phone is not offered to you because New York is not ready for the iPhone. You don't have enough towers to handle the phone.' Considering Apple's gadget is currently the most popular handset in the U.S., its exclusive carrier's inability/unwillingness to support the device in the country's largest market is pretty huge news. If this proves true, I'd expect curtains for AT&T's exclusivity deal when it comes up for renewal." If you're in NYC, can you confirm or deny this outlandish-sounding claim? Updated 20091227 1:03 GMT by timothy: Headline, now corrected, inaccurately named Apple rather than AT&T. Mea culpa.

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