modeca writes "Using only commonly available kitchen equipment this guy demonstrates the amazing powers of an ordinary metal pan to boost the 3G reception of his USB modem. It really seems to work, check the right hand side of the graph in the video." It's not that crazy: cheap antenna boosting (for USB WiFi dongles, Bluetooth, and more) has been elevated to a fine art in New Zealand.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Via EFF comes this rather interesting calculation of the DRM tax of owning an Amazon Kindle. It's not a definitive number, as it would differ for different people based on what kinds of books they buy, how often and how many of those books they'd like to keep. But it's a good little thought experiment for those looking to buy a Kindle. The key recognition, of course, is that with a Kindle ebook you're renting, not buying the books:

There is one other problem with DRM protected books. When the reading device reaches its end of life, you have to assume all the content you purchased will be lost. If, for instance, I went with a Kindle, all of the content I purchase can be used only on devices supported by Amazon.

When, several years later, it comes time to replace that Kindle I may get a new Kindle -- but I can't assume that. Maybe somebody else will have a better device at that time. Or, maybe Amazon went bankrupt or evil or stupid and I need to switch to another vendor. There are any number of reasons I might like to switch my e-reader. If I do, I have to assume I won't be able to use any of the content I purchased for the Kindle.

Thanks to DRM, when my e-reader reaches its end of life, I will have to pay to acquire replacement books for the material that's locked out of the new e-reader. I call the amount of that purchase the "DRM tax" -- an added cost imposed by DRM restrictions.

He's quite fair in calculating his own personal DRM tax, noting that he probably wouldn't want to rebuy all the books, but just a portion of them. He also knows that ebooks are cheaper. But, in the end, he realizes that this DRM tax makes the total cost of ownership of a Kindle much higher for him than just buying the physical books -- even if it's more of a pain to have to sometimes lug them around. In his case, he would use it mainly for technical books, which is a different situation than, say, recreational novel reading, where "ownership" may be less important. Still, he feels that the DRM issue is a problem and a serious hidden cost:

Maybe someday Amazon (and publishers) will realize how much harm they are doing with DRM. If the DRM tax was removed, not only would more people get e-readers, but also, thanks to the low friction of e-book purchasing, they'd buy more e-content.

This is actually a key point. Just the fact that he had to run through this calculation to determine if a Kindle made sense is a serious amount of friction. If Amazon made this calculation easy (i.e., no DRM tax) that would lead to more sales.

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From Wired's Autopia blog:

China is home to a widespread DIY culture fed by necessity (the mother of all invention) and innovation. These garage builders and innovators are, like their products, often called shanzhai. Literally translated, it means "mountain strongholds," but it has come to mean nonprofessional or clandestine manufacturers turning out products from the basic to the highly sophisticated. These shanzhai often take familiar products, concepts and marketing memes and remake them with peculiar but innovative twists.

Aviation is by no means an exception, and it has its share of shanzhai builders. But there is more to it than that. China's emerging aviator class is spreading its wings with a plethora of approaches, from the ramshackle to the sophisticated to the potentially revolutionary. They're using everything imaginable, from old motorcycle engines to electric motors to even their own legs, like Mao Yiqing and his human-powered airplane shown above. You could easily plot these adventurous innovators on a graph, with the X axis showing their skill and the Y axis their financial means.

The Sky's the Limit for China's DIY Aviators

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theodp writes "Among the last batch of patents granted in 2009 was one for IBM's Resolution of Abbreviated Text in an Electronic Communications System. The invention of four IBMers addresses the hitherto unsolvable problem of translating abbreviations to their full meaning — e.g., 'IMHO' means 'In My Humble Opinion' — and vice versa. From the patent: 'One particularly useful application of the invention is to interpret the meaning of shorthand terms ... For example, one database may define the shorthand term "LOL" to mean "laughing out loud."' USPTO records indicate the patent filing was made more than a year after Big Blue called on the industry to stop what it called 'bad behavior' by companies who seek patents for unoriginal work. Yet another example of what USPTO Chief David Kappos called IBM's apparent schizophrenia on patent policy back when he managed Big Blue's IP portfolio."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I hit the same wall I always hit when looking for a place to store the users' content.

It's not much of a problem when you're running the server for them, but when the server is running on their desktop, as it is in River2, where do you put the publicly accessible content? I could operate a storage system for them, but what happens if the service doesn't take off and never becomes a business? At some point I have to punt, and that leaves users with data that goes missing. Thinking long-term I don't want to set another one of these up.

The right answer is to help them get their own storage working. And Amazon has made that relatively easy, so I spent the time to make it really work.

The users' feeds are stored in Amazon S3. For this I need three pieces of data. The "Access Key ID" (which is the equiv of a username), "Secret Access Key" (password) and a default bucket. That's explained on the Frontier News site.

Frontier News: New preferences for Amazon S3.

I created my own feed using the new tool, you can see it's on Amazon. I wouldn't subscribe to it, while it should keep updating, I'm going to merge it with my lifeliner feed.

Back in July, I blogged about YB2Normal's inexpensive PVC gimbal for a home-made steadicam rig. Since that time, William has been steadily refining his design. Version five, pictured above, features a redesigned gimbal incorporating an off-the-shelf auto part. [via Hack A Day]

From the pages of MAKE:

Johnny Lee showed us how to build a $14 Video Camera Stabilizer way back in MAKE 01.

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Famous politico-pranksters The Yes Men have a long history of putting forth convincing parody websites that get those they parody to rush around to get the websites offline. Back in 2007, there was the fake ExxonMobil site that got pulled. Earlier this year it was the fake Chamber of Commerce site that the real Chamber issued a DMCA takedown over. The latest prank is based up in Canada, with the Yes Men setting up some parody sites of Canadian government organizations, promising massive greenhouse emissions reductions. This greatly upset the Canadian government who ordered the websites' service provider to pull them down. However, as Michael Geist points out, in the rush to pull down the sites, the ISP also took down 4,500 other websites. Seems like quite a bit of unnecessary collateral damage. Of course, this is exactly what the Yes Men want. For every takedown, they get another burst of publicity.

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I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Professor Johannes Skaar's Quantum Hacking group at NTNU have found a new way to break quantum encryption. Even though quantum encryption is theoretically perfect, real hardware isn't, and they exploit these flaws. Their technique relies on a particular way of blinding the single photon detectors so that they're able to perform an intercept-resend attack and get a copy of the secret key without giving away the fact that someone is listening. This attack is not merely theoretical, either. They have built an eavesdropping device and successfully attacked their own quantum encryption hardware. More details can be found in their conference presentation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Youtube user Brusspup made these animated optical illusions by carefully combining slices of different drawings, then sliding an image of vertical lines over the top. That part is straightforward. The illusion comes in when your brain interprets the small white slits that it sees into larger shapes. He also has a nice tutorial on the technique:

I can understand doing this by hand to learn how this works, but it seems like the perfect kind of task to automate with a computer program. Anyone up to the challenge? [via laughing squid]

More:

• Cylinder mirror optical illusions
• Real-life optical illusions
• Reflections on an Illusion

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dinoyum writes "Moscow Mayor Yury Luzhkov's promise of a winter without snow in the capital city has fallen short. While cloud seeding is not a new concept for Russia, often used on major holidays, geoengineering snow has never been done to that magnitude. Carrying off the $6 million procedure required jets to spray silver iodide into coming clouds, ensuring that all precipitation fell before it reached the capital. However a combination of disrupted radar, wind control, and faulty weathermen have been blamed by Luzhkov for his failed attempt at playing with mother nature. For now, Russia can go back to enjoying snow."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the more famous examples of abuses of the YouTube video takedown process was the case of Lenz vs. Universal Music, which involved Universal Music issuing a YouTube DMCA takedown to a woman who posted a very short clip of her baby dancing to a Prince song that was playing in the background. It was a clear case of fair use, and while after the woman filed a counternotice Universal chose not to sue, the EFF filed a lawsuit against Universal Music, saying that the DMCA notice was fraudulent, since it was such an obvious case of fair use. While Universal Music argued that since fair use is just a "defense" and not a "right" it need not consider fair use in sending a takedown, the court disagreed.

You would think, then, that any takedown notices on similar short videos of kids dancing to music would avoid a similar scenario. Copycense points us to the news that a guy has received a notice from Google of potential infringement for his short clip of his kid dancing along to what appears to be a version (not the original) of the Kool & The Gang song "Celebration." As in the Lenz case, this video is a kid dancing to somewhere around 30 seconds of a song: The notice claims that the video contains content for which the copyright is held by record label Razor & Tie. The guy who got the takedown seems a bit confused, in that he appears to be blaming McDonald's for the mess, when it appears McDonald's had nothing at all to do with the takedown. In fact, the record label Razor & Tie may not have anything to do with it either... as I'll explain below. The song used in the video was from a CD that came with a McDonald's Happy Meal. Looking around, it appears that in April, McDonald's announced a promotion with record label Kidz Bop to issue music CDs. Razor & Tie is the parent company of Kidz Bop. The problem here is clearly not McDonald's. All it did was include the CD in Happy Meals. It's got nothing to do with the takedown, and the guy's anger at McDonald's is misplaced (though, you could make the argument -- and it's a stretch -- that McDonald's should tell its partners to avoid these sorts of ridiculous copyright claims that scare people away from buying Happy Meals).

The next assumption, then, would be that Razor & Tie is guilty of sending the takedown, but I don't think that's true. If Razor & Tie had sent a DMCA takedown, the video would be down. When Google receives a DMCA takedown, it almost always (or perhaps always) pulls down the content immediately in order to retain its DMCA safe harbors. The user would then need to file a counternotice to start the process of potentially getting the video back up. The fact that the video is up and the notice the guy received simply tells him to review the videos suggests that no DMCA takedown was sent.

Instead, the blame almost certainly lies with Google's content recognition engine/filters that the record labels pushed them to use to try to catch copyright infringement ahead of time. Now, Razor & Tie is somewhat complicit here, in that it appears to have uploaded its catalog to train Google's filters (if I remember correctly -- and correct me if I'm wrong -- Google needs the copyright holder to submit copies for its filter to work). So, Google had this particular song on file, and noticed the similarity. Google's filter algorithms don't appear to consider fair use (or, perhaps more likely, they do a bad job of it in many cases) and the guy then is sent the automated notification, even though it makes everyone -- McDonald's, Razor & Tie and Google -- look bad, though the blame from the recipient appears to be in almost reverse order of culpability.

Unfortunately, the guy who received the notice also appears to be confused concerning his own rights. He says he is going to take down the video, though he clearly has a strong fair use case in asking for the video to be left alone. It seems likely that Google would allow the video to stay up, and I highly doubt that Razor & Tie would do anything else (it would be ridiculous to try to claim that this was not fair use).

Either way, this highlights a variety of interesting things. First, despite all the publicity of the Lenz case, these types of "takedowns" (even if it's not a DMCA takedown) still happen. Second, people on the receiving end of these notices assume that there is no recourse that would allow the video to stay up. People get official sounding notices and they assume they need to jump. Third, Google's content match filter isn't particularly good on fair use issues. Fourth, when these sorts of bogus notices are sent, it reflects very poorly on a variety of companies. In this case, McDonald's is getting most of the blame, despite being almost entirely blameless (well, it did decide to put out these silly music CDs, but that's a separate issue). Even Razor & Tie may be getting misplaced blame (though it may depend on the "rules" it set for Google's filter). Amusingly, it may be Google that deserves the most blame, and it appears to be getting the least.

Still, no matter what the situation, it's simply ridiculous that a guy filming 30 seconds of his kid dancing should have to worry about any of this.

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Here's MAKE's Collin Cunningham explaining Ohm's Law: Voltage = Current X Resistance.

My tweeting-in-the-river project has yielded a stream.

Witness...

In this screen shot I am composing a tweet to be published. Self-explanatory.

Then a few moments later, it appears, as if by magic, in its own river.

I am speechless.

kkleiner writes "The Shadow Dextrous Hand is a robotic arm that allows for fine motor control and precise movements. It's accurate enough to pick up an egg, screw in a light bulb, or thread a needle. Even cooler, researchers can control it with a 'Cyber glove,' allowing for 24 distinct human movements that mimic the user's own hand. A British based company, Shadow, has been displaying the hand for several years now, and recently demonstrated its latest model at IREX 2009. The hand, toted as the world's most advanced, is available for sale to researchers (pricing has not been made public)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "I am currently looking to move from text editing with vim to a full fledged IDE with gdb integration, integrated command line, etc. Extending VIM with these capabilities is a mortal sin, so I am looking for a linux based GUI IDE. I do not want to give up the efficient text editing capabilities of VIM though. How do I have my cake and eat it too?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "Peter Kirwan has an interesting article in Wired UK on the emergence of software that automates the collection, evaluation, and even reporting of news events. Thomson Reuters, the world's largest news agency, has started moving down this path, courtesy of an intriguing product with the nondescript name NewsScope, a machine-readable news service designed for financial institutions that make their money from automated, event-driven trading. The latest iteration of NewsScope 'scans and automatically extracts critical pieces of information' from US corporate press releases, eliminating the 'manual processes' that have traditionally kept so many financial journalists in gainful employment. At Northwestern University, a group of computer science and journalism students have developed a program called Stats Monkey that uses statistical data to generate news reports on baseball games. Stats Monkey identifies the players who change the course of games, alongside specific turning points in the action. The rest of the process involves on-the-fly assembly of templated 'narrative arcs' to describe the action in a format recognizable as a news story. 'No doubt Kurt Cagle, editor of XMLToday.org, was engaging in a bit of provocation when he recently suggested that an intelligent agent might win a Pulitzer Prize by 2030,' writes Kirwin. 'Of course, it won't be the software that takes home the prize: it'll be the programmers who wrote the code in the first place, something that Joseph Pultizer could never have anticipated.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1934 photo of a baby in a wooden and wire cage hanging out of a window a few stories up. It looks secure.

Make: Online's space correspondent, Rachel Hobson, points us to this article in Florida Today:

After months of searching for a new home for a full-scale model of the space shuttle's crew compartment, Chuck Ryan is beginning to accept the replica he spent almost 15 years building may soon be destroyed.

He is now trying to find takers for 1,000 toggle switches, 50 gallons of paint, 40 gallons of fiberglass resin, plywood, tools and other never-used materials.

"I'm still holding out a little bit of hope that someone wants the shuttle," said Ryan, who would like to donate the 33-foot long, 10-ton model and see it used as a monument or for a space camp.

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With the failed attempted terrorist attack last week, there has been a tremendous amount of confusion and changing stories concerning airline security. What was especially odd was that there were so many conflicting reports about what the TSA was requiring that it really made the very concept of flying a total pain. There were some reports saying that no carry on baggage was allowed and other reports saying no electronics were allowed. Then there were the reports that you could carry on one bag, but wouldn't be able to leave your seat in the last hour of the flight or have anything (anything at all) on your lap during that hour. Every flight seemed to be different and the TSA was silent for a few days, before finally issuing a vague "guidance" press release that didn't really answer any questions. Basically, the TSA said that it was changing rules constantly. One supposes that the idea was to completely vary the rules so that no "terrorist" could prepare for them and get around them, and I actually can see some merit in that, conceptually. But from a travelers' perspective, it's ridiculous. You simply can't plan ahead with any sense of reason.

And since the TSA was so quiet and/or vague, there were a ton of people searching for information. Even the NY Times was relying on info found on airline websites rather than the TSA itself. So it was of little surprise that there would be plenty of demand for anyone to share any info that they knew -- not for any nefarious purpose, but just so regular travelers could properly prepare for their trip.

Among those who found and posted such information was blogger/reporter and travel expert Christopher Elliott, who regularly blogs about travel issues. He posted the details of a TSA order requiring pat-downs of all passengers on international inbound flights. The order that he posted had been sent to US Airways employees, and seemed like a reasonable bit of information that people would probably like to know about, so it's no surprise that Elliott blogged about it. But last night, Elliott received a surprising knock on the door from a Federal Agent with a subpoena demanding he hand over the details of where he received the info on the pat down procedure (thanks to Rob Hyndman who pointed me to an account of this incident).

Now, the argument in favor of this action is that these sorts of security procedures are probably supposed to be kept quiet (again, the idea would be to throw off any terrorist), but if you actually think about this, it doesn't make any sense. First, it wouldn't take long at all for reports of universal pre-boarding pat downs to be spread around. After all, thousands of people get on planes to fly to the US every day. In fact, among the many stories I heard, the universal pat down story was among them. So it's not like it's actually a secret. It's quite clear from what's being done. Second, if the TSA's security plan is based on keeping information like this "secret" (even if it's made obvious by their actions), then we're in even more trouble than I thought. It's security through pretend obscurity. It's ostrich-level security theater. It's security theater where the idea is that if the TSA pretends no one knows what's actually happening, then it can assume that no one knows what the procedures really are for airport security.

Instead, the whole thing (once again) demonstrates how silly the TSA security procedures are. And, oh yeah, rather than sending federal agents to issue subpoenas to folks like Elliott to figure out how he got the security procedures, shouldn't Homeland Security be spending more time tracking terrorists and coming up with plans that actually make us safer? What good is it engaging in a witch hunt over who passed on the obvious info that people get patted down before they board a US-bound flight?

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According to the YouTube description for this video, a guy threw his bicycle at a pair of purse-snatching thieves who were speeding away on a scooter, causing them to crash and become quite upset.

wkurzius writes "The new Google phone, the Nexus One, is rumored to cost $530 unlocked and will work on any GSM network. A subsidized version is also available for $180 and will get you a T-Mobile Even More Individual 500 Plan for 2-years with a $350 termination fee. Access to the phone is supposed to be invite only at first, with January 5th being the supposed release date."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ReflectionOf.Me posted a graph that shows how much HP printer ink costs compared to human blood, vodka, crude oil and other precious liquids.

Ever wonder how you can get rectangular lumber from round trees? I figured that it involved a lot of sawing, but didn't realize how much handling was required. The video above is of the Jackson Lumber Harvester 3 Saw Vertical Edger. [via core77]

More:

• The power of steam
• Sturgeon's Mill field trip

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Ever wonder how you can get rectangular lumber from round trees? I figured that it involved a lot of sawing, but didn't realize how much handling was required. The video above is of the Jackson Lumber Harvester 3 Saw Vertical Edger. [via core77]

More:

• The power of steam
• Sturgeon's Mill field trip

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Copyright maximalists who hate the DMCA's safe harbors often claim that service providers can easily tell what content is infringing and which is not. This is, in fact, a key part of the argument made by Viacom in its lawsuit against Google over YouTube. It claims that YouTube must know that the clips are infringing and should be taken down. There's just one problem: even Viacom doesn't seem to know which clips are infringing and which are not. It turns out that, among the many YouTube clips included in the lawsuit, approximately 100 were uploaded on purpose by Viacom. Yes, you read that right:

Viacom sued Google over clips it claimed were infringing, that Viacom purposely uploaded to YouTube.

That alone should show how ridiculous Viacom's claims are in this lawsuit. There is simply no way for Google to know if clips are uploaded legitimately or not. Oddly, however, the court has now allowed Viacom to withdraw those clips, but lawyers like Eric Goldman are questioning how this isn't a Rule 11 violation for frivolous or improper litigation. But, more importantly, it demonstrates that even Viacom has no idea which clips are infringing and which are authorized. Given that, how can it possibly say that it's reasonable for Google to know?

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My nephew Ari Pescovitz, a metal sculptor and architecture grad student, spent the fall living in New York City for an internship. He became intrigued by the structures used to prevent people from sitting on standpipes. (Maybe that's why they're called standpipes, and not sitpipes! *rimshot*) "It amused me how hostile and creative New Yorkers were in not wanting people to slow down and rest," Ari says. So he began to photograph the standpipes as bits of urban engineering. Ari did find an exception to the anti-sitting technology though: a stand-pipe outfitted with a tiny seat. Above it was a sign: "Please be seated -- rest, dream, this is New York." The seat was sponsored by a realty firm.

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

By Eric Chu, engineering intern

There aren't many low-budget ways to customize one's yo-yo. The most common ones are either painting or dyeing, but they're limited: paint chips off with time, and dyeing is only for plastic yo-yos.

Being a yo-yo fanatic, I regularly visit the blog yoyoskills.com for yo-yo news. There I recently read a post about spin-activated LED side caps that fit into the side of yo-yos. They're low-cost ($6) and look very cool; a perfect customizing add-on for a yo-yo. Unfortunately, they only come in one size, thus only fitting a few yo-yos.

I thought it'd be a fun project to make my own set (and it was!). I used a One Drop Project yo-yo.

How It Works
Using the centrifugal force generated by the spinning of the yo-yo, the spring, acting as the switch, is pulled outward. It makes contact with the positive leads of the LEDs, thus completing the circuit, turning the LEDs on.

It looks great in action, day or night. Check out the video:

I'll be writing up the project as a DIY article soon. Look for it in MAKE Volume 22 this spring.

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Xcott Craver writes "The next Underhanded C Contest has begun, with a deadline of March 1st. The object of the contest is to write short, readable, clear and innocent C code that somehow commits an evil act. This year's challenge: write a luggage routing program that mysteriously misroutes a customer's bag if a check-in clerk places just the right kind of text in a comment field. The prize is a gift certificate to ThinkGeek.com."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Interesting tutorial over on Propnomicon, by Richard Bird, who built this vintage diving helmet replica prop for a recent LARP adventure for London's The Dark Door group.

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President Obama is taking steps to modify rules around the secrecy of government documents, and the length of time for which documents may remain secret. Secrecy experts like Steven Aftergood are cautiously optimistic, but not yet convinced this is good news.

"Just / want / allah / help / good / people." Link, requires Java and no adblockers.

Via Wired Danger Room on Twitter, from @i2pi and via @drewconway

Bruce Schneier: a voice of reason, as usual.

Terrorism is rare, far rarer than many people think. It's rare because very few people want to commit acts of terrorism, and executing a terrorist plot is much harder than television makes it appear.

The best defenses against terrorism are largely invisible: investigation, intelligence, and emergency response. But even these are less effective at keeping us safe than our social and political policies, both at home and abroad. However, our elected leaders don't think this way: They are far more likely to implement security theater against movie-plot threats.

Is aviation security mostly for show? (CNN guest editorial)

Comedian and television host Chris Hardwick has a few choice words for the TSA.

JumperCable writes "Ginkgo biloba has failed — again — to live up to its reputation for boosting memory and brain function. Just over a year after a study showed that the herb doesn't prevent dementia and Alzheimer's disease, a new study from the same team of researchers has found no evidence that ginkgo reduces the normal cognitive decline that comes with aging. In the new study, the largest of its kind to date, DeKosky and his colleagues followed more than 3,000 people between the ages of 72 and 96 for an average of six years. Half of the participants took two 120-milligram capsules of ginkgo a day during the study period, and the other half took a placebo. The people who took ginkgo showed no differences in attention, memory, and other cognitive measures compared to those who took the placebo, according to the study, which was published in this week's Journal of the American Medical Association."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Make: Online guest contributor and all-around pal Paul Overton, of Dude Craft fame, has kindly solicited an article from me for his new creative-process blog Make & Meaning. My piece is called On The Care and Feeding of Ideas. Thanks, Paul!

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Taser is notoriously defensive about any claims that its supposedly "non-lethal" devices have ever caused anyone to die. Yet, there is a ton of evidence concerning people who have died after being tazed. There are even cases where the company has had courts overrule medical examiners forcing them to change the "cause of death." Now, as Karl Bode points out, an appeals court has ruled that using a Taser can constitute excessive force. The ruling doesn't say that Tasers are automatically excessive force, but suggests that the overall circumstances behind the use need to be taken into consideration, and if the victim is not acting in a threatening way, use of a Taser may be inappropriate and excessive.

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Now that we've gazed inside what is purported to be Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's explosives-laden underwear, let's look inside his mind, by way of an archive of postings he made to the Islamic discussion website gawaher.com.

Would the prophet Muhammad have played soccer, were he alive today? Is it okay to eat meals with my parents, even though they're unclean? All this and more he asked, and we know this because Wired Danger Room dug up a slew of links.

The following post is credited to "Farouk1986", whose email was listed as umarm21@hotmail.com.:

First of all, i have no friend. Not because i do not socialise, etc but because either people do not want to get too close to me as they go partying and stuff while i dont, or they are bad people who befriend me and influence me to do bad things. Hence i am in a situation where i do not have a friend, i have no one to speak too, no one to consult, no one to support me and i feel depressed and lonely. i do not know what to do. And then i think this loneliness leads me to other problems. As i get lonely, the natural sexual drive awakens and i struggle to control it, sometimes leading to minor sinful activities like not lowering the gaze.

And in the next line, "i want to talk about is my dilemma between liberalism and extremism." Here's one from a few months later in 2005, in which Farouk1986 discusses having found happiness in Yemen:

After a hard battle deciding where to go and what to do, i finally ended up in Yemen. I'm doing a 3 month arabic course and so far it is just great. There are a lot of Brits and Americans also studying in the Institute i'm studying in, Sana'a institute of Arabic Languages- http://www.sialyemen.com

Wired Danger Room post

(Correction: an earlier version of this post quoted items now understood to have been posted by a different user of the gawaher.com forums).

People always get tripped up on what I had to do with RSS. One thing I did a lot of, for sure, is beat the drum. Every little development, every new source that came online, I'd hail it here on Scripting News as the greatest thing that ever happened.

That's how you do it. The theory of the world beating a path to the door of the guy who invents the best mousetrap is just a story, albeit a good one. Never happens. That's why Who Invented RSS isn't a very interesting question. The hard part wasn't inventing. What was hard was getting people who are set in their ways to consider a new way of doing things.

So now, once again, it's time to beat the drum, for the next layer in RSS -- Realtime RSS. The first people we need to convince are the people with the feeds. They're the chicken without which we can't make eggs. With RSS, the original feeds were Salon, Red Herring, Wired and Motley Fool. I'll never forget them. Without them we couldn't have booted it up. Then each victory added more power to the flow. It will be the same with Realtime RSS.

So if you want to know why I'm so darned excited about Realtime RSS and related technologies, here's the piece to read:

12/29/09: Why it's smart to publish Realtime RSS now.

Dave Winer
Berkeley CA

Wow, an incredible Instructable fromKyle McDonald:

The same technique used for Thom's face in the Radiohead "House of Cards" video. I'll walk you through setting up your projector and camera, and capturing images that can be decoded into a 3D point cloud using a Processing application. Most 3D scanning is based on triangulation (the exception being time-of-flight systems like Microsoft's "Natal "). Triangulation works on the basic trigonometric principle of taking three measurements of a triangle and using those to recover the remaining measurements

.

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miffo.swe writes "I'm trying to find the normal ratio of technicians/support tech per user or computer in your average IT-shop. When searching around, I can't find that many examples or any statistics. We manage around 900 computers (mostly Windows XP) and 25+ servers (mostly Linux). There are around 2600 users of varying knowledge, mostly pretty low. I can't find any statistics on this, so real-world examples are very welcome since we do this with one sysadmin (me) and two sneaker techs. Are we seriously understaffed, or is this normal?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Evil Mad Scientist Labs posted a thorough update to their accelerometer tutorial using ADXL335 breakout board, ATMega168 chip, and LEDs as indicators -

The big idea is that when there is no acceleration in (say) the X-axis direction, both X-axis LEDs are off. When it detects acceleration one way, the red LED lights up (and brighter, the higher the acceleration is) and it lights up blue for acceleration in the opposite direction. (Naturally, the other two axes work the same way.)

The full step-by-step + source code can be found on EMSL's site.

Related:


Using an ADXL330 accelerometer with an AVR microcontroller

Arduino & XBee wireless accelerometer

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As a bunch of countries continue to negotiate ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, in secrecy, Kenya already has its own Anti-Counterfeit Act. Michael Geist points us to the news that that particular law is now being challenged in Kenya for violating peoples "right to health." The issue is worth following, because it will almost certainly become an issue assuming ACTA moves forward. Whenever we discuss ACTA, it's inevitable that someone stops by to say that anti-counterfeiting is really, really important to stop dangerous counterfeit drugs from being sold, potentially harming people. Now, I have no doubt that counterfeit drugs may be a serious problem -- but if that's the problem, we should target a narrow attack on that problem alone, not some wider "anti-counterfeiting" effort.

We've already seen that lobbyist-funded and promoted reports on the "counterfeiting problem" are widely exaggerated, and any real "problem" is much smaller than the numbers that get tossed around. Furthermore, recent studies have shown that counterfeit products quite frequently lead to purchases of the real product in the future (i.e., people aren't "fooled" into buying counterfeits -- they know they're buying counterfeits). But that's with things like luxury goods. What about drugs?

Well, we've already seen that big pharmaceutical companies conveniently like to use anti-counterfeiting laws not to stop dangerous counterfeit drugs, but to destroy legitimate generic drugs. It's not about making sure that drugs and people are safe -- but quite the opposite. It's about limiting competition so that these pharma firms can jack up prices even higher.

And that's the issue in Kenya. About 90% of the drugs in Kenya are generics -- for a very good reason. Those drugs are much cheaper and are helpful in saving many lives. The Kenyan anti-counterfeit law makes counterfeiting a criminal issue, rather than a civil one, and gives the power to police and border officials, who have no way of knowing counterfeit from generic, so often label generic drugs as being counterfeits. There are plenty of good reasons to try to stop counterfeit drugs from hitting the market, but if that's the real problem, any solution should be narrowly focused on that specific problem. Unfortunately, since it's quite often the big pharmaceutical lobbyists who help write and push through these bills, that's not how it works at all.

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theodp writes "Many municipalities have switched to LED traffic signals because they burn brighter, last longer and use 90% less energy than incandescent bulbs. But they also emit less heat, meaning they sometimes have trouble melting snow, causing problems across the Midwest. In Wisconsin, snow blanketed LED traffic lights in some towns, leading to crashes at intersections where drivers weren't sure whether to stop or go. The unintended consequences of the green technology were also identified as a 'contributing factor' in the death of an Illinois woman hit by a driver who blamed the snow-covered energy-efficient signal for giving the appearance of a normal green light instead of a left-turn signal. 'We can remove the snow with heat, but the cost of doing that in terms of energy use has not brought any enthusiasm from cities and states that buy these signals,' said the CEO of an LED traffic-signal manufacturer. 'They'd like to be able to take away this issue, but they don't want to spend the money and lose the savings.' In the meantime, some towns are addressing sporadic problems by dispatching crews to remove snow or ice from signals using poles, brooms, and heating devices." We were discussing these recently at the office — several folks in the building are red/green color blind and different street lights are differently distinguishable.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

Mark Demers shows off the latest from Spikenzie Labs, Four in a line - a laser-cut Connect Four style game which looks a heckuva lot slicker than its retail counterpart.

I've always been a last minute Christmas shopper and it has usually worked out. This year I had a request to get a Connect Four game, but I couldn't find it in stock anywhere. So I decided to make my own version of it.

After working like one of Santa's Elfs for a few hours (minus the green tights) I had beautiful Connect Four style game.

The project's design files can be found over at Thingiverse

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Socguy noted that Slate is apparently a little desperate for some traffic as they are writing about"Why so many of the terrorists have engineering degrees, and they come to the conclusion that engineers and engineering students are much more likely to hold strong conservative and religious views than a general cross section of the public. Further, engineers tend to hold a particular mind-set that disdains ambiguity and compromise. Terrorist organizations have long recognized that engineering departments are fertile ground for recruitment and have concentrated their efforts there. A 2005 report from British intelligence noted that Islamic extremists were frequenting college campuses, looking for 'inquisitive' students who might be susceptible to their message. In particular, the report noted, they targeted engineers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Glyn Moody writes "Most people regard OpenOffice.org as a distant runner-up to Microsoft Office, and certainly not a serious rival. Microsoft seems to feel otherwise, judging by a new job posting on its site for a 'Linux and Open Office Compete Lead.' According to this, competing with both GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org is 'one of the biggest issues that is top of mind' for no less a person than Steve Ballmer. Interestingly, a key part of this position is 'engaging with Open Source communities and organizations' — which suggests that Microsoft's new-found eagerness to 'engage' with open source has nothing to do with a real desire to reach a pacific accommodation with free software, but is simply a way for Microsoft to fight against it from close up, and armed with inside knowledge."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Facebook is known for not looking kindly (and for going legal) on sites that attempt to do pass through logins to do something with a Facebook account. I can understand why they don't like these other services, but it's difficult to see what's illegal about them. The next potential legal battle apparently may be between Facebook and Seppukoo, a fun site that offers users an amusing way to close and delete their Facebook account by having it commit a virtual suicide:

The site, Seppukoo.com, offers ritual suicide for Facebook users' virtual profiles by deactivating your account. And it doesn't stop there. If you're willing to end it all, the site will feature a RIP memorial page on its site and sends the page to all your Facebook friends.

Fun stuff. Except, of course, Facebook doesn't want people deleting their accounts, and so it blocked Seppukoo. Now, the battle of words is heating up and lawyers are getting involved. Facebook has issued a cease and desist, insinuating that it will take Seppukoo to court for violating Facebook's "rights and responsibilities" if it doesn't stop offering the service. I'm still quite confused as to what legal leg Facebook has to stand on here. I can understand why it doesn't like what Seppukoo is doing... but that doesn't mean it's illegal.

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Using BlueMaemo, the Bluetooth multi-tool for Maemo, you can turn your Nokia N900 into a PS3 controller. Install the latest alpha via the application manager with extras-devel enabled. The above video is in Italian. [via Maemo Central]

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Using BlueMaemo, the Bluetooth multi-tool for Maemo, you can turn your Nokia N900 into a PS3 controller. Install the latest alpha via the application manager with extras-devel enabled. The above video is in Italian. [via Maemo Central]

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Bibble Labs has announced that Bibble 5 Pro is now available. The latest version of its RAW workflow and conversion software has been in development since September 2006 and was originally slated for release in the fourth quarter of 2008. The company says its software is up to 88 times as fast as 'similar applications.' Customers who have purchased Bibble 4 after September 1st 2006 can get a free upgrade to the latest version by logging-in to their accounts on the Bibble Labs site and clicking on the 'Upgrade' link.

An anonymous reader writes "Following a Pirate Bay block more than a year ago, Italy continues its attempts to censor torrent sites. The Italian Supreme Court has ruled that copyright holders can now force ISPs to block BitTorrent sites, even if they are hosted outside Italy. The torrent sites which 'hold' copyrighted materials are accused of taking part in criminal activity. It seems someone should enlighten Italian jurists about technology."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've had plenty of discussions about Thomas Jefferson's views on the patent system. He is, clearly, the father of the patent system in the US. While he was incredibly skeptical of the idea of granting any monopolies originally, he did come around to accept patents in very limited circumstances, and when he oversaw the patent system, he was careful to make sure that the downsides of such monopolies were limited. Separately, for many years, I've heard the story of how Ben Franklin purposely decided not to patent his stove invention, stating:

"As we enjoy great advantages from the inventions of others, we should be glad of an opportunity to serve others by any invention of ours; and this we should do freely and generously."

However, I had not heard of a similar story involving Thomas Jefferson refusing to patent certain inventions he came up with as well. Reader jprlk points us to a recent Straight Dope column, which is mostly about George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's exposure to marijuana, but there is one interesting part about how Jefferson refused to patent his "hemp brake" patent, because he found the invention to be "too important":

Jefferson invented a better "hemp brake" to separate the fibers from the stalks, something he thought was so important agriculturally that he refused to patent it.

Combined with the Franklin quote, this is quite telling. In both cases, they realized that the invention could be a lot more useful if it were not limited. This goes against claims by patent supporters that (1) an invention is not a "real invention" if it's not patented and (2) the patent system is necessary for better dissemination of ideas. It's nice to see (yet again) that Thomas Jefferson, despite overseeing the early years of our patent system, clearly was quite skeptical of the actual benefits of such a system.

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We still have a few more Chumby guts ready for you to hack, modify, or you can just make a cool enclosure and enjoy. What's a Chumby? Glad you asked! It's an amazing little piece of technology that lets you get what's best on the web and delivers it right to you on it's 3.5" touch screen LCD. You can play games, check the weather, twitter, news, music, and even watch YouTube videos. All of this is done via you home's wireless Internet connection. Get 'em while you can, we have very limited stock!

Here's what comes in each kit:

• 3.5'' LCD (320hx240v 16bpp TFT) with Touch Screen
  
• Texas Instruments TSC2100 Programmable Touchscreen Controller with Stereo DAC
  
• Plastic Front Bezel
  
• Gasket
  
• Aluminum Frame
  
• 4 x Screws to attach Aluminum Frame to Front Bezel
  
• 350MHz Freescale iMX21 MC94MX21DVKN3 ARM9 controller Motherboard Circuit Card Assembly with Samsung 64MB SDRAM on 32-bit data path and Hynix HY27US 64MB NAND Flash ROM
  
• Kionix KXP74-1050 3-axis accelerometer
  
• Daughtercard Circuit Card Assembly
  
• Three USB 2.0 full speed ports, one internal, two external
  
• Chumbilical Flex Cable from Daughter card CCA to Motherboard CCA
  
• Wifi Riser Circuit Card Assembly
  
• USB Wifi Dongle based on the Xterasys 3135G 802.11g USB Wifi adapter (ralink chipset)
  
• Flex Cable for Wifi Riser CCA to Motherboard CCA
  
• 3 x Screws for Wifi Riser CCA to Motherboard CCA
  
• 3 x Standoffs for screws for Wifi Riser CCA to Motherboard CCA
  
• 2 x 2W StereoSpeakers
  
• 4 x Screws for Speaker to Plastic Speaker Holder
  
• Plastic Speaker Holder
  
• Switch for Bend Sensor
  
• Plastic Switch Holder
  
• 2 wire cable with 2 pin connector (from Daughterboard CCA to switch)
  
• 2 x Screws to Attach Switch to Plastic Switch Holder
  
• 12 V DC 1A Power Supply
  
• Built-in microphone

(Note: actual parts may vary slightly due to manufacturing and availability)

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hysma writes "It looks like OnLive, the remote gaming system that steams HD video over the Internet, is one step closer to becoming reality, according to an article on DSL Reports in response to a lengthy video presentation by founder & CEO Steve Perlman at Columbia University. Perlman demonstrated the UI, spectating, using the service on an iPhone, and other features."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It looks like Section 230 protections win out again. Some of the regular critics on this site like to make odd claims about Section 230 -- insisting the Section 230 is quite limited, leaving a site liable if it cannot prove who created the content, or that it simply does not apply, if the site in question "helped" create the content in any way. A new ruling should help clear up those misconceptions. The case involves a car dealer, Nemet Chevrolet, that was upset about negative reviews on ConsumerAffairs.com. ConsumerAffairs is one of many "gripes sites" out there -- with one interesting distinction. It works closely with class action lawyers to review the gripes and seek out opportunities for filing class action lawsuits. While this may be somewhat distasteful (class action lawsuits are all too often much more about getting money for the lawyers than actually helping the class), the site, like any other gripes site, is protected from defamation claims by Section 230.

Eric Goldman discusses the latest ruling, in which the appeals court upheld the dismissal by the district court, using Section 230. In the ruling, the court rejected two specific claims that Nemet made to try to get around Section 230. First, Nemet claimed that since ConsumerAffairs solicits complaints and asks users questions to draw out the details, it is partially responsible for the content (an attempted misreading of the Roommtates ruling). However, the court tossed this out, saying that the problem with Roommates was that the questions asked specifically requested illegal information. That is not the case with ConsumerAffairs.

The other attempt by Nemet to get around the Section 230 issue was to say that because it couldn't figure out who one of the complaints came from, ConsumerAffairs must have made it up, and thus it was liable since it created the content. That didn't work either. Eric Goldman points out how silly this logic is on the part of Nemet:

This allegation has an obvious (and IMO embarrassing) logic flaw. Even if Nemet can't use its records to validate the facts in a consumer review, ConsumerAffairs.com's fabrication of the post is only one of many possible explanations. The court notes some other possible explanations: "the post could be anonymous, falsified by the consumer, or simply missed by Nemet." (I would also add the possibility of weak recordkeeping by Nemet).

So, once again, we see that Section 230 is working properly, requiring that liability be properly applied. It does not mean that there is no liability at all -- just that you can't blame the tool or platform provider for the work of a user. The user may still be liable -- which is fine -- but the service provider is not.

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Back in October, we wrote about plans for yet another "free, but ad supported" music download startup, but didn't see how the economics could work out. That site, FreeAllMusic, is apparently now getting set to launch, but it still doesn't make much sense to us. Basically, you can download music (two of the four major labels have signed up) for free -- and it's not encumbered by DRM (that's good), but you have to sit through some sort of video ad before you can get the music and you are limited in how much music you can download. The site's CEO claims "We have made this process easier than stealing."

We'll ignore the confusion (most likely intentional) about the difference between infringement and "stealing" and focus on all the other problems with this service. First of all, it's not easier than infringing. You have to sit and watch an ad. You don't have to do that on file sharing networks. Second, the assumption behind the service is that people would use this the same way they use iTunes: meaning only a very small number of downloads per month. Initially, that means 20 downloads per month, total, and no more than five per session. That may be how people use iTunes, but that's because each download costs money in iTunes. One of the reasons people prefer file sharing systems is because they're not limited that way and can really easily sample lots of music quickly.

But the biggest problem with this concept remains with the basic economics. Since the argument remains the same as I stated a few months back, I'll just repeat it:

You've got the record labels, who are used to getting approximately $0.67 per downloaded song. Assuming that needs to be made up by the ad (and even ignoring any profit for the site), then every single ad shown needs to cost that same $0.67. Translated into traditional ad terms, that's a CPM of $670. Yikes. I don't know any advertiser will to pay anything close to that -- even if it's targeted and you have a half decent chance of the person paying attention. Most CPM ad rates online these days are in the sub-$5 area. Convincing advertisers to jump to a $670 CPM on an unproven model? Good luck.

I'm all for experiments and new business models -- especially those that make use of free music. I just don't see this particular one getting very far. The economics are just not that compelling for anyone involved.

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Anill Dash ran a piece this evening about Twitter's Suggested User List.

He gets that he didn't do anything to earn his placement on the list. He talks about washed-up actors who are on the list who use their follower numbers as supposed evidence that they still have pull with the people. SUL-celebs sell tweets for thousands a pop. A kid sold his SUL-enhanced feed to Microsoft. All this stuff makes you nauseous, and presumably it makes Anil ill too -- so why is he still on the list?

Further, he says that Twitter will kill the list any day now, but doesn't address the fact that people who were on the list will be walking around with hundreds of thousands of unearned followers.

Dan Bricklin says Anil is being a mensch, but that's ridiculous. You want to see a mensch. Let me show you a mensch.

Om Malik is on the list so he has 1.2 million followers. I happened to notice this the other day while conversing with him on Twitter. I said what I felt, I was pissed at him for feeding at the trough that way. After a series of tweets I concluded that position on the SUL and links from TechMeme were both ways to keep people in line. Om, whose career could suffer for saying he agrees, said he agrees. In public, for everyone to see. That's a mensch.

Anil Dash who is trying to build a career bridging the tech world and government cannot afford to appear to be in the pocket of a single tech company, yet that is exactly how it appears. And further, I know from talking with him that he understands this. Yet he remains on the list, and is keeping the account that got inflated.

The only thing he can do that has any integrity, and allows his career to remain on track, is to not only ask to be removed from the list, but delete the account that got the benefit of being on the list and start over. There are no shortcuts possible here, imho.

bhagwad writes "Following recent news on how Bing decided sex was too sensitive for India, Yahoo! and its associated site Flickr have decided to do the same. While it's true that this is because of India passing laws that prohibit the publication of porn, no complaint was ever launched (and never will be), and glorious Google still continues to return accurate and unbiased results. So why is Yahoo! doing this? Is it because of its tie-up with Bing? I assume this is the case. Indian ISPs have already told the government and the courts that it's not their job to restrict porn and it's technologically infeasible too. In the absence of a complaint, I can only assume that Yahoo! has decided to do this of their own volition. Given that the 'sex' search term is searched more in India than in any other country, isn't it the duty of Yahoo! to provide accurate results to its customers? It can always plausibly deny control of its results and claim that filtering porn is infeasible. Since Yahoo! already has a low search market share in India, this will drive it even lower."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A maker sent me a photo of this amazing human-shaped bed (art) -- anyone know more about it?

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(Click for large. Two versions of W Magazine cover featuring Demi Moore, one for the US edition, one for Korea. Note the apparent difference in the area around the hip. Comparison here.)

Lawyers representing Demi Moore sent a threatening letter to Boing Boing over the holidays which demanded that we remove a post I published in November, or face legal consequences. In the referenced Boing Boing post, I published photographer Anthony Citrano's speculation that a recent W Magazine cover image of the actress may have been crudely manipulated by magazine staff to alter her hip, and appear thinner.

Here is a copy of the letter sent by Demi Moore's attorneys to Boing Boing (PDF).

And here is Boing Boing's response to Ms. Moore's attorneys (PDF), prepared by Marc Mayer of the law firm MS&K. The letter is a thing of beauty, and I encourage you to read it in full.

The letter from Moore's attorney, Martin D. ("Marty") Singer, claims that we set out to slander Moore (Boing Boing did not, nor did Mr. Citrano).  The letter also includes denials from people involved in the production of the W Magazine cover who insist that the image was not manipulated at all.

Since receiving this letter, we have discovered that an alternate, and seemingly more anatomically correct version of the W magazine cover (with more hip-flesh) was published in W's South Korean edition. We have also been informed that Ms. Moore's attorneys have sent similar letters to other blogs that discussed the possible digital alteration of the US cover image. The story is now being covered by a number of other news organizations and blogs.

A little background: Digital manipulation of photo and video content (good, bad, or disastrous) is an often-revisited subject here on Boing Boing. A quick Google search reveals that more than 3,600 items in the boingboing.net archives reference the digital alteration of images with Photoshop. A series of Boing Boing posts in September and October of this year examining how a Ralph Lauren model was slimmed to impossibly slender proportions became the subject of widespread media interest, and legal threats directed at this blog from Ralph Lauren's camp.

But fashion photos aren't the only digitally altered images to have been discussed on Boing Boing.

Sometimes the "Photoshop Disasters" we blog have more critical news value. Back in 2008, I blogged about an image credited to Iran's state-run media agency that showed multiple missiles defiantly shooting into the sky. The LA Times, New York Times and other major news organizations ran the image as legitimate. Our readers and other "citizen forensic analysts" discussed the image, and proved it to have been altered to fake the appearance of more missiles, thereby implying greater military strength on Iran's part. Still earlier, in 2003, our readers spotted and discussed an anomaly within a photo about soldiers in Iraq published in the New York Times. And way back in 2001, we blogged about a hoaxed image that purported to be an unaltered shot taken seconds before a plane crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11.

So, back to Ms. Moore: On November 17, 2009, I published the Boing Boing post titled "Was Demi Moore Ralph-Laurenized on 'W' mag cover, with missing hip-flesh?." This post consisted entirely of a guest editorial of sorts from Anthony Citrano, a Los Angeles-based professional photographer with whom I am socially acquainted.

In the post, Mr. Citrano examined the possibility that a W Magazine cover featuring Demi Moore had been digitally altered in a manner that left clues indicating it had been altered. Specifically, it looked like a portion of her hip had gone missing. Before I published the Boing Boing post, the Gawker Media blog Jezebel had already asked the same questions, and other blogs and news/tabloid websites soon followed.

Within days, Ms. Moore responded on Twitter to deny that her hips had been digitally altered ("Here is the original image people my hips were not touched don't let these people bullshit you!"), and linked to another version of the W Magazine cover shot which she claimed was "the original image."

I promptly published another Boing Boing post with the full text of Ms. Moore's denial, and an offer from Mr. Citrano to make a $5,000 donation to a charity of Ms. Moore's choosing if the image she'd published were provably the unretouched original.

Boing Boing commenters discussed the possibilities that the disputed image was or was not retouched, and the technical methods one might employ to alter, or detect alterations, in such an image. The UK newspaper Telegraph went so far as to publish an article speculating that Ms. Moore's head may have been photoshopped onto another model's body. Interest in the story gradually fizzled out on our blog, and other websites where the matter had been discussed.

But then, weeks later, we received a letter from Mr. Singer, the attorney representing Ms. Moore. So did Jezebel, Anthony Citrano, and the blog Oh No They Didn't. Citrano published a detailed post examining image forensics. Links to all known responses, and to ensuing media coverage, at the bottom of this post.

If there is any party we feel is due criticism, it is not Moore, a beautiful 47-year-old who proves that age is no impediment to youth—but rather those who apparently feel that no-one is fit to be seen without some aspect of his or her appearance being "worked."

In fact, it's now practically unheard of for an image to go from camera to press without some degree of digital manipulation. When fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott write (in the statement accompanying the letter we received from Ms. Moore's attorney) that no retouching whatsoever was done to Moore's hips, waist or legs, it's an unusual claim: perhaps they would consider releasing other photographs from the shoot to help clear up the matter.

At no point was it the intent of this blog, or this blogger, to insult or offend Ms. Moore, who has embraced the openness of internet culture by way of frequent and intimate Twitter updates. Discussions about whether and/or how a widely circulated image may have been altered are common here on Boing Boing. We are a blog about digital culture, after all, and the technical and creative details that go into producing the images we consume are an essential part of our culture.

Yes, the discussion at hand is only about an image of a celebrity on the cover of a fashion magazine. But the ability to freely discuss the provenance and technical history of a photo, including those with more crucial news value—say, images of detainee abuse, or Iranian missles—is a freedom we believe should be preserved.

---

Image comparison below, courtesy Boing Boing reader Mark Koeppen.

---

RELATED URLS:

Letter sent by Demi Moore's attorneys to Boing Boing (PDF).

Response to Ms. Moore's attorneys, prepared by Marc Mayer of MS&K.

Demi Moore cover image, "W Magazine Korea" and direct JPG link.

Demi Moore cover image, W Magazine US

Anthony Citrano's responses to threat letter from Demi Moore's attorneys:

1) first response blog post

2) Singer's letter to Citrano, published in PDF

3) blog post on Korean W Magazine cover

Jezebel's response to threat letter from Demi Moore's attorneys.

Oh No They Didn't responds to threat letter from Demi Moore's attorneys

NEWS LINKS: Media coverage of the controversy over threat letters sent by Demi Moore's attorneys:

New York Magazine

New York Post

Litigation and Trial (legal affairs blog)

MSNBC

The Sun

MediaPost

Techdirt

Huffington Post

NBC New York

Contactmusic

Politics Daily

Correio 24 Horas (Brazil)

The Hollywood Reporter, Esq.

US Magazine

Related reading: Wikipedia entry on "The Streisand Effect."

andylim writes "It looks as if Duke Nukem isn't completely 'nuked' after all. Someone has ported the 90s classic on to a Nokia N900. As you'll see in the video, you control Duke using the Qwerty keypad and shoot using the touchscreen. I'm wondering how long it will take for this to get on other mobile platforms." In other Duke news, reader Jupix points out that 3D Realms' CEO Scott Miller recently said, "There are numerous other Duke games in various stages of development, several due out this year. We are definitely looking to bring Duke into casual gaming spaces, plus there are other major Duke games in production."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We're always interested in cool promotional and marketing ideas from content creators, and Hypebot alerts us to the news that musician Christopher Bryant is planning a neat concept for his solo shows: throughout 2010, he'll "open for himself" when playing live. Basically, he's playing two sets, but the first set will all be music by another artist. The first such artist is Ben Harper, who is apparently a huge inspiration to Bryant: Now, of course, this might not sound like anything special. It's just a musician playing a bunch of cover music before playing his own music. But the positioning is quite smart. It's positioned in a different way that draws attention and helps better connect with fans. Not only that, but it helps this up-and-coming musician get some additional attention from fans of a much bigger artist. It's a very smart move.

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Here's a low-tech way to share some holiday joy. Jared Lyon used a bunch of dominoes and some strategically placed bells to play the song 'Carol of the Bells' as the dominoes fell down. Fun stuff! [via neatorama]

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bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that Microsoft has begun offering what appears to be a patch for its popular Word software, allowing it to comply with a recent court ruling which has banned the software giant from selling copyright-infringing versions of the word processing product. The workaround should put an end to a long-running dispute between Canadian i4i and Redmond, although it has hinted that the legal battle might yet take another turn."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've seen how Nokia's troubles in keeping up in the smartphone market have resulted in suddenly filing a whole bunch of patent lawsuits, including the big one against Apple over the iPhone. Of course, as usually happens in these types of situations, Apple fired back with a patent infringement lawsuit of its own against Nokia. Welcome to patent nuclear war.

And, of course, if you thought the battles would end there, you haven't been paying attention to how patent battles work these days. For years now, we've been pointing out that many patent holders actually get two cracks at companies over the same exact patents. They sue in the courts, and they use the ITC loophole to get a second crack, which could have even worse consequences. You see, the International Trade Commission is supposed to watch out for unfair trade practices. So many patent holders go to the ITC and claim that companies that infringe on patents are using unfair trade practices and should be barred from importing those goods into the US. Of course, the ITC could rely on the courts to determine if the products are actually infringing, but it does not. It decides for itself. And while the ITC cannot issue fines, it can issue an injunction barring the import of these products. With so many high tech products being manufactured overseas, this creates an effective injunction against selling many high tech products in the US... even as the Supreme Court has made clear that injunctions don't always make sense. But, the ITC is not bound by the Supreme Court on this and can do what it wants. A recent study has shown that this ITC loophole is frequently abused.

So, it's not at all surprising that (yes, indeed), Nokia has jumped in with both feet and has filed a complaint with the ITC as well over the Apple iPhone and its alleged infringement on Nokia patents. So now we have two totally seprate processes, either of which could conceivably bar Apple from selling iPhones in the US, just because Nokia's been too slow in coming up with its own iPhone competitor. That's not encouraging innovation at all. It's proactively trying to use the US government to slow it down.

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MojoKid writes "Shortly after hearing of a simple, two-way Spanish-to-English translator for the iPhone, Toshiba has announced that it has developed a new language translation system that requires no server-side interaction. The app is designed to be operated independently on a smartphone, which will eliminate costly data roaming fees that are generally incurred using systems that require an internet connection to retrieve translations. The system is trilingual in nature and enables users to translate freely between Japanese, Chinese and English."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

What were your favorite videos that we did for 2009? There were too many to post each one, so please vote by the series and then tell us what your favorite episodes were in the comments.

What was your favorite MAKE video series for 2009?(polling)

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