I recently bought a house and decided to turn the guest bathroom into a "chamber of horrors". I made a list of the things my mom would never let me have when I was a kid, and at the top of the list was a real live (dead) shrunken head. But where the heck would I go to get one?

EBay of course! It turns out that the Jivaro Indians in Ecuador have toned down their warlike nature for the sake of commerce, and they're cranking out tsantsa (their word for shrunken heads) by the carload. Thankfully, they make them from goat and alpaca skins now, instead of their neighbors. These specialized tribal craftsmen haven't quite mastered the delicate art of quality control, so the heads vary in quality from laughably fake to chillingly realistic. It takes some know-how to score a really good one.

There are two philosophies to shrunken head buying at eBay... If you like gambling, buy a lot of five or more at a time. The variability of the manufacturing process guarantees that each head is totally unique and has its own personality. You may have to sift through a bunch to find the one you like. You can always give away the rejects as hostess gifts at parties for the next few years. If you are a dedicated soul and desire a "de-luxe model", scour eBay until just the right head turns up. You might pay a bit more, but you'll have the perfect facial features and hair color to match your home's decor.

"Real" Shrunken Heads For Sale at eBay
How To Tell The Difference Between Authentic and Counterfeit Shrunken Heads

What would you get if you combined Leonardo DaVinci, Rudolph Valentino, Bob Clampett and Ayn Rand all into one person? A mulligan stew to be sure, but a mighty tasty mulligan stew!

Eddie Fitzgerald is a philosopher, cartoonist, theoretician and bon vivant. In his blog, Uncle Eddie's Theory Corner he's discussed everything from the relationship between architecture and humanity to how to make the perfect hamburger to just exactly why guys love women so doggone much.

But he's most famous for his "Fum-Eddies"... mini cartoon epics that he designs and performs for the iSight camera in his Mac. Eddie has travelled the world, gone on adventures to outer space, and navigated through the labyrinth of the human psyche- all from the comfort of his den. He's just reposted his magnum opus of Fum-Eddie, "Captain Hook and the Dog Pie" in four parts.

Captain Hook and the Dog Pie:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four

For those that haven't heard, LeafLabs' Maple board is an Arduino-compatible microcontroller platform based on an STM32 ARM Cortex-M3 chip. The full feature list includes -

• Microcontroller: STM32 F103RB
• Clock Speed: 72 MHz
• Operating Voltage: 3.3V
• Input Voltage (recommended): 3.0V-18V
• Digital I/O Pins: 39
• Analog Input Pins: 16
• Flash Memory: 128 KB
• SRAM: 20KB
• 64 Channel nested vector interrupt handler (including external interrupt on GPIO's)
• Integrated SPI/I2C and 7 Channels of Direct Memory Access (DMA)
• Supplies up to 800mA @ 3.3v
• Support for low power and sleep modes (<500uA)
• Dimensions: 2.05"x2.1"

I recently got my hands on one of these new boards, and although a fully-functioning version of the Maple IDE has yet to be released, I compiled available source files from the project's repository, allowing me to upload a sketch from Windows XP (via Parallels on OS X).

My example sketch uses the shiftOut function to create a sine waveform via an MCP4921 DAC chip. I also ran the same test setup on an Arduino Duemilanove (ATMega328p) and superimposed the two resulting signals for the sake of comparison -

Arduino Duemilanove (ATMega328p) in blue, LeafLabs Maple (STM32F103RB) in green
Note - differing voltage ranges due to difference in DAC VREF (5V, 3.3V)

As expected, Maple's STM32 (running @ 72MHz) updates the DAC a whole lot faster than Arduino's ATMega328p (@ 16MHz) - in fact about 9 times faster! This was a bit of a surprise to me as I'd only expected a 4.5x speed boost considering the difference in clock speeds. Definitely good news for Arduino users in need of extra clock cycles, but for most, the Duemilanove still offers big advantages - specifically:

• Maple IDE software still in prerelease development stage
• ATMega328p available in easily replaceable DIP package
• Lower-level code (i.e. - port manipulation, timer interrupts) used with Arduino would need to be rewritten for the STM32
• Arduino widely available in multiple forms, great big user community

In any case, it's very cool to see more options (and speed!) made available to the Arduino community. It'll definitely be interesting to see how things progress with the Maple and its slated relatives.

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Jim Kelly, who's doing a daily online lab journal, working his way through Make: Electronics, is now six experiments into the book. Looks like he's having a ball. He has people looking over his shoulder from all over the world, 25 registered followers, and is started to get decent numbers of comments and questions from readers. He's even decided to run a contest to give away one of the Maker's Notebooks we sent him.

BTW: One of the questions he was asked was whether he was hired by us to do this site. He was not. He's just a curious maker who thought, since he was going to be doing all of the projects in the book anyway, he might as well do them "out loud," in a weblog, so other makers learning electronics could benefit from his own process. He was kind enough to ask for our permission beforehand, which he didn't need to do, and we did sent him two Maker's Notebooks, in hopes that he'd use them to document his experiments. That's the closest thing to a shameless commercial move here. As you can imagine, we're thrilled he's doing this and think it'll be of huge benefit to current and future readers of the book.

Hands On - Make: Electronics

More:
Make: Electronics: "Teaching at its best!"
A Make: Electronics lab journal
Make: Electronics - Interview with Charles Platt & Gareth Branwyn
Make: Electronics and the 555 man

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Electronics
Our Price: $34.99
Want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun and experiential way? Start working on some excellent projects as soon as you crack open this unique, hands-on book. Build the circuits first, then learn the theory behind them! With Make: Electronics, you'll learn all of the basic components and important principles through a series of "learn by discovery" experiments. And you don't need to know a thing about electricity to get started.

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nlawalker writes "Beginning on Tuesday, January 12, Comcast high-speed internet users in Washington state will have access to an online tool that displays their bandwidth usage for the most recent three calendar (not billing) months of usage, including the current month. Washington is the second market to receive access to the tool, following its introduction in Portland. 'For the fraction of less than 1 percent of our customers who are concerned about exceeding our excessive use threshold, we believe this meter will help them monitor and calibrate their usage,' said spokesman Steve Kipp. Perhaps those who aren't using 250GB a month should take it as a challenge."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is really, really cool. Filmmaker Ross Pruden -- who I don't know, other than a few quick email exchanges last month -- has set up The Connect with Fans + Reason to Buy Contest, based on the CwF + RtB business model, we've been discussing. The idea is to try to find cool examples of the business model in practice, and to build a detailed list -- with the best business models being able to win a prize. I have absolutely nothing to do with this, and didn't even know about it until I saw a Twitter message from Ross telling me that I was excluded from the contest.

Of course, under the "traditional" way of thinking about things, some might think I should be upset that Ross is taking this concept that I created and doing something else with it. But, that (of course) is ridiculous. I'm blown away that someone liked the concept so much that they've gone forward and set this up, and I really can't wait to see what comes out of it. In the meantime, if you know of such a business model, and want to take part in the contest, you just need to send a Twitter message with the details, along with the hashtag #CwFcontest.

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ezabi writes "According to a post on the official Google blog, in the coming weeks Google Docs will offer to host all file types with a limit of 250 MB, which as they say is larger than the current limit for email attachements. This will have its consequences: paid file sharing will die, more shared pirated material, newer vulnerabilities and malware distribution channels..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Baroness Greenfield is one of Britain's most well-known scientists and was, until recently, the head of the Royal Institution. The RI just fired her, after a £22m modernization plan left its finances in ruins. Greenfield plans to sue it, accusing the institute of sexual discrimination. After her decade-long tenure, however, Greenfield's consistent interest in pitching curiously unscientific stories at the tabloid press leaves her wanting for credibility. And then there's the matter of using one's seat in the House of Lords to peddle $150 'brain training' video games after criticising mainstream rivals. Ben Goldacre quite politely explains why she's trouble. The Guardian puts it bluntly: she's a self-promoter who has done no significant scientific research, has never gained her peers' respect, and is the architect of her own fate.

Thanks to everyone who entered the Alex Rider Dream Gadget Contest! We had a great time checking out all of the entries with lasers, grappling hooks, and other spy-stealth goodies, all designed by Alex Rider fans ages 8-18. It was a hard decision, but the winners are in!

Grand Prize Winner:

The Listening Cup by "nic", who writes:

Many people have used cups to eavesdrop through walls and doors, but I don't think it works very well. This is the eavesdropping cup with a modern improvement: It has a built-in mic and small amplifier circuit built into the fake bottom. A small earbud speaker on the very bottom of the cup lets the user hear everything.

Project Materials:

• an opaque plastic cup
• a small circle of plastic to form the fake bottom
• circular PCB
• an amplifier IC (like the LM386)
• a small speaker, like an earbud speaker or similar (can be pretty much any size, just so long it fits in the cup!)
• a small microphone sensor
• a little trimpot to adjust volume
• a coin cell or an external (hopefully hidden) power source

Nic will receive the grand prize package which includes:

• A signed collection of hardcover Alex Rider novels
• iPod nano with a personalized message from author Anthony Horowitz
  
• A backpack full of goodies and gadgets from the Maker Shed
• And The Listening Cup will be built by MAKE Labs and featured on Make: Online!

Runners Up:

Copter Cam Aerial Recon/Surveillance unit by "The Bear Builder," who writes:

This looks like a fountain pen. Inside is a disposable flying camera and transmitter based on the design of an ash tree seed pod, and vertically launched with a simple rubber band catapult up to about 200 feet up. As it slowly spirals down, it feeds a 360-degree scan of the area via wi-fi to Alex's PDA or cell phone. Software in the PDA decodes the spiral scan into a scrollable 360-degree still image in 2-D or 3-D.

Project Materials: Advanced lithium watch battery is tiny, holds a charge a long time but has high output for the short run time of the camera and transmitter. The copter part is made of molded plastic, so as not to show up on radar, and the single airfoil blade contains the transmitter wire embedded in its leading edge. The really complicated part is the software in the PDA that senses repeating bright and dark points in the spinning video feed and lines them up to progressively build a scanned image much like an early mechanical TV camera. By layering identical angles from two offset heights, you can create stereoscopic 3-D stills as well.

Inspiration for creating this gadget: We play with rubber-band-launched whirligig toys in the summer time, and it is fun in fall to watch ash and maple seeds fly down. This unit is based mostly on an ash tree seed which fits the secret fountain pen better than the fatter maple leaf pod shape. Right now university researchers are working on radio-controlled versions of this idea, called "monocopters", but my version is non-motorized, slim and small; a light-weight, one-time-use spy tool version that's very stealthy. The rubber band launcher is low-tech, efficient, common and innocuous, a good thing for spy tools.

Scenario in which you would use this gadget: Anywhere you need a quick bird's-eye view, you would shoot this silently up overhead, and grab a 360-degree scrollable aerial view, in 2-D at night, optional 3-D in daylight. Good for getting a current sense of the "Big Picture" where you don't have Google Maps, or seeing the bad guys you are chasing from a safe distance, revealing any ambush they may have planned. What's on the roof of that building? How do I get out of this maze? The copter cam can show you.

 

Altoids Tin Rangefinder by "electronicsguru," who writes:

This is a fully operational "time-of-flight" style laser rangefinder that fits perfectly inside of an Altoids tin. Enclosed in the tin are 4 things : #1: x7 viewfinder #2: Nd:YAG transmitting laser with appropriate circuitry #3: Receiver with appropriate circuitry and LCD screen #4: 6 VDC Li-PO battery pack To use the rangefinder, the lid is first opened. Since the viewfinder is on the same hinge, when the lid opens, it pops up as well. Then the battery pack is connected to the circuits, powering them up. Then the receiver is pulled up, then the laser it pulled up. The receiver and laser are already perfectly calibrated to align.The laser transmits continually and the receiver picks it up. The range, azimuth, and elevation is then shown on the LCD connected the receiver circuit board in whatever units Alex chooses. To stabilize the rangefinder, three stick pens with holes drilled in then 3/4 of the way up are held together with a steel pin. The writing end sticks into whatever strata Alex happens to be on, while the opposite end has adhesive dots to stick to the bottom of the tin.

Scenario in which you would use this gadget: Alex Rider is behind enemy lines in a foreign country and in a jam. There is an enemy fortification in the distance preventing him from continuing his mission and he needs to hit it with some artillery fire from support behind him. He uses the rangefinder to calculate the azimuth and elevation of the target as well as the distance away from him so the artillery will not hit him. He calls in the information to the support and they hit it dead on. Alex is victorious and can continue with his mission.

The Bear Builder and electronicsguru will each receive:

• A signed hardcover copy of Crocodile Tears
• An Alex Rider t-shirt

Congrats to the three winners and thanks to everybody who participated!

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Scyth3 writes "A man is suing his neighbor for not turning off his cell phone or wireless router. He claims it affects his 'electromagnetic allergies', and has resorted to being homeless. So, why doesn't he check into a hotel? Because hotels typically have wireless internet for free. I wonder if a tinfoil hat would help his cause?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Noah Shactman just brought Israeli defense contractor Urban Aeronautics' AirMule VTOL UAV project to my attention. The photo released by Urban Aeronautics, shown above, purports to show the first successful hovering flight of an AirMule prototype, secured against wandering off by guy-wires. Video would've been more persuasive. The design goal of the AirMule project is to produce an unmanned vehicle that can be used to ferry supplies into, or wounder soldiers out of, a hostile, closely-packed urban combat environment. [via Danger Room]

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snydeq writes "The group that took down Twitter last month has apparently claimed another victim: China's largest search engine Baidu.com. Offline late Monday, Baidu.com at one point displayed an image saying 'This site has been hacked by Iranian Cyber Army,' according to a report in the official newspaper of the Chinese Communist Party and other Web sites. The Iranian Cyber Army first gained notoriety with its Dec. 18 Twitter attack. Baidu's domain name records were the focus of the hack. On Monday, the company was using domain name servers belonging to HostGator, a Florida ISP, instead of the Baidu.com nameservers the company normally uses."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Famous British Virgin" Sarah Jane Newbury is a special international celebrity whose website is also befittingly special. I spotted this on Robert Popper's blog. "Look out for the sections on 'Virgin Proof' and 'Ex Boyfriends,'" he says. Very special indeed. "He never slandered her...."

Website: sarahjanenewbury.com

If you look at the history of innovative societies and patents, you notice a clear pattern that after a burst of innovation, the firms that innovated begin to rely on patents to stop competition from outsiders who innovate. In other words, contrary to what patents are supposed to be for, they are often used to slow down the pace of future innovation, rather than advance it. Take, for example, the situation in Japan. Back in the '70s and '80s, of course, many American consumer electronics firms lost their edge to Japan -- with many often accusing the Japanese players of "stealing" their technology. But what happens now, decades in the future, when South Korea has usurped Japan's throne as the leading consumer electronics maker? Well, apparently it means that Japanese firms are focusing on patent battles with the South Koreans, rather than working on ways to innovate and offer better products for the market. Many believe that the Japanese consumer electronics firms need to seriously restructure and refocus, but at the same time the indications are that those firms prefer to concentrate on patent battles rather than taking those big and necessary steps. Once again, when companies can't innovate to compete, they litigate.

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This comic book ad undoubtedly resulted in a number of unhappy raccoons and unhappy people.

Old comic book ad for pet baby racoons

UPDATE: In November I posted this amazing story from a guy who ordered a monkey from Hialaeh Pets in the early 1970s.

A gentleman who suffers from "electromagnetic sensitivity" is suing his Santa Fe neighbor for refusing to turn off his cellphone and WiFi hotspot.

dumbnose sends along the news that Google is double-dipping on the Nexus One early termination fee. Ars sorts out the double dose of fine print from Google and T-Mobile. What it boils down to is, if you give up on your Nexus One between 14 days and 120 days after the sale, it will cost you $550: $350 to Google (automatically charged to the credit card you used to buy the phone) and $200 to T-Mobile. After 120 days the Google fee goes away and after 550 days the T-Mobile ETF begins prorating. A poster on Dave Farber's email list provides another perspective on the "restructuring of the handset premium."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gary sez, "@Issue has posted Disney's 1943 organization chart. It's actually more correct to call this an operations flow, but it does show an organization built around the gravitational pull of a central genius. The one thing to note his where Special Effects lives in the 1943 Disney Universe: it's a tiny function within the Camera function. Today, it'd be at or near the center of the universe!"

Walt Disney's Creative Organization Chart (Thanks, Gary!)

Conan O'Brien's classy, funny resignation letter makes me proud to be a redhead.

Behold Marc-André Hamelin's Valse Irritation d'après Nokia, the stuff of nightmares. Subtle, enduring nightmares. [via Giz.]

More photos of this beekeeper's helmet at Anonymous Works.

Phineas P. Gage was a construction foreman who, in 1848, suffered an amazing injury as an explosion launched a tamping iron through his the cheek, skull, and brain, and out the other side. Incredibly, Gage survived, although the brain injury completely altered his personality. His physician wrote that "The equilibrium or balance, so to speak, between his intellectual faculties and animal propensities, seems to have been destroyed. He is fitful, irreverent, indulging at times in the grossest profanity (which was not previously his custom), manifesting but little deference for his fellows." His friends said he was "no longer Gage." This transformation launched Gage into the annals of neuroscience. Until recently, there were no known photographs of Gage. But as previously mentioned on BB, antique photo collectors Jack and Beverly Wilgus posted a scan of a curious daguerreotype in their collection to Flickr in 2007. Database administrator Michael Spurlock happened to see the image on the site and suggested that it might be Gage. Smithsonian has a story about the strange tale of "neuroscience's most famous patient" and his delightful portrait. From Smithsonian:

The railroad-construction company that employed (Gage), which had thought him a model foreman, refused to take him back. So Gage went to work at a stable in New Hampshire, drove coaches in Chile and eventually joined relatives in San Francisco, where he died in May 1860, at age 36, after a series of seizures.

In time, Gage became the most famous patient in the annals of neuroscience, because his case was the first to suggest a link between brain trauma and personality change. In his book An Odd Kind of Fame: Stories of Phineas Gage, the University of Melbourne's Malcolm Macmillan writes that two-thirds of introductory psychology textbooks mention Gage. Even today, his skull, the tamping iron and a mask of his face made while he was alive are the most sought-out items at the Warren Anatomical Museum on the Harvard Medical School campus.

"Phineas Gage: Neuroscience's Most Famous Patient"

We've been highlighting how Nicolas Sarkozy -- who was the original strong supporter of "three strikes" proposals to kick people off the internet based on accusations (not convictions) -- and his political party have been caught time and time again infringing on the copyright of others. It looks like that's happening again in an even more embarrassing fashion. The organization that's been designated to deal with three strikes in France, Hadopi, unveiled a new logo... that used an unlicensed font, that had been created by France Telecom and had not been licensed for use by anyone else. Hadopi had to scramble and try to find a new font once called on this, and issued an "apology," but will it allow those accused of infringement online the right to "apologize" as well?

These may seem like minor issues, but they're actually quite instructive. The point is that due to the way copyright law is set up, people infringe unintentionally all the time. Even the biggest defenders of copyright do so. And that is the problem with any sort of system that punishes people for something as minor as three infringements -- and it's even worse when its three accusations of infringement, rather than actual convictions. It creates a massive liability for the way everyone -- even copyright defenders -- do things every day. But, of course, the big powerful folks -- the ones who passed and support this law -- can just apologize and ignore the consequences. Everyone else? Good luck.

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DeviceGuru writes "Boxee has quietly moved its long-awaited Beta release onto its public download site, reports OpenBoxeeBox.com. The new version of this free Internet- and local- A/V streaming player currently supports PCs running Mac OS X, Windows XP, and Ubuntu OSes, with an Apple TV version coming soon. Key enhancements include a vastly redesigned homescreen and new global menu, which collectively make it much quicker to locate content, an improved search function that now treats online and local media equivalently, so you can locate and play movie or TV show titles much faster, plus — at long last — a fully functional Netflix instant-downloads player appears in the Windows version (but not in the Linux version). Also of significance is that Boxee's graphical engine has migrated from from OpenGL to DirectX, allowing it to take advantage of Direct X video acceleration. The free public Boxee Beta A/V player software is available on Boxee's website."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Announced at this year's CES, Flir's Scout gives consumers true thermographic vision -- imaging based not on light but on heat. Flir is marketing the Scout to consumers but it's hard to see Joe Sixpack wanting to drop $3K (MSRP) on one. Which is not to say it doesn't have its obvious uses -- for instance, a hunter could use it to follow a blood trail at dusk, or a homeowner could pinpoint heat leaks.

Built around Flir's leading edge thermal night vision technology, Scout gives outdoor enthusiasts the power to see people, animals, and their surroundings clearly in total darkness, as well as through smoke, dust, and light fog. Scout uses a thermal camera to make video images from heat, not light, and displays this video on its built?in LCD eyepiece.



In addition to providing improved visibility in almost every conceivable environmental condition, Scout enables hikers, campers, and hunters to keep track of other people in their party, find and track animals, and navigate safely and accurately even in total darkness.

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funfail writes in with the news that, five days ago, EveryDNS was sold to DynDNS.com. From the announcement and e-mail from EveryDNS's founder, David Ulevitch: "Since starting EveryDNS in June of 2001 while a freshman in college, my goal has always been to provide simple, reliable and secure DNS services to the Internet community. I'm proud to say that we've lived up to that mission and delivered robust DNS services to over 400,000 domains. Nearly 9 years later, it's now time to put the service in more capable hands and I'm happy to announce that I've found a great home for EveryDNS. I have sold the EveryDNS service to Dyn Inc., the operators of the immensely popular DynDNS.com service." EveryDNS has been one of the most popular free (or one-time donation) DNS suppliers. From the FAQ at the link above: "Will the service remain free? While we don't 100% have the answer to that yet, we will not be making any changes to the service you are currently receiving for the foreseeable future. We will be discontinuing signups in the near future but existing accounts will remain active and fully functional."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From Cartoon Brew: "Here is the trailer to Candyman, a documentary by Costa Botes about David Klein, the inventor of the gourmet jelly bean Jelly Belly, and how he has been banished from the candy empire that he created. The film debuts at the Slamdance Film Festival later this month."

This looks like fun! Houston Police using secret unmanned drone aircrafts to spy on folks.

Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America has partnered with the American Society of Journalists and Authors, and the National Writers Union to create a free workshop on the Google Book Settlement."

Hear the best-informed, best-known authorities on what the second version of the Google Book Search Settlement would mean for writers if it is approved by the court. The second opt-out deadline is coming up a week after this seminar, so there is still time to figure out what's best for you, personally, and then to act. This workshop will focus on the settlement and writers -- just writers.

Much of the public debate has settled on other aspects, like orphan books, yet we writers are still confused about what the proposed, new Book Rights Registry would mean for us.

Sponsored jointly by the American Society of Journalists and Authors, ASJA, the National Writers Union, NWU, and the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, SFWA.

FREE but please tell us if you're coming, either by calling 212-997-0947 or a quick e-mail to asjaoffice AT asja.org. (Put "Google settlement" in the subject line.)

Speakers: Professor James Grimmelmann, who together with a group of his law students has been commenting line-by-line on the legal ramifications of the settlement for many months. The project is called the Public-Interest Book Search Initiative, sponsored by the Institute for Information Law and Policy at New York Law School See it at The Public Index The site has remained steadfastly non-partisan.

Poet, attorney and principal at Writers' Representatives, LLC: Lynn Chu, who has written about the settlement in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere. Chu, a literary agent of many years standing, organized a group of writers who object to the settlement. She currently is at work on a law review article on its ramifications.

I don't know Chu's work, but I worked with James at EFF and I think he's the bee's knees.

Google Book Settlement Workshop in NYC on Jan. 20th (Thanks, Mary!)

Each year, John Brockman of Edge.org asks a question of a number of science, tech, and media personalities, and compiles the answers. This year's question: "How is the internet changing the way you think?" Lots of good, meaty responses that make for great reading, from interesting people whose work ideas have been blogged here on Boing Boing before: Kevin Kelly, Jaron Lanier, Linda Stone, George Dyson, Danny Hillis, Esther Dyson, Tim O'Reilly, Doug Rushkoff, Jesse Dylan, Richard Dawkins, Alan Alda, Brian Eno, and many more.

I'm far out-classed by the aforementioned thinkers. But here's a snip from my more modest contribution, "I DON'T TRUST ALGORITHM LIKE I TRUST INTUITION":

I travel regularly to places with bad connectivity. Small villages, marginalized communities, indigenous land in remote spots around the globe. Even when it costs me dearly, on a spendy satphone or in gold-plated roaming charges, my search-itch, my tweet twitch, my email toggle, those acquired instincts now persist.

The impulse to grab my iPhone or pivot to the laptop, is now automatic when I'm in a corner my own wetware can't get me out of. The instinct to reach online is so familiar now, I can't remember the daily routine of creative churn without it. The constant connectivity I enjoy back home means never reaching a dead end. There are no unknowable answers, no stupid questions. The most intimate or not-quite-formed thought is always seconds away from acknowledgement by the great "out there."

The shared mind that is the Internet is a comfort to me. I feel it most strongly when I'm in those far-away places, tweeting about tortillas or volcanoes or voudun kings, but only because in those places, so little else is familiar. But the comfort of connectivity is an important part of my life when I'm back on more familiar ground, and take it for granted.

Read the rest.

And here's the complete index of responses. (Image: Katinka Matson)

Seeing as we were just talking about claims from a patent attorney that no legitimate VCs can be against software patents, it's good to see that one of the most respected VC firms in internet-related issues, Union Square Ventures has come out strongly in favor of an independent invention defense against patent infringement. This is great. I have no idea if I helped to make this come about, but a year ago, Union Square partner Fred Wilson had spoken out about how patents were harming his portfolio, and suggested some ways to fix the system (not including an independent invention defense). I responded with a post suggesting he consider an independent invention defense beyond his proposals, as it would really solve a lot of the problems. So it's really fantastic to see the firm take a stand on such an important issue -- proving once again what a lie it is to claim that VCs require patents. From Union Square partner Brad Burnham's post:

Almost a third of our portfolio is under attack by patent trolls. Is it possible that one third of the engineering teams in our portfolio unethically misappropriated technology from someone else and then made that the basis of their web services? No! That's not what is happening. Our companies are driven by imaginative and innovative engineering teams that are focused on creating social value by bringing innovative new services to market.

Our companies are being attacked by companies that were not even in the same market, very often by companies they did not even know existed....

I know of no case where the engineers in one of our companies were aware of the patents that are now being used to attack them. The moral rightness of this screams at me. If, as an engineer focused on solving a problem, I happened to come up with an idea that is in some way similar to yours, then that in itself should suggest that it was obvious and not patentable. Unfortunately, that does not really help. There, the burden of proof is still on the startup and it is still smarter to settle than to burn precious capital on a defense.

If, on the other hand, the troll was required to show the startup had some prior knowledge of their technology, the burden would be shifted to the attacker, and this blatant abuse would come to a grinding halt. If you believe as I do that innovation is key to social progress, please support patent reform. It is a complicated issue, but an independent invention defense is an obvious place to start.

It's really difficult to see how anyone can be intellectually honest with themselves and not be in favor of an independent invention defense. It's difficult to see how anyone could justify the idea that even if someone comes up with something totally independently, they can't use their own inventions.

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Image: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

This is my new favorite picture of Mars.

From Phil Plait:

The eternal Martian wind blows the heavy sand into dunes, and you can see the hummocks and ripples from this across the image. The sand on Mars is from basalt, which is a darkish gray color. The red comes from much smaller dust particles which settle everywhere.

But what are those weird tendril thingies?

In the Martian winter, carbon dioxide freezes out of the air (and you thought it was cold where you are). In the summer, that CO2 sublimates; that is, turns directly from a solid to a gas. When that happens the sand gets disturbed, and falls down the slopes in little channels, which spreads out when it hits the bottom.

This High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment site has more photos so can zoom in and look for Dejah Thoris.

Another dose of Martian awesome

While at MIT last week, I met Jonathan Ward, who's working in the Machines That Make (MTM) group on an open source, low-cost CNC mill made from 26 parts on a ShopBot, called the MTM A-Z. You can download the necessary files (including bill of materials) to make your own! Check out the video above for an overview of the machine. The MTM group has this awesome idea of a fablab 2.0, where all of the big machines will have been made by other machines, reducing commercial overhead and increasing overall awesomeness.

Subscribe to the MAKE podcast in iTunes, or watch this video on Youtube, Vimeo, or Blip. You can also download the m4v video.

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jeffmeden writes "Plow Monday is normally for blessing laborers and their tools; as the name suggests it is aimed at those who work the land. A church service in London, England Monday decided to go after a more modern audience: office workers and their modern communication gadgets. From the Times article: 'The congregation at St Lawrence Jewry in the City of London raised their mobiles and iPods above their heads and Canon Parrott raised his voice to the heavens to address the Lord God of all Creation. "May our tongues be gentle, our e-mails be simple and our websites be accessible," he said.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm having trouble believing that RCA's Airnergy, a "WiFi hotspot power harvester" unveiled at CES, can actually charge its internal battery from WiFi radio signals.

From OhGizmo!:

The Airnergy has a battery inside it, so you can just carry it around and as long as you're near some WiFi, it charges itself. Unlike a solar charger, it works at night and you can keep it in your pocket. Of course, proximity to the WiFi source and the number of WiFi sources is important, but at the rate it charges, if you have a home wireless network you could probably just leave anywhere in your house overnight and it would be pretty close to full in the morning.

A commenter on OhGizmo! offers the following:

Here's some math. Long story short, by my calculations, 100% efficiency and absorption at 5 feet away from a 100mW home router, (reasonable figures), it would take 34.5 years to charge that blackberry battery.

It's not a Dyson Sphere, so you only get the power that hits the antenna.

Surface of a sphere = 4pir^2, r = 60" (5 feet).

Surface area of a 5' sphere = 45,216 square inches.

The device appears about 2" x 3" = 6 square inches.

The device then picks up, best case, 0.000133 of the power out from the router, which is 100mW, so.. 0.0133mW

If you leave it there for 24 hours, 0.0318 mWh are stored.

According to Will's battery, it has ~4,000 mWh capacity.

So, it would take 12,579 days, or 34.5 years, to charge your blackberry battery once, presuming 100% absorption, no losses.

(BTW, What is that dent in the gadget about? Looks like someone poked it with an awl.)

RCA Airnergy Charger Harvests Electricity From WiFi Signals

Pachube's free Data Logger for the iPhone looks like an interesting app for self-trackers who want to track their weight, calorie consumption, hours of sleep, mood, etc.

Data Logger for iPhone enables you to store and graph any data of your choosing along with a timestamp and geolocation. You might use Data Logger to store electricity meter readings, to create maps of pollution or temperature sensor readings around your neighbourhood, or animal sightings around the city. You can also set up custom data feeds, with user-defined min and max values, tags, description and units.

Data Logger for iPhone (Via Seth Roberts)

BoingBoing readers who follow the work of British funnyperson Peter Serafinowicz (he of the soon-to-be-released DVD!) know the guy plays a mean Paul McCartney. Remember "I'll Kill"? Apparently, Robert Zemeckis agrees: the director cast Serafinowicz as McCartney in his 3D Disney remake of the animated Beatles classic Yellow Submarine.

John Lennon will be played by Dean Lennox Kelly (Shameless, Frequently Asked Questions About Time Travel), George Harrison by Cary Elwes (Christmas Carol, Princess Bride), and Adam Campbell (Epic Movie) is Ringo Starr. Although, as you can see from the "Peter Serafinowicz Show" clip above, Serafinowicz could have easily taken on all four roles. Physical performance of musical numbers will be mo-capped from Beatles tribute band Fab 4, but you'll be hearing the original songs recorded by the Beatles.

Serafinowicz is in Los Angeles this week, doing motion-capture for the 3D feature. This blogger spoke with him yesterday about the production. Without giving away too much of the still-under-wraps goods, I cautiously predict the project will hit vital nerd chakras for Boing Boing readers: edgy alt-comic talent, 3D animation and cool on-screen tech effects, and the cosmic Disney-Beatles vortex.

Related reports: Empire Online, Hollywood Reporter, Rolling Stone, AICN, New York Times, MTV. (Thanks, Peter Serafinowicz!)

Yellow Submarine, 1968: IMDB, Wikipedia, Amazon.

Today Cryptic Studios will begin the open beta of Star Trek Online, opening their test servers to invitees and anyone who has pre-ordered the game. The beta will run through the 26th, and the game will officially launch on February 2nd; head-start players will be allowed in on January 29th. The game is set in the old universe (not the rebooted one from last year's movie), and takes place roughly 30 years after the events in Star Trek: Nemesis. There are two playable factions to start — the Federation and the Klingon Empire — and more may become available later on. There will be conflict between the two factions, but supposedly all PvP will be "optional and consensual." Players will be able to choose from a variety of ships, and they'll see cameos from familiar characters. Eurogamer has a hands-on preview of the game, and fans of the Trek universe will be pleased to hear that "Cryptic is clearly thinking about Star Trek first and MMO convention second." A number of gameplay trailers are available for viewing, and the official forums have a nice collection of facts.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The suspects in a string of more than 100 "follow-away burglaries" "had a specific method of operation, Brown said. They stake out an Apple store and choose their target. Then they follow their prospective victims when they drive to another shop or a parking spot near their home. If computers are left unattended inside the vehicle, the thieves strike." LA Times article.

Dave writes in to share his friend Andrei's project, a homemade hourglass. Andrei made this using two wine glasses, hardwood, brass screws and a keen attention to detail. Excellent job!

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After the panel discussion on ACTA, a special "Fair Use Film Screening" (again, as a part of World's Fair Use Day) was held in the same building, in the offices of the law firm Dewey & LeBoeuf, which was quite a lot of fun. It really wasn't so much a "film screening" as it was a panel discussion with a few short film clips shown. The panel consisted of Mark Hosler of the band Negativland as the moderator (who, of course, went through the fair use battles before many of the younger generation was even born, let alone had to consider this stuff), along with Brett Gaylor, discussing his film RIP: A Remix Manifesto and Kembrew McLeod, discussing his film Copyright Criminals.

One point that stood out from both McLeod and Gaylor was the difficulties and legal hurdles each had to go through to even complete these movies. Since they dealt with so many examples of mashups and samples, all of the legal questions that applied to the mashups and samples themselves in some ways applied to the movies as well. In both cases, they spent an awful lot of time with lawyers -- even when it came to artistic editing decisions, in order to do their best to keep the films "legal." Many in the audience were surprised when both said that, in some ways, the lawyers' demands actually helped them make better films -- but Nina Paley (who I finally met) chimed in from the audience to point out that it makes sense that copyright lawyers would help in making a better film about copyright law -- but that was probably one of a very small number of situations where movie makers would benefit from the editing suggestions of a bunch of lawyers.

The other thing that came out in the discussion was that both filmmakers are still a bit unsure about the legality of their films. They both have pretty strong backing from people who insist their films are above the law, but it's a bit of an open question. Kembrew's film, in particular, may run into some big questions fairly soon. His film will be airing on PBS next week (check your local listings) and while he was careful to try to license much of the music in the film, it was quite an impossible task. He noted how silly it was that if you want to use a hiphop song that uses 20 samples, you need to get licenses for both the recording and the songwriting (publishing) for the song itself and for each of the 20 songs sampled -- and even if you agreed to a $10,000 license per sample for the first 19 rights holders, if the 20th came along and demanded $30,000, you then had to go back and pay all the others $30,000 as well.

So his film contains many unlicensed clips -- including one of a George Clinton track, that Bridgeport claims ownership on. You may recall Bridgeport -- they're the company that claims to hold the rights to a ton of George Clinton music (though Clinton claims his signature was forged by Bridgeport) and has sued hundreds of hiphop artists who have sampled Clinton's works (Clinton tends to like the fact that hiphop artists sample his music). Kembrew tried to clear the right with Bridgeport, and received an amusing (if troubling) call from someone there after many, many attempts to contact them. After picking up the phone and being told that someone from Bridgeport was getting on the line, suddenly a voice on the other end yelled "DENIED!" After trying to respond to that, the guy against just said "DENIED! No reason given!" and hung up.

However, the PBS version is going forward with that clip included -- though, PBS is lucky in that it (alone) has a compulsory rate that it can pay for publishing (not recording) rights on music. Yet, the DVD copy of Kembrew's movie had to remove that scene and insert a different scene instead.

Both Gaylor and Kembrew detailed the insane lengths they had to go through to try to get Errors and Omissions (E&O) insurance, which many places require before showing a film. Kembrew actually was able to secure E&O insurance, though it was quite a hassle. Gaylor tried to, but eventually gave up, as it was just too troubling. He did, however, show a spreadsheet that he had to put together during the process of trying to get it, which went through every clip in the film, detailing where the content had come from, noting the exact length of the content, what it was used for and an explanation of why it was either licensed or fair use. The document was incredible, and Nina asked him to share it with the world so people could understand the level of ridiculousness that filmmakers had to go through. While Gaylor said he would do so, a lawyer in the audience advised him against it, suggesting it might open him up to a lawsuit.

While all of this may have sounded frustrating, the overall tone of the panel was quite optimistic. As in the post we had yesterday about the copyright bubble, the general consensus was that the younger generation today has learned to disregard copyright law. Hosler talked about how he used to have to explain the ins-and-outs of copyright law the high school and college kids when he did presentations on fair use, and now they already get it and already understand how ridiculous the laws are. It's that generation -- the ones who are growing up listening to Girl Talk and who see things like Kutiman as brilliant -- who are now understanding quite deeply what an obsolete concept traditional copyright really is in these situations. As they get older, the panel agreed, the laws would eventually catch up to reality. It might not be pretty, and there were plenty in the older generation who would lash out, misunderstand and react badly -- but the end result is inevitable.

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When Amazon "sells" you a Kindle ebook, they don't really sell it to you. If you read the fine-print, you'll see that they're waving their hands furiously and declaring that you aren't "buying" the book, but rather "taking a license to a limited set of uses" for the book. Whereas a book that you buy comes with all kinds of rights, such as the right to sell or give the book away (Jeff Bezos: "[W]hen someone buys a book, they are also buying the right to resell that book, to loan it out, or to even give it away if they want. Everyone understands this.") a book that you license from Amazon comes with a very small subset of those rights, as defined by a lengthy and difficult-to-grasp "license agreement."

Despite all the fine print, most of us know that this is a scam. Declaring a sale to be a license is ridiculous on its face (imagine this: you finish a bowl of soup at the deli and when you get to the bottom of it, you find a EULA that says, "By eating this soup, you agree not to attempt to season your own soups in a similar fashion, nor to share this soup with any other person").

It's such a silly notion that even Amazon can't keep its story straight. Take this press-release in which Amazon trumpets that its "customers purchased more Kindle books than physical books." Purchased, not "licensed."

Or consider this ad (courtesy of Elix): "Kindle publications are sold by Amazon Digital Services, Inc." Again, sold, not "licensed."

(Yes, you can purchase a license. But that's not what the copy says. It doesn't say, "Amazon customers purchased limited licenses to more Kindle books...")

It's a rip-off, pure and simple. And Amazon's digital divisions won't let copyright owners get out from under it. When I tried to negotiate the distribution of the Random House Audio edition of my novel Makers through Amazon's Audible store, they refused to allow me to add legal text to the recording telling users that they could make any use of the audiobook that was permissible under copyright, negating their EULA. In other words, Amazon isn't doing this because the publishers insist on it: even when my publisher, Random House, the largest publisher in the world, told them that they didn't want the crazy EULA, Amazon insisted.

Don't get me wrong. Amazon's "hard goods" business is the best ecommerce system in the world. I did half my Christmas shopping there. I buy everything from books to box-files from them. They are customer-focused, efficient, and smart. But I won't buy any of Amazon's digital offerings until they clean up their act and deliver the same customer rights to e-goods buyers as they do to hard-goods buyers.

Handwritten letter by Ren & Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi to then-14-year-old aspiring cartoonist Amir Avni is revealed as ne plus ultra of fan correspondence. What a cool guy. Read: "Your pal, John K" (via Ehrich Blackhound)

CouponSherpa's "Place Your Bets: 40 Gut-Busting Restaurant Challenges for Free Food" is a list of 40 restaurants that are willing to bet you can't finish the unimaginable quantity of food they'll put on your plate. If you consume it all, you get it free. For example, this Mt. Olympus Burger from the Clinton Station Diner in Clinton, NJ. You and three friends have three hours to eat ~17lbs of meat (plus toppings) each, and if you do, you don't have to pay for the privilege.

Place Your Bets: 40 Gut-Busting Restaurant Challenges for Free Food (via Consumerist)

judgecorp writes "Bell Labs believes that data networks can be more efficient and has launched a consortium which aims to develop technology that uses only a thousandth of current network energy requirements by 2015. The Green Touch initiative is going to focus in particular on wireless, seeking to reduce wasted energy in signal broadcasts. Cynics might say Alcatel-Lucent is using its research division to distract attention from its troubles — the Financial Times described it as 'a poster child for much that is wrong in the telecoms equipment industry' — but Bell Labs still commands respect and support, and the goal it has set is an interesting one."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Change.org reports, "The first-ever public study of the health effects of genetically modified corn shows that three patented crops developed and owned by agriculture giant Monsanto cause liver, kidney and heart damage in mammals. The FDA has approved all three varieties for sale and consumption in the U.S. and all three are in our food supply right now." Source for those claims: this study published in the International Journal of Biological Sciences.

What happens when you combine "Bird furiously pecks at can with photo of bird on it" with "Death Metal Rooster? Well, this: Video link.

A thousand years ago, there wouldn't have been much jungle here, just terraced plots of maize and clear view off the mountain slopes to the valley far below. Visitors got a dizzying look at the drop from either side of a cobblestone road that lurched upward along the back of a steep ridge. At the edge of town, they'd find themselves funneled into a stairway shadowed on either side by stone walls and tall guard houses. Up the steps, a cobble-paved causeway stretched ahead, rising gradually, its edges lined with sculptures and the piked heads of conquered enemies. At the end, the chiefs' house stood on a tall stone foundation, its conical roof mirrored by the peak of the volcano in the distance.

The modern entrance to the ancient city of Guayabo is not nearly so dramatic. There's a pockmarked gravel road up a mountain, with chasms that threaten to swallow the front wheel of our boxy, little Honda. A wooden ticket booth, like a lemonade stand, marks the spot were you park the car on the roadside. Carefully maintained nature trails wind through rainforest less than a century old—this land was a dairy farm not so very long ago—and spit you out in the center of what was once a city of several thousand inhabitants.

Guayabo—pronounce it "Why-ahbo"—is one of many ancient cities in eastern and central Costa Rica that get overlooked by the general public, largely because their builders worked mostly with materials—wood, thatch, cane—that disintegrated in the tropical climate. The massive communal houses rotted away long ago. But the stone foundations, roads, tombs and aqueduct systems that remain are, in themselves, impressive enough to be named an International Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

I travelled to Guayabo—about two-and-a-half hours east of the Costa Rican capital of San Jose—with Michael Snarskis, Ph.D., an archaeologist who has spent his career living and working in Costa Rica.

Although Guayabo had been known (and looted) since the 1800s, true archaeology didn't begin there until the late 1960s. When Snarskis first visited the site in the 1970s, it was still mostly cow pasture. Today, though, the central part of the city has been cleared and a stretch of the main entry road painstakingly restored. At the city's heart is a piece of urban design that Snarskis said was as common to ancient Costa Rica as the grid-with-a-park-in-the-center is to small-town America.

Diorama showing what the center of Guayabo probably looked like during its heyday.

"You had the main road that led into the city and ended at the stairway of the chiefs' house, after passing through a sunken plaza. The plaza is quite a bit lower actually, because it's the pit left behind by digging earth fill for the principal mounds. The caciques, Spanish for chiefs, would all have lived in the house on the tallest mound. And the adjacent secondary mound would have been for the wives and female slaves who took care of their domestic maintenance. The Spanish, when they first arrived, actually described this same basic design and the division of residence by sex at other places in Costa Rica, though they never made it to Guayabo," Snarskis said.

Around what Snarskis calls the "elite precinct"—think of it as Guayabo's gated community—are other, lower house mounds, plazas and pathways and the stone rings that once formed the foundations of commoners' houses.

Standing there today, the city seems too small to have packed in a peak population of several thousand, but, Snarskis points out, you have to remember that only 1/4 to a 1/3 of Guayabo is visible. The jungle on all sides is littered with house foundations and tombs, which have never been fully excavated. In a way, most of Guayabo is still a lost city, waiting to be discovered.

Open tomb in the jungle surrounding Guayabo. The walls, floor and lids of these tombs were made from lajas—slabs of volcanic flagstone.

This still-buried ring of stones marks the foundation of a small house.

All the remains are stone: Either car tire-sized river cobbles hauled up from far-flung valleys or massive lajas—slabs of volcanic flagstone, some as long as a human body. Simply getting these rocks to the city is a big deal. Snarskis said the river cobbles were probably hauled up the mountain one-by-one in slings thrown over the backs of workers and slaves. The flagstones would have been even more difficult to pry out of the ground and move—remember, there weren't any pack animals around to help out.

Some of the principal mounds.

The chiefs' house. Multiple male elites would have lived here. Snarskis thinks the grassy plaza at the base of the steps may have once been a reflecting pool that's now filled with silt.

The work that went into building Guayabo isn't just impressive, it's also important, because it proves the existence of a fairly complex political system. Leaders need a sophisticated power structure backing them up to get monuments like this built. Without it, orders like, "Hey, I really think you should carry that 200-pound rock uphill for several miles," tend to get ignored. No ancient Chibchan calendars or writing systems have been preserved, but Guayabo and its sister cities weren't the work of cultural pushovers.

A carved stone, about the size of a large coffee table, found near Guayabo's center. Snarskis said that this side depicts a very stylized version of an alligator.

The other side, he said, shows a picture of an upside-down jaguar.

Nor were the Chibchan people technologically deficient—in fact, they were excellent engineers. Guayabo sits between two streams, which the ancient inhabitants tapped to bring fresh water into the city center. Aqueducts criss-cross the city, both in exposed stone-lined trenches and under the cobblestone-paved streets, carrying water to collecting pools. Some of these have been running continuously since they were built a millennium ago.

"In fact, the entire site is tilted slightly, and that's on purpose," Snarskis said. "It ensured the constant flow and circulation of water from the stream at higher elevation, through the city, and out the stream at lower elevation."

An aqueduct brings water from a nearby stream to fill this pool.

An aqueduct flows below this street, taking water from the pool in the previous shot, to another one at slightly lower elevation.

So far, Guayabo is the only ancient city in Costa Rica open to tourists. But there are others out there. At one time, they were probably connected by networks of roads. Less than 50 miles north of Guayabo, archaeologist John Hoopes, Ph.D., is currently digging at a similar city. He compares the ancient Caribbean to the ancient Mediterranean—two similarly sized seas, ringed by a host of cultures that were all individually unique, but constantly in contact, each trading ideas and incorporating foreign elements into their own, distinct style. The Maya may have been Central America's answer to the ancient Greeks, but that doesn't mean Chibchan culture wasn't also important. The more we learn about sites like Guayabo, the more we'll understand about the ancient Costa Ricans and how they contributed to the overall Caribbean cultural network.

Michael Snarskis offers guided tours of Costa Rica's National Museum, Jade Museum, Gold Museum and the ancient city of Guayabo. If you'll be visiting Costa Rica and you're interested in archaeology, you can contact him by email or by phone at 011-506-2235-8824.

"Great Joe Rollino," the strongest man in the world, pound for pound, has died at age 105. He was hit by a car. "He should have bent it in half with his bare hands," says @glennf, upon whose tweetstream I spotted this item.

Lana sez, "I am an art major at Finlandia University (Yes, seriously, I go to FU) I was really bored a few summers ago...so what did I do to occupy my time? Why, hand-sew a 6-foot-plus giant squid, of course! He has been shown in my school's annual art show and everyone loved him. I just thought I would share the love with you."

Amazing Giant Squid by ~lanabosak

The British lawyer who married the widow of Tintin creator Hergé has successfully sued Bob Garcia ("a detective novelist, jazz musician and Tintin aficionado") for £35,000 for printing five short essays in appreciation of Tintin, two of which were illustrated with brief clips from the comic. The essays were distributed for free on a non-profit basis, and the two pamphlets with Tintin illustrations were printed about 500 times each.

Nick Rodwell, the plaintiff, was accused by Garcia of "a ruthless drive to kill off their harmless and not-for-profit passion in his bid to keep exclusive control of the Tintin brand."

Britain's "fair dealing" offers less protection to fans and scholars than does the US's "fair use" (itself a complicated doctrine). Combined with a litigious copyright owner, it's a recipe for disaster when it comes to free speech, scholarship, and fan activity.

Hundreds of Tintin fans have already backed Mr Garcia, who on Thursday called for a boycott of the film and claimed that many supporters were heeding his demand. More than 500 people have joined his page on the Facebook website which expresses "anger and disgust" over the issue. More supporters have also backed his cause on other websites.

Mr Garcia said: "We have nothing against Mr Spielberg even if there is a boycott threat against his film ... but are asking him to intervene in favour of not just me but all people who are being prevented from sharing their passion for Tintin..."

Stéphane Steeman, who ran the Hergé Friendship Club for 25 years, has just released a book in which he castigates Mr Rodwell for trying to kill off his organisation, called The Escalation.

He recounts how Mr Rodwell in his blog implies that two Belgian journalists criticised him because they could not pass on their passion for Tintin to their children as they were autistic.

Pierre Assouline, Hergé's French biographer, wrote that he "knows only too well" the "methods" of Mr Rodwell with his "victims".

Tintin film boycott threat over row with Hergé widow's British husband (Thanks, Will!)

"We were exploring how we could sense it with a cane, sense it with our fingers, sense it with our feet... There is this great palette of textures...All of a sudden, it starts to engage your brain in a different way."—Christopher Downey, an architect who lost his sight in 2007.

coondoggie writes "NASA's Mars Odyssey orbiter will next week make a number of passes over the presumed dead Phoenix Mars Lander on the surface of the planet and listen for what the space agency called possible, though improbable, radio transmissions. Odyssey will pass over the Phoenix landing site about 10 times this month and two longer listening tries in February and March trying to determine if the craft survived Martian winter and try to lock onto a signal and gain information about the lander’s status."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's been a lot of back and forth talk about ACTA and all the secrecy behind the negotiations on it. But what's really happening behind the scenes? Some experts are pointing out that it's a very profound shift in US policy -- but done in a way that most people wouldn't notice unless they've spent a lot of time understanding how DC politics works. Basically, the entertainment industry is driving through massive changes behind the scenes, and doing so in a way that lets them (falsely) say to the public "this really doesn't change anything."

Yesterday I attended a fascinating panel discussion about ACTA, hosted by Google at its Washington DC offices, as a lead-in to today's World Fair Use Day event. The four participants each brought a different perspective to the panel, though only one, Steve Metalitz, a lawyer who represents a coalition of entertainment industry interests, was there to defend ACTA. Jamie Love of KEI was his main sparring partner, though Jonathan Band (a lawyer representing various tech and library organizations) made plenty of insightful points as well. The final participant was a legislative staffer from Rep. Zoe Lofgren's office, Ryan Clough, who tiptoed the line of expressing some concern about ACTA, without fully coming out against it.

The National Journal's Tech Daily Dose has a short summary of the event, but there were a lot more interesting things going on in the discussions -- which got pretty heated at times. Metalitz began with the usual talking points from the entertainment industry on ACTA: (1) "copyright industries" represent a huge part of the economy and (2) piracy is a huge problem -- thus, ACTA is important. Love challenged Metalitz on the numbers (and Metalitz simply said he'd have to get back to Love on the specifics), and it was nice to see Clough counter Metalitz' numbers by pointing out that using the same counting methodology as the entertainment industry used to claim how "big" the copyright industry was, the size of industries that rely on exceptions to copyright law -- like fair use -- are even bigger. Love also countered Metalitz' one-sided claim of "economic harm" from infringing by pointing out that almost every "infringement" could be seen as an economic benefit in some area as well -- and discussed how research into medical cures -- that was almost certainly infringing -- was saving lives and how infringing on content for the purpose of teaching was making a smarter society.

But where the debate got really interesting, and dug in well beneath the talking points, was when Love and Band (with an occasional hand from Clough) read between the lines to explain how these things tend to work, and what's really going on, including the careful language choices by supporters of ACTA, such as Metalitz. They basically pulled back the curtains on the talking points and what happens in the backrooms during these types of negotiations. Amusingly, many on the panel had seen parts of some of the ACTA documents (briefly), but couldn't talk about them since they had signed an NDA. Band, in particular, kept noting that his comments were not based on the document he signed an NDA over, since he couldn't comment on that, but on a "leaked" copy that hit the internet. As Love and Band pointed out, the fact that they could only discuss the leaked content rather than what had actually been seen only served to highlight the ridiculousness of the process.

The key point, raised by both Love and Band, is that there are other forums for discussing international IP protections, such as TRIPS and WIPO -- both of which have become increasingly more transparent and open to holding discussions with many different parties (including consumer rights people). As an example, Love pointed out that at the most recent WIPO meetings about IP issues, folks from EFF and Public Knowledge participated along with the big copyright interests -- and he noted that as the discussion has become a more open and real conversation (rather than backroom dealing), the folks involved in WIPO and TRIPS are finally paying attention to the real impact of expansive copyright policy. Not only that, but the public has been able to speak up, and what's being said online and elsewhere by people concerned about these issues is being heard within these organizations. But, of course, the copyright folks don't like that.

On top of that, Band pointed out, within TRIPS and WIPO there are numerous developing countries who are recognizing -- correctly -- that strict IP enforcement is designed solely to benefit a small group of companies in developed nations at the expense of the people in developing nations. Thus, they're starting to push back on IP expansion. Combine all that, and you get ACTA -- an entirely new forum to take on these issues, which (conveniently) only includes developed nations and leaves out the developing nations who had become so pesky. Metalitz pulled out the "but this won't really change US law" gambit, to which Band pointed out that the real goal here was never to make huge changes to US law, but to eventually force all those developing nations to go along. Basically, you get the developed nations to agree to ACTA, written by the big copyright players, and then you start putting pressure on developing nations about how they need to conform to ACTA as well to join the club.

Even worse, the panelists explained multiple ways in which the claim that "this won't change US law" is bogus. First, if that were really true, there would be no reason to keep it secret. Love noted that the only reason to keep it secret is because the industry is "ashamed" of what's in the document, and won't come out and discuss it, knowing that the public would go nuts. Love also pointed out that in what's been leaked in ACTA, what you basically have is all the stuff from previous agreements (WIPO and TRIPS) that the copyright industry liked -- but without the consumer protections that were built into both agreements. And then, on top of that, the copyright industry put in dispute resolution concepts that greatly help it, not consumers. Effectively, it's a way to claim that nothing changes -- since it took the parts that favor the industry folks, but leaves out the protections and potentially aspects of the safe harbors.

Furthermore, Band and Love took on the fact that it's being called the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, since almost none of that is true. It's got little to do with counterfeiting and little to do with trade. In fact, one of the "talking points" from the entertainment industry is that this is just an "executive agreement" rather than a "trade agreement" (which would require congressional approval). But why shove copyright into what's officially a "counterfeiting" agreement? Because "counterfeiting" is one of those words that no one wants to be in favor of. No politicians will speak out against a treaty supposedly designed to stop "counterfeiting" since people intuitively believe that counterfeiting is bad. As Love explained, it's like calling something "The Patriot Act." No politician wants to vote against something like that, no matter what the details are. He notes, tragically, that the only politicians who have spoken out against ACTA have spoken out about the transparency issue -- but not about the substance of what's being negotiated.

Furthermore, Band pointed out another neat trick used by the entertainment industry with ACTA. Because they can pretend it's not really an intellectual property agreement, but a "trade agreement," they can compare it to other trade agreements that were also negotiated in secrecy. But, as Band notes, this isn't really a trade agreement. There may be good reasons for certain aspects of trade agreements to be negotiated in secrecy, as it actually could involve national secrets. But a multilateral negotiation on IP policy is not a trade negotiation and involves no state secrets. The only other reason to call it that is to pretend that the level of "secrecy" is normal, despite it being a totally different type of negotiation.

Again, discussing the idea that ACTA wouldn't "change" laws very much, a lawyer in the audience pointed out how incorrect that statement was, and noted how none of the countries negotiating had clear laws on secondary copyright liability to the level required by the leaked ACTA documents -- and that even in the US secondary liability was far from settled law (and, in fact, aspects of it were disputed in various courts). But by mandating such secondary liability (things like an "inducement" standard for copyright infringement), it would mandate that countries go much further than they have already, sometimes in massive ways.

Metalitz, once again, didn't seem to think this is a problem -- misstating the meaning of the Grokster rulings (and the IsoHunt ruling) way beyond what the court intended -- and suggesting that other countries had a moral imperative to put in place similar laws. Not surprisingly, he singled out Canada -- despite Canada's strong copyright laws -- insisting that ACTA "might finally drag them into the 21st century." By putting in place more draconian 19th century monopoly rules designed to prop up one industry? No thanks.

All in all, it was an entertaining and enlightening talk. Mostly it was professional, though Metalitz regularly resorted to bizarre personal attacks and sarcastic digs at everyone else. He insisted that those who were complaining about secrecy "just don't want any agreement at all." He mocked Love for claiming that earlier treaties were more open by saying that the anti-circumvention clauses came out of "one of those super open treaties that Jamie likes so much," and most obnoxiously of all, when Love asked why the industry and the US government couldn't be more open on these things, Metalitz shot back that the US could absolutely be more open, "if it felt Jamie's concerns were more important than progressing on an agreement." This suggests that no agreement could be reached if the US government were honest about it. That statement alone should be pretty telling. There was also a really telling Freudian slip at one point by Metalitz, though he didn't realize it, and I don't think most people noticed. In trying to explain why ACTA negotiations made sense, he insisted that because ACTA would benefit some industries deeply, it made sense for countries to meet about it. Notice that he switched from talking about industry at the beginning of the sentence to countries at the end. To him, it's all the same. ACTA is really protectionism for a particular industry. The negotiations are effectively collusion, but perpetrated by gov't officials acting as proxies for industry.

I definitely learned a lot at the session, but came out of it more afraid of ACTA than when I went in. But I certainly have a much better understanding of how ridiculous and misleading the entertainment industry's talking points are on this discussion -- and hopefully you do too.

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Christopher Hitchens and Gore Vidal. The latter once anointed the former as his successor, but memory hazes. How times have changed.

Whether you have some productive reason to search for stats, or you just need a daily factoid fix, Harper's magazine's online "Index" search will pull up decades' worth of short, sourced blurbs on 1000s of topics ... and open up delightful rabbit holes by linking one factoid to other, connected, topic searches.

A search for "cancer" resulted in my learning:

• The chance of contracting a "fairly common" form of colon cancer reported on in the New York Times April 4, 2002: 1 in 8,000 ... and the chance of a child contracting the "rare disease" neuroblastoma, as cited by another Times article the same day: 1 in 7,000
• The percentage change between 1930 and 2000 in the annual U.S. death rate for cancer: +11 ... and the percentage change since then in the U.S. death rate for all cancers except that of the lung: -20
• The average number of hours per week Bob Dole spent tanning in 1996: 3.5 ... and the amount of sunscreen Bob Dole used at that time: 0
• The ercentage of doctors in 1960 who said patients should be told the truth about their cancer: 18 ... and the percentage who said that in 1985: 70

Image courtesy Flickr user Matt Biddulph, via CC

Calling all leaders of science clubs, robotics reams, and rocket clubs! Make: Money is for all of the student groups, schools, clubs and organizations that exemplify the Maker culture and need a unique and easy way to fund their work. You sell MAKE subscriptions and earn 50% ($17.50) for every one! We hope to support your organization by offering you this great, relevant fundraising tool that brings the joy of making into the homes of your supporters. It's easy to get started, too!

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derGoldstein writes "Yesterday we discussed which sci-fi should get the reboot treatment next. If you consider Spider-Man as 'proper sci-fi,' then it would appear that's the answer. 'Sony Pictures decided today to reboot the Spider-Man franchise after Sam Raimi pulled out of Spider-Man 4 because he felt he couldn't make its summer release date and keep the film's creative integrity. This means that Raimi and the cast including star Tobey Maguire are out. There will be no Spider-Man 4. Instead, the studio will focus on a reboot script by Jamie Vanderbilt with a new director and a new cast.'" Perhaps Raimi is too busy working on other projects.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I've written before about Steven Brust's delightful, epic Vlad Taltos novels, a long-running series of sword-and-sorcery novels about a wisecracking human assassin in a land where the ruling class is composed of ancient, long-lived elves from a variety of noble houses named for animals. Brust has turned out a dozen of these novels to date (plus five more books in the style of Dumas, set centuries before the Vlad books), and they are, to a one, absolutely cracking yarns, Fritz Leiberesque novels where the steel flashes, the spells swirl, death is dealt, heroism is on display, and cunning saves the day.

But Brust's novels are also, to a one more than just fantasy novels. Each one is also a meditation on power, on freedom, on fairness, on economics -- even on cooking. And Brust doesn't use the action to sugar-coat the "message" -- no, the message, such as it is, is integral to the action revealed through it, naturally and engrossingly, so that each book is an education unto itself.

Take Iorich, the latest book, published last week. Iorich has the exiled Vlad Taltos returning to the capital city -- where he is a hunted man -- to rescue a friend from prison. And while Vlad has to do plenty of fighting and sneaking and skulking to get her out, the main method he employs is to use the law. And so Brust is able to skilfully blend a remarkable treatise on politics, law, justice, due process and even military ethics into a novel in which there is enough sword and sorcery to fill a dozen Vallejo paintings.

There are 17 noble houses in Dragaera, and so far, we've had books name for the first 12. I'm hoping that that means that there's at least five more to come. I've been reading these since I was a kid, and they've been fine companions all my life.

Iorich

All the Vlad Taltos books

The Letterheady blog collects scans of letterhead beautiful and infamous, from Hitler to Henson, Walt Disney to Frank Zappa. Letterheady (via Kottke)

CWmike writes "Mozilla has shipped a release candidate build of Firefox 3.6 that, barring problems, will become the final, finished version of the upgrade. Firefox 3.6 RC1, which followed a run of betas that started in early November, features nearly 100 bug fixes from the fifth beta that Mozilla issued Dec. 17. The fixes resolved numerous crash bugs, including one that brought down the browser when it was steered to Yahoo's front page. Another fix removed a small amount of code owned by Microsoft from Firefox. The code was pointed out by a Mozilla contributor, and after digging, another developer found the original Microsoft license agreement. 'Amusingly enough, it's actually really permissive. Really the only part that's problematic is the agreement to "include the copyright notice ... on your product label and as a part of the sign-on message for your software product,"' wrote Kyle Huey on Mozilla's Bugzilla. Even so, others working on the bug said the code needed to be replaced with Mozilla's own."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I love this helpful how-to film that teaches you to use vinyl album covers to create wonderful, wacky photos with musicians' faces (and butts, and feet) superimposed over your own.

(Thanks, Greg Mitchell!)

I used to read a blog by a patent attorney named Gene Quinn. Sometimes it had some interesting posts on it with a strong pro-patent viewpoint. But too often he would just become a parody of the pro-patent position, making declarations that something was fact, when the evidence suggested otherwise. Late last year, he insisted that it was impossible for a patent attorney to think patents harm innovation. He also insisted that it was an economic impossibility for patents to not help innovation. When we presented an awful lot of evidence to the contrary in the form of numerous studies that looked at the historical evidence and made clear -- from a variety of different angles -- that patents do not lead to greater innovation, Quinn responded by saying he didn't care about what the studies said, because he just knew that patents increase innovation based on what he saw. Consider it faith-based economics. Evidence be damned. Gene Quinn is right because he just knows it (oh yeah, and he profits from it too...).

Anyway, after that, I realized there was no reason to read his blog, but reader Brad points us to an absolutely stunning argument that Quinn has now made, saying that true innovators want patents, and only those who don't innovate don't like patents:

If you are against software patents you are not an innovator. Innovators want patents, those who do not innovate and copy others do not want patents

This was in response to Ian Clarke, a well known software developer, entrepreneur and someone who has argued strongly and articulately against software patents, pointing out in great detail, the harm they have done to the software industry. Clarke does a good job explaining his position, but Quinn doesn't bother responding to Clarke directly, but makes up strawmen. For example, Clarke points out that he's raised plenty of money from investors, despite being against software patents, and Quinn mocks the idea that any VCs would fund businesses without patents:

I would love to know who the investors are that are willing to provide funding for a software business that relies on trade secrets and copyrights. Naive investors like that would certainly be interested in companies with real protections. Simply stated, software cannot be adequately protected with copyrights, which I am sure you know or you should know. Likewise, trade secrets do not offer much, if any, protection for software. If the software is released the trade secret would be lost because anyone can get to the code.

Note that Quinn is both ignorant of the factual situation (many of the top venture capitalists around are against software patents -- and Clarke lists out his investors, which include top tier VC firms) and then twists the story to something that Clarke did not say. Quinn seems to be of a belief that the only way a software company can be in business is with some sort of gov't backed monopoly to "protect" them. It has apparently not occurred to him that businesses survive not based on protections, but on selling products and services, and you can do that without protectionism. In fact, here in the US, we tend to recognize that competition is a good thing. I'm not sure why Quinn is so against it. Oh yeah, as for VCs against software patents, we've discussed quite a few.

Clarke does a nice job responding to Quinn. Quinn -- as he has done to me multiple times -- refused to let Clarke's post go live until Clarke complained and noted that it wasn't worth responding any more, leading to this next extraordinary claim from Quinn, who seems more like a parody of the pro-patent side than anyone arguing seriously:

Everyone knows that those who don't want patents just want to copy the work of others. Copyists are not innovators, they are a drag on everyone. Free riders are not innovators. I know you understand that, and suspect that is why you are leaving, having been defeated by logic and rational arguments. Sorry if I hit too close to home. Sorry also that you couldn't stand up to the debate and chose to run and make false allegations in the process. Not surprising though.

Funny thing? Those are the same arguments used for ages before Quinn came along. He's copying them. According to his own logic, he's a drag on the system. Also, he went to law school at some point, and was given a bunch of information that he has copied into his brain. Free rider!

The debate goes on and Quinn continues to make fantastical assertions like the following:

Innovators by definition create things that are innovative, which means they are new, non-obvious and otherwise unique. Those who engage in endeavors that are unique do not begrudge others from obtaining protections themselves, because if what they are doing is really unique there is no skin off their nose for others to obtain protections. An innovator who concerns themselves with what others are doing and demands they stop obtaining patents are really only logically saying one thing. You shouldn't get a patent and patents shouldn't be issued because I want to copy you and I don't want you to be able to prevent me from doing that.

This statement has so little connection to actual innovation (especially as done in the tech world) that it's difficult to think what Quinn is possibly referring to. As anyone who has been near real innovation knows, actual innovation isn't created in a vacuum. It involves building on the ideas of others and doing more with it -- the proverbial standing on the shoulders of giants. But, in Quinn's mind, apparently, standing on the backs of giants is free riding. He goes on in that same comment to accuse Ian of lying in claiming he has raised $15 million from some of the top VCs in the world. This is stunning. Ian is not lying. The facts are not hard to find. Ian is well-known and well-respected, as are many of his investors. Quinn did, of course, try to leave himself an "out" by saying that if Ian is not lying, then his investors are "the most naive investors in the world," yet fails to note that they are actually some of the most well respected and successful VCs in the world. But, apparently that's meaningless to Quinn.

Later on Quinn again makes the usual fallacy of claiming that any startup that is truly innovative and doesn't get patents would go out of business quickly, because a big "Mega Corp." would just copy the tech and the startup would go under. Of course, once again, the historical evidence suggests otherwise. Does this happen? Sometimes... but rarely. The reasoning is obvious if you've actually been around innovative companies. First, if your idea is truly innovative, Mega Corp. doesn't recognize it until its too late. In typical innovator's dilemma fashion, they dismiss truly innovative products as being "not good enough." By the time they realize what's happening, it's usually way too late to jump on the bandwagon. Second, innovation is not a once-and-done thing, but an ongoing practice. If big Mega Corp. just copies, by the time they're done copying, the innovative startup is already innovated past that and big Mega Corp. is just playing catchup. Third, by that time, the innovative startup has the reputation as the innovator, and people trust them more than the Big Mega Corp. doing the copying. We've seen this over and over and over again. Gene apparently missed it.

From there, the conversation spirals further and further out of control. If you ever want to see what the extreme pro-patent position is, then this is it. It presents no evidence at all (nowhere in any of the posts does Gene back up a point with evidence, but he does, repeatedly insist that "everybody knows" or something is "100% true" when neither is the case). When actual evidence proving him wrong is presented, he either ignores it, pretends it says something different than it does, or blatantly says that the evidence itself is a lie. Even if you believe in patents (software or otherwise), Gene Quinn is making a mockery of the pro-patent argument by arguing such things and ignoring any and all evidence that proves him wrong. There may be legitimate arguments in favor of patents out there, but Gene isn't doing that side any favors by making himself look so ridiculous in the face of strong arguments to the contrary.

Obviously, I'm pretty strongly in the opposing "camp" on the question of patents, but even I can admit that, as with any monopoly, patents create two countervailing forces. The first increases activity in an area due to the promise of monopoly rents and monopoly profits. The latter decreases activity in an area due to the limitations created by a monopoly, and the power for such monopolies to prevent competition and continued innovation. The question is which force is stronger. And I've read many dozens of studies and historical evidence and nearly every one points to the latter being the stronger force. I'm willing to be convinced however by compelling evidence in the other direction. However, someone like Quinn doesn't even seem willing to admit that these two forces exist and are in conflict. I don't see how one can argue in favor of patents without at least admitting that the second force exists and has been proven over and over again -- even if you still believe that the first force is stronger.

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Dan Jones writes "The Apache Software Foundation may stop releasing new versions of the older 1.3 and 2.0 series of its flagship Web server product with most development now focused on the 2.2 series. Nothing is final yet, but messages to the Apache httpd developer mailing list recommend the formal deprecation of the 1.3.x branch, with most citing a lack of development activity. The Apache HTTP server project is one of the most successful and popular open source projects and has become an integral part of the technology stack for thousands of Web and SaaS applications. The first generation of Apache was released in 1995, and the 2.0 series began in 2002. Apache httpd 2.2 began in 2005, with the latest release (October 2009) being 2.2.14. However, the most recent releases of the 1.3 and 2.0 series servers were back in January 2008. With the combined total of active 1.3 and 2.0 series Apache Web servers well into the millions, any decision to end-of-life either product will be watched closely."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Theo Watson writes:

The long awaited update to the original Fat Tag – The Deluxe Edition co-created with NYC graffiti legend Katsu is now available in the App Store. Features include:

• Multiple default backgrounds
• Additional background selection from camera, photo library
• Scale, rotate, angle, opacity options for realistically overlaying tag onto camera image.
• Multiple pen/brush tips and colors
• Full accelerometer based drips
• Speed based thickness
• Upload gml and screenshot to FAT’s 000000book.com
• Save tags to photo library

Read more at Theo's post on fatlab.

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Ant writes "Google News and The Canadian Press report that 'a new study has found that five times as many high school and college students in the United States are dealing with anxiety and other mental health issues than youth of the same age who were studied in the Great Depression era. ... Pulling together the data for the study was no small task. Led by [San Diego State University psychology professor Jean Twenge], researchers at five universities analyzed the responses of 77,576 high school or college students who, from 1938 through 2007, took the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, or MMPI. The results will be published in a future issue of the Clinical Psychology Review. Overall, an average of five times as many students in 2007 surpassed thresholds in one or more mental health categories, compared with those who did so in 1938. A few individual categories increased at an even greater rate — with six times as many scoring high in two areas: 'hypomania,' a measure of anxiety and unrealistic optimism (from 5 per cent of students in 1938 to 31 per cent in 2007), and depression (from 1 per cent to 6 per cent).'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Don't know grandpa's name, but the lucky grandson he made this thing for is "Diego". [via Boing Boing]

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Trailrunner7 writes "A group of cryptographers has developed a new attack that has broken Kasumi, the encryption algorithm used to secure traffic on 3G GSM wireless networks. The technique enables them to recover a full key by using a tactic known as a related-hey attack, but experts say it is not the end of the world for Kasumi. Kasumi, also known as A5/3, is the standard cipher used to encrypt communications on 3G GSM networks, and it's a modified version of an older algorithm called Misty. In the abstract of their paper, the cryptographers say the attack can be implemented easily on one standard PC. 'In this paper we describe a new type of attack called a sandwich attack, and use it to construct a simple distinguisher for 7 of the 8 rounds of KASUMI with an amazingly high probability of 214. By using this distinguisher and analyzing the single remaining round, we can derive the complete 128 bit key of the full KASUMI by using only 4 related keys, 226 data, 230 bytes of memory, and 232 time. These complexities are so small that we have actually simulated the attack in less than two hours on a single PC, and experimentally verified its correctness and complexity.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Marcus Carab points us to a rather horrifying story about a family suing a funeral home after the funeral home put their grandmother's brain in a bag of personal effects and sent it to them. Yikes. But, ignore the story itself for a moment (if you can). What was interesting from our point of view was that the story was written by the Associated Press, and it's basically a rewrite of a story from The Albuquerque Journal. Here's how the AP points this out:

The Albuquerque Journal reported on the lawsuit in a copyright story published Wednesday.

Now, there are a few things odd about this. First... it's an odd phrase to use: "in a copyright story." Nearly all news stories are covered by copyright, so why even mention it?

But what I find even more amusing is that if you look at the AP report, it's basically just a quick blurb rewrite of the Albuquerque Journal story. It's only 125 words, and just summarizes what the other paper wrote. Why is that amusing? Because that's exactly what the Associated Press has been claiming bloggers unfairly do to it -- insisting that others simply rewriting its stories in short blurbs are violating the "hot news" doctrine. Apparently, that doesn't apply when the AP does it itself?

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gkunene writes in with the plaint of a veteran mobile application developer who vents his frustration with a list of 10 things he loves to hate about Android. "1. Open Source. Leave it to Google to place all the code for their handset platform in the hands of the masses. Not only does this mean anyone can download and roll a new version of their phone firmware, but it also means absolutely any maker can roll its own Android device. ... After all's said and done, I really must admit that Android, despite its relatively few flaws, is one of my favorite platforms to work with. Quite honestly, if my complaint about how the word 'Intent' makes for awkward grammatical constructions ranks in the top 10, I'd say the Android platform is doing pretty well for itself."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Solar Dog prototype charger from Erik Schiegg is a solar panel attached to a dog sweater. I'm not sure how efficient it is, but I could see this being handy. [via recombu]

My Android phone is charged in no time... The dog feels good and I'm feeling good and planet mud is turned a little bit more into planet earth. But this idea would be interesting? for farmers around the world, letting their animals collect electricity, too.

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Mike sez, "'The use by police of terror laws to stop and search people without grounds for suspicion are illegal, the European Court of Human Rights has ruled.' The article goes on to refer to Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000, which is what has been used for random stop and searches such as this one."

Section 44 of the Terrorism Act 2000 allows the home secretary to authorise police to make random searches in certain circumstances.

But the European Court of Human Rights said the protesters' rights under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights had been violated.

The court said the stop and search powers were "not sufficiently circumscribed" and there were not "adequate legal safeguards against abuse".

Stop-and-search powers ruled illegal by European court (Thanks, Mike!)

An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Develop: "The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen game is $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an average of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier. Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 budget is said to be hovering around the $60 million mark, while Modern Warfare 2's budget was said to be as high as $50 million."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader passes along this excerpt from Develop: "The average development budget for a multiplatform next-gen game is $18-$28 million, according to new data. A study by entertainment analyst group M2 Research also puts development costs for single-platform projects at an average of $10 million. The figures themselves may not be too surprising, with high-profile games often breaking the $40 million barrier. Polyphony's Gran Turismo 5 budget is said to be hovering around the $60 million mark, while Modern Warfare 2's budget was said to be as high as $50 million."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've covered in great detail how DigiProtect purposely seeds files of content from its copyright holding partners, in order to send anyone who downloads the content a "pre-settlement" letter that seems not very different from the traditional extortion "protection" rackets ("pay us, or we'll sue.") Those who don't pay are actually discovering that the pre-settlement letters may be handed over to collections agencies despite no agreement to pay nor a court order requiring payment. It turns out this shakedown business is quite profitable but of very questionable legality.

A new report in Germany is suggesting that DigiProtect and a few similar firms in Europe may have sent out 450,000 such letters last year. Unfortunately, NewTeeVee, in reporting on this, claims that each of these are "P2P lawsuits," but that's not true (and a large part of the problem). Nearly every one of these letters are sent without any corresponding lawsuit. The whole idea is to shake people down by threatening a lawsuit, but never having to go through the expense of filing one (or the trouble of actually proving the infringement -- which is a big deal since many, many, many bogus letters have been generated, snaring many innocent users). But, with little in the way of penalties for such bogus pre-settlement letters, there's simply no reason not to keep sending them. Apparently, enough people just pay up to make this an incredibly profitable business.

However, with the massive increase in such letters, and increasing scrutiny about the whole practice, you have to wonder when European governments will start to crack down on this behavior. It's difficult to see anyone defending these actions with a straight face. They clearly have nothing to do with preventing file sharing or unauthorized use of content, but are very much about just getting people to pay up under the threat of a lawsuit.

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The WELL is conducting its annual Bruce Sterling "State of the World" public interview, in which Chairman Bruce holds forth on any subject the audience raises. Jon Lebkowski asked me for a question to kick it off, so I asked Bruce what I should do to be sure that I've provided for my daughter Poesy's future. His answer is very funny and provocative, though a simple "I don't know either" would have sufficed:

*Okay, you've treated your future as an "unpredictable lurching thing..." and now you're all morose about that... You and your generation CREATED that situation! Ever heard of "disruptive innovation," "disintermediation," "offshoring," "small pieces loosely joined," "de-monetization," "plug and play," "the network as a platform"? Of course you've heard of all that crap, because you've been tub-thumping it your entire adult life, but what the hell did you think that was all about? Did you think you were gonna bend every effort to virtualize reality, and then get a gold railway-retirement watch and a safe place to park the cradle? Guys with stacks of gold bars and working oil wells don't have any stability now! Much less guys like you, who move their fingers up and down on keyboards for a living.

*You want some security? Demand government housing subsidies and a guaranteed minimum income! They bailed out every broke mogul on the planet, they might as well bail out the civil population...

*"A coherent picture of where your future is heading." Okay, fine. Let's imagine you're three years old again. You want to give your Dad, back in 1974, a coherent picture of what 2010 looks like. You know, something very actionable, lucid and practical, where he can just slap the cash on the counter and everything works out great for the family. Okay: given what you know now about the present, tell me what you oughta tell him about 2010, back in 1974. Use words of one syllable, so he doesn't have a stroke.

Bruce Sterling: State of the World 2010

Kodak and Samsung Electronics have agreed a licensing pact that will allow access to each other’s patent portfolio, settling a dispute between them. The agreement also saw Samsung pay towards what Kodak describes as 'its royalty obligation.' In November 2009 Kodak had challenged Samsung over alleged patent infringement of technology used in their Blackjack II camera phone.

s122604 sends in a performance review of the Chevy Volt, paying particular attention to what happens after the initial plug-in capacity has been depleted. This reader adds, "The review indicates that the performance is adequate, and perhaps better than anticipated. If the Volt can deliver technically, especially with the possibility that it could retail for less than expected (WSJ subscription may be required), does GM have a potential hit on its hands?" "How well will General Motors' Chevrolet Volt drive once it gets past its 40 mile all-electric driving range and starts to rely on power generated by its gasoline engine? That's been a question for both critics and fans of the Volt, and with just 11 months to go before this car hits the market, I got the answer."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Italian publisher Apogeo commissioned a professional Italian translation of my Creative Commons-licensed essay collection Content and released their edition as a free, noncommercial download!

Content: Selezione di saggi sulla tecnologia, la creatività, il copyright (Grazie, Fabio!)

The MAKE Controller Kit v2.0 is an open source hardware platform for projects requiring high performance control and feedback, connectivity, and ease of use. It can be programmed and run autonomously, or it can be used as a peripheral for desktop applications. If you make a project based on the MAKE Controller, be sure to add it to the MAKE Flickr pool, or a link in the comments. I would really like to see some of the projects that use the full power of this kit. Thanks!

Features

• 8 analog inputs - 10-bit inputs read voltages from 0-3.3V while protecting the controller from higher voltages.
• 8 high current digital outputs - can be configured to drive 8 individual outputs, 4 DC motors, 2 stepper motors, or any combination.
• 4 standard servo controllers - easily provide external power for driving large loads.
• 8 position DIP switch - for manual configuration.
• USB and Ethernet interfaces - can be used simultaneously.
• JTAG port - for on-chip debugging.

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An anonymous reader writes "I'm an indie game developer making a clone of a rather obscure old game. Gameplay in my clone is very similar to the old game, and my clone even has a very similar name because I want to attract fans of the original. The original game has no trademark or software patent associated with it, and my clone isn't infringing on the original's copyright in any way (all the programming and artwork is original), but nevertheless I'm still worried about the possibility of running afoul of a look and feel lawsuit or something similar. How do I make sure I'm legally in the clear without hiring an expensive lawyer that my indie developer budget can't afford?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The project consists of a shield you can add to an Arduino equipped with another Altmega 168/328 chip and a whole 'nother set of digital and analog I/O pins.

Instructable user johndavid400 explains:

The shield design can use the base Arduino's power supply or it can supply power to the base Arduino via it's onboard power-terminals and 5v regulator. You can select which power mode you want to use via the on-board jumper selectors.

Using I2C, you can connect 1 Arduino (master) to a host of slave Arduino's through Analog ports 4 and 5.

Also, you can add the security of having a completely separate CPU to your project that is unaffected by any code running on the base Arduino. I use this shield as a failsafe on my R/C lawnmower. The base processor uses the 2 external interrupts to sample and decode 2 servo signals from an R/C transmitter/receiver, while a 3rd servo signal is sent to the Core2duino that controls a relay for the motor-controller power supply. This way, even if there is a problem with the main code and it stops responding, the Core2duino will still be able to carry out it's main function unaffected (which is to kill the power to the bot if anything unusual happens).

[via Embedded Projects]

More:

• 10 things to do with a new Arduino
• Arduino Cake
• Arduino shields: Open source hardware 2009 - The definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009

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In the presentation I did last year at the NARM event, one of the things I noted was that people who were pinning their hopes on the music industry making a revival through digital sales of songs were betting on a false hope. They were betting on the idea that they could just take the old world (Tower Records) and move it to the new world (iTunes) with a digital facelift. Doing so ignored the reality of what the internet does and allows. The internet doesn't just let you take a store and move it online. It changes nearly every aspect of the creation, promotion, distribution and business models around music. Yet, this was a point that I got a lot of pushback on. People still insisted that selling music files was going to be "the thing" that worked. They might want to check that assumption. Reports are coming out, noting that while digital music sales are still growing, the pace at which they're growing is slowing down, in some cases drastically.

Now, you can't expect massive growth forever. At some point, every growth market begins to mature and saturate and the growth rate slows down. But, digital music sales are still a relatively small market. It seems much wiser to focus on the markets that actually have much more potential than the one that tries to just recreate the old world by applying artificial scarcities.

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CWmike writes "Microsoft has pulled almost every version of Office from its own online store to comply with a court order requiring it to remove custom XML technology from its popular Word software that starts on Monday. As of mid-day, the only edition available from the Microsoft Store was Office Ultimate 2007, a $670 'full-version' suite. All other Windows editions, as well as Office 2008 for Mac, were accompanied by the message: 'This product is currently unavailable while we update versions on our site. We expect it to be available soon.' Microsoft confirmed that the disappearance of Office was related to the injunction that came out of a patent infringement case the company lost in 2009. 'We've taken steps to comply with the court's ruling and we're introducing the revised software into the US market," said Michael Croan, a senior marketing manager, in an e-mail. He also downplayed the move. 'This process will be imperceptible to the vast majority of customers, who will find both trial and purchase options readily available.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Chloe, owner of Portland's brilliant zine store READING FRENZY and impressaria of the line-art zine CRAP HOUND writes, "Boing Boing and Cory in particular have always been very supportive and enthusiastic about Crap Hound -- the sporadically published vintage line art zine my friend Sean Tejaratchi edits and I publish. We have 3 issues slated for publication this year and are using Kickstarter to raise funds to get the first one to press. Our project is currently 17% funded with 35 days to go."

I just kicked in. I've loved Crap Hound since the first issue (and Sean and I apparently shared a passion for Local Hero, where the characters use the term as an epithet; I used it as the title for my first professionally published short story).

Crap Hound #4: Clowns, Devils & Bait! (Thanks, Chloe!)

Marc Hedlund sez, "Wesabe just open sourced a project called Grendel that makes it easy for web apps to encrypt data using the user's login password, and only decrypt that data when the user is logged in. Let's say you're using a word processing web app and don't want your documents stored plaintext -- the web app could use Grendel to easily encrypt your docs for you, using OpenPGP. Log in and you can edit; log out and only you can get at the data again (since only you have your password). There are some hooks for encrypting with multiple keys if you want to share docs with selected other users on the system. Since people are throwing a ton of sensitive data in web apps these days I think having some tools to help make that safer would be a good thing."

Of course, data on web sites is usually shared with at least some other people in some way. Sometimes a user might want to share their information with the web site support staff, so the staff can help solve a problem or fix a bug. Or, the user might want to share their sensitive data with selected other users on the site, such as coworkers or family members. Grendel allows this, letting you encrypt data with multiple keys so that more than one user's password can gain access.

It's very easy to screw up when building a cryptography system -- check out Nate Lawson's excellent Google Tech Talk on common crypto flaws, or Matasano's Socratic dialog on similar topics, for a map of the pitfalls available to you, and us. We've been fortunate at Wesabe to have a number of people who think very carefully about security, and they've put a lot of effort into designing and building Grendel. That said, we have two goals in open sourcing Grendel: first, to make a tool available to others that could help make "cloud" applications in general much safer for everyone, and second, to open up what we've built so others can review and help us improve it. We would love comments on any aspect of Grendel, security or otherwise.

Protecting "Cloud" Secrets with Grendel (Thanks, Marc!)

(Disclosure: I am proud to serve on Wesabe's advisory board)

Kheldon writes "The MMO Gamer sits down with Joe Morrissey, a Senior Designer at Paragon Studios, to discuss the inspiration behind, and current implementation of the Architect user-generated content system in City of Heroes. Quoting: 'Really for me, wanting tools so the rest of the team could actually come up with content was the idea. Because we have a lot of guys on the team that are hardcore players, they play the game all the time. Then they come to me like, "I’ve got this idea for this story, we should really do this arc with this guy!" And I’m like, "That’s great. I haven’t got time to do it. I’ve got plenty of other story arcs to work on." But, if we made the tools easy enough, then they could actually come up with the arcs, and we can put them out. Then somewhere along that road it dawned on me: Why stop with the rest of the team?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My latest Locus column, "Close Enough for Rock 'n' Roll," discusses the way that the net makes it possible to do something almost as good as its offline equivalent for a fraction of the cost, and how that changes everything:

In other words, rock 'n' roll is cheap, experimental and fluid, and devotes most of its energy into the production of music. Orchestral music is expensive, formal and majestic, but tithes a large portion of its effort to coordination and overheads and maintenance.

If the Internet has a motif, it is rock 'n' roll's Protestant Reformation thrashing against the orchestral One Church. Rock 'n' roll gets lots of wee kirks built in every hill and dale in which parishioners can find religion in their own ways; choral music erects majestic cathedrals that humble and amaze, but take three generations of laborers to build.

The interesting bit isn't what it costs to replicate some big, pre-Internet business or project.

The interesting bit is what it costs to do something half as well as some big, pre-Internet business or project.

Cory Doctorow: Close Enough for Rock 'n' Roll

(Image: Rock-n-Roll Adventure Kids, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Invisible Hour's photostream)

Before the pirates took over, Illegal commercial trawlers parked off the coast of Somalia and scooped up all the critters in the sea. Not so anymore, say fishermen in neighboring Kenya: "There is a lot of fish now, there is plenty of fish. There is more fish than people can actually use because the international fishermen have been scared away by the pirates."

A new advocacy group fashioned after MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) will work to spread awareness about the danger of driving while distracted by texting or talking on mobile devices. On Tuesday, the Department of Transportation and the nonprofit National Safety Council plan to launch FocusDriven, "Advocates for Cell-Free Driving."

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

I'm always quite skeptical about huge numbers that come out of studies, such as the "losses" claimed by the entertainment industry due to piracy. So I was pretty skeptical of a story (found via Slashdot) claiming that IT failures cost $6.2 trillion per year worldwide. If true, that would be a staggering figure. I have no doubt that IT "failures" are costly, but that number seems extreme. Just glancing over the report itself, it's definitely not based on any kind of stringent methodology, and seems to count any IT project failure as a total loss, and then adds in "indirect costs" which sound suspiciously like "ripple effects" which, as we've demonstrated before are actually ways to double- or triple-count the same dollars over and over again. It seems that many others see huge problems with the original report as well, even to the point of suggesting that it's orders or magnitude off.

While the debate rages on over how to properly count the "cost" of such failures, I'm beginning to wonder how useful such a number is. Isn't a more useful discussion on how to prevent or minimize the impact of any such failures? The aggregate number may look good in being able to see some big number, but aggregate numbers can hide important details inside. For example, back in the early (and even late) 90s there were lots of reports about how computerizing your business was not shown to have added any productivity. A poor conclusion from this was that computering your business was not a smart idea. But the problem was that this was aggregate data. It failed to realize that many, many businesses had boosted productivity through the use of computers, and many of the large failures that wiped out the aggregate "gains" were from a few big businesses that did a really poor implementation. It didn't mean that computerizing was necessarily a bad idea, but that some of the biggest early players just did a bad job of it.

So, if we're going to be discussing IT failures, why not step away from that aggregate info and try to focus in on ways to actually minimize the impact of whatever IT failures might occur?

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Boing Boing reader John says,

The folks at the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine are looking for feedback on how to respond to a recent cease & desist letter. While they reside in the Netherlands, and cease & desist letters are not equivalent to litigation and in fact do not always have a legal leg to stand on, it still seems important to consider the implications. This comes after suicidemachine.org's IP was blocked by Facebook. Similar service/software art Seppukoo, who were similarly issued a cease & desist and have issued this response.

From the nettime announcement by Florian Cramer:

"On behalf of Facebook, the law firm Perkins Coie has sent a Cease and Desist letter to Mike van Gaasbeek from WORM , the Rotterdam-based experimental arts center of which MODDR_labs , creators of the Web 2.0 Suicide Machine , are a part of.

Suggestions for competent legal defendants for WORM/MODDR would be welcome. As a non-profit organization with roots in improvised and electronic music and avant-garde filmmaking, WORM encounters this situation for the first time. (Other media arts institutions wouldn't have legal defense strategies ready in their desk drawers either.)"

BB reader John asks, "Can either of these services be subjected to the contracts that bind users and developers who use the Connect API from scraping data?"

More about the Suicide Machine, and Facebook's efforts to block it: NPR, WSJ.

Above, Stormtrooper striptease Courtney Cruz in a Star Wars-themed burlesque show at the Los Angeles club Bordello (a sexy bar which opened at the site of a notorious, historic LA whorehouse). Liz Ohanesian has a post up at LA Weekly with more about the performance. Lots of great photos by Shannon Cottrell, who shot the image above. I did not post Sexy Jabba the Hutt, and you can thank me for it later. (thanks, Isaac B2)

brilanon writes "Telepathic-critterdrug is a controversial fork of the open source artificial-life sim Critterding, a physics sandbox where blocky creatures evolve neural nets in a survival contest. What we've done is to give these animals an extra retina which is shared with the whole population. It's extended through time like a movie and they can write to it for communication or pleasure. Since this introduces the possibility of the creation of art, we decided to give them a selection of narcotics, stimulants and psychedelics. This is not in Critterding. The end result is a high-color cellular automaton running on a substrate that thinks and evolves, and may actually produce hallucinations in the user."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you're already rethinking your participation in Facebook after the recent privacy dust-ups, you will not feel better after reading this interview with a person identified as an unnamed Facebook employee. (via @mackreed)

Ewww: "Nearly half of the 90 beverages from soda fountain machines in one area in Virginia tested positive for coliform bacteria -- which could indicate possible fecal contamination, according to a study published in the January issue of International Journal of Food Microbiology."

Video link (thanks, Sean Bonner)

We've discussed in the past how the record labels have this habit of "negotiating through lawsuits," in that they will often sue an innovative music startup, even as they're negotiating licensing deals with them, just to get the upperhand in the negotiation. It's happened with countless music startups -- and it's one of the main reasons so few survive. They're overly burdened with ridiculous costs from the beginning. We already saw that EMI used this strategy with Grooveshark, in forcing it into a licensing deal, and apparently Universal Music decided it could do the same thing. It's now suing Grooveshark as well -- even though Grooveshark insists it pays all the appropriate licenses. Of course, the end result of all this is that it gives Grooveshark more publicity, but may make it more difficult for the company to survive.

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This is really interesting, a new site coming in 2010 that helps folks collect data... For the web geeks, perhaps it's like a NING or Mechanical Turk for science?...

iDoScience.org is a revolutionary new Web technology that allows citizen scientists, teachers, and students of all ages to collaborate with professional scientists on science projects of all kinds. Now people can create their own research projects and share data all over the world.  Through one interface. In real time. For the benefit of all. iDoScience.org is a multipurpose forum and database granting instant access to a whole community of people who want to get their hands on science, to participate in research or to exchange scientific insights, share discoveries, and invent new and exciting ways to solve the world's problems.

Galaxy Zoo has worked out pretty well, perhaps this will encourage thousands of other projects like it. The decade of science could really have some great examples of regular folks contributing to large discoveries, a mix between SETI-type projects and perhaps more specific problems being "crowd-sourced" as they say..

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Wikileaks is raising funds to cover operating costs in 2010. I believe they provide an important service. I'll be donating, and encourage you to do the same.