ericatcw writes "While the US government is intent on adding new rules around the shipment and carrying of Lithium-Ion batteries on passenger and cargo planes, data from its own Federal Aviation Agency show that the risk of being on an airplane where someone — not necessarily you — suffers a minor injury due to a battery is only one in 28 million, reports Computerworld, which analyzed the data (skip to the chart here) using the free Tableau Public data visualization service. Getting killed in a car accident, by contrast, is 4,300 times more likely. Opponents say the rules could raise the cost of shopping online and add hassles for fliers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael Scott points us to someone who was reading carefully through the iTunes terms of service, and noticed that it appears to say that you can't use the program if you're recognized as a terrorist by the US government. The specific clause reads:

You may not use or otherwise export or re-export the Licensed Application except as authorized by United States law and the laws of the jurisdiction in which the Licensed Application was obtained. In particular, but without limitation, the Licensed Application may not be exported or re-exported (a) into any U.S. embargoed countries or (b) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce Denied Person's List or Entity List. By using the Licensed Application, you represent and warrant that you are not located in any such country or on any such list. You also agree that you will not use these products for any purposes prohibited by United States law, including, without limitation, the development, design, manufacture or production of nuclear, missiles, or chemical or biological weapons.

And, as Nate Oman notes:

Notice, as I read this clause not only are terrorists -- or at least those on terrorist watch lists -- prohibited from using iTunes to manufacture WMD, they are also prohibited from even downloading and using iTunes. So all the Al-Qaeda operatives holed up in the Northwest Frontier Provinces of Pakistan, dodging drone attacks while listening to Britney Spears songs downloaded with iTunes are in violation of the terms and conditions, even if they paid for the music!

That'll show 'em...

Now wouldn't that be a great lawsuit? Seeing Apple take those on the US terrorist list to court for breaking their iTunes terms of service?

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HacDC's (Washington DC's premier hackerspace) next Lightning Talks evening will feature an eclectic lineup of a dozen five-minute talks on anything and everything that's pressing on the minds of today's thinkers and tinkerers, from rapid boat construction to innovative DIY manufacturing. The talks run about 90 minutes total.

There are currently several speaker slots still available, and they need your brilliant ideas, whatever they may be. For more information, contact obscurite@hacdc.org ASAP to secure a spot. Here for more.

HacDC Lightning Talks
7:30 - 9:30PM, Tuesday Feb 23, 2010
HacDC @ St. Stephen's Church
1525 Newton St NW
Washington, DC 20010

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CWmike writes "Tuesday's security updates from Microsoft have crippled Windows XP PCs with the notorious Blue Screen of Death (BSOD), users have reported on the company's support forum. Complaints began early yesterday, and gained momentum throughout the day. 'I updated 11 Windows XP updates today and restarted my PC like it asked me to,' said a user identified as 'tansenroy' who kicked off a growing support thread: 'From then on, Windows cannot restart again! It is stopping at the blue screen with the following message: 'A problem has been detected and Windows has been shutdown to prevent damage to your computer.' Others joined in with similar reports. Several users posted solutions, but the one laid out by 'maxyimus' was marked by a Microsoft support engineer as the way out of the perpetual blue screens."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nomad painted these awesome Road-Warrior-meets-Toto mashup minis. The figures themselves are available from Studio Miniatures. As an encore, might I suggest The Wizard of Oz gang as characters in the HBO prison drama Oz? Or vice versa? [via Neatorama]

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Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to mattm@makezine.comor drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

Andy writes:

Recently I acquired a vintage Leslie speaker cabinet. The speaker cabinet uses ac motors to turn baffles and horns to create a Doppler effect. Upon opening up the speaker, I found that the motors were working, but very dirty and coated with gunk. What is the best way to clean a motor with an excess of build up?

Congratulations on your acquisition! Since the motors seem to be working fine, my guess is that it might be best to clean them cosmetically, but not to try and take them apart and rebuild them. Even though they are electrical devices, you should be able to clean them like anything else, using some form of solvent and a brush. Just make sure to let them dry out completely before you power them up!

I would start a mild detergent (soap and water). If that doesn't do the job (which it probably won't), try mineral spirits or a specialized electric motor cleaner. The biggest things I can think to look out for when using a solvent to clean the motor are that it doesn't damage the varnish on the motor windings or get into any greased bearings. The varnish is used as a coating on the motor windings, to keep them from touching each other and shorting out, so removing it would not be a great thing to do. If the motor does have greased bearings, you might want to lubricate them as well.

I've taken apart a few motors, but admittedly don't have a lot of experience in this field. Does anyone have a favorite technique or solvent that they use to restore vintage machines like this?

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Jack Spine writes "With nearly a billion users dependent on smart banking credit and debit cards, banks have refused liability for losses where an idenification number has been provided. But now, the process behind the majority of European credit and debit card transactions is fundamentally broken, according to researchers from Cambridge University. The researchers have demonstrated a man-in-the-middle attack which fooled a card reader into accepting a number of point-of-sale transactions, even though the cards were not properly authenticated. The researchers used off-the-shelf components (PDF), and a laptop running a Python script, to undermine the two factor authentication process on European credit and debit cards, which is called Chip and PIN."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

So after months and months of people asking the USTR to reveal what's in ACTA, Public Knowledge finally got Stan McCoy to confirm that it won't include three strikes or mandatory ISP filtering. While some of the other leaks had indicated that both were on the table at some point, it's good to see the USTR confirm that they're not, though it's still not clear why they won't reveal what is in the document.

Still, that doesn't mean it won't impact US law in potentially dangerous ways. In particular, a lot of what it will try to do is lock in US case law that hasn't been established by Congress, and which other countries have differing opinions on. So, for example, if it locks in contributory liability (something the courts have ruled on, but Congress never included in the law), it will massively hinder Congress' ability to fix this mistake by the courts. As Sherwin Siy, from Public Knowledge noted:

That analysis hints at changes to international norms on "third party liability"--such as contributory infringement, vicarious liability, or inducement of infringement.

These are areas of law that, in the U.S., are defined almost entirely by court decisions, which build in nuances and balance to the application and enforcement of the law. One of the dangers of trying to codify these doctrines into an international agreement is that it can freeze the law as it is currently, preventing the courts from adapting case law to adjust for new developments in business, technology, and culture. There’s also the risk that binding the United States to an international set of standards will actually hamper Congress from enacting needed reforms to our copyright system.

Nor can we so quickly dismiss concerns about filtering and 3 strikes policies--even if the U.S. isn't pushing for legal obligations or mandates, there has been a constant, concerted effort by the largest record labels and movie studios over the past year or more to negotiate their own private 3 strikes agreements with ISPs. Filtering also remains a big topic for content industry lobbyists. Both of these measures, even if not mandated by laws, are often pressed upon ISPs and their customers as "voluntary" agreements, with threats of expensive lawsuits waiting in the margins if they don't comply. Even without mandating these procedures, laws, treaties, and executive agreements like ACTA can give them a great deal of cover by endorsing such "private agreements," adding a veneer of legitimacy to practices that otherwise would raise greater alarm at their impact on privacy, or simply their false positive rate. ACTA's focus on penalties can also incentivize potential plaintiffs to push harder, and for potential defendants to cave.

Indeed, what many people have pointed out is that the really pernicious part of ACTA is in reading between the lines. There are already international agreements on intellectual property that include clear safe harbors and consumer protection. What's notable in the leaked drafts of ACTA is that such things are missing. So even if it doesn't force the US to change the law, it could very much hinder attempts by US to come to its senses and fix the broken parts of the law.

Just as we were discussing problems with the DMCA today, the drafts of ACTA suggest that they will lock in some of the DMCA's worst features, such that the US would be hindered in correcting those mistakes, and, even worse, other countries would be prevented from putting in place better solutions as well, which could be useful in convincing US politicians that the more draconian parts of the DMCA are a mistake. ACTA doesn't need to explicitly change US law today to have a serious impact on US law in constraining Congress from fixing its broken parts. Things like secondary liability, which were entirely decided by the courts, despite not appearing anywhere in the law, are quite problematic -- and ACTA is looking to lock them in, so that Congress couldn't even fix that mistake by the courts. That's a serious problem.

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the3stars writes "'Removing part of the brain can induce inner peace, according to researchers from Italy. Their study provides the strongest evidence to date that spiritual thinking arises in, or is limited by, specific brain areas. This raises a number of interesting issues about spirituality, among them whether or not people can be born with a strong propensity towards spirituality and also whether it can be acquired through head trauma." One critic's quoted response: "It's important to recognize that the whole study is based on changes in one self-report measure, which is a coarse measure that includes some strange items."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Something I threw together for some friends who are interested in news of the East Village.

http://east-village.org/

If you know of any blogs that cover the East Village, please post a link here. Thanks!

snydeq writes "Despite feature enhancements that suggest otherwise, Apple remains lukewarm to any Mac and iPhone success in business environments. 'Apple has intentionally created a glass ceiling it has no intention of shattering. My conversations with Apple employees over the past decade have always been off the record when it comes to the topic of Macs in the enterprise. The company has had no intention of signaling any active plans to serve the enterprise,' InfoWorld's Galen Gruman writes. 'In a sense, Apple views enterprise sales as "collateral success" — a nice-to-have byproduct of its real focus: individuals, developers, and very small businesses ... likely because to do otherwise would greatly increase the complexity Apple would have to deal with.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I guess it's fitting that this happens in early February. Slashdot points us to the news that, as was widely expected, the record labels have opted for a third trial of Jammie Thomas-Rasset, rather than accept the reduced award of $2,250 per song, as set by the judge. Not surprisingly, the labels are doing this because they disagree with the precedent of a judge changing the jury award, and the new trial is limited solely to the damages question. But, honestly, the whole thing is a bit weird. If the judge can reduce the older jury award, and a new jury sets a higher rate, can the judge just reduce it again, and we go through this entire process for the fourth time? The Slashdot post, written by Ray Beckermann claims that the labels "could only win a verdict that is equal to, or less than, $54,000," in the new trial, but I'm not sure why he says that. Is it because the judge would reduce it again? This is not at all clear.

Still, the actual filing from the RIAA's lawyers has some interesting claims (pdf):

While Plaintiffs do not believe that either verdict was improper under the law, or that the second verdict should be remitted, they would have considered accepting a remittitur simply so that this case could finally come to an end. However, any remittitur must otherwise be consistent with the law and be guided by what actual juries have awarded under similar circumstances. Unfortunately, Plaintiffs find it impossible to accept a remittitur that could be read to set a new standard for statutory damages -- essentially capping those damages at three times the minimum statutory amount of $750 (or $2,250) for any "noncommercial individuals who illegally download and upload music." (Id. at 2, 25.) This far-reaching determination is contrary to the law and creates a statutory scheme that Congress did not intend or enact.

It's a bit of a stretch to claim that this would be a cap on "any" unauthorized noncommercial file distribution. I would imagine that any court still has the right to take into account the specific circumstances to make sure the award is proportionate to the rights being violated. The labels' lawyers are stretching what the judge said here.

Indeed, Congress has spoken on this very topic. Congress deliberately and purposefully established a range of statutory damages that applies without regard to the commercial motivation of the defendant.

I find this statement funny, because they then cite what Congress said way back in 1999. Fair enough, Congress (which basically just took RIAA talking points and put them into the Congressional record) did make those comments -- but these are the same entertainment industry lawyers who supported a "secondary liability" or inducement standard in the Grokster case, even though Congress had specifically rejected an attempt to put an inducement standard into the law. And when confronted, how does the RIAA explain that? Well, they say "the situation changed." Ah, so it's okay to have the courts change copyright law when the situation changes in one direction, but not the other?

What the judge was doing here was recognizing that the amount the jury awarded was clearly out of proportion to the actual infringement -- just as the courts in Grokster supposedly recognized that an inducement standard made sense in shutting down third parties (something I disagree with, but it's how the court felt). It seems that the RIAA and its lawyers have a massive double standard here.

A rule that the maximum permissible award in cases involving so-called "noncommercial" infringers is three times minimum statutory damages also ignores the harm caused by such infringers. From an economic perspective, individuals who give away copyrighted works illegally can cause as much harm as those who sell those works illegally, particularly when the so-called "non-commercial" infringer uses a P2P service. The notion that an infringer who does not make a profit should automatically be entitled to better treatment than an infringer who does make a profit is found nowhere in the law. The "not for profit" infringer is hardly entitled to special protection, which is why Congress conferred no such protection.

Again, Congress also conferred no such thing as an inducement liability, but the courts -- at the urging of the RIAA -- conferred exactly that via the courts. Why such a double standard?

The Court's cap would set a new ceiling such that no copyright owner could effectively enforce their rights unless they could and did sue on numerous works. No copyright owner would be motivated to enforce its rights where it could only sue on a handful of works because the potential recovery would be too limited. Congress set a wide range of statutory damages for copyright cases precisely because plaintiffs need to be incentivized to bring appropriate cases to enforce their rights -- even those who own a small number of copyrights or those who only have a limited number of works infringed. Conversely, the Court's artificially depressed cap compels parties with a large number of copyrights at stake to sue on all of them, rather than a more modest number. This serves only to increase the discovery and trial burdens on parties and courts. Yet the Court's inflexible "three times" cap would invariably penalize plaintiffs with a small number of works at issue, and would force those with a lot of works to add to their complaints unnecessarily.

Woe is the RIAA. If the awards for unauthorized sharing of a $1 song that might help promote their artists and help them make more money (if only the RIAA were to adapt to a changing market place) might "only" be 2,250 times the market price of the song? Cry me a river. And, even more ridiculous is the claim that this is some undue burden on the RIAA that it might have to actually sue over all of the songs someone distributed in an unauthorized manner, rather than just selecting a handful as it does now. This is a major issue. Technically, the RIAA has been able to just pick a couple dozen songs and sue over those, knowing that the totally disproportionate statutory damages will "cover" the rest. But does that seem right to anyone? The idea that rather than proving the actual harm done by the actual distribution, the RIAA is allowed to just pick a "sampling" and without proof get back many times the price without even presenting any actual evidence of the wider damage or the wider distribution of more files?

It seems perfectly reasonable to expect the RIAA should have to actually include what they claim was infringed, rather than being able to just pick a handful, knowing that the totally out of proportion statutory damages will "cover" the rest.

In fact, the paragraph above is effectively the RIAA admitting that it knows the statutory damages are out of proportion, but it believes it's fair because the RIAA is too cheap and too lazy to actually sue people for what it claims they infringed on.

Talk about a sense of entitlement.

Still, as we've said for a while now, this is a really bad case all around. It's pretty clear that Thomas-Rassett was involved in widespread infringement, and then lied about it. If people are going to challenge ridiculous statutory rates and other aspects of copyright law, this is really bad case to do that (ditto for the Tenenbaum case). This is one where it seems like she really might have been better off settling early and moving on. And the oddity of the judge reducing the jury award just makes this whole case into something of a circus...

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Mike Una points out the action-packed tape deck manipulations of French musician/bender Alexis Malbert, better known as Tapetronic. Very cool to see the focus of hacking turn a bit more toward the cassette itself, rather than just the playback mechanism. More over at GetLoFi.

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msimm writes "I'm currently looking for a document management system for personal and research-related use. Having looked at Alfresco and KnowledgeTree along with a slew of similar open source document management systems they seem to have a common set of features including version control, archiving, document permission/ownership and search/indexing. What I'd like, in order to help me manage my own continually growing collection of pdf/doc/odf/rtf/txt files, would be something that allowed me to view and annotate documents (and possibly collaborate/share notes) without requiring me to download, edit and re-upload each document. Obviously there are plenty of capable document management systems out there, so I really suspect I've simply missed something and am hoping someone can point me to a better way to index, search, collaborate and keep and share notes on the ever increasing glut of useful information I seem to use and collect."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Pet Acoustics' "My Pet Speaker" purports to entertain animals by transforming your music into sounds they enjoy. It is recommended for dogs, cats, and horses. My suspicion is that this $250 item's only verifiable success is turning the press release cliché "unleashed" into a pun. [Pet Acoustics]

Introduce a Girl to Engineering Day (February 18th) carries a special importance. Somehow, we're failing our girls when it comes to engineering. A recent study showed that while women earned 58% of all bachelor's degrees, only 21% of engineering bachelor's were awarded to women. Furthermore, women make up only 26% of the science and math workforce. What can we do? We asked Dr. AnnMarie Thomas, a professor of engineering at the University of St. Thomas, to give her thoughts.

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The British Medical Research Council funded a large study on causes of cardiovascular disease that concluded that, after smoking, low IQ is the largest predictor of cardiovascular disease:

The findings, published in the February issue of the European Journal of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation, are derived from the West of Scotland Twenty-07 Study, a population study designed to investigate the influence of social factors on health. The present analysis was based on data collected in 1987 in a cohort of 1145 men and women aged around 55 and followed up for 20 years. Data were collected for height, weight, blood pressure, smoking habits, physical activity, education and occupation; cognitive ability (IQ) was assessed using a standard test of general intelligence...

The investigators note "a number of plausible mechanisms" whereby lower IQ scores could elevate cardiovascular disease risk, notably the application of intelligence to healthy behaviour (such as smoking or exercise) and its correlates (obesity, blood pressure). A further possibility, they add, "is that IQ denotes 'a record' of environmental insults" (eg, illness, sub-optimal nutrition) accumulated throughout life.

Low IQ Among Strongest Predictors of Cardiovascular Disease -- Second Only to Cigarette Smoking in Large Population Study

(Image: Left ventricular aneurysm, apical four-chamber echocardiography view, Patrick J. Lynch/Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution License)

Summit Entertainment, the studio behind the massively successful Twilight series of films, is suing another company that made a documentary. Apparently the Twilight books and movies take place in the town of Forks, Washington. In this case, a company called Heckelsville Media wanted to make a documentary about how the books and movies impacted Forks. It pitched the documentary to a few companies, including Summit Entertainment, who agreed to release the documentary in conjunction with the most recent film's DVD release. But one of the other companies that Heckelsville pitched liked the idea so much that it produced its own documentary on the same subject, which it's releasing a few days earlier.

So, the question is whether or not this is legal. It seems pretty bizarre to suggest that only Summit could ever make a documentary about the impact a book and movie had on a town. Summit, who has a history of being ridiculously over-aggressive in trying to stop anyone from doing anything Twilight related, is claiming both trademark and copyright infringement (among a few other things). There may be an argument for trademark infringement, though it seems like a weak one, since this movie is about Twilight, not a competitor to Twilight. If it's considered trademark infringement to make a documentary about a trademarked brand, then you could never make a whole bunch of documentaries. For example, can you imagine if GM had tried to stop Michael Moore's Roger & Me by claiming trademark infringement?

As for the copyright claim, again, that seems rather weak, as it seems to focus on still images. There may be an issue with the unauthorized documentary makers originally using a cover that was similar to the original cover pitched by Heckelsville, but even then, the makers of the unauthorized documentary have already agreed to change the cover to make it different.

All in all, it seems like Summit is overreacting. If, as it claims, this other documentary was put together in a rush and isn't very good, then why not compete in the marketplace to see which documentary people prefer?

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What happens to the blood you leave at the doctor's office? The little plastic cups full of urine? That mole you had removed that one time?

All those samples get tested, of course. But what then? The trash? Not always, writes Rebecca Skloot, in her new book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. Sometimes, they end up in storage. In fact, according to Skloot, every one of us probably has some biological material on file somewhere. The samples are kept for research, on the off chance that a part of you might someday be interesting to science. You'll likely never know for sure, though, because nobody is under any obligation to tell you about it.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is a book about the imbalance between the needs of medical science and the individual impacts of medical ethics (or the lack thereof). At its heart is the story of a woman—whose fatal cancer led to some of the major scientific breakthroughs of the 20th century—and the family who suffered through her death, then found out 30 years later about her afterlife in a petri dish.

Henrietta Lacks was a black woman, born on land left to her ancestors by the former slave owners who'd fathered them. She married, moved to Baltimore, had five children. When she was 31, Henrietta died, the victim of a frighteningly fast-moving cervical cancer. That was 1951.

But not all of Henrietta had been laid to rest. Cancer cells, taken before and after her death by doctors at Johns Hopkins, had become the first human cells to grow and thrive in the lab, living and multiplying indefinitely in test tubes around the world. Known as the HeLa cell line, little parts of Henrietta Lacks helped develop the polio vaccine, chemotherapy, in vitro fertilization and more.

It might be a story of human triumph, except that nobody got Henrietta's permission to use those cells for research. No one told her family about the samples. In fact, the Lacks' only learned about Henrietta's immortal life in 1973, from a chance conversation with a friend who worked at the National Cancer Institute.

"Henrietta Lacks is your mother-in-law?" he asked, suddenly excited. "Did she die of cervical cancer?"
Bobette stopped smiling and snapped, "How'd you know that?"

"Those cells in my lab have to be hers," he said. "They're from a black woman named Henrietta Lacks who died of cervical cancer at Hopkins in the fifties."

"What?!" Bobbette yelled, jumping up from her chair. "What you mean you got her cells in your lab?"

He held his hands up, like Whoa, wait a minute. "I ordered them from a supplier just like everybody else."

"What do you mean, 'everybody else'?!" Bobbette snapped. "What supplier? Who's got cells from my mother-in-law?"

That clash permeates the whole of Skloot's book. Time and time again we meet excited, grateful, clueless scientists who are thrilled and inspired by the research HeLa cells made possible, and don't understand why the same history makes the Lacks family furious. Over the years, scientists and researchers flitted in and out of the Lacks' life, taking blood samples, congratulating them on being related to such important cells, but never explaining what had happened to Henrietta the person, what implications her death had for her children's health, or what, beyond buzzwords and jargon, was currently happening to Henrietta's cells. And, despite the profits made off direct HeLa sales and indirect HeLa research, nobody has ever offered the Lacks' a cut. The children of the woman behind some of the greatest advances in medical science can't afford health care.

Skloot's book tells the story of HeLa as the story of Henrietta and the Lacks family, especially Henrietta's daughter Deborah, who was only a toddler when Henrietta died. For Deborah, understanding HeLa was about finding a connection to the mother she never knew. It's a unique perspective on scientific history. In fact, the story of HeLa cells has been told before, but by writers who mostly ignored the Lacks family—focusing instead on the brave and bold scientists—or just talked about their victimization. By letting the Lacks' be people, and by putting them in the center of the history, Skloot turns just another tale about the march of progress into a complicated portrait of the interaction between science and human lives.

Ultimately, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks forces us to ask what we're willing to sacrifice for the greater good. Are lifesaving medical breakthroughs worth it if we can only get them—as researchers have successfully argued in court—by studying tissues taken from patients who aren't told how their cells are being used and aren't included in the patents or profits made on those cells? There's no easy answer. But facing the story of the Lacks family puts us in a much better position to move beyond either/or false dichotomies and start creating a new laws that make medicine more fair.

You can show your appreciation for the ways HeLa cells have improved public health by donating to the Henrietta Lacks Foundation. Founded by author Rebecca Skloot, the Foundation is raising money for scholarships for Henrietta Lacks' descendants, and to help cover the cost of health care for her family. The Foundation gives "those who have benefited from HeLa cells—including scientists, universities, corporations, and the general public—a way to show thanks to Henrietta and her family."

Disclosure: This review was based on a press copy of the book, which I received for free from Crown Publishing.

Image of stained HeLa cells courtesy GE Healthcare (by way of Henrietta Lacks) via CC

YouTube's selected Xeni as Curator of the Month! She'll be picking interesting new videos (including some we've featured here) and some all-time-greats for inclusion on YouTube's front door for the rest of the day. From its official blog:

We're pleased to have Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing curate our homepage today. She goes deep into the Boing Boing archives to give you her personal take on the interesting, funny and sometimes out-there videos that thrive on Boing Boing and YouTube. Below is a video she made just for the occasion, as well as some insightful notes about her selections. To view the full playlist, click here.

Don't miss our channel at YouTube, BoingBoingVideo, too! Curator of the Month: Boing Boing Video [YouTube's blogspot] Guest Editor Channel [YouTube]

harmonise writes "Version 3.2 of the OpenOffice.org office suite is now available. This marks the tenth anniversary year of the office suite, with over three hundred million downloads recorded in total. The new features include faster start up times; improved compatibility with open standard (ODF) and proprietary file formats; improvements to all components, particularly the Calc spreadsheet, with over a dozen new or enhanced features; and the Chart module (usable throughout OpenOffice.org) has had a usability makeover as well as offering new chart types."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instructables user wramey writes:

This cheap and easy addition to our dining room chairs prevents kids legs from dangling uncomfortably. It won't get all their wiggles out, but it will help them sit more comfortably... and now that our kids can sit more comfortably facing the table, they get less food in their laps and on the floor and we all enjoy meals more.

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An anonymous reader writes "An article at CNET is reporting on the Obama administration's push for warrantless tracking of the location of cell phones (Verizon Wireless stores location data for one year, for instance). The Justice Department says no warrant is necessary: 'Because wireless carriers regularly generate and retain the records at issue, and because these records provide only a very general indication of a user's whereabouts at certain times in the past, the requested cell-site records do not implicate a Fourth Amendment privacy interest.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A MAC cosmetics shoot recreated Roy Lichtenstein's halftone-dot comic-girl to very good effect.

The Real life Lichtenstein-Comic-Girl (Thanks, Patrick!)

(via Pink Tentacle)

Slashdot points us to the news that South Carolina has a new law requiring every member "subversive groups" to register with the government or face up to $25,000 in fines and a ten year prison sentence. Seriously:

"every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State."

Oh, and it will cost you $5 to let the state government know you're a terrorist wannabe.

Now, of course, it's already illegal to plot against the US government, so this law doesn't add anything, other than something else to throw at anyone arrested for being "subversive." Prosecutors can also point out that they "failed to register."

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Alan wrote in to tell us about Open Chord, an open hardware conversion kit that lets you play Rock Band and similar games using a real guitar. We've seen no shortage of DIY rock band guitar mods, however his uses the actual strings on the guitar, rather than adding extra buttons for each note. I'm not a guitarist, however it seems like this could be a fun way to practice fingerings. You could hook it up to an advanced version of Frets on Fire, and you have yourself a Mavis-Beacon style guitar tutor, or even convert it to output MIDI, and use it to play your favorite synth.

More:

• Another real Guitar Hero
• HOW TO - Make a DIY PS2 Guitar Hero controller
• Ultimate Guitar Hero mod
• Frets On Fire - free Guitar Hero-like game your play with a keyboard

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Lauren Weinstein sends in news of a major and disturbing Microsoft anti-piracy initiative called Windows Activation Technologies, or WAT. Here is Microsoft's blog post giving their perspective on what WAT is for. From Lauren's blog: "The release of Windows 7 'Update for Microsoft Windows (KB71033)' will change the current activation and anti-piracy behavior of Windows 7 by triggering automatic 'phone home' operations over the Internet to Microsoft servers, typically for now at intervals of around 90 days. ... These automatic queries will repeatedly — apparently for as long as Windows is installed — validate your Windows 7 system against Microsoft's latest database of pirated system signatures (currently including more than 70 activation exploits known to Microsoft). If your system matches — again even if up to that time (which could be months or even years since you obtained the system) it had been declared to be genuine — then your system will be 'downgraded' to 'non-genuine' status until you take steps to obtain what Microsoft considers to be an authentic, validated, Windows 7 license. ... KB71033... is scheduled to deploy to the manual downloading 'Genuine Microsoft Software' site on February 16, and start pushing out automatically through the Windows Update environment on February 23. ... [F]or Microsoft to assert that they have the right to treat ordinary PC-using consumers in this manner — declaring their systems to be non-genuine and downgrading them at any time — is rather staggering."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The great fashion designer Alexander McQueen has died.

To celebrate Valentine's Day, NPR's All Songs Considered is featuring a bunch of breakup songs. My favorite breakup song is Take a Bow by Rihanna, what's yours?

YouTube's selected Xeni as Curator of the Month! She'll be picking interesting new videos (including some we've featured here) and some all-time-greats for inclusion on YouTube's front door for the rest of the day. From its official blog:

We're pleased to have Xeni Jardin of Boing Boing curate our homepage today. She goes deep into the Boing Boing archives to give you her personal take on the interesting, funny and sometimes out-there videos that thrive on Boing Boing and YouTube. Below is a video she made just for the occasion, as well as some insightful notes about her selections. To view the full playlist, click here.

Don't miss our channel at YouTube, BoingBoingVideo, too! Curator of the Month: Boing Boing Video [YouTube's blogspot] Guest Editor Channel [YouTube]

A Russian firm is selling a system of ship-mountable auto-targeting water-pumping robots with the dual purpose of fighting fires and repelling pirates. BotJunkie's Evan Ackerman explains:

The robotic water cannons (six on each side of the ship) are controlled by a central computer, using TV cameras to target pirates approaching the ship. The robots shoot streams of water at 40 liters per second out to a range of 70 meters, and can wash away potential boarders and even sink small boats. This is a defensive technique that is already used against pirates, but having robots do the shooting helps keep the people who would otherwise be wielding the fire hoses safe.

My biggest concern with this system would be that the pirates could use their Electro-Bolt plasmids to temporarily short out the automated turrets, then hack them to turn against their masters. I mean, just looking at them, it's pretty clear these things are based on Rapture-style hydro-tube technology.

[via BotJunkie]

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coondoggie writes "NASA this morning used a United Launch Alliance Atlas rocket to blast its 6,800lb Solar Dynamics Observatory into an orbit 22,300 miles above Earth. The $808 million spacecraft will ultimately study the Sun and send back what NASA called a prodigious rush of pictures about sunspots, solar flares and a variety of other never-before-seen solar events. The idea is to get a better idea of how the Sun works and let scientists better forecast the space weather to offer earlier warnings to protect astronauts and satellites, NASA said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Copycense points us to a story from Florida involving a high school that quite clearly copied the logo of the Dodge Ram for the school mascot: After someone alerted Chrysler, the lawyers got involved, and the school is now in the process of changing its logo and removing it from everything (including the gym floor). My first though was wondering whether or not this was "use in commerce," which is required for trademark infringement. I think a lawyer could make an argument that a school's usage isn't use in commerce -- but perhaps that's undermined by the logo appearing on school clothing (though, it's not clear that the clothes are for sale, or just what the sports teams get). However, I do wonder if the Dodge logo trademark covers use on gymnasium floors and clothing...

But, honestly, the bigger issue is why the hell would Chrysler be upset about this? At worst it's getting a ton of free advertising from this school, with many students having a feeling of affinity for the logo, which could potentially increase their interest in buying a Dodge in the future. Car companies spend lots of money on sponsorship to get their logos seen by lots of people. And here's a school that's done that entirely for free... and Chrysler sends in the lawyers?

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Copycense points us to a story from Florida involving a high school that quite clearly copied the logo of the Dodge Ram for the school mascot: After someone alerted Chrysler, the lawyers got involved, and the school is now in the process of changing its logo and removing it from everything (including the gym floor). My first though was wondering whether or not this was "use in commerce," which is required for trademark infringement. I think a lawyer could make an argument that a school's usage isn't use in commerce -- but perhaps that's undermined by the logo appearing on school clothing (though, it's not clear that the clothes are for sale, or just what the sports teams get). However, I do wonder if the Dodge logo trademark covers use on gymnasium floors and clothing...

But, honestly, the bigger issue is why the hell would Chrysler be upset about this? At worst it's getting a ton of free advertising from this school, with many students having a feeling of affinity for the logo, which could potentially increase their interest in buying a Dodge in the future. Car companies spend lots of money on sponsorship to get their logos seen by lots of people. And here's a school that's done that entirely for free... and Chrysler sends in the lawyers?

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This is a great essay by Doc Searls. Read it.

Eventually advertising will evolve into information, companies with products will go direct, they won't need pay Google to reach them.

When that happens who will pay for the millions of Google servers and the electricity and cooling they consume?

(via Sociological Images)

djBC sez, "For Valentine's Day. Ska/Punk brats Big D and The Kids Table grow up and invent 'Stroll Music,' a fusion of classic R&B, ska, reggae, jazz, and rock. This tune reminds me of the best things about 'Exile On Main Street' - it's a paean to the healing power of travel, adventure and instant relocation. The video was made on a shoestring budget (the flashing lights outside were controlled by kids flicking light switches in time with the music), but they was somehow able to wrangle an airplane, and much of it was shot in the same building as Saw 2 (!). Favorite quote: 'You're much happier when you sing / about how much you dig everything.'"

BIG D & THE KIDS TABLE - We Can Live Anywhere (Thanks, djBC!)

FrankPoole writes "CRN takes a look at the past five years of Microsoft's acquisition history, which totals $13 billion and more than 7,000 new employees, and highlights 10 deals and how they've affected the software giant. While some larger acquisitions stand out for better or worse, such as Danger and aQuantive, there are some smaller, blink-and-you'll-miss-it deals that have proved pivotal for Microsoft's push into new areas such as virtualization. And Microsoft's recent acquisition track record may lend credence to the heavy criticism levied against the company by former employees like Dick Brass."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

These are concept shots of a hearing aid based out of a gauged ear piercing plug. From Core77:

The Deafinite Style is a concept from Munich-based Designaffairs STUDIO that turns a hearing aid into a piece of jewelry, provided you're up for a bit of lobe stretching to get started. The main advantage they propose (aside from an instant hipster-grunge-punk look) is the opportunity to embed the TriMic System -- a highly effective directional microphone system made from 3 individual microphones -- into the plug, helping people who suffer from severe hearing loss.

What do you think? Is this a practical solution for aging lobe-stretchers? One more image after the jump.

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superapecommando writes "Security industry analysts and lawmakers will get an unprecedented chance next week to evaluate how the government might respond to a hack attack on critical infrastructure targets. The Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC), a Washington-based non-profit established in 2007 by several lawmakers, will host a simulated nation-wide cyber-attack next Tuesday for a group of former administration and national security officials, who will be playing the roles of Cabinet members."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kyle sent over yet another musician, named Nathan Harden, pulling out the "woe is me" schtick in an article claiming that this generation "killed rock 'n' roll." It hits on all the usual debunked points and only quotes industry sources on the major label side of the business, assumes that the only way to make money in the music business is by selling albums or songs, and doesn't even realize what a huge contradiction it makes in the process. It starts out by quoting record sales stats, but ignoring all of the recent studies that show that money hasn't gone away, it's just shifted to other channels -- and those channels are ones where the actual artists get more money. It's true that the major record labels are making less -- no one denies that. But it's folly to claim that this means the death of rock 'n' roll or music at all. Another recent study showed more music being released today than ever before in history. That doesn't sound like a dying industry at all. In fact, this guy effectively admits that when he complains:

On my own MySpace page, I can upload my own band's music to the web in a matter of minutes, and sell it to anyone in the world with an internet connection. Theoretically, it has never been easier to be heard. Yet hundreds of thousands of other musicians are competing for attention online.

But wait... just before that you were claiming that rock 'n' roll was dead. And yet here you are admitting that there are so many other musicians putting up their music as well? The two things do not compute.

As far as I can tell, Harden's real complaint isn't that rock 'n' roll is dying, but that a major label won't just turn him into a rockstar. Instead, he might have to actually do some work to build up a fan base, and that's icky:

Without support from a record label, musicians must master the intricacies of search engine optimization, social networking, email blasts, and twittering -- not to mention traditional tasks like booking shows. Not surprisingly, many musicians lack such skills.

This has been discussed at length, with musicians who do that stuff pointing out that it's not that much work at all, and if it's really a problem, you work with someone (the "5th Beatle") who does it for you.

Can you, even for a moment, imagine Janis Joplin pouring over HTML manuals, or Jimi Hendrix spending hours each day spamming potential fans on MySpace? Not likely. Had those two tried to make it in today's marketplace, we may never have even heard of them.

Can you, even for a moment, imagine Jonathan Coulton going the major label route or Matthew Ebel getting a six figure advance from a major label? Not likely. Had those two tried to make it in yesterday's marketplace, we may never have even heard of them.

The fact that more musicians are making music today and being able to release it and make a living from it than ever before suggests that things are actually looking much better, and we're far from "the death of rock 'n' roll," but reaching an incredible age of creativity, where people who had no chance at all before are now able to make music and make a living.

And furthermore, it's ridiculous to suggest that artists like Hendrix and Joplin didn't work hard to build their fanbase with what tools were available at the time.

In other words, it may not hurt Beyonce or AC/DC if you download their music. They are, after all, astonishingly wealthy. But it does hurt the record labels, which, in turn, cannot afford to sign, develop and promote as many new artists. Consequently, our music is becoming less diverse. In the long run, music lovers themselves are deprived.

I'm not sure what music Harden's been listening to lately, but I've actually found music to be a lot more diverse these days, because it's possible for bands to experiment and try different styles, and reach a worldwide audience. I've been listening to a reggae band from Spain the past few days. A few years ago, I never would have known they existed.

Sorry, Nathan Harden, but you've been sold the myth that only record labels make the music industry and that only through selling records does the music industry work. That's simply not true. Yes, the record labels are having trouble, but rock 'n' roll isn't dying. It's thriving by adapting to this new market.

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Kyle sent over yet another musician, named Nathan Harden, pulling out the "woe is me" schtick in an article claiming that this generation "killed rock 'n' roll." It hits on all the usual debunked points and only quotes industry sources on the major label side of the business, assumes that the only way to make money in the music business is by selling albums or songs, and doesn't even realize what a huge contradiction it makes in the process. It starts out by quoting record sales stats, but ignoring all of the recent studies that show that money hasn't gone away, it's just shifted to other channels -- and those channels are ones where the actual artists get more money. It's true that the major record labels are making less -- no one denies that. But it's folly to claim that this means the death of rock 'n' roll or music at all. Another recent study showed more music being released today than ever before in history. That doesn't sound like a dying industry at all. In fact, this guy effectively admits that when he complains:

On my own MySpace page, I can upload my own band's music to the web in a matter of minutes, and sell it to anyone in the world with an internet connection. Theoretically, it has never been easier to be heard. Yet hundreds of thousands of other musicians are competing for attention online.

But wait... just before that you were claiming that rock 'n' roll was dead. And yet here you are admitting that there are so many other musicians putting up their music as well? The two things do not compute.

As far as I can tell, Harden's real complaint isn't that rock 'n' roll is dying, but that a major label won't just turn him into a rockstar. Instead, he might have to actually do some work to build up a fan base, and that's icky:

Without support from a record label, musicians must master the intricacies of search engine optimization, social networking, email blasts, and twittering -- not to mention traditional tasks like booking shows. Not surprisingly, many musicians lack such skills.

This has been discussed at length, with musicians who do that stuff pointing out that it's not that much work at all, and if it's really a problem, you work with someone (the "5th Beatle") who does it for you.

Can you, even for a moment, imagine Janis Joplin pouring over HTML manuals, or Jimi Hendrix spending hours each day spamming potential fans on MySpace? Not likely. Had those two tried to make it in today's marketplace, we may never have even heard of them.

Can you, even for a moment, imagine Jonathan Coulton going the major label route or Matthew Ebel getting a six figure advance from a major label? Not likely. Had those two tried to make it in yesterday's marketplace, we may never have even heard of them.

The fact that more musicians are making music today and being able to release it and make a living from it than ever before suggests that things are actually looking much better, and we're far from "the death of rock 'n' roll," but reaching an incredible age of creativity, where people who had no chance at all before are now able to make music and make a living.

And furthermore, it's ridiculous to suggest that artists like Hendrix and Joplin didn't work hard to build their fanbase with what tools were available at the time.

In other words, it may not hurt Beyonce or AC/DC if you download their music. They are, after all, astonishingly wealthy. But it does hurt the record labels, which, in turn, cannot afford to sign, develop and promote as many new artists. Consequently, our music is becoming less diverse. In the long run, music lovers themselves are deprived.

I'm not sure what music Harden's been listening to lately, but I've actually found music to be a lot more diverse these days, because it's possible for bands to experiment and try different styles, and reach a worldwide audience. I've been listening to a reggae band from Spain the past few days. A few years ago, I never would have known they existed.

Sorry, Nathan Harden, but you've been sold the myth that only record labels make the music industry and that only through selling records does the music industry work. That's simply not true. Yes, the record labels are having trouble, but rock 'n' roll isn't dying. It's thriving by adapting to this new market.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Xiroth writes "Google has rejected overtures from the Australian government to censor YouTube clips that had been given a RC rating by Australian classification authority, the OFLC. According to a Google spokesperson: 'YouTube has clear policies about what content is not allowed, for example hate speech and pornography, and we enforce these, but we can't give any assurances that we would voluntarily remove all Refused Classification content from YouTube," Iarla Flynn said. "The scope of RC is simply too broad and can raise genuine questions about restrictions on access to information. RC includes the grey realms of material instructing in any crime from [painting] graffiti to politically controversial crimes such as euthanasia, and exposing these topics to public debate is vital for democracy.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mrxak writes "It's official; Activision Blizzard's much-anticipated sequel to 12-year-old StarCraft is going to enter closed beta 'this month,' according to company President Mike Morhaime during an investor conference call. This comes in the wake of the SC2 beta forums showing up briefly on Battle.net. If you've got a Battle.net account, it's probably not too late to opt-in for upcoming Blizzard beta tests."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Twin Cities Maker is going to have a Mini Maker Faire at the Hack Factory on February 13th, 2010! Come one, come all! We're planning to have the fun start at 2 PM with local makers exhibiting and playing in the newly acquired space. We will also have an Art Show and Party later that night for people to come and experience the space and have some refreshments.

The lineup of makers includes a demonstration by Bill Gurstelle, the music of Tim Kaiser, air cannons, replica movie props, an arduino demonstration, a display by the local Tripoli rocketry club, art cars, a life-sized Operation Game as well as flamethrowers and pulse jets by local engineering firm CazTek.

Interested in attending? The Hack Factory's address is 3119 E 26th St Minneapolis, MN 55406.

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The British Scam Detective site conducted a three-part interview with a self-identified reformed Nigerian 419 scammer, who described how the scams work. Scam Detective has a disclaimer on these posts to the effect that the facts can't be verified, so take them for what they're worth -- it's still fascinating reading.

Scam-Detective: How did you get involved in scamming people on the Internet?

John: I come from a poor family in Lagos, Nigeria. We did not have very much money and good jobs are hard to find. I was approached to work for a gang master when I was 15, because I had done well in school with my English, and was getting to be good with computers. The gang master was offering good money and I took the chance to help my family.

Scam-Detective: Do you think that your teachers at school had reported your talents to the gang master?

John: Yes. There is a lot of corruption in Nigeria and the gangs pay well to find people with good English skills to work the scams...

John: First you need to understand how the gangs work. At the bottom are the "foot soldiers", kids who spend all of their time online to find email addresses and send out the first emails to get people interested. When they receive a reply, the victim is passed up the chain, to someone who has better English to get copies of ID from them like copies of their passport and driving licenses and build up trust. Then when they are ready to ask for money, they are passed further up again to someone who will pretend to be a barrister or shipping agent who will tell the victim that they need to pay charges or even a bribe to get the big cash amount out of the country. When they pay up, the gang master will collect the money from the Western Union office, using fake ID that they have taken from other scam victims.

Interview with a scammer: Part one, Part two, Part three

(via Schneier)

(Image: The scam truck, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from jepoirrier's photostream)

eldavojohn writes "Mozilla has admitted to wrongly accusing Sothink of distributing a video downloader with a trojan virus as a Firefox addon. From their official blog: 'We've worked with security experts and add-on developers to determine that the suspected trojan in Version 4.0 of Sothink Video Downloader was a false positive and the extension does not include malware.' Before you go download that addon, however, keep in mind that Sothink has come under fire before for GPL violations and dishonesty."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

One of the downsides of the modern movement to include trademark law under the same "intellectual property" umbrella as copyright and trademark law, is that you get people who think that trademark grants the same sort of overreaching monopoly rights that copyright and patent law do. But trademark law is really quite different -- it's designed as something of a consumer protection law, meant only to prevent confusing uses of the trademark in a way that would imply a product is made or endorsed by someone else. But since people still think of trademarks like copyrights and patents, they often conclude that they can try to stop people who aren't violating the trademark at all.

Reader Reverand Dak alerts us to the news that Lone Wolf Development, a video game developer (who, we're told, has no relationship with Lone Wolf Roleplaying Games nor with Lone Wolf & Club manga), received a trademark on the term Army Builder in connection with a game that they created under that name. No problems there. But apparently Lone Wolf has been sending out cease-and-desists to websites that have nothing to do with Lone Wolf's Army Builder, and demanding that the phrase be blocked in forums on totally different subjects. Yes, they're saying that no one can use the term in conversation:

There are two things that need to be done. First of all, improper references to the Army Builder trademark on the forums must be addressed. This can be achieved in either of two ways, or potentially a combination of both, at your discretion. The first option would be to remove such posts. Since this could appear harsh and potentially disrupt forum discussions, an acceptable alternative would be to revise such posts to utilize a generic term (e.g. "roster construction tool", "list createor", or "points calculator") in place of the "Army Builder" name.

The second thing that needs to be addressed is that your forum users must be educated about the term Army Builder being a trademark and only applicable to our brand of products. This is necessary to avoid an ongoing problem and mitigate the future need for removal of improper posts. I'm sure you would also prefer that the forums continue to run smoothly and without interruption, so your assistance in getting forum users to utilize appropriate terms will benefit us all.

Or, you know, instead of educating all forum users around the world that they can no longer use the term "Army Builder" in conversation, how about we just educate the folks at Lone Wolf Development on the limits of trademark law and why it almost certainly does not apply to random forum users using the term in a way totally unrelated to Lone Wolf Development's mark.

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There's plenty of bad found-object and "junk" sculpture in the world. I know because I made most of it myself. But Jud Turner, whose skeletal "Bio-Cycle" made some waves when we posted about it last year, does it right. He's recently posted a bunch of new work to his website, e.g. the awesome mecha-trilobite shown above.

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bowman9991 writes "Can George Lucas' new Star Wars TV series, the first Star Wars spin off with real actors, atone for the flawed follow-ups to his original classics? Producer Rick McCallum calls the new series "much darker," a "much more character-based series" and "more adult," while George Lucas himself calls it more like the first Star Wars film. The new TV show takes place in the "dark times" between the last prequel Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope, when most of the Jedi and anti-emperor politicians were hunted down and killed. The characters of Boba Fett, C-3PO, and the Emperor Palpatine will return, and casting has now begun. Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker from the original movies, believes George Lucas lost his way, "making it bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger until you're just exploding with special effects all over the screen like some fireworks display," but thinks the new show is a "positive" step forward. Hopefully George Lucas can wipe the memory of Jar Jar Binks, Anakin and Padme's romance, his shameless merchandising, and some lame attempts at humor from everyone's minds once and for all."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Photos captured by a digital camera thought to have spent over a year in the Atlantic ocean have been discovered. According to the BBC, trawlerman Benito Estevez fished the camera out with five holiday pictures intact on its memory card, off the west coast of Europe. One picture includes the cruiseliner QE2, that made its last voyage in 2008, helping date the images. Although no details of the camera model or memory format is available, it reflects well on the resilience of solid-state memory.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Not satisfied with the reduced $54,000 verdict which the Judge allowed it in Capitol Records v. Thomas-Rasset, representing approximately 6500 times the amount of their actual damages, the RIAA has decided to take its chances on a third trial, at which it could only win a verdict that is equal to, or less than, $54,000. Since a 3rd trial in and of itself makes no economic sense, and since the RIAA's lawyers inappropriately added 7 pages of legal argument to their 'notice', it can only be assumed that the reason they are opting for a 3rd trial is to hope that they can somehow bait the Judge into making an error that will help them on an appeal."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

paperbag was the first of a whole bunch of you to send in the news of Blockbuster declaring bankruptcy in Portugal and claiming that it's all the fault of those darn kids and their downloading. Well, more specifically, it blames the government for not doing enough to stop the sun from rising every morning... I mean, from stopping people from engaging in unauthorized file trading online. This is just an excuse for a company that failed to execute. The number of folks accessing unauthorized movies online is still a blip, and almost certainly had little impact on Blockbuster's bottom line. The simple fact is that Blockbuster, worldwide, has done a really poor job of adapting to a changing world.

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Samsung, Canon and Panasonic have ranked second, fourth and fifth in the list of top fifty recipients of US patents in 2009. Panasonic, which makes greater use of the international patents system, topped the list of International Applications with Samsung and Canon coming in seventeenth and twenty seventh respectively. Fujifilm and Ricoh which both have interests beyond cameras also feature in the top 20 of the US list, while the smaller Nikon comes fifty-second in terms of international applications. Canon's lofty position in the US list, despite operating in fewer product areas than the two consumer electronics giants, prompted it to issue a press release highlighting its performance.

I am an extremely happy Android NexusOne phone-owner (fast! open!) but even I have to admit that Randall "XKCD" Munroe's Android bug-reports raise some real concerns about the platform:

* Sometimes, when arranging home screen icons, you feel sad and you're not sure why...

* If you stop for gas, sometimes navigation suspends, but doesn't resume when you start driving again (or just disappears without notifying you), so you miss the upcoming turn and think you're already on I-95, and by the time you discover your mistake and turn around you've lost enough time that you totally get to the conference too late to catch Richard Stallman doing his acapella Bad Romance cover which is the whole reason you paid the entry fee in the first place.

Android Bug Reports, Songs, Rovers

(Image: Bambuser for Android, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from tomsun's photostream)

Google is seemingly bent on making a clean sweep of the Pacific Rim in its new anti-censorship campaign: first it refused to go on censoring its services at the behest of the Chinese government; now it has refused the Australian government's (batshit crazy) request to censor YouTube videos that Canberra's censor board put into its "refused classification" bucket.

The minister who made the request, Stephen Conroy, apparently missed the memo on Google and China, as he cited Google's erstwhile willingness to censor on behalf of Beijing as reason enough for the company to help him censor videos about safe drug use and painting graffiti, or those that advocate euthanasia. These subjects are all prohibited by Australia's government of the day, which apparently believes Aussies to be such soft-headed sheep that they can't possibly be exposed to ideas it doesn't like, lest they be tempted into wickedness.

"Google at the moment filters an enormous amount of material on behalf of the Chinese government; they filter an enormous amount of material on behalf of the Thai government."

Google Australia's head of policy, Iarla Flynn, said the company had a bias in favour of freedom of expression in everything it did and Conroy's comparisons between how Australia and China deal with access to information were not "helpful or relevant".

Google has recently threatened to pull out of China, partly due to continuing requests for it to censor material.

"YouTube has clear policies about what content is not allowed, for example hate speech and pornography, and we enforce these, but we can't give any assurances that we would voluntarily remove all Refused Classification content from YouTube," Flynn said.

Google baulks at Conroy's call to censor YouTube (via Resource Shelf)

(Image: YouTube/Refused Classification blog)

schliz writes "The Australian Government Information Management Office says that the cost of a platform change could cost more than it saves. It was pushed to investigate open source software to reduce its AUD$500m budget at a Senate meeting yesterday. From the article: 'Agencies are obliged to consider value for money on each occasion they apply a software,' spokesperson Graham Fry said. 'If the cost of assessing it [open source] was greater than the cost of the software, you would have to think twice.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tom sends over the story of an independent filmmaker, Stevie Long, who wrote and acted in the low-budget indie film Strictly Sexual that has found tremendous success by being online where people can watch it for free. Apparently, Long had a deal with some sort of online distributor, who got the film on Hulu, and word of mouth made it the most watched film on Hulu, ever:

"I woke up one morning and found a dozen or so messages in my Facebook inbox, saying, 'Hey, I just saw this film, and it really touched me, and I love the way it talks about breakups and relationships,' " Long says. "And I just scratched my head, saying, 'Where'd you see my movie?' I had no idea what Hulu was. God bless the people who had the foresight to put it up there.... We were fortunate in that the timing of the Internet and the ability to watch movies came about at the same time. I didn't have any ego about it as an artist, I just wanted my movie to be seen."

But, of course, it's not hurting him financially either:

"I'll give it to you in these rough terms," he says. "The $100,000 film has made 10 times its money."

But... but... but... we keep having Hollywood insiders tell us in our comments that indie filmmakers who distribute online can't possibly make back enough money to cover their costs. Everything's impossible until someone does it.

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The 1902 French movie Le Voyage dans la lune provided one of most indelible science fiction images ever: the grimacing Man on the Moon with giant bullet-like space capsule in his eye. Guy Himber's excellent Lego steampunk adaptation evokes the same feel with panache. I love the barrel as the exhaust port! The sculpture won the award for 'Best Art' at the 2009 BrickCon Lego convention.

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Kirkus Review, one of the major sources of book-reviews for libraries and the publishing trade, has been rescued from bankruptcy by an unlikely white knight: it is now property of Indiana Pacers owner Herb Simon. (via Resource Shelf)

Lanxon writes "British criminals should soon prepare to be shot at from unmanned airborne police robots. Last month it was revealed that modified military aircraft drones will carry out surveillance on everyone from British protesters and antisocial motorists to fly-tippers. But these drones could be armed with tasers, non-lethal projectiles and ultra-powerful disorienting strobe lighting apparatus, reports Wired. The flying robot fleet will range from miniature tactical craft such as the miniature AirRobot being tested by one police force, to BAE System's new 12m-wide armed HERTI drone as flown in Afghanistan."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

John Park says: "Some woman had an old Nintendo and a few random games for sale. Turns out one of them was a super rare collectors dream game, so it went for around $13,000!"

Up for auction is an original Nintendo NES gaming system with 1 hand control.  There are 5 games with it. They are, Family & Fitness Stadium Events in the original box with the dust jacket inside of the box, Major League Baseball in the original box with the dust jacket inside of the box, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2 the arcade game in the original box with the dust jacket inside of the box, Super Mario 3 in the original box with the dust jacket inside of the box and the original game, Super Mario Bros/Duck Hunt.  I have had this stored in the closet for years for my kids to play but the way that electronics come & go and change from one year to the next they wanted all of the new hot items of their own now and now it's time to get rid of things that are no longer being used or wanted.  This system worked perfect when i stored it but somehow over the years, we have managed to misplace the AC cord & the television hook up.  I am listing this and selling without hook up but it I find them, i'll send them along with the rest at no additional charges to you. Please keep in mind though that any ac cord will work with this and the hook up from a VCR would hook it up just as well as the original cords!

Old Nintendo NES system and five games sell for $13,105 on eBay

The University of Georgia has fired Dorin Lucian Dehelean, a security analyst who was responsible for passing on RIAA copyright infringement notices to the student body, alleging that he demanded bribes from students to make the record of their supposed infractions go away.

According to UGA campus police chief Jimmy Williamson, Dehelean "offered to make the situation go away in exchange for money." He promised not to inform Judicial Programs, so the student in question would be free from any kind of disciplinary measures the University usually takes in similar cases.

The student in question didn't have any money and alerted a University employee who called in the police. The police decided to look into the case and sent over an undercover officer who went over to Dehelean, impersonating the student.

After Dehelean accepted the payment he was fired immediately and taken into custody for extortion practices. According to the campus police, Dehelean may have tried the same trick with other students, and they believe that at least one other student paid up.

UGA Security Analyst Fired For Extorting File-Sharer

Mary Robinette Kowal sez, "Neil Clarke, editor of the Hugo nominated Clarkesworld Magazine, was slain on his front lawn by a snow dalek, while his young son watched. We are deeply saddened by his loss and suggest that people living in the path of the coming Snowpocalypse beware that it is merely a cover for a Dalek invasion."

The Day the Snow Dalek Visited the Clarke House (Thanks, Mary!)

Nicholas George, a senior in Middle-Eastern Studies at Pomona College, was detained, handcuffed, and intensively questioned by the TSA while trying to catch a flight back to school from Philadelphia. The TSA guards found English-Arabic flashcards in his luggage and said that because Osama bin Laden spoke Arabic, "these cards are suspicious." The FBI was called in, and an agent called him a "fucking idiot" when he asked why he was being held. After being asked if he was a communist or a Muslim, he was released. He was not read his rights at any time.

The ACLU has taken on his case, and they're suing.

TSA supervisor: "You know who did 9/11?"

George: "Osama bin Laden."

TSA supervisor: "Do you know what language he spoke?"

George: "Arabic."

TSA supervisor: "Do you see why these cards are suspicious?"

Student Handcuffed for English-Arabic Flashcards Sues TSA, FBI (Thanks, Rob!)

The Conference Board of Canada is a respected think-tank -- or it was, until it was discovered that it had cooked its research in a report on Canadian copyright that had been funded by copyright industry bodies (they discarded the empirical research that suggested there was no problem and instead plagiarised a lobbying document produced by its sponsors and presented it as "research").

Now, the Conference Board has finally officially withdrawn its fraudulent initial report and published a new one, reversing many of its earlier recommendations. From Michael Geist:

The new report, which weighs in at 113 pages, was completed by Ruth Corbin, a Toronto-based IP expert. Corbin started from scratch, reading a broad range of materials, conducting interviews, and leading a private roundtable on the issue (I participated in the roundtable and met separately with her). While there is much to digest, the lead takeaway is to marvel at the difference between a report cribbed from lobby speaking points and one that attempts to dig into the issues in a more balanced fashion. Three examples:

First, the report puts intellectual property policy into perspective as just one portion of the innovation agenda, noting that over-protection can be lead to diminishing returns:

Furthermore, protection rights are not the only policy option for the big-picture goal of improving Canada's innovation track record. Indeed, statistical evidence demonstrates a non-linear relationship between strength of intellectual property rights and a country's record of innovation. There are diminishing returns to rights after a certain point of "strengthening" ("the more the better" loses validity at some point), and countries have other policy means of encouraging innovation. Intellectual property rights should thus not become the whipping boy of debate. They are a necessary component, but not the sole guarantor of Canada's innovation ranking and economic competitiveness. That conclusion should allow other considerations to enter the debate, such as compatibility with foreign policy, attraction of investment capital, consistency with privacy laws, business soundness, and common sense.

Conference Board of Canada Releases New IP Report, Backs Away From Prior Recommendations (Thanks, Michael!)

According to this Korean news site, shilly Koreans have figured out how to use their iPhones and other electrostatic touchscreen devices without removing their gloves: instead, they use miniature sausages, which are close enough to a human finger in composition to trick the screen into responding.

IPhone frenzy in the mini-sausages 'maekseubong' a special (via Kottke)

Back in November, a district court in Norway ruled that ISP Telenor did not have to block The Pirate Bay, since the ISP itself was not contributing to any copyright infringement. Not surprisingly, the entertainment industry appealed, but Kristian Bysheim alerts us to the news that the appeals court has upheld the lower court ruling (Google translation from the original) by dismissing the appeal from the entertainment industry. It's good to see more courts around the world recognizing that ISPs should not be responsible for propping up the entertainment industry's business model when those companies fail to innovate themselves.

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Here's my round up of highlights from the first day of the TED presentations.

One of my favorite presentations of the day was by Dr. William Li, a cancer researcher from the Angiogenesis Foundation. Angiogenesis means the growth of blood vessels. Your body usually knows how to regulate the growth of blood vessels, but sometimes there are defects in blood growing and pruning. Too little angiogenesis can lead to things like wounds that won't heal, heart attack, and other diseases. Too much angiogenesis leads to other bad things such as blindness, arthritis. It's is a common denominator of many diseases. It's also the "hallmark of every type of cancer."

In autopsies of people who died in car accidents, doctors have found microscopic cancers in 40% of woman (breast) and 40% of men (prostate). Something like 70% of older people have microcancers in their thyroid. But the cancer is harmless -- "cancer without disease." If you block angiogenesis the cancer can't grow. "It's a tipping point between harmless cancer and deadly one."

Li showed a photo of a poor dog with gnarly tumor hanging off its side. The vet gave the dog three months to live. They started antiangiogenesis drugs. In a few weeks, the tumor shrank away completely. They also cured a dolphin of mouth cancer and saw a complete remission of a deadly lip cancer on a horse.

Today there 12 different antiangiogenesis drugs available for people and dogs. They are quite effective for many cancers, but not much for liver, lung, and breast cancers. The problem with these cancers is that by the time they are detected they have progressed too far for antiangiogenesis drugs to do their work.

The good news, Li says, is that "we eat to starve cancer." Lots of foods contain naturally occuring inhibitors of angiogenesis, and many are even better than drugs for blocking angiogenesis (see image above).

Angiogenesis also plays a huge role in obesity. "Adipose tissue is highly angiogenesis-dependent." You can cycle the weight of mice by inhibiting and promoting angiogenesis. "We can't create supermodel mice -- it takes them to normal weight."

Daniel Kahneman at TED2010, Session 1, "Mindshift," Wednesday, February 10, 2010, in Long Beach, California. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson

Daniel Kahneman, the founder of behavioral-economics talked about the differences between "experience happiness" and "memory happiness." His presentation brought to mind the 1966 Philip K. Dick novelette, "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" (which was the basis for the not-so-good movie, Total Recall).

Kahneman started off by listing a number of baked-in "cognitive traps" people have that make it hard to think straight about happiness. Happiness is complex and confusing. People tend to think that having happy experiences in your life and being happy about your life are one and the same, but they are actually different. When your doctor asks you, "Does it hurt when I touch you here" she is asking your "experiencing self." When she asks, "How have you been feeling lately?" your "remembering self" answers.

Your remembering self is a "story teller. What we keep from our experiences is a story." To illustrate, Kahneman showed pain-over-time charts of two colonoscopy patients who reported the intensity of the pain they were experiencing each minute during a colonoscopy. One patient experienced severe pain for 10 minutes. The other experienced the same level of pain for 10 minutes, followed by gradually decreasing pain for an addition 10 minutes. When each patient was later asked to recall the experience, the first patient said his experience was more painful, even though he experienced less pain than the second patient. "The way that stories end matter." The first patient's pain was at its peak at the very end, so it made for a worse story.

Another example: you have great experience listening to music at a live performance. A loud screetch at the end ruins the memory of the experience.

A thought experiment: say you are about to take a vacation, but before you leave, you are told that all memory of the vacation will be wiped out as soon as you get home. Would you take the same vacation or take a different one? If you think you'd take a different one, your "experiencing self" and "remembering self" are not aligned.

Research concludes that "happiness is mainly being satisfied with being with people that we like."

Jake Shimabukuro at TED2010, Session 1, "Mindshift," Wednesday, February 10, 2010, in Long Beach, California. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson

Ukulele Virtuoso Jake Shimabukuro got a standing ovation for his performance this morning, which included a masterful instrumental arrangement of Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."

Quotes: "The ukulele is underdog of all instruments." "If everyone played ukulele, the world would be a better place." "What the world needs now is more ukulele." "Ukulele is the instrument of peace."

I interviewed Jake (and will post the interview soon) and he is extremely nice. If the uke made him that way we have an answer to all the world's problems.

Michael Shermer at TED2010, Session 1, "Mindshift," Wednesday, February 10, 2010, in Long Beach, California. Credit: TED / James Duncan Davidson

Michael Shermer showed a gadget a called the ADE651. It's a black box with an antenna. The manufacturer claims it can detect both bombs and drugs up to 1000 meters away. It sells for $40,000. The Iraqi government bought 800 of them. Shermer's friend James Randi says:

the ADE651 is a useless, quack, device which cannot perform any other function than separating naïve persons from their money. It's a fake, a scam, a swindle, and a blatant fraud. The manufacturers, distributors, vendors, advertisers, and retailers of the ADE651 device are criminals, liars, and thieves who will ignore this challenge because they know the device, the theory, the described principles of operation, and the technical descriptions given, are nonsense, lies, and fraudulent.

(Does that mean he doesn't like it?.)

Shermer is the founding publisher of Skeptic magazine, Executive Director of the Skeptics Society, and columnist for Scientific American. He talked about patternicity -- the evolved tendency for people to find patterns, even in meaningless noise, and agenticity -- the belief in souls, spirits, gods, ghosts, government conspirators, and aliens who more advanced than us, and are either coming to save us or enslave us. Even idea that the government can rescue us is a form of agenticity.

9/11 is a conspiracy (people planned the attack in secret), but truthers think it was an inside job by the Bush administration. "But we know that can't be true because it worked."

gATO sez, "Forget about the Turkish Star Wars, this is the stuff! Apparently, there's a Belarusian clone of The Big Bang Theory, called 'The Theorists,' which mimics very closely the characters and plots from the original series."

Belarus, of course, is one of the few remaining largely unreconstructed Soviet-style republics (it's also where my grandfather was born), notorious for its totalitarian hard-line government.

TBBT Belarus version OMG!!!

Video clips

(Thanks, gATO!)

It's been a very "exciting" few days here in Northern, Virginia. The DC area has been ground zero for the winter storm of the century, with back to back blizzards making this the snowiest winter on record for the Mid-Atlantic area.

The landscape around my house is... well snowpocalyptic, with giant drifts of snow overcoming fences, a totally collapsed roofed trellis in my neighbor's backyard, and a relentless wind whipping powder to white-out conditions. I have to admit, it's a little scary. I had to muscle my way through drifts against both of my front and back storm doors Wednesday morning, just to get them open. I haven't been near a grocery story since the first drubbing, but friends who have say it looks like something from a post-apocalyptic zombie film, with largely empty shelves and people running around grabbing anything edible they can gather into their arms.

If this keeps up, I might end up as one of the hungry horde anxious for food. I'm running low on supplies. I ran out of bread a few days ago (which took french toast, tuna sandwiches, and peanut butter and jelly off my menu). Last night, I'm sitting here thinking: Wait, I might be able to bake bread. I doubt I have all the ingredients, but I can check.

The available supplies were sad. I found one bag of flour that was impressively rancid, but then miraculously found another, in an airtight bag, that smelled okay (even though it was at least a year old). Then I found some yeast packets stuck to some sticky goo on the door of the fridge. Three years old. And some crystallized hunks of honey in a sad-looking plastic bear with his nose punched in. I dug out my old copy of the Tassajara Bread Book. Back in the day, in my communal youth, I knew the bread recipes in this book nearly by heart and did some mean baking for a hundred hungry hippies. I figured the bread would likely be a dense brick-like disaster, but it wouldn't hurt to try. I combined the flour, the yeast and warm water, the honey (after I'd dissolved it), and some oil. A bunch of kneading, rising, punching down, and more rising later, and I had high hopes for the two respectable loaves I was popping into the oven. As they baked, and I blogged, and the wind whistled around and under my sun-porch home office, the smell of the bread was indescribable. Maybe it was driven by the unusual sense of need, stuck here in my cottage on ice, or the fact that I hadn't baked bread in close to a decade (outside of a bread machine), but these loaves smelled amazing. If there's truth in wine, there's home-comfort in bread.

And as you can see from the above... crummy phonecam image, the results didn't look half bad, and tasted even better. I speak in the past tense because way too much of one loaf is already gone (I froze the other). Now I'm antsy to make something else with the limited provisions I have left. Tonight, looking through Tassajara, I realized I have everything I need to make cinnamon rolls. That'll be tomorrow night's cabin-fevered entertainment. So, grab a shovel, hop onto your snowmobile (snowboard for you, Goli) and come on over for sweet rolls! Please. It's getting really lonely here and the wind is creaking the snow-loaded roof of my house in a new and mildly unsettling way.

More:

• Did he say "cheesemakers?"
• My Dad's Bread (on CRAFT)

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ancientribe writes "The targeted attacks out of China that hit Google, Adobe, and other U.S. organizations are still ongoing and have affected many more companies than the original 20 to 30 reported. Security experts now say they are getting closer to identifying the author or authors of the malware used to breach Google and other organizations."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's certainly been a lot of "buzz" (har har) about Google Buzz, which, frankly, is a bit baffling (hence us not writing about it earlier). It looks like Google's latest attempt to be Facebook/Twitter. Sorta. That said, Nicholas Carlson found a rather scary privacy flaw in the way it's set up. In order to jumpstart things, Google automatically sets you up with followers based on people you frequently communicate with via Gmail or Gtalk. And that info is public. As Carlson notes, especially as a reporter, keeping some of his sources private is really, really important. And Google just revealed them to the world. This seems like a case of the folks at Google not thinking through the implications of this.

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I will be doing a call/chat live from Adafruit Industries "FutureCast: open-source hardware and MAKE-ing the future" Weds 2/11/2010 - Join Jerry Mchalski and me in a one hour conversation as we discuss topics such as open-source hardware, new hacker-spaces opening up, and the Fabber and Maker movements as they continue to develop in the coming years. The conversation will take place Thursday, February 11th from 11:00am to 12:00pm PST. Toll Free number: 1-800-868-1837 - International number: 1-404-920-6440 - Participant code: 548723# . We will turn on the Livestream feed as well (located here) during the call, we may do a quick tour of the Adafruit factory, we'll see if it works out :)

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Peter Sunde, whom you may know as one of the guys who created The Pirate Bay, is launching a new micropayment system called Flattr. Above, a video explaining how it works. "Many large streams will form a river."

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

Coming up this week:

Open hacking hours @Baltimore Node
Baltimore, MD
Thursday, Feb 11, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Jam session @i3Detroit
Royal Oak, MI
Friday, Feb 12, 2010, 7pm - 12am

48 Hour Hackathon @NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Friday, Feb 12, 2010 6pm - Sunday, Feb 14, 6pm

Hacker Olympics Kickoff @HackPGH
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Feb 12, 2010, 7pm - 10pm

Techno-Swap-Fest
Linthicum, MD
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 9am - 2pm

Audio Fun with Coils @NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 4pm - 6pm

Arduino Class - Session I @Alpha One Labs
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

Minne-Faire @Hack Factory
Minneapolis, MN
Saturday, Feb 13, 2pm - 11pm

Free Culture 20X0
Washington, DC
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010 - Sunday, Feb 14, 2010, 8am - 5:30pm

Public Arduino Night @ theTransistor
Provo, UT
Saturday, Feb 13, 2010, 5pm - 8pm

Start planning for:

Handmade Music Night @interacess
Toronto, Canada
Friday, Feb 19th, 2010, 10pm+

Learn to play the Didgeridoo @Pumping Station: One
Chicago, IL
Saturday, Feb 20th, 2010, 2pm - 4pm

Intro to Electronic Soldering @The Hacktory
Philadelphia, PA
Saturday, Feb 20th, 2010, 1pm - 4pm

NEMES 14th Annual Model Engineering Show
Waltham, MA
Saturday, February 20, 2010, 10am - 4pm

Using Transistors @Metrix Create Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

Pure Data Workshop 2: Interfacing with the world
Portland, OR
Sunday, Feb 21, 2010, 1pm - 5pm

Friday Night at The Crucible
Oakland, CA
Friday, Feb 26, 2010, 6:30pm - 9:30pm

Maker Faire Newcastle
Newcastle, UK
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010 - Sunday, Mar 14, 2010

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rabiddeity writes "An undergraduate at the University of Arizona has built a six legged robot from scratch. The robot, which is equipped with sensors on each foot, teaches itself to walk and orients itself via an onboard camera. A similar design might be used to explore unstable environments such as collapsed buildings or rocky landscapes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Given reports that Iran is potentially handing out death sentences to bloggers whose content the Iranian gov't dislikes, you would think that a secure and private means of communication is important for many people in that country. And apparently the Iranian government realizes this and doesn't like it. So it's decided to try to pull the plug on Gmail, and instead roll out a "national email service." Of course, that just means an email service that the government has full access to, which I'm sure doesn't fool anyone. However, it does make you wonder if Iran thinks it can possibly block all other types of email beyond just Gmail (and I'm sure plenty of folks in Iran can quickly figure out how to get around the blocks).

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This week's Flashback, from the pages of MAKE Volume 15, shows how authors Jim Moir and Ken Lange devised a camera setup to auto-trigger photos of the critters who came to visit their backyards in the dead of night. Judging from the multitude of pictures they've gathered over the years, there is no shortage of wildlife variety in their neighborhood. Check it out to build your own and see what's lurking behind your house. You can also still pick up a back issue of Volume 15, the Music issue, over in the Maker Shed.

Caught in the Act
By Jim Moir and Ken Lange

Ever wonder what's getting into your garage at night, eating your cat food in the backyard, or coming by your tent when you're camping? Now you can find out. With a digital camera, flash, and triggering mechanism, you'll be able to see exactly which critters are prowling at 3 a.m.

Although there are some challenges to overcome, we've discovered that there are plenty of solutions to develop a remote wildlife photography system that meets your needs and budget. Film cameras were used in the past, but clearly digital cameras bring this hobby to a new level by eliminating the expense, time, and effort that comes with film.

MATERIALS
Digital camera We prefer the Kodak DC-290 and discuss its benefits in this article.
Infrared (IR) detector or motion sensor
Camera flash
Power supply

What Does It Take to Do This?
Our challenge was to choose a camera system that can stay awake for long periods (most shut down after a few minutes to conserve battery power) and to rig a method for sensing the animal and triggering the shutter remotely. We also needed a flash capable of illuminating an area large enough to capture pictures of what tripped the camera. Finally, we needed power reserves big enough to run the camera, the external flash, and the animal-sensing trigger mechanism for several days.

What Camera to Use?
We evaluated the 2 typical camera types -- point-and-shoot and SLR -- to capture our wildlife images. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Point-and-shoot cameras are inexpensive but need a lot of modifications to work. SLRs have more features but can be pricey.

We chose a third path and used the Kodak DC-290. This modestly priced camera was an excellent choice, with a respectable 3.3-megapixel picture and many programmable features not available in most point-and-shoot cameras. This enabled us to make the system work without extensive hacking, and at the same time kept the total system to a reasonable cost. While this camera is no longer in production, it is regularly available on eBay for $50 to $150 (depending on condition, accessories, and demand).

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I was out in the snow today taking pics and shooting video.

Hugh Pickens writes "The Raw Story reports that terrorists who want to overthrow the United States government must now register with South Carolina's Secretary of State and declare their intentions — or face a $25,000 fine and up to 10 years in prison. The 'Subversive Activities Registration Act' passed last year in South Carolina and now officially on the books states that 'every member of a subversive organization, or an organization subject to foreign control, every foreign agent and every person who advocates, teaches, advises or practices the duty, necessity or propriety of controlling, conducting, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States ... shall register with the Secretary of State.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

You may recall that almost exactly a year ago there were all sorts of reports of music blogs using Google's Blogger service finding their blog posts silently disappearing. The issue, it turned out, was the way Google dealt with DMCA takedown notices from copyright holders. The way the DMCA is set up, in order to avoid liability, Google is put in an awkward position of having to take the content down. After the outcry a year ago, the team at Blogger spent a lot of time talking to the lawyers both internally and elsewhere (such as at the EFF) to see if they could come up with a better way to still follow the law, but avoid the mess of February '09. Back in August Google announced its revamped DMCA policy for Blogger, specifically designed to deal with this. Basically, the company tried much harder to communicate with users as to what was happening. Rather than just deleting whole blog posts, it would move them to draft mode, and then try to alert the bloggers via email and through the Blogger dashboard. This definitely seemed like a step in the right direction, but I still thought the company fell short on not having a clear counternotice procedure. Instead, it seemed to default to assuming the DMCA takedown was accurate, and moving a post to draft would be enough to get the blogger to "remove" the offending content? But what if the content wasn't actually infringing?

Either way, unfortunately, it looks like the new policy isn't working. Today, the stories started popping up again, claiming that music blogs were being deleted, leading to something of a Twitter frenzy. Certainly, it appears that some blogs had their content removed despite having permission from the record labels to post the content. But it also appears that some of the frenzy involves people finding the news stories from a year ago and not realizing we're in 2010 now. For example, this blog post at Nashville Scene points to a year old story as if it's new.

And, in fact, from what's being talked about from the blogs that did have their content removed, it sounds like the newer system (unlike the old system) did alert them to what was happening, but they just felt hopeless to respond. Google has put up a response, basically saying that if it doesn't receive a counternotice, and it keeps getting DMCA takedowns on the same account, eventually it takes the blog down as a "repeat offender." So we're back to the point that I predicted in August, where your average everyday blogger has no idea what a DMCA counternotice is and how to use it -- so it would be much better if Google made the process of filing such a counternotice a lot more intuitive.

In the end, though, there are two real issues here. First, is the ridiculous "left hand doesn't know what the right hand is doing" aspect of record label lawyers sending out DMCA takedowns for content that its marketing department sent to the blogs on purpose. But second, and much more important, is the ridiculousness of the DMCA's notice-and-takedown provisions in its safe harbors. It's a "guilty until you're innocent" type of measure. It effectively forces Google into a position where it needs to take down the content, until a blogger goes through the confusing process of filing a counternotice. It makes no sense, at all, why we don't improve the process to allow for a notice-and-notice system, whereby the blogger is allowed to respond to the copyright holder before any content is removed. That seems like common sense. On top of that, while the DMCA is a little vague on this topic, it does in some ways suggest that service providers must do more to prevent repeat offenders -- which is part of the reason why Google most likely shuts down those "repeat offenders." Again, it seems like Google should be a lot more communicative with blogs it's about to shut down, and a lot clearer in explaining the issues (and the best way to respond). The current notices leave a lot to be desired.

But, the real issue is how much pressure the DMCA puts on Google to act in this manner, and with things like ACTA being negotiated in secret with the aim of locking in the more draconian rules of such safe harbors, it will become increasingly difficult to fix that faulty aspect of the DMCA takedown process.

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MAKE subscriber Matt writs in to share this comprehensive electronics tutorial site, Learning Objects for Electronics:

This is a site developed by my good friend Pat Hoppe and his colleagues at Gateway Technical College in Racine, WI. He made these flash animations to help his students practice the basics of electronics; Everything from units, resistor color code, logic gates, filters, op amps, transistors, and even how to use your Ti-86. As a HS electronics teacher, I am very grateful to Pat for the hours he spent mentoring me, and I use this site quite regularly with my students. He's a great man, and this is a great site for our Make: comrades. Enjoy!

There are 277 different modules in total, covering all of the things mentioned above and more. It was developed for educators to use in their curriculum, but it looks like it could be a good resource to learn something new, or even get an extra bit of review in before that upcoming test.

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