An anonymous reader writes "The world rolled it's eyes when the problem of Flash cookies came to light several months ago. Even if you're careful about cookies or even if you use your browser's private surfing feature, sites can still track you through cookies stored by Flash. However, soon enough the next version of Flash, 10.1, will support private browsing and will integrate with browsers to turn it on when the browser itself is in private browsing mode. Browsers still store data during a private browser session, but they will delete it all at the end of the session. The same will be true of Flash private browsing."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is the work of French artist Baptiste Debombourg. Some of his other works, including one more staples piece, can be seen here. [via Dude Craft]

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Jake von Slatt gives us a video tour of his finished propane and waste oil foundry furnace. I love the lamp post and lights. SO von Slatty!

Final test of Jake von Slatt's Waste Oil Foundry Furnace

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wdebruij writes "After years of research, promises, and plenty of discussion here, biofuel from inedible greens such as switchgrass — and even from corn cobs — may finally be getting economically viable. Two enzyme producers, Novozyme and Genencor, have both announced that they can now produce fuel at prices competitive with current corn and petrol-based methods. This is particularly good news in the wake of another report that food-based biofuels could cause hunger."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson, last seen around these parts supporting a law that banned anonymous political commentary during election season (though he later said he'd repeal it after the election), is apparently now taking on video gamers. Slashdot points us to the news that Atkinson has claimed that video gamers are a threat to his family, after he found a note from a video gamer left on his doorstep:

"I feel that my family and I are more at risk from gamers than we are from the outlaw motorcycle gangs who also hate me and are running a candidate against me... The outlaw motorcycle gangs haven't been hanging around my doorstop at 2am. A gamer has."

I like how he automatically lumps all video gamers together into a single group because one gamer left him a note. Atkinson appears to have a way with words -- including those against both bikers and video gamers. In the past he was forced to apologize after falsely suggesting that a group of motorcycle gang members had used a local park to "cook a cat for human consumption". Turns out it wasn't true: "The animal was not a cat, the incident happened at another location and bikies weren't involved." So, he's good with the details, it seems.

The specific issue when it comes to video gamers is that Atkinson has been an adamant opponent to allowing any sort of "adult" or "mature" rating for video games. As you may or may not know, Australia censors video games, and will simply not allow games they don't feel are appropriate for those under the age of 18. Yes, if you're an adult and make the conscious choice that you want to play a violent video game, you are legally out of luck in Australia.

At times, Atkinson has supported this position to ridiculous levels. When the football video game "Blitz: The League" was banned from Australia, Atkinson supported this because one option in the game was that a player could take performance enhancing drugs, and apparently, he prefers to keep reality out of video games. When asked by a constituent why he wouldn't support a mature rating for adult video gamers who want to play such games, his response was quite dismissive:

"I think you will find this issue has little traction with my constituents who are more concerned with real-life issues than home entertainment in imaginary worlds."

And now he's claiming that video gamers are a threat to his family? I think the person dealing with the "imaginary worlds" might be Mr. Atkinson.

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The Verizon press release begins: "At the 2010 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Verizon Wireless and Skype today announced a strategic relationship that will bring Skype to Verizon Wireless smartphones in March." What used to be one of the most protective carriers anywhere has been opening up in major ways since the introduction of the Motorola Droid. Phandroid summarizes: "Starting next month, Verizon Smartphone users with data plans will enjoy free and unlimited Skype-to-Skype calls to anyone on the planet. And you’ll enjoy amazingly cheap Skype International calls as well. All this from Verizon Wireless’ 3G network." Some are wondering how the DoJ and law enforcement will react to a major upsurge in fully encrypted traffic.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Happy Mardi Gras, y'all! Artist and gallerist Mar Doré, whose mid-century Mardi Gras photographic prints I've blogged before (and featured in this Boing Boing video episode), has been in New Orleans for the past week, for all the parades. She's there now, waiting for the Zulu King. Above and after the jump, snapshots she's sent us from the 2010 revelry. The photo-set includes images from the Thoth, Orpheus, Proteus, Babylon, Mid-City, and Okeanos parades. Enjoy. (All images ©2010, Mar Doré)

---

A federal magistrate today ruled that a former Florida high school student suspended after creating a Facebook page to diss her teacher should receive constitutional protection under the First Amendment. The name of the page? "Ms. Sarah Phelps is the worst teacher I've ever met."

Trademark law, when used properly, serves an important purpose in making sure that consumers are not made worse off by being tricked into buying lower quality products and services under the belief that they're actually coming from someone else who is trusted. But in the age of the "ownership culture," where too many people have tried to twist trademark law away from its true origins to make it appear to be a quasi-"property right," you get too many cases of people using trademark law to actually make consumers worse off.

Take for example this story, sent in by iamtheky about how the University of Texas is trying to stop some former students from making an incredibly useful iPhone app for UT students, called iTexas, by claiming it infringes on their trademark on Texas.

The makers of the app, Mutual Mobile, have made a bunch of successful iPhone apps, but UT got upset last year when the company introduced the UT Directory, which put a much more useful interface on (you guessed it) the UT staff and student directories. After the University complained, the company felt that perhaps the use of the school's colors made it look like an "official" app, so they agreed to fix that part. When the company launched iTexas, it made sure that it didn't have the school's color scheme or do anything to make it appear as the official app. But it did make the app a lot more useful:

A free download, the app retains the searchable directory but also lists menus from different cafeterias across campus, tallies students' dining-card and Bevo Bucks balances, delivers class schedules, shows campus maps, and more.

This sounds like a great and rather useful app. Exactly the sort of thing that the University should be encouraging, not just because it would help some alumni succeed, but also because UT students would likely find the app quite useful. But, that's not the way UT officials think, apparently:

On Feb. 1, the Mutual team learned that UT had raised another objection to its latest app, specifically to the use of the word "Texas" in the name. "As this name is confusingly similar to the Texas [trademark], UT objects to such use," reads a notice sent to the Apple app store by attorney Wendy Larson. UT's board of regents began trademarking university properties back in 1981. A list of protected trademarks appears on the university Office of Trade mark Licensing Web page; alongside more specific trademarks such as Bevo and Lady Longhorns is, simply, Texas.

Lesson learned: don't try to make life better for UT students without first paying the University.

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Trademark law, when used properly, serves an important purpose in making sure that consumers are not made worse off by being tricked into buying lower quality products and services under the belief that they're actually coming from someone else who is trusted. But in the age of the "ownership culture," where too many people have tried to twist trademark law away from its true origins to make it appear to be a quasi-"property right," you get too many cases of people using trademark law to actually make consumers worse off.

Take for example this story, sent in by iamtheky about how the University of Texas is trying to stop some former students from making an incredibly useful iPhone app for UT students, called iTexas, by claiming it infringes on their trademark on Texas.

The makers of the app, Mutual Mobile, have made a bunch of successful iPhone apps, but UT got upset last year when the company introduced the UT Directory, which put a much more useful interface on (you guessed it) the UT staff and student directories. After the University complained, the company felt that perhaps the use of the school's colors made it look like an "official" app, so they agreed to fix that part. When the company launched iTexas, it made sure that it didn't have the school's color scheme or do anything to make it appear as the official app. But it did make the app a lot more useful:

A free download, the app retains the searchable directory but also lists menus from different cafeterias across campus, tallies students' dining-card and Bevo Bucks balances, delivers class schedules, shows campus maps, and more.

This sounds like a great and rather useful app. Exactly the sort of thing that the University should be encouraging, not just because it would help some alumni succeed, but also because UT students would likely find the app quite useful. But, that's not the way UT officials think, apparently:

On Feb. 1, the Mutual team learned that UT had raised another objection to its latest app, specifically to the use of the word "Texas" in the name. "As this name is confusingly similar to the Texas [trademark], UT objects to such use," reads a notice sent to the Apple app store by attorney Wendy Larson. UT's board of regents began trademarking university properties back in 1981. A list of protected trademarks appears on the university Office of Trade mark Licensing Web page; alongside more specific trademarks such as Bevo and Lady Longhorns is, simply, Texas.

Lesson learned: don't try to make life better for UT students without first paying the University.

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With some careful planning and PCB trimming, Miguel managed to fit all the components needed for a 2.4 GHz ISM band spectrum analyzer into an old cellphone enclosure - resulting in an awesomely stealthy spy-worthy device.

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With some careful planning and PCB trimming, Miguel managed to fit all the components needed for a 2.4 GHz ISM band spectrum analyzer into an old cellphone enclosure - resulting in an awesomely stealthy spy-worthy device.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

I present this video partly in honor of the death of The Knack lead singer Doug Fieger, partly to commemorate the greatest one-hit-wonder song to ever hypnotically compel every single person in a bar to shake their ass on the dance floor, but mostly because I am a giant Sherman Alexie fan girl.

Contrary Magazine: Sherman Alexie's "Ode to My Sharona" (Via ellembee)

A week after the announcement that open source advocate and blogger Matt Asay is leaving Alfresco for Canonical, in the role of COO, Matt has agreed to answer your questions about his role at Canonical, his vision for the future of Ubuntu, or the prospects for open source as we begin to emerge from recession. Usual Slashdot interview rules apply. (Disclaimer: Matt is on the board of advisors for Slashdot's parent company, Geeknet.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Jabba is made of chocolate cake, chocolate fudge, and fondant." Photo series, and more about the person whose birthday this cake celebrated. (via Bonnie Burton)

Sharona Alperin, the woman immortalized at age 17 in the 1979 Knack song "My Sharona" now sells real estate. Related: Earlier today, Mark blogged the sad news that the lead singer of the Knack has died. And here's an interview with Ms. Alperin about the death of her friend. (via Peter Sagal)

President Obama today announced approval of an $8.3 billion federal loan guarantee to help the Southern Company build two nuclear reactors in Georgia. "Make no mistake: whether it is nuclear energy, or solar or wind energy," he said, "if we fail to invest in these technologies today, we'll be importing them tomorrow."

Makedo is a set of connectors (technically, a connector, a hinge and a construction tool) that allow you to piece together found objects of all description to make everything from art to functional items. Basically, it turns everything into a tinkertoy that you can attach to everything else -- How Katamari Damacy!

Wouldn't you love to make play objects, kid's costumes, furniture, decorations for the home and well, just about anything you can think of from the materials around you?

makedo makes it possible and impossibly fun.

makedo is a connector system that enables materials including cardboard, plastic and fabric to easily join together to form new objects or structures.

When you're done playing, simply pull it apart to reuse over and over again.

Makedo (via Wonderland)

An anonymous reader writes "A Russian company is building a massive natural gas pipeline that will run across the Baltic Sea floor. But first, they must clear some of the 150,000 unexploded bombs sitting at the bottom of the sea, left there by the Russian and German armies in the 1940s. About 70 of these mines, each filled with 300 kg of explosive charge, sit in the pipeline's path, mostly in its northern section just south of Finland. And so the company contracted to remove the mines is bringing in robots to do the dirty work. Here's how it will work: A research ship deploys the robot to the seabed, where it identifies the exact location of the explosive. After sounding a warning to surrounding ship traffic, scaring fish away using a small explosive, and then emitting a 'seal screamer' of high intensity noises designed to make the area around the blast quite uncomfortable for marine mammals, Bactec's engineers erupt a 5 kg blast, forcing the mine to detonate. This process ensures the safety of humans plus any animals living in the surrounding environment. The operation concludes with the robot being redeployed to clear up the scrap of the now-destroyed bomb."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm very much against enforcing net neutrality through legislation (too many unintended consequences) but I'm stunned at the ridiculous and totally bogus reasons given by those fighting against those regulations in support of their claims. The latest on this front is Stephen Titch, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation (a group whose work I usually think is quite good), coming out with a policy brief making the ludicrous argument that network neutrality would mean no more iPhones.

Now that's a bold claim, and such a bold claim should require at least some evidence to back it up. But there is none. This is as far as it seems to get:

The non-discrimination principle that Genachowski seeks to mandate would prohibit service providers such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sprint from using their network resources to prioritize or partition data as it crosses their networks so as to improve the performance of specific applications, such as a movie or massive multiplayer game. Yet quality wireless service is predicated on such steps. The iPhone, for example, would not have been possible if AT&T and Apple did not work together to ensure AT&T's wireless network could handle the increase in data traffic the iPhone would create.

There's a neat little trick in there that hides the blatant falsehood of the premise. What's described in the first sentence as what would be banned is not the same thing that's described in the second sentence as what AT&T and Apple did. Furthermore, the first sentence is not particularly accurate, and appears to be a stretch and misread of what the proposals actually have said -- though, again, the final rules could change. The issue isn't that network providers couldn't prioritize data, but that they couldn't discriminate in terms of who could make use of that prioritization in an anti-competitive manner (i.e., the provider could determine that a VoIP call needs prioritization, so long as all VoIP providers get the same prioritization).

But, back to the key point: this has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the network improvements that AT&T agreed to make in order to get the iPhone (which arguably, haven't worked all that well). AT&T's efforts were focused on upgrades to its network, which had nothing at all to do with discriminating against certain applications or services directly. Of course, since then, AT&T/Apple has chosen to discriminate against certain applications in its app store, but not at the network level, which is the main issue here.

I'm as worried as the next guy about the unintended consequences of network neutrality legislation, but making totally ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims that net neutrality would mean "no more iPhone" makes those arguing against network neutrality rules look petty and willing to flat-out lie to support their position.

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I've said it before, and I'll say it again: I'm very much against enforcing net neutrality through legislation (too many unintended consequences) but I'm stunned at the ridiculous and totally bogus reasons given by those fighting against those regulations in support of their claims. The latest on this front is Stephen Titch, a policy analyst at the Reason Foundation (a group whose work I usually think is quite good), coming out with a policy brief making the ludicrous argument that network neutrality would mean no more iPhones.

Now that's a bold claim, and such a bold claim should require at least some evidence to back it up. But there is none. This is as far as it seems to get:

The non-discrimination principle that Genachowski seeks to mandate would prohibit service providers such as AT&T, Verizon Wireless, T-Mobile and Sprint from using their network resources to prioritize or partition data as it crosses their networks so as to improve the performance of specific applications, such as a movie or massive multiplayer game. Yet quality wireless service is predicated on such steps. The iPhone, for example, would not have been possible if AT&T and Apple did not work together to ensure AT&T's wireless network could handle the increase in data traffic the iPhone would create.

There's a neat little trick in there that hides the blatant falsehood of the premise. What's described in the first sentence as what would be banned is not the same thing that's described in the second sentence as what AT&T and Apple did. Furthermore, the first sentence is not particularly accurate, and appears to be a stretch and misread of what the proposals actually have said -- though, again, the final rules could change. The issue isn't that network providers couldn't prioritize data, but that they couldn't discriminate in terms of who could make use of that prioritization in an anti-competitive manner (i.e., the provider could determine that a VoIP call needs prioritization, so long as all VoIP providers get the same prioritization).

But, back to the key point: this has nothing, whatsoever, to do with the network improvements that AT&T agreed to make in order to get the iPhone (which arguably, haven't worked all that well). AT&T's efforts were focused on upgrades to its network, which had nothing at all to do with discriminating against certain applications or services directly. Of course, since then, AT&T/Apple has chosen to discriminate against certain applications in its app store, but not at the network level, which is the main issue here.

I'm as worried as the next guy about the unintended consequences of network neutrality legislation, but making totally ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims that net neutrality would mean "no more iPhone" makes those arguing against network neutrality rules look petty and willing to flat-out lie to support their position.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Meet Wolfie Blackheart: a non-neurotypical, animal-identified teen in Texas who finds herself at the center of controversy: allegations of animal torture, mental health, and the wrath of /b/. "I would never kill a canine," the self-described 'wolf woman' said, "I am a canine." (via Julian Dibbell)

Cytotoxic writes "What to do with all of those leftover Valentine's Day chocolates? — a common problem for the Slashdot crowd. The folks over at Wired magazine have an answer for you in a nice article showing how to measure the speed of light with a microwave and some chocolate. A simple yet surprisingly accurate method that can be used to introduce the scientific method to children and others in need of a scientific education."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last week, I blogged about Justin Van Genderen's delightful series of minimalist Star Wars posters. In a similar vein are Austrian designer Albert Exergian's TV show posters "created out of a love for posters, modernism, and television." Prints are for sale at Blanka. Iconic TV (Thanks, Lisa Mumbach, via /Film)

Video above: "Big Chief Bo Dollis on Mardi Gras 2008: Wild Magnolias and Wild Red Flames," Mardi Gras Indians, via Clayton Cubitt. Here's a related song by Professor Longhair. And more on the tradition.

Despite only a few weeks in the planning, TC Maker's faire featured 16 exhibitors and attracted more than 500 visitors -- not bad for the hacker collective that didn't even have a space 2 months ago.

There was a display of movie prop replicas, a display of circuit-bent gadgets, a wind turbine with blades ground from a length of 8" PVC, rockets, and a stop-motion movie filming.

MAKE contributor and author Bill Gurstelle demonstrated some of his experiments with static electricity and experimental musician Tim Kaiser put on a show.

However, the hit of the show was the life-sized Operation game made by TC Maker members Jim Wygralak and Nick Lee, which consistently engaged both grown-ups and kids.

To see more pix of the event, check out the TC Maker Flickr pool.

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Video Link, via The Fader, where you can view 6 more videos from the same Prince and the Revolution 1984 rehearsal session. Dig 'em before The Man yanks 'em.

Philadelphia TSA screeners forced the developmentally delayed, four-year-old son of a Camden, PA police officer to remove his leg-braces and wobble through a checkpoint, despite the fact that their procedure calls for such a case to be handled through a swabbing in a private room. When the police officer complained, the supervising TSA screener turned around and walked away. Then a Philadelphia police officer asked what was wrong and "suggested he calm down and enjoy his vacation."

Ryan was taking his first flight, to Walt Disney World, for his fourth birthday.

The boy is developmentally delayed, one of the effects of being born 16 weeks prematurely. His ankles are malformed and his legs have low muscle tone. In March he was just starting to walk...

The screener told them to take off the boy's braces.

The Thomases were dumbfounded. "I told them he can't walk without them on his own," Bob Thomas said.

"He said, 'He'll need to take them off.' "

Ryan's mother offered to walk him through the detector after they removed the braces, which are custom-made of metal and hardened plastic.

No, the screener replied. The boy had to walk on his own.

Daniel Rubin: Another case of TSA overkill (via Digg)

(Image: Rhys Gibson, Bruce Schneier/TSA Logo Contest Finalists)

Trailrunner7 writes "Last year saw a monstrous increase in the volume of malicious spam, according to a new report (PDF). In the second half of 2009, the number of spam messages sent per day skyrocketed from 600 million to three billion, according to new research. For some time now, spam has been accounting for 90 or more percent of all email messages. But the volume of spam had been relatively steady in the last couple of years. Now, the emergence of several large-scale botnets, including Zeus and Koobface, has led to an enormous spike in the volume of spam."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

King Tut—plus 10 other royal mummies—recently became the first ancient Egyptians to get their DNA analyzed. The results, published this week in the Journal of the American Medical Association, turned up a treasure trove of new information about the famous boy king, his family and Egyptian royalty in general. Among the discoveries:

• Tut had a bone disorder that would have forced him to walk with a cane, and which may have been a result of royal inbreeding.
• A mummy known as KV55 has turned out to be Tut's father, Akhenaten, a controversial pharaoh best known for his failed attempt at converting Egypt to monotheism. Based on sculptures and art that depict a feminized Akhenaten, researchers had long suspected that he suffered from a genetic hormone disorder called gynecomastia. But the DNA evidence says otherwise. Instead, Akhenaten's feminine features are likely to have been an artistic conceit, added for symbolic, religious reasons.
• Other previously unidentified mummies are now known to be Tut's grandfather, grandmother and mother.
• Contrary to speculation, Tut's mother probably wasn't his father's chief wife, Nefertiti. She and Akhenaten are never described as being related, and Tut is definitely the product of brother/sister incest.
• King Tut had malaria. He likely died from a combination of that disease and complications of his bone disorder. The malarial DNA found in Tut's body is the oldest genetic evidence of the disease ever found.

National Geographic News: King Tut was disabled, malarial and inbred

Image courtesy Flickr user jparise, via CC

Anyone know if the MacGyver Multitool is real? Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gadgets | Digg this!

Drawn! brought my attention to the paintings of Glennray Tutor.

It's easy to dismiss photo-realist work as an exercise in surface obsession, but Glennray Tutor, a Jedi warrior of the style, has to be admired for his dedication to what Yeats called 'the fascination with what's difficult.'

Glennray Tutor

Our pals at Flux Factory are having an opening this Friday!

Join us on Friday, February 19th for Housebroken, Flux’s inaugural show! In celebration of our newest home, we’ve invited dozens upon dozens of artists to create works throughout the building. Housebroken is easily our biggest project ever, with over 100 installations, performances, and homey additions to our factory…. Eclectic performances and unparalleled reverie begin at 8 pm, continuing on into the night.

Housebroken
Friday, February 19 8pm
39-31 29th Street, LIC, NY 11101
Suggested donation $15 (tax-deductible)
Open bar courtesy of Campari, 21+
Please rsvp to rsvp@fluxfactory.org
Exhibition runs through March 21st

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Sleep Talkin' Man is a blog that collects the night-time musings of an Englishman named Adam, as recorded by his wife. The quotes are absolutely priceless, and you can even listen to some of them on streaming audio—which is a very weird experience. A few delightful examples:

From the night of Feb. 14/15: "Don't move a muscle. Bushbabies are everywhere... everywhere... Shoot the f***ing big-eyed wanky s**** f***s! Kick 'em. Stamp them. Poke 'em in their big eyes! Take that for scaring the crap out of me."

From the night of Jan 31/Feb 1: "I made this picture using pasta... F*** you, it IS artistic!"

From the night of Jan 19/20: "No, not the cats. Don't trust them. Their eyes. Their eyes. They know too much."

The best part, none of this is related to dreaming. As the Sleep Talkin' Man FAQ explains, dreaming and sleep talking actually happen during completely different parts of the sleep cycle. So all that bush-baby paranoia is just a blip on Adam's subconscious. There really is no context to make it make sense.

As you may or may not have heard, the USTR has been accepting public comments for its Special 301 report, which comes out every year in an attempt to name and shame countries that the USTR does not believe does enough to protect US copyrights abroad. Typically, this process is driven very much by the entertainment industry, to the extent that even people in the US copyright office have been known to roll their eyes about the legitimacy of the report. A lot of people have been incorrectly claiming that these comments are about ACTA, but they're not. The Special 301 report basically just tries to determine which countries the US should put more pressure on to "get with the program," diplomatically speaking, when it comes to copyright issues. In the past, it's been used to bully countries like Canada and Israel -- both of which have strong copyright that is very much in compliance with international obligations. This year, with the USTR opening up the comments process to anyone who had some thoughts, I figured I would submit my own thoughts on this particular issue. If you would like to submit your own comments, you can follow the instructions given by Public Knowledge. At that link you can also see PK's own "suggested" text, though I would highly recommend writing your own thoughts out, rather than stuffing the box with the same letter. For another letter, you can see what John Bennett submitted as well.

---

Senior Director for Intellectual Property and
Innovation and Chair of the Special 301 Committee
Office of the United States Trade Representative
600 17th Street NW
Washington, DC 20508
Filed electronically via Regulations.gov

Dear Ms. Groves:

I write to you today as a long-term content creator, who makes my living off of my ability to continue to create content and receive remuneration for that activity. And yet, I am concerned about the state of US copyright law, and the fact that it does not serve my interests or the interests of the vast majority of content creators today. Despite being a professional content creator, I have purposely chosen not to make use of copyright law, because the way it is structured today actually hinders my own ability to profit from my content creation.

The central tenet of copyright law has been, "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts," and the mechanism for this is both copyright and patents, or more specifically "securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." Unfortunately, over the years, all too often we've lost sight of the beginning of that sentence, in the assumption that any increase in those "exclusive rights" must surely "promote the progress." And, yet, as we have expanded and stretched copyright law time and time again -- and almost never contracted it -- no one ever seems to ask for any actual evidence that stronger and lengthier copyright law leads to promoting more progress.

This is not a new concern. Thomas Macaulay famously argued in 1841 that we ought to be careful to only extend and expand copyright upon evidence that such an extension or expansion would, in fact, lead to greater incentives to create. Yet, to this day, our public policy has been to take it on faith that stricter copyright laws lead to greater incentives to create -- despite the lack of evidence to support this position. In fact, the evidence has suggested that as technology has decreased the ability of copyright holders to enforce copyright, the incentives to create have only increased. And this is not just the ability to create as an amateur, but the ability to create and earn money as a professional.

A recent paper by economists Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Koleman Strumpf demonstrated this in rather great detail, highlighting that even as new technologies have undermined classical copyright law, there remains little evidence that this change has undermined the incentives to create. In fact, the research collected in that paper and other papers suggested that more people are creating new works of music today than ever before in history. The same is true of movies, an industry that has seen the number of annual releases double in the last five years alone.

There is no doubt that a segment of these industries, who have relied on exclusivity and limits in the distribution channels, such as the major movie studios and the major record labels, have been slow to respond to these changes and have faced difficulties. But their views are not an accurate representation of the overall industry. The Oberholzer-Gee/Strumpf paper clearly demonstrated that the amount of money being spent on music by consumers has grown massively in the past decade -- it's just that a smaller portion of that spend goes directly to the record labels. An even more recent study out of the UK, done by two industry economists working for PRS, the UK's performance rights collection society, also found that the overall music industry was making increasingly more money, despite the challenges of a changing market.

These studies point to important facts about how industries can adapt, even in the face of technologically-weakened copyright, without the need for greater enforcement. But they also raise an important point: when our policy on copyright is made without actual evidence, it is important to allow different countries to experiment with their own copyright policies, from which the rest of the world can learn. Trying to enforce US-style copyright law throughout the world does a disservice to the very purpose of copyright law: to promote the progress.

By allowing different countries to experiment and adopt their own style of copyright law, we create a real-world experiment from which we can learn what does, and what does not, help to "promote the progress." Using US trade policy to pressure other countries to adopt a US-style copyright law brings all of the problems with US law to other countries, and presents no chance for us to examine how our own law might be improved to serve the purpose of the law, as set out in the Constitution.

The Special 301 process should be an opportunity to see what other countries have done and what we can learn from them, rather than an opportunity to try to export faith-based US-style copyright law to other countries, solely for the benefit of a few companies who have not adapted, while many others in their industries have made the jump to supporting and embracing new technologies and new business models. The US should be encouraging local experimentation with copyright law, rather than strict adherence to our own brand of copyright law -- especially given the lack of concrete evidence that our own laws do, in fact, "promote the progress."

Sincerely,

Michael Masnick

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In the comments for my post about the 1967 alternate-history version of Lost, Bill Streeter wrote: "They kinda did make Lost in the 1960's. There was a program in 1969 called The New People that looks a lot like Lost."

Love the music!

The New People

superapecommando writes in with a neutral introduction to net neutrality from ComputerWorld UK. While it doesn't go into a lot of technical depth, it's rare to see anything written on the subject that isn't rabid on one side or the other. "Google's recently announced plan to set up trial fiber-optic networks in the US with ultra-high-speed Internet connections puts the long running national debate over Net Neutrality back into high gear. A hot topic of discussion and debate in government and telecom circles since at least 2003, Net Neutrality, actually involves a broad array of topics, technologies and players. Here's a primer for those looking to get up to speed fast."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

RIP, Doug Fieger.

Douglas Lars Fieger, 57, lead singer of the rock group The Knack and composer of the 1979 #1 hit My Sharona passed away at his home in Woodland Hills, California on February 14, 2010--Valentine's Day. Doug had battled lung cancer for six years. He outlived, for many, many years, his doctors' prognoses.

In person, Doug was brilliant, witty, with a wry and biting sense of humor. To those who loved him, his sometimes outspoken and argumentative nature (another Fieger Family trait) was recognized as a thin facade for a genuinely caring and gentle soul. Someone once remarked, tongue-in-cheek, that "Doug had more friends than he could shake a stick at, not that he didn't try."

Doug Fieger, August 20, 1952 - February 14, 2010

Hugh from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "EFF has released a white paper to help readers of digital books answer questions about privacy, book licenses, DRM and other issues."

1. Does it (your e-book reader/service/tool, etc.) protect your privacy?
* Does it limit the tracking of you and your reading?
* Does it protect against disclosure of your reading habits?
* Does it give you control over the information it collects about you?
* Does it tell you what it's doing with the information it collects and can you enforce its commitments to you?

2. Does it tell you what it is doing?
* How clear are the disclosures? Will they be updated and, if so, how?
* Does it let you or others investigate to confirm that the product, device or service is actually functioning as promised?

3. What happens to additions you make to books you buy, like annotations, highlights, commentary?
* Can you keep your additions?
* Can you control who has access to your additions?

4. Do you own the book or just rent or license it?
* Can you lend or resell?
* Is it locked down or do you have the freedom to move it to other readers, services or uses?
* Can the vendor take it away or edit it after you've purchased it?

Digital Books and Your Rights: A Checklist for Readers (Thanks, Hugh!)

David Bowen created a robotic art installation that laser scans an onion plant every 24 hours and uses a 3D printer to fabricate plastic models illustrating the plant's growth. After each sculpture is completed, it moves ahead on the conveyor belt to make way for the next one. The piece, titled growth modeling device, won a grand prize in the 13th Japan Media Arts Festival. From the artist's statement:

growth modeling device is an installation based on the rate of growth and structure of an onion plant. The system plays the roles of observer and creator, providing a limited an mechanical perspective of a changing living object. It attempts to replicate nature through the eyes of a simple laser device into a base industrial material, turning what was once organically dynamic into a flat sterile reproduction.

growth modeling device (Thanks, Mark Pescovitz)

Could it be an effect of the lighting that gives the impression of unusual anatomy on this model? (Via Photoshop Disasters)

Sasayaki writes "South Australian Attorney-General Michael Atkinson claims, in an interview with Good Game, that gamers were more of a threat to his family than biker gangs. This is the man who has been the biggest opponent to Australia receiving an R18+ rating for video games and who has the power to veto any such law introducing it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jamesswift writes "Vaughan Bell at Slate has written an interesting article on the centuries old phenomenon of hysterical suspicion surrounding new media and the technologies that enable them. 'A respected Swiss scientist, Conrad Gessner, might have been the first to raise the alarm about the effects of information overload. In a landmark book, he described how the modern world overwhelmed people with data and that this overabundance was both "confusing and harmful" to the mind. The media now echo his concerns with reports on the unprecedented risks of living in an "always on" digital environment. It's worth noting that Gessner, for his part, never once used e-mail and was completely ignorant about computers. That's not because he was a technophobe but because he died in 1565.' The best line comes near then end: 'The writer Douglas Adams observed how technology that existed when we were born seems normal, anything that is developed before we turn 35 is exciting, and whatever comes after that is treated with suspicion.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's a "What-if? opening from an alternate history where Lost was created and aired in 1967 as a campy sci-fi action series."

LOST! Opening Credits (1967) (Thanks, Benjamin!)

Nine enterprising seniors in Yale's Mechanical Engineering program built this rad spokeless bicycle for their mechanical design class. Thinking about the off-access forces that those bearings will have to endure makes my head hurt (and that has to be one strong frame!), however the effect is totally worth it. [via neatorama]

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Phenomenal painter Camille Rose Garcia has just published her illustrated take on Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Over at Hi-Fructose, our pal Kirsten Anderson posted several of the lush ink and watercolor illustrations along with with photos of Garcia at work. A show of Garcia's Alice series, titled "Down the Rabbit Hole," opens March 6 at Merry Karnwosky Gallery in Los Angeles, and she'll be visiting various cities on the West Coast for book signings too.

Camille Rose Garcia's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" (Amazon)

"Behind the Scenes with Camille Rose Garcia" (Hi-Fructose)

JohnForDummies points us to a blog post by John Cook that attacks those who explain economics of abundant/infinite goods by misstating our argument as a moral rather than an economic one. The crux of his complaint:

There's an anti-intellectual thread running through these arguments. It's a materialistic way of thinking, valuing only tangible artifacts and not ideas. It's OK for a potter to sell pots, but a musician should not sell music. It's OK for teachers to make money by the hour for teaching, but they should not make money from writing books. It's OK for programmers to sell their time as consultants, and maybe even to sell their time as a programmers, but they should not sell the products of their labor. It's OK to sell physical objects or to sell time, but not to sell intellectual property.

This is a huge strawman of an argument. It is not anti-intellectual at all, but actually involves understanding the economics, rather than wishing the world were a way it is not. No one is saying you shouldn't sell "intellectual" output, but that it often will not be possible, economically, or that it doesn't make the most sense to do so. And that is economics at work. With ideas and intellectual output, the content is abundant and infinitely available in a digital form. In economic terms, it is non-rivalrous and non-excludable, such that the supply curve drives the price to $0. It's not being against intellectual output, it's recognizing the reality that it does not make economic sense to try to sell it when the economic forces at play will increasingly push the price towards $0.

It's certainly not about "valuing only tangible artifacts." In fact it's quite the reverse. Cook seems to be confusing price with value again, and missing the fact that we're showing how you can use the value of those intangible ideas to increase the price of scarce goods (which do not need to be tangible at all -- just scarce). It's basic economics.

Honestly, when I saw the title of Cook's post, I thought I was going to agree with it. It's called "Make something and sell it." This is, in fact, the very model we espouse here on a regular basis. But we point out that you can only sell what people are actually willing to buy, and that means understanding the economics at play, and selling what is scarce, while using what is infinite to make those scarce products even more valuable, thus driving up the price.

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Samsung has released firmware updates for all of its NX lenses. Firmware v1.1 improves autofocus accuracy of the 18-55mm kit lens, 50-200mm telezoom and 30mm F2 pancake lens. The updates are available for immediate download from Samsung's website.

Convicts in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh can get out of jail early if they develop a regular yoga practice. For every three months that a prisoner practices, his prison sentence is reduced by two weeks.

The state's inspector general of prisons, Sanjay Mane, said: "Yoga is good for maintaining fitness, calming the behaviour, controlling anger and reducing stress. "When a prisoner attends yoga sessions and fulfils some other conditions, he will be considered for a remission if his jail superintendent recommends his case."

An inmate at Gwalior central jail, Narayan Sharma - who has now moved on to become an instructor - says it helps to banish the "angry thoughts" in his mind.

"It was these thoughts that made me commit crimes," he said.

"India inmates take yoga to reduce their jail sentences"

Convicts in the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh can get out of jail early if they develop a regular yoga practice. For every three months that a prisoner practices, his prison sentence is reduced by two weeks.

The state's inspector general of prisons, Sanjay Mane, said: "Yoga is good for maintaining fitness, calming the behaviour, controlling anger and reducing stress. "When a prisoner attends yoga sessions and fulfils some other conditions, he will be considered for a remission if his jail superintendent recommends his case."

An inmate at Gwalior central jail, Narayan Sharma - who has now moved on to become an instructor - says it helps to banish the "angry thoughts" in his mind.

"It was these thoughts that made me commit crimes," he said.

"India inmates take yoga to reduce their jail sentences"

The 4-Bit Microcomputer Kit from Gakken features a 20-key keypad, a 7-segment LED, and 7 individual LEDs. It comes pre-programmed with 7 different applications, and you can even program your own via the keypad. It's a fun retro kit, just begging to be hacked! Don't forget to check out Gakken magazine 4-bit computer rollout party in Tokyo.

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Hugh Pickens writes "Adam Mills writes in the Examiner that Apple has been cutting off access to the iTunes App Store for iPhone hackers and jailbreakers. Sherif Hashim, the iPhone developer who successfully hacked the iPhone OS 3.1.3 and unlocked the 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and 3G devices, discovered he'd been cut off and twittered: '"Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons," that's what i get when i try to go to the app store, they must be really angry.' Another hacker, iH8Sn0w, who is behind the Sn0wbreeze tool, confirms that his account has also been deactivated even though iH8sn0w's exploit had only been revealed to Dev Team, the group responsible for the PwnageTool. 'It is kind of surprising that two people associated with jailbreaking have had this happen to them so soon after one another, but it's too early to say if this is a campaign that Apple is starting up,' writes Mills."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "Adam Mills writes in the Examiner that Apple has been cutting off access to the iTunes App Store for iPhone hackers and jailbreakers. Sherif Hashim, the iPhone developer who successfully hacked the iPhone OS 3.1.3 and unlocked the 05.12.01 baseband for iPhone 3GS and 3G devices, discovered he'd been cut off and twittered: '"Your Apple ID was banned for security reasons," that's what i get when i try to go to the app store, they must be really angry.' Another hacker, iH8Sn0w, who is behind the Sn0wbreeze tool, confirms that his account has also been deactivated even though iH8sn0w's exploit had only been revealed to Dev Team, the group responsible for the PwnageTool. 'It is kind of surprising that two people associated with jailbreaking have had this happen to them so soon after one another, but it's too early to say if this is a campaign that Apple is starting up,' writes Mills."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Tank Riot podcast crew do a great job this week on the subject of the late and very lamented historian and writer Howard Zinn, one of my heroes. Lots of good context and trivia, and a real pulling-together of the diverse narrative that was Zinn's life.

The Tank Riot podcast crew do a great job this week on the subject of the late and very lamented historian and writer Howard Zinn, one of my heroes. Lots of good context and trivia, and a real pulling-together of the diverse narrative that was Zinn's life.

I, Xeni Jardin, will be a guest on Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris' "Jordan Jesse Go" podcast this evening. 8pm Pacific until we run out of lulz.

I, Xeni Jardin, will be a guest on Jesse Thorn and Jordan Morris' "Jordan Jesse Go" podcast this evening. 8pm Pacific until we run out of lulz.

Rick Farman, whom I first met as the guy behind mega music fests Outside Lands and Bonnaroo, shares a fun, Mardi Gras-themed video with us today from the "modern New Orleans funk" band Galactic. We've featured them before on Boing Boing TV. I caught their set at Outside Lands with Russell Porter. The funk was so thick you could scoop it up with a spatula.

Rick says, "Galactic just released an incredible new record. This video piece really sums up the project well."

Ya-Ka-May (or yaka mein) is the name of a traditional soup enjoyed in New Orleans, as the video explains, and it is also the name of the band's new album. The band's on Twittah.

Video Link: What is Ya Ka May? (duration 5:00, YouTube)

Previously: "Boing Boing TV—Galactic's Modern New Orleans Funk with Xeni and Russell"

Luchio writes "Finally, a little bit of respect from Adobe with this alpha release of the Adobe Flash Player 10 that was made available for all Linux 64-bit enthusiasts! As noted, 'this is a prerelease version,' so handle with care. Just remove any existing Flash player and extract the new .so file in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins (or /usr/lib/opera/plugins)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Luchio writes "Finally, a little bit of respect from Adobe with this alpha release of the Adobe Flash Player 10 that was made available for all Linux 64-bit enthusiasts! As noted, 'this is a prerelease version,' so handle with care. Just remove any existing Flash player and extract the new .so file in /usr/lib/mozilla/plugins (or /usr/lib/opera/plugins)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Maybe what's wrong with America's automotive industry is that we just don't innovate like we used to. I have an engineering degree and many years of experience, so I like to think I know jack. Chrysler's A-604 Automatic Transaxle was a great piece of engineering and there's so many insightful things said in this fine 1980 era video that it's well worth watching if you have even the slightest interest in automotive technology history.

It starts out a little complicated but don't worry, it's so clear that by the end of this short video you will have a good understanding even of what modial interaction of the magneto means. It's just that good.

And if you pay attention, you'll hear the first ever mention of the 1990s mileage enhancing breakthrough, the recoil flux capacitor. Highly recommended viewing.

Maybe what's wrong with America's automotive industry is that we just don't innovate like we used to. I have an engineering degree and many years of experience, so I like to think I know jack. Chrysler's A-604 Automatic Transaxle was a great piece of engineering and there's so many insightful things said in this fine 1980 era video that it's well worth watching if you have even the slightest interest in automotive technology history.

It starts out a little complicated but don't worry, it's so clear that by the end of this short video you will have a good understanding even of what modial interaction of the magneto means. It's just that good.

And if you pay attention, you'll hear the first ever mention of the 1990s mileage enhancing breakthrough, the recoil flux capacitor. Highly recommended viewing.

This "Live Checking Card" concept design from Yoon Jin-Young, Lee Jun-Kyo, Lee Young-Ho, and Kim Jin-Yi has been getting a lot of bandwidth around the tubes, lately. Ignoring the details of technical implementation, the notion itself is straightforward: Your check card shows you exactly how much money you have available to spend and tracks that amount, essentially in real time. This idea won the prestigious red dot design concept award for 2009.

It has also provided me with a nice MAKE-related excuse to go on a couple of badly-needed but (I hope) uncharacteristic rants. If you're interested in the idea and would rather not patronize my soapbox, go ahead and click here to read all about it over at Yanko Design.

Otherwise...

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Felipe sez,

I'm a Brazilian graphic/motion designer and I made this video for college in 2005 with friend: a short movie about 1984 with sock puppets. I took some time to translate and making the subtitles it but finally is done. At the last months on a Media class in college, Felipe Kaizer and I, like the other students, were asked to do a small video. When we were discussing the subject, I was at that time enthusiastic about puppets, suggested, as a joke, a puppet film based on George Orwell's 1984. Kaizer took the idea very seriously, because somehow the mean to show that history sounded appropriate; as puppets were associated to children's play they could turn into a disguised and powerful way to present terror, becoming a 'bait' for those who thought they were just going to laugh and have fun. Puppets may remind us about that immemorial time when inanimated objects became sacred and alive, as gods in ancient cultures, inspiring us terror as they reveal a distorted human behavior (a caricature, owner of a magic and almost inhuman voice), or remind us someone who refuses to die. Curiously some televisions ads at that time were also using puppets to sell a variety of products.

We wrote the script, the storyboard, and prepared the puppets. All scenes were shot at my home and at my parents (the number of one of them was 101), and we were sure that was the right choice. The production should seem amateur, like a home-video made by kids who tried very hard to do it right. The first impression should provoke disdain and scorn, and then discomfort as the video goes on; the soundtrack included some amazing Aphex Twin tracks. We also thought home objects, such as the gloves and socks we already had, would contribute to the richness of the video, considering that we didn't design those objects, so as they were found on the 'crime scene'. We let the environment decide a lot of things for us -- the telescreen images were shots from the television's screen, for example --, and we edited the storyboard during the shots, adapting speech lines and shooting angles. Me and Kaizer did all the characters and shootings by ourselves, except one time when we needed a fifth hand and our friend Aline Jobim did one of the prison guards. In December (I think) the video was presented among others. The effect was precisely what we expected: people immediately laugh, and then slowly ceased until they were absolutely quiet and still, watching the puppets' action. As you remember, it doesn't have a happy end.

O Grande Irmão Sempre Observa - The Big Brother Always Watches (Thanks, Felipe!)

eihab writes "I've been a fanatic about my online privacy for the last few years. I've been using NoScript and blocking Google Analytics, disabling third-party cookies, encrypting IM and doing everything in my power to keep data-miners at bay. Recently, I've been feeling like I'm just doing too much and still losing! No matter what I do, I know that there's a weak link somewhere, be it my ISP, Flash cookies, etc. I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it. I just can't take this anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I do not want to be profiled and become member #5534289 in a database somewhere that records everything I do. I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe. One of the reasons I hate data mining is that data security is not understood and almost non-existent at a lot of places. Case in point: I changed my life insurance two years ago, and the medical firm that conducted my health screening was broken into and computers with non-encrypted hard drives and patients' data were stolen. That medical firm didn't really need my SSN, but then again neither did AT&T when I signed up for U-Verse. Am I just too paranoid? Is privacy dead? Should I just give up and accept the fact that privacy is not the norm anymore (like Facebook's founder recently said) or should I keep fighting the good fight for my privacy?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

eihab writes "I've been a fanatic about my online privacy for the last few years. I've been using NoScript and blocking Google Analytics, disabling third-party cookies, encrypting IM and doing everything in my power to keep data-miners at bay. Recently, I've been feeling like I'm just doing too much and still losing! No matter what I do, I know that there's a weak link somewhere, be it my ISP, Flash cookies, etc. I've recently gotten AT&T U-Verse, who, according to their privacy statement, will be monitoring my TV watching habits for advertisement purposes. I'm extremely annoyed by that, yet I love the service so much and I don't think I can cancel it. I just can't take this anymore. I have nothing to hide, but I do not want to be profiled and become member #5534289 in a database somewhere that records everything I do. I know I'm not that interesting to anyone, but the idea of someone being able to pull up everything about me with a simple SQL SELECT statement and a couple of JOINS makes me cringe. One of the reasons I hate data mining is that data security is not understood and almost non-existent at a lot of places. Case in point: I changed my life insurance two years ago, and the medical firm that conducted my health screening was broken into and computers with non-encrypted hard drives and patients' data were stolen. That medical firm didn't really need my SSN, but then again neither did AT&T when I signed up for U-Verse. Am I just too paranoid? Is privacy dead? Should I just give up and accept the fact that privacy is not the norm anymore (like Facebook's founder recently said) or should I keep fighting the good fight for my privacy?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

1960 was a truly golden year in the annals of DIY history. Fifty years ago some of the most important how-to books in the history of making cool things came out.

I wrote in BB last June that 2010 marks the Golden Anniversary of the publication of Bertram Brinley's Rocket Making for Amateurs - that book was the bomb, (kind of literally I should add). Brinley was a US Army colonel and had the cool sounding title of official liaison between the US government and all civilian rocket enthusiasts. In the heyday of Sputnik, Explorer, Echo, and Pioneer, geeks and technophiles monkeyed with rocket fuels like micrograin and ammonium perchlorate instead of silicon and optical fiber.

The book's cover price reads 75 cents. Buying a copy today in a used bookstore will set you back about $200. But it's that good. I bought it when I was researching the roll-your-own rocket motor section in my book Absinthe and Flamethrowers.

Besides RMFA, it's the golden anniversary of another seminal book for people who love to make cool things: The Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments. The rumor on this book is that it was banned by the government and removed from libraries because the projects were too dangerous for the intended audience of junior high school aged children. Well, maybe, as it does provide instruction in the production of chlorine gas from toilet cleaner and bleach, but still. . .

While you can't buy it new (and used copies on Amazon are really pricey) you can download a pdf on Anne Marie Helmenstine's excellent chemistry page at About.com.

Jesse Brown sez, "Boing Boing readers may remember me guest-posting about Bitstrips for Schools, the educational comic-making site which launched in Ontario classrooms this past September. Well, in six months, kids in this province have created ONE MILLION educational comic strips. Here's #1,000,000, made by by Sam B of Angela Youmans' Grade 8 English class. It's great dramatization of Laura Secord's historic journey (spelling error aside)."

THE ONE MILLIONTH BITSTRIP created by Ontario students! (Thanks, Jesse!)

You may remember that Warner Music Group's CEO, Edgar Bronfman Jr., has been beating the drum for a while that video games like Guitar Hero and Rock Band should be paying more to use songs in those games. This, despite the fact that having a song in those games helps sell more albums. It's the typical fallacy of the record labels: overvaluing the content and undervaluing the platform or the context. So, what happens when two entertainment industry giants collide in such a debate?

Viacom, owners of MTV, which own Harmonix, who own Rock Band (and originally created Guitar Hero), seems to feel differently about all this than Warner Music -- recently declaring that it wants to pay less for the music in video games, and if the record labels don't like it, Viacom will find cheaper music elsewhere:

As we go forward, we are continuing to focus more on software than hardware, looking to reduce the cost structure associated with Rock Band, being selective in the music titles that we choose for Rock Band based on their cost. The music industry will assist with this category to make sure that it can continue on a profitable basis in the future and then finally we think we have the best games in the category, we'll continue to rollout exciting products.

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Andrew "bunnie" Huang, whom we've discussed before for his book on Xbox hacking and development of the Chumby, has made an interesting blog post about problems he's found with Kingston microSD cards. He first encountered a batch of bad cards during production of the ChumbyOne, and found Kingston initially unhelpful when trying to get them replaced. After noticing some unusual markings on the chips, he decided to investigate for himself, comparing the ID data and dissolving the cards' casings with nitric acid to take a look inside. He found that each of his Kingston-branded samples actually had a Toshiba/SanDisk memory chip inside, and that the batch of low-quality cards he received may not be as uncommon as he thought. "Significantly, Kingston is revealed as simply a vendor that re-marks other people's chips in its own packaging. Every Kingston card surprisingly had a SanDisk/Toshiba memory chip inside, and the only variance or 'value add' that could be found is in the selection of the controller chip. ... This tells me that Kingston must be crushed when it comes to margin, which may explain why irregular cards are finding their way into their supply chain. Kingston is also probably more willing to talk to smaller accounts like me because as a channel brand they can't compete against OEMs like Sandisk or Samsung for the biggest contracts from the likes of Nokia or RIMM. Effectively, Kingston is just a channel trader and is probably seen by SanDisk/Toshiba as a demand buffer for their production output. I also wouldn't be surprised if SanDisk/Toshiba was selling Kingston 'A-' grade parts, i.e., parts with slightly more defective sectors, but otherwise perfectly serviceable. As a result, Kingston plays a significant and important role in stabilizing microSD card prices and improving fab margins, but at some risk to their own brand image."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Previously unknown organic molecules have been discovered in a 100 kg meteorite that hit Australia in 1969, suggesting that our early Solar System contained a soup of highly complex organic chemistry long before life appeared. Quoting: 'According to [the study's lead author], the newly discovered compounds in the Murchison meteorite "may have contributed to the organic complexity of the early "soup" that led to the development of life on Earth. The findings also suggest that extraterrestrial chemical diversity surpasses that found on Earth. The meteor probably passed through primordial clouds in the early solar system, accumulating organic molecules in a snowball effect along the way. By tracing the sequence of organic molecules in the meteorite, researchers believe they may also be able to create a timeline for their formation and alteration since the early days of our solar system. '"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just posted! Our in-depth review of the Nikon D3S. The successor to the highly regarded D3 offers improved high ISO performance and a new HD video mode. Can these additions, plus a host of more minor refinements combine to keep the D3S competitive against newcomers such as Canon's EOS-1D Mark IV? Read our 34-page in-depth review to find out.

The folks over at Public Knowledge have officially unveiled their plan for copyright reform, focusing on five key areas:

1. strengthen fair use, including reforming outrageously high statutory damages, which deter innovation and creativity;
2. reform the DMCA to permit circumvention of digital locks for lawful purposes;
3. update the limitations and exceptions to copyright protection to better conform with how digital technologies work;
4. provide recourse for people and companies who are recklessly accused of copyright infringement and who are recklessly sent improper DMCA take-down notices; and
5. streamline arcane music licensing laws to encourage new and better business models for selling music.

Good stuff all around, though I'm not sure why statutory damages are dumped in with fair use, when it seems like they could be separate discussions entirely.

I think it's great that Public Knowledge is pushing this (with the assistance, apparently, of the Stanford Cyberlaw Clinic and the Samuelson Law, Technology and Public Policy Clinic at the UC Berkeley School of Law), though of course the chances of this actually getting anywhere seem slim. But, as a conversation starter on an important topic, it's a good first step.

So even if the chances of it going anywhere are slim, I'd love to hear from defenders of current copyright law the reasons why any of these particular reforms don't make sense.

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lurking_giant writes "The Seattle Times is reporting that the Men's 500 meter speed-skating competition was delayed more than an hour Monday evening by the breakdown of the two ice grooming machines at the skating oval. The real story is that the machines that failed were the latest state-of-the-art 'Resurfice Fume-Free Electric Groomers' leased to the Olympics committee. An old, propane-powered Zamboni had to be brought out to fix the ice. This makes two nights in a row with ice resurfacing machine failures. If you're going to spend twice as much on electric devices to replace non-green designs, at least test the things first."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Before you protest, as I initially did, that some things are so simple and fundamental that they don't really need high-tech "improvements," realize that this device is being developed for and targeted at medical professionals, who, per this New York Times article covering the developing technology, "often have to wash their hands dozens of times a day -- and may need a minute or more to do the process right, by scrubbing with soap and water."

Room temperature plasma is reportedly very effective at sterilizing surfaces, and is already in use to clean inanimate surfaces and instruments. The plasma is produced by ionizing ordinary air, so no separate gas supply is needed. Apparently the central design challenge is making sure the box --which is basically just a high-voltage power supply--is safe to stick your hand into, and remains that way over the lifetime of the device. The plasma itself supposedly causes no discomfort and is safe for the skin, although you'd think, if they really believe that, somebody would've provided a photo showing a bare hand in contact with it, rather than one so conspicuously gloved.

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theodp writes "Today Google was awarded US Patent No. 7,664,751 for its invention of Variable User Interface Based on Document Access Privileges, which the search giant explains can be used to restrict what Internet content people can see 'based on geographical location information of the user and based on access rights possessed for the document.' From the patent: 'For example, readers from the United States may be given "partial" access to the document while readers in Canada may be given "full" access to the document. This may be because the content provider has been granted full rights in the document from the publisher for Canadian readers but has not been granted rights in the United States, so the content provider may choose to only enable fair use display for readers in the United States.' Oh well, at least Google is 'no longer willing to continue censoring [their] results on Google.cn.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I have read a mountain of economics books that purport to explain the great econopocalypse in which we find ourselves, but none can hold a candle to John Lanchester's Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay, a British book that explains the macro- and microeconomic phenomena with a novelist's sense of plot and clarity (Lanchester being a novelist) that nevertheless refuses to sacrifice accuracy for accessibility.

Lanchester explains the econopocalypse thus: a climate (the fall of the Soviet Union and the triumphal do-no-wrong belief in unfettered capitalism that ensued), a problem (using derivatives to expand risk, rather than limit it, which led to reckless lending in the housing market), a mistake (bankers assuming that they had laid off the risk using complex derivatives) and a failure (regulators refusing to look the financial gift-horse in the mouth). This provides an excellent framework for explaining the ways in which history, greed, and hubris conspired to create the worst financial crisis in memory.

What's more, Lanchester is funny, and he has a gift for making you revisit your assumptions about the world (your house is a highly leveraged asset that appreciates at the same rate as the overall economy, is difficult to liquidate, and if you manage it, you need to buy another house that has appreciated right alongside of it or find yourself homeless). He even manages to make Alan Greenspan and Maggie Thatcher funny, which is really saying something.

Alas, Lanchester is also a downer. At the risk of giving away the ending, he concludes with a compelling argument that the UK economy is likely to be roadkill for a very long time as a result of the financialization of the economy and the capture of the regulators who were supposed to keep an eye on it (he's also bearish on the US economy). Yeah, it's depressing. It's also probably true. And at least he made me laugh while he broke me the news.

Whoops! Why Everyone Owes Everyone and No One Can Pay

ub3r n3u7r4l1st writes "A French judge has issued a national arrest warrant for US cyclist Floyd Landis in connection with a case of data hacking at a doping laboratory, a prosecutor's office said. French judge Thomas Cassuto is seeking to question Landis about computer hacking dating back to September 2006 at the Chatenay-Malabry lab, said Astrid Granoux, spokeswoman for Nanterre's prosecutor's office. The laboratory near Paris had uncovered abnormally elevated testosterone levels in Landis' samples collected in the run-up to his 2006 Tour de France victory, leading to the eventual loss of his medal."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just as the US gets its own special "piracy police" in the Justice Department, it looks like Swedish police have put together something similar, with specific police tasked with investigating unauthorized file trading and copyright infringement, teamed up with some prosecutors to help bring cases. Of course, at worst, these should be civil issues decided between private companies and individuals, and at best, the industry should learn to adapt already, as plenty of participants have.

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MojoKid writes "Acer has just taken the wraps off the new Acer Aspire One 532G netbook at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The machine is the first netbook with dedicated next-generation NVIDIA ION 2 graphics acceleration. The new Aspire One is also enabled with NVIDIA's recently announced Optimus technology to balance multimedia performance when needed, along with battery life savings, seamlessly switching to integrated Intel Atom/Pinetrail graphics when it's not required. Word is Ion 2 is going to be outfitted with twice the number of shaders for even more graphics horsepower as well."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With the rise of new forms of electronic communication, there have been growing problems in figuring out what sort of government communications need to be recorded and preserved. You may remember that there were concerns early on that President Obama wouldn't be allowed to use his Blackberry. Some of those concerns were over security issues, but also there were fears about how every message would need to be recorded and available to the public at some point. This was the same reason that former presidents Bush (the younger) and Clinton did not use email while in office. Down in Florida, apparently, they're going through a debate concerning the use of Blackberry devices, since Blackberries have a special "PIN to PIN" messaging system that works among Blackberries, where those messages aren't recorded -- and certainly, many politicians (and lobbyists) are making use of the system to communicate outside of the "official channels" to avoid having it recorded.

While some are saying this is a reason why Blackberries shouldn't be used at all by these politicians, that seems to miss the point. Yes, it may seem troubling that lobbyists and politicians can and do communicate without any record, but is getting rid of Blackberries really going to solve the issue? For the entire history of the country politicians and lobbyists (from before they were called that) were able to communicate without recording the details through the high tech method of speaking to each other face to face. Saying that all communication needs to be recorded and archived in some manner ignores that plenty of conversations take place by voice all the time that have no such recordings and no way to trace them back. So, yes, worry about corruption between lobbyists and politicians, but focus on the actual issue, not on trying to cut off one of many different ways they might communicate.

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Sigma has announced its 17-70mm F2.8-4 DC Macro OS HSM lens will be available in Sony and Pentax mounts. Currently available in Canon, Nikon and Sigma mounts, the Sony version will start shipping from February 27, 2010 followed by the Pentax version from March 19, 2010.

We recently posted a video showing how to make "bioplastic" -- an easily manageable substance made with vinegar, glycerine, starch, and water. Even better, it's biodegradable.

This recipe has created a modest amount of buzz. MAKE reader Matt Daughtrey has been playing around with the stuff and Joris of the Shapeways Blog recently posted a how-to.

The big question is, can this be a DIY source of plastic for 3D printers? With ABS plastic sold at the MakerBot store for fifty bucks a reel, the prospect of creating your own has got to tempt home fabbers. According to Joris, the bioplastic made with this technique doesn't look too promising:

I didn't attempt put it in a 3D printer. I used extrusion nozzles, old dish washing bottles and tubes to simulate 3D printing. At this point I would not be comfortable in putting it through a 3D printer because of the variability in consistency and viscosity. I do think that someone much more precise and diligent than I could come up with a material that might work. Currently however the material is apt to gunk up any tubing. Even if you're super careful it also gunks up. With a dish washing bottle as a stand in for an extruder nozzle I repeatedly tried to lay down layers. Variability in density made this difficult at times. At other times when I had opted for a much more fluid mixture using more gylcerine and water it was able to produce fine lines and fill in a base layer. The long drying times of 24 hours though make a layer by layer approach impractical to say the least. Even when this was attempted the warping of the drying process messed up any "filling in" or lines that were built.

What do you think, readers? Any chemistry nerds out there who could suggest a recipe allowing DIYers to create their own MakerBot ammo?

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Lanxon writes "A pan-European team of robotics researchers began a project this year that could see humanoid bots interact with groups of people in a realistic, anthropomorphic way for the first time. The 'humanoids with auditory and visual abilities in populated spaces' (HUMAVIPS) project has the ambitious goal of making humanoid bots just that bit more human by building algorithms that will enable bots to mimic what psychologists call the 'cocktail party effect' — the human ability to focus attention on just one person in the midst of other people, voices and background noise."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Al sends in, "40 stills from 40 Pounds of Trouble, showing a 1962 Disneyland in Panavision and Eastman color. Yes, you could fish at Tom Sawyer's Island. No, you couldn't commandeer a motorboat back across the river."

Disneyland stills from 40 Pounds of Trouble - MiceAge.com (Thanks, Al!)

David sez, "Picocon 3³ is the 27th annual one-day convention run by Imperial College's Science Fiction and Fantasy society, and will run in a fortnight's time on Febrary 27th in South Kensington, London. Guests of honour this year are authors Alastair Reynolds, Amanda Hemingway and Jaine Fenn, who will be engaging in talks, panels and silly games -- and hopefully standing well back during the Destruction of Dodgy Merchandise using liquid nitrogen and a really big hammer. Add in all-day LAN gaming, sellers proffering books and costumes, provisions from the Union bar and the themed quiz in the evening, it'll prove be a grand day out. Come along!"

I was a Guest of Honour at Picocon in 2008 and had a whale of a time -- there was duelling with fish, a two-headed Beeblebear, sledgehammering of liquid nitrogen-soaked toys, and that was just for starters!

Picocon (Thanks, David!)

I've always wanted to go to a Grad Night at Disneyland: what's not to like? An all-night lock-in at Disneyland with all your friends! And since Grad Night is one of the more fatal Disneyland events (a teen was squashed by the monorail while climbing it to avoid the booze-checks at the gate, and others have drowned after hiding out with their booze on Tom Sawyer Island during the day and attempting to swim, drunk, to the shore after the event started), there's even the frisson of danger. But now that I've seen this magnificent Grad Night '67 ad, I want to go back in time and attend that one.

Grad night at Disneyland (via Super Punch)

Bunnie "Chumby" Huang waxes rhapsodic about FANUC, a Fuji Corporation spin-out that builds automated robot factories. Bunnie consistently is one of the most interesting commentators on manufacturing I know, and when he's excited ("FANUC may have the biggest robot sex operation in the world. Get your geek-voyeurism on and watch unabashed robot-on-robot-making-other-robot action in the video below.") I'm excited.

FANUC

On this day in 1978, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess launched the first-ever dial-up BBS, in Chicago. They got the idea while trapped inside during a blizzard, and published it in Byte magazine.

It was several decades before the hardware or the network caught up to Christensen and Suess' imaginations, but all the basic seeds of today's online communities were in place when the two launched the first bulletin board, dubbed CBBS for computerized bulletin board system. The two developers announced their creation to the world in the November 1978 issue of Byte magazine.

The article created a stir among hobbyists and hackers, and it wasn't long before others begin building clones of CBBS. By the mid-1980s, BBSs supported an active community with no less than three magazines devoted to covering the latest in the proto-online world.

Feb. 16, 1978: Bulletin Board Goes Electronic

(Image: Penguin Pete)

Public Knowledge has proposed a US Copyright Reform Act that will rebalance US copyright so that it continues to offer rules of the road for regulating various players in copyright industries (writers, programmers, publishers, painters, distributors) but carve out all the stuff we do on the Internet that involves incidental copying, from retrieving health-care information to IMing with our distant families, as well as strengthening fair use and rebalancing the DMCA.

1) strengthen fair use, including reforming outrageously high statutory damages, which deter innovation and creativity; 2) reform the DMCA to permit circumvention of digital locks for lawful purposes; 3) update the limitations and exceptions to copyright protection to better conform with how digital technologies work; 4) provide recourse for people and companies who are recklessly accused of copyright infringement and who are recklessly sent improper DMCA take-down notices; and 5) streamline arcane music licensing laws to encourage new and better business models for selling music.

Public Knowledge Proposes New Copyright Reform Act (via Resource Shelf)

(Image: Large copyright graffiti sign on cream colored wall, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Horia Varlan's photostream)

For years, various luxury brands have been furious that others can buy text keyword advertising based on their trademarked terms, leading to a series of lawsuits. In most place, the courts have realized that just buying a trademarked term as a keyword alone is not infringing on someone's trademark. France, however, is the one exception, having ruled against Google. Now, it's also ruled against eBay for supposedly having ads that pointed to eBay whenever anyone searched on a typo/misspelling of any of LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy). Apparently, in France, you're not even allowed to misspell a trademarked brand name without official permission...

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root777 writes to point out a provocative blog piece by a Microsoft program manager, questioning one of the almost unquestioned tenets of open source development: that given enough eyeballs, all bugs are shallow. Are they? Shawn Hernan looks at DARPA's Sardonix experiment and the Coverity static-analysis bug discovery program in open source projects to conclude that perhaps not enough eyeballs are in evidence. Is he wrong? Why? "Most members of the periphery [those outside the core developer group] do not have the necessary debugging skills ... the vast numbers of 'eyeballs' apparently do not exist. ... [C]ode review is hardly all that makes software more secure. Getting software right is very, very difficult. ... Code review alone is not sufficient. Testing is not sufficient. Tools are not sufficient. Features are not sufficient. None of the things we do in isolation are sufficient. To get software truly correct, especially to get it secure, you have to address all phases of the software development lifecycle, and integrate security into the day-to-day activities."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's my brief TED interview with the warm and wonderful ukulele virtuoso, Jake Shimabukuro. He plays a beautiful Eddie Kamae song at the end of the video.  

Jake Shimabukuro at TED 2010

WiFi has been showing up on airplanes and trains lately, and in Silicon Valley, it's used on the special shuttle buses that companies like Google and Yahoo use to get employees to work. But what about for high schoolers? The NY Times recently had an article about a high school out in the far reaches of Arizona that has put WiFi on a school bus, and found that the impact is really quite amazing:

Wi-Fi access has transformed what was often a boisterous bus ride into a rolling study hall, and behavioral problems have virtually disappeared.

"It's made a big difference," said J. J. Johnson, the bus's driver. "Boys aren't hitting each other, girls are busy, and there's not so much jumping around."

What's amusing here is the juxtaposition of this article with recent articles that fret about kids spending too much time online, with worries that they're becoming addicted or wasting time that could be better spent. But, here the article is suggesting exactly the opposite: that not only is more internet access leading to a less rowdy bus ride, but it's helping the students become better students.

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My favorite pranksters in the Fatlab (Free Art & Technology) visited Berlin for the Transmediale festival, during which they replicated a Google Street View car and toured around town filming skits like asking for directions and lurking in front of the Chinese embassy. Check out the site for a video of it in action and PDF instructions for building your own Street View car.

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"Our debt to Haiti stems from four main sources: slavery, the US occupation, dictatorship and climate change. These claims are not fantastical, nor are they merely rhetorical. They rest on multiple violations of legal norms and agreements."—Naomi Klein, in The Nation (via @shockozulu)