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| U2's manager wants the power to cut off your Internet connection Posted: 09 Apr 2009 04:04 AM PDT JZ sez, The Guardian looks at the French Three Strikes law, whose final discussion will happen today in both chambers of the French parliament. I thought you might be interested into making a reply to it. It's pure mantra and doesn't talk about the most disturbing points:The Guardian piece consists of U2's manager talking about how it would be great if private corporations -- phone companies and music labels -- got the power to take away your Internet connection on the basis of unproven accusations of copyright infringement. I've written about this subject rather a lot here (see below), but I think this is the most cogent response: In the past week, I've only used the internet to contact my employers around the world, my MP in the UK, to participate in a European Commission expert proceeding, to find out why my infant daughter has broken out in tiny pink polka-dots, to communicate with a government whistle-blower who wants to know if I can help publish evidence of official corruption, to provide references for one former student (and follow-up advice to another), book my plane tickets, access my banking records, navigate the new Home Office immigration rules governing my visa, wire money to help pay for the headstone for my great uncle's grave in Russia, and to send several Father's Day cards (and receive some of my own).Why France has the solution to online piracy (Thanks, JZ!) Previously:
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| Obama's transparency commitment makes secret copyright treaty public Posted: 09 Apr 2009 03:45 AM PDT Glyn sez, "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement designed to combat the 'increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works.' is considering whether to involve internet service providers (ISPs) in fighting copyright infringement. Details of the negotiations have at last been published as a result of Obama's commitment to transparency in government. Section 4: Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement in the Digital Environment This section of the agreement is intended to address some of the special challenges that new technologies pose for enforcement of intellectual property rights, such as the possible role and responsibilities of internet service providers in deterring copyright and related rights piracy over the Internet. No draft proposal has been tabled yet, as discussions are still focused on gathering information on the different national legal regimes to develop a common understandingACTA fact-sheet PDF -- US Trade Rep (Thanks, Glyn!) Previously: |
| Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air: the Freakonomics of conservation, climate and energy Posted: 09 Apr 2009 03:23 AM PDT  David JC MacKay's "Sustainable Energy -- Without the Hot Air" may be the best technical book about the environment that I've ever read. In fact, if I have any complaint about this book, it's in how it's presented, with its austere cover and spartan title, I assumed it would be a somewhat dry look at energy, climate, conservation and so on. It's not. This is to energy and climate what Freakonomics is to economics: an accessible, meaty, by-the-numbers look at the physics and practicalities of energy. MacKay, a Cambridge Physics prof, approaches the subject of carbon and sustainability with a scientific, numeric eye. First, in a section called "Numbers, not adjectives," he looks at all the energy and carbon inputs and outputs in Britain and the rest of the world: this is how many kWh of energy are needed to power all of Britain's vehicles. This is how many kWh you would get if you covered the entire British shore with windmills, or wave-farms. This is Britain's geothermal potential. Here's how much carbon vegetarianism offsets. Here's how much carbon unplugging your idle appliances saves (0.25%, making the campaign to switch off energy vampires into a largely pointless exercise -- as MacKay says, "If everyone does a little bit, we'll get a little bit done"). This is the carbon-footprint of all of Britain's imports, gadgets, office towers, and so on. Using a charming, educational style that teaches how to think about this kind of number, how to estimate with it, and what it means, MacKay explains these concepts beautifully, with accompanying charts that make them vivid and clear, and with exhaustive endnotes that are as interesting as the text they refer to (probably the best use of end-notes I've encountered in technical writing -- they act like hyperlinks, giving good background on the subjects that the reader wants to find out more about while allowing the main text to move forward without getting bogged down by details). Next, in "Making a Difference," looks at what it would take to balance Britain's (and, eventually, the world's) energy budget so that the consumption is sustainable (that is, so that it uses only renewables or fuels that would last for 1000 years -- and emits so little carbon that we avert a 2C' rise in global temperature). He looks realistically at conservation, considering the theoretical limits on efficiency for rail, electric cars, air, as well as factories, home design and so forth, giving examples ranging from better insulation to tearing down all the housing in Britain and rebuilding it for maximum efficiency (factoring in the energy and carbon costs of the new building, of course). This chapter also has a lot of sensible personal advice for things you can do to reduce your energy consumption -- especially identifying those few badly designed devices in your home whose idle power-draw really is punitive and replacing them (one Ikea lamp he cites draws nearly as much switched off as running, because of a transformer design that was one penny cheaper to manufacture than a more efficient one would have been). Finally, in a long technical appendix, MacKay delves into the physics of maximal performance in transport, manufacturing, housing and energy generation, explaining it in a way that I -- who have not studied physics since I was 18 -- was able to follow. This reminded me of nothing so much as Saul Griffith's wonderful talk on climate change as an engineering problem. Add up all the energy we can make if we harness every erg, every photon. Subtract all the energy we want to use. Examine this difference and come up with strategies for bringing the two into balance. Once you get this approach, it becomes a lot simpler to figure out what is and isn't worth doing. My only complaint about this book is its packaging: if it were tarted up to look like the transformative, important popular science book that it really is, I think it would be at the center of the environmental debate today. The entire book is available as a free 10MB PDF download so you can start reading immediately Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air (US) Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air (UK) Without Hot Air -- MacKay's site for the book, including the whole book as a free download Previously: |
| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:33 PM PDT Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy Here's the Electronic Frontier Foundation's Kevin Bankston doing a kick ass job on Keith Olbermann's show, discussing the Obama DOJ's radical interpretation of the PATRIOT Act that says that the president can't be sued for anything he does, even if it's illegal. EFF's Kevin Bankston on MSNBC's "Countdown With Keith Olbermann" |
| Design the Hugo Award logo, win $500 and a ticket to WorldCon Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:29 PM PDT  The Hugo Awards -- one of science fiction's leading honors -- have a beautiful trophy, a silver, streamlined rocket-ship. What they don't have is a logo that can be used on things like anthologies of Hugo-winning fiction, the spines of Hugo-winning books, and so on. So they're holding a contest to design a Hugo logo. You have to use the rocket-ship, and you get $500, a ticket to the Worldcon and a signed Neil Gaiman book if you win. Judges are Neil Gaiman (3 time Hugo Award-winning author), Chip Kidd (graphic designer, author, editor), Geri Sullivan (SF Fan and graphic designer pro) and Irene Gallo (art-director for Tor). |
| Associated Press threatens AP affiliate over YouTube channel Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:24 PM PDT The Associated Press, in its zeal to keep the news a secret, has begun to send legal threats to itself. WTNQ-FM, an AP affiliate in Tennessee, received the legal threat over its YouTube channel, through which it makes its/AP's material available to its listeners. When WTNQ-FM's Frank Strovel called up the AP exec in charge of the anti-YouTube campaign to discuss this, he discovered that "nobody told the A.P. executive that the august news organization even has a YouTube channel which the A.P. itself controls, and that someone at the A.P. decided that it is probably a good idea to turn on the video embedding function on so that its videos can spread virally across the Web, along with the ads in the videos." A.P. Exec Doesn't Know It Has A YouTube Channel: Threatens Affiliate For Embedding Videos (via Memex 1.1) Previously:
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| Report from protest for blind rights at Authors Guild yesterday Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:18 PM PDT Tim from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, Yesterday, hundreds of people gathered in front of the headquarters of The Authors Guild in New York City to protest the removal of text-to-speech capabilities in Amazon's new Kindle 2 ebook device.Disability Access Activists Gather to Protest Kindle DRM (Thanks, Tim!) Previously: |
| CodeCon: biohacks and running code, San Francisco, Apr 17-19 Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:14 PM PDT Ben "OpenSSL" Laurie sez, "Wonder if Codecon might be of interest to your readers - always a fun conference, the basis has always been 'bring working code', though not necessarily open source. This year adds a new twist with 'or bring working biohacks' which I think is going to be fascinating - if only I didn't have to be somewhere else! Anyway, I was on the program committee and I think we have a pretty interesting lineup this year. Cheap ($82.50)! Only guaranteed to get in if you buy in advance!" CodeCon 2009CodeCon 2009 (Thanks, Ben!) Previously: |
| Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:10 PM PDT Over at Dinosaurs and Robots, Todd Lappin reviews Brian Floca's stunning kids' book Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, "a vivid retelling of mankind's first mission to the moon." Floca says:
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| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:10 PM PDT  These World of Warcraft Horde masks certainly would spice up the game-play -- and they'd be a great way of communicating your passion for the game to your co-workers if worn at your desk or on the line. Who know? Maybe some of them play "for the Horde," too! Tauren Overhead Latex Mask - Licensed World of Warcraft Costume Accessory (via Wonderland) |
| Pocket phonograph: the proto-walkman Posted: 09 Apr 2009 03:25 AM PDT Here's a sweet video of an early walkman ancestor, the Mikiphone pocket phonograph, a superb gadget that unpacks and assembles in seconds, quickly filling the room with the dulcet tones of your be-bop combo. Mikiphone Pocket Phonograph (Thanks, Bill!) |
| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 09:14 PM PDT I found this video of Wade playing his homemade one-string diddley bow on Cigar Box Nation. Fantastic. Only the best pallet wood, chicken can and drywall screws money can buy to build this fine instrument. This is an off the cuff song I came up with to go with this mean piece of wood.Be sure to check out the other videos of one, two, three, and four-stringed homemade musical instruments. |
| Podcast about Hollow Earth theorist Dr. Raymond Bernard Posted: 08 Apr 2009 08:21 PM PDT  Nate DiMeo says: "I'm a public radio reporter in L.A., I've got a podcast of history stories. it's latest episode tells the story of Hollow Earth theorist/wonderful crazy person, Dr. Raymond Bernard." |
| Teaser Trailer for Fanfilm Auteur Sandy Collora's "Hunter Prey" (think: "Predator" meets "Conair") Posted: 08 Apr 2009 05:51 PM PDT Earlier this week, science fiction blog io9 got an exclusive peek at the teaser trailer for "fanfilm" director Sandy Collora's forthcoming feature "Hunter Prey." Annalee Newitz says, Collora created the now-legendary fan film "Batman Dead End," which got him into a pretty heartbreaking copyright battle with Warner Bros. and Comic-Con. But he's back on his feet and continues to break new ground by bringing slick production values to shoestring-budget fan films. "Hunter Prey" is a feature film based on an original premise, and is fascinating not just because it's going to be action-packed fun, but also because it's a look into the future of high-quality amateur filmmaking.Here's the io0 blog post, with a higher-quality video than what I've embedded here, and more on the project. Looks pretty amazing! |
| Gentleman in New Orleans Loses Chunk of Arm in Possible Zombie Attack Posted: 08 Apr 2009 05:21 PM PDT The headline is a keeper: "Metairie man says stranger chewed, swallowed after taking bite out of his arm." The story is horrible, but more frightening still, it suggests the imminent threat of a worsening zombie onslaught. Lancellotti said he tried to defend himself with a garden rake. As the men struggled over the rake, the stranger bent over and bit Lancellotti on his right forearm, the report said. Lancellotti's flesh ripped away as he fell to the ground. The man then got on top of Lancellotti and began choking him, the report said.Metairie man says stranger chewed, swallowed after taking bite out of his arm (Nola.com, thanks Jonno!) |
| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 04:37 PM PDT  My friend Steve Lodefink (who has written a number of articles for MAKE) can build just about anything. Not only that, his creations always look beautiful, even on his first attempt. Here are his build notes for a Fink "Telekaster" guitar he's making. Previously:
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| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 05:03 PM PDT  (Image: "Dubai Metropolis," The Business Bay Executive Towers in Dubai. From the CC-licensed Flickr stream of "twocentsworth." ) An incredible piece by Johann Hari in the UK Independent about hard times hitting in the Arab city-state "built from nothing in just a few wild decades on credit and ecocide, suppression and slavery." A long read, but you won't want to miss a word. Toward the end of the piece, Hari boils his impression of the place down to these six words: "Market Fundamentalist Globalisation in One City." The feature starts with a vignette about an expat named Karen Andrews, who now lives in her Range Rover, camped in the parking lot of one of Dubai's finest hotels. Her troubles began when her husband was diagnosed with a brain tumor, lost his job, and the couple quickly slipped into debt. Snip: The dark side of Dubai (via monochrom/@Johnannes)
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| GAMA-GO seeks mutants for hire Posted: 08 Apr 2009 04:17 PM PDT Do you want to work for GAMA-GO? The fantastic firm is expanding and has several job openings in San Francisco. I visited their new office/warehouse/storefront a few days back and it's magnificent -- the yetis are growling with glee as they unpack boxes while a vigilant team of ninja kitties prowls the perimeter. Greg Long says: GAMA-GO job opportunities |
| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 08:00 PM PDT  The new "Pioneer Woman" in MEAT. It sounds like the name of a Damien Hirst work, but it's an advertisement from the 1 November 1943 issue of LIFE magazine. John Ptak says: "This ad is innocent enough: it was simply encouraging the modern housewife to go adventuring into cuts of meat that had been deemed unacceptable before rationing and the war, which brought about a meat drought." Women Meat Pioneers, 1943 |
| Videos of funeral and cobra rituals in India Posted: 08 Apr 2009 03:35 PM PDT The cartoonists Mats!? went to India, and he's posting videos he shot there, including a funeral train, and a cobra ritual. |
| Giving away 15 passes to Global Conference - for the unemployed Posted: 08 Apr 2009 03:28 PM PDT Jennifer Manfre' of the Milken Institute says: So, unemployment numbers are out today and they are, of course, bad. How about a little bit of optimism for our friends and colleagues that have been laid off? Global Conference is a tremendous opportunity for exposure to the latest trends and the ultimate networking opportunity. There are about 3K top level attendees from finance, government, business, entrepreneurs, philanthropy, non-profit and academic - from all 50 states and about 60 countries from around the world. |
| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 02:15 PM PDT   At the age of 52, "VW" had a sudden desire to quit work as lawyer and start painting. He previously hadn't been interested in art. Shortly after, he was diagnosed with frontotemporal lobar degeneration (FTLD) and amyotrophic later sclerosis (ALS). Above left is an artwork he painted just before he was diagnosed. Above right is a piece VW made a few years later, just before he died. From New Scientist: "...Degeneration in a brain area responsible for controlling impulses might explain his creative urge, says Anli Liu, a neurologist and artist who recently authored a case report on VW. At the same time, symptoms of ALS limited VW's motor control and, eventually, his ability to create art."Brain decline reflected in patient's brush strokes |
| Jasmina Tesanovic: Earthquake in Italy Posted: 08 Apr 2009 01:48 PM PDT  (Ed. Note: The following guest essay was written by Jasmina Tešanović. Full text of essay continues after the jump, along with links to previous works by her shared on Boing Boing. Image: "Earthquake," by Flickr user mirkosim, via Flickr blog / Heather Champ.) Here in northern Italy, we overslept the big earthquake in Aquila, which is a beautiful, ancient small town now completely in ruins. My agent, his wife and his cat were in Rome one hundred kilometers from the epicenter. He jumped out of his bed at the early hours of 6th April. He phoned me a few hours later: this is like a bombing, he said. As I write this, I am watching RAI 2 channel: they talk of natural disasters, and two, new, strong quakes shake their TV crew. Two buildings in Aquila -- among many historic town buildings from the Renaissance and Baroque -- groan and half-collapse. The TV crew shifts to a safer spot. A big debate is going on: all about the dead, the wounded, the reconstruction, the solidarity, the future. But a very Italian debate parallels it: a so-called scientist claims he predicted this quake. Other seismologists claim it is impossible to predict any such thing, even though there were tremors a week ago, and a major one was expected. A psychologist is speaking of God under the ruins. He is almost screaming while preaching peace for the dead and aid for the survivors. A politician is asking for renewed unity for a very split and quarrelsome Italian society. Berlsusconi, the right wing president, declared an emergency state in that region, as soon as he returned from G20 in London where he had to mingle with the first-class of world politicians. While Berlusconi was away there was a huge rally of the opposition in Rome against his bland denial of the Italian financial crisis. But then this sudden natural disaster changed the subject: Italy is always a landscape prone to earthquakes and volcanoes. I know a war journalist who build a beautiful mansion under the volcano Etna. He survived many wars and eruptions, yet he died of a too much food and wine under his favorite volcano. In the seventies in Friuli, northern Italy a massive earthquake killed thousands. I remember being in Milan in those days. We trembled with those refugees. Italian solidarity aided the survivors. All Italians are survivors. In Aquila, famous historical monuments are down or half-collapsed, art objects are scattered and waiting to be trampled or looted. Rescue troops search methodically, still hoping for survivors. People sleep under tents praying for good weather. Italy has not seen a true spring yet. More rain is forecast, even floods. As I watch the TV, I know this is not a science fiction disaster movie, this is the new realism. Only last night the same television showed me an old movie with Ana Magnani: the post war late 1940s in Italy. It seemed so different: the good guys had defeated the bad guys. There was hope. Watching these high tech rescue squads, ambulances heavy with gear and with high pitched Italian sirens, politicians in Armani suits with Missoni ties, blonde sexy news announcers with cosmetic lip surgery, all scampering among the ruins, I feel uneasy. Where are the real people? Whatever became of normal life? Trained dogs sniff for normal life beneath the rubble. Marta, a 24 year old, has been saved after 23 hours of advanced post-disaster research. The disaster technicians sawed through metal, they pried the rubble off her: her broken voice out of the broken body: grazie ragazzi, grazie! Mother and father without voice waiting for their child to reappear from their smashed home: they still hope she is alive, but the Italian earth still trembles. Scenes of primordial trauma, like Pompeii. That earth opens above or beneath us, and we can do nothing about nature. Can that still be the truth? It doesn't sound very modern. A survivor in a reality talk show , a journalist, weeps, remembers how his colleague found that two of his children were killed. Old, poor people sitting next to their destroyed building say: we are here, we are waiting. They don't say what they await: maybe nobody knows. People owning cars sleep inside those cars. There are also tents, some tents fancier than others, though none as fancy as the hotels where the luckier refugees are still unhappy. The victims talk under shock, trying to remember the details of life, trying to remember what they lost: they speak in details, like Katrina refugees, like Kosovo or Bosnian ones. Any memento from a destroyed home -- like a stone of your house -- counts more than a jewel. A salvaged photo is more precious than food. People hunt through their rubble for their future values. Volunteers are coming from all points. The hospital has collapsed. Pundits call for high tech sensors while the journalists ask the predictable questions. The whole world is watching you, Italy: anxious for the fate of the foreign tourists, foreign students... even my own email is full of foreigners asking me: how are you in Italy? I am in Italy in solidarity with Italy. Berlusconi is telling the refugees: go to the seaside hotels for Easter, enjoy! We are paying! His jokes are beyond bad taste! Jasmina Tešanović is an author, filmmaker, and wandering thinker who shares her thoughts with BoingBoing from time to time. Email: politicalidiot at yahoo dot com. Her blog is here. Previous essays by Jasmina Tešanović on BoingBoing: - 10 years after NATO bombings of Serbia |
| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 02:01 PM PDT This enchanting little short was produced at the NASA Space Sciences Laboratory, at UC Berkeley in 2007, and has won a number of awards at film fests since. Snip: The secret lives of invisible magnetic fields are revealed as chaotic ever-changing geometries . All action takes place around NASA's Space Sciences Laboratories, UC Berkeley, to recordings of space scientists describing their discoveries . Actual VLF audio recordings control the evolution of the fields as they delve into our inaudible surroundings, revealing recurrent 'whistlers' produced by fleeting electrons . Are we observing a series of scientific experiments, the universe in flux, or a documentary of a fictional world?.Magnetic Movie, A Semiconductor film by Ruth Jarman and Joe Gerhardt. (thanks, Marianne Shaneen!). Ed. Note: this video was previously blogged on Boing Boing Gadgets. |
| Oregon Passes Bill "Too Gross to Talk About" Posted: 08 Apr 2009 01:12 PM PDT The newspaper headlines around this one are funny: "House passes bill too gross to talk about," cringes the Oregonian. Bottom line seems to be that they've outlawed bukkake. Here's a pretty straightforward wikipedia entry about the act, popularized first in Japanese pornography, then made famous through American titles. Today's Oregon ruling was sparked by a really awful non-consensual crime that involved a single perp and a single intended victim. Not funny, and I'm all for the maximum possible penalties there. But the language of the bill appears to cover the consensual but equally icky Porn Valley phenom, which typically involves lots of multiple participants, some of whom are paid as performers: (via Susannah Breslin) |
| Tiny, tiny $40 robot navigates around your desktop Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:42 AM PDT  The tiny $40 Robo-Q looks like a lot of fun. Check out the video. The all-around control, you may never experience it! The 6 directions control plus 3 speed levels. Also the Robot can be controlled via Artificial Intelligence (AI) after you press the AUTO button, then the Robot can detect-and-escape from the barriers. What's more, after you press the AUTO button and Direction button, the Robot can detect-and-trace the objects. In the Trace mode, the Robot can be charged and run to the controller automatically! The controller as a Robot Station can be stored a Robot inside. |
| Exhibit about the civilization inhabiting the interior sea of an undiscovered southern continent Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:16 AM PDT  The Society for Linian Studies is presented what promises to be a wonderful exhibition: "The Cognomi Theory of the Antarctic Interior." The Velaslavasay Panorama proudly welcomes an extraordinary exhibition and presentation from The Society for Linian Studies - The Cognomi Theory of the Antarctic Interior, which unearths the history of Linian Scholarship. |
| "Hallelujah I'm a Bum" played on homemade ukulele Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:10 AM PDT Scott Matthews says: It's a hand-made ukulele built from an old Deluxe Memory Man box (the Deluxe Memory Man is a classic analog delay, and one of EHX's best-known pedals). |
| Karinne Keithley plays "Sweet Child of Mine" on ukulele Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:06 AM PDT Via Ukulele Hunt, here's an MP3 of Karinne Keithley performing "Sweet Child of Mine" on ukulele. The Ukulele Hunt link has a few other excellent songs by Ms. Keithley.
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| Posted: 08 Apr 2009 10:01 AM PDT Coop says: Another fun little video featuring my pal Aaron's 60's-Big Daddy-style bubbletop custom car, The Atomic Punk. Lots of in-progress shots that show just how much hard work went into building this crazy thing.
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I researched Moonshot by reading books, flight plans, NASA photographs and charts; watching NASA footage, and basically absorbing everything I could get my hands on about the Apollo 11 mission. That probably sounds excessive for a book with so few words, but in a visual book an incredible amount of information — some of it obscure — can go into any given picture. There's always a tug of war between the big themes of space travel on the one hand, and the temptations of toggle switches and ignition sequence codes and elapsed mission times. I want all those details in the book, and I want to get them right, but I can't overwhelm the story. 
We're GAMA-GO. We're in San Francisco. We design clothing, accessories, limited edition artwork, gifts, toys, and other things that we really dig. We sell GAMA-GO all over the world at hip clothing, gift, and museum stores, and to a very loyal following at our website gama-go.com. Shortly, we'll be opening our first retail store in the SOMA neighborhood of San Francisco. 
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