Sunday, June 14, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Have botnet prices crashed?

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 09:55 PM PDT

Years ago, my friend John Gilmore told me he thought accounts of the spread of botnets (massive networks of virus-compromised machines that can be used in concert to send spam, attack servers, etc) were overblown, because if botnets were really all-pervasive, then the price of using them should have crashed. Now comes this spam, on one of my personal blogs, and I wonder, has the great botnet price-crash finally hit?
Tired of a competitor's site? Hinder the enemy? Fed pioneers or copywriters?

Kill their sites! How? We will help you in this!
Obstructions of any site, portal, shop!

Different types of attacks: Date-attack, Trash, Attack, Attack, etc. Intellectual
You can work on schedule, as well as the simultaneous attack of several sites.

On average the data, ordered the site falls within 5 minutes after the start. As a demonstration of our capabilities, allows screening.

Our prices

24 hours of attack - $ 70
12 hours of the attack - $ 50
1 hour attack - $ 25



Escher lizard paving-stones

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 09:52 PM PDT

GeckoStone makes tesselated paving stones that look like Escher's interlocking lizards. (hilariously, they've registered a trademark and claim copyright on this work derived from a classic Escher work that is, itself, copyrighted -- and there's no evidence that they licensed the design from Escher's estate; every pirate wants to be an admiral!)

GeckoStone (via Make)


Canadian ISPs need you to tell the regulator to force Bell to stop screwing them -- and the Canadian public

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 09:47 PM PDT

Robbo sez, "Rocky Gaudrault, CEO of TekSavvy [ed: fantastic, indie Canadian ISP that does not practice throttling, unlike the major semi-monopoly, Bell Canada], sent this email to customers today. Seems important for people in Canada even if they aren't TekSavvy customers:"
In March 2008 Bell started throttling its Wholesale Customers (TekSavvy among a group of many) without notice. We attempted to have the CRTC force Bell to stop as it removed our ability to do business and give Market choice. The throttling was done in the name of congestion, even if Bell, at the same time launched higher speeds (which they did not share with their wholesalers) and also dabbled with launching IPTV, which consumes even more capacity.

The CRTC sided with Bell in November 2008 but launched a Public Hearing to discuss Network Management Practices, clearly showing they made a decision on throttling without having all the details in hand to do so. As a result we launched a request to reverse their decision from November (The Review & Vary) in May 2009.

The only way we are going to make a difference at this point is to get full public support to stop companies like Bell from bullying the market and the regulators! The Telecom and Cableco Monopolies control 96% of our marketplace, so if we don't stand up and voice our concerns, this will become a two party dance where choices and services are going to be completely removed and rates raised to unreasonable levels!

Here are the details on how to submit your comments:

1) Go to: http://support.crtc.gc.ca/crtcsubmissionmu/forms/Telecom.aspx?lang=e
2) Select "Part VII / PN" from the drop down list and then click "Next"
3) In box entitled "Subject" line, insert "CRTC File #: 8662-P8-200907727"
4) In the box entitled "Description / Comments / Questions", insert any comments that you may have on the review and vary application.
5) If you would like to attach a document, select "yes" and follow the instructions for attaching a file.
As indicated in the Title, I believe the deadline is June 22nd, so don't wait to long

PS - R&V details here.

Man, would you look at how hard it is to link to a specific docket at the Canadian telco regulator? It's almost as though they don't want activists to be able to exhort people to go and take action. Either that, or they don't know how the Internet works. I'm not sure which one is worse.

Submit a telecom-related request (Thanks, Robbo!)

Previously:


Swiss Pirate Party

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 09:41 PM PDT

Laurent sez, "The Switzerland's Piraten Partei (Pirate Party, of course) will be loaded July the 12th in Zurich. There is also a Facebook group : Piratenpartei Schweiz - Parti Pirate Suisse - Partito Pirata Svizzero Mondial."

The original Swedish Pirate Party won a seat in the recent EU election (two seats, once the Treaty of Lisbon is ratified), the German PP got 1% of the popular vote, and there are affiliate parties all over the world now. All this in just a few years -- I wonder how far the Green Party got in its first three years?

Parti Pirate Suisse (Thanks, Laurent!)

Previously:


Associated Press will syndicate non-profit investigative journalism

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 09:37 PM PDT

The Associated Press (who once suggested that bloggers should pay for five-word excerpts of its stories, and should be forced to promise not to use those excerpts to make fun of the AP) have found a new progressive streak and announced a plan to syndicate investigative journalism stories financed by nonprofits:
Starting on July 1, the A.P. will deliver work by the Center for Public Integrity, the Investigative Reporting Workshop at American University, the Center for Investigative Reporting, and ProPublica to the 1,500 American newspapers that are A.P. members, which will be free to publish the material...

As they sharply reduce their staffs, many newspapers have cut back on investigations or given them up entirely. When there are barely enough reporters to cover the daily news from the local courthouse and the school board, it is harder to justify assigning someone to an in-depth project that might take weeks or months.

At the same time, independent groups doing investigative journalism have grown in number and size, fueled by foundations and wealthy patrons, and are offering their work to newspapers, magazines, television and radio news programs, and news Web sites. ProPublica was created in 2007 and the Investigative Reporting Workshop in 2008. The Center for Investigative Reporting has operated for more than three decades, and is doubling in size. The four groups combined have more than 50 professional journalists.

A.P. in Deal to Deliver Nonprofits' Journalism (via /.)
Previously:


New chair from legendary designer Niels Diffrient

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 01:43 PM PDT

Humanscale's new Diffrient World Chair is the latest outing from legendary designer Niels Diffrient, the man who (as Bruce Sterling points out) literally wrote the book on ergonomics. Reading this description is sheer chairporn. $740 is out of my budget, though I have no doubt that it's worth every penny.
Made from just eight major parts and weighing less than 25 pounds, the Diffrient World chair achieves Humanscale's signature weight-sensitive recline through an innovative new design that functions without a mechanism. Utilizing two frame components, the user's body weight, and the laws of physics, the Diffrient World chair's mech-free recline action automatically adjusts to the needs of each user, offering appropriate levels of resistance without unnecessary locks, dials or other manual controls.

Like its older sibling, the award-winning Liberty chair, the Diffrient World chair features Form-Sensing Mesh Technology that ensures perfect lumbar support for every user without the external, manually adjusted lumbar devices found on all other mesh chairs. Additionally, a mesh seat pan with a frameless front edge provides all-day comfort with soft support under the thighs.

Humanscale Sets New Bar With Ultra Simple Task Chair (via Beyond the Beyond)

Daily Routines: a blog about the habits of interesting people

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 09:17 PM PDT

The brief at the Daily Routines blog is to collect stories of "How writers, artists, and other interesting people organize their days." I'm a total creature of habit, even when I'm on the road, a 5AM-rising daily writer; the last thing I do before bed is all the breakfast prep for a huge, elaborate three-course breakfast for the family so that I can bang it all out in ten minutes after getting to inbox0 from the night's email and getting through all the morning's blogposts, hot and ready by 7AM. I get a nap, half an hour's reading and half and hour's yoga every afternoon, get in two pages of the novel, two pages of the short story, and about 3 to 5 times a week, I write a column. Every Monday is podcast day. Monday and Wednesday night, I leave the office ten minutes early, get the kid from day care and make sure she's bathed, fed and in bed by 7 when the sitter comes by so Alice and I can go to a proper 1.5h yoga class around the corner. Sunday mornings we have breakfast out, and I walk the kid to the PO Box, stop and play in the park on the way back, drop off all the stuff from the box at my office, then come home and put the kid to bed while Alice kills zombies on the Xbox. I love my routine.
Despite all this activity Churchill's daily routine changed little during these years. He awoke about 7:30 a.m. and remained in bed for a substantial breakfast and reading of mail and all the national newspapers. For the next couple of hours, still in bed, he worked, dictating to his secretaries.

At 11:00 a.m., he arose, bathed, and perhaps took a walk around the garden, and took a weak whisky and soda to his study.

At 1:00 p.m. he joined guests and family for a three-course lunch. Clementine drank claret, Winston champagne, preferably Pol Roger served at a specific temperature, port brandy and cigars. When lunch ended, about 3:30 p.m. he returned to his study to work, or supervised work on his estate, or played cards or backgammon with Clementine.

At 5:00 p.m., after another weak whisky and soda, he went to bed for an hour and a half. He said this siesta, a habit gained in Cuba, allowed him to work 1 1/2 days in every 24 hours. At 6:30 p.m. he awoke, bathed again, and dressed for dinner at 8:00 p.m.

Daily Routines (via Kottke)
Previously:


Soviet-era punks

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 01:33 PM PDT


Murilee sez, "English Russia has dug up some excellent photos of crypto-punks of the Late Brezhnev Era, when it still took plenty of guts to dress like a freak."

Soviet Punks (Thanks, Murilee!)

The Word Gets Out

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 12:40 PM PDT

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Well, my time guest blogging on BoingBoing is almost over. So many things to write about and so little time. A few things I like that deserve more, than the few words I'm able to provide:

1. ZoozBeat This is the iPhone/iTouch application that won the "gadget-off" competition at Kinnernet last month in Washington DC. It's a gesture-based mobile musical studio, simple enough for non-musicians to immediately become musically expressive but rich enough for experienced musicians to push the envelope of mobile music creation. Use shake and tilt movements, tap the screen, or press the keypads to create and modify rhythmic and melodic lines. Available thru iTunes.

The Celestron digital microscope I wrote about earlier came in second.

2. The Debut My absolute favorite indie rock band in the world. I'm especially fond of the lead singer. ; ) Best known work is The Photograph Song



3. Goex brand black powder. Sure, you can learn how to make your own bp by reading the Thundring Noyse chapter of Absinthe and Flamethrowers. But what if you just want to buy it? Then this is the stuff I like: "In a powder mill in the piney woods of north Louisiana, workers carry on the tradition of generations of American black powder makers, grinding out granules of black powder at the GOEX Black Powder Plant."

4. BIRTH CONTROL IS SINFUL IN THE CHRISTIAN MARRIAGES and also ROBBING GOD OF PRIESTHOOD CHILDREN!! (Paperback). Not sure if it's worth every penny of its $135 cover price, but may be available used for less. One Amazon reviewer wrote:
"Despite being written entirely in BLOCK CAPITALS, this self-published work conveys its message elegantly. In fact, you don't even need to read it to understand the main argument being put forward.

True, by avoiding this book you will miss out on the precise location of the heretical surfboard worshipped by the British royal family and . . . .". .( more here)

5. Malta (the drink, not the country, although the country is fine as well) It's a delicious malt flavored beverage popular in the Caribbean. (But read the label. Goya Malta has a whopping 230 calories per 12 oz serving.)

Junk science and cocaine scares

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 09:32 AM PDT

Today in his weekly column on junk science, Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre challenges the War on Drugs and Britain's latest obsession with fighting cocaine:
In the case of cocaine, there is an even more striking precedent for evidence being ignored: during the early 1990s the World Health Organisation conducted what is probably the largest ever study of global cocaine use. In March 1995 they released a briefing kit which summarised their conclusions, with some tantalising bullet points.

"Health problems from the use of legal substances, particularly alcohol and tobacco, are greater than health problems from cocaine use," they said. "Few experts describe cocaine as invariably harmful to health. Cocaine-related problems are widely perceived to be more common and more severe for intensive, high-dosage users and very rare and much less severe for occasional, low-dosage users."

The full report - which has never been published - went on to challenge several of the key principles driving prohibition, and was extremely critical of most US policies. It suggested that supply reduction and law enforcement strategies have failed, and that alternative strategies such as decriminalisation might be explored, flagging up such programmes in Australia, Bolivia, Canada and Colombia....This report was never published, because just two months after the press briefing was released, at the 48th World Health Assembly, the US representative to WHO threatened to withdraw US funding for all their research projects and interventions unless the organisation "dissociated itself from the conclusions of the study" and cancelled the publication. According to WHO, even today, this document does not exist, (although you can read a leaked copy in full on the website of the drugs policy think tank Transform at www.tdpf.org.uk/WHOleaked.pdf ).

This is my column. This is my column on drugs. Any questions?
Previously:


Can Bre Pettis Replicate Himself?

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 09:03 AM PDT

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Uber-maker Bre Pettis his colleagues Zach Smith and Adam Mayer are hard at work on a open source 3D printer for the masses. Great idea: it's one thing to come up with an idea on paper (or CAD file), and quite another to turn that idea into a tangible thing. It's even another thing to sell a 3D printer kit that's about as cheap as a regular-old mass produced laser printer.
maker bot and bre.jpg photo by rstevens

I interviewed Bre at NYC Resistor last month, after we went on a fruitless search for restaurants in Brooklyn that serve saltfish and ackee.

Bill Gurstelle (pointing to squarish object on desk): What's that?
Bre Pettis: That? It's the MakerBot Cupcake CNC. It's an open source 3D printer, that turns your table top into your own little factory.

Bill Gurstelle: So, how does it work?
Pre Pettis: The machine works like a super accurate automated hot glue gun robot. It takes a filament of plastic and melts it down and extrudes it through a tiny hole to make a tiny string of molten plastic. Layer by layer it builds up material until your object is complete!

BG: Um, what's with all the cans of cake frosting?
BP: We created a frosting attachment that you can use by switching out the plastic extruder. The Frostruder means it can frost a cupcake too! Right now, we're getting set up to make a world record attempt for the fastest cupcake decorated by a robot.

BG: (points to more stuff on a different table) What's all this other junk for?
BP: We're prototyping up a scanner which together with a MakerBot would be a replicator. We are also in the process of having an eco-friendly plastic manufactured called Polylactic Acid (PLA) manufactured. PLA is a material made out of corn in Nebraska. PLA is clear and we may be able to get it in a medical grade to do things like replace bones with it. Also we're getting the electronics for the machine assembled.

BG: Replicator? Hey, Could a Maker Bot make a Maker Bot?
BP: We're getting there one part at a time. With every batch we manufacture a new part to ship with the machine. Already we've got idler pulleys that snap over a skate bearing that are made on a MakerBot. MakerBot Operators who got a first batch MakerBot can get a hardware upgrade just by downloading the design file and printing it out on their machine. Printable Upgrades!

Iran SMS networks "mysteriously" fail right before elections

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 08:46 AM PDT

There are multiple reports that the text-messaging systems on cellphone networks in Iran went down just before the polls opened. Boing Boing reader Jadi says, "Right now, there are many ongoing protests in the streets against the fraud and still SMS system is down."
According to Ghalam News and multiple Twitterers in Tehran, the text messaging system in Iran has been taken down, just hours before polls open for Friday's presidential election.(...)

The Ghalam News report, translated from Persian, says that the popular network "was cut off throughout the country." The action occurred just before midnight local time, less than nine hours before the start of elections. "All walks of life from all over the country" are discovering that "messages on different cell phone networks will not send."

Blog accounts: Textually, Mideast Monitoring, i-policy.

Hit by a Rock from Outer Space?

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 08:06 AM PDT

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

Am I being overly skeptical of this story: Boy Hit by Meteorite Traveling at 30,000 MPH?

The news photos show the meteorite to be quite small, something slightly smaller than a 22-cal bullet. But 30,000 mph is around 15 times the muzzle velocity of an M-16. I'd expect a worse outcome than a band aid and a smile.

George Bush Goes Skydiving

Posted: 13 Jun 2009 07:54 AM PDT

(Bill Gurstelle is guest blogging here on Boing Boing. He is the author of several books including Backyard Ballistics, and the recently published Absinthe and Flamethrowers. Twitter: @wmgurst)

071110_bush1_hmed_3p.hmedium.jpg Eighty-five year old George H. W. Bush celebrated his birthday by going skydiving. Politics aside, that's a wonderful thing. (Yes, it's a tandem jump, but give him a break, he's 85.) GHWB, perhaps unlike some of his descendants, seems to be a pretty fair practitioner of the Art of Living Dangerously.

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