The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Multitouch surface made from commodity PC components
• Smell of fear
• Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story
• Cantina song from Star Wars on a Chapman Stick
• Manchester's steampunk difference engine adventure
• Desperate-to-leave LinkedIn users rename accounts "delete delete delete"
• Cheap facts: what happens to science fiction when knowing something can be done and doing it are nearly the same thing
• Tim O'Reilly: Kindle needs to embrace standards or die
• Chris Anderson on managing tech for abundance
• Buy Robert Anton Wilson's medical marijuana card
• Man arrested for defacing TV at Sears
• Sarah Palin, via Twitter: God told me to sue the internet
• Fatal monorail collision at Walt Disney World

Multitouch surface made from commodity PC components Posted: 06 Jul 2009 05:14 AM PDT I just caught a demo of the Tactable multitouch surface, which grew out of an MIT Media Lab project. It's an impressive product, a mid-sized table with a sharp projector set underneath the glass. It uses an array of moderate-resolution optical sensors to tell where it's being touched, and the sensors have variable focus, so they can sense 3D gestures over the surface as well as contact with the surface itself. The projector's good and bright, and the picture looked good in a well-lit room (albeit a darker corner of same). And being optical, the sensors can also recognize objects laid on the surface, reading bar-codes, text, shapes, etc. It opens up a myriad of possibilities for game design, some kinds of creative workflow (sound and video editing) and other situations where novel UIs are apt to unveil new possibilities. One thing I really liked about it all is that it's just a PC running a bunch of commodity hardware -- a projector, some sensors -- with cool software on the back-end. This is invention-by-recombination at its finest, and it means that the price and performance of the surfaces are tied to the broader markets for optical sensors, PCs and projectors, which points to a rosy future. The company's business model is building and selling the things, simple enough, so they don't make any pretense about top-s33kr1t stuff within. Tactable Previously: DIY multi-touch interface - Boing Boing iPhone + multitouch + goatse = arrghhhhhh - Boing Boing

Smell of fear Posted: 06 Jul 2009 05:10 AM PDT New research suggests that anxiety triggers the release of a scent that causes other humans who smell it to empathize with you. This may have evolved to help speed up spread of fear within a population so groups can get away quickly from dangerous situations. To run the experiment, University of Dusseldorf psychologist Bettina Pause and her colleagues had students undergoing brain scans sniff absorbent pads taken from the armpits of other students just before a final exam and, separately, while they were exercising. Pleasant. None (of the sniffing students) perceived a difference between the two types of sweat, but the pre-exam sweat had a different effect on brain activity, lighting up areas that process social and emotional signals, as well as several areas thought to be involved in empathy... A previous experiment found that sweat from skydivers activated anxiety circuits in sniffers' brains. Fellow students smell your exam fear Previously: Horseradish smell fire-alarm for waking up deaf people - Boing Boing Using Google maps to enter reports of strange smells - Boing Boing Astronaut describes what space smells like - Boing Boing

Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story Posted: 06 Jul 2009 04:59 AM PDT Finding Oz by Evan I. Schwartz is a new book that tells the story behind the story of The Wizard of Oz and its creator L. Frank Baum. Smithsonian magazine gives a taste of the tale in a brief profile of Baum, who wrote his masterpiece in 1898, at the age of 40. Apparently, Baum was so convinced of his manuscript's magic that he framed the pencil he had used to write it. From Smithsonian: With his skepticism toward God—or men posing as gods--Baum affirmed the idea of human fallibility, but also the idea of human divinity. The Wizard may be a huckster—a short bald man born in Omaha rather than an all-powerful being—but meek and mild Dorothy, also a mere mortal, has the power within herself to carry out her desires. The story, says Schwartz, is less a "coming-of-age story … and more a transformation of consciousness story." With The Wizard of Oz, the power of self-reliance was colorfully illustrated. It seems appropriate that a story with such mythical dimensions has inspired its own legends—the most enduring, perhaps, being that The Wizard of Oz was a parable for populism. In the 1960s, searching for a way to engage his students, a high-school teacher named Harry Littlefield, connected The Wizard of Oz to the late-19th-century political movement, with the Yellow Brick Road representing the gold standard—a false path to prosperity—and the book's silver slippers standing in for the introduction of silver—an alternate means to the desired destination. Years later, Littlefield would admit that he devised the theory to teach his students, and that there was no evidence that Baum was a populist, but the theory still sticks. Frank Baum, the Man Behind the Curtain (Smithsonian) Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story (Amazon)

Cantina song from Star Wars on a Chapman Stick Posted: 06 Jul 2009 12:04 AM PDT Dustin sez, "Musician Guillaume Estace plays a rendition of the famous "Cantina Theme" from Star Wars IV on a Chapman Stick, a guitar-like instrument designed solely for finger-tapping. It's really cool the way it lets him play the bass and melody simultaneously - I want one!" This is my wife's ringtone (the original, not the Chapman Stick version) and so I hear it a lot; this guy does a GREAT job with it! Star Wars "Cantina Band" on Chapman Stick (Thanks, Dustin!)

Manchester's steampunk difference engine adventure Posted: 05 Jul 2009 10:41 PM PDT The Manchester International Festival is putting together a touring, educational steampunk show based on the difference engine, Charles Babbage's mechanical computer. Oh, to live in Manchester! Travelling from past to future through a landscape of machines and ideas Walk the Plank and Thingumajig Theatre have created an interactive journey through the courtyard of Manchester's Town Hall. The audience will help inventor and mathematician Charles Babbage find the clues to repair his Difference Engine; solve the spider's riddles, hidden in the worldwide web; persuade the counting madman to open the gates to the Hall of Shadows...and discover the secret workings of the steampunk arcade. Alongside the show, a programme of engagement with six local schools is being led by The Centre for Urban Education. As part of the Creative Partnerships 'Enquiry' programme, children, young people and their teachers are working with creative practitioners to explore their ideas. They will develop a new creative learning resource based on the themes of the performance and linked to the science, technology, history, engineering and maths curricula. The Difference Engine...a steampunk adventure (Thanks, Ed!) Previously: Difference Engine unboxed at Silicon Valley Computer Museum ... Difference Engine mechanical computer made from legos - Boing Boing

Desperate-to-leave LinkedIn users rename accounts "delete delete delete" Posted: 05 Jul 2009 10:37 PM PDT Clay Shirky sez, "While googling around for instructions on deleting my Facebook profile, I discovered a form of digital graffiti which is one part last-ditch strategy to three parts _cri de coeur_: accounts renamed by frustrated LinkedIn users desperate to get off the service. I have no idea how common this is, but in just two searches, I came across a Mr. Delete This Account from the San Francisco area, who turns out to have company, as there are three other Mr. Delete This Account's on the service (San Diego; Enid, OK; and Liege, Belgium). There are also two users named Delete My Profile, four named Delete This Profile, and no fewer than ten named Unsubscribe Unsubscribe (the Humbert Humbert of the 21c.) There is also some unintentional hilarity on individual profile pages -- one of the Unsubscribe Unsubscribes is a Relationship Manager, while a user with the first name of 'delete delete delete' and the last name of 'delete delete delete' is a Hospitality Professional in Australia. LinkedIn is very solicitous about asking "Would you like to add delete delete delete delete delete delete to your network?" Um, no." This was how I got rid of my LinkedIn account in the end, and why I never signed back up again. (Thanks, Clay!)

Cheap facts: what happens to science fiction when knowing something can be done and doing it are nearly the same thing Posted: 05 Jul 2009 10:32 PM PDT My new Locus column, "Cheap Facts and the Plausible Premise," explores what it means for science fiction when the cost of knowing something falls to zero, and when the difference between knowing something can be done and doing it narrows away to nothing. Tell someone that her car has a chip-based controller that can be hacked to improve gas mileage, and you give her the keywords to feed into Google to find out how to do this, where to find the equipment to do it -- even the firms that specialize in doing it for you. In the age of cheap facts, we now inhabit a world where knowing something is possible is practically the same as knowing how to do it. This means that invention is now a lot more like collage than like discovery. Cheap Facts and the Plausible Premise

Tim O'Reilly: Kindle needs to embrace standards or die Posted: 05 Jul 2009 10:29 PM PDT Tim O'Reilly predicts the imminent demise of the Kindle ebook reader unless it makes the move to open standards and abandons DRM and proprietary formats. I've been trying to get someone at Amazon to answer my basic questions about the "DRM-free" option for authors and publishers ("Does the EULA prohibit a reader from moving a DRM-free file to a non-Kindle?" "Is there a patent or other restriction that prevents competitors from making readers or converters for the DRM-free files?" and "Can DRM-free files be remotely downgraded, the way that the DRM'ed files have had their read-aloud functionality taken away after the fact?") and been totally stonewalled, as have O'Reilly. Kudos to Tim for a great editorial and especially for the use of "strategy tax" -- what a great phrase! So we sold GNN to America Online in June 1995. Big mistake. Despite telling us that they wanted to embrace the Web, they kept GNN as an "off brand," continuing to focus on their proprietary AOL platform and allowing Yahoo! ( YHOO - news - people ) to dominate the new online information platform. So it was with a feeling of deja vu that I listened in mid-2007 to the promises of Amazon about the potential of its new proprietary e-book platform. While no payment is required to participate, there are clearly onerous restrictions that could limit the growth of the market: a proprietary file format, and the requirement that the e-books only be sold by Amazon.com. The file format was a problem for us from the get-go: Amazon's Kindle file format doesn't provide support for tables or for so-called monospaced fonts, two formatting features that we use heavily in our line of technical books. And there is a viable alternative: Epub, the open format from the International Digital Publishing Forum, is based on the Web's native format, HTML, and provides full table and font support. This is the first "strategy tax" paid by those who embrace proprietary platforms: They can't support the needs of every niche and must prioritize their support for mainstream needs. Why Kindle Should Be An Open Book (via /.) Previously: Some Kindle books have secret caps on the number of times you can ... Kindle owners start to lose text-to-speech on purchased books ... If you lose your Amazon account, your Kindle loses functionality ... When it comes to the Kindle, authors are focused on the wrong risk ... Report from protest for blind rights at Authors Guild yesterday ... My DRM and ebooks talk from O'Reilly Tools of Change for ...

Chris Anderson on managing tech for abundance Posted: 05 Jul 2009 10:21 PM PDT Chris Anderson's stirring Wired editorial "Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It's Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity" accompanies the launch of his new book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, asking technologists to consider what it means to manage abundant hard drives, networks, and processors, rather than scarce ones. (You can also get a free downloadable audiobook from the link) Perhaps the best example of a glorious embrace of waste is YouTube. I often hear people complain that YouTube is no threat to television because it's "full of crap"--which is, I suppose, true. The problem is that no one agrees on what the crap is. You may be looking for funny cat videos and think my favorite soldering tutorials are of no interest. I want to see funny videogame stunts and couldn't care less about your cooking tutorials. And clips of our own charming family members are of course delightful to us and totally boring to everyone else. Crap is in the eye of the beholder. Even the most popular YouTube clips may totally fail in the standard Hollywood definition of production quality, in that the video is low-resolution and badly lit, the sound quality awful, and the plots nonexistent. But none of that matters, because the most important thing is relevance. We'll always choose a "low-quality" video of something we actually want over a "high-quality" video of something we don't. A few months ago it was time for my kids to choose how to spend the two hours of "screen time" they're allowed on weekends. I suggested Star Wars and gave them a choice: They could watch any of the six movies in hi-def on a huge projection screen with surround sound audio and popcorn. Or they could go on YouTube and watch stop-motion Lego animations of Star Wars scenes created by 9-year-olds. It was no contest--they raced for the computer. It turns out that my kids, and many like them, aren't really that interested in Star Wars as created by George Lucas. They're more interested in Star Wars as created by their peers, never mind the shaky cameras and fingers in the frame. When I was growing up, there were many clever products designed to extend the Star Wars franchise to kids, from toys to lunch boxes, but as far as I know nobody thought of stop-motion Lego animation created by children. Tech Is Too Cheap to Meter: It's Time to Manage for Abundance, Not Scarcity (Image: Rodrigo Corral) Previously: Chris Anderson responds to plagiarism blog-storm over "Free ... FREE: Wired's Chris Anderson explores the Divide-By-Zero problem ... Wired's Chris Anderson Discusses Next Book -- "Free" - Boing Boing Video of Chris Anderson about his upcoming book: Free - Boing Boing

Buy Robert Anton Wilson's medical marijuana card Posted: 05 Jul 2009 04:26 PM PDT The medical marijuana card belonging to bOING bOING patron saint Robert Anton Wilson (RIP) is up for auction on eBay. It's one of many of RAW's personal items that his daugther, Christina, is auctioning to help pay off her father's large debts. From the medical marijuana card auction listing: As we all know (or should) RAW was a great champion of decriminalizing marijuana. In his late sixties, when his post-polio syndrome started getting bad, he really found great relief and was a staunch supporter of WAMM. WAMM is Wo/Man's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, located in Santa Cruz. His doctor gave him the necessary paperwork and here is his official WAMM card granting him the right to use marijuana medicinally. He is of course, patient # 2323. There is no signature, but his picture is emblazoned on the front with a twinkle in his eye... Robert Anton Wilson's Medical Marijuana Card Previously: Boing Boing: Robert Anton Wilson (RIP) Robert Anton Wilson on the 23 engima - Boing Boing Reason magazine on Robert Anton Wilson - Boing Boing Boing Boing: Robert Anton Wilson needs our help Boing Boing: Note from Robert Anton Wilson and his daughter

Man arrested for defacing TV at Sears Posted: 05 Jul 2009 03:52 PM PDT This Cincinnati gentleman was charged with criminal damaging after taking a permanent marker to a $1600 plasma TV at Sears. According to WCPO, Jordan Puckett, 20, was caught on surveillance video drawing a one foot penis on the screen. "A motive is not yet know." Man's Alleged Organ Artistry On TV Brings Charge (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

Sarah Palin, via Twitter: God told me to sue the internet Posted: 05 Jul 2009 09:06 AM PDT Wonkette has a post up about @AKGovSarahPalin's crazy late-night twitter bender. She's gonna have to give up that handle, no? Anyway, after you slog through all the crazy ungrammatical Palinglish rambling, the point seems to be that a "higher calling" has directed her to file anti-defamation lawsuits against a number of news websites for having reported the news that she quit her post as governor of Alaska (her "news conference" to that effect is embedded above). From Wonkette: [A]fter crazily quitting her elected position as governor of Alaska, via an alarming backyard last-minute press conference void of any explanation , at the classic 4 p.m. hour of the Friday-Holiday news dump, Sarah Palin is now twatting on the twitter about how her Anchorage attorneys are going to SUE THE AMERICAN MEDIA, for saying "WTF?" Honestly, this is what Sarah Palin twatted on Saturday Night, July 4th, Independence Day, in America. Her link goes to (of course) Scientologist nut and sub-literate weirdo Greta Van Susteren's blog on FoxNews.com, where Greta has helpfully (?) posted seven pages of legal threats from Palin's lawyers, although you can't actually read beyond the first vague page of whining bullshit, because Greta/Fox can't figure out how to operate the Internet. But, from other websites, we gather Palin's lawyers plan lawsuits against MSNBC, the New York Times, the Huffington Post, the Washington Post, individual bloggers in Alaska, and other such anti-Palin forces such as "rain on your wedding day" and static cling. Related reading: Anchorage Daily News article, hilarious. Vanity Fair article: It Came from Wasilla (and "Don't Blame Us"). (via @Andrew Baron) On his excellent "nedslist" mailing list, Ned Sublette wrote this concise and spot-on appreciation of the official text of Palin's goodbye speech: [W]hat Roland Barthes would have called the pleasure of this text has to be savored in full to draw out its pure nuttiness. It's hard to know what to appreciate more: the all-caps prepositions; the sentence fragments that begin the fifth and sixth paragraphs, the run-on sentences, the frequent exclamation points!, the quotation from her parents' refrigerator magnet, the basketball analogy, the proposed logic of quitting so as not to be a quitter, or the grammatically incorrect final sentence framing the misattributed punchline, which was actually said not by General Douglas MacArthur but by General Oliver P. Smith. I especially like the capital O of "Outside" in "Outside special interests," which reminds us that the world consists of two parts: Alaska, and Outside. But what I most enjoy is the authenticity of this text; there can be no question that Governor You Betcha wrote it herself {wink}.

Fatal monorail collision at Walt Disney World Posted: 05 Jul 2009 08:10 AM PDT Eric sez, "The operator of a monorail at Walt Disney World died Sunday morning when two monorails crashed. About five or six guests were on the monorail at the time of the accident, but they are not seriously injured." It happened at the Ticket and Transportation Center station. A person who was on the scene reported to the news stations that they head a loud explosion and saw the mangled trains in the station. They tried to run to get people out of the front of the crashed train. They saw a family make it out, but the driver [ed: news report cuts off here] The monorails involved were the pink and purple trains, according to Local 6 in Orlando; pink was moving and hit purple, which was stationary. Breaking news: Two monorails crash at Disney World overnight, one Cast Member dead (Thanks, Eric and John!)

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