Tuesday, September 22, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

SGI releases personal supercomputer

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 04:09 AM PDT

SGI -- formerly the titanic Silicon Graphics company -- has released a "personal supercomputer" that can handle up to 80 cores and up to a terabyte of RAM. I used to do work for an SGI VAR and we had a running joke about the merged SGI-Cray unit shipping a water-cooled laptop. This isn't that far off.
Octane III is office-ready with a pedestal, one-by-two-foot form factor, whisper-quiet operations, easy-to-use features, low maintenance requirements and support for standard office power outlets. While a typical workstation has only eight cores and moderate memory capacity, the superior design of the Octane III permits up to 80 high-performance cores and nearly 1TB of memory for unparalleled performance...

Octane III is easily configurable with single- and dual-socket node choices, and offers a wide selection of performance, storage, graphics, GP-GPU and integrated networking options. Yielding the same leading power efficiencies inherent in all SGI Eco-Logical compute designs, Octane III supports the latest Intel processors to capitalize on greater levels of performance, flexibility and scalability.

SGI Unveils Octane III Personal Supercomputer (via The Inquirer)

Fresh Greens: Tandem Bike-Pedaling Robot, Crazy Building Grown from Trees, Peeing on Tomatoes and More!

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 06:32 PM PDT

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5 Places Riding Your Bike is Banned or Illegal (You'll Be Surprised)
So many places exist in the world where it is actually illegal to ride a bike. Perhaps the funniest example is Baldwin Park, California, where it is prohibited to ride a bike in a swimming pool, while the saddest is the injunction against Saudi Arabian women bikers. Read on for wild and crazy rules keeping bikers from their bikes.

Researchers Say 'Good To Pee On Tomato Plants' - Just Don't Let The Neighbors See
If you want bigger, better tomato plants with bigger, better tomatoes that are actually better for you, one option is to mix in some of your own pee. No, seriously. Research has proved it.

First Living Building Successfully 'Grown'
Living walls are great--they can reduce pollution, better insulate buildings, and lower the need for maintenance. But it's about time someone expanded the concept. So here's introducing the 'living building'--where trees are actually grown into the structure of a building and melded with cables and metal supports, giving a whole new meaning to the term 'green building'.

Joules, the Tandem Bike Robot that Pedals for You (Video)
If you have a tandem bike but no one to ride it with you, perhaps Joules could be your partner. The robot's creator, Carl, devised Joules after being challenged to create a tandem electric bike based on actual pedal pumping, plus try to make it effective enough to manage the steep hills in Carl's neighborhood. Turns out, Joules does all the pedaling! Check out the robot in action!

MP3 player in an old training-grenade

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 03:39 AM PDT

The NYC Resistor hackers have installed an MP3 player in a decommissioned training hand-grenade, because they could, and because it is the kind of deliciously bad idea that is hard to resist. Receipt of the grenade in its shipping box occasioned something of a stir at NYC Resistor, it appears.

There was much fear and freak out. But cooler heads prevailed and a phone call was made. "Hey Matt, did you order metal objects of a dubious nature?" "Yes, yes I did." There was a great deal of internal strife over this particular event as ordering munitions to the space is strictly forbidden. Upon review and discussion it was decided that while purchasing decommissioned training grenades was not in fact illegal in NYC (as far as we know), it was not something we would ever do again. That being said. I immediately set forth on a childhood dream project. I put an 1/8th inch jack into the pin hole for the gr3nade. It looked GOOD. Totally flush... very pretty. So I decided to run with it. I ran the cabling into the gr3nade... hacksawed it open. Inserted a Sansa 2 GB mp3 player. And then tried to SMD rework it. This ended poorly as the first sansa basically got burned by the rework station and died. The second I avoided using the rework station and instead recruited bre and his arms for a session of intense soldering onto very tiny solder points.
mp3 grenade in it's final design glory (via Make)

Perfect Daily Mail headline

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 01:37 AM PDT


Captured on Bellamack, the perfect headline for Britain's perfectly awful sensationalist rag The Daily Mail.

What a Daily Mail orgasm looks like (via Wonderland!)

Netflix is about to commit a privacy Valdez with its customers' viewing data

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 12:05 AM PDT

Princeton's Paul Ohm writes about Netflix's insane new plan to release millions of customers' personal information -- ZIP code, gender, year of birth -- as a sequel to its Netflix Challenge. Latanya Sweeney's famous study on de-anonymizing data has shown that date (not just year) of birth, gender and ZIP are sufficient to personally identify 87% of Americans. In other words, Netflix is about to put the behavioral data about viewing choices for millions of Americans into the public domain, despite its legal duty to keep this information private.
Because of this, if it releases the data, Netflix might be breaking the law. The Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), 18 USC 2710 prohibits a "video tape service provider" (a broadly defined term) from revealing "personally identifiable information" about its customers. Aggrieved customers can sue providers under the VPPA and courts can order "not less than $2500" in damages for each violation. If somebody brings a class action lawsuit under this statute, Netflix might face millions of dollars in damages.

Additionally, the FTC might also decide to fine Netflix for violating its privacy policy as an unfair business practice.

Either a lawsuit under the VPPA or an FTC investigation would turn, in large part, on one sentence in Netflix's privacy policy: "We may also disclose and otherwise use, on an anonymous basis, movie ratings, consumption habits, commentary, reviews and other non-personal information about customers." If sued or investigated, Netflix will surely argue that its acts are immunized by the policy, because the data is disclosed "on an anonymous basis." While this argument might have carried the day in 2006, before Narayanan and Shmatikov conducted their study, the argument is much weaker in 2009, now that Netflix has many reasons to know better, including in part, my paper and the publicity surrounding it. A weak argument is made even weaker if Netflix includes the kind of data--ZIP code, age, and gender--that we have known for over a decade fails to anonymize.

Netflix's Impending (But Still Avoidable) Multi-Million Dollar Privacy Blunder

Spinning steampunk jewelry

Posted: 22 Sep 2009 12:05 AM PDT


Etsy seller Curious Goods Curios has a nice wrinkle on the now-traditional steampunk clockwork ring; these ones spin around and around. I'd buy one, but there's no UK shipping.

Curious Goods Curios (Thanks, Chris!)

Puerto Rican education system bans kids' books

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 11:59 PM PDT

Raph sez, "There's been a lot of debate in the Spanish-speaking community about the removal of several books by prominent Puerto Rican authors from the 11th grade curriculum in Puerto Rico, and a bunch of authors are protesting in blogs and in person in protests. Global Voices covered the story today (it's been ongoing for a week)."
The Department of Education of the government of Puerto Rico recently eliminated five books from the eleventh grade curriculum of the public school system: Antología personal, by José Luis González; El entierro de Cortijo, by Edgardo Rodríguez Juliá; Mejor te lo cuento: antología personal, by Juan Antonio Ramos; Reunión de espejos, an anthology of essays edited by José Luis Vega (all Puerto Rican authors); and Aura, by Carlos Fuentes from Mexico. The public agency justified its action by saying that the books "contain unacceptable language and vocabulary, which is extremely coarse and vulgar."

The governor of Puerto Rico, Luis Fortuño, supported the decision: "I think I have been very clear, and that all of the mothers and fathers out there understand perfectly that the books that an 18-year-old can read should not be read by a 12-year-old." Numerous writers and artists in Puerto Rico publicly voiced their concerns and described the government's action as censorship. The Federation of Teachers also condemned the decision and stated that it "reflects ignorance about the social reality that our students live in, and a backward-looking vision of modern literature as part of the academic curriculum." After such public pressure, the Department of Education said they had only permanently eliminated one book, but were still evaluating the rest.

Puerto Rico: Debate on Censorship (Thanks, Raph!)

Ant Army wall-stickers

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 11:56 PM PDT


Ant Army wall-stickers come in packs of 105 and are well-suited to staging your own home insect invasion.

Ant Army (via Crib Candy)

FCC chairman promises net neutrality except that Hollywood can spy on you and screw up your net connection if it wants to

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 11:54 PM PDT

FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski addressed The Brookings Institution in DC yesterday and laid down the Commission's vision of the future of networking and telecommunications, and it's good stuff: Net neutrality is in, sleazy mobile phone company tricks are out.
This means they cannot block or degrade lawful traffic over their networks, or pick winners by favoring some content or applications over others in the connection to subscribers' homes. Nor can they disfavor an Internet service just because it competes with a similar service offered by that broadband provider. The Internet must continue to allow users to decide what content and applications succeed.

This principle will not prevent broadband providers from reasonably managing their networks. During periods of network congestion, for example, it may be appropriate for providers to ensure that very heavy users do not crowd out everyone else. And this principle will not constrain efforts to ensure a safe, secure, and spam-free Internet experience, or to enforce the law. It is vital that illegal conduct be curtailed on the Internet. As I said in my Senate confirmation hearing, open Internet principles apply only to lawful content, services and applications -- not to activities like unlawful distribution of copyrighted works, which has serious economic consequences. The enforcement of copyright and other laws and the obligations of network openness can and must co-exist.

Uh-oh. Sounds like he's saying, "You can have a neutral net, but only if you agree to let ISPs and the entertainment industry spy on every click and every byte, and then degrade the connections of anything they don't like the look of."

Well, we knew that the entertainment industry had the Dems in their pocket. Clinton gave us the DMCA. But it's a start.

Read the Speech (Thanks to everyone who suggested this!)

Jack Kirby estate will wrest copyrights back from Disney-Marvel

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 11:49 PM PDT

The heirs of Jack Kirby -- the comics legend who made Marvel what it is today -- are seeking to employ a little-used copyright rule that lets them wrest Kirby's creations away from Marvel (soon to be Disney-Marvel) and put them back under the estate's control. If they succeed, it will be awfully weird and deadlocked, though, as there will be trademarks covering the characters that still belong to Disney-Marvel; and the collectively created characters, stories, art and situations will be jointly held by two hostile parties: Disney-Marvel and the Kirbys.

My guess is that the Kirbys will end up with the economic right to the characters -- a share of the profits -- but not the moral right -- the right to veto various uses and licenses.

The legal notices expressed an intent to regain copyrights to some creations as early as 2014, according to a statement from Toberoff & Associates, a Los Angeles firm that helped win a court ruling last year returning a share of the copyright in Superman to heirs of the character's co-creator, Jerome Siegel.

Reached by telephone on Sunday, Mr. Toberoff declined to elaborate on the statement. A spokeswoman for Marvel had no immediate comment. Disney said in a statement, "The notices involved are an attempt to terminate rights seven to 10 years from now, and involve claims that were fully considered in the acquisition." Fox, Sony, Paramount and Universal had no comment...

Sony has the film rights to Spider-Man in perpetuity, for instance, while Fox has the X-Men and the Fantastic Four. Paramount has a distribution agreement for Marvel's next few self-produced movies, including a second "Iron Man" film. Meanwhile, Hasbro has certain toy rights and Universal holds the Florida theme park rights to Spider-Man and the Incredible Hulk, among other characters.

After Disney-Marvel Deal, Cartoonist's Heirs Seek to Reclaim Rights (via Making Light)

Odd economic indicators

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 11:41 PM PDT

Jason Kottke has assembled a nice little list of odd economic indicators, from the number of classified romance ads placed by married people looking for affairs to the number of filming permits filed for the LA 2nd Street Tunnel to the reinstatement of a blouse-and-underwear allowance at a swank lawfirm in London:
Inevitably dubbed the "90 nicker knicker allowance", this may or may not be the most reliable indicator yet that the credit crunch is over. (Business is apparently so hectic that the firm has also installed sleeping pods.)
The baked bean index and other economic indicators

Beware the Bearsharktopus

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 11:39 PM PDT


Just when you thought it was safe to go back in the water: the BEARSHARKTOPUS!

Bearsharktopus (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Snapshot: A series of tubes.

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 07:14 PM PDT

Louis Vuitton display, SF (iPhone snap)

iPhone snapshot: an array of vertical lights, Louis Vuitton window display, Macy's San Francisco Union Square, September, 2009. stills | video (embedded after the jump).

Ten notable amateur acoustic covers of Michael Jackson songs on YouTube.

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 07:43 PM PDT

Over at the synthesizer blog synthtube, a list of notable performances on youtube "by average, acoustic artists who decided to cover Michael Jackson as a tribute to his death." Alex Ringis from synthtube says, "most of these renditions are notable not for their synthesizer content, but for the fact that when you lay most of Michael Jacksons' songs bare, down to something as simple as a voice and a guitar, you are left with the original songwriting that really he should be remembered for - pure, simple and brilliant, even at a very young age."

Above, "She's Out of My Life", a touching minimalist performance on Ukelele, by "seeso".

Break with Tradition : MJ Tribute (synthtube)

@BBVBOX: recent guest-tweeted web video picks (boingboingvideo.com)

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 07:24 PM PDT


(Ed. Note: The Boing Boing Video site includes a guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. We'll post roundups here on the motherBoing.)

More @BBVBOX: boingboingvideo.com



Shoes with which to gouge out the eyes of alien invaders.

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 06:27 PM PDT

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These are the shoes that go with the Death Valley-inspired Rodarte collection I blogged about last week. Susannah Breslin pointed me to both. I am rendered textless by the awesomeness of these shoes. More images here. (jakandjil.com)

Coffee-and-mad-science party video

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 02:29 PM PDT


John Young says:

This morning, some friends and I had a "Green2Steam" party, where we start with green coffee beans, roast them in a hot-air popper, grind them, and immediately brew them up in a siphon brewer over a camp stove. Boy, when coffee is _that_ fresh, just-roasted and just-ground, it smells like coffee from some other alternate dimension that's REAL-er than ours.

My high-school friend Chris Young (who played Bryce Lynch, Max Headroom's nerdy inventor, on the HBO series) made this video of the process; I thought you might like it!

Scary alien hand in real estate listing photo?

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 01:55 PM PDT

Alien-Monster-Chicken

What kind of thing is holding the door open in this photo of a residence for sale in Finland? (Via Lovely Listing)

Jerry Andrus' optical illusion video

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 04:20 PM PDT


Here are a few neat optical illusions built by magician Jerry Andrus.

Death row Inmates' last words

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 01:04 PM PDT

The New York Times ran a long list of last words spoken by inmates in Texas before they were executed. Here are the first few:
Nothing I can say can change the past.

I done lost my voice.

I would like to say goodbye.

My heart goes is going ba bump ba bump ba bump.

Is the mike on?

I don't have anything to say. I am just sorry about what I did.

I am nervous and it is hard to put my thoughts together. Sometimes you don't know what to say.

Man, there is a lot of people there.

I have come here today to die, not make speeches.

Where's Mr. Marino's mother? Did you get my letter?

I want to ask if it is in your heart to forgive me. You don't have to.

I wish I could die more than once to tell you how sorry I am.

Could you please tell that lady right there — can I see her? She is not looking at me — I want you to understand something, hold no animosity toward me. I want you to understand. Please forgive me.

Last Words

Burning Man's burned man denied appeal

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 10:44 AM PDT

The California Supreme Court has denied the appeal of Anthony Beninati, the Los Angeles real estate manager who unsuccessfully sued Burning Man organizers for failing to restrain him from walking into a fire.
Beninati's suit accused Black Rock City LLC, the San Francisco-based promoter, of negligently allowing people to approach the fire without safe pathways.

In a June 30 ruling, the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco said anyone who takes part in an event with obvious dangers - downhill skiing, mountain climbing or walking up to a bonfire - knowingly risks injury.

"The risk of falling and being burned by the flames or hot ash was inherent, obvious and necessary to the event," the court said in a 3-0 decision that upheld a judge's dismissal of the suit.

Burning Man fire victim's suit goes up in smoke

Previously:


Zombies vs Villagers chess set

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 10:33 AM PDT


Theeviljeremy sez, "My friend Damien-- one of those bafflingly creative types-- created this hand carved chess set. I had a chance to see the figures in person the other day, and the level of detail is really incredible. I particularly like the queen of the village, with a chainsaw at her side and a shotgun hidden behind her back, but there are a lot of standouts on both sides of the board."

Zombies vs Villagers chess set (Thanks, Theeviljeremy!)

Eid Mubarak!

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 08:05 PM PDT

Bassam Tariq resides in New York City. He is the co-author of the blog 30 Mosques which celebrated the NYC mosques during the blessed Islamic month of Ramadan. He is also an ad writer at Saatchi. Don't worry, if he were you, he'd also change the channel when his ads come on.

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Eid Mubarak everyone! (Happy Eid) The Islamic month of Ramadan ended on Saturday evening. The new month in the Islamic calendar starts with the sighting of the new moon. I remember being a kid in Pakistan and climbing our rooftop to see if the new moon was out. If we didn't see it on the 29th day of Ramadan, we'd fast for another day and declare the first of Shawwal (the name of the next month) the day after. Kind of confusing at first, but its more so based on a communal decision than an 8 year old Bassam's sighting. The sighting of the new moon marks the beginning of the next Islamic month, Shawwal, and the Eid-ul Fitr celebration.

Eid means festivity in Arabic and Fitr means breaking of the fast and so the holiday symbolizes the breaking of the fasting period. In fact, the first day of Eid is the only day it is forbidden to fast. As the myth I heard growing up went, "the devil fasts on Eid! Do you want to fast with the devil?"

Most of my family is in Houston and I wanted to spend the last days of Ramadan, as well as Eid ul Fitr with them. So I packed my bags and left New York on Thursday night.






Most families get up early on Eid to catch the morning prayer. It's not an obligatory prayer, but more of a way for the community to come together in celebration. In Houston, the Islamic Society of Greater Houston rents out the George R. Brown Convention Center and convenes the largest gathering of Muslims in Texas. Somewhere in Houston, Tom Delay is cringing. 

We blocked a whole road as we entered and exited the convention center.

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We pray towards Makkah and that's why we're all heading in that direction. Notice the rolls of paper laid out for the prayer. 

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Yes, more of us. Since I was in the men's section I couldn't get many photos of the women. Plus, it'd be a little awkward for an young Muslim man to barge into the women's area and start taking photos. There is a certain distance that the genders tend to keep with each other. Or, well, at least in these gatherings. 

ahhmuslims.jpgAfter the prayer ends, the Eid hugs begin. The Eid hugs are pretty distinct from normal hugs, you huge on the right side, then the left, and then the right again. Yes, we're so happy to eat again we hug not once, twice, but three times. 

The rest of the day is spent visiting family and friends. We had a lot of guests over our small house. Being the youngest in my family, 22, I am responsible for entertaining all the kids that come. I thought of talking to them about the importance of keeping a good GPA and taking the SATs. But I hadn't touched my X-Box in over a year and wanted to kick some ass in Marvel v Capcom 2, their education could wait. 

 

New Yorker: Where Will Synthetic Biology Lead Us?

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 10:25 AM PDT

Cappi Williamson of The New Yorker says:
Images 2009 09 28 P233 090928 R18840 P233 In "A Life of Its Own," Michael Specter explores the opportunities and challenges posed by the emerging field of synthetic biology. "No scientific achievement has promised so much, and none has come with greater risks or clearer possibilities for deliberate abuse," Specter writes. Synthetic biologists "see cells as hardware, and genetic code as the software required to make them run," he notes. "By using gene-sequence information and synthetic DNA, they are attempting to reconfigure the metabolic pathways of cells to perform entirely new functions, such as manufacturing chemicals and drugs."

One team of biologists, led by Jay Keasling at Berkeley, has had great success with amorphadine, the precursor to the malaria medicine artemisinin: they constructed a microbe to manufacture the compound, and by 2012 they will have produced enough artemisinin that the cost for a course of treatment will drop from as much as ten dollars to less than a dollar. "We have got to the point in human history where we simply do not have to accept what nature has given us," Keasling tells Specter. He envisions a much larger expansion of the discipline, engineering cells to manufacture substances like biofuels.

Another scientist, Drew Endy of Stanford, has collaborated with colleagues to start the BioBricks Foundation, a nonprofit organization formed to register and develop standard parts for assembling DNA. Endy predicts that if synthetic biology succeeds, "our ultimate solution to the crisis of health-care costs will be to redesign ourselves so that we don't have so many problems to deal with," but he also acknowledges the risks inherent in the field. Synthetic biology, Endy tells Specter, is "the coolest platform science has ever produced, but the questions it raises are the hardest to answer." Yet he also argues that "the potential is great enough, I believe, to convince people it's worth the risk." Specter writes, "The planet is in danger, and nature needs help." While biological engineering will never "solve every problem we expect it to solve," he writes, "what worked for artemisinin can work for many of the products our species will need to survive."

(Illustration by Joost Swarte)

Where will synthetic biology lead us?

Previously:


Welcome to the guestblog, Bassam Tariq and Aman Ali!

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 11:16 AM PDT

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Last week, I blogged about "30 Mosques in 30 Days,", a project created by New York-based, Muslim-American bloggers Aman Ali and Bassam Tariq. The idea: break their daily Ramadan fast at a different mosque in New York City each day for a month. I loved the project, and I loved their voices and sensibility, and thought it would be really cool to have them join us for a special guestblog visit. More from Aman, below.

We both live in New York where Bassam works in advertising and I work as a newspaper writer. Our work has been mentioned in several national media outlets such as NPR, Time Magazine, CNN, the New York Times and USA Today.

We're both excited to be guestblogging for Boing Boing! It's time people realize Muslims are not two-dimensional characters so we'll be providing you guys with insight into our culture with some fun stories and videos from around the globe. Who knows, maybe we might provide you with a food recipe or two.

We're both South Asian and I grew up in Ohio and Bassam grew up in Texas. Our social lives revolve heavily around hanging out at South Asian and Middle Eastern restaurants here in New York and berating each other over our tastes in music. But we both can agree on singing "Torn," by Natalie Imbruglia at the top of our lungs. That or Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris." Alanis Morisette, not so much.

Two Muslim guys photo-blog 30 NYC mosques in 30 days

Upside down house

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 10:04 AM PDT

Wp-Content Uploads 2009 09 Cartus
Wp-Content Uploads 2009 09 Updw07 Klaudiusz Golos and Sebastion Mikuciuk created this upside down house for an exhibit in Trassenheide, Germany. It's clearly unlivable still a lot of fun. "Crazy Upside Down House in Germany" (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!)

Magnificent photos from space probes

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 09:29 AM PDT

Images Newrings-Saturn-Cassini-520
Smithsonian posted an absolutely breathtaking gallery of images taken by space probes over the last decade. From Smithsonian:
The Cassini spacecraft, which is now orbiting Saturn, looked back toward the eclipsed Sun and saw a view unlike any other. The rings of Saturn light up so much that new rings were discovered.
"Fantastic Photos of our Solar System"

500 Pound Planet: Twin Peaks meets the Muppet Show

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 09:26 AM PDT

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

When we got out of college, my buddy Josh Dolgin and I set out to make an eight-minute cartoon. We figured it would take us three months. The plan was to use the cartoon to get a TV show and become rich and famous. None of this came to pass.

Instead, we spent three years making a 45-minute weirdo sci-fi hiphop buddy film. We nearly lost our minds and our friendship in the process. The resulting cartoon (we were told) was too strange for TV and too long for film festivals. The whole thing amounted to nothing: a fiasco, a waste of time. Had we spent three years playing with Lego and poking each other in the gums, it would have been just as productive. We ended up selling a 25-minute cut of the thing to the CBC, who never aired it, and then we got as far away from each other as possible. Josh went on to international success as the Hiphop-Klezmer weirdo Socalled, and I became a public radio host.

The other week I watched 500 Pound Planet for the first time in five years. I was afraid it would make me cringe, but it didn't. I like our cartoon! It's messy and ambling, but I think it's got soul and does a pretty good job of capturing what our lives in Montreal were like at the time. Instead of feeling guilty about wasting three years making it, I now feel guilty at having abandoned it. Parents should treat their kids better than that, even if they're deformed. Especially if they're deformed.

So enough preamble. Here is part one of our bastard cartoon, 500 Pound Planet. I'll post the rest, a chapter a day over the week. Hope you like it, feedback welcome!

White Sands, Red Menace: Atomic age historical sf novel for young people that is sweet, sneaky, and exciting

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 09:11 AM PDT

Ellen Klages' young adult novel White Sands, Red Menace is quiet, magnificent, heartbreaking and inspirational. It's the story of Dewey and Suze, two girls growing up in Alamogordo after the end of WWII. They are both the children of atomic scientists from the Los Alamos project, and have found themselves in a period of weird and fragile peace after V-J day.

But the peace is only a skin stretched thin over a hundred bubbling tensions: Suze's mom has formed a league of atomic scientists against nuclear proliferation while her father has gone to work on the space program, ready to forgive the Nazi scientists he's working alongside if it means that he gets to play with giant sexy toys and fight Commies. Dewey -- a girl-inventor whose delightful ingenuity is the progeny of Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and a Cherry Ames novel -- is forced into "girl" classes at school and has to come to grips with her bespectacled awkwardness. Suze befriends a Mexican girl from Little Chihuahua and is delighted by the family's old artist grandmother, who tutors her on craftmaking; but she is also forced to confront the racial inequality in whitewashed New Mexico.

Set in the fascinating period right after the war, when "atomic" meant "new and exciting" and when empowered women had yet to be shoehorned all the way back into their kitchens, White Sands, Red Menace has the sweet and evocative nostalgia of Ray Bradbury; the ingenuity and sprightly pace of a Heinlein juvenile; and the sneaky and thought-provoking politics of PD James. Klages has pulled off the impossible: a moving, deeply political novel that both cherishes and critiques the American century. It is an extraordinary and moving book.

White Sands, Red Menace is the sequel to the 2006 The Green Glass Sea, though it stands alone just fine. But you should read 'em both.

White Sands, Red Menace

Previously:



Magnetic switch for drug delivery implants

Posted: 21 Sep 2009 09:08 AM PDT

Researchers have developed an "on/off" switch for implantable drug delivery systems that uses an external magnet to trigger the internal release of the medicine. The half-inch implant stores the drug inside a nanoengineered membrane containing magnetitie. An external magnetic field causes the membrane's pores to open up. Children's Hospital Boston physician Daniel Kohane and his colleagues published their experiments in the scientific journal Nano Letters. From Children's Hospital Boston:
Newsroom Site1339 Images Membrane-Schematic-Magnetic-Drug-Release "A device of this kind would allow patients or their physicians to determine exactly when drugs are delivered, and in what quantities," says Kohane, who directs the Laboratory for Biomaterials and Drug Delivery in the Department of Anesthesiology at Children's.

In animal experiments, the membranes remained functional over multiple cycles. The size of the dose was controllable by the duration of the "on" pulse, and the rate of release remained steady, even 45 days after implantation.

Testing indicated that drug delivery could be turned on with only a 1 to 2 minute time lag before drug release, and turned off with a 5 to 10 minute time lag.
Using magnetism to turn drugs on and off
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