Thursday, October 8, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Nicolas "Copyright" Sarkozy mass-pirates DVDs

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 04:31 AM PDT

Glyn sez, "The same French president who has for the second time brought in three strikes to France has for the second time been caught infringing copyright on a large scale. The presidential audiovisual services have produced 400 unauthorized copies of the 52-minute documentary 'A visage decouvert: Nicolas Sarkozy.' This is quite impressive as the producer of the documentary has only shipped 50 copies."

The French satirical investigative journalism weekly "Le Canard Enchaîné" reveals that our holier-than-thou presidency is in fact a pirate's lair. In a stunning display of hypocrisy, the presidential audiovisual services produced 400 unauthorized copies of the 52 minutes documentary "A visage découvert : Nicolas Sarkozy"...

It is even more appalling that we are dealing with repeat offenders : last spring, while the Hadopi law was discussed, U.S. music duo MGMT received €30,000 as a settlement for a copyright infringement by French President Nicolas Sarkozy's party who used one of its songs at a political rally without permission. Those who led the charge against Internet users are not the most respectful of copyright.

French presidency makes 400 unauthorized copies of DVD (Thanks, Glyn!)
Previously:


Rich guy dislikes poor people, wants local kids to "lose sleep" over plan to shut library

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 04:09 AM PDT

Constantine "Connie" Xinos is the president of the home-owners' association in a gated community in the Chicago suburb of Oak Brook. He dislikes being near poor people (he successfully blocked a permit for a senior's home, stating, "I don't want to live next to poor people. I don't want poor people in my town"). He reportedly worked to elect an Oak Brook village council who would shut down the town library, which he also campaigned against. When local kids showed up at town meetings to ask that their library be left open, he is quoted as saying, "I don't care that you guys miss the librarian, and she was nice, and she helped you find books;" and to the library staff to "stop whining."

The librarians are now attempting to unionize under the Teamsters.

Sydney was upset and "her little friend was in tears" after Xinos spoke at the meeting last week, says mom Hope Sabbagha.

"I wanted that kid to lose sleep that night," a grinning Xinos says Wednesday, as he invites me for a nearly two-hour interview in his Mercedes-Benz in the gated Oak Brook community where he lives. "This is the real world and the lesson, you folks who brought your kids here, is if you want something, pay for it..."

A poor kid who grew up in Berwyn and worked in his dad's cafeteria in Chicago, Xinos went to law school and served in the Marines. Xinos says he speaks for Oak Brook's view of the Teamsters when he says, "Nobody here likes those kind of people."

Xinos, who says he never had children in part because he wasn't sure he'd be able to support them, sprinkles the F-word throughout his conversations. He dismisses a recent library event involving dogs with a blunt three-word rant in which he bookends swear words around the word "that."

Ugly battle has librarians in Oak Brook turning to Teamsters (Thanks, Lynn!)

(Image: A dome and skylight brighten the center of the Oak Brook Public Library, Marcelle Bright/mbright@dailyherald.com)

Previously:


In praise of IBM ThinkPad warranty service

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 03:52 AM PDT


It sometimes feels like every time we mention a big company's products or services here, it's to shame them for doing something terrible or making something awful. But every now and again, you get something wonderful out of a big company, and it's worth celebrating, loudly.

This time, it's IBM's Global Services, who do the ThinkPad service contracts for Lenovo. I switched to ThinkPads a few years back when I went Ubuntu Linux, at the suggestion of Chris DiBona, a senior free/open source guy at Google. The ThinkPads are moderately priced, come in a wide variety of models with different characteristics, are incredibly well-built with fantastic keyboards (the mid- to high-range machines have water-proof keyboards that have special, sealed drainage channels running to the laptop's underside) and rugged frames. They run GNU/Linux really well, too. I've been happier with ThinkPads than I've been with any other make of laptop (though there have been occasional hiccups, see below).

I'm hard on my equipment, so I knew that I'd want to get the world-wide, on-site, next-day replacement service, which costs about $100/year. This is exactly what it sounds like: if you have a hardware fault (even one due to dropping or knocking the machine), they will generally have a tech show up with a replacement part the next day, anywhere in the world. When I was an Apple user, hardware failures often meant standing in line for 40 min to drop off a Powerbook at a Genius Bar, then coming back a week or two later and waiting 40 minutes again to reclaim it.

My latest ThinkPad, an ultralight X200, just experienced a hardware fault in the built-in SD card reader. I tried booting it from a couple different Ubuntu versions and then installed the original Vista HDD and tried that (the ThinkPad hard-drives can be swapped in about two minutes with a single Phillips screwdriver, which makes it easy to buy giant third-party drives and install them when the ThinkPad arrives, building Linux on them and leaving the original drive intact for easy troubleshooting). It was definitely hardware. I called the service-center, got through in about two minutes, explained my problems to a level-one tech who nevertheless understood what I meant by "Linux" and "hard-drive swap" and ordered the service call after about five minutes of my describing the problem.

Today the service tech came by my office. He phoned ten minutes beforehand to let me know he was on his way, then sat down at my desk, spread out a lint-free cloth, and, in about 20 minutes, fixed the SD slot, replacing the daughtercard that it lives on. He didn't care that the Linux drive was in the bay, and let me boot it and show him that it was working to my satisfaction -- he didn't insist on my swapping in the original Vista drive.

This is basically perfect. Exactly what I want from my critical infrastructure. Without my computer, I can't do anything productive. I've got edits due on my current novel by Friday afternoon, and a complete disassembly and replacement of a laptop daughter-card just took place without substantially disrupting my schedule. I only had to walk as far as the reception at my office building.

So, with all that good news, let me add in a couple of caveats: first, once Lenovo end-of-life's a model, they stop making parts for it and switch to refurbed parts, and those parts aren't so good. My old X60 had to have three defective motherboard replacements before the service center just upgraded me to a new, faster, in-production model (on the other hand, this swap was done by the head manager at IBM Global Service's UK division, who drove into London to personally handle the case).

Lenovo's ecommerce ordering and build system isn't nearly as good as IBM's service department. They lost the original order for this X200, waited two weeks to tell me, then told me I'd have to wait two more weeks to get the machine. Then they found me someone else who could get it to me in 24 hours, but I ended up paying a couple hundred pounds more than I'd been quoted from Lenovo themselves. They argued mightily about paying me back this sum, eventually promising to do so, but they never did.

So that's it: be prepared for some glitches when you order a machine, and watch out for refurbed parts. Apart from that, the ThinkPad with extended warranty can't be beat. I'm on my fourth laptop and I've loved every single one of them down to its adorable little trackpoint.

For the record, I have no affiliation with Lenovo or IBM Global Services. I have not been offered any sort of discount or reward for this post. They are not Boing Boing advertisers (though, seriously, IBM/Lenovo: we'll gladly run your ads! You folks kick ass!). This is entirely self-motivated, because, you know what? These machines and the service plan just rock.

ThinkPlus™ and Lenovo CareSM Maintenance and Protection Services

Previously:


Swedish children demand end to gender stereotypes in Toys R Us catalog

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 01:29 AM PDT

A group of Swedish sixth-graders filed a complaint against Toys R Us over the company's 2008 Christmas catalog, decrying the gender stereotyping in the product photos. Their curriculum includes a long-term project on gender roles.
According to the youngsters, the Toys"R"Us Christmas catalogue featured "outdated gender roles because boys and girls were shown playing with different types of toys, whereby the boys were portrayed as active and the girls as passive", according to a statement from Ro.

The group's teacher explained to the local Smålandsposten newspaper that filing the complaint was the culmination of more than two years of "long-term work" by the students on gender roles.

Thumbing through the catalogue, 13-year-old Hannes Psajd explained that he and his twin sister had always shared the same toys and that he was concerned about the message sent by the Toys"R"Us publication.

"Small girls in princess stuff...and here are boys dressed as super heroes. It's obvious that you get affected by this," he told the newspaper.

"When I see that only girls play with certain things then, as a guy, I don't want it."

Toys"R"Us scolded for gender discrimination (via Wonderland)

Germany's top fashion magazine bans models over "anorexia"

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 01:22 AM PDT

Declaring that "Today's models weigh around 23% less than normal women," and "The whole model industry is anorexic," Germany's top women's magazine, Brigitte has announced that it will no longer work with professional models, because they have to devote substantial resources to photoshopping added weight to them in order to make them resemble their readers.

Lebert said the magazine would call on German women to put themselves forward as models for fashion and makeup articles.

"We're looking for women who have their own identity, whether it be the 18-year-old A-level student, the company chairwoman, the musician, or the footballer," he said, adding that he wanted a mix between prominent and completely unknown women and would look out for politicians and actresses interested in modelling.

Brigitte, Germany's most popular women's mag, bans professional models (via Wonderland)

Why ad-blockers, ad-skippers and other user-control technologies are legal

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 11:17 PM PDT

EFF's Fred von Lohmann explains with a great deal of clarity and precision why MediaFire is out of its mind to send legal threats over a Firefox plugin, SkipScreen, that auto-clicks through its ad-screens. It comes down to this: your browser is your browser, and you can auto-click, rewrite, block, display or manipulate what shows up on your screen as much as you like and it's no one's business but your own.

Yes, Boing Boing is ad-supported and yes, SkipScreen is an ad-blocker. So what? We're not dumb enough to think that just because we've decided to earn our living from ads means that you have to give up your rights to control what's on your screen. That's what principle is: what you believe in even when it's not convenient.


MediaFire's arguments to the contrary are entirely misguided. First, they suggest that SkipScreen somehow lets users "steal bandwidth." That's wrong on the facts: SkipScreen just automates the exact process that the user would otherwise have to do themselves in order download a file. No "extra downloads," no additional bandwidth for MediaFire. Second, MediaFire argues that the use of SkipScreen violates MediaFire's "acceptable use policy." That's wrong on the law: users who follow a link to a MediaFire download never click-through or otherwise agree to any "acceptable use policy," so there's no contract here that prohibits a user from using whatever browser she likes (including whatever plug-ins she likes) to download a file.

Sure, MediaFire probably would prefer that we all sit, transfixed, while they display ads for us, just like certain Hollywood executives wish we would never leave the couch or hit FFWD when commercials run during our favorite TV shows, and certain websites wish they could ban Firefox ad-blockers. Fortunately, there's nothing in the law that says that by simply visiting a website, I give up the right to control my desktop.

It's My Browser, and I'll Auto-Click if I Want To

How badly designed reputation systems create in-game mafias

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 11:12 PM PDT

Randy Farmer's short essay "The Dollhouse Mafia, or 'Don't Display Negative Karma'" explores the well-known problem in reputation systems in which users abandon accounts that get negative feedback, and shows just how bad the consequences of this design can turn out to be.
That feature was fine as far as it went, but unlike other social networks, The Sims Online allowed users to declare other users untrustworthy too. The face of an untrustworthy user appeared circled in bright red among all the trustworthy faces in a user's hub.

It didn't take long for a group calling itself the Sims Mafia to figure out how to use this mechanic to shake down new users when they arrived in the game. The dialog would go something like this:

"Hi! I see from your hub that you're new to the area. Give me all your Simoleans or my friends and I will make it impossible to rent a house."

"What are you talking about?"

"I'm a member of the Sims Mafia, and we will all mark you as untrustworthy, turning your hub solid red (with no more room for green), and no one will play with you. You have five minutes to comply. If you think I'm kidding, look at your hub-three of us have already marked you red. Don't worry, we'll turn it green when you pay..."

If you think this is a fun game, think again-a typical response to this shakedown was for the user to decide that the game wasn't worth $10 a month. Playing dollhouse doesn't usually involve gangsters.

The Dollhouse Mafia, or "Don't Display Negative Karma" (via Raph)

Jugaad: India's duct-tape ingenuity

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 10:39 PM PDT

Dave sez, "I'm an American who blogs about life in New Delhi. I recently published an essay about 'jugaad': the semi-untranslatable practice and philosophy of jerry-rigging that is one of the prides of India. Once you look for jugaad in India, you see it everywhere: water pumps converted into cars, wrappers converted into rope, and so on. This essay also explores the broader implications of a culture that embraces jugaad. Jugaad is how so many people can survive with such stoic patience in conditions that would drive Americans like me crazy. "


No two jugaad vehicles are the same, because each one is an improvised solution using unlikely parts. These vehicles are the purest representation of this spirit of ingenuity, and everyone we spoke to swelled with pride at India's capacity for jugaad. "We are like that only," my boss Murali would tell me when describing solutions to situations that would send most goras scurrying for the nearest five-star hotel.

The variety of solutions to seemingly intractable problems we saw supported this patriotic esteem: motorcycles chopped in half and welded to carts to create centaur goods haulers. The way families would fit mother, father, and three kids onto a single scooter. The clever repurposing of used water bottles as cooking oil containers. Rope spun from discarded foil packets. Cricket wickets made from precariously balanced stacks of rocks. And, as Anurag sardonically pointed out in a political statement I don't understand but assume to be insightfully hilarious, Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government: a duct-taped coalition of thirteen political parties.

As one blogger put it when describing those diesel water pump trucks, "these vehicles reflect the true spirit of innovation in rural India."

jugaad (Thanks, Dave!)

(Image: Jugaad in action, a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike photo from Chromatic Aberration's Flickr stream)

Free speech lawsuit against Vancouver Olympic rules

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 11:18 PM PDT

Shawn sez, "The British Columbia Civil Liberties Association is aiding two activists in suing the City of Vancouver over a 2010 Olympic bylaw which may encroach on free speech and violate Canada's Charter of Rights."

With David Eby of The B.C. Civil Liberties Association representing them, Chris Shaw, a UBC professor of ophthalmology, neuroscientist (and Vancouver Observer blogger), and The Olympic Resistance Network's Alissa Westergard-Thorp,announced this morning that they have filed a statement of claim against the City of Vancouver in the Supreme Court of BC. Their lawsuit challenges the constitutionality of an Olympic bylaw limiting free speech during the 2010 Winter Games that was passed by council in July, Eby told reporters this morning.

The BBCLA, with plaintiffs Shaw and Westergard-Thorp, claim their rights to free speech and freedom of movement will be denied once the Winter Games by-laws passed by city council take effect. They say the bylaws, commonly referred to as the omnibus bylaws, will infringe their Charter rights and are unconstitutional....

The bylaw includes a passage entitled "prohibitions regarding city land," which includes a clause that will almost surely trigger a Charter of Rights and Freedoms challenge. Clause 4B makes it illegal during the Winter Games without authorization to:

"(a) bring onto city land any
(i) weapon,
(ii) object, including any rock, stick, or glass or metal bottle useable as a weapon, except for crutches or a cane that a person who is elderly or disabled uses as a mobility aid,
(iii) large object, including any bag, or luggage that exceeds 23 x 40 x 55 centimetres;
(iv) voice amplification equipment including any megaphone,
(v) motorized vehicle, except for a motorized wheel chair or scooter that a person who is elderly or disabled uses as a mobility aid,
(vi) anything that makes noise that interferes with the enjoyment of entertainment on city land by other persons,
(vii) distribute any advertising material or install or carry any sign unless licensed to do so by the city."

Protest signs usually are made using sticks, often are larger than subsection (iii) allows (as are puppets and other protest devices), demonstrations almost always employ megaphones or other voice amplification devices, and can well "interfere with the enjoyment" of the Olympic spectacle by who chose to be so offended. Protesters often pass out leaflets as well. Thus, any of the dozens of protests I've attended over the last few years would easily be in violation of five of seven subsections.

BCCLA Files Lawsuit Against City For Violation of Charter Rights, VO Blogger Chris Shaw Key Plaintiff (Thanks, Shawn!)

(Image: Support the 2010 Games, a Creative Commons Attribution image from Silly Gweilo's Flickr stream)

Previously:


Berlusconi's immunity-for-me law overturned

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 11:18 PM PDT

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's law that grants him immunity from prosecution has been overturned. Berlusconi, a media tycoon who uses his control over the press to stay in office (I've met dozens of Italian activists who uttered the improbable phrase, "Thank God for Rupert Murdoch, Berlusconi can't bully him," which should give you an idea of what sort of person he is), passed the immunity law, arguing that he couldn't govern effectively if he could be sued or criminally prosecuted for wrongdoing. Several pending lawsuits will now go forward.
The appeal to the Constitutional Court was launched by prosecutors including those from the Mills case.

They contended that immunity put Mr Berlusconi above the law and needed to be reversed.

Mr Berlusconi argued that immunity allowed him to govern without being "distracted" by the judiciary.

This is the second time Italy's highest court has thrown out Mr Berlusconi's bid for immunity, after an earlier attempt in 2004 failed.

Of the Constitutional Court's 15 members, five are selected by the president, five by the judiciary, and five by parliament.

They voted 9-6 to in favour of lifting Mr Berlusconi's immunity, the BBC's Duncan Kennedy says from Rome.

Berlusconi immunity law overruled (Thanks, Pico!)

(Image: The Economist)

Previously:


Franken passes law denying fed contracts to companies that support rape of employees

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 01:55 AM PDT

Go Senator Al! Al Franken successfully introduced legislation that denies federal contracts to companies that have policies -- anywhere in the world -- that punish employees for complaining about rape or discrimination on the job. This is in response to a KBR/Halliburton employee in Iraq who was drugged and gang-raped by co-workers and denied justice or even medical treatment, then locked in a storage container for 24 hours and told that she'd lose her job if she left the country to get medical help. She was also prohibited from suing or seeking criminal justice because her Halliburton contract forbade seeking any justice apart from private arbitration.

Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) tried to block the amendment, saying that it was a "a political attack directed at Halliburton." Franken replied, "This amendment does not single out a single contractor. This amendment would defund any contractor that refuses to give a victim of rape their day in court."

Sessions' brave defense of the right of private companies to deny justice to drugged and gang-raped employees should not be forgotten. Truly, the man is a model of moral principle.

[Franken]: "The constitution gives everybody the right to due process of law ... And today, defense contractors are using fine print in their contracts do deny women like Jamie Leigh Jones their day in court. ... The victims of rape and discrimination deserve their day in court [and] Congress plainly has the constitutional power to make that happen..."

Appearing with Franken after the vote, an elated Jones expressed her deep appreciation. "It means the world to me," she said of the amendment's passage. "It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it."

Franken Wins Bipartisan Support For Legislation Reining In KBR's Treatment Of Rape (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Elephant gives birth

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 11:20 PM PDT

This video of an elephant giving birth gets a little intense at the moment of actual delivery and immediately thereafter, but it also made my heart swell in my chest. There is something just goddamned wonderful about mammal and avian reproduction (insects and bacteria not so much), and it's not just the insanely awesome sight of the baby elephant clambering to its feet and grinning like a holy fool.

Not sure what the narration's like (it's 5AM here in London and everyone's asleep, so I'm on mute), but the visuals are a strong and healing tonic.

Elephant Birth - The Dramatic Struggle for Life (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

Shroud of Turin reproduced

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 08:49 PM PDT

Italian scientist Luigi Garlaschelli recreated the Shroud of Turin, supporting his claim that the artifact is a fake and not the cloth that laid on the body of Jesus Christ before his burial. Believers claim that the image on the cloth is the miraculous Holy Face of Jesus. Garlaschelli will present his research and the, er, Shroud of Luigi, at the Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims on the Paranormal's conference. This whole thing makes me want a Shroud of Turin blanket. I didn't find one of those, but this golf towel is kinda nifty! Anyway, from CNN:
Cnn 2009 World Europe 10 07 Italy.Turin.Shroud Art.ShroudreproLuigi Garlaschelli created a copy of the shroud by wrapping a specially woven cloth over one of his students, painting it with pigment, baking it in an oven (which he called a "shroud machine") for several hours, then washing it...

"Basically the Shroud of Turin has some strange properties and characteristics that they say cannot be reproduced by human hands," he told CNN by phone from Italy, where he is a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Pavia.

"For example, the image is superficial and has no pigment, it looks so lifelike and so on, and therefore they say it cannot have been done by an artist." His research shows the pigment may simply have worn off the cloth over the centuries since it was first "discovered" in 1355, but impurities in the pigment etched an image into the fibers of the cloth, leaving behind the ghostly picture that remains today.

"The procedure is very simple. The artist took this sheet and put it over one of his assistants," he said.
"Scientist re-creates Turin Shroud to show it's fake"

The Lost Art of Cable Lacing

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 07:58 PM PDT

cablelacing.jpg

BB pal Gareth Branwyn has a really cool post up over at Make about the "lost knowledge" of cable lacing. This method of cable management preceded zipties, and was used in "the telecom industry, aerospace, marine applications, and elsewhere," he says. Gar's post includes some wonderful detail photos, and notes from readers explaining how it works. Impulselabs sez:

The bundling is done with a technique called "cable lacing". A series of knots and stitches from a continuous piece of wax impregnated cotton or twine are used to bundle cables together. It takes some practice, but it'll outperform zipties in that it won't crush the insulative jackets on wiring and that it's not going to shift axially on you if it's loose. Likewise, my bundles have a rectangular cross section. Zipties can't conform and keep bundle shapes other than ellipses.
Read and view more: Lost Knowledge: Cable lacing (makezine.com)

Moon in a bottle: HOWTO microwave lunar dust to extract water

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:30 PM PDT

wawaab.jpg

Scientists at NASA say they've figured out a way to extract water from moondust, using the same old ordinary microwave ovens you and I use to extract "lunch" from frozen pizza-bricks:

"We believe we can use microwave heating to cause the water ice in a lunar permafrost layer to sublimate - that is, turn into water vapor. The water vapor can be collected and then condensed into liquid water. "Best of all, microwave extraction can be done on the spot. And it requires no excavation -- no heavy equipment for drilling into the hard-frozen lunar surface."
Microwaving Water from Moondust (NASA)

Image: Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean holds up a thermos full of moondust. (courtesy NASA)

Mitch Horowitz on Occult New York

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 02:36 PM PDT

Boing Boing guestblogger Mitch Horowitz is author of Occult America: The Secret History of How Mysticism Shaped Our Nation and editor-in-chief of Tarcher/Penguin publishers. Grandcennnnt

Okay, so New York is supposed to be the city of big commerce, literary culture, and high art - no room here for woo-woo spirituality, the odor of patchouli, or anyone who capitalizes words like Light or Truth. Well, actually not. This Sunday, October 11th I'll be conducting a walking tour of occult New York -- and hopefully giving participants a new way of seeing the city: As a once-upon-a-time laboratory for alternative spiritual ideas, which it helped to export to the rest of the world back before there was a New Age. Here are a few of the historic sights - familiar and obscure - we'll be viewing...
• The Lamasery (8th Ave and 47th Street). This is the five-story building that in the 1870s housed the famed salon of the Theosophical Society, whose earliest members included inventor Thomas Edison, Major-General Abner Doubleday, and the mysterious Russian noblewoman (and one-time New Yorker) Madame Blavatsky. This understated apartment building is where Civil War Colonel Henry Steel Olcott claimed to encounter Hidden Masters of wisdom and from which the nascent Theosophical Society launched a new vogue in occult ideas.

• The New York New Church (East 35th street). This beautifully restored Renaissance-revival Swedenborgian church was a wellspring of mystical ideas in America in the mid-nineteenth century, its pulpit presided over by Spiritualist-Swedenborgian minister George Bush - ancestor to the Bush presidential clan. Congregants included Henry James, Sr., and Al-Anon founder Lois Wilson

• Grand Central Station. This crowning edifice of the beaux-arts architectural movement of the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries forms a temple of occult imagery, including magnificent statues of Hermes, Athena, Hercules and a domed ceiling featuring the images of the zodiac, the equinox, and a variety of ancient symbols. Grand Central sits on Pershing Square, named for the American World War I general who patronized the work of Manly P. Hall, the renowned esotericist who completed his Secret Teachings of All Ages steps away at the New York Public Library.

• Marble Collegiate Church (5th Ave and 29th street). From the pulpit of this Romanesque church - one of America's earliest congregations - the Rev. Norman Vincent Peale spread the esoteric-rooted philosophy of "positive thinking" across the nation in the mid-twentieth century. More than any other figure, Peale shaped the contemporary culture of self-help. The pioneering minister is enshrined in a life-size bronze statue at the gates of this landmarked building.

• New York Theosophical Society (East 53rd street). The site of New York's premier library on matters of the esoteric and occult, and home to the New York branch of the oldest occult organization in America. This stop will include time to browse the building's emporium of esoterica, The Quest Bookshop.

For more information visit the New York Open Center -- but please note that registration is nearly full. We may plan a second run of the tour in the near future.

Also see:
New York, Bastion of the Occult
God, Mystics, Yoga: What Americans Believe
Occult America


Flu, and You: The Basics

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 05:59 PM PDT

UPDATE: The server for the Science-Based Medicine blog is now back online, so the link in this story does work now. Hooray!

It seems like just yesterday we were all freaking out together about the discovery of H1N1. And now, here we are at flu season and our little pandemic is all grown up. In the meantime, there's been a lot of good work done on clearing up the questions surrounding this illness, but misinformation still abounds.

If you, or a loved one, are suffering from flu confusion, I prescribe this handy primer on the basics. Written by Dr. Joseph Albietz, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado, Denver, and The Children's Hospital, it starts at the very beginning (seriously, the first question is, "What is Influenza?") and provides a great overview of the flu in general, and H1N1 in particular.

Even if you feel like you've successfully graduated from Flu 101, there's a lot of great higher-level discussion and Q&A going on in the comments of this post. Enjoy, and happy learning!

Previously:


Video projector button infringes copyright at 16:9

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 12:56 PM PDT

JWZ found this description of a button on the remote for his new projector: "If the picture size is compressed or enlarged by using the 16:9 aspect ratio when the projector is used for profitable purpose or in the presence of an audience (for example, in a coffee shop or at a hotel etc.), it may infringe the rights of the copyright owner of the original picture."

All that from one little button! Who knew that Congress passed a special 16:9 = piracy bill?

The manual for my video projector

Vampire bite necklace

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 04:18 AM PDT

necklacebite.jpg

D sez, "Meekssandygirl on Etsy sells these lovely, simple, crocheted vampire bite necklaces. She also crochets eyeball necklaces . . . I guess for those customers who prefer the zombie look."

Crochet Vampire BITE silk cashmere necklace (Thanks, D!)

Urban computing exhibit in New York City

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 01:54 PM PDT

Images Exhibit Wp-Content Uploads Amphibious 6-Web Images Exhibit Wp-Content Uploads Tsc1
Toward the Sentient City is a new exhibition in New York that explores the broad theme of urban computing, where sensors, mobile devices, pervasive wireless, and the GeoWeb intersect with city streets. The exhibit runs until November 7 at the Architectural League of New York. While it seems like one of those "you had to be there" experiences, the Web site has a ton of detailed information about the five fascinating and provocative projects commissioned for the show. There are also nearly a dozen other existing works identified by the show's curators, including BB pal Eric Paulos's Citizen Science research. Here are summaries of the five new pieces, from a University of Buffalo press release:
• "Too Smart City" is a set of three street furniture pieces that come to life with embedded intelligence and robotic systems. The Smart Bench (image above), for instance, is described by its creators as "a gorgeous two seater that recognizes vagrancy and is capable of lifting people up and dumping them."

• "Amphibious Architecture" presents two networks of floating interactive tubes, installed in sites in the East River and the Bronx River, that house a range of sensors below water and an array of lights above water (image above). The sensors monitor water quality, presence of fish and human interest in the river ecosystem. The lights respond to the sensors and create feedback loops between humans, fish and their shared environment. An SMS interface allows citizens to text-message the fish, to receive real-time information about the river and to contribute to a display of collective interest in the environment.

• "Natural Fuse" harnesses the carbon-sinking capabilities of plants to create a city-wide network of devices that act as both electric outlets and resources that offset CO2 generated in the production of electricity.

• "Trash Tank" focuses on how pervasive technologies can expose the challenges of waste management and sustainability. The project uses hundreds of small, smart, location-aware tags, a first step towards the deployment of smart-dust -- networks of tiny, locatable and addressable micro-electromechanical systems. These tags are attached to different types of trash so that these items can be followed through the city's waste management system, revealing the final journey of our everyday objects in a series of real-time visualizations.

• "Breakout!" (co-created by my IFTF colleague Anthony Townsend -dp) uses three sets of special tools to explore the dynamic possibilities of a single question: what if the entire city was your office? Drawing inspiration from the shared office spaces of the co-working movement, "Breakout!" creates alternative venues for collaborative work outside of traditional office buildings by injecting lightweight versions of essential office infrastructure into urban public spaces.
Toward the Sentient City exhibition


Ibm Sponsor Bug

Dress looks like a pair of 3D glasses

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 12:35 PM PDT

il_430xN.94064543.jpg This mini-dress sold on Etsy looks just like a pair of 3D glasses. The seller marked it as a Halloween item, but I think it's actually kind of cute for everyday wear... maybe? 3D glasses dress

Wil Wheaton dungeon-mastering charity Dungeon Delves in Tucson this weekend

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 12:42 PM PDT

Wil Wheaton's Dungeon-Mastering a pair of Dungeon Delves (45-minute speed-dungeons) at RinCon next weekend in Tucson, at $50/head to benefit Child's Play, a charity that sends toys, games, books and cash to sick kids. Sounds like a blast!
First, some history: Way back in the olden days, when 8 bits were enough to blow your mind on a 13-inch television and digital watches were a pretty neat idea, the concept of the Dungeon Delve was born. It's pretty straightforward: a group of players and a Dungeon Master sit down together, and the players have 45 minutes or so to make it through the end of a short dungeon, while the Dungeon Master does his best to kill them. The delve ends when the players defeat the final boss (or solve the final puzzle, or something like that), the time limit is reached, or the players all die horrible but noble and heroic deaths.

It's different from the collaborative storytelling experience that we experience in my regular D&D games, but it's still a hell of a lot of fun, and the time limit makes it perfect for running at conventions.

Wil Wheaton's 2009 Dwarven Dungeon Delve of Doom! Benefitting the Child's Play Charity
Previously:


How'd They Do That?: Poison Ivy and Carbon Dioxide Studies

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 12:05 PM PDT

When I was visiting BoingBoing last spring, I told y'all about some research being done by Lewis Ziska from the USDA and Jackie Mohan from the University of Georgia on how poison ivy responds to rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. (Answer: In a way that kind of sucks for people.)

What I didn't tell you was how the scientists figured out that CO2 makes ivy grow incredibly fast, and problematically poisonous. While some of the evidence comes from controlled studies done in a tidy, little lab, there's more to it than that.





These look a bit like high-voltage electricity transmission towers, or a Stonehenge-style monument built for some forest-dwelling version of Burning Man. Suffice to say, they are neither. Instead, they're actually giant structures of PVC pipe that Ziska, Mohan and their colleagues built to test the effects of CO2 on wild forest. The base rings are a 100 feet in diameter and vertical piping goes up to the very top of the forest canopy. Six towers total, in use from 1998 until 2004. Three blowing air. And three blowing a heady mix of air and carbon dioxide that pumped parts of the forest up to the ambient CO2 levels predicted for the year 2050.

And that was how the team learned something really neat. When I posted about this research before, somebody here asked whether other plants, besides poison ivy, got the same growth spurt from CO2 exposure. At the time, I didn't know. But talking to Mohan more, I found out that there's at least some basis for comparison. In particular, let's talk trees, turkey.

Both trees and poison ivy grew faster, when exposed to higher concentrations of CO2, than their oxygen-only counterparts. But poison ivy grew faster than the trees--150% faster, in fact, compared to a 20% increase in tree growth. The difference, according to Jackie Mohan, is that poison ivy, like all vines, is a bit lazy.

"Vines don't need to devote so much of their CO2 resources to growing these big, woody trunks," she says. "Instead, they can devote that to growing more green leaves, which increase photosynthesis some more. And it becomes a cycle."

This study was the first time the effects of CO2 had been researched like this in the wild. The next step will be to see how the growth of poison ivy differs between rural areas and cities, where CO2 levels are naturally higher thanks to a higher concentration of cars and industrial pollution. Mohan is working on that now. It's too early to tell, but she expects to find that the urban ivy is bigger and tougher than its country mouse cousin.

All images courtesy Jackie Mohan and Duke University.

Tiny nuclear battery

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 02:31 PM PDT

University of Missouri engineers are building a nuclear battery the size of a penny. Their aim is to develop a long-lasting power source for tiny sensors, actuators, and labs-on-a-chip. While nuclear batteries sound, er, problematic, they're actually relatively common in larger form factors to power pacemakers and instruments aboard space vehicles. From MU News Bureau:
News Stories 2009 Nuclear-Battery-Outstanding-At-Conference Images Microbattery-Edit Lg (Professor Jae Kown's) innovation is not only in the battery's size, but also in its semiconductor. Kwon's battery uses a liquid semiconductor rather than a solid semiconductor.

"The critical part of using a radioactive battery is that when you harvest the energy, part of the radiation energy can damage the lattice structure of the solid semiconductor," Kwon said. "By using a liquid semiconductor, we believe we can minimize that problem."

In the future, they hope to increase the battery's power, shrink its size and try with various other materials. Kwon said that the battery could be thinner than the thickness of human hair.
"MU Researchers Create Smaller and More Efficient Nuclear Battery"

She's Got It

Posted: 06 Oct 2009 07:23 PM PDT

"It", in this case, referring to "The Right Stuff". Brandon Keim at Wired Science had a great post yesterday about attempts by NASA contractors to get women into the space program during the late 1950s. The (ultimately unsuccessful) charge was led by Randy Lovelace--the doctor responsible for putting together health tests for astronaut hopefuls during the original Mercury 7 selection process--and Donald Flickinger--an Air Force general. Flickinger founded the Women in Space Earliest program in 1959, Keim writes...

But the Air Force canned it before testing even started, prompting Lovelace to start the Woman in Space Program. Nineteen women enrolled in WISP, undergoing the same grueling tests administered to the male Mercury astronauts. Thirteen of them -- later dubbed the Mercury 13 -- passed "with no medical reservations," a higher graduation rate than the first male class. The top four women scored as highly as any of the men

It's pretty fascinating stuff, I just wish Keim had included more biographical information on the women involved. Unlike the male astronaut candidates, they couldn't have come from the Air Force (and 1959 seems a little late for women who'd been with the WAC in World War II to be in prime physical condition), and yet, the women were trained, experienced pilots. There's some great stories fluttering in the shadows around this piece. I, for one, would love to know more.*

*Read: I would kill to interview one of these women. If you, your mom, or your grandma were involved, email me. Seriously.

"Close. The. Box. Walk away"

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 01:53 PM PDT

september113.jpg owl in box [Reynen's Livejournal] Thanks, Dean!

Olympic Commitee claims that photographing exterior of venues violates copyrights

Posted: 08 Oct 2009 04:18 AM PDT

Jordan sez, "The IOC, believing that it owns the photos in your shoebox, sent a takedown notice to Richard Giles, AWIA member and rather good photographer. I took notice, as we in Vancouver are about to play host to the 2010 Winter Games. It will be impossible to point your camera at anything in this tiny city without catching some Olympic logo or other."

I hope that the IOC is aware that it's about to show up in one of the most media-savvy towns in the world, and that trying to stop private citizens from posting "unauthorized" photos will be nothing short of a fool's errand. This sort of hostility towards Olympic fans is both wasteful and pointless. Does the IOC not understand why people go to the Olympic Games? (Hint: to come home with once-in-a-lifetime memories. This includes things like... photos) If the IOC has trouble understanding what the Internet does, they can probably find someone to ask. My own consulting rate is quite reasonable.
The Olympics may be the most overrated, corrupt, bullying institution we have on an international level (exempting corporations and organized crime syndicates).

IOC Tries to Take Down Olympic Photos on Flickr (Thanks, Jordan!)

Previously:


Epic Christian painting of historical figures and "lefty" archetypes

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 10:52 AM PDT

Onentiongooood

Mother Jones shared the joy of "One Nation Under God," an epic religious painting by contemporary artist Jon McNaughton. You can scroll over the painting to ID the various folks, ranging from historical figures to symbolic characters such as the "Liberal News Reporter" who embodies how "most of the media today are biased towards the left and try to shape the thinking and actions of Americans in that direction." My favorite is the "Professor" gripping his copy of "Origin of Species." According to McNaughton, the Professor "represents the liberal lefts control of our educational system." Hidden in the shadows is none other than... Satan! "One Nation Under God" by Jon McNaughton

Carl Sagan, spaced out on pot

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 11:45 AM PDT

A friend once told me that famed astronomer and noted head Carl Sagan wrote notes from his high self to his sober self to trust in his stoned revelations. I haven't confirmed that, but Sagan was definitely into the wacky tobaccy. In 1969, Sagan contributed a piece about his marijuana use for the book "Marihuana Reconsidered." Sagan wrote under the pseudonym of Mr. X, but he was later confirmed as the author.
Csaganancosmos Images P 0932551130.01.Lzzzzzzz
From Marihuana Reconsidered:

I do not consider myself a religious person in the usual sense, but there is a religious aspect to some highs. The heightened sensitivity in all areas gives me a feeling of communion with my surroundings, both animate and inanimate. Sometimes a kind of existential perception of the absurd comes over me and I see with awful certainty the hypocrisies and posturing of myself and my fellow men. And at other times, there is a different sense of the absurd, a playful and whimsical awareness. Both of these senses of the absurd can be communicated, and some of the most rewarding highs I've had have been in sharing talk and perceptions and humor. Cannabis brings us an awareness that we spend a lifetime being trained to overlook and forget and put out of our minds. A sense of what the world is really like can be maddening; cannabis has brought me some feelings for what it is like to be crazy, and how we use that word 'crazy' to avoid thinking about things that are too painful for us. In the Soviet Union political dissidents are routinely placed in insane asylums. The same kind of thing, a little more subtle perhaps, occurs here: 'did you hear what Lenny Bruce said yesterday? He must be crazy.' When high on cannabis I discovered that there's somebody inside in those people we call mad.

When I'm high I can penetrate into the past, recall childhood memories, friends, relatives, playthings, streets, smells, sounds, and tastes from a vanished era. I can reconstruct the actual occurrences in childhood events only half understood at the time. Many but not all my cannabis trips have somewhere in them a symbolism significant to me which I won't attempt to describe here, a kind of mandala embossed on the high. Free-associating to this mandala, both visually and as plays on words, has produced a very rich array of insights.
There is a myth about such highs: the user has an illusion of great insight, but it does not survive scrutiny in the morning. I am convinced that this is an error, and that the devastating insights achieved when high are real insights; the main problem is putting these insights in a form acceptable to the quite different self that we are when we're down the next day. Some of the hardest work I've ever done has been to put such insights down on tape or in writing. The problem is that ten even more interesting ideas or images have to be lost in the effort of recording one. It is easy to understand why someone might think it's a waste of effort going to all that trouble to set the thought down, a kind of intrusion of the Protestant Ethic. But since I live almost all my life down I've made the effort - successfully, I think. Incidentally, I find that reasonably good insights can be remembered the next day, but only if some effort has been made to set them down another way. If I write the insight down or tell it to someone, then I can remember it with no assistance the following morning; but if I merely say to myself that I must make an effort to remember, I never do.
"Mr. X by Carl Sagan" (via Dose Nation)

Public domain collection of film noir at Archive.org

Posted: 07 Oct 2009 10:21 AM PDT

200910070939
The Killing

Earlier this week I remarked on Twitter how much I enjoyed Stanley Kubrik's 1956 movie about a race track heist, The Killing. Jack Shafer replied, "Okay, now you're ready for Detour (Edgar G. Ulmer). It will change your life."

I checked Netflix and learned that Detour isn't available there. But I remembered that archive.org has a large collection of public domain movies, so I looked there and lo and behold, they had it. I downloaded the highest resolution version watched it. The quality was quite good, aside from a couple of wobbly parts and a second of missing dialogue.

200910070935
Detour

Jack steered me straight. This 1946 black-and-white film is as grim, hard-boiled, and twisty as any film noir title I've ever seen. Al (Tom Neal) plays a talented pianist stuck in cheap joint in New York. He's got an attitude to match the atmosphere (when a patron gives him a ten-dollar tip after he plays an insanely complex piece, he remarks that it's just "a piece of paper crawling with germs.")

Naturally, Al falls for the house singer, but she won't marry him because he doesn't have enough money. When she goes to Hollywood to try to become an actress, Al quits his job and starts hitchhiking across the country to be with her. He doesn't know it, but when a flashy loudmouth in a big car picks him up, Al's fate is sealed. Ann Savage, playing a femme fatale who seethes with bitter poison, is a show stealer.

It turns out that Archive.org has a collection of 43 film noir titles. If you've seen any of them, I'd appreciate it if you added your recommendations in the comments.

Archive.org's Welcome to Film Noir: expressionistic crime dramas of the 40s and 50s: tough cops and private eyes, femme fatales, mean city streets and deserted backroads, bags of loot and dirty double-crossers.

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