Friday, November 27, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

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WWI images from Library and Archives Canada

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 11:32 PM PST

JC Hutchins's sf novel 7TH SON serial, Part 6

Posted: 27 Nov 2009 03:06 AM PST

Welcome to the sixth serialized installment of J.C. Hutchins' human cloning thriller 7th Son: Descent. If this is your first exposure to our free serialization of 7th Son, you can easily catch up by experiencing part one, part two, part three, part four and part five. You can also dive in right away, thanks to...

THE STORY SO FAR: John, Kilroy2.0, Father Thomas and four other unwitting human clones have been assembled by the U.S. government to track their villianous progenitor, a psychopath responsible for the murder of the president. His plans of terror are just beginning.

In the last episode, the clones continued to decipher John Alpha's Morse code clue. Meanwhile at a military base in the Russian wilderness, a former CIA agent named Doug Devlin reminisces about his past -- and his current alliance with Alpha. A much larger conspiracy is unveiled.

Check out this week's installment below. If you're enjoying this serialized experience, support the book by purchasing a copy at Amazon, Barnes & Noble or Borders, or printing this PDF order form and presenting it at your favorite bookstore. You can learn more about the book at J.C.'s site.

Seventh Son, Part 6

Previously:


Game-themed Tetris cake

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 11:17 PM PST


Clever Cake Studios made this smashing game-themed, Tetrisoid cake for the opening of a local Play'N'Trade store -- the little faces are caricatures of store employees.

Clever Cake Studio (via The Boing Boing Flickr Pool)

Search engines are teachers

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 10:42 PM PST

Penn State researchers have conducted a study into the use of search engines and conclude that we don't just search to find out facts, but rather, to learn:
The researchers sought to discover the cognitive processes underlying searching. They examined the search habits of 72 participants while conducting a total of 426 searching tasks. They found that search engines are primarily used for fact checking users' own internal knowledge, meaning that they are part of the learning process rather than simply a source for information. They also found that people's learning styles can affect how they use search engines.

"Our results suggest the view of Web searchers having simple information needs may be incorrect," said Jim Jansen, associate professor of information sciences and technology. "Instead, we discovered that users applied simple searching expressions to support their higher-level information needs."

Search Engines Are Source of Learning
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Camels terrorize Australian outback town

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 10:36 PM PST

Nat sez, "Six thousand marauding camels have rampaged though a small Australian outback town. Apparently there are over a million in the outback, doubling their numbers every nine years, and despoiling the ecosystems, water supplies, and Aboriginal resources. Wikipedia knows all. One proposed solution involves an export-licensed, halal-certified abattoir to produce camel meat for export. Just goes to show that there's no tasty meat source so invasive and pestilential that it doesn't have an industry and lobby group.
They have smashed water mains, damaged homes, buildings and the local airstrip - threatening emergency medical evacuations - and scared local residents from venturing outside.

"The community of Docker River is under siege," said the Northern Territory's Local Government Minister, Rob Knight.

"This is a dire situation which requires immediate action

...Central Australian Camel Industry executive officer, Peter Seidel, said camel meat was low in fat and cholesterol and tasted like beef.

"There is substantial demand worldwide (for camel meat). An investor from Oman is already interested," Mr Seidel said.

Feral camels ruling the roost in Outback (Thanks, Nat!)

(Image: Deve (Camel), a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Veyis Polat's Flickr stream)

McKinnon another step closer to extradition

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 09:54 PM PST

British hacker Gary McKinnon, tinkerer in U.S. military systems, has all but lost his legal battle to avoid extradition. What's worse? That his real crime was to reveal his supposed victims' criminal incompetence and expose a lopsided extradition treaty, or that the British press will bullshit relentlessly about his likely sentence--and portray Aspergers sufferers as mental and moral infants--just to hype his story? And then there are his laywers, ready with the ultimate moral blackmail: He'll kill himself if forced to face American justice.

Cancer drug may treat diabetes

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 04:18 PM PST

I've posted before about my brother Mark Pescovitz's fine art photography. In his spare time, Mark is a transplant surgeon and medical research scientist. Today, he and his colleagues published a paper in the New England Journal of Medicine about a new way to slow and possibly even stop the progression of type 1 diabetes, also known as juvenile-onset diabetes. The approach uses the drug Rituxan, normally indicated to treat non-hodgkins lymphoma and rheumatoid arthritis. Is it nepotism for me to post about my brother's accomplishment? Nah, just nachas. Keep up the great work, Mark! From Reuters:
Rituximab-Rituxan-783497 "What this study does is open the door to a whole new way to approaching type 1 diabetes," Dr. Mark Pescovitz of Indiana University, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.

Rituxan, known generically as rituximab, is made by Genentech, a unit of Roche Holding AG and Biogen Idec Inc. It was designed to wipe out immune cells known as B lymphocytes, which proliferate out of control in lymphoma.

The same cells are also involved in the autoimmune destruction of healthy cells and tissue seen in rheumatoid arthritis and, in theory, in juvenile diabetes.

Usually, by the time diabetes symptoms appear, 80 to 90 percent of those insulin-producing cells have been destroyed. The Pescovitz team gave Rituxan hoping to save the remaining cells.

The treatment worked at first and the body produced more insulin. But over time, the effects faded, and insulin production began to decline at the same rate as among people who received placebo.

Pescovitz said he was not disappointed. Further tests will show if repeated treatments with Rituxan or newer drugs that also eliminate B lymphocytes will keep insulin production up.

"Cancer drug preserves insulin cells in diabetes" (Reuters)

"Rituximab, B-Lymphocyte Depletion, and Preservation of Beta-Cell Function" (New England Journal of Medicine)

Previously:


Stop, or I'll shout stop again!

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 02:39 PM PST

British legislators have created new crimes at a rate of one a day since 1997.

How Britain's Pirate Finder General is trying to save the Analog Economy at the Digital Economy's expense

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 11:45 AM PST

My latest Guardian column looks at Peter Mandelson's new "Digital Economy Bill," a sweeping piece of proposed British legislation that would give Mandelson broad powers to act as the Pirate-Finder General, with the implausible aim of reducing UK file-sharing by 70 percent in one year.
Mandelson argues that Britain's Digital Economy will be based on the contrafactual premise of a steady decrease in computer speed, drive capacity, technical competence, network versatility and network ubiquity. Of course, the real digital economy is in those British companies that figure out how to thrive whether or not copying occurs - companies that use networks to reduce their costs, reach larger customer bases, and provide services whose demand and profitability grow with network use, companies such as Last.fm or Moo.com.

These companies' businesses are inconceivable without the net, but they also risk being collateral damage in Mandelson's war on the British internet. Just increasing the liability for copyright infringement (and creating a duty to police user-submitted files for infringement) could bankrupt either company overnight. How would Moo sell business cards with your personal photos on them if they could be sued into oblivion should those photos turn out to infringe copyright?

Mandelson is standing up for the Analogue Economy, the economy premised on the no-longer-technically-true idea that copying is hard. Companies based on the outdated notion of inherent difficulty of copying must change or they will die. Because copying isn't hard. Copying isn't going to get harder. This moment, right now, 2009, this is as hard as copying will be for the rest of recorded history. Next year, copying will be easier. And the year after that. And the year after that.

Why does Mandelson favour the Analogue Economy over the Digital?
Previously:


Musician's open letter, sung to Peter Mandelson, Britain's Pirate-Finder General

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 11:37 AM PST

A Mental_Floss Thanksgiving

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 11:16 AM PST

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Two bits of lighthearted holiday history from my old friends at mental_floss.

About The Presidential Turkey Pardon

The first official National Thanksgiving Turkey was presented by members of the Poultry and Egg National Board to Harry Truman in 1947. According to some reports, they ate him. Not that it necessarily matters, since the turkeys who get pardoned don't live for very long anyway. According to The New York Times, "Whether the turkeys come from a shelter or the White House, they don't live very long. Most adopted turkeys are commercially bred broad-breasted whites, genetically disposed to grow to a marketable size in about four months. Even on a diet of only a couple of cups of turkey feed a day, they become obese. They usually develop leg problems, congestive heart failure and arthritis."

About Black Friday

In 1939, the Retail Dry Goods Association warned Franklin Roosevelt that if the holiday season wouldn't begin until after Americans celebrated Thanksgiving on the traditional final Thursday in November, retail sales would go in the tank. Ever the iconoclast, Roosevelt saw an easy solution to this problem: he moved Thanksgiving up by a week. Roosevelt didn't make the announcement until late October, and by then most Americans had already made their holiday travel plans. Many rebelled and continued to celebrate Thanksgiving on its "real" date while derisively referring to the impostor holiday as "Franksgiving." State governments didn't know which Thanksgiving to observe, so some of them took both days off. In short, it was a bit of a mess.

Mental_Floss: The Somewhat Dark History of the Presidential Turkey Pardon & A Brief History of Black Friday.

Image courtesy Flickr user joiseyshowaa, via CC.

Scientist explains why climate scientists talk trash

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 10:49 AM PST

Dr Peter Watts, a PhD biologist and a hell of a science fiction writer, talks about what it means that a bunch of climate scientists
Science doesn't work despite scientists being asses. Science works, to at least some extent, because scientists are asses. Bickering and backstabbing are essential elements of the process. Haven't any of these guys ever heard of "peer review"?

There's this myth in wide circulation: rational, emotionless Vulcans in white coats, plumbing the secrets of the universe, their Scientific Methods unsullied by bias or emotionalism. Most people know it's a myth, of course; they subscribe to a more nuanced view in which scientists are as petty and vain and human as anyone (and as egotistical as any therapist or financier), people who use scientific methodology to tamp down their human imperfections and manage some approximation of objectivity.

But that's a myth too. The fact is, we are all humans; and humans come with dogma as standard equipment. We can no more shake off our biases than Liz Cheney could pay a compliment to Barack Obama. The best we can do-- the best science can do-- is make sure that at least, we get to choose among competing biases.

That's how science works. It's not a hippie love-in; it's rugby. Every time you put out a paper, the guy you pissed off at last year's Houston conference is gonna be laying in wait. Every time you think you've made a breakthrough, that asshole supervisor who told you you needed more data will be standing ready to shoot it down. You want to know how the Human Genome Project finished so far ahead of schedule? Because it was the Human Genome projects, two competing teams locked in bitter rivalry, one led by J. Craig Venter, one by Francis Collins -- and from what I hear, those guys did not like each other at all.

Because As We All Know, The Green Party Runs the World. (via Charlie Stross)
Previously:


Turkey-shaped Jell-O® Mold: 2009 Competition Winners (including David Byrne!)

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 09:28 AM PST

turkjel.jpg

Every year in New York, Boing Boing buddy Danielle Spencer organizes a Turkey-shaped Jell-O® Mold art competition that rivals the great art showcases of our time -- think of it as the Venice Biennale of holiday-themed foodplay.

Death_Rattle-Justin_Downsth.jpgThe 2009 edition winners have been selected, and Danielle has published critiques and appreciations of each masterpiece. There's an awful lot of je ne sais quoi goin' on. Justin Downs crafted a Jell-o turkey Death Rattle that purrs when you pet it, with an embedded capacitive circuit (inset, at left). Then, there's David Byrne's conceptual baby-food entry. Cindy Sherman's entry sounded tastiest: "white chocolate with chopped candied walnuts filled with cranberry/pomegranate flavored gelatin (no added sugar) with raspberries."

Above, "Live Feed," by The Builders Association:

With the hard drive as proscenium, The Builders Assocation mounts a spectacle that exposes the "transparency" of contemporary technology. The turkey appears to be giving birth to an iPod Nano, which plays--on endless loop--a video of a turkey. We are frozen in time, yet the video evokes remembrances of cluckings past. In this way the Builders brilliantly capture the intersection of synchronic and diachronic axes while forcing us to interrogate our relationship with turkeys and technology.


Turkey-shaped Jell-O® Mold: 2009 Competition

[A note for lawyers: this is just unofficial fun, and Jell-o/Kraft Foods has nothing to do with this, other than having created an iconic and enduring American food ingredient.]

Previously:

On the claimed prices of cellphones

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 09:23 AM PST

Cellular carriers claim that their contracts offset heavy subsidies on handsets. They claim they'd love to sell phones contract-free at retail--you're just not interested. But there's a problem with this story: these "full price" handsets are grossly overpriced, suggesting that they want consumers in the contract rat trap after all. As hard as it is to prove, discount handsets often reveal the absurdity of list pricing. For example, Motorola's Renew, free with a 2-year agreement, is listed as $160 full-price at T-Mobile. Amazon has it for $70 unlocked, however, and Manufacturer Motorola charges just $50.

Thanksgiving Maskers

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 08:52 AM PST

tha.jpg

A photograph from the Library of Congress collection in the Flickr Commons.

Thanksgiving Maskers, what the heck's that, you ask? Before Halloween became the holiday it now is in the United States, children would dress up in masks on the final Thursday in November and go door to door for treats (think: fruit!), or scramble for pennies. The tradition was known as Thanksgiving Masking.

Here are more Library of Congress images from the early 1900s which depict the now-abandoned custom.

An excerpt from a New York Times article published in 1899 after the jump, with details of the maskers' hijinks -- which included boys and men running around in women's clothing. Some of them organized into a society known as "Fantastics."

From Encyclopedia.com:

Progressive era reformers regarded child begging on Thanksgiving as immoral and thought children who engaged in it should be arrested. Why were parents not able to control their offspring? the New York Times in 1903 wanted to know. (30) The newspaper castigated parents who allowed children to demand treats or money as indecent.(31) The police tried to enforce a ban against begging. In response to complaints from the public, the clergy, school superintendents, and classroom teachers issued warnings. The New York Times in November of 1930 worried that demanding coins could teach children to become professional beggars and blackmailers and that children were annoying the public.(32) Begging, decided the paper, was a "malicious influence on the morals of children of the city. (33) Boys' clubs and other child welfare agencies organized parades and costume contests as alternative activities. As a result of these efforts, child begging on Thanksgiving finally disappeared by the 1940s.(34) The tradition went back as far as 1780, involving crossdressing men who called themselves the Fantastics and paraded on the holiday.

And here's a snip from a New York Times story from December 1, 1899 about that year's Thanksgiving festivities:


charivari.jpg


Full PDF of the article, as it appeared in print.



William S. Burroughs: A Thanksgiving Prayer

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 04:17 PM PST

Boing Boing Gift Guide 2009: media! (part 2/6)

Posted: 27 Nov 2009 02:21 AM PST

Mark and I have rounded up some of our favorite items from our 2009 Boing Boing reviews for the second-annual Boing Boing gift guide. We'll do one a day for the next six days, covering media (music/games/DVDs), gadgets and stuff, kids' books, novels, nonfiction, and comics/graphic novels/art books. Today, it's media!

Here Comes Science: I am thoroughly smitten with the new They Might Be Giants kids' album, Here Comes Science, which ships with a charming DVD of videos and supplementary material. In the best traditions of awesome educational kids music -- Schoolhouse Rock, the Animaniacs, Electric Company -- Here Comes Science combines top-notch pop music with humor that's aimed at both kids and adults (I once heard the creators of Sesame Street discuss how the inclusion of humor targeted at adults meant that grownups were more likely to watch with the kids, and thus be on hand to answer questions and discuss the material; this should be gospel for everyone who makes media for kids). And, of course, the material is great. Better than great. Perfect. This is the album They Might Be Giants was put on Earth to record: they are genuine science nerds, and it shows. Full review | Purchase

Rolling Stone Cover to Cover: The First 40 Years Every issue on three DVDs and works with Windows and Mac. It's fun to search on terms to see when they first appeared in Rolling Stone. "Punk Rock" made its debut in 1973 (though it was about garage punk, not the punk rock that began in 1975). An October 1977 article by Charley Walters called "Punk: Pretty Vacant Music" is the first to mention The Clash. (Walters has good things to say about The Clash, but dismisses punk rock music in general as "overly simplistic and rudimentary. It's also not very good.") Full review | Purchase




The Princess Bride (20th Anniversary Edition):
Justin Watt sez, "the latest cover of the Princess Bride DVD has an amazing ambigram." Indeed it does -- a suitably awesome cover for one of the finest movies ever made.


Full review | Purchase



Glitter and Doom Live (Tom Waits):
Glitter and Doom is the latest Tom Waits CD, a double live-disc featuring tracks from his US/Euro 2008 tour, along with a disc of him basically telling jokes and shooting the shit with the audience. It's a real winner.

Full review | Purchase




Stop Making Sense:
Mine too. This is the best concert movie I've ever seen, one of the greatest albums ever recorded, and the amazing thing is that the trajectory of the band and its components went up from there. I've been listening to the new Byrne/Eno for weeks on heavy rotation and going crazy over it.


Full review | Purchase


Mister Rogers Swings!:
Holly Yarbrough's Mister Rogers Swings! is a fine collection of swinging, jazzy, uptempo covers of songs from classic episodes of Mr Rogers' Neighborhood, with a big, brassy band backing sweet, passionate vocals.


Full review | Purchase



Monster Kid Home Movies:
Monster Kid Home Movies is an utterly exuberant celebration of monster-obsessed amateur creativity, and the films are filled with raw enthusiasm for the genre. These are Forry Ackerman's spiritual progeny at their most ingenious, contriving incredible costumes, ill-advised stunts, clever camera work, and often hilarious hamming to recreate the famous monsters of filmland.

Full review | Purchase


The IT Crowd, Vol 3:
This was the funniest season yet -- the Friendster episode was nothing short of brilliant. The show has hit its stride and is triumphantly stalking the airwaves. Best of all were the shots of the densely decorated set, which was dressed by Boing Boing readers and fans of the show, who sent their favorite nerd memorabilia to the show for inclusion.


Full review | Purchase



Left4Dead 2:
Left 4 Dead -- a first-person, team-play zombie game -- is one of the most compelling, nightmarish, cinematic games I've ever seen. Part of it is the excellent play mechanics, part of it is the music (which has its own AI subsystem to ensure that it follows your play and makes appropriate, dramatic swellings at all the right times), part of it is the superb writing -- but it's mostly the fact that computer generated zombies are supposed to inhabit the uncanny valley, so these undead critters seem incredibly lifelike.


Full review | Purchase



Free to Be...You and Me (Marlo Thomas):
Free To Be... You and Me was one of my favorite movie/record/books when I was growing up. Marlo Thomas's 1972 project brought together an all-star cast to perform songs, poems and sketches that challenged gender stereotypes and delivered a fundamentally humane, loving message about being who you are and not being constrained by society's expectations.


Full review | Purchase


Other installments:


Part One: Kids

Part Two: Media

Part Three: Gadgets


Last year's guides:

Happy 90th birthday, sf legend Frederik Pohl!

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 07:20 AM PST

Bill sez, "Today, Thursday, is the 90th birthday of Fred Pohl, science fiction novelist, who has also been a literary agent, teenage magazine editor, political activist, globetrotting lecturer, and member of SF fandom."

I recently wrote a Fred Pohl tribute story, "Chicken Little," for a forthcoming Tor anthology called "Gateways" -- stories in appreciation of Fred.

Happy 90th Birthday, Frederik Pohl! (Thanks, Bill)

(Image: The Way The Future Was by Frederik Pohl., from Jim Linwood's Flickr stream)

Previously:


HOW TO Make Some Truly Wonderful Sweet Potatoes

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 09:26 AM PST

altheapotato.jpg

You! Stop! Drop those marshmallows! Before you make a mistake you'll regret, consider this recipe instead.

Grammy Althea's Marshmallow-Free, Awesome-Full Stove Top Sweet Potatoes

You'll Need

  • Sweet potatoes, probably about two pounds, peeled and chopped into thick hunks. Two pounds is approximate. You should have enough sweet potatoes, when chopped, to fill your skillet.
  • 1 stick of butter
  • 1 pound of brown sugar
  • Water
  • Cast-iron skillet

Instructions

1. Fill cast-iron skillet with peeled and chopped sweet potatoes.

2. Add enough water to not-quite-cover the sweet potatoes.

3. Cut stick of butter into pats and add it to the skillet. Add entire 1 lb. bag of brown sugar to the skillet as well.

4. Bring to a boil. Then reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, for about an hour. The liquid should become thick and bubbly, like a gooey delicious tar pit. Sweet potatoes are done when they are soft and glazed-looking.

Image courtesy Flickr user nataliemaynor, via CC

FedEx's cellular sensor-package for your important shipments

Posted: 26 Nov 2009 11:31 AM PST

Senseaware is FedEx's cellular-connected sensor-package. Drop it in your super-important packages (they're targeting it at people who ship human organs around) (Matthew from FedEx sez, "We're not targeting shipping of organs. It's life sciences. So that's pharma, medical devices/equipment, diagnostic kits and samples.") and for $120/month it will tell you everything about that package -- where it is at this very second, whether it's been dropped, how hot/cold it is, and so on. Science fiction plot-device ahoy! Also, check out the awesomely jargony product description from the press-release:

Available in the spring of 2010, SenseAware is an open, highly adaptive and easy-to-use sensor information sharing platform. It is a multi-modal solution that will serve customers who desire near real-time visibility and insight into their shipments. SenseAware will provide business decision makers the ability to quickly and easily collaborate on many types of information data across their global supply chain.

SenseAware is permitted by the Federal Aviation Administration to be used during flight on FedEx aircraft and will allow customers to monitor in-transit conditions during ground transportation.

A SenseAware device riding with a FedEx shipment can provide the following information:

* Precise temperature readings
* A shipment's exact location
* When a shipment is opened or if the contents have been exposed to light
* Real-time alerts and analytics between trusted parties regarding the above vital signs of a shipment

SenseAware powered by FedEx (via OhGizmo)
Previously:


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