Sunday, December 6, 2009

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

For iPhone in C minor

Posted: 06 Dec 2009 05:16 AM PST

A group of students at the University of Michigan has formed a smartphone orchestra. Attached to the musicians' wrists, each iPhone runs an app recreating a selected instrument: "Now everybody has a smartphone, the question of how you get an instrument into people's hands has disappeared." [BBC]

Latest lame UK gov't excuse for supressing drug policy report: "if we release it, it will be hard to manage the news"

Posted: 06 Dec 2009 04:54 AM PST

The British government has reached new heights of absurdity in stonewalling the release of a report on the efficacy of drug prohibition. The report was commissioned from independent academic researchers, and various activist and citizen groups have spent years filing four separate Freedom of Information requests for it. The government has manufactured excuse after excuse, going out on such bizarre limbs that even the Economist has taken notice.
The reason is that next March the National Audit Office (NAO), a public-spending watchdog, is due to publish a report of its own on local efforts to combat drugs. The Home Office says that to have two reports about drugs out at the same time might confuse the public, and for this reason it is going to keep its report under wraps.

This is believed to be the first time that a public body has openly refused to release information in order to manage the news better. The department argues that releasing its internal analysis now "risks misinterpretation of the findings of the [NAO] report", because its own analysis is from 2007 and predates the NAO's findings. The argument uses section 36 of the FOI act, which provides a broad exemption for information that could "prejudice the effective conduct of public affairs".

The information commissioner, who polices the FOI act, declined to comment because the case was still open. But his predecessor, Richard Thomas, who stepped down in June, questioned the novel defence. "Certainly my office was always quite sceptical of anything which said publishing information is going to confuse the public. If that's the case, normally you need to put out some extra material alongside it to provide adequate explanation. It's not a reason for withholding something."

Transform Drug Policy Foundation: Media Blog: Transform FOI vs Home Office suppression of research - Part V (in The Economist ) (Thanks, Steve!)
Previously:


US Trade Rep weasels and squirms when cornered on an airplane and questioned about secret copyright treaty

Posted: 05 Dec 2009 10:49 PM PST

Read this account of James Love's conversation with Ambassador Ron Kirk, the head US Trade Representative, on the question of why the Draconian Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is taking place in secret. Love cornered Kirk on a United Airlines flight from Geneva to DC following a WTO Ministerial meeting. Love asks Kirk why the treaty isn't public, and Kirk's answers are -- at best -- total weaselling and at worst fabrications.
I had a chance to talk to Kirk about the secrecy of the ACTA agreement. He said the ACTA text would be made public, "when it is finished." I told him it that was too late, and the public wanted the text out now, before it is too late to influence anything.

Kirk said he was aware that there were those who wanted the text public, but the issue of transparency was "about as complicated as it can get," and Kirk didn't want people "walking away from the table," which would likely happen if the text was public, he said.

I said that it was untrue that IPR negotiations are normally secret, mentioning as examples that drafts of the other IPR texts, including the proposed WIPO treaty for disabilities and the climate change agreement language on IPR, as well as several drafts of the FTAA text and the 1996 WIPO copyright treaties had been public. Kirk said that ACTA "was different" and the topics being negotiated in ACTA were "more complex."

I brought up to Kirk that the USTR had shown ACTA text to dozens of corporate lobbyists and all of its trading partners in the ACTA negotiation, and the text was only secret from the public. Kirk did say USTR was discussing this issue with the White House and its trading partners, but that was about all he could say at that moment.

Ambassador Kirk: People would be "walking away from the table" if the ACTA text is made public (via The Command Line)
Previously:


Iran warns of "consequences" for Swiss over minaret ban

Posted: 05 Dec 2009 07:16 PM PST

Iran has warned Switzerland of 'consequences' following the recent referendum there on minaret construction. Characteristic Ahmadinejadian subtlety! But here's a thought: when scripted opprobrium flies around the world, it's usually between governments or other impersonal entities. Given Switzerland's unusual direct-democracy, however, where people can enact laws even when the government is against them, doesn't this mean that the condemnations are, for once, aimed directly at a nation's public rather than the government that represents them?

Lambert scores new ABC appearance after cancellations

Posted: 05 Dec 2009 07:19 PM PST

ABC has at last found a venue for Adam Lambert wherein the probability of theatrical irrumatio approaches zero.

Mutant teddy bear

Posted: 05 Dec 2009 11:38 AM PST

Just look at this awesome banana saver clip.

Posted: 05 Dec 2009 09:49 AM PST

XKCD++, a loving tribute to XKCD

Posted: 05 Dec 2009 08:23 AM PST


Noah sez, "When I wake up in the morning I make a pot of coffee then read all of my favorite webcomics before I go to work. I'll open my entire bookmark group into their own windows and just roll through them. This one was a pleasant surprise. If I hadn't been paying close enough attention I would have thought I'd actually read an XKCD."

xkcd++ String Theory (Thanks, Noah!)

Previously:


Saturday Morning Science Experiment: Up With Magnets!

Posted: 04 Dec 2009 09:18 AM PST

Ferrofluids are basically just iron nanoparticles suspended in a liquid. In the presence of magnets, they do some pretty cool things. For instance, ferrofluids flow to place where the magnetic flux--the strength of the magnetism--is strongest. So if you magnetize the screw from a meat grinder so the magnetic flux is denser at the top than it is at the bottom, the ferrofluid will climb the screw like staircase.

Thumbnail image courtesy Gregory Maxwell, via CC
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