Saturday, January 16, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Candy-ass vice-principal calls the bomb squad over an 11-year-old's science project, recommends counselling for the student

Posted: 16 Jan 2010 02:37 AM PST

A San Diego school vice-principal saw an 11-year-old's home science project (a motion detector made out of an empty Gatorade bottle and some electronics), decided it was a bomb, wet himself, put the school on lockdown, had the bomb-squad come out to destroy X-ray the student's invention and search his parents' home, and then magnanimously decided not to discipline the kid (though he did recommend that the child and his parents get counselling to help them overcome their anti-social science behavior).
When police and the Metro Arson Strike Team responded, they also found electrical components in the student's backpack, Luque said. After talking to the student, it was decided about 1 p.m. to evacuate the school as a precaution while the item was examined. Students were escorted to a nearby playing field, and parents were called and told they could come pick up their children.

A MAST robot took pictures of the device and X-rays were evaluated. About 3 p.m., the device was determined to be harmless, Luque said...

The student will not be prosecuted, but authorities were recommending that he and his parents get counseling, the spokesman said. The student violated school policies, but there was no criminal intent, Luque said.

Full story (Thanks, Steve!)
Previously:


Everything I need to know I learned from D&D

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 11:49 PM PST

Chad sez, "Last night I gave a talk at IgniteOKC, Oklahoma City's part of the Ignite series of talking events, called 'All I Need to Know About Life I Learned from Dungeons and Dragons.' I had a ton of fun with it and I think it will be of interest to any fans of roleplaying games in general and D&D specifically. I am especially proud of my slides, which are all hand drawn by me :)"

This was an absolutely sweet little talk -- Chad, you should put your slides online separately, since they're a little hard to make out in the video.

All I need to know about life I learned from Dungeons and Dragons - an IgniteOKC talk (Thanks, Chad!)

Previously:


Electrosensitives tortured by a radio tower that had been switched off for six weeks

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 10:39 PM PST

A group of South African "electrosensitive" activists had been tormented by their local packet-data radio tower, with terrible symptoms that only subsided when they left the area. They're suing.

Only one problem: during a six week period while they were experiencing their symptoms, the tower was switched off, but the symptoms persisted. So, either the symptoms are psychosomatic, or these people are "allergic" to very tall pieces of inert metal.

Of course, they're still suing.

In an email one Craigavon Task Force member, Tracey-Lee Dorny, describes the affected community's symptoms: "several rash cases were presented in person and by photos from people who could not attend [a meeting with iBurst]. Headaches, nausea, tinnitus, dry burning itchy skins, gastric imbalances and totally disrupted sleep patterns, especially with some of the children, were some of the issues presented by the residents."

Dorny told The Star that she and her son are spending alternate nights at her mother's house to get some relief. "When I'm off the property, the symptoms subside," she said... At the meeting Van Zyl agreed to turn off the tower with immediate effect to assess whether the health problems described by some of the residents subsided. What Craigavon residents were unaware of is that the tower had already been switched off in early October - six weeks before the November meeting where residents confirmed the continued ailments they experienced.

Massive revelation in iBurst tower battle (via /.)

(Image: Radio Towers, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike image from maliciousmonkey's photostream)

Previously:


Beautiful ice-sphere machine

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 10:31 PM PST


This copper mechanism from Macallan's will turn your large, irregular chunk of ice into a perfect sphere, whose melting properties are somehow optimal for the consumption of Scotch (I drink neat Irish, when I drink at all, which is almost never).

The Macallan Ice Ball Machine- 01.15.10 (via Andre's Notes)

Previously:


Congrats on your engagement, Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman!

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 10:24 PM PST

Cocktails For Two

Posted: 16 Jan 2010 12:05 AM PST


Mark, David, Xeni and Cory have all gone home and they left me the keys to the house! Let's have a cartoon party this weekend! Whattaya say?

Update: Commenter, mneptok points us to a great appetizer to wet your whistle for tomorrow's cartoon show... See it after the jump.


This great cartoon was directed by Jack Kinney, who directed many of the Goofy and Donald Duck cartoons of the 1940s and 50s. It won an Academy Award for Disney in 1942 and ushered in a string of entertainment propaganda and training films for the war effort. The song was covered by Spike Jones and his City Slickers and became a huge hit. "Der Fuhrer's Face" (1942) is available on the Walt Disney Treasures: On The Front Lines DVD collection.

Click on the images below to read more about Disney's WWII cartoons at the ASIFA-Hollywood Animation Archive...

Dispatch From Disney During The War

Walt's War

Count Basie Paints A Picture Of The Birth Of The Blues

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 07:14 PM PST




swcountgfs-lil.jpg It's strange how simple, off-the-cuff stuff can be so beautiful, it makes you cry.

Here's Count Basie on the Jazz Casual TV program from 1968. Basie paints a picture of Kansas City and Harlem in the golden age, then dispels it with a laugh like the smoke from his cigarette. "So, uh... Where were we?"

I live for glimpses like this of the wonderful times before I was born.
"That's The Lion's ending..."

Taste Test: Kabosu

Posted: 31 Dec 2009 01:43 AM PST

kabosu.jpg

Kabosu is a citrus fruit that tastes kind of like a cross between a lemon, lime, and yuzu. It gets harder to find the further you get from Oita Prefecture, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, because 98% of all kabosu production takes place there. Legend has it that the tree first arrived in Oita when an Edo period doctor from Kyoto brought a branch to the region and planted it.

Like most other citrus fruits, kabosu is a great source of Vitamin C. People in Oita believe that the vinegars from kabosu are critical for liver health and to stabilize blood pressure. My father is from there, so I grew up eating fish dipped in kabosu-infused soy sauce thinking this was completely ordinary. Because it has a distinct salty flavor, it's confident enough to go solo as a seasoning. Try it sometime!

By the way, if you have any ideas for Taste Test items — unusual fruits or vegetables, fun recipes for in-season produce, or a special condiment — send me an email: mango [at] tokyomango [dot] com.

Image via cabosu.com

Every installment of Taste Test will explore recipes, the science, and some history behind a specific food item.

Previously:


It's Not The Photographer, It's The Camera!

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 03:59 PM PST


swjscamera01gfskj.jpg I enjoy reading the high end DSLR discussion boards on the internet. Those gearheads go ape over minute differences in "chromatic aberration" and "barrel distortion". They peep at pixels in Photoshop to see if their lens is able to give them a sharp image blown up to the size of the side of a barn. But all they seem to ever shoot pictures of is brick walls and cans of soda at varying distances lined up on their dining room table!

I think if you are going to make a fetish over camera equipment, it should be junk store cameras, not DSLRs. There's something about a fifty year old scratched up plastic lens that makes magic happen. The proof is on exhibit at JunkStoreCameras.com.

swjscamera02gdnk.jpg
Marcy Merrill, a professional photographer, has been accumulating cameras at swap meets and thrift stores and running rolls of film though them to see what comes out. She has captured some remarkably atmospheric images and each one is accompanied by a photo of the two dollar plastic camera that took it. Check it out...


Marcy Merrill's Junk Store Cameras

"Pop Surrealism" Done Right: The Art of Mark Bodnar

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 03:11 PM PST


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I must admit that I'm not usually a fan of "pop surrealism". Context and expression in art is much more important to me than pop references and obsessive technique. It distresses me to see images jammed with unrelated figures vomited onto the canvas with no concern for overall composition. Perhaps I'm too picky, but day-glo color combinations of pink and purple and orange don't qualify to me as "harmony" and generic pretty girls in space helmets, Japanese movie monsters and tikis aren't a fit substitute for real subject matter.

But I really love the paintings of Mark Bodnar.


Bodnar's work springs forth from the long tradition of cartooning, but he succeeds in making it feel contemporary, rather than treating it as a static object of fetish. His paintings exhibit all of the clarity and directness of the great illustrators of the past and his technique is marked by simplicity, contrast and balance. But his greatest strength lies in the meaning behind the images. Instead of creating mish-mash assemblages of non-sequitur designed to give the illusion of meaning, Bodnar's work feels more like illustrations to stories that have yet to be written. Creating windows into wonderful worlds is magic of the first order. Mark Bodnar is a master of that particular brand of alchemy.


swbodnar02fdgnjj.jpg

Haiti: News roundup, new satellite images, tweets from the ground

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 03:58 PM PST

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• Ann Curry's report on NBC about the horrific suffering of children in Haiti, even the lucky ones who have been rescued and are receiving medical treatment. The video is hard to watch. (screengrab above: a child receiving surgery without anesthesia)

• Haiti Twitter information, compiled by the ATLAS program at the University of Colorado. Organizers suggest following a standard syntax, to make conversation and connecting more effective.

• A collection point for amateur radio communications data related to the quake is here.

• A Scottish nurse in Haiti blogs about the toll of frequent, ongoing aftershocks:

The Haitian staff are showing signs of stress. Many of us here are experiencing loss of appetite, nausea and headaches. The constant movement of the ground makes our buildings sway and that is causing motion sickness, as well as high levels of anxiety. The children are fairing remarkably well.
• The tweeting Carrier USS Carl Vinson (@CVN70) will serve as a 'floating airport' for Haiti relief operation.


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• New satellite maps of Haiti coming in: "Damage evaluation map based on satellite data over the Port-au-Prince area of Haiti, following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake and several aftershocks that hit the Caribbean nation on 12 January. Map based on data from CNES's SPOT-5, JAXA's ALOS and the U.S.-based GeoEye-1 satellites; processed by SERTIT. " Click for full-size.

• Dan Harris, ABC News: "Saw my first real bout of looting in #haiti today. People are openly and increasingly worried re social unrest here."

• Boston Globe's "The Big Picture" blog has two posts with incredible, powerful photographs from Haiti over the past few days. Here is part one, here is part two.

• The New York Times' "The Lede" blog is an excellent source for ongoing analysis and news updates. Also, see this interactive map, using satellite imaging data from GeoEye, which shows the capital city before and after the earthquake.

• Danger Room: tweets from the front line of Haiti relief.

• At night, Port au Prince is lit by burning tires.

• Some 300,000 people have already been displaced by the disaster.


• When Haitian Ministers Take a 50 Percent Cut of Aide Money It's Called
"Corruption," When NGOs Skim 50 Percent It's Called "Overhead": Crushing Haiti, Now as Always

• Our Role in Haiti's Plight, by Peter Hallward

• Democracy Now: US Policy in Haiti Over Decades "Lays the Foundation for Why Impact of Natural Disaster Is So Severe"

• Op-Ed, New York Times: A Country Without a Net / Tracy Kidder

• Haiti's largest jail collapsed in the earthquake, and all the inmates fled, according to a UN report.

• Catherine Lainé (Boing Boing Video interview with her in Haiti) tweets, "Things you can do: Call your congressman/senator re: cancelling Haiti's debt. The country will need every penny to rebuild."

• Jay Smooth of Ill Doctrine published this excellent video op-ed today: Mini Doctrine on Haiti.


(Some links in this post via Ned Sublette, Todd Lappin, Kristie LuStout, Brad King)

Previously:

Cocaine found in space shuttle hangar

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 12:01 PM PST

Seems that it isn't just the astronauts at NASA who are flying high. A baggie of blow was found on the floor of a space shuttle hangar at Kennedy Space Center last week.

Webcast: Foresight Institute conf on nanotech and artificial intelligence

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 11:50 AM PST

This weekend is the Foresight Institute's annual conference, about the connections between molecular manufacturing, nanotechnology, and artificial intelligence. There's still time to register, but if you can't attend in person, they'll be Webcasting the event. (The live video will be low-res due to the conference hotel's bandwidth, but they hope to post high-res video later on.) From the Foresight Institute:
Foresightgearrrr Several rapidly-developing technologies have the potential to undergo an exponential takeoff in the next few decades, causing as much of an impact on economy and society as the computer and networking did in the past few. Chief among these are molecular manufacturing and artificial general intelligence (AGI). Key in the takeoff phenomenon will be the establishment of strong positive feedback loops within and between the technologies. Positive feedback loops leading to exponential growth are nothing new to economic systems. At issue is the value of the exponent: since the Industrial Revolution, economies have expanded at rates of up to 7% per year; however, computing capability has been expanding at rates up to 70% per year, in accordance with Moore's Law. If manufacturing and intellectual work shifted into this mode, the impact on the economy and society would be profound. The purpose of this symposium is to examine the mechanisms by which this might happen, and its likely effects.
"Foresight 2010: the Synergy of Molecular Manufacturing and AGI"

Haiti Earthquake Update: AIDG's Catherine Lainé, live from Haiti (BB Video)

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 03:39 PM PST

Watch on YouTube | Download MP4 | Dotsub (with foreign language translations)

cat-conference.jpgIn this episode of Boing Boing Video, I speak with Haitian-American blogger and sustainable tech development activist Catherine Lainé (photo at left from earlier this year). She was working in Haiti when the catastrophic earthquake struck earlier this week. Catherine spoke to us via Skype video from Cap-Haïtien, where she is working out of a space shared with AIDG (Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group) and a kindred nonprofit known as SOIL.

A number of her family members live in Haiti. At the time of this interview, all were safely accounted for, except for her brother, who resides in the devastated capital city of Port-au-Prince. He is currently still missing. Catherine is trying to get into the city to locate him, as I publish this blog post.

Among the observations she shares: aid groups are running out of body bags, and corpses are piling up so fast that the morgues have no space. The internet is a vital form of communication, as are cellphones—when they work—and she is seeing people in Haiti using social networking services as a means to try and locate missing loved ones within Haiti. The environment is so chaotic and roads so badly damaged that even in-country, mobile technology and web-based social networking services like Facebook are playing a vital role in the reconnection process. Don't assume that because Haiti is so poor, nobody's using the internet. She says cell service has been spotty, with certain carriers performing better than others. She connected to us using WIMAX, and the degree to which that service has performed during the disaster makes her a real believer in the promise of that particular wireless technology.

Edited video transcript after the jump (recorded at 1130pm ET on Jan. 14, 2010), along with Catherine's suggestions on how to help.

BOING BOING: Where are you right now?


CATHERINE LAINÉ: About 100km outside the capital, about a six hour drive given the current road conditions.

BB: What has the connectivity been like since the quake hit?


CATHERINE: Pretty difficult. Everyone got on the phone at the same time to talk to their families, one of the major cellphone companies here—their towers collapsed. But communications are normalizing, and I've heard from relatives via cellphone today.


BB: How do you go about trying to find someone there, given all of the chaos, and how difficult it is to get from one place to another with damaged roads?


CATHERINE: People are relying a lot on cellphone calls. Travel within the country is extremely difficult. I'm hearing a lot of people using social networks, posting pictures of lost loved ones on Facebook or CNNn's ireport site. Right now it seems that the internet is one of the more resilient forms of communication.

It's surreal. People are used to hearing about Haiti as the poorest country in the Western hemisphere, and because of this the idea that some of these people in Haiti are using internet-based technology to find loved ones might be surprising. But I'm shocked and happy that companies like Access Haiti are able to keep their services up and operational. WIMAX has been trying to get off the ground in US cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco, and I'm definitely a bigger fan of that technology now in terms of disaster coping, after this experience.



Most of the cell providers are down. One of the largest companies is an Irish company, Digicell. Typically they're among the best service in the country and their engineers are having such a difficult time coping. Voilá, another popular mobile provider, is just barely starting to get calls through, it's a shock when phone calls get through, it's like magic when the phone rings right now.


BB: What are AIDG and other sustainability NGOs that you collaborate with focusing efforts on right now?


CATHERINE: We're coordinating with civil engineers to come to the capital and do risk assessment. One thing we're going to try and do is help with translation and logistical support, helping to coordinate the incoming volunteers from various organizations, to help put people coming in from outside to work in the most effective ways possible, because we are very familiar with the country and with the needs here. So, a lot of coordination help.

BB: What do people need to understand about this current crisis that they don't understand?

CATHERINE: I think one of the things people forget about natural disasters is that after the immediate disaster falls out of the news, the need is still there. When they're opening their hearts right now, they also need to think about a long term giving strategy. Put it in your Google calendar, and give again in a year. When the reconstruction starts, we're going to need another outpouring. Reconstruction is a long process and we're going to need their help for a long time.


People need to realize it's not going to turn around overnight, but that they should not lose hope for Haiti.



BB: Many watching this may not be familiar with Haiti. When we hear about Haiti we think about this poor country cursed with a history of violence and natural disasters. What would you say to someone who thinks of Haiti as a problem?

CATHERINE: People need to think about the way they frame news stories... referring to Haiti all the time as "the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere," it's just an example of journalistic laziness. In any story, there is a backstory that doesn't sell papers, that doesn't get traffic. The story we hear about Haiti is always about its poverty, and not about its beauty.

What's so heartbreaking about this particular tragedy is that just when Haiti is at this point of such hope, Bill Clinton running the Clinton Global Initiative and saying this is the time in history when Haiti has the biggest chance for positive change... people don't know that, the typical person in America hasn't seen the amazing richness and beauty of the country.

My family's here, so it's hard for me not to come here, but the energy, the language, the people... the first time I came here was in 2006, and it felt like coming home. It's like Marmite, you love it or you hate it. Once Haiti gets under your skin it's there for life.

I think it's good that more Haitian-Americans are reporting about the news, in this news cycle. They can give a different sense about the country than someone who's just going there for the first time and is not of the culture. There's a sense of a different tone with which people talk about Haiti, a different flavor who are either from Haiti or have had experience in developing countries, they have a different understanding. When people talk about Haiti, there are a lot of arts and culture in different parts of the country.


Haiti isn't just a basket case. I think people need to understand the other social, economic, and political factors that have conspired to make Haiti the way it is right now. You need to think about those to understand why Haiti has come to the point it is right now. Haiti has not become almost a failed state by accident.


For instance, consider the difference in how the Carter and Reagan administrations dealt with human rights during the Duvalier regime. During the Carter administration, the rights of journalists and activists in Haiti were respected a little more because of the pressure from the US. But when Reagan took office, that all changed because of America's focus on "fighting Communism," and journalists and human rights workers here felt the pressure immediately. Haiti does not exist in a vacuum.


BB: Catherine, are there some final thoughts you'd like to leave our viewers with?


CATHERINE: Being here, it's been incredible to see the outpouring of support and emotion that people have put forth... If there is any good thing you can get... from a disaster like this.... it's that people can be.... so kind and generous. [pauses, in tears.] I would say more, but...

There are so many bodies on the street, the morgues are full, the Red Cross has run out of body bags... just the thought of all the people who are still buried under the rubble... right now, it is overwhelming.




Catherine suggests that those who wish to help the
people of Haiti consider donating to the following organizations:


• The Appropriate Infrastructure Development Group (AIDG)

• Sustainable Organic Integrated Livelihoods (SOIL)

• Partners In Health (PIH)

• YELE

• Food For The Poor

(Image of Catherine Lainé courtesy whiteafrican; special thanks to Boing Boing Video editor Eric Mittleman)

Previously:


On the Newton Messagepad

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 11:18 AM PST

Poor handwriting recognition was just the part that became industry legend. John Gruber explains why Apple's first tablet computer didn't do so well.

Great Moon Hoax of 1835

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 11:21 AM PST

Wikipedia Commons F Fb Great-Moon-Hoax-1835-New-York-Sun-Lithograph-298Px
In the latest episode of The Memory Palace podcast, reporter Nate DiMeo tells the captivating story of "The Great Moon Hoax" of 1835. According to a series of New York Sun articles published that year, a respected astronomer named Sir John Herschel had observed an amazing array of flora and fauna on the moon, including bipedal beavers, winged humanoids, and (yay!) blue unicorns. None of it was true. (Or so we're told now.) And Herschel wasn't even aware until much later that he was the star of this bit of science fiction presented as fact. The lithograph above accompanied one of the articles to illustrate what Herschel had "seen" through his giant telescope. "The Moon in the Sun"

Previously:


Guatemalan lawyer hires hitman to kill him and frame president

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 11:20 AM PST



"If you are watching this message it is because I have been murdered by (Guatemalan president) Alvaro Colom..," says Rodrigo Rosenberg, a Guatemala City lawyer, in the video above. Xeni posted about this last May, but now, in an incredible twist, there is apparently evidence that Rosenberg wasn't actually murdered by Colom. Rather, he was allegedly killed by a hitman that he hired himself as part of a bizarre sacrificial suicide to frame Colom. Hmmm... From The Guardian:
The 18-minute testimonial – which surfaced at the funeral – was uploaded to the internet and triggered a political hurricane in the central American country... A UN investigation has concluded the lawyer, depressed over personal problems and angry with the government, sacrificed his own life in an elaborate sting. "Who planned the act? We have to conclude that it was Rodrigo Rosenberg himself," Carlos Castresana, head of the UN commission, told a stunned country . "He decided to sacrifice his life in exchange for a change in the country. There can be no other explanation." In a news conference the president, who faced protests and resignation calls, said he had been vindicated and that the country could move on.

In a plot twist worthy of Agatha Christie investigators said Rosenberg made the recording knowing that two days later, on May 10, assassins he had hired would ambush him near his home. He was shot three times in the head, once in the neck and once in the back. He apparently hoped the video would render him a martyr.

After the video surfaced the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala, a UN panel set up to investigate crimes during Guatemala's civil war, launched an investigation supported by local prosecutors.

It found that Rosenberg was distraught over an ugly divorce, the death of his mother and the murder of a client, Khalil Musa, and his daughter, Marjorie, who was Rosenberg's girlfriend. The lawyer blamed government officials for the double slaying, which he linked to a money laundering plot.

"Lawyer in YouTube murder plot video hired his own assassins – UN" (Thanks, Gil Kaufman!)

Log cabin ... with the logs cut perpendicular

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 09:43 AM PST

Architecture,projects,log-house-study-Hans-Liberg,log-house-office-on-wheels.jpg I love how this cabin, designed by Piet Hein Eek for a musician, has logs cut the 'other' way. [Thomas Meyer Archive via Treehugger]

Haiti: Update from Doctors Without Borders team in Port-au-Prince

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 10:42 AM PST

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Stefano Zannini, the head of mission for Doctors Without Borders (Medecins Sans Fronteres / MSF) in Haiti, spoke to reporters this morning about the organization's operations in response to the catastrophic earthquake. Following are my notes from this call, and from related emails with MSF staff. Here's a link for online donations to MSF.

• All 3 MSF medical facilities in Port-au-Prince, the capital city, were damaged in the quake: a health center in Martissant slum, the Trinity trauma centre (60 beds), and the Solidarité maternity hospital (a 75 bed emergency obstetric facility). Two new operating facilities will be set up in the next 48 hours, including an emergency inflatable hospital due to arrive in Haiti on Saturday (like the one in the photo above — Maggie blogged about this earlier on Boing Boing).

• MSF staff have scavenged equipment from damaged hospitals and medical centers to augment resources at the Choscal hospital in the Cité Soleil district where operations are centered. Materials and surgical equipment have also been salvaged from a free maternity hospital normally operated by MSF. They are continuing to deliver babies, also. The two other obstetric hospitals in the area were destroyed in the earthquake.

• MSF staff in Haiti have been working shifts of up to 24 hours straight since the quake hit 3 days ago. They are exhausted. The first MSF planes with supplies are now arriving in Port-au-Prince, bringing goods and reinforcement staff. Some 40 tons of surgical equipment and sanitation treatment supplies to ensure clean drinking water are on the way.

• Many thousands of survivors are now homeless, or afraid to return to quake-damaged homes. Everyone is seeking shelter. People are sleeping in the streets, protecting themselves with blankets, or if they do not have blankets, covering themselves with plastic bags.

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• The immediate focus for MSF teams is on expanding the ability to perform surgery for trauma victims, and responding to the incoming flood of victims who need immediate first aid for wounds. MSF priorities in days to come: stabilizing wounded, referring more complicated cases to specialists, reinforcing staff teams, restarting obstetric care, and addressing mental health needs of survivors. Also monitoring the need for food, clean water, and shelter.


MSF: "It is a race against time because infected wounds need rapid interventions. Inflatable operating theatres, with more surgical specialists are en route. But there are major issues of access and transport, with the staff delayed in the air and on the roads. "

• Survivors are trying to rescue their personal effects from their houses. During the daytime, streets are crowded with people looking for help and trying to find their families. Zannini: "I can see thousands of them walking in the streets, asking for help, asking for everything. Trying to stop every car they see in order to get something to go on."

• People are transporting patients on doors which are being used like stretchers. Also transporting patients by car, truck and moped. A few hospitals were not completely destroyed by the earthquake.


• Zannini: "In our hospitals, there are thousands of people waiting for surgery."


• Lots of survivors with open fractures needing surgery. First surgery last night was a complicated delivery of a baby. Zannini: "I am very proud to share with you that we were able to save the life both of the baby and the mother."

• Three things survivors need most right now: medical attention (including surgery), food, safe drinking water.


• Zannini: there were hundreds of dead bodies at MSF facilities. "Trucks from the Haitian government have come to retrieve them. We have protocols about treating the bodies with disinfectants to limit the risk of infection spreading. We do whatever we have to do... our primary role is looking after the [living] wounded."


• Currently MSF's teams are operating out of medical facilities that survived the earthquake. The inflatable hospital structures should be arriving today, and will be set up as fast as possible. These structures will include a surgery operating theater.

• Government trucks are going around the capital collecting dead bodies. A reporter on the conference call asks about dead bodies and the spread of disease. Zannini replies that MSF is focused primarily on surgical care: "Thousands of people need immediate surgical intervention."


• How concerned is MSF team about the spread of disease from corpses? Avril Benoit, director of communications for MSF Canada: "We get qustions like that all the time after a disaster. In our experience as a medical organization, we have rarely seen disease spread. We are always concerned about it, keeping an eye on it. After the hurricane in Gonaives [Haiti], the major priority was clean drinking water... water and sanitation experts are on the way to Haiti now and will be working on that from MSF side and from other organizations... there is no question that clean drinking water is a priority right now, but risks of disease spreading are seldom seen."

• Dr Mego Terzian, from an MSF emergency cell: "Triage, stabilisation of the wounded and referrals for surgical needs are the medical priorities. The dead bodies represent a medical issue in the sense that it's a factor of stress for the survivors. But in this context, as the cause of the death is not an infectious factor, there is no risk of epidemics linked to bodies."

• Asked how operational the Haitian government is, Zannini replies: "We speak with other actors, we meet with them, but our priority now is on the patients." Asked about coordinating with the UN or other NGOS, Zannini replies, "We are focused around our teams."


• 40 tons of supplies are on the way. On Thursday, MSF team in Haiti received medical supplies including medicines/drugs via airplane. The biggest needs at first were antibiotics, blankets, medical equipment. "At the moment we have enough supplies." More supplies coming in. "Most common problem is open fractures."

• What materials are needed most in the field? "Equipment, drugs to stabilize patients." Avril Benoit: "We have also been able to recover some of the material from our damaged hospitals. One cargo plane is due to arrive from Bordeaux, France, and another from MSF base in Panamá."

• MSF has been operating 24 hours a day. Staff have been working up to 24 hour shifts at a time in the immediate days following quake, but goal is to rotate staff in 12-hour shifts. Staff has drinking water and food, they are exhausted but coping as best they can. MSF: "25 new staff are expected to have joined the teams in Port au Prince by the end of today."


• Psychologists are arriving soon to help with mental health needs of Haitian victims, and with the mental health needs of MSF staff. But surgical activities are top priority right now.


• Zannini still expects more survivors to be rescued alive from damaged structures. "It is impossible for me at the moment to know" how many more survivors may be recovered in coming days.



• Asked "When will it get better?" Zannini replies, "It became better when we started surgical activity... we are full of patients... but as far as we are able to treat and stabilize and operate, things will [continue to] improve."

(Special thanks to Pete Masters from MSF. Photo: Inflatable medical village Doctors Without Borders set up in Mansehra, Pakistan. Credit: Remi Vallet, via Discovery News. )

Previously:


Space Cannon (what more do I really have to say?)

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 08:07 AM PST

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Special deliveries for space could someday arrive via cannon, if physicist John Hunter has his way. His natural-gas powered Quicklauncher system could cut the cost of equipment transport from $5000 per pound, to about $250. The prototype is set to be tested next month.

How to Shoot Stuff into Space

STEP 1: HEAT IT
The gun combusts natural gas in a heat exchanger within a chamber of hydrogen gas, heating the hydrogen to 2,600˚F and causing a 500 percent increase in pressure.

STEP 2: LET THE HYDROGEN LOOSE
Operators open the valve, and the hot, pressurized hydrogen quickly expands down the tube, pushing the payload forward.

STEP 3: TO INFINITY AND BEYOND
After speeding down the 3,300-foot-long barrel, the projectile shoots out of the gun at 13,000 mph. An iris at the end of the gun closes, capturing the hydrogen gas to use again.

Popular Science: A Cannon For Shooting Supplies into Space

(Thanks, Lee Billings!)

Image courtesy Flickr user edbrambley via CC

Business-card that shoots pennies

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 06:41 AM PST

Thingverse user Clide has invented a business-card that fires US pennies, handling them in lots of 10.

The thick components get sandwiched between the two thin layers. Start by gluing the two identical thick pieces to the thin side without the magazine. Use the other thick piece (the slide) as a guide and make sure it can slide easily between the parts and close flush. Then glue the side with the magazine on top. Take care not to glue the magazine down and make sure the slide can still move back and forth. The slide must be in place before you glue it together because it can not be installed after the rest of the card is assembled. Two #32 rubber bands are needed to use the card.

Penny Shooter by clide (via Make)
Previously:


US to Costa Rica: you want sugar markets? We want maximal copyright

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 06:38 AM PST

Michael Geist sez, "Reports from Costa Rica indicate that final approval of the Central American Free Trade Agreement with the United States is languishing in the Legislative Assembly due to concerns over the copyright provisions. The CAFTA copyright provisions are similar to those found in the other major U.S. trade agreements concluded in recent years: DMCA-style protections, ISP liability, and copyright term extension are all part of the package. In this case, it is the responses that are most noteworthy. Within Costa Rica, the article reports that the copyright provisions in the trade treaty have set off a wave of student protests over what it means for education. Meanwhile, health officials are concerned that the provisions on pharmaceutical products "would bankrupt the public health system." The response from the U.S. is important as well. It is delaying market access to sugar from the developing country until the copyright reforms are in place. Until that time, Costa Rican sugar producers will not be able to sell their product in the U.S."

U.S. To Costa Rica: No Sugar Access Without Copyright Reform (Thanks, Michael!)

(Image: No to CAFTA, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from wonderjunkie's photostream)

Previously:


Cluetrain Manifesto 10th Anniversary Edition: Still the end of business as usual?

Posted: 14 Jan 2010 03:58 AM PST

I read the Cluetrain Manifesto in when it was published in 1999. We had just raised capital for the startup I co-founded, and I was flying back and forth from San Francisco to Toronto to Boston, which left me with a lot of reading time. As someone who was a) ambivalent about the corporate world, b) excited about the net, and c) founding a company, I found in Cluetrain a great deal of comfort, inspiration and fire.

In 1999, Rick Levine, Christopher Locke, Doc Searls and David Weinberger published the Cluetrain Manifesto, a business book that expanded upon 95 theses that they had "nailed to the Web" by posting online, prompting a great deal of furor, discussion, and fooforaw. The first of these theses was Doc Searls's now-famous aphorism that "markets are conversations," and the remaining 94 refined these theses, presenting an indictment of business as-it-was, with special regard for the clueless approach the corporate world took to the net.

Cluetrain influenced an entire generation of net-heads (as generations are reckoned in what we called "Internet time" back in the paleolithic era), for better and for worse. Better: entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and accidental entrepreneurs who discovered that talking with people in the normal, recognizable, human voice was both possible and superior to the old third-person/passive-voice corporatespeak. Worse: the floodtide of marketing jerks who mouthed "Markets are conversations" even as they infiltrated blogs and other social spaces with badly disguised corporate communications beamed in from marcom central.

Now a decade has gone by, an eternity in Internet time, and Basic Books has brought out a "tenth anniversary edition" of the Manifesto, with new chapters by all four original authors, as well as supplementary material by Jake McKee (who manages Lego's social outreach); JP Rangaswami (the maverick Chief Scientist for British Telecom) and Dan Gillmor (net-journalism visionary and author of We the Media, late of the San Jose Mercury News).

First things first: the original, core material stands up remarkably well. Depressingly, the best-weathered stuff is that which describes all the ways that big companies get the net wrong. They're still making the same mistakes. Some of the more optimistic material dated a little faster. There's a lesson in there: it's easier to predict stupidity than cleverness.

The supplementary material is very good as well. The original authors take a very hard look at their original material and do a great job of explaining what went wrong, what went right, and where it's likely to go now. I was especially taken with Chris Locke's "Obedient Poodles for God and Country," a scathing critique of the market itself, asking big questions that the first Manifesto dared not raise -- strangely, I was least taken by Locke's original piece in the Manifesto, which says something about Locke, or me, or both. Searls's new piece has an inspiring -- if utopian -- look at how business might yet reorganize itself on humane principles using the net; and Weinberger's philosophical look at the threats facing the net and analysis of the utopian, realist and distopian views on the net's future play against one another is an instant classic.

The afterwords by the new contributors are likewise extremely engaging stuff, as you might expect. McKee is extremely blunt in recounting the mistakes Lego made with the net early on, and the story of how they turned things around is a true inspiration. Gillmor's ideas on the net and news and media are a neat and concise and compelling version of his extremely important message. Rangaswami's piece is characteristic of his deadpan, mischievous boardroom subversion, and has to be read to be believed.

As updates go, Cluetrain 2.0 is a very fine effort. If you didn't read the first edition, this is your chance. If you did read the first edition, it's time to go back to the source material again. You'll be glad you did.

The Cluetrain Manifesto: 10th Anniversary Edition

(Thanks to Basic Books for sending me a review copy of this book!)

Previously:


Charities that AT&T donated to support AT&T's anti-Net-Neutrality position at the FCC

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 06:32 AM PST

Now that the FCC's Net Neutrality comment-period has closed, Ars Technica's Nate Anderson has rounded up a list of charitable organizations with nothing to do with Net Neutrality, who nevertheless weighed in to support AT&T and Comcast's position -- these organizations are also all beneficiaries of large corporate donations from the telco giants. So much for charity -- when a donation to the Boys and Girls Club by AT&T comes with an obligation to weigh in on regulatory proceedings that threaten the profits of AT&T, it's not really a gift... More like selling out your group's good name.
Big Brothers/Big Sisters of Will and Grundy Counties. Comment: "The ability to utilize this technology in a cost-effective manner did not happen by accident or by government policy. It happened because of a competitive marketplace that rewarded the companies who invested in the latest networks and products. I believe that the development of new federal rules and regulations will only inhibit these types of investments."

The Big Brothers/Big Sisters, especially at the local level, aren't known for having opinions of the innovation effects of government policies in the telecommunications sector... but they do take money from AT&T, as the picture below reminds us.

Why the Kankakee County Farm Bureau hates net neutrality
Previously:


Death, taxes and the Ig Nobel Awards

Posted: 15 Jan 2010 06:07 AM PST

throw-momma-from-the-train.jpg

When Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan won his Ig Nobel Award in 2001, part of the prize criteria was that the research involved "cannot, or should not, be reproduced". Luckily for Slemrod, that's since been changed to "first make people laugh, and then make them think".

See, Slemrod and partner Wojciech Kopczuk of Columbia University are the researchers who found evidence that the very rich die in greater numbers just before estate taxes are scheduled to increase—or just after the taxes have been reduced. Since he published, Australian and Swedish researchers have replicated his results. And now, he says, it appears the United States is about set up a grand natural experiment with elderly rich people as guinea pigs.

As of January 1 of this year, the U.S. estate tax has been abolished for the year 2010, and is scheduled to be reinstated in 2011 with rates as high as 55%. If our findings (and those of our colleagues in Australia and Sweden) are right, there some would be "moved" from the end of 2009 to the beginning of 2010, as some rich folks hold on to bequeath their assets tax-free. Of course, the really morbid stuff will happen at the end of this year, when dying in December of 2010 will incur no estate tax, but dying beginning in January 1, 2011 can trigger a tax liability equal to more than half the taxable estate. It's being called the "Throw Momma from the Train" tax provision.
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