The Latest from Boing Boing

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• Goodhart's Law: Once you measure something, it changes
• All of Gopherspace as a single download
• Cream of Wheat 1956 ad: breakfast is better with ice-cream!
• Timeline of Facebook privacy policy: from reasonable (2005) to apocalyptic (2010)
• Augmented reality feedback flooring
• Geocities-izer: make any webpage look like it was made by a 13 year-old in 1996
• Raised by Radio Shack
• Top US psychiatric pharmaceuticals, 2009 edition
• Adam Ant comeback
• Flintstones hawking cigarettes
• Nate Silver on the British election
• Chevron demands "Crude" filmmaker hand over footage
• Gordon Brown apologizes to bigoted woman
• Iraq: detainees testify of systemic torture at secret prison
• Nazi pedophile, torturer, cult leader in Chile dies
• Male fairies enter Pixie Hollow
• Jason Rohrer's art/game essentials headed to Nintendo DS
• Could drone pilots be tried for war crimes?
• Lazyweb request: need Mac software to digitize LP collection
• Ze Frank urges you to breathe
• Canadian record industry won't say what it wants
• Music industry spokesman loves child porn
• Mississippi school purges top student from yearbook for being lesbian
• Zero-G founder, X-Prize guy, and spacevangelist Diamandis profiled on Reason TV
• HP acquires Palm for $1.2 billion
• The state of hotel WiFi, 2010
• Gallery of real and imaginary pest killer packaging
• Hand-drawn maps on display
• Twetiquette Cops (and @johncusack) in NYT
• Of Flattened Flora and Expulsion Cavities: The crop circle controversy continues

Goodhart's Law: Once you measure something, it changes Posted: 29 Apr 2010 05:03 AM PDT Goodhart's Law is one of those neat formulations that codifies something I've been trying to put my finger on for years: "once a social or economic indicator or other surrogate measure is made a target for the purpose of conducting social or economic policy, then it will lose the information content that would qualify it to play such a role." That is, once you start measuring GDP as a way to gauging social welfare, people will start to figure out ways to make GDP go up without improving social welfare (say, by swapping dirty financial derivatives). Once Google starts measuring inbound links as a way of evaluating the importance of web-pages, people will figure out how to increase the inbound links to unimportant pages (splogging, blogspam). And once you measure fat or calorie content as a proxy for the healthfulness of food, manufacturers will figure out how to decrease fat and calories without making the food more healthful (reducing fat by adding sugar, reducing calories by adding poisonous artificial sweeteners). The law was first stated in a 1975 paper by Goodhart and gained popularity in the context of the attempt by the United Kingdom government of Margaret Thatcher to conduct monetary policy on the basis of targets for broad and narrow money, but the idea is considerably older. It is implicit in the economic idea of rational expectations. While it originated in the context of market responses the Law has profound implications for the selection of high-level targets in organisations. Goodhart's law (Thanks, Steve!)

All of Gopherspace as a single download Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:33 AM PDT In 2007, John Goerzen scraped every gopher site he could find (gopher was a menu-driven text-only precursor to the Web; I got my first online gig programming gopher sites). He saved 780,000 documents, totalling 40GB. Today, most of this is offline, so he's making the entire archive available as a .torrent file; the compressed data is only 15GB. Wanna host the entire history of a medium? Here's your chance! There are some plans to potentially host this archive publicly in the manner of archive.org; we'll have to wait and see if anything comes of it. Finally, I have tried to find a place willing to be a permanent host of this data, and to date have struck out. If anybody knows of such a place, please get in touch. I regret that so many Gopher sites disappeared before 2007, but life is what it is, and this is the best snapshot of the old Gopherspace that I'm aware of and would like to make sure that this piece of history is preserved. Download A Piece of Internet History (via Waxy) Previously: Gopher protocol reborn RIP: Netscape Navigator (1994-2008) Pew report on the demographics of the old net hands

Cream of Wheat 1956 ad: breakfast is better with ice-cream! Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:28 AM PDT This 1956 Cream of Wheat ad invites doting parents to improve their kids' breakfast experience by adding an enormous scoop of ice-cream to their hot cereal: "It's your favorite hot wheat cereal... with the sugar, cream and flavor served up in a new, fun-to-eat way." Cream of Wheat, 1956 Previously: Reformed British alien appears in Raisin Bran ad IHOP ad from 1969 will melt your brain

Timeline of Facebook privacy policy: from reasonable (2005) to apocalyptic (2010) Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:24 AM PDT Electronic Frontier Foundation attorney Kurt Opsahl has gone spelunking in the history of Facebook's privacy policies over the past five years, presenting a timeline that starts with something fairly moderate and reasonable in 2005 and moves to the current 2010 version which basically says, "By using Facebook, you agree to let us film your life 24/7, sell it to advertisers, ridicule it, or make a reality show from it." As Kurt says, "Viewed together, the successive policies tell a clear story. Facebook originally earned its core base of users by offering them simple and powerful controls over their personal information. As Facebook grew larger and became more important, it could have chosen to maintain or improve those controls. Instead, it's slowly but surely helped itself -- and its advertising and business partners -- to more and more of its users' information, while limiting the users' options to control their own information." Facebook Privacy Policy circa 2005: No personal information that you submit to Thefacebook will be available to any user of the Web Site who does not belong to at least one of the groups specified by you in your privacy settings. Current Facebook Privacy Policy, as of April 2010: When you connect with an application or website it will have access to General Information about you. The term General Information includes your and your friends' names, profile pictures, gender, user IDs, connections, and any content shared using the Everyone privacy setting. ... The default privacy setting for certain types of information you post on Facebook is set to "everyone." ... Because it takes two to connect, your privacy settings only control who can see the connection on your profile page. If you are uncomfortable with the connection being publicly available, you should consider removing (or not making) the connection. Facebook's Eroding Privacy Policy: A Timeline Previously: Facebook privacy meltdown: company removed opt-out prior to launch ... Facebook and the Social Dynamics of Privacy Facebook further reduces privacy control for users US Senator wants FTC to regulate privacy on Facebook, other social ... More Facebook privacy woes: rogue marketers can data-mine your ... Interview with Facebook employee will not make you feel better ... MoveOn to Facebook: stop violating user privacy danah boyd on Facebook's "privacy trainwreck"

Augmented reality feedback flooring Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:20 AM PDT McGill University's Yon Visell and colleagues have been developing and presenting on a system for adding augmented reality effects to floor tiles by simulating (using haptics and audio feedback) different walking-surfaces, such as pebbles or grass. It's a clever system and I can believe that it would substantially and subtly improve the illusion that you're in a different place, or two places at once. The modular "haptic" floor tiling system is made up of a deformable plate suspended on a platform. Between the plate and platform are sensors that detect forces from the user's foot. And the plate can give off vibrations that mimic the feeling of stepping on different materials. A top-down projection and speakers add visual and audio feedback. Yon Visell, a researcher at McGill's Center for Intelligent Machines and first author of the paper, says the tiles could be used "either for human computer interaction or immersive virtual reality applications." The floor could even function as a giant touch-screen controlled by feet, Visell suggests, acting as a way of navigating a giant map on the floor of a building lobby or public square. He says it could also be used in gaming and entertainment, adding more interactivity. Augmented-Reality Floor Tiling (via Beyond the Beyond) Previously: Video: Carnegie Mellon's Maglev Haptic VR Interface ... Haptic glove that simulates feel of virtual fabrics Haptic Arm Wrestling More on haptic arm wrestling Haptic athletic outfits Touchable holography Random Thought on Wiimote and Remote Sex Gadgets

Geocities-izer: make any webpage look like it was made by a 13 year-old in 1996 Posted: 29 Apr 2010 05:01 AM PDT The Geocities-izer is a tool that promises to "make any webpage look like it was made by a 13 year-old in 1996." And it does exactly what it says on the tin. The Geocities-izer (via Beyond the Beyond) Previously: XKCD's eye-watering Geocities tribute Quote: Why we need GeoCities Internet Archaeology View Source considered beneficial, endangered

Raised by Radio Shack Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:09 AM PDT Jeff Reifman writes a lovely memoir of being raised by his local Radio Shack outlets: Beginning at age 11, I spent a lot of time hanging out at two different Radio Shack stores. There, I discovered Leo Christopherson's Dancing Demon and his later gems Duel-n-Droids and Voyage of the Valkyrie. I used to live for each year's Radio Shack computer catalog. Eventually, I parlayed $600 in horse race winnings (my Dad picked and placed a good exacta bet for me at Hollywood Park) and about $600 in sales from my entire baseball card collection to upgrade my computer to have a 5 1/4" floppy drive. Yes, $1200 for an internal floppy drive. At one point, a Radio Shack manager paid me $10/hr (a fortune) to manually re-type the entire contents of private investigator Gavin De Becker's client database. He set up two Model II computers side by side and I manually moved his entire database from (I think) Profile Plus to (I think) DBase. Basically, it was a catalog of all the psychos tracking his clients such as President Reagan (prior to his election) as well as a lot of code names, e.g. I think Reagan's was Pigskin. Another fellow traveler hanging out at Chuck's store was the child star, Josh Milrad, from Beastmaster. I was impressed with his filmography but couldn't take him seriously because he had a Color Computer. I took assembly language classes at Radio Shack and later earned first place in my age category in 80 Micro's Young Programmer's Contest. Radio Shack and its salespeople launched my computing career. Me too. I wasn't a TRS-80 guy, but everything else came from the Shack. I still have a battery club-card somewhere from my early DC motor experiments, which went through D-cells like crazy. Raised, in part, by Radio Shack (Thanks, Jeff!) (Image: Science Fair 160 in ONE Electronic Project Kit, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from mightyohm's photostream) Previously: The Radio Shack Catalog archive 101 Classic Computer Ads RadioShack's Vex robotics system Parts Nebula: a parts-tracking inventory system for makers - Boing ...

Top US psychiatric pharmaceuticals, 2009 edition Posted: 29 Apr 2010 03:03 AM PDT IMS, a market research firm, has tallied up the most popular psychiatric prescriptions in the USA for 2009. Notes Gary Price, "The list itself sees Xanax remain at #1 with over 44 million superscription written. Lexapro is at #2 while Ativan is at #3. Several new medicines debuted on the list." Top 25 Psychiatric Prescriptions for 2009 (Thanks, Gary!) Previously: Why medical research isn't as useful to you as it could be - Boing ... Pharmaceutical company funds documentary about over-eating

Adam Ant comeback Posted: 28 Apr 2010 07:56 PM PDT Post-punk 80s icon Adam Ant is back in action! From The Quietus: After a troubled and turbulent decade, one of the most iconic faces on the planet during the post-punk era is returning to active service, and in a most unpredictable and chaotic style. Over the last few weeks, Adam Ant has been turning up unannounced at assorted club nights for quick guerrilla gigs - a dandy highwayman in the underworld - and joining other artists onstage for surprise duets I am informed that my love of dancing to Adam Ant as a toddler ultimately resulted in My First Emergency Room Trip and, accordingly, the scar on my left eyebrow. Photo: The Foxling. A Wild Nobility: An Adam Ant Exclusive By Simon Price [quietus via JWZ]

Flintstones hawking cigarettes Posted: 28 Apr 2010 08:02 PM PDT Now *this* is some good ad creative! Ah, those were the days. (Thanks, Gabe Adiv!)

Nate Silver on the British election Posted: 28 Apr 2010 05:13 PM PDT Speaking of the British election, Nate Silver has a detailed analysis of possible outcomes that are far more subtle than the 'uniform nationwide swing' used by most pundits to try and figure out how votes will translate into parliamentary seats. The short of it is that Britain's constituencies are still grossly gerrymandered, but it's not so bad as the BBC Swingometer makes it seem. Moreover, it means the current polls are good for the Conservatives -- but also that that a Lib Dem break of just a few more points would indeed secure them the most seats in parliament.

Chevron demands "Crude" filmmaker hand over footage Posted: 28 Apr 2010 03:51 PM PDT Oil giant Chevron wants documentary filmmaker Joe Berlinger to turn over hundreds of hours of raw footage he shot for his documentary film on pollution in the Amazon rainforest. Chevron's lawyers say they want the material because it may be helpful in lawsuits that accuse the company of damaging the environment in Ecuador. Berlinger's past films include Paradise Lost and Metallica: Some Kind of Monster. He says he was recently served with a request from Chevron for more than 600 hours of unused footage for his 2009 documentary Crude, which you can purchase here on DVD. Trailer here. * Meanwhile, off the coast of Louisiana... (PHOTO: crudethemovie.com)

Gordon Brown apologizes to bigoted woman Posted: 28 Apr 2010 04:01 PM PDT The British Prime Minister apologized in person to a woman he called a bigot after her amorphous rambling on about immigrants. But the outrage directed at him over this seems odd: is it an escape valve for Britain's otherwise well-marginalized racist undercurrents? Or is it just another thing to beat Gordon Brown with? The latter seems the more entertaining option.

Iraq: detainees testify of systemic torture at secret prison Posted: 28 Apr 2010 03:45 PM PDT Human Rights Watch has released a report detailing the systematic torture and abuse of detainees at the Iraqi-run secret prison at Muthanna airport in Baghdad. The organization interviewed 42 of the 300 detainees recently transferred from the clandestine prison to another prison facility. The men's stories were credible and consistent. Most of the 300 displayed fresh scars and injuries they said were a result of routine and systematic torture they had experienced at the hands of interrogators at Muthanna. All were accused of aiding and abetting terrorism, and many said they were forced to sign false confessions. "The horror we found suggests torture was the norm in Muthanna," said Joe Stork, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. (...) All the detainees interviewed described the same methods of torture employed by their Iraqi interrogators. The jailers suspended the detainees handcuffed and blindfolded upside down by means of two bars, one placed behind their calves and the other against their shins. All had terrible scabs and bruising on their legs. The interrogators then kicked, whipped and beat the detainees. Interrogators also placed a dirty plastic bag over the detainee's head to close off his air supply. Typically, when the detainee passed out from this ordeal, his interrogators awakened him with electric shocks to his genitals or other parts of his body. Related NYT story here.

Nazi pedophile, torturer, cult leader in Chile dies Posted: 28 Apr 2010 05:11 PM PDT Nazi pedophile, torturer, and cult leader Paul Schäfer died in a prison hospital in Chile last week. The German-born Evangelical Christian raped children, founded and ruled over a Jonestown-like agricultural commune, and oversaw a torture and assassination outsourcing service for the bloody regime of Augusto Pinochet. One of the men Schäfer is suspected to have "disappeared" on behalf of Pinochet was an American citizen, Boris Weisfeiler, in 1985. Here's a New York Times obit, Washington Post here, a BBC article when Schäfer was arrested in 2005. By far the most comprehensive article I found about the history of "Colonia Dignidad" (aka "Villa Baviera," or "Bavarian Village,") and all of the evil committed there: The Torture Colony, by Bruce Falconer in The American Scholar. A fascinating and disturbing read; great journalism on a horrible subject. Few outsiders ever gained access to the Colonia while its reclusive leader remained in power. An old Chilean newsreel, however, filmed at Schaefer's invitation in 1981, provides a rare picture of life inside the community, a utopia in full and happy bloom. The footage shows a bucolic paradise of sunshine and verdant fields set among clean, fast-flowing rivers and snowy peaks. Its German inhabitants improve the land and work their trades. A carpenter assembles a new chair for the Colonia's school. A woman in a white apron bakes German-style torts and pastries in the kitchen. Teenaged boys clear a new field for planting. Children laugh and splash in a lake. Schaefer himself, wearing a white suit and brown aviator sunglasses, takes the camera crew on a tour. Standing next to the Colonia's flour mill, he extols the quality of German machinery. "We bought this mill in Europe," he says in broken Spanish. "It is 60 years old, but we have not had to do any repairs on it." And nearby that mill, the mass graves and torture cellars. The easy joke to make here is that with a C.V. like his, no-one sheds tears when you die—but the further loss for victims is that he was not tried for all the crimes for he was suspected of having committed. Chile's president Sebastián Piñera said Saturday, "There is another justice that never ends, which is divine justice." Random fact: as a student, Schäfer gouged out his own right eye while using a table fork to tie an uncooperative shoelace. (PHOTO: The entrance of "Colonia Dignidad" in Chile, a Creative Commons-licensed photo from Flickr user Robert Brands.)

Male fairies enter Pixie Hollow Posted: 28 Apr 2010 03:10 PM PDT Attention Disney fans! You may now create male fairies in Pixie Hollow, the online gaming/social networking site hitherto occupied only by Tinkerbell and female cronies. I went to sign up to check it out, but am apparently already an 'existing fairy!' Nope, no recollection at all! Here's Salon on how the kids forced the company's hand: Children are pretty resourceful little gender warriors. The open secret around the Hollow has long been that if you make your fairy tall, with short hair, and give her an ambiguous name like Jamie, she can pretty quickly establish a reputation as a he. Hey, Mom and Dad, we've got your rigid gender roles right here. Nonetheless, Disney appears to have taken some measures to prevent the most obviously interesting forms of thoughtcrime. For example, male fairies aren't called fairies, but "Sparrow Men."

Jason Rohrer's art/game essentials headed to Nintendo DS Posted: 28 Apr 2010 02:18 PM PDT Well spotted by Joystiq as it was leaked courtesy the ESRB (as are so many game announcements these days) -- and later confirmed by relatively unheard-of developer Sabarasa themselves -- comes news that Jason Rohrer's early art/game essentials are headed to the Nintendo DS as DSiWare downloadables. Rohrer (now best known as the creator of Sleep is Death) and Sabarasa will be packaging his memento mori game Passage (which firmly placed Rohrer on the art/game map in 2007), his "mania, melancholia, and the creative process" reflection Gravitation, and the until-now Esquire magazine exclusive multiplayer game Between as a single collection, presumably with 2-player wireless functionality for the latter. GameSetWatch notes that Sabarasa had already quietly dropped the news of the so-called "Alt/Play" collection in late March, alongside word that Rohrer's iPhone debut puzzler Primrose (iTunes link) would be headed to DSiWare as well. Passage can also be found on the App Store, while Gravitation and Between can be downloaded for free via Rohrer's site. All the games will sit nicely beside Diamond Trust of London -- Rohrer's upcoming retail DS strategy game about the 'blood diamond' trade -- which currently is slated as a GameStop exclusive and can be pre-ordered now ahead of its projected June 1st release. Previously: Caught Sleeping: Brandon Boyer on Jason Rohrer's Sleep is Death ... SIDTube: Watch Sleep Is Death stories, play online One More Go: Passage, or why I really should know better Things We Lost In The Snow, pt 2: Passage hit the iPhone Hidden gems: Passage dev creating blood diamond DS strategy game ... Blood chickpeas: the paper prototype of Jason Rohrer's conflict ...

Could drone pilots be tried for war crimes? Posted: 28 Apr 2010 02:15 PM PDT Pilots waging America's undeclared drone war in Pakistan could be liable to criminal prosecution for "war crimes," a prominent law professor told a Congressional panel today. (thanks, Noah Shachtman)

Lazyweb request: need Mac software to digitize LP collection Posted: 28 Apr 2010 02:01 PM PDT I bought a turntable with a USB connection and I'm going to digitize my LP collection. What is the best Mac software to convert LPs to MP3s? (The first LP I blindly pulled out of the box was Cowboys International's The Original Sin, which I bought in Fort Collins, CO in 1979, so that's the first one I'll digitize).

Ze Frank urges you to breathe Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:40 PM PDT Internet songster and funnyguy Ze Frank wrote this anti-anxiety ditty for a stranger who emailed him with tales of stress.

Canadian record industry won't say what it wants Posted: 28 Apr 2010 02:56 PM PDT Michael Geist: Last week, the Canadian Recording Industry Association appeared before the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage with discussion that focused largely on copyright reform (media coverage of the appearance here). While copyright was the key issue, what was striking was CRIA's reluctance to actually specify what reforms it supports. That may sound unusual, but a review of recent public statements suggests that it is actually quite typical. In recent years, CRIA has become very reluctant to provide specific views on reforms, seemingly relying instead on the sort of backdoor, lobbyist-inspired meetings that are the talk of Ottawa. The transcript has not been posted yet, however, a review of the unofficial transcript shows that CRIA President Graham Henderson provided no legal specifics in his opening statement. During questioning, he was repeatedly avoided responding directly when asked what his organization wants. This is hardly the first time CRIA has avoided taking a public stand on specific copyright reforms. During last summer's copyright consultation, it was one of the only major copyright organizations that did not even bother with an individual submission. Why does CRIA say virtually nothing specific about what it actually seeks? Based on lobbying records, perhaps it is because it saves its real comments for what takes place behind closed doors. There are 19 records of meetings for CRIA representatives with a wide range of government officials including Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore - the iPadLock Minister - from the period of August 2008 to February 2010 (or 19 entries over a 19 month period). Even the content of those meetings may be kept secret. A recent access to information request on a presentation by Barry Sookman on ISP exceptions in Bill C-61 to government officials in 2009 excluded virtually all substantive materials on the grounds that it "contains commercially valuable information." Why Is CRIA Reluctant To Provide Public Specifics About Copyright Reform? Previously: Major record labels gang up and screw over indie record store ... US labels to Canada: stop giving us free money, we prefer to sue ... Truth about myths about myths about file sharing in Canada - Boing ... Canadian Heritage Minister Oda in the pocket of ... How the Canadian copyright lobby uses fakes, fronts, and circular ... Canada bans copying CDs to iPods

Music industry spokesman loves child porn Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:22 PM PDT A music-industry speaker at an American Chamber of Commerce event in Stockholm waxed enthusiastic about child porn, because it serves as the perfect excuse for network censorship, and once you've got a child-porn filter, you can censor anything: "Child pornography is great," the speaker at the podium declared enthusiastically. "It is great because politicians understand child pornography. By playing that card, we can get them to act, and start blocking sites. And once they have done that, we can get them to start blocking file sharing sites". The venue was a seminar organized by the American Chamber of Commerce in Stockholm on May 27, 2007, under the title "Sweden -- A Safe Haven for Pirates?". The speaker was Johan Schlüter from the Danish Anti-Piracy Group, a lobby organization for the music and film industry associations, like IFPI and others... "One day we will have a giant filter that we develop in close cooperation with IFPI and MPA. We continuously monitor the child porn on the net, to show the politicians that filtering works. Child porn is an issue they understand," Johan Schlüter said with a grin, his whole being radiating pride and enthusiasm from the podium. IFPI's child porn strategy (Thanks, Thomas!) Previously: Warners censors mashup album, fight back! Big Content's dystopian wish-list for the US gov't: spyware ... MPAA to Obama: censor the Internet, kick people off the Internet ... Music industry to musicbloggers: there's no point in obeying the ... Beyond breaking firewalls: how to fight net-censorship

Mississippi school purges top student from yearbook for being lesbian Posted: 28 Apr 2010 04:04 PM PDT Ceara Sturgis, a top student at Wesson Attendance Center in Mississipi, has been purged from the yearbook. She attended the school for 12 years, but she's also a lesbian, and so they made her an un-person. "They didn't even put her name in it," Sturgis' mother Veronica Rodriguez said. "I was so furious when she told me about it. Ceara started crying and I told her to suck it up. Is that not pathetic for them to do that? Yet again, they have crapped on her and made her feel alienated." Sturgis and her mother commissioned the Mississippi ACLU to protest officials' October 2009 decision not to allow Sturgis' photo to appear in the senior yearbook because she chose to wear a tuxedo instead of a dress. The ACLU wrote an October letter demanding officials use Sturgis' submitted photo in the yearbook, but Copiah County School District officials refused. Rodriguez said she expected the yearbook to at least contain a reference to her daughter on the senior page. What she discovered on Friday, when the yearbook came in, was that the school had refused to acknowledge her entirely. School Cuts Gay Student Photo from Yearbook (Thanks, Matt!) Previously: Lesbian panic shuts down Mississippi high-school prom Lesbian panic victim invited to Potemkin Prom?

Zero-G founder, X-Prize guy, and spacevangelist Diamandis profiled on Reason TV Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:09 PM PDT Dr. Peter Diamandis, whose name and presence is for me synonymous with all things space, is profiled in this Reason TV video. Disclaimer: I have floated with him. Previously: Peter Diamandis makes the case for private space: WSJ op-ed Boing ... Zero G: Xeni's Wired News and NPR reports Free-fall "zero-g dance" to be performed this weekend, inspired by ...

HP acquires Palm for $1.2 billion Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:24 PM PDT HP just released an announcement that it will purchase beleaguered mobile device maker Palm for $1.2 billion. Prior to the sale, rumored suitors included Lenovo, RIM, and Nokia.

The state of hotel WiFi, 2010 Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:05 PM PDT The folks at Hotelchatter have compiled another annual edition of their exhaustive report on wireless internet access in hotels. FWIW, my rule of thumb is: expect suckage and roll your own (a 3G or EVDO card, plus a mobile router if necessary).

Gallery of real and imaginary pest killer packaging Posted: 28 Apr 2010 12:25 PM PDT The comments about my love for the design of Victor's Insect Magnet is nearly unanimous: everyone thinks I'm wrong. Readers have submitted examples of superior package design to back up their claim. Teapot also accepted my challenge to design a better package for Victor's Insect Magnet (above). OK, Teapot, you win. See images of genuine pest-killer packaging after the break.

Hand-drawn maps on display Posted: 28 Apr 2010 12:15 PM PDT Jocelyn says: "As the last installment in Julia Turner's Signs series for Slate, Julia presents a professional analysis of hand-drawn maps that were submitted by readers. These humble, messy maps are charming and fascinating in their forms, and altogether useful for whom they were drawn for.  And it's unlikely that any software would produce the map [above], drawn for a Slate reader by a friend: It's a guide to the neighborhoods of Paris, put in terms a young New Yorker can understand. Although the map is simplistic and juvenile, the effort to match Parisian arrondissements with demographically corresponding areas in Brooklyn is a conceptually interesting way to present information about an unfamiliar town. Wonderful hand-drawn maps from firefighters, club-hoppers, Boy Scout dads, grandmothers, and Alexander Calder

Twetiquette Cops (and @johncusack) in NYT Posted: 28 Apr 2010 01:35 PM PDT The New York Times' John Metcalfe has a very funny story out today on self-appointed grammar and spelling nazis on Twitter: anal-retentive, fail-wailing buzzkills who troll fellow users (particularly high-profile ones) for typos and such. Boing Boing's esteemed guestblogger John Cusack starts off the piece, and I was also interviewed. Cusack, it should be said, deserves real praise for keeping it real. He comes off in the piece as he does in person: self-deprecating humor, and just a cool, down-to-earth dude. So many stars of his stature farm out their tweets and Facebook interactions to assistants, publicists, PR handlers. Not him. As my Boing Boing colleagues know, I'm the biggest copyediting nitpicker obsessive in the world, but I really respect him for approaching the new experience of Twitter with sincerity, authenticity, and a desire to understand the medium by using it himself (and, fine, smashing a few cups in the china shop along the way). Bruteforce it, baby. Snip: JOHN CUSACK tweets with his iPhone and, much like the characters he plays, his style is fast and loose. "I'm pretty new to it, and if there's a spell check on an iPhone, I can't find it," he said by telephone. "So I basically get in the general ballpark and tweet it." Consequently, Mr. Cusack has birthed strange words like "breakfasy" and "hippocrite" and has given a more literary title to his new movie: "Hot Tub Tome Machine." Most of his followers ignore the gaffes. But a vocal minority abuse him about it nonstop, telling the star that as much as they liked "The Sure Thing," his grammar and spelling sure stink. "If you're going to be political, maybe learn how to spell Pakistan, and all words in general," wrote one supposed fan. "The vitriol was so intense that at first I didn't think they were serious," Mr. Cusack said. "Because, like, who would care?" They do. A small but vocal subculture has emerged on Twitter of grammar and taste vigilantes who spend their time policing other people's tweets -- celebrities and nobodies alike. These are people who build their own algorithms to sniff out Twitter messages that are distasteful to them -- tweets with typos or flawed grammar, or written in ALLCAPS -- and then send scolding notes to the offenders. They see themselves as the guardians of an emerging behavior code: Twetiquette. On the Twitter Patrol (New York Times) (PHOTO: "Twitter Bird," a CC-licensed photo from the Flickr stream of tashmahal. This dog is not a Twitter cop, I just didn't want to reward bad human behavior by reblogging the photos of Twitter cops featured in the article.)

Of Flattened Flora and Expulsion Cavities: The crop circle controversy continues Posted: 28 Apr 2010 08:04 PM PDT Greenpeace's GM Crop Circle from Circlemakers.org In an earlier post I reviewed some possible explanations for the crop circle phenomenon, and I noted the various theories left several issues unanswered: Who are the hoaxers and what is their exact role in the charade? If a technology is involved, how does it work to actually make the designs? Could it be directed from space or simply from an aerial platform? And why would anyone develop such a beam in the first place? What seemed to me like simple questions raised a surprisingly emotional and occasionally venomous storm of comments on this blog and on other, more specialized, lists. Since we have obviously hit a nerve it may be interesting to drill a bit further. While New Age believers and skeptics feel passionate about the issue, the educated public and the scientific and technical community have firmly pushed it out of their mind, convinced that all the circles were hoaxes. Even the people who have studied the circles or commented on them may argue for or against their paranormal nature, the possible role of Aliens or the idea that the designs hide an experiment in military electronics, but there is no disagreement about the fact that most of the designs have been made by hoaxers. Among these fakers are two men, Doug Bower and Dave Chorley whose "revelations" were picked up by the international press with great eagerness (front-page treatment in major newspapers, interviews on CNN and BBC, etc.) when they stated they had fooled believers in saucer landings since 1978 with their technique for flattening crops with a wooden board and a piece of string. As researcher Patrick Gross writes, "These early crop circles were round, because flying saucers were circular, as "everybody knows", in people's imagination if not in reality." His analysis of the phenomenon can be found on this page, where he articulates the proposition that ALL circles are the result of hoaxers, some of whom are actually artists. Mr. Gross provides links to many other useful references. I once met several of these artists at a conference in Switzerland, where they were presenting their techniques and the resulting data. When I asked them, "How dare you fool people this way?" they answered that art in general was about fooling people to create a sense of awe, beauty or simply a brief, healthy disconnect with ordinary reality. One of them pointed out that "When you look at the Mona Lisa you think you look at a woman, but you have been fooled: there is no woman there; someone just applied some paint to a rectangular piece of canvas. Well, we do the same thing, except that our canvas happens to be a cornfield." When you put it that way it is perfectly all right for teams of artists to run through the fields at night and produce things like the spider, the bicycle or more elaborate geometric designs. People like Jim Schnabel have participated in the game and there are even international competitions in circle making, with recognition for the most complex productions. No wonder people are convinced that all the circles are made for fun by a team of humans crushing the corn for kicks when the subject comes up in discussions among scientists or businessmen today. The difficult question is, "does this explain ALL the circles, or only the relatively simple ones?" The artists I spoke to in Switzerland confessed that some of the extraordinary designs were beyond their ability to produce them. While the initial "weather phenomenon" theory of Terence Meaden and others has not survived, there are still people who firmly believe the complex designs are made by Aliens and some who state they are a warning from Gaia. Among the technical community there are also those who pursue the idea first expressed by Dr. Jean-Pierre Petit, Jean-Jacques Velasco and others, looking to military electronics as the key to the mystery. My own feeling about the New Age interpretations is frankly negative. Why assume that Aliens are at work here, when the designs show universally human symbols? Even the Mandelbrot set, one of the most perfect displays, is a representation of a human concept. There is nothing new or scientifically profound in any of this. We are not being taught anything. Similarly, the Gaia hypothesis doesn't work for me. When the Earth teaches us something it is usually brutal and very explicit, like the volcano in Iceland, which leaves little to the imagination. Which brings us back to the beam weapon hypothesis. Until recently it seemed rather far-fetched, which is why neither Velasco's presentations nor my early articles made any impact. Now that disclosures about actual beam weapons are available, including devices acting from the sky and beams capable of harming humans and stopping engines, we have to revisit the issue and look a bit more seriously at the hard facts left unexplained by the hoax explanation. The first piece of interesting data has to do with systematic differences between those circles where plants are broken by mechanical action and those where some form of energy has exploded the nodes in the stalks. A detailed study of so-called "expulsion cavities" in corn with exploded nodes is found in the report where the authors note: "During the 1990s multiple specific and distinctive plant abnormalities were repeatedly documented in several hundred different crop formations which had occurred in various European countries as well as in the States and Canada. Extensive laboratory examination of thousands of these crop circle plants and their controls by American biophysicist W. C. Levengood established the presence of consistent changes in the circle plants which were not present in the control plants (plants taken at varying distances outside the crop formations, but in the same fields) -- changes which control studies revealed were not caused by simple mechanical flattening of the plants (with planks, boards, cement rollers or human feet)." For detailed discussion of earlier plant (and subsequently soil) anomalies documented between 1990-2002, see here and here: That particular line of analysis gets increasingly complex and the controversy is likely to continue for a long time, but other data tends to support the idea that military research is involved. I have mentioned before that I interviewed a reliable witness who described to me a rather extraordinary device hovering above the fields in an area where circles were commonly found. This man is a professor of physics who is also an avid glider pilot. On that particular occasion he was happily taking advantage of some thermals above the English countryside, admiring the landscape, when he was surprised to see his aircraft reflected in something like a perfect mirror hanging vertically in mid-air. Being of a logical turn of mind he decided to verify the image was not a hallucination, and then he tried to determine the shape of the object by making several turns around it. The thing was cylindrical and covered with a perfectly reflective surface. While some of my theoretical physics friends continue to argue that a beam capable of causing crop circles could be activated from space, it seems much more likely to me that a low-observable, optically stealthy, hovering platform would be more practical in situations like a battlefield or an urban guerilla flashpoint. Admittedly we are dealing with hypotheticals here, but this would explain the proximity of the circles to classified facilities: the controllers of the device would want to minimize chances that it would wander off and perhaps crash, resulting in premature exposure. A third argument needs to be mentioned, in answer to the obvious question, "Why would anyone want to develop a beam weapon, and why would it have to come from above?" Part of the answer has already been given in the two disclosures I have quoted before from New Scientist. However the requirements for extremely sophisticated beams go well beyond the applications mentioned in the magazine. In the complex, dangerous range of threats we face today one may need to destroy targets with devices that can create very concentrated areas of extremely high temperature without blowing up whatever building or facility is targeted. Bombing a biological warfare lab, for example, is not a good idea if the result is to disperse a dangerous microbial agent. One could also think of beams that would be used to control the trajectory of a ball of plasma (possibly created by a small atomic explosion) targeted at objects in the atmosphere, in space or on the ground. All such applications would require a long period of development and testing, and would probably be designed as multi-country experiments. Indeed, during the eighties and nineties there were discreet exchanges of expertise among government agencies concerned with the UFO phenomenon in the U.S., France and Great Britain (and perhaps others). One of the French experts detached to work on this topic with American Intelligence is said to be visible on one of the crop circle videos, mingling among New Age enthusiasts and civilian researchers. Interestingly, much of the classified research conducted in these three countries (while any official interest in UFOs was denied in public statements) was done by microwave experts, including medical researchers specializing in the effect of radiation on living tissue. From the point of view of rational analysis the weight of evidence is still on the side of the skeptics who assure us that all crop circles are made by artists and lovable, jolly old men like Doug and Dave. But there are facts that don't quite fit, and the alternatives are worth considering. They lead into very disturbing areas, not all of which have to do with physics. In a concluding (fourth) post, I plan to come back to the initial issue raised by the crop circle problem, which is that of the construction and manipulation of belief systems. Previously: Crop Circles, Part Deux: Alien Glyphs, Human Myths, Blogging Bliss ... Crop Circles, Part Deux: Alien Glyphs, Human Myths, Blogging Bliss ... In Search of Alien Glyphs (or are they microwave blasters ...

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