Tuesday, June 15, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Broke indie UK filmmakers need your steampunk!

Posted: 15 Jun 2010 01:38 AM PDT


Ant sez, "We are shooting a micro-budget 'elegant-sci-fi' feature in the UK this summer - we sold our house to make the film (a little nuts, we know...but you only live once). We have built various bits of steampunk for one of the sets. Time is running out though, and we would like more. We wondered if any of your dear readers might loan us some of their work/have ideas of where to source things (on a shoestring budget). Any help would be dearly appreciated. Thank you! Unicorns all around."

[Ed: these seem like good people, but I don't know them personally; loan your precious steampunk stuff to them at your own risk]

To save journalism, save the net

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:32 PM PDT

In a smartly argued editorial, Dan Gillmor argues that the most meaningful subsidy that any government can give to its journalists is a free, fast, fair and open Internet on which new journalistic business models can flourish without interference by corrupt telcos and self-interested media empires:
First, direct subsidies for journalism are the wrong way to go, even dangerous. But we absolutely could use the kind of indirect help -- taxpayer-funded deployment of high-capacity, wide-open broadband networks -- that would be an analogue to the early American postal subsidies, and then some. This would be essential infrastructure, aimed at beefing up all 21st Century commerce and communications, including but not limited to journalism.

Second, if we got serious about broadband in this way, entrepreneurs would almost certainly come up with the journalism, including a variety of business models to augment or replace today's, that would provide the public good we all agree comes with journalism and other trustworthy information.

To be fair, some of the subsidy advocates say they don't want to prop up newspapers per se, though some of their remedies would do just that; others are less shy, and their explicit goal is to save newspapers.

Let's subsidize open broadband, not journalists


British Columbia law will be free again

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:28 PM PDT

Gary sez, "In an time of making more and more government information available online for free, the province of British Columbia decided to begin charging for access to legal docs in January of this year. Now, in a reversal of plans, British Columbia will once again provide free access to BC legal documents."

Video: Return of the Hayabusa asteroid mission capsule

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:28 PM PDT



From NASA:
A group of astronomers from NASA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and other organizations had a front row seat to observe the Hayabusa spacecraft's fiery plunge into Earth's atmosphere. The team flew aboard NASA's DC-8 airborne laboratory, packed with cameras and other imaging instruments, to capture the high-speed re-entry over an unpopulated area of central Australia on June 13, 2010. The Japanese spacecraft completed its seven-year, 1.25 billion mile journey to return a sample of the asteroid Itokawa.
"Hayabusa Asteroid Mission Comes Home" (Thanks, Jim Leftwich!)

Tortured Canadian that US deported to Syria will not get justice

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:16 PM PDT

A Canadian who was deported to Syria by the US government for a hellish, 10.5 month torture ordeal will not get justice in the USA.

Maher Arar is a Syrian-born Canadian and father who was arrested while passing through the US on his way home to Canada. The Canadian government provided US authorities with bad intelligence suggesting Arar had ties to Al Qaeda. Arar was deported to Syria where he was held in a 3'x6'x7' cell for 10 and a half months, during which time he was brutally tortured.

The Canadian government investigated Arar's case, concluded that he was not a terrorist, had no ties to terrorists, and had been unjustly detained and tortured, and paid him $10.5 million.

Arar has tried to clear his name in the US -- he is still considered a terrorist there, as is his family -- but no court has heard his case, because the US government (including the Obama administration) claims that allowing the case to be heard would compromise national security. The Supreme Court has now refused to hear Arar's case.

Upon his release, Arar sued Bush's Justice Department, but his lawsuit was rejected by a succession of U.S. courts, in part out of deference to the executive branch's claim that national security would be harmed by allowing a federal judge to review the relevant evidence. That's a common legal maneuver that was used frequently by the Bush administration, and which Obama pledged to use less often. So far, those promises have been proven to be empty...

Arar and his family remain on a U.S. watch list, and the United States has never officially apologized or admitted it made a mistake.

Instead, Obama's Justice Department told the Supreme Court that Arar's case remained too secret for justice, and that the U.S. law offers no recourse for him.

Supreme Court Rejects Case of Tortured Canadian

(Image: Maherarar.ca/Bill Grimshaw)



Bruce Sterling Interview: Cities

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:21 PM PDT

Wikipedia En B Ba Brucesterling
Bruce Sterling probably needs little introduction here... Through an electric career as a science fiction author, cultural observer, and futures provocateur he's emerged as one of the most important voices of the nascent 21st century. He has a sharp wit, an impeccable turn of phrase, and a keen eye for spotting the most interesting and obscure trends before they hit the world stage. His 2009 novel, The Caryatids, was released to glowing reviews by the likes of Cory Doctorow and Alex Steffen. You can grab his daily brain feed over at the Wired blog, Beyond the Beyond. I got in touch with Sterling and asked some questions about cities...

What are some of the cities you find most interesting? Why?

I go for Austin, Belgrade and Turin. Because I hang out there enough to have some idea of how they function. I'm also keen on the much bigger cities of Berlin, London, and Mumbai, but in a more detached way. I'm getting very interested in Sao Paolo lately.

What do you see as some of the more valuable aspects of urbanization and some of the more dangerous?

Well, the "valuable" aspect, or at least the interesting one, is that bigger towns are getting much more "urban-informatic" lately.

There's
a lot of innovation in the urban fabric these days. Cities also seem
to have political energy in an era when nations are getting weaker
every day. For instance, the UK is a creaking financial wreck while
Boris Johnson's London is a freak scene.

The obviously dangerous aspect of modern cities is urban organized crime, narcoterror, low-intensity warfare, war in urban terrain, favela shoot-'em-ups, whatever faddish name the trouble has this year. Baghdad, Mogadishu, Grozny.

But I'd also like to point out that large financial centers in certain cities around the planet are certainly going to kill millions of us by destroying our social safety networks in the name of their imaginary financial efficiency. You're a thousand times more likely to die because of what some urban banker did in 2008 than from what some Afghan-based terrorist did in 2001.

*Financiers live in small, panicky urban cloisters, severely detached
from the rest of mankind. They are living today in rich-guy ghetto
cults. They are truly dangerous to our well-being, and they are
getting worse and more extremist, not better and more reasonable.
You're not gonna realize this havoc till you see your elderly Mom
coughing in an emergency ward, but she's going there for a reason.


Do you think governance can scale with the increasing size
of megacities like Jakarta, Tokyo, Sao Paulo, & New York? Or are such
cities doomed to increasing ferality?

I don't think urban scale is a truly serious problem. Tokyo and Jakarta share the same scale, but not the same problems. There are plenty of cities that are getting *smaller* and have some awful problems, viz Detroit.

There are many cities that have outgrown their old infrastructure and become huge squatter camps, but that's not inherently a scaling problem, it's a management problem.

How do you think the psychogeography of the city might be affecting identity and tribalism? Do you suspect the trend is more towards collaboration or fragmentation?

That word "psychogeography" probably means something, but guys who use it go out on Situationist drifts and look for urban ley-lines. I do a lot of similar activity, but I don't like to dignify it too much.

Modern large cities are the engines of globalization in the way that New York used to be an engine of Americanization. You look at New York back in the 1800s, obviously collaboration and fragmentation were going on there at the same time. Little Italy, Little Ukraine, whatever... but those sharp distinctions tended to melt with time. Cities that segregate their citizens into ghettos tend to go broke.

The infrastructure always ends up shaping people more than they think it will. Modern big city people tend to think and act like big-city people anywhere. A big-city New York guy sleeping in bus stations is as poor as his brother, some Deep South sharecropper. But the social chasm between those two people is immense.

You talk about the favela chic expressions of the slums. In a world of increasing poverty do you see slums as incubators of the future or more as casualities of the past?

To tell the truth, the slums are probably just as various as the cities. The slums were caused to exist for all kinds of different bad reasons. But the slums sure as hell have the birthrate to be the "incubator of the future." The slums are the nurseries of our planet. Why we allowed ourselves to let that happen, I dunno, but it's the truth.

What, to you, are the most interesting possibilities of augmented reality, good or bad, for life in the city?

Oh, it's all about those nifty little navigation apps. They've got the means, motive and opportunity right now. But you don't really need AR to do digital mapping of cities. AR comes more into its own with artsy, confrontational, bend-your-reality stuff. Like the Layar app that "shows" you the Berlin Wall in its fearsome glory as you are walking thoughtlessly through modern Berlin. Or the Museum of London "Streetmuseum" iPhone app that pastes historic photographs of London over the modern London you see in your iPhone screen.


Then there's the chance of turning urban billboards interactive, and
augmenting them. Not too much of that going on yet, but it's a
super-interesting idea. How come billboards are still so print-based
and static? With displays as cheap as they are, paper billboards
oughta be dying like newspapers.


Finally, what song or artist comes to mind in your personal
urban soundtrack?


Two for the price of one: Ladytron, "High Rise" and "Fighting in
Built-Up Areas."

Running On Empty - L.A. Without Cars

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:13 PM PDT


Here's the video by Ross Ching, Running On Empty, that Bill Barol referred to here a couple weeks ago. I think it's a great bit of provocative future fiction showing the vast topologies of the Los Angeles roadway infrastructure absolutely free of automotive traffic. Perhaps a sudden, massive lifestyle change has ended car use. Or a Peak Oil soft landing, or personal teleportation devices have gone mainstream, or the Rapture came and somebody lost the list of sinners and just decided to take everyone... I like to imagine this vision rolled forward 20 years when vegetation has overtaken all the useless hardscaping, no doubt matched by some Jumanji-type unleashing of large fauna across the sprawl.

Oil spill: Read this before you volunteer to clean it up

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 07:26 PM PDT

Martha's Vineyard: Birthplace of American Deaf culture

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 07:29 PM PDT

Fascinating little tidbit that I ran across today: In 1854, 1 in 155 residents of Martha's Vineyard were deaf—compared to 1 in 5728 as the national average.

Historians trace those high rates of deafness back to a genetic variation common in Weald, England. People from this rural, sparsely populated region moved to Martha's Vineyard in the late 1600s, where they joined a pretty genetically isolated population, with few off-island marriages. The result was a high rate of this specific kind of deafness. That's interesting enough, but what's really amazing is how the genes shaped culture.

Until the 20th century, deafness was an unremarkable, normal part of life on the island—akin to the level of "oddness" or handicap we'd ascribe to left-handedness today. Pretty much everyone, deaf or hearing, spoke a local version of sign language, which made it possible for the deaf to be fully integrated into society without anybody really missing a beat.

Martha's Vineyard Sign Language is mostly dead today, but it has an important legacy. In the early 19th century, children from the island brought their language to America's first school for the deaf, where it mingled with French Sign Language and other colloquial home sign traditions to create modern American Sign Language.

US: Concerns over Internet Censorship "central to our foreign policy"

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 06:48 PM PDT

The U.S. State Department now considers Internet censorship a high foreign policy priority, and factors the issue into diplomatic relations, according to a public statement last Friday by a department official:
In every meeting with foreign dignitaries, "this issue is on the table," Alec Ross, senior advisor for innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, said here at an event hosted by the Media Access Project, a nonprofit law firm and advocacy group.

"Internet freedom has gone from being something that's a piece of what could at best be called a piece of foreign policy arcanum -- a little thing that a handful of people work on -- to something becoming increasingly central in our foreign policy," Ross said.

Wonder what's prompting that meme insertion. A few websites re-blogging this article ran headlines like "Internet Censorship Central to US Foreign Policy," which some 'net freedom advocates and critics of US policy ( coughACTAcough ) might argue makes more sense.

State Dept. Ramping Up Internet Freedom Work (internetnews.com)

Wash your Han S.

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 04:57 PM PDT

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Artist unknown.

(29.media.tumblr.com via Bonnie Burton)

Pornucopia, a 1989 Piers Anthony porn novel

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 04:13 PM PDT

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Did you know that science fiction author Piers Anthony — best known for writing the Xanth series — also wrote porn? According to his web site, he has written two adults-only erotic novels, Pornucopia and The Magic Fart. The subject of Pornucopia came up last night; that it's about a guy whose superpower is the immunity to venereal disease. Here's a summary from Amazon:

Pornucopia is a picaresque black comedy that transgresses all bounds of everyday good taste. It begins in a near-future world where sex-vending machines and genital transplants are taken for granted.

Prior Gross, the hero and sex object of this wild adventure, thinks his fantasies have all come true when a beautiful young woman seduces him on a public beach. She turns out to be a succubus, beginning his initiation into a realm populated by demons that are not merely horned, but horny. He encounters a perverse cast of characters that includes a satyr, a vampire, and a pair of luscious sisters, one of whom tricks him out of his manhood.

So Prior Gross sets out on a perverse odyssey, taking him to a distant planet where he discovers the key to the return of his property and, ultimately, the origin of the universe itself.

And a few words, supposedly written by Anthony on the inside flap of the book, via one fan site:

...In 1969 Essex House was publishing some highly fantastic erotica, and I though I'd try my hand.

I started Pornucopia [as 3.97 Erect] that year--and quit a month later when the publisher shut down the line. My sexy market had been yanked out from under me just when I was getting hot! Later I recovered and completed the effort in 1970, my fourteenth novel. Now, after almost twenty years and considerable struggle, it is my seventy-fourth published book.

I try to do the best job I can do of whatever I do do. Here I was trying for something truly fascinating, outrageous, erotic and funny, as a challenge. I oppose censorship, and I feel the erotic urge should be considered healthy and fun, not obscene. I do have limits: you will find no sado-masochism. If there are any other erotic or scatologic taboos I have not gleefully parodied, I regret it; I plead a sheltered life.

However, in the interim I have developed a considerable juvenile readership, and I don't want my young readers to get in trouble. This novel is therefore being published and marketed for an exclusively adult audience, and may still shock and disgust many. Be warned: this is not Xanth. But those who want their minds wickedly stretched, read on.

Piers Anthony official web site
Pornucopia on Amazon

E3 2010: Rez creators Q? announce Child of Eden

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 03:12 PM PDT

My new first stop tomorrow when the E3 halls properly open: the Ubisoft booth, hoping to get a closer look at Child of Eden, the new motion-controlled game from Rez creator Q? and Ubisoft. Q? have evolved Child of Eden beyond the sharp, vector-line world of Rez to a lush, bio-luminescent seascape, but look to be retaining its tunnel-vision gameplay, now with Kinect and PlayStation Move gesture control. More on this if and when I get my hands on it!

Teen lives by Seventeen mag, chronicles experience on blog

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 02:42 PM PDT

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18-year old Jaime Keiles from Pennsylvania isn't really the girly magazine type of girl, but she's been spending the last month of her high school career living "according to the gospel of Seventeen Magazine." The result is a funny, witty observance of the discrepancy between what's being marketed as teen culture and what actually is — at least in her life. For example:

...today I woke up in the morning and got dressed for school. I took fashion advice from the page of "French Nautical" looks, and hair advice from Elisabeth, 17, in Maine, who suggested I wear a high bun because it was, "quick yet elegant and perfect for my low maintenance beauty routine." Then I went to school. Then I came home. Then I had 10 hours of time to fill between arriving at my house and writing this post.

Looking inside the magazine for suggestions of activities to partake in proved to be of little help. The vast majority of the activities offered were some variation on flirting. There were also tips for starting my own business, but I was not looking to pursue an endeavor of such grandiose proportions on a standard Tuesday evening. An article enticingly titled "High Times" actually made efforts to steer me away from smoking pot to fill my time, but failed to offer me even one other comparable recreational activity that I could participate in without the presence of boys, my friends, or some sort of substantial financial backing.

The Seventeen Magazine Project

E3 2010: the 4 things you need to know about Microsoft's press conference

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 02:15 PM PDT

newxbox360quarter.jpgMicrosoft were the first to bat at this year's E3 videogame expo, before its official Tuesday opening (following Nintendo and Sony's own presentations), with both the bacchanalia of Sunday night's Cirque du Soleil-headlined event to reveal the final form of its motion-control system now known as Kinect, and with this morning's press conference to show what the next year has in store for their flagship Xbox 360. Here's a quick rundown of what we learned: 1.) Microsoft are releasing a new, slimmer Xbox 360 model this week. The new model, simply being referred to by Microsoft as The New Xbox 360, will be sold at the same $299 pricepoint as the current Xbox 360 Elite, but will increase the hard drive size from 120 to 250 gigs, and come standard with a built-in wi-fi adapter. 2.) Microsoft are banking on motion-interface Kinect to make the Xbox 360 a new "family console" choice. Previously known as Natal, Kinect is a motorized camera and motion sensing bar that adds a controller-free gestural interface to the Xbox 360, due for release in North America on November 4th for a yet-unannounced price. On the console level, Kinect will add both voice and virtual touch controls to the 360's interface, as well as face recognition -- selecting your profile amongst the many on your console was demonstrated by simply facing the camera and waving.


kinectbar.jpg

Their hope, it seems, is to further expand the role and the image of the 360 as a "hardcore" game console, make it a necessary center-point of the living room by adding more content partners like ESPN (no sign of the previously much-rumored Hulu), and become a true rival to Nintendo's all-ages-marketed Wii, though:

3.) Microsoft do owe at least a small debt to Nintendo's foundational family lineup.

kinecttiger.jpgThe initial lineup of software for Kinect will sound vaguely familiar: bowling, boxing and track and field events in Kinect Sports, and the motion-controlled mini-games in Kinect Adventure all follow closely in the footsteps of Wii Sports/Resort and Wii Fit.

Kinectimals, a virtual jungle-cat pet sim developed by Elite & LostWinds creators Frontier, contains more than a few traces of the paws-on-the-screen virtual affection of Nintendogs (though, having brought a child on stage to show off its pre-teen appeal, it did come off as the most honest and genuinely affecting demo of the entire presentation).

Other games demonstrated included Ubisoft fitness package Your Shape, racing games both casual and core with Kinect Joy Ride and Forza, and Dance Central -- a full-body dance-battle game from Rock Band creators Harmonix (no strangers to dance games, having previously added Dance Dance Revolution steps to Konami's Karaoke Revolution Party), set to feature music by Lady Gaga and M.I.A.

4.) Microsoft want you to know that despite all this they haven't given up on the "core" gamer.

Having rested much of their E3 presence on pushing the 360 as a mainstream device, Microsoft spent the rest of the presentation on triple-A titles: new Gears of War, Call of Duty, Halo and Fable sequels, and Metal Gear Rising, Konami's sword-play focused side-story that provided the only true moment of levity to the lineup, as franchise star Raiden carefully sliced and diced a watermelon with the same sword he'd previously used to cut a van (and numerous soldiers) in two.

Not so much as a word came on Xbox Live Arcade or Indies, nor whether the latter will have access to the Kinect SDK to come up with their own gestural games, though presumably we'll see much more of that on the show floor when the E3 expo properly opens tomorrow.



More oil spilled in Nigeria "every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico"

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 05:11 PM PDT

(Video: Al Jazeera report on a new legal battle against Royal Dutch Shell and other foreign oil companies polluting the Niger Delta.)

Imagine BP's Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil disaster happening every single year, with little or no public outcry, no media coverage, and all but silence from government and the companies involved. Welcome to Nigeria.

Over the last 50 years, foreign oil companies have spilled over 1.5 million tons of oil here, but there have been no legal convictions against them, and no compensation for spill victims. The Niger Delta is now one of the most polluted places in the world. Snip from Guardian article by John Vidal:

nigerde.jpg On 1 May this year a ruptured ExxonMobil pipeline in the state of Akwa Ibom spilled more than a million gallons into the delta over seven days before the leak was stopped. Local people demonstrated against the company but say they were attacked by security guards. Community leaders are now demanding $1bn in compensation for the illness and loss of livelihood they suffered. Few expect they will succeed. In the meantime, thick balls of tar are being washed up along the coast.

Within days of the Ibeno spill, thousands of barrels of oil were spilled when the nearby Shell Trans Niger pipeline was attacked by rebels. A few days after that, a large oil slick was found floating on Lake Adibawa in Bayelsa state and another in Ogoniland. "We are faced with incessant oil spills from rusty pipes, some of which are 40 years old," said Bonny Otavie, a Bayelsa MP. This point was backed by Williams Mkpa, a community leader in Ibeno: "Oil companies do not value our life; they want us to all die. In the past two years, we have experienced 10 oil spills and fishermen can no longer sustain their families. It is not tolerable."

With 606 oilfields, the Niger delta supplies 40% of all the crude the United States imports and is the world capital of oil pollution. Life expectancy in its rural communities, half of which have no access to clean water, has fallen to little more than 40 years over the past two generations. Locals blame the oil that pollutes their land and can scarcely believe the contrast with the steps taken by BP and the US government to try to stop the Gulf oil leak and to protect the Louisiana shoreline from pollution.

Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it (Guardian UK)


My friend Peter Kirn tweets,

I see Ogoniland remains troubled; Shell security shot an Ogoni youth as recently as April. [PDF Link.]

[ Thumbnail: George Esiri/Reuters. A ruptured pipeline burns in a Lagos suburb after an explosion in 2008 which killed at least 100 people. ]

Vietnam to require surveillance app at 'net cafés, Google protests

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 02:36 PM PDT

A new law in Vietnam law requires all "retail Internet locations" (including 'net cafés, hotels, airports, even offices) to install a government-approved, server-side filtering and surveillance application by 2011. In a blog post expressing concern about the new regulation, Google says this will allow the government to monitor user activities and block access. Snip from PC Mag:
hanoi.jpg To "guarantee system safety," retail Internet locations must install a copy of "Internet Service Retailers Management Software recognized by the authority," the order said. There are few details on that software, but Google said in a blog post that "the application will likely allow the Vietnamese government to block access to websites, as well as to track user activities."

(...) Internet users in Hanoi are not allowed to do anything online to: oppose the government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam; endanger national security, stability, public safety; disrupt the united harmony of the people; propagate war; create hatred, conflicts between minority groups, religious groups; provoke violence, pornography, crimes, social unrest, stereotypes; impair cultural values; or call for illegal demonstrations, boycotts, unlawful gatherings for grievances and complaints, the order said.

And from the Google Public Policy Blog post by policy analyst Dorothy Chou:

Together with the security attacks we detected on Vietnamese human rights activists earlier this year (see our security blog post on "The chilling effects of malware") and intermittent blockages of Facebook and other social networks, this regulation is a troubling example of a government threatening free expression online and an open Internet.

Google Criticizes Vietnam's 'Net-Sniffing App (PC Magazine)

Disturbing Concerns in Vietnam (Google Public Policy Blog)

Beautiful big wave set at Jaws

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 02:21 PM PDT



I'm a surfer but I'm not crazy. I wouldn't go anywhere near these waves. But I really like this video by iamkalaniprince capturing a seemingly relentless set of 25+ foot peaks rolling in at Jaws on the North Shore of Maui. These monsters come barreling across the deep water trenches of the Pacific then heave up onto the Hawaiian reef creating some of the biggest and fastest waves in the world. The slow-motion (and the glorious Canon optics) underscores, to me, the majesty of this great dance and the strange harmony we human apes find amidst the power of nature.

White Berbarian (not what you're thinking) ready to put movie execs in Butthurt Locker

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 04:15 PM PDT

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For $250, the Arizona law firm White Berberian will represent people accused of illegal file sharing by "U.S. Copyright Group" (aka Dunlap Grubb & Weaver), the firm filing lawsuits on behalf of The Hurt Locker filmmakers and others who claim their movies have been widely pirated by P2P downloaders.

"U.S. Copyright Group" says it intends to sue more than 50,000 alleged file-sharers. They filed a complaint against the first 5,000 "unidentified" users last week, submitted some 700 IP addresses to the court in Washington, DC, and requested the personal details of each user. Torrentfreak has the IPs here.

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What's most troubling to me, however, is the "ambulance-chaser" firm's emphasis on settling cases, rather than defending people who may honestly believe they are innocent. Snip from CNET's piece on White Berberian, the guys offering to defend the accused (their name makes me think of an albino Conan the Barbarian):

White Berberian charges $249 to negotiate a settlement on behalf of accused file sharers. That fee will not cover any "litigation-related activities" the attorneys said on the site. Steven White, one of the two founders of the firm, stressed in an interview with CNET late Friday that he and law partner Sean Berberian won't charge any client, unless they save the client money.

He acknowledged that neither he nor Berberian are experts in intellectual-property law but said they have a good understanding of the issues. The way they see the landscape looks like this: it is in Dunlap Grubb's interest to get the cases settled as quickly as possible, and this is where White Berberian hopes it can persuade the lawyers and Voltage Pictures to negotiate.

That's fine, but what about people who claim to be innocent and refuse to settle? White said that for people who are innocent and want to fight, he would have a "frank discussion" about the facts of their case and the cost. According to White, the first thing that people accused of copyright infringement by Dunlap Grubb should know is that the firm is probably willing to sue a few people so that they can prove to everyone that their threats about litigation are real.


Law firm offers to defend 'Hurt Locker' sharers (CNET)


A related note: I've invited Nicolas Chartier of Voltage Pictures, LLC, Hurt Locker Producer and outspoken advocate of the lawsuits, to join in a conversation on this blog about the legal assault. He declined, told us he's been too busy to participate, but I hope he will accept our invitation for a debate of sorts when things settle down. Mr. Chartier, if you're reading, I promise you a respectful forum here on Boing Boing.






Games Inspired By Music: A game development competition with Safari Books Online

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 07:06 PM PDT

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We love chiptunes, the quirky celebration of 8-bit-style music that's become a a vibrant genre of its own with a thriving scene supporting it. The compositions evoke a time when electronic musicians had to make the most of the limited resources offered by primitive computing technology. Keeping that fire alive, the latest compositions are like the soundtracks to vintage videogames that never existed.

As teased last week, we're joining with Safari Books Online, the massive online library of technical know-how, to honor the mighty chip in the form of a Game Dev Challenge. Your task is to make real the imaginary games embodied by chiptunes. For inspiration or technical insight, Safari Books Online is offering Boing Boing readers 30 days free access to five videogame-related books from the library.

The game can be in the format and language of your choice, but we'll be particularly impressed by those whose style and economy matches the music. Compatibility with mobile browsers is a big plus, too! Flash, javascript/HTML5, Silverlight and Java will allow us to embed your game in our site, but native iPhone and Android apps are good options as well.

Of course, if you love Python or Unity or Locomotive BASIC, don't let us stop you.

You have until July 5 to complete your game. If that feels like a tight deadline, remember that games don't have to be epics. A perfectly-formed 5-minute vignette is better than a poor RPG.

To submit your entry, email it to us or host it somewhere and email the URL. You're welcome to post links to works in progress or completed games in the comments, too!

We'll select the finalists and showcase them here on Boing Boing starting July 8. Then we'll hold a public vote and announce the winners on July 15. Prizes? Of course there are prizes.

The grand prize is a year of access to Safari Books Online, a $515 value. Safari Books Online provides searchable, on-demand access to more than 10,000 technology, digital media and business books, videos and pre-published manuscripts from more than 40 publishers.

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The winner will also receive a treasure chest of goodies from our pals at Gama-Go, ranging from a limited-edition art print to a Gama-Goon statue to a set of handy Sing-A-Long Tongs!

Two runners up will score three month subscriptions to Safari Books Online, valued at $128 each, and a fun pack of Gama-Go goods like a Yeti Qee Keychain, Pocket Journal, Hip-Hopsicles, or the Gama-Go art book. Additional feats of 8-Bit excellence may be rewarded with other Gama-Go bits or items retrieved in Rob's gadget dozen.

Read the full rules for the fine print, including such notices that your submission should be appropriate for gamers of all ages. Only one entry per person is eligible for a prize. Prize winners must live in the U.S. and be at least 18 years old. (Sorry about that!) You keep the copyright in your entry but allow us to use it.

Here are a few parallel universes to pull ideas from:


Tettix

Tettix, AKA Judson Cowan, lives in Atlanta and is responsible for energetic compositions such as Earth's Assault on the Central AI. If a tune ever came up and demanded a game to go with it, it's that one! He recommends tracks from his free-to-download albums Technology Crisis, Technology Crisis II, and T.K.O.E.P.

Listen: Earth's Assault on the Enemy AI








Listen: Flying Butt Pliers

Disasterpeace

If you haven't heard Neutralite, a free-to-download introduction to Disasterpeace's music, download it right now. The 'narrative of a young hero chosen by elders of Neutral Town to protect their village from the unfolding conflict between the Plaid and Argyle nations,' it serves as proof positive that music alone can conjure complete, if pixelated, fantasy worlds. Atebite and the Warring Nations is your next step.

Adds Disasterpeace, AKA Rich Vreeland: I have whole albums that are basically non-existent game worlds, so it shouldn't be too hard!" Follow him on twitter. Other projects he's worked on include Rescue: The Beagles and A Kind of Bloop.

He suggests Violet Violet Garden, Gray Daycare Riot and Funky Fruitstand as good tracks to check out -- all come with the Neutralite album. For inspiration, don't miss Samuel Lopez's video to its title track, embedded above!

Listen: Gobber Grove (A collaboration with Spamtron - link)

Listen: Gray Daycare Riot


Garry Lee


As Sycamore Drive, scotsman Garry Lee posts compositions to 8bit Collective, a popular online haunt for chiptune composers. He offers Starlight for platformers and Happiness in Winter for RPGs!

Listen: Starlight

Listen: Happiness In Winter


Prizmatic Spray


Prizmatic Spray works for game audio design company Audio Aggregate and has just released a chiptune album called Sky Burial. He suggests Ingest the Geode and Nocturnazoide as tracks that could inspire games.

Listen: Ingest the Geode

Listen: Nocturnazoid


4mat

If you'll permit yourself a heavy nod to modern dance sounds mixed into your chip, you won't go wrong with 4mat's blend of Konami-style shoot-em-up melodies and 21st-century breakbeats.


Listen: Breathe







Listen: Black Lipstick

Decktonic

Decktonic, AKA Christian Montoya, makes electronic, dance and chip. His 'weapon of choice' is the Korg DS10, a Nintendo DS cart that emulates a classic analog synth. Sky World and Square Signals are great chip.

Square Signals by Decktonic

Any questions?

Q: Can I base my game on a different chiptune?

A: Yes! If the chiptune is not already explicitly licensed to allow appropriate re-use, you must secure the written permission of the composer if you wish to embed it in your game.

Q: I'm a chiptune composer, can I put my tune into the pool?

A: Yes! Email it in. Don't forget to tell us a little about yourself and how you went about composing the tune.

Q; I want to participate, but I can't program!

A: Take advantage of the free 30 days of access to these books from Safari Books Online. Check out Game Maker, Adventure Game Studio and Ambrosine's list of authoring software for non-programmers.

Report: lead in popular children's fruit juice brands

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 11:47 AM PDT

The Bay Area-based Environmental Law Foundation found amounts of lead in bottled juice, juice boxes and packaged fruit exceeding federal limits for young children. Of course, none of this would be a problem if we nourished our kids with distilled water, rain water, or pure grain alcohol like God intended.

Anyway, snip from NPR report:

sco.jpg The products tested range from nationally recognized brands to more niche market favorites, but the results were troubling across the board. A single serving of Raley's private-labeled premium apple juice, Santa Cruz Organic Concord Grape Juice and Dole Pear Halves each contain levels of lead beyond what federal regulators consider safe.

(...) The FDA would not comment on the foundation's findings, though a spokesman confirmed that the federal limits for lead were last updated nearly two decades ago. In the meantime, many scientists, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, now say that there is no safe level of exposure to lead.

Group Finds Lead In Kids' Drinks (NPR, via Heal The Bay)

Read the ELF's "Notice of Violation" (PDF Link) for more details on each of the brands tested. Background on the group's work to identify lead in children's food products here.

Starbucks to offer free WiFi at all US locations, with free access to paid content in Fall

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:46 AM PDT

Starbusians throughout the United States are no doubt cheering today's news from the mothership: "We're very excited to announce that coming July 1st: Free. 1 click. No registration WIFI at all US locations!" As my friend @sfslim replied, "Sadly, given @Starbucks ubiquity, this may be the closest we get to nationwide municipal Internet access for years." ReadWriteWeb reports that the newly free access is part of a planned "free access to paid content" offering to roll out in the fall:
According to Starbucks, this new service, called the "Starbucks Digital Network," will give users who surf the Internet from U.S. company owned stores access to "various paid sites and services such as wsj.com, exclusive content and previews, free downloads, local community news and activities, on their laptops, tablets or smart phones." Besides the Wall Street Journal, Starbucks' partners include Apple's iTunes, The New York Times, Patch, USA TODAY, Yahoo and ZAGAT.
Related: Did you know McDonalds also offers free WiFi at more than 11,500 locations? (I didn't, until I read @docpop's tweet.)

80 HDR Pics of Tokyo

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:16 AM PDT

2510 4032863612 Cc34F6C63C-1
Photography purists might see many HDR images as gaudy & cartoonish but I really dig the way they bring out a new experience of the subject. The hyper-realism of some HDR compositions seems to almost virtualize the world blurring the lines even further between real & synthetic. It's this same boundary dissolution that I enjoy in immersive games like the Grand Theft Auto series where you can suddenly find yourself gazing at the play of light on the city walls at sunset, awed by the natural beauty and simultaneously amazed by the number crunching under the hood.

This series of 80 HDR photos of Tokyo seems especially appropriate to me as it pushes the hyper-modernity of this massive city closer to my own Manga-fied senses. (Click through each pic for larger Flickr sets...) 80 Photos of Tokyo in HDR

Weird reverse perspective, animated

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 10:00 AM PDT


BB co-conspirator Jeremy Mooney-Somers created this surreal and amazing proof-of-concept animation to illustrate "True Reverse Perspective." It reminds me of what The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari might have looked like if it were a cartoon. Jeremy writes:
In Reverse Perspective the expected visual rules are inverted, so close objects are small and far objects are big. This is not only true for whole objects, but their structure as well. So the near points of an object are closer together, relative to its far points, which gives the flared-out look of the buildings, and the scene as a whole.

Essentially, the positions of the vanishing-point and the focal-point are swapped. So now we are at the vanishing-point, where geometry shrinks to nothingness, and the focal-point lies some distance ahead, beyond which objects scale to infinity.

The effect is achieved entirely in-camera. The scene and models themselves have no unusual scaling, they're laid out in a normal / perpendicular fashion; the way the camera 'sees' the scene is altered to create the effect. Perspective is truly reversed.
True Reverse Perspective

Sunday school teacher sentenced to life in prison for killing 8yo

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 09:29 AM PDT

Melissa Huckaby, the Sunday school teacher who killed an 8-year old girl in Tracy, California last year, was just sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Cambodian 'jungle woman' having a hard time adjusting to village life

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 08:59 AM PDT

Back in 2007, a feral woman named Rochom P'ngieng was found in a jungle in northern Cambodia (video above). She had been missing since 1988 at age 8. Now, three and a half years later, she's having a lot of trouble reintegrating back into normal village life. She refuses to wear clothes, doesn't speak much, and sleeps all the time. A couple of weeks ago, her father reported her missing. The police suspected she had fled back to the jungle, but last week they found her hiding inside of a toilet.

"She was discovered in a 10-meter deep toilet. It's an unbelievable story. She spent 11 days there," he said, adding that she was soaked with waste up to her chest.

"We are still wondering how she could get into the toilet," he said. The toilet has a small hole covered in wood, he said.

P'ngieng, dubbed "jungle woman" after being found the first time, was admitted to a hospital after being rescued from the sewage pit, Lou said.

I wonder what the best thing for this woman is right now. Sending her back into the jungle doesn't exactly seem right, but she's clearly not enjoying life in the village.

Cambodia's missing 'jungle women' found in toilet [via AFP]

Two-faced kitty

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 08:47 AM PDT

This adorable two-faced kitten was born in Charleston, West Virgina last week. The condition is called diprosopus. From the Charleston Gazette:
Mediafiles Thumbs 275 220.19572953737 Kitteh I100611205931 "As far as I understand, it's a defect in a protein synthesis that causes a mutation that leads to two faces," (veterinarian Erica) Drake said. "It's hard to know if it's just two faces or if it's a conjoined twin."

Drake said the kitten's two mouths act independently of one another and she believes each mouth has a separate esophagus leading to one stomach.

However, she said, it is hard to know the kitten's internal anatomy without an X-ray. She said not knowing about any defects that could be associated with internal organs makes it hard for her to give the kitten a definite prognosis.
"Twin-faced kitten puzzles veterinarian" (via Fortean Times)

Turn your iPad into a typewriter

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 08:29 AM PDT

Here's a fun gadget that I totally don't need: a USB typewriter that will turn an iPad into a fake piece of paper. From Wired's Gadget Lab:
It holds an iPad in its carriage whilst simultaneously inputting typed letters. All it needs is a Bluetooth component to replace the cable, and a writing app that can use the accelerometer to detect a carriage return and move you to a new line. Ding!

Inside there is a sensor strip under the keyboard which detects the key-presses that hit it, and this pulse of electricity is then passed on to an Arduino circuit-board whereupon it is translated into a standard USB key-down event. All you need to do is plug it in and type.

$400 buys you a pre-modded typewriter, but Jack Zylkin, the man behind the USBTypewriter, will sell you the electronics to make your own for just $75, or you can send him your typewriter and have him fix it up for you. For true geeks, the design can be had for free under a Creative Commons license and you can roll your own from scratch.

Product page

Pinkwater's BEAUTIFUL YETTA: touching picture book about a country chicken and feral Brooklyn parrots

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 07:49 AM PDT


Daniel Pinkwater's latest is a picture book for very young readers called Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken. Yetta is raised on an idyllic farm, but eventually her farmer friend has to deliver her to a Brooklyn butcher shop. At the last second, she escapes and makes her way into the streets, where she is terrorized by rats and trucks. But Yetta finds peace and friendship from the tribe of feral parrots that take her in and make her their den mother.

It's classic Pinkwater: funny, weird, touching, and all about the joys of being sideways to reality. Jill Pinkwater, his wife and longtime collaborator, does the illustrations. The lettering is great: the chicken speaks Yiddish (as you'd expect), with English subtitles and phonetic pronunciation guides; the parrots speak Spanish (they've got subtitles and phonetics, too). So it's not just a charming story for little kids: it's a crash-course in conversational chicken-Yiddish and parrot-Spanish.

The Pinkwaters have graced me with an autographed copy inscribed for my daughter Poesy, which makes this one of the best days of my life. Daniel Pinkwater is a genius, and today, he and Jill have made me into a great dad.

Beautiful Yetta, the Yiddish Chicken



3D printed sculptures made out of human ashes

Posted: 14 Jun 2010 08:29 AM PDT

ws13.jpg Dutch artist Wieki Somers makes 3D printed sculptures of animals paired with common household appliances out of human ashes.

Artist page via Designboom
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