Friday, November 5, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

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More Cooks Source treachery revealed!

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 10:59 PM PDT

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In addition to a massive list of other articles and images stolen outright by Cooks Source Magazine, intrepid Facebook users* have been posting other awful revelations about Cooks Source, including the magazine's responsibility for MySpace, the recent Qantas engine malfunction, the withering of crops in Farmville, the Kennedy assassination, Windows Vista, the loss of the original Twinkie filling, and a keyboard containing only 3 buttons: C, V, and Ctrl. In fact, one user even blames Cooks Source for his crack-like addiction to uncovering their misdeeds. (via)

* I have only included nefarious discoveries by users who stole Cooks Source's profile image.

Chrome Lets You Remove Your Flash and Have It, Too

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 10:10 PM PDT

John Gruber at Daring Fireball has a clever workaround for when you want to have Flash available on demand on a Mac, but don't want it installed by default in all your browsers. John formerly used ClickToFlash with Safari to let him selectively control which Flash content displayed; there's a similar add-on called Flashblock for Firefox. Instead, John removed Flash from the various plug-in directories shared by browsers. He notes that Web sites now feed him alternative content, like static ads, since his browser no longer pretends it can accept Flash only to ignore it. A YouTube extension forces HTML5-compatible video to load, too. When he needs Flash, John launches Google Chrome, which has integral Flash support (it can be disabled, but you can't whitelist or blacklist specific sites). When he's done, he quits Chrome to prevent Flash from chewing cycles in the background.

Imogen Heap live HD Webcast on Friday from London

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 08:47 PM PDT

Filmermca Images Indeximogen Heap
Tomorrow, Friday November 5, Grammy-winning musician Imogen Heap will conduct an orchestra and choir at London's Royal Albert Hall performing her score for a crowdsourced film she co-created with my friend Thomas Ermacora. The film, titled Love The Earth, was cut from more than 1,000 pieces of nature footage shot by over 100 filmmakers around the world. After the film, Heap will play a full set with her regular band. My old pal Chris Courtney is directing a high-res HD live Webcast of the experience. They're shooting on 11 HD cameras and hope to deliver 5 megs/second at 1080 HD live encoding. It should be quite a spectacle. And it's free. Resounde: Imogen Heap Live HD Webcast

New Zealand proposes "guilty until proven innocent" copyright law to punish accused infringers

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 07:19 PM PDT

New Zealand's three-strikes Internet law is back. Under this proposed copyright law, people who are accused without proof of multiple copyright infringements can eventually face disconnection from the Internet, along with their families. A substantively similar law was passed and then rescinded in 2009, after enormous public outcry. The parliamentary committee responsible for the legislation describes it as being based on the presumption of guilt (not innocence, as is customary in democratic societies).
Such fines would be levied by a Copyright Tribunal after a particular account holder racked up several notices, and these notices would adopt a "guilty until proven innocent" approach. As the committee report puts it, "an infringement notice establishes a presumption that infringement has occurred, but this would be open to rebuttal where an account holder had valid reasons, in which case a rights holder would have to satisfy the tribunal that the presumption was correct. We consider that such a change would fulfill more effectively the aim of having an efficient 'fast-track' system for copyright owners to obtain remedies for infringements."

It's hard to argue with the logic of speed here; creating a presumption of liability certainly will "fast-track" the process, though concerns about accuracy remain. As a New Zealand legal blogger noted this week, almost one-third of all New Zealand copyright litigation fails because rightsholders can't actually show they own the copyright and that the copyright is governed by New Zealand law. And Google has previously indicated that large percentages of the infringement claims it routinely receives are defective in some way.

InternetNZ, which runs the top-level .nz Internet domain, said in a statement that the new presumption of liability "reverses the burden of proof in the regime by saying that rights owners' notices will be considered conclusive evidence of infringement, with alleged infringers having to prove they have not done so. This reversal of proof is not a welcome development, and our initial view is that it should not be passed by Parliament."

New Zealand P2P proposal: guilty until proven innocent

(Image: Blackout, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from leighblackall's photostream)



Toronto cops who removed their name-tags during the G20 to avoid identification will be docked a day's pay

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:57 PM PDT


About 90 cops will be docked a day's pay for illegally removing their nametags during the G20 crackdown in Toronto. Toronto police chief Bill Blair said that the officers removed their badges so that they couldn't be identified. This is part of a general pattern of illegal behavior during the Toronto G20, including arrests for violating a nonexitent law, extended detention in cuffs without adequate heating or toilet facilities, misleading press statements about seized weapons, and arresting a protestor who was blowing soap-bubbles.
Many of the people who confronted police over the tumultuous three-days of protests that closed down Toronto's core said officers were not wearing badge numbers or name tags on their uniforms - allegations that were bolstered by photographs in the media.

"I have a rule in the Toronto Police Service, it's my rule, it's in accordance with the policy of my police services board, that our officers will wear their names displayed on their uniforms," Chief Blair told the committee.

Faced with numerous complaints, the force launched an investigation and pored over 22,000 hours of closed-circuit videotape to identify "approximately 90" officers who were not wearing their name tags, said the Chief.

"Disciplinary processes have been initiated," he said. When asked what kind of punishment would be handed out, Chief Blair said that has yet to be determined "but the discussion, I believe, is the loss of a day's pay." That would amount to about $300 for a first-class constable.

Nearly 100 Toronto officers to be disciplined over G20 summit conduct (via Reddit)

(Image: G8 / G20 Toronto 2010 Riot Police on Yonge St., a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from chrishuggins's photostream)



5 year old boy dresses up as Daphne for Hallowe'en, other moms have gender panice

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 06:29 PM PDT

Nerdy Apple Bottom's five year old son is a monster Scooby Doo fan and so he wanted to dress up as Velma Daphne for Hallowe'en. He made an awesome Velma, and none of his preschool chums teased or picked on him -- but the other mothers went bananas and told his mom that she was going to make him gay by letting him dress up as a female cartoon character.
Two mothers went wide-eyed and made faces as if they smelled decomp. And I realize that my son is seeing the same thing I am. So I say, "Doesn't he look great?" And Mom A says in disgust, "Did he ask to be that?!" I say that he sure did as Halloween is the time of year that you can be whatever it is that you want to be. They continue with their nosy, probing questions as to how that was an option and didn't I try to talk him out of it. Mom B mostly just stood there in shock and dismay.

And then Mom C approaches. She had been in the main room, saw us walk in, and followed us down the hall to let me know her thoughts. And they were that I should never have 'allowed' this and thank God it wasn't next year when he was in Kindergarten since I would have had to put my foot down and 'forbidden' it. To which I calmly replied that I would do no such thing and couldn't imagine what she was talking about. She continued on and on about how mean children could be and how he would be ridiculed.

My response to that: The only people that seem to have a problem with it is their mothers.

My son is gay (via Kottke)


$2K bounty for free/open Kinect drivers (Microsoft thinks this is illegal!)

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:43 PM PDT

Microsoft has just released its Kinect camera, a USB device that allows you to control your computer with gestures. It incorporates a motorized pivot, an RGB camera, depth-sensor and multi-array microphone "which provides full-body 3D motion capture, facial recognition, and voice recognition capabilities."

The Adafruit Industries people are offering a $2,000 bounty to the first person to write a fully open/free set of drivers for the Kinect so that it can be used as a peripheral in other hardware projects.

The bounty started out as $1,000, but the Adafruit folks doubled it after a Microsoft spokesdrone told CNet that they would "work closely with law enforcement and product safety groups to keep Kinect tamper-resistant."

The Open Kinect project - THE OK PRIZE - get $2,000 bounty for Kinect for Xbox 360 open source drivers (now $2k)



Junkbot tripod maker needs firmware so he can send his steampunk pirate ship to Burning Man

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:37 PM PDT

Andy makes and sells groovy scrap-metal light-up "tripods" that look like aliens; he uses the money to fund an enormous, ambitious steampunk pirate ship for Burning Man. The engineer who formerly provided the firmware for Andy's tripods has pulled out of the project and now he's desperate for technical help:

What we Need:
The physical design requirement for the PCB:
1-1/8″ x 2-1/8″.
Along the upper edge we need room for 8 thru hole RGB LEDs
An easily accessible programming header
A microphone to input sound
Powered by (3) AAA batteries (4.5v)
Controlled by a momentary Switch SPST
A single centered screw hole that can be tapped to mount the board to the back cover.
Use of the Atmel Tiny88 would be a bonus since we have a lot left over from the ship's construction.
A small PCB with solder pads for the switch (1-1/8″ x 3/8″)

Initial Software requirements:
Two software modes, the first would be color morphing of the 8 LEDs on two color channels, (e.g. four LEDs could be blue and the other four yellow)
The second mode would be sound reactive (turning on and off to the beat of the music and changing colors).

Tripod Help (Thanks, Todd!)


TSA official slipped white powder into fliers' bags, told them they'd been caught with coke and were under arrest

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:30 PM PDT

A TSA bomb appraisal officer in Philadelphia International Airport repeatedly "pranked" fliers by slipping a bag of white powder (creatine, a nutritional supplement, being used in equipment testing) into their luggage and then threatening them with arrest. Though his colleagues saw him pull this stunt, he was not removed from duty or reported -- merely told "don't do that," by another TSA worker. It wasn't until he reduced a woman to tears that he was disciplined. It's not clear whether the officer -- whose name has been redacted from the TSA memo that was released under a Freedom of Information Act request -- was fired, or quit, though reportedly he isn't working for the TSA any longer.

You know how the TSA has all those signs saying you can be arrested for joking or "making remarks" about bombs? One law for them, another for us, apparently.

After first confirming that the items in front of him belonged to the pair, the TSA employee asked the women, "Do you have anything in your bag that you're not supposed to?" After the passengers answered, "No," the worker again displayed some purported cocaine. While a TSA memo notes that the white powder was in a vial, Solomon has said that she was shown a plastic baggie filled with powder.

"Did this come out of your bag?" he asked. "The passengers replied, 'No way. I don't even know what that is,'" according to a TSA report. The worker "concluded with, 'I'm just checking. I know it didn't come out of your bag, it belongs to me. You seem way too nice. Have a good flight.'"

"You almost had me," one passenger is reported to have responded, according to a TSA memo.

Solomon, crying, eventually approached an airline worker to lodge a complaint about the TSA worker. Referring to "the things that are going on in the world today," Solomon said she did not consider the cocaine prank a "funny joke." She added that airport security workers "should be taking our jobs seriously."

Two other passengers quoted in the TSA records told officials that they saw the bomb appraisal officer showing the women a bag of white powder that appeared to have been removed from a bag. One witness said that she felt bad for the women after subsequently learning that they were the target of a prank. She added that if the officer "had played that joke on her then we (TSA) would still be hearing her hollering and something would have to be done right then and there."

Memos Detail TSA Officer's Cocaine Pranks (Thanks, Master Pokes!)

(Image: TSA Logo, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 25911255@N06's photostream)



Strange Horizons online sf magazine annual fundraiser

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:18 PM PDT

Strange Horizons, the decade-old and most excellent online science fiction magazine, is holding its annual fund-raiser: "Strange Horizons relies on donations from readers in order to stay in business. This September, we're trying to raise $7000, and we're hoping that you, Dear Reader, will be able to help us to reach that goal." I just sent 'em $100. (Thanks, Niall!)

Video: Bad Things That Could Happen, starring enormous cardboard props and your secret fears

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:12 PM PDT

Michael sends us Bad Things That Could Happen, "A great, fun film that uses giant props made out of cardboard to show bad things that could happen. Made by This Is It, a collective of illustrators, animators, artists and designers based in London."

Bad Things That Could Happen



Naked Russian gentleman goes bonkers on video (now with Yakety Sax)

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:04 PM PDT

NSFW: contains naked crazy guy pleasuring himself in public, then attempting to copulate with a van—and that ain't the half of if.

Some have speculated that this Russian fellow has mental problems, others PCP problems, still others credit "Vodka, the breakfast of champions." All I know is this sucker begs for a remix with the Benny Hill theme, and I give YouTube like, five minutes before it's taken down. Also: it better not be a goddamned viral video for some energy drink.

[Video Link, via Dangerous Minds]

Update: Ah, of course! YouTube Doubler! BennyHillified version is below...

(thanks, Dave Gorman)

William Shatner sings Cee Lo Green's "F*ck You"

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 04:56 PM PDT

Que Viva Shatner! Clip from an appearance on Lopez Tonight.

(thanks, Richard Metzger)

Google Instant now available for Android and iPhone

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 04:15 PM PDT

Google Instant, the new feature that displays predictions and search results as you type queries, is now available for mobile devices.

Nicaraguan military accidentally invades Costa Rica due to Google Maps glitch

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 03:22 PM PDT

Search Engine Land reports that a Google Maps cartography error led to an international conflict in Central America. A Nicaraguan military commander who set up a post on the Costa Rican side of the border blames Google Maps for incorrectly identifying a portion of the boundary. Bing, for what it's worth, displays it correctly.

Quis Custodiet Ipsos T-Shirts?

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 03:02 PM PDT

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The geniuses at ThinkGeek have a new one: the spycam T-shirt. The Electronic Spy Camera Shirt ($39.99) pulls a Purloined Letter by placing the camera's lens in the silkscreened shirt's camera lens. The shirt is a Bond send-up ("From Tokyo with Love").

The camera shoots still images at 640 by 480 pixels, and can hold up to 150 color photos. A remote control vibrates when you press the button, and you plug the camera in via USB to download images. You can remove the electronics in order to wash the shirt. I tried ThinkGeek's Wi-Fi Detector Shirt ($19.99) a few years ago, and it did get a wee bit hot and sticky in there.

After retweeting Laughing Squid Scott Beale's blog entry about the shirt, the immediate response from a friend? "Ooo, I bet the TSA will LOVE that one." The naked full-body scan would be particularly entertaining, I'm sure.

ThinkGeek was on the receiving end of a lovely write-up in Wired magazine a few weeks ago, in which it was revealed how many tens of millions of dollars a year the firm makes, in significant part from weird crap we love and caffeinated products.

The geeks who think will soon be releasing a real version of their pretend Canned Unicorn Meat--a product made entirely of unobtainium, despite the National Pork Board's concern. Wired says of the upcoming product, "open the lid and you'll find bits and pieces of plush unicorns designed to look as though they've been through the abattoir." Think of it as a sort of cognitive dissonance unicorn chaser.

Boing Boing Exclusive: Apple iBox prototype left in laundromat

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 02:27 PM PDT

Mac_iBox.JPG

Via the BB Submitterator, Boing Boing reader Agger (we slipped him $5,000 in crocheted Steampunk funny money for the leak) reports,

Someone accidentally left this prototype of the new Mac iBox in a laundromat in Italy. What to expect: "The interfaces are fairly intuitive, with a variety of mark-generation potential. Problems: The hue range is limited. The receptive surfaces will be sold separately by third party vendors. And the the gray undo tool isn't compatible with all the rendering devices."

The New Mac iBox (Gurney Journey)

Lawsuit of Brunei prince involves life-sized statues of himself having sex

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 01:53 PM PDT

Jordan Jubela says: "I am passing along this interesting story about Prince Jefri of Brunei and his explicit sex statues. This is definitely New York's oddest trial yet starring the scandalous Prince, his former advisers—and graphic life-size bronze statues featuring him and his fiancée practicing the Kama Sutra."
Screen Shot 2010-11-04 At 1.46.07 PmThe most bizarre thing about Prince Jefri of Brunei's lawsuit against his former business advisers is the statues

That's saying something, because this is a pretty bizarre lawsuit. It spans three continents, billions of dollars, and at least $100 million in legal fees spent so far to pursue what ultimately amounts to $6 million in disputed cash involving, among other properties, New York's Palace Hotel. 


Weirder still, all of the dozens of lawyers—toiling for four American law firms and two British ones representing both the plaintiffs and the defendants—are being paid by the prince's older brother, the sultan of Brunei, who, along with the royal family's Brunei Investment Agency, is on the prince's side of the litigation. (This is, to put it mildly, an irony, because in multiple separate proceedings in the Bruneian and British courts, the sultan has spent an estimated $400 million in legal fees to sue his little brother, the former Bruneian finance minister, for allegedly defrauding the oil-rich sultanate of billions of dollars.)

Prince commissions life-sized statues of himself having sex?

The clouds of Michelangelo

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 01:30 PM PDT

wowjustwow.jpg

Part of me wants to add some crazy fact about cloud formations to this photo from the Boing Boing Flickr pool by reader Sean Frego. But I keep getting distracted by what a flippin' amazing image it is. Let's just sit back and awe a bit, shall we?

Ed Felten pwns FTC

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 02:25 PM PDT

The glorious Ed Felten, Princeton professor and RIAA taunter extraordinaire--"Your DRM smells of elderberries, ha!"--has been appointed the Federal Trade Commission's first Chief Technologist. He will advise the agency on emerging tech issues and policy. Felten currently directs Princeton's Center for Information Technology Policy, and has educated decades' worth of students about how to examine off-limit topics in security for the benefit of us all, such as electronic voting booths and DMCA-protected encryption systems. Felten champions the Happy Mutant notion that devices you own are yours to explore. At the FTC, I hope he will reveal colleagues' poorly-chosen passwords on a projector as guests enter the building.

Put on your creativity hat and make a science movie

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 01:10 PM PDT

Science movie man John Pavlus explains entropy, while simultaneously demonstrating how to make a movie explaining science. It's two, two, two great tastes in one! Better yet, there's a contest.

Follow John's advice, and submit your resulting video to Ars Technica by December 25, and you could win some seriously awesome prizes. I'm really looking forward to seeing what comes out of this. Huzzah for science!

Audrey Kawasaki in her studio, and signing at SFMOMA tonight

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 12:09 PM PDT

Images Share Lj Outre05

Audreyyyy Images Stories Boxtoptopweb-1
The incredible Audrey Kawasaki posted a series of studio snapshots and works-in-progress on her blog. Lovely, exquisite work, as usual. If you're in San Francisco, Audrey will be at the SFMOMA tonight signing copies of the new Hi-Fructose Collected Edition 2 Box Set, which is an absolute treasure in its own right. Joining Audrey at the museum will be Camille Rose Garcia, Ferris Plock, Amy Sol, Mars-1, and Hi-Fructose founders Attaboy and Annie Owens.

Unusual vintage laboratory photos

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 12:01 PM PDT

Life Lab Boing1
Life Lab Boing2 Above is a photo of Dr. Arnold Gessell studying a baby at Yale's child psychology laboratory during the mid-20th century. Left, Hughes Aircraft Electronic Labs' "Mobot" apparently demonstrating how it can, er, unzip a woman's dress. More curious laboratory photographs over at "LIFE in the Laboratory."

Today's web justice driveby: Cooks Source Magazine

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 12:19 PM PDT

Screen-shot-2010-11-04-at-11.26.jpg

Cooks Source Magazine editor Judith Griggs is getting a lesson in journalism via the internet today. In 2005 LJ user Illador posted a piece called a "Tale of Two Tarts." Then she found out through friends that Cooks Source had apparently lifted the piece. They published it uncredited after doing some editing to the original. After making reasonable requests for rectifying the matter, Monica got this from the editor:

But honestly Monica, the web is considered "public domain" and you should be happy we just didn't "lift" your whole article and put someone else's name on it! It happens a lot, clearly more than you are aware of, especially on college campuses, and the workplace. If you took offence and are unhappy, I am sorry, but you as a professional should know that the article we used written by you was in very bad need of editing, and is much better now than was originally. Now it will work well for your portfolio. For that reason, I have a bit of a difficult time with your requests for monetary gain, albeit for such a fine (and very wealthy!) institution. We put some time into rewrites, you should compensate me! I never charge young writers for advice or rewriting poorly written pieces, and have many who write for me... ALWAYS for free!
The Cooks Source Facebook page is alight with flames this morning. Feel free to join in if so inclined.

(via nprmonkeysee)

Update: the inevitable fake @cookssource twitter account is a recipe for lulz.

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Goldfish (eye candy from the Boing Boing Flickr pool)

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 10:38 AM PDT

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"Goldfish," a digital composition and found image remix contributed to the Boing Boing Flickr pool by reader Flamenco Sun.

Lawyers can demand your social media password & content

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 10:29 AM PDT

From the Online Privacy Is Eroding Dept.: Federal courts have in the past restricted social media from being discoverable if users had set some privacy settings, but two new precedents, New York case Romano v. Steelcase and Pennsylvania case McMillen v Hummingbird Speedway, allowed defendants to access all plaintiffs' Facebook and MySpace accounts during discovery. (via)

Ridiculous, constricting clothing—to the rescue!

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 07:49 AM PDT

Enjoy this thrilling tale of how massive Victorian skirts saved a female naturalist from being impaled.

Where climate myths come from

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 07:24 AM PDT

Has Earth been getting cooler since 1998?

Aren't all the planets in our solar system heating up because the sun is getting hotter?

Both questions are heavily circulated on the Internet. And the answer to both is, "No." But these ideas came from somewhere. People didn't just make them up out of whole cloth. In this video, Peter Hadfield—a science journalist who's worked for New Scientist and the BBC—digs into the sources behind two big climate myths and explains how simple misunderstandings end up creating false "facts", which spread because nobody goes back and looks at the original, peer-reviewed work.

You can check out Hadfield's entire series of videos on climate change—true skepticism at its best, in my opinion—on YouTube.

SPECIAL FEATURE: Four Lions: Chris Morris' Jiha-ha-had Movie

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 05:35 PM PDT

Director Chris Morris talks to Boing Boing about suppository bombs, human bottle rockets, and his new feature film about a pathetic cell of bumbling terrorists.

Xeni Jardin: Many Boing Boing readers know and love your UK television work—"Nathan Barley," "Brass Eye," your role in the "IT Crowd." Your first feature film, "Four Lions," comes out in US theaters on November 5. What compelled you to take the leap, and why a terrorism comedy, of all things?

CM: I was reading into this subject to fill out this thin version we get from mass media of the war on terrorism and how it works, and kept coming up with things that were funny and surprising. And when that happens, you want to share it with someone. If making a film is the right way to do that, you make a film.

Read the rest



Flash vs. Batteries

Posted: 04 Nov 2010 06:20 AM PDT

Ars Technica reports that having Flash installed on Apple's new laptops can cut battery life by as much as 33 percent.
Posted by at

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