Friday, December 10, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

2600 Magazine condemns DDoS attacks against Wikileaks censors

Posted: 10 Dec 2010 03:47 AM PST

2600: The Hacker Quarterly, has published a public statement opposing the Anonymous denial-of-service attacks on the services that abetted the censorship of Wikileaks. 2600's position is that the inexcusable moral cowardice of Visa and Mastercard and PayPal, etc, do not justify the use of brute force. Additionally, 2600 says that DDoS attacks are tactically unsound, as they create sympathy for these companies, and are used as a pretense for more attacks on Internet freedom. Finally, 2600 wants to strong disassociate "hackers" from people who merely run a piece of push-button DoS software, and to ensure that the security specialists, experimenters, hobbyists and others who make up its community are not unfairly associated with the DDoS attacks.
The assault on Wikileaks must not be overshadowed by the recent denial of service attacks and these certainly must not be allowed to be associated with the hacker community. This will play right into the hands of those who wish to paint us all as threats and clamp down on freedom of speech and impose all kinds of new restrictions on the Internet, not to mention the fact that the exact same types of attacks can be used on "us" as well as "them." (Interestingly, it was only a week ago that "hackers" were blamed for denial of service attacks on Wikileaks itself. That tactic was ineffectual then as well.) Most importantly, these attacks are turning attention away from what is going on with Wikileaks. This fight is not about a bunch of people attacking websites, yet that is what is in the headlines now. It certainly does not help Wikileaks to be associated with such immature and boorish activities any more than it helps the hacker community. From what we have been hearing over the past 24 hours, this is a viewpoint shared by a great many of us. By uniting our voices, speaking out against this sort of action, and correcting every media account we see and hear that associates hackers with these attacks, we stand a good chance of educating the public, rather than enflaming their fears and assumptions.

There are a number of positive steps people - both inside and outside of the hacker community - can take to support Wikileaks and help spread information. Boycotts of companies that are trying to shut Wikileaks down can be very effective and will not win them any sympathy, as the current attacks on their websites are unfortunately doing. Mirroring Wikileaks is another excellent method of keeping the flow of information free. Communicating with friends, family, classes, workplaces, etc. is not only a way of getting the word out, but will also help to sharpen your skills in standing up for what you believe in. This is never accomplished when all one tries to do is silence one's opponent. That has not been, and never should be, the hacker way of dealing with a problem.

2600 Magazine has been publishing news, tutorials, and commentary by, about, and for the hacker community since 1984. We were sued in 2000 by the Motion Picture Association of America for linking to a website containing source code enabling Linux machines to play DVDs and thus became the first test case of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. In a similar vein, we are supporting Wikileaks by linking to their existing website through wikileaks.2600.com. We've already changed where this address points to twice as Wikileaks sites have been taken down, and will continue to ensure that this link always manages to get to wherever Wikileaks happens to be. We hope people follow that link and support the existence of Wikileaks through whatever method is being publicized on their site.

I recognize that "Anonymous" isn't an organization or even a group -- it's a "meme," which is to say, some people put out a call to action, and others take them up on it (or don't), and that is how "Anonymous" makes its decision. But many of us understand "Anonymous" to mean "that subset of /b/ readers and others who are, at this moment, participating in one action or another." It's tedious to have to write out this full epithet, and what's more, it's not as if Anonymous is the first phenomenon to be loosely structured -- after all, the "peace movement" or "environmental movement" had lots of different members who dissented on strategy, tactics, goals and commitments, and undertook many actions with support of different levels and intensity (including provocateurs, fellow travellers, and bystanders who got swept up along the way). But there was and is a "peace movement" and an "environmental movement" and it's not inaccurate to say, "Environmentalists oppose such-and-such," because anyone who has paid any attention knows that this means, "some environmentalists oppose such-and-such, others don't, some have no opinion, and there are no formal membership requirements for the 'environmental movement'."

I can't see any point in the pedantic nitpicking about whether anyone can meaningfully discuss "Anonymous." There are people who sometimes call themselves Anonymous. They come together to do stuff, sometimes. Insisting on this formulation "Some anonymous people who have answered an anonymous call to action and are presently operating under the Anonymous banner," every time someone mentions Anonymous is just dumb.

HACKER MAGAZINE CONDEMNS DENIAL OF SERVICE ATTACKS (Thanks, Emmanuel!)

 


Criterion Collection DVD case photoshopping contest

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 11:53 PM PST

This week's Something Awful Photoshop Phriday theme is "Criterion Cases" -- cases for DVDs that the tony Criterion Collection will likely never feature. While the Weekend at Bernies entry from Big Ol Billy is inspired, I actually hooted with laughter at frumpsnake's Cannibal Holocaust.

Criterion Cases!

 


Photos of Tokyo commuters pressed against steamy subway windows

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:49 PM PST

HOWTO be a Michelangelo of work avoidance

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:45 PM PST

Columbia Business School prof Eric Abrahamson studies "leadership and organizational problem solving" and has identified what he calls the "Michelangelos of work avoidance" -- workers who excel at doing nothing without getting fired. Forbes magazine reports on his research:
One of her skills was spending little time at her desk or anywhere near the department where she supposedly worked, so that her bosses didn't even think about her much. Out of sight, out of mind, you might say. "If people don't think of you, they can't give you work," Abrahamson says. Other ways to accomplish that: Arrive at different, unpredictable times of day. Work from home. Set up your schedule so that you frequently change locations.

Another tactic: Don't empty your voicemail box. That way when people call they'll get the impression you're working so hard you don't even have time to delete messages. This has the added advantage of making it impossible for bosses or colleagues to leave you verbal instructions about work assignments.

If your boss does manage to track you down and try to give you some work, you can strategically deploy a kind of good-natured cluelessness. "The principal here is that you try to give work to a person and come to the conclusion that they can't even understand the instructions," Abrahamson explains. In such a case most bosses will figure it's easier to do the work themselves.

If you perform a specialized function within your office, you can distort the time it takes to get it done. Among June's supposed jobs was keeping time sheets for her department's staff. No one else knew the system she'd set up or how long keeping the data took. Thus she could make a task that took minutes appear to consume hours of toil. People with computer expertise who work among Luddites can easily exploit this tactic.

How To Get Paid To Do Nothing (via Futurismic)

(Image: Give Me Slack bumper-sticker, Church of Subgenius)

 


UK supergroup records 4'33", hopes to top Xmas charts

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:38 PM PST

A UK supergroup has recorded a cover of 4'33", John Cage's infamous "silent" composition. They're hoping to take their four minutes and thirty three seconds' worth of breathing noises, soft shuffling, and chair creaks to the top of the UK pop music charts this Christmas -- and more importantly, they're hoping to beat out whatever awful earworm the X-Factor TV programme foists on the nation. I say best of British luck to them!
Later today, Pete Doherty, the Kooks, Billy Bragg, Imogen Heap, Orbital and many more will gather in a London studio, collaborating in a bid for this year's Christmas No 1. But the strangest bit is not the team-up: it's that they are not recording a single note. The ad hoc supergroup is assembling in support of Cage Against the Machine, a charity campaign to take John Cage's infamous 4'33" - a composition of pure silence - to the top of the Yuletide charts.

The campaign has been gathering momentum over the past couple of months, winning celebrity endorsements, amused press coverage and around 60,000 Facebook fans. Their inspiration is obvious: last year's successful push to raise Rage Against the Machine's Killing In the Name, released in 1992, over X Factor winner Joe McElderry's The Climb. In 2010, instead of loosing a profanity-laden rap-rock tirade on the British public, Cage Against the Machine organisers want to unfurl the serene sound of silence, taking on whoever wins X Factor next week. The plan recalls a similar star-studded silence for this year's Remembrance Day.

Cage Against the Machine: pop stars to stage silent X Factor protest (via Making Light)
 


Surreal and beautiful stickers from Naoto Hattori

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:29 PM PST

Eye of Mordor/US dollar bill mashup tee

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:25 PM PST

FarmVille's secret: making you anxious

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:16 PM PST

In a long and thoughtful interview with Gamasutra, indie game design star Jonathan "Braid" Blow talks about his problem with the design of FarmVille (and similar games) -- they're compelling because they make you anxious, not because they are "fun":
I still wouldn't tell people, "Don't make that game" exactly, I would say, "Think about what you're making and be careful when you make it and try not to exploit players." But I mean now that we've got FarmVille and stuff like that, I pretty much would say "don't make that kind of game" because I don't see much value in it.

It's only about exploiting the players and yes, people report having fun with that kind of game. You know, certain kinds of hardcore game players don't find much interest in FarmVille, but a certain large segment of the population does. But then when you look at the design process in that game, it's not about designing a fun game. It's not about designing something that's going to be interesting or a positive experience in any way -- it's actually about designing something that's a negative experience.

It's about "How do we make something that looks cute and that projects positivity" -- but it actually makes people worry about it when they're away from the computer and drains attention from their everyday life and brings them back into the game. Which previous genres of game never did. And it's about, "How do we get players to exploit their friends in a mechanical way in order to progress?" And in that or exploiting their friends, they kind of turn them in to us and then we can monetize their relationships. And that's all those games are, basically.

And there's this kind of new way where people are, like Bryan Reynolds working on FrontierVille and stuff, making it supposedly deeper, but that kind of thing has been very token so far. And in fact, I would argue that the audience of that kind of game doesn't necessarily want a deeper game, or certainly that's not proven; it's very speculative.

So I would say don't make that stuff. If you want to make a Facebook game, there are a lot of very creative things that could be done, but the FarmVille template is not the right one.

Catching Up With Jonathan Blow (via Super Punch)

(Image: My Farmville Animals, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from brownpau's photostream)

 


Alice in Wonderland stoner tee

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:09 PM PST

John Bolton demands obliteration of Wikileaks' electrons

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:15 PM PST

john_r_bolton.pngJohn Bolton, former U.N. Ambassador and President of the Presidium of the Supreme Stacheviet, has an opinion on Wikileaks! It is quite a predictable one, but his editorial in The Guardian offers this deathless, Thiessenesque proposition:
The Pentagon's cyber-warriors need target practice in this new form of combat, and they could long ago have practised by obliterating WikiLeaks' electrons.
I have been searching for a theme tune appropriate for our cyber-warriors, and believe I have found an excellent candidate:

Rogue Archivist beer

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 10:06 PM PST

John Taylor Williams (who, incidentally, is a talented sound engineer and masters my podcasts) and Thomas "CommandLine" Gideon both volunteer for Carl Malamud's Amateur Scanning League (a project to rescue America's public domain government-funded videos and put them on the web). They're also serious beer-brewers. To commemorate the ASL and Carl's good work, they named their latest beer after him: Rogue Archivist Beer. Those are some copyfightin' suds!
Last night, I schlepped a box holding two 750ml big bottles and four small bottles to ChurchKey, about four long blocks from the Dupont Circle metro station here in DC. I was going there to meet with the senior scanners and Carl for his monthly trip. Over the course of a light dinner and several rounds of varied and interesting beers, I presented Carl with the two bigs bottles and shared the smalls with my fellow volunteers.

Pictured at the left is Carl's enthusiastic endorsement, "A damn fine beer!" We didn't open the beer, not wanting to create trouble for the venue, but I shared John's and my impressions from tasting the beer over the Thanksgiving holiday. Carl figures he will open the beer before his return to Sebastopol, most likely tonight. He mentioned the possibility of sharing the brew at an event on the Hill so I may have further, fascinating news later tonight or tomorrow.

At all events, he was incredibly happy at receiving our homage and enthusiastic at the prospect of tasting it. Given how well the beer turned out, I have no doubt John and I will make the recipe again.

Giving the Rogue Archivist to Its Namesake (Thanks, Carl!)
 


Young female Star Wars fan rescued from bullies by girl-geeks (& friends) around the world

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 09:57 PM PST

When 7-year-old Katie Goldman was bullied at school for drinking from a Star Wars water-bottle (Star Wars "is for boys"), her mom was dismayed, and shared her feelings on her blog, along with pictures of the thoroughly adorable Katie.

What happened next is my favorite kind of Internet Smurfs' Family Christmas moments: girl geeks from all over the world, including members of the Star Wars cast, sent letters of support to Katie, a kind of nerdy version of "It Gets Better," culminating with a shower of LucasFilm merch (Katie has generously offered to share this with her classmates, who apparently have rethought the gendering of Star Wars).

"I immediately had to say something," Taber said. "The whole theme of the 'Star Wars' universe is an anti-bullying theme. It's good versus evil, standing side by side with your friends, doing what's right. One of the most important things to stopping bullies in their tracks is to empower kids to stand up for themselves."

Taber found Katie's mom's blog, sent it to everyone she knew, and left a comment she hoped would help.

"I am [the] actress who has the great honor of being Padme Amidala on 'Star Wars: the Clone Wars!' I just wanted to tell Katie that she is in VERY good company being a female Star Wars fans," Taber wrote. "I know that Padme would tell you to be proud of who YOU are and know that you are not ALONE!

"THE FORCE is with you Katie!"

'The Force' is with you, Katie (Thanks, DonnieBNYC, via Submitterator!)
 


Goat heads found on doorsteps

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 08:11 PM PST

This week, three bloody goat heads were found on the doorsteps of homes in Cincinnati's upscale Hyde Park neighborhood. From WCPO.com:
"We've been working closely with the Criminal Investigations Section who obviously have a lot more avenues of things we can look at and we're trying to put a common link between the three people like a disgruntled employee, but so far nothing," added (Cincinnati Police Detective Charles) Zopfi.

Police currently do not believe there is any kind of occult connection.

"Usually when satanic or cult worshipers do this kind of thing they leave a mark they want you to know exactly what, who and why this was done," said Zopfi.

Police interviewed all three families to see if they are connected in some way and so far the answer is no. "Right now it could be anything from a teenage prank to a very nasty prank to somebody who is just targeting these people for a specific reason and right now we don't know why," said Zopfi.

"Goat heads left on Hyde Park doorsteps" (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

Bench Cookies

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 06:51 PM PST

51+aW41eKrL._SL500_AA300_.jpeg I discovered Bench Cookies at the Rockler woodworking store more than a year ago. Billed as "work grippers," they have smooth plastic sides and textured rubber surfaces on top and bottom. You just place them under objects you're sanding, sawing or painting to hold the object in place. There's no clamping or screwing involved. They're amazing. Wood chips and dust have no effect - they do exactly what they're supposed to. So instead of rummaging for scraps of wood or an old book or two to prop up a project, I reach for bench cookies. I took them to the print shop where I do intaglio printing. Inking and wiping a large copper or zinc plate on a glass table used to be a nightmare - bench cookies make it a breeze. They hold the plate in place and I can pick it up and turn it as I work, and since it's off the table I can wipe the edges, too. I don't think Rockler had any idea how useful they'd be in an art studio. Their great function and inexpensive price make them a perfect present for anyone that does any kind of project. Turns out Rockler's even made some nice black ones now for uses outside the workshop, like holding up your turntable, keeping it stable and providing vibration reduction. --Jeff Woodbury Bench Cookies $12 Comment on this at Cool Tools. Or, submit a tool!

Wikileaks: Anonymous stops dropping DDoS bombs, starts dropping science

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 06:38 PM PST

1291941424225.gif

If this image is to be believed—and I have no reason not to, other than that I found it on the internet—the rebel squadrons behind Anonymous (attn. "news" hacks - that would be an entirely different group from Wikileaks and/or Wikipedia) are about to change their approach. So far, as we've witnessed, they have been launching point-and-click distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks at companies perceived as the enemies of Wikileaks. Those targets included Mastercard, Paypal, and Visa (companies that froze donation funding), and Amazon (which denied hosting services). The new approach suggests more sophisticated thinking. This new mission, apparently, is to actually read the cables Wikileaks has published and find the most interesting bits that haven't been publicized yet, then publicize them.

In my opinion, this action would have far more positive impact. Anonymous often repeats the Orwell quote, "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." Looks like they decided to take those words to heart.

Scientist needs to Just Say No to huffing

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:51 PM PST

To make up for the troubling, after-dinner cow eyeballs, please enjoy this clip of a community college professor inhaling sulfur hexafluoride for a 1995 cable access video.

Thanks, Awesome Esther!

White nose syndrome has a higher mortality rate than ebola

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:42 PM PST

I knew that white nose syndrome—the fungal infection that's killed more than a million bats in North America—was virulent. But I hadn't quite grasped how deadly it was until I read Brandon Keim's Wired.com story about the researchers struggling to do something, anything about this disease. Apparently, in caves infected by the fungus, between 80 and 99.9 percent of the bats have died. Researchers interviewed by Keim describe walking over carpets of bat skeletons in some caves. And there's no good way to treat sick bats, or immunize healthy ones. It's a downer. But a fascinating downer.

Neil Armstrong personally responds to an NPR correspondent's rhetorical moon-landing questions

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:29 PM PST

moonmoon.jpg

Yesterday, NPR's Robert Krulwich wondered aloud why, after all the trouble it took to get to the moon, did astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stick within 100 yards of their lunar lander?

Today, Krulwich got an answer to his rhetorical question—from Armstrong, himself.

We were operating in a near perfect vacuum with the temperature well above 200 degrees Fahrenheit with the local gravity only one sixth that of Earth. That combination cannot be duplicated here on Earth, but we tried as best we could to test our equipment for those conditions. For example, because normal air conditioning is inadequate for lunar conditions, we were required to use cold water to cool the interior of our suits. We did not have any data to tell us how long the small water tank in our backpacks would suffice. NASA officials limited our surface working time to 2 and 3/4 hours on that first surface exploration to assure that we would not expire of hyperthermia.

There was great uncertainty about how well we would be able to walk in our cumbersome pressurized suit. My colleague demonstrated a variety of techniques in view of the television camera that I had installed in a position predetermined to be in the optimum spot for coverage of all of our activities. Preflight planners wanted us to stay in TV range so that they could learn from our results how they could best plan for future missions.

But, it seems, our boy Neil was not completely by-the-book...

I candidly admit that I knowingly and deliberately left the planned working area out of TV coverage to examine and photograph the interior crater walls for possible bedrock exposure or other useful information. I felt the potential gain was worth the risk.

On a scale of one-to-Buzz Aldrin punching that guy, this is worth at least two good uppercuts.

Read the entire letter at NPR's Krulwich Wonders blog

Image: Some rights reserved by jurvetson

iPhone baby quilt

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:10 PM PST

Tumblr Lckk5Fdpb71Qz5Sbyo1 500 BB pal Orli Cotel says, "My friends just had a baby and one of the grandmothers made an amazing quilt that looks like an iPhone..." There's a nap for that!

Bucket of cow eyes (BoingBoing Flickr Pool)

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 03:10 PM PST

coweyes.jpg

Yup. It's a bucket full of cow eyes, all right.

Photographed by reader Robert Costin, the photo was taken in a biology classroom at Nevada State College. The cow eyes in question were being passed out to students as dissection subjects. Costin assures me that, creepy as this is, it's nothing compared to what he saw in the cadaver lab.

I'm sure he's right. My high school anatomy class once took a field trip to a cadaver lab at Kansas State University. Cow eyeballs have nothing on Rubbermaid tubs full of preserved human genitalia, still attached to disembodied hips and upper thighs. For some reason, those freaked out 17-year-old me way more than the still mostly-intact dead bodies.

Image used with permission. Check out the BoingBoing Flickr Pool for more weird and wonderful photos.

School's out in England!

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 02:41 PM PST

The Brits have tripled school fees, to the outrage of those whose prospects of receiving higher education become ever more distant. Upon finding Prince Charles painting the town red, protesters painted his car a different color. Ben Goldacre suggests the opening of "imaginary gold mines" as an alternative investment in the nation's future.

How the Antikythera Mechanism worked -- with Lego!

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 12:19 PM PST

Hossein "Hoder" Derakhshan temporarily released from Iranian prison

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 12:16 PM PST

Cyrus Farivar sez, "Iranian-Canadian blogger Hossein Derakhshan was temporarily released from a Tehran prison, after having been incarcerated for 26 months, according to a report Thursday on Mashregh News, a conservative Iranian news website. The site was among the first to report Derakhshan's conviction at the end of September on charges of 'conspiring with hostile governments, disseminating anti-Islamic propaganda, disseminating anti-revolutionary propaganda, blasphemy, and operating and managing obscene pornography websites.' The account was confirmed by a source close to the Derakhshan family, who wished to remain anonymous and said Derakhshan was 'happy to be out,' adding 'we have been pushing for this for months, especially after his trial, but it has always been refused.'"

Iranian blogging pioneer temporarily released from prison

 


Graffiti'd crime warning

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 09:50 AM PST

Images Photo
BB pal Greg Long snapped this photo of a stencil graffiti'd warning of crime in San Francisco's SOMA area: "High Crime Area. Secure Person & Auto"

Trailer for Chip Kidd's new Shazam! book

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 09:50 AM PST


(Video Link) Chip Kidd, one of the greatest living book designers, wrote and designed Shazam!: The Golden Age of the World's Mightiest Mortal, a giant-sized tribute to Captain Marvel, a superhero created in 1939 by C. C. Beck and Bill Parker.

Captain Marvel's popularity often exceeded Superman's. At his height of fame, the comic book was published bi-weekly and had a circulation of 1.3 million copies (wiki). The fate of the character is sad, involving lawsuits from DC, who said Captain Marvel was a Superman rip-off, but Kidd's book focuses on happier times in the life of the world's mightiest mortal, and there were plenty of them, as this video attests.

Stay tuned for an exclusive preview of Shazam! here on Boing Boing soon.

Shazam!: The Golden Age of the World's Mightiest Mortal

WikiWecaps

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 06:09 PM PST

[YouTube video Link]

Joe Sabia of Get Whirled offers this hilarious and appropriately instructive recap of the Wikileaks saga as it has unfolded over the last few weeks.

TEDWomen Day 2 highlights: personal robots, breast cancer detection, and parenting taboos

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 09:13 AM PST

I departed TEDWomen feeling very inspired, happy, and exhausted. The event was amazing, though I do think they could have done a better job of bringing more smart women who can talk about traditionally non-women issues — math, sports, science not related to breasts or pregnancy — to the stage. (Hearing Danielle Fisher talk about how she felt when she became the youngest woman to climb the Seven Summits, for example, would have been more fulfilling to me than listening to a parade of political figureheads talk about what it was like to be both a grandmother and a leader.) I hope TEDWomen will catalyze bringing more women to main TED, and that we'll be able to dig deeper beyond the rhetoric female empowerment and gender disparity to stories about women who do really cool shit and don't necessarily have to frame it as a woman thing.

Here are some highlights from day two (see also: Session 1 highlights & Session 2 highlights.):

5244800199_b1bdd1bcdd_z.jpeg

Cynthia Breazeal, founder of the Personal Robots Lab at MIT, talked about how personalized robots can be used to improve communication, health, and media. She's been fascinated with personal sidekick robots since watching Star Wars as a child and has expanded her research based on the idea that robots = social technology. "People respond to robots a lot like how they respond to people," she says — by how likable, engaging, and trustworthy they are.

Communication: Breazeal's parents hardly ever get to see their grandkids because they live thousands of miles away; what if grandma could appear in the kids' room as Grandma Bot and interact with the kids by playing with real world toys or reading books by the bedside?


Health: In an experiment conducted with a diet program in the Boston area, participants who had a robot displaying diet information on-screen had a much more interactive and trusting experience than those who had a computer screen displaying the same information. People named the robot, dressed it up, even said good bye to it when it returned to MIT at the end of the study. People did not say good bye to their computers.


Media: Breazeal is experimenting with new ways of coming up with children's media that fosters creativity and innovation. She showed a video of her kids playing with a little cubic robot that comes out of a giant screen and plays with them. Quote:


Robots touch something deeply human within us. Whether they make us feel more inovative and creative, more connected thru distance... or tells us more about ourselves, to me, robots are all about people.

TEDWomen_01488_D32_8709_pr.jpg

Deborah Rhodes talked about the importance of individualizing breast cancer screening based on breast density. Dense breast tissue and tumors both appear white in a mammogram — it's not an effective detection method for some women. Rhodes is currently perfecting a new technology called molecular breast imaging (MBI) that offers a much more accurate tumor detection system for women with denser breasts.


MBI uses a gamma detector made of thin layer of semiconductor material to produce much clearer images that do not show breast density in white. The first prototype was made by putting together a grid of these gamma plates and attaching them to an old mammography machine with duct tape.


A mammogram relies on appearance of tissue, but MBI evaluates the molecular behavior of tumors and is impervious to density. Patients receive an injection of radio tracer; then the breast is placed between detectors and uses light, pain-free compression (if you've ever had a mammogram, you know that this step normally hurts like hell) to transmit the image to the computer. In 2004, Rhodes got a grant from the Susan G. Komen foundation to study a thousand women with dense breasts — digital mammography only found 25% of tumors, while MBI found 83%. The MBI has a radiation dose equivalent to radiation of one digital mammogram, about 1/5 the amount of most gamma technologies.


MBI is as accurate as MRI, far less complex to interpret, and a fraction of the cost. Rhodes also talked a little about the politics of breast cancer research — she had trouble getting it published because some journal owners had vested interest in other competing technologies. The manuscript will be published later this month in the journal Radiology.

Babble.com founders Rufus Griscom and Alisa Volkman — who are married to each other and have three boys — gave a funny talk about how speaking about parenting honestly and managing expectations can "bend the happiness baseline" while raising a family together. They presented their ideas as a list of four parenting taboos:

1. You can't say you didn't fall in love with your baby in the first minute: Griscom told a funny story about the overwhelm and intense emotions he felt the moment his first baby popped out — as exciting as it was, what he felt for the baby was more "very strong affection" than "the most love it's possible to feel." Volkman joked that, for the first few months after each of their children's births, Griscom is Uncle Rufus (i.e. not Dad).

2. You can't talk about how lonely having a baby can be: Right after the birth, Volkman said, "I felt like I was a vessel for the future of humanity." But when she got home, she felt disconnected/shut out/shut in. When she asked her sister why she hadn't warned her about this loneliness, the sister said: it's just not something you want to be telling a new mother. Volkman says we should talk about the difficult aspects of new motherhood with brutal honesty and candor. Less than 50% of Americans live near family members; in other cultures, expecting mothers move back in with their own mothers for the months immediately before and after childbirth.

3. You can't talk about your miscarriage: 15-20% of pregnancies end in miscarriage, yet there's no community around this "invisible loss." Volkman talked about her own miscarriage and showed the last ultrasound photo of what would have been her second soon. "I felt shame that I failed at something I'm genetically engineered to do."

4. You can't say that your average happiness has declined: Raising a child through the terrible twos and teenage angst is tough. And while it's full of more ups and downs that you might ever have in your lifetime, it's quite likely that your average happiness will decline compared to when you were young and single or after the kids leave the nest and you're free to do whatever you want.

TEDWomen_01449_D31_6346_c_pr.jpg

Also....
*Heather Knight brought a robot on-stage to tell live jokes.
*National Geographic filmmakers Beverly and Derek Joubert showed amazing footage of lionesses attacking elephants and leopards nurturing baby baboons in Africa.
*Donna Karan talked about how how the death of her father, her boss Anne Klein, her mother, and her life partner were all also pivotal moments of birth in her career.
*Kiran Bedi, India's first female police officer and prison commissioner, gave the first and only parking ticket to an Indian prime minister and later introduced prayer and meditation to 1,000 prisoners.
*The Skoll Foundation's Sally Osberg stopped reading Cinderella stories at age 10 and instead read biographies about the early social entrepreneurs of America, like Florence Nightingale and Eleanor Roosevelt. "They were problem solvers who understood that ministering to the suffering and the inflicted was nice, but insufficient."
*20-year old Sejal Hathi talked about the power of community for girls — to date, her organization Girls Helping Girls has trained and mobilized over 30,000 young women who are creating microenterprises and sustainable initiatives in their communities.

Student protesters in London use Google Maps to outwit police "kettling"

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 08:39 AM PST


Dr Ben "Bad Science" Goldacre sez,
A few days ago I suggested that the UK's protesting students could do with some kind of "anti-kettling app", to outwit the efforts of the police to stop them protesting, and keep them detained out in the freezing cold subzero temperatures well after bedtime. It turns out I was over engineering things in my head, the students on the anti-fees protests in London are now using this simple Google map (I got sent it by this guy). If you watch it, you can follow what's happening in London right now. With audio/video/image updates and stuff, it could also become a chaotic unflitered news repository. There may be others from around the country.

Don't let me get carried away, but what i find interesting with this, with Wikileaks, and going right back to older underground video news outlets like Undercurrents, is that it does feel a bit as if the tools traditionally only available to the state for things like surveillance, evidence gathering, coordination and dissemination are being democratised. I also very much enjoy the appearance of Godzilla in the Thames.

student protestors using live tech to outwit police in london
 


Google foreclosure maps

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 07:40 AM PST


Barry sez,
Google Maps keeps evolving, expanding the ability to drill down into granular detail. The latest updated trick? Mapping foreclosures for sale. This great and terrible Google trick has been around at least since 2008 -- but it seems to have become much more robust earlier this year:

1. Punch any US address into Google Maps.
2. Your options are Earth, Satellite, Map, Traffic and . . . More. (Select "More")
3. The drop down menu gives you a check box option for "Real Estate."
4. The left column will give you several options (You may have to select "Show Options")
5. Check the box marked "Foreclosure."

I wanted to demonstrate the full extent of Foreclosures in the US, so after setting GMaps on foreclosure listings, I slowly zoomed out of the map. Voila! Most foreclosures that are for sale in the USA are now showing on your screen. (Note: This map does not reveal any of the millions of REOs that have already been sold by the banks that hold them).

Google Map Foreclosure Tricks (Thanks, Barry!)
 


"Hacktivists are the same people who share child porn"

Posted: 09 Dec 2010 07:42 AM PST

If you want to understand the mindset behind much of the media's revulsion at Wikileaks, Paul Carr's column today at TechCrunch is a good place to start!
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)

CrunchyTech

Blog Archive