Wednesday, December 22, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Bankster robberies: Bank of America and friends wrongfully foreclose on customers, steal all their belongings

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 03:16 AM PST

The NYT reports on a growing phenomenon of wrongful foreclosure by US banks on homeowners who are caught up on their mortgage payments -- and on homeowners who have no mortgage at all. In some cases, homeowners return from vacation to discover their locks changed and their every earthly possession sent to the dump (one woman lost her dead husband's ashes when her bank burgled her ski chalet). Prominent in the list of banksters who rob innocent people of their homes and all their belongings? Those upright guardians of morality at Bank of America, who have decided that their customers can't choose to contribute to Wikileaks's defense fund.
When Mimi Ash arrived at her mountain chalet here for a weekend ski trip, she discovered that someone had broken into the home and changed the locks.

When she finally got into the house, it was empty. All of her possessions were gone: furniture, her son's ski medals, winter clothes and family photos. Also missing was a wooden box, its top inscribed with the words "Together Forever," that contained the ashes of her late husband, Robert.

The culprit, Ms. Ash soon learned, was not a burglar but her bank. According to a federal lawsuit filed in October by Ms. Ash, Bank of America had wrongfully foreclosed on her house and thrown out her belongings, without alerting Ms. Ash beforehand.

In a Sign of Foreclosure Flaws, Suits Claim Break-Ins by Banks (via Reddit)

(Image: G20-social-justice-and-state-security-demonstrations-20100626T145553.0257.JPG, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from tim_and_selena's photostream)

 


How the FCC failed the nation on Net Neutrality

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:56 PM PST

Writing in Salon, Dan Gillmor takes a crack at explaining what a cowardly let-down the FCC's cop-out Net Neutrality rules are:
But when it came to rules that might boost network neutrality -- the notion that end users (you and me) should decide what content and services we want without interference from the ISPs -- the FCC's order paid lip service to the concept while enshrining its eventual demise. In theory, land-line carriers (traditional phone and cable companies, for the most part) won't be allowed to play favorites. In practice, the new rules invite them to concoct new kinds of services that do precisely that.

But even that fuzzy concept won't apply to mobile carriers, which means that discrimination will be explicitly permitted by companies like AT&T and Verizon for customers of the iPhone and iPad, among other devices that are increasingly the most important entry point to the Internet.

The rules are also an open invitation to ISPs to spy on their customers. Genachowski's repeated references to users' right to use "legal" content were code words for the entertainment industry's push to have ISPs become their enforcement arms in the copyright wars. Hollywood wants your ISP to watch everything people do, and then block users who are alleged to be infringing.

The FCC's weak new "open Internet" rules
 


Christopher Nolan's hand-drawn Inception timeline

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:52 PM PST


In Inception: The Shooting Script, Christopher Nolan's brother Jonathan interviews him about the remarkable film (it gets my vote as one of the best science fiction movies I've ever seen). The book includes the hand-drawn timeline for the film's action.

Christopher Nolan's interview with brother Jonathan in the 'Inception' shooting script (via Super Punch)

 


One law for them, another for us: is it illegal to record the police on the job?

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:36 PM PST

In Reason magazine, Radley Balko takes an in-depth look at all the places in the USA where it's nominally illegal to record the police, and all the people who've faced fines or prison for recording law enforcement officers breaking the law with illegal beatings and harassment. High courts at the state and federal level are pretty consistent in ruling that privacy rules don't protect cops who are, say, beating someone up in an alley or waving their guns around at a roadside stop, but this doesn't prevent cops and prosecutors from dragging people who record law enforcement misdeeds through the criminal justice system.

The second incident came on April 13, about the same time McKenna's case began to make national news. Maryland State Trooper David Uhler pulled over motorcyclist Anthony Graber for speeding and reckless driving. Graber had a video camera mounted to his helmet that was recording at the time of the stop. Uhler, dressed in street clothes, emerged from his unmarked car with gun drawn, yelling. Graber was given only a traffic ticket, but he was miffed at Uhler's behavior. So he posted the video on YouTube. Days later, Maryland State Police conducted an early-morning raid on Graber's home, held Graber and his parents for 90 minutes, confiscated computer equipment, arrested him, and took him to jail.

Graber was charged with two felonies. The first was violating Maryland's wiretapping law by recording Uhler without the trooper's consent. The second was "possession of an intercept device," a provision in the same law that was intended for bugs and wiretaps but in this case referred to Graber's video camera, a device that is perfectly legal to own and use in just about any other context. Thanks to legislation written to prevent the surreptitious interception of communications, Graber faced up to 16 years in prison for recording a cop during a public traffic stop.

Wiretapping statutes apply to audio recordings, with or without video. Maryland is one of 12 states with a wiretapping law that requires consent from all parties to a conversation for someone to legally record it. But in 10 of those 12 states, including Maryland, the statute says a violation occurs only when the offended party has a reasonable expectation that the conversation is private. This privacy provision prevents people who record public meetings or inadvertently pick up conversations while shooting video in public from accidentally committing felonies. Civil liberties advocates argue that on-duty police officers, like people attending city council meetings or walking down a public street, do not have a reasonable expectation of privacy. For Graber to be convicted under Maryland's wiretapping law, a prosecutor would have to argue that Uhler--a police officer who had pulled over a motorist, drawn his gun, and yelled at the guy on the side of a busy highway--had a reasonable expectation that the encounter would remain private.

The War on Cameras (via /.)
 


Top Chinese Internet memes of 2010

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 11:28 PM PST

From Chinese news service Xinhua, the top ten Chinese Internet memes of 2010:
3. On 2010 November 2nd, the country's National Development and Reform Commission publicly released the results of their October urban food retail price monitoring. Amongst the 31 products it monitored, nearly 80% of the product prices had increased. With the continuous increase of food prices, new words from "蒜你狠" [a pun involving the word for garlic and the phrase "you are hateful/ruthless"] to "姜你军" [a pun involving the word for ginger and the phrase "checkmate"], and again from "糖高宗" [sugar] to "油你涨" [cooking oil] and "苹神马" [apples (notice that this pun has an extra meaning involving the "shen ma" buzzword too)], were created one after another. The continuous increase of prices also gave birth to the ""海豚族" (海量囤积一族)" ["hai tun zu" (hai liang tun ji yi zu), literally "dolphin tribe/people" (meaning people who hoarded to avoid price increases)]. Just like dominoes knocked over, apart from agricultural product prices collectively increasing, the prices of related food, clothing, housing, transportation [daily necessities] were also gradually rising, the prices affecting everyone's lives.

At the same time as people cut costs, they also discover new ways to do things. Group buys became a new style of purchasing. Several websites promoted "today's group buy" products with prices up to 90% off, attracting internet shoppers. As an emerging e-commerce model, group buys refer to users going through consumer-organized groups, specialized group buying websites, or business organized groups to increase their bargaining power with business and gain large discounts on products. This has attracted the attention of consumers, manufacturers, and even capital markets.

2010′s Top 10 Chinese Internet Buzzwords & Catchphrases (via Beyond the Beyond)
 


How Creative Commons saved Ficlets

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:46 PM PST

Robotech sez, "In '07, Boing Boing covered Ficlets.com, a Creative Commons-based project with involvement by John Scalzi and Wil Wheaton, in which people could write stories in 1024-byte chunks, including ones based on other peoples' stories. In early 2009, AOL shuttered Ficlets--but the CC license came to the rescue, allowing its contents to be scooped and rehosted elsewhere. 3 mo. later, a new version of the site launched: ficly.com. I wrote this piece going into more detail about how the CC license saved Ficlets."

Microfiction writing site Ficly.com: 22,000 ficlets in and still going (Thanks, Robotech, via Submitterator!)

 


Auto-generated Melville/Dickinson poetry

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:40 PM PST

Andrew sez, "MIT faculty member Nick Montfort, along with poet Stephanie Strickland, just published Sea and Spar Between, a poetry generator based on text from the poems of Emily Dickinson and Melville's Moby-Dick. From those combined works, the poem can assemble into stanzas the words very common or very unique to both. The result is an incredible way to learn poetry: you get to explore how we read, analyze, and write poetry ourselves."

Sea and Spar Between

Nick Montfort publishes "Sea and Spar Between", a Dickinson+Melville poetry generator

(Thanks, Andrew!)

 


EFF's year-in-review: 8-bit nostalgia edition

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 09:31 PM PST

Katina from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez, "From fighting fiendish copyright trolls, to freeing your smart phones from restrictions against jailbreaking, to helping you take better control of your privacy on Facebook, EFF works tirelessly for your digital rights. What better way to celebrate than to chronicle a few of our biggest fights in 8-bit style? These breakout victories were only possible thanks to individuals like you, so please consider making a year-end contribution if you haven't yet done so."

I make a major donation every year to EFF (this year I gave $5,000) because I see the work they do as fundamental to keeping the Internet free and open for every other fight I care about, from Wikileaks censorship to privacy, from access to knowledge to freedom of association and freedom of the press.

Support EFF this Holiday Season! (Thanks, Katina!)

Confirmed: Wikileaks' next target is Bank of America

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:11 PM PST

Screen-shot-2010-12-21-at-7.37.gifBuried in that Times of London article you didn't read because it was behind a paywall was confirmation by Julian Assange that Wikileaks will release a very large cache of documents about Bank of America, to be released in early 2011.
"We don't want the bank to suffer unless it's called for," Assange told The Times. "But if its management is operating in a responsive way there will be resignations," he said, without giving details about the material.
Oh, and,

Assange compared WikiLeaks' "persecution" to that endured by Jews in the US in the 1950s.


Michael Moore on Wikileaks on Maddow

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:41 PM PST

Filmmaker Michael Moore was a guest on The Rachel Maddow Show this evening, and the topic at hand: Wikileaks.

Moore discussed the confusion around a leaked State Department Cable relating to his film Sicko—the Guardian reported the cable stating Sicko been banned in Cuba. I reblogged that here on Boing Boing. The content of the cable was not true, said Moore tonight (he'd published a detailed explanation earlier on his blog). The Guardian updated their coverage here, and I'd updated Boing Boing's here. Maria Bustillos, who is Cuban, wrote a nuanced post over at The Awl that suggests the cable might not have been false at the time it was written— but that Moore is entirely correct in stating that the movie did not end up being banned. Go have a read.

Moore (and MSNBC's Keith Olbermann) came under much fire last week for comments on the Julian Assange rape allegations. Count me among the thousands of pissed off women who found those comments objectionable and inaccurate. Tonight, Moore addressed this in a manner that struck me as respectful for all parties involved (including Assange). Moore seems like a sincere and reasonable person whose heart is in the right place.

I'll update the post with video once MSNBC makes it available. Perhaps the most interesting element of their chat related to a newly leaked cable (I can't find it online yet) that apparently documents the U.S. attempting to shut down a screening of Moore's film Fahrenheit 911 in New Zealand, of all places.

Update: Video links for The Rachel Maddow Show segments with Moore—
1) Moore on his support for Assange, and on the "Sicko was Banned" cable
2) Moore on the need for transparency, and whether governments should be allowed to keep secrets.



CIA launches the Wikileaks Task Force, or "WTF" for short

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 08:05 PM PST

Via our pals at Danger Room: "The CIA has a Wikileaks Task Force. That's right: a WTF." More at the Washington Post. "Wonder if they ride around in ROFLcopters," asks BB reader @henchling.

Santa's Naughty List Hits WikiLeaks

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 06:28 PM PST

Wikileaks: What's inside the #Cablegate dump, day 23

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 06:21 PM PST

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(Image contributed to the Boing Boing Flickr pool by BB reader Tom Blanton)

A reminder that various news organizations are still doing the hard work of digging through the Wikileaks-leaked US diplomatic cables, and parsing out the newsworthy contents. The Guardian's archive of daily recaps is here. We're now 23 days into Cablegate, and today's edition is here: it includes a nod to related coverage in the New York Times and Der Spiegel.

In today's batch, cables concerning nuclear reactors in Bulgaria; Richard Branson's disdain for the quality of the UK's education system, Libya vs. Marks & Spencer in Tripoli; and Syria's belief that Israel was behind the sniper killing of General Muhammad Suleiman, President Bashar al-Assad's top security aide.

Also, revelations of Afghan heroin growers holding back reserves of the drug like bank savings; surveillance of "individuals moving radioactive substances" around London waved off by British security services before the poisoning of Litvinenko.

And finally, the US threatening Italy to ensure no international arrest warrants were issued for CIA agents accused of being involved in cleric Abu Omar's abduction.

A lot of leaks for one day. If my count is correct, less than 2,000 of the 250,000 cables have been released or reported on to date—just a fraction.

The Winter Solstice

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 05:57 PM PST

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Record rainfall continues in southern California, so my solstice is coming and going today without one of my favorite ritual of marking the furthest south sunset of the year. But here is a remembrance of solstice past.

candles.jpg If you had walked out into my backyard around 4:40 the last few afternoons you would have been greeted with the orange ball of the sun setting with a final low glare over the tops of the buildings that I can see low on the horizon out across the Los Angeles basin. At this time each late afternoon I like to get out the binoculars that I keep next to the back door, and I step outside to watch the last seconds of the sun setting and to find the spot where the last glimmer of light for the day appears. Every night that glimmer has moved a little further to the south. Just a few weeks ago the last glint vanished just behind the cupola of the Pasadena city hall. By just the next day, the cupola was clear, but the sun disappeared behind the building to the left of city hall. Last night it set 4 or 5 office buildings further to the left, still, behind an anonymous office tower that I can't recognize, but through the binoculars appears impressive with the sun directly framing it and the occasional stray bit of light going through a window on the far side, rattling around on the inside, and emerging as the last bit of bit of light before a long winter night.

Tonight I watched again, and the sun set behind exactly the same anonymous tower. It hadn't moved at all. Today, therefore, must be the solstice.

The solstice is many things: the first day of winter, the earliest sunset, the longest night of the year, the latest sunrise. Most people notice the sunset more than anything else. But solstice comes from the latin "solstitium": sol for sun, and stitium for a stoppage ("armistice" comes from the same root: a stoppage of arms). The stoppage of the southern progression of the sun -- the turnaround to come back to the north -- was considered a big enough phenomenon to give the event its name. The sun stoppage. As the darkness tries to ascend (quickly; these winter twilights don't last) the other part of the season becomes clear. While the nearby glare of Los Angeles means that we never truly have darkness in these parts, this time of year everyone is doing their best to cut the darkness even more. I can see Christmas lights on the houses throughout Pasadena, and, with the binoculars, I can see to downtown Los Angeles where the buildings have been strung with lights. And who can blame them? With the nights so long and the sun moving further and further south, who would not want to try to do their part to make up for the absence of the light and the heat? Who would not be at least a little afraid at this time every year that the sun would somehow not decide to stop and then come back?

At our house we celebrate the solstice with our best attempt to coax back the sun. When the night is as dark as it will get, we gather with friends around our Christmas tree, turn out all of the lights in the house, and slowly refill the house with the yellowy-orange glow as we one by one light the dozens of candles hanging in the branches of the tree. Lighting candles on Christmas trees is a well known Bad Thing to Do, but we find that with a tree cut down the day before (and a fire extinguisher on hand just in case), all goes smoothly. Like the sun, the candles slowly go out. Some catch a few warm drafts and burn more quickly, some get less air and burn more slowly, but one by one they all eventually go until, with just two or three left, the house is dark again and the shadows of branches shimmer sinisterly on the ceiling. Finally the last candle sputters and dies, sometimes with a long glow and sometimes with a sudden final pop, and the longest night of the year totally envelopes us.

The night sky gets in on the act this time of year, too. Many people who claim to know no constellations in the sky can look up and identify Orion in the winter sky. With the three bright stars making the belt, the scabbard of stars hanging below, and the quartet making the shoulders and knees, Orion is truly simple to identify. But Orion is also composed of some of the brighter of the stars in the sky. In fact, look outside, and look around Orion. Bright stars are all around. The constellation of Taurus, Sirius, the brightest star around. The seasons of the sky are not created equally. Winter is a spectacular display of stars and constellations unlike any other, as if the stars, too, are trying to help us out on the longest winter nights by saving the best show for the very end of the year. None of this is true, of course. The spectacular winter skies are caused by the fact that we are looking straight in to the Milky Way galaxy, instead of out of it as we do in the spring and fall. But still, it is hard not to see the similarity between the lights strung in the town below trying to dispel the night and call back the sun, and the lights above, also seemingly strung for the same reason.

Tonight, if the weather clears, I'm going to go outside with my binoculars and see exactly where the sun sets again. Because I do this every year, and because I can look up the precise date and time of the solstice, and because I know that the earth will continue to go around the sun with the same tilt for my entire lifetime, I know what will happen: the sun will have moved away from the anonymous office building and finally started moving right again. The day will get imperceptibly longer. Really, there is not much suspense in what will happen, just a certain reassuring inevitability. But if I didn't know these things and didn't have confidence in the inevitable, I can imagine myself holding my breath as the last rays of the sun were shooting out and I was trying to see just where it was setting. It stopped yesterday, but is it really turning around today? Will the days really get longer again? Will my crops (well, ok, my vegetable garden) come back to life? And I'll then see the spot and it will be clearly north and I'll know. And at that point, I will say to anyone within sight: happy new year. For while the calendar claims I have another week to go, the Christmas lights and the candles and Orion and Taurus and Sirius will have done their jobs, and the sun will have started its new year already today and we should all be glad for the solstice.


Thanks for coming along with me through the skies these past two weeks Boing Boingers, and Happy New Year!

Grace Jones singing "Little Drummer Boy" to Pee Wee Herman

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 05:22 PM PST

Video Link [via Submitterator, thanks porkchop].

Why did Apple remove a Wikileaks app from its store?

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 04:49 PM PST

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Over the weekend, I noticed that a Wikileaks app became available in the Apple store for $1.99 a pop. Wonder how long that's gonna last, I thought. Not long! Three days. Miguel Helft in the NYT:

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Apple on Tuesday confirmed that it had removed from its online store an iPhone and iPad app that let users view the content on the WikiLeaks site and follow the WikiLeaks Twitter account.

Trudy Muller, an Apple spokeswoman, said the company had removed the app “because it violated our developer guidelines.” Ms. Muller added: “Apps must comply with all local laws and may not put an individual or group in harm’s way.”

The $1.99 WikiLeaks App was taken down on Monday after being available for just three days.

As Wired's Kevin Poulsen points out, the app kind of sucked—basically, it was the Wikileaks website, no real value-add. All the more reason to be concerned by Apple's move.

Snip from Poulsen's Wired News piece:


You don't have to agree with WikiLeaks' methods or publishing standards to recognize that what it does is a form of journalism -- most clearly with its current leak. WikiLeaks has so-far published 1,824 of its 251,287 leaked diplomatic cables. Unlike the organizations' earlier mass leaks, each published cable has been hand-reviewed, and occasionally hand-redacted of some names. WikiLeaks says the review has been conducted by journalists at the newspapers that were provided embargoed access to the leak -- a list that includes the Guardian, Der Spiegel and other internationally reputable news organizations.


WikiLeaks and its people haven't been charged with a crime for publishing U.S. leaks, and they'd have a strong First Amendment defense if they were. And despite concerns voiced from top officials, there has yet to be a documented instance of anyone coming to harm as a result of WikiLeaks' releases. With news and media organizations (including Wired magazine) betting heavily on iPad apps as a way to get users to pay to read magazines and newspapers, it's chilling to see Apple double down on its right to censor controversial, but lawfully published, content of indisputable news value.

Wikileaks: Manning's attorney on the laws he'll use to fight inhumane treatment

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 04:19 PM PST

David E. Coombs, the attorney representing Bradley Manning, discusses the laws that apply for attempting to secure more humane treatment for the young man in the Marine brig in Quantico:

The defense has raised the conditions of PFC Bradley Manning's confinement conditions on multiple occasions with the Quantico confinement facility and the Army Staff Judge Advocate's (SJA) Office assigned to handle this case. Our efforts, unfortunately, have not resulted any in positive results. To its credit, the SJA office is attempting to correct this situation. However, given the fact that Quantico is a Marine Corps facility, it has similarly had no success.

PFC Bradley Manning, unlike his civilian counterpart, is afforded no civil remedy for illegal restraint under either the Federal Civil Rights Act or the Federal Tort Claims Act. Similarly, the protection from cruel and unusual punishment under the Eighth Amendment and Article 55 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) does not generally apply prior to a court-martial. Thus, the only judicial recourse that is available is under Article 13 of the UCMJ. Article 13 safeguards against unlawful pretrial punishment and embodies the precept that an accused is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Article 13 provides that:

No person, while being held for trial, may be subjected to punishment or penalty other than arrest or confinement upon the charges pending against him, nor shall the arrest or confinement imposed upon him be any more rigorous than the circumstances required to insure his presence, but he may be subjected to minor punishment during that period for infractions of discipline.


Earlier, Coombs detailed what a typical day is like for the incarcerated suspect here.


David House, a personal friend of Manning, visited him in the brig over the weekend, and plans to blog about the conditions on Firedoglake.


And, related: A Boing Boing reader points to instructions on how one might send postal mail to Manning, if one is so inclined.

WTF: FCC cites Android as reason we don't need wireless Net Neutrality

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 04:30 PM PST

Guess what turned up in the reasons given by the the FCC for not requiring net neutrality for wireless: because Android is open-source! This indicates "meaningful recent moves toward openness." Though not the only reason given in the FCC's press release, conflating the appliance with the pipe does sound like a shibboleth regarding the Commission's willingness to understand the issues. [via Engadget]

Assange's "already assassinated" comment, clarified

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 04:21 PM PST

In a roundup post earlier today regarding all things Assange, I noted a comment made by the Wikileaks founder in a wide-ranging BBC News intervew: "People affiliated with our organisation have already been assassinated." I didn't get it, neither did many others, judging by the proliferation of "WTF?" in my tweetstream. A Wikileaks volunteer points to this as the source of that reference: a report of Wikileaks writers in Kenya having been killed in 2009. I cannot yet confirm the content of the article, but I'm updating the blog to note that this is what Assange was referring to.

Venezuela passes new law drastically limiting internet freedoms

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 04:46 PM PST

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The Venezuelan parliament has passed a law that bans any internet content that "promotes social unrest, challenges authority or condones crime." President Hugo Chavez's ruling party pushed the law through in less than a week. Snip from AFP:

The new law expands 2004 restrictions on content in radio, television and print media. In an unprecedented move, it now also includes content from the Internet and electronic subscription services, making webpage managers "responsible for the information and content" published on their websites."

It is meant to crack down on media content that "makes an apology of crime," "promotes unrest in the population" or "challenges legally established authorities." Webpage managers must now "establish mechanisms to restrict, without delay, the diffusion of messages... that are included in the ban." The measure increases fines imposed on media violations to "10 percent of the previous year's gross income," in addition to "72 hours of continuous suspension of services."

Here's more about the law in Spanish on the government's website, including a video.

Coverage around the web: Reuters, AFP, Bloomberg, BBC News, CPG's condemnation.

Photograph: Venezuelan Hugo Chavez speaks during a meeting with United Socialist party members in Caracas, December 17, 2010. Last week, Venezuela's parliament gave President Chavez decree powers for 18 months, outraging opposition parties that accused him of turning South America's biggest oil producer into a dictatorship. The move consolidated the socialist leader's hold on power after nearly 12 years in office, and raised the prospect of a fresh wave of nationalizations as the former paratrooper seeks to entrench his self-styled "revolution." (REUTERS/Miraflores Palace)

Lunar Eclipse photos from Boing Boing readers

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 02:44 PM PST

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Among the many terrific photos contributed to the Boing Boing Flickr pool, there are now a number of images from last night's lunar eclipse. Here's one by mcphadenmike.

Warm Heads for Christmas

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 02:32 PM PST

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I live in a warm place now, but I retain a vestigial -- well, let's call it a respect for cold weather. So these handsome little art cards by designer Sam Tudyk scratch at a deep place in my psyche. A deep, cold place. Even the vaguely creepy one that suggests a bank robbery about to happen. I'd love them even if they weren't selling at a web store affiliated with the ad agency Wieden+Kennedy, which is responsible for the single greatest achievement in the history of advertising. I wish them, and you, a Merry Christmas. (Via Coudal.)

LoveBot: design robot avatars on iPhone / iPad

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 02:08 PM PST

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LoveBots ($2.99), by Kit Robot, is a digital robot avatar assembly kit for the iPhone and iPad. It's like a plastic model kit, puzzle box, Mr Potato Head, or Lego kit, but digital.

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For my entire life, I've collected robots, robot kits, models, sci-fi and movie toys, and action figures, literally filling up rooms with these things.

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I enjoy mashing model kits and toys together to transform them into new toys.

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I created the LoveBots iPhone/iPad app (with my friend and colleague Kiyoshi Kohatsu) as a way for people to assemble endless combinations of robots from a large inventory of parts.


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Both Kiyoshi and I work in animation (Doubletwist 1984 Big Brother, Ren & Stimpy, Disney Mobile, The Farside, Beauty and the Beast), and we love cartoons, sci-fi, and all things geeky.


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For 4-5 months, we designed all of the parts, referencing toys and robots from the golden age of tin toys, books, old Japanese magazines, etc, coming up with robot ideas and how they should fit together.


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We drew all the LoveBot parts by hand, using pencil and paper, then scanned them to computer.


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We then designed a intuitive, user-friendly layout and interface.


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It's been fun creating new possibilities for kids to get creative and for adults to reminisce over their love of robots and sci fi.


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We are asking LoveBot fans to send us their creations, as we plan to release The Art of LoveBots app book.


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So far we have some great additions from kids and adults from around the world.


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Find out everything we are up to at Kit Robot.

The funniest research of 2010

Posted: 20 Dec 2010 07:55 PM PST

From scrotum cozies, to the psychological impact of Comic Sans, to Playboy's preference for Barbie-like vulvas: NCBI ROFL rounds up 2010's greatest peer-reviewed papers (as measured in comic potential).

Unusual toy commercials

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 06:16 PM PST


YouTube has lots of creepy TV commercials for old toys. Here are some of my "favorites."









UPDATE: More:

Minecraft goes into beta, existential therapy

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:31 PM PST

mc13.jpg Minecraft, the indie exploration/building title that took the gaming world by storm this fall, has left its experimental phase and entered beta. The price goes up to 15 Euros and the developers' focus moves to polish and content — and the development of a modding interface to let others add their own features to the game. With its low-fi, ultra-hip 3D lego set look, Minecraft can seem a faddish thing. John Brownlee, referencing Shelley's Ozymandias, explains the egomaniacal hook that lies beneath the surface, making people stick with it:
It's a solipsist's god sim, with all of the loneliness and pathos that implies. ...There's more to Minecraft than just a 3D set of building blocks to play with. Minecraft's setting itself is haunting, in that it forces players into a situation where the entire game is to answer this question: ... Are the massive castles or statues I built in any of my inevitably discarded Minecraft worlds really much different? Colossal works of deific arrogance conducted for the benefit of the author's own ego, then swiftly forgotten.
It's true: I constantly think that I'm going to take the places I've built in Minecraft (like my awesome floating island town, above) and share them with other players as a multiplayer instance. But really, who cares? Once you've seen one pixelated starship, European Cathedral or epic hollow tree, you've seen them all. Without the potential for storytelling, a Minecraft world is a poor man's Myst "book" with no puzzles. And when played from the outset with a group of friends, Minecraft is a very different experience. I Have No Mouth and I Must Build [Gearfuse]


The Arizona motorcycle saddle

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 12:41 PM PST

az-moto-saddle.jpg"These are big sellers in Arizona right now!!!" (Via Book of Joe)

How not to go crazy traveling with young children

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 02:55 PM PST

One of the things you have to do when you're on sabbatical in a city like London, is make sure you take advantage of your travel opportunities. For my family, this equated to visiting a number of iconic European cities, a luxury that from Vancouver (where I'm usually based) would have been far too costly. Anyway, it's been clear to my wife and I that during these once-in-a-lifetime visits, our consciousness is very much overridden by one central question: "What will Ben and Hannah do?"

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(Clockwise from left) Piazza Navona, Rome, Italy; Arc de Triomphe, Paris, France; near Arthur's Seat, Edinburgh, Scotland; 2010

Just so you know, Ben and Hannah are my children. You've might have seen them in this previous post, and like any parent, I love them dearly. Nevertheless, traveling with very young children is an interesting experience, as it is by turns wonderful, exhausting, memorable, frustrating, and (just to be clear) exhausting. You are, after all, interacting with a tourist that would most likely rank the playground or the cat that they saw by a tree, far above the Eiffel Tower or the Colosseum. Also, if you're lucky enough to be staying somewhere where there is indoor swimming, then you can rest assured that you will hear of nothing else.

Despite this, one of the things I relish about traveling with kids is how you, as a parent, get to bulk up on your storytelling repertoire. Each travel is its own epic, with logistics as critical as any Everest expedition, a cast of characters that cannot be any more three dimensional, and more video and photographic footage than anyone would ever care for. Best of all, you are part of the cast: you might not have the biggest role, but that's o.k. - you get to be responsible for the Director's Commentary.

And oh what a commentary! The trip would have it all. There will be drama, there will be tears, there might even be vomit, and in my son's case, there will always be plain pasta with only butter on it. If nothing else, you can tell your listeners that the best part of traveling with children is how funny they can be: they interact with culture in their own special way. For me, I still don't think I've laughed any harder than when my daughter, during an outing to one of the many cathedrals we've visited, looked upon a crucifix and then with a slightly confused look on her face, asked in a loud clear voice, "What is up with that guy?" Seriously, the stories you build from these experiences can pretty much cover every conceivable narrative theme (with, I suppose, the possible exception of sex - see previous note on exhaustion).

This is actually why I'm surprised that I haven't found a good website whose primary aim is to collect such personal kid travel commentary. Wouldn't such a hub be a great resource for families everywhere? The advice that it would reveal would presumably not only be incredibly useful but also very entertaining to read. Indeed, it might even be emotionally relevant. It could be that first crucial step in combating a long festering anguish, the sort that a mishap during a family vacation might inadvertently create. This, I know to be true: I am speaking as a parent who once booked a hotel with a swimming pool that was off limits to children.

Anyway, if ever such a website existed, here would be my most useful and surprising travel tip. It would concern a vacation we took when my daughter was only 9 months old, where we took it upon ourselves to spend 4 weeks exploring, on the cheap, the European Alps. I can't remember why we did this, but "because we were idiots" seems to work. What I do remember, vividly, is my wife and I being incredibly stressed before the flight to France. This was due to the prospect of being stuck in an enclosed airplane for double digit hours: obviously not the best setting for a potentially fussy baby. In fact, we were so stressed about this, that we had been unable to sleep for two whole days prior to the flight, and to add further insult, we were unable to get a wink in during the flight itself. Contrast that to Hannah, who ended up not even aware of the plane, having slept peacefully throughout the entire experience. Worse still, we hadn't properly considered the consequences of arriving in France so late in the evening. In fact, we wouldn't be able to check into our cramped hotel until after midnight. Physically, we were two parents who were fatigued beyond belief. Emotionally, we were crushed. Our late arrival meant that we would be now be navigating an experience ostensibly entitled, Overnight in a thin walled hotel room with a fully rested and loud baby.


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Playground, Chamonix, France; 2002

So how did we deal with this predicament? The short answer is that we didn't have to, whereas the long answer wonderfully demonstrates that the most brilliant of ideas can come from the most unexpected of places. When we arrived at our hotel, as tired and as anxious as humanly possible, the hotel manager booked us into our small room and told us of the small crib that would be provided. He then calmly informed us that since there was also a deaf tour group staying at the hotel, he had taken the liberty of strategically booking these hard of hearing customers into all of the rooms around us. In other words, he had in effect created a baby noise buffer zone, and to this very day, I look back at that moment as being one of the happiest of my life.

In any event, there must be other parents reading this right now, with their own useful and surprising traveling tips, or maybe an epic to share. Would be lovely to hear a few more.

Kate MacDowell, surreal ceramics

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:41 PM PST

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Over at Ransom Notes, my pal Stacey Ransom turns us on to the lovely ceramic sculptures of artist Kate MacDowell. From Ransom Notes:
MacDowell creates porcelain sculptures of heartbreaking anatomic beauty. The subjects range from delicate autopsies of birds, rabbits, etc. to a specimen'esque views of internal human organs. In all cases, her intimately realistic renditions evoke deeper metaphors of mortality - each a solemn confirmation of mankind's intrinsic bond with even the smallest earthly disquiet. 
Kate MacDowell on Ransom Notes

KateMacDowell.com

Passport is not acceptable ID?

Posted: 21 Dec 2010 10:50 AM PST

Passsportnotacc Please let the TSA know. Spotted at the Hola! Mexican Restaurant and Cantina in Burlingame, California.

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