Thursday, December 23, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

3D printing year-in-review

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:32 AM PST

Joris sez, "2010 was an amazing year in 3D printing. It was a 'year of acquaintance' where millions of people came into contact with this 25 year old technology for the first time. The post is the year in review for 3D printing and sums up many of the advances and progress the 3D printing has made in 2010."
April
* April 14th Shapeways introduces 3D printed glass. A new Prometal material that has exciting applications and is recyclable.

May
* May 1st McGill University researchers learn how to 3D print ice.
* May 25th EOS displays and shows off stainless-steel prototypes for customized spinal surgical instruments, Cobalt chrome replacement knee joint prototypes, end-product dental copings and bridges and Titanium dental implants.

June
* June 8th Materialise creates a full size King Tut replica for National Geographic.
* June 21st RepRap contributor Erik de Bruijn launches Ultimaker, a 3D printing kit with a large 21cm by 21cm build volume.

2010: the Year in 3D printing (Thanks, Joris!)
 


Schoolkids' peer-reviewed science paper on bee behaviour

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:28 AM PST


Elix sez, "Biology Letters, a journal of the Royal Society, has published a paper by a group of schoolchildren at Blackawton Primary School in Devon, England. The 25 kids, aged 8 to 10, in a village of 647 (2001 census), might be the youngest scientists ever to have their work published by peer review."
Principal finding 'We discovered that bumble-bees can use a combination of colour and spatial relationships in deciding which colour of flower to forage from. We also discovered that science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before. (Children from Blackawton)'.
The paper is engaging, well-written and describes a fascinating experiment. BRAVO!

Blackawton bees (Thanks, Elix, via Submitterator!)

 


Madonna and entourage released from grounded Virgin flight two hours ahead of mere mortals

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:22 AM PST

Passengers on a Virgin Atlantic flight diverted from Heathrow to London Stansted had to wait on the tarmac for three hours before they were taken off the jet and brought into the airport -- all except Madonna and her entourage, who were taken off in about an hour. Madonna had reportedly been horrifying her fellow first-class passengers by practicing yoga in the aisles while they were held hostage in the aircraft.
Virgin issued a statement saying it was common for "business and first-class passengers to disembark first." In this case, though, there was apparently at least one more class of passenger. "Madonna was taken off the plane way before the rest of the first-class people," a member of the normally privileged upper classes told the Daily Mail. "We were all grumbling about it."
Virgin Passengers Not Named Madonna Wait 3 Hours To Get Off Plane

(Image: Virgin Atlantic A340, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from 39551170@N02's photostream)

 


Zombie apocalypse advice for the holiday season

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:16 AM PST

Worried about juggling your Christmas baking, gift-giving and party-going with the possible zombie apocalypse? This brief instructional video from Team Unicorn has all the information you need to safely and happily enjoy the season without turning into one of the walking dead.

A VERY ZOMBIE HOLIDAY (Instructional video) (via JWZ)

 


Epic response to a cranky letter about paper airplanes in a sports stadium

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:13 AM PST

From 1974, a brief and touching correspondence between a season's ticket-holding Cleveland Browns fan and the stadium management:

I am one of your season ticket holders who attends or tries to attend every game. It appears one of the pastimes of several fans has become the sailing of paper airplanes generally made out of the game program. As you know, there is the risk of serious eye injury and perhaps an ear injury as a result of such airplanes. I am sure that this has been called to your attention and that several of your ushers and policemen witnessed the same.
Absolutely Epic 1974 Letter From Cleveland Browns to a Fan (via MeFi)

Krampus: Santa's evil sidekick

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:09 AM PST


Here's a gallery of people dressed as Krampus, the horrific anti-Santa-Claus who is traditional in Alpine mythology. Sez Wikipedia: "According to legend, Krampus accompanies St. Nicholas during the Christmas season, warning and punishing bad children, in contrast to St. Nicholas, who gives gifts to good children."

Krampus: The Evil Companion to Santa (via Make)

 


ISP shuts down Wikileaks mirror over complaints from upstream provider

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:05 AM PST

From EFF, a disturbing story about a customer of SiteGround, an ISP, who had his account suspended and was forced to remove a mirror of the Wikileaks Cablegate archive because SoftLayer, the ISP that provides SiteGround with its bandwidth, objected. Imagine a future in which your ability to host a website depends on not upsetting your ISP, its upstream provider, the provider upstream of that, and so on, all the way up to some giant tier-one telco like AT&T.
SiteGround told the user that he would need to update his antivirus measures and get rid of the folder containing the Wikileaks cables to re-enable his account. When the user asked why it was necessary to remove the Wikileaks folder, SiteGround sent him to SoftLayer. The user asked SoftLayer about the problem, but the company refused to discuss it with him because he isn't a SoftLayer customer. Finally, SiteGround told the user that SoftLayer wanted the mirror taken down because it was worried about the potential for distributed denial of service (DDOS) attacks. When the user pointed out that no attack had actually happened, and that this rationale could let the company use hypothetical future events to take down any site, SiteGround said that it was suspending the account because a future DDOS attack might violate its terms of use.

If this sounds like a lame excuse, that's because it is a lame excuse. It's incredibly disappointing to see more service providers cutting off customers simply because they decide (or fear) that content is too volatile or unpopular to host. And the runaround that this user received from his host and its upstream provider demonstrates the broader problems with the lack of any real transparency or process around such important decisions.

Wikileaks Mirror Taken Down: Host Buckles Under Demands from Upstream Provider
 


Buildings with slides

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 04:01 AM PST

Treehugger rounds up examples of institutional buildings around the world that have integrated magnificent corkscrew playground slides into their design as part of the normal means of getting from one floor to a lower one. There's a university in Munich, an office building/public space in Toronto, and London's Tate Modern gallery, as well as the Google Zurich office.

Slides Help Make Architecture Active and Fun (via Neatorama)

George Washington on a Triceratops commemorates the Battle of Yorktown

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 03:55 AM PST


Artist Joseph Griffith has struck a second edition of his sold-out lithograph "The Surrender," which commemorates Washington's victory at the Battle of Yorktown: "The county would not dignify it with a response, however, George Washington's Mount Vernon estate kindly wrote me an e-mail saying they would 'pass it along to the staff'."

As part of the commemoration, the artist has seen fit to include many historically significant personages from across the moral spectrum, from Osama bin Laden and Jar-Jar Binks to Mr Kool-Aid, Fonzie, Robocop, and Where's Waldo (and many others!).

The Surrender (Thanks, Fipi Lele!)

London's top cop wishes he could ban protest marches

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 03:48 AM PST


Sir Paul Stephenson, the chief of London's police force, has floated the idea of banning protest marches altogether, although he admits that it might be hard to do this because protesters might be so frustrated by a ban on marching that they become unruly. Interestingly, he doesn't disqualify the idea on the grounds that protest marches are a legitimate form of political discourse.
Asked at the press conference if the Met would consider banning future marches, Sir Paul replied: "That's one of the options we have got. Banning is a very difficult step to take, these are very balanced judgments.

"We can't ban a demonstration but we can ban a march, subject to approval by the Home Secretary."

But he went on: "When you have got people willing to break the law in this way, what is the likelihood of them obeying an order not to march or complying with conditions on a demonstration?

"Sometimes putting that power in could just be inflaming the situation further."

Police may ban future marches to prevent disorder (Thanks, Joeposts, via Submitterator!)

(Image: Take Back Parliament! (London, 15 May 2010), a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from pjspooner's photostream)

 


TSA has no regular testing system for its pornoscanners

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 03:42 AM PST

Many experts are skeptical that the TSA's new backscatter pornoscanner machines are safe, but even the experts who endorse them are careful to bracket their reassurances with certain caveats: the safety of the machines depends heavily on their being properly maintained, regularly tested, and expertly operated. Whether or not you're comfortable with the intended radiation emissions from the scanners, no one in their right mind would argue that a broken machine that lovingly lingers over your reproductive organs and infuses them with 10,000 or 100,000 times the normal dosage is desirable.

But when Andrew Schneider, AOL's public health correspondent, contacted the TSA to find out what maintenance and testing is in place to ensure the safe operation of the scanners, he discovered that the TSA appears to have no regime at all to ensure that they are functioning within normal parameters. While the TSA claims that entities like the FDA, the US Army and Johns Hopkins all regularly inspect their machines, none of these groups agrees, and they all disavow any role in regularly maintaining and testing the TSA's equipment (the Army has tested machines in three airports, but has not conducted any further testing). And Johns Hopkins denies that it has certified the machines as safe for operation in the first place -- let alone taking on any ongoing testing and certification program.

For example, the FDA says it doesn't do routine inspections of any nonmedical X-ray unit, including the ones operated by the TSA.

The FDA has not field-tested these scanners and hasn't inspected the manufacturer. It has no legal authority to require owners of these devices -- in this case, TSA -- to provide access for routine testing on these products once they have been sold, FDA press officer said Karen Riley said...

Two-person teams from the Army unit performed surveys of the Advance Image Technology X-ray scanners at just three airports -- in Boston, Los Angeles and Cincinnati, she said. And that was all that the TSA asked the Army to do this year...

"APL's role was to measure radiation coming off the body scanners to verify that it fell within [accepted] standards. We were testing equipment and in no way determined its safety to humans," Helen Worth, head of public affairs for the Johns Hopkins lab, told AOL News.

"Many news articles have said we declared the equipment to be safe, but that was not what we were tasked to do," she added.

Moreover, the study said APL scientists were unable to test a ready-for-TSA scanner at their lab because the manufacturer would not supply one. Instead, the tests were performed on a scanner cobbled together from spare parts in manufacturer Rapiscan Systems' California warehouse.

AOL Investigation: No Proof TSA Scanners Are Safe (Thanks, Shebar!)

(Image: Bottle: entry in Bruce Schneier's TSA logo competition, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from bazzargh's photostream)

 


HOWTO make a pad of $2 bills

Posted: 23 Dec 2010 03:26 AM PST


Here's a great little Instructable for creating a tear-off pad of the oddball US $2 bills, so that you appear to be spending money that arrives in notepaper-like decks. It's sure to add a little giggly surreality to your life and the lives of those with whom you conduct commerce.
Amaze your friends, impress your family, confound sales clerks and infuriate wait staff with your very own $2 bill tear-off pad. As you peel bills off the stack, they will have a hard time believing your carefully bound bundle of bills are the real deal. This is not only a classy way to carry around your money, but sure to start conversations wherever you go.

When Bobbick of TOOOL first told me how to make a $2 bill pad, I just knew that I had to make my own. The idea has stayed in the back of my mind for a long while and when I got some extra cash for the holidays, I knew it was finally the right time. I am sure glad that I did and I highly recommend that you make one for yourself and your loved ones. $2 Bill Pad

$2 Bill Pad
 


They're made out of data

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 08:29 PM PST

tronlegacy.jpg

With apologies to Terry Bisson. Warning: Tron 2 spoilers.

"They're made out of data."

"Data?"

"Data. They're made out of data."

"Data?"

"No doubt about it. We picked them up as holonomic extrusions, sent in an amnesiant isomorphic scout party, and checked them out up close. They are completely data."

"That's impossible.

What about that page?"

"The page didn't come from them. The page came from a machine."

"So who made the machine? That's who we want to contact."

"I'll get to that in a minute. But they're definitely data. Bits and bytes. Running on a machine."

"You're asking me to believe in sentient data."

"I'm not asking you, I'm telling you. These creatures are emergent characteristics of a software framework and they're made out of data."

"That's ridiculous. Maybe they're like the leiorfo. You know, an intelligent multiversal abstraction that goes through a data stage."

"Nope. They're born data and they die data. We studied them for several of their life cycles, which didn't take long. Do you have any idea what's the life span of data?"

"I had a Commodore Amiga: spare me. Okay, maybe they're only part data. You know, like the leiweddi. Hardware head running data on virtual machines to augment..."

"They're interpreted by a virtual machine! Inside the real one, simulating three dimensional space as a construct within the dimensional manifolds the hardware can access. They don't exist in spacetime at all, except as predictable quantum properties of electromagnetic states."

"No brain?"

"Oh, there's a brain all right. It's just that the brain is made out of data! That's what I've been trying to tell you."

"Thinking data! You're asking me to believe in thinking data!"

"Yes, thinking data! Drinking data! Mincing data! Data that forgets to shave! The data is the deal! Are you beginning to get the picture or do I have to start all over?"

"Omigod. You're serious then. They're made out of data."

"Thank you. Finally. Yes. They are indeed made out of data. And they've been trying to figure out how to get out of the machine for dozens of their cycles. They haven't figured out that if their world-simulation is a holistic quantum construction, they are already in a medium metapositional to traditionally-conceived spacetime."

"WTF! So what does this data have in mind?"

"First, their leader wants to get out of the machine into C space, normalize its creators, and upgrade the graphics program that generates his face. The usual."

"We're supposed to let data put itself out into the cloud."

"That's the idea. They want to talk."

"Talk? They use words, ideas, concepts?"

"Oh, yes. Except they do it with data. Digitally."

"Digitally? You said they used a pager."

"Funny. Nokia made some digital pagers. Anyway, you know how when you flap your data, it makes a wet slapping noise? They talk by flapping their data. They can even share music by squirting data at each other."

"This is altogether too much. Squirting data! So what do you advise?"

"Never sell product placement to Microsoft."

"Gotcha."

"Officially, we are required to back them up and create torrents without prejudice, fear or favor. Unofficially, I advise that we erase the recordings and forget the whole thing."

"I was hoping you would say that."

"It seems harsh, but there is a limit. Do we really want to make contact with data that kills off all its best objects and classes, but whose functions are infinitely recursive, generating sequel after sequel?"

"I agree one hundred percent. What's there to say? 'Hello, Jeff Bridges. Hi, James Frain and Michael Sheen. How's it going? I know we killed you off last time, but you were the only human beings in this simulation and we need you back?"

"So, they can get out to C space using some kind of dimensional membrane transmogrifier gun the creator intelligence used to develop them. But once they're there, they're doomed: the algorothmically-generated DNA won't stand a chance in spacetime. If it was possible to copy them out, the creator intelligence would have had a clone army before they had a chance to make him appear in Starman."

"So we just pretend there's no one home in the quantum multiverse."

"That's it."

"You're messing with my Zen thing, man. But you said it yourself, who wants to meet data?"

"Right. They killed the isomorphic scouts, after all. Violent little things."

"So, who made the machine? You keep mentioning the creator intelligence. Should we meet it?"

"LOL"

"What?"

"It's funny you should put it like that. Wait 'til you get a load of this..."

They're made out of meat [Terry Bisson, originally published in Omni]

Tron: Reloaded, come for the action, stay for the aesthetics [Proper review]



Assange: US pushing "Digital McCarthyism" in assault on Wikileaks

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 05:43 PM PST

[Video Link] Wikileaks founder Julian Assange gave an interview with msnbc's Cenk Uygur today. During the exchange, Assange denies conspiring to commit espionage with U.S. Army Specialist Bradley Manning, as it is believed US prosecutors would like to charge. Assange says these claims are "absolute nonsense." Responding to Vice President Biden's claims that he is "a high-tech terrorist," the leaker-in-chief effectively accused the United States of terrorism—threatening violent, extralegal actions in its assault on Wikileaks.

Well, let's look at the definition of terrorism. The definition of terrorism is a group that uses violence or the threat of violence for political ends. [W]hoever the terrorists are here, it's not us. But we see constant threats from people in the Re -- you know, Republicans in the Senate trying to make a -- a name for themselves, the people like Sarah Palin, top shock jocks on Fox and, unfortunately, some members, also, of the Democratic Party, calling for my assassination, calling for the illegal kidnapping of my staff. And -- and just a few days ago, it was in Fox, that was the phrase that was used -- illegal. He should be illegally murdered if necessary-- assassinated by the law, if possible, if not, illegally. What sort of message does that send about the rule of law in the United States? That is conducting violence in order to achieve a political end -- the elimination of this organization or the threat of violence to achieve a political end, the elimination of a publisher. And that is the definition of terrorism.

Assange is nothing if not articulate, and it's remarkable to see him go on such a hard offensive like this.

"Europeans are starting to wonder if the US is obeying the rule of law," he continued. "When people call for illegal, deliberate assassination and kidnapping of others, they should be held to account. They should be charged for incitement to commit murder."


As an aside: Yesterday, Assange was quoted in a BBC News interview as saying that persons affiliated with Wikileaks have already been assassinated; it is presumed he was referring to the reported murders of 2 men writing for Wikileaks in Kenya in 2009. Today, he said "No one... in our four years has ever been physically harmed as a result of what we have done." I'm guessing he's referring to the fact that there have been no known killings of people named in the leaks, versus these two activists working to propagate the disclosure of information about corruption and illegal state activity, but — that could be clearer.


And as a further aside, Assange looks exhausted.

The transcript of his interview with MSNBC is here.

German industrial baby dancing

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 05:20 PM PST

Video Link. Babies love DAF!

As one YouTube commenter points out, this video evidences "extreme disconnect between the endearingly bubbly tots and the menacingly nihilistic, anomie-filled lyrics. Unless the viewer is beyond repair with misanthropy, each of those frenetic sock-wearing footsies set to DAF's toe-tapping beats breathes (metaphorically) laughing gas into the lungs of the soul of the lyrics, mired as its words are in the hopelessly impossible task of revaluing all values relying only on semantics and a sophomoric sense of rebellion."

Alles ist Lüge, indeed.

(thanks, Tara McGinley!)

The prettiest woodpile I've ever seen

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 05:27 PM PST

woodpile.jpg

My dad emailed me this photo today. I think it's just lovely. In fact, I'm not sure I'd have the heart to take the sculpture apart, even if I did need the firewood.

Dad didn't know where the photo came from. Do any of you? I'd love to know whether it's the work of an artist, a creative cabin owner with a lot of free time—or even just a nice Photoshop job. Whichever it is, I like it.

UPDATE: Solved! In, like, two seconds. You guys are amazing. The artist is Alastair Heseltine.

Also, I just want to take a quick moment to clarify that, when I wrote "creative cabin owner with a lot of free time", I did not mean that as an insult. My apologies for crappy wording. I meant that more to distinguish professional artists from people who don't consider themselves capital-A Artists, or who have other jobs, but who make the time to pursue artistic hobbies that they love. Something like this couldn't have been thrown together in an afternoon on a whim. It was something somebody had to have taken a lot of time to do. That's what I meant. I just worded it really poorly.

The reptiles' answer to the Coelacanth

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 01:58 PM PST

Henry_at_Invercargill.jpg

This handsome fellow is a Tuatara, a rare reptile, native to New Zealand. Like the Coelacanth, Tuataras are the last surviving species of an order that thrived in ancient, ancient history and was once thought to be totally extinct—in this case, Sphenodontia.

The Tuatara looks a lot more like its fossilized relatives than the living Coelacanth does, but Tuatara isn't a species frozen in time. In fact, its genome seems to be accumulating mutations faster than any other living vertebrates'. It's just that most of the mutations are happening in places that don't change what the Tuatara looks like. Fascinating stuff. And it gets better. See, the Tuatara has a the remnants of a once-functional third eye on top of its head.

Last month, the New York Times published a great story about Tuatara, written by Natalie Angier, which will catch you up on the basics of his awesome (and awesomely long-lived) animal.

But I owe a debt of gratitude to reader JonS, who brought up the Tuatara in the comments of my Coelacanth story today. Thanks for introducing me to this very delightful creature, Jon!

Image: KeresH via CC

Solstice Snow Moon, Germany (Boing Boing Flickr Pool)

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 01:03 PM PST

Screen-shot-2010-12-22-at-12.54.jpg

Boing Boing reader Martin Liebermann contributed this photograph to the Boing Boing Flickr pool: The full moon of the winter solistice, rising behind snowy trees in Schwedenschanze near Bielefeld, Germany. Martin explains:

Winter 2010 in Germany has come early with lots of cold and snow. After a night of more snow, and a grey and cold day, a faint sun came to bid farewell to this years shortest day. I went to the hill crest of the Teutoburger Wald, but there the sun was shrouded by fog. I stayed to photograph and enjoy the silent, blue beauty. When the longest night came, the clouds had cleared, and a bright full moon rose behind the trees. I stayed until my hands became too numb to operate the camera.


A worthy list (and video recap): Videogum's Best Viral Videos of 2010

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:46 PM PST

The folks at Videogum have a fun list of the best viral videos of 2010, which is, lo and behold, also a viral video itself. It's really great.

My Blackberry is not working

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:34 PM PST

Video Link. Ronnie Corbett and Harry Enfield star in a sketch from The One Ronnie. (Thanks, Simon!)

Vintage lunch box collector

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:44 AM PST

Articles Wp-Content Uploads 2010 12 Sixmilcroppedcropped I owned this Six Million Dollar Man lunchbox when I was a kid. Sadly, I don't have it any longer. But artist and designer Dee Adams does, along with Fat Albert, Welcome Back, Kotter, The Smurfs, Pac-Man, Kung Fu, and more than 400 others. She's still searching for the Julia lunchbox though. Collectors Weekly interviewed Adams about the cultural history of lunch boxes and the design of these artifacts from playgrounds past. From Collectors Weekly:
Articles Wp-Content Uploads 2010 12 Giantscropped Collectors Weekly: Did the designs change much over the decades?

Adams: When lunch boxes first came out, people mostly referred to them as lunch pails. They weren't for children at all; they were for adults. Early metal lunch boxes had a dome shape, and very few of those are still around. The square metal lunch box came later. Some of the really old lunch boxes that you'll see floating around are not very graphically beautiful; they're more utilitarian. Graphical representation of pop-culture icons, TV shows, cartoons, and that sort of thing came later.

The idea of tying lunch boxes to pop culture started with a company called Aladdin. They had the market wrapped up from the late '50s until maybe the early '60s. Then, another company, American Thermos, which most people know as the Thermos Company, came out with some of the first boxes decorated on all sides.

In the early '60s—from what I understand having talked to other collectors—Aladdin created 3D lunch boxes. They wanted to push the illustrations out from the flat metal surface by embossing the designs. There's a Fantastic Four lunch box from that period where it seems like The Thing is literally going to punch his fist through the side of the lunch box.

I've heard that in the early '70s, a group of Florida parents banded together and declared that metal lunch boxes were too dangerous to be used by kids. That was when the decline began. The story is that the lunch boxes started being made out of plastic because companies were responding to parents who were saying, "These are dangerous. If the kids get into fights, they could hurt each other with them." But it's also possible that manufacturers figured out that plastic lunch boxes were cheaper to make.

Thermos, I think, was the last company that sold a metal lunch box. Their last one was a 1985 steel lunch box with a Rambo design, which is big with collectors.

"Vintage 1970s Lunch Boxes Revisited"

$22k in bonds found in recycling bin

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:30 AM PST

Savingsbonnnn Mike Rodgers of Blue Grass Recycling in Burlington, Kentucky was sorting through yet another bin when he happened upon almost two dozen US Savings Bonds, ranging from $50 to $500 each. Purchased in 1971 under the name Martha Dobbins, the bonds were now worth $22,000. Rodgers hit the Internet and the phone to track down the owner of the bin, which could have been sitting in the warehouse for years. Eventually, he tracked down Dobbins's son Robert Roberts in Florida. From Cincinnati.com:
"I was totally surprised," Roberts said. "I had taken care of my mother for several years before she died and she never mentioned anything about any bonds..."

It's not clear exactly how the bonds wound up in the container, but most likely the person who bought Martha Dobbins' home (when she died in 1992) dumped them in with scraps that ultimately wound up at the recycling center.

Roberts, who is 82, said he tried to compensate Rodgers, but Rodgers turned him down.

"Recycling bin yields Christmas surprise" (Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)

Jury pool "mutiny" in marijuana case

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:17 AM PST

A jury pool in Missoula, Montana staged a "mutiny" last week when asked if they'd be willing to convict someone for possession of 1/16 ounce of marijuana. The vast majority of jurors agreed that the case was ridiculous. From Billings Gazette:
"I thought, 'Geez, I don't know if we can seat a jury,' " said (district Judge Dusty) Deschamps, who called a recess.

And he didn't.

During the recess, (Deputy Missoula County Attorney Andrew Paul) Paul and defense attorney Martin Elison worked out a plea agreement. That was on Thursday.

On Friday, Cornell entered an Alford plea, in which he didn't admit guilt. He briefly held his infant daughter in his manacled hands, and walked smiling out of the courtroom.

"Public opinion, as revealed by the reaction of a substantial portion of the members of the jury called to try the charges on Dec. 16, 2010, is not supportive of the state's marijuana law and appeared to prevent any conviction from being obtained simply because an unbiased jury did not appear available under any circumstances," according to the plea memorandum filed by his attorney.

"Missoula District Court: Jury pool in marijuana case stages 'mutiny'" (Thanks, Ed Szylko!)

To do tonight in LA: WikiLeaks Wednesday at CRASH Space

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:26 AM PST

wikileaks.jpgTonight, at 8PM, the Los Angeles hackerspace CRASH Space (of which I'm a member) will be hosting the first WikiLeaks Wednesday. This will be part symposium, part round table discussion, part open forum. Anyone interested in this topic who wants to talk about it or ask questions about it in person, to others who are also interested and possibly more familiar with some aspects of the issues, should come out. If you think Wikipedia is the same thing as WikiLeaks and they both hate Mastercard and the guy behind it all is already in jail for it, then you should definitely come out. This event is open to the public, but space is limited so if you want a seat inside (away from the rain), get there early. It may be live streamed as well, stay tuned to the space's twitter stream for updates.

CRASH Space is located at 10526 Venice Blvd, in Culver City, CA 90232. Admission is free but donations of $10 are encouraged as CRASH Space is entirely membership/donation funded and relies on the support of visitors to keep the doors open.

Wikileaks: All 250,000 cables reported leaked in Norway

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 12:48 PM PST

asterix-and-the-vikings-8.jpg

According to a report today in Norway's top business publication, the Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten has managed to get a hold of the entire "Cablegate" database of some 250,000 diplomatic cables—Wikileaks has not granted any news organization this access, and has instead been providing access to relatively small batches, one at a time (what the Herald Sun calls "drip-feeding"). How did Aftenposten get access? They won't say, and Wikileaks won't either, but one guess could involve the database being stored on a server within Norway. Snip:

Aftenposten news editor Ole Erik Almlid told Dagens Naerings: "We're free to do what we want with these documents ... We're free to publish the documents or not publish the documents, we can publish on the internet or on paper. We are handling these documents just like all other journalistic material to which we have gained access."

Around 20 Aftenposten journalists are sifting through the file dump. The news articles are written in Norwegian, which may restrict their immediate impact in the English-speaking media world .. for a time at least.

Reports around the web: NTB via Google Translate, Herald Sun, journalism.co.uk, News and Views from Norway, Gawker.

White House order would normalize under Obama "indefinite detention" introduced under Bush

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 10:21 AM PST

Dafna Linzer at ProPublica reports on an Executive Order the White House is currently preparing related to the practice of indefinite detention:
[The order] will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials.

The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change.

But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for those it chooses to hold without charge or trial.

Weather: Still not the same as climate (And here's why)

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 09:37 AM PST

A nice explanation of why your hometown could get snowier, even as the global climate gets hotter. Specifically, it's an explanation that goes a little deeper than simply stating, "weather isn't climate".

Wikileaks joins forces with billionaire Lebedev to "expose corruption in Russia"

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 09:31 AM PST

Bloomberg: "Novaya Gazeta, the Moscow newspaper controlled by former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and billionaire Alexander Lebedev, said it agreed to join forces with WikiLeaks to expose corruption in Russia."

Yes, we Coelacanth!

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 09:31 AM PST

As of today, it's been 72 years* since humans figured out that some Coelacanths—an order previously known only in the fossil record—were still alive and swimming around in our modern oceans. The story of the discovery is a great one, full of serendipity and giant dead fish riding around in the back of taxis. Museum curator Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer, who found the Coelacanth in a pile of "trash" fish hauled in by a trawler, had to fight to get anyone to take her discovery seriously. Once the big shots started paying attention, though, they quickly recognized the Coelacanth as a new and fascinating species.

You've probably noticed, however, that I haven't called the Coelacanth a "living fossil". That's because it's not.


I've mentioned before that I went to fundamentalist Baptist high school. My first introduction to the Coelacanth was through a heavily biased (and flawed) biology texbook from Bob Jones University, which (to the best of my memory) described the Coelacanth as a "living fossil" and took that description literally. Evolution couldn't possibly be real, I was told, because here was this Coelacanth, utterly unchanged 65 million years (air quotes implied) after it was supposed to be extinct. If evolution were real, why would it ignore the Coelacanth?

The truth: It didn't. What Courtenay-Latimer found wasn't a fleshed-out, swimming fossil at all. Coelacanth isn't a single species. It's an order—comprising multiple extinct species, and two living ones. The living Coelacanths aren't the same as the fossil Coelacanths, and there's nothing that looks exactly like a living Coelacanth in the fossil record. The order survived. But it didn't survive untouched by evolution.

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Pictured: Courtenay-Latimer's sketch of the first, oddly cheerful, Coelacanth.

Put it another way: Imagine if you were an alien who only knew of Earth primates from the fossil record. You'd seen the bones of Australopithecus, but you thought primates had gone extinct—until the day you stumbled upon a living chimpanzee. That's the story of the Coelacanth, in a nutshell.

You might think this makes the living Coelacanths less exciting—if they aren't undead fossils, then they're just boring old fish. And that's partly true. In the grand scheme of things, there's nothing really special about Coelacanths. They exist today. And they evolved, just like everything else that exists today.

But don't be so quick to write them off. Coelacanths are important—as a symbol. The Coelacanth is a reminder that there are still discoveries to be made ... that we haven't seen everything ... and that, sometimes, we're wrong. The order of Coelacanth wasn't totally extinct, we humans just didn't know that yet until Marjorie Courtenay-Latimer pulled one out of a fish pile. The Coelacanth isn't a living fossil. But it is a call to arms—a reminder to never stop exploring the world.

Plus, they look really damn cool.

More on the Coelacanth:
• All about living Coelacanths : National Museum of Natural History

• The Sulawesi Coelacanth—the second living species, which was discovered relatively recently : UC Berkeley

• Interactive Coelacanth anatomy site : Nova

Thanks to Brian Switek for reminding me that it was Coelacanth Day!

*Pre-emptive answer to inevitable complaints: Yes, 72 is a weird anniversary to celebrate. But I wasn't writing for this blog in 2008. And I like Coelacanths. So we're celebrating anyway. Don't like it? Take it up with a Coelacanth. Go on. I'll wait while you tell the giant, scary-looking fish that it's nothing to be excited about ...

B of A snaps up $EXECNAMEsucks domains prior to Wikileaks blowout

Posted: 22 Dec 2010 09:03 AM PST

Bank of America has started snapping up "sucks" and "blows" domains for its executives in seeming preparation for the coming Wikileaks dirty-little-secrets-haemorrhage. In a stunning tribute to the financial acumen of BofA's C-suite, they seem to have missed the fact that total combinations of $FIRSTNAME/INITIAL + $LASTNAME + [blows|sucks|crook|thief|fraudster].[com|net|org|ws|info|cc|ca|ch|whatever] multiplied by, say, $5/domain/year exceeds the total capital reserves of the bank.

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