Monday, February 21, 2011

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Following the Libyan uprising

Posted: 21 Feb 2011 03:22 AM PST


The Guardian's liveblog of the news coming from Libya is fantastic, in a gripping and sickly horrible way. From the troops and mercenaries massacring demonstrators to the weird, rambling speech of Saif Gadaffi (Muammar's son) blaming drug addicts and foreigners for his people's uprising and threatening to murder the whole country to keep it in his family's hands, it's all there, with frequent updates. The Younger Gadaffi's loose grip on reality can be further explored on his moribund Twitter feed (Google translation to English).

There's also an incredible set of photos of the Libyan uprising on Flickr user Fadhomar's stream.

Renesys has information on the blocks in Libyan Internet coverage: "Two-thirds of Libyan routes came back to life at 6:01 UTC (8:01 local time), and the remainder were restored nine minutes later. At the moment, spot checks of Libyan domains and traceroutes into affected networks indicate that connectivity has been restored, and Libya is back on the Internet." (Thanks, @Re6smith!)

10.28am - Libya: On Audioboo, a group called feb17voices is collecting audio recordings from Libyans reporting on what is happening in their country. Here is a transcript from one from Saturday:

My name is Rahma, I am located in Tripoli right now, I am heading out to Fashloom area, they have heard that Fashloom is beginning to protest that ... and other suburbs are sort of rioting and protesting anti-government, and because of these riots the cops as we speak are shooting live ammunition and grenades at them. I don't know ... Beaten hard right now but Fashloom, Gergaresh and Zawiya street. These are streets, locations, suburbs, areas in Tripoli.

This is one from Tripoli that was uploaded three hours ago, about protests in Green Square, in the Libyan capital:

The supporters who took over the square, there were like maybe three or four thousand people. The people who came after that, there were like less numbers.

This Tripoli man says Gaddafi "is challenging the masses, but, OK, I think he is going to lose it in a couple of days".

Libya uprising - live updates (today)

Libya protests - as they happened (Sunday)

(Image: Libya's new flag, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from khalidalbaih's photostream)

 


Bahraini army murders peaceful demonstrators

Posted: 21 Feb 2011 02:58 AM PST

This gut-wrenching video (after the jump) shows peaceful protestors being fired on with automatic weapons by Bahrain's military. The comment thread on the YouTube video attains a new peak in awfulness, even for YouTube videos, with rage-filled illiterates variously blaming Iranian provocateurs, Israel, the USA, Shiites, Sunnis, and whomever else is handy, interspersed with people convinced that gunshots don't really sound like that.

Meanwhile, Al Jazeera's coverage continues to be the best thing going, followed closely by the Guardian.

Bahrain's army deliberately kills peaceful protesters with live rounds ( automatic weapon ) (Thanks, Superface, via Submitterator!)

 




3D printing's first copyright complaint goes away, but things are just getting started

Posted: 21 Feb 2011 12:11 AM PST

More news on the first-ever DMCA threat for violating a copyright in a 3D object -- Ulrich Schwanitz has rescinded his complaint and will release his shape into the public domain today.

Here's a summary for those of you who missed it: last week, Ulrich Schwanitz figured out how to print the "impossible" Penrose Triangle," a well-known optical illusion. He released a video of the shape and challenged others to see how it might have been done. 3D modeller Artur Tchoukanov promptly figured it out, designed a 3D shape that accomplished the same thing, and uploaded his shape's specifications to Thingiverse, a repository for 3D designs.

Then I came along and missed the fact that there was a challenge underway, and erroneously credited Artur Tchoukanov with creating the shape. Schwanitz sent me some emails asking for correction, but they arrived while I was away from the Internet at a conference, so it was a few hours until I updated. In that time, Schwanitz sent Thingiverse a DMCA notice -- essentially, a threat to name Thinigverse as a party in any copyright lawsuit against Tchoukanov unless Thingiverse took the shape down immediately.

Whereupon Schwanitz became the inventor of something much more substantial than a 3D Penrose Triangle -- he became the inventor of copyright threats over open 3D repositories. A weekend's worth of acrimony followed -- with lots of speculation about the copyrightability of Schwanitz's design and questions about whether Tchoukanov was guilty of violating any copyright that vested in the design, and further questions about the ethics of copying designs and the ethics of sending copyright threats to Thingiverse.

Here's where I net out on it: the 2D Penrose Triangle is not a copyrightable image. It is in the public domain. It is possible to make new copyrighted works based on the public domain (see, for example West Side Story, a new copyrighted work derived from the public domain Romeo and Juliet). The copyrightability of such a work hinges on whether it is sufficiently creative.

I think Schwanitz's design is indeed creative, and probably attracts a new copyright. However, I'm not convinced that Tchoukanov's work violates that copyright, since it's not a "copy" of the Schwanitz design (that is, it wasn't created by copying the file), but rather, an interpretation of the underlying public domain work inspired by Schwanitz's design.

I further think that Schwanitz was wrong not to expect people to present solutions to his challenge in the form of 3D files. After all, if you pose a public mathematical riddle, you should expect the challengers to upload their equations in response. "Show your work" is a feature of all good scholarly pursuits.

But I also think I'm to blame for not parsing the post I reported on more closely -- I was in a hurry, and the context of the post on i.materialise was unclear, so I misattributed the work. This was compounded by one of those rare moments when I wasn't online, which is just sod's law in action.

Finally, I think that Schwanitz has done the right thing in dropping his complaint against Thingiverse and Tchoukanov's work -- not least because, as Thingiverse's Chylld has demonstrated, it's trivial to create new "impossible triangle" designs that are strictly based on the public domain image that inspired Schwanitz, which means that Schwanitz will never be the sole supplier of this particular 3D optical illusion (this is the other side of the public domain bargain: you may use it for free, but so many your competitors -- hence Disney has to contend with innumerable other versions of Rapunzel that compete with their Tangled).

All in all: fun times. Expect them to get weirder. I mean, aggrieved optical illusion creators don't have anything like the political and legislative clout of other potential 3D printing complexifiers. Imagine what happens when some magistrate in Alabama decides that Thingiverse is liable for hosting 3D models of sex toys (illegal in AL) and issues a bench warrant for Bre Pettis's arrest. Or when someone from Shapeways shows up at CES in Vegas, only to discover that the state Drug Enforcement Agency has issued a warrant on the basis of a bong design available at Shapeways, violating the state's strict anti-drug-paraphenalia laws. Or someone from i.materialise gets an EU extradition request from Germany because someone's printed a detailed, historically accurate toy soldier with a swastika armband, violating Germany's strict laws against Nazi paraphernalia.

And just wait until someone creates a printer that can reproduce patented pharmaceutical compounds or Monsanto's patented life-forms! Now there are a couple of villains with a lot of resources to throw at making the whole Internet's life miserable in order to squeeze an extra 0.05% into the quarter's bottom line.

IP, 3D Printing & DMCA

 


California congresswoman: a vendetta against Planned Parenthood has nothing to do with creating jobs or reducing the deficit

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 09:51 PM PST

Eileen Gunn sez, "Rep. Jackie Speier (D, CA) spoke passionately in opposition to stripping Planned Parenthood of any US funding. Compare and contrast with smarmy Rep. Chris Smith (R, NJ)."

Speier's point is well-taken: using a budget debate as an excuse to pursue Planned Parenthood is obstructionist, divisive politics at its worst. Imagine if the Democratic House had refused to pass any budget unless it contained amendments blocking funding to every agency, institution, charity and contractor that the American left objected to. The fact that this particular amendment vilifies women who've had to make wrenching decisions and endure difficult and painful procedures, often for life-saving reasons, is all the more infuriating.

(Thanks, Eileen Gunn, via Submitterator!)

 


Mideast protests: real-time tweet mapping

Posted: 20 Feb 2011 10:14 AM PST

Developer Virender Ajmani created this interesting Google Maps/Twitter mashup that allows you to scan "protest tweets" from Iran, Bahrain, Egypt, and Libya, as they go live. He explains the project here.

(thanks, @mommadona)

Imperial Scott Walker, the worker-hating AT-AT Destroyer

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 09:44 PM PST


Some disgruntled Wisconsonites have produced this handy visual guide to understanding the imperious approach of Tea Party governor Scott Walker, who handed $137M in tax breaks to the wealthy, declared an emergency budget shortfall of $140M, and decided to cover it by gutting the state's unions.

IMPERIAL WALKER (Thanks, Simulacrumb!)

 


Althea Mae Koerth (1923-2011)

Posted: 20 Feb 2011 07:02 AM PST

grammy.jpg

Early Thursday morning, while my Dad held her hand, the best Grammy in the entire world passed away. I made it to Kansas just in time to see her, and talk with her, before she died.

I wasn't sure whether I was going to post anything here about it, but I want something out there, semi-permanent, bearing witness to the fact that this woman was amazing. Grammy was a Maker. She was my inspiration as a bookworm, a smartypants girl, and a Happy Mutant.

Althea was a knitter, who made sweaters for everyone in the family—upwards of a dozen people—every Christmas. She made afghans. She did needlepoint. She made teeny little hats that were donated to premature infants.

She also made toys. In 4th grade, I saved up enough money to buy a Felicity doll, one of those American Girls dolls that came with a book and a catalog full of expensive accessories. Grammy bought a book of dress patterns that Christmas and made all the beautiful gowns that I couldn't afford. She turned muslin and stuffing into whole dolls. She even made knock-off Pound Puppies for my cousins and me, complete with an embroidered logo on the puppies' rear ends, so they looked real.

Up until maybe 6 years ago, there wasn't a crumb of bread in her house that she hadn't made. Grammy bread was incredible stuff. The baked dough formed a texture like dense honeycomb. You could toast store-bought bread. But why would you? The butter just sits on top, even melted. Toasted Grammy bread was something else entirely. Butter infused into it. Peanut butter seemed to become one with the bread. Even in a cold-cut sandwich, Grammy bread was part of the flavor of the dish, not just something to hold the meat together.

Grammy Althea made cookies, too. And cakes and pies. She picked the flavors special, just for the people who would be eating them. Christmas cookies weren't random. When you looked at them all, laid out on the tray, you knew who each cookie flavor "belonged" to. The jam thumbprints, coated in a layer of crushed black walnuts, were mine. The oatmeal chocolate chip were my Dad's. It was always like that. My second cousin, Beth, remembers Grammy making lemon meringue pie every time Beth came to visit. Nobody else really liked lemon meringue. Grammy made that pie because she knew how happy it made Beth.

Grammy went above and beyond the call of the crafty grandma. To me, she was like a third parent. I spent weekends and summer weeks with her and my Grandpa. In grade school, she was often the one to pick me up after class on Friday. When my Mom and I moved two hours away, she still met Mom halfway to get me, and sometimes drove all the way there and stayed with us. In a childhood that involved a lot of new houses and new schools, Grammy was my stability. Together, we spent hours at the library. We watched the MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour on PBS. We played brain teasers and board games. We went to the KU Natural History museum, and we went on long walks. I could tell her anything. She would always be there. She would always love me. She was one of my best friends, and I am going to miss her as long as I live.

Odd, anthropomorphized animal illustrations of the 18th century

Posted: 19 Feb 2011 09:55 PM PST


Bof sez, "Slightly warped illustrations of familiar animals during the Enlightenment by a forerunner of Darwin. The animals are put in contrived settings and their faces are made to look like they have human characteristics"
The plates below are from a 1753 work called 'Collection des Animaux Quadrupèdes' which forms part of an enormous 36-volume series ('Histoire Naturelle') issued over a forty year period by Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon.
Buffon's Beasts (Thanks, Bof!)
 


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