Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Playboy Mansion legionella outbreak traced to hot tub

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 07:15 PM PDT

Health officials in Los Angeles used blogs, Twitter and Facebook to track down the source of a legionella bacteria infection that sickened more than a hundred Playboy Mansion visitors. The verdict: "a whirlpool spa" at the iconic mansion. I think they mean the famed grotto (I've been there on a reporting mission once, fully clothed!), but the article doesn't specify. (LA Times)

New Zealand's 3-strikes rule can go into effect in September

Posted: 14 Apr 2011 11:44 PM PDT

This week, New Zealand's Parliament rushed in its controversial 3-strikes Internet disconnection law, using emergency procedures invoked to help victims of the Christchurch earthquake for cover. The law allows whole families to be disconnected from the Internet if someone using their Internet connection is accused -- without proof -- of three acts of copyright infringement. The NZ government and press say that this draconian law only goes into effect if infringement doesn't decline over the next two years. But the reality is that 3-strikes can go into effect as early as September, based on consultation solely with rightsholders, with no need for public consultation.

Juha sez, "Disconnections under the new copyright law in New Zealand can in fact be activated any time after September 1 when the Act comes into force. This would happen if the notice-and-notice regime where rights holders can take infringers to the Copyright Tribunal is deemed not to be working. IP lawyers I've talked to expect the regime to fail due to the sheer volume of notices and cases, as per overseas experience. The Copyright Tribunal will be staffed by five IP lawyers. At this stage, we don't know if the government will allow public consultation and submissions, should it decide to activate the Internet Termination Penalty in the new law. It's not mentioned in the new Copyright Act. The review after two years is to see if mobile data connections should be subject to the new copyright act as well."

The majority of us recommend the new section 122PA, which would effect what we believe a workable compromise on this issue. The bill's provisions allowing for Internet suspension would be retained, with modifications, but would not be brought into effect immediately. If evidence indicated that notices alone (and the remedy through the Copyright Tribunal) were not having the desired deterrent effect, the suspension provisions could be activated by Order in Council. The majority of us believe this approach would create the right incentives, with the remedy of suspension able to be brought into effect if needed. We would expect an appropriate timetable for monitoring and review to be developed in consultation with rights holders. We note that a similar approach was recently adopted in the United Kingdom.
Copyright (Infringing File Sharing) Amendment Bill 119-2 (2010), Government Bill (Thanks, Juha!)

Friday Freak-Out: It's A Beautiful Day's "White Bird" (1971)

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 03:03 PM PDT

Cambridge SoundWorks Portable Speaker System

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 02:56 PM PDT

cambridge Soundworks.jpegThis is, hands-down, the best portable audio system I have ever heard. It takes a few minutes to set-up and pack-up, and you need a power source to run it, but wow! does it have great sound! I have used it for parties, outdoor BBQs, and on vacation and it never fails to sound great. The included speakers and amplifier, the necessary cables, and your iPod, all pack into the included hard case (which also contains the subwoofer).

My only gripe is that the connections are all clip-connections rather than banana connections, but Radio Shack and other sources sell small banana-style plugs to use with clip connections, making set-up much easier (no frayed wire ends).

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I can't recommend this enough for anyone who wants audiophile-quality music they can take with them to a cabin, condo, RV, or to their backyard as needed. The price is higher than your standard portable units, but Cambridge Sound Works constantly has sales and coupons on the net, making the price a little bit better. In any event, it's well worth even the full list price! There are few things I have come across that are "best of class" but this is certainly one.

--Torgny Nilsson

Cambridge SoundWorks Model 12 Portable Speaker System
$375


Don't forget to comment over at Cool Tools. And remember to submit a tool!

Guns & Gardens Ep. 5 - The DIY Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 02:31 PM PDT


[Video Link] Here's the latest episode of Guns & Gardens. I wonder if they belong to my favorite political party (The Guns and Dope Party).

Japan Quake sound captured by underwater microphones (or "hydrophones")

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 02:18 PM PDT

[Video Link]. An AP item about spectrograms and audio files which captured sound waves associated with the March 11 earthquake off the northern coast of Japan. (via @NYTjim)

Final call for entries in Yuri's Night space art contest (prize: Zero-G flight on Ilyushin 76!)

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 02:08 PM PDT

Make: Projects -- build a micro FM transmitter

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 01:52 PM PDT

wireless-fm.jpg Sean Michael Ragan chose an adorable case to hold his micro FM transmitter. Make: Projects has the complete instructions.

(A No-Prize shall be awarded to the most sanctimonious comment about FCC rules against RF interference.)

Micro FM Transmitter

Roots music magnate Chris Strachwitz

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 02:15 PM PDT

Wordpress Wp-Content Uploads Chris78Svaultlatimes-1 2011 03 Hear Me Howling Cover Web
Chris Strachwitz, 79, is the founder of Arhoolie Records, a small, independent, and absolutely incredible record label based in the Bay Area that for 50 years has released an unending stream of obscure and exquisite "down home" roots, blues, folk, and Tejano music. (Strachwitz is also a proprietor of Down Home Music, an equally amazing record (yes, records, but CDs too) shop in El Cerrito, north of Berkeley, California. It should come as no surprise that Strachwitz has his own world class music collection. Indeed, he holds the largest archive of Mexican and Mexican American music on the planet, a total of more than 46,000 recordings mostly on 78s and 45s. Slowly, archivist (and ska-punk trombonist) Antonio Cuellar is digitizing every piece and making them available online through UCLA's Chicano Studies Research Center library. This week's San Francisco Bay Guardian features an interview with Strachwitz and Cuellar. From the SFBG:
From Strachwitz's well-documented obsession with tracking down Lightnin' Hopkins to record him in 1959, to his increasingly far-flung forays into the backwoods and swamps of the musically-diverse South, his emphasis has been on excavating the genuine, the raw, and the regionally significant. The diversity of music that Arhoolie publishes and records ranges in style from dirty blues to folk ballads, Cajun zydeco to conjunto. The tie that binds them isn't genre, but emotional content.

"They are all very down to earth, totally alive and vibrant, from people who have mostly had a rough life," Strachwitz explains. Perhaps best known for their bang-for-your-buck compilations assembled by region or genre: 15 Early Tejano Classics, Angola Prisoner's Blues, Masters of the Folk Violin, Arhoolie has also released a number of seminal single-artist albums. Bogalusa Boogie by recent Grammy Hall of Fame inductee Clifton Chenier, Flaco Jiménez's 1986 Grammy-winning ranchera album Ay Te Dejo en San Antonio, and the Pine Leaf Boys' 2007 Grammy-nominated Cajun dance album Blues de Musicien exemplify Arhoolie's commitment to unadorned authenticity.

Though it's been a few years since Arhoolie recorded any new material, there's a stockpile of one-of-a-kind field recordings patiently awaiting release. A recent addition to the Arhoolie canon is 2010's Hear Me Howling, a four-CD collection housed in the handsome confines of a hardcover scrapbook. This 72-track compilation of raw material, gleaned from a series of Bay Area recording sessions from 1954-71, captures the essence of the music as well as the musicians in the moment: a humorous reference about Strachwitz's "new recording machine," improvised by skiffle group The Skid Band; a soft-spoken call for requests by bluesman Mance Lipscomb; a brief but earnest sermon delivered by the Rev. Louis Overstreet before he launches into an anthem on his electric guitar.

"Hear me howling!" (SFBG)

"Hear Me Howling! Blues, Ballads & Beyond: The Arhoolie 50th Anniversary Boxset" (Amazon)

Tracklist for William Shatner's upcoming album "Searching for Major Tom"

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 01:18 PM PDT

shatner1.jpg

"The song line up for 'Searching for Major Tom' has been announced. WilliamShatner.com is happy to report that the album due out later in 2011 on the Cleopatra Records label will have the following songs..."

I've heard his "Iron Man," from an iPhone video captured in the studio by a friend during the recording session. This thing is gonna rule.

(thanks, Paul Camuso)

Dorota: Mystical Rainbow

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 01:03 PM PDT

dorata.jpg

[Video Link]. Medieval dresses and orgone generators to combat negative vibrations from mobile phones and gaming consoles by Dorota. Everything about this video, right down to the MIDI soundtrack, is unstoppably awesome. Thanks, Robert Popper.

To do in NYC April 17: "And I Am Not Lying"

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 01:01 PM PDT

If you're in NYC on Sunday, April 17th, check out the latest edition of the live improv/storytelling/puppetry/comedy/burlesque show "And I Am Not Lying," put together by BB pal Jeff Simmermon. Starts 8PM at the Kraine theater: 85 East Fourth Street, between Bowery and Second Avenue. More info here, video trailer here, flyer here.

Home value chart updated 1890-2011

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 12:54 PM PDT

home-value.jpg

Barry Ritholtz of The Big Picture says:

In 2006, just as the Housing market was peaking, the NYT ran this graphic of the 100-year Case Shiller chart. It showed how radically overvalued Housing had become. Two years later, TBP reader Steve Barry updated that graphic, including the projected Home Price mean reversion. Its time to update this for 2011. Note the 2009 tax credit wiggle.
Case Shiller 100 Year Chart (2011 Update)


McGraw-Hill iPhone / iPad apps for free: Monster Squeeze, Tric-Trac

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 12:47 PM PDT

monster-squeezd.jpg

DealNews points to a bunch of education applications for the iPad and iPhone that McGraw-Hill is giving away (regularly $2 each). I just grabbed them all. The deal ends April 16.

McGraw-Hill iPhone / iPad apps for free: Monster Squeeze, Tric-Trac

iOS apps for kindergartners? (open thread)

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 12:37 PM PDT

What are the best iOS (iPod Touch) apps for soon-to-be kindergartners? Preferably related to science, music, art, early reading/writing skills. You know, the stuff CD-ROM makers used to call "edutainment." And fun/silly games too!

Crab attack!

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 12:29 PM PDT

crab-attack.jpg

My favorite part: they are lining up to take their turn. (Via Illustrateurs)



Why does Android marketplace link apps for gay men and apps for sex offenders?

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 12:07 PM PDT

Grindr-Post-thumb-600x268-47991.jpg

Mike Ananny, a postdoctoral scholar at Microsoft Research and fellow at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society, writes in the Atlantic about a strange Android app discovery:

As I was installing Grindr on my Android phone yesterday, I scrolled down to take a look at the list of "related" and "relevant" applications. My jaw dropped. There, first on the list, was "Sex Offender Search," a free application created by Life360 that lets you "find sex offenders near you and protect your child ... so you can keep your family safe."

I was flabbergasted. How and why was this association being made? What could one application have to do with other? How many potential Grindr users were dissuaded from downloading the application because they saw this listed as a related application? In essence: Who did this linking, how does it work, and what harm is it doing?

(via danah boyd)

Tsunami characters

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 11:46 AM PDT

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Tokyo-based author and translator Matt Alt has a post up today on Altjapan about the history of anthropomorphizing tsunamis in Japan.

Japan has a long history of using cute mascot characters in situations that can surprise Westerners. In fact, quite often the more terrifying or distressing a situation, the cuter the visual description of it becomes on official posters here.

This may sound counterintuitive or even a little condescending at first, but when you start thinking about it, it makes perfect sense. Whereas, say, photos of damage or devastation would probably cause people to avert their eyes, this sort of presentation lures people into actually reading the sign -- particularly children, as tsunami education needs to start early.

Of course, there's no way to know how many lives public-service campaigns like this saved in the 3-11 earthquake and tsunami. But similar to the ancient stone tsunami-warning markers found dotting the countryside, these cute characters are another example that natural disasters are never far from the minds of people in Japan.

(via Sean Bonner)

World's creepiest product for kids from 1959

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 11:37 AM PDT

The Starlighter Quartet

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 11:31 AM PDT

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I'm hopping in my Peel P50 and heading over to the Biltmore Motor Hotel to see The Starlighter Quartet tonight. Check out those handmade guitars!

Here's the same photo without the text around it.

Trailer for upcoming Planet of the Apes movie

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 11:21 AM PDT

US defense contractor building "secret microwave gun"

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 11:05 AM PDT

BAE, a U.S. military contractor, is developing a "microwave gun" but won't release details. Wired Danger Room reports that the intent is to use the gun in combat or vessel defense scenarios on the high seas, but my bet is that it will instead be used against the menace of floating frozen burritos that litter arctic waterways.

Beat "bootcamp" and the On The Road movie

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 10:50 AM PDT

Kerouaccassss
This fall, Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" will finally hit the big screen, directed by Walter Salles and written by Jose Rivera, both of whom worked on The Motorcycle Diaries. Sam Riley stars as Sal Paradise and Garrett Hedlund is Dean Moriarty. Viggo Mortensen took on the William Burroughs-inspired character Old Bull Lee. Over at the Bay Citizen, Scott James updates us on the undertaking, including efforts the cast and crew are making not to fuck up this iconic work of the counterculture. Indeed, the actors and crew even went through a Kerouac "boot camp" led by the likes of Gerald Nicosia, author of the definitive Kerouac bio "Memory Babe: A Critical Biography of Jack Kerouac." From the Bay Citizen:
None of the cast and crew were old enough to remember the Beat era, so Nicosia, of Corte Madera, approached the sessions as if he were teaching ancient history, "like I was bringing them the Holy Grail."

He said the actors were especially intense, knowing they would upset a lot of people if they didn't portray the characters accurately.

At the camp, Nicosia played an audio interview that he recorded in 1978 with Lu Anne Henderson, Neal Cassady's young wife, on whom the book's character Marylou is based. That conversation is also the basis of "One and Only: The Untold Story of 'On The Road,'" a new book by Nicosia out this fall.

Could the cast and crew dig, er, relate?

"They're all very unconventional in their own lives," Nicosia said of the actors. "If you're an outsider, you understand what counterculture is about."

"'On the Road' Becomes a Movie at Last"

 


Gullibility may be early sign of dementia

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 10:49 AM PDT

Elderly people who are increasingly unable to detect sarcasm or lies may be exhibiting early signs of dementia/neurodegenerative diseases, according to University of California scientists. The new research suggests that it might be possible to spot certain neurodegenerative diseases by looking for surprising gullibility in someone who otherwise may seem healthy. This connection has been somewhat obvious for years, as elderly people are sadly more easily suckered by scam artists. (Not to say that being an easy target for a con means one has a neurodegenerative disease.) In this latest work though, he UCSF team used brain scans to show that damage and deterioration in certain regions of the brain correlate with an inability to known when someone isn't being sincere. From UCSF Medical Center:
Healthy older subjects in the study could easily distinguish sincere from insincere speech.  However, the subjects who had frontotemporal dementia were less able to discern among lies, sarcasm, and fact. Patients with other forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer's disease, did better.

To associate the detection inability with neurodegeneration, the UCSF team used MRI to make extremely accurate maps of the brains of the subjects in the study. This allowed them to measure the volumes of different regions of the brain showing that the sizes of those regions correlated with the inability to detect sarcasm or lying.

According to Rankin, the work should help raise awareness of the fact that this extreme form of gullibility can actually be a warning sign of dementia -- something that could help more patients be correctly diagnosed and receive treatment earlier in the long run.

"Inability to Detect Sarcasm, Lies May Be Early Sign of Dementia, UCSF Study Shows"

Young bonobo may be expressing symptoms of autism

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 10:20 AM PDT

Researchers are studying the behavior and genetics of a bonobo chimpanzee who appears to display symptoms similar to those seen in autistic children. The youngster, Teco, is a son of Kanzi, whom you might remember as one of the "talking" apes that some researchers believe have learned to communicate with humans using picture boards and other tools.

Teco had trouble bonding with his mother, who turned him over to an aunt, who reportedly passed the baby on to the human caretakers at the Iowa Great Apes Trust.

Teco.jpg That's when they began to notice that he also showed various autism-like symptoms: lack of eye contact, strict adherence to rituals or routines, repetitive behaviors, and an interest in objects rather than in social contact. A blanket, for example, has to be arranged just so or else Teco becomes agitated, says scientific director William Fields. Teco also shows repetitive movements similar to those seen in some children with autism.

"He seemed to be fascinated by parts of objects, like wheels and other things, and he wasn't developing joint attention," Fields adds. "The baby was avoiding eye contact -- it was like it was painful for him."

In people, differences in eye movements and eye contact are early signs of autism. According to Fields, who has studied the apes for more than a decade, eye contact is even more important to social communication in bonobos than it is in humans.

This month, another group of researchers reported that bonobos have more developed neural circuitry than do chimpanzees in parts of the brain involved in emotion and empathy. These brain regions, such as the amygdala, the hypothalamus and the prefrontal cortex, are also areas that show differences in people with autism. The work provides a kind of mirror image to Teco's story: If the structure of the social brain is similar in humans and bonobos, perhaps it's not so surprising that social abnormalities can look similar in the two species as well.

Given some of the problems associated with studies of apes and language learning—suffice to say, human caretakers are prone to interpreting the behavior of their charges in ways that don't always match up with what outside researchers see—I would be interested to get some second and third opinions on Teco. But, if this perspective on his behavior turns out to be widely accepted, it could offer some unique insights into the genetic and evolutionary basis of autism. Cool stuff!

Via Virginia Hughes

Shrooms limit brain blood flow and connections

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 10:13 AM PDT

Shrooommmomomomo

(photo by Curecat/Wikimedia Commons)


Turn off your mind, relax, and float downstream, indeed. A new scientific study suggests that psilocybin -- the psychedelic drug found in magic mushrooms -- doesn't "turn on" parts of your brain but rather restricts blood flow and connections between the regions of the brain tied to perception and cognition. Imperial College London psychopharmacology researcher Robin Carhart-Harris presented the results of this study, in which 30 volunteers were injected with psilocybin and underwent brain scans, at last week's Breaking Convention conference on psychedelic consciousness. Interestingly, the data helps support psilocybin's potential use to treat depression. From New Scientist:
Less blood flow was seen in the brain regions known as the thalamus, the posterior cingulate and the medial prefrontal cortex. "Seeing a decrease was surprising. We thought profound experience equalled more activity, but this formula is clearly too simplistic," says Carhart-Harris. "We didn't see an increase in any regions," he says.

Decreases in connectivity were also observed, such as between the hippocampus and the posterior cingulate and medial prefrontal cortex.

"Under psilocybin you see a relative decrease in 'talk' between the hippocampus and these cortical hub regions," says Carhart-Harris. "Changes in function in the posterior cingulate in particular are associated with changes in consciousness."

Psilocybin has a similar chemical structure to serotonin – a hormone involved in regulating mood – and therefore binds to serotonin receptors on nerve cells in the brain. The drug may have therapeutic potential because the serotonin system in nerves is also a target for existing antidepressants.

"Psychedelic drug cuts brain blood flow and connections" (Thanks, Jody Radzik!)

Thinking critically about the so-called "gay caveman"

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 10:01 AM PDT

Wondering about that supposed "gay caveman" found last week in Europe? At the Neuron Culture blog, Eric Michael Johnson does a great job of summing up everything that was wrong with that story (and there was lots wrong with that story).

USPS accidentally issues Vegas Statue of Liberty stamp

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 09:55 AM PDT

Images 20110425 Oa3 Sl Big
How fantastically hyperreal: Turns out the United States Postal Service's brand new Statue of Liberty stamp, seen below, accidentally features an illustration of the Lady Liberty replica at Las Vegas's New York-New York casino as opposed to the real statue in New York Harbor. A philatelist and fan of the NYC statue noticed the error and informed Linn's Stamp News. They investigated and published the above comparative photos, with the replica at top left. From the New York Times:
Images 2011 04 15 Us Stamp Stamp-Popup "We still love the stamp design and would have selected this photograph anyway," said Roy Betts, a spokesman (for the USPS). Mr. Betts did say, however, that the post office regrets the error and is "re-examining our processes to prevent this situation from happening in the future."

The service selected the image from a photography service, and issued rolls of the stamp bearing the image in December. This month, it issued a sheet of 18 Lady Liberty and flag stamps. Information accompanying the original release of the stamp included a bit of history on the real Statue of Liberty. Las Vegas was never mentioned. The whole mess was exposed by the stamp magazine, which this week ran photographs of both statues.

To the average tourist, there are obvious differences. The Las Vegas statue is half the size of the real Statue of Liberty. And of course, they are in different cities. But it takes a real student of Lady Liberty to notice the contrasts in a stamp-size photo of her head. The hair is different. The replica's eyes are much more sharply defined. A rectangular patch — a plaque, maybe? — is on the replica's center spike.

"This Lady Liberty Is a Las Vegas Teenager" (NYT, thanks Bob Pescovitz!)

"Statue of Liberty on U.S. stamp is a replica standing outside Las Vegas hotel and casino" (Linn's Stamp News)

Genes, language, and how we study human pre-history

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 09:44 AM PDT

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The Wall Street Journal has a story out today about a study published in the journal Science that claims all modern languages evolved out of the same proto-language—the linguistic version of Out-of-Africa. Meanwhile, the BBC is reporting on a paper published in Nature which suggests features that are shared between languages actually evolved independently, rather than being concepts coded into our brains by biology.

I'm not sure whether these two sets of results can be easily compared to one another. The studies were aimed at answering very different questions, so you can't just line one up against the other. Depending on your point of view, these results may be contradictory ... but that's not necessarily the case. What I do think is interesting about these two studies is the fact that both are based on research methodologies and theories that were born in the fields of evolutionary biology and genetic anthropology. For instance, the Wall Street Journal article says:

His research is based on phonemes, distinct units of sound such as vowels, consonants and tones, and an idea borrowed from population genetics known as "the founder effect." That principle holds that when a very small number of individuals break off from a larger population, there is a gradual loss of genetic variation and complexity in the breakaway group. Dr. Atkinson figured that if a similar founder effect could be discerned in phonemes, it would support the idea that modern verbal communication originated on that continent and only then expanded elsewhere.

And in the BBC story:

Lead author Michael Dunn, an evolutionary linguist at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in the Netherlands, said the approach is akin to the study of pea plants by Gregor Mendel, which ultimately led to the idea of heritability of traits. Modern phylogenetics studies look at variations in animals that are known to be related, and from those can work out when specific structures evolved. For their [linguistic] studies, the team studied the characteristics of word order in four language families: Indo-European, Uto-Aztec, Bantu and Austronesian.

I'm curious how widespread this interdisciplinary approach is within linguistics, and whether most linguists think it's a reasonable way to study language evolution. I would think, at the very least, that you have to make some adjustments. After all, as the Wall Street Journal article points out, the forces that shape biological evolution work differently from those that shape cultural evolution.

Dr. Atkinson's approach has its limits. Genes change slowly, over many generations, while the diversity of phonemes amid a population group can change rapidly as language evolves. While distance from Africa can explain as much as 85% of the genetic diversity of populations, a similar distance measurement can explain only 19% of the variation in phonemic diversity. Dr. Atkinson said the measure is still statistically significant.

Wall Street Journal: The Mother of All Languages
BBC: Language Universality Idea Tested with Biology Method

Image: Some rights reserved by bruce-asher

"Collection" t-shirt of space missions

Posted: 15 Apr 2011 09:39 AM PDT

Aboveearth V1 Hires
The good people at Chop Shop created this excellent t-shirt graphic "Above Earth," showcasing 23 historic space exploration missions. Yes, Yuri Gagarin is up there, on the inner ring at about 10 o'clock. "Above Earth" t-shirt
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