Saturday, May 14, 2011

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Itty Bitty Critter Committee to join human astronauts on Shuttle Endeavour

Posted: 13 May 2011 04:01 PM PDT

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Oh, sure, human astronauts will be on board Space Shuttle Endeavour's STS-134 mission set to launch Monday. But so will five microscopic life forms: Water Bears, also known as Tardigrades (shown above); the bacteria Deinococcus radiodurans and Bacillus subtilis; and the archaea Haloarcula marismortui and Pyrococcus furiosus. More about "Shuttle LIFE" here, via the Planetary Society.

Tardigrades image via Google Knol.

 


Dropbox lied to users about security, encryption, charges security researcher in FTC complaint

Posted: 13 May 2011 03:40 PM PDT

Blogger and security researcher Christopher Soghoian has filed a complaint with the FTC over Dropbox's recent data privacy flipflop. Here's the PDF. [Wired News]

A look inside China's human organ market

Posted: 13 May 2011 03:15 PM PDT

Al Jazeera: "A young woman, posing as a migrant worker from Hebei province, calls a man who has advertised on the website, identified as Mr He. 'I need money,' she says over the phone. 'Do you want a woman's kidney?' Mr He asks her age. Twenty-five, she replies. 'Of course we want your kidney.'"

"Reality 86'd," David Markey's film on the final tour of Black Flag

Posted: 13 May 2011 04:55 PM PDT

Twitter newbie Henry Rollins says, "In 1986, Dave Markey made a documentary of Black Flag's final tour. He just posted it for free viewing. Brutal!"

US State Dept. screws up visa lottery, smashes thousands of would-be immigrants' dreams

Posted: 13 May 2011 02:36 PM PDT

Osama bin Fappin'

Posted: 13 May 2011 03:35 PM PDT

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Among the items Navy SEALs reportedly retrieved from Osama's Abbottabad compound: a porn stash presumed to have been viewed and used for pleasurable purposes by the world's most wanted terrorist. That visual I just stuck in your head? You're welcome.

Reuters reports that the adult material found "consists of modern, electronically recorded video and is fairly extensive." Snip:

The officials said they were not yet sure precisely where in the compound the pornography was discovered or who had been viewing it. Specifically, the officials said they did not know if bin Laden himself had acquired or viewed the materials.

Reports from Abbottabad have said that bin Laden's compound was cut off from the Internet or other hard-wired communications networks. It is unclear how compound residents would have acquired the pornography.

As fun as it is to make LOLs, it's worth noting that Reuters is the only organization to have reported this claim, based on anonymously quoted "officials." Previous details about the OBL operation have been mis-reported by the administration, and it's possible that this, too, is bogus.

[via Wired News]

Porn found at Osama's house

Posted: 13 May 2011 01:57 PM PDT

Cnnporn
And it was "sexually explicit!" (CNN, thanks Ariel Waldman!)

On eve of Endeavour's last launch, "Shuttle Ennui" (Xeni on The Madeleine Brand show)

Posted: 13 May 2011 05:06 PM PDT

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Download audio (MP3), or listen to the show here.

I joined The Madeleine Brand Show on the radio today for a chat around what some jokingly refer to as "shuttle ennui," felt by many at NASA (and others whose livelihoods depend on NASA) as the space shuttle program ends.

We so often think of things as large as America's space program as abstractions, and for good reason. Billions of dollars, thousands of people, huge human-made machines that shoot fire and climb toward the stars. But NASA is made of people. And along with all of the NASA employees and contractors whose work relates to the shuttle program, everyone from the Cape Canaveral donut shop owner to the journalists who cover space are affected by the program's end. Right now, to put it simply: everyone's bummin'.

Today, the countdown began for the final launch of shuttle Endeavour, scheduled to lift off Monday morning 8:56:26 a.m. EDT. This will be the 36th shuttle mission, STS-134. She'll head to the International Space Station to deliver an array of supplies, including spare parts for the robot DEXTRE ("The Canada Hand"). Last month's launch attempt was scrubbed when problems were discovered in fuel line heaters. One more shuttle launch is scheduled for June, the STS-135 mission with shuttle Atlantis. But that's it: the end of the shuttle era—and the end of tens of thousands of skilled American technology workers' jobs.

I've spent much of the last few weeks wandering around Kennedy Space Center and Johnson Space Center, with Miles O'Brien and the SpaceFlightNow crew, talking to people about how the end of the program impacts their lives. Along the way, I met a number of Boing Boing fans at NASA, and contractors and space nerds who are part of our greater family of happy mutants. Hear more about what I observed in the radio segment.

Do tune in to SpaceFlightNow for Monday's launch webcast with Miles O'Brien, David Waters and astronaut Leroy Chiao. It really is the best launch coverage there is.

Space fans may also enjoy tuning in to SomaFM's "Mission Control," NASA audio plus trippy ambient electronica, live Monday from JSC. A fun related post from them here.

Related: Flickr galleries of iPhone snapshots I shot on my recent space adventures. KSC (Florida), and JSC (Texas). Above and below, a few of those pix: Shuttle patches behind the counter, at the cigar store where reporters covering launches (including Miles) buy stogies for liftoff luck; a door at nearby Merritt Island airport; the Vehicle Assembly Building, or VAB, at KSC; and an obligatory spaceman smooch I snuck at JSC.

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(All images: Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share-Alike (2.0) snapshots from Xeni's photostream)




 

Patent troll shakes down mobile devs

Posted: 13 May 2011 01:30 PM PDT

A company called Lodsys bought a patent on upgrade buttons and is hitting small developers with shakedown notices. The insanity of the patent is immaterial, because it's cheaper to pay up than go to court. From MacRumors:
Yesterday, we received word from Rob Gloess of Computer LogicX, the company behind the Mix & Mash and Mix & Mash LITE applications for iOS, that he had received legal documents threatening a patent lawsuit over the use of an "upgrade" button in the lite version of his application linking users to the App Store where they could purchase the full version. Our app, Mix & Mash, has the common model of a limited free, lite, version and a full version that contains all the features. We were told that the button that users click on to upgrade the app, or rather link to the full version on the app store was in breach of US patent no 7222078, we couldn't believe it, the upgrade button!?!
And Cult of Mac reports similar notices received by other devs over in-app purchase buttons.
The lead developer behind the popular Mac dock replacement DragThing and the fantastic iOS scientific calculator app pCalc is about to be sued for patent infringement because his software uses Apple's own in-app purchasing mechanism.
GigaOM reports of Lodsys: "Lodsys' entire business consists of licensing the patents it holds." Adam C. Engst points out that Lodsys's patents cover features integral to Apple's platform, meaning the developers cannot comply with its licensing demands without violating their existing license agreement with Apple. In essence, if the victims pay up, they will be agreeing that Apple's in-app upgrade/purchase features violate Lodsys's patents. [tidbits via Daring Fireball]

Steven Levy on Facebook's ironic privacy charge against Google

Posted: 12 May 2011 11:34 PM PDT

Steven Levy (whose new book, In the Plex, looks like a very good account of Google), has on the spot analysis for Wired about the revelation that Facebook had hired a PR firm to run a sleazy whisper campaign about Google and privacy, a pot/kettle/black moment if ever there was one:
Facebook was griping that Google is getting information about its users without permission. But some information that users share with Facebook is available publicly, even to people who aren't their friends in in their social networks - or even are members of Facebook. It's not because outsiders raided the service and exposed that information. It's because Facebook chose to expose it.

Facebook used to have an implicit promise with its users. Basically the deal was what goes on Facebook stays on Facebook. But over the past couple of years Facebook has chosen to alter the deal. Certain profile information became available outside of Facebook, easily searchable via Google and other means. (Users can opt out of showing this but relatively few do.) Some of that profile information includes a few of the people on the user's friend list. By repeatedly pinging public profiles, it's possible for Google or anyone else to figure out pretty much all your friends.

This information is a lot easier to unearth from inside Facebook, but actually logging into Facebook to purloin information would indeed be troublesome. For one thing, it would violate the terms of service agreement. Is Google doing this? One of the Burson operatives implied that it is. But Google says the company does not go inside Facebook to scrape information, and I find this credible. (If Facebook has logs to prove this serious charge, let's see them.)

Facebook's Stealth Attack on Google Exposes Its Own Privacy Problem

Fun video about artists in Marfa, TX

Posted: 13 May 2011 02:23 PM PDT


[Video Link] Happy mutants are everywhere, even in Marfa, TX.

Russian kitten refuses to give up cigarette

Posted: 13 May 2011 10:50 AM PDT

Sonya Fitzpatrick, the Pet Psychic

Posted: 13 May 2011 10:47 AM PDT

pet.jpg Another Flea Market Find from Mitch O'Connell, who says: "If you'd like to read more from a person who writes (close my eyes, jab finger randomly in book), 'Marcia's dog Margaux immediately recognized Leonardo's spirit when he returned to the earth plane in the form of Hennessey,' have I got something for you!"

Sonya Fitzpatrick, the Pet Psychic



Copyright Cops: stylish Brazilian short about youth, the Internet and copyright

Posted: 13 May 2011 12:33 AM PDT

Brazilian filmmaker Julio Secchin and friends created "Copyright Cops," a stylish, short film about copyright and youth. The movie is a little disjointed, but it's very beautiful, and they've made the raw footage available for remixing:
This is a short film about teenagers who are growing up in an environment with tons of information per second, being treated as criminals as they download a couple of songs from the internet, while trying to chat with their friends. The main goal here is make a reflection on subjects like freedom of information, online relationships and how all of this blends inside the head of a teenager, no matter where he lives.

Therefore, our conceptual statement always had among its goals the wish to make our entire project an open source platform. We've made this for the internet and for the people starting in the creative / audiovisual area looking for something to be remixed. We hope you enjoy it.

Being the adventures of a young man whose main interests are illegal downloads, violence and chatting with the girl he just met in the Internet.

Copyright Cops (Thanks, Julio!)

Cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt's useful advice for living

Posted: 13 May 2011 10:18 AM PDT

lisa-hanawalt.jpg I like this advice from Brooklyn cartoonist Lisa Hanawalt. I'm not sure if she wrote this, or took a photo of someone else's list. (Via Suddenly)

DHS's "Secure Communities" program will deport battered woman for calling 9-1-1 on her abuser

Posted: 13 May 2011 09:28 AM PDT

Isaura Garcia, a battered woman and legal illegal immigrant, called 911 after her boyfriend beat her up. The cops believed her boyfriend's version of the story (despite bruises and other signs recorded at the hospital after she fainted). Because she was arrested, her visa was suspended, and now she faces deportation under the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement's "Secure Communities" program:
"The dangerous message that Isaura's case sends to immigrants who are victims or witnesses to crimes is that if you call the police, you might be deported," Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, said during this morning's press conference.

Garcia was snared thanks to Secure Communities, the Department of Homeland Security program that requires local police departments to share the fingerprints of arrestees with immigration authorities. While the intention of the program is to identify and deport criminal aliens, in practice it has not always worked out that way for Garcia and other non-criminals, according to Hector Villagra, executive director of the ACLU-SC. "Secure Communities ends up providing security to criminals, including perpetrators of domestic violence," he said today. "This couldn't possibly make our communities more secure."

Garcia echoed those sentiments to those gathered before her. "I still don't understand why I was arrested," she said, "but had I realized I could be arrested after calling 9-1-1 for help and deported, I never would have called..."

Illinois has announced its desire to opt out of the federal program, while San Francisco Police Chief Michael Hennessy recently revealed his department will not turn over non-criminals and low-level offenders to immigration authorities identified through Secure Communities.

[UPDATED with Sad Case Against Deportee:] Isaura Garcia, Battered Woman Facing Deportation, Embodies Problems with ICE Program (Thanks Vickie!)

Michael Moore's "Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden"

Posted: 12 May 2011 10:52 PM PDT

Michael Moore's "Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden" is a tremendous essay on the larger significance of the assassination of ObL, and the way that the war on terror has transformed American politics and security:
For nine years I wrote and I said that Osama bin Laden was not hiding in a cave. I'm not a cave expert, I was just using my common sense. He was a multimillionaire crime boss (using religion as his cover), and those guys just don't live in caves. He had people killed under the guise of religion, and not many in the media bothered to explain that every time Osama referenced Islam, he wasn't really quoting Islam. Just because Osama said he was a "Muslim" didn't make it so. Yet he was called a Muslim by everyone. If a crazy person started running around mass-killing people, and he did so while wearing a Wal-Mart blazer and praising Wal-Mart, we wouldn't automatically call him a Wal-Mart leader or say that Wal-Mart was the philosophy behind his killings, would we?

Yet, we began to fear Muslims and round them up. We profiled people from Muslim nations at airports. We didn't profile multi-millionaires (in fact, they now have their own fast-track line to easily get through security, an oddity considering every murderer on 9/11 flew in first class). We didn't run headlines that said "Multi-Millionaire Behind the Mass Murder of 3,000" (although every word in that headline is true). You can say his wealth had nothing to do with 9/11, but the truth is, there is no way he could have kept Al Qaeda in business without having the millions he had.

Some believe that this was a "war" we were in with al Qaeda - and you don't do trials during war. It's thinking like this that makes me fear that, while bin Laden may be dead, he may have "won" the bigger battle. Let's be clear: There is no "war with al Qaeda." Wars are between nations. Al Qaeda was an organization of fanatics who committed crimes. That we elevated them to nation status - they loved it! It was great for their recruiting drive.

We did exactly what bin Laden said he wanted us to do: Give up our freedoms (like the freedom to be assumed innocent until proven guilty), engage our military in Muslim countries so that we will be hated by Muslims, and wipe ourselves out financially in doing so. Done, done and done, Osama. You had our number. You somehow knew we would eagerly give up our constitutional rights and become more like the authoritarian state you dreamed of. You knew we would exhaust our military and willingly go into more debt in eight years than we had accumulated in the previous 200 years combined.

Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden (via Making Light)

TSA: we'll search your baby and it will make the country safer

Posted: 12 May 2011 10:42 PM PDT

The Transportation Security Agency has defended the actions of a Kansas City screener who did a pat-down search on a baby after the child's stroller set off the explosives detector.
The baby's stroller set off an alert of possible traces of explosives Saturday, so the screeners were justified in taking a closer look at the boy cradled in his mother's arms, said Nick Kimball, a spokesman for the Transportation Security Administration.

Lowering The Bar adds:

And because this is the TSA and we are a nation of lunatics, standard procedure in that situation is apparently to check the baby and not the explosives detector.
TSA Says Baby-Frisking Justified (Lowering the Bar)

TSA defends frisking of baby at KC airport (AP)

Dirty Jobs creator on the need for skilled tradespeople in America

Posted: 12 May 2011 11:26 PM PDT

Mike Rowe, creator of the TV show "Dirty Jobs," testified before the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on the de-skilling of America, and the way in which skilled manual labor has been undervalued and derided in the USA to its detriment:
A few months ago in Atlanta I ran into Tom Vilsack, our Secretary of Agriculture. Tom told me about a governor who was unable to move forward on the construction of a power plant. The reason was telling. It wasn't a lack of funds. It wasn't a lack of support. It was a lack of qualified welders.

In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We've elevated the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree. And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel.

In a hundred different ways, we have slowly marginalized an entire category of critical professions, reshaping our expectations of a "good job" into something that no longer looks like work. A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber -- if you can find one -- is going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we'll all be in need of both.

I came here today because guys like my grandfather are no less important to civilized life than they were 50 years ago. Maybe they're in short supply because we don't acknowledge them they way we used to. We leave our check on the kitchen counter, and hope the work gets done. That needs to change.

Testimony of Mike Rowe (via Reddit)

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