Tuesday, September 14, 2010

The Latest from Boing Boing

The Latest from Boing Boing

Link to Boing Boing

Public domain golden-age comic archive

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 10:40 PM PDT

The Digital Comic Museum is an archive collecting dozens (hundreds?) of runs of public domain comics from the golden age. These are all free to download, remix, and share. You have to login to use the archive, which is cumbersome (it also includes an email loop), but the material is top notch.

Digital Comic Museum (Thanks, Jobsworth!)



HDCP master-key leaks, possible to make unrestricted Blu-Ray recorders

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 09:57 PM PDT

Engadget reports that the master key that controls HDCP, the anti-copying system used to restrict the outputs of Blu-Ray boxes, set-top boxes, and many game systems, have been compromised and published. With these keys, knowledgeable users can make their own "source" and "sink" keys for devices that permit copying at full resolution -- which means that you should be able to create a hard-drive-based recorder that you can plug into your Blu-Ray player and record shows in real-time. This player would be immune to "revocation" (part of the HDCP specification that allows a cartel of Hollywood studios to remotely disable devices so they won't interoperate with compromised systems -- essentially, the ability to reach into your living room and shut down your equipment).

Apparently there is a cryptographic argument that says that these master keys could be derived from any fifty HDCP devices, but my money is on a plain old leak. Cryptographic keys are tiny pieces of information, and this sort of key would be known to a large number of people: a small, easily conveyed secret known to a lot of people is pretty much doomed.

HDCP 'master key' supposedly released, unlocks HDTV copy protection permanently

(Image: DRM Inlet, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from jamescridland's photostream)



Kim Stanley Robinson on science, justice and science fiction

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 09:48 PM PDT

Zack sez, "SF writer and environmentalist Kim Stanley Robinson did this long interview last year while he was at Duke University -- it's finally online, and it is absolutely fascinating." I just spent a few days with Stan at the WorldCon in Melbourne and was reminded of just how interesting and clever he is.
Scientists, I think, would resist the idea that they need to become politicized, as they often think in ways that would make science and politics a dichotomy, with science being clean, pure, rational, empirical, etc., and politics being the opposite, and bad. So it has taken the global climate crisis to wake them up as a community to the need that exists for them to join the political process specifically as scientists, and as the scientific community. I think the story of this first decade of the twenty-first century is them seeing and understanding that need, partly because of the anti-science actions of the Bush administration, and partly because of the danger they see in the coming climate change and the inability of the normal political process to react adequately to this crisis.

What they have done, then, is in keeping with their image of science and how it works; they have begun their political action through already existing channels, meaning the professional associations they all belong to, like the American Chemical Society or the American Association for the Advancement of Science, (there are scores of these), and also through scientist advocacy groups like the Union of Concerned Scientists. These organizations have been charged by their members to speak to the political powers-that-be in terms strong enough to make an impression on political actions taken; that the carbon we are putting in the atmosphere and ocean, and the environmental damage we are creating more generally, are dangerous to the current biosphere; dangerous enough that it is right to speak of a possible "mass extinction event" like those found in the fossil record, in which really significant percentages of the species on Earth went extinct. That can happen again, and humanity would be fully entangled and ruined in such a crash--while maybe not rendered extinct, but in danger of huge losses of life and quality of life.

This message has been put out to the human community by the scientific community, with an insistence and urgency never seen from scientists before--which is one sign among many others of the reality of the danger, as most scientists would very much rather pursue their science than do this kind of work. But it has to be done, they have judged, and they have taken the first steps. The work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is only the largest of these efforts. Some statements on this issue have been signed by as many as 130 international scientific organizations.

What comes next is of course very interesting--because capitalism doesn't want to hear them. We are somewhat past the high point of the recent "free market" ascendancy because of the financial crash, but the underlying power of capitalism is not yet much diminished, and exterior constraints on capitalist growth are still so unwelcome that they are usually denied as real constraints. So we are entering a zone of history where the struggle between science and capitalism for dominance of our culture--which I think has been clear all along, but which many do not see or agree is the situation--may become explicit and open. I hope so; this is a scientific culture as well as a capitalist culture, and I've been arguing for years that the utopian ethics and politics buried in the scientific method makes science the equivalent of the most powerful leftist politics we have ever had. Now the climate crisis may make that much more obvious to everyone.

Science, Justice, Science Fiction: An Interview with Kim Stanley Robinson (Thanks, Zack!)

(Image: Wikimedia Commons/AllyUnion, GDL)



Celebrated civil rights photographer outed as paid FBI informant

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 09:03 PM PDT

Ernest C. Withers, one of the most celebrated photographers of the civil rights era, was a paid F.B.I. informant.

Photoshopped Polish film posters

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 08:48 PM PDT

Some of the entries in this "Make Polish Movie Posters!" Something Awful photoshop contest really do feel like the genuine article. I don't read Polish, but I'm going to guess that a)some of the copy is funny because it's horribly mangled by online translation services, or b) other posters may contain very clever jokes or puns that I won't get. Still, great stuff.

(thanks, Mike Wrightly!)

Untangling the Pentagon's craziest PowerPoint slide

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 08:36 PM PDT

In this blog post, defense technology reporter Noah Shachtman tries to make sense of a Powerpoint chart "which documents the Defense Department's bazillion-step process to developing, buying, and maintaining gear."



Gentleman lives on floating plastic bottle island home

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 08:22 PM PDT

Mr. "Rishi" Sowa lives on an floating island. That he made. From empty plastic bottles and a few mangrove plants. In Mexico.

From the blog:

From 1998 to 2005, Rishi Sowa hand-built and lived on the first Spiral Island, which floated on over 300,000 recycled bottles! It was destroyed by Hurricane Emily in 2005. Rishi has now built an even better island at Isla Mujeres, Mexico, in a lagoon which offers shelter from bad weather! Rishi will continue to make improvements to the Island, so it will always be a eco-work-of-art in progress!

YouTube video by The Resident.

There's an online community of "Spiral Islanders" here.

(via BB Submitterator, thanks EeyoreX)

William Gibson: the Dangerous Minds interview

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 07:11 PM PDT

Boing Boing pal and recurring guestblogger Richard Metzger interviews the great author and futurist William Gibson in this terrific video interview, just published today.

Gibson "discusses his affection for Twitter, wonders if there is still a mainstream media, reveals about how he views America as an ex-pat living in Canada and gives some insight into where his ideas come from." The novelist is currently in the midst of a 36-city promotional tour for his latest novel, Zero History, which Cory described as "his best yet" in a review here on Boing Boing.

A DISCUSSION WITH WILLIAM GIBSON (dangerousminds.net)

Jean-Luc Godard donates €1K for accused MP3 downloader's defense: "There is no such thing as intellectual property"

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 07:27 PM PDT

My French is very rusty, and there doesn't seem to be any coverage of this story yet in English-language news... but apparently, the great French-Swiss film director Jean-Luc Godard (above) donated a thousand euros toward the legal defense costs of James Climent (inset), a 37-year-old French citizen accused of downloading 13,788 MP3s.

From what I can make out, Climent was fined 20,000 euros by SACEM and SDRM following lengthy court proceedings.

Mr. Godard read a profile of Climent's BitTorrent troubles in Liberation, and decided to help him out. When first contacted by the nouvelle vague godfather, Climent thought he was being hoaxed, but suspicion turned to elation when he realized one of his heroes was reaching out to assist. Climent has since published a blog post about the affair: "God(ard) bless us." (English, sort of / French).

This cartoon about the whole affair is awfully funny if you are familiar with French cinema, and read a bit of the language.

Godard is often credited with having once said, "It's not where you take things from—it's where you take them to."

Here's a Google robotranslation of the Godard/Climent story.

Update: Boing Boing reader Paul R. offers this translation of an important Godard quote in the linked news story (emphasis mine):

I am against Hadopi [the French internet-copyright law, or its attendant agency], of course. There is no such thing as intellectual property. I'm against the inheritance [of works], for example. An artist's children could benefit from the copyright of their parents' works, say, until they reach the age of majority... But afterward, it's not clear to me why Ravel's children should get any income from Bolero...

(thanks, Guillaume Remy, via BB Submitterator)

Tim & Eric announce nationwide tour, Nov-Dec 2010.

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 06:08 PM PDT

Absurdist comedians Tim Heidecker and Eric Wareheim, of Adult Swim's Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, today announced a nationwide tour kicking off in Seattle on Nov. 1, and ending in Atlanta on Dec. 5. A fittingly wacky video announcement is right here.

Nine years later: some post-9/11 snapshots from NYC

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 04:19 PM PDT

Alex Smith recently re-discovered a box of photographs from September 11, 2001 that he'd put away in storage back in 2003. He scanned and published them over the weekend, along with some reflections:

I figured that pictures of the burning towers would be poorly-timed and counter-productive. The pictures I did see fit to put up, however, are images that I find to be a great deal more powerful. Shot in the days shortly after, I snapped a few shots of the makeshift tributes, shrines and memorials to the fallen. Closer scrutiny of these pictures reveals some recurring messages that are worth mulling over; "Respect life," "Peace is Possible," "We Stand for Peace," etc. What's happened to those sentiments?
Nine Years Later (Thanks, Glen E. Friedman)

1960s and 1970s Denver pop culture thread lives on

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 03:48 PM PDT

201009131544 Two years after I started the "1960s and 1970s Denver pop culture open thread" on Boing Boing it is still going! If you had a Denver area childhood, come join the fun. The password is "Noel & Andy" (just kidding, there's no password). (Thanks, Antinous!)

How to make hard cider

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 03:30 PM PDT

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Rosemarybeetle shows how to make hard apple cider in Instructables.

If you want to face the wrath of the revenuers, you can jack it.

How to make hard cider

Learn like a kindergartner all your life: play, design and share

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 02:38 PM PDT

Here's MIT Media Lab prof Mitch Resnick talking about "Lifelong Kindergarten," a one-hour talk on "how new technologies can help extend kindergarten-style learning to people of all ages, enabling everyone to learn through designing, playing, and sharing."

Lifelong Kindergarten: Design, Play, Share, Learn (Thanks, Aviso, via Submitterator!)



Open Video Conference NYC: Oct 1-2

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 02:34 PM PDT

Nicholas sez,
The Open Video Conference in New York City is a two-day powwow for open web geeks, independent filmmakers, and everyone else.

This year's OVC takes place October 1-2 2010. With 60+ sessions on open source, HTML5, and participatory culture, the conference is bigger and better than before. Keynote speakers include Susan Crawford, a former Obama advisor and advocate for net neutrality; Damian Kulash, the outspoken lead of the rock band OK Go; and the Yes Men, the culture jamming activists who impersonate business executives.

OVC is about open video technology, but also grapples with larger questions. With so much free stuff out there, how are artists going to get paid? Who knows what you watch? Smart people from EFF, Creative Commons, the Harvard Berkman Center, Burning Man, Google, and Mozilla weigh in.

Boing Boing readers get a discount--register with promo code BOING20 and get your badge for only $60 bucks!

Open Video Conference 2010

(Disclosure: I am proud to serve as a volunteer director of the nonprofit Participatory Culture Foundation, which puts on the Open Video Conference)



MC Frontalot's Spoiler Alert will spoil everything you love

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 02:31 PM PDT

Wired says the Web is dead. It's not.

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 09:31 PM PDT

Wired says The Web is Dead, but Search Engine's Jesse Brown has some perspective on all the other things that Wired has declared dead, and why the Web is still very much alive.

Wired Magazine is Dead



3D printing in bulk with the Makerbot Automated Build Platform

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 02:23 PM PDT

Eagleapex sez, "Makerbot [ed: an awesome, DIY 3D printer project] made an upgrade for their open source 3D printer, an automated conveyor-belt to print on. Now instead of carefully minding your 3D printer, you can hit go on 100 widgets, go to sleep, and wake up with 100 fresh widgets in the morning. The home factory is go! This is truly 'owning the means of production.'"

So consider the possibilities. Say you need 10 of that printable tool handle, or 40 of those cable clips. Or you want to build a foosball table, and print out all the plastic men. Or print your own chess set? How about printing out the plastic components of another machine all in a single batch print?

With this latest addition to the MakerBot family. Your machine will not be just a "prototyper" anymore. With the MakerBot Automated Build Platform, your MakerBot becomes a desktop personal manufacturing system making useful object after useful object.

The Automated Build Platform is available now. Get it and turn your MakerBot into your own factory! The MakerBot Automated Build Platform is a perfect match with the MakerBot MK5 Plastruder and MakerBot Filament Spindle.

MakerBot Automated Build Platform (Thanks, Eagleapex, via Submitterator!)



Free/open library to talk to brain-computer interface

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 02:18 PM PDT

Want to hack on the Emotiv brain-computer interface without shelling out $750 for a SDK to get access to the raw EEG data? Enter Emokit, an open source, cross platform library that does just that. (Thanks, Daeken, via Submitterator!)

Exploding sauerkraut leads to botulism scare

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 01:12 PM PDT


David sent me this story about a can of sauerkraut that exploded in a secondary school in Prince George, B.C., prompting a student quarantine and a hazmat investigation. They were concerned about a botulism outbreak.

I don't really have a problem with the response, but I was disappointed that the news story failed to mention that "the popular German sausage topping" is never associated with botulism. It's too sour. Botulism can't survive in an environment where the pH is 4.6 or less. Sauerkraut is about 10 more acidic than that.

Above, Sandor Ellix Katz talks about the difference between canning and fermenting. Katz, a long term HIV/AIDS survivor who lives on a queer intentional community in Tennessee, is a "fermentation fetishist." He is the author of the outstanding Wild Fermentation, a book that shows you how to make a wide variety of fermented foods: beer, wine, mead, miso, tempeh, sourdough bread, yogurt, cheese, and other more exotic foods. I highly recommend Wild Fermentation.

Exploding sauerkraut brings in Hazmat team



Drew Friedman's new book: Too Soon?

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 08:00 PM PDT

Images Drewfriedman Images 4238664230 The inimitable Drew Friedman has a new hardcover book out of his incredible celebrity portraits and caricatures drawn over the last 15 years for The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, Business Week, Mojo, and a variety of other mags, books, and CD covers. Our pals at Fantagraphics published the handsome hardcover, titled Too Soon?: Famous/Infamous Faces 1995-2010. Jimmy Kimmel wrote the foreword and Rush Limbaugh endorsed it with this glowing review: "Of low artistic quality." See sample pages over at Drawger or pick up a copy for $20 at Amazon. Congratulations, Drew!
Too Soon?: Famous/Infamous Faces 1995-2010 by Drew Friedman

William S. Burroughs and Jimmy Page

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 12:24 PM PDT

In 1975, William S. Burroughs attended a Led Zeppelin concert and interviewed Jimmy Page. He wrote up the experience for Crawdaddy magazine. Arthur Magazine just reposted the text and it's a delight, spanning magick, cut-ups, Crowley, and infrasound. From Crawdaddy:
PagezeppppSince the word "magic" tends to cause confused thinking, I would like to say exactly what I mean by "magic" and the magical interpretation of so-called reality. The underlying assumption of magic is the assertion of 'will' as the primary moving force in this universe–the deep conviction that nothing happens unless somebody or some being wills it to happen. To me this has always seemed self-evident. A chair does not move unless someone moves it. Neither does your physical body, which is composed of much the same materials, move unless you will it to move. Walking across the rooom is a magical operation. From the viewpoint of magic, no death, no illness, no misfortune, accident, war or riot is accidental. There are no accidents in the world of magic. And will is another word for animate energy. Rock stars are juggling fissionable material that could blow up at any time… "The soccer scores are coming in from the Capital…one must pretend an interest," drawled the dandified Commandante, safe in the pages of my book; and as another rock star said to me, "YOU sit on your ass writing–I could be torn to pieces by my fans, like Orpheus."

I found Jimmy Page equally aware of the risks involved in handling the fissionable material of the mass unconcious. I took on a valence I learned years ago from two 'Life-Time' reporters–one keeps telling you these horrific stories: "Now old Burns was dragged out of the truck and skinned alive by the mob, and when we got there with the cameras the bloody thing was still squirming there like a worm…" while the other half of the team is snapping pictures CLICK CLICK CLICK to record your reactions–so over dinner at Mexican Gardens I told Jimmy the story of the big soccer riot in Lima, Peru in 1964.

"William Burroughs on…Led Zeppelin!" (Thanks, Sally!)

Bruce Lee in Oakland

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 12:30 PM PDT


Above is Oaklandish's mini-documentary about Bruce Lee's history in Oakland, California, where he opened a martial arts school in the late 1960s and had a historic fight with Wong Jak Man over Lee's teaching of kung fu to white people. Now, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums hopes that the former studio, currently a car dealership, will be officially recognized as an important place in history. From the Bay Citizen:
The mayor (himself an avid martial artist) wanted a plaque placed on the site of the old studio in time for a martial arts tournament he hoped Oakland would host later this year. The tournament is off, but the Landmark Advisory Commission is still considering making 4175 Broadway one of the city's cultural heritage sites.

The discussion is more significant than a piece of brass on the wall of a car dealership. Finding the best way for the city to acknowledge Bruce Lee's time in Oakland would provide a sorely needed precedent for recognizing other cultural contributions made in Oakland, said Dan Schulman, a member of the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board. From events as significant as the drafting of the Black Panthers' 10-Point Program in North Oakland in 1966 to less-weighty moments like the invention of the Mai Tai at Trader Vic's at 65th Street and San Pablo Avenue three decades earlier, Oakland needs a method to officially recognize its past.

"Oakland May Honor Bruce Lee's Local History"

School suspends crying son of murdered man because his eyes were red

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 11:27 AM PDT


A high school in the town of Trophy Club, TX suspended a 16-year-old boy because he came to school with bloodshot eyes. School administrators say that's enough to make the case he was using marijuana.

When the boy's mother called the school to explain that the boy had been crying because his father had been murdered, the school said the boy could return to school, provided the boy pass a drug test.

He took the test, and was allowed to return to school.

The boy's mother says she is trying to get the district to remove the suspension from his permanent record. Administrators told her she must go through the formal appeals process for that to happen.

And that's how it works in the happy hamlet of Trophy Club, TX.

School Suspends Boy for Bloodshot Eyes (Via Arbroath)



Odd schoolbook cover image

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 10:49 AM PDT

Screen Shot 2010-09-13 At 10.45.46 Am

Where was this photo taken?

90210

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 02:27 PM PDT

90210 in 9/2010. Poster on plywood wall advertising jewelry by Solange Azagury on Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills, CA, September 2010. (iPhone 4 snapshot by Xeni Jardin)

Rolf Potts is traveling around the world with no luggage

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 10:29 AM PDT

rtwblog.jpeg

In a recent Boing Boing guest post, I talked about Neo-Minimalism and the rise of the Technomads. Both terms describe a wide array of practices relating to reducing the stuff you own and becoming more mobile.

In what is potentially the most minimal "technomadic" experiment ever, Rolf Potts (author of one of my favorite travel/lifestyle books Vagabonding) has set out on 6-week, 12-country, round-the-world trip without a single piece of luggage.

His trip is sponsored by ScotteVest (covered frequently here in the past), and yes, it's kind of a stunt. But it's also a super interesting experiment in travel minimalism. Exactly how much do you need to bring with you to get by on a trip like this?

I've written before about how travel is a great way to help you pare down and figure out what you truly need.

This no-baggage adventure will be more than a stunt to see if such a thing can be done: At a time when intensified travel-stresses and increased luggage fees are grabbing headlines, it will be an experiment to determine how much we really need to bring along to have the trip of a lifetime.

What items, if any, are essential to the enjoyment of a journey to other countries? How does traveling light make a trip cheaper, simpler or easier (or more difficult)? What lessons from this no-baggage adventure might apply to day-to-day life—both on the road and at home?
The trip started in New York City, and Rolf has already made his way through Europe. He's posting frequent written and video blog posts on this site tracking the trip. You can also follow him on Twitter. As someone with a growing interest in super-minimalism who travels all the time, this is totally relevant to my interests. I missed running into him in Paris by just a few hours, but with any luck, we'll cross paths at another point on our respective journeys. I'm following along closely to see what issues arise and how he handles them.

Babbage-esque mechanical computer chip

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 10:06 AM PDT

Over at Submitterator, markarayner informs us that engineers at Case Western Reserve University developed a mechanical version of a key component of digital circuits for computers. Their mechanical inverter, the basis for many logic gates, is built from nanoscale levers instead of the transistors patterned onto traditional chips. The research was funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) who are after electronics that aren't prone to failure under high heat, like that inside a jet or rocket engine control system. Te-Hao Lee and colleagues published their work in the current issue of the journal Science. From New Scientist:
Like a telegraph operator's Morse key, these levers physically make and break contact to pass or block currents.

Application of a voltage makes the levers move under electrostatic attraction. At 550 °C Lee's team managed to get the inverter to switch on and off 500,000 times a second – performing a computation with each cycle. The faster the switching speed, the zippier the computing. Lee predicts that switching speeds of a billion times a second (1 gigahertz) are possible. That might not sound fast by the standards of desktop PCs, which often run at speeds in excess of 2.5 gigahertz, but for control system applications it's more than adequate.

"Steampunk chip takes the heat"

Electronic artificial skin

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 09:47 AM PDT

Butterffflflflflttttt
Researchers at Stanford and also UC Berkeley have developed ultra-sensitive artificial skin. For example, the Stanford group's elastic polymer "skin" detected a fly and butterfly on it, expressed by a change in the amount of electric charge the materials could hold. The UC Berkeley researchers constructed their skin from a grid of semiconductor nanowires laid out on pressure-sensitive rubber. Each nanowire intersection functions as a transistor "pixel" that changes current based on the pressure. While prosthetic skin is a long-term goal, the nearer application is in robotics. From Nature News:
News 2010 100912 Images News.2010.E-Skin Fully working artificial skins will need to do more than detect pressure and bend. "The ultimate prosthetic skin should behave like our own skin," says Stephanie Lacour, a materials scientist from the University of Cambridge, UK. That would mean the skin being able to detect sideways shear forces — such as those produced by scratching a twig down your leg — as well as pressure. "This is one of the most difficult things to implement," she says.

(UC Berkeley's Ali) Javey agrees that there are many challenges to overcome to make a fully functional artificial skin, not least integrating that skin with the brain. But applications in robotics could come much sooner, he says. The next step is to scale up production so that enough artificial skin can be made to cover an entire robot's body, Javey says.

"Artificial skins detect the gentlest touch"

Canadian police concerned about acid candy

Posted: 13 Sep 2010 11:39 AM PDT

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CC-licensed photo by Stefan Munder

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police in British Columbia have issued a warning about LSD-laced gummi bears . Apparently they found a bag of the psychedelic bears during a drug raid. From CANOE:
"While the police don't want to create panic, because most persons who would purchase such an item want it for personal use, they do want parents to be aware of the presence of these gummi bears in the Cranbrook area," police said in a release.
"Gummi bears laced with LSD a new trend: RCMP"
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