The UK has much stricter libel laws than in the US, but at least there are some reasonable limitations. Elton John has lost a libel case against the Guardian newspaper for publishing a spoof diary from John that mocked his White Tie and Tiara Ball fundraiser. The whole thing was clearly a spoof -- and it's a feature that the Guardian does on a regular basis. Yet, John still was apparently offended and felt that it was libelous. The judge, though, pointed out that no reasonable person would take the obviously fake diary entry as serious news. Who knew we now needed judges to tell people they need to get a better sense of humor.

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manoftin writes to tell us that next week a baby will be born without the gene for breast cancer, according to the BBC. "But he said that, in this case, not carrying the BRCA1 gene would not guarantee any daughter born to the couple would be unaffected by breast cancer because there are other genetic and environmental causes. Dr Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, said: 'While the technology and approach used in this case is fairly routine, it is the first time in the UK that a family has successfully eliminated a mutant breast cancer gene for their child. It is a victory for both the parents and the HFEA that licensed this treatment.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

manoftin writes to tell us that next week a baby will be born without the gene for breast cancer, according to the BBC. "But he said that, in this case, not carrying the BRCA1 gene would not guarantee any daughter born to the couple would be unaffected by breast cancer because there are other genetic and environmental causes. Dr Alan Thornhill, scientific director of the London Bridge Fertility, Gynaecology and Genetics Centre, said: 'While the technology and approach used in this case is fairly routine, it is the first time in the UK that a family has successfully eliminated a mutant breast cancer gene for their child. It is a victory for both the parents and the HFEA that licensed this treatment.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

dataxtream writes "The world's first refrigerated beach is to be built at a luxury hotel in Dubai, located along the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. The beach will include heat-absorbing pipes under the sand along with large wind blowers, which will keep tourists cool and guard their feet against the hot sand. Half of me says these guys need a reality check, the other half wants to go there." I believe I've just thought of a way we could solve this whole global warming thing I've been hearing about.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There's just something about undersea internet cables that seem to have them get severed in groups. You may recall the various conspiracy theories that cropped up, at the beginning of the year, after four such cables were broken at about the same time, severely limiting internet connectivity in parts of the world. And, today, it seems like a similar situation, with three undersea cables all getting cut in a short period of time. All of the cuts happened in a span of less than 40 minutes, with the first two occurring within five minutes of each other. There was apparently some "seismic" activity right before the cuts, so that's obviously the most likely cause -- but it's going to take a while to fix, and once again we have parts of the world with greatly reduced internet access. Anyway, as with last time, I'll use this as an opportunity to point you to Neal Stephenson's fantastic 1996 article about the laying of the FLAG undersea cables (one of the cut ones is a FLAG cable). Consider it weekend reading, and be warned that it may take the entire weekend to read (but it's worth it).

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bOING bOING contributor and happy mutant Jim Leftwich says:

Exciting news! My friend and longtime colleague Steve Doss and I have been working 12-14 hours a day, 7 days a week non-stop (except Thanksgiving Day) to build what we think is a pretty remarkable (in many ways) new mobile app - SeeqPod Mobile for Windows Mobile.

We wanted to get the word out that we're giving away free downloads of the app starting today (we'll start selling it for $9.95 on Monday, which is still about half of what most Windows Mobile apps cost, and this one is way cooler).

Steve and I have been collaborators for several years. I did all of the design and user experience architecture, putting everything I know about making a great product cool and easy to use. Steve's been a successful mobile app designer (he's an artist, musician, programmer, and all-around genius renaissance guy). He figured out how to do lots of things that other apps don't do on the Windows Mobile platform.

You can read a bit about the app and it's features at our mobile page, and here are some groovy screenshots.

We've built in a range of interchangeable color themes and skins, including a Steampunk skin (in honor of Boing Boing fans everywhere). The architecture allows customizability, so eventually we will have many skins available and people will be able to add to a growing collection of skins.

We also support both QVGA (320x240) and VGA (640x480) displays, which will be cool for people with the newest generation of Windows Mobile phones.

SeeqPod Mobile

Dug North has posted a two-part Mechanical toy gifts for holidays 2008 on his Automata / Automaton Blog.

Mechanical toy gifts for holidays 2008, Part 1
Mechanical toy gifts for holidays 2008, Part 2

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arcticstoat writes to tell us that despite the many game download sites already available, another one has decided to give it a go; only this time, with a twist. UK-based Game Domain International is launching their AWOMO service that will allow you to play the game before it's done downloading. As an added incentive to get people to sign up, you can try out the beta now and get Rome: Total War for free. "The trick, according to GDI, is its 'unique technology' that 'lets you start playing before the game has finished downloading, meaning you can be up and running, jumping and fragging in minutes rather than hours.' Although some other download services allow you to start playing a game before it's fully downloaded, you usually still have to download a big chunk of data before you can start, and GDI reckons that it's cracked this problem. According to GDI, AWOMO takes a look at your PC's spec and connection speed, and then hooks you up with a sufficient buffer to stop your game stalling during gameplay. The company is confident that 'the delivery system accurately predicts the data you require next and ensures it's already there waiting before you need it.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The fervor with which online mobs can take on an issue is well-known, but in China "mob justice" has been taken to a new level, and over the past few years it's become a pretty big issue. While grassroots campaigns to right a wrong can be effective, it's not uncommon for a mob to falsely target someone or to simply go too far. In one such case, a Beijing court has now ruled that the recipient of such mob justice from an online vigilante crowd was wronged and is owed damages from the guy who kicked off the mob response. The case involved a guy who's wife committed suicide. A schoolmate of the wife started posting excerpts from the woman's diary, where it was noted that the guy had had an affair months before the suicide. The mob then basically went nuts -- getting the guy fired from his job and preventing him from getting another job, vandalizing his parents house and posting his photo and contact info all over the internet. The guy who posted the diary is responsible for paying damages, though it's unclear from the article how involved he was in inciting the rest of the mob.

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How to make cheap wine taste like a fine vintage... Maybe a DIY project, I see no problems with electrified wine from China, really...

They pumped the wine through a pipe that ran between two titanium electrodes, fed with a mains-frequency alternating supply boosted to a higher voltage. For the test wine, the team selected a 3-month-old cabernet sauvignon from the Suntime Winery, China's largest producer. Batches of wine spent 1, 3 or 8 minutes in various electric fields (see diagram). The team then analysed the treated wine for chemical changes that might alter its "mouth feel" and quality, and passed it to a panel of 12 experienced wine tasters who assessed it in a blind tasting (Innovative Food Science and Emerging Technologies, vol 9, p 463).

The results were striking. With the gentlest treatment, the harsh, astringent wine grew softer. Longer exposure saw some of the hallmarks of ageing emerge- a more mature "nose", better balance and greater complexity. The improvements reached their peak after 3minutes at 600 volts per centimetre: this left the wine well balanced and harmonious, with a nose of an aged wine and, importantly, still recognisably a cabernet sauvignon.

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SUNSTOP writes to tell us that a relatively unknown Maryland scientist has proposed a public patent that he claims could combat global warming. The proposed plan would require massive amounts of water to be sprayed into the air in an effort to bolster the earth's existing air conditioning system. "First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation. Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace's invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet. The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SUNSTOP writes to tell that a relatively unknown Maryland scientist has proposed a public patent that he claims could combat global warming. The proposed plan would require massive amounts of water be sprayed into the air in an effort to bolster the earth's existing air conditioning system. "First, the sprayed droplets would transform to water vapor, a change that absorbs thermal energy near ground level; then the rising vapor would condense into sunlight-reflecting clouds and cooling rain, releasing much of the stored energy into space in the form of infrared radiation. Kenneth Caldeira, a climate scientist for the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University whose computer simulation of Ace's invention suggests it would significantly cool the planet. The simulated evaporation of about one-half inch of additional water everywhere in the world produced immediate planetary cooling effects that were projected to reach nearly 1 degree Fahrenheit within 20 or 30 years, Caldeira said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MAKE will be @ the Engadget reader meetup tonight, we'll have projects, givaways and some special surprises! Check out the site for all the details!

When: Friday, December 19th, 7:00PM to 12:00AM
Where: Hiro Ballroom, 371 W. 16th St., New York, NY. 10011

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I caught up with Shelly Hatton at Maker Faire Austin, where she was demonstrating antique circular sock knitting machines!

Download the MP4 Video or HD Version | Subscribe to CRAFT in iTunes | mov | 3g2

Circular sock machines have been around since the early 1900's and were built so sturdily that they still survive and work to this day. The machines were originally advertised as a way for homemakers to make money at home by cranking out socks, but the learning curve was really high. Currently, there are a number of enthusiasts around the globe who help each other figure out how to use these really nifty antique machines.

Shelly got interested in these machines when she heard a friend had knitted a pair of sock in two hours!
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Ken found one more good use for unwanted discs -

Oh what to do with CD’s, some blinking lights and a hot glue gun.
Why make a holiday tree (the politically correct term).
After sending out an E-mail to all of my fellows instructors for their dead cd’s. I received over 100 in interoffice mail. I picked out 79 of the finest dead cd’s and equipped with my trusty hot glue gun and assisted by my students who didn’t want to do any real work, we laid the cd’s on a flat surface and glued them up. Note: Hot glue doesn’t really stick to well to the cd. ( Oh well you live and learn)

Nice - guessing it looks even cooler in a dark environment. - Holiday Tree Hang in the Class Window

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Founded by Mongols in the time of Ghengis Kahn, the town of Oymyakon is the coldest permanently inhabited place on earth.

The village has a population of around 800 and is located 690 meters above sea level and lies in a valley between two mountain ranges (the reason for the low temperatures). The name Oymyakon means "non-freezing water" because of the natural hot spring close to the village.

The temperature this week is pretty low and the temperature tomorrow is a chilly -63C which based on the stats at Wikipedia equals the record low for December.

miller60 writes "Three undersea cables in the Mediterranean Sea have failed within minutes of each other in an incident that is eerily similar to a series of cable cuts in the region in early 2008. The cable cuts are already causing serious service problems in the Middle East and Asia. See coverage at the Internet Storm Center, Data Center Knowledge and Bloomberg. The February 2008 cable cuts triggered rampant speculation about sabotage, but were later attributed to ships that dropped anchor in the wrong place."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Inspired by the TV series Numb3rs, instructables user johnpombrio worked with his son on this glass dry erase board. He writes:

This instructable will show how to build a glass whiteboard that will never wear out and never ghost. The size I made mine was 28 inches by 54 inches and was NOT made to freestand as it would take up too much room in my sons college apartment. Total cost was a very reasonable $60-65, and took a weekend to build and finish (minus the time going to and from stores!). The glass was from a local IKEA store. It is normally used as a desktop protector and is safety glass weighing about 30 pounds . My son is a Math and Com Sci double major along with being a whiteboard nut and his rooms look a lot like the garage in A Beautiful Mind so a great project for him.

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How about that? Tomy's i-SOBOT, which the company just discontinued, was named Robot of the Year in Japan (by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) .

Judges awarded this year's Grand Prize to i-SOBOT due to its advanced technology, its high entertainment value, and its reasonable price of under 30,000 yen (around $300). Equipped with 17 miniature servo motors and a set of gyro sensors for balance, the 350-gram (12 oz), 16.5-centimeter (6.5 in) programmable humanoid can walk, play air guitar, dance the hula, and perform 200 other moves. The tiny hobby robot is also equipped with a set of gyro sensors for balance, and it can be controlled via remote control or simple voice commands. The robot runs for about an hour on 4 AAA batteries.

[via Pink Tentacle]

We still have i-SOBOT's in the Maker Shed, at a very deep discount. Get 'em before they're all gone.

More:

• i-SOBOT hacking resources
• Holiday Gift Guide: Robots!

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Apparently a Japanese civilian group, The Campaign Against Surveillance Society, is asking Google to shut down its Street View offering. This is hardly the first time that people have complained about Street View, but, honestly, it's difficult to see how this is a "surveillance" issue or a violation of anyone's privacy. Google is taking photos of public spaces that anyone is free to look at. It's not doing it in real-time or anything. It's just a still photo of a public place that anyone with a camera could take. I can understand people's concerns about growing surveillance or loss of privacy, but efforts to combat those things should focus on areas where there are real threats to privacy -- not a useful service like Google Street View.

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ubercam writes "A Canadian business man is on the hook for a $52,000 phone bill after someone hacked into his voice mail system and found a way to dial out. The hacker racked up the charges with calls to Bulgaria. The business owner noticed an odd message coming up on his call display (Feature 36), and alerted his provider, Manitoba Telecom Services. They referred him to their fraud department, who discovered the breach. MTS said that they would reverse the charges if the hacked equipment was theirs, but in this case it was customer owned. The ironic part is that the victim's company, HUB Computer Solutions is in the business of computer and network security. They even offer to sell, configure and secure Cisco VoIP systems. Looks as though they even couldn't manage to secure their own system, which doesn't bode well for their customers." This certainly isn't the first time someone has exploited the phone system and stuck another with the bill. Maybe it's time for the phone company to get their fraud detection and prevention services at least on par with what the credit card companies have done.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Over on Instructables, Belsey shows how to make your own Alka Seltzer for a fraction of the cost.

As I was making bath bombs to give for Christmas I felt a little heartburn. I reached for the Alka Seltzer... Wow... $8.99 for 36 tablets! One dose is made of 2 tablets, so that comes to 50 cents per dose. Then I looked at the active ingredients. Citric acid and sodium bicarbonate. Exactly what I was using for the bath bombs! Sour salt and baking soda! I made a rapid calculation: one dose comes to 2 grams of citric acid, and 3.88 grams of baking soda. If I figure that citric acid costs $4/lb and baking soda is $1/lb, the exact same dose of alka selzer's active ingredients would cost me about 2.5 cents to make myself.... Twenty times less than the store bought version! OK to be fair, I didn't figure the cost of filler, and the store bought alka selzer also contained aspirin, but I neither needed nor wanted the aspirin. Even if you end up spending more on the citric acid and less for the Alka Seltzer than I did, you'll still come out ahead.

Artist Paul Fryer calls his piece of art Rehabilitation. Because it has a little room inside, I would have called it Bomb Shelter. (via Shedblog)

Pure. Geekly. Want.

[via Boing Boing]

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Jenny @ CRAFT writes:

The Felt Mouse put together these fun texture boxes for her nieces and nephews this year. Read more about what went into them on her blog--these would make a great last-minute holiday gift for the kids in your life.

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Fantastic EP cover from 1957 for The Goons.

There's an MP3 of "I'm Walking Backwards for Christmas" (sung my Spike Milligan) at the link.

The Goons: "I'm Walking Backwards for Christmas"

Axl Rose of Guns N' Roses has a funny way of trying to sell his album: his strategy seems to basically revolve around pissing off fans who want to interact with the music. There's been plenty of coverage over the arrest and subsequent guilty plea of a blogger who was actually doing a fantastic job of promoting the new album by leaking it online. Since then, Rose has apparently been unwilling to do much to actually promote the album, other than putting angry rants on various websites. The latest is that he's apparently threatening legal action against Activision for including some GNR songs in Guitar Hero. Apparently no one pointed out to Rose that having songs in Guitar Hero tends to help sell more albums. And, that would be useful for Rose right now, as reports are that his long-awaited album has been a tremendous flop. So, once again, it's worth pointing out that the last thing any musician wants to do these days is appear to be anti-fan.

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Another fun step-by-step Photoshop tutorial at PSDTuts: how to draw the platonic ideal of an ice cream bar.

Draw an ice cream bar in Photoshop

Urchin sends along a New Scientist writeup on Microsoft Research's nanoTouch prototype, a way of operating a touch screen from the rear (video here). The prototype will be presented at the Computer and Human Interaction conference in Boston, Mass., in April 2009. Coming soon to a wristwatch or neck pendant near you. "Electronic devices have been shrinking for years, but you might be forgiven for thinking that one that's only a centimeter across would be just too difficult to operate. Microsoft Research's new nanoTouch device suggests otherwise. Touch-screens are difficult to control with any precision — the fingers get in the way of the tiny targets you're trying to hit. But putting the touch interface on the rear of the screen instead gives users more precision because they can still see the whole screen as they interact with it. Microsoft Research has produced a prototype device called nanoTouch with a rear mounted touch interface. User tests show it lets users accurately and reliably hit targets just 2 millimeters across on a screen under a centimeter across."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

English Russia has more photos of the vomitously ugly interior of Russia's presidential jet.

On Tuesday a 16-year-old boy caught vandalizing at Wilson Classical High School in Long Beach, CA walked the streets for five hours with a sandwich board that read "I have wasted your tax money with dumb acts of vandalism in the public schools." His father made him wear the sandwich board.

Baltimore, Sr., found out about the vandalism Monday, when his son's school called him and told him the damages would cost $875. He said his son was trying to get attention when he tagged a fictitious gang logo on school property.

Baltimore, Jr., was suspended for four days, and ordered by the school to spend several days of his holiday vacation doing community service on Wilson's campus. He will be painting over graffiti and doing other chores.

Father Punishes Son with Public Humiliation

Max explaining one of the component blocks of his dome (via)

PBS' Design Squad has found a winner of their Trash To Treasure Challenge with Max Wallack and his Home Dome:

Twelve-year-old Max Wallack of Massachusetts won the Design Squad's Trash to Treasure Competition, a contest that inspired kids to repurpose trash into practical inventions. Wallack's creation is the "Home Dome," a Mongolian yurt-shaped structure made of plastic bags filled with Styrofoam packing peanuts. The dome comes with a built-in bed that weighs the structure down. Wallack created the "Home Dome" as a temporary shelter for homeless people and disaster victims. It also serves to relieve landfill growth.

(Via Treehugger)

Check out the other finalists in Design Squad's challenge here.

Here's a story about one of Max's previous inventions: a bubble-wrap-based carpal tunnel relief system. Wow!

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"Say Goodbye to 2008 in the Manner It Deserves!"

Pick a shoe, any shoe....

Now choose a velocity and angle, and let the spirit move you!

Comrade Danielle in Argentina forwarded this little Saatchi present to me yesterday, but I don't think fluency in Spanish is at all essential!

(Susie Bright is a guest blogger)

brothke writes "The recent collapse of financial companies occurred in part because their operations were run like a black box. For many years, alternative medicine has similarly operated in the shadows with its own set of black boxes. In Trick or Treatment: The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine, Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst, MD, break open that box, and show with devastating clarity and accuracy, that the box is for the most part empty." Keep reading for the rest of Ben's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few months ago, the RIAA shut down Muxtape, a very popular and incredibly useful online service that let individuals create "mixtapes" for streaming to others. As anyone with even a hint of business sense would recognize, this was a great promotional tool for musicians. I, personally, ended up buying a bunch of music after hearing stuff from others on Muxtape. But the way some of the big record labels see things, no one should be allowed to innovate without paying the record labels directly for the right to do so.

It seems this trend is continuing. Mixwit is the latest to shut down. Like Muxtape, Mixwit let people create cool mixtapes and share them online for streaming purposes. Mixwit had a neat little cassette tape interface as well and, again, was a great way of discovering new music and sharing music with friends. Mixwit founders said that they've been put between a rock and a hard place, which made plenty of folks naturally assume that the RIAA or one of the record labels shut them down. I spoke with a bunch of folks within the recording industry and the RIAA and asked each if they had anything to do with Mixwit shutting down, and those willing to say anything said something to the effect that they had not sent a takedown notice or filed a lawsuit (which, you'll note, answers a different question than the one I asked).

Of course, there are plenty of other ways to "shut down" a site without ever sending a takedown or filing a lawsuit. The Mixwit founders responded to an inquiry by basically saying that it wasn't a takedown or a lawsuit, but the simple uncertainty and expectation that one would eventually show up:

We've had good and not-so-good communications with the record labels over the past year, but we were never sued. I'm sure I don't have to explain that our mixtapes are perceived to be in a legally ambiguous state (at least as far as the labels are concerned). We've explored all options, including becoming fully-licensed, and we decided that the time commitment and economics just don't make sense, particularly with the economy the way it is. The decision was clear: we needed to shutdown the mixtapes. We thought about continuing with mixwit as a company, but we could never get assurance that the future of mixwit would not be hurt by the perceived liabilities of its past so we decided it was time to to shut things down.

That, ladies and gentleman, is chilling effects at work. No lawsuit needed -- just the history of previous lawsuits and an unwillingness to "allow" this innovative service to move forward. The RIAA and the labels insist that they don't try to stomp out innovations, but it looks like they did so here simply by being unwilling to say they wouldn't attack it in the future.

This makes even less sense than Muxtape's shut down, however. In the case of Muxtape, users uploaded their own tracks. Even that was a questionable reason, since you would think the liability should be on the individual uploaders rather than Muxtape itself. However, with Mixwit, it's even worse. Mixwit believed (quite reasonably) that they were on the right side of the legal line because they didn't host anything and didn't let people upload stuff. They just used search engines to find music that was already available elsewhere. So, now they're being shut down for merely letting you listen to music that's publicly available. If the recording industry has a problem with the content, it should go after whoever put it online, not a tool that allows it to be heard. You would think that Mixwit would have a pretty strong DMCA safe harbor argument, but it's probably way too expensive to even fight that fight.

So, the end result is the recording industry appears to have shut down yet another useful tool for music discovery -- and did so implicitly by making it impossibly expensive for the Mixwit guys to get assurances they wouldn't get sued. The guys behind the project appear to be considering open sourcing the code (by donating it to OpenTape, which created an open source version of Muxtape), so the technically inclined may eventually still be able to do something. But, with these types of moves by the recording industry happening so frequently, can you see why we're hesitant to simply trust them when they come up with their latest plan?

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Aside from whether or not you think it's an insult to entertain a notorious bigot at the television event of the year, why isn't Obama worrying more about Warren's charlatan-tastic profile?

If I was an underwriter, I'd say this guy has all the "tells" of a big risk.

Deja vu: major Fundie evangelist can't stop talking about how disgusting gay people are, comparing them to incestors and pedophiles. Decries loose women having abortions. Demands his enemies be offed. Then caps it all off with how much he "loves" everybody. Send your check now!

Warren has all the earmarks we saw with Ted Haggard, Larry Craig, Bob Allen, David "DiaperPants" Vitter, et al. It's a bad rerun.

If this dude isn't found in a bathroom with a wide stance and a hooker in the next year, someone's not doing their job. Paging Jeff Gannon!

I have a different pastor for Obama to consider, if he'd  like to take a second look...

(Photo: Screen capture from video of a Saddleback church service Orange County Register)

Here's a video of Obama defending his invitation.

Here's a video of Rick Warren Campaigning for Prop 8, to stop gay marriage.

(Susie Bright is a guest blogger)

Last week we solicited questions for US Representative Jim Langevin (D-RI), one of the chairs of the CSIS Cybersecurity Commission. Here are his answers — along with contact information for him if you want to continue the conversation.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Membrain by Yasser Ansari, Peter Horvath and Bruno Kruse was one of my favorite pieces at the IPT Winter Show 2008. I was really interested in the way it worked, and Yasser offered to email me more information about the piece. Thanks Yasser!

membrain explores the idea of a collective memory and challenges the traditionally separate notions of the past and present. membrain constructs a reality that is based simultaneously on the past and present experiences of a group.

How the piece works:

At the center of the membrain project is a live video display and an interactive object representing a communal brain. Observers interact with the communal brain through proximity and touch while the live video display shows what the brain is seeing. In its default state, the brain is constantly scanning for people and possible social interactions. Once the brain detects presence, a series of carefully scripted events take place. As observers approach, the brain will begin to glow brighter. When an observer touches the brain, the brain achieves full brightness and the video display will zoom into the individual pixels that are being used to construct the live video. These pixels are all previous images captured by the brain. If the interaction is sustained and a face is detected for longer than a few seconds, a new snapshot is taken and added as a memory. This memory becomes part of the communal or collective memory. Once the snapshot is taken and added to the collective memory, observers will be able to view the most recent image by touching the brain and zooming in. The video will zoom back out as the observer moves away. Once the observer walks away, the brain will fall back to its dimly lit state awaiting further interaction.

More about Membrain by Yasser Ansari, Peter Horvath and Bruno Kruse

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(Flash embed above, or download an MP4 video here.)

Happy Hols from Boing Boing tv! In this week's Friday Unicorn Chaser episode, Sculptor Chris Yates creates laser-cut robots for the holidays, based on the Diesel Sweeties webcomic by R. Stevens.

Snip from a New York Times op-ed calling for action from the Obama administration to reverse the legislation of impunity by the outgoing administration:

Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths. All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.

Now, a bipartisan report by the Senate Armed Services Committee has made what amounts to a strong case for bringing criminal charges against former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; his legal counsel, William J. Haynes; and potentially other top officials, including the former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and David Addington, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff.

The report shows how actions by these men “led directly” to what happened at Abu Ghraib, in Afghanistan, in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and in secret C.I.A. prisons.

It said these top officials, charged with defending the Constitution and America’s standing in the world, methodically introduced interrogation practices based on illegal tortures devised by Chinese agents during the Korean War. Until the Bush administration, their only use in the United States was to train soldiers to resist what might be done to them if they were captured by a lawless enemy.

The officials then issued legally and morally bankrupt documents to justify their actions, starting with a presidential order saying that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to prisoners of the “war on terror” — the first time any democratic nation had unilaterally reinterpreted the conventions.

The Torture Report

This is it gang, the last day to order physical goods from the Maker Shed is today. Many of us will have more time than money as the new year approaches - if you're going to spend some coin, why not give the gift of learning, hacking, modding and making? MAKE Magazine has dozens of gift guides and DIY projects which will inspire the next generation of makers out there who want to learn more about the world around them, and hack it!: Science, chemistry, bicycles, photography, electronics, alternative energy, robots, music, kits from japan, gifts for smart kids and more.

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Above, a piece by "brain artist" Marjorie Taylor. Curator Bill Harbaugh explains,

This is the world's largest extant collection of anatomically correct fabric brain art. Inspired by research from neuroscience, dissection and neuroeconomics, our current exhibition features three quilts with functional images from PET and fMRI scanning and a knitted brain. The artists are Marjorie Taylor and Karen Norberg. Techniques used include quilting, applique, embroidery, beadwork, knitting, and crocheting. Materials include fabric, yarn, metallic threads, electronic components such as magnetic core memory, and wire, zippers, and beads

The Museum of Scientifically Accurate Fabric Brain Art. If you like that, don't miss the gallery of Wooden Brain Art. (Via New Scientist, Thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Henckle writes "Phoronix did a comparison of the Java performance between Ubuntu and Windows Vista. They tested both Java and OpenJDK on Ubuntu 8.10 and Java on Windows Vista Premium SP1, all with stock configurations. To no-one's surprise, Ubuntu was faster in a majority of the tests. The two OSs were similar in ray-tracing, and Vista was faster at Java OpenGL due to shortcomings with the Linux graphics driver."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

After plenty of complaints (and whispers about potential legal troubles) a lot of US wireless carriers have backed off from calling very, very limited data plans "unlimited." Apparently, the discount wireless provider Cricket wasn't informed that when you say unlimited, you actually are supposed to mean unlimited. lavi d writes in to point us to Cricket's highly publicized "Unlimited" data plan. You see, right there at the top, it even highlights in orange that it's UNLIMITED. It's only after you go through all the fine print and get almost to the bottom that you see this:

Throughput may be limited if use exceeds 5GB per month. Internet browsing does not include: hosted computer applications, continuous web camera or broadcast, automatic data feeds, machine-to-machine connections, peer to peer (P2P) connections or other applications that denigrate network capacity or functionality.

I don't want to be too presumptuous about the definition of "unlimited" but when you say quite clearly that the plan "may be limited," one would have to think that you're outright lying when you call it unlimited. Whatever happened to truth in advertising?

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Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, there was a retro 1920's airplane-cockpit clock, a 2mm-thick table, and—Lord help us—Burger King cologne. Still not done your christmas shopping? Make it easy with our guide to wonderful gadgets. Add your suggestions in the comments. If you want an Apple Netbook, see our OSX compatibility chart. If you want to pirate software, see the guilt trip that one firm has in store for you. And if you want to get your hands dry, Dyson's Airblade is where it's at. Add your voice to the "I've spotted one!" thread. Joel found out that the Nissan 370Z has downshift rev matching, that Fujitsu's N7010 has a tiny second screen, and that Dell's Adamo might be a laptop thinner than the MacBook Air. Apparently, men like to be buried with their gadgets. John found globular sticky light balls, liquid lamps that ooze gore, and pointed out the waxy unleasantness of the vintage Apple ad. Rob spotted 12seconds, an app which records video (sort of) on the iPhone, and OSX running on a Philishave. Mitch Altman traveled to Paris, and Xeni wants to know what you want us to cover at CES next month.Finally, sad news. Majel Barret died. Boing Boing Gadgets

Having trouble with people snatching your stuff? Did someone take your lunch from the company fridge? Here is an inexpensive, sneaky gizmo you can make to keep those sticky fingers away.
Thanks go to Bob Knetzger for the original article in Make: Volume 16.

To download The Talking Booby Trap MP4 click here or subscribe in iTunes.

Check out the complete Talking Booby Trap article MAKE 16 "Talking Booby Trap"
and you can see that in our digital edition.

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Seattle schools were closed today (snow!), so my son decided to make a project from No Starch Press's new book, LEGO MINDSTORMS NXT One-Kit Wonders. We really like this book - it consists of ten projects designed by the contributors to the NXT Step blog. The book is not for absolute beginners, but it's not too advanced if you have some experience with building and programming NXT MINDSTORMS. The projects include an M&M sorter, a NXT version of a Bobcat, and a drag racer.

Noah chose the robot hand project - it's a hand that fits over your own hand; he liked the silly redundancy of the idea - it takes two hands to operate it! Like all the projects, this one has a parts list, an explanation of the project, pictures of the steps, and the programming code. The only criticism he had was that the pictures were in black-and-white, and a little dark, so it was sometimes difficult to see exactly what parts were needed. You can see the robot hand in action in the video - it rotates in both directions, and it's surprisingly dexterous.

We really liked the fact that each project uses only the parts that come with the basic NXT MINDSTORMS kit; we've started projects from other books that turned out to require lots of other parts only available in really expensive and hard to find educational kits. Since there are nine authors, the projects represent a variety of approaches - it's like learning from a team of teachers. The projects are complete in themselves, but each project has suggestions for modifying the designs, and the authors encourage kids to think creatively and explore further. The book is full of fun projects, and gives kids tools to help create their own designs. We look forward to building more projects!

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The online premiere of Make: television is January 3rd, visit makezine.tv to see the entire first episode! The broadcast premiere will follow shortly after depending on when your local Public Television station decides to air it.

One of our Maker Channel submissions comes from Stephen Hobley, who made an amazing musical instrument that produces different tones by interrupting various laser beams.

Check out more previews of Make: television at www.makezine.tv, get the M4V, or subscribe in iTunes.

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WorldWarCheese writes "Many's the time I wish I had a little more mobility or comfort with my computer. Laptops are OK, but anyone interested can see right onto my screen; and a laptop doesn't quite have that 'cool' factor that VR goggles / headsets do. The problem is, whenever I've looked at the options, Linux compatibility is not mentioned. Is there a VR headset out there that is compatible with Ubuntu? If not, what could I do to make it compatible, and how feasible would that be?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just posted! The fourth (and penultimate) installment of our compact camera roundup looks at the top-end cameras aimed at the experienced photographer. These enthusiast cameras offer a bit more flexibility than the cameras we've looked at so far, whether that's the inclusion of a large zoom range or a greater degree of manual control. Follow the link to find what we made of them.

ruphus13 writes to tell us of Sun's latest attempt to drive OpenSolaris adoption. The company has inked a deal to pre-install OpenSolaris on Toshiba laptops. "Slowly but surely, major laptop vendors are taking to the idea of shipping systems with pre-loaded open source operating systems. The latest case in point is Toshiba — one of the longest-standing players in the market for portable computers — and its new plan to pre-install Sun Microsystems' OpenSolaris on its laptops. The machines are supposed to ship in early 2009."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Having trouble with people snatching your stuff? Did someone take your lunch from the company fridge? Here is an inexpensive, sneaky gizmo you can make to keep those sticky fingers away.
Thanks go to Bob Knetzger for the original article in Make: Volume 16
View the PDF

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The various banks on Wall Street have a bunch of problems that they're dealing with right now, including getting rid of toxic assets on their balance sheet, properly compensating staff who are expecting big bonuses even in such a down year and figuring out ways to motivate staff to invest in good assets, even in such tough times. It appears that Credit Suisse Group may have come up with a creative solution to all of those things. Instead of cash bonuses this year, it's going to give employees some of those toxic assets it holds. This is incredibly creative for a variety of reasons. It starts to get some of those assets off the balance sheet. It gives them to employees who want bonuses, and it gives those employees quite the incentive to make sure those assets are actually worth something. Of course, since many of those employees recognize that the assets aren't worth much at all, many of them are pissed off, but it's pretty difficult to come up with any reason at all that they deserve any sort of bonus, so they're probably a lot better off accepting what they're given and seeing if they can actually make it worth something.

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debatem1 writes "According to the Wall Street Journal, the RIAA has decided to abandon its current tactic of suing individuals for sharing copyrighted music. Ongoing lawsuits will be pursued to completion, but no new ones will be filed. The RIAA is going to try to working with the ISPs to limit file-sharing services and cut off repeated users. This very surprising development apparently comes as a result of public distaste for the campaign." An RIAA spokesman is quoted as saying that the litigation campaign has been "successful in raising the public's awareness that file-sharing is illegal."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

It's not too late to give the gift of making! MAKE Magazine has gift subscriptions and gift certificates to the Maker Shed store available with downloadable cards you can make yourself!

MAKE Magazine is the first magazine devoted entirely to Do-It-Yourself (DIY) technology projects. MAKE Magazine unites, inspires, informs, and entertains a growing community of resourceful people who undertake amazing projects in their backyards, basements, and garages.

Give the gift of making, a full year of MAKE - with each subscription you get the print version AND the digital edition. MAKE Digital Edition is a vivid replica of the print edition of MAKE, it offers an experience very much like the print magazine plus many additional benefits, such as online searching, embedded multimedia and printing. MAKE Digital Edition can be viewed from any web browser (i.e. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari etc.) and requires NO DOWNLOADING of software, no DRM! - it gives you instant access to your entire MAKE collection!

Here's what folks are saying about MAKE!

---

If you're the type who views the warnings not to pry open your computer as more a challenge than admonition, MAKE is for you.
- Rolling Stone

"MAKE magazine, one of the bibles of the do-it-yourself movement"
-Julia Moskin, The New York Times

"In here are more than articles bound together, more than the vision of its creators even: it's a possibility engine. A passel of new ways of thinking, and thus, new ways of looking at the world. This is, without a doubt, my favorite magazine ever, and my only beef with them is that I don't have enough free time to try everything I'd like to.
-Adam Savage, MythBusters

"...the crew at Make Magazine/Maker Faire/Makezine are leading the way with a great energy and a spirit of adventure. They’ve made open source/DIY hardware seem as cool and subversive as the punk movement of the early 80s. Soldering irons are the new electric guitars!"
- Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired Magazine

"This is a magazine for people who, in real life, are like Matthew Broderick from 'War Games.' Everything children would like to be able to do with technology, you do."
- Stephen Colbert, The Colbert Report

"There's a magazine I like, Make magazine……it's all about how to build little robots out of Altoid tins, and how to make sea monkeys into giant blood-sucking rats. It's pretty cool and it's a lot of fun"
- Jimmy Kimmel, The Jimmy Kimmel show

"If I read one more article or hear one more speech about how this country is losing its edge because not enough people are getting into science and technology, I'll become officially depressed. In that light, it's especially satisfiying to know that, if the pages of Make are any indication, the spirit of experimentation and geekiness-for-its-own-sake are thriving in the basements and backyards of America."
-David Pogue, The New York Times

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We've blogged about the Midify module before here on MAKE, and here's another good way to use this simple chip that will add MIDI to pretty much anything you can think of. This hack shows to to add MIDI to a GameBoy Advance SP with only basic tools and soldering skills needed. Check out the link below for more details on this mod including details on where to drill without destroying your GameBoy.

Division 6

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Steve writes "SecurityFix reports that a group of researchers from Germany published a study in which they analyzed several hundred so-called 'drop zones,' i.e. anonymous collection points of illicitly collected data stolen with the help of keyloggers. 'Their findings, which drew from stolen data harvested from these drop zones between April and October 2008, were staggering: 33 gigabytes worth of purloined data from more than 170,000 victims. Included in those troves were more than 10,700 online bank account credentials, 149,000 stolen e-mail credentials, 5,682 credit card numbers, and 5,712 sets of eBay credentials. [...] Using figures from Symantec's 2007 study on the prices that these credentials can fetch at e-crime bazaars, the researchers estimate that a single cyber crook using one of these kits could make a tidy daily income. The full report [PDF] contains some more interesting details.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A Washington native, Claude Zervas brings his background as a software engineer to a fine art practice using technology and related apparatuses rather than paint and canvas as a medium.

Zervas' predominant subject matter for the past few years has been the Northwest's verdant and extreme landscape: dense evergreen forests, glacier-melt rivers, and strange roadside attractions.

In his 2005 sculpture Skagit, a section of the 150-mile-long river is rendered in glowing green cold cathode fluorescent (CCFL) lamps that climb down from the wall, clamber atop a series of thin steel rods, and eventually split into two forks. Wires and inverters splayed on the floor resemble additional tributaries.

Considering the subject matter, the choice of materials might seem an unusual substitute for the real thing. Zervas' work begs an increasingly important and complex question: what is nature anymore?

In his Forest series of computer animations, "forest" is misleading as parts of the landscape have fallen prey to logging. Clear-cuts and swaths of spindly new-growth trees populate the frame until a single-channel computer algorithm set on a continuous cycle slowly morphs and blots the view from existence. Then the cycle begins anew.

"I'm more interested in the memory associations that arise out of perceptions of landscape," Zervas says of his work.

The artist has recently gone from the macro of the forest to the micro of marine life. A new series of wall-mounted sculptures uses what Zervas calls "motons" (small circuit boards studded with alternating blinking lights run by a microcontroller) to investigate the phenomenology of simple life forms.

Their movement is so quick that it's hard to tell anything is happening at all. What the brain registers instead is the space between -- similar to how Zervas situates the viewer between dying landscapes and new technology.

>> Claude Zervas: claudezervas.com

From the column Made on Earth - MAKE 12, page 21 - Katie Kurtz.

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?As a way to raise funds for the 2005 tsunami victims in southeast Asia, Brian Berg built the skyline of NYC with playing cards using 178,000 cards, one for each of the victims. More pics of this project at the link below.

NYC's Skyline made of cards

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From the MAKE: Flickr pool

Flickr member mskogly built this long-legged vibrobot complete with potentiometer nose -

Made this cute litle vibrobot today, with some spare parts. Got inspired by an old Makezine article, and decided to smack it together.

It turned out pretty cool actually, I made the potentiometer its nose, so when you twist the nose you regulate the speed of the motor.

Cool - add a couple of antlers and it may just take flight! - Creating a vibrobot with 9v battery, motor, and potentiometer

Vibrobot  Volume 10

Read this article in MAKE: 10: Home Electronics, Page 119. To get MAKE, subscribe or purchase single volumes.
Subscribers—read this article now in your digital edition!

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Popular Mechanics has a nice project explaining how to build a backyard pergola. It might not be the best time of year to start such a project, but you could get all the parts ready for the spring.

More about How-to build a backyard pergola

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John Buckman, the entrepreneur behind Magnatune, shared his personal vision for successfully becoming your own boss at LeWeb '08 conference in Paris. Photo credit: John Buckman The title of his presentation was "Love Entrepreneurship: Your Own Way" and his focus was specifically on what key points you MUST follow if you want to start your own online business. Many startuppers fail because they do not pay attention to some very fundamental strategic rules of good entreprenurship and dive into their projects without thinking of the consequences of their initial, time-pressed decisions. Being an entrepreneur it's not all fun and games. If you want to become your own boss, you have to make sure first that you do make the right choices. So which are the successful steps to self-employment? Becoming independent and self-employed is like a chess game. It's cool to start playing the game and have other people under you doing what you ask, but if you don't play smart and make the correct moves, things may not exactly go the way you may have expected. If you, like me, didn't have the chance to see John Buckman live at LeWeb, this is something you don't want to miss. Here for you his great talk recorded on stage at LeWeb, and a full English transcription: Intro by Daniele Bazzano

Love Entrepreneurship Your Own Way

Live TV by Ustream Duration: 9'
Full English Text Transcription
John Buckman: Here are the quick steps that I see for self-employment.

1) Think of Lots of Ideas

The very first thing is: just start thinking of lots of ideas. Starts reading a science fiction, futurism, start watching TED... just start writing ideas down.

2) Do Nothing

And then, this is the crucial step: do nothing. Don't do anything with those ideas. Just keep thinking of ideas and writing them down, and the reason is that in three months most of those ideas are going to be shit. And it's going to take you at least three months, if not six to nine months to get those ideas together. Too many people jump on the first ideas they have and start doing them, and they shut their brain down and they stop thinking of other clever things. This is my own personal test, I called it the pub-test. I spent half the year in England and Brits are well-educated, which means they're a very tough audience for new ideas. I go to a pub with a friend, it's noisy, we're having a beer, and then about 15 seconds I explain my idea. If they don't stop drinking their beer and pay attention, my idea is not good enough. It's very simple. It's because a noisy pub, with beer, lots of queue other people around... it's what the Internet is like: there are tons of distractions, there are tons of things pulling people away. If you're not interesting enough to get someone to look up from their beer, it's not gonna happen. Try again.

3) The Elevator Pitch

Now, think about your product: what this really comes down to, it's some sort of elevator pitch, some sort of very simple explanation. It's called an elevator pitch because if you're stuck in an elevator with someone famous, let's say Chris Anderson of TED, and you want to speak at TED. What would you say in those fifteen seconds that would excite him, that would make him take your card, and call you back?

4) Write The First Line of Your Press Release

I can't stress this enough: before you do any work, write the first line of your press release. So many companies leave this still later. They make the product, they get it to ship and then they write the press release, and they realize that the first line of their press release is boring. The product is already made, there's nothing you can do: you have a boring product. You need to work the other way around. How is that first line of that press release going to get people interested?

5) Write The First Paragraph of Your Homepage

Next, write the first paragraph of your homepage. This is the follow one. Someone says, "Uh, that sounds interesting, tell me more". You have three or four sentences to get them excited. Make the homepage finally hunt for unique names. This is actually not nearly as important as you would think. A lot of companies like my own Magnatune, or even ones like Seesmic, are not the best names in the world, but if they're really good ideas and they're memorable, that's fine. It's not a problem.

6) Don't Borrow Money

This is really crucial. Don't borrow money. Figure out how to do the idea extremely cheaply.

7) Make a Mock-up

Next finally, make a mock-up. Show it to people. Again, see if they're are really excited.

8) Launch Before You Are Ready

And this is crucial. Lunch way before you're ready. Get it out there. start getting feedback. See if the idea is any good, because you might be really wrong. After you pitch at the bloggers, if no-one cared, if you didn't borrow money, you don't have anything invested in it, other than a few months' work. Kill it, start over. You just learned something, you just learned why the idea was bad. Start again.

9) Don't Quit Your Day Job

This is also crucial: don't quit your day job. A lot of people think they need to get funding, quit their day jobs, start with a bunch of partners, and go off. What you really need to do, is get that salary and find time on the weekends, on the evenings, to work on your project, and gradually lower your time commitment to your job. But only quit it once you have enough money.

10) Salespeople Are a Bad Idea

You also discover that salespeople are an extremely bad idea. The reason is that salespeople require capital and they also generally mean that your idea isn't that good. Your idea isn't that good because it requires salespeople to convince people it's good. If it's good it should convince people on their own. Great products build word of mouth.

11) Pitch The Bloggers

Another fallacy is that if we just had a big PR and marketing campaign, that everyone would know about our product that would be great. That's not true either. Because if you can convince just a few bloggers that it's interesting, and a few early users, that is something really unusual, then it will happen on its own.

John's Secrets

I got a few case studies here. This is my secret, it's really really simple. The secret to getting massive press, and I have got massive press for my project, so the first one is the hardest:

a) Be Interesting

Be really damned interesting. Guy Kawasaki in his famous books says: "If you're not getting press, get better reality". That's a more clever way of saying what I'm saying, but find something really interesting.

b) Convince Influential Bloggers

And then you just need to convince two influential bloggers that it's really interesting. That will get you the stage. If it's not that interesting it won't go anywhere.

c) Focus on Freelancers

Another secret, this is for traditional print media, is focus on freelancers, not on staff writers. Freelancers will write about small people, generally staff writers won't. And the reason is that staff writers get stories from editors, whereas freelancers have to find stories and pitch to the editor. Become a cause that freelancer would personally like they have personally invested in.

The Flow of Things

This is the flow of things:

• I first got a blog,
• I got Creative Commons and Boing Boing to blog,
• and then The Inquirer,
• and then everything else happened: Fark, Slashdot, USA Today, NPR.

This is from each one. It's just a cascade. Each media watches the next media and it happens automatically. Here some of the story angles. You had to download this to read us more, but think of as many edgy stories as you can. Especially when what's happened has been written about. So, when a journalist contacts you can give them something really juicy to think about.


Click above to enlarge image This is the Magnatune homepage, this is my elevator pitch, "we are not evil", It's very cute, it makes people laugh, and then there is this massive paragraph. What people see is "we are not evil", bla bla bla bla bla.

Final Tips

Okay, some final tips.

Dedibox

Those of you who are French, you need to look at Dedibox. For a thirty euros a month you can have a machine of a 100 megabits. It's only available to French people, and it's a wonderful thing.

Use PHP

I recommend you use PHP, because it's a simple technology. You can hire people cheaply.

Make Your Homepage Pretty

Don't skimp on graphics.

Do Everything Yourself

Do everything yourself. And if you're not technical, sorry, you're going to to have to be technical. You're going have to learn technology at some level. Otherwise it's not going to happen. You're going have to read a lot of books. You got to to learn everything out running a company, but it's going to be a lot of fun. And if it is successful, you get all the percents. You can't lead people if you don't know how to do their job.

Don't Borrow Money

Don't borrow money, because if you fail, you can just start again next week.

That is all I wanted to say, thank you very much for listening. Bye-bye!

Additional Resources

• John Buckman complete presentation on SlideShare
• John Buckman complete bio on Wikipedia
• Robin Good's "Be Your Own Boss!" presentation

Originally presented by John Buckman for LeWeb '08 and first recorded on December 10th 2008 as "Self-Employment: Successful Steps To Become Your Own Boss - John Buckman At LeWeb08".

About the author John Buckman is founder and CEO of Magnatune.com, an online record label which was recently named as one of the "Top 20 Music Download Sites" by Time Magazine. John also founded Bookmooch.com, an online community for exchanging used books. His past accomplishments as a programmer and entrepreneur include having founded email software company Lyris in 1994. Buckman is also a well-known figure in the open source community and is a member of the Board of Directors of the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

Photo credits: Think of Lots of Ideas - Jason Stitt Do Nothing - vukx The Elevator Pitch - Henrik Andersen Write The First Line of Your Press Release - Pavel Muron Write The First Paragraph of Your Homepage - mipan Don't Borrow Money - mipan Make a Mock-up - DG Flugzeugbau GmbH Launch Before You Are Ready - Jón Helgason Don't Quit Your Day Job - Diego Cervo Salespeople Are a Bad Idea - cookelma Pitch The Bloggers - Yurok Aleksandrovich John's Secrets - 3Girls3Boy Be Interesting - CHOReograP Convince Influential Bloggers - Marc Dietrich Focus on Freelancers - James Steidl The Flow of Things - tombakyt Dedibox - Dedibox Use PHP - Wikipedia Make Your Homepage Pretty - Karam Miri Do Everything Yourself - semenovp Don't Borrow Money - Tyler Olson

It really was just three days ago that we suggested that if the record labels actually wanted anyone to take them seriously concerning their desire to come up with more constructive solutions to the business model challenges they face, they should at least stop suing folks as a gesture of trying something new. The usual recording industry defenders in the comments claimed this was a ridiculous suggestion, but it appears that the RIAA is at least taking a small step in that direction. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the recording industry (the WSJ mis-labels it "the music industry") is abandoning its strategy of mass lawsuits.

First off, this is a step in the right direction -- and we think its great that the record labels have agreed to do this, even if it's many, many years too late. And, it's hardly a huge concession. The lawsuits have been an unmitigated disaster. They have done nothing to slow file sharing (in fact, the publicity generated from the lawsuits has often been credited for alerting many people to the possibility). The strategy has also splintered the file sharing space into many, many different players, many of them way underground, rather than the early days when there were a manageable number of players who could be worked with proactively. It's also done tremendous damage to the brands of the major record labels (Universal, Warner, EMI and Sony) and the RIAA itself -- leading many to swear off buying any of their products. Finally -- and most importantly -- the strategy did absolutely nothing to help musicians adapt to a changing market that was opening up tremendous new opportunities both to spread their music and to profit. So, kudos to the folks at the RIAA for finally realizing how backwards this strategy has been.

The fine print

But, of course, this is the RIAA, so you can rest assured that the details aren't anything to be happy about. In exchange for not filing mass lawsuits, the RIAA has worked out backroom deals with numerous ISPs (brokered by Andrew Cuomo -- who has a history of using baseless threats to get ISPs to censor content they have no legal responsibility to censor). The exact details are a bit sketchy, but it sounds like a variation on the ridiculous three strikes policy that has been (mostly) rejected in Europe as a violation of basic civil rights. Basically, these ISPs will agree to be the RIAA enforcers. Based solely on the RIAA's flimsy evidence, the ISPs will either pass on or directly email subscribers with warning letters. Depending on the specifics of the agreement, the users will get one or two more warning letters before the ISP will start limiting their internet access or potentially cutting them off entirely. If this sounds suspiciously like what Europe just rejected, you're right.

And, of course, the RIAA still says it may sue those who don't stop file sharing after all of this. They're just backing away from the mass lawsuit filings that they've been doing.

Why this is still a bad deal

Okay, so over the past few weeks, recording industry defenders have said that we were jumping the gun in criticizing a potential plan because it wasn't final. Our point was that since the record labels claim they want a "conversation" these deals shouldn't be negotiated in backrooms not involving substantial stakeholders. So what happened here? Yup, a backroom negotiated deal without any involvement from users. And done under the direction of Andrew Cuomo, who just spent many months browbeating ISPs into agreeing to censor content.

So, hopefully, we won't be told that we're being premature in criticizing this plan -- but somehow I find it unlikely.

This plan is hardly a major concession by the record labels and the RIAA. The lawsuit strategy was a massive failure in almost every facet. Giving them up is hardly a big deal. It's admitting what pretty much everyone else knew from the beginning: that suing your fans and customers is a monumentally dumb move. Ending a braindead, self-defeating policy is worthy of kudos, but only for finally recognizing the obvious -- not some magnanimous gesture.

And in exchange for the RIAA stopping its policy of shooting itself in the foot, we get ISPs to give up a huge concession themselves, agreeing to become RIAA enforcers, despite the clear safe harbors they have via the DMCA. These ISPs will now be heavily involved in the process of policing their users, increasing their expense, which of course will be passed on to users.

But the biggest problem is the fact that this allows private organizations to judge users without any significant defense on their part. The stories of falsely accused file sharers are widespread at this point. IP address-based evidence is notoriously unreliable. Yet, the RIAA will be basing its notifications based on that. Sure, plenty of the IP addresses dug up by the RIAA are probably accurate, but we live in an innocent-until-proven-guilty world, and this does away with that completely.

Also, as the EU noted in rejecting this proposal, the "punishment" hardly fits the crime. These days, an internet connection is a necessity -- and taking it away from people because someone is sharing the gift of music with others not for any sort of commercial gain is totally unbalanced. It takes away an individual's civil and privacy rights, all because the big record labels refuse to recognize that there are other business models out there that already work. And that final point may be the most important. As we noted in explaining why the music tax is a bad idea, none of these moves by the RIAA are actually necessary.

Musicians are figuring out plenty of fantastic business models that work wonders, and many of them actually involve embracing file sharing and using that to help grow their markets. What's wrong with letting those business models establish themselves, without brokering a totally unnecessary backroom deal that will almost certainly harm innocent people thanks to flimsy evidence?

So, yes, we're thrilled that the record labels have finally progressed to the point of realizing that mass lawsuits were a bad idea, but working out a backroom deal for a type of three strikes policy is not a particularly good solution. It's more of the same: trying to prop up an obsolete business model by a private industry unwilling or too stubborn to change with the market. Why NY's Attorney General felt this private business model issue should involve his efforts in the midst of a huge financial crisis including the largest Ponzi scheme ever makes little sense.

If this is the "new leaf" and "open conversations" the record labels are insisting they're about these days, they've got an awful lot of work to do still.

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Canon has published a statement in response to concerns raised about the EOS 5D Mk II. The announcement addresses the widely discussed 'Black Dot' and 'Vertical Banding' issues being reported by owners and potential owners who have been scrutinizing the camera's output. The company says it is investigating both issues and will work on 'measures to reduce or eliminate these phenomena.'

Software maker Breeze Systems has launched remote capture software for the Nikon D90 and Nikon D300 DSLRs. Both enable users to control focus from a PC, shoot time-lapse sequences and display live images. They incorporate the company’s Photobooth shoot and print feature designed for event photographers. The packages are the first time Breeze Systems has supported remote capture for Nikon cameras, having covered Canon DSLRs since 2001, and trial versions are now available.

Here's a simple holiday project that recycles parts from old hinges. The maker uses epoxy to hold it all together, but you could tack weld it for a more permanent solution.

More about Hardware angel ornaments

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chrb writes "Researchers at Queensland University have used computer simulations to calculate that the loss of the US$80 million British Beagle 2 Mars probe was due to a bad choice of spin rate during atmospheric entry, resulting in the craft burning up within seconds. The chosen spin rate was calculated by using a bridging function to estimate the transitional forces between the upper and lower atmosphere, while the new research relies on simulation models. Beagle 2 team leader Professor Colin Pillinger has responded saying that the figures are far from conclusive, while another chief Beagle engineer has said 'We still think we got it right.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mulitiverse is a monumental scale LED light show installed in the National Gallery of Art. If you happen to be in the Washington area, you really should check it out. The website has some great videos Multiverse in action.

Multiverse, the largest and most complex light sculpture created by American artist Leo Villareal, may be seen and experienced by visitors as they pass through the Concourse walkway between the East and West Buildings of the National Gallery of Art. Commissioned by the Gallery and on view until November 2009, the work features approximately 41,000 computer-programmed LED (light-emitting diode) nodes that run through channels along the entire 200-foot-long space. The development of this LED project began in 2005, and the installation created by Villareal specifically for this location began in September 2008.

More about Multiverse by Leo Villareal [Happy News]

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I imagine this won't come as a huge surprise to many of you, but it appears that we're all influenced by the presence of tech specs on a product -- even if those specs are somewhat meaningless. A variety of separate studies showed that people would usually purchase the product with "more" specs, even if they were meaningless. One of the tests even had people create their own tech specs based on their usage, and they were still more influenced by the specs than the actual usage. Apparently, we need to get busy adding more "tech specs" to our products around here...

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We are pleased to publish the first ever gift guide for the trebuchet and catapult maker! MAKE columnist William Gurstelle put together everything you need to get started making your own giant-flinger, or as they're properly called... trebuchets and catapults! You might ask why we're putting a guide like this on MAKE, catapult kits sums it up pretty well... "Because the world needs good engineers and scientists, and because the kids who will grow up to become engineers and scientists need a way to get hands-on experience with physics, math and engineering".

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They're calling it #snowmageddon on Twitter.

And on Flickr too.

I know it's snowing a lot back east cause it's raining a lot here on the California coast. And now it's raining some more. More rain here, more snow there. Pretty simple.

I just posted a twit saying "People in the eastern U.S.-- more snow headed your way. Hugs, California"

We're all in it together. Just some of us are more in it than the rest.

I miss the snow, so here's what I want to do.

Where are snowcams? I want webcams in American and Canadian cities that show the snow? I'd like to accumulate a list here.

Here's a cam on West Dayton St in Madison. It's a live feed. You can see the snow blowing and cars going down the street. Wish there were audio too. The Comp Sci building is on West Dayton if I remember correctly. This building is quite close.

Funny how Madison looks the same 30 years later.

Here are some other Madison-area webcams.

Post a comment if you know of one!

Update: Or place your snowcam on this Google Map.

The Raindog writes "The power supply is perhaps the most overlooked element of a modern PC, and yet it's the one component that can irreparably damage the rest of a system. The market is littered with generic PSUs that are often much cheaper than name-brand alternatives, but can you trust them? The Tech Report aims to find out in its latest power supply round-up, which compares the performance, efficiency, and noise levels of a collection of reputable PSUs with some budget, no-name competition. As it turns out, any money you save on a generic PSU purchase will likely cost you more in the long run."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last June, I posted about the lamps from Design Heure, which feature a small slide projector that throws a single image on a nearby wall. The company's just launched its new line and there are some lovely pieces in it.

LAMP AND INDOOR PROJECTOR (Thanks, Herveline!)

There was a time when online petitions were pretty common, but they never were that effective at actually lobbying government, mainly because there's no easy way to validate signatures. The concept was ported straight from the analog world to the digital, but it's interesting to see how government lobbying has evolved online. The Ontario government recently backed down from proposed restrictions on young drivers in the face of a significant backlash, which included a Facebook group that gathered over 150,000 members. The Premier, Dalton McGuinty, mused about conducting consultations through Facebook and, though that never materialized, the group was cited as one of the major indications that the government had "stepped in it." Earlier this year, another Facebook group, Fair Copyright for Canada, had caught the attention of the national parliament in Canada.

What is it that Facebook groups have that online petitions don't? First of all, 150,000 members in a Facebook group is not the equivalent of 150,000 signatures on a (real) petition. A portion of this group's members are probably not even from Ontario (though at least Facebook provides some assurance that most members are real individual people). But, in the same way that 150,000 signatures isn't the same as 150,000 people at a rally outside the legislature, you take the context into account. It's a pretty significant number for getting a sense of a public reaction -- the government definitely hit a nerve here. A Facebook group also contains associated debate and discussion, links to other efforts (websites, YouTube videos, etc.) and a means for members to coordinate further efforts online and offline. It's more about organizing protest efforts than simply presenting a list of names.

Obviously, there are other relevant services besides Facebook (and there are lots of silly Facebook groups), but the Facebook example serves as an interesting illustration of how this sort of political activism has evolved from the digital attempt at petitions to a more involved hub of activity. In Canada, we see examples of politicians now beginning to pay attention, but to get involved -- like McGuinty suggested through consultations and like the Obama team has demonstrated through a campaign -- would take things to another level.

Blaise Alleyne is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Blaise Alleyne and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Check out this fantastic Dalek Christmas tree, a nightmare of exterminatory, glittery cheer.

My badass Dalek christmas tree (via io9)

Wouldn't it be awesome to have an ice rink in your back yard? Instructables user Instructors writes:

For 3 years now my family has been putting up a homemade ice rink in our backyard. The method was a very simple one only requiring a flat area, some PVC, a large plastic tarp, along with some extra tools, and of course water. This method is better then a lot of the wooden ones for several reasons: wooden one are hard to put up and the wood will rot, arent really portable, isn't really cheap for a vast area, and takes a bit more water (meaning more time it takes to freeze).

As far as I know, the Idea for the PVC ice rink came from my father, who was looking at building an ice rink. In his quest he found several professional ice rinks, that sold for a lot of money (up to $600 dollars!), money that he didn't have. So then the Idea of the homemade PVC ice rink emerged!

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Today on Offworld we saw a special holiday office party installment of James Kochalka's Monster Mii feature, this time including a special Sexy X-mas Game Boy chiptune theme song. We also found a new retro-futurist Space Invaders landing on Japanese mobile phones, saw the new DSi get a downloadable app to make web-embeddable animations, new official Nintendo business cards featuring your Mii and Wii friend code, and a porcelain Little Sister from BioShock. Finally, we were tempted to order new custom 3D printed Spore figurines, and took a long look at ngmoco and Hand Circus's long-awaited tilt-sensitive iPhone puzzle/platformer Rolando, and how, against overwhelming commentary otherwise, it's more than people have said it is.

Who can blame Galveston plainclothes police who thought a 12-year-old girl standing outside her house (flipping the switch on the circuit breaker as her mother has asked her to do) was a prostitute? After all, she was wearing "tight shorts" according to the vigilant officers, and she happened to live only two blocks away from a location where someone had complained that prostitution was taking place.

So the three brave officers did the natural thing: they allegedly jumped the girl and beat her up, according to Courthouse News and the Houston Press.

As Dymond headed toward the breaker, a blue van drove up and three men jumped out rushing toward her. One of them grabbed her saying, “You’re a prostitute. You’re coming with me.”

Dymond grabbed onto a tree and started screaming, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” One of the men covered her mouth. Two of the men beat her about the face and throat.

As it turned out, the three men were plain-clothed Galveston police officers who had been called to the area regarding three white prostitutes soliciting a white man and a black drug dealer.

After the incident, Dymond was hospitalized and suffered black eyes as well as throat and ear drum injuries.

I guess the silly family expected an apology from the police. Like I said, silly. Instead, here's what happened.

Three weeks later, according to the lawsuit, police went to Dymond’s school, where she was an honor student, and arrested her for assaulting a public servant. Griffin says the allegations stem from when Dymond fought back against the three men who were trying to take her from her home. The case went to trial, but the judge declared it a mistrial on the first day, says Griffin. The new trial is set for February.

UPDATE: This case was filed on 22nd August 2008, and the alleged attacked occurred in August 2006, according to this court document. Here is the Courthouse News article.

Here's the filing in the Texas Southern District Court.

I emailed Radley Balko about the apparent age discrepancy that some commentator have brought up. On a couple of social networking pages, the girls says she's 17, which would have made her 15 in 2006, not 12, as the article indicates. Radley says:

My guess would be that she exaggerated her age on her profile for those pages (as teen girls will do). This track results page puts her birth year at 1993. If her birthday comes later than August, she'd have been 12 when the incident took place.

The vital records file for Galveston country show that Dymond Milburn was 12 years old when the police allegedly beat her.

Radley Balko posted an update clearing some misconceptions about the story here.

Prostitution raid on 12-year-old honor student

Here's some info about our upcoming Maker Faire Newcastle 2009-

The first UK Maker Faire will take place in Newcastle 14-15 March 2009 as part of Newcastle ScienceFest - a 10 day festival celebrating creativity and innovation.

In the last decade Newcastle has joined forces with neighbouring Gateshead and has transformed itself into one of Europe's most exciting places. Architectural icons such as the gigantic Angel of the North (whose 54m wingspan is longer than a jumbo jet!) best symbolises the region's unquenchable thirst for creativity and sense of fun.

Innovation has always been at the heart of the city. Newcastle's Mosley Street was the first in the world to be lit by electricity and famous inventors such as Charles Parsons, William Armstrong, George Stephenson and Joseph Swan have all lived or worked in the city. Today, Newcastle continues to inspire inventors, artists and scientists alike. Johnathon Ive, designer of the iPod studied at one of the city's universities and scientists at the Centre of Life were the first in the world to successfully clone a human embryo!

The city is proud to host the UK's first Maker Faire and looks forward to welcoming UK and international makers in March!

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Now that it's legal to serve papers to someone through Facebook, Burger King has apparently sent a cease and desist via Twitter to the user "whoppervirgins" for an unauthorized use of trademark. "Whopper Virgins" is the latest multi-million dollar ad campaign from Burger King to hit the airwaves, featuring documentary-like ads depicting Hmong, Inuit and Romanian villagers eating burgers for the first time. Sure, "theBKlounge" account may not really be Burger King, or the C&D could actually be an in-character joke. But, really, did nobody at the agency think to simply grab the twitter account "whoppervirgins" to begin with? From the start, this campaign seems to have attracted criticism. In addition to flak for being "corporate colonialism," "cultural bullying" and "the worst kind of Ugly Americanism," this campaign has been ridiculed for not doing enough good SEO to support the campaign. In any case, perhaps Burger King purposely planned these strange moves, in order to generate fodder for bloggers to chew on, since in all honestly, I am really, really craving a Whopper right now.

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Instructables user bwitmer writes:

Here is how I built my own combination cider and cheese press. After a great apple harvest this year, I was inspired to obtain my own cider press. However, after pricing one and seeing that they cost exactly one arm and one leg to purchase I started thinking about building one myself. While no advanced rocket engineering degree is needed to understand the basics concept of apple cider making (apples+ pressure=cider), it took some thought as to how it all fits together. At the same time, I was interested in learning cheese making so I put a homemade cheese press on it as well. So, I looked at some other press variations online and in magazines, and this is what I came up with.

More:

• Homemade cider press
• HOW TO - Brew Hard Cider
  

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unassimilatible writes "If there was ever a sad day for nerds, it's today, as Majel Barrett-Rodenberry has passed away. The widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry is best remembered as the gorgeous Nurse Christine Chapel from the original series, the pesky and officious Lwaxana Troi from The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine, and of course the ubiquitous voice of Star Trek computers in movies, TV, and animated films (who hasn't used her voice as a system sound on their PC?). Majel also attended Star Trek conventions yearly and was a producer of Andromeda. Fortunately, Majel just finished her voice over work for the computers in J.J. Abrams' latest Trek movie. I have to admit, this made me sad, just having caught up on the entire TNG and DS9 series on DVD."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We were a bit confused following the last dot com boom when various venture capitalist went into hiding when it came to new investments. Suddenly they said that since the market was bad, they wouldn't make any more investments. That didn't make much sense. After all, VCs are supposed to be investing for the long-haul -- usually in the range of five to seven (plus) years. What the market is doing today is rather meaningless. In fact, investing heavily during a downturn is often a good strategy. There are fewer competitors investing, you can invest at lower valuations (buy low!) and your investment has more time to mature against less competition. Yet, it looks like many venture capitalists are taking that same strategy again, with many deciding that it's time to hold off on doing new investments until the wider market appears to improve. The worst stat in the bunch is that VCs are particularly shying away from seed stage deals -- which are the cheapest deals that need the most time to mature anyway. That's effectively a strategy that says says they'll wait until it's more expensive to buy again. Venture capital is called risk capital for a reason. If VCs don't want to take risks, they shouldn't be in the business. About the only reason I can see why it might make sense for VCs to hold off investing is if they really think their own investors will default on capital calls -- meaning they really don't have as much money to invest as they thought they had. But, if that's the case, VCs are in bigger trouble anyway.

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Sights and sounds from the ITP winter show 2008 (video).

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I really enjoyed looking at this Steampunk monitor mod shape up, from concept to fabrication. The plumbing-based swing-arm mechanism is particularly awesome.

Antipodean Steampunk Adventures via BrassGoggles

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While we definitely think there's a huge opportunity for more comprehensive business models in the music industry, we're still skeptical of Live Nation's model. The company, which is mostly known as a concert promoter, has signed huge deals with some big name musicians to get them to leave their record labels and do everything through Live Nation -- including music sales, concerts and merchandise. Live Nation gets a cut of it all. On the whole, such a model does make a lot of sense, because with one entity managing all of the different revenue streams, the company is much more likely to tweak the knobs. If it realizes that it can make more money in those other products by giving away the music, it (in theory) won't hesitate. That doesn't happen when the record label only gets a cut of music sales.

The problem, though, with Live Nation's model was its decision to focus on just a few huge names, and to pay them tremendous upfront amounts. Now, it turns out, the deals are even worse than what Live Nation expected. Apparently, it paid a portion of what it owed both U2 and Madonna in stock. That, by itself, is fine. It lets the musicians share in the risk a bit. Except, for some bizarre reason, the folks at Live Nation took away all of the downside risk for the musicians by promising how much the stock would be worth. With the stock market in freefall, that's now going to cost Live Nation a ton. For example, it gave a bunch of stock to U2, and guaranteed the stock would be worth at least $25 million. In actuality, it's worth $6 million. That means the company now needs to cough up an additional $19 million in cash and give it to the band. Madonna is apparently in a similar situation, with a similar guarantee about to come due.

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Joey Anuff tells the story of how he came into possession of a giant treasure trove of Harvey Kurtzman original art. (Kurtzman is best known as the founder of Mad and creator of the Little Annie Fanny comic strip that ran in Playboy.)

Here's an excerpt:

Take a look at the scan gallery I've assembled below and you'll get a sense of what Denis showed us: the virgin files of the Harvey Kurtzman Estate. A publisher's estate spanning three publications -- Trump, Humbug, and Help! -- and an artist's estate rich in work from the least-familiar, most mature decade of his career, roughly 1955-1965.

Picture setting your grubby eyes and paws on all that Holy Grail material -- not just the stuff below but also roughs and finals for seemingly every Humbug page, the entire Jungle Book minus the cover, a pile of amazing Annie breakdowns, among other lost treasures -- and not instantly scheming ways to smuggle it home. As a graduate of both the late-'90s tech bubble and the late-'80s comics boom, and as a market-averse twenty-something in search of a safe haven for his chumpy change, it wasn't long before I'd convinced myself that in the Kurtzman Estate, I was finally looking, at long last, at a 401(k) I could actually believe in.

Superyachtsman (and VC) Tom Perkins is said to have made his motto "When you have a great opportunity, push all the chips, all the resources that you can, to the center of the table." Something along those lines (more likely, something about Greatest Fools) became my motto that summer as Denis and I inched through terms. And after some no-nonsense pricing on my part, a nice meeting with Adele Kurtzman herself at the '99 San Diego Comic Con, and a thorough hi-res digitization by the Kitchen Art Agency, I finally became the tingly-toed owner of approximately 40 lbs. of blue-chip comic book art.

Joey's Harvey Kurtzman collection

This radiator chair doesn't look particularly light or comfortable, but it is beautiful:

(Via boingboing)

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