Last week, we mentioned that it was silly for musicians (and labels) to complain about their music being in the video games Guitar Hero or Rock Band -- which some folks challenged in the comments. Yet, just in time, the Associated Press comes out with an article detailing how being in any of those games significantly increases sales of music, sometimes more than triple what they were prior to their inclusion in the games. Some musicians are also making a lot more due to image and likeness deals, but on the whole being in those games is a boost to traditional sales.

The article does note that the labels are upset that they don't think they're getting enough, because the labels, in their typical short-sighted view, only focus on how much they get directly from the game makers, whining that it's less than they would get from selling a bunch of albums. Well, duh. But, they conveniently leave out that being in the games increases sales of the albums too. It also notes that Edgar Bronfman's earlier whining is a bunch of meaningless fluff -- because if Bronfman ever stopped allowing Warner Music songs in those video games, a significant number of musicians would look to switch labels, since they actually recognize how valuable the games are. Bronfman's mistake is to think that it's the music that's valuable, but basically everyone else realizes he's got the equation backwards.

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TechDirt is spotlighting a call by Michael S. Malone, a columnist for ABCNews.com, for letting Silicon Valley create jobs once more. Malone argues that Sarbanes-Oxley and other attempts at accounting reform have done little to prevent fraud, but in fact have managed to kill off an entrepreneurship-venture capital-IPO cycle, centered in Silicon Valley, that has taken 30 years to nourish. Here's TechDirt: "...it's time to roll back SarbOx and other accounting rules that have acted more for theatrical purposes rather than any legitimate reason. Basically, all they've done is create new reporting requirements that do little to nothing to either prevent fraud or clarify a company's actual financial position (its intended purpose). I'm all for radical transparency in financial info, but that's not what has been done. Instead, we've made it burdensome to actually grow a company — and that doesn't help create jobs. It helps kill them."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A dozen readers have submitted the story of the death in a plane crash of Mike Connell, Karl Rove's IT adviser, the man who set up and ran the gwb43.com mail server, and an important figure in GOP tech circles since 1997. The closest thing to straight reporting to be found in a mainstream media outlet is a piece from KDKA in Pittsburgh giving a detailed backgrounder on Connell's work for Rove, two generations of the Bush family, and many GOP congressmen and committees. CBSNews.com is now mirroring the KDKA reporting. Almost all the early media coverage comes from the left and some of it is frankly conspiratorial. Among the milder pieces (although it could not be called balanced) is this interview with Mark Crispin Miller, NYU professor and author of two books about the 2004 election in Ohio. Connell was compelled to testify on the day before the US election in a lawsuit involving Ohio election irregularities in 2004. Connell, an experienced pilot, died on Sunday when his plane crashed two miles short of the runway of Akron-Canton Airport in Ohio.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As mentioned yesterday, we're going to try to run a little experiment here with a "live Q&A/chat." It's not a fully open chat in that you submit questions, and I'll choose some to respond to, and only those questions will show up in the chat window -- so don't expect questions to show up immediately. Anyway, for this first one, since it's a holiday week, we'll leave the topic pretty open -- but questions should focus on the sorts of things we commonly talk about here on the blog, from business models and economics to public policy, intellectual property, etc. Basically, anything that you think will be interesting to other folks here. For now, I'm planning to keep it running for about an hour (until about 2:30pm PT). After that, the proceedings will be available to read via archive... So, let's give this a shot:

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ocean_soul writes "It is well known among scientists that the impact factor of a scientific journal is not always a good indicator of the quality of the papers in the journal. An extreme example of this was recently uncovered in mathematics. The scandal is about one El Naschie, editor in chief of the 'scientific' journal Chaos, Solitons and Fractals, published by Elsevier. This is one of the highest impact factor journals in mathematics, but the quality of the papers in it is extremely poor. The journal has also published 322 papers with El Naschie as (co-)author, five of them in the latest issue. Like many crackpots, El Nashie has a kind of cult around him, with another journal devoted to praising his greatness. There was also a discussion about the Wikipedia entry for El Naschie, which was supposedly written by one of his followers. When it was deleted by Wikipedia, they even threatened legal actions (which never materialized)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The LA Times has an article about how cats are popular as food in the Guangdong province.

Dog is eaten in many parts of China, but only in Guangdong do people eat cat. It is rare to see a stray wandering the streets. Many cats served for supper here are shipped down from the north.

The Small Animal Protection Assn. says one Guangzhou-based business captures up to 10,000 cats per day from different parts of China. The cat snatchers are typically formerly unemployed people who use large fishing nets and are paid $1.50 per cat.

"They've eaten all their cats so they have to take ours from Beijing. People don't want to let their cats go out on the street," said Zhao Ming, a 55-year-old physician who was among about 40 people demonstrating in Beijing.

The cat trade thrives in a seemingly boundless gray area of commerce. Police are reluctant to charge the cat catchers with theft because many of the cats involved live outside and, in the famously independent way of cats, are not technically owned by humans, merely fed and nurtured.

Chinese seek to pull cats from the menu

Radley Balko, senior editor at Reason, has an update on Dymond Milburn, the 12-year-old girl who was grabbed out of her front yard by three undercover police who accused her of being a prostitute and then beaten so badly she had to go to the hospital to get her head injuries treated.

Balko has learned that the lawsuit is real, not a hoax as some have suggested. Here's a copy (pdf) of the complaint. And here's a record of the filing in federal court.

In the Houston Press the attorney for the officers Milburn is suing gave a statement:

"The father basically attacked police officers as they were trying to take the daughter into custody after she ran off."

"The city has investigated the matter and found that the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances. It's unfortunate that sometimes police officers have to use force against people who are using force against them. And the evidence will show that both these folks [meaning 12-year-old Dymond and her father] violated the law and forcefully resisted arrest."

Says Balko: "As far as I can tell, Texas does appear to allow for a citizen to resist an unlawful arrest if the arrest meets certain conditions:"

Texas Penal Code Chapter 9, Subchapter C, Section 9.31, Subsection C:

(c) The use of force to resist an arrest or search is justified: (1) if, before the actor offers any resistance, the peace officer (or person acting at his direction) uses or attempts to use greater force than necessary to make the arrest or search; and (2) when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is immediately necessary to protect himself against the peace officer's (or other person's) use or attempted use of greater force than necessary.

Balko comments:

Even setting aside the severe beating Milburn's lawsuit says she received at the hands of the police (which is presumably backed by records from the hospital she was admitted to later that night), you're left with several plain-clothes police officers jumping out of an unmarked van, calling a 12-year-old girl a prostitute, then attempting to snatch her from her own front yard. I would think that those actions alone would satisfy the "greater force than necessary" portion of the statute.

Dymond Milburn Update

The first Android phone, the T-Mobile G1, has been out for a couple of months now, and it's turned out to be a nicely hackable phone. Google has opened things up a bit more by making a read-only development branch, "cupcake", available for public perusal. If you're wondering when we'll see these enhancements on a shipping Android phone, it's gotten one step closer since the cupcake branch came out:

The changes introduced in the cupcake branch have been merged into the master branch, preserving all of the previous commits to master. The same will happen for each future drop to cupcake.

If you're not familiar with the guts of software development, what this means is that Google's Android developers took two complex pieces of software (the official, stable version of the Android operating system + the experimental version with all the new bells and whistles) and combined them, reconciling any differences and combining them into a seamless whole.

"cupcake" development branch [via phandroid]

For those of you who don't want to hack your own firmware to open it up completely, you can get an unlocked, hackable phone direct from Google.

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Read up on the NJFF here.

We're going to be doing one in Berkeley too, on Christmas Day. Gotta start planning it.

Basic plot.

1. Three movies that open Christmas Day. One of them must be Benjamin Button. Probably Valkyrie. What else?

2. Three movie theaters, within walking distance of each other. Either downtown Berkeley or at the Bay Street mall in Emeryville (advantages to both). Probably downtown, more traditional.

3. A snack between each pair of movies to discuss.

4. Dinner after the third movie.

5. Everyone has a great time.

DeviceGuru writes "Roku has announced two free updates to its Internet-enabled Netflix movie-streaming set-top box. The initial update adds advanced compression capable of streaming HD video over average consumer broadband connections, while the second (expected during the first quarter of 2009) will add A/V streaming from sources other than Netflix (e.g. YouTube, Hulu, Comedy Central, MSNBC, etc.). Roku faces growing competition from other providers of Internet-based video-on-demand STBs, such as Blockbuster's STB, Syabas's Popcorn Hour (aka NMT), AppleTV, and others. Roku hasn't said anything specific, but perhaps it'll partner with Boxee, which already provides a popular AppleTV hack."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amy Crehore posted some preliminary designs for the ukuleles that will be on display at her "Dreamgirls and Ukes" exhibition at Thinkspace in Los Angeles from Feb 13-March 6, 2009.

Ukulele Headstock Art by Amy Crehore

It's already quite clear that Sarbanes-Oxley has done very little to actually prevent fraud of any kind, but it has been a tremendous burden, especially on smaller, innovative companies that help grow the economy and create new jobs. It's basically become a huge tax on tapping into public financial markets for growth. Michael S. Malone is now making the argument that if the incoming presidential administration is serious about creating jobs, it's time to roll back SarbOx and other accounting rules that have acted more for theatrical purposes rather than any legitimate reason. Basically, all they've done is create new reporting requirements that do little to nothing to either prevent fraud or clarify a company's actual financial position (its intended purpose). Regulators love these sorts of bogus rules because it makes it look like they've done something, when really all they've done is put up huge hurdles for actually doing anything. I'm all for radical transparency in financial info, but that's not what has been done. Instead, we've made it burdensome to actually grow a company -- and that doesn't help create jobs. It helps kill them.

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The December 22, 2008 edition of Democracy Now! has a segment about Mike Connell, the Republican IT Specialist who died in a plane crash last week.

A top Republican internet strategist who was set to testify in a case alleging election tampering in 2004 in Ohio has died in a plane crash. Michael Connell was the chief IT consultant to Karl Rove and created websites for the Bush and McCain electoral campaigns. Michael Connell was deposed one day before the election this year by attorneys Cliff Arnebeck and Bob Fitrakis about his actions during the 2004 vote count in Ohio and his access to Karl Rove’s email files and how they went missing,

Guest: Mark Crispin Miller, professor of media culture and communication at New York University. He is the author of several books, including Loser Take All: Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 and Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election & Why They’ll Steal the Next One Too.

Rove's computer guru, Mike Connell dies in plane crash

fruey sends in a New Scientist analysis of the many second thoughts about the Long Tail theory. It summarizes four studies that show, in different markets, that the tail is both flatter and thinner than originally supposed, and that blockbusters are not going away in those markets — they are getting bigger. It's theorized that widely used collaborative filtering software is magnifying the winners' share of the various pies, and peer influence is a large contributor to consumer behavior.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the war for blue jean supremacy, there is no more worthy, yet neglected contender than the Wild Ass Jean, complete with six Wild Ass bachelor buttons and red suspenders. Fleece lining, your choice!

I spotted these jeans on the street, not because of the double-duty denim craftsmanship, but because of the little tag on the rear pocket that featured a little donkey kicking his hind legs like he really means business!

Once I arrived at Bailey's woodsman supply site, I realized that I was one chipper behind the curve. The work clothes and boots they offer are the warmest, ruggedest, and strangely, most flattering work togs I've purchased in years.

As a seamstress, I can tell you that making your own jeans is for "advanced members" only. (See my Craft Liturgy: "Life's Too Short for Pants"). For those of you who won't be turned away, I suggest starting with Sandra Betzina's Vogue pattern #7608 -- plus her book, Fast Fit. You will also need two sewing machines set up -- one for straight stitch, one for double -- plus a serger, if you hope to finish your jeans within a month. There is no ballgown that takes as much labor and finesse as a tailored pair of Western jeans -- but your buttons will burst if you pull it off successfully!

UPDATE: Email Bailey's to get on their waiting list for the next supply of Wild Asses! Many sizes are already gone for the Xmas rush.

(Susie Bright is a guest blogger)

My mother died four years ago, on a Christmas week. My father passed the next winter, when the light started changing and the warm days were gone for good.

A nurse called me one night from my mother's hospital bed and talked about the winter chill -- how when the temperatures suddenly dropped, even though everyone was well-heated in the nursing home, a score of people would pass away. The dying of the light at the end of the year was more than just a metaphor.

I feel a kindred spirit with others who've lost close friends and family during the holidays -- our memories of those relationships, warm or troubled, close or estranged, are overwhelming this time of year.

I was fortunate to find a book after my parents died, called Always Too Soon: Voices of Support for Those Who Have Lost Both Parents, which is a collection of interviews with an incredibly diverse group of people who don't mince words about the transformation of loss.

Who knew that actor/rapper Ice-T got his nickname as a result of how cold he became as a child when he lost his mom and dad. I sobbed over Geraldine Ferraro's story, of all people. Each story is  illuminating and comforting, especially during the holiday mania, when "false consciousness" seems to be in overdrive.

Listening to my parent's voices, the little bits of recording I have, is especially poignant to me, more than photo albums. Both my parents were linguists; that's how they met as students, each interested in Native California history.

The only recording I have of my mom, Elizabeth, is her interviews with elderly Patwin tribe members in the 1950s, sharing stories and songs from the last of the original fluent speakers. Even though I don't understand most of what they're saying, I'm spellbound by the timbre of my mother's voice.

In my father's case, Bill Bright, he was a veteran broadcaster from KPFA, and delighted in being on the air. I interviewed him about his life and language interests at length on my Audible audio program: 

MP3 file: Bill Bright, 8/13/28 - 10/15/06

In the first segment, Bill talks about his book, Native American Place Names in the United States. You will learn why the origin of the town name, Loleta, CA, comes from an elderly Wiyot man telling a lumber baron's wife, "Let's fuck!" There's more than one story of American place names like this!  He also explains the political and sexual controversy behind the much-abused word "squaw" -- which is a lot more complicated than you might think.

In the second segment, I asked my dad what was his first experience was of looking at something "erotic." He describes a series of "Tijuana Bibles" that circulated on the Oxnard Union High School playground in the 1930s -- and how his eyes were opened when he came to Berkeley in the post-war years.

At the end of our interview- and this part always makes me cry -- Bill recounts some of Coyote's mythic and erotic misadventures. He sings me a song, in the Karuk language, as a girl would sing to capture the attentions of a young man she might have her eye on. He has such a beautiful voice! He learned this song from Nettie Rubin, one of the native speakers and consultants he met when he was just a young man with a wire recorder, traveling up the Klamath River. She told Bill that since he didn't have a daughter, she was going to have to pass on all her special "daughter songs" to him.

Photo: Elizabeth and Bill Bright, 1954, on Army leave in Florence

(Susie Bright is a guest blogger)

A wonderfully insightful talk by Jeffrey Zeldman, captured on video at AIGA's Gain conference this past October. #

I've been working on a memoir -- which was catalyzed by Tin House editor Rob Spillman when he asked me if I had a story about going to the high school prom, for his new book.

I told him that at my school in the 1970s, only "squares" went to the prom, but that I did have a rather illicit role in a Quaalude-drenched swim-team banquet at the famous Century City Playboy Club.

Did that count? He said yes. On that initiative, the following chapter began:

I was a high school swim team score-girl before I was a commie. I'm glad things ended up that way, because otherwise I never would've been able to touch the Playboy Bunny, and carry on my sensual, if guilty, disposition.

The high school swim team was my ticket to an almost-prom, to halcyon schooldays, to a bartended, dress-up affair.

The Trotskyists, the Yippies, the lavender pinkos -- they gave me guns and a good deal to think about, but nothing soft or fluffy.

I went to a school called University High -- a white, mostly Jewish school in West Los Angeles. Its public face was one-part Hollywood Colony, one part UCLA professors' kids. In the '70s, there was no truly integrated school in the district. A discreet number of black students from South Central Los Angeles were bused into white schools from the time they were in Kindergarten.

It was not a two-way street. It was a cradle-to-cap affair.

Continued...

(Susie Bright is a guest blogger)

My post about Santa Claus's Fortean family tree reminded BB contributor Charles Platt of this delightful greeting card he made in 1994. Of course, as Charles points out, the Satan/Santa connection is no joke to some. Santa Claus: The Great Imposter

chris_eineke writes "I like to read and to collect good books related to computer science. I'm talking about stuff like the classic textbooks (Introduction to Algorithms 2nd ed., Tanenbaum's Operating Systems series) and practitioners' books (The Practice of Programming, Code Complete) and all-around excellent books (Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs, Practical Common Lisp). What's your stocking-stuffer book this Christmas? What books have been sitting on your shelves that you think are the best ones of their kind? Which ones do you think are -1 Overrated? (All links are referral-free.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While there was big news on Friday concerning the RIAA's supposed plan to stop suing everyone in favor of having ISPs police networks for the RIAA, it seems that some ISPs are clearly not on board with the plan (and, in fact, the details of the plan seem rather lacking). News.com has the story of one smaller ISP that has been responding to every RIAA notification by sending a request back for a billing address where he can send an invoice for the time it takes to respond to takedown requests. For the most part, the RIAA simply ignores these responses, though in some cases its representatives seem to feign ignorance, claiming "In regards to billing, we fail to understand what you mean with that!"

At the same time, it appears that Verizon is one large ISP refusing to cooperate. This is not really that surprising, given that Verizon was really the only major ISP to stand up to the RIAA's original campaign of demanding the identity associated with IP addresses without first filing a lawsuit (the end result of which was the RIAA's filing large lawsuits against multiple "john and jane does" in order to get the names). Verizon has also pushed back in the past when other big ISPs like AT&T seemed willing to act as copyright cops for the RIAA.

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(Image via Ecofriend)

Isn't spending $4200 on a desk made out of an actual airplane wing more important than a few month's rent? If so, get yours here! Otherwise, anybody know of a good place to find a few abandoned chunks of airplanes?

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(Flash embed above, here's a downloadable MP4 link)

Continuing in our retrospective of favorite Boing Boing tv episodes from 2008, we return to zero gravity today.

With me on the Zero-G weightless flight featured in this episode are Intel Chairman Craig Barrett; my friend Sean Bonner from metblogs; and a bunch of science teachers from grade schools and high schools throughout the United States who were on board to conduct microgravity experiments for the kids back home.

As you watch, keep an eye out for the floating lego robot, a flying pig, and the barfing guy who is totally barfing for reals -- the rest of us did not, btw, I don't get sick in space.

What you see in this episode is what it really feels like, and it feels awesome.

(Special thanks to Peter Diamandis, and George and Loretta Whitesides)

BB pal Bonnie Burton of Lucasfilm and all things Star Wars says, "If Boing Boing readers want to see a REALLY retro Wookiee family photo, check out the Star Wars Holiday Special which aired once 30 years ago -- just in time for the holidays. Great stuff about the Holiday Special here too: link one, link two. The Bantha toy that Lumpy (Chewbacca's son) plays with in the Holiday Special inspired me to do this craft!"

This NYT article puts forth the argument that while our presently crappy economy is hurting retail sales overall, crafting stores and web services that involve crafting are seeing, and will continue to see, a healthy bump:

Craft stores, from giant chains like Michaels Stores to small scrapbook supply shops, are reporting that sales are higher compared with the last holiday season, and online marketplaces for handmade goods, like Etsy, are seeing a boom in listings and transactions.

Sales at Scrap, a craft supply store in Portland, Ore., were up 33 percent in November compared with the year before. The shop’s customers have made a menorah out of yellow plastic bottle caps, Christmas tree ornaments from wood samples and calendars from fabric and paper collages, according to Sarah Dyer, the manager.

“A lot of people are doing a do-it-yourself Christmas, because of the economic downturn but also wanting to make their lives more sustainable, making stuff as opposed to buying more stuff,” she said.

For Craft Sales, the Recession Is a Help (New York Times)

Image: "rua dos remédios," a photograph of a crafting supply store in Portugal, by Flickr user Rosa Pomar.

GWMAW writes "A robotic submarine searched beneath the Mediterranean on Sunday for damaged communications cables, two days after Web and telephone access was knocked out for much of the Middle East. Telecommunication providers from Cairo to Dubai continued Sunday to scramble to reroute voice and data traffic through potentially costly detours in Asia and North America after the lines running under the Mediterranean Sea were damaged Friday." According to the article, "Once found, the cable ends will be pulled to the surface and repaired on deck — a process that could take several days."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NSFW, but you can take out your revenge on those rat bastards who ran AIG with this handy Flash game by the incredibly talented animator Joaquin Baldwin.

AIG CATCHER.

I'll admit that I've got NERF on the brain. Perhaps there's something about the holidays that makes me want to shoot foam darts at people... This is a fantastic steampunk NERF modification by Professor Oliver Shagnasty, Maker to the Queen, World Traveler, Custom builder of Gadgetry. He used late 1800's gas lamp parts, vintage brass and copper to bring this one to full, steamy glory. It has since been sold, but he offers many other modified NERF guns on his website.

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The switchover from analog to digital broadcast TV signals, on tap for February, has been publicized for some time and the necessary converter boxes for older TVs have been made available relatively easily and cheaply. But concerns that the FCC wouldn't be able to manage the transition are looking well-founded. After an earlier test in Wilmington, N.C., that threw off warning signs about the nationwide reaction to the switch, further tests are being carried out across the country, in hopes that the tests will give people an idea if their DTV gear is working, or reinforce to the estimated 19 million Americans who need the converters that the deadline is coming. But the tests themselves are causing plenty of confusion: one writer notes that the test in her area generated both passing and failure messages on different channels, suggesting a problem with the stations, rather than her equipment. The failure messages came despite the TV getting its signal from DirecTV, when the FCC's been saying all along that people connected to cable or satellite don't need to do anything. Again, just an estimated 19 million Americans still get their TV directly from the over-the-air broadcast signals, so a fairly small chunk of the population should be affected by the switchover. But you get the feeling the FCC's feeble education campaign won't prevent confusion for many, many more.

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

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Thelasko writes "Mark Shuttleworth is considering a controversial overhaul to the way Ubuntu manages notifications." I'm not thrilled with all of the changes proposed, which would mostly value simplicity over confusion at the expense of flexibility and permanence. But anything that would make more people read over and specifically approve the wording of error messages and other notifications is a good thing.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For craft sales, the recession is a help @ The NYTimes...

Feeling the pinch of the economic downturn, some holiday gift-givers are saving money this year by making their own presents or — for those who lack the time or talent — buying handmade gifts from others.

Craft stores, from giant chains like Michaels Stores to small scrapbook supply shops, are reporting that sales are higher compared with the last holiday season, and online marketplaces for handmade goods, like Etsy, are seeing a boom in listings and transactions.

Sales at Scrap, a craft supply store in Portland, Ore., were up 33 percent in November compared with the year before. The shop’s customers have made a menorah out of yellow plastic bottle caps, Christmas tree ornaments from wood samples and calendars from fabric and paper collages, according to Sarah Dyer, the manager.

“A lot of people are doing a do-it-yourself Christmas, because of the economic downturn but also wanting to make their lives more sustainable, making stuff as opposed to buying more stuff,” she said.

The boom in crafts and related supplies contrasts with poor results for traditional retailers, like electronics retailers and department stores. The nation’s overall retail sales in November fell 7.4 percent from the year before, according to the Commerce Department.

The craft sector, which has about $5.9 billion in annual revenue, is “operating in its own little niche,” said George Van Horn, a senior analyst at IBISWorld, a research firm. “The number of establishments is growing.”

And....

On eBay, people bought 13,137 handmade crafts over the last 60 days for an average price of $8.21, and sales of handmade crafts climbed 34 percent, the company said.

On Sept. 29, a day the stock market plunged sharply, Etsy, the leading Web marketplace for handmade goods, had record sales. In November and December, the site has continued to break records. Last month, artists sold $10.8 million of goods on Etsy, up from $4.2 million in November 2007. Some 135,000 people signed up for Etsy memberships and sellers listed 1.1 million new items, both figures more than double the same month last year.

That's incredible!

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This week I am going to show you how to hack a MAKE gift subscription card. Actually, it's showing you how to interface a 7-segment display with an Arduino. I just happened to make it into a gift card subscription.

My idea was to give a MAKE subscription and an Arduino to a friend. What a great combination! As a final part of the gift, I am making a post about how to program the 7-segment display to help them get started.

It may be too late to order the 7-Segament display and Arduino for the Holidays, but it's never too late to get a MAKE gift subscription or Maker SHED Gift Certificate.

What you need:

Here is a list of the components that you will need for this build.

• Arduino - Available in the Maker Shed
  
• A HC4LED Display - Available here
  
• Gift Card - Download one from here
  
• MAKE gift subscription - Available in the Maker SHED
  
• 9V Battery Backpack - Available here
  
• Double sided tape
  

Tools you need:

• Soldering Iron
  
• Wire cutters
  
• Fume Extractor - Make you own
  

Step 1: Print the card

Print the MAKE Gift Subscription card. You can download one here. I modified mine a bit, but you don't have to, just find a spot that it will fit on any of the cards. Next, Cut an opening 1 5/8" x 5/8" where you want the display.

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Nothing captures the holiday spirit like staggering numbers of alcoholic beverage bottles.

[via Unpluggd]

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beuges writes "Microsoft has announced over the weekend that it would allow computer manufacturers to receive copies of XP until the end of May 2009, shortly before Windows 7 is expected to hit the market. This should allow users to skip Vista entirely and move straight to 7, which has been receiving cautiously favorable reviews of pre-release and leaked alphas."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Over the weekend, the story made the rounds about Warner Music's dispute with Google over getting money from YouTube videos. As we discussed in our post on the topic, it seemed like Warner had very little leverage here: Google has no legal responsibility to pay anything, and removing the videos from YouTube seemed a lot more likely to harm Warner Music and its artists than Google. As noted by some folks, for many kids these days, YouTube is how they find and listen to music these days. Forcing your songs off YouTube would be like demanding their removal from the radio twenty years ago.

Yet, more details are coming out on this story, and it appears that both Warner Music and Google may recognize Warner Music's precarious position here. In fact, it appears that it wasn't Warner Music that demanded its music be taken down. Instead, reports are coming out saying that Warner instead went to Google with higher monetary demands, and it was Google's response to start pulling the music down, to demonstrate to Warner Music that YouTube is a lot more valuable to Warner Music than Warner Music is to YouTube (a lesson that Warner Music execs desperately need to learn).

Warner Music's response, apparently, has been to try to pretend it has some leverage, supposedly leaking a somewhat questionable story that it, and other major record labels, are preparing to launch a "Hulu for music." However, as Greg Sandoval notes in the News.com link in the paragraph above, this seems like little more than idle speculation by the labels. They had talked about this months ago, and have done nothing since. Instead, it was a bluff by the record labels in a weak attempt to convince Google that it needs to play ball or face competition. Google is likely to call the bluff -- because Google still recognizes what the record labels seem to have trouble recognizing. The power of YouTube isn't in having a site that plays videos, it's in the audience -- and you don't recreate that overnight.

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Mark's article on GOOD! The Return of Amateur Science...

Last week, while browsing the Popular Science archives (which recently became available on Google), I noticed that the earlier issues of this 138-year-old magazine contained quite a few articles devoted to amateur science. The 1940s and 1950s were a heyday for basement-based research, with experiments such as making hydrogen gas, building a photomicrographic camera out of a stovepipe, constructing a Geiger counter, making a tiny oil refinery, and superheating steam to a temperature high enough to light a cigarette. It’s fun to imagine postal clerks, insurance brokers, and aluminum siding salesmen pulling out a microscope to study a sample of the family pet’s fur, or going outside to examine the heavens with a handmade telescope.

Popular Science wasn’t the only magazine encouraging the everyman to learn more about the natural world. For 72 years, Scientific American ran its popular “Amateur Scientist” column, which debuted in 1928. Projects included constructing an electron accelerator, making amino acids, photographing air currents, measuring the metabolic rate of small animals, extracting antibiotics from soil, culturing aquatic insects, tracking satellites, constructing an atom smasher, extracting the growth substances from a cantaloupe, conducting maze experiments with cockroaches, making an electrocardiogram of a water flea, constructing a Foucalt pendulum, and experimenting with geotropism. Who knew you could have so much fun at the kitchen table?

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Star Wars maven Bonnie Burton interviewed Larry Lars, the creator of this wonderful Star Wars LEGO nativity .

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One of our Maker Channel videos on Make: television, YouTube favorite, Junji Koyama plays flutes he makes out of carrots, peppers and broccoli. He was excited to share his videos with us and we really appreciate his submission. To submit videos of your own, visit our submission site.

Here's the M4V and/or subscribe in iTunes.

Make: premieres on Public Television stations nationwide in January; call your local station and request "Viewer Services" to learn more about your city's broadcast times and dates. We'll also stream full episodes on www.makezine.tv on January 3rd.

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SpuriousLogic points out a BBC story which begins "The upper reaches of Earth's atmosphere are much lower than expected, a US Air Force satellite has found. Currently, the ionosphere — a layer of charged particles that envelopes the planet — is at an altitude of about 420km, some 200km lower than expected. The behaviour of the ionosphere is important because disturbances in its structure can upset satellite communications and radar."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Back in the mid-90s there were a series of lawsuits over "deep linking" practices, where people who didn't quite understand how the web worked would sue other sites for linking to them without permission. We still see this happen occasionally, such as with the Associated Press's ridiculous assertion that various other sites shouldn't link with a headline in a snippet from an article. However, it appears that some smaller news organizations are just as clueless about the internet as well. Reader Ben writes in to point out that GateHouse Media, a publisher of some local free news publications in Massachusetts is suing the NY Times for linking to them. The full complaint shows a near complete misunderstanding of how the internet works. You can read it here: Basically, the big complaint is that Boston.com (which is owned by the NY Times) has a local section, where it links to GateHouse publications. It does so in ways that are clearly fair use. It includes the headline and the very first sentence of the GateHouse articles, with a link to the full version. This is driving traffic to GateHouse's publications and clearly not taking anything away from GateHouse. But GateHouse claims this is copyright infringement. Furthermore, GateHouse claims that there is trademark infringement because Boston.com accurately shows where the content originally is from and tells you what site the link goes to. In other words, it's helping to promote GateHouse's properties. GateHouse, instead, claims this is blatant trademark infringement. Even more ridiculously, GateHouse claims that this effort by Boston.com, which helps get it more attention and drive more traffic to its properties is somehow unfair competition. I only wish we had competition like that.

Perhaps most interesting of all, GateHouse is charging the NY Times with breach of contract, because (of all things) GateHouse uses a Creative Commons license on its content -- though it uses the Attribution, Non-Commercial, No Derivatives license -- and it claims that Boston.com's use is commercial, and thus a contractual violation. This highlights the problem Creative Commons has with its non-commercial licenses. It's pretty clear the intent of such licenses is to prevent a company from reselling the works. But when it's being used to directly drive more traffic to the original site, it's difficult to see how any sane person would see that as a violation of the intent.

Either way, the end-result of all of this is that other websites have already come to the conclusion that it's just not worth linking to GateHouse sites at all. Consider it a stupid lawyers tax. Suing people for sending you traffic has to be, perhaps, the most braindead business strategy around, these days.

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Anonymous writes "Citrix is putting out word that it's developing an iPhone receiver that could make 'millions' of Windows applications work on Apple's handset. (Something Citrix is calling 'Project Braeburn.') Aside from Flash and a few other apps, is anyone pining for Windows-based apps on the iPhone? (Exchange on the iPhone seems to be successful, but so does Apple's App store, which has done pretty well without Windows.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

StartCom writes "In a previous article I reported about Man-In-The-Middle attacks and spotlighted an example showing that they really happen. MITM attacks just got easier. In the attack described previously, untrusted certificates from an unknown issuer were used. Want to make the attack perfect with no error and a fully trusted certificate? No problem, just head over to one of Comodo's resellers. Screenshots and disclosure provided at the link."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Atif Shamin, a student at Carleton University in Canada has figured out a way of reducing a mobile device's power consumption by replacing all of the internal wires and PCBs of a device with an antenna. This enables a wireless connection between a micro-antenna embedded within the circuits of the chip. Pretty cool, now my friend can watch their whole ALF box set without getting up to charge it.

Carleton University Engineering via iPhone Alley

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Season's greetings and noisy tidings of good cheer to you and yours!

If you'd like to give the gift of MAKE this year -

• Make magazine gift subscriptions and cards for print
  
• Maker Shed gift certificates

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You may recall, back in August, that the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority convinced a judge to ban the Defcon presentation by three MIT students, showing how weak the security was on the Boston transit system, and how easy it was to get past it. Of course, in trying to ban the talk, the MBTA only succeeded in getting a lot more attention for its own security vulnerabilities -- and, in the end, the judge lifted the gag order anyway, allowing the students to present their research.

The good news is that the MBTA has now dropped the lawsuit and done what it should have done in the first place: agreed to work with the students to come up with ways to improve security. It's good that they eventually came to this conclusion -- though still mind-boggling that they went down the legal route first.

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If you want to get some ideas and inspiration about how you could use online video to significantly increase your company social media marketing impact, look no further. I have collected here for you the very best video marketing examples of some popular corporate brands. Photo credit: Elizabeth Engle Video marketing on the web is positively one of the most effective ways in which companies of all sizes are taking up the social Web as their preferred marketing channel. Though, there is not an official set of categories for videos used as social media marketing vehicles, I have divided the set of video examples I have selected here for you, in three different categories that differentiate the video format and typology of use:

a) Video Tutorials: Tutorials explain in a short video what your company / service / tool is about, and how it works. There is nothing like a short, immediate video to communicate effectively with your customers. b) Viral Videos: Maybe these should be labeled, "wanna-be viral videos", as there is no way to tell if a video is going to get "viral" before having published it. These are generally funny, spectacular or ironic videos that rapidly gain a huge popularity on the Internet by the sheer power of word of mouth and linking from other sites. c) Commercials: These are the classical video ads, sometimes with a sprinkle of new ideas and designed to have a long shelf life on both traditional TV and the Web. d) YouTube Channels: These are video company channels to collect all their TV commercials and any user-generated videos or feedback from passionate customers.

Media analyst and social media marketing expert Peter Kim has grouped on his own web site a terrific collection of social media marketing examples, providing a list of companies that use social media marketing to sell their products and services on the Web. Among the many cool examples available in Peter Kim's huge list, I have personally selected the very best online video examples that have been recently used by commercial companies. Here all the details:

Social Media Marketing: Best Online Videos

(Hand-picked and extracted from Peter Kim's Social Media Marketing Examples)

Video Tutorial: Alltop Online Magazine

Alltop is a web magazine that aggregates RSS feeds on different topics and and allows its users to check them in an easy-to-use interface without registration or subscriptions of any kind. In this short video tutorial the company explains how Alltop works, and which topics you can find inside the web magazine. Very simple and straightforward.

Video Commercial: Big Rock Beer Ad Contest

Every year, Canadian beer Big Rock launches a contest where its consumers compete to create commercials promoting Big Rock beer. The video above is the 3rd place winner in this year "Television Commercial" category, showcasing an Indiana Jones-inspired cartoon.

Viral Videos: Coca-Cola "Can's Professional"

Have you ever tried to toss a Coca-Cola inside a trash can? The "Coca- Cola Can Professional" guys sure had. The Coca-Cola Company shot a series of three videos where 5 young guys toss a can of coke into trash in any way. Why is it so clever? Because it is user-generated, and of course because before tossing a can, you have to buy one.

Video Commercial: Dove Evolution

In this video commercial, beauty company Dove promotes its Real Beauty Campaign. The strategy is to record a video of the girl next door while preparing to star in a printed ad. The make-up, the hair-styling, and all the photo retouching procedures which completely change the girl's appearance, are filmed in fast-motion to let the viewers immediately glance the before / after differences. The message: so-called real beauty is not always so real.

YouTube Commercial: EA Spore and Youtube Integration

The popular video game Spore from Electronic Arts and Maxis, lets you create and evolve life, establish tribes, build civilizations, sculpt entire worlds and explore universe created by other gamers. A unique feature of Spore is to create your own character and then upload the videos of your creations to The Official Spore Channel on YouTube to let other players watch it.

YouTube Channel: Intuit QuickBooks Video Ad

Intuit QuickBooks is a provider of business and financial management software for small and mid-sized businesses. The company has a YouTube channel with all their TV commercials and offerings. Above an example of a QuickBooks television commercial showcasing why you have to pay greater attention on how you manage your business sales.

Video Commercial: Microsoft "Inspiration, Anyone?"

"Inspiration, Anyone?" belongs to a series of viral marketing videos created by Microsoft Advertising. Microsoft shot these videos to promote the launch of an online marketing community aimed at bringing together marketers and advertisers. The goal of the community is to overcome the difficulties of creating marketing campaigns that consumers feel distant and annoying.

Video Sharing: National Geographic Everyday Explorers

Everyday Explorers is a section of National Geographic Online web site that contains user-generated videos. After you register to the site, you can upload and share your videos showcasing how you see the World around you. You can then share your videos with other users, leave comments, and rate the videos you like most.

Viral Videos: Girlfriend on Nintendo Wii Fit

Don't be fooled by the amateur rendering of this video: Nintendo hired Tinsley Advertising agency to promote the Nintendo Wii Fit, a work-out accessory for their popular Wii video game console. The great idea is that you never see a Wii or a Wii Fit in the video, but just a girl using it and his supposed boyfriend enjoying the scene. Simple and effective.

YouTube Channel: Quicken Loans User-generated Video Commercial

Instead of creating a classic advertising campaign to highlight the benefit of their mortgage company, Quicken Loans has chosen to let its clients tell the whole story. The company has a YouTube channel where satisfied families can upload their videos telling their own experience. Isn't reality the better form of advertisement?

YouTube Channel: UK Government - Number 10

The UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown has a YouTube channel where UK citizens can upload a video with questions for the Prime Minister. Gordon Brown in person will then provide a public video answer that all the YouTube community can watch.

If you enjoyed this collection of videos based on Peter Kim's list of social media marketing examples, I suggest you also check out this other article on MasterNewMedia: "Social Media Marketing: Widget Examples Of Corporate Uses And Applications", where I personally hand-picked the best widget applications among those selected by Peter Kim.

This resource list has been put together by Daniele Bazzano of MasterNewMedia - Original resource list of social media marketing examples prepared by Peter Kim for Being Peter Kim and published on November 23rd 2008 as "A List of Social Media Marketing Examples".

About the author Peter Kim is a former analyst at Forrester Research and international marketing manager at Puma AG. A well-known personality in the fields of social media and marketing, Peter Kim currently working to build a start-up to help clients formulate social computing strategies.

Inventor's 2020 vision: to help 1bn of the world's poorest see better @ The Guardian...

Silver has devised a pair of glasses which rely on the principle that the fatter a lens the more powerful it becomes. Inside the device's tough plastic lenses are two clear circular sacs filled with fluid, each of which is connected to a small syringe attached to either arm of the spectacles.

The wearer adjusts a dial on the syringe to add or reduce amount of fluid in the membrane, thus changing the power of the lens. When the wearer is happy with the strength of each lens the membrane is sealed by twisting a small screw, and the syringes removed. The principle is so simple, the team has discovered, that with very little guidance people are perfectly capable of creating glasses to their own prescription.

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Looking for just the right salad fixings and wrapping paper at the same time? How about celery stamped gift wrap? If you plan it right, you can have your vegetables do double duty.

While you are at it, you might want to check out the rest of the referring site, a source of lots of great ideas, Curbly.com.

Vegetable printing, its not just for Potatoes anymore.

How do you make your own wrapping for gifts? What would the most environmentally and meal friendly inks be? Add your comments below and contribute your photos and videos to the Make Flickr pool.

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The RIAA's new plan to enlist ISPs in its war on file sharing, once it announced it was calling a halt to new consumer lawsuits, is running into rough sledding. Wired reports on the continuing legal murkiness of the RIAA's interpretation of copyright law. And one small ISP in Louisiana asks the recording organization, "You want me to police your intellectual property? What's your billing address?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Associated Press is being a bit unfair with its set of "gotcha questions" it asked a bunch of banks that have received bailout money, suddenly demanding that they all explain how the money is being used and how much is being used, but it is an important issue. In handing over all of this money to banks for a stake in those banks, one would think that we, the taxpayers, deserve at least some transparency into how the money is being spent. Considering the sums handed over, this is hardly an out-of-line question. Yet, we've already seen that the promised transparency surrounding the bailout has hardly been forthcoming. And, the worst part of it is that the thing we need more than anything else right now is significantly more transparency to rebuild the trust in the financial system.

Of course, it's not the banks' fault that they're not detailing what they're doing. There's no reason for them to do so right now. However, we should be asking why the government, which rushed to hand over so much money while promising transparency, didn't require more openness as a part of the deal and hasn't done much to add any transparency to the process since handing over the cash. Sure, everyone's been pretty busy, but transparency shouldn't be an afterthought here, it should be a central piece of any economic recovery package. The fact that the government hasn't done much to increase transparency should be seen as a troubling sign.

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The Parallax forum has an interesting supercomputer project based on 11 Parallax Basic Stamp micro-controllers. This might not be a supercomputer based on Wikipedia's definition, but it's still an amazing accomplishment.

This is the World's First talking Basic Stamp Hobby Supercomputer!!! (and the World's 1st Supercomputer built from hobby microcontrollers) It communicates by English and Chinese voice (EMIC TTS board), lights (21 LEDs), vision, sound (12 speakers), motion (PIR), ports (176), infrared, Vibra Tab Mass detector, accelerometer, temperature chip, ultrasonics [PING)))], LCD Liquid Crystal Display, and a tiny uOLED color monitor. Attachments include a keyboard, 3D space mouse, and other goodies under development.

More about the Basic Stamp supercomputer

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If you want to add a little excitement to your MakerSHED gift certificates, consider giving them in cube form. It just takes 6 cards and simple folding to create a cube. I have been making cubes from my old business cards with the instructions by Ned Batchelder.

All you have to do is put one card perpendicular to the other card. Fold the bottom card up around the top card. Flip it over and repeat. Do this 3 times and you have 6 sides that can be assembled into a cube.

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Nobody was sure what exactly had happened to Christopher Robin after he'd left the Hundred Acre Wood, but they were thrilled with his gift certificates to the Maker Shed and the MAKE and CRAFT magazine subscriptions. Your friends will be thrilled, too! There's still time to give gift subscriptions and Maker Shed gift certificates! Don't forget the printable gift cards!

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I was giving a subscription to MAKE this year to a friend for Christmas, so I printed out one of the print-at-home gift cards to announce it. Here's my Flickr set showing how you can add LEDs to a card using conductive thread and a watch battery with holder. It's pretty easy and uses the same circuit as my electronic embroidery tutorial. The LEDs are wired in parallel with each other and the battery is on the back of the card. The threads run between the two folded layers of paper so as to be held secure.

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Nathan writes-

If you've ever seen a boxing match, you know that two people 'box' each other in rounds. To train, boxers use a timer on the same time base as a fight so that their bodies get used to 3 minutes of boxing and 1 minute of rest, during a bout.

My goal was to re-create the timers found in our local Front Range Boxing Academy. At the gym, a common boxing timer is used and the bulbs keep burning out. That is unacceptable in this day in age with LEDs lasting at least 30 times longer than regular incandescent bulbs. These common boxing timers are also expensive ($99)!

Some days it is painful being an engineer. Looking at this hunk of metal, I know inside there is just a microcontroller, a loud speaker, a couple switches, some lights, and a whole lot of empty space... This is a pretty straight forward project! Forgive me, but I tend to use a lot of stuff around the office that is readily available. And because this was meant to be an example project, I used all through-hole components.

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There's an epic discussion taking place under yesterday's piece about Rick Warren and the Obama inaugural. Really something to behold. Lots of intelligent discourse about something that's very emotional. That's a huge milestone. And people say blogging is dead. Feh. We're just getting started.

A few notes.

1. People who say this is a brilliant political stroke by our incoming President are wrong. It's bone-headed. As in he is only using the bone in his head, not the gray matter. In the days after the election there was a huge cry of angst from the gay community about Prop 8 in California. I didn't support the outcry, because basically I don't think that highly of marriage, and I'm sure not going to fight for the supposed right of gays to get married. Equal protection under the law, that I'll fight for. Obama makes gay marriage the issue by honoring the loutish bigot Warren. It was quieting down, now it's totally re-stoked.

2. I was wrong about Obama and Rev Wright. I always wondered if it was political expediency or true belief. Obviously it wasn't true belief.

3. Gay marriage is now on track to becoming Obama's Don't Ask Don't Tell, a morass that newly installed President Clinton had to deal with in his first days in office. What an unfortunate detour for our country when we have a financial crisis, unemployment, a depression, two wars, and god knows what else looming in front of us.

4. It may be too generous to call it bone-headed, it might be Rove-headed. This is a total wedge issue. Thanks so much Obama for uniting us (not).

5. There are few things I'm totally ideological about without a hint of pragmatism and that's the equal protection of the Constitution to minorities, like blacks, Jews and homosexuals. If you don't like one of us, that's fine -- you're entitled to your opinion, but you won't get the government's support. It's illegal for the government to do it. And if the inauguration is anything it's an act of government. Ooops. Bing! I rest my case.

6. One more time. I am not a liberal, I am not "the left" -- I could be a total card-carrying Conservative and I'd still be opposed to singling out one minority for exclusion. Find someone more suited to inaugurating your Presidency, Mr. Obama.

7. This column in the Washington Post perfectly sums up my point of view. No party on January 20. As long as Warren is the moral leader of Obama's presidency, then fuck you Obama.

Update: Unfortunately today the comments are not so nice and people are getting personal That's okay of course. You can express your opinions about me on your own blog. I've closed comments on the two Rick Warren threads. Have a happy!

Should public transit data be opened up online for anyone to use? That's the question that's being discussed with regards to the Washington DC Metro's attempt to license its data to Google. Basically, Google has been asking the Metro to open its data up in an open format designed by Google, but which can be used by everyone, and which is quickly becoming the standard for transit info around the world. While the DC Metro has suggested a few objections, in the end it apparently has come down to money. The Metro wants Google to pay up for the data, noting that Google is a for-profit company and the DC Metro is a tax-payer and rider-funded public transportation system that could certainly use more revenue.

However, as others have pointed out, this seems short-sighted. First off, it's hard to come up with a sensible argument for why this data shouldn't already be made as accessible as possible -- especially since it is publicly funded. But, more importantly, by making the data available and letting others do the hard work of making it more useful it should drive more people to ride the Metro, meaning more revenue. Yet, in haggling over a license fee for the data, the Metro hoards the data, makes it more difficult to make that data useful and actually decreases ridership -- and likely overall revenue.

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I like this clipping from a police blotter in the Silicon Valley area. I don't know if it's real or not, but I hope it is.
"Burrito Baby" on Flickr (Thanks, Kirsten Anderson!)

Roland Piquepaille writes "An international team of researchers has begun collecting imaging data on the Soufriere Hills Volcano in Montserrat, which has been erupting regularly since 1995. They're using the equivalent of a CAT scan to understand its internal structure and how and when it erupts. The experiment is dubbed SEA-CALIPSO and 'will use air guns and a string of sensors off the back of a research ship combined with sensors on land to try to image the magma chamber.' Early results are surprising. Quoting one of the leading scientists: 'The interesting thing is that much more magma is erupting than appears represented by the subsiding bowl. ... The magma volume in Montserrat eruptions is much larger than anyone would estimate from the surface deformation, because of the elastic storage of magma in what is effectively a huge magma sponge.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PIxastic is a Javascript library that provides low level image processing capabilities to your web applications. Jacob Seidelin has been working on this as part of an all-Javascript image editor, and he decided to release the library under the MIT license earlier this month:

Pixastic works by utilizing the HTML5 Canvas element which provides access to raw pixel data, thereby opening up for more advanced image effects. This is where the "experimental" part comes into play. Canvas is only supported by some browsers and unfortunately Internet Explorer is not one of them. It is however well supported in both Firefox and Opera and proper support is hopefully coming for Safari soon (Safari currently only works with the WebKit nightly builds). A few of the effects have been simulated in IE using the age old proprietary filters. While these filters are much faster than their Canvas friends, they are few and limited. Hopefully we will one day have real Canvas on IE as well.

The ability to manipulate image data directly is one of the more compelling features of the next generation of web browsers. I'm looking forward to the day when I can cut and paste an image directly into a blog post, adjust its color and crop it, all without jumping back and forth to an image editor.

Check the Pixastic site for more details on the supported browsers and available filters. There's also a small snippet of code that shows you how to use Pixastic with jQuery.

Pixastic Image Processing Library
Picastic Documentation

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I doubt there's anyone out there who would claim that the dot com bubble bursting was a bigger deal than the current global financial restructuring that's been going on. However, plenty of people (myself included) have suggested that internet companies are more isolated from the root causes of the mess this time around -- and that's almost undeniably true. Last time, a lot of the trouble came directly from overvalued internet companies. This time, it's had little, if anything, to do with internet companies. However, apparently some are noticing that the valuations of 50 or so top internet companies have dipped below their lowest point from when the dot com bubble popped. Of course, in the aggregate, that's rather meaningless. Each of the companies looked at have different circumstances. Besides, the current global financial mess means that no one's really sure how to value anything, meaning that current valuations of pretty much any stock should probably be taken with a huge grain of salt.

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Preedit writes "Mac cloner Psystar is claiming in new court papers that Apple's copyright suit against it should be dismissed, because Apple has never filed for copyright protection on Mac OS X 10.5 with the US Copyright Office. Infoweek is reporting that the claim, if it holds up, could open the door for third-parties to enter the Mac market without fear of legal action from Apple. In its latest set of allegations, Psystar is also accusing Apple of bricking Macs that don't run on genuine Apple hardware." We've been following the Psystar-Apple inbroglio since the beginning..

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On Friday, the RIAA announced its plan to end their campaign of suing thousands of alleged downloaders; instead, it has negotiated with ISPs to disconnect subscribers who the RIAA identify as repeat infringers. From what little is known about the system, ISPs would pass along warning emails to the customers the RIAA claims are downloading copyrighted material. Following 2-3 warnings, subscribers would have their connection terminated.

Speaking to CNET on Friday, RIAA President Cary Sherman said that the tactical change was an attempt to deter would-be infringers. "The idea is to create deterrents. This deters people from engaging in illegal behavior." This is either misleading or mistaken, if the claim is that warning emails and the threat of having to switch ISPs is more of a deterrent than an incredibly expensive lawsuit. Unless the RIAA can convince ISPs to flood their subscribers with warning emails early and often, more people are likely to hear about the end of lawsuits and stop fearing potentially costly litigation or settlement.

The more likely reason for the change in approach is that the RIAA recognizes that the lawsuit approach has been an abject failure. Not only does it alienate fans, it is costly and rests on shoddy legal theories. As courts have begun to realize that IP addresses aren't solid evidence and that "making available" doesn't constitute infringement, the RIAA has been forced to realize that their goals don't align with thoughtful justice. So, what's a dying industry to do? Obviously, cut out those pesky judges and their principles of due process. Although Cary Sherman insists the wrongly accused will "have a place to go and make their complaint," the lack of specificity is as worrying as the RIAA's previous mistakes concerning their lawsuits.

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

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Silicon Valley folks certainly know Fry's -- the electronics superstore that's probably as well known for its poor customer service as its vast selection. However, apparently a top exec at the company, who had worked his way up over the course of 20 years from a starting job as a floor sales guy has now been arrested for a massive fraud, creating kickbacks from vendors and potentially defrauding the company of over $65 million -- much of it used to pay off gambling debts (apparently he still owes a lot more -- potentially another $100 million from the sound of it) incurred by frequently taking the Fry's corporate jet to Vegas. The guy basically set up a separate front company that he funneled millions of dollars to in the form of exorbitant commissions and kickbacks from vendors. Apparently, while Fry's makes you go to hell and back to justify returning a computer component, its own internal auditing process missed $65 million going out the door.

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joabj writes "Virginia Tech researchers have found that the performance of programs running on multicore processors can vary from server to server, and even from core to core. Factors such as which core handles interrupts, or which cache holds the needed data can change from run to run. Such resources tend to be allocated arbitrarily now. As a result, program execution times can vary up to 10 percent. The good news is that the VT researchers are working on a library that will recognize inefficient behavior and rearrange things in a more timely fashion." Here is the paper, Asymmetric Interactions in Symmetric Multicore Systems: Analysis, Enhancements and Evaluation (PDF).

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "You know times are tough when the best place to work in America replaces holiday bonuses with a request for unpaid labor. Blaming the economic crisis, Google management has canceled the traditional cash holiday bonus — reportedly as much as $20K-$30K per Googler — and substituted an unlocked Google Android cell phone, retail price $400. An accompanying email calls for employees to celebrate the 'chance for us to once again dogfood a product and make it even better!'" Update: 12/23 01:09 GMT by KD : A reader pointed out that comments to the article note a couple of inaccuracies: the Android phone being offered is an unlocked dev model, which goes for $400; and the reporter may have confused holiday bonuses with performance bonuses. The former have traditionally been in the range of $1,000, according to two comments.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While there actually has been a fair amount of news so far this week, on the whole, work-wise, it's a relatively slow week, with plenty of folks on vacation already. I was thinking that it might be fun to try a little experiment. One of my favorite baseball blogs, River Avenue Blues has been holding what it calls Live Chats every week or so, using the Cover It Live real-time blogging system. It's not so much an open chat as it is a real-time Q&A session, with readers submitting questions for one of the site's writers to answer, concerning various goings-on in the baseball world. I honestly have no clue how well that sort of format would work around here, but I thought it might be fun to at least experiment. We'll shoot for trying just such a live Q&A/chat around 1:30 pm PT tomorrow, Tuesday. Hopefully you can join us.

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Bright Eyes (1934)

Starring Shirley Temple, with Charles Sellon -- completely upstaged by uber-brat Jane Withers. I'm starting to see where PeeWee Herman got some of his moves!

One of the best rat-a-tat-tat's is between the Indulgent Mom and her Spoiled Child:

Anita Smythe: Now, dear, practice your piano and Mama will buy you something nice.
Joy Smythe: What?
Anita Smythe: Anything you like. What do you especially want?
Joy Smythe: A machine gun!

Withers was cast- and everyone else sent home- the moment the director, David Butler, heard her impression of a machine gun.

Bright Eyes was quite the splash for our Shirley.  She won the first "child's" Oscar and made a hit out of the film's classic tune, "The Good Ship Lollypop." It was 1934's big Christmas movie. Even the dog in the show was a star- the same pooch played Toto in The Wizard of Oz!

(Susie Bright is a guest blogger)

Thanks to David Weinberger for offering a foil for me to argue with on the case of Rick Warren giving the invocation at the Obama inaugural. I posted a rough version of this in a comment on Doc Searls' blog, in response to a piece Weinberger wrote on the NPR site. I just did a little editing and reposted here.

I've been preaching the stuff that Weinberger is saying for a long time, but...

I think he's wrong, and Obama is wrong, and the people who say this is over the line are right. This isn't a conference at the White House we're talking about, this is the inaugural.

Weinberger doesn't say where his limit is. Who or what would be unacceptable for giving the inaugural invocation? Suppose Warren was a white supremicist who said that Negroes are property. He's entitled to his opinion I suppose. But should that be on stage when we inaugurate the first black President?

Is Obama actually that open minded? I've read his book and I honestly don't know the answer, the book doesn't give me enough info.

What if we were talking about a Neo-Nazi who said all Jews should be deported? Obviously, we can't have that, right Dave? That would be about you and me, and we've been there before or more accurately our parents have. I don't want to stand alone and explain why we can't let Jews be singled out that way.

Warren has some very bad ideas about gays. Do they really have to stand alone Dave and say no this is too much?

Obama makes a big point about not being an ideologue, about being a pragmatist, and I'm with him, up to a point. The United States is an ideology, not just pragmatics. We've been too pragmatic the last eight years, we've turned the other way while the rule of law was trampled along with the Constitution. Enough. I heard Obama say that in Denver, and it was right on. Enough. Warren is too much. I think the only correct answer is to boycott the inaugural. Sorry, no party. This is outrageous Dave.

This isn't just Obama's homecoming, it's our country's. If we don't stand against this, we're going to get four more years of pragmatics. We won't survive that. At the end you won't recognize the United States. We've got to come back from the last eight years. Putting Warren on stage is not coming home, not when it leaves the gays so out there. But I won't let them be out there alone, just as I wouldn't expect for Jews to be out there alone if we were the ones being singled out. Or blacks.

I'm also horrified that you used left-right tactics to argue your case. Very bad. I don't happen to be a liberal Dave. But I am an American and I believe in equal protection. How do you explain where you come from, and I don't care if you drive a Volvo or a Prius. Honestly, I think any American with any pride, especially blacks and Jews and gays, must stand against this.

Image via Ecogeek

Here's a vertical farm that seems a bit more DIY-able than others, using shipping containers, for strong, cheap, stackable infrastructure. You can learn more about Organitech here. It's not clear how production-ready they are, but this seems like an approach just begging for tinkering...

Via Treehugger,)

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