The domain name dispute process has always been a bit of a crapshoot, as it often depends on who hears the case, but it's still a bit strange to find out that famed Apple designer Jonathan Ive was told he does not have a right to a variety of domain names based on his name, including jonathan-ive.com, jonathanive.com, jony-ive.com and jonyive.com because (1) he had not trademarked his name and (2) because he's a rather "private" individual:

"[Ive and Apple] do not promote [his] name as a brand or trade mark, and therefore do not use it in trade or commerce. [Ive's] work for which he is most famous is publicly recognised and primarily attributable to Apple Inc. rather than [him]," said the ruling. "Despite having the opportunity to pursue individual endeavours outside his employment, which under certain circumstances might be branded under his personal name, [Ive] has made a conscious decision not to do so. In fact, [he] has actively sought to keep his personal name out of trade and commerce."

While I'm not necessarily a fan of simply handing over domain names to folks when others beat them to the registration, it does seem odd that the main criteria that is being used is how well known the name is in commercial settings.

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"Shane Speal performs 'Blue Raga' at the 3rd annual Cigar Box Guitar Extravaganza in Huntsville, Alabama. Speal is accompanied on cigar box lyre by Timothy Renner. This song is featured in Songs Inside The Box, the cigar box guitar documentary directed by Max Shores."

KentuckyFC writes "Metamaterials are synthetic substances that can steer light in any way imaginable. Their most famous incarnation is in invisibility cloaks which work by steering light around a region of space making any object inside that region invisible. But invisibility is just the start. A team of physicists in Hong Kong (the same guys who recently worked out how to cloak objects at a distance) have worked out how create a cloak that makes one object look like another. Instead of steering light to make a region of space look empty, the illusion cloak manipulates light in a way that makes a region of space look as if it contains a specific object, such as an elephant. So any object within that region of space, a mouse say, takes on the appearance of an elephant."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, we looked at the wonderful world of LEDs, plus much more.

Steven posted a video of a Japanese kid that made a Pac-Man Roomba using 488 LEDs; LED wedding garb; a $100 LED Knight Rider strip; sneakers with LED soles; 5 LED projects he'd probably never do; and a stackable LED block lamp. He also reviewed the Mind Lamp, which supposedly changes colors depending on the state of your consciousness. Lisa wrote about an LED toothbrush and interviewed Shuji Nakamura, the guy who invented the blue LED and later sued his company for paying him a $200 discovery bonus.

Joel wrote about two new video projectors from JVC; how a Monoprice HDMI adapter is making his MacBook Pro lock up; a video of the punk engineers at Transmutant; asked why Home Depot isn't aping Ponoco; posted a pic of the NASA Snack Mobile.

Rob wrote about a portrait of Steve Jobs made from Apple slogans; blue pyramid-shaped computer; the new Diesel watch; Microsoft's claim that it costs $30,000 to fill an iPod with music; a cheesy TV ad for a Windows cleaning software; and why netbooks are serious business for IT.

Don't miss the pics of four creepy humanoid robot faces.

It's always bad news when the technically illiterate start filing lawsuits over technology issues. A few folks have sent in the news that the state of Alaska, under Sarah Palin's governorship, has (we're not making this up) sent a cease and desist letter to the website CrackHo.com supposedly for hijacking a page from the state's website and using the official seal of Alaska without permission -- which the state claims violates both state laws (fines up to $500 or six months in prison) and federal copyright laws.

So what did the site CrackHo.com do to deserve this? Well, it simply redirected anyone who went to Crackho.com to Sarah Palin's website on the state webpage. Yes. A simple redirect. And the state claims that this is hijacking the website, a misuse of the seal of the state and a violation of federal copyright laws. Based on that logic, with a few simple magic tricks, I've just made TinyUrl, Bitly and Is.gd guilty of the same things.

I mean... I'm sure the lawyers working for the state of Alaska have some free time on their hands right now... but... seriously? Did no one bother to actually investigate what they were threatening?

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Create TV is a cable and satellite channel featuring cooking, arts & crafts, gardening, home improvement, and travel. We're proud that Make: is now among a long list of popular shows like America's Test Kitchen, Ask This Old House, and Globe Trekker.

For those of you don't have access to Make: through your public television stations, or who just want to see Make: in full HD glory, be sure to look up Create TV on your cable or satellite directory and watch.

Episode 10 - Wearable Technology
Saturday, May 16
11am, 5pm and 11pm ET

AND

Father's Day Make: Marathon
Saturday, June 20
All Day

Of course, you can always watch any episode, anytime at www.makezine.tv/episodes

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An anonymous reader writes "The Empathic Systems Project a Northwestern University demonstrate up to 50% power savings by controlling CPU frequency scaling based upon the end user. They measure the user with eye trackers, galvanic skin response, and force sensors to find a CPU frequency that the user is satisfied with. They are currently studying user activity and system performance on mobile architectures, specifically the Android G1 phone."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Richard Cytowic, MD, is one of the world's leading researchers on synesthesia, a mindblowing neurological condition in which two or more senses are linked so that you might, for example, "taste" sounds or "hear" colors. Cytowic and neuroscientist David Eagleman have a new book out, Wednesday Is Indigo Blue, about synesthesia, exploring the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy, and the subjectivity of reality. Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was A Neuroscientist and How We Decide, interviewed Cytowic for Scientific American. From SciAm:

LEHRER: What can synesthetes teach us about the nature of human perception?

CYTOWIC: Far from being a mere curiosity, synesthesia is a consciously elevated form of the perception that everyone already has. Minds that function differently are not so strange after all, and everyone can learn from them.

Synesthesia has opened up a window onto a broad expanse of the brain and perception. Younger researchers are now active in 15 countries. Because the trait runs strongly in families, it is easy to collect DNA from a large number of synesthetic relatives. This means that synesthesia may be the very first perceptual condition for which science can map its gene. This inherited quirk is teaching us that cross-talk among the senses is the rule rather than the exception--we are all inward synesthetes who are outwardly unaware of sensory couplings happening all the time.

For example, sight, sound, and movement normally map to one another so closely that even bad ventriloquists convince us that whatever moves is doing the talking. Likewise, cinema convinces us that dialogue comes from the actors' mouths rather than the surrounding speakers. Dance is another example of cross-sensory mapping in which body rhythms imitate sound rhythms kinetically and visually. We so take these similarities for granted that we never question them the way we might doubt colored hearing.

"When Senses Intersect" (SciAm) Buy "Wednesday Is Indigo Blue" (Amazon)

Announcing our new bundles available exclusively in the Maker Shed. This one is for any of our online readers that haven't subscribed to the print edition of MAKE. For a limited time we are offering a "Welcome to MAKE bundle" at an amazing discount.

The Welcome to MAKE bundle includes:

• (1) Year subscription to MAKE Magazine $34.95 value
  
• (1) The Best of MAKE $34.99 value
  
• (1) Maker's Notebook $19.99 value

All for the discounted price of $48. That's an amazing 46% off the price if you purchased these items individually. Take advantage of this amazing deal before it's too late.

More about the Welcome to MAKE bundle in the Maker Shed

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Does this hacker ever sleep? The prolific Jeri Ellsworth is at it again. Here, she builds a 52" Etch a Sketch with the screen from a rear-projection TV, some tent poles, screen door pulleys, some cheap Harbor Freight drill motors, a golf tee (for the stylus), and some aluminum powder. They also designed a web interface for their USTREAM live chatroom and are working on hooking up the device so that people in chat can operate the Etch a Sketch. Let me guess how many naughty grade-school squiggles and "bad words" are going to show up on that screen?

Fat Man and Circuit Girl

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Kristina at Science News writes "The RNA world hypothesis proposed 40 years ago suggested that life on Earth started not with DNA but with RNA. Now a team of scientists bolsters this hypothesis, having assembled RNA in the lab from a mixture that resembles what was likely the primordial soup. 'Until now,' Science News reports, 'scientists couldn't figure out the chemical reactions that created the earliest RNA molecules.' The new work started the RNA assembly chemistry from a different angle than what earlier work had tried."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I appreciate all the flow that TechMeme has sent to scripting.com over the years, but it's time to say a tearful goodbye. I think we'll do better independent of the community that TM defines. It has shifted over time, away from the individual and toward the "corporate blog" -- and I feel better just reading the TechMeme sites, and not participating in the discourse. So long, and thanks for all the fish! It's been fun.

An anonymous reader writes "Space Shuttle Atlantis has finally caught up with the Hubble Space Telescope after following it for several hours. The 'link up' between the Space Shuttle and Hubble was a very delicate one as the two were flying through space at 17,200 MPH, 300 miles above the Earth's surface. The robotic arm of the shuttle grappled the telescope at 1:14 PM EDT today. The telescope will be latched to a high-tech lLzy Susan device known as the Flight Support System for the duration of the servicing work."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We've been big supporters of the idea that Hollywood and the movie theaters should be investing more in providing experiences like super large screen IMAX theaters, because that enhances the movie-going experience well beyond what can be replicated with a home theater today. And, indeed, we're starting to see some of that. However, it appears that some theaters and perhaps IMAX itself, have gotten the wrong message out of all of this. Via Digg, we're alerted to someone complaining that he drove out of his way and paid an extra $5 at an AMC theater in order to see the new Star Trek movie in IMAX. Except... he discovered it wasn't actually the IMAX that we all think about when we hear the word. A little investigating turned up the news that IMAX and some theaters have started marketing IMAX's new digital theater projection system as an IMAX-branded experience, despite it being nothing like what most people think of when they hear the word IMAX. It's difficult to see how that's not a deceptive and unfair business practice by IMAX and AMC -- especially when they're charging an extra $5 for it. What's really stunning is that IMAX would risk such massive damage to its brand with this stunt. It's difficult to fathom how massively such a move could backfire on a company whose brand image is probably its most valuable asset.

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Scott says: The New Brighton Archeological Society by Mark Andrew Smith and Matthew Weldon, published by Image Comics, is one of the very best all ages graphic novels in years. It proves that there can be an outlet to introduce kids to the world of picture-based story telling without pandering to them or horrifying their innocent sensibilities. A recent review by Optimous Douche at Ain't It Cool News effectively captures the spirit of the OGN:

To build this world Smith put a brilliant spin on past literature ranging from children’s tales like Peter Pan, fantasy lore like Lord of the Rings and even a nice smattering of some tales from eastern cultures. Despite the fact I had read most of the source of material, his imaginative take on telling these tales through the eyes of a child made all of the concepts feel as fresh and exciting for me as a reader as they were for the new Brighton Archeologists.

The New Brighton Archeological Society

The opening bid for this lot of 100 cardboard US-flag casket covers with Department of Defense logos on each end is just $150. Think of the possibilities.

I don't think I'll bid on it, though. My takeaway from this is that I get to start yelling at my kids to clean up all their goddamn "miscellaneous fabricated nonmetallic material" scattered around the house.

Government Liquidation: LOT (APPROX 100) CASKET CARRYING CASE AMERICAN FLAG CARDBOARD TOP WITH DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE LOGOS ON EACH END, ASSEMBLED DIMENSIONS 36" X 84" X 23", WOOD BOTTOM DIMENSIONS 32" X 87" X 4"

(Thanks, Tom!)

The attention-grabbing headline above is about a University of Texas at Austin effort to use parasitic flies as a defense against fire ants. Apparently, phorid flies control the fire ant population naturally in South America. From the Associated Press:

The flies lay eggs on the fire ants, and the eggs hatch into maggots inside the ant and eat away at the pest's tiny brain.

The ant will get up and wander for about two weeks while the maggot feeds, said Rob Plowes, a research associate at the University of Texas at Austin.

"There is no brain left in the ant, and the ant just starts wandering aimlessly," he said.

About a month after the egg is laid, the ant's head falls off — and a new fly emerges ready to attack another fire ant.

"New weapon turns fire ants into headless zombies" (Thanks, Jennifer Lum!)

Survival of the Half Ton Teen air Sunday, May 17 at 8 PM (ET/PT) on TLC.

[It] features Billy Robbins – better known as the world’s heaviest teen and his continuing journey to lose weight and gain control of his life.

At 18-years old, Billy peaked at a staggering 850 pounds. In an effort to save his life, he must lose more than half his own body mass. The first TLC special, “Half Ton Teen” aired in January 2009 and followed Billy as he underwent skin surgery and shed 200 pounds.

In this follow-up special, TLC continues to document Billy’s journey as he undergoes bariatric surgery. From the risky gastric sleeve surgery to the difficult recovery to his eventual transformation, the cameras follow him every step of the way. Through the process, Billy encounters the greatest obstacles of his life, which include changing his sedentary lifestyle and cutting the unhealthy bond between he and his mother so he can learn how to take care of himself.

CWmike writes "Submitting to mounting legal pressure, Craigslist has announced that it will remove the Erotic Services category from its classified advertising Web site within seven days. The move comes just two and a half weeks after Jim Buckmaster, CEO of Craigslist, told Computerworld that the company had no intention of removing the category. While it's taking down the category, it will be launching a new category called Adult Services, for which each posting will be manually reviewed before it appears. 'Unsurprisingly, but completely contrary to some of the sensationalistic journalism we've seen these past few weeks, the record is clear that use of Craigslist classifieds is associated with far lower rates of violent crime than print classifieds, let alone rates of violent crime pertaining to American society as a whole,' said Buckmaster in a blog post today. 'We are optimistic that the new balance struck today will be an acceptable compromise from the perspective of the constituencies, and for the diverse US communities that value and rely upon Craigslist.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is cute. It's a wallpaper image of the innards of a PSP to make the PSP look see-through. A great companion to the clear PSP faceplate. Offered by the online repair shop Tech Restore.

See-Through PSP Screen by TechRestore

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This morning we posted the news about Craigslist giving in to angry Attorneys General who were misguided in their anger. In it, we discussed how this was a larger version of NY AG Andrew Cuomo's tactics to force internet companies to censor, despite no legal basis. However, it looks like Andrew Cuomo is pissed that others have taken his tactics and didn't give him a chance to be involved. Thomas O'Toole alerts us to this stunning statement from Cuomo who appears to be quite angry that this decision was made without him present:

"Several weeks ago, we informed Craigslist of an impending criminal case that implicated its website. Rather than work with this office to prevent further abuses, in the middle of the night, Craigslist took unilateral action which we suspect will prove to be half-baked."

O'Toole's summary is dead on: "Curses, you stole my photo op!" So when we wrote the original post wondering how soon it would be before AGs were upset with the new plan, we knew something like this would happen eventually. We just didn't think it would be a matter of hours.

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BB pal Jess Hemerly says:

A friend recently turned me on to a great podcast put out by Chicago Public Radio called Sound Opinions, hosted by two Chicago music critics, Jim DeRogatis (Chicago Sun-Times) and Greg Kot (Chicago Tribune). The show has been on Chicago Public Radio since 2005, and all of the episodes are available on the site. These guys LOVE music. They have such insane knowledge of music and musicians that they not only make amazing connections across genres and eras, but they also have on many occasions pointed out amazing parts of songs I've never noticed but have heard 20,000 times. To wit: I never realized how truly amazing Ernie Isley's guitar solo is in Isley Brothers' "Who's That Lady?" or that "Sympathy for the Devil" is inspired by Mikhail Bulgakov's novel The Master and Margarita. But they are also not such huge snobs that they're unwilling to admit that it's very difficult to distinguish between Parliament and Funkadelic.

They make me want to move to Chicago and befriend them (I mean that in a completely non-creepy way).

Sound Opinions

In today's Boing Boing Video episode, we revisit "Sebastian's Voodoo," a beautiful animated work by UCLA student Joaquin Baldwin, which we first featured on our daily video program about a year ago.

We're returning to this enchanting, dark, fanciful work today because... drum roll... it has been nominated for a short film award at the Cannes Film Festival, which opens today! It's really exciting to see the work of a young, talented animator like Joaquin get this kind of recognition. I am voting for Joaquin right now, and if you dig his work, I hope you will too.

And after you vote for Joaquin, here's some related reading: New Scientist has an interesting article up today about the "science of voodoo" -- well, more accurately, the science behind people who believe they've been "witched" or cursed, and end up becoming ill or dying because their believe in that "reverse placebo" is so powerful.

I like to remind people that voudun, or "voodoo," is more truthfully a broad, deep, and very misunderstood religious tradition that originates in West Africa. Voudun doesn't really have anything do with sticking pins in dolls, or convincing people you don't like that they have cancer. While ad hominem "witching" does exist, to say this defines voudun is unfair and uninformed.

---

RSS feed for new episodes here, YouTube channel here, subscribe on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are blog post archives for Boing Boing Video. (Special thanks to Boing Boing's video hosting partner Episodic)

---

basiles writes "Jacques Pitrat's new book Artificial Ethics: Moral Conscience, Awareness and Consciencousness will be of interest to anyone who likes robotics, software, artificial intelligence, cognitive science and science-fiction. The book talks about artificial consciousness in a way that can be enjoyed by experts in the field or your average science fiction geek. I believe that people who enjoyed reading Dennet's or Hofstadter's books (like the famous Godel Escher Bach) will like reading Artificial Ethics." Keep reading for the rest of Basile's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This makes me happier than I can tell you! It's another family that spends their vacation/family time together making things. Steve Hoefer writes:

Whenever a bunch of my family gets together it becomes readily apparent that most of us like to make stuff. And it just so happens that the first weekend of May a great many of us gathered to the Farm in Iowa, and one lazy afternoon it was suggested that we form groups to make chairs (for sitting and enjoying campfires) out of things found around the farm.

This idea was seized upon with great enthusiasm, which should probably tell you something about my family.

And so what started as a suggesting for "something to do" spread quickly. Before darkness fell, we had created seating for eleven and gathered them around a camp fire.

I love these people! We'll be featuring more family challenges and MAKEcation ideas (i.e. staying home and making things together as a vacation, or going on make/DIY-oriented vacations) as we head into summer. Start thinking now about what you and your family might do for a MAKEcation, document it, and send it to us. We'll be running some MAKEcation contests as well. Stay tuned...

The Great Chair Challenge

More:
Hydrogen balloon camera project

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Well, it's the middle of May, and that means (like clockwork) the Business Software Alliance (BSA) and IDC have come out with their annual bogus numbers about software "piracy." They do this every year, despite the fact that their numbers have been totally and completely debunked for years. Last year, they were kind enough to call to discuss my concerns, but stood by the idea that every unauthorized copy can be reasonably counted as a lost sale.

This year, they didn't bother to call.

Instead, it looks like they sought out other publications to pre-publish an attack on anyone who would criticize the numbers. This is pretty funny stuff, actually. They release the totally bogus numbers year after year (even though even the mainstream press has started questioning the ridiculousness of it), and then rather than actually responding to the criticism and perhaps trying to come up with more reasonable numbers, they slam those of us who point out that the BSA is flat out trying to mislead people into believing the "problem" of unauthorized copies is a much bigger issue than it really is.

Meanwhile, Michael Geist digs into the numbers that the BSA has provided, and notes that even if you believe the numbers, they don't seem to support the BSA's own position that countries need to implement the WIPO Copyright Treaty to decrease the unauthorized use of software. So, we've got bogus data that doesn't even support the BSA's own position.

Why does anyone actually take anything the BSA says seriously?

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Trailrunner7 writes "Threatpost.com reports that security guru Bruce Schneier says not only should the NSA not run cybersecurity for the federal government, no one should. 'Really what I think is it shouldn't be anybody. We do better without a top-down hierarchy. Our economic and political systems work best when there isn't a dictator in charge, when there isn't one organization in charge. My feeling is there shouldn't be one organization in charge. Not only shouldn't it be the NSA, it shouldn't be anybody,' Schneier said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Just went live moments ago on Ustream. This is history.

bokske writes "An office worker cleaning a fridge full of rotten food created a smell so noxious that it sent seven co-workers to the hospital and made many others ill. Firefighters had to evacuate the AT&T building in downtown San Jose on Tuesday, after the flagrant fumes prompted someone to call 911. A hazmat team was called in. Just another day at the office."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Vrtigo1 writes "I work for a small company that has about 50 staff on the road relying on VPN back to our office at any given time. Many ISPs have implemented NXDomain redirection services that hijack DNS traffic to show you sponsored links and other related ads when you mistype a domain name. These services are incompatible with most VPN software, since they prevent the computer from resolving internal hostnames. Large ISPs typically provide an opt-out on their sponsored links page that immediately opts you out of the DNS redirection, but I've noticed that some smaller ISPs and CLECs have opt-out links that don't actually appear to do anything. I don't have a good solution for employees using these ISPs, and our employees are getting frustrated because the problem is becoming more prevalent and we can't fix it for them. I've tried calling a few of these smaller ISPs for help, but it's been like talking to a wall. Manually changing DNS servers works temporarily, but the user can't resolve internal hostnames when they connect to the office LAN again. Have you had to deal with ISPs using non-standard DNS servers? What is your solution?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This headline delights me. The brief story is about why unusual traits may persist in an animal population. From LiveScience:

Predators detect common forms of prey more easily, the scientists figure. The majority that share a common look are always on the dinner menu, while oddballs are left to reproduce.

"Maintenance of variation is a classic paradox in evolution because both selection and drift tend to remove variation from populations," (University of Tennessee researcher Benjamin) Fitzpatrick explained today. "If one form has an advantage, such as being harder to spot, it should replace all others. Likewise, random drift [genetic change that occurs by chance] alone will eventually result in loss of all but one form when there are no fitness differences. There must therefore be some advantage that allows unusual traits to persist."

"Freaks Survive Because They Are Strange" (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

The Boing Boing editors have been having fun with some guest-writing over at GOOD, and my latest contribution has just been published. It involves NOM. Here's a snip:

When the economy took a nosedive, I did the same thing a lot of other Americans did: I looked at my household expenses and my lifestyle with newly frugal eyes, and began thinking about costs and personal priorities in new ways. That included food.

Rethinking what I cook and eat post-econopocalypse meant simpler, slower food; a more local and traditional diet which, in fact, makes good sense in any economic weather. But I live an urban life. I spend a lot of time online or working in short attention bursts. I don’t have a lot of time to cook or prepare food, and my city apartment doesn’t afford room to raise goats or grow tomatoes.

Despite this, I’ve gradually eased into a number of new rituals and good habits that reduced my grocery bill and make me feel happier and healthier. One of them is making yogurt each week. It takes maybe 20 minutes of actual work and attention, zero equipment beyond stuff I already had in my kitchen, and yields a yummier, healthier, and yes, “probiotic” product that costs five to 10 times less than the store-bought stuff.

Here are the basics of rolling your own yogurt the lazy Xeni way...

Read the rest of the essay here, with step-by-step HOWTO. Photo courtesy Flickr user (cc) Biology Big Brother

(Special thanks to my co-editor, BB founder Mark Frauenfelder, for putting the yogurt bug in my head, so to speak.)

destinyland writes "Want to build a robot this summer? 'Robot-loving Japanese are tinkering with screwdrivers and motors instead of heading to the beach,' and this article identifies the stores and sites serving robot hobbyists. Several sites are actually selling leftover industrial robots, but there's a variety of smaller-size robot vendors, from Tokyo's Vstone Robot Center to Carl's Electronics in Oakland (which sells sound-activated 'Hydradzoids' and solar-powered robots that crawl). Hasbro even sells their own functioning R2-D2 droid with real sonar navigation and a 'voice recognition response module.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Interesting changes in the Twitter community in the last 24 hours.

Here's what happened, from my point of view.

1. At some point yesterday afteroon I logged on and saw a message on the Twitter home page advising of a change in the way Reply works. It pointed to the Twitter blog for more info. I clicked on the link, but there was nothing there about Reply. Refreshed the home page and the advisory was gone. I gather most people did not see the advisory.

2. Started seeing comments about the change.

3. A blog post appeared, explaining in confusing terms what had changed.

4. Lots of theories.

5. A reference back to a post by Evan Williams last year, wondering if they shouldn't change the way Reply works.

6. More discussion.

7. It turns out there are technical reasons for the change. We don't know what they are. Biz Stone is surprised at how much interest there is in the change.

Now some comments...

I think the changes are okay, and I don't understand the technical reasons. I inferred that there must be a technical reason for the change, because it would have been simple enough to make it subject to a preference. As was pointed out many times on Twitter, it had been a preference. Therefore the inference.

When communicating with the community, the Twitter folk from now on should assume that every change will be examined in all possible nuance, with all theories explored, very quickly. Therefore, try to say what you know you're going to eventually admit to, as soon as possible. It will help build trust.

None of us outside the company have a clear picture of how the system works behind the user interface, esp since the performance issues were mostly resolved. Why is this feature so expensive? Unknown.

There will be many more problems like this in the future, some not so benign. The danger is that all the functionality of Twitter is centralized.

The centralization problems are in three areas: 1. Technical. 2. Financial. 3. Political.

The technical issues are obvious. If there is no redundancy in their network and a critical component fails, the whole thing goes down. I don't think people really are prepared for how disconnected we all will feel if this happens.

Assume that a change in ownership occurs at some point. What will the new owners change about Twitter. We have some feel for how the current ownership thinks. We obviously have no idea how a potential new owner thinks or what they might choose to sell. They could decide to sell information that we don't want sold.

The political threat is a major concern. Consider the pressure being applied to Craigslist over prostitution by the states attorney generals. What if prostitutes are operating on Twitter? What if a major act of terrorism is organized using Twitter? Would there be pressure to shut it down, or greatly control what it's used for? Remember the atmosphere after 9-11. Not so far-fetched. But it was hard to control the web, it was too diverse. Twitter, which is fully centralized, would be easy for a government to control.

Centralization has its niceties, for sure. They come up every time I warn of its dangers. This change was a very small reminder of what is, if you believe in Murphy's Law, as I do -- certainly in our future if we don't diversify.

Touch screens are everywhere these days. The Maker Shed has a TouchShield Stealth for use with the Arduino environment. Now that the Arduino Mega has been released the bigger TouchShield Slide is also available. Liquidware Antipasto posted some great code to help you get started with your own touch screen project:

I'm making the TouchShield tell the Arduino to turn on an LED. The Arduino code is compatible on the Duemilanove and the Mega. The TouchShield code is compatible on the Stealth and the Slide.

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Claudio Bernardini of Italian skate/snowboard design firm Comvert points us to their new Milan headquarters, a historic former movie theater now outfitted with offices, their Bastard brand flagship store, and, of course, a bowl for skating that's suspended 6 meters above the shopping area. From Arch Daily:

Suspended at 6m over the products depot, placed in front of the design department, the bastard Bowl is too important not to find a location inside the new headquarter of a company founded by skateboarders. It is the pride, attraction and ‘dream that comes true’ for Comvert partners, employees, friends and team-riders. The idea of placing this 200 m² bowl on top of the products depot came from the need of saving space and from the desire of establishing a visual and spatial relation with the design department. The bastard Bowl is composed by glue laminated wooden element and steel curved beams, it has been designed by Comvert partners together with the engineer practice Atelier-LC and is a unique case in Italy.

Bastard Store / studiometrico

More at Comvert's Bastard Blog

Back in November, a bunch of Attorneys General forced Craiglsist to change how it managed its "erotic services" category. The whole campaign by these AGs to blame Craigslist for the fact that prostitutes used the service was aimed at the wrong target -- smart law enforcement officials recognized that they could use Craigslist as a tool to fight prostitution. And, of course, the original changes to Craigslist did little if anything to stop prostitution. Instead, they just made that prostitution move elsewhere, making it more difficult for law enforcement to track it down and deal with it. It's difficult to see how that's smart policy.

Yet, even with the changes -- which required those posting to the erotic services category to use a credit card (and pay $5) to prove their identity -- some prostitution ads were getting through. Once again, though, this should have been seen as great news for law enforcement. That's because now it was even easier to track down those involved in prostitution. So what happened? You guessed it. The AGs continued to freak out and insist that Craigslist was somehow to blame, even threatening to put Craigslist execs into jail. Yes, seriously.

Given all of this, it's disappointing, though hardly surprising, that Craigslist has caved in and agreed that it will now have people on staff preview every ad in the erotic services category to make sure it's "okay." Also, according to at least one report, the new "adult services" (rather than "erotic services") group will cost advertisers $10 instead of $5 -- and unlike the in original agreement, this time the money apparently may not go to charity. There really is absolutely no legal basis for this move. The AGs would have had no case (hello Section 230!), but given the public pressure from the AGs and the fact that Craigslist probably was getting sick of answering this question, it gave in.

Of course, it's difficult to see how this ends well. Prostitution will continue. It will just move to other websites, where it will be that much more difficult for law enforcement to track it and respond to it. This move will also -- unfortunately -- empower AGs to once again abuse their public platform to pressure companies into doing things with absolutely no legal basis whatsoever. We saw it last year with Andrew Cuomo forcing ISPs to drop Usenet, and now that more AGs are learning how this process works, expect to see more de facto gov't censorship, as various AGs use the press and bogus threats to pressure websites into shutting down or changing sites.

And, of course, given that it only took six months for the AGs to demand even more from Craigslist, how much do people want to bet that it won't be all that long until those same AGs start complaining about Craigslist yet again? Especially now that Craigslist has agreed to have employees review every ad in that section, they'll probably start blaming Craigslist if any questionable ads get through. Even though Section 230 (again) has said that moderating content doesn't increase liability, since those AGs have been ignoring Section 230 all along anyway, you can bet they'll ignore it again, and suggest Craigslist is even more liable, even though they were the ones who forced Craigslist to make this change in the first place.

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Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.

Robert Anton Wilson is back! On the web, anyway. Congratulations to his crew for getting the new RAW website together even though Bob is no longer around to give his inimitable positive reinforcement. Maybe that's as much his legacy as anything.

Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.

In 1791, Alexander Hamilton imposed a new tax on Americans - both as a way of paying down the national debt and, in his words, "more as a measure of social discipline than as a source of revenue." The taxes led to widespread organizing, protests, and ultimately insurrection. The first shots were fired in the town now known as South park (not Colorado, but Pennsylvania, but it always made me wonder what Trey Parker had in mind).

By May, 1794, Americans in most states were raising liberty poles, the symbol of revolutionary American resistance to tyranny. Although dismissed by Hamilton as a "whiskey rebellion" in order to make it sound like a bunch of drunks dissing government authority, the movement was a widespread challenge to the federalist model that - perhaps ironically - led to the raising of an American army as big as the one raised for the Revolutionary War, and ultimately a vast increase in centralized control over the American economy, and society. (In the form of corporatism.)

May 13 is also the anniversary of the "May 13 Incident," when Sino-Malay race riots in Kuala Lumpur led to a suspension of Parliament and at least a couple of thousand people killed by police and Malaysian Army rangers.

Brad Wardell of Stardock and Ron Carmel of 2D Boy recently spoke with Gamasutra about their efforts to move the games industry away from restrictive DRM. Despite the fact that both have had their own troubles with piracy, they contend that overall piracy rates aren't significantly affected by DRM — and that most companies know it. Instead, the two suggest that most DRM solutions are still around to hamper a few more specific situations. Quoting: "'Publishers aren't stupid. They know that DRM doesn't work against piracy,' Carmel explains. 'What they're trying to do is stop people from going to GameStop to buy $50 games for $35, none of which goes into the publishers' pockets. If DRM permits only a few installs, that minimizes the number of times a game can be resold.' ... 'I believe their argument is that while DRM doesn't work perfectly,' says Wardell, 'it does make it more difficult for someone to get the game for free in the first five or six days of its release. That's when a lot of the sales take place and that's when the royalties from the retailers are determined. Publishers would be very happy for a first week without "warez" copies circulating on the Web.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For years, we've been among those who have questioned how the hell anyone (let alone the US Patent Office) can justify the concept of patenting genes. Yet, the Patent Office has continued to issue such patents, even as they have been shown to cause significant problems in diagnosing and treating certain illnesses. Finally, however, it appears that the concept of patenting genes is about to get tested in court. The ACLU has organized a group of cancer patients who have had treatments and medical analysis limited due to gene patents held by the company Myriad Genetics, and brought the issue to court. This is a big deal... and while the case and the resulting appeals will certainly take many years, this is going to be a case well worth watching.

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Douglas Rushkoff is a guest blogger.

William Hogeland, author of The Whiskey Rebellion, is out with a new one from MIT Press called Inventing American History. Given the interest and knowledge of American history revealed by some of the comments sections I've been reading here this week, I thought you might get a kick out of Hogeland's premise and conclusions - as well as some of the gems I've pulled from the text itself.

Hogeland makes the case that our historians tend to get history wrong, and for very specific reasons. He's most annoyed (and intrigued) by our deification of people when they die, or when their historical personae are resurrected.

It's good stuff, and readily applicable whenever a Reagan funeral or something like it comes along.

Neo-Hamiltonians have been chopping up the past to make it conform to their political aims. Alexander Hamilton's national vision and founding economics are far more troubling--so more compelling--than his promoters acknowledge ... Hamilton is routinely credited for favoring a strong executive branch. What he really favored was an executive branch run by him, strong enough to do anything it deemed in the national interest. For Hamilton, personal and military force, unrestrained by the slightest consideration of law, were joined ineluctably to American wealth, American unity, and America modernity. "

or

"William F. Buckley and Pete Seeger share -- along with fake-sounding accents and preppie backgrounds -- a problem that inspires forgetfulness, falsification, and denial in their supporters. Fired by opposed and equally fervent political passions, both men once took actions that their cultural progeny find untenable: Seeger's Stalinism, Buckley's racism. Yet these two men--their careers strangely linked in the hunt for communists, the struggle for equal rights, and the emerging 'culture wars' of the postwar era--are worthy of consideration without air-brushing."

Boston Dynamics, makers of the BigDog and LittleDog pack robots, have built this adorable pole climbing robot.

RiSE V3 uses brushless DC motors that increase power density. Coupled with a dramatically different leg mechanism and unique gaited behavior, this robot exhibits rapid climbing (upwards of 22 cm/s) up a vertical surface such as a telephone pole.

RiSE Version 3 Prototype (Via Microsiervos)

mjasay writes "Mozilla's Asa Dotzler points to some interesting long-term trends in browser market share, noting that 'browser releases aren't having any major impact on the macro trends,' which suggests that a better IE will likely have little impact on its sliding market share. The most intriguing conclusion from the data, however, is that Firefox could surpass IE market share as early as January 2013 if Firefox continues to gain 5 percent every year, even as IE drops 5 percent each year. In the past, Microsoft might have fought back by tying IE to other products to block competition, but with the EU keeping a close antitrust eye on Microsoft and the US Obama administration keen to make an example of an antitrust bully, Microsoft may have few good options beyond good old fashioned competition, which doesn't seem to be working very well for the Redmond giant, as the market share data suggests. Microsoft's loss of IE market power, in turn, could have serious consequences for the company's efforts to compete with Google on the Web."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last week June Cohen of TED ("Technology Entertainment and Design" -- a yearly conference consisting of fascinating 18-minute presentations) gave me a demo of TED's new Open Translation Project, which provides subtitles for the TED Talk videos in over 40 languages.

It's a very cool project, and even the English subtitles are useful to English speakers because if you click on a sentence in the text transcription, the video jumps to the corresponding spot.

Each of the 400+ talks on TED.com will now offer:

+ Subtitles, in English and many additional languages (several videos carry up to 25 languages at launch)

+ A time-coded, interactive transcript, in multiple languages, which lets you click on any phrase and jump straight to that point in the video. This makes the entire content of the video indexable on search engines

+ Translated headlines and video descriptions, which appear when a new language is selected

+ Language-specific URLs which play the chosen subtitles by default

Check out the TED Talks here.

TED's Open Translation Project brings subtitles in 40+ languages to TED.com

A bunch of folks have been sending in various versions of the story that video game maker Square Enix has forced a fan mod community to shut down a years-long project to create a mod called Chrono Trigger: Crimson Echoes based on the Chrono Trigger world. The game was set to be released at the end of the month before the legal nastygram forced the volunteer fan group to shut down.

It's difficult to fathom how this could possibly make sense. These were fans who were playing up how much they loved the original game universe, and wanted so badly to help spread that, that they spent years developing additional game action, only to have it totally shut down. In an era when treating your fans badly has been shown to backfire badly (especially in the video game world), you would think that Square Enix would have thought twice before sending a legal nastygram threatening huge legal fines.

Once again, this seems like a case where people sent a legal nastygram because they could, not because it was a smart business idea.

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CWmike writes "Saying that its users are becoming increasingly sophisticated, Google has unveiled a list of new search technologies geared to help users 'slice and dice' their Google search results, along with a new tool to help them cull information instead of Web pages. Marissa Mayer, vice president of Google's Search Products, said of Search Options in a blog post, 'We have spent a lot of time looking at how we can better understand the wide range of information that's on the Web and quickly connect people to just the nuggets they need at that moment.' Google Squared, set to be released to users as part of its Google Labs program later this month, pulls up information from different sites and presents it in an organized manner."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recently on Offworld we played perhaps our new favorite dungeon exploring web-obsession, the cutely retro-modern Wayfarer, a rogue-like built entirely in Processing, and regurgitated rainbows (as above) at news that Toronto indie studio Capybara would be bringing their fantastic mobile puzzler Critter Crunch to the PlayStation 3 in full, hand-animated HD. Looking forward, we saw new videos of retro-future rhythm-pong game Bit.Trip: Core, Konami's downloadable Contra revival for the Wii, and a one-man-team Community game for Xbox 360 that's nothing if it isn't a combination of NES underdogs Bionic Commando and Blaster Master. Finally, we saw a Max/MSP hack that lets you control Super Mario Bros by voice, guitar and drums, watched geek culture cross all borders with a Romanian retro-game laden video, kickstarted a music project to recreate Miles Davis' Kind of Blue in chiptune style, and saw all 200+ 8-bit games never made for the Famicase exhibit in one interactive Flash piece. And the 'one shot's for the day: the sad sight of a middle aged Mario, and modern C64 demoscene artist Mirage's pixel montage, 1 UP - 1 DEAD.

Here's a very attractive bowl made from scrap wood! My scrap wood doesn't look anywhere near that attractive, but yours might. Via Core77.

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Tom DBA writes "Bloomberg reports on claims that the swine flu could have been accidentally made in a lab, which are now being investigated by the World Health Organization. Quoting: 'Adrian Gibbs, 75, who collaborated on research that led to the development of Roche Holding AG's Tamiflu drug, said in an interview today that he intends to publish a report suggesting the new strain may have accidentally evolved in eggs scientists use to grow viruses and drugmakers use to make vaccines. Gibbs said that he came to his conclusion as part of an effort to trace the virus's origins by analyzing its genetic blueprint. ... Gibbs and two colleagues analyzed the publicly available sequences of hundreds of amino acids coded by each of the flu virus's eight genes. ... [The CDC's Nancy Cox says] since researchers don't have samples of swine flu viruses from South America and Africa, where the new strain may have evolved, those regions can't be ruled out as natural sources for the new flu.'" Time has a related story evaluating the World Health Organization's response to H1N1.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The prosecutors in the Lori Drew trial continue to make a mockery of the law. After pushing to give Drew the maximum three years in jail not because of what she was convicted for, but because she "has become the public face of cyberbullying," prosecutors are now demanding that Megan Meier's parents speak at the sentencing hearing, claiming they are Drew's victims. Except... that's simply not true. Drew was convicted merely of having "hacked" into MySpace's computers, because she broke their terms of service by not using her real name (even though she didn't even sign up for the account). The fact that Megan Meier later committed suicide has nothing to do with what Lori Drew was actually convicted of doing. The only reason to allow them to speak at the sentencing is to push for an emotional reason for the sentencing rather than a legal one. The whole thing is a rather disgusting display of a prosecutor abusing the law to punish someone who he believes did wrong, but who did not actually break the law. Whether you believe what Drew did was horrific or not, there's simply no excuse for abusing the law in this manner.

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MightyOhm points out this tutorial covering some basic setup for using the Eclipse programming software with AVR chips. If you're not familiar, Eclipse is a cross-platform open-source development environment that uses plugins to expand compatibility with different coding languages. The AVR plugin can be found here and the software can even be configured to make use of the Arduino library.

I was actually just discussing Eclipse + AVR/Arduino with my brother just last week - but have yet to give it a go myself. So I'm wondering - any code-makers out there using the combo? If so, please give your take in the comments.

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This year, discounted Maker Faire tickets are available at 74 locations in 28 Bay Area cities until 5/31/2009. Save $5 per ticket, avoid lines on-site, and support you local community by getting your Maker Faire tickets at one of these partner locations, up to and during the event

Cartoon Art Museum: San Francisco, CA

Copperfields (6 stores): Calistoga, Healdsburg, Napa, Petaluma, Santa Rosa and Sebastopol, CA

Exploratorium: San Francisco, CA

Radio Shack (65 stores): all Radio Shack stores in Belmont, Berkeley, Burlingame, Concord, Cupertino, Emeryville, Foster City, Fremont, Hayward, Mountain View, Oakland, Palo Alto, Pleasanton, Redwood City, San Bruno, San Francisco, San Jose, San Leandro, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale and Walnut Creek, CA

Whole Foods: San Mateo, CA

Use this map to find the location nearest you and pick-up your discounted tickets to Maker Faire.

View Buy Tickets for Maker Faire Bay Area 2009 in a larger map

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SkiifGeek writes "Both Microsoft and Apple have released major security updates in the last 24 hours. Microsoft's single update (MS09-017) addresses fourteen distinct vulnerabilities across all supported versions of PowerPoint, but it isn't the number of patched vulnerabilities that is causing trouble. Instead, the decision to release the patch for Windows versions while OS X and Works versions remain vulnerable to the same remote code execution risks (including one that is currently being exploited) hasn't gone down well with some people. Microsoft have given various reasons why this is the case, but this mega-update-in-a-patch is still interesting for other reasons. Meanwhile, Apple has updated OS X 10.5 to 10.5.7 as part of the 2009-002 Security Update, as well as a cumulative update for Safari 3 and the Public Beta for 4. As well as addressing numerous significant security risks, the 10.5.7 update provides a number of stability and capability enhancements and incorporates the Safari 3 update patch. Probably the most surprising element of the Apple update is the overall size of it; 442MB for the point update, and 729MB for the ComboUpdate."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

bkuhn writes "The ACLU and the Public Patent Foundation have filed a lawsuit charging that patents on two human genes associated with breast and ovarian cancer are unconstitutional and invalid. The lawsuit (PDF) was filed on behalf of four scientific organizations representing more than 150,000 geneticists, pathologists, and laboratory professionals, as well as individual researchers, breast cancer and women's health groups, and individual women. Individuals with certain mutations along these two genes, known as BRCA1 and BRCA2, are at a significantly higher risk for developing hereditary breast and ovarian cancers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Douglas Rushkoff, the author of Life Inc., is a guest blogger.

I've been getting lots of great (and some angry-but-still-great) email from bb readers contesting and inquiring about a couple of the contentions I made in the Life Inc. movie posted on Monday. The two main areas of concern are:

1. My seemingly romantic, almost "noble savage" argument that human beings have been corrupted by our economic institutions. Why can't I just accept the fact that people are greedy, and that the economy is simply a reflection of this natural human state?

2. The general sense that I'm disagreeing with accepted economic theory, or contradicting what passes these days for Econ 101. Why can't I accept economics and its premise of 'utility maximization' as a science - an explanation of nature - rather than a crudely arbitrary stab at game theory?

So I thought I'd answer those repeating questions right here, with an argument from the book. Right before this section, I explore the work of RAND and Beautiful Mind subject John Nash, whose experiments attempting to prove core human selfishness all failed because the secretaries of the RAND corporation kept making cooperative choices instead of selfish ones.

...from Life Inc:

Thanks to the combined emergence of a computer culture capable of recognizing the power of emergent systems and a rising class of dot- com workers profiting off what appeared to them to be the exploitation of a free- market technology, libertarianism was in ascendance. In reality, the phenomena we were all celebrating in the mid- 1990s had little to do with the free market; the Internet had been paid for by the government, and dynamical systems theory was much more applicable to the weather and plankton populations than it was to economics. But as profits and stock indexes rose, the stars themselves seemed to be aligning, and systems theory was as good a way as any of justifying the same options packages that young programmers would have been embarrassed by just a few years before, when they were anti-establishment hackers. 

While computer programmers were finding jobs in Silicon Valley, social scientists and chaos mathematicians won contracts at corporate-funded think tanks. The Santa Fe Institute studied complexity theory, and applied its findings to the market. The "four Cs," as they came to be known--complexity, chaos, catastrophe, and cybernetics--now dominated economic thought.

Building on the work of Hayek, the new science of economics held that there was no global, central controller in an economy--only a rich interaction between competing agents. Order, such as it was, emerged naturally and spontaneously from the system--the same way life evolved from atoms or organization emerges from an anthill. 

For those of us who had witnessed the Internet come to life or who had watched a simple fractal equation render an entire forest or ocean on a computer screen, the case for a bottom- up economy based on nothing but a few simple rules was compelling. If, as the anthropologists and social scientists were now telling us, human beings followed the same sorts of simple rules for self- preservation that ants and slime molds used to build their colonies and distribute scarce resources, then all we needed to do was let nature take its course. A great society would emerge much faster and better than it could ever be legislated into existence by intellectuals or social reformers.

Richard Dawkins's theory of the "selfish gene" popularized the extension of evolution to socioeconomics. Just as species competed in a battle for the survival of the fittest, people and their "memes" competed for dominance in the marketplace of ideas. Human nature was simply part of biological nature, complex in its manifestations but simple in the core commands driving it. Like the genes driving them, people could be expected to act as selfishly as Adam Smith's hypothetical primitive man, "the bartering savage," always maximizing the value of every transaction as if by raw instinct. Even the people who are crazy enough to behave differently end up testing new market strategies in spite of themselves. Best yet, according to Dawkins, "the whole wave keeps moving." In spite of local and temporary setbacks-- like what's happening in the United States at the moment--the trend is our friend, and undeniably progressive. Let her rip.

Freakonomics, the runaway best seller and its follow- up New York Times Magazine column, applied this model of "rational utility-maximization" to human behaviors ranging from drug dealing to cheating among sumo wrestlers. Economics explained everything with real numbers, and the findings were bankable. Even better, the intellectual class had a new way of justifying its belief that people really do act the way they're supposed to in one of John Nash's game scenarios.

Ironically, while the intelligentsia were using social evolution to confirm laissez- faire capitalism to one another, the politicians promoting these policies to the masses were making the same sale through creationism. Right- wing conservatives turned to fundamentalist Christians to promote the free- market ethos, in return promising lip service to hot- button Christian issues such as abortion and gay marriage. It was now the godless Soviets who sought to thwart the Maker's plan to bestow the universal rights of happiness and property on mankind. America's founders, on the other hand, had been divinely inspired to create a nation in God's service, through which people could pursue their individual salvation and savings.

As the best-selling Christian textbook America's Providential History explains, "Scripture defines God as the source of private property. . . . Ecclesiastes 5:19 states, 'For every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them.' . . . Also in I Chronicles 29:12, 'Both riches and honor come from Thee.' " America is God's true nation because it is the bastion of the free market through which He can exercise His divine will. Socialism (and American liberals) set up the state as provider instead of God. Bureaucrats end up intervening in the sacred relationship between the Lord and His creations, usurping His role, and interfering in the process of salvation. Charity is an opportunity for people--not governments--to care for their fellow men. Social-welfare programs, like evolution, implied that God had not created a perfect world in the first place. The free market, on the other hand, gave human beings the opportunity to exercise their free will in pursuit of personal salvation as well as a personal piece of God's good earth. No engineering or central planning was required.

The same right- wing think tanks writing white papers justifying game- theory economics through bottom- up social Darwinism were simultaneously advising conservatives on how to leverage Christian Fundamentalists in support of the resultant ideals. What both PR efforts had in common were two falsely reasoned premises: that human beings are private, self- interested actors behaving in ways that consistently promote personal wealth, and that the laissez- faire free market is a natural and self- sustaining system through which scarce resources can be equitably distributed.

For all the ability of genes and even memes to battle for survival against one another, human beings are just as likely to share and cooperate as they are to cheat and compete. But the ascendance of market rhetoric in America and Britain was accompanied by the assertion of some decidedly antiromantic science. University anthropologists seemed determined to correct the hopeful impressions that so many still clung to of peaceful, vegetarian gorillas enjoying one another's company in the jungle. Like stories of supposedly peaceful aboriginal tribes as yet untainted by corrupt Western civilization, such visions-- according to the new social Darwinists--were pure fantasy.

The people-are-actually-really-mean hypothesis was supported by the anthropologist Napoleon Chagnon's observation of violence among the Yanomami people of South America. Chagnon's documentary footage depicted tribesmen attacking one another with machetes. He demonstrated that the seemingly random violence had broken out along complex familial lines, supposedly proving that the tribesmen's genes were still competing for dominance. Buried deeper in his documentation was the real reason for these attacks: Chagnon had distributed a small number of machetes to just one of the tribes. The neighboring tribes wanted the machetes, too. Although the study has been argued over for decades now, the artificially introduced scarce resource was at least part of the reason they were fighting.

Paleontologists and social biologists such as Lucifer Principle author Howard Bloom present contagiously popular evidence of violence among competing gorilla and chimpanzee groups, going as far as to describe the steps by which a certain female chimp dashed out the brains of its rivals. That the chimps were fighting over rights to a human garbage dump isn't considered germane. Perhaps predictably, Bloom's follow- up work, Reinventing Capitalism, applies these same insights - ones I believe are skewed - to the market. He is not alone.Volumes could be filled (and actually are) with essays and studies about the violent, self-interested behaviors of monkeys and indigenous peoples, written by prominent scholars and directed to policy- makers and economists.

Just because many participants in leading intellectual forums such as The New York Review of Books or Edge.org (a website on which I participate) consider these proudly unromantic views of human nature more consistent with a godless universe doesn't make them any more true. More scientifically gathered evidence points the other way.

A South African archeologist and Harvard professor named Glynn Isaac based his own studies of human behavior less on abstract models or analogies with apes than on hard evidence from fossils and archeological digs. By focusing on the evolutionary record, Isaac showed how social networks and food sharing were the deciding factors in allowing early hominids to succeed over their peers. Researchers at Ohio State University studied sex- based size differences in human fossil remains, concluding that competition between males for mates was much less prevalent than earlier believed. "Males were cooperating more than they were competing among themselves," the researchers concluded.

Studies by psychologists at the University of Chicago in which researchers measured subjects' ability to see problems from the perspective of others demonstrated how "cultures that emphasize interdependence over individualism may have the upper hand." (In their conclusions, the psychologists noted the individualistic bias of Western corporations compared with those of Asia. A Texas corporation "aiming to improve productivity told its employees to look in the mirror and say 'I am beautiful' 100 times before coming to work. In contrast, a Japanese supermarket instructed its employees to begin their day by telling each other 'you are beautiful.' ")

While legends of violent meat- eating Homo sapiens vanquishing tribes of Neanderthals still garner rapt attention at dinner parties, there is little evidence that such events ever took place. On the other hand, there's plenty of evidence for the less dramatic assertion that a combination of tools, hunting, gathering, and food- sharing permitted what we now think of as civilization to evolve out of cooperative human activity. In certain circumstances, the tendency toward conflict with neighboring tribes inhibited survival, while cooperation within a social group and beyond promoted it.

We shouldn't be too shocked that the industrial world's intellectuals would be so prone to perceive humanity as driven by instinctual, self- interested violence. This behavior is as old as colonialism itself, and calls to mind wealthy plantation owners arguing that Africans were better equipped anatomically--by the Maker or by evolution-- to pick cotton. Today's equivalent, however well masked in scientific jargon, is no better supported by the facts. As a cultural mythology, however, it helps assuage any residual guilt the rich might feel over the inequitable distribution of wealth built into the existing economic order.

Or perhaps the wealthy obsess over what they hope is an entirely dog- eat- dog reality because their participation in the culture of money hasn't ended up making them any happier. According to a study conducted at the height of the market, 23 percent of brokers and traders at the seven largest firms on Wall Street suffered from depression--more than three times the national average. Scientists and United Nations sociologists alike have concluded that affluence produces rapidly diminishing returns on happiness. After achieving an income per capita of about $15,000, any increase in wealth makes little difference to a nation's total happiness metrics.

Among the six articles I found from Forbes in 2006 fiercely criticizing this "swath of studies" as well as the whole notion of "happiness research," none mentioned any of them specifically, or their findings. The libertarian think tank the Cato Institute similarly criticized these studies along with any attempt to measure subjective well- being--but concluded that even if they were true and money didn't make people happier, this would only support the libertarian position that wealth redistribution by government was unnecessary. Still others have criticized happiness research because it could lead to the implementation of authoritarian policies by central governments under the pretense that they were trying to make people happier.

But it's disingenuous to equate any critique of the theory of "rational utility- maximization" with efforts to construct a socialist welfare state. And it's especially cynical to do so while marketing and defending financial instruments intentionally designed to take advantage of consumers' irrationality when making economic decisions. 

(after this comes a section on Behavioral Finance, and how credit card companies and banks used language to exploit what they know about our propensity to make bad decisions.)

The Axio music controller designed by Brad Cariou at the University of Calgary back in the early 90s. From the YouTube description -

I designed the electronics and firmware for the chording keyboard in this alternative MIDI controller in the early 90's. It was made using a set of Yamaha DX7 key contacts. These contacts have both make and break contacts which allow for velocity sensing. The firmware was done in 8031 assembler and the source code is posted on my website, www.MusicTechnologiesGroup.com The project was presented at various conferences and symposiums around the world.

Built with interactive programming mainstay Max/MSP the project resembles many experimental controllers we see introduced nowadays. Some additional info is available on the University of Calgary's site

[via Matrixsynth]

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Despite the judge in her case pushing hard for the RIAA and Jammie Thomas to come to some sort of settlement in their rather infamous lawsuit, it appears the sides have not come to any settlement, and a new trial will be heard. The case, famously, was the first in which the RIAA actually won, only to have that ruling quickly thrown out after the judge realized he made a "material misstatement of the law" to the jury in suggesting that merely "making files available" should count as copyright infringement (a point of disagreement in different courts right now). There were some other questions concerning certain "misstatements" by execs from the record labels, which could have misled the jury.

While it's good that the judge reconsidered based on the misstatement over "making available," this seems like a case where Thomas probably should have settled. It certainly appears that there is plenty of other evidence that she was, in fact, breaking copyright law. While I think the law is bad and the fines are ridiculous, her chances of winning in court remain slim. Handing the RIAA a case where it has so much evidence on its side doesn't help matters. It's likely that it will win again and will once again use the ruling to tout its ability to win in court. Perhaps the only redeeming factor of such an eventual court ruling is calling additional attention to the ridiculous damages that would be awarded.

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Firefalcon writes "Intel has been fined a record 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion / £948 million) by the European Competition Commission after being found guilty of anti-competitive practices. This makes Microsoft's 497 million euro fine in 2004 (which was a record at the time) seem like a slap on the hand. Reports had previously suggested that the fine would be similar to Microsoft's. Intel was charged (among other things) with encouraging manufacturers and retailers to purchase fewer (or even not stock) AMD processors. More details of the ruling are on the European Commission's Competition website. Intel said they will appeal the fine."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Firefalcon writes "Intel has been fined a record 1.06 billion euros ($1.45 billion / £948 million) by the European Competition Commission after being found guilty of anti-competitive practices. This makes Microsoft's 497 million euro fine in 2004 (which was a record at the time) seem like a slap on the hand. Reports had previously suggested that the fine would be similar to Microsoft's. Intel was charged (among other things) with encouraging manufacturers and retailers to purchase fewer (or even not stock) AMD processors. More details of the ruling are on the European Commission's Competition website. Intel said they will appeal the fine."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Students at Georgia Tech developed this Arduino-based, solar-powered bus-tracking system that shows students where the buses are on campus at any given time so they can decide if it's quicker to wait for the bus or walk to their next class. The site for the system has lots of information and media on the system's construction and implementation.

WaitLess Bus Tracking System

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Hugh Pickens writes "Greece's Data Protection Authority, which has broad powers of enforcement for Greece's strict privacy laws, has banned Google from gathering detailed, street-level images in Greece for a planned expansion of its Street View mapping service, until the company provides clarification on how it will store and process the original images and safeguard them from privacy abuses. The decision comes despite Google's assurances that it would blur faces and vehicle license plates when displaying the images online and that it would promptly respond to removal requests. In most cases, particularly in the US, Google has been able to proceed on grounds that the images it takes are no different from what someone walking down a public street can see and snap. And last month, Britain's privacy watchdog dismissed concerns that Street View was too invasive, saying it was satisfied with such safeguards as obscuring individuals' faces and car license plates. The World Privacy Forum, a US-based nonprofit research and advisory group, said the Greek decision could raise the standard for other countries and help challenge that argument. 'It only takes one country to express a dissenting opinion,' says Pam Dixon, the group's executive director. 'If Greece gets better privacy than the rest of the world then we can demand it for ourselves. That's why it's very important.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

… where no LED has gone before.

Observe the maiden voyage of a tiny space-faring ship. Upon encountering the above-seen "magnetic anomaly" the ship's onboard magnetic reed switch is activated. Chief engineer Origamiwolf explains the ship's schematics -

A resistor is added to each of the red LED branches; this is to limit the current in those branches so that the white LED gets some current as well. Without the resistors, the bulk of the current will flow in the red LED branches (which have less resistance), and the white LED will not light as the current flow through it will be extremely small.

Hmmm … the target appears to be some type of neodymium borg vessel. Refer to Wolf’s Junkyard for further analysis.
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Andrew sez, "The best CBC Radio show is now being podcast - 'The Age of Persuasion' is a half-hour show on advertising. It's been on the radio for a few years, but only recently hit the intar-tubes due to nightmare(ish) licensing requirements. It's often hilarious and always damned interesting as the host - Terry O'Reilly examines the cultural and sociological impact of advertising on modern life."

The Age of Persuasion (Thanks, Andre!)

Here's Markus Weiland's great research report detailing which rights each video-hosting site claims to your material when you upload it. Be sure to click through to see the whole list:

Blip.tv: Appears to claim only those rights needed for running the service and offers users to choose their own license for viewers. States that personal data will only be disclosed where legally required. Located in the State of New York, USA.

Dailymotion: Appears to claim only those rights needed for running the service, however it always offers viewers a license for viewing only. The service is located in France where reasonable data protection laws can be expected, however personal data will nevertheless be disclosed based on "good-faith belief".

Flickr Video (Canada): Claims of content rights appear to be limited to needs for running the service but wording regarding "purpose" leaves some room for interpretation. No attribution for uploaded content can be expected from the service. Personal data is disclosed based on "reasonable belief". Located in province of Ontario, Canada for Canadian users.

Kyte.tv: Claims the right to use uploaded content for advertising its service, including deriving own works from submitted content. Grants viewers the right to derive own content from uploaded videos. Processes personal data in the USA and discloses it in "good faith belief". Service located in State of California, USA.

Owned? Legal terms of video hosting services compared (via Lessig)

Catfish noodling is a fishing technique that involves sticking your arm into a catfish hole and waiting for one of the big monsters to latch onto your arm as it attempts to escape.

Hillbilly Cat Fishing

Okie Noodling: a documentary on catfish noodling (via Kottke)

Jesse Ventura -- former pro-wrestler, Minnesota governor, Navy SEAL -- says that he's ashamed that the US government waterboarded its prisoners, and says that Cheney is a "chickenhawk" who didn't have the guts to fight in Vietnam, but was tough enough to order torture:

It's drowning. It gives you the complete sensation that you are drowning. It is no good, because you -- I'll put it to you this way, you give me a water board, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders...

I don't have a lot of respect for Dick Cheney. Here's a guy who got five deferments from the Vietnam War. Clearly, he's a coward. He wouldn't go when it was his time to go. And now he is a chicken hawk. Now he is this big tough guy who wants this hardcore policy. And he's the guy that sanctioned all this torture by calling it enhanced interrogation.

Jesse Ventura: You Give Me a Water Board, Dick Cheney and One Hour, and I'll Have Him Confess to the Sharon Tate Murders (via Digg)

A blind man flying with his wife from Philadelphia to Belgium (where he works as a translator) was arrested and dragged off the plane when he stood up and demanded to know, after two hours, why they were sitting on the tarmac, with no drinks and no news. The arresting officers didn't let him grab his cane, but rather accused him of faking blindness, then characterized his problems leaving the plane as "resisting." He was imprisoned overnight without being told of his charges, read his rights, or given access to counsel -- and he injured himself while there because he didn't have his cane.

Cantisani said he spoke with the captain, who told him the plane was having mechanical problems. He then returned to his seat.

Shortly afterward, another passenger made a remark about the crew, prompting three Philadelphia Police officers to escort that man off the plane, Cantisani said.

Then, police tried to remove Cantisani as well, he said...

He said the officers yanked Cantisani from his seat and dragged him off the plane, injuring his hand, which was gripping his seat belt . Then they forced him into a wheelchair.

At one point, an officer held him "by the throat," he said..

During the struggle with police, Cantisani said, he lost his retractable walking cane, making him unable to navigate.

Officers told him they had done the "blind test" and didn't believe he was blind, he said.

Vanore said he knew of no "blind test" administered by police.

Blind interpreter detained at Philly airport says he has nightmares from arrest (Thanks, James!)

MAKE subscriber Bryan Zimmer had a cool Bakelite antique telephone and no landline, so he decided to press it into service as a wireless doorbell for his apartment. He writes of the project:

This project combines a battery-operated doorbell, antique phone, Arduino, and subscriber line interface circuit (SLIC) to make a wireless doorbell. Readers are taken through basic phone restoration, creation of a custom doorbell button transmitter, modification of the receiver, workings of the SLIC, and description of the Arduino code. Readers must know how to read a schematic, but soldering and other electronics knowledge are optional. This project will be of interest to those who like to customize their home or office, people who like to repurpose antiques, and those who have been wondering how to ring a phone with an Arduino or other microcontroller.

Doorbell Phone

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If you, like me, think that life is an ongoing learning opportunity and possibly the most interesting part of our lifetime-long journey, you must have already realized how critical it is to be able to think outside of the box when it comes to problem-solving times. Photo credit: felinda While most people associate creativity with artistic work, being really creative really means being able to cope with issues and problems in novel and innovative ways. Of course when you apply that concept to painting or music and the problem is how to create something people like, it seems that such an endeavour is reserved to those communicating and expressing themselves through the arts. But it isn't so. Your plummer can be as creative or more than your favorite rock start or painter, if he can get around unexpected problems and situations in simple, effective and enjoyable ways. What happens in his head when he needs to find a way to solve your unique sink problem is the same process that takes place in a musician's head when she wants to find a better outro after the refrain of her new song. The more you have trained yourself in the habit of thinking creatively the easier and more enjoyable it becomes to face and clear up any type of problem one meets. The more you strengthen your ability to question, imagine, and adapt, the easier it becomes for you to realize that there are no unsolvable problems or lack of new ideas to open a new path. You just need some specific approach that gets you to think outside of your traditional thinking patterns. SCAMPER is a technique you can use to spark your creativity and problem-solving abilities. First conceived by Bob Earle, and later popularized by Michael Michalko in his book Thinkertoys, the SCAMPER method allows anyone to strengthen his ability to question, imagine,and adapt even in situations where it would seem that there are no more creative options available. At its very essence, SCAMPER is a powerful checklist of suggestions that prompts you to think and look at things in different ways. It has been designed to force you to think differently about your problem and to eventually come up with some really innovative solutions. SCAMPER core idea is based on the notion that creative work, original ideas and most everything you define as "new" is nothing else but a remix of something that is already out there. Here my visual interpretation of the SCAMPER creative thinking approach with some of my own very personal suggestions.



Photo credit: Michael Deutch - Go to the article - Download map template

Problem Solving: The SCAMPER Technique

by Robin Good

S - Substitute

Components, materials, people Substitute your typical recipe of ingredients by changing a few ones. Introduce a new guy in the team or let John play the female part this time.

C - Combine

Mix, combine with other assemblies or services, integrate Mashup, juxtapose and bring together elements and resources that can complement or enrich each other in new and novel ways. Like for a cool cocktail drink, selecting and mixing well ingredients can make a hell of difference.

A - Adapt

Alter, change function, use part of another element Think sideways and utilize tools and ideas within new contexts and situations. Use car driving to think, or a drum bell to create a cheap steadycam for your mini camcorder.

M - Mix, Modify

Increase or reduce in scale, change shape, modify attributes (e.g. colour) Look at the micro and macro viewpoints of it or start watching it from an unusual position. Look at it with different eyes.

P - Put to Another Use

Change application, use for different purpose Break the rules and rethink the use and application an object can have. A bottle can be a flower vase just like a dismissed airplane can be a pretty original restaurant (I have been in one and I don't think I am going to ever forget.)

E - Erase / Eliminate

Remove elements, simplify, reduce to core functionality Distill, extract the essence. Take off everything that is not relevant or needed. And then more. That's what I teach when I do information design: eliminate, turn off, mute. Leave only what really counts.

R - RePurpose / ReverseReUse

Turn inside out or upside down Diana Ross would have it this way:

Find More About the SCAMPER Technique:

• SCAMPER Your Way to Success (Angela Maiers)
• SCAMPER Your Way To Success!
• Apply SCAMPER to Your Blogging
• Creative Problem Solving with SCAMPER

Inspired by the work of Bob Earle, Michael Michalko, Angela Maiers and Michael Deutch. Originally written by Robin Good for MasterNewMedia and first published on May 13th, 2009 as "Problem Solving Techniques: Get Your Creative Thinking Juices Flowing By Using The SCAMPER Technique".

Photo credits: S - Substitute - itestro C - Combine - Xiao Fang Hu A - Adapt - dragerphot M - Mix, Modify - Jozsef Szasz-Fabian P - Put to Another Use - Nikolai Sorokin E - Erase / Eliminate - Dariusz Majgier R - RePurpose / ReverseReUse - Tommy Ingberg

This is fascinating. A few weeks back, we noted that a press report in the UK was repeating Nemertes' questionable research on how there was apparently some big bandwidth crunch on the way that would harm the internet. However, someone from Nemertes quickly showed up to claim that the original reporter took their (old) report out of context, and Nemertes wasn't saying what was claimed. However, Zubin Madon, alerts us to the fact that Nemertes' Johna Till Johnson (oddly, without any clear disclaimer that she works for Nemertes) has published a piece at ComputerWorld claiming that, indeed, the internet is running out of bandwidth and that "the Internet sky really is falling." Not only that, but that it's happening even faster than their original estimates?

The proof? Well, there isn't any. She takes two data points (that have nothing to do with actual bandwidth) and extrapolates that we're running out of bandwidth. First, she points out that YouTube was discontinuing servicing certain geographies due to "lack of access capacity." First of all, I'd be interested in some more details on this, because I don't recall seeing the news, and a quick look around isn't turning up much on a story that I would have imagined would have generated a ton of press. Even if it's true, it doesn't seem to support Johnson/Nemertes' point. If YouTube really were pulling out of certain regions due to a lack of access, that would just mean the company is focusing on regions where there is more bandwidth, not that bandwidth is somehow running out. It just means Google is focusing on markets where there's a larger market.

The second data point is Time Warner Cable's weak attempt to try to force metered broadband. However, as the actual research has shown, Time Warner's actions had nothing to do with a bandwidth crunch, and everything to do with simply trying to abuse a market monopoly position to squeeze more money out of customers, even as its own costs were decreasing.

So it's again difficult to take Nemertes' research seriously when these examples are the best it can roll out in support of its position -- especially when Nemertes seemed to step away from its own supposed position just days before Johnson's column.

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I thought this chemistry video by Jen K was really interesting. You may not be able to perform this particular experiment at home since you need access to an Atomic Absorption Spectrometer. However, the video does give an interesting look at how they perform this experiment in the lab.

Mercury is detected in light bulbs by adding various oxidizing reagents to break down organic complexes into mercuric ion. The AAS instrument is then used to give a mercury concentration value.

How to: Detecting mercury in light bulbs

In the Maker Shed:


In the Maker Shed: Chemistry Experiment Kit 3000

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Here is another great project from Che-Wei Wang. This time he isn't counting to a billion, but instead he is monitoring your Galvanic skin response. It looks fairly simple to construct, and the code is available from his web site.

Galvanic skin response readings are simply the measurement of electrical resistance through the body. Two leads are attached to two fingertips. One lead sends current while the other measures the difference. This setup measures GSR every 50 milliseconds.

This processing sketch samples your galvanic skin response readings every 50 milliseconds and draws the corresponding graph. Peaks and valleys are highlighted and an average line is drawn to make the GSR readings more legible.

More about Galvanic skin response readings via Arduino

In the Maker Shed:


In the Maker Shed: Truth Wristband Kit

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Romenesko is running an interesting memo from newspaper publisher Media News on its plans to adapt to the internet era (a bit late for that, right?). There are some interesting suggestions in there, but what struck me is how Media News is trying to make its online property both more valuable on the one hand, and less valuable on the other. It talks about taking away content from the online site and forcing people to buy newspapers:

We will begin to move away from putting all of our newspaper content online for free. Instead, we will explore a variety of premium offerings that apply real value to our print content. We are not trying to invent new premium products, but instead tell our existing print readers that what they are buying has real value, and to our online audience (who don’t buy the print edition), that if you want access to all online content, you are going to have to register, and/or pay.

Note the problem? It's in that third sentence, where Media News claims it's going to tell users that print newspapers have value. Commerce doesn't work that way. You don't tell your customers what has value, they tell you. All you can do is focus on providing more value. So, this first step seems to be a mistake. It's taking away value from the online property in an effort to try to convince people that the paper has more value, rather than actually increasing the value of the product.

Separately, however, the organization is looking to provide more tools and value online -- recognizing that their online site is not just "the newspaper on the web," but that it allows totally new things to occur -- including more detailed local information and community-enabling tools. That's good... but considering the talk of locking up other content, it makes you wonder how far Media News will actually go. It sounds like they're trying to do two contradicting things at once -- which seems likely to make sure the more important one (providing more value) fails.

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The BBC is reporting on minor damage to the space shuttle Atlantis revealed by a 10-hour inspection in orbit. On the shuttle's right side, near where the wing joins the body, inspection revealed a 21" (53cm) line of chips in the tiles that make up the vehicle's heat shield. "...more analysis by engineers would determine whether a 'focused inspection' was needed in that specific area. If so, astronauts would use sensors to determine the exact depth of the damage to the heat shield tiles. NASA has placed the space shuttle Endeavour on stand-by to rescue the crew of Atlantis if they are endangered." The crew couldn't shelter on the ISS in case of trouble, because their orbit is higher and on a different inclination.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A note to all the stupid criminals out there: when making a purchase with a forged check, you're probably better off not using your local FBI office as the delivery point for the goods you're trying to scam. That's what a mastermind in Monroe, La., did recently, giving the feds' address for a shipment of cell phones he wanted to receive. The firm he "bought" the phones from noticed something fishy when the guy paid with a "cahier's check" (as opposed to a cashier's check), and they called the authorities, who later found the guy trying to flag down a delivery driver outside the FBI office. Sometimes, you have to wonder, do these people just want to get caught?

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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The crisis in Guatemala sparked by an assassinated attorney's final words -- captured on YouTube -- continues to expand online and in the streets.

Above, a protest poster distributed on Twitter in posts marked with the hashtag #escandalogt (short for "Guatemalan Scandal," for those who don't read Spanish).

The poster reads: I WILL NOT BE AFRAID TO GO OUT INTO THE STREETS, DEFEND MY LIBERTY, UPHOLD THE LAW, DEMAND JUSTICE, I WILL NOT BE AFRAID TO LIVE IN MY HOMELAND AND CHANGE ITS FUTURE.... GUATEMALA, I WILL NOT ABANDON YOU.

Inset above, a photo taken on Sunday: a worker guards the body of Rodrigo Rosenberg just after he was shot by gunmen in Guatemala City.

In the posthumously-released video, Rosenberg said he feared he would be assasinated, and that if he were, those responsible would be operating at the orders of Guatemalan president Álvaro Colom.

Prensa Libre reports that Facebook is now being used by Guatemalans calling for Colom's impeachment and trial. Organizers are spreading word on Twitter and various social networking sites to gather for a second day of protests, tomorrow, Wednesday May 13. Snip from article, with my rough translation from Spanish:

En el portal de Facebook se puede leer el enunciado de un usuario: "Hoy solo fue una pequeña muestra. Mañana con más fuerza y mientras más personas lleguemos mejor aún!!!! Manifestemos Todos!!! Mañana somos más!!!, se lee en otro.

On Facebook one can read the declaration of a user who says, 'Today's demonstrations were only a small example, tomorrow with more strength and even more people we will achieve more still! Everyone, Protest! And, 'Tomorrow, there will be more of us,' says another user.

Here is one of many Facebook groups calling for Colom's resignation and trial.

The Wall Street Journal has a report up here. Colom was interviewed on CNN en Español today, and a transcript is here. Here's an AP item from today, here's a NYT item.

I'm hearing anecdotal reports on Twitter and elsewhere that account holders at Banrural, the Guatemalan bank at the heart of this scandal, are withdrawing all their cash from the institution and causing a growing liquidation panic that threatens to further destabilize the already teetering country.

Previously
- Guatemala: Protests for Assassinated Lawyer Streamed Live from Laptops in the Streets
- In YouTube Video Shot Before His Death, Attorney Blames President for His Assasination

ChelleChelle writes "This article examines the limitations of the sockets API. The Internet and the networking world in general have changed in very significant ways since the sockets API was first developed in 1982, but the API has had the effect of narrowing the ways in which developers think about and write networked applications. This article discusses the history as well as the future of the sockets API, focusing on how 'high bandwidth, low latency, and multihoming are driving the development of new alternatives.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Youtuber longjie0723 made his Roomba into Pacman with 448 yellow LEDs. Looks great! Via BBG.

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Before getting to the meat of this post, let me start out by saying that I don't believe that there's some sort of "competition" between professional journalists and community-driven journalism. I think they need to work well together. That said, I find it silly when the professional journalists insist that "citizen journalism" can't do certain things well. The same could be said for professional journalists as well. In fact, we've noted how professional journalists often fall into a form of journalistic capture, in that they know they need access and quotes in the future from certain sources, and thus reporters will often self-censor stories to maintain relationships with their sources.

However, as some are noticing, that isn't necessarily the case with community-driven journalism where the story is more important than the access. It's discussed in this writeup of how Condoleeza Rice was asked a series of detailed questions that the big name newspaper journalists had avoided (found via Jay Rose):

Why is citizen journalism like this so powerful? I think one answer is that citizen journalists don't have to worry about their future careers as journalists nearly as much as the professional journalists do. In other words, professional journalists frequently have to worry about access. They don't want to anger public officials and powerful people too much by being too aggressive, because they know that if they cross certain lines these people will stop talking to them. For instance, I saw Andrea Mitchell on Hardball the other night, and she was making a very implausible argument that Rice's statement was not a "Frost/Nixon" moment. It seemed pretty clear to me that Mitchell was trying to stay on Rice's good side. But citizen journalists don't have this problem because we're not worried about future access. We have the opportunity to be as aggressive as we want. After all, there probably isn't going to be any possibility of future access anyway.

Now, it's fair to say that the opposite point may be true too. I'm sure professional journalists will point out that "amateurs" who are given access for the first time may be so in awe that they are tamed and fail to follow through on a story. And, that's possible as well. But the idea that the "amateurs" can't chase down a story is being proven untrue over and over and over again.

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bfire writes "McDonalds has earmarked potential changes to seating plans in some restaurants to prevent free Wi-Fi users from monopolizing seating, particularly in peak periods. The availability of Wi-Fi means people are now spending 35 minutes in McDonalds — rather than the average ten minutes that patrons used to spend eating there. But it appears not everyone is happy with the increased 'stickiness' of customers, with some licensees in Australia reporting that Wi-Fi users aren't turning over seats fast enough. The restaurant chain is considering options including space demarcation to deal with the problem."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few years ago, we wrote about the odd (and somewhat amusing) case of a group of fraudsters in China who didn't just build knockoff NEC products, but created an entirely fake version of NEC in China. Yes, they set themselves up as if they were a legitimate division of NEC, but had nothing to do with the company (other than producing knockoff NEC gear). That was corporate identity fraud taken to an extreme level, but it seems like others are starting to jump into corporate identify fraud in a way quite similar to personal identify fraud. Michael Scott points us to a story about some scammers in West Virginia who took on the identity of various vendors to the state, and were able to scam $2 million out of the state before the scam was exposed. While the article calls this a "rare" occurrence, I'd be willing to bet that it's going to become a lot more common. For scammers looking for a big score, taking on a corporate identity rather than an individual's seems likely to get you into higher dollar amounts much more quickly...

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You may have heard about the French Assembly passing Sarkozy's mad "three-strikes" bill, which will allow big media companies to force ISPs to disconnect you by accusing you of copyright infringement (without even having to produce proof). Jeremie Zimmermann, a leading French activist opposed to the bill, has a good analysis of the problems it will face, even having passed:

* HADOPI is legally dead because it opposes to fundamental principles of French and European law, including the respect of a fair trial, principle of proportionality and separation of powers. European Parliament has also for the 4th time recalled its opposition to the French text by voting again amendment 138/464, thus voiding the French HADOPI. The law is also not respecting requirements of French constitution regarding a due process, equality in front of the law, and legality of the law, which the Constitutional Court will now have to judge.

* HADOPI is technically dead because it entirely relies on identifying users through their IP address that can be altered or high-jacked in many ways 5. As a consequence, innocents will inevitably be sanctioned. Circumvention techniques are also already largely available.

* HADOPI is dead in the media because government's propaganda didn't stand for long under close scrutiny from citizens over the net6 and to the aware consideration of a few critical elected representatives.7. A fantastic movement opposing the text allowed public debate to interfere in every possible part of the French web about the real stakes of the funding of creation in the digital age. Today, 60% of the French reject this text according to an IFOP poll8 (33% only agree to the scheme) and a wide opposition includes independent movie theaters, hundreds of independent labels, science-fiction authors and performing artists.

* Finally, HADOPI is dead politically, right in the middle of an "Hadopigate " revealing unhealthy collusion between Minister of culture and big media close to the president Sarkozy, everybody within the majority already understood that this text is a ball and chain they will have to drag along for a long time.

Solemn burial for HADOPI in French National Assembly

notthepainter notes the passing of the woman who, as an 11-year-old-girl, named Pluto. "Frozen and lonely, Planet X circled the far reaches of the solar system awaiting discovery and a name. It got one thanks to an 11-year-old British girl named Venetia Burney, an enthusiast of the planets and classical myth. On March 14, 1930, the day newspapers reported that the long-suspected 'trans-Neptunian body' had been photographed for the first time, she proposed to her well-connected grandfather that it be named Pluto, after the Roman god of the underworld. Venetia Phair, as she became by marriage, died April 30 in her home in Banstead, in the county of Surrey, England. She was 90. ... More vexing to Mrs. Phair was the persistent notion that she had taken the name from the Disney character. 'It has now been satisfactorily proven that the dog was named after the planet, rather than the other way around,' she told the BBC. 'So, one is vindicated.' " Venetia's great-uncle Henry, who was a housemaster at Eton, had successfully proposed that the two dwarf moons of Mars be named Phobos and Deimos.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few years ago, there was a lot of attention paid to the question of whether or not software developers should be liable for bugs and security holes found in their software -- with some even suggesting that "lemon laws" should be extended to cover software products, allowing people to return software that was excessively buggy. In a 2005 discussion on the subject, we suggested that adding such liability wouldn't do much good, because software will pretty much always be buggy in some form or another. While we hadn't heard much on the issue lately, it appears that it's back up for debate in Europe, where the European Commission wants to make developers liable for buggy code.

What's really odd here is the reasoning being given, as one of the commissioners backing the plan claims: "more accountability for software makers, and for companies providing digital services, would lead to greater consumer choice." Really? Increasing liability would increase consumer choice? Somehow I doubt it.

While I can understand the argument that buggy software is bad, and it sucks when people buy something that is less than promised, it's difficult to see what a law can do to fix it. This really does seem like a case where the market is better suited to fix the problem. If you build a buggy product, that is just an opening for someone else to build a better product.

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I'm reading various reports on Google's announcments about search today, and it sounds scattered and totally uninspiring. And I might add, disappointing.

Google is today a big company, and it seems to lack the resolve to go into middle age with any passion. If ever there was a time to show some exciting new features for search, this was it -- and none of it was in any way exciting.

When Google came along, the CEOs of the existing search companies didn't pay imuch attention. They probably didn't understand what was so exciting about Google. It was very much like the way the leaders of the minicomputer industry reacted to the early PC, at first dismissive, then with arrogance. Their products seemed to assume they would overcome the challenge, and none of them did. The only one to make the transition was IBM, and then a few years later they would try to lock in the users, and finally lose out to the new companies that had cloned their products.

Twitter is that kind of generational challenge to Google. They have no choice but the same one IBM had with the Apple II, and Microsoft had with Netscape. They must compete, with a respectful product, one that is compatible with Twitter, and gives users a benefit of coming from a strong mature company. The time for this product is passing every week, as Twitter stabilizes and delivers a reliable service. Google's clone should have come out last summer when Twitter was having trouble keeping their servers up.

If I could talk to the management at Google, I would tell them to stop everything, go away for a week, and learn how to use Twitter, yourself. Get an inkling of what is so exciting and different about it. You can't get the gestalt by looking at the features, you have to see how people are using it and who they are. It's not about Oprah or Ashton Kutcher, it's about the Deputy Prime Minister of Iraq, and a hundred NY Times reporters who are breaking their company's rules by using Twitter the way bloggers were telling them to use the web. Twitter is in many ways the realization of the full promise made by blogging so many years ago. It's really exciting to see it come to fruition, but it's also depressing that it's all happening inside one company's environment. I don't honestly think it can work that way.

Google! You can't afford to stay on the sidelines. It's an urgent issue for your company. And pretty soon it won't be an issue at all.

When Netscape came along in 1994, I wrote a blistering piece about how the Internet had made Microsoft irrelevant. Bill Gates wrote back asking if this meant they'd sell any fewer Flight Simulators or CD-ROM encyclopedias. That wasn't the point. Google's search revenue won't feel the rise of Twitter for many more quarters. But the place people turn to for news is shifting. It never was Google, that wasn't something it ever did well. But it is something Twitter does, and at this point it doesn't do it very well. But the path is very clear, the information they need now flows through their servers. They just have to figure out the user interface. They will eventually figure it out. That's the half of the problem that Google already knows how to solve. But Google doesn't have the users. None of its products have the kind of flow that Twitter has, nor the growth that Twitter has. That's what Google has to get busy building. Once Twitter is delivering the news search that Google can't, it will be way too late. This is probably what the Google management doesn't understand because they aren't using Twitter themselves. And if they're like most other big companies, their employees don't want to tell them what they're missing, assuming they know.

To Gates's credit, a few weeks after his lame excuse, he figured it out, and had his famous December analyst meeting where he outlined how he would attack the Internet. Unfortunately for all of us, but especially Netscape, an attack wasn't what was needed, support and love from a mature leader would have worked much better. But at least he woke up. There's no sign at all that Google is aware of the challenge.

Back in the early days of the net Stewart Alsop would write these open letters to Bill Gates and Jim Manzi telling them what they were missing. I guess for Google in 2009, that job has fallen to me.

There's a bunch of buzz around a recent interview with Sony's CEO Howard Stringer, where he admits that Sony should have gone with an "open" music solution from early on, and if it had done so, how it could have "beaten Apple." Sure, those sorts of quotes sound great... but it's action that matters.

Because... it was nearly four and a half years ago when we wrote about top Sony exec Ken Kutaragi saying almost the exact same thing. He talked about how Sony made a huge mistake focusing on proprietary formats and DRM and how the company was going to change and focus on more open and free solutions rather than limited DRM-encumbered solutions.

And what happened?

Not much. Sony kept DRM with things like ATRAC for three more years and continued to use DRM in a variety of different settings, including the very famous case of Sony subsidiary Sony BMG putting rootkit DRM on music CDs (which occurred months after Kutaragi's original point that Sony needed to move away from DRM).

So... consider us skeptical that Stringer's comments are meaningful. We've heard it before. If the company really is embracing a more open solution, it's time to show people, not just speak about it.

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