GhostX9 writes "Tom's Hardware has a long interview with security expert Joanna Rutkowska (which is unfortunately split over 9 pages). Many think that kernel rootkits are the most dangerous attacks, but Joanna and her team have been studying exploits beyond Ring 0 for some years. Joanna is most well known for the BluePill virtualization attack (Ring -1) and in this interview she chats a little bit about Ring -2 and Ring -3 attacks that go beyond kernel rootkits. What's surprising is how robust the classic BluePill proof-of-concept is: 'Many people tried to prove that BluePill is "detectable" by writing various virtualization detectors (but not BluePill detectors). They simply assumed that if we detect a virtualization being used, this means that we are "under" BluePill. This assumption was made because there were no products using hardware virtualization a few years ago. Needless to say, if we followed this way of reasoning, we might similarly say that if an executable makes network connections, then it must surely be a botnet.'" Rutkowska says that for her own security, "I don't use any A/V product on any of my machines (including all the virtual machines). I don't see how an A/V program could offer any increased security over the quite-reasonable-setup I already deployed with the help of virtualization." She runs three separate virtual machines, designated Red, Yellow, and Green, each running a separate browser and used for increasingly sensitive tasks.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Peace Corps Online writes "BBC reports that Brazilian authorities are demanding the return of more than 1,400 tons of hazardous British waste found in about 90 shipping containers on three Brazilian docks. The waste, which includes syringes, condoms, and bags of blood has been identified as being of UK origin from the names of British supermarkets and newspapers among the rubbish. Reports in the UK media say the waste was sent from Felixstowe in eastern England to the port of Santos, near Sao Paulo, and two other ports in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul. The British government has launched an investigation into how and why the waste was sent to Brazil and the British Embassy in Brazil has said in a statement that it was investigating and would 'not hesitate to act' if it was found that a UK company had violated the Basel Convention on the movement of hazardous waste. Meanwhile Brazil is demanding the immediate return of the rubbish to the UK. 'We will ask for the repatriation of this garbage,' says Roberto Messias, head of the Brazilian environment agency. 'Clearly, Brazil is not a big rubbish dump of the world.'" Two UK companies named by Brazil as suspected exporters of the waste are owned by a Brazilian, based in the UK, who says that anything that was in the containers other than the expected recyclable plastic is a problem to take up with his suppliers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Start to finish photoset of how computer processors are made (from Intel)... and AMD has a video...

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It's summer and all I want to do these days is relax with a fizzy beverage, but I can't stand too-sweet soft drinks! In this CRAFT Video, I show you how easy it is to make your own soda at home, and it's inexpensive, too! I use brewer's yeast to produce carbon dioxide, and whatever flavors come to the imagination. In the video I used honey, green tea, strawberries, and grated ginger, but you can use any combination of fruits, juices, fresh herbs, and sweeteners that you like. Thanks to Matt Mets for the tea recipe inspiration.

Subscribe to CRAFT in iTunes or download the m4v video.

Check out the complete tutorial with recipe ideas over on CRAFT.

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Must be summertime, as online publications turn to the contemplation of Internet dating. The NY Times's piece (registration may be required) takes a not particularly deep look at the reality behind the "science" claims of chemistry.com, eHarmony.com, and others. "The question is how much it really matters to users if the methods have any scientific basis. A friend of mine... said she looked at several dating sites and chose the ones that looked like they had 'the least riffraff.'" Technology Review focuses on studies showing that the overwhelming number of choices presented by many dating sites can be counterproductive: "...more search options lead to less selective processing by reducing users' cognitive resources, distracting them with irrelevant information, and reducing their ability to screen out inferior options." The article concludes with a look at the startup Omnidate, which offers technology for 3D virtual dating. The site has had twice as many women (by percentage) sign up as the other dating sites typically see.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "James Boyle has a blog post comparing the recording industry's arguments in 1909 to those of 2009, with some lovely Google book links to the originals. Favorite quote: 'Many and numerous classes of public benefactors continue ceaselessly to pour forth their flood of useful ideas, adding to the common stock of knowledge. No one regards it as immoral or unethical to use these ideas and their authors do not suffer themselves to be paraded by sordid interests before legislative committees uttering bombastic speeches about their rights and representing themselves as the objects of "theft" and "piracy."' Industry flaks were more impressive 100 years ago. In that debate the recording industry was the upstart, battling the entrenched power of the publishers of musical scores. Also check out the cameo appearance by John Philip Sousa, comparing sound recordings to slavery. Ironically, among the subjects mentioned as clearly not the subject of property rights were business methods and seed varieties." Boyle concludes: "...one looks back at these transcripts and compares them to today's hearings — with vacuous rantings from celebrities and the bloviation of bad economics and worse legal theory from one industry representative after another — it is hard not to feel a sense of nostalgia.In 1900, it appears, we were better at understanding that copyright was a law that regulated technology, a law with constitutional restraints, that property rights were not absolute and that the public would not automatically be served by extending rights out to infinity."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(Ed. Note: We recently gave the Boing Boing Video website a makeover that includes a new, guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. I'll be posting periodic roundups here on the motherBoing.)

---

More @BBVBOX: boingboingvideo.com

R. Dobbs writes "Microsoft has reportedly drastically reduced the amount of indie titles it's going to allow on its Live Arcade service — but no such limits have been placed on material from major publishers. Have the publishers themselves been pushing this agenda? And what will it mean for indies? Quoting: 'More and more indie developers are being created, bucking the trend of working for the blockbuster-sized titles of many publishers and opting to control their own development and keep their IPs. This is likely becoming more and more of a concern to major publishers, who seem — especially in ZeniMax's recent purchase of id Software and EA's combination of Bioware and Mythic, as well as Warner Bros. purchase of Midway's IPs and studios — to be doing everything they can to consolidate their power and lock down all the available resources.' When questioned, Microsoft released a statement saying that they're 'a great supporter of independent game development.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tiger4 writes "A group of black Philadelphia police officers have filed a lawsuit against the police department and the city, alleging a hostile work environment due to a private website popular with police. Their story has received wide coverage. From CNN: 'The suit alleges white officers post on and moderate the privately operated site, Domelights.com, both on and off the job. Domelights' users "often joke about the racially offensive commentary on the site ... or will mention them in front of black police officers," thus creating "a racially hostile work environment," according to lawyers for the all-black Guardian Civic League, the lead plaintiff in the suit.' The site appears to be owned and operated by a member of the police force, but it is not funded or operated by the city. Management clearly knows it exists; it is possible police force members access it on the job, and the suit says some of them reference it on the job. Individual police force members have a right to their own opinions, but management has a responsibility to enforce the law fairly and equitably across the city and among their own workforce. What is the solution here?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We are about to wrap up our first dog days of summer deal in the Maker Shed. I really like the Brain Machine kit and at 30% off it's a great deal! Next week we will feature a new "dog days" kit, and a new bundle for our series of MAKEcation summer challenges!

Please note: My dog is a highly trained electrical engineer, stunt-dog, and chemist. Please don't use the Brain Machine on your average k-9. Thanks!

The Brain machine in the picture above is a heavily modified version, with some extra components. You can learn how to hack your Brain Machine here.

More about the Brain Machine on sale now in the Maker Shed

Related:

Build: Hacking the Brain Machine

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phantomfive writes "Red Hat has made it onto the S&P 500, an important measure of the stock market. It is replacing CIT, which is expected to go bankrupt after the government refused to bail them out. Red Hat is the first Linux company to make it on to the S&P 500. While this means little directly for the company, it is an indication of the importance Linux is taking on in the world."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Avi sez, "The Air & Space Museum in DC now hosts a comprehensive exhibition of Apollo 12 astronaut Alan Bean's artistic record of the Moon voyages. The museum has released high resolutions scans of two of Bean's amazing portraits of Armstrong and Aldrin."

Armstrong portrait

Aldrin portrait (Thanks, Avi!)

Best Made Axes are designer axes made to last lifetimes, and to look good in "every high-rise condo, luxury office, executive suite, ranch house, and farmstead."

Best Made Axe (via Cribcandy)

Oscar Diaz's Ink Calendar uses capillary action to suck ink across the numbers embossed on the page, one day at a time, gradually coloring itself in over the month. So cool.

Ink Calendar by Oscar Diaz (via Cribcandy)

Flickr user Arenamontanus has a great collection of 21st century warning signs that would make the world a much better place.

Warning Signs (via Beyond the Beyond)

Instant Color Schemes uses Yahoo Images generate your colors: "Enter a word or phrase and I'll grab 5 related images from Yahoo Images, and get the 6 most prominent colors from each."

Instant Color Schemes (via Beyond the Beyond)

British cops spotted a Facebook message from a small-town guy who announced an "all-night" party at his house -- a BBQ to celebrate his birthday -- and so they scrambled an armed, helicopter-borne Delta force in body armor to break up the event under Britain's Draconian anti-rave laws. The party had 15 people at it, eating hamburgers. They hadn't put on any music. The police claim that sending out the chopper and the goon squad saved money, compared to what it would have cost to break it up if it had turned into a full-blown, multi-thousand person rave.

The event was closed down under section 63 of the Criminal justice and Public Order Act 1994.

"We were nowhere near anyone, we weren't even playing any music," he said. "What effectively the police did was come in and stop 15 people eating burgers..."

A police spokeswoman said the helicopter was deployed for less than 20 minutes at a cost of about £200...

"On this occasion, we were extremely concerned how the event had been advertised on the internet as an all-night party and it was therefore necessary to take the appropriate steps.

"Had it gone ahead, it is likely that far more of our resources would have been used to police the event and there would have been considerable disruption to neighbouring properties.

Police helicopter sent to 'rave' (via /.)

Learning generates a brain reward:

This preference for knowledge about the future was intimately linked to the monkeys' desire for water. The same neurons in the middle of their brains signalled their expectations of both rewards - the watery prizes and knowledge about them.

All the neurons in question release the signalling chemical dopamine. While the monkeys were making their choices, Bromberg-Martin and Hikosaka recorded the activity of 47 dopamine neurons in their midbrains. These neurons became very excited when the monkeys saw a symbol that predicted a large amount of water, while the symbol that cued a smaller drink inhibited the neurons. The same dopamine neurons were excited during trials where the monkey only saw the symbol that heralded forthcoming information, and they were inhibited if they monkey only saw the other non-informative symbol.

Why information is its own reward - same neurons signal thirst for water, knowledge (via Raph Koster)

Some South African ATMs have pepper-spray squirters that are intended to debilitate anyone who tries to tamper with them or install a card-skimmer. The idea is that spray incapacitates you while the cops come out. Unfortunately, they've also been known to incapacitate the poor bastards who install them by randomly firing capsaicin at them.

The extreme measure is the latest in South Africa's escalating war against armed robbers who target banks and cash delivery vans. The number of cash machines blown up with explosives has risen from 54 in 2006 to 387 in 2007 and nearly 500 last year.

The technology uses cameras to detect people tampering with the card slots. Another machine then ejects pepper spray to stun the culprit while police response teams race to the scene.

But the mechanism backfired in one incident last week when pepper spray was inadvertently inhaled by three technicians who required treatment from paramedics.

Pepper-spray defence means South Africa robbers face loss of balance at cash machines (via Schneier)

For about a month now, Congress and the FCC have been investigating the exclusivity deals between mobile carriers and phone makers which require that certain handsets only operate on certain networks (for example, the iPhone on AT&T). Now, Verizon has volunteered a compromise to Rep. Rick Boucher (D-VA), chairman of the House Energy Subcommittee on Communications, Technology and the Internet, which would allow smaller carriers access to the restricted phones after a six-month delay, while continuing to block the major carriers. "From now on, when Verizon strikes a deal with a manufacturer for exclusive access to a handset, it will allow the phone be sold after six months to any carrier with fewer than 500,000 customers." In a letter to Boucher, Verizon said, "Exclusivity arrangements promote competition and innovation in device development and design. We work closely with our vendors to develop new and exciting devices that will attract customers. When we procure exclusive handsets from our vendors we typically buy hundreds of thousands or even millions of each device. Otherwise manufacturers may be reluctant to make the investments of time, money and production capacity to support a particular device." Many remain unimpressed by Verizon's generosity.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Michael_Curator writes "Despite what you've heard, the online version of Office 2010 announced by Microsoft earlier this week won't be free to corporate users. Business customers will either have to pay a subscription fee or purchase corporate access licenses (CALs) for Office in order to be given access to the online application suite (Microsoft already does this with email — the infamous Outlook Web Access). But wait — there's more! A Microsoft spokesperson told me that customers will need to buy a SharePoint server, which ranges from $4,400 plus CALs, or $41,000 with all CALs included, if they want to share documents created using the online version of Office 2010."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trailrunner7 writes "A new flaw in the latest release of the Linux kernel gives attackers the ability to exploit NULL pointer dereferences and bypass the protections of SELinux, AppArmor and the Linux Security Module. Brad Spengler discovered the vulnerability and found a reliable way to exploit it, giving him complete control of the remote machine. This is somewhat similar to the magic that Mark Dowd performed last year to exploit Adobe Flash. Threatpost.com reports: 'The vulnerability is in the 2.6.30 release of the Linux kernel, and in a message to the Daily Dave mailing list Spengler said that he was able to exploit the flaw, which at first glance seemed unexploitable. He said that he was able to defeat the protection against exploiting NULL pointer dereferences on systems running SELinux and those running typical Linux implementations.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CWmike writes "They sometimes call national security the third rail of politics. Touch it and, politically, you're dead. The cliché doesn't seem far off the mark after reading Mark Klein's new book, Wiring up the Big Brother Machine ... and Fighting It. It's an account of his experiences as the whistleblower who exposed a secret room at a Folsom Street facility in San Francisco that was apparently used to monitor the Internet communications of ordinary Americans. Amazingly, however, nobody wanted to hear his story. In his book he talks about meetings with reporters and privacy groups that went nowhere until a fateful January 20, 2006 meeting with Kevin Bankston of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). Bankston was preparing a lawsuit that he hoped would put a stop to the wiretap program, and Klein was just the kind of witness the EFF was looking for. He spoke with Robert McMillan for an interview."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The other night I checked out the volunteer night at Bikes Not Bombs in Jamaica Plain Boston. At the end of the night, there were about a dozen volunteers working together to "flatten bikes" so they could be efficiently shipped to Ghana in West Africa. The crowd was mostly young adults with a balance of men and women.

Get your hands dirty with a wrench, flattening bikes to prepare them for international shipment, stripping bikes for parts, or sorting used parts.

Another great opportunity they offer is the Earn A Bike program, where young people can choose a bicycle they'd like to own, and then set out to learn their way to ownership. The youth attend a series of classes to raise their awareness of safety and bicycles and also learn how to disassemble, repair, and tune bikes, using their chosen bike as the focus of much of their work.

On Saturday, Bikes Not Bombs is packing up a shipping container headed to Ghana. They expect to pack about 450 bikes and a load of tires, inner tubes, parts, and other sundries for the Village Bicycle Project, which uses the bikes to help develop income-generating activities. The VBP also has an initiative based on a similar model to the Earn A Bike program.

Check out some of these other Make: Online pieces on similar topics:


Amy Smith and the low-tech solution
Pedaling forward with Maya Pedal
Maker Faire Africa, August 14-16, in Accra, Ghana
12 steps with Paul Polak
Creating solutions - Worldbike

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As new and old media pervade so many aspects of our lives, it is very important that everyone learns to decode and interpret messages and images and to ask critical questions about who is creating them and for what purpose. Photo credit: Nancy White Inside this Media Literacy Digest:

• Addressing Problems of Faculty Resistance - James Morrison tackles the topic encouraging faculty to expand their range of instructional strategies and increase utilization of technology in the process.
• Social Media Guidelines - Organizations have to tell their employees how to use social media.
• Tools and Our Brain - Norman Doidge, in his text The Brain that Changes Itself, provides many compelling examples of how technology, tools, and experiences can substantially rewire the human brain in a short period of time.
• Social Media and Social Divisions - Does the internet - social media in particular - act as a unifier? Apparently not, according to several researchers.
• That Brain of Ours - Researchers are in the early stages of understanding the dynamics of the human brain.
• Consumer Voices - Trends can build and develop for long periods of time without significantly impacting status quo.
• Five Ways To Run a Deadly Online Seminar - Alan Levine reflects on his experience attending an online seminar:

New media technologies are the new means to explore, study, research, experiment and discover. Understanding and making sense of how these new communication tools work, allows everyone to communicate more effectively and to develop the new job skills required in our information economy. Here all the details:

eLearning Resources and News

learning, networks, knowledge, technology, trends by George Siemens

Addressing Problems of Faculty Resistance

James Morrison tackles the topic encouraging faculty to expand their range of instructional strategies and increase utilization of technology in the process. A great discussion follows the original post. Obviously, you don’t need technology to be a provide a great learning experience. Creative, engaging, and participatory learning is an educational mindset, not something that requires blogs, wikis, Second Life, and podcasts. What technology does, however, is expand the range of options for interaction. Classroom walls give way to global connections. Single educator models are replaced with distributed networks. A bit utopian? Perhaps. But, once control shifts to a network of learners, the prospect arises for the creativity that exists in open source software and with application developers (i.e. iPhone, Facebook) can be applied to education.

Social Media Guidelines

You’d think that certain things are obvious and don’t need to be explained. For example, a company like Intel deals with pretty cutting edge technology. This requires some fairly intelligent people. Apparently, even then, organizations have to tell their employees how to use social media:

“These are the official guidelines for social media at Intel. If you’re an Intel employee or contractor creating or contributing to blogs, wikis, social networks, virtual worlds, or any other kind of social media both on and off intel.com - these guidelines are for you.”

Tools and Our Brain

We often hear about how technology doesn’t change the brain. Or, at least that technology doesn’t impact how we think in the short term. Evolution, we are told, takes much, much longer. This argument then forms the basis for treating technology only as a tool - something that we use and select for particular tasks (for a review of the differing views of technology, see Heather Kanuka’s excellent article(.pdf) on the subject). Norman Doidge, in his text The Brain that Changes Itself, provides many compelling examples of how technology, tools, and experiences can substantially rewire the human brain in a short period of time. While we may disagree about the impact of technology on humanity, it is difficult to argue that technology does not alter mental functioning. Computers, mobile phones, and web search form the basis of a network of and for cognition. Consider this study of how tools become part of the body. We have a reciprocal relationship with tools: we use them, they change us. As McLuhan stated: first we shape the tools, thereafter the tools shape us.

Social Media and Social Divisions

Does the internet - social media in particular - act as a unifier? Apparently not, according to several researchers. Instead, social media amplifies existing social structures. Or, as Danah Boyd states, “pervasive social stratification is being reified in a new era”. Technology doesn’t (immediately) alter human nature. It provides new views (mirrors) for seeing what we are. The desire to associate with people who share our beliefs, values, and economic conditions, migrates to new social spaces - digital or physical.

That Brain of Ours

Researchers are in the early stages of understanding the dynamics of the human brain. Discoveries (interesting word - how do constructivists respond to the notion of discovery?) to date are causing shifts in views in fields like law and the legal code. If I commit a crime, and it is due to a brain lesion or a developmental disability, should I still be punished as if though it was a free will choice? What I find most interesting in developments in neuroscience is the growing understanding of the brain as a complex system and knowledge / thought as connection-forming and patterning (we had a short discussion of the support neuroscience offers for connectivism during CCK08 last year). Two resources on this topic:

1. How chaos drives the brain - a short, but intriguing video of patterns (waves) of thought activity.
2. Olaf Sporns presentation from 2007 where he discusses the brain as a complex systems that produces networks configurations often noted in sociology and mathematics (i.e. small world phenomena).

Consumer Voices

Trends can build and develop for long periods of time without significantly impacting status quo. Periodically, the trends coalesce and offer an expression of the nature of change. YouTube, for example, has had moments where it exerts its growing influence on existing political discourse (US presidential elections) and entertainment (pick any of the dozens of YouTube-created celebrities). Occasionally, an example of the depth of the power shift from The One to The Many arises. Dave Carroll’s damaged guitar, at the hands of United Airlines, resulted in this music video. Approaching 500,000 views, it has become an embarrassment to United and a rallying cry for frustrated travelers. The appeal of this video is largely based in the shared experience of suffering indignity and of “voice-less-ness” when dealing with large corporations. There is in this video, I think, as sense of expression given to our collective feelings of being powerless... followed by a sense (hope?) of the ability for emerging media to alter power relationships.

Five Ways To Run a Deadly Online Seminar

Alan Levine reflects on his experience attending an online seminar:

“I recently felt like this wistful gal during a recent online seminar- isolated, lonely, and wishing to go outside and play. With nose-diving budgets and more work moving online, it’s time to raise the bar on how we run online events. Like a horrendously designed PowerPoint, no one sets out with a plan of creating a deadly dull online seminar, but they seem to happen often enough.”

The move to online meetings parallels the experiences I had in the late 90’s/early 00’s with teaching online. The initial assumption is “no problem, I know my stuff. I can teach this online”. But, the online medium is different from face-to-face - different orientation points, cues, distractions, etc. As with teaching and learning, the goal is to transform the experience for the environment, not merely transfer it. On a side note, Alan delivered an exceptional presentation at ED-MEDIA a few weeks ago on 50+ web 2.0 ways to tell a story. He used Cooliris as the presentation tool - visual and effective.

Originally written by George Siemens for elearnspace and first published on July 17th, 2009 in his newsletter eLearning Resources and News.

About the author To learn more about George Siemens and to access extensive information and resources on elearning check out www.elearnspace.org. Explore also George Siemens connectivism site for resources on the changing nature of learning and check out his new book "Knowing Knowledge".

Photo credits: Addressing Problems of Faculty Resistance - kmitu Social Media Guidelines - Irina Tischenko Tools and Our Brain - sgame Social Media and Social Divisions - jjavo That Brain of Ours - pablo631 Consumer Voices - Mikael Damkier

An anonymous reader writes "Apparently the police like to spend their time trawling our private information on Facebook looking for criminals. 'Riot police stormed a man's 30th birthday barbecue for 15 guests because it was advertised as an "all-night" party on Facebook. Four police cars, a riot van, and a force helicopter were dispatched to a privately-owned field in a small village near Sowton, Devon in the UK on Saturday, ordering the party shut down or everyone would be arrested. The birthday barbecue was busted up before they even had a chance to plug the music in, reports the BBC. It was about 4pm when eight officers with camouflage pants and body armor jumped out of their vehicles and ordered everyone out about an hour into the party.' The event's organizer, Andrew Poole, said, 'The police had full-on camouflage trousers on and body-armour, it was ridiculous. There were also several plain-clothes officers as well ... they kept on insisting it has been advertised it as an all-night rave on the internet. The times on it were put as "overnight" in case people wanted to sleep-over, but after being explained this they were still banging on saying it was advertised on the internet. They wouldn't accept it wasn't a rave. It was in a completely isolated field.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you needed another reason to feel sad about the passing of the iconic television journalist Walter Cronkite today, this video is it. John Perry Barlow tweets, "True fact: Walter Cronkite was a hot drummer. Once saw him play with Mickey Hart, Mike Gordon, & Mutatator. Kept the one." This video is proof. Cronkite appears around 1:55 in.

Previously: Walter Cronkite, RIP.

We're ecstatic about iTunes' recent DIY spotlight feature, showing off MAKE and CRAFT video podcasts, as well as some other great DIY podcasts. Remember check out our podcast archives and if you like what you see, subscribe to MAKE in iTunes!

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Walter Cronkite, the broadcast news legend who spoke the words "And now we have two Americans on the moon" 40 years ago this week died in New York today at age 92. Here is astronaut Neil Armstrong's statement on Cronkite's passing.

coondoggie writes "Optimism certainly abounds in some corners of the manned space community. Today the aerospace consultancy Futron said that as much as $1.5 billion may be up for grabs for commercial space operation in the next ten years. The consultancy singled out the $30 million Google Lunar X-PRIZE contestants as a highly likely group to take advantage of such a cash pot, but there are many others who'd like a slice of that pie as well. But it's not all wine and roses; finances loom large over any space projects, and technology development is also proving to be a bugaboo. For example, even as NASA's commercial partners, such as SpaceX and Orbital, have made steady progress in developing space cargo transportation technology, but they have recently fallen behind their development schedules."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

dayammerkid writes...

This is a project that me and my friends built for school (UC Berkeley). Its made of lego mindstorms, scissors, and some scrap metal. With all things considered, I think it turned out alright. Not only does it fold your paper for you, it also cuts it. It would be the perfect accessory for a fancy, high-tech, Japanese bathroom! This video shows two test runs; the first run works well, while the second one could have gone a little smoother...

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Welcome to the "ownership" and "entitlement" society, where people feel that you can't do anything without paying everyone. The latest such example is a lawsuit against the US Postal Service over a recent stamp that is a photo of part of the Korean War Memorial in Washington DC. The Postal Service licensed the actual photo, but the sculptor who made the memorial itself claims that his copyrights were violated. Yes. Copyrights. On his sculpture. On a public memorial. We've seen this issue crop up before, such as with the famous sculpture in Millennium Park in Chicago. In this case, the argument for fair use is even stronger. The photo in question clearly was transformative. It wasn't just a random photo of the statues. The guy spent a ton of time, taking hundreds of different photos before getting the "one" that he liked, trying to get the exact composition, angle, lighting, snow, etc. to get the image to appear as he wanted. On top of that, there's almost no claim that this use by the USPS harmed the original sculptor's financial ability concerning his copyright. He was not even trying to exploit the copyright commercially (and, if anything, this probably provided him a lot more attention, because now his work was on a stamp). In the end, the artist's contention seems to just be "I own it, I get to decide what happens with it." Unfortunately for him, that's not how copyright law works.

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Bill, where are you?

UPDATE: If you know where Bill is, please don't post his contact info here or anywhere publicly. But I would appreciate it if you could ask Bill to get in touch with me.

Boing Boing points us to a story about how some batik-makers in Java, Indonesia are resisting attempts by the gov't to have them copyright their designs. The local government is warning the designers that without copyrighting, the designs others could copy them and claim them as their own, but the designers have a religious objection to the idea:

"They believe that each time they create something, it is not they who worked, but it is God who worked through their human body and soul," Gunawan said. "Being grateful [to God] is sufficient for them."

What's funny, then, is to see the politicians fret about this, worrying how people in Malaysia might copyright the design first and "there is little that we can do." Except... if the designers don't care, what needs to be done? If someone else profits from it, so what? How does that harm the original designer?

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simoniker writes "In a new interview, BioShock creator Ken Levine has been talking about his studio's philosophy and teasing, at least abstractly, his next project, of which he says 'we had a scope and ambition in mind which is more ambitious than anything we've ever done. Even more, substantially more ambitious than BioShock.' He also commented on 2K Marin, currently working on BioShock 2, wishing them luck but making it clear that he is not majorly involved in the game: 'I'm not working on BioShock 2. I make no claim to anything on BioShock 2, and I think it's important that that's their product, and their culture. Because you can't just clone a studio.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.

Apparently, Colorado's Denver Water is trying to get people to make sure that they don't overuse their toilets, or some such thing. No running toilets. No excessive flushing. No leaky toilets. That's what I gather, at least.

So, I guess they have some kind of toilet mascot? The "Running Toilet"? That pretty much amounts to a man in a toilet suit? Which sounds sort of unpleasant?

According to The Latest Word, Mr. Toilet got all crazy last weekend and bum-rushed a big water fountain where a bunch of kids were playing, spreading its "Use Only What You Need" toilet message hither and yon, while the kids were trying to play.

I don't think the toilet meant to scare them, but you have to admit that a giant toilet appearing out of nowhere and running through the fountain is a bit weird.

Agreed. Don't let the toilet terrorists win, kiddies, or we all lose. (Via Copyranter. Image via The Latest Word.)

Bonus link dedicated to Xeni "MJFan4RVR" Jardin: Toiletman moonwalking.

For quite some time we've been pointing out the simple fact that, unlike with a physical book, you don't really own the ebooks that you buy on your Amazon Kindle. Even worse, Amazon can simply delete them at will. In fact, that's exactly what's happened to (of all books!) George Orwell's 1984 and Animal Farm. Talk about irony. People who legitimately purchased those books discovered that they're now gone, as the publisher has decided that ebook versions were doubleplusungood and should never have existed in the first place. So, like the war with Eurasia, the book is now just a figment of your imagination. You never had it. At least Amazon refunded the money, but what kind of book do you buy that gets automatically disappeared? eBooks are an interesting concept, but how can anyone buy into something where their books might suddenly disappear? Update: The NY Times is now reporting that Amazon says it will change its system so that, in the future, books won't be deleted. However, that's not making many customers happy. They seem pretty pissed off -- with some noting that Amazon's own terms of service claim that you have a permanent right to the content once you've bought it. On top of that, the Times quotes a student who had taken a bunch of notes, which Amazon destroyed as well.

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Earlier this year, there was an uproar when Hulu and Boxee got into a back and forth "blocking" of Hulu content on Boxee (with Boxee posting workarounds for every Hulu block) at the request of Hulu's content partners, who were worried about pissing off cable companies. The whole thing was silly. Boxee wasn't doing anything illegal or wrong. It just provides a specialized video web browser. Today, already, anyone who can hook up a computer to a TV can access Hulu on their TV using a regular browser. The only difference with Boxee was that it was a better browser for the TV. It's hard to see why that should be blocked. Then, a few weeks ago, the same thing happened with the PS3 suddenly being blocked from displaying Hulu content as well. Not surprisingly, Hulu has now admitted basically the same thing: it came under pressure from content partners. Hulu is (again) reasonably apologetic and open and honest about the situation, but again it raises questions about whether or not Hulu can really survive as it serves two masters, one of whom is so backwards looking it thinks that pissing off consumers who are doing something completely legal is a good business strategy.

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NY Times: Walter Cronkite, Iconic Anchorman, Dies.

Svippy writes "According to reports surfacing on the Internet, Futurama may be recast. The animated series is due to return next year on Comedy Central, but may not be the same as we once knew it. 'As part of the announcement, the show's producers said stars including West, Sagal and DiMaggio had all signed on to return. Turns out that wasn't true. The stars had all expressed interest in returning. But with the budget for Futurama dramatically slashed, the salary offers came in well below what the thesps were asking.' Phil LaMarr posted 20th Century Fox's request for auditions on his Facebook page. However, some are skeptical about whether it's a real casting call or purely a stunt to reduce the salaries of the voice actors."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For many years there have been legal disputes over the way that Google shows a short "snippet" of a page in its search results. Some have charged that the results themselves may be libelous. In fact, in a bizarre recent Dutch court ruling, the site that such a snippet linked to was found liable, even though the problem was the way Google's algorithm constructed the snippet. So... of course, there are lawsuits against Google for its snippets as well. However, some good news out of the UK, as a court has found that Google should not be liable for search result snippets even if the content of the snippet is defamatory. The judge seems to clearly recognize that Google is just a search engine, and blaming it as if it were the publisher of such content makes no sense at all.

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