Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, we wondered at new MacBook features, loved on Dell's Studio Hybrid mini PC, and listened to a HP support horror story for the ages.
Joel got himself a jetpack, John wired up an Atom-powere WiBrain handheld PC, and Rob welcomed Sylvania to the cheapo subnote party.
Check out our interview with Esquire, in which hackers are invited to do their stuff on its forthcoming e-ink cover; thoughts on the latest T-Mobile sidekick; and an ATM for your living room.
Today we also saw an electronic shifting system for bikes; a diamond-studded iPhone; some modern chopsticks; speakers you can slap on any wall; the shape of Psystar's legal strategy against Apple; and cute robot hamsters.
Tomorrow, however, is a new day — a day that will see a milquetoast reckoning for bandwidth throttler-in-chief Comcast.Feeds
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Boing Boing
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Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 7:45pm CDT by Rob Beschizza
Recently at Boing Boing Gadgets, we wondered at new MacBook features, loved on Dell's Studio Hybrid mini PC, and listened to a HP support horror story for the ages.
Joel got himself a jetpack, John wired up an Atom-powere WiBrain handheld PC, and Rob welcomed Sylvania to the cheapo subnote party.
Check out our interview with Esquire, in which hackers are invited to do their stuff on its forthcoming e-ink cover; thoughts on the latest T-Mobile sidekick; and an ATM for your living room.
Today we also saw an electronic shifting system for bikes; a diamond-studded iPhone; some modern chopsticks; speakers you can slap on any wall; the shape of Psystar's legal strategy against Apple; and cute robot hamsters.
Tomorrow, however, is a new day — a day that will see a milquetoast reckoning for bandwidth throttler-in-chief Comcast.
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Jasmina Tešanović: Dragan Dabic Defeats Radovan Karadzic
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 6:50pm CDT by Xeni Jardin
Jasmina Tešanović:
Dragan Dabic Defeats Radovan Karadzic
Belgrade: July 29, 2008
photo: Bruce SterlingDespite wise warnings from the American embassy to avoid all large, possibly violent Serbian demonstrations, I was there today in Belgrade's Republic Square.
My American friend and I were sipping two beers to pay for our cafe table. I also noticed some lone men alertly drinking coffee there: they were undercover Belgrade police. Standing outside the cafe were strong, heavily armored lines of hyper-geared riot policemen. There were even riot policewomen on duty.
Last night I spoke to Dejan Anastasijevic, an expert on internal issues and a witness in Hague trial against Milosevic. We concluded that this grand public event was the swan song for the Radical Party, and for Radovan Karadzic, one of its founders: for the Radicals, tonight was now or never.
Well: the verdict is never. The ethnic holy-warrior Radovan Karadzic has lost out to the New Age guru Dabic: his other Jeckyll-and-Hyde personality for the last 13 years. Maybe 16,000 people trickled into Republic Square, a good-sized crowd for downtown Belgrade, but a fragment of the three million Radical voters, a full third of the Serbian population. Two months ago the Radicals were gleefully smashing foreign embassies over the Kosovo issue; today they are bewildered and crestfallen.
The political climate has changed in Serbia. Boris Tadic, the Pro-European president, is wisely minding the nation's business and doing it relentlessly. The ex-president Kostunica was doing the opposite.
A couple of days ago, journalists from various press groups were beaten up by Radical goons; at that point the new government declared Serbian journalists to be equivalent to Serbian police performing public duties, and severely penalized the street-thugs for attacking free speech.
Tonight the supporters of Radovan Karadzic, better-known as the bizarre quack Dragan Dabic, were saying goodbye to their ultimate leader, who is bound for The Hague. Clearly the Radicals have shifted their motivating fear and hatred toward Boris Tadic, who now looms huge in their imagination as the traitor who authorized the extradition. The Radicals wore t-shirts with the faces of Karadzic and Mladic, but those were photographs from 14 long years ago. Nowadays Karadzic looks like a cartoon, and not even the Radicals know what Mladic must look like these days. These much-tried Radical loyalists had long, grim faces. They were mostly men, and impoverished men at that. They had a sprinkling of younger football hooligans, who can't remember the war, but hate anything they can't understand. The speaker, a nationalist actress, screamed in tears: Radovan, go to The Hague, because they need you there. You must bring the whole world justice and heal everyone!
At that point, wandering the streets, we spotted an uncanny double of Dragan Dabic: a strange local guru with a long white beard, long white hair, a black priest's robe and a big Orthodox cross. Everybody was pointing at this strange character and grinning. Single-handedly, Dragan Dabic has reduced the bitter Yugoslav civil war to a black-humored Serbian wisecrack, yesterdays news. The Radicals cannot forgive their idol for healing gullible idiots and not going down with artillery blazing into Sarajevo.
Trying to stoke the crowd, the Radicals played the hymns of the disbanded Red Berets, the paramilitary group of Legija, the convicted criminal behind the killing of Zoran Djindjic. As always, murder remains the Radical's best political bet. Still, with enough time and enough bizarre deceit, even murder becomes ridiculous.
Journalists lurk near Belgrade's special court for war crimes, hoping for a scoop over Karadzic's final journey toward justice. Nobody knows when this historic flight will happen, but the legal time for his appeal is almost over and it seems mere a matter of hours. Dragan Dabic has been preparing the defense for Radovan Karadzic: but his laptop is in the hands of the police. For a humble healer, Dr. Dabic seems to have a surprising number of documents concerning the war in Bosnia. He was also in touch with the lawyers for the late Slobodan Milosevic, old hands at endless pantomime inside the Dutch courts. This will be Dr. Dabic's last incarnation: the new star of an old war-crimes trial.
I hear with shock that my very close friend, a great Serbian poet, died in a Belgrade clinic haunted by Dragan Dabic, whose "quantum human energy" obviously cannot cure lung cancer. My friend the poet never committed genocide, nor did he ever hide from justice by stealing the identity of an innocent man. He wrote his verse about his beloved city and he published books. He also smoked too much to survive, but his mortality was not his sorest problem, because his verse outlives him. His deeper tragedy was to perish in the madhouse that his Serbia became, a stricken nation where the poets and criminals cannot tell each other apart.
As a final farcical insult, a group of hooligans destroyed the Radical's rally. The Radical Party had intended a mass march through the city, a grand show of their popular strength, but their mass turnout never showed up, and their deeply frustrated fringe element spontaneously attacked the cops. In the summer heat, half-naked male teens yanked their sweaty t-shirts over their heads as impromptu masks, then set off firecrackers and tossed bricks and blazing road-flares into the massed ranks of the riot-squad.
The provoked cops replied with tear-gas canisters and some ragged baton-charges. The hooligans scattered in a hurry, set fire to some trash containers and broke some plate-glass in the shopping streets. There were more than forty injuries, to rioters, cops and various journalists. No fatalities. In half an hour the grand rally had collapsed in this shabby debacle. The Radicals will naturally blame the police, but since the rally was lavishly televised, it's rather obvious that the cops were not flinging any bricks at the protesters.
My widowed father died recently. This week it has been my obligation to clean his apartment. Mr. Tesanovic was an engineer, a diplomat and a Yugoslav loyalist. His personal effects now seem as distant to crazy modern Serbia as the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
I had to dispose of many of his things, and I had hoped that the humble but clever gypsies who pick through Belgrade's garbage would find some use for his effects. But that did not happen. The Radicals tossed their flares into the rubbish bin outside his house. They set fire to everything they could reach.
Update: July 30, 2008
Radovan Karadzic handoverEarly this morning the new star of the Hague tribunal arrived in Hague: here in Belgrade , the lack of bad news is good news for us. They call this summer the new beginning for Serbia. The Radical Party has reached a dead end, and there are big questions for the Republika Srpska and its future.
The other major figure in the genocide in Bosnia, Ratko Mladic, will be the next step. Until a couple of years ago his movements were known to the secret police, while now many dubious rumors are running about his secret life underground or abroad.
From Hague, in a direct press conference, we listen to promises of an efficient and just yet complicated trial, for the sake of the victims and their families. Belgrade is calm today: the secret police are praised for the arrest and extradition of Karadzic, while the public police managed to contain the Radical Party hooligans with no fatalities . The Serbian people are facing the future, though if they still fail to face the past and the crimes committed in their names, their steps will be slow and hampered.
Update 2: July 31, 2008
Finally we saw him, live: we heard him. Good old Radovan is back. He killed Dabic with one haircut and a thorough shave. It's literally the same voice, with the same intellect behind it. What's different is a grim new tic of his mouth, as if he is on the verge of tears.The press turnout for Karadzic was as big as for the first day of the trial of Milosevic. Yet only 40 people could enter the court, again the same as Milosevic.
The general opinion in Serbia is how old, how white and how distracted he now seems, alone, without soldiers, lawyers or family members. He declares himself as member of three states, Republika Srpska, where he lived, Montenegro where he was born, and Serbia where he lived under cover with different identities.
He is the veteran of one of the greatest put-up jobs in the history of world crime, and he declares that he was hiding in order to save his life. He says his life was guaranteed to him by the Dayton treaty and by Richard Holbrooke, in exchange for his stepping down from politics.
Karadzic seemed calmly determined to act in his own defense, demanding the return of his laptop, formerly in possession of Dragan Dabic. That computer is now in the hands of the police together with various official documents from Republika Srpska.
His judges say that the indictment against Karadzic will be altered and focused. Basically it charges him with practically every crime that the court in the Hague was built to try.
We are eager to see him handle all his legacies with all his identities.
Jasmina Tešanović is an author, filmmaker, and wandering thinker who shares her thoughts with BoingBoing from time to time. Email: politicalidiot at yahoo dot com. Her blog is here.
- - - - - - - - - -Previous essays by Jasmina Tešanović on BoingBoing:
- Who was Dragan David Dabic?
- My neighbor Radovan Karadzic
- The Day After / Kosovo
- State of Emergency
- Kosovo
- Christmas in Serbia
- Neonazism in Serbia
- Korea - South, not North.
- "I heard they are making a movie on her life."
- Serbia and the Flames
- Return to Srebenica
- Sagmeister in Belgrade
- What About the Russians?
- Milan Martic sentenced in Hague
- Mothers of Mass Graves
- Hope for Serbia
- Stelarc in Ritopek
- Sarajevo Mon Amour
- MBOs
- Killing Journalists
- Where Did Our History Go?
- Serbia Not Guilty of Genocide
- Carnival of Ruritania
- "Good Morning, Fascist Serbia!"
- Faking Bombings
- Dispatch from Amsterdam
- Where are your Americans now?
- Anna Politkovskaya Silenced
- Slaughter in the Monastery
- Mermaid's Trail
- A Burial in Srebenica
- Report from a concert by a Serbian war criminal
- To Hague, to Hague
- Preachers and Fascists, Out of My Panties
- Floods and Bombs
- Scorpions Trial, April 13
- The Muslim Women
- Belgrade: New Normality
- Serbia: An Underworld Journey
- Scorpions Trial, Day Three: March 15, 2006
- Scorpions Trial, Day Two: March 14, 2006
- Scorpions Trial, Day One: March 13, 2006
- The Long Goodbye
- Milosevic Arrives in Belgrade
- Slobodan Milosevic Died
- Milosevic Funeral
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NASA: "We have water" on Mars.
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 5:20pm CDT by Xeni Jardin
NASA confirms, beyond any earthly doubt, that water really really really does exist on Mars.
Laboratory tests aboard NASA's Phoenix Mars Lander have identified water in a soil sample. The lander's robotic arm delivered the sample Wednesday to an instrument that identifies vapors produced by the heating of samples.
NASA Spacecraft Confirms Martian Water, Mission Extended (nasa.gov)."We have water," said William Boynton of the University of Arizona, lead scientist for the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyzer, or TEGA. "We've seen evidence for this water ice before in observations by the Mars Odyssey orbiter and in disappearing chunks observed by Phoenix last month, but this is the first time Martian water has been touched and tasted."
I've also been enjoying the cheerful tweets of the Mars Rover, where I first heard this news. The future is pretty terrific, you know? And it's here.
space
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BLAB! retrospective art exhibition
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 3:20pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
A retrospective art exhibition featuring art from BLAB! is opening tomorrow, August 1, at the Marianna Kistler Beach Museum of Art on the campus of Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. I wrote an essay for the show's catalogue about BLAB!'s creator, Monte Beauchamp.
The exhibition, organized by the Beach Museum of Art, will be on view through November 2, 2008. It is the first American museum exhibition devoted to the work of BLAB!, Monte Beauchamp’s periodic anthology of sequential and comic art, illustration, painting, and printmaking. The exhibition, which focuses on BLAB! #8-18 (1995-2007), features the work of forty-six artists and includes 150 objects from thirty-nine collections. All of the work in the exhibition has appeared in BLAB!.
BLAB! retrospective art exhibitionArtists in the exhibition: Michael Bartalos, Gary Baseman, Richard Beards, Tim Biskup, Stéphane Blanquet, Calef Brown, Greg Clarke, The Clayton Brothers, Sue Coe, Don Colley, Brian Cronin, Nicolas Debon, Douglas Fraser, Charles Paul Freund, Drew Friedman, Geoffrey Grahn, Steven Guarnaccia, Ryan Heshka, Peter Hoey, Tom Huck, Teresa James, Jeffrey Kamberos, Nora Krug, Peter Kuper, Mark Landman, Laura Levine, MATS!? [Mats Stromberg], Walter Minus, Christian Northeast, John Pound, Archer Prewitt, Chris Pyle, Helge Reumann, Xavier Robel, Jonathon Rosen, Marc Rosenthal, Sergio Ruzzier, David Sandlin, Spain, Bob Staake, Fred Stonehouse, Mark Todd, Chris Ware, and Esther Pearl Watson.
The accompanying 128-page, full-color catalogue was designed by Monte Beauchamp and contains contributions by David A. Beronä, Mark Frauenfelder, Matt Dukes Jordan, and Bill North.
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Horseback riding simulator
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 2:12pm CDT by David Pescovitz
The Ridemaster Pro is a £40,000 rocking horse. Sold by Racewood Simulators, the Ridemaster Pro is equipped with sensors, mechanics, and a display for virtual outdoor rides. From The Telegraph:
Horseback riding simulator (The Telegraph, thanks Lyn Jeffery!)
(Racewood Simulators) designer and company managing director Bill Greenwood said: "Private individuals buy them who don't have space for a horse in central London.
"With one of our simulators you can ride at any time of day in a centrally heated or air-conditioned environment.
"You don't need the space or a dressage arena because it's not physically going anywhere - you can put it in a small room or in a garden shed.
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Public Fruit Jam at Machine Project in LA, August 3
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 2:03pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
I went to Machine Project's fruit jam last year and it was a blast.
Sunday August 3rd from 12-3pm brings the return of our favorite summer ritual, jam making with Fallen Fruit. Jams will be based on the fruit that the participants provide. The fruit can be fresh or frozen. Fallen Fruit will bring public fruit. We are looking for radical and experimental jams as well, like basil guava or lemon pepper jelly. We'll discuss the basics of jam and jelly making, pectin and bindings, the aesthetics of sweetness, as well as the communal power of shared food and the liberation of public fruit. When the jam is done, it is spooned into small, hopefully recycled jars, and the participants take some of their own, leave some for others, and perhaps take a jar of another team's jam. Bring fruit, small glass jars, a willingness to share the goods and an enthusiasm for delicious jam chaos. Free.
Public Fruit Jam 2008 (Machine Project)
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Fired emergency response exec now at Homeland Security
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 1:57pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Loren says: "The Minneapolis Star Tribune reports that their former MNDoT emergency response executive, who was fired for hanging out with her boyfriend in NYC instead of coming back to Minneapolis to deal with the 35W bridge collapse, has been hired by the TSA."
Fired emergency repsonse exec now at Homeland Security (Star Tribune)
Sonia Pitt, the MnDOT emergency response executive fired for taking an unauthorized, state-paid trip to Washington during the Interstate 35W bridge disaster, is now working for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Pitt, 44, of Red Wing, confirmed Wednesday that she is working for Homeland Security's Transportation Safety Administration (TSA) at its headquarters in Arlington, Va. Her job title is "Transportation Security Specialist." Pitt declined to discuss her job responsibilities, her length of employment with the federal agency or her salary.
"All inquiries go through my attorney, same as always," Pitt said.
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Smith: "Baby It's You" (1969)
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 1:50pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Here's a 1969 video of Smith (with lead singer Gayle McCormick) performing a great version of The Shirelles' 1961 hit "Baby It's You." (The Beatles did it in 1963). (via Save vs. Death)
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Rosalind Williams: Notes on the Underground
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 1:44pm CDT by David Pescovitz
In 1990, Rosalind Williams, MIT professor of history of science and technology, published a book titled Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination. The book explores both real and imaginary undergrounds, from the building of sewers and subways to archaeological digs to the writings of Jules Verne and HG Wells. This year, MIT Press has published a revised edition of Notes On The Underground. In honor of that, Cabinet magazine ran a fascinating interview with Williams about the meaning of "underground" and how it relates to science and culture. From Cabinet:
Underworld: An Interview With Rosalind Williams (Cabinet), Notes on the Underground: An Essay on Technology, Society, and the Imagination (Amazon)
What is your definition of the underground in the book?
In the beginning, I had a straightforward definition: it was a mine, or a pit dug into the earth, or a subway, or a tunnel. As I was writing, however, I realized that one of the most interesting aspects of the world that humans have constructed on the surface of the earth is the creation of mock or artificial underworlds in the sense of places that are meant to exclude organic life, where everything is meant to be a creation of human artifice rather than given from the larger universe. A shopping mall, for example, can serve as a model of a technological environment (a term Mumford didn’t use, but that I find useful) even if it isn’t literally underground.
But most of all I try to expand the concept of the underground from the earth to the sky. I end the book by comparing environmental consciousness with subterranean consciousness, pointing out that the real surface of the planet is the upper edge of the atmosphere. Our earthly home is everything below the frigid and uninhabitable realm of outer space, and so in a sense we have always lived below the surface of the planet, in a closed, finite environment.
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Steampunk watch-movement jewelry and accessories
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 1:19pm CDT by Cory Doctorow
Watch-Cufflinks is the webstore for Etsy seller Edmdesigns, whose work I've featured here before. There's some really lovely stuff here -- I'm partial to this wingéd watch movement badge. Makes me wish I had more shirts with French cuffs! Watch CufflinksSee also: Clock-y, steam-y jewelry and such
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Interview with Dickson Despommier, vertical farming advocate
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 12:50pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Annelle of Big Think says:
We recently interviewed Columbia professor of environmental health sciences and microbiology Dickson Despommier, the pioneering researcher responsible for bringing national attention to the idea of vertical farming. In light of your recent article on Professor Despommier's critical work on BoingBoing on July 15, ("Lettuce in the sky, with diamonds") I thought that you might be interested in his interview.
Logistics of vertical farming (Big Think)Hear him describe the logistics of vertical farming.
Hear his prophesy for the "Third Green Revolution"
Select other subjects from his full interview.
As well as appearing on BoingBoing, Professor Despommier was recently featured in the New York Times, CNN, and The Colbert Report to name a few.
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BBtv - Klaus Pierre, French-German Action Hero in Training in America: Big Party
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 12:45pm CDT by Xeni Jardin
Klaus Pierre, a French/German actor-waiter-whatever, aspires against all odds to become America's next great action hero. In today's episode, he attempts to conquer the greatest challenge ever -- his first big Hollywood party. Drinks, hijinks, and embarassing dance moves ensue.
Link to Boing Boing tv post with discussion, downloadable video, and instructions on how to subscribe to the BBtv video podcast.
Previous Klaus Pierre episodes on BBtv:
- Klaus Pierre: Super Pretty Action Hero Star
- Klaus Pierre: The Beach
- Klaus Pierre: Red Carpet Botox Dreams
- Klaus Pierre: Pirate Musical of Epic Fail
- Klaus Pierre: Savate
- Klaus Pierre: Coffee Shop.
- Klaus Pierre: Swordfighting
- Point Break and heartbreak
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Total solar eclipse tomorrow
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 12:30pm CDT by David Pescovitz
This image (three combined frames) shows the last total solar eclipse, March 29, 2006. The next one takes place tomorrow. The Exploratorium will Webcast the event live from China. From Science News:This particular eclipse will sweep across the planet in a slim path that begins in Nunavut, a northern province of Canada, and ends in northern China. So people in parts of Canada, northern Greenland, the Arctic, central Russia, Mongolia and China will be able to witness the seconds-long blackout.
Total solar eclipse (Science News), Total Solar Eclipse 200 Live from China (Exploratorium)
When the moon totally obscures the sun — the moment of totality — the sun’s outer atmosphere, called the solar corona, becomes visible. The solar corona reaches temperatures higher than a million degrees Celsius and extends farther than 620,000 miles from the star’s surface. Because the sun’s surface is brighter than its corona, a solar eclipse is the only opportunity to see the corona with the naked eye.
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JG Ballard exhibition in Barcelona
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 12:16pm CDT by David Pescovitz
The Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona in Spain is now hosting the first museum exhibition devoted to the incredible writer JG Ballard, author of such works as Crash, Empire of the Sun, and Concrete Island. According to the museum, "This exhibition offers an itinerary through Ballard's creative universe: his times and obsessions, his dissection of the secret keys of the contemporary, the traces of his own life in his fictional body of work, his artistic and literary referents, and his precise, disenchanted intuitions of a future life governed by the concepts of aseptic dystopia and disaster." The show is appropriately titled "JG Ballard: Autopsy of the New Millennium." Sadly, I can't make it to Barcelona to experience the show in person. But over at the excellent Ballardian site, Rick McGrath contributed a written "tour" and photos of the exhibition. JG Ballard exhibition review (Ballardian, thanks Simon Sellars!), JG Ballard exhibition page (CCCB)
Previously on BB:
• JG Ballard quotation book
• JG Ballard's autobiography and sad news of cancer
• JG Ballard on CSI
• JG Ballard: Interviews book
• JG Ballard on modern architecture
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Monkey from Mars?
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 11:59am CDT by David Pescovitz
This tiny alien in a jar is on display in the lobby of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. (Click image to see the full picture.) OK, it's not really an extraterrestrial. It's a shaved monkey from a UFO hoax fifty years ago. Two barbers and a butcher eventually confessed to slicing off the dead monkey's tail, removing its hair, and giving it a greenish tint. From the Associated Press:
Alien in a jar (Yahoo! News)
Then they left the primate on an isolated road north of Atlanta in the pre-dawn hours of July 8, 1953, burning a circle into the pavement with a blowtorch before a police officer came around the curve in his patrol car.
"If we had been five minutes earlier, we would have caught 'em in the act," said Sherley Brown, the officer who happened on the scene.
The barbers, Edward Watters and Tom Wilson, and the butcher, Arnold "Buddy" Payne, told the policeman they came upon a red, saucer-shaped object in the road that night. They said several 2-foot-tall creatures were scurrying about and the trio hit one with their pickup before the other creatures jumped back in the saucer and blasted skyward — leaving the highway scorched.
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Why America is F'cked: funny but true video about graphic design
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 11:34am CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
I enjoyed the video, "Why America is Fucked," billed as "the expletive-filled new teaser from the upcoming Draplin Project," which is a documentary about genius graphic designer Aaron James Draplin.
America is Fucked (Jess Gibson. Thanks, Iowahawk!)
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We need alternative sources of bandwidth just like we need alternative sources of fuel
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 9:43am CDT by Cory Doctorow
Tim Wu's new NYT op-ed, "OPEC 2.0," explores the growing carteliztion of bandwidth and its consequences for America, where we already spend nearly as much on bandwidth as we do on heating oil. Tim's got a newish book out about this stuff called Who Controls the Internet?. I've only browsed it so far (way behind on my reading), but it looks like a classic to me.
Link (Thanks, Cat!)
Like energy, bandwidth is an essential economic input. You can’t run an engine without gas, or a cellphone without bandwidth. Both are also resources controlled by a tight group of producers, whether oil companies and Middle Eastern nations or communications companies like AT&T, Comcast and Vodafone. That’s why, as with energy, we need to develop alternative sources of bandwidth.
Wired connections to the home — cable and telephone lines — are the major way that Americans move information. In the United States and in most of the world, a monopoly or duopoly controls the pipes that supply homes with information. These companies, primarily phone and cable companies, have a natural interest in controlling supply to maintain price levels and extract maximum profit from their investments — similar to how OPEC sets production quotas to guarantee high prices.
But just as with oil, there are alternatives. Amsterdam and some cities in Utah have deployed their own fiber to carry bandwidth as a public utility. A future possibility is to buy your own fiber, the way you might buy a solar panel for your home.
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Zombies reciting haiku
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 8:05am CDT by Cory Doctorow
Here's a three-minute youtube of two guys in zombie outfits reciting haiku (about zombiism) and blowing artistic sax notes -- while, in the background, zombie apocalypse unfolds. Thank you, zombie guys, for productively filling three minutes of my life! Zombie Haiku (Thanks, Megan!)
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UK's ISP-record industry deal won't stop infringement, but will make it harder for the record industry to cash in
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 4:19am CDT by Cory Doctorow
The Guardian's just published my latest column, "Illegal filesharing: A suicide note from the music industry" about the insanity of the latest record-company salvo in the copyright wars, a cozy deal with British ISPs that will have them spying on and degrading the connections of subscribers accused of infringing downloading:So no, I don't think this is going to have any appreciable effect on filesharing. However, it will succeed in driving music-swapping even further underground, to encrypted protocols and offline hard-drive parties and private swapping networks. These are every bit as efficient at getting music into the hands of kids, but they're a lot harder to monitor and charge money for.
LinkThe original Napster had a fine proposition: they would charge their users for signing onto their network and write a cheque for as-many-billions-as-you-like to the record industry every quarter. After all, they had the fastest-growing technology in the history of the world at their disposal, 70 million internet users in 18 months, and they'd found that the average American user was willing to spend $15 a month for the service. The record industry sued them into a smoking hole instead, and out of the ashes of Napster arose dozens of new networking technologies. Each one was more hardened against monitoring and disconnection than the last.
These days, if you wanted to charge a flat fee for access to all music (something that consumers all over the world would be eager to accept), you'd have to do stuff that's a lot more complicated and funky to get anything like the clean reports we'd have gotten off of Napster 1.0.
And yet that's just what we're going to end up doing. It's historically inevitable: whenever technology makes it impossible to police a class of copyright use, we've solved the problem by creating blanket licences.
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Alphabet made out of corpses in Halo
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 1:26am CDT by Cory Doctorow
Raketentim sez, "The Halo Corpse Alphabet is a rather macabre project with the goal being to represent every letter of the alphabet by the twisted, curved, stretched, and otherwise dead Spartan and Elite bodies from Halo 3. The Halo community was clearly up for the challenge as they miraculously managed to capture every single letter, number, and even some punctuation in the form of screenshots." Halo Corpse Alphabet (Thanks, Raketentim!)
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Queen Victoria's underwear purchased by weird pervert-collectors
Posted: July 31st, 2008, 1:16am CDT by Cory Doctorow
Some of Queen Victoria's giant and comical undergarments were up for auction, but we are not amused.
Link
A pair of her bloomers, a chemise and a nightdress went under the hammer at Mackworth in Derby for 13,500 pounds ($27,000).
The cotton bloomers are monogrammed with a VR (Victoria Regina) and attracted bids from as far as Brazil, Russia, Hong Kong and New York. They finally went to a lady from Canada for 4,500 pounds, according to auctioneer Charles Hanson.
A London collector snapped up Queen Victoria's chemise for 3,800 pounds. Her nightdress sold for 5,200 pounds to an American collector.
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Man places casino bet with marijuana
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 2:48pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
The gentleman was arrested in a Fresno, California casino after he placed a bet with marijuana in a card game. He was arrested, even though he produced a "cannabis club" card purchased on the internet. (via Neatorama)
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Zimbabwe currency on eBay
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 2:38pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Mugabe should just print trillion dollar bills and sell them directly on eBay. This $100,000,000,000 note is up to AU$87 with eleven bids.
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Ancient clock displays Olympic calendar and astronomical cycles
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 2:15pm CDT by David Pescovitz
The Antikythera Mechanism is a two-thousand year-old clock made in Greece that was discovered a century ago in a shipwreck. Two years ago, scientists studying the bits and pieces that survived under the sea were able to figure out that the device was used to calculate astronomical cycles. Now though, British mathematician Tony Freeth, part of the original research group, has determined that the Antikythera Mechanism also shows the timetables of the Olympic Games. Freeth and his colleagues published their findings in this week's issue of the science journal Nature. The magazine also posted a fascinating video telling the clock's story. It's a marvelous tale of technology, history, and curiosity. From Nature News:The device had intermeshed toothed wheels that represent calendar cycles. By turning the wheels, a user could figure out the relationships between astronomical cycles to deduce the relative positions of the Sun and Moon and forecast eclipses.
Antikythera Mechanism video
But after two millennia under the sea off the island of Antikythera, near Crete, all that remains of the device are 82 fragments of flaking bronze, including parts of 30 gear-wheels2. The numbers of gear teeth are crucial, but must be inferred from the partial wheels that remain. And most of the inscriptions are hidden under corrosion and surface accretions. To read them, the researchers used a method called microfocus X-ray computed tomography, which provides X-ray images of slices through the sample, revealing inscriptions buried beneath the mechanism's surface.
"Complex clock combines calendars" Nature News article
"Calendars with Olympiad display and eclipse prediction on the Antikythera Mechanism" paper
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TSA proud of confiscating non-dangerous items
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 2:09pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
The items show here are, according to the TSA web site, an "empty metal bottle and a home-made battery pack, consisting of 28 rechargeable batteries connected by multiple resistors and held together in two layers with a silicone-based adhesive."
Do you like the way the TSA put the wires from the battery pack under the empty water bottle and arranged the two separate items in such as way as to make them look more like a Hollywood version of a bomb?
The TSA website headline: "Explosive-Like Item Intercepted at Checkpoint"
Security expert Bruce Schneier's headline: "TSA Proud of Confiscating Non-Dangerous Item"
Here's an excerpt from the TSA report:
The passenger [at Jackson-Evers International Airport] was an engineer and said he built the battery to power his DVD player for the long flight to Hawaii. After recognizing that the item could be seen by other passengers as a threat, the man surrendered it to Supervisory TSO Raiford Patterson and was allowed to board the flight.
Here's an excerpt from Schneier's blog:
My guess is that if Kip Hawley [Administrator & Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security for the Transportation Security Administration] were allowed to comment on my blog, he would say something like this: "It's not just bombs that are prohibited; it's things that look like bombs. This looks enough like a bomb to fool the other passengers, and that in itself is a threat."
Did he get to keep the water bottle?Okay, that's fair. But the average person doesn't know what a bomb looks like; all he knows is what he sees on television and the movies. And this rule means that all homemade electronics are confiscated, because anything homemade with wires can look like a bomb to someone who doesn't know better. The rule just doesn't work.
And in today's passengers-fight-back world, do you think anyone is going to successfully do anything with a fake bomb?
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Memory Hole obtains over 400 forms used by the NSA
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 1:52pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Russ Kick's Memory Hole is back with a special treat for fans of government intelligence agency arcana:
Via a Freedom of Information Act request (which involved paying $700 and waiting almost 4 years), The Memory Hole has obtained blank copies of most forms used by the National Security Agency).
Over 400 forms used by the National Security Agency (The Memory Hole)In response to a prior request, the NSA had sent a supposedly complete listing of forms that they use. (That list is located here.) I then requested a blank copy of each one. The NSA responded by sending a copy of more than 400 forms totaling 687 separate pages. (They also withheld 24 forms totaling 31 pages.)
I scanned the forms in the order (basically alphabetical) in which they appeared in the parcel. Some of them are standard Defense Department forms, but most originate within the NSA and have never been seen outside the agency. They range from the exotic to the pedestrian, but even the most prosaic form shines some light into the workings of No Such Agency.
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Angry Youth Comix dolls available
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 1:46pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
These Angry Youth Comix dolls, modeled exactly from the characters in Johnny Ryan's comic of the same name, would make a welcome addition to any rejuvenile's curio shelf.
The Toxic Waste variants are especially appealing.
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BBtv WORLD: Migration, and a Mayan Sweat Bath. (Guatemala)
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 1:38pm CDT by Xeni Jardin
In episode 2 of our new BBtv WORLD series, Xeni reports in from a K'iche Maya village in the Guatemalan highlands, and we step inside a traditional Mayan steam bath, or "tuj."
This pueblo began as a settlement camp for"environmental refugees" -- people who became displaced after mudslides and floods caused by Hurricane Mitch made their ancestral village unsafe. Survivors packed what belongings they could on their backs and walked miles to a bare patch of cold, windy mountaintop nicknamed "Alaska" for its extreme microclimate.
Nearly ten years after the disaster and the subsequent loss of their homes, these people are still struggling for survival. Their traditions are a source of strength, and today we experience one of them -- a small brick hut filled with hot volcanic rocks, steam, and herb branches gathered from nearby mountains.
Previously on BBtv WORLD:
(image: Xeni Jardin)
Sponsorship note: The BBtv crew wishes to thank Microsoft for underwriting this episode, and generously supporting the launch of the "BBtv World" series. In this ongoing video series, we will be looking at the intersection of social causes & technology around the world from a number of perspectives. Through their new "i’m Initiative," Microsoft shares a portion of the program's advertising revenue with some of the world’s most important social causes when users email or IM with tools such as Windows Live™ Messenger and Windows Live Hotmail®. For more information, visit imtalkathon.com or im.live.com.
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How insects breathe underwater
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 1:32pm CDT by David Pescovitz
MIT mathematicians have learned more about how insects breathe underwater by trapping a layer of air around their bodies. The scientists determined that insects can dive as deep as 30 meters without the bubbles bursting. (Seen here, a Notonecta covered with a respiratory bubble.) From MIT News Office:
Insects breathing underwater (MIT News Office)
The air bubble's stability is maintained by hairs on the insects' abdomen, which help repel water from the surface. The hairs, along with a waxy surface coating, prevent water from flooding the spiracles--tiny breathing holes on the abdomen.
The spacing of these hairs is critically important: The closer together the hairs, the greater the mechanical stability and the more pressure the bubble can withstand before collapsing.
However, mechanical stability comes at a cost. If the hairs are too close together, there is not enough surface area through which to breathe....
"Because the bubble acts as an external lung, its surface area must be sufficiently large to facilitate the exchange of gases," said (study co-author Morris) Flynn, who is now an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Alberta. Other researchers have explored systems that could replicate the external lung on a larger scale, for possible use by diving humans. A team at Nottingham Trent University showed that a porous cavity surrounded by water-repellent material is supplied with oxygen by the thin air layer on its surface. The surface area required to support human respiration is impractically large, in excess of 100 square meters; however, other avenues for technological application exist. For example, such a device could supply the oxygen needed by fuel cells to power small autonomous underwater vehicles.
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Secrets of the Royal Alberta Museum
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:48pm CDT by David Pescovitz
Cryptozoologist Loren Coleman had a backroom tour of the Royal Alberta Museum in Edmonton, Alberta where he perused a natural history collection of nearly 70,000 items donated by a generous oilman and lawyer. Loren posted snapshots of his tour over at Cryptomundo. From Loren's post:Walls were covered with trophy heads and taxidermy items were on several rows of shelves. Over in the corner, one might find a huge Galapagos tortoise. Turn around, look under a sheet of plastic, and there’s a baby musk ox.
Backrooms of the Royal Alberta Museum (Cryptomundo)
Previously on BB:
• Richard Banres's "Animal Logic" photography
• Justine Cooper's photos of the American Museum of Natural History
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Cool animation of Wal-Mart's spread across US
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:40pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Wal-mart stores are depicted as disease-green blobs in this neat animation of the retail giant's spread across the US.
Nathan says: "This is similar to the Walmart infection video you put up a while back, but this one is *interactive* - and a bit sexier."
Walmart Infection - Interactive Edition
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Monster toys, prints, and shirts from Goblin-Fish Press
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:34pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Mark Statford says:
Justin Parpan and Josh Parpan run a little store called Goblin Fish Press that's chock full of great kids toys, prints and shirts. All with a sort of monster theme.
I like the Insectoids from Mars T-shirt, on sale for $10!
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Bar in a tree
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:20pm CDT by David Pescovitz
This giant tree in Limpopo, South Africa is home to a tavern, the Big Baobab Pub. The 6,000-year-old baobab tree, on Sunland Farm, has a 155 foot circumference and walls 6.5 feet thick. Click the photo snips to see the entire images. From Life In The Fast Lane:The tree has its own cellar, with natural ventilation to keep the beer cold...
Bar inside tree (Life In The Fast Lane, via Fortean Times)
More than 7,000 visitors come from all over the world to see the grandiose Baobab every year and have a drink in its pub, which has 13 foot (4 meter) high ceilings and comfortably seats up to 15 people.
“One year we had a party and squashed 54 people inside, but I wouldn’t recommend that.” said (proprietor Heather) van Heerden.
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Peter Ward dives to meet a wild Nautilus
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:15pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Avi Solomon says: "Peter Ward, paleontologist, dives at night to meet the Nautilus, a wondrous creature which has survived for 500 million years."
Peter Ward dives to meet a wild Nautilus
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Parents question why Ozark police used stun gun on kid with broken back
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:08pm CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
Brett Burton says: "Police in Ozark, MO tasered a 16-year-old boy after he fell 30 feet from a bridge. Officers said he refused to comply with them and they had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him. At the time, he was apparently lying on the ground with a broken back."
His dad says the use of the stun gun delayed what would have been immediate surgery by two days.
Parents question why Ozark police used stun gun on injured son (KY3.com)“The ‘Tasering’ increased his white blood cell count and caused him to have a temperature so they could not go into the operation.”
“He refused to comply with the officers and so the officers had to deploy their Tasers in order to subdue him. He is making incoherent statements; he's also making statements such as, ‘Shoot cops, kill cops,’ things like that. So there was cause for concern to the officers,” said Ozark Police Capt. Thomas Rousset.
Police say although there are several unanswered questions; the reason for the use of a stun gun is not one of them.
“It's a big concern for the officers to keep this guy out of traffic, to keep him from getting hurt,” said Rousset.
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Todd Lappin's Quinceañera ceremony photos
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 11:49am CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
It's hard to argue with Todd Lappin's Cardinal Rule of Elemental Photography:
Photos always turn out much better when you have a camera on hand to take the picture.
Lowrider Love on a Sunday Afternoon (Telstar Logistics)No camera? No photo. It's as simple as that. Who knew?
Happily, the solution turns out to be equally simple: Carry a camera as often as possible. Having tried many different makes and models, we tend to favor Casio's Exilim line of ultra-thin, point-and-shoot cameras. Telstar Logistics has owned several Exilims over the years, including the pocket-friendly Casio EX-S600 that's in service with us now.
This Sunday it did what it does best as we were running errands in the neighborhood around our global headquarters. While passing through San Francisco's Mission District under the bright midday sun, we came across a long line of Chevy lowriders idling outside a local church.
It was a Quinceañera ceremony — the Latina version of a sweet sixteen or bat mitzvah — and the lowriders were on hand to let the ladies ride in style. The wee Casio was tucked away in our pocket, so we unholstered it, pressed the shutter button a few times, and let the innate awesomeness of the spectacle do the rest.
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Orwell's diaries in blog form
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 7:32am CDT by Cory Doctorow
The Orwell Prize will mark the 70th anniversary of the Orwell Diaries by serializing them, one day at a time, on a blog -- reminiscent of the way that Phil Gyford syndicated Pepys's Diary.
Orwell Diaries (via Memex 1.1)
From 9th August 2008, you will be able to gather your own impression of Orwell’s face from reading his most strongly individual piece of writing: his diaries. The Orwell Prize is delighted to announce that, to mark the 70th anniversary of the diaries, each diary entry will be published on this blog exactly seventy years after it was written, allowing you to follow Orwell’s recuperation in Morocco, his return to the UK, and his opinions on the descent of Europe into war in real time. The diaries end in 1942, three years into the conflict.What impression of Orwell will emerge? From his domestic diaries (which start on 9th August), it may be a largely unknown Orwell, whose great curiosity is focused on plants, animals, woodwork, and – above all – how many eggs his chickens have laid. From his political diaries (from 7th September), it may be the Orwell whose political observations and critical thinking have enthralled and inspired generations since his death in 1950. Whether writing about the Spanish Civil War or sloe gin, geraniums or Germany, Orwell’s perceptive eye and rebellion against the ‘gramophone mind’ he so despised are obvious.
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Mom, Dad, I'm into Steampunk: an imaginary monologue
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:35am CDT by Cory Doctorow
McSweeney's Short imagined monologues presents, "Mom, Dad, I'm Into Steampunk" by Marco Kaye.No, I won't take off my topcoat. And that's exactly my point. I understand your confusion. The nascent trend I have latched onto is difficult to define. Maybe I can explain it to you with the new mods I've been working on. No, Mom. Not like in Quadrophenia, although I appreciate those mods' fondness for tailor-made clothing. These mods.
Mom, Dad, I'm Into SteampunkThis looks like a late-18th-century organette, correct? Look again. It hides the Dell laptop you got me when I went to college. This bronze hand crank turns it on, and I've hidden a miniature photo printer where the tune sheet is supposed to go. I even installed Linux. I've put a lot of time into this since I quit my job at Anthropologie, which is something else I wanted to tell you about. Don't get up and go to Lowe's yet. But when you're there can you get me a two-speed fan capacitor?
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To destroy Al Qaeda, we must end the war on terror: Rand Corporation
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:33am CDT by Cory Doctorow
A new Rand Corporation report comprehensively surveys the ways that terrorist groups have been disbanded in the past: "Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended." Instead, historic wars on terror have been won with policing and settlements. Rand's conclusion? To defeat Al Qaeda, we need to end the war on terror.
Terrorism’s End: Jon Taplin, How Terrorist Groups End: Rand Corporation
A recent RAND research effort sheds light on this issue by investigating how terrorist groups have ended in the past. By analyzing a comprehensive roster of terrorist groups that existed worldwide between 1968 and 2006, the authors found that most groups ended because of operations carried out by local police or intelligence agencies or because they negotiated a settlement with their governments. Military force was rarely the primary reason a terrorist group ended, and few groups within this time frame achieved victory.
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RIP Harriet Burns, first woman Imagineer
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:28am CDT by Cory Doctorow
Harriet Burns, the first woman Imagineer, died this week at 79. She was part of the teams that built Sleeping Beauty's Castle, the Matterhorn, Submarine Voyage, Walt Disney's Enchanted Tiki Room, Pirates of the Caribbean. and Great Moments with Mr Lincoln.
Link (Thanks, Mat!)
She also occasionally filled in for Walt Disney on "Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color."In 2000, the Walt Disney Co. named Burns as a Disney Legend, an honor that acknowledges people "whose imagination, talents and dreams have created the Disney magic."
Walt Disney Imagineering issued a statement this week, calling her "the best-dressed employee in the department."
It also released a quote from Burns in which she described her work for Disney in the 1950s: "I wore color-coordinated dresses, high heels and gloves to work. Girls didn't wear slacks back then, although I carried a pair in a little sack, just in case I had to climb into high places."
(Image: Harriet, Blaine, and some traveling companions, a Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike photo from Ste3ve's Flickr stream)
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Gawker reports on "monster" washed ashore
Posted: July 30th, 2008, 12:17am CDT by Mark Frauenfelder
