Wednesday, June 2, 2004
Joi Ito profile
Boing Boing pal and superblogger Joi Ito was profiled today by the Associated Press."Joi is an incredibly dynamic person," said Justin Hall, an American writer on technology culture and a friend of Ito's for several years. "He's got a fantastic curiosity. His metabolism or something -- he's wired a little different." Link
posted by David Pescovitz at 11:49:23 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Occult book exhibit
Here's a stunning collection of rare occult books from the Monash University Library in Australia. From the 1998 exhibition catalog:
"So great is the variety of 'occultisms,' that it is often difficult to find any connecting link between these traditions. The word is derived from the Latin, occullere, to cover over, to hide, or conceal, and all occult belief systems lay claim to some esoteric or hidden knowledge, but so too do many religions and mystical and philosophical systems, which are not defined as 'occult'. It is also clear - at least as far as those 'occult systems' with their own complex cosmologies are concerned - that what might be perceived by an outsider as "occultism", is to the practitioner quite possibly religion. This difference of perception serves to underline the only definite link that can clearly be demonstrated between these disparate 'occultisms': all were (or are) belief systems which existed (or exist) either on the margins of, or altogether outside, the mainstream religious or philosophical orthodoxies of the cultures in which they evolved." Link
posted by David Pescovitz at 09:03:18 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Face transplant
Researchers at the University of Louisville are seeking permission from a bioethics panel to perform the first-ever face transplant. According to a CNN article, "the operation could offer new hope for those who suffer severe burns, cancer or gunshot wounds. The surgery will attach facial tissue and blood vessels from a cadaver to a new patient." New Scientist broke the news last week, reporting that "the team has been using the faces of bodies donated for medical research to practise the groundbreaking operation and the results suggest that a transplanted face will not be recognisable as either the donor or the recipient - in effect creating a third face." As a result, the University of Louisville was swamped with inquiries, resulting in the release of an FAQ on the status of the face transplant program. Apparently, they're not seeking volunteers quite yet. Link UPDATE: Praveen points us to a Flash animation explaining the transplant process. Linkposted by David Pescovitz at 08:47:32 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Join Friends of the Creative Archive and help the Beeb put EVERYTHING online
The BBC's Creative Archive is well underway now and a group of UK-based copyright activists and concerned license-payers have gotten together to lend their support to the project. The Archive is a project to put the BBC's enormous archive on the net for free viewing and remixing by the license-paying public. If the Beeb pulls this off, it will be the largest and most ambitious open-content project in the history of the world; a shining proof of the idea that the sky doesn't fall when you relax your copyright a little. I mean, we're talking the future of public service broadcasting here.So the Friends of the Creative Archive are a bunch of concerned people who want to keep this on track. It's certain that there's going to be a lot of opposition to this -- from rights-holders, commercial broadcasters, even parts of the Beeb. But at the end of the day, the license-payers bought that programming, and it's not doing us any good sitting on the BBC's shelves.
You can help: if you're a license payer, you can join the Friends, and there will be lots of opportunities in the near future to petition the Beeb, the Governors, the DCMS and Parliament for this -- there's an open letter now that you can sign onto.
Here are some of the elements critical to the creation of a real, useful, relevant Creative Archive:Link* It must be broad: drawing from all areas of the BBC's broadcasting from factual to light entertainment, from drama to sport, and everything in between.
* It must be accessible: files must be made available in open, standards-defined formats without "digital rights management" or other technology locks that will keep Britons from creatively re-using the BBC's offerings.
* It must be free: Material should be licensed under conditions that do not restrict any licence payer from accessing, storing, modifying or sharing archive material for non-commercial use.
* It must be whole: Material should be provided in its entirety for non-commercial use, not only in excerpted form.
* It must be soon: the BBC's own internally produced material should be released into the Archive as soon as possible, to prove to the world that the sky won't fall if you relax your copyright stance.
* It must be complete: the BBC should take steps to clear the rights to the independently produced material in its archive.
* It must be sustainable: the BBC's new licensing agreements with independents should all include the right for the BBC to make the works available in the Creative Archive for full non-commercial use.
posted by Cory Doctorow at 08:32:15 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Guestblogger Russ Kick's MemoryHole -- banned in Iraq?
Posted by a member of Declan McCullagh's politech mailing list:I've received email from a person with an [army.mil] address. This person is stationed in Iraq, and he/she tells me that The Memory Hole is blocked on military computers. Trying to get to the site results in the following message:LinkAccess Denied (content_filter_denied)
Your request was denied because of its content categorization: "Extreme;Politics/Religion". For assistance, contact your network support team.How interesting. I post raw documents created by the government, military, and corporations. These days, that apparently amounts to "political extremism." Naturally, I've filed a FOIA request about this blocking.
Update: BoingBoing reader Priapo says, "I read your post in boingboing talking about this subject and I have gathered a few ways to bypass the filter using a proxy. It's explained here."
posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:10:17 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
US Army wants "wise" G.I.s
Spotted on Noah Schachtman's DefenseTech blog today:Soldiers of today need to new "skill sets. to function effectively under high-stress and other emotionally-laden circumstances," the Army says. "These conditions are sometimes associated with interpersonal transactions but may also emerge as reactions to fast-paced, high-demand events and situations." The best way to determine whether a grunt has these skill sets or not: gauge his "emotional intelligence," or EI. It's made up of four abilities, according to the Army: "the perception, management, expression, and utilization of emotion."LinkThe military is asking companies for ideas on how to put together a new, "comprehensive personnel management and training system" that would assess and build "an individual's ability to recognize, express, react and manage emotions associated with these interpersonal events and emotionally-laden circumstances."
Similarly, the Army would like to find leaders "who possess the wisdom to extend their expertise and values beyond service interests." But right now, it doesn't have an efficient way to find out who's wise and who's not.
posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:06:17 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Pentax goes all-digital?
Darren from Digital Photography Blog says,A report out of Russia claims that Pentax are announcing a complete withdrawal of manufacturing of compact and SLR film cameras by the end of the year. It could be just a localised thing but some are suggesting it just the first of the "big five" camera manufacturers who will all make moves in the coming years to go digital (to different extents).Link
posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:04:18 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
ExExEx Church
Fleshbot points us to a parody of "Christian porn site" XXXChurch:Despite whatever certain Christian anti-porn propaganda sites would have you believe, there's ample evidence that porn, masturbation, and parody are part of the divine universal plan. Guru Karen, Bob the Sexually Suggestive Wooden Massage Implement, and the rest of the gang at ExExEx Church have made it their mission to set the record straight: "I believe that if God hated masturbation he would have made our arms short, like a Tyrannosaurus Rex."Link
posted by Xeni Jardin at 08:02:32 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Weblogsinc launches "Autoblog"
A car-themed blog is the latest from Jason Calacanis' online micropublishing company Weblogsinc. Linkposted by Xeni Jardin at 07:57:02 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Tuesday, June 1, 2004
Quaker football cheer
This short-short story about a Quaker football game has the second-greatest religious football cheer in literature (the best is Philip Roth's "Ikey Mikey Shem and Ham, We're the boys who eat no ham, Go Yid!"):Fight, fight, inner light, Kill, quakers, kill!Link (Thanks, Danny!)
Knock 'em down, beat 'em senseless,
Do it till we reach consensus!
posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:33:57 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Many-worlds dating: Quantum lovegety
Futurismic, the excellent sf-writers'-group-blog, has just published its second piece of short fiction, "Shibuya no Love" by Hannu Rajaniemi, a Finn living in Edinburgh. The story deals with "Quantum Lovegety" technology, and is jam-packed with eyeball kicks and gracenotes.The boy looked like a painted little satyr: silver lips and eyelids, orange ash-streaked hair and a heavy gold chain around his neck. He couldn’t have been older than twelve, but then in Shibuya a fifteen-year-old was ancient and venerable. The drone of the bass beat that seemed to permeate everything in 109 obscured the rapid-fire exchange between Norie and the boy, but it wasn’t long before he smiled hungrily and held his palm out towards Riina, the little pink thing bright against his dark skin like a tiny flower. She took it, and it was still warm from the boy’s hand, a living thing almost. Her MasterCard thumbnail sang an inaudible song to the boy’s account, and suddenly she was the proud owner of a quantum lovegety.Link (Thanks, Jeremy!)
posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:28:34 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
"Rance" unmasked as cartoonist/filmmaker/screenwriter Keith Thomson?
David Emery, of About.com's Urban Legends and Folklore department, tells BoingBoing, "Wanted to let you know that Alex Boese of the Museum of Hoaxes may well have solved the Rance mystery with some good, old-fashioned Net detective work, or at any rate is damn close to solving it."Here's a snip from the Museum of Hoaxes post, which -- true or not -- evidences some very thorough sleuthing indeed:
I think Rance is a cartoonist/filmmaker/screenwriter named Keith Thomson. Here's my reasoning. What immediately struck me about Rance's weblog was that it attracted a very high number of comments from very early on. Within two hours after Rance posted his first entry on December 29, 2003, four people had left comments on his site. Most weblogs, by contrast, struggle to get anyone to read them, let alone leave comments. So how was he attracting so many visitors to his site straight off the bat? What I discovered was that immediately after Rance posted his first entry on Dec. 29 at 4:49 EST, someone going by the screen name 'InvaderFromPluto' began posting messages about his weblog on various fan discussion groups. For instance, at 5:52, about one hour after Rance had posted his first entry, a message from InvaderFromPluto appears on Yahoo's thematthewperryplace message board. It reads:Link, and previous BoingBoing posts: 1, 2i read slate reported a famous tv actor keeping a weblog under pseudonym "rance" at http://captainhoof.tripod.com/blog/ it's hard to know if it is him, but it might be as it is funny and seems witty in his sort of way
Obviously Slate hadn't written anything about Rance's weblog. Rance's weblog, at that time, was only an hour old. So how did InvaderFromPluto know about Rance's weblog so quickly, and why was he so interested in promoting it? Perhaps InvaderFromPluto was Rance himself. Makes sense to me.
posted by Xeni Jardin at 01:25:07 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Another chance to have Cory's books signed and shipped to your door
Back when I lived in San Francisco, the nice people at Borderlands Books did this super-cool thing where they'd take orders for my books, along with details for personal inscriptions, then get me to sign them when I dropped round the store, and ship them for free within the US (and for a modest fee elsewhere).Of course, that became a lot less practical last winter, when I moved to London. But you've got another chance to get a signed, inscribed book shipped right to your door: I'm swinging briefly through SF in June (and I do mean *briefly* -- sorry, no time to socialize) and I'm gonna stop by Borderlands and sign any stock that they have. If you get your order in before June 15, I'll sign your copy that week and you'll have it before July 1 -- pretty cool!
Borderlands' contact info is
866 Valencia St.
San Francisco CA 94110 USA
415 824-8203
888 893-4008
Call or email them with your order and payment details and they'll get you sorted out.
posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:06:58 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
New Kevin Sites dispatch from Iraq: Dirty for Dirty
NBC combat correspondent and weblogger Kevin Sites is in Iraq today. He's just posted a new entry on his blog -- a series of interviews with American soldiers.Link, Discuss[O]nce they finally do get home--they will still be faced with the complex task of finding their way in a civilian society again. And while they're eager to leave their weapons and Kevlar behind, the violence they've experienced here will likely be with them in one way or another, always.
Derek Ellyson says his memories have already hardened, fixed in his mind. "You never forget the faces. I can describe to you every dead person I've seen out here. What their faces looked like, the position they were laying in." Sorokin agrees, "War brings a lot of ugly things, you see a lot of ugly things you see other people dead and sometimes when you see somebody dead you see the face of death--the way the guy died. It could be an enemy it could be an ally it doesn't matter."
Yet living with those images of death is part of the job--the same one that requires them to pull the trigger. Before going to war soldiers have always had to ask themselves if they'd be willing to die for their cause. But there is a second part to that question which for some, is more difficult to answer: would they kill for it? For most if not all in the 3rd Platoon--the question is already moot.
posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:24:54 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Christy Canyon and RU Sirius
Nerve is running an interview RU Sirius conducted with 1980s porn megastar and Boing Boing pal Christy Canyon. Christy's self-published memoir, Lights, Camera, Sex!, is a witty, engaging, and smart look inside the adult entertainment industry. It'll surprise you.
"At eighteen, I was too dumb to understand what victimization was. But even now, looking back on that day in 1984, I still don't think I was a victim. No gun was pointed at my head. I knew I could leave that porno set, and my dad would file a lawsuit. But I was hell-bent on being independent. And contrary to what the women's libbers of that era wanted to believe, the porn biz has made me so strong." Link
posted by David Pescovitz at 09:27:39 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Logan's Run "Life Clock"
A "Life Clock" from the 1976 SF film Logan's Run is up for auction on eBay with a $49.99 minimum bid. I'm not sure how to guarantee that it's an authentic film prop, but with just ten hours to go and zero bids, it could be a score. Paul Allen, are you reading this? Link (Thanks, Vann!) posted by David Pescovitz at 09:07:10 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Jennfomation Data Center
Former BB guest blogger Jenn Shreve has launched her new personal Web site, the Jennfomation Data Center. Jenn is strictly a writer, but this site is a DIY design tour de force. Jenn cut up exquisite imagery from vintage brochures and books she found at junkyards and on eBay resulting in an ironically industrial aesthetic that's equal parts El Lissitzky and 1980s 'zine. The text is great too! Link posted by David Pescovitz at 08:44:58 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
InstaSnow
Here is a video of a guy demonstrating some stuff he calls "InstaSnow." It's a white powder. When you add water to the powder it gets really fluffy. I wonder what this stuff is -- is there an "open source" recipe for it? Linkposted by Mark Frauenfelder at 08:39:21 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
What's in your gadget bag, Xeni?
Sweet-talking Gizmodo editor Joel Johnson convinced me to unzip my gadget bag. Here's what fell out. Linkposted by Xeni Jardin at 07:34:45 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Phone consultants condemn sophisticated handsets for empowering users
Mako Analysis is a consultancy that recently issued an hysterical report on SymbianOS phones, warning that giving telco customers devices that they can install software on created a "loophole" that allows "consumers" to avoid the extortionate tarrifs charged on things like information services and ringtones. The consultants advise carriers to provide less-capable phones to their customers as a way of protecting their rackets:"The increasing sophistication of high-end mobile devices opens up a range of additional problems and will continue to undermine the data revenue streams of mobile operators at a time when they desperately need them to be increasing," a Mako spokesperson said...Link (Thanks, Matt!)"As with any new device feature," the spokesperson continued, "it will eventually infiltrate into medium and low-end terminals, in the case of practically every other advancement this would be welcomed. This historical approach has lead us to blindly encourage the addition of increasingly sophisticated devices throughout the range, in the case of open platform operating systems our approach surely has to be one of caution."
posted by Cory Doctorow at 03:33:19 AM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Monday, May 31, 2004
Celebrity monument photoshopping
Today on Worth1000's photoshopping contest: future monuments to celebrities.
Link
posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:42:19 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Airtexting: a heckler's dream-feature
Joi Ito has a good blog entry about Nokia's new "Airtexting" feature in the 3220 handsets: a string of LEDs down the side of the phone spell out user-defined words when the phone is waved back and forth. Joi ponders the heckling applications:LinkIf they made an airtexting enabled BlackBerry, I wonder if they would allow them in Congress. With the massive penetration of BlackBerries, it would be like a chorus of Hecklebots. Anyway, I want one. Forget night clubs, imaging having one in the audience during talks.
posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:39:51 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Geek showerhead generates electricity for tiny lightbulb inside
Nifty showerhead has built-in electricity generator.
Water enters the shower head through the flow resrictor (1) then travels through the injector plate (2) which directs the water to the waterwheel (3). The water spins the magnetic waterwheel past the stator (4) of the field wincing (5). This hydroelectric generator develops the 2.5 volts at .31 amps which lights the PR-6 bulb.The result? "The Showerstar will be sure to light up your evenings as the perfect addition to any romantic setting." I doubt it. The kind of person who would buy one of these would probably prefer taking a voltmeter into the shower than a partner. Link (Thanks, Simon!)
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 07:37:36 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
The problem with contextual advertising
Great musings on contextual advertising by John Battelle. He says that they aren't all they're cracked up to be because the advertiser has no control on where the ads will show up, and so they can have a real relationship with the audience, or the publisher, for that matter.It's this relationship which I find entirely missing in all these contextual, behavioral, paid search networks. Sure, they are "relevant" to either a search, or to the content they match. But they are driven by metadata and the actions of only one of the parties - the content of the publisher for example (AdSense), or the actions of the audience (Claria, Revenue Science, Tacoda, etc.). As far as I know, none are driven by an understanding of the give-and-take that occurs between all three parties in a consensual relationship mediated by the publication. A site which has only AdSense or behavioral advertising fails to value (or monetize) the community connection between audience, publisher, and advertiser. Advertisers in these networks are not intentionally supporting the publication, and by extension they are not supporting the community the publication has created. In essence, they are not being good citizens of the community where their advertising is being displayed.Link
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 06:11:09 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Japanese Uniforms Book
When I went to Japan a couple of weeks ago, I kind of became obsessed with the uniforms everybody wears there. My friend Todd let me know about a series of Japanese uniform books that J-List sells, like this "Office Lady Uniform Pictorial Book Part 1":
For fans of the sailor uniform books, here's a "Chinkame" format photobook (pocket-sized) photobook of the beautiful uniforms of Japan's OLs (office ladies) -- those dedicated to serving tea and working on copy machines across the country. A super full-color publication documenting the cutest blazers, skirts, outfits and different uniform styles as introduced to you by the hottest current race queens. Famous uniforms of famous companies (NTT Docomo, Seibu Bus Company, BMW, etc) from across the country, with information on the style of the uniform as well as the girl modeling it. This is volume 1 a perfect bound, soft cover book that will look great on your coffee tableLink
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 05:30:49 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Notes from Tokyo Technorati Meetup
When I was in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago, I exchanged email with Sid, a nice guy who recently moved from the US to Tokyo. Here's his report of a Technorati meetup in Tokyo, which has some interesting statistics:I just moved to Tokyo and saw on Joi Ito's site that he and Dave Sifry, Technorati CEO, were putting on a "Technorati Meetup" on Thursday night at the Marinouchi Building, so I decided to go. It was a fun time, I learned a lot, and they had free Wi-Fi (a rarity in Tokyo), so I was able to update several programs real fast.Here are some notes from Dave's talk (which Joi translated, although Dave speaks Japanese).
Technorati tracks 2.4 million blogs.
45% haven't posted in three months.
Around 200,000 new blogs are created daily.
About 7 minutes after someone posts a new entry it's indexed by Technorati and searchable
Sifry says blogs are striving for authority, as defined by how many people link to you when you write about things. You may not write the truth or even be correct, but if you're interesting people link to you.
He sees bloggers as commentators on the news and filters on the news, rather than replacing the news ... though blogs are giving big media sites a run for their money on hits and attention (as seen on a chart of hits).
Technorati has an active developers' site with several bindings and sample code of the program for people to use and mutate on their own. "Because if there's one thing I know, it's that you guys are all smarter than me," Sifry says.
An example is a program Joi wrote to send SMS to his phone when someone links to his site. It vibrates every time somebody links to him (and he encourages frequent linking).
Future directions for Technorati: Open reviews, subscribe to keywords and Cosmos filters, discovery & filtering of subscription lists, vote links and geographic search & filtering, which is hard because people have to put in GPS coordinates (applies more to phone blogging). There currently are 11,000 blogs in the geographic database.
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 04:25:26 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
John Shirley reports from BayCon
John Shirley wrote a good, funny report about going to BayCon....what's new (to me) is the presence of more goths and rave-types, and parties in dark rooms where the beds are pushed together and the walls are draped in black velvet under black-lights and electronica thumps...And DJs playing goth dance music...What would Poul Anderson have thought? He'd have liked those topless girls with their breasts painted up, though...Link
posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:13:54 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
William Hung sings at a Jays game
William Hung is the nerdy Hong Kong-born engineering student who had a disastrous and very brave appearance on American Idol. The video of that audition made him into a net-celeb, and landed him a record deal, despite his off-key singing (his disc has sold over 100,000 copies!). His latest gig was singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game" at a Blue Jays game:Hung's presence brought a gaggle of media usually indifferent to baseball to the game, including staff from Rolling Stone magazine. A team official said more media credentials were issued Sunday than on opening day.Link
posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:50:52 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
I'm nominated for the Sunburst Award!
My short story collection, A Place So Foreign and Eight More, has been shortlisted for the Sunburst Award, a juried prize that goes to the best Canadian science fiction book each year. I am pleased as PUNCH. Linkposted by Cory Doctorow at 01:45:28 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
Adrian Mole: the text-adventure game
The Adrian Mole books are my all-time favorite English kids' books. When I was in junior high and high-school, they were practically Bibles to my friends and me -- we could quote whole long passages of them Imagine my delight when I found out this week that there was a text-adventure game based on them for the Commodore 64, and that the game is now downloadable froplay on your favorite C64 emulator. Linkposted by Cory Doctorow at 01:44:11 PM permalink | Other blogs commenting on this post
