Bruce Sterling public interview on the state of 2008
Bruce Sterling returns again to the WELL's public "Inkwell" conference for his annual state-of-the-year public interview, in which anyone can join in. It's off to a rollicking start, with plenty of chewy, sometimes gnomic Sterlingian pronouncements:Some people still think that there's an "Islamo-fascist tyranny" somewhere that hates our freedoms and can organize Islam-dom into a coherent fascist state... There's just no way. Al Qaeda and the Taliban aren't true "fascists." Fascists can at least make trains run on time. Even Communists were better-organized. The mujihadeen have no organized army and no industrial policy and they don't know where to find any. Because God was supposed to handle all that for them. You're supposed to die nobly in a crowd of unwitting strangers, and then God's supposed to make that all better. That's the big plan.LinkBut when you blow up the china shop, God doesn't reassemble the plates for you. Being faith-based doesn't trump reality.
It's pretty good news that Al Qaeda is getting tired and losing its charisma. They've held center stage more than long enough.
I think "we" in the largest sense, planetary civilization, world culture or whatever, we're closer to a consensus idea of futurity than it's been since, say, 1997. It's a green futurity. People don't like it much, but they know it's coming anyway.
Ten years ago, there was a little Belle Epoque era of good feeling there when the "Washington Consensus" held its sway... and the thought among opinion-makers of the time was, you know, let the dot-com Long Boomers run that show. Everybody knew that what they were saying and doing didn't make much sense -- but at least there was plenty of pie there for the Formerly Free World.
Now the Americans have clearly lost the thread... the Americans are really just horribly out of it, they're like some giant fundie Brazil, nobody takes their pronunciamentos seriously or believes a word they say... Whereas the world is much more seriously global now. China and India are real players, they're part of the show and they matter.
Serious-minded people everywhere do know they have to deal with the resource crisis and the climate crisis. Because the world-machine's backfiring and puffing smoke. Joe and Jane Sixpack are looking at four-dollar milk and five-dollar gas. It's hurting and it's scary and there's no way out of it but through it.
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Jan 2008 | 9:31 am
Netflix and HD: a DRM disaster that costs you your videos and control of your hardware
Davis sez,I recently purchased a new HD monitor, but when I installed it, I lost the streaming capabilities on Netflix's website. When I tried to troubleshoot the issue, I had to agree to let Netflix "reset my DRM" by destroying my Amazon.com files. After talking with Netflix's technical support, I learned that the real issue had to do with the HD capabilities of my PC setup. Because Hollywood wants to punish people for using technology that is outside of their protocol, they are denying me access to low resolution internet videos until I downgrade my monitor to standard definition.Link (Thanks, Davis!)As if DRM isn't evil enough already, I now have to give up access to files I've already bought and even then might not be allowed access unless I have specific approved HD equipment that allows Hollywood to control how I consume my media content. I understand that content owners want to be able to charge for their content, but something is wrong when their DRM won't even allow you to pay to use their product.
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Jan 2008 | 9:25 am
Fractal art contest winners
The winners of this year's Fractal Art contest are on display -- Benoit Mandelbrot is the chairman of the event! There are so many jaw-droppingly brilliant images here that I couldn't pick just one to illustrate this post, so I chose three: Lenora Clark's Royalty, Ulli Behrendt's Modern Times and Jock Cooper's 62971. But there's about a zillion more I almost included -- there's a lot to love here. Link (Thanks, Paul!)
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Jan 2008 | 8:04 am
World's Smallest Projector
SkinnyGuy writes "Mixed into all of PCMag's CES preview coverage is an interesting story about a projector that's no bigger than an iPod. An early version showed up at last year's CES, but some of the guts weren't inside the small body. Now they are. It uses, lasers to project the image. Really fascinating, futuristic stuff."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 3 Jan 2008 | 8:04 am
Get rich farming frogs, 1934
Here's an exciting idea from the May, 1934 edition of Modern Mechanix: raise frogs in your backyard for fun and profit!Link
No frog farmer need search for a market, his crop is virtually all sold before it is raised. I could sell one hundred times my present production in a single week, and am expanding my ponds so, eventually, I expect to have 1000 acres utilized solely for giant bullfrog culture. I sell tadpoles at five to ten cents each by the hundred. They are used to stock farms and for aquarium purposes.Frog Meat Is Delicious
Bullfrogs, that cost me less than one cent per year to feed, wholesale at $3.00 per dozen in large quantities. Smaller frogs, of which only the legs are used, sell for as high as seventy cents per pound. Each frog gives a pound of delicious white meat that has a taste similar to a tender, juicy squab. The whole frog is used, the front quarter being just as delicious as the legs.
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Jan 2008 | 8:00 am
Beer-can table of 1936
In August 1936, Science and Mechanics magazine ran a little feature (with photo supplied by Pabst!) of this handsome beer-can table made from 420 soldered-together tins, created by Bernard Dier of Chicago. Link
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Jan 2008 | 7:56 am
Pirate Disney panties that scream fair use
Today in my ongoing series of photos from my travels: these pirate Disney panties on sale in a Shanghai street-market that seem to have been designed by someone who wishes to invoke fair use by emblazoning them with PARODY DESIGN. Link
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Jan 2008 | 7:53 am
History of guerrilla knitting at 24th Chaos Communication Congress
Rose White's 24th Chaos Communication Congress presentation "The history of guerrilla knitting" is an incredibly fascinating tour through the history of proprietary versus open knitting; mad, subversive knitting projects; knowledge-sharing and knitting, and so on. There're plenty of delightful slides and lots of juicy background about the way that knitting broke free of proprietary, secretive guilds, only to be locked down again by greed-heads, whence it is now being liberated by knit-hackers.Link, Video download (via Craft)
"Guerrilla knitting" has a couple of meanings in the knitting community - to some, it merely means knitting in public, while to others, it means creating public art by knitted means.Contemporary knitters feel very clever for coming up with edgy language to describe their knitting, but the truth is that for decades there have been knitters and other textile artists who are at least as punk rock as today's needle-wielders. This talk will cover the vibrant history of contemporary knitting, with a focus on projects that will make you say, "Wow, that's knitted?" Feel free to bring knitting projects to the talk - let's get some public knitting going on at the conference!
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Jan 2008 | 7:51 am
RideAccidents: roundup site for carny ride accidents
RideAccidents is a website that tracks gruesome carny-ride accidents -- the happiest manglings on earth! Fuel for your phobia of fun-fairs.Air Glory ride cited for 25 code violations; report suggests operator, not deficiences, to blame for deathLink (via Neatorama)Owner: operator "had a tendency not to lock the carabiner after attaching the rider to the ride."
(Friday, July 27, 2007) - The Air Glory freefall ride from which a girl fell to her death in Wisconsin on July 14 has been cited for 25 code violations by investigators who inspected the ride after the accident. Officials from the Wisconsin Commerce Department do not believe that the deficiencies contributed to the girl's death because the ride was operating properly at the time she was killed. However, one official said that the ride might have been red-tagged if the violations had been discovered before the accident. The ride was due for an inspection three days after the accident.
Source: Boing Boing | 3 Jan 2008 | 7:43 am
Clive Thompson on How the Next Victim of Climate Change Will Be Our Minds
Philosopher Glenn Albrecht has coined the term "solastalgia" -- pining for a lost environment -- to describe effects of climate change that erodes your sense of home, despite ever leaving it.Source: Wired: Top Stories | 3 Jan 2008 | 5:00 am
Reviews: Mass Effect for Xbox 360, The Pirate's Dilemma, Sia's Jazzy Electropop
Explore Mass Effect's jaw-droppingly gorgeous and lifelike worlds, adventure through tropical landscapes in search of hidden treasure and take in airy crowd-pleaser Sia's vocal charms.Source: Wired: Top Stories | 3 Jan 2008 | 5:00 am
Scientists Fly to 2008's Most Dazzling Meteor Shower
coondoggie writes "On Thursday, SETI Institute and NASA scientists will take their research instruments and their coffee for a 10 hour continuous flight to map what they say will be the earth's most brilliant meteor shower of 2008. Scientists believe the Quadrantid meteor shower could flash over 100 visible meteors per hour at its peak, depending on location. A Gulfstream V aircraft will take off from San Jose, Calif., and fly 14 scientists and their instruments for 10 continuous hours at 47,000ft., over the Arctic and back to San Jose. The primary goal of the lengthy airborne mission is to observe the Quadrantid meteor shower in ideal and virtually unchanging conditions far above light pollution and clouds to determine when the meteor shower peaks and how the flow of meteors are dispersed."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 3 Jan 2008 | 4:09 am
What's Wrong With the TV News
MBCook writes "Technology Review has a fantastic seven page piece titled "You Don't Understand Our Audience" by former Dateline correspondent John Hockenberry. In it he discusses how NBC (and the networks at large) has missed and wasted opportunities brought by the Internet; and how they work to hard to get viewers at the expense of actual news. The story describes various events such as turning down a report on who al-Qaeda is for a reality show about firefighters, having to tie a story about a radical student group into American Dreams, and the failure to cover events like Kurt Cobain suicide (except as an Andy Rooney complaint piece)."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 3 Jan 2008 | 2:13 am
Jan. 3, 1957: Debut of the Electric Watch, a Space Age Marvel
For blind faith in technology it's hard to top the 1950s, and Hamilton's revolutionary watch is an iconic reminder of that faith -- both good and bad.Source: Wired: Top Stories | 3 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
CES Preview: Phonemakers, Carriers Take Aim at iPhone Magic
Phonemakers and carriers are counting on the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show as a chance to recover from the 2007 CES, when Apple's announcement of the iPhone eclipsed anything debuted in Las Vegas.Source: Wired: Top Stories | 3 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
CES Preview: Phonemakers, Carriers Take Aim at iPhone Magic
Phonemakers and carriers are counting on the 2008 International Consumer Electronics Show as a chance to recover from the 2007 CES, when Apple's announcement of the iPhone eclipsed anything debuted in Las Vegas.Source: Wired: Gadgets | 3 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
How Does MS Office for Mac Compare to Office for Windows?
Take a look at how the new Office versions for Mac and Windows are rolling out, feature by feature.Source: Wired Software | 3 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
How Does MS Office for Mac Compare to Office for Windows?
Take a look at how the new Office versions for Mac and Windows are rolling out, feature by feature.Source: Wired: Top Stories | 3 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
NASA Dreams of an Interplanetary 'Second Life' for Mars Crew
One small step for man, one giant leap for ping times.Source: Wired: Top Stories | 3 Jan 2008 | 2:00 am
The 5 Coolest Hacks of '07
ancientribe writes "Nothing was sacred to hackers in '07 — not cars, not truckers, and not even the stock exchange. Dark Reading reviews five hacks that went after everyday things we take for granted even more than our PC's — our car navigation system, a trucker's freight, WiFi connections, iPhone, and (gulp) the electronic financial trading systems that record our stock purchases and other online transactions."Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 3 Jan 2008 | 12:47 am
Will YouTube Shyness Disrupt the Iowa Caucuses?
Iowans wonder whether online video and ubiquitous cameras and recording devices will change the dynamics in Thursday's all-important caucuses.Source: Wired: Top Stories | 3 Jan 2008 | 12:00 am
Facebook Ads Make You the Star -- And You May Not Know It
Facebook last week started quietly rolling out "Social Ads" -- advertisements featuring the names and profile photos of your friends. Critics say that users aren't adequately notified that their photos may appear in these ads.Source: Wired: Top Stories | 3 Jan 2008 | 12:00 am
US Government To Release Electronic Passport
XueCast writes "The federal government has announced that they will release new electronic Passport cards in either April or May 2008. The cards could be read wirelessly from up to 20 feet away, which could reduce the waiting time at border checkpoints. Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State For Passport Services, Ann Barrett said, "As people are approaching a port of inspection, they can show the card to the reader, and by the time they get to the inspector, all the information will have been verified and they can be waved on through.""Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Source: Slashdot | 2 Jan 2008 | 11:33 pm