Wednesday, May 25, 2005

Romance novel cover remixes redux

Back in February, I blogged about this project to remix romance novel covers, adding funny new titles suggested by the cover art. There's a new batch of covers up, with lots of titles suggested by readers of the site, some of which (e.g., WHEN COUSINS MARRY, THE CLEAVAGE OF MARY-ANN PUSHUP, THE SMUG VIKING WHO SHAVED HIS NIPPLES, HE WAS SO PRETTY I FELT LIKE A LESIBAN, etc) are blisteringly funny. Link (Thanks, Tom!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 01:00:09 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Chinese posted-ad for would-be mafiosi

Found on Flickr, this Chinese poster advertising for people to form a crime-syndicate:

Searching for Someone that Would be Interested [To Whom It May Concern]

I have been recently released from prison after doing over 10 years of time. I wanted to reform [reject the way of crime] and join the society, but the government is not what it used to be [I have done my time, but the government still treats me as a criminal].

I tried to start my own business, but lost everything. Thus I am broke and lack of money [financial resource].

Today, I have decided to join a terrorist organization or the underground crime syndicate. If anyone has connections, I am willing to join.

Or, if others have the similar idea, we could join forces and start our own "mafia".

Good looking female members are encouraged and welcome.

Contact telephone number: 027-61297229

Law enforcements please do not bother me, I have yet broken any law.

Link (Thanks, Tian!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:41:12 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Lightsaber umbrella

This umbrella has a lightsaber handle and silkscreened vaderoid artwork on the sides. Link (via Wonderland)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:34:36 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Morse coders faster than SMSers

In a competition on the Leno show, a pair of Morse coders kicked the asses of two SMSers for speed. MAKE blog has links to the video and comments from the competitors. Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:22:21 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Hong Kong Disney will feature shark fin soup despite environmental devastation

Bish sez, "Despite the fact that millions of sharks are killed every year, by cutting off their fins and dropping the still-alive body back in the sea, leading to their inevitable extinction, Disney will have sharkfin soup on its menu in its new Hong Kong theme park."

Greenpeace and the Worldwide Fund for Nature asked Hong Kong Disneyland to take shark fin soup off the menu after the theme park announced last week the delicacy would be served at wedding banquets and other special events...

But Disney says that while it takes the environment very seriously, the company is equally sensitive to local cultures and the dish is a key part of Chinese banquets.

Link (Thanks, Bish!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:18:51 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Bladder doesn't shrink with age

Women's increased urinary urgency with age does not appear to be the result of a shrinking bladder, but rather reflects a treatable muscular disorder.

Women with normally aging bladders had weaker bladder sensation; while women who experienced increased bladder sensation actually had an underlying condition called detrusor overactivity (DO). DO is a common condition, often referred to as overactive bladder, where the detrusor muscle that controls the emptying of the bladder contracts involuntarily, creating a strong, sometimes uncontrollable urge to empty the bladder.

"Now, when a woman comes to her doctor and says that she thinks her bladder is shrinking, we realize that it is more likely she suffers from DO than from a smaller bladder," said Dr. Resnick. "The good news is that DO is treatable, so that any woman experiencing urgency or incontinence should see her doctor."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:15:58 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Blackbeard's flagship found

A ship believed to be the wreck of Blackbeard's flagship, The Queen Anne's Revenge, has been found off the coast of North Carolina:

"We knew it the first day and we still have absolutely no doubt that she's the Queen Anne's Revenge," said Phil Masters, whose Florida-based research firm located the wreckage in 1996. "There is no other ship lost at Beaufort Inlet with anything more than 10 cannon, nor more than 110 tons that we know of."

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 12:13:06 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Tuesday, May 24, 2005

BBS: The Documentary is shipping

Jason Scott is the maintainer of Textfiles.com, a collection of all the textfiles ever posted to a BBS during the golden age of dial-up modems. He's also a former Boing Boing guestblogger.

For several years now, Jason has been pursuing his labor of love: a five and a half hour documentary on the history of Bulletin Board Systems, called BBS: The Documentary. Now BBS: THe Documentary is finally shipping. Congrats, Jason! Link (via /.)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:16:46 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Future of TV: Piracy will save production

The transcript of part one of Mark Pesce's speech, "Piracy is Good?" went live on Mindjack a couple weeks ago. It was a thought-provoking piece, but mostly covered old ground, talking about how the Battlestar Galactica had benefitted from SciFi's visionary online free distribution of the video and supplementary material in advance of the broadcast.

But now that part two is up, it's a lot more exciting. Part two is a roadmap of the future of television broadcasting and the economics of TV production. It's got some genuinely visionary material, and it makes it clear that for every loser who gets disintermediated by TV-over-the-Internet, there's a concomitant winner.

The producer has a better chance to reach an audience than ever before, but has no control over how productions reach that audience. If control over distribution could be maintained, if the oligarchy of commercial television broadcasting could consolidate its hold on program distribution, none of this would need to change. But it has already begun to change; the horse has already fled the barn.

The audience is asserting their control over television programming; this is actually a good thing, because the moments for television viewing are expanding in direct proportion to the exercise of this new power. Until very recently, television was an experience which was confined to the lounge room, shackled to a big, heavy box. But now we can watch full-length television programs on our mobile phones (a new capability of the latest generation of mobiles), or on the Sony PlayStation Portable (PSP), a high-resolution, widescreen, portable game and media machine, two of the new "must have" items for the younger set.

Part 1, Part 2, Postscript, Torrented video of speech (via Copyfight)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:11:07 PM permalink | blogs' comments

HOWTO put Amazon's cover-image engine through its paces

This person has reverse-engineered Amazon's cover-image-generating technology and can get it to do all kinds of tricks, like cough up arbitrarily sized covers, covers with discount bubbles on them, and even original covers sent by the publisher and later supplanted by new designs -- all by manipulating the base image URL. He can get half-CDs to stick out of it, rotate it at arbitrary angles, and add a ton of chrome to the image. All a testament to how freaking clever AMZN's image-generating engine is. Link (Thanks, Shahin!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:05:25 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Kittenwar: HotOrNot for kittens

Kittenwar is a HotOrNot site for kittens, in which you are encouraged to choose between kittens on the basis of which is cutest. It is every bit as clicktrance-inducing as RateMyPoo or HotOrNot or ThisOrThat or any of the other human-mediated bubblesorts. Link (Thanks, Yoz!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:38:04 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Cory speaking in London next Wednesday

I'm giving a talk at London's Ecademy next Wednesday night. I'll be talking about America's Broadcast Flag, an unsavory piece of work that would have given Hollywood's would-be device czars a veto over the design of PCs and digital TVs. We had a crushing victory over the forces of darkness, but the evil Flag isn't dead yet -- and what's worse, it's going to come to Europe soon, in the guise of the DVB CPCM system for restricting television at home.

When: Wednesday, 1 June - 6:00pm to 10:00pm
Where: Marriott Hotel Marble Arch, 134 George Street, London,
Agenda: 6.00 - 7.30 Ecademist Networking (in the bar)
7.30 - 7.45 Ecademy Announcements
7.45 - 8.30 Talks
8.30 - 10.00 Ecademist Networking (in the bar)

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:31:19 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Stross's Singularity wiki

The Singularity is the moment in human history when things go non-linear because of the ability to upload consciousness to computers. Hitching human intelligence to PC industry's growth curve will make incomprehensible transhumans out of us, rupturing history. It's a lot of fun for science fiction writers to write about.

Charlie Stross -- who is all over this year's Hugo Ballot for a ton of fiction about the Singularity and other topics -- has created a Wiki for mapping out the contours of the Singularity.

If you live through the SIngularity and you do not try UpLoading and are not rendered PostHumous by feral calculators or get eaten by GreyGoo, you may be one of the PostHumans. PostHumans are humans who are not human any more. Some of them work for the Post Office, which keeps track of the PostHumans and sees that they do not cause outbreaks of GreyGoo, but the rest of them live a leisured life, pampered and cosseted by their UtilityFog and BushRobot an' other frightful servitors. Bein' PostHumans looks wonderful from here, much like being a late 20th century Accounts Clerk or Call Center Worker would have looked for a Hungarian peasant in 1420 with the nobility trying to kill them, i.e. grey, boring, and extremely well-fed. Only it'll be more exciting than that because we'll have World of Warcraft 21.499! Or something even better to play!

PostHumans are all inhumanly handsome or pretty, live infinitely long, get free unlimited resurrections if they're killed by dire boars or feral calculators or eated by Buick-eating aliens, and they get to have magic PixieDust NanoTechnology skillz. Being PostHumans is the bizniss.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:26:20 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Crazy "lenticular mammatus" clouds over Joplin, MO

Curtis sez, "My mom lives in Joplin, MO and while out doing some work on the house in the morning saw these crazy clouds in the sky. Unfortunately, she didn't have a camera. Fortunately, the local news did. According to the weatherman on TV, they are called 'lenticular mammatus' and occur infrequently. The last reported sighting in the area was about 30 years ago." Link (Thanks, Curtis!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:22:33 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Fight PATRIOT III -- write your Senator today!

Donna sez, "Now you can actually do something about the new PATRIOT Act expansion bill that's being marked up behind closed doors this Thursday (previous BoingBoing post here.)

"If this bill passes, the FBI could use special new 'administrative' subpoenas to get anything from anyone -- Internet logs and emails from your Internet service provider, health records from your doctor, financial information from your bank -- *without* having to go to a judge first. That's a power so vast, Congress refused to include in the original PATRIOT Act in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack.

If you are a resident of Kansas, Utah, Ohio, Missouri, Maine, Nebraska, Georgia, Virginia, West Virginia, Michigan, California, Oregon, Indiana, Maryland, or New Jersey, your senator is on the committee reviewing this bill in a closed session on Thursday. Don't let it get out committee. Write your senator to oppose the bill today!" Link (Thanks, Donna!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:16:05 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Music critic to labels: Give me CDs/MP3s/vinyl or don't bother

Matt sez, "New Yorker music critic Sasha Frere-Jones is pushing back on labels that mess around with critics in an attempt to curtail filesharing,"

I will not write about any piece of music unless I have unlimited access to a portable version of it, renderered in either the CD, MP3 or vinyl format.

"He's responding to the practice of holding "listening sessions" where a group of critics are invited to the label's offices to hear an album once or twice - rather than the standard practice of offering an advance CD weeks or months ahead of commercial release and giving the writer time to absorb and reflect." Link (Thanks, Matt!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:14:02 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Duct tape festival in Ohio

The Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival takes place June 17-19 in Avon, Ohio, home to Duck brand duct tape manufacturer Henkel Consumer Adhesives. This duct tape fly was on display during last year's inaugural festival.

"From sculptures and fashion to games and a parade, everything at the festival will revolve around duct tape. Festival attendees will be able to make duct tape crafts, like roses and wallets, with professional duct tape sculptor, Todd Scott and duct tape crafter and author, Ellie Schiedermayer. Henkel Consumer Adhesives, marketer of Duck brand duct tape, will celebrate the sticky stuff with the display of numerous of larger-than-life duct tape sculptures created by local artists. In addition, The Duct Tape Guys, nationally known duct tape evangelists and authors of six books, will have several scheduled performances during the festival’s duration.

As the perfect celebration for Father’s Day weekend, the Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival not only features dad’s favorite fix-all, but also includes an antique car and truck show, a "Duct Tape Dad of the Year" contest, and all the classic fair food and rides which make festivals such a great time."

Link (Thanks, Charles Pescovitz!)

posted by David Pescovitz at 06:49:04 PM permalink | blogs' comments

FOX issuing takedown notices to Sith downloaders

Jason Striegel of p2p.weblogsinc.com says,

I recently was forwarded a message from a concerned reader who was just served a copyright infringement notice for downloading Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith. FOX is going after small-time downloaders. The letter was sent by BayTSP (on behalf of 20th Century FOX), who appear to be making good on their claim that they can effectively track BitTorrent users. I've posted the full contents of the notice (minus any identifying information) and included contact information for BayTSP in case readers have any questions or comments.

Link

Reader comment: Neil Marshall says,

I noticed that you said that BayTSP was bothering people using bit torrent. If you want to stop them from looking at your machine then using this program called ProtoWall is helpful. Protowall blocks addresses from looking at the files in your shared folder. A secondary program on the same site called Blocklist Manager has a useful list of all those those companies that like to look at what you're downloading (BayTSP is on the list). Put the two together and you have an effective privacy tool.

Ernest Miller says,

If you're using BitTorrent, you're not just a DOWNloader, you are also an UPloader: Link.

Thep2pweblog reports that the 20th Century FOX film studio is issuing notice and takedown letters targeted at those using BitTorrent to acquire copies of Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (FOX Issuing Takedown Notices to Sith Downloaders). The notices aren't coming from FOX directly, but from the P2P monitoring company BayTSP, which is apparently authorized to send such notices on behalf of FOX.

Jason Striegel comments on BoingBoing (FOX Issuing Takedown Notices to Sith Downloaders):

I recently was forwarded a message from a concerned reader who was just served a copyright infringement notice for downloading Star Wars - Revenge of the Sith. FOX is going after small-time downloaders.

Well, if they're using BitTorrent, then they're not just downloaders are they? They are uploaders as well. That is how BitTorrent works and why it is so efficient. You might have had a centralized tracker, but even that isn't necessary anymore (Publication via BitTorrent Just Got Easier). How the heck is BayTSP supposed to figure out who is a small-time "downloader" and who isn't?

This may be essentially be for principle only (and the press it will get), but those who use BitTorrent to infringe copyright need to realize that they're not hard-to-track downloaders anymore.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:57:45 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Anti-evolution stickers on schoolbooks removed

In 2002, officials in Georgia's Cobb County school district placed more than 30,000 stickers on textbooks stating: "This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered." Six parents sued the school district and won. In January, a federal judge in Atlanta ruled that the stickers are unconstitutional because they violate the separation between church and state. (Background here.) This week, the stickers are finally being scraped off the books, but the school system has appealed. From the Associated Press:

“It’s a sad day in Cobb County,” said Larry Taylor, a parent who favors including alternatives to evolution in science classes. “I hate to see the stickers go. I thought they were a fair compromise.”

But Jeffrey Selman, who was the lead parent among a group who sued to remove the stickers, said he was glad they were being removed. “I’m optimistic, but it ain’t over till it’s over,” Selman said.

Link, Link to Skeptic's Dictionary entry on Intelligent Design

posted by David Pescovitz at 04:54:19 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Norah Jones vs. Schroeder?

Mark Ebner at Hollywood Interrupted asks, "Was a Norah Jones hit ripped from Charlie Brown theme music? You decide... This video file offers a side-by-side comparison of Don't Know Why and Christmas Time is Here."
Link

Reader comment: mnb says,

The comparison is absurd. They're both slow jazzy lounge tunes, but other than that, there's little similarity at all. The key element that drives the Norah Jones tune is a descending line (with suspension, a classic trick used well in this) that doesn't exist at all in the other tune.

Ray Parker Jr. won the suit that Huey Lewis and the News filed against him for the Ghostbusters tune. It was proposed that it sounded too much like I Want A New Drug. If you listen to the key rhythm part in the Ghostbusters tune and then listen to the guitar line in I Want A New Drug, you can quickly see a rather strong similarity. There is no such similarity between the Norah Jones song and the other one.

I'm not a professor of music or a professional critic, but I did take 2 years of Music Theory in college and have been a casual musician for 30 years. It doesn't take schooling to determine this, though, just a good ear.

The website says that when the songs are layered over each other simultaneously they should cancel each other out. They obviously have no clue what they're talking about. The only case where this would occur is if an identical sound track was phase reversed and played with the in phase version simultaneously. What would result then would be total silence. But they state that since it DOESN'T cancel out it's a copy. They might want to pick up a book on rudimentary physics of sound. Their position is so utterly preposterous it could be construed as libel.

Dan Ray says,

The fact is that the first four notes of the main melodic phrase of each song is identical, though, granted, in different keys. The first time I heard "Don't Know Why", I heard strong echoes of the classic Vince Guaraldi tune. In fact, my wife had to slug me to keep me from singing "Christmas time is here" over Norah's vocals on every verse. Is it a deliberate rip-off? I doubt it. Though it is a fairly unique melodic construction, they go in quite opposite directions after those first four notes. You can't copyright four notes of a melody. And Vince was a cool enough guy, I'm sure his estate will lay off the lawyers.

Christopher Null says,

Ray Parker Jr. did not "beat" Huey Lewis re: the Ghostbusters theme. It was settled out of court -- and since Lewis was suing Parker, that almost certainly means Parker paid him off. In other words, he pretty much lost.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:30:31 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Long Island commuter train boasts of "passive electrocution feature"

David Spector says: "Here's an interesting notice found in the bathrooms of certain Long Island Rail Road trains..

"Once you see it, you'll wonder exactly what on earth the LIRR has in store (besides ever-increasing fares, late trains, and generally poor service) for its riders...."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:43:03 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Patty Hearst podcast

Benjamen Walker, host of The Theory of Everything, produced a podcast for a WGBH airing of an American Experience about Patty Hearst. (It aired last night). The podcast is mostly tape recordings of Patty when she was with the SLA, calling the Hearst family "pigs" and complaining about "the fascist insect" and so on. Good stuff. Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 03:28:27 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Fortune article on DIYers

(I've been meaning to blog this for a while, but it slipped through the cracks.) Dan Roth says: "I'm a writer at Fortune magazine. I thought you and your readers would like this article that's in the latest edition of Fortune. The piece is entitled "The Amazing Rise of the Do-It-Yourself Economy" and talks about all the trend of consumers discovering that they can produce the goods that they want to consume. I spend some time talking about the work of Saul Griffith and the Bible of the movement, Make magazine. Here's an excerpt:

It used to be that a tinkerer like [Pez MP3 creator Pat] Misterovich could, at best, hope to sell his idea to a big company. More likely, he'd entertain friends with his Pez-sized visions. But a number of factors are coming together to empower amateurs in a way never before possible, blurring the lines between those who make and those who take. Unlike the dot-com fortune hunters of the late 1990s, these do-it-yourselfers aren't deluding themselves with oversized visions of what they might achieve. Instead, they're simply finding a way-in this mass-produced, Wal-Mart world-to take power back, prove that they can make the products that they want to consume, have fun doing so, and, just maybe, make a few dollars. "What's happened is a tremendous change in awareness," says Eric von Hippel, a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management and author of the recent Democratizing Innovation. "Conventional wisdom is so strong [in business] about find-a-need-and-fill-it: 'We're the manufacturers; we design products; we ask users what they need; we do it.' That has begun to crack."

Numerous currents have converged to produce this reaction. Bloggers, those do-it-yourself journalists, showed big media that the barriers to entry (like owning a printing press, say) didn't much matter. Podcasters took radio into their own hands, creating audio shows and putting them online. Amateur music producers, using software that was once the province only of major labels, invented mash-ups: combining songs into totally new ones, then giving them away or selling them. And with the advent of services like Google AdSense, which let people easily put advertising on their sites, these tinkerers could-while not vaulting themselves into Bill Gates territory-at least break even.

"Before, only the rich had access to tools and so only the rich were professionals, and the rest were amateurs," says Noah Glass, the co-founder of Odeo, which offers a free service for making, hosting, and distributing podcasts. "But now, as the creation tools have become easier to use and more freely distributed through open source, through the Internet, through awareness, more people have more access to more tools, so the whole amateur-professional dichotomy is dissolving."

Citizen engineers are taking this even further, trying their hand not just in the digital world but in the physical world too. Much as eBay transformed distribution, they're redefining design and manufacture.

Dan also says: "While Fortune articles are usually locked up behind a curtain, I've persuaded the dot-com side to open this one up to everyone." Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 02:53:05 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Cybernetic parrot sausage

Here's a move of a guy who gutted an electronic talking toy parrot and stuffed the circuitry and motor into a sausage.
Link (Thanks, polymorf!)

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 01:38:38 PM permalink | blogs' comments

Women and videogames: Xeni on KUOW's "The Works"

Today on "The Works," a newsmagazine produced by KUOW radio in Seattle, I'll join host John Moe and author / blogger / fragger Brad King for a discussion on women and gaming. "Videogames are a huge industry even though one gender is only minimally represented." If you're in Seattle, tune in at 94.9 FM between 8-9pm tonight (Tuesday 24 May). Otherwise, listen to the show's podcast -- which will be available online later this evening. Link.

Reader comment: Aaron says,

Regarding "The Works" radio host who says, "Videogames are a huge industry even though one gender is only minimally represented."... Make sure you point out that older women are actually the largest demographic of online gamers, outnumbering young men. Link to data (granted, the survey's a year old.) From the article's lede: "AOL, a unit of Time Warner Inc., released a study on Tuesday showing that U.S. women over the age of 40 spend nearly 50 percent more time each week playing online games than men and are more likely to play online games daily than men or teens."

Will Humphries says,

AOL's survey was taken from active gamers (all participants played games within three months of the survey). Its only finding regarding the over-40 female demographic was that members of that demographic *who play games* play them more regularly and frequently. They did not find that women over 40 in general are playing games a lot (probably because they aren't).

posted by Xeni Jardin at 11:33:41 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Lightsaber video effects for Windows, too

Last weekend I blogged a MacOS tool for adding lightsaber effects to your videos. Here's a Windows version that also adds lightsaber sound effects and replicates the Star Wars text-crawl as well.

LSMaker is a program developed by me and you can create lights saber/laser sword effects with this program. LSSound is an other program, it can be used to put sound effects easily and fast to videos. LSText lets you create flying text, images just like in the movies."

LSText will create the famous rolling texts just like every star wars beggining movie.

Works perfectly under WINE (linux).

Link (Thanks, Fabio!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:20:41 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Publish video channels from your site with Broadcast Machine

Holmes Wilson, one of the Downhill Battle agitators, sez, "We've released the first half of our internet video software platform: Broadcast Machine. It's a php tool for your website for publishing / posting video 'channels' (rich metadata rss feeds). It's the easiest way to post torrent files and it's also a really good way to make collections of videos from around the web (or to make channels out of stuff that you've posted elsewhere, eg archive.org or ourmedia.org). The goal of the software is to help people make channels of video that will be browsable, downloadable, and watchable in our video player-- which is coming out in June.

"P.S. We're also looking to hire a developer." Link (Thanks, Holmes!)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:02:22 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Plane Crazy musical goes to NY Musical Theater Fest

My friend Suzy Conn's musical, Plane Crazy, about swinging-sixties flight attendants going through the sexual revolution, has made a real milestone. Her play is going to the Big Apple, for the New York Musical Theater Festival, having landed one of 19 musical slots out of 325 applicants. This is a Big Deal in musical theatre, as many of these shows go on to bigger and better things.

Suzy's seeking a New York area director and casting director -- her contact info is on the site.

I haven't been this excited about news since I found out I was pregnant (both times). But this time my baby is Plane Crazy: A true work of love if there ever was one.

Link

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:51:45 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Phil Spector's spectacular hairdo

Miki says: "Caution: graphic & disturbing photo of Phil Spector's current hairstyle! The headline should have included a reference to one person's bad hair decade kicking into previously unforeseen overdrive."
Link

posted by Mark Frauenfelder at 10:48:20 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Book publishing stats: more titles, fewer sales, higher prices

Some interesting new stats about book publishing. Number of books sold is way down. Number of titles published is up. Cover prices are up, and so are revenues (slightly). Higher cover prices are driving students and poorer people to used books (the article doesn't say so, but I betcha that Amazon and ABE and other low-friction used-book dealers have a lot to do with this). Religious books are selling like hotcakes. There's a long tail thing visible here: lots more books to much smaller audiences. Used books are easier to get than ever, which makes new books more valuable (just like the market in used cars makes new cars more valuable). New media like DVDs and games are eating into readers' leisure time-budgets.

I tell you what: writers who worry about piracy are missing the point. Piracy isn't what's going to amateurize science fiction. We're gonna get amateurized by the same thing that turned writing poetry into a hobby instead of a business: competition from more robust forms of media; our bastard progeny (games, comics, movies) are going to eat our lunch like fast mammals moving into a bronto's ecological niche.

If there's any hope for sf, it's that it appears to be the only genre (apart from technical books) that anyone in internetland thinks highly enough of to bother pirating. Save for that shining fact, I'd be willing to just call the industry a walking zombie and start looking for some other form of semi-skilled labor, like dentistry or writing advertising copy.

The number of books sold dropped by nearly 44 million from 2003 to 2004, even as the annual number of books published approaches 175,000.

''People are reading less, so what you're seeing is the same phenomenon that has hit magazines and newspapers, a massive shift toward home video, DVD, internet and cable,'' said Albert N. Greco, an industry consultant and a professor of business at the graduate school of Fordham University.

The Book Industry Study Group, a nonprofit research organization, reported estimated sales of 2.295 billion books in 2004, compared to an estimated 2.339 billion the previous year. Higher prices enabled net revenues to increase 2.8 percent, to $28.6 billion, but also drove many readers, especially students, to buy used books, Greco said

Link (via O'Reilly Radar)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 10:40:03 AM permalink | blogs' comments

iPod coffee table

Design student Ashley Burrows built the iTable for a Design Technology course. The screen glows with light from LEDs. From iPodlounge:

"I would also have added the wheel and made the other two legs USB connectors if I had more time. Also I would have loved to implement some (iPodlounge) forum users ideas of ‘adding a Mac mini and flat screen’ to make it function as a giant iPod."

Link (via MetaFilter)

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:31:13 AM permalink | blogs' comments

One-year review of Paul Allen's Science Fiction Museum

A terrific piece in today's New York Times about the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame, which was created by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen.

Shown here, "A display of robots from various science-fiction movies and television shows, including Lost in Space and Battlestar Galactica." I have not yet been to this place, but my goodness, I'm dying to. Snip:

In the museum, the influence of those epics is unmistakable, with sound effects and lighting shaping each exhibit's environment. A "Stardock" window even seems to look out into cinematic space, where ships from "E. T." and "Star Trek" and "Star Wars" (along with antiques like H. G. Wells's moon capsule), glide past one another as observers at touch-screens learn about their origins and powers. Other displays mix genres and media with almost gleeful abandon. A vest worn by Michael York in "Logan's Run" (1976) is not far from a first edition of an Ursula K. Le Guin novel and a copy of Mad magazine. Hauntingly delicate drawings by a little-known Brazilian artist, Alvim Corrêa, illustrating a 1906 Belgian edition of H. G. Wells's "War of the Worlds," are around the corner from models of extraterrestrials assembled in a mock intergalactic saloon similar to the one in "Star Wars."

It is as if a molecular manipulator out of "The Fly" had scrambled a century of objects, grafting together disparate media and creatures.

Link (Thanks, Michael Nank!)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 10:20:39 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Beer as medicine

In the early 1920s during prohibition, a vocal group of brewers and doctors fought for the right to prescribe and drink "medical beer." For just a few months in 1921, a pint could be prescribed to cure whatever ailed ya. From Smithsonian:

On March 3, 1921, shortly before his last day as attorney general, (A. Mitchell) Palmer issued an opinion declaring that the "beverage" clause of the 18th Amendment entitled doctors to prescribe beer at any time, under any circumstances and in any amount they saw fit. Wholesale druggists could take charge of selling beer. He also suggested that commercial drugstores could sell it from their soda fountains—though "never again beer over the saloon bar or in the hotel dining room."

But rather than settling the debate, Palmer's opinion set off a new round of court challenges, squabbles and questions. "Will the druggists become bartenders and the drug store a saloon?" the New York Times asked that November. "Will the doctors become beer dictators and be overwhelmed by those who are thirsty because they are sick, or merely sick with thirst?"

Link

posted by David Pescovitz at 10:18:18 AM permalink | blogs' comments

When slang changes, bad things happen to good comix

As "BoingBoing's queen of all matters related to rumpy-pumpy," it is my obligation to alert you to this breaking news.

Link (via Joey "Accordion Guy" deVilla!)

Previously on Boing Boing: Old comic book panels taken out of context = lotsa laffs

posted by Xeni Jardin at 09:37:36 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Why we lie

The new issue of Scientific American Mind has an interesting article about why we lie to each other, and to ourselves:

We lie by omission and through the subtleties of spin. We engage in myriad forms of nonverbal deception, too: we use makeup, hairpieces, cosmetic surgery, clothing and other forms of adornment to disguise our true appearance, and we apply artificial fragrances to misrepresent our body odors. We cry crocodile tears, fake orgasms and flash phony "have a nice day" smiles. Out-and-out verbal lies are just a small part of the vast tapestry of human deceit.

The obvious question raised by all of this accounting is: Why do we lie so readily? The answer: because it works. The Homo sapiens who are best able to lie have an edge over their counterparts in a relentless struggle for the reproductive success that drives the engine of evolution. As humans, we must fit into a close-knit social system to succeed, yet our primary aim is still to look out for ourselves above all others. Lying helps. And lying to ourselves--a talent built into our brains--helps us accept our fraudulent behavior.

If this bald truth makes any one of us feel uncomfortable, we can take some solace in knowing we are not the only species to exploit the lie. Plants and animals communicate with one another by sounds, ritualistic displays, colors, airborne chemicals and other methods, and biologists once naively assumed that the sole function of these communication systems was to transmit accurate information. But the more we have learned, the more obvious it has become that nonhuman species put a lot of effort into sending inaccurate messages.

Link (via Mind Hacks)

posted by David Pescovitz at 09:20:21 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Lessig and Hardwicke fight child sexual abuse at American Boychoir School

An amazing story. Snipped from the article by John Heilemann in New York mag:

As head boy at a legendary choir school, Lawrence Lessig was repeatedly molested by the charismatic choir director, part of a horrific pattern of child abuse there. Now, as one of America’s most famous lawyers, he’s put his own past on trial to make sure such a thing never happens again.

Link

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:14:19 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Government crackdown on tinfoil beanie house

"The D'Souza family lives in the home on Timberwood Court, and claims the aluminium pieces are necessary to protect them from unknown neighbors who have been bombarding them with radio waves and making them sick. '(It's) a shield to protect against radiation, because microwave radiation is reflected off of aluminium, so it's a protective measure,' resident Sarah D'Souza said." Link (via /.)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 07:04:43 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Police project image of dead prostitute on building

Snipped from a BBC story:

A 60ft high picture of a murdered prostitute has been projected onto a derelict block of flats in Glasgow. Detectives hope it will help to turn up clues about the death of Emma Caldwell, whose body was found in woods in South Lanarkshire on 8 May. The image was displayed for four hours on the multi-storey flats in Cumberland Street, Hutchesontown on Monday night. Police said the site had been chosen as it was visible across areas frequented by Emma and other prostitutes…

Link (via Warren Ellis)

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:54:22 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Nurturing digital cinema

An interesting piece by Doreen Carvajal in the International Herald Tribune on the state of digital cinema.

When Obi-Wan Kenobi and Darth Vader battled last week in dark theaters around the world, the force was not with digital cinema. George Lucas, the director, filmed the latest "Star Wars" adventure, "Revenge of the Sith," expecting that the science-fiction epic would open in thousands of theaters equipped with digital projectors. As it turns out, there are fewer than 350 such screens, about 100 of them in the United States.

But even so, this could be the rollout year for digital cinema. Some European countries are pressing forward with almost intergalactic ardor, subsidizing digital projector giveaway programs with the aim of nurturing home-grown movies that can flourish alongside Hollywood blockbusters. (...)

In 2002, Lucas offered his first digital "Star Wars" movie, "Episode II - Attack of the Clones," and predicted that by the next installment, most theaters would be using digital projectors. But by the time of the gala screening of "Revenge of the Sith" in Cannes, the movie's producer, Rick McCallum, was fuming about the resistance of theater owners. He appeared at a small gathering of digital cinema companies like XDC, Barco and Texas Instruments and bluntly attacked Jean Labé, head of the National Federation of French Cinemas, a trade group. "Once Jean Labé loses his job, hopefully there will more digital theaters in France," McCallum said in an account reported in the Hollywood Reporter, a trade journal.

Link

Predictably, the release of Revenge of The Sith in digital is inspiring other d-cinema coverage. See also this USA Today roundup: Link

Previously on Boing Boing: The Cuban Revolution, Ireland's movie theaters to convert within a year, South African villages to get digital cinema network

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:39:11 AM permalink | blogs' comments

Mock light saber duel critically injures two clue-impaired fans

"Two Star Wars fans are in a critical condition in hospital after apparently trying to make light sabres by filling fluorescent light tubes with petrol [gasoline]. A man, aged 20, and a girl of 17 are believed to have been filming a mock duel when they poured fuel into two glass tubes and lit it." Link (Thanks, Nick)

Reader comment: John Horner says,

Despite the fact that it's the BBC saying so, I find it hard to believe that anyone poured gasoline into a fluouro tube then *lit* the damn thing, not expecting to get hurt. This story from british tabloid the Mirror says the things accidentally exploded. They're still astonishingly short of a clue but perhaps not as insane as made out by the BBC story. Short answer, nobody knows exactly what happened.

posted by Xeni Jardin at 06:34:50 AM permalink | blogs' comments

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