Andy Baio reviews the state of affairs in games about games. The metagaming concept begins with hardly-playable jokes like Desert Bus, finds creative fluency in extending game mechanics and tropes to the point of absurdity, and ends with that annoying version of Tetris which always gives you the most contextually inconvenient brick. — Rob • Comments: 0

Photo of uncontacted Amazonian tribe

David Pescovitz at 11:17 AM Tue 

Survival International and Brazil's National Indian Foundation released this image of what they say is an uncontacted tribe in the Amazonian rainforest near the border between Brazil and Peru. You may recall that in 2008, Survival International was the subject of controversy after releasing another photo of an uncontacted tribe. Whether any of these people have are uncontacted, undiscovered, or just very isolated concerns me less than that their home is being needlessly annihilated. From AFP:

"Illegal loggers will destroy this indigenous people. It is essential that the Peruvian government stop them before it is too late," warned Survival's director Stephen Corry.

FUNAI has released similar photographs in the past and acknowledged that Peruvian loggers are sending some indigenous people fleeing across the border to less-affected rainforests in Brazil.

The coordinator of Brazil's Amazon Indian organization COIAB, Marcos Apurina, said he hoped the images would draw attention to the plight of the indigenous peoples and encourage their protection.

"It is necessary to reaffirm that these peoples exist, so we support the use of images that prove these facts. These peoples have had their most fundamental rights, particularly their right to life, ignored -- it is therefore crucial that we protect them," he said.

"Photos released to protect threatened Amazonians" (Thanks, Bob Pescovitz!)

What is autism, really?

Maggie Koerth-Baker at 11:15 AM Tue 

Earlier this month, I ran across two different reports summing up two very different ways legitimate autism researchers are approaching the biological mechanisms behind cognitive difference. Although studies have found genetic correlations, nobody knows the exact cause of autism. And that's led to a couple of interesting approaches.

On the one hand you have Joachim Hallmayer, one of several researchers interviewed for a story in Stanford University magazine, who think that what we call "autism" is actually a number of different, distinct biological differences, something that would account for the wide range of symptoms, severity, and associated disorders. These researchers talk about autism as a series of subgroups—defined by particular genetic and chromosomal abnormalities. One example:

It's long been known that about 5 percent of autistic kids have a chromosomal abnormality that can be seen under a microscope --part of a chromosome is missing, duplicated or in the wrong place. Because these changes affect a large number of genes, the children often have many problems in addition to autism. What wasn't known until recently is that we all have slight imperfections in our chromosomes--small regions of DNA that are duplicated or deleted. When these stretches of DNA contain genes, people can end up with one or three copies of the genes instead of the standard two.

Technological advances have made it possible to detect these "copy-number variants," or CNVs. And it turns out they're important in autism and some psychiatric disorders. For example, a region of chromosome 16--containing about 25 genes, some involved in brain function and development--is deleted or duplicated in 1 to 2 percent of people with autism (and some with schizophrenia). Hallmayer and his colleagues scanned the genomes of thousands of people with autism and 2,000 healthy individuals looking for rare CNVs. They found that children with autism had more rare CNVs that overlapped genes, including genes previously implicated in autism. Some CNVs were inherited from a parent, but some arose spontaneously in the child, likely due to a genetic error in the sperm or egg.

Read the rest

Outplacement cowboys screw the recently unemployed

Cory Doctorow at 11:06 AM Tue 

The WSJ reports on the slipshod cowboys who've rushed in to fill the demand for "outplacement firms" who are meant to help laid-off employees find a better job. Some of these firms assign their "coaches" 15 clients per day, send out amateurish, typo-laden job applications on behalf of job-seekers (without their knowledge, signing their names to the cover letters, no less), and generally make a piss-poor hash out of their charges' future employment prospects. Laid-off workers are wising up and asking their former employers for cash instead of "counselling."

I'm always reminded of my friend's outplacement horror story: when he was laid off, he was called into a board room with the other unlucky unemployment lotto winners, where a high price consultant had scattered coins all over the floor and furniture and dimmed the lights save for a few dramatic spots. "Change," he intoned, "is all around you. And there's no need to fear it."

True story.

Damian Birkel, a career coach, joined Right in June 2007, initially as a contract counselor and later as a full-time employee. He primarily worked from home, but spent at least one day a week in Right's office in High Point, N.C.

Mr. Birkel says Right assigned him 60 people, a minimum of 15 a day, to coach by phone or online. One month of outplacement included no more than four hours of counseling, he says, a limited number of online seminars and access to a portion of Right's Web site. Most users received one to three months of services, which often ended before they found work, he says.

Mr. Birkel says Right fired him in August 2008, after he extended counseling time for people whose outplacement had expired. One was a single mother who'd missed appointments while trying to retain her foreclosed home. "I wasn't cut out for over-the-phone, fast-food outplacement," says Mr. Birkel.

Outplacement Firms Struggle to Do Job (via Consumerist)

(Image: Unemployment Report, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from notionscapital's photostream)

Noctilucent clouds: more of 'em and brighter too!

David Pescovitz at 11:02 AM Tue 

While still very rare, spectacular night-shining clouds, aka noctilucent clouds, are becoming more common and increasingly brighter, according to a NASA atmospheric scientist. Noctilucent clouds are the highest in Earth's atmosphere, forming from water ice at altitudes of 76 to 85 kilometers. NASA's Matthew DeLand suggests that their increased visibility could be linked to greenhouse gases. From Space.com:

Night-shining clouds are extremely sensitive to changes in atmospheric water vapor and temperature. The clouds form only when temperatures drop below minus 200 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 130 degrees Celsius), when the scant amount of water high in the atmosphere freezes into ice clouds. This happens most often in far northern and southern latitudes (above 50 degrees) in the summer when, counter-intuitively, the mesosphere is coldest.

Changes in temperature or humidity in the mesosphere make the clouds brighter and more frequent. Colder temperatures allow more water to freeze, while an increase in water vapor allows more ice clouds to form. Increased water vapor also leads to the formation of larger ice particles that reflect more light.

The fact that night-shining clouds are getting brighter suggests that the mesosphere is getting colder and more humid, DeLand said. Increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could account for both phenomena.

"Mysterious Night-Shining Clouds Getting Brighter" (via Fortean Times)

Previously:

• Night-shining clouds

Whimsical, fantastical matrioshke

Cory Doctorow at 10:40 AM Tue 

Doublefine's sweet matrioshkes are dead lovely -- and backordered. I grew up in a house full of these things, since they were the standard gift every time my grandparents went to Leningrad to see the family, or brought the family over for a visit, and I was delighted to discover that my daughter finds them as fascinating as I do -- especially as there are so many more variations on the designs available today.

Stacking Dolls from Stacking

Pot soda

David Pescovitz at 10:31 AM Tue 

Canna Cola is a line of THC-enriched sodas to be sold at medical marijuana dispensaries. Flavors include: DocWeed, Orange Kush, Grape Ape, Sour Diesel, and the classic Canna Cola. (Thanks, Mathias Crawford!)

Coney Island's 1907 "buried alive" attraction

David Pescovitz at 10:26 AM Tue 

Morbid Anatomy's Joanna Ebenstein is currently Coney Island Museum's Artist in Residence. As such, she's curating what can only be a fantastic exhibition about the amusement park during its turn of the 20th century heyday! The exhibit, titled The Great Coney Island Spectacularium, launches in April. During her research, Joanna dug up a 1907 New York Times article describing a glorious attraction called "Night and Morning: or, A Journey Through Heaven and Hell." From the NYT, April 21, 1907:

"The first room into which the people enter is like a big coffin with a glass top and the lid off. You look up through the roof and see the graveyard flowers and the weeping willows and other such atmospheric things. When everything is ready the coffin is lowered into the ground. It shivers and shakes, and when it tips up on end you hear a voice above give a warning to be careful. Then the lid is closed and you hear the thud of the dirt.

"The man who is conducting the party now announces that they must have a spirit to guide them. A subject is put into a small coffin and in an instant he is transformed into a skeleton. Then a real skeleton appears and delivers a solemn lecture in which he tells the people that they must 'leave all hope on the outside'--a gentle perversion of the old 'abandon hope all ye who enter here.' ...

Now there is a great clanking of chains and the side of the coffin comes out and visitors pass down into the mysterious caverns. First they see a twentieth century idea of Hell, with monopolists frying in pans and janitors fastened to hot radiators.... After the modern Hell the people come to the Chamber of Skeletons. Though these skeletons haven't a stitch of clothes on them, they smoke cigarettes most unconcernedly all the time just like live men.... Next you come to the panorama of Hell, where you see a vision of all the condemned spirits being washed down by the River of Death. Now comes the big change and you find yourself in a large ordinary room, with cathedral-like windows through which you can look outside and see the graveyard which looms up with a weird effect. Like great mist you can see the spirits rising from the graves and ascending to Heaven...

The great transformation now takes place. The whole grave yard floats off into space with the single exception of an immense cross, where the form of a young girl is seen clinging to the Rock of Ages. Fountains foam with all their prismatic colors, and the air is filled with troops of circling angels. The room itself vanishes and you find yourself in a bower of flowers under a blue sky. At the climax and angel comes down with a halo which she places on the head of the girl who is still clinging to the cross Then all that vanishes and you are within four blank walls once more."

Buried Alive at Coney Island: "Night and Morning," 1907

If you've ever wondered how sampling—the art of combing bits of other artists' music into a new composition—works, then you should check out this new video from NPR's Science Friday blog. DJ Aaron LaCrate demonstrates both analog and digital sampling techniques, and talks a little about why sampling and stealing are different things. (Submitterated by leharrist) — Maggie • Comments: 3

Cyborg video games

Maggie Koerth-Baker at 10:06 AM Tue 

Stanford bioengineer Ingmar Riedel-Kruse isn't the first person to combine biology and gaming, but he is most definitely the first to mix paramecia and Pac-Man. Riedel-Kruse has created a series of games where human players control living, single-celled organisms, manipulating the creatures' movements to collect points and avoid obstacles in a digital world.

It works because many types of mobile cells—including separate life forms like paramecia, and some human cells like lymphocytes—have a special relationship with electricity.

In the presence of an electric current, these cells move, always in the same direction relative to the current. To make them play a game, all you have to do is trigger electric currents in the right places.

This isn't the same thing as just electrocuting the paramecium and watching them run. Instead, this process—called electrotaxis or galvanotaxis—is a natural part of cell behavior. In the case of lymphocytes, some researchers think galvanotaxis may be one of the triggers that helps these white blood cells move around your body and know where to go to fight intruding viruses and bacteria.

The video above will show you how Riedel-Kruse harnessed galvanotaxis for video games. And you can get a closer look at each of the four specific games at Scientific American.

Submitterated by Mottel. Special thanks to Mike Orcutt!

Baywatch star seeks Noah's ark

David Pescovitz at 9:50 AM Tue 

Remember Donna D'Errico of Baywatch fame? Well, she's training to climb Mount Ararat to search for Noah's ark. And no, not for a reality show. (This comes just a month after D'Errico made the news with complaints that she was singled out for a TSA full body scan.) From AOL News:

"I've been studying this for years and know where the sightings have been," she said. "According to my research, the ark lays broken into at least two, but most likely three, pieces. I believe that one of those pieces is in the uppermost Ahora Gorge area, an extremely dangerous area to climb and explore."

But research alone isn't enough. D'Errico is training to get her stamina up enough to handle a climb nearly three miles high.

"It's not a technical climb," she said. "Many inexperienced climbers have done it, but you do need stamina and, obviously, a crew."

She is targeting August as the month she starts her ascent, and her trip is being sponsored by Bukla, a tour guide company in Turkey that's offering to provide transportation from Istanbul to Ararat and back, all equipment, mules, guide services and permits...

"I will be traveling with photography and video equipment and intend to have someone videotaping as I go through security at the airport this time," she said. "I also will be carrying a copy of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution with me, as well as a printout of TSA regulations in case they attempt to prevent the videotaping of me going through security. I'll be better prepared this time."

"Donna D'Errico to Climb Mount Ararat in Search of Noah's Ark"

Previously:
• Noah's Ark found! Again!
• Noah's Ark seeker gone missing

IPv4 is exhausted

Cory Doctorow at 9:33 AM Tue 

The last few IPv4 blocks are trickling away, drip by drip. The slow, steady march to address-space exhaustion is now in its last three to six months. IPv6 ahoy?

"Following on from APNIC's earlier assessment that they would need to request the last available /8 blocks, they have now been allocated 39/8 and 106/8, triggering ARIN's final distribution of blocks to the RIRs. According to the release, 'APNIC expects normal allocations to continue for a further three to six months.'"

Last Available IPv4 Blocks Allocated

(Image: 40+280 Heat, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from barkbud's photostream)

Gawker has finally started launching its radical "permalinks only" redesign, starting with io9: the blog river in every page's sidebar and no front door index at all, with the latest feature appearing instead whenever you visit the homepage. It looks great, but makes me wish I had a touchscreen laptop to swipe from page to page: arrow key navigation seems a little glitchy. — Rob • Comments: 10

Another copyright troll throws in the towel

Cory Doctorow at 8:28 AM Tue 

From the Electronic Frontier Foundation comes the heartening news that yet another "copyright troll" has given up on the shakedown tactic of using cheap John Doe lawsuits to compel ISPs to surrender details of their customers so that lawyers can threaten to sue them unless they turn over a few hundred bucks to make the whole thing go away.

Late last week, Mick Haig Productions dismissed its case against 670 "John Does," claiming they had infringed the company's copyrighted materials on a file-sharing service. The notice of dismissal came after EFF and Public Citizen argued that Mick Haig should not be allowed to send subpoenas for the Does' identifying information, because it had sued hundreds of people in one case, in the wrong jurisdiction and without meeting the constitutional standard for obtaining identifying information.

"Copyright owners have a right to protect their works, but they can't use shoddy and unfair tactics to do so," said EFF Intellectual Property Director Corynne McSherry. "When adult film companies launch these cases, there is the added pressure of embarrassment associated with pornography, which can convince those ensnared in the suits to quickly pay what's demanded of them, whether or not they have legitimate defenses. That's why it's so important to make sure the process is fair."

Mick Haig Productions dropped the case just 48 hours after EFF and PC demanded that it withdraw subpoenas Mick Haig's lawyer apparently issued while the question of whether the court should allow the subpoenas at all was still under consideration by the court.

Copyright Troll Gives Up in Porn-Downloading Case

Marzipan entrails

Cory Doctorow at 8:19 AM Tue 

Food artist Helga Petrau-Heinzel makes realistic human entrails out of marzipan. Grossalicious!

Helga Petrau-Heinzel (via Street Anatomy)

HOWTO make a yarn Tom Servo

Cory Doctorow at 8:07 AM Tue 

Crafter user MageAkyla has published a clever knitting pattern to make your own chibi Tom Servo, as he would have been depicted had Mystery Science 3000 been made of yarn!

Tom Servo and new Chibi Tom Servo w/ PATTERN!! (via Neatorama)

Benihana Kuwait sues blogger for $18,000 over bad review

Cory Doctorow at 8:03 AM Tue 

Mark Makhoul, a Lebanese software developer and blogger in Kuwait, wrote an unflattering review of the newly opened Benihana restaurant in Kuwait. Quickly, his blog's comment section filled with clumsy astroturf posts, all sent from the same IP address, purportedly reports from satisfied diners who disagreed with his assessment.

Then it got weirder: the restaurant's manager, Mike Servo, posted a comment accusing the writer of shilling for his competitors, and threatened a lawsuit. A few hours later, he filed a lawsuit (English translation PDF) for KD5001 (about $18,000) against Makhoul, asserting that the review was "fabricated" to gain publicity.

And so, we order the payment of KD5001 as a compensation for the damages caused to the restaurant management and for encouraging large number of customers not to try the restaurant by insulting, doubting the quality and food served by Benihana and using expressions that disgust people from trying the food. The person has caused huge material damages to the restaurant, ethic damage to the restaurant's reputation as an international brand that has chains all over the world as well as hurt the restaurant's potential to expand in Kuwait by influencing all kinds of nationalities not to try a restaurant that offers a specific type of food that is subject to taste preference.

This morning, I spoke with Michael Kata, COO and Executive Vice President of Benihana of Tokyo, who license the Kuwaiti franchise. He hadn't seen the suit yet, and while he said he could not offer specific comment, he confirmed that a lawsuit over a bad review was "unprecedented" in the firm's history. He said that his company's franchise agreement did not give them the authority to order franchisees to sue or withdraw suit, but that they were empowered to terminate the agreement should the franchisee bring the brand into disrepute.

Kata was careful to hedge his words, saying that he hadn't reviewed the case and didn't know whether there was any merit to the (to my mind, obviously absurd) assertion that the claims were fabrications by a competitor. Let's hope he gets to the bottom of things quickly and gets this blogger off the hook before he has to spend too much money defending himself from a thin-skinned restauranteur.

Mike Servo did not return my call in time for this post. (Thanks, Usurp, via Submitterator)

If London's police were in charge of Egyptian crowd-estimates

Cory Doctorow at 7:34 AM Tue 

Guardian editor Charles Arthur riffs on the London police's habitual underestimation of crowds at protest marches in this Egypt-themed tweet: "BREAKING: protesters pack every street and square in Cairo. Met Police estimate crowd at 'nearly 5,000.'"

Maine to legalize switchblades for one-armed people

Cory Doctorow at 7:30 AM Tue 

A Maine legislator has introduced a bill to make it legal for people with one arm to own and carry a switchblade (because you need two hands to operate a regular clasp knife). I actually quite like this idea, but think it's too narrow, I'd have worded it more like "lawful for people who, due to infirmity, disability or amputation find it difficult to operate a clasp-knife..." so people with arthritis, one-side paralysis, etc, could have and use that most useful of tools: a knife.

The Lewiston Sun-Journal reports that Rep. Sheryl Briggs has introduced LD 126, entitled "An Act to Allow a Person With One Arm to Possess Certain Kinds of Prohibited Knives." The bill would provide that Maine's "dangerous knives" law, which restricts switchblades, would not apply to the "possession or transportation of a knife . . . by an individual who has only one arm." This exception would allow single-armed Americans (male or female, of course, but probably male) the same access to folding knives that is enjoyed by the fully limbed.

According to the report, Briggs was asked to propose the legislation by a one-armed lawyer in her district, who pointed out that current law "utterly fails to accommodate" people who cannot use two hands to open a folding knife and who, I guess, have a need for that kind of knife rather than a regular one with a sheath or something for safety reasons. He also pointed out that a similar exception is already part of federal law.

Maine Bill Would Allow One-Armed Men to Use Switchblades

(Image: IMGA0174_tijuana, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from gregor_y's photostream)

South Dakota senator introduces mandatory gun-ownership law

Cory Doctorow at 7:29 AM Tue 

In a vivid display of what passes for irony in South Dakota lawmaking circles, five SD republican senators have introduced a bill requiring South Dakotans to buy a gun within six months of their twenty first birthday, because that's totally just the same as requiring Americans to buy health care:

Rep. Hal Wick, R-Sioux Falls, is sponsoring the bill and knows it will be killed. But he said he is introducing it to prove a point that the federal health care reform mandate passed last year is unconstitutional.

"Do I or the other cosponsors believe that the State of South Dakota can require citizens to buy firearms? Of course not. But at the same time, we do not believe the federal government can order every citizen to buy health insurance," he said.

Bill would require all S.D. citizens to buy a gun (Thanks, Tim G, via Submitterator!)

(Image: Peacemaker, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from jaqian's photostream)

HOWTO bake easy, fugly ice-cream bread

Cory Doctorow at 7:12 AM Tue 

Instructables user Phyllo has a brain-dead-simple recipe for a delicious sounding ice-cream bread: just mix equal portions of ice-cream and self-rising flour and bake in a greased pan for 30 minutes at 350F and voila! I think it's safer to call this "cake" than "bread," and it's a little fugly looking, but it sounds delish.

Ice Cream Bread -- ka-POW!

Apple implements iStore changes, prohibits Sony from selling competing ebook app

Cory Doctorow at 6:59 AM Tue 

According to Sony, Apple has instituted a new policy for its App Store -- the only source of software that you can lawfully run on your iPad, iPhone and iPod. It has told Sony and other software vendors that they may not produce iOS software that can accept payments for content, or allows access to content that has been purchased elsewhere. If Apple applies this across the board, it would mean an end to the Kindle ebook reader app, and no apps for Netflix or other services that compete with the iTunes Store.

For me, this means that once again, my books won't be available directly through an iApp. Last year, my publisher Tor/Macmillan, approached all the major ebook vendors and asked if they'd carry my books without DRM. Apple said no, books in its iBook store were required to have DRM, even if the publisher and the author didn't want it. However, Amazon said yes, and so my books have been available through the Kindle and on the Kindle iPad app ever since.

We've often heard that Apple doesn't like DRM and only uses it to appease the foolish copyright titans who demand it. But Apple has refused requests from Random House to carry my audiobooks without DRM in the iTunes Store, and requests from Macmillan to carry my ebooks in the iBook store. Those sure don't sound like the actions of a reluctant DRM vendor to me.

A recent Copyright Office ruling has made it lawful to jailbreak your iPhone for the next three years in order to load unapproved third-party software, but the ruling doesn't apply to iPads or iPods, and also doesn't make it legal to provide jailbreaking services to iPhone owners. When the Copyright Office made its ruling, Apple petitioned against it, saying that its practice of locking devices so that it had control over which code could run on them was good for consumers.

The company has told some applications developers, including Sony, that they can no longer sell content, like e-books, within their apps, or let customers have access to purchases they have made outside the App Store.

Apple rejected Sony's iPhone application, which would have let people buy and read e-books bought from the Sony Reader Store.

Apple told Sony that from now on, all in-app purchases would have to go through Apple, said Steve Haber, president of Sony's digital reading division

Apple Moves to Tighten Control of App Store (Thanks, DrPretto, via Submitterator!)

Adrian Tomine's "Scenes from an Impending Marriage"

Mark Frauenfelder at 6:58 AM Tue 

I like autobiographical comics, especially because they are about the lives of cartoonists. Adrian Tomine's (Optic Nerve, Summer Blonde) Scenes from an Impending Marriage (Drawn & Quarterly, 2011) is a 54-page book with 1-4 page vignettes of the events leading up to his marriage with his fiancée Sarah. The stories include making a guest list, booking a reception venue, designing the invitations, hiring a DJ, registering at Crate and Barrel, hiring a florist, etc.

This may sound humdrum, but the events are funny, and anyone who has gotten married will see a little of themselves in these comics. Adrian comes off as a slightly grumpy cheapskate (doesn't it seem like most good cartoonists are?), but the sweet-yet-firm Sarah has no problem getting her way and making Adrian come to his senses (see sample above).

This book was originally designed as a little gift that Adrian and Sarah gave to each of the wedding attendees. I'm glad they are sharing these entertaining and endearing personal stories with a wider audience.

Scenes from an Impending Marriage

Harper's publisher rejects $50K worth of pledges, will lay off staff anyway

Cory Doctorow at 6:35 AM Tue 

Friends and readers of Harper's magazine pledged $50,000 to prevent layoffs at the publication. Publisher John R. "Rick" MacArthur decided to go ahead with layoffs anyway:

This afternoon, your generous pledges of more than $50,000 were rejected by lawyers representing our publisher, John R. "Rick" MacArthur. Sadly, he will give no ground on the layoffs, which he intends to see happen before contract negotiations can proceed. Having offered--last week, and again today--numerous other ways to reduce costs and avoid cutting experienced staff, we are deeply disappointed in this outcome, but we are truly touched that so many of you (more than 800!) pledged so much in just a few short days.

Thank you, and long live Harper's Magazine!

The members of The Harper's Union

SAVE HARPER'S MAGAZINE (Thanks, Noah!)

(Image: Old Books - Vintage Harper's Magazine Volumes, a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike (2.0) image from anitakhart's photostream)

Further reflections on discrimination

Richard Dawkins at 6:04 AM Tue 

Richard Dawkins (Twitter) is an evolutionary biologist and former Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University. Among his books are The Greatest Show on Earth, The Ancestor's Tale, The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker, Unweaving the Rainbow, and The God Delusion.

[Image, via Wikipedia: The Flammarion engraving (1888) depicts a traveller who arrives at the edge of a flat Earth and sticks his head through the firmament.]

A scientific experiment avoids confusion by holding as much as possible constant, while systematically varying some factor of interest. When you are trying to think through a complex train of thought it can be helpful to do something similar, especially when sorting out separate arguments that might be confused. My previous Boing Boing post, "Should employers be blind to private beliefs?," could be seen as raising four separate questions. These were in danger of being confused with each other, and it is helpful to consider them one at a time, setting the others on one side temporarily--the equivalent of holding other variables constant in an experiment. The four questions were:

1. Should Martin Gaskell have been turned down by the University of Kentucky? I got rid of this one by explicitly stating that I was not concerned with it. I shall continue to ignore it here.

2. Should employers ever discriminate on grounds of the beliefs of candidates? If the answer to this is no, there is no point in going on. I tried to dispose of it by reductio ad absurdum. I postulated hypothetical extremes (flat earth geographer, stork theory doctor, astronomer who thinks Mars is a mongoose egg). I presumed that everybody would agree to discriminate against such obviously preposterous extremes, and that we would therefore have a non-controversial baseline from which to move on to more subtle questions. As it turned out, I was wrong: I underestimated the emotive impact of the very word 'discrimination'. I may also have underestimated the power of the relativist doctrine that all opinions are equally worthy of respect. But in any case my purpose was not to erect a straw man and knock it down. I wanted to find a baseline of agreement, which would enable us to set Question 2 on one side, while we went on to the other questions.

Read the rest

Explosively awesome Chinese popcorn popper

Cory Doctorow at 5:38 AM Tue 

CandyCritic sez, "The kernels are sealed in that thing he's spinning around. As they heat up they don't explode, because they're sealed with no air going in or out. He heats them up to a certain temperature and then he puts the sealed container with hot kernels into a bag. He then opens the container in the bag, allowing the kernels to expand, and every single kernel pops at the same time."

How to make Chinese Popcorn (Thanks, CandyCritic, via Submitterator!)

Enormous BFG sword: The Buster Sword!

Cory Doctorow at 4:03 AM Tue 

YouTube user MichaelCthulhu shows off his Final Fantasy VII "Buster Sword," a medieval BFG that's as auto-lethal as it is impractical. He's taking commissions for further improbable cutlery, too.

REALer Buster Sword

Phone-to-Twitter bridge for use in an Internet-less Egypt

Cory Doctorow at 3:07 AM Tue 

Over the weekend, engineers from Google, Twitter and SayNow (a recent Google acquisition) built a phone-to-Twitter bridge to allow Egyptians to transmit and receive #jan25-related tweets without accessing the Internet:

We worked with a small team of engineers from Twitter, Google and SayNow, a company we acquired last week, to make this idea a reality. It's already live and anyone can tweet by simply leaving a voicemail on one of these international phone numbers (+16504194196 or +390662207294 or +97316199855) and the service will instantly tweet the message using the hashtag #egypt. No Internet connection is required. People can listen to the messages by dialing the same phone numbers or going to twitter.com/speak2tweet.

Tell your friends! In Egypt!

Some weekend work that will (hopefully) enable more Egyptians to be heard (via Reddit)

(Image: Egyptian pay phone, a Creative Commons Attribution (2.0) image from s_w_ellis's photostream)

Delightful piracy-flavored ginger-ale ad

Cory Doctorow at 2:08 AM Tue 

These young pirates sure are having fun!

Yo Ho Ho and a Bottle of Cliquot!

Weather class cancelled due to weather

David Pescovitz at 11:14 PM Mon 

From Cincinnati.com:

A Weather Spotter Training class scheduled for tonight at New Richmond High School has been canceled due to the ice storm expected to hit the area tonight.

"Weather spotting class canceled" (Thanks, Tomar Spedonez!)

Bryant Gumbel, 1994: "What is the Internet, anyway?"

David Pescovitz at 11:07 PM Mon 

The Today Show, 1994: Bryant Gumbel and Katie Couric struggle to understand and explain the Internet and "that little mark with the 'a' and the ring around it." (Thanks, Rick Pescovitz!)

Tolstoy's "10 Rules of Life"

Mark Frauenfelder at 8:56 PM Mon 

Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project (a book about how to be more happy and grateful, which I enjoyed very much) ran this list of Tolstoy's "10 Rules of Life" on her blog:

[F]or happiness-project purposes, Tolstoy is particularly fascinating -- both because he wrote so extensively about happiness and because he made and broke so many resolutions himself. Spectacularly... Tolstoy wrote these rules when he was eighteen years old:

Get up early (five o'clock)

Go to bed early (nine to ten o'clock)

Eat little and avoid sweets

Try to do everything by yourself

Have a goal for your whole life, a goal for one section of your life, a goal for a shorter period and a goal for the year; a goal for every month, a goal for every week, a goal for every day, a goal for every hour and for evry minute, and sacrifice the lesser goal to the greater

Keep away from women

Kill desire by work

Be good, but try to let no one know it

Always live less expensively than you might

Change nothing in your style of living even if you become ten times richer

10 "Rules of Life" from Tolstoy

Egypt: Avaaz.org and Tor team up to fight the Internet blackout, you can help

Xeni Jardin at 7:53 PM Mon 

Help Tor fight the internet connectivity blackout in Egypt. "Your donation will go to providing satellite internet devices, other related equipment, to help with network access costs, and general support for Egyptians and people working with Egypt during this crisis and beyond. This fundraising drive is organized by the Tor Project. Money raised will be used by the Tor Project for work in areas where the Internet has been jacked." (avaaz.org via Jacob Appelbaum)

Fun things made with programmable LEDs

Mark Frauenfelder at 5:21 PM Mon 

My pals Tod Kurt and Mike Kuniavski are the proprietors of ThingM, a company that makes nifty programmable LEDs and other smart electronic components.

They just sent out their latest ThingM newsletter showcasing a few cool projects that use BlinkMs: a robotic drum kit, cabinet handles that light up when you touch them, and books that blink.

BlinkM in Books with Personality

BlinkM in DrumKit

ThingM in Glowpull

Princess Diana Doll

Rob Beschizza at 3:32 PM Mon 

The Franklin Mint makes this charming porcelain Diana doll.

What a wonderful way to remember Diana! ... Miniature tiara and white "English Rose." Extraordinary blue eyes and shy smile foreshadow the beautiful Princess admired by millions.

If you find it slightly odd, that may be because it is not an accurate depiction of the infant Diana Spencer, but rather an idealized pedomorphic adult.

What's Happening in Egypt, the Action Movie Explainer: "Raiders of the Lost Mubarak"

Sean Bonner at 3:15 PM Mon 

Sean Bonner has been involved with blogs and hackerspaces and art galleries and record labels of the punk rock variety. Now he's on Twitter.

After she realized many people couldn't wrap their heads around what was going on in Egypt, Furrygirl decided to turn to Hollywood staples and made this Raiders of the Lost Ark mashup version which explains things pretty clearly.

Full graphic follows, below...

Read the rest

About Schmidt: Google's Chief Emphatic Officer

Xeni Jardin at 2:18 PM Mon 

Video Link. Literally. By Joe Sabia and the Whirled Creative team.

Chair made from carefully grown willow tree

Cory Doctorow at 1:31 PM Mon 

Floris Wubben's "Upside Down" chair was made by patiently training and knotting the branches of a willow to form four chair legs, then cutting down the tree: "A seat and backrest were then cut into the trunk and the whole thing inverted. The chair was designed in collaboration with artist Bauke Fokkema."

Upside Down by Floris Wubben

Foris Wubben projects

(via Cribcandy)

Egypt report from Human Rights Watch: "Impunity for Torture Fuels Days of Rage"

Xeni Jardin at 12:46 PM Mon 

A report released by Human Rights Watch documents how Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's government effectively condones police abuse by failing to ensure that law enforcement officers who are accused of torture are investigated and criminally prosecuted. HRW describes torture as "an endemic problem in Egypt." According to HRW, ending police abuse—and the cycle of impunity for those crimes—is a driving element behind the massive popular demonstrations in Egypt this past week. Snip from introduction:

'Work on Him Until He Confesses': Impunity for Torture in Egypt," documents how President Hosni Mubarak's government implicitly condones police abuse by failing to ensure that law enforcement officials accused of torture are investigated and criminally prosecuted, leaving victims without a remedy.

"Egyptians deserve a clean break from the incredibly entrenched practice of torture," said Joe Stork, deputy director of the Middle East and North Africa Division at Human Rights Watch. "The Egyptian government's foul record on this issue is a huge part of what is still bringing crowds onto the streets today."

The case of Khaled Said, a 28-year-old man beaten to death by two undercover police officers on an Alexandria street in June, dominated headlines and set off demonstrations across the country. The local prosecutor initially closed an investigation and ordered Said's burial, but escalating public protests prompted the Public Prosecutor to reopen the investigation and refer it to court. "We Are All Khaled Said" is the name of the Facebook group that helped initiate the mass demonstrations on January 25, 2011.

[ Warning: disturbing content. The report contains graphic descriptions of torture. ]

Overview: Egypt: Impunity for Torture Fuels Days of Rage

Report (95 pages): "Work on Him Until He Confesses": Impunity for Torture in Egypt.The report is offered in in English and Arabic, English version of PDF here.

(via @ioerror)

Israeli Emergency Bandage

Cool Tools at 12:36 PM Mon 

I was first introduced to the Israeli emergency bandage several years ago as a medic in Iraq. It was a huge step up from the standard military dressings that we had been issued. The old military style dressings hadn't changed since WWII and were not really effective as the canvas ties didn't always hold the dressing where you needed it. A lot of guys were using gauze pads and elastic wrap which, while better, was cumbersome.

The Israeli emergency bandage was the first of a new generation of bandages that made a difference when it really counts. It combines a sterile dressing, elastic wrap and a pressure bar to make a fast and easy to use trauma bandage. The long tail can be configured in various ways to hold the bandage in place or to immobilize the limb, plus it can be configured in to an improvised tourniquet. I consider it must carry item since I can use it as a multipurpose bandage, use the tail as an "Ace" wrap for sprains or to immobilize a fracture to a splint. The bandage comes in 4" and 6" for around $5-$11 and everyone in my family has one in their car first aid kit, backpack or office.

[Note: Someone over at the Cool Tools thread pointed out that NPR reported that these bandages were effectively used after the shooting in Arizona. -- OH]

-- Sandy Fraser, Paramedic

Israeli Emergency Bandage
4" or 6" widths
$5-$11

Comment on this at Cool Tools. Or, submit a tool!

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