Chris Lindquist writes "Think your storage headaches are big? When it goes live in 2008, CERN's ALICE experiment will use 500 optical fiber links to feed particle collision data to hundreds of PCs at a rate of 1GB/second, every second, for a month. 'During this one month, we need a huge disk buffer,' says Pierre Vande Vyvre, CERN's project leader for data acquisition. One might call that an understatement. CIO.com's story has more details about the project and the SAN tasked with catching the flood of data."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

On the morning of my birthday in 1985 my brother made sure I was out of the office all morning before we went to lunch at MacArthur Park, across from the train station in downtown Palo Alto. He led me into a special dining room where about a hundred people where assembled singing Happy Birthday.

Back then MacArthur Park was the Silicon Valley business restaurant, just as Hyatt Rickey's was the business hotel. It was before Il Fornaio and Spago or even Jing Jing or Siam Garden. We were young, it was our world, and we had a place to eat and talk deals.

I had lunch there today. While the menu was the same, the food was poorly prepared, and the place had an empty feeling. Maybe this is how Brooklyn felt after the Dodgers left. Sad to see a place so far past its prime, a place that held so many memories, but it seems unlikely that it will hold new memories for the current generation of young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. That's gotta be happening some place else.

On the morning of my birthday in 1985 my brother made sure I was out of the office all morning before we went to lunch at MacArthur Park, across from the train station in downtown Palo Alto. He led me into a special dining room where about a hundred people where assembled singing Happy Birthday.

Back then MacArthur Park was the Silicon Valley business restaurant, just as Rickey's Hyatt House was the hotel. It was before Il Fornaio and Spago or even Jing Jing or Siam Garden. We were young, it was our world, and we had a place to eat and talk deals.

Today I had lunch there today and it was empty. And while the menu was the same, the food was poorly prepared, and the place had an empty feeling. Maybe this is how Brooklyn felt after the Dodgers left. Sad to see a place so far past its prime, a place that held so many memories, but it seems unlikely that it will hold new memories for the current generation of young Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. That's gotta be happening some place else.

Well, we've seen all kinds of companies abuse copyright law for a variety of purposes, and it seemed only a matter of time until outright criminals caught on as well. A group of inmates apparently copyrighted their names and then demanded millions of dollars from the prison they were in for using their names without permission. The claims were sent to the warden of the prison and when he didn't pay up, the prisoners were able to file claims against his property -- and then hired someone to seize the warden's property and freeze his bank accounts. At this point they then demanded to be released from prison before they would return the property. Instead, they were charged with extortion and "conspiring to impede the duties of federal prison officials." While the story is amusing, it does show how copyright law is being perceived these days. As intellectual property lawyers push more and more ridiculous positions concerning copyright law, people are beginning to realize that it can be used as a hammer for all kinds of ridiculous lawsuits that have absolutely nothing to do with creating incentives for the creation of new content.

NaijaGuy writes "Facebook has purchased Parakey for an undisclosed sum. We have previously discussed how Facebook recently opened up development opportunities for third-party developers. With this acquisition some observers have noted that Facebook might be trying to become a Google alternative, by providing an application development platform based on Parakey's technology. Facebook's 'Web OS' has also been discussed, and the company has made headlines partly because of the fame of one of its founders. Blake Ross helped launch Firefox, and it was enthusiasm for helping less geeky users like his mom to thrive on the web that got him through the doors of Netscape at the age of 15. A recent interview charts how that same enthusiasm led him to start Parakey, 'a Web operating system that can do everything an OS can do.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Remember two years ago when Canada's Supreme Court said that iPods shouldn't be subject to the blank media levy that the entertainment industry had convinced Canada to put on blank media like recordable CDs? Well, apparently the Supreme Court isn't the last word on the matter. Earlier this year, we noted that the Canadian Private Copying Collective, the group that administers this "you must be a criminal" tax on media was pushing to get the levy included on iPods anyway. Now, the Copyright Board of Canada appears to be supporting that position, saying that it's clearly within the law to tax iPods and other such devices. As Michael Geist notes, the ruling could also apply to such things as personal computers as well, as the entertainment industry may now start to claim that it needs a tax on anything that can store recordable content, even as it continues to fight piracy in Canada. So, at what point do people realize that the entertainment industry is getting paid twice here? First when they get the "you must be a criminal" tax and then again when people buy legitimately purchased content.

Mark Frauenfelder: Peter Stafford, author of the fascinating Psychedelics Encyclopedia died on July 20, 2007. Bruce Eisner, his friend, writes:

Peter Stafford (1941-2007) author of Psychedelics Encyclopedia, and LSD in Action died last night in Santa Cruz, California. Peter was a friend of mine since we met in Canada back in 1971 and I will miss him.

I will add more to this post in the next day or so.

Link

Mark Frauenfelder:

Truly, the fun never stops around here. Hot on the heels of the Drew Friedman podcast, here's an interview with longtime Boing Boing pal R.U. Sirius, co-creator of the mind-bending magazines High Frontiers, Reality Hackers and Mondo 2000, the host of the RU Sirius Show, a contributor to 10 Zen Monkeys, and the author of True Mutations: Interviews on the Edge of Science, Technology, and Consciousness

RU and David Pescovitz will be at City Lights bookstore in San Francisco on Tuesday, July 24th, 7pm to conduct a live taping of the RU Sirius show. They'll be joined by Lynn Hershman, Jamais Cascio, and Howard Rheingold.

True Mutations looks at the wild changes that may be coming to the human species during the 21st Century. In a series of interviews, author/host RU Sirius explores a series of (r)evolutions in disciplines ranging from the evolution of clean energy to the possibilities of endless neurological ecstasy; from open-source free access to nearly everything under the sun to self-directed biotechnological evolution; from psychedelic culture mash-ups to the possibilities of a technological singularity that alters not only humanity but the entire universe.

MP3 link | Podcast feed | Subscribe via iTunes | Previous Get Illuminated shows

Speaking on a recent panel, Sony CEO Howard Stringer lashed out at Steve Jobs, calling him greedy and accusing him of wanting a world where only he gets to make money. Considering the relative performance of Sony and Apple of late, Stringer's frustration is understandable, though his specific charges are pretty rich. Sony, of course, is legendary in its insistence on using closed, proprietary technologies, whose only purpose is to keep customers locked in. Talk about wanting to be the only company making money. Of course, this strategy has badly backfired, as it usually just keeps customers away. Ultimately, every company wants to make as much money as it can, something that Apple's been quite good at. But Stringer's comments suggest he feels entitled to some cut of the action, even if Sony hasn't done anything to deserve it. Thinking you deserve something for doing nothing -- now that's what's really greedy.

Cory Doctorow: Stanford design prof Michael Shanks has an online course unit about the design, politics, sociology and economics of slot machines that is flat-out fascinating, especially the manipulative psychology of slot and casino design.

The layout also takes advantage of the differences between slot and table players. In general, table players do not like the noise of slot machines because they find it distracting. In addition, they may sometimes play a few rounds on slot machines spontaneously, but obviously prefer table playing. At the same time, however, spouses or partners of table players will often wile away time playing at a nearby slot machine. Thus casinos are planned such that there are slot machines lining walkways around tables. However, these slots are always tight. This cuts down on the noise and distraction to table players, and makes sense because the majority of players on these machines are playing spontaneously, with little expectation of winning. This demonstrates to what degree casino layouts are optimized—in this case, to the point that a complex system is implemented simply to clean up loose change from spontaneous players.

Link (via Architectures of Control in Design)

Nrbelex writes "The Associated Press is reporting that Google has offered to bid at least $4.6 billion on wireless airwaves being auctioned off by the federal government, as long as certain conditions are met. 'The Internet search company wants the Federal Communications Commission to mandate that any winners lease a certain portion of the airwaves to other companies seeking to offer high-speed Internet and other services. Such a provision, Google argues, will give consumers — who traditionally get high-speed Internet access via cable or telephone lines — a third option for service.'" We discussed AT&T's objection to Google's acquisition of these airwaves last week; this article would seem to confirm Ma Bell's worst fears.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The hysteria over tonight's launch of the latest Harry Potter book has been covered to death in many places, but it still amazes us how ridiculous JK Rowling and her entourage are about the way they view intellectual property surrounding the books. Rowling has said she's against putting out an eBook because it would be pirated, even though that makes almost no sense. The book gets scanned and put online anyway, meaning anyone who finds it more convenient to read an electronic copy has to get an unauthorized copy rather than paying for a legitimate copy. And, of course, even booksellers are pointing out that they're unlikely to lose a single sale over scanned versions that are found online.

However, the Potter crew is still going nuts over the secrecy of the book, claiming intellectual property rights that they don't actually have. It's no secret that there's an extensive process that the publisher makes booksellers go through to avoid an "early" leak of the books, but what happens if a legitimate copy of the book actually does get out? That's what happened when an engineer received a copy of the book earlier this week when an online bookstore accidentally shipped it out early. He quickly (and smartly) put it up on eBay where the price shot up to $250... and then, JK Rowling's lawyer demanded eBay take the auction down as infringing on its rights. What rights? That's not clear. The book is legitimate. The sale to the guy was legitimate. The bookseller may have violated an embargo from the publisher, but that's between the bookseller and the publisher -- not the guy who ended up with the book. Once the book has gone out to the guy he has every right to sell it, and JK Rowling's lawyer was wrong for demanding it be taken down and eBay was wrong in agreeing to take it down. This is simply a case where they seem to be claiming copyright privileges that simply don't exist.

Riding with Robots writes "NASA reports that a severe ongoing dust storm on the Red Planet has blocked 99 percent of the direct sunlight that powers the Opportunity rover. If these conditions persist for too long, it could finally bring an end to the marathon mission of this robot geologist, and perhaps of its partner Spirit as well. 'Before the dust storms began blocking sunlight last month, Opportunity's solar panels had been producing about 700 watt hours of electricity per day, enough to light a 100-watt bulb for seven hours. When dust in the air reduced the panels' daily output to less than 400 watt hours, the rover team suspended driving and most observations, including use of the robotic arm, cameras and spectrometers to study the site where Opportunity is located ... A possible outcome of this storm is that one or both rovers could be damaged permanently or even disabled. Engineers will assess the capability of each rover after the storm clears.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Pescovitz: Instructables contributor The Jehosephat posted a neat guide to making shadow sculptures from piles of junk.
Link

Previously on BB:
• History of the shadow in art Link
• Shadow billboard Link
• 4D sculpture with a 3D shadow Link

Every company of any size has had a problem(s) that its CEO and stakeholders have lost sleep over. Its the law of big numbers. If enough things go on, something is going to go wrong.

Products get recalled or are tampered with. There are workplace disasters. There is corruption. No industry is immune. Churches, consumer products, law enforcement, cars, planes, trains and plenty more. No profession is immune. From the CEO who misrepresents corporate numbers or events at the expense of shareholders, to the doorman who tips himself from the cover charge at the expense of the club owner, people of every profession make bad decisions.

Shit happens. Bad Shit happens. When it does, there are two options. Cry over it and do nothing or recognize the problem and do the best you possibly can to not only fix it, but make the entire organization stronger..

As bad as the allegations facing the NBA today are, its also an opportunity to face every allegation that has ever been directed towards the NBA and its officials and pre empt them from ever occuring in the future.

Calamity can be a catalyst for significant change.

There are any number of examples in the business world where calamity led to better management, better communications, greater transparency and even better products. As the proverb goes, Necessity is the Mother of Invention.

The NBA took a hit today. Behind that hit is a catalyst and opportunity for significant change that could make the NBA stronger than it ever has been. Its a chance to proactively put in place people, processes and transparency that will forever silence those who will question the NBA's integrity.

I have complete confidence that David Stern and Adam Silver will do just that and the NBA and our officiating will be all the stronger for it.

Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments

David Pescovitz: Grad student Ethan Garner created CraigStatsSF, a site that slices, dices, and visualizes CraigsList San Francisco housing rental listings with Google Maps overlays. For example, this heat map shows a citywide view of rental costs for one bedroom apartments over the last year.

From the project description:

After living in this city for 8 years, living in a lot of horrible neighborhoods, and doing the eternal run-around to find a decent apartment I have become fascinated with the San Francisco rental market .

At the end of the August 2006, I was dealing a really shady landlord whose house was going into foreclosure as he (like a lot of the city) had speculated on an adjustable rate mortgage...and he was desperately trying his best to get as much money as he could out of me in any illegal way possible.

Not wanting to deal with such a shady landlord, I broke the lease, and fled to find a new place.

As I started looking for places, I noticed everything that used to be for rent was now for sale due to the same forclosure effect that happened to my landlord.

It also appeared that the rents were going up..... but... were the really? or am I just paranoid and bitter?

Since I was waiting to get my research published, I figured I could waste ample amounts of time coding perl scripts and learning google maps.

This project was born out of boredom.

Link (Thanks, Jason Tester!)

I'm here at lunch in Palo Alto with Nik Cubrilovic.

One of the things we're talking about is Pownce, Twitter and Facebook. One interesting thing about Pownce is that each item can be one of four types: 1. Message. 2. Link. 3. File. 4. Event.

Of those four, 1, 2 and 3 can easily be represented as an RSS 2.0 item. A message just has a <description>. A link has a description and a <link>. A file has an <enclosure>, but -- what about an Event? How would you represent that in a RSS item?

Thoughts??