kungfujesus writes "The Pirate Bay crew has been working on this secret project for quite some time now. Back in April they wrote a cryptic post on their blog announcing that something was coming. In a response to this announcement TPB admin Brokep told TorrentFreak: "The past, the present and the future. It's all the same, but one thing's for sure, we will radiate for weeks", today it became clear that he was referring to the resurrection of Suprnova."

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Cory Doctorow: Mick sez, "Carnegie Mellon University and The Mattress Factory sponsored a community-based robot art class called 'Robo250.' For the opening--final exam as wine and cheese art reception--a few of us (the students) decided to build robots entirely made of food so that they could be eaten at the reception. See the results (including a 5 minute how to make your own robot food sculpture) at MAYA's make site." Link (Thanks, Mick!)

You may remember late last year that JASRAC, the group that represents various entertainment industry interests in Japan got very angry at YouTube and demanded the site prevent unauthorized videos from being uploaded. YouTube responded by trying to explain that it wasn't YouTube's fault, while also promising to put warnings about copyrights on the site in Japanese -- while also promising to travel to Japan and meet with entertainment industry officials there. This week a second round of those meetings happened and it appears that Japanese entertainment industry is still confused. They're not at all happy with YouTube, demanding that "all copyrighted material be removed immediately."

That was the statement from composer Hideki Matsutake, who apparently was the spokesmen for the coalition of entertainment industry interests that met with Google/YouTube execs. Of course, that doesn't make any sense. Thanks to current copyright laws, all new content automatically is copyrighted once created. In other words, nearly all content on YouTube is under someone's copyright. What the guy really means is that he wants all unauthorized content removed from YouTube and that's much more difficult -- because there's no easy way to know whether or not the content has been authorized. There are plenty of copyright holders who not only choose to put their content on sites like YouTube, but actually are thrilled when fans promote their content by uploading it to YouTube. Unfortunately, this Japanese group doesn't seem to understand that. Even more to the point, they apparently fail to understand that even if YouTube completely shut down today, all of that content would simply move to other sites -- and those sites are likely to care even less about what a coalition of Japanese entertainers and entertainment companies want them to do.

eldavojohn writes "Following our last history lesson of Linux 0.01, the Kernel Trap is talking about the following announcements that would lead to one of the greatest operating systems today. A great Linus quote on release 0.02 (just 19 days after 0.01): "I can (well, almost) hear you asking yourselves 'why?'. Hurd will be out in a year (or two, or next month, who knows), and I've already got minix. This is a program for hackers by a hacker. I've enjouyed [sic] doing it, and somebody might enjoy looking at it and even modifying it for their own needs. It is still small enough to understand, use and modify, and I'm looking forward to any comments you might have.""

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I guess I'm lucky in a way. I made it this far without understanding why people curse the legal profession. Today I get it.

A few weeks ago I found myself in a room with a half-dozen lawyers, I was the only non-lawyer present, and guess who was paying for all those lawyers' time?

Did I ask for this? Did I get a service I actually wanted? I wanted out. They wouldn't let me out. Sorry Dave, the legal profession owns your ass. And if you want to fight it, we're going to take your house, your car and your bank account.

Lawyers are like the Mafia. You don't dare criticize them for fear they'll send you a subpoena and tie you up in court for the rest of your life and take everything you have.

When I talked with another lawyer about it, in a social context, she suggested I shouldn't seek revenge. That's how lawyers think. I wasn't seeking revenge (although inside I do admit I enjoy the fantasy of decapitating an imaginary lawyer). What I want to do is fix the system.

But I think it won't be fixed as long as lawyers are in charge.

I'll tell you this, if the tables were turned and I was one of six programmers in a room with a non-programmer, and one of them was shafting the non-programmer (maybe putting viruses on their network or stealing passwords), I'd ask the non-programmer to leave the room with the promise that we'd make sure the asshole programmer would stop the unethical behavior now.

Lawyers own us, all of us, and none of them care about the ethics of other lawyers. I say that in a deliberately challenging way, because I'm sure there are some lawyers who care about the lousy way their profession deals with the rest of us. If you're one of them, come forward, speak up, tell us what to do.

We need to reform the legal system in the US. But no reform will take place until it's possible to take a lawyer up on ethics charges without having to be represented by a lawyer.

But somehow I think blogs are the answer. If a lawyer sues you, sometimes just saying This Lawyer is Suing Me is enough to get them to think again. Most of them have to sell their services to someone, and one thing's for sure, there are a lot of lawyers to choose from. So I think if we arm ourselves with tools to evaluate them, if we practice the ethics they don't, and only hire ones who treat others fairly, we could put the worst ones out of business.

Some lawyer once said that sunlight is the best disinfectant. Yeah, I believe that's true.

Cory Doctorow: Dan sez, "In my ongoing search for people more obsessed with Disneyland than I am, I found pictures of former teen idol Bobby Sherman standing in his backyard with his scratchbuilt, 1/5 scale model of Main Street, USA. Who knew he was such an Imaginerd?" Link (Thanks, Dan!)

Cory Doctorow: Dan sez, "In my ongoing search for people more obsessed with Disneyland than I am, I found pictures of former teen idol Bobby Sherman standing in his backyard with his scratchbuilt, 1/5 scale model of Main Street, USA. Who knew he was such an Imaginerd?" Link (Thanks, Dan!)

thefickler sent in this article that opens, "Mac users will continue to see the Internet as it was intended, thanks to the renewal of a font licensing agreement between Microsoft and Apple. At TypeCon2007 Microsoft and Apple announced they have renewed their font licensing agreement, giving Apple users ongoing use of the latest versions of Microsoft Windows core fonts. Back in 1996 Microsoft started the "Core fonts for the Web" initiative. The idea of this initiative was to create a a standard pack of fonts that would be present on all or most computers, allowing web pages to be displayed consistently on different computers. While the project was terminated in 2002, some of the fonts defined as core fonts for the web have gone on to become known as "web safe fonts," and are therefore widely used by Internet developers."

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Cory Doctorow: Pam Samuelson is one of the most important copyright scholars in the world, someone respected by players on all sides of the debate, and she has just published a paper modestly entitled "Preliminary Thoughts on Copyright Reform." "Preliminary Thoughts" is a brisk and readable 16-page paper that traces the origin of the present, 200+ page copyright frankenstatute, a law that has been amended 20 times since it was codified in 1976, so that it can barely be understood by experts, let alone by laypeople. However, laypeople are ever-more under its jurisdiction, since practically everything we do on the Internet involves making copies.

So Pam wants to revisit copyright, redraft it from the start, refactoring it like a Wikipedia article that has grown too large and weird to be properly understood. This is a capital idea, and her very concrete suggestions set out both a plan of attack and a set of principles that would make copyright safe for the age of the Internet.

By focusing on these core elements of copyright, I do not mean to suggest that nothing but these elements should be in a model copyright law or principles document. Yet perhaps anything else nominated for inclusion in the model law or principles should have to be accompanied by a justification as to why it needs to be there, and why it should not be achieved through common law evolution of copyright law by judges or delegated to an administrative rule-making process.102

A model copyright law should also be written in plain English so ordinary people, and not just the high priests of copyright, can understand what it means and the normative reason that it should be part and parcel of the basic statutory framework.103 A model copyright law should also articulate the purposes that it seeks to achieve and offer some guidance about how competing interests should be balanced, perhaps through a series of comments on the model law or principles.104

PDF Link

Mark Frauenfelder: Lisa Jo Rudy, the About.com guide to Autism, writes about recent studies that suggest autistic kids are especially attracted to Thomas Tank Engine.

The study suggests that children with autism are engaged by the simple emotions on the faces of the characters. I'm not buying it. In fact, MOST TV and toys intended for preschoolers is focused on simple emotions and exaggerated facial expressions and body language. You don't need an antiquated steam engine to show "I am sad" - it's in every "educational" show on the air.

My personal belief is that Thomas is especially interesting to kids with autism because (1) the trains do a great deal of falling, crashing, and smashing - something that appeals to our kids and is tough to fun on other PBS or Disney programs for preschoolers and (2) the toy trains line up beautifully, and our kids love to line things up. They can even be lined up according to color, something that can be very soothing to kids with autism.

Link

In the past we've covered various stories of how author J.K. Rowling and her publisher have been needlessly aggressive in trying to enforce copyright claims dealing with Harry Potter. Years ago, we noted that Rowling didn't seem to mind fan fiction, as long as it didn't involve "adult" themes. However, when the money starts rolling in, perhaps things change. The NY Times has an article that claims to be about copyright infringement and counterfeit Harry Potter books in China, but the details suggest it's really more about fan fiction. The article focuses almost entirely on non-authentic Harry Potter books, often written by fans, that are then sold to a Chinese market clamoring for more Harry Potter. In those cases, it's much less a copyright issue and much more of a trademark one. However, as Against Monopoly points out, this has apparently spurred greater interest in reading among kids, so of course Rowling's publishers are looking into stopping these books from being sold. You can certainly understand Rowling's worry about being wrongly associated with works that she had no part in writing... but you have to wonder if she's perhaps missing an opportunity by simply sending in the lawyers. Clearly, there's demand for these works, and it doesn't seem like the demand in any way harms the commercial possibilities for her own works. If anything, it may drive even more interest in the legitimate books. These aren't substitutes. The only reason people want these fake Harry Potter books is because they can't get enough of the real thing. So why not encourage that kind of activity to help grow even more interest in the real product?

Amazing piece on Mashable, finally the issues we've been writing about here for 10-plus years are starting to surface in dramatic terms in the commercial space. To all vendors who are tuned in, look for ways you're keeping your users from managing their own data. The users are getting educated, fast. Better to be on the right side of this one.

Facebook could easily be the place where the dam breaks. It's attracting so many users, who may at some point realize that they want control of the data that's locked up inside Facebook. Then vendors who have been on the right side of this issue will be the heroes.

It happened with copy protection, a similar issue to data lock-in. One vendor with a very popular product took the lead in challenging the more established companies. Borland, with Sidekick, was the product that broke the dam. Users wised up and refused to buy products that were copy protected. It could happen again.

Xeni Jardin:

Never trust robots. YouTube Link to Andrew Thompson's xlntawesomehilarious electropop "We're in Business." This is the greatest thing ever in the last 30 minutes of my life. Get the song: iTunes, lewisrecordings.com, myspace, and more myspace. (thanks Sean!)

Xeni Jardin:

Videos of talks from the TED's first conference in Africa are now online. "Africa: The Next Chapter" took place in Tanzania this June, and brought together a number of very interesting thinkers from around the continent, with counterparts from around the globe.

Above, faces from some of the newly uploaded videos this week:

* LEFT: Ghanaian economist George Ayittey talked about "Hippos" (older-generation, slow-thinking) versus "Cheetahs" ("a new breed of Africans"). His speech is a firey condemnation of corrupt leaders and the complacency that allows them to thrive. Video Link.

* CENTER: 19-year-old Malawian inventor William Kamkwamba, who built a an electricity-generating windmill from spare parts for his family at age 14. He created the generator from rough plans he found in a library book. Video Link.

* RIGHT: Ms. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, the former Finance Minister of Nigeria, who gave a talk about aid versus trade. Video Link.

Link. (Thanks, Emeka Okafor!)

Previously on BoingBoing:

Kid in Malawi homebrews a windmill generator

Deconstructing Vanity Fair's "Africa" issue

Cloth cult: "Why Congolese men rather starve to death than look cheap."

Femi Kuti: Don't pity Africa, visit it and trade with us

Stop trying to "save" Africa

China's humanitarian efforts in Africa

How to write about Africa

Mark Frauenfelder: James Lileks is having a grand old time poking fun at old comic book covers in a new section of his website called "Funny Books: Dubious Moments in Comic History."

The POPular Teen-agers go the beach, where the sand is GRANular, then get on a tiny boat about seven feet long. After heading into the open waters with no training whatsoever, followed by birds who expect they will pick the corpses clean soon. They fish. A ”snicker-filled story” presumably follows. If you want to give yourself a headache, attempt to figure out the sequence of events that led to Honey Bunn holding Butch in a posture that defies gravity, the rules of the sea, and basic common sense.

Note that Butch appears to be afraid of tuna.

Link

An anonymous reader writes "Robots have been roaming Iraq, since shortly after the war began. Now, for the first time — the first time in any war zone — the 'bots are carrying guns. The SWORDS robots, armed with M249 machine guns, "haven't fired their weapons yet," an Army official says. "But that'll be happening soon." The machines have actually been ready for a while, but safety concerns kept them off the battlefield. Now, the robots have kill switches, so "now we can kill the unit if it goes crazy," according to the Army. I feel safer already."

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