Mark Frauenfelder:
About:blank is looking for the source of these disturbing and funny instructions for "alternative life." Link

The uproar over online hunting has far outpaced its actual practice. It would appear that there's only been one such site in the US, which wasn't even up for very long in 2004, but the push to put laws in place that ban internet hunting has remained strong. The WSJ has caught on, noting that lobbyists led by the Humane Society are still convincing legislators that legally enshrined bans are needed. Thirty-three states now have bans on the practice (up from 25 back in February), and Congress is considering a national ban -- despite the fact that nobody's doing it. One state rep in Delaware asserts that online hunting "would have the potential to make terrorism easier," though it would appear the reporter didn't ask her to explain exactly why, and that she doesn't "want to give ideas to people." So, instead, she's sponsored a bill drawing attention to an activity that nobody's really bothering with anyway. Makes perfect sense. Furthermore, one of the Congressional sponsors of the nationwide ban said he'd never heard of internet hunting until the Humane Society brought it to his attention. He says he wondered "who would do something like this?" As it turns out, nobody, really.

SonicSpike writes " NASA has discovered a chunk missing from the underside of the space shuttle Endeavour. It was discovered after the shuttle docked with the ISS earlier today. Technicians theorize it may have been caused by ice ripping free of a fuel take during takeoff. From the article:'The gouge — about 3 inches square — was spotted in zoom-in photography taken by the space station crew shortly before Endeavour delivered teacher-astronaut Barbara Morgan and her six crewmates to the orbiting outpost ... On Sunday, the astronauts will inspect the area, using Endeavour's 100-foot robot arm and extension beam. Lasers on the end of the beam will gauge the exact size and depth of the gouge, Shannon said, and then engineering analyses will determine whether the damage is severe enough to warrant repairs. Radar images show a white spray or streak coming off Endeavour 58 seconds after liftoff. Engineers theorize that if the debris was ice, it pierced the tile and then broke up, scraping the area downwind. Pictures from Friday's photo inspection show downwind scrapes."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin: US airline passengers in airport security screening areas can be searched at any time, and may no longer refuse to be searched by leaving the airport, according to a ruling today by the nation's largest federal appeals court. Snip from summary at Wired News Threat Level blog:

The decision by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the circuit's 34-year-old precedent that over time was evolving toward limiting when passengers could refuse a search and leave the airport after they had checked their bags or placed items on the security screening X-ray machine. Citing threats of terrorism, the court ruled passengers give up all rights to be free of warrantless searches once a "passenger places hand luggage on a conveyor belt for inspection" or "passes though a magnetometer."

Link to blog post, Link to PDF of court decision.

You may recall (or, actually, probably not) that last year around this time, Wal-Mart decided to launch its very own social network as a back-to-school promotion, except it took out all the fun parts of social networking, and then put in fake kids who talked about the clothes they were buying at Wal-Mart. It was either entirely ignored or mocked by the few who came across it. After a few months, the experiment was quietly abandoned -- and almost no one noticed. This year, Wal-Mart is back in the social networking game, but at least they've realized that rather than copying the hot trend of the year, it might be better to embrace the leader. To that end, the company is launching a Facebook group to try to get college kids heading back to school to "design your dorm room together." It's still a bit cheesy, and may not attract too many users, but at least the company finally realized it needed to go where the real kids were actually hanging out. Maybe next year the company will realize that it helps to have an application that's actually fun or useful as well.

Xeni Jardin:

Snip from Reuters item:

"Galactic Suite," the first hotel planned in space, expects to open for business in 2012 and would allow guests to travel around the world in 80 minutes. Its Barcelona-based architects say the space hotel will be the most expensive in the galaxy, costing $4 million for a three-day stay.

During that time guests would see the sun rise 15 times a day and use Velcro suits to crawl around their pod rooms by sticking themselves to the walls like Spiderman.

Link, and here's Galactic Suite online: Link. In space, no one can hear you screaming because a shitty website has bloated flash and obnoxious sound. I hope they're better at designing intergalactic hotels than they are with terrestrial html.

6 writes "Cory Doctorow has an interesting article over at Information Week about Hollywood's strategy of suing sites such as YouTube. Says Doctorow: 'It's been eight years since Sean Fanning created Napster in his college dorm room. Eight years later, there isn't a single authorized music service that can compete with the original Napster. Record sales are down every year, and digital music sales aren't filling in the crater. The record industry has contracted to four companies, and it may soon be three if EMI can get regulatory permission to put itself on the block. The sue-'em-all-and-let-God-sort-'em-out plan was a flop in the box office, a flop in home video, and a flop overseas. So why is Hollywood shooting a remake?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin:

Link to explanatory blog post, here's the photo set. (thanks, Ryan Russell)

A Verizon installer apparently started a fire at a home in a Boston suburb earlier this week, when he was drilling on the outside of the house and hit an electrical main. Perhaps this story wouldn't be so notable if this sort of thing didn't happen with some frequency -- as it's not the first time this sort of thing has happened. Meanwhile, over at Broadband Reports, one of their users says a shoddy installation by Time Warner resulted in a chunk of their fence burning down. All things considered, though, perhaps these folks should just feel lucky that the techs didn't blow up their house and kill them.

When someone gets up and gives a speech about a platform, my mind gets engaged about ways I can have fun or make money.

There's none of that with Mahalo. It's about Jason and his investors making money. Why should I care about that?

It's like the iPhone. Very limited opportunities for us to be creative.

Not my cup of tea.

Calanis is ranting about marketers are intruding on the Internet.

But explain to me how what he's doing is not an ad.

Bold hypocrisy. He's spamming us right now. What a joke.

I'm mostly sitting around listening to the conference speakers.

Guy Kawasaki was awesome. He and I come from the same school of software. I agree with everything in his talk about evangelism.

Other speakers were pretty good. The first speaker of the morning, Robert David Steele Vivas, was a Rush Limbaugh class idiot. I know Chris has some nutty libertarian ideas, I think he'll outgrow them eventually. But this guy was a total wacko choice to open the show.

Me, I'm practicing silence. Just doing the hallway thing.

Had a great talk with a guy from Netflix, as you know I want them to give the users control of their movie ratings. I think there's a chance they may do it.

I'm using my Flickr-to-Twitter web service to take portraits of all kinds of Gnomesexers. You can see the latest in my Twitter stream or log directly onto Flickr. All of them are tagged with gnomedex07.

Mike Arrington got sick. I think he's in the area, but is missed.

There's a surprise planned for tomorrow evening. Can't say what it is.

David Pescovitz: An icon of cryptozoology, the coelecanth is a fish that was thought to have been extinct for 65 million years ago until it was found alive in 1938. Now, another mystery surrounding the fish has been solved. Scientists have long wondered why the coelecanth's fins are symmetrical while land animals like us that shared a common ancestor with the fish have assymetrical hands and feet. If hands and feet evolved from assymetric fins, it should follow that the colecanth's fins would also be assymetric. Recently, University of Chicago grad student Matt Friedman found the missing piece of the puzzle, the only fossil ever discovered of an ancestral coelacanth's fin. It's the cover story in the current issue of the journal Evolution & Development.

From New Scientist:

Recent fossil discoveries have shown that hands and feet evolved from an extinct ancestral fish with asymmetric fins, but the question of how the coelacanth got its symmetrical fins remained....

The fossil (that Friedman found) revealed that the ancestor, which the researchers have named Shoshonia arctopteryx, had asymmetric fins. This indicates that the living coelacanth evolved its symmetry.

That Shoshonia and living coelacanths are different is perhaps not entirely surprising – coelacanths have, after all, been evolving for 400 million years. But it serves as a lesson to those studying limb development.

"The asymmetry in our own paired limbs is in fact a primitive feature," says Michael Coates of the University of Chicago, US. While the coelacanth has not retained this feature, other, more primitive living fish have.

Link to New Scientist, Link to abstract of Evolution & Development paper, Link to University of Chicago press release

Previously on BB:
• Coelacanth in danger Link
• Coelacanth caught on video Link
• Video: Indonesian coelacanth Link
• Fisherman catches coelacanth Link

Would you believe that the Patent Office granted a patent on the idea of embedding an LED light in a power adapter? It turns out that they did, and that's not good for Apple, who sells just such a device and is now facing patent infringement charges, in Texas, of course. While yet another patent infringement suit isn't all that interesting, what's amusing is the patent attorney's statements on the lawsuit. First, he insists the patent is valid, as if he weren't a biased source. He then suggests that we shouldn't question the validity of the patent because it's not a business model patent. While it's true that business model patents are questionable, that doesn't let other types of patents off the hook. Then, to get past the charges of being a patent troll, he insists that the holder of the patent used to have a company that made these types of chargers, though it's no longer in business and he can't remember the name of it. As for what are the next steps, the lawyer has it all worked out: "They [Apple] pay us millions of dollars, that's the next step." Apparently due process and all that sorta stuff really doesn't matter when it comes to a failed business man with a simple idea trying to squeeze millions from a company who actually has a product people want to buy.

eldavojohn writes "The holy grail of fusion reactors has always seemed 'just a few years off' for many decades. But a recent design enhancement termed a 'Stellarator' may change all that. The point at which a fusion reactor crashes is when particles begin escaping due to disruptions in the plasma. A NYU team has discovered that coiling specific wires to form a magnetic field may contain the plasma. This may be a a viable way to create a plasma body with axial symmetry, and a far better chance of remaining stable. Like other forms of containment this does require energy itself, but could bring us closer to a stable fusion reactor. It may not be cold fusion or 'table top' fusion but it certainly is a step forward. The paper is up for peer review in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark Frauenfelder:

The Goof Button found this ad for a fur-lined auto ignition keyhole in an old copy of The New Yorker.

Now! IT CAN HAVE FUR AROUND IT!

Tired of groping under a darkened dashboard, trying to find that elusive ignition lock? With this genuine mink keyhole cover, you can find it in a flash, every time! Made from the same precious skins used in $5,000 fur coats... it's sure to dress up the interior of any car. Installs in seconds, no tools required. Rush only $1.00 cash. check or M.O. Money back if not delighted.

Link

Previously on Mad Professor:
• Hey Skinny!: Great Advertisements from the Golden Age of Comic Books

An anonymous reader writes "The one summary judgement that puts a stick into SCO's spokes has just come down. The judge in the epic SCO case has ruled that SCO doesn't own the Unix copyrights. With that one decision, a whole bunch of other decisions will fall like dominoes. As PJ says, 'That's Aaaaall, Folks! ... All right, all you Doubting Thomases. I double dog dare you to complain about the US court system now. I told you if you would just be patient, I had confidence in the system's ability to sort this out in the end. But we must say thank you to Novell and especially to its legal team for the incredible work they have done. I know it's not technically over and there will be more to slog through, but they won what matters most, and it's been a plum pleasin' pleasure watching you work. The entire FOSS community thanks you for your skill and all the hard work and thanks go to Novell for being willing to see this through."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.