In all of it's circa System 6 glory. The week after I bought my monochrome Mac Classic II, the Color Classic came out. And so started the cruel cycle of Apple product releases vs. my purchase dates. This beautiful theme helps dry my tears a bit (via). #

Remember the $10 DSL from AT&T? The same one that the company had to offer as part of its deal to buy BellSouth? Yes, the same one that it had to offer, but never had to promote to anyone. Well, after numerous complaints, AT&T finally recognized that maybe people do want it (even as its CEO denies that people want cheap DSL) and has made it just slightly more findable. Consumerist points us to a column at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where the columnist tried and failed to find the $10 DSL offer -- until someone from AT&T walked him through the process (while noting they had just made it easier to find). It's still not easy, though. Even though it's the same DSL the company is promoting in big type for $14.95, down in the righthand corner there's a link (in smaller type) saying you may be able to "get DSL at a lower price!" Then, you have to click through to see if you qualify. It's a slight improvement, but unless people know to look for it, many people who likely qualify will simply miss it and end up paying $5/month extra.

DragonHawk writes "According to Wired, John Stottlemire found a way to print duplicate coupons from Coupons.com by deleting some files and registry entires on his PC. Now he's being sued for a DMCA violation. He says, 'All I did was erase files or registry keys.' Says a lawyer: '[The DMCA] may cover this. I think it does give companies a lot of leverage and a lot of power.' So now the copyright cartels are saying that not only can we not copy things on our computers, but we can't delete things on our computers? Time to buy stock in Seagate."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

coondoggie writes to tell us that in a recent study e-mail has overtaken telephony as the most common workplace communication tool. "Research reveals that 100% of the end-users surveyed use e-mail, followed by fixed-line telephones (80%), mobile telephones (76%) and instant messaging (66%). The study points out the three most ubiquitous technologies increase productivity the most. Over 70% of the end-users surveyed say e-mail impacts positively on their productivity, followed by conventional fixed-line telephony (53%) and mobile telephony (52%). From a productivity point-of-view, the research shows that instant messaging, blogs and softphones are considered most disruptive, and could negatively impact productivity if not managed properly."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin:

BoingBoing readder Cristóbal Palmer responds to a recent BB post about Tactical Usage of the phrase "Oh Snap!", and says:

My own flowchart. Starts with the question, "Is it fucked up?" and goes from there. Did this a long time ago. Original version I did here, blog post I just posted with more legible, updated version here.

Reader comment: Michael says,

I saw a variation of this diagram on the door of the men's room in the Texas Chili Parlor in Austin a few years back.

Nick Hatch says,

That flowchart you posted seems to be heavily inspired by this one from the book Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson, published in 1997.

I couldn't find a copy online, but I have a scan of it that I attached.

Mark V. Tebault says,

There was a copy of that flowchart (minus the miracle/prayer bit, that's new) on one of the lockers of the technical theater majors in the dank corridors underneath the University of North Carolina at Greensboro's Aycock Auditorium. That was when I was still a technical theater major, many many moons ago, so it would be either Fall 1991 or Spring 1992. I recall it looking like a xerox of a mimeograph, so it's probably even quite a bit older than that. It's a long toothed joke in technical jobs, and I now pass it on, sometimes giving it to my service desk students in a occasional moment of levity.

It took quite a while, but Skype was finally able to get its service back up and running after extended downtime last week. Monday morning, Skype posted an explanation of what happened, but it has many of us scratching our heads -- and many professionals questioning Skype and trying to match up the official explanation to reality. Skype officially blamed all the rebooting Windows computers due to Windows latest security patch. It must be nice to blame Microsoft, but it's hard to understand why that should be the problem. First of all, Microsoft security patch updates happen pretty regularly (normally once a month), often requiring the same reboot process. Why would this time suddenly be different than every time in the past? Skype doesn't explain that. Second, and much more importantly, the service crashed at 3am PT on Thursday morning. That's about 24 hours after most computers would be rebooting. Microsoft comes out with its patches on Tuesday, and most computers then do the reboot in the early hours of Wednesday morning, not Thursday morning.

JM78 writes to tell us The New York Times is reporting that Paramount Pictures and DreamWorks Animation will be dropping support for Blu-ray Disc and going solely with HD-DVD for their next gen DVDs. "Jeffrey Katzenberg, CEO of DreamWorks Animation, said consumers seeking to switch to high-definition DVDs will be enticed by the movies available for HD-DVD players. He added the lower price for the Toshiba devices will appeal to the family market. 'It's a game-changer, what they're doing, and it's why we decided to throw in with them,' Katzenberg said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Xeni Jardin: Here's a short video for the popular duranguense band Alacranes Musical, in which musicians wield space-laser guns against los furries de Mazatlan:

Video Link.

What is it with furries, seriously? They're kind of creepy, and yet, they go great with just about everything on the internet. Even pretend narco gangster violencia.

As an aside, the video is hosted on (and was created by, I think?) holamun2, which is part of the Telemundo cable network. They're doing some really hip, forward-thinking stuff online with this site.

(Thanks, Jose Marquez!)

Mark Frauenfelder: For a couple of summers in the late 1970's I worked on a traveling carnival. Here's a story about a person I worked with on the carnival for a short time. His name was Mr. Blockhead.

Xeni Jardin:

Wayne Correia tells all BoingBoing readers headed out to the playa, "Here are the GPS maps for Burning Man 2007. Navigate well, dusty friends!"

Link to roads250.gpx, and Link to fence.gpx.

Here's the map you'll need: Link.

I won't be headed out there myself, but do stop by Camp Kanuckistan, and check out the, um, Xeni Cup hockey tournament (!), run by some friendly Kanucks who've dubbed me their governess in exile. Here's a snapshot from last year's festivities. There I am, folks, face down in the dirt between glowsticks and a bottle of whiskey, where I belong. Link to more pix from previous Xeni Cup editions at Burning Man.

Xeni Jardin: Snip from Wired News Threat Level blog's analysis of a new report out by the ACLU, on the subject of police camera surveillance:

Backed by millions in Homeland Security dollars, California law enforcement authorities are quickly expanding video surveillance camera spying in public rights of way, a move the American Civil Liberties Union says is stripping away privacy rights while failing to dent the intended purpose: crime.

The ACLU report says at least 37 agencies and cities, big and small, from Los Angeles to Clovis, have some form of a video surveillance program or are planning one directed at combating crime. And as more cities look to install their own monitoring devices, there's little empirical evidence that the cameras are deterring crime or helping solve cases.

Instead, the surveillance "gives the government a vast quantity of information on private citizens that would otherwise be unavailable, allowing it to monitor people engaging in wholly innocent and constitutionally protected behavior," according to the report, released Monday.

Link

David Pescovitz: Las month, student Sarah Pickin found a piece of "Neolithic chewing gum" on an archaeological dig in Oulu, Finland. The gum, a hunk of birch bark, was likely chewed 5,000 or 6,000 years ago. From the Associated Press:

"Most likely the lump was used as an antique kind of chewing gum," said Sami Viljamaa, an archaeologist who led the dig near Oulu, some 380 miles north of the capital, Helsinki. "But its main purpose was to fix things..."

The ancient Finnish habit of chewing gum surged in the 1980s when Finnish scientists discovered that gum containing xylitol, a natural sweetener found in plant tissue including birch trees, prevents tooth decay.

Link to Washington Post, Link to Kierikki Excavation press release

Last week, just one day after VMWare's meteoric IPO, Citrix Systems announced the acquisition of Xensource, confirming that virtualization mania was in full swing. Of course, as when any area gets this hot, you have to figure that the IT majors will want in on the action. Wall Street analysts are now speculating that Microsoft may make a competing bid for Xensource or possibly acquire it through an acquisition of Citrix itself. Should that happen, IBM may feel the need to make a move of its own, although for now it's all rank speculation. Either way, we do know that Microsoft is definitely interested in the virtualization space. A New York Times article from earlier this year discussed the potential rivalry between it and VMWare, noting that it could attempt to beat it back by bundling the technology into a future version of Windows (sound familiar?). In the past, Microsoft has been conservative about dipping deeply into its cash horde to take on new markets. But as its recent purchase of Aquantive indicates, it will strike fast when it starts to feel threatened.

Xeni Jardin: A new proposal for granting emergency responder agencies, border control, and law enforcement increased access to satellites and sensors monitoring the US has civil liberties advocates newly worried. For years, some civilian agencies have had access to a limited array of images from US spy satellites to "track hurricane damage, monitor climate change and create topographical maps," according to this NYT story by Eric Schmitt, but this new plan expands that access in ways some fear amount to a new form of domestic surveillance:

“It potentially marks a transformation of American political culture toward a surveillance state in which the entire public domain is subject to official monitoring,” said Steven Aftergood, director of the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists.

At issue is a newly disclosed plan that Mike McConnell, director of national intelligence, approved in May in a memorandum to Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, which puts some of the nation’s most powerful intelligence-gathering tools at the disposal of domestic security officials as early as this fall.

The uses include enhancing seaport and land-border security, improving planning to mitigate natural disasters, and determining how best to secure major events, like the Super Bowl or national political conventions. Eventually, state and local law enforcement officials could be allowed to tap into the technology on a case-by-case basis, once legal guidelines are worked out, administration officials said.

Link.

amigoro writes "A rocket-powered bionic arm has been successfully developed and tested by a team of mechanical engineers at Vanderbilt University as part of a $30 million military program to develop advanced prosthetic devices for next generation of super-soldiers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last summer, Carlo wrote up a fantastic analysis of what's wrong with journalism, which highlights the false focus on objectivity. The point he makes is that there's nothing wrong with reporting the facts, but people get value from the interpretation, analysis and insight that people provide around the facts. That's what we've always tried to do around here at Techdirt. I, personally, chuckle whenever anyone complains about "bias" or a lack of objectivity here. We've never claimed to be reporters or journalists. We've never claimed to be objective. From the very beginning of this site's existence (I know, since I was there), it has always been about giving our opinion and analysis of the news. If we don't have an opinion on something, we probably are a lot less interested in writing about it. And, despite the anger by a small subset at our "non-journalism," we've found that most of our readers read us because they value that opinion and analysis. In fact, in the coming months, expect to see us dive even further into insight and analysis.

That's why it's interesting to see reporters coming to terms with new studies suggesting that opinions are exactly what younger people are looking for in their news. The editorial worries that this inevitably results in the lowest common denominator of angry commentators like those you see on the various cable news channels, but that need not be the case. The thing is, people don't value opinions for the sake of opinions -- they value opinions based on facts (which is often missing from cable news). That is, just because people want opinions, it doesn't mean that the facts go out the window. They want to know the facts, and then they want to see the interpretation of it. They mostly understand opinion for what it is, knowing that the analysis is based on the facts, and that leads to other interpretations and analysis.

In fact, despite the claims of an internet "echo chamber," one of the things that makes the internet such an interesting medium, is the idea that anyone can respond and discuss stuff. If someone disagrees with our interpretation of the facts, we want to know about it, and we want to discuss it. That's how we all learn and we all become smarter. So those in the news business shouldn't fret the value that people put on opinions these days. Those opinions still need a factual basis, and the ensuing discussion often highlights more important finer points that are missed if you're just staring at the objective facts all day. But that's only going to happen if traditional news organizations recognize the value of opinions -- and the ability for people to talkback and discuss those opinions (and the facts they're based on).

So far, though, that doesn't appear to be happening. Tim Lee points us to an LA Times editorial that gets plenty of facts wrong while trashing bloggers as being only interested in opinion. Yes, certainly, there are some folks out there who are only in it to make a point or be heard. But it's the combination of facts and opinion and analysis that has the chance to make these discussions that much more meaningful. It doesn't mean that you do one side without the other. It means, both are needed together.

Mark Frauenfelder:
Sof' Boy is a wonderful but extremely infrequently-published comic book by musician and artist Archer Prewitt. I love this comic about a homeless, naive dough boy who happily lives in a crime- and filth-ridden urban neighborhood, surviving attacks by man and beast because he is made out of some kind of indestructible, infinitely elastic rubber.

Giant Robot sells Sof' Boy comics: Combo Reprint (Issue #01 & Issue #02), Issue #03

Presspop in Japan has just announced the release of a 24" tall (life size?) Sof' Boy figurine.

HEE HAW YIP YIP! After 2 years of designing, and re-designing, and testing, and re-designing, and with Archer finishing the Sea and Cake tour (more time to design), Sof'Boy has finally come to life! Because we can not predict for how many figures, the mold will be able to hold (in the case of Giant Pupshaw, it was for only around 100 pieces), we will divide the release into several parts. The first release is for 70 figures only. We think at most, we will be able to produce around 200 pieces but this is all up to the mold! So in order not to cause trouble to our customers, we will release t