I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Privacy International has released their report on privacy for 2007, which includes a color-coded world map that highlights the countries with the best privacy laws, the privacy-hostile countries being in black. While many of the overall rankings may come as no surprise, it does highlight some of the more obscure abuses. For example, Venezuela requires your fingerprints just to get a phone and South Korea requires a government registration number linked to your identity before you can post on message boards. Makes you wonder who is Number One?" http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd%5B347%5D=x-347-559597

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Howard Rheingold is scanning and posting the awe-inspiring pages from his notebook with sketches and notes for the design of HotWired, Wired's groundbreaking (and defunct) website. I love his use of color. Link

I finally finished my last unfinished knitting project, this scarf with two O Rly owls on it. It's for my friend Justin, who asked for it special. One end says "O Rly?" and other other, "Ya Rly." I made a pattern you can download, as well, if you want to make it. - Link.

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An anonymous reader writes "NASA released part of a controversial study about air traffic safety Monday. The space agency spent $11 million on a survey of airline pilots. Agency officials were so disturbed by the findings that they intended to destroy the information rather than release it. But at an October congressional hearing, NASA administrator Michael Griffin changed tack and said the agency would release its findings. The research shows that safety problems occur far more often than previously recognized. NASA has been criticized however for not providing 'documentation on how to use its data, nor did it provide keys to unlock the cryptic codes used in the dataset.'"

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Do you want to know how much your jar of change is worth?

First, weigh the jar, then grab a handful of coins and enter the number of pennies, nickels, etc. into the form and click "Get Estimation." Link (Thanks, Mouser!)

eldavojohn writes "As more and more businesses become dependent on barcodes, people are pointing out common problems involving the security of one- or two-dimensional barcode software. You might scoff at this as a highly unlikely hacking platform but from the article, 'FX tested the access system of an automatically operated DVD hire shop near his home. This actually demanded a biometric check as well, but he simply refused it. There remained a membership card with barcode, membership number and PIN. After studying the significance of the bar sequences and the linear digit combinations underneath, FX managed to obtain DVDs that other clients had already paid for, but had not yet taken away. Automated attacks on systems were also possible, he claimed. But you had to remember not to use your own membership number.' The article also points out that boarding passes work on this basis — with something like GNU Barcode software and a template of printed out tickets, one might be able to take some nice vacations."

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A screen shot of an email I sent to Steve Jobs at Apple.

Marc van der Chijs: "Dave, what happened to me at the Apple Store in Shanghai is even worse. They tried to recover my data, but did not have another HD to put it on, so they copied it onto one of their store computers. Two weeks later I came back to the store and to my big surprise I found all my data still on that computer. Every customer had access to it! No apologies from Apple of course."

Full text of the email I sent.

Engadget is reporting that a new chemical coating, originally designed to repel toxic vapors and liquids from soldiers' uniforms, may be the solution to small waterproof electronics. "The Ion-Mask is a special invisible coating that is chemically bonded to the device and repels water. It should allow waterproofing to make it into devices that are too small for the seals that are usually used to do the trick. Devices can have joins and gaps coated for a general level of water repellence, or have individual components treated for even more protection."

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I love old tube guitar amps. I wish I'd never gotten ride of mine. Here's a rebuild and mod of 1961 Kay 503A instrument amp.

Tube Amp Rebuild (and Mod) - Link

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tmalone writes "The New York Times is running an end of year piece about the most interesting people who have died this year. One of their picks is Joybubbles, also known as Josef Engressia, or "Whistler". He was born blind and discovered at the age of 7 that he could whistle 2600 hertz into a phone to make free long distance calls. He was one of the original phone phreaks, got arrested for phone fraud, and was even employed by the phone company. The article deals more with his personal life than with his technical exploits, but is a very interesting story."

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If you're going to tattoo a Platonic solid on your arm, it might as well be a gamer's "d20" icosahedron die. Link (Thanks, Church!)

The Record Industry has changed its tune on personal use of music you own. It used to say that copying songs from your CDs was fine, but now it's pretending it didn't say that.

The Washington Post reports:

Sony BMG's chief of litigation, Jennifer Pariser, testified that "when an individual makes a copy of a song for himself, I suppose we can say he stole a song." Copying a song you bought is "a nice way of saying 'steals just one copy,'" she said.

On Dave Farber's IP mailing list, Dan Gillmor points out that the recording industry used to have a different opinion on personal use. It removed the following statement from its website (but you can still read it on archive.org):

"If you choose to take your own CDs and make copies for yourself on your computer or portable music player, that's great. It's your music and we want you to enjoy it at home, at work, in the car and on the jogging trail."

Gillmor adds: "Also, from the Supreme Court oral arguments in the Grokster case, Donald Virrelli, on behalf of the entertainment companies:"

The record companies, my clients, have said, for some time now, and it's been on their Website for some time now, that it's perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. There is a very, very significant lawful commercial use for that device, going forward."

Link

arbourp writes to mention that hackers Michael Steil and Felix Domke have demonstrated a way to hack the Wii that makes running homebrew code much easier. "The hack advances the possibility of running homebrew code with access to full system resources on the device, not just programs that Nintendo has sanctioned. Such games might be developed to run from a DVD drive, at least in theory. No such games are available as yet and Nintendo may respond by attempting to revoke compromised encryption keys. However history shows such countermeasures are likely to ultimately prove futile."

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Make your own moldable sand with ordinary play sand, corn starch, and water.

One of the hot Christmas items this year was Moon Sand. But while it's certainly not a bank-breaker, it is costly for what is basically wet sand. So, I did a little digging around (pun intended) and discovered a way to make your very own moon sand. Here's the best part...the homemade stuff will set you back less than 60 cents per pound!

As you may know, there are several Moon Sand kits out there, and they come with all sorts of the usual play-dough style gadgets and molds. But if you just want a bucket of the stuff, the best deal I have found so far is at Amazon, where a 7 1/2 lb tub will cost you $18.74, down from $29.99 (at the time this article was published).

Link (Thanks, Will!)

eldavojohn writes to mention that LinuxPlanet has a brief discussion on what 2008 may hold for FOSS. The list includes thoughts on KDE 4, OOXML, DRM, and 3-D desktops. What boons for FOSS are you looking forward to in 2008?

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A few years ago I switched from Cingular to T-Mobile because Cingular’s customer service stunk. My experience today was another proof that I made the right choice.

Late Saturday night my beloved Samsung T509 had full signal in my apartment, but I couldn’t place or receive any calls. Heading outside, I walked six blocks before my calls would go through. Some kind of cell phone black hole was centered right on my apartment. What a bummer, especially when you’re trying to order pizza without a landline.

So the next morning I went out for brunch beyond the boundary of the black hole. I called T-Mobile with a forkful of chilaquiles and expected to wait on hold. Much to my surprise, T-Mobile doesn’t make you wait. They take your number instead and call you back. Three minutes later, my phone rang. The girl on the other end was friendly, listened to my problem, apologized, and told me she’d send an engineer asap. She couldn’t promise a response before Wednesday due to New Years, so I crossed my fingers and hoped for the best.

Today my comatose phone gave a familiar chirp. T-Mobile had texted me this message:

An Engineer has reviewed your trouble ticket and a resolution has been found. Thank you for choosing T-Mobile.

After making a few calls and dancing around the room, I had to reflect on this. T-Mobile nailed this support experience from the beginning through the middle to the end.

1. I never had to stand in line
Waiting on hold sucks. T-Mobile knows it so they gave me another option and called me back.

2. The agent cared about my problem
The girl on the line was kind, attentive, and apologetic. She made me feel like it was their problem and their responsibility. Which is exactly what I want as a customer. She also promised an update by a specific date, which eased my uncertainty.

3. When the problem was fixed, I heard it from them first
I received a text message as soon as my service was restored. That little victory SMS taught me that when they have downtime in the future, I can trust they will work quickly and notify me when it’s fixed. It’s so frustrating to repeatedly pick up the phone every half hour to see if it works. Thanks to their communication, next time I can relax and wait for the good news.

Kudos to T-Mobile for the good example.

Chris Spurgeon says: "According to a story last week in the London Daily Mail newspaper, the British government has had enough with the "War on Terror" hype. (Link is to military.com, one of the many sites that has reprinted the Daily Mail article.)"

Sir Ken Macdonald said terrorist fanatics were not soldiers fighting a war but simply members of an aimless "death cult."

The Director of Public Prosecutions said: 'We resist the language of warfare, and I think the government has moved on this. It no longer uses this sort of language."

London is not a battlefield, he said.

"The people who were murdered on July 7 were not the victims of war. The men who killed them were not soldiers," Macdonald said. "They were fantasists, narcissists, murderers and criminals and need to be responded to in that way."

Good to see the UK coming to its senses. Hopefully the US won't be far behind. Link

How is it that phone cords, earbuds, and the string for my son's gyroscope so often end up a knotted mess? To find out, biophysicists and mathematicians are developing experiments to exploring how knots can spontaneously form so quickly. Their research may provide insight not only into the tangled web of power cords behind your desk but also natural knots, like those in proteins and DNA. From Science News:

By tumbling a string of rope inside a box, biophysicists Dorian Raymer and Douglas Smith have discovered that knots—even complex knots—form surprisingly fast and often. The string first coils up, and then its free ends swivel around the other coils, tracing a random path among them. That essentially makes the coils into a braid, producing knots, the scientists say...

In topology, a knot is any curved line that closes up on itself, possibly after a circuitous path in three dimensions. A circle is regarded as the "trivial" knot. Two loops are considered to be the same knot if you can turn one into the other by topological manipulation, which in this case means anything that does not break the curve or force it to run through itself.

Topologically, a knotted string is not a real knot, as long as its ends are free. That's because either of the ends can always thread back through any entanglement and undo the knot. An open string, no matter how garbled, is the same as a straight segment. (Mathematicians usually think of strings as being stretchable and infinitesimally thin, so in topology there is no issue of a knot being tight.)

Strictly speaking, then, the string in Raymer and Smith's box was never knotted. But it was still a mess.

Link

Previously on BB:
• Many better ways to tie your shoes Link
• Ideal knots spun in 3D Link

Over the holidays, my brother Charles proudly showed me his new favorite convenience foodstuff: Batter Blaster, pancake batter in a pressurized can. It's not only organic, but Batter Blaster is apparently "fast, easy and fun for the whole family." My brother says the pancakes and waffles it produces are quite tasty. Unfortunately, I didn't get to sample them.
Link

The last podcast of the year, for sure, it's a tutorial on the meaning of the at-sign in Twitter for Dave Sifry. Maybe I got it wrong? If so, post a comment here.