An anonymous reader writes "We all know the impact that Ham radio can have in emergencies, but that often slips by the public and the authorities. Not so in Oregon, where a day after getting inundated with torrential rains and winds and suffering from the usual calamities those cause, Oregon's Governor called the local Ham radio operators heroes. When discussing how the storm affected communications, the governor stated: "I'm going to tell you who the heroes were from the very beginning of this...the ham radio operators." Kudos to the Oregon Ham operators for helping out in a bad situation, and getting the recognition they deserve."

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While Netflix has done a great job building up its business and competing with players who were much bigger and more well established, could it be the US Postal Service that finally does the company in? It turns out that those patented funky red DVD mailer envelopes are a pain for the postal service. They "sustain damage, jam equipment and cause mis-sorts during automated processing," and the postal service has had enough. The Inspector General is asking to charge an extra $0.17 per DVD mailer if adjustments aren't made to make the envelopes more "machinable." While $0.17 may not sound like a lot, a research analyst at Citibank cranked the numbers and found that it would likely cut Netflix's monthly margin per customer from $1.05 to $0.35 -- basically killing 67% of its margin (ouch). Now here's where the situation gets fun. It turns out that Netflix's main competitor, Blockbuster, does not have this problem with its DVD mailers. Remember that Netflix sued Blockbuster over its patents last year. The two firms reached a settlement earlier this year, but could this be a chance for Blockbuster to strike back at Netflix? Anyone know if Blockbuster patented its "working" design for the DVD mailers? I'm sure it would be thrilled to license it to Netflix... at a reasonable fee.

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Windell, of Evil Mad Scientist Labs, has posted a wonderful tutorial on creating these cool "iterative algorithmic plastic sculptures" out of Fimo polymer clay.

Iterative Algorithmic Plastic Sculpture: Fimo Fractals - Link

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netbuzz writes "More big-time spammers may find themselves doing longer stretches behind bars if a federal judge's first-of-its-kind sentencing decision in a Denver case becomes widely applied. In a sense, these spammers would be hoisted on their own profits, as language in CAN-SPAM allows the use of their profits instead of the difficult-to-measure financial damage they cause in establishing a prison sentence. The Denver spammer earned $250,000 — and a 20% longer prison stint — using this approach."

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We have no problem crying foul when companies like Comcast and Verizon market their services as "unlimited" when the fine print has many limits. However, a new lawsuit against Comcast may take a similar concept a bit too far. A customer is suing the company, claiming breach of contract because his internet connection went down, despite Comcast's marketing materials claiming the service is "always on." While Comcast does have a reputation for tremendous downtime (something I experienced myself back when I was a Comcast customer), it seems like a bit of a stretch to claim that "always on" means that the service can never go down. The difference between something like this and the "unlimited" claim, is that while service providers are pitching unlimited service, they have internal policies by choice that limit usage. However, when it comes to the network going down, that's not a policy choice, but a technical issue.

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Anonymous Cow writes "A giant refrigerated genetic bank built into the island of Svalbard has been brought online. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway is designed to house up to 4.5 million seeds in the case of a catostrophic event. The bank is funded by the Norwegian government, Monsanto Corporation, and the Gates, Rockefeller, and Syngenta Foundations. The Global Crop Diversity Trust has completed construction of the doomsday vault and is getting the facility ready to preserve the genetic heritage of the world's agriculture for future generations. There will be no full-time staff, but the vault's relative inaccessibility will facilitate monitoring human activity. Spitsbergen was considered ideal due to its lack of tectonic activity and its permafrost, which will aid preservation. Locally mined coal will provide power for refrigeration units which will further cool the seeds to the internationally recommended standard 20 to 30 C."

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Bush and Cheney knew what was going to be in the NIE for months. That's not a stretch. It's completely unbelievable that they didn't ask or weren't told what was coming.

They tried to drum up support for a war anyway.

Hoping to rush us to war. Then the NIE would come out and they'd say that no one knew that there was no nuclear program in Iran.

The only question is why they didn't start the bombing.

Could it be that they gave the order and the military didn't do it?

In the meantime one has to wonder why the French president Sarkozy was saying the same things about Iran along with Cheney and Bush.

There's a back-story we're not hearing.

A few months back, we discovered the blog of an anonymous IP lawyer called The Patent Troll Tracker. It had great info, and you've probably noticed that we're now linking to stories from that site on a fairly regular basis. Sometime before we became aware of the site however, the Troll Tracker got into a little scuffle with a bigshot patent attorney, Raymond Niro of the law firm Niro, Scavone. The Mises Institute has a recap of the situation, but basically the Troll Tracker had mentioned Niro in a way that Niro felt was unflattering, and Niro asked the Troll Tracker to identify himself -- not, apparently, for a defamation charge, but for patent infringement. How could a blog post (unflattering or not) be considered patent infringement? Apparently, the patent in question, owned by Acacia (who, you may recall is considered the worst patent system offender by the EFF), can be interpreted to mean that posting a JPG image to your site is infringement. It also happens that Niro is the patent attorney who has filed some of Acacia's patent infringement lawsuits, including against the Green Bay Packers for violating this same patent. Apparently, Niro also used the same claim of patent infringement against well-known patent critic Gregory Aharonian. It's an interesting twist on patent infringement cases to use an incredibly broad patent that covers "posting a JPEG to a website" to basically go after anyone you don't like. Somehow, I doubt that's what the founders of the patent system had in mind. Hell, I'd guess that it's not what anyone who had any part in writing patent laws had in mind.

Of course, Niro has run into something of a problem in trying to sue the anonymous Troll Tracker. It's that anonymity bit. So, apparently, he's now put out a $5,000 bounty to anyone who can identify the Troll Tracker. Law.com has more details on this as well as some other odd moves by Niro. Who knows if he will actually sue (though, the earlier stories suggest it's not out of the realm of possibility), but it's stunning that a bigshot patent attorney would be so afraid of an anonymous critic of patent system misuse that he not only would threaten him with patent infringement claims on such an incredibly broad patent, but also is willing to put up $5,000 just to find out the guy's identity. Yes, this is what our patent system has been reduced to. Thomas Jefferson is rolling in his grave.

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Spinlock_1977 writes "ComputerWorld is running a story about developers frustration with IE 7, and Microsoft's upcoming plans (or lack thereof) for it. From the article, "But the most pointed comment came from someone labeled only as dk. You all continue to underestimate the dramatic spillover effect this poor developer experience has had and will continue to have on your other products and services. Let me drive this point home. I am a front-end programmer and a co-founder of a start-up. I can tell you categorically that my team won't download and play with Silverlight ... won't build a Live widget ... won't consider any Microsoft search or ad products in the future.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A simple balancing robot build out of a GyroMax R/C car.

Botka, The Barely Standing Robot - [via] Link

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Gareth says: "Hey, elephants and chimps (and children) can do a pretty good job of abstract painting, so why not bugs? Artist Steven R. Kutcher dips the creepy crawlers in (watercolor) paint, or has them traipse through it, and then he lets them scurry across the canvas (watercolor paper)." Link

Esther Schindler writes to mention that one IT leader who came from big business found himself in quite another world when he transitioned into a smaller business, specifically with respect to the amount of attention from their vendors. He presents an amusing approach with a familiar twist. " Not only are the IBMs of the world leaving money on the table, they're also risking future sales. The IT leaders at small organizations will in many cases be employed by larger organizations someday. Why alienate them? Vendors could engage IT leaders in small organizations now and build brand loyalty. How could they make such a business model work? Let's imagine (with apologies to George Lucas) what Yoda might do if he were running a large consultancy."

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As media companies continue their quixotic quest to some "stop" unauthorized use of content, tools providers are all too eager to rush in with promises of being able to help -- even if the tools don't actually help much. However, that's why there are a ton of "DRM" companies out there, all trying to provide the latest useless DRM tech to media companies too clueless to understand why DRM will never work. The latest is that companies are rushing to be the latest vendors to supply the entertainment industry with watermarking or filtering software to try to "stop" piracy. First there was the company Audible Magic, who the entertainment industry described as its magic bullet in stopping piracy. While some have pointed out that Audible Magic doesn't work particularly well, it has become something of the standard for companies to implement. In fact, it was something of a surprise earlier this year when Google decided to build its own filtering solution, rather than just use Audible Magic.

However, with so much demand for Audible Magic's non-working solution, you knew others had to jump in -- and some of them would be big players. The big media monitoring firm Nielsen is now entering the space with a big announcement, suggesting that its knowledge and connections within the television world will help it dominate the market. Of course, there doesn't seem to be much discussion on how Nielsen's solution is likely to be just as useless as Audible Magic's or anyone else's in trying to "stop" unauthorized copies from getting online. Of course, the entertainment companies remain too clueless to realize that all of these vendors are simply robbing them blind, promising them a magic elixir that can never work and only distracts the companies from what they should be doing: adapting to the changing market with new business models. In the article about Nielsen's announcement, NBC Universal's general counsel, Rick Cotton, declares that Nielsen's entrance is a game changer: "The point is the big boys are coming, and that signals that this is a field that has reached technological maturity. It will achieve widespread commercial adoption, and from a content point of view, it will contribute dramatically to reducing the easy theft of copyrighted material online."

We'll record that here and check back in the future to see how accurate he is. I have no doubt that these technologies will achieve widespread commercial adoption -- but only because folks like Cotton actually believe that it will "dramatically" reduce infringement (which he incorrectly calls "theft"). Of course, Cotton is no stranger to outlandish and dramatic statements. He's the same guy who claimed that the cops were spending too much money on things like burglary and bank-robbing when they should be focused on important things like copyright infringement. He's also responsible for the totally ridiculous claim that movie piracy was hurting corn farmers. So, I'd take anything he says with a rather large grain of salt.

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jcatcw writes "After weeks of privacy protests over its advertising system, Facebook's CEO announced that users now can turn the system off completely. CEO Zuckerberg said 'We simply did a bad job with this release.' Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, called the announcement from Zuckerberg 'a step in the right direction.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jcatcw writes "After weeks of privacy protests over its advertising system, Facebook CEO announced that users now can turn the system off completely. CEO Zuckerberg said 'We simply did a bad job with this release.' Jeff Chester, executive director of the Center for Digital Democracy, called the announcement from Zuckerberg 'a step in the right direction.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TedSher's Flickr photo set of the sign next to the St. Cloud Bakery in Stearns County, Minnesota is like a book of tasty poetry. Link (Thanks, Coop!)

Ugobe sent me a Pleo robotic baby dinosaur to play with for two weeks, and my two daughters have fallen in love with it. They dress the $350 toy in doll clothes, give it naps in their beds, set a plate for it at dinnertime, and generally treat it like they would a kitten.

The press materials that came with the Pleo suggested I hold it by its tail to see what happens. It screams and thrashes. My 4-year-old started crying. I had to promise my wife never to do that again in front of her.

I'm impressed with the robot's behavior. It snuggles when you hold it. It falls asleep when you cradle it. It gets frisky when you scratch it under the chin. It's much more lifelike than Sony's discontinued Aibo.

So when I watched this video of a couple of guys from Dvice torturing the Pleo and making it whimper pathetically, I felt uncomfortable, even though I knew it was absolutely ridiculous to feel that way.

My wife didn't want to watch the video. She said that even though the Pleo was incapable of feeling anything, watching the video is "bad for your psyche," and that the people who hit the Pleo were damaging their pscyhes, too.

I'm reminded of story in one of my favorite books, The Mind's I: Fantasies and Reflections on Self & Soul, edited by Douglas R. Hofstadter and Daniel C. Dennett. It was called The Soul of Mark III Beast, and it's a chapter from a novel called The Soul of Anna Klane, by Terrel Miedaner. The excerpt is about about a robotic beetle programmed to run away from danger. Here's an excerpt of the excerpt:

Dirksen picked up the hammer again, quickly raised it and brought it back down in a smooth arc which struck the helpless machine off-center, damaging one of its wheels and flipping it right side up again. There was a metallic scraping sound from the damaged wheel, and the beast began spinning in a fitful circle. A snapping sound came from its underbelly; the machine stopped, lights glowing dolefully.

Dirksen pressed her lips together tightly, raised the hammer for a final blow. But as she started to bring it down there came from within the beast a sound, a soft crying wail the rose up and fell like a baby whimpering. Dirksen dropped the hammer and stepped back, her eyes on the blood-red pool of lubricating fluid forming on the table beneath the creature. She looked at hunt horrified. "It's... it's-"

"Just a machine," Hunt said, seriously now. "Like these, its evolutionary predecessors." His gesturing hands took in the array of machinery in the workshop around them, mute and menacing watchers. "But unlike them it can sense its own doom and cry out for succor."

"Turn it off," she said flatly.

Hunt walked to the table, tried to move its tiny power switch. "You've jammed it, I'm afraid." He picked up the hammer from the floor where it had fallen. "Care to administer the death blow?"

She stepped back, shaking her head as Hunt raised the hammer. "Couldn't you fix-" There was a brief metallic crunch. She winced, turned her head. The wailing had stopped, and they returned upstairs in silence.

Link

On today's episode of BBtv, Xeni interviews Carl Rankin, a model plane builder who creates impressive R/C planes out of take-out food cartons, drinking straws, sewing thread, Reynold's wrap, and tape (among other things). There's also a fun video that uses Wonder Bread like clay to create "dough-mation."

BBtv: Flying Puppets / Wonder Bread - Link

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