Active Seti writes "If aliens were hunting life outside their own planet, could they peer through the vastness of space and lock onto Earth as a likely home for life? Researchers say with a roughly Hubble-sized array observers could measure Earth's 24-hour rotation period, possibly leading to observations of oceans and the chance of life. 'They would only be able to see Earth as a single pixel, rather than resolving it to take a picture,' said Astronomer Eric Ford. 'But that could be enough for them to identify our planet as one that likely contains clouds and oceans of liquid water.' The research will be useful to astronomers designing the next generation of space telescopes on our planet, because it provides an outline of the capabilities required for studying the surfaces of Earth-like worlds."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Washington Post reports today that the FBI is launching a $1 billion project to build the world's largest database of individuals' physical characteristics. The effort would give the American government unprecedented abilities to ID people here and overseas. Snip:

Digital images of faces, fingerprints and palm patterns are already flowing into FBI systems in a climate-controlled, secure basement here. Next month, the FBI intends to award a 10-year contract that would significantly expand the amount and kinds of biometric information it receives. And in the coming years, law enforcement authorities around the world will be able to rely on iris patterns, face-shape data, scars and perhaps even the unique ways people walk and talk, to solve crimes and identify criminals and terrorists. The FBI will also retain, upon request by employers, the fingerprints of employees who have undergone criminal background checks so the employers can be notified if employees have brushes with the law.

"Bigger. Faster. Better. That's the bottom line," said Thomas E. Bush III , assistant director of the FBI's Criminal Justice Information Services Division, which operates the database from its headquarters in the Appalachian foothills.

Link

Download the PDF to check out the detailed instructions and as a special bonus, you can read up all about tensegrity in Bill Gurstelle's awesome tensegrity article from Make: Volume 6! - PDF Link

[Read this article] [Comment on this article]

It's certainly no secret that in an age of changing business models for content creators, that understanding the nature of online marketing is important. Huge industries have grown up around online marketing, viral marketing and word of mouth marketing. But, when it gets right down to the core, it's about figuring out ways to get attention -- and it appears that one college professor is imparting that message quite clearly to his students in a class where the entire goal is for students to become famous online. It apparently doesn't matter how they become famous, but their grades depend on it. The class, at Parsons The New School for Design, has 15 students, all vying to be more famous than one another. What's amusing is that, as the semester wound down and more subtle means of becoming internet famous were proving ineffective, many in the class resorted to the old short-term standby: posting videos of scantily-clad women on blogs and using suggestive titles. You can check out the class blog to judge for yourself how famous the students have become.

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siDDis writes "Earlier this year Slashdot mentioned that Norway was moving towards mandatory use of ODF and PDF. Now it's official: the Norwegian government has mandated the use of open document formats from January 1st, 2009. There are three formats that have been mandated for all documentation between authorities, users and partners. HTML for all public information on the Web, PDF for all documents where layout needs to be preserved and ODF for all documents that the recipient is supposed to be able to edit. Documents may also be published in other formats, but they must always be available in either ODF or PDF."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's George W. Bush's marvelous cover of REM's "It's the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine)." George's vocal stylings remind me of his father's excellent collaboration with Emergency Broadcast Network, the 1991 cover of "We Will Rock You." Link to "End of the World," Link to "We Will Rock You." (Thanks, Vann Hall and David Fox!)

From the snake-oil department

Macrovision "chief evangelist" Richard Bullwinkle has an article at News.com that's a bit of a head-scratcher. He sings the praises of Apple's iPod ecosystem, but then complains that Apple's DRM prevents content from being played on non-Apple devices. Consumer electronics manufacturers and content creators, he says, need to "work together to create standards" for digital media. That's music to my ears. Except that I suspect that Bullwinkle isn't actually talking about open standards. Macrovision, after all, is a DRM vendor. If companies wanted to distribute their music or movies in open formats like MPEG, they wouldn't need Macrovision's help to do it -- they could just ditch DRM altogether (which, clearly, Macrovision doesn't want). What Macrovision appears to be pushing for Apple and other vendors to switch to its own "open" DRM format. But in fact, there's no such thing. DRM is a walled garden by definition. Some walled gardens are easier to get into than others. The DVD format, for example, has been licensed to a bunch of different vendors. But that doesn't change the fact that there's still a DVD cartel that shuts down innovative devices they don't like. An even more egregious example is Microsoft's "interoperable" PlaysForSure format. Microsoft touted it as an "open" alternative to FairPlay until last year, when—surprise!—they decided not to allow people to play PlaysForSure media files on the Zune. Ultimately, Macrovision isn't interested in getting rid of walled gardens. It's just upset when it's not the gardener.

Tim Lee is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Tim Lee and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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C0rinthian writes "ArsTechnica reports that the games retailer Slackers has been keeping their stock of the Nintendo Wii off their store shelves, and is instead selling the system on eBay for $400-500. (A $150-$250 markup)" This follows their look at the other side of the coin: why some retailers insist on Wii Bundles.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

My friend Dale Dougherty (editor and publisher of Maker Media) sent this to me for Boing Boing. He writes:

I just completed two plus hours of training in the prevention of sexual harassment training. Thanks to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's flirtatious ways in his he-man days, California has a law (AB 1825) that "requires employers with more than 50 people to provide 2 hours of training and education to all supervisory employees." (Learning to spell 'harassment' correctly is a challenge itself - one 'r', not two, and two 's's; pronunciation is another issue.)

So I'm able to meet this requirement by taking an online course that teaches about "protected characteristics" and other terms. "Real-world" legal cases are presented throughout. At times, I thought I was reading Aesop's Fables, but with the "moral" of the story presented as multiple choice. Most of the lessons have the tone of a humorless teacher: "Employees should never use email or any business communication system to send or receive rumors or gossip, or to make disparaging or defamatory remarks about anyone." I felt like a student in the back of class wanting to say: "yeah, that never happens."

So I was surprised to read that the subject of one of these fables was Koko the Gorilla.

Case Study: Gorilla Suit

Kendra was a research associate for The Gorilla Foundation. As part of her duties, Kendra helped care for Koko, the sign-language talking gorilla.

Using sign language, Koko is able to communicate with humans. Over the years, Koko has repeatedly requested that female human visitors display their breasts to her. In fact, certain of Koko's hand movements were interpreted as a "demand" by Koko to see exposed human nipples.

Accordingly, when Koko made the signs about Kendra, Koko's primary caregiver instructed Kendra to expose her breasts to Koko as a way to bond with the great ape.

Although Kendra used to regularly dress in front of the pet parrot that lived in the Foundation's women's locker room, Kendra is uncomfortable with Koko's "demand."

This scenario is based on a 2005 case called Keller v. The Gorilla Foundation. Could Kendra complain that she was sexually harassed?

* No, because Kendra exposed herself to the Foundation's parrot and Koko wanted Kendra do the same thing.

* Probably not, because Koko is not a human.

* Only if she first "signs" to Koko that she will not indulge Koko's request.

* Yes, and the Foundation was required to take effective action to stop the harassment from continuing.

You can't make this stuff up, especially the detail about the pet parrot. David Pescovitz wrote about "Koko's Nipple Fetish" in 2005 on BoingBoing, citing the story in the San Francisco Chronicle. Now it has made itself into state-mandated training materials.

Note: I don't mean to make light of sexual harassment but, honestly, I don't work with gorillas.

The government of Iceland is asking US authorities why an Icelandic tourist who'd flown to NYC to shop and hang out over the holidays was held in shackles before being deported from the US:

The woman, Erla Osk Arnardottir Lillendahl, 33, was arrested Sunday [December 9] when she arrived at JFK airport in New York because she had overstayed a U.S. visa more than 10 years earlier.

Lillendahl, 33, had planned to shop and sightsee with friends, but endured instead what she has claimed was the most humiliating experience of her life.

She contended she was interrogated at JFK airport for two days, during which she was not allowed to call relatives. She said she was denied food and drink for part of the time, and was photographed and fingerprinted.

On Monday, Lillendahl claimed, her hands and feet were chained and she was moved to a prison in New Jersey, where she was kept in a cell, interrogated further and denied access to a phone.

Link. (via Ned Sublette)

Scott Beale blogs,

“IM IN UR MANGER KILLING UR SAVIOR” is hilarious animated short about three nerds who turn a nativity scene into a LARP battle. It was hand created over a year by Ben Levin and Matt Burnett of the animation studio For Tax Reasons.

Link

Whenever I write things like the post yesterday about the fact that too many people are relying on copyright as a crutch that allows them to avoid putting any effort into more innovative business models, people accuse me of being some sort of "idealist" who is not in touch with the real world. That always strikes me as a funny thing to say, because my discussions on copyright have nothing to do with idealism -- but are simply based on the reality of what's happening in copyright. If you want further evidence of that, just take a look at David Pogue's latest column where he discovers that college kids don't view this as a moral issue at all. They just don't see why anyone would think it's "wrong" to copy content. No education campaign, no legal campaign, no change in laws is going to change that. That is the reality anyone who relies on copyright is going to face in the near future, if they aren't facing it already. So, given that reality, why not look into business models that embrace it, rather than pretending we live in an idealistic world where everyone respects the artificial barriers of copyright? Is it really so idealistic to try to build business models based on reality?

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Ruben Fleischer directed this music video for "Pro Nails," by Kid Sister, featuring Kanye West. The liberal use of breakdancing fingernails makes it excellent. Via this Antville post. (Thanks, Susannah Breslin!)

Saxtor says "The URL is to a PDF of the front page of the 12/14/2007 Lewiston Tribune (Idaho). Above the fold appeared a photograph of Michael Millhouse, painting a sign on the window of a business. But below the fold, he appeared again, in a still taken from a convenience store where a wallet containing $600 was lifted. Due to his size, and the fact that he was wearing the same clothes, he was easily identified and caught."

Link to PDF of front page | Supplemental article from Spokane, WA's Spokesman Review

Jon says: A ten year old boy who was raised by wolves has escaped from a Moscow clinic. He bites and snarls and acts all crazy, just like you'd expect a boy raised by wolves to act. And man, has he got some of the coolest toenails I've ever seen.

The boy moves around with his legs half bent, said Tvoi Den newspaper. "He was running with wolves and searching for food with them."

Villagers found this "wild creature" in a lair made of leaves and sticks in freezing temperatures and told the police who named him Lyokha, though his real identity is not known.

Link

I get an awful lot of books sent to me every week, and I can't begin to read them all. Here are a few that stood out:

Link Get a Hobby!: 101 All-Consuming Diversions for Any Lifestyle, by Tina Barseghian.

I like to dabble with things I know nothing about, and Get a Hobby! is full of ideas I've never considered. African violet cultivation, ant farming, balloon twisting, beekeeping, bell ringing, bike customizing, bonsai, coffee roasting, composting, deejaying, docenting, dumpster diving, falconry, gilding, ikebana, mushroom hunting, seed trading, topiary, treasure hunting, and whittling are just a few of the hobbies Barseghian covers.

Only two pages are devoted to each hobby, so this shouldn't be considered an in-depth how-to guide. It's more of an introduction to the hobbies, with pointers to resources and an occasional sample project.

A Book About Moomin, Mymble and Little My, by Tove Jansson

I don't know how this book ended up on my shelf. It just appeared one day when I was looking for something to read to my 4-year-old daughter. It's an English translation of an odyssey undertaken by a hippo-like creature named Moomin and two girls, Mymble and Little My. The art is a strange delight and the pages have holes cut in them to add a nonlinear twist to the story. Whoever gave me this book -- thank you!

Eiji Tsuburaya: Master of Monsters: Defending the Earth with Ultraman and Godzilla, by August Ragone

Eiji Tsuburaya the Japanese special effects director for the classic Japanese monster movies like Godzilla, Ultraman. This biographyis packed with hundreds of photos, film stills, and concept drawings. This hardcover edition is beautifully designed. I'm not a huge fan of Japanese monster movies, but this book might turn me into one.

The Subgenius Psychlopaedia of Slack: The Bobliographon, edited by Rev. Ivan Stang

Peter Lamborn Wilson (aka Hakim Bey) once told me that the Church of the SubGenius was not a joke. I agree. It's the only religion I can take seriously. There are deep truths buried in the pages of this zine-like book of high-weirdness, false conspiracies, idiot synchronicities, and tales of the mystic supersalesman, J.R. "Bob" Dobbs. SubGenius ministers include: Pee-wee Herman, David Byrne, Mark Mothersbaugh, Penn Jillette, Robert Anton Wilson, Rudy Rucker, John Shirley, and me.

Wired's invaluable Ryan Singel has been panning for gold in the muddy stream of FBI e-mails and other documents recently obtained by the Electronic Frontier Foundation under a Freedom of Information Act request, and has already hit a couple of intriguing nuggets, such as overeager agents' willingness to bypass court-order requirements when seeking cell phone records. The documents reveal how this caused tension and dispute even within the Bureau.

One e-mail, from a tech specialist in the FBI's Minneapolis office, complained that other agents would even pose as that specialist when calling telecom carriers, hoping to persuade them to turn over cell records without a judge's order. The cell information would apparently then be used as part of a high-tech tracking program that allowed agents to pinpoint a cell user's location.

Equally intriguing is the report that the Bureau's national-security wiretapping software recorded almost 28 million "session" intercepts in 2006. While it's not clear precisely what counts as a "session," this is obviously vastly more than the 2,176 FISA warrants (pdf) obtained by the government that year, at least some of which only covered physical searches. Unless terror suspects talk on the phone far more than the average teenager, the discrepancy hints that each warrant may have covered a very large number of individuals.

Julian Sanchez is an expert at the Techdirt Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Julian Sanchez and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Ponca City, We Love You writes "More than twice as many Americans googled themselves in 2006 than five years previous — and many are googling their friends and romantic interests as well, according to a report released ecently by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. The survey shows that the percentage of US adult Internet users who have looked for information about themselves through Google or another search engine has more than doubled in the past five years (pdf) from 22 percent in August, 2001 to 47 percent in December, 2006. Only 3 percent of internet self-googlers say they Google themselves regularly, 22 percent say 'every once in a while,' and three-quarters say they have googled themselves once or twice. The original report, 'Digital Footprints,' contains many more interesting observati