Boing Boing tv episode:

Austrian tech-art-pranksters Monochrom introduce us to Scott Blake, renowned bar code artist. We then observe Scott wandering the streets of Vienna collecting bar codes to properly memorialize the late Austrian pop star, Falco. He's a very big deal over there.

See also: Monochrom's Human USB Hack

Link to BBtv video and comments.

Someone from the CenterforSocialMedia writes in to let us know about a new report from American University professors Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi. "It finds that many online videos creatively use copyrighted materials in ways that are eligible for fair use consideration under copyright law. But even though they are potentially using copyrighted material legally, these uses -- an exercise of freedom-of-speech rights -- are currently threatened by anti-piracy measures online." This won't come as a surprise to many around here, of course, but it's yet another report backing up what's been well known for a while. The push by Big Content companies to claim that copyright allows them to do things well beyond the scope of the law already is creating (and will continue to create) chilling effects on perfectly legitimate and important areas of content creation.

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Of all the comments on the hard drive, and there have been hundreds, this one explains it best.

I'm sorry to hear about your experience at the Apple Store. I was a "genius" for a year and can assure you that the policy regarding HDs was frustrating to us as well. In warranty it wasn't so hard to justify, but out of warranty customers often had a problem with it. My recommendation to them (and to you) is the same. AASPs often do not have the same contractual obligations with HD manufacturers that Apple does, so they may very well let you keep it. If you still wanted to have it done through an Apple store, take a magnet to it before you hand it over. The techs have better things to do than trawl through your personal data (there are exceptions, of course), but if it sets your mind at ease- go for it. Honestly, I would do this in your position because I have read of people getting reman drives with other people's data still on them. But that would have nothing to do with Apple and everything to do with the companies contracted to remanufacture the HDs.

Not much more to say after that. I will probably write a summary tomorrow.

coondoggie writes "On Thursday, SETI Institute and NASA scientists will take their research instruments and their coffee for a 10 hour continuous flight to map what they say will be the earth's most brilliant meteor shower of 2008. Scientists believe the Quadrantid meteor shower could flash over 100 visible meteors per hour at its peak, depending on location. A Gulfstream V aircraft will take off from San Jose, Calif., and fly 14 scientists and their instruments for 10 continuous hours at 47,000ft., over the Arctic and back to San Jose. The primary goal of the lengthy airborne mission is to observe the Quadrantid meteor shower in ideal and virtually unchanging conditions far above light pollution and clouds to determine when the meteor shower peaks and how the flow of meteors are dispersed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Okay I wanted something for Christmas and I didn't get it, so I decided on 12/31 to buy it for myself. I opted for one-day shipping which meant it would arrive on 1/2, which is today.

So I was following it on the Amazon site, as it made its way from Louisville to Oakland to San Pablo, to oooops.

I don't know, is it just me, or are we getting too deep into this computer thing.

From the fine folks over at Pew Internet, a new study reports that young adults are most likely to visit a library when confronted with a problem to solve -- despite the wealth of online information available to them on the internet. Although most libraries have now added internet terminals, for the most part, libraries are still struggling to keep pace with the times, and haven't really done much to advance their position as knowledge providers. Though the article does point out that young adults (aged 18-30) are the most active library users, in looking at the report itself (pdf), the percentage of people that looked on the internet, 58%, greatly outpaced the 13% that went to a library. So, while it's possible to paint a nice picture with that statistic, perhaps it's not quite as rosy as the article suggests. Furthermore, of the 13% of those that visited the library, 65% were there to use the internet. Perhaps the reason that young adults visit the library more than the rest of the population is simply because libraries are more accessible to them, since many of them are at college. So, once again, may this serve as a reminder that 73% of studies may be used to show just about anything.

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David Coddaire designed this trippy-fun "Wavy Cabinet," fabricated from roch-cut and welded iron. It's 60"H x 24"W x 8"D and available in blue or oxidized red. The price is $1025 from The Artful Home.
Link (Thanks, Michael-Anne Rauback!)

• Surreal furniture by Straight Line Designs Link
• Furniture made from books Link
• Scary furniture Link

MBCook writes "Technology Review has a fantastic seven page piece titled "You Don't Understand Our Audience" by former Dateline correspondent John Hockenberry. In it he discusses how NBC (and the networks at large) has missed and wasted opportunities brought by the Internet; and how they work to hard to get viewers at the expense of actual news. The story describes various events such as turning down a report on who al-Qaeda is for a reality show about firefighters, having to tie a story about a radical student group into American Dreams, and the failure to cover events like Kurt Cobain suicide (except as an Andy Rooney complaint piece)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yet another study has come out on people driving while talking on their mobile phones, and I doubt many people will quibble with the results of this one. The study found that people who talk on their mobile phones while driving tend to drive slower, helping to back up traffic. Considering how often the "slow driver" you see is on a mobile phone, this certainly sounds accurate. Of course, while this will push more folks to call for additional bans on driving while yakking, an equally effective (and just as realistic) solution might be to just add a "mobile phone lane" on highways, where people are expected to be talking on their phones, and therefore driving slower. Those folks can just go at their own pace, while everyone else knows to avoid that lane and go at a more appropriate speed. No, this isn't exactly practical, but neither is banning every driver distraction known to man.

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ancientribe writes "Nothing was sacred to hackers in '07 — not cars, not truckers, and not even the stock exchange. Dark Reading reviews five hacks that went after everyday things we take for granted even more than our PC's — our car navigation system, a trucker's freight, WiFi connections, iPhone, and (gulp) the electronic financial trading systems that record our stock purchases and other online transactions."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Considering that the only real tool politicians have is the ability to regulate, it's no wonder they try to regulate everything in sight. The Inquirer points us to a report about some efforts underway in Japan to dramatically increase regulation over the internet in a variety of different realms. The first area would be to expand what the Japanese "Broadcast Law" covers to include almost all web content. The law was intended to regulate broadcast content, but by adding in the phrase "open communication" it will now also include just about any public information put on the web, including newsgroups, bulletin boards and blogs. Once that's in place, the Japanese government will then be able to go after any content it finds "harmful," which seems rather loosely defined itself. The second change would push mobile phone operators to put in place various filters to block "harmful" content from minors -- though, again that definition of harmful is loosely described. The report notes that some operators already have such filters in place (though they're not mandatory) and it includes blocking various social network sites and some sites based on politics or sexual orientation. The final change would be to Japanese copyright law that currently says it's legal to download songs for personal use. The change would be to get rid of that exception. At this point, it sounds like all of these proposals are under review, rather than already put in place, but as the article notes, they don't seem to have received very much press attention, despite being major changes concerning internet regulations. All of these changes seem to be the type that politicians like. They all make the politicians look good for either "protecting the children" or helping out big industry lobbyists -- but which do little to actually help the people the government is supposed to represent.

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XueCast writes "The federal government has announced that they will release new electronic Passport cards in either April or May 2008. The cards could be read wirelessly from up to 20 feet away, which could reduce the waiting time at border checkpoints. Deputy Assistant Secretary Of State For Passport Services, Ann Barrett said, "As people are approaching a port of inspection, they can show the card to the reader, and by the time they get to the inspector, all the information will have been verified and they can be waved on through.""

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

rcastro0 writes "Hamilton Sundstrand, a division of United Technologies, announced today that it will start to commercialize a new type of solar power plant. A new company called SolarReserve will be created to provide heat-resistant pumps and other equipment, as well as the expertise in handling and storing salt that has been heated to more than 1,050 degrees Fahrenheit. According to venture capitalist Vinod Khosla 'Three percent of the land area of Morocco could support all of the electricity for Western Europe.' Molten Salt storage is already used in Nevada's Solar One power plant. Is this the post-hydrocarbon world finally knocking?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The One Laptop Per Child project has announced that its Chief Technology Officer, Mary Lou Jepsen, is leaving the project to focus on commercializing the display technology she developed as part of the OLPC project. Computerworld describes this as a "blow" to the OLPC project, but I don't think that's necessarily true. It's hard to say without an insider's perspective, but it may be that this is just a natural development for an organization that's transitioning from a (non-profit) tech startup to a more mature technology organization. Traditional for-profit startups often see some of their early technologists leave the firm once the initial technology-development phase is completed. The skills required to develop cutting-edge technology are different from the skills needed to run a large technology company, and so people who don't want to do the latter often leave companies once they're off the ground. What I think this does illustrate, though, is that despite large differences in rhetoric, there's not that much difference between a non-profit technology organization and a for-profit technology company. Both are trying to develop cutting-edge technologies that will be useful to a lot of people. Both face challenges with holding down costs and finding the right market. As I've said before, OLPC might be more successful if it thought more like a technology company, looking for paying customers and ways to cut costs. Having former employees commercializing OLPC-based technologies can only help nudge the organization in the right direction.

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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Here's an interesting Howto on connecting FlickrFan to the Mac desktop. I love this stuff.

Here's a movie that demonstrates this coolest of hacks.

My friend Jon Sarriugarte is a hyper-talented machine and fire artist. A blacksmith by trade and longtime collaborator of Survival Research Laboratories, Jon is no stranger to flame. His elegantly-designed and fabricated works use fire not as a gimmick but rather as another sculptural element. Jon recently started a blog to document his process and projects. His latest piece is the beautiful "Boiler Bar" which premiered at a recent benefit for injured machine artist Todd Blair. The Boiler Bar's next step is the Hot Couture fire and fashion fundraiser at Oakland's industrial arts school The Crucible on January 17-19. Jon will also be bringing along several of his magical Zen Fire Gardens. From now on, I'm going to call him the Pope of Propane.
Link

Looks like I'll get the drive back soon.

First I got a call from the Emeryville store, then I got a call from a person in Apple Executive offices (she gave me her name and number, but I'm not going to publish it here).

I'll report back when I have more info.

PS: The number of idiotic comments has gone way up.

Zed Shaw, creator of the popular Mongrel HTTP daemon / library, has decided it was high time to tear into the Ruby/Rails community for many different complaints that he has been collecting over the last few years. "Rails is a Ghetto" is Shaw's self-proclaimed exit strategy from the Rails community. "This is that rant. It is part of my grand exit strategy from the Ruby and Rails community. I don't want to be a 'Ruby guy' anymore, and will probably start getting into more Python, Factor, and Lua in the coming months. I've got about three or four more projects in the works that will use all of those and not much Ruby planned. This rant is full of stories about companies and people who've either pissed in my cheerios somehow or screwed over friends. I can back all of them up from emails, IRC chat logs, or with witnesses. Nothing in here is a lie unless it's really obviously a lie through exaggeration, and there's a lot of my opinion as well."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

David Martinjak writes "Linux Firewalls, authored by Michael Rash and published by No Starch Press, covered five main topics: traditional packet filtering with iptables, port scan detection, snort rule translation, port knocking, and log visualization. At first I considered only skimming the chapters regarding iptables packet filtering. I have a good amount of experience with iptables, and have been running it for several years. Thankfully I decided to give the first chapter a good read. Right from the start, the book presented valuable information and pulled me in." Read on for the rest of David's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.