Dale Rippy, 62, killed a rabid bobcat with his bare hands when it attacked him on his porch in Wesley Chapel, Florida. The Vietnam vet was later treated for bites, scratches, and exposure to rabies. From Associated Press:

Dale Rippy endured the (25 pound) bobcat’s slashes and bites until it clawed into a position where he could grab it by the throat. Then he strangled it.

Link

The Aether and Ether Experiment's Randy George recorded a terrific Theremin-driven cover of Gnarls Barkley's hit tune Crazy. Scott Beale of Laughing Squid spotted the video on YouTube. Link

I've been podcasting my fiction since September 2005, and I've basically caught up. There are a couple of novels in the can that will be coming into print shortly, and some collaborative stories, but apart from them, I've read it all.

So now I'm reading other people's stuff -- at least until I get more in the can. I'm starting with Bruce Sterling's brilliant, seminal book The Hacker Crackdown, a 1992 book that recounts the events that led to the founding of The Electronic Frontier Foundation, my former employer. Bruce released the book as a free electronic download nearly 10 years before I did the same with my first novel, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom.

This book changed my life -- and the lives of countless others. It inspired me politically, artistically and socially. Last week, I saw Bruce at his home in Serbia and asked him if he minded my reading this aloud for the next 20 weeks or so. He gave me his blessing -- so here it is. Link, Podcast feed link

The UK Open Source Consortium has complained to British regulators about the BBC's decision to use Microsoft DRM for its online TV offerings. No one is allowed to make Microsoft DRM players without permission from Microsoft, and the company tightly controls which features you're allowed to put into a DRM player, and absolutely prohibits the creation of open/free players for Microsoft DRM-crippled media.

The BBC chose the DRM instead of making good on its promise to deliver an open "Creative Archive" of freely licensed content that Brits could share and remix. Brits are required by law to pay for the programming that the BBC commissions, and most of that work ends up gathering dust on a shelf somewhere, never to be seen again. The BBC's "Worldwide" division markets a tiny sliver of it abroad (the proceeds from this account for less than five percent of the BBC's budget, with the other 95 percent being involuntarily extracted from the British public), and there was fear that producing a true Creative Archive would limit the BBC's ability to serve as a glorified Blockbuster Video for Americans. Link (Thanks, Joel!)

It's been four or five years since Electronic Frontier Foundation joined the fight against the United Nations' "broadcast treaty," and this week, just as things were looking darkest, we scored our most definitive victory,

The broadcast treaty creates a copyright-like "broadcast right," for the entities that make works available. So while copyright goes to the people who create things, broadcast rights go to people who have no creative contribution at all. Here's how it would work: say you recorded some TV to use in your classroom. Copyright lets you do this -- copyright is limited by fair use. But the broadcast right would stop you -- you'd need to navigate a different and disjointed set of exceptions to broadcast rights, or the broadcaster could sue you.

That's just for openers. The broadcast right also covers works in the public domain that no one has a copyright in -- and even Creative Commons works where the creator has already given her permission for sharing! You can't use anything that's broadcast unless you get permission from the caster. What's more, they're trying to extend this to the net, making podcasting and other communications where the hoster isn't the copyright holder (that is, where you create the podcast but someone else hosts it) into a legal minefield.

Now, though, the treaty is in disarray. This week saw a new meeting on the treaty with the Chairman of the committee ignoring his orders from the WIPO General Assembly (which instructed him to prepare a treaty that stopped people from stealing cable, but didn't create this para-copyright regime), pushing for a rapid movement to a "diplomatic conference," the final step on the way to a global treaty. It looked bad for our heroes.

But the representatives of the world's governments wouldn't be railroaded. After a week of hard debate, all motion to a diplomatic conference has been abandoned. Instead, this has been turned into just another regular agenda item for future meetings, as in "OK, onto that broadcast treaty: is everyone in favor of this yet? No? OK, next item."

This is a gigantic victory for our side. When we started going to the World Intellectual Property Organization, we had no idea how we would manage it. There is no constitution to appeal to there. They control the venue and call the shots. But we went in and blogged the negotiations (the first ever look inside the sausage factory of a UN treaty negotiation), bringing unparalleled transparency to the negotiations. We rallied dozens of other organizations to come to Geneva. We argued. We posted guards over our position papers when someone started to throw them in the bathrooms and hide them behind the plants (first they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you -- then you win!). We slashdotted them. We wrote them letters. We went all over the world and talked to librarians, activists, and hackers. We proposed a better treaty that would limit copyright around the world and give rights to archivists, educators and disabled people to use and preserve creative works.

We kicked ass.

And we won. (For now.)

A mighty congratulations to my colleagues at EFF, especially Gwen Hinze, EFF's international directory, who's been slugging away there like mad. And an even bigger thanks to all of you, the activists on the net, for your letters to WIPO, your blog posts, your donations to EFF. We did it!

The Diplomatic Conference had been scheduled to take place in November 2007. It has now been postponed indefinitely until Member States reach agreement on the objectives, specific scope and object of protection of the proposed treaty. Given the vast differences between Member States' positions that emerged this week on core parts of the treaty, agreement does not look likely in the near future. Although the treaty is still on WIPO's agenda and by no means dead, the practical effect of today's decision is that it is no longer on the fast track. That's good news indeed for the Internet Community, including the over 1500 podcasters who signed an Open Letter to WIPO expressing concern about the treaty, which EFF delivered to WIPO this week. Member States refused to set a date for a diplomatic conference. They rejected proposals from the WIPO Copyright Committee Chair, Mr. Jukka Liedes, to postpone the diplomatic conference to November/ December 2008, to convene a further "Special Session" of the WIPO Copyright Committee focused on finalizing the treaty, and to create a "modern framework" for "webcasting organizations". Instead, it was agreed that the subject of protection of broadcasting and cablecasting organizations would stay on the agenda and be discussed in regular sessions of the WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights.

Link

The excellent Afrigadget blog has a post up today about a man named Peter Kahugu, in Banana Hill, Kenya (near Nairobi), who makes a living using his bicycle to sharpen knives for his neighbors:

AfriGadget reporter Afromusing and I had an opportunity to interview Peter who has modified his bicycle with a belt, a set of tensioning pulleys and a grinding stone to make it a knife-sharpening machine. By kicking the bike up onto its stand and engaging a gearing system, he is able to use “leg-horsepower” to drive a grinding wheel and sharpen knives while “on the move”.

Peter has been at this for 2 years now and he makes about Kshs 500 ( app. 10 US$) a day by riding his mobile workshop from client to client sharpening all their knives as he goes. The grinding stone he uses has lasted an astounding 2 years and he has had to replace his drive belt a couple of times but that is as simple as cutting up a long strip of rubber from an old car or bicycle tire inner tube.

Link, with some awesome video.

Reader comment: Mauro says,

Xeni, when I was growing up in Brazil, that's exactly how you would get your knives and scissors sharpened... the guy on a bicycle like that would ride around through your neighborhood every now and then, blowing on a kind of whistle so people would know he was coming, the housewives would get their cutlery out and go to the front of the house to flag him down as he passed by.

This profession has pretty much disappeared nowadays, though, as far as I know. It's kinda sad, I think, in a nostalgic way.

Discovery Gerdes says,

I live and work in Buenos Aires. Every week or so, the man with the knife sharpening bicycle makes his pass on my street. Similar to Mauro's description, my sharpener blows on a blue plastic pan flute as he goes down the street. He consistently blows the same tune as he approaches, I imagine it's his signature tune. If I work from home one day and get lucky, perhaps I'll hear him, run out with my knives, and get the full experience.

There are a lot of reasons I love living here, but the fact that things like this still exist is one of them.

Thanks for the blog.

Fernando says,

The same technology is used in Mexico, these guys are called "afiladores" which means sharpeners.

They would ride around neighbourhoods on their bikes, making a peculiar and easily recognizable whistle with some sort of flute. Any housekeeper who would have cutting tools in need of sharpening would come out and ask to have them sharpened for a low price.

On a silly note, there are other ways of sharpening your tools, like these guys on the SUV demonstrate: video link.

Richard says,

There's a fellow named Chuck that lives at the end of Zion Road in Gambier, OH. He's crazy about bikes... loves building recumbent chop-jobs, including a tandem recumbent for him and his wife. Anyway, I went over to his place one day to see about getting a spoke replaced, and I saw this most peculiar contraption... the bike powered belt sander... a stationary recumbent bike with that powers a sander at arms-reach. He uses the sander to take broken pieces of mirror and fashion them into rear-view mirrors to clip on bike helmets, among other things. A lot of people around here say that he invented the clip-on mirror. I choose to take that statement at face value.

Kate says,

I'm 40 and have lived all my life in Dublin, Ireland. When I was a very young girl I remember an old man coming round to offer the exact same knife sharpening service with the same bicycle contraption. I distinctly remember bringing him out a glass of water because my Mam asked me too. It was a hot afternoon. Unfortunately, I also remember that he didn't do a very good job - something I only found out much later in life.

Soumyadip says,

Similar bicycle-bound knife sharpeners are quite common in Indian cities and villages. Such devices serve a dual purpose as it is both the equipment as well as a mode of transportation. There are variations of it in different regions of the country. In the hilly regions where cycling is not possible, the contraption is modified so that it can be easily carried on the head or shoulders.

Max says,

In Australia we have our own knife sharpener... (well, some time ago, the actual 'trailer' is now in our national museum). It's the Saw doctor's wagon. Some pics and info here: Link. From memory it's about 30ft long and was pulled by a ute (Australian pickup truck).

In the flesh it's quite amazing, with different options for saws, knifes, kitchen blades, machetes, sissors, really anything with a blade. If anyone is in Canberra it's worth the visit.

Sailesh Ganesh says,

I have seen the same things in Mumbai (Bombay), India, the city where I grew up. These things existed as recently as three years ago, but I have been in the US ever since and I dont know if those guys are still around. These guys often sell their owns knives that have been sharpened on the bicycle. I have used those knives and while the blade is somewhat flexible and can be bent by hand, the edge is pretty sharp, and it is very effective in cutting vegetables.

Avi Solomon says,

Bollywood has the best paean to these knifey heroes in Jaya Bhaduri's knife-sharpener cameo in the 1973 hit 'Zanjeer.' Video Link.

- soyuz bags
- freitag f-cut
- chocochochouse
- floppy disk shoulder bag
- file folder messenger bag

Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

We, ah, (self-important clearing of throat) blogged that "Pentagon gay bomb" thing over two years ago -- so when the meme reappeared recently around the blogosphere, I swore to abstain. But this post from Noah Shachtman over at Wired's "Danger Room" finally broke me down:

Military technology has inspired some of history's greatest films: Firefox, Stealth, Crimson Tide... the list is practically endless.  But never, to the best of my knowledge, has a gay porn house dared to plat in this arena, strived to go head to head with these timeless classics.  Friends, I can now report that this imbalance has been rectified:

Following the controversial political parody of Gaytanamo, released to huge critical acclaim earlier this year, New York'€™s most filthy-fun gay film studio Dark Alley Media today announced plans to kick the US Government while it'€™s down.

Gay Bomb will take us into the future and the year 2012. George the Second has refused to step down as leader of the €œfree world,€ and the nations of Europe have banded together to fight the new American military dictatorship.

Desperate to fend off its attackers, the US launches the experimental gay bomb, designed to make the enemy forces drop their guns and turn fag.

But the winds of fate blow in a different direction, and soon America is brought to its knees.

Link

Some of the most interesting books in the world are being published by Feral House and Process Books. These independent publishing houses are run by Adam Parfrey and Jodi Wille in Los Angeles, and they have unique knack for discovering previously hidden worlds filled with interesting characters and amazing stories. Jode and Adam are insanely curious about forgotten, covered-up, and whitewashed history, and their books are full of mind blowing surprises.

They've just released a bunch of wonderful new titles. Here's a rundown of some of my favorites:

Jim Goad’s Gigantic Book of Sex, by Jim Goad

The author of the notorious ‘zine ANSWER Me!, Shit Magnet (Feral House), and the best-selling Redneck Manifesto (Simon & Schuster) lampoons every imaginable aspect of human sexuality in 224 hilarious, illustrated, full-color, R-rated pages.

Poop Culture: How America Is Shaped by Its Grossest National Product, by Dave Praeger

Is “The Origin of Feces” a Darwinian concern? Perhaps not, but it is the title to the preface of this tongue-in-cheek and unexpectedly revealing exploration of human behavior by the webmaster behind the popular PoopReport.com.

Mexican Pulp Art, from the Collections of Bobbette Axelrod and Ted Frankel

The lurid cover art of Mexican pulp novels is a pop culture revelation. Never before seen in an English or even Spanish-language collection are the often surreal and psychedelic images of extraterrestrials, robots, dinosaurs, dastardly killers, Zorro, Santo, and many other icons from stories involving suspense, mystery, romance and the supernatural.

Top Secret Tourism: Your Travel Guide to Germ Warfare Laboratories, Clandestine Aircraft Bases, and Other Places in the United States You’re Not Supposed to Know About, by Harry Helms

Here is the unseen America of government facilities and installations protected by a wall of secrecy, deception, and misinformation. It includes huge, isolated areas (some larger than the states of Connecticut and Rhode Island), along with innocuous office buildings located in the middle of major cities. This “other America” has an enormous impact on your life, but you probably have little idea of its extent, scope, and power.

American Hair Metal, by Steven Blush

There was a time -- not so long ago -- when pomp and spandex dominated MTV and pop radio playlists. American Hair Metal celebrates this orgy of flamboyance, androgyny and animal magnetism, of big-haired alpha males and the beautiful women who surrounded them. Rare photographs of the biggest bands and unsung heroes surround revealing quotes about the sex, drugs and Rock & Roll style of ‘80s American hair metal.

Guitar Army: Rock and Revolution with The MC5 and the White Panther Party, by John Sinclair

Guitar Army is the incendiary book that proclaimed “Rock and Roll is a Weapon of Cultural Revolution.” This 35th anniversary edition of Guitar Army includes two dozen previously unpublished period photographs, recent writings from John Sinclair, and an introduction from Michael Simmons. A bonus CD contains rare recordings of MC5 and other Detroit-area revolutionary bands, Allen Ginsberg, Black Panther Bobby Seale on the White Panthers, and original White Panther Party meetings.

And here a couple of upcoming books from Process and Feral House that look interesting:

The Source: The Untold Story of Father Yod, YaHoWha 13, and The Source Family, by Isis Aquarian and Electricity Aquarian

It was 1972, time of the cult-occult-commune explosion. By day, the Source Family served organic cuisine to John Lennon, Julie Christy, Frank Zappa and others at the famed Source restaurant. By night, in a mansion in Hollywood Hills, they explored the cosmos through the channeled wisdom of their charismatic leader, Father Yod. Father was an outlandish figure who had 14 “spiritual wives,” drove a Rolls-Royce, and fronted the rock band Ya Ho Wa 13, now considered by collectors to be one of the most singular psychedelic bands of all time.

Here are some photos of Father Yod and his commune.

The Secret King: The Myth and Reality of Nazi Occultism, by Stephen E. Flowers and Michael Moyniha

The Secret King is the first book to explode many myths surrounding the popular idea of Nazi occultism, while presenting the actual esoteric rituals used by Heinrich Himmler’s SS under the influence of rune magician Karl-Maria Wiligut, the “Secret King of Germany.”

David Pescovitz and I are going to visit with Adam and Jodi soon for an on-location podcast.

Jordan says:

Security guards in a Silver Springs business district are enforcing a "no photography" policy, under the false claim that the street in question is private property. The Peterson Company, which manages the buildings on this DC-area street, claims the right to protect their brand. Not to be dissuaded, photographers have contacted NowPublic contributor Bill Adler (he of sippy-cup fame) and formed a Flickr group to post photos of the area in defiance of the ban, and a protest is being scheduled by area photographers. this is the latest in the ongoing trend of private guards enforcing frivolous or nonexistent laws in the name of "security".

Link

Previously on Boing Boing:
• Aussie mall defends its photons from terrorists
• No taking pix of San Fran building from the sidewalk?
• Photography student's odd run-in with Homeland Security
• Spy museum bans photography

Video demonstration of a brilliant and elegant wooden adding machine that uses marbles. Link

This is a cool video technique that uses time-delay to make bodies warp and twist. Link (Thanks, Fizzgig!)

Reader comment:

Joseph says:

That technique is called slit scan. It was popular in the 60's and 70's. I was inspired to google slit scanning and came up with this: someone de-slit scanned the 2001 images. This is the artwork (he infers) that was used in the movie. Kinda neat

Will says

The technique used in this case is called Time Displacement which is a cool After Effects effect that uses colors and grayscale gradients to play different parts of a video timeline in a single frame.

Perry Hoberman, Associate Research Professor, Interactive Media Division, School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California says:

Slit scan is a cool technique, but this is NOT slit scan.

Neither was it invented by Adobe; in fact it predates the original (COSA) After Effects by a good five years.

Normally it's hard to track down the exact provenance of a technique, but in this case there is absolutely no ambiguity.

It was invented by the brilliant filmmaker Zbignew Rybczynski in an experimental film called The Fourth Dimension in 1988.

I highly recommend his three DVD collections; The Fourth Dimension is contained on DVD No 2 (Steps). DVD No 1 (Media), which contains work from 1972 to 1982, is absolutely mind-blowing. Jam-packed with ideas that were so far ahead of their time that, well, some of them still are. Required viewing for anyone involved in digital/nonlinear/database/etc cinema. Link

Farhad Manjoo says:

I just posted an item in Salon about a crazy Chicago Alderman who wants to ban a new radar detector that alerts drivers to red-light cameras. He's afraid that if people can learn about upcoming cameras, they will -- you know -- stop at the red lights. And if people stop at the lights, Chicago will lose all the fine money. That's really his reason. He wants people to run through red lights so that the city doesn't lose money.

Link

Greg Bear, author of one of my favorite science fiction novels, Blood Music, was interviewed on The Daily Show about his new book, Quantico.

A BB reader says, "The book is about domestic bioterrorism. The plot arose when the Department of Homeland Security about Bear and others to speak about the future of crime. Good interview." Link

Giantmonster says:

This inflatable bouncy playground set that supposed to be a cowboy monkey perched on a tunnel looks more like a creepy monkey showing off it's engorged giant monkey crotch. Phallus or labia? You decide. the amount of children this playground toy has warped and traumatized must be staggering. It can only be seen to be believed. when I say it's a giant monkey crotch playground play toy, I really mean it.

Link

Reader comment:

Isaac B2 says:

Seeing Mark's post about the monkey crotch reminded me of a party I went to a few weeks back with a giant inflatable train for kids to bounce in that I had to take a picture of... it looked more like a penis than anything else. All aboard!

Jon says:

This unfortunately shaped inflatable jungle gym contraption was spewing out children at an apple-picking farm in the Catskills a few years ago. (Animated gif of children spewing forth out of the hole)

I love themeparks, but I don't care for thrill rides -- I'm a Haunted Mansion guy, not an upside-down vomitcoaster 3000 guy. I don't have the stomach for it. Besides, people get hurt on those things.

A girl's feet were cut off Thursday when a free-fall thrill ride malfunctioned at the Six Flags Kentucky Kingdom Amusement Park in Louisville, Kentucky, police said.

A cord wrapped around the 16-year-old's feet and severed them at her ankles while she was on the "Superman Tower of Power," a police dispatcher said. The girl was taken to a local hospital.

Link

My friend Sandra Kasturi is an award-winning science fiction poet, and she's just published her first major poetry collection. The book features an introduction by Neil Gaiman, and many of Sandra's major works. I'm not a huge poetry guy, but I make an exception for these poems. Be sure to check out the online samples.

The Unbinding of Spirits

What frail spectres can we begin to conceive
out of darkened bedrooms and glass-blown pride?
Conjuring tongues and gin-chilled fingers relieve
us of our private hauntings, turn them inside
out upon the carpet. Can we not inspire
peace—not this hag-ridden, ghost-hackled perturb
of an existence? Give one thought to what dire
sorrows may come forth, what we may disturb?
Yet here is grief. I have been waylaid.
I am gone to frantic clutching, a raving
of words, braiSitting, steadying the tilting world; smoking, obscuring the truthsding together things unsaid,
things imagined. Mourning’s bright weaving.
From my drowning bed, dragged by tides’ rebound,
my spectral words, pulled to depths where they unsound.

Link,

Ron says: "Bruce Schneier ran a contest to come up with a plausible movie plot about bringing down a commercial jet in a manner that would force the TSA to ban something innocuous and/or ubiquitous. I have boingboing to thank for winning this contest: I found out about it on your site. When my script wins an Oscar, I'll be sure to mention you guys in the acceptance speech, if the orchestra hasn't played me off the stage yet :)"

On June 5, I posted three semi-finalists out of the 334 comments:

* Butterflies and beverages; water must be banned.
* Dimethylmercury; security checkpoints must be banned, but of course they can't be. Oh, what to do!
* Oxy-hydrogen bomb; wires -- earphones, power cables, etc. -- must be banned.

Well, we have a winner. I can't divulge the exact formula -- because you'll all hack the system next year -- but it was a combination of my opinion, popular acclaim in blog comments, and the opinion of Tom Grant (the previous year's winner).

I present to you: Butterflies and Beverages, posted by Ron.

Link

John says: "Charming arrangement of toy cars etc depicting riots, murders etc." Link

The Magus says:

It's called the sitting cage, a cage made in the mold of the human body. Once inside the thing you can't move. Totally insane and not one for claustrophobics.

The site is semi-safe for work. No nudity or anything.

Link

Patrick Kovacich made this steampunky "Problem" light that you can switch on when your life is giving you problems; he lavishly documented the build in a Flickr set so you can make your own. Link (Thanks, Cn!)

The North American Broadcasters' Association has broken its own by-laws and trampled the position of NPR and PBS, endorsing a controversial policy at the United Nations.

This week, the UN's World Intellectual Property Organization is holding a critical debate on the "Broadcast Treaty." This treaty would establish a new copyright-like right, but whereas copyright goes to people who make creative works, Broadcast Rights go to companies that broadcast other people's copyrighted works. The Broadcast Right isn't subject to the same fair use limits as copyright, which means that even if copyright lets you record a broadcast for criticism or parody, you will need to separately get an exemption under the Broadcast Right. More gravely, if means that if you license your work under Creative Commons, the people who distribute the files or air the program can overrule your generosity and insist that your fans not copy your work.

This treaty threatens the Internet as we know it. Novel services like YouTube and novel practice like podcasting would not exist today if this treaty was already implemented.

The General Assembly of WIPO has ordered Jukka Liedes, the chairman of the relevant committee to cut this out, instructing him to oversee a much narrower treaty that will block "theft of signals" (hacking free cable or satellite), while leaving all this other business off. The chairman has gone rogue, ignoring the direction of the Assembly and producing a draft that's even worse than the previous draft.

The Chairman isn't the only one who's gone rogue, though: the National Association of Broadcasters of America has been lobbying hard all week for the treaty. One problem: PBS and NPR -- members of NABA -- oppose the treaty and have not authorized the association to lobby for this measure.

"National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting Service do not support a Diplomatic Conference to adopt a treaty based on the April 20, 2007 non-paper because they do not believe the treaty provides adequate protection for the fair use of broadcast and cablecast matter for newsgathering and other purposes. Bell ExpressVu does not support a Diplomatic Conference because it believes the proposed exclusive retransmission right exceeds what is necessary to prevent signal piracy or protect investment and does not contain a reservation that would permit a signatory to limit or not apply the application of the retransmission right."

Link (Thanks, Alex!)

Link to gigglesugar, where someone astutely pointed out the resemblance. (thanks, Barbara!).

Previously: Dramatic Chipmunk (video)

Mitchell Silverman, an attorney in Florida, noticed in a recent news-story that GW Bush's twin daughters presented him with a mix CD of exercise music for Father's Day. Since the record industry maintains that making and distributing mix CDs is a copyright infringement, Silverman sent their legal offices a letter on letterhead asking them to sue the first twins for "stealing music."

As you will see from the attached article from today’s The Miami Herald, President George W. Bush’s daughters made him a presumably illegal compilation CD, a so-called “mix CD,” as a Father’s Day present. As the article, at http://www.miamiherald.com/692/story/142726.html states, “[President] Bush's twin daughters, gave him [as a Father’s Day present] a CD they had made for him to listen to while exercising.”

This is a serious violation of copyright. As you know, whichever of your member organizations that are right-holders for the copied musical works may be entitled to statutory damages of $150,000.00 per musical work copied.

I hope and expect that you at the RIAA will display the same vigor in prosecuting this matter and protecting the rights of your rights-holders that it has displayed in enforcing those rights against other alleged violators.

Link (Thanks, Mitch!)

Lars says

When I viewed the new iPhone site something struck me: did Apple change the dimensions of the unit?

A quick comparison of the official Apple photos revealed they've just changed handsize.

(Wikipedia has an interesting page on forced perspective by the way)

Link

Here's a collection of 20 videos produced by amateur magicians showing you how to do some wonderful tricks with cards and other small props. Shown here: The Snap Vanish Link

BoingBoing reader Destiny Land says,

YouTube joined CNN for a bold experiment -- letting YouTube users upload questions for the 2008 candidates for President. But one week in, how's it working out?

The Washington Post rounds up the best videos they could find: Link.

...but 10 Zen Monkeys found the WORST! Link.

I loved the hard-hitting questions from the audience during the Kerry/Bush debates -- but what happens if YouTube can't deliver enough good questions? In the end, couldn't this trivialize the primary process -- and the role of "citizen video-bloggers" -- rather than expand it?

Snip from the 10ZenMonkeys post by Lou Cabron:

What if my President was selected by MySpace? It’s the nagging concern raised when young video bloggers lob questions at the Presidential candidates. In July when the Democrats gather in Charleston, they’ll find CNN has swapped in questions that were uploaded as videos to YouTube.

At least that was the hope when the CNN/YouTube “debate” was announced. Unfortunately, no one cared about the announcement (except the commenter who added “omg the youtube guy is fucking HAWTT!!!”). Nearly a week later, YouTube has barely managed to assemble more than 50 questions to choose from. And five of them are the dogs below.

The Juice Bag is a beach tote with an integrated solar panel that will charge your phone, camera, laptop and MP3 player while you manufacture vitamin D. Link (via Gizmodo)

On the Encyclopedia Britannica's blog, Clay Shirky is debating techno-skeptic Michael Gorman. Gorman's hypothesis is that the net is to blame for quack medicine, Biblical literalism, and other evils that come from valuing individual participation over credentials and training.

This has become a motif among net-critics, whose vanguard is Andrew Keen, who wrote a sloppy, intellectually dishonest book called The Cult of the Amateur that damns the Internet for much the same reasons (Clay Shirky wrote a great response to Keen). Shirky has made a little cottage industry out of taking these people apart, writing articulate, snappy essays debunking their claims and explaining the real way that the net and expertise interact. This is highly recommended reading.

These two theories cannot both be true, so it’s odd to find them side by side, but Gorman does not seem to be comfortable with either of them as a general case. This leads to a certain schizophrenic quality to the writing. We’re told that print does not necessarily bestow authenticity and that some digital material does, but we’re also told that he consulted “authoritative printed sources” on Goya. If authenticity is an option for both printed and digital material, why does printedness matter? Would the same words on the screen be less scholarly somehow?

Gorman is adopting a historically contingent view: Revolution then was good, revolution now is bad. As a result, according to Gorman, the shift to digital and networked reproduction of information will fail unless it recapitulates the institutions and habits that have grown up around print.

Gorman’s theory about print — its capabilities ushered in an age very different from manuscript culture — is correct, and the same kind of shift is at work today. As with the transition from manuscripts to print, the new technologies offer virtues that did not previously exist, but are now an assumed and permanent part of our intellectual environment. When reproduction, distribution, and findability were all hard, as they were for the last five hundred years, we needed specialists to undertake those jobs, and we properly venerated them for the service they performed. Now those tasks are simpler, and the earlier roles have instead become obstacles to direct access.

Digital and networked production vastly increase three kinds of freedom: freedom of speech, of the press, and of assembly. This perforce increases the freedom of anyone to say anything at any time. This freedom has led to an explosion in novel content, much of it mediocre, but freedom is like that. Critically, this expansion of freedom has not undermined any of the absolute advantages of expertise; the virtues of mastery remain as they were. What has happened is that the relative advantages of expertise are in precipitous decline. Experts the world over have been shocked to discover that they were consulted not as a direct result of their expertise, but often as a secondary effect — the apparatus of credentialing made finding experts easier than finding amateurs, even when the amateurs knew the same things as the experts.

All posts, “Old Revolutions, Good; New Revolutions, Bad”, The Siren Song of Luddism

Clarion West is one of the family of Clarion science fiction writers' workshops, bootcamps that train some of the best writers in the field. It's run as a charity, and relies on fundraising to keep the lights on.

Clarion West board member Eileen Gunn sez, "The Clarion West Writers Workshop is running an unusual fundraising auction on eBay this week, offering bidders the right to appear in stories by various science-fiction and fantasy writers: Paul Park, Eileen Gunn, Vylar Kaftan, and K. Tempest Bradford. Eight auctions are underway already and will end at some point after 9:30 p.m. PST on June 26." Link

Simple and striking DIY "soldier table" -- just line up your soldiers on a flat surface and cover with a sheet of glass. Link (via Cribcandy)

Update: Matthew sez, "The "toy soldier table" is very remenescent of the super-cool 'Floor' installation by Do-Ho Suh at the Indianapolis Museum of Art."

This is pretty tasty -- a standard IKEA kitchen converted to a scribbler's paradise by painting all the vertical surfaces with blackboard paint. Link (via Cribcandy)

Update: Gavin sez, "I could only be reminded of the wall I painted with magnetic paint leading into my kitchen. It's very entertaining, and it is a living scrapbook for everyone to enjoy!" Pic 1, Pic 2