Violet Blue and Boing Boing Debacle
Filed Under Geek, Internet, News, Pranks, SF Bay Area, Websites |
For those that don’t know, Violet Blue is a well-known sex educator and Boing Boing is one of the most(?) popular blogs on the internet. If you haven’t heard about Violet Blue’s posts getting pulled from BoingBoing, there’s more than enough press out there about it. Even the LA Times picked up the story. I don’t want to get into a long post about my thoughts on the matter, but I did want to share something I thought worth sharing.
I setup VioletBlueVioletBlue.net to house all of the Boing Boing posts that had been “unpublished”. These posts are all taken directly from archive.org where the old versions of the posts are kept. Boing Boing publishes their stuff under Creative Commons, so I am redistributing their work with attribution. I wanted this content to remain around and in a form that is easily locatable, i.e. not buried in archive.org’s wayback machine. If you have a blog post that previously linked to the post on Boing Boing, then feel free to link to its equivalent on VB
If I missed anything or made any mistakes on the site, please let me know. I make no claims to being perfect by any means.
Escape from Berkeley: Racing to Vegas on alternative power
Filed Under Art, Geek, Interesting, News |
This 4th of July weekend will see the first annual “Escape from Berkeley” with a race from Berkeley, CA to Las Vegas, NV. This three day race will be unlike an ordinary race as all of the vehicles will be running on non-petroleum fuel! The announcement arrived via an email from Jim Mason, a well known East Bay artist who is responsible for large scale art projects and the Shipyard. All sorts of vehicles are permitted to enter the race as long as they are not powered by any petroleum based fuel or something that is “currently sold as a motor fuel”. You are allowed to store 10kwh of power in any form to get you going, but past that you’ll have to use your creativity. Some of Mason’s suggestions (other than the typical solar and steam) include: biomass, gasifiers, fast starch anaerobic digesters, on board sugar stills, tesla free energy vortexes, cold fusion, humans, and hamsters. On top of this, you can’t carry any fuel with you and you can’t purchase it on your way. Contestants will have to scavenge their fuel/power for free on the side of the highway.
So what do you win? Besides the geek pride and bragging rights, there will be a “significant cash prize for the winnner”. More information will be announced in the near future, but if you’re already interested in entering, get in touch with Jim. As this race is being compared to the Grand Challenge and Cannonball Run, it should be interesting to see what vehicles make it to Vegas, and who actually makes it there first!
Limited Edition Shepard Fairey posters for Obama
I got the twitter from Barack, bounced over to the store on his website and plunked down $70 to go towards his campaign. I have been meaning to contribute financially to Mr Obama, but had not gotten around to it. The announcement of limited edition Shepard Fairey posters spurred me to break out that credit card. It’s a cool poster, and will be a piece of history in my eyes. If he wins, it will be one of those things that I’ll hopefully look back on with fondness, recalling the end of the Bush regime and the start of something new. If he doesn’t win, then I’ll just hold onto it for 4 more years and put it back up in 2012.
I’m not one that gets all fired up about politics for the most part, but this year with the mess that Bush has gotten us into and the possibility for something new and different, I’ve made more effort than in the past. I’ve been really impressed by Obama and his campaign and staff. From his twitter account with snarky remarks, to stencils on the sidewalks of San Francisco. (Can you imagine if the President actually continued to Twitter, or keep a blog?) I feel like he is up for the challenge of the presidency and will represent my generation well. He may not have as much political experience as Hillary, but experience can also mean “stuck in a rut” and not willing to break a few molds. It’s about time we got the old, power-hungry, religious guys out of office. I just hope that enough of the country feels the same way.
What if Lasik screws up? Get a retinal implant
Filed Under Body Modification, News |
The number one question in my mind that deters me from laser eye surgery to correct my vision is “what if the doctor screws up and I’m blind?” My sight is an important part of my life, as it is for most people, and I can’t imagine trying to function in life without it. I’ve joked in the past that I’ll get lasik when they have replacements on hand in case something goes wrong. Well, now they will. It has taken them 20 years, but the Boston Retinal Implant Project has designed an implant that will “provide patients with a sense of their surroundings - to detect shapes and obstacles in their pathways”. It’s not a perfect replacement for your natural eyesight yet, but it will allow you to get around on your own without a guide dog or a white cane. Most of the hardware is kept outside of the eye, with only a small strip of plastic actually implanted. This plus the reports that LASIK can improve eyesight beyond 20/20 continue to make the procedure more attractive to me. If you want to check out more info on the retinal implant, there’s a good article on The Boston Herald with more details on how it was designed.
Nine Inch Nails releases album the right way
Filed Under Movies and Music, Music, News |
I truly believe that Trent Reznor “gets it” with his recent release of Ghosts in a variety of forms. For those that don’t know, Ghosts is the latest album from Nine Inch Nails. Here’s the announcement that came along with the release:
Hello from Nine Inch Nails.
We’re very proud to present a new collection of instrumental music, Ghosts I-IV. Almost two hours of music recorded over an intense ten week period last fall, Ghosts I-IV sprawls Nine Inch Nails across a variety of new terrain.
Now that we’re no longer constrained by a record label, we’ve decided to personally upload Ghosts I, the first of the four volumes, to various torrent sites, because we believe BitTorrent is a revolutionary digital distribution method, and we believe in finding ways to utilize new technologies instead of fighting them.
We encourage you to share the music of Ghosts I with your friends, post it on your website, play it on your podcast, use it for video projects, etc. It’s licensed for all non-commercial use under Creative Commons.
We’ve also made a 40 page PDF book to accompany the album. If you’d like to download it for free, visit http://ghosts.nin.com/main/pdf
Ghosts I is the first part of the 36 track collection Ghosts I-IV. Undoubtedly you’ll be able to find the complete collection on the same torrent network you found this file, but if you’re interested in the release, we encourage you to check it out at ghosts.nin.com, where the complete Ghosts I-IV is available directly from us in a variety of DRM-free digital formats, including FLAC lossless, for only $5. You can also order it on CD, or as a deluxe package with multitrack audio files, high definition audio on Blu-ray disc, and a large hard-bound book.
We genuinely appreciate your support, and hope you enjoy the new music. Thanks for listening.
I think Radiohead paved some way with their release of Rainbows, but Trent Reznor has blown the doors off with this kind of release. For years I’ve been clamoring for releases of media in ways that I want to use it, with appropriate pricing and licensing. DRM-Free with a Creative Commons license for personal use in any way you see fit. Thank you Mr. Reznor. Here’s hoping more artists follow in your footsteps.
For all you nay-sayers that think this isn’t a viable business model, there are posts pointing out the revenue of the limited edition collectors set at $750k (2500 units at $300 apiece). In addition to that there is teh $75 “deluxe edition” (physical media), $10 CD, and $5 downloads (totally unlimited). Minus the costs of producing all this, some materials, and bandwidth, Trent still ends up with a pretty significant chunk of income. With all the major players in the music industry dropping DRM and more and more artists releasing their work for free, the music industry is finally getting the upheaval that it needed.
Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card
Filed Under Gadgets, News, Photography |
Eye-Fi Wireless SD Card
Originally uploaded by edrabbit.
Finally got a minute to setup my Eye-Fi card. I must say I’m very happy with the finished product so far. I was very very glad to have both the options to upload directly to Flickr as well as to upload to a folder on a local machine. I was stuck with just Flickr support in the past and didn’t like how every single blurry photo got uploaded, not allowing me to pick and choose. Now with it uploading to my laptop via wireless, I can sort through them (organized by date even!) and pick which ones warrant the Flickr stream. All in all definitely worth $99 in my opinion.
This could definitely change the way photos are done. Imagine being at a protest or gathering. You snap some pictures of some sensitive stuff, the authorities confiscate your camera and destroy it. What they don’t realize is that all the pictures were wirelessly synced to your laptop in the car that has a wireless AP running. I can also imagine this being convenient to photographers, who can upload photos while they’re doing a shoot, so they can be reviewed instantaneously. I’m also trying to think of other projects where this could be fun. Mella and I have talked about putting together some portable cameras that this would be fun to work with.
So far there are only two things I wish the card could do. Have another 2 gb of space to match my 4gb (although I may be able to survive with space for 780+ photos/17minutes of video), and have a setting where I could tell it to connect to open networks that don’t require a password automatically. Oh, and add a third to that… support for RAW images would be nice!
Google turns out the lights
Filed Under Internet, News, SF Bay Area, Websites |
On Saturday, October 20, 2007, San Francisco will go black for one hour (8pm-9pm PST) as it participates in “Lights Out San Francisco”. In addition, the citizens of SF are encouraged to install at least one compact fluorexcent light bulb to help reduce their energy consumption. In a show of their support, Google has changed the background of their page to black. This page is targeted at San Francisco users, since this is a local thing, so chances are you are seeing the normal Google page if you aren’t using an internet connection that traces back to San Francisco. This isn’t to say that you can’t join in and turn out your lights from 8pm-9pm. For more info, check out Google’s page and check out the official Lights Out San Francisco page.
Power outage takes out major sites
Filed Under Internet, News, SF Bay Area, Second Life |
A series of power outages in San Francisco has taken a couple of pretty large sites out of commission. Those affected include:
craigslist
some SecondLife servers
NetFlix
LiveJournal, Vox, TypePad (and the rest of SixApart)
Yelp
Technorati
AdBrite
Some CurrentTV servers
Some ZDNet blogs
and the NSFW kink.com is also down…
All of these sites are hosted by 365 Main and I’m sure there are several other sites that are down because of this. Don’t these people have reliable backup generators? sheesh.. where am I going to get my Internet fix from today? The best part is this press release went up shortly before the sites started going down.
SecondLife is also experiencing trouble due to the power outages and has disabled logins until it is back up fully.
And for us locals, it looks like the afternoon commute might be a bit crazy if this isn’t resolved soon.
- Laughing Squid reports as well.
- ValleyWag has an interesting “drunk employee” rumor on 365 Main.
- SixApart’s Twitter has up to the minute updates.
- O’Reilly Radar has reports as well
- ValleyWag says customers are lining up at the entrance to 365 Main
UPDATE from SFGate:
At least 30,000 Pacific Gas and Electric Co. customers in San Francisco and the northern Peninsula lost power this afternoon after an explosion under a manhole cover on Mission Street, the utility said.
…
Witnesses said they heard an explosion at about 1:50 p.m., then saw flames coming from the manhole.
Actor Torino Von Jones, 32, said he was filming a Fruit of the Loom commercial down the block at the time.
“We were standing over there waiting for the camera cue when we heard a big explosion,” he said. “Flames came up taller than I am, and I’m 6-foot-2.”
“Naturally, when you hear an explosion, you think the worst,” said Von Jones, who nevertheless hurried back to work. “We’re Fruit of the Loom — we’ve got to make this commercial.”
Mind Erasing Drug
Filed Under Body Modification, Interesting, News, Social Engineering |
Perhaps Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind isn’t too far off. Researchers have discovered that it may be possible to selectively erase specific memories using specific drugs administered at the correct times. Two recent studies give some evidence to this effect.
One experiment was conducted with rats at New York University. Two musical tones were associated with a mild electrical shock. The rats would then hear the tone and would brace for a shock. The researchers then gave half the rats a drug, called U0126 and known to cause limited amnesia, when playing one of the musical tones. Afterwards the rats would only brace for the shock with one of the tones, instead of both.
Another study at McGill University, in Montreal, and Harvard University was performed with actual human subjects:
The researchers used propranolol, a drug normally used to treat hypertension in heart disease patients but also known to cause memory problems. They treated 19 accident or rape victims for 10 days with the drug or with dummy pills, while they asked to describe their memories of a traumatic event that happened 10 years earlier.
A week later, they found that the patients given the drug suffered fewer signs of stress such as raised heart rate when recalling their trauma.
Coke in a Corn Field
What happens when a coked up driver being chased by the cops turns into a corn field?
Anyone who has ever spent some time in a tall cornfield can just imagine the thoughts racing through his head. “Everywhere I turn, there’s %$#”*&$# corn! Does it ever stop?!”
Article via Boing Boing
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