AP - Malaysia has blocked access to a popular news Web site that often runs afoul of authorities for its sensational political reporting, sparking complaints Thursday that the government has reneged on its pledge to keep cyberspace uncensored.
add to del.icio.us.

Here are today’s notable headlines. You can get News To Know via email alert and RSS daily: Mary Jo Foley: IE 8 Beta 2 ready for download Ed Bott: Internet Explorer 8 gets a massive makeover Gallery: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 Adrian Kingsley-Hughes: Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 vs. Firefox 3.0.1 Dana Blankenhorn: Has Firefox already matched IE privacy features? Codename of the day: Nitrogen Dancho Danchev: Taiwan busts hacking ring, 50 million personal records compromised MSN Norway serving Flash exploits through malvertising Ryan Naraine: Intel ships BIOS fix for Rutkowska's Black Hat flaw iPhone passcode lock rendered useless Tom Steinert-Threlkeld: Who's Dumber: Bad Guys  Or Good Guys? Mitch Ratcliffe: Attention Craig Newmark: Citizens aren't customers Gawker: Bloomberg Runs...
add to del.icio.us.

The Democratic National Convention wraps up Thursday with the party's presidential nominee Illinois Sen. Barack Obama addressing about 75,000 people at Invesco Field at Mile High.

add to del.icio.us.

For most of the past decade, the economy grew much stronger - but middle-class Americans had little to show for it.

add to del.icio.us.

The open-source software definitely gets a warm reception here, but its role can easily be overestimated, too.
add to del.icio.us.

It's rare for me to pick out individuals but Mike McDerment CEO of FreshBooks deserves attention by anyone in the startup game and especially those trying to develop business applications. I first came across Mike some two years ago when FreshBooks had about 70,000 registrants. That number is now over 400,000. That's some growth. Running a startup isn't easy, there's often a lot of incumbent competition and as for word of mouth/viral growth - ferget it. At least right now. For as much as we talk about the consumerization of business applications, it takes a LOT of persuading business people there is a different, disruptive and ultimately better way to do things. Heck - getting our attention here is bad...
add to del.icio.us.

A new method of exploring thick icy sheets and below them has been devised.
add to del.icio.us.

Different kinds of observations combine to put the "jelly in the donut."
add to del.icio.us.

Video game distribution is changing. Experts say that the industry needs to stay flexible and aware.
add to del.icio.us.

Angie Gonzalez, of Datacore, and I had a conversation about how virtual storage complements any type of virtual processing solution. Nearly all virtual server-based solutions gain a great deal of benefit when a supporting virtual storage strategy is also deployed. Why is that? Virtual storage solutions iron out incompatibilities among storage subsystems making it possible for a workload to move from one place to anotfher without also requiring IT administrators to reconfigure storage systems on the fly. Virtual storage solutions can make it more easily possible to select the storage subsystem based upon the performance requirements of the application, overall polices and operational events. Until fairly recently, only the largest of organizations could afford sophisticated virtual storage systems. Datacore has...
add to del.icio.us.

InfoWorld - I've had a Comcast cable Internet connection for years. Last year I got a shiny new fiber connection from Mstar. But rather than uninstall the cable connection, I asked FatPipe Networks if they'd be willing to let me perform an extended test of the company's flagship route clustering product, WARP.
add to del.icio.us.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "Wikileaks seems to be a bit hard-up for cash, so they're trying a little experiment. They plan to auction off an archive with three years worth of Hugo Chavez' email. The winner will get a period of embargoed access to break any stories they can find in the files, while Wikileaks will later publish the archive in full. Wikileaks plans to use the profits for their legal defense fund, but they may run into trouble because most reputable news outlets have policies against paying sources."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

Reuters - A U.S. judge has thrown out a copyright infringement case against Veoh Networks Inc, an Internet video start-up with high-profile Hollywood backers, ruling that video-sharing companies are not solely responsible for policing piracy that may take place on their sites.

add to del.icio.us.

To make e-voting work you need a voting machine that can't be corrupted without setting off alarms - Sun Rays fit that requirement, are cheap, and allow for easy central auditing.
add to del.icio.us.

It was classic Clinton.

add to del.icio.us.

Nvidia is extending its support for Intel's upcoming Core i7 processors while it prepares to announce next-generation integrated graphics silicon.
add to del.icio.us.

Mathieu Lutfy writes "The CBC is reporting that 'Quebec's open-source software association is suing the provincial government, saying it is giving preferential treatment to Microsoft Corp. by buying the company's products rather than using free alternatives. ...Government buyers are using an exception in provincial law that allows them to buy directly from a proprietary vendor when there are no options available, but Facil said that loophole is being abused and goes against other legal requirements to buy locally.' The group also has a press release in English."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

Barack Obama and Joe Biden won the nominations for the Democratic Party's presidential ticket. Earlier, former President Clinton ripped the GOP and hailed Obama's "historic chance."

add to del.icio.us.

AP - The next version of Microsoft Corp.'s Web browser makes it easier for people to surf the Internet without leaving a trace.

add to del.icio.us.

Reuters - A Chinese factory worker has become an Internet sensation after a picture of her smiling and flashing a peace sign to a co-worker testing an Apple iPhone stayed on the phone that was sold to a man in Britain.

add to del.icio.us.

A computer worm infected machines on the International Space Station.
add to del.icio.us.

It was a moment Howard Hemsley thought might never come.

add to del.icio.us.

Steven Jetley from Shrewsbury, England, had a falling out with Lloyds TSB bank, so he decided to have his password reflect his feelings towards the bank: A man who chose "Lloyds is pants" as his telephone banking password said he found it had been changed by a member of staff to "no it’s not". [...] Mr Jetley [...]
add to del.icio.us.

I attended a leadership summit on Monday (it was actually pretty good stuff, with concrete plans, goals, and generally more than you get out of your average bit of professional development) and, not surprisingly, a serious focus was on technology. I think people are finally realizing that, while technology is no substitute for highly-qualified teachers, careful and well-planned used of technology can seriously drive student achievement, offer remediation opportunities, and more easily differentiate instruction. We're actually looking at a number of ways that kids can access materials at home, not only becoming discerning users of technology in independent settings, but also improving achievement and reinforcing skills with tools that can guide students in the absence of teacher or parent involvement...
add to del.icio.us.

add to del.icio.us.

Google appears to be taking their apps services seriously. Finally.
add to del.icio.us.

risinganger writes "BBC News is reporting that a customer had his password changed without his knowledge. After some less than satisfactory service the customer in question changed his password to 'Llyods is pants'. At some point after that a member of staff changed the password to 'no it's not'. Requests to change it back to 'Llyods is pants', 'Barclays is better' or censorship were met with refusal. Personally I found the original change funny, like the customer did. After all, god forbid a sense of humour rears its ugly head in business. What isn't acceptable is the refusal to change it per the customer's requests after that."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

Click image to see Cranky Geeks. Today’s Guests: Sebastian Rupley, Co-Crank, PCMagCast.com John Markoff, Senior Writer, The New York Times Gregg Zachary, Journalist, New York Times Columnist The Topics: Will News Robots Replace Journalists? Do Newspapers Have a Future in the Digital Age? Fake Olympics Broadcasts and Proper Journalism Bloggers Have Major Influence on the Election What is the Future of News?
add to del.icio.us.

Philippe Starck's latest creation — a plastic chair — earned its name on the first sketch: Mr. Impossible. The French designer said it simply couldn't be made. The challenge? The weld. Polycarbonate chairs are typically formed using a single mold, but Starck's translucent design required two: one for the legs, one for the seat. Fusing the parts using existing methods would mean an unsightly seam, so the engineers at Italian furniture maker Kartell had to forge a new technique. The key was a very big laser. Trained at specially formulated polycarbonate, it left a seam smooth enough to create the illusion Starck had imagined: a chair that appears to levitate. We reached across the ether to elicit the designer's thoughts. Like Starck's design, our conversation seemed to float on air.

Wired: What was the inspiration for Mr. Impossible?

Starck: The speed of evolution of our civilization and the dematerialization that rules all our production. Take the computer: It was the size of a room, then a briefcase. Now it's a credit card. You cannot dematerialize a chair completely, because you must continue to sit on it. But you can make it invisible. That's why I made the Mr. Impossible with a double shell — it's basically made of air.

Wired: Recently, you have begun to look at the environmental impact of your designs. How does a plastic chair fit in?

Starck: The stupidity of the ecological movement is that people kill trees for wood. It's ridiculous. The best ecological strategy is to make products of a very high creative quality, so you can keep them for three generations. I prefer to make a very good chair in the best polycarbonate than make any shit in wood that will be in the trash one year later.

Wired: Why not use recycled plastic?

Starck: It's a little joke of a material. You can do almost nothing with it. And I also refuse bioplastic, which comes from something that people can eat. Scientists agree that we have a real food problem, a famine approaching. It's a crime against humanity to take something you can eat and make a chair — or use it as gas for your SUV.

Wired: How do you reconcile those principles with your position as creative director for Virgin Galactic?

Starck: Every project should fit the big image of evolution. You can consider Virgin Galactic as something only for rich people, but you can also analyze the incredible help that it will give us. The exploration of space is a vital part of our evolution. We don't have any future if we don't go into space. This world will explode in 4 billion years. We have time, but not so much.

add to del.icio.us.

Thomas Friedman is about to dive into the green-tech fray. In his latest book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, the multi-Pulitzer-winning journalist says everyone needs to accept that oil will never be cheap again and that wasteful, polluting technologies cannot be tolerated. The last big innovation in energy production, he observes, was nuclear power half a century ago; since then the field has stagnated. "Do you know any industry in this country whose last major breakthrough was in 1955?" Friedman asks. According to the book, US pet food companies spent more on R&D last year than US utilities did. "The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stone," he says. Likewise, the climate-destroying fossil-fuel age will end only if we invent our way out of it.

But he's not suggesting a new Manhattan Project. "Twelve guys and gals going off to Los Alamos won't solve this problem," Friedman says. "We need 100,000 people in 100,000 garages trying 100,000 things — in the hope that five of them break through."

Our current efforts are not only inadequate, they're hopelessly haphazard and piecemeal. Friedman argues it'll take a coordinated, top-to-bottom approach, from the White House to corporations to consumers. "Without a systems approach, what do you end up with?" he asks. "Corn ethanol in Iowa."

The New York Times columnist, who keeps up a punishing travel schedule, is just back from the Middle East and London. "If you don't go, you don't know," he says. Such wanderings provided the material for his 2005 best seller, The World Is Flat. Now he has added two new terms to his diagnosis of global ills: the intertwined problems of climate change and population growth — "too many carbon copies," as he puts it.

In this new world, governments and companies that take the lead will find themselves with the single most valuable competitive advantage of our time.

To illustrate, Friedman tells the story of a Marine Corps general in Iraq who requested solar panels to power his bases. Asked why, he explained that he wanted to win his region by "out-greening al Qaeda." Instead of trucking in gas from Kuwait at $20 a gallon — money that fuels oppressive petro-dictatorships — in convoys that are vulnerable to roadside bombs, why not beat the insurgents by taking away their targets and their funding?

Coming out months before the presidential election, Crowded is sure to bigfoot its way into the campaign. "McCain and Obama come from the right side of this debate," Friedman says. "They have the right instincts, but neither is quite there yet. They haven't yet thought it through fully." The battle over "green," he believes, will define the early 21st century just as the battle over "red" (Communism) defined the last half of the 20th.

add to del.icio.us.

1963: The world's longest floating bridge, the Evergreen Point bridge, opens. It connects Seattle with communities on the east side of Lake Washington.

Pontoon bridges have been around since ancient times. Lash some boats together side-by-side in a stream or river, put some planks across them, and you've got a serviceable bridge. Armies love 'em because they can be deployed quickly so troops and equipment can be deployed quickly.

For a large, permanent bridge, the concept is scalable, but not easily. However, if you need to bridge a deep body of water that has a soft bed, a more conventional design might not be feasible. That's what faced Washington state engineers who set out to bridge Lake Washington. And they'd done it before, with the shorter Lake Washington Floating Bridge, opened in 1940. (A few miles south of the Evergreen Point bridge, it now carries the eastbound lanes of I-90.)

Starting in August 1960, construction crews ashore built 33 hollow, concrete boxes, each 15- or 16-feet high and about the length of a football field. These huge pontoons were floated and then towed into position, where they were linked by thick steel cables to anchors to hold them in place. The 62 anchors, buried deep in the lake bed, weigh about 77 tons each. Building the bridge cost a relatively modest $21 million ($154 million in today's money).

The bridge has a retractable drawspan in the middle that is raised to protect the structure from strong winds. But at 7,578 feet, the floating portion is essentially a 1.42-mile barge with a road on top of it.

That road is state Route 520, which links Seattle with Bellevue and Redmond, where a somewhat well-known software company later made its headquarters.

Seattle's growth, of which the tech boom is no small part, has put a huge load on the bridge. Designed to carry 65,000 vehicles a day, it now carries 115,000. That wear and tear, coupled with storm damage, has led to costly repairs.

Crews have patched more than 30,000 linear feet of cracks in the concrete pontoons since a huge storm on the day President Clinton was inaugurated in 1993. The drawbridge section got stuck in the open position for a while in March 1999.

The Washington State Department of Transportation says if the bridge were to sink, the average commute between Seattle and Redmond would increase from its current 33 minutes to 55. WSDOT has determined that retrofitting the Evergreen Point Bridge to current seismic and safety standards would be more expensive than building a new one.

So, it plans to construct a new floating bridge just north of the current one, starting next year. The new Evergreen Point bridge would have six lanes (plus a bike and pedestrian path) instead of four, cost about $4 billion, and open in 2014.

Perhaps they'll call it Evergreen 2.0, or Evergreen 2-Pont-0.

Source: Various

add to del.icio.us.

Is this really what will happen when the physicists at CERN finally start smashing particles in the Large Hadron Collider this fall? If so, at least we’re all in it together. Black holes don’t discriminate. [YouTube]
add to del.icio.us.

Investigators have found chemical evidence of human decomposition in the trunk of the car connected to Florida mother Casey Anthony, a law enforcement source said Wednesday.

add to del.icio.us.

Are business leaders out to lunch on SOA?
add to del.icio.us.

Read full story for latest details.

add to del.icio.us.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "NASA has received interesting results from the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, originally known as GLAST, which has allowed them to create new map of the gamma-ray sky. The secret to its ability to resolve gamma-rays is that they use layers of tungsten interleaved with silicon detectors. When a gamma-ray strikes tungsten, it produces an electron/positron pair due to the photoelectric effect, which cascades as it goes through further layers of tungsten. Meanwhile, they record which silicon detectors had electrons or positrons pass through them to determine the direction of the source and they also record the total energy of the electron/positron pairs to calculate the wavelength of the gamma-ray using Planck's Law. The data gathered in just its first few hours of operation is reportedly comparable to the data from the Energetic Gamma-Ray Experiment Telescope, which gathered data for nine years back in the 1990's and there are hopes that it could detect dark matter in the form of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

We bring you all the latest news as the Democrats take over Denver and even tech giants catch convention fever.
add to del.icio.us.

Political conventions are about more than just politics-- small and large companies alike are looking for opportunities in Denver to promote their brands and products.
add to del.icio.us.

How are the Democratic delegates getting out their party's message while at the DNC? Are they texting like Obama? Social networking on Twitter or Facebook? Or relying on the old standards: phone and e-mail?
add to del.icio.us.

Orange throttling iPhone 3G speeds. Why offer 3G if you do not want to deliver the product? D90 comes out but not seemingly as good as the Canon. My thoughts on Nikon versus Canon. Computer virus found on Space Station computer. IE8 getting more and more useless PR. Sneaky deal done between Microsoft and [...]
add to del.icio.us.

Google told bureaucrats in Denver for the Democratic convention that its applications can make governments run more efficiently and on a smaller budget.
add to del.icio.us.

Reuters - Federal officials on Wednesday arrested a man on suspicion of violating copyright laws for placing songs on the Internet from an unreleased album by rock band Guns N' Roses.

add to del.icio.us.

The Federal Aviation Administration plans to upgrade its decades-old technology for flight-plan processing and potentially add a third backup system.
add to del.icio.us.

Oracle names Jeffrey Epstein as its new chief financial officer, marking its fourth CFO since long-time bean counter Jeff Henley retired four years ago.
add to del.icio.us.

Nikon will compensate Microsoft in the cross-licensing deal, which the companies say will improve new consumer electronics products and features.
add to del.icio.us.

AP - A blogger suspected of streaming songs from the unreleased Guns N' Roses album "Chinese Democracy" on his Web site was arrested Wednesday and appeared in court, where his bail was set at $10,000.

add to del.icio.us.

Time lapse video of unusual looking molds and mushrooms erupting. Be sure to check out the related mushroom videos, too. (Via Grow-A-Brain)...

add to del.icio.us.

Los Angeles-area music blogger has allegedly admitted to streaming tracks of an unreleased Guns N' Roses album on his site.
add to del.icio.us.

National treasures Jaime and Gilbert Hernandez have relaunched Love and Rockets with a new format and a new approach. I can hardly wait. Love and Rockets: New Stories #1 reboots the beloved ongoing "Love and Rockets" comic into a fat, all-new annual graphic novel length package. Jaime launches the new format with a story that's unusual even for him... A full-on, pulse-pounding super-hero yarn! Maggie's longtime friend Penny Century has finally realized her longtime dream of acquiring super-powers, but at a terrible personal cost. Now she rampages through the galaxy, half mad with grief, and a motley group of super-heroes assembles to try to stop her -- led by Maggie's girlfriend Angel and her mysterious neighbor Alarma, and involving a number of characters longtime Love and Rockets fans will delight in recognizing. The epic-length 50-page story (only the first half of the saga!) combines Jaime's razor sharp characterization and superlative art with wildly inventive, Kirby-style slam-bang super-hero action. Then Gilbert Hernandez explodes with a similarly generous helping of his fantastically creative one-shot short stories: "Tamanny" (rookie cop vs. demonic drug users); "Papa" (a turn-of-the-century story involving a traveling businessman); "The New Adventures of Duke and Sammy" (super-powered Martin and Lewis impostors in outer space); "The Tender Room" (Into the Wild as re-imagined by Beto); "Chiro el Indio" (written by third brother Mario Hernandez); and "Never Say Never" (a kangaroo gets lucky in Las Vegas). One hundred pages of Jaime, Gilbert and Mario Hernandez at the peak of their powers: this is a major graphic-novel event! Love and Rockets: New Stories #1...

add to del.icio.us.

Datajunkie has a small galley of choice comic book ads from the days of yore. If you like these, you should get a copy of Hey Skinny! Great Advertisements from the Golden Age of Comic Books. Old comic book ads...

add to del.icio.us.

An anonymous reader writes "The Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS) has apparently discovered a new world-record prime number. A GIMPS client computer reported the number on August 23rd, and verification is currently under way. The verification could take up to two weeks to complete. The last Mersenne prime discovered was over 9.8 million digits long, strongly suggesting that the new value may break the 10 million digit barrier — qualifying for the EFF's $100000 prize!"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

The Irregulars draws its 'crew' from a wide and varied group of technology interests. One is Charlie Bess, an EDS Fellow. These are the brightest of the brightest among EDS thinkers and we are honored to have Charlie's insights. Now that the HP-EDS deal has been consummated, Charlie felt free to comment on how he sees the merger and its potential. With his permission, I have lifted his eloquent post on the topic for reproduction here: For about 10 years, I played trombone in a circus band for about a month out of every summer. One of the things I witnessed every year was the trapeze. In this act, there are catchers and flyers. Catchers catch and flyers fly. The...
add to del.icio.us.

Man drives off cliff and almost crushes Coastguardsmen trying to rescue ANOTHER man who jumped into sea
add to del.icio.us.

On this week's EIC squared podcast Dan and I talk about that ongoing Apple-Psystar legal showdown, Cisco and Microsoft's collision course, the Democratic National Convention and Dell's plans for the cloud. On Wednesday Psystar--that little Mac clone maker in Florida--sued Apple for antitrust violations. The big question: Does Psystar have a case? Meanwhile, Cisco acquired PostPath for $215 million, a small sum for a deal with big implications. PostPath competes with Microsoft Exchange and Dan and I discuss how Microsoft and Cisco appear to be on a collision course--especially on the collaboration front. Would Zoho be a nice acquisition for Cisco? Dan also riffs on the Democrat powwow in Denver, the experience and Joe Biden's tech record and closes with...
add to del.icio.us.

Much has already been said about Tweetrush, the service that allows you to get statistics on your personal Twitter usage. I particularly liked Bernie Goldbach's commentary where, among other things, he says: Tweetrush is Sweet Infoporn. I like stats. I like comparing like to like. And that means I like the infoporn hit that I get when clicking through Tweetstats. Tweetrush is powered by a real analytics engine using PHP and the Zend engine. It's displaying only the tip of an iceberg of live data. That got me thinking. Using Tweetrush, I can look at pretty much anyone's Twitter usage (except those who are so unsocial as to protect their Tweets to a select audience.)  If that's the case...
add to del.icio.us.

AP - Two actors unions and the U.S. advertising industry said Monday they agreed to extend a contract covering commercials on TV, radio, the Internet and other new media by six months through March.
add to del.icio.us.

A billboard on a wall in downtown San Francisco is the first volley in what is sure to be a major advertising campaign for EA's evolution game.
add to del.icio.us.

McAfee says phishing attacks, viruses, spam, and money laundering are rife in virtual worlds.
add to del.icio.us.

Eren Göksel wrote a tutorial that anyone can follow to create a drawing of a pencil in Photoshop. The Pencil is one of the visual metaphors most used to express creativity. In this tutorial, I'll show you how to draw a pencil icon. We'll have a look at gradients, selection tools, and basic transform operations. Let's have some fun with this. I'd love to see Boing Boing readers' variations on this. If you create one, please link to it in the comments section. How to create a super shiny pencil icon in Photoshop...

add to del.icio.us.

One of my Irregular colleagues received a pitch from GreenJobInterview.com describing a new video service but using the 'green' moniker as a way of injecting novelty. He wasn't impressed. The first remark: That noise in the background was me throwing up.  A job board now positioning themselves as “green?” The second from another colleague was altogether more illuminating: Green hiring practices are nothing new. We ask all of our job candidates to walk to our campus for their interviews. When they arrive, instead of offering them bottled water we provide them with a locally-grown bamboo drinking straw and directions to our outdoor rainwater reclamation pond. Finally, we provide composting toilets for all hiring managers and job seekers, outfitted with 100%...
add to del.icio.us.

Reuters - A panel of federal appeals court judges pushed a U.S. government lawyer on Wednesday to answer why FBI letters sent out to Internet service providers seeking information should remain secret.
add to del.icio.us.

DesScorp writes "The Times reports on the problems of adding wind farms to the power grid. Because of the grid's old design, it can't handle the various spikes that wind farms sometimes have, and there's no efficient way to currently move massive amounts of that power from one section of the country to the other. Further complicating things is the fact that under current laws, power grid regulation is a state matter, and the Federal government has comparatively little authority over it right now. Critics are calling for federal authority over the grid, and massive new construction of "superhighways" to share the wind power wealth nationally. Quoting the article, 'The dirty secret of clean energy is that while generating it is getting easier, moving it to market is not.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

4-year-old Obama Look-alike
add to del.icio.us.

Three days before the three-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina's landfall, the Gulf of Mexico braces for another storm that could hit the energy industry particularly hard. Kinetic Analysis Corporation, a disaster risk-management company, estimates that there is a one-in-three chance that Gustav will hit with sufficient force to shut down 10 percent or more of total U.S. oil production this year.

add to del.icio.us.

The green-tech darling has brought in about half a billion dollars in the last six years and hopes to finalize major solar-power facilities in San Jose, Calif., and Berlin.
add to del.icio.us.

University of Oklahoma researchers are working on a test that measures suspected cancer biomarkers in the breath and could lead to an easy-to-use detection device.
add to del.icio.us.

Bush at the Olympics
add to del.icio.us.

Read full story for latest details.

add to del.icio.us.

Hollywood has long called for YouTube to help copyright owners scrub the site of unauthorized videos. Now, copyright owners are using the site's copyright filters to help generate ad revenue.
add to del.icio.us.

AlHunt writes "I've been tasked with finding a way to bury digitally stored photographs in a small underground time capsule to be opened in 25 years. It looks like we'll be using a steel vessel, welded closed. I've thought of CDs, DVDs, a hard drive, or a thumb drive — but they all have drawbacks, not the least of which is outdated technology 25 years from now. Maybe I'll put a CD and a CD-ROM drive in the capsule and hope that the IDE interface is still around in 25 years? Ideas and feedback will be appreciated."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

There are some places you pretty much expect to be on the National Historic Register. Sprawling manors, Presidential birthplaces, historical monuments. But there are some pretty unexpected spots on the list too. Here are a few of them to check out the next time you’re looking for diversions from your road trip. [...]
add to del.icio.us.

The Signs of Change I love these conventions just to see what sort of marketing tricks they play on the viewing public. The need for unity within the Democratic party has resulted in the organizers orchestrating the signage to an extreme. Many of the signs have unity on them. It’s more like a card section of [...]
add to del.icio.us.

CNET News editor-in-chief Dan Farber and senior editor Robert Vamosi discuss the new features and browsing capabilities of Microsoft's Internet Explorer 8 and how it stacks up with Firefox.
add to del.icio.us.

Goldfish can live long, if you care for them.
add to del.icio.us.

That little Swirly Rainbow Circle Thingy on MacBooks is driving people crazy.
add to del.icio.us.

3-D films have been around since 1890, but unless you like watching your TV with red and blue glasses, the technology hasn't progressed much. Thankfully, Sean Hellfritsch and Isaiah Saxon of Encyclopedia Pictura have teamed together to show you how to create a DIY home 3-D theater rivaling the 3-D technology you'll find at your local Imax.

add to del.icio.us.

AP - Intercepting Internet traffic, and spying on the communication between two computers, is a gold mine for hackers. Now Carnegie Mellon University researchers hope software they've built will make it harder for criminals to hit that jackpot.
add to del.icio.us.

blackbearnh writes "It may make you feel very, very old, but the Macintosh will be turning 25 in January. As we approach this momentous anniversary, O'Reilly News had a talk with Andy Hertzfeld, one of the original Macintosh designers, about the long and storied history of the Mac. Hertzfeld, who tells the story of the Mac in his book A Revolution in the Valley, shares his thoughts about how the Mac has aged over time, how life might have been different if Steve Jobs had stayed on at Apple, and the differences between working for Apple, and for Google (his current employer.)" Read on below for a bit of what Hertzfeld had to say.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

NewsFactor - Mozilla Labs has rolled out an experimental Firefox plug-in that promises to streamline the way Web surfers manage the mountains of information online. Called Ubiquity, the proof-of-concept prototype is an experiment with two parts -- it's both an interface and a development platform, notes the plug-in's developer, Aza Raskin.
add to del.icio.us.

Photographer Meera Sethi has written a nice essay about taking photos in science museums. Sethi is part of Utata, a collective of photographers who met via Flickr. Indeed, be sure to check out Sethi's "Muse" science museum photo set on Flickr. (Seen here, "Together Forever," taken at the Harvard Museum of Natural History.) From "Photographing the Science Museum": Is there anyone who doesn't feel a certain frisson of excitement when they see something organic preserved in a glass jar? I don't know exactly what it is, but I suspect it might have something to do with certain cultural associations we all carry around in our heads, some strange common currency that comes from years of watching mad scientist movies late at night.That might be me in there, I find myself thinking. If some other intellectually curious species with opposable thumbs and access to the secrets of chemistry had come to dominate the planet instead of my own, that might be my shriveled body all scrunched up in there—my brain at whose familiar whorls some creature with a purple exoskeleton would now be leering through the glass, wondering how on earth it could be so very...grey. Mostly, though, what I love about standing in front of these heavy jars is how much easier they make it to observe the world I love so much, in close detail. Time pauses, temporarily. The barriers between me and the mysteries of this earth fall, temporarily. Nothing else matters except looking, and everything about the place where I am is designed to make it easier to look—and to see. I see that this barnacle has claws like a dragon's. I see that these spiders have legs like sharp needles. I see that this frog has approximately six times as many organs inside its torso as I would have thought it had room for. I try to look as much as I can, and when I have looked until I have seen, I take out my camera. Photographing the Science Museum (Utata, via Eastern Blot)...

add to del.icio.us.

This week I received the coolest package in the mail: a box of Lego minifigures, just begging to be assembled. How can I possibly work right now when there's a pile of heads, legs and torsos that need to be...
add to del.icio.us.

mr_sifter writes "After three years of research and around £100,000 of R&D costs, UK-based Armari has unveiled its XCP prototype. It's a full immersion liquid cooled PC which supports standard ATX components. Unlike conventional liquid cooled PCs, the components are all easy to swap in and out as they're swimming in liquid, rather than under waterblocks. It also looks amazing, pumping around 70KG of electrically inert cooling fluid (salvaged from an old Cray) around its military grade perspex shell."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

Remember we told you about Sneeze Magazine? Well the newspaper-style magazine released their 2nd issue, it includes classic Rickey Henderson and Darryl Strawberry images that are so huge (22×16 inches) you can hang them on your walls as posters (that’s what I did). For more info, go here
add to del.icio.us.

Japanese humor is slowly but surely infiltrating mainstream media in the US. Fake Japanese game shows on ABC, human Tetris on Fox, the YouTube video of the guy that shoots out of a toilet stall into a ski slope... as someone who grew up in Tokyo watching Japanese variety shows every night, though, I have to say that the US adaptations don't really get it. Previously, I explained why I thought I Survived a Japanese Game Show doesn't work on my blog. I also wrote this little blurb explaining why: The host of a real Japanese game show is a politically incorrect, sarcastic man who revels in mild forms of torture and isn't afraid to smack a woman on the head. (The feminist in me battles the light-hearted Japanese humoree every time I watch one.) The contestants are stoic, and driven by the determination not to make a fool of themselves and the desire to win money and/or fame. The show's creators are constantly upping the ante, forcing contestants into grueling, sometimes life-threatening situations. A panel of yappy celebrity commentators and on-screen subtitles emphasize LOL moments and onomatopoeia. And, perhaps most importantly, the show can't be overproduced—it's the barebones "variety"-style set-up that has allowed the Japanese game show to survive and thrive for decades. (In one famously controversial show, an aspiring comedian named Nasubi was locked naked in an empty apartment and forced to live on winnings from magazine sweepstakes until he earned $10,000. When he finally reached his goal 14 months later, the show's producers gave him some clothes, blindfolded him, and took him on a surprise vacation to South Korea, where he was locked in yet another apartment until he won enough money to buy a plane ticket home. While some vehemently opposed the show, most watched it religiously with delightful horror and amusement. Nasubi wrote a best-selling book about his experience and later became a successful stage actor.)It's the type of comedy that only works in a culture where lawsuits don't take precedent over a nationwide commitment to make fun and have fun.  In a nutshell, a real funny Japanese TV show will have you thinking, over and over: This is embarrassing to watch. This is so wrong. I'm so glad that's not me. This is f-ing hilarious. The above clip is from one of iconic 80s comedian Ken Shimura's many variety shows. Every Japanese person over the age of 25 probably knows it.( Lisa Katayama is a guest blogger.)...

add to del.icio.us.

Stonewall.
add to del.icio.us.

Martin writes "Mozilla Labs have released a prototype version of the Firefox add-on Ubiquity. It is basically Launchy (the application launcher) for Firefox with the difference that Ubiquity makes use of web APIs and the Firefox browser. The official website contains examples, a command list, information about creating your own commands and of course the Ubiquity extension that is compatible with Firefox 3.x. Ubiquity can pull and send data to various services like Twitter, display, find and embed Google Maps, perform searches, write emails, add entries to the calendar, digg stories and more."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

add to del.icio.us.

Male Jamaican lizards do push-ups and other territorial displays at dawn and dusk. Credit: Terry J. Ord, Harvard University
add to del.icio.us.

The seedy bloodsucker lifestyle surfaces in HBO's upcoming show based on Charlaine Harris' Sookie Stackhouse books.

<