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• Editor of Elsevier Genomics journal quits in protest 

  davidjoho Permalink
  10:53 am on 05/17/2012  

  Winston Hide, associate editor at Genomics, a journal published by Elsevier, has quit because “No longer can I work for a system that provides solid profits for the publisher while effectively denying colleagues in developing countries access to research findings.” He concludes his op-ed in The Guardian:”So I’d prefer to devote the limited time I have available to an open access journal that provides its work at no cost to researchers who urgently require its contents to improve their environment.”

  View Link [guardian.co.uk]

• Apple store refusing to carry books that link to Amazon 

  davidjoho Permalink
  4:37 am on 02/29/2012  

  Seth Godin reports that the Apple store is refusing to carry his new ebook, Stop Stealing Dreams, because it links the books it references to Amazon. Seth argues that the market dominance of a mere three ebook vendors, and the fact that the vendors of ebooks are also the vendors of ebook readers, imposes a special cultural obligation on them to be “net neutral” (so to speak) about the content they sell.

  [PS: My post about this is here: http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2012/02/29/apple-blocking-books-that-link-to-amazon/ , but obviously Seth's post is the one you want to link to.]

  View Link [paidcontent.org]

• PayPal banning certain types of smut 

  davidjoho Permalink
  8:57 am on 02/26/2012  

  According to the “erotic fiction” author “Selena Kitt,” the online distributer Bookstrand.com has notified some authors: “We were informed by PayPal, without notice, and by our credit card processing company, that we are required to remove all titles at BookStrand.com with content containing incest, pseudo incest, rape, and bestiality, effective immediately.” First they come for your disgusting smut. Then they shut down Wikileaks. Except they got the order backwards.

  View Link [selenakitt.com]

• Jurassic Parked 

  davidjoho Permalink
  5:19 pm on 02/11/2012  

  Someone with the handle “birdfeeder” slowed down the theme from Jurassic Park by 90%, creating a rather awesomely elegiac piece of music. [Meta-note: I've put in a link to my blog, but I found it on Geek.com, which got it from Gawker, which got it from Reddit, so: 1. It may be too oft-told for BoingBoing. 2. Feel free not to point to my blog page. I don't feel like I deserve credit for "finding" this.]

  View Link [hyperorg.com]

• British judges don’t get Twitter, but Stephen Fry does 

  davidjoho Permalink
  6:18 pm on 02/08/2012 | TECH ( 1,148 )   

  Stephen Fry explains that when a frustrated traveler tweets something about wanting to bomb an airport where there have been delays, the traveler doesn’t isn’t really announcing that he is about to bomb the airport. Social media, Fry explains, need to be understood as conversations. And then Fry kicked into the fund for the frustrated traveler’s legal fees.

  View Link [bbc.co.uk]

• European Parliament official investigates ACTA, quits in disgust 

  davidjoho Permalink
  4:18 pm on 01/26/2012  

  Quoted from the TechDirt article:
  This is interesting. Kader Arif, the “rapporteur” for ACTA, has quit that role in disgust over the process behind getting the EU to sign onto ACTA. A rapporteur is a person “appointed by a deliberative body to investigate an issue.” However, it appears his investigation of ACTA didn’t make him very pleased:
  =======

  I want to denounce in the strongest possible manner the entire process that led to the signature of this agreement: no inclusion of civil society organisations, a lack of transparency from the start of the negotiations, repeated postponing of the signature of the text without an explanation being ever given, exclusion of the EU Parliament’s demands that were expressed on several occasions in our assembly.

  As rapporteur of this text, I have faced never-before-seen manoeuvres from the right wing of this Parliament to impose a rushed calendar before public opinion could be alerted, thus depriving the Parliament of its right to expression and of the tools at its disposal to convey citizens’ legitimate demands.”

  View Link [techdirt.com]

• Raiders of the Lost Lawsuit 

  davidjoho Permalink
  1:43 pm on 01/01/2012  

  An amazing video from StooTV shows the first 13 minutes of Raiders of the Lost Ark paired with identical shots from 30 different adventure movies made between 1919 and 1973. Yup, that’s how culture works…at least if we let it. (Here’s the direct link to the video: http://youtu.be/Ns8bG9AbfwM . )

  View Link [hyperorg.com]

• The SOPA Eclipse 

  davidjoho Permalink
  12:52 pm on 12/14/2011  

  Jimmy Wales has asked the Wikipedia community if WP should briefly black out all of its English language pages to protest SOPA. How about setting a time and date, and inviting every site that could be blacklisted by the US government without hearing, notification, or appeal – i.e., every site – to join in the protest? Are you in, BoingBoing?

  View Link [en.wikipedia.org]

  davidjoho is discussing. Toggle Comments

  • 

    davidjoho 1:11 pm on 12/14/2011 Permalink | Log in to Reply

    Just read further down the BB page.

    Never mind.

• Neelie Kroes shocks EC by suggesting the Net is not all bad 

  davidjoho Permalink
  8:13 pm on 12/10/2011 | NEWS ( 1,051 )   

  Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, has followed up her controversial observation that the current copyright laws do not seem to be making things better for creators or for culture with a talk that sketches a reasonable approach to helping the Net serve as an instrument of democracy in unfree nations. Go, Neelie, go!

  (My blog post on this: http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2011/12/10/european-commission-has-an-internet-advocate/ )

  View Link [commentneelie.eu]

• Science plays 133-year-old talking doll phonograph record 

  davidjoho Permalink
  5:44 am on 07/07/2011  

  Lawrence Berkeley National Lab scientists have reconstructed the audio from a 3D scan of a phonograph recording at the heart of a talking doll Thomas Alva Edison manufactured in 1888 – apparently the first commercially-available recording. Each recording was done individually. “Twinkle twinkle little star…”

  View Link [hyperorg.com]

• July 6 decision day for far-reaching Italian anti-piracy regulation 

  davidjoho Permalink
  6:00 am on 07/04/2011  

  A new power about to be claimed by AGCOM, the Italian telecommunications regulatory agency, would permit it to “remove content from Italian websites or to block access to foreign websites accused by copyright holders to break their rights.” The proposed powers implement a requirement from the Italian government that the agency take action to prevent piracy. The decision about the proposed AGCOM powers is due on July 6. The Obama administration is backing the law.

  View Link [hyperorg.com]

• How to wish Larry Lessig a happy birthday 

  davidjoho Permalink
  10:36 am on 06/03/2011  

  Dan Jones at the Berkman Center has produced the perfectly appropriate birthday video for Larry Lessig’s 50th

  View Link [vimeo.com]

• Brewster Kahle reads from a prescient 1936 book 

  davidjoho Permalink
  10:24 pm on 06/02/2011  

  Brewster Kahle, founder of the Internet Archive, reads the last paragraph of a 1936 book on preserving the media types of the day, which is oddly prescient.

  View Link [librarylab.law.harvard.edu]

• Stick a pin through the Earth… 

  davidjoho Permalink
  7:15 am on 03/06/2011  

  Map.Talleye lets you stick a pin through the Earth’s nougaty center to see where you’d come out. Only 4 percent of the time if you start from land will you not get sprayed in the face by water from the other side (according to Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antipodes).

  View Link [map.talleye.com]

• Asus shipping box is cardboard computer case 

  davidjoho Permalink
  2:55 pm on 03/02/2011  

  Asus is shipping motherboards in cardboard shipping boxes designed to be used as computer cases. They say the box should last for up to a year.

  View Link [itworld.com]

• Greatest Grammy nominations ever? 

  davidjoho Permalink
  6:13 am on 02/13/2011  

  The 1971 nominees for the Grammy for “best contemporary vocal by a duo, group, or chorus” were insanely great. (Skip to 1:00 to avoid cringeworthy David Cassidy repartee.)

  View Link [youtube.com]

• Waltham MA becomes Steampunk City (for a weekend) 

  davidjoho Permalink
  4:41 pm on 02/12/2011  

  To raise money for the Charles River Museum of Industry, Waltham is becoming International Steampunk City May 6-8. “Enjoy special events all throughout the town, dine in restaurants offering specials to all chrono-adventurers, watch Steampunk films at the local cinema, see Steampunk theatre, … interact with all manner of performers and actors and dramatis personae, dance in a historic mansion, see art and Steampunk creation from around the world!” Mainly for free. Brass diving helmets optional.

  View Link [internationalsteampunkcity.com]

• What crowdsourcing looks like 

  davidjoho Permalink
  9:00 am on 02/01/2011  

  Watch volunteers jump into and around the Google spreadsheet that’s coordinating the transcribing and translating of Egyptian voice-to-tweet msgs. Not exactly a Jerry Bruckheimer production, but the awesomeness of what we’re seeing crept up on me. (Check the link to the hi-rez version: http://vimeo.com/19416088)

  View Link [thenextweb.com]

• McLuhan speaks! 

  davidjoho Permalink
  5:06 pm on 01/26/2011  

  As a gift on the centenary of his birth, a site has gone up featuring brief clips of Marshall McLuhan explaining his key ideas and catch phrases. Some are still pretty obscure, but some are on the nose 30 years ahead of when the nose appeared. For example, check out his confident assertion that books will become personalized services: http://www.marshallmcluhanspeaks.com/?video=PRO_004

  View Link [marshallmcluhanspeaks.com]

• Your TV shoots back 

  davidjoho Permalink
  6:55 am on 01/19/2011  

  David Arenou has prototyped an augmented reality game that turns your living room into a scene in a first person shooter. You set computer-readable markers on furniture, fire at enemies on your TV, and crouch behind your couch as your TV tries to score a headshot.

  The future of gaming, the innocent-sounding origins of the apocalypse, or both?

  View Link [hyperorg.com]

• Wikipedia deletions go all curvy 

  davidjoho Permalink
  10:00 am on 01/10/2011  

  Notabilia has visualized the hundred longest discussion threads at Wikipedia that resulted in the deletion of an article and the hundred that did not. The visualized threads take on shapes depending on whether the discussion was controversial, swinging, or unanimous. For those whose brains can process visualized information (as mine cannot), you will undoubtedly learn much. For the rest of us: Oooooh, pretty!

  They also have analyzed data using words. E.g., Delete decisions tend to be unanimous

  View Link [notabilia.net]

• PacMan: The Street Game 

  davidjoho Permalink
  5:25 pm on 01/04/2011  

  With your Android phone, a GPS signal and a Net connection, you can Be the PacMan, walking down real streets to eat dots off a Google Map. And no jury in the land would find you guilty of jaywalking to escape a map-based ghost!

  View Link [hyperorg.com]

• OED ditches paper 

  davidjoho Permalink
  8:05 am on 09/01/2010  

  The current edition of the OED is the last one that will be printed on paper. So, say good bye to using a magnifying glass for font > zoom in the compact 2-vol edition. (my post about it: http://bit.ly/aF6RiN)

  View Link [telegraph.co.uk]

• Incredible Ukrainian 3-D lightshow 

  davidjoho Permalink
  5:28 am on 08/29/2010  

  A building becomes a toon. Awesome! (via http://www.metafilter.com/95213/An-Amazing-3D-Light-Show-From-Russia)

  View Link [youtube.com]

• Machine-gun prosthetic leg 

  davidjoho Permalink
  8:22 am on 08/26/2010  

  One-eyed film maker Rob Spence’s EyeBorg project is putting a wireless video camera into his eye socket. He’s now advertising for a one-legged woman who wants a machine-gun prosthetic, a la Grindhouse’s Cherry Darling. Although Time mag named his vid-eye as one of the best inventions of 2009, the odds are longer for the new prosthetic making the list, especially since it only shoots paint pellets. Also, no Quake-style rocket jumps.

  View Link [eyeborgproject.com]