Voyager 2 Set to Reach Termination Shock 

A computer model simulation developed at UC Riverside has predicted that in late 2007 to early 2008, the interplanetary spacecraft Voyager 2 will cross the termination shock, the spherical shell around the solar system that marks where the solar wind slows down to subsonic speed. At the termination shock, located at 7-8.5 billion miles from the sun, the solar wind is decelerated to less than the speed of sound. The boundary of the termination shock is not fixed, however, but wobbly, fluctuating in both time and distance from the sun, depending on solar activity. Because of this fluctuation, the spacecraft is also predicted to cross the boundary again in middle 2008. The article abstract is available from The Astrophysical Journal.

Pedophiles have less brain white matter: Toronto study 

They discovered that in the brains of men who were sexually attracted to children, the frontal parts that govern a person’s reponses to sexual stimuli had less white matter.

The researchers theorize pedophilia is the result of a “partial disconnection within that network.

“The most straightforward explanation of the present result is that low white matter volumes increase the risk of developing pedophilia,” they write. “Regardless of whether white matter deficiencies produce pedophilia or a susceptibility to it, the present results suggest the need to pursue what causes the white matter deficiencies.”

They add that white matter abnormalities have already been implicated in other psychiatric illnesses, including bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia.

Now this is interesting. Perhaps a way could be found to screen for this? It would raise some sticky privacy issues, though.

Mighty mouse engineered to fight cancer 

“We originally discovered Par-4 in the prostate, but it’s not limited to the prostate. The gene is expressed in every cell type that we’ve looked at and it induces the death of a broad range of cancer cells, including of course, cancer cells in the prostate,” Rangnekar said in a release.

Fortune: Steve Jobs most powerful person in business 

“Since returning to Apple in 1997, he has changed the dynamics of consumer electronics with the iPod, and persuaded the music industry, the television networks, and Hollywood to distribute their wares with the iTunes Music Store,” Fortune writes. “With his hugely successful Apple Stores, he gave the big-box boys a lesson in high-margin, high-touch retailing. And this year, at the height of his creative and promotional powers, Jobs orchestrated Apple’s entry into the cellular telephone business with the iPhone.”

Jobs is responsible for morphing no less than five industries into huge successes: Computers, Hollywood, music, retail, and wireless phones.

You have to admit: that’s pretty impressive.

Television is dying 

Twenty percent of American homes now contain hard drives that store movies and television shows indefinitely and allows you to fast-forward through commercials. These devices will probably proliferate at a significant rate and soon, almost everyone will have them. They’ll also get smaller and smaller, rendering the box that holds them obsolete, and the rectangular screen in your living room won’t really be a television anymore, it’ll be a computer. And running into the back of that computer, the wire that delivers unto you everything you watch? It won’t be cable; it will be the Internet.

This probably sounds exciting if you’re a TV viewer, but if you’re in the business of producing these shows, it’s nothing short of terrifying. This is how vaudevillians must have felt the first time they saw a silent movie; sitting there, suddenly realizing they just became extinct: after all, who wants another soft-shoe number when you can see Harold Lloyd hanging off a clock 50 feet tall?

U.S. withdraws subpoena seeking Amazon customer identities 

The withdrawal came after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits from the government.

“The chilling effect on expressive e-commerce would frost keyboards across America” when news of the subpoena spread, U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephen Crocker wrote in a June ruling. “Well-founded or not, rumors of an Orwellian federal criminal investigation into the reading habits of Amazon’s customers could frighten countless potential customers into canceling planned online book purchases.”

No more plastic bags for Vancouver shoppers? 

“It’s very convenient and for the merchants … You have a walking placard for advertising. I don’t see a downside here for the merchants,” said Richard.

Everyday copyright violations 

By the end of the day, John has infringed the copyrights of twenty emails, three legal articles, an architectural rendering, a poem, five photographs, an animated character, a musical composition, a painting, and fifty notes and drawings. All told, he has committed at least eighty-three acts of infringement and faces liability in the amount of $12.45 million (to say nothing of potential criminal charges). There is nothing particularly extraordinary about John’s activities. Yet if copyright holders were inclined to enforce their rights to the maximum extent allowed by law, he would be indisputably liable for a mind-boggling $4.544 billion in potential damages each year. And, surprisingly, he has not even committed a single act of infringement through P2P file sharing.

Fake photos alter real memories 

To test what effect doctored photos might have, researchers from the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Padua in Italy showed 299 people aged 19 to 84 either an actual photo or an altered photo of two historical events, the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest in Beijing and the 2003 anti-war protest in Rome.

Is atomic radiation as dangerous as we thought? 

There, in a long brick building, workers, including many women, sat in a dimly lit environment and placed the encrusted rods into nitric acid, triggering a process that allowed them to remove the weapons-grade plutonium. While the same work was performed with remote-controlled robotic arms in the West, the Soviet workers were not even given masks to wear. There was nothing to stop plutonium gases from entering their lungs.

And yet the amount of health damage sustained by these workers was astonishingly low. The GSF study has examined 6,293 men who worked at the chemical plant between 1948 and 1972. “So far 301 have died of lung cancer,” says Jacob. “But only 100 cases were caused by radiation. The others were attributed to cigarettes.”

New Futurama! 

All of the episodes for the Futurama DVDs have already been written, and as far as these two know that’s the end of the show — for real this time. But they continue plotting, just in case. “It would be a great episode, and there’s a message there,” Groening says. “You can’t live your life constantly looking at the death clock.”

The Decline and Fall of the Animal Kingdom 

Some of the greatest moments in the history of biology slip from the world’s memory, their anniversaries hardly noticed among the wars, bankruptcies and celebrity detoxifications. But before this month passes, let us stop to remember one of those great moments that came 30 years ago, in November 1977: the death knell of the animal kingdom.

“Welcome…to the world of tomorrow!” 

The original Futurama left an indelible imprint on popular culture, visible in everything from the art design in sci-fi films to forward-looking marketing campaigns to the widespread use of the suffix -arama. It’s no wonder that when New York hosted another World’s Fair in 1964, a second Futurama exhibit was mounted. The original Futurama had presented the brave new world of 1960; many of the predictions had already been disproven by the time Futurama II debuted. “This is always a recurring problem — the times catch up with science fiction visions,” says Howland. “That’s why Steampunk is so popular, because it can’t become obsolete. But the Futurama, man, that was Dieselpunk!”

Google voluntarily reveals blogger’s email address 

So much for “Do no evil”.

NASA manned Mars mission details emerge 

Notionally launched in February 2031, the first crew’s flight would be preceded by the cargo lander and surface habitat being sent in December 2028 and January 2029, respectively using two Ares V launches.

The lander will arrive around October 2029 and the habitat November the same year. Nuclear power is the preferred surface energy source. The crew will arrive in August 2031.

I always wanted to be on that mission when I was a kid, but I also always expected it to happen in my 30s, not my 50s. Still, that’s some really cool stuff!

Barbarism apparently rampant in Sudan 

A British primary school teacher arrested in Sudan faces up to 40 lashes for blasphemy after letting her class of 7-year-olds name a teddy bear Muhammad.

Come on, 40 lashes for a fucking teddy bear? This is absolutely ridiculous. And for what? 7th-century superstitions about someone’s name, which was not unique to that person, and which the teacher herself didn’t apply to the teddy bear in question? Besides, since blasphemy is a victimless crime, why should it even be considered a crime in the first place?

Liquid crystal phases of DNA, beginning of life? 

A team led by the University of Colorado at Boulder and the University of Milan has discovered some unexpected forms of liquid crystals of ultrashort DNA molecules immersed in water, providing a new scenario for a key step in the emergence of life on Earth. CU-Boulder physics Professor Noel Clark said the team found that surprisingly short segments of DNA, life’s molecular carrier of genetic information, could assemble into several distinct liquid crystal phases that “self-orient” parallel to one another and stack into columns when placed in a water solution. Life is widely believed to have emerged as segments of DNA- or RNA-like molecules in a prebiotic “soup” solution of ancient organic molecules.

UN says Tasers are a form of torture 

The use of Tasers “causes acute pain, constituting a form of torture,” the UN’s Committee Against Torture said. “In certain cases, they can even cause death, as has been shown by reliable studies and recent real-life events.” Three men — all in their early 20s — died from after tasering in the United States this week, days after a Polish man died at Vancouver airport after being tasered by Canadian police. There have been 17 deaths in Canada following the use of Tasers since they were approved for use, and 275 deaths in the US. “According to Amnesty International, coroners have listed the Taser jolt as a contributing factor in more than 30 of those deaths.”

It seems like every other day now we’re hearing about somebody dying from being shocked with a Taser…

Creationists violating Harvard’s copyright in order to misrepresent the facts 

The Discovery Institute, more a lawyer mill than a scientific institution, copied Harvard University’s BioVisions video ‘The Inner Life of the Cell,’ stripped out Harvard’s copyright notice, credits, and narration, inserted their own creationist-friendly narration, and renamed the video ‘The Cell As an Automated City.’ The new title subtly suggests that a cell is designed rather than evolved.

Now, I have brought this to the attention of Harvard and XVIVO. I dont know what theyre going to do (theyre Harvard– they can do whatever they want). I do know that they are not happy campers. IANAL, I am a virologist, but heres why *I* would be upset…

What if Gmail had been designed by Microsoft? 

Another security measurement we’ll add is that you won’t be able to log-in with just username anymore but are required to enter the full username@gmail.com. Furthermore, we will change the browser URL from http://gmail.microsoft.com to the more professional looking http://by114w.bay114.gmail.live.com/mail/mail.aspx?rru=home.

Which is especially funny for those of us who remember the days when Hotmail wasn’t owned by Microsoft, because those changes came about specifically because of Microsoft!

Strange but true: less sleep means more dreams 

“When someone is sleep deprived we see greater sleep intensity, meaning greater brain activity during sleep; dreaming is definitely increased and likely more vivid,” says neurologist Mark Mahowald of the University of Minnesota and director of the Minnesota Regional Sleep Disorders Center in Minneapolis.

Why we’re on strike: a screenwriter on Hollywood’s labor pains 

When the Writers Guild went on strike last week, I promptly received an e-mail from my cousin John, who wondered how the writers would be able to hold their picket signs with a decaf skim latte in one hand and a BlackBerry in the other. John, who works for some outfit on Wall Street, sent this message, irony-free, from his BlackBerry.

There is some idea going around, obviously started by someone who doesn’t know an average writer, that the average writer is rich. I guess people think that because we work in the entertainment industry, where George Clooney also works, we must be rich too.

Cannabis compound stops spread of breast cancer: researchers 

A team of researchers at the California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute say cannabis compound CBD could provide a non-toxic alternative to chemotherapy for cancer treatments. Previous research has shown the compound can block human brain cancers, and recent lab experiments have shown it may be able to do the same for breast cancer.

Taser video halts teens’ B.C. travel plans 

Connelly tried to persuade her sister and nieces that Canada is safe, but she said she understands why someone who doesn’t speak English would be afraid to fly into the Vancouver airport after watching what happened to Dziekanski when he arrived.

U.S. reading skills, comprehension declining: study 

The study found only 52 per cent of Americans aged 18 to 24 read a book voluntarily in 2002, down from 59 per cent a decade earlier. The slide is even sharper among younger readers — less than one-third of 13-year-olds read every day, down 14 per cent in the last 20 years. At the same time, reading scores for American adults have deteriorated, even among well-educated people. The number of adults with bachelor’s degrees considered proficient in reading prose dropped from 40 per cent in 1992 to 31 per cent in 2003.

Co-founder of Greenpeace envisions a nuclear future 

It became clear to me that there was a logical disconnect. The people who were most concerned about climate change were most opposed to nuclear power. Greenpeace is against fossil fuel, nuclear and hydroelectric power. Those three technologies produce over 99 percent of world energy. What kind of a path to a sustainable future is that?

New NIN album offers GarageBand files 

“Several years ago I persuaded my record company to let me begin posting my master recording files on nin.com, in order to see what kind of user-generated content would materialize from my music,” Reznor said. “I had no agenda… the main reason I did it was because I thought it was cool and something I would have liked to do if it was available to me. A lot of really fun stuff started to happen….communities developed, web sites were created, even traditional radio got in the game and began playing the fans’ mixes. I felt the experiment, despite not having a specific purpose, was a success. So much so that we’re now releasing a remix album that includes some of this fan-created material as well as the actual multitrack master files for every song from my latest record, Year Zero.”

Even babies make social judgments, study suggests 

“Infants prefer an individual who helps another to one who hinders another, prefer a helping individual to a neutral individual, and prefer a neutral individual to a hindering individual,” the Yale University psychology researchers report in the edition of Nature to be published Thursday.

Growing up poor means more illness, shorter lifespan: Quebec report 

“Even if you change your social status later on, many of these impacts will still be there,” Alain Poirier, Quebec’s director of public health, told CBC News Thursday. He said children living below the poverty line are more likely to experience these problems.

Methane-eating bacteria could help combat global warming 

New Zealand scientists have found a bacterium, named ‘Methylokorus infernorum,’ that eats a key global warming chemical. Found in a hot spring, the bug lives off of methane emissions from geothermically active areas. A scientist quoted in the article stated that a cubic meter of liquid containing the bacterium would consume about 11kg of methane each year. ‘But Dr Stott cautioned that such an application was probably some years into the future. He said it was unlikely the micro-organism, which prefers acidic conditions of about 60C, could ever be added to sheep or cows’ food to stop the animals releasing methane.

William Gibson: The Rolling Stone 40th Anniversary Interview 

If one had gone to talk to a publisher in 1977 with a scenario for a science-fiction novel that was in effect the scenario for the year 2007, nobody would buy anything like it. It’s too complex, with too many huge sci-fi tropes: global warming; the lethal, sexually transmitted immune-system disease; the United States, attacked by crazy terrorists, invading the wrong country. Any one of these would have been more than adequate for a science-fiction novel. But if you suggested doing them all and presenting that as an imaginary future, they’d not only show you the door, they’d probably call security.

Even OPEC says we should take global warming seriously 

De Boer, who took part in a debate about energy and the environment, said that OPEC had shown “recognition that oil is a major contributor to the greenhouse effect, but also a willingness to talk about how oil can be produced and brought to market in a cleaner way.”

The summit, only the third in the organisation’s 47-year history, is to tackle the themes of “providing petroleum, promoting prosperity and protecting the planet.”

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Nuaimi, who chaired the debate with de Boer, the executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said the host country was concerned and ready to act.

“We (Saudi Arabia) are willing to participate with others to help in reducing world emissions because like the rest of the world we are concerned about the environment,” he said.

SimCity Societies: will gamers go green? 

In this version of the game, pollutants created by industry, transportation, and electricity generation play into the equation. A player has to choose the kind of power sources his/her city will rely upon, and receives information about the CO2 emissions and smog-causing pollutants created by each choice. Too much of either affects the city’s environment, and the well-being of its residents: increased instances of smog, for instance, will raise levels of illness among citizens and keep them from work (which costs the player, or “mayor,” money). Increased carbon emissions could result in floods, droughts, powerful storms, etc. As Rachel Bernstein, the game’s producer, noted, “Games are always about managing resources… Players have to make choices that have end-game results, and they come to recognize the costs and trade-offs of those choices.”

Now that’s clever!

Religious scholars mull Flying Spaghetti Monster 

When some of the world’s leading religious scholars gather in San Diego this weekend, pasta will be on the intellectual menu. They’ll be talking about a satirical pseudo-deity called the Flying Spaghetti Monster, whose growing pop culture fame gets laughs but also raises serious questions about the essence of religion.

OPEC interested in non-dollar currency 

Oil is priced in U.S. dollars on the world market, and the currency’s depreciation has concerned oil producers because it has contributed to rising crude prices and has eroded the value of their dollar reserves.

“All participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency,” Ahmadinejad said. “Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the U.S. dollar … to form the basis of our oil trade.”

First Drive: 2009 Honda FCX Clarity, world’s first series production fuel cell car 

This thing is so cool! I want one!

Some points of interest:

• The most common way of producing hydrogen is steam reformation of natural gas, which raises concerns about CO₂ emissions. However, when well-to-wheels CO2 emissions are evaluated in comparison to gasoline engines, steam reformation and fuel cells show a sixty percent reduction.
• For solar powered electrolysis, Honda has proton exchange membrane electrolyzer that basically functions as a fuel cell in reverse and is eighty percent efficient.
• Climate control is designed to be energy-efficient: the climate control system is integrated in the seats. Fans draw air into the front seats where a thermo-electric device chills or heats it before blowing it through pores in the seat cushions. The end result is greatly reduced demand on the climate control system.
• The FCX is designed to meet and surpass all safety standards in the US and elsewhere, and will not require any safety waivers.
• The 5,000 psi hydrogen tank is designed to withstand any impact it might see in the real world.
• The electric motor only puts out 136 hp but the 189 lb-ft torque is available instantly when you press the go pedal. (The equivalent of a gas pedal.) When the demand for forward momentum exceeds the output of the fuel cell, a lithium ion battery mounted under the rear seat provides extra electrons to the get the motor spinning faster.
• The single-speed transmission mounted co-axially with the motor also means no shifts to interrupt the flow of acceleration.
• The FCX averages 68 miles/kg with 1 kg of hydrogen having almost the equivalent energy content to a gallon of gasoline.
• As for the cost of hydrogen, the stations that currently exist in California are selling it for about $5/kg retail. With gasoline currently running close to $4/gallon in the same area, the FCX will be a lot cheaper to operate. Assuming 25 mpg at $4, an Accord would cost $43.20 to drive 270 miles. The same distance in an FCX Clarity at $5/kg will run $19.85. That’s not a bad deal for taking a huge leap into the future.

Not The Daily Show 

Saudi court punishes rape victim with 200 lashes 

In a ruling decried by Saudi lawyers as too severe, a court in the desert kingdom this week sentenced a female victim of gang rape to six months in prison and 200 lashes for being alone with a man who was not her relative.

That’s just fucked up. Why do places like that still exist?

Warner Music CEO says war with consumers was wrong 

“Edgar Bronfman, CEO of the Warner Music Group, has publicly framed the music industry’s failure to accommodate file-sharing as an ‘inadvertent’ war on consumers. I’m left wondering how you can file a series of lawsuits inadvertently. ‘We expected our business would remain blissfully unaffected even as the world of interactivity, constant connection and file sharing was exploding … By … moving at a glacial pace, we inadvertently went to war with consumers by denying them what they wanted and could otherwise find and as a result of course, consumers won.’”

Why autumn colours are so late 

Some say droughts and a warm summer played a role, while others wonder more broadly about global warming. In fact, it’s rising levels of carbon dioxide, not the warmer temperatures fueled by the greenhouse gas, that have been delaying the transformation of green leaves, at least in Europe for a few decades, a new study suggests.

How creativity is being strangled by the law 

I smell a fleecing operation 

This site has a rather nice-sounding marketing slogan: “Every book you read was once a tree. Now you can plant a tree for every book you read.” Unfortunately, that doesn’t really jive well with reality. All the books I’ve owned and read in my entire life would probably only total one, maybe two trees, by volume. And I’ve had a LOT of books in my life; currently I’m sitting on around 500 books, and that’s after selling off a lot last year.

According to the site, it would cost me $450 to plant 500 trees. Again, I smell bullshit. Depending on how close you live to other trees (and for most people in North America, that’s probably most of you) you can plant that many for at or near free. Planting trees is not rocket science. I’ve already planted two in my life, and I wasn’t even old enough to vote at the time. If kids can do it, you can do it. (And for a fuck of a lot less than the outrageous prices they charge.) So the question is: what are they spending that money on?

(Hat tip: Wesa)

StupidFilter: a prophylactic for memetically transmitted diseases 

It would be awesome if this were extended to other classes of software as well; like IM and mail clients, for example. I’m also curious as to the potential implications it could have with artificial intelligence research. I mean, if an AI could evaluate itself and screen itself for stupidity, then it might be a huge leap forward in AI.

NBC Direct Download service launches, mainly serves Bertolli ads 

Way to go, NBC; you’ve successfully fucked over the future of all your content creators by taking away any chance they had at joining the new digital media market. Fix it and/or get your ass back on iTunes, otherwise you’re going to see immense losses over the next few years as your audience shrinks to the size of your CEO’s brain. The only people you’re hurting are the people who make the shows you distribute.

Mobile phone jammers: totally sweet AND awesome 

I’d get one, but I’m not sure I’d need it after February, so there’s probably not much point for me.

(Hat tip: Seguerra)

Why writers get residuals 

This is a very insightful article that really helped me understand the nature of the relationship between the WGA and the studios. It goes into immense detail, but the gist of why the strike is happening is:

• Writers get royalties: for books, for songs, for literary works.
• For legal reasons, studios want to be considered the “author” of a movie. So screenwriters transfer “authorship” to the studios, in exchange for a bunch of rights, and residuals.
• The studios and the WGA disagree about what rate is fair for work distributed over the internet.
• Since internet distribution will eventually replace DVDs, a bad rate would result in a pay cut for writers.
• That’s why there’s a strike.

Weighing the evidence for and dating of Solanum virus outbreaks in early Egypt 

Hierakonpolis is a site famous for its many “firsts,” so many, in fact, it is not easy to keep track of them all. So we are grateful(?) to Max Brooks for bringing to our attention that the site can also claim the title to the earliest recorded zombie attack in history. In his magisterial tome, The Zombie Survival Guide (2003), he informs us that in 1892, a British dig at Hierakonpolis unearthed a nondescript tomb containing a partially decomposed body, whose brain had been infected with the virus (Solanum) that turns people into zombies. In addition, thousands of scratch marks adorned every surface of the tomb, as if the corpse had tried to claw its way out!

Once and for all, proof that Macs are cheaper than PCs 

Why this should be has to do with an economic truth that has not recently mattered much in the computer industry, but that, in an age of eBay and unyielding obsolescence, is now crucial. It is resale value. Macs fetch far more on the aftermarket than do PCs — and after years of use, you can offset that cash-register premium by selling your Mac for a better price than you could your PC.

Taser-wielding RCMP officer ‘like kid with new toy,’ woman says 

Anne Peters said she had tried to tell the officer her husband suffers a neurological disorder and was unable to comprehend language when he’s flustered.

The officer didn’t listen, she said, and shocked her husband with the Taser.

“The police officer was like a kid with a new toy. He couldn’t wait to use it.”

“Well, I was so shocked I couldn’t believe it. He tried to fight him off, right? But he Tasered him anyways — twice.”

Warner Music’s stock collapses; hits new 52-week low 

“As of 10:30 Friday morning, Edgar Bronfman Jr’s. Warner Music Group stock has collapsed. It’s currently selling at around $7.50. The stock reached its 52 week low earlier Friday morning at $7.26. A year ago, WMG was at $27,” Roger Friedman reports for Fox News.

“Even if WMG manages to finish a little higher by the end of Friday, the fact remains that nearly every day of this bear market notches them a little lower. If and when the stock price drops below $7, one wonders how much more primary financiers Thomas Lee and company can take it,” Friedman reports.

“What’s wrong with Warner Music Group? It’s not downloading. It’s lack of music, no artists, no signings, no development of new artists, as well as wildly overpaid executives and bad business deals,” Friedman reports.

See? This is what happens when you treat both your artists and customers like shit and continually rip them off.

Is Jay-Z signaling a recession? 

When I start seeing rap stars flashing euros instead of U.S. dollars, I know our economy is in trouble.

…

When I start seeing rap stars throw around the Canadian Loonie, then I know our economy is really in trouble.

Research material: The Mafia’s ten commandments 

1. No one can present himself directly to another of our friends. There must be a third person to do it.
2. Never look at the wives of friends.
3. Never be seen with cops.
4. Don’t go to pubs and clubs.
5. Always being available for Cosa Nostra is a duty - even if your wife’s about to give birth.
6. Appointments must absolutely be respected.
7. Wives must be treated with respect.
8. When asked for any information, the answer must be the truth.
9. Money cannot be appropriated if it belongs to others or to other families.
10. People who can’t be part of Cosa Nostra: anyone who has a close relative in the police, anyone with a two-timing relative in the family, anyone who behaves badly and doesn’t hold to moral values.

(Hat tip: Kottke)

British mum gives son both the best and worst gift 

And the award for best mom EVER goes to a British mum in Nottingham. Though she’s now claiming she meant to hire a dancing gorilla for her son’s 16th birthday, her loving gift ended up permanently marking her the hero of all teenage boys.

“24” pilot from 1994 

Imagine if 24 was made a decade ago. Internet paid by the hour, pagers, dot-matrix printers, and brick-sized cordless phones.

This is really hilarious, but probably only so if you’re old enough to remember what it was like back then.

Richard Kelly explains the long wait for “Southland Tales” 

Man, was I glad to have a poster with me this time. I told the studio I couldn’t face Comic-Con again without an actual release date. I didn’t want to be the boy who cried wolf. I couldn’t stand feeling like people secretly thought that my movie was never going to come out, and yet I kept showing up, year after year, to promote it anyway.

Very good to hear! I got pretty excited after reading the comics, but I was starting to think the movie was never going to happen.

Choose your own price for Saul Williams/Trent Reznor collaboration 

Saul Williams opened for Trent Reznor on a European tour, and after the second show, Reznor asked him to collaborate on “a song or an album, whichever [he saw] fit.”  The result is an album called The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of NiggyTardust.

Like Radiohead’s In Rainbows, the album can be downloaded for free or purchased online from the same site.  But rather than naming your own price, you choose between two options, both of which come with high-res album art:

    $5: uncompressed FLAC, 320 Kbps MP3, or 192 Kbps MP3
            -or-
    $0: 192 Kbps MP3

Williams writes he “was very inspired by the recent Radiohead release and felt compelled, almost instantly, to follow my gut and expand on their concept.”

iTunes + iPod a monopoly? If so, then dibs on the shoe. 

Adrian Kingsley-Hughes is clearly an ignoramus. Unfortunately, he’s an ignoramus with an online column. Kudos to Dan Moren for putting him in his place.

Radiohead to comScore: you might be wrong 

comScore’s report that only 40 percent of Radiohead fans paid anything for the band’s album download is now being challenged by the band itself.

In a statement provided to MTV and without giving exact figures, the band described comScore’s findings as “wholly inaccurate.” Since the sale was done on a private site, there would have been no way for anyone to know truly how the album sold.

Except, of course, for the band themselves. I’ll take their word over some random poller’s any day.

Whistleblower: AT&T maintained a ‘Secret Room’ for the NSA 

While BetaNews had planned to cover Klein’s remarks on Capitol Hill today, in a strange turn of events, the audio feed for the Senate Judiciary conference room was malfunctioning. A notice to that effect was posted to Web sites that had planned to carry the feed live. Transcripts or recordings of today’s proceedings may yet be made available.

Gee, that’s not suspicious or anything…

Music DRM ‘dead by next summer’ 

Killing DRM is saving digital music, reckons British retailer 7Digital. The company says DRM-free music sales now outnumber sales of DRM-enumbered music by 4:1 , and credits EMI with the shift.

I really hope his prediction comes true! If it does, it’s going to have some pretty far-reaching consequences. It could also signal the beginning of the end of DRM in other mediums, which is a big win for humanity.

Dell Dude now Tequila Dude at Tortilla Flats 

Next time you’re at Tortilla Flats and you find yourself wondering aloud to your dinner companion, “What ever happened to the guy who did the ‘Dude, you’re getting a Dell’ commercials?” don’t be surprised when Ben Curtis, the man himself, approaches your table and explains the tequila list.

In all seriousness, I feel sorry for him in that he’s not able to find any acting work right now. But with the WGA strike on, it’s probably best that he’s got a job now before all the other out-of-workers start snatching them up.

Marvel Comics vs. Science: 5 of the Most Absurd Superhero Origins 

If there’s one thing Stan Lee knew, it was how to create cool, interesting characters that would last for decades and become classic superheroes. And that’s a relief, since it’s arguable this is in fact the only thing Stan Lee knew, judging by the nonsensical origin stories of some of Marvel Comics’ most beloved characters. Whether blasting off to Mars, getting bombarded with radiation or simply watching their families die and vowing to fight crime in a leotard afterwards, Marvel superheroes’ career-starting legends all share a unifying trait: they don’t actually make an ounce of fucking sense.

“We already call cEvin Key Chewbacca, actually.” 

Interview with Ogre from Skinny Puppy (my favourite band of all time) about, well, Star Wars:

To find something as startling as A New Hope when it first aired with its ground-breaking effects is hard. Now the Star Wars prequels have to compete with films that have already caught up with the technology. Its history has almost a parallel with electronic music — in that when it first came out bands would set themselves apart from the rest of the crowd by experimenting with their equipment like we did in Skinny Puppy. And now it’s far more difficult to stand out with all the music programs and equipment that bands have access to.

RAM Arbitrage 

Money quote:

I suppose I can’t actually be mad about this since Apple makes it perfectly possible for informed consumers to buy their own RAM, but at these prices, I would love the ability to save an additional $150 (Apple’s price for one 1GB stick) by having my MacBook ship with no RAM whatsoever.

Wouldn’t we all? Apple’s RAM prices have always been ridiculous. What I have to wonder, though, is whether or not there are actually people who do buy RAM from Apple? I always figured everyone just bought separately.

Pencils down: John August on the WGA strike 

The money quote is actually from the comments:

You’re doing webisodes. That’s one of the things the WGA is trying to cover. And if we succeed, you’ll get health insurance, a pension, and creative protections over your work. If we fail, you won’t. Maybe ever.

You’re an aspiring writer/director. Do you aspire to make features? You probably want your name on them. The last batch of studio proposals took writers’ names off the ads.

Maybe you aspire to write television shows. Would you like to eventually be able to buy a house and raise a family while writing television shows?

I’m highlighting the residuals issue because, frankly, that’s the issue. But all the protections — all the “givens” of working as a screenwriter — exist because of strikes that have happened 20, 40, 60 years ago. Strikes that sucked for writers and everyone else.

You’re right to be frustrated. Be angry. Take advantage of mediums available to you. Because you’re right: It’s a new time with new opportunities. The internet will replace TV. How will writers get paid when it does?

I’m 100% behind this strike, despite the fact that I’m not a guild member. (Yet!) I absolutely want writers to get a fair share of residuals from new digital markets, especially since I plan on doing a lot in those markets. Now granted, I’m not inconvenienced in any way by these strikes — I’m continuing to work on some projects I will (hopefully) be releasing over the next 10 years after I get out of film school — but no matter the inconveniences in the short-term, the long-term benefits will be well worth it.

A revolution is just below the surface 

A pretty fascinating interview with Noam Chomsky:

There is a lot of comparison now of the reaction to the Iraq war with the reaction to the Vietnam war - it’s almost all wrong, there was almost no opposition to the Vietnam war. When the Vietnam war was at the level of the Iraq war today there was almost no opposition. Public protest of the Iraq war is far beyond that of the Vietnam war at any comparable stage.

Trent Reznor was a member of OiNK 

“I’ll admit I had an account there and frequented it quite often. At the end of the day, what made OiNK a great place was that it was like the world’s greatest record store. Pretty much anything you could ever imagine, it was there, and it was there in the format you wanted.”

Everyone knows that OiNK was free to use and this fact was backed up by Trent: “If OiNK cost anything, I would certainly have paid, but there isn’t the equivalent of that in the retail space right now.”

Trent, you’re my new hero.

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