jmcgready’s misc universe

<strong>Cory Doctorow</strong>:
<img src="http://craphound.com/images/purifyingstraw.jpg" width="126" height="140" align="left">

This "water purifying straw" (&pound;8) uses a column of iodine resin to kill viruses and bacteria as you drink from it.

<a href="http://www.strikeforcesupplies.co.uk/stock.php?page=bigpic&item=20014">Link</a>

(<i>via <a href="http://www.enorgis.com/">Red Ferret Review</a></i>)
<br clear="all">

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/11/waterpurifying_straw.html

<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=jmcgreadycom2-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&asins=1582404348&fc1=000000&=1&lc1=0000ff&bc1=000000&lt1=_blank&IS2=1&f=ifr&bg1=ffffff&f=ifr"
width="120"
height="280"
scrolling="no"
marginwidth="0"
marginheight="0"
frameborder="0">
</iframe>

<p>[The following is excerpted from the darkly hilarious book <em>Washington Babylon</em> by Ken Silverstein and Alexander Cockburn. Some edits have been made for readability. Be sure to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1859840922/coolbooks02/">check out <em>Washington Babylon</em></a> for more fun tales of idiocy, corruption, sex, and evil in politics.]</p>

<p>The American body politic has always had its share of boobs and incompetents. H.L. Mencken once wrote that since elections produced such dreadful results, citizens should stop wasting their time voting and simply pick their representatives at random from the phone book. Mencken would have had a fine time with today&#8217;s Congress, especially with the ebullient ferocity of many of the GOP&#8217;s newest members.</p>
<lj-cut text="snip…">
<p>Larry Pressler&#8217;s colleagues once watched in bemusement as the Dakota senator rose from a meeting and mistook a closet door for the exit. The immured Pressler realized his mistake but thought that the best strategy would be to stand pat, wait until everyone else had quit the room, and then slip out. His plan was foiled when a few colleagues decided to sit him out. Some 15 minutes later, a red-faced Pressler made his exit at last.</p>

<p>Rep. Sonny Bono&#8217;s aides worked hard to conceal his meager talents. Bono&#8217;s public relations director, Marilyn Baker, later revealed to the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> that she had to rewrite the mayor&#8217;s agendas into script form so Bono could conduct official business. &#8220;For call to order, I wrote &#8216;sit.&#8217; For salute the flag, I wrote &#8216;stand up, face flag, mouth words.&#8217; For roll call I wrote: &#8216;When you hear your name, say yes&#8217;&#8221;, said Baker, who quit after three depressing months of service.</p>

<p>Ohio&#8217;s Frank Cremeans once declared his opposition to sex before marriage, saying that &#8220;marriage is a very sanctimonious commitment&#8221;. In an interview with a radio station in Marietta, Ohio, during which he discussed Congress&#8217;s first 100 days under Newt Gingrich, Cremeans excitedly declared to the show&#8217;s host, &#8220;Just think about it Mike, we&#8217;re advancing backwards!&#8221;</p>

<p>Nebraska Rep. John Christensen once called a press conference to announce his personal deficit reduction plan, which called for cuts in government spending of $1.5 trillion. When informed by a reporter that $1.5 trillion was the entire budget, Christensen, looking like a deer caught in the headlights, hastily changed topics.</p>

<p>Don Young of Alaska is best known for his rabid attack on ecologists. One hearing on the cruelty of steel-jaw leghold traps was highly charged and Young, as a hunter, trapper and taxidermist, realized dramatic action was required to turn the tide. His solution was to place his hand into a trap he had brought along to the hearing, and then begin to calmly question a witness as though nothing unusual had happened. &#8220;I never told anyone, but it hurt like hell&#8221;, Young later confided to a congressional staffer.</p>

<p><em>For more from</em> Washington Babylon <em>see <a href="http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001403">What is the real purpose of military spending</a>, discussing similar idiocy in the military.</em></p>
</lj-cut>
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/001545
<a href='http://www.crispads.com/spinner/adclick.php?n=acd07207'><img src='http://www.crispads.com/spinner/adview.php?what=zone:271&amp;n=acd07207' border='0' alt=''></a>

<strong>Mark Frauenfelder</strong>:

The Recording Industry Association of America is getting soft. RIAA spokesman Jonathan Lamy announced that they will drop their lawsuit against a woman who died last month at the age of 83 and didn't own a computer.

<blockquote>A group of record companies named Walton as the sole defendant in a federal lawsuit, claiming she made more than 700 songs available for free on the Internet.

<p>Walton's daughter, Robin Chianumba, lived with her mother for the last 17 years and said her mother objected to having a computer in the house.

<p>"My mother wouldn't know how to turn on a computer," Chianumba said.</blockquote><a href="http://www.wftv.com/news/4164623/detail.html?treets=orlc&#38;tml=orlc_strange&#38;ts=T&#38;tmi=orlc_strange_1_10000202042005">Link</a><em>(Thanks, Henry!)</em><br clear="all"><p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?a=uQs8Qv"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?i=uQs8Qv" border="0"></img></a></p>

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/04/riaa_drops_p2p_case_.html

<strong>Cory Doctorow</strong>:
Steve Silberman has turned in a fantastic long feature for Wired Magazine in which he describes the way that the advances in body armor (which doesn't cover legs or arms) has created a new cohort of disabled veterans with missing or badly disabled limbs. Concomittant with this is the rise of terrible, chronic pain, something that is being treated with new technology that blocks specific nerve-endings. This is a disturbing, fascinating piece.

<lj-cut text="more…."><blockquote>
The blocks used by Buckenmaier and his team are made possible by the recent invention of small, microprocessor-controlled pumps which bathe nerves in nonaddictive drugs that discourage the transmission of pain signals. The pumps also can be used for weeks after surgery, enabling soldiers to adjust the level of medication themselves as they need it.
<p>
For soldiers evacuated from the battlefield, the advantages of nerve blocks over traditional methods of pain control are clear. The wounded troops flying in and out of Landstuhl are often in misery or a narcotized stupor, while those treated with blocks remain awake and pain-free despite massive injuries.
<p>
This new war on pain is the brainchild of John Chiles, the Army's chief anesthesiologist. "Places like Duke were doing great things with peripheral nerve blocks, but they had fallen by the wayside in the Army," he says. "I wanted us to be on the cusp of these advances." The Walter Reed program is supported by grants from the Murtha Neuroscience and Pain Institute, founded by the US representative from Pennsylvania. John Murtha, who was wounded in combat in Vietnam, visits the troops once a week at Walter Reed.
</blockquote>
</lj-cut>
<a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/pain.html">Link</a>

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/04/pains_new_victims_pa.html

<strong>David Pescovitz</strong>:
Paul Bourke's iPod-Photo Stereoscope is an exquisite retro tech/new media mash-up:
<lj-cut text="snip…"><blockquote><img src="http://www.boingboing.net/images/_~pbourke_stereographics_ipodphoto_a2005.jpg" height="190" width="253" border="1" align="left" hspace="4" vspace="4" alt=" ~Pbourke Stereographics Ipodphoto A2005" />For those wondering what "stereoscopic" is all about, viewing stereoscopic images give an enhanced depth perception. This is similar to the depth perception we get in real life, the same effect IMAX 3D and many computer games now provide. Stereoscopic viewing of any sort involves independent presentation of a different image, called a stereopair, to each eye. These stereopairs are essentially two different views of the world corresponding to the slightly different views our eyes see because they are separated horizontally….<br><br>
Images can be downloaded to the IPOD-Photo, the images can subsequently be recalled and presented on the colour display. A series of images can also be presented manually or as a self running slide show with some user selected delay between each image. So to use this as a stereoscopic storage and presentation device one simply labels two IPOD-Photos as "left" and "right", the images corresponding to each eye are installed on the appropriate IPOD-Photo.</blockquote>
<a href="http://astronomy.swin.edu.au/%7Epbourke/stereographics/ipodphoto/index2.html">Link</a> <em>(via Leander Kahney's <a href="http://blog.wired.com/cultofmac/">The Cult of Mac</a>)</em>
</lj-cut>
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/04/ipod_stereoscope.html

<strong>David Pescovitz</strong>:
Eureka Aerospace in Pasadena is developing a High Power Electromagnetic System that can fry a vehicle's microchips and slow cars to a halt. According to a Wired News report, the 5 foot by 4 foot antenna array could be mounted on police pursuit vehicles or helicopters. It's slated to be ready for testing by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department by late summer.
<blockquote>
"The beautiful part of using the (microwave) energy is that it leaves the suspect in control of the car," (LA Sheriff's Department Commander Sid Heal) said. "He can steer, he can brake, he just can't accelerate."<br><br>

Another benefit to such a technology, Heal said, is that it would give officers the ability to pinpoint where they want to stop a car — on a freeway overpass, for instance — which would limit a suspect's opportunities for escape.<br><br>

"It's going to change law enforcement tactics," he said.
</blockquote><a href="http://www.wired.com/news/autotech/0,2554,66473,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_4">Link</a>

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/04/winning_car_chases_w.html

<strong>Mark Frauenfelder</strong>:
Wanita Renea Young, 49, or Durango, Colorado was frightened out of her wits when her neighbors, two girls aged 17 and 18, knocked on her door to leave a gift of freshly baked cookies on her porch. She checked herself into the hospital the next day, fearing she had suffered a heart attack as a result of the girl's thoughtless act.

<p>The girls offered to pay the medical bills, but Young took the matter to court. She sued the girls, winning a $900 judgment. The other neighbors who got cookies that night foolishly didn't sue the girls like clever Ms. Young; instead they wrote letters to the court praising the miscreants for their actions. <a href="http://www.dailybreeze.com/news/nationworld/articles/1229527.html">Link</a> <em>(Thanks, Dan!)</em> <br clear="all">

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/04/woman_sues_teenage_g.html

<strong>Xeni Jardin</strong>:

In this month's <em>Wired </em>magazine, a thought-provoking essay by Arthur C. Clarke on roles of tech and sci fi in predicting disasters.

<blockquote>

The New Year dawned with the global family closely following the unfolding tragedy via satellite television and the Web. As the grim images from Banda Aceh, Chennai, Galle, and elsewhere replaced the traditional scenes of celebrations, I realized that it would soon be 60 years since I conceived the communications satellite (in Wireless World, October 1945 — I still think it was a good idea).

<p>

I was also reminded of what Bernard Kouchner, former health minister of France and first UN governor of Kosovo, once said: "Where there is no camera, there is no humanitarian intervention." Indeed, how many of the millions of men and women who donated generously for disaster relief would have done so if they had only read about it in the newspapers?

<p>

But cameras and other communications media have to do more than just document the devastation and mobilize emergency relief. We need to move beyond body counts and aid appeals to find lasting, meaningful ways of supporting Asia's recovery. In that sense, the Asian tsunami becomes a test for information and communications technologies (ICTs) in terms of how they can support humanitarian assistance and human development.

</blockquote><a href="http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/letter.html">Link</a> (<em>Thanks, Blaise Zerega</em>!)

<p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?a=hOtozO"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?i=hOtozO" border="0"></img></a></p>

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/04/wired_arthur_c_clark.html

<strong>Cory Doctorow</strong>:

There's an old truism that any artist who responds to her/his critics comes off looking like an asshole, and no more proof is needed than this, an asinine letter that Rob Schneider published in the form of a <em>full-page paid ad in Variety</em> to respond to a critic who slammed Duece Bigalow Two on the front page of the LA Times. Man, he comes off looking like an asshole in <em>spades</em> here. Full page ad in Variety to publish this twaddle? Christ, that's practically the definition of too much money, not enough sense.

<blockquote>

My name is Rob Schneider and I am responding to your January 26th front page cover story in the LA Times, where you used my upcoming sequel to 'Deuce Bigalow' as an example of why Hollywood Studios are lagging behind the Independents in Academy nominations. According to your logic, Hollywood Studios are too busy making sequels like "Deuce Bigalow' instead of making movies that you would like to see.

<lj-cut text="snip…"><p>

Well Mr. Goldstein, as far as your snide comments about me and my film not being nominated for an Academy Award, I decided to do some research to find what awards you have won.

<p>

I went online and found that you have won nothing. Absolutely nothing. No journalistic awards of any kind, Disappointed, I went to the Pulitzer Prize database of past winners and nominees. I though, surely, there must be an omission. I typed in the name Patrick Goldstein and again, zippo&mdash;nada. No Pulitzer Prizes or nominations for a 'Mr. Patrick Goldstein.' There was, however, a nomination for an Amy Goldstein. I contacted Ms. Goldstein in Rhode Island, she assured me she was not an alias of yours and in fact like most of the World had no idea of our existence.</lj-cut>

</blockquote><a href="http://www.defamer.com/hollywood/gossip/rob-schneider/by-request-rob-schneiders-attack-ad-032113.php">Link</a>

(<i>via <a href="http://waxy.org/links/">Waxy</a></i>)

<p><a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?a=mq867z"><img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/boingboing/iBag?i=mq867z" border="0"></img></a></p>

http://www.boingboing.net/2005/02/04/responding_to_your_c.html