Tag: charlie-stross

Aluminum castings of ant-nests

Anthill Art fills ant colonies with molten aluminum, creating massive, intricate castings of the architecture of the ants’ nests. They’re for sale on Ebay (surprisingly cheap, too), and they’re spectacular. I make casts of ant colonies using molten aluminum to fill the tunnels and chambers of the nest. The result is an amazing sculpture showing the intricate detail of the nest architecture. The cast is then mounted for display on a wood base. Each display has a stainless steel plaque mounted on it with information on the cast and a unique cast number. These make perfect displays for a home or as an educational piece for teachers and professors to display in a science classroom or laboratory. Anthill Art – Artistic and Educational Ant Colony Castings ( Thanks, Fipi Lele! )        

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Aluminum castings of ant-nests

Pee-Wee Herman talks about the remastered Christmas Special and Playhouse episodes

Kembrew writes, “I saw your post in Boing Boing today about Pee-Wee, and coincidentally, I just published a piece on Pee-wee’s Christmas Special . I think it’s the first time Paul Reubens has been interviewed about the upcoming remastered Pee-wee’s Playhouse DVDs that will come out next year.” I previously invoked the term “eye-popping” to describe Pee-wee’s Playhouse, but starting next year, viewers will run the risk of having their eyeballs permanently dislodged from their sockets. “The Christmas Special is going to come out, along with the entire Playhouse series, on Blu-ray,” Reubens tells me. “It’s being remastered now.” “The show was never seen on film,” he says. “The show was shot on film and transferred to tape and edited on tape, and all the effects were done on tape. Then the entire show was put on another tape to broadcast, so there are three or four generations of quality that are lost on every episode. So we went back to the original film elements, and the company I’m working with has recreated every edit in every single show, and recreated all the effects from all the original elements—which we were lucky to have kept.” “It looks unbelievable. It’s so extreme, people are going to freak out when they see it,” Reubens adds. “The detail and clarity and color is amazing.” This means that Gary Panter’s set design, the stop motion animation and other details will come alive in psychedelic high definition. It’s the kids show equivalent of being upgraded from cough syrup to mescaline. Pee-wee’s (remastered) Christmas Adventure: An interview with Paul Reubens [Kembrew McLeod/Little Village]        

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Pee-Wee Herman talks about the remastered Christmas Special and Playhouse episodes

FreeBSD won’t use Intel & Via’s hardware random number generators, believes NSA has compromised them

The maintainers of the security-conscious FreeBSD operating system have declared that they will no longer rely on the random number generators in Intel and Via’s chips , on the grounds that the NSA likely has weakened these opaque hardware systems in order to ease surveillance. The decision is tied to the revelations of the BULLRUN/EDGEHILL programs, wherein the NSA and GCHQ spend $250M/year sabotaging security in standards, operating systems, software, and networks. “For 10, we are going to backtrack and remove RDRAND and Padlock backends and feed them into Yarrow instead of delivering their output directly to /dev/random,” FreeBSD developers said. “It will still be possible to access hardware random number generators, that is, RDRAND, Padlock etc., directly by inline assembly or by using OpenSSL from userland, if required, but we cannot trust them any more.” In separate meeting minutes, developers specifically invoked Snowden’s name when discussing the change. “Edward Snowdon [sic] — v. high probability of backdoors in some (HW) RNGs,” the notes read, referring to hardware RNGs. Then, alluding to the Dual EC_DRBG RNG forged by the National Institute of Standards and Technology and said to contain an NSA-engineered backdoor, the notes read: “Including elliptic curve generator included in NIST. rdrand in ivbridge not implemented by Intel… Cannot trust HW RNGs to provide good entropy directly. (rdrand implemented in microcode. Intel will add opcode to go directly to HW.) This means partial revert of some work on rdrand and padlock.” “We cannot trust” Intel and Via’s chip-based crypto, FreeBSD developers say [Dan Goodin/Ars Technica]        

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FreeBSD won’t use Intel & Via’s hardware random number generators, believes NSA has compromised them

Spooks of Warcraft: how the NSA infiltrated gamespace

A new Snowden leak details how he NSA and GCHQ tasked its agents to infiltrate Second Life, World of Warcraft, and other MMOs to find jihadis and spy on them. The battalions of undercover orcs did indeed take much of gamespace, but there’s no evidence they ever spotted a plot. I was once questioned by members of an “unnamed branch of the State Department” at a games and public diplomacy event about the likelihood that jihadis were playing MMOs; and I said something like, “Sure, of course. Everyone plays MMOs.” I didn’t realize they’d take it all quite so much to heart. The absurdity of sending spies to infiltrate Warcraft can best be understood as a natural outflow of the doctrine that holds that if any two bad guys, anywhere in the world, can communicate in such a way that the NSA can’t listen in on them, all of society will crumble. Once you set yourself the insane task of eavesdropping on all conversations, everywhere, always, it’s inevitable that you’ll send Secret Squirrel and his pals to Azeroth. At the request of GCHQ, the NSA had begun a deliberate effort to extract World of Warcraft metadata from their troves of intelligence, and trying to link “accounts, characters and guilds” to Islamic extremism and arms dealing efforts. A later memo noted that among the game’s active subscribers were “telecom engineers, embassy drivers, scientists, the military and other intelligence agencies”. The UK agency did not stop at World of Warcraft, though: by September a memo noted GCHQ had “successfully been able to get the discussions between different game players on Xbox Live”. Meanwhile, the FBI, CIA, and the Defense Humint Service were all running human intelligence operations – undercover agents – within the virtual world of Second Life. In fact, so crowded were the virtual worlds with staff from the different agencies, that there was a need to try to “deconflict” their efforts – or, in other words, to make sure each agency wasn’t just duplicating what the others were doing. By the end of 2008, such human intelligence efforts had produced at least one usable piece of intelligence, according to the documents: following the successful takedown of a website used to trade stolen credit card details, the fraudsters moved to Second Life – and GCHQ followed, having gained their first “operational deployment” into the virtual world. This, they noted, put them in touch with an “avatar [game character] who helpfully volunteered information on the target group’s latest activities”. Second Life continued to occupy the intelligence agencies’ thoughts throughout 2009. One memo noted the game’s economy was “essentially unregulated” and so “will almost certainly be used as a venue for terrorist laundering and will, with certainty, be used for terrorist propaganda and recruitment”. Revealed: spy agencies’ covert push to infiltrate virtual world of online games [James Ball/The Guardian]        

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Spooks of Warcraft: how the NSA infiltrated gamespace

Medieval kids’ birch-bark doodles

Michael sez, “Apparently medieval Russian schoolroooms used birch bark for things like writing practice. Erik Kwakkel, medieval book historian at Leiden University, Netherlands, has some charming photos of stick-figure illustrations on bark by kids who, like kids everywhere, got a bit bored with the lesson and started doodling in the margins. There are links to more images (and an interesting scholarly article) at the bottom of the post .” The most special items, however, are the ones shown above, which are from a medieval classroom. In the 13th century, young schoolboys learning to write filled these scraps with alphabets and short texts. Bark was ideal material for writing down things with such a short half-life. Then the pupils got bored and started to doodle, as kids do: crude drawings of individuals with big hands, as well as a figure with a raised sword standing next to a defeated beast (lower image). The last one was drawn by Onfim, who put his name next to the victorious warrior. The snippets provide a delightful and most unusual peek into a 13th-century classroom, with kids learning to read – and getting bored in the process. Medieval kids’ doodles on birch bark [Erik Kwakkel] ( Thanks, Michael ! )        

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Medieval kids’ birch-bark doodles

China launches lunar probe

The China National Space Administration has launched Chang’e 3, a plutonium-powered lunar lander on-board at 185-foot-tall Long March 3B rocket. The lander is on a four-day trajectory for the lunar surface, and will brake and enter lunar orbit on December 6th. It is scheduled to land on December 14th, in the Bay of Rainbows (Sinus Iridum). The rover masses 140kg, with nuclear heaters to keep systems alive during the two-week-long lunar nights, and will use radar to probe the lunascape as it roves during its mission. It is also outfitted with high-resolution panoramic cameras and telescopes. The Chinese space program’s stated goal is to establish a space-station and autonomous landers that can return to Earth with samples. “On behalf of the Xichang Satellite Launch Center and the command headquarters, I would like to extend my gratitude to all those who have been part of the project,” said Zhang Zhenzhong, director of the Xichang launch base. “And my thanks also go to all the friends who have been helping us throughout the whole process. “The Chang’e probe is on the way to the moon. Of course, it’s a symbol of China’s national power and prowess,” Zhang said in post-launch remarks translated into English on China’s state-run television. Over the next few days, Chang’e 3 will adjust its path toward the moon three times to set up for a critical rocket burn to enter lunar orbit Dec. 6. Landing on the moon is scheduled for Dec. 14 in a region known as Bay of Rainbows, or Sinus Iridum, on the upper-left part of the moon as viewed from Earth. Many of the mission’s specifications and objectives remained secret until the week of launch, when China rolled out details in a press briefing and through official state-owned media outlets. The lander carries a bipropellant rocket engine designed to adjust its power level and pivot to control the probe’s descent from an altitude of 15 kilometers, or about 9 miles, according to China’s state-run Xinhua news agency. Long March rocket blasts off with Chinese lunar rover [Stephen Clark/Spaceflight Now]        

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China launches lunar probe

New CC licenses: tighter, shorter, more readable, more global

Creative Commons has released version 4.0 of its sharing-friendly, easy-to-use copyright licenses . The new licenses represent a significant improvement over earlier versions. They work in over 60 jurisdictions out of the box, without having to choose different versions depending on which country you’re in; they’re more clearly worded; they eliminate confusion over jurisdiction-specific rights like the European database right and moral rights. They clarify how license users are meant to attribute the works they use; provide for anonymity in license use; and give license users a 30 day window to correct violations, making enforcement simpler. Amazingly, they’re also shorter than the previous licenses, and easier to read, to boot. 30-day window to correct license violations All CC licenses terminate when a licensee breaks their terms, but under 4.0, a licensee’s rights are reinstated automatically if she corrects a breach within 30 days of discovering it. The cure period in version 4.0 resembles similar provisions in a some other public licenses and better reflects how licensors and licensees resolve compliance issues in practice. It also assures users that provided they act promptly, they can continue using the CC-licensed work without worry that they may have lost their rights permanently. Increased readability The 4.0 license suite is decidedly easier to read and understand than prior versions, not to mention much shorter and better organized. The simplified license structure and use of plain language whenever possible increases the likelihood that licensors and reusers will understand their rights and obligations. This improves enforceability of the licenses and reduces confusion and disagreement about how the licenses operate. Clarity about adaptations The BY and BY-NC 4.0 licenses are clearer about how adaptations are to be licensed, a source of confusion for some under the earlier versions of those licenses. These licenses now clarify that you can apply any license to your contributions you want so long as your license doesn’t prevent users of the remix from complying with the original license. While this is how 3.0 and earlier versions are understood, the 4.0 licenses make it abundantly clear and will help remixers in understanding their licensing obligations. What’s New in 4.0        

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New CC licenses: tighter, shorter, more readable, more global

LED stickers: turn your notebook into a lightshow

Noah Swartz writes, “Jie Qi from the MIT Media Lab and Bunnie Huang of Hacking the Xbox fame have teamed up to make LED stickers! Using adhesive copper tape you can turn any notebook into a fantastical light up circuit sketchbook. I got to play with them myself at FOO Camp and they’re as easy to use as the look, and in the time since Ji and Bunnie have gone back to the lab and made a number of sensor and controller stickerss that give you loads of options of what to make. They’re running a fundraiser to do a big production run of these over at Crowdsupply, and while they have funding I’m sure lots of people will be kicking themselves if they don’t manage to grab some of these while they can.” Circuit Stickers ( Thanks, Noah! )        

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LED stickers: turn your notebook into a lightshow

TSA blows a billion bucks on unscientific "behavioral detection" program, reinvents phrenology

10 years and $900M later, the TSA’s behavioral analysis program is a debacle . Here’s the US General Accountability Office on the program : “Ten years after the development of the SPOT program, TSA cannot demonstrate the effectiveness of its behavior detection activities. Until TSA can provide scientifically validated evidence demonstrating that behavioral indicators can be used to identify passengers who may pose threat to aviation security, the agency risks funding activities [that] have not been determined to be effective.” Basically, the TSA has spent a decade and nearly a billion dollars reinventing phrenology. I feel safer already. For the report, GAO auditors looked at the outside scientific literature, speaking to behavioral researchers and examining meta-analyses of 400 separate academic studies on unmasking liars. That literature suggests that “the ability of human observers to accurately identify deceptive behavior based on behavioral cues or indicators is the same as or slightly better than chance (54 percent).” That result holds whether or not the observer is a member of law enforcement. It turns out that all of those signs you instinctively “know” to indicate deception usually don’t. Lack of eye contact for instance simply does not correlate with deception when examined in empirical studies. Nor do increases in body movements such as tapping fingers or toes; the literature shows that people’s movements actually decrease when lying. A 2008 study for the Department of Defense found that “no compelling evidence exists to support remote observation of physiological signals that may indicate fear or nervousness in an operational scenario by human observers.” TSA’s got 94 signs to ID terrorists, but they’re unproven by science [Nate Anderson/Ars Technica]        

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TSA blows a billion bucks on unscientific "behavioral detection" program, reinvents phrenology