http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/blogspot/MKuf/~3/ts3-LF8b4P0/ordinary-citizens-extraordinary-videos.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/pGuSpPFIWhQ/fruit-of-the-boom.html

The photo series also includes separate detail shots of explosive powder packet, and the syringe which, according to reports, contained some sort of acid that was to aid in the detonation process—thankfully, it failed. A quick YouTube search yields several videos of questionable origin with titles like "PETN 40" and "PETN 50 UNDERWATER," presumably X grams of the explosive being detonated. If the videos and quantities are legit, it really is frightening to imagine what 80 grams in the dude's drawers could have done if he'd succeeded.

This is the creepiest wide-distribution media image I can remember seeing for many years. What distasteful internet parodies and fetish riffs may yet come?

What better way to round out this scorched and shitty decade than to gaze thoughtfully into the charred, soiled underpants of a stranger. A troubled young man who seems to have hated America only as much as he hated his own junk.

EXCLUSIVE: Photos of the Northwest Airlines Flight 253 Bomb (ABC NEWS)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/_5gF0uQ_8jY/meet-oscar-the-naked.html

Oscar is a lady cockatoo who's had a hard life, but survived it to find happiness and love. Her life story is like a Hallmark movie for the Internet.

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/VfYQ744hZRs/man_looks_up_baseball_on

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/man_looks_up_baseball_on?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/tSEIuxr_DEs/greatest_super_bowl_ever

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/greatest_super_bowl_ever?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/lp9aGKKTYek/on_basketball_in_2009

http://www.theonion.com/content/sports_fan/on_basketball_in_2009?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://feeds.theonion.com/~r/theonion/weekly/~3/9fHjVQp1gU0/kobe_bryant_proves_he_can_win

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/kobe_bryant_proves_he_can_win?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/jdURdFDjJVg/star-warsa-team-intr.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/sKd-3021eJI/five-storytelling-ri.html

1. Jake actually betrays the Na'vi

Our hero's journey is smooth sailing: Jake so badly needs his destination that there's never much ambivalence about the journey. This lack of internal conflict manifests when the Na'vi tribe rejects him: his only betrayal of them is the plain fact of his original mission, which he'd had abandoned in any case. Wasn't it obvious that he might be telling others what he'd learned about the tribe? As the first "warrior" dreamwalker, no less.

If Jake instead pursued an explicit and timely opportunity to betray his new friends, his 'going native' afterward would have been a powerful moral turning point rather than a faint point on a 'character arc.'

2. Give his rival some balls

In Dune, off-worlder Paul Atreides is forced to kill to gain acceptance with the locals when his own kind finally forces him into the wilds. In Avatar, however, Jake only has to show up on a fancy ride. Instead of becoming a nonentity after their earlier aikido warmup, Na'vi chief-to-be Tsu-tey could have drawn a line in the moss: I represent the caution and tradition of my people, and you'll have to beat me down to change and lead us. If Jake has to defeat, even kill an ally who hates him, it tarnishes his character--but Pandora is red in tooth and claw, after all, and it is what he's fighting for.

3. The savages show how smart they are

Jake masters the bow and horse. Why not let one of the Na'vi surprise everyone by getting to grips with some of that weird sky-people tech? And perhaps even do a little betrayal of his or her own.

4. Show the colonel's hidden depths

You can't just let Steven Lang take a role like that and then bury him in cartoon villainy. Colonel Quaritch is evidently a spiritually blasted former soldier who went private-sector after tiring of fighting dirty wars. As Lang says in an interview, "I didn't play a villain; I played a man who is doing his job the best way that he can." But he isn't given much space for that nuance by the script. For example, he knows that his brief is to protect a blood diamond operation, not patriotic duty, and yet in his climactic battle with Jake, he asks him how he could betray his people. What he really means is, "How could you not be a soldier, son?"

In the movie, Jake simply snarls. A retort would be sweeter. "Is that what they told you when you quit Venezuela?" does the the trick. The Colonel knows he's lost, after all, and getting irony thrown in his face offers him a chance to choose his own doom--without any need for the leaden pathos that often comes with such turnarounds. Consider the many suggestions that Quaritch is the only human on Pandora to feel at home there in his own body--he is much more like the Na'vi than he'd like to admit.

5. Kill Carter Burke

That brings us to the disinterested corporate apparatchik in charge of the whole show. He's the real villain of the piece, who gives the natives none of the respect offered them by his soldiers and scientists, at least until his decisions' moral consequences are thrown in his face by Ripley.

Wait... wrong movie. In any case, Mr. Cameron had the right idea the first time around. Kill the slimeball--or better yet, let an alien do it.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/1axEI9rpFJA/inside-the-kinda-sec.html

I have newfound respect for online moderators who slog through potentially problematic user content all day. They get a real glimpse into the downside of humanity.

Facebook developers recently initiated me into Facebook Community Council, a secret shadow organization of vigilantes who destroy the content of ne'er-do-wells and miscreants. Our Council's blood oath: "To harness the power and intelligence of Facebook users to support us in keeping Facebook a trusted and vibrant community."

There's a whiff of McCarthyism or worse to the whole notion of people in a community reporting others for un-Facebookian activities. I signed up immediately. Immediately after I passed a tutorial and got certified, I got a long hard look at the seamy underbelly of Facebook and the nebulous concept of "community standards."

Turns out Facebook Community Council is less like vigilantism and more like beta-testing a crowdsourced tagging system where you are limited to one of eight options each time. Four are self-explanatory: Spam, Acceptable, Skip, Not English. The other four are the key problem areas, and I saw plenty of all of the specified naughtiness over time:

-Nudity (such as "visibility of pubic hair or genitalia, the display of sex toys, and solicitation of cybersex")

-Drugs (especially promotion or use of "drugs illegal in the United States... This includes depictions of marijuana plants/leaf logos. This does not include the use of alcohol or tobacco...")

-Attacking ("direct attacks on non public figures")

-Violence (such as "visible mutilation of humans (including self-harm) or sadistic violence against animals... images of urine, feces, vomit, and semen.")

Yum! Your tags are then compared to other Community Council members', and if there's enough of a match, some sort of action is apparently taken. It's strangely hypnotic, like Google Image labeler, mainly because you want to see how bad the next reported page or group is.

The majority are acceptable, reported by some overly sensitive person. The main categories of reported pages are:

• Pointwhoring for networks within the network: Mafia Wars, Farmville, etc.


• Regular whoring (escorts, nude models, sex workers, etc.)


• Middle and high school teachers who suck


• Middle and high school students who suck


• Soccer teams and players who suck


• TV talent show competitors who suck


• Bands and hip-hop artists who suck


• Religions that suck


• Hate groups masquerading as pride groups (lots of "white pride", etc.)


• Gingers


• Chavs


• Ginger chavs

Whew! That was a lot of detail! If that bugs you, I recommend joining a flagged Facebook group I marked Acceptable:

i hate it when people go into detail about everything.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/mon-december-28-2009/12-28-09-in--60-seconds?xrs=rss_tdsvids

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/wWAxtSTNhHc/weekly-world-news-on.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/FCmNALYo78U/kim-peek-inspiration.html

"He was the Mount Everest of memory," Dr. Darold A. Treffert, an expert on savants who knew Mr. Peek for 20 years, said in an interview.

Mr. Peek had memorized so many Shakespearean plays and musical compositions and was such a stickler for accuracy, his father said, that they had to stop attending performances because he would stand up and correct the actors or the musicians.

"He'd stand up and say: 'Wait a minute! The trombone is two notes off,' " (his father) Fran Peek said.

Mr. Peek had an uncanny facility with the calendar.

"When an interviewer offered that he had been born on March 31, 1956, Peek noted, in less than a second, that it was a Saturday on Easter weekend," Dr. Treffert and Dr. Daniel D. Christensen wrote about Mr. Peek in Scientific American in 2006.

They added: "He knows all the area codes and ZIP codes in the U.S., together with the television stations serving those locales. He learns the maps in the front of phone books and can provide MapQuest-like travel directions within any major U.S. city or between any pair of them. He can identify hundreds of classical compositions, tell when and where each was composed and first performed, give the name of the composer and many biographical details, and even discuss the formal and tonal components of the music. Most intriguing of all, he appears to be developing a new skill in middle life. Whereas before he could merely talk about music, for the past two years he has been learning to play it."

http://www.snopes.com/crime/clever/wheelbarrow.asp

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/fEFHfg8H-BA/photos-of-standpipes.html

http://www.flight404.com/blog/?p=397

This is how all my projects begin.

There is no red, green or blue. A complete absence of content or meaning. Anything can exist there. Any form. All possible worlds. But for now, it is the computational equivalent of nothingness.

Darkness within darkness. The gate to all mystery.

When I decided to attend art school, I was going to major in painting. I had a decent technique. I knew what paints to buy. I knew which brushes would last the longest. I would buy a large canvas, prep it with gesso, and then just sit and stare. Making that first mark was hard for me. I envied those that were able to just dive right in, seeming to know exactly where they wanted to end up. I was not like them. I wanted to plan it all out in my head before starting. As a result, I wasn’t a very good painter.

It is like the eternal void: filled with infinite possibilities.

My hesitance stems from not knowing what I want to create. When I start a new project, I occasionally have an idea in mind but far more often I simply want to create something new. I want to start down a path. I do not know where I want to go but I know that I want to go somewhere.

A good traveler has no fixed plans
and is not intent upon arriving.
A good artist lets his intuition
lead him wherever it wants.

All I need to do is place brush to canvas. The simple act of starting is enough. I need not know where I want to go. By simply going, regardless of which direction I choose, I will be well on my way. Even if I do not yet know where that destination lies.

A journey of a thousand li begins with a single step.

Next up: Taking that first step.

The quotes in this post are from the Tao Te Ching, as interpreted by either Stephen Mitchell or Jane English and Gia-fu Feng.

http://www.flight404.com/blog/?p=384

I have been maintaining this blog since July 2005. Sometimes I post frequently, as often as once per day. Usually the frequency is closer to once per month. However, in that month there are usually several posts that were partially written and abandoned because I felt I wasn’t offering anything new. At some point I inevitably start to think, “Everyone knows this stuff so why bother writing it out.” It’s like I’m writing to tell you all that bacon tastes really good. Everyone knows that bacon tastes really good so what is the use in telling you.

Many of you have a stronger grasp on coding because you studied it in school or have just been doing it a lot longer than I. Many of you have a weaker grasp on coding because you are coming at it from a different discipline and just haven’t been doing it for very long. Some of you are only interested in source code. Some of you are only interested in viewing the outcome. Some want to know my inspirations. Some want to know about the tech. Some of you want music videos and send me links to your myspace page. To appeal equally to all of you is an impossible task.

I have decided that I will start publishing more of the abandoned posts. Hopefully, you will learn a bit more about why I do what I do, instead of just reading about what I have done. What’s the harm, right? It’s not like you can leave me mean comments. I turned those off long ago.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/9W4GBUUCa5k/japanese-space-food.html

In Tokyo yesterday, I bought three packs of Japanese space food at a science museum. Pictured here are a pack of daigaku imo (candied sweet potatoes) and takoyaki (balls of batter with octopus in them). I tried takoyaki, chocolate cake, and pudding. They were all pretty decent, but the pudding — advertised as not too sweet, with a smooth, melting texture — was the only one that I could actually see myself wanting to eat again. For six bucks, though, I think I'll stick to real food as long as I'm on earth.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/kM5Z7Y0UR0c/listen-up-little-lad.html

GirlTalk Radio is a podcast made by girls who love math and science. Hosted by 11-to-16 year olds, the program features interviews with diverse cadre of science-minded women—from stem cell researchers and computer scientists, to marine biologists and computational linguists. Even a CIA intelligence officer. Worth a listen for geek girls of all ages. (Thanks, Deborah Berebichez!)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/JXrD6dBsPcc/president-obama-its.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/JpzSNElFG5w/demi-moores-lawyers.html

(Click for large. Two versions of W Magazine cover featuring Demi Moore, one for the US edition, one for Korea. Note the apparent difference in the area around the hip. Comparison here.)

Lawyers representing Demi Moore sent a threatening letter to Boing Boing over the holidays which demanded that we remove a post I published in November, or face legal consequences. In the referenced Boing Boing post, I published photographer Anthony Citrano's speculation that a recent W Magazine cover image of the actress may have been crudely manipulated by magazine staff to alter her hip, and appear thinner.

And here is Boing Boing's response to Ms. Moore's attorneys (PDF), prepared by Marc Mayer of the law firm MS&K. The letter is a thing of beauty, and I encourage you to read it in full.

The letter from Moore's attorney, Martin D. ("Marty") Singer, claims that we set out to slander Moore (Boing Boing did not, nor did Mr. Citrano).  The letter also includes denials from people involved in the production of the W Magazine cover who insist that the image was not manipulated at all.

Since receiving this letter, we have discovered that an alternate, and seemingly more anatomically correct version of the W magazine cover (with more hip-flesh) was published in W's South Korean edition. We have also been informed that Ms. Moore's attorneys have sent similar letters to other blogs that discussed the possible digital alteration of the US cover image. The story is now being covered by a number of other news organizations and blogs.

A little background: Digital manipulation of photo and video content (good, bad, or disastrous) is an often-revisited subject here on Boing Boing. A quick Google search reveals that more than 3,600 items in the boingboing.net archives reference the digital alteration of images with Photoshop. A series of Boing Boing posts in September and October of this year examining how a Ralph Lauren model was slimmed to impossibly slender proportions became the subject of widespread media interest, and legal threats directed at this blog from Ralph Lauren's camp.

But fashion photos aren't the only digitally altered images to have been discussed on Boing Boing.

Sometimes the "Photoshop Disasters" we blog have more critical news value. Back in 2008, I blogged about an image credited to Iran's state-run media agency that showed multiple missiles defiantly shooting into the sky. The LA Times, New York Times and other major news organizations ran the image as legitimate. Our readers and other "citizen forensic analysts" discussed the image, and proved it to have been altered to fake the appearance of more missiles, thereby implying greater military strength on Iran's part. Still earlier, in 2003, our readers spotted and discussed an anomaly within a photo about soldiers in Iraq published in the New York Times. And way back in 2001, we blogged about a hoaxed image that purported to be an unaltered shot taken seconds before a plane crashed into the World Trade Center on 9/11.

So, back to Ms. Moore: On November 17, 2009, I published the Boing Boing post titled "Was Demi Moore Ralph-Laurenized on 'W' mag cover, with missing hip-flesh?." This post consisted entirely of a guest editorial of sorts from Anthony Citrano, a Los Angeles-based professional photographer with whom I am socially acquainted.

In the post, Mr. Citrano examined the possibility that a W Magazine cover featuring Demi Moore had been digitally altered in a manner that left clues indicating it had been altered. Specifically, it looked like a portion of her hip had gone missing. Before I published the Boing Boing post, the Gawker Media blog Jezebel had already asked the same questions, and other blogs and news/tabloid websites soon followed.

Within days, Ms. Moore responded on Twitter to deny that her hips had been digitally altered ("Here is the original image people my hips were not touched don't let these people bullshit you!"), and linked to another version of the W Magazine cover shot which she claimed was "the original image."

I promptly published another Boing Boing post with the full text of Ms. Moore's denial, and an offer from Mr. Citrano to make a $5,000 donation to a charity of Ms. Moore's choosing if the image she'd published were provably the unretouched original.

Boing Boing commenters discussed the possibilities that the disputed image was or was not retouched, and the technical methods one might employ to alter, or detect alterations, in such an image. The UK newspaper Telegraph went so far as to publish an article speculating that Ms. Moore's head may have been photoshopped onto another model's body. Interest in the story gradually fizzled out on our blog, and other websites where the matter had been discussed.

But then, weeks later, we received a letter from Mr. Singer, the attorney representing Ms. Moore. So did Jezebel, Anthony Citrano, and the blog Oh No They Didn't. Citrano published a detailed post examining image forensics. Links to all known responses, and to ensuing media coverage, at the bottom of this post.

If there is any party we feel is due criticism, it is not Moore, a beautiful 47-year-old who proves that age is no impediment to youth—but rather those who apparently feel that no-one is fit to be seen without some aspect of his or her appearance being "worked."

In fact, it's now practically unheard of for an image to go from camera to press without some degree of digital manipulation. When fashion photographers Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott write (in the statement accompanying the letter we received from Ms. Moore's attorney) that no retouching whatsoever was done to Moore's hips, waist or legs, it's an unusual claim: perhaps they would consider releasing other photographs from the shoot to help clear up the matter.

At no point was it the intent of this blog, or this blogger, to insult or offend Ms. Moore, who has embraced the openness of internet culture by way of frequent and intimate Twitter updates. Discussions about whether and/or how a widely circulated image may have been altered are common here on Boing Boing. We are a blog about digital culture, after all, and the technical and creative details that go into producing the images we consume are an essential part of our culture.

Yes, the discussion at hand is only about an image of a celebrity on the cover of a fashion magazine. But the ability to freely discuss the provenance and technical history of a photo, including those with more crucial news value—say, images of detainee abuse, or Iranian missles—is a freedom we believe should be preserved.

RELATED URLS:

Letter sent by Demi Moore's attorneys to Boing Boing (PDF).

Response to Ms. Moore's attorneys, prepared by Marc Mayer of MS&K.

Demi Moore cover image, "W Magazine Korea" and direct JPG link.

Demi Moore cover image, W Magazine US

Anthony Citrano's responses to threat letter from Demi Moore's attorneys:

1) first response blog post

2) Singer's letter to Citrano, published in PDF

3) blog post on Korean W Magazine cover

Jezebel's response to threat letter from Demi Moore's attorneys.

Oh No They Didn't responds to threat letter from Demi Moore's attorneys

NEWS LINKS: Media coverage of the controversy over threat letters sent by Demi Moore's attorneys:

New York Magazine

New York Post

Litigation and Trial (legal affairs blog)

MSNBC

The Sun

MediaPost

Techdirt

Huffington Post

NBC New York

Contactmusic

Politics Daily

Correio 24 Horas (Brazil)

The Hollywood Reporter, Esq.

US Magazine

Related reading: Wikipedia entry on "The Streisand Effect."

Image comparison below, courtesy Boing Boing reader Erin Waddington.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/gF9Gk-PcKS0/time-lapse-video-of-1.html

I've seen the northern lights once, at a cabin weekend in Wisconsin a couple of years ago. It's a strange thing to experience, especially at that latitude, where the lights aren't as in-your-face as this photo. For the first minute or so, you kind of wonder whether you're hallucinating. Then you realize that everybody else is standing perfectly still and silent, staring at the exact same point in the sky.

This time-lapse video (you'll have to follow the link to watch) shows a far more spectacular display over the Ringebu Fjell in southern Norway, captured by photographer Bernd Proschold. The moment when the clouds clear away, and the lights burst into view is absolutely breathtaking.

The World At Night: A Glimpse of the Far North

(Thanks, Chris Combs!)

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/hDzZOXPCBHE/fun-with-wikipedia-c.html

Working between Christmas and New Year's? Still with relatives for the holidays and looking for a Christmas-themed way to pass the time till your flight home? You can play a game with coworkers or family called Click to Jesus.†

1. Go over to Wikipedia.
2. Click "Random Article" just below the Wikipedia unfinished Death Star logo. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
3. Choose the link in the article you think will get you closest to the Jesus article.
4. Keep track of the articles. Continue step 3 until you arrive at Jesus.

Scoring:
1 point for Random page
1 point for each click
1 point for Jesus page

Tally and compare with friends!
† Fun variants include Click to Buddha, Click to Muhammad, Click to Hitler, or Click to Cher. Sadly, Click to Raptor Jesus can no longer be played, since that article was merged to "internet meme" after heated debate.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/SZrBEfqxcdM/welcome-to-the-boing-1.html

I'm a writer, activist and filmmaker. I wrote ads in Chicago for ten years, which led me into consumer activism that focuses on quackery and fraud, especially in medicine and academia.</p>

I also work on behalf of the transgender community. I maintain Transsexual Road Map, a site on the practical aspects of gender transition, and HairFacts, a spinoff general-market site on hair removal. In 2003, I moved to LA and co-founded Deep Stealth Productions, to counter the dismal depiction of trans people in the media and to expand my earlier web-based educational efforts. I founded GenderMedia Foundation and serve on the board of Outfest, which showcases and preserves LGBTQ media, as well as TransYouth Family Allies, which helps families with gender-variant children.

I am also very interested in online phenomena like hoaxes, trolling, the free culture movement, social networking, and crowdsourcing projects like Wikipedia. Please email me with any tips or thoughts you'd like to share, or just to say hi!

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/I2ZsBa874qY/odd-victorias-secret.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/2kvZ-6liymc/gsm-security-defeate.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/yGaFVfLtKvc/do-new-post-pantsbom.html

Buried in the TSA security directive issued to airlines on Saturday, after a Nigerian man reportedly attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound flight, is this:

1. During flight, the aircraft operator must ensure that the following procedures are followed (...)

# Disable aircraft-integrated passenger communications systems and services (phone, internet access services, live television programming, global positioning systems) prior to boarding and during all phases of flight.

For what it's worth, when I flew back into the US on Saturday on an international Delta flight, the WiFi service which had been promised on the flight was disabled for the entire flight. When I asked attendants whether internet access was simply not working, or had been disabled, two attendants replied that WiFi is typically only offered during the last hour of the flight, and would not be available at all because of restrictions on "last hour" acvitity.

Saturday's TSA directive was initially aimed at international flights, but portions have also been implemented haphazardly on an assortment of domestic US flights, too ("keep 'em on their toes!" seems to be the prevailing explanation for the lack of consistency in implementation). This TSA Q&A for travelers doesn't answer the question. (Leaked text of directive from Boarding Area blog, via Jason Calacanis)

UPDATE, 10am PT: I reached out to sources at US-based airlines today by email, and one replied to say that as presently understood, the TSA directive has not yet been implemented on domestic flights. Some international flights connect within the US, however, and if in-flight internet is disabled on that aircraft, they typically cannot turn the service back on until the plane "overnights" somewhere.

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/RItiFoVJL4w/robohamster.html

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/JB9cRMjVNbY/one-of-2009s-hot-new.html

That's an Eastern Pacific black ghostshark, native to the coast of southern California. It's one of 94 new species the California Academy of Sciences documented in 2009. Ghostsharks (or chimaeras) are, unsurprisingly, related to sharks, but only distantly. Their evolutionary path branched away from their better-known cousins some 400 million years ago. What makes them different? Among other things, retractable sexual appendages on the foreheads of the males.

California Academy of Sciences: New Species of "Ghostshark" Named By Academy Researchers
Treehugger: 94 New Species Described by the California Academy of Sciences in 2009

http://www.theonion.com/content/news_in_photos/timeline_the_evolution?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://www.theonion.com/content/video/nascar_coach_reveals_winning?utm_source=onion_rss_daily

http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/lMJHR8dkxwc/ten-for-2010-the-10.html

DeathSpank [Hothead, PC/PS3/Xbox 360]

Hopes are high for Penny Arcade Adventures dev Hothead's upcoming DeathSpank to be the Brutal Legend of 2010, not for its mechanical or thematic similarities, but rather its pedigree.

The game marks the return of original grump Ron Gilbert, creator of LucasArts classics Monkey Island and Maniac Mansion, leading this loot-packing Diablo-esque action/RPG crossed with, well, genuine humor, still one of the things games desperately need more of.

Fez [Polytron, Xbox Live Arcade]

The excitement for Fez isn't just based on its inimitable style or perspective-shifting basics, though both obviously help: in helping to debut the game at Austin GDC I got a much longer look at the progress it's made since its Independent Games Festival debut and couldn't be more excited for the direction it's headed and the aspects yet to be revealed.

Though similarities to Super Paper Mario's dimensional shifts are still being drawn elsewhere, Fez does far more with its z-axis than anyone before has dared, making progress through its world directly reliant on cutting a path through each of its four sides.

Joe Danger [Hello Games, platform TBD]

UK upstart Hello Games came out of nowhere in 2009 -- well, not nowhere, their Voltron-like team is formed of former Kuju and Criterion leads on games like Burnout 3, Black, Geometry Wars Galaxies and Sega Superstars Tennis -- and their indie debut game Joe Danger rose meteorically to many top most wanted lists, especially after its debut at Eurogamer's 2009 Expo (from which the video above was leaked).

Forget the recent World Rally WiiWare remake: Joe Danger is the 21st century Excitebike we didn't know we wanted, with a gorgeous toy-like blue-sky aesthetic and a firm handle on stunt- and trick-jumping that rivals even Trials HD for expert handling.

NightSky [Nicalis, WiiWare]

Apparently lost in deep-sleep stasis somewhere in a cryo chamber hidden deep within Nintendo, NightSky should have been one of 2009's best, but -- with any luck -- will move on to top 2010 lists.

As good a bedtime-story game as we'll probably ever get, NightSky comes from Nicklas 'Nifflas' Nygren -- the same Knytt creator that only weeks ago surprised debuted best-of-2009 champ Saira.

With a firm focus on more physics-based platforming and an entirely original approach to What Game Music Can Be -- the lullabies here provided by Chris Schlarb (part of Sufjan Stevens' indie music collective Asthmatic Kitty) -- NightSky's set to be an instant WiiWare classic, if it could only let itself actually emerge.

Quarrel [Denki, Xbox Live Arcade]

It'll be hard to tell from simply the screenshot above what to expect from Quarrel, and even if I then go on to explain that it's at heart a competitive word game, you might be forgiven for giving it the same pass as you rightly did a number of the lower-shelf family games that were released to no fanfare on Xbox Live Arcade this year.

But this one -- be assured! -- is different. Not just because of the team behind it -- though Denki head Gary Penn has more than proved himself over the years with design credits on the original Grand Theft Auto and Crackdown -- but for the game's more strategic underpinnings, where the actual competitive word battles are simply its substitute for combat in a larger land-grab conquest (which you see above: think DiceWars). Fast-paced, instantly approachable, and considerably and considerately iterated on for the better part of a year, Quarrel is already set to be a game worth yelling about.

Diamond Trust [Jason Rohrer, DS]

It was the least likely design doc surprise of 2009, as Jason Rohrer -- solo dev behind reigning art-game-champ Passage and the Esquire-curated (?!) game Between -- announced he was partnering with casual publisher Majesco to create a DS game based on "diamond trading in Angola on the eve of the passage of the Kimberly Process."

We've only seen the recently released scraps of screenshots (well, and a chick-pea and penny based prototype), but the blood diamond trade is nothing if not a, well, diamond mine of strategic, socio-political, and potential emotional depth, and there are few people other than Rohrer that I'd trust to smartly interpret that in interactive form.

Scott Pilgrim [Ubisoft, platform TBD]

Here's the wildcard of the bunch: we don't really know what Ubisoft's got up its sleeve for the game based on Canadian comic artist Bryan Lee O'Malley's cult hit comic book series, but what we do know is that there is nothing in Scott Pilgrim's already deeply videogame-influenced world that shouldn't perfectly translate into one itself.

Deep-Throat rumblings about some of the cherry-picked team behind the game have bolstered some extra high hopes that this won't just be a quick cash-in tie-in with Edgar Wright's film adaptation (itself my most anticipated movie of 2010), but with nothing publicly said about the game other than their intention to create it and continual consultation with O'Malley himself, there's nothing much to do in the meantime but scrunch your eyes up tight and hope.

Spelunky [Mossmouth, Xbox Live Arcade]

You say: "God, Spelunky again?" I say: absolutely. Even though we've already spent all of 2009 plumbing its procedurally generated depths -- over, and over, and over, and over -- on PC, the forthcoming console port of Derek Yu's retro-platformer is worth watching for all the ways in which it won't be a port.

Yu's already recently explained that at least graphically, the Xbox 360 version will be a much different beast, relying on a more painterly approach akin to his work on Aquaria, and in general seems to be hinting that it holds other experimental surprises that will separate it from the freeware version it was branched from. To say nothing of the simple fact that now it's Spelunky in our living rooms! Over, and over, and over, and over.

Super Meat Boy [Team Meat, WiiWare]

There's nothing necessarily experimental about Team Meat's super-charged console port of their free Flash original Meat Boy: it's just old-school white-knuckle challenge-based platforming done gloriously right.

The Meat boys are determined not to make any concessions to the white-livered weaker players among us: having run through its first world, I can assure you that there's essentially no such thing as a safe landing in any of Meat Boy's levels until you've reached the end.

It'll be the visceral thrill that separates -- I don't know, the prime cuts from the grist -- and also, unrelatedly, will likely be the most indie-all-star jam packed game of the year, with cameo appearances already assured from Braid star Tim, Bit.Trip protagonist Commander Video, and The Behemoth's original Alien Hominid.

Zangeki no Reginleiv [Sandlot, Wii]

This list was almost entirely conceived to give proper due to this game, which might be completely unfair as it still hasn't been confirmed for a Western release. On the surface it might appear to be any other word-jumble from the subset of Japanese gaming that only two small handfuls of obsessive sub-culture fans in the West can appreciate, but again, let me assure you this is different.

I know this, having seen only as much as the trailer above, because I know developer Sandlot: or rather, I know they are the team behind the jaw-droppingly brilliant and desperately under-appreciated Earth Defense Force games (only one of which has made it to the States as the Xbox 360's Earth Defense Force 2017 -- you can find it for about $10 now and you need to purchase it immediately. Europe was luckier to have received its even more necessary PlayStation 2 prequels).

Originally devised as cheap budget thrills, the EDF series is a fantastically simple setup: choose two guns, shoot at about thirty billion cut-and-paste stock-3D-model giant ants and spiders that all swarm at you at once. But it works, better than you'd ever dream, the true gamer's game.

And then comes Reginleiv, which takes that same formula and substitutes in Norse mythology for all the future-alien-invasion b-movie tropes, hands you swords to Wii-mote slash on top of the firearm stock (here represent, of course, by "magic"), but leaves in all of the overwhelming and beelining enemy forces and, best, the towering demigods (which you can get a better taste of via this too-short earlier video teaser).

Nintendo obviously has higher hopes for this one than all of the budget publishers before have had for their previous works -- they're publishing it themselves in Japan -- and with more ambitious co-op play, this will be the year's biggest tragedy if we don't see it make its way West-ward.

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/6Cjxx5_MbTk/the-mysteries-of-rab.html

One day, towards the end of summer, I walked into my living room and found my cats playing "Secret CIA Prison" with a bat. He was alive, but just barely. He lay on my floor twitching, his wings torn to Swiss cheese. The cats looked up at me as if to say, "We do good work, yes?" I locked them in the bedroom and called the vet. Fortunately, the cats were all up on their shots. Unfortunately, I couldn't tell the vet how the bat had gotten into the house, nor how long he'd been there.

"You should maybe call your doctor," she said.

On average, 55,000 people worldwide die from rabies every year, but only two or three of those cases happen in the United States, thanks to widespread vaccination of domestic animals and availability of post-bite treatment for humans. Today, when Americans die of rabies, it's usually because they didn't realize they'd been bitten until it was too late—which is to say, when they first noticed symptoms.

See, we know how to prevent rabies, but we have absolutely no idea how to cure it. In fact, we don't even really know how it kills people. Despite (and, perhaps, because of) its status as one of the first viruses to be tamed by a vaccine, rabies remains a little-understood disease.

It's a mystery that makes doctors understandably nervous. Just a week before I found my bat, some friends of mine in St. Paul had woken up to find a bat in their bedroom. Being asleep is one of those times when tiny bat teeth could bite you without you being aware of it. My friends had to get post-exposure prophylaxis, a treatment designed to neutralize any rabies virus in your system before it has a chance to reach your brain and develop into a full-blown infection.

"You think about flu, that's a very quick virus. You develop symptoms in a couple of days. In a week, it's passed. But rabies incubation is very long," said Zhen Fu, DVM Ph.D., professor of pathology in the College of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Georgia. "It may be weeks or even months before you develop an active infection. So we have enough time after a bite to immunize with normal vaccine and bring up the immune system."

That means five doses of vaccine, over the course of 28 days, according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. If there's also an obvious bite, doctors will clean the wound and apply rabies antibody serum to the site. The antibodies are basically the key part of a lock-and-key system that tells your immune system to destroy anything the key fits. The idea is that antibodies will help destroy most of the virus at the site of entry, while the vaccine will train your body to knock out any strays it finds elsewhere. The CDC also recommends a shot of antibodies, separate from the vaccine, even if there is no obvious bite.

This one-two punch is almost 100% effective, provided you get it in time. How fast is "in time"? Nobody really knows. The CDC says that, as long as a bite victim isn't yet symptomatic, they should get the prophylaxis. Dr. Fu said that the window of opportunity can vary in length, depending on how close the bite is to the person's central nervous system. Without post-exposure prophylaxis, rabies is fatal. By the time symptoms--fever, confusion, partial paralysis, difficulty swallowing--appear, it's too late. There's not much doctors can do after that, because they aren't even sure what the virus is doing to you.

"We don't know how rabies kills people. There are some unproven hypotheses, but that's it," Dr. Fu said. "One idea is that, once the infection reaches the neurons in the brain, it blocks the transmission of messages from the brain to the rest of the body. If that's the case, it could explain many of the phenomenon we see in humans and animals, such as end-stage paralysis. That could even be why humans die, because of paralysis of muscles in the heart and lungs."

Given the lack of information and the risk of death, it's not surprising that even a situation like mine, where a bite was extremely unlikely, ended with a referral to a nearby hospital for post-exposure prophylaxis. But, after several conversations between the emergency room doctor and the Minnesota state rabies hotline, I ended up not getting it. Turns out, sneak-attack bites don't really happen to wide-awake, sober, cognitively normal adults in the middle of the day. The chance that I or my husband were actually bitten by the bat before the cats set upon it was so small that, on the advice of medical professionals, we decided that it wasn't worth the pain, potential side-effects, or cost of treatment.

That's right. I am my own death panel.

But on the off-chance that I do come down with symptoms—there've been cases of rabies incubating for up to a year—is there really no hope? Well, sort of. Maybe. Ish. Researchers have been experimenting with a treatment that they think could save the lives of people with full-blown rabies. Called the Milwaukee Protocol, it involves putting the patient into a coma and also giving them antiviral medication. The idea is that the human immune system—with some help from antivirals—can fight off a rabies infection, while the coma limits damage to the brain that seems to be a common cause of rabies death. In 2004, a teenage girl who received this treatment became the first person—ever—to survive symptomatic rabies without having received the vaccine either before being bitten, or before symptoms appeared.

The problem: We still don't know whether the Milwaukee Protocol actually works. It's been tried—and failed—at least 13 times since 2004, according to a 2009 paper published in the journal Current Infectious Disease Reports. There are two reported successes, but in one of those the patient received the vaccine before her she became symptomatic. The other success is very recent and there aren't many details available yet.

So why did the first girl survive? Again, nobody knows. It's possible that either she had a particularly hardcore immune system, or the variant of the virus she contracted was particularly weak, or both. When she was diagnosed, she had rabies antibodies in her cerebral spinal fluid—something that would indicate the presence of rabies in her brain—but doctors weren't able to isolate any actual virus—suggesting that her body was already on its way to winning the fight before the Milwaukee Protocol was used.

Unfortunately, any effort to really conquer rabies may be hampered by the fact that the vaccine works so well, Dr. Fu said.

"Treatments haven't been successful because we don't know what it's doing in the brain," he said. "We need more research but, usually, once you have a good vaccine the funding for the research goes away."

New England Journal of Medicine: Survival After Treatment of Rabies With Induction of Coma
Current Infectious Disease Reports: Update on Rabies Diagnosis and Treatment

Image courtesy Flickr user WilsonB, via CC

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http://freegovinfo.info/node/2855

Nowadays you will find that there is hardly a day that goes by in which google is not in the media spotlight. Topics having to do with Google are limitless.

In today's New York times, Op-Ed Contributor Adam Raff, a co-founder of Foundem, an Internet technology firm, is asking people to demand that the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) work toward "search neutrality." The premise of his argument is that in order to ensure equal access to the infrastructure of the Internet, FCC needs to impose regulations not only on Internet service providers but also on search engine companies. Raff points out:

Today, search engines like Google, Yahoo and Microsoft’s new Bing have become the Internet’s gatekeepers, and the crucial role they play in directing users to Web sites means they are now as essential a component of its infrastructure as the physical network itself.

I think Raff is making an important argument here: search engines are a key part of the Internet's infrastructure. When we consider search engines as infrastructure it puts the Internet into a public utility dimension like electricity, telephone etc. If that's the case, then the public has a right to input into how search engines should work. I don't think there is any neutral search engine (sponsored links anyone?!) but it's worthwhile to think about search engine as public infrastructure.

Currently Google controls over 70% of the search market and over 95% of Google's revenue comes from ad revenue. So it's clear that search results are not all about relevancy but are related to how Google can generate more profit through the placement of ads. If search engines were part of the public Internet infrastructure, then what would it look like? Can we find a model somewhere? How about libraries as a model?

http://freegovinfo.info/node/2854

I can't believe Project Censored has been doing what they do for 34 years! That is, the media research program has been teaching Sonoma State University students and the public about censorship, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and the importance of a free press in the US by researching important national news stories that are underreported, ignored, misrepresented, or censored by the US corporate media. I hope everyone reading this will purchase or donate a copy of Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010 to their local library. And also please consider donating some $$ to this worthy cause.

Note: FGI has no connection to or affiliation with Project Censored. We just love their work!

Top Censored Stories of 2009/2010

• 1. US Congress Sells Out to Wall Street
• 2. US Schools are More Segregated Today than in the 1950s
• 3. Toxic Waste Behind Somali Pirates
• 4. Nuclear Waste Pools in North Carolina
• 5. Europe Blocks US Toxic Products
• 6. Lobbyists Buy Congress
• 7. Obama’s Military Appointments Have Corrupt Past
• 8. Bailed out Banks and America’s Wealthiest Cheat IRS Out of Billions
• 9. US Arms Used for War Crimes in Gaza
• 10. Ecuador Declares Foreign Debt Illegitimate
• 11. Private Corporations Profit from the Occupation of Palestine
• 12. Mysterious Death of Mike Connell—Karl Rove’s Election Thief
• 13. Katrina’s Hidden Race War
• 14. Congress Invested in Defense Contracts
• 15. World Bank’s Carbon Trade Fiasco
• 16. US Repression of Haiti Continues
• 17. The ICC Facilitates US Covert War in Sudan
• 18. Ecuador’s Constitutional Rights of Nature
• 19. Bank Bailout Recipients Spent to Defeat Labor
• 20. Secret Control of the Presidential Debates
• 21. Recession Causes States to Cut Welfare
• 22. Obama’s Trilateral Commission Team
• 23. Activists Slam World Water Forum as a Corporate-Driven Fraud
• 24. Dollar Glut Finances US Military Expansion
• 25. Fast Track Oil Exploitation in Western Amazon

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