Home / boingboing.com rss archive / October-06-2007


China's net cops apparently trying to block RSS
I've been poring through emails and web comments from Boing Boing tv viewers today, and noticed a number of messages that read more or less like this: Hi, I'm in mainland China, and for some reason I can't subscribe to subscribe to Boing Boing tv's RSS feed. -- and come to think of it, I can't subscribe to Boing Boing Gadgets or Boing Boing Gadgets, either. WTF? Our RSS feeds are not broken, nor are they the only ones affected, not by a long shot. According to various reports, authorities in China are attempting to block *all* RSS feeds in an attempt to keep out information that may be critical of the nation's government. Link to item on Ars Technica....

Free wireless networking HOWTO book
Glenn Fleishman from Wireless Networking News sez, "My colleague Adam Engst and I are releasing our book The Wireless Networking Starter Kit as a free download. We wrote this edition in 2004, and sales weren't strong enough to promote further editions in print. However, we felt that it was still timely enough to give away. The book covers planning a Wi-Fi network, setting it up, security considerations, and adding antennas or more base stations to increase coverage and range. (What's not included? Much about WPA security and anything about 802.11n.) We haven't put it into Creative Commons because we share licensing with our publisher, but it's free for distribution." Link (Thanks, Glenn!)...

Modern phrenologists "predict" terrorism with biometrics
"Scientists" at the University at Buffalo have reinvented phrenology in the form of a set of biometrics that produce a numerical score indicating the probability that you are about to commit a terrorist act. Computer and behavioral scientists at the University at Buffalo are developing automated systems that track faces, voices, bodies and other biometrics against scientifically tested behavioral indicators to provide a numerical score of the likelihood that an individual may be about to commit a terrorist act. "The goal is to identify the perpetrator in a security setting before he or she has the chance to carry out the attack," said Venu Govindaraju, Ph.D., professor of computer science and engineering in the UB School of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Govindaraju is co-principal investigator on the project with Mark G. Frank, Ph.D., associate professor of communication in the UB College of Arts and Sciences. Link (via Futurismic) (Photo credit: Phrenology1.jpg, a public...

Fine art photoshopping contest
Today on the Worth1000 photoshopping contest: fine art mixed and mashed. Link...

Function of the appendix found? A good bacteria safehouse.
A Boing Boing reader says: "Immunologists from Duke University believe they've found the function of the supposedly useless and often dangerous appendix: It's a reserve store of good germs to 'reboot' your digestive system in case another bug wipes out the germs necessary for human survival." The function of the appendix seems related to the massive amount of bacteria populating the human digestive system, according to the study in the Journal of Theoretical Biology. There are more bacteria than human cells in the typical body. Most are good and help digest food. But sometimes the flora of bacteria in the intestines die or are purged. Diseases such as cholera or amoebic dysentery would clear the gut of useful bacteria. The appendix's job is to reboot the digestive system in that case. Link...