Smilikiti

Another week comes to an end, so it’s time to hit the newsstands for the latest gossip. People has a tribute to Paul Newman, while Us Weekly mixes things up with their style issue. OK! has the scoop on Lindsay and Samantha while Life & Style has Mariah and Nick on their baby boom cover. There’s plenty to choose from, but which magazine will you be picking up this weekend?

Which Magazine Will You Be Picking Up This Weekend?

• People — I want to look back on Paul Newman’s amazing life.
• Us Weekly — I love those three adorable blondes!
• OK! — I want the real details on Lindsay and Samantha!
• Life & Style — I’m excited to read about the Hollywood baby boom!

Here’s a mesmerizing ten-minute video from the Darwin@Home project (which harnesses idle computers to simulate evolution) that shows the different, bizarre randomly evolved walking-strategies that have emerged from the simulations.

Darwin at Home in Ten Minutes

(via Kottke)

Ars Technica’s Julian Sanchez sez, “Just wrote up a piece on a pretty fascinating case, in which EFF filed an amicus brief, brought by Echostar under the DMCA against a maker of satellite receivers. Since DMCA makes liability turn on whether a device has a ’significant commercial purpose’ that doesn’t involve IP violation, Echostar had wanted to get the names of hundreds of thousands of people who’d bought receiver boxes. Also raises the troubling question of whether making an open/hackable device exposes you to liability if enough people misuse that device.”

Privacy interests are typically afforded deference only to the extent that they implicate some tangible harm. The same standard generally obtains in privacy tort law, Lohmann told Ars, but here the court was prepared to afford the privacy claim added weight, because it was being invoked “as a shield, not a sword”—that is, to block future disclosure, not to win damages for past disclosure—on behalf of third parties not directly involved in the lawsuit.

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Guess who is on the set of her television show?

Angelina Jolie waved to the cameras on her way into dinner with her castmates before tonight’s big premiere of Changeling. She looked gorgeous showing off her slimmed down figure in good spirits even without any of her big family who made the trip with her. We’ll see more of Angelina at tonight’s premiere and whether or not she has Brad by her side, she already has Oscar buzz to keep that famous smile on her face.
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After strutting her bikini body poolside in Miami on Friday, Beyonce kept her sunglasses on for a dip with Solange. She deserves a break after a whole lot of hard work on her new album, and a little sun and swimming sounds like the perfect vacation. Of course, it’s no romantic getaway with Jay-Z, but sometimes a little sisterly bonding can be just as much fun.
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Hugh Grant spent some time perfecting his golf swing, participating in a tournament in the UK this week. It’s been awhile since we’ve seen him out and about or promoting a movie, and it’s safe to say that he’s not the go-to actor for romantic comedies anymore. So tell us — does Hugh Grant still make you swoon?

Does Hugh Grant Still Make You Swoon?

• Yes — He’s still so charming and has that big smile!
• No — He’s lost his touch over the years.
• He never did it for me to begin with.

Ars Technica’s Julian Sanchez sez, “Just wrote up a piece on a pretty fascinating case, in which EFF filed an amicus brief, brought by Echostar under the DMCA against a maker of satellite receivers. Since DMCA makes liability turn on whether a device has a ’significant commercial purpose’ that doesn’t involve IP violation, Echostar had wanted to get the names of hundreds of thousands of people who’d bought receiver boxes. Also raises the troubling question of whether making an open/hackable device exposes you to liability if enough people misuse that device.”

Privacy interests are typically afforded deference only to the extent that they implicate some tangible harm. The same standard generally obtains in privacy tort law, Lohmann told Ars, but here the court was prepared to afford the privacy claim added weight, because it was being invoked “as a shield, not a sword”—that is, to block future disclosure, not to win damages for past disclosure—on behalf of third parties not directly involved in the lawsuit.

Moreover, EFF’s brief argued, Echostar’s subpoenas were “especially troubling in light of past litigation” where another satellite TV provider, DirecTV, had similarly obtained customer information in the course of a civil suit against a device manufacturer. The company then sent out 170,000 letters pressuring customers to agree to a $3,500 “settlement” or face litigation. Attorneys for Echostar dismissed this as mere speculation, averring that the company had “no present intent to initiate additional lawsuits,” but adding that “customers that are found to be engaged in satellite piracy should not be permitted to use so-called ‘privacy rights’ as a shield to avoid detection and civil liability.”

Court: Echostar can’t get Coolsat customer data in DMCA case

(Thanks, Julian!)

Kate Beckinsale and her daughter Lily were joined by a few friends yesterday as they shopped and snacked in LA. They’re an inseparable mother-daughter duo, from the ice-skating rink to red carpet premieres, though with school back in session, they’ll have to save their bonding for after class. Kate looked gorgeous in a tank top, jeans, and Fall essential beanie, which is a lesson in dressing Lily will be lucky to learn.
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John Mayer looked somber in mostly black on his way out of his NYC apartment yesterday. John may have sworn off women for the time being, but he’s back to blogging, including a post this week about Paul Newman. John explained a game he plays with his friends rating celebrities’ clout that ended in the realization that, “Nobody will ever be that cool again.” It’s sweet of John to pay tribute to the amazing actor and man who seems to have left an impression on everyone in Hollywood.
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Jennifer Garner took her glowing smile and her baby bump all around Santa Monica yesterday, spending some time with her pink twin Violet and meeting up with friends for lunch at the Ivy. Jen and Violet may have unintentionally matched their wardrobes, like a lot of mothers do, but we’ll have to wait and see if Violet’s new sibling will join in on the pink or if Ben and Jen will have a blue-wearing boy. Either way, hopefully the new Garner-Affleck will inherit Jen’s darling dimples like Violet did!
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Jennnifer Lopez resurfaced in LA yesterday after her romantic weekend trip to Las Vegas with Marc. The couple renewed their wedding vows early Sunday morning, and Jennifer was still glowing as she went shopping back in California. With the twins’ first holiday season coming up, she and Marc have a busy few months ahead of them, but maybe they can sneak in another honeymoon to celebrate their recommitment.
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Leighton Meester looked distressed despite her fabulous outfit as she filmed scenes with her onscreen housekeeper in NYC this morning. We thought things might start looking up for Blair after last night’s episode, but there’s always drama around the corner for the Upper East Siders. Luckily she’s still got her perfect makeup and wardrobe to cheer her up — plus most of her friends are just a phone call away if she ever needs a partner in crime for her latest scheme. If you had your eye on a certain look from last night’s episode, check out how to get them all here!
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MC Frontalot’s new nerdcore album, Final Boss, is a perfect, catchy collection of raps and sketches about video-games, Japanese manga fandom, voting machines, and other important subjects. Of especial note is a completely, convulsively hilarious sketch with Wil Wheaton about Wil and Frontalot’s respective career-choices. The CD’s out in a month or so, but if you pre-order it now, you get immediate delivery of the CD in MP3 form, with a lyrics sheet and hi-rez versions of the art.

Now these are lyrics:
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DailyKos’s Ipsos has a great technical post on the logistics of sneaking an earpiece onto Sarah Palin at the debate, from the physics of spectrum use and antenna design to earpiece-hiding techniques and more:

3. Where do you put the person doing the cueing?

This one has me stumped, because you have two problems with mutually-exclusive solutions.

Ideally, you’d like the person whispering in Sarah’s ear to be somewhere far away from the debate site. You don’t want someone pulling back a curtain, Oz-style, and finding Randy Schuenemann hunched over a microphone muttering about the difference between Iran and Iraq.

A hotel room somewhere else, watching on TV? Perfect…except that there’s a delay issue to contend with. All the digital links from debate site to satellite uplink to network headquarters to cable company mean that several seconds can elapse between the time the question is asked on stage in St. Louis and the time a viewer sitting somewhere else hears it. And you don’t want Palin standing there looking silent while waiting for the cues to come back over her earpiece. (Well, we do, actually, but…)

Then you also have the challenge of getting the whisperer’s audio from the hotel room into the arena to be broadcast to Palin’s earpiece. Cellphone? Those get overloaded in a busy situation, can drop out, and introduce more delay. Wi-fi? Same problems, to a greater degree. (This is also why you don’t just drop a tiny cellphone down Palin’s back and connect it to a concealed earpiece - it solves the spectrum issue, but it’s just not reliable enough when you need it to be.)

How they’d put a bug in Palin’s ear tonight

(Thanks, Bill!)

The Internet For Everyone project is a set of motherhood-grade principles for Internet access in the US; they’re collecting signatories to present to Congress:

Access: Every home, business and civic institution in America must have access to a high-speed, world-class communications infrastructure.

Choice: Every consumer must enjoy real competition in lawful online content as well as among high-speed Internet providers to achieve lower prices and higher speeds.

Openness: Every Internet user should have the right to freedom of speech and commerce online in an open market without gatekeepers or discrimination.

Innovation : The Internet should continue to create good jobs, foster entrepreneurship, spread new ideas and serve as a leading engine of economic growth.
Internet for Everyone

Neil Gaiman’s on tour with his fantastic new book, The Graveyard Book. I’m about halfway through it and enjoying it immensely — it’s the spookiest, coolest, most dream-like and smart young adult horror novel I’ve read. As he tours, Neil is reading the book aloud, a different chapter at every stop, and his publishers are putting the readings online every day, chapter after chapter. Neil’s a fantastic reader, probably the best living author-reader I’ve heard (except, maybe, for the magnificent, towering brilliance that is Daniel Pinkwater), and this is a do-not-miss bit of free vid.

So… the tour has started. At each tour stop I read a chapter of the book, and each evening’s reading is being filmed. (Tour schedule is up at http://journal.neilgaiman.com/2008/09/graveyard-book-tour.html and at Where’s Neil)

http://www.mousecircus.com/videotour.aspx is the page on which the readings will be posted.

After the show last night (a lovely review of it here in Publishers Weekly), I grabbed a late dinner with my Harper Childrens editor, Elise Howard, at the loveliness that is Sushi Sasabune (73rd and 1st), while filmmaker and cameraman Brady Hall worked late into the night editing the video of last night’s chapter, then rendering and uploading it.

So, the FIRST CHAPTER of The Graveyard Book is now up. The short hair looks even odder than it usually does.

Tonight I’ll read the second chapter. That should be up by tomorrow. And so on.

By the end of the tour you get a free book. (Well, free in the sense that it’s something you don’t have to pay for, anyway.)

A Very Useful Post

Dale Dougherty , founder of Make, wrote this for Boing Boing:

Pirate Ship, Pirate Ship, Pirate Ship. Hold the tip of your tongue and say it as fast as you can. Or hold your nose. I don’t know what to make of the juxtaposition of the negotiations in Washington to pass a bailout plan for Wall Street and the negotiations off the Somali coast to pay a ransom to pirates who with small boats captured a Ukranian cargo filled with tanks and other military weapons. It’s clear the pirate story has better quotes.

“We just saw a big ship,” the pirates’ spokesman, Sugule Ali, said in a telephone interview. “So we stopped it.”

He added:

“We don’t want that suffering and chaos to continue. We are not going to offload the weapons. We just want the money.” He said the pirates were asking for $20 million in cash; “we don’t use any other system than cash.” But he added that they were willing to bargain. “That’s deal-making,” he explained.

Both quotes come from the NYT story Somali Pirates Tell Their Side: They Only Want Money. In today’s followup story, we learn that the pirates who are surrounded by the US Navy have lowered the ransom price, but the advice from one “expert” is to pay it.

“It’s down to $5 million,” said Andrew Mwangura, program coordinator for the Seafarers’ Assistance Program in Kenya, which tracks pirate attacks and communicates with the families of crew members. “But this needs to be done quickly. The longer that ship stays in Somalia, the more people who are going to get involved and the greedier they’re going to get.” “My advice,” said Mr. Mwangura who has been involved in several hijacking negotiations, “is give these gunmen what they want before the sharks come.”

I watch the market fall and then rise and then fall again. Is the bailout coming? Commentators speak as though the market is a person. “The market couldn’t decide today whether the bailout would happen and so that’s why we ended where we did.” The Senate version of the bailout is going to vote, adding incentives to the package, incentives that will add to the cost.

“The whole thing now is about the price,” said one Western official involved in the ransom negotiations. “The ship owners are talking with the pirates. But the two sides are still pretty far apart.”

In Washington and on Wall Street, it’s harder to figure out who is negotiating for the pirates and who is negotiating on our behalf.

BB pal Michael Leddy told me that he has some real problems with contemporary Hi and Lois strips. I agree. The lousy art is filled with seemingly unintentional misrepresentations of reality that sometimes look like the surreal sets from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Michael said it’s getting so bad that he thinks they may now be putting stuff in the strip just to screw with his head. Check out Michael’s Orange Crate Art blog for many more examples. Hi and Lois crit on Orange Crate Art

Gavin sez,

Kelly Link just released her second book, Magic for Beginners, online for
a year under the Creative Commons license. 2 of the 9 stories aren’t
included due to contractual agreements but this is huge news because two
giant companies, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (who published it in paperback)
and HarperPerennial (who published the UK edition) have agreed to take a
chance and be a part of the CC movement.

Kelly’s first collection, Stranger Things Happen, has been downloaded
60,000+ times since it was put online (and it still sells a couple of
thousand copies a year) and the derivative works include audio versions,
short movies, plays, and even a cello version of one of the stories…!

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