Michael R. Bernstein

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• Favorited "MC Mechanic" by Shane Willis on Boing Boing Gadgets
• Commented on Rock'em Sock'em monks
  Last year's Bethlehem brawl was mentioned here on BB: http://www.boingboing.net/2007/12/28/priests-brawl-at-jes.html...
• Commented on NYT and ProPublica seek $1 million to put news source docs online
  I thought this might be a good spot to pimp my own submission: Albuquerque Food Shed News....
• Commented on Saul Bass's iconic logos
  Here is a link to Paul Rand's more famous logos: http://www.dlsdesign.com/paul_rand/paul_rand_logos.html...
• Commented on Post-apocalypse without the militias: The Outquisition
  Coming in a bit late to this thread, but the Outquisition sounds a lot like Open Source Ecology: http://openfarmtech.org/ Here's a good (though too long, and somewhat lurching) video interview: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5188451875214443460...
• Commented on The Phoenix TV series
  The bit I remember most about 'The Phoenix' is that air-conditioning was like kryptonite to him (something about 'positive ions'). The two shows I remember that few others do are both animated: 'The Spiral Zone', and 'Bionic Six'....
• Commented on Copyright renewal records for US books finally online
  While this is very nice, there is a rather large category of works in Google Book Search that despite being rather indisputably in the public domain are still not displayed in full. These works in fact *never* enjoy copyright protection,...
• Commented on Conversation with GM's fuel cell technology director, Chris Borroni-Bird
  This is defeating my video-fu on Linux (usually I can figure out a way to watch most windows-specific formats). Can anyone suggest a procedure to get access to this? Right now, I can't even find a source URL for the...
• Commented on Nomad cardboard room-dividers
  "Vacuum Cleaner"? Can you not *see* the nooks and crannies in there? That would take forever. Cool as they may be, they are a perfect breeding ground and hiding place for dust-bunnies, because the effort required to clean them is...
• Commented on Nomad cardboard room-dividers
  Two words: Dust collector....
• Commented on Recycled teacup lights
  Cpt. Tim, It was discontinued several years ago (I had to snag some for my Mom from an outlet store. Note that even for current patterns they have recently stopped making the teacups from the shatter-resistant Corelle glass, and now...
• Commented on Charlie Stross in Second Life this Saturday
  In related news, Vermont OKs the Creation of Virtual Corporations: http://gigaom.com/2008/06/17/vermont-oks-the-creation-of-virtual-corporations/ This means that board meetings can happen in SL....
• Commented on US Postal mail rate hikes screw micro-publishers: Thanks, Time Warner!
  "One of the smallest—and hardest hit—is The Progressive Populist (circulation 19,000)" Pshaw. With circulation numbers like that, these aren't 'zines, any more than Locus or the Chronicle are. To see how real 'zines are coping (because they've already been nearly...
• Commented on SF fanzines prefigured blogs: Roger Ebert
  Laurie, I think (based on Teresa's "Lost Fandoms" theory) that even if the Intarwebosphere had not overlapped (chronologically and socially) with SF Fandom, most of the same features would very likely have sprung up spontaneously (though many specific details would...
• Commented on SF fanzines prefigured blogs: Roger Ebert
  No, you'll get eyetracks all over me....
• Commented on SF fanzines prefigured blogs: Roger Ebert
  It is well worth noting Teresa's 'Lost Fandoms' post in this context: http://nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/archives/001424.html...
• Commented on Hunt for the kill switch in microchips
  I'm kind of surprised no-one has noted the connection to this paper, 'Designing and Implementing Malicious Hardware': http://www.usenix.org/event/leet08/tech/full_papers/king/king_html/...
• Commented on Young adult sections in bookstore -- a parallel universe of little-regarded awesomeness
  I'm kind of surprised that no-one's mentioned the multi-author YA 'Jupiter' series (by Charles Sheffield, Jerry Pournelle, and James P. Hogan). These were explicitly modeled on the Heinlein juveniles. More recently, Harry Turtledove's 'Crosstime Traffic' series is great, as are...
• Commented on Gasoline to cost $10 a gallon in US soon?
  Several notes: 1) Watch "The End of Suburbia" (you can of course find it on BitTorrent, but I'd recommend buying it to support the producers): http://endofsuburbia.com/ 2) A lot of demand for gasoline is elastic, so we're seeing a measurable...
• Commented on Alligator blood antibiotics
  I first heard about these bacteria-busting peptides 15 years ago. IIRC, they were discovered in the skin of amphibians and dubbed 'magainins' (from the Hebrew word for 'shield') back in the early '90s....
• Commented on Medical transcriptionist melts keyboard with fingertips
  I second Karpov's recommendation of the Unicomp buckling spring keyboards. I use the 'Customizer 101' with no 'Windows' keys: http://pckeyboards.stores.yahoo.net/cus101usenon.html...
• Commented on Heat maps of the world, colored by news-agencies' reporting on each country
  ObNitPick: These are cartograms, not heat maps....
• Commented on "It's A Way Of Life" Mary Kaye promotional film from 1977
  Shirley MacLaine made a pretty interesting movie about Mary Kay a few years back: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0328877/...
• Commented on Filk: folk music for science fiction fans.
  Here are some links to previous Filk coverage by Xeni: http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/news/2005/09/68697 http://www.wired.com/entertainment/music/multimedia/2005/09/68697 http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4967052...
• Commented on Salon shows how to read WSJ for free
  Refspoof is easier to install from this page: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/4513...
• Commented on Which giant corporation owns your favorite tiny organic food brand?
  Oligopoly Watch has been tracking the buy-up of organic by the conglomerates for quite a while: http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2003/04/15.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2003/06/25.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2003/08/02.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2003/08/22.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2004/07/10.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2004/09/21.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2006/05/12.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2006/05/13.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2006/10/16.html http://www.oligopolywatch.com/2007/04/05.html...
• Commented on Monster robot heads for space station
  I agree with Bugs @ #6. I *much* better name would have been 'Sinistre'. Or maybe just 'Lefty'....
• Commented on Bloxes: flat-pack cardboard cubes make sound-dampening walls, shelves, dividers, tables, etc
  My first impression was also "cool". My second impression was "dust collectors"....
• Commented on Seth Godin gives good advice to the music industry
  Hmm. I think Godin's business model here is a bit bogus. The tribal management business is likely one with thin margins, unless they figure out a way to raise the switching costs for the artists. But, aside from the business...
• Commented on Hand-cut wood art piece limited to 1,000,000 copies
  If his time estimates are in the ballpark, at some point he should be able to start making them from the trees he's planting now... Now *that* is a sustainable project....