1. We aint got no automated porn detectors. RE: Aritifical Intelligence. Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Saucy.
2. The Muppet Matrix. RE: Animated. Chill. Culture. Funny. Movies.
3. Another bump key video. RE: Hardware. Security. Video.
4. Michael Moore and the Sodom-mobile. RE: Culture. Faith. Sex. U.S.A. (America). Violence.
5. Hello Salem!. RE: Anthropology. History. News. Science.
6. AllSimps and AllFutus. RE: Animated. Chill. Cyber Life. Wikipedia.
7. Evolution of Speechballons. RE: Comics. History. Images.
8. Free hugs, great hugs. RE: Life. Pscychology. Video.
9. Iron Man to be played by Robert Downey, Jr.. RE: Comics. Movies.
10. Foreign profanity. RE: Chill. Funny. Words.
11. Mid East imperial activity in 90 sec. RE: Animated. Geography. History.
12. Six word stories. RE: Science Fiction. Words. Writing.

2006-10-01t16:22:06Z | RE: Aritifical Intelligence. Cyber Life. Cyber Tech. Saucy.
We aint got no automated porn detectors

U.S. Patent 7,103,215: Automated detection of pornographic images [patft.uspto.gov/...]

"Automated porn detectors!? We ain't got no automated porn detectors. We don't need no automated porn detectors! I don't have to show you any stinking automated porn detectors!!"

Although I'm sure that some saucy characters might want to use this technology to find even more porn, others will probably try to use it to censor porn. Although this patent was just issued 2006-09-05, the issue of porn censorship is, of course, an old issue. While this patent uses color detection and matching shapes in a database, most of the previous technology has been based on detecting keyword and blocking specific sites. See Blocking Software FAQ [peacefire.org/info/blocking-software-faq.html]. Some people think that technological censorship is a lost cause: "Why it doesn't matter whether censorware works or not" [dansdata.com/censorware.htm]. I'm not much for censorship [W] myself since I assume adults can think for themselves and that parents teach would teach their kids to do the same.

Detecting the erotic, like detecting the humorous, is one of those things that people can do better than any known machine. It is interesting that this patent seems largely based on the nicely titled work "Finding Naked People" [cs.hmc.edu/~fleck/naked.html] by Margaret Fleck [cs.hmc.edu/~fleck/index.html] and David Forsythe [cs.berkeley.edu/~daf/] who both have very cute babies on their website but are also both professors in the important field of Computer vision [W].

FYI 1: I stumbled upon the porn patent while answering a question from a site visitor:

Date: 2006-09-14
From: David Kelley

George,
When did "Lockback" knives come into being.  I'm saying early 60's at the earliest?

David:

I just did a search at the United States Patent and Trademark Office, 
and one of the earliest examples of a lockback knife that I could find was 
U.S. patent 825,093 issued 1906-07-03 to William Franklin Watson.

-George Hernandez

FYI 2: I made this my first post at MetaFilter [metafilter.com/mefi/55203]. I hope I don't get branded as a saucy techie!

2006-10-11t23:19:45Z | RE: Animated. Chill. Culture. Funny. Movies.
The Muppet Matrix

The Muppet Matrix [forums.matrixfans.net/showthread.php?t=27859; video; 00:03:22] [via digg.com/videos_animation/The_Muppet_Matrix]

The same trailer for The Matrix, except with the Muppets and a little thing at the end. Surprisingly this works!

2006-10-11t23:35:59Z | RE: Hardware. Security. Video.
Another bump key video

Bump Key HOWTO [video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5177213949300140850; 00:04:57 video] [via digg.com/videos_educational/How_To_make_a_Bump_Key]

Others and I have been posting about "bump keys" a very simple method of lock_picking [W] that has been around for years but is impressively simple. This video is shows it fairly explicitly.

2006-10-12t00:01:49Z | RE: Culture. Faith. Sex. U.S.A. (America). Violence.
Michael Moore and the Sodom-mobile

Michael Moore lets Fred Phelps have it [youtube.com/watch?v=33-_9nOX8KM; 00:07:33 video] [via digg.com/videos_comedy/Michael_Moore_Confronts_Anti_Gay_Church_With_A_Bus_Full_Of_Gay_Guys]

Funny but sad. I consider myself to be someone who is violent but not malicious. Folks like Fred Phelps on the other hand are malicious and breed violence. Perhaps the phrases like "God hates fags" and "God hates America" are controversial marketing gimmicks to draw attention to their cause (like Michael Moore's tactics) but you just have to listen to these fundamentalists or whatever they are for a few seconds and you realize that they're whacked. Fred Phelps tv ad #1 God Hates America [youtube.com/watch?v=ARZY8dBfNT0&mode=related&search=; 00:01:35 video].

2006-10-12t00:36:35Z | RE: Anthropology. History. News. Science.
Hello Salem!

It's a girl -- she's 3.3 million years old, almost human [sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/09/21/MNGDFL9LOU1.DTL]

(I was so excited when this story first came out, but I haven't had the time to blog about it until now.)

I always welcome the discovery of such a distant relative! Welcome Selam [W]! Selam is Ethiopian for "peace" but for me, I'll probably remember you as  "Baby Lucy".

Scientists have previously found fragments of a few other Australopithecus afarensis children, "but nothing as significant as this," Johanson said. The new find is "much more complete," with a skull containing "a virtually complete set of teeth," plus "parts of legs and arms and thorax, and two very thin shoulder blades." A leading paleoanthropologist, Tim White of UC Berkeley, called the find an "important new fossil that confirms a lot (of ideas) already inferred for A. afarensis from other fossils found earlier. (It's) hard to find youngsters like this," he said in an e-mail. "Other children of this and related species ... were known before this, but none so complete."

A salute to Zeresenay Alemseged for discovering Salem in 2000 and for working carefully over her for the past five years!

Here's a quote from the original article in Nature (2006-09-20):

Understanding changes in ontogenetic development is central to the study of human evolution. With the exception of Neanderthals, the growth patterns of fossil hominins have not been studied comprehensively because the fossil record currently lacks specimens that document both cranial and postcranial development at young ontogenetic stages. Here we describe a well-preserved 3.3-million-year-old juvenile partial skeleton of Australopithecus afarensis discovered in the Dikika research area of Ethiopia. The skull of the approximately three-year-old presumed female shows that most features diagnostic of the species are evident even at this early stage of development. The find includes many previously unknown skeletal elements from the Pliocene hominin record, including a hyoid bone that has a typical African ape morphology. The foot and other evidence from the lower limb provide clear evidence for bipedal locomotion, but the gorilla-like scapula and long and curved manual phalanges raise new questions about the importance of arboreal behaviour in the A. afarensis locomotor repertoire.

I been editing the Wikipedia articles on the Human skeleton [W] recently, so it is so funny to hear that they found such an ancient hyoid bone [W]!

2006-10-26t01:08:30Z | RE: Animated. Chill. Cyber Life. Wikipedia.
AllSimps and AllFutus

It's gone. Such a wonderful site but Fox shut them down after just a few days. allsimps.com and allfutus.com respectively had links to streaming videos of every episode of the The Simpsons and Futurama. My kids and I watched as many of them as we could. I'm sorry I should've posted it here a few days ago after I saw them on metafilter.com/mefi/55005, but I've been busy. I'm posting them here because they still tell you where to find the streaming videos (EG: dailymotion.com). You can dig up the episode titles at List of The Simpsons episodes [W] and List of Futurama episodes [W]. While it's annoying, it's still free. (I'm still eagerly awaiting the new Futurama episodes in production for Comedy Central!)

2006-10-26t01:30:16Z | RE: Comics. History. Images.
Evolution of Speechballons

Evolution of Speechballoons [bugpowder.com/andy/e.speechballoons.evolution.html] [via http://monkeyfilter.com/link.php/12754]

This is so cool! I've never thought of those little ribbons with words on them in art as speech balloons but the article clearly shows the evolution. It makes you appreciate the efficiency of modern speech balloons with their paragraphs of text, thought balloons, whispered balloons, etc.

2006-10-26t01:43:54Z | RE: Life. Pscychology. Video.
Free hugs, great hugs

Free Hugs Campaign [youtube.com/watch?v=vr3x_RRJdd4; 00:03:39 video]

A true story on video. Features the song All The Same (2006) by Sick Puppies.

You can hug and kiss many people, and you can have a great kiss from usually from just one person, but you can have a great hug from lots of people. Try it. We're very physical apes and I don't think we get enough great hugging.

2006-10-26t02:11:38Z | RE: Comics. Movies.
Iron Man to be played by Robert Downey, Jr.

IRON MAN Has Found Its Tony Stark!! [aintitcool.com/node/30225] [via digg.com/movies/Tony_Stark_Iron_Man_will_be_played_by_Robert_Downey_Jr]

Robert Downey, Jr. will star as Iron Man in the movie Iron Man slated for release for a 2008-05-02. Wonderful casting. Tony Stark is the signature alcoholic of comics, the fractured hero. I hope they focus more on the story and character development instead of the special effects.

2006-10-26t02:17:20Z | RE: Chill. Funny. Words.
Foreign profanity

I'm no good at using English profanity, so I don't think I'll be any better at Spanish profanity [W] or Latin profanity but perhaps some other profane poet can benefit by stumbling upon the Wikipedia articles here.

2006-10-26t19:35:21Z | RE: Animated. Geography. History.
Mid East imperial activity in 90 sec

Imperial History of the Middle East [mapsofwar.com/ind/imperial-history.html; Flash animation; 00:01:30] [via http://monkeyfilter.com/link.php/12785]

Activity/animation of a map of the Middle East showing the ebb and flow of different conquerors from -3000 to 1979.

2006-10-27t15:08:38Z | RE: Science Fiction. Words. Writing.
Six word stories

Very Short Stories [wired.com/wired/archive/14.11/sixwords.html]

This is cool all by itself but I just got Japanese Death Poems: Written by Zen Monks and Haiku Poets on the Verge of Death (1998) compiled by Yoel Hoffmann [amazon.com/...] so the coincidence factor tickles me further.

We'll be brief: Hemingway once wrote a story in just six words ("For sale: baby shoes, never worn.") and is said to have called it his best work. So we asked sci-fi, fantasy, and horror writers from the realms of books, TV, movies, and games to take a shot themselves.

Here are a few of my favorites:

Gown removed carelessly. Head, less so. - Joss Whedon

Machine. Unexpectedly, I’d invented a time - Alan Moore

Internet “wakes up?” Ridicu - no carrier. - Charles Stross

I'll give it a shot:

I amputated the left foot, right? -George Hernandez