How to TAPE a Phone Line

This Wired How-To Wiki article on tapping phone lines is a good primer on what actually happens when someone puts a physical tap on your line. Of course, there are lots of invisible ways to virtually tap your line: in the US, the Federal CALEA statute mandates that phone-switches have tapping back-doors that only cops are supposed to have the passwords for (yeah, right), and the digital PBX in your office is just as likely to have a vulnerability as the PC on your desk. The Tap: With an access point in mind, you should have an idea of the necessary equipment. Using an old lineman's handset (also called a "butt set") or building a "beige box" are the best starters. In short, the lineman's handset is a tool used by repairmen to test a line for activity. It's little more than a trussed up wall phone with a small dialing pad and alligator clips for tapping directly into a line. A beige box is just the DIY, 133t cousin of the lineman's handset. Of course, if price and jail time are no concern, there are a number of other options -- but for the sake of ease, we'll stick with these.

Amazing "Tooth Tatoos"

The Heward Dental Lab in Salt Lake City specializes in "dental tattoos," which are actually custom hand-painted crowns. Owner and main artist Steve Heward is a traditional oil painter too. The artwork on a crown costs between $75 and $500. I don't think I'd want a painted crown in my mouth but I'd love to have a collection of them in my wunderkammer.

Increasing Height Via Elective Surgery

Limb lengthening is a surgical technique that can be done to treat medical conditions or make someone taller for cosmetic reasons. The thighbones (not seen here) are sawed apart and an implant is attached in the break to add length to the bone. According to a Details magazine article, around 4,000 people around the world have had cosmetic limb lengthening (CLL) surgery. Apparently, it's an increasingly popular procedure for medical tourists who go to places like Brazil, China, and Egypt where the surgery is cheaper. From Details: A person could argue that to pay upwards of $100,000 for a risky, excruciating surgery that adds just a few inches to your frame is insane. CLL is by far the most extreme (and expensive) procedure that a human being can submit to in the name of vanity. Most lipo and facial-surgery patients can go home within an hour. Recovery time for calf and pec implants is a couple of weeks. And at $8,000, penile implants seem like a bargain by comparison—plus, in terms of pure physical pain, there is no contest. Beyond the agony of having your bones cut in two and stretched, CLL carries risks like pinhole infections, nerve damage, and severe deformity.

On a website called Make Me Taller, which launched two years ago, you can wade through message boards filled with self-loathing, hope, and hubris. “I would like to do 6 [centimeters] and go home sooner,” writes “12,” a patient about to undergo CLL in China. “I’ll have less possible complications and a shorter recovery time. The only thing that stops me from making that goal solid is the idea that I’ll be leaving almost an inch on the table. And yes, 2 inches is substantial, but isn’t 3 inches, like, mind-blowing?”

World Cement Usage Graph

Cement is mainly used to make concrete, and is sort of the "active ingredient" in concrete - it is combined with sand and gravel in roughly fixed proportions. So cement production can be considered a rough proxy for the total amount of construction going on in a country.

The growth in China, from 1 Gigatons to 1.3 Gigatons in two years is mindboggling, even India and Russia are interesting... and there's more to the story than that too.

Ring Magnet Opens Locked Doors Electronically

"A magnetic ring (called the ring of the devil) opens some electronic (and electromechanical) locks. Technical details on how this ring works, as well as a video of an opening of an electronic lock can be found at the link below."

The ‘ring of the devil’ is capable of attacking this kind of electronic motor lock on two ways.

Scenario 1: An electronic motor is nothing more then a metal part on an axe that turns because of a changing magnetic field. Turning electro magnets on and off will generate a pulling force on the metal part, making it rotate. The ring does the same thing. By turning the ring, the metal part in the electro motor starts turning, opening the lock. As Rop suggested in the comments of the previous posting, a bunch of bigger magnets and maybe a high-speed drill can amplify this effect some more.

Scenario 2: A dynamo is nothing more then a coil charged by a changing magnetic field. So any coil in the lock will start generating current when a magnetic field is rotating around it. If the coil is in the path of the electro motor, it might generate enough current for the motor to start turning.

Currently we are testing with this magnetic ring. Jord Knaap and Han Fey already found one other electro/mechanical lock that seems to open under some conditions with this technique. As with all problems we personally discover, we are first going to notify the manufacturer to give them some time to analyze the problem. But with the ‘devils ring’ out on the free market it will probably be a matter of day’s/weeks before other people will find (and report) locks that are vulnerable to it.

Time Lapse Of Simi Valley Fires From 2005

Shot with 3 cameras over a period of 28 hours during September 28-29th 2005. Firestorm shows a a unique look at the Simi Valley fire which consumed 25,000 acres. Look for Mars, Orion & the Moon rising in the distance...

Video from: Powerslave

World of Warcraft: The Future Of Gaming

The Onion nails the future of videogaming in this clip on World of World of Warcraft, a new videogame that allows you to play at being someone playing World of Warcraft

$1 Million Long Bet Made By Warren Buffet

Warren Buffett recently bet an ambitious hedge fund operator $1 million that they won't beat the returns of S&P 500 after their extremely hefty fees are accounted for. Buffett claims investors will do as well with a no-load index fund over the ten years of the bet. He has long been critical of the performance claims of hedge funds, and his bet is intended to put his money where his mouth is.

Buffett's million dollar bet was made on Long Bets, the accountability mechanism founded in 2002 by Stewart Brand and myself, and operated by Long Now Foundation. The intention of Long Bets is to encourage responsibility in prediction-making (by keeping a public roster of predictions), to encourage long-term thinking (by offering a opportunity to shape a long-term bet), and to sharpen the logic of forecasting (by recording the logic of predictions and bets.)

In order to make a Long Bet, bettors need to lay out their reasoning. It's worth reading the two sides' very short arguments about investing because the two extremes of investment advice are contrasted in them. Buffett, as usual, is stunningly clear in his argument, which ends:

A number of smart people are involved in running hedge funds. But to a great extent their efforts are self-neutralizing, and their IQ will not overcome the costs they impose on investors. Investors, on average and over time, will do better with a low-cost index fund than with a group of funds of funds.

WebInfomative: Fake Beak For Bald Eagle

A poacher shot the beak off this bald eagle three years ago, and it was starving to death. But an engineer made her a fake beak and it seems to be working.

Nate Calvin, an engineer from Boise in Idaho, designed the new beak, which will eventually be replaced with a permanent tougher one.

Jane Fink Cantwell who found the bird scrounging for food and slowly starving at a landfill in Alaska said: "A bullet had to be removed from her curved upper beak, leaving her tongue and sinuses exposed, with a stump useless for grasping food. "Eating with her beak was like using one chopstick. She also had trouble drinking and couldn’t preen her feathers."

iPhone Hacks with Xeni.

Xeni checks in with the authors of the forthcoming O'Reilly HOWTO book "iPhone Hacks" (David Jurick, Adam and Damien Stolarz) for a demonstration of how to unlock and jailbreak your iPhone or iPod Touch. The authors promise to teach you how to coax more out of these devices: little-known features, performance tweaks, and tips on great web-based apps to install -- video game emulators, IM and VoIP apps, and media players that can handle a wider range of filetypes.

Five-Inch Elephant Beetle Searching Partner

Billy, a 5-inch-long elephant beetle that arrived in London via a banana shipment from Costa Rica, is desperate to hook up with a female before he kicks the bucket. Elephant beetles live just four months and are endangered because of rainforest decimation.

Linton Zoo director Kim Simmons said: "Billy needs to mate.

"He is showing all the signs and keeps displaying. He bobs up and down on his branch and taps on the ground.

"He has been making the most of his new home and emits tiny mating calls. It's like he's saying 'here I am, come get me'."

Wonderful Wireless Video Camera Watch & Waits 45 minutes

Japan Trend Shop's wireless mini video camera has 45 minutes of battery life and records it all at a claimed 2.7 megapixels (as commenter Pinup57 suggests below, this is likely a typo of .27 megapixels). Moreoever, it transmits what it sees at 1.2 GHz up to 98 feet to a receiver, which itself hooks up to any old TV or capture card with a composite video jack.

At $270, it's very expensive—and it doesn't record audio, either—but given that it's waterproof and less than a square inch in size, I expect those with an application already in mind won't mind the tag.

Now Teddy Bear CAR Navigation System

Pink Tentacle reports on an item in the Mainichi Shimbun about a robotic teddy bear car navigation system. The prototype robot stands 30 centimeters (1 ft) tall and has 6 joints in its arms and neck, which it uses to make gestures while providing spoken directions.

The robot bear is also equipped with functions to improve auto safety, such as an alcohol detection sensor embedded in its neck. If it smells booze, the robot confronts the driver, saying, “You haven’t been drinking, have you?” Other sensors detect wreckless driving, so if the driver suddenly accelerates or slams on the brakes, the robot says, “Watch out!”

As a bonus feature, the robot bear provides information about nearby landmarks when you stroke its head

Chinese Men with Real life Pinhead

To celebrate the upcoming Olympics in China, this gentleman stuck 2008 needs into his head. From The Telegraph: (Dr. Wei) Sheng's latest stunt was not the first time he had gained notoriety for sticking pins in his body.

In 2004 he secured a Guinness World Record after piercing 1790 needles into his head.

WoW, Beautiful Sunset on Mars :: Picture By NASA

Scott Beale says: "As part of their Image of the Day series, NASA posted a beautiful image of a sunset on Mars sent by the Mars Exploration Rover Spirit on May 19, 2005.