An anonymous reader asks "What information sources and social networking sites will you be using to supplement the election coverage on TV next Tuesday? I am ready with a big HDTV with Comcast, a Mac mini, and and an Xbox 360. I also have two laptops (one good for websites and one for streaming video), an old-school Blackberry, a 'regular' cell phone, a Nokia N810, a Squeezebox, and finally Sirius Satellite Radio. Which websites should I watch for live county results? I already know about the Twitter Vote Report for tracking and reporting voting issues and I already watch 'CNN Reporters' on Friendfeed for the national flair. What other Twitter accounts should I follow? Which urgent ones should I send to my phones? Which YouTube accounts or keywords I should subscribe to in Miro? What are the most popular sites for posting 'on-scene' videos — iReport, Flickr, something else? I know most local Fox affiliates are great about streaming, but is there a page that lists all of the streams, in case I need to quickly focus on one city or area? Basically, how would you configure all those gadgets?" This reader might find some guidance in what to focus on, when, in a video produced by reader (and data modeler) Bruce Nash that lays out a predicted timeline for when the media will call each state, depending on when the polls close and how tight each race is expected to be.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A refrigerator-sized tank of toxic ammonia, tossed from the international space station last year, is expected to hit earth tomorrow afternoon or evening. The 1,400-pound object was deliberately jettisoned — by hand — from the ISS's robot arm in July 2007. Since the time of re-entry is uncertain, so is the location. "NASA expects up to 15 pieces of the tank to survive the searing hot temperatures of re-entry, ranging in size from about 1.4 ounces (40 grams) to nearly 40 pounds (17.5 kilograms). ... [T]he largest pieces could slam into the Earth's surface at about 100 mph (161 kph). ...'If anybody found a piece of anything on the ground Monday morning, I would hope they wouldn't get too close to it,' [a NASA spokesman] said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Scott Hagerman passes along news of yet another recall of Sony laptop batteries. The batteries in question, manufactured in the same timeframe as those involved in the massive 2006 recall, are in laptops sold by HP, Dell, Toshiba, Lenovo, and Acer. Neither Apple nor Sony itself used these batteries in their laptops. This time 100,000 batteries are involved — 65,000 of them sold outside of the US — vs. the 10 million recalled in 2006. The Consumer Product Safety Commission fielded 19 reports of batteries overheating and/or catching fire.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader sends us to Science News, which is running a survey of recent strides in finding an answer to the age-old question: How many ways are there to tie your shoelaces? "Mathematicians have been puzzling over that question for a century or two, and the main thing they've discovered is that the question is really, really hard. In the last decade, though, they've developed some powerful new tools inspired by physics that have pried a few answers from the universe's clutches. Even more exciting is that the new tools seem to be the tip of a much larger theory that mathematicians are just beginning to uncover. That larger mathematical theory, if it exists, may help crack some of the hardest mathematical questions there are, questions about the mathematical structure of the three- and four-dimensional space where we live. ... Revealing the full... superstructure may be the work of a generation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An interesting Austin electronic music event tonight:

Ai180: Art Institute of Austin DJ/Laptop Battle

Saturday, Nov 1, 5pm

100 Farmers Circle, Austin, TX

The Art Institute of Austin is calling all DJs and laptop musicians to come flex their skills at the inaugural Ai180. Battling through five rounds of competition, you better come prepared to show your best stuff quickly; contestants will have three minutes per round to show the crowd and the judges why they deserve a pass to the next round.

32 musicians go head-to-head, battling to win a recording session in the Art Institute's brand new recording studio designed by Grammy Award winner John Storyk.

To make the contest more interesting, each contestant will be allowed to perform with one support artist. A support artist can be a rapper, singer, or dancer, who you think will enhance your show. So whether you decide to spin vinyl with a breakdancer, or rock your laptop and MIDI controller with a soul singer, the competition is yours for the taking. Just make sure to bring your best stuff, or expect to get lost in the crowd.

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Here's a detailed Instructable on building a single-wheeled bike trailer, very similar to the $300+, critically-acclaimed B.O.B. trailer systems, for something like $20. Aside from the coolness factor, one vs. two wheels obviously gives you a nice lowered rolling resistance.

My favorite quote from the build is the description of his hitch system (step 8). The Maker bought the B.O.B. hitch, came up with a better version, and returned the commercially-produced one back to the store!

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Mark Frauenfelder of Boing Boing posted this wonderful video of an escaped rhino drill at a Japanese zoo; I'm sharing it here just for the joy of it. The capture is the best part. (and the rhino costume is awesome)

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Getting ready for election night when I'm going to have a few friends over to watch the returns, and either celebrate or...

I have two Macs hooked up to HDTVs, one a Samsung the other a Sony Bravia, and until recently they had been connected via VGA. I was barely aware you could do it any other way. I thought the picture was great until I hooked up a Toshiba HDTV to the second video display on my G5 tower and the picture so much better! Much more color. The Toshiba is a smaller, cheaper and older TV than the Sony that's connected into the other video output, but it looks much better. So, of course, I wanted to do the same with the Sony.

I tried connecting the HDMI output to the Sony, but the picture looked terrible. I don't know how to describe it, but the colors were all washed out, text was blurry. I might try to take a picture so y'all can see what the deal is.

I tried hooking up a Mac Mini in the living room to the Samsung TV via HDMI, and got the same lousy picture.

I unhooked the Mac Mini and connected my MacBook Pro to the Samsung, and got the same lousy picture.

I've fiddled with the Displays section of the Preferences in every way I could and it makes no difference. I've turned everything off and on, still no difference.

I can get more data. I might try to take a picture of the crummy image to post.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

PS: I'm using Belkin DVI to HDMI adapters.

Make contributor Joe Grand (aka "Kingpin") shows his BSODomizer (www.bsodomizer.com) prank gadget in action. Complete plans are available or you can buy an assembled unit for $79.

What is BSODomizer?

BSODomizer is a small, battery-powered, mischievous electronic gadget that interfaces between a laptop or desktop and VGA monitor and flashes images onto the monitor at random time intervals or when triggered by an infrared remote control. When used to display a fake BSOD (Blue Screen of Death), the user will become confused and turn off his or her machine. Over and over again. Legitimate uses of the BSODomizer include monitor/projector/video calibration or a simple timer to remind the user to take a break from sitting in front of the computer. Various configuration settings are selected via on-board DIP switches. Created by Joe Grand (aka Kingpin) and Zoz.

If you have any video or pictures of BSODomy in action, be sure to let us know and we can post things on this page or link to your site. Have fun!

Welcome to BSODomizer

An anonymous reader writes "BD+, the Blu-ray copy protection system that was supposed to last 10 years, has now been solidly broken by a group of doom9 researchers. Earlier, BD+ had been broken by the commercial company SlySoft." Someone from SlySoft posts a hint early in the thread, but then backs off for fear of getting fired. The break is announced on page 15.

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I'm not sure what bigger picture I'm to extract from this brief Esquire piece by David Peisner, but it's an interesting read. He interviews several white supremacists (the sheet-wearin', Hitler-lovin' kind) and a self-described black nationalist who advocates resegregation of black and white people within the US. Three of the white guys he interviewed want Obama to win, the black person wants McCain to win. Hardly a representative sample of either camp, but it's an unusual glimpse inside a way of thinking you may find foreign. Snip:

NAME: Erich Gliebe

Who: Chairman, National Alliance

Likes: Third Reich, the movie Rocky

Dislikes: Integration, Jewish-controlled media

Career Highlights: Turning white-power record label, Resistance Records, into a million-dollar-a-year business juggernaut; an 8-0 record as a professional boxer under the nickname, "The Aryan Barbarian."

"Obama might be a better candidate for our cause because he’s racially conscious. One of our big things in the National Alliance is to raise the racial consciousness of our people. Young whites in universities, they’ve been stripped of any kind of racial identity. Obama may be a racist in a positive sense for his people--that will awaken a lot of the whites, knock some sense into them. They’ll see that non-white Americans are allowed to be proud of who they are, to be racially conscious, to talk about their people or their community without being attacked as being racist. Let’s face it, white people aren’t going to fight for their causes, for their kind with a white president. I don’t think McCain even acknowledges that a white race exists. He’s all about granting amnesty to illegal aliens. The fact he wants to keep us in wars in the Middle East for 100 years, that’s not a good thing. I give Obama credit, he seems to have stuck to his guns as far as pulling the troops out of Iraq. He’s a very intelligent man, an excellent speaker and has charisma. John McCain offers none of that. Perhaps the best thing for the white race is to have a black president. My only problem with Obama is perhaps he’s not black enough."

Why White Supremacists Support Barack Obama (Esquire, thanks vinsanity). Above, a screengrab of the National Alliance website, in which Mr. Gliebe identifies "mediocre singers" from the seventies like Janis Ian as one of the greatest threats to the future of the white race, and points to an album cover from her 1975 release "Between the Lines" as evidence.

Incidentally, remember how earlier this year, SNL re-ran its first episode ever, hosted by George Carlin, on the occasion of his passing? Ms. Ian, surprise white supremacist enemy number one, was the musical guest. Video clip below: At Seventeen. Consider it a unicorn chaser.

Earlier this week, Bethesda released Fallout 3 after a long campaign of defending and protecting the game's reputation from claims that it contained inappropriate content. Ads for the game in Washington DC's subway system were pulled after they upset some touchy travelers over the depiction of post-apocalyptic Washington landmarks. Shortly before the game's release, early trailers were removed as well. Earlier this year, the game was banned in Australia for its in-game use of morphine, causing the drug's name to be changed to Med-X. On the issue of sensitive content, Bethesda's Emil Pagliarulo wrote in Edge Magazine about the design decision to disallow the killing of children in the game. Gamasutra ran an opinion piece on the same subject, and the Washington Post discusses the role of Washington DC in Fallout 3. On the DRM front, the game does come with SecuROM, but Bethesda says it's only used for a disc check. Reviews for the game have been overwhelmingly positive so far, despite reports of bugs with the save system and occasional lock-ups.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Weblver1 writes "A recent report by web security firm Finjan shows how easily data can be accessed on PCs by malware which circumvents existing defenses. With the use of obfuscated code, antivirus software and static Web filters could not identify the scrambled attack code as a threat. The report walks through a real-life scenario of the infection process step-by-step, and tracks what happens to the stolen data. This demonstrates how stealing sensitive data has become unbearably easy — especially, given the abundance of easy-to-use DIY crimeware toolkits. Finjan's report is available here (PDF, registration required). Shortly after this report, Security firm RSA has released their findings of a huge amount of stolen 'virtual wallets' in one of the largest discoveries of stolen data from computers compromised by the Sinowal trojan. While the trojan can be traced back to 2006, it managed to become more productive over time with frequent variants. Given the scale, ease of use, and hiding techniques making infections extremely difficult to find, no wonder today's crimeware achieves such 'impressive' results."

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ruphus13 writes "Here's another example of 'German Engineering' — The Foreign Ministry in Germany is migrating all of its 11,000 desktops to GNU/Linux and other open source applications. According to the article, 'this has drastically reduced maintenance costs in comparison with other ministries. "The Foreign Ministry is running desktops in many far away and some very difficult locations. Yet we spend only one thousand euro per desktop per year. That is far lower than other ministries, that on average spend more than 3000 euro per desktop per year ... Open Source desktops are far cheaper to maintain than proprietary desktop configurations," says Rolf Schuster, a diplomat at the German Embassy in Madrid and the former head of IT at the Foreign Ministry ... "The embassies in Japan and Korea have completely switched over, the embassy in Madrid has been exclusively using GNU/Linux since October last year", Schuster added, calling the migration a success.' The Guardian has additional coverage of the move."

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This papercraft geared heart is so amazing - if anyone has more info about it, I'd love to hear it. The artist's site is here.

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Nice how-to @ Instructables on how to make a wall clock from old hard drives.

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@ Technology Review Color "E-paper" from Freestyle audio and Qualcomm...

A waterproof MP3 player built for bright beach days is the first device with a color "e-paper" display, meaning it has no backlighting and thus can be read in direct sunlight. The display, from Qualcomm, consists of two layers of a reflective material. Some wavelengths of light bounce off the first layer; some pass through and bounce off the second. Interference between the two beams creates the color, and electrostatic forces control the distance between the layers.

We've tinkered around with MAKE on e-ink but we're so graphics rich it's always been a challenge to do more than text, I'm looking forward to color "e-paper"... Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Gadgets | Digg this!

narramissic writes "The iPhone crowd is still dominated by affluent males between the ages of 18 and 35, but in a series of surveys ending in August, ComScore found that iPhone purchases grew fastest among people with annual household incomes between $25,000 and $50,000. The growth rate in this group was 48 percent, compared with just 16 percent among people with incomes above $100,000. And the down economy isn't going to turn this trend around, says ComScore Mobile analyst Jen Wu. 'I don't see there's going to be much of a slowdown, just because wireless devices are so much more of a necessity than they used to be,' Wu said." In other iPhone news, an anonymous reader points out a NYTimes story about the rise in car-related applications and uses for the iPhone, which points out that programmers are just beginning to "appreciate just what can be done with an iPhone and other advanced cellphones that know where they are and just how quickly they are going someplace else." Another iPhone story mentions that "Opera's engineers have developed a version of Opera Mini that can run on an Apple iPhone, but Apple won't let the company release it because it competes with Apple's own Safari browser."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

JagsLive points out a Reuters story which suggests that Google may walk away from its deal with Yahoo instead of accepting possible antitrust limitations from the government. The ongoing investigation of the deal by the Department of Justice has caused new concerns to be raised over whether the two companies have adequately addressed issues such as privacy and competition. From Reuters: "'Are they more serious about walking away? Yes. Have they decided? I'm not sure,' one source told Reuters on Friday. 'Yahoo wants the deal, and they're willing to have Google sign anything at the Justice Department to have them do it.' ... Part of the impetus of Google's walking away could be Yahoo's talks with Time Warner Inc about buying the content and advertising operations of its AOL unit. Google initially struck the deal with Yahoo as a way to fend off Microsoft Corp's unsolicited bid. Yahoo and AOL are conducting due diligence to see what a combined company would look like."

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CWmike sends along a ComputerWorld piece which predicts that "netbooks like the Asus Eee PC, the Dell Mini 9 and the HP 2133 Mini-Note will soon cost as little as $99. The catch? You'll need to commit to a two-year mobile broadband contract. The low cost will come courtesy of a subsidy identical to the one you already get with your cell phone. It's likely that HP is working with AT&T (they're reported to be talking), which announced a major strategic shift a couple of weeks ago that should result in AT&T stores selling nonphone gadgets that can take advantage of mobile broadband, including netbooks. What's more interesting is that low income and cheapskate buyers are starting to use iPhones as replacements or substitutes for netbook, notebook and even desktop PCs. The author's take: A very large number of people are increasingly looking to buy a single device — or, at least, subscribe to a single wireless account — for all their computing and communications needs, and at the lowest possible price."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

DeviceGuru writes "Astrobotic Technology has unveiled plans for a series of robotic expeditions to the Moon. The lunar rovers will explore high-interest areas of the Moon's surface and beam the data back to the Earth. The plan is to accumulate an extensive library of lunar data and sell it to governments and private corporations (PDF), much as Navteq's data forms the backbone of most terrestrial GPS services. Astrobotic's first goal is to win Google's $30 million Lunar X Prize, with a May, 2010 trip to the Apollo 11 landing site at Mare Tranquillitatis."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gorgeous scooter called the "Skippy racer" via Kottke...

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TheTieGuy writes "HP recently released their TouchSmart Application Development Guidelines to third party developers, allowing anyone to port and create touch-friendly applications that integrate and run within the TouchSmart Software suite on their popular TouchSmart PC. As part of the release, HP has gotten behind Capable Networks' Touchsmart Community website and forum to distribute the guidelines to developers while providing an environment for TouchSmart developers to interact. Also on the site is a download hub that allows TouchSmart developers to upload and share their creations with TouchSmart owners in a central location. To kick off the new development initiative, the TouchSmart Community is running a promotion that will send one developer (travel expenses paid) to demo their software in the HP booth at the 2009 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, along with a free TouchSmart PC, HP MediaSmart Server, and a month of promotion in the community."

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daria42 writes "The leaders of three of Australia's largest internet service providers — Telstra Media's Justin Milne, iiNet's Michael Malone and Internode's Simon Hackett — have, in video interviews with ZDNet.com.au over the past few months, detailed technical, legal and ethical reasons why ISP-level filtering won't work. Critics of the policy also say that users will have no way to know what's being filtered."

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There are some legal decisions that just make no sense. Gunnar writes in to let us know of a story in Michigan, where a judge has ordered a furniture store to stop using a design that shows a couch being unwrapped from a candy bar. Hershey's sued the furniture company, claiming it violated their trademark on unwrapping chocolate bars: But here's the thing: even the judge admits that trademark law shouldn't apply here because it's a totally different business and there's little chance of customer confusion: "While both parties cater to the general public, there is no indication that their customers are predominantly the same. Even if their customer bases overlap to some extent ... the risk of consumers confusing a furniture outlet with a candy store, or vice versa, appears remote." Those are all things a judge says right before denying the trademark claim, but in this case, it went the other way. If a moron in a hurry isn't likely to be confused, then there's no trademark infringement. The furniture store wasn't even using the image yet -- but just had it in a contest for truck designs. At least the company hadn't spent too much money painting up all the trucks.

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As many of you probably know (especially if you live in the UK), you have to buy a license to have a TV (or even a TV tuner card for a computer). The license fees go to pay the BBC to operate. Apparently, the BBC has some secret "TV detector" vans that can sit outside your house and determine if you have an illegal TV (I only wish I were making this up). Someone filed a Freedom of Information request to find out how these supposed detector vans worked, but the request has been denied, and these magic detector vans shall remain a state secret. The BBC claimed that it could not reveal the details of the van "because if it did so it would damage the public's perception of the effectiveness of TV detector vans." I'm not sure, but I think that statement alone destroys the public's perception of the effectiveness of the TV detector vans. I'm guessing that the vans are totally empty but someone drives by your place at night and looks for the flickering glow.

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nerdyH writes "Motorola will ditch its MotoMAGX Linux stack and UIQ Symbian stack in favor of Google's Android Linux/Java stack and Windows Mobile 6.5 and 7, it announced today. The news comes after five years selling millions of Linux phones in Asia, and after a year during which many of Motorola's top US phones used the homegrown Linux stack. Motorola's current Linux phones in the US include the RAZR2 v8, E8, EM30, U9, ZN4, and ZN5." This also comes alongside news that Motorola's financial hardships are causing them to cut 3,000 jobs. It also puts into perspective their recent plans to hire hundreds of Android developers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A few years back, in settling a civil lawsuit against Microsoft for its monopolistic practices, Microsoft agreed to pay out $250 million to California schools, in the form of vouchers. Now, there are some who might point out that this sort of "settlement" makes good business sense, in that many will use the vouchers on PCs with Microsoft software, thereby getting a new generation of kids hooked on Microsoft products (it's worth pointing out that the vouchers can be used on non-Microsoft software as well). However, that's hardly the biggest issue, apparently. Instead, people are realizing that the vast majority of the $250 million is not being used by the schools. Some are pointing out that their budgets are being slashed, and since they have to pay for the equipment upfront and then request money back later, it's just too much trouble. Others are saying it just hasn't been a priority, even though they know the money is available.

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It would be the funniest moment of the 2008 campaign if it weren't the saddest.

It did seem a little odd that Universal Studios was trying to bully Redbox into an agreement that would kill off the DVD vending machine company. After all, having Redbox out there renting some movies (which it paid for) certainly seems better than it not even being an option. Initially, we just chalked it up to Universal trying to make sure it had more control over the rental market -- but a bunch of readers this morning are pointing out that there may be a much more direct reason. It turns out that Universal Studios is launching its own DVD kiosk system. Initially, it's in the UK, but it's likely there are plans to offer them in the US as well. So now the ridiculous "take it or leave it" bullying threat from Universal Studios to Redbox makes a lot more sense: it was designed to force a competitor out of business so Universal could have the market to itself.

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MaxwellEdison writes "Scientists have discovered evidence of magnetic portals connecting the Earth and the Sun every 8 minutes. 'Several speakers at the Workshop have outlined how FTEs form: On the dayside of Earth (the side closest to the sun), Earth's magnetic field presses against the sun's magnetic field. Approximately every eight minutes, the two fields briefly merge or "reconnect," forming a portal through which particles can flow. The portal takes the form of a magnetic cylinder about as wide as Earth. The European Space Agency's fleet of four Cluster spacecraft and NASA's five THEMIS probes have flown through and surrounded these cylinders, measuring their dimensions and sensing the particles that shoot through."

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I give you my pick for geekiest costume I've seen this year: a giant LED costume. Yes, I agree with you that it should have real LEDs on the inside:)

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