Da Massive writes "Microsoft has denied paying a Nigerian contractor $400,000 in a bid to retard Linux's movement into the government sector. Media reports alleged that Microsoft had proposed paying that sum to a government contractor under a joint marketing agreement last year, in order to persuade the contractor to replace Linux OS with Windows on thousands of school laptops. Although a joint marketing agreement was drafted to document the best practices for using technology in education, it was never executed, said a Microsoft regional manager for Africa. It became clear, he added, that one customer wanted a Linux OS."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Every week, when new patents are issued, I usually scan through various patents issued to certain companies. Each week, Microsoft usually has somewhere between 40 to 60 new patents. On the other hand, Google has some weeks where they get no patents at all. At most, I think I've seen weeks where Google received three or four new patents. And, of course, to Google's credit, the company has not been aggressive in using its patent portfolio offensively. As far as I know, Google has never sued another company over patents, though there could be cases I do not know about. Yet, that doesn't mean that sometimes a patent issued to the company raises questions. Last week, Google's one patent is for an "interface for a universal search engine." Basically, the company seems to have patented the ability to search through multiple databases at once (say, a web database, a news database and an images database) and present all the results together on a single page.

What's unclear to me is how anyone "skilled in the art" could consider this a non-obvious solution. This is (and was) the sort of evolutionary improvement that pretty much anyone in the space would have known was coming to search engines. It hardly seems deserving of a patent. My guess is that Google gets these sorts of patents more for defensive purposes, and probably (hopefully?) isn't likely to sue other companies that do something similar. However, just the fact that Google had to spend time, money and effort in securing such a patent seems like a waste of resources.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

gollum123 writes "New large-scale studies of DNA are causing a rethinking of the very nature of genes. A typical gene is no longer conceived of as a single chunk of DNA encoding a single protein. It turns out, for example, that several different proteins may be produced from a single stretch of DNA. Most of the molecules produced from DNA may not even be proteins, but rather RNA. The familiar double helix of DNA no longer has a monopoly on heredity: other molecules clinging to DNA can produce striking differences between two organisms with the same genes — and those molecules can be inherited along with DNA. Scientists have been working on exploring the 98% of the genome not identified as the protein coding region. One of the biggest of these projects is an effort called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements, or 'Encode.' And its analysis of only 1% of the genome reveal the genome to be full of genes that are deeply weird, at least by the traditional standard of what a gene is supposed to be and do. The Encode team estimates that the average protein-coding region produces 5.7 different transcripts. Different kinds of cells appear to produce different transcripts from the same gene. And it gets even weirder. Our DNA is studded with millions of proteins and other molecules, which determine which genes can produce transcripts and which cannot. New cells inherit those molecules along with DNA. In other words, heredity can flow through a second channel."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Curious Inventor has just released the Stribe touch LED controller project as a modular kit -

Each Stribe1 has a touch strip and double column of LEDs that can display and control music and video programs. Multiple Stribe1's can be daisy-chained together to form a low-res, multi-touch display. Use with Max/MSP or other software to adjust track volumes with VU meters, make a sequencer, control synth params and pitch, "scratch" through sounds, etc.

- Stribe1 Touch LED Strip Controller

More:

The stribe - touch-sensitive mixers with a LED matrix

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Kits | Digg this!

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets, we got an eerily prescient look at what an Apple netbook might look like, and laughed along with the Onion at the Windows 7 and Snow Leopard rivalry. A cell phone for the elderly was admired, and the delicious design fubars of the IBM PCjr were applauded after twenty five years. Target introduced some new gift cards with an oddly humanizing digicam built-in. Joel admired a beautifully simple African bottle opener and a LEGO meets Mega-Man stop motion video; meanwhile, Beschizza liked a cool transparent Goldbergian coin bank. There was a heart shaped box made of gears and a genuine Pip Boy for the exploration of the nuclear wastes. Rob told us how to build a wasp sucking machine and the curiously named Mgestyk lets you play videogames with your thumb and forefinger. Also: disabled gamers can play PlayStation with their feet. Also also: the e-waste situation in China is super disturbing. Link

From the excellent Bushian farce Idiocracy.

Sometimes it's just that simple - a bottle opener from Togo, made with a piece of stick and a screw, with a lovely beaded handle.

Togolese Bottle Opener Simplicity

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Green | Digg this!

AnInkle writes "Seagate's 1.5TB Barracuda has been available for a couple months from multiple retailers. But shortly after release, reports of random freezes appeared on several sites. The hang apparently occurs in Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows Vista when streaming video or transferring files at low speeds. After a couple of weeks of silence, Seagate has finally officially acknowledged the problem. In a response to The Tech Report, they say they're investigating the 'issue' affecting 'a small number of Barracuda 7200.11 hard drives.' Acknowledging the 'inconvenience' is a start, but most users expect at least average performance and prompt service from the capacity king of data storage." In a related story, reader Lucas123 plugs a ComputerWorld piece examining the question of Seagate's plans to stay relevant at a time when SSDs increasingly capture OEM mindshare.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bogged down by that big old oscillating clunker? Feel the freedom of the SIG Theremin Watch! (Hmmm, I'd be interested in seeing how a wearable theremin antennae performs) Now all we need is the dual mounted helmet version to complete the set.

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Mini-Theremin

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Maker Shed Store | Digg this!

Don Ball reports that there was an unsummit in Minneapolis in October, along the lines of what was discussed in my Sunday post. They even grabbed the .org version of the domain. I think there's a movement here to create a parallel universe that focuses on getting things done.

Dan Farber on the search for the national CTO.

I wasted two hours this morning not getting ProxyPass to work in Apache on Windows. Kept getting an error as Apache was starting up. As always with Apache, the docs don't tell you everything you need to know. You know what we need? A version of Apache with the GUI configurator, like the one WebStar had on the Mac. Man, that was an easy server to set up. Just launch the app and plop some files in the folder and you're off and running.

Speaking of easy configurators -- you know what EC2 needs? Well it's interesting, but most of the settings you need to fuss with are exactly those you need to set up a router. It's spooky the problems are so close. I would do a deal with D-Link, that as far as I know has the nicest browser-based UI to make a version of their software for EC2, or just copy the UI. Amazon understands mass market products, and EC2 is a mass-market product just waiting to be productized. I think there's a lot of money being left on the table here.

And while we're talking deals for EC2, how about rounding out the offering and do a deal with Apple to get a Mac version of EC2 running in the Amazon cloud. Wouldn't that be cool?

One of the most disgusting displays of an industry crafting laws to benefit their industry in backrooms is the secret negotiations over the ACTA treaty. This is the international agreement on copyright that's basically been written by entertainment industry insiders, and will effectively force governments around the world to change copyright laws in favor of the entertainment industry. Yet, the actual negotiations are being held in secret. When confronted about it, various government negotiators have basically said it has to be secret because that's the way things are done. A few months ago, in defending the secrecy, one of the negotiators noted that it was being kept secret because negotiators had agreed to keep it secret. That's not a defense; that's a cop out.

Plenty of organizations around the world are pushing for more transparency and (*gasp!*) the actual inclusion of others who would be impacted by ACTA, but they're not finding it easy. Slashdot points us a press release from The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure. FFII had filed a request to the EU Council to release some of the secret documents related to the ACTA negotiation, and the EU Council flat-out refused to do so. It would appear that when the government seeks to put in place an industry's preferred legislation, it doesn't like being called out on it.

However, the more that individuals and organizations around the world speak up and demand that the details behind ACTA be made public, hopefully the more politicians will realize that they can't sell out society's overall best interest in favor of a few industries who are abusing the treaty process for their own interests.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Self-portrait of the artist, photographer and Boing Boing friend Clayton Cubitt (a.k.a. Siege), spattered in blood, from a series-in-progress: Fugue State. Self-portrait with Blood Splatter, 2008, another image from the series, but with ink, that is mildly NSFW, and Cubitt's portfolio, which includes some (beautiful) NSFW content.

Mikey Sklar, who lives off the grid with Wendy Tremayne, bought a battery desulfator kit to bring his dead electric vehicle batteries back to life. I hope it works!

I recently ordered a $37 battery desulfator kit. It looks like a pretty simple device that sends pulses to lead acid batteries to help clean the battery plates. There are many success stories on the net about resuscitating essentially "dead" lead acid batteries. Since we have two electric vehicles and live off grid we have a lot of motivation to take care of our batteries. I've seen kits that sell for hundreds of dollars, but this 555 based kit seems to kick out a lot more juice than the fancy ones with wimpy solar panels.

Desulfator

theodp writes "TechFlash reports that Microsoft bigwigs like Craig Mundie and Bill Gates (when he still worked there) have been secretly moonlighting at Intellectual Ventures (IV), the 'patent extortion fund' run by Bill's pal Nathan Myhrvold. A Microsoft spokesman confirmed that its technologists have been sitting in on IV-sponsored 'innovation sessions,' where their pearls of wisdom were captured and turned into patent applications for Searete, an IV shadow corporate entity. And if all goes well, Searete will soon enjoy exclusive rights to the fruit of the brainstorming, which includes processes ranging from determining and rewarding 'influencers' to treating malaria, HIV, TB, hepatitis, smallpox, and cancer."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr photo pool

Feeling nostalgic for the short-lived pop-up toaster action of G4 Cube? Check out Trademarklaser's acrylic stand which positions a Mac Mini to load discs topside. - Mac Mini Cube

More:

Mac mini Cube project

Big Book of Apple Hacks

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Computers | Digg this!

Christoph Derndorfer writes "Last year OLPC's XO-laptop was among the hottest Christmas gadgets thanks to the organization's G1G1 program, where you could donate $399 to give one XO-laptop to a child in the developing world and receive one yourself in return. However in 2007 the program was only available for US and Canadian citizens. This year's program, which takes off November 17, is also available to citizens in the EU member states, Switzerland, Russia, and Turkey. This is certainly awesome news for all the OLPC / Linux / gadget enthusiasts here in Europe! P.S. Before anyone asks, these XOs will come equipped with the child-friendly Sugar platform, which is based on Fedora 9, and not Windows XP."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While there are some doctors who are pushing to make internet addiction an official disorder, most folks recognize that internet addiction has been shown not to be a clinical addiction, but rather a sign of problems elsewhere (depression, family problems, etc.). However, over in China, where folks have been treating internet addiction with shock therapy for years, it appears that the government is getting set to officially recognizes internet addiction as a disorder. However, the definition is raising some eyebrows, as apparently it's based on some "research" that says someone who spends more than six hours a day online is an addict.

Of course, it's worth pointing out that the Chinese doctor who set the definition that the government is expected to approve just so happens to have built China's very first internet addiction center. In other words, he stands to personally benefit quite a lot by having internet addiction made official, as it will drive "business" to his treatment center. It's difficult to see how you can claim that an addiction is based solely on the amount of time one spends online as well, considering that plenty of people have to spend that much time (or more) online for work, and others spend much more time online but don't have it negatively impact other areas of their life. Once again, this seems like an attempt to call something an addiction just because it helps get some doctors business, rather than a real attempt to look at the underlying issues of said "addicts."

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Make has posted a video of a neat new kit from Adafruit called the Drawdio.

Drawdio is an electronic pencil that lets you make music while you draw! It's great project for beginners: An easy kit with instant gratification! Essentially, its a very simple musical synthesizer that uses the conductive properties of pencil graphite to create different sounds. The result is a fun toy that lets you draw musical instruments on any piece of paper.

Shown here is a Drawdio mod called Unruly. How-to Tuesday: Drawdio meets Unruly

Small Wonder was a TV show in the 1980s that I had (fortunately?) forgotten about. It stars Tiffany Brisette as a robot girl named Vicki (VICI, or Voice Input Child Identicant). Discuss. Small Wonder (YouTube), Small Wonder Home Page (Semi-official) (Thanks, Richard Metzger!)

Elektroschock writes "Marco Cappato, a Liberal member of the European Parliament, wanted to inspect the EU's contracts with Microsoft. His request was denied. '...the [divulging] of [this] information could jeopardize the protection of commercial interest of Microsoft.' Apparently the European Council sees no clear public interest in the release of such contractual material, and so 'the Secretariat general concludes that the protection of Microsoft's commercial interests, being one of the commercial partners of the European institutions, prevails on the [divulging] for the public interest.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In honor of Veteran's Day, I thought I'd share my interest in a strange but wonderful type of art production known as trench art. I've always been fascinated by military history, especially WWI trench warfare. What soldiers had to endure during "The Great War" is beyond comprehension. But it is a testament to the human spirit, the will to survive, and the desire to create beauty, even while "eye deep in hell" (to steal a phrase and a book title about that conflict), artists and makers were busy in the trenches, taking the trash and spent bits of warfare and making inspiring art and functional objects from it.

Here are just a few objects from Jane A. Kimball's wonderful book, Trench Art: An Illustrated History, and website Trench Art of the Great War And Related Souvenirs.

Submarine model made from rifle bullets, scrap brass, and twisted copper wire.

Three lighters made from scrap brass, a belt buckle, and a bullet cartridge.

Dinner gong made from German howitzer shell.

Ink well made from scrap brass, copper, and tin.

Trench Art of the Great War And Related Souvenirs

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

Margaux Lange makes jewelry out of Barbie doll parts and sells them on Etsy.

This happy little ring is made of sterling silver with hand hammered detailing and a pink lipstick Barbie doll smile. Features an oxidized finish and hand hammered ring shank. Top part of ring measures approximately 1/2" x 5/8" Artist signature on back.

A fun little reminder, right there on your hand to SMILE and take life a little less seriously!

Barbie Jewelry by Margaux Lange

I have 2 really cool projects for this weeks How-to Tuesday. One is the Drawdio by Adafruit Industries, the other build is a modification of Drawdio called "Unruly". These are great projects to make with your kids. Although, when you are done you most likely will not be too willing to share it. It's just that much fun!

OK, let's get started making the Drawdio.

What you need:

• Drawdio Kit - Available in the Maker Shed
  

Tools you need:

• Soldering Iron
  
• Rosin core solder
  
• Arms of Assistance - Make you own
  
• Fume extractor - Make your own
  

Step 1: Take inventory

Spread out all the parts and take a look through the instructions. It's always a good idea to check out all the steps prior to starting.

Step 2: Soldering the resistors and capacitors

I started by adding both resistors and both capacitors. There is plenty of room to solder them in at the same time. Make sure you read the instructions carefully, the resistors look similar, but they are different.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Maker Shed Store | Digg this!

Ian Silvestein's house was destroyed three years when the Buncefield Depot in England blew up. The companies that operated the depot -- Total and Chevron -- won't help him.

Literally, nothing has been done to help him with his situation — or anybody for that matter. The local authorities have failed him, the governments have failed him, insurance has failed him, and the companies that operated the facilities — Total and Chevron — have ducked blame entirely. The massive companies made more than £18 billion in cash last year, but can’t help a few people out when a leak in their tanks caused massive and catastrophic damage to dozens of people’s lives.

Man's house blows up, companies responsible won't help (Thanks, Jake!)

Spectacular typography and design studio House Industries has a new exhibition of prints, patterns, and sculpture at the Subliminal Projects gallery in Los Angeles. The show, titled Letters and Ligatures, runs until December 8 and can also be viewed online. House Industries posted some snapshots from the opening. Spotted: COOP, Mister Jalopy, Shepard Fairey, and Tim Biskup! Letters and Ligatures (Subliminal Projects), Show opening photos (House Industries) (Thanks, Greg Long!)

Machine Project, a terrific workshop/gallery space in Los Angeles, says:

Please join us this Saturday Nov 15th from noon until 10pm as we seize control of LACMA. We will be orchestrating ten hours of performances, workshops, and events dispersed across the seven-building, twenty-acre campus. Pieces are sited throughout the museum until 8pm, then join us on the BP Grand Court for performances, screenings, and lasagna cat. Featuring over 60 projects, this is the biggest thing we've ever done, and dare we say, the raddest. Tickets to the event are available for standard LACMA admission prices. Admission to the museum and show are FREE for all Machine Project members. Come by anytime during the day, or spend your entire Saturday with us.

Machine Project @ LACMA

Gerald Yorke was a friend and disciple of Aleister Crowley (The Beast 666, etc.) and amassed a vast collection of Crowley relics after the infamous occultist died in 1947. Julian Doyle, director of the recent Crowley-themed horror film Chemical Wedding, recently visited Yorke's son JohnO. Doyle even got to hold, er, Crowley's magick wand. Chemical Wedding director uncovers Crowley's wand & relics (Thanks, Gareth Branwyn!)

sturgeon and other readers let us know that Arbor Networks has released their annual survey of tier-1 / tier-2 ISP security engineers. This year they got responses from 70 lead engineers. While DDoS attacks are reaching new heights of backbone-crushing traffic — 40 Gbps was seen this past year — the insiders are also worried about emerging threats to DNS and BGP. The summary notes that "Most believe that the DNS cache poisoning flaw disclosed earlier this year was poorly handled and increased the danger of the threat," but doesn't spell out what a better way of handling it might have been. All in all, the ISPs sound a bit pessimistic — one says "fewer resources, less management support, and increased workload." You can request the full PDF report here, but it will cost you contact information. In related news, an anonymous reader passes along a survey by Secure Computing of 199 international security experts and other "industry insiders" from utilities, oil and gas, financial services, government, telecommunications, transportation and other critical infrastructure industries. They are worried too.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Another day, another ridiculous intellectual property fight. Remember Lebanon claiming ownership over hummus? This is worse. Apparently, there's a city in Turkey named Batman. Guess what they're now claiming? You got it. They believe that the Batman movies are violating the rights to the name, and are threatening to sue Chris Nolan, who directed the last two Batman movies. Apparently the town is facing some financial difficulties, and a reporter jokingly (I hope) asked the mayor why he didn't sue over the name, and the mayor took it seriously.

Of course, beyond the sheer ridiculousness of it all, it's not clear why they're suing Chris Nolan, rather than DC Comics or Warner Bros., but that's apparently the plan. You have to believe that any actual lawsuit will get laughed out of court pretty quickly, but it is rather telling that a mayor would even consider such a lawsuit. That's what happens when you get people believing that "ownership" of names makes sense.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Wired's how-to wiki gives us "Cake in a Mug," perhaps the greatest thing to come to the microwave since peep jousting:

You're working at home and your mind starts to wander to snack possibilities. There are probably some prepackaged, good-until-the-next-millennium baked items in your cabinet, but you're in the mood for something warm from the oven. Something chocolate. However, your compulsion to work is just strong enough to keep you from leaving the computer long enough to make something from scratch. Guess it'll have to be another stale Twinkie after all.

A single-serving portion of cake. Baked in a microwave. In the mug I mixed it in. Just for me. Right now.

Hello future. You can keep the jetpack.

Make Cake in a Mug

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in hacks | Digg this!

[1st place Adult, Erin, Maris Brood]

[2nd place Adult, Kristin, Zombie Leia]

[3rd Place Adult, Kyle, EVO Trooper]

[1st Place Kids, Paige, Aurra Sing]

Rebelscum has posted the results of their Halloween 2008 Star Wars costume contest.

Costume Contest Winners

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Halloween | Digg this!

Seen above is a photo by Kate McApline of a decommissioned copper radiofrequency cavity from CERN's Large Electron Positron collider. The objet is now a decorative feature in CERN's garden. New Scientist has a feature on where big science goes to die. From New Scientist:

News of a project's death travels, and soon scientists around the planet are competing for the chance to acquire some serious hardware. A hospital may need particle beams for cancer treatment, say. There are also commercial uses for power supplies. Out of odd parts, whimsical scientists can construct works of art. And particle accelerators, with their beam-bending magnets, are mother lodes of iron and copper. The car you drive may contain steel that in another life formed the core of a cyclotron. With commodity prices soaring and serious amounts of valuable metals in big physics projects, some machines and experiments may be worth more now than when they were built (see chart). Could selling them to others lead to even bigger machines and more profound discoveries?

Science supermachines in the scrapyard (gallery), Where do science supermachines go when they die? (feature article)

A blogger, a poet, and a lawyer from Burma (Myanmar) all received prison sentences for a poem that contained a hidden message criticizing Burmese dictator Senior General Than Shwe.

Mr Saw Wai’s poem, entitled ‘14th February’, was ostensibly a Valentine’s Day verse published last January in a popular weekly magazine. “You have to be in love truly, madly, deeply and then you can call it real love,” it read. “Millions of people who know how to love, please clap your hands of gilded gold and laugh out loud.”

But the first word of each line spelled out a pithier message about the leader of the country’s military government: “Power Crazy Senior General Than Shwe”. Mr Saw Wai was arrested the next day and charged with harming “public tranquility”.

Blogger jailed for 20 years over poem that mocked Burmese dictator

Al Jaffee's Tall Tales collects the best out of over 2,200 "Tall Tales" daily strips that Mad Magazine's Al Jaffee drew for the Herald Tribune syndicate from 1957 to 1963. Jaffee conceived of Tall Tales while in desperate economic straits, and hit upon a winning formula for breaking into the lucrative comics syndicate game: rather than drawing a traditional horizontal strip that would compete with the existing material, he opted for a seven-inch-tall vertical strip, which gave editors a lot more flexibility as to where in the paper the strip would run. The tall format is a natural for wordless "double-take" sight-gags whose effect lies in the fact that your eye can't take in the whole strip in one go, so there's a little comic shock that comes after studying the page for a second or two.

All the strips in the book are at least cute, and many are fantastically funny (I like the posh "Fresh Seafood" restaurant in which a tuxedoed waiter standing by a table for two is signalling with two fingers to a nearby fisherman in a straw hat on a dock, who's grinning and giving a thumbs-up sign; and the first strip in the book, which shows two men laying checkered tiles from opposite ends of a long corridor, and one of them has just realized that their checkers is not going to line up, and has a look of perfect horror on his face). There's a charming foreword by Stephen Colbert, who is an Al Jaffee megafan (as it turns out), and Jaffee himself has given us a page or two of origin-story for the piece.

But the meat of this is just page after page of tall, skinny sight gags, executed in the classic Jaffee style that MAD Magazine nuts know down to our bones. This is a fine, thin little book and funny besides.

Tall Tales on Amazon

The Raconteurs are a good ol' rock and roll band featuring Jack White of The White Stripes and members of The Greenhornes and Blanche. The band and their label, Warner Bros, came up with a fun promotional schtick and asked if I'd like to premier it on BB. I checked out the video and it was really well done. In fact, I'm eager to see the rest of the "story." Called "Old To Gold," it starts with a spoof of Antiques Roadshow where a steampunky mystery device called a Raconteur is presented and valued. (I wish Jake von Slatt could somehow prank Antiques Roadshow to feature one of his real fake Steampunk devices!) Old To Gold, Buy MP3s by The Raconteurs

Walter Robot, aka Bill Barminski and Christopher Louie, produced this video for Gnarls Barkley's new track "Mystery Man." Here are previous Boing Boing tv episodes featuring Barminski's work.

Link to Boing Boing tv blog post, and here's the direct MP4 link for this video.

lgmac writes "Think Windows Azure is a stupid name? Ever wonder how iPod, BlackBerry and Twitter got their names? Author Tom Wailgum goes inside the process of creating tech product names that are cool but not exclusionary, marketable, and most of all, free of copyright and trademark gotchas. Here's the scoop on ten iconic tech products and how they got their monikers, plus a chat with the man responsible for naming Azure, BlackBerry, and more. (What's the one he wishes he'd named but didn't? Google.)"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today is Veterans day in the USA, it honors the 24.9 million military veterans. We wanted to say thank you to all the past, current and future, men and women who serve(d) in the military. We have a lot of readers who have served or are currently serving around the world and we appreciate their dedication to the USA and always enjoy hearing about the MAKE-style projects you did in the past as well as the present.

Here's one of my favorite stories from a solider who recently wrote in to MAKE --

I'm an infantry soldier deployed to Afghanistan... long time MAKE reader (and recent subscriber). I've spent the last few weeks getting donations of books and DVDs for our MWR (Morale, Welfare and Recreation) Center. During that time we got some text books, and I've had the opportunity to teach some of my fellow soldiers a bit of algebra, trig, bio and physics. Recently I found out that some of the guys are interested in electronics and robotics.

We received four MintyBoost kits a couple of days ago. In preparation for a longish mission we have coming up, several of the guys were interested in building them sooner rather than later (so we could keep our iPod's charged, of course). My wife has been kind enough to send us out some Altoids gum tins, so soon they will have more durable homes... right now they are living in the anti-static bags they came in. There were a bunch of guys wanting to try their hands at it, as many of the guys have never soldered anything. With only four kits and a pretty small room (where our Commo guys hang out, they had the soldering system) they drew straws ;-)

Attached are some pics, though not as many as I had intended to take, of the work that was done. A hearty thanks from all of the guys here. They were all very pleased with the result of their handiwork (they all worked without problems). I think that some of the guys are inspired to play around more with electronics. I'm trying hard to bring a little geek light to some of the less geek-endowed among us. Hehe!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this!

Japanese hay wrapping machine in action. (Via Aquabotic)

The New York Times takes a peek backstage at the Hustler Club in Manhattan with an interactive panoramic shot of the unglamorous dressing room that lies beyond the stage lights.

In any act of fantasy — from a feature film to a political campaign — there is a hidden place where the dirty work gets done, where the make-believe is made.

In Hollywood, this is the editing room; in Washington, the spin room. At Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, a strip joint on Manhattan’s West Side, it is the dancers’ private dressing room where the image of available sexuality and the naked facts collide.

Tucked behind a closed door upstairs from the dance floor, the dressing room is a shrine to female beauty — to the tireless attempts to tease the hair into a proper state of sultriness and adjust the bosoms upward at just the right incline. It is a small piece of the contemporary demimonde (strippers nibble take-out food in thongs and gold lamé). Near a plastic bowl of pretzels, a topless beauty steams the wrinkles from her ball gown with an iron. A tall brunette in nothing but a G-string wanders by. She is brushing her teeth.

"Where the Dancers Dress to Undress."

Lest anyone think that Austin Bike Zoo is taking a break after Maker Faire, here's some footage of them at a Halloween ride:

Austin Texas Critical Mass 31 October 2008 from kevin on Vimeo.

(via Austin Texas Bike stuff)

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Bicycles | Digg this!

We've already pointed out how ridiculous it was that prosecutors charged Lori Drew with violating computer hacking laws. It was, quite clearly, a case where prosecutors were stretching the use of the law beyond its intention in order to file any charges in an emotionally-charged case. Drew, of course, is the woman who many people blame for the eventual suicide of teenager Megan Meier. Drew had created a fake MySpace account to see what Meier was saying about Drew's own daughter -- who had been friends with Meier. A few different people had access to the MySpace account, and eventually created a false persona of a boy who became friendly with Meier. In an effort to end things before it went too far, a friend of Drew's daughter tried to cut off conversation by being especially mean to Meier, which may have lead to her committing suicide. Meier's suicide is tragic, no doubt, but to go from there to charging Drew with computer hacking for creating a fake profile would set a very dangerous precedent. It could open up almost anyone to felony charges. No matter what you think of Drew or her actions, it's ridiculous to support this lawsuit.

While the judge in the case decided not to dismiss the case, he apparently has decided that evidence of Meier's suicide will not be allowed in the case. This, at least, is a good decision. The lawsuit itself has nothing to do with the suicide, and allowing it to be used in front of a jury would likely lead to the same emotional response that resulted in the original charges being filed. Of course, with the case getting so much widespread publicity, you'd have to imagine that many jury members will already be familiar with what happened in the case.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

RimmerExperience writes "Hard to believe that Mystery Science Theater 3000 is 20 years old. This NY Times article provides a brief synopsis from the humble but inspired beginnings in a Midwest TV studio, to the making of MST3K: The Movie, to what the creators are up to today. It's interesting that the original creators are still involved in MST3K-style riffing in some way. So if you are looking for your traditional Turkey Day fix, plug in your old VHS, tune into BitTorrent or check out their current projects — Riff Trax (Mike Nelson) or Cinematic Titanic (Joel & Trace). Keep circulating the tapes, er, MPEGs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I love these custom Tonka trucks from Testar logistics via DnR...

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

jammag writes "Both OpenOffice and Google Apps are free, so the choice is purely down to which is better. Bruce Byfield, after looking at both, concluded, 'comparing Google Apps to OpenOffice.org is like clubbing a staked-out bunny — Google Apps is so far behind that the whole exercise seems like an exercise in pointless cruelty.' Ouch, that hurts."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mono-Scooter Is Speedy - Popular Mechanics, 1936-

With a little practice, you can get more speed out of this mono-scooter than out of a pair of roller skates. It is made from two roller-skate wheels and a hardwood block as wide as the shoe and about 5 in, longer. Round the ends of the block and slot them to take the wheels. Steel rods serve as axles, and washers are placed on either side of each wheel to keep it true. These should be lubricated. Triangular blocks serve as heel and toe plates, and a single toe strap keeps the scooter on the shoe. Tilting the foot to one side brings the block into contact with the sidewalk to get efficient braking

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Modern Mechanix | Digg this!

While plenty of people are focused on the $700 billion TARP bailout/rescue plan that Congress gave the Treasury Department, that's not the only cash the government has at its disposal. In fact, the Federal Reserve has apparently handed out $2 trillion in emergency loans, with almost no transparency over who received the loans and what the collateral is or how it's valued. Bloomberg (the company, not the mayor) is now suing to have the Fed reveal that info. The government has been talking up a storm about how all of these bailout efforts would be very transparent with respect to taxpayer money -- but the reality hasn't lived up to the rhetoric.

The article linked above is from Bloomberg (the party suing the gov't), so perhaps it's biased, but it does seem noteworthy how pretty much everyone tried to dodge questions concerning the $2 trillion in loans. The only person who seemed to be willing to say anything was Rep. Barney Frank, who is the House Financial Services Committee Chairman. Yet, his explanation for the secrecy is hardly compelling:

"I talk to [New York Fed CEO Timothy] Geithner and he was pretty sure that they're OK. If the risk is that the Fed takes a little bit of a haircut, well that's regrettable.''

Pretty sure they're OK? That's hardly a ringing endorsement for keeping the details of such loans a secret.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The Visible Hand by Dale Dougherty in Welcome. The DIY mindset must again become an essential life skill - Page 13.

I wrote this piece about a month ago as the Welcome for Make: 16, which will be on the newsstand soon...

As I write this, there is panic on Wall Street despite Washington’s $700 billion rescue attempt. The crisis is not contained by U.S. borders, but extends to Europe and Asia. Like many people, I’m incredulous. How could this happen?

Wall Street hired the best and the brightest, paid them handsomely, and gave them unlimited resources and technology. It turns out they were building enormously complicated castles made of sand. A great wave washed them away, astounding all the smart people who devoted their lives to speculation, not production. Their models based on historical data predicted future profits, not collapse. Few people saw this coming until it hit.

“It was the triumph of data over common sense,” said reporter Adam Davidson on the excellent episode of This American Life called “The Giant Pool of Money.” Economist Michael Lehmann in the San Francisco Chronicle called it “the triumph of ideology over common sense.” It’s obvious both common sense and the common man have taken a beating.

It’s hard to stomach that our government must bail out Wall Street. It really means we’ve bet our future on the same people who created the present situation. To paraphrase a joke I’ve heard: It’s like going to a casino in Vegas and rooting for the house. One New York Times reader expressed the frustration that many feel: “Why can’t we take half of the $700 billion and just build something?”

These events shake our belief that free markets work to the benefit of all. The fundamental tenet of capitalism is the “invisible hand”: Adam Smith wrote that “by pursuing his own interest [each person] frequently promotes that of the society.” This year, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz said: “In this sense, the fall of Wall Street is for market fundamentalism what the fall of the Berlin Wall was for communism — it tells the world that this way of economic organization turns out not to be sustainable.”

A headline in the Christian Science Monitor says: “With finance crisis, hands-off era over.” Government will need to be more assertive in regulating Wall Street. But I think it goes beyond that. I wonder if we, as individuals, have been living in our own era of hands-off. Have Americans become so disengaged that we’ve become dependent on some invisible force to provide what we need? Have we gotten used to leaving important matters to experts, until they turn out to be wrong?

Isn’t it time for us to become hands-on again?

We, the people, face enormous challenges. Apart from the economic mess, we know fundamental changes are coming because of global warming. Our dependence on fossil fuels is not sustainable. Change is coming, whether we want it or not.

Better we meet the challenges head-on rather than hide. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman summed it up: “We need to get back to making stuff, based on real engineering not just financial engineering. We need to get back to a world where people are able to realize the American Dream — a house with a yard — because they have built something with their hands, not because they got a ‘liar loan.’ ... The American Dream is an aspiration, not an entitlement.”

We have to believe it starts with each of us — not some faceless government or corporate bureaucracy. It’s time for us, individually and working together in business, to reconsider what it means to be productive, not just profitable. It’s time for us to reengage in how our government sets priorities for education, health care, housing, and transportation.

The DIY mindset celebrated in this magazine must again become an essential life skill, rooted once again in necessity and practicality. Our future security lies in knowing what we’re capable of creating, and how we can adapt to change by being resourceful.

A challenge this great can bring out the best in us. We need everyone, because every person has something to contribute. We need a showing of all hands.

More:

MAKE 16 - No mission is impossible when makers put their minds to it. Make Volume 16 will help you get smart with a special section on spy tech. Learn how to build and use tiny surveillance devices, and how to know if a spy is using them on you. From tiny video cameras to sneaky recorders, this volume has enough cool stuff to make James Bond's inventor Q envious.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this!

eldavojohn writes "After Huygens & Cassini corrected our assumptions about Titan (a moon of Saturn), scientists are now debating on their next mission and one of the choices is the Titan and Saturn System Mission. What makes Titan a good choice? "Although the atmosphere of Titan is filled with a smoggy orange hydrocarbon haze, it is primarily composed of nitrogen — just like Earth's. In fact, Astrobiologists think Titan's atmosphere may be quite similar to how the Earth's was billions of years ago, before life on our planet generated oxygen." We also discussed its liquid hydrocarbons earlier this year."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bre writes-

Jon Muller wanted a puzzle that could be done over and over again so he created this thing out of wooden cubes and magnets. It only goes together in one way, so far it takes first timers between 45 minutes and 2 hours to get it together!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in DIY Projects | Digg this!

An anonymous reader writes "Chemical & Engineering News just ran this story that relates how government regulations create a terribly restrictive atmosphere for people who do chemistry as a hobby. (A related story was previously posted.)" The article gives some examples of why hamfisted regulations are harmful even to those who aren't doing the chemistry themselves: "Hobby chemists will tell you that home labs have been the source of some of chemistry's greatest contributions. Charles Goodyear figured out how to vulcanize rubber with the same stove that his wife used to bake the family's bread. Charles Martin Hall discovered the economical electrochemical process for refining aluminum from its ore in a woodshed laboratory near his family home. A plaque outside Sir William Henry Perkin's Cable Street residence in London notes that the chemist 'discovered the first aniline dyestuff, March 1856, while working in his home laboratory on this site and went on to found science-based industry.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

JC sent in a link in response to 24 hours of Android. He was suggesting an adapter for the headphone, essentially usb to 1/8" stereo. The $6 purchase price indicates that there must be a simple way of doing it. While checking out some of the other accessories for HTC phones, I came upon this neat little terminal. Redfly is apparently a keyboard and screen to go with your smartphone. With no processor, memory or much else, it is likely pretty light. It looks to be about the size of the micro laptops or notebook computers running processors similar to the OLPC. It rides off the USB connection from the phone.

So what are the possibilities in these little computers and terminals when combined with the new, powerful phones on the market? Could I get my MSI Wind to be a terminal for my G1? That would have been handy last night, where I had ok coverage on the 2G network, but no wifi. Out here in the cellular fringe, 3G is not an option. The small screen and keyboard of the Wind would have been easier to use than the tiny screen and keyboard of the phone. Since both devices have USB ports, then it should be possible to program them to talk to each other.

If you have been poking around with this idea, then post up in the comments!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Cellphones | Digg this!

I found this great set of Zome construction pictures from Bridges London Family Day at the London Knowledge Lab.

Zome is a great tool for playing with learning, and also just playing. You're not limited to right angles; my son manages to make some really expressive characters with his set.

We have lots of cool Zome sets available in the Maker Shed!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Kids | Digg this!

Plenty of video games have the ability to create user-modification and user-made levels. Back in the 80s and 90s, this was made popular with games like Castle Wolfenstein and Doom. Many of these user-made versions involve famous characters. In fact, one of the first such cases was when some high school kids remixed the original Castle Wolfenstein to create Castle Smurfenstein, replacing all the Nazis in the original game with smurfs. In Matt Mason's book The Pirate's Dilemma, he talks about how these early mods helped shape and grow the video game industry.

But, apparently, some game makers either don't know their video gaming history, or are too afraid of lawyers preventing similar things from happening again. The makers of the game LittleBigPlanet, which allows users to create their own levels, have apparently started deleting any and all levels that include any mention of anything that might be construed as someone else's intellectual property. This seems both extreme and unnecessary. It's certainly not going to keep fans particularly loyal to the game.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Reader Cowards Anonymous writes with this excerpt from Good Gear Guide: "Colombia will become the second country to use the One Laptop Per Child Project's (OLPC) XO laptops running Microsoft Windows XP in schools after signing an agreement for pilot programs in two towns. Schools in the towns of Quetame and Chia will be outfitted with the small green XO laptops developed by the OLPC. The pilot programs are expected to expand over time."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Highway to the danger zone... replica fighter jet that travels at 5mph - Telegraph...

Measuring seven metres in length and four metres in width the £4,000 F-35 Lightning II Fighter Jet has been built at a scale of 1:2.

Resembling Tom Cruise's jet out of Top Gun, it took 3,500 hours to construct the model.

The plane is constructed from iron, wood, hard foam, fibreglass and lots of epoxy filler, comes complete with cameras and monitors inside the cockpit, and is capable of achieving speeds of 5mph on the road.

The plane's designer, Arthur van Poppel, 49, from Tilburg, Holland, said: "I finished the plane at the beginning of last year.

"I had no drawings to work from, just some pictures and a small plastic Revell model to use as an example.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Made On Earth | Digg this!

?This mod shows how to wire together a Fender Mustang guitar with new switches, pickups, pots, input jacks, and capacitor. Check out the modded switches on the front face in the picture above. Although we wish the aesthetic look of this guitarwas better, this maker has documented the entire process down to the last strum.

Wiring a Fender Mustang

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

Jan redesigned the Dutchtronix Oscilloscope Clock project as a shield add-on for Arduino -

I made a shield version of the Dutchtronix AVR Scope Clock, based on the new Hardware V3.1, which uses the advanced AD7302 DAC. Besides speed (parallel interface) and image quality (simultaneous channel updates), this DAC provides low output impedance (about 40 Ohms) which means that BNC cables can be used to connect the clock to a scope (or X-Y monitor); no probes needed. Other features of the V3.1 hardware are the availability of multiple push button switches, on board 5V regulator and true RS-232 level converter.

- Arduino AVR Scope Clock Shield [vai LadyAda's Ranting]

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this!

Klootzak writes "Michael Malone, head of Australia's largest ISP iiNet announced today that his company would sign up to the Government's live trials of the Great Firewall of Australia. In an article published by The Age, Mr Malone is quoted calling Stephen Conroy 'The worst Communications Minister we've had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed.' Despite at first giving the impression that iiNet is rolling over like a good Government puppy the article quotes Mr Malone saying that the reasons for participating in this trial is to show how unfeasible and stupid it is — Quoted from the article: 'Every time a kid manages to get through this filter, we'll be publicizing it and every time it blocks legitimate content, we'll be publicizing it.' Let's hope that in typical fashion of government-instigated Internet-filtering that this stupid idea is just as useless, inefficient and ineffectual as the last one, and that the Australian Government realizes this before wasting more taxpayer dollars on it (seeing as the first attempt only cost taxpayers $84,000,000)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Klootzak writes "Michael Malone, head of Australia's largest ISP iiNet announced today that his company would sign up to the Government's live trials of the Great Firewall of Australia. In an article published by The Age, Mr Malone is quoted calling Stephen Conroy 'The worst Communications Minister we've had in the 15 years since the [internet] industry has existed.' Despite at first giving the impression that iiNet is rolling over like a good Government puppy the article quotes Mr Malone saying that the reasons for participating in this trial is to show how unfeasible and stupid it is — Quoted from the article: 'Every time a kid manages to get through this filter, we'll be publicizing it and every time it blocks legitimate content, we'll be publicizing it.' Let's hope that in typical fashion of government-instigated Internet-filtering that this stupid idea is just as useless, inefficient and ineffectual as the last one, and that the Australian Government realizes this before wasting more taxpayer dollars on it (seeing as the first attempt only cost taxpayers $84,000,000)."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The lovely Google theme I use, NOUS, designed by Philippe Starck, described as "Vision, subversion, rébellion, humour, amour sont les seuls paramètres structurellement modernes," with colorful changing messages: "WE MUST SHARE," "HUMOUR AMOUR," and the Boing Boing friendly "WE ARE MUTANTS."

That is our poetry. That is our beautiful story. It's our romanticism: Mutation. We are mutants. And if we don't deeply understand, if we don't integrate that we are mutants, we completely miss the story.

NOUS.

Hugh Pickens writes "A BBC investigation has found that in 1968 the US abandoned a nuclear weapon beneath the ice in northern Greenland after a nuclear-armed B52 crashed on the ice a few miles from Thule Air Base. The Stratofortress disintegrated on impact with the sea ice and parts of it began to melt through to the fjord below. The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons on board detonated without setting off the nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew. The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been 'destroyed' and while technically true, investigators piecing together fragments from the crash could only account for three of the weapons. Investigators found that 'something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary.' A subsequent search by a US submarine was beset by technical problems and, as winter encroached and the ice began to freeze over, the search was abandoned. 'There was disappointment in what you might call a failure to return all of the components,' said a former nuclear weapons designer at the Los Alamos nuclear laboratory. 'It would be very difficult for anyone else to recover classified pieces if we couldn't find them.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Matthias Wandel's wasp sucking machine... He writes -

This machine was the fulfillment of a childhood fantasy!

Growing up in the country, wasps nests and the possibility of getting stung were a frequent nuisance. I have no sympathy for yellow jackets that do not produce honey, and sting!

In the summer of 1996, opportunity presented itself. Near a picnic table where some of us at work were always having lunch, there was a wasp nest in a crevice in the building. Wasps were frequently bothering us, but we could not even see the nest, just a gap in the concrete that they used for their entrance.

Now of course, I could have just used a shopvac, but you don't want to leave one of those running for hours on end, and then you can't see your catch, and how the hell is one supposed to empty it?

I happened to have this incredibly powerful blower that I bought at a surplus store thinking I might use it for a pipe organ, but never used. Given this opportunity, and the blower, I decided to build a dedicated 'wasp sucking machine'.

The blower and 1/3 hp motor came as one unit, connected together with a flatbelt. I know, the shopvacs are supposed to have 5 horsepower, but they don't suck much harder than this unit, and they just don't last. The box has a glass lid so you can see the status of the catch, and only bug screen for a 'filter' so there isn't much to resist the flow of air. A piece of metal or cardboard can be slid in a gap where the hose connects to seal off the box, and the box just sits on top of the intake spout for the blower, so it can easily be removed from the machine for purposes of showing off one's catch.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Made On Earth | Digg this!

?This "useless" mod shows how to power your Thinkpad with a standard USB plug. We just hope that the maker didn't connect both ends of this mod to the same computer, thus creating a "Vampire" power device that depletes its own battery power even faster.

The USB to ThinkPad Power Supply Adapter

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Computers | Digg this!

There's been plenty of coverage about President-Elect Obama's change.gov website, which we recently mentioned as well. However, there's already some controversy brewing, as some folks have noticed that when the site launched, it had full versions of various policy initiatives. Over the weekend, though, many of those initiatives disappeared completely. Of course, it wasn't that completely, since plenty of folks were able to dig up copied versions of them and repost them.

Chances are that this is nothing more than a similar flare up a couple months ago, when Obama's campaign moved some of the content on his campaign website around, pushing more of the policy details into PDFs rather than in the main HTML. In fact, the campaign has suggested just that, by saying that the policy section is being "retooled." However, it should be a clear reminder to folks working on the website that people are watching every move extremely closely, and they're not going to be able to make changes and hope no one notices.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Have an oscilloscope, have an Arduino - you need this! The Arduino ClockShield via Ladyada.

The latest incarnation of the Dutchtronix AVR Oscilloscope clock, the Hardware 3.1 Enhanced kit, uses the Atmega328p AVR with twice the code space. Using a 1KB bootloader (Arduino compatible) makes 31KB of application space available. This extra code space makes it possible to support multiple pre-loaded applications (clock, terminal, function generator).

Once the Arduino system has been officially upgraded to use the Atmega328p (or at least is an official option), I'll make the Enhanced kit code available for the Arduino Scope Clock shield.

Programming the Arduino using the bootloader outside the IDE is possible using the batch file "uploadm168.bat". If there is a way within the IDE to uploaded external files, I'd like to know. Hitting the reset button at the right time with the Diecimila is sometimes a challenge.

More:

$35 AVR Oscilloscope clock kit.


AVR Oscilloscope clock.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this!

This art project by integrates analysis by a video camera and image sensor to "reflect" the viewer based on their distance to the screen. As they approach, the image changes from a mirror to that of a painting and becomes more washed out as if it was composed with brushstrokes. Although we've seen this kind of thing before, this simple yet elegant way of integrating technology into traditional art forms is becoming something more of an everyday occurrence.

Portrait in the Mirror

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

There are a lot of makers who read MAKE with Google's news reader (Google Reader) and now you can read it your native language with Google's auto-translate feature they just rolled out - more details here on the Google blog... and you can read MAKE here.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Online | Digg this!

This is some crazy chicken wing flappin' action folks, and it looks like a lot of fun too! The system is powered by an Arduino and uses a hidden camera to analyze the players movement. There is a great flickr photo set of the build too!

Existing consumer toy chickens were hacked, removing all circuits before a custom circuit was designed that gave us control of legs, wings and beak. Arduino microcontrollers were used along with radio frequency modules to give wireless control of the chickens.

More about the Flap to freedom game powered by Arduino

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

snydeq writes "InfoWorld's Randall Kennedy examines Windows 7 from the kernel up, subjecting the 'pre-beta' to a battery of benchmarks to find any signs that the OS will be faster, more responsive, and less resource-intensive than the bloated Vista, as Microsoft suggests. Identical thread counts at the kernel level suggest to Kennedy that Windows 7 is a 'minor point-type of release, as opposed to a major update or rewrite.' Memory footprint for the kernel proved eerily similar to that of Vista as well. 'In fact, as I worked my way through the process lists of the two operating systems, I was struck by the extent of the similarities,' Kennedy writes, before discussing the results of a nine-way workload test scenario he performed on Windows 7 — the same scenario that showed Vista was 40 percent slower than Windows XP. 'In a nutshell, Windows 7 M3 is a virtual twin of Vista when it comes to performance,' Kennedy concludes. 'In other words, Microsoft's follow-up to its most unpopular OS release since Windows Me threatens to deliver zero measurable performance benefits while introducing new and potentially crippling compatibility issues.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The blogger who uploaded the latest Guns N' Roses album, Chinese Democracy, and who was then arrested has apparently agreed to a plea bargain in the case. Prosecutors had already dropped the charges from a felony to a misdemeanor, and the plea deal probably means he'll get off without too much punishment -- but the whole thing still seems fairly ridiculous. It's not at all clear why the FBI wasted taxpayer money chasing down a fan who simply helped promote the music. In the end, it seems like GNR basically got tax-payer funded promotion for its latest album, while causing significant stress in the life of the guy who was in the middle of all of this. What a joke.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

IDEO labs shows you how to connect the Arduino to the Nokia 770-

In the vein of Arduino-controlled espresso machines and Lego bots, we’ve been playing around with Flash and the Nokia 770 Internet Tablet. With its flexible Linux-based OS, the Nokia 770 is great for rapid prototyping. Plus, you can snag one on the cheap ($65-170 on eBay).

Hardware aside, Flash is a great language for quick prototyping. It’s an environment that many designers are already familiar with, and it enables the user to create a graphic interface in minutes. For prototyping on small screens, Flash Lite can be used, but Flash Lite cannot communicate to other devices outside of the device it’s running on (aside from calling other phones). The Nokia Internet tablets are interesting because they are essentially tiny Linux computers and run full-fledged Flash. We got one of these tablets to run Flash and talk to an Arduino board. This enables any kind of sensor to communicate with the Flash application and allows the app to control things like lights and motors.

Detailed instructions for setting this up can be found in our Google Code wiki (here and here)...

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arduino | Digg this!

Can you figure out how Daito Manabe makes the spoons dance? Check out the end of the video for a sneak peek of the electronics used to make Drum Spoons.

More details about Drum Spoons

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

Camera and lens maker Sigma has bought Foveon, the sensor technology company that develops the sensors it uses. Foveon's technology uses three photosensitive layers to detect red, green and blue light at each pixel. Sigma says owning the company will allow the development of new types of sensors and improved integration between the sensors and its lenses.

I really enjoy large-scale robotic sculptures like Sixteen Birds. The website has a lot more information about the piece, including fabrication details and a nice video.

Sixteen Birds is the first multi-sculpture installation using Amorphic Robot Works' (ARW's) new Inflatable Bodies technology. The work consists of 16 large, white fabric shapes that recall the simplest line drawing of a bird, hanging limp and lifeless from the ceiling at eye level.

More about Sixteen Birds by Amorphic Robot Works

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

WF-4RIV the flute playing robot... via LoL.

In 2007, we developed the anthropomorphic flutist robot WF-4RIV(Waseda Flutist No.4 Refined IV) with 41-DOFs which has enhanced its flute performance by producing more natural notes and smoother transitions between notes. In this year, the lips and tonguing mechanisms have been re-designed to reproduce more accuraterly the human organs.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in News from the Future | Digg this!

Scientist John Hart created a remix of Shepard Fairey's Obama poster which is composed of 150 million carbon nanotubes, each of which measured tens of thousands of times smaller than a human hair.

Even then, the finished product is only half a millimetre in diameter and almost indistinguishable from any other garden variety micro dot - unless you happen to be looking at it through a microscope.

The magnification reveals tiny, three dimensional "carvings" of the now ubiquitous polarised image of the president-elect originally created by street artist and graphic designer Shepard Fairey.

The "Nanobamas" were created by a team of researchers led by Hart, an assistant professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Michigan.

Obama under the microscope, and here is Hart's site at the University of Michigan Mechanosynthesis Group (Thanks, @mpesce)

oddRaisin writes "After recently sleeping through a page for work, I decided to change my paging device from my BlackBerry (which is quiet and has a pathetic vibrate mode) to an actual pager. After looking at the websites of Cingular, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint, I'm left scratching my head and wondering where all the pagers went. I can't find them or any mention of them. Pagers of yore offered some great features that reflected the serious nature of being paged. They were loud. They had good vibrate modes. They continued to alert after a page until you acknowledged them. I didn't have to differentiate between a text from a friend and a page from work. Now that pagers seem to have become passé, what are other people doing to fill this niche? Are some phones better pagers than others? Are there still paging service providers out there?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There have been plenty of stories over the years about the people who buy from spam, with various studies showing surprisingly high percentage of people admitting to buying from spam. Of course, that's just seeing how many people have ever bought from spam, rather than how many people respond to a single spam campaign. I've seen estimates before (usually in the range of a quarter of a percent), but very little actual data, until now. The latest research on the topic comes from some computer scientists at the University of California (both Berkeley and San Diego), who actually took over a zombie network to send out bogus spam and watched the fake orders roll in.

Except that they didn't actually get that many orders. They sent out 350 million spam messages, and received a grand total of 28 orders. The fake pharma website they set up just returned an error message when someone tried to place an order, so the actual numbers could be even lower. If any of the credit cards were fake or stolen, then you could imagine that a real spammer would bring in even fewer orders. Though, the real spammer would also likely send out many more messages as well. But, even accepting the researchers' numbers, they found that the full zombie network they used could probably bring in about $7k per day, or about $2 million per year.

That actually seems fairly low for a massive spam operation, and suggests that spam might not be as profitable as it once was (assuming that earlier reports on spam earnings were accurate). It would make sense that spam is becoming less and less profitable, as users become more sophisticated, and less prone to ordering from spam messages. There are still plenty of suckers out there, but once someone is educated not to buy from spam (or has a bad experience buying from spam), the pool of suckers declines rapidly. Of course, we all know the real profit in spam these days isn't in selling fake drugs, but in pump and dump stock scams anyway...

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Now that you can run commands as root on the Google phone, you may have been thinking about what else you can do with the device. You know, besides the usual talking, texting, and surfing while driving.

The device is Linux based, sure, but the installed software is relatively spartan and there isn't too much internal space to get dangerous. Thankfully, Jay Freeman wrote a nice guide for installing a more complete Linux distribution on the device, right alongside Android.

The main thing I've so far seen on this matter have been a few attempts to get busybox on there. I, however, think we can go a lot further: following the instructions in this article will end you up with a full distribution of Debian, one of the most highly respected Linux distributions, and the ability to install almost anything you want.

To do this, we need to think through a few of the details of getting this sort of thing running on the G1. The first question: where do we put it? The device has some internal flash, but it isn't really enough: only 128MB to share with the OS and other applications.

We therefore turn our attention to the much more reasonably sized microSD card, a format which lets us get up to 16GB of space.

Debian & Android Together on G1

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Cellphones | Digg this!

Dale Grover, host of GO-Tech, tells MAKE:

The next GO-Tech meeting is this Tuesday, November 11, at 8 pm. We'll be in our new location, A2 Mech Shop, the new shared technical space that several of us are setting up. (Directions at link below.) We're still moving in, but there will be plenty of space for meeting, and it will now be much easier to bring in vehicles and other demonstrations. I just got the wifi running this morning, and we'll have the usual video projector.

At this meeting, we'll have a slide show from the Austin Maker Faire, a progress report on A2 Mech Shop, and your cool projects.

GO Tech (formerly NotBAGO) is a meeting for Ann Arbor area readers of MAKE magazine, Circuit Cellar, Home Shop Machinist, Kevin Kelly's Cool Tools, slashdot, etc. That is, people who are interested in making things using technology, whether that's a metal cutting lathe or a Python script. A kind of generalized mixture of CerealBar, Dorkbot, Oxford Geek night, and Portland Machinist Guild. We have machinists, electrical engineers, software folks, industrial control types, and so on. We share projects, information about tools and ideas, and connect with like-minded people.

Past meetings have included: Solder your own Arduino, CNC basics and demo, laser engraving, designing/fabricating printed circuit boards, electric scooters, and so on. (Meeting minutes and some video and photos are on the site below.)

Meetings are generally the second Tuesday of the month at 8 pm.

For directions and to join the email list, go to the GO-Tech Yahoo page (under our old name, NotBAGO).

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Announcements | Digg this!

My studio-mate Nathan Lewis just finished this steampunk-ish Drool Collector. If you look closely you'll see a harmonica snorkel mouthpiece, a trumpet spit valve, and a baby food jar. Photo available at my Flickr. Another project of his is showmemytongue.com, where he beckons you to take pictures of a silicone replica of his tongue and post it online.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

CaptSolo writes "The EU Council refuses to release secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement documents, stating that disclosure of this information could impede the proper conduct of the negotiations, would weaken the position of the EU in these negotiations, and might affect relations with the third parties concerned. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure requested these documents last week. FFII's response questions ACTA's secrecy saying: 'The argument that public transparency regarding 'trade negotiations' can be ignored if it would weaken the EU's negotiation position is particularly painful. At which point exactly do negotiations over trade issues become more important than democratic law making? At 200 million euro? At 500 million euro? At 1 billion euro? What is the price of our democracy?'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Apparently Microsoft's ongoing program to bribe users to use its search engine wasn't getting enough attention, and the company seems to be upping the ante. At least for a little while, it's now giving 25% cash back on eBay purchases (limited to $200). At some point, you really have to wonder how well this program really works. Sure, some folks may use Microsoft's search to get the cashback (or to game the system), but will they keep it up when Microsoft isn't paying? That's not at all clear, and it seems likely that Microsoft could be paying out a lot more than it gets back in benefits.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

If jeweled skulls is an art genre, I'll take these over Damien's any day... Jeweled skulls by Amy Sarkisian, via Who Killed Bambi?

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Arts | Digg this!

Epic Games president Michael Capps did an interview recently with GamesIndustry, and he had some interesting things to say about the future of downloadable content, and how it will affect the retail games market. He also discussed the trend toward social gaming, and Epic's plans in that regard. Quoting: "I'm not sure how big it is here [in Europe], but the secondary market is a huge issue in the United States. Our primary retailer makes the majority of its money off of secondary sales, and so you're starting to see games taking proactive steps toward that by... if you buy the retail version you get the unlock code. I've talked to some developers who are saying 'If you want to fight the final boss you go online and pay USD 20, but if you bought the retail version you got it for free.' We don't make any money when someone rents it, and we don't make any money when someone buys it used — way more than twice as many people played Gears than bought it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There have been numerous studies done over the impact various portable electronics devices have on pacemakers, and they often make headlines blown way out of proportion compared to the actual issue. A year and a half ago, for example, we wrote about a report that found that iPods could interfere with pacemakers under some very specific (and somewhat unlikely) circumstances. And now there's a new study making the rounds about how iPod headphones could, maybe interfere with pacemakers, again in some very specific circumstances. As the folks behind the report note, it's so minor that it's not worth causing a big stir about it, but when the headphones are very close to the device, the magnets in them may impact how the device runs. It was a pretty small sample size, but in experiments it happened in 4 out of 27 tests with pacemakers. Slightly more troubling is in cases with defibrillators, where the headphones got in the way 10 out of 33 times. Though, with the pacemakers, it didn't sound as if the interference was all that serious in most cases, and with defibrillators, it seems likely that technicians are likely to notice and remove iPod headphones from getting in the way. While it's good to be aware of the potential for interference, but the actual risk of danger seems pretty minor.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Frances Goodman's Toilet graffiti embroideries via NOTCOT. A little warning, these are adult-ish content, but nothing you haven't seen written on a public restroom wall.

These remind me of "Embroidered text messages" by Ginger Anyhow.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Crafts | Digg this!

This is what happens when a couple of light-sensitive Thingamagoop analog synthesizers scan a blog. I'd love it if someone would compose a song on an incredibly long webpage for them to play!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

This is what happens when a couple of light-sensitive Thingamagoop analog synthesizers scan a blog. I'd love it if someone would compose a song on an incredibly long webpage for them to play!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Music | Digg this!

Even as some of our elected representatives are trying to re-legalize poker, the White House appears to be trying to shove through the regulations put in place a couple years ago to stop online gambling. The Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act of 2006 put the responsibility on financial institutions to stop any financial transactions used in online gambling. As we see all too often, it's a situation where the government is putting the liability on a third party to stop an undesirable activity, rather than on those actually involved in the activity. Not surprisingly, financial institutions have been protesting any regulations enforcing this law -- and with the current financial collapse going on, they're pushing back hard on any effort to enforce the law. So, what happens? Apparently, the White House has assigned a former NFL lobbyist working for the White House to try to force the regulations through, apparently putting tremendous pressure to get things moving. Congress is now asking the White House to explain why they're trying to rush this through, just as financial institutions are having so much trouble. It certainly does raise questions. Considering the push to reverse the law in the first place, combined with the protests from financial institutions that it shouldn't be their problem to stop online gambling, why is the White House putting excess pressure to try to make it happen?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

secmartin writes "The popular virus scanner AVG released an update yesterday that caused their software to mark user32.dll as a virus. Since this is a rather critical file, AVG's suggestion to remove it caused problems for users around the world who are now advised to restore the file through the Windows Recovery Console. AVG just posted an update about this (FAQ item 1574) in the support section of their site. Their forums are full of complaints."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I understand Maker Faire Austin is done and gone, but I'm still thinking about how much fun it was. Over the next week or 2, I'll continue to share some highlights from the most make-tastic event Austin's ever seen.

Courtesy of Chris Connors, here's Steve Davee at Maker Faire Austin explaining some of his many mods to a Maker's Notebook:

What are your best notebook hacks?

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Maker Faire | Digg this!