alphadogg writes "It's possible that in the future conversations on your cell phone could generate enough electrical power to run the phone, without batteries. That's one possible outcome of recent work by a team of Texas researchers, who appear to have discovered that by building a certain type of piezoelectric material to a specific thickness (about 21 nanometers, compared to a typical human hair of 100,000 nanometers), you can boost its energy production by 100 percent. And the technology could power not just phones, but a whole range of low-power mobile devices and sensors. The breakthrough is an example of 'energy harvesting' that can convert one kind of energy, such as vibrations or solar rays, into electricity." Link To Original Source

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

alphadogg writes "It's possible that in the future conversations on your cell phone could generate enough electrical power to run the phone, without batteries. That's one possible outcome of recent work by a team of Texas researchers, who appear to have discovered that by building a certain type of piezoelectric material to a specific thickness (about 21 nanometers, compared to a typical human hair of 100,000 nanometers), you can boost its energy production by 100 percent. And the technology could power not just phones, but a whole range of low-power mobile devices and sensors. The breakthrough is an example of 'energy harvesting' that can convert one kind of energy, such as vibrations or solar rays, into electricity." Link To Original Source

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The latest in a long line of attempts by the Australian government to censor the internet is now starting, as ISPs are beginning to filter the internet (sometimes under protest), agreeing to block access to sites on a government blacklist. This plan will cost Austrlian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, on top of the large amounts already spent on earlier plans that failed.

In response to the start of the new filtering, Australian citizens are taking to the streets in protest, though it's unclear how much of an impact that will have. Once these "trials" fail, with both false positives and false negatives, maybe, just maybe someone in power down under will recognize that censorship is just a bad idea.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Do you have an extra mp3 player or four in the house? Do your kids like to hear your bedtime stories? How about archiving them and setting up your kid with an audio player that will allow him or her to play them back at any time? With a couple of computer speakers, or a DIY audiobear, your child can hear your voice telling your best stories at any time, night or day. After making the recordings, you may find that you have an heirloom audio session that can be passed down for generations.

There are plenty of ways to customize your Storybear, plush knobs, speakers, remote control, and you could make the doll yourself.

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

Gary Gipson was inspired by the Magbot Pendulum project in Dave Hrynkiw's wonderful Junkbots, Bugbots & Bots on Wheels. Greg made a few changes. He put the electronics package on a little swinging bot and made the permanent magnet stationary to the base. The bot's LED eyes light up when he first starts out over the magnet. Nifty!

Gary has some other really nice BEAMbots on his YouTube channel, including a Photopopper driven by a 1381J voltage trigger-based solar engine. We used the 1381 in the two BEAMbots featured in MAKE, Volume 06 (reprinted in The Best of MAKE).

More

The Best of MAKE MAKE has become one of most celebrated new magazines to hit the newsstands, and certainly one of the hottest reads. If you're just catching on to the MAKE phenomenon and wonder what you've missed, this book contains the best DIY projects from the magazine's first ten volumes -- a surefire collection of fun and challenging activities going back to MAKE's launch in early 2005. Our Price: $22.75

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

Likely a huge hit at any Halloween party it attended, Casey Pugh's Daft Punk helmet -

It's a 16x5 LED matrix installed inside a cheap motorcycle helmet I found on Amazon. I used the Arduino to program all the animations. (arduino.cc)

The LEDs are on cardboard, so I punched holes between every single LED and some larger slits around the sides in order to see out.

Straight-up awesome. [via Synthtopia]

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

Daniel Carter, creative director of MAKE and CRAFT magazines, told me about illustrator Christoph Niemann's remarkable coffee-on-napkin drawings.

When I was 21 I worked as an intern at a magazine. The art director and I would brew a gigantic pot of coffee around 9 a.m. to help us get through the day. The pot would simmer in the coffeemaker, and through evaporation the coffee strengthened noticeably at lunchtime. In the evening hours, the remaining coffee had turned to a black concoction with a stinging smell and tar-like taste. We endured it without flinching.

Christoph Niemann's coffee-on-napkin drawings

smallkathryn writes "Technical specifications have just been released for the Australian net filtering trial. The trial, which aims to prove that ISP-level filtering is a viable way to stop 'unwanted content' from reaching users, will go live on 24 December. The trial will involve ISPs choosing a commercially available hardware filter from an internet content filter (ICF) vendor, adding it to their networks, then loading the blacklist of unwanted sites. Still no indication of how peer-to-peer information will be addressed."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Popular Science's Adam Weiner points out this entertaining example of Newton's First Law of Motion, "a body continues to maintain its state of rest or of uniform motion unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force". In this case, meaning those carts wanted to stay where they were.

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

In June, Dorian Cox, guitarist for UK indie rock back The Long Blondes, suffered a paralyzing stroke that made it impossible for him to play his instrument. The band was forced to call it quits. Now though, Cox is learning to use a SaeboFlex, a glove outfitted with springs and levers that helps stroke patients grasp objects and regain hand function. He hopes to someday pick up his instrument again.

"My right arm and leg aren't really usable so I can't play guitar," Cox explained to the Telegraph. "That was a nightmare because it meant the band couldn't carry on and my livelihood had suddenly gone..."

"I know things might never be the same again and nobody can give me a definite answer about whether I'll play guitar again but I'm getting back on track," Cox said.

"Long Blondes guitarist Dorian Cox back on track with 'bionic hand'" (Thanks, Gil Kaufman!)

Monday's post about a propellor-driven wind cart designed to travel directly downwind faster than the wind (DWFTTW) has generated an emotionally-charged discussion about the feasibility of such a vehicle.

There are three camps -- the people who think it's possible, the people who think it isn't, and the people who don't know. All three camps have members claiming to have degrees in physics, engineering, and aeronautics, and members from each camp are guilty of name-calling, insults, and cheerleading for their "side."

One fellow, a proponent of the idea that DWFTTW is possible, even told me that I should "prepare to be disappointed" because I have my doubts about DWFTTW! I would actually be delighted to learn the truth about this, whatever it is.

In MAKE Vol. 11, Charles Platt made a miniature model of the vehicle and came to the conclusion that there is no such thing as a wind-powered vehicle that can travel downwind faster than the speed of the wind. Last year, while Charles was working on the MAKE piece, he emailed me this charming sketch and description:

Lack of imagination among wind-cart enthusiasts has prevented them from realizing that a simple modern invention can solve the problem of net forward air flow trying to stop the cart. That invention is--the air duct!

A swivelling duct would be able to take advantage of wind coming from any direction. A vane at the rear of the duct would automatically turn it into the wind. Even on a windless day, the lucky owner of this windmobile would only have to give it a push before leaping aboard, to create some relative air flow that would power up the fan and accelerate the cart. Who could have imagined that the answer to the problem of non-renewable resources could be so simple?

Of course, he is being facetious. This morning, Charles emailed me the following, along with permission to post it:

I have browsed the huge discussion in response to your cart posting. Amazingly, so far as I can see, no one has addressed the fundamental problem that if the cart transitions from moving slower than the wind to faster than the wind, the reversal of air flow will try to turn the propeller backward, thus tending to stop the cart. It bothers me that so many people are conned by this idea (or con themselves).

--

Three questions for cart enthusiasts:

1. When the cart begins running slower than a tail wind, does the air move through the propeller from the back toward the front?

2. If the cart can somehow accelerate faster than the tail wind (as its proponents claim), does this means that air will now move through the propeller from the front toward the back?

3. If the flow of air through the propeller reverses in this way, will it tend to reverse the rotation of the propeller?

Answers to (1) and (2) are clearly "yes." Answer to (3) can be determined empirically by blowing air at a small fan, first from the front, then from the back, and watching which way it turns. Answer to (3) will also be "yes."

Therefore, the reversed air flow will retard forward motion, the speed of the cart is self-limiting, and the claim is false.

If you have something to contribute in the discussion boards about this, please refrain from insults and name-calling.

Side note: I emailed Adam Savage about this, and he said it's "in the hopper" for a Mythbuster's experiment! Im considering running another article about this in a future issue of MAKE, as well.

Monster Cable is famously litigious over its trademark -- suing just about anyone who uses the name "Monster" as a part of their corporate offering. Most of these lawsuits are bogus -- as trademark only covers the specific areas of business you're in, and doesn't give you complete control over the name. Thus, if you make a salt lick for deer called Monster Deer Block, you shouldn't have to worry about a lawsuit from Monster Cable... but you'd still get one, as pretty much everyone from the TV show Monster Garage to the Boston Red Sox (for the "Monster seats" on top of the "Green Monster" wall in left field) have found out.

Earlier this year, the company went after a small mini-golf operation in California called Monster Mini Golf, which we doubted anyone would confuse with the cable makers. Apparently, that wasn't the only Monster Mini Golf that Monster's lawyers were busy hassling. Chris Collett alerts us to the fact that a Rhode Island based Monster Mini Golf is also facing a lawsuit, and asking for help. But, there's an interesting twist here. The company is pleading it's case on eBay, and asking people to contribute to its defense fund via eBay. I'm not sure if this goes against eBay's terms of service, though I hope it doesn't:

BUT...one man is destined to crush what we have built. He is the founder of Monster Cable Inc. (a company that makes Audio cables) and he's suing us for "Trademark Infringement".

In a nutshell, trademark infringement is based solely on "Likelihood of Confusion", or essentially, "could the average consumer be confused between the two?". The answer is no, as decided by the Patent and Trademark Office when they granted our trademarks, but Monster Cable Inc filed an opposition against that decision, and sued us.

To this day, this one man has opposed approx 400 companies...and it doesn't look like he EVER intends to stop. This is the true meaning of Corporate Bully.

Their tactic is to run the smaller companies out of money, and force them into a settlement where they surrender their name to Monster Cable Inc, who then licenses it back to them for a fee. Yes, so then we would be paying him for a concept and business we created and have worked very hard for! It is essentially extortion, but sadly, it is cheaper than going to trial, which can be crippling to small businesses like ours.

Unlike the 414 companies he has forced into settlement by bleeding them dry.... we have decided to continue on and fight the good fight. We have chosen to stand up for anyone who has ever been bullied, picked on, abused, or otherwise forced into an unfair or unjust situation by a bigger, stronger, (or in this case, richer) opponent.

Each small business that was forced to sign over their name is one more brick in the massive Monster Cable Inc wall, held together by the blood of those crushed beneath their corporate wheels. It is very very sad.

So far our legal fees are well over $100,000. (And counting) and will likely reach $250,000 when all is said and done. No wonder why 400 companies have waived the white flag!! 250K is the cost of "Winning"!! We need your help, we cannot afford to do it alone. Wondering if this is real or not...just google Monster Mini Golf and Cable. Or visit audioholics web site and you will also read about many other cases there as well.

What we are selling is a "Piece" of our legal defense and a small slice of Justice to you for $1. Yep, just a buck....and as Sally Struthers once said, that's less than a cup of coffee! Geez...at Starbucks, it wouldn't even buy you that!

In return for your gracious purchase, you will receive a heartfelt "Thank You" from us and the knowledge that you have helped defeat a corporate bully who has been abusing the legal system for years! And, if you print your paypal receipt and take it to any Monster Mini Golf location, we'll take $2 Off a round of Mini Golf! (that's double your money back! Reg price for 18 holes is between $5.50-$7.50)

This is interesting, as I hadn't heard that Monster Cable was apparently selling the Monster name back to people it bullied. That's even more obnoxious -- and a clear abuse of trademark law. Also, it's been a while since we've seen companies using eBay auctions for PR, so maybe that's making a comeback. Either way, if you want to help stop one of the biggest trademark bullies out there, maybe try to buy a share of the legal defenses, and hope eBay doesn't take the auction down.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

"When is a helicopter like a Patsy Cline song? When it falls to pieces." That's the darkly comedic subhed in a new Air & Space Magazine about ground resonance, a condition when a sitting helicopter's rotors become imbalanced while spinning. If the frequency of the now-vibrating rotor is close to the body of the chopper's normal vibration frequency, the oscillations increase. In seconds, the whole helicopter can just fall apart. (Ground resonance tore the helicopter above apart in just four seconds.) From Air & Space:

“I was standing right next to it,” says Frank Robinson, founder of the world’s leading helicopter company, describing a close call he had during a 1961 test of a gyroplane. “I had to grab hold of it and hang on and ride the damn thing down. You don’t want to be standing out there when it starts to jump around — it can jump on you. And there’s not a good way to get out of it. Just cut everything, hang on and hope..."

The destruction is wrought by the considerable energy stored in the rotor blades. The shaking rapidly grows in violence, exceeding the strength of the mast, transmission mounts, and landing gear. The cyclic control in the cockpit flails about so violently that the pilot cannot hold it, the rotor blades strike the tail boom or the cockpit, parts begin falling off, and moments later the helicopter may be a heap of scrap.

How Things Work: Ground Resonance

The Evolution Control Committee has developed a new interface for music software using 2 Wii remotes and a projector. Input is controlled via infrared LED thimble-gloves against a rear-projection screen. Certainly a speedier way to trigger the massive amount of Ableton Live loops seen in the above video. -

Based off of Johnny Chung Lee's whiteboard, we assembled a four-foot rear-projected faux touchscreen. It's perfect for our Wheel Of Mashup shows, which depend on an overloaded setup of Ableton Live.

- Video Mashup Screen Demo

More:

The Evolution Control Committee presents Thimbletron

&

Johnny Chung Lee's Wiimote hacks

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

Barence writes "Mobile broadband speeds could hit a blistering 42Mb/sec as early as next year, according to Ericsson's chief technology officer. The idea seems far-fetched given that even the fastest dongles currently hover at around 7.2Mb/sec, but the technology to smash that barrier is thought to be just around the corner. One of the methods is very similar to the MIMO technology already used in draft-N wireless routers, but Ericsson believes a combination of factors may even squeeze that figure to 80Mb/sec in the longer term."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

PES's new screensaver is a Yule Log that transforms your computer into a Fireplace.

Funny yule log screensaver from PES films

Japanese college student Takena makes splatterpunk claymation movies with death metal soundtracks. The above collection of clips from his work is to promote an upcoming claymation event. For more, may I suggest his masterpiece, Chainsaw Maid, which Mark posted about before. Takena's YouTube Channel (via Ask Earache)

Previously on BB:
• Claymation zombie film

iamhigh writes "Reports are popping up that Chinese Internet Cafes are being required to switch to Red Flag Linux. Red Flag is China's biggest Linux distro and recently received headlines for their Olympic Edition release. The regulations, effective Nov. 5th, are aimed at combating piracy and require only that cafes install either a legal version of Windows or Red Flag. However, Radio Free Asia says that cafes are being forced to install Red Flag even if they have legal versions of Windows. Obviously questions about spying and surveillance have arisen, with no comment from the Chinese Government."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Our chocolatier friends at TCHO have released their 1.0 "gold master" bars. I've been nibbling on their betas for months, and can hardly wait to taste these.

For the past year, we asked for your feedback during our Beta program to help us create our first flavor-driven chocolates. And an astonishing 46 percent of you gave it. Now, a year and 1026 (literally) iterations later – your “Chocolatey”, “Fruity”, “Nutty”, and “Citrus” have arrived. They have been worth the wait - they are, indeed, obsessively good.

Introducing TCHO’s first “gold master” formulations in our stunning new packaging.

We did it together, and we couldn't have done it without you. Thank You! And now that we have arrived at 1.0 formulations, Susanna Dulkinys, partner in one of the world’s leading design firms, Spiekermann Partners, has designed new 1.0 packaging that's as delightful and innovative as our chocolate. Susanna's new packaging delights - it's bright, colorful, tactile, sophisticated.

TCHO's 1.0 "gold masters."

The winning project from American Maker is now available as a kit -

AIRHEADS - AIRDRUMS - Winner of the 2008 MAKE FAIRE Chicago " The best instrument they have seen since the Theremin"

Airheads MINI 4 kit are sensors to be used with midi drum brains and synthesizers or midi I/O devices allowing one to play instrument in the air just by waving your hands over the Airheads seniors in mid air. These sensors not only trigger your sounds but also sense velocity, they also make great proximity switching for many projects and applications, music, hobby robotics, home electronics, control lights with just a wave of a hand. use these with your VDRUMS or hook them up to your Arduino drum machine. Limited Time! Get a free GIG bag with your order!

Hmmm, definitely a lot of potential even beyond musical use! MINI 4 Airheads Kit

Catch the kit in action @ Maker Faire Austin -

More:


American Maker: The Winner "Airheads Air Drums"

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

George DeCell got scared, then when he didn't get the support he needed from the government or industry, he got Making. Many parents go around the house and kidproof their digs. Child locks on knobs, latches on drawers and cabinets, and outlet plugs are all supposed to make children safer and leave their parents at ease about safety. But when George's daughter choked on one of those very safety devices, he petitioned the US Consumer Product Safety Commission to make regulations to bring outlet caps into line with the requirements for baby pacifiers. When they didn't respond quickly enough, George DeCell decided to make his own solution.

What would you have done? Could you/should you modify the outlet plugs in your house? Do you see unsafe products around you? What would you do to fix them? Do you know how to help people bring great life saving ideas to market? Add your suggestions and ideas to the comments section, and add photos and video to the Make Flickr pool.

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

A new study by radiologists reports on teenage girls embedding needles, glass, and other objects in their flesh. While subdermal implants are nothing new in the realm of extreme body modifications, the researchers at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio suggest that the increasing number cases they've seen are actually a form of self-injury similar to cutting. From the Chicago Tribune:

Personnel at Nationwide Children's Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, report extracting 52 foreign objects that 10 teenage girls deliberately embedded in their arms, hands, feet, ankles and necks over the last three years, including needles, staples, wood, stone, glass, pencil lead and a crayon.

One patient had inserted 11 objects, including an unfolded metal paper clip more than 6 inches long...

The study, presented Wednesday at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago, is the first to report on this type of self-inflicted injury among teenagers, the researchers said. They call the behavior "self-embedding disorder."

Dr. William E. Shiels II, the study's principal investigator and the hospital's chief of radiology, said that uncovering the behavior was unexpected but that researchers are now hearing about cases in other cities. The hospital recently set up a national registry to track incidents and conduct research.

"Radiologists uncover, label new teen affliction" (Thanks, Gil Kaufman!)

If you've been paying attention to the political blogosphere or any news about the recent horrific attacks in Mumbai, you may have heard the story that made the rounds about a couple supposedly blaming CNN for potentially giving away their location to the terrorists. It was a hit among CNN-haters, and it got picked up by a variety of mainstream sources, including the NY Times. The only problem? The story is totally bogus. It originated in the publication Wales Online, but after CNN reviewed their footage and couldn't find anything to match the story, it asked the site for an explanation... at which point Wales Online admitted that the story was "not valid," blaming the Press Association from which it got the story.

However, as E-Media Tidbits points out, rather than post an update explaining the error, Wales Online took a different approach: it just made the article disappear. If you go to the original link for the story, you just get a blank page. This isn't helping the process of correcting errors. Well after the story was discovered to be a fake, plenty of sources were still repeating it.

Sure, it's embarrassing to make a mistake -- especially one that ends up getting so much attention. But simply "disappearing" the story and pretending it never happened is a dreadful solution. If anything, leave the original story up with a clear retraction placed at the top. Hell, maybe use the experience to explain how it happened and what the publication is doing to prevent similar things from happening in the future. The last thing you should do is just pretend the whole mess never happened in the first place. That just makes Wales Online look even less trustworthy.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

In a strange neuroscience experiment, researchers determined that and individual wearing virtual reality goggles showing video streaming from another person's body can have the sensation that the other body is his or her own. The results of the experiments, conducted at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, Sweden, were published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE. From the abstract:

The concept of an individual swapping his or her body with that of another person has captured the imagination of writers and artists for decades. Although this topic has not been the subject of investigation in science, it exemplifies the fundamental question of why we have an ongoing experience of being located inside our bodies. Here we report a perceptual illusion of body-swapping that addresses directly this issue. Manipulation of the visual perspective, in combination with the receipt of correlated multisensory information from the body was sufficient to trigger the illusion that another person's body or an artificial body was one's own. This effect was so strong that people could experience being in another person's body when facing their own body and shaking hands with it. Our results are of fundamental importance because they identify the perceptual processes that produce the feeling of ownership of one's body.

"If I Were You: Perceptual Illusion of Body Swapping" (PLoS ONE), "How To Use Neuroscience to Become Your Avatar" (Wired)

I don't know that I've ever seen any computer art quite as -- I'm sorry, there's no other way of putting this -- as fucked up as "I made this, you play this, we are enemies," a Flash game that really strongly resembles the unmistakable bonkerosity of the complicated sketches left behind the crazy people who used to sit at their own tables in the library I worked at, furiously drawing for 10 hours at a stretch. It's brilliant and terrible all at once and that is why I love it.

I made this, you play this, we are enemies (via Wonderland)

coondoggie supplies an excerpt from Network World that might make you consider a lock for your pipes: "The FBI today ratcheted up the clamor to do something more substantive about the monumental growth of copper theft in the US. In a report issued today the FBI said the rising theft of the metal is threatening the critical infrastructure by targeting electrical substations, cellular towers, telephone land lines, railroads, water wells, construction sites, and vacant homes for lucrative profits. Copper thefts from these targets have increased since 2006; and they are currently disrupting the flow of electricity, telecommunications, transportation, water supply, heating, and security and emergency services, and present a risk to both public safety and national security." (A July, 2006 post on Ethan Zuckerman's blog gives an idea of how widespread cable theft has affected internet infrastructure, and basketmaking, in Africa.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Our pal Bonnie Burton has a piece on StarWars.com on how to "Make Your Own Droidel Dreidel," a paper-crafted dreidel that looks like R2-D2. I wonder how you say "Happy Chanukah" in Droidspeak?

Droidel, Droidel, Droidel

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Holiday projects | Digg this!

Meet the Droidel, Starwars.com's print-and-fold papercraft R2D2-themed dreidel. Gemacht bin ich fon awesome!

Droidel, Droidel, Droidel (via Make)

One of the most ridiculous extensions of patent coverage in the past few decades was the decision to allow patents on "genes" for those who discover the genes. Patents aren't supposed to be allowed for things occurring in nature, and it's difficult to see how that doesn't apply to something as basic as genes. Yet, as an anonymous reader wrote in to point out, down in Australia, a company with a patent on a specific gene is causing babies with a severe form of epilepsy to have to delay both diagnosis and treatment. In fact, the delay in treating the babies may miss the sweet spot for treating the disease and preventing brain damage. When patents are being used to stop diagnosing a patient with a serious disease, we should all be asking how the system went so wrong.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

lobridge writes "Over the last two days multiple news feeds (and Slashdot) have been reporting that Apple has been quietly recommending antivirus software for their machines. It appears now that Apple has deleted an entry on their forums that suggested this and are saying that Mac computers are 'safe out of the box.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I enjoyed this Funny or Die video about Prop. 8. (Thanks, Shawn!)

Feral House, one of my favorite publishers of outré history, recently released two excellent books. Dope Menace has hundreds of color photos of sleazy drug paperback books, and The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People is a re-issue of the Wallace Family's (The Book of Lists, The People's Alamanac) fascinating history of the bedroom proclivities of famous folks, past and present.

While we now enjoy this exploitative genre for its campy kitsch, gloriously bad writing, and outlandish misinformation, drug paperback books were once a transgressive medium with a perversely seductive quality.

Dope Menace collects together hundreds of fabulously lurid and collectible covers in color, from xenophobic turn-of-the century tomes about the opium trade to the beatnik glories of reefer smoking and William S. Burroughs’ Junkie to the spaced-out psychedelic ’60s. We mustn’t forget the gonzo paranoia brought on by Hunter S. Thompson in the ’70s, when anything was everything.

For its initial edition of The Intimate Sex Lives of Famous People in 1981, the legendary Wallace family read 1,500 biographies, pored over rare correspondence, legal transcripts and medical reports, and interviewed lovers, confidants and associates of many distinguished men and women in world history.

This 600-page illicit encyclopedia of the private lives of writers, politicians, athletes, popes, rabble-rousers, composers, rock stars and sex symbols has been revised and enlarged, with a dozen new entries, including ones on Kurt Cobain, Malcolm X, Wilt Chamberlain, Ayn Rand, Jim Morrison, Nico, Aleister Crowley, and more.

The page on the left is from a 1978 book called Nate the Great Goes Undercover, by Marc Simont. The poster of Emily the Strange on the right is from 1991.

From "We Thought You Wouldn't Notice," a blog that points out art swipes:

If you’ve ever walked into a Hot Topic, you are somewhat familiar with Emily, but on the off-chance that you haven’t, you can get aquainted with her at her big fat website. She was designed in 1991, according to creator Rob Reger, as an image for use on skateboarding merchandise. Since then, she has morphed into a kind of goth pop icon. At first she was just a mouthpiece for typical Hot Topic tee slogans (”I WANT YOU to go away,” “Problem Child,” etc. etc.) but since has moved to full-fledged characterdom, with her own comic book series and a film slated for 2010.

Google searching for any information on this rip has yielded a tiny handful of bemused observers (this one offering the most analysis), but as far as I can tell no real action has been taken. I doubt that neither Marjorie Weinman Sharmat nor Marc Simont (the author and illustrator of the Nate the Great books, respectively) is aware of the appropriation of their character. I plan to send a letter to each c/o of their publishers as soon as possible. I really do think something should be done. This stolen character has already made millions for its “creator” and the fact that she will have her own film is clear testament of how big she’s gotten.

I wonder if Reger is giving Simont a percentage of the sales from Emily merchandise?

Emily the Strange is a rip off of a 1978 book character

An anonymous reader writes "For copyright activists, Christmas comes but once every three years: a chance to ask Santa for a new exemption to the much-hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act's prohibitions against hacking, reverse engineering and evasion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes protecting all kinds of digital works and electronic items. Judging from the list of 20 exemptions requested this year [19 shown], some in the cyber-law community are thinking big. The requests include the right to legally jailbreak iPhones in order to use third party software, university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use, YouTube users wishing to rip DVDs to make video mashups, a request to allow users to hack DRM protecting content from stores that have gone bankrupt or shut down, and a request to allow security researchers to reverse engineer video games with security flaws that put end-users at risk." Reader MistaE provides some more specific links to PDF versions: "Among the exemption proposals is a request from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to allow circumvention of DRM protection when the central authorization server goes down, a request from the EFF to allow circumvention to install third party programs on phones, as well as a request for ripping DVDs for non-commercial purposes. There were also several narrow requests from educational institutions to rip DVDs for classroom practices."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "For copyright activists, Christmas comes but once every three years: a chance to ask Santa for a new exemption to the much-hated Digital Millennium Copyright Act's prohibitions against hacking, reverse engineering and evasion of Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes protecting all kinds of digital works and electronic items. Judging from the list of 20 exemptions requested this year [19 shown], some in the cyber-law community are thinking big. The requests include the right to legally jailbreak iPhones in order to use third party software, university professors wishing to rip clips from DVDs for classroom use, YouTube users wishing to rip DVDs to make video mashups, a request to allow users to hack DRM protecting content from stores that have gone bankrupt or shut down, and a request to allow security researchers to reverse engineer video games with security flaws that put end-users at risk." Reader MistaE provides some more specific links to PDF versions: "Among the exemption proposals is a request from the Harvard Cyberlaw Clinic to allow circumvention of DRM protection when the central authorization server goes down, a request from the EFF to allow circumvention to install third party programs on phones, as well as a request for ripping DVDs for non-commercial purposes. There were also several narrow requests from educational institutions to rip DVDs for classroom practices."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Instructables has announced an amazing contest they're running with Sears. Called "The Craftsman Workshop of the Future Contest," all you have to do to be eligible is post an Instructable that uses tools! The grand prize winner will get a $20,000 Sears gift card (no, that's not a typo). Ten runners up will each get a $500 gift card. Here are the basics of what they're looking for in the entries:

Show us your skills and your passion for building in an amazing Instructable and be sure to provide plenty of details and tips to help others out. We want to see what tools you use and how you use them. We also want to see enough instruction that others can follow in your footsteps to make it themselves.

There's also an additional "Show Your Space" sub-contest:

You can enter a slideshow or a video of your current workshop to show off what you've got OR you can put together a rendering or a drawing of the workshop you wish you had! Be specific and show us what you would want and where you would put it so that you could easily knock out all those projects you've been dying to work on!

This sub-contest will be running for four weeks, and at the end of each week, they'll randomly choose a winner from all entries. Winners can choose either a C3 Craftsman remote control car, the Auto hammer, the Nextec Drill, or the C3 19.2 volt powered caulk gun.

We hope our faithful MAKE readers will go for the gold (and if you do, share some of the booty with us!). The deadline for the main contest is Jan 4, so fire up those tools and get crackin'!

See the links below for contest details:

How to Enter the Craftsman Workshop of the Future Contest

How To Enter Workshop of the Future: Show Your Space

More:

Best Of Instructables
Our Price: $34.99
Sale Price: $29.99
You Save $5.00!

Instructables.com has become one of the most popular magnets for makers and DIY enthusiasts of all stripes. Now, with more than 10,000 projects to choose from, the Instructables staff, the editors of MAKE magazine, and the Instructables community itself have put together a collection of home, craft, food and technology how-to's from the site. The Best of Instructables Volume 1 includes plenty of clear, full-color photographs, complete step-by-step instructions, and tips, tricks, and new build techniques you won't find anywhere else.

Highlights from the book:

* 336 pages, 6-5/8 x 9-3/8, same dimensions as The Best of MAKE and MAKE magazine.
* Over 120 projects!
* Projects cover everything from food hacking and making home furnishings from junk to building robots and CNC milling machines. And in-between you'll find projects on arts, crafts, costume-making, tool tips, themed photo galleries, and tons more.
* There are also the results of the Community Choice contest winners (the best of Instructables as voted by its members) and links to their projects.
* There are key user comments from the site throughout, called User Notes, and even a section in the back for you to keep your own User Notes as you build the projects.

We tried to involve the Instructables community as much as possible in the creation of the book (we were in direct communication with several hundred authors!). We hope the results do this maker community proud. It was a thrill ride to be sure.

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

TechCrunch: "TechCrunch readers can now use their Facebook accounts to sign in before leaving comments."

Interesting. And it integrates with Facebook's news feed.

I left a comment suggesting they do the same for Twitter, FriendFeed and Identi.ca. Very easy to validate a name with any of those services, though the companies didn't make a big deal about it. I'd like to see some of the smaller developers get a chance to play in league with the big guys. They could also share a pointer to your comment in the flow of any of the services, their APIs make it brain-dead simple to do.

It’s been awhile since we designed a t-shirt, and today we’re happy to announce the fresh-off-the-presses and just-in-time-for-the-holidays Charge Tee: a simple black battery icon screen-printed on an athletic grey Tri-Blend shirt from American Apparel. The Tri-Blend is the softest, most comfortable shirt I’ve owned. And you’ll love it too. Wear it to the gym, coffeeshop, pub—or wherever you recharge.

The shirts (like previous designs) were printed by Acme Prints in Arizona, and will be hand-packed by myself, Meagan, or anyone else we can coax into helping.

Looks like cops aren't the only ones looking online for evidence of crime. Just in the past week, we've seen two stories of small businesses using the web to do some detective work of their own. Canadian retailers in Cape Breton are hiring loss preventional specialists who are making use of social networking tools to track down shoplifters, finding dumb criminals bragging about items they've stolen on YouTube and then using Facebook to help identify the thieves. When a shoplifter has been identified, that information is shared with other members in the retail association who may choose to block that person from their stores. One of the mall owners interviewed also notes in the comments that Facebook is especially useful in checking for potential accomplices (friends who were there at the time of the theft). Despite the effectiveness of using the internet as a crime fighting tool, politicians elsewhere have been trying to get evidence of crime removed from YouTube even though it helps police -- and now retailers -- to catch dumb criminals.

The second story involves an Australian restaurant owner who tracked down bill dodgers using Facebook. The group of five diners stepped outside for a smoke and never returned after racking up a bill of $340 USD. Restaurant staff recalled that one of the diners had inquired about a former waitress when the group arrived. They contacted the waitress, searched a few names on Facebook and came across a profile belonging to one of the diners, who was pictured with his girlfriend (also in the group). Facebook showed that they worked at a restaurant down the street. They contacted the manager and, within hours, the diner returned to pay the bill (along with a generous tip and an apology). Later, the restaurant was notified that the man and his girlfriend had both been fired. No criminal charges were filed.

Whether it's dumb criminals who can't resist bragging or sloppy criminals giving away clues to their identity, the web makes it a lot easier for law enforcement and victims to track them down.

Blaise Alleyne is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Blaise Alleyne and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

</object

Delightful sausage commercial from Budapest. (via Filled with Chocolate Pudding)

Raph Koster's Metaplace is offering the first 250 Offworld readers a chance to play around with the company's web-embeddable virtual meta-world. Brandon has more:

Metaplace is also jumping ahead of the pack in modeling the software's Terms of Service around his 2000 manifesto “Declaring the Rights of Players", which gives creators "freedom of expression, ownership, including earning money & running their own world, privacy," and the ability to develop their own individual terms of service. Users, too, get "freedom of speech & assembly, privacy, rule of 'law' and due process," and full ownership of their own IP.

Bop over and get your invite key. You'll never guess what it is. (Translation: You probably will.) Only on Offworld: Be one of the first to join virtual world Metaplace [Offworld]

We interrupt our regularly scheduled weekly programming (Brandon from Offworld is taking the week off from Boing Boing tv duties) to bring you a short, sweet, retro-tastic little video from Bill Barminski, one of our favorite filmmakers and multimedia artists. This piece is a music video for his music side project, the SubAtomic Nixons. Direct MP4 download here (Duration:00:01:32). You can view previous BBtv episodes featuring his work right here.

rockwood reports that the .tel top level domain has been deployed, "in a first attempt at pushing the recently approved .tel. The top-level domain .tel was approved by ICANN as a sponsored TLD launching on Wednesday, December 3, 2008[1] to trademark owners of national effect and on February 3, 2009 to anyone who wishes to apply. Its main purpose is as a single management and publishing point for 'internet communication' services, providing a global contacts directory service by housing all types of contact information directly in the DNS."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotted in the Craft magazine Flickr pool. Purple people eater gloves

(Image via ABC)

Tom Szaky sells people worm feces in thrown-away bottles. At Treehugger, he writes:

Garbage is America's #1 export and possibly the biggest raw material source we have.

...

Waste is also a new idea - probably no more than 100 years old. It is an idea that came about with the birth of complex polymers and consumerism (brought on by the fad for disposable products in the 1950s). If necessity breeds innovation, then we are long overdue to find innovative ways to solve the waste issue

...

If enough businesses begin to use this undervalued material the demand for garbage will skyrocket. As we all know, when demand goes up then supply goes down, which in the case of garbage, is a very good thing!

For more on building with "garbage," check out:

• Garbage architecture


• From garbage to gold: bike tubes to messenger bags


• Samurai costume nearly entirely from garbage cans

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

(Image above by keerthi). Today marks one week since the attacks in Mumbai that killed and injured hundreds (BB post #1, BB post #2). Skimming headlines this morning in the Times of India, the post-attack narrative has now turned to the possibility of punitive strikes on Pakistan by India, with some Indian media implying US support -- things could get a lot scarier, fast, given that both nations have nukes. US Secretary of State Rice just arrived, and on this same day, they've found bombs in the Mumbai train station that was an attack site.

One of the other aftermath stories I've been following: what tech devices the attackers used to orient themselves and coordinate communications before, during, and after the attacks. VOIP phones, SIM cards, and Garmin GPS units, among them. Some of this information is apparently the result of interrogation with the one known surviving attacker, and is being printed in Indian tabloids, so I'm not sure of how reliable all of this is. Anyway, snip from one more reputable account:

[T]he terrorists who carried out the rampage in Mumbai procured with ease five cell phone SIM cards -- three of which were being purchased from Delhi's Karol Bagh area while the rest from West Bengal's 24 Parganas district, interrogation records of the only arrested ultra have revealed.

Mohammad Ajmal Amir Iman has told interrogators that right through the fighting, the Lashkar-e-Taiba headquarters in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir remained very much in touch with them, frequently calling their mobile phones via a voice-over-Internet service.

The government last year imposed strict rules on the issuance of SIM cards by cellular services operators following the Mecca Masjid blasts in Hyderabad in May, where terrorists had copiously used cell phones to trigger improvised explosive devises and send text messages to their handlers in Pakistan.

Here's another account:

Each man was equipped with a Kalashnikov rifle and 200 rounds of ammunition and grenades. The group also had at least one state-of-the art Garmin global positioning system set, and several mobile phones fitted with SIM cards, which have now been determined to have been purchased in Kolkata and New Delhi. Three men had larger bags, packed with five timer-controlled Improvised Explosive Devices.

More about the attackers, who were apparently men in their early twenties, from Pakistan: They apparently took large amounts of cocaine and LSD before and during the attacks to stay awake, in an altered state of consciousness.

And, a random, weird thing: one attacker captured alive by the Indian authorities is shown below in a CCTV camera still. Remember how Indian TV news was reporting that his shirt read "CRSA," speculating that this was some new terror organization, when the attacks were taking place? Well, take a closer look. That's "VERSA", with the rest of the word cut off -- "VERSACE." Loren Coleman has more.

A reader named EmJay wrote in with a snide comment about how we wouldn't write about the following story because it's a case where "copyright and patents made sense." I never understand these sorts of comments. We write about all kinds of cases, and if there were one where an intellectual property lawsuit made sense, we'd be thrilled. It would be an example of the system working as planned: encouraging innovation. That would be fantastic. Unfortunately, EmJay's example is no such thing. It's not an example of the system making sense, but of the system being used to slow down innovation and block competition.

The story involves a guy who started making plastic turkey wishbones for Thanksgiving/Christmas celebrations, so that families wouldn't have to fight over the actual turkey wishbone in the traditional "breaking" of the wishbone. Of course, maybe it was just my family, but I don't recall ever "fighting" over the wishbone. Anyway, the agency Young & Rubicam, which represents Sears, had asked for a sample for possible inclusion at Sears. A year later, Sears was selling a similar plastic wishbone, made by a different company, so this guy sued and won. From the article, the guy says they won on both patent and copyright infringement claims, but that's not true. The lawsuit was over copyright infringement claims only, and Sears made two good points that should have prevailed, in our opinion. First, you can't copyright something occurring in nature -- such as a wishbone. Second, the wishbones that Sears ordered were in different colors and sizes than the ones supplied by the original company.

And, in fact, that's exactly how competition should work. Sears pushed another manufacturer to innovate, designing different (and, in their opinion, better) wishbones. That's competition and that's how innovation works. In fact, the guy from the original company now admits that his company didn't do any updating of their design for years while fighting this lawsuit, and are just now starting to update the design. In other words, all copyright did was get these companies locked in a silly legal battle, rather than focusing on providing better solutions to customers. It's too bad this guy was afraid to compete in the marketplace.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

It was recently announced that sci-fi remake series, Battlestar Galactica is getting a whole new spinoff prequel series called "Caprica". Signed on for twenty hours worth of finished product, including a two hour pilot, the new series is to be set 50 years prior to Battlestar Galactica and will focus on two rival families, the Graystones and the Adamas. "Enmeshed in the burgeoning technology of artificial intelligence and robotics that will eventually lead to the creation of the Cylons, the two houses go toe-to-toe blending action with corporate conspiracy and sexual politics. 'Caprica' will deliver all of the passion, intrigue, political backbiting and family conflict in television's first science fiction family saga."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is one of the baddest-ass gift ideas I've seen yet this holiday season. So, you may recall an earlier Boing Boing blog post about the Periodic Table rendered in lenticular 3D photographs....

Theodore Gray has been making the ultimate periodic table, a one-of-a-kind wooden table with real samples that sits in his office. For the rest of us who don’t visit his office he has he has created an incredible (and very tastefully designed) photographic poster "after four years of collecting and photographing samples of all the chemical elements, months of struggling to select the very best example of each one."

Mr. Gray is producing those posters still, and they're vivid and lovely. But he's also offering a custom banner service so you can print out a name (yours, that of your loved one, or your beloved blog, whatever) in photographic elements. Ours is above. Also, he's just begun offering a really cool puzzle with the same imagery, and a deck of index cards -- unlike other "elements" card decks, this one has perfectly square cards with all the info about that element on the back. You can reassemble them to make the periodic table. I've seen all of this stuff, it's sitting in the Boing Boing tv office right now, and it's beautifully printed, packaged, and presented. I'm going to buy a bunch for holiday prezzies.

UPDATE: Oh, cool -- a special offer for Boing Boing readers! Theodore, the guy who makes all this stuff, says:

I've added a "Where did you hear about my products?" comment field to the PayPal order page (it comes near the end of the ordering process). If anyone puts in boingboing, I'll send them a free extra product. If they order any size of poster, I'll include an extra 18x36 poster. If they order something non-rolled (like place mats, 3D lenticular print, card deck, or puzzle), I'll send something else that's not rolled. (Sending both a rolled and non-rolled item costs much more than sending two of the same type.)

Photography courtesy of Terry A. Perdue - The Soul of an old heathkit by Dale Dougherty.

Howard Nurse built hundreds of Heathkits, starting in the 1950s with a ham radio transmitter kit, the DX-40. As a kid, he loved to go to sleep reading the catalog, which was a window into the world of electronics and a wish list of things he wanted to build.

“You have to understand the whole experience of a Heathkit,” he said. “It began with the catalog, which became part of my dreams and fantasies.” Once he had pored over the catalog and placed an order, he would count the days until his Heathkit box arrived, each day imagining where his letter was en route, who opened it in the Benton Harbor, Mich., headquarters of Heathkit, how the order was processed, and then estimating how many days it would take the post office to deliver it to his home in New Jersey. “Finally you’d get the package in the post box, after all this anticipation,” he said

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

Today on Offworld we played I wish I were the Moon, likely the only directly Italo Calvino inspired game you'll see all year, and heard about a number of new games worth getting worked up about: a new Wii music game from Rez/Lumines creators Q Entertainment, a firmer release date for the new Ghostbusters game, and Mama moving from Cooking to the Garden. We also looked at a set of sexy new DIY Game Boy LED hacks, saw an Xbox logo fly over 17th century Hamburg, heard a convincing case for more normality versus heroics in games, watched a pitch perfect Halo 3 parody trailer for the brilliantly retro-futuristic strategy game Multiwinia, looked at the decline and fall of Sonic games, and, uh... made paper dolls while listening to ABBA.

Today on Boing Boing Gadgets, a graffiti artist left a curious message for Brownlee on his front doorstep, and Joel did not pay six dollars to dink around on an iPhone Stylophone. Beschizza was outraged that breaking a web site's terms of service has been made a crime. Elecom finally made a waterproof SD card. Joel lusted after a Poulsen kit that will turn any car into a hybrid. Meanwhile, Beschizza spent all morning as a paranoiac, obsessing over the spy messages in number signals. Circuit City's bankruptcy fire sale is not extending to their fire extinguishers. Nokia finally unveiled their flip-up QWERTY touchscreen, the N97. Brownlee was surprised by how nice gadgetry looks in the aesthetic of oriental pottery and looked like an idiot wondering about when Apple was going to sell their premium in-ear headphones when they had just that moment gone on sale. The FCC leaked the Sony's new netbook, There was a strange halved keyboard from Japan. Fujitsu offered a free laptop replacement every three years to their customers. Some cool junkbots were on display, and Palm blames the economy for their plummeting revenue when the truth is more obvious. Finally, the game of Operation finally meets lockpicking. And John slathers his face in moist gobs of MomSpit. Link

soDean writes "The Principles for an Open Transition and a petition were co-launched by Lawrence Lessig, Mozilla, and the Participatory Culture Foundation today. This was in reaction to the announcement that Obama would be posting his transition videos to YouTube. The petition encourages Obama to publish his transition videos with open licenses, make them available for download, and preferably use royalty free/open video formats and standards. Unless YouTube makes some radical changes, the videos will need to be hosted elsewhere."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ANALOG AMP METER CLOCK- An Elegant timepiece marks the hours with needle meters - By Gene Scogin...

Several years ago I had the idea of making an analog clock that used voltmeter-style needle gauges rather than a standard dial. A few weeks ago I finally made one, using an Arduino board and 3 current meters from a local electronics store. I built it up in stages, starting out with a single meter that displayed just seconds, then adding hour and minute meters, adding buttons and programming to make the time settable, and finally building it into a nice box. Here’s how I did it.

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

Early bird pricing ends December 10th. See you in Denver? #

For years, we've been among those pointing out that the really important thing in economic growth isn't invention, but innovation. It's the process of actually taking an idea and successfully bringing it to market in a way that people want that matters in the long run. Coming up with new ideas is only a small part of the process. That's why we often have so much trouble with the way the patent system works. It greatly enhances the role of simply coming up with the new idea, and then makes the important part -- the innovation -- a lot more expensive. However, when we discuss this, we often get angry comments from people noting that "basic research" would disappear without patents. Of course, that's unlikely for a variety of reasons, including the fact that a great deal of basic research has little or nothing to do with patents.

However, a recent deeply researched book by Columbia professor Amar Bhide called The Venturesome Economy goes even further in noting that all of this talk about basic research misses the point: basic research has little impact on actual innovation. If we want to focus on actually helping the economy, investing in basic research will do very little. The real trick is in encouraging that ongoing innovation -- those "mid-level" improvements that make products more acceptable in the market. Even if basic research occurs outside of the US, our ability to take ideas and shape them into successful businesses by engaging in that process of refining and improving are what will allow the economy to continue growing. It's great to see more academic support for these concepts.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Models made out of books by Thomas Allen via Buzzfeed.

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

Ashmash writes "Phoronix has put out a fresh series of benchmarks that show the real world performance of the Ext4 file-system. They ran 19 tests on Fedora 10 with changing out their primary partition to test Ext3, Ext4, Xfs, and ReiserFS. The Linux 2.6.27 kernel was used with the latest file-system support. In the disk benchmarks like Bonnie++ Ext4 was a clear winner but with the real world tests the results were much tighter and Xfs also possessed many wins. They conclude though that Ext4 is a nice upgrade over Ext3 due to the new features and just not improved performance in a few areas, but its lifespan may be short with btrfs coming soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ashmash writes "Phoronix has put out a fresh series of benchmarks that show the real world performance of the Ext4 file-system. They ran 19 tests on Fedora 10 with changing out their primary partition to test Ext3, Ext4, Xfs, and ReiserFS. The Linux 2.6.27 kernel was used with the latest file-system support. In the disk benchmarks like Bonnie++ Ext4 was a clear winner but with the real world tests the results were much tighter and Xfs also possessed many wins. They conclude though that Ext4 is a nice upgrade over Ext3 due to the new features and just not improved performance in a few areas but its lifespan may be short with btrfs coming soon."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Each episode of MAKE: television includes in-depth profiles of prominent Makers. Here's a quick preview of an upcoming profile of Minneapolis Art on Wheels. Ali Momeni and his fleet of mobile video projectors transform public spaces into real-time sound and light shows on a massive scale.

View the clip above, get the M4V and/or subscribe in iTunes. Don't forget to leave a comment; we want to know your thoughts.

To find out broadcast times and dates in your city, call your local public television station and request "Viewer Services." Or just log on to www.makezine.tv, where we'll stream full episodes in January.

Check out the group Minneapolis Art on Wheels

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Portable Audio and Video | Digg this!

When we talk about news on the net the conversation is dominated by the interests of news organizations. The stories we tell are from their point of view. The vexing problems we face are their problems, not ours. That's been the point of the series of pieces I've been writing about news. I do care about the people of news, as I care about the people of the car industry and the people who lost their jobs at Lehman Brothers. And the 10K contractors who may be laid off at Google. But for the sake of this discussion, what I really care about is news and how it's going to get from them that have to them that want.

In a comment yesterday I said it's often overlooked that while the Internet makes some things that we used to do diseconomic, if you took the Internet away some things we've come to expect would go away too. All the stuff people call "crowd-sourcing" -- the million eyeballs that are constantly watching, and the thousands of them that are there when news happens.

I watched a bunch of campaign events this year, and one of the things that's largely been unreported is how much reporting goes on at them. I first noticed it when Hillary came out on stage to make her concession speech. Immediately every pair of hands in the room goes up, not in salute, not cheering -- each pair held a digital camera, and they were capturing images of the Clinton family. There's no doubt if you wanted a picture of that event you could get many to choose from.

It was something else at Mile High Stadium for the Obama acceptance event. It seemed everyone there was taking in the history of it, and again, the cameras were everywhere.

Look at this striking picture of the audience at the Obama rally in Berlin, taken from Obama's perspective. This is what he must have been seeing as he went across the country. Recording devices of every kind, all pointed at him. (A fair number of American flags too, which gave me goose bumps.)

Now if there isn't something we can do with the next generation of networking tools that's truly exciting and enabling, then we need to hang it up and let someone else drive for a while. In a couple of years every one of those devices will be replaced (knock wood, praise Murphy) and will they communicate better? I hope so! At the same time, we need to work on software and networking tools that allow us to process millions of pictures of an event and do intelligent things with it. When I was in Boulder in August I saw such a tool.

I've also been playing with a flow of thousands of professional photographs every day. It's really something to wrap your mind around, but after almost a year, I'm beginning to understand what kind of editorial tools you need to make sense of such a flow.

And that's always the tough problem, in my experience, making sense of the information. That's what reporters do. But it's all happening now on such a huge scale, we need new systems to grapple with it.

Do I think there could be money-making ventures built off this flow? Absolutely. What are they? Not sure yet.

The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology is calling for the next Doctor Who to be a woman, in order to inspire girls to take up careers in science (and time-lording).

A spokeswoman from the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology (UKRC) said: "There is a distinct lack of role models of female scientists in the media and recent research shows that this contributes to the under-representation of women in the field.

"The UKRC believes that making a high profile sci-fi character with a following like Doctor Who female would help to raise the profile of women in science and bring the issue of the important contribution women can and should make to science in the public domain."

The UKRC have set up a group on social networking site Facebook in a bid to get the BBC and members of the public behind their cause before the future Time Lord, or Lady, is chosen in time for the next full series set to air in 2010.

'Doctor Who should be a woman' say female scientists (via IO9)

Glyn sez, "The UK Government planning to sneak in a police power to make anyone who has ever entered the country, at any time, prove who they are. This would effectively cover any British citizen who has ever left the UK, even for a holiday, because they will have "entered" the UK on their return. It will mean that for the first time in more than half a century that the police will be able to demand your papers."

ID cards are not voluntary (Thanks, Glyn!)

(Image: ID Card, a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike image from Gareth Harper's Flickr stream)

Peacay at BibliOdyssey found this incredible University of Cincinnati exhibit of calendar cards produced by the Strobridge Lithography Company.

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

mask.of.sanity writes "Outraged aussies will hold simultaneous protests across Australia in opposition to the government's plans for mandatory ISP internet content filtering. The plan will introduce nation-wide filtered internet using blacklists operated by a government agency, away from public scrutiny. Politicians and ISPs will join protesters in the streets to voice their opposition to the government's plan, which has ploughed ahead, despite intense criticism that the technology will crippled internet speeds and infringe on free speech. Opponents said the most accurate filter chosen by the government will incorrectly block up to 10,000 Web pages out of 1 million."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mask.of.sanity writes "Outraged aussies will hold simultaneous protests across Australia in opposition to the government's plans for mandatory ISP internet content filtering. The plan will introduce nation-wide filtered internet using blacklists operated by a government agency, away from public scrunity. Politicians and ISPs will join protesters in the streets to voice their opposition to the government's plan, which has ploughed-ahead, despite intense criticism that the technology will crippled internet speeds and infringe on free speech.Opponents said the most accurate filter chosen by the government will incorrectly block up to 10,000 Web pages out of 1 million."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Two videos! Print out a shot glass & an iPhone case...

Print out a shot glass...

And...

...print out an iPhone case.

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

We were quite disappointed with Congress earlier this year, selling out the country and granting retroactive immunity to telcos for any involvement they might have had in any warrantless wiretapping program. The immunity basically gave the White House a get out of jail free card that it could hand to any telco -- even if that telco clearly violated constitutional rights. No matter which side of the political aisle you fall on, this should be extremely disturbing. It basically lets the President decide that certain companies don't need to obey the constitution. That, by itself, seems to be unconstitutional.

Not surprisingly, the EFF and the ACLU sued over the granting of immunity, and the judge in the case heard the arguments on both sides on Tuesday. While there was a lot of back and forth, at least part of the exchange suggested that the judge agreed with the government's position, telling the EFF's lawyer that he should take up his complaint with Congress, not through the courts.

Perhaps I'm missing something, but isn't a large part of the reason for the judicial system to be a check on the power of Congress and the White House -- specifically on making sure they don't do anything unconstitutional? It's not clear when the judge will rule, but I've yet to see a single reasonable explanation for why telcos should be granted immunity. If what they did wasn't illegal, then there's nothing to worry about. If what they did was illegal, but they felt that it was in the best interests of the country, then let them explain that in court to mitigate the situation. Granting retroactive immunity goes against everything the rule of law should stand for.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

This video demonstrates several life-like "cyborg insects" that may potentially be future "spies" with onboard cameras and surveillance equipment. Check out the video to see how lifelike these "bugs" really are.

via New Scientist

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

With all the fun about pov's, you might be wondering how to do it with an Arduino. Having a device that can be used for the pov and then for some other project has its benefits. check out Carlito's Contraptions.

The parameters in the code can be changed in order to display other images besides of the default arrows.

The displayed image is stored in the data string. Each drawing is divided in frames (i.e. one frame for each letter of a word) and each frame is divided in columns. The image to be displayed must be encoded into 1s (ON) and 0s (OFF) and each value must be stored in the data string in the order illustrated below.

The duration of each column (i.e. how much time they stay ON), the spacing between frames and the spacing between images are set respectively by the integers timer1, timer2 and timer3. Keep in mind that their values depend on the rotation speed.

It's great how he puts his code in near the photos to show what the result looks like.

Persistance of Vision (POV) is how we can see a collection of still images in animated form and our mind connects them together to create the illusion of movement.

Nice start Carlos!

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

Mathea's sterling silver LEGO rings make for some cool modular jewelry possibilities - neat idea!
- LIFESTYLE_Schmuck_Noppenringe

More:
LEGO man jewelry

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

Smivs writes "Logitech has hailed as a major landmark the production of their one billionth computer mouse. The news comes at a time when analysts claim the days of the mouse are numbered. "It's rare in human history that a billionth of anything has been shipped by one company," said Logitech's general manager Rory Dooley. "Look at any other industry and it has never happened. This is a significant milestone." The computer mouse will achieve a milestone of its own next week when it turns 40. It was 9 December 1968 when Douglas C. Engelbart and his group of researchers at Stanford University put the first mouse through its paces."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

10 interesting tool chests via BBG.

..lots of beautifully crafted objects that fit intricately into a perfect container. Here are some of our favorites, including the stunning chest which resides in the Smithsonian and belonged to Organ and Piano maker, Henry O Studley at the other end of the scale is the garden variety, utilitarian tool box that saved the NASA Spacelab .

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

Hugh Pickens writes "Vaughn Bell has written an interesting essay at Scientific American about grief hallucinations. This phenomenon is a normal reaction to bereavement that is rarely discussed, although researchers now know that hallucinations are more likely during times of stress. Mourning seems to be a time when hallucinations are particularly common, to the point where feeling the presence of the deceased is the norm rather than the exception. A study by Agneta Grimby at the University of Goteborg found that over 80 percent of elderly people experience hallucinations associated with their dead partner one month after bereavement, as if their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved's passing. It's not unusual for people who have lost a partner to clearly see or hear the person about the house, and sometimes even converse with them at length. 'Despite the fact that hallucinations are one of the most common reactions to loss, they have barely been investigated and we know little more about them. Like sorrow itself, we seem a little uncomfortable with it, unwilling to broach the subject,' writes Bell. 'We often fall back on the cultural catch all of the "ghost" while the reality is, in many ways, more profound.' "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "Vaughn Bell has written an interesting essay at Scientific American about grief hallucinations. This phenomenon is a normal reaction to bereavement that is rarely discussed, although researchers now know that hallucinations are more likely during times of stress. Mourning seems to be a time when hallucinations are particularly common, to the point where feeling the presence of the deceased is the norm rather than the exception. A study by Agneta Grimby at the University of Goteborg found that over 80 percent of elderly people experience hallucinations associated with their dead partner one month after bereavement, as if their perception had yet to catch up with the knowledge of their beloved's passing. It's not unusual for people who have lost a partner to clearly see or hear the person about the house, and sometimes even converse with them at length. 'Despite the fact that hallucinations are one of the most common reactions to loss, they have barely been investigated and we know little more about them. Like sorrow itself, we seem a little uncomfortable with it, unwilling to broach the subject,' writes Bell. 'We often fall back on the cultural catch all of the "ghost" while the reality is, in many ways, more profound.' "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The MAKE video podcast is in the iTunes best of 2008 list, I wanted to say thanks to all the viewers, makers and our team who makes it all possible! The MAKE podcast started out almost 5 years ago on my hacked up Linux running iPod that I'd use to record makers talking about their projects, it's all grown up!

In 2009 we're going to do even more - more videos, more PDFs and we'll also have full HD versions of Make: television in the iTunes channel for FREE. If you haven't already click here to subscribe in iTunes!

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

In order to protest global climate change, this man from Red Cross Argentina turned himself into a puddle and handed out information on ways to protect the planet from imminent climate disaster such as reusing plastic bags, conserving water, and buying energy efficient cars and appliances. We just wonder how long it took him to get out of there.

via InHabitat

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

Paul of Vacoloco needed an easy way to test out some of his synth projects so he built a basic sequencer based on an ATmega16 chip -

It sends MIDI notes and velocity on a user selectable Midi channel along with two MIDI CC's (user selectable) and of course has variable sequence length.

You can turn steps on and off using the buttons, but I forgot to show this feature. When I do the next video I'll be sure to show this feature.

It's still in the early stages of development, and has one or two little bugs in it.

The sound is coming from the MonowaveII sound skin.

Keeping it real with that sweet perfboard aesthetic - nice. - GorF [via Matrixsynth]

More:

Mini-sequencer for SX-150

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

With Apple getting smacked down in the UK for misleading advertising, it appears the company is also facing a variety of similar challenges on the homefront. However, Apple tried a rather odd defense in a similar case. After first claiming that everything in its ads was accurate, the company also noted that any reasonable person would know not to believe what they saw in the ad anyway:

"Plaintiff's claims, and those of the purported class, are barred by the fact that the alleged deceptive statements were such that no reasonable person in Plaintiff's position could have reasonably relied on or misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact."

I could see that argument making sense for extreme and over-the-top demonstrations, but somehow it seems unlikely to fly in this particular case.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Berkeley shop adapts bikes for any disability...

The problem: Cycles are factory-made for people with a wide variety of physical disabilities, but there is no solo bike made for a person with no use of her arms.

The problem with that problem: Greg Milano, BORP director of cycling and the man who dreamed up the concept of the Adaptive Cycling Center, doesn't see problems as problems.

Milano and Martin Greiner, one of the bike house's 30 or so regular volunteers, went to work. They pondered, puttered and pounded, and pieced together a three-wheeled bike on which the rider performs all functions - pedaling, braking, turning, gear-shifting - with her legs.

Meida came to the Cycling Center and rode off down the trail with friends. Alone. Free.

The bike house is unique. There are other adaptive cycling centers in the country, but very few offer the element of independent-use, drop-in riding, as opposed to organized and scheduled group activities. And probably no other such center has a variety of bikes equal to the bike house fleet.

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

This is fun and useful... Navigate Flickr by color!

We extracted the colours from 10 million of the most “interesting” Creative Commons images on Flickr. Using our visual similarity technology you can navigate the collection by colour

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

I think we can all admit that there's something magical about the 8mm video format. Before there was VHS, and way before there were digital video cameras, there was Super-8, pretty much the only game in town if you were trying to get your memories recorded onto video without spending thousands of dollars. This could explain why today when we see Super-8 footage today, it almost automatically invokes a sense of nostalgia, as if we are peering into the timeless memories of the pre-80's.

But really, like many people who grew up in the age of the VHS tape, my first exposure to the Super-8 format was probably this:

Yep, the opening sequence to The Wonder Years. The reason for this sequence being done in Super-8 now seems quite obvious: It invokes the slightly faded memories of the 1960's through the nostalgic, grainy filter of small-format video.

So what's the story behind this format?

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

Although it doesn't really work like the real game, some kid turned his neighborhood streets into a Guitar Hero game board where you have to successfully bike over the icons from the game, made in chalk on the street. Although doing this successfully will not actually play the game or score you points, the effort it took to do this is worth a look.

via Teen Drama

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

Neil Feather demonstrates his unusal pedal based instrument -

The Melocipede “is a bicycle-based roto-zither. It has 14 strings (strung hub to rim) and 8 (1.5v ) motors and 4 magnetic pickups. The pickups run through a mixer as the melocipede is pedaled in both directions and bouncing plucking etc.happens. It sounds alternately like a cello, calliope, operatic whimpering/laughing puppy. It also knocks down to fit in a suitcase.

[via Califaudio]

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

Its been a long time since I written about XML-RPC, it's one of those things that when I do, the flamers show up and get all personal. I shouldn't let that get in the way, of course; and while I wasn't looking, for example, Mozilla baked-in support for XML-RPC. Not sure what you can do with that, but I'm sure someone will explain.

The other day when I asked about an XML-RPC interface for ImageMagick, Justin Walgran took me up on it, and deployed one on Google AppEngine. Now that makes sense for so many reasons. A perfect application for AppEngine, and since its native language is Python, and Python has great XML-RPC support (we upgraded ours in Frontier based on their inspiration, the highest form of respect), it was not a very large programming project.

Hopefully I'll be able to test it out today, once we know the name of the procedure, what server its running on, and what parameters it takes.

I made a suggestion in the comments that where the procedure calls for the image itself, that it accept the URL of the image. This would work better for my app because by the time it needs the thumbnail it has already uploaded the image to an HTTP-accessible server. It would work better to not have to upload it twice.

So the procedure would look something like this:

imageMagick.createThumb (image, height, width) returns binary

Where image can either be a binary type containing a JPEG, GIF or PNG graphic; or a string that contains an HTTP URL to the graphic. Height and width are numbers that reflect the desired height and width of the thumbnail. It returns a binary type containing a PNG (?) thumbnail.

Of course if there's an error it uses the XML-RPC exception mechanism.

Needless to say this is a very interesting project to me. And if someone wants to create an equivalent REST application, I will promote it alongside the XML-RPC application.

We have posted about Nemo Gould before, and he has even shown his work at Maker Faire. I just checked his web site and he has new work up in the gallery. I really like his new UFO piece. Make sure to watch the video of it in action. Also, the materials list is fairly amusing:

Materials: Floor polisher, motor boat propellors, meat grinders, electric jack hammer, record player, massage machine, cordless drill motors, glass taxidermy eyes, fence caps, LED's, voltage meter.

More New work from Nemo Gould [video of UFO]

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

New Scientist has a piece about Comet Machholz 1, whose uncommon molecular composition suggests, but does not prove, that it may be an interloper from another star system. "Comet Machholz 1 isn't like other comets. David Schleicher of the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, measured the chemical makeup of 150 comets, and found that they all had similar levels of the chemical cyanogen (CN) except for Machholz 1, which has less than 1.5% of the normal level. Along with some other comets, it is also low on the molecules carbon-2 and carbon-3."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We noted last month that Microsoft was stepping up its program to bribe users to use its search engine, and that process continues with the announcement that Microsoft is adjusting the program to provide the cashback award immediately, rather than making users wait for it. Yet, as PC World notes, this whole effort to bribe users has done nothing to improve Microsoft's marketshare in search. In fact, its marketshare has decreased, as both Yahoo's and Google's marketshare has increased. Perhaps it's time to try a different strategy.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Think about this next time you go to recycle that cardboard box. Look at what these 5 artists were able to make from just cardboard. Very cool.

Who doesn't love art that breaks the mold? Recycled art and design, green art and extraordinary art from everyday objects all stimulate the imagination in ways ordinary works can rarely achieve - and cardboard art is no exception. Recycled and environment friendly, the following artwork is not just an expression of the artists' points of view but is also a statement about the nature of art itself.

More about Cardboard Artists and their sculptures [digg]

In the Maker Shed:


The Best of Instructables Volume I

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

Spider Robinson's latest podcast installment is a reading of John Varley's towering and brilliant 1979 novella, "The Persistence of Vision," winner of both the Hugo and Nebula Awards. I'm a gigantic John Varley fan (especially of his short fiction) and this story may be the best of the lot.

"The Persistence of Vision," is the story of a drifter crossing America during a terrible depression who happens upon a Taos commune run by and for a community of blind-deaf people, the adult cohort of a decades-gone German measles epidemic. In the commune ("Keller"), the narrator discovers important, unsuspected truths about independence and interdependence, communication and community, and the power of hope and perseverance.

This story pulls off one of science fiction's best tricks: exploring the fundamental question of whether disasters demand that you bug out, heading for the hills to wait out the disaster, or bug in, grabbing your go-bag and heading for your neighbors' to see how you can help.

This is a timely reading -- and not just because the economy is in free-fall. Technology is rupture -- each new wave of technological change displaces and remakes us. Today's technocratic winners are tomorrow's superannuated losers. The future of human history will be about how we answer the bug in/bug out question.

Every time I read this story, it fills me with sorrow and hope and makes me mist over, and Robinson's reading is no exception. If you only listen to one piece of audio this week, make it Spider's reading of "The Persistence of Vision."

MP3 link to "Persistence of Vision, Spider on the Web podcast feed, Spider on the Web homepage

The John Varley Reader: 30 Years of Short Fiction

Apparently this website documents the building of Leonardo da Vinci's Flying Machine. Unfortunately, this one is not destined for flight, but rather to be hung in the Weber Public Library in Ogden, Utah. [Thanks Andy!]

More about Leonardo da Vinci's flying machine

In the Maker Shed:

 
Pick up The Maker's Notebook ($19.99) for all your big ideas, diagrams, patterns, etc. Exclusive to the Maker Shed: Sticker sheets and a band closure to customize your book.

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

When I look for gifts for a lot of my friends, the most important thing on my mind is finding things that are hackable. Is the gift modifiable, open source, and fuel for future projects? Does it teach you something? These are essential qualities in a hacker gift.

In this guide, you'll find a collection of gadgets, books, and gear that have carefully been selected for their fundamental hackability and technical awesomeness.

The list starts off with an obvious gift candidate, the open source/open hardware Arduino.

The Arduino has quickly become the platform of choice for hardware hacks and physical computing projects requiring a microprocessor. The devices are cheap, fun to program, and there's a healthy community of Arduino hackers publishing both software libraries and hardware add-ons. For many applications, you'll want to check out the Arduino Duemilanove, which is compatible with snap on "shield" daughterboards like the robot friendly MotorShield or the XPortShield ethernet adapter. A lot of projects can also benefit from the ultra small footprint and breadboard compatible Boarduino, which you can assemble yourself for only $17.50.

Price: $17.50 - $34.99

A great gift idea for someone who's new to Arduino is the Arduino Starter Kit. It's currently backordered, but if you order quickly you can still get one in time for Christmas. It includes an Arduino Duemilanove, a huge pile of electronic goodies, and the book Making Things Talk by Tom Igoe.

Price: $89.99

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

Photograph by Nicolas Zurcher

Providing clean water for all could be as easy as riding a bike. Or a trike, if Aquaduct has an influence. Winner of the 2007 Innovate or Die pedal power competition, the Aquaduct Mobile Filtration Vehicle stores, transports, and purifies water as it goes.

"We came up with ideas ranging from ways to clean up oil spills in the Bay to how to boil an egg," says Brian Mason, one of Aquaduct's five designers, all of whom work at the Palo Alto, Calif., design firm IDEO. "But we kept coming back to the need for clean water in the developing world."

More than 1 billion people lack access to clean water. Trekking miles to fetch it can take hours, and boiling it for sanitation uses precious resources. Aquaduct reduces the strain of hauling water, and its closed system prevents contamination.

Simply ride to a source, fill the 20-gallon storage tank -- a day's supply for a family of four -- and pedal home, filtering all the way. Clean water drains into a removable container that can be brought indoors. Once that's empty, the pedals can be disengaged from the wheels and the vehicle ridden in a stationary position to filter the rest.

"The answers are out there," says another of Aquaduct's designers, Paul Silberschatz. "Through design and innovation, we can find simple solutions to even the most challenging problems."

The team, including Adam Mack, Eleanor Morgan, and John Lai, used 2D and 3D modeling to help them modify a Miami Sun tricycle frame, custom-build a peristaltic pump that draws water through a simple filter, and cover surfboard foam in fiberglass to round out the body. Simple sanding and automotive paint finished the job, explains Silberschatz, who, luckily, used to build race cars.

The IDEO crew donated the contest's $5,000 purse -- along with a $10,000 match from sponsors Google and Specialized -- to Kickstart, a nonprofit that develops and markets new technologies in Africa. But they did ride away with something: each member got a brand-new urban commuter bicycle called the Globe.

>> Aquaduct in Action: makezine.com/go/aquaduct

From the column Made on Earth - MAKE 14, page 19 - Megan Mansell Williams.

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

Gamasutra is running an article written by Tim Hong of EmSense in which he describes the research his company did into the physiological reactions various games engender in players. In addition to outward cues like breathing and movement, EmSense also scans brainwaves and heart activity to provide a more complete picture of how a gamer is responding to what he sees and does. They collected hundreds of hours worth of data and made comparisons among a variety of shooters, such as Gears of War 2, F.E.A.R, and Half-Life 2. They found some interesting information on how pacing, tutorials, and cutscenes can affect a player's level of engagement with the games.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Our pal Scott Sigler -- podcast pioneer and sf writer -- has a new book out, called Contagious. As part of the promo, he's doing a kind of online puzzle that we're happy to help with.

Scott is posting twelve posters, each on a different blog, and each foreshadowing a key plot element. If you get all twelve and put them together in the right pattern, you get a final clue for the book's big finish. this list of other blogs hosting a poster.

Here's the promo stuff for the book: "Contagious is a hard-science horror novel with a popcorn-flick flair. From the book jacket: Across America, a mysterious pathogen transforms ordinary people into raging killers, psychopaths driven by a terrifying, alien agenda. The human race fights back, yet after every battle the disease responds, adapts, using sophisticated strategies and brilliant ruses to fool its pursuers. The only possible explanation: the epidemic is driven not by evolution but by some malevolent intelligence. "

Full-size poster Pre-order Contagious, Contagious, the PDF, Scott's podcast

You may recall just a few months ago that a "showcased" Google spreadsheet for splitting the bill got some basic math wrong. After we pointed it out, Google Phd.'s apparently got to work and figured out how to properly split a bill. Perhaps part of the problem was that they didn't have a newly approved US patent (found via Slashdot) from IBM on the basic concept of splitting the bill. The patent is actually for a device at a restaurant table, where multiple patrons can input how much they want to pay and the device keeps track to make sure the entire bill is paid. As the patent notes, earlier inventions allowed patrons to pay at the table. What was new about this patent, was the splitting of the bill part. The USPTO had originally rejected the patent, but that so-called "final rejection" was just overruled.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Fast Forward 2 is the second volume in Lou Anders' excellent science fiction anthology series, featuring knockout stories from Karl Schroeder and Tobias Buckell, Kay Keyon, Ian McDonald, Paolo Bacigalupi and many others. I'm very proud to have a story in the book, too -- a long, long novella I co-wrote with Ben Rosenbaum called True Names, which tries to imagine what the wars between light-speed-lagged, self-replicating nano-machine-based galactic civilizations would look like as different nanites warred to see who would convert the universe to computronium first.

While all the stories herein are at least excellent, there were a couple of absolute knockouts that I want to mention. First is Toby Buckell and Karl Schroeder's Mitigation, a taut military thriller about the global geopolitics of genomic seedbanks. Also fantastic is Ian McDonald's Eligible Boy, which returns to the fractured future India he delivered in his brilliant, Hugo-nominated novel, River of Gods, and explores the hard problem of matchmaking in an era of demographics upturned by gendercide. Finally, Paolo Bacigalupe's The Gambler should be required reading at every school of journalism in the world, exploring as it does the question of click-driven news and coming up with genuinely novel and sometimes disturbing things to say about it.

Lou's posted two of the stories from the anthology online as free samples: "Catherine Drewe" by Paul Cornell" and Paolo Bacigalupi's "The Gambler". I'm especially fond of this latter, as I mentioned above.

I'm delighted to announce that Ben and I are releasing True Names today as a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike download, to accompany the podcast of the story we released earlier this year. I hope you'll give it a read, and a remix -- I can't remember when I've had more fun writing anything.

(How's this for embarrassing: none of us can find an editable file with the final, copyedited text, just the PDF from the book. There's a remix-challenge for ya: turn the PDF back into ASCII or HTML or something sensible!)

Beebe fried the asteroid to slag when it left, exterminating millions of itself.

The asteroid was a high-end system: a kilometer-thick shell of femtoscale crystalline lattices, running cool at five degrees Kelvin, powered by a hot core of fissiles. Quintillions of qubits, loaded up with powerful utilities and the canonical release of Standard Existence. Room for plenty of Beebe. But it wasn't safe anymore.

The comet Beebe was leaving on was smaller and dumber. Beebe spun itself down to its essentials. The littler bits of it cried and pled for their favorite toys and projects. A collection of civilization-jazz from under a thousand seas; zettabytes of raw atmosphere-dynamics data from favorite gas giants; ontological version control data in obsolete formats; a slew of favorite playworlds; reams of googly-eyed intraself loveletters from a hundred million adolescences. It all went.

(Once, Beebe would have been sanguine about many of the toys -- certain that copies could be recovered from some other Beebe it would find among the stars. No more).

Predictably, some of Beebe, lazy or spoiled or contaminated with meme-drift, refused to go. Furiously, Beebe told them what would happen. They wouldn't listen. Beebe was stubborn. Some of it was stupid.

Beebe fried the asteroid to slag. Collapsed all the states. Fused the lattices into a lump of rock and glass. Left it a dead cinder in the deadness of space.

Fast Forward 2 on Amazon, True Names release on the Internet Archive

See also:
True names podcast
Review of River of Gods

Today's XKCD hits it out of the park with an alternate currency that we can all get behind. Click through to the original for the bonus guffaw in the tool-tip.

Alternate Currency

WebEcoist's list of "20 Strange and Exotic Endangered Species" is a sad marvel of incredibly odd creatures that your kids might never get a chance to see.

This is not shopped. This is not a hoax. That is a giant crab on a garbage can. They’re native to Guam and other Pacific islands. Coconut crabs aren’t endangered, per se, but due to tropical habitat destruction they are at risk. In WWII, American soldiers stationed in the Pacific theater wrote home with tales about entire atolls being covered in the armor-plated giants. These crabs can crack a coconut in one swipe; but they’re generally too slow to be very dangerous to humans. Children pass lazy afternoons by picking the crabs off tree trunks and watching them crash to the ground; it’s reportedly great fun. And kind of messed up.

20 (More) Strange and Exotic Endangered Species (via Neatorama)

(Image: Giant coconut crab by Jason Kottke)