Photographer Glen E. Friedman is best known for iconic images that captured the roots of three truly indigenous American pop cultures: skateboarding, American hardcore, and hip hop. Starting tonight, you can see all three represented at Shepard Fairey's (relatively new) gallery, Subliminal Projects, over in the Silverlake/Echo Park area of Los Angeles. Sean Bonner, who has worked with both Shep and Glen (and exhibited their work at a gallery he co-owned), says:

[Glen's] retrospective exhibition Idealist Propaganda will open at Shepard Fairey’s Subliminal Projects gallery. The gallery is located at 1331 W Sunset Blvd and the opening is at 8PM. It’s going to packed so I suggest getting there earlier rather than later if you can. I was there last night and got a sneak preview (as well as to help film and upcoming episode of BoingBoingTV about the show) and it’s breathtaking. Trust me, you don’t want to miss seeing all these photos in person.

I second that, and if anyone wants to make me really happy this holiday? Buy me like one of every print there, please. I cannot WAIT to share the BBtv episode(s) with you all. I don't want to spoil anything, so I'll stop there. But they're gonna be pretty special, and it was an honor and a total kick to tape them (thanks again, Glen, Shepard, and Sean).

More info: Glen E Friedman at Subliminal Projects this weekend (Los Angeles Metblogs).

Also: books of Glen E. Friedman's photography are availble here.

PHOTO: Joseph "DJ Run" Simmons, Darryl "D.M.C." McDaniels, and Jason "Jam-Master Jay" Mizell, collectively known as RUN-DMC. Photographed by Glen E. Friedman in 1985. This image is in the Idealist show, and it's one of my favorites. Mizell was murdered in 2002. To date no one has been prosecuted for his death, despite much evidence and a room full of eyewitnesses.

An anonymous reader writes "A news station in Washington D.C. has reported that the McCain Campaign has allegedly sold to reporters Blackberry handhelds with campaign-related information such as e-mail messages and phone numbers: 'We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for "Citizens for McCain" ... The emails contain an insider's look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support ... But most of the numbers were private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists. "Somebody made a mistake," one owner told us. "People's numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased."'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ed. Note: Boing Boing's current guestblogger Clay Shirky is the author of Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations. He teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications Program at NYU, where he works on the overlap of social and technological networks.

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Every now and again, I see a business doing something so sensible and so radical at the same time that I realize I'm seeing a little piece of the future. I had that feeling last week, after visiting my friend Scott Heiferman at Meetup.

On my way out after a meeting, Scott pulled me into a room by the elevators, where a couple of product people were watching a live webcam feed of someone using Meetup. Said user was having a hard time figuring out a new feature, and the product people, riveted, were taking notes. It was the simplest setup I'd ever seen for user feedback, and I asked Scott how often they did that sort of thing. "Every day" came the reply.

Every day. That's not user testing as a task to be checked off on the way to launch. That's learning from users as a way of life.

Andres Glusman and Karina van Schaardenburg designed Meetup's set-up to be simple and cheap: no dedicated room, no two-way mirrors, just a webcam and a volunteer. This goal is to look for obvious improvements continuously, rather than running outsourced, large-N testing every eighteen months. As important, these tests turn into live task lists, not archived reports. As Glusman describes the goal, it's "Have people who build stuff watch others use the stuff they build."

Mark Hurst, the user experience expert, talks about Tesla -- "time elapsed since labs attended" -- a measure of how long it's been since a company's decision-makers (not help desk) last saw a real user dealing with their product or service. Measured in days, Meetup approaches a Tesla of 1.

Glusman and van Schaardenburg have also made it possible to take Jacob Nielsen's user-testing advice -- "Test with five users" -- and add "...every week." Obstacles to getting real feedback are now mainly cultural, not technological; any business that isn't learning from their users doesn't want to learn from their users.

On my way down after seeing the user test, the woman I'd seen on the screen got onto the elevator, and I mentioned I'd seen her trying the new interface. "Oh", she said, surprised. "I didn't realize anyone was actually paying attention to me."

Hurst: Time elapsed since labs attended | Nielsen: Why You Only Need to Test With 5 Users

BB bosom buddies COOP and Ruth have issued a new t-shirt featuring COOP's incredible interpretation of the lovely and talented Jackhammer Jill! This version is long-sleeved and printed on a dark gray American Apparel cotton shirt with the BB logo down the left sleeve. (The real shirt is darker than the mock-up pictured above.) Ruth says she'll do her darndest to ship them in time for the holidays but she can't promise. Only 69 of these shirts are available so act fast! Sizes small through XXL. COOP's long-sleeved Boing Boing t-shirt

Sarah Sharp writes "Intel's Open Source Technology Center is working on USB 3.0 support for Linux. USB 3.0 has wire speeds of 5Gbps and promises to be 10 times faster than USB 2.0. A recent video demo shows speeds that are 3.5 times faster than USB 2.0. The USB 3.0 drivers will be submitted to the mainline kernel when the eXtensible host controller interface (xHCI) specification reaches a 1.0 release."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brenton Fletcher writes "A nationwide protest rally against the internet censorship filter proposed by the Australian Labor Government was held today. Over 9,000 people were slated to attend. I was fortunate enough to go to the rally on the steps of Parliament House in Adelaide, South Australia. I heard speeches from the Digital Liberty Coalition, the Green Left Weekly, and other concerned members of the public." Reader mask.of.sanity adds a link to ComputerWorld's photo-heavy coverage of the gatherings.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Roland Piquepaille writes "US astronomers and engineers have built a new camera to precisely measure the size of planets moving around distant stars. This camera has been dubbed OPTIC — short for 'Orthogonal Parallel Transfer Imaging Camera.' According to the research team, it is 'so sensitive that it could detect the passage of a moth in front of a lit window from a distance of 1,000 miles.' I'm not sure if this analogy is right, but the team said it was able to precisely define the size of a planet called WASP-10b which is orbiting around the star WASP-10, about 300 light-years from Earth."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Roland Piquepaille writes "US astronomers and engineers have built a new camera to precisely measure the size of planets moving around distant stars. This camera has been dubbed OPTIC — short for 'Orthogonal Parallel Transfer Imaging Camera.' According to the research team, it is 'so sensitive that it could detect the passage of a moth in front of a lit window from a distance of 1,000 miles.' I'm not sure if this analogy is right, but the team said it was able to precisely define the size of a planet called WASP-10b which is orbiting around the star WASP-10, about 300 light-years from Earth."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A story in Christian Science Monitor features Oakland, CA teenagers who are remaking ordinary bicycles and turning them into something colorful and cool.

His name is Tyrone Stevenson, though most know him by his nickname, "Baby Champ." He is, everyone agrees, the Scraper Bike King. He wants to change the rough, violent world that he and these other boys are growing up in. He thinks he can do it with bikes. "I just want to give them something positive," he says.

Until recently, most people had never heard of Stevenson or the tricked-out homemade bicycles he invented back when he was a troubled 13-year-old. Stevenson modeled his creations after "scraper" cars, which are popular in east Oakland and feature booming stereos, candy-colored paint jobs, and big wheels with matching rims. The cars' name derives from the rims, which are sometimes so large they scrape against the wheel wells. Stevenson simply borrowed that idea - big wheels, bright colors, loud music - and applied it to bikes.

Here's a YouTube music video showcasing these scraper bikes:

I hope to get some of Oakland's scraper bikes to Maker Faire in 2009. They'd fit in well with Cyclecide.

Writer Jocelyn Wiener concludes her story: "Among the scraper-bike boys, a light-hearted enthusiasm abounds. At least for tonight, these streets belong to them." Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Remake | Digg this!

Over on Boing Boing Offworld, our John is cautiously optimistic about the news that HarperCollins and Nintendo are teaming up to offer a compendium of public domain books on the Nintendo DS. I'm pretty much with him on this: the DS should have a reader built into the OS (or better yet, it should allow you to install your own apps without having to jump through hoops). It's good to see HarperCollins UK (full disclosure: my UK publishers) doing some low-cost experimentation to see what people actually do with ebooks when given the chance. Hell, maybe they'll even include my books on the cartridge!

Nintendo and HarperCollins are teaming up to turn the Nintendo DS into an eBook reader with their obviously titled 100 Classic Books Collection.

Essentially, twenty quid gets you 100 Project Gutenberg books dumped on a cart and wrapped with a remedial text reading program.

This isn't such a bad idea, but it depends on how well done they make the text reading program wrapper. Something as elegant and flexible as uBook for the Pocket PC would be great, but most of the text reading programs I've seen for the DS in the homebrew scene have had a real hard time displaying text attractively.

Really, I think the DS has promise as an ebook reader: it has the advantage of two screens, after all. But I'd prefer to see it as built-in functionality... perhaps a firmware update to the DSi.

ebooks come to the Nintendo DS, Discuss this on Boing Boing Offworld

unlametheweak points out a story at Ars Technica which begins: "After a UK government-led commission said that the current 50-year term for musical copyrights was fine, and the government last year publicly agreed that there was no need to extend the term, culture minister Andy Burnham yesterday made the logical follow-up announcement that yes, the government would now push for a 20-year extension on copyright. Turns out, it's the moral thing to do. Actually, by framing the issue as a 'moral case,' Burnham gets to sidestep the entire issue of logic. Critics have already begun to charge that he is ignoring actual evidence and the well-regarded conclusions of the Gowers Report (PDF), not to mention previous government policy. But when the issue becomes a moral one and the livelihood of aging performers is at stake, it's suddenly easier to avoid cost/benefit analysis."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Chaos Communication Congress recently highlighted some of the projects you can build at their upcoming (12/27 - 12/30) event:

Even if you've never touched a soldering iron, you can drop by the Hardware Hacking Area and get into doing cool things with microcontrollers! Build something that relaxes your brain, turns off annoying tvs with the click of a button, or just have fun making cool blinky leds!

If you're a coder who wants to get into microcontroller hardware, check out the Game Kit Workshop and build your own MIGNON. This open source device is perfect for beginning hardware hackers and is a great platform to write cool games for!

For those of you who have a few speed soldering championships under your belt, why not go for something really big? You'll not only get to see the quadrocopter in action at the 25C3, you'll have a chance to build your own at the Build a Quadrocopter Workshop. A real UAV you can fly outside the bcc only takes five hours to build! Complete kits for for the Microkopters will be available at the workshop.

(via hack a day)

Here's the list of speakers, and here's video of the Formica swarm robots that'll be in attendance engaged in some type of robot war:

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

The image above is a 1/6 Scale 1932 Duesenberg SJ by Louis Chenot, Model Engineer. It's just one of hundreds of amazing works on display at the Cabin Fever Expo. It's a great event that features a lot of amazing work and equipment. If you are a machinist or model maker, this is a MUST see event.

CABIN FEVER EXPO 2009

Show: January 17th & 18th, 2009
Saturday: 9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m.
Sunday: 9:00 a.m. - 3:00 p.m.
Consignment Auction:
Friday, January 16th, 2009

Location:
Toyota Arena, York Fairgrounds & Expo Center
334 Carlisle Avenue
York, Pennsylvania 17404

The Admission Price for the Show and/or Auction is $10, Which is Good for All 3 Days

More about Cabin Fever EXPO 2009

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The McCain-Palin campaign fire-sale dumped a bunch of orphaned Blackberries, including at least one loaded with confidential personal numbers of important people, and a ton of internal campaign email. These were the people who were planning on running an entire country.

Blackberry phones at $20 a piece. There were only 10 left. All of the batteries had died. There were no chargers for sale. But people were snatching them up. So, we bought a couple.

And ended up with a lot more than we bargained for.

When we charged them up in the newsroom, we found one of the $20 Blackberry phones contained more than 50 phone numbers for people connected with the McCain-Palin campaign, as well as hundreds of emails from early September until a few days after election night.

We traced the Blackberry back to a staffer who worked for “Citizens for McCain,” a group of democrats who threw their support behind the Republican nominee. The emails contain an insider’s look at how grassroots operations work, full of scheduling questions and rallying cries for support.

But most of the numbers were private cell phones for campaign leaders, politicians, lobbyists and journalists.

We called some of the numbers.

“Somebody made a mistake,” one owner told us. “People’s numbers and addresses were supposed to be erased.”

“They should have wiped that stuff out,” another said. But he added, “Given the way the campaign was run, this is not a surprise.”

McCain Campaign Sells Info-Loaded Blackberry to FOX 5 Reporter (via Memex 1.1)

Toren Altair brings news that NASA and the Ad Astra Rocket Company finalized a Space Act Agreement earlier this week to test the Variable Specific Impulse Magnetoplasma Rocket (VASIMR) on the International Space Station. The agreement hinges on a series of requirements for the thruster's performance and efficiency in ground-based tests. "The primary technical objective of the project is to operate the VASIMR VF-200 engine at power levels up to 200 kW. Engine operation will be restricted to pulses of up to 10 minutes at this power level. Energy for these high-power operations will be provided by a battery system trickle-charged by the ISS power system. These tests will mark the first time that a high-power, steady-state electric thruster will be used as part of a manned spacecraft." Reader clarkes1 points out related news of a runway trial for Virgin Galactic's WhiteKnightTwo, the mothership that is designed to carry SpaceShipTwo from the ground to 50,000 feet. A very brief video shows the oddly-shaped plane moving down a runway under its own power.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mark sez, "A nice bit of copyright hypocrisy for you. It's a story on the BBC website about an upcoming broadcast of an episode of Dad's Army that was thought to have been lost. The original soundtrack had been erased by the BBC, but a radio presenter made his own recording of the episode and kept it for 30 years. The show's producers are thrilled to have found a good quality copy of the recording. The irony is that, as you know, UK law only allows 'home taping' for temporary 'time shifting'. Certainly not for creating a library of recordings lasting 30 years. With their DRM-encumbered iPlayer and other efforts to prevent 'copying', it's even less likely that there will be any duplicate discoveries 30 years from now."

'Lost' Dad's Army show back on TV (Thanks, Mark!)

Mark sez, "A nice bit of copyright hypocrisy for you. It's a story on the BBC website about an upcoming broadcast of an episode of Dad's Army that was thought to have been lost. The original soundtrack had been erased by the BBC, but a radio presenter made his own recording of the episode and kept it for 30 years. The show's producers are thrilled to have found a good quality copy of the recording. The irony is that, as you know, UK law only allows 'home taping' for temporary 'time shifting'. Certainly not for creating a library of recordings lasting 30 years. With their DRM-encumbered iPlayer and other efforts to prevent 'copying', it's even less likely that there will be any duplicate discoveries 30 years from now."

'Lost' Dad's Army show back on TV (Thanks, Mark!)

rsmiller510 writes "In a wide-ranging interview with Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington on Wednesday at Le Web in Paris, Google's Marissa Mayer talked about all things Google, but what I found most interesting was when the conversation turned toward the future of search. Mayer said the key to the future of search lies in personalization. ... Mayer said in the future, Google (and presumably other search tools) will understand more about the user and be able to deliver more relevant information based on that knowledge. 'We think that when you look at the winning search engine in 2020 and what traits it's likely to have, we think the one thing that will be true is that it will understand more about you the user.'" Video of the interview with Mayer is available at Tech Crunch. The personalization of search content focuses mainly on SearchWiki, which we discussed when it went live last month. The Register has a more cynical take on the discussion, seizing on comments by Mayer which indicated Google employees may evaluate SearchWiki's user ratings and use them to make "obvious changes" to search results for everyone.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

rsmiller510 writes "In a wide-ranging interview with Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington on Wednesday at Le Web in Paris, Google's Marissa Mayer talked about all things Google, but what I found most interesting was when the conversation turned toward the future of search. Mayer said the key to the future of search lies in personalization. ... Mayer said in the future, Google (and presumably other search tools) will understand more about the user and be able to deliver more relevant information based on that knowledge. 'We think that when you look at the winning search engine in 2020 and what traits it's likely to have, we think the one thing that will be true is that it will understand more about you the user.'" Video of the interview with Mayer is available at Tech Crunch. The personalization of search content focuses mainly on SearchWiki, which we discussed when it went live last month. The Register has a more cynical take on the discussion, seizing on comments by Mayer which indicated Google employees may evaluate SearchWiki's user ratings and use them to make "obvious changes" to search results for everyone.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

BeanBagKing writes "Yesterday I set out in search of a way to store my documents, videos, and pictures for a long time without worrying about them. This is stuff that I may not care about for years, I don't care where it is, or if it's immediately available, so long as when I do decide to get it, it's there. What did I come up with? Nothing. Hard Drives can fail or degrade. CD's and DVD's I've read have the same problem over long periods of time. I'd rather not pay yearly rent on a server or backup/storage solution. I could start my own server, but that goes back to the issue of hard drives failing, not to mention cost. Tape backups aren't common for personal backups, making far-future retrieval possibly difficult, not to mention the low storage capacity of tape drives. I've thought about buying a bunch of 4GB thumb drives; I've had some of those for years and even sent a few through washers and driers and had the data survive. Do you have any suggestions? My requirements are simple: It must be stable, lasting for decades if possible, and must be as inexpensive as possible. I'm not looking to start my own national archive; I have less than 500GBs and only save things important to me."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

IamTheRealMike writes "A month on from the story that BD+ had been completely broken, it appears a new generation of BD+ programs has re-secured the system. A SlySoft developer now estimates February 2009 until support is available. There's a list of unrippable movies on the SlySoft forums; currently there are 16. Meanwhile, one of the open source VM developers seems to have given up on direct emulation attacks, and is now attempting to break the RSA algorithm itself. Back in March SlySoft confidently proclaimed BD+ was finished and said the worst case scenario was 3 months work: apparently they underestimated the BD+ developers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

RobertB-DC writes "The Phoenix mission to Mars' frigid polar regions was going to be tricky from the start, with only a few weeks to perform as much science as possible. Success depended on everything working right. But one of the mission's most frustrating glitches — the stuck doors on the TEGA ovens — could have been prevented with basic quality control on Earth. Nature is reporting that bad brackets were replaced by the manufacturer... with identically bad brackets. The Planetary Society blog sums it up succinctly: 'Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Iddo Genuth writes "Since first entering the consumer market about two years ago, solid state drives (SSDs) have improved significantly. While prices remain substantially higher than conventional magnetic storage, it is predicted that in 2009 SSDs will finally make an impact on both the consumer and business markets bringing blazing fast speeds at reasonable prices for the first time — will it finally happen?" It seems likely, as Samsung began mass-producing both 128GB and 256GB SSDs this year. Intel and Micron have also posted recent breakthroughs which will help to bring the technology into the mainstream.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Iddo Genuth writes "Since first entering the consumer market about two years ago, solid state drives (SSDs) have improved significantly. While prices remain substantially higher than conventional magnetic storage, it is predicted that in 2009 SSDs will finally make an impact on both the consumer and business markets bringing blazing fast speeds at reasonable prices for the first time — will it finally happen?" It seems likely, as Samsung began mass-producing both 128GB and 256GB SSDs this year. Intel and Micron have also posted recent breakthroughs which will help to bring the technology into the mainstream.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Brian sends this about The Back Shed, a great site with info about windmills and renewable energy. There is an excellent page about getting started with windmills. Particularly interesting isthe project for converting junker computer parts and pvc into a wind powered battery charger.

Home made wind generators have been around for decades, with designs as varied as the people who build them. But why would you build your own windmill? Why not use solar cells, solar cells are reliable and maintenance free.

The answer is simple, cost!

You cant make your own solar cells at home, they need specialized equipment and complicated processes. But you can build your own wind generator, and for a fraction of the cost of a similar power sized solar array. Another advantage of a wind generator is it will generate power whenever there is a breeze, even at night!

Of course, it is always wonderful when people are so willing to share their information!

All information here is free, there are no "windmill plans" for sale. I'm not here to sell anything. The web site does earn a little money from advertising, enough to pay for hosting expenses and some funds towards my hobbies, but that's not why I put so much time into the web site. I do it for the common good, sharing information and helping other people get started in clean power generation.

How are you making electricity these days? add your ideas to the comments, and post your photos and video to the Make Flickr pool.

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ruphus13 writes "HP finally begins to actively push open source in its products. From the post, 'HP has been quirky over the years when it comes to open source. It has been, traditionally, a company that supports open source — especially in larger enterprises... Wednesday, it announced two new open source products, geared to small businesses and educational institutions. HP plans on including its 'Mozilla Firefox for HP Virtual Solution' on more of its business class desktop PCs (to a total of seven models between the HP Compaq dc/dx lines in the US, eight models worldwide). Come December 15th, HP will also offer Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop on its HP Compaq dc5850 model. The base SLED-equipped model will cost $519, and features the usual open source suspects for the small business setting — OpenOffice, and mail clients such as Evolution.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

bahstid writes "As the year comes to a close, it's time to look at the big events, memorable moments and emerging trends that captivated us in 2008. As it happens, studying the aggregation of the billions of search queries that people type into the Google search box gives us a glimpse into the zeitgeist — the spirit of the times. While the global aggregated results are what one might expect, the breakdown by country is filled with 'hotmail,' 'yahoo' and 'facebook,' indicating that in 2008 your average user still hasn't quite grasped this address bar thing." This year's focus on the US presidential election and the economic crisis made for some interesting trends. It also seems that many Americans frequently checked their Facebook profile while watching American Idol and wondering who Sarah Palin was.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you're giving someone an iPhone for Christmas or Hanukkah, you must also give that person a copy of iPhone Fully Loaded, 2nd Edition, by Chicago Sun Times columnist and MacBreak Weekly co-host Andy Ihnatko. I read the first edition when it came out, and the chapter on iTunes smart filters alone improved my experience with the iPhone.

The other chapters are also very useful. You'll learn the easiest way to get DVDs, internet videos, VHS tapes, broadcast TV episodes, podcasts, e-books, comics, songs from various sources, Office documents, and lots of other kinds of media onto an iPhone. You'll learn how to turn text files into audiobooks, and watch videos hosted on an online dropbox.

Even if you didn't have an iPhone, you could pick up a lot of useful computer and media tips here. As a bonus, Ihnatko's wry sense of humor makes the book a lot of fun to read.

iPhone Fully Loaded

Lucas123 writes "The Santa Cruz, Calif. DA's office had been counting on a DVD with the recorded testimony of a victim in case against a serial rapist, but when they popped the video into the player, nothing came up — the disc was blank. To make matters worse, the cop who performed the original interview with the victim told the DA she never said she was 'forced,' so the judge wasn't going to allow the witness to testify in a case where her original statement to police was in conflict with her current testimony. After two local data recovery firms said there was no way to restore the data, a third was able to recover the police interview from two years earlier, which led the defendant to plead guilty earlier this month. Close call."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lucas123 writes "The Santa Cruz, Calif. DA's office had been counting on a DVD with the recorded testimony of a victim in case against a serial rapist, but when they popped the video into the player, nothing came up — the disc was blank. To make matters worse, the cop who performed the original interview with the victim told the DA she never said she was 'forced,' so the judge wasn't going to allow the witness to testify in a case where her original statement to police was in conflict with her current testimony. After two local data recovery firms said there was no way to restore the data, a third was able to recover the police interview from two years earlier, which led the defendant to plead guilty earlier this month. Close call."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lucas123 writes "The Santa Cruz, Calif. DA's office had been counting on a DVD with the recorded testimony of a victim in case against a serial rapist, but when they popped the video into the player, nothing came up — the disc was blank. To make matters worse, the cop who performed the original interview with the victim told the DA she never said she was 'forced,' so the judge wasn't going to allow the witness to testify in a case where her original statement to police was in conflict with her current testimony. After two local data recovery firms said there was no way to restore the data, a third was able to recover the police interview from two years earlier, which led the defendant to plead guilty earlier this month. Close call."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Today on Offworld our weekend gaming edition sees us reaching out to all of you to keep us all together, with the launch of our Facebook page and its repository thread for keeping track of our XBLA/PSN/Steam names (note that we also have soft-launched a Twitter feed as well!). Before that, we heard with relief that Double Fine's Brütal Legend would be published by the increasingly boutique EA, saw eBooks officially coming to the DS, and watched an Extra Hyper Korg DS-10 performance from the composers behind Ridge Racer and Chrono Trigger. We also printed and folded an amazing Legend of Zelda papercraft Link hat (and hair [!]), watched ten minutes of Red Fly's upcoming Wii version of Ghostbusters, proved Scott McCloud right with a comparison of console avatars, and, finally, watched an episode of Grip Wrench, a new animated short series from Rex Crowle, the illustrator behind much of Media Molecule and LittleBigPlanet's CMYK design (who also knows how to make a damn fine unicorn).

In a recent column, titled An Upside to the Economic Downside, Ellen Goodman wrote:

Sociologists will tell you that the most powerful impetus to change is not a new discovery. It's when you learn what you already knew. What Americans already knew at some level was that the credit-card-driven, debt-ridden, pay-later economy wasn't sustainable. Not economically. Not environmentally.

It wasn't just the Birkenstock crowd or our Depression-era elders who knew this. It's been nestled in our collective subconsciousness among all the critiques against materialism, all the screeds against commercials, all the unease about excess and inequality, all the fear that we've filled our kids' lives and landfills with stuff. But it was as commonly dismissed as a Sunday sermon. Or manipulated into a pitch for diamonds.

It is the time for change and I believe makers were hoping the time would come. We're living in a period of dramatic change that is, as Dickens described Paris during the French Revolution, "the best of times and the worst of times." We hear plenty about how bad it is or how bad it is going to get. However, there's also good news, and it's echoed in Goodman's comments. Many of us have felt that our way of life, our way of living, was not good for us, and not good for the planet. We sought change but we weren't clear how to make change and change the world. So much of society and culture seemed locked-in, finding more reasons not to change.

As I see it, we have a special opportunity now to make change and remake the world we live in. The kind of problems we face won't be solved by the usual approaches nor by the usual people. Albert Einstein said: "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." We can approach these problems differently and propose unusual solutions that might have seemed impossible to achieve not long ago. Education, Energy, Transportation, Healthcare, Construction, Community -- you name it, it's on the table. We need more and more makers engaged in these issues.

As I said in my recent Make column, The Visible Hand, we have "to believe that [change] starts with each of us." As individuals and in groups, we can work together to face tough problems and we can make changes in our lives, our homes and our communities. I am seeing more and more examples of people applying themselves to a wide range of issues, usually involving creative uses of technology and/or social media.

I plan to begin covering these efforts under what I'm calling Remake on the Makezine blog. I invite you to share your ideas and your projects with me (dale at oreilly dot com) and tell others about what you're doing to remake the world. I hope we can create an ongoing dialogue about what remakers are doing and what can be done. Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Remake | Digg this!

Yesterday Sony launched the open beta for PlayStation Home, the virtual world designed for PlayStation Network community members. Eurogamer has an in-depth look at the features of Home. They point out some glaring weaknesses, such as a poor communication system, a flawed business model, and the inability to form groups without entering games, something the recently revamped Xbox interface does better. "It's not alienating, it's easy to identify with, and the socialising and advertising are entirely in context. But you're left pondering the inevitable question: why would you want to spend any time here?" Home's debut to the public saw a few typical launch-day problems, but Sony was quick to address them and get things back on track. Gizmodo has some screenshots and basic information available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yesterday Sony launched the open beta for PlayStation Home, the virtual world designed for PlayStation Network community members. Eurogamer has an in-depth look at the features of Home. They point out some glaring weaknesses, such as a poor communication system, a flawed business model, and the inability to form groups without entering games, something the recently revamped Xbox interface does better. "It's not alienating, it's easy to identify with, and the socialising and advertising are entirely in context. But you're left pondering the inevitable question: why would you want to spend any time here?" Home's debut to the public saw a few typical launch-day problems, but Sony was quick to address them and get things back on track. Gizmodo has some screenshots and basic information available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Yesterday Sony launched the open beta for Playstation Home, the virtual world designed for Playstation Network community members. Eurogamer has an in-depth look at the features of Home. They point out some glaring weaknesses, such as a poor communication system, a flawed business model, and the inability to form groups without entering games, something the recently revamped Xbox interface does better. "It's not alienating, it's easy to identify with, and the socialising and advertising are entirely in context. But you're left pondering the inevitable question: why would you want to spend any time here?" Home's debut to the public saw a few typical launch-day problems, but Sony was quick to address them and get things back on track. Gizmodo has some screenshots and basic information available.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The discussion about whether or not an unpowered vehicle can be made to go directly downwind faster than the wind (DWFTTW) is ongoing. I was reading the comments this morning, and came across a link to this intriguing video, titled "Under the ruler faster than the ruler." It's starting to make me think that a DWFTTW cart is feasible.

In the video, I was surprised to see which direction the big wheel turned when the ruler was run across the top. I'm also quite impressed that this fellow and others are making models to conduct experiment, instead of simply speculating. Hooray for amateur science!

As I've requested in previous posts on this subject, if you have something to contribute to the discussion boards, please refrain from insults and name-calling.

Photographer Syl Arena built this oak-framed flash rig for serious light output. The twelve Canon 580 EX II strobes are controlled by RadioPopper wireless triggers. Shooting at 1/8000 sec. in broad daylight makes for an incredible, dramatic, day-for-night photograph. The ambient sunlight barely has a chance!

1/160 exposure

1/8000 exposure

On his blog, Syl says:

Turns out you can stop a motocross rider flying through the air at 40 m.p.h. with enough sharpness so that you can see the individual links on the motorcycle's chain -- look for that Gang Light post soon.

via Wired Gadget Lab

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(Stereoscope photo from 1906)

A wealthy film director is spending £40 million to build an exact replica of the Taj Mahal in Bangladesh, but Indian officials are trying to block its constructing, claiming the Taj Mahal, which was completed in 1653 is protected by copyright.

For their part, Bangladeshi officials are incensed by suggestions that the Taj Mahal - which was built by the Emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, and completed in 1653 - is protected by some sort of copyright.

“I'm not sure what they are talking about,” one said. “Show me where it says that emulating a building like this can be illegal.”

To make his Taj, Mr Moni imported marble and granite from Italy and diamonds from Belgium to add to 160kg (350lb) of bronze. He hopes that his version of the mausoleum will attract tourists to Bangladesh, a country that is well off the beaten track for Western holidaymakers.

India is trying to block Bangladesh's copycat Taj Mahal

coondoggie writes with this excerpt from NetworkWorld: "Like a bunch of children in a sandbox unable and perhaps unwilling to share their toys, multiple key government agencies cannot or will not cooperate to build a collaborative wireless network. The Government Accountability Office report (PDF) issued today took aim at the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and the Treasury which had intended what's known as The Integrated Wireless Network (IWN) to be a joint radio communications system to improve communication among law enforcement agencies. However IWN, which as already cost millions of dollars, is no longer being pursued as a joint development project, the GAO said. By abandoning collaboration on a joint implementation, the departments risk duplication of effort and inefficient use of resources as they continue to invest significant resources in independent solutions. Further, these efforts will not ensure the interoperability needed to serve day-to-day law enforcement operations or a coordinated response to terrorist or other events, the GAO said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thanks to Robin for pointing me to this experiment in winter bicycling with skis:

Here's a downhill-only version by another Maker in action:

Here's Ktrak, the fancy commercial version:

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This nifty drum 'n bass robot is built upon the Picaxe-based "How to Build Your First Robot" project we featured in The Best of Instructables.

Lil' Drum and Bass Bot

From the Maker Shed:

Best Of Instructables
Our Price: $34.99
Sale Price: $29.99

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, 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.

Also in the Shed:

The Solarbotics GM9 Gearmotors used for the basic bot this drumbot is built upon. Steal of a deal at $5.50 each.

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