jammag writes "Open source advocate Bruce Perens takes a close look at Microsoft's lawsuit against TomTom (discussed here last week), which involves an implementation of the Linux kernel, and calls it essentially a paper tiger. He notes: 'the technologies claimed in the 8 patents involved are so old and obvious that it's fair to say they have a high "Duh!" factor. There's an anti-trust angle to this suit that could blow up in Microsoft's face. And there's a high probability that some or all of the patents involved are invalid, due to recent court decisions.' Although the legal expense for TomTom to defend itself in court could be astronomical — meaning they may be forced to settle — in Perens' view Microsoft is aware its case is weak, yet hopes for a PR victory at limited cost." And reader nerdyH adds speculation from Open Innovation Network CEO Keith Bergelt that Redmond's action could be retaliation for TomTom's spurning a Microsoft acquisition bid in 2006.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

jammag writes "Open source advocate Bruce Perens takes a close look at Microsoft's lawsuit against TomTom (discussed here last week), which involves an implementation of the Linux kernel, and calls it essentially a paper tiger. He notes: 'the technologies claimed in the 8 patents involved are so old and obvious that it's fair to say they have a high "Duh!" factor. There's an anti-trust angle to this suit that could blow up in Microsoft's face. And there's a high probability that some or all of the patents involved are invalid, due to recent court decisions.' Although the legal expense for TomTom to defend itself in court could be astronomical — meaning they may be forced to settle — in Perens' view Microsoft is aware its case is weak, yet hopes for a PR victory at limited cost." And reader nerdyH adds speculation from Open Innovation Network CEO Keith Bergelt that Redmond's action could be retaliation for TomTom's spurning a Microsoft acquisition bid in 2006.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Full list! - Greener Gadgets 2009: THE WINNERS!

It was a roller-coaster ride of a panel discussion at the Live Greener Gadgets Design Competition Judging at the close of Friday's Greener Gadgets Conference in New York City. After a 10-minute overview of some of the notable entries by moderator Allan Chochinov from Core77, the judges--Jeff Kapec of Tanaka Kapec Design Group, Jill Fehrenbacher of Inhabitat, and Saul Griffith of Makani Power--toured the audience through 13 of their favorite projects before deliberating to get things down to the Top 3 (In pre-judging sessions, they were unable to decide on a set of TOP 10). It was a difficult journey, with the audience ultimately chiming in with shout outs, criticisms, defenses, philosophical meanderings, and all the good stuff you would expect from a wonderful, engaged audience. Thanks for all the participation!

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In my classroom, there is a shelf by the sink. Occasionally, I drink a soda and put the empty bottle or can on the shelf. For years, there has been no more than three or four bottles at a time on the shelf. Sometimes, I take them off to the store and return them for the deposit. Containers that don't have a deposit go to the recycling bin at home. This year, however, something happened in the school, where now there is a bottle and can recycling bin in most classrooms. Now there is a huge collection of bottles and an often overfilling paper bin where it all used to go into the trash. It started a few years ago when we started recycling paper through a big dumpster in the parking lot.

What this illustrates is that people and cultures can change. People can start to see that the things they throw out don't all get classified as 'trash.' Some of it can be recycled, some can get reused, and some people may start to see all the waste in it and choose to reduce their consumption.

RecycleMania is seeking to help bring about that change on campuses . While registration for this year's contest is closed, there is plenty of reason to have your fellow students take a cold hard look at your waste stream and look for a better solution. Generating less waste leads to less money being charged for trash removal fees, and it's better for the environment.

When you pile up a day's worth of trash and recycling from just 500 residents of one of Penn's College Houses, it makes a pretty big geographical feature!

Remembering that when you throw something away it doesn't just "go away", but gets added to a mountain in a landfill, may help you remember to recycle whatever you can -- and make the mountain into more of a molehill.

The Recycling Triangle has in many minds three components: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle. It is worth noting that Recycling is the last of the three. If we do the other two first, we will have less to recycle. Makers are natural ReUsers. Taiwan has a really cool recycling logo that makes sophisticated use of negative space.

Is your campus recycling? What systems are students and staff putting in place to help reduce the amount of waste on campus? Is there a high school equivalent to RecycleMania in your region? What are the students in your local school system doing to help reduce, reuse and recycle the waste that passes through the school system's buildings? What projects are you doing or contemplating to reuse waste that would otherwise be tossed? Post your ideas in the comments, and contribute your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.

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Here are some of my favorite posts from the CRAFT blog this week:

• Fabric Klein Bottle
• Cross-Stitch Your Favorite Physicist
  
• Checkin In: Green Girl Wendy Tremayne
  
• Scissor Buddha

And this week's CRAFT Video is Paper Making with Lisa Jacobs:

At the last Phoenix DIY meeting, Lisa Jacobs ran a paper making workshop. We learned how to use recycled office paper as the base for art papers, to which we added colored napkins for pigment and dried flowers, glitter, conductive thread, and many others as "inclusions," the things that jazz up the paper inside and out. With some simple supplies, this is a really easy, fun, and kid friendly project. Thanks to Conspire Phoenix for hosting!

Subscribe to the CRAFT Podcast in iTunes, or download the m4v (iPhone) or mov movie.

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ddelmonte writes in to tell us about a small near-earth object, discovered just 2 days ago, that is expected to pass within 64,000 km of our planet on March 2, 13:44 UT. NEO 2009 DD45 will be well inside the Moon's orbit and just under twice the altitude of geosynchronous satellites. According to Sky and Telescope, 2009 DD45's closest approach will be over the Pacific west of Tahiti, so observers in Australia, Japan, and perhaps Hawaii will have the best chance of spotting it with, say, an 8-in. telescope. Here's where you can generate an ephemeris of the object for your location. At closest approach NEO 2009 DD45 will be moving half a degree per minute and peaking around magnitude 10.5. It will be brighter than 13th magnitude for only a few hours.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ddelmonte writes in to tell us about a small near-earth object, discovered just 2 days ago, that is expected to pass within 64,000 km of our planet on March 2, 13:44 UT. NEO 2009 DD45 will be well inside the Moon's orbit and just under twice the altitude of geosynchronous satellites. According to Sky and Telescope, 2009 DD45's closest approach will be over the Pacific west of Tahiti, so observers in Australia, Japan, and perhaps Hawaii will have the best chance of spotting it with, say, an 8-in. telescope. Here's where you can generate an ephemeris of the object for your location. At closest approach NEO 2009 DD45 will be moving half a degree per minute and peaking around magnitude 10.5. It will be brighter than 13th magnitude for only a few hours.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "In an email sent Friday evening to its Microsoft temp workers, Volt Workforce Solutions asked the techies to 'vote' to agree to a 10% pay cut. From the email: 'We want to support you in continuing your assignment at Microsoft and respectfully ask that you respond by going to the upper left hand corner of this email under the "Vote" response option and select, "Accept'" by close of business Tuesday, March 3, 2009. By accepting you agree to the [-10%] pay adjustment in your pay rate.' Microsoft managed to keep the Feb. 20 email detailing plans to slash rates from leaking while it pitched its Elevate America initiative at the 2009 Winter Meeting of the National Governors Association, touting Microsoft skills as just the ticket to economic recovery."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "In an email sent Friday evening to its Microsoft temp workers, Volt Workforce Solutions asked the techies to 'vote' to agree to a 10% pay cut. From the email: 'We want to support you in continuing your assignment at Microsoft and respectfully ask that you respond by going to the upper left hand corner of this email under the "Vote" response option and select, "Accept'" by close of business Tuesday, March 3, 2009. By accepting you agree to the [-10%] pay adjustment in your pay rate.' Microsoft managed to keep the Feb. 20 email detailing plans to slash rates from leaking while it pitched its Elevate America initiative at the 2009 Winter Meeting of the National Governors Association, touting Microsoft skills as just the ticket to economic recovery."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Eden Robins, one of my talented Clarion West students, writes,

Brain Harvest will feature the best snappy, bad-ass speculative fiction pieces we can find in 750 words or less. These will be available on our website, where readers can also subscribe to have the stories delivered to their mobile device of choice. We figure a lot of reading is happening in non-traditional ways - people have five minutes while they're waiting for their cheeseburgers and might just enjoy the chance to read something interesting on their iPhones. We aim to fill the time between the ordering and the cheeseburger-eating, and we publish the kinds of stories we'd like to read in these interstitial moments.

Right now we're publishing once a week, but we plan to fill the gaps with more content - quick and pithy movie and book reviews, content inspired by ideas expressed in the stories, and in the future, interviews, podcasts, and an interactive community of readers and writers.

We're hoping to raise money to pay our writers pro-rates by donation ($10 or more gets you a free homemade mustache!) and by offering our critiquing services for fiction writers and coming soon, the Feed-A-Writer program, where you can adopt a writer, Sally Struthers-style, and get a photo of the little rascal and a personalized thank you letter in return.

First up on our maiden voyage is highly-decorated author Nick Mamatas.

Brain Harvest (Thanks, Eden!)

Travelyn Russell was not the most computer savvy teacher in the building. Then she found herself in her new classroom, a computer room with some antiquated equipment. The keyboards were pre USB, you probably remember the old mac or pc keyboards with fragile little pins that carried the data and power of the keyboard to the computer.

However, one snag in my cool new classroom was that my keyboards were strangely incompatible with my computers, so they only worked intermittently. When one wouldn't work, the students would yank the keyboards out of the CPU's . After screaming in agonized frustration, I would then calmly explain to the students that they bent the pins in the PS/2 connector, rendering the keyboard into a lifeless mass of cheap plastic.

In the process of dealing with equipment that modern kids didn't understand and had little patience for, she developed a technique for straightening the pins on the keyboards after her young charges bent them up. It does seem that when the equipment in a school is less than perfectly kept, kids will often mess around with it in ways that make it worse, and then there can be a tipping point where they just mess with it because it seems kind of broken.

In my classroom, I have had students work on donated and cast off computers for a few years. I also use electronics and other devices that I get from the town dump to help get components and systems for students to experiment with. Learning from trash is a great way of releasing the tension of "don't break that, it cost too much money." Two years ago, I found a big collection of cast-off compujunk stored in my school system. The publicity that resulted from posting a picture or two to the MAKE Flickr pool was very exciting for me and my students and generated an enormous amount of clever ideas for working with the computers. Students have used junker computers to open up and examine keyboards, mice, CPUs and more. I am not thrilled about kids taking monitors apart, though because of the risk of imploding tubes, and the resulting release of all the metal badness inside a CRT monitor. Flat screen monitors are fun, though.

Another source of compujunk was when a parent approached me with an offer I couldn't refuse. The last of the computers is just about out the door now. We learned a lot from them and still have some useful parts kicking around.

Certainly Ms. Russell can't be the only teacher thrust into a classroom with partially working computer equipment. What are your tales from the tech-trenches of your local school system? How did you keep the balls in the mice? What have you made to help kids learn in the classroom? What have you been able to repurpose from the recycling bin, thrift store, or town dump to help your students gain valuable knowledge, experience and satisfaction of creating something from nothing? Where can teachers and students get their hands on legitimately free equipment and software for learning? Add your ideas in the comments, and contribute your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.

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There's still time to start making or just watch this week's Weekend Project: Cellular Automata Video Synthesizer . You can view the video here, or subscribe in iTunes to get all our Weekend Projects and PDFs delivered each week.

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ZosX writes "An article over at Popular Mechanics announces that, for the first time, solar cells have been manufactured for the much sought-after figure of $1/Watt. They also talk about a new study of the cost of the particular raw materials used in different manufacturing processes. The conclusion is that the company that just achieved the $1/W milestone, using cadmium telluride technology, may not prove to be the long-term winner capable of meeting demand when it rises into the terawatt range."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ZosX writes "An article over at Popular Mechanics announces that, for the first time, solar cells have been manufactured for the much sought-after figure of $1/Watt. They also talk about a new study of the cost of the particular raw materials used in different manufacturing processes. The conclusion is that the company that just achieved the $1/W milestone, using cadmium telluride technology, may not prove to be the long-term winner capable of meeting demand when it rises into the terawatt range."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ian Holmes is a brilliant bioinformatics hacker at UC Berkeley (and also an active happy mutant in our BB community). A few years ago, I wrote about Ian's efforts to apply Noam Chomsky's theories about language to the firehose of genetic data spewing from the multitude of DNA sequencing efforts going on these days. Ian just emailed me about his latest research in the mind-blowing area of "paleogenetics":

Thought you might be interested to know that we & our collaborators recently put together a DNA sequence for the earliest mammal genome, 75 million years old.

Sure, it's full of holes, but it's the first time anyone's done it on this scale!

This whole field, known as "paleogenetics", is really taking off. On the experimental side, you might have heard about the recent sequencing of the Neanderthal and the woolly mammoth.

The cool thing is that you can get a lot of information about ancestral genomes just by crunching probabilities -- even if you don't have any fossils, or mosquitos-trapped-in-amber, or time machines, or whatever.

The even cooler thing (to my bioinformatics-geek mind) is that the algorithms used for this are almost exactly the same ones that linguists use to reconstruct ancient languages, like "Indo-European" or "Gondwanese".

It's only a matter of time before we can actually synthesize these paleogenetic reconstructions. A very short time, according to the Carlson Curves (the Moore's Law of DNA synthesis). Which, of course, has its issues (I am currently trying to reconstruct viruses... no plans to actually synthesize them, I hasten to add...)

Still... I wonder what 75Myr-old mammal meat would taste like? What would be the medicinal properties of ancient herbs? How big were ancient octopi, or spiders? How many genes were in the first bacteria? How long was the first self-replicating RNA sequence?

What would you reconstruct, if you could? Dodo, trilobyte, velociraptor?

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "It's been a rough week for the RIAA as massive layoffs are about to cost many employees their job. On top of that, the anti-piracy outfit is being sued in North Carolina for abusing the legal system in its war on piracy, particularly for civil conspiracy, deceptive trade practices, trespassing and computer fraud in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Moursy. Named along with the record companies as defendants on the counterclaims are Safenet (formerly known as MediaSentry) and the RIAA. This case first started out as 'LaFace Records v. Does 1-38' until the court required the RIAA to break it up into 38 separate cases, at which point it morphed into 'SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Doe.' Only after the RIAA finally got its 'expedited' discovery did it become SONY v. Moursy. And from the looks of things, it has a long, long way to go. The RIAA hasn't even filed its answer to the counterclaims yet, but is making a motion to dismiss them on the grounds of legal insufficiency. Sound like a good investment of record company resources, anyone?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "It's been a rough week for the RIAA as massive layoffs are about to cost many employees their job. On top of that, the anti-piracy outfit is being sued in North Carolina for abusing the legal system in its war on piracy, particularly for civil conspiracy, deceptive trade practices, trespassing and computer fraud in SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Moursy. Named along with the record companies as defendants on the counterclaims are Safenet (formerly known as MediaSentry) and the RIAA. This case first started out as 'LaFace Records v. Does 1-38' until the court required the RIAA to break it up into 38 separate cases, at which point it morphed into 'SONY BMG Music Entertainment v. Doe.' Only after the RIAA finally got its 'expedited' discovery did it become SONY v. Moursy. And from the looks of things, it has a long, long way to go. The RIAA hasn't even filed its answer to the counterclaims yet, but is making a motion to dismiss them on the grounds of legal insufficiency. Sound like a good investment of record company resources, anyone?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I was just idly goofing around on Twitter for a few rounds with some friends last night and somehow this happened. And by "happened," I mean Kent Nichols made it. I honestly don't see how the earlier "uncorrected" version won that Oscar, this is SO much better.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time Slumdog Millionaire Mashup (YouTube thanks Kent Nichols!) and here's the origin of the internet meme reference. And as BB commenter NYLUND points out, "Her yellow scarf does make it look like she is wearing a banana costume in the wide angle shots."

thefickler writes "The credit crisis couldn't have come at a worse time for newspapers, which were already suffering at the hands of the Internet. Now it seems that the Hearst Corporation is planning to launch an e-reader later this year to try to save its dwindling newspaper readerships. Apparently the e-reader will have a bigger screen than the Kindle, helping it to accommodate ads. It's not clear whether Hearst will go it alone, or try to gather wider industry support for its venture. As one pundit observed, 'it seems a slender thread on which to hang the entire American newspaper industry.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

thefickler writes "The credit crisis couldn't have come at a worse time for newspapers, which were already suffering at the hands of the Internet. Now it seems that the Hearst Corporation is planning to launch an e-reader later this year to try to save its dwindling newspaper readerships. Apparently the e-reader will have a bigger screen than the Kindle, helping it to accommodate ads. It's not clear whether Hearst will go it alone, or try to gather wider industry support for its venture. As one pundit observed, 'it seems a slender thread on which to hang the entire American newspaper industry.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Someone is selling writer William S. Burroughs's shopping lists on eBay. How odd. While the lists do contain cat-related items, reflecting Burroughs's fondness for felines, they'd be more interesting artifacts if they also included, say, shotgun shells, scissors, bug spray, and morphine syrettes. BuyItNow price is $495. From the auction description:

Page 1: Items written by Burroughs - 1. Cat Pans. 5. Limes & lemons. 6. Dry Cat Food. 7. Canned Cat Food - Mealtime, bits of beef - salmon dinner. There are 4 items written on the back and none are by Burroughs

Page 2: Items written by Burroughs - 1. Waffles (plain buttermilk). 2. Triscuits. 3. Cat Food Canned. 4. Vodka - last but not least 5. Marshmallow for toasting over stove (?) last word is a guess - hard to read. There are 4 items written on the back - Burroughs has written "Lysol."

Page 3: Items written by Burroughs - 1. Lemons and lime. 2. Milk. 3. Bottled water. 4. Honey (crossed out). 5. Lipton tea bags (the brisk tea). There are 4 items written on the back but none are written by Burroughs.

William S. Burroughs Authentic Grocery Shopping List

adeelarshad82 writes "CNet reports on a bizarre comment from Sony's Computer Entertainment CEO in response to complaints from developers on how hard it is to develop games for the Playstation 3. 'We don't provide the "easy to program for" console that (developers) want, because "easy to program for" means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?' Given that games heavily drive console sales, and the fact that the PS3 is already 8 million units behind the Xbox 360, I think making a developer's job harder is the last thing Sony needs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

adeelarshad82 writes "CNet reports on a bizarre comment from Sony's Computer Entertainment CEO in response to complaints from developers on how hard it is to develop games for the Playstation 3. 'We don't provide the "easy to program for" console that (developers) want, because "easy to program for" means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is, what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?' Given that games heavily drive console sales, and the fact that the PS3 is already 8 million units behind the Xbox 360, I think making a developer's job harder is the last thing Sony needs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MBCook writes "AppleInsider has posted a great article explaining that Wired's story about Japanese iPhone hate was completely false and has been edited at least twice. The comments in the article were recycled and taken out of context, with those interviewed blogging about the mistakes. The piece then goes on to analyze the iPhone's standing in Japan, as well as some of the major factors working for and against it. At last it points out that the Wall Street Journal tried the same myth of failure just after the phone's launch in Japan, recycled from a myth the year before, pushed by a research company with a possible anti-Apple agenda."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Hugh Pickens writes "A company that monitors peer-to-peer file-sharing networks has discovered a potentially serious security breach involving President Barack Obama's helicopter. 'We found a file containing entire blueprints and avionics package for Marine One, which is the president's helicopter,' says Bob Boback, CEO of Tiversa, a security company that specializes in peer-to-peer technology. Tiversa was able to track the file, discovered at an IP address in Tehran, Iran, back to its original source. 'What appears to be a defense contractor in Bethesda, Md., had a file-sharing program on one of their systems that also contained highly sensitive blueprints for Marine One,' says Boback, adding that someone from the company most likely downloaded a file-sharing program, typically used to exchange music, without realizing the potential problems. 'I'm sure that person is embarrassed and may even lose their job, but we know where it came from and we know where it went.' Iran is not the only country that appears to be accessing this type of information through file-sharing programs. 'We've noticed it out of Pakistan, Yemen, Qatar and China. They are actively searching for information that is disclosed in this fashion because it is a great source of intelligence.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The RIAA isn't just suing tens of thousands of music consumers; they've also begun filing lawsuits naming the directors of and investors in tech companies that they believe contribute to copyright infringement. NewYorkCountryLawyer writes: "ZDNet urges the big recording industries to stop suing tech investors, and cites the draft legislation that I posted, which would immunize from secondary copyright infringement liability any work done by a director in 'his or her capacity as a member of the board of directors or committee thereof,' and any conduct by an investor based solely upon his or her having 'invested in any such corporation, including any oversight, monitoring, or due diligence activities in connection therewith.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

During the winter iciness, lots of people warm up by reading seed catalogs and planning their gardens. If you are among those sitting by the woodstove contemplating books full of DNA, you might want to think of where you will store all your grown goodies.

In a recent post about using the Prius as a backup power supply, a number of people remarked in the comments on the irony of using electricity to run a fridge in the winter. It seems that we should be able to keep our stuff chilly when it's frigid outside. Some people have figured out this idea. A long time ago they figured out this idea. Root cellars can be found in many antique houses, and there are others located in the nether regions of plenty of off grid dwellings. If you use the natural temperature stability of the earth, then maybe you don't need such a huge refrigerator. Eating locally grown food will decrease your reliance on food that has been trucked in from across the country or shipped from overseas.

In looking through some of the search results, it is easy to see that there are some very helpful writings in the root cellar community. You might check some of them out and consider if you could double up on your tubers and cabbage by adding a bit of storage space in a root cellar. If you are planning a new shed, maybe you could add a bit of capacity for storing produce below the frost line. Or maybe you want to go over the top and really build something spectacular to store your onions in.

Are you still enjoying last season's produce? Do you have a root cellar? Have you built one for a friend, relative, community or weekend getaway? Is there anybody making a business from helping to build root cellars and other sustainable structures? Are people using root cellars in the cities or is it still primarily a rural pursuit? What are the best sources for seeds and plants? How seriously do you plan and tend your garden? Does your locally grown food last longer/taste better than the food from the store? Add your ideas to the comments, and send your photos and video over to the MAKE Flickr pool.

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Brief, but interesting article about the rapid prototyping technology used in the new stop-motion feature film Coraline.

The Objet RP Polyjet technology uses photopolymer resin that is housed in cartridges and sprayed down in extremely thin 16 micron layers, four times thinner than the average human hair. As it's sprayed down in liquid form, UV lights cure each layer, hardening instantaneously. Though the process is relatively fast, a heavy model would take up too much time on the printer so each model had to have the perfect amount of detail without relying on a heavy model, detail that changed depending on the shot. Laika had to print perhaps 70 tiny half faces at a time, building what they called "kits" for various expressions, kits that had to be produced with a rapid turnover. Throughout the production the artists were continually streamlining the models to give as much detail as needed while reducing the printing time to keep up with demand. Even though the Coraline puppet was designed at less than ten inches tall allowing the sets to be smaller and conserving space, the side effect was everything was smaller. Her hands were so small they were basically the same size as the armature inside.

One Step at a Time for the Puppet of a Thousand Faces

[Sent to us by MAKE subscriber Kurt Roedeger. Thanks, Kurt!]

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Marylin sez, "Pi Day's coming up March 14 and here's an ice tray to impress your friends and colleagues at your Pi Day party."

Pi Symbol Ice Cube Trays (Thanks, Marylin!)

Iddo Genuth writes "Scientists at Pennsylvania State University and Virginia Commonwealth University are producing hydrogen by exposing clusters of aluminum atoms to water. Rather than relying on the electronic properties of the aluminum, this new process depends on the geometric distribution of atoms within the clusters. It requires the presence of 'Lewis acids' and 'Lewis bases' in those atoms (water can act as either). Unlike most hydrogen production processes, this method can be used at room temperature and doesn't require the application of heat or electricity to work. The researchers experimented with a variety of different aluminum cluster patterns, discovering three that result in hydrogen production."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

• DIY snowmaking [above, bottom-left]

• Max's day of Making [above, top-right]

• New library teaches Arduino to speak iPod [above, bottom-right]

• Fibonacci sequence goes technoir, gets lagged [above, top-left]

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Brad made a snowcovered slope with his own DIY snowmaking rig.

In his set notes, he shares some resources and other links.

How is your Snow Geekery coming along? What have you made to take advantage of the cold weather? Add your ideas to the comments, and contribute your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.

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Google's Marissa Mayer spends her weekends doing electronics -

Her live-out-loud lifestyle seems so un-Silicon Valley, but at the same time, perfectly in tune with what Google is all about.

“I refuse to be stereotyped,” she says. “I think it’s very comforting for people to put me in a box. ‘Oh, she’s a fluffy girlie girl who likes clothes and cupcakes. Oh, but wait, she is spending her weekends doing hardware electronics.’ ”

Marissa, would you consider doing a workshop with us at Maker Faire to help teach kids electronics? Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!

An anonymous reader writes "ZeroPaid has an interesting take on the story of Nicolas Sarkozy being accused of copyright infringement. The irony, of course, is Sarkozy's pushing of a 3-strikes law — disconnecting from the Internet those accused of file sharing — in France and across the EU. The French president had apparently offered to settle the copyright infringement accusation for one Euro, but the band rejected the offer, calling it an insult. The article notes that each year since 2006, a high-profile anti-piracy entity has been on the wrong end of a copyright infringement notice. In 2008, Sony BMG was sued for software piracy. In 2007, anti-piracy outfit BASCAP received a cease and desist order related to pirated software. And in 2006, the MPAA was accused of pirating 'This Film is Not Yet Rated'."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Ehrich sez, "Alton Towers, the UK theme park and gardens (where, fun fact, my father was stationed during WWII), has an exciting offering for the whole family. They're offering to track you via RFID and sell you (what I'm assuming is) CCTV footage of your day at the park, both on and off rides. They do say 'We delete any unclaimed footage at the end of your visit so, if you don't buy your personalised DVD before you leave, the moment will be gone forever.' The program is voluntary, but it strikes me as strange that they'd ask you to pay for tracking your movements through the park. I understand that much of the footage you pay for is prerecorded. I'm not sure how much of 'you' one actually gets to see on the DVD."

It's YourDay and you're the star (Thanks, Ehrich!)

Paul Harvey, the famed radio broadcaster, has died. He was 90. When I was in elementary school, my brother and I loved listening to Harvey's "The Rest of the Story" news segments. I only recently realized that his deadpan delivery of quirky, surprise-ending stories were an important early influence on me and my taste for the unusual.

Good day, Paul.
Paul Harvey obit and recent profile from the Washington Post

Spatula Tzar, who brought us the controversial fly plane, offers a number of other interested projects, including this ball mill (a device used to crush metals and chemicals into a fine powder), made from mainly junk lying around the lab.

Ball Mill

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theodp writes "Not to apologize for an industry that charges $27,000 to catch a Chicago Bears game, but will the huge spectrum fees charged by the government block the emergence of low-cost cellular service? In the most recent FCC spectrum auction, carriers paid nearly $20 billion to grab a swath of the 700MHz spectrum. And now under President Obama's proposed budget, wireless carriers would be hit with huge annual fees — eventually reaching $550 million per carrier per year — for the right to hold a spectrum license. Critics say the carriers will simply pass these fees through to consumers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MojoKid writes "Lenovo's ThinkPad W700 is a unique product, targeted squarely at mobile professionals who require the power, features, and performance of workstation-class product in a notebook. The machine has a few stand-out integrated features, like a Wacom Digitizer Tablet and X-Rite Color Calibrator. In addition, the ThinkPad W700ds version and adds a secondary, slide-out 10.6" WXGA+ display, which increases monitor real-estate by 39% spanning across its two panels. HotHardware's video demonstrates the machine's arsenal of toys for the graphics pro, in a somewhat portable desktop replacement notebook."

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In December, I finally jettisoned the skis I got when I was a nanny/construction worker for the year after college. Michael needed them to turn into a Kite Buggy. Right now it is operating successfully as a sled/buggy, but the kite is already functioning.

Finally able to get your skis to work! Next iteration will have shorter skis and slight camber to help cornering/ lateral load of kite.
Waiting for the wind. In the mean time, gravity is helping out.

When the wind kicks up, there will be some more fun in the snow!

What do you do to beat the winter doldrums? Add your celebrations in the comments and don't forget to include your photos and video in the MAKE Flickr pool.

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TapeCutter writes "After the devastating firestorm in Australia, there has been a lot of speculation in the press about the role of climate change. For the 'pro' argument the BBC article points to research by the CSIRO. For the 'con' argument they quote David Packham of Monash university, who is not alone in thinking '...excluding prescribed burning and fuel management has led to the highest fuel concentrations we have ever had...' However, the DSE's 2008 annual report states; '[The DSE] achieved a planned burning program of more than 156,000 hectares, the best result for more than a decade. The planned burning of forest undergrowth is by far the most powerful management tool available...' I drove through Kilmore on the evening of the firestorm, and in my 50 years of living with fire I have never seen a smoke plume anything like it. It was reported to be 15 km high and creating its own lightning. There were also reports of car windscreens and engine blocks melting. So what was it that made such an unusual firestorm possible, and will it happen again?"

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