mikesd81 was one of several readers to write in about Cisco's announcement of what has been called Project California — a system comprising servers made from 64-bit Intel Nehalem EP Xeon processors, storage, and networking in a single rack, glued together with software from VMWare and BMC. Coverage of this announcement is everywhere. Business Week said: "The new device, dubbed Project California, takes servers into new territory by cramming computer power into the very box that contains storage capacity and the networking tools that are Cisco's specialty. Cisco's approach could help companies use fewer machines — saving money not only on hardware, but also on power and IT staffing — in building data centers. ... Cisco is well-girded to take this step. It has more than $30 billion in cash, more than any other tech company. The company is moving into no fewer than 28 different markets, including digital music in the home and public surveillance systems." The Register provides more analysis: "Microsoft is, of course, a partner on the California system, since you can't ignore Windows in the data center, and presumably, Hyper-V will be supported alongside ESX Server on the hypervisors. (No one at the Cisco launch answered that and many other questions seeking details). ... The one thing that Cisco is clear on is who is signing off on these deals: the CIO. Cisco and its partners are going right to the top to push the California systems, right over the heads of server, storage, and network managers who want to protect their own fiefdoms."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lots of folks have been writing in asking about the news that the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has finally admitted what many people knew was going to happen for a while: the newspaper is shutting down, while the website will live on with a much smaller staff. Of course, rather than focusing on the "death" of the paper, it's a lot more interesting to look at the opportunities the new site will embrace. The kickoff discussion seems to be full of excitement about a chance to do something different than to simply mimic what everyone has been saying a newspaper needs to be:

We're going to break a lot of rules that newspaper Web sites stick to, and we are looking everywhere for efficiencies.... We don't have reporters, editors or producers--everyone will do and be everything. Everyone will write, edit, take photos and shoot video, produce multimedia and curate the home page.

We definitely need more experiments and flexibility, so it will be worth watching what happens here. I'm not sure it's the best idea to make everyone do everything (splitting jobs up so that there's more streamlined efficiency does have value), but it's great to see that the new folks are at least open to experimenting -- with a focus on delivering more value (finally!) to the reader:

We're going to focus on what readers are telling us they want and on what makes SeattlePI.com essential and unique--within the context of our local news mission, of course. We know what we do best, and we are going to build on the things that we know our readers love, and look to find new ways to inform and entertain them.

Meanwhile, with the Rocky Mountain News shutting down a few weeks back, some of the reporters there have gathered together to try to startup a brand new online-only publication called In Denver Times. They're making an interesting play, however: saying they'll only start it if they get 50,000 people to agree to pay $5/month by April 23rd. That seems like a tall order, given that people aren't really being told what they're getting. The reporters say that plenty of the news will be available for free on their site, but subscribers will get access to bonus materials, such as opinion pieces and special chat rooms. But, for that to work, there needs to be a clear benefit to those, and since they don't yet exist, there may be something of an "empty room" problem.

Either way, it'll be worth watching both experiments play out. They may not be successful (and, if I had to bet, I'd probably bet against both), but it's great to see new experiments and ideas being tested directly out of the ashes of these two newspapers. It makes it pretty clear that the death of a newspaper certainly doesn't mean the death of journalism.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

IEEE Spectrum Video visited Lightning Technologies Incorporated, where they zap model airplanes with 2 million volts to simulate a real strike in the sky.
Visit to the Lightning Lab (Thanks, Kenny Montana!)

Ellis D. Tripp writes "DC District Court judge Reggie Walton has finally ruled in the 9-year old court case pitting the model rocketry community against the US Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The ruling is a 'slam dunk' for the rocketry community, stating that the BATFE ignored scientific evidence and overstepped its bounds by classifying ammonium perchlorate composite propellant (APCP) as an 'explosive.' Effective immediately, the BATFE has no legal jurisdiction over hobby rocket motors, and a federal Low Explosives User's Permit will no longer be needed in order to purchase APCP motors. The full text of the Judge's decision is reproduced at the link."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mind Hacks' Vaughan spotted this curious sentence in the abstract of a scientific paper about a head injury:

We present a unique instance of a severe, high-energy, penetrating orbitocranial injury caused by a solid metallic rod that corresponded to the spray valve lever handle of a kitchen sink pre-rinse spray tap, which was fractured and projected at high speed for an unknown reason.

Penetrating ballistic-like frontal brain injury caused by a metallic rod.

Gil Kaufman points us to Atlas Robotics, makers of attention-seeking robots. (They also have a human Star Wars show with, er, "impersonators.") Gil says Atlas's whole robot scene reminds him of the 70s science fiction sitcom Quark. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. From the Atlas page:

The robot can say, for example, "congratulations on your promotion Mr. Jones." or " I heard about your new car, how's it running Ms. Jennings"?

The guests usually cannot figure out how the robot knows this information.

Of course the robot can also inform people that the "coat-check" is to your left and "the bar is to your right".

At Parties our Robots can greet your guests as they arrive, stimulate and entertain your group through interactive joking, dancing and playing.

They can deliver a custom "rap", be part of a company skit, or "roast" your guest of honor.

Atlas Robotics

Twin Cities DIY group, Studio Bricolage, made a Paint Pendulum for Make: Day. The paint pendulum is a three story-long cable weighted by a 10-pound bowling ball at the end. The bowling ball has 4 remote controlled paint nozzles mounted to it which allows the crowd to control the paint being flung onto a huge piece of paper under the pendulum. Did we mention they also mounted a camera to the bowling ball which broadcast a first-person perspective from the eyes of the bowling ball up three stories to a screen sitting next to where the pendulum's cable is fastened? Amazing.

For more info on Studio Bricolage, visit their website. More pictures of Studio Bricolage and all the amazing Makers from Make: Day can be found on our Flickr pool.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Make: television | Digg this!

nandemoari writes "Russell Wright and his construction company, Stoam Holdings, recently lost a $12 million dollar lawsuit brought by investors. But lawyers for the firm have complained that juror Johnathan Powell's Twitter comments broke rules when discussing the civil case with the public. The arguments in this dispute center on two points. Powell insists (and the evidence appears to back him up) that he did not make any pertinent updates until after the verdict was given; if that's the case, the objection would presumably be thrown out. If Powell did post updates during the trial, the judge must decide whether he was actively discussing the case. Powell says he only posted messages and did not read any replies. Intriguingly, the lawyers for Stoam Holding are not arguing so much that other people directly influenced Powell's judgment, rather that he might have felt a need to agree to a spectacular verdict to impress the people reading his posts."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Anne Karsten says:

"Bean," by Olivia, was one of 24 Stuffed Monsters I made in collaboration with a group of 4th & 5th graders as fundraising project for their school. You can find detailed pictures on my website in the Stuffed Monster Gallery, and a bit about making them on the Making Monsters page.

Back in January, we noted that despite Steve Jobs's posturing on the music DRM front, Apple remains a big supporter and user of DRM and DRM-like schemes throughout their product lines. Over at the EFF blog, Fred von Lohmann suggests another potential example. The new iPod Shuffle has no buttons; the controls are on the included headphones. And if these folks are right (and there seem to be some doubts), the new shuffles won't work with the remote controls of any existing third-party headphones because the iPod looks for a special "authentication chip" that so far is only embedded in the headphones Apple bundles with the shuffle. This would be irritating to me personally because I hate earbuds and so if I bought a shuffle the first thing I'd want to do is swap out the Apple-supplied earbuds with third-party headphones.

Fred suggests that the purpose of this "authentication chip" is to trigger liability under the DMCA if anyone tries to reverse-engineer the chip. That's possible, but it's far from clear that that's what's going on. We don't know exactly what the chip does, but it seems unlikely that they'd embed enough computing power in the chip to do real crypto. And if there's no crypto, it becomes harder—although certainly not impossible—to invoke the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. Unfortunately, there's so little case law on the DMCA's anti-circumvention rules that we don't really know how it would apply in a case like this. And that uncertainty may be all Apple needs to discourage third parties from building unauthorized accessories.

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

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Our new MAKE magazine columnist, iconic electronics guru Forrest M. Mims III (see "Country Scientist," MAKE, Volume 17) has a piece up on the Jameco website about using a laser pointer to create cool laser-light patterns to capture with a digital camera:

The coherent properties of a laser beam provide an ideal tool for creating highly complex interference patterns, and reflecting a narrow laser beam from various surfaces can produces strikingly beautiful splashes of laser light.

[The top figure] shows one of many simple ways to create laser art patterns. The key ingredient for this recipe is a square of aluminum foil wrapped around the business end of a laser pointer or module. The foil is crumpled to provide a field of highly complex reflective surfaces. It is then rolled around the end of the laser pointer with the shiny side facing inward. The open end of the foil is partially pushed in to intercept and reflect the laser beam. The laser is pointed toward a diffuser screen (see below), and the pattern formed on the screen is captured by a digital camera on the opposite side of the screen.

Jameco Circuit Recipe 2: Laser Art

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

The Sound Advice Project offers bracelets representing the waveform of whatever six second message you like. Joel has the details at Boing Boing Gadgets. Waveforms As Bracelets

Remember the story about the new iPods having DRM on the headphone interface, which would make it impossible to plug in third-party headphones unless they took a DRM license from Apple? Well, I was wrong.

No, the new iPods have a proprietary chip on the headphone interface that makes it illegal to manufacture third-party headphones unless you have a trademark license from Apple in order to claim "Made for iPod Certification". However, you can make your own iPod cans, provided you don't list them as "Made for iPod."

The BB Gadgets gang have all the details:

When reblogging iLounge's review, both the EFF and Boing Boing used the term "DRM" to describe the "auth" chip. BBG used the same term when questioning the function of the chip, which became understandably confusing for some, as an authentication chip, while perhaps using signaling that could not be legally reverse-engineered due to the restrictions in place from the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, does not affect the ability to listen to audio through generic, unlicensed headphones. (Except, of course, in the new Shuffle, which uses only in-line controls.)

For the record, we do not believe that the new iPod headphones with in-line remote use DRM that affects audio playback in any way.

That said, a three-button in-line remote could have been easily implemented by Apple without a microcontroller. While the in-line remote is simply an added convenience in most iPods, the iPod Shuffle has no controls on the device itself. To control the latest iPod, customers have no other choice but to use headphones made by manufacturers who have purchased a licensed authorization chip from Apple.

Manufacturer confirms chip: iPod headphones now have the Apple Tax; Update: Apple confirms no DRM, authentication, just licensing

Discuss this on Boing Boing Gadgets

Jani Pirkola writes to tell us that Green Phosphor's new project "Glasshouse" allows users to take database queries or spreadsheets and create 3D representations in a virtual world. Man what I wouldn't give to mash my level 80 death knight up with some of the ugly joins I have run across in the past. "Users can see data, and drill into it; re-sort it; explore it interactively - all from within a virtual world. Glasshouse produces graphs which are avatars of the data itself. We've tailored the system for the use of biotech companies, specifically for drug discovery and development. Dr. David Resuehr, a molecular biologist, recently joined Green Phosphor as our Chief Scientist."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Break out the 3D glasses, it's a few pics from this weekend's UK Maker Faire in Newcastle.

Maker Fair2 in 3D

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

The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington DC has staged an exhibition about comic art and Native American culture. The exhibit, which started in Santa Fe last year, is titled Comic Art Indigène. Below, "Apache Speedy" (Douglas Miles, San Carlos Apache/Akimel O'Odham, 2003). See more images by hitting reload at the Santa Fe Museum of Indian Arts & Culture Web site. From the exhibition description at the National Museum of the American Indian:

Under the larger definition of narrative art, comic art is more related to Native American art traditions than one might expect. The earliest surviving example of such narrative art is rock art. The historic examples used in the exhibition, such as photographs of rock art, ledger art, and ceramics, are meant to link Native American art traditions with contemporary voices.

Making comics and producing art inspired by them is a method of reclaiming the narrative art form of comics and Native American culture from those who would dismiss an art for the masses. Stories of humor, adventure and the fantastic depicted through pictures have always been an indigenous practice, and Native American scribes today grapple with the same topics emboldened with millennia-old cultural traditions, blended with new methods of expression and life in the 21st Century.

Comic Art Indigène

The current issue of Smithsonian Magazines features an interview with one of the artists featured in the exhibition, Jolene Nenibah Yazzie. She is a graphic designer at a newspaper but also illustrates her own comics based on Navajo female warriors, and has also started a skateboard brand, Asdzaan (“Women”) Skateboards. From Smithsonian:

What fascinated you about the superheroes you saw in comics growing up?
When I was in first grade, every Friday we would have an elderly person come in to tell us our Navajo creation stories. They would really get into character. The superheroes kind of had the same stories, so I think that’s what really connected me to it.

So do you see your comic art as a natural outgrowth of more traditional storytelling?
I wouldn’t necessarily say traditional. Since there are already the creation stories, I kind of wanted to build my own characters. Most of the women characters I built have to do with my mother and my sister. They are based on them.

"Comic Artist Jolene Nenibah Yazzie"

Ticketmaster is the sort of company that lots of people love to hate. It's long been dogged by complaints that it is anti-competitive -- complaints which have gathered pace with its recent move to merge with Live Nation. The company has done plenty of things to try to drive scalpers out of business before, in hopes of sucking up their profit margins, and its latest move will further endear itself to fans. The WSJ reports that Ticketmaster is collaborating with artists and concert promoters to sell premium-priced tickets to shows on its TicketExchange site, and making them look as if they're being sold by fans. Trent Reznor explains the situation in the eminently reasonable way we've come to expect, saying that artists know they could charge much higher prices to some of their fans, but they "don't want to come off as greedy pricks asking that much, even though the market says its value is that high." So instead, they feed them to the reseller market, or as in this case, become the reseller themselves, but obfuscate that fact.

Ticketmaster execs decry the scalper market, and claim it's not fair to artists, who don't get any of the scalper's profits; under the TicketExchange deals, it divides the revenues with artists and concert promoters. This is all pretty bizarre: if Ticketmaster wants to jack up ticket prices, it seems like it would just raise them upfront. It's also not clear why the company thinks that it's abhorrent for scalpers to charge consumers high prices, but it's perfectly okay for Ticketmaster to charge them prices over the tickets' face value. This news will hardly endear the company further to consumers, and probably won't help it with government regulators, either.

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

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

narramissic writes "According to a TV Week article, NBC Universal has decided to change the name of their Sci Fi Channel to SyFy. Why? To pull in a more 'mainstream' audience. If you're unclear what 'more mainstream' means, TV Historian Tim Brooks spells it out for you: 'The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.' Yes, we should probably all be offended. And telling us that a crack marketing team came up with the name because that's how tech-savvy 18-to-34 year-olds would text it really doesn't help."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

narramissic writes "According to a TV Week article, NBC Universal has decided to change the name of their Sci Fi Channel to Syfy. Why? To pull in a more 'mainstream' audience. If you're unclear what 'more mainstream' means, TV Historian Tim Brooks spells it out for you: 'The name Sci Fi has been associated with geeks and dysfunctional, antisocial boys in their basements with video games and stuff like that, as opposed to the general public and the female audience in particular.' Yes, we should probably all be offended. And telling us that a crack marketing team came up with the name because that's how tech-savvy 18-to-34 year-olds would text it really doesn't help."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

New research suggests that driving in traffic might increase the risk of heart attacks. Scientists from Germany's Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum Muchen, studied a group of patients who had suffered heart attacks. Apparently, they were three times as likely to have been in traffic during the hour before the cardiac event. From Science Daily:

Driving a car was the most common source of traffic exposure, but taking public transportation or riding a bicycle were other forms of exposure to traffic. Overall, time spent in any mode of transportation in traffic was associated with a 3.2 times higher risk than time spent away from this trigger. Females, elderly males, patients who were unemployed, and those with a history of angina were affected the most by traffic.

“Driving or riding in heavy traffic poses an additional risk of eliciting a heart attack in persons already at elevated risk,” said Annette Peters, Ph.D., lead author of the study and head of the research unit at the Institute of Epidemiology, Helmholtz Zentrum Muchen, Germany.

While this study wasn’t structured to pinpoint the reasons that being in traffic may have increased the risk of heart attack, “one potential factor could be the exhaust and air pollution coming from other cars,” Peters said. “But we can’t exclude the synergy between stress and air pollution that could tip the balance.”

"Traffic Exposure May Trigger Heart Attacks"

Here is a delightful dance number from a south Indian film about Superman. (Thanks, Tara McGinley!)

Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.

An important trial is under way in Montana, where W.R. Grace is the defendant in a case about pollution, conspiracy and cover-up. Journalism and law students from the University of Montana are doing superlative coverage of the case in a blog-based project.

This is a great model for journalism schools and communities where they exist. It should be a template for others to use and improve on in the future.

The Grace Case Project is a collaborative undertaking dedicated to providing accurate, timely coverage of the criminal prosecution of U.S. v W.R. Grace and five of its executives and managers. The case is being tried in U.S. District Court in Missoula, Mont. It focuses on charges that the company and the employees named engaged in a conspiracy and cover up that risked the lives of people in Libby, Mont., by allowing them to be exposed to a type of asbestos stirred up by the company’s vermiculite mining and ore processing near town.

The students are tackling different aspects of the coverage, with one student from each school in the courtroom most of the time court is in session.

Journalism students, most of whom are undergraduate juniors and seniors, are working to tell the story that the jury hears. They are also writing background and explainer stories that aim to provide context and clarity to the daily court action. The journalism students work under the conditions of their trade, attributing their information to named sources or direct observation and writing according to AP style. Their blog posts are designated by the use of the inkwell icon, and have a blue background.

Law students, who are in their second and third years at the law school, are charged with explaining the legal nuances and strategies of the trial. Their posts explain why the jurors are hearing the story as it is being told, and the strategy behind the legal challenges and rulings that shape that story. They provide legal background and context in an effort to explain the strategy of the legal teams. Law students labor under the conventions of their field, not those of the journalism students. Their blog posts are denoted by the use of the scales of justice icon.

theraindog writes "AMD's former manufacturing division opened for business last week as GlobalFoundries, but the spin-off may run afoul of AMD's 2001 cross-licensing agreement with Intel. Indeed, Intel has formally accused AMD of violating the agreement, and threatened to terminate the company's licenses in 60 days if a resolution is not found. Intel contends that GlobalFoundries is not a subsidiary of AMD, and thus is not covered by the licensing agreement. AMD has fired back, insisting that it has done nothing wrong, and that Intel's threat constitutes a violation of the deal. At stake is not only AMD's ability to build processors that use Intel's x86 technology, but also Intel's ability to use AMD's x86-64 tech in its CPUs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theraindog writes "AMD's former manufacturing division opened for business last week as GlobalFoundries, but the spin-off may run afoul of AMD's 2001 cross-licensing agreement with Intel. Indeed, Intel has formally accused AMD of violating the agreement, and threatened to terminate the company's licenses in 60 days if a resolution is not found. Intel contends that GlobalFoundries is not a subsidiary of AMD, and thus is not covered by the licensing agreement. AMD has fired back, insisting that it has done nothing wrong, and that Intel's threat constitutes a violation of the deal. At stake is not only AMD's ability to build processors that use Intel's x86 technology, but also Intel's ability to use AMD's x86-64 tech in its CPUs."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I have to admit that I'm still confused why the FBI was spending time going around arresting the guy who put up Guns 'N Roses' latest album, rather than focusing on issues that really matter these days. The arrest alone actually led to much more downloading than if they had just let it go. Yet, now, following a guilty plea, the feds are demanding a six-month prison term for the guy. For promoting the band. Considering how much downloads picked up after the news of the arrest broke, why isn't anyone demanding that we put the FBI agents who spent taxpayer money on this behind bars for even longer? Sure, unauthorized sharing of files breaks copyright law, but it's difficult to come up with any reasonable explanation for (a) spending taxpayer money on having the FBI track down and arrest the guy and then (b) sending him to jail. Every album that's released gets leaked online -- and plenty of musicians have learned how to use it to their benefit. That should make it clear that getting your music leaked online isn't about any economic loss. It's all about what sort of business model you choose. So, because Axl Rose chooses a bad business model, some guy who was sharing GNR music needs to go to jail and the FBI and the Feds need to be involved? Doesn't something seem wrong with this picture?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

• Apple confirms to BBG that the iPod headphones have a licensed chip—but it isn't for DRM or authentication.

• The Sound Advice Project makes waveform bracelets.

• Lenovo's Vaio P-meets-Moleskine mini laptop turns out to be a prototype from years ago. And yet it is so beautiful.

• SpeakEasy is a slightly better iPhone voice recording app.

• Rebraun is a one-off MP3 console inspired by Dieter Rams.

• BMW designed a gaming PC. No, really.

• An industrial robot took someone for a very scary ride.

• Behold! The history of the telephone.

• What is "Space Invaders" in French, again?

• Give us a round of applause! This gadget will cost you £200.

• The most expensive mousetrap ever gained one engineer a new friend.

Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.

Hearst's decision to shut down the Seattle Post-Intelligencer and go online only is an anticlimax -- a long-telegraphed decision. And it's the second such semi-shuttering in the U.S., but definitely part of a trend that will gather strength in the next several years.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer will roll off the presses for the last time Tuesday, ending a 146-year run.

The Hearst Corp. announced Monday that it would stop publishing the newspaper, Seattle's oldest business, and cease delivery to more than 117,600 weekday readers.

The company, however, said it will maintain seattlepi.com, making it the nation's largest daily newspaper to shift to an entirely digital news product.

"Tonight we'll be putting the paper to bed for the last time," Editor and Publisher Roger Oglesby told a silent newsroom Monday morning. "But the bloodline will live on."

The longer-range issue, in Seattle and lots of other cities, is what kind of journalism will be done, and by whom. There's plenty of reason to worry about the demise of newspapers in the short term, but probably more reason to have some level of confidence that we'll end up with the community information we need down the road.

How we'll get there is, in some ways, the topic of a new project I'm semi-launching in the next few days -- a website/book/etc. that asks how we can make media users, consumers and creators alike, much more active (as in activists) in their use of media. This is a demand-side issue as much as a supply-side question, and I hope, with the help of lots of folks, to work on this hard in the next several years.

More about this new project tomorrow...

ProgramErgoSum writes to tell us that IBM's Indian-based research arm is trying to bring a new dimension to web interaction through voice interaction on your mobile phone. Developing a new protocol, Hyperspeech Transfer Protocol (HSTP), the hope is to allow users to talk to the web and get a response. Without more explanation I'm hoping this goes about as far as the gopher web. "The spoken web is a network of voice sites or interconnected voice and the response the company got in some pilot projects in Andhra Pradesh and Gujarat and the kind of innovations that people came up with were just mind-boggling, Gupta said. "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

At Make: Day on Saturday, we had the pleasure of being stationed right across the hall from Savage Aural Hoted. So as I talked to people throughout the day at the Make: television table, every once in a while I'd be interrupted by loud belches, blasts, and other crazy weird sounds coming from some guys in orange jumpsuits. It was great.

Watch the video above to get an idea of what the awesome instruments Savage Aural Hotbed had on hand for Make: Day. Everyone who stopped by their table had the chance to play their unique percussive instruments, and they put on a great set too!

Make: Day was packed with tons of awesome musicians and musical makers. Keston and Westdal brought their slick sounds and inventive approach towards making music onto the main stage for a great set.

Tim Kaiser brought all of his beautifully crafted and original-sounding instruments down from Duluth, MN for Make: Day, and also put on an awesome set on the mainstage at the Science Museum. We featured Tim and his incredible Music Machines for the Maker Profile segment in Episode 6 of Make: television. Check out some pictures of Tim at Make: Day below.

Ed Vogel, the king of the Cigar Box Guitar was also on hand. Ed wrote the original Cigar Box Guitar article for MAKE: Magazine, Volume 4, and also made a cameo appearance and jam session with John Park in the Maker Workshop of Make: television, Episode 10. For Make: Day, Ed flew solo, but his Cigar Box Guitar and tape deck amp sounded better than ever.

Thanks to all of your musical makers who made Make: Day such a huge success! Check out our Flickr pool for more pictures from Make: Day, or upload your own pictures from the event.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Make: television | Digg this!

Richard from the Electronic Frontier Foundation sez,

March 15-22 is Sunshine Week, an annual, non-partisan initiative to promote government transparency and the public's "right to know." EFF is celebrating by posting a heap of uncovered government documents online and launching a new search tool that lets the public search through them all by keyword. The documents cover cutting-edge digital civil liberties issues, like the Department of Homeland Security's data-mining projects, and FBI's surveillance technology, for example.

Information about these shadowy programs and policies would remain secret if EFF wasn't filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and lawsuits to pry the documents out of the government's hands and into the sunlight, and we need people's support to keep it going! Please donate to EFF during Sunshine Week and help shine a light on government secrets!

Help Make Open Government a Reality (Thanks, Richard!)

Aref Adib's "Lookalike" archive is a remarkable collection of images that are improbably similar, from cauliflower heads and African workers relaxing on cotton bales to Tony Blair and Jack Nicholson.

Look-alikes (Thanks, Bill!)

I love the Buddha Machine, the ambient sound generator with a Buddha inside every byte. Modulator Mike bent his box to add a pitch control and a light-dependent resistor theremin control. I'd love to hear what this sounds like.

BTW: I discovered that there's a Buddha Machine iPhone app. It's $4, tho. Too much for my apps budget.

Mike's The Magic Mess circuit bending site (which doesn't have anything on this project yet).

More:
Buddha machine
DIY Buddha Machine

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

Since I will be in Boston/Cambridge for meetings this week, I've organized a Maker meetup for Wednesday night, starting at 6:30pm at the Publick House in Brookline. This is a completely informal drop-in and chat event, made all the easier by some hand-crafted Belgian-style beers. Jake Von Slatt, who is on the cover of the current issue of MAKE, said he'd stop by along with other Boston-area makers.

March 18th @ 6:30-8:30pm

Publick House
1648 Beacon St
Brookline, MA 02445
(617) 277-2880

Link to Google Maps.

I look forward to meeting Make subscribers as well as Boston-area makers. I'll bring some of our new T-shirts (President Obama's quote: "The risk-takers, the doers, the makers of things"). If you have any questions, contact me, dale at oreilly dot com.

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

An anonymous reader writes "In the Cold War the so-called 'Star Wars defense system' proposed using lasers to destroy incoming Soviet missiles. In a 2007 brainstorming session aimed at combating malaria, Dr. Lowell Wood, the architect of that system, proposed modifying his original idea to kill mosquitoes. The cover of today's Wall Street Journal contains an article that highlights this initiative as well as a few others, like using a giant flashlight to disrupt mosquitoes' vision and using the insects to vaccinate, in the war against malaria. The system is intelligent enough to avoid noncombatants like humans and butterflies and can even tell the difference between females, the blood-drinkers, and males. My favorite quote: 'We'd be delighted if we destabilize the human-mosquito balance of power.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new study checked out the mobile phones of 200 doctors and nurses, and found that 95 percent of them were contaminated with bacteria, while 1 in 8 had the MRSA staph bug. These findings pretty much echo those of previous studies, and like those earlier efforts, this one doesn't really go into exactly how dangerous these bacteria-laden handsets are. Unless, of course, you count the comments by the head of a "microbial sterilisation systems company" -- who in no way has a dog in this hunt -- that "holding your phone to your mouth is as dangerous as placing your face on a toilet bowl." Somehow, that comment doesn't seem too convincing, even though it's fairly colorful. If handsets were really portable mongers of bacteria-based death, one would think these medical studies might make that clear, and doctors and hospitals would take some steps to address the problem.

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

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The Elements of Science Kit from the Maker Shed is a great way to get your kids interested in Chemistry, Biology and Physics. The kit includes a full-color, 112-page, book and the supplies that you need to perform the 100 different experiments. Check out the link for a lot more information about what is included in the Elements of Science Kit.

Investigate the most important phenomena in biology, chemistry, and physics by conducting more than 100 fun experiments. A broad, yet elaborate introduction to the physical and life sciences, this kit is intended to expose children to the full spectrum of science and show firsthand how these three core disciplines interrelate. Ages 10 and up. From National Geographic.

More about the Elements of Science Kit from the Maker Shed

In the Maker Shed:


DIY Design Electronics Kit

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

Aaron sez, "Did you see Jon Stewart's smackdown of Jim Cramer last week? Today, some friends and I are launching an 'Open Letter to CNBC' with dozens of respected economists, journalists, and progressive political leaders demanding that CNBC start holding Wall Street accountable, starting by hiring someone who was actually right about the economic crisis. We're trying to get everyone we can to sign on. When 5,000 people sign the open letter, we'll deliver it to CNBC's headquarters. Will you sign?"

Americans need CNBC to do strong, watchdog journalism – asking tough questions to Wall Street, debunking lies, and reporting the truth. Instead, CNBC has done PR for Wall Street. You’ve been so obsessed with getting “access” to failed CEOs that you willfully passed on misinformation to the public for years, helping to get us into the economic crisis we face today.

You screwed up badly. Don’t apologize – fix it!

CNBC should publicly declare that its new overriding mission will be responsible journalism that holds Wall Street accountable. As a down payment, we ask you to hire some new economic voices – people who have a track record of being right about the economic crisis and holding Wall Street executives’ feet to the fire.

CNBC: Hold Wall Street accountable! (Thanks, Aaron!)

stoolpigeon writes "Web applications are all the rage. Web applications that function within the context of social networking sites doubly so. I think it is safe to say that pretty much anyone looking to garner a large audience on the web, for financial or any other reasons, has to be considering how they can reach people on sites like Facebook, or all those users out there accessing the web via their iPhones. Sun Microsystems has entered this arena by providing a set of web based development tools and a platform on which to host the resulting products that is now in beta and named Zembly. And while Zembly has not been open to the public for all that long, two of Zemblys architects with the help of two writers have published a new cookbook for the aspiring Zembly developer, Assemble the Social Web with Zembly." Read below for the rest of JR's review.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Public Radio's Senior Editor Paddy Hirsch explains the uptick rule. The idea is that short sellers would only be allowed to buy back the shares they sold when the stock is going up in price.

The Uptick Rule

NewScientist has a quick look at where the digital image crowd is headed now that the megapixel wars are drawing to a close. Looks like an emphasis on low-light performance and color accuracy in addition to fun software tools are the new hotness. "For years, consumers have been sold digital cameras largely on the basis of one number - the megapixels crammed onto its image sensor. But recently an industry bigwig admitted that squeezing in ever more resolution has become meaningless. Akira Watanabe, head of Olympus' SLR planning department, said that 12 megapixels is plenty for most photography purposes and that his company will henceforth be focusing on improving color accuracy and low-light performance."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Markets change. Businesses -- and business models -- die. That's often what we're talking about here, with a focus on all of the good (sometimes wonderful) things that come about in their place. But, the process of creative destruction is a messy one at times, and every time we write about an industry going through upheaval, be it the recording industry or the newspaper industry, someone angrily demands in the comments for us to explain "what will replace it." I've spent over a decade trying to answer those questions pretty much every day here -- showing example after example of things that are actually replacing those old models, but they're all experiments. They're new, they're different and they all start small. People always look to explain why that's the exception rather than the rule. People insist that no record label can offer music for free until a new models' been "proven." They insist that newspapers shouldn't adapt until someone explains how they can make the same revenue and the same margins they used to make.

That's not how it works.

Clay Shirky has written up a wonderful and compelling response, to all those people, that should be read in its entirety, over and over again by pretty much everyone, whether you believe in the new models or if you are the skeptic, demanding "proof" before you'll jump off the ledge. Shirky's piece focuses on the newspaper industry (really, the journalism industry), but it applies to pretty much any industry going through a bout of massive creative destruction.

During the wrenching transition to print, experiments were only revealed in retrospect to be turning points. Aldus Manutius, the Venetian printer and publisher, invented the smaller octavo volume along with italic type. What seemed like a minor change -- take a book and shrink it -- was in retrospect a key innovation in the democratization of the printed word, as books became cheaper, more portable, and therefore more desirable, expanding the market for all publishers, which heightened the value of literacy still further.

That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment isn't apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries can't predict what will happen. Agreements on all sides that core institutions must be protected are rendered meaningless by the very people doing the agreeing. (Luther and the Church both insisted, for years, that whatever else happened, no one was talking about a schism.) Ancient social bargains, once disrupted, can neither be mended nor quickly replaced, since any such bargain takes decades to solidify.

And so it is today. When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution. They are demanding to be told that old systems won't break before new systems are in place. They are demanding to be told that ancient social bargains aren't in peril, that core institutions will be spared, that new methods of spreading information will improve previous practice rather than upending it. They are demanding to be lied to.

The point is that there isn't necessarily one model that works. And there isn't necesarily a single answer, but what we do know is the economics at play, and the massive changes that will bring to an industry. You can't pretend that a "newspaper" is a scarce resource any more, just as you can't pretend that a song, a movie or even a piece of software is a scarce resource. You can erect new barriers, call for new legislation, initiate lawsuits and call those who love your work the most "thieves," but it doesn't change reality.

But one thing that has been true throughout history, is that even as new technologies come about, and old business models die out, what comes next is better. It's more powerful, more compelling, more efficient and more wonderful than what was in the past -- even if those who came before can't necessarily see the business models that will dominate. We talk here about basic economic principles, and show those who are applying them to new business models (successfully!). I talk about "connecting with fans" and giving them a "reason to buy," while admitting that everyone who does so currently needs to do so in a slightly different way. And we keep seeing that work, and we have faith that the economics at work hold true, and that the new opportunities that we see every day only increase and expand, just as the old models falter and collapse.

The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; "You're gonna miss us when we're gone!" has never been much of a business model. So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs?

I don't know. Nobody knows. We're collectively living through 1500, when it's easier to see what's broken than what will replace it. The internet turns 40 this fall. Access by the general public is less than half that age. Web use, as a normal part of life for a majority of the developed world, is less than half that age. We just got here. Even the revolutionaries can't predict what will happen.

Imagine, in 1996, asking some net-savvy soul to expound on the potential of craigslist, then a year old and not yet incorporated. The answer you'd almost certainly have gotten would be extrapolation: "Mailing lists can be powerful tools", "Social effects are intertwining with digital networks", "This points to future ways of managing local information", and so on. What no one would have told you, could have told you, was what actually happened: craiglist became a critical piece of infrastructure. Not the idea of craigslist, or the business model, or even the software driving it. Craigslist itself spread to cover hundreds of cities and has become a part of public consciousness about what is now possible. Experiments are only revealed in retrospect to be turning points.

Everything is an extrapolation at this point. Even the most visionary folks out there can only see so far, and can only build on what they've experienced so far and where they believe things are going. No one knows what will be the exact end result, but many of us know that the end result will be more powerful and, indeed, more wonderful than what came before.

Society doesn't need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That's been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we're going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.

When we shift our attention from 'save newspapers' to 'save society', the imperative changes from 'preserve the current institutions' to 'do whatever works.' And what works today isn't the same as what used to work.

We don't know who the Aldus Manutius of the current age is. It could be Craig Newmark, or Caterina Fake. It could be Martin Nisenholtz, or Emily Bell. It could be some 19 year old kid few of us have heard of, working on something we won't recognize as vital until a decade hence. Any experiment, though, designed to provide new models for journalism is going to be an improvement over hiding from the real, especially in a year when, for many papers, the unthinkable future is already in the past.

This is not just true of newspapers. It's certainly true for music (which may even be ahead of newspapers in some regards). It will be true for all forms of entertainment soon enough. We're seeing the beginnings of it in software as well. But that's just the beginning. It's going to happen soon in energy and healthcare, and potentially in many other industries as well.

Sometimes people complain that we focus too much on the music industry or copyright or patents around here. But, from my perspective, that's because those are the leading indicators today of what's about to happen in many different industries that are being fundamentally disrupted from the inside -- as the very fundamental facts on which they based their models are being upended, as what used to be scarce is suddenly infinite (or, at the least, massively abundant). New scarcities are always created along with new abundance, but it's incredibly difficult to see at the time. When people say things like the fact that "music has always been paid for" or that we need to pay for music because "that's what's valuable," they're not just missing the point, they're missing the opportunity.

The economics of the old model have changed in fundamental ways. There is no way to go back, nor any desire to go back. What comes next is exciting and wonderful -- but it will always be fought by those who lived off of the old inefficiencies and hope that they can continue to do so. But for everyone else, we should be embracing the experiments. We should be embracing what's new and marvelling at the innovation and creativitiy we witness everyday that goes beyond just an extrapolation of what happened before, but is an actual embodiment of what comes next.

Shirky started his piece off by noting a story in the 90s from a newspaper guy who discovered that kids were reposting ("pirating") Dave Barry columns on Usenet, where the guy said:

"When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem."

Yes, you do have a problem, if you're running that old business. But for the rest of the world, you don't have a problem. You have a revolution and a tremendous opportunity.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

(Image: Catherine "Kate" Puzey, from her online photo album.)

I have been traveling in the Republic of Benin in West Africa for the last two weeks, and am writing this blog post now from the country's sorthern port capital, Cotonou. Two days ago, a 24-year-old Peace Corps volunteer from Georgia named Catherine Puzey, who maintained a colorful and passionate personal blog, was found dead outside her home in a remote, rural village about a seven hour drive north of here. Her death is understood to have been a murder, though neither the US nor Benin governments have officially declared it so. By coincidence, my travel partner and I passed through that very same village, on that same day. We spent most of the day just 10 km from Badjoudè, where the young Ms. Puzey lived and volunteered as an English teacher for the past two years, and died.

Kate, as she was known to friends, maintained a (Blogger) blog here, and a photo album series on Picasa, which was last updated just a few weeks ago. Judging from both, and the comments piling up elsewhere, she was loved intensely by family, friends, and fellow volunteers -- and by the Beninois community that had become her home.

This very traditional village is close to the border of Togo, in the northwestern part of Benin. My fellow travelers and I spent most of that day in the nearby village of Alédjo-Koura, a short drive away. The roads in this area are just rough, red, dirt. It is absolutely not an area frequented by tourists or foreigners. It was so strange to realize we'd been so close to the site, so randomly on that day, in such an unconnected place off the beaten path.

I heard about the incident when we were en route back to the capital a day later, long after we'd left the area. An AP wire item came out last night, as did one post, and then another, on an ABC News blog. The Peace Corps and the US State Department issued statements, but without details. An investigation is ongoing, I'm told by a source in Cotonou familiar with the case.

As Africa goes, Benin really is a stable, peaceful, relatively safe country. Poverty and related health problems are intense and widespread; domestic violence is a big problem. But I'm told that violence of this kind in rural communities is rare, and violence against foreigners, particularly NGO workers or aid volunteers, more so.

Earlier today, I spoke to two Beninese men I know here in Cotonou who happen to be from an adjacent village. We'd all been traveling together on the 12th. They said the people in Benin tend to (their words here) "respect foreigners," and the incident saddened and angered them. Translating, roughly: "It's terrible for our community when something like this happens, because the West already thinks badly of Africa and of Africans. One violent act like this, committed by one bad person, means the assistance and development our country so desperately needs will become more scarce, and that fewer volunteers like her, fewer means of support and change, will come."

I realized after speaking with them that on the road back to the capital yesterday, our shared car had crossed paths with the string of vehicles carrying government investigators and Benin's security minister up to Badjoudè. Government vehicles, I've learned on this trip, blare out distinctive siren sounds that distinguish them from normal police or fire vehicles. They tend to move in squads for security. We'd passed similar caravans carrying Benin's president Boni Yayi earlier in the week near the Cotonou airport, as he was coming back from a trip to India.

Ms. Puzey's blog is a beautiful read. Cleary, she loved this place, and many of the people of the place she called home in turn had great affection for her. I've just sat here for hours in a Cotonou hotel bar, reading her blog posts and poring through her photos. Here is a snip from my favorite entry, about ambient noise in the village -- something I've been very aware of on this trip:

I realized some time ago my education here goes way beyond the local language and customs. I’ve become familiar with so many new sounds. I now know the sound of a chicken when it’s being killed, a goat when it’s giving birth, the baby next door when it’s hungry. I know the sound of the tonal repetitions in the local language when two close friends meet in passing; the rumble of the flour grinder two houses down and the hum of a nearby generator; the sound of mice and big lizards running around my ceiling at night and the ruckus that ensues when one chases the other (I always root for the lizard); the sound of the marché across the way from me carrying on well into the night; the deep-throated grumble of cattle as they graze in front of my house; the low clicking orders of their herder; the whining of children versus the baying of goats, though I swear one goat sounds like he’s always saying in a deep grumpy voice “Badddddd!” (I’ve named him Eeyore); all the different bird and insect calls. I’m even learning to discern the voice of each student who, in passing at night, will see me cooking dinner by candlelight and holler out from the dark “Good Evening, Madame Catherine!”

This passage, from another post (which includes a mention of her work holding workshops on family planning, conflict resolution and women's health with village girls) really hits home for me now, as I shift from my brief experience of village life here toward a return to Los Angeles:

Even in its calmest moments -– say, the minute just before a gorgeous sunrise over the plains -– [Africa] is vibrant and tussled, never at rest, never totally tranquil.

I think in America we sometimes overlook how many of us live in ideal magazine images of our own making.

My condolences to the friends and family of this beautiful young woman.

I don't like the look of pancake batter in a ketchup bottle. But a coin purse made from plastic bottles is attractive.

(Via Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories)

Video of Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology's HRP-4C, "a walking, talking humanoid fashion model fembot." HRP-4C fashion model robot

With the announcement coming tomorrow, Macworld has posted their top list of 15 features they would like to see in an iPhone 3.0 update. The list includes some things that people have been asking for since launch (like cut and paste) and things that were once there but have since been silently removed (like push notifications/background apps). With almost 2 years of time to grow and learn, what other things are woefully inadequate on Apple's popular handheld?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With the announcement coming tomorrow, Macworld has posted their top list of 15 features they would like to see in an iPhone 3.0 update. The list includes some things that people have been asking for since launch (like cut and paste) and things that were once there but have since been silently removed (like push notifications/background apps). With almost 2 years of time to grow and learn, what other things are woefully inadequate on Apple popular handheld?

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As I've mentioned in previous tweets and blog posts from the road trip I'm on in West Africa, Obama is super popular over here. Above and left, evidence.

BB pal Hugo Van Tilborg, who's lived here in Benin for a few years, shot the iphone snaps below in and around Cotonou (click for larger size). Above, Obama has a beach named after him. At left, a street.

"Apart from street signs, billboard and street hawkers toting obama's face around I've also heard of voudoun [voodoo] ceremonies being held for Obama during the elections," Hugo says.

"Imagine if the Christian right had ever gotten wind of that!"

Bush, as I recall from being here previously, did not enjoy any such popularity, and for good reason. He dropped by Benin in 2008, but is said to have spent all of three hours in the country, never once leaving the airport.

KingofGnG writes "Conficker/Downup/Downadup/Kido malware, that according to Symantec 'is, to date, one of the most complex worms in the history of malicious code,' has been updated and this time for real. The new variant, dubbed W32.Downadup.C, adds new features to malware code and makes the threat even more dangerous and worrisome than before."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Way back in 2002 and 2003 we discussed how the Girl Scouts of America prohibit selling their infamous cookies online. It seemed strange back then, as the entire purpose of the program is (supposedly) to teach the girls entrepreneurship skills, including "personal responsibility and how to manage money." I hadn't heard much about it since then, but here we are in 2009, and once again, business-savvy Girl Scouts are running into trouble selling cookies online.

Some have argued that since it's supposed to be about doing something in your community, selling online goes beyond that -- though, I'd argue that an online community can be just as much of a community as a local one. Anyway, in the case described in this article, the sales were limited to local residents anyway -- but the Girl Scouts are still upset about it. Mainly, the argument seems to be that it's somehow "not fair" for the other girls, but if the goal is to teach kids entrepreneurship skills, telling them that some big organization is going to make sure to keep others out of your market isn't exactly sending the right message.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Make: Day was crawling with robots of all sizes. We were luck to have The Twin Cities Robotics Group show off tons of their own robots as well as bring kits for kids to make their own! Upload your photos or video from Make: Day to our Flickr pool.

Alan Kilian and the rest of the crew were on hand to build lasercut, border-following robots out of servo motors and plastic.

Asia Ward makes animatronic sculptures that take on a life of their own.

The Solar Roller spent all day scooting around.

Thanks to the FIRST Robotics Team from Career Pathways High School in Minnesota

A huge thanks to the whole gang for working hard and inspiring thousands!

More updates throughout the day...

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Make: television | Digg this!

Boing Boing reader Hugo van Tilborg, who I caught up with here on the road in Benin, points us to a fascinating story on Afrigadget blog about a guy in nearby Liberia who "blogs" on a chalkboard.

Alfred Sirleaf is an analog blogger. He take runs the “Daily News”, a news hut by the side of a major road in the middle of Monrovia. He started it a number of years ago, stating that he wanted to get news into the hands of those who couldn’t afford newspapers, in the language that they could understand. Alfred serves as a reminder to the rest of us, that simple is often better, just because it works. The lack of electricity never throws him off. The lack of funding means he’s creative in ways that he recruits people from around the city and country to report news to him. He uses his cell phone as the major point of connection between him and the 10,000 (he says) that read his blackboard daily.

Above, WhiteAfrican's video. See lots of photos of Mr. Sirleaf's "analog blog," and read the full post at Afrigadget (or WhiteAfrican). Also: here's a New York Times story about him from a few years ago.

I'm intrigued by these graphite weapon pencil sculptures by AS Batle, made from compressed graphite. Does anybody know what possible type of "proprietary binder" he may be using and in what type of mold? The site says they last for eight years if you use them for drawing. Via BB.

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

West Africa is not a monoculture. Even within one country here, there is a staggering range of diversity. But no matter where you are here, you can count on one thing: an abundance of hand-painted barbershop/ladies' hair salon signs along roads large and small. I mean, yes, there are eccentric, handpainted signs of all sorts here, but there's something about the hair salons -- they're a big deal, and they're everywhere.

Here in French-speaking Benin, where I've been traveling for a while, this holds true from the tiniest, most remote village in the far north, all the way down to the more urban coastal enclaves near the sprawling, aggressive port capital of Cotonou. "Coiffure et Tresse," most read, along with intricate, quirky paintings of how awesome you'll look if you step inside. Some of them reference black American pop culture or hip-hop stars who are seen as style idols ("Le Puff Daddy," etc.). I expect some to reference Obama, eventually.

Last night over dinner here in Cotonou with a (super cool!) Boing Boing reader who's lived here for a few years, and another expat who works here, we were all talking about their prevalence. The expats agreed that the signs almost seems to outnumber the potential clients!

I didn't manage to snap many very good photos of them myself. But today, we visited the Zinsou foundation in Cotonou (named after this historic figure, they have a gallery which just held a "Bénin in 2056" futuristic art show), and I bought a rad book in their bookshop about this urban art form.

Ici Bon Coiffeur, by Jean-Marie Lerat (1992, in French), is the most comprehensive look at West African barbershop art I've ever seen. Above, the cover. The book is divided into sections that showcase the work of various artists, in various West African countries (Senegal, Burkina, Ghana, and so on). The photos are wonderful, and I appreciated how respectfully the author/photographer treats these artists and their individual forms.

Here's an Amazon link where you can buy a copy (they're spendy, because they're out of print, but used copies seem to be available). If you know of other good photo-books on this topic, I'd love to hear from you in the comments! (Merci beaucoup, Hugo van Tilborg!)

Slatterz writes "In an apparent attack of the bleeding-obvious, an AMD rep has come clean and admitted (on behalf of the industry) that notebook and phone battery life figures are completely unreliable. AMD's senior vice president Nigel Dessau says that 'we are not being entirely honest with users about what PC battery life they can expect to actually experience.' He says AMD will now use a combination of idle time (where the machine is left to sit idle, and timed to see how long it takes for the battery to go dead), and 3DMark06 to measure battery life. Great in theory but some of the industry already bases battery figures on a two-test measurement, and the results are still wildly inaccurate."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Make: Day was a huge success! With the aid of over 25 Makers from the Twin Cities area, and thousands more families and Maker enthusiasts, we took over the Science Museum of Minnesota in downtown St. Paul on Saturday. Make: Day was emceed by Make: magazine contributor and Make: television Technical Advisor, Bill Gurstelle, and other festivities included some awesome music performances, great demos, and tons of amazing projects. Check out our Make: television's Flickr pool for some of the early returns, and if you came out to Make: Day we'd love to see your pictures or hear your stories!

We'll have more updates throughout the week on the nitty-gritty that went down throughout the day, so check back for more. For now, check out Make: television's flick pool for the early returns. Thanks to our gracious Maker Workshop host, John Park, for flying out from California, as well as Geek Squad, and the amazing Science Museum of MN staff for making it such a great event!

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Make: television | Digg this!

jammag writes "Most developers have worked with a dude like Josh, who's so brilliant the management fawns over him even as he takes a dump in the lobby flowerpot. Eric Spiegel tells of one such Josh, who wears T-shirts with offensive slogans, insults female co-workers and, when asked about documentation, smirks, "What documentation?' Sure, he was whipsmart and could churn out code that saved the company millions, but can we please stop enabling these people?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A recent report looked at how scientists respond when caught plagiarizing a research paper. The article and the responses are a bit amusing -- but what struck me was the claim that the vast majority of "plagiarism" was actually "self-plagiarism." In other words, the researcher was effectively reusing some bit of material he or she had published for something else. I'm sure some academics will be quick to explain why this is a horrible breach of academic protocol, but I'm having a very difficult time understanding how this makes any sense, whatsoever. Reusing concepts, ideas, data or anything else would seem to be an incredibly useful tool for the purposes of reinforcement, or even to build on those earlier works. Limiting that for some artificial standard just doesn't seem to make much sense. There obviously may be cases where the first research journal to publish something gets the copyright on the content (an all-too-frequent occurrence, especially for publicly-funded research), but even then it's not "plagiarism" so much as copyright infringement, potentially -- and it seems ridiculous to not allow such reuse to go forward.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Want to make music but find yourself more comfortable with a gaming controller than say a traditional MIDI controller - worry no more. Captain Dan demonstrates a little bit of what can be accomplished using an Xbox360 controller, GlovePIE input routing software, and Reaktor synth. Of course you don't have to use a high-end suite like Reaktor - any sound synthesis software that accepts MIDI will do.

From the pages of MAKE:

21st-Century Keytars  MAKE Volume 15, page 56

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

Frequent Slashdot contributor Bennett Haselton writes "A New Zealand court has allowed a plaintiff to serve papers on a defendant via Facebook, following a similar ruling from an Australian court last year. But as these rulings do not necessarily mean, as Facebook announced in a press release, that the courts have endorsed Facebook 'as a reliable, secure and private medium for communication.' The trend could lead to abuses if courts start taking 'Facebook service' too seriously." For more of the many words written by Bennett, hop on that curiously named link right below.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Amit Zoran's Chameleon guitar uses replaceable soundboards built from various types of wood and other materials to take on different sonic characteristics -

The five electronic pickups on the soundboard provide detailed information about the wood's acoustic response to the vibration of the strings. This information is then processed by the computer to simulate different shapes and sizes of the resonating chamber. "The original signal is not synthetic, it's acoustic," Zoran says. "Then we can simulate different shapes, or a bigger instrument." The guitar can even be made to simulate shapes that would be impossible to build physically. "We can make a guitar the size of a mountain," he says. Or the size of a mouse.

Because the actual soundboard is small and inexpensive, compared to the larger size and intricate craftsmanship required to build a whole acoustic instrument, it will allow for a lot of freedom to experiment, he says. "It's small, it's cheap, you can take risks," he says. For example, he has a piece of spruce from an old bridge in Vermont, more than 150 years old, that he plans to use to make another soundboard. The wooden beam is too narrow to use to make a whole guitar, but big enough to try out for the Chameleon Guitar.

The Chameleon seems to offer a unique shortcut for guitarists searching for their signature tone. It'll be interesting to hear how well the onboard digital processing handles scaling those sounds. Read more on the instrument's development at MIT News. [via Synthtopia]

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

gubm writes "A February survey of IT managers by IDC indicated that hard times are accelerating the adoption of Linux. The open source operating system will emerge from the recession in a stronger data center position than before, concluded an IDC white paper."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I like this "Beginning Engineer's Checklist," from the PIClist site. Here are the first six items on the list:

1. NEVER loan out your copies of:

• The Art of Electronics (Horowitz & Hill, Cambridge University Press) (you do HAVE a copy don't you?)
• Illustrated Sourcebook of Mechanical Components or Ingenious Mechanisms for Designers and Inventors
• The Art of Computer Programming, Volumes 1..3 Boxed Set

2. Always quote at least twice the time you think it will actually take to do the job (if it's good enough for Scotty...)

3. Always have someone (or a group of) real pro(s) to fall back on for advice when you get stuck. But, never rely on someone else's circuit design to work as drawn.

4. Always document everything you do (why did you always see engineers and scientists with a log book?) and be ready to extract a complete history of actions at a moments notice. I don't care how sharp you are, at some point, while trying to solve a complex problem, you will realize that you don't remember exactly what you already tried... which means that you are duplicating effort, running in circles, and doomed...

When it really drops in the bucket, management WILL try to make you a scapegoat and being able to tell the customer exactly what you did may save your job (or get you a better manager or even a new job).

Watch your co-workers and boss... when they start to pull away from something, get your notes in order

5. Always understand that you may pick two of the following three, but not more:

• It can be built well,
• It can be built quickly,
• It can be built cheaply.

6. Ohms law: Know it, look for it, use it. Very simple but often missed.

• Ground planes, power busses, shields, etc... are not superconductors, they resist and a voltage will develop when current flows.
• The heat dissipated from a component operating at its rated wattage might look small on paper but it can build up to a melt down in the real world. Use a higher rating and heat sink and ventilate.
• Instantaneous currents can be huge in switching devices, even if the the average is low. Decouple every major and sensitive component. Overbuild the power supply. Power traces are part of the power supply.
• Noise happens

Read the rest.

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

1 a bee writes "With the White House claiming national security grounds for failing to release ACTA related information, including negotiating documents and even the list of participants, the spotlight is now on just who does have access. Turns out, according to James Love, hundreds of advisers, many of them corporate lobbyists, are considered 'cleared advisers.' The list looks a who's who of captains of industry."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Joe Grand writes in with plans to build his POV wristwatch (mentioned here a while back) -

Five years ago, I designed a prototype for a wristwatch based on the phenomenon of persistence-of-vision. Being a longtime runner, I thought it would be cool to be able to run at night without fumbling with my watch in order to see the elapsed time. The POV Watch was born and it works pretty well, as long as you move your arm fast enough to create the image.

Going through my archives, I realized that this would be a great project to open source, since there are many aspects of the design that people can learn from. The schematic, PCB Gerber plots, and source code are now available on my site.

The design uses a PIC16LF628A chip, SMD LEDs, and a mercury switch to detect the direction of wrist-shake. Download all the pertinent info over at Grand Idea Studios.

More:

Binary POV wristwatch

In the Maker Shed:


MiniPOV kit

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

Whenever we talk about business models and understanding the difference between infinite and scarce goods, someone almost always complains that things like music or software aren't infinite goods, because they "take resources to develop." But, of course, we've pointed out that's exactly the point. The development is a scarce good, and you can come up with plenty of business models to get paid for creating content. But getting paid to create content is different than getting paid over and over again for copies of that content. This seems a little tricky for some to understand, but: creating new content is a scarce good -- that content, once created, becomes an infinite good.

So, if you're looking at business models, there are plenty that recognize this and help get people paid for the creation of content, rather than for trying to distribute copies of that content. We've talked, for example, about programs like Jill Sobule's and Marillion's, where they basically get fans to agree to fund the creation of new albums, with additional benefits offered to those who do so. Now, Chris Gruel points us to an example where a community bands together to put up a bounty to get a certain software application developed, with the first person who does receiving the bounty. In many ways, this is similar to our own business model with the Insight Community, where we pay people to develop insightful content. It's great to see more examples of this business model in practice.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

From Genteel Recessionista comes this curious strategy for dealing with hard times. Two Seattle architects have set up a Lucy from Peanuts-like 5¢ advice booth in a downtown open air market. Their mission:

Architecture 5¢ is about starting conversations, it's that simple. People have questions about how they want to live in their home; whether it is a simple kitchen remodel or adding a second story on their house, it all starts with a conversation.

When you talk to people in your neighborhood about architecture you can start a ripple effect that can impact your local economy. One local nickel turns into one conversation, which could turn into one local design job, built by a local contractor, who hires a local painter, who buys from a local supplier.....

If we all start conversations, and start ripples across the nation, we can start a wave of hope and prosperity that can get us out of these tough times. I'm looking for like minded individuals to join me in this movement. Maybe you were laid off and not found work, or are just feeling the pinch of the economy.

I'm looking for people who want to help their local neighborhood, and in turn help themselves out of a tough situation.

Not really sure if this is an effective strategy, but it sure is a creative and magnanimous one.

Creative marketing for new times

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

Make: Day was a huge success this weekend at the Science Museum of Minnesota. My fingers are crossed that this marks the first of many events where you can take your family to learn about electronics, make robots, meet the makers from your favorite Make: television episodes, interact with radio controlled artwork, and listen to percussion and electronica performed on home-brew instruments while touring a paleontology exhibit.

In a word: awesome.

If you weren't able to make it to Make: Day, check out the "makeday" tag on Flickr to get a feel for the event. I'm particularly fond of this photo taken by gjohnsonxx. He's captured evidence of me trying to help someone blast her brother with a vortex of smoke from an air cannon.

Make: Day on Flickr

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Make: television | Digg this!

(In case you've missed previous posts and tweets, I've been traveling in West Africa for the past couple of weeks.) Driving in Benin this weekend on the long road from the Burkina Faso border down to the port capital of Cotonou, Benin, we spotted this: a car carrying a handmade coffin which was crafted to resemble a taxi cab. Presumably, this bespoke box was to be the final resting place for a taxi driver who perished. It is customary in some West African cultures to create coffins that call to mind some aspect of the deceased's life or work. Not everyone here gets buried in a customized coffin like this, but it is a sort of regionally specific popular art form. Perhaps someone more versed in West African culture than I can chime in, in the comments. I don't have Photoshop on this laptop, so I can't blur out the number, but please don't call it. The guy's not gonna answer, and it might ring one of his survivors, which would be mean and rude.

STATION, a taut locked-room murder mystery set about the International Space Station meets and exceeds Boom! comics' normal high standard for graphic novels. Writer Johanna Stokes and illustrator Leno Carvalho turn the screws on the dramatic tension on every page, leaving you to figure out who killed the Russian scientist on EVA -- the American space-tourist? The visiting Italian and Japanese astronauts? Or was it one of the Russians or Americans on-board? And who keeps sabotaging the life-support?

Stokes is a writer on the Sci-Fi Channel's show EUREKA, and she plots like a TV drama writer -- lots of twists and turns, snappy dialog and quick, deft characterization. Carvalho's art complements the writing nicely, skipping from an expressive, impressionistic to a highly detailed hyperrealism that captures both the claustrophobia of the ISS and the terrifying vastness of space.

Station

We've mentioned several times about how sports leagues are trying to crack down on unauthorized web streams of their games. It's a misguided effort that fails to recognize the opportunity here: people watch these streams because they generally don't have other options. Largely, they're not cheapskate pirates, but underserved customers. With that in mind, it was nice to see a story in the WSJ a few days back talking about how some American leagues' subscription streaming services are enjoying success. They've figured out that by offering users a better service than the pirate streams, they can get them to pay subscription fees. This gets to the heart of so many different industries' battles against piracy: it's not a technological problem that exists because there are inadequate locks for content, it's a business problem that exists because many companies are too complacent to develop services that deliver consumers content they want in a format they desire.

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

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Lorien_the_first_one brings word that in Europe, a breakthrough for post-4G communications has been announced. A public-private consortium known as IPHOBAC has been developing new communications technology that is near commercialization now. Quoting: "With much of the mobile world yet to migrate to 3G mobile communications, let alone 4G, European researchers are already working on a new technology able to deliver data wirelessly up to 12.5Gb/s. The technology — known as 'millimeter-wave' or microwave photonics — has commercial applications not just in telecommunications (access and in-house networks) but also in instrumentation, radar, security, radio astronomy and other fields."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Derek Bledsoe, Boing Boing Video producer, is blogging daily Boing Boing Video episodes while Xeni's on the road in Africa.

---

Today we present "Godel ????? Film School," an animated short from the PSST! 3 Film series. Like the other shorts in the PSST! project, this one's the result of a collaboration between three teams of animators. Those teams worked together to express a single story with a uniquely animated and separately produced beginning, middle, and end.

"Godel" begins with a colorful family of ink blots digitally morphed onto a gothic landscape of kittens and disembodied Walt Disney heads. Their nightmarish adventure ends as they land in the sedative seats of a dreary film class. This delightful short was animated in part by David O'Reilly, whose work we've featured previously on Boing Boing Video.

About the PSST! 3 project, curator Bran Dougherty-Johnson tells Boing Boing,

The main creative challenge is really self-initiated. It's to create original and inspired work on no budget and in collaboration with other teams. That in itself is a challenge, but the reward is unfettered creativity and self-expression with no restraints. You can see in the films that the artists involved took this idea to heart.

Art is a form of reality creation. With PSST! we are opening a space for Motion Graphic Design and Animation to do something other than commercials and endtags, to build community and to create our own work.

PSST! 3 will be screening in New York City on Wed. March 25th at the Galapagos Art Space in Dumbo, Brooklyn. A limited number of DVDs with all 17 animations from the film project are available for purchase here.

Previously:

• "Legends of Exos," Excerpt from PSST! Animation Project
• BB Video: David O'Reilly, "Please Say Something" preview (animation)
• BBtv: David O'Reilly Vectorpunk Animation (featuring Xeni)

Flash video embed above, click "full" icon inside the player to view it large. You can download the MP4 here. Our YouTube channel is here, you can subscribe to our daily video podcast on iTunes here. Get Twitter updates every time there's a new ep by following @boingboingvideo, and here are the archives for Boing Boing Video.

---

(Special thanks to Boing Boing Video's hosting and publishing provider Episodic.)

AS Batle, who makes gorgeous graphite sculptures that double as huge pencils that last for eight years, has a new line of tools in the shape of iconic weapons. Noah sez, "They're really gorgeous and have a unique poetic/pacifist bent: the more you draw or write poetry with them, the more they transform from weapon to art."

The newest line in this series features weapons: a 30mm shell, and AK-47 and "Little Boy" the bomb dropped over Hiroshima. The text on the box reads: "This [weapon] will change into words and pictures with normal use. To begin, place [weapon] in hand as if it were a pencil. Drag [weapon] across paper until poems and drawings appear. Continue using until [weapon] disappears."

The "hand" designs are cast from his young son's own hands and are the most remarkable thing to hold and draw with. Available in right- and left-handed models.

A. S. Batle Graphite "Pencils" (Thanks, Noah!)

Blizzard Entertainment's new Orange County offices are graced with a giant raging orc statue.

Blizzard puts up 12-foot orc on wolf in Irvine (via Wonderland)

CNETNate writes "A tour of Sennheiser's Hanover factory reveals for the first time how its audiophile headphones are assembled by hand. The company recently announced its most expensive and innovative headphones to date, the HD 800, which discarded the conventional method of headphone driver design for a new 'donut-shaped' ring driver idea. Only 5,000 of these headphones can be made in a year, and this gallery offers a behind-the-scenes look at the construction process."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Iowahawk wrote a tremendous, lengthy story about the history of Ed “Big Daddy” Roth's fantastic Orbitron show car, which had been, until discovered parked in front of a Mexican sex shop in 2007, "one of the two lost grails of Rothdom." More than being just about the Orbitron, though, Iowahawk's story is an engrossing personal account (he met Roth as a child and their lives were sort of intertwined) of revisiting and reflecting on Roth's creations, both cultural and vehicular. Even if you don't like hot rods I recommend reading it.

In his July 1963 interview with Rod & Custom, Ed “Big Daddy” Roth teased readers with news about a new project he had started, one he called the Bald Eagle. “I am going to build a car that will be irresistible to women,” said Roth. “They will want to climb on it, scratch the paint and just crawl all over it.”

That chick-magnet project was later renamed the Orbitron. In ’63 BDR was under pressure from Revell to produce another wild show car, one that would become, like the Outlaw and Beatnik Bandit and Mysterion before it, a show circuit sensation and million-selling plastic model kit. BDR pull all the stops for the effort: Working from an idea by Roth, Ed Newton drew a concept and Roth and Dirty Doug began shaping its fiberglass form in the Maywood shop. It was long and low, asymmetric, built like a UFO dragster with the driver sitting behind the axle. Like the Beatnik Bandit and Mysterion it featured a bubbletop blown at Acry Plastics, but with a spacious angel fur interior big enough to accommodate Roth and one of those girls he talked about in R&C. The previous year Ford had given Roth three new 406 crate motors, two of which went into the Mysterion; the third went into his ’55 Chevy daily. Roth chromed out the ‘55’s original 265 small block and stuffed it in the Orbitron’s engine compartment. Its centerpiece was a long tubular nosecone, jutting forward of the front wheels, containing a pod of Red-Green-Blue lights that, BDR explained, would combine into a single white beam. After getting a luscious Larry Watson blue fade paintjob, it was ready for its debut in early ’64.

By all rights the car should have been another triumph. At the time Big Daddy was King and his Rat Fink Empire was at its peak; Roth Studios was pumping out millions of grotesque t-shirts and doodads for rebellious kids around the globe, model kit royalties were pouring in, and the Maywood shop was the undisputed center of the kustom car universe. He had just been lionized by Tom Wolfe in the bestseller Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, which compared him to Salvador Dali and called his cars things like “baroque” and “Dionysian.”

Instead, the Orbitron was a flop. On the ’64-’65 show circuit, it was greeted with public indifference. Contemporary photographs show the Orbitron in the parking lot of Revell awaiting measurement for a model kit that was never released. Roth theorized the Orbitron was too similar to the Mysterion, and that he screwed up in hiding the chromed engine behind its body panels. He also blamed the Beatles, whose 1964 appearance on Ed Sullivan coincided with the Orbitron’s debut and ushered in a new wave of youth culture more attuned to electric guitars than fantasy show cars.

Orbitron Apocalypto (Thanks, Coop!)

Iddo Genuth writes "After several delays, including twice over the past week, the space shuttle Discovery has finally been launched into space. The spacecraft took off at precisely 7:43 p.m. EDT, embarking on the STS-119 mission, which will provide the International Space Station with the fourth and final set of solar arrays — and which will make the ISS brighter than Venus. The shuttle will also deliver to the ISS its newest crew member, Japan's Aerospace Exploration Agency astronaut Koichi Wakata, who will replace flight engineer Sandra Magnus at the station."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here is a variation on the Menocino Motor project. The Mendo Motor is a solar-powered magnetically levitating motor invented by super maker Larry Spring, of Mendocino California. This is a great project to do with high school kids. The Motor incorporates woodworking, electricity, magnestism, troubleshooting, and can also be used as a way of teaching computer-aided design.

What solar energy projects do you do in school or at home? How do you show solar energy? How would you explain the function of this motor? How do you use LEGOs to prototype designs? What is the best project you have done with LEGO? Join the conversation in the comments and add your photos and video to the MAKE Flickr pool.

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

Dan Gillmor is a BoingBoing guest-blogger.

The Obama administration has undone a few of the Bush administration's worst policies, true. Yet when it comes to Obama's increasingly clear disdain for some core civil liberties and his administration's penchant for secrecy despite cheerful rhetoric to the contrary, Salon's Glenn Greenwald arrives at a dismal -- but sadly, logical -- conclusion:   

After many years of anger and complaint and outrage directed at the Bush administration for its civil liberties assaults and executive power abuses, the last thing most people want to do is conclude that the Obama administration is continuing the core of that extremism. That was why the flurry of executive orders in the first week produced such praise: those who are devoted to civil liberties were, from the start, eager to believe that things would be different, and most want to do everything but conclude that the only improvements that will be made by Obama will be cosmetic ones.

But it's becoming increasingly difficult for honest commentators to do anything else but conclude that. After all, these are the exact policies which, when embraced by Bush, produced such intense protest over the last eight years.  Nobody is complaining because the Obama administration is acting too slowly in renouncing these policies. The opposite is true:   they are rushing to actively embrace them.  And while there are still opportunities to meaningfully depart from the extremism of the last eight years, the evidence appears more and more compelling that, at least in these areas, there is little or no real intent on the part of the Obama administration to do so.

Democrats in Congress and much of the political left have been silent or nearly so despite the evidence. You expect cowardice from Congress, which spent the Bush presidency in a perpetual bent-over posture. The Netroots folks who did so much to elect Obama should be screaming bloody murder by now. Too few are even slightly audible. A shame.

Maybe the Republicans will re-discover civil liberties at some point. Nah.

(photo via Flickr by Marcin Wichary)

An anonymous reader writes "I work for a small (400 customers) local cable ISP. For the company, the ISP is only a small side business, so my whole line of expertise lies in other areas, but since I know the most about Linux and networking I've been stuck into the role of part-time sysadmin. In examining our backbone and customer base I've found out that we are oversubscribed around 70:1 between our customers' bandwidth and our pipe. I've gone to the boss and showed him the bandwidth graphs of us sitting up against the limit for the better part of the day, and instead of purchasing more bandwidth, he has asked me to start implementing traffic shaping and packet inspection against P2P users and other types of large downloaders. Because this is in a certain limited market, the customers really have the choice between my work, and dial-up. I'm struggling with the desire to give the customers I'm administering the best experience, and the desire to do what my boss wants. In my situation, what would you do ?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.