suraj.sun writes points to a story in the New York Times indicating that the much-rumored merger (or purhase) that would have united Sun with IBM may have dissolved before it began. Excerpting: "I.B.M., after months of negotiations, withdrew its $7 billion bid for Sun Microsystems on Sunday, one day after Sun's board balked at a slightly reduced offer, according to a person close to the talks. The deal's collapse raises questions about Sun's next step, since the I.B.M. offer was far above the value of the Silicon Valley company's shares when news of the I.B.M. offer first surfaced last month. .. Since last year, Sun executives had been meeting with potential buyers. I.B.M. stepped up, seeing an opportunity to add to its large software business, acquire valuable researchers and consolidate the market for larger, so-called server computers that corporations use in their data centers. ... Now, Sun is free to pursue other suitors, including I.B.M. rivals like Hewlett-Packard and Cisco Systems. Cisco recently entered the market for server computers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

mu22le writes "Today Debian gets one step closer to really becoming 'the universal operating system' by adding two architectures based on the FreeBSD kernel to the unstable archive. This does not mean that the Debian project is ditching the Linux kernel; Debian users will be able to choose which kernel they want to install (at least on on the i386 and amd64 architectures) and get more or less the same Debian operating system they are used to. This makes Debian the first distribution, and probably the first large OS, to support two completely different kernels at the same time."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This week on the CRAFT blog we saw:

• How-To: Make Crochet Diagrams using Adobe Illustrator
  
• Alter Egos Exposed: The Art of Anthea Bush
• How-To: Hexagonal Stacking Boxes
• Tauntaun Sleeping Bag

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---

Eric Alt imagines how Homer's Odyssey would have read, had it instead been written 140 characters at a time on twitter.

"If Homer's Odyssey Was Written On Twitter" (Holy Taco, Thanks, John Andrew Walsh!)

CNET briefly describes how a poorly chosen default behavior has led to an online crime map of Los Angeles (on a site designed at a cost of $362,000) that shows that "a location just a block from the department's new headquarters is the most crime-ridden place in the city." I wonder how often this sort of error would completely skew things like real-estate maps that attempt to show whether houses in a certain neighborhood are worth more than those in the one next door.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm honored and tickled by this caricature by Disney animator Joe Bowers. It explains what happens when you mix the Make: television Burrito Blaster project with the VCR Cat Feeder project.

Burrito Blaster on MAKE: television from make magazine on Vimeo.

Maker Workshop - VCR Cat Feeder from make magazine on Vimeo.

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Wondering what to do to create that special Easter egg? A few years ago I got a bit obsessed with Ukranian Easter eggs. They took loads of time, but resulted in some very attractive eggs that would be memorable to any ovorecipient.

After blowing out the eggs, I had a very nice omelet with garlic from the garden. Over a period of a few days, I made about a half dozen eggs, each with individual designs dyed onto the surface of the shell. It was a nice way to spend the days leading up to Easter. The other day I saw one of the eggs on my parents' table as part of their holiday setup. Now I wish I had made more.

Here are some instructions from Learn Pyasnky:

Give it a try and show us your eggies in the MAKE Flickr pool.

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An anonymous reader writes "My father is a veterinarian with a small private practice. He runs all his patient/client/financial administration on two simple workstations, linked with a network cable. The administration application is a simple DOS application backed by a database. Now the current systems, a Pentium 66mhz and a 486, both with 8MB of RAM and 500MB of hard drive space, are getting a bit long in the tooth. The 500MB harddrives are filling up, the installed software (Windows 95) is getting a bit flakey at times. My father has asked me to think about replacing the current setup. I do know a lot about computers, but my father would really like the new setup to last 10-15 years, just like the current one has. I just dont know where to begin thinking about that kind of systems lifetime. Do I buy, or build myself? How many spare parts should I keep in reserve? What will fail first, and how many years down the line will that happen?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This stupendous crocheted Mario blanket comes from Craft Flickr-pool member Gege-Crochet, who's posted some intriguing notes about the fabrication process on her blog: "There is no pattern that I followed. I searched the internet for screen shots of SMB and then used them for the map I had in my head. There is no 'master graph' for any of the panels, much less for the entire project. The most involved panel was the battle scene and is the only one I drew out. I have absolutely no intention of creating a graph of my entire work; however, there may be a time when I decide to make a graph of a panel or two.....dunno when/if that will happen, though."

Crochet Mario blanket whole

Gege Crochet: Mario follow-up

(via Craft)

There's still time to start making or just watch this week's Weekend Project: The Powerfake . Grab the PDF here or subscribe in iTunes to get all our Weekend Projects and PDFs delivered each week.

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The Narrative Fallacy writes "Bill Sweetman has a tongue-in-cheek post about how a few years ago he started collecting some of the more outlandish and amusing email subject lines from the many thousands of spam emails he received promoting various 'solutions' related to his private parts. Sweetman, a Canadian internet marketeer now working for Tucows gets a guilty pleasure from the copywriting 'skills' of the spammers. 'Sometimes the writing is clever. Sometimes it is accidentally funny. And sometimes it's just plain bizarre.' Sweetman writes that it takes a certain twisted creative genius to make your spam message stand out from the rest. and gives us ten of his favorite spam subject lines as well as his would-be replies to the messages. Favorites spam subject lines include 'Small friend is for hiding, big friend is for showing off' and Sweetman's reply: 'Even if the product they are pitching works as promised, I still don't think I would be walking around the neighborhood showing off the results.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I have a new publication that I produce in collaboration with the people who follow me on Twitter, and the people who follow them, etc. It's really interesting from a human standpoint and also from a tech standpoint.

But first, here's the end result:

http://twitter.scripting.com/daveTopLinks.html

It's updated every five minutes. The list contains the last 25 links I've pushed through Twitter. How fresh they are is a function of how active I've been. Right now the oldest link was posted 30 hours ago.

They are ranked by the number of times they have been clicked on. So if they are retweeted with the link intact, the clicks on those count. If someone clicks on a link from the toplinks page, that counts too. So it's collaborative, and the ranking tells you something about what people who are in my cloud are interested in. Tech news ranks high. Not sure what other conclusions to draw (too early). A top link gets about 800 hits.

How it works -- I have a little web app behind a bookmarklet that makes it easy for me to post a link to my twitter account. Here's a screen shot. It shortens the URL with tr.im, which has an API that I call every 5 minutes to find out how many clicks each link has received. My app generates the report and saves it to Amazon S3 which is where twitter.scripting.com runs.

I think of it as a "Personal Digg." I nominate the links, everyone determines how they rank. It might just catch on.

walrabbit writes "Wang et al (2009) (from Albert-László Barabási's lab) modeled the spread of mobile phone viruses based on anonymised call and text logs of 6.2 million customers spread over 10,000 towers. Their simulations shows that the spread is dependent on the market share of a particular handset, human mobility and mode of spread: bluetooth or MMS or hybrid. 'We find that while Bluetooth viruses can reach all susceptible handsets with time, they spread slowly due to human mobility, offering ample opportunities to deploy antiviral software. In contrast, viruses utilizing multimedia messaging services could infect all users in hours, but currently a phase transition on the underlying call graph limits them to only a small fraction of the susceptible users. These results explain the lack of a major mobile virus breakout so far and predict that once a mobile operating system's market share reaches the phase transition point, viruses will pose a serious threat to mobile communications.' You can read the full text (PDF) and supporting online information (PDF) (with interesting modelling data and diagrams)." (Also summed up in a short article at CBC.)

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(Photo: "Check Reset," shot at the Computer History Museum by Flickr user Kreg Steppe, who hosts the Technorama podcast.)

The latest "On Language" item from New York Times columnist William Safire ponders the difference between the words "restart," "reboot," and "reset." Mr. Safire contacted me for my opinion on how the words are different, and I kind of went nuts thinking about it for a day. I asked friends and Twitter-pals for their thoughts, too, and after thinking and talking about it for a day, emailed a short reply which is mentioned in this piece. Anyway, the whole column is interesting, here's a snip:

Bemoaning "a dangerous drift in relations" between Russia and the NATO nations, Vice President Joe Biden told a conclave on security policy in Munich, "To paraphrase President Obama, it's time to press the reset button."

At C.I.A. headquarters in Virginia less than two weeks later, on Feb. 19, Biden paraphrased again: "The president has made it clear that he wants to hit the reset button on our relations with Russia."

Just short of two weeks after that repeated indirect quotation, President Obama publicly embraced and extended the metaphor attributed to him: "We've had a good exchange between ourselves and the Russians. I've said that we need to reset or reboot the relationship there."

The reset button had been pressed, hit or punched into politics on a grand scale in world newspaper coverage of Obama's upset victory over Senator Hillary Clinton and the rest of the Democratic field in the 2008 Iowa Democratic caucus. On the eve of the New Hampshire primary, London's Evening Standard reported, "She has tried to hit the reset button and radically change her strategy." She adopted that figure of speech every time her campaign shifted gears, to no avail.

Not surprising, then, on her first European tour as secretary of state, Clinton told NPR in Brussels that in discussions with the Russians, "we're going to hit the reset button and start fresh." She went so far as to present Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, with a red desk ornament representing a reset button, and they both merrily pressed it in a photo-op. Her gag gift was labeled in Russian as peregruzka, supposedly meaning "reset," but actually meaning "overcharge" -- in the sense of "electrical overload," not meaning "gouging the unsuspecting consumer" -- but the American mistranslation gave the Russian diplomat a chance for a sly dig.

Reset Button (New York Times. Special thanks to everyone who replied on Twitter!)

An anonymous reader writes "In late May, Data.gov will launch, in what US CIO Vivek Kundra calls an attempt to ensure that all government data 'that is not restricted for national security reasons can be made public' through data feeds. This appears to be a tremendous expansion on (and an official form of) third-party products like the Sunlight Labs API. Of course, it is still a far cry from 'open sourcing' the actual decision-making processes of government. Wired has launched a wiki for calling attention to datasets that should be shared as part of the Data.gov plan, and an article on O'Reilly discusses the importance of making this information easily accessible."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

TJ says that the best place for info on modding game controllers is ScoreHero's forums. I poked around a bit and dug up some interesting stuff.

Here is one for jamming a Strat into an Explorer.

So I imported Rock Band recently, and while the drums are ace the Stratocaster is sub-par. Sticky nasty frets, non-clicky strumbar, unresponsive strumbar, neck with sharp edges and bumps.. just about the only nice thing about it is the solobuttons. And since I got the game for the PS3, Activision isn't letting me play with their shiny Les Pauls any time soon. But wait.. an idea!

The plan is to use the shell of an explorer, put Stratocaster guts in it and hook up the frets, whammy and strumbar. I could've used a Les Paul, but they're too nice to hack up like this.

Note: The mod you're about to see isn't exactly aesthetically pleasing. I suck at making things look nice. But the damn thing works!

I've got a dumpscore SG, and would like to see something interesting happen to it, not sure if it is my project or some lucky kid's. I have been thinking that it would be a great idea to Shopbot a realistic full-sized guitar body and neck and hack in the control hardware and circuits from an existing controller.

So if your TV is stuck on the Garage Band or Guitar Hero channel, maybe you have some maker perspective on the hardware side of things.

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Here's a recording of Steve Bierfeldt, a US citizen who tried to board a domestic airplane while carrying $4700 in cash, and was detained by the TSA and subjected to abusive language and threats when he said that he would only answer the TSA's inquiries ("Where do you work?" "Why are you carrying cash?") if he was required to by law. The TSA agents threatened to turn him over to the DEA. He was returning from a Ron Paul event in St Louis, MO, and worked for the campaign. The cash on his person arose from sales of t-shirts and stickers at the event.

The transport cops in the audio recording of his interrogation actually tell him if he's not guilty he has nothing to fear.

Exactly what security threat does cash pose to an airplane? Are suicide bombers wont to carry a lot of liquid capital in case they flub it and need to bribe their way out?

Cue clueless commenter who says, "Well what did he expect when he told the law enforcement person that he expected to be informed of his rights and legal obligations before he would answer his questions?" After all, constitutional liberties are only there to be admired, not exercised. In 3...2...1.

Man detained and harassed at airport for carrying CASH! (via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)

It's been really busy this week for all of us in the Maker Shed. We have been working on a lot of new open source products, and I even made and few Arduino how-to's using some of our new sensors. Also, we have been gearing up for Maker Faire in San Mateo. I can't believe Maker Faire is next month!

Earlier in the week I had a chance to meet with Tom Igoe and talk about the Arduino Mega. Don't forget, you can pre-order the Arduino Mega from the Maker Shed.

Arduino MEGA video featuring Tom Igoe

In the Maker Shed: Memsic 2125 accelerometer

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jamie points out news that President Obama has put out a call for a world free of nuclear weapons at a speech in Prague today. He acknowledged that it was a long-term goal, perhaps not something that can be accomplished in his lifetime, but promised to encourage the US Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty. According to the BBC, he also stated his desire to "negotiate a new treaty to end the production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons," and to hold a global summit within the next year to work out agreements for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. Obama said, "As the only nuclear power to have used a nuclear weapon, the United States has a moral responsibility to act. We cannot succeed in this endeavor alone, but we can lead it." His speech came less than a day after North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

gustavopuy writes with news that Intel will be transferring control of Moblin, its Linux-based OS for mobile devices, to the Linux Foundation. Quoting Ars Technica: "We spoke with Linux Foundation executive director Jim Zemlin, who told us that the Linux Foundation offers a vendor-neutral setting for advancing the Moblin project. He believes that such an environment will help stimulate third-party involvement in the process of building the platform and could also encourage broader adoption. ... Zemlin explained that the Linux Foundation's stewardship of the project will empower third-party contributors to expand the platform beyond its Intel-specific roots. He assures me that Intel sees value in making Moblin open to everyone — including companies that are leveraging Linux on competing processors, such as those based on the ARM architecture."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

the_harlequin writes "A successful designer, who has a showcase of his own work available online, has had a stock image site accuse him of copyright infringement over his own illustrations, citing damages of $18,000. The story doesn't end there; the stock photo site hired lawyers, who have contacted the original designer's clients. The lawyers told them the designer is being investigated for copyright infringement and their logos might be copied, thus damaging his reputation. 'My theory is that someone copied my artwork, separated them from any typography and then posted them for sale on the stock site. Someone working for the site either saw my [LogoPond] showcase or was alerted to the similarities. They then prepared the bill and sent it to me. The good thing is that the bill gives me a record of every single image they took from me. That helps me gather dates, sketches, emails, etc. to help me prove my case. The bad thing is that despite my explanations and proof, they will not let this go.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

zxjio writes with this excerpt from a New York Times article about just how much networking infrastructure costs vary between the US and Japan: "Pretty much the fastest consumer broadband in the world is the 160-megabit-per-second service offered by J:Com, the largest cable company in Japan. Heres how much the company had to invest to upgrade its network to provide that speed: $20 per home passed. ... Verizon is spending an average of $817 per home passed to wire neighborhoods for its FiOS fiber optic network and another $716 for equipment and labor in each home that subscribes, according to Sanford C. Bernstein & Company. ... The experience in Japan suggests that the major cable systems in the United States might be able to increase the speed of their broadband service by five to 10 times right away. They might not need to charge much more for it than they do now and theyd still make as much money."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

• MakerBot CNC makes cupcakes, bunnies … you name it [above, top-left]

• Further adventures in PCB-making with lasers

• Weird sounding Synthitar

• Trashbag whales [above, bottom-left]

• Augmented Reality Modelling Tool [above, bottom-right]

• Automatic motorized marble run

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Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger The last time I was guest blogger here at Boing Boing, I innocently waded into a war of the words by doing a post on audiophile SACDs and DVD-A surround sound mixes of classic albums. But for those of you who care --not you haters-- I recently --not so innocently-- noticed that certain lovely people were putting up their own homemade DVD-A versions of four channel rips made from 70s quadraphonic 8-tracks, reel to reels and in rare cases, LPs on the various torrent trackers. Most of these mixes haven't been heard for years, by anyone and they're awesome! It's a quadraphonic treasure trove out there, I tell you: Joni Mitchell's "Court and Spark," and "Hissing of the Summer Lawns." Kraftwerk's "Autobahn"(!), "The Worst of the Jefferson Airplane" and "Volunteers" (which uses totally different takes from the stereo LP), Jeff Beck's "Wired." Black Sabbath's "Paranoid." "Band on the Run," "Venus and Mars Rock Show" and "Wall and Bridges" (mixed in quad, I am assuming, by Phil Spector --what would "#9 Dream" sound like in Quad? Heaven?). "Bitches Brew." "Aqualung." "Atom Heart Mother" and "Wish You Were Here." "Music from the Big Pink" and a King Biscuit Flower Hour recording of the Rolling Stones in 1973 in full glorious 4-channel surround with the audience in the rear speakers. Here's a review of Kraftwerk's "Autobahn" in quadraphonic sound. It's amazing to hear the way they mixed the automobile sounds pinging from speaker to speaker. You really feel like you're in traffic!

Richard Metzger is the current Boing Boing guest blogger
While the Sex Pistols were regurgitating old Who and Chuck Berry riffs in London, and the Ramones were dumbing down the Beach Boys' sound in New York City, something truly weird was going on in San Francisco. Formed in 1977 by multi-instrumentalists, Blaine L. Reininger and Steven Brown (and later joined by Peter Principle and puppeteer/weirdo, Winston Tong) Tuxedomoon are a group that, like their singular Ralph Records label-mates, The Residents, fall into exactly one category, the category of Tuxedomoon. With a sonic aesthetic difficult to describe (electronic, erudite, evil, with lots of strings and a sleazy sax, if that helps) but once called the sound of "ectoplasmic formation" (any better?), Tuxedomoon never fit into the San Francisco punk scene, they were viewed as "too European." Not surprisingly, the band decamped to Rotterdam, then Brussels in the early 1980s where they were more warmly received. Since then, Tuxedomoon have rarely played in America --just five concerts-- and I can count myself as lucky enough to have attended one of them. Tuxedomoon celebrated their 30th anniversary in 2007 with a box set, "77-o-7" consisting of a new album (Vapour Trails), a CD of the new album played live, a rarities disc and a nearly three-hour long DVD of their multi-media film works and performance documentation. A friend gave me this box set not that long ago and it absolutely floored me. I played it for weeks on end and the video material was a joy for a longtime fan to behold. There's also been a definitive 450-page book book written on the group titled "Music For Vagabonds: The Tuxedomoon Chronicles" by Isabelle Corbisier, that looks really great. I can't wait to get my hands on a copy. Official Tuxedomoon website Tuxedomoon on MySpace "No Tears" video Tuxedomoon on Glenn O'Brien's TV Party (note Debbie Harry cameo) "Jinx" music video directed by Graeme Whifler "Special Treatment for the Family Man" (about Harvey Milk's killer, Dan White) "59 to 1" music video "Desire" (with Jean-Michel Basquiat on spray-paint) from "Downtown '81" "Jinx" live, 1979 "Nervous Guy" on TV Party "Found Films" trailer "Victims of the Dance" (a loft jam) "The Stranger" (with Winston Tong) Totally Wired: Simon Reynold's extensive email interview with Tuxedomoon's Steven Brown Thanks Frank Alongi from Ryko!

Instructables Member GTIG has a well documented Instructable on creating a tactile Rubik's cube.

This cube brings a unique characteristic to solving a Rubik's cube that no other cube does... the ability to say "I solved it without even looking at it once."

Rather than building hand-eye coordination, it builds hand-mind coordination.

I find that solving this cube is a challenge above and beyond a normal rubik's cube. It takes me significantly longer to solve than a normal cube. But as a result my speedcubing times on regular cubes have dropped exponentially. Because it uses areas of my brain a normal cube do not (memory/perspective... seeing it in touch and shapes rather than eyesight and color).

The step with the technique for prepping the surfaces to accept the glue is good. If the cube or metal bits are too slick, the epoxy will not have enough grip.

When Danny was working on his lasered interpretation of the idea, he found this one helpful.

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Michael writes "A new version of Nexuiz, a GPL-licensed, first-person shooter, has been released. There are over 3,000 changes in Nexuiz 2.5, including new maps, new game-modes, enhanced graphics, new audio, and other major changes. Phoronix has posted a preview of this Nexuiz 2.5 release, with screenshots showing the impressive graphics and how it has raised the bar for open-source gaming. Details about the Nexuiz project are available at SourceForge."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic have run into a little trouble with the US immigration people. Because they are "internet people," their marriage has not left the kind of paper-trail that the authorities like to see, and now Jasmina is under threat of deportation. But there's a solution: if you've spent any time with Bruce and Jasmina since their marriage, you can swear out an affidavit to that effect and send it to Bruce before April 15, and save their asses. Bruce doesn't mention it, but other friends of mine who've been through the same thing have benefited from the production of photos of them together, like these two that I took, so you might send those on to Bruce, too.

Surprising news has just arrived for us at our American home address. Although we have been married for four years now, the American Immigration services can't find any paper trail for the two of us.

We have no joint bank account, no insurance accounts and no joint children. The authorities therefore suspect that our marriage is a phony "Green Card marriage," and they would like to have Jasmina deported from the USA.

This is not too entirely surprising a mistake, since we're an Internet couple. By our nature, we just don't generate much paper.

We use electronic banking. Bruce uses American banks, while Jasmina uses Serbian banks. Why would anyone want to make his or her alien spouse use an American or Serbian bank?

There's no reason for us to jointly speculate in American real-estate, since we each already own places to live. No sane European would ever want American health insurance. And so forth.

Like a lot of geek couples, we live out of our cellphones and laptops. Furniture, wedding china, massive home improvement loans: we don't even go there. We have a light material footprint that'll generally fit onto a couple of rollaboards.

We're nevertheless a genuine married couple. Any reasonable Internet person would recognize this fact in two minutes...

We must therefore implore your help. Have you ever witnessed the two of us hanging around together? Were you convinced that we're the real deal, spouse-wise? Do you have solemn, impressive, legal-looking letterhead? For instance, are you some kind of American federal agent yourself? Lord knows we know some.

If so, then, please -- write us a testament to that effect. It's meant for the American authorities, and will be using your own letterhead. Please tell them we are, indeed, a "bona fide marriage." You are talking to the "UNITED STATES CITIZENSHIP AND IMMIGRATION SERVICES" in Vermont, USA. Our lawyer will see to it that they get it.

Bruce Sterling and Jasmina Tesanovic Request Your Moral Support

Our Immigration Lawyer Suggests This Template

Molly Wright Steenson continues her trailblazing research project into the secret history of the lost pneumatic "series of tubes" that presaged packet switching in many contexts, in this fascinating video'd presentation.

Molly Wright Steenson - A Series of Tubes</a. (via Beyond the Beyond)

An anonymous reader writes,

This Italian news piece reports the latest uncostitutional boutade of PM Silvio Berlusconi, who actually declared "I am tempted to direct and strong actions against the media because of their disinformation about me". Translated from mafiaspeak (his ties with that organization have been widely documented in several trials, so this is no slander), this means: "I am going to sue the hell out of anybody not incensing me, and order their immediate firing just like I did a few years ago with journalistic legends like Indro Montanelli, Eugenio Scalfari and others".

But what is all the fuss about? Well, those evil media people - and yes, I am one of them - dared to report yet another series of diplomatical blunders by Berlusconi. I.e. shouting in presence of H.M. the Queen of England, who had to reprimand him; Ignoring the assembled world leaders to have a friendly chat on his mobile phone while the International press was watching; Claiming credit for the success of yesterday's G20 meeting after a very embarassing performance before his "not-so-peers"; Accusing America as the only responsible of the Italian crisis and requesting Barack Obama to "sort out the mess you made in my country", and the list goes on and on.

And... ready for the final straw? The Italian minister responsible for policing the Internet is none other than... a former showgirl and Berlusconi's mistress, with family ties in the local equivalent of the RIAA. Do you really want a piece of the Interweb in the manicured hands of such a person?

Berlusconi furioso con la stampa italiana "Mi calunniano, tentato da azioni dure"

It's upgrade time, mutants, which means that the system won't be publishing new comments for at least a few hours. Note that these are unsexy upgrades: if nothing outwardly changes, that means it worked! <!-- In the meantime, here's an embedded comment thread that won't be affected: View the discussion thread.blog comments powered by Disqus -->

Mad Ivan writes "The BBC has just reported that North Korea has launched a long-range rocket, which they say is a communications satellite, but that the US and Japan fear may actually be a ballistic missile. Details are still arriving; the rocket passed over northern Japan on its way up."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MAKE Contributor Editor Mister Jalopy has been making the media rounds this week. First it was Nightline earlier in the week and today it was Public Radio's Studio 360.

Okay, now it's time for the media to focus on some of his other work besides the stereo cabinet iPod. He isn't a one-trick pony, you know. Mister J has layers (and lots of other cool projects).

Mister Jalopy on Studio 360

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ericatcw writes "For 30+ years, the PC industry has been as obsessed with under-the-hood performance: MIPs, MHz, transistors per chip. Blame Moore's Law, which effectively laid down the Gospel of marketing PCs like sports cars. But with mobile PCs and green computing coming to the fore, enter ARM, which is challenging the Gospel according to Moore with chips that are low-powered in both senses of the word. Some of its most popular CPUs have 100,000 transistors, fewer than a 12 MHz Intel 286 CPU from 1982 (download PDF). But they also consume as little as a quarter of a watt, which is why netbook makers are embracing them. It's "megahertz per milli-watt,"that counts, according to ARM exec Ian Drew, who predicts that 6-10 ARM-based netbooks running Linux and costing just around $200 should arrive this year starting in July."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This is a neat Touchable map via Wired Science. I wonder if Apple has a patent on the multitouch for non-portable applications.

He says it was designed for kids to learn geography, but it appears that the Department of Education was not paying the bill. It's kind of like the interactive LED table from EMS, but way more expensive and militaristic.

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This is an excellent profile of Twin Cities Public Television and Make: television on the Apple Pro site. There are some details on methods TPT used shoot, edit, and color time the show using Final Cut Pro, and Motion. Additionally, as a fanboy going back to my Apple //e days, I'm pretty psyched about getting my mug on the Apple site!

Makers in Motion

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Bill VanLoo used the Vibrobot project from MAKE, Volume 10 with his students at Honey Creek Community School.

The 4/5 technology classes built Vibrobots for one of their project this year. Vibrobots are small electric bug-like creatures that are built from a small metal or plastic enclosure (think mint tin), a motor, and some ingenuity.

Essentially, this is a project that lets kids do some hands-on learning about electronics and electricity, and how to use the design process to create their own toy.

This project came from the pages of MAKE magazine.

Are you using MAKE as a teacher or student? Let us know about it!

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