For the better part of this decade, we've covered the massive screw-ups the FBI had in updating its computer system. This was the system that was many years late, way way way over budget and useless at tracking down terrorists. It's the same system that, when a computer scientist was asked to review the it, he claimed (no joke) that it would be a good time to go on a crime spree the day the FBI switched over.

While the FBI has since moved forward with another system, it's reasonable to question the quality of its computer systems. So, it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that the FBI appears to be unable to manage its terror watch list. According to a report by the Inspector General:

We found that the FBI failed to nominate many subjects in the terrorism investigations that we sampled, did not nominate many others in a timely fashion, and did not update or remove watchlist records as required.... We believe that the FBI's failure to consistently nominate subjects of international and domestic terrorism investigations to the terrorist watchlist could pose a risk to national security.

Now don't you feel safer?

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I like the thought of sending serial print commands to my TV set. This shield, by the awesomely named Batsocks, was designed to do just that. It was originally designed for PAL signals, but has been modified now to output to NTSC sets as well.

This would be useful for picture-in-picture mode on a TV set while debugging Arduino-based video game cheating projects...

Batsocks

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charter6 writes "Gen. Kevin Chilton, the head of STRATCOM, just declared that the Law of Armed Conflict will apply to cyberwar, and that the US won't rule out conventional (read: kinetic) responses to cyber-attacks. This means that we consider state-supported 'hackers' to be subject to the Geneva Conventions and Customary International Law, including the rules of proportionality and distinction (i.e. if we catch them, we can try them for war crimes). Incidentally, it also means we consider non-state cyber-attackers to be illegal enemy combatants, which means we can do all kinds of nasty stuff to them."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last summer, I went with several youth leaders from Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn to hear Paul Polak speak. He was one of the opening speakers for the IDDS conference hosted by D-Lab at MIT.

He appeared on Fresh Air last year:

Paul Polak, founder of the nonprofit International Development Enterprises, has spent 25 years working to eradicate poverty in Bangladesh, India, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe and other countries in the developing world.

His perhaps-surprising conclusion: Government subsidies for the rural poor often make things worse.

Instead, Polak teaches families and farmers -- many of whom live on a dollar a day and own perhaps an acre of land -- how to increase crop yields with simple technologies, such as cheap, foot-operated water pumps and inexpensive drip hoses for irrigation.

Paul Polak has been working hard and realistically to create solutions to some of the world's most challenging poverty.

Below are his twelve steps to Practical Problems Solving:

• Step 1: Go to where the action is


• Step 2: Talk to the people that have the problem and listen to what they have to say


• Step 3: Learn everything you can about the problem's specific context.


• Step 4: Think big and act big


• Step 5: Think like a child


• Step 6: See and do the obvious


• Step 7: If somebody has already invented it, you don't need to do so again.


• Step 8: (part 1) Make sure your approach has positive measurable impacts that can be brought to scale


• Step 9: Design to specific cost and price targets.


• Step 10: follow practical 3 year plans.


• Step 11: Continue to learn from your customers.


• Step 12: Stay positive: Don't be distracted by what other people think.

The work of Paul Polak is worth checking out, and his approaches could be adapted to many possible challenges in the world.

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Over at Boing Boing Gadgets, Lisa Katayama beckons me to this "laptop pillow for sleepy workaholics."

In 1968, Jack Kerouac was a guest on William Buckley's Firing Line tv program. The video is viewable online at the Digital Beats: Kerouac site hosted by the Jack & Stella Kerouac Center for American Studies at the University of Massachusetts Lowell. Kerouac on Firing Line

theodp writes "On Thursday, the USPTO disclosed that self-described patent reform leader IBM wants a patent covering its System and Method for Enhancing Productivity. So what exactly have the four IBM inventors — including two Distinguished Engineers — come up with? In a nutshell, the invention consists of not permitting business meetings to be scheduled for a full hour during certain parts of the day. From the application: 'The observation is that if an hour were shorter, by a small amount, we would be more focused, and accomplish the same amount of work, but in less real time, thereby increasing productivity.'" I just knew someone would one up my 43-minute-meeting patent. That's why I've already begun intense R&D on my latest invention: the 37-minute meeting! Register early for an early-bird discount. Register even earlier for more of one.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

theodp writes "On Thursday, the USPTO disclosed that self-described patent reform leader IBM wants a patent covering its System and Method for Enhancing Productivity. So what exactly have the four IBM inventors — including two Distinguished Engineers — come up with? In a nutshell, the invention consists of not permitting business meetings to be scheduled for a full hour during certain parts of the day. From the application: 'The observation is that if an hour were shorter, by a small amount, we would be more focused, and accomplish the same amount of work, but in less real time, thereby increasing productivity.'" I just knew someone would one up my 43 minute mtg patent. That's why I've already begun intense R&D on my latest invention: the 37 minute meeting! Register early for an early bird discount. Register even earlier for more of one.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While the US courts have been quite clear over and over again that people have a right to post anonymously online, other countries have been a lot less open to the concept. Over in South Korea, we recently covered the lawsuit against an anonymous (ok, formerly anonymous) blogger who was accused of spreading "false rumors." Apparently there was also another recent case in the country, involving photos anonymously posted online of a woman who failed to clean up after her dog. In response, Korea has now passed a law that requires anyone posting on a site that has over 100,000 unique visitors a day to reveal their real names and national ID (found via Michael Scott). This seems quite extreme. There are certainly pros and cons to allowing anonymous speech, but it seems to go overboard to outlaw it completely on any relatively popular site.

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Want to wish your mom a happy Mother's Day this Sunday, but can't be bothered to fit the task in to your, uhh, four hour work week? Outsource it to mom-sourcing.co.in.

* Yes, the site is a joke, operated by a friend of a personal friend of mine, and they have actually hired call center workers to call your mom for you. That part is not a joke. They swear they won't keep the data or use it for any other purpose, they just think this is a funny thing to do.

Bizarre magazine in the UK conducted a rather odd interview with 1980s icon, Mr. T.

Your current Snickers campaign sees you come out with a new trademark line, telling weedy men to “get some nuts”. Who’s the weakest guy you’ve ever encountered? Pee-wee Herman. Sadly, I’ve never had the chance to train him – to get him to beef up and man up! I don’t think there’d be enough time if I had eternity. And that little wimpy suit he wears doesn’t help matters.

But you’ve worn some pretty full-on outfits – dungarees, gold lamé waistcoats, all those necklaces...
When you’re a real man, you can dress up in whatever – spangly fabrics, women’s stuff or whatnot – because you’re secure enough in your masculinity to pull it off. But you’ve gotta be a real man inside the clothes.

Have you ever seen a ghost?
I’m not sure whether it was just my imagination, and the memory might have become blurred in my mind, but again, as a child, one night I peeked out from my bed covers and I saw a court jester wearing curly-toed shoes and a spiked hat with bells on sharp points. Perhaps I was dreaming – influenced by the sound of the wind whipping around outside the house, the building creaking and the rain tapping on the windows, but it seemed very real.

"How Bizarre is... Mr. T"

Here's the cover and a couple of interior pages for Jordan Crane's latest issue of Uptight, no. 3. It looks great! Uptight No. 3 by Jordan Crane

Lucas123 writes "The recent revelation that Intel's consumer X25-M solid state drive had a firmware bug that drastically affected its performance led Computerworld to question whether all SSDs can suffer performance degradation due to fragmentation issues. It seems vendors are well aware that the specifications they list on drive packaging represent burst speeds when only sequential writes are being recorded, but after use performance drops markedly over time. The drives with better controllers tend to level out, but others appear to be able to suffer performance problems. Still not fully baked are benchmarking standards that are expected out later this year from several industry organizations that will eventually compel manufacturers to list actual performance with regard to sequential and random reads and writes as well as the drive's expected lifespan under typical conditions."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Eric Beug posted up this awesome footage from the last Handmade Music event here in Brooklyn. It includes some great detail shots of E-Squared & Pete Edwards instruments in use. [via Create Digital Music]

... and just in case you missed it, here's the video I grabbed from the event -

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record envelopes
old 45s
vanguard covers
inspired by blue note
knockoff project
lp cover lover
worst album covers
cover heaven
museum of bad covers
unusual cover art
bizarre records
sleeveface

Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store (Thanks Frank!)

schwit1 submitted a story telling the strange tale of how in 2002, rogue NASA interns stole millions of dollars in moon rocks from a building designed not to let that happen. I'd suggest taking the whole thing with a little bit of salt.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

While the recording industry made the fateful (and self-destructive) decision years back to start suing file sharers directly, the movie industry, for the most part has avoided going down that path (in part after witnessing how badly it failed for the RIAA). The movie industry has been quite active in trying to shut down file sharing systems and sites, but for the most part has avoided accusing home consumers of infringement. It appears that may be changing in Germany. Michael Scott alerts us to the news that a major German movie studio has started sending out threat letters to 500 people (out of a list of 10,000) that it believes shared some of its movies. The letter demands $1,000 per infringing work, or promises a lawsuit. What's unclear is how this list was created, and how accurate (or inaccurate it is). Demanding $1,000 from people without any real proof that they did anything illegal certainly seems to come quite close to the classic definition of extortion. We've see how some have used similar shakedown letters for profit, and it makes you wonder why they're allowed at all.

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Afghanistan has one pig -- it's in a zoo -- and it's quarantined:

The animal, known simply as Khanzir, the Pashtu word for pig, was given to the zoo by China in 2002.

The zoo director says Khanzir has been moved to a large space with lots of windows and fresh air and that he hopes the pig will be quarantined for only a few days.

Quarantine for lonely Afghan pig

In March, I observed that Amazon had already done some URL shortening on its own, meaning that a link like this:

http://amazon.com/wii

actually works. Now, apparently they've gone further and have a shorter domain, amzn.com and a huge number of short URLs in that domain that take you to product pages on amazon.com.

Mike Koss wrote a script that worked its way through a dictionary trying all the different words, and published the list. (That's what I call investigative journalism, so much for bloggers being lazy.)

I'd love to see an official word from Amazon on this. How is a user supposed to go from a page on Amazon to a short URL? Even better, suppose they had a bookmarklet that would automatically populate the Twitter "What are you doing?" box with some text and a copy of the short URL? Might be a real money-maker, and we know that Amazon likes to make money! (And Bezos is also an investor in Twitter.)

PL/SQL Guy writes "Hackers have repeatedly broken into the air traffic control mission-support systems of the US Federal Aviation Administration, according to an Inspector General report sent to the FAA this week, and the FAA's increasing use of commercial software and Internet Protocol-based technologies as part of an effort to modernize the air traffic control systems poses a higher security risk to the systems than when they relied primarily on proprietary software, the report said. Intrusion detection systems (IDS) are deployed at only 11 of hundreds of air traffic control facilities. In 2008, more than 870 cyber incident alerts were issued to the organization responsible for air traffic control operations and by the end of the year 17 percent (more than 150 incidents) had not been remediated, 'including critical incidents in which hackers may have taken over control' of operations computers, the report said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

(WARNING: Not meant for kids, or for adult viewing while in prudish work environments). This brilliant animated video ad for the German financial services firm Bontrust was produced by the creative firm Optix (Andreas Pohl, Creative Director). From the notes at a YouTube url where it's been reposted:

When the agency came to us with the idea to show the increase of money on the international market in connection with some kind of sexual relation, we were very enthusiastic. No doubt, we had to do this!

The goal was to create a world completely made out of banknotes and explicit characters that stood for themselves. So we spent many days and nights doing a lot of research finding the right objects such as furniture, buildings, bridges, certain landscapes, clothes, etc.

This procedure was followed by style frames in 2D to evoke the right feeling, tone and look for the film while having a special origami look in the back of our minds. After we were done creating rough animatics, we could start to fine tune our characters, as well as the different scenarios of the spot. Our final task was to blend all the scenes, camera tracks and sounds together.

All characters (Lincoln, Mao and the unknown lady) were created as 3D characters in Softimage XSI. Therefore, our designing team engaged in a lot of origami studying. To get used to the technique, we spent a lot of time with uncountable folding sessions. We took dollar and pound notes and folded Origami figures until our hands bled.

Then we were able to start with the digital modeling. Each character received an individual animation rig. With this digital skeleton we defined positions, rotations as well as the movements of the particulars.

Looks like there are a couple of related posts with more on the "making of" at Motionographer, along with links to Flickr sets of production stills: Making of "Geldvermehrung" ("Increase In Currency"), and Optix Digital for Bontrust and Inlingua (Thanks, Metzger!)

Slatterz writes "Microsoft has announced that the forthcoming Windows 7 operating system will contain a number of piracy 'tweaks' it says are designed to protect the interests of customers. Under the new regime users will be expected to validate their software in a much more precise way than before. Other Microsoft operating systems and anti-piracy measures, including Windows Genuine Advantage, allowed users to delay 'activation,' but Windows 7 will make it harder to ignore repeated messages. According to Joe Williams, general manager for Worldwide Genuine Windows at Microsoft, counterfeit software 'delivers a poor experience and impacts customer satisfaction with our products, particularly if users do not know that their software is non-genuine.' Williams gave the example of one piracy exploit that caused more than a million reported system crashes on machines running non-genuine Windows Vista before Microsoft was able to resolve it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Another day, another "pundit" takes a righteous stand about the music business dealing with "thieves," but gets the whole story wrong again. Someone who prefers to remain anonymous alerted us to a writeup by a reporter/analyst, Ellen Ratner, entitled simply "stop stealing from artists," which discusses a musician friend who apparently is suffering because "She can't be guaranteed that what she records or performs will be compensated." Can someone point out when anyone was ever "guaranteed" compensation for recording a song?

Also, as the anonymous submitter pointed out, the artist in question seems to be doing just fine on her site, with a list of tour dates, and a merchandise site that includes some unique items (signed concert poster, handmade cowboy hats) in addition to CDs. Basically, she's like pretty much any musician both now and in the past, who has every opportunity to get "compensated," simply by putting in place good business models combined with good music. No one should have a right to compensation if they don't give people a reason to buy.

The rest of the article is a confused jumble of a few different issues, from performance rights, to China, to (seriously) comparing music sharing to copying a book on a photocopier. I can understand how someone approaching these issues for the first time might take such a simplistic view, but it's quite a jump to go from "it is hard to dispute the fact that the songwriter/artist is entitled to fair compensation for their work" to "Congress needs to recognize this and act now." Why? Every musician has numerous business models at his or her disposal to get fair compensation for their work. There's no need for Congress to get involved. What Ratner seems to be saying is that her musicians don't want fair compensation -- they want guaranteed, gov't-backed compensation. In other words, she seems to think the government should be providing welfare for musicians. If that's what you believe, then fine, defend why musicians deserve welfare. But don't claim that musicians have ever been "guaranteed" compensation.

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As we've pointed out here before, the holy grail, the killer app, of robot domestication appears to be robots that can serve drinks. PopSci has posted a piece about former Battlebots competitor Jamie Price and his bartender bot:

A veteran of the TV show Battlebots, Jamie Price has built plenty of destructive machines. But late last year, he designed a robot with a more mellow calling: offering cold beer and cocktails. The result -- a masterpiece of plywood, plastic, aluminum and electric motors called Bar2D2 -- serves up everything but the sage advice.

The 35-year-old salesman from Nashville modeled his machine on the iconic Star Wars droid R2D2. He took a plastic dome from a bird feeder to use as a head and built the robot's plywood skeleton to match. To make Bar2D2 mobile, Price stripped out the seat, the control system and a pair of wheels from a used electric wheelchair, added a new 12-volt battery, and wired a receiver to the motor so he could control it using an R/C helicopter-type remote. He also created a system that lets him send drink orders wirelessly from his computer to the robot, which then mixes the spirits to make perfect cocktails.

Bar2D2 proved to be a hit when Price took it to a convention recently, but he isn't finished yet. Next he's adding a breathalyzer and LED-backed projector that displays blood-alcohol content. Give me your keys, Obi-Wan.

Drink-Slinging Droid

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AlphaZeta writes "After 28 years, MS-DEBUG is finally being phased out in Windows 7. Over the years, people have been using MS-DEBUG for writing code (virus/malware, you name it) and debugging. "

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Need to make entrails? Who doesn't? Mary Robinette Kowal has the skinny:

To make entrails takes very few supplies. Your shopping list looks like this.

* Unlubricated condoms
* KY Jelly
* Food coloring
* Press and Seal wrap
* Fake blood

Start by filling the condoms with KY Jelly. You'll need about one tube of KY per condom. Add a little bit of food coloring, but don't worry about mixing it evenly. I use 1 drop green to 3 drops red, personally. Tie each condom off making a whole bunch of individual of links.

Note: The KY usually makes really impressive farting noises.

How to make entrails (via Whatever)

Hacklab.to is at it again. This time around they've made a twittering toilet using an Arduino and an Adafruit ethernet interface. The toilet will post to Twitter with every flush. Seth Hardy, who came up with the idea, says:

Everyone is making things that connect to Twitter, and the Arduino environment makes it easy to interface hardware to the Internet. Using a small bit of perfboard, I wired up a mercury tilt switch, and two resistors, as described in the well-known Ladyada Arduino tutorial.

Follow along if you dare http://twitter.com/hacklabtoilet.

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Continuing last week's spate of Daniel Pinkwater reviews (see the earlier posts on The Neddiad and The Yggyssey), I'm here today to tell you about The Education of Robert Nifkin, one of Pinkwater's true geek-inspirational masterpieces.

I missed Nifkin the first time around (it was initially published in 1998), but I'm pleased to have corrected that oversight, especially since the latest edition, from Houghton Mifflin's Graphia imprint, comes with a fabulous Shag-illustrated cover. Nifkin is one of Pinkwater's more adult books (in that it contains a fair bit of cursing and some mildly sexual material), and but it's squarely in the tradition of his YA geek-finds-himself books like Alan Mendelsohn, The Boy From Mars.

Here's the setup: it's the mid-fifties and Robert Nifkin has just moved from suburban California to Chicago with his Eastern European immigrant parents (his father is a notorious Polish gangster who was thrown out of Warsaw by his fellow Jews, as the Gentiles were too scared to talk to him). He is sent to Riverview High, a kind of prison camp for geeky kids, and there he rests for the first half of the book, enduring a season in Hell.

First, there are his teachers: Ms Kukla (homeroom), is a screamer who compulsively warns her students about sneaky commie recruiters who might also pass them pornography (she also calls Nifkin -- a fat, nebbishy kid in bad clothes that his father insists upon -- a "fairy" upon meeting him; Coach Spline is such a bastard that Nifkin opts for ROTC to get out of gym, where he encounters Sergeant Gunter, a crypto-communist who joined up after fighting fascists in Spain; Mr Moody is a history teacher who has perfected the Riverview pegagogic technique (write stuff on the board and grade students at the end of the semester by how legibly they've copied it into their notebooks); and Mrs MacAllister, an anti-Semite who uses English classes to warn them about the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

Nifkin's home-life isn't much better. His parents left all their furnishings behind in Chicago and opted for fashion-magazine perfect decor, surmounted by a lamp his father made out of driftwood and fiberglass balls ("It's was like Halloween every night of the year...it would have unnerved Dracula"), and his father won't eat anything with seasoning, which drives Nifkin to eat at the nearby Mel's, where Melburgers are served ("A triple is three fatburger patties on a bun...a double triple is two of them... Only polar bears and Arctic wolves can digest them"). His folks heap him with abuse ("So, bum. How is by you deh education?") and accuse him of falling in with commies.

But Mel's is the turning point for Nifkin, because it's there that he meets the bohemians, especially Kenny Papescu, an alternative school kid who cuts classes in order to deliver his father's art forgeries. Papescu recruits Nifkin, and soon he's a semi-professional dropout who uses his forged university ID to sneak into lectures in between haunting the movie palaces and lugging around gigantic art forgeries.

It can't last. Nifkin is drummed out of Riverview and convinces his father to send him to The Wheaton School, a free-school frequented by beatniks, idiots, criminals, dropouts, freaks, and misfits. And here the book takes a gigantic step from the weird to the inspiring.

The first half of Robert Nifkin is your everyday Pinkwater: convulsively funny, zany, biting. There's plenty of biting, zany and funny in the second half, too, but what distinguishes it is the slow, delightful realization on Nifkin's part that learning -- especially eclectic, self-directed learning undertaken with your peers and with engaged teachers -- is incredibly fun.

This section sings. It vividly recalls my own alternative school history, which consisted of a fairly long period of horsing around and goofing off, followed by an equally long period of dedicated, intense, serious study inspired by all the exciting things I learned by horsing around.

It's because of this that Robert Nifkin rings so true for me. This really is a magnificent coming-of-age story, and what's more, it's practically a manual for how to have (and oversee) a lifelong love-affair with learning, with doing, and with synthesizing. It's a story that affirms something I firmly believe in: intellectual curiosity is the most important force in the universe.

Robert Nifkin never loses Pinkwater's trademark breezy, madcap tone, but in this regard, it is as serious and awe-inspiring as an earthquake. Here is a book to inspire a whole generation of extremely happy mutants.

The Education of Robert Nifkin

The Education of Robert Nifkin Study Guide

Thomas Crampton, formerly of the International Herald Tribune, sez, "The NYT committed most boneheaded move by a web team since the dawn of the Internet: In merging the International Herald Tribune and New York Times sites, the brilliant New York Times web team deleted all links to every IHT story along with the newspaper's archives. In other words, they erased my journalism career online. Anyone following one of the thousands of links from over the years to a specific IHT story is now directed to a generic home page. Full horror detailed in posting on my blog."

Reporter to NY Times Publisher: You Erased My Career (Thanks, Thomas!)

Douglas Rushkoff, the author of Life Inc., is a guest blogger.

Here's Patrick Dixon, of Siemens, advertising as features all the things about RFID tags that I always thought should bother people the most. The first time I watched this, I figured it was The Yes Men having one over on the Ascent Business Leadership Forum.

I mean - it's all there: implanted RFIDs with human brain tissue growing naturally over them, total surveillance, predictive marketing... I suppose it's possible I'm still seeing this out of context - and that the speaker is actually pointing out how scary and strange this stuff gets. But I don't think so.

My favorite bit may be the reaction shot of one of the businessmen, who seems to be actually considering whether he is now fully and irrevocably engaged with the dark side of the force.

(Thanks, Joe, for sending it my way.)

On these pages, admitting that you are a Trekkie is not a mark of shame: it's more like admitting that you are a carbon based life form, which is true of almost all of us. I watch every movie. I've seen every episode of every series. And my wife will tell you, I scream 'F*** you Rick Berman!' during the credits every time I see it. So when JJ Abrams got a crack at a reboot I was hopeful. The short review is that I liked it. Keep reading: I'll keep the spoilers down to a minimum.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Trent Reznor already did a wonderful job explaining Apple's hypocrisy in rejecting the NIN iPhone app because you could stream some content from The Downward Spiral, which Apple found objectionable... even though you could buy the same music via the iTunes store. However, reader Yakko Warner points us to a similar case as well. Apparently, Apple has rejected an app that pulls in newspaper content from many newspapers because some of that content includes the famous (or infamous) "Page 3" from The Sun, in the UK, which is normally filled with images of topless women. But, of course, anyone with an iPhone could just as easily use the web browser to surf right over to the website for Page 3 and see the exact same photos. So why is it suddenly "objectionable" when the very same functionality comes in a separate app?

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Deputy Designer here at SimpleBits, Meagan Fisher, rebrands/redesigns her personal site. It's beautiful... and incredibly owly (that's a good thing). Congrats Meagan! #

An anonymous reader writes in with a CNet story about the record label-backed music company Lala, which claims to have invented "Network DRM." Lala has filed for a patent on moving DRM from a file wrapper, like Windows Media and FairPlay, to the server. Digital music veteran Michael Robertson has quotes from the patent application on his blog. (Here is the application.) Lala describes an invention that monitors every access, allows only authorized devices (so far there are none), blocks downloads, and can revoke content at the labels' request.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Gareth says:

Last week, our guests on Make: Talk were Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne of Homegrown Evolution. We talked to them about their book, Urban Homestead (Process Media), their blog, and their urban farming efforts. A couple of good points were made: that you don't have to do urban "homesteading" with any sort of crunchy-granola political agenda. They do it because they enjoy it and they enjoy the results: having great, fresh food available. The process and the results are their own rewards. And, it happens to be good for you, a great way to get outside, get exercise, it's good for the environment, it can save you money, etc, etc.

The other thing we talked about was using social networking, and sites like VeggieTrader, to coordinate gardening efforts and to swap produce. We all laughed about the fact that everyone wanders around the neighborhood in the summertime with bags of tomatoes and basil, trying to give them away to neighbors already up to their eyeballs in tomatoes and basil. There's gotta be a better way! One other resource they also mentioned was DigitalSeed, a southern California gardening site.

[Our thanks to Process Media for giving us copies of Kelly and Erik's book to give away to callers.]

Host Picks
As always, we talked about some of our favorite MAKE activities, posts, and news on the week.

Mark recommended a DVD he'd recently gotten, Belly Jelly's "How To Build A Guitar : The String, Stick, Box Method," where Bill Jehle shows you how to make your own cigar box guitars and is clear and inspiring enough about it that Mark is encouraged to take his cigar box projects to the next level, adding things like metal frets to the neck, which he says the instructions make it look relatively easy.

Dale updated us on goings on with Maker Faire prep. They've been working on the speaker roster and it's an amazing line-up. Just the speakers presenting alone is worth the price of admission. I've seen the list and I thought I might never leave the stage area.

I talked about recent items on the sit: the story of the open-formula 3D printing media that University of Washington researchers have developed and the story of Doctor Fzz's Easter Challenge and hydrogen balloon camera rig.

This Week, Friday, May 8, 12-noon PDT, 3pm EDT
Our guest this week on Make: Talk will be tech writer Bob Parks. He'll be talking about his Home Energy Dashboard article from MAKE, Volume 18. I will be "away on assignment" (gawd, I always wanted to say that!), so John Edgar Park will be filling in for me. As usual, they'll be taking your calls live. The number is (646) 915-8698.

Make: Talk on BlogTalkRadio

This blog contains nothing but photos of cute critters makin' friends with one another. Too bad it hasn't been updated in two years, but maybe the animal pals all broke up. letsbefriends.blogspot.com (via @Rstevens)

Snip from a NYT piece by Shaila Dewan about hurricane survivors in New Orleans being kicked out of the crappy, toxic-fume-emitting trailers provided to them (late) by our government as temporary housing. The senior citizen in the photo below is Earnest Hammond, a retired truck driver who did not get any of the relief money that went to aid property owners after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

He failed to qualify for one federal program and was told he missed the deadline on another. But he did get a trailer to live in while he carries out his own recovery plan: collecting cans in a pushcart to pay for the renovations to his storm-damaged apartment, storing them by the roomful in the gutted building he owns.

It is a slow yet steady process. Before the price of aluminum fell to 30 cents a pound, from 85 cents, he had accumulated more than $10,000, he said, almost enough to pay the electrician. But despite such progress, last Friday a worker from the Federal Emergency Management Agency delivered a letter informing him that it would soon repossess the trailer that is, for now, his only home.

"I need the trailer," said Mr. Hammond, 70. "I ain't got nowhere to go if they take the trailer."

Though more than 4,000 Louisiana homeowners have received rebuilding money only in the last six months, or are struggling with inadequate grants or no money at all, FEMA is intent on taking away their trailers by the end of May. The deadline, which ends temporary housing before permanent housing has replaced it, has become a stark example of recovery programs that seem almost to be working against one another.

Thousands of rental units have yet to be restored, and not a single one of 500 planned "Katrina cottages" has been completed and occupied. The Road Home program for single-family homeowners, which has cost federal taxpayers $7.9 billion, has a new contractor who is struggling to review a host of appeals, and workers who assist the homeless are finding more elderly people squatting in abandoned buildings.

Leaving the Trailers (via Ned Sublette). A related news item: 3.5 million American kids under the age of 5 are at risk of hunger, and Louisiana has the highest child hunger rate.

(Image: Lee Celano for the NYT. )

Mayor Mike has compiled a bunch of Joe Meek music videos. The Devo-esque video above is from 1963.

Joe Meek was a huge innovator in music from the 50's on through most of the 60's. He started a powerful independent British record label, Triumph, and production company, RGM. Although much as been written about his obsession with the occult, homosexuality, and the murder suicide that ended his life, Joe Meek will forever be in my heart and ears for the wonderful sound that he created. Take a listen.

A Joe Meek Showcase

Marc points this bit of maker zen documenting the how a string is wound on a circa-1850 machine. From the vid's author, Stefan Schafft -

Many people say to me, it is impossible to make good strings with such a machine.
But I can tell you, the strings are perfect. Ok, It takes a time but it`s great to work like in the 19th century

They certainly don't make 'em like they used to. Check out Discovery's video on the modern guitar string-making process -

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Drawn! says: "I imagine if the puppets of Spitting Image created their own version of Spitting Image, it would look like this." Sculpted caricatures of three of the Beatles by David O’Keefe

If you look at many online terms of service, they reserve the right to change the terms at any time. Some force you to re-agree to the terms -- but others don't. In the past, courts have ruled that if someone didn't agree to the changed terms, the new terms could be found to be unenforceable, but a recent decision has gone much further, effectively saying that the entire terms of service are void if they claim they can be changed at any time. Sent in by Blake, the ruling said that Blockbuster's online terms of service were "illusory" and unenforceable because it included a clause saying it could change the terms at any time. So, even though the term it was trying to enforce was in the terms that the person agreed to, the court found the entire terms unenforceable. This is quite a ruling that could have a pretty major impact on any online service that has terms that insist they can change at any time. While it's just a district court ruling and may be reversed on appeal, it's something anyone running an online service should pay attention to.

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clang_jangle writes "Arstechnica has a short article up describing how Microsoft and Intel have 'goofed up' Windows 7's XP Mode, by ensuring many PCs will not be able to use it. (And it won't be easy to figure out in advance if your PC is one of them.) Meanwhile, over at Infoworld, Redmond is criticized for having the 'right idea, wrong technology' with their latest compatibility scheme, and PC World says 'great idea, on paper.' With Windows 7 due to be released in 2010, and Redmond apparently eager to move on from XP, perhaps this is not really a 'goof' at all?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the new MAKE weekend project, Kipkay shows how to make a pseudoscope, an "amazing optical toy that plays tricks on your brain."

superdave98 writes "As a sign that a CIO has way too much time on his hands, Santa Rosa Junior College is sending emails threatening lawsuits to staff and students who have the letters 'SRJC' in their private email addresses. They contend that people could be confused and think these are official email addresses. Sure, I suppose people who fall for 419 scams probably could be fooled, but not any reasonable humans. I can't believe they found a lawyer who thought this was a good idea."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I always thought that French labor laws made it quite difficult to get fired. I guess that's until you express your opinion that a "three strikes" law that would kick people off the internet is a bad idea. Yann brings to our attention a story about a guy who worked on the web side of giant French TV network TF1 and wrote his parliamentary representative an email from his personal gmail account, explaining why he thought a "three strikes" law was a bad idea. His rep, Francoise de Panafieu, who supports Sarkozy (members of the same party) apparently forwarded the letter to the French minister of culture (who is a major backer of the law), Christine Albanel, who then sent it back to the legal department at TF1... causing the guy to get fired (link in French, here's the Google translation). TF1 supposedly claimed that the reason for the dismissal was that it fully supported the law (though it had never made that position public, and as a news organization, was supposed to be impartial to the bill), claiming that it was in its own economic best interests to support "three strikes."

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jamie found a note on debian-administration.org, the first in a promised series on migrating off of SHA-1 in OpenPGP. "Last week at eurocrypt, a small group of researchers announced a fairly serious attack against the SHA-1 digest algorithm, which is used in many cryptosystems, including OpenPGP. The general consensus is that we should be 'moving in an orderly fashion toward the theater exits,' deprecating SHA-1 where possible with an eye toward abandoning it soon (one point of reference: US govt. federal agencies have been directed to cease all reliance on SHA-1 by the end of 2010, and this directive was issued before the latest results). ... So what can you do to help facilitate the move away from SHA-1? I'll outline three steps that current gpg users can do today, and then I'll walk through how to do each one..."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

From the MAKE Flickr pool

JoeLMutantE lives up to his name with this monster sound & light machine born from two Thingamakit boards and a whole lotta wiring -

This is a little MutanT based on the Thingamakit noise-synth. It has trhee diferent led-acles (led tentacles) and a pair of sense-acles (photo-sensor tentacles) that react to the amount of light. It's a very unpredictable noise-synth, by the way you can control the rate of the LFO, the range, the shape...really very fun!!
I decided to make a little reproduction of me and my audio studio for the front panel, so here it is, plenty of lights that goes on and off, so much cables wiring all the ways buttons and knobs, that's my audio-studio.

Dig that unusual panel design! More photos of said specimen available in Joel's photoset.


In the Maker Shed:

Thing-a-ma KIT

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Dave sez, "Continuing on with my summer goal to periodically write songs about scientific terms, I bring to you what I'm assuming is the only song ever about mitochondria, and quite likely the only song ever to attempt to rhyme 'endosymbiotically' with 'maternally'. Altogether on the chorus now, 'Mitochondria... Mitochondria... Mitochondria... Mitochondria...'"

Quite possibly the only song dedicated to mitochondria, ever! (Thanks, Dave!)

Wow, Jim's skull art is completely breathtaking. Via Who Killed Bambi?

More:

• Pill head / Numb skull
  
• Latch hook skull

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Earlier this week, I reviewed Daniel Pinkwater's wonderful homage to the Illiad, the Neddiad, and now I've had the distinct pleasure of reading the sequel, The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There, a tribute to (what else?) The Odyssey. The Ygyssey picks up a few years after the world-shaking final battle that concludes Neddiad, and switches POVs to Yggdrasil Birnbaum ("Iggy" for short), the tomboyish female lead of the Neddiad, daughter of the famed cowboy Captain Buffalo Birnbaum, a retired silent film-star.

Iggy discovers that the ghosts that habitually haunt the Hollywood residential hotel she lives in (along with Neddie and many of the other delightful Neddiad cast) are vanishing. Abandoning her semi-boyfriend (a bebop-obsessed thug who is the world's only hipster capable of drumming Beethoven symphonies), she recruits her friends for an adventure to the Underworld, where they seek to discover the mystery of the disappearing ghosts (first, though, they plan their adventure in a giant stucco theme-restaurant with "an indoor rainstorm every twenty minutes, you don't have to pay for your meal if you don't want to, and there are life-size dioramas of scenes from the life of Jesus in the basement").

Whereupon they contend with the normal Pinkwaterian array of society girl bullfighters, trained ducks named Lucifer, the ghosts of Ben Franklin, Jesse James, Eng and Chang, Lassie, John Philip Sousa (and others), fresh corn muffins, policemen shaped like giant Labrador retreivers, extreme urban free-climbing, allegorical twenty-first century New York City mayors, evil eel-sharks, hippies called Woovy Groovy, Wholewheatflower, Pop Daddy (and others), a shaman who reluctantly agrees to spoil the allegorical misery they undergo by telling them how to shake off a witch's curse ("You realize by accepting this easy expedient you're taking all the depth out of the whole story"), and talking bird Elvis impersonators (among others).

In other words, this is your typical Pinkwater novel: screamingly funny, unbelievably weird, and fantastically awesome.

The Yggyssey: How Iggy Wondered What Happened to All the Ghosts, Found Out Where They Went, and Went There

andre.david notes an AFP report that Austria has announced its intention to withdraw from CERN, citing budget concerns, adding: "Austrian particle physicists are not happy with this. From HEPHY, the Austrian Institute for High Energy Physics: 'All of a surprise Johannes Hahn... announced that he wants to terminate the Austrian membership at CERN... This [would] affect spin-off projects like the planned cancer treatment center MedAustron... which is dependent on collaborating with CERN... Strangely enough this intention just arrives at a time where scientists are about to harvest the fruits of LHC...' Will other countries follow suit?" "Austria is pulling out of the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), Science Minister Johannes Hahn announced Thursday, citing budget concerns. The €20M ($26.9M) yearly membership in CERN... makes up 70 percent of the money available in Austria for participation in international institutes and could be better used to fund other European projects, he said. Hahn said he hoped Austria could find 'a new kind of cooperation' with CERN and described Vienna's withdrawal from the project as a 'pause,' noting that some 30 states were already working together with the Geneva-based centre without being members. The newly-available funds will now allow Austria to take part in new European projects, boost its participation in old ones as well as help the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the country's main organization funding research."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

h1kari, of ToorCamp, sent us the following Call for Makers:

ToorCamp is a 4-day outdoor camping event happening in at a decommissioned Titan-1 Missile Silo in Central Washington. We're looking for some brave makers to come out, showcase their work, and have fun collaborating with hundreds of software and hardware hackers, tinkerers, makers, breakers, and like-minded individuals at the US's first "hacker" camp similar to the famous ones thrown by the Chaos Computer Club in Germany and hackers in Holland. Selected makers will receive free admission to the camp and the esteem of being honored guests at a once in a lifetime event.

More information at Toorcamp.org. Email h1kari@toorcon.org if you are interested in coming out and showing off your inventions or have any questions.

And if you do submit something, we'd like to hear about it too, and we might post it here as well.

ToorCamp

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Last week, our guests on Make: Talk were Erik Knutzen and Kelly Coyne of Homegrown Evolution. We talked to them about their book, Urban Homestead (Process Media), their blog, and their urban farming efforts. A couple of good points were made: that you don't have to do urban "homesteading" with any sort of crunchy-granola political agenda. They do it because they enjoy it and they enjoy the results: having great, fresh food available. The process and the results are their own rewards. And, it happens to be good for you, a great way to get outside, get exercise, it's good for the environment, it can save you money, etc, etc.

The other thing we talked about was using social networking, and sites like VeggieTrader, to coordinate gardening efforts and to swap produce. We all laughed about the fact that everyone wanders around the neighborhood in the summertime with bags of tomatoes and basil, trying to give them away to neighbors already up to their eyeballs in tomatoes and basil. There's gotta be a better way! One other resource they also mentioned was DigitalSeed, a southern California gardening site.

[Our thanks to Process Media for giving us copies of Kelly and Erik's book to give away to callers.]

Host Picks
As always, we talked about some of our favorite MAKE activities, posts, and news on the week.

Mark recommended a DVD he'd recently gotten, Belly Jelly's "How To Build A Guitar : The String, Stick, Box Method," where Bill Jehle shows you how to make your own cigar box guitars and is clear and inspiring enough about it that Mark is encouraged to take his cigar box projects to the next level, adding things like metal frets to the neck, which he says the instructions make it look relatively easy.

Dale updated us on goings on with Maker Faire prep. They've been working on the speaker roster and it's an amazing line-up. Just the speakers presenting alone is worth the price of admission. I've seen the list and I thought I might never leave the stage area.

I talked about recent items on the sit: the story of the open-formula 3D printing media that University of Washington researchers have developed and the story of Doctor Fzz's Easter Challenge and hydrogen balloon camera rig.

This Week, Friday, May 8, 12-noon PDT, 3pm EDT
Our guest this week on Make: Talk will be tech writer Bob Parks. He'll be talking about his Home Energy Dashboard article from MAKE, Volume 18. I will be "away on assignment" (gawd, I always wanted to say that!), so John Edgar Park will be filling in for me. As usual, they'll be taking your calls live. The number is (646) 915-8698.

Make: Talk on BlogTalkRadio

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

Routing MIDI data to/from Arduino (or similar) seems like it should be a relatively simple task, but often ends up being much more complex. Mark of Spikenzie Labs created a very handy piece of software for just such occasions. Built using Processing, the Serial - Midi Converter translates makes that basic data stream palatable to common music software -

Normally, to use an Arduino or other micro-controller with your MIDI software you had to build a MIDI-in and MIDI-out circuit with a few parts and an opto-coupler. Easy enough, but then you would typically need a MIDI to USB adaptor to connect it to your computer.

With the SM and a board like you the Arduino with USB, you don’t need any other hardware to get your Arduino to play music with software such as Apple’s GarageBand or Ableton’s Live !

Get the software, source code, and further explanation over at Spikenzie labs.

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Recently on Offworld we got a double dose of LittleBigPlanet with news that illustrator Jon Burgerman would be kicking off an artist-series set of sticker packs to buy in-game, alongside another set by UK comics giant 2000AD (!), and one man creates a fairly faithful tribute to Eric Chahi's classic adventure Another World/Out of this World. We also listened to a preview of Alex Mauer's latest chiptune album to be released on an actual NES cart, saw Tale of Tales' coming-of-age-horror-via-Red-Riding-Hood game The Path come to the Mac (with a new trailer that 'sells' the game more than anything they've showed thus far), and a new site dedicated to cataloging the internet's use of hidden Konami Code easter eggs, as was recently discovered (and, sadly, quickly yanked) on ESPN. Finally, we played PixelJam's latest game newly published on Adult Swim, Pizza City, the kinder, gentler (unless you're a clown or mime) Atari 2600 version of Grand Theft Auto we never got, and our 'one shot's: Dan Schoening's 'Screw Attack' Metroid montage, and the pixel Botticelli above, which coincidentally, came from PixelJam artist Rich Grillotti.

DaveKleiman writes "Will bloggers change the world of Supreme Court litigation by inspecting published opinions? Rachel C. Lee has an interesting take on the question in the Standford Law Review, Ex Parte Blogging: the Legal Ethics of Supreme Court Advocacy In the Internet Era (PDF). She begins the review with: 'Lawyers have been arguing their cases before the Supreme Court for over two centuries, while the phenomenon of legal blogs is perhaps a decade old. Yet legal blogs cannot be dismissed as merely a sideshow novelty — they are already capable of having a substantial impact on Supreme Court litigation.' The review hits on many key points both for and against the use of blogging, but ultimately concludes that members of the Court and their staff will have to refrain from reading any blog post relating to a pending case, no matter who it is written by. It's even possible we'll get carefully drafted rules preventing blogging by attorneys." It's going to be tough to make any such prohibition work. After all, Groklaw's PJ is not an attorney.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last month, the news broke that Facebook had started blocking any and all links to The Pirate Bay... including links in private messages between two users. Wired is now exploring whether or not Facebook has violated the law in censoring private communications between two people. While I find Facebook's actions to be questionable, I can't see how/why they'd be illegal. It's just an automated filter. The EFF is suggesting it might violate wiretapping laws by "looking at" private messages, but if that's true, any ISP-level spam filter probably faces the same legal questions.

That said, what is troubling is Facebook's defense of the policy, claiming that it is allowed to do so, because under its terms of service, it says users cannot "disseminate spammy, illegal, threatening or harassing content." But, as the Wired article shows, there's plenty of legit content on The Pirate Bay as well. The reporter and his editor tried to send a link via private message to a public domain book on The Pirate Bay, and had it rejected, claiming that it was an abuse and the sender would be reported. While Facebook has a right to decide how it runs its service, it's quite disappointing that it would outright declare any link to The Pirate Bay to be somehow illegal. That's simply not true.

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Build an amazing optical toy that plays tricks on your brain.
Thanks go to Rob Hartmann for the original article in MAKE, Volume 05.
To download The $10 Pseudoscope MP4 click here or subscribe in iTunes.

Check out the complete $10 Pseudoscope article in MAKE, Volume 05 "$10 Pseudoscope"
and you can see that in our Digital Edition.

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Build an amazing optical toy that plays tricks on your brain.
Thanks go to Rob Hartmann for the original article in MAKE, Volume 05.
View the PDF of this project. and then subscribe to MAKE Magazine for other great projects
you can do over the weekend.

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ruphus13 sends in an OStatic article outlining the plans of the state of South Carolina, inspired by the One Laptop Per Child project, to provide laptops to local elementary school children. "The South Carolina Department of Education and the non-profit Palmetto Project have teamed up to get a laptop in the hands of every elementary school student in South Carolina... The OLPC/SC hopes to distribute as many as 50,000 laptops this spring to eligible students. The effort is underwritten and managed by the Palmetto Project, whose mission is to 'put new and creative ideas to work in South Carolina.' While low-performing school districts with limited resources are a special focus for the OLPC/SC, the group is adamant on one point: There are no free laptops. In order to receive a laptop, children need to give a small monetary donation — the project coordinators say a dollar or two is sufficient."It's not obvious from browsing around the OLPC/SC site what software the XO laptops will be running; but by following links one gets the impression that they will be powered by Linux, not XP.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Another day, another couple of cool, wacky vids from Fatman and Circuit Girl. In the first vid, Jerri has George laughing his butt off over her ridiculous flipdown clock wrist watch. Tres chic, it ain't!

In the second video, Jeri explains EDM, electrical discharge machining, a technique that came up recently on Make: Talk. She hacks up an electric doorbell and uses it solenoid to power a little EDM armature that cuts through a razor blade.

The Fat Man and Circuit Girl

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gyrogeerloose writes "According to MacRumors, NIN's iPhone application has been approved. Trent Reznor has reported via his Twitter account that the now-approved app was resubmitted without modification, which suggests that Apple reconsidered their initial rejection. This should really come as no surprise to anyone who follows Apple news since it follows the company's typical pattern of handing potentially controversial iPhone apps, especially when it concerns high-profile rejections."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As plenty of folks know, the video game Duke Nukem Forever has long topped Wired's annual vaporware list. It's been promised for over a decade, and has always been a work in progress. Wired actually got so sick of having it at the top of the vaporware awards that it tried to push it off the list by giving it a "lifetime achievement award." But that was way back in 2003... and the fact that it stayed vaporware for a while meant that it came back on the list. However, it appears the game has now transcended all vaporware and officially become permanent vaporware as the developer working on it has shut down. At this point, it's hardly a surprise, but it does sorta make you wonder what they were working on for the past twelve years...

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This Saturday, May 9th, is National Train Day. There are exhibits and festivities at train stations across the country. Check out the National Train Day site to see if anything interesting is happening in your city.

National Train Day

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Rob Weir writes in Inside Higher Ed on how to conduct a lecture that your students will actually pay attention to. Good advice -- I like this quote: "It's better to say a lot about a little than a little about a lot."

A time-tested way of engaging students is using a hook. Unveil a teaser, pose a question, tell a story, be provocative, invite brief brainstorming... any adult equivalent of "Once upon a time ...." Frontloading wonderment helps keep an audience. For instance, when I want students in my Civil War class to consider a stated objective about the link between ideology and historical memory I show a slide of King George III, George Washington, Benedict Arnold, Jefferson Davis, Abraham Lincoln, and Robert E. Lee. I ask, "Which figures can we pair and why?" For a lecture on the economics of the Salem witchcraft trial I hold up a shard of imported 17th century pottery and tell students, "This little scrap of crockery contributed to the death of 19 people in 1692."

Once hooked, proceed to the body. Illustrate the thesis, don't hammer it into submission. In days past I crammed as much detail as I could into lectures, which often led to confusion (and sore note-taking wrists). It's better to say a lot about a little than a little about a lot. Delving into a few examples makes for a more cohesive narrative. Make sure that everything in your lecture relates to the objectives and isn't just shoehorned in for the sake of being "comprehensive." The real skill in lecturing is how well you assemble and organize material, not how arcane, esoteric, or exhaustive it is.

Boring Within or Simply Boring? (via Kottke)

Back in 2008, Space.com covered Celestis's plan to expand their shoot-your-remains-into-space program to include sending a vial of your ashes to the Moon. The article says that the service will be available in 09, but Celestis's website currently says that the it won't "launch" until 2011.

A small portion -- 1 gram -- of the encapsulated cremated remains of one person can be sent to the moon for $9,995. The price includes the option of watching the launch, an inscription of the deceased's name on an accompanying plaque, and complimentary scattering of the remainder of the remains at sea near the launch site.

For $29,985, Celestis will launch 14 grams total of the cremated remains of two people together...

Future customers won't be the first people to have their remains spread on the moon. In 1998, Celestis, at the request of NASA, provided a Luna Flight Capsule to the family and friends of the late legendary astronomer and planetary geologist Eugene Shoemaker. The Celestis Flight Capsule, containing a symbolic portion of Shoemaker's cremated remains, was attached to NASA's Lunar Prospector spacecraft and launched on a one-year mission orbiting the moon.

On July 31, 1999, at the completion of Lunar Prospector's mission, the spacecraft was intentionally crashed into the moon's south pole, making Shoemaker the first human to be laid to rest on another celestial body. NASA called the memorial "a special honor for a special human being."

Fly Me to the Moon ... Forever

Celestis Memorial Spaceflights (via Monochrom)

Evil Mad Scientist Labs wants you to proudly label your organic garden with these handsome "Now Slower and with More Bugs!" stickers, originally produced to adorn software products:

The influence of the Slow Food movement is increasing, and gardening is getting ever more popular. Even the tech bloggers are posting about local pollinators and getting beehives. In this environment, it is fitting that a new use has been found for our Now Slower and with More Bugs stickers, which were first seen in the wild back in December 2007. If you find a good use for them, we'd love to see pictures in the flickr auxiliary!

Stickers for the Organic Gardener

(Photos by Lorien Tersey )

Provincial officials in Hubei, China have sent down orders to government employees demanding that they consume 230,000 packs of locally produced cigarettes in order to boost tax revenues from coffin-nail factories in the region.

In total, officials have been ordered to puff their way through 230,000 packs of Hubei-branded cigarettes worth £400,000...

"The regulation will boost the local economy via the cigarette tax," said Chen Nianzu, a member of the Gong'an cigarette market supervision team...

Local authorities in Gong'an county are taking the cigarette quota seriously and have established a "special taskforce" to enforce it.

According to a local newspaper account, a teacher from a village middle school said officials burst unannounced into the school at around 3pm one afternoon and started sifting through the ashtray and bins in the staff-room.

Three "non-compliant" cigarette butts were discovered by the "cigarette marketing consolidate team" which informed the teacher he had violated the related civil servants "cigarette usage rule" After some negotiation the school was spared a fine, but subjected to "public criticism" for "undisciplined practices".

Chinese ordered to smoke more to boost economy (via We Make Money Not Art)

Dreen writes with this snippet from TorrentFreak: "Just a few days before their court appearance, Mininova, the largest BitTorrent site on the Internet, has started to filter content. The site is using a third-party content recognition system that will detect and remove torrent files that link to copyright-infringing files."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Nik Software has announced a version of its Sharpener Pro 3.0 sharpening plug-in for Adobe Photoshop Lightroom. The plug-in is compatible with Lightroom v2.3 and higher and is available for immediate download for $199.95 or free to existing users.

Reader Fletch writes in to let us know that the band Iron Maiden is suing the creators of a comic book called Iron and the Maiden for trademark infringement. The creators of the comic book claim the name is a reference to the old torture device, not the band (and perhaps the band owes some royalties to the torture device as well...). Still, it will probably come down to a question of whether or not comic book buyers would likely be confused -- and seeing as the logos of the band and the comic book appear to be entirely different... it's not clear who would be confused.

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I really like Counting to a Billion by Che-Wei Wang. It uses an Arduino and a speech module to count up to 1 billion, and then it stops. The real question is, how long will it take? Will it even make it? I'm not sure, but it's a cool experiment.

Counting to a Billion is a device created to fulfill the desire to count. The electronics consists of a microcontroller, a speech module, and a speaker powered by a rechargeable battery. There is no/off switch. The voice begins counting at one, two, three and continues counting up until it reaches one billion at which point in time it will stop.

More about Counting to a Billion by Che-Wei Wang

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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An anonymous reader writes "From The Washington Post's Security Fix blog comes a tale that should make any Windows home user or system admin cringe. It seems the latest version of the Zeus Trojan ships with a command that will tell all infected systems to self-destruct. From the piece: 'Most security experts will tell you that while this so-called "nuclear option" is an available feature in some malware, it is hardly ever used. Disabling infected systems is counterproductive for attackers, who generally focus on hoovering as much personal and financial data as they can from the PCs they control. But try telling that to Roman Hüssy, a 21-year-old Swiss information technology expert, who last month witnessed a collection of more than 100,000 hacked Microsoft Windows systems tearing themselves apart at the command of their cyber criminal overlords.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An interesting court ruling has added a wrinkle to section 230 safe harbors that protect a website from being liable for actions of its users. In this case, Yahoo was given immunity due to section 230, but may still be in trouble because a Yahoo employee promised to remove the content in question. The case involved a guy who posted profiles of his ex-girlfriend on Yahoo sites. The profiles in question included nude photos the ex-boyfriend had taken and her (real) contact info. He then posed as her in chat rooms and pointed men to her profile leading to numerous unwanted phone calls. Yahoo was apparently quite slow in responding to her complaints, but eventually someone promised to "take care of" the issue. However, two more months went by and nothing happened, so the woman sued (at which point the profiles were finally removed).

Now, it's pretty bad that Yahoo was slow to remove the profiles, but it still seems like the woman's case should have been against the ex-boyfriend who posted the profiles. That, of course, is the whole point of Section 230, so that the service/tool provider is not blamed for the actions of an individual, even though that individual is still responsible. There was some question over whether or not Section 230 still applied since this wasn't a defamation case, but the court (correctly) ruled that section 230 applies to much more than just defamation.

However, the more interesting part is that the court noted that since a Yahoo rep indicated she would "take care of" things, she may have established a separate "contract" outside of section 230 safe harbors, which was then violated. So... the lesson is, if you want to keep your safe harbors, don't promise stuff and fail to live up to it...

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Justin writes in:

I only have a small space available in my apartment, but I would love to have a workbench area. I really miss having a garage where I can setup a full size work bench and leave projects out. Currently I use my computer desk or kitchen table, but I have to put everything away once I'm done working for the day which is a huge hassle. I would love to see other Maker's small-space inside workbenches.

Justin, I know exactly what you mean. In my first apartment, my room was so small that I had to sit on my bed to use my desk; the (small) furniture went wall to wall. When working on electronics projects, I often ended up with components or clipped leads in the sheets, not to mention all those restless nights when I checked email every time I tossed or turned! It's important to have a dedicated workspace where you can leave in-progress projects. You may not even have enough space to pull off the Tight-Fit Workbench from MAKE, Vol. 10. Here's what I recommend:

Use your wall space

Pegboard is great for holding tools on the wall, where they don't take up any floor space; put it wherever you can. Also, attach shelving to your walls to maximize the vertical space you have. I also love the little wall-mounted tool rack you see at electronics outlets.

Keep as much off your desk as possible

Get a pull-out keyboard/mouse tray. That way, the space in front of your monitor can be used for building things. I just took this very advice, and I'm surprised at how much of a difference this small change made. Ikea sells them for ten dollars. Hang lights from the ceiling, don't clutter your desk with lamp bases. If you use a laptop, get a stand to raise it off the surface of your desk and use an external keyboard (on the pull out tray, of course).

Make a dedicated workbench (if you can)

When all else fails, see if you have room for even a small dedicated workbench (think shallow and long, even a low shelf mounted to a wall). Adding another tabletop to form an "L" with your current computer desk is ideal, but any horizontal plane you can claim for your projects will suffice.

Do you have advice for Justin's workbench? Post them in the comments.

Ask MAKE is a weekly column where we answer reader questions, like yours. Write them in to becky@makezine.com or drop us a line on Twitter. We can't wait to tackle your conundrums!

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MarkN writes "The use of story in video games has come a long way, from being shoehorned into a manual written for a completed game to being told through expensive half-hour cut scenes that put gameplay on hold. To me, the interesting thing about story in games is how it relates the player to the game; in communicating their goals, motivating them to continue, and representing their role as a character in the world. This article talks about some of the storytelling techniques games have employed, and in particular the different styles of narration that have been used to directly communicate information about a story, and how that affects the player's relation to their character and the degree of freedom they're given to shape the story themselves."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With the (not particularly surprising) news coming out that the FTC was looking at the relationship between Apple and Google (specifically the ties between the Board of Directors of both companies), John Paczkowski noticed that Google's outside law firm (full disclosure: it's our outside law firm as well, though it's a big, big law firm), Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati had not only already prepared a presentation on the issue but had posted it to its website. Soon after noticing it, WSGR pulled down the presentation. So Paczkowski pointed to the Google cache of it... only to see that disappear quickly as well. Amusingly, Danny Sullivan noted that it's still available in Microsoft's cache. Either way, it seems like Google should be quite prepared for the issue, though Eric Schmidt's initial responses to questions about it don't seem very reassuring. You would think that he would have thought through a slightly more nuanced answer than saying that he hadn't even considered leaving Apple's board. Either way, it seems pretty clear that Google is going to spend an awful lot of time in the antitrust spotlight -- justified or not -- over the next few years, and the company better get used to it.

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The UK has held out against the idea of software patents for a while, but with Nokia pushing hard to get a patent on a piece of software related to the Symbian mobile operating system (which, ironically, Nokia has agreed to open source), last year a court ruled that the patent office in the UK had been too quick to dismiss the patent application, and an appeals court agreed. So, it should probably come as no surprise at all that the patent office has now granted the patent in question. What's amusing, though, is how it rationalizes the decision. Rather than just saying "uh, the courts said so," it claims that it allowed the patent because it's "more than just a software program," saying that the invention was a "technical contribution." Apparently, the new rules mean that as long as software makes a "technical contribution" it can be patented. But... uh... what software doesn't make a "technical contribution" of some sort?

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Coming to Maker Faire on May 30th and 31st at the San Mateo Fairgrounds? Why not bike there? Free and secure Valet Bicycle Parking will be provided by the Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalition, and riders can buy tickets at the valet for just $15 (cash only), which is $10 off the door price! Good for the planet, and good for your wallet.

Wanna ride with a crew of awesome makers? Join the Rock the Bike crew, who will be riding the 19 mile trek en masse from Dolores Park in San Francisco, taking off Saturday, May 30th at 9 a.m.

While at the Faire, be sure to check out Rock the Bike's Pedal-Powered Stage. You can even help power the music by pedaling!

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fm6 writes "When the Oracle acquisition of Sun Microsystems was announced, it was widely assumed that Oracle was interested only in Sun's software technology, and would sell or discontinue all its hardware businesses. Larry Ellison, in an interview (PDF) just posted on the Oracle web site, says that's not what's going to happen. In particular, SPARC isn't going anywhere: 'Once we own Sun we're going to increase the investment in SPARC. We think designing our own chips is very, very important. Even Apple is designing its own chips these days.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The blogger at What I'm Seeing is a prolific photographer of San Francisco's rapid transit system, and thus has fallen afoul of its imaginary no-photos policy, with a threatened arrest:

Before I could get the 1st shot off, Fare Inspector #32 started marching towards me, hands in the air, yelling at me to "STOP TAKING PICTURES!!" So I put away camera, walked towards him and answered his statement with a question. I asked him if he could site me the specific Muni code that prohibited a Translink Card carrying passenger from taking pictures of Muni Personal on Muni Property. He could not. Instead he responded that I "needed his permission" and demanded to see my "credentials" and the pictures on my camera. He added that in fact, if I was unwilling to turn over possession of my camera to him he would seize my camera and have me arrested.

What Is Muni's Photography Policy?? (Thanks, Ted!)

Ruth Fankushen Kunkel (who ran a restaurant called the Delta of Venus Coffeehouse and Pub) says An Alien Robot's Cookbook: Recipes from Earth "began as a journey to find something that my son Gabriel would eat besides pizza, hot dogs, and cereal."

Her son provided the fun illustrations that accompany the recipes for dishes like "Big Bang Breakfast Potatoes," "Apple Robocakes," "Overnight French Toast," "Quasar Quiche," "Dark Star Vegan Cupcakes," and dozens of other tasty items.

Science facts and alien robot lore are interspersed through the pages. As the father of two picky eaters, I'm looking forward to trying some of these recipes with my kids. An Alien Robot's Cookbook: Recipes from Earth

Yesterday, The Daily Beast "leaked" the news that Rupert Murdoch had a "secret plan" to start charging for content, and today the news is all over the mainstream press, as Murdoch officially announced the plan. Of course, I'm not sure why people think this is a surprise. Murdoch basically made it clear this was his plan a month ago (oddly totally contradicting his own statements from a year and a half ago, where he talked about how much more money you could make from free content).

Still, if you want to know why this (like pretty much ever other plan to charge for news) will fail, just look at the language Murdoch (and others who insist on charging) are saying. They talk about the fundamental "value" of content. But they never talk about actually increasing the value or giving the community a reason to pay. Instead, they seem to think that the content, by itself, is somehow reason enough. However, you can bet that the management at competing news publications around the globe are suddenly gleeful over the idea that Murdoch is about to take his publications out of competition for a large amount of advertising dollars. As soon as Murdoch puts up a pay wall, and traffic drops, that'll make it just that much easier for competitors offering free content to build up both audience and advertising revenue. Meanwhile, Murdoch will discover that some people certainly will pay, but that it'll be tough to grow that revenue stream at any significant rate.

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Keni Lee Burgess plays Muddy Water's "Baby Please Don't Go" on his cigar box guitar.

And here's Burgess' MySpace page with streaming music.

(Via Cigar Box Nation)

Douglas Rushkoff, the author of Life Inc., is a guest blogger.

I spent two weeks last month in a real recording studio, narrating an unabridged audio version of my upcoming book Life Inc. It was a lot harder than I imagined, but also a really intense way of re-experiencing what I had written. And for the first time maybe ever, I didn't squirm as I went through the whole galley, word by word.

RandomHouse Audio will be releasing a whole lot of it for free, and the entirety in chapter form on iTunes and elsewhere. I'm sure the files will be more available after a couple of days, too, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, I thought it would be fun to offer a bit of it here, too, for those of you who like hearing more than reading, or who have some extra time in the car or with the iPod.

Here's the same introduction I posted as text on Monday, in a 30-minute mp3.