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Hey I just had an idea for a conference hack you can do at a traditional audience-oriented conference.
You can thank Nikola Tesla for helping you read this. Before his harnessing of the energy of Niagara Falls, most electricity was transmitted via direct current. Tesla pioneered the use of alternating current that is used in our electric grid. Check into the documentary film excerpted above for more info and links.
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Here' a lovely stand (pad) for the PICnome OSC (open source controller). The maker (in Japan), of both the PICnome controller and the pad, is selling a limited number of kits.
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It's got a weird name, and I found the spec somewhat hard to understand.
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Desert Sexy is a group survey that explores the concept of the influence and context of the California low desert, which appears in art, music, film, etc. Besides the amazing photographs, paintings and sculptures from 12 incredible artists, we are also lucky enough to have low desert legends Yawning Man play a special live set at the opening reception! It's absolutely free and open to the public.You may recall that both Logan and the Date Farmers were the subject of a series of recent BB Video episodes.
More info about the show here. Opening reception: Saturday, July 11, 2009, 6-8PM (but will go later), The Constant Gallery. Featured artists: Lisa K. Blatt, Scott Bowering, Joel Kyack, Mario Lalli, Anthony Lepore, Logan/The Date Farmers, Joey Morris, Keith Patrick, Robert Stone, Peter Sutherland, Tony Tornay, and Stephen Walters.
More exclusive photos from the installation, which apparently includes some neat old arcade game hulls, after the jump.
Previously:
BB VIDEO: "A VOLTA" FROM NASA PROJECT: NARCO-CHOLO GAME ULTRAVIOLENCE
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Today marks the 153rd anniversary of the birth of a man who quite literally illuminated the world. Inventor of the radio, the AC power distribution system, the AC motor, wireless power transmission, the Tesla turbine, and a score of other technologies too numerous to list, Nikola Tesla was born on July 10, 1856, in the tiny village of Smiljan, which is now in Croatia. He died, impoverished, at the age of 86, on January 7, 1943, alone in a Manhattan hotel room, having contributed more fundamental technological innovations than any other person in the history of humanity.
More:
The members of ArcAttack send Birthday wishes to Nikola Tesla the best way they know - with crackling bolts of electricity. [Thanks Joe!]
Consider that sentiment very much seconded! Happy 153rd B-day Nik!
More:
Tesla guitar
Lost Knowledge: Save Tesla's lab!
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♦ Image above, from an extensive Boston Globe photo-essay which contains some graphic content: "An ethnic Uighur woman looks out the window of an apartment one day after Han Chinese mobs attacked the compound in Urumqi, China on Wednesday, July 8, 2009. (AP Photo/Ng Han Guan)"
♦ From China's state mouthpiece, People's Daily, calls to "punish Facebook" (I'm visualizing stern, uniformed Communist party officials publicly spanking Zuckerberg). Snip: "Over 90 percent of (...) netizens said that 'Xinjiang independence' activists, carrying out this type of 'online activity' severely violates China's national interests and agreed that Facebook should immediately shut down the 'Xinjiang independence" online group."
♦ Xinhua would like you to know that everything is "normal again" in the capital city of Urumqi, and that people are happily wandering the streets in search of watermelon, kebabs, and eggplant.
♦ Reuters: "Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said Friday genocide was being committed in China's northwest province of Xinjiang and called on Chinese authorities to intervene to prevent more deaths."
♦ CSM on China's savvier media strategy: "Taking a cue from Western PR tactics, Beijing moved away from trying to block coverage altogether - and was benefited by doing so."
♦ A report filed nearly 10 years ago by Rebecca MacKinnon, then CNN's Beijing bureau chief: "Rumblings of discontent among ethnic Muslims on China's Asian frontier"
♦ NYT reports the crackdown now extends to mosques: "Chinese authorities banned prayer gatherings at mosques here on Friday, the principal day of prayer for Muslims, as security officials tried to prevent further ethnic violence in the Xinjiang region."
(most links in this post via Rebecca MacKinnon)
During the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan, an incident occured in which hundreds or thousands of Taliban POWs were killed by a warlord supported by the US.
Bush administration officials repeatedly thwarted efforts to investigate the mass killing, according to American officials and human rights groups. The warlord responsible, Abdul Rashid Dostum (shown above while campaigning for president in 2004), still retains a high position within the Afghan government. How (and if) the Obama administration will deal with ongoing calls for an investigation remains to be seen. Snip from NYT article today by James Risen:
American officials had been reluctant to pursue an investigation -- sought by officials from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, the Red Cross and other human rights groups -- because the warlord, Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, was on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency and his militia worked closely with United States Special Forces in 2001, several officials said. They said the United States also worried about undermining the American-supported Karzai government, in which General Dostum has served as a defense official.U.S. Said to Have Averted Inquiry Into '01 Afghan Killings (New York Times)"At the White House, nobody said 'no' to an investigation, but nobody ever said 'yes,' either," said Pierre Prosper, the former war crimes ambassador for the United States. "The first reaction of everybody there was 'Oh, this is a sensitive issue. This is a touchy issue politically.' " It is not clear how -- or if -- the Obama administration will address the issue. But in recent weeks, State Department officials have quietly tried to thwart General Dostum's reappointment as military chief of staff to the president, according to several senior officials, and suggested that the administration may not be hostile to an inquiry.
Incidentally: Wikipedia says Mr. Dostum is also known as "Heavy D, and D-Diddy," and links to a subscribers-only National Geographic article as proof.
"In my view, growing internet piracy is a vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions. It should be a wake-up call for policy-makers."Of course, it's not clear what sort of solution she's proposing -- and it sounds a bit like she's suggesting putting in place a universal licensing fee for online music, which isn't much of an improvement. Luckily the Pirate Party's Christian Engstrom points out the problem with where that thinking leads, by noting that citizens shouldn't just be thought about as "consumers":
"We are citizens... and we do have certain human rights according to the European convention on human rights which includes the right to information freedom."Still, given where things are in the US, it's impressive enough to find multiple politicians who aren't just buying the major record labels' story that it's "piracy" that's killing their business models, rather than the other way around.
3D RadiologyThe Stanford Radiology 3D Imaging Laboratory uses computed tomography and Magnetic Resonance imaging data to create three-dimensional images of the human body. Individual CT and MR scans of the body are taken around a single axis that are stacked and rendered using complex computer algorithms to create a three-dimensional volume of data. The images produced from this data can be manipulated on-screen to provide doctors with unique interior perspectives of the human body for diagnosing and treating patients. Each month the lab produces nearly 20,000 images.
Urlesque has posted a collection of videos that document a sport I wish did not exist: "Mutton Busting."
And while 'mutton busting' sounds categorically filthy, it is, in fact, merely the act of a child riding a hyper sheep bareback.I'm of the mind that it's, ah, not a good thing for the child or the sheep. But here I am, suggesting in muted horror from the safety of my desk that you watch the videos.
Mutton Busting, In Which Parents Let Their Young Children Get Tossed From Sheep
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This Studio 360 episode is a wonderful place to start in today's appreciation of "the father of electricity." This PBS documentary is also great. (thanks, Jesse Thorn)Related: These folks are trying to preserve "Nikola Tesla's last and only existing laboratory, in Shoreham, NY (USA) [as] a science and technology center and museum." Apparently, AGFA wants to buy the space and turn it into a corporate center. The Tesla Science Center project solicits your support and donations to protect the site as a historic landmark. (thanks, Evelyn)
MAKE subscriber "Cobbler" sent us this video and a note:
Remember the first issue? Here's my video of the homopolar motor project that was featured there. The motor works like a charm. It is mesmerizing to watch and makes a cool conversation piece for your cubicle.
Unexplained Phenomenon - Simplest Electric Motor
From the page of MAKE:
Fairey never denied using a random photo he found online, but had no idea which one. Once the correct photo was found, the photographer in question, Mannie Garcia, didn't seem to mind at all. In fact, we wrote about how nice it was that he didn't cry out infringement, but instead he was happy the photo was used:
"I know artists like to look at things; they see things and they make stuff. It's a really cool piece of work."On top of that, his only request would be getting Fairey to send him a signed copy of the poster:
"I wouldn't mind getting a signed litho or something from the artist to put up on my wall."Of course, soon after that, the Associated Press, for whom Garcia was working at the time, demanded money from Fairey, and the two are now involved in a lawsuit over the issue. When that happened, I remember reading an interview with Garcia (which unfortunately I can't find now), where he noted that he never signed anything granting the AP the copyrights to his photos. But, more recently, it seemed like Garcia had done a total 180 and now claimed he was upset by the poster:
"When I found out, I was disappointed in the fact that someone was able to go onto the Internet and take something that doesn't belong to them and then use it. That part of this whole story is crucial for people to understand: that simply because it's on the Internet doesn't mean it's free for the taking, and just because you can take it doesn't mean it belongs to you."There's no way to square this with his original comments. One of them is untrue. But, perhaps the lure of getting some extra cash got into Garcia's mind... That theory might gain some more weight given that he's now filed with the court to "intervene" in the case, claiming that he holds the copyright on the photo and the AP is falsely claiming that it holds the copyright. On top of that, though, the filing says that he believes Fairey infringed on Garcia's rights. Again, this does not seem to agree with Garcia's original comments which certainly brings his motives into question.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Spanish company and Arduino shop Libelium just finished their second-annual Hacking Life Arduino contest. This year's winners are:
Francisco Reinoso, Remote-control printer
Joe Cochran, Sketchduino (a computrer-controlled Etch A Sketch)
Carlos Tricas, Musical fan
You can see videos of the projects, and download docs via the link below.
Winners of the Arduino Contest 2009
Awesomecon, a gathering for fans of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, comes to San Diego on July 25. Snip from the event announcement:
WHAT IS AWESOMECON??! Awesomecon is an outdoor extravaganza where awesome fans can celebrate with Tim & Eric!! Meet the creators of Tim & Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and their special guests DJ Douggpound, David Liebe Hart, Richard Dunn, James Quall and many more! There will be karaoke, games, a costume contest, a trivia contest AANNDDD one lucky ultimate fan will win a wave runner ride with Tim & Eric! vrroooom vrooom.So warm up your singing pipes, brush up on your Awesome Show trivia, pick out your best character costume and join us for our favorite outdoor summer tradition! See ya there!!!!
"You Are Who You Are by Default"Default brain settings may lead to daydreaming and mind-wandering, but the network also conducts serious business. Neuroscientists still hotly debate the network’s exact functions, however. Among its jobs may be running life simulations, providing a sense of self and maintaining crucial connections between brain cells. A few researchers doubt the network is anything special at all.
But evidence suggests that a malfunctioning default network is involved in diseases and disorders as diverse as Alzheimer’s disease, autism, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, Tourette syndrome, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, schizophrenia and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Despite its laid-back name, which neuroscientist Marcus Raichle coined in a 2001 paper, the default mode network is one of the hardest-working systems in the brain. It was discovered accidentally by researchers watching the activity of brains at work on various tasks.
Neuroscientists use PET (short for positron emission tomography) and functional MRI scanners to image and gauge brain activity. To tell which areas of the brain become more active during a mental task, scientists compare brain activity during the task with activity when the person is at rest, either with eyes closed or while staring at a dot or cross. Raichle, of Washington University in St. Louis, and others saw that every time a person engaged in a mental activity such as memorizing a list of words, a collection of brain regions consistently decreased activity compared with their resting levels. Only when people recall autobiographical memories or imagine alternative situations is the network more active than it is at rest, scientists have since found. (In this context, “rest” refers to a state in which the brain is not engaged in a mental task but is still monitoring the body and the world around it.) Raichle hypothesized that the network is more active when the brain is at rest and has to dial back its activity to let people concentrate on specific tasks.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
"50 years of pantyhose"The year was 1953 and if you were a woman, a night on the town meant either squeezing into a girdle or slipping on a garter belt. Formal dress dictated that females wear such intimate, and often uncomfortable, articles of clothing. How else could you hold up your nylons?
Allen Gant Sr., then running textile company Glen Raven Mills, was inspired by his wife’s lament. “How would it be if we made a pair of panties and fastened the stockings to it?” he asked Ethel. She stitched some crude garments together, tried them on, and handed the products to her husband. “You got to figure out how to do this,” she said. Allen brought his wife’s experiment into the office, and with the help of his colleagues Arthur Rogers, J. O. Austin, and Irvin Combs, developed what they later called “Panti-Legs.” Their product—the world’s first commercial pantyhose—began lining department store shelves in 1959.
“It was wonderful,” a 74-year-old Ethel Gant told the Associated Press 30 years later. “Most people my age loved them from the very beginning and couldn’t wait to get a hold of them. I don’t think we’ve ever changed our minds,” she said.
Allen Gant Sr. had at least one satisfied customer, but the panty-stocking combo did not grab most women’s attentions at first. Though the convenience of not having to wear a girdle or garter belt was a plus, what helped pantyhose take hold was the rise of the miniskirt in the mid-1960s.
For the fashion-conscious woman looking to wear a skirt shorter than stockings are long, pantyhose were the perfect fit. When iconic models such as Jean Shrimpton and Twiggy donned their mini skirts, demand for pantyhose exploded and women flocked to the stores for pairs of their own.
"Marin farmers market asks witch to leave""I've been here year after year," Talley said. "There are teens who tell me things they could never take to their parents, and they could never afford to schedule a $100 session with me..."
A clinical psychologist by training - she previously worked with veterans services and at a drug rehabilitation clinic in San Francisco - she uses her skills as a counselor, herbalist and Wiccan healer to solve her clients' problems, which often have to do with money or sex, she said.
"There have been a lot of requests for money charms in the last year," Talley said. "A lot of people have asked me to put a glamour on a loan application or other paperwork, so when other people read it, it will look good to them."
Occasionally, she'll receive requests to perform black magic - but Talley always tells those clients she's not that kind of witch.
While they appreciate Talley's unique talents, Marin Farmers Market representatives insist she take part in the same application process as every other vendor at the Fairfax market. It's that process, Spilger said, that lets customers know what they see at the market is what they'll get.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I've heard people say, here and there, that the OPML Editor is too hard to use, or overkill for certain projects, but honestly -- I don't think it is. I think there may be other problems, and confusion about what it does, because it surely does a lot. But for a specific task, it's not really that hard to set up and use. If it is, I want to work on making it easier.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
for the record, i actually fronted ALL of the money for this record, because the label wasn't interested in supporting the effort.... i put in my own 200k (much of it borrowed) to make the record. the label picked it up, but i was never fully paid back (long, vile and complicated), which added insult to injury when they did FUCK all to promote the record.Even more to the point, others are pointing out how much of her core loyal following had nothing to do with anything done by the record label. Hypebot asked Emily White, who's had a long history with Amanda and her work, to weigh in on how she built up her fanbase, and how much impact the record label had. The answer is that the label didn't do very much at all. It got some new markets interested... briefly... but those fans didn't stick around. The true fans were the ones who found out about Amanda and the Dresden Dolls via word of mouth. A few key excerpts (though you should read the whole thing):
I tour managed The Dresden Dolls from 2003-2006 and later co-managed the band as well as managed the launch of Amanda Palmer's solo career. The band self-booked a spring 2004 tour around SXSW hitting everything from sports bars to a bbq restaurant. They had no label, publicist, radio promo, agent, etc. to help book or promote the shows. Before hitting the road, I thought, "who is going to turn up to these shows outside of the Northeast? (as the band is from Boston). How will anyone know about them?"Once again, if you can connect with fans, and give them a true reason to buy, they will. That doesn't mean labels are useless. If they can help artists better connect with fans and provide more reasons to buy, they can absolutely be helpful. But that's just not the way many old school label folks work these days. Some of them are finally getting it (and I've actually had some really great conversations lately with record label folks who are figuring this out). But for artists who can (and want to) do it themselves, there are an increasing number of wonderful opportunities.
But kids DID turn up. Whether it was 100 folks in Carbondale, IL or the amazing show Appalachian State University students put together in Boone, NC, the tour was a smashing indie success. I asked the fans at the merch table and the folks who helped us put the shows together how they knew about the band. The answers were consistently along the lines of "my cousin in Vermont IM'd me," "my boyfriend sent me a CD from Boston," or "someone forwarded me one of their mailers." It was true word-of-mouth about an incredible new band, fostered by Amanda and Brian's commitment to playing killer shows, writing personalized mailers and signing an autograph for every fan who wanted one, no matter how many hours it took.
....
And because of that decision [to sign with a major label], the band did receive pockets of radio success in markets like St. Louis and Arizona. The attendance at those shows spiked in 2006 when a few Dolls songs were receiving airplay. Awesome, right? Well, now it's 2009 and we've returned to some of those markets. Many of those radio fans don't turn up anymore. Yet, the hardcores or "1000 true fans" are still there, just like they have been since they organically founded The Dresden Dolls back in the day. They still line up outside for hours, know every word of every song (whether or not it has been released), and wait around for Amanda's autograph. They don't need a top down marketing plan to tell them what to like. And who are the new hardcore Dolls/ Amanda fans? They are the younger siblings and friends of the original fans, who continue to spread the gospel about an artist who's work they love so much they can't not talk about.
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
I'm a great admirer of Jørgen Møller's Posterhänger design. It's great for those in-between prints that are too valuable to put thumbtacks through, but not valuable enough to have framed. Plus it's considerably cheaper than framing, and looks a lot better than thumbtacks. And it's easier on your walls, requiring only a single hole to hang a poster of any size. I own six of them, myself.
But they're not perfect. The black rubber end-caps are easy to lose and hard to replace, as are the white plastic clamps that actually grip the poster and slide into the aluminum tubes. What's more, I have one poster which, due to whatever combination of size, weight, and thickness, a posterhänger will not support. I came home three times to find it lying on the floor. The problem, I realized, was that the plastic clamps did not grip the poster hard enough, and it was slipping out.
It eventually occurred to me to replace the plastic clamps with binder clips with the wire handles removed, which have much greater gripping power owing to their spring steel construction. My balloon rapidly deflated, however, when I realized that even if I used the smallest binder clips available (3/4"), they would not fit into the aluminum tube that came with my posterhänger. Using binder clips would require remaking the whole system. Too bad, so sad. Maybe someday, right?
Now fast forward to last week, when my Moms presented me with this nifty quilted portrait of, ah, myself. Normally I wouldn't hang pictures of me on my own walls, but hey, it's from my Moms, and I want to display it, preferably without damaging it in any way. Seemed like the perfect opportunity to try my hand at DIY posterhängering. Here's what I did:
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Perhaps someone has the radio on or is listening to a CD and if so, you need to have a permit that allows for music to be played the workplace... A workplace isn't private and therefore you should have a license for music to be played so that the copyright holders get paid.This is, of course, quite misleading. The copyright holder has already been paid if they're listening to the radio or a CD. This is an attempt to get paid multiple times for the same thing. We've been hearing stories about how these various collection societies are in trouble lately due to low interest rates and poor investment choices, but watching them flail around and start demanding money from everyone, and trying to get paid multiple times for the same work is really quite an amazing abuse of power. Why isn't any gov't agency cracking down on such an abuse?
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Taser X3 has its own Facebook page and, worst of all, it Twitters. Presumably the agency were briefed to come up with something cute and non-threatening. Evidently they decided that the X3's image should come across less as Arnold Schwarzenegger and more as Paris Hilton, judging from these tweets:Safety Tests MIA for Taser's Shocking New Shotgun (wired.com)"Check out my color screen. Like a Tele-Tubby ... only a little more intense!"
"Just out of the solar radiation box. Tanning bed for TASER's... 3 months of Arizona summer sun radiation. Check that one off!"
"Never thought I'd get so excited about the feel of a safety switch. But wait until you feel it - smooooooth."
Don't miss the breathing, pulsing, utterly over-the-top Taser X3 online ad campaign.
The really cool thing about the maker featured in this YouTube video is that his home automation system is cobbled together from salvaged components and bits of junk. My advice is to ignore the insipid voice-over and fast-forward to 0:23, where the good stuff starts. Via AfriGadget.
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(Ed. Note: We recently gave the Boing Boing Video website a makeover that includes a new, guest-curated microblog: the "BBVBOX." Here, folks whose taste in web video we admire tweet the latest clips they find. I'll be posting periodic roundups here on the motherBoing.)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
CuriousInventor points out this head-slappingly simple substitute for standoffs - likely of interest to anyone whose marvelled at how much these bits of hardware can actually cost -
Tan Tran came up with a cheap substitute for aluminum standoffs: nylon tubing. Polyethylene does a decent job too, and can be had for under $.10 a foot at your local hardware store. The 1/4" OD (outside diameter) stuff shown in these pics accommodates up to #8 size screws.Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!
Rachel @ CRAFT points us to a project by Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi Called Pa++ern, which takes user input and transcodes it into wearable messages. Pa++ern program will be on display at the Beams Gallery in Tokyo, Japan. Their Twitter plugin launches on July 11.
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• LSD-discoverer Albert Hofmann wrote a letter to Steve Jobs asking him how/why LSD was useful to him. What else did Hofmann say?
• Rob reviewed the HTC Touch Pro 2. Check out the verdict.
• Steven reviewed Garmin's ultra-thin nüvi 1490T GPS unit.
• Joel reviewed the Mophie Juice Pack Air battery case for the iPhone.
• An art installation with enormous solar-powered flowers.
• A beautiful vintage world clock from 1975.
• Core77 made a bicycle. Expensive, but attractive.
• College students built a PDA-powered rig that accurately measure muscle strength.
• Joel posted a video review of the Vita-Mix 5200. Check out his mug and his mesh cap.
• Greenpeace released its annual report rating several major electronics manufacturers. How'd Apple do? What about Nintendo? Find out!
• Samsung filed a patent for a butterfly-like cell phone built with "doped polysilicon."
• If a Leatherman multi-tool doesn't have a knife, is it still a Leatherman? Hmmmm...
• We discovered a toy called the "Fighting Cock" &mdash and we're going to give one away to one lucky reader!
Discuss all this and more at BBG.
It was a return-to-classics kind of day on Offworld, with Bethesda releasing their early first-person/open-world RPG Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall as a free download, and with the revivification of both Team17's classic Amiga shooter Alien Breed as a fully 3D affair, and the former FASA designers at Smith & Tinker giving MechWarrior a fantastic looking full reboot for PC and Xbox 360.
Elsewhere we started to take our first look at the weird worlds of Galactic Arms Race, a self-described 'space Diablo' with a twist: all of the weapons in the game are designed by AI and are evolving over time based on the aggregate behavior of all the game's players, with some spectacular and unexpected results; and got a guide to the rest of this summer's Xbox Live Arcade releases.
Finally, we bought our own custom Left 4 Dead Sackboys from the crocheter himself (above), saw Fangamer go all Anderson and release a browsable version of their fan-made Mother 3 guide for free, and our 'one shots' for the day: a plush member of Rhythm Heaven's Glee Club, and Cooking Mama, and Cooking Samus, and Cooking Zelda, and Cooking Lara...
Nick Hardeman's 3 x 3, big-button LED matrix goes by the name "Nove Bit" and looks about as easy to porogram as possible. I'm guessing one of these (or even a wall-full of them) would go nicely as interactive art for the home. The simple/universal appeal would likely make them a hit with most.. More info and other project pages on Nick's site ... and just so you know, Nove Bit was on display @ the last Maker Faire.
More:
Compact LED matrix wearable
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate-group watchdog organization based in Alabama, will present documentation to Congress on Friday about the presence of active duty military personnel on the white supremacist social networking site newsaxon.org. On that website, SPLC spotted 40 users who claim to be serving in the military, an apparent violation of Pentagon regulations prohibiting racist extremism in the ranks.
Mark Potok, editor of the Intelligence Report, a magazine produced at the law center, [said] "The Pentagon really has shrugged this off and refused to look at this in any serious way."Watchdog group: Dozens of active-duty troops found on neo-Nazi site (Stripes.com, via Wired.com Danger Room)On the newsaxon.org website, which Potok termed "a racist version of Facebook run by the National Socialist Movement," many participants list their branch of service, base location and hometown on colorful pages festooned with Nazi art and Confederate battle flags. Some say they have served or will soon be deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. Several include pictures of themselves in camouflage combat uniforms.
One participant under the username "WhitePride85," who said he is a 24-year-old staff sergeant from Madison, Wis., wrote: "I have been in the Army for over 5 years now ... I am a SSGT ... I have been in Iraq and Kuwait ... I love and will do anything to keep our master race marching. I have been a skinhead forever."
Screengrab: In his "about me" section, newsaxon.org user "SoldatAMG" describes himself as a "Sergeant in USMC stationed at Camp Lejeune (...) recently returned from my 3rd trip to Iraq. I fight every day to stem the tide of multicultturalism and to ensure that my children have a better world. SIEG HEIL!"
How could I resist something called "Blowing Up Cheese With Nitrous Oxide"? It's a piece, in PopSci's "Kitchen Alchemy" column (which, as an on-again/off-again geek foodied, I've started following), on aerating Brie with Nitrous to create delicious cheese foam (and you thought aerosol cheese was fun before!).
I'm surprised there aren't more of these sorts of fun, geeky, makery molecular gastronomy how-tos outside of the hardcore food media. I love trying things like this in the kitchen, and I bet lots of other makers do too.
Turns out, in order to maintain the texture of the foam once created, they had to use agar:
In order to create structure in our aerated cheese while still keeping a soft, melting texture, we looked towards agar, which would form a gel at a relatively high temperature, thus ensuring that our bubbles remained trapped in the cheese. The downside to using agar by itself is that it has a hard, rubbery texture and can fall prey to syneresis--expulsion of liquid--over time.Fortuitously, agar has synergistic properties with locust bean gum. Research shows that when agar and locust bean gum are combined at a ratio of 9:1, their gel strength and elasticity increases. This solved both of our issues: increased strength and a desirable soft smooth texture. Finally, we needed to figure out how much agar and locust bean gum we needed to make this experiment work. When using hydrocolloids, it is always best to use the minimum amount necessary so as to get the maximum flavor impact from the dish. In this case we determined that 0.3 percent by weight of the total base worked perfectly. Try it yourself.
Blowing Up Cheese With Nitrous Oxide
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Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
A while back, I received an email from Rob Walker, a friend, the author of Buying In: The Secret Dialogue Between What We Buy and Who We Are, and the guy who writes the "Consumed" column for the New York Times Magazine. With a friend of his, Joshua Glenn, who wrote Taking Things Seriously: 75 Objects with Unexpected Significance, he was working on a new project: Significant Objects.
The idea is this:
A talented, creative writer invents a story about an object. Invested with new significance by this fiction, the object should -- according to our hypothesis -- acquire not merely subjective but objective value. How to test our theory? Via eBay!
Each writer, Rob explained, would choose from a variety of "junk" objects bought by the curators at garage sales and thrift stores. A smiling mug. A Sanka ashtray. A JFK bust. Then, we would write a short story about the object. Whatever we liked. A fiction. Thereby, at least as I saw it, imbuing this seeming "worthless" object with a greater value, sentimental or otherwise. The story and a photo of the object would be posted on the website and put up for auction on eBay. Readers would be invited to bid on the item. If they won the auction, they would win the object and a printout of the story. No one would be "deceived" into believing the stories about the objects were true, as their fictional relationship would be made clear, and the proceeds of the auction would go to the author, who would retain the rights to the story. Or, as Rob puts it: "Voila! An unremarkable, castoff thingamajig has suddenly become a 'significant' object!"
I chose the All-American Official Necking Team button that you see here. The story I wrote about it has bits of truth and fiction mixed together. My paternal grandfather did die on the IRT and my father was a tall man, but I am not a boy and, so far as I know, my father was never on a "necking team."
After he had passed away, my mother and I had stood over the dining room table upon which sat a large box that contained what was left of him. Cremains, the man had called them. My father, I had longed to correct him. Thankfully, my mother had been willing to share what remained of him with me, his only son. My father was a skyscraper of a man -- six-foot-five, Ozymandias hands, a brooding forehead -- a great man, really -- and so, he had left a great deal of himself behind.
Other writers with story objects include Luc Sante, Ben Greenman, Stewart O'Nan, Kurt Anderson, and there's one coming from Boing Boing's own Mark Frauenfelder.
Check out Significant Objects here, read about the project here, and see all the items on eBay here. You can read my story here and bid on it here. More coverage here: The Boston Globe, The New York Times, The New Yorker.
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Nerdkits shares their process for designing a big LED VU meter, and repurposing piezo buzzers as microphones in the process. I did notice it covers in detail one topic that is surprisingly absent from most electronics project vids - Math! Great to see real live equations put to work in a design from the ground up - shed some much needed light on this process for the uninitiated.
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Get rid of your batteries and power your remote control with just a shake.
Thanks go to Dhananjay Gadre for the original article in MAKE, Volume 12.
To download The Kinetic Remote Control MP4 click here or subscribe in iTunes.
Check out the complete Kinetic Remote Control article in MAKE, Volume 12 "Kinetic Remote Control"
and you can see that in our Digital Edition.
<img alt="WP60KineticRemote.jpg" src="http://blog.makezine.com/WP60KineticRemote.jpg" width="500" height="706"
Get rid of your batteries and power your remote control with just a shake.
Thanks go to Dhananjay Gadre for the original article in MAKE, Volume 12.
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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The folks at The Wolfram Blog sent us a link to this story about using Mathematica to design unconventionally shaped, but (hopefully) structurally sound, brick walls that robotic masons might build. The author of the piece, Chris Carlson, Wolfram's Chief Interactive Graphics Developer, writes:
A few groups have begun to experiment with the idea of robotically laid brick construction, most notably the Swiss firm Gramazio & Kohler (Facade Gantenbein Winery, Structural Oscillations), and recently, students at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design (On the Bri(n)ck). Inspired by these efforts, I set out to investigate the possibilities of robotic brick-wall construction with Mathematica.......
There are lots of possible effects to investigate: displacing bricks, rotating them, leaving gaps between them, creating ledges of various depths for shadow effects, combining bricks of various colors, and so on.
Not really sure how feasible or sound these walls would be to build in the real world, but it certainly shows you some cool possibilities for design and special F/X in brickwork.
Designing the Brick Wall of the Future
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Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
Nothing says you are at the height of fashion like a dead, taxidermied guinea pig hair comb, I always say. UK-based dead animal designer Reid Peppard has created an entire line of no longer living beastly accessories and jewelry. Among my favorites: the pigeon wings headdress, the mouse and rat's head cuff links, and the jewel-encrusted hissing white rat clutching a silver skull headband. (Via the always awesome Refinery 29 Pipeline)
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Motion to Compel Defense Counsel To Wear Appropriate Shoes3. It is well known in the legal community that Michael Robb, Esquire, wears shoes with holes in the soles when he is in trial.
4. Upon reasonable belief, Plaintiff believes that Mr. Robb wears these shoes as a ruse to impress the jury and make them believe that Mr. Robb is humble and simple without sophistication. . . .
6. Part of this strategy is to present Mr. Robb and his client as modest individuals who are so frugal that Mr. Robb has to wear shoes with holes in the soles. Mr. Robb is known to stand at sidebar with one foot crossed casually beside the other so that the holes in his shoes are readily apparent to the jury . . . .
7. Then, during argument and throughout the case Mr. Robb throws out statements like "I'm just a simple lawyer" with the obvious suggestion that Plaintiff's counsel and the Plaintiff are not as sincere and down to earth as Mr. Robb.
8. Mr. Robb should be required to wear shoes without holes in the soles at trial to avoid the unfair prejudice suggested by this conduct.
(Image: funeral for a pair of shoes 2, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from marco annunziata's Flickr stream)
The article goes on to mention that another great Toronto bookstore, This Ain't the Rosedale Library, rescued itself by moving to Kensington Market from Church Street. I've been to the new location and it's fantastic -- a great store for a great neighborhood. Visitors to Toronto, take note.
"Landlords seem to be recession-proof at this point," he says. "They're just keeping their prices up."Currently, Glassman figures he's getting a good deal at $235,000 a year. But landlord Yoram Birenzweig, VP of Pinedale Properties, says the true market value at 256 Queen West is $100 a square foot - which my calculator tells me is $400,000 a year.
That's not what he's demanding Glassman pay, but even if they split the difference, it's all too much for Pages.
Glassman keeps stressing his relationship with Birenzweig is genial and that he's not getting screwed over.
"It's life," he says. "He appreciates what we're doing, [but] for him, if you can, you should make more money," he says.
(Image: Matthew Kim)
HADOPI originally required ISPs to disconnect users after three unsubstantiated claims of copyright infringement (Princeton's Ed Felten compared this to giving publishers the power to take away all the printed matter in your household if you were accused of committing three acts of illegal photocopying or cut-and-paste). The law was initially defeated in the French parliament, then it passed on reintroduction, only to be struck down by France's high court on the grounds that it violated human rights.
Undaunted, Sarkozy has reintroduced the bill, on a fast track, with a provision that creates a five-minute judicial review prior to account termination, fines and imprisonment for those accused of illegal file-sharing. The French HADOPI Router hackers created their technology to highlight the unreliability of network forensics under the best of circumstances, and to create a veneer of plausible deniability for any accused: "Your honor, I must have been the victim of a neighbor with a HADOPI router."
A hacker known only as 'N' says he has developed some software known as 'Hadopi Router', a term first penned by bloggers who devised the concept. 'N', who is said to have previously worked manufacturing routers, says he and a few friends wrote 'Hadopi Router' in order to prove that the evidence gathered by the Hadopi agency is unreliable.Hackers Undermine Piracy Evidence With Hadopi Router"It locates Wi-Fi networks in the neighborhood, then begins to crack all their passwords," says 'N'. "Once we have the keys, we can create a virtual access point," which in basic terms means using the Internet connection without the account holder's knowledge.
'N' says that if an 'owned' router has its password changed, the system automatically switches to another Wi-Fi signal in the neighborhood and starts to attack the new password.
Additionally, 'N' claims that with Hadopi Router it is possible to monitor activity on the cracked networks but one of his accomplices called 'V' says they have no bad intentions.
Open source suds, anyone?
Halfluck Automated Brewing System (HABS)
Maker Justblair managed to cram an atTiny45, 2 diodes, a half-dozen resistors, and a 5mm RGB LED, "deadbug" style into the screen housing of his EeePC901, so he can receive email, Twitter, and Pidgin notifications. As messages arrive the led will glow a different color depending on the service.
This is an interesting little modification that i have completed on my EeePC901. Based on an Atmel aTiny45 processor it's function is relatively simple, but as it is built from scratch, the build took some interesting twists and turns. Not only that, but it also has a nice little social story that for me was part of what made it such an engaging little project.
The atTiny45 USB LED E-mail, Twitter and Pidgin Notifier [via liliputing]
Just Posted: Our in-depth review of the Panasonic DMC-GH1. After the G1 the GH1 is the second model in Panasonic's G-series of interchangeable lens cameras with a large (Four Thirds size) imaging sensor. It adds an HD-video mode, a multi-aspect sensor and a video-optimized lens to the G1's successful formula - it all looks very tempting on the spec sheet but how does it perform in the hands of the dpreview testers? Find out in our full review. Comments Off [link]
Susannah Breslin is a guestblogger on Boing Boing. She is a freelance journalist who blogs at Reverse Cowgirl and is at work on a novel set in the adult movie industry.
An MTV International promotional spot created by Universal Everything starring a Mister Furry with whom I would like to cuddle. (Via Copyranter)
This is a great how-to for reclaiming solar cells from old, or broken, electronics. It looks like a fairly easy process that can save you some money on your next solar powered project.
More about Salvaging solar cells for your projects
Related:
In the Maker Shed: SolarSpeeder 2.0 Kit
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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!
So what's a pull-up (or pull-down) resistor, anyway? Well, it's used when you're reading an input voltage from some kind of sensor as a "default" value. Say you're using a pushbutton with your Arduino and want to know when the pushbutton is depressed, so you connect the digital pin to ground through the button. When the button is depressed, ground is connected to the pin. But when the button is not connected, the Arduino is looking at the signal connected to that pin, which is "floating," and therefore subject to interference and static, things that are probably not desirable in a deliberately triggered system. You need a way to keep the signal consistent, like connecting the pin to power, unless the button is depressed. Since you shouldn't connect power directly to ground, you need a load in there to prevent a short, so you use a resistor. The Arduino pin will still read 5V even when connected to a 10K-ohm resistor, but when the button is depressed it will read the connection to ground. There are lots of great tutorials online for implementing simple circuits with pull-up or pull-down resistors:
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Interesting urban design pops up in Toronto. A really creative approach to guerrilla gardening. The plantar is made from layers of old advertising flyers!
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Nothing beats the joy of having a shed of one's own, and the folks over on Readersheds and its Shed Blog (out of the UK) have mad love for the humble shed. They have forums, pictures, shed plans, and more. Not all the sheds are necessarily workshops, but they are all cool little structures in backyards.
Of the user-submitted sheds, they choose one to be the Shed of the Year. This year's award goes to The Kite Cabin (pictured above) created by "sheddie" Steven Harwood from West Wales. Harwood designed the structure "in his head" and built it by hand.
And while the Shed of the Year award goes only to sheddies from the UK, this year they've designated an International Shed of the Year award that goes to Chuck Witmer of Silver Spring, Maryland (his hand-built shed pictured below).
Be sure to also check out the awesome video featured on Readersheds' homepage: "In Me Shed" by "Punk's Not Dad" (yes, the lead singer goes by Sid Life Crisis). Love the little girl's voice at the beginning: "Dad? Dad? Are you hiding in the shed again?"
And of course no conversation about sheds could be complete without a shameless plug for our very own Maker Shed.
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In the last post, we explained the numerous changes made to strengthen intellectual property in China and India. Yet, to many observers, it has not been enough. Governments, donors, academics and private industry encourage, some more subtly than others, China and India to “harmonize” their domestic intellectual property by strengthening regulations and enforcement.
The Vested Interests
According to the US-China Business Council, an industry group representing American companies operating in China, weak penalties, delayed enforcement and protectionist policies limit China’s ability to become a leading innovator (“Statement of the US-China Business Council” PDF). A survey of its members says intellectual property enforcement is China’s most serious shortfall in implementing WTO commitments, though 1/3 said it had improved. They advocate increased enforcement, more training for judges and prosecutors, public awareness campaigns and lower thresholds for criminal penalties.
The United States Trade Representative (USTR), too, condemns China’s IP regime. The USTR has placed China on the Priority Watch List of its annual “Special 301 Report” that evaluates the IP policies of dozens of countries. India, too, makes this list as a “significant concern,” though China is the primary country of concern (USTR Special 301 2008 Report). In the report, the USTR cites the US copyright industry’s estimate that piracy cost the United States $500 million in 2004 (USTR Special 301 2005 Report). Another estimate by the International Intellectual Property Association says that copyright piracy in 2008 in India and China cost the U.S. $1,096.2 million and $3,504 million, respectively (IIPA 2009 PDF). These sources also claim that counterfeiting reduces tax receipts and domestic growth. To combat this alleged threat to America’s economy, the USTR is actively working to increase global intellectual property standards through bilateral free trade agreements and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, currently being negotiated in secret (USTR Special 301 2008 Report).
The Academics
These groups motives and facts should be viewed with caution - their statistics have been shown to be wildly innacurate and their motives dubious. There are others, however, who advocate for stronger intellectual property in China and India, and believe it to be in the best interest of the two countries. Under this thinking, promoting IP in China and India will further their ability to capitalize on international information flows and promote domestic innovation.
Most basically, the increased export opportunities available as a WTO member makes the adoption of new technologies profitable for more firms (Dutta & Sharma PDF). A recent study has shown that royalty payments for technology transfer, R&D expenditures and total levels of foreign patent applications all increase with intellectual property reforms (Branstetter 2006). One common line of thinking closely related is the belief that FDI will increase with stronger intellectual property. Executives at multinational corporations (MNCs) say that IP rules are a very important factor in deciding R&D locations – before investing substantially in new R&D, companies want to be assured that they will have the opportunity to recoup those costs through exclusive control of their innovations (Lanjouw 1997). China and India suffer from ineffective R&D – they devote a small share of labor and GDP to research, and in both countries much of the work is done by the government – so foreign investment in the sector could prove useful. India, especially, needs improvement in the commercialization of its patents (Dahlman 2005). It is argued that market incentives (via IP) would increase efficiency.
Unfortunately, the evidence is not clear-cut. A 2005 study found that IP laws have little discernible influence on the growth of R&D stocks, though the international transfer of and propensity to patent do seem to be influenced (Jaumotte 2005). Another study from the same year, though, shows that stronger intellectual property will improve the incentives for a foreign rights holder to enter emerging markets, but that it will also increase that firm’s market power, diminishing the ability of domestic firms to compete. However, technology has spillover effects, especially due to the disclosure required by patent applications, which can, in theory, make productivity gains from foreign firms available to domestic firms. Yet, although a 2004 study finds that FDI could theoretically lead to widespread gains in domestic productivity, because companies block spillover through various means, in practice, the sectoral gains are minimal. This is particularly worrisome for China and India because the sectors in which they presumably have some burgeoning capabilities will receive little benefit from international linkages.
One study found that increased intellectual property has a significant positive impact on the productivity of R&D, as measured by patents per dollar of R&D, though this metric is suspect because a patent does not necessarily translate into any economically or socially desirable outcome (Brahmbhatt 2007).
In the coming weeks, we'll discuss the likely downsides of increased intellectual property in China and India.
Kevin Donovan is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Kevin Donovan and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.
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