Hugh Pickens writes "Boeing has discovered found microscopic wrinkles in the skin of the 787's fuselage and has ordered Italian supplier Alenia Aeronautica to halt production of fuselage sections at a factory in Italy. 'In two areas on the fuselage, the structure doesn't have the long-term strength that we want,' says Boeing spokeswoman Lori Gunter. To repair the wrinkles, additional layers of carbon composite material are being added to a 787 at the South Carolina factory and twenty-two other planes must also be patched. Production of the 787 has been fraught with problems with ill-fitting parts casting doubt on Boeing's strategy of relying on overseas suppliers to build big sections of the aircraft before assembling them at its facilities near Seattle. The 787, built for fuel efficiency from lightweight carbon composite parts, is a priority for Boeing as it struggles with dwindling orders amid the global recession. Customers had been expecting the first of the new jets in the first quarter of 2010 — nearly two years behind schedule. The delays have cost Boeing credibility and billions of dollars in anticipated expenses and penalties. Orders for 72 planes have been canceled already this year although Boeing still has confirmed orders for over 800 aircraft."

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Here are some of my favorites this week on CRAFT:

Backyard Garden + Recipe: Shrimp Scampi with Zucchini and Tomato Pasta

Ask CRAFT: Sourcing Freezer Paper and Other Supplies

Flashback: Hand-Printed Patterned Floor

Evelyn Roth's Video Trap

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retroworks writes "Greenercomputing.com staff covered a study which sheds more light on the controversial practice of exporting used computer equipment overseas. University of Arizona professors Ramzy Kahhat and Eric Williams newly published research, Product or Waste? Importation and End-of-Life Processing of Computers in Peru apparently confirms what WR3A.org says in the Video 'Fair Trade Recycling'. Namely, that most of the exports of used computers imported by buyers overseas(88%) are really for reuse and repair. Otherwise, people would not pay to import them. This bolsters pro-export arguments made in a scholarly article by Charles Schmidt of NIH in 2006. Perhaps what is needed to stem e-waste pollution is not a ban on exports, but for more people to export, so that buyers have more choice of (ethical) suppliers. Put another way: If used computer exports are outlawed, only outlaws will export used computers."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "COLLADA — the group creating open 3D data standards — announced their latest contest winners at Siggraph 2009. Ordinarily this wouldn't interest me, but the grand prize winner, NaviCAD, really did submit something rather interesting — an iPhone app that lets you explore Google 3D Warehouse models. Of course there's the pinching for zooming in/out, but it also uses the motion sensor to control the view. If you are walking around the inside or outside of a building, as you look around in the real world the view on the iPhone displays the corresponding view."

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Gorgeous typewriter ribbon tins.... via LoL.

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techmuse writes "Reuters reports that Comcast may be attempting to use its huge cash reserves to purchase a large media content provider, such as Disney, Viacom, or Time Warner. This would result in Comcast controlling both the delivery mechanism for content, and the content itself. Potentially, it could limit access to content it owns to subscribers to its own services, thus shutting out competing services (where they still exist at all)."

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Three bits of wisdom I keep forgetting to write up in a blog post.

1. The second time you write a piece of complicated code it will work much better than the code you wrote the first time. Especially if there are a few years inbetween and the original code was in production and you had to live with its flaws. Sometimes you have to write it a third or fourth time to really get it right.

2. Every year or so, re-read the docs for your programming environment. You'll always find a feature you didn't quite grok the importance of the last time you read the docs. It may make your code much simpler, or enable you to approach a problem you previously though unsolvable. (I did this the other day for Amazon S3 and sure enough figured out a way through a tight bottleneck.)

3. This is the most important one. If you're planning on competing like a mofo in the tech industry to make billions of dollars, and then give it all to charity when you're middle-aged, instead, find a way to contribute to the ecology of the web while you're young, and make a bit less money (I suspect you won't actually make less money). We have much higher leverage on our home court and can do a lot more good for the planet than we can, later, in medicine or politics. Obviously I'm thinking about Bill Gates, but I'm also thinking about Evan WIlliams and Biz Stone who are already worth huge money, and on their way to making a lot more. Deal with the URL-shortening issue now. It's an Exxon Valdez waiting to happen. You won't be able to make excuses that you didn't see it coming, cause I'm telling you now.

There are already protocols in place that allow web apps to tell you how to shorten urls that point into their space. Wordpress.com took a huge step this week, doing their part (Matt is such a mensch). It would take about one hour of programming, if that much, for Twitter to look for the metadata and use it. If I had a Twitter client, I'd support it in a heartbeat. If I were Twitter, same deal.

Shortlink: "URL shortening that really don't hurt the Internet."

But for some reason the business types at the companies never want to do anything good for the web. They just take for themselves and eat up the seed corn others put into the formats and protocols. At some point we're going to get through. These guys are supposedly people who care about the planet. Like Bill, when they retire, they'll spend huge money to try to prove it. Why they don't care about the ecology of the web now, when they have the most power to, I'll never get it. I have to assume they don't understand. It would cost nothing to care for the web. Not like carbon offsets, these aren't even hard problems. You just have to care enough to actually do something about it.

ttsiod writes "I want to 'lure' my nephews/nieces towards Science and Engineering (to whatever extent that's possible, in the age of consoles). To that end, I have coded simple physics simulations, like falling snow, exploding fireworks, and 1D/2D wave simulations. My efforts are here, in the form of portable SDL mini-programs (GPL code, compilable under Windows, Linux, Free/Net/OpenBSD, Mac OS/X and basically every OS with GCC and SDL). Try them out, and do offer any suggestions on other programs that can trigger scientific interest in young minds. Myself, I am teaching them Python, so that they can code 'fireworks' on their own."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A round-table discussion at Gametopius looks into the state of downloadable content for games as it has evolved over the past several years, going from an occasional, welcome supplement to being a common marketing strategy for most of the industry, frequently causing irritation over pricing and availability. "All of the map packs so far released for the Call of Duty games have been $10 each to download on consoles through closed networks, while PC gamers could download those same packs for free off of FileShack or somewhere else. Valve's own Team Fortress 2 has received a significant amount of DLC that's been completely free on the PC. Xbox owners of the same game, however, have only received perhaps half of that content, and they have had to pay for it in $5 packs. Why is this? The idea of this kind of content delivery was scarcely heard of on consoles, so console gamers see no reason not to pay for it. But on the PC, these amounts of content are usually just considered parts of patches. Furthermore, why pay for a few extra maps and costumes when modders are making and offering new ones for free all the time?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Our friend and author Tim Anderson on NPR.... "Do-It-Yourself Guru Makes Treasures From Trash"...

In the world of do-it-yourselfers, Tim Anderson is a rock star. His 1983 Datsun pickup truck runs on bio-diesel, and he's not above Dumpster diving. His only income-producing gig at the moment is writing a column for Make magazine about forgotten technology, like using socks as coffee filters and making sandals from old tires. Anderson is a 44-year-old free spirit who lives near San Francisco Bay, where he goes cruising every week in a 30-foot sailboat. He got the vessel for practically nothing after the previous owner abandoned it.

....Eric Wilhelm, the Web site's CEO, praises Anderson for his creative, idea-spreading generosity.
"One of the terms that Tim taught me is 'Garbage Santa,'" says Wilhelm. "Garbage Santa comes and brings you all sorts of materials for your projects. One of his favorite things to do is to go to junkyards or trash bins and just find stuff and then re-use it."

Anderson's current undertaking is meant to help other do-it-yourselfers with a very ambitious project. He's working on what he describes as a giant dimmer switch that controls the speed in homemade electric vehicles. And, of course, he's making the thing out of junk.

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Slate is running a story about how searching the internet and keeping up with events through instant communication can fulfill biochemical needs within our brains. Research has shown that anticipation and simply "wanting" can stimulate dopamine production in the brain, and an internet full of answers plays right into that. Quoting: "For humans, this desire to search is not just about fulfilling our physical needs. Panksepp says that humans can get just as excited about abstract rewards as tangible ones. He says that when we get thrilled about the world of ideas, about making intellectual connections, about divining meaning, it is the seeking circuits that are firing. ... The dopamine circuits 'promote states of eagerness and directed purpose,' Panksepp writes. It's a state humans love to be in. So good does it feel that we seek out activities, or substances, that keep this system aroused — cocaine and amphetamines, drugs of stimulation, are particularly effective at stirring it."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Dan says:

These folks dragged their bikes from all over Europe and many overseas even. The detailing is pro level and goes well beyond just the frames - there were a lot of hand made pedals, shifters, rims, brakes. There was a week of chopper bike events with up to 30 mile (!) rides but there is not any hills there.

The gathering of choppers was hosted by the Chopperdome in Amsterdam. Their site has some more amazing photos. Via Star

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Hugh Pickens writes "The founder of Internet- and telephone-based gambling operation BetOnSports has entered guilty pleas to three US charges, including a racketeering charge, and will forfeit $43.7 million to the US government as part of a plea agreement. Beginning in the mid- to late-1990s, Gary Kaplan set up businesses in Antigua and later Costa Rica to provide sports betting services to US residents through web sites and toll-free telephone numbers. Those numbers terminated in Houston or Miami, and were then forwarded to Costa Rica by satellite transmitter or fiber-optic cable. Some of Kaplan's web servers were located in Miami and were remotely controlled from Costa Rica. People became customers by depositing money in a BetOnSports account. By 2004, the BetOnSports organization's principal base of operations in Costa Rica employed about 1,700 people, had nearly one million registered customers and accepted more than 10 million sports bets. Now bankrupt, BetOnSports took in $1.25 billion in 2004, with 98 percent of that revenue coming from bets made through its web site by clients in the United States. 'Gary Kaplan made millions of dollars by making it too easy for people to gamble away their hard-earned money without having to leave their homes,' said FBI agent John Gillies. 'Today's guilty plea should have a lasting effect because Kaplan was not only the founder of BetOnSports, he was also one of the pioneers of illegal online gambling.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Leica has revealed specifications and a release date for its medium-format 'S system'. The S2 as a 37.5 megapixel Kodak CCD sensor which measures 45 x 30 mm, sensitivity is pegged from ISO 80 to 1250 and the camera can shoot 1.5 fps for up to 8 RAW DNG files. Around the back you'll find a three inch LCD with 460,000 dots (surprisingly not the higher resolution 920,000 dot screens found on other DSLRs). Everything else is pretty much to be expected; three metering modes, four exposure modes, integral metal shutter provides 32 to 1/4000 sec and a flash sync of 1/125 sec, optional lens leaf shutter delivers flash sync up to 1/500 sec. A basic 'kit' (S2 and one lens) will set you back around $30,000 and the first units should ship in October.

Leica has revealed specifications and a release date for its medium-format 'S system'. The S2 as a 37.5 megapixel Kodak CCD sensor which measures 45 x 30 mm, sensitivity is pegged from ISO 80 to 1250 and the camera can shoot 1.5 fps for up to 8 RAW DNG files. Around the back you'll find a three inch LCD with 460,000 dots (surprisingly not the higher resolution 920,000 dot screens found on other DSLRs). Everything else is pretty much to be expected; three metering modes, four exposure modes, integral metal shutter provides 32 to 1/4000 sec and a flash sync of 1/125 sec, optional lens leaf shutter delivers flash sync up to 1/500 sec. A basic 'kit' (S2 and one lens) will set you back around $30,000 and the first units should ship in October.

Kris Thalamus writes "The Washington Post reports that a Virginia woman is being held in custody by police who allege that information she posted on her blog puts members of the Jefferson area drug enforcement task force at risk. 'In a nearly year-long barrage of blog posts, she published snapshots she took in public of many or most of the task force's officers; detailed their comings and goings by following them in her car; mused about their habits and looks; hinted that she may have had a personal relationship with one of them; and, in one instance, reported that she had tipped off a local newspaper about their movements. Predictably, this annoyed law enforcement officials, who, it's fair to guess, comprised much of her readership before her arrest. But what seems to have sent them over the edge — and skewed their judgment — is Ms. Strom's decision to post the name and address of one of the officers with a street-view photo of his house. All this information was publicly available, including the photograph, which Ms. Strom gleaned from municipal records.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Narrative Fallacy writes "'The Last Messages Club' is a new service that sends personal emails written prior to one's death to loved ones in the future. The messages can range from a final love letter, guidance for someone left behind, a list of instructions, details on life insurance and other financial information. 'No one likes to think about their impending "demise," but it is much better to be fully-prepared, so that there is less stress on your loved ones after you pass away,' says founder Geoff Reiss. The system works by giving each member a secure and private vault where they are able to create messages to be sent specifically to their chosen recipient. A secure process ensures that messages are only sent after at least two people appointed by the user have confirmed that you have died and other safety criteria are met. 'I thought at first that maybe it was a bit ghoulish but on consideration I think it's a great idea as it would be nice for loved ones to receive messages from me when I'm no longer here,' says a technical adviser to the company. 'It's strange really as it makes you confront your own mortality in a sense.'"

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From the MAKE Flickr pool

• Plywood chess set

• Pedal-powered apple grinder

• Toy piano as art

• Tiny kalimba wearable

• DIY wrist brace looks funny, works great in a pinch

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MJackson writes "The Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in Humber, a large tidal estuary situated on the east coast of Northern England, has just become one of the UK's most remote-rural locations to have a next generation 100Mbps Fibre Optic FTTH broadband link installed. The deployment is being sponsored by FibreStream and amazingly the groundworks were completed by the lifeboat crew literally digging their own fibre. We'd do the same on our road, but the government would probably object."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Rohde writes "The number of satellite and cable boxes on the Danish market using Linux has significantly increased during the last couple of years. The providers Viasat, Yousee and Stofa all provide HD receivers based on Linux, and all of them fail to provide the source code or make customers aware of the fact that the units are based on GPL licensed software. I decided it was time to fix this situation and luckily the Danish legal company BvHD has decided to take the case. We are starting with Viasat, which distributes a Samsung box including middleware and security from NDS, and you can follow the case here."

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Mark has been working on variations of this electric violin for a few months now at the Boston Fab Lab. For Friday's Learn 2 Teach Project Exposition, he got it into a playable condition and demonstrated it to visitors at the South End Technology Center.

He used Open Office Draw to design the files, and then cut the wood on the Shopbot. He made one of the effects pedals in his array with an Arduino inside a laser cut acrylic box.

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An anonymous reader writes "I am an author working on a technical book about an open-source software package. I am looking for a publisher, and I would like to hear experiences from any Slashdot authors. Who are the best publishers to work with and why are they great? Who are the worst publishers in the tech book business, and what nightmare/horror stories can you tell us about them? Any publishing company in particular you recommend avoiding? Any gems of advice (rights reversion, etc.) you can provide for first-time tech book authors?"

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