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At the center of this instrument sits a globe representing the earth. The bands around it pivot on a common center and illustrate the paths of the sun and moon, known planets and important stars. The device was invented sometime in the last few centuries before Christ, but the sphere became widely used in Europe by a thousand years ago. This armillary sphere dates to 1578."Galileo's Instruments of Discovery"
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Deep Sleep Therapy was a bizarre psychiatric treatment in which drugs were used to induce a coma in patients during which the doctors would administer a variety of other mind drugs and electric shocks. The idea was that they'd awaken cured of mental disorders, ranging from depression to schizophrenia. One of the, er, "pioneers" was Dr. William Sargant in the UK who promoted the "therapy" in the 1960s and 1970s. Of course, Sargant is best known for his research on brainwashing. He's the author of Battle for the Mind: A Physiology of Conversion and Brainwashing (1957), basically a how-to of techniques for reprogramming people. He also developed methods for implanting false memories, and was involved in the Project MKULTRA, the CIA's mind control and chemical interrogation research program. Delightful guy. The BBC Radio 4 recently broadcast a documentary about Sargant's Sleep Room treatments. The program is titled Revealing the Mind Minder General
I believe that too many companies in the copyright industries appear oblivious to the very idea that consumers have needs; to them, consumers are passive purchasers of what those companies decide to sell. And if they decide not to sell at all, too bad; that's their prerogative as a property owner. Copyright is the method by which control over consumers is achieved (or the decision not to sell is enforced). Copyright owners' adoption of control as their principal business model results in closed systems, in which copyright owners try to tightly control everything connected to their works: which play back devices will be offered to the public; what types of access controls will be interposed before consumers can ever see, hear, or in the case of books or other literary works, even read a snippet of the work; the time period during which consumers will have access to the work; how many times can consumers see, hear, or read the work; in what format will consumers be able to access the work; what will they be able to do with the work once they finally access it.Great stuff, as per usual from Patry. In the post, he also discusses how he, too, at one point (when he worked at the Copyright Office) was pulled by this sway of control, as he was among those who pushed to add protections for building design, but was eventually convinced otherwise by a colleague, who pointed out that copyright wasn't the reason new buildings would get built.
Copyright owners speak of this control as protecting their property (the subject of next week's blogs), but once your focus is on protecting yourself from your customer, you are in deep trouble. The government did not grant a monopoly in order to simply horde it: copyright is not a TARP fund. There is a huge divide in perception on this point: when copyright owners succeed in enjoining, shutting down, or crippling services that give consumers what they want, e.g., MP3.com, Launchcast, or RealDVD software, copyright owners see a threat removed, but consumers see an industry determined to thwart their desires. (I do not speak here of those who want simply to copy works as a substitute for paying for them). When is the last time (or maybe even a first time), copyright owners lobbied Congress for greater consumer access to their works, or sued to increase such consumer access?
This perception gap is huge and is critical to understanding the divided nature of the Copyright Wars. Control is seen as essential by the content industries, while consumers see it as a dagger through the heart of the very reason for copyright. All businesses should be free to commit suicide by putting their interests ahead of their customers (unless they are financial institutions, apparently, or insurance companies operating as hedge funds), but they should die on their own and not stay propped up a government granted monopoly.
Instructables user BrianH replaced the nickel-cadmium (NiCd) factory cells in his cordless drill with nickel-metal-hydride (NiMH) cells. He reports much longer useful lifetime for the drill between charges after the upgrade.
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Nate Page's | BEAUTIFUL/DECAY MAGAZINE via NOTCOT. Nate's site / artist's statement is here.
Enter a phrase intro Translation Party and it will translate it into Japanese and back into English as many times as it takes to reach steady state. (Via Zoomdoggle)
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Bilal is heading off for a month-long adventure exploring the hackerspaces of America.
We will be documenting the projects they make, and recording the change inducing social movement that's spreading across the USA. Maker/Hackerspaces come in all sorts of packages and flavors, each with it's own quirks. Let's figure out how they tick, what goes on in them, why they are important for the philosophical and economical reasons. And perhaps through this movie inspire people to start their own space, or at least build something awesome.
Updates will be made via the Two Hands Project blog and on the project's spot on Instructables. If your company is giving you an 'enforced vacation,' then maybe this has your name on it.
Our friends at Campaign Monitor are sponsoring two tickets to the Handcrafted CSS workshop in Salem, Massachusetts next month!
Write a haiku via Twitter over the next 24 hours, and enter to win one of two free tickets to the event. Ethan has all the details on how to enter. Go go go.
French artist Invader has recreated iconic album covers with disassembled Rubik's Cubes. (Above, Roxy Music's Country Life).
What's That?: Adding Dead Weight
This added material doesn't appear to serve any other purpose-the components don;t generate much heat and there's no noise to dampen. My conclusion is that while the components on the PCB (other than the connectors) where not all that tall, the connectors were. So this drove the final thickness of the product. I guess when you're spending $100 on a piece of video kit, you probably want it to feel somewhat solid in your hands. So this is a cheap way to add some "heft" to the product.
Extending property rights to virtual resources does not make more efficient markets for those resources. The qualified approach to virtual resource property rights provides no reductions in the search costs of a buyer since the legal rights and attributes of those resources mirror those granted by the virtual world's code-based regulations. Worse, a carte-blanche approach will increase search costs by requiring a buyer to determine where the code-based rights and attributes of a resource deviate from its legal rights and attributes.
Therefore, the efficient market justifications for virtual resource property rights can not be satisfied under either the carte-blanche or qualified approach to virtual resource property rights. The only way this justification may be satisfied is if legislatures and courts reach into the virtual worlds and mandate what specific rights and attributes virtual resources can take.
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(Download MP4 / Watch on YouTube)
Today, the third and final installment of Boing Boing Video's interview series with Julian Barratt and Noel Fielding, co-creators, writers, and stars of the "psychedelic comedy" series The Mighty Boosh.
In this episode, Xeni asks Noel and Julian about fan-made romantic fiction (slashfic), the rumored connections between Eleanor and America's military defense technologies, and the neat books these guys publish. Boosh trufans may already know about the hardcover Mighty Book of Boosh, but an updated edition in paperback is coming in October.
BB caught up with the Boosh gang when they were touring the US to promote the stateside release of a three-season DVD set
Coming up this week, one last little video tidbit for Boosh fans: exclusive excerpts from their recent US stage performances. Stay tuned!
PREVIOUS VIDEO EPISODES:
If you missed part 1 of our interview series with Noel and Julian (mostly about crazed fans) you'll find that here. Part 2 of the Boosh interview (mostly about music and crimping) is here.
Related Boing Boing posts:
(Special thanks to Mark Kleiman and Stefanie Fletcher for their generous support of this Boing Boing Video interview series.)
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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.)
The court ruled, for the most part, that the Siegels successfully recaptured most of the works at issue, including those first two weeks of daily Superman strips, as well as key sections of early Action Comics and Superman comics.This means the Siegels, repped by Warners' nemesis Marc Toberoff, now control depictions of Superman's origins from the planet Krypton, his parents Jor-El and Lora, Superman as an infant, the launching of the baby Superman into space and his landing on Earth in a fiery crash.It's like a Samson-like "splitting of the baby" to figure out who can actually do what. In the meantime... the idea that Superman can fly is covered by copyright? Yikes.
But Warners/DC still owns other elements, including Superman's ability to fly, the term "kryptonite," the villain Lex Luthor, Jimmy Olsen, and some of Superman's powers.
My first visit to Rhode Island was in 1990. I vividly remember getting off I-95 at the downtown Providence exit and being confronted by a multi-story pile of dirt at the end of the ramp. I became lost as I wandered beneath the highway overpasses, challenged to find the heart of the city. After moving here for college in 1991, my quest expanded beyond Providence. Over time, I became captivated by the diversity of people and ideas that I discovered wandering through so many small towns mostly by bicycle and occasionally by car. Almost twenty years later, that pile of dirt is long gone, replaced by revitalized buildings and newly invigorated community, but I have found what I had been looking for. A spirit of creativity and fostering innovation, what Bert Crenca, founder of the local community arts organization AS220, has described as the "compost heap" of art, design, technology, science and more, has come to define my experience in my adopted home.
Maker Faire RI , for me, is a celebration of this innovative spirit and the impact it has on peoples' lives. In addition, it is a showcase for the cool projects people are working on in their garages and gardens, kitchens and basements, workshops and community centers. As an affiliate of MAKE Magazine and part of the larger Maker Faire community, we are bringing an event to Rhode Island and New England to gather together local Makers, Innovators, and Creative Thinkers. Our goal is to catalyze sharing of ideas, make connections between those with varied interests, and create opportunities for teaching and learning.
Maker Faire Rhode Island consists of a series of events organized by a dedicated team of volunteers and coordinated with other partner organizations. We begin with a kickoff party September 6th, during the Rocktucket Block Party, part of the Pawtucket Arts Festival.
The second event is a fundraiser for The Steel Yard in Providence, on September 12th. Come enjoy a family barbecue while watching local welders and artists compete for the title of Iron Chef Steel Yard.
From September 14th through the 17th, we have hands-on D.I.Y. workshops in Pawtucket at the Slater Mill, the birthplace of the American Industrial Revolution. An historic mill building and working museum steeped in the history of industry and innovation in this country, the Slater Mill workshops are a great opportunity to connect the history and future of innovation in America. We'll wrap up the workshops with a celebration at the art gallery and recording studio Machines With Magnets in Pawtucket.
Moving back to Providence on September 18th, we'll meet the Makers at JTJ Investment's Eco Office, at 27 Walcott St. This is the only "Net-Zero" office building in Rhode Island, and is the new home to a leading regional renewable energy concern, Alteris Renewables.
Finally, Makers will showcase their projects, gadgets, inventions, products, designs, technologies, fancy foods, and much more at the Maker Faire at Waterfire. With an audience ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 attendees, we expect to have a fantastic family friendly event.
The Iron Chef fundraiser requires a ticket purchase. All other events are free to attend. Workshop instructors may provide kits for sale at the Slater Mill D.I.Y. workshops.
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A fascinating and beautifully produced audio and photography feature on nytimes.com profiling women soldiers in Iraq.
Before 2001, ground combat was rare for American female soldiers, but Iraq and Afghanistan have changed that. Three women who were commended for their performance in combat reflect on their experiences.Above, specialist Veronica Alfaro. Her story is riveting, as are the others presented here.
Women at Arms: In Their Own Words (audio and photo slideshow)
G.I. Jane Breaks the Combat Barrier (related article)
(Thanks, Susannah Breslin)
A report released today by the advocacy group Human Rights Watch says hundreds of gay men have been tortured and killed in Iraq in recent months, some by the same security forces and militiamen who cooperate with the US military. HRW urges the Iraqi government to take action against the increasing victimization.
"Iraq's leaders are supposed to defend all Iraqis, not abandon them to armed agents of hate," says Scott Long, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Rights Program at Human Rights Watch. "Turning a blind eye to torture and murder threatens the rights and life of every Iraqi."
The report includes documentation of horrific and systematic torture, rape, and murder of victims. Some of it is really hard to read. One gay man who was targeted says,
They came to my parents' house a day later. I was out of the house when it happened. The neighbor's son has the same given name and so they kidnapped the wrong guy. When they found out they let the boy go, but they beat him severely-they wanted to kill him. They tortured him with electricity, they beat him with cables. He looked like a roast chicken when he came home.In a BBC report, Iraqi gay rights campaigner Ali Hilli believes Iraq is the most dangerous place in the world for gay, lesbian, and transgendered people, and says that even during the Saddam years, there was greater sexual freedom for citizens: audio link.
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"A man asks Slate's advice columnist, Prudence, what to do when his obese, diabetic sister-in-law asks him to get her some marijuana to ease her pain." Note that the sister-in-law doesn't live in a state that allows medical marijuana, and her husband would be very upset if he found out she was smoking pot.
One really annoying thing about coolers is having to drag them around. It would be really nice, maybe, if they could follow you around. How about ...
Mounting it on your bike? Instructables user jofish demonstrates how.
Teach it to follow you around? A good starting point would be this Instructable by PSdp!
However, neither of these would help if you are stationary, so how about a remake of the infamous RC cooler?
What if you want to take your cooler someplace more exotic? How about building in some floats for that next rafting trip? Add ropes to hoist it into you tree house? Build a heliport on top and construct a drink delivering UAV? Share your ideas in the Comments!
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Yet the urge to write sequels and prequels is almost always an homage of sorts. We don't want more of books we hate. The books that get re-written and re-imagined are beloved. We don't want them ever to be over. We pay them the great compliment of imagining that they're almost real: that there must be more to the story, and that characters we know so well -- Elizabeth Bennet, for one, or Sherlock Holmes, who has probably inspired more sequels than any other fictional being -- must have more to their lives. In a couple of quite good sequels recently -- "A Slight Trick of the Mind," by Mitch Cullin, and "Final Solution: A Story of Detection," by Michael Chabon -- we even get to watch Holmes grow old and discover love of a sort.And, then when you think about it, if copyright is designed to encourage more creativity, wouldn't these sorts of re-imaginings of already existing fictional worlds fit that criteria exactly?
Certain books are more than mere texts -- words on a page or, these days, an electronic reading device. They're part of our mental furniture. And yet it's their familiarity, their well-wornness, that makes them such tempting targets. If zombies were to turn up, for example, in Mrs. Gaskell's "Cranford," it wouldn't be nearly so funny.
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"Atmos" is a type of mechanical clock, manufactured in several models since 1935 by Jaeger-LeCoultre in Switzerland. The Atmos needs no batteries, no electric power, and never needs to be wound. All it requires to run indefinitely is an ambient temperature change of at least 1 degree Celsius in the range between 15 and 30 C each day. The clock stores mechanical energy from the thermal expansion and contraction of an hermetically sealed capsule containing a mixture of gaseous and liquid compounds formulated to provide maximum volumetric changes with temperature. The mechanism is illustrated here. Atmos clocks are laboriously handmade and very expensive, and are commonly gifted by the Swiss government upon visiting heads of state.
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In 1927 Dr. Thomas Parnell at the University of Queensland heated a sample of petroleum pitch, also called bitumen, and poured it into a glass funnel, with a sealed neck, set in a ring stand. Three years later, in 1930, he broke the neck off the funnel and set it aside. It took eight years for the first drop of pitch to fall. The experiment has been running continuously ever since, and has produced a total of eight drops to date. The man shown in the photograph above is Dr. John Mainstone, who is the experiment's current custodian.
The most recent drop fell in November 2000, which means the next one should be falling sometime in the next couple of years. The funnel contains enough pitch to run, it is estimated, at least another hundred years. To date, no one has ever witnessed or photographed a drop falling, but that's likely to change with the next one. The University of Queensland maintains a webcam showing a live view of the experiment at all times. The photograph below shows a screenshot I captured of it just this morning:
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If you've been long-suffering under the assumption that games are created in a mashup of impalpable art and science, our latest high-res gallery on Offworld will prove you wrong, as we go inside the factory workshops where your favorite games were built (above), from the smelting of Sonic's rings, the chiseling of the 1-Up mushroom, and the rubber-pressed rebounding blocks of Arkanoid.
And in more art-overload news, we also took a look at the fantastically fragile and delicately rendered games-inspired work of Melbourne illustrator Ghostpatrol, saw some select images from French guerrilla artist Invader's new Rubikubism exhibition in London, and played with the bloom-lit pixels of Stimergy, a 36-hour game of retro-futurist picnic ant invasions.
Elsewhere, One More Go columnist Margaret Robertson told us how Galleon, the criminally overlooked Xbox game from Tomb Raider designer Toby Gard, can lead us on a six-degrees journey through the games industry, found another example of a gainfully employed developer using a game to announce he was quitting his job, and watched the first official trailer for our new top iPhone pick, Spider.
We also saw Timbaland and Rockstar's music creator app Beaterator officially announced for PSP and the steampunk-ian environmental strategy game Greed Corp announced for PS3, learned that Tokidoki and Upper Playground were coming to Wii racer Need for Speed, and our one shot's: Call of Duty and BioShock, the Criterion editions, and Pong on the streets, and Pong in the streets.
'Until the past week, Mandelson had shown little personal interest in the Digital Britain agenda. Suddenly Peter returned from holiday and effectively issued this edict that the regulation needs to be tougher.'Perhaps you can't take a single anonymous quote seriously, but it's at least worth finding out why Mendelson suddenly thinks it's a smart thing to criminalize a large portion of the online activity in the UK.
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SuitSat is one of the best examples of fashion hacking and recycling old apparel that I have ever seen. Russia often disposes of space suits by throwing them into outer space to burn up in the atmosphere. The suits take 6-7 months to burn up. Since the suit is already being launched into space, some ham radio operators thought why not house a satellite inside, where it will be protected for 6-7 months before the suit burns up in the atmosphere. Hence SuitSat was born. The first SuitSat was launched into space on September 7, 2006 when astronauts aboard the ISS pushed SuitSat I into space.
Currently, volunteer ham radio operators around the world are working to launch a second SuitSat in Spring 2010. With some recent changes, this homemade satellite won't actually be housed in a discarded space suit. A special structure is being developed to meet new space and safety concerns. Plans are for SuitSat III to be housed in a suit. SuitSat II will transmit on four frequencies:
1. The satellite will send an audio recording broadcasting the name and call sign of the satellite, the telemetry values of the battery, some temperatures, and greetings from children around the world on 2 meter FM (which can be heard with handheld radios and most scanners). With this will also be SSTV still images from onboard cameras.
2. The satellite will broadcast CW (Morse code) signals with the satellite ID, satellite call sign and call signs from people who have contributed to the ARISS program.
3. The satellite will send BPSK data containing full telemetry and data from experiments contributed by universities.
4. The satellite will also have 16 kHz wide transponder (similar to a repeater) with a 70 cm uplink and 2m downlink SSB allowing multiple contacts to be made at the same time (like on other satellites, AO-7, FO-29, and VO-52).
SuitSat II will have an experiment contributed by Kursk State Technical University which measures the vacuum the satellite experiences as it gets increasingly closer to earth. The most exciting part of SuitSat is that future experiment will be contributed by the public - hackers like you! The devices will be powered for 2 minutes each orbit with +5V at a maximum of 100mA. They will be provided 2 seconds to download 2k of data at 9600 bps over an RS-485 link. NASA is developing a process for submitting experiments, so start dreaming up ideas. I know I already have a few in mind.
What's most interesting about this is how little esoteric tech there is in catching underground desaparecidos -- tap a phone or two, look in their Google caches, wait for them to use their SSN or register their kids at school (how Ratliff Sheppard got caught). The database nation turns out to be a most banal panopticon.
Two weeks before, when Sheppard sat down to formulate a plan to fake his death, he'd been armed only with Google and LexisNexis. Stumbling on an article about Steve Fossett, the explorer whose plane disappeared in September 2007 and whose remains were yet to be discovered, Sheppard concluded that even without a body, Monica would likely be able to obtain a legal determination of death and thereby collect his company-issued life insurance policy -- worth $1.3 million. He pored over recent reports of missing persons and faked deaths, looking for strategies to emulate and pitfalls to avoid.Gone Forever: What Does It Take to Really Disappear?That, in fact, was how he'd come up with the idea of leaving his BlackBerry conspicuously at a gas station on the Friday before his disappearance. It was a classic misdirection: Someone would grab the phone and start using it, Sheppard hoped, and any cop who didn't buy the drowning would trace the phone to some petty thief -- while Sheppard's real trail faded. (The ruse backfired, it seems, when the thief sent a few messages and then quit, convincing Sergeant Roberson that Sheppard was alive.)
Like a giant LED spider web, ResoNet uses an array of LEDs with tilt sensors to create a twinkling outdoor lighting installation. Hmm ... could be interesting to create something similar using LED christmas lights. More of the construction process on the project's blog. [via Jim on Light]
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Hayford Bempong, David Celestin and Michael Amankwanor from Accra Polytechnic set up a local Maker Faire Africa radio station. The group announced upcoming activities, broadcasting at 101.7 FM, and could be heard up to a couple thousand meters away using gear they designed and fabricated from scratch.
[via AfriGadget]
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What's remarkable about these sites is not merely that they exist; There had been some efforts to provide this kind of information in the past. Rather, what stands out is that they exhibit a lot of the traits of some of the best tech startups in Silicon Valley or New York City. Each site has remarkably consistent branding elements, leading to a predictable and trustworthy sense of place when you visit the sites. There is clear attention to design, both from the cosmetic elements of these pages, and from the thoughtfulness of the information architecture on each site. (The clear, focused promotional areas on each homepage feel just like the "Sign up now!" links on the site of most Web 2.0 companies.) And increasingly, these services are being accompanied by new APIs and data sources that can be used by others to build interesting applications.There's plenty going on in the administration that I disagree with and am troubled by -- but efforts on the tech side are something worth applauding, while also watching to see what the folks there can do in the next few years.
That last point is perhaps most significant. We've seen the remarkable innovation that sprung up years ago around the API for services like Flickr, and that continues full-force today around apps like Twitter. But who could have predicted just a year or two ago that we might have something like Apps for America, the effort being led by the Sunlight Foundation, Google, O'Reilly Media and TechWeb to reward applications built around datasets provided by Data.gov. The tools that have already been built are fascinating. And, frankly, they're a lot more compelling than most of the sample apps that a typical startup can wring out of its community with a developer contest.
What's remarkable about these sites is not merely that they exist; There had been some efforts to provide this kind of information in the past. Rather, what stands out is that they exhibit a lot of the traits of some of the best tech startups in Silicon Valley or New York City. Each site has remarkably consistent branding elements, leading to a predictable and trustworthy sense of place when you visit the sites. There is clear attention to design, both from the cosmetic elements of these pages, and from the thoughtfulness of the information architecture on each site. (The clear, focused promotional areas on each homepage feel just like the "Sign up now!" links on the site of most Web 2.0 companies.) And increasingly, these services are being accompanied by new APIs and data sources that can be used by others to build interesting applications.There's plenty going on in the administration that I disagree with and am troubled by -- but efforts on the tech side are something worth applauding, while also watching to see what the folks there can do in the next few years.
That last point is perhaps most significant. We've seen the remarkable innovation that sprung up years ago around the API for services like Flickr, and that continues full-force today around apps like Twitter. But who could have predicted just a year or two ago that we might have something like Apps for America, the effort being led by the Sunlight Foundation, Google, O'Reilly Media and TechWeb to reward applications built around datasets provided by Data.gov. The tools that have already been built are fascinating. And, frankly, they're a lot more compelling than most of the sample apps that a typical startup can wring out of its community with a developer contest.
Erik Nilsson and Peter Kädergård's mechanical orchestra shakes, taps, and 'plays' a wide array of found and otherwise discarded objects - the analog VU meters are especially awesome! [via Deviant Synth]
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I recently had the opportunity to interview Forrest Mims for a book I'm writing about the DIY movement. Forrest is a well-know amateur scientist and the author of more than 30 electronics hobbyist books. He's also the Country Scientist columnist for MAKE.
Here's the excerpt from my interview where he discusses the origins of his famous book, Getting Started in Electronics.
That book was a sequel to the original Engineer's Notebooks. My editor at RadioShack was Dave Gunzel. By that time I'd already written 16 or 17 radio shack books. We were sitting there talking one day and Dave witnessed my laboratory notebooks. He said, "Wow! Your books oughta look like this!" because I printed everything in the notebooks with the little drawings. He said "Your next book has got to be done like your notebooks."Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Electronics | Digg this!So the Engineer's Notebook was done that way. It begins with a typewriter. Then it begins with typewritten pages with hand written symbols and then by the time you get to each of the integrated circuits that is discussed it's totally hand done. It's done with india ink on mylar. It was so hard to letter this book that my fingers were bleeding -- the middle finger, where you press the india ink pen. And I had really severe writer's cramp. And also, you can't make mistakes with india ink. If you make a mistake, you have to start over the whole mylar page.
We extended that to a yellow notebook called Engineer's Notebook 2, which added some new parts. Those two books together sold well over a couple of million copies. And then they wanted a book on understanding digital computers. I didn't know how computers worked so I had to figure out how they work. I ended up building a processor on our kitchen table that actually had a four-bit language of micro-instructions that were like six micro-instructions. It had a little card reader I built. Everything was home made and it worked. After I built that I could write that book.
And then the idea of Getting Started in Electronics came up, so I met with Dave Gunzel. Of course it was gonna be hand-lettered. He even suggested using a crayon. I said "You can't do a book with a crayon. It has to be a pen or a pencil! But I don't want to use ink again, because it's too painful." So we agreed to use a #7 pencil -- well, he didn't agree to it -- I just showed him what it would look like. I drew the book. I think the entire book was done in 54 days. I was doing two pages a day." Getting Started in Electronics sold in the neighborhood of 1.3 million books or more. The first printing of 100,000 copies (cover price $2.49) was gone in the flash of an eye.
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Though the recipe does call for some flammable and toxic ingredients, curious chemists may want to check out these instructions for making your own magnetic ferrofluid over at Sci-Spot. Anyone come across a any better methods? Please drop a line in the comments!
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Da Vinci's lion springs to life... (amazing video!)
A mechanical lion invented by Leonardo da Vinci to entertain the King of France has sprung back to life in the Renaissance genius's last home.
Congratulations to the MFA 2009 crew!
From the Maker Faire Africa Flickr pool
Campaign to win official apology for Alan Turing (Thanks, Robbo!)John Graham-Cumming, a leading British computer expert who launched the campaign, said: "I think that Alan Turing hasn't been recognised in Britain for his enormous contribution because he died in his forties and almost certainly because he was gay.
"It is atrocious that we don't recognise this man and the only way to do so is to apologise to him. This man was a national treasure and we hounded him to his death.
"One of the things for people in the computing world is that he was part of the war effort but we don't give him recognition in the same way as other heroes. To me, he was a hero in the second world war."
Since his death, plaques, buildings and statues have been raised in Turing's honour. The computing world's equivalent of the Nobel Prize has been called the Turing Award since 1966.
They held an informal monopoly on a societal convention whereby they deposited those ads--around which they wrapped some reporting, some of it serious, some of it fluff--on subscribers' driveways.The second piece also tackles this same issue, and is by Chris O'Brien, detailing how consumers have never paid for news, but then follows up by pointing out what business newspapers have really been in:
At their peak, local newspapers did two things: They created community. And they provided the local marketplace for goods and services. These services were so profitable, that they subsidized the civic good of journalism. The reason newspapers are in trouble today is because they have lost their dominant position on both of these fronts.Bingo. So, newspapers, beware of thinking that you can get away with charging for content. All you're really doing is shrinking that community, and taking away the real reason you had a business in the first place.
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I know my kids would have a lot of fun playing with this project from instructables user 'walkalongaviation'. The glider works best indoors, so it's perfect for those rainy [or just too hot] summer days.
This instructable shows you how to make a walkalong glider by thermoforming a styrofoam sheet. The foam sheet used here was obtained from the Owens Corning Raft-R-Mate product available in the insulation department of most home building supply stores.
More about making a Foam walk-along glider
Related:
From the pages of MAKE:
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Open source GSM network via /.
...the setup consisted of a pair of BTS' (Base Transceiver Stations) running at 100mW transmit power each and tied to a tree. In turn these provided access to the Base Station Controller (BSC), in this case a Linux server in a tent running OpenBSC. The system authenticated users with a token sent via SMS; in total 391 users subscribed to the service and were able to use their phones as if they were on any other network. Independent researchers are increasingly examining GSM networks and equipment, Welte's work proves that GSM is in the realm of the hackers now and that this realm of mobile networking could be set for a few surprises in the future...Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Telecommunications | Digg this!
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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