An anonymous reader writes "It seems one-<object>-per-child goes beyond laptops. A project from the International Astronomical Union (IAU) has designed a high-quality, $20 telescope they're calling the Galileoscope, hoping to spark interest in astronomy among kids and make good scopes available to many who otherwise could not afford one. But as OLPC learned, it's not that easy; they are struggling to get enough volume to get production ramped up and costs down, resorting to tricks like auctioning off a few autographed ones, and trying Give-One-Get-One."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

With France continuing to push for a version of three strikes legislation, the latest bill approved also happens to increase potential fines for infringement up to 300,000 euros, or approximately $440,000. Nice to see governments making sure that the punishment fits the crime, huh?

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Here's a tool that's super easy to build and super useful. I call it the Bend Finder because I use it to help me find interesting glitched and bends in circuits, but really it's just a resistor sub box and it's got tons of uses other than in circuit bending. Most pro sub boxes use rotary switches to switch between set values of resistance and most pro sub boxes are expensive! For the kind of work I'm doing, I prefer using pots rather than rotary switches which works for me since using pots is a quicker, easier and cheaper option.

You want at least 3 or 4 values of potentiometer. I use 1k, 10k, 100k and 1M. You can do smaller increments if you want and include some 5's in there. A switch is pretty useful and then I have it all connect using two binding posts. These are good cause you can attach just about anything to them. You can use any connection terminal you want. I've used bolts before and those work fine. There are lots of ways you can trick out your sub box.

• One thing I'm going to add to mine is a set of tip jacks that are wired to the connection terminals. Tip jacks are the size of standard multi meter probes. This will allow me to easily plug my meter into my box to get an accurate reading of the pots.
• I suggest adding a 1k or 100ohm 10 turn pot. This is great for making subtle adjustments.
• You can add a pushbutton in parallel with the on/off switch. This will allow you to make momentary connections.
• Make some banana plugs with alligator clips on the end. You can plug these into the binding posts for easy connection of test leads.
• Add more pots and switches.

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David and I love the 1979 movie Over the Edge, about youth run wild in a suburban cultural wasteland. The (out-of-print) soundtrack is terrific, and so were the kids in the movie (most were not professional actors).

On the 30th anniversary of the movie, Mike Sacks of Vice magazine put together an oral history of the movie with comments from 20 members of the cast and crew.

Jonathan Kaplan (director): I was only 30 when I was hired to do Over the Edge, but I had some unique experience, which helped. I had studied with Martin Scorsese when I was younger. And I had been the director of an infamous Sex Pistols movie called Who Killed Bambi?

What I took away from that experience was the spark and the truth that I saw in the punk aesthetic. And I saw that same spark and truth in the Over the Edge script. I thought, These kids are American punks. They’re not as articulate as the English punks, but they’re also in a rage.

With that in mind, I decided to attack Over the Edge from a punk angle: keep it simple. No fancy camera moves, visual effects, nothing fancy. I remember when I first saw Super Fly. There were boom shadows, badly shot scenes, and mistakes. But there was a simplicity and an authenticity to it that I really appreciated.

When it came time to cast Over the Edge, we tried to go for that same authenticity. We wanted real teens, as opposed to professional actors—and kids who were also age-appropriate. No twenty-somethings playing 14-year-olds.

Here's the Over the Edge trailer.

OVER THE EDGE: An Oral History of the Greatest Teen Rebellion Movie of All Time

Bassam Tariq resides in New York City. He is the co-author of the blog 30 Mosques which celebrated the NYC mosques during the blessed Islamic month of Ramadan


Iqbal Hussain is a controversial painter based in Pakistan. Not controversial in the Western sense - he's no Dash Snow or Andres Serrano - Iqbal showcases a side of Pakistan that many Pakistani's would rather not acknowledge.

I'm no expert on Hussain's work, so I'll quote excerpts from a fine article on All Things Pakistan written by Pervaiz Munir Alvi.

Iqbal's women are not nude or semi-naked or involved in some illicit acts as their profession might suggest. They are mostly some unknown and unremarkable women of modest looks and appearance.

What's unsettling about the women he draws is that they are without a dupatta, a scarf worn to cover the bosom, and are barefoot - a visibility most women of respect would never allow. Though the paintings are haunting, there is a gentleness and beauty in these intimate portraits that can't be denied.

Above: Hussain's take on the Red Mosque siege. At first glance, the women in burqas seem to have a predatory presence, but the hand on the woman in red's shoulder is at ease and their eyes are relaxed, not enraged. Interestinly, the facial expression of the woman in red is one of either despair or hope. The situation painted is intentionally left ambiguous. 

Alvi ends his article with this:

But what troubles us most in Iqbal's women is the fact that they silently poke our conscience and raise questions about the otherwise obvious hypocrisy of our society.They raise the questions that 'respectable' Pakistani society rather not to ask of it self. And that is what makes Iqbal Hussain so 'controversial!'  

(pictures and excerpts via All Things Pakistan)

Barence writes "British ISP Demon Internet has mistakenly sent out a spreadsheet containing the personal details of more than 3,600 customers with one of its new ebills. The spreadsheet contains email addresses, telephone numbers and what appears to be usernames and passwords for the ebilling system. It was attached to an email explaining how to use the new system. Police forces and NHS trusts are among the email addresses listed in the database. A spokesman for Demon Internet confirmed that the company "was aware this happened this morning"."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Really don't want to turn this into an all Lily Allen all the time blog, but reader Peter has sent in something rather interesting: When Lily was first trying to get attention, she created a couple of mixtapes with a ton of songs from other artists... available as MP3 downloads, and mixing in her own tracks. This is a well-known tradition in some circles and a great way to get some attention. We're all for it. But... it seems quite hypocritical of Ms. Allen to claim that file sharing is somehow evil and destroying the industry when she appears to be an active participant and used it to promote herself (oh my goodness! free music working as promotion!). According to the tracklisting of the second mixtape, it included 19 tracks by artists other than Lily Allen. Both mixtapes (mixtape 1 and mixtape 2) are available directly off of Lily's website, LilyAllenMusic.com, which has a copyright notice at the bottom from EMI.

So, when Lily notes on her anti-piracy blog that:

Also the government legislation is targeting uploaders -- people that make music available illegally

It appears that she actually qualifies. Quite directly. She's offering music from, among others, Jay-Z, Jefferson Airplane, The Specials and The Kinks. Admittedly, it's just a quick look around, but it appears many of the artists whose works she's distributing for free have no connection with EMI. Even if they did, remember EMI was recently claiming that it's never authorized MP3s for distribution for publicity purposes. Uh oh.

So... while the hypocrisy of Allen's copying a Techdirt post was still misunderstood by some (including Ms. Allen), I'm curious how anyone can say she isn't in serious trouble at this point. She claims that people who make music available illegally should have their internet connections removed. Yet, these two mixtapes, hosted directly on her own (EMI copyrighted) website, seem to suggest a pretty massive illegal distribution attempt. Given how much the music industry was awarded from Jammie Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum for distributing significantly fewer songs... not only should Allen be kicked offline, but she should be fined too. Or am I missing something from the recording industry's "education campaign" on this topic?

Honestly, this whole thing is so insane, I'm beginning to wonder if the blog and the statements from Lily Allen are really from her. How could someone who is still directly distributing free music from others from her own major label site claim a moral high ground against music being free?

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In an age of ubiquitous electronics and electromechanical systems, I think it's easy to forget that we don't necessarily need electricity for everything. I'm no Luddite, by any stretch of the imagination; I just think some problems are more sustainably and elegantly solved with purely mechanical devices.

Take the problem of opening a gate from a vehicle. Both my father and my brother live on gated properties, not because they're rolling in so much dough, but because they live out in the sticks and keep livestock and pets that they can't have wandering off. So they've both got vehicle gates in their fences, and both gates are well removed from any source of municipal electricity.

Dad went to considerable expense to install an electric gate opener powered by a lead-acid battery kept up by a solar panel, which works just like a suburban garage door opener. Very convenient, in use, but expensive to install and with considerable maintenance troubles associated with the battery and the solar panel and the motor and the mechanics. My brother, on the other hand, opted for the minimal solution and has no opener at all. When he leaves in the morning and when he gets home at night, he has to stop at the gate, get out of the car, open the gate, drive through it, stop again, get out again, close the gate, and get back in the car before continuing on his way. A low-cost solution with basically zero maintenance, but he pays for it with inconvenience.

Personally, I've always thought an intermediate solution would suit them both better--something purely mechanical, that would be cheaper and hardier than the radioservomechanical rig my Dad installed, and yet considerably more convenient than the get-out-and-do-it-yourself approach my brother has taken. Then last weekend I was browsing a use bookstore and happened upon a copy of George A. Martin's Fences, Gates, and Bridges and How to Build Them, first published in 1900. It included the diagram shown above, with the accompanying explanation:

Figure 204 shows a gate balanced in a similar manner, and arranged so it can be opened by a person desiring to drive through, without leaving the vehicle. It is suspended by ropes which pass over pulleys near the top of long posts, and counterpoised by weights upon the other ends of the ropes. Small wheels are placed in the ends of the gate to move along the inside of the posts, and thus reduce the friction. The gate is raised by means of ropes attached to the center of the upper side of the gate, from which they pass up to pulleys in the center of the archway, and then out along horizontal arms at right angles to the bars which connect the tops of the posts. By pulling on the rope, the gate, which is but a trifle heavier than the balancing weights, is raised, and after the vehicle has passed, the gate falls of itself. In passing in the opposite direction, another rope is pulled, when the gate is raised as before.

Googling around reveals, of course, that nobody is selling any such device, that I can find, so if one wanted one it would have to be a custom job. I wonder about the possibility of a system that uses the weight of the vehicle to trip the mechanism instead of a rope. Anybody seen a purely mechanical gate opener in real life?

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Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

Michael Massing of the Columbia Journalism Review digs up some startling info that helps explain why network TV news is knee-deep in FAIL while National Public Radio thrives:

Katie Couric's annual salary is more than the entire annual budgets of NPR's Morning Edition and All Things Considered combined. Couric's salary comes to an estimated $15 million a year; NPR spends $6 million a year on its morning show and $5 million on its afternoon one. NPR has seventeen foreign bureaus (which costs it another $9.4 million a year); CBS has twelve. Few figures, I think, better capture the absurd financial structure of the network news. (link)

It also captures a hard reality that news folk should keep in mind as they protest the collapse of their industry: most money in journalism, isn't spent on journalism.

Thanks, Cyrus

An anonymous reader writes 'Newly declassified documents show that the FBI is developing a data-mining system to uncover terror sleeper cells. Among the 1.6 billion records in the National Security Analysis Center — tens of thousands of travel records, including hotel and airline records. Other revelations in the documents uncovered by a Wired.com FOIA request show that the feds want to expand the system for use in cyber-crime investigations, and it's already been used to scrutinize helicopter pilots and Philly cab drivers. The system has eerie resemblances to DARPA's once-banned Total Information Awareness program."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lily Allen has continued to post statements from various artists on her blog against file sharing, and most are of the "yeah, file sharing, it's bad!" variety. While she still doesn't quite seem to realize what was hypocritical about her decision to copy a Techdirt post while claiming that copying was bad, she did recently post something where she tried to "answer some questions" that others seem to be having about her effort. The problem is that the "questions" she's answering aren't really the questions that people have been asking. Her explanation is that she's trying to show what file sharing is doing to new artists. Furthermore, she complains that comments about people getting cut off from the internet are misguided, since the proposals are no different than cutting someone off for not paying their bill. Then she attacks the concept that music could be free, saying:

"It's not free to make, so it can't be free, can it?"

And goes on to say that not enough people are paying for music, so that's "threatening new music." Anyway, her "answers to some questions" mostly raise more questions from me, so I'd like to present them here. If Lily Allen is serious about dealing with these issues (and serious about being "sorry" -- even if she apologized for the wrong thing), then it would be great to see her directly address these questions, rather than responding to some made up questions.

1. You claim that file sharing is harming new music. Yet, at the same time, a recent study has shown that more new music is being created today than ever before in history. Partly, that's because new tools have made it cheaper than ever to create and record new music. But those same technologies are also making it cheaper to promote and distribute that new music. All of those factors seem to outweigh the "piracy" issue. So, how can you claim that it's harming new music, when the evidence suggests more new music is being created than ever before?
2. You claim that "not enough people are paying for music." However, just a few months ago, the economists employed by PRS, which is a big part of the UK music industry, released a study suggesting that the music market was growing, not declining. They agreed that retail sales have dropped, but that live show attendance and other offerings (merchandise, etc.) have outweighed the decline in music sales. In other words, people are spending more on music, it's just going into different things -- just like 50 Cent said. Given that the economists who represent your industry are saying the opposite of what you claim must be happening, can you support the claim that not enough people are paying?
3. According to many reports, you benefited greatly yourself by promoting your music via MySpace, which allowed people to listen to your music for free. Other reports have suggested that you have complained in the past that your record label does not give you much, if any, money from CD sales. Given that you seem to have used "free music" to your own advantage in the past, how can you say that "music can't be free"?
4. You are posting your blog on a Blogspot.com domain, which is provided by Google to you, for free. It cost Google money to create this service, and all of its services, and yet it has been able to create a business model whereby it makes money by giving away certain aspects of its business for free. Google is one of the most successful companies in the world. Why do you insist with such certainty that using free as a part of a business model is a bad thing?
5. There are a growing number of artists -- big, medium and small -- who have learned to embrace file sharing, and have found that it has helped them to better connect with their audience, and when combined with a smart business model, makes them more money than in the past. Given that's the case, is it possible that the problem is artists choosing a bad business model rather than "piracy" being the problem?
6. Despite your shading of the issue, there have been and continue to be proposals in the UK that would lead to people being kicked off the internet -- yes, for a limited time, but still removed from the internet. Can you explain how that makes people any more likely to buy your music?

By the way, it's also worth noting that many of the ideas for these questions come from the comments to the post on Lily's blog. While there were some nasty and childish comments on some of the earlier posts (such as the one where she copied my post), going through the comments on this particular post show that the vast majority of them are well thought-out, well-argued and thought-provoking. And most of them disagree with Allen's statements.

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Looking for something to do in NYC this week? Then you should totally check out Gizmodo Gallery 2009, a technology art/history show. On display are projects and products from many makers, including the Makerbot, potato Gatling gun, the tiny drill, 3-D Etch-a-Sketch, and Becky Stern's TV-B-Gone hoodie.

The show runs until Sunday, however rumor is that if you get there today before 8PM, you can get your laptop laser etched by Phil Torrone.

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Aman Ali, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the co-author of 30 Mosques, a Ramadan adventure taking him to a different mosque in New York City every day for a month. Leaders from around the world are meeting in New York City this week for the United Nations summit, and nothing could be more entertaining than residents in a ritzy NYC suburb protesting Libyan dictator Muammar Gadhafi staying in a tent on Donald Trump's estate. My co-workers and I today were trying to figure out who Gadhafi looks like. I won by saying he looked like Mickey Rourke, but in second place was pro-wrestling legend Jimmy "Superfly" Snuka. Can you guys think of any other Gadhafi look-alikes?

Cool Tools reviewed these cool food-grade silicone bowls and cups from Guyot Designs.

They can be baked, boiled and frozen without ill effect... Guyot’s bowls are entirely pliable, and eating out of a bowl without structural rigidity can be a strange experience the first time. Their flexing and bulging when holding liquids does take some getting used to. But I’ve never had a problem eating out of them. This amorphousness comes in handy when you want to slurp back the rest of your milk or finish off the end of your camp stew, as you can squish the side of the bowl into a convenient spout.

Cool Tools

Alex sez, "In a first for Orbit, we're serializing the abridged audio edition of Transition by Iain M. Banks as a podcast., starting today. For free. New chapters launched Tuesday and Friday. This is the abridged edition -- the full book is available in hardcover, audio, and ebook editions today. The Independent says: 'TRANSITION is a book that makes you think, one that makes you look at the world around you in a different light, and it's also a properly thrilling read. If only more contemporary fiction was like it.'"

I'm a huge fan of Banks's thrillers; I like them even better than his science fiction.

Podcast feed

Transition hardcover (US)

Transition hardcover (UK)

A 6-year-old girl very narrowly misses getting squashed by an out of control car.

SoundDoc75 links to a page describing the motivations and problem-solving behind "a 10-minute HD video taken on August 24th with a Canon Vixia HF20 HD camera suspended from a 1500g hydrogen balloon and launched near Edmonton, Alberta. This is the first known amateur video taken from this height — 107,145 feet."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Bassam Tariq resides in New York City. He is the co-author of the blog 30 Mosques which celebrated the NYC mosques during the blessed Islamic month of Ramadan.



Blu, the innovative street artist who brought us the viralicious wall-painted animation MUTO, is at it again. Just recently, Blu teamed up with David Ellis and together they made COMBO. This is a piece they did at the FAME festival After my first watch, I think I like MUTO better. What do you guys think? (via Wooster Collective)

Back in 2007, we noted that Eminem's publisher was suing Apple for offering Eminem tracks on iTunes. Apple pointed out that it had an agreement with Eminem's record label, and we wondered why Eminem wasn't suing Universal Music, rather than Apple. So, earlier this year, when Eminem and Universal Music went to court we assumed that the lawsuit had been refocused on the proper party. Apparently, we were wrong. The lawsuit against Apple is scheduled to begin Thursday if no agreement is reached today. However, remember that lawsuit against Universal earlier this year? Well, Universal won, with the court saying that Universal had the right to distribute digital offerings. So... why is the lawsuit against Apple still going forward? Am I missing something...?

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There is in fact no evidence that this wonderful perpetually-drumming-fingers automaton by Nik Ramage was ever intended to be anything but a piece of art. But it had the bad fortune to come across my desk in the midst of the Make: Halloween Contest 2009 frenzy so I am hereby diminishing it to the status of Halloween prop. At least potentially. Personally, if I could afford one I'd leave it out all year under a spotlight. Beautiful.

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Christian Ristow made a giant-sized hand that drummed its fingers that I saw years ago (its metal fingers banged on a metal plate), but this tabletop model designed by Nik Ramage is equally cool.

Drumming fingers

Topping our list of anticipated Xbox Live Arcade games but still off too many radars elsewhere, Offworld returns from a day at Scotland-based Denki with a behind the scenes look at the making of their upcoming word-battler Quarrel (above), from its cardboard and tiddly-wink origins to the 'magic wool' now running underneath. Elsewhere we saw the Tri-Islands of Monkey Island rendered in the hyper-poly pushing engine behind Crysis and early PC transforming robo-shooter Thexder coming to the PSP, and got a glimpse into the art and design behind the fantastical heavy-metal world of Brutal Legend. We also saw the wickedly blood-drenched pixels of Cactus's low-bit Life/Death/Island and Valve's amazing/ly swift response to a fan-made Team Fortress 2 canine class, shoes fit for Okami and high concept Pac-Man and Tetris wearables, and purchased a two-disc collection of Blip Fest 2008 performances -- possibly the best catalog of the top chiptune players released to date. And our 'one shot's: Bioshock 2's Mr. Bubbles meets Mary Blair, and 40 artists collaborate on a magic-mile-long mega-Mario Kart illustration.

Barence writes "Mozilla has announced that its plans to bring Office 2007's Ribbon interface to Firefox, as it looks to tidy up its 'dated' browser. 'Starting with Vista, and continuing with Windows 7, the menu bar is going away,' notes Mozilla in its plans for revamping the Firefox user interface. '[It will] be replaced with things like the Windows Explorer contextual strip, or the Office Ribbon, [which is] now in Paint and WordPad, too.' The change will also bring Windows' Aero Glass effects to the browser."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

If you skate park is too crowded or you don't have one at all, try following Instructables user nonoodlez's guide to making a light, easy skate box.

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I've been hearing some buzzing in the last few months among folks in lobbyist circles that the entertainment industry is actually hoping to cut back on the DMCA's safe harbors. There have been murmurings along these lines in the past -- though, it rarely goes far, since the industry is also afraid that opening up the DMCA at all could lead to edits of all the other parts, which they love. Still, with the recent decision tossing out Universal Music's misguided lawsuit against Veoh, a few folks have been posting opinion pieces suggesting that the DMCA safe harbors are either outdated, or misinterpreted in the Veoh decision, and somehow against Congress's intentions. Neither claim stands up to much scrutiny, but it's worth exploring the issues, and digging in a bit so that people understand the importance and value of the DMCA safe harbors.

Two examples of this type of thinking are represented by Paul Resnikoff, of Digital Music News, who suggests that the Veoh ruling is correct under the law, but the real problem is the DMCA's safe harbors are out-dated and should be done away with (or at least adjusted in favor of copyright holders). Then there's entertainment industry lawyer Chris Castle, who suggests that the ruling itself makes no sense and leaves copyright holders "without a remedy." Castle, in his usual manner, also spends some time insulting anyone who might disagree with him as well, which is quite charming.

Law professor Peter Friedman, who knows a thing or two (or much more) about copyright, does a nice job debunking Castle's questionable thesis, but I wanted to take things back a step and discuss both why the DMCA safe harbors are smart, exactly what Congress intended, applied correctly, and why that's all a good thing -- as opposed to the suggestions of Resnikoff and Castle.

First, you have to go back to one of the reasons why the safe harbors are even in the DMCA. The entire DMCA was basically a love letter to the entertainment industry -- giving them yet another massive extension of copyright and the power to control all sorts of things well beyond the Constitutional purpose of copyright ("to promote the progress..."). The most troubling of all was the anti-circumvention clause, which effectively gave copyright holders a veto (or at least a long legal speed bump) on technological device innovation. Equally troubling is the notice-and-takedown provision, which allows for content to be taken down on accusation, rather than actual evidence of infringement.

However, if Congress was going to grant this massive expansion of rights to the entertainment industry, which would allow them to lord over various internet companies, the internet companies wanted to make sure they had one thing: protection against misapplied liability. In an ideal world, such safe harbors wouldn't be needed, because it would be common sense that you don't sue the tool maker for how the tool is used. You don't sue AT&T if someone uses a phone to commit a crime. You don't sue Ford because someone broke the law with a car. Yet, people keep wanting to sue the tools providers on the internet. So, Congress, smartly, added the safe harbors for a single purpose: to make sure liability was properly applied. Liability should be on those who actually infringe the copyrights, not those who provide the tools that were used.

How could that possibly be controversial? Resnikoff's main complaint is that it's "an impossible task" for content holders to police their own works online. To which the only reasonable response is: as opposed to what? If it's an impossible task for copyright holders, it's more than impossible for the service providers. At the very least, the copyright holders know whether or not a use is authorized. The tool provider has no idea. Plenty of smart copyright holders are now releasing content for free on user-generated content sites like YouTube on purpose. Putting the onus on Google to figure out which ones are legit, and which ones are not makes no sense at all. Resnikoff also complains that the safe harbors do not require any sort of proactive effort, such as a filter, but that is a meaningless complaint. Due to so many lawsuits and a made up threat of "contributory infringement," pretty much all serious UGC companies have installed filters anyway, to help protect themselves against an "inducement" claim. So, that's hardly a complaint.

Castle's suggestion that this acceptance of the basic DMCA safe harbors leaves copyright holders "without a remedy" is a statement wholly without support. Jammie Thomas and Joel Tenenbaum -- facing huge awards from infringement trials -- might disagree, for example. All the safe harbors have done is say that the "remedy" should be from the party actually infringing, rather than the tool provider. This was exactly as Congress had intended, and not just in-line with the law, but also with basic common sense and common fairness.

So, as you hear stories being spun about how the safe harbors are somehow problematic, take a step back and understand what they're designed to do. Most of the assumptions being used against the DMCA's safe harbors are misunderstanding their purpose, and assuming that the point of the DMCA itself is to give near total control to copyright holders (never an intention of copyright law at any time in history). Instead, the safe harbors were to make sure that liability was applied properly: on those doing the actual infringing. Those complaining about the safe harbors seem to wish for a world where liability is applied to the easiest target, rather than the accurate target. Thankfully, Congress knew better than to allow that to happen.

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eldavojohn writes "In 2008, static analysis company Coverity analyzed security issues in open source applications. Their recent study of 11.5 billion lines of open source code reveal that between 2006 and 2009 static analysis defect density is down in open source. The numbers say that open source defects have dropped from one in 3,333 lines of code to one in 4,000 lines of code. If you enter some basic information, you can get the complimentary report that has more analysis and puts three projects at the top tier in quality of the 280 open source projects: Samba, tor, OpenPAM, and Ruby. While Coverity has developed automated error checking for Linux, their static analysis seems to be indifferent toward open source."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The iPhone is so totally not my spiritual soulmate.

I refuse to become dependent on apps grown in their environment. To me it's like contributing to the enslavement of my brother and sister programmers. I don't care how sexy the environment is as a user or a developer, the fact that Apple holds up apps and rejects them often because they compete with their own software is to me like buying a coat made of the skins of endangered species. I won't use iPhone apps for ecological reasons.

I use my iPhone as a: 1. Phone. 2: Camera that can communicate (very valuable feature to me). 3. A Bluetooth tethering device for places my Sprint MiFi doesn't work (and that's a lot of places).

For that I pay about $100 per month. I think I'm being ripped off. (Sure of it.)

Okay Scripting News readers -- tell me I'm crazy but I want a divorce. Enough of this bullshit.

But I need a phone that does 1, 2 and 3.

What will I fall in love with?

PS: I have my contacts in GMail. Must be able to synch with them. One of my favorite iPhone features.

PPS: I never use it as an iPod. I prefer my Walkman.

Need to keep your tech books from falling over? Lenore over at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has the perfect project for you: DIY geek bookends! Her solution employs two bricks that are wrapped in paper, and uses Dirac notation to explain the complex state of your bookshelf.

[vi biphenyl]

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We've talked about the popularity of moral panics for any new kind of technology, and shown how various reports of new technologies somehow being "bad" are almost always unfounded and over exaggerated. Claims of pretty much every modern technology somehow making us dumber are almost never supported by the facts, but still, you get people just trying to drum up book sales telling us that Google makes us dumber by encouraging people not to read as much -- when actual evidence shows people are reading more long-form works.

It appears there's a recent book out, A Better Pencil, by Dennis Baron, that explores how these same fears and totally unsubstantiated moral panics seem to have come about with pretty much every new communications platform out there. Baron recently did an interview with Salon, where he pointed out that these same sorts of fears go back all the way to Plato:

I start with Plato's critique of writing where he says that if we depend on writing, we will lose the ability to remember things. Our memory will become weak. And he also criticizes writing because the written text is not interactive in the way spoken communication is. He also says that written words are essentially shadows of the things they represent. They're not the thing itself. Of course we remember all this because Plato wrote it down -- the ultimate irony.

We hear a thousand objections of this sort throughout history: Thoreau objecting to the telegraph, because even though it speeds things up, people won't have anything to say to one another. Then we have Samuel Morse, who invents the telegraph, objecting to the telephone because nothing important is ever going to be done over the telephone because there's no way to preserve or record a phone conversation. There were complaints about typewriters making writing too mechanical, too distant -- it disconnects the author from the words. That a pen and pencil connects you more directly with the page. And then with the computer, you have the whole range of "this is going to revolutionize everything" versus "this is going to destroy everything."

So, forgive me for being skeptical about each new fear about each new communications technology that comes about. For all the cries of "but this time, it's different," it's the same exact story we've seen pretty much throughout history. The technology makes it easier to communicate, and those who benefited from the older restrictions get most afraid of what the new technologies allow. Often, it just seems to be a fear that there will be more competition and more innovation, and the old-timers are afraid they're not equipped or able to keep up.

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Raindeer writes "Commercial DNS software provider Nominum, in an effort to promote its new cloud-based DNS service, SKYE, has slandered all open source/freeware DNS packages. It said: 'Given all the nasty things that have happened this year, freeware is a recipe for problems, and it's just going to get worse. ... So, whether it's Eircom in Ireland or a Brazilian ISP that was attacked earlier this year, all of them were using some variant of freeware. Freeware is not akin to malware, but is opening up those customers to problems.' This has the DNS community fuming. Especially when you consider that Nominum was one of the companies affected by the DNS cache poisoning problem of last year, something PowerDNS, MaraDNS and DJBDNS (all open source) weren't vulnerable to."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Raindeer writes "Commercial DNS software provider Nominum, in an effort to promote its new cloud-based DNS service, SKYE, has slandered all open source/freeware DNS packages. It said: 'Given all the nasty things that have happened this year, freeware is a recipe for problems, and it's just going to get worse. ... So, whether it's Eircom in Ireland or a Brazilian ISP that was attacked earlier this year, all of them were using some variant of freeware. Freeware is not akin to malware, but is opening up those customers to problems.' This has the DNS community fuming. Especially when you consider that Nominum was one of the companies affected by the DNS cache poisoning problem of last year, something PowerDNS, MaraDNS and DJBDNS (all open source) weren't vulnerable to."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Waze is a free navigation application for GPS-enabled phones that uses data from users to generate turn-by-turn routes and provide other information such as traffic conditions, faulty traffic lights, and accidents. I just downloaded it for my iPhone.

What's most interesting about Waze is how it uses the power of the crowd to build its map database. Just by driving along with the application open, users are contributing data to Waze. Although this does make the service somewhat dependent on building critical mass in order to be successful, the company is confident they can do so. That's because Waze originally launched in Israel and in less than a year's time, they already have 91% of the country mapped. Here in the U.S., that process will obviously take longer, but Waze believes they'll have at least one metropolitan area completed in the next three months - the San Francisco Bay area, of course.

Waze: Free Turn-by-Turn Directions for Mobile Users

Matt_dk writes "A radar instrument on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has essentially looked below the surface of the Red Planet's north-polar ice cap, and found data to confirm theoretical models of Martian climate swings during the past few million years. The new, three-dimensional map using 358 radar observations provides a cross-sectional view of the north-polar layered deposits. 'The radar has been giving us spectacular results,' said Jeffrey Plaut of JPL, a member of the science team for the Shallow Radar instrument. 'We have mapped continuous underground layers in three dimensions across a vast area.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Every other week, MAKE's awesome interns tell about the projects they're building in the Make: Labs, the trouble they've gotten into, and what they'll make next.

By Steven Lemos, engineering intern

For a school project in my AutoCAD class, my group and I decided to design and build a hovercraft. At first we were planning a full-size, ride-on hovercraft, but after meeting and brainstorming it was clear we didn't have enough time to build one. So we decided to build a smaller version, using R/C controls. This was made possible by a friend's surplus supply of assorted R/C airplane parts, including motors, receivers, and controllers.

The hovercraft took one month to design using Autodesk Inventor software, two months to build working mostly on weekends and some school nights -- and 1 afternoon with the MAKE interns to wreck! Check out the video:

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Vigile writes "Few people will doubt that PC gaming is in need of a significant shot in the arm with the consistent encroachment of consoles and their dominating hold on developers. Today AMD is releasing the Radeon HD 5870 graphics card based on the Evergreen-series of GPUs first demonstrated in June. Besides offering best-in-class performance for a single-GPU graphics board, the new card is easily the most power efficient in terms of idle power consumption and performance per watt. Not only that, but AMD has introduced new features that could help keep PC gaming in the spotlight, including the first DirectX 11 implementation and a very impressive multi-monitor gaming technology, Eyefinity, which we discussed earlier this month. The review at PC Perspective includes the full gamut of gaming benchmarks in both single- and dual-GPU configurations as well as videos of Eyefinity running on three 30" displays."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The MAKE interns tested Steven Lemos' wildly fun little R/C hovercraft in the O'Reilly parking lot.

The hovercraft took one month to design using Autodesk Inventor software, two months to build working mostly on weekends and some school nights -- and 1 afternoon with the MAKE interns to wreck!

Intern's Corner: My R/C hovercraft

BB readers may remember the Golden Mean, the incredible snail car that my friends Jon Sarriugarte and Kyrsten Mate made from an old VW Bug. They recently showed off their latest wheeled creation, the "Electrobyte: Sarriugarteis (Odontochile) trilobite." The hand-tooled exoskeleton is mounted on the drive mechanism of an old electric wheelchair. At night, undermounted blue lights give it an otherworldly glow. Jon says, "People would walk up and ask if it was remote controlled. When I pointed out the leather seat and the joy stick they couldn’t believe you could drive it. Lots of smiling faces when we let them try it out." In their, er, spare time, Jon is a blacksmith and Kyrsten is an Oscar-nominated sound effects designer for Hollywood films. Damn, they are a talented pair.

Electrobite at Burning Man
Electrobite set on Flickr

The term "frugalista" is apparently quite popular, such that the word has even been defined by the Oxford English Dictionary. There are a bunch of bloggers who write about "frugal living" who refer to themselves as "frugalistas." It was a nice little community... until a trademark claim entered into the mess. William alerts us to the news that a blogger (who established her blog long after the word was in common usage) has trademarked the term and is having her lawyer send cease-and-desist letters to other bloggers who refer to themselves as frugalistas. A US News reporter asked the woman's lawyer how it could possibly make sense that she could go after people who used the term before her client did, and the lawyer's response was:

"they all have to stop now."

Except... no. That's not quite how trademark works. But, once again, in a society where people think they get to claim ownership of whatever they want, we end up in silly situations like this. Hopefully the threatened bloggers are able to stand up to the bullying frugalista. Who knew that living the frugalista lifestyle included trademark infringement suits?

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Remember the screen printing system from the Boing Boing Video episode Mark and I shot at Maker Faire, the Yudu? Well, I wanted to make t-shirts for my personal blog, TokyoMango, so I went over to my friend Ben's house this past weekend to do a test run on the one he bought at the Faire. The Yudu, it turns out, is a great compact home printing machine as long as you don't have high expectations and are armed with mountains of patience. First, Ben mocked up two versions of his design using Adobe Illustrator, one for dark ink and one for light. We printed these out on a vellum transparency using a regular inkjet printer, then put it aside to dry. It took us several attempts to get a perfectly un-smudged transparency, but we finally got one we could work with. (This obviously is no fault of Yudu — it's either the printer ink or the vellum or the compatibility of the two.) Next step: prepare the screen. We put emulsion on the screen in a darkened room through a wet-and-stick-and-dry process to get it ready for exposure. We wet the screen with a spray bottle and then squeegeed the excess off. Then we put the screen on a drying rack in the Yudu machine. The drying is supposed to take 20 minutes, but we found it took a good hour of manual hairdryer heat in addition to the preset drying cycle. While we waited, we ate pizza and wings and playing Rock Band. In earlier test runs with the Yudu, Ben claimed he had nightmarish troubles getting it to just the right wetness — the tutorials warn against making it too wet, but too dry was the bigger problem for him, leaving parts of the screen patchy and other parts just completely missing the emulsive layer. (Ben: "It was super annoying and I wanted to kill it.") Once the emulsion was completely dry, we burned the transparency onto the screen. We put the vellum transparency with the TokyoMango design on it on the Yudu's glass surface, put the emulsion sheet on top of that, weighted both down with a giant black bin, and then turned on the Yudu's Exposure button for eight minutes. After that, we took the screen downstairs to the utility sink and washed it. The emulsion that wasn't exposed to light simply washed off, the part that was had hardened and stayed put. We hair-dried it once again, and voila! The screen was ready for printing. We placed the prepared screen on top of the Yudu's lid and secured it in place with clear mailing tape, then put the first test t-shirt on the platen (kinda like a t-shirt hanger for the machine) Note: be really careful to gauge the placement of the design on the t-shirts chest area. Just hanging it from the platen yields potential fashion disaster, with the design ending up at the collar bone. Once we were sure everything was in the right place, we closed the top and put a line of ink at the top of the design and then squeegeed the ink over the design with slow, consistent pressure. It worked! Once that was done, we hung it to dry and then set the design in place with a couple minutes of ironing on both sides. We did nine t-shirts of different shapes and colors total; about half of them came out perfectly, and the other half had slight flaws — uneven ink distribution, an oddly positioned design, barely visible color combinations. In conclusion, we had a fun evening of t-shirt making, but it took a long time (five hours!) and would have probably taken even longer had Ben not diligently tested the machine with several other designs of his own in previous weeks. It's a great all-in-one toy for those who don't have professional screen printing aspirations or facilities. However, the machine itself ($300) and the accessories ($10 for a bottle of ink, $22 for the platen, $28 for a single screen, etc.) are expensive, and for the same price one could basically get a starter pro screen printing kit. Also, we only printed single color designs, but the process gets incrementally harder — virtually impossible, in fact &mdash when it comes to multi-color designs, because you have to line up multiple screens perfectly on a not-so-perfect surface. You can see the finished t-shirt designs and order one for yourself here between now and October 5th.

Liam sez, "130 photos from in and around Edward Gorey's home. There was a book published a while back of his home that included a secret room through a small door at the back of a closet that housed his children's book collection that sadly is not in this set."

Edward Gorey Documentary (Thanks, Liam!)

countertrolling writes "A federal judge has ruled that the government failed to adequately assess the environmental impacts of genetically engineered sugar beets before approving the crop for cultivation in the United States. The decision could lead to a ban on the planting of the beets, which have been widely adopted by farmers. Beets supply about half the nation's sugar, with the rest coming from sugar cane. The Agriculture Department did conduct an environmental assessment before approving the genetically engineered beets in 2005 for widespread planting. But the department concluded there would be no significant impact, so a fuller environmental impact statement was not needed. But Judge White said that the pollen from the genetically engineered crops might spread to non-engineered beets. He said that the 'potential elimination of farmer's choice to grow non-genetically engineered crops, or a consumer's choice to eat non-genetically engineered food' constituted a significant effect on the environment that necessitated an environmental impact statement. There's still hope, isn't there? That we can at least get this stuff labeled properly?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sara Johanssons's Sniff toy is finally ready for prime time. This adorable plush dog uses an RFID reader, vibrating motors and Arduino WaveShield to make a really awesome toy with all kinds of fun interactions. The video is oh-so sweet and a must-watch. [via Touch]

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Lomography, distributor of optics from Hong Kong-based Diana has released affordable F+ lens adaptors for Canon EOS and Nikon F-mount DSLRs. These adaptors are compatible with Diana's 50 special-effect lenses. The lenses range from Super-wide, Telephoto, Close-up, and Pin-Hole to a few bravely named optics such as 'NYC Zombie 2007' and 'Hong Meow'. While the adaptors are priced at €12 each, the lenses range from €35 to €50.

I dig this fellow's innovative hair hat. I also like the name "Mr. Hair Hat." (via Dangerous Minds)

This breathtaking place is a former Dominican church that was converted into a new retail location for bookseller Selexyz Dominicanen. The architecture firm was Merkx+Girod. From Design Top News:

The store demanded 1,200 sq m of commercial area where only 750 were available.

The initial idea of the client to install a second floor within the church was rejected by the designers, because this would completely destroy the spatial qualities of the church. The solution was found in the creation of a monumental walk-in bookcase spanning several floors and situated a-symmetrically in the church. In doing so the left side of the church remained empty while on the other side customers are lead upstairs in the three- storey ‘Bookflat.’

The ground floor gives room to several different book displays, information desks, magazine-stands and cash registers, all made of standard sheet materials in different colours and surfaces.

Merkx+Girod Architects: Bookstore Selexyz Dominicanen in Netherlands (Thanks, Lindsay Tiemeyer!)

Last week, the FCC held what was ostensibly a panel discussion about the National Broadband Plan, but which was actually focused on copyright issues. How, exactly, is copyright an issue for broadband? Well, mainly because the entertainment industry has been trying for years to get ISPs to act as copyright cops... and apparently the FCC felt the need to hear them out. While the deck was mostly stacked in favor of the entertainment industry in terms of speakers, thankfully the FCC allowed Gigi Sohn of Public Knowledge to take part as well -- and she questioned whether the FCC even had any mandate over such issues and wondered why the hearing was even being held. However, beyond stacking the deck of speakers, it appears the FCC gave significant other beneficial treatment to entertainment industry speakers.

Paramount's COO, Frederick Huntsberry, not only was given twice the amount of time to speak as the rest of the speakers had (10 minutes, instead of five, as Gigi was told), but also was able to convince the FCC that his talk was "owned" by Paramount, and should not be placed online -- as the FCC has done with all its other hearings. Wow. Yes, this was a public government hearing. Thankfully, the folks at Public Knowledge went through a low quality video of the whole proceeding and pulled out Huntsberry's part, where he not only demonstrates how file sharing works for the FCC, but goes on to implicate plenty of companies as aiding in the process, including Google, Yahoo, eBay, Boxee and others: In the video, he demonstrates using Mininova and Drop.io (which is an amazingly useful site for many things that have absolutely nothing to do with unauthorized file sharing -- and is now being unfairly tarred by Paramount). There isn't really anything surprising in the video. He basically shows what everyone knows: it's easy to share files these days. But he seems to miss the point of that. That is, he wants the gov't to come in and try to stop this (an impossibility), rather than recognizing that it's time for him to shift his business model. Yes, distribution is cheap and easy these days. In most businesses when distribution becomes cheaper and easier, that's a good thing. Why is it that Hollywood top execs still can't figure out how to take advantage of it?

Mehan Jayasuriya points out the many problems with the way the FCC handled this whole event:

• Any presentation delivered at a public government hearing should be made available to the general public in a convenient format. Not everyone is able to travel to Washington D.C. for hearings and those who cannot should not be excluded--rather, they should be encouraged to participate in the debate. The mission statement on the Commission's new Broadband.gov site seems to agree: "A great way to create a connected America is to involve all Americans in the development of a National Broadband Plan. The FCC welcomes civic participation, and we look forward to more interaction through this website." If Paramount was concerned that its video would encourage "piracy," then the company should not have presented it at a public hearing. It's as simple as that.
• All of the other presentation materials for all of the other workshops are available on the FCC's website, so that citizens can download, read, comment on, reference and critique them. Why should Paramount's statement be treated any differently?
• During the presentation, Huntsberry seems to suggest that a number of legitimate technology companies, including Drop.io, Twitter, Google, Facebook, Apple, Boxee, Sony, LG, Yahoo!, PayPal and Rapidshare, are arguably acting to enable or encourage unlawful filesharing. These companies and the users of their products should have an opportunity to respond to this allegation.
• In the beginning of the clip, Huntsberry walks us through a timeline of when various camcorded copies of Star Trek were leaked to the Internet. This timeline provides a great example of how widespread the problem of camcording is, though it's worth noting that camcording is already illegal in most U.S. States and has little relevance in the context of this workshop (it's also worth noting that Star Trek made over $200 million at the box office regardless of the fact that camcorded copies were available within hours of its theatrical release). This evidence that films are commonly pirated while still in theaters undermines many of the arguments made by the studios in the FCC's Selectable Output Control proceeding (i.e. "We need to be granted the power to shut off outputs on the back of your A/V gear, otherwise you will unlawfully copy the films that we broadcast via cable").

Not only did the FCC treat Paramount's presentation with kid gloves, the agency also treated the Hollywood execs preferentially throughout the course of the workshop. Upon entering the room where the workshop was held, attendees were greeted by a massive vinyl banner--presumably belonging to Paramount--on which the aforementioned Star Trek timeline was printed. While I appreciate the fact that a visual aid can be helpful, I can't help but feel like a PDF file submitted to the record would have sufficed.

But that's not all. Though these workshops were technically less procedural in nature than a formal hearing would be, MPAA Chairman and CEO Dan Glickman was repeatedly allowed to call his technical expert, MovieLabs CEO Steve Weinstein, up to the stand to chime in with additional comments--even though nothing he said was actually technical in nature. The Commission allowed Glickman to do this so many times that Weinstein also started calling others from the audience up to the stand, including Disney Executive Vice President Preston Padden and Disney Vice President Troy D. Dow. Perhaps I'm being overly cynical but I doubt that the Commission would have allowed any of the other panelists to engage in this kind of behavior.

And, again, uh.... what does copyright have to do with broadband policy in the first place? And where is it in the FCC's mandate that it has any say in copyright policy?

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We're seeing an increasing number of posts on our forums expressing confusion about ISO and asking why we don't test cameras based on their 'true' ISO values. So we've just posted the first of a two-part explanation of ISO, what it means, the role it plays in photography and how apparent discrepancies in reported values can occur.

D1gital_Prob3 tips news that Activision's recently-released shooter, Wolfenstein, is being recalled in Germany due to the appearance of swastikas in the game. Such symbols are banned in Germany, and the German version of the game went through heavy editing to remove them. Apparently, they missed some. Activision said, "Although it is not a conspicuous element in the normal game ... we have decided to take this game immediately from the German market." Reader eldavojohn points out a review that has screenshot comparisons between the two versions of the game.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Miracle Jones writes "The Google Books settlement has been removed from consideration by Google and the Authors Guild after the DoJ made it crystal clear that the settlement would not be ratified 'as is' due to foreign rights, privacy, and antitrust reasons. The October 7th 'fairness hearing' has been canceled, and the next step is a November 6th 'status hearing' where the plaintiffs will reveal changes to the new settlement, such as how they plan to make it more fair, legal, and inclusive, and whether or not they will need to notify all the members of the class action lawsuit (7 million writers or so) yet again as a result of the changes. Some people are very happy about this."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Spotted this sexy commercial electric bicycle in a back issue of Popular Science at the barber shop today. It's called Pi, and the company that makes it is based out of San Francisco. The magazine article claims it uses a Nu Vinci continuously-variable transmission but the official company specs now only mention a Shimano 8-speed. Sounds like they're still working out the kinks. Something to keep an eye on, though.

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These cufflinks are working lighters -- just in case you ever want to use your sleeves to ignite something. The webstore bills them as "vintage" though it's not clear to me whether they are "vintage-shaped" or, you know, old.

Vintage Lighter Cufflinks (Thanks, Tim!)

street tests from Najork on Vimeo.

(Via Dose Nation)

BB code hacker Dean Putney spotted this wonderful site "Inside Bill Moorier's Head" in which Moorier created an interactive viewer of his own MRI data. From the site:

In September 2009 my doctor recommended an MRI to rule-out a couple of potential conditions. The scan came back completely normal, which was a great relief! As a kind of cathartic exercise, and inspired by Dustin Curtis's brain tour I decided to do something with the images. I spent most of a fun weekend writing this MRI explorer. I hope you enjoy playing with it!

Inside Bill Moorier's Brain

Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

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Adam Shecter makes whimsical, clever, stupid, pretty little blips of cartoons. He's been doing it for a while and has slowly amassed a fantastic Saturday Morning Cartoon broadcast from another planet. Have a look!

Adam's website (link)

Germans! Adam Shecter is exhibiting right now at the Bielefelder Kunstverein (link). UPDATE: New Yorkers! Adam is also exhibiting right now at Eleven Rivington (link).

Now this should be deeply weird... BB pal Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and Visionary State, wrote the libretto for a rock opera about Burning Man. "How to Survive the Apocalypse: A Burning Opera" will be staged at the Teatro ZinZanni cabaret and circus tent on San Francisco's waterfront October 5-7 and 12-14. Here's what Erik says about the opera:

Designed to communicate the transformational madness of the playa to the "Burning curious" as well as the experienced (or jaded) playa faithful, "How to Survive the Apocalyse" follows three newbies as they stumble through the erotic, psychological, and visionary minefield of the festival. Scored by Mark Nichols, with libretto by yours truly (who also plays a wise-cracking bunny with a bullhorn), the show is appropriate both for Burning Man veterans looking for a familiar boost, and for anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to enjoy the Burner mystique without the dust and brain-bubbling sun. Bring your neighbor, your Mom, your co-workers: all those folks in your life who've been wondering what you're up to every August but aren't willing to trek to Nevada to find out.

And from the opera Web site:

“How to Survive the Apocalypse” is a Burning Man-inspired theatrical freak-out that combines rock opera, vaudeville, and a Dionysian revival show that is just as inspired and terrified by current events as you are. Part mutant mystery play, part crash-course in proactive future culture, we welcome you to an ambitious and ferociously inventive radically-altered evening of musical theater,  scored by Mark Nichols with libretto by counterculture writer Erik Davis.  Prepare to Participate!

How To Survive The Apocalypse

Now this should be deeply weird... BB pal Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and Visionary State, wrote the libretto for a rock opera about Burning Man. "How to Survive the Apocalypse: A Burning Opera" will be staged at the Teatro ZinZanni cabaret and circus tent on San Francisco's waterfront October 5-7 and 12-14. Here's what Erik says about the opera:

Designed to communicate the transformational madness of the playa to the "Burning curious" as well as the experienced (or jaded) playa faithful, "How to Survive the Apocalyse" follows three newbies as they stumble through the erotic, psychological, and visionary minefield of the festival. Scored by Mark Nichols, with libretto by yours truly (who also plays a wise-cracking bunny with a bullhorn), the show is appropriate both for Burning Man veterans looking for a familiar boost, and for anyone who has ever wondered what it would be like to enjoy the Burner mystique without the dust and brain-bubbling sun. Bring your neighbor, your Mom, your co-workers: all those folks in your life who've been wondering what you're up to every August but aren't willing to trek to Nevada to find out.

And from the opera Web site:

“How to Survive the Apocalypse” is a Burning Man-inspired theatrical freak-out that combines rock opera, vaudeville, and a Dionysian revival show that is just as inspired and terrified by current events as you are. Part mutant mystery play, part crash-course in proactive future culture, we welcome you to an ambitious and ferociously inventive radically-altered evening of musical theater,  scored by Mark Nichols with libretto by counterculture writer Erik Davis.  Prepare to Participate!

How To Survive The Apocalypse

Thanks to Frank and Save vs. Death for uncovering this high quality video of Paul Revere & The Raiders performing "Him or Me." As Frank writes, "It's a mistake to categorize them as bubble gum- despite the gimmicky costumes and choreographed dance moves- their songs have a lot of proto garage/ hard rock rumble to them."

Paul Revere & the Raiders - "Him or Me"

Thanks to Frank and Save vs. Death for uncovering this high quality video of Paul Revere & The Raiders performing "Him or Me." As Frank writes, "It's a mistake to categorize them as bubble gum- despite the gimmicky costumes and choreographed dance moves- their songs have a lot of proto garage/ hard rock rumble to them."

Paul Revere & the Raiders - "Him or Me"

rbanffy points out an article on Gizmodo about Courier, a tablet (or more accurately, a booklet) in development at Microsoft. "The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre." A concept video shows off the ability to use the two different screens for separate purposes, like browsing the web or a photo album on the left and using the right as a notepad or workspace.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

rbanffy points out an article on Gizmodo about Courier, a tablet (or more accurately, a booklet) in development at Microsoft. "The dual 7-inch (or so) screens are multitouch, and designed for writing, flicking and drawing with a stylus, in addition to fingers. They're connected by a hinge that holds a single iPhone-esque home button. Statuses, like wireless signal and battery life, are displayed along the rim of one of the screens. On the back cover is a camera, and it might charge through an inductive pad, like the Palm Touchstone charging dock for Pre." A concept video shows off the ability to use the two different screens for separate purposes, like browsing the web or a photo album on the left and using the right as a notepad or workspace.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This amazing image shows the apocalyptic look of Sydney, Australia this morning due to a massive storm of red dust. (Click image to see Hooper's full photo.) From ABC News Australia:

The dust reduced visibility across the city and large parts of the state, with callers to ABC Radio saying the scene looked like something from the end of the world...

Karen from Dulwich Hill, in Sydney's inner west, says she woke up to find the red dust had covered her floors and birds had been blown out of their nests.

"It did feel like Armageddon because when I was in the kitchen looking out the skylight, there was this red, red glow coming through," she said.

Dust storm chokes Sydney

This amazing image shows the apocalyptic look of Sydney, Australia this morning due to a massive storm of red dust. (Click image to see Hooper's full photo.) From ABC News Australia:

The dust reduced visibility across the city and large parts of the state, with callers to ABC Radio saying the scene looked like something from the end of the world...

Karen from Dulwich Hill, in Sydney's inner west, says she woke up to find the red dust had covered her floors and birds had been blown out of their nests.

"It did feel like Armageddon because when I was in the kitchen looking out the skylight, there was this red, red glow coming through," she said.

Dust storm chokes Sydney

While I'm sure defenders of kicking people off the internet will quibble with the numbers, ISPs are pointing out that the cost of implementing Lord Mandelson's plan to have ISPs police the internet for file sharing, will cost the industry significantly more than the music industry claims it's losing to "piracy." Even if you accept that the ISPs may be exaggerating the cost, we already know for a fact that BPI massively exaggerates its loss numbers. So if you cut back the ISP estimates significantly, the overall cost is still likely to be much higher. Meanwhile, we're still waiting for anyone to explain how kicking people off the internet gets more people to buy stuff. It's difficult to see how anyone could support this plan if they've actually put more than two seconds into thinking about it.

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While I'm sure defenders of kicking people off the internet will quibble with the numbers, ISPs are pointing out that the cost of implementing Lord Mandelson's plan to have ISPs police the internet for file sharing, will cost the industry significantly more than the music industry claims it's losing to "piracy." Even if you accept that the ISPs may be exaggerating the cost, we already know for a fact that BPI massively exaggerates its loss numbers. So if you cut back the ISP estimates significantly, the overall cost is still likely to be much higher. Meanwhile, we're still waiting for anyone to explain how kicking people off the internet gets more people to buy stuff. It's difficult to see how anyone could support this plan if they've actually put more than two seconds into thinking about it.

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Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

The best part of making 500 Pound Planet was that it turned life into a big scavenger hunt. Our mashup style let us animate using clay, stop motion puppets, photo montage- anything! In this chapter, we actually manipulated a piece of raw chicken.

As a result, wherever we went we were always collecting material. We drove from Montreal to New Orleans and sifted through dozens of thrift stores along the way, two grown men searching for Barbie clothes. Josh voraciously photographed Montreal for our backgrounds (much of what he captured is now gone). Even conversations were useful- we'd secretly record our friends talking and then beg them to let us "sample" the best parts in our cartoon.

Previously:

500 Pound Planet: Prelude (link)

500 Pound Planet: Chapter One (link)

Alexis Belonio is an associate professor in agricultural engineering at the Central Philippine University of Iloilo City. In 2008 he received a Rolex Award for Enterprise for a rice-husk-burning stove he designed. Belonio's stove is not complicated, either mechanically or conceptually: A columnar metal burner with the addition of a small intake fan at the base to tip the stoichiometry of combustion towards oxidation, giving a blue, clean, efficient flame that leaves little or no residue. Traditional rice husk burners, by contrast, do not have this forced-air feature and produce a yellow, dirty, inefficient flame that leaves tar behind. The upshot is more efficient use of rice husk biomass and greatly reduced pollution from the many rice-husk burners in use today.

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Harvard's George M. Whitesides has the highest Hirsch index of any living chemist, which makes him arguably the most significant in the world. The Hirsch or h-index is a kind of weighted score based on a numerical analysis of a scientist's published work which factors in both the number of papers and the number of citations those papers receive by other authors.

Back in October of 2008, Whitesides, et. al. published a paper in the Royal Society of Chemistry's journal Lab on a Chip that describes a technique for separating blood plasma for use in various immunoassays using a piece of plastic tubing taped to an eggbeater. The method can replace a $400 bench centrifuge for many purposes.

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Jesse Brown, a BoingBoing guest blogger, is the host of TVO's Search Engine podcast.

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Adam Shecter makes whimsical, clever, stupid, pretty little blips of cartoons. He's been doing it for a while and has slowly amassed a fantastic Saturday Morning Cartoon broadcast from another planet. Have a look!

Adam's website (link)

Germans! Adam Shecter is exhibiting right now at the Bielefelder Kunstverein (link).

CWmike writes "They aren't selling personal supercomputers at Best Buy just yet. But that day probably isn't too far off, as the costs continue to fall and supercomputers become easier to use. Silicon Graphics International on Monday released its first so-called personal supercomputer. The new Octane III system is priced from $7,995 with one Xeon 5500 processor. The system can be expanded to an 80-core system with a capacity of up to 960GB of memory. This new supercomputer's peak performance of about 726 GFLOPS won't put it on the Top 500 supercomputer list, but that's not the point of the machine, SGI says. A key feature instead is the system's ease of use."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CWmike writes "They aren't selling personal supercomputers at Best Buy just yet. But that day probably isn't too far off, as the costs continue to fall and supercomputers become easier to use. Silicon Graphics International on Monday released its first so-called personal supercomputer. The new Octane III system is priced from $7,995 with one Xeon 5500 processor. The system can be expanded to an 80-core system with a capacity of up to 960GB of memory. This new supercomputer's peak performance of about 726 GFLOPS won't put it on the Top 500 supercomputer list, but that's not the point of the machine, SGI says. A key feature instead is the system's ease of use."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Lovely hard drive clock. Unfortunately, the text is all in Polish, but you can derive a lot of the details from the hi-res images.

HDDClock [via BB Gadgets]

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darien writes "Intel has officially entered the smartphone fight, giving a bullish demonstration at IDF of an Atom-based phone running the latest incarnation of its mobile Linux-based OS, dubbed Moblin for MIDs (mobile internet devices) v2.1. The system isn't aimed at current Atom CPUs, though — they're too power-hungry. 'One of the drivers of this initiative, and a key reason for the acquisition of Wind River, will be Intel's own app store, catering to ultra mobile devices based on the Atom chipset. The Intel Atom Developer Program will make use of Wind River's VxWorks product, which the company believes will help it achieve that developer grail of the 'write once and run on all devices' experience."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A new feature makes it easy to share links to stories from the River2 news page to followers on Twitter.

http://newsriver.org/r2ly.html

It also maintains a Top 40 list for River2 users.

This itself a bootstrap since one of the key ingredients to this feature are the people using it. Just the right number and the right kind (thoughtful) are needed. The result can be an editorial product in its own right. And the first experiences will probably suggest the second and third level of features.

Bootstrapping is for users too. In fact at some point, without users participating, the bootstrap stops. You have to wait until they show up, or keep trying to figure out what it will take to entice them to participate.

I realized something yesterday, that bootstrapping is hard because you have to use things that don't exist yet.

I often use bridges as metaphors to describe bootstraps in software. Here goes..

People hardly notice driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, they might notice the scenery, or the walkers or bike riders, or think about the oncoming traffic. But one day, a long time ago, someone stood on one side or the other -- in San Francisco or Marin -- and looked at the Golden Gate (which was the waterway before it was the bridge) and thought "I bet we could put a bridge here." Nice thought, but then what? What's the first step? And when that doesn't work, what's the next first step? Long before there's a bridge, someone has to make the trip in a bucket hanging from a cable. Today, River2 users are those kinds of people.

I've been having an on-and-off discussion with Marshall about this. He's been frustrated by the software. I understand. But I need people like him to struggle through it, tell me what went wrong, so I can try to fix it, and then tell me if it worked. The rewards mostly come from within, to know that you played a role in making something new happen. In this case it will be a distributed loosely-coupled 140-character message network that is free from YWFFTMMR. And there might be business opportunities to provide services to users. No one's saying you can't get rich. But it has to be fair, and people should always have lots of choice.

One more note -- it's taking a long time for the domain I'll use, r2.ly, to come through the registration process. So to begin with we'll use a teamrss.com domain to share links. If you see one of these on Twitter it's coming from this part of River2.

A new feature makes it easy to share links to stories from the River2 news page to followers on Twitter.

http://newsriver.org/r2ly.html

It also maintains a Top 40 list for River2 users.

This itself a bootstrap since one of the key ingredients to this feature are the people using it. Just the right number and the right kind (thoughtful) are needed. The result can be an editorial product in its own right. And the first experiences will probably suggest the second and third level of features.

Bootstrapping is for users too. In fact at some point, without users participating, the bootstrap stops. You have to wait until they show up, or keep trying to figure out what it will take to entice them to participate.

I realized something yesterday, that bootstrapping is hard because you have to use things that don't exist yet.

I often use bridges as metaphors to describe bootstraps in software. Here goes..

People hardly notice driving across the Golden Gate Bridge, they might notice the scenery, or the walkers or bike riders, or think about the oncoming traffic. But one day, a long time ago, someone stood on one side or the other -- in San Francisco or Marin -- and looked at the Golden Gate (which was the waterway before it was the bridge) and thought "I bet we could put a bridge here." Nice thought, but then what? What's the first step? And when that doesn't work, what's the next first step? Long before there's a bridge, someone has to make the trip in a bucket hanging from a cable. Today, River2 users are those kinds of people.

I've been having an on-and-off discussion with Marshall about this. He's been frustrated by the software. I understand. But I need people like him to struggle through it, tell me what went wrong, so I can try to fix it, and then tell me if it worked. The rewards mostly come from within, to know that you played a role in making something new happen. In this case it will be a distributed loosely-coupled 140-character message network that is free from YWFFTMMR. And there might be business opportunities to provide services to users. No one's saying you can't get rich. But it has to be fair, and people should always have lots of choice.

One more note -- it's taking a long time for the domain I'll use, r2.ly, to come through the registration process. So to begin with we'll use a teamrss.com domain to share links. If you see one of these on Twitter it's coming from this part of River2.

Slashdot points us to the news that the police chief in Austin Texas is so upset about anonymous commenters, or commenters pretending to be police officers, on various internet websites that he's going to start going after them. His complaint? Those comments "erode public trust in the [police] department." Funny, I would think that wasting public resources going after a bunch of random internet commenters rather than focusing on actual crime prevention and solving would do a lot more to erode the public trust in the police department.

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Slashdot points us to the news that the police chief in Austin Texas is so upset about anonymous commenters, or commenters pretending to be police officers, on various internet websites that he's going to start going after them. His complaint? Those comments "erode public trust in the [police] department." Funny, I would think that wasting public resources going after a bunch of random internet commenters rather than focusing on actual crime prevention and solving would do a lot more to erode the public trust in the police department.

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An anonymous reader writes "The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaints that Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement by preventing the Pre from syncing with iTunes. It's found in favor of Apple. Worse, it's accused Palm itself of violating the Membership Agreement by using Apple's Vendor ID number to disguise the Pre as an Apple device."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "The USB Implementers Forum has finally responded to Palm's complaints that Apple is violating its USB-IF Membership Agreement by preventing the Pre from syncing with iTunes. It's found in favor of Apple. Worse, it's accused Palm itself of violating the Membership Agreement by using Apple's Vendor ID number to disguise the Pre as an Apple device."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Tokyo-based Ubiquitous Entertainment has built the iPhone ARider, a portable head-mounted navigation prototype. It attaches to a standard bike helmet and is capable of delivering visuals via a Scalar Corporation T3-A retractable HMD. With the glut of AR apps hitting the market you'll likely see a lot more HMD projects showing up in the near future. If you know of or are working on an AR physical computing project and would like to share, please leave a comment.

21th Century "Chonmage" ARider [via zikkir]

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Flickr member Leviathan34 is the winner of the MAKEcation: Teach Your Family to Solder challenge! A teen, he was the only entrant who actually taught his entire family. He and his mother, father, sister, and little brother all worked on a Joule thief.

We asked our Solder Challenge Camp Counselor Dave Hrynkiw to choose the winner. Here's what he said:

Leviathan34's your winner. Extra geek cred for the Altoids fume extractor. But they lose equal points for no safety glasses. But he gains 'em back for soldering with a cast on his hand. Plus, he does have glasses. But the little kid doesn't. Added up, it's still positive geek cred points. His Flickr set is pretty impressive, too.

[Folks, PLEASE wear safety glasses when soldering. Solder does sputter and it's molten alloy. It BURNS! That whole "poke your eye out" part of our MAKE motto -- that's exaggeration for effect, that's humor. We don't actually want you to lose an eye. Safety glasses are cheap. Buy 'em, wear 'em.]

Leviathan34 and his family win a $100 Gift Certificate to the Maker Shed. Congrats. Email me your address (my email link is in the Make: Online Authors box on the right rail of this page).

We also have five runners up:

the_goodbooks
(Caleb documents building a Proto Shield, from watching the tutorial on Make: Online to finishing the shield. Nice work, Caleb!)

tbeckett
(His son Kidrocket made a Wee Blinky and Lux Spectralis and he wore safety glasses.)

Trebonius
(Ben Tobin taught his little brother Nick how to solder and he made a Beetlebot... that worked!)

cincimakers
(Lucas takes the prize for this being his second soldering project, building a Drawdio - his first was a mini guitar amp he made for his grandmother. And he's wearing safety glasses.)

Irish Robotics Club
(Dave said we had to give it to them 'cause they're teaching grannies how to solder.)

That's our five. You all get a Maker's Notebook and a copy of either The Best of MAKE or The Best of Instructables. Send your name, address, and which Best of you prefer.

I'd also like to go ahead and give the same prizes to our two other soldering contestants: Digrat and JosiahRitchie. You all did a great job too! Congrats to all.

See all the MAKEcation photos here

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Google has announced version 3.5 of Picasa, its free image-editing software program. The latest version features improved tagging and import options and enhanced geo-tagging with integration of Google Maps. In addition, the company has also launched a Mac version of the software including most of the features of its PC version.

Google has announced version 3.5 of Picasa, its free image-editing software program. The latest version features improved tagging and import options and enhanced geo-tagging with integration of Google Maps. In addition, the company has also launched a Mac version of the software including most of the features of its PC version.

If you're needing inspiration for your haunted house this year, you need look no further than this video by Terra of HalloweenForum.com showing the highlights of her visit to the 2009 annual TransWorld Halloween & Attractions Show. My personal faves include a door that dents inward as an ax murderer apparently chops on it from the other side, a struggling victim chained in a box full of water, and giant vampire bats that swoop down from the ceiling.

Make: Halloween Contest 2009

Microchip Technology Inc. and MAKE have teamed up to present to you the Make: Halloween Contest 2009! Show us your embedded microcontroller Halloween projects and you could be chosen as a winner.

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We've been pointing this out for ages, but a new survey once again confirms that very few people would be willing to pay for news content online. In this case, only 5% said they'd pay for their newspaper if it put up a paywall, with most saying they'd find free alternatives instead. And, I'd argue (as I have before) that even that 5% is quite high. It's a survey, meaning that it's what people say they would do, rather than what they'd actually do. That means, you can probably lop off at least 50% of that 5%. At least. And yet, industry folks still think that 15% will pay? Good luck...

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If you've always wondered how AES -- the Advanced Encryption Standard, the gold-standard for crypto -- works, and if you enjoy explanations in stick-figure cartoon form, you are in luck, for Moserware's "A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)" is funny, lucid and fascinating.

Moserware: A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) (via Links)

If you've always wondered how AES -- the Advanced Encryption Standard, the gold-standard for crypto -- works, and if you enjoy explanations in stick-figure cartoon form, you are in luck, for Moserware's "A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES)" is funny, lucid and fascinating.

Moserware: A Stick Figure Guide to the Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) (via Links)

MAKE subscriber Dennis writes in about his hand-made LED clock with motor-actuated defocusing of the digits. Check out his site for a lot more pictures and information about this project, including the CNC machining of the custom aluminum enclosure.

In front of the DRO is an array of lenses that allow for defocusing of the digits as they are shifted by the motor. This creates an unusual effect that can be implemented as desired in the programing. At this time the effect is randomized over the course of a single minute. The electronics clock is a real-time clock w/ battery so that when power is lost the time is retained.

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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pickens writes "Dan Berry writes in the NY Times that the State of Alabama is spending millions of dollars in federal stimulus money to combat Cogongrass, a.k.a. the perfect weed, the killer weed, and the weed from another continent. A weed that 'evokes those old science-fiction movies in which clueless citizens ignore reports of an alien invasion.' Cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) is considered one of the 10 worst weeds in the world. 'It can take over fields and forests, ruining crops, destroying native plants, upsetting the ecosystem,' writes Berry. 'It is very difficult to kill. It burns extremely hot. And its serrated leaves and grainy composition mean that animals with even the most indiscriminate palates — goats, for example — say no thanks.' Alabama's overall strategy is to draw a line across the state at Highway 80 and eradicate everything north of it; then, in phases, to try to control it to the south. But the weed is so resilient that you can't kill it with one application of herbicide, you have to return several months later and do it again. 'People think this is just a grass,' says forester Stephen Pecot. 'They don't understand that cogongrass can replace an entire ecosystem.' Left unchecked, Pecot says 'it could spread all the way to Michigan.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

17 year old Phan Van Mam 19 year old Vu Van Thang is a prizewinning Vietnamese roboticist who builds beautiful working junkbots from household trash:

- Vu Van Thang, 19, from Thai Binh province has won one of the five top prizes at the National Creativeness Competition for Children and Youth 2009 for his robot made entirely from items found in the trash.

Recycled robot wins top honor (Thanks, Samiksha!)

The circuit for this Arduino based guitar looper is fairly simple. Keep in mind the Arduino is only one small part of this build. The guts of this project is a patch for Pure Data which does all the audio crunching. via Arduino.cc

Here's how to make a little pedal for electric guitar. The idea is to connect the Arduino pedals, and using software to control sound processing, we made ourselves with Pure Data. Here I show you an example of a looper, but it can also be a rack of effects without problem.

In the Maker Shed:


Make: Arduino

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Adobe has released version 8 of its Photoshop Elements image-editing software. Both the Windows and Mac versions see the addition of functions such as 'Adobe Photomerge' Exposure, Recompose and Quick Fix previews. Automated analysis tools can be used to add tags and identify people in your images for easy organization. Priced at US $99.99 and £75.82 in the UK, this latest release is now available for Windows, with a Mac version to follow soon.

How quickly people forget. With the FCC's announcement about support for net neutrality legislation the PR and lobbying machines of the major telco and cable providers have cranked up, putting out all sorts of fear mongering letters and reports about the damage such a law will do. There was one interesting exception. Some noticed that wireless broadband provider Clearwire appeared to support the FCC's position (though, I'd argue that the statement's wording is a bit vague). While the article at Moconews suggests this "isn't surprising," I'm wondering how everyone seems to have forgotten that Clearwire, in the past, was one of the most aggressive broadband providers to support a non neutral network. A few years back, it was blocking VoIP and streaming media and proudly promised to block any type of traffic or application it didn't like. It also tried to get VoIP providers to get "certified" before promising they could work on Clearwire's network. Of course, plenty can change in a few years, but it's quite noteworthy that Clearwire may have changed its tune on net neutrality entirely.

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An anonymous reader writes "Music DRM might not be as dead as previously thought. InformationWeek reports that Microsoft has been awarded a digital-rights management patent for a distributed DRM system that works over peer-to-peer networks and uses encrypted public and private keys as the licensing mechanism. The author claims that patent number 7,594,275, entitled simply 'Digital rights management system,' is significant because, while centralized music stores like iTunes don't use DRM anymore, the Microsoft patent makes it possible that peer-to-peer networks could reemerge in the future as a viable, albeit protected, source of content."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

AdAge has a long article trying to puzzle out why Apple potentially "sacrificed iTunes" in approving Spotify's streaming music app. Oddly, while the article touches on a few of the reasons, I don't think it clearly highlights what seems like the most obvious reasons:

1. As we noted when the app was approved, Apple appears to be somewhat gunshy, following the FCC inquiry into why it "blocked" Google Voice on the iPhone (and, yes, Apple still insists it didn't actually block the app, but Google says otherwise). Given the scrutiny, Apple probably realized that it was in for some serious political trouble if it blocked an app like Spotify, which would have received a lot of press attention. Oddly, the AdAge article doesn't mention this at all.
2. Apple has always viewed iTunes as something of a loss leader to help it sell more iPods and iPhones. If someone else can help sell more of the devices, then more power to them. Though, the fear, of course, is that something like Spotify works on other devices too.
3. But this brings up the final reason: I would bet that the folks at Apple are pretty damn sure that they can outlast and out-innovate Spotify. Spotify hasn't shown much ability to make money, and while it has become a press darling as a music app, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Apple's quietly been working on its own version of a Spotify-like offering built directly into iTunes. And, given Apple's standard operating procedure, if that's the case, there's a good chance that the Spotify-like iTunes will be even better than Spotify itself.

So, I don't think it's that confusing why Apple approved Spotify (and Rhapsody). I'd argue that the first reason was the biggest driver. Without the FCC investigation, it wouldn't have shocked me if Apple had denied the app if only to buy itself time. But, I would expect that sooner or later, Apple will come out with its own streaming version of iTunes with very strong integration into the iPhone, and suddenly Spotify won't look quite as interesting.

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MMO fans may recall news from last year when a treadmill was hooked into World of Warcraft so players could run in real life to make their characters run, getting exercise while playing. Now, with the release of Aion, which features characters with wings, the makers of the Robopult decided to take it a step further. Reader wintersynth writes "We hooked a treadmill and Wiimotes through BlueTooth and GlovePIE to Aion so we could take advantage of the run/fly sequences and get fit while we play the game. It's kind of like interval training, which is supposed to burn more fat and be better for cardio. It's too tough to play this way all the time, but for a quest a day, it might be perfect."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I know nothing about this R2D2 cooler-mod, except that it seems to consist of 8 retro game consoles shoehorned in glorious higgeldy-piggeldy into R2, with a projector.

Incredible R2D2 Hack has 8 Consoles + Projector (Thanks, Dan!)

Gabe sez, "ASCIIpOrtal uses portals (in the style of Valve software's game) in a 2D ASCII-character setting. An early video was featured on BB a few months ago. And now, it's been released. I've done a big 2 part interview with the creator, where he discusses bug-finding, "trumpet voiced" sarcastic computers, and the possibility of a user-voted system for finding cool homemade maps."

What was the most difficult thing to get right?

I've never made a game like this, so every step had its own challenges. I spent so long thinking about things before I even wrote 1 line of code.. that the "getting it right" was done before I started. I think the hardest part, was making a whole framework... so I could add a new thing to the game without having to rewrite everything. I had to rewrite the main movement algorithms twice and I still don't think I have it's right.

ASCIIpOrtal

Here it is: ASCIIpOrtal Launch-day interview - part 1

Matt Jones, creator of many useful ideas including warchalking, has a wonderfully titled and fascinating essay up on IO9: "The City Is A Battlesuit For Surviving The Future," that examines the futures of cities that respond in realtime to their inhabitants.

Which leads me back to science-fiction. Warren Ellis created a character called Jack Hawksmoor in his superhero comic series The Authority.

The surname is a nice nod toward psychogeography and city-fans: Hawksmoor was an architect and progeny of Sir Christopher Wren, fictionalised into a murderous semi-mystical figure who shaped the city into a giant magical apparatus by Peter Ackroyd in an eponymous novel.

Ellis' Hawksmoor, however, was abducted multiple times, seemingly by aliens, and surgically adapted to be ultimately suited to live in cities - they speak to him and he gains nourishment from them. If you'll excuse the spoiler, the zenith of Hawksmoor's adventures with cities come when he finds the purpose behind the modifications - he was not altered by aliens but by future humans in order to defend the early 21st century against a time-travelling 73rd century Cleveland gone berserk. Hawksmoor defeats the giant, monstrous sentient city by wrapping himself in Tokyo to form a massive concrete battlesuit.

The City Is A Battlesuit For Surviving The Future

Hiroo Iwata, of the University of Tsukuba, created these robotic floor tiles that automatically arrange themselves to build a floor beneath you. By utilizing a touch sensitive surface, the tiles are able to predict which direction a user is headed. This information is then used to automatically rearrange the tiles so that the lucky user can continue to walk in that direction without moving forward in real space.

He intends for these to be used in virtual world simulations, however I think a more practical use would be to modify the distance between different destinations in your house. For example, a set of these in the hallway leading toward the kitchen might make one rethink how hungry they really are.

I absolutely love the concept, though. Can I get a set made up to look like turtles? [via technabob]

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Princeton's CU Boulder's Paul Ohm writes about Netflix's insane new plan to release millions of customers' personal information -- ZIP code, gender, year of birth -- as a sequel to its Netflix Challenge. Latanya Sweeney's famous study on de-anonymizing data has shown that date (not just year) of birth, gender and ZIP are sufficient to personally identify 87% of Americans. In other words, Netflix is about to put the behavioral data about viewing choices for millions of Americans into the public domain, despite its legal duty to keep this information private.

Because of this, if it releases the data, Netflix might be breaking the law. The Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA), 18 USC 2710 prohibits a "video tape service provider" (a broadly defined term) from revealing "personally identifiable information" about its customers. Aggrieved customers can sue providers under the VPPA and courts can order "not less than $2500" in damages for each violation. If somebody brings a class action lawsuit under this statute, Netflix might face millions of dollars in damages.

Additionally, the FTC might also decide to fine Netflix for violating its privacy policy as an unfair business practice.

Either a lawsuit under the VPPA or an FTC investigation would turn, in large part, on one sentence in Netflix's privacy policy: "We may also disclose and otherwise use, on an anonymous basis, movie ratings, consumption habits, commentary, reviews and other non-personal information about customers." If sued or investigated, Netflix will surely argue that its acts are immunized by the policy, because the data is disclosed "on an anonymous basis." While this argument might have carried the day in 2006, before Narayanan and Shmatikov conducted their study, the argument is much weaker in 2009, now that Netflix has many reasons to know better, including in part, my paper and the publicity surrounding it. A weak argument is made even weaker if Netflix includes the kind of data--ZIP code, age, and gender--that we have known for over a decade fails to anonymize.

Netflix's Impending (But Still Avoidable) Multi-Million Dollar Privacy Blunder