I don't know about you, but I only watch videos about industrial robotic pancake production if they have an energetic techno soundtrack like this one does. (Via Cynical-C)

I've seen all sorts of business models involving "free, but ad supported" music, but none of them really seem sustainable. This latest one is different, but I'm still not sure it has a chance. Rather than the typical "play music and have ads off to the side somewhere" model that most take, Free All Music, gives you a chance to download DRM-free MP3s... if you first watch a video ad. They even let you pick what sponsor you want to let "buy you" the music (and then, that advertiser gets to put your user name in future ads, noting that you downloaded the music).

While this is a more creative use of advertising that probably has more value to the advertiser than the typical ad-supported music sites (where most people just ignore the ads), it still seems likely to have some serious problems. First, the site is betting that consumption habits on such a site would be the same as iTunes -- 15 songs over the course of three months -- and is looking for ad deals to support that. But... that assumes that as the price drops from $1 to "time spent watching an ad" consumption wouldn't go up. Without the monetary barrier, it seems likely that consumption would increase significantly.

On top of that, I don't really see how the economics work, given traditional models in both the music and ad industry. It's not that those models necessarily make sense (in fact, I'd argue neither make sense), but it's what both sides will expect. On that front, you've got the record labels, who are used to getting approximately $0.67 per downloaded song. Assuming that needs to be made up by the ad (and even ignoring any profit for the site), then every single ad shown needs to cost that same $0.67. Translated into traditional ad terms, that's a CPM of $670. Yikes. I don't know any advertiser will to pay anything close to that -- even if it's targeted and you have a half decent chance of the person paying attention. Most CPM ad rates online these days are in the sub-$5 area. Convincing advertisers to jump to a $670 CPM on an unproven model? Good luck.

Finally, even if it's "free" it sounds pretty inconvenient. The fact is that people do have alternatives, such as file sharing networks. While they're not legal, they don't require you to waste a bunch of time before you can get the music you want to listen to. I'm sure some people would use it, but not enough to really matter long term.

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SethGrimes writes with this excerpt from Information Week's Intelligent Enterprise: "Recovery.gov, a showcase government-transparency Web site that relaunched on Monday, fails to meet US federal government Section 508 accessibility standards and accessibility best practices. The non-compliance issues relate to display of data tables — an essential point given the site's promise of 'Data, Data & More Data' — despite on-site compliance claims. Other elements including navigation maps, while compliant, are poorly designed. Sharron Rush, co-founder and executive director of accessibility-advocacy organization Knowbility, goes so far as to state, 'The recovery.gov Web site is a good example of what NOT to do for accessibility in my opinion.' Louise Radnofsky explains in the Wall Street Journal's Washington Wire blog, 'Expectations are high for the site, not least because of its hefty price tag: Smartronix, a Maryland contractor, is being paid $9.5 million for its initial overhaul and is likely to get another $8.5 million to keep the site running through 2014.' Compliance with Section 508 of the federal Rehabilitation Act — a baseline expectation — is a long-standing federal-government requirement for information-systems accessibility to persons with disabilities. The site's accessibility failures — which are shared by another showcase government-transparency site, USAspending.gov — are nonetheless easily seen."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

“When the Nest’s Beset By Pests, the Babysitters Swift Undressed” - (oil on canvas) 48x36 - 2009

(NSFW thumbnails above: “Dan’l Boone Rescues His Daughter From The Dread Shawnee; July, 1776,” "Goldilocks Rages Against The Fall," “The Bathing Sphinx,” “Werewolf Triptych, #1 - #3” )

A new exhibition by Van Arno will be unveiled at Corey Helford Gallery.

Los Angeles artist Van Arno joins Corey Helford for his second solo show at the gallery entitled “A Change of Skin.” The process of transformation and evolution is no easy task, and Arno skillfully narrates a dynamic collection of Darwinian daydreams in his latest series of oil paintings. Werewolves, centaurs and women shed their original skin, emerging as new breeds of enchanted beings and barbaric beasts. Joining them in the fray are representations of transformation by means of natural selection, cross-species parenting, Black Arts, and even the car crash that altered Montgomery Clift’s famous face. Larger and more ambitious than before, “A Change of Skin” marks a new direction for the artist as Arno introduces multiple characters and a looser, more gestural format to his work. The exhibition will also feature 100 limited-edition silk screen show prints that will be available only at the gallery.

In the loft, guest artist Melissa Forman unveils “Garden of Shadows”, her second series of works at Corey Helford Gallery. Inspired by ancient medicine, Forman’s dark yet delicate paintings study the Four Humours, a medieval method of diagnosing imbalances in patients. Each humour is visually illustrated combining its unique properties such as color, mood, temperament, disposition, and plants. Rich colors and deep black backgrounds add to the ethereal mood and a subtle sense of surrealism in each painting, ultimately sending a message of hope and good things to come during dark times. Open to the public, the reception for “A Change of Skin” and “Garden of Shadows” takes place on Saturday, October 3, and the show will be on view until October 24, 2009.

Van Arno was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee and attended Otis parsons School of Design in Los Angeles, California where he supported himself working as a bouncer in nightclubs and adult video arcades. As a young illustrator, his images appeared on album covers, video game box art, and nightclub posters around the city. He has exhibited in galleries worldwide including Jonathan Levine Gallery, Shooting Gallery, Copro Nason, Mendenhall Sobieski and Galerie d’Art Yves Laroche. Several of his works were included in a national survey of Lowbrow painters at the Hollywood Art and Culture Center in Florida along with Mark Ryden, Chaz Bojorquez, Kenny Scharf, Anthony Ausgang and others. For more information about Van Arno please visit www.vanarno.com.

Van Arno Opening Reception Saturday, October 3, 2009 from 7?10pm
On View October 3 – October 24, 2009

That's right, it's a wooden sports car. And although the sexy images shown here look PhotoShop-y to me, the body of the car, which is made fiberglass-style out of wooden fibers woven on a custom-built loom, appears really to be complete. You can follow Joe Harmon's construction of "Splinter" at his site. [via Dude Craft]

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That's right, it's a wooden sports car. And although the sexy images shown here look PhotoShop-y to me, the body of the car, which is made fiberglass-style out of wooden fibers woven on a custom-built loom, appears really to be complete. You can follow Joe Harmon's construction of "Splinter" at his site. [via Dude Craft]

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In the wake of the whole Megan Meier/Lori Drew thing, politicians started shoving each other aside to introduce "anti-cyber bullying legislation" that would outlaw being a jerk. The whole thing was pretty ridiculous. People are going to be jerks. You can't outlaw it. Beyond just the First Amendment issue, the simple fact is some people will act like jerks some of the time. It happens. It doesn't mean that it's good, but that also doesn't mean that you can just outlaw it. Of course, seeing as this is the type of legislation that politicians like to claim is "to protect the children" and gets them in the press, there's always a chance that laws like this get some momentum. Thankfully, it looks like our Congressional Reps. at least recognize what a dumb idea this is. While Rep. Linda Sanchez insists that such a law is needed, it appears that other politicians are not very interested, pointing out the First Amendment issues, as well as the unintended consequences of making such a vague concept a criminal offense.

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In the upcoming issue of MAKE, we have a feature in which teachers share their favorite classroom and science fair projects. As an additional online resource for this article, we want to compile a list of organizations that promote hands-on learning.

Photo from the Museum of Science and Industry website

The Exploratorium, the Museum of Science and Industry, TechShop... these are the sorts of places we want to include. So please help us out! Comment on this post with the name, URL, and location of organizations near you that belong on this list.

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In the upcoming issue of MAKE, we have a feature in which teachers share their favorite classroom and science fair projects. As an additional online resource for this article, we want to compile a list of organizations that promote hands-on learning.

Photo from the Museum of Science and Industry website

The Exploratorium, the Museum of Science and Industry, TechShop... these are the sorts of places we want to include. So please help us out! Comment on this post with the name, URL, and location of organizations near you that belong on this list.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Education | Digg this!

bonch writes "Reviews of Google Wave are out, and opinions are that it has potential as a development platform but is noisy to use for real-time communication. Robert Scoble calls it overhyped, claiming it's useful for little more than personal IM or small-scale project collaboration. He complains about the noisiness of tracking dozens of people chatting him at once in real-time and calls trying to use it a 'productivity killer' compared to simpler mediums like email and Twitter."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Got an awesome idea for a cell phone project, and wish you could get it funded? Then you might want to check out Nokia's PUSH N900 contest. They're accepting proposals until October 11th, and the contest winner will receive funding and N900 devices to build their project. From their website:

The brief is simple: tell us how you would hack and mod the N900 & Maemo to connect the N900 to something you love. An expert judging panel will be selecting winning submissions and the groups behind them will receive N900 devices, funding and support to develop their PUSH idea. And once they're complete, we'll share them with the rest of the world with a series of installations in Nokia Flagship Stores across the globe.

To help get your imagination going, check out these N900-based hacks that we covered earlier.

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Got an awesome idea for a cell phone project, and wish you could get it funded? Then you might want to check out Nokia's PUSH N900 contest. They're accepting proposals until October 11th, and the contest winner will receive funding and N900 devices to build their project. From their website:

The brief is simple: tell us how you would hack and mod the N900 & Maemo to connect the N900 to something you love. An expert judging panel will be selecting winning submissions and the groups behind them will receive N900 devices, funding and support to develop their PUSH idea. And once they're complete, we'll share them with the rest of the world with a series of installations in Nokia Flagship Stores across the globe.

To help get your imagination going, check out these N900-based hacks that we covered earlier.

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bennyboy64 writes "iTnews reports that researchers from Australia and Singapore are developing a wireless ad-hoc mesh networking technology that uses mobile handsets to share and carry information. The mesh network will make use of Bluetooth or Wi-fi to swap information between handsets — even if the mobile phone network was offline. One potential scenario could be during an emergency where the mobile phone network was unavailable or clogged. In a city centre, users could set up the network to share information, video, photographs and, depending on the final client applications, even locate friends and loved ones. One benefit of developing such a technology would be that users sharing content between their devices would use the wireless communications technology already built into their phones and not bandwidth from their mobile provider. The researchers from the National ICT Australia and Singapore's A*STAR Institute for Infocomm Research hope to demonstrate the technology within two years, according to NICTA project leader Dr Roksana Boreli.'This is an early stage in the research project,' she said. 'We are addressing how you would quickly establish trust between devices, how you would discover them and share the information,' Boreli said."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Another day, another story of a company reacting overly aggressively with a trademark infringement claim. North Face, the well known clothing company, apparently is not at all pleased with a student who created a parody line of clothing called "South Butt." The lawyer representing the student had a great quote:

"I did try to explain with a great deal of candor to counsel for the North Face that the general public is aware of the difference between a face and a butt."

And, indeed, that's the central question in most trademark lawsuits. Are the customers confused into thinking that they're buying one product, rather than the other. It would be pretty difficult for North Face to claim with a straight face that those buying South Butt clothing don't realize it's a different company...

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Can it be a unicorn chaser if there's a bloody arm stump involved? I say yes, when it's this cute, and has Monty Python references. Sorry if you were grossed out by all the guts. Spotted by Becky.

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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Can it be a unicorn chaser if there's a bloody arm stump involved? I say yes, when it's this cute, and has Monty Python references. Sorry if you were grossed out by all the guts. Spotted by Becky.

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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Omomyid writes "I wasn't actually aware that Dr. Tim White of UC Berkeley had been 'sitting' on A. ramidus but apparently he has (I remember the original flurry of interest back in the '90s when it was announced), but now Dr. White and others have assembled a nearly complete skeleton of the 4.4mya specimen and the descriptions being carried by the NY Times and the AP are intriguing. Ramidus is clearly differentiated from the other Great Apes and also more primitive than A. afarensis (Lucy), providing a nice linkage backwards to the last shared ancestor between humans and chimpanzees. According to the NY Times, a whole passel of papers will be published in tomorrow's Science magazine describing A. ramidus." Update — 10/01 at 22:05 GMT by SS: Reader John Hawks provided a link to his detailed blog post about Ardipithecus, which contains a ton of additional details not covered in the above articles.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Omomyid writes "I wasn't actually aware that Dr. Tim White of UC Berkeley had been 'sitting' on A. ramidus but apparently he has (I remember the original flurry of interest back in the '90s when it was announced), but now Dr. White and others have assembled a nearly complete skeleton of the 4.4mya specimen and the descriptions being carried by the NY Times and the AP are intriguing. Ramidus is clearly differentiated from the other Great Apes and also more primitive than A. afarensis (Lucy), providing a nice linkage backwards to the last shared ancestor between humans and chimpanzees. According to the NY Times, a whole passel of papers will be published in tomorrow's Science magazine describing A. ramidus."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We see all sorts of odd arguments in favor of intellectual property, but I think this latest one may be the most ridiculous of all. Gautam John points us to a story by Andrew Leonard (whose work I usually think is fantastic, but this time...) claiming that the AK-47 is in trouble because of a failure to use intellectual property. But that's not what the details show at all. Basically, the issue is that the "official" maker of AK-47s may be on the verge of bankruptcy due to a whole variety of reasons including "a slump in arms exports, high levels of outstanding debt, and the machinations of a mysterious ultranationalist businessman." So... uh... why is it an IP issue? Well, the Soviet Union apparently offered tons of licenses to many different providers in the early days of the AK, so there's lots of competition. Leonard notes:

But the real problem may be more akin to the woes currently afflicting the newspaper industry and recorded music business: It's very hard to make a buck when your product is easily copied and widely accessible.

Well, considering all those other problems were listed first, it's unclear why it's the "easily copied" problem that's the culprit. But even if we grant the premise, the argument still makes no sense at all. First of all, the AK-47 has been made by many different manufacturers for many, many years. It makes no sense that it would be the competition that has now put it out of business, since that competition has been around for ages. Common sense would tell you that it's not the copying that's the problem. If it was, this issue would have come up years ago, rather than 60 years after the AK-47 was first created. Second, the report is just about this one manufacturer struggling, not all of the others. That suggests, again, that the problem isn't in the fact that the AK-47 is so easily copied. After all, all those other manufacturers face that same "problem."

Finally, there's no evidence at all that a lack of intellectual property is harming the AK-47 at all. In fact, from the sound of things, it's still an incredibly popular weapon. The problem is just with a single manufacturer who has other issues to deal with. So, the end result if this one firm goes out of business does no net damage to the market for AK-47s. Others step in to take up the slack. Just because one firm in a market fails, it hardly means that there needed to be stronger intellectual property. That's a huge, and totally unsubstantiated leap.

Separately, part of Leonard's reasoning for this is based on a myth that's been debunked for years. He compares the AK-47 to other technologies where "lower quality" products won out due to "path dependence," and names the QWERTY keyboard and the VHS (over Betamax) examples. The problem is that, as popular as that story is, it's a myth. The idea that Dvorak was better than QWERTY isn't supported by the evidence. Other similar stories have also been debunked. With things like VHS and Betamax, the problem is that the "quality" that people rely on is not the factor by which buyers made their purchase decision on. Sure, the video quality of Betamax may have been "better," but the overall utility of VHS was much greater because it could record much more per tape.

So, sorry, but I don't see any evidence that the AK-47 either relied on "path dependence" for success, or that it would be better off today if there was some intellectual property around it. In fact, I'd argue that the whole claim that intellectual property was the problem actually stems from a different story from a couple years ago, where the Russian gov't suddenly started claiming intellectual property rights over the AK-47 and started demanding payments from manufacturers. That's not using IP to encourage innovation. It's a gov't using it as a tax (which, if anything, would make life more difficult for AK-47 manufacturers... perhaps like the one now going out of business).

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Dancecult is a new "academic"-style journal about "electronic dance music culture." It reminds me of the kinds of books about technology and postmodernism that I'd impulse buy in the early 1990s. Of course, I'd only make it through three pages before cracking open the new issue of Hate or Eightball. But at least the covers and titles were fascinating! Here are the featured articles in the first issue of Dancecult:

IDM as a "Minor" Literature: The Treatment of Cultural and Musical Norms by "Intelligent Dance Music"
Ramzy Alwakeel

Decline of the Rave Inspired Clubculture in China: State Suppression, Clubber Adaptations and Socio-cultural Transformations
Matthew M Chew

Neotrance and the Psychedelic Festival
Graham St John

Too Young to Drink, Too Old to Dance: The Influences of Age and Gender on (Non) Rave Participation
Julie Gregory

DJ Culture in the Commercial Sydney Dance Music Scene
Ed Montano

Dancecult: Journal of Electronic Dance Music Culture (Thanks, Vann Hall!)

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. It sounds like an infomercial. I can already imagine the voice of Billy Mays (RIP) booming through my television set. "Sick of fighting terrorists the old fashioned way with asymmetrical warfare? Hi, Billy Mays here, to talk to you about the one and only, Mullah Remover!" I just got done reading Howard Clark's new book "How You Can Kill Al-Qaeda (in Three Easy Steps). He's an ex-Marine and former Homeland Security adviser who says the way to win the war on terrorism is to help empower the mainstream Muslim community, who in recent years has been overshadowed in the public spotlight by fringe Al-Qaeda extremists. The whole idea of fighting terrorism with ideas and not weapons is definitely nothing new, but Clark's populist tone and foreign policy street cred was a refreshing perspective to have in the discussion. "Click on the link below in the next 30 minutes and I'll throw in this egg slicer absolutely free! Here's how to order!" Book's official site.

This week is Banned Books Week in the United States. Sponsored by the American Library Association (ALA), American Booksellers Association, and a variety of other organizations, the week of events around the country celebrates intellectual freedom and spotlights books that have been targets of attempting bannings. According to the ALA, there were more than 500 "challenges" to specific books in schools, stores, and libraries reported to the Office of Intellectual Freedom in 2008. And probably many, many more that went unreported. And Tango Makes Three was apparently the biggest target. It's a true story about a same-sex penguin couple in New York's Central Park Zoo who were given an egg to raise. Without further ado, here are the top ten "most challenged titles" of last year. I linked to the Amazon page for each so you can collect them all or buy copies for your local library or school!

1. And Tango Makes Three, by Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell
?Reasons: anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group

2. His Dark Materials trilogy, by Philip Pullman
?Reasons: political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, and violence

3. TTYL; TTFN; L8R, G8R (series), by Lauren Myracle
?Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

4. Scary Stories (series) , by Alvin Schwartz
?Reasons: occult/satanism, religious viewpoint, and violence

5. Bless Me, Ultima, by Rudolfo Anaya
?Reasons: occult/satanism, offensive language, religious viewpoint, sexually explicit, and violence

6. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky
?Reasons: drugs, homosexuality, nudity, offensive language, sexually explicit, suicide, and unsuited to age group

7. Gossip Girl (series), by Cecily von Ziegesar
?Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

8. Uncle Bobby's Wedding, by Sarah S. Brannen
?Reasons: homosexuality and unsuited to age group

9. The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini
?Reasons: offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited to age group

10. Flashcards of My Life, by Charise Mericle Harper
?Reasons: sexually explicit and unsuited to age group

For more, see the Banned Books Week site and the ALA's Banned Books Week pages.

itwbennett writes "A survey by the Berkeley Center for Law and Technology at the University of California Berkeley School of Law and the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania finds that U.S. residents do not want to receive Web advertising tailored to their interests. 66% of those surveyed said they don't want tailored, or targeted, online ads and when asked if online ad vendors should deliver targeted ads by tracking customers' behavior across multiple Web sites, 86% of the 1,000 respondents said no. 35% percent of respondents said executives of companies that use personal information illegally should face jail time, and 18% said those companies should be put out of business. 'While privacy advocates have lambasted behavioral targeting for tracking and labeling people in ways they do not know or understand, marketers have defended the practice by insisting it gives Americans what they want: advertisements and other forms of content that are as relevant to their lives as possible,' the study said. 'In high percentages, [US residents] stand on the side of privacy advocates.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This project is kind of mad, but the results could be pretty useful. Instructables user catwood guides you through the process of building a wood lathe from mostly discarded parts. Along the way you will need things like the motor from a washing machine and the frame from a bike. It might make sense to buy or construct a more sturdy piece of equipment if you plan to make wood turning a full time hobby, but for light duty projects I could definitely see this coming in hand.

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This project is kind of mad, but the results could be pretty useful. Instructables user catwood guides you through the process of building a wood lathe from mostly discarded parts. Along the way you will need things like the motor from a washing machine and the frame from a bike. It might make sense to buy or construct a more sturdy piece of equipment if you plan to make wood turning a full time hobby, but for light duty projects I could definitely see this coming in hand.

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Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY.



The good folks at the Monster's Cereal blog are having Fan Art Month counting down the days to Halloween. I'm going to submit a Tin Tin inspired Count Chocula.

Monster's Cereal Blog - Fan Art Month - or email submissions to choculafan@gmail.com

While I may be a fan of Billy Bragg's music, I have a lot of trouble getting behind his take on the music industry. Last year, we had a bit of a back-and-forth with Bragg when he suddenly wanted to demand a cut of Bebo's sale price to AOL, claiming that it was unfair since he had put his music on the site for free. When asked whether or not Bebo would have the right to demand some of Bragg's money if the company had flopped, Bragg didn't seem to have any answer at all.

That episode is a precursor to what appears to be Bragg's current position on the industry, which has a mix of good and bad. As with Bebo, he supports using new online services, and not being anti-consumers (good!). But, as with Bebo, he seems to want to demand entitlement to any revenue that anyone makes (bad!). It's entitlement society again. Rather than recognizing that the responsibility is on him -- and on other artists -- to come up with business models that work, he demands that others (and the gov't) create those business models and just hand him a check. It puts the responsibility off of him and onto everyone else, as if they owe him a business model.

On the one hand, he talks up how useful new technologies are for distribution and promotion, but then he immediately talks about "the damaging aspects of illegal downloading on the livelihoods of the creative community." It's only damaging for those who don't put in place a smart business model. As we've seen time and time and time again, put in place a smart business model that embraces file sharing, combined with good music and a strong connection with fans, and piracy isn't a problem. It's free marketing and distribution.

Bragg talks up the need to compete with sites like The Pirate Bay, but why isn't he looking at actually using The Pirate Bay to his advantage? Plenty of others are. Why does Bragg need to demand help from legislators?

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The paint has dried, the floor's been swept of construction debris, and all the merchandise is now in place in the Maker Shed's new Science Room section, their companion to our new Make: Science Room. To celebrate this accomplishment (think: ordering, receiving, warehousing, and merchandising hundreds of chemicals and lots of things made out of glass!), they're holding a massive Grand Opening Sale. Almost all of the items in the Shed's Science Room section are on sale, some items as much as 60%. Even the impressive line of microscopes they're selling are on deep discount! They'll be running this sale through the month of October. So, if you've been thinking of putting together a home science lab, now would be a good time to order your gear.

And I don't know about you, but with all of that amazing labware available -- beakers, test tubes, Erlenmeyer and distilling flasks -- at such low prices, I'm definitely seeing a bubbling mad scientist's lab inside my front door this Halloween!

This way to the Shed's Science Room >>

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The paint has dried, the floor's been swept of construction debris, and all the merchandise is now in place in the Maker Shed's new Science Room section, their companion to our new Make: Science Room. To celebrate this accomplishment (think: ordering, receiving, warehousing, and merchandising hundreds of chemicals and lots of things made out of glass!), they're holding a massive Grand Opening Sale. Almost all of the items in the Shed's Science Room section are on sale, some items as much as 60%. Even the impressive line of microscopes they're selling are on deep discount! They'll be running this sale through the month of October. So, if you've been thinking of putting together a home science lab, now would be a good time to order your gear.

And I don't know about you, but with all of that amazing labware available -- beakers, test tubes, Erlenmeyer and distilling flasks -- at such low prices, I'm definitely seeing a bubbling mad scientist's lab inside my front door this Halloween!

This way to the Shed's Science Room >>

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Fun flash app doesn't do anything but shrink and multiply the dots you pass over with your mouse cursor.

Magic Dots (Via Neatorama)

fsufitch writes "On September 30th, the 'Open College Textbook Act of 2009' was introduced to the Senate and referred to committee. The bill proposes that all educational materials published or produced using federal funds need to be published under open licenses. The reasoning behind it takes into account the changing way information is distributed because of the Internet, the high price of college and textbooks, and the dangerously low college graduation rates in the US. Will a bill such as this endanger publishing companies in the same way Internet journalism endangers traditional journalism?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, pioneers of the Cylon Jack-O-Lantern, just released a new Larson Scanner kit!

Today we're releasing a new open-source project and kit, which is an updated approach to the "Larson Scanner." The Larson scanner is named in honor of Glen A. Larson, the man responsible for producing both the original Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider television shows, and consists of a set of red LEDs that scan back and forth.

Three years ago, we showed how to make a Cylon Jack-O-Lantern, in what has become one of our all-time most popular tutorials. The circuit for that project was based on a 555 timer, driving a 4017 decade counter, and has 6 pixels of resolution. To create the incandescent fading effect, we added low-pass transistor drivers. We also wrote up a version of that article for the 2007 MAKE Magazine Halloween special, which included a slightly nicer version of that same circuit.

And while it's been popular, we've always had some nagging reservations about it, and in particular its battery life. This year, we decided to do something about it and made a much better version of the Larson Scanner, and so here it is!

The kit is open source and designed to be hackable. Read more about the kit in their announcement.

From MAKE magazine:

DIY HALLOWEEN from MAKE & CRAFT!

DIY HALLOWEEN from the editors of MAKE and CRAFT brings you 40-plus DIY projects for the holiday that's made for makers. From the craftiest costumes to amazing animated props and the latest in computer-controlled haunted house effects.

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Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, pioneers of the Cylon Jack-O-Lantern, just released a new Larson Scanner kit!

Today we're releasing a new open-source project and kit, which is an updated approach to the "Larson Scanner." The Larson scanner is named in honor of Glen A. Larson, the man responsible for producing both the original Battlestar Galactica and Knight Rider television shows, and consists of a set of red LEDs that scan back and forth.

Three years ago, we showed how to make a Cylon Jack-O-Lantern, in what has become one of our all-time most popular tutorials. The circuit for that project was based on a 555 timer, driving a 4017 decade counter, and has 6 pixels of resolution. To create the incandescent fading effect, we added low-pass transistor drivers. We also wrote up a version of that article for the 2007 MAKE Magazine Halloween special, which included a slightly nicer version of that same circuit.

And while it's been popular, we've always had some nagging reservations about it, and in particular its battery life. This year, we decided to do something about it and made a much better version of the Larson Scanner, and so here it is!

The kit is open source and designed to be hackable. Read more about the kit in their announcement.

From MAKE magazine:

DIY HALLOWEEN from MAKE & CRAFT!

DIY HALLOWEEN from the editors of MAKE and CRAFT brings you 40-plus DIY projects for the holiday that's made for makers. From the craftiest costumes to amazing animated props and the latest in computer-controlled haunted house effects.

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Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY.



Ghazals are traditional Sufi poems that contemplate life, the meaning of our existence and the countenance of God. Some renowned writers of such poetry are Jalal-uddin Rumi, Bulleh Shah, Mirza Ghaleb, etc.

It's important to understand that many of these mystics (i.e. Rumi) were deeply rooted within the Islamic tradition and didn't separate themselves from it. There have been many movements, primarily in the West, trying to separate Sufism from Islam. But I'll leave that rant for another post.

I am happy to share with you two renditions of a very famous ghazal, Aik Alif (translated One Alif). Alif is the first letter in the Arabic alphabet. A very fitting title for a poem that talks about how difficult we make our life and forget to look within ourselves and see where we all come from. The ghazal was written by Bulleh Shah.

The video above is a traditional ghazal performed by Abeda Parveen. Abeda is one of Pakistan's most respected and prized performers. The second performance is a more dynamic one. Noori, a Pakistani rock band, collaborates with Saioon Zahoor, a simple darweesh who spent most of his life performing in durghas (mausoleums). Both renditions are nothing short of brilliant.

Over at the Citizen Media Law Project, Kimberley Isbell, is discussing an article she recently wrote on how to fix trademark law, which is a worthwhile read. The article mainly focuses on "ambiguities" found in trademark law, with the idea of settling some of the issues and making the guidelines more complete. Specifically, she hopes for a more clear delineation of what "fair use" means in trademark law, a better understanding of what defines "use in commerce," and adding a "safe harbor" to cover trademark, since it's the loophole that's left out from the current DMCA and CDA safe harbors that protect third parties from liability online in other issues (such as copyright and defamation).

On the whole, I think it's a good discussion, but I'm not sure I agree entirely. While initially codifying fair use within trademark law sounds like a good idea, my recent conversation with William Patry may have changed my mind on that topic. He pointed out that codifying fair use in copyright law ended up doing more to narrowly limit how fair use was applied, rather than allow judges to make a more expansive and reasonable view of what constitutes fair use. He pointed to the writings of Pierre Leval on fair use, which should be required reading for anyone looking to understand fair use. Given an attempt to codify fair use in trademark law, we might end up with the same set of limitations. While having more clearly defined lines may seem like a good idea, it also provides less flexibility, and more of an opportunity to fence in fair use, rather than letting it adapt as necessary.

On the second suggestion, concerning "use in commerce," we agree that current definitions are all over the map, but again, I wonder if trying to codify it via Congress leads to more problems than solutions. Any attempt will almost certainly screw up unique cases, leading to trouble down the road. Finally, I do absolutely agree on a safe harbor need in trademark, especially as those looking to bring copyright and defamation lawsuits have recently been bending over backwards to sneak in a trademark claim as well to try to avoid the other safe harbors.

As for the improving trademark law in other ways, I would think that the best way to do so, would be to ditch the (relatively) recent concept of "dilution" as trademark infringement, and focus on the real purpose of trademark law: to prevent consumer confusion and "passing off" of one good as made by someone else. As such, I've long been a big proponent of the "moron in a hurry" test that actually has been used in some cases (i.e., "would a moron in a hurry confuse this product and believe it was made by or endorsed by the trademark holder"). Focusing on just that test as a determination of trademark infringement would likely solve many of the common problems with trademark law -- including, most likely, removing the need for either a codified fair use of "use in commerce" clause. Instead, you just apply the moron in a hurry test and toss those lawsuits that wouldn't confuse said morons.

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Award-winning sf writer and teacher Nalo Hopkinson has an interesting new authorial business-model: she's offering $2,000 intensive, one-on-one mentorships to budding writers, via email. She's got some health problems so she's only taking on a few students, and will work personally with them to improve their work and their skills.

It's basically an audience-funded writer-in-residency; I benefited immensely from writers in residence, especially Judith Merril. This model looks good, but it'd be even better if some charitable foundation would give Nalo and a few other writers rotating grants to do this. I'd certainly kick in $500 towards a scholarship fund for a budding writer to get the kind of instruction I got, as part of paying it forward.

Nalo is a wonderful writer: accomplished, smart, wildly imaginative. This is a hell of an opportunity.

Your joy in the art of creating fiction is important to me. I cannot predict whether you will be a successful writer. I can't even reliably tell you whether you have talent or not; those are puddings that are very hard to prove. But I love it when a light goes on behind a student's eyes because they've perceived something new about the craft of writing that they can't wait to try out. My goals are: to help you write the story you want to write, not the one I would write; to help you develop an intuitive, body-based sense of the rhythm, structure and movement of a story. (I've discovered that when it comes to art, content and container are the same thing.) At the same time, I'm committed to challenging your skills and your understanding of what fiction does and how it works. I won't dish out empty flattery. I will be honest with you about what I perceive the strengths and weaknesses of your writing to be, and I aim to do so as one peer addressing another.

Interested in being mentored by me? (via IO9)

Allison sez, "Creative Commons, KALW, and Chicago Public Radio's Sound Opinions present Chicago Tribune music critic and author Greg Kot in conversation with music journalist David Downs on October 15 in San Francisco. Kot's new book, Ripped: How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music, explores the changing face of the music industry. Downs and Kot will discuss the book, as well as how digital sharing and participatory culture are shaping how music is created and consumed. Audience questions and discussion will follow the conversation."

Announcing October's ccSalon SF! (10/15/09) (Thanks, Allison!)

Globally Mobile writes "The Register has this article concerning GE's announcement that it has been developing a 1 terabyte DVD-size disk that can be read by a modified Blu-ray player. Peter Lorraine, GE's lab manager, talking at an Emerging Tech conference last week, said that license announcements could be expected soon. He also mentioned the notion of disks having the capacity of 100 Blu-ray disks, implying a 2.5TB or even 5TB capacity, gained by increasing the number of layers used for recording. The discs will be used for high-end commercial niches initially and then migrate to consumer markets in 2012-2015. Also here is a video of the technology explained. Wish we could see this sooner! Reminds me of the technology that Bowie's character came up with in The Man Who Fell to Earth ."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Globally Mobile writes "The Register has this article concerning GE announcement that it has been developing a 1 terabyte DVD-size disk that can be read by a modified Blu-ray player. Peter Lorraine, GE's lab manager, talking at an Emerging Tech conference last week, said that license announcements could be expected soon. He also mentioned the notion of disks having the capacity of 100 Blu-ray disks, implying a 2.5TB or even 5TB capacity, gained by increasing the number of layers used for recording. The discs will be used for high-end commercial niches initially and then migrate to consumer markets in 2012-2015. Also here is a video of the technology explained. Wish we could see this sooner! Reminds me of the technology that Bowie's character came up with in The Man Who Fell to Earth ."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

How do you photograph a 300' tall tree in a dense forest with no clear sight lines? Wildlife photographer Michael Nichols did it by taking a bunch of close-ups using a special camera rig and stitching them together digitally. NPR has the full story. [via Hack-a-Day]

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How do you photograph a 300' tall tree in a dense forest with no clear sight lines? Wildlife photographer Michael Nichols did it by taking a bunch of close-ups using a special camera rig and stitching them together digitally. NPR has the full story. [via Hack-a-Day]

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Ethan sez, "I met Joshua Hoffine in Toronto at Fan Expo. He creates stunning horror photography and blogs about the process of creating the photohraphs here."

I guess the test of a good horror photo is whether it makes you scared and uncomfortable without resorting to pure gore. Hoffine's photos qualify.

Joshua Hoffine Horror Blog (Thanks, Ethan!)

John sez, "It's Walt Disney World's 38th anniversary today and the park has released this great tilt-shift video of a day in the lift of the Magic Kingdom. From up here we all look like little toys."

A Model Day At Disney Parks - Exclusive Tilt-Shift Video Featuring Magic Kingdom (Thanks, John!)

ChiefMonkeyGrinder writes "Rogue or bogus programs passing themselves off as real antivirus software have been one of the malware themes of 2009, but the APWG's numbers for the first half of the year show that the organisation's members detected 485,000 samples, more than five times the total for the whole of 2008."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I know a fair number of patent lawyers and copyright lawyers who are quite skeptical of what's become of patent and copyright law -- and who readily admit that the law has gone way beyond what is reasonable or what the law was designed to do (i.e., "promote the progress..."). And yet there are some in the patent or copyright legal business who somehow seem to think that it's traitorous for a patent or copyright lawyer to ever dare question the idea that patents and copyrights work. I had a patent lawyer argue with me the other day that of course patents encourage innovation, because the Constitution says they do. This sort of logical blunder blows my mind. How can otherwise intelligent people assign such backwards logic to things? Do these same people also believe that when Congress passes any law, it automatically achieves its goals?

I have a good friend, who has recently made it through law school. Since he spent over a decade as a computer scientist, the law firm he went to work for made sure he did a rotation in the patent group (but of course). He was telling him how sick the experience made him feel. He said the stuff he was working on was disgusting. Helping companies patent blatantly obvious ideas, and using those patents to sue other companies who were innovating. Even worse, he said that many of the partners in the group seemed gleeful at how they were abusing the system, solely because of the amount of money such projects bring in. None of them bothered to consider that the overall impact of what they were doing wasn't "promoting the progress" but was harmful to society as a whole.

So, I can understand how lawyers can be on both sides of the equation (though, it says something to me about how they view the world). And, yet, there are still some IP attorneys who seem to think that it's somehow ridiculous that a patent attorney could ever find patents a net negative on society (leaving aside the many, many recent studies done by lawyers who have shown exactly that). Stephen Kinsella, a patent attorney who is against patents has responded to one such claim by a patent attorney, explaining why of course a patent attorney can disagree with the patent system, and still do his job. He notes plenty of patent attorneys who have become skeptical of the patent system.

But what's really stunning are the claims of the patent lawyer, Gene Quinn, who prompted Kinsella's claim. He was actually writing in response to a Techdirt post, where he makes numerous odd claims that don't make much sense. He assumes that it's factual that patents must promote innovation based on "the basic laws of economics." This makes me wonder which laws of economics Quinn is talking about, seeing as the laws of economics I know say that monopolies almost always lead to suboptimal societal benefit. He claims that "all the evidence" say that patents increase innovation. Except that's not true at all. We can start listing off all the studies that have shown the contrary, but I've yet to see one that actually supports Quinn's position. In response to that, Quinn amazingly claims that the studies that prove him wrong don't matter:

Would you please stop reading studies and look at history! Studies are done by academics with an agenda, are based on thought experiments, do not take into consideration important factors and are preconceived in order to come out with a particular answer.

That's a neat trick to dismiss the actual evidence (after insisting all the evidence was on his side), but it's flat-out, almost 100% wrong. And provably so. Because most of the studies I was talking about aren't "based on thought experiments" but are "looking at history." And, among those "biased academics" are at least two Nobel prize winning economists (Maskin and Stiglitz) and someone who was a very successful entrepreneur before moving to academia (Bessen). Besides, most of the academic studies that Quinn dismisses as irrelevant was peer reviewed. There are problems with peer review, of course, but to claim that these are far out ideas, while insisting that "the basic laws of economics" supports patents is simply not supported.

There are plenty of reasons why people might believe patents increase innovation -- but they're the same theories of the mercantilists in the 18th century, who believed that monopolies on other products spurred more development in those businesses. That theory was debunked and is considered laughable by pretty much any economist today. And yet, when it comes to patents, why do people automatically reject what economists realized two hundred years ago? Monopolies may temporarily benefit the monopolist, but at the expense of society as a whole. And, if Quinn wants to look at history, let's take a look at people who did actually look at the history, from Eric Schiff (showing rapid innovation and industrialization of the Netherlands and Switzerland without the use of patents) to Petra Moser (showing no less innovation in comparable countries with no patent laws to those with patent laws) to Lerner's work (comparing various countries before and after they changed patent systems, showing that stronger patent laws do not lead to greater innovation) to Qian's research (patent system changes across countries in the pharma industry, showing stronger patent laws did not lead to greater innovation, and, in fact, that weakening IP enforcement often led companies to become more innovative to stand out from the competition) and onward (there are a lot more where that came from). Hell, even the World Intellectual Property Organization (which usually is pretty damn supportive of IP) has noted that there's been no real evidence that IP protection leads to any economic payoff.

Quinn says to ignore the studies and look at the history, but the history says exactly what he claims it doesn't.

Those who insist that patents must lead to innovation fallback on a few, rather basic, logical fallacies. They point out that countries with strong patent laws tend to see much greater innovation. This is what Quinn means by "look at the history." But they are mixing up correlation with causation -- not recognizing that the stronger patent laws almost always post-date a period of much greater innovation, and then the patent system gets strengthened, not to promote more innovation, but to limit competition from those who innovated in the past (and, in fact, research by Park and Gigante found evidence of this very thing in looking at "history"). Or, they claim that since we still see some innovation, then clearly patents don't hold innovation back. But compared to what? The argument we're making has never been that patents stop all innovation cold. Of course innovation still occurs. But the question is at what rate? As we've seen in countries without patents or with much weaker patent systems, you tend to have much greater competition among smaller, more nimble firms. Since competition is a great driver of innovation, it's no surprise that there would still be great innovation in such societies. Separately, the fact that there may be fewer major innovations coming from societies with weaker patent laws today is again, not evidence that patents work. There are numerous factors that influence innovation -- and picking a country with poor infrastructure or widespread poverty, isn't exactly an apples to apples match with someplace like the US.

But just thinking logically, you can realize why the argument that, without patents, there would be no innovation, is provably false. When it's easy to copy someone copying losing all value by itself. Just being a copycat is pretty useless, because anyone else can do it. So, the real value is not in copying, but in leapfrogging. And that leapfrogging is (*gasp*) innovation. It's only in a world with patents where copying has value. That's because those patents create monopoly rents -- and thus, there's an artificial profit bubble, that others want access to. That creates a societal net loss.

Given all of this, it makes plenty of sense why patent attorneys could certainly recognize the harm that patents can cause. In fact, I would think such individuals are a lot more trustworthy on patent issues, since you know their position is not influenced by the fact that they make money off of the system. So, no, there's nothing odd about patent attorneys who find problems with the patent system. They're people who recognize the simple fact that just because a system is set up to do one thing, it doesn't mean that it automatically occurs. They're people who recognize that innovation is not synonymous with patents, and are able to take a step back and say what is truly best for innovation.

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Here's a really open-ended contest from Instructables: just use an Arduino!

Arduinos are awesome - with one simple controller, you can make almost anything! What new things can you make with Arduino? We've teamed up with the creative folks at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories on an Arduino contest to find out.

The rules are simple: to enter you must make a new Instructable that involves the Arduino IDE. You can use any hardware that you like, or none at all. Be sure to provide the code you used so that others can follow in your footsteps. Make something amazing and win a sweet Meggy Jr RGB from Evil Mad Science or an Arduino Mega to power your next project!

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Here's a really open-ended contest from Instructables: just use an Arduino!

Arduinos are awesome - with one simple controller, you can make almost anything! What new things can you make with Arduino? We've teamed up with the creative folks at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories on an Arduino contest to find out.

The rules are simple: to enter you must make a new Instructable that involves the Arduino IDE. You can use any hardware that you like, or none at all. Be sure to provide the code you used so that others can follow in your footsteps. Make something amazing and win a sweet Meggy Jr RGB from Evil Mad Science or an Arduino Mega to power your next project!

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I just finished listening to the unabridged audiobook of Justine Larbalestier's new YA novel, Liar, read by Channie Waites, and I'm here to tell you that it's Larbalestier's best book (and that's saying something). Here's a sample of the audio:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.AudioPlayer.embed("audioplayer_1", {soundFile:"http%3A%2F%2Fjustinelarbalestier.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2009%2F09%2F01-Part01-01-Telling-the-Truth.mp3"});

Micah -- the unreliable narrator of this tale -- is a compulsive liar from a fraught background. Poor and biracial, she attends a posh New York alternative school through a scholarship. Her mother is a runaway, her father is from a reclusive back-woods family of illiterate survivalists, and so it's no surprise that Micah's identity is a little messed up. But Micah isn't just confused: she's deliberately confusing, a compulsive liar who fools everyone around her over and over (she is mistaken for a boy on her first day of school and so she undertakes to live as a boy, lasting days before she is found out).

But Micah's lies start to unravel when the boy she is secretly dating -- he is publicly involved with the most popular girl in school -- is murdered. As the school panics and the social order turns upside down, as Micah grieves, she is also found out, scapegoated, and suspected.

That's the setup. So far, it's your basic YA fare: complicated relationships, complicated identity, fraught situation. But Micah's circumstances grow progressively odder, as Larbalestier twists and turns the story in ways that are decidedly science fictional (or possibly fantastic) and that make this into one of the most original, oddest, and ultimately satisfying YA books I've had the pleasure of reading.

I wish I could say more. There are so many surprises in this book, and they serve to tell such a complex and delicious story of love, identity, authenticity, revenge, justice, class and race, that I don't want to give anything away. Indeed, if this book has a failing, it's that it's nearly impossible to explain what's so great about it without risking some important spoilers. So you'll just have to trust me -- this is worth the price of admission and then some.

Liar (MP3 CD unabridged audiobook)

Liar (hardcover)

Free sample of the first 20 minutes of the audiobook

Paul sez,

The Dutch public broadcaster VPRO is currently running a thematic week on the century of the city. As part of this they have commissioned a number of documentaries about places like Johannesburg, Paris and Gurgaon and they have taken the still rather unusual stuff of releasing most of these under a Creative Commons license that allows for redistribution and remixing of these documentaries.

What is especially cool about this is that they are doing this with current documentaries that have aired for the first time in the last 10 days (and while they are also selling a DVD box edition and trying to sell the documentaries to other broadcasters). Right now English language versions of documentaries I am Gurgaon - the new city in Inda by Marije Meerman and Stayin' Alive in Jo'Burg by Rob Schroder are available via bit-torrent and a third one (Metropolis: Coming to the City) will follow later this week.

VPRO Eeuw van de stad (Thanks, Paul!)

Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog that celebrated the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY.

Competition is now closed. We have about 380 entries to look through. Thank you everyone, will announce winners tomorrow.

UPDATE: We just got word from the Eggers camp that they will be providing us signed copies of Zeitoun! Not sure how many we'll be given for the giveaway, but will tell you all as soon as we know. Also, there's a new deadline - tomorrow, Thursday at 7 AM PST. We'll announce winners this Friday! It'll be hard to top zombie haikus, but let's try!



We've disabled comments here so write your Haiku in the original posting - Zeitoun Book Giveaway Haiku Contest

mmmscience writes "The newly-discovered exoplanet COROT-7b has an unusual form of precipitation: rocks. Because it orbits so close to its sun, the temperature on its sun-facing side is around 4220 degrees Fahrenheit. That's hot enough for rocks to vaporize--not unlike water evaporating on Earth. And, like Earth, when the vapor cools in the upper atmosphere, it forms clouds and begins to rain. But instead of water, COROT-7b gets a shower of pebbles."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Don't be afraid! It's just expanding foam, a few bits of string, and some red paint. Gothic Nightmare's page will show you how to make the severed legs twitch, too.

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Don't be afraid! It's just expanding foam, a few bits of string, and some red paint. Gothic Nightmare's page will show you how to make the severed legs twitch, too.

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Jay and I decided we wanted to do a live podcast at ONA09 so much we rented our own room. And it's open to the public, even if you're not going to ONA09.

Here's the deal. Come to the SF Hilton at 4PM on Saturday and look for "Rebooting The News" on the TV screen in the lobby. Or you can follow me or Jay on Twitter, we'll certainly advertise our location. Be sure to be there before 4:10PM. We'll all sit around a conference room table and reboot the news.

No punditry, or savvy church-goers, just talk about how the news will work after the new system is fully rebooted.

Here's a great tutorial (amongst many great tutorials) for making haunted house guts out of expanding foam insulation, paint and various bits and pieces.

Realistic Guts (via Craft)

davidmwilliams writes "It appears Palm are seeking to follow Apple'ss footsteps in gaining a reputation for inconsistent and spurious rejections and removals of iPhone and iPod Touch applications. In this case, Palm have resisted including a free application because the source code is attainable elsewhere."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

People commit suicide. It happens. But, when a company has had 24 employees commit suicide in 18 months, with many blaming stress from the company as a reason, it makes you pay attention. Apparently, that's the situation at France Telecom, where the 24th suicide in the last 18 months took place earlier this week. The company says that it's going to look into how it handles human resources, which seems like a decent idea at this point. In the meantime, if you're prone to not dealing well with stress, perhaps cross France Telecom off your list of desired employers.

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Kansas City's Nicholas and Angela make and sell sweet found-object junkbots that they call Nerdbots.

Nerdbots: Found object robot sculptures for your inner nerd (Thanks, James!)

The Optimizer writes "After 16 years of service my laser printer, a NEC Silentwriter 95, is finally wearing its internals out and I need to find a replacement. It's printed over 30,000 pages and survived a half-dozen long-distance moves without giving me any trouble. I believe it's done so well for two reasons. First, it's sturdily built and hails from an era when every fraction of penny didn't have to be cost-cut out of manufacturing, The other reason was its software. Since it supported postscript Level II, it wasn't bound to a specific operating system or hardware platform, so long as a basic postscript level 2 driver was available. A new color laser printer with postscript 3 seems like a logical replacement, and numerous inexpensive printers are available. I'd rather get a smaller, personal-size printer than a heavy workgroup printer. Most of all, I would like it to still be usable and running well with Windows 9, OS X 11, and whatever else we will be using in 2020. Can anyone recommend a brand or series of printers that is built to last and isn't going to be completely dependent on OS specific proprietary drivers?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm flying today from JFK to SFO.

Trying something new, taking pictures as we go, as cloud cover permits, and uploading them in realtime.

I have enough people in my loop so that almost anywhere I post a picture of, someone is in the the picture, and a few people can tell me exactly where it is. I learned this on the west-east trip last week, when I took a picture in the middle of Colorado that turned out to be in Ouray County near Telluride. I've been there! Beaufiful country.

Realtime interactive social media. Whatever you call it, it's really coool.

On Tuesday I outlined the next steps on two proposed changes to the rssCloud walkthrough document.

I plan to implement these changes shortly. Joseph Scott of Wordpress, who proposed the second change, has said he will implement them in his software.

Also see the short-term roadmap I posted last Friday.

Cool post over on Hack-A-Day about corn maze entrepreneur Scott Skelly, shown above with his trusty GPS-enabled riding lawn mower. Scott explains his maize-maze-making process thusly:

A maze starts as nothing more than a large field of corn. The design is created using a computer, then translated into GPS coordinates by fitting it into a field whose outline coordinates were previously captured on foot. Once the field coordinates are reconciled with the map design the data is used in one of two ways; the routes can be made by tilling under a path when the corn is very young, or more commonly it is cut lawn-mower-style when the corn is anywhere from knee-high to full grown. This corn-meets-satellite hack makes for a whole lot of fun!

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Cool post over on Hack-A-Day about corn maze entrepreneur Scott Skelly, shown above with his trusty GPS-enabled riding lawn mower. Scott explains his maize-maze-making process thusly:

A maze starts as nothing more than a large field of corn. The design is created using a computer, then translated into GPS coordinates by fitting it into a field whose outline coordinates were previously captured on foot. Once the field coordinates are reconciled with the map design the data is used in one of two ways; the routes can be made by tilling under a path when the corn is very young, or more commonly it is cut lawn-mower-style when the corn is anywhere from knee-high to full grown. This corn-meets-satellite hack makes for a whole lot of fun!

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KentuckyFC writes "The way radio signals vary in a wireless network can reveal the movement of people behind closed doors, say researchers who have developed a technique called variance-based radio tomographic imaging which processes wireless signals to peer through walls. They've tested the idea with a 34-node wireless network using the IEEE 802.15.4 wireless protocol (the personal area network protocol employed by home automation services such as ZigBee). The researchers say that such a network could be easily distributed by the police or military wanting to determine what's going on inside a building. But such a network, which uses cheap off-the-shelf components, might also be easily deployed by your neighbor or anybody else wanting to monitor movements in your home."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I've been seeing good reviews for CNN's new iPhone app, that's apparently well-designed. Lots of people are pointing out that the app is being offered for $2, as they wonder if people will "pay for the news." Except, of course, anyone with an iPhone can access cnn.com for free via their browser. So, if they're paying for anything, it must be additional features or convenience that the app allows -- not the content itself. And, for all the good reviews of the app, there's one "feature" being promoted that I'm not so sure I understand. Everyone keeps talking up how the app will turn anyone with an iPhone into an on-the-spot reporter:

Among the high points of the CNN app: It offers the chance to essentially join the CNN reporting team. Readers are invited to submit their own photos and video clips to iReport, a feature CNN already uses on its Web site for gathering material from the public.

Reading this, all I can think is that CNN is asking people to pay it to work for CNN. If it works, bravo for CNN, but that does feel a little backwards, doesn't it? I can totally understand user-generated content sites where people do work for prestige rather than money, but I'm not sure how enticing it is to get people to pay to do work for you...

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!ATTENTION!
I have made some changes to the schematic I posted this morning. The schematic posted below reflects these changes.
-C1 has been assigned a value of 47uF
-R19 has been removed.
-An unmarked resistor at pin 5 of the op amp has been removed.

This crazy echo circuit is the design I've been using in my EchoBender pedal. Check out some videos of the circuit in action.

The heart of this circuit is the PT2399 echo IC. View the data sheet here. They can be found pretty cheaply from various distributors.

The fun starts when you push the IC beyond it's intended parameters. Drastically lowering the pitch uncovers digital noise and strange blipping effects. I've also included a fun audio feedback feature which can be used to create intense distortion as well as interesting octave and pitch tracking effects.

This crazy echo circuit is the design I've been using in my EchoBender pedal. Check out some videos of the circuit in action.

The heart of this circuit is the PT2399 echo IC. View the data sheet here. They can be found pretty cheaply from various distributors.

The fun starts when you push the IC beyond it's intended parameters. Drastically lowering the pitch uncovers digital noise and strange blipping effects. I've also included a fun audio feedback feature which can be used to create intense distortion as well as interesting octave and pitch tracking effects.

More:

Collin's Lab: Guitar pedal modding with Arduino

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schwit1 sent us an LA Times article about another step in the seemingly unending media consolidation. This time it's Cable giant Comcast Corp. looking at NBC. NBC Owns a slew of channels including Bravo, USA and Syfy (who might have the single lamest rebranding since Spike). The article says that it would be far cheaper than the Disney deal Comcast tried to pull off 5 years ago.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fascinated by MIT's Bokode data tag system, maker Matthew Borgatti decided to recreate the effect at home using easy to find materials.

Bokode is a method MIT developed for tucking information (such as barcodes, images, etc. in microprint) into a tiny but easily visible package. It leverages the bokeh effect to show off the information on the microprint to anyone pointing a camera at the Bokode unit and defocussing. If you've ever taken a photo with a distant city in the background and noticed the city lights turning into little circular blobs when out of focus you've seen the bokeh effect.

If you'd like to follow along at home, Matthew's site has the diagrams, laser cutter templates, sample patterns, and practical advice you'll need to get started experimenting with your very own Bokode-like system.

[gracias, Matthew!]

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Fascinated by MIT's Bokode data tag system, maker Matthew Borgatti decided to recreate the effect at home using easy to find materials.

Bokode is a method MIT developed for tucking information (such as barcodes, images, etc. in microprint) into a tiny but easily visible package. It leverages the bokeh effect to show off the information on the microprint to anyone pointing a camera at the Bokode unit and defocussing. If you've ever taken a photo with a distant city in the background and noticed the city lights turning into little circular blobs when out of focus you've seen the bokeh effect.

If you'd like to follow along at home, Matthew's site has the diagrams, laser cutter templates, sample patterns, and practical advice you'll need to get started experimenting with your very own Bokode-like system.

[gracias, Matthew!]

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angry tapir writes "Jack Thompson has sued Facebook for US$40 million, saying that the social networking site harmed him by not removing angry postings made by Facebook gamers. The lawsuit was filed in the US District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Thompson is best known for bringing suit against Grand Theft Auto's Take Two Interactive, Sony Computer Entertainment America, and Wal-Mart, arguing that the game caused violent behavior."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

angry tapir writes "Jack Thompson has sued Facebook for US$40 million, saying that the social networking site harmed him by not removing angry postings made by Facebook gamers. The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida. Thompson is best know for bringing suit against Grand Theft Auto's Take Two Interactive, Sony Computer Entertainment America, and Wal-Mart, arguing that the game caused violent behavior."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

YouTuber utubewarrenj is part of a community of cosplayers that are using a pretty amazing low-tech process to go from digital models to relatively accurate, durable real-world objects. Basically, they print out, fold up, and tape together elaborate paper models (for an idea of how much work this is, rock along with this video by SeamusRocks99), then fiberglass over and/or cast liquid polymer resin into them to produce durable full-size artifacts, which is what he's showing here.

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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YouTuber utubewarrenj is part of a community of cosplayers that are using a pretty amazing low-tech process to go from digital models to relatively accurate, durable real-world objects. Basically, they print out, fold up, and tape together elaborate paper models (for an idea of how much work this is, rock along with this video by SeamusRocks99), then fiberglass over and/or cast liquid polymer resin into them to produce durable full-size artifacts, which is what he's showing here.

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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Though she's had a few minor successes with roles on Buffy the Vampire Slayer and House, Felicia Day has been quietly building herself a successful career under the radar of mainstream Hollywood. Her self-produced web series, The Guild, which follows a nerdy crew of World of Warcraft players through their offline hijinks, is now on its third season. In an interview with Wired, Felicia Day shows that, whether she knows it or not, she is definitely dabbling in CwF + RtB (if you're new here read this).

Felicia has done a great job connecting with her fans. Her @feliciaday twitter account boasts nearly 1.4 million followers, and the nature of her conversations on twitter demonstrates that she is well versed in the medium. The Guild is funded by sponsorship from Microsoft and Sprint, DVD sales, and individual donors.

It's a good start, but like others, Felicia seems to fall into the "give it away and pray" trap -- while it's great to rely on the good grace of donors, she could do much better if she gave her fans a better reason to buy. On her recent appearance on the Jimmy Fallon show, Felicia expressed her surprise at the prospect that someone would support The Guild with a $100 donation; however, what if, for $1,000, you could spend a few hours tackling quests on World of Warcraft with Felicia? Surely there's a fan or two out there that would leap at that opportunity. Day does not disclose the economic details of her franchise, but she keeps alluding to small budgets and tiny profit margins. I would be curious to see the exact numbers, but there's nothing wrong with running a small, lean, efficient operation: given the choice of owning GM or Craigslist, I'd definitely choose Craigslist. This metaphor works for entertainment too: remember Waterworld? This doesn't mean calling for the end to the lavish spreads of food on movie sets. Of course not. From what I hear, Google has great food too.

Much like with the music industry, it is getting easier for creatives to self-produce quality works without the support of a major studio. And, as we experiment with new business models (like CwF + RtB), perhaps we will find a better way to produce TV shows and movies than the traditional model. In the traditional paradigm, starving actors work jobs as waiters and waitresses while plying their craft during their off-hours in the hope of being "discovered" and hitting the acting "lottery." Otherwise, many live job to job or eventually burn out and go find a different job. With the tools of production and distribution now being available to the masses, when can acting be the "day job" for more people? Hopefully soon.

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Panasonic has suspended the availability of the firmware update for its Lumix DMC-LX3 digital compact camera. Version 2.0 was meant to bring a host of additional functions as well as feature improvements for the 14-month-old camera. A revised update will be available 'around October 20th' the company says.

marcansoft writes "On September 28, Nintendo released a Wii update, titled 4.2. This update was targeted squarely at homebrew, performing sweeping changes throughout the system. It hardly achieved that goal, though, because just two days later a new version of the HackMii installer was released that brings full homebrew capabilities back to all Wii consoles, including unmodified consoles running 4.2. However, as part of their attempt to annoy homebrew users, Nintendo updated the lowest level updateable component of the Wii software stack: boot2 (part of the system bootloader chain). Homebrew users have been using BootMii to patch boot2 in order to gain low level system access and recovery functions (running Linux natively, fixing bricks, etc). The update hasn't hindered this, as users can simply reinstall BootMii after updating (it is compatible with the update). But there's a much bigger problem: Nintendo's boot2 update code is buggy." Read on for more details.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Fujifilm has announced the US price and availability of its 3D imaging system including the W1 digital camera, V1 picture viewer and 3D prints. The W1, is now available for a retail price of US $599.95 and the digital viewer is available for US $499.95. 3D prints will be made available from mid-October, through the company's printing website SeeHere.com for approximately US $6.99 per print.

Fujifilm has announced the US price and availability of its 3D imaging system including the W1 digital camera, V1 picture viewer and 3D prints. The W1, is now available for a retail price of US $599.95 and the digital viewer is available for US $499.95. 3D prints will be made available from mid-October, through the company's printing website SeeHere.com for approximately US $6.99 per print.

A little over a month ago, I suggested that Sprint and Palm were making a big mistake in not offering the Palm Pre for free (more specifically, saying that Sprint should subsidize the full price). I don't think I can recall a post where more people told me I was so totally wrong. People insisted it was the dumbest idea ever, and that it would harm the brand value of the Pre, while costing Sprint way too much money. Yet, I still stand by that claim. Sprint doesn't make money selling the phone, it makes it by getting people to sign up for at least two years of Palm Pre service -- which is on the higher end of the service scale. The Pre is not as good as the iPhone, and did very little to really stand out from the competition. So the way to get around that is to offer the device for free.

At least some people seem to agree.

The device is now being offered in the UK... exactly as I suggested: free with a two year contract. At the same time, through some tricky step following, you can actually get the device for free in the US as well. I don't see how that takes away from the prestige of the device at all. If anything, it's only going to help make it easier for some people to at least try it out as a phone.

Of course, my other big complaint with the Palm Pre -- its weak developer support still stands. Famed developer Jamie Zawinski just wrote about his absolutely ridiculous experience trying to get two simple apps available on Palm Pre phones. It's taken months, and they're still not available, even though he wants to make them available for free. Instead, as with the iPhone, the "approval" process of getting apps into the app store are positively ridiculous. I had been seriously considering getting a Palm Pre (in fact, a few months ago, I was positive I was going to get one), but without real developer support, it's just not worth it. I'll wait until a decent Android phone is available instead.

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The Bank of America in Tampa, Florida has a no-exceptions policy requiring a thumbprint when cashing a check. And they do mean no exceptions: the bank refused to cash a check for a man with no arms because he couldn't provide a fingerprint.

"They looked at my prosthetic hands and the teller said, 'Well, obviously you can't give us a thumbprint'," Steve Valdez told CNN on Wednesday.

But he said the Bank of America Corp branch in downtown Tampa, Florida, still insisted on a thumbprint identification for him to cash a check drawn on his wife's account at the bank, even though he showed them two photo IDs.

No thumbprint, no money, bank tells armless man (via Lowering the Bar)

Flickr user Graphic Nothing has a delightful set of "Movie Posters for Minimalists" that contain the minimum visual information necessary to convey a sense of the film. I have a feeling that a lot of these would work better for people who've already seen the movies, rather than as enticement to go to the cinema in the first place, but I'm still very pleased by them.

Movie Posters for Minimalists (via Wonderland)

coondoggie writes "The crew of the classic science-fiction show's Starship Enterprise wore small devices on their chests that they could tap to communicate instantly with their colleagues. Such communications technology is now closer to reality thanks to a Finnish company which this week demonstrated high-tech clothing that can send and receive messages via satellite. The demonstrator antenna, built by the Patria Aviation Oy company, looks like a simple patch of cloth but is capable of operating in the Iridium and GPS frequency band as part of clothing. The Iridium satellites allow two-way voice and data communication, while GPS provides positional data to the user. Iridium could also relay the position of the user."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The Topspin blog has a story of one of the bands they've worked with, a lesser known act called Fanfarlo, that was able to reach some specific goals in promoting itself and building up its fan base, while getting many to commit to paying. From that, the post discusses a four step "formula" that the band used for success (listed here with my summary):

1. Don't suck: something that often gets lost in these discussions. The music still does need to be good. All of these business models are that much harder if the music isn't any good and fans don't like it. Playing good music is a definite first step.
2. Get others to introduce you to their audience: This is another good point. I've been talking to some musicians lately, who were trying to understand how to best apply some of this stuff, and I often suggest looking for other, more well-known acts, that the band can work with to get some sort of endorsement, or "opening" slot on a tour (or even just a gig) as a way of reaching more fans. The Topspin post points out that some people assume that this is the real story behind the success of Fanfarlo, but the numbers don't bear that out. It probably accounted for approximately 30% of the band's sales. Not shabby, but hardly the only reason for the band's success.
3. Make those audiences an offer they can't refuse: In this case, the band offered a download of their album, plus four bonus tracks for $1 for a limited time. Yes, all of the songs combined for a dollar -- not each of them for a dollar apiece. While I normally support just giving away the music for free, I can see a reason to offer them all for a dollar in some situations. In this case, it gets more people to commit to the music and the band, but at a price that is much easier to deal with. I'm still not convinced that $1 is better than free, but it sure beats regular album prices. While this offer was for a limited time, after it was over, the band still offered the download cheaply ($6).
4. Repeat: This is another important one. We keep hearing bands put in place business model promotions that are one time deals, rather than a fully thought-out continuous and ongoing business model. By repeating the process, not only can a band keep making money, but it lets them iterate and experiment, and find out what works (and what doesn't.).

In this case, it looks like things definitely worked. It was able to get 15,000 new fans on its mailing list, with a rather stunning 13,000 of those buying something (but fans just want stuff for free, right?). Of those who simply viewed the download offer, an amazing 22% made a purchase. That's an insane conversion rate. Also 30% of the download buyers came back and bought a physical product later (CD, vinyl or special edition).

All in all, yet another successful example of a band figuring out ways to connect with fans while giving them a reason to buy.

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An anonymous reader writes "Consortium members read like a Who's Who in technology research for the Battery 500 Project which aims to use nanotechnology to extend the range of all-electric cars 200 miles beyond the 300-mile range of gasoline powered cars. IBM, the University of California at Berkeley and all five of our US National Labs are collaborating to make the 500-mile electric car battery. Within two years, they promise to have a new kind of battery technology in place for the 500-mile electric car. If that happens, then I predict a mass exodus from gasoline to electric powered cars that will make the Toyota Prius look like a fad."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "Consortium members read like a Whose-Who in technology research for the Battery 500 Project which aims to use nanotechnology to extend the range of all-electric cars 200 miles beyond the 300-mile range of gasoline powered cars. IBM, the University of California at Berkeley and all five of our U.S. National Labs are collaborating to make the 500-mile electric car battery. Within two years, they promise to have a new kind of battery technology in place for the 500-mile electric car. If that happens, then I predict a mass exodus from gasoline to electric powered cars that will make the Toyota Prius look like a fad."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Last night PT and I got to check out the Math Midway (soon to become the Math Museum), including the square trike PT already posted. Check out their website and mine and PT's photos on Flickr. That other lovely lass in the pictures is Alicia Gibb from Bug Labs.

The Math Midway is in NYC until October 14th, at the Urban Academy, after which it will travel to the Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown, PA. This group of exhibits wants to turn into a full-scale museum, so if you're interested in getting involved, now's a good time!

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Last night PT and I got to check out the Math Midway (soon to become the Math Museum), including the square trike PT already posted. Check out their website and mine and PT's photos on Flickr. That other lovely lass in the pictures is Alicia Gibb from Bug Labs.

The Math Midway is in NYC until October 14th, at the Urban Academy, after which it will travel to the Da Vinci Science Center in Allentown, PA. This group of exhibits wants to turn into a full-scale museum, so if you're interested in getting involved, now's a good time!

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For many years, my wife and I have held a season subscription to the plays at the American Conservatory Theatre (ACT) in San Francisco. They put on some really great shows -- a mix of new and old (including at least one play by either Tom Stoppard or David Mamet pretty much every season, which is great, since those are probably my two favorite playwrights). This latest season kicked off with a bang a few weeks back with an amazing adaptation of Noel Coward's Brief Encounter, done by the Kneehigh Theatre group from the UK. Having attended dozens of plays at ACT over the years, I can't remember any that I thought was quite so amazing or that made me want to run out and tell lots and lots of people to go see it. It's the most imaginatively staged play I've ever seen, and you have to have a serious psychological disorder not to smile through most of it (despite the serious subject matter: marital affairs). I think the opening line to the SF Gate review summed up my thoughts exactly:

Every so often a theater piece comes to town that is so brilliantly conceived and executed, so entertaining on every level, that you want everyone you love or even like just a bit to see it. Kneehigh Theatre's "Brief Encounter," the opening show in the American Conservatory Theater's new season, is that kind of experience.

You kind of have to see the play itself to understand what's so creative about it, but as a hint, before the play even starts, the actors show up in different parts of the theater and start playing instruments and singing songs -- totally unannounced (and many in the crowd ignored it) right up until the play starts. Then, during intermission, they ended up doing something similar in the bar area (downstairs, not upstairs), before mingling with the crowd as everyone made their way back to the theater. Considering most of the actors are on-stage close to the entire time during the play, it's noteworthy that they then end up extending things both before the play and during the intermisison. It really is a neat way for the actors to more closely "connect" with the fans at the show.

Anyway... that, by itself, obviously isn't the sort of thing we post around here, but when I saw the news that the engagement had been extended for another week (the second time already) due to popular demand, I wanted to send that news to a few friends who I knew would enjoy the show, and did a quick search to find that SF Gate review (separately, I believe the play is heading to NY and then Minnesota in the coming months, for folks in either place). In doing so, I came across a blog post from a dramaturg who works at ACT talking about how the artistic department of ACT is trying to get much more involved in meeting people at the theater and improving the overall experience:

An idea I had over the summer, the SHOP puts the creators of Words on Plays (my supervisor and me) in the theater to personally sell our product and discuss it--as well as the play itself and the theater more generally--with our patrons. Part of our theater's mission is to encourage conversation; we're taking this tenant literally. Previously Words on Plays was sold at the merchandise counter, but that counter is remaining unmanned this season because of low sales. So our timing was good.

The idea is to get more in touch with the fans coming to the theater and build a stronger relationship, while still offering "reasons to buy" (the whole RtB part...). While it sounds like direct sales of the book weren't a big deal, it is still helping more people connect with the theater overall and come back to see more plays (a bigger moneymaker than any book...):

Our patrons are most familiar with our theater's hospitality and fundraising staffs. Certainly not a bad thing, but what if this model was exchanged for one in which representatives from the artistic staff were always present to discuss what the patrons are really there to think about--the art?

This is how smaller theaters have to do it because everyone is doing everything. The artistic director is the ticket taker. The playwright is the one who knows where the fire extinguisher is. And it's lovely. Every show you are being welcomed in by a family.

This is where my thinking started. I would stand at my booth selling my product and furthering conversation about the show. But I think I may have been thinking too small. Last night I sold five copies. Commendable but negligible. But I also sold at least two couples on November, our next show, by simply telling them how funny a script it is. I spoke to another gentleman about his time in England. I made a handful of people laugh when I directed them to the new location for the hearing devices: "Why don't you put a sign up?" "Because then I wouldn't get to talk to you."

Indeed. Over the last few months, we've been seeing how the whole CwF + RtB concept isn't just working for musicians, but authors, movie makers, photographers and many other content creators as well. Most of these experiments are still early, but you get a sense that actually building real connections with fans is really working for those who truly put their hearts into it. And, oh yeah, if you're in San Francisco, you really should go check out Brief Encounter...

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Steve writes -

Thanks to Danny and Akiyama-San from Good Smile Co. I was able to attend the opening event for akiba:F held today. The official start is tomorrow, but got to look around and see the amazing place today. And they didn't even poke me with needles! It's quite amazing and very futuristic. Looks very much like a medical bay from some scifi tv show. inside you get free wifi, lots of manga and magazines to read, and even an iPod touch powered entertainment center to use while you fluids are drained.

Free wifi, holograms... worth a little blood. This is on the "MAKE" places to visit, I want to live there (more photos).

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Steve writes -

Thanks to Danny and Akiyama-San from Good Smile Co. I was able to attend the opening event for akiba:F held today. The official start is tomorrow, but got to look around and see the amazing place today. And they didn't even poke me with needles! It's quite amazing and very futuristic. Looks very much like a medical bay from some scifi tv show. inside you get free wifi, lots of manga and magazines to read, and even an iPod touch powered entertainment center to use while you fluids are drained.

Free wifi, holograms... worth a little blood. This is on the "MAKE" places to visit, I want to live there (more photos).

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As part of its MusicTuesdays, YouTube posted a brief plug for DFTBA Records, describing the year-old record label that supports musicians on YouTube. As you might expect, these musicians understand that sharing their music on YouTube is one of the best promotional channels on the internet. So it's not exactly shocking that DFTBA officially encourages anyone to use its music (ok, not all of its music, but most of it) in the background of other original YouTube videos -- which is similar to Moby's gratis license for independent films.

It's good to see that DFTBA Records is yet another example in the music industry of a business that has picked up on connecting with fans, and it even has a built-in reminder with its name (Don't Forget to Be Awesome) to keep its audience happy. Perhaps Warner Music can learn something from these artists: instead of going after fans to punish them, it's better to be awesome and grow a fanbase. Especially since it's becoming clearer every day that musicians can connect with fans on their own, and some artists are beginning to wonder what traditional labels really have to offer.

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Bassam Tariq is a Boing Boing guestblogger who is the co-author of 30 Mosques. A blog celebrating the NYC mosques during the Islamic month of Ramadan. He lives in Harlem, NY.



It was just another hot day in Jaipur when Harish, an autorickshaw driver, sees Whitney, a University of Chicago student, in the distance and was awestruck. He asks her out for a cup of tea and she says no. He asks again, and she says no again. But Harish's persistence pays off, by the fourth time she comes around and they both grab a cup of tea. He shows her around Jaipur and, at the end of the day, he proposes to her. She accepts.

I'll admit, there is a part of me thinking, "typical colonized South Asian men always chasing after white women. I give it two months." And to that part of my brain I say shut it,let them bask in their happiness. What do you guys think?

Sometimes these things just make you wonder what people are thinking. If you follow political news at all, you've no doubt heard about the whole ACORN scandal, with workers at the organization being filmed having no problem offering advice to a fake "pimp and ho" on how to handle the tax implications of trafficking in underage sex workers. The whole thing has been pretty ridiculous, with pretty much everyone holding any sort of political office shoving each other aside to distance themselves (and any gov't funds) from the organization. Honestly, if you've ever watched Candid Camera (dating myself) or any of its modern equivalents, I'm not really sure that getting a few people to do stupid stuff on camera really says all that much about an organization, other than that it needs to better train people, but what really calls ACORN's judgment into question is its decision to sue the folks who made and financed the videos for an "illegal wiretap." Even if they broke wiretapping rules by recording the meeting without letting the worker know, no good can come from this lawsuit. In that link, Andrew Moshirnia from the Citizen Media Law Project goes through a variety of reasons why it makes no sense to sue, even if they have a chance of winning the lawsuit. All it does is call more attention to the whole thing at a time when the organization should be apologizing profusely and detailing what steps it's taking to make sure such things never happen again. Suing just makes the organization look like it still defends those actions. ACORN screwed up big time, and it's only adding to its troubles by trying to sue those who exposed the organization for an illegal wiretap.

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An anonymous reader writes "A NASA probe found that cosmic ray intensities in 2009 had increased by almost 20 percent beyond anything seen in the past 50 years. Such cosmic rays arise from distant supernova explosions and consist mostly of protons and heavier subatomic particles — just one cosmic ray could disable unlucky satellites or even put a mission to Mars in jeopardy."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

October graces us tomorrow, so of course the supreme maker holiday Halloween is on the mind. Here's another flashback from our Make: Halloween Special Edition, which came out in August of 2007. Russell Luzinski came up with this sweet playable arcade Pac-Man costume, and there's no doubt he was the life of the party. Check out the full tutorial below. And for more Halloween DIY goodness, you can still pick up a back issue in the Maker Shed. Plus, don't forget about our 2009 Halloween Contest.

Playable Pac-Man Costume
Eat ghosts and power pellets with this wearable Pac-Man getup that really works.
By Russell Luzinski

For an 80s-themed Halloween party, I wanted a costume that was unique, incorporated technology, and would be fun for fellow partygoers. I'd been toying with the idea of making a mini arcade machine for my game room, so I decided to come up with one that I could also wear as my costume. What follows is a guide to making your own wearable Pac-Man that guarantees you'll be the life of the costume party. It's fun to build and to wear. And I've since converted it to a bar-top arcade machine, so this costume can play long after the Halloween parties are over.

MATERIALS

¾"×1½" furring strips
1" and 1½" drywall screws
1" plywood
Plastic bathroom corner trim that slides
onto the end of paneling
½" finishing nails
Spray paint
Plexiglass
Wood screws and washers
Laptop computer
USB gamepad controller
Arcade emulation software
Cabinet artwork
Plastic laminate
Saw
Carpenter's square

DIRECTIONS

Step 1: Frame the Pac-Man machine.
Start by measuring and cutting the plywood side panels, so you can use them as a template for the frame construction. I made mine 19" wide by 28" high, but cater yours to your physical size and preference.

Using the furring strips, make the 2 square frame pieces that form the top and the bottom of the frame. Assemble with drywall screws (pre-drill the holes or the wood will split). Use a square to ensure that everything will fit later in the assembly. Make sure the frame is wide enough to accommodate both the width of your chest and the width of your laptop (with your controller plugged in).

Using the plywood templates, measure and cut the 4 main vertical frame supports. I angled the 2 front supports to line up with the angle of the soon-to-be arcade screen. Attach all 4 supports to the 2 square pieces with drywall screws.

Frame up the control panel area in the same way, and then firmly secure the laptop to the cabinet frame. I first made a small ledge to support the laptop's weight, and then added a horizontal piece just above that and behind the laptop. This allowed me to lock the laptop into place by sliding it into the newly made slot. By this point, I was already running the necessary software to play Pac-Man. A simple internet search of the word "MAME" will point you in the right direction.

Finish framing the marquee and a pocket for the controller. I made the joystick removable, so people didn't need to be right in my face while playing. The directional pad on my Gravis Gamepad Pro joystick included a removable joystick ball, but I replaced that with a larger wooden ball from a craft store.

Step 2: Add paneling and trim.

Assemble the plywood panels and plastic corner trim onto the frame. The trim slides onto the edges of the paneling, which makes the whole process pretty forgiving. Use small finishing nails to secure the paneling and trim directly to the frame.

The picture above shows the pocket I made for the gamepad. It was small enough for the joystick to be wedged in pretty securely, yet still allowed for it to be removed.

Step 3: Paint and add finishing touches.
Time to paint! Make sure the room is well ventilated, and wear a mask. I gave the paneling a sand-down and then slapped on a layer of primer. Next up were 2½ cans of sunshine yellow enamel spray paint.

After 3 coats, install the plexiglass for the screen and marquee. I used a utility knife to cut the plexiglass pieces, then fastened them in place with screws and washers. Figure 3 shows the marquee and screen installed, along with the screen's bezel. I found all the cabinet artwork online, printed it on a laser jet printer, and covered it in clear plastic laminate.

I added the side art and a picture of a coin mechanism, and then mounted a small, battery-powered light to backlight the marquee. For shoulder straps, I used bungee cords wrapped in kitchen towels. With that, the build was complete.

Step 4: Wear it, then try some variations.
While I tried to make the cabinet as light as possible, the costume still weighed upward of 30lbs. Make your shoulder straps as comfortable as possible. You might experiment with lighter materials. Also note that the costume is playable only as long as your laptop battery holds out. You might want to bring the laptop charger to the party and use it to give your battery a charge and your shoulders a rest.

I used a picture of an arcade coin mechanism, but a real one can be purchased online at a reasonable price. Finally, while the removable controls worked well enough, I recommend fashioning some kind of locking mechanism to keep the controller from slipping out while being used. Or permanently secure the controller to the cabinet.

About the Author:
Russell Luzinski is a mechanical engineer and currently resides in Green Bay, Wisc.

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October graces us tomorrow, so of course the supreme maker holiday Halloween is on the mind. Here's another flashback from our Make: Halloween Special Edition, which came out in August of 2007. Russell Luzinski came up with this sweet playable arcade Pac-Man costume, and there's no doubt he was the life of the party. Check out the full tutorial below. And for more Halloween DIY goodness, you can still pick up a back issue in the Maker Shed. Plus, don't forget about our 2009 Halloween Contest.

Playable Pac-Man Costume
Eat ghosts and power pellets with this wearable Pac-Man getup that really works.
By Russell Luzinski

For an 80s-themed Halloween party, I wanted a costume that was unique, incorporated technology, and would be fun for fellow partygoers. I'd been toying with the idea of making a mini arcade machine for my game room, so I decided to come up with one that I could also wear as my costume. What follows is a guide to making your own wearable Pac-Man that guarantees you'll be the life of the costume party. It's fun to build and to wear. And I've since converted it to a bar-top arcade machine, so this costume can play long after the Halloween parties are over.

MATERIALS

¾"×1½" furring strips
1" and 1½" drywall screws
1" plywood
Plastic bathroom corner trim that slides
onto the end of paneling
½" finishing nails
Spray paint
Plexiglass
Wood screws and washers
Laptop computer
USB gamepad controller
Arcade emulation software
Cabinet artwork
Plastic laminate
Saw
Carpenter's square

DIRECTIONS

Step 1: Frame the Pac-Man machine.
Start by measuring and cutting the plywood side panels, so you can use them as a template for the frame construction. I made mine 19" wide by 28" high, but cater yours to your physical size and preference.

Using the furring strips, make the 2 square frame pieces that form the top and the bottom of the frame. Assemble with drywall screws (pre-drill the holes or the wood will split). Use a square to ensure that everything will fit later in the assembly. Make sure the frame is wide enough to accommodate both the width of your chest and the width of your laptop (with your controller plugged in).

Using the plywood templates, measure and cut the 4 main vertical frame supports. I angled the 2 front supports to line up with the angle of the soon-to-be arcade screen. Attach all 4 supports to the 2 square pieces with drywall screws.

Frame up the control panel area in the same way, and then firmly secure the laptop to the cabinet frame. I first made a small ledge to support the laptop's weight, and then added a horizontal piece just above that and behind the laptop. This allowed me to lock the laptop into place by sliding it into the newly made slot. By this point, I was already running the necessary software to play Pac-Man. A simple internet search of the word "MAME" will point you in the right direction.

Finish framing the marquee and a pocket for the controller. I made the joystick removable, so people didn't need to be right in my face while playing. The directional pad on my Gravis Gamepad Pro joystick included a removable joystick ball, but I replaced that with a larger wooden ball from a craft store.

Step 2: Add paneling and trim.

Assemble the plywood panels and plastic corner trim onto the frame. The trim slides onto the edges of the paneling, which makes the whole process pretty forgiving. Use small finishing nails to secure the paneling and trim directly to the frame.

The picture above shows the pocket I made for the gamepad. It was small enough for the joystick to be wedged in pretty securely, yet still allowed for it to be removed.

Step 3: Paint and add finishing touches.
Time to paint! Make sure the room is well ventilated, and wear a mask. I gave the paneling a sand-down and then slapped on a layer of primer. Next up were 2½ cans of sunshine yellow enamel spray paint.

After 3 coats, install the plexiglass for the screen and marquee. I used a utility knife to cut the plexiglass pieces, then fastened them in place with screws and washers. Figure 3 shows the marquee and screen installed, along with the screen's bezel. I found all the cabinet artwork online, printed it on a laser jet printer, and covered it in clear plastic laminate.

I added the side art and a picture of a coin mechanism, and then mounted a small, battery-powered light to backlight the marquee. For shoulder straps, I used bungee cords wrapped in kitchen towels. With that, the build was complete.

Step 4: Wear it, then try some variations.
While I tried to make the cabinet as light as possible, the costume still weighed upward of 30lbs. Make your shoulder straps as comfortable as possible. You might experiment with lighter materials. Also note that the costume is playable only as long as your laptop battery holds out. You might want to bring the laptop charger to the party and use it to give your battery a charge and your shoulders a rest.

I used a picture of an arcade coin mechanism, but a real one can be purchased online at a reasonable price. Finally, while the removable controls worked well enough, I recommend fashioning some kind of locking mechanism to keep the controller from slipping out while being used. Or permanently secure the controller to the cabinet.

About the Author:
Russell Luzinski is a mechanical engineer and currently resides in Green Bay, Wisc.

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Earlier court rulings have found that sports leagues cannot stop videos games from using player stats, since that's factual information. But, what about player likenesses? Many had assumed that was still forbidden without a license, but a new court ruling has found otherwise. Former football player Jim Brown had sued EA, claiming the use of his likeness violated his rights, but a district court judge has dismissed the case, saying that video games are "expressive works, akin to an expressive painting that depicts celebrity athletes of past and present in a realistic sporting environment," and thus are protected by the First Amendment. The case will almost certainly be appealed, but for now, it's a big win for video game makers and their ability to use player likenesses in their games without licensing them first.

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Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calender. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calender!

Coming up this week:

DorkbotPDX @ On Gallery 1st Thursday!
Portland, OR
Thursday, Oct 1, 2009, 6pm - 10pm (then ongoing)

Arse Elektronika
San Francisco, CA
Thursday, Oct 1, to Sunday, Oct 4, 2009, all weekend

Noisebridge: Year 1 Open Hacker House
San Francisco, CA
Friday, Oct 2, 2009, 6pm - 11pm

Open Source Embroidery Exhibition
San Francisco, CA
Friday, Oct 2, 2009, 6pm - 8pm (then ongoing)

BALLS 18
Black Rock Desert, Gerlach, NV
Friday, Oct 2, to Sunday, Oct 4, 2009, all weekend

Southern Ontario Hackerspaces / Makers Mini-Conference
Hamilton, Ontario
Friday, Oct 2 to Saturday, Oct 3, all day

Introduction to Electronics
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Oct 3, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

i3 Detroit Open House and Party
Royal Oak, MI
Saturday, Oct 3, 2009, 12pm - 5pm, 7pm +

Circuit Bending Workshop, pt II
Milwaukee, WI
Wednesday, Oct 7, 2009, 6:30pm - 9pm

Start planning for:
Fire the Lazzzor! Learn to rapid prototype using the 35 Watt Epilog Laser.
Brooklyn, NY
Sunday, Oct 11, 2009, 2pm - 5pm

Video Editing in iMovie '09
Pittsburgh, PA
Saturday, Oct 24, 2009, 2pm - 4:30pm

Mobile Art && Code
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Nov 6 to Sunday, Nov 8, 2009, all weekend

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Looking to take a break from tinkering on your latest project this weekend? Here are some fine maker events to check out, from The Maker Events Calender. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calender!

Coming up this week:

DorkbotPDX @ On Gallery 1st Thursday!
Portland, OR
Thursday, Oct 1, 2009, 6pm - 10pm (then ongoing)

Arse Elektronika
San Francisco, CA
Thursday, Oct 1, to Sunday, Oct 4, 2009, all weekend

Noisebridge: Year 1 Open Hacker House
San Francisco, CA
Friday, Oct 2, 2009, 6pm - 11pm

Open Source Embroidery Exhibition
San Francisco, CA
Friday, Oct 2, 2009, 6pm - 8pm (then ongoing)

BALLS 18
Black Rock Desert, Gerlach, NV
Friday, Oct 2, to Sunday, Oct 4, 2009, all weekend

Southern Ontario Hackerspaces / Makers Mini-Conference
Hamilton, Ontario
Friday, Oct 2 to Saturday, Oct 3, all day

Introduction to Electronics
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Oct 3, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

i3 Detroit Open House and Party
Royal Oak, MI
Saturday, Oct 3, 2009, 12pm - 5pm, 7pm +

Circuit Bending Workshop, pt II
Milwaukee, WI
Wednesday, Oct 7, 2009, 6:30pm - 9pm

Start planning for:
Fire the Lazzzor! Learn to rapid prototype using the 35 Watt Epilog Laser.
Brooklyn, NY
Sunday, Oct 11, 2009, 2pm - 5pm

Video Editing in iMovie '09
Pittsburgh, PA
Saturday, Oct 24, 2009, 2pm - 4:30pm

Mobile Art && Code
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Nov 6 to Sunday, Nov 8, 2009, all weekend

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Events | Digg this!