Over the past few years, there have been numerous lawsuits by telcos against various municipalities that have decided to launch municipal fiber broadband projects. Most of these lawsuits have failed -- but the main argument from the telcos is that it's unfair to have to compete against the government, and it would take away incentives for the telcos to actually invest in infrastructure to provide for those towns. Of course, that doesn't make much sense. That would mean that any competition would decrease incentives to invest. One of the nastier legal battles took place in Monticello, Minnesota, where the local telco TDS fought hard (and lost) its battle to stop muni-fiber from showing up. But, now, suddenly TDS is announcing its own fiber broadband, giving people 50 Mbps service for $50/month. What's the likelihood that TDS would have done this if it didn't have competition from muni-fiber? The reason municipalities look to muni-fiber is because there isn't enough competition and the telcos aren't investing in infrastructure (or really serving customer needs). So the end result here is that by introducing more competition, consumers and citizens are better served. So what's the problem with it again?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Dale posted a tweet about the Chris Ware cover of the latest New Yorker magazine. I think the cover is a brilliant commentary on our mobile-connected, interrupt-driven, Twitter and FB-obsessed lives, and maybe on some of the "phoned-in" parenting that goes on.

It instantly reminded me of an incident at Maker Faire Bay Are three years ago. I was running a Mousey the Junkbot building workshop. People would buy parts bundles, sit at picnic tables, and I would guide them through building the bots from a workbench with a mic and overhead mirror, home expo cooking demo-style. A guy and his son, maybe 8 or 9, came up to look at the mousebots and parts bundles. I could already tell dad was bored, distracted, and slightly rude and dismissive (e.g. he baulked at the idea that the bundles cost money, like we were trying to rip him off). The kid said he wanted to try building one. Dad shelled out the bucks, grabbed the kit, and picked a spot at a table. As soon as dad sat down, he pulled out his phone and started playing a game on it. Now keep in mind, the Mousey build is rather involved, and includes using a Dremel and a cut-off wheel to hack a lot of plastic, requires a soldering iron, etc. It really requires some adult supervision. My teen son was helping out by circulating amongst the tables, making sure people had on their goggles, and showing them how to use the tools. He noticed this kid was basically unsupervised and went over to show him the ropes. Dad didn't flinch. He literally had his back turned to his son. The poor kid made a valiant effort to do what he could on the build. When he was ready to leave, he tapped his father on the back. Dad said: "Let's take a picture for mommy," took a quick pic of the kid posing with his roughed-out robot, and they made off into the crowd. As they were leaving, I saw dad pulling out his phone again, and his head go down. I've never in my life wanted more to give another parent a self-righteous lecture (maybe with some physical punctuation marks) about engagement, the precious value of attention, and basic parenting.

While I know the Ware image isn't necessarily that deep of an indictment (we all check our phones when there's a break in the action), it still reminded of this incident. I love how the reflected glow of the phone screens echoes the ghost/mask-like faces of the children at the door.

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

An interesting ruling in the Arizona Supreme Court found that the metadata on a public record should be public as well -- so people could, conceivably, look at who created certain documents and when they were created. While that might not seem like a big deal, as the article link above describes, plenty of interesting data often can be found in the metadata -- such as what lobbyist wrote up what documents for other organizations to send. While this only applies in Arizona right now, you have to imagine that lobbyists are quickly learning how to better scrub metadata off their astroturfing letters.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

CWmike writes "Users should wait for Microsoft to work out the bugs in Windows 7 before jumping on the new OS, computer support company Rescuecom said on Friday. 'From the calls we're getting, as well as our own experience in the past with all Microsoft's operating systems, we're recommending that people stick with their time-tested OS and wait for the dust to settle,' said Josh Kaplan, president of Rescuecom. Citing a litany of reasons, ranging from the risk of losing data during an upgrade to tough economic times, Kaplan urged Windows users to put off upgrading to Windows 7 or buying a new PC with the operating system pre-installed. 'There are some compelling reasons for both businesses and home users to move to Windows 7,' Kaplan said, 'so we're saying "just wait for a bit."' Upgrading an existing machine — whether it's running the eight-year-old Windows XP or the much newer Vista — is particularly risky, he added, especially if users haven't taken time to make a full backup before they migrate their machines. Some users have found that out first hand. Among the top subjects on Microsoft's support forum is one that has put some PCs into an endless reboot loop when their owners tried to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7. Microsoft has not yet come up with a solution that works for all the users who have reported the problem, sparking frustration."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This began as a response to a comment left by Marshall Kirkpatrick to an earlier post of mine.

My belief is that it's content that drives the apps.

You need something or someone to go first. With RSS it was Wired, Red Herring, Motley Fool and Salon then the early blogs then the NY Times and it blasted off.

With podcasting it was IT Conversations, the Gillmor Gang, Morning Coffee Notes, Daily Sourcecode, the community, then NPR and it blasted off.

This confluence has not (yet) happened for directory structures. It's not immediately obvious who the big drivers are going to be, but if they're out there, the Twitter lists feature is getting them to think about this stuff. I don't doubt that OPML will be part of the bootstrap and that people will quickly want to make lists that include resources that are not (just) Twitter users or lists of Twitter users.

In other words, this is the most promising moment for OPML directories that's come so far.

Just days after we wrote about a study that showed more government funding of the press leads to less reporting on government corruption, along comes the Washington Post with an editorial saying it's time to have the federal government fund more journalism. I wonder how Watergate would have turned out if the Washington Post was relying on Nixon for cash... The editorial piece claims that no one is "filling the gap" left by fewer newspaper reporters, but presents no evidence whatsoever to support that. The market is changing, absolutely, but we're seeing all sorts of new, unique and innovative ways of covering the news -- often allowing much greater coverage than in the past. Getting the government involved may sound good to the Washington Post, but it hardly seems like the right formula for an independent press.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Here are some of my recent posts about money for Credit.com.

Charts to Help You Succeed in Online Dating: "If you're investing your time and money in an online dating service and want to increase your chances of getting a reply from someone you're interested in, don't tell them they're "hot." Instead, tell them you dig zombie movies."

Strategies for Happiness: "The shift from being a rat racer to pursuing happiness is not about working less or with less fervor but about working as hard or harder at the right activities -- those that are a source of both present and future benefit."

New Boom on Metal Detectors: "A 55-year-old metal detector enthusiast discovered a cache of Anglo-Saxon treasures earlier this month, estimated to be worth $10 million, in a farmer's field in Birmingham, England."

Big Spenders Living in Denial: "Mark is a 41-year-old executive who makes a six-figure salary but fell into debt because he doesn't believe in self-sacrifice: 'I have a sort of moralistic self-righteousness that I deserve good things,' he says. 'And because I'm surrounded by luxury all day, I know what's good quality and what isn't.'"

Higher pay equals worse performance: "Money is a motivator as well as a stress-inducer. With so much at stake, the volunteers had a harder time concentrating on the assignment."

Consumerism Commentary Podcast: "Flexo and his colleagues are interested in the same kinds of money-related topics that I am: the psychology of money, personal finance tips, investment strategies, life hacks (like haggling tactics), and various fun observations (like how the frequent redesign of US coins is a bad thing). In a blogosphere overcrowded with personal finance blogs, they are one of the best."

Going Minimal: "Leo Babauta at Get Rich Slowly and Trent Hamm at The Simple Dollar are both fans of a minimalist approach to personal finances. Monetary minimalism involves taking stock of the ways you spend your money and your time, and then streamline them so you have 1) more money, 2) more time, and 3) a more rewarding life."

How money affects the "moral molecule" in your brain: An interview with Neuroeconomist Paul J. Zak: "When you receive money denoting trust your brain releases a chemical called oxytocin. Oxytocin motivates you to reciprocate. It makes us feel empathy for others. It connects us to others."

Learning to resist anchoring cues: "When it comes to buying diamonds, which most people won't do more than once or twice in their lives and have no idea what diamonds are really worth, people will grab any anchor given to them. And De Beers is only too happy to provide one: 'two months' salary.'"

Nifty Chart and Web App to Help You Find a Better Cell Phone Plan: "BillShrink's Cell Phone Advisor is a useful Web app that helps you search for a cheaper cell phone plan. You enter your current monthly bill, the name of your carrier, and other information, and the Cell Phone Advisor presents other plans that could save you money."

cptdondo writes "I've got an old laptop that I've been trying to resurrect. It has a 486MHz CPU, 28 MB of RAM, a 720 MB HD, a 1.44MB floppy drive, and 640x480 VESA video. It does not have a CD drive, USB port, or a network port. It has PCMCIA, and I have a network card for that. My goal is to get a minimal GUI that lets me run a basic browser like Dillo and open a couple of xterms. I've spent the last few days trying to find a Linux distro that will work on that machine. I've done a lot of work on OpenWRT, so naturally I though that would work, but X appears to be broken in the recent builds — I can't get the keyboard to work. (OK, not surprising; OpenWRT is made to run on WiFi Access Point hardware which doesn't have a keyboard...) All of the 'mini' distros come as a live CD; useless on a machine without a CD-ROM. Ditto for the USB images. I'm also finding that the definition of a 'mini' distro has gotten to the point of 'It fits on a 3GB partition and needs 128 MB RAM to run.' Has Linux really become that bloated? Do we really need 2.2 GB of cruft to bring up a simple X session? Is there a distro that provides direct ext2 images instead of live CDs?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

There are vises, and there are vises. And there are those of us for whom vises are also vices. For we few obsessives cognoscenti, the price of this beautifully-designed chain-drive shoulder vise package may not be unreasonable. For the mechanically inclined, a remake would be totally do-able, and Lie-Nielsen is to be credited for not keeping any secrets about how it all goes together. The installation instructions (.pdf) contain all you'd need to know to cobble together one of your own.

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

In the past, we've had a bunch of stories about TV shows being released on DVDs having to change their music to deal with the fact that it wasn't licensed for DVD release originally (often because when the TV shows were on the air, there was no such thing as a DVR -- or even a VCR -- so it couldn't even have been predicted). Then, of course, there have been a series of famous lawsuits over whether or not publications can "republish" their old magazines in electronic format, because freelancers who wrote the original articles only signed licenses for the single publication.

However, it looks like lawyers drafting such legal arrangements are beginning to recognize this as an issue and are trying to prepare for such eventual new media opportunities. Eric Goldman alerts us to a WSJ article, highlighting how phrases like "in all media, throughout the universe" are becoming increasingly common in licensing contract language. While some decry this as being imprecise and overly broad, I tend to fall on the other side of the fence. Not having those types of clauses in agreements in decades past have resulted in a lot of long and drawn out lawsuits (and old content that simply cannot be repurposed for modern media). Better to have the language seem ridiculously inclusive than lose culture to history because no one predicted the next popular format.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

negRo_slim writes "Who knew the N-Gage was still kicking? Well apparently it still is — however, it looks like 2010 will be the end. From the announcement: 'While the N-Gage.com site together with the N-Gage Arena and other community features will remain in operation throughout 2010, the Ovi Store will be the new central place for all the mobile games that Nokia and other publishers offer from this point forward. We will no longer publish new games for the N-Gage platform.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

When I posted about the lives of lovable native lampreys a couple weeks ago, commenter Allegra pointed me to some great videos of vegetarian lamprey in Vancouver's Morrison Creek. For the first couple seconds of watching, I honestly mistook the lamprey for water plants. And then they started building nests and spawning. Which plants don't tend to do.

This video shows a group of male and female lamprey building a nest by moving small stones with their sucker mouths. There's more videos of lamprey working together to build nests if you follow the link. Cool stuff! The group that put this together, the Morrison Creek Streamkeepers, also have a photo page that explains how to tell the difference between a girl lamprey and a boy lamprey--if I haven't burned you out on animal sex this week already.

Boing Boing guestblogger Connie Choe is a health and culture writer by day and a professional kimchimonger by night.

Whenever I'm hanging out on a chairlift I like to shout that I'm going to go die a cold, snowy death. Mostly so that if I were to actually perish on the ride down I could say, "I told you so." But also because I am genuinely (and in my case, irrationally) afraid that something terrible like this will happen. The guy in the video is an experienced backcountry skier named Chris Cardello. In his words:

When the slide propagated, I tried to remain as composed as possible and make sure my AvaLung was in. As I was getting buried and the slide slowed, I threw one hand up and with my other hand I grasped the AvaLung, which had been ripped out of my mouth during the turbulent ride. While I was buried, I tried to be as calm as possible; I knew my hand was exposed so my crew would be digging me out shortly. I was able to breathe through the AvaLung, but it was difficult due to the snow jammed down my throat.

(via freeskier.com)

Restrictive homeowners' association preventing you from building your entire house out of LEGO? To help convince them of the importance of the brick, why not start by building a LEGO kitchen, like this one from designers Simon Pillard and Philippe Rosett. While not made entirely of lego (there is a fiberboard counter underneath the brick), it should be sure to earn you the respect of your neighbors. [via inhabitat]

More:

• LEGO Kitchen crafts
• Toilet paper folder & dispenser prototype

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

Somebody is going to lose the World Series. It's true. I have heard this is how these things work. But, when the inevitable happens, where do all their commemorative hats, T-shirts, shoelaces, giant foam hands, etc. go? After all, nobody knows which team will win. To meet the instant, post-game demand, manufacturers have all that championship memorabilia--for both teams--made up and sitting in a warehouse before the final game is even a twinkle in an announcer's eye.

If you guessed that it ends up in a dump, you'd be wrong. Mental_floss investigated and found the World Vision, an international Christian charity, gets the losing gear from baseball, football and basketball.

The merchandise doesn't go to waste, people living in poverty receive new, clean clothes, and the clothing makers recoup some of their losses--they get tax credits for the charitable donations. Why don't the clothes go to needy families in the United States? Overseas donation is part of the agreement between World Vision and the leagues. The farther away the clothing is, the less likely it is to offend a losing player (or heartbroken Buffalo Bills fan).

In fact, fear of fan alienation used to keep the MLB from donating. Up until two years ago, they required all inaccurate championship clothing be destroyed.

In general, we're big fans of the safe harbors found in the DMCA and the CDA, as they do what common sense should do instead: make sure that a third party is not held liable for actions of its users. Unfortunately, common sense isn't always so common, and some people have trouble understanding this concept. In fact, it appears that a new bill may go in the other direction when it comes to investor information. A proposed bill that is supposedly designed to allow the SEC to better protect investors from bad info would potentially hold service providers liable for information posted by users if the service provider has "actual knowledge that the material contains a misrepresentation [or] in the absence of actual knowledge, is aware of facts or circumstances from which it is apparent that the material contains a misrepresentation [and] upon obtaining such knowledge or awareness, fails to act expeditiously to remove, or disable access to, the material."

That would go against the basic Section 230 CDA safe harbors, so I'm not quite sure how you reconcile the two. In general, you can understand why it seems to make sense that service provider needs to remove such info, but it opens up all sorts of questions. Say someone in our comments posts some sort of misrepresentation. Are we now going to need to police that? If someone else tells us it's a misrepresentation, will we now need to delete the comment? Are we expected to investigate whether or not some random comment on the site is a misrepresentation? Policing such things on forums all over the place would place an incredible burden on any website that allows user generated content. Why not keep the Section 230 safe harbors and focus on holding the actual parties (those who posted it) responsible, rather than the tools they use?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

An anonymous reader sends along this excerpt from Nature News: "Kepler, NASA's mission to search for planets around other stars, will not be able to spot an Earth-sized planet until 2011, according to the mission's team. The delays are caused by noisy amplifiers in the telescope's electronics. ... The problem is caused by amplifiers that boost the signals from the charge-coupled devices that form the heart of the 0.95-metre telescope's 95-million-pixel photometer, which detects the light emitted from the distant stars. Three of the amplifiers are creating noise that compromises Kepler's view. The noise affects only a small portion of the data, Borucki says, but the team has to fix the software — it would be 'too cumbersome' to remove the bad data manually — so that it accounts for the noise automatically. He says that the fix should be in place by 2011." Mindful of Halloween's approach, NASA has put up a piece looking at some of the already-known exoplanets that wouldn't be very friendly to human life.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Your nostrils will absolutely not be taking any crap from each other. Scientists have long known about binocular rivalry--a sort-of competition between your eyes. If you control a person's vision so one eye sees one image, and the other eye sees a completely different image, the images won't merge. Instead, the person will experience a tug of war between one scene and the other, with neither eye coming out the winner. Turns out, our noses may be doing something similar. In a small, but interesting, study, researchers presented evidence for what they're calling "binaral rivalry"--competition between the nostrils.

Wen Zhou and Denise Chen presented twelve participants with the smell of rose to one of their nostrils and the smell of a marker pen to their other nostril. After each break in the smells, the participants indicated on a visual scale whether they had detected the scent of rose or of marker pen. Just as with binocular rivalry, the participants' perceptual experience fluctuated back and forth randomly between the two scents.

The researchers believe this nostril rivalry is related in some way to the process of adaptation, both in the receptor cells in the nose and in the part of the brain that processes smells. For example, when repeatedly presented with a balanced mix of both smells, the participants' sensory experience fluctuated between rose and marker pen, presumably because of adaptation in the brain: as central neurons tired of one odour, their response to the other became more dominant and back again. The researchers also showed that adaptation occurs in the nose: swapping the bottles of odour around from one nostril to the other reinstated participants' experience of a given smell after it had previously faded through continuous sniffing.

Via British Psychological Society Research Digest.

Image courtesy Flickr user bazusa, via CC.

(Dr. Sketchy figure model D.D.)

Bob Self says:

Molly Crabapple's DIY alternative figure drawing empire, known as Dr. Sketchy's Anti-Art School, boasts branches in over 80 cities internationally, but there's still a whole lot of world out there.

With that in mind, the crew from Dr. Sketchy's Los Angeles is packing the van and hitting the asphalt to bring Dr. Sketchy's Roadshow to a town near you. Beginning with an inaugural haul around California between November 2nd and 14th, the roadshow will make stops in Anaheim, Costa Mesa, Long Beach, Sherman Oaks, Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo, Fresno, Monterey, San Jose, Sacramento, Alhambra, and two more cities TBD.

Artist and art voyeurs need only bring a $10 donation and their favorite drawing supplies. Dr. Sketchy's and the Roadshow's art-centric host venues will provide everything else (top notch models, refreshments, casual networking opportunities, and an all around good time).

Dr. Sketchy's Roadshow

Philip K D writes "Award-winning SF author and BoingBoing co-editor Cory Doctorow has an editorial in today's Times of London. Doctorow elegantly eviscerates the basic injustice posed by the imminent Mandelson '3 Strikes' law in Britain. He makes the explicit observation: 'The internet is an integral part of our children's education; it's critical to our employment; it's how we stay in touch with distant relatives. It's how we engage with government. It's the single wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. It isn't just a conduit for getting a few naughty free movies, it is the circulatory system of the information age.' It is worth noting that Doctorow was influential in the creation of the Creative Commons. He has enjoyed considerable commercial success for his writings, owing in no small part on his insistence that his work be made available for unrestricted electronic distribution and copying." In related news, the UK's second-largest ISP, TalkTalk, is now threatening legal action if Mandelson's plan goes through.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Boing Boing guestblogger Connie Choe is a health and culture writer by day and a professional kimchimonger by night.

If you're not already planning to convert that old fridge into a kegerator, perhaps you should consider making your own cheese "cave." Why? Because cheese deserves your adoration, and you could use another hobby. I am planning to steal my husband's mini-fridge for this purpose (this is probably news to him) because it would be so appropriate for the rock star of dairy products to hang out in a unit that looks like an amp. If anyone can figure out how to effectively lower fridge temperature without purchasing a separate thermostat, I would be happy to send you some amateurish homemade cheese.

So many things to say about where Twitter's lists point, the thing is, I've said them all already, many times over many years. There's a whole architecture already designed and deployed for lists and lists of lists. And they form directories that are much more open than the original Yahoo directory or DMOZ. I know everyone thinks DMOZ is the most open directory possible, but it's not.

The list structure of the Internet should be a open as the web. That is to say no one gives you permission to create a web page on any topic you like. So if you want to create a list of resources, that might include Twitter users, but might also include many other things, go ahead. Be the best you can be. You don't need anyone to let you do it.

If you're good, I might include your directory within mine, thereby delegating that topic to you. If something better comes along, I might unhook yours and replace it with theirs. Or I might get fancy and join yours with theirs, forming the sum of two lists.

If you want to see this working, here's a directory rendering of the archive of Scripting News. Look at the white-on-orange XML icons in the upper right corner. They, as always, link to the XML version of the rendering. In this case instead of being RSS, they are OPML. Every page has a way to suggest a link.

How do you edit these structures? In the OPML Editor of course. Here's a screenshot.

The OPML Editor allows you to build these attributed hierarchies but it also includes a full web server and CMS. And a lot more. And because it was built to run on the computers of the mid-90s, it's pretty fast on today's machines. The download is the size of an MP3. Takes a minute to install.

I may try one more time to push these ideas out there. It may finally be the time. If anyone wants to get something entrepreneurial going, I'm up for it. I'm not just doing this stuff out of the goodness of my heart.

Techies, read the OPML 2.0 spec to see how the pieces fit together. My software is all replaceable. The formats are open and lightweight. And there's some great connections to search engines possible. I pitched Google on this in 2002.

Every so often, I get wrong number phone calls (one of my numbers is apparently listed in a LensCrafters book of other stores, so I get calls from LensCrafter stores asking if I've got things in stock). It's not that difficult to say "you have a wrong number" and everyone goes on their merry way. Apparently, not for some. In Georgia, someone accidentally dialed a wrong number, and it resulted in someone getting shot. Apparently, following the wrong number, angry phone calls and texts were exchanged between the two guys, before they agreed to meet in a drug store parking lot, where one of them got shot (and the other got arrested). The story doesn't indicate who dialed the wrong number first, but, seriously, would it have been that hard to have just said, "hey, wrong number" and left it at that?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Ian Lesnet submitted this cool hack-'o-lantern to our Make: Halloween Contest 2009. There's an Instructable here, a Flickr set here, and YouTube video here. It's a color-changing pumpkin full-court media press! The build uses a ShiftBrite RGB LED module, IR receiver, universal remote control, and a PIC18F2550 as the brains of it all.

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.

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

Pop surrealist Andrew Brandou has a mind-bending new show of paintings opening Halloween evening at the Corey Helford Gallery in Culver City, California. The show, titled "In The Garden of the Mystic," runs until November 18. Above, "Vulpes Vulpes" on left and "Midnight Blooms" on right. From the gallery:

Influenced by 1960’s posters, music and psychedelia, Brandou’s new work takes a walk on the wild side and a more organic narrative ensues. The artist’s iconic flower motifs, skulls, bunnies and boxes transform into a kaleidoscope of stunning psychonautic imagery. Ornate gold leaf accents decorate mind-expanding dreamscapes where the ego merges into the id, fear is released and beauty resides. The exhibition will also include a rare series of limited-edition silkscreens on wood block based on vintage rock posters.

Sneak preview after the jump...

"Mirror"







"Climbing Out"

"Looking for Him"

"Midnight Self"


Andrew Brandou preview

Ponca City, We love you writes "The Wichita Eagle reports that Congress has approved funds to relocate the population of the southeast Kansas town of Treece, which is plagued with lead, zinc and other chemical contamination left by a century of mining. Estimates say it will cost about $3 million to $3.5 million to buy out the town, which is surrounded by huge piles of mining waste called 'chat' and dotted with uncapped shafts and cave-ins filled with brackish, polluted water. 'It's been a long, dusty, chat-covered road, but for the citizens of Treece, finally, help will be on the way,' said Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas who has been pushing for a buyout of Treece for two years. The population of Treece has dwindled to about 100 people, almost all of whom want to move but say they can't because the pollution and an ongoing EPA cleanup project makes it impossible to sell a house. The EPA has already bought out the neighboring town of Picher, Oklahoma, stripping Treece of quick access to jobs, shopping, recreation and services, including fire protection and cable TV. Both cities were once prosperous mining communities but the ore ran out and the mines were abandoned by the early 1970s. Of 16 children tested for lead levels in Treece, two had levels between 5 and 10 micrograms per deciliter of blood and one had a level of more than 10, the threshold for lead poisoning."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Judy Castro and Michael Shiloh run a series of classes called "Teach Me to Make" on a variety of subject such as electronics and arduino, mechanical sculpture, and electromechanics. Classes are run out of The Crucible and The Shipyard. Michael writes:

More recently (2-3 months) I've been teaching classes at my workshop which is now back in The Shipyard. I hold two classes every Tuesday: In the afternoon is a Project Lab, where students work on their own projects with my guidance, assistance, and tools. In the evening is the Arduino and Electronics class, where lately we have been focusing on controlling stepper motors. Both of these classes are stand-alone, in that students attend whenever they are able, and each meeting is guided by the knowledge and interest of those present.

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

Woman's Day has a gallery of cheese sculptures that can't be missed, from this almost-perverse "Winners Drink Milk" piece, to a phallic Eiffel Tower, to a leprechaun-like Abe Lincoln made from a 1,000-pound block of mild Cheddar cheese.

8 Cutting-Edge Cheese Sculptures

We've posted before about the Mad Gasser of Mattoon: In 1944, the small town of Mattoon, Illinois was terrorized by a creepy black-clad prowler who sprayed anesthetic gas in his victims' faces. Or maybe it was all a case of mass hysteria based mostly on myth. The new episode of the excellent Memory Palace podcast features the delightfully weird tale of the Mad Gasser. The Memory Palace: "A Gas Gas Gas"

Rogue archivist Carl Malamud sez,

Boing Boing readers may remember a year ago when the great State of Oregon asserted copyright over the Oregon Revised Statutes, sending take-down notices prohibiting reuse by Justia and Public.Resource.Org. In a shining example of democracy, the legislature held hearings, heard us out, and unanimously waived copyright on the laws. The results of opening up the law were pretty spectacularly demonstrated when a 2nd-year law student, Robb Shecter, created the beautiful OregonLaws.Org (compare to the official site for a night and day look).

Well, those copyright assertions are back, this time by the Attorney General, who asserted ownership over the (for real!) Attorney General's Public Record and Public Meeting Manual. I spent last week in Oregon meeting with law school faculty and giving lectures at 3 universities on the topic of who owns the law.

The results have been compiled into a formal pleading which we are submitting to the Attorney General for his consideration. He seems like a good guy, and we've asked him to issue an official Attorney General Opinion on when the state may assert copyright, covering not only his Public Meeting manual, but also the Secretary of State's Administrative Rules, the Fire Marshall's Fire Code, and the Building Codes. We have quite a few of those documents already on line, so there is an actual issue on the table and we're hoping he'll do the research and make a ruling.

The Oregon Question (Thanks, Carl!)

It looks like "print-on-demand/create your own t-shirt/mug/mouse pad store" company Zazzle has been sued for infringement by Summit Entertainment, who owns the licensing rights to the oh-so-popular Twilight movies. Apparently, all those excited tweens have been making their own Twilight merchandise. Now, basic common sense would tell you that Zazzle is the tool provider, and not the actual infringer here. But, Summit is claiming trademark violations, and (tragically and inexplicably) the official safe harbors cover things like copyright and defamation, but not trademark (hurray for legal loopholes). The only ones doing the actual infringement are the users, not Zazzle itself, but Zazzle has to hope that a court actually realizes this, and sometimes the courts get very, very confused on these sorts of things.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Just over two years ago, fans of the Wheel of Time fantasy book series mourned the death of writer James Oliver Rigney Jr. — a.k.a. Robert Jordan. After much deliberation by Jordan's wife (who also edits the series), author Brandon Sanderson was chosen to finish the series. Sanderson familiarized himself with Jordan's notes and said that they would require three more books, which he hopes to release with about a year between them. On October 27th, the first new Wheel of Time book since Jordan's death was released, titled The Gathering Storm. Early reviews for the book seem quite positive, so here's a place to discuss it. Be warned: comments may contain spoilers.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Thank goodness someone built a robot that can play Rock Band on the iPhone. I was getting worried sick about it. Joe Bowers writes:

Rock Band has been released on the iPhone, and even though its a lot of fun, I would rather have something play it for me. Preferably a robot! The light sensor sends data to an Arduino, which is waiting for a spike in the data. The Arduino runs the sensor data through some averaging filters, and sets a threshold for on and off. The iPhone touch screen isn't like most PDAs. It uses a capacitive touch screen. I had some conductive foam laying around, its usually used for shipping sensitive electronics. If I used something non conductive, like a plastic pen, the foam would do nothing to the screen. My solution to this was to put thin copper wires into the foam (I also used these wires to attach the foam to the servos)... Add all of the above together into a modified Pelican case, with a lot of hot glue (non glittery) and you have a robot that will gladly beat all your difficult songs, sit back and sip some fine tea.

I love the ghostly sound of Blondie playing in the video.

iPhone Rock Band robot

Scott Jarvie made this Clutch Chair using more than 10,000 drinking straws. This one is apparently a non-functional art piece, however it seems like one should be able to make a usable chair with the same materials.

Anyone know how to form a curved surface using only straight segments of straw? My best guess is that you could use half-length straws as a wedge to form the curves. [via neatorama]

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

"NASA to Start Radiating Monkeys," noted Chris Baker (of Wired), "The kind of headline that should be followed by 'NASA to Fire PR Firm.'"

The experiments will bombard squirrel monkeys (like the lil guy above) with radioactivity to explore the possible effects of radiation in space on human astronauts. Warning: eventually, revenge will come. Oh, and then there's this possibility.

[Photo: "Here's Looking at You!" by ifijay, via Flickr, CC license here. ]

An anonymous reader writes "Facebook is on a never-before-seen legal rampage against high profile internet spammers. Today Facebook was awarded yet another nine-figure settlement, this time for over $700 million. Facebook also has a criminal contempt case on Wallace, which means a high likelihood of prison, a big win for the internet and a milestone in cyber law. 'The record demonstrates that Wallace willfully violated the statutes in question with blatant disregard for the rights of Facebook and the thousands of Facebook users whose accounts were compromised by his conduct,' Jeremy Fogel wrote in his judgment order, which permanently prohibits Wallace from accessing the Facebook Web site or creating a Facebook account, among other restrictions."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Enjoy ???????? "??????? ????" ????-3?????, the Russian boy accordion genius. It's all in the head shake. Once you get that down, the rest is easy.

With Peter Mandelson announcing this week (as everyone expected) that he's going to introduce a proposal to kick file sharers off the internet under a "three strikes" plan, it's been amusing watching defenders of this idea try and fail to answer the question "how will this make people buy more stuff." Over and over again people explain to us why it'll decrease file sharing (something I actually doubt for a variety of reasons that I'll explore later), but no one has explained how it will make more people buy stuff.

But, perhaps an even bigger question is whether or not it will ever actually get implemented in the UK. TalkTalk, the ISP that has been fighting the proposal for a while (and even gave a nice demonstration to show why IP addresses are not accurate in figuring out who's responsible for online activity) is now saying that it will take legal action to block such a proposal from being put in place, saying that it's a violation of human rights to kick people offline based on accusations, rather than due process.

On top of that, the idea is already incredibly unpopular with the majority of people in the UK... and (most importantly) there's an election coming up soon in the UK. Backing a massively disliked proposal to kick people off the internet based on accusations using weak evidence... probably isn't a savvy political move at this moment. Given all of that, I'm wondering if the plan ever really moves forward in the UK, or if it just makes a lot of noise so that Mandelson and his colleagues can tell the entertainment industry how they tried, to make sure the political donations keep coming in.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

9 levels of hell for the living
polka haunt us
goths in hot weather
zombie boogie
zombie wedding cake topper
ghoul a-go-go
zzzzombies
dead man's party
movie villain pumpkins
masks
mummy sausage wraps
halloween jell-o
gomora
bloody brain shooter
a hierarchy of monsters

previously on web zen:
halloween zen 2008

Permalink for this edition. Web Zen is created and curated by Frank Davis, and re-posted here on Boing Boing with his kind permission. Web Zen Home and Archives, Store, Twitter.

Kevin Poulsen at Threat Level has a great item up about the growing menace of "money mules." The term refers to bank customers who've been conned into unwittingly laundering cash that hackers have stolen from business bank accounts. The con and the funny phrase have been around for a while, but the US Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation issued a new warning to American financial institutions about the increasing spread on Thursday. Snip:

Using specialized Trojan horse malware, cybercrooks have been intercepting web-banking credentials from the computers of small and midsize businesses, and then initiating wire transfers to mules around the country. The mules are consumers who’ve been lured into fake work-at-home scams, in which their employment involves receiving money transfers and then forwarding the funds to Eastern Europe, either directly or through other mules.

The scheme has exploded in the last year, with the FBI estimating losses at $40 million so far, according to a recent story from WashingtonPost.com reporter Brian Krebs, who’s been closely following the attacks.

FDIC Warns Banks to Watch for 'Money Mules' Duped by Hackers [ Threat Level via @glennf ]

[ Image: Bank Safe Online UK ]

Follow up - Bruce sent this in "Periodic taxi"!

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

jasonbuechler writes in with news of the first state to declare that metadata is part of public records and must be released when the records are. "Hidden data embedded in electronic public records must be disclosed under Arizona's public records law, the state Supreme Court said Thursday... The Supreme Court's unanimous decision, which overturned lower court rulings, is believed to be the first by a state supreme court on whether a public records law applies to so-called metadata. 'This is at the cutting edge — it's the law trying to catch up with technology,' [one lawyer said]. The Arizona ruling came in a case involving a demoted Phoenix police officer's request for data embedded in notes written by a supervisor. The officer got a printed copy but said he wanted the metadata to see whether the supervisor backdated the notes to before the demotion."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

A maker sent this in, nice table!

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

Samuel Seide brings us this animatronic talking skull Instructable. It's motion-activated and uses a Waveshield kit for sound. [Thanks, Sam!]

More from Sam Seide:

• Interactive Punch-Out arcade dummy
• Tiny arcade machine is tiny

In the Maker Shed:

Arduino WaveShield Kit

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.

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

As promised, here's the details on the short Canada/US tour for my novel Makers in November:

November 12, 7PM
Toronto, ON, Canada
The Merril Collection of Science Fiction, Speculation, and Fantasy
239 College Street, 3rd Floor, +1 416 393-7748
Books by Bakka Phoenix
(you can pre-order signed copies from them if you can't make it).

November 16, 7PM
Cambridge, Mass
Harvard Bookstore
1256 Massachusetts Avenue

November 17, 7PM
New York City, NY
Borders Columbus Circle
10 Columbus Circle (@59th St and Central Park West)

November 20, 11AM and 1PM
Philadelphia, PA
Free Library of Philadelphia
1901 Vine Street

November 20-22
Philcon, Cherry Hill, NJ

If you're with the press and you'd like to arrange an interview, please contact Justin Golenbock (USA) (Justin.Golenbock@tor.com/646.307.5413) or Katherine Wilson (Canada) (Katherine.Wilson@hbfenn.com/905.951.6600 x271).

You have to wonder what the Brooklyn Law School is teaching its students about due process, since it recently sent an email to all students saying that after receiving complaints from copyright holders about file sharing movies and TV shows, it was going to associate the IP addresses with names and hand them over to the copyright holders. Of course, this is based solely on an IP address, which is not particularly accurate or reliable as a unique identifier of an individual, so what Brooklyn Law School is basically telling its students is that it doesn't care if they falsely accuse them of file sharing, and the students should work it out with someone else. Not exactly the sort of lesson that you would think a law school wants to teach its students.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

On his blog over at RedMonk, analyst James Governor looks at the walled garden we seem to be moving into, and possible cracks in the wall. "As we rush to purchase Apple products and services on Cupertino’s monochrome treadmill of shiny shiny, I can’t help thinking the open web community is losing something vital — a commitment to net neutrality and platform openness. If a single company can decide what plays on the network and what does not, in arbitrary fashion, how can that be net neutrality? ... Is the AppStore a neutral network? Should it be? Is Comcast, the company net neutrality proponents love to hate, really the only company we should be wary of? Pipe level neutrality is surely only one layer of a stack. The wider market always chooses proprietary wrappers — every technology wave is co-opted by a master packager. Success in the IT industry has always been about packaging — doing the best job of packaging technologies as they emerge. Twas ever thus." Governor ends his essay with an optimistic look at Android, which he says "potentially fragments The Permission Based Web, and associated data ownership-based business models."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

As a special preview for our upcoming Alex Rider Dream Gadget Contest, we're giving away two copies of Skeleton Key by Anthony Horowitz, the third book in the Alex Rider series. Just leave a comment in this post and tell us why you or your kid(s) needs one of these books. Please make sure you include your email address in the comment form field (it won't be published). All eligible comments will be closed by Noon PST on Sunday, November 1st. The winners will be announced next week on the site. Good luck!

More:

• Alex Rider's Geiger Counter Game Console
• Alex Rider's High Tensile Yo-Yo
  

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

There's been an accident. The young scientist--or, perhaps, his lab assistant or friends--stands stunned. He knows he's been washed in a massive dose of radiation. He knows his life will never be the same.

In the real-world, the victims of criticality accidents spend time in the hospital. Some die. In fiction, they wake up with powers beyond the imagination of normal humans.

Researching the history of criticality accidents made me wonder how accidental exposure to massive levels of radiation became the de rigueur method of achieving superhero-dom. And, while I suppose comic book writers would have a well-formed opinion or two on this, I decided to ask a group of people whose point of view I'd never seen--actual nuclear scientists.

To get the scientists' perspective on superhero origins, I turned to three men:

Niel Wald is professor emeritus at the University of Pittsburgh's department of Environmental and Occupational Health, where he studies the effects of radiation on the human body. Ron Pevey is an associate professor at the University of Tennessee who researches criticality safety, and nuclear reactor analysis and design. Geoff Meggitt is a retired health physicist, and former editor of the Journal of Radiological Protection, who worked for the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority and its later commercial offshoots for 25 years.

None of them found the nuclear influence on comics particularly surprising. Even Wald, who said he's never read any comics and completely missed the whole phenomenon of radioactive spiders, gamma rays and the like, wasn't terribly startled to find out such things existed.

I worked on a number of weapons tests in Nevada. Before dawn you'd be in the dark and suddenly the mountain ranges 50 miles away would be lit up like noonday, he said.

With that kind of awe-(and fear)-inspiring backdrop, it's no wonder writers dipped into the nuclear well. But even if we'd never tested an actual A-bomb, we might still have ended up with nuclear-powered superheroes. Ron Pevey remembers comic book stories involving irradiated heroes that date to the 1930s. The public fascination with the transformative power of radiation goes back further than 1945.

Pevey thinks its a case of pop culture mixing two scientific facts.

In the first part of the 20th century, the evolutionary scientists were expressing the idea that maybe cosmic radiation, which we've lived with on earth for our whole history, might have caused some changes to our DNA. Radiation can do that. At the same time, people were learning about evolution, which depends on random changes. I think that caught their imagination. That connection between radiation and evolution. I remember one of the earliest stories I read where they put this guy into a chamber and irradiated him, and he evolved before their eyes. Really he would have just died, but the idea remains.

In fact, the idea could go back further still, Geoff Meggitt says, back to the patent medicines that dominated the turn of the 20th century---the heyday of which coincided with the discovery of radium. With tragic consequences.

It was seen to have near magical properties: radium glowing perpetually in the dark, x-rays seeing into people. Radium drinks were thought to give vitality. Also radiation did achieve some remarkable cures of medical conditions from the very early days - and still does. So magical and transforming!

He points out the case of Eben Byers, the socialite son of a wealthy American industrialist, who died in 1932 after drinking more than 1000 bottles of a "medicine" made up of radium dissolved in water.

But the final piece of the puzzle--and probably an important one, at least for anybody who appreciates Alan Moore's "Watchmen"--is the eerie blue glow reported by some witnesses of criticality accidents. You saw a recreation of it back on Wednesday, if you followed the link to watch the fictionalized movie version of Louis Slotin's 1946 accident.

Niel Wald suspects this flash of unnatural color helped add to the mysterious nature of radiation, and created an almost ready-written Zap/Pow moment when you can see that everything has changed.

But what is the blue glow? Where's it come from? On that point, even scientists disagree. Wald and Meggitt think it has to do with the way charged particles released by a nuclear chain reaction interact with oxygen and water molecules in the air. But there's another theory.
Ron Pevey thinks the blue glow is caused by something called Cerenkov radiation. Basically, it's what happens when atomic particles travel faster through something--like water--than light can travel through that same material.

It sounds strange because we're used to saying that nothing travels faster than the speed of light. But the truth is that that's only true in a vacuum. Light doesn't travel that fast in water. Electrons, neutrons and little alpha particles can actually travel faster through that medium than light can, and that's what causes the blue glow. It's a weird thing. Astronauts have experienced it, too. And there's some speculation that, when this is seen outside of a watery environment, that it's actually occurring in the water in your eyeball.

Image of Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen movie publicity stills.

A number of news sites and blogs erroneously (or hoaxily?) reported the death of Chuck Biscuits (Wikipedia), who has performed over the years for bands including Black Flag, Circle Jerks, DOA, and Danzig. The reports were all wrong. He will live to bang on de drum again. Apparently the whole thing was a prank on a particular journalist. Or not. All I know is the photo in this post was taken by Glen E. Friedman, who broke the news about the fact that everyone who broke the other news was wrong. Oh, and: this blog post is an elaborate excuse to post the Danzig "home video" above, in which Mr. Biscuits confesses his love for sugary breakfast cereals. His addiction to the likes of Quisp and Boo Berry ("the caviar of breakfast cereals") is the stuff of punk legend. (thanks, Sean)

xchg passes along a WiseAndroid piece on the drop in value of Garmin and TomTom shares following Google's announcement yesterday of Google Maps Navigation. "Shares of GPS device makers Garmin and TomTom plummeted... through a combination of their quarterly results and the launch of Google Maps Navigation. Following both low guidance for Garmin's next quarter as well as poor results from TomTom, shares for the two fell 16.4 percent and 20.8 percent respectively and remained low through the entire trading day after news of Google's free, turn-by-turn mapping service became public." Today Lauren Weinstein posted a number of reasons why standalone GPS won't go away any time soon.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

News reports earlier this month created a global stir around an odd "made in China" product marketed to the Middle East - cheap artificial hymens. They're intended for use by brides who feel compelled to fake virginity, in countries where not being a virgin at marriage is a very big, very bad thing. Conservative Egyptian politicians wanted to ban the product. One curious (male) blogger in Egypt decided to order one.

Mohammad Al Rahhal picked up the contraband gyno-goods at his local post office in Egypt:

it had been opened by various puzzled customs and postal employees who, at a loss, defined the product in writing as "containing an unknown red liquid" - and awaited my description.

Al Rahhal told inspectors it was "cinematographic make-up," and took his hymen home.

Marwa Rakha over at Global Voices has more from Al Rahhal's product review (he explains how it works, sort-of NSFW if only for use of anatomically specific language). Also, a report at the UK Guardian.

Spoiler: Al Rahhal's verdict? This thing, and the thinking behind it, are totally stupid. "Morality is worst interpreted by anatomy," he says. Bravo, dude.

Sanford "Spamford" Wallace, of course, was the original "spam king" back in the 1990s. Despite his claim to have reformed at one point, he apparently has been spamming various social networks and advertising spyware. Back in 2004, the FTC investigated him and fined him $4 million. Last year, MySpace won a $234 million judgment against him. Wallace responded by disappearing. At one point, even his lawyer couldn't find him. Earlier this year, when Facebook sued him for spamming their users as well, it seemed unlikely that he would bother to respond. Surprising pretty much everyone, he showed up in court, though claimed he was totally bankrupt. Either way, Facebook has just been awarded a $711 million judgment against him. Facebook, of course, will never see a dime of that money. But, the real question is what else can be done to stop Wallace. He's been spamming for well over a decade at this point, and despite multiple multi-million dollar judgments against him, he hasn't stopped. What else can be done?

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Kirby sez, "The December 2009 copy of Garden Railways magazine features an article about the Castle Peak & Thunder Railroad, a Disneyland Park themed, 1370 sq. foot, 1:24 scale model backyard railroad. The CPTRR, like its inspiration, is located in Anaheim, CA. It was built by Dave Sheegog, an architect who was a former Cast Member on the Canoes at Disneyland. He built replicas of all 5 Disneyland Steam locomotives and purchased a Casey Jr. locomotive. He scratch built all scenery to match Disneyland including replicas of the Main Street Train Station, Indiana Jones Adventure, and Sleeping Beauty Castle. Parts of Storybook Land, Big Thunder Mountain, Primeval World and the old Skull Rock are also included."

Castle Peak and Thunder Railroad (Thanks, Kirby!)

Dave sez, "As part of Sesame's 40th anniversary, we have a 5-week poll in which Sesame Street fans can vote for their all-time favorite segment over the past 40 years. Each week for four weeks, fans will vote for their favorite video from a selection of pre-selected 40 videos. In the fifth and final week of voting, fans will choose from the 40 highest overall ranked videos from the previous 4 weeks. At the end of the 5th week, through out the 6th week, and onwards, we will feature the winning video and 39 ranked runner ups."

Vote - Best Sesame Ever (Thanks, Dave!)

Several readers including alphadogg tipped the news that ICANN has approved non-Latin ccTLDs at its meeting in Seoul. "Starting in mid-November, countries and territories will be able to apply to show domain names in their native language, a major technical tweak to the Internet designed to increase language accessibility. On Friday, the Internet's addressing authority approved a Fast-Track Process for applying for an IDN (Internationalized Domain Name) and will begin accepting applications on Nov. 16. The move comes after years of technical testing and policy development... Currently, domain names can only be displayed using the Latin alphabet letters A-Z, the digits 0-9 and the hyphen, but in future countries will be able to display country-code Top Level Domains (cc TLDs) in their native language. ... 'The usability of IDNs may be limited, as not all application software is capable of working with IDNs,' ICANN said in a 59-page proposal (PDF) dated Sept. 30 that describes the [application] process." Reader dhermann adds, "Great, now even less chance I can identify NSFW links before they are blocked by my work's big brother app and my boss is notified... again."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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 Calendar. Wish your event was on the list? Add it to the calendar!

Coming up this week:

High Fashion Low Voltage (part 1) Arduino Lilypad @ Science Museum of Minnesota
Saint Paul, MN
Saturday, Oct 31, 2009, 9pm - 12pm

Workshop: Circuit Bending @ Balitmore Node
Baltimore, MD
Saturday, Oct 31, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

Journey to the End of the Night
San Francisco, CA
Saturday, Oct 31, 2009, 7pm +

Dorkbot SoCal 38
Los Angeles, CA
Saturday, Oct 31, 2009, 1pm +

Manchester Science Festival 2009
Manchester, United Kingdom
Saturday, Oct 24, 2009 - Sunday, Nov 1, 2009

Dorkbot NYC
New York, NY
Wednesday, Nov 4, 2009, 7pm +

Start planning for:

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

World Championship Punkin Chunkin
Sussex County, DE
Friday, Nov 6 to Sunday, Nov 8, 2009, all weekend

Grand Opening - "Light Up The Night" @ Alpha One Labs
Brooklyn, NY
Friday, Nov 6, 2009, 8pm - 12am

PCB Design Using Eagle @ NYC Resistor
Brooklyn, NY
Saturday, Nov 7, 2009, 2pm - 5pm

Intro to Soft Circuits @ Hack Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Saturday, Nov 14, 2009, 1pm - 4pm

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

Dutch designer Jelte Van Abbema recently won the €10,000 Rado Prize for promising young designers. His awarded body of work includes Symbiosis, a project involving printing with bacterial cultures on paper and billboards. The letterforms change shape, saturation, and hue as the micro-organisms grow and die. The seriousness with which it's all taken seems a bit overblown to me, but it's still a neat idea. I also like the minimalist text-only styling of Van Abbema's personal webpage.

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

Hugh Pickens sends in a Wall Street Journal report that Chinese banks will provide $1.5B to a consortium of Chinese and American companies to build a 600-megawatt wind farm in West Texas, using turbines made in China. The wind farm will be built on 36,000 acres, and will use 240 2.5-megawatt turbines, providing enough power to meet the electrical needs of around 150,000 American homes. The project will be the first instance of a Chinese manufacturer exporting wind turbines to the United States. China aims to be the front-runner in wind- and solar-power generation "The Obama administration is hoping a shift to renewable energy will inject new life into the US manufacturing base and provide high-paying jobs, making up for losses in other sectors. But while the US has poured money into renewable energy through tax credits and other subsidies, China has positioned itself to reap many of the benefits by ramping up its export machine."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

MAKE columnist and Boing Boing super-blogger, Cory Doctorow, has just released his latest novel, called Makers(!) I just got my copy and tucked into it. So far, so awesome. Cory's books always crackle with such amazing ideas, technological and cultural hacks, that seem just over the horizon, or already in some sketchy warehouse or nerd's basement, just on the other side of town. Makers is no exception.

Cory says, of his latest effort:

Today is the launch of my new novel, Makers, a book about people who hack hardware, business-models, and living arrangements to discover ways of staying alive and happy even when the economy is falling down the toilet. Weirdly, I wrote it years before the current econopocalypse, as a parable about the amazing blossoming of creativity and energy that I saw in Silicon Valley after the dotcom crash, after all the money dried up.

As with all my previous novels, the whole book is available as a free, Creative Commons download, under a NonCommercial-ShareAlike license that allows you to remix it to your heart's content and share the book and your mixes noncommercially. And as with my last two books, I've created a unique donations program that connects generous people with schools, universities, libraries, shelters, prisons and other cash-strapped institutions.

Publisher's Weekly writes:

In this tour de force, Doctorow (Little Brother) uses the contradictions of two overused SF themes--the decline and fall of America and the boundless optimism of open source/hacker culture--to draw one of the most brilliant reimaginings of the near future since cyberpunk wore out its mirror shades. Perry Gibbons and Lester Banks, typical brilliant geeks in a garage, are trash-hackers who find inspiration in the growing pile of technical junk. Attracting the attention of suits and smart reporter Suzanne Church, the duo soon get involved with cheap and easy 3D printing, a cure for obesity and crowd-sourced theme parks. The result is bitingly realistic and miraculously avoids cliché or predictability. While dates and details occasionally contradict one another, Doctorow's combination of business strategy, brilliant product ideas and laugh-out-loud moments of insight will keep readers powering through this quick-moving tale.

Congrats, Cory!

Here's the book's website.

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

The Anatomy Suit Zombie Costume is a $200 one-piece head and body suit with detachable arms. Pretty freaky. They should do a fleece-lined version for skiing.

ANATOMY SUIT COSTUME (via Street Anatomy)

I guess commodity prices just spiked again: a gang ripped a kilometer of copper phone wire out of an English street, presumably for the scrap value. 800 homes and businesses lost phone service and it's going to cost GBP45K to repair the damage.

Sussex Police said the underground cable was cut and removed from the area near Drusilla's roundabout in Alfriston in the early hours of Wednesday... Detectives believe the thieves used a vehicle to pull the cable out of the ground and take it away.

Gang rips out 1km of phone cable

Annoy your friends or co-workers with this high-tech practical joke.
Thanks go to Brad Graham and Kathy McGowan for the original article in MAKE, Volume 14.
To download The Evasive Beeping Thing video click here and subscribe in iTunes.
Check out the complete Evasive Beeping Thing article in MAKE, Volume 14 and you
can see that in our Digital Edition.

Here is a link for the corrected schematic.
Use it rather than the schematic in the PDF or article.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Weekend Projects | Digg this!

Annoy your friend or co-worker with this high-tech practical joke.
Thanks go to Brad Graham and Kathy McGowan for the original article in MAKE, Volume 14.
View the PDF of this project. and then subscribe to MAKE Magazine for other great projects
you can do over the weekend.

Here is a link for the corrected schematic.
Use it rather than the schematic in the PDF or article.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in MAKE PDF | Digg this!

And it makes such a lovely macabre objet d'art all the rest of the year.

Zombie Preparedness Box

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

Security companies love using stats to make something appear to be a bigger problem than it really is. Take for example this claim that links to malware are "abundant" on Twitter. The problem is that this is totally meaningless. Because you only see the tweets of people you follow, if spammers are putting up malware links, it only matters if anyone's following them and then clicking on the links. The number of links that point to malware alone is meaningless, because one "spammer" could just post a ton of malware links, but that won't mean a thing if no one is following them. The real question should be how often are people getting malware because of clicks on Twitter. Unfortunately, that data isn't provided.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

KentuckyFC writes "Great things are expected of terahertz waves, the radiation in the electromagnetic spectrum between microwaves and the infrared. Terahertz waves pass through non-conducting materials such as clothes, paper, wood and brick and so cameras sensitive to them can peer inside envelopes, into living rooms and 'frisk' people at distance. That's not to mention the great potential they have in medical imaging. Because terahertz photons are not energetic enough to break chemical bonds or ionize electrons, it's easy to dismiss fears over their health effects. And yet the evidence is mixed: some studies have reported significant genetic damage while others, although similar, have reported none. Now a team led by Los Alamos National Labs thinks it knows why. They say that although the forces that terahertz waves exert on double-stranded DNA are tiny, in certain circumstances resonant effects can unzip the DNA strands, tearing them apart. This creates bubbles in the strands that can significantly interfere with processes such as gene expression and DNA replication. With terahertz scanners already appearing in airports and hospitals, the question that now urgently needs answering is what level of exposure is safe."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Were it any other week I might be lamenting the lack of high profile retail releases, but as it happens, both the release of a demo for Valve's upcoming Left 4 Dead 2 and one other game have been eating up nearly all my spare time (and a good deal of non-spare-time as well), that game being: Borderlands [Gearbox, Xbox 360/PS3/PC] Gearbox's promise to deliver the first person, dungeon crawling shooter that Hellgate: London was panned for falling short of appears to have gone without a hitch -- the result is one of the most compulsive plays I've accidentally fallen into since I first thought I'd see what this whole 'Fallout 3' deal was. Take that game and add in a dash of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (for its less overtly emphasized narrative structure, though its own barren post-apocalyptic world is more Mad Max wildstyle to the former's dreary Chernobyl hot zone) and you've got a game that's split into a series of "one more go" pursuits, as you push yourself past that next hill and then the next, hoping to stumble across that next, procedurally generated, best-gun-ever, which in turn leads you to pushing on to just see what that one is capable of.

Its best conceit so far, though? The one-two punch of its dynamic music that kicks in a tribal hum when you've clearly got yourself in over your head -- the perfect soundtrack to a hasty retreat to safer ground -- and Second Wind, a mechanic that gives you some 10-15 'posthumous' seconds to take down the enemy that 'killed' you, resulting in a quick boost of health and the chance to truly rescue yourself. The generated drama is as visceral as any I've played this year -- don't miss your chance to take it on for yourself.

Hook Champ [Rocketcat Games, iPhone]

Apart from spending time in Borderlands wilds, the other game burning up most of my time is Rocketcat's debut iPhone game Hook Champ. The easy and lazy description reads: Spelunky meets Bionic Commando, and for once maybe lazy says it best.

Your only goal is to travel from one side of a cave to the other, snapping up coins along littered throughout its branched paths, with two hitches: 1.) your walking speed is fractional compared to your clip when you get a steady swing working, and 2.) that wouldn't be as much of an issue if you didn't have a razor-toothed demon slowly pursuing you from start to finish.

Retro styled and far more complex than it first appears -- particularly when you start to spend your winnings upgrading and unlocking new items and powerups -- Hook Champ's a perfect example of the App Store's overlooked gems.

Alice in Bomberland [Sonic Boom, iPhone]

Alice in Bomberland is the first iPhone game to come from an indie dream team consisting of programmer and designer Chris DeLeon (creator of ngmoco's Topple gone indie post-Electronic Arts) and David Hellman (artist on Xbox 360 cult hit platformer Braid), and is quite what the name would lead you to believe: an explosive dodge-em-up set in Lewis Carroll's fantasy world.

Why? It's not exactly clear, nor does it seem to matter: the Looking Glass world is rife with artifacts that translate perfectly into gameplay (think: eat me/drink me cakes and potions, and a cup of the Mad Hatters tea to crank up the speed), and DeLeon's provided a fantastic amount of variety across its nearly 50 levels. Get past the essential loneliness of a score-based game without any of the now seemingly ubiquitous social elements and you'll find one of the best App Store surprises of the month.

Earth Dragon [Chaim Gingold, iPhone]

In another former-EA-turned-indie move, Earth Dragon is the first full game from Chaim Gingold, former Maxis dev best known as the original prototyper and designer of what would become Spore's Creature Creator.

A slender game that encourages break-time repeat play, the game makes full use of the iPhone's accelerometer to help fly (by 'flapping' the device itself) and tilt-guide your dragon through various challenges from coin- and princess-collecting to laying waste to the kingdom's strongholds. Built out of simple but tremendously expressive shapes, Gingold manages to capture the spirit of earth-shaking devastation with perfect-pitch in every frantic thumb-press.

Arkedo Series - 01 JUMP [Arkedo, Xbox 360]

Fresh off from creating one of the DS's most wildly original and stylized shooters (2008's Big Bang Mini, a neon- and flourescent-lit game of firework-flinging), France's Arkedo have set about to bring that hyper-style to the Xbox 360's Indies channel with a series of quickly produced downloadables based around one core theme.

The first, JUMP is still the best (and shares some basic Pitfall-type influence with Hook Champ above) -- a simple but gorgeously neo-retro bomb-defusing and coin-collecting platformer. They've followed that up with tile-matching puzzle game SWAP, and promise six more in the near future -- more if the audience demands it, which they very well should.

A recent Notice of Inquiry from the FCC is looking for opinions on how the "evolving electronic media landscape" affects kids, and whether the FCC itself should have more regulatory control over such media. The full NOI (PDF) is available online. "FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski included a statement with the NOI in which he noted that 'twenty years ago, parents worried about one or two TV sets in the house,' while today, media choices are far more widespread for children, including videogames, which 'have become a prevalent entertainment source in millions of homes and a daily reality for millions of kids.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Halloween wouldn't be complete without a Katamari costume or two. Donovan and Ashly show off their Katamaris in preparation for the ensuing festivities. [Thanks, Donovan!]

I'm in the June [polka dot] outfit. Ashly is the Prince [in green]. I made the heads and my outfit. Ashly was in charge of her own dress. The primary materials are foam, posterboard and foamies, these 2mm thick colored foam sheets. That's what I used for the dots and the coverings on the heads. I liked the dimensional quality it gave rather than just using paint or paper.

More:

• Homemade King & Queen of All Cosmos Katamari Damacy costumes


• Life-size Katamari controller


• Katamari Damacy Queen of All Cosmos earmuffs


• Crochet Katamari Prince


• Katamari Wedding Cake

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

A Japanese property developer has rebuilt a 100-year-old English country church at 3/4 scale on the 22nd floor of a tower in central Osaka. The developer hopes to capitalise on the Japanese vogue for being married in traditional English churches, offering a low-cost, local alternative to flying to England.

On the same floors as the reproduced church are photographic studios and restaurants, while a hotel and honeymoon suites are above.

The Grade-I listed church is one of the few with a thatched roof in England.

Reverend Will Pridie said the developers had visited the church and took laser measurements to enable the new one to be built...

"We are a very tiny village and congregation. I think everyone is just astonished that anyone would do such a thing - especially when you consider it is 21 floors up."

English church rebuilt in Japan

(Image: BBC)

With various news publications complaining about online aggregators somehow being unfair, back in August, we wondered why those big mainstream publications didn't just aggregate or, as they prefer, "parasite" themselves. For example, they complain about other sites writing up short "bloggy" summaries of their long and in-depth news reports -- but why can't those publications create their own shorter versions as well?

As if proving that point, the website Gawker (who has been accused of such "parasiting" before) apparently tried this approach itself recently. It had a 2,000 word story that it purchased from a guy who had worked with Richard Heene (the father behind the "balloon boy" stunt). But rather than just leave the 2,000 word story, it also created its own shorter bullet-point version, which is likely what it would have written up if the original story had been published elsewhere. And, while the original story still got a ton of traffic, the summary post still scored a lot of pageviews -- more than the average Gawker post.

If anything, this supports the idea that publications really have nothing to complain about with these sites that summarize their longer stories. There's absolutely nothing stopping them from doing it themselves as well -- and, who knows, it might augment their traffic as well.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

The strong Yen has resulted in fifth consecutive quarter of falling sales income for Canon's camera division, compared to the same period in previous years. Despite this, the company's operating profit and profit margin increased, prompting the company to improve its forecast for the next quarter. Total sales for the division fell 8.3% to ¥229 bn ($2,545m) once currency effects have been taken into account, though they actually grew 6.2% in the currencies they were sold in.

MojoKid writes "HotHardware has posted a sneak peek at a new motherboard Asus has coming down the pipe with USB 3.0 and SATA 6G support. The Asus P7P55D-E Premium has a PLX PCI Express Gen 2 switch implementation that connects to NEC USB 3.0 and Marvell SATA 6G controller chips. With a USB 3.0 enabled external hard drive connected to a USB 2.0 port and then to the board's USB 3.0 port, there were some rather impressive gains to observe. When connected to a USB 3.0 port, the external hard drive was about 5 — 6x faster versus connecting over USB 2.0, with total throughput in excess of 130MB/sec. On the other hand, benchmarks with Seagate's new Barracuda XT SATA 6G drive show little performance difference but a burst rate that is off the charts. According to ATTO, there are slight overall performance benefits to be had connecting the drive to the SATA 6G controller, but the deltas were quite small; somewhere in the neighborhood of 5MB/s or so."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I'm not going to ramble on again about how I didn't make anything this year for Halloween. I'm over that thanks to my new friend, Robot Zombie Cat. However, I thought I would do a quick recap of my previous Halloween-inspired builds that I actually completed!

First up is my "Scariest Pumpkin Ever" build. I had a great time testing this project out on the neighborhood kiddies! HONK! Check out the link for complete build instructions. Just a word of warning, you neighbors are going to hate you! Trust me, I know. A big thanks to everyone who sent me links to your own builds inspired by this project. I really appreciate it!

Next up is my Gakken Mechamo Crab build with a few additional creepy parts. Again, this was a lot of fun to make, and has been very popular when I bring it to Maker Faire. Check out the link for another video of this creepy-crawler in action. Eeeeeeek, eeeek, blip, blip!

My last Halloween inspired build was the Animated Ghost kit from the Maker Shed. It's a really easy kit to make, and it always manages to freak-out anyone that gets too close! Remember, it's never too early to start working on next year's projects!

Speaking of Halloween, don't forget to enter our contest! Do it, or Robot Zombie Cat is going to come after you!

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.

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

From YouTuber peaugh. No details on the build, unfortunately. [Thanks, Billy!]

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.

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

Deirdre Walker, a 24-year police veteran who retired after serving as the Assistant Chief of the Montgomery County, Maryland, Department of Police writes up a recent interaction with the TSA in the Albany airport, subjecting it to critical policing analysis and finding it sorely, sorely wanting. This is a very good critical piece on conducting good security and curbing excess, and if there were any justice in this world, this woman would be put in charge of the TSA tomorrow.

Finally, I am most concerned about the "random" nature of my repeated selection for secondary screening. If there is no discrimination at work, and my selection is entirely random, then we have yet another, and probably more significant problem.

For years in policing, we relied on random patrols to curb crime. We relied upon this "strategy" until someone went out and captured some data, and did a study that demonstrated conclusively that random patrols do not work (Kansas City Study).

As police have employed other types of "random" interventions, as in DWI checkpoints, they have had to develop policies, procedures and training to ensure that the "random" nature of these intrusions is truly random. Whether every car gets checked, or every tenth car, police must demonstrate that they have attempted to eliminate the effects of active and passive discrimination when using "random" strategies. No such accountability currently exists at TSA.

* "Do I have the right to refuse this search?"

Jon Stokes at the Opposable Thumbs blog relates his experience using Google Wave as a platform for Dungeons and Dragons — the true test of success for any new communications technology. A post at Spirits of Eden lists some of Wave's strengths for gaming. Quoting: "The few games I'm following typically have at least three waves: one for recruiting and general discussion, another for out-of-character interactions ('table talk'), and the main wave where the actual in-character gaming takes place. Individual players are also encouraged to start waves between themselves for any conversations that the GM shouldn't be privy to. Character sheets can be posted in a private wave between a player and the GM, and character biographies can go anywhere where the other players can get access to them. The waves are persistent, accessible to anyone who's added to them, and include the ability to track changes, so they ultimately work quite well as a medium for the non-tactical parts of an RPG. A newcomer can jump right in and get up-to-speed on past interactions, and a GM or industrious player can constantly maintain the official record of play by going back and fixing errors, formatting text, adding and deleting material, and reorganizing posts."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Avi sez, "'Mickey Mouse in Gurs' is a tragic 'comic' book made by Horst Rosenthal in 1942 while incarcerated at the Gurs internment camp in France. Rosenthal uses Mickey Mouse as a kind of subversive Virgil to guide us through the hellish experiences of the concentration camp. Horst Rosenthal was murdered in Auschwitz in 1942."

Horst Rosenthal: Mickey Mouse in Gurs (Thanks, Avi!)

Kevin Haw writes in to tell us about World of Warcraft and Philosophy, a new collection of essays and stories:

Plato, Socrates, Nietzsche, Adam Smith... Sure, they were all great thinkers, but how long would they have lasted in Ulduar?

Continuing with the ongoing Popular Culture and Philosophy series, World of Warcraft and Philosophy, (Wrath of the Philosopher King) will be hitting bookshelves on November 1st. This collection of essays and short fiction addresses the ethics, economics, and metaphysics of Azeroth and its inhabitants. Along the way, the collection takes quick excursions on issues of gender identity, leadership, hate speech, and the likelihood of the IRS auditing a troll. Add in shoutouts to Machiavelli, Gary Gygax, and Thomas Jefferson (and, yes, even Cory Doctorow) and you've you might find yourself leveling up in intellect as well as your combat skills.

World of Warcraft and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy) (Thanks, Kevin!)

I have an op-ed in today's Times about the British plan to disconnect people from the internet if someone in their home is accused -- without proof -- of infringing copyright, and how utterly unjust this is.

Even more radical is the Mandelson proposal to disconnect entire families from the internet if a single member -- or a neighbour who uses their internet connection -- is accused, without proof, of violating copyright. Leave aside the fundamental injustice of collective punishment, a practice so abhorrent that it is outlawed in the Geneva Convention; think instead of the utter disproportionality of this.

The internet is an integral part of our children's education; it's critical to our employment; it's how we stay in touch with distant relatives. It's how we engage with government. It's the single wire that delivers freedom of speech, freedom of the press and freedom of assembly. It isn't just a conduit for getting a few naughty free movies, it is the circulatory system of the information age.

Denying physics won't save the video stars

There's been a lot of talk these days about how the big flat-screen TVs that have become quite popular are also energy hogs (or, as some say, "the SUVs of the TV world"). One interesting concept to deal with this is to use facial recognition software to fade out the picture when the viewer is not watching. So, if you just have the TV on in the background, it doesn't suck up all that energy on the picture, but (in theory) the second you look up at the screen, the picture comes back. Of course, in the past, when we've talked about experiments to put cameras or monitoring equipment into TVs, it tends to freak people out a bit, and you could easily see the same technology being used for monitoring purposes. Still, it is a creative idea, if it actually works.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

angry tapir writes "The Pirate Bay should be closed, and if it isn't, two of the founders will each have to pay a fine of 500,000 Swedish kronor (US$71,500), according to a verdict in the Stockholm District Court. This time it's Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg who are in the court's crosshairs. They have been forced to shut down the site or pay the fine. The court has stated that the site will have to remain closed unless Neij and Warg are exonerated on another similar case they're involved in, which is now on appeal."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Sebastian built an experimental record/looper circuit, resulting in some interesting sample contortionism -

This circuit currently has a few ways to manipulate audio. These are:

A record button allows the user to sample incoming audio to a RAM buffer

A potentiometer sets the input level

A potentiometer sets the sample rate / pitch for playback. The changing of sample rate can be recorded if desired, by physically changing the position of the pot during recording.

The address lines A0 - A18 can be manipulated ie. moved around, removed, replaced, giving a wide range of effects such as stuttering, repeating and basic granulation.
Although this does not sound like heaps of manipulation, keep in mind that this circuit can absolutely mangle a sound beyond recognition. The ADC is running at its maximum speed, and as such the sample rate can be varied greatly for example.

Read on for further explanation of this RAM Music.

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

The biggest problem in the telco world is the lack of competition. Most of the worst abuses by various telecom providers is because there really isn't enough competition to make it worthwhile to treat customers better. The best thing that governments can do to encourage better broadband/telco services is to encourage competition. Apparently, Canada has different priorities. A new mobile firm was set to open up shop in Canada, called Globalive. However, Canada apparently has some rules about how telcos need to have Canadian ownership. And while Globalive was originally judged to meet the criteria in bidding on spectrum, a different government bureaucracy has now said that it doesn't meet the Canadian ownership requirements. In other words, to the Canadian government, having local ownership is more important than real competition. This is basically a form of protectionism that (like most forms of protectionism) ends up harming consumers.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Coolest Halloween make up / costume I've seen yet!

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

Nice collection for the kiddos...

Happy Halloween! October 31st is one of the best days of the year. Not only do you get to devour candy all day, you also get to be anything while doing it!!! Forget about the thrills and chills, there is no trickery here. This year we are setting out to get you as much candy as possible, so check out these sweet costumes

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

These gentlemen attempted to rob a Carroll, Iowa home while disguised with, er, Sharpie marker. Police responded to a call and spotted the getaway car driven by Matthew Allan McNelly, 23, and Joey Lee Miller, 20. The guy on the right has the Clockwork Orange eye happening and, as Rob says, the man on the left looks vaguely like Catwoman. Or is it Gene Simmons?

From CNN:

"We're very skilled investigators and the black faces gave them right away," (police chief Jeff) Cayler said jokingly. "I have to assume the officers were kind of laughing at the time. I've never heard of coloring your face with a permanent marker..."

"I've been chief here almost 25 years, been with the department 28½ years and I've seen a lot of things that make me laugh and weird things but this was probably the best combination of the two -- strangely weird and hilariously funny all at the same time."

"They make their mark in mug shot history"

An anonymous reader notes, and excerpts from, an article at PC Authority: "It's human nature that people always want what they can't have — which is why there's so much interest around the world in accessing the US-only Hulu site. Hulu offers a range of television shows for streaming, including Family Guy, The Daily Show and House along with a few full length movies. ... If you're outside the US, the easiest method for accessing Hulu that many people are discussing online, is using a US-based VPN, which tricks Hulu into thinking their computer is within the US. Initially Hulu started cracking down on free VPN services such as Hotspot Shield, but now it's turned its attention to Witopia — which costs $40 or $US60 per year but offers a faster, more secure and more reliable service than its free competitors. Initially Witopia's LA gateway remained unaffected, but now Hulu has blocked this as well."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

This awesome little chemical machine is from Mr. Kent's chemistry page. Ice is laid in a Pyrex dish over a layer of calcium carbide. As the ice melts, the liquid water reacts with the carbide to produce acetylene gas, which of course is highly flammable. A match starts it off, and then it burns continuously on its own. My first thought was that the system could rapidly spiral out of control--more heat melts more water makes more gas makes even more heat. But it's limited by the amount of oxygen that can get down into the pan, I think. My second thought was that maybe a bit of sodium metal down there with the carbide could make the process self-igniting.... (For God's sake, no one try that.)

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

Ron Kujawa writes to us about The Public Record and Tommy Lee's project to collaborate with fans to produce his next album, Public Mayhem. Aiming to interact with fans and get more attention, Tommy Lee has posted some rough "stem" tracks online for anyone to download, and he's encouraging fans to upload their own music that might go with those tracks. (This is similar to what Nettwerk's K-OS did earlier this year with a contest for fans to remix his tracks.) Ultimately, the really good fan generated music will make it on the new Public Mayhem album with credits to the fan and royalties that go to charity. So every week, Tommy (or his production team) will release another raw track for fans to play with, review the submissions, and look to incorporate stuff into the album as he sees fit. Obviously, not everyone can make it onto the album, but if you're an amateur musician, there's not much to lose -- and there's a chance that Tommy might like your chutzpah or something. Either way, more music is being created and shared, and it sounds like a win-win for everyone.

On top of that, though, Tommy is also posting jamming tips for amateur rockers to help folks out with their music -- which seems like a great interactive component to this project. I'm not personally a fan of Tommy Lee's music, and the fan entries that have been highlighted so far haven't really piqued my interest. (From the ones I've listened to, there's some talent, but nothing I really like -- and there aren't even any submissions that so bad that you can enjoy them as a spectacle.) But still, Tommy is very likely training a new generation of musicians with his weekly YouTube clips filled with pointers, and the evolution of musical skills based on Tommy's tutelage has the potential to produce ever better songs. And it doesn't stop with Tommy, The Public Record is looking to do similar projects with other musicians, so we can all look forward to a virtuous cycle of fans creating music with more rockstars -- perhaps creating more rockstars and even more great music.



Permalink | Comments | Email This Story

Here's a channel NY1 report on the recent Pop!Tech conference in Camden, ME. The piece profiles three MAKE contributors, Reuben Margolin, Zach Debord, and Mike Gould. Reuben has shown his work and spoken at Maker Faire, Zach Debord's BEAMbots have been featured in MAKE (and on the cover of The Best of MAKE), and Mike Gould's Laser Lunchbox project is in the forthcoming issue, Volume 20, of MAKE. Great job, fellas!

Science Inspires Visionary Pop!Tech Artists

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

A couple of winters ago, when some friends and I were slogging up the roughly 2,000 vertical feet of Waterhouse Peak in the South Lake Tahoe area, snowshoes on our feet and snowboards strapped to our packs, we were repeatedly passed up by smiling telemark skiers, smoothly gliding uphill with skins on their skis. The snowboarding answer to this ease and simplicity is known as a splitboard, a snowboard that comes apart into two planks, which you cover with skins for the uphill, and then put back together into snowboard mode for the downhill. The hitch is that I've been drooling over ready-made splitboards for a few years now, but they regularly cost between $600-$1200 for the deck alone. Now, Voilé is offering a kit to split an existing board yourself; the Split Decision kit runs around $160. And in MAKE Volume 20, Damien Scogin gives us a detailed step by step for making your own splitboard. The sketchiest part of the build has got to be taking a saw to your snowboard. It's like DIY surgery on one of my most beloved toys, but Damien shows how to use a table saw and build a quick and dirty jig to keep the cut straight. Is it a coincidence that a friend of mine just gave me a board that would be perfect for this? Nope, I think it's a calling.

If you're a MAKE subscriber, your issue should be arriving any minute now in the mail. If not, look for it on newsstands on November 17th or order yours from the Maker Shed. The issue is dedicated to "Kids of All Ages" and it's jam-packed with nothing but fun.

Read more | Permalink | Comments | Read more articles in Toys and Games | Digg this!

MAKE subscriber Ian writes in to share his Halloween project, a remote-control, color changing pumpking. To control the pumpkin, he built an infrared remote decoder, which allows him to use a regular TV remote to change the color of the pumpkin. The project also has an 'angry pumpkin' mode, which flashes a red color to scare away onlookers. Full source code, schematic and writeup are available on his website.

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

Ima Fish writes "The Supreme Court in Pennsylvania struck down a state trademark law (pdf) which essentially criminalized any use of a trademark without permission of the trademark holder. There were no exceptions at all, including free speech rights.

The Opinion noted "that the use of the word 'Nike' on a sign at a protest rally, such as 'Nike uses sweatshop labor' would fall within the reach of the Trademark Counterfeiting Statute because the activity would involve the unauthorized use of a word or term used by another to identify goods or services."

The Court went farther and stated, "Taken to the extreme, even our use of the words 'Nike' and 'Penn State' in this opinion without the permission of the company or the university would fall under the current definition of a counterfeit mark. Clearly, the statute prohibits a substantial amount of protected speech."

It's nice to see courts get it right every so often. I wish it happened more.

There was also a concurring opinion and two separate dissenting opinions (all pdfs, of course). Definitely great to see the court get this right, but it makes you wonder what legislators were thinking when they put such a law in place.

Permalink | Comments | Email This Story