Handy cross-browser, CSS3 rule generator tool.

Fascinating procedural drawing tool brought to you by HTML5 and JavaScript.

The free font resource launches its own @font-face kit generator.

Boing Boing partner John Battelle was on a WiFi-enabled flight last night, and wanted to say bedtime-goodnight to his kids using videochat. Lots of parents tuck their kids into bed over video when they're far from home. What gentler, more loving example of the power of the internet could there be? Nope. A United Airlines flight attendant told John that this was prohibited because terrorists could use this to coordinate attacks.

So what's a curious guy to do? To the Internet! Which is exactly what I did. Responses starting pouring in. Including one from a pal at the State Department, who echoed my basic goal: To use video chat to tuck my kids into bed isn't a crime. Or at least, shouldn't be.

The flight attendant just showed me the United policy manual which prohibits "two way devices" from communicating with the ground. However, the PLANE HAS WIFI. To combat this, not unlike China, United and other airlines have blocked Skype and other known video chat offenders. Apparently, they missed Apple iChat. Oops.

An FAA guidebook says inflight video chat is to be discouraged because it can be annoying to seatmates, but that's very different than banning something because it's a terrorist weapon. Video Chat on the plane illegal?

To coincide with South by Southwest, journalist Scott Kirsner is making his 2009 book Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age available free, in digital form, for the duration of the festival. You can download it here. Lots of folks you've seen at SXSW are featured in the book, including artist Natasha Wescoat, pioneering videoblogger Ze Frank, singer-songwriter Jonathan Coulton, Burnie Burns of "Red vs. Blue," comedian Eugene Mirman, documentarian Curt Ellis, DJ Spooky, and plenty more. And, if you're at SXSW this year, Kirsner will be conducting a "fireside chat" with Ze Frank on Saturday. Scott Kirsner's "Fans, Friends & Followers" (PDF) mirror site if the link above is slow or cranky

The SynPad uses four corner-mounted piezo sensors to determine the pressure and relative location of a given hit. The project can easily be made on the cheap, and turns out a pretty sophisticated Arduino-based MIDI percussion controller. Gang1ion shares the relevant steps and source code for making one yourself. [via Matrixsynth]

In the Maker Shed:

Make: Arduino

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The fine folks at All Hands Active, an Ann Arbor, MI hackerspace, are hosting a community-wide collective brainstorming session to explore what the Ann Arbor/Detroit hacker community can do at Maker Faire Detroit. They're calling on all makers in the area to come on Saturday, March 13th, at 3pm, to the AHA! Shop, at 525 East Liberty, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104. They thought it would be fun for people to bring "hacked" foods to share.

We love what these folks are doing and hope they get a good turnout and dream up some great ways of getting involved with the Faire.

More details and directions on their website.

Collective Brainstorming for Detroit Maker Faire
Saturday, March 13th at 3pm
All Hands Active
525 East Liberty, Ann Arbor, MI, 48104

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I feel a great disturbance in the public utility, as if millions of bladders cried out, and were suddenly silenced.

Pats Papers: What If Everybody in Canada Flushed at Once?

(Thanks, Christina!)

Paul Taylor noted a story that I would have thought to be an april fools day joke a few weeks from now, which makes it only seem more tragic. A 3 year shot himself with a gun after mistaking it for a Wii controller.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Mississippi's Itawamba County school district has cancelled a prom after Constance McMillen, an 18-year-old student, asked permission to bring her girlfriend as her date. The student planned to wear a tux. The school district's bureaucratic non-excuse for the cancellation is that it's "due to the distractions to the educational process caused by recent events." The district appears to be tap-dancing around the reason for the cancellation in an effort to avoid openly saying "We are scared of teh ghey," since that would open them up to legal liability. The ACLU isn't buying it. They've told the school district that they've got until Wednesday to change the policy or else.

"A bunch of kids at school are really going to hate me for this, so in a way it's really retaliation," McMillen told The Clarion-Ledger of Jackson. Calls to McMillen by The Associated Press late Wednesday went unanswered...

The ACLU said McMillen approached school officials shortly before the memo went out because she knew same-sex dates had been banned in the past. The ACLU said district officials told McMillen she and her girlfriend wouldn't be allowed to arrive together, that she would not be allowed to wear a tuxedo, and that she and her girlfriend might be asked to leave if their presence made any other students "uncomfortable."

McMillen said she feared she would be thrown out of the prom because "we do live in the Bible Belt."

Miss. school prom off after lesbian's date request

ACLU Demands Mississippi School Allow Lesbian Student To Attend Prom With Girlfriend

(Thanks, Steve!)

alphadogg writes "Riding surging prices of his various telecom holdings, including giant mobile outfit America Movil, Mexican tycoon Carlo Slim Helu has beaten out Americans Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to become the wealthiest person on earth and nab the top spot on the 2010 Forbes list of the World's Billionaires." I'd still let the guy buy me dinner if he's ever in my town. He's probably still good for it even tho he's fallen on hard times.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Andy Kessler has one of his standard thought-provoking opinion pieces discussing the economy of the past decade, suggesting that the real lesson learned from the past decade is the dangers of bad gov't policies leading to misallocated capital. Starting with bad telco regulations in the 90s that drove a bubble in unnecessary and misguided investment in infrastructure, some of which overflowed into a ridiculous dot com gold rush:

The late '90s Internet love fest was crazy enough, driven by former FCC Chairman Reed Hundt's misguided telecom reform that had the effect of keeping data rates artificially high. This created a gold rush to install fiber and build applications that didn't make economic sense (though electronic commerce, online banking, as well as wireless and broadband deployment would eventually prove productive over the next decade). Bad policy meant capital got overallocated and too quickly, as momentum mutual funds (momos) and day traders furiously drove up stock prices of every company with dot-com in its name for no fundamental reasons. Wall Street trading was broken.

But, he notes, there was a core of a good idea in there. What made the investment in the internet and new technologies make sense was that it actually did drive productivity. The proper use of such tools increased productivity, decreased costs and opened up new markets. But with the flood of misallocated money, a lot of that got obscured in chasing sock puppets selling pet food.

Following this, there was a combination of bad policy decisions -- Greenspan flooding the system with money out of fear of a Y2K problem, combined with Enron freaking people out and leading to Sarbanes Oxley -- and a new mess was created:

Instead of finishing what the dot-com era started to deliver--a productive, wealth-producing economy--capital was seduced into the financial lair of private equity and real-estate mortgages. Trillions were pumped into unneeded housing stock. Fannie and Freddie fanned the flames, and then fizzled and failed. And leveraged buyouts reigned. Even in 2007, one Blackstone private equity fund raised almost as much money as all of the venture capital industry.

The key point here is that venture capital tends to (though, certainly not always...) invest in real innovation, nurturing concepts from idea to market and beyond. Private equity, however, is more about just moving money around and looking for quick hit opportunities to get increasing returns. One grows the economy. The other does not. But, by punishing the capital markets that fund real innovation and company growth via Sarbanes Oxley, money that used to go to venture investment went towards the east coast private equity world, where it was shuffled around, rather than invested productively. And, tragically, it doesn't look like anything the government is doing is designed to fix this:

Today, we are still left with almost no initial public offerings. While private equity fund-raising was down 68% in 2009 to $96 billion, venture capital barely raised $13 billion.

Capital gains taxes are set to return to 20% on Jan. 1, 2011. And worse, investing is as uncertain as ever. No one wants to fund health care, medical devices or even much biotech if they can't figure out how they are going to be paid via reimbursements from ObamaCare. Energy investing is also a mess. And while "green" investing is booming, with few exceptions that is about efficiency rather than productivity. There's a big difference: You can make the Post Office more efficient while email makes us more productive and wealthier.

Big regulated oligopolists control our communications infrastructure. Startups are nowhere to be found. Few are willing to take the risk of true venture investing.

It's been 10 long years since the economy has created real wealth, as opposed to easy-credit induced real-estate or paper wealth. Amidst all the current confusion over health care and tax rates and energy and banking reforms, maybe it's time that the market transitions back to investments that drive productivity and increase living standards rather than just paper profits.

Reaching back to our economic parables, it's a question of whether or not our government has been making a giant broken window fallacy. It's not working on plans that fund actual productivity and economic growth. The government is focused, instead, on getting money moving around again, and all that means is it will move into another unproductive bubble, until we align the incentives properly again.

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I make a bunch of stuff out of plywood. A lot of it is utilitarian furniture--bookshelves, workbenches, occasional chairs and stools. I've been wishing for a long time that I could find a plastic substitute material, like the synthetic decking and lumber I see for sale in the hardware stores these days, to use instead, not only for the eco-friendly aspect, but because I'd like to have a material that was naturally water-resistant and did not require finishing.

That's why I was excited to learn, a few months ago, about EcoSheet, which is a "plywood replacement" panel material manufactured by British firm Environmental Recycling Technologies. I hit them up for a sample and they sent me a 4" x 4" x 3/4" piece of the stuff, which is pictured above. It does not weigh as much as plywood, but seems just as rigid, and drills and cuts easily. And although their initial market seems to be the construction industry, specifically temporary structures erected as barriers and pouring forms, I'm looking forward to experimenting with "off-label" uses when and if it becomes available in small quantities in the US.

EcoSheet is manufactured from 75% recycled material, mostly waste electrical and electronic equipment, and can itself be recycled at the end of its useful life.

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Ninjakicks writes "Although they won't hit store shelves for a few more weeks, today Intel has officially unveiled the new Core i7-980X Extreme processor. The Core i7-980X Extreme is based on Intel's 32nm Gulftown core, derived from their Nehalem architecture and sports six execution cores. The chip runs at a 3.33GHz clock frequency, that can jump up to 3.6GHz in Intel's Turbo Boost mode. This processor has a max TDP of 130W, which amazingly is the same as previous generation Core i7 quad-core CPUs. Of course, it's crazy fast too. Some may say that the majority of applications can't truly take advantage of the resources afforded by a six-core chip capable of processing up to 12 threads. However, the fact remains there are plenty of multi-threaded usage models and applications where the power of a CPU like this can be put to very good use."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Recently out of Virginia's public school system, youngster James Stephenson writes in to say that being a kid sucks. So what's new? A gauntlet of cameras, invasive searches and authoritarian security theatrics that don't make schools feel safer—but do tempt administrators into privacy abuses such as Lower Merion's recent webcam-spying scandal. Special feature: "Seen Not Heard: How obscure security makes school suck."

CWmike writes "Two insurance organizations in upstate New York said on Wednesday that they will offer their members and employers virtual physician visits beginning this summer, making New York the fourth state to provide these types of services. BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York, BlueShield of Northeastern New York and technology services provider American Well said the Online Care service will allow members to talk with physicians in real time through a private online chat network or through a voice-over-IP phone call. The service also offers video chat and instant messages. Members can sign on to the insurer's Web sites and look for physicians who are available online in various specialty areas."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Everyone from Malcolm McLaren to Paul Simon heard something in South Africa's Boyoyo Boys that they wanted to appropriate. Their '80s records are lively and surprising, both original and emblematic of their time. You can hear where whole chunks of popular American music, from Graceland to Vampire Weekend, were born and raised. After listening to "Back in Town," you'd have broken a UN boycott to work with them, too.

Something Awful's Steve and Zack have an excruciating look at the artwork and rules from the original, 1974 version of Dungeons and Dragons, which appears to have been drawn by a hyperactive 12-year-old during an extremely boring math class. I remember seeing these not long after getting my first set of the AD&D hardcovers and thinking that they looked intriguing, if a little thin. I also produced an enormous amount of artwork that looked like this for the dungeons I created.

The Original Dungeons & Dragons

Magician Mat Ricardo writes in regarding this morning's post showing a motorcycle (seemingly) pulling the tablecloth out from beneath a very long table's-worth of place settings: "Here's what I do - for 20 years-ish I've been finishing nmy cabaret act by putting the tablecloth back on the table, underneath all the stuff. Took me years to invent, and I'm the only person in the world performing this trick. Maybe I need to get out more, but what can I say - it's a living!"

You can see the gag around 2:15 in the video, but it's well worth watching the whole thing. I was gutted to learn that I missed Mat last weekend when I took the kid down to Covent Garden in London to see the performers, but I'm looking forward to catching his act next time we head down.

Mat Ricardo showreel (Thanks, Mat!)

People can shoot pretty decent video using smartphones. There's even been some interesting hardware solutions to improve the fact that you're still shooting video with a smartphone. When I ran across this iPhone image stabilizer (original Japanese) I was impressed with how well it seems to perform. (warning: overly long demo)

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People in seven European countries have expressed willingness to try "NoMix" toilets that keep crap and urine separate, allowing for more efficient waste processing and less seepage of urine-borne pharmaceuticals into the water supply. The study was conducted with 2700 people in Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Sweden, and Denmark, with 80 percent supporting the toilets. Even higher numbers were willing to use urine as fertilizer.

The article doesn't discuss infrastructural issues, though: would you need a second black-water sewer for the yellow gold?

NoMix toilets get thumbs-up in 7 European countries

Justin Levine has an interesting blog post up about a book I hadn't heard of, called The Monster Engine. The author, Dave Devries, took children's drawings of monsters, and turned them into paintings that use the identical line structure of the kid's drawings (he projects them on the wall and then draws over them). Apparently, Devries' work is quite popular, and people have talked about it on the internet for years: Seems pretty cool. But Levine is wondering about the copyright issues involved in all of this:

Given the fact that:

1. There is no doubt that the children's original doodles are protected by copyright for their entire life, plus 70 additional years.
   
   
2. There is no doubt that Devries' paintings of the doodles are 'derivative works' stemming from the original creations of the children.

Do you believe that Devries should be forced to get formal copyright releases from each and every one of the kids in question? Do you think he has done so? If so, should they be able to repudiate their copyright agreement when they turn 18 since many jurisdictions allow minors to repudiate contracts signed before they reach 18? If so, should they be able to take Devries's work out of circulation?

Do you think that the children should all share in the royalties from books, art and showcases that Devries produces for the rest of their lives (and beyond - for 7 decades)? Do you think that is in fact the case of what is going on? If Devries hasn't gotten a copyright release and/or isn't paying royalties, do you feel that he is somehow "exploiting" these kids or "stealing" from them?

These are pretty serious questions -- because under copyright law today, this book is trouble, and that's unfortunate, because it looks like a lovely book. My guess would be that Devries actually had to get permission from the parents, but do parents have the right to sign away the copyright on a child's work? And do those children then have the right to terminate that agreement at a later date? Perhaps people think the likelihood of kids later terminating the agreement is quite low -- and maybe they're right. But what would happen if a kid no longer wanted to be associated with that artwork?

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c0mpliant writes "IGN and Gamespot have each released a preview of the recently announced and eagerly awaited Civilization V. Apart from the obvious new hexagon shape of tiles and improved graphics, the articles go on to outline some of the major changes in the game, such as updated AI, new 'flavors' to world leaders and a potentially game-changing, one unit per tile system. No more will the stack of doom come to your city's doorsteps. Some features which will not be returning are religion and espionage. The removal of these two have sparked a frenzy of discussion on fan-related forums."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

CP+ 2010: Ricoh has exhibited prototypes of its A12 and P10 lens modules for the GXR system at the CP+ photographic trade show. According to the show report by Japanese website DC Watch, the company has also shown mock-ups of future modules, where lenses can be detached from the camera body to mount third-party lenses and bellows from manufacturers such as Hasselblad and Leica.

Animator/composer Cyriak just posted this surreal video featuring infinite giant teddy bears climbing out of the sea at the Worthing shore and crossing the road. You'd think that this would be thin gruel for three minutes' worth of animation, but you'd be wrong: it turns out that the number of variations on the themes of pigeons, people, teddies, cars and shore is a lot greater (and weirder and funnier) than instinct would suggest.

Cycles (Thanks, Arthur!)

An anonymous reader writes "The IEEE MAN/LAN Standards Committee — better known as the people who brought us Ethernet, WiFi, and Bluetooth — is celebrating its 30th anniversary next week. This article has interviews with the original committee chairman and other veteran members, and reveals some of the inside situation. It also looks at some of the upcoming 802.x standards including one that sends data by modulating visible light."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

The gods of Random.org have crowned Rebecca Karger, a student at Horace Greeley High School, winner of our Lego Mindstorms NXT 2.0 set. This is what Rebecca had to say about what she'd do with the set:

If I had this kit, I'd take it with me to college next year, and build a robot that could go down the hall of my dorm to deliver a note to a friend. And probably 500 different other things. I was on an FLL team in middle school that went to the international competition, but it was the year BEFORE the NXT kits came out! I remember seeing a demo and being highly impressed, but my parents say the kits are too expensive.

Rebecca: so yeah, your FB settings are kinda restrictive. You're going to have to get in touch with me if you want the prize. I'm at facebook.com/nerd1.

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suraj.sun writes "Microsoft has shown off XNA games running on Windows Phone; full 3D is a go. From Engadget: 'Microsoft just showed us a pair of 3D games running on its ASUS Windows Phone prototype and built with its brand new XNA Game Studio 4.0 9. The two titles are The Harvest, a good looking touch-controlled dungeon crawler with destructible environments, being developed by Luma Arcade; and Battle Punks. Microsoft spoke to the ease of its Direct3D development platform, which was built by the same folks responsible for the first-gen Xbox. What we saw of The Harvest was built in "two or three weeks," mostly from scratch, and folks who've already built games for XNA in VisualStudio shouldn't have much trouble with a port from the sound of things: "very, very easy," said Microsoft. Right now developers can do their testing in Windows, but there should be a Windows Phone 7 Series emulator out for devs eventually."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

We recently wrote about how a lawsuit filed by three alternative publication reporters against NYC for denying them press passes to NY Police press conferences ended in a settlement with NY setting up new rules for getting press credentials. There was a fair amount of back and forth in the comments, with some still believing the lawsuit was sound, even though we had trouble with the idea that the lawsuit had any merit at all. However, it looks like that result may have inspired others as well. A blogger in Maryland is now suing the state for denying him a press pass. The article is long and detailed -- and it does sound (yet again) like the government should have issued the guy a press pass, but does that make the lawsuit sound?

Let's take an extreme example. I write for an "alternative publication," but if I requested a press pass from the White House, I would totally expect to get turned down. There is limited room in such press conferences, and the White House has every right to determine who gets that access. Same with the NYC police and the Maryland General Assembly. I agree that perhaps these gov't organizations should have a clear process and clear standards for who gets let in, but I can't see how it's a free speech violation to deny press credentials under these circumstances. They're not saying these people aren't press, or that they can't publish whatever they want. They're just saying they don't get to enter the building as press.

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Hugh Pickens writes "When the wind is blowing, it is usually the cheapest peaking power available. However utilities need consistent always-on power from large, cheap coal and nuclear power plants that are the backbone of the electric grid. Wired reports that operators are looking at Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) using abandoned mines and sandstones of the Midwest to store compressed-air. This converts the intermittent motions of the air into a steady power source by using it to run air compressors to pump air into an underground cave where it's stored under pressure. The first CAES plant in the United States actually went online in McIntosh, Alabama in 1991 where engineers created a geological pocket 900 feet long and up to 238 feet wide in a dome by pumping water into it to dissolve the rock salt. When the (briny) water was pumped back out, the salt resealed itself and they had an air-tight container."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Researchers at Australia's Deakin University have published a paper in the British Journal of Nutrition showing evidence that human beings can taste fat -- that is, they can distinguish between two flavourless solutions in which one has more fat than the other.

I believe that this is true -- and that fat can offset bitterness the same way that sweet can. For example, raw cacao nibs mixed with cashew nuts taste sweet and chocolatey.

"We know that the human tongue can detect five tastes -- sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (a savoury, protein-rich taste contained in foods such as soy sauce and chicken stock)," Russell Keast, from Deakin University, said Monday.

"Through our study we can conclude that humans have a sixth taste -- fat."

Researchers tested 30 people's ability to taste a range of fatty acids in otherwise plain solutions and found that all were able to determine the taste -- though some required higher concentrations than others.

Australian researchers say fat is 'sixth taste' (via Kottke)

(Image: Beale's Open Kettle Rendered Pure Lard, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Steve Snodgrass' photostream)

A former TSA analyst has been indicted for computer crimes after being allegedly caught tampering with various terrorist watchlists (his work duties involved keeping these databases up to date). He'd been given notice that he was being fired before the incident. The article doesn't explain what he's suspected of doing, though the possibilities are interesting: adding enemies to watchlists? Taking people off of watchlists?

Douglas James Duchak, 46, was indicted by a grand jury Wednesday with two counts of damaging protected computers. According to a federal indictment, Duchak tried to compromise computers at the TSA's Colorado Springs Operations Center (CSOC) on Oct. 22, 2009, seven days after he'd being given two weeks notice that he was being dismissed. He was also charged with tampering with a TSA server that contained data from the U.S. Marshal's Service Warrant Information Network.

He "knowingly transmitted code into the CSOC server that contained the Terrorist Screening Database, and thereby attempted intentionally to cause damage to the CSOC computer and database," prosecutors said Wednesday in a press release.

Former TSA analyst charged with computer tampering (via /.)

Aestetix sez, "Traditionally HOPE [ed: Hackers on Planet Earth, the annual NYC conference put on by 2600 Magazine] conferences have been more about the talks than the physical projects, but with the 2008 conference that started to change, and this time organizers are pushing for an even stronger showing of projects and tech art. This call for projects goes out to hackers, makers, technologists, artists, and free thinkers around the world. Come share your passions and ideas with 3,000+ of your soon-to-be closest friends."

Fun-loving hackers and improbable tech-art: what a match made in heaven! HOPE is probably my top conference that I've never been to (I almost made it in 1999 but the flight was cancelled!). I continue to miss it every year, despite my best efforts (it usually overlaps my birthday, which is family time, for obvious reasons!), but I vow to go someday.

I mean, just have a look at that call for proposals: games to be played by thousands of hackers over three floors of a massive hotel; midnight to 9AM sessions; hardware hacking village... Talk about nerdvana.

Call for Projects and Tech Art (Thanks, aestetix!)

This is a very clever way to promote your performance motorcycle: BMW chains a very, very long tablecloth with a very, very elaborate cluster of place-settings to a S 1000 RR "superbike" and has a driver roar off, taking the cloth away and leaving the dinner setup intact. Impressive acceleration!

Video: BMW S 1000 RR pulls off the old tablecloth trick (Thanks, Alan!)

We've seen all sorts of governments complaining about aspects of Google's Street View offering, but here's a first. Reader Joe points out that the city of Windsor, Ontario, has asked Google to come back and reshoot a certain location, because the current images capture a "murder crime scene" with police tape, police car and (apparently) bloody bandages. The city is upset because they feel it reflects poorly on the area and "That's not Windsor." They're also upset because the Google cameras came through during a labor strike that resulted in lots of garbage being seen on the streets. It makes you wonder if towns and cities are going to start to "prepare" for Google Street View cars coming through and make sure that everyone is on their best behavior...

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Art of the Title Sequence celebrates the world's greatest film/TV title sequences, those oft-experimental opening moments of a movie or TV show that really set the mood of what's to come. I've always been intrigued by this art form and it's fun to watch examples from around the globe. The site also features interviews with more than a dozen masters of the media. Art of the Title was mentioned in a New York Times article today about the South by Southwest Film Awards new Title Design Competition. Winners will be announced at the festival next week. According to the NYT, "The modern approach to film titles crystallized, more or less, in 1955 with "The Man With the Golden Arm." It opened with a kind of jazz ballet in which dancing white lines, over music by Elmer Bernstein, eventually tightened into the contorted arm of a drug addict.



From the NYT:

The sequence was designed by Saul Bass, who tossed aside a more mechanical approach that had largely prevailed in Hollywood to create story-telling openings for films like "Psycho," "North by Northwest" and, later, "Goodfellas" and "The Age of Innocence."

(Among the entries at South by Southwest, "Cigarette Girl," an independent film about a world in which smoking restrictions have murderous consequences, is one that recalls the Bass oeuvre: guns, cigarettes and people flicker between the real and the abstract, over a cool-toned soundtrack.)

Before his death in 1996, Bass had been nominated for Oscars three times, winning once, for his short films. But his work on the titles fell through the cracks of a film industry awards system that has given far more recognition to directors

"New Honor for the Designs That Get Movies Moving" (Thanks, Jess Hemerly!)

As part of Converse's "Music Collection," they've issued a variety of Chuck Taylor All Star sneakers themed around The Clash, Blondie, Metallica, and Kurt Cobain. To be fair, they really should have made Cobain-branded Converse One Stars as those were the shoes he was wearing at his death. Now, I do dig The Clash sneakers seen here. But I am aware that Nike selling sneakers co-branded with the name/art of an iconic punk band is... problematic. That said, somebody from The Clash's camp (and Cobain's) had to approve these.
Converse Music Collection

If you have to ask why... Well, just don't ask why. [Spotted on the MAKE Flickr pool]

(BTW: This is a cracker box amp, a la the project in MAKE Volume 09)

Schlitz Amp

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tad001 writes "The Japanese phone giant KDDI has developed a way to track users movements in fine detail. It works by analyzing the movement of accelerometers, found in many handsets. Activities such as walking, climbing stairs, or even cleaning can be identified, the researchers say. The company plans to sell the service to clients such as managers, foremen, and employment agencies."

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:

Craft Night @HackPittsburgh
Pittsburgh, PA
Friday, Mar 12, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Maker Faire Newcastle
Newcastle, UK
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010 - Sunday, Mar 14, 2010

Arduino / Project Night @The Transistor
Provo, UT
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010, 5pm - 8pm

Breadboard Arduino Classes at All-Con 2010
Addison, TX
Saturday, Mar 13, 2010, 2pm - 4pm

Introduction to Electronics @Metrix Create Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Mar 14, 2010, 2pm - 4:30pm

AVR Programming Class @HacDC
Washington, DC
Sunday, Mar 14, 2010, 6pm - 7:30pm, then repeats

Project Lab with Expert Included
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010, 3pm - 6pm

Drop-in Arduino and Electronics classes
Berkeley, CA
Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010, 7pm - 9pm

Take Apart Tuesdays @Crash Space
Culver City CA
Tuesday, Mar 16, 2010, 8:30pm - 9:30pm

Start planning for:

Dorkbot SoCal 39
Los Angeles, CA
Saturday, Mar 20, 2010, 1pm - 3pm

Arduino NYC Meetup
New York, NY
Saturday, Mar 20, 2010, 12pm - 6pm

Bob Ross Paint-Along 2 @i3Detroit
Royal Oak, MI
Saturday, Mar 20, 2010, 2pm - 4pm, 4pm - 6pm, 6pm - 8pm

Using Transistors @Metrix Create Space
Seattle, WA
Sunday, Mar 21, 2010, 2:30pm - 4:30pm

Handmade Music: Minneapolis
Minneapolis, MN
Thursday, Mar 25, 2010, 7pm - 12pm

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I've never seen a trailer like this - perhaps it wasn't road safe or something, but it would be wonderful to (re)make - via LoL.

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In the wake of the DMCA takedown notice that forced Cryptome offline, the EFF is pointing out yet another massive in with the DMCA's notice-and-takedown setup: it leads to a ton of collateral damage in getting legitimate, authorized, non-infringing content blocked by overzealous takedowns. Obviously, there are lots of cases of false takedowns or where there's a fair use argument -- but even if we assume that (in this example) Microsoft's DMCA was justified, the fact that the entire site got forced offline should be seen as a major problem with the DMCA:

This illustrates a basic problem built into the DMCA safe harbors. Microsoft's notice targeted just one document. Network Solutions, however, couldn't take down that single document, so opted to take down the entire site. Thus, although Cryptome's beef was with Microsoft, Cryptome also had to persuade Network Solutions to take a chance of losing safe harbor protection (although not much of a chance, because Cryptome's posting was protected by the fair use doctrine). Because Network Solutions wasn't willing to take that small risk, a whole lot of speech was temporarily disappeared.

As the EFF notes, this happens because the notice and takedown process lets copyright holders go after "the weak link" by moving further and further upstream to find a player in the chain who will take down the content, even if it means taking down much more:

Copyright owners reach out to a "weak link," the service provider with the least incentive to resist the takedown notice. Unless it has a free lawyer, the cost of doing a fair use analysis and defending a lawsuit--even if the service provider knows it will win--is almost certainly more than a service provider is charging any individual customer, or even a whole bunch of "innocent bystander" customers.

The EFF also follows this up with a list of ways that upstream service providers should react to such DMCA notices, and suggests that customers seek out service providers who will follow that course of action. Of course, the better solution would be to fix the DMCA, but that doesn't seem likely any time soon.

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angry tapir writes "A Transportation Security Administration analyst has been indicted with tampering with databases used by the TSA to identify possible terrorists who may be trying to fly in the US. If convicted, he faces 10 years in prison."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I can't figure out how the new location-based Twitter works. Firefox can't figure out where I am. No surprise, My 13-inch MacBook Pro doesn't have GPS. Is there some place I can click on a map to say This Is Where I Am? Not at all obvious. Other people say they see it. Not on my machine.

Anyway, that doesn't mean we can't have fun with location stuff.

On Twitter, I posted a link to a Google Map asking if this was the location of the Fillmore East.

I got back an answer that it was close, but the supermarket next door is where the Fillmore was. I tweeted back that I had read somewhere that that was where the Ratner's was, next to the Fillmore, and if you go in there you can even see a giant R on the floor. Ratner's was a great Jewish dairy restaurant. Until I read the article (can't remember where it was) I only knew about the now-gone Ratner's on Delancey St. I once took a blonde shiksa VP-Marketing from California to Ratner's on Delancey, and the waiter yelled at me for bringing such a fine woman to such a lousy neighborhood. That was before it all got gentrified and yuppified.

Both Ratner's are gone now.

Anyway, the same guy dug up a picture of the old Fillmore just before a Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young concert. My theory was correct. It's the site of the bank.

I went to the Fillmore a few times. The most memorable concert was a Grateful Dead show with a surprise toward the end. A bunch of dirty hippies with long hair and beards come out and jam with the Dead. The music sounds weirdly familiar but hard to place. They were being deliberately misleading. Then all of a sudden a rock and roll standard -- Good Vibrations. It was the all-new dope-smoking Beach Boys! Oh man those were the days. I also saw the Incredible String Band there. ``.

We're getting ready to do an East Village blog for the NY Times. Going down memory lane is my way of getting ready.

PS: I read about Ratner's on Jeremiah's Vanishing New York, an intriguing blog with lots of great stories about the ever-changing and not-always-for-the-best New York Shitty.

"Bring cops... a lot of them!... And soldiers too."—Carlos, a brave 7 year old boy from Norwalk, California, calling 911 after armed attackers broke into his home and threatened to kill his family. (Audio of the call)

Ben Greenman invents the 3*TYPE 3*TYPE process, saves text-based media from ignominious death death.

Eric Spiegelman of "Old Jews Telling Jokes" explains this episode: "My cousin Michael recommended that we get Charlotte Bornstein on camera to tell some jokes. He also advised that we 'just keep the camera running.' You'll see why."

Many more new episodes of this stripped-down, oldschool comedy at oldjewstellingjokes.com.

(Technical note: If you have trouble viewing the embedded Flash videos hosted on Blip.tv, as I did, you may have better luck downloading the videos as iTunes podcast episodes.)

"You buy it, you like it!" Bargain Barn was a public access cable show in Shawnee, Oklahoma in the mid-1990s—a sort of QVC for hillbillies, a televised flea market where one might pick up stray drill bits, chickens, or stained and ripped pillows. As WFMU notes, it's a damn crime YouTube shows only one upload of this gem. The host/barker, whose face we seldom see, is selling nothing but absolute crap. He himself admits most of the junk is "broked," "tore up," or "needs to be warshed a few times." I think my favorite moment in the clip above is 8:35, when we get to the Style Studs ("It don't have no Style Studs in it! I'd call that a pig in a poke, m'self.") I could watch this for hours.

(Thanks, Mikael Jorgensen!)

My friend Eric Hoberman helped develop a new game show that will premiere on NBC on Sunday March 14 from 7-9 p.m. ET/PT. It's called Minute To Win It, and the object is to win a series of 10 easy-to-understand but increasingly-hard-to-win challenges. As the title suggests, the players must successfully complete each of the games in a minute. The award structure is like Who Wants to Be a Millionaire -- the cash amount increases with each game up to a million dollars, you can walk away with what you've won at any point, and you can lose it all if you blow a challenge.

Eric gave me a box of props so I could try out the games myself. The show's contestants are also given props and rules for the games before they come on the show so they can practice. The props are household items -- golf balls, cookies, a deck of cards.

Here are a few of the challenges contestants will have 60 seconds to complete:

• Move two Oreo cookies from your forehead to your mouth using your facial muscles only. (I failed!)

• Stack three golf balls vertically. (I failed!)

• Balance a deck of playing cards on a soda bottle and blow all the cards off but the bottom one, the joker. (I failed!)

• A dollar bill is sandwiched between two bottles, one upright, the other inverted and placed on top of the upright bottle. You have four tries to remove the bill without touching or toppling the bottles. (Success!) I'm interested to know if anyone can successfully complete the tasks I failed at. If you make a YouTube of it, please provide the link so we can watch it!

Minute to Win it site on NBC

Apparently, you don't just commit to handing over your music recordings if you enter American Idol, but now you have to give up your ability to build your own brand, as well. Hypebot alerts us to the news that American Idol contestants for the latest season were all forced to shut down their Facebook, MySpace and Twitter usage, and point everyone directly to American Idol's own website instead. In an age when having a strong social media presence is important to career success for many musicians, this seems like quite a big trade-off.

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Lady Gaga, a "trash mosaic portrait" by San Francisco-based artist Jason Mecier, who has shows coming up in LA and SF. Richard Metzger has more at Dangerous Minds.

An anonymous reader writes "We all know about the Mythical Man-Month, the argument that adding more programmers to a software project just makes it later and later. A Linux startup out of MIT claims to have busted the myth, using an MIT holiday month to hire 20 college student interns to get all their work done and quadrupling its productivity."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"We are fixated on technology and technological success, and we have no sustained or systematic approach to field-based social understanding of our adversaries' motivation, intent, will, and the dreams that drive their strategic vision, however strange those dreams and vision may seem to us."—Anthropologist Scott Atran, who believes the quest to end violent political extremism needs more science. (edge.org)

Yup.

We wrote about Indian film star Sharukh Khan not too long ago, when he was involved in a prank/hoax/joke about airport film scanners. However, Amar Balikai alerts us to something else he's potentially planning that seems pretty smart. Khan, via his production company, owns a cricket team, and there's huge demand for the jerseys. The official jerseys are apparently quite pricey, leading many to buy cheap knockoffs instead. But rather than freak out about the fakes, Khan apparently wants to create a second line of cheaper jerseys that the team can offer directly, to compete with the knockoff versions. We've seen this before, such as with the South African t-shirt company that secretly designed both an official line and its own, cheaper, knockoffs, and was able to better segment the market. In other words, these are both cases of companies recognizing that "piracy" is just a form of free market research. You just need to figure out how to capitalize on what it tells you.

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The Lost Knowledge column explores the possible technology of the future in the forgotten ideas of the past (and those just slightly off to the side). Every other Wednesday, we look at retro-tech, "lost" technology, and the make-do, improvised "street tech" of village artisans and tradespeople from around the globe. "Lost Knowledge" was also the theme of MAKE Volume 17

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Ever since we humans started making shadow puppets in the firelight of our caves, we've been fascinated by the power of the projected image. It seems only fitting that, for DIY Movie Making Month, we'd take a look at magic lanterns, some of our first technological baby steps that have delivered us to the age of Avatar.

What is a magic lantern? It's basically a 17th century pre-cursor to the slide, and then movie, projector. The Magic Lantern Society defines a magic lantern as:

...an appliance by means of which transparencies are projected by artificial light upon a screen with the projected image having a diameter generally from thirty to eighty times greater than that of the transparency or slide, whilst the area of the image may be from one thousand to six thousand times as great.

Magic lanterns grew on the developments of magic shadow shows (i.e. shadow puppets), camera obscura, magic mirrors, and other earlier optics and projection techniques. The period of the magic lantern spanned from the mid-17th century to the late 19th. While there is no clear inventor of the device, Dutch astronomer, mathematician, and physicist, Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695), with his lenses designed for use in telescopes, is probably the closest thing to a father of the technology.

Parts of a common type of Magic Lantern. [From The Magic Lantern Society's website]

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itwbennett writes "Niney of the 249 Zeus command-and-control servers were knocked offline overnight when two ISPs, named Troyak and Group 3, were taken offline. Whoever was behind the takedown 'just decided to knock out a large area of cybercrime, and this was probably one of the easiest ways to do it,' said Kevin Stevens, a researcher with SecureWorks. As with the McColo takedown of just over a year ago, Troyak's upstream providers seem to have knocked it off the Internet, Cisco said in a statement. 'The ISP was "De-peered,"' Cisco said. 'Troyak's upstream network providers effectively pulled the plug on Troyak's router, refusing to transmit its traffic.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Snip from Wall Street Journal article on the last collection of Alexander McQueen.

Twice in the weeks leading up to his Feb. 11 death, Mr. McQueen messaged on Twitter, 'Hells angels [sic] and prolific demons.' What seemed a non sequitur now appears to be a reference to the collection he was working on, imprinted with the angels of Sandro Botticelli and the demons of Hieronymus Bosch.

He had finished some 16 looks, about half of what the collection would typically include, at the time of his death.

His Twitter account has been taken offline, but a Google Cache exists. The final tweet: "De sade, Marie A- god rest there souls." [sic]

(thanks, Kelly Sparks)

Ladies and gentlemen, we now have confirmation that the USPTO is a joke. After years of back and forth, it has decided, once again, that Amazon's one-click patent is perfectly valid. This, despite tons of prior art, and basic common sense. We were just wondering what was taking so long for the USPTO to reject the patent. But, of course, it seemed like the USPTO was willing to go out of its way to help keep this patent around. Of course, as some are pointing out, the end result of this patent surviving is that it may be used as example number one for patent reform.

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Look at Todbot's BristleBots go! He held a workshop at Crash Space in Culver City, CA last night and showed people how to make them. (I'm sorry I didn't announce it in advance!)

BristleBots and LED throwie art at Crash Space

"America is not a democracy. It's a Chuck-tatorship. (...) We'd go down the line and he'd say, 'He's honest. He's honest. He's corrupted.' And I'd walk up to him and I'd say, 'You're fired." If he didn't move immediately, I would choke him unconscious and lay him over to the side there."— Mr. Chuck Norris, who, as Rachel Maddow reminds us, turns 70 today.

adeelarshad82 writes "After eight years of development, remote gaming service OnLive is scheduled to roll out on June 17 for Windows and Mac. The company also announced its service pricing: users will need to pay $14.95 per month, which will allow them access to the service. However, the company did not disclose the price to rent or purchase games. 'It is partnering in this launch with publishers including Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, 2K Games, THQ and Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. The games will also include new releases like Mass Effect 2, Borderlands, Assassin’s Creed II, as well as a bunch of other titles. Perlman anticipates anywhere from a dozen to 25 titles to be available at launch time, and more after that, depending on how negotiations with other publishers proceed.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

For portable radio operation, I like End-Fed Half-Wavelength Antennas (EFHWA, pronounced "EF-WAH"). This type of antenna is similar to the common half-wavelength dipole, but with one significant advantage. A dipole has its feedpoint (where it connects to the radio) in the middle of the antenna, but an EFHWA's feedpoint is at one end. This makes it very convenient to throw the antenna up in a tree and connect the bottom of it to your radio. Here are instructions for making a multiband end-fed half-wavelength antenna that works on 17, 20, 30, and 40-meter bands.

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I, too, am very, very anxious for the day to come when I can purchase a Fascination car with an EV Gray fuelless engine.

The Fascination Car was the brain child of Paul M. Lewis, of the Highway Aircraft Corporation. It was developed with a standard engine, but he wanted to power it with ANYTHING that didn't burn gasoline. He was in negotiations with Ed Gray for a while to use the EMA Engine, but that fell through. He then approached Josef Papp for his plasma engine. Ultimately, neither the engines or the car were ever produced.

EV Gray and the Fascination Car (Via PCL Link Dump)

snydeq writes "Google has launched the Google Apps Marketplace, providing a venue for third-party, cloud-based applications to supplement Google's own online applications. The program enables integrations with such applications as Google Gmail, Documents, Sites, and Calendar. All told, the effort begins with 50 vendors participating, including Atlassian, NetSuite, Skytap, and Zoho. Participation in Google Apps Marketplace is open to customers of the Premier, Standard, and Education editions of Google Apps. Applications are linked to the marketplace via REST Web services and APIs including OpenID and OAuth."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

I saw Avatar with a friend who didn't know much about the movie heading in, and asked me what it was about -- so I gave her the succinct summary I'd heard from a few others as well: "It's Dances With Wolves with blue people." Of course, while many people have made similar statements, it's also been popular to compare the movie to Pocohantas. However, that was just the start. A little while ago, the site io9 put together an amazing look at the many, many, many different movies/books/stories/artwork that Avatar has been accused of "ripping off."

And, of course, with such a list, you'd have to expect lawsuits -- and they're starting up. A guy in China sued for $146 million, claiming that his online novel was the inspiration. That suit was quickly dismissed. But fear not, now some restaurant owner is claiming that his unmade screenplay was the real inspiration and has sued James Cameron and Twentieth Century Fox.

Or, perhaps, this is a classical story that's been told hundreds of times before in various formats.

As with almost every lawsuit like this, it will almost certainly get dismissed quickly. However, this happens all the time with blockbuster books and movies (just look at how many times JK Rowling has been accused of "ripping off" Harry Potter, or Dan Brown accused of "ripping off" The Da Vinci Code). At some point there should be sanctions against these sorts of bogus lawsuits. In many cases, it seems clear that the people suing see it more as a publicity stunt to get press attention for their book or movie or whatever (hence the reason we're not naming the individuals or their works in this post). In the meantime, though, is anyone taking bets on who's next to sue?

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From user Meph over at the always-entertaining There, I Fixed It.

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[via Global Post via TokyoMango]

alobar72 writes "I have quite a few old maps (several hundreds; 100+ years old, some are already damaged – so time is not on my side). What I want to do is to digitize them and to apply geo-coordinates to them so I can use them as overlays for openstreetmap data or such. Obviously I cannot put those maps onto my €80 scanner and go. Some of them are really large (1.5m x 1.5m roughly, I believe) and they need to be treated with great care because the paper is partly damaged. So firstly I need a method or service provider that can do the digitizing without damaging them. Secondly I need a hint what the best method is to apply geo coordinates to those maps then. The maps are old and landscape and places have changed, it maybe difficult to identify exact spots. So: are there any experiences or tips I could use?"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

ral writes "The human tongue can taste more than sweet, sour, salty, bitter and protein. Researchers have added fat to that list. Dr. Russell Keast, an exercise and nutrition sciences professor at Deakin University in Melbourne, told Slashfood, 'This makes logical sense. We have sweet to identify carbohydrate/sugars, and umami to identify protein/amino acids, so we could expect a taste to identify the other macronutrient: fat.' In the Deakin study, which appears in the latest issue of the British Journal of Nutrition, Dr. Keast and his team gave a group of 33 people fatty acids found in common foods, mixed in with nonfat milk to disguise the telltale fat texture. All 33 could detect the fatty acids to at least a small degree."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

An anonymous reader writes "'Alien' and 'Star Wars' art director Roger Christian was given £25,000 by George Lucas in 1979 to make a 25-minute medieval B-feature called 'Black Angel.' This spiritual tale of a knight on a strange quest was inspired by Christian's near-fatal fever when he fell ill in Mexico making 'Lucky Lady.' 'Black Angel' made a huge impression, not least because it shared the dark tone of 'Empire Strikes Back.' John Boorman showed it to the crew of 'Excalibur' as a template for how he wanted his film to look, and 'Black Angel' went on to influence films such as 'Dragonslayer' and 'Legend' throughout the 1980s and beyond. But it has not been seen by anyone since 'Empire' finished its theatrical run. Two weeks ago Roger Christian unearthed a print of a film that was thought lost forever, and in this interview he talks about 'Black Angel,' and provides the only picture from the film that has ever hit the Internet."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Here's a neat idea for a tablecloth, by Kristine Bjaadal. Normally, one would avoid spilling things on their linens, however the Underfull Tablecloth has a hidden pattern built in that only shows up once it becomes stained. Now you can look at that lovely butterfly pattern and remember that one time you had a bit too much wine, without feeling bad about having ruined the tablecloth! [via neatorama]

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This post is part of the IT Innovation series, sponsored by Sun & Intel. Read more at ITInnovation.com. Of course, the content of this post consists entirely of the thoughts and opinions of the author.

Three years ago, after one of Microsoft's regular bursts of FUD claiming that Linux violated all sorts of Microsoft patents, then CEO of Sun, Jonathan Schwartz, wrote up a brilliant post knocking Microsoft down a peg by repeating a line we've said many times here ourselves: real innovative companies innovate, not litigate. Now, following Apple's patent offensive against HTC, and unencumbered of corporate responsibilities, Schwartz is sharing a bit more detail on his views over patents (found via Mathew Ingram).

Schwartz tells the story of Steve Jobs calling him and threatening Sun with a patent infringement lawsuit, to which Schwartz quickly warned Jobs that going down that path would lead to a patent nuclear war, as he pointed out how recent Apple products likely infringed on Sun patents. He then tells another story about a visit from Bill Gates, with a similar threat over patents -- and a similar response, pointing out that Microsoft clearly copied certain Sun technology. In both cases, the counterweight made the threats go away. This is the whole "nuclear stockpiling" scenario -- and, as such, it creates a ton of waste. You have to keep building up those stockpiles just to make sure the other side is too scared to sue you.

But the key point is made after this, where Schwartz again makes a statement quite similar to ones we've made when a big tech company suddenly goes on the patent offensive. It's a canary-in-the-coalmine sign that something is wrong:

For a technology company, going on offense with software patents seems like an act of desperation, relying on the courts instead of the marketplace.

He also highlights how these lawsuits can backfire in a big, big way:

Having watched this movie play out many times, suing a competitor typically makes them more relevant, not less. Developers I know aren't getting less interested in Google's Android platform, they're getting more interested -- Apple's actions are enhancing that interest.

Indeed. It's a point that still seems missed by so many when discussing these patent lawsuits.

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HipToday writes "As posted on the OpenBSD Journal, OpenSSH 5.4 has been released: 'Some highlights of this release are the disabling of protocol 1 by default, certificate authentication, a new "netcat mode," many changes on the sftp front (both client and server) and a collection of assorted bugfixes. The new release can already be found on a large number of mirrors and of course on www.openssh.com.'"

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Makers Market seller Kevin of kaitrees has a bunch of great videos on his market blog. They range from details of the pieces themselves, to "slap tests", and works in progress. It's a neat look at the process that goes into making these pieces.

My sculptures are an effort to distill what real trees inspire in people into something one can have inside their living or working space.

This tree in the video above will require about 500 hours to complete, stand over 7 feet tall, and will use about 1000 strands of aluminum wire. It's his largest piece to date, and looks Amazing! I wonder how much it will weigh?

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A man was stabbed with a meat thermometer in a movie theater in LA after complaining to a woman about talking on her cell phone during a Saturday night screening of Shutter Island.

Zordak writes "Amazon's infamous '1-click' patent has been in reexamination at the USPTO for almost four years. Patently-O now reports that 'the USPTO confirmed the patentability of original claims 6-10 and amended claims 1-5 and 11-26. The approved-of amendment adds the seeming trivial limitation that the one-click system operates as part of a "shopping cart model." Thus, to infringe the new version of the patent, an eCommerce retailer must use a shopping cart model (presumably non-1-click) alongside of the 1-click version. Because most retail eCommerce sites still use the shopping cart model, the added limitation appears to have no practical impact on the patent scope.'" Also covered at TechFlash.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Kügli is an Arduino-controlled musical instrument by Stefanie Hess and Johannes Schmidt. The project consists of a bowl with a false bottom, packing an Arduino, XBee wireless module, and some speakers. The ball contains a Lilypad and another XBee.

The spacing and dynamic of a ball in a bowl influences sound. While holding the bowl in its hands the player can walk around and rock the bowl forth and back either smoothly or with fast movements. Two factors are relevant for the sound: the position of the Kügli in the ball and the rotation-speed of the Kügli. Both data streams are sent to Max/Msp via the serial port. The XBee component, accelerator and piezo-microphones are sensoring and passing the the movements.

In the Maker Shed:

Deluxe Make: Electronics Toolkit
Our Price: $124.99
Do you want to learn the fundamentals of electronics in a fun and experiential way? Not sure where to start, or what tools you might need? We've taken care of all the questions with our deluxe tool kit from the Maker Shed, featuring our best-selling book, Make: Electronics.

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In this series, "Letters from the Fab Academy," Shawn Wallace, member of AS220, the Providence, RI community arts space, shares his experiences with the Fab Academy, a distributed learning collaborative, built on the infrastructure of the Fab Lab network. -- Gareth

3D Scanning

By Shawn Wallace

Victor Freundt prints a project using the ZCorp printer at the Barcelona Fab Lab.

When working with 3D scanning and printing equipment, it quickly becomes apparent that objects are nowhere near as fungible as MP3s. We'll have to wait a while for the day when every teenager is capable of casually copying real-world objects. However, it is surprisingly easy to hack together a crude 3D scanner from commodity cameras, projectors, and hardware you probably have in a couple of junk drawers in your shop.

A good place to start is with the Modela mini mill, which has a piezo-based needle sensor attachment that can be used for scanning small objects. The machine records the plunge depth at the point it contacts the object and the software that comes with the Modela (Dr. Picza) converts these points into a 3D mesh. Here's an example of using Dr. Picza to scan a small shell from Benito Juarez from the Barcelona Fab Academy site:

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In this weird video, a French comedienne transforms herself into Michael Jackson with just some mascara, lipstick, and scotch tape.

While I don't believe that the new Hadopi "three strikes" law in France has started being enforced yet (due to data privacy questions), it technically went into effect at the beginning of the year, and was widely promoted around France. Of course, our big question was why anyone thought that such laws would actually make anyone buy. The general reasoning that supporters of such laws gave is that it would decrease unauthorized file trading, and those people would magically want to start buying again. But, of course, as mentioned at the time, we already have empirical data that this wouldn't work. After all, here in the US, thousands of people were threatened with millions of dollars in fines for file sharing -- a punishment significantly more stringent than losing your internet connection. And, rather than decrease the amount of unauthorized file trading, it only increased (quite a bit), often moving to more underground resources.

So it should come as little (i.e., no) surprise that in the few months since the Hadopi law has technically been in effect in France, reports have found an increase in unauthorized file trading, along with a notable shift from BitTorrent to other, less trackable, solutions.

So what's next? Suing doesn't work. Kicking people off the internet doesn't work. Can we hope that maybe next on the list is actually putting in place a good business model?

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Barence writes "A debate that crops up time and again is whether it's better to have a dedicated keyboard on your smartphone or whether an on-screen keyboard with text correction is adequate. Some phones with screen-based keyboards have started to provide tactile feedback, either using an ultra-quick spin of their vibration alert or, like the BlackBerry Storm2, using clever piezo-electric technology to simulate the feel of a button press. But which system works best? PC Pro's Paul Ockendon gathered six of the most popular handsets around and put them through a timed typing test to see which proved quickest and most typo-free."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Like UK studio Introversion's indie-rallying clarion call at the 2006 Independent Games Festival, the announcement of an indie-led investment strategy -- simply called the Indie Fund -- could be the next watershed moment for the future of independent gaming. Organized by a consortium of indie devs that've seen breakout success (like World of Goo creators 2D Boy and Braid developer Jon Blow), the fund aims to maintain control of the funding cycle -- keeping it out of the hands of publishers and traditional investors alike -- and keep indies in charge of their own destiny. Opening the 2010 Independent Games Summit, 2D Boy co-founder Ron Carmel took to the stage to explain why the fund was needed, with Braid artist David Hellman illustrating the strange over-complex steamwork behemoth of traditional business models that no longer serve the indies best: the full hi-res gallery continues below.

Adding nuance to the title of his session, Carmel admitted the real problem was more specific: that the real problem was shoe-horning the new world of digitally distributed indie games into the old regime of traditional retail game publishing.

As game development has evolved over the past few decades, he explained, traditional software engineering practices have come with it: "waterfall approach" processes that emphasize doing as much pre-production design as possible as early in the process as possible, postponing the actual building. Throughout the 90s, though, agile practices emerged that saw development models being thought of as much more fluid processes, with studies showing that this model isn't just cheaper and better for actually creating software, but maintaining it as well.

The indies are currently facing the same situation today in regards to funding new games, said Carmel, as the industry still hasn't recognized the importance of creating a new mechanism that takes the new digitally distributed landscape into full account.

The problems: publishers give too much money for what should be smaller budgets. World of Goo's development costs were in the region of $120,000, Braid's at $180,000: if publishers are giving out $500,000-$1 million (presuming old model additional costs of manufacturing and maintaining inventory, working with retail, marketing), they're taking on too much risk and can never hope to make up that investment. "The machinery for triple-A retail games doesn't scale down," said Carmel -- it becomes inefficient and developers end up becoming tenant farmers.

2D Boy saw this inefficiency in effect first hand when they approached both Valve and Microsoft to distribute World of Goo on both Steam and Games for Windows Live. With Games for Windows, each step of the process had to go through each of the above behemoth's component sectors: they'd talk to a business development agent, which would then move up the chain to managers for approval before being passed to lawyers, more engineers, platform specialists, whereas at Steam, the business was handled by one person.

As a result, what took Valve and 2D Boy one day of legal work and four days of technical integration on Steam took two months of contract negotiations and an additional two months of technical work to prepare the game for launch. It's not an entirely fair comparison, Carmel added, with Games for Windows' inherited Xbox Live Arcade and retail business model and their newness on the scene -- Steam's "been around for years" and simply "figured out how to do this efficiently." Live Arcade is not the biggest console distribution platform by accident, he said, "it takes iterations to get things right."

But in this new landscape that's emerged with Steam leading the way to Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, Direct2Drive, Greenhouse, the developer and publisher equation has been upended, said Carmel: indies no longer need the traditional distribution channels publishers once provided, they simply need the funding. And so, Carmel said he and the consortium aimed to do for funding what Steam did for distribution.

And they'd do that with the Indie Fund, founded by 2D Boys Ron Carmel and Kyle Gabler, Braid's Jon Blow, flOwer designer Kellee Santiago, Capy (Critter Crunch, Clash of Heroes) studio head Nathan Vella, Flashbang (Offroad Velociraptor Safari, Minotaur China Shop) co-founder Matthew Wegner and AppApove (Armadillo Gold Rush) head Aaron Isaksen.

Their goals: to make the submission process shorter and more transparent, to make terms of funding deals publicly available ("Developers," said Carmel, "need to know when they're getting good or bad deals"), to maintain Steam's single point of contact and personal relationship, to allow development flexibility and experimentation, and to allow the developer both the full ownership of their intellectual property, and no editorial influence over their game ("If we provide funding, that's a vote of confidence in the team.").

When an Indie Fund game ships, Carmel explained, "we recoup our costs first, and then for limited time get a revenue share from that game -- but that revenue share is going to be much smaller than what you'd get with a publisher."

The first beneficiaries of the Indie Fund haven't yet been revealed, though Carmel promises we'll hear more soon -- keep checking their website to contact the team directly or to learn more.

52-year-old Anthony Digati was arrested for trying to extort $200,000 from an insurance firm by threatening to spam them with six million emails unless they paid up. Digati said he would use a spam service and his amazing talents as a "huge social networker" to drag the company "through the muddiest waters imaginable" and presumably unfriend everyone. He added that the price would increase to $3 million if they failed to pay up by Monday, according to federal authorities.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

In the 1990s Bill Geerhart was an unemployed, not-so aspiring screenwriter in his 30s. To pass the time, he channeled his inner child, 10-year-old Billy, and started writing letters to famous and infamous people and institutions. These letters, written in pencil on elementary school ruled paper, asked funny but relevant questions to politicians, serial killers, movie stars, lobbyists, CEOs, and celebrity lawyers.

Geerhart saved copies of his letters and the replies he got back. This week, Harper Collins published them in a book called Little Billy's Letters: An Incorrigible Inner Child's Correspondence with the Famous, Infamous, and Just Plain Bewildered. The publisher gave us permission to run some of our favorites. Enjoy!

Buy Little Billy's Letters on Amazon | Visit Harper Collins site for Little Billy's Letters

The National Hobo Association believes that "unlike tramps or bums, the hoboes are usually very resourceful, self reliant and appreciative people."

Susan Atkins is a convicted murderer former member of the Manson Family. When she died in prison in 2009, she was the longest-incarcerated female inmate in the California penal system, having been denied parole 18 times.

Robert Shapiro was a member of O.J. Simpson's "dream team" of defense lawyers.

The Catholic Church is the world's largest Christian church, with more than a billion members.

Caesars Palace is a hotel and casino in Las Vegas, Nevada.

kang327 writes "As Java developers we are used to the familiar file-based user interface that is used by all of the major IDEs. A team at Brown University has developed an IDE for Java called Code Bubbles that makes a fairly radical departure from current IDEs — it is based on fragments instead of files. The idea is that you can see many different pieces of code at once. Fragments can form groups, have automatic layout assistance, wrap long lines based on syntax, and exist in a virtual workspace that you can pan. A video shows reading and editing code, opening different kinds of info such as Javadocs, bug reports and notes, annotating and sharing workspaces, and debugging with bubbles. They report on several user studies that show the system increases performance for the tasks studied, and also that professional developers were enthusiastic about using it. There is also a Beta that you can sign up for."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Wednesday March 10 is Tibetan Independence Day—and this year will also mark His Holiness the Dalai Lama's 75th birthday. In honor of both, Shepard Fairey collaborated with photographer Don Farber on this limited-edition, signed and numbered 18"x14" print, which goes on sale at this link Wednesday, March 10, at noon Eastern/9am Pacific. Net proceeds divided between Tibet House and LA Friends of Tibet. (thanks, Christal / Tibet Connection Radio)

The band OK Go, blogged many a time here for their wonderful music videos and savvy take on the state of the music biz, is launching its own record label. From okgo.com: The band has left the EMI family of corporations to form their own enterprise, a homemade upstart called Paracadute."

Andrew Dubber points us to an interesting post by musician Steve Lawson, where he talks about how he usually uses his blog and other social media accounts to write about others' music rather than always talking about his own, noting that he can probably help others make more money than he can make for himself. And there's a reason for that: if you're posting about something you love that you think is awesome, people take it seriously. If you're posting about yourself as being awesome, people think you're an egomaniac.

This is a really good way of thinking about things -- and highlights an issue that goes way beyond just music. It's why so many corporate blogs suck. Because they just talk about their own company, and appear to be propaganda. But it also highlights another important point: the value of passed links. We've noted in the past that when people pass around links (or music or books or whatever) it's the person who's doing the passing whose reputation is at stake. And, because of that, we tend to trust people passing links to others much more than people just promoting their own stuff. And this doesn't need to be reciprocal. Steve notes that he just blogs about music he likes -- and sometimes he hears from the musicians saying it resulted in a spike in earnings somehow, and that's great.

To some extent, this also explains some of our position on things like ad blockers. Sites telling visitors who use ad blockers that they're not welcome are shoving aside visitors who very well may pass on a link that has tremendous value. The viewpoint held by sites like that seems to undervalue passed links, believing the only true value is in the immediate and direct ad impression. But when you focus on just letting people experience whatever cool stuff you're creating, some of them will pass it on to others, and that "vote" in your favor may be incredibly valuable.

So, while Steve focuses on the point of helping others make more money, if you're doing cool stuff, it's worth remembering that a lot of that stuff comes back around (in even more valuable ways). One of the problems we see with so many anti-consumer businesses is that they feel the need to directly monetize every user/visitor/listener, rather than recognizing that the mislabeled "freeloaders" can pay it back in ways that greatly outweigh any sort of direct payment opportunity.

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An anonymous MAKE subscriber writes in to let us know about this very cool wireless robotics platform based on the Arduino and an XBee. The purpose of the project was to teach their 9-year old son about programming in Processing. What a great way to introduce programming to kids!

I built a wireless robotics platform from a cheap R/C car, an Arduino with XBee shield, small microswitch sensors, and a Processing program running on a remote computer to control the vehicle. The vehicle is completely controlled by the code running on the remote computer which allows very rapid prototyping of the code to tell the vehicle what to do and how to react to the sensor events received from the vehicle. I'm hoping this is a good way to teach my 9-year old son about programming.

In the Maker Shed:


The Maker Shed has everything you need to get started with Arduino

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SkinnyGuy writes "The only thing more remarkable than NewEgg shipping fake Core i7 CPUs to customers is getting your hands on one and checking it out. Apparently there are only a couple hundred of these things in existence and Gearlog somehow managed to get and unbox one. The images are fascinating."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

SkinnyGuy writes "The only thing more remarkable than NewEggg shipping fake Core i7 CPUs to customers is getting your hands on one and checking it out. Apparently there are only a couple hundred of these things in existence and Gearlog somehow managed to get and unbox one. The images are fascinating."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Enjoy playing rock, paper, scissors, but having trouble finding worthy opponents to play it with? Need to improve your game for that upcoming world tournament? Well, then, you will certainly appreciate Steve Hoefer's rock paper scissors playing glove. Thanks to the built-in accelerometer and bend sensors, all you have to do to play is play the game, and the computer will tell you what it's move was, and keep track of who won. It's a funny project, and it includes some cool features, such as using edge-lit plastic for the display. Well done!

More:

• DIY Rock paper scissors electronic game
• HOW TO - Beat anyone at Rock Paper Scissors
• Rock, Paper, Scissors - interview with a professional player

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

Part 1. Setting up a background for your project.

By Ed Troxell, photo intern

As a DIYer, you share your projects to show off your expertise and to help others find theirs. But building a project and writing the steps is only half the battle. The other half is capturing images of your work that clearly show what you're talking about and what you've done in your steps.

As the photo intern for MAKE, I shoot lots of projects for the magazine and website. Here are my steps for setting up a background for photographing your project clearly to show it off in its entirety.

1. Set up your project and mini studio.
Find a well-lit area that's clear of visual distractions and provides you with enough room for shooting. If you're shooting on a workbench, clear off all the clutter and if necessary, drop a bedsheet or paper backdrop to hide everything that's not your project. The camera doesn't want to see your mess, it just wants to see your masterpiece. Extraneous items on the bench or in the background will only confuse the viewer and make a good project look bad. Clean up before you shoot.

Clean bench good (but what's that junk in the corner?):

Cluttered bench bad:


2. Know your "light temperature."
Light temperature means the color of your light, and it affects your "white balance." Most cameras react best to daylight, which is a bluish light, and I strongly recommend shooting in daylight. Shooting your project near a big window (with no direct sunbeams coming through) is a good place to start. Shooting outside in smooth shade is good option too (but not in speckled tree shadows).

Your flash is daylight balanced, so you can use your flash as a "fill" or secondary light to fill shadows. (Your flash should never be the main source of light, unless you're using a real strobe system.) Also, most of those compact fluorescent light bulbs are close to daylight balanced. They can be a nice fill too.

Just be careful not to mix the color of your lights. The white balance on your camera will get confused if warmer light is in the room (like a normal household tungsten filament light bulb), conflicting with the daylight or CF lights. Choose the light temperature you're shooting with, and stick to it.

3. Choose a clean background.
Use a plain, simple background, nothing too distracting. You want clean backgrounds that show off your work. Pick colors that go with your project or make it stand out. We tend to use bright colors. We recommend not using red, as red is a very difficult color for digital cameras. Do not use black. White is fine.

Instead of a distracting background pattern like this:

Use a clean background color like these:

4. Place your project on a level and straight surface.
Here's the photo booth we use here in the Make: Labs for shooting indoor shots, when we're not shooting on the workbench:

5. Test your settings.
Take a few shots, then check the images on your computer (ideally in Photoshop) just to check focus, brightness, file size, grain (ISO), and other details. Sometimes a setting can be off. It's best to know now, rather than find out when you're done shooting.

For example, if you're submitting projects for MAKE magazine or Make: Online, you'll need to take high-resolution photos at an aspect ratio of 4:3. High resolution means they can be printed on paper at 300dpi. (Yes, even web photos -- because we might want to print them later.)

In my next post: Shooting your project in high resolution.

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andylim writes "Separate teams at Oxford university and Zentium, a South Korean company, are working on next-gen augmented reality solutions, which make it possible to fuse real and 3D computer-generated visuals on the fly using mobile phones. The team at Oxford university has named its solution Parallel Tracking and Mapping (PTAM) and it has licensed its technology to QderoPateo LLC, which has ambitious plans to grow the mobile augmented reality market and create an augmented reality search and gaming engine running for its 'Ouidoo' smart phone. Zentium's solution is called D-Track and is being used to develop the first markerless mobile augmented reality pet, called iKat. D-Track's mapping technology is very similar to PTAM and allows your phone to recognise the space in front of the camera and create an appropriate space for an augmented reality object or pet."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

"Bicycle" is now an option for mode of transport in Google maps. Ostensibly, the directions given will help you avoid particularly nasty car traffic and particularly disheartening elevation changes, though Treehugger found some kinks in that when they tried to plot a route across San Francisco. There's not enough uphill slogs in Minneapolis (and I don't know St. Paul well enough) to get you a real solid second opinion from the Twin Cities. But it was smart enough to not send theoretical me biking straight up the feels-like-45-degree incline of 14th street when asked for directions to the University of Kansas journalism school (see above).

It also shows dedicated bike trails and bike lanes, to help plan the trip.

How's this work for your hometown?

It's no secret that I'm pretty skeptical of the longterm viability of just about any newspaper paywall. Among the "success stories," however, many people point to the Financial Times, which has a policy of only letting unregistered users see a single story per month before locking them out. If you register (still free) you get ten stories per month. After that you have to pay (or you erase your cookies, or use Google searches, since you can get access if you come via Google). This has resulted in about 126,000 customers, which isn't bad, though I still question if it can last (I'll explain my reasons at the end of the post).

However, in an interview, Rob Grimshaw, the managing director of the Financial Times, suggests that lots of others can do well with a paywall if they just had "balls" and "put their mind to it." Really:

"Publishers should have more balls, they should have more confidence about what they're doing," is how Rob Grimshaw, managing director of FT.com put it.

"If they put their mind to it then they can produce compelling products online which people will pay for."

You would think that someone working for a savvy business publication, like the FT, would offer a bit more in the way of strategic detail. Confidence alone doesn't change the market position. I agree that if they put their mind to it, others can come up with compelling products that people will pay for -- but these have to be products of scarce value. The FT has mostly been able to do this with good financial/business content, but that may not be sustainable. It's really a huge opportunity for someone else to step in and offer top financial and business content for free and pick up the readers that don't want to pay for either the FT or the WSJ.

And that group of people is growing. The younger generation (that's rapidly hitting the business world) has never paid for a newspaper subscription and see no reason to start now. None. So, the papers with the paywalls are limiting themselves to an audience that will die off. That's dangerous. Furthermore, as we keep pointing out, news consumers today aren't there to just read, but to share the news. In other words, the very act of putting up this paywall makes the newspaper less valuable to the current news consumer, because they can't freely share the content with others.

There are strategies for alternative revenue streams for publications, but locking up your content and hoping people will just pay to access it is an attempt to set up artificial scarcities in a world of abundance. It's a strategy that's hard to make last for very long.

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The UK Metro is reporting on a wedding ceremony held for a 28-year old Korean man and his full-sized body pillow girlfriend. The pillow cover supposedly has an image of a character named Fate Testarossa from the anime series Mahou Shoujo Lyrical Nanoha.

The story is reminiscent of a New York Times Magazine piece I wrote last year; the Metro article also mentions a story we originally posted on Boing Boing in November about a guy who married a character in his Nintendo DS dating sim.

"A $6,000 insulin pump with an on-board computer chip is not alluring. Neither is the white mesh adhesive patch on my naked abdomen or the length of nylon tubing that connects the patch to the pump. There is only illness, and there is no way to make that sexy. After several years as a medical device wearer, I know."

Those are the opening sentences of "Tethered to the Body," an essay the writer and teacher Jane Kokernak wrote about her adjustment to wearing an insulin pump and its affect on her sense of sexual self. It connects disability and sexuality in novel and moving ways (it also introduced me to the term "disability erotica"). The essay, which originally appeared in Bellevue Literary Review, has been reprinted in A Sweet Life, a site for the "healthy diabetic." The story is close to me for many reasons. I'm diabetic, too, although I am not insulin-dependent, and, more important, Jane is my wife, so the sex she's talking about in the essay is with, well, me. You may wish to consider my recommendation with that in mind, but I guarantee you that this will be the only piece you ever read in which the two tags are "Insulin Pump" and "Sex."

Lego's licensing of the Disney/Pixar Toy Story franchise has produced something surprisingly awesome in this mashup of two classic toys. $11 from the Lego shop. [via Geekologie]

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